Windows 7 Beta Impressions [Archive]

GreNME

19th January 2009, 09:45 PM

As is evident in the 'Adios Vista' thread, there's plenty of speculation about why Microsoft is working on a new release of their flagship software just two years after they produced Vista, which reportedly took several years to develop in its own right. Despite the fact that my opinion of Vista is that it's a fine and stable OS, especially in its 64-bit versions, I can understand some of the negative speculation out there about why Microsoft is making this move. Between its rocky first few months and the number of Apple "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" ads that have come out since Vista's release that single out Vista specifically, Microsoft must feel that their newest finished operating system has been a PR nightmare. I don't honestly think there's anything Microsoft could do at this point to salvage the reputation of Vista from all of its bad press-- even changing its name in the 'Mojave' commercials did little (if any) to change the popular impression of Vista as an overly nagging, buggy, and troublesome operating system. Whether it was the main motive of Microsoft or not, it's fairly obvious that Vista's bad press is playing at least some role in the development of the upcoming Windows 7 release.

That still leaves what I think is a pretty big question, though: is Windows 7 going to be any good? What's the big deal with it if it's just going to be a shinier version of Vista? Is it even going to be worth anything? To be fair, these are questions that mainly I've had, but I've heard similar versions of those questions from others. So like a large number of other people I downloaded the beta and installed it. I have a Macbook Pro and plenty of hard drive space, and since I don't have an extra desktop (and a virtual machine wouldn't be the same) it was a convenient choice.

I've been running Windows 7 on a separate partition on my Macbook Pro for a few days now, and after working out the kinks I'm finding it to be pretty good. For those of you who may have heard that Windows 7 is very fast-- definitely faster than Vista and possibly faster than XP-- I can definitely confirm that. Not just fast at start-up and shut down, but installing software, running software, and even stuff like moving files around or loading websites. It's only been a few days and I haven't done a whole lot with it yet, but so far it's been fast, stable, and interesting. I mention that it's been interesting because things are definitely a little different, even from Vista, though the look and feel is closest to that of Vista than any other version of Windows. The taskbar has finally become user-friendly, the search bar in the start menu is much more efficient (and faster), there are a few Windows Explorer tweaks that make moving or comparing files simpler and quicker, and while I think the navigation of the control panels and settings needs some work it's pretty straight-forward and not too full of techy-speak jargon. I know that last part might be a down side to those who like the techy under-the-hood stuff, but as far as I can tell so far if you know what you're looking for you can still find it.

Is anyone else trying it out? Anyone have anything they think I should look for?

Wowbagger

19th January 2009, 11:17 PM

I think most people saw "The Mojave Project" marketing scheme as self-serving, and many were actually turned off by it.

It is not just going to be "shinier". Windows 7 looks to be faster and leaner than Vista. I can tell, just by running it in a Virtual PC, that it is faster than Vista in the same Virtual PC software.

Also, Microsoft is aiming to have it installed on ultra-portable form-factor PCs (powered by Intel's Atom Chip (not to be confused with that other "Atom Chip" :rolleyes: )). Right now, almost all ultra-portables come with XP or Linux, because Vista's performance on those machines has been terrible.

They are also putting some more serious effort into making it compatible with more hardware and software. Including (but not limited to) solid-state hard drives, which Vista was not optimized for, at all.

Of course, one should not have to pay money for getting other bugs fixed, such as the Windows-key-E problem, where holding that key combo down, for a few seconds, would often crash the machine. After being found in almost all editions of XP and Vista, they finally fixed it in Win7 Beta 1.

And, for what it's worth, they substantially improved the Calculator. :)

Wowbagger

19th January 2009, 11:29 PM

More stuff to say:

For some reason, they decided to rebrand the Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and E-Mail client as "Windows Live" applications. It looks like they will no longer be included on the Windows disc, but can still be downloaded for free. I'll bet it has something to do with anti-monopoly agreements, or something like that.

They changed a few aspects of the Taskbar, but with a little bit of work, you can make it look like the Vista and XP ones.

I suspect some folks might appreciate the Private Browsing features of IE8.

And, for techie folks, it looks like PowerShell is going to be included in the OS, this time around. (originally codenamed "Monad"). Not only that, they are also including a free scripting and debugging application for it.

Unfortunately, one of my few gripes with Vista has not been addressed, yet. Is it too much to ask to have an "Are you sure?" dialog box, when I hit any of the Shutdown/Log Off options?!!!!!!!

And, for some reason, the About Box of Windows 7 says it is actually version 6.1. Go figure.

El Greco

19th January 2009, 11:41 PM

richardm

20th January 2009, 02:17 AM

So far, I've tried to update my existing Vista installation, which ultimately failed with a BSOD IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Rather pleasingly, it detected this failure state and reversed the update itself - which was nice.

Next step will be to try a clean install, which I'm going to do tomorrow.

El Greco - for me, it's not so much a question of "What am I going to miss if I don't move", as "It's a new version of something I've been using for nearly 20 years, and my curiosity is killing me."

a_unique_person

20th January 2009, 05:37 AM

Given that it's really just a Service Pack, it should be stable. And the calculator has been improved.

RoboTimbo

20th January 2009, 06:22 AM

More stuff to say:

For some reason, they decided to rebrand the Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and E-Mail client as "Windows Live" applications. It looks like they will no longer be included on the Windows disc, but can still be downloaded for free. I'll bet it has something to do with anti-monopoly agreements, or something like that.

They changed Movie Maker for the worse in the Beta. I rip and convert dvd movies to store on my home server and play back through an xbox. It needs them in .wmv format so I use Movie Maker. The Vista version gave me options on what to convert the ripped .vob file to. The beta version took away a lot of the output options.

I also sometimes save Tivo recordings and convert those to store for later viewing and Media Player no longer recognizes the .tivo files and won't play them on the pc and Movie Maker won't recognize them to convert to .wmv files.

I uninstalled the Win 7 beta from my Alienware. Might try a fresh install on an ultra portable soon to see how the compatibility is for drivers.

GreNME

20th January 2009, 07:29 AM

I think most people saw "The Mojave Project" marketing scheme as self-serving, and many were actually turned off by it.

I got the same impression. While I looked at the commercials and could definitely understand what they were trying to say about people associating "Vista" with "bad" before an honest evaluation, the whole Folgers-experiment path was a really corny way to go about it.

For some reason, they decided to rebrand the Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and E-Mail client as "Windows Live" applications. It looks like they will no longer be included on the Windows disc, but can still be downloaded for free. I'll bet it has something to do with anti-monopoly agreements, or something like that.

Yes, and on top of that what I'm fairly certain Microsoft is aiming for eventually is a less complex set of different versions of Windows to choose from, moving instead to being able to add extra features through paid downloads. Have the Home version of Windows and want the Super-Duper, but don't want to buy your OS all over again? Just sign onto MS Live, buy what you want, download it and install onto your computer. My guess is for their paid upgrade packages Microsoft will be following a similar model to what they used for the OneCare suite, which is remarkably efficient without being obtrusive compared to almost all of Microsoft's consumer web-based efforts in years past.

They changed a few aspects of the Taskbar, but with a little bit of work, you can make it look like the Vista and XP ones.

I suspect some folks might appreciate the Private Browsing features of IE8.

To the first: why would someone want to make the taskbar look like XP? I (personally) thought Vista's themes were far superior than the XP theme implementation. I do understand, however, that sometimes people prefer their windows at least look like the version they were introduced to. I just usually don't agree with the reasoning, because the arguments about performance are pretty much wrong due to misunderstandings about how that subsystem works. Then again, up until a few years ago I knew of people who preferred the Mac OS 9 interface to the OS X one, so maybe this is just something I've not taken the time to figure out sufficiently to better understand the reasons.

To the IE8 stuff: it looks to me like IE and Firefox are coming around to the same types of features around the same times now, which is a good thing, but the standards differences between the two still get on my nerves sometimes. Added to that the fact that now there's Safari in the mix to some degree (even though I don't use it personally), and the realization that browsers are still being released with 'lapses' in standards-following (both IE and FF have them) kind of frustrates me. On the other hand, it keeps web developers (like my girlfriend) who keep up with the standards and how to make them work cross-browser with a steady stream of projects, so I guess there's something to be said for job security. ;)

And, for techie folks, it looks like PowerShell is going to be included in the OS, this time around. (originally codenamed "Monad"). Not only that, they are also including a free scripting and debugging application for it.

Which means I now have to start learning C#. Great. :p

And, for some reason, the About Box of Windows 7 says it is actually version 6.1. Go figure.

Not a big deal. XP was version 5.1 while 2000 was version 5, and that didn't make XP a service pack version of Win 2000. Many software companies do this weird version numbering thing, and Microsoft is definitely one of them. I think the version you're seeing there is the codebase of the kernel for the OS, not the version of the operating system itself. XP was built on the Win 2000 codebase, while Vista was a complete rewrite. Windows 7 is already known to be built on the same codebase as Vista, even though several of the subsystems and kernel components have been either rewritten or optimized (from what I can tell so far).

GreNME

20th January 2009, 08:52 AM

For me the question is going to be the same I asked when Vista was out: "What am I going to miss if I stick to XP ?" With Vista the answer was "not much, if anything". Let's see what the answer will be with W7.

Great question. That's exactly the kind of thing I want to find out.

The main thing you'll miss in my opinion so far depends entirely on how many new types of electronics, gadgets, or software you plan on using in the coming next few years. If the number of new gadgets or electronics or software you'll be using amounts to none, then chances are pretty high you might not miss a whole lot for right now. If, instead, you plan on getting some newer software (even games), some new electronics of any sort (mp3 player, smart phone, etc.), or any other tech-ish stuff that may interface with your computer, then what you're going to miss right off the bat is a huge increase in compatibility, stability, and performance between your computer and whatever you might add. If you're someone similar to myself, who is regularly picking up some type of gadget or finding some software online to fiddle with and see how I like it, then having an operating system that's most compatible with those things makes a difference in the level of enjoyment.

Another thing would be the improvements of the Media Center functions that came with Vista, though admittedly those functions are available for Vista Home Premium and Ultimate customers (as far as I'm aware). I can't guarantee the capabilities in Windows 7 are improved upon, but I can't imagine the development going backwards on that mark. Of course, that isn't to say you won't find the capabilities in XP sufficient, but there have definitely been improvements since XP.

