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First Look At Windows 7 Beta 1
The other A. N. Other writes "It seems that Microsoft couldn't keep the lid on Windows 7 beta 1 until the new year. By now, several news outlets have their hands on the beta 1 code and have posted screenshots and information about this build. ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 column says: 'This beta is of excellent quality. This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with. Even the pre-betas were solid, but finally this beta feels like it's "done." This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I've handled.' ITWire points out that this copy has landed on various torrent sites, and while it appears to be genuine, there are no guarantees. Neowin has a post confirming that it's the real thing, and saying Microsoft will be announcing the build's official availability at CES in January."
The sound of ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 writers blowing their loads over this is deafening.
Or ?
(wow, this feel childish)
Aphorisms don't fix code. (Bart Smaalders)
Now the fate of 64bit future is being determined...
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
2008 was linux's last year on the desktop (tm)
in 09/10, seven is sending linux to heven (aka hell)
There are no new features in this build. If Microsoft has any new stuff lined up for the RTM then we're going to have to wait to find out.
All this talk about stable beta's seems a bit pointless. If you change the name and theme on the product, you can't real muck it up too bad. What's the point of this other than to try to put the name "Vista" in the grave?
Anyone know what these people are so excited about? Couldn't get much real info from the article. They comment that its snappier than other betas. How about compared to XP? That would be the real comparison I would like to see.
I am a linux person myself - Ubuntu on the computer I am posting from, but I did use Windows on my laptop before wiping it. I am also not opposed to having windows installed if I gain any benefit. That is what I want to hear from people, what are its compelling features (I don't play games).
When all else fails, try.
And we can start quessing which of the mentioned fine features will actually be in the release version of Win7. This has happened so many times before.
Remember when during waiting of win95 many magazines were worried what will happen to McAfee and other virus-scanner companies when the new windows is fully virustolerant?
They delegate Wal-Mart's selling the IPhone to a side note and instead are more concerned with Mary Jo's "Windows Name Of The Day" stories. ZDNet is the Enquirer of IT news.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
I don't see why this is surprising. This is just Windows Vista service pack 3 after all. Naturally the beta is going to be more stable than the initial Vista beta.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Everyone seems to have the opinion that Vista was a failure. My wife (a non-techie) hates Vista because her ancient accounting app periodically crashes ever since switching to Vista. I assume many other people had the same sorts of issues with many other apps.
But now three years have gone by, and many of those apps have been patched, become obsolete, or replaced with working alternatives. That means the remaining apps are now in an ideal position to work correctly in Windows 7. Is it possible that Windows 7 could be exactly the same crap as Vista, but because so much time has gone by it doesn't matter as much?
I think we saw the same thing with the transitions from Windows 98 to Windows ME to Windows XP.
John
Are Magazines/Tech review sites/Editorials real anymore or are they just industry backed reviews (aka advertisements)? Is advertisement driven content real journalism?
I remember almost every tech journal I picked up a couple years ago reviewed Vista as the "New Coming". Yet, a year later these journals are bemoaning how Vista "sucks" (which it does btw).
Excuse me for being cynical but I will take this review with a pinch of salt as other reports show that, at least benchmark wise, there is absolutely no difference between Vista and Windows 7.
As for Windows 7 feeling "so much more responsive".. well, depends who is paying you to write that review innit?
"This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I've handled."
Is this person a politician because that is saying nothing.
Too bad 2009 is going to be another year of hearing Microsoft lies and exaggerations regarding yet another Microsoft OS release. BFD, is what I say after 20 something years of the same junk year after year after year. I gave up when Windows 2000 came out and they started shoveling more user level stuff into the kernel and they never fixed the security system. That was in 1999, over 8 years ago and they still are trying to build an operating system worth a hill of beans. Well, it's all about marketing at MS so what you see in print is not what you get and never has.
in 2009, I'll be wading through the MS marketing drivel for what's going on in the embedded, netbook, and MID areas with regards to the ARM Cortex chips and especially the A9 dual core versions. A8 is amazing on the performance front and power front. This should prove very interesting along with what Android, Ubuntu, and others do on these platforms.
So long MSFT, 2009 is probably going to be another tough year of marketing against real solutions. And though you may have smashed the OLPC and dashed their plans of helping millions of children, they kicked off a resurrection of the light weight small form-factor device you just can't compete on. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Rather than wasting our time with a new GUI, I'd like to see Microsoft get the ball rolling on full, proper migration to 64 bit. Perhaps I'm a "power user" but for a sound designer, this 2 gig limit per app/~3.5 max feels more and more like 640 kb all over again.
