I Don't Think I'll Be Upgrading to Windows 7

[landbeforetimelover]

Well, I think I'll be exclusively on Vista for the next year at least.  Quite frankly I don't have the money to upgrade all my machines.  I'm real big on legal software, so I won't pirate it except for testing and learning purposes.  On top of the fact that I have no money, Windows 7 significantly complicates networking with "Home Group."  I have yet to successfully network a Windows 7 computer into my Windows Vista exclusive (well, except for my mom's G5 Imac) home network.  Networking is so EASY with Vista.  It's certainly a thousand times easier than XP.  Windows 7....let's not even go there.

The problem is, Microsoft dumbed down networking so everyday users could use it.  You can no longer just access computers by typing in their username and password.  Now you just have 1 password for all computers on your network (this is REALLY insecure BTW) and it has to be some wacko 16 digit password with capital letters, numbers, and symbols. I'm not gonna lie here.  ALL my passwords are exclusively numerical and range from 5-27 digits, so this complicates things considerably.

Nah.  Windows 7 just isn't for me, especially since MS finally fixed Vista so it's decent.  I'm sure some hacker's gonna reprogram the networking part of 7 and distribute a cracked version of Windows 7 online.  Then I'll just remove the cracks and activate it legally.  My computers are too interdependent on one another to not have them networked together.  I like being able to make or download a file on one computer then be able to access it from any other computer on the network without even having to transfer it.

I also can't stand the control panel in Windows 7.  It sucks so badly.  They got rid of classic view.  Okay, I've been using classic view since the Windows 95 days.  The category view was bad enough, but at least you could put it back to classic.  Now they've got like these tiles that you can't change to classic and they just don't work for me.

Windows 7 is a great OS, but they should have left networking to the experts and kept the classic wonderfulness view in the control panel.  I also don't really like the new taskbar.  I like being able to see what my open windows are called.  Just having one huge icon is pretty useless.  If you can't see the icons in the previous operating systems, you must be blind. : It looks slick, but most of it I'll never use.  I'll stick with Vista till I can get a new way of networking with Windows 7.

[raga]

I understand your complaints, you're very justified.  I'm surprised that they dumbed down networking without the option to make it complicated again if you wanted.  Thats was always the main reason I though windows was better then mac, windows was easy to use for new users but gave advance users options to do much more advanced things.  Mac, not so much

[DarkHououmon]

Personally I like the new control panel more than the old one. One of the reasons I like it more is because it's much easier for me to check for updates for the computer using this scheme.

[2007excalibur2007]

it's much easier for me to check for updates for the computer using this scheme.

Don't you already have Automatic Updates doing that job for you?

[JitteryDragon]

Automatic updates loves to install stuff I don't want anywhere near my PC, but that's just me.

[DarkHououmon]

it's much easier for me to check for updates for the computer using this scheme.

Don't you already have Automatic Updates doing that job for you?

They don't update right away. On this PC, they are downloaded but not installed until I either do it myself or turn the computer off, where they are installed automatically.

[Petrie.]

You should always have automatic updates download, but you tell what you want installed.  Ever since I got SP3 to go on my machine, I've updated regularly to avoid a "broken machine" like I had lived with for about two years (some updates would break other things because drivers were mismatched).  It was really nasty but you wouldn't know it unless I told you.  The task of getting SP3 to install convinced me to update when they put them out to avoid this issue again.

[landbeforetimelover]

Windows updates aren't nearly as crucial as Microsoft would like you to think.  I've run non-legit Windows for a long time in the past.....even on my main machine.  On my current machines (which all have legal versions of Windows on them now BTW), I don't download updates unless I know EXACTLY what they're going to do.  I don't just download every single update that becomes available.  Now that CAN lead to problems.  Windows updates can really screw you, especially if you have custom or added hardware (i.e. a graphics card that didn't originally come with your computer).  The bottom line is, Windows updates are rarely crucial.  An update to patch Excel so that a hacker can't get into it.  What sort of novice uses Excel to gain access to a computer? : They're just gonna look around in it, and there's no harm in that.  If they were a serious threat, they'd attack something that's actually vital that would actually give them some control.

Windows updates really only serve one purpose; to protect MS's investment and crack down on people using illegal versions of Windows.  Now service packs....that's another story.  Service packs ARE crucial.  But it doesn't really matter if you've got a legit version of Windows or not.  Just don't download the service pack directly from MS and you'll be fine.

Now there have been two or three times in all of MS history that a Windows update was actually crucial, but that's really rare.  And by the time MS finally releases an update to fix the problem, the criminal has already been arrested and has rotten in jail for a year (and during that time, they've released 14 anti-piracy updates). : No.  They really couldn't care less about your safety.  If they did, they'd release a free antivirus/spyware program with Windows.

[DarkHououmon]

Here's a video demonstrating the importance of Windows updates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roTgk_SrMw

[landbeforetimelover]

The fact of the matter is, anyone can post a vid to Youtube.  He's probably a MS employee who was paid to do something like that.  Updates are rarely important if you've got anti-virus and other types of protection.  If he's not a MS employee, he's just been bamboozled like everyone else into thinking that MS updates are so important.  The OS belongs to MS, so they can make it say whatever they want....no matter if it's true or not.  Who's gonna check up on 'em?  Now I've checked out the Windows OS personally and I know they don't steal your information or download stuff to your computer without your explicit consent, but as to updates.....I'm just not sure.  I haven't seen any evidence that any of these "crucial" updates do anything.  And by evidence, I don't mean some guy telling me they're crucial.  I mean in the Windows code.  Granted, the Java code is a bit confusing to me, but other friends of mine have checked it out too and aren't convinced that updates are all they're cracked up to be (no pun intended).

[DarkHououmon]

The last I checked on Service Packs, they contain all the important/crucial updates. So by saying Service Packs are crucial, that's pretty much the same thing as saying Windows Updates are crucial far as I'm concerned. Service Packs come preloaded with all past important/crucial updates.

[landbeforetimelover]

While service packs do include all previous updates, they fundamentally change the way Windows works as well.  A service pack isn't just a bunch of Windows updates put into a single installer.  This is why many older programs will work with XP SP1 and 2, but not with SP3.  An older version of Audacity (like 2005) will not work with XP SP3 even though it says it's compatible with XP.  Service packs can even change the way Windows looks and feels.  For example, in XP SP1, the boot screen progress indicator was green.  In SP2 and 3 however, it's blue.