The thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed...

[NiX]

Anyone run into the "this version of Windows requires all drivers to be signed" situation?  Because that pisses me off a lot.

No idea what that is.

I heard W7 DRM'ed out the ass.

How so? I've ran "trial" copies and what not. But, if you're referring to it preventing you from pirating it, well, people have already cracked it.

[Yegolev]

Since I already brought it up, I managed to install the driver I was working on.  This is a PCI wireless adapter and I managed to get it installed by using a downloaded driver-installer and rebooting a couple of times.  Now I seem to have a situation in which the device management software will not start up, so I probably need to track down that binary and fiddle with it.  But why?  Because I can see the network card properties and even see my router's SSID - meaning the driver is working - but I cannot connect.  I picked up a few ideas from threads like this but that level of techiness is something I usually reserve for work.

[Yegolev]

Hey, I was a huge doofus.  Being rather lazy, I set up a MAC whitelist on my router instead of bothering to set up real security, and that is why I could not connect.  I disabled the whitelist and was immediately able to connect.  Derp!

So far, no actual complaints about W7.

[Yegolev]

Anybody have any experience with shared folders?  I was able to connect to my gaming rig's share pretty easily but accessing it seems to cause either explorer or the whole OS to hang.  Yes, there is an XP machine that can use this share just fine.

[Engels]

How old is your switch/hub? I ask because I've had problems at work with a Vista box connecting to a printer hosted on an XP box (which is essentially a share). Turns out that the XP box was hooked up to an older switch and someone had turned the XP box's network speed from auto to 10 Mbps, and that was causing Vista's connection to drop/hang. Lately its been behaving, but sometimes the Vista box would lose connection if the XP box had just rebooted after automatic updates. No clear causation, and dubious correlation, but that's all I got.

[Yegolev]

How old is your switch/hub?

WRT54GL, dd-wrt v23 SP2.  Could be a link speed thing, but that's always fucking voodoo to mess with.  I suppose I can try a few things that have come to mind:
- Update dd-wrt to v24
- Update my rig to W7, do the Homegroup thing
- Uh...
- Read the W7 beta forums more

[Engels]

The link speed thing is quick to check out. In xp, just right-click on your connection icon and select 'status' and you should see the speed you'rre at. Other than that, your ideas seem like a good path.

[Yegolev]

The link speed thing is quick to check out. In xp, just right-click on your connection icon and select 'status' and you should see the speed you'rre at. Other than that, your ideas seem like a good path.

Funny, selecting status does absolutely nothing.  I'm going to go buy a monitor and some speakers, will have to work on this more later.

Oh, updated dd-wrt so maybe it is fixed, will find out later.

[Yegolev]

I tried all the Things and the one that worked was upgrading my machine (the server) to W7.  Although I should say "worked" since accessing the share has caused a lockup once and may have caused another.  However, it's a fucking huge share so I am not completely aghast.  I'm going to give it more time to impress me before I whip out the old XP discs... and find a working key.

Other observations:
IE8 is horrible.
Filesharing is, in fact, more confusing.  Unless you want to open up your whole machine, I guess.
For some reason, .NET isn't behaving as expected (v1.1 was not there) so I get to redownload and reinstall LotRO.
I am suspicious that my local porn will be viewable remotely on my wife's machine.
So far the UI seems improved in various dialogs, such as having quick access to Services from the Taskmanager.  Too bad the Taskmanager takes extra work to reach.
Mouse Properties are like a page in a Choose Your Own Adventure which isn't referred to by any other page.

[Engels]

Just FYI, I think the task manager in Windows7 can be reached as in Vista and XP, by right-clicking on the task bar...should show up on the context menu. Or did you mean something else?

[NiX]

Filesharing is, in fact, more confusing.  Unless you want to open up your whole machine, I guess.

Filesharing is terribly painful up until you realize you just have to turn off the password option in the settings. Once I did that, you just click on the shared folders and you're done. I commend them for protecting the stupids that share folders on a laptop and never consider who can access it when they join a large network. I've seen this MANY times at school and some of the stuff you find is... interesting to say the least. I think once Homegroups take off, if they ever takeoff, it'll be a lot easier.

[Engels]

Under 'Organize' in any given explorer window, you can select "Folder and Search Options" and then select "View", scroll down to the bottom and unselect 'use share wizard'. This brings it back to a more manageable interface with permission sets, etc, without a 'helpful' wizard holding your hand.

[Yegolev]

Filesharing is terribly painful up until you realize you just have to turn off the password option in the settings.

I found this to be the solution to my problems.  The homegroup is scheduled for removal.

Just FYI, I think the task manager in Windows7 can be reached as in Vista and XP, by right-clicking on the task bar...should show up on the context menu. Or did you mean something else?

I had gotten used to CRTL+ALT+DEL popping it up in XP.  It's not a huge deal since I am going to replace it with procexp soon.

[Yegolev]

Reading today that W7 RC is probably going to be available on May 5 if you are on the technet... probably.  Doesn't seem to actually be available now for Some, as the leak indicated it is.  I suppose I will have to obtain the RC in some way so that I might extend the drop-dead date and avoid going back to XP as an interim.

I also found a note about how MS will ask you to start from a Vista image when updating to the W7 RC, but there is also a workaround if you are using W7 Beta because you are cheap instead of ... whatever other possible reason you might imagine.

Meanwhile, those stick-in-the-muds who “really, really need to” bypass Microsoft’s request that they revert to Vista first will need to boot from a flash drive or another partition before modifying the build number in the “cversion.ini” file via text editor.

I have one actual problem now where I don't seem to be able to have my pictures display thumbnails.  It's just a placeholder picture.  I suppose it's not actually a problem since I don't care for thumbnails 98% of the time but sometimes it would help a lot.  Chances are that I turned off something somewhere and now cannot find it again.

