The thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed...

[Viin]

I can't believe they still won't let you set different backgrounds for different monitors. Grrrrrrrrr.

If you've used Vista any at all (enough to get use to it) you probably won't notice you are using Windows 7 except that the task bar is a little different. To confirm, I'm going to have my wife use it tonight and see if she even notices it's not Vista.

For drivers, it's actually doing pretty good for me. It even installed the 64-bit drivers I'm used with Vista (SATA drivers, audio, etc) without any problems. Other than the normal retardedness that comes with trying to install on a SATA RAID array, it went pretty smooth.

Need to reinstall EVE and see how that goes, along with Fireworks/etc. Looking at system resources after installing the basics (firefox, all drivers, no more updates, etc) it was using 1.1gig of mem out of 8gig available.

[BitWarrior]

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.

Late twenties businessmen and developers are certainly not on the radar for Microsoft 

[Murgos]

Late twenties businessmen and developers are certainly not on the radar for Microsoft 

The actual improvement that was a significant reason to upgrade from an engineering or business standpoint you pooh-pooed on the first page.

You aren't going to be happy in this thread, why don't you move along?

[BitWarrior]

Late twenties businessmen and developers are certainly not on the radar for Microsoft 

The actual improvement that was a significant reason to upgrade from an engineering or business standpoint you pooh-pooed on the first page.

You aren't going to be happy in this thread, why don't you move along?

Wrong. The actual improvement thus far is performance, which, although the review metrics are fairly rudimentary, is showing quite a bit of promise:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3236

I'm actually quite excited about Windows 7 due to the recent benchmarking of performance, especially considering this is a beta.

Additionally, Ars.Technica has a detailed review regarding a number of the new features which I'm rather excited about. You can read it here: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/windows-7-beta.ars

Until now, no one (especially here) has properly articulated the benefits of Windows 7 over anything pre-existing. With these new reviews and benchmarks, however, there actually is something to get excited about. Any excitement prior to these releases have been hype based upon marketing or blind hope, and not data. Now some people, sure, love hype and fall for it the moment they hear it, however I always am much more skeptical. If you choose to interpret skepticism as "poo poohing" something, then fine, in some unusual way we agree. However, I view it as healthy, especially in the consumer process and even more importantly in a recession.

[sidereal]

Wow.  Look everyone, we have someone who's skeptical on the forum.  What a refreshing novelty that will be.

[Tale]

from http://xkcd.com/

[rattran]

from http://xkcd.com/

From Page 1 of this epic thread.

XKCD on Windows 7

I thought it was funny.

[Fabricated]

XKCD is comedy cancer and the "artist" is a creepy piece of shit if you look at most of his strips about women.

Windows 7 feels a hell of a lot faster for me than my previous install of Vista Ultimate. Most of my games are posting higher FPS, and I can alt/tab out of fullscreen games almost instantly which is one thing Vista HATED. That could just be the Nvidia drivers however, which haven't caused me any problems. UAC is certainly toned down to appropriate levels, but I turned it off anyway.

[eldaec]

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.

visualisation != virtualisation

[MahrinSkel]

FWIW, Windows betas have always shown considerable improvement over the immediately earlier version, right up until the last couple of release candidates, when performance mysteriously nosedives just enough to justify another round of CPU upgrades.  WinXP blew WinME out of the water by every metric right up until the last month.  Vista's beta looked *awesome*, until they split it into 6 different versions, the "Home" track of which mysteriously performing about 30-50% slower.

I'll believe Win7 isn't a bucket of suck designed to make me buy all new hardware when I see it.  Until then, I'm going to assume it will be worse than useless on any system with less than 8gig of memory and a quad-core processor, and will contain "Trusted Computing" logic bombs designed to let MS collect a console-like royalty on every bit of software, content, and hardware sold (and that sucks up about 75% of all system resources making certain my system can be "trusted").

--Dave

[Sheepherder]

I'll believe Win7 isn't a bucket of suck designed to make me buy all new hardware when I see it.  Until then, I'm going to assume it will be worse than useless on any system with less than 8gig of memory and a quad-core processor

I can't decide whether to categorize you as tinfoil hatter or shortbus, so in the interest of getting things straight let me pose this question:


Microsoft is a hardware vendor and has something to gain from this:

True / False

(circle the appropriate response)

[rattran]

I'll believe Win7 isn't a bucket of suck designed to make me buy all new hardware when I see it.  Until then, I'm going to assume it will be worse than useless on any system with less than 8gig of memory and a quad-core processor

I can't decide whether to categorize you as tinfoil hatter or shortbus, so in the interest of getting things straight let me pose this question:

Without getting into the  debate, he is pretty accurate about the MS betas getting slower after they remove their debug code. That said, many people do have 8gig and a quad core now. And as has been reported, the current beta is a smaller memory footprint and seems snappier than Vista.

