Windows 7 ...

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Cov
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Windows 7 ...

Post by Cov » Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:13 pm

*knees down and folds hands*

Our Bill, who art in Microsoft,
hallowed be thy OS.
Thy Escrow come,
thy build be done,
on earth as it is in Se7en
Give us this leak our daily fix.
And forgive us our torrent abuse,
as we forgive those who wont share this info.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from Vista.
For thine is the Se7ev, the power and the performance. for ever and ever.

Amen

NeilBlanchard
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Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Apr 08, 2009 5:43 am

LOL -- very clever...

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Apr 08, 2009 1:46 pm

Beware of false gods, especially those that want H-1Bs. :mrgreen:

Nick Geraedts
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Post by Nick Geraedts » Thu Apr 09, 2009 10:02 am

Windows 7 is really impressive. I've got one of the latest builds running on my netbook without any real flaws that I can find.

That being said, there wasn't any real difference in performance between Vista x64 and Win7 x64 on my desktop at home (my desktop is already a high performance machine though). Boot times , application startups, system responsiveness, etc, are roughly the same. I'll still take Win7 for all the new features though (Superbar is epic, for example).


So the biggest difference people are going to see is running it on underpowered systems that should never have had Vista on them in the first place! :wink:

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Post by shleepy » Thu Apr 09, 2009 1:28 pm

Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you have a machine that can't handle Vista, then maybe it's time to upgrade the hardware, no? Even a couple of years ago, you could get a machine that could run very well on Vista for really, really cheap. So, to me, the performance increase seems like a pretty small factor - it's not like Windows 7 is going back to the simple, minimalistic times of an optimized Windows XP build. It almost seems like it was a lot of propaganda from certain fruit-named companies that helped kill Vista. I haven't heard of anyone who has used Vista extensively complain all that much. I find Vista more stable, at least, than XP.

As for the interface, I was shocked when I tried out Windows 7. Granted, I haven't used it for too long yet (but I am building a new i7 system that will have Windows 7 beta as the main OS)... But I couldn't believe how much tweaking I had to do to strip it down to my liking - much more than with Vista. Not only that, but certain things (taskbar icons and whatnot) cannot be reverted to old-school like behavior, and I really do not like some of the changed features. So, what it seems like now is that Microsoft is very heavy with their propaganda, since they don't want to lose that war like they did with Vista.

And don't get me wrong - I'm mostly joking about Apple being the driving force behind why Vista "failed," but I think it got a really bad rap, and I don't see Windows 7 really improving anything to my liking, at least as someone who likes using powerful desktops.

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Post by andyb » Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:18 pm

Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you have a machine that can't handle Vista, then maybe it's time to upgrade the hardware, no? Even a couple of years ago, you could get a machine that could run very well on Vista for really, really cheap.
Most machines that were sold just 1-year ago cant really handle Vista's needs, right now might be different. Just what do you call "really cheap".?
It almost seems like it was a lot of propaganda from certain fruit-named companies that helped kill Vista.
And me who doesnt like fruit-themed gadget companies, oh and the fact that no-one likes its interface and MS were not clever enough to allow the end user to customize it. Its the learning curve, plus the newly introduced annoyances, plus the speed and compatability issues that has earned Vista the reputation it now has.
I haven't heard of anyone who has used Vista extensively complain all that much. I find Vista more stable, at least, than XP.
I spent a large part of today using 2 different Vista machines, I hated them both right up until the moment I formatted the drive on one of them. The other one takes ~5 minutes to shut down, spent an hour installing updates (509.8 MB worth), and then failed to install service pack 1, and all of this was due to me trying to fix flaky drivers that wouldnt install.

As far as I am concerned Windows 7, is either going to keep MS afloat or break in totally. If it ends up as bad as Vista then people will just continue to use XP until Windows 8, or move to non-MS OS's.

I felt that Windows 7 was just as bad as Vista in some ways (interface shittyness), but its a lot faster on a average PC that you can buy right now (10-15% faster).

The lack of options for customizing the interface were also present in the Vista Beta that appaled me years ago - so I expect that to improve in its release form. I also expect Windows 7 to loose some of its performance (Vista did). It seems that Windows 7 is turning into an OK product, but they will loose many sales (from the knowlegable users) if they dont allow the end user to change the interface to the "Classic" look (98, Me, 2K, XP) that people are used to. The performance is not such a problem, as it is almost impossible to think that it will be worse than Vista's and the average PC spec has improved a lot over the last couple of years.

Overall it is going to be a net gain, and I look forward to getting a full copy and running it through its paces.


Andy

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:05 pm

What is wrong with WinXP, that Vista fixes?



My A: nothing, and it doubles the amount of RAM required, and just about doubles the amount of HD used.



What is wrong with Vista, that Win7 fixes?

[Edit:

If Vista is worse than XP, and 7 is better than Vista -- is XP better or worse than 7? ]
Last edited by NeilBlanchard on Fri Apr 10, 2009 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

andyb
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Post by andyb » Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:51 pm

My A: nothing, and it doubles the amount of RAM required, and just about doubles the amount of HD used.
I'm with you there.
What is wrong with Vista, that Win7 fixes?
Its faster.......... the rest we wont know until its released (October I understand is likely), but most importantly it cant be "worse" than Vista (he says thinking that MS dont care what the end user wants)........ it could easily be worse than Vista, but I cant think of how.


