Windows 7 Passes XP, Now Most Popular OS in the World

[Kortana]

[citation][nom]gmcizzle[/nom]I was very reluctant to move from XP to Win7, especially after I had to use the mess known as Vista on my laptop. I moved to win7 recently...mainly because of BF3...and I have to say I really like it. With decent hardware, it seems to be much more responsive than XP and has a few nice things XP doesn't (ie. theme/bg profiles, system tray icon control, etc.). The only annoying thing about win7 is the icons seem to be a lot larger than on XP. Basically, if you are still using XP or XP 64-bit like I have for a while, you will like win7 as long as you are open to it.[/citation]

You can change them to small icons. It bothers me too. Just right click on the desktop go to View --> Small Icons. Problem solved. Same thing with the taskbar. Right click on the taskbar, Properties, and check "Use Small Icons". Hope that helps!

 

[ruel24]

Windows 7 is the best Windows, by far, ever released. However, it took a full 2 years to eclipse an OS that 2 generations old?

 

[JOSHSKORN]

[citation][nom]JasonAkkerman[/nom]And rightfully so. It is a great OS.[/citation]
I wish Toms didn't limit comments to 20 Thumbs up.

Having that said, yes I completely agree with this comment. I love Windows 7 and I wouldn't go back to Windows XP. Two years later, I don't have any reason to. (OS) Compatibility has caught up. For the most part, that didn't take longer than about 6 months.

 

[shqtth]

Vista is fine. Just people was trying to run it on crap. Now computers are super fast.

I remember having a laptop with vista on it, becically it was a sempron. WTF. why would anyone try to load Vista on a sempron with 512MB ram and a 5400rpm hdd. Vista needs dual core and a fast hard drive.

too many companies were trying to load vista on crap hardware. It wasn't until people started to need 4GB and most computers had 3GB, until the converion over to 64bit was made. (Companies were being reluctant, which slowed down progress and 64bit drivers).


ANyways its good now that the companies have their act together and produce stable 64bit drivers, and stopped being lazzy and keeping technology behind. Vista helped pave the way for windows 7, although if VIsta name was not tarnished (thanks to companies not producting 64bit, and other companies producing shady hardware), then all people with vista would have windows 7, as it would be a service pack, but since the vista name got killed the service pack got relased as a new os, and the 11% of people with vista are screwed (I am one of them, thanks Microsoft !!! )

But other then that, i keep my pc up 30 days+ and no crashes, just Vista is a memory got and requires 4GB+. But you new PCs have 8GB/16GB+, so the whole vista/win7 thing was released too early. It wasn't until the lazy companies made 64bit drivers, that people switched to 64bit and that memory got cheap and bingo we have 8GB+ computers for cheap. It seems like forever until computers and ram got cheap and paste the 4GB max.

 

[sayantan]

Undoubtedly the best OS of all time.

 

[pollom]

shame linux 0.8

 

[thrasher32]

Yay Windows 7.

 

[jeremy88]

[citation][nom]tomy123456[/nom]May be its gaining because now you can buy it pirated.[/citation]

You can pirate any OS for free, but I've never heard of BUYING it pirated... LOL

 

[timipop]

If Microsoft can make another 600mb-- OS i'll buy it and be impressed

 

[thegh0st]

ugh - wtf Tom's? I spend like 10 min typing a post and it just falls into the void? geez.

anyways to try and shorten up what I spent time posting. this many years later after Vista you can't compare it to Win 7 fairly. if Win 7 had come out instead of Vista back when I think it would have been bashed nearly just as hard. this many years later I would think a lot more people have upgraded their hardware/computers. some perhaps even because of the Vista debacle. that would certainly play into Win 7 and microsofts hands and give the impression Win 7 is that much better than Vista. I am not saying it isn't better I just don't think it is better by as much and microsoft wants you to believe.

we just upgraded a lot of computers where I work to Win 7 and there is plenty of complaints. Win 7 in conjunction with Office 2010 and network access - do a little googles search on files with gray X's - real random PIA problem XP sure doesnt have.

I also recently built my Dad a new computer (i5 2500K) and as I said "new" so the video card was new. SAME exact video driver problem Vista has showed up in Win 7. some improvement there. it amazes me this problem still exists. I had to mod the registry just like I did in Vista to fix this. that is how you fix the problem and there is web site domains dedicated to this issue. it IS a microsoft problem not the hardware makers I can assure you. microsoft changed the way the OS handles hardware. look it up. basic trouble shooting 101 says when there is a problem - what changed right? it wasn't the hardware makers that randomly through a new hardware handling OS design out there.

do another google search on "display driver stopped responding and has recovered" and see what comes up. I know a lot of it will refer to nVidia but if you dig ATI has the same problem.
http://www.nvlddmkm.com/
&
http://www.atikmdag.com/
...these were not created because of nVidia or ATI. they were made because of microsoft Vista and yes Win 7 also.