(Unfortunately, the existence/popularity of 32 bit windows precludes the vendors of software such as Cubase and the likes from actually doing a proper job of putting out 64 bit software).
I record my sleeptalking
The task bar needs quite a bit of work. I bet that is one part of the OS that will change quite a bit from Vista. Looks like it is still a work in progress because right now it looks boxy and ugly.
It also looks like Aero wasn't turned on for these screen shots. Probably a driver thing. Vista without the glass doesn't look nearly as good.
I think like Vista, this version will be a lot of little things that improve the OS not huge ones. Then you'll go back from Windows 7 to Vista and go "jeez... how did I live without this Windows 7 feature" just like when you go back to XP and get pissed how crappy the taskbar is, how "in your face" the windows were, how crappy the file dialogs were, how crappy taskman.exe was, or how generally insecure the default setup was. Vista is a huge improvement over XP but it is hard to describe what improved. Just a lot of little annoyances are gone or smoothed out. Windows 7 will probably be the same.
And can I rant for a second? Look, I know why the ZDnet guys are doing this, but we live in Web version 2.0 these days and they could easily have made it so their gallery didn't require a complete page-load between images. But like I said, I know why they do require a page-load.
Comparing Windows 7 to Vista is useless, at least to someone like me. I love XP, having never had any serious problems with it whatsoever. It's by far the most stable OS I have ever used. Tell (and prove to) me that Windows 7 is better than XP, and I will show great interest in switching. Tell me 7 is better than Vista, and you don't have a chance.
Hell yeah! Keep raging against that machine!
Just remember to wash your hands after you are done dear.
Vista took so long to get to "release" mode, and even then most people saw it as very expensive "beta" quality, and not great beta at that. I wonder if this is a planned attack to make sure that when people think "Windows 7" they think...."hey, the beta was brilliant, it can only get better". This plan (if successful) avoids the more honest label Vista got as an anchor around it's neck.
The problem we have with any Microsoft products and services, is that for the most part, they are shit....pimped by "independent" sources all spouting what Microsoft pay them to. The bullshit pipes are well oiled by now that you almost have to assume that any source of positive news for Microsoft is paid for by Microsoft. They are very rarely genuine independent reviews. They have not only made their own beds for this assumption, they made the bed factory and all the linen......and patented all the processes involved.....including "closing eyes for extended period to recharge". LOL
Who knows though, they may have it right......eventually. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day.
What are the improvements? Have they added in WinFS yet?
All that being the case, why on earth do we care about Windows 7? If Microsoft couldn't get people to migrate off XP with benign economic circumstance and ready availability of credit, why do we think it's going to happen this time?
ian
Nice article. Screenshots tells a lot from a OS.
*shrugs*
So congratulations, from that pictures I can tell that Microsoft R&D Lab had a great time installing KDE 4 and plasmoids while the core Microsoft team was busy masquerading Vista.
Give me a break!
Apple has decided to ditch MacWorld because they havent got "$now Leopard" ready for release, and they are still dealing with bricked and mooing macbooks.
Meanwhile Ubuntu 10.4 "Manic Mouse" will not work with your graphics card and XP SP4 will be patched to not work with Core i8 and Atom 2 processors, So you WILL be using 7 whether you like it or not. Plus you will be driving a Bailed out "Big3" SUV powered by "Freedom Gas".
You voted for "Change", and now you have it.
Finally it looks like Microsoft are doing what they should have done with Vista. It's more stable, they've finally fixed the taskbar, got rid of the ridiculous sidebar and seem to have made it a lot quicker, according to the reports I've read. I've not used it myself yet, but after the disaster that was Vista, as they say, things can only get better.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
File name: Windows.7.Beta.1.Build_7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso [MSDN iSO]
Size: 2,618,793,984 bytes (2.44 GB)
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2123650
Nice article. Screen shots tells a lot from a OS.
*shrugs*
So congratulations, from that pictures I can tell that Microsoft R&D Lab had a great time installing KDE 4 and plasmoids while the core Microsoft team was busy masquerading Vista.
Give me a break!
Looks like a step back in the eye candy department. Maybe the author of the screenshots had the aero stuff turned off? It looks awfully flat and plain.
-- http://ninthagenda.com/
It sounds like the world will no longer exist tomorrow. The so called recession is mostly a psychological problem. The economy goes down by 1 or 2 percent, that is not much. All the other effects like doubling unemployment rates are only the product of exaggeration in the media and by the corporate managers.
