|
I just converted from XP Pro x64 to 7 x64, and love it. There's a learning curve, but that's quick to get over. I've never spent more than 5 minutes on Vista, so probably that learning curve is even smoother if you had. By no means am I an expert (or even an advanced user), but in the past couple of weeks, I've noticed:
ADVANTAGES
1) Noticeably faster booting and shut-downs...
2) I noticed with XP that after booting up, the first time I loaded a program like Firefox, Windows Explorer, etc would take a lot longer than subsequent attempts (presumably it's a RAM thing), but with 7, it's fast everytime.
3) I have a system monitor gadget on constantly, and all 4 cores are working for just about any application...MUCH more efficiently than XP was. Overall performance also seems better. I have a quad core 2.5 overclocked to 3.0 and 8GB RAM and although I haven't run performance tests, the system at least seems to perform better...and thats XP with most services and effects off, unencrypted, versus Windows 7 with almost all default services and effects on and TrueCrypt encrypted. There is an issue with Windows Explorer mentioned later, but that might can be resolved...I need to play with it more.
4) The search feature is convenient for searching folders/subfolders full of files. XP worked great, but with 7, you don't have to leave the current window and it searches on the fly as you type.
5) The appearance and effects are really cool. I ultimately turned off most effects in XP for performance, but with 7 the effects are cool enough that I leave them on. Appearance is more effectively customized with themes or even wallpaper slideshows.
6) The gadgets are useful extensions integrated directly into the desktop
7) The firewall is good, although I recommend getting "Windows 7 Firewall Control" for free if you want more control and to limit outgoing traffic.
DISADVANTAGES
1) RAM usage constantly sits around 17%, even now with just Firefox portable running. I have 8GB of RAM, so that amounts to just over 1.4GB. That's not really a disadvantage if you have sufficient RAM, but if you're trying to put this on a 1GB system, then you might have some issues (I suspect).
2) Windows Explorer can take a long time to read a directory with a lot of files. Perhaps this is because I have Windows Search on...not sure.
3) Windows Explorer does seem to crash more often than on XP, although it recovers and is easy to load up again, although you lost your place...
Anyway, this is my observations as a complete noob to 7. I'm sure there's more points I should make, but that's all that's coming to me off the top of my head. I hope it helps.
|