How Wide Should Curtains Be For 72 Inch Window

The Challenge

Switch from Windows Vista to Windows 7 completely. No going dorsum to work with compatible programs. No jumping transport if a driver keeps you away from your Warhammer Online character. No tears. Windows 7 is your new home for 72 hours, starting from your initial download of the software.

The Spoiler

Microsoft doesn't know how to manage digital downloads. Nor does Microsoft know how to title its own applications–this isn't Windows 7, non past any means. It's Windows Vista SP2.

The Tribulation

Having completed my 72 hours in Windows 7 land, I'm going to adopt the same mindset and cap the writing of this mail service at one hour'south length. Having seen no less than twoscore different articles nearly Windows 7 over the by three days (if not 3 months), I'thou not nearly to diameter you with a list of the 89 about important features Windows 7 brings to the tabular array. What I am going to chat about is what the bodily process of jumping to Windows vii is like. What happens? How practice the new features of Windows seven touch the general usage patterns of an operating system? What'due south the speed similar? Why would I buy this to replace Vista?

I'll start with a brief notation that this article was actually supposed to run Mon morning–the whole concept of "72 hours in Windows 7 Country" being a fun footling weekend activity that I would write upward and post for all the people who gave up on downloading the beta on its horrible Friday release. Nearly that. Seeing as Microsoft has no thought what "busy servers" entails, and apparently refuses to release its beta clients across a peer-to-peer distribution method a la Blizzard game patches, I waited. And waited. And waited, until I finally acquired a copy of Windows vii well into Sabbatum afternoon. Leading the charge into the digital futurity, that's Microsoft.

Ahem.

I fired up Windows 7 on a drive I had pre-partitioned in preparation for the event. On 1 half sat a fresh installation of Windows Vista featuring all the latest updates and drivers I could go my hands on. On the other would sit Windows 7, as I wanted to compare the two's initial performance before installing a ton of my typical junk on either. I fired up my Windows 7 ISO and let 'er rip.

The Installation

Installing Windows 7 (x64) brought a tear to my center, for I practice love nostalgia and this installation routine is about a carbon-copy of Windows Vista's. Salve for the addition of a new setup screen for establishing a Homegroup–Windows vii's respond to network file-sharing–there's nix dramatic about the installation in the slightest. Compared to Windows XP, both Vista and 7's installation procedure (side notation: I hope this never becomes the nickname for the operating system) are a godsend. Just I'd dear to encounter a more than streamlined installation: Mayhap a way to set all the options you need to set up-front, and then y'all can merely sit back and allow the 24:01-minute process do it's thing. I love making customized slipstream OS installation discs for this very fact. Convenience, Microsoft. Convenience!

Both installation processes forced 2 resets on my computer. And for those keeping score at home, the Vista installation took all of three minutes, twenty-six seconds less time than the Windows 7 installation. That'southward non a lot infinitesimal-wise, merely it's however 16 percent more time than its predecessor. I'one thousand also running a pretty souped-up PC–a stock-clocked Intel QX9650 running at 3.0GHz, four gigabytes of RAM, a speedy Western Digital terabyte hard bulldoze, and an ATI Radeon HD 4850 video carte du jour. I can merely imagine how long Windows 7 might take for a machine of less prowess.

Getting Started

A nice touch of Windows seven is that it installed with more drivers configured than its predecessor. My Windows Vista installation came with five unknown devices attached, requiring me to notice and install drivers for the video carte du jour and Ethernet drivers for the motherboard in item. Windows vii prepare itself to the highest resolution my monitor supports using what appeared to be Microsoft-friendly ATI drivers. My Net connectedness "worked" immediately, allowing me to fetch whatever I needed without having to first observe the CD that came with my motherboard. Nice.

(Ethernet woes aside, I like how Windows 7 now gives you a "files processed per second" time instead of a "Megabytes of speed" value.)

Farther inspection of the Ethernet drivers revealed that these were less than stable for my system. I had horrific bug trying to make multiple connections to either the Net or my network devices. The operating system froze upwards every time I tried to grab more than 1 batch of files from my NAS, download files from the NAS and Steam at once, or generally do annihilation but surf the Web. Frustrated, I went back to the my motherboard's CD drivers and that seemed to ready the problem just fine. This now-stable Bone was ready to become used!