Also, what is it with the trolling personal attacks lately?

[NiX]

My personal attack was justified. Just that I was ahead of the curve

[Sheepherder]

Without getting into the  debate, he is pretty accurate about the MS betas getting slower after they remove their debug code. That said, many people do have 8gig and a quad core now. And as has been reported, the current beta is a smaller memory footprint and seems snappier than Vista.

Also, what is it with the trolling personal attacks lately?

I'm a sarcastic and hateful person.


Also, I shake my head at people who ascribe everything Microsoft does to some insidious scheme to put lasers on the moon.  They're a huge multinational corporation that puts out the OS for the vast majority of computers in the world.  Just like their software, their corporation has to suffer from bloat and inefficiency.  Why it happens late in beta is likely because the people who operate on the Kernel and low-level functionality are going to be the people who know what the hell they're doing and can build efficient and functional code.

[Yegolev]

FWIW, Windows betas have always shown considerable improvement over the immediately earlier version, right up until the last couple of release candidates, when performance mysteriously nosedives just enough to justify another round of CPU upgrades.  WinXP blew WinME out of the water by every metric right up until the last month.  Vista's beta looked *awesome*, until they split it into 6 different versions, the "Home" track of which mysteriously performing about 30-50% slower.

I'll believe Win7 isn't a bucket of suck designed to make me buy all new hardware when I see it.  Until then, I'm going to assume it will be worse than useless on any system with less than 8gig of memory and a quad-core processor, and will contain "Trusted Computing" logic bombs designed to let MS collect a console-like royalty on every bit of software, content, and hardware sold (and that sucks up about 75% of all system resources making certain my system can be "trusted").

--Dave

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do skepticism properly.  I also happen to agree with Dave.  I cannot believe that W7 will be better-performing than Vista or XP because it makes zero sense.

Microsoft is a hardware vendor and has something to gain from this:

True / False

(circle the appropriate response)

Your naive belief that massive corporations do not collude for profit would be cute if The Children were not Our Future.  Do you think MicroSoft executives never talk to Intel executives?  Mayhap they are completely unaware of each other's existence and the symbiotic nature of their products has all been one large coincidence.

I'm a sarcastic and hateful person.

[Murgos]

Microsoft is a hardware vendor and has something to gain from this:

True / False

(circle the appropriate response)

Microsoft and Intel have a working relationship going back 30 years.  Windows is an IA based OS.  Windows could not exist without Intel sharing information with them  Intel makes the vast majority of IA CPUs.  Intel customizes their chips to streamline Windows OS functions.  If Intel makes more processors Microsoft makes more money.  If Microsoft makes a killer ap that uses lots of resources so that Intel sells more processors Intel makes a lot of money.

Are you seriously suggesting that one or both sides of that equation aren't completely aware of that?  Or are you really, really naive?

[Sheepherder]

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do skepticism properly.  I also happen to agree with Dave.  I cannot believe that W7 will be better-performing than Vista or XP because it makes zero sense.

Here's a new thought: Microsoft realizes that the vast majority of their sold software is on pre-built machines utilizing last generation (at best) technology and in order to attempt to salvage their name has decided not to bloat the hell out of their next release so that it will run passably.  Simultaneously they realize that adoption by enthusiasts (the ones buying i7's) is reliant upon performance rather than pretty widgets and streamline accordingly.

Your naive belief that massive corporations do not collude for profit would be cute if The Children were not Our Future.  Do you think MicroSoft executives never talk to Intel executives?  Mayhap they are completely unaware of each other's existence and the symbiotic nature of their products has all been one large coincidence.

Collusion only works when the two companies can build a mutually productive strategy.  Bloating the software only drives the enthusiast crowd to buy new processors or not upgrade their OS (or both).  The everyday consumers which drive the vast majority of sales will not bother to upgrade a PC and will simply buy a new pre-built from Dell, get the latest shitty OS along with last generation (at best) hardware and bitch about poor performance when it occurs.

Microsoft and Intel have a working relationship going back 30 years.  Windows is an IA based OS.  Windows could not exist without Intel sharing information with them  Intel makes the vast majority of IA CPUs.  Intel customizes their chips to streamline Windows OS functions.  If Intel makes more processors Microsoft makes more money.  If Microsoft makes a killer ap that uses lots of resources so that Intel sells more processors Intel makes a lot of money.

Are you seriously suggesting that one or both sides of that equation aren't completely aware of that?  Or are you really, really naive?

1. Intel and Microsoft play nicely because they rely upon each other to work and don't directly compete.

2. Intel streamlines for the apps that run on their processors?  I'm shocked.  In the meantime, how long did it take for Windows to take advantage of the NX bit?