Andy

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Post by jhhoffma » Fri Apr 10, 2009 7:55 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:What is wrong with Vista, that Win7 fixes?
From what I've seen, it performs better with lesser amounts of RAM and slower CPUs than Vista. Code optimization and all that...

Perfect for Netbooks...and maybe Atom-based HTPCs.

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:31 am

Can anyone confirm if current buyers of Vista 64/SP1 will be able to upgrade to 7, ie free?

Tobias
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Post by Tobias » Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:50 am

NeilBlanchard wrote: What is wrong with Vista, that Win7 fixes?

[Edit:

If Vista is worse than XP, and 7 is better than Vista -- is XP better or worse than 7? ]
Well... W7 comes with XP as a virtual machine in the costlier versions, so I guess the answer to your last question is a toss up. There are obviously things with XP which is better than W7 :D

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Post by LodeHacker » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:57 am

The question will be how good this XP "virtual machine" in win7 Pro/Ultimate will be. I do like the concept of seamless integration into the main desktop just like you can run Windows apps in Linux via Wine, but just like with Wine some apps/games play nice and some don't. Of course Microsoft's approach is a "native on native" emulation, which should give a bit of advantage but whether it will correctly run some of the great games there which do not work in Vista properly is questionable. Also I am very certain this feature was implemented for server / system admins who would like to deploy their software in a new environment without actually getting new software. That's my theory, because the Pro/Ultimate version certainly doesn't sound like a home user's edition.

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Post by Mats » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:28 am

Tobias wrote:Well... W7 comes with XP as a virtual machine in the costlier versions, so I guess the answer to your last question is a toss up. There are obviously things with XP which is better than W7 :D
I think it has more to do with compatibility than anything else.

I prefer XP so far. A tweaked XP install on a newer computer is very fast and responsive, my laptop had 19 processes running after reinstall.

The only thing Vista and W7 have that XP doesn't is DX10, and I'll get a newer version when I need DX10.

The question is, which Windows desktop version was the best one, when released?
Many people still thinks 2000 and XP are solid and stable versions, but that's far from what they were when released.
The x.1 versions tend to be better (than the x.0 versions), like 98, XP, and 7 (which actually have the same version number as Vista SP1).
Last edited by Mats on Fri May 01, 2009 3:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

floffe
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Post by floffe » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:24 pm

LodeHacker wrote: Also I am very certain this feature was implemented for server / system admins who would like to deploy their software in a new environment without actually getting new software. That's my theory, because the Pro/Ultimate version certainly doesn't sound like a home user's edition.
Yes, it's directed at businesses who cannot/will not upgrade the software they run. A prime example would be a DOS 6.something system we kept running at the lab where I work until 2 years ago, because that was what the software for the instrument it controlled was written for.* We also have a couple of Win95 systems around (and active), although most of our computers run XP now. These are exactly the kind of applications that could make a difference whether we'll upgrade to Win7 or not. Software that was written 8 or 10 years ago is far from guaranteed to work on newer OS's than XP, and we have several instruments that are well over a decade old. Then again, for this to be useful it must work fully with USB (and possibly serial as well).



* It had printer like this with a rotating carousel where you put coloured pens. See the video for how it works.

LodeHacker
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Post by LodeHacker » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:56 am

floffe wrote:
LodeHacker wrote: Also I am very certain this feature was implemented for server / system admins who would like to deploy their software in a new environment without actually getting new software. That's my theory, because the Pro/Ultimate version certainly doesn't sound like a home user's edition.
Yes, it's directed at businesses who cannot/will not upgrade the software they run. A prime example would be a DOS 6.something system we kept running at the lab where I work until 2 years ago, because that was what the software for the instrument it controlled was written for.* We also have a couple of Win95 systems around (and active), although most of our computers run XP now. These are exactly the kind of applications that could make a difference whether we'll upgrade to Win7 or not. Software that was written 8 or 10 years ago is far from guaranteed to work on newer OS's than XP, and we have several instruments that are well over a decade old. Then again, for this to be useful it must work fully with USB (and possibly serial as well).



* It had printer like this with a rotating carousel where you put coloured pens. See the video for how it works.
Thanks for the clarification. One thing that does make me tinker is how the compatibility between legacy devices and the XP virtual machine layer is done. In other words, is this virtual machine only emulating the Windows XP core, or have Microsoft implemented a way to install XP drivers on Win7? I know that many lab instruments come with drivers up to XP and these drivers do not install in Vista for example. How did Microsoft find a solution to this problem?

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Post by Aris » Tue May 12, 2009 4:46 am

aristide1 wrote:Can anyone confirm if current buyers of Vista 64/SP1 will be able to upgrade to 7, ie free?
ROFL, you must be an apple user. Nothing from MS is free.

So far the only thing I've seen in win 7 that makes me want to upgrade from XP Pro are the optimizations for SSD's.

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Post by derekva » Tue May 12, 2009 8:18 am

Aris wrote:
aristide1 wrote:Can anyone confirm if current buyers of Vista 64/SP1 will be able to upgrade to 7, ie free?
ROFL, you must be an apple user. Nothing from MS is free.

So far the only thing I've seen in win 7 that makes me want to upgrade from XP Pro are the optimizations for SSD's.
Nothing from Apple is free either...perhaps a Linux user?

-D

p.s. I'm running build 7100 at home (RC1) and it is a vast improvement over both XP and Vista - however, if all you care about is optimizations for SSDs, then enjoy XP until 2011.

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