I'm sure there are other things in specific that could be pointed out, but those two general things are consumer-oriented differences that I think would apply. From the perspective as a systems admin and IT manager, however, there are other advantages that I find are more important for my own preference of Vista over XP, but those aren't things that are going to mean a lot to the regular home user.

malbui

20th January 2009, 09:02 AM

The main thing you'll miss in my opinion so far depends entirely on how many new types of electronics, gadgets, or software you plan on using in the coming next few years. If the number of new gadgets or electronics or software you'll be using amounts to none, then chances are pretty high you might not miss a whole lot for right now. If, instead, you plan on getting some newer software (even games), some new electronics of any sort (mp3 player, smart phone, etc.), or any other tech-ish stuff that may interface with your computer, then what you're going to miss right off the bat is a huge increase in compatibility, stability, and performance between your computer and whatever you might add. If you're someone similar to myself, who is regularly picking up some type of gadget or finding some software online to fiddle with and see how I like it, then having an operating system that's most compatible with those things makes a difference in the level of enjoyment.

I was going to make a similar point. I'm a techie but years in industry have left me very conservative with regards to making changes, so I tend to leave my environments as they are until I'm absolutely obliged to change. Hence my Mac is still running Tiger (does everything I need with all the peripherals I have), and my one Windows box will continue to run XP and a few standard apps for the foreseeable future. My Linux laptop I do tinker with a bit more, but then I'm happier with the under-the-bonnet stuff on that than I am with the other OSes. And I'm not a gamer, so I'm spared a lot of the upgrade/component/driver issues that seem to arise when playing the latest games.

Wowbagger

20th January 2009, 05:37 PM

The Vista version gave me options on what to convert the ripped .vob file to. The beta version took away a lot of the output options. Looks like they are focusing on web-based publishing. But, maybe they will bring a lot of those options back.

I got the same impression. While I looked at the commercials and could definitely understand what they were trying to say about people associating "Vista" with "bad" before an honest evaluation, the whole Folgers-experiment path was a really corny way to go about it. So, while most operating systems sell themselves on how they will improve your computing experience, Vista had to resort to saying "How can all these folks in our commercial be wrong?".

Yes, and on top of that what I'm fairly certain Microsoft is aiming for eventually is a less complex set of different versions of Windows to choose from, moving instead to being able to add extra features through paid downloads. That could be it.
(Though, I never used OneCare.)

why would someone want to make the taskbar look like XP? I (personally) thought Vista's themes were far superior than the XP theme implementation. I was not referring to the themes. I was referring to how it behaved, with large icons, no labels, and anchored icons in place of quick access bar, etc.

With a bit of tweaking, you can make the taskbar behave more like it does in both XP and Vista. And, some people like it that way!

because the arguments about performance are pretty much wrong due to misunderstandings about how that subsystem works. You neglect to take "muscle memory" into consideration.

My fingers "automatically" go to the quick access bar, when I need a shortcut to something.

One of the reasons I really want an "Are you Sure?" question, when I select a shut down option, is because I still use both XP (mostly at work) and Vista (mostly at home), and the muscle actions for the options is different between the two.

In XP, you click "Shut Down", then select an option from the center of the screen.

In Vista, there is no center screen. You click an option from the menu, and the machine does its thing, without asking further questions. Guess how many freakin' times I've clicked Shut Down, when I meant to click Restart or Sleep?

The other (unrelated) reason has to do with those rare occasions, where the mouse will drift to the Shut Down button, while browsing the Start Menu. If you accidentally click during such a drift, down goes the machine, without further question.

I recently noticed the Mac has a prompt with a timer. That's not a bad idea.

On the other hand, it keeps web developers (like my girlfriend) who keep up with the standards and how to make them work cross-browser with a steady stream of projects, so I guess there's something to be said for job security. ;) Tell me about it. :rolleyes:

Which means I now have to start learning C#. Great. :p
Oh, it's not that bad.

Not a big deal. XP was version 5.1 while 2000 was version 5, and that didn't make XP a service pack version of Win 2000. I just think it's funny, that's all.

Heres hoping they decide to rename it Windows 2010, because that would be a cool name.

In a tangently related matter, more Office applications are getting The Ribbon: Visio, Publisher, Outlook (not just the e-mail editor, the whole app.), etc. Muscle memory be damned.

GreNME

20th January 2009, 10:39 PM

In a tangently related matter, more Office applications are getting The Ribbon: Visio, Publisher, Outlook (not just the e-mail editor, the whole app.), etc. Muscle memory be damned.

I like the ribbon, and am glad they're also adding it to some of the small apps in Win 7 (like the re-worked Paint and Wordpad). Once you learn where all the things are on the ribbon, it's significantly fewer drill-downs and clicks to get what you want, which is an improvement. The biggest hurdle is our innate resistance to change. ;)

Oh, and I know C# isn't that bad. I just hate programming. It's why I do sysadmin and IT management/strategic stuff instead. I was hoping against hope that they'd have gone with a C shell, like the *nixes have, so I wouldn't have to re-learn too much. Since it's C#, though, it's not like the learning curve is going to be too large for what I'll be doing, though (and in a pinch, there's always AutoIT if I need it).

gumboot

21st January 2009, 01:15 AM

gumboot

21st January 2009, 01:25 AM

In a tangently related matter, more Office applications are getting The Ribbon: Visio, Publisher, Outlook (not just the e-mail editor, the whole app.), etc. Muscle memory be damned.

Ugh. A good reason to stick with Office 2003. The Ribbon is the spawn of Satan. I hates it!

I'm a very advanced Word user, and have been ever since the program existed, and the Ribbon is the worst change to Word they ever made. Who ever thought of it should sincerely die.

aerosolben

21st January 2009, 12:57 PM

I switched my laptop at home to the beta (from Vista).

Good things: Battery life MUCH improved, looks pretty without being too demanding on the system. Calculator good. I'm ok with the taskbar, and expect the experience to improve over time. UAC improvement is very good. Seems faster overall.

Not as good things: Have had some issues with program and driver support, but all these are probably properly blamed on the manufacturer/publisher, not Windows. HP refuses to install based of OS version, and Acer has awful on-line driver support (back-up was corrupted :().

Anyway, am pleased generally.

jsiv

21st January 2009, 01:08 PM

aerosolben

21st January 2009, 02:15 PM

If you have 7-zip installed, you can often extract the installer package and then right click on the device in question in Device Manager and select "Update Driver Software" and clicking "Browse my computer..." and then pointing it at the folder where you extracted the installer and then just hitting next.
Thanks, but I have tried that (in fact, I'm still trying to dig up the device drivers from the Vista restore disks).

The problem with HP is that it's a networked scanner (actually multi-function device), which means it doesn't recognize it via Plug-and-Play, so I don't have a device to play with in device manager. I can detect and add the PRINTER functionality fine, though, just haven't figured out a way (yet) to register the scanner w/o the installer (compatibility mode does not fool it).

Fortunately, the scanner provides scan functionality over HTTP, so it's not sitting there useless (or I can use my Vista box /w drivers installed). Oh, and the whole thing does install correctly when connected via USB (but isn't happy when I try to then switch it to TCP/IP). Very weird.

jsiv

21st January 2009, 02:23 PM

I see... Well, that's a tough one, then!

If it's a reasonably new device, I suppose official support might be added by the time Windows 7 hits the market if HP feels it's worth the expense.

GreNME

21st January 2009, 02:27 PM

I haven't used it but my computer-savvy friend has been running the beta for some time now, and he raves about it. He hates Vista. He did some benchmark tests with his graphics card and Windows 7 came out pretty much the same as XP which is pretty impressive considering it's only a Beta, using drivers not designed for Windows 7.

There are also a number of little detailed changes that seem quite good - for example you can set your computer to automatically change its security settings depending on if it's connected to your regular home network or some other network.

That feature for network security settings actually exists in Vista, and hearkens back to a firewall profile capability that was included with XP service pack 2, but was buried too deeply in settings windows and a bit cludgy to configure. It follows the trend I've been seeing with some of the newer (supposedly easier) security and networking menus in Windows 7: they're updated iterations of Vista versions, which are polished and definitely simpler versions of attempts stemming from XP SP2.

There are a lot of improvements in Win 7 that it seemed like they were moving toward since Vista SP1, all of which made the OS far less buggy (and removed the bugs I had to deal with), but in a polished form similar to the things in Vista that were polished forms of XP SP2 features. The improvements to what the shell can do are the most obvious and up-front, which you touch on yourself below...

They seem to have improved the way the desktop handles multiple windows as well which seems quite nice at first blush.

Oh, heck yeah. Aside from finally being able to move things in the taskbar to the order you prefer, there are already a few things I've found to be neat as well as mildly useful. For instance: if you have two windows open and you drag each of them to separate sides of the screen, they 'dock' into place and provide the user with the two windows set to equal sizes side by side for moving files back and forth, copying text from one location to the other, and so on. Another neat trick is to click and hold the title bar of a window (the top, thickest border of the window) and shake the mouse from side to side about an inch or two each way-- that will cause all of the other windows to minimize, which is a less productive trick but a neat one nonetheless. Maximizing can be done through the tried-and-true clicking of the maximize button or by simply dragging the window to the top of the desktop screen, where it will 'dock' in a maximized state. There are others, but those are the obvious ones I've found so far.

I have not considered going to Vista, but I think when Windows 7 comes out, based on what I have seen and heard from my friend, I will make the switch.

Well, I can't really blame you for not considering Vista. It had a lot of bad press pretty quickly on in its life cycle, despite it being a fairly solid OS. It's still a good OS, but if you're looking forward to transitioning to Win 7 then I don't think there's any real need to hurry and get Vista, since Win 7 has all the good stuff from Vista as well as other improvements. Considering the possibly short amount of time before Win 7 releases it's worth it to wait for that if you can afford, though for the most part upgrades shouldn't be as large a concern as they were for people going from XP to Vista.

aerosolben

21st January 2009, 02:59 PM

I see... Well, that's a tough one, then!

If it's a reasonably new device, I suppose official support might be added by the time Windows 7 hits the market if HP feels it's worth the expense.
Probably - all I suspect they have to do is update the version numbers the installer supports. And it would be nice if windows would auto-detect the imaging capabilities when setting it up as a printer via Ethernet.

I've sent feedback indicating as such, and we'll see what happens (bonus: my girlfriend is working on devices and compatibility for windows 7, so hopefully it gets bumped up the list ;) ).

