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Hands-On With Windows 7's New Features
Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, and PC Pro has a series of in-depth, hands-on examinations of all the new features. The revamped user interface has clearly gleaned more than a little inspiration from the Mac OS X Dock, but it goes further than the Apple concept with 'jumplists,' new gadgets and an updated system tray. The much-vaunted multi-touch controls were there to play with, and it seemed to work well. Networking has been given the full treatment, with new features HomeGroup and Libraries. Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster. Finally, several new features could make PCs easier to manage and secure for IT departments, such as BitLocker To Go and Branch Cache." All in all, these features together lead some people to the conclusion that Windows 7 will "suck less than Vista" — that last link from reader ThinSkin, who also points to a related sampling of screenshots from the current iteration of Windows 7.
Yeah, but can it run all my old viruses?
Most of the stuff on
Get that index finger in shape for pushing the reset button. Also, toughen up your fists for pounding your desk or hitting the wall.
Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster.
Hmmm. I wonder which way Microsoft will take this....
This guy's the limit!
Will there be a "Windows7 Plus!" to allow users to create funny themes ?
I was looking at buying a new gaming rig recently but I refuse to buy an operating system that hobbles the performance.
I know what you mean--they all hobble performance. Anything past the BIOS is just bells and whistles that ruins my gaming experience completely.
On a related note, do you know where I can pick up a copy of Tie Fighter that works on IBM's Extended Firmware Interface (EFI)?
My work here is dung.
I see the KDE team made leaps and bounds in their Windows port.
Ha ha, just kidding!
Next week's news: Windows 7 is actually--surprise!--Windows Mojave!
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I guess when they finally release a version of WinFS it will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever?
It's my main machine and I don't have problems other than the ATI video driver crapping out every now and then but vista is able to restart just the video driver and keep running whereas XP will just blue screen.
Hey, great! AT least they're making progress. At this rate by 2015 they migh catch up with Linux!
The downside is, that old joke "your mouse just moved, please restart your computer" is no longer valid.
Free Martian Whores!
Come on, the hours of setting up boot floppies was like a game unto itself. Ever since gaming moved to Windows, I have never had the thrill of finding that last 10k of base memory to run the latest game.
Running GAMECONFIG.EXE to say yes, my SoundBlaster is on IRQ 7, my display can handle 1024x769 in 256 colours, and no, I don't have an AdLib card.
You misspelled 320x200. ;)
(Okay, that was a pointless nitpick, but we didn't really start seeing >640x480 games until well after Windows 95 came along.)
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Come on, that was most of the fun! Once you managed to convince your system to boot and still retain 620k of basic memory, and you could play the game, you quickly got bored with it. And of course 640k was enough for anyone, it was just that everything wanted a piece of it :P. I do remember having at least 5 boot options depending on what I was doing - by the end, the load all boot option managed to take almost 1/2 of that 640k IIRC.
Anyway - I know it's not practical, but in some ways I really wish that games on all systems were as hard to run now as they were then - You'd only get players that really wanted to play. If you spend 2 weeks tinkering with your system, trying everything known to man (and some things not), you're unlikely to log on to the game servers for the first time and proclaim, after much pondering, "LOLLLLLZ U SUXXORS ADMINS KISS MY ASS I'M A 1337 H4X0R FUCK U N00BZ"
Yes, I also run Vista and it never cra
{{.sig}}
what vendor *wouldn't* love to lock their users into *their* online services and *their* software to manage content on their portable devices and the like - all the while being able to advertise their other services, products, etc.
Um...Debian?
(Just sayin'...) :)
Then we had to edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys
Edit? I wrote them from scratch! I still have etched into my brain "SET blaster=A220 I5 D1".
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
What, no Midi port on 330?! Heathen.
On many systems the updates http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940510 and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931573 can cause a lot of problems.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.