I just had to repair a friend's Vista PC which had 3 Trojan programs running that had taken control of her internet even though Kaspersky antivirus was installed. The Trojan had worked its way onto her computer via a P2P program that her daughter was using to get music, and that stopped Kaspersky from being able to update its definitions, which it was set to do every day. I couldn't even go out to Microsoft's Windows Update site to get Windows updates, and Windows Defender (which was also installed and running) was disabled by one of the Trojan programs. It took me over an hour to clean it all up and get her machine running properly again.
Not even 2 antivirus programs could stop this from happening on the latest Windows PC.
This is what is stopping me from being even the slightest bit excited about Windows 7.
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
Same story everytime. Journalists just go crazy for the Beta, and so do most fanboys. They'll claim the Beta is so stable, moreso than the previous release. We saw the same thing with Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc.. Then the release comes and it's like a cold shower as people without the rose painted glasses get their hands on it. I'm glad I'm not stuck running Windows anymore.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
In 1984 mainstream users were choosing VMS over UNIX. Ten years later they are choosing Windows over UNIX. What part of that message aren't you getting?
I think their plan is to mimic the look and feel of Gnome or KDE, you know, to ease the transition for mom and pop when they switch to linux
_-_-_GSLUG_-_-_
reaper N0r do the roots 4nd gets on
I'm no fan of MS, but what exactly do you propose they do? They offer 64-bit variants that can run 64-bit applications of their supported platforms. They provide the platform to allow this specific thing. They provide the tools to develop for this.
What you have is commercial application providers flat-out ignoring 64-bit capability, as it is easier to target the 32-bit subset that works both on Pentium 4 and such and new. You have to make the vendors release 64-bit enabled builds. Linux suffers from this as well, to a lesser extent. In the OSS world, they rebuilt 64-bit readily. However, Acrobat, Flash, Sun JRE all took a long time or are still taking time to completely support 64-bit. The commercial world just has a hard time justifying bothering where there is backwards compatibility and 99.9% of their usage won't exceed the limit per process restrictions.
MS could have not published any 32-bit platform to accelerate ubiquity. Imagine the backlash at not supporting Core and Pentium 4, requiring those users to go to Core2 or Athlon64. Even then, it wouldn't have alleviated the issue as these vendors would still want to sell to XP users. MS could have omitted 32-bit compatibility, completely shooting backwards compatibility in the foot.
So while I'm not crazy about Windows, their x86_64 bit strategy is not any worse than other platforms, it's the commercial third-parties that cause your grief.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My local Linux advocate told me so!
Even with amazing projects coming out of the Microsoft labs like SeaDragon and Photosynth, we're offered up the latest generation of Windows with the same, exact model of desktop, start menu, icons, folders, etc. It just looks like next genetic descendent in the Windows line to me -- the only difference is smoother palettes and corners to mimic 'whats hot' in computer UI design these days.
One could say that the 'future' of desktop UIs was paved by Enlightenment which truely started branching away from the Windows and Macintosh genetic lines, but we need something more.
We need the equivalent of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Remote Apple remote for desktop management, not the shape, size or number of buttons -- but the idea that less is more, context is key and that it's about providing the user with enough to get their work done, not providing so much that they get lost.
I don't want eye candy. I want functionality that makes sense because it couldn't be any easier.
Why not compare with 2K ? Also, 2K is better than XP by the same metrics you mentioned. Then why are you running XP?
This space for rent.
Same story everytime. Journalists just go crazy for the Beta, and so do most fanboys. They'll claim the Beta is so stable, moreso than the previous release. We saw the same thing with Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc..
No "we" didn't. You just made that up.
Sure, MS may be right about driver and application incompatibilities. But, when I bought a brand new laptop, pre-loaded with Vista, that has the Vista logo on the box, I don't want to hear that it's the fault of the network chipset provider that the wireless network works marginally at best. MS and the hardware vendors need to get their shit together, so that they don't tell me that a computer is "Win 7 Compatible" or comes pre-loaded with Win 7 when it really isn't.
If you're trying to install a new OS on an old machine, that's one thing. You definitely need to do your homework to make sure that the off-brand network card you bought will work with the new OS. However, a new machine pre-loaded with the OS should run. If MS can't make sure that the OEMs have working machines before they slap a "Vista" or "Win 7" sticker on the damn thing, they should stop making software, period.
Click here to download a real replacement to previous versions of Windows.
I installed Windows 7 yesterday and it seems that this is the OS
that Vista should have been. Much more responsive and boots a lot
faster. Haven't tried copying any large amount of files though...
I am going to try installing Steam and Crysis tonight and check gaming
performance (if the games work at all, that is).
