I just had my Windows 7 launch party.
My friends had two questions: First, why was I doing it?
I explained how I sold my soul to Steve Ballmer for one party in
exchange for a free copy of Windows 7.
The second question was how did I hear about it. Being a Mac person
and all, they didn't understand why I knew about it and they didn't.
Translation: They wish they had gotten Windows 7 for free.
Like I said before,
telling everyone you got something for free when they didn't is a
horrible way to start a party.
No Sales Pitch
You shouldn't feel too bad for my guests. I fed them, gave a brief
show, and they were free in less than an hour. I did kind of feel like
an Amway salesperson, but I wasn't actually selling anything. Everyone
got a gift bag and coupons. Microsoft should have included a discount
coupon for Windows 7 in the party pack, but it didn't.
The party had a few small surprises. First, I got the list of
features that I talked about off the Microsoft website. People told
me that half of these features were already available in Vista -
gadgets, the Aero interface, Getting Started, etc.
Since I mostly still use XP, I didn't realize how little is actually
different between Win 7 and Vista.
People Are Using Vista
The second surprise was how many people are using Vista. Several
people that had multiple computers had Vista on at least one. Almost
everyone had used Vista, even though I know that none of them have
Vista at work. This showed consumer acceptance, while business
acceptance is still lacking.
What people liked were the truly new features, like the preview
window when you hover over an open item in the taskbar and
XP Mode (which requires Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate). We
generally got a laugh over the cutesy features like Aero Peek and Aero
Shake.
The biggest hit was the snipping tool for taking pictures of
different areas of the desktop. That was something that everyone could
see a use for it.*
Getting S-l-o-w--e---r
The final surprise was that things started to slow down during my
demo. I had XP Mode running, several open windows, and a half dozen
other apps running. Opening a lot of windows and apps is usually not a
big deal in Mac OS X. Either Win 7 is still a big resource
hog or Boot Camp needs to be tuned up.
Everything worked with no crashes, but even after closing XP mode,
the system was slow until I closed everything and started over.
To either Microsoft or Apple, you guys almost screwed up my demo for
me. This is bad for Microsoft because, you need people to see
Win 7 as less of a resource hog than Vista. This is bad for Apple,
because it makes my MacBook seem like a wimp for not handling the load
better. Somehow this needs to get fixed -and soon.
In the end, the party was fun. I learned a little about Win 7. I
found it aggravating at times, but mostly it works like it should. I
also found lots of great freeware, like OpenOffice, GIMP, AVG
Antivirus, Picasa, etc. - enough free software that I didn't miss
Apple's iLife programs or Microsoft Office.
I'll even miss some Win 7 features when switching back to Mac
OS X.
Honestly, the worst thing about switching to Windows 7 was
remembering to use the Control key instead of the Command
key to enter keyboard shortcuts.
The most fun thing was just surprising everyone by having Windows 7
running on a Mac. 