Adjacent: Touching Windows seven for the Very First Time!

Using Windows 7

One of the core problems with Windows 7, which Microsoft will invariably not fix, stems from its utter similarity to Windows Vista. Sure, the taskbar is a little different, Windows Explorer has a newer experience to information technology, and the desktop looks like information technology requires a GPU of its own for all the fun little transparent gimmicks and what-take-you. Just at its core, this is Windows Vista. Windows Vista (remix), perhaps, but still Windows Vista. I found it difficult to figure out the actual changes to the OS save for the obvious differences in advent. Certain, browsing through the help file pointed out some, just it was too extremely unexciting to do. The last release of Windows vii needs some kind of snappy, orchestrated pop-up that tells yous when a feature you're accessing has new elements "nearby." For case, you pull upward Windows Explorer for the first time. A one-fourth dimension popup tells you lot something like, "Hey, did y'all know that Libraries are totally awesome? Here's how they work." Or yous're surfing the control console and hovering over the various icons when poof!, up pops a tiny, fifteen-2d animation to allow you know well-nigh the wonders of PC Safeguard.

(Poof! Libraries are a useful way to organize the contents of your computer without having to worry about maintaining a traditional binder architecture)

Would this get abrasive, Clippy-style? For the ability user, yep. But if in that location was a fashion to institute that you lot were either a new Windows 7 user or a transfer Vista user upon installing the Os for the first fourth dimension, surely Windows could and then give yous a fleck more of a walk-through than what this beta delivers: A bright blue background of a fish and a pat on the bum for good luck.

The Trouble Children

I rip all the applications and games I own to their own mountable .ISO files. I detest scratched discs, but more than than that, I hate having to look for that one, mission-critical disc (like, say, Gigabyte motherboard drivers) that'due south somewhere about the stack of junk in my room. Not only can I install the actual programs faster this mode, but I can sleep easy knowing that I'll always be able to access my Planescape: Torment CDs no matter where the concrete media might be (Ohio, terminal I checked). Windows seven did non like this plan. Specifically, it did not like the various applications I use to mount CDs, like Daemon Tools.

Basically, whatever application that uses a SPTD layer to access virtual optical devices utterly fails in this Windows seven beta. I hope this is fixed past either Microsoft or the various application developers for the terminal launch, equally information technology took me forever to find a suitable replacement for disc mounting. Which brings up an interesting indicate of its own: What happens when Windows seven launches? Will developers have to support XP, Vista, and Windows vii versions of their applications?

(I constitute no difficulties whatsoever in using a common barrage of applications and games on Windows vii, including Microsoft Office, Steam games, Adobe CS4, Hamachi, UltraVNC, Revo Uninstaller, et cetera)

I venture then, at least for the Windows 7 part of the equation. While I'm still coming to terms with the new icon-based toolbar, information technology's obvious that some legacy Vista programs but don't cross over very well. Have Steam, for example. When I'thou running Valve's games platform, a little icon appears in the taskbar to allow me know the program's running. Commonly, I'd right-click on this icon to access the context menu for pulling up your friends window, games window, community window, et cetera. Only, that's not how it works. The actual icon for this is now subconscious somewhere in the right-hand part of the taskbar near the clock, buried in an arrowed context menu. In a perfect globe, ane icon would handle all. But here I take ii. And I don't like clutter.

Similarly, I look forward to the day when I can make use of the new context-card-bearing icons in the kickoff menu. For Microsoft apps like Paint and Give-and-take, there's a trivial arrow icon to the right of the icon and proper name combination you'd unremarkably use to launch the programme in the start bill of fare. This gives you added context for the action you want to undertake, be it opening said program's contempo items to new documents, et cetera. I long for the day I can launch my Steam games directly out of one of these menus.

I'm not a betting homo–at least, not one to make too stupid of bets. This is exactly why I would non have placed money on Apple tree'southward iTunes working with Windows vii. But I never expected the installer mechanism to outright dice. I began installing iTunes somewhere toward the top of this commodity. Every bit of this judgement's writing, it'due south all the same hung at three-fourths completion. If Apple can release a version of iTunes that'southward fully-functional, installs perfectly, and doesn't muck up CD burning for both 32-bit and 64-chip Windows 7 installations… well, I might just buy a lid and eat it.

