Win 7, what compels you to upgrade?

[Olle P]

I find it interesting to see how some of you think W7 is only good with higher end computers.
A colleague of mine has an elderly laptop computer that he wanted to use as a HTPC. It had XP installed and was barely able to run it properly.
Seeing that W7 was available for free my colleague downloaded a copy and did a clean install in the old computer. Installation was a breeze and now the computer will start and do its work much faster and leaner than with XP.

I haven't got any hands on with W7 yet, but the overall reports so far seems promising.

What I do like about W7 compared to XP:
- 64-bit OS.
- Supports DirX >9.
- Supposedly fast and responsive.

What I don't like:
- Requires Ultimate (or Enterprise) edition to run 16-bit software. (I have some old goldies that I really like to continue using.)
- Possible issues finding drivers for older hardware. (Don't expect to find W7 drivers if there are no drivers for Vista.)

Cheers
Olle

[Mats]

What's wrong with it? You open it to start programs like always.

1) No way (that I can find) to create folders in the start menu. For example, I usually create a 'System Tools' folder for CPU-Z, HW monitor, Windows Update, Spybot, etc. These now all clutter the main menu. For another example, when I build machines for friends, I usually create a 'Run Monthly' folder.
2) Same problem as with 'Personalized Menus': the OS keeps moving my cheese. Hiding objects I have not used in a while is NOT simpler.

1 - DRAG AND DROP. It took me 3 seconds to move a folder to the W7 start menu and get a shortcut there, just like in XP's menu. It only opens as a separate window and not as a menu though, not really a problem for me. But if you put it under All Programs, it will show a menu, just like the folders for many programs in there. It's also possible to add menus in the right side pane.

2 - DRAG AND DROP. In XP, Vista and W7 you only have to drag the icon to the upper half of the start menu and it stays there. No need to drag the icon all the way. You grab the icon and move it like 2 mm up or down in the lower half of the menu, a black line appears in the upper half, and if you drop the icon while the line is visible it will be moved there.
Here's an example of a random start menu found on the net, the programs above the line (IE and Outlook) will not move around, while the ones under the line will move around and eventually get replaced if you don't use them.
I NEVER keep any programs I use in the lower half of the start menu, and that's just because they all jump around. I'm honestly not sure that we're talking about the same thing?

I've seen so many people who don't understand how the XP/Vista/W7 menu works, after years of using it they still have a start menu totally unchanged, with their favorite programs in some sub-sub-sub-folder in the All Programs menu, large icons and only the default 10 icons visible. I rarely enter the All Programs menu at all.

There are many features that can be changed in the registry for instance, like turning off the annoying folder views that changes all the time in Vista.
Sure, it would be nice to be able to change it without using the registry...

I still haven't seen any explanation for what's wrong with anything else than the W2000 start menu.
I use the XP start menu, and I always change it to small icons and set the number of programs showed to 30 or more, works perfectly for me.

[blackworx]

TBH, I don't feel that Windows explorer has changed all that much over the years. W7 seems to have scaled back some of the annoying things in Vista's explorer. Vista did have alot of extra crap such as the 'ratings' info, 'date taken' sometimes there instead of 'date modified', etc, but I haven't seen that with windows 7. The interface is slightly different from XP since it came from Vista, which followed IE7, however, for me the functionality is still mostly there.

Yeah, the functionality's there, but the new UI is distracting to say the least. Simple things like the lack of tree lines and those hover effects in the directories pane are possibly helpful for people who don't use explorer a lot, but are distracting and counterproductive for those who have been using the Win2k/XP explorer for years. The "address" bar is anathema to anyone who is used to being able to glance up for the full path, and having it sitting up there with the prominent back and forward buttons - completely unmoveable - above the menu bar is just wrong. Fair enough, we could get used to it, but the point is we shouldn't have to. In XP's Explorer you can choose to have the menu bar/address bar/tool bar in any configuration you please, and switch tree lines and silly hover effects on or off. Removing the ability to make these simple modifications is a retrograde step. As far as I can tell with Vista/7 this just isn't an option -- it's the first thing I tried to change.

As an aside - I was just thinking about the annoying "address" bar and how much more useful it would be if they implemented something like it in Internet Explorer instead - switchable, of course!

[Mats]

blackworx:
Tree lines - Do you mean this? Yeah they removed it in W7 for some reason, maybe it's still in the registry.

