14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 7, the product of what was by far the largest testing effort around a Windows client, with Microsoft revealing that in excess of 8 million early adopters got involved in test driving the operating system. Subsequently, customers applauded the software giant for delivering an extremely polished platform, with Windows 7 deserving all accolades it got. However, this is not to say that Windows Vista’s successor is not without its problems. According to iYogi, an on-demand tech services company, the number one complaint that its users have related to Windows 7 is because of upgrade and installation problems.
"Most of the problems that customers have with Windows 7 have to do with installation, or application and data migration," noted Vishal Dhar, co-founder of iYogi for CNN Money. "These are all fixable problems, but they're annoyances and they're time consuming."
It appears that no less than 31% of the iYogi customers that needed help to embrace the latest iteration of the Windows client, required assistance when it came down to upgrading or deploying the operating system. The data comes from an iYogi survey which involved over 100,000 users. Still, it is critical to mention that statistics provided by the helpdesk firm are illustrative only of the users that actually came across problems with Windows 7, and not the tens of millions of customers which already bought, installed and are running the operating system.
In fact, Windows 7 has been largely problem-free since it was released to manufacturing on July 22nd. In a single week from now, on December 22nd, Windows 7 will have been available on the market for two whole months. In this period, the product hasn’t even come near the vast amount of criticism spurred by its predecessor, Windows Vista.
According to iYogi, the most common Windows 7 upgrade issue reported by end users is related to the process stopping dead in its tracks at 62% and hanging there without ever completing. Microsoft has itself confirmed the issue, documented it, and even provided an automatic hotfix designed to resolve it.
Apparently, Microsoft’s decision to strip various default applets and components from Windows and take them into the Cloud was confusing to 26% of Windows 7 customers. Windows 7 no longer comes with default email, instant messaging and image viewing clients like Vista and Windows XP before it. Instead, the Redmond company is offering Windows Live Messenger, Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Viewer, etc. as a part of the Windows Live Essentials package of free downloads.
Some 14% of customers complained that the Windows Aero theme is not functioning properly in some cases. Another 8% reported scenarios in which Windows 7 did not allow access to the DVD drive. Additional problems involved hidden extensions in Windows Explorer (6%), excessive minidumps (6%), Aero Snap problems (3%) and iPhone synchronization issues (2%).