a113n’s daily dose

So I have just fired up the Windows 7 Enterprise Upgrade from Windows Vista Business (x64 on both). After a painfully-long upgrade process, which was finalized by my 19-month year old daughter during the “configuration” stage the next morning, I have the system up and running. I’d have to say my first impressions are mixed.

Positive

• Most of the applications were compatible (though some odd ones weren’t like iTunes & Windows Mobility Center, both of which can be reinstalled fine)
• Most application settings were maintained, including Firefox/Outlook/Office settings
• Gadgets were retained (but not correctly, see Negatives below)
• Significantly improved boot speed over Vista
• Significantly better memory utility over Vista (40% on startup versus Vista 70% on startup)
• Firefox is more responsive (one extension is significantly faster with no update)
• Personal data was retained without issue
• There seem to be some new Administrative Tools to play with, one for memory diagnostics and one for Powershell, which rocks. Though I’m sure these tools already existed, it’s good to have them in a single location for quick access.

That would seem like many good aspects, but it has not all been good with this upgrade. There are several issues that have emerged within minutes of the first boot.

Negatives

• The upgrade install time took a very long time. I started it last night around 7/8:00 PM, it was still running when I went to bed where it was gathering files–a whole lot of files. I’m sure the upgrade spends time to ensure data integrity, but a several hour install on modern systems is excessive. Perhaps the fresh install will prove to be more reasonable.
• My first “page” of gadgets were removed from the sidebar and placed at the bottom of the desktop–very ugly
• Moving gadgets is not as clean as with Vista, gadgets can be placed on top of one another where Vista would realize that a gadget placed on top of another should either be placed below or above the gadget depending on position
• The quick launch, which I have loved and used daily since it’s introduction is removed; applications are now “pinned” to the taskbar much like “pinning” to the start menu, and there is no separation between pinned applications and open applications, resembling Macs. Making matters worse, since this bar is used for both, I keep thinking IE is open and running, where my gut reaction is to click and close it. Of course, it’s not open and the initial click does open it, so this is a huge waste of my time. A simple vertical rule to separate the two types would fix this; it will be resolved when I get my toolbar configuration back as the quick launch sat along with the address bar at the top of the screen–assuming I can figure out how to move these “pinned” applications as I would the quick launch toolbar.
• I had a long list of applications pinned to the start menu, none were retained; many of these I had placed deep within subfolders in the start menu as I would never need to access them via the Programs menu; now I must find them all
• My custom toolbars were not retained, I must recreate all of them and reposition them correctly
• Though Firefox was maintained as my default browser, it was not available in the “pinned” applications on the task bar, so I had to search for it in Programs and re-pin it–IE was pinned by default along with WMP and an Explorer shortcut
• My wireless notification is now the icon showing signal strength instead of the icon showing activity (I prefer activity)…to make matters worse, it doesn’t show any signal, the bars all all white, but the connection is working
• Upon starting up the computer for the first time, I got a new notification in the taskbar notification area: “Action Center”, which one problem that needed to be solved–Windows Updates. I’d prefer not to have this new notification at all and have not yet found a way to disable it.
• Speaking of the notification area, instead of the left-pointing arrow for hidden notifications or background applications, there is now an up-pointing arrow. As you can guess, instead of simply expanding the notification area, clicking the arrow opens a small popup above the task bar with the remaining, hidden notifications which you must use to configure background services such as virus scanning.
• The Windows Sidebar background process icon in the notification area is gone. This means there is no easy way to turn off the sidebar temporarily. I’ve found myself having to open task manager and stopping the sidebar process, a task that is too advanced for new users since the sidebar is now called “Desktop Gadget Gallery”, regular users may not know to look for sidebar.exe.
• Windows XP naming schemes have returned. For example, in Windows XP, the documents folder was “My Documents”, the pictures folder was “My Pictures”, and so forth. In Vista, the redundant “My” was dropped from these folders, making the documents folder “Documents” and the pictures folder “Pictures”. For some reason, the old convention has returned, causing confusion for those who have already become accustomed to the new naming scheme in Vista. I’m sure this is for Windows XP upgrades, but what was the point in changing the naming scheme then ditching this change? How about a little bit of consistency here?
• The “Documents” menu item, which I use as a menu not a link, now shows two subfolders, “My Documents” and “Public Documents”. I do not see the “Public Documents” being used just as I never used the public folder for sharing. Further, it appears the Documents is a library or catalog of documents, not just a physical storage location.
• The list of open applications in the task bar has an annoying feature when two windows of the same application are open. XP and Vista would group like taskbar items together, but you were presented with a list, not a small popup meant to serve as a screenshot, and it took several items to engage the grouping. Now, we get screenshots that do not help in identifying a window (but I had no problem with the list would would have meaningful information) and more than one window (even though there is lots of taskbar space with the default view of icon-only) is set to group by default. It gets more frustrating the more I use it and wish I could just use one click for switching between windows quickly. I guess I’ll get a lot of use out of CTRL+TAB. This is really going to annoy developers and web designers.

Overall, I am pleased with the upgrade, short of the massive install time. The system that was cumbersome to use in Vista is now more responsive and overall I believe the upgrade will bring many more benefits to be revealed over time. I will do a complete fresh install soon and be back to report how that works out.

• Current Location: Cabin
  
• Daily Task(s):
  • Plastic over windows
  • Rake leaves
  • Prepare for next week work