Address bar - I'm not sure what you're missing here, but if you click in it you can edit the path, and if you click the small arrows you go to that folder which I guess you already knew.

I'm missing the up arrow as well, but there are add-on arrows available, as well as third party file browsers like Directory Opus. Using Alt + Up is another alternative.

[andyb]

@stromgald.

Having looked at the 2 pictures of the W2K Explorer interface and the W7 explorer interface, the first thing to point out is that you cant create a drag-box to highlight items. Plus all of the things that blackworx pointed out.

I'm missing the up arrow as well, but there are add-on arrows available, as well as third party file browsers like Directory Opus. Using Alt + Up is another alternative.

Well yes there are many pieces of 3rd party software to do what Windows does not, but why bother when it offers little/nothing that I actually want. XP does everything I want, and until that changes I wont be using W7.


Andy

[Mats]

Having looked at the 2 pictures of the W2K Explorer interface and the W7 explorer interface, the first thing to point out is that you cant create a drag-box to highlight items.

I just tried it, it works.

I'm missing the up arrow as well, but there are add-on arrows available, as well as third party file browsers like Directory Opus. Using Alt + Up is another alternative.

Well yes there are many pieces of 3rd party software to do what Windows does not, but why bother when it offers little/nothing that I actually want. XP does everything I want, and until that changes I wont be using W7.

A third party up button eiter works or not, I don't see how it can do a little of what it's supposed to do.

Windows Explorer isn't really perfect, It doesn't have tab view for instance like Dir Opus or ExplorerXP. Yeah I can open two windows but it's not the same thing.

[blackworx]

Address bar - I'm not sure what you're missing here, but if you click in it you can edit the path, and if you click the small arrows you go to that folder which I guess you already knew.

The "address" bar is anathema to anyone who is used to being able to glance up for the full path

Sorry, I should've said: "to anyone who is used to being able to glance up to see the DOS path, slashes and all".

The click to type function you mention means an extra mouseclick, plus you can't position the cursor anywhere you want it straight off the bat. I know that's in the territory of nitpicking, but simple "features" like these can be really infuriating if you don't like them and can't turn them off.

Third party file browsers would seem to be the way to go, but often you have to trade off a lot of the Explorer functionality/integration just to get a simple feature back (or lose the misfeatures).

[Mats]

I even tried to import the "Friendly Tree" option to W7. It showed up in Folder options, but it didn't work. Surprise.

I'd sometimes like to have a COMPLETE manual for the registry, especially for all those things you can add that aren't there from the beginning.

[frostedflakes]

i don't like rc1
media player has decided that it only wants to use its own h264 codec, which means that i can barely watch 720p video.

anyone know of a work around? perhaps a registry hack?

edit:
i managed to get mediaplayer classic to use coreavc, a bit of tweaking to enable subtitles and i think i'm good to go... phew.

Interesting, could you post or link to a guide on how this can be done? I have videos that played fine in XP using VLC that aren't quite as smooth in Win 7 using WMP. I guess the h.264 codec it uses isn't quite as efficient.

Or is it possible to reduce deblocking or tweak the default codec in other ways to reduce CPU usage?

edit: OK apparently I misread your post, this was all under MPC and not WMP? I tried installing VLC on Win 7 and ran into some issues, but if MPC is working I'll have to give that a shot.

[Pecorino]

Windows 7 is a disaster. It is a Vista OS in something "new clothes".
And Vista for sure was a greatest disaster in the computer OS history until now.
The philosophy behind these OS is wrong. They persist with this Vista stupid interface. Why? Nobody knows. Instead of radical changes, they put this Win XP mode, which works only on one CPU from the whole Intel new series CPU's. The VT technology, which is a precondition to run this virtual environment only one CPU have (beside the Xeon series).

All we needed was a XP interface-light and visually more refined.
With the XP stability, speed, low resources use, and all these new technologies and optimisations inside (SSD, AHCI etc.)

Today, wonderful series of free h264 and high definition codecs (with low CPU usage and multithreading) exist. They decide to ignore them. They choose to use their (MS) crap codecs. And for 2-3-4 years from now, they would "refine" their codecs with "silent" updates, which probably will compromise the other (free) codecs function. Drowning the competition in MS way... . Behind these free codecs was years of development, experience, use... .

No need for this Aero, the lack of overlay, these taskbars a la Mac OS X, "previews" and so on. Sure no need for 4-5-6 OS price categories, only for excuse for the already outraged prices.

