The thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed...

[Big Gulp]

Their OSes are far more complicated than they need to be.

MS doesn't have the luxury that Apple and Linux do where they can just break their legacy applications.  If they ever attempted something like what Apple did with OSX the ensuing shitstorm would make the black eye they got with Vista (an undeserved black eye, in my estimation) look like a sloppy french kiss.

[Salamok]

Yer telling me that the almighty M$ can't figure out a subversion like rollback tool for the registry?  Screw that they have the money to build this in.  They already have system restore this would just be a subversion like version of that.

Yer missing my point.  If they go the simple route there is no registry for programs to install to.  It's all self-contained.  It solves far more problems than just uninstalls.

Their OSes are far more complicated than they need to be.

No i saw your point completely and just chose to ignore it.  Believe it or not there are advantages to the registry hive and there was a reason they left the multitude of ini files behind.  The registry seems like a big pain in the ass and all the mac types out there just don't get why it was done that way but once you start working in a managed network environment and playing with tools like the group policy editor you start to see what they were going for.  As easy as it would be from an end user perspective deep down I really don't want windows to go back to individual config and ini files.

[BitWarrior]

Why did you ask people what reasons you should upgrade to Vista/w7 if you're just going to keep pushing your preconceived notion that "M$" is the devil and both iterations of Windows are terrible things that just want your money?

Or you could just keep being a real classy douche.

No, I said Windows Vista is no better than XP, but keep demonizing the subject. I'm sure being incapable of discerning between consumer criticism and corporate bias has served you well in the past.

But the great thing is as a "Contributor" (if that really means anything) you've managed to take a completely innocent thread about an operating system and add personal attacks.  But like you said, I'm just going to be classy about it.

Jackass.

[Pennilenko]

People are strange, my business has been using vista since shortly after release for our various customer's media center computers with zero issues, and i have had zero issues with vista 64 bit. I have no idea where the bad hype comes from, I think some of you are fricken crazy.

I really think vista got its bad rap because people tried to install it on shitty old computers with not enough ram and not enough current hardware to support it.

[Salamok]

People are strange, my business has been using vista since shortly after release for our various customer's media center computers with zero issues, and i have had zero issues with vista 64 bit. I have no idea where the bad hype comes from, I think some of you are fricken crazy.

I really think vista got its bad rap because people tried to install it on shitty old computers with not enough ram and not enough current hardware to support it.

Thats a fairly narrow niche to base the success of an entire product line, how many of those media center pc's did you try to install quickbooks or pretty much any other business oriented software on?

[Big Gulp]

I really think vista got its bad rap because people tried to install it on shitty old computers with not enough ram and not enough current hardware to support it.

I think that's the main culprit.  On the other hand, Vista (at least the x64 version) did have driver issues when I first got it, but then so did XP x64.  I think it was mostly just a matter of 3rd party vendors being too lazy to release 64 bit drivers.  Of course, people would rather bitch about "M$" like little cunts than actually think about where their problems are actually coming from.

[Xuri]

Using Vista is counter-productive. If you could do something fast in Windows XP, it will require more time to do while using Vista (and it's "successor" Windows 7).

For instance: Ever opened more than one image in photoshop at the same time in Windows XP by marking all the images, right clicking and selecting "Open with... Photoshop"etc? In Vista, you CAN'T. You have to start Photoshop by either clicking your Photoshop icon manually or opening a single image, then you can "drag" all the the images you want to open onto your taskbar, hold them there for a second until Photoshop gets focus, then drop them inside the Photoshop window. Or open the files through photoshop's file-dialogue window, of course.

That's just a small example, but Vista is full of "small" things that take longer time to do, takes more clicks and annoys the user (me) more. I hate Vista.

And I still use it...

[schild]

Photoshop doesn't work like that for me. Also, if you're in photoshop that often, why aren't you using Bridge?

Vista is all around faster for me. I'd never drag an image to my taskbar. I don't even know what you're talking about with that.

[Fabricated]

Looks like I'll have to try again tomorrow (er, today) to see if I can get a serial for the beta. Too bad. Didn't figure people were that interested in trying a new version of windows considering that no one who isn't pretty into computers knows about it. Or it's just pirates trying to figure out how to pre-emptively crack it or something.

[Trippy]

and finally can we finally get a GTFO option in the add/remove programs tool, i simply shouldn't have to recreate a network share, insert the install disk, visit a website or hack my registry to get ANY piece of software off my machine.

As much as I love this, as long as there isn't a "The program goes in this folder here and that's it" requirement, I doubt it will happen.  There really, really, really needs to be such a requirement though.

Yer telling me that the almighty M$ can't figure out a subversion like rollback tool for the registry?  Screw that they have the money to build this in.  They already have system restore this would just be a subversion like version of that.

