I’m a long time Windows user. I’ve been using it since Windows 3.1 and to be honest, I like it. That’s not something you’d hear a web designer say, but I’m gonna say it anyway because it is a really nice operating system.
For the past year and a bit I’ve been using Windows Vista. It’s an ok version of Windows but does has quite a few annoying little quirks. After a year and a bit my pc was starting to slow down, so I thought it was time to reinstall.
I quite like the process of reinstalling because I get to cut everything down to the bare essentials on my pc. It’s like cleaning your house (or room), it gives you a clearer state of mind and makes working that much easier.
As I was reinstalling anyway I decided to take advantage of Microsoft letting anyone use Windows 7 RC for free. All it took was a simple download and burn and I have a fully functioning operating system in just 15 minutes (this doesn’t include the time it took be to backup all my stuff. That took about 24 hours).
The first impressions of the operating system are good. The new task bar is really nice. I love how it mixes the opened programs with the ones you have pinned to it, but have not opened yet. It’s very Mac OS X like however it still works much like the older version of the taskbar. I also like how they’ve cleaned up the notification area to get rid of all the annoying icons. They now only show up when they have something to tell me (or if I pin them to the notification area so they always stay there, which I’ve done for Steam and my development server control panel).
Another really nice feature is the Aero Peak. It sounds a bit odd but it basically makes all the windows transparent when you mouse over the the show desktop button. This is useful because your desktop is now where gadgets are placed. I like the gadgets in Vista, but I couldn’t see the point of having the sidebar open just to see the weather occasionally. This solves the problem completely!
I’m also trying to use the features built in to 7 to replace some 3rd part stuff I used in Vista (and XP). I’m going to use the new taskbar as a replacment for RocketDock, and use the start menu search as a replacement for Launchy. I’ll have to see how that goes though. Might be tough to get out of old habbits.
I’m still getting used to the OS so I’m guessing I wont be as efficient at coding for a while; but once I’m up to speed I think it’s going to be really nice to use.