Windows 7 Upgrade – Early Thoughts
October 28th, 2009
On October 22 I logged in at Dell to order my free upgrade to Windows 7. The package of two DVDs arrived yesterday (October 27), and I took the plunge and upgraded my new Dell system last night. I should begin by saying that this is a brand new system, purchased earlier in the month, an Intel i7-920 Quad Core with 8GB RAM, a 1 Terabyte harddrive, and 64 Bit Windows. Vista ran very nicely on it.
I should also say that over the course of the past few years I have transformed from a Windows Vista detractor to a Windows Vista supporter. The UAC and security issues that everybody was complaining about are the features that make Vista much more secure than any version of Windows that came before it. I found it stable, if somewhat clunky at times. I was hoping that Microsoft would take a page out of Apple’s book (at least the post OS X Apple) when releasing Windows 7: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a lot of good stuff in Vista, a lot of stuff that isn’t fully developed, and a lot of stuff that needs improvement. If Windows 7 could build on all that, fix the glitches, and add a few new features, it would be the same as a Mac OS release… improved but essentially the same.
This is, in fact, exactly what Microsoft has done. Windows 7 has everything that was good about Vista, and fixes nearly everything that bad about Vista. I can’t really say that I notice a performance difference between Vista and Seven on the Dell XPS, but this is likely because it’s such blazingly fast hardware. Others have told me they notice a dramatic difference on older hardware that struggles with Vista. Your mileage may vary.
Overall, the upgrade experience was pleasant, if somewhat protracted. I started the process at 7:00 PM, and it was 9:00 before it completed. I did not sit at the computer… it was completely automated, but there was a lot of file copying and backing up during the upgrade. I did a fresh install of the Beta way back when and it completed in less than 20 minutes, so if you don’t really need to do an upgrade, I’d suggest saving yourself some time and doing a fresh install. I just didn’t want to deal with having to re-install a pile of software, some of which would have to be de-activated and then re-activated.
During the upgrade process the upgrade advisor detected two pieces of software that might conflict with Seven. It informed me that it would be best to remove them before proceeding, but not to worry because Seven would install updated versions post install. Despite seeming to make this sound optional, the system would not install until I removed the realtek audio driver and the ATI Catalyst display manager. Once that was done, the upgrade proceeded smoothly and both pieces of software were reinstalled automatically and updated post install. This may have been a Dell utility and not part of Seven, but in any case it worked well.
The only bit of strangeness I have to report is the configuring of my dual monitor display. I have two displays on my desktop, one a 24 inch LCD the other a 21 inch LCD. In Vista, after setup, they behaved perfectly. The monitor on the right spanned the desktop to the right… allowing me to open new windows (debuggers, email, whatever), in the right side display. Once Seven was installed, the monitors appeared to have reversed. The smaller, 21 inch monitor, was now the primary monitor, and the larger 24 inch was the secondary. The main desktop appeared on the right-side display. Even when I massaged the configuration and made the 24 inch the primary display, the 21 inch monitor seemed to span the desktop to the left… not the right, which was awkward. After some fiddling with the display properties, this resolved itself, but ti took some time to figure out.
I put in a full day of work at the system today and it has performed perfectly. No idiosyncracies, no weirdness. It’s responsive, and seems to be very stable. It’s also unobtrusive. I’m trying to recall if the UAC bothered me at all for permission to continue with some task, but nothing pops to mind. I don’t yet know if this means that security is relaxed, but I can definitely say that the user experience is improved over Vista. All software installed on Vista appears to work well on Seven. I have had no problems. I run a pared down system in that I don’t use Gadgets, and tend to keep Aero turned off, but I have turned on Aero for Seven so that I can experience some of the cool new features. The “Peek at Desktop”, and application rollover in the task bar are very cool features, as is the snap to side-by-side view and window focus. (If you have a crowd of applications open, you can grab the one you want, give it a little shake, and the others fall to the taskbar so that you can focus on your work. There are a lot of other features like that I haven’t had time to explore, but all in all Seven seems solid and very user friendly.
I’ll be curious to see what the general feeling about Seven is like after a month or so.









