Dell's Early Windows 7 Impressions

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Millions of users have been testing Windows 7 thanks to the release of the public beta earlier this year. Now let’s hear what Dell has to say about its experiences.

Dell, one of the largest computer makers in the world, shared briefly some of its experiences from its internal testing of Windows 7.

“Over the last month we have been testing hundreds of Dell systems and the results are promising,” wrote Daniel Judd, Dell product strategist.

In comparison to Windows Vista, Dell found noticeable improvements in boot to desktop times. We already knew that Microsoft is not only fine tuning boot speed, but also working with OEMs to reduce boot-slowing bloatware.

Dell also reports good things about compatibility. Almost all existing Vista drivers are working, and testers say application compatibility is promising as well, including the IE8 compatibility mode.

Overall performance is upgraded, with tests of transcoding media files being faster than the latest Windows Vista builds.

By now many of you who are interested in Windows 7 may have already gotten your own hands-on time with the betas. Are the findings reported by Dell enough to make you upgrade from Vista or even XP?

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • yingwuzhao
    no, I don't like Vista, nor Win7 that I tried out. After all the time I spent on testing win7, I went back to linux, where I have the full control.

    I am thinking the only reason people don't use linux is they do not know how and the learning curve is slightly long, what if most people understand linux, will there still be anybody use windows? I doubt, seriously.(by then suppose all games are perfectly compatible in linux)
    Reply
  • B-Unit
    Been running the Win7 beta exclusively on my main machine since its release. There are a few oddities, mostly caused by being 'beta' (Your current operating system is not supported) but beyond that rock solid and very user friendly. Boot times are also amazing.

    As much as I hate to give M$ any more money,(already bought 2 Vista licences) I think I'm gonna have a copy of Win7 on day 1.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    It's better than Vista but not revolutionary in any sense. Reminds me of the XP -> XP SP2 improvements. I know one developer that is using the beta regularly (MSDN) but I don't know anyone else that is planning to upgrade (even Vista users).
    Reply
  • lexspecialis
    i'll definitely upgrade to Win7 from my current XP. It just so happens that i'm about to upgrade my machine too, so, all the better.. :)
    Reply
  • Honestly I have had a much better experience with windows 7. I have been using it since a motherboard swap was done on my Asus G2s and everything has been running not only smoothly but even better than it did with Vista. I haven't had the chance to update it to the leaked 7070 Build yet but even so the official 7000 build is still many times better than Vista and I would even say a great improvement over XP.

    Prior to the beta release I knew I would upgrade to atmost the Premium version, but now after actually using just this Beta Ultimate release I do see myself purchasing the Official 7 Ultimate
    Reply
  • erikstarcher
    yingwuzhaoI am thinking the only reason people don't use linux is they do not know how and the learning curve is slightly long, what if most people understand linux, will there still be anybody use windows? I doubt, seriously.(by then suppose all games are perfectly compatible in linux)
    What you fail to understand is the utter lack of user knowledge. Mac's advertise that you don't need to know anything, and with Linux, you need to know way too much for the average user. Windows Vista and "7" are moving too much (IMO) towards the dumbed down Mac OS. If most people knew enough about the operating system there would be a lot less windows issues, because most of the issues are user inflicted. Asking users to become smarter to use a computer is never going to happen.
    Reply
  • tayb
    yingwuzhaono, I don't like Vista, nor Win7 that I tried out. After all the time I spent on testing win7, I went back to linux, where I have the full control. I am thinking the only reason people don't use linux is they do not know how and the learning curve is slightly long, what if most people understand linux, will there still be anybody use windows? I doubt, seriously.(by then suppose all games are perfectly compatible in linux)
    I will paraphrase this comment for you.

    "I have looked at video footage of Windows 7. I am a linux fan boy. I will not try Windows 7. I love linux."
    Reply
  • deminicus
    One thing I would like to point out is that the move from vista to 7 will be easier than xp to 7. A lot of this has to do with what experience the user is accustomed to. Doing things the xp way is not the same as in vista. Some people don't want to change their ways and therefor will have the most issues with a switch. I still see some people use vista like it was a win 98 machine.

    Another thing is that vista and 7 is that they are version 6 and 6.1 respectively. That's much less a difference than xp to 7.

    So basically if you are still using xp you will have to flex your abilities to adapt a bit more than if you had vista.

    As for me, once I retrained myself to use vista I would never go back to xp. Probably will be the same with 7.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    +1 Well said, one of the best comments here.
    Reply
  • Greatwalrus
    yingwuzhaono, I don't like Vista, nor Win7 that I tried out. After all the time I spent on testing win7, I went back to linux, where I have the full control. I am thinking the only reason people don't use linux is they do not know how and the learning curve is slightly long, what if most people understand linux, will there still be anybody use windows? I doubt, seriously.(by then suppose all games are perfectly compatible in linux)
    Yeah that's pretty much exactly what I did. Left Linux as main desktop after about a year for a couple months to use Vista, then Win7 came out and I used that for maybe a month before I yawned back to Linux, where I have full control - like you said.

    Honestly, I don't care if some people don't use Linux. I'm perfectly fine with the number using it now. I just wish it were more known and respected :)
    Reply