System Restore does take a snapshot of the registry. It's actually a very good way to get rid of malware registry entries. But you wouldn't use it to uninstall the registry changes of a regular app install unless you happened to make a restore point just before the install and you hadn't made any registry changes post install. The same thing applies to Subversion. You wouldn't try to extract out the changes between two adjacent tags (actually copies) in the arbitrary past by "rolling back". You could only do it against the most recent tag.

[Xuri]

Photoshop doesn't work like that for me. Also, if you're in photoshop that often, why aren't you using Bridge?

Vista is all around faster for me. I'd never drag an image to my taskbar. I don't even know what you're talking about with that.

Photoshop doesn't work like what, for you? You can actually open multiple images in Photoshop by marking them all in explorer, right clicking one of them and selecting "Open with...", in Vista? Anyway, Photoshop was just an example to describe a general problem with opening multiple files in one go in Vista without opening the application beforehand and going through the file->open menu there. *shrug*

[NiX]

The new/updated features of Windows 7...

Mobility window so laptop users can give up on shitty apps like Dell Quickset

The "useless" windows search put into use searching for a specific artist

Word and Paint get updated with features from other MS products (Paint now defaults to PNG instead of BMP.)

Hybrid Taskbar (Taskbar can be smaller)

Wireless made easier

Programs made easier

Aero Peek (Useful for those of us with lots of word/excel/whatever files on their desktop)

Extremely efficient ram usage (Some processes turned off, but you should be doing that in XP/Vista too)

[Salamok]

and finally can we finally get a GTFO option in the add/remove programs tool, i simply shouldn't have to recreate a network share, insert the install disk, visit a website or hack my registry to get ANY piece of software off my machine.

As much as I love this, as long as there isn't a "The program goes in this folder here and that's it" requirement, I doubt it will happen.  There really, really, really needs to be such a requirement though.

Yer telling me that the almighty M$ can't figure out a subversion like rollback tool for the registry?  Screw that they have the money to build this in.  They already have system restore this would just be a subversion like version of that.

System Restore does take a snapshot of the registry. It's actually a very good way to get rid of malware registry entries. But you wouldn't use it to uninstall the registry changes of a regular app install unless you happened to make a restore point just before the install and you hadn't made any registry changes post install. The same thing applies to Subversion. You wouldn't try to extract out the changes between two adjacent tags (actually copies) in the arbitrary past by "rolling back". You could only do it against the most recent tag.

I was thinking more of a subversion like tool that worked in reverse (code compare pre and post install take those differences and extract them from the current version), probably wouldn't be too clean in the event you had a seperate app that dependant on entries from the app you were installing but it would be easy enough to add an undo changes feature as well.

[Lantyssa]

Extremely efficient ram usage (Some processes turned off, but you should be doing that in XP/Vista too)

Only 45% memory usage of 512Mb?  That alone is a worthwhile improvement that takes us back to a (pre-?) Win2k memory footprint.

[Venkman]

On a computer that doesn't have anything else but the Microsoft default. Let's see that memory usage survive first contact with Dell/HP/Walmart.

Everything else is stuff they could patch into Vista, but don't want to because they probably don't think they can salvage the Vista name.

[Lantyssa]

That's a problem with any pre-installed computer and why I recommend formatting the second you get one.  Even with some services turned off, it's a great improvement.  Especially considering they've done nothing but double the actual requirements every iteration.

Since it's been one of my biggest gripes about Windows OSes, I have to give them props for addressing it.

[Viin]

Looks like their site is working now. Downloading as we speak - only 3.15GB!

New download URL to get started: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

[NiX]

Make sure you get a key or else it expires after 30 days. You can get 64 bit keys here.

[Fabricated]

I don't have more than 4 gigs of ram so I'm going to use the 32-bit version. I'll probably install it tomorrow after I remove one of my failing harddrives.

[Big Gulp]

Make sure you get a key or else it expires after 30 days. You can get 64 bit keys here.

Also make sure you use the x86 version of IE.  Apparently Microsoft doesn't play well with either Firefox or x64 IE.   

[rattran]

Worked fine in firefox for me. Will give it a run in the morning, after I isolate all my precious mp3s.

[BitWarrior]

You guys realize you could have done this a lot easier just using visualization, right?

http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/

Grab the demo. Enjoy.

[Big Gulp]

You guys realize you could have done this a lot easier just using visualization, right?

http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/

Grab the demo. Enjoy.

Why would I run it in a virtual machine when the whole point is compare/contrasting it to Vista?  For that you have to let it get next to the metal.

[BitWarrior]

Why would I run it in a virtual machine when the whole point is compare/contrasting it to Vista?  For that you have to let it get next to the metal.

I enjoy the irony in your statement.

[rattran]

I enjoy the irony in your statement.

Meh, you need to go somewhere else and practice your trolling.

As for Windows7, it boots faster than Vista for me, and looks nicer. I like the new taskbar, and a few other bells and bobs. Seems like a decent iteration OS for them. I'll keep using it for now, see what other problems I come across.