In short- they kidding us. Again.

[Vicotnik]

So do what I do. WinXP will be the last MS OS I will ever use (for personal stuff, at work it's not up to me). Linux is getting better and better and I plan to start dual booting WinXP and Ubuntu/Xubuntu soon. Been saying that for a while now, but what's the rush? WinXP works just fine, and the open and free alternatives keeps getting better and better.

[croddie]

Today, wonderful series of free h264 and high definition codecs (with low CPU usage and multithreading) exist.

Actually no, assuming you want DXVA. You have to get the codec from MPC-HC, do some hacking, and probably end up without subtitles.

They decide to ignore them. They choose to use their (MS) crap codecs.

They could do better but DXVA for the main HD formats in WMP is a good thing. I still won't use it but it's a good thing. OTOH no ogg, flac?, MKV support is not good.

which probably will compromise the other (free) codecs function.

Free codecs generally work but from what I gather the ones that don't work straight away haven't been programmed to interface correctly... at least that's what I read about ogg.

[croddie]

For me, the only thing I've seen that Win 7 will be able to do that XP cant is SSD optimizations out of the box. Some of which you could probably tweak on XP, while a few of the changes will be for win 7 only it seems.

Vista does a lot more than XP. Just look up the list of features on wikipedia. It does just about everything better (provided your system's good enough). Unsurprisingly given the passage of so many years.

[Pecorino]

The reality is more complicated... .
MS Office is a "must" for me and I personally dislike intensively to work with VM emulation. Second, wast majority of Windows programs does not have analogue in Linux. Yes, they have, some boys shouting... but the reality is ugly. Other issue in Linux is the fonts rendering-this is a nightmare to tune and to succeed. Weeks of trying install, uninstall, edit waste number of config files. I try many Linux distribution- the best was Arch Linux, but with so many problems, difficult installation and tuning... Linux is not for me. Ubuntu is worse than ArchLinux in many aspects. But exactly when I was ready to switch to Arch, the boys there remove the ATI Catalyst support from their official repositories. Stupid move... the ATI driver was simply the best solution there. OSS sound is a nightmare to tune with good sound cards, ALSA is not so refined... Linux for me is not a solution... .

Then I try Mac OS X in a PC. It was a great OS. No any doubt about this. Fast, stable. Very nice and intuitive. The Apple mail client embedded in their OS X is the best mail program I ever used.

The problem here is the Apple-their mentality, attitudes toward the consumers, and prices. Second-lack of ANY hardware acceleration on video. Any! And no plans to adopt-only rumors. In Mac you are unable to play anything without spending hour of tuning-subtitles, codecs, etc...etc. Without Perian the Apple stupid QuickTime does not play anything.
Third-money. Whatsoever you need in Mac OS X environment = money. Not a single simple GOOD program free exist-all is money. And big ones. All is checking on-line for registration, every single simple program update cancel your registration and ASK for money. No AviSynth, media capabilities outside of the Apple software are very limited. But the Core Audio sound architecture is better than the MS OS sound architecture (XP, Vista, Windows 7).
Sure, Apple is a great company-intelligent, manipulative, cautious, arrogant. MS today are ignorant. To anyone-simple like that.

Will remain on Win XP... for years may be. 1 gb RAM, P4 2.4

[Pecorino]

@croddie
check here
http://kovensky.project357.com/

It is a simple MPLayer multi threading edition.
Works great... I'm not using MP HC... The MPLayer is the best media player today in Windows environment. For mpeg-2 NVIDIA Pure video decoder is amazing (with hardware acceleration).

and here:
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php

the greats sherpya MPLayer builds-amazing pics quality with only 20-30% CPU use on h264 or VC-1. With subs. These builds play all regular files (no hi-definition) format with about 5-6% CPU on P4 2.4, 1GB RAM.

[Pecorino]

For me, the only thing I've seen that Win 7 will be able to do that XP cant is SSD optimizations out of the box. Some of which you could probably tweak on XP, while a few of the changes will be for win 7 only it seems.

Vista does a lot more than XP. Just look up the list of features on wikipedia. It does just about everything better (provided your system's good enough). Unsurprisingly given the passage of so many years.

