What do u like about Win7 over XP?

Thought I'd kick this thread off as a resource to encourage laggers like me to embrace change. Most likely all of us co-habitated with XP some point in our lives.

Tell us the things you find in Win7 that are head & shoulders over XP's way of doing things.

 

Windows firewall with advanced security, UAC, Windows Integrity control, and Applocker (in Ultimate & Enterprise versions). Of course Vista introduced some of these enhancements.

 

I dont use any of what you mentioned personalleh

UAC - annoying useless crap
BitLocker - useless for meh


I just like the interface more modern, and the fact that there is a proper 64 bit vesion so I can make use of more than 3.2 GB of RAM

 

I like that it is or seems to me more like Linux. Also I like separate windows snapping to the edges of the screen.

 

Actually I forgot to mention proper support of 64 bit hardware.

 

Aero Snap. I can't live without this feature and it's what kept me from Ubuntu until 12.04 had it built in.

Security. Integrity levels, separation of root and user (REAL separation, not what XP implemented in SP2), ASLR, SEHOP.

Better hardware acceleration available to applications - really important for games, which need DX10.

Performance. Prefetch, Superfetch, etc. Far better multicore performance and SSD performance. Other improvements there.

I like explorer a *lot* more. I find XP's interface so ugly.

And a bunch of other stuff.

 

Two things which immediately come to mind are the excellent troubleshooting feature, and the greatly improved driver support.

For troubleshooting, you can go to Devices & Printers, and then right click on you are having problems with and then select Troubleshoot, and Windows will then do it's best to solve any problems you are having with that device. It works surprisingly well. Some examples of issues it has solved for me are the following. A usb headset had no sound. A friend had issues with his digital SLR camera. This particular camera when plugged in would not show under explorer like a usb flash drive, but Google's Picasa would recognize the camera and could download pictures from the camera. However it was no longer being recognized by Picasa - troubleshooting fixed this. A final example was with issues with printing, Windows found and fixed an issue with the print queue, and everything was working again.

Also, if the is a exclamation mark shown on the icon for your computer in Devices and Printers, you can right click on the computer and icon and get Windows to troubleshoot the problems it has found. The most common problem, seems to missing or non functioning device drivers. Windows 7 does a very good job of resolving these driver issues, and in some cases where an appropriate driver can be installed automatically by Windows, a download link to download the driver manually is offered via the Action Center.

There are of course many more reason why Windows 7 is better than XP.

 

Aside from everything mentioned already...

The installer. Takes like half as long as XP.

The faster, friendlier, non-IE-based update system.

UAC acting like UNIX's su. I know RunAs existed long before, but the new system is far better (it keeps your user's environment variables).

Sandboxing that can actually contain a useful application, instead of just breaking everything (like RunAs).

SRP being much easier to implement. You can use Admin authentication mode; this way UAC elevation will always prompt for a password, mitigating (AFAIK!) the need for a "pure" limited account.

No spaces in the top-level directory names! GNU utilities tend to choke when fed spaces, so this is actually a really good thing.

Better functionality in Process Explorer (at least per Mark Russinovich).

Win7's taskbar is more useful than XP's (though I do find the mini-window tooltips vexing).

 

Personally, the greatly-reduced boot and shutdown times make Win7 worth the price of admission in my book....

 

so far then nothing i need
i've never had trouble getting drivers
i can get xp to look as i want
long live xp

 

Easily the best feature and its not even close. My Win 7 machine (SSD helps a lot) boots up in 30 seconds including password. I turn on my XP machine and then do upstairs and so something while it boots up. It takes so long I've never even timed it....I don't wait around.

 

Nothin stands out for me.Ive used plenty of others pcs using windows 7,wasnt nothin to get excited about.

 

Looks better. Better security. Latest and greatest. Better game support.

Other than some easily-fixed BSOD problems I had, Windows 7 has worked flawlessly.