[NiX]

As for Windows7, it boots faster than Vista for me, and looks nicer. I like the new taskbar, and a few other bells and bobs. Seems like a decent iteration OS for them. I'll keep using it for now, see what other problems I come across.

Have you encountered problems already? If so, which version are you using (x86 or x64)?

[Nightshade]

The most fucking amazing thing to happen to my computer since invention of the internetz.  Enough said.

[NiX]

The most fucking amazing thing to happen to my computer since invention of the internetz.  Enough said.

I enjoy the irony in your statement.

[Jain Zar]

Their OSes are far more complicated than they need to be.

MS doesn't have the luxury that Apple and Linux do where they can just break their legacy applications.  If they ever attempted something like what Apple did with OSX the ensuing shitstorm would make the black eye they got with Vista (an undeserved black eye, in my estimation) look like a sloppy french kiss.

Apple did?  Early OSX flavors had Classic mode to run all the old apps on the Power Macs, and current OSX runs just about everything made for OSX outside of the odd program a point update borks.

Windows is FAR more broken on this front. 

[rattran]

As for Windows7, it boots faster than Vista for me, and looks nicer. I like the new taskbar, and a few other bells and bobs. Seems like a decent iteration OS for them. I'll keep using it for now, see what other problems I come across.

Have you encountered problems already? If so, which version are you using (x86 or x64)?

x64 Only problem so far was one bsod from Avast, hasn't repeated itself. On the positive side, the optical out of my x-fi titanium never worked right under Vista, works fine. Had to install Win7 beta drivers from ATI to get fan control on the 4870 so all the Valve games whine about outdated drivers, but Left4Dead works just dandy.

[Jeff Kelly]

I was thinking more of a subversion like tool that worked in reverse (code compare pre and post install take those differences and extract them from the current version), probably wouldn't be too clean in the event you had a seperate app that dependant on entries from the app you were installing but it would be easy enough to add an undo changes feature as well.

There are a few tools for system administrators out there that do something like that. When I still did IT we used a tool called netinstall that did registry snapshots for easier install/uninstall of PCs.

[Nightshade]

Anyone having problems with connecting to public network peripherals such as printers?
My school's network printers are located on a "run source" extension.  Every time I try to log on with my user-id and password, it is "unknown" to the server.

[NiX]

Anyone having problems with connecting to public network peripherals such as printers?
My school's network printers are located on a "run source" extension.  Every time I try to log on with my user-id and password, it is "unknown" to the server.

Buy a typewriter.

On a more serious note, I attend the same school as Nightshade and am running into the same problem, which is not being able to connect to network printers. I've narrowed the problem down to Windows 7 not recognizing the local address of \\xprint and trying to connect to the domain JOHN-PC (computer name). Is there a resource for everyone using the beta like a forum, wiki or newsgroup?

[fuser]

Been running it for ~4days now

!!! ITS A BETA IT WILL EAT YOUR DATA AND THEN YOUR FAMILY !!!!

* The new taskbar takes some getting use to (it functions like dock in OS X). You launch a program the icon appears in the tray. You hover over it and a preview window pops up (like vista aero's interface). If you have multiple windows open it pop's up two preview windows. If there's a crapload it will display a list. But the key part is you only ever see one icon in the taskbar. So what's neat is you could say launch all your apps (ventrilo, word, hello kitty online) and then "pin them to the taskbar" so the icon is always there. It eliminates the need for the quick launch bar, desktop icons, etc.

* Sidebar is gone, gadgets go directly on the desktop. Not being able to "lock" them is a PITA.

* The start bar is cleaned up a bit same for the control panel menus etc. Nothing major here, but you can really break it (ie dragging the control panel icon to the main start menu).

* Performance seems on par right now for vista, there is no tangible feel of speed increase at the moment.

* The windows action center replaces the security center which is just cleaned up with more options, same for the whole system tray (you can customize the raising of icons depending on events).

* UAC is toned the fuck down. There's now a slider to adjust the level of alerting with UAC, I cannot remember if the sider is based upon per user account settings or not (its in the user accounts area).

* They reskinned mspaint/calc (seriously). Paint has changed to the ribbon interface with a crap load more settings and features. Calc has expanded with programming options and a whole new side menu for common tasks (converting measurements, milage, etc)


Bugs:
* Sleep/Hibernate broke forcing a hard reset.

* Wallpaper has disappeared more times then I can count.

* Nvidia drivers have bugged out a few times (distortion across the desktop, general issues with the new WDDM 1.0 driver).


 There's a lot of minor to major tweaks and options I haven't even ran into yet (silly stupid one is the option now to disable writeback cache buffer's to your hdd).

[K9]

Great. The biggest software company in the world cannot afford to do any amount of customer research. Valve is in the same state as them - they should ask for some advice.

You are not in one of microsoft's target demographics.