[Strazos]

SO...wait, if I have build 7077, I'm going to have to somehow go back down to Vista to go back to "real" W7?

I don't even have a copy a Vista, nor would I want one.

Isn't there just going to be an option to buy W7, and have the retail version "upgrade" my beta version?

[Viin]

If you buy a full copy (if they have those?) you shouldn't need to start at vista - just a wipe and a full install would work. But then you are paying full price.

I think what they are saying (and they said this with the beta download package) you have to uninstall/revert to a previous OS in order to install the "real" upgrade when it's actually released. There is no upgrade from the beta to the "real" released version.

To use the "real" upgrade you can wipe, install W7 full version, don't activate, then install the W7 upgrade on top of it with your activation key. PITA, but it works. (At least it did for me with the beta, when I didn't want to install on top of Vista).

[funcro]

The situation surrounding upgrades to the RC is described here.  It seems at least somewhat likely that the workaround described there will work on the RTM build of Windows 7.  It also seems at least somewhat likely that you'll have problems if you use it.  Much as I hate reinstalling my stuff, I view OS upgrades as an opportunity to get rid of accumulated unwanted crap, so I almost always reformat when I upgrade.

[Yegolev]

It also seems at least somewhat likely that you'll have problems if you use it.

I agree, as does MS, which is why they want testers to upgrade from a known image (Vista).  I'm only talking about doing this to get the RC installed without losing all my shit, since the beta is set to deactivate in August (?) and the RC would last longer.  It's all about not having to obtain a XP key before W7 is released, at which point I will buy a boxed OS for the first time, ever.  Maybe two!

Of course, I could just reinstall everything instead of fucking around.

[NiX]

The latter sounds like the easiest method. Just throw what you want to keep on a partition, make a txt list of what you need to reinstall and away you go. Works for me!

[Yegolev]

That's what I did when I upgraded from XP to W7, it's only a small bit of a pain really since I keep a directory of install images on one of my hard drives.

[Strazos]

I keep partitions and such anyway, so it won't be TOO bad, but still.


So, once again, I guess MS is gonna rape people to buy the "real" usable package? I never understood how they could justify different OS levels with different prices; all the code for the top-level product is already written, and doesn't cost them more to include everything on a single disc, so why the cockblock with "lesser" versions that cost what the "real" version should?

[NiX]

I keep partitions and such anyway, so it won't be TOO bad, but still.


So, once again, I guess MS is gonna rape people to buy the "real" usable package? I never understood how they could justify different OS levels with different prices; all the code for the top-level product is already written, and doesn't cost them more to include everything on a single disc, so why the cockblock with "lesser" versions that cost what the "real" version should?

Mostly for mass purchasing. To make it seem like a deal when they buy bulk of the most expensive product.

[Yegolev]

The real answer is that everything costs what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to make + reasonable profit.  If something costs more to make than people are willing to pay, it does not get made.

I'm willing to postpone the "what version of W7 do I get" question until closer to the cutover date.

[NiX]

Always bringing me down.

[Yegolev]

Everyone at work tells me I'm the most cynical guy on the most cynical team in the company.

[Lantyssa]

That's rather optimistic of you to think you're the biggest cynicist.

[Yegolev]

They are just saying that because they are jealous of how right I'm going to be when we are all standing on the street corner begging for jobs on June 16.

[fuser]

RC build 7100 is out on P2P now, alas its not on technet(30th)/general release(may 5th) yet.

No "official" hash/md5sums on Microsoft site so watch out if you attempt to use it.

One cool new feature inside of RC is the XP mode. Basically Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise Windows 7 has the update option to download the product which is a fully licensed windows xp sp3 emulation for your PC. It requires processors with hardware virtualization and snaps right into Windows 7 so it offers seemless end user experience launching a XP based app on your Windows 7 host PC.

[NiX]

So when 7100 goes out, we have to format to install it?

[fuser]

So when 7100 goes out, we have to format to install it?

The way it is currently built yes, Microsoft wants to force a reinstall. That said there's already full instructions on changing the minimum build number for an upgrade.

[Yegolev]

RC build 7100 is out on P2P now, alas its not on technet(30th)/general release(may 5th) yet.

No "official" hash/md5sums on Microsoft site so watch out if you attempt to use it.

Not sure I have the balls for that at the moment.  Let us know how it goes.

One cool new feature inside of RC is the XP mode. Basically Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise Windows 7 has the update option to download the product which is a fully licensed windows xp sp3 emulation for your PC. It requires processors with hardware virtualization and snaps right into Windows 7 so it offers seemless end user experience launching a XP based app on your Windows 7 host PC.

OK, that is hot shit.  Which processor(s) am I going to need for this?

[Sheepherder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

So basically shit as far back as some models of P4 work.

[Engels]

One cool new feature inside of RC is the XP mode. Basically Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise Windows 7 has the update option to download the product which is a fully licensed windows xp sp3 emulation for your PC. It requires processors with hardware virtualization and snaps right into Windows 7 so it offers seemless end user experience launching a XP based app on your Windows 7 host PC.

OK, that is hot shit.  Which processor(s) am I going to need for this?

I wonder how different this this is from running VMWare, or if what they're saying is that it launches just enough of a xp emulation 'environment' to run your old clunky xp software?

[Sky]

Yeah, I just figured it's some take on that. My first thought was "parallels for windows". Next question is....will compat mode run OSX? :)

(insert gripe about lack of X-Fi drivers for OSX in osx86)

[Yegolev]

I don't think it would be different from VMWare outside how it's done.  The W7 implementation seems like it could be ridiculously easy, which is important to me.  Yea, I could have some multiboot shit setup, but if I was going to do that I would have done so already, and likewise with VMWare.  I just can't be bothered.