3. This equation: If Intel makes more processors Microsoft makes more money is not true.  Intel also sells processors for Linux boxes and (now) Macs, and people still upgrade their processors without adopting a new OS.  The number of people actively willing to upgrade to a new Microsoft OS while having the option of an old OS is exceedingly small.

4. Microsoft doesn't make killer apps.  They make widgets and productivity software and tack it onto an old Kernel with some modification.  The number of people excited about any of these things is exceedingly small and is usually limited to accountants, who go moist for spreadsheets.  Anyone else only cares when third party shit is affected by retarded marketing (DX10 & new games) which, as it turns out, isn't a big thing because most people said DX10 can go fuck itself in the ear.

[SnakeCharmer]

This is, like, a bigger nerd slapfight than the mech thread in the mmog forums.

[Ratman_tf]

Here's a new thought: Microsoft realizes that the vast majority of their sold software is on pre-built machines utilizing last generation (at best) technology and in order to attempt to salvage their name has decided not to bloat the hell out of their next release so that it will run passably.  Simultaneously they realize that adoption by enthusiasts (the ones buying i7's) is reliant upon performance rather than pretty widgets and streamline accordingly.

Your optimism could power North America for a decade if we could harness it. 

[Daeven]

I am in awe of this thread. It should be merged with the Gaza war thread to cause spontaneous apoptosis of every neuron in the universe.

[Sheepherder]

Your optimism could power North America for a decade if we could harness it. 

All reports indicate that the Windows 7 Beta runs like a decently optimized Windows Vista, which proves my point that Microsoft is trying to get their software to a point where it runs passably on consumer machines because the current Vista... doesn't (Didn't?  It might now due to service packs and price drops in hardware, a consumer machine at release was fucked).  Unless the code optimizes itself Microsoft is dedicating effort to making it run well, whether their final build runs well is to be seen.

It has nothing to do with optimism, I've seen enough Microsoft launches and I seriously doubt this one is going to set any records for awesomeness.  In fact, I'm so optimistic I can't be arsed to download it for myself for free.

But when a forum warrior tells me that Vista runs badly because marketing decided that programming should bloat up the operating system in order to drive hardware sales pursuant to some genius global Intel / Microsoft hegemony while said marketing department can't sell the new software iteration (unless you can dowload the old iteration for free as part of the OS package ) because the old one is better... well...  And this is all taking place after Intel working with Apple.

The fact that the evil genius marketing department was unable to sell their product invariably leads to the question: are you (the proponent of the theory) a shortbus or a crackpot?

As a derail: were you the one I saw playing 1602 A.D. according to their Xfire sig?

[Engels]

I installed it today on a Pentium 4 with 512 ram, and it was fairly responsive compared to Vista on the same machine type. It had ~300 meg footprint after a few operations here and there. The gui is more elegant than Vista, but clearly derived from the same. The first thing one notices after playing with it for a while is that there's much less UAC interaction than in Vista. It pops up every once in a while when installing something, but on the whole, a single click on an icon with a shield will go through without interruption. This seems both good and bad. Good for ease of use, dubious regarding security.

The whole UAC scheme in Windows 7 has me a bit perplexed about the motive behind it. In WinXP and prior versions, you made a plain user account to prevent administrative actions. In Vista, the real 'Administrator' account had no password, but was also unuseable by default, while the user account created at install was an 'administrator' account that required UAC verification to launch or permit certain actions. In Windows7, we're back to the admin account having no password and 'unuseable', yet virtually zero UAC checks.

What, pray tell, is the point of having a password-less Administrator account if not for UAC level of interaction?

[rattran]

...
 In fact, I'm so optimistic I can't be arsed to download it for myself for free.
...

Would you kindly go fuck right off back to whatever basement you crawled out of then? This is the thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed after all.

[Sheepherder]

Would you kindly go fuck right off back to whatever basement you crawled out of then? This is the thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed after all.

I probably oversimplified here (chalk it up to me being a shortbus).  I'm way out in the country and on a satellite connection and am currently thinking of upgrading to dial-up. 

Secondly, my brother works for an IT firm that adopted this for their work laptops (not even sure it was in open beta at that stage), I got to see it over the Christmas break.  I'm not exactly impressed, but at least it's an incremental upgrade over Vista, and at the very least isn't a downgrade from Windows XP.

[Murgos]

Your brother works for an IT firm?

Oh. Well then, excuse us.  Obviously, every bit of drivel you've posted must be correct then.

Also, someone call Dell and tell them the 3 year OS/Processor upgrade cycle is over and that they need to come up with a new business model.  Someone on the Interweb said it was all a bad case of mis-perception anyway and that Linux will now be driving desktop sales, no one buys new OSs anymore and Windows doesn't account for 92% of the desktop OS market because Microsoft can't make products anyone wants.

