You're a bit late on your reviews. Most of those happened a year and a half ago.

The points mentioned above, especially about installing it on older machines, are very old news. Win7 has a quite a few quirks on old hardware. Usually this has to do with driver issues on the old hardware. Driver problems causing BSOD have always been a difficult point for Windows. Even going back to WinNT and Win95, buggy drivers were the biggest source of system stability issues. User programs are isolated and easy to kill, but drivers get inside the guts of the system, causing BSOD issues.

'sooner123' said:

The task bar and quick launch icons were downgraded in functionality. I made a few changes to restore it to the Windows xp look and restore the functionality and efficiency.

why do you think they are a downgrade? That's actually one of my favorite parts.

Because Windows XP was powerful enough to, by default, allow you to select programs you have open in one click.

Windows 7 is not powerful enough to, by default, avoid you having to first click the "type" button. In other words if you have a bunch of instances of chrome open, you have to click your big chrome icon THEN click the instance you want to popup. Windows 7 required me to use some of my own powers to restore this functionality.

Since one of the metrics I use to measure the power of an OS is the ease and efficiency of use, in that respect, Windows 7's taskbar lacks much of the strength, stamina, intellect, spirit, and agility of Windows XP's taskbar.

@sooner123
IIRC Windows XP groups task bar entries belonging to the same app together by default. (?)
I also think the Win7 taskbar is pretty efficient. I remember it being a pretty big mess to have more than a few windows open in xp.
I like the functionality to start new program instances by middle-clicking on taskbar icons. I like the hover preview. I like the new notification area.

All in all I think Win7 is probably the best windows yet, never had problems with automatic driver updates either, a functionality that *never* worked for me in xp.

@sooner123
IIRC Windows XP groups task bar entries belonging to the same app together by default. (?)
I also think the Win7 taskbar is pretty efficient. I remember it being a pretty big mess to have more than a few windows open in xp.
I like the functionality to start new program instances by middle-clicking on taskbar icons. I like the hover preview. I like the new notification area.

All in all I think Win7 is probably the best windows yet, never had problems with automatic driver updates either, a functionality that *never* worked for me in xp.

I also think it's the best windows yet.

I also like the preview.

But I don't think Windows XP grouped similar task bar entries together. At least not the version I used.

I'm using home premium 64 bit for almost a year or something, and zero blue screen, rarely crash (if it does, it because the software i'm using, or i'm pushing certain thing to the limit).

personally, IMHO, i can say that this is the best window yet.

on a dual display or widescreen this makes most sense. Items still group but its still a single click away.

I can also see my window titles at a glance. I never tab between windows, its easier to click.

vertical space is more expensive than horizontal space.

on a dual display or widescreen this makes most sense. Items still group but its still a single click away.

I can also see my window titles at a glance. I never tab between windows, its easier to click.

vertical space is more expensive than horizontal space.

Agreed, but why are you using Windows 98?

On Windows 7 they totally changed the quiklaunch bar...basically, they completely removed it and added the that whole 'pin to the start bar' functionality.

I found you could actually put the quicklaunch bar back in! It has even been upgraded, in that you can have the usual small icons as well as larger ones...

here's how to do it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975784

But I don't think Windows XP grouped similar task bar entries together. At least not the version I used.

It did if you had many instances and a lot of windows open. Most of the time this isn't the case, but I find the new version at least as usable as the old version, but much easier to use in situations where the old version would group similar things.

Go into outlook and open a handful of emails to the point where your bar is full, then it will shrink them into one entry. If you are replying to an email and have that email open, the description for the two is exactly the same if you click the outlook tab in the bar. It also won't re-expand them until you have it back down to a single instance.

Having frequently used programs pinned to your task bar is also awesome imo. Keeps extra stuff off the desktop, and since they are open most of the time anyway it makes sense that they be there.

I bought a Sony Vaio with Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit on it nearly a year ago and it was been running beautifully ever since I bought it. I've never had a single BSOD. I've had a few issues connecting with some WiFi routers, but that isn't something I would think is actually Window's fault.