I can understand somebody wanting the pirated version of a video game, or even a release-version of an OS, but who in their right mind would tie up their Internet connection for a day and risk the legal trouble and possibility of a virus/worm/backdoor to download a beta copy of an operating system that's built on the most reviled version of Windows since WinMe?
2. In a story about Macs, mentioning that you use any form of Windows will take you to karma hell, praising OS X will get you modded up, mentioning Linux will affect your karma based on your luck of draw moderators depending on which kind of fanboy they are. In any case, you will get a ton of long highly modded up replies about how OS X is better
3. In a story about Linux, mentioning that you use any form of Windows will take you to karma hell, praising Linux will get you modded up, mentioning OS X will affect your karma based on your luck of draw moderators depending on which kind of fanboy they are. In any case, you will get a ton of long highly modded up replies about how Linux is better.
4. In any other story, mentioning that you use any form of Windows will take you to karma hell, and praising Linux, OS X, BSD, Plan 9, OS/2, BeOS etc. will take you to karma heaven.
Anyone wanna make a graphical represenation of the above to make it easier to understanding on a glance? So, Vista/Windows 7 stories are the only opportunity for Windows users to come out of the woodwork and not pretend they like other OSes. It's amazing how many of them there are actually are around these parts.
This space for rent.
There is no such thing as Windows 7. This is not a new code base, it is not an overhaul of Windows framework. Windows 7 is Vista Service Pack 2. The Windows 7 bullshit coming out of Microsoft's propaganda machine is a concerted and direct effort to bury the name Vista and all the bad press associated with it. That anyone has bought into this crap is astounding. Vista was several years delayed. Now we have hordes of people believing that MS got a new OS out the door in 18 months? Wake up already.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
I'm curious to see benchmarks. I've read a couple articles recently from windows reviewers who in the past have been painfully biased, but none show anything other than screens and "It's Snappier" ... or "Works on 512mb ram". If I remember right, Vista was suppose to work with 512mb ram too, but with pretty much any of the features turned on, it's useless.
I think the better question is ... is W7 actually "snappier", or in the past 2 years have more people simply upgraded their computers?
Why are we so concerned about eye-candy? How about the actual system underneath?
Is it stable, scalable, administrable? What sort of resources does it need? Ram? CPU?
Sure, 'pretties' are nice ( especially for the end user ), but its a lot like a cake: If the cake is full of holes, lopsided or not fully cooked, does it really matter what flavor the icing is?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
He was confused. 2008 was the year of the linux OEM installed netbook. Desktops are dead, laptops outsold desktops last year. These are the years we watch Windows slide into irrelevance, much as Macs did in the US before OSX.
Do you think the mammals woke up one day and found that all the dinosaurs had gone?
(Written on an Acer Aspire One netbook, bought in a supermarket, preinstalled with Linux, like millions of others in 2008)
Let's see MS try to sell a 400 euro minor version upgrade to their OS in the middle of a global economic crisis. I'm sure they'll sell millions, but it's the number of netbooks/nettops that ship with linux that will be key.
Vista is the first Microsoft OS that isn't eye candy. The semi-transparent windows get out of your way and let you focus on your task, not the windowing system.
And don't be so quick to dismiss so-called "eye candy". "Eye candy" is usually a easy way to dismiss anything usable by normal people. Is the iPod just "eye candy"? The iPhone? The Wii? Would you rather drive a Geo Metro or a Honda Civic?
Techies worry me sometimes. Too much fuss over left-brain "numbers", too little attention to right-brain "creative" things. Creativity and art matter just as much, if not more, then a table of features.
Remember all the hype and buzz put out by the movie studios before the film totally bombs out at the box office?
This could be the same with Windows 7.
They would have to pay me to use this OS after the Vista BS.
Windows XP, Mac OS 10 or Ubuntu are my Operating Systems now.
I have 11 authentic copies of Vista and will never install them on another computer again.
I'm an MCSE that has abandoned Microsoft for Ubuntu.
Yeah! Let's all perform copyright infringement, information wants to be free, down with the man! (As long as it's not GPL)
It's apparent that Windows 7 represents a radical name change from Vista. A bold new direction in OS branding.
And people say innovation is dead in Redmond.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It is called "sudo" and if your theoretical linux games would need root access to install mods as well. Or do you run your linux box as root all the time?
I'll admit, I run as root most of the time in Linux too, at least when I'm in a GUI. Know why? For most of Linux's history, it was a pain in the ass to not run as root. Only until recently have they had a good way to elevate privileges in the GUI. Guess what, that implementation is a hell of a lot like UAC. Guess what, I can live in Ubuntu as a normal user now and it will pop up a UAC-like dialog when an app needