First Impressions - Windows 7
I had some reservations with the beta releases of Windows 7. There were clear usability issues. But they’ve all been addressed in the RC.
For the record I’m running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 RC build 7100 on a 3.4GHz Pentium D with 3.0GB RAM.
On the whole, this is the first Windows release I am happy with since Windows 98 Second Edition.
However, some features take a little getting used to.
At the moment, I miss the quick launch toolbar. Pinning items to the task bar is fine, but the application pinned opens where its icon sits on the task bar. That means you could have several icons between two running programs on the taskbar. You also cannot “push” the pinned icons close together. As a result, they consume significantly more space on the taskbar than the quick launch toolbar did. I find these factors annoying. They disturb my sense of order. And I suspect the end users I support will feel the same. At least until we get used to it.
From an I.T. support perspective, the new locations of users’ desktop and start menu folders is a nightmare. I haven’t located an ‘All Users’ folder, just the ‘Default’ user’s folder. This makes it complicated to set up a standard desktop and start menu for multiple users sharing one computer.
The new Start Menu path, for example, is:
“C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu”
Does it have to be this difficult? Couldn’t it be simply “C:\Users\<username>\Start Menu”?
Another annoyance is the default desktop icon size. Instead of the 32×32 we’re all familiar and comfortable with, the default size is 48×48. This not only gives the impression that the system is in vision impaired “Accessibility Mode” by default, but it also pixelates existing program icons that were designed as 32×32 causing them to look like, well, like crap. You might as well make the default color scheme High Contrast and make the system truly configured for the vision impaired by default. I could at least understand and appreciate that. To be in Accessibility Mode by default means that users with sight or hearing impairments wouldn’t need assistance with making the system usable for them. Those people lucky enough to have good eyesight or hearing could easily make the changes to take the system out of Accessibility Mode. That makes sense. I would applaud that. But just making the default icons larger accomplishes nothing.
The 64-bit version of IE 8 hangs a lot and is slow to load. I frequently find myself going back to using the 32-bit version. That may be a non-issue as I am a devoted Firefox user and Firefox is 32-bit. There’s really nothing on the web, yet, that requires or takes advantage of the capabilities of a 64-bit browser anyway.
That said, if those are the only problems I find, I am a very happy I.T. guy. Windows 7 has already become my primary operating system, pushing Windows Vista SP2 to the back burner and placing Windows XP in a strictly virtual world to be used as reference for end user support.




