A nice enhancement on Vista but better at the Ultimate Steal Price (MS Windows 7 Professional)

Member Name: bucksfizz66

Product:	MS Windows 7 Professional
Date:	05/11/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, lots of useful gizmos - shake - pull and snap!

Disadvantages: It didn't upgrade it was a clean install that needed me to reinstall everything

Introduction
Although I work, I'm a part time student too so that qualified me for the Microsoft Utlimate Steal and Windows 7 came up via this a few days before its launch and I bought it for £39. Bargain.

As instructed I ran the update advisor (a short program you download from the microsoft website) and it advised me that a 32 bit version was better than a 64 bit, but I had to increase by RAM as Windows 7 32 bit needs 1GB of free RAM and I didn't have that (read Crucial review tro see how that was remedied. (The 64 bit version need 2GB of free RAM).

Most importantly the upgrade advisor advised me that my version of Windows could be upgraded whereas the 64 bit version was a clean install.

If a clean install were to be carried out Windows recommends you transfer all your files to an external hard drive (including programs) using their Easy Transfer programs. Importantly I need bothered with this as they advised my system could be upgraded.

Windows 7

The disc arrived - I loaded it and part way through the installation a message popped up to say my system couldn't be upgraded it created a file called Windows old and dumped all my files in there (so luckily my precious photos of my daughter were safe). Once the process was complete I had Windows 7 but nothing else.

I set about transferring the files back but they didn't work and I had to reinstall everything - slightly daunting at first but it didn't take too long (just an unplanned activity). The photos moved back no problem. I even had to re-download adobe reader and cute pdf as these didn't work and the ghostscript you need for the cute pdf. Norton had to be re-loaded too.

After all that - what I like about Windows 7:
Pin to the taskbar / start menu or desktop - so any programmes or documents can be easily pinned to an accessible point. Pinning to the taks bar also means that by scrolling over these icons with the mouse you can gain a preview of the document / programe concerned.

Snap - if you have two documents open and you want to see them side by side, drag one to the left and one to the right (or one to the top and one to the top) and it immediately snaps them to the side and re-sizes them equally.

Jump Lists - so all your latest documents you have used can easily be jumped to from the start menu, this can be cleared and activated and deactivated.


Peek - if you got a few documents open you can hover over a transparent square in the bottom right of the top document and it makes all your open documents transparent so that you can see your desktop and gadgets and programmes.

Shake - again lots of documents open and you want to focus on just one but not close any down then just click and hold down your mouse on the document you want open and shake your mouse - the other documents disappear - do it again and the other documents magically appear.

Just like Vista you get Movie Maker and DVD Creator - I love these and have used them to transpose my mini DVDs into proper DVDs and I love trying out the special effects.

This operating system is clean and simple to get to grips with, particularlyif you are upgrading from Vista. Particularly from the upgrade advisor view point although it wasn't correct about the upgrade the information on the RAM was key.

I think its got some useful gizmos that Vista doesn't but whether I would have paid the full price for it is a different thing - I think it computes (no pun intended) to better value at the ultimate steal price.

Summary: Glad I've got it - but full price is too much

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