Ok, so who has Windows 7?

[poita]

Windows 7 was released a couple of days ago. Who has it? Any experiences you want to share?

I installed my Prof. edition last night. Overall it's a very snappy OS, although it has already managed to BSOD just staring at the desktop. The last time XP BSOD'd on me was a few years ago, so not very happy at the moment.

[vrnunes]

I installed the free RC on my Netbook. It runs fine, no problems yet.

[TheNut]

Heh, that's funny you bring that up. I just watched somebody's video review on performance and he was BSOD running a game.

I thought about getting it, but it's to expensive for my tastes. If they knock a hundred off the price I would strongly consider it, but for now XP and Linux are all I need. I'll probably end up waiting a year + SP1 to release along with price drops before I hop on.

[starstutter]

I have a friend who runs it on his laptop, upgraded from Vista I believe. He hasn't had any complaints so far.

[poita]

Well, I'm up to my second BSOD for today. Win7 isn't off to a good start.

[alphadog]

I have it on various (five to be exact) machines. Runs much better than Vista.

If you BSODed, did you do a clean install? (I never upgrade a Windows OS.)

The only issue I've had so far is that the Catalyst drivers seem to have some .Net dependencies that get screwed up by installing either SQL Server 2008 or VS 2008. The ATi forums cover it a little. It may be the VC++ 2008 redist, in which case as more people end up with it, ATi will eventually have to fix it.

[Wernaeh]

Currently, I'm still running Windows XP 64 Professional.

I guess Windows 7 still has that ugly Vista replace prompt when copying files around ?

Apart from that, if it is a lot faster than Vista just as Microsoft promised, I'll try it in a year or so, when there are the first service packs available.

Cheers,
- Wernaeh

[alphadog]

Windows 7's experience has been like Windows XP. A solid OS.

Think of Windows 7 like Vista SP3, and you can understand why it's pretty safe.

[vrnunes]

One interesting picture:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cschlaeger/JapanLinuxSymposium#5395358413061926434
( taken from article here: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/24/166241/A-Tale-of-Two-Windows-7s )

I would like to add that although I somewhat like Linux for all the ideology and the Unix basis etc, I really like it only as a server, or for embedded projects. For desktop development, *currently* I am of the opinion that Windows still beats by far.

Funny!

[poita]

@alphadog, yes it's a clean install on a freshly formatted HD.

I've done some searching and it appears to be related to Win7 awaking from sleep mode (which is when it has happened all 3 times).

[JarkkoL]

I have been using Win7 (64-bit, Ultimate) for about 2 months now, without any major issues really (with drivers or software). One annoying thing is the way directory browsing now works in Windows Explorer though (maybe it was the same in Vista, but I skipped straight from XP to Win7), but maybe it can be tweaked somewhere.

[roel]

I'm still running XP. Apparently I'm a conservative guy (if I had money for modern hardware and for a copy of Windows 7 things would might have been different though).

[.oisyn]

I'm waiting for my paycheck, then I'm going to buy a pair of 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives, put them in RAID 0, and then going to install Win7 on it :)

[Nick]

I've bought it on launch day, and I'm loving it so far.

When I had Vista the only thing keeping me from going back to XP was DirectX 10. While several service packs later stability was quite ok, it still felt like a compromise. With Windows 7 I finally got the feeling that it's a step forward on all fronts. I even believe Microsoft has held back some fixes for Vista to make 7 more compelling.

One thing I hated about Vista was that it started indexing your drives any time you did something. So when I wanted to benchmark some code I often had to wait like 10 minutes before the drives stopped ratterling. Windows 7 supports fast searching without any annoying indexing.

Something I discovered today is that it's way faster to detect USB devices as well. My wireless mouse has a receiver that is plugged into my monitor, and with Vista I had to wait an annoying 30 seconds after turning on my monitor, to be able to move the mouse. With Windows 7 it's like I never tuned off the monitor. And that's just one example of things that have become snappier.

The only thing that was less intuitive was how to get my Quick Launch icons back. There are standard icons for going to your Documents folder quickly but dobviously I want quick access to my entire drives as well. Anyway some sites already have a bunch of useful tips and tricks to customize that kind of things to your needs.
I guess Windows 7 still has that ugly Vista replace prompt when copying files around ?
I haven't noticed any differences between the two, but why do you think it's ugly? Or are you referring to UAC? That's practically completely gone and only pops up when you're trying to do stupid things.
One annoying thing is the way directory browsing now works in Windows Explorer though (maybe it was the same in Vista, but I skipped straight from XP to Win7), but maybe it can be tweaked somewhere.
I'm not sure if it can be tweaked, but personally I simply got used to it. In fact on my laptop with XP I sometimes miss that way of navigating. A mouse with a 'back' button is also very useful.

[poita]

I'm waiting for my paycheck, then I'm going to buy a pair of 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives, put them in RAID 0, and then going to install Win7 on it :)

Not going to try one of those new Intel SSDs that everyone raving about?

[moe]

I was forced to use Vista on my labtop since there were no more drivers for XP. It came with Vista home 32bit. It was a quite horrible experience. Crashed all over the place. Pretty much after every windows update you had to reinstall entirely. In all my previous years together I had less problems and less data loss... I then bought Vista 64 Ultimate and it ran quite stable but not very responsive. Some old games run horrible with major lag. Then I bought Win 7 64bit Ultimate pretty much when it came out. Even so the manufacture page provides some drivers there is none for the keyboard. So the keys dont work. It's actually not that much of a problem since I always have an external USB-Keyboard on which everything works fine. Still it's an annoying inconvinience. Though most of the vista drivers work for Win 7 you might want to check before you update.

Having said that, Win 7 runs much smoother and way more responsive. So far everything works great, except the keyboard... Old games like Quake run without any problems now and detecting devices is much faster as well.

One annoying thing is the way directory browsing now works in Windows Explorer though (maybe it was the same in Vista, but I skipped straight from XP to Win7), but maybe it can be tweaked somewhere.If you want the aero look, you are screwd. You can tweek it back to (almost) what XP was but then you dont get some of the new features. So it's either or, but not both. I agree the new directory browsing is aweful. It needs a lot getting used to.

The taskbar is now apparently called superbar. I dont think it's that super though. Essentially there are 2 changes compared to vista. The quicklaunch-bar is hidden by default and you can stick shortcuts directly and permanently to the taskbar. IMHO not really enough to call it superbar... Also the icons are either huge or there is a horrible far spacing between them. Chageing the windows metrics in the registry (MinWitdh to -255) no longer works. It does not affect the icon size anymore. But maybe I'll find another way in the future. Or I will get used to the wasted space...

It still does not have multiple desktops or any kind of skinning that would make sense. I think by looking at tools like WindowsBlinds or ObjectDock (http://www.stardock.com , no advertising intended just an example) you can clearly see that even on a Windows System it would be possible to have such features. The problem with the mentioned tools is, that they really mess up your system. So you dont actually want to use them. But if it were built into windows it would make a lot of sense and not mess up the system. I dont understand what these designers do after all these years there seams to be only little to no improvement. Considering Microsoft is the biggest company on earth that is pretty shameful. There are no essential changes that help developers along the way. From that point of view you could just stay with XP. In all fairness I have not used Tablet input devices and handwriting recognition. Maybe that works really well and there are developpers that use these things. Still not much gain.

Behind the scene however microsoft apparently did a lot. Stability and responsiveness are unmached by any other windows OS. Although I still need more time to reliably make that statement about stability. As of now the OS is just too new. Win 7 is pretty much what Vista should have been. Considering there will not be driver support on new hardware for old OS's like XP I recommand to upgrade to Win 7. Once you get used to it its actually good. Stable and fast are the most important factors anyway. There are far less services running than in Vista and from what I can tell the memory footprint has improoved as well. And maybe microsoft will learn more about user interfaces along the way.

My two cents.

Edited for typos.

[.oisyn]

Not going to try one of those new Intel SSDs that everyone raving about?
No, I think the price per GB is still way too high for SSDs.

[Wernaeh]

I haven't noticed any differences between the two, but why do you think it's ugly? Or are you referring to UAC? That's practically completely gone and only pops up when you're trying to do stupid things.


No, I meant the dialog box that comes up when you are about to replace a file when copying things around in the Vista Windows Explorer.

While the previous box in WinXP was really small and precise (Replace / Yes / No / Abort operation, all information at a glance) the new one has lots of text, and the German version comes with IMHO counter-intuitive descriptions as well.

What I find especially confusing is that you have to click into the middle of the box to make a choice. What happend to the UI guideline that said "If it is a push button, make it look like one" ?

Also, why does it list the file name twice, and even in bolds ? Of course the files have the same name - otherwise, the whole dialog would be meaningless.
The actually interesting attributes - size and change date, are set in non-bolds below.

Finally, why does it give me the choices "Copy" and "Don't copy" ? I'm copying a file, alright, I know this already. Better choices would be "Replace" and "Don't replace".

That said, I'm at a Vista machine at work, and up to now got accustomed to simply selecting the first option by instinct, but it still is annoying...

Cheers,
- Wernaeh

[poita]

No, I think the price per GB is still way too high for SSDs.

True, but you can always just use one as a boot drive and for your most often used applications, saving the TB+ HDs for all your media.

The prices are getting pretty good now.

[Nick]

There are no essential changes that help developers along the way.
Considering that developers are only a minor fraction of customers it's really not that surprising that they wanted to make things simple to use for Joe Shmoe and not confuse him with advanced features. Developers and power users can still tweak it in many ways though.

Personally I have a 30" monitor, and there's absolutely no need to have multiple desktops or small icons. I guess most developers at Microsoft also have ample desktop space so there was little demand for the features you mentioned.

[sauyadav]

I am using its RC for some time now. Its lot better than Vista and sometimes its better than XP when running old games.

[Nick]

While the previous box in WinXP was really small and precise (Replace / Yes / No / Abort operation, all information at a glance) the new one has lots of text, and the German version comes with IMHO counter-intuitive descriptions as well.
What I don't like about the XP one is that it mentions file sizes and dates, but not which one is larger or newer. You have to do the math yourself. While that's not exactly hard, it's easy to make a mistake when you're trying to work fast. Vista and 7 tell you which one is newer or larger.
What I find especially confusing is that you have to click into the middle of the box to make a choice. What happend to the UI guideline that said "If it is a push button, make it look like one" ?
Yeah it was confusing to me as well when I first used it, but that changes really quickly. After just a little while you know what to pay attention to and you automatically click the right button.
Also, why does it list the file name twice, and even in bolds ? Of course the files have the same name - otherwise, the whole dialog would be meaningless.
Well, no, lots of users simply don't always realize they're about to overwrite a file. Taking the wrong action often leads to a lot of frustration. So it helps to be very explicit about what the file names are and where they are located.

Anyway, yes, this becomes redundant information for someone who knows what he's doing. But again, it only takes a little getting used to, to filter out the info that you really need at that moment.
Finally, why does it give me the choices "Copy" and "Don't copy" ? I'm copying a file, alright, I know this already. Better choices would be "Replace" and "Don't replace".
With my english version the options are "Move and Replace", "Don't move", and "Move, but keep both files". When pressing control or copying files between partitions it reads "Copy and Replace", "Don't copy", and "Copy, but keep both files". Seems pretty accurate to me. And again it's pretty verbose to help people who weren't aware of what they're doing.

With XP I've seen a lot of people just click "Ok" blindly without ever thinking about what they're doing. With Vista and 7 many dialogs are different to focus attention. For someone who had no trouble using XP correctly it might be annoying at first but you get used to it before you know it.
That said, I'm at a Vista machine at work, and up to now got accustomed to simply selecting the first option by instinct, but it still is annoying...
I guess the really annoying thing for you is that you still use XP on your home machine, so you get reminded of the differences each and every day.

Change isn't always fun but really this is the last thing that should be holding you back from upgrading.

[moe]

Personally I have a 30" monitor, and there's absolutely no need to have multiple desktops or small icons. I guess most developers at Microsoft also have ample desktop space so there was little demand for the features you mentioned.I guess your right. The main issue is to get used to it.

However, if it's meant for Joe Shmoe... they do like skinning and applying themes. So it would still make sense to have something built in.

As for multiple desktops, I dont think the insufficient space is really the issue. It's more about how you organize your work space and work flow. True this is individual. Since many other OS's support multiple desktops I think there is a demand for this and it would make sense as well.

The small icons are truely a personal issue though. I just don't like to waste screen space, even if there is a lot of it. If things are more compact, you need to move your mouse less far. I am just natuarlly lazy :) Plus you get more space for actual content rather than icons, buttons or menus.

My main problem here is that there are not truely much new features even though there are plenty of possibilities. Why not use them...

