Windows 7 Experience

I have worked with computers for a long time now. I have pretty much had every single operating system installed that Microsoft ever put out and when there is a new operating system I want to install it right away so I can learn it and then help others if they need help. The only operating system I was leery of installing was Windows Vista and I actually waited almost a year before I got it. I had heard so many horror stories about drivers and software not working with it and I really didn’t want to take the time to have to work with it. When I heard that Windows 7 was coming out I wanted to try it.

I downloaded the Windows 7 beta program. I was a bit apprehensive about doing so because it is a new operating system and it is a bit scary but also very exciting at the same time. I have heard a lot of positive things about Windows 7 so I decided to give it a try.

The downloading process took maybe about two hours on a cable connection. Once it was downloaded I burned it to a dvd and it was installed in under an hour. I did the complete install because I had converted my computer back to Windows XP from Windows Vista. I installed the 64 bit version of Windows 7.

My first impression was that it was very quick and a very nice looking operating system. I loved the background of the sun shining through on a blue screen. It kind of brightened my day. Once installed I took a good look around at the desktop, control panel and other tools. I really liked what I saw. I really like the program icons down on the taskbar and the idea that you can quickly go back to the desktop by clicking on the button at the far right hand corner of the taskbar.

After playing around for a little bit, I plugged in my external hard drive. That worked right away. I was able to access all my documents, photos and files.

I spent the next little while installing all of my software that I like to use, Office 2007, Photodraw 2000, FrontPage 2003, etc. I had no problems whatsoever installing any of these programs and they all work like a charm.

I did have a popup come up telling me that I didn’t have an antivirus program installed. I did a search for an antivirus program that would work with Windows 7. I found AVIR Antivir software. It is free. I downloaded it and installed it and so far, it seems to be running just fine. It is a fairly simple program to use and it was very easy to install. I have already done a scan on my computer and the program was able to update the virus definitions also.

I also got a popup about my Canon scanner driver. All I did was go to the Canon website and download the driver for it from there and it works just fine.

I downloaded and installed iTunes for my music and was able to listen to my music within minutes of installing it. I didn’t have to do anything to get the audio drivers to work.

The only real problem I had during this process so far was installing the driver for my printer. I have an HP Color Jet 2600n printer. I tried installing the drivers from HP’s website but it didn’t work. Then I installed the drivers that I originally got with my printer. That did not work either. I read online that installing a printer in compatibility mode worked for someone else. I tried that and it worked like a charm. I was able to print out a test page.

To install a printer in compatibility mode, right click on the .exe file for the printer and left click on properties. Click on the compatibility tab and choose the version of Windows that the device worked with. In my case, I chose Windows XP Service Pack 2. Click ok and then run the program.

I purchased a tv tuner video capture card from eBay a few months ago. It worked on my computer when I had Windows Vista installed on it. I tried to get it to work with Windows 7 but no luck at all. It seems to me that the problem is the driver. I had Windows Vista 32 bit and I can’t find a 64 bit driver for it. There are a few websites that I visited that would try to find the driver for you and install it but gee, when you do the scan for your computer and it says it finds the driver, then you have to register the program and purchase a license for it to install the drivers. I was getting so frustrated by this. I ended up installing three different programs that all said they were “free”. I sure wish “free” meant free these days. Needless to say, I never did find the 64 bit driver that would work with my tv tuner card so, I did give up on the idea and removed it from my computer and stored it away under “junk”. I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to work when I tried playing with it so I really wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t. I was more aggravated at the “free” software that was supposed to be free.

I played around with the desktop gadget for Windows 7. I installed a couple of gadgets from the Microsoft gadget gallery and then I also installed a couple from the gallery that were third party gadgets. I didn’t like the clock or the calendar that was in the Microsoft gadget gallery. I would have preferred to have a digital clock but it only had analog clocks. The clocks looked too bulky. The calendar in the Microsoft gadget gallery was also bulky looking. I would have liked it better if I could have customized the gadgets more. The third party gadgets I installed I really didn’t like much either. One of them didn’t seem to work properly. I decided to take the gadgets off my desktop because I really was not happy with them.

I added 2 gigs of memory to my computer so I now have 3 gigs. The funny thing is I really haven’t noticed that much of a difference except that when I played a video it started up right away instead of streaming first. Maybe I have to play around with the settings on my computer or something but we’ll see over time if I notice any other differences.

I uninstalled Windows 7 and went back to Windows XP for a time. I missed all the nifty features of Windows 7 so I decided to reinstall it again. I like the Windows 7 taskbar. I find it very convenient to open up any programs that I use a lot. I just pin these programs to my taskbar. I also like the networking feature of Windows 7. It is a lot easier to setup using Windows 7 on my main computer and then having the other computer use Windows XP. I found Windows XP just so drab and boring and that is why I went back to Windows 7.

As soon as the Windows 7 Release Candidate version was available for download, I immediately downloaded and installed it. I love it. It seems more stable than the Windows 7 Beta version which was already stable enough. I really didn't notice that much of difference between the two versions so I'm sure that the differences are all under the hood.

I played around a bit more with the Microsoft gadgets and I did find a calendar that wasn't so bulky so I placed it on my desktop. I also played around with the desktop image itself and I set it to rotate my desktop images. This is a really nice feature because I have lots of images that I like to set for my desktop

I really enjoy Windows 7 and I, for one, will be buying the full version of it the moment it hits the shelves at the store.