Windows 7 has been released to the computing world and most reviews of it thus far have been done by tech. specialists who focus on either negative or positive aspects of the OS. It's time to get real feedback from people who actually use it, not just critique it. So let us know, what about Windows 7 do you find useful? What do you like or dislike? Or what do you deem just plain useless? Also, let us know if you haven't made the switch to Seven and why?

DEATH TO THE SIDEBAR!! Windows 7 has murdered the sidebar from starting-up with windows. Now, in order to place any of those useless sidebar "gadgets" on your desktop, you have to manually right click and select "Gadgets" from the dialog box. There isn't even a start-up process to terminate the stupid thing, Microsoft does it for you by simply not including it! So for all those who actually used the sidebar, perhaps you should stick with vista. Or, learn to use the computer without the sidebar, thereby creating a faster start-up time, more RAM for your computer to distribute to something useful rather than wasting it on running and maintaining the sidebar, and cleaning up your desktop so it's not filled with useless nonsense like a Clock or a Picture Puzzle. Hello, the taskbar has a clock, why would we need another clock? Anyway, this is simply my opinion of the Sidebar and its overall uselessness. If I have offended you, I am sorry, I meant no harm to those of you still using the dreaded sidebar.

Yes, I have always found the big circular clock incredibly useless and wondered why people even have it on there in the first place.

What makes me irk even more is when I see people who buy a new Dell laptop filled with crap pre-installed and they think that's just how a computer runs, but they don't realize that the first thing they need to do is do a fresh clean install.

But many people are not very tech savvy to do that.

The first thing I ever do when I buy a new computer is do a clean install to rid the system of all the manufacturer crap. Most of the time it's useless anyway, and a lot of the time if you check your processes in the task manager, the manufacturer has supplied you with loads of useless extra junk running in the background. This stuff could greatly reduce your performance if not immediately terminated. The easiest way to terminate it is to run "msconfig" from the search bar in the start menu, go to the "start up" tab and disable anything that has to do with the manufacturer of your computer (Dell, Acer, HP, Compaq, etc...). But even doing it this way, the programs are still on your Hard Drive. So if you are someone who knows what you're doing, run a clean install of your Operating System to rid the computer of its manufacturer software altogether, then you won't have to worry about it. And you'll notice a faster start-up time, and just overall better performance.

For Example:

My PC Info.
Acer AX1700-U3700A
Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2220 @ 2.40GHz
4.00 GB DDR2
64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate

Number of 'Out-Of-The-Box' processes running on first start-up: 52 processes
Average Start-Up time for factory defaults: 37 seconds

Number of 'Clean Install' processes running on first start-up: 33 processes
Average Start-Up time for clean install defaults: 22 seconds

As you can see, A Microsoft Windows OS minus The Manufacturer Junk equals a Happier Faster Windows!

The wonderful sidebar, I hate it so much. haha. I know people that use it and love it, but it slows the computer down so much. I run vista(sadly, I miss XP), but mine was never on by default thankfully so I never had to deal with it, but I see plenty of people with it still running. I just wonder how long it takes them to start their computer.

I heard windows 7 is nice, but not much different from vista, just an update with a different name for the most part.

That's really all it is. They used similar core files to vista and gave it a new User Interface as well as a new name. They learned way back when they released vista that changing the core files can screw lots of things up, which is why vista had lots of compatibility issues at its launch. Having learned their lesson, they released Windows 7 with very similar core files to vista, which is why I have had no problem installing anything I had running on vista or XP.

Sad things aside, I find Windows 7 to be very creative and simplistic. The explorer navigation tools have been completely redone (they kind of remind me of Mac OSX...Sorry Microsoft, you tried!). The background changer is kind of cool (yet again another similarity with Mac OSX). The "super-thick" task-bar is kind of annoying at first, but after a while you get use to it. The Start Menu they got right with Vista, so it hasn't changed much. And I think that's enough spoilers for now.

Here's a website that many Schools and Universities don't advertise for as they try and get you to buy the same products in their Book Store for full price. The Ultimate Steal is the best place for anyone with a .edu email address to get Microsoft products at extremely low prices. Currently they offer Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition for 59.95, it's a download but it's still cheap. If you want the disk I believe it's just an extra ten dollars and they'll send you the disk bringing the total cost to about $75 after taxes and shipping charges. If you go to BestBuy and purchase the same software, it'll cost you around $700 according to their website. Not only do they offer Office 2007 for very cheap, they also offer Windows 7 Professional Edition for $29.99, Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 for $55.95, and a Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 for $9.95. Just an FYI, Windows 7 Professional from BestBuy will run you around $300, again getting the price from their website. Just some deals I thought people might want to know about.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx

The best part of the .edu email address is that Microsoft doesn't attempt to confirm whether or not you're still a student. As long as you can open the confirmation email, you get the deal.

At my alma mater, you get to keep your .edu email address for life, so I qualified.

Yes, major flaw on Microsoft's behalf. My mom, who has been out of school for quite some time, used her .edu address from college and got a really cheap copy of Microsoft Office!