I do like how you can snap the windows to the side of a screen though. This has been very helpful so far. I would like more things like this. But maybe I just need to do some more tweaking.

[TheNut]

lots of users simply don't always realize they're about to overwrite a file. Taking the wrong action often leads to a lot of frustration.
Heh. Reminds me of a guy who deleted his main drive because someone told him it would improve his performance. Lol, frustrated was he.

Personally I've never accustomed to multiple desktops. I always structure my windows to take up the space they need and just flip flop between them really quickly. That and having dual 24" monitors is sweet too ;) I'd like to upgrade to dual 42" HDTVs and bath in all of its radiation ;) I hear Windows 7 has some sort of mouse gesture recognition. Anyone want to shed light on that?

[moe]

I always structure my windows to take up the space they need and just flip flop between them really quickly. That and having dual 24" monitors is sweet too I'd like to upgrade to dual 42" HDTVs and bath in all of its radiation Funny, I don't really like monitors that are too big. I think it's harder to keep overview at some point. Also, gaming on a screen too big can make you dizzy.
I hear Windows 7 has some sort of mouse gesture recognition. Anyone want to shed light on that?Do you mean aero shake? If so, shaking a window (move it quickly around) will minimize all other windows. Shaking it again will restore them. It doesn't really work for me. You have to shake like crazy. Maybe there are some settings I haven't found so far, but I will certainly not shake as much as needed now. It's actually a strain on the wrist if you use it regularly. Besides it does not seam to work for all applications/windows. So, the feature is rather pointless to me at the moment.

[Vilem Otte]

I'm also still running XP, but next month I'm about to purchase Windows 7 along with new PC to debug also for them.

[Nick]

I'd like to upgrade to dual 42" HDTVs and bath in all of its radiation ;)
I hope you're not actually serious. HD is only 1920x1080, while a 30" computer monitor can handle 2560x1600. So a single monitor actually has roughly the same number of pixels as two HD televisions.

[Gaiiden]

I'm loving W7 RC on my laptop and kicking myself for missing the cheap pre-order deal. Waiting on a good deal to buy.

I'm also going to still dual-boot XP and W7 - at least until I know W7 Ultimate's XP emulation feature is solid

[TheNut]

Well I exaggerated dual 42" as that's just stupid ;) But it's not about the resolution, it's about the presentation. Games, movies, and general 3D graphics on my leather sofa is a real treat.

[JarkkoL]

Is 30" worth it though? I guess it's hard to say it's not worth it after investing 5x the price of a 24" monitor, but if you try to be as objective as possible (: It sounds nice in terms of desk space at least in comparison to dual monitor setup. I imagine for games it doesn't bring that much, but I do mostly development so if the extra desktop real estate is worth it I might consider buying one. Samsung SyncMaster 305T seems good and cheap for 30".

[Nick]

Is 30" worth it though?
It's absolutely worth it. First I wasn't sure if I made the right choice but now I can't live without it. It takes a day to get used to though. You really have to find new ways to organize things on screen. But afterwards you never want to go back to looking through a pinhole (even a 20" pinhole). :lol:

I found the Dell 3008wfp for a very reasonable price here: http://www.qsix.eu/product_info.php/products_id/29.
I imagine for games it doesn't bring that much, but I do mostly development...
Just make sure you can sit a bit further away, or run in windowed mode, and you're fine for gaming. Sit closer and it becomes really immersive. ;) Anyway, the response times are probably less than ideal for gaming; a monitor like this is more about color fidelity. It's not bad for gaming, at all, but I wouldn't recommend anyone to spend such money on something that has more pixels than make sense for gaming. For development there is nothing better.

[alphadog]

but I do mostly development so if the extra desktop real estate is worth it I might consider buying one.

I use triple widescreen 22s.

I currently have 3 Dell G2210 that use dribbles of energy (no heat!) and are HD. Very affordable, good size and tons of real-estate for multiple apps; help pages, ide, console window, I see it all at the same time. HD is good for popping in a movie while on a break for lunch or something.

Ideally, I'd love to have 3 pivotable 24". Flipping one or two into portrait-mode for code/help windows would be awesome on top of awesome.

[SmokingRope]

Windows 7 has one major annoyance for me, Full Row Select. Open explorer and switch to details view, mouse over the columns like date or size and/or click them. It used to not select when clicking these columns however now it does. My explorer is always in Detail view and you cannot drag things into the explorer window anymore because there isn't anywhere that isn't selectable. Dragging and dropping will launch exe's, place things into sub folders, etc... instead of moving to the open folder like it should.

