Moving to Windows 7: Is it worth it?

You mean aside from...

The need to refine and improve an underlying architecture and then make software that utilises said architecture.

By that rationale, a modern Sat Nav should be engineered to work on a 60's era car (one with a Dynamo and not an Alternator). The point is it won't because cars don't have dynamos any more and engineering a modern device to work on a legacy architecture is just fallacy.

Hmm

Regardless of what you think the reasons for not supporting IE9 are, the facts are XP doesn't support it. If that's important to your business you need to upgrade.

I upgraded because the XP box I was using wasn't up to the demands I had of it. Eclipse was slow then upgrading to [recent] MS Office was the final nail in its coffin.

Once I'd turned off Win7's more obnoxious graphics I actually like it. It's a tiny bit crashy but much better than XP. Updates are handled automatically and it does get out of the way and let me get on with my job (and commenting on these fora).

Hear Hear

and I want them to engineer it to work on Windows 2000, NT4, NT3, ME, 98, 95 and 3.1

They can leave DOS 5 support for a later update

Whatever indeed...

Whatever the relative pros and cons of Win vs [INSERT OS HERE], if you fill an entire office/university/hospital/callcenter with non-Windows machines the average users will go utterly fucking mental at the brain overload.

For better or worse, they want Office and IE and freecell - outisde of certain high tech companies they don't give a hoot about any of this, they just want what they're used to. You should be glad that MS are at least moving in the right direction.

@ various commentards ...

AndrueC writes:"..and yet you still feel the need to take a cheap shot at the opposition."

It's a cheap shot to point out that an alternate methodology can be better/cheaper/faster? And please note that I'm not "opposition", rather I'm "let's get this done as easily and smoothly as possible, given current technology".

"Fly away, penguin - this article is not for you."

Whilst I do use Linux for (most) of my internal installed desktops, the backend systems are nearly all BSD ... and the public-facing systems are pretty much all eComStation. More to the point, why do you want my to "fly away"? What are you afraid of?

@AC14:00

It's not a matter of happier. It's a matter of just getting on with it. And what's with the assumed "she"? Grace Hopper is going to hit you right in the mouth when you get to the other side ...

@Rob Moir: "There really is nothing more tedious than an OS zealot."

Where, in mine, did I comment on my personal OS of choice?

"Except possibly one that adopts the patronising tones you seem to prefer."

Um-kay. Please note that I'm not an OS zealot. Why did you read that into mine? Are YOU an OS zealot? Am I putting a dent into your personal opinion?

"All hardware sucks and all software sucks, deal with it."

Agreed. In addition, all OSes suck, and all fanbois suck. And I'm a zealot?

"I'm glad that you've found a solution that works for you but one size doesn't fit all..."

Again, agreed. Am I still a zealot?

@Tathan Jones: "For better or worse, they want Office and IE and freecell"

All of which are far more trouble than they are worth, from both a business perspective and a sysadmin perspective. (You allow fucking GAMES on business computers? You are a part of the problem ...)

"You should be glad that MS are at least moving in the right direction."

Post proof or retract.

No...

Most corporates won't look at an OS or other major software, until it's got to service pack 1. Service pack one is just out, so this article is bang on time.

Ok..

You sound like a linux user just trying to find fault:

Windows uses CIFS, that's just how it's done, there is now a server option which allows end users to easily move files out of their local environment, presumably under centralised control, and you complain that it's not SSH? Even if SSH were the right tool, it's going to be too complicated for your average desk jockey.

If you don't want someone to assist you ("spy" on you) just don't send any remote assist requests, and don't accept any. There is an icon that tells you you're being watched as well, do you really think that they didn't think of this?

As for virtual desktops in Ubuntu, it's a nice feature, but it's not a task swapper, it's err, virtual desktops - each desktop still has multiple apps running on it and you don't get a nice image of what each app is doing at that time.

Now I really like Windows, but I also really like Linux, Unix and Mac OS, this trying to slag off other OSes by people who don't use/understand them is wearing very thin indeed.

