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A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 64-bit

As I promised in yesterday’s post, Windows 7 and the Era of 64-bit, I deleted the partition on my machine containing Win 7 beta and installed a 64-bit version of the Win 7 RC.

I have to say that my first and most immediate impression is — I am disappointed.

Why?

SyProp_64

click on images = large

Because: the only thing that clued me that I was now “rolling with the 64” was — if I looked at my system properties — I could see a tiny, normal-sized line of text saying “64 bit Operating System”.

There was no banner — anywhere — that trumpeted, Success: CONGRATULATIONS PAUL! You are now rolling with the big dogs!

No balloons fell from the ceiling.

A marching band did not fill the room and play We Are The Champions.

There was, in fact, none of that.

There also wasn’t any glitches, snags, hang ups, curious error messages… and, when I clicked on Device Manager…

DevMgr_64

There was no yellow exclamation points, red X’s, etc., indicating that I needed to put on my safari outfit and go on a device driver hunt.

Huh.

So I tried plugging in a few USB devices — a camera, a multi-function printer, a joystick, and a storage device (I was, after all, all dressed for the hunt). All of them auto-installed with no action on my part — not even a click “Yes, search for drivers on the Internet”, or any of that.

Huh, again.

So I feel totally robbed. I was fully expecting to have to do some work… some troubleshooting… some driver hunting… feel some Installer’s Aggravation.

I was looking forward to it actually, as I thought it might make for some article fodder.. you know, Tech Paul Goes In Search Of The Elusive 64-bit Driver or What Size Hammer Made 64x Win 7 Fit My Machine.. or some such.

All I got was…
Fresh Windows 7 Install_Desktop

And, darned my luck, Windows Easy Transfer worked flawlessly too.

Huh.

Maybe (hopefully) I’ll run into trouble with networking… stay tuned.

[update: I did recently encounter a headache trying to install a device. See, Troubleshooting Installing Programs On Win 7]

Today’s free link: to see all my Win 7 articles, click Windows 7 articles.

Today’s free download: Click here to download Windows 7

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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May 27, 2009 Posted by | computers, file system, Microsoft, tech, Windows 7 | , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments