Andrew's ramblings

My Impressions of Windows 7

Tags: General, Windows 7

When it was publically available for download I grabbed a copy as soon as I could, and installed it fairly quickly to have a look at what it was like. And to describe it as over whelming to begin with was maybe not the best way to describe it, however I never really used it for awhile.

After having a conversation with an old work colleague who has come to also love it some, I decided to begin installing some applications on it and began to use it some more.

One of the things that began to annoy me at first was the new taskbar, and I don't even know why that it did this just that there was something about it that I didn't like very much. That was before I really sat down and began to use it in an every day situation, and that perception changed so quickly.

Although it has a long way to go before it is released or maybe not, depending on who and what you choose to listen too, one of the things that I can say is that it will maybe change overtime so I hope so. But for now what I do see and like is that the user experience has been geared to productivity, the new taskbar does take a great deal of time to get use too and get use to it one will. As a developer with a multi monitor setup I still find it difficult at times when wanting to check out another window, and the way that the taskbar has been designed to show each window and hover over the window, will bring it to the front. And as long as you don't move away you can read that or view that window until you move away or click on it to bring it to the front permanently.

There are a few annoying features that are there, but as this is only a beta release to give to the public for feedback. I am impressed with what I have seen so far, but I am sure these will be addressed or have already been addressed and will have to wait till the release to see. But kudos so far as this time the one thing that has been very noticeable so far is that there has been a lot of work put into the usability and productivity that a typical user may use it for. You can't cater for everyone but they have done a very nice job so far.

Even Windows Media centre has had a very nice overhaul in which I am very impressed with what I see there as well, the fact that it now supports touch screen technology and looks to become part of their surface products (is that still the name for it) makes me say they have put some very clever forethought into the future of this product.

Now if only Microsoft would allow us to update this beta release version with patches or something to fix some annoying problems like IE8 crashing with Flash on certain sites. Well we can all dream.