You need to remember something

**I don't want some techie spying on my screen. Is there any way you can tell when someone is accessing my screen through Remote Assistance.**

If you're at work then it isn't _your_ screen.

Reply to post: Not really ..

"I don't want some techie spying on my screen. Is there any way you can tell when someone is accessing my screen through Remote Assistance."

Yes, there is.

First, there are two ways to get Remote Assistance: either the user can request it directly or an admin can initiate it. Obviously, if the user initiates a request, he knows it's coming. If an admin initiates the session, the user will see a pop-up window on their screen saying that an administrator has requested to see your screen. The user can then choose whether to accept the RA offer or not. If the admin wants to directly operate the mouse or keyboard, the he has to request that from the user as well.

Second, once RA has been initated, the computer in question will have a Remote Assistance window pop-up. This window contains useful things like a chat box for the user and admin to talk to each other. It also has an icon at the top that displays the status of the connection, i.e. whether the admin is still connected.

Third, since simply closing the RA window is enough to kick the admin off the computer, as long as you don't see it on your screen or in the taskbar, then noone is using Remote Assistance to access your computer.

There are other, non-Microsoft solutions that aren't nearly so transparent about what the admin has access to though.

Sort of agree

I think the TB works fine but the previews do annoy me for some reason. Perhaps it's because I normally know what each icon is anyway. I hardly ever resort to Alt+Tab and for stacked items I'm happy to make the menu pop up.

Sigh...

So Tim is a corporate shill for doing a positive article about Windows.

I take it that when a positive article about Ubuntu is written whoever wrote that will be a corporate shill too, or is that different?

@CADmonkey - I used to hate Windows 7

Finding files - I've found the search box in Windows Explorer to be quite useful for simple searches. For anything more complicated (much rarer) the I'd obviously use a better tool.

To fix the explore tree-list operation, in Windows Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options and tick both boxes in the Navigation pane "Show all folders" and "Automatically expand to current folder". That's all it takes to restore a little sanity.

Disturbingly enough, Win 7 out of the box is crippled by the "effects" and other stupdity that effortless turn a fast system into something that feels like it runs like a snail nailed to sandpaper... unfortunately this detritus isn't as easy to find where to turn off. Right click on Desktop, select Personalise, then select "Ease of access centre" (bottom left of window), select "Make the computer easier to see" and in the "Make thing on the screen easier to see" section tick the "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)". Hit OK and all of a sudden your experience will improve immeasurably as no longer are there pointless and annoying delays while Windows fades, slides and expands stuff into and out of view. It's not that nice effects are bad, it's just that they shouldn't make things slower just for the sheer hell of it.

To fix one of the other dumb-ass problems in Windows 7, that of password expiry notifications typically being on screen for around 5ms is, again, to go the "Ease of Access Centre" but this time select "Make it easier to focus on tasks" and change the "Adjust time limits and flashing visuals" and set the drop down box for "How long should Windows notification dialog boxes stay open?" and set it to a sane value - i.e. minutes (don't forget, 5.0 seconds seems to include windows decision and dithering time so the display time is somewhat less than 5.0 seconds).

Likewise, one of the "new features" is that the notification area on the task bar has a whizz bang and utterly useless feature to stop popups. This generally prevents the user from seeing anything important and its implementation makes the entire feature not only pointless but actually a problem. The best option is to just disable the feature. To do this, right click on task bar, select "properties", then click "Customise" in the "Taskbar" tab and in the "Notification Area Icons" page tick the option "Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar". Now you won't miss sometimes critical notifications.

Start > Run option - this can be restored by going to the same "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" dialog, clicking on the "Start Menu" tab, clicking the "Customise" button and two thirds of the way through the options is an option to restore the "Run" command to the start menu ("Run command").

Not that there aren't some remaining real ass-hattery things in Win 7, but I've found that with these tweaks it's generally smooth and fast again. The remaining real annoyances are the ludicrous file copy dialogs that tend to spend more time "discovering items" than actually copying and the batshit insane control panel that can now only be used by using the search feature in the explorer window that displays it - not that this search doesn't work well (it does) but it's more clicks and key presses to perform a once fairly rapid task.