Windows 7 on the MacBook- runs pretty darn well
I shared my adventure into the world of Windows 7 recently and I have been playing with it long enough to share my initial impressions of the public beta. I was in Vegas for the CES and the only system I had at my disposal was the aluminum MacBook so that’s what I’ve been trying out. I am very happy to report that Windows 7 runs very well right out of the box.
I decided to install Windows 7 in a virtual machine on the MacBook so I set out to install it in Parallels Desktop for the Mac. The Parallels folks had issues a program update just last week to add compatibility with Windows 7 and they’ve nailed it pretty well.
The Windows 7 install took only 30 minutes and went totally without issue. Parallels makes it easy to install Windows in a VM and there were no issues. Once the OS was installed I had to install Parallels Tools within Windows 7 which added all the bridging utility to share files and network connections.
I used Windows 7 all day yesterday and I am impressed with how fast everything works in the VM on the Mac. I can resize the desktop easily which makes it a snap to run the Win7 VM in a window under OS X. This gives me the best of both worlds on the same desktop. I installed Firefox and Google Chrome in Windows 7 and they both work very well. I am particularly impressed with how fast Chrome runs under Win7, it seems even faster than under Vista.
I’ll keep plugging away at Windows 7 and report back my additional thoughts as they occur. I am glad to see Microsoft open up the Windows 7 beta to everyone and hope it lets them make a very powerful final release when the time comes.
Did the same here, albeit under Fusion and would concur.
Curious, how much storage to allocate to your VM?
That is good to know that Windows-7 beta is giving good performance on VM also..I hope the final version is of same(oreven high) performance too…
As nervous as I am by the praise most tech wonks seem to be attaching to Win7 (deja vu to the same done with Vista, if one recalls), I suppose it is positive news that the OS works so well in your test VM – albeit on a computer with a large HDD, a speedy dual core and whacks of RAM.
Now if only I knew it worked as advertised on, say, my EeePC 701….
I don’t remember anyone praising Vista and seem to recall far more rants than praises… at least in terms of what was real. I’ve seen lots of praises for the promises Vista or a few specific features, but rarely for the product as a whole.
Even so, everyone that reads my posts knows I’m very critical of Vista, Mac OSX, and I was previously critical of XP prior to SP2. I am very critical of operating systems, because I have to use it on a daily basis, so I want ease of use with lots of advanced options and easy “administrator” access. To me, Windows 7 is a huge step forward, and I have yet to find any major steps back. I tell everyone within earshot that it’s the best experience I’ve had since Windows 2000 which I ran from Beta 1 through the release of XP SP2.
I admit it’s possible I’ve been so jaded by Vista that ANYTHING is an improvement, but I really am having a hard time finding things I’m unhappy about.
I am dual-booting Vista with Win7 beta on my HP tx2000z and have to say that I am quite impressed thus far.
The TIP and handwriting recognition are much better in Win7 than Vista. So far So good.
I was quite surprised that I was even able to snag a copy!!
Runs very well on my Atom based NC10! I love it, it’s fast, modern and so far very stable. I’ve also done an upgrade from Vista 64 on my quad core desktop, 8gb ram. Went almost without a hitch (well, one big hitch with the dvd drive solved by a bit of googling) and runs very well.
I wanted to try it out with VirtualBox, but the hardest part appears to be downloading it in the first place. According to the Microsoft docs (and my own experience) the only way to download Windows 7 is using Internet Explorer for Windows. In Safari and Firefox the Download button is non-functional. Not that I really want to use Win7 much anyway, but I thought I’d give it a try. Oh well.
I tried it too, and was amazed to find 32 instances of spyware after only about a half hour of use on the web. After installing the requisite anti-virus progs, things went back to the usual sluggish, jump thru the permissions hoops that Windows is famous for. Thanks but no thanks.
In addition, when I tried to install audio drivers from Realtek, the antivirus program claimed the installer was a worm. In the world of Windows, some things never change.
@L.Greene
You must have serious problems if you got 32 different spyware types on your PC! You’re being a bit vague. What spyware was it? Tracking cookies? What is your AV prog? Did you upgrade or fresh install. A third party AV prog said another 3rd party prog was a worm?
What were these permissions hoops? Sorry for all the questions but the majority of installs out there are getting great writeups so its interesting to hear another perspective, but only useful if you are more specific than, yeah, well, I got spyware, its slow and it sucks!
I’ll be interested to see how well Win7 runs on the HP 2140 when it arrives. Should give the XP version a run for it’s money.
Quality of anti-virus application selection will never change. Any anti-virus worth running would have PREVENTED malware getting near the OS.
Trial a real AV program such as Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 for Win7 and observe that it affects nothing resource-wise besides doing it’s job when triggered.
Stay away from such malware-loaded sites anyways.
How hot does it get?
MacBook Pro with Fusion and XP Pro gets too hot for only one USB powered fan. Needs a double fan pad to allow cool multi-tasking on 2 OS’s in summer heat.
*whispers to Gavin Miller* Don’t feed the trolls…
Anyway, yes, probably tracking cookies and since there are only 3 Windows 7 compatible AV programs (Norton, Kaspersky, and AVG) in beta form, any one of them is probably being obnoxious (especially Norton).
L. Green,
If your Win 7 install was infected by spyware, there’s really no way to “disinfect” it to the point where it’s trustworthy. The only solution is a wipe and reinstall. That is, if you’re planning on using it anymore.
Bot
No heat at all.
I’ve been running it for a couple days now and it looks good. No User Account Control, yeah! However my first impression is that it looks a lot like Vista, other than the taskbar!
James,
Kind of off topic, but knowing what you know now, would you go with the MacBook again?
Mike, most definitely.
I have it installed and running on my HP 2710p, Fujitsu p1610 and Fujitsu p1510. I was expecting it to run well on the 2710p, but I am amazed how well it is running on the p1610 and p1510. The p1510 handles Windows 7 as well or better than XP SP2 with it’s Pentium M processor.
I am having some screen calibration issues on the Fujitsu machines. I assume it is just a driver issue and I must say I was surprised that it even had drivers available for the older machines.
The only challenge I had with the 2710p was getting the built in WWAN drivers to install. I finally was able to get it working by extracting the installer and running it in Vista compatibility mode.
I just finished installing Windows 7 on my Macbook under Bootcamp and must say it runs nicely so far. I am planning on installing it on the P1610 soon, any of you guys that have do the Fujitsu Vista drivers work?
Will Windows 7 install with bootcamp on a macbook which is running Leopard instead of Snow Leopard?
dose any 1 no y windows 7 will not detect a gpu… or is it just me????
This is insulting!!
What did I buy my Vista for? To fill up their quarterly report earnings and growth?
Or did I pay my sum for them to bust up a better patch like Windows 7?
Now with craps like the damn new office and the ribbon Onenote? How much the consumer will pay for their greed? I come to realize how much money we have wasted for their every 2 to three years update. Our incremental productivity is completely offset by the cost we have been paying.