I like trying new stuff out. I figure that my technet subscription is a big playground where I can download, install, and run a variety of server and workstation OS offerings from the guys up north. I’m using Server 2008 as a desktop by applying the logic found here and now my older Thinkpad T43 is sporting a new Windows 7 RC look. I enjoyed the enGadget Review but had planned on doing this anyways since the T43 seemed dog slow on Vista. Let me just say that on this older Thinkpad, that Windows 7 RC moves right along. It boots faster, runs cleaner, has less of those mysterious Windows stops and the interface is actually pleasant to look at. I came up with a few things to like about the RC:
- Its not Vista. That’s the greatest thing to be said for it. My work laptop runs Vista but that may change tomorrow since I have a 500g SATA drive for it. Its a finicky Lenovo T500 so perhaps that will be a good test for the RC.
- Secondly, its kinder to more mature hardware. Yay! It actually gets along well with my Centrino powered laptop.
- Finally, every application I’ve tossed at it runs quite well and I’ve loaded up Office 2007 Professional Pro, Visio, OneNote, Project. Double Yay!!
I happen to think of operating systems as playgrounds for this and that. The most likely and fertile playground for me is Ubuntu. There is more that can be done, touched, changed there than most places. I’ve had to move a bit away from doing the Linux only thing though because work requirements have come along which makes me have to run Windows stuff. As you can probably guess, I’m a toolsy guy. I use what works.
If you’re looking for some fun, and I think Windows 7 is a bit of fun; give it a try. There is a lot to like in this release. It sports a simpler, faster, nicer interface. It runs on old hardware decently. Its like someone there heard many people whispering “simplify”.
Now the challenge for the guys in Redmond is to keep things simple and not feel challenged to dope the interface up like Vista’s default. BTW, you can dumb down Vista’s and get something to run decently. Just turn off the themes, the gooey goodness that turns it into mush, and go over the services that you just don’t need. After that, Vista may not be lean, mean computing machine; but its at a decent level. Took me about 2 hours of scouring the web and finding crap that it does that it don’t need to. That’s compared to Windows 7 which seems to have most of that stuff right.
