Why XP owners won't love Windows 7

Windows 7

I think Windws 7 is fantastc!!! Pentium 4 1.66 Gh 1.75 G.RAM 128mb Radeon video card, and away we go!!! An old computer yes. But it runs Windows 7 like a dream. Just as fast as XP, but with better looks and lots more features. I DO like the eye-candy as well. I am not rich, just updated my hardware for a small fee and now have a really great operating system.
Love, Peta

Nobody sticks to old

Nobody sticks to old printers and scanners. It's cheaper to buy a new printer than a new ink. Unless you have an expensive scanner that would last for year. In that case there will always be drivers for those. That's how marketing works. The author of this article doesn't have much to say about the very technical background of WIN7. Looks like he never used it. The main question is...is it faster than XP ? If it is, the Vista users, the XP users will love it. No doubt about it. The looks and interface is not as important as quickness of the system. I think the author should use the windows 7 first and then think about optimizing the system, because right now has nothing valuable to say. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge.

People who are crying about

People who are crying about Windows 7's "inadequacies" are simply ignorant. If you just do a little research, you'll learn that Win7 does what you say it does NOT do and then some! Come on people, educate yourselves before you start spouting off ignorance! Windows 7 is the best of XP and Vista combined.

i have and old old printer

i have and old old printer and an old old scanner and it was easy to get both to work on windows 7 by just updating the driver in the device manager.....i can't believe how many people are crying that their old devices don't work.

The good, the bad, and the not so ugly.

Ok.. From XP to W7.

First off... for the people complaining about loosing the run box and some other features. Now would be the time to finally learn to use the "Windows" button. This makes for a good starting guide. So the run box... Window + R... omg so hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_key

Coming from XP there ARE some things that have me discouraged about W7. It all seems to run around a central theme. Forced compliance.

Such as the defilement of MS paint. Seriously, Microsoft might as well of removed paint all together instead of producing a watered down clone of photoshop. The level of mastery that people have achieved using MS paint in its pre W7 form is nothing short of amazing. From masses of pixel art (which using the new version makes quite difficult) to a very close facsimile of the mona lisa.. It did what it was supposed to do. Its great that they built a new paint program.. thats not the problem. The problem is obliterating the usage of the old version (using W7 in beta.. its possible to use the old version of paint, if you upgraded and did not do a clean install, but using it in that way wont let you save.. you have to use the old paint to accomplish the task you want, then select all, copy & paste into the new paint and save. making for an unneeded step.

More forced compliance is in the toolbar. And its all thanks to the nifty search feature.
Ok if youve been using PCs for more than lets say.. a year.. you generally get an idea of file structuring, and where you save the important files that you will need. And even come up with a unique filing system of your own.

So why exactly does anyone even want a method that does genuinely improve on the "find" feature? The search bar is not a bad functionallity... but my beef with it, is that first off it is a complete waste of roughly 30-50mb of system ram and secondly because microsoft wants people using this because theve done so much work on it, they have neutered functionallity out of the toolbar.

Perhaps the most glaring is the idea of making your own toolbars. Granted.. its still there... but it again is neutered. In XP I made a very nice system of toolbars wrapped around three edges of the desktop. The typical windows toolbar resided at the bottom for browsers and quick launch, I had one to the left side with auto hide, that stored my assorted and filed program shortcuts, and the one to the right side was allocated for my stored documents between music, images, documents, videos, ect. It made simple sense and worked flawlessly for me.

(although when my fiancee had to use my computer for a week she did nothing but bitch about how user unfriendly it was. But there in lies the gist, it may not have been friendly for the masses, but it was perfectly customized for me)

Again, W7 will allow you to build custom toolbars, but the problem is that you can no longer create multiple toolbar locations. IE any toolbars you make will become a part of the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, or wherever you choose to rest your toolbar. You get 1, that is all (unless you have a multi display setup, then i dont know if it will allow more or not.)

There is the problem.. the ideology of taking things out that existed in old versions of the O/S that people did genuinely use, because they have made something they perceive as new and better.

I will use the same example here to go on both ends. This is done, because they have seen that if you get people a choice, more often than not, they wont change.

Just like in the great upgrade from Win 98 to xp (/continues to block out the memory of MEs existence) One of the new features MS put into the OS was visual themes and a new control panel layout. They left in a feature that allowed you to revert to classic mode.. and what did most people do? they reverted to classic mode.

However, at the same time, with new operating systems, that is what you need to do. Incorperate more switching, because by taking this concept of "we know better than you do about what you want to do with our operating system" is partially responsible for peoples lacking desire to move from XP to vista. (while no where near as responsible for the compatibility and reliablity issues)

And speaking of compatibility issues. This is one thing that MS got gloriously correct. The compatibility mode feature actually works, and works fairly well for the first time in any incarnation of windows.

But let us not be delusional, The new OS has its strengths, has its weaknesses, but the problem is that people are fairly confused on what is good and bad about 7.

Good: Increased networking capability (dont fool yourself.. W7 is still behind XP in practically every performance benchmark except for its networking capability to which it has a decent edge over

Increased compatibility mode

a modern OS that developers will get behind.
An GUI that is polished enough to appeal to the most braindead mac zealot.

Migrating the general public from 32 to 64 bit OS that goes along with the advances in RAM

Bad:
Forced compliance,

for a new OS its still behind performance benchmarks of a 8 year old OS.

the uneeded search function

WMP12 is horrendous.

The ribbon has expanded and began to choke out other programs than office.

The fact that the average PC user is not capable of properly working their operating system to the point that they NEED added security features added.

All in all... it is a good OS on its own merits. Its sleek, its powerful, its productive, its got that sexy feel that will make mac users drool. But pointing out why XP users wont like it is moot, cause it is the future. Theres already decreased support for XP, such as Direct X capabilities. And that is only going to get worse the older XP gets. So I think XP users CAN genuinely move to W7 comfortably. But they will certainly harbor resentment for being told that they are wrong for wanting things the way they once were.