I haven't posted here in a while but I see there sure is some people on the Win 7 bandwagon. None of you work for microsoft right? lol

anyways those are my opinions on the matter

 

[thegh0st]

I also wanted to say...

when it comes to some businesses you can just upgrade at the drop of a hat. all the software your users use have to be given the green light as compatible with any new OS by their respective vendors. or at least smart businesses do this. compatibility mode doesn't solve half the things you think it would. and being as most companys don't get in a hurry to be pioneers and welcome the headaches or working out of bugs and new coding sometimes required this will always be slow. I don't think any time soon any of us are going to see businesses just jump ship within a year to any new major OS being released. at least not businesses with any clout.

if Win 7 does finally takes hold similar to how XP finally did microsoft would be drinking some funky koolaid to expect everyone to just jump to Win 8 in two years (probably even 4 years). it will be another situation like XP and prying users off of it much the way it is now.

that's another of my opinions (yes I have a few)

 

[N0Spin]

Just to quickly follow up, here are just 2 of many telling links about what pre-SP1 Vista was verses pre-SP1 Windows 7.

In case any of the doubters hadn't noticed, for the vast majority of people/systems and businesses out there Windows 7 was much, much closer to a 'it just works experience' right out of the box (even the beta was actually good).

If you don't believe me just Google it, of course your personal mileage may vary and if you're talking about post SP1 Vista, then you are truly comparing apples to oranges (as I said for a great many people even the beta of 7 ....just worked, and that was why a good majority in the tech community were actually sold on it fairly early on.) End rant.

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-vista2/windows-vista-service-pack-1-review

What they addressed in Vista SP1 - (because it still wasn't working before that)
Snipped:

a major reworking of the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy technologies; huge improvements to application and device compatibility; major enhancements to performance and reliability; much-needed changes to Vista's file copy functionality; and a few minor functional changes rounding things out.

Vista is fine. Just people was trying to run it on crap.

- Note, I was running the Beta version of Windows 7 first on a D610 (with a Pentium M and 512MB/1GB memory) then a D630 with an early Core 2, and it was fine and actually much better than I expected in both cases.

I would love to hear that anyone was ever able to really use Vista on a machine with such limitations.

It's easy to make bloated, even un-optimized software run on a powerful beast. It takes a decently optimized software product to work so widely, even on such limited hardware especially while it was still in Beta, not after year or more of Windows Updates and SP1.


Here is just another quick quote:

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

However, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft, stated during the RSA Conference 2008 that UAC was in fact designed to "annoy users," and force independent software vendors to make their programs more secure so that UAC prompts would not be triggered.[24] In response to these criticisms, Microsoft has altered UAC activity in Windows 7.

 

[N0Spin]

Links for the above quotes (not sure why they didn't appear)

 

[egmccann]

[citation][nom]zorky9[/nom]If the economy's not as bad as it had been the past couple of years, companies would have long ago upgraded to 7.[/citation]

Eh, it's more than the economy that affects businesses upgrading.

That said, for me personally (home machine(s) and work-at-home machine) - ran the Win7RC and was ready to buy it then. I *never* do that with an OS - or jump on getting it day-of-release - but did with win7. Got a new machine, set it up with Win7. Soon as work said "Yeah, our remote programs work with it," *bam,* work system upgraded to win7.

Didn't want to touch vista, and I'm wary about Win8 and metro - I see myself running 7 for quite some time.

 

[eddieroolz]

Been waiting for this day to come. People that still use XP should realize that they're holding the computer industry back as a whole.

 

[CyberAngel]

So far the Windows 8 is looking even better
The Windows Phone 8 is behind schedule - badly+sadly
Metro UI in both? I'm looking forward to a dual-boot Tablet/Phone
Quick Flash boot to WP8 and use it as a phone/FB/e-mail/etc
Need to run apps? Longer boot to a larger W8 Tablet edition (32-bit)
Unfortunately on a 1+4 core ARM you can't run legacy W7 apps
A Haswell ULP atill uses too much power
Atom 14nm looks like a winner
but then again Win9 (+WP9) beta will available by then...

Windows 7 is so old news - What is an XP? (kidding)