I'm reluctant to accept this.
I like the minimalistic approach to the OS interface-refined, nice (not Windows 3.1), but minimalistic. Without these windows open and close with "effects", which needs monstrous 1GB graphic card and Quad-core CPU. Yes, you may switch them off-but this does not solve the "weight" issue of the whole OS.
Vista was not better than XP. Vista was, and it is, worse-the so called "new features" in most of the cases are useless features, which make the whole OS more slowly only. Vista for me was a disaster- the teenage toy... . Windows 7 try to make Vista to look better. But the problem is the Vista... .

[croddie]

Vista was not better than XP. Vista was, and it is, worse-the so called "new features" in most of the cases are useless features, which make the whole OS more slowly only. Vista for me was a disaster- the teenage toy... . Windows 7 try to make Vista to look better. But the problem is the Vista... .

XP was a good OS but has a lot of problems compared to Vista. Graphics: changing dpi doesn't work properly. Audio: 16bit calculations, no global frequency setting. Security: you need to run as admin basically. Networking: lots of problems that don't get auto-corrected. Those are the things that immediately come to my mind.

[croddie]

@croddie
Works great... I'm not using MP HC... The MPLayer is the best media player today in Windows environment. For mpeg-2 NVIDIA Pure video decoder is amazing (with hardware acceleration).

I'm sure you're right. I like MPC-HC personally. But these are both players not codecs.

[stromgald]

I'm reluctant to accept this.
I like the minimalistic approach to the OS interface-refined, nice (not Windows 3.1), but minimalistic. Without these windows open and close with "effects", which needs monstrous 1GB graphic card and Quad-core CPU. Yes, you may switch them off-but this does not solve the "weight" issue of the whole OS.

Um. . . I'm running Windows 7 (and Vista previously) on a machine with an Athlon64 x2 3800+ with a 6600gt with only 128MB of RAM. I have the Aero visual effects turned on . . . and it runs smoother than XP. It's not wicked fast like my brother's quad core machine with Vista x64 ultimate, but it's not slow either.

I'll conceed the point that it is heavier from the standpoint of hard drive space (~16GB recommended) and RAM (>2GB recommended), but considering the cost of those components, it isn't that big of a problem unless you're trying to install it on your old Pentium 2 or Pentium 3 class machines. With anything that old, Linux is generally the only way to go.

[frostedflakes]

For me, the only thing I've seen that Win 7 will be able to do that XP cant is SSD optimizations out of the box. Some of which you could probably tweak on XP, while a few of the changes will be for win 7 only it seems.

Vista does a lot more than XP. Just look up the list of features on wikipedia. It does just about everything better (provided your system's good enough). Unsurprisingly given the passage of so many years.

I'm reluctant to accept this.
I like the minimalistic approach to the OS interface-refined, nice (not Windows 3.1), but minimalistic. Without these windows open and close with "effects", which needs monstrous 1GB graphic card and Quad-core CPU. Yes, you may switch them off-but this does not solve the "weight" issue of the whole OS.
Vista was not better than XP. Vista was, and it is, worse-the so called "new features" in most of the cases are useless features, which make the whole OS more slowly only. Vista for me was a disaster- the teenage toy... . Windows 7 try to make Vista to look better. But the problem is the Vista... .

Like I said earlier I'm kind of an MS hater, but I can give credit where it's due. You might want to give Win 7 a shot before dismissing it, seems to run much better than Vista did. I'm running Win 7 on a weak little netbook and performance is great. Much more responsive than Ubuntu, and maybe slightly more responsive than XP.

[blackworx]

Like I said earlier I'm kind of an MS hater, but I can give credit where it's due. You might want to give Win 7 a shot before dismissing it, seems to run much better than Vista did. I'm running Win 7 on a weak little netbook and performance is great. Much more responsive than Ubuntu, and maybe slightly more responsive than XP.

On a related note, word is that MS is going to be forcing a heavily restricted SKU of 7 onto Windows netbook buyers, which will only let you run three applications simultaneously and won’t have a media player or simplified networking. The thinking is that the increasing popularity of netbooks hurts Microsoft's bottom line because it means less and less sales of the heavyweight SKUs like Ultimate and Enterprise, so they want to tempt people away from netbooks and onto bigger platforms. Hurrah for Microsoft. No, really. HURRAH!

[Vicotnik]

The reality is more complicated... .
MS Office is a "must" for me and I personally dislike intensively to work with VM emulation. Second, wast majority of Windows programs does not have analogue in Linux.

My experience is quite the opposite. There's really only one program that keeps me bound to Windows at the moment - Total Commander. Most other programs I use (Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, XnView etc) exists both as Windows and Linux versions. I've been trying to switch to free and open software as much as possible for years.
But if you are one of the unlucky ones that needs a specific MS Office feature for example it's not much to do but to hope that some day that feature will get implemented into an open alternative.