I have found a regtweak people could use to disable it in vista which no longer works in 7.

[moe]

Open explorer and switch to details view, mouse over the columns like date or size and/or click them. It used to not select when clicking these columns however now it does. My explorer is always in Detail view and you cannot drag things into the explorer window anymore because there isn't anywhere that isn't selectable.This is true. However, you can only display the colums you actually need. Normally that gives you enough space behind the colum. You can then drag and drop your things there.

I think it would go a long way if the explorer would be more customizable. e.g. If you could blend out Favourites and Libraries. It would give you more space that you could actually use. Also, the context sensitive menue is something I never use. You should be able to blend them out completely. Instead these menuentries should appear in the context menu when pressing the right mousebutton. Another annoyance is that the statusbar now is gigantic. I much prefered the slick XP-style.

I just can't quite get the hang on the new explorer. I am struggeling since vista. Considering the explorer is something you use a lot, this is a major inconvenience.

Windows does seam to take a road where they want to improof for Joe Shmoe. But the powerusers and developpers seam to be left behind. I guess Joe Shmoe is where the money is... or I am just completely oppositely poled than everybody else (which is very well possible :) ).

Having said that I sitll recommand an update to Win 7. Especially for new hardware it might be impossible to find drivers for XP.

As for the big screens, it seams there are a lot of people who like it. Keep in mind that you can display the exact same thing whether you have a 22" with 1920x1080 or a 26" with 1920x1080 resolution. Rather than having 2 or 3 screens on my desk I much prefer some space for books and paper instead. I still would greatly appreciate multiple desktops within the OS.

[SmokingRope]

I really do like the OS in general and perhaps my favorite UI change is the new taskbar. Showing only icons, and displaying a preview when you hover them is something i've been doing in firefox (with plugins) for years and it is perhaps a good shift in the right direction.

I also have noticed a rather drastic improvement in the drivers. The KVM at my desk no longer causes blue screens, nor periodically sends clicks without provocation. Undoubtedly a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff has been improved.

I would recommend everyone take an hour and look at the channel 9 article on fault tolerant heaps (http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Silviu-Calinoiu-Inside-Windows-7-Fault-Tolerant-Heap/). There are videos in there about new features in the audio subsystem too.

I can't give any reasons for not upgrading to windows 7.

[JarkkoL]

As for the big screens, it seams there are a lot of people who like it. Keep in mind that you can display the exact same thing whether you have a 22" with 1920x1080 or a 26" with 1920x1080 resolution. Rather than having 2 or 3 screens on my desk I much prefer some space for books and paper instead. I still would greatly appreciate multiple desktops within the OS.
Yeah, I'm not after the size of the screen but the resolution. If it was about the size of the screen I would just use my 50" full-HD plasma as a monitor and get tanned at the same time ;) What makes 30" a compelling option is that it doesn't take much more desk space than my current 24" and that it's a continuous work surface. But I dunno if it's worth it in comparison to dual monitor setup, though I would have dual monitor setup anyway because I would keep my old monitor. And most importantly I would win any pissing contest amongst my peers, so that would be an extra bonus, j/k ;)

[.oisyn]

True, but you can always just use one as a boot drive and for your most often used applications, saving the TB+ HDs for all your media.

The prices are getting pretty good now.
That might be true, but the problem is that I don't have the bucks lying around to spend on a mere fast bootdisk while I'm actually in need for more storage space. The fact that I have a decent (soft)raid controller on my motherboard and that the Spinpoint F3's are both fast (due to the 500GB platters in the disk and the constanst spindle speed) and cheap made my choice pretty darn easy ;)

[JarkkoL]

I got Spinpoint F3 on soft RAID-1, and one thing that's annoying is that every time you have to do hard reboot, it will start to verify the RAID volume which takes maybe couple of hours. It doesn't prevent you from working but it still slows down the system. This is probably not an issue with RAID-0 since it doesn't have to guarantee that the disks are in sync, but I'm more after security than volume/speed.

[Nick]

My explorer is always in Detail view and you cannot drag things into the explorer window anymore because there isn't anywhere that isn't selectable.
There's always a small border of white on the left. It's not that large, but it seems to be there specifically for dropping things into the folder. Vista allowed to drop things in between rows, but that space was ridiculously small.