[Tebonas]

"Not a downgrade from XP" is not a good endorsements, though. After the dud that was Vista they better have something that counts as an upgrade. And among that whole bunch of people there should be enough smart ones to realize that.

[ghost]

"Not a downgrade from XP" is not a good endorsements, though. After the dud that was Vista they better have something that counts as an upgrade. And among that whole bunch of people there should be enough smart ones to realize that.

This is actually a little humorous.  Now we can get back to XP levels........

I use a Mac 90% of the time and really only us PC for one work application and gaming.  I just don't get where Microsoft is heading with all this.  Vista is a bloated nightmare that they are only now getting to a stable and usable state.  I guess it does say a lot about the Vista system if they are already basically scrapping it and looking at the next iteration. 

I am probably not going to investigate the beta.  I have a rule with MS OS changes-  only on new computers and only after service pack 1.

[Salamok]

I guess it does say a lot about the Vista system if they are already basically scrapping it and looking at the next iteration. 

I think that it is pretty obvious that if the Vista name hadn't of been tramped through the mud by the craptastic release and subsequent lack of adoption, Windows 7 would have been released as Vista SP2.  The average consumer has been exposed to enough negative press on Vista that they simply wont consider it.

I may be way off on my versions as i'm pulling these out of my ass but aren't they somewhat hinting at this with the name?

Win 2k = NT5/Windows 5
Win XP = Windows 6
Vista = Windows 7

edit: to clarify my point the choice of a new "iteration" was for marketing reasons and not for your usual software life cycle/production reasons.

[Murgos]

Microsoft did that whole 'Mojave' thing and it's pretty difficult to say that it's just coincidence that hard on it's heels comes Win7.  Rebranded, repackaged, a few fixes and with a huge marketing push behind it but essentially the same features.

It's also probably not coincidence that the Windows 7 name was chosen right along with Intel's big marketing push with their new I7 processor line.

[Engels]

Windows 7 was in the works just months after Vista release. I get this from the IT guy who does support for the Vice Presidential staff at Microsoft, who with few exceptions, all refused to use Vista. The Core i7 architechture is not related, since not only was Nehalem in the works before Vista, but because the fortes of the new cpu are in server architechture, not consumer related performance.

Also, you Mac users are funny.

[Salamok]

btw - i am still boggled by the total lack of an up folder button.  Not sure if they fixed it but my 1st Vista experience right after release consisted of the following data cleanup scenario (basically copied a bunch of user data onto the new laptop then went to clean it up):

1 - go into a folder to see what the heck it contained, see a bunch of subfolders.
2 - go into each subfolder to see what they contained, back out of the folder and delete it if it was garbage.
3 - done with the parent folder so try and get back to a level above it.
4 - WTF?  Guess what used to be a commonly used 1 click operation now isn't and I seem to recall Vista actually giving me an error when trying to use the back button when the last folder visited was deleted.

[Murgos]

The Core i7 architechture is not related, since not only was Nehalem in the works before Vista, but because the fortes of the new cpu are in server architechture, not consumer related performance.

Not saying the architecture is related, I'm saying the market name is related.  That both entities decided to call their products version '7' at pretty much the same time seems highly coincidental.

[NowhereMan]

So the present theory is that Vista suffered a shitty release and for marketing reasons, rather than releasing a more stable, secure and faster version they're selling it as a whole new OS. In other words, if true, instead of a nice big SP download I'll have to spend and another £80 to get a 'good' Vista.

[Sky]

Oh, they're adopting Apple's plan. Each point upgrade = NEW OS, pay up!

Flash just cut off 10.3 with Flash 10, we're so fucked.

Any word on whether Windows 7 is going to have that nifty file system stuff cut from Vista that was the main reason to buy Vista?

[calapine]

I really don’t understand the Vista hate.

Vista post SP1 is good. The search interface is crappy, and so is the network sharing interface. That's about it.
Vista problem was that on release, despite taking years to develop, it wasn't ready yet and had some annoying issues (file copying speed, networking,..).

People praising XP and damning Vista should remember Windows XP's state at launch, before it had 2 service packs worth of fixing behind it.
Everyone complained about XPs hardware hunger compared to Win 98 (lets forget ME). Oh, and the bugs. Oh..and no built in firewall yet.
Anyone remember the security issues that allowed PCs to be infected by the Blaster Worm simple being connected to the internet? I once caught the virus on a brand new installation in the few minutes between the first boot and finishing the security patch from windows update.

Overall Microsoft OS’es always have been hardware hogs compared to their predecessor, but the general development is that they are getting better. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the good old MS-DOS days with it’s XMS and EMS crutches to get games running…