GreNME

21st January 2009, 03:09 PM

By the way: for anyone else who is thinking of trying to install Win 7 on a partition of their Macbook pro, the chances are high that you'll run into a few driver issues. First thing, definitely install the Bootcamp driver pack from the Apple disk. After that, make sure to check the wireless networking driver to make sure it's the Microsoft version of the driver, not the Apple or Broadcom version. Another driver issue I've come across is the sound card, where there would be no sound coming from the speakers-- that's a simple fix with the proper driver, which I can either link to for a driver website or I can offer my own copy of the files to other members here.

jsiv

21st January 2009, 03:26 PM

Probably - all I suspect they have to do is update the version numbers the installer supports. And it would be nice if windows would auto-detect the imaging capabilities when setting it up as a printer via Ethernet.
Is there a standard for network scanning in Windows though, like there is for printing?

Wowbagger

22nd January 2009, 12:13 AM

I like the ribbon, and am glad they're also adding it to some of the small apps in Win 7...

Ugh. A good reason to stick with Office 2003. The Ribbon is the spawn of Satan. I hates it!

For the record, I happen to like The Ribbon, for the most part.

I just wish they also had the option of showing the classic Office menu bars. Like they have in Internet Explorer, for example. That way, us classic users can find tools and options, quickly, when we need to, instead of hunting and Googling for where things are. (Especially, when you are still swapping between two versions of Office: 2003 at work, 2007 at home.)

Remember the days when Word could be set up to reflect the menu options and behavior of Word Perfect, for pretty much the same reasons?

SirPhilip

22nd January 2009, 12:28 AM

As is evident in the 'Adios Vista' thread, there's plenty of speculation about why Microsoft is working on a new release of their flagship software just two years after they produced Vista. Windows 7 is a remarketed Vista, essentially history repeating itself: Windows ME and Windows XP. Vista was intended to extract enormous amounts of money by using a bloated, unstable, 64bit consumer operating system platform than simply strengthening consumer support for XP Professional 64bit - the most respectable OS Microsoft ever developed.

Rolfe

22nd January 2009, 05:00 AM

Remember the days when Word could be set up to reflect the menu options and behavior of Word Perfect, for pretty much the same reasons?

Hmmm, yet one more thing that Word can/could apparently do that I never managed to figure out. To add to the several squillion others. Solution: just keep running WordPerfect, where for some reason these things can be easily found and activated by someone with my little brain.

Which will no doubt lead to Arthwollipot getting sarcastic with me again. But in a way, he makes my point for me. If you have to attain this elite "expert" status with Word to be able to get round its infuriating glitches and find its hidden joys, then I'm not prepared to bother. Not when I can manage these things easily in WordPerfect with nothing but intuition guiding me. And I get the indispensible WP "reveal codes" screen as well, which is frankly the real reason I continue to give the programme food and shelter.

Riolfe.

GreNME

22nd January 2009, 07:10 AM

Windows 7 is a remarketed Vista, essentially history repeating itself: Windows ME and Windows XP. Vista was intended to extract enormous amounts of money by using a bloated, unstable, 64bit consumer operating system platform than simply strengthening consumer support for XP Professional 64bit - the most respectable OS Microsoft ever developed.

I see two (main) things that are greatly incorrect in your post. The first and most obvious one is the assumption of intentions behind the release of Vista. The second is the assumption that Win 7 is simply Vista 'remarketed'.

To the first, I can understand the typical distrust and dislike for Microsoft. They're a monolith and have a history of bad behavior. Unless you have some kind of proof attesting to the motives you're asserting, though, it's probably best to avoid the risk of turning (the thread) into an "I hate M$ (http://image.grenme.com/thread/anti-ms.gif)" argument. I'm not saying you are trying to turn the thread into that, but I'd rather not go down that road.

As for the assumption that Win 7 is just Vista with a new box and name, all I can say is that most of the time I hear such statements it comes from people who have little to no experience with one or both. While the codebase is the same from Vista (actually, Server 2008) to Win 7, whole subsystems have been rewritten for Win 7, from the operating system's kernel (its core) to it's desktop shell (Explorer) to several of its components and subsystems. Windows 7 is to Vista what XP was to Windows 2000. So unless you need a refresher course on how XP was different than Windows 2000 to provide some context I would suggest learning a little bit more about the operating systems before making too wild of suggestions. The beta operating system has only been out a little over a week, but I've been reading, listening, and watching information on its development since about the middle of last year, so I can attest for you that there is plenty of information out there you can search to find out more information before you even touch the operating system itself.

From what I know through reading, listening to presentations, and watching some videos from the development team, the groups working on Windows 7 began with the very core components of the latest Windows operating system (Server 2008, not Vista) and began from there to rebuild their client OS. The interesting claim I've heard from the developers is that the version of the stripped-down and non-GUI, no-frills version of Windows they began from was that it would fit on a relatively small USB flash drive (somewhere between 32-64 MB). Nothing much could be done with this pared down operating system in and of itself, but what they did use it for was to optimize everything they could on it from the point where the OS would boot up to loading large programs and even completing tasks that required high disk performance as well as CPU performance. From what I'm seeing so far, they've succeeded to an astonishing degree considering how much this new OS does and how visually appealing it is. My final bit of skepticism with Microsoft isn't whether or not it's possible for them to make an OS that's practically faster than its predecessor-- in all honesty, they managed that with XP, where on modern hardware it performed faster than Win 2000 and Win 98/Me-- it's now whether Microsoft could manage not trying to mess this working build up and instead focus on polishing or tweaking the last few GUI menus and screens. They've already managed to accomplish this with their latest server operating system, so it's logical to expect them to keep on with this trend. At this point I'm reserving judgment completely but am trying to keep optimistic after actually working with the new beta operating system.

Oh, and Wowbagger: I think it would be awesome if they called their new operating system Windows 2010, as long as the packaging didn't include a baby floating in space. A black obelisk for a retail case would be kind of neat, though-- I wonder what the licensing for permission to do that would be?

GreNME

22nd January 2009, 07:44 AM

Hmmm, yet one more thing that Word can/could apparently do that I never managed to figure out. To add to the several squillion others. Solution: just keep running WordPerfect, where for some reason these things can be easily found and activated by someone with my little brain.

Which will no doubt lead to Arthwollipot getting sarcastic with me again. But in a way, he makes my point for me. If you have to attain this elite "expert" status with Word to be able to get round its infuriating glitches and find its hidden joys, then I'm not prepared to bother. Not when I can manage these things easily in WordPerfect with nothing but intuition guiding me. And I get the indispensible WP "reveal codes" screen as well, which is frankly the real reason I continue to give the programme food and shelter.

Riolfe.

Hmm... that's something interesting that you and Wowbagger bring up I'd never thought about. I cut my teeth on MS Word, so it's basically what I know already. I can see how that would be a pretty remarkable annoyance to people thinking about coming over from other productivity suites. It's a valid concern, too, because even companies whose products I have no choice but to deal with at work, like AutoDesk's AutoCAD, have the option in newer versions with ribbon-like interfaces to change the layout to look more like previous versions. I don't know why Microsoft didn't think about that when designing the UI options for their Office suite, since the non-OS development teams are usually pretty thorough (I know some people in a few of those teams).

Thanks for that perspective. I'd not thought of that.

Darat

22nd January 2009, 07:51 AM

ElMondoHummus

22nd January 2009, 08:39 AM

Small thing that caught me off guard with 7 Beta: I normally store installers for various things in a folder on the C drive. But when I'm lazy - and when testing a Beta, I sometimes resort to lazy practices :o - I just save the installers right in the root of C.

Well, you can't save single files to the C:\ root in Win7 Beta. I was forced to create the folder. It's no big deal - it's hardly a crimp in my style - but still, it caught me off guard. Just to be stubborn, I decided to play with the permissions on the C root (yes, I know that's not a best practice; again, this is playing with the Beta to see what happens, not an attempt to conform to proper behavior), and even when the group takes ownership, writing single files to the root of C isn't allowed. That changes when the individual account takes ownership, but group write privileges appear to be specifically suspended, even when explicitly given.

I'll test this out on another computer just to make sure I'm not on crack - I'm installing it now on the XP partition on my laptop - but that's an interesting restriction. Probably not a bad one either, considering security concerns, but I want to think about it a bit more before passing final judgement.

Rolfe

22nd January 2009, 09:52 AM

From the sounds of it you are just used to WordPerfect so it seems as if it is somehow more intuitive because you've already learnt all its quirks and ways of doing stuff.

And the WordPerfect help stuff in Office 2000, XP & 2003 was, if my memory serves me correctly, just on the Help menu as something like "WordPerfect Help"....

Yes, I did see that bit in the Help menu. If I recall correctly, it was mainly help for users who were trained on WordPerfect for DOS, which I never used but which I understand was extraordinary user-hostile and required memorisation of a lot of arbitrary keystrokes. How they got the Windows product quite so right after that DOS product I'm not quite sure.

Actually, the first word processor I ever used was Word, and I was fairly blown away by the whole thing - just by the mere concept of a word processor, and its advantages over even an electronic typewriter. I was using someone else's computer though and didn't have the opportunity to go very deeply into it.

However, I acquired WordPerfect 5 for Windows for myself soon after that, and found it a lot easier to navigate round. The first time I saw the "reveal codes" screen I thought I'd died and gone to hell, but I soon figured out what it was for and how indispensible it is. In retrospect WP5 was pretty clunky, but then so were most things at the time.

Later, I tried to switch to Word, expecting to be able to pick it up about as easily as I'd picked up WP. Didn't happen. I got madder and madder with the way it behaved, it was driving me seriously nuts, and finally my lab manager bought me WordPerfect 7 in the hope that it would shut me up. It did, in very short order. WP7 was quite a lot different from 5 too, but again I found it intuitive and was happily recording macros and making tables and columns do what I wanted them to do (as opposed to whatever the writers of Word thought I ought to want to do) within a day.

Since then I've tried quite seriously to get on with Word several times. Each time I've ended up slinking back to WordPerfect. Right now I have to use Word at work, and its penchant for reformatting itself in apparently arbitrary ways still drives me insane. Living without "reveal codes" (which is even more intuitive once one has mastered basic html) is a nightmare, especially with a programme that seems to revel in arbitrarily changing the font you're typing in.

So while you could be right about the familiarity part, I have to say I feel I've tried hard enough with Word, and my conclusion that it's inherently user-hostile to the non-expert user is shared by many other WordPerfect users. I'm thinking of buying WPX4 (http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/gb/en/Product/1207676528492#tabview=tab0) for my new computer - £132.25 is quite a lot of money, but I'm getting tempted.

