Windows 7 First Impression

Am I growing a cynic, or is this a case being an Apple 'fanboy'? Even though I think I'm open-minded in the world of Operating Systems, I seem to be less and less fond of the latest Microsoft CLIENT Operating Systems. Note the all caps 'client' word. I have no problem whatsoever with the server versions (so far).

Today I installed Windows 7 Enterprise (MSDN edition) on a spare SATA disk in my work laptop (Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook E8310). Initially installing the OS wasn't the problem. The bad things happened when I wanted to install the drivers and work-related software.

I must note that this review might not be very representative. My experience with Vista is about 8 hours total, and as you will find out later on; Windows 7 added about 4 hours today.

Anyway, back to the 'review';
The installation takes (almost) no user input whatsoever. Only things the OS needs to know are;

• clean install or upgrade
• regional settings
• username with a password

The first time Windows booted, I was already getting annoyed with the bouncing / rotating balls in the boot splash screen. They could have used the resources for creating this (either in functionality development ($$$) of the OS, or in speeding up booting the system) for booting faster instead of using CPU-cycles.

For comparison; Apple has a tiny spinning wheel to indicate that the system is booting, no splash screen, and is less expensive (probably $29 USD for an upgrade).

As soon as I logged on I was greeted with (basically) the same eye-candy as Vista. Opening a folder showed another item which is part of a big Internet discussion; File extensions are hidden by default... Showing those again takes a degree in engineering (basically using Google).
After this the 'annoyances' kept building up.

Network connectivity: Extremely good wizard for connecting to wireless networks. Since I use both wired and wireless I like to see what interface is sending and receiving traffic (or even connected). In Windows XP you can show the connectivity icons in taskbar tray. After needing the help function (read: Google) I found the location of the network adapters, and no way of showing the icons on the bar.
I know that this is also not available on Apple OS X, but that OS always lacked the functionality. They didn't remove it.

Enabling hardware (unknown devices), and supplying the correct drivers: There were no specific Windows 7 drivers on the Fujitsu website. The availability of the drivers might be related to the fact that Windows 7 isn't released to the public yet (somewhere in October 2009). So I had to pick the Windows Vista drivers. Assuming that those might work as well, Well, some did and some didn't. Biggest issue is the 32 versus 64bit OS. Not every piece of software (or even the driver) is available in a 64bit version.

Windows XP was available in a 64bit version. Now, over 5 years later there're still system software and drivers available in a 32bit version only.
Note that this isn't the fault of Microsoft only. But it really hurts the adaption of the OS.
Sure, I could install the 32bit version of Windows 7, but I want to take full advantage of the available hardware resources (>3.25GB RAM). Something which isn't possible with the 32bit version.

After installing all the drivers (at least those that would actually install), I still had three unknown devices. No way of finding out what they did or getting those to work, so I disabled them.

After installing FireFox (IE still sucks) I started installing other mission-critical applications. Several applications and warning later I needed a reboot. A reboot that took like 10 minutes. After booting Windows notified that the system crashed during shutdown.... After that, no reboot (or shutdown) functioned properly.
So Windows was already broken, and that only after 2 hours.

The hard disk containing the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition is lying alone in a corner on my desk. Waiting to get erased for some other OS to test.

Will try it again (only once more), when Fujitsu has updated the drivers for the E8310. Until that time I will stick with Windows XP (@work), Apple OS X (@home), and the occasional Linux distro (@wherever).

I will however install Windows 7 in a virtual machine to get acquainted with the OS. Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean that clients won't start using the OS, and start making phone calls about websites/software/drivers not functioning properly.