 

1. Stability
2. Stability
3. Stability

I never experienced a BSOD under Windows 7 - don't know why but with XP BSODs was a daily nightmare, not to mention the viruses I got every time I went to the Microsoft website for updates.

 

I must add something that is hard to describe how much I hate about Windows 7 (and Vista too) the removal of the ability to a repair install by booting from the installation DVD. Yes, you can do the same by running the install DVD from Windows, however this is useless if Windows refuses to boot. I've encountered several BSODs which prevented Windows from booting which sadly I was unable to fix, which most likely could have been fixed by doing a repair install.

For the record, startup repair has nothing at all to do with doing a repair install. Also the BSODs I experienced were due to software issues not faulty hardware.

 

You're lucky. I've experienced countless BSODs under Windows 7.

 

Well it looks a LOT better than XP, is fast and comes with default drivers saving me tons of time, specially with laptops . . .

 

What do u like about Win7 over XP?

-Stability

-Interface

-Driver Support

-Performance

 

So far, improved 64-bit support is the one big differentiator for me.
The rest is pretty much the same.
Mrk

 

1. How do you get around Win7's landscape resolutions with a relatively squarish XP_ monitor? Can one adjust to say 1024x768 or do u have to upgrade the monitor?
   
2. My friend & I had a big ceremony awhile back. He had picked up a pair of Kingston Hyper DD2 RAM 2x2gb 2nd hand & bargain priced. We gathered at the PC to lay the old 1gb sticks to rest & insert an XPer's dream - 4gb of RAM (or whatever the reduced capacity was). Afterall, word around town was that put 4gb into an XP & it'll be so full of 'VROOOM' you'll have to bolt the tower to the desk. Well, we plugged 'em in and to this day, we're still not sure if anything changed. Miniscule improvements here & there. But nothing to justify the hype. Is 4gb on 64 bit an easily seen & acknowledged improvement in performance??

 

Better GUI, faster, more secure & stable.

 

End of mainstream support: 01/12/2015
End of extended support: 01/14/2020

 

Here's what I like in Win7 over XP:

Better driver support
- When I first made a clean install of Win7 on this laptop (used to dual boot XP and Vista), the default drivers worked fine, missing only 1 driver, which I then got from Windows Update. Apart from that, I only had to install Realtek HD Audio driver to get better sound quality.

Navigation
Win 7 Superbar, esp these
- Taskbar buttons (Always combine, hide labels)
- Thumbnail previews
Aero Snap
Libraries
Start Menu (didn't like it initially but that changed)

Performance
Superfetch (it didn't quite worked for me in Vista but in Win7, there are improvements to how Superfetch manages memory, quieter and more selective)
Built-in defrag improved compared to XP (although I prefer 3rd-party tools)

Built-in Security
ASLR
SEHOP
Integrity levels
UAC (although I would set it at "Always Notify")
SRP (better implementation due to redesigned APIs)
Applocker (if you've got Ultimate or Enterprise)
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

Recovery
System Restore better than in XP (although I tend to disable it)
Windows built-in Imaging

Others
Windows Update utility
IE9 on Win7
(IE9 don't run on XP. Not a fanboy but I find IE9 better than IE7/IE

Lastly, comparing the default looks of XP and Win7, I'd say I prefer the latter. When I used XP, I usually used Zune theme or a 3rd-party theme (I missed those days). Heck, there was even a time I even made parts it look like Win7

I hope I'm not misinterpreting you but you may want to have a look at these:
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

For me it offers some different security tools to use, like Integrity Levels. Not much difference to XP though overall in terms of whether I have any issues with security.

What clinches it for me are the little features that enhance my productivity, like the wiggle action to minimize other windows, or easy side by side arranging of windows, etc.

Otherwise, if it runs what I want it to, and isn't slower, its just another OS to use.

Sul.

 

The one thing that really does bug me about 7 is that the 32-bit version still doesn't support 4+ GB of RAM, even though it definitely supports PAE. Why the heck not? With Vista they had to worry about driver compatibility, but 7 uses a new driver API, so even that isn't an issue.