Other issue in Linux is the fonts rendering-this is a nightmare to tune and to succeed.

You're right that the font rendering is crap (or was last I checked anyway - think it was Ubuntu 8.04 I was playing with then). But with a little help from the support forums I got acceptable fonts in the end.

[Pecorino]

Like I said earlier I'm kind of an MS hater, but I can give credit where it's due. You might want to give Win 7 a shot before dismissing it, seems to run much better than Vista did. I'm running Win 7 on a weak little netbook and performance is great. Much more responsive than Ubuntu, and maybe slightly more responsive than XP.

I works with Windows 7 RC1 for about a week. It is fast, remarkably stable even for RC and nice. But it is Vista... . Not so fast in "copy/paste" files like XP. The network performance is better than XP.

[Pecorino]

You're right that the font rendering is crap (or was last I checked anyway - think it was Ubuntu 8.04 I was playing with then). But with a little help from the support forums I got acceptable fonts in the end.

Nobody has achieved the MS font rendering and font anti-aliasing on the OS level. And font rendering on LCD display...which is а difficult task.
Even Apple... . And this is a crucial point-Linux boys in their enthusiasm never understand this... .

Adobe Acrobat achieve good quality rendering on the text (1280x1024) only in manual mode (105 dpi resolution) ... .

The Open Office is ugly, dysfunctional with horrible text font rendering. There is no a good database program exists there, like Access or File Maker Pro (Apple).

The Linux program analogues are in their wast majority ugly, very dysfunctional. Look at the xine player and his menus...and this is 2009. Many programs are unstable too. Yes, they may have a tons of options, but I prefer the nice Adobe Acrobat, or Adobe InDesign interfaces to work with.

Linux is a toy-like distribution -every "techno boy" may change the rules of the game.

-"I hate AMD/ATI, and I would remove their driver from our repository"-
the techno boy from Brasil said one day (something like "punishment" towards the AMD/ATI... he he).
Other "Linux boy" put the genuine ATI driver packs immediately back (in their AUR repository), but without the kernel modules (only Catalyst utilities and not mentioned this). You make upgrade and uhhh... black screen. Linux world is there... jungle.

[frostedflakes]

Like I said earlier I'm kind of an MS hater, but I can give credit where it's due. You might want to give Win 7 a shot before dismissing it, seems to run much better than Vista did. I'm running Win 7 on a weak little netbook and performance is great. Much more responsive than Ubuntu, and maybe slightly more responsive than XP.

On a related note, word is that MS is going to be forcing a heavily restricted SKU of 7 onto Windows netbook buyers, which will only let you run three applications simultaneously and won’t have a media player or simplified networking. The thinking is that the increasing popularity of netbooks hurts Microsoft's bottom line because it means less and less sales of the heavyweight SKUs like Ultimate and Enterprise, so they want to tempt people away from netbooks and onto bigger platforms. Hurrah for Microsoft. No, really. HURRAH!

Heh, yeah I read about that. Honestly I'd like to see them try, I doubt consumers will be happy about such a crippled OS. Even if most users rarely run more than three apps at the same time, people just don't like the idea of their computing experience being limited in any way. I suspect MS will try to push this on consumers but will have to change plans after public sentiment against Starter builds up.

I don't know if it's so much to scare people away from netbooks, though. It seems to me like a way for MS to double dip -- A customer pays for a Win 7 Starter OEM license when they buy the netbook, then they have to pay later to upgrade to higher end version once they realize that Starter is crippled and can't handle anything except the most basic computing.

Pecorino: Fair enough, just wanted to see if you had actually tried it out.

[Pecorino]

Windows 7? Yes, I do. Honestly.
Go back to my XP after about a week.

[stromgald]

I works with Windows 7 RC1 for about a week. It is fast, remarkably stable even for RC and nice. But it is Vista... . Not so fast in "copy/paste" files like XP. The network performance is better than XP.

Actually, that's a bit of a myth. Vista was slower than XP in copying and pasting in some situations, but faster in others. It was the way their algorithm controlled the copy/paste speed. It was fixed in Vista SP1, so now it is about equivalent to XP in copy/paste of just about anything. I honestly haven't played around with Windows 7 enough to really get a feel of copy/paste performance. The little copying pasting I have done hasn't seemed especially slow.

