An Architect's View

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An Architect's View

Windows 7

January 10, 2009 · 7 Comments

Lemming-like, I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta this afternoon and installed it under VMWare Fusion to see how it compares to XP and Vista. I chose the 64-bit version since folks had said part of my problem with Vista was that I'd (foolishly) used the 32-bit version. My first impression is "Meh! It's Vista with a paint job and a tune-up!". I'd forgotten that Adobe Flash Player doesn't support 64-bit but, interestingly, whilst Windows 7 has 64-bit IE8, it won't let you set it as the default browser so you have to specifically choose the 64-bit version (which definitely seems to run faster than the 32-bit version of IE8). The first thing I tried to install was Google Chrome. "Aw snap!" says Chrome - it doesn't work on 64-bit Windows 7. [Update: see my comment below about --in-process-plugins] So I installed Adobe Flash Player in IE8 32-bit and then hit the Broadchoice web site and installed Workspace for Salesforce. With the Flash Player installed, the AIR + Workspace installation was smooth as expected and it runs well. I'll probably try installing Safari and Firefox next and see how those behave.
Safari behaves well. QuickTime is a bit choppy on the audio but that's probably to be expected in a VM. I should have mentioned that whilst I tried to run Vista with 768MB, I only gave Windows 7 512MB like my XP VM and it's still running "acceptably" which might be due to using the 64-bit version or the performance improvements Microsoft claim to have made.
View count: 2017

Tags: microsoft

7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 William from Lagos // Jan 11, 2009 at 7:29 AM

    So Sean, grade your experience thus far, on a scale of 1 to 10

  • 2 Sean Corfield // Jan 11, 2009 at 10:35 AM

    Well, it still feels like a downgrade from XP (although Windows 7 right now feels like an upgrade from Vista). Bit too early to grade it.

  • 3 TheBeam // Jan 12, 2009 at 7:01 PM



    Seriously? Didn't they just release Vista? I'm so not impressed with Microsoft. And I went out exploring and finally uploaded the latest Linux OS, Ubuntu. Way way better if you asked me!! Not only is it completely free but it's better, user friendly and to get software, you just click the equivilent of the start menu, hit 'add software' and the OS searches the net for you and gives you a list of things that you can click to install. No downloads, no hassles and no money!!! It rocks.

    Check out the link which has screenshots, a more detailed review and download links:
    http://www.generopolis.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=0&sobi2Id=123&Itemid=0

    And no, this isn't spam...I just want to give people interested in Windows 7 a better option. Enjoy!

  • 4 Sean Corfield // Jan 12, 2009 at 10:49 PM

    @TheBeam, yeah, Ubuntu is pretty sweet. That's my other VM on my Mac :)

  • 5 Sean Corfield // Jan 13, 2009 at 2:45 PM

    An update on Google Chrome. It *will* run on Windows 7 but you need to update the shortcut to add --in-process-plugins to the Target.

  • 6 Phillip Senn // Jan 21, 2009 at 9:59 AM

    Sean, do you use Virtual PC or VMWare?

  • 7 Sean Corfield // Jan 21, 2009 at 10:38 AM

    VMWare Fusion.

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