On the subject of Vista/Windows 7 (dragging this post hurriedly back on topic), I think a lot depends on how planned or unplanned an OS move is. For preference, I'd have liked to be able to wait until Windows 7 was out and some degree of verdict was in before choosing to move from XP. However, being forced to move by a fried hard drive, the idea that I had to adopt an unfamiliar and apparently unpopular OS as the price of getting a new computer didn't exactly thrill me. Especially not with everybody right up to the wireless broadband provider I'd decided to sign up with having small print caveats warning that their software might not work with Vista. And especially not with the successor already well over the horizon and getting a better press.

But no, I couldn't just specify XP and wait for Windows 7 to show up and prove itself. I had to buy Vista, and then pay extra for a downgrade XP installation.

I like the sound of what's being said about Windows 7, just the way I liked the sound of early reports of XP performance - which proved to be pretty much on the money. I'm just a bit cross that Vista was made compulsory by the PC manufacturers.

Rolfe.

PS. Oh, look what I just found (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/21/microsoft_seeks_dismissal_wordperfect_lawsuit/). Why am I not terribly surprised?

GreNME

22nd January 2009, 01:51 PM

On the subject of Vista/Windows 7 (dragging this post hurriedly back on topic), I think a lot depends on how planned or unplanned an OS move is. For preference, I'd have liked to be able to wait until Windows 7 was out and some degree of verdict was in before choosing to move from XP. However, being forced to move by a fried hard drive, the idea that I had to adopt an unfamiliar and apparently unpopular OS as the price of getting a new computer didn't exactly thrill me. Especially not with everybody right up to the wireless broadband provider I'd decided to sign up with having small print caveats warning that their software might not work with Vista. And especially not with the successor already well over the horizon and getting a better press.

But no, I couldn't just specify XP and wait for Windows 7 to show up and prove itself. I had to buy Vista, and then pay extra for a downgrade XP installation.

It's really crappy that so many companies, both providers and software developers, decided to take that caveat approach to Vista instead of actually moving toward making their software less problematic or a security concern. I recall when Windows XP SP2 came out, more than nine out of ten times (I'd say about 95%) with the software I'd come across with clients who had problems, the actual problem was the software they were trying to use and not the new service pack. Too many programs run in ways similar to legacy (Win 95/98) models of the operating system, and those methods were risks to both stability (the whole OS would crash when a program crashed) and security (easily-used vectors for malware producers). Because Windows XP enjoyed a very large user base at the time, when service pack 2 was released a lot of developers turned their act around or produced patches. However, when Vista was released-- despite many software developers getting at least six months of advanced notice, as well as having a whole slew of beta test copies out there-- the software developers lagged and stuck with their focus on XP.

Unfortunately, Vista wasn't the same kind of change that the service pack was to XP. In Vista, a lot of the security and stability measures were built in deeper into the operating system, and the Windows UAC prevented programs from being able to simply bypass those things in the background like some programs did in XP. Further, Vista's core components were also such that installed programs wouldn't be able to just hook into the operating system at such a low level that a program crash would result in a system crash (for the most part), which disabled some features of many types of software (like Roxio's CD software), and crippled a few others (like most proprietary VPN software). Two and a quarter years have now passed since the official release to manufacturers (meaning available on new computers), and even still some of these software vendors have yet to make the changes necessary to their software to allow them to run properly on the new version of Windows. This is entirely the fault of the software developers for these third-party companies, not Microsoft, because in most cases the types of software out there that has compatibility problems have competitors whose software works just fine and dandy on Windows Vista.

I think part of what exacerbated the problem was that Microsoft aimed a bit too high with its hardware requirements for Vista when it could have provided the same or similar experience at a lower cost, which meant fewer people would be able to switch over right away, thus leading to the third-party developers not being in a hurry to produce something that's completely compatible. I'd say Microsoft was moving in the right direction, moving its focus to a more multi-user-type operating system platform (Windows is not 'true' multi-user), but it attempted to do it in poor ways and paid the price for the bad decisions. Hopefully the development teams in MS will be keeping a more keen ear for annoyances like you've described, Rolfe.

ElMondoHummus

22nd January 2009, 04:21 PM

GreNME

24th January 2009, 10:41 AM

For people wanting more information on what things under the hood in Windows 7 are different, I can't think of any better source than this interview (http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/) (requires Silverlight) with Mark Russinovich, who used to be a developer who was writing stuff for Windows separate from Microsoft and was eventually hired on by Microsoft because of the awesomeness of the work he'd been doing, both in developing stuff for Windows and in providing information on how the internals of Windows works. Between the higher scaling for how many CPU cores it can work with and how the Windows kernel handles process threads itself, Windows 7 is definitely greatly improved over even Windows Vista. During boot time, the new Windows will be able to start services, load drivers, and attach plug-n-play devices in parallel to each other, as opposed to the serial manner that previous versions of Windows. There are also some run-time processes built into Win 7 that allow the OS to take advantage of newer CPU technologies to reduce the amount of CPU time needed from the hardware, which means longer battery life, more stable computing, and even more "green" computers that are sucking less power while running. It's not in the Russinovich interview, but I saw one presentation from Microsoft where they claimed an advantage of at least 11% less power usage performing the same intensive tasks as Vista. In the spirit of that, Windows 7 is also starting some services in a 'delayed' manner where, even if they're set to run automatically, they don't necessarily launch until they're needed to run, they're called by the user, or they meet certain conditions set forth by the operating system.

Closer to the end of the Russinovich interview he talks about MinWin, the tiny version of Windows that weighs in at somewhere between 25MB and 64 MB, which is really exciting to me because I really looked forward to Windows Server 2008 Core but was disappointed at how many things it couldn't do by default. MinWin gave the Windows developers something to work with to build a core, non-GUI system together without having to worry about dangling dependencies, which makes it more efficient to build better versions of that Server Core operating system in the future. Still, that's not really a Windows 7 based discussion except to point out that MinWin played a role in developing the new kernel for Windows from the ground up, which is why the newer version is so much faster than Vista (whose development followed a different path).

For the less nuts-n-bolts minded, the user interface things in Windows 7 are pretty neat. They're not revolutionary, but in a lot of ways the things that have been added made me exclaim "it's about damned time" when I saw them for the first time.

-6308654026361574002

As has been mentioned by others, Microsoft is going to continue to be leveraging their Windows Live online services to integrate with Windows for the more "digital lifestyle" type of home computing. It will start with the home network, with Windows 7 being able to far more easily discover other computers on the network and make use of shared media, as well as being able to have that shared media played on more than just the Windows 7 computer. Apparently, the new Windows will provide the ability to choose whether to play shared media on the computer in use, another computer that's on and shared, or even an XBox or other compatible media appliance. Since I know Vista already has some ability to integrate Media Center with some DVR systems, I'm assuming (meaning haven't tested) that Windows 7 can do it better.

RoboTimbo

25th January 2009, 06:04 PM

I uninstalled the Win 7 beta from my Alienware. Might try a fresh install on an ultra portable soon to see how the compatibility is for drivers.

I did a clean install on a new HP Mini that had come pre-loaded with XP. The first pleasant surprise was that all the drivers were there. The second was that it didn't seem slower than XP. I've had it on here for a couple of days now and I'm starting to like it.

Another plus was that Win 7 has a dvd decoder built in. The HP Mini's version of XP didn't have a decoder since it doesn't come with a dvd drive. The previous problem I had with Move Maker on the Alienware with not being able to convert .tivo and .vob files hasn't come up on here so that works fine, just not very fast.

It balked at a networked HP printer installation because the install software didn't like the version. I tried compatibility mode but still no luck. I used Add Printer and it was able to find the printer and install the driver that way.

I've only found one glitch so far. Using Live Messenger, it doesn't recognize that my wife's computer has a camera and hers doesn't recognize mine as having a camera. She has the same HP Mini but hers still has XP on it. It worked when we both had XP. Live Messenger works for IM, just not video between her XP and my Win 7. Odd.

Cl1mh4224rd

25th January 2009, 08:38 PM

To the first: why would someone want to make the taskbar look like XP? I (personally) thought Vista's themes were far superior than the XP theme implementation.

I tend to prefer Vista's default theme over XP's default theme, too. However, since XP there's one thing that Microsoft just can't seem to get right (IMO): the friggin' title bar. It just keeps getting thicker and thicker. Vista's title bars are arguably worse than XP's for a couple of reasons:

1) On some windows, the title bar's only reason for existing is the minimize, restore, and close buttons. This makes for some annoyingly wasted space.

2) The black text on dark background requiring a white glow. I can sort of understand the technical reason for doing this, but it's really, really lame.

Maximizing can be done through the tried-and-true clicking of the maximize button or by simply dragging the window to the top of the desktop screen, where it will 'dock' in a maximized state.

Personally, I find double-clicking the title bar to maximize/restore to be the most efficient. Sure, the maximize/restore button only requires a single click, but it also requires some fairly precise targeting. The whole dragging the window to the top of the screen thing seems completely unnecessary.

GreNME

25th January 2009, 09:27 PM

I tend to prefer Vista's default theme over XP's default theme, too. However, since XP there's one thing that Microsoft just can't seem to get right (IMO): the friggin' title bar. It just keeps getting thicker and thicker. Vista's title bars are arguably worse than XP's for a couple of reasons:

1) On some windows, the title bar's only reason for existing is the minimize, restore, and close buttons. This makes for some annoyingly wasted space.

2) The black text on dark background requiring a white glow. I can sort of understand the technical reason for doing this, but it's really, really lame.

Yeah, the more I thought about it after saying that the more I came up with reasons people may prefer a different windowing look. I prefer the Aero (Vista/Win 7) look to the older versions myself, but it's starting to make more sense now after giving it more thought. I'd previously only come across those claiming performance increases by removing the Aero interface, and that's a myth since the Aero theme doesn't require more resources, only recent (DX 10, I believe) resources.

Personally, I find double-clicking the title bar to maximize/restore to be the most efficient. Sure, the maximize/restore button only requires a single click, but it also requires some fairly precise targeting. The whole dragging the window to the top of the screen thing seems completely unnecessary.

Yup. I'm a double-click-the-title-bar kind of person myself. I only like this new feature because it allows me to snap the windows into a side-by-side setup for when I'm doing file transfers, copying text, or comparing the content between windows. I found that holding down the Win key and using the arrows performs the same action on the highlighted window, thus removing the need for me to drag the windows to the side in order to snap them into place, too. My guess is the whole maximize/minimize thing with them is just part of that schema with the Win+Arrow Key combination.