More Info on Vista copy/paste changes: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovic ... 26167.aspx

[blackworx]

I don't know if it's so much to scare people away from netbooks, though. It seems to me like a way for MS to double dip -- A customer pays for a Win 7 Starter OEM license when they buy the netbook, then they have to pay later to upgrade to higher end version once they realize that Starter is crippled and can't handle anything except the most basic computing

I would definitely fall on the "tempting people off netbooks" angle. Think of your average joe, clueless about the vagaries of different versions of Windows. The pimply youth in the electrical store tells him: "you can have this one which does not very much because it's a low power computer, or for $50 more you can have this one which does way more, has a slightly bigger screen and plays videos". That's not to say double dipping won't happen - I just think they're more interested in trying to bring folks' hardware choices back in line with their traditional market, and away from the "Linux-infested" SCC market, which scares them a little.

[K.Murx]

I will move because of 64 bit - I'll get 8 GB of RAM in my next machine - and because of gaming & driver support.
But actually, gaming is all I will use Windows for - the 90% of the time the machine will run under under Debian. To me, Windows just keeps getting in the way - GUI's and other distractions everywhere, even if all I want to do is edit & compile source code. I am just very accustomed to vim and make and thus working without ever having to raise my hands from the keyboard

i tried running the newest ubuntu from usb too- worked fine except the fan was always on full pelt

Yeah, the ACPI support does not always work. But if you google a bit, it should be easy to find a kind soul that put the necessary packages up on the net.

My experience is quite the opposite. There's really only one program that keeps me bound to Windows at the moment - Total Commander.

I cannot believe that a file management tool keeps you on Windows. I presume therefore that this does constitute a significant amount of work you do on your computer - thus I would suggest you spend an afternoon or two looking into shell scripting (zsh/bash please, the other stuff makes you insane) and regular expressions under Linux. You will never look back to manipulating files with a GUI.
Images excluded, because it is rather difficult to introduce previews into a text-driven environment.

There is no a good database program exists there, like Access or File Maker Pro (Apple).

*cough* You might want to educate yourself about PostgreSQL or MySQL.

Look at the xine player and his menus...and this is 2009.

You might want to try rythmbox or songbird for music, and totem or vlc for movies. I see the xine player more as a ...proof of concept for the underlying libraries

Many programs are unstable too.

Would you give some examples please?

Yes, they may have a tons of options, but I prefer the nice Adobe Acrobat, or Adobe InDesign interfaces to work with.

I was not aware that Adobe was (besides flash) into the media player business by now?
But if you are talking about Layout and typesetting, then Adobe is nice, sure. If you are willing to pay the price.
Personally, I have layouted several posters, presentations and articles in LaTeX, some of my colleagues did this for books. It works, and the results are definitely up on par with what Adobe pushes out.
Oh, and besides, going from "article" to "presentation" just requires changing the document class and inserting some \begin{slide} and \end{slide} every here and there. Try that under Adobe

Linux is a toy-like distribution -every "techno boy" may change the rules of the game.

-"I hate AMD/ATI, and I would remove their driver from our repository"-
the techno boy from Brasil said one day (something like "punishment" towards the AMD/ATI... he he).
Other "Linux boy" put the genuine ATI driver packs immediately back (in their AUR repository), but without the kernel modules (only Catalyst utilities and not mentioned this). You make upgrade and uhhh... black screen. Linux world is there... jungle.

Excuse me, you confused "Linux" and "Arch Linux" in the first line. If you do not like the approach of a particular distribution, chose another one. What I gather from your comment suggests that Linux Mint would probably be a good fit.

[Redzo]

I cannot believe that a file management tool keeps you on Windows. I presume therefore that this does constitute a significant amount of work you do on your computer - thus I would suggest you spend an afternoon or two looking into shell scripting (zsh/bash please, the other stuff makes you insane) and regular expressions under Linux. You will never look back to manipulating files with a GUI.
Images excluded, because it is rather difficult to introduce previews into a text-driven environment.

Text driven enviroment ?! Ehm, you do know that it is 2009 right ? C'mon, joke aside you can't really expect that in this age ppl should go back to using text based comands ? Why are Linux ppl still stuck in 70s ?
OT:
I love RC1 and it's a great OS. It's everything Vista should have been from start. It's fast, responsive, great with networks (PlayTo, Homegroups) and GUI is icing on the cake. Me like a lot