mr_pikachu
29th September 2009, 11:59 AM
So, a friend of mine has a special deal with Windows 7 where he gets a free copy for beta testing it and for throwing "release" parties featuring the new OS... more on the parties in a minute.
The other day, he was showing me the copy he installed on his computer two weeks ago, and it's insane -- at least, compared with Vista. Basically, it's got Vista's flashiness with XP's speed (he actually argues that it's faster than XP, and I have a hard time disagreeing). Searches now have an option where you can see the contents of text-based files (and they grab all indexed files within about three seconds), the widgets are still there (but they don't take up a whole sidebar), numerous codecs come pre-installed -- to the surprise of us both, even .mov files play without an outside install! -- your background can now work as a slideshow without any noticeable processor slowdown, the Start menu shows recent files used for each program so you can jump straight to them, and even programs like Photoshop open in a couple of seconds as opposed to minutes. The list goes on, but yeah... it's flashy, yet really fast.
Anyway, that's not the point of this post. That same friend is hosting a "Windows 7 release party" where he's authorized to give free copies of the OS to anyone who attends. I'm considering taking a break on that weekend and heading to his house for a bit, just to grab a copy of it. After all, Vista's been a disaster, and I don't really want to use it on my laptop anymore. (I'm sorry, but it's got a 2.8 GHz processor. It should not be this slow.) I'm just wondering if anyone else has heard about these parties or is going to one of them. It sounds like a sweet deal to me... what are your thoughts?
The other day, he was showing me the copy he installed on his computer two weeks ago, and it's insane -- at least, compared with Vista. Basically, it's got Vista's flashiness with XP's speed (he actually argues that it's faster than XP, and I have a hard time disagreeing). Searches now have an option where you can see the contents of text-based files (and they grab all indexed files within about three seconds), the widgets are still there (but they don't take up a whole sidebar), numerous codecs come pre-installed -- to the surprise of us both, even .mov files play without an outside install! -- your background can now work as a slideshow without any noticeable processor slowdown, the Start menu shows recent files used for each program so you can jump straight to them, and even programs like Photoshop open in a couple of seconds as opposed to minutes. The list goes on, but yeah... it's flashy, yet really fast.
Anyway, that's not the point of this post. That same friend is hosting a "Windows 7 release party" where he's authorized to give free copies of the OS to anyone who attends. I'm considering taking a break on that weekend and heading to his house for a bit, just to grab a copy of it. After all, Vista's been a disaster, and I don't really want to use it on my laptop anymore. (I'm sorry, but it's got a 2.8 GHz processor. It should not be this slow.) I'm just wondering if anyone else has heard about these parties or is going to one of them. It sounds like a sweet deal to me... what are your thoughts?