I did something a bit crazy this weekend – made the Windows 7 Beta my primary OS. Of course, I had 3 hard drive back ups and created a back up image of my Vista install before proceeding. Like any good geek girl, I spent most of the lovely-weathered weekend indoors installing and tinkering with my PC. Like me, you’ve probably read 14 billion articles and blog posts on Windows 7 full of reviews and first impressions, so I’ll cut to the chase on some things I’ve learned so far:
- Windows 7 will restore the back up files created by the backup tool in Windows Vista Home Premium and above
- The desktop gadgets will only show up if the UAC (User Access Control) is set to level 2 or higher
- UAC is configurable per user at 4 different levels
- Boots much faster and wakes from stand by many times faster than Vista in my experience so far
- Have not been able to install AVG anti-virus, but everything else seems to work fine
- Had no driver issues installing on an Inspiron 1520 and an HP 6715b laptop
- TrueCrypt files do not work properly with Windows Backup, after the initial back up, the secure files was never updated and older versions were restored
I like the new task bar with larger icons, no need to double it to fit in more app windows and the full date anymore. Expect more Windows 7 posts as I continue to test and tourment my PC.
02/02/2009 at 10:46 am Permalink
I think you are a brave women to make this your “primary” boot OS. Interesting choice. I think Vista is going to go down as Window ME². I would be curious to see Windows 7 dualbooted on an intel-based Mac. I can’t wait to ready more about your Win7 experience.