I guess Joe Shmoe loves dropping files onto applications to open them. It's a useful feature but created a major annoyance with Vista's explorer. Windows 7 gives you a workable compromise...

[poita]

So am I the only person that consistently gets a blue screen every time Win7 awakes from sleep mode?

[.oisyn]

I'm waiting for my paycheck, then I'm going to buy a pair of 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives, put them in RAID 0, and then going to install Win7 on it :)

Done and done. Posting this from Win7 Ultimate x64 :happy:
(btw, HD Tach reports a burst speed of 371MB/s and an average read speed of 220MB/s :))

[SmokingRope]

There's always a small border of white on the left. It's not that large, but it seems to be there specifically for dropping things into the folder. Vista allowed to drop things in between rows, but that space was ridiculously small.

I guess Joe Shmoe loves dropping files onto applications to open them. It's a useful feature but created a major annoyance with Vista's explorer. Windows 7 gives you a workable compromise...

I would expect someone to fix full row select at some point. It appears to be a genuine overlooked bug introduced (i beleive) sometime between RC and RTM. I downloaded process monitor and searched through the 80,000 events explorer.exe generated during startup and saw it read the registry key a couple times. One of the reg-tweak sites indicated that it used to work in the RC versions.

There's nothing saying Microsoft won't wait till some next major revision, but it looks like it was unintentional.

[Gaiiden]

So am I the only person that consistently gets a blue screen every time Win7 awakes from sleep mode?

I haven't gotten a BSOD but have been unable to wake my laptop out of sleep when it does go to sleep. I've tweaked the power settings to keep that from happening

[.oisyn]

I had that on XP as well. It could sleep, and it could wake up. Unfortunately, the only button to let it wake up was the power button, but then it only wakes up just to shut down altogether :wacko:

[Nick]

I would expect someone to fix full row select at some point. It appears to be a genuine overlooked bug introduced (i beleive) sometime between RC and RTM.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly with "full row select". Could you elaborate what happens and why it's annoying?

In case this is about dropping files into the folder instead of onto other files, I've also found that you can drop it on the lower bar of the explorer window (where you get some additional information about a selected file, or the number of files in the folder when nothing is selected). That's a really fool proof way to move/copy your files.

[Nick]

So am I the only person that consistently gets a blue screen every time Win7 awakes from sleep mode?
I got no problems with shut down/sleep/resume/restart whatsoever. Also no bluescreen or other O.S./driver caused issue so far.

Do you have any exotic hardware that might have an unstable driver that doesn't respond well to resuming from sleep mode?

[poita]

I got no problems with shut down/sleep/resume/restart whatsoever. Also no bluescreen or other O.S./driver caused issue so far.

Do you have any exotic hardware that might have an unstable driver that doesn't respond well to resuming from sleep mode?

Nope, very standard hardware, and it worked fine on XP. Never, ever crashed, and I put it into sleep mode almost every night.

[TheNut]

Well, I decided to jump in. I just picked up Windows 7 today (along with another TB HD) and installed the 64-bit version. It's pretty slick and the gadgets bar is totally sweet. It's going to take time getting use to.

Tomorrow will be the big day as I need to reinstall everything (uhhh). I'm actually eager to try out some new DX11 stuff too.

[desozapeaterr]

Windows 7 is best.Because it has better features then the other.And Windows 7 is a vast improvement from Vista as it takes up much less ram and has other optimizations such as fast booting times. I recommend Windows 7, and if you really don't want vista and don't want to wait for the final version of Windows 7, you can download a copy of the Release Candidate from the Microsoft website for free and use it up till June of 2010. I am working with the Release Candidate right now and so far I have absolutely no complaints, considering Im a heavy computer use with advanced software.

[.oisyn]

It's pretty slick and the gadgets bar is totally sweet.
I for one don't get the gadgets. The time I spent looking at my desktop in a day-long Windows session is only a few seconds. I'm not minimizing all programs just to look at a gadget, and having them always on top is simply annoying. Of course, the new 'view desktop' feature in the corner of the taskbar helps a bit.

[TheNut]

Heh, it's a convenience thing. I always browse for the weather online before I head out. It's nice to be able to shutdown the computer and see what the weather's like without having to wait to browse for it.