"Teh Awesome"

I'grand running out of time on my self-imposed limit, so I'll make this quick. There are indeed some unique elements of Windows 7 that make information technology appear rather dashing when compared to Windows Vista. Gone is the hideous network lag that makes me wait 30 seconds every time I effort to connect to my NAS. Windows vii pulls information technology up as if information technology was only another binder: A++, I say to that. I'm a geek for skillful looks in an operating organization, and I really dig the fun new features of Windows 7 in that regard. I dearest the slide-show background choice, even though some of its choices for scenery are downright laughable:

(Yep.)

Seriously. A buffalo? Anyway, I too enjoy the fact that yous can now drag maximized windows around to your leisure. They're no longer locked to all four corners of your screen, and re-maximizing them is as easy as dragging them to the very top of your monitor. I'm not sure why you'd ever utilize it, but y'all can now invert the moving-picture show to your brandish completely upside-down. I tin can now hang my 30-inch display from the ceiling with joyful conviction, I suppose.

Everyone's talking nigh it, so here'due south my five seconds: UAC is back. You can turn information technology to unlike levels of annoyance with a slider, and that'south that. Windows Firewall has received a substantial upgrade in its capabilities, and so much and so that I actually considered–for the briefest of moments–fiddling around with its extensive new inbound and outbound limits before promptly switching it off. Just still, I considered. This volition be a fantastic upgrade for those of you who don't surf the Internet via hardware firewalls.

I don't have friends who use my desktop, just the new ability to completely wipe out a user's changes via PC Safeguard is a must-have for anyone who wants their computer to remain crap-gratis when significant others, younger siblings, or drunk friends are effectually.

Other than that, there are enough more manufactures that go over the extensive, feature-by-characteristic differences plant in Windows seven. Those are just a few of the major ones I noticed offhand and felt the need to annotate on. Retrieve, I'thousand flying blind into Windows 7 (no printing previews, no manufactures read, nil. But a plain ol' user), and didn't actually have a way to detect a ton of new features throughout the class of my normal weekend's worth of work.

(Next: Hammering Out The Large Verdict!)

The Verdict

I phrase that concluding paragraph as I do, considering it relates to my ultimate point. Equally it stands, Windows 7 is not a new operating system. It'southward SP2. Rightly, it'south what Vista should have been, merely I'm willing to compromise on this only existing as a pregnant, service-pack-worthy upgrade to the core Vista Bone. A mainstay of the new experiences you will actually run into are cosmetic in blueprint or part: the new desktop functions are pretty, Windows gadgets are an exploded version of the Vista sidebar, Homegroup is merely a rebranded mode to set up up network sharing, the Taskbar uses icons instead of icons and words, et cetera.

Truly novel innovations: an extensive Firewall system, a brand-new Backup and Restore tool that would actually go on me from buying an off-the-shelf solution, PC Safeguard… these are all neat applications. At its core, I really similar the direction Microsoft has gone with Windows seven. At that place's no question in my mind nearly that.

But every bit a paying customer, I have to enquire myself: when this OS hits the market, is in that location enough packed in there to warrant its $125 price (or thereabouts)? From XP to Vista, I definitely pulled the trigger and didn't await dorsum. I don't believe that, at this phase in the game, the pretty functionality and intriguing applications are worth the eventual cost. I can mimic a lot of Windows 7'southward new functionality with mutual freeware applications. And while the graphics are pretty, I'm not about to beat out out a ton of cash just and so I can shift around my desktop windows and giggle.

(To be fair, the new graphical elements like full Window transparency just by hovering your mouse over "Show Desktop" make upward some awesome features.)

Had Microsoft the gall, information technology would release Windows seven as a free upgrade for Windows Vista users. It'south not going to, nor tin can I run across the software behemothic doing anything but slapping a standard pricing model on this "brand-new" OS. It'll be curious to meet what this does to Vista back up, given the inherent similarity between the ii platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft officially killed Vista evolution and fabricated Windows 7 its default, go-to operating system. Sounds crazy? Eh. And so is the hype around this operating system.

As for me? I call up I'll go dorsum to Vista for at present…