Oh, and I like that the Win+Tab function is still there. I love it in Vista and am happy to see it in Win 7. Between that and the snapshot tool, I've found two little things that make a world of difference to my user experience. :)

SirPhilip

5th February 2009, 10:24 AM

I see two (main) things that are greatly incorrect in your post. The first and most obvious one is the assumption of intentions behind the release of Vista. The second is the assumption that Win 7 is simply Vista 'remarketed'.

They have a balancing act to follow:

- Idiot proof
- Takes advantage of multicore processors and 64bit hardware for common tasks
- Enhanced security and multitasking and organization
- Hardware and driver integration

Problem is this. Most people are computer literate already, the operating system is more restrictive and managed, and while Microsoft could develop consumer and professional operating systems, they do not. So Vista and Windows 7 from a standpoint of high performance, you want to know what considerations these are. Most high performance applications are now Linux based, Apple has already solved this problem also. OSX is equally at home at a cafe or a studio.

SirPhilip

5th February 2009, 10:45 AM

For the less nuts-n-bolts minded, the user interface things in Windows 7 are pretty neat. They're not revolutionary, but in a lot of ways the things that have been added made me exclaim "it's about damned time" when I saw them for the first time. Thing is, performance and efficiency are the only advancements. If Windows 7 performs poorly than an optimized Linux distribution with a completely custom GUI, what is superior? By Microsoft's reasoning, you aren't smart enough to be concerned - until you are showed you've been had. People who want stability and elegant simplicity are already Apple users...

jsiv

5th February 2009, 12:26 PM

GreNME

6th February 2009, 11:59 PM

They have a balancing act to follow:

- Idiot proof
- Takes advantage of multicore processors and 64bit hardware for common tasks
- Enhanced security and multitasking and organization
- Hardware and driver integration

Actually, Vista accomplished the first two from its original release, and with its Service Pack 1 they handled the driver problems, one of its initial issues. Windows 7 has none of those problems-- I already pointed out how the Apple-supplied driver for the MBP install of Win 7 didn't work while the Microsoft driver for it worked. Vista's driver issues weren't Microsoft's fault, though: hardware devices typically have drivers produced by the hardware manufacturers.

Problem is this. Most people are computer literate already, the operating system is more restrictive and managed, and while Microsoft could develop consumer and professional operating systems, they do not. So Vista and Windows 7 from a standpoint of high performance, you want to know what considerations these are. Most high performance applications are now Linux based, Apple has already solved this problem also. OSX is equally at home at a cafe or a studio.

I have a Macbook Pro and am quite familiar with Linux, and I don't know what you're trying to get at here. Linux is "getting there" but has been at that point since about 1998. Most of the "high performance" applications on Linux are server-based and aren't all that meaningful to the end-user on a desktop. With OS X, the *nix underpinnings are a boon for the UNIX-familiar (though not all wasted on the unfamiliar), but the GUI of the OS is still pretty much on par with the latest of Microsoft's releases (give or take Coke/Pepsi preferences).

What Microsoft has to accomplish with Windows 7 is to provide something different from their Vista offering. Whether they accomplish that is going to depend on public opinion, but on the technical side they've definitely diverged from the Vista 'nicer version of Windows' motif by applying some really slick changes to the workflow of the desktop. What remains to be seen is whether the changes are taken well by the public. Taken without the baggage of the bad press Vista's gotten, though, I definitely think the changes are for the better, but on the other hand I'm someone for whom the bad press against Vista wasn't convincing.

Thing is, performance and efficiency are the only advancements.

No, they really aren't. Other people and I have already talked about some of the other stuff in this thread already.

If Windows 7 performs poorly than an optimized Linux distribution with a completely custom GUI, what is superior?

No offense, but do you only get your information from the Inquirer? An "optimized" and "completely custom" Linux is not something you get out of the box in any distro, even the better ones. Spending the same amount of time (or less) with a Windows (or OS X) desktop gets someone the same satisfaction as a given Linux distro. It all boils down instead to personal preference, not some kind of inherent qualities of the operating system.

By Microsoft's reasoning, you aren't smart enough to be concerned - until you are showed you've been had. People who want stability and elegant simplicity are already Apple users...

What a crappy way to summarize. There's no need to make an assessment of an operating system into a personal attack, even if the personal attack is against a company like Microsoft.

GreNME

7th February 2009, 12:00 AM

Most people don't really care about technical stuff, they just want a computer that costs half of what a Mac does and still meets all their needs and provides all their programs in a familiar environment.

It's that simple.

And no, most people do not qualify as anything that can be called computer literate.

I agree that most people don't care about a lot of the technical stuff, but I'd disagree that most people don't qualify as computer literate. Instead, I'd suggest that most people qualify as computer literate on the user level, not the technical level. I try to delineate between user-level, tech-level, and admin-level computer literacy. Most people in the company where I work are pretty decently user-level computer literate, and I try to count on my understanding of user-level literacy to dictate the decisions on the tech-level and admin-level, both of the latter of which are my professional responsibility. What a user needs to know is how to use the tools in front of them to accomplish the work they're trying to accomplish.

I only say this because I know people who are way smarter than me who would be a frustrating experience trying to teach how to do some stuff on the computer.

As for the technical side, well, we're all still waiting for Apple to manage to release an actual 64-bit OS and maybe even include basic functionality like execution prevention.

Transitioning to a true 64-bit OS is difficult enough even for the move in Windows. The Vista version of 64-bit was definitely an improvement over the XP version, and Win 7 seems to have taken those improvements and gone even further. Apple's OS X is taking a different, more integrated route without separate versions-- a plus side being fewer distracting distribution labels and a negative being slower advancement into full 64-bit. Execution prevention, however, is less of an issue in OS X than in Windows because of the nature in which binaries are executed. The fundementals are the same, but the conditions and environment are different. OS X doesn't need execution prevention, but it could use a better method of chasing down rogue process threads (which has actually been addressed in Win 7 but wasn't in Vista).

KoihimeNakamura

7th February 2009, 04:11 AM

I should ask a quick question. Could I run a VM box running Windows 7 with 512 MB RAM, or is it wait for a comp upgrade to try?

Macgyver1968

7th February 2009, 04:18 AM

I helped a friend install the beta last night. Went pretty smoothly. From what I saw, I liked. I've got the disk now, so I'll be loading it sometime soon...maybe today.

Monkey Napoleon

7th February 2009, 07:43 AM

I should ask a quick question. Could I run a VM box running Windows 7 with 512 MB RAM, or is it wait for a comp upgrade to try?

Minium recommended specs:
1ghz CPU, 1gb RAM, DX9 compatable graphics card (128mb for Aero theme), 16gb HD space.

I've been using the beta for about a month now, and I'm pleased with it so far. One crash for the whole month, and it was caused by a really old third party driver. The amusing part was that I hadn't even considered using the windows stock driver, which ended up working better than the manufacturer's.

My only nitpicks so far:
IE8 seems to have some capatability issues with some webpages, which I'm starting to think is caused by the adobe flash plugin.
Programs that try to write files to C:\Program Files\ without prompting the user fail to do so, without telling me. I imagine that this is for security, but it would be nice if I could turn this feature off or access a whitelist of some kind. I also had this problem in Vista.

GreNME

7th February 2009, 08:22 AM

Minium recommended specs:
1ghz CPU, 1gb RAM, DX9 compatable graphics card (128mb for Aero theme), 16gb HD space.

I've been using the beta for about a month now, and I'm pleased with it so far. One crash for the whole month, and it was caused by a really old third party driver. The amusing part was that I hadn't even considered using the windows stock driver, which ended up working better than the manufacturer's.

Yeah, how's that for being completely different from most previous releases of Windows?

My only nitpicks so far:
IE8 seems to have some capatability issues with some webpages, which I'm starting to think is caused by the adobe flash plugin.

Might be Flash, but I also think IE8 has a memory hole in it somewhere.

Programs that try to write files to C:\Program Files\ without prompting the user fail to do so, without telling me. I imagine that this is for security, but it would be nice if I could turn this feature off or access a whitelist of some kind. I also had this problem in Vista.

If you know which Program Files directory needs to be written to you can manually give permission to write to it (I can walk you through how). Otherwise the reason you're having trouble with this is because both Vista and Win 7 don't give direct access to that directory. Within your user directory is actually a directory (or group of directories) that serve as the launching point for programs as well as store your settings for any given program. This type of setup has actually been around since the NT and Win 2000 days, but since Vista it's become less of a suggestion for Windows programs and more of a requirement.

Monkey Napoleon

7th February 2009, 03:09 PM

Yeah, how's that for being completely different from most previous releases of Windows?

I forgot to mention that for my machine (Dell Vostro 1500), it didn't need any third party drivers to get everything working. That was a very pleasant suprise. The only non-ms driver I'm using is for the video card, but even that would have been totally unecessary if I wasn't into gaming.

Might be Flash, but I also think IE8 has a memory hole in it somewhere.

I have noticed the occasional hang in IE8, but my specific issue doesn't seem to be a memory hole. Example: Whenever there is a Randi Talks on the front page, it's starts loading and I can see everything for a split second until loading finishes, at which point everything goes completely blank. The browser's not crashed or anything, I can enter a different url and it'll go right to it without issue.

If you want to PM the fix you mentioned, I'd be grateful :D

GreNME

7th February 2009, 07:28 PM

If anyone who is trying to test out Win 7 with a Windows domain, they may run into problems if the FQDN is more than 15 characters long. Microsoft has put together a hotfix for it here (http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961402&kbln=en-us), but don't install it unless you're having a problem joining a domain.

FlamingMoe

7th February 2009, 11:43 PM

jsiv

8th February 2009, 02:59 PM

Transitioning to a true 64-bit OS is difficult enough even for the move in Windows. The Vista version of 64-bit was definitely an improvement over the XP version, and Win 7 seems to have taken those improvements and gone even further.
I don't know, apart from the ecosystem support (64-bit versions of drivers and software that can't run emulated), I see little difference. It has been a solid, complete 64-bit OS from the start.

Apple's OS X is taking a different, more integrated route without separate versions-- a plus side being fewer distracting distribution labels and a negative being slower advancement into full 64-bit.
I believe the next version of OS X that is due out this year will be completely 64-bit, with the exception of the Carbon API which will only be available to legacy 32-bit programs (like Office and Adobe's programs. Ever wondered why the 64-bit version of Photoshop is only available for Windows..?). That move will also remove support for the old 32-bit Intel and PPC processors. On the plus side, it will make the OS a fair bit smaller since they can strip the PPC code out.

