Living with Windows 7: The Dream is Over (Premium)

With the end of Windows 7 support last week, I’ve returned somewhat begrudgingly to Windows 10. And you know what? It ain’t all bad. Which makes sense, since it includes a decade’s worth of changes that Microsoft’s made to the platform since the initial release of Windows 7. Many of them are even improvements.

Yes, there were a few hiccups on the way, the insane over-reaction to multi-touch and mobile in Windows 8 being obvious examples. But most of the changes are a net positive for most Windows users. And that’s good news. Because regardless of one’s feelings, it’s time to put Windows 7 in the rearview mirror. As I wrote previously, Windows 7 is a ticking time bomb and, thanks to its hundreds of millions of active users, a nice, plump target for hackers.

I didn’t completely leave Windows 10 during my recent weeks-long Windows 7 usage, as I still used that system on laptops around the house (often to work on .NETpad, my Notepad clone). But it still felt a bit strange to switch back to the new NUC on my office desk where I get most work done each day. Not terrible. Just … strange.

Here are a few final thoughts on this experiment, focusing on some of the Windows 10 features and interfaces that I feel are immediately and obviously better than what’s available in Windows 7.

User experience. While not every visual change in Windows 10 is superior to Windows 7—Control Panel, as I pointed out previously, is superior to Windows 10’s Settings app, for example—the overall look and feel is indeed superior, especially now that Microsoft has delivered a more handsome Light mode. (Dark mode is still horribly broken in Windows, but at least it’s an option, one that is not available in Windows 7.) I realize this kind of thing will vary by person, but I happen to like the flat Windows 10 user interface a lot. I like Windows 7’s Aero glass UI, too, and wish that both were options today. But if I had to choose, and I do, then Windows 10 does get the nod.

High DPI support. Windows 10 has much better support for high DPI displays than does Windows 7, which makes sense since these displays kept improving and proliferated in the intervening years. In Windows 7, your options are very limited, but Windows 10 lets you set a scaling level on a system-wide basis and it actually mostly works. If that’s not enough, you can choose a custom scale or even adjust just the font size.

Mouse and touchpad scrolling. This one was a bit peculiar. But on the Samsung Ultrabook, touchpad scrolling was reversed from what I’m now used to and there was no way to change it in the bundled Synaptics utility. On the NUC, Microsoft’s Mouse and Keyboard software couldn’t find the dongle required by my Microsoft mouse and keyboard, no matter which port it was in. And so scrolling was a mess, with giant jumps on web pages. I just gave up and used the scrollbars in my web browser and other applications, but it was annoying.

Microsoft Store. The Microsoft Store is one of those things that I wish had been more successful because when it works, it really works well. Case in point, it’s liberal licensing policies. When I would purchase an app like Adobe Photoshop Elements in the past, I was restricted by the number of PC installs I could perform (typically to 2) and thus I had to manually remember to deactivate the app as I moved between PCs (which I do a lot). But now that Photoshop Elements is available in the Microsoft Store, I can simply install and use it on as many PCs as I want, with no worries at all. I just have to be using Windows 10.

OneDrive Files on Demand. Microsoft added placeholder capabilities to Windows 8 and then removed them in Windows 10 because of some backend technical issues. But now the feature is back on Windows 10, better than ever, and renamed to Files on Demand. But it’s not available on Windows 7, so I was forced to manually configure which folders to sync locally. And if I wanted to see more of my OneDrive contents, I needed to use a web browser. I also couldn’t search those unsynced contents from File Explorer.

There are probably 1000 small changes and improvements that make Windows 10 more viable and desirable today than is Windows 7, and that’s before even discussing the whole support EOL thing. But those are the obvious ones that really struck me as I moved back and forth between the two systems.

I do wish that Windows 10 was better: Microsoft’s post-purchase monetization efforts have resulted in preinstalled crapware, pervasive advertising, non-removable telemetry, and other issues. And Microsoft’s UWP platform has gone absolutely nowhere, leading to a weird collection of mostly immature mobile apps that are bundled with the system instead of professional applications that could serve as guides for developers.

Ah well. It’s still better. And as fun as it was to use Windows 7 again, to experience that last true classic Windows version for the last time, it’s also nice to be back.