Once they do this, it will essentially be the same as 64-bit Windows (64-bit OS, emulated 32-bit environment) and no longer look like this mess (clever engineering or not):

http://i40.tinypic.com/2efooas.gif

If you read the internet though, you're likely to get the impression that Apple invented 64-bit (and pretty much everything else in the universe), when in reality they mostly follow behind the competition. Apple only shines at design and marketing.

Execution prevention, however, is less of an issue in OS X than in Windows because of the nature in which binaries are executed. The fundementals are the same, but the conditions and environment are different.
I'm not sure why you think it is different. For 32-bit processes (most of the core OS) under OS X any part of the heap can freely be executed (but not the stack). On top of that, it has no support for address randomization. All parts of a process will always be at the same predictable address. The only exception is system libraries which are randomized whenever the predinding of the file is updated. The library loader is not randomized.

OS X users are lucky that apart from a few proof-of-concepts, the shortcomings haven't been taken advantage of. It takes a lot less sophistication than on Windows and is certainly exploitable.

GreNME

8th February 2009, 04:18 PM

So, from what I'm hearing, software compatibility issues that were present in Vista will also be present with W7, since it's a problem with the software companies not developing patches and not with W7/Vista themselves.

Is that about right?

It sounds close enough. There are a bunch of programs out there that assume the user running the software has full access to system resources, which is a throwback to the Win 98 days of software design, and a horribly sloppy way to design software. On the other hand, Windows 98 was also designed badly enough that the poor software design was needed because practically everything a useful software required to operate in Win 98 required full access. It was a problem brought about by the design of the Win 95 and 98 operating systems' popularity.

Win 2000 changed that, but it wasn't the greatest of releases and a lot of software didn't work on it. XP wasn't much different in that regard, but some changes were made to improve on its user-level performance, which Microsoft accomplished pretty well despite a lot of accusations from some that XP was just a prettier Win 2000. Win XP's service pack 2 tended to cause a few other programs to break, but most of those were programs that misused the networking stack or took legacy shortcuts that existed in XP that allowed some software to bypass the normal security of the operating system.

Vista was built with those changes in XP service pack 2 in mind, but without the shortcuts available. It also included other things that weren't possible in Win XP without re-writing things from the ground up, which is why the changes were put into Vista instead of trying to shunt them into later service packs for Windows XP. A lot of the software developers have since corrected the problems that were their responsibility with the release of Vista, but that doesn't guarantee software out there prior to Vista runs okay without the newest version of whatever software it is. Some have released patches to address the issues, but not all of them. However, if the software works in Vista it'll run in Win 7.

elgarak

8th February 2009, 04:37 PM

I don't know, apart from the ecosystem support (64-bit versions of drivers and software that can't run emulated), I see little difference. It has been a solid, complete 64-bit OS from the start.

I believe the next version of OS X that is due out this year will be completely 64-bit, with the exception of the Carbon API which will only be available to legacy 32-bit programs (like Office and Adobe's programs. Ever wondered why the 64-bit version of Photoshop is only available for Windows..?). That move will also remove support for the old 32-bit Intel and PPC processors. On the plus side, it will make the OS a fair bit smaller since they can strip the PPC code out.

Once they do this, it will essentially be the same as 64-bit Windows (64-bit OS, emulated 32-bit environment) and no longer look like this mess (clever engineering or not):

http://i40.tinypic.com/2efooas.gif

If you read the internet though, you're likely to get the impression that Apple invented 64-bit (and pretty much everything else in the universe), when in reality they mostly follow behind the competition. Apple only shines at design and marketing.

I'm not sure why you think it is different. For 32-bit processes (most of the core OS) under OS X any part of the heap can freely be executed (but not the stack). On top of that, it has no support for address randomization. All parts of a process will always be at the same predictable address. The only exception is system libraries which are randomized whenever the predinding of the file is updated. The library loader is not randomized.

OS X users are lucky that apart from a few proof-of-concepts, the shortcomings haven't been taken advantage of. It takes a lot less sophistication than on Windows and is certainly exploitable.

Have you ever used Mac OS X lately? It's a marvel. As an end user, you do not have to worry what legacy a software has -- 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, Power PC, Intel -- it just runs, and mostly stable. There's an old 32-bit PowerPC only application that I run nearly daily (which my boss refuses to upgrade) -- with Leopard on an Intel MacBook. It runs like a charm.

That's something Microsoft never has been able to do. There's still separate 32- and 64-bit versions out there, and drivers and applications need to be right for each version.

Regarding security: How come there's not one single virus out there? Why do I not have to worry about malware (except for stop and think before I submit my admin password to install a codec from a porn website)? The installed Mac userbase is large enough to make a monster bot-net, considering that nearly no Mac runs special security software and surfs the net and interacts with other computers out there. And yet, there's no Mac based bot-net out there.

GreNME

8th February 2009, 06:10 PM

Regarding security: How come there's not one single virus out there? Why do I not have to worry about malware (except for stop and think before I submit my admin password to install a codec from a porn website)? The installed Mac userbase is large enough to make a monster bot-net, considering that nearly no Mac runs special security software and surfs the net and interacts with other computers out there. And yet, there's no Mac based bot-net out there.

Can you do me a favor and name the last actual virus that was a problem in Windows? Methinks that the distinctions between trojans, worms, and viruses are lost on most people, and anyone who thinks that those things couldn't affect the Mac world is just fertilizing the growing field of new targets for those paying for malware development.

I'll give Apple credit, though: not having users run as root is the way to go. I know too many otherwise smart *nix users who do so on a regular basis even though there are plenty of exploits out there for *nix machines-- they simply rely on the fact that the exploits out there are server-oriented.

But a Mac bot-net? Okay, read the following (http://db.tidbits.com/article/10033):... I'm having trouble mustering any sympathy for the people who downloaded pirated copies of iWork '09 and Photoshop CS4 and had their Macs turned into zombies participating in distributed denial of service attacks.

Emphasis mine.

Now, can we not turn this thread into a "Mac vs PC" argument?

The only way malware is really going to be curbed is going to come not from any given platform, it's going to come from the practice of application whitelisting, which is only just now becoming a more widely-used security measure. Win 7 has some new additions to make app whitelisting easier, and OS X isn't too bad at requiring a password for access to certain processes. Both are going to need more improvements before malware isn't going to be a problem, though, and even at that point the main weakness isn't going to be the technology itself (it's already the user).

Alex Libman

8th February 2009, 06:39 PM

I liked Windows 7. It was slightly faster than Vista, contrary to popular expectations, and had a number of quality-oriented improvements I liked. Then it BSoD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death)`ed on me so I decided to wait until it's production quality.

The main reason why my level of respect for Microsoft has been going up lately has to do not just with Windows 7, but the next version after that, which will be written entirely in managed code (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_%28operating_system%29). The best that I can tell, Java (and thus Mac or Linux) will not be able to create anything similar in time, and Microsoft will be ahead of the game again!

GreNME

8th February 2009, 07:00 PM

I don't know, apart from the ecosystem support (64-bit versions of drivers and software that can't run emulated), I see little difference. It has been a solid, complete 64-bit OS from the start.

Sure, but driver support and legacy emulation is still important in practical use. 32-bit had to deal with that for years.

I believe the next version of OS X that is due out this year will be completely 64-bit, with the exception of the Carbon API which will only be available to legacy 32-bit programs (like Office and Adobe's programs. Ever wondered why the 64-bit version of Photoshop is only available for Windows..?). That move will also remove support for the old 32-bit Intel and PPC processors. On the plus side, it will make the OS a fair bit smaller since they can strip the PPC code out.

Once they do this, it will essentially be the same as 64-bit Windows (64-bit OS, emulated 32-bit environment) and no longer look like this mess (clever engineering or not):

http://i40.tinypic.com/2efooas.gif

If you read the internet though, you're likely to get the impression that Apple invented 64-bit (and pretty much everything else in the universe), when in reality they mostly follow behind the competition. Apple only shines at design and marketing.

I don't know, I like my Macbook Pro well enough. I do wish my Leopard install were as small as my Win 7 install, though, on the same machine with the same hardware.

Execution prevention, however, is less of an issue in OS X than in Windows because of the nature in which binaries are executed. The fundementals are the same, but the conditions and environment are different.
I'm not sure why you think it is different. For 32-bit processes (most of the core OS) under OS X any part of the heap can freely be executed (but not the stack). On top of that, it has no support for address randomization. All parts of a process will always be at the same predictable address. The only exception is system libraries which are randomized whenever the predinding of the file is updated. The library loader is not randomized.

Oh, I definitely think the library loading randomization is neat, and there isn't really much of an equivalent in OS X, but for the most part Windows malware isn't calling processes or libraries by address, they're calling them up by name.

However, I thought you were specifically talking about the no-execute bit in Windows since SP2. Basically, my policy is that obfuscation-- hiding the location of the processes-- is always going to be inferior to access control, but that the No-Ex-bit isn't really access control in a useful sense.

OS X users are lucky that apart from a few proof-of-concepts, the shortcomings haven't been taken advantage of. It takes a lot less sophistication than on Windows and is certainly exploitable.

As soon as there are marketable reasons to take advantage of the weaknesses it'll happen (see above link to the BT trojan).

jsiv

9th February 2009, 10:40 AM

Have you ever used Mac OS X lately? It's a marvel. As an end user, you do not have to worry what legacy a software has -- 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, Power PC, Intel -- it just runs, and mostly stable. There's an old 32-bit PowerPC only application that I run nearly daily (which my boss refuses to upgrade) -- with Leopard on an Intel MacBook. It runs like a charm.
I don't know though, I run plenty of old programs.

I even installed Windows 7 on a Pentium III, and installed the Windows 2000 drivers for the components it didn't recognize (IR, sound, modem, network) and they worked fine.

Now there's always going to be some things that break, but really, I would say that Microsoft does pretty well compatibility-wise.

That's something Microsoft never has been able to do. There's still separate 32- and 64-bit versions out there, and drivers and applications need to be right for each version.
Well, I'm not completely sure what you mean. As far as I know (and maybe some Mac experts can correct me), OS X still does not have a 64-bit kernel, and cannot use 64-bit drivers at all. In other words, it's not really comparable.

With the exception of applications that hook into system components (shell extensions, packet filters, etc), I would say that the 32-bit emulation layer works extremely well.

Regarding security: How come there's not one single virus out there?
Instead of getting into a discussion about viruses, I'm just going to say that any OS will benefit from being as secure as possible and covering even the hypotheticals. That way you lessen the risk of being bitten in the future.

I'm not going to argue against the fact that the Mac is the safest platform for a computer novice today.

jsiv

9th February 2009, 11:16 AM

Sure, but driver support and legacy emulation is still important in practical use. 32-bit had to deal with that for years.
Certainly. Lots of people depend on 32-bit solutions that are never going to be updated. The OS itself though is solid.

However, I thought you were specifically talking about the no-execute bit in Windows since SP2.
I was talking about it. All it does is give the OS the ability to mark a page in memory as code or data. No more, no less. When combined with full randomization (base, code, libraries, stack, heap) it substantially raises the level of sophistication required by exploits because they're no longer free to execute any part of the heap (or stack) and no longer have known fixed memory addresses to the various parts of a process to work with.

It's not intended as the be all and end all of security, it's just to help reduce the amount of simple buffer overflow-based exploits that used to be so extremely widespread.

As for malware today, it mostly doesn't exploit anything at all. It just relies on users voluntarily running it -- something millions will. UAC fails in many respects by allowing a user to gain administrator rights simply by clicking a "yes" button. Prompting for a password would have raised the level of perceived seriousness (people are generally more careful with passwords). It wouldn't have been user-friendly though.

We've only got Windows 9x to thank for it. Having two operating systems (one single-user and one multi-user) was the biggest mistake Microsoft ever made.

(Here's hoping the forum database won't be busy this time)

Wowbagger

9th February 2009, 11:21 AM

What I want is an operating system that makes our computers moist and chewy, like cake, so we can just eat them while we're working.

10 points to whoever gets the reference!

jsiv

9th February 2009, 11:26 AM

You'll feel empty afterwards.

GreNME

9th February 2009, 01:10 PM

We've only got Windows 9x to thank for it. Having two operating systems (one single-user and one multi-user) was the biggest mistake Microsoft ever made.

I agree, and I also think that having the single-user OS hampered their progress of getting to a 'full' multi-user OS. The NT line has been mostly multi-user, but has had a lot of single-user components since XP (less so in 2000).

Thanks for clarifying on the no-execute bit. I didn't realize it did quite that much. I suppose you're already aware of how they've expanded on that concept in Vista/Win 7 though, yes? Definitely more difficult to run arbitrary code now on Windows, but it can still be done.

SirPhilip

1st March 2009, 08:52 AM

I have a Macbook Pro and am quite familiar with Linux, and I don't know what you're trying to get at here. Linux is "getting there" but has been at that point since about 1998. Most of the "high performance" applications on Linux are server-based and aren't all that meaningful to the end-user on a desktop. Linux and OSX are trouble free and far superior for general use than any version of Windows. Vista has an even shorter lifespan in this regard. What's more apt: someone actually learning how a proper operating system works or managing an atrocious one's inherent problems and needless frustrations?

What Microsoft has to accomplish with Windows 7 is to provide something different from their Vista offering. Except it won't. Expect GUI enhancements and 'performance refinements' that utilize hardware resources inefficiently to compensate.

What remains to be seen is whether the changes are taken well by the public. Which is precisely like McDonalds changing Big Mac marketing hoping a health oriented public image develops.

Taken without the baggage of the bad press Vista's gotten, though, I definitely think the changes are for the better, but on the other hand I'm someone for whom the bad press against Vista wasn't convincing.
It doesn't occur to you that Windows 7 is what the Escalade is to the Yukon. The same exact vehicle except with superficial enhancements, a quieter interior, and higher curb weight.

No, they really aren't. Other people and I have already talked about some of the other stuff in this thread already. But fail is fail. You can't reverse engineer an atrocious operating system design and retain compatibility. Microsoft must keep every version back-compatible.

No offense, but do you only get your information from the Inquirer? An "optimized" and "completely custom" Linux is not something you get out of the box in any distro, even the better ones. Spending the same amount of time (or less) with a Windows (or OS X) desktop gets someone the same satisfaction as a given Linux distro. It all boils down instead to personal preference, not some kind of inherent qualities of the operating system. Except any improved Windows is neither high performance nor general purpose trouble free ease of use. The Windows family computer requires far more maintenance than any proper Linux or OSX system.

What a crappy way to summarize. There's no need to make an assessment of an operating system into a personal attack, even if the personal attack is against a company like Microsoft. Microsoft, despite enormous resources consistently produces underwhelming to atrocious products. Because of mainstream status, you are also required to pay for it - and unlike Apple, what you are paying for is at best a slight relief, and never impressive.

GreNME

1st March 2009, 09:34 AM

jsiv

1st March 2009, 10:15 AM

Linux and OSX are trouble free and far superior for general use than any version of Windows. Vista has an even shorter lifespan in this regard. What's more apt: someone actually learning how a proper operating system works or managing an atrocious one's inherent problems and needless frustrations?
You can argue that OS X has less issues with malware, if you're willing to pay the premium to get a Mac. Other than that, OS X is not difficult to break.

Linux.. Well.. It's a bit pointless to even mention in the same sentence as OS X or Windows. The big distributions can't even get basic things like text rendering right (and even if you spend hours installing Microsoft fonts and trying to tweak the font smoothing options, it still never looks as good as Windows).

One of the biggest problems with Windows is that people don't bother to learn anything about how it works. How do you expect them to do it for another platform?

SirPhilip

1st March 2009, 11:16 AM

Have you even bothered trying to give Win 7 or Vista a shot? An honest one? You're using several Mac-fanboi-site argument tropes, and I'm really not interested in getting into a "Mac vs PC" debate with you. When you would like to actually discuss what your gripes are on the merits of the upcoming Windows compared to the prior releases I'm cool. I'm a high performance computing enthusiast, my approach is different: Windows is properly contrasted to high performance (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4474340#post4474340) operating systems. OSX and Vista are actually very similar in performance. OSX just has the advantage of efficiency and scalability - an important fact in the next few years.

As for what I was talking about regarding end-users and the next Windows coming out: when Windows XP was released it's largest competitor was Windows 98. Prior to that, Windows 2000 competed with not only Win 98, but also NT4. When Vista released its largest block of competition was Windows XP. Windows 7 will be competing mostly with Vista and XP. My point is Vista and Windows 7 are primarily designed from the ground up to accomplish two goals:

- Generate revenue for Microsoft

- Generate increased revenue incentives for other companies

This sounds asinine, but Vista has no actual practical value over it's predecessors, and is counterproductive. I'm typing this from a friend's sixth month old Dual Core Dell preloaded with Vista 32 with 2gb and integrated graphics. Themes are off, yet you can watch the browser window skip across the screen when dragged with no applications up. Microsoft follows the same principle as any manufacturer of products marketed for mass consumption. Could Microsoft create a peerless operating system from the ground up? Yes, they have the resources - that isn't the goal however.

jsiv

1st March 2009, 11:49 AM

OS X has the advantage of scalability? What is that claim based on? As far as I know, no one has ever even run it on hardware with more than eight cores. It's also a 32-bit kernel, which means it can't even theoretically support more than 64GB of ram (and I believe the actual support amount is 32GB).

Or are you talking about the next version of OS X that will be out later this year or next year, which will be the first 64-bit version?

In any case, there have been major changes made to the Windows kernel for 7/2008 R2 that focus entirely on scalability. I believe someone else has already mentioned it earlier in the thread.

GreNME

1st March 2009, 01:26 PM

I'm a high performance computing enthusiast, my approach is different: Windows is properly contrasted to high performance (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4474340#post4474340) operating systems. OSX and Vista are actually very similar in performance. OSX just has the advantage of efficiency and scalability - an important fact in the next few years.

You think because you have access to an Octane that this gives you some kind of authority? I don't give two spits what kind of enthusiast you fancy yourself, if all you can use in your arguments are the same old "Mac vs PC" rhetoric your arguments aren't worth my time. Vista and Leopard are practically a step removed from each other as far as how they work under the hood, which is really the only differentiating thing about them. From a user's perspective the only real difference is in where the buttons are.

My point is Vista and Windows 7 are primarily designed from the ground up to accomplish two goals:

- Generate revenue for Microsoft

- Generate increased revenue incentives for other companies

Wow, I didn't know you were a developer for the Windows division at Microsoft.

This sounds asinine, but Vista has no actual practical value over it's predecessors, and is counterproductive. I'm typing this from a friend's sixth month old Dual Core Dell preloaded with Vista 32 with 2gb and integrated graphics. Themes are off, yet you can watch the browser window skip across the screen when dragged with no applications up. Microsoft follows the same principle as any manufacturer of products marketed for mass consumption. Could Microsoft create a peerless operating system from the ground up? Yes, they have the resources - that isn't the goal however.

It's comments like this that make me wonder what the heck you claim are your 'chops' for being a high performance enthusiast. If you knew anything about how Vista (and Win 7) actually worked, you'd know that turning off Aero is going to lessen performance. Way to go, champ. You pretty much just showed me how you're more interested in trying to game your predetermined conclusion than to bother reading up on the subject.

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been arguing that Windows 7 is going to be the bestest operating system in the whole wide world. In the end, it's going to wind up being a Coke/Pepsi, Chevy/Ford, Tastes Great/Less Filling type of decision for individuals. However, what I have been saying is that the major gripes about Windows Vista seem to have been addressed and that there have been UI changes to make the typical user experience more streamlined and intuitive. That's no different than any other OS development team aims for, so the main goal of looking at it before it's released is to see if those goals have been met and how well they've been met. There's never going to be a "peerless" operating system because not everyone is the same.

SirPhilip

1st March 2009, 08:29 PM

Or are you talking about the next version of OS X that will be out later this year or next year, which will be the first 64-bit version? Yes I was.

SirPhilip

1st March 2009, 09:20 PM

You think because you have access to an Octane that this gives you some kind of authority? Yes, it does. I'm a broadcast professional who has used XP Professional 64bit several years with almost every high performance 64bit application ever released for the platform. For any given application you are working in you have a ceiling of about 2gb, until instability expoentially increases in three stages:

- Significant load delay
- The application becoming unrecoverable
- Soft crashing

This behavior is not the application, but inherent to the operating system. Is this relevant? Yes as media, gaming, and general use increasingly use large datasets, employ multithreading and scalability become household terms. The domain of the workstation. Once you understand what any backward compatible version of Windows requires to do so little, there is no technical argument in favor of it, just rearranging prejudices on a platform driven by consumer inertia.

What happens when hardware is used far more smartly and efficiently and Microsoft cannot compensate when benchmarking starts to remove all doubt?

jsiv

1st March 2009, 09:58 PM

Yes I was.
I don't think you were, but most of what I said still stands.

For any given application you are working in you have a ceiling of about 2gb, until instability expoentially increases in three stages:

- Significant load delay
- The application becoming unrecoverable
- Soft crashing

This behavior is not the application, but inherent to the operating system.
Nonsense.

GreNME

2nd March 2009, 05:06 AM

You think because you have access to an Octane that this gives you some kind of authority?
Yes, it does.

Hate to burst your bubble, but no it doesn't. Having an understanding of the technical aspects of the hardware and the software you're dealing with, knowing the platform differences and the benefits and liabilities of each, and being able to see how optimal goals can be applied to realistic, everyday situations would give you authority. Having some actual experience in the field (like me) could help but it's not a given, it really comes down to actually know what the heck you're talking about, which at this point you've done about jack and squat as far as exhibiting such knowledge.

I'm a broadcast professional who has used XP Professional 64bit several years with almost every high performance 64bit application ever released for the platform.

Which platform? Do you understand the differences between Windows XP 64-bit for Itanium and Windows 64-bit for x86? There are fundamental differences between the two that make them very different, so please specify because I'm not going to take you at your word that you've had "several" years of experience with 64-bit XP unless you used the IA-64 version prior to April of 2005 (unless you're a time traveler). If you weren't running IA-64 versions of XP 64-bit, then you're dealing with a version of a 64-bit system that had some consistent problems in the first two years after release, but has progressively improved. Considering how few programs existed that were actually written for it, it's easy to believe you used every program available for 64-bit Windows between 2005 and mid-2007.

For any given application you are working in you have a ceiling of about 2gb, until instability expoentially increases in three stages:

- Significant load delay
- The application becoming unrecoverable
- Soft crashing

This behavior is not the application, but inherent to the operating system.

Okay, you've made an assertion and I am the second person to disbelieve you. Now all you have to do is provide some proof (empirical or otherwise) to back up your claim that it's the operating system and not the software causing the instability.

Is this relevant? Yes as media, gaming, and general use increasingly use large datasets, employ multithreading and scalability become household terms. The domain of the workstation. Once you understand what any backward compatible version of Windows requires to do so little, there is no technical argument in favor of it, just rearranging prejudices on a platform driven by consumer inertia.

Neither Vista nor Win 7-- nor Server 2008 for that matter-- have so far had any problems with large data sets that I can see. Whether an application takes advantage of the multithreading depends on the application maker, not Microsoft (unless they wrote the application). As for backward compatibility, you really must have missed all of the hullabaloo after Vista's release due to how many older applications did not work. The funny thing is that Microsoft didn't do much even after many people complained to try to change Vista so that it would work (which would have required it behaving more like XP), so many software manufacturers had to re-write their software (and drivers) to accommodate. Something similar happened with the SP2 release of XP, and the changes in Vista that made many older apps incompatible had mostly to do with security just like XP SP2. Once app developers made apps that ran reliably in user space instead of system space things were dandy, and apps already written using that methodology ran fine.

What happens when hardware is used far more smartly and efficiently and Microsoft cannot compensate when benchmarking starts to remove all doubt?

Benchmarking software, for the most part, is an unreliable testing measure for performance, especially once software makers are aware of the benchmarks and begin to write optimizations for it. Instead, actually using applications-- if not the same application across platforms then as much 'like' an application as can be found-- is the best way to judge performance of a system. The detriment to having actual usage being a benchmark is that doing the exact same thing on different OS platforms often requires different steps depending on the platform. Opening and closing the applications alone require different actions, though once the apps are open they should be able to open and process data they work with similarly (if not the same). That said, would you like to explain to everyone here why Adobe's CS4 suite works faster on a Vista 64-bit system than on a Leopard system of equivalent or similar specifications? Even better, care to explain why Win 7 (64-bit) runs faster than Leopard on exactly the same hardware?

Regardless of whether you answer the above questions, you're still dancing around providing any actual information as to what Windows 7 is going to fail at as far as performance and scalability. You keep bringing up unrelated platforms, but if you're talking about a desktop computer then mentioning an Octane is like comparing apples to cannonballs. If you're talking about workstations then stick to workstations, if you're talking about desktops then stick to desktops, and if you're talking about servers or specialized-use systems (like the Octane) then stick with applicable like comparisons.

Because otherwise, with all due respect, you're simply talking out your rear.

jsiv

2nd March 2009, 09:04 AM

In all honesty many of the "problems" he describes sound like the result of running 32-bit software and/or using more RAM than the machine actually has and making it resort to paging.

Server 2003/XP x64 was Microsoft's first mainstream (well, it's all relative) 64-bit OS, and its biggest problem was the lack of ecosystem support.

GreNME

2nd March 2009, 11:01 AM

I will say of XP 64-bit that it really was a dog, for precisely the reason you point out. It's not that the OS was unwilling, it was that there were so few things out there to take advantage of the 64-bit environment on top of the 64-bit architecture (on a desktop/workstation level) that the benefits were unrealized on top of less driver support for hardware from manufacturers. Vista really has made large inroads in that manner-- as I said, CS4 Suite really does shine-- and by all indications so far Win 7 seems to be going a step further in its ability to handle CPU time per-process even more efficiently than its predecessors.

It's probably really boring to those not into system internals on the Win platform, but the video I linked to the Russinovich interview was really interesting in that regard. From a stripped-down Linux point of view it seems overly-complicated (even though it isn't, since *nix achieves similar results through different measures), but it's really nice to see something that is obviously a growing concern with multi-core computing being directly addressed at a core level (the kernel) instead of trying to add code later.

Wowbagger

2nd March 2009, 04:50 PM

For what it's worth: Half-Life 2 was written to take advantage of 64-bit support, in XP x64. :)

Does anything else really matter?

GreNME

2nd March 2009, 05:56 PM

Was it really? I'm not a gamer, but that's pretty impressive.

SirPhilip

5th March 2009, 07:16 PM

Does anything else really matter? Yes - 64bit Team Fortress 2!

Wowbagger

7th March 2009, 10:12 AM

Yes - 64bit Team Fortress 2!
Ah, touché.

moopet

8th March 2009, 04:08 AM

For those of you who may have heard that Windows 7 is very fast-- definitely faster than Vista and possibly faster than XP-- I can definitely confirm that.

Something I have trouble with is why saying an operating system is possibly as good as one that came out several years earlier is... a selling point.

There are no more "wow"s only, "hey it's not like totally awful"s.

Darat

8th March 2009, 04:43 AM

Or you could look at it another away "Win7 is doing more than WinXP did and it does it faster"

gumboot

8th March 2009, 04:59 AM

Which will no doubt lead to Arthwollipot getting sarcastic with me again. But in a way, he makes my point for me. If you have to attain this elite "expert" status with Word to be able to get round its infuriating glitches and find its hidden joys, then I'm not prepared to bother. Not when I can manage these things easily in WordPerfect with nothing but intuition guiding me. And I get the indispensible WP "reveal codes" screen as well, which is frankly the real reason I continue to give the programme food and shelter.

I think it's often a case of what you learned on. I briefly used Microsoft Works before shifting to Word, back on Windows 3.11, and I have been using Word ever since, so for me it's very familiar, and through trial and error I've discovered all of its secrets.

The real learning curve for me was doing my Art Design portfolio for high school - the school only had two versions of Photoshop and they were always being used, but I was no good by hand because I'm a lefty (smearing and mess abounds!) so I did virtually my entire design portfolio in Word, believe it or not (and came 3rd in the country).

Four design boards, thousands of files and about 10 million words later, I'm so familiar with word that switching to an unfamiliar program seems pointless.

And with any sort of writing software, for me ultimately the basic task is entering text on a page, which they all do perfectly. Any perceived benefit that one program might offer over another simply isn't significant beside the lost productivity while you become familiar with new software.

So I'd advise; stick with what you know. There's no need to switch. (Unless you're using notepad :D)

AWPrime

8th March 2009, 05:09 AM

I just hope it isn't like Vista. I have tried Vista...... at first it looked oke, it had a few neat options. Then came the problems, the interface becomes increasing annoying especially the nannying.

So I am back to the matured 64-bit XP.

On the topic if I have any remaining faith in Microsoft, their latest media player destroyed it.

Rolfe

8th March 2009, 09:58 AM

I think it's often a case of what you learned on. I briefly used Microsoft Works ....
So I'd advise; stick with what you know. There's no need to switch. (Unless you're using notepad :D)

You'd think so, wouldn't you? The funny thing is, I started on Word, on a friend's machine, but bought WordPerfect because my secretary recommended it to me. I immediately found it easier to grasp.

Then later, when the switch to Win95 meant that I was going to have to ditch the old WordPerfect version, I got Word 97. I still thought it would be just as easy to pick that up as WordPerfect. But I had a hell of a time. I won't go into (again) the time I wasted trying to do things that were easy on WordPerfect, but it was dreadful. Finally my lab manager bought me WordPerfect 7. Half an hour of fiddling and I had it surrounded.

I've just upgraded from that to WP14. Life is fine. I'm about to format six books in WP14 for actual publication from pdf conversions. I just have to think of a hoop and it jumps through it.

I have to use Word at work, and you'd think I'd have got the hang of it by now, but no. Paragraphs get reformatted begore my eyes, margins never do what I want, fonts are anything it wants them to be.... I can't understand why this programme is so hostile when the Corel one just does it.

Oh well.

Rolfe.

GreNME

8th March 2009, 11:05 PM

Something I have trouble with is why saying an operating system is possibly as good as one that came out several years earlier is... a selling point.

There are no more "wow"s only, "hey it's not like totally awful"s.

I think Win 7 might have "wow" for some people, but for most it's going to be different enough to be a nice improvement but not so different as to be completely unrecognizable. Vista had controls and other things in different places, which annoyed people. Two years later more of the locations of stuff is more widely known, and Microsoft doesn't seem inclined to switch things up again, judging from the beta so far.

-----

I just hope it isn't like Vista. I have tried Vista...... at first it looked oke, it had a few neat options. Then came the problems, the interface becomes increasing annoying especially the nannying.

So I am back to the matured 64-bit XP.

On the topic if I have any remaining faith in Microsoft, their latest media player destroyed it.

That's interesting, I've found a lot more luck dealing with Vista in 64-bit than with XP, if only because the 32-bit emulation stuff seems to perform better. Since 2003 64-bit seems to be pretty solid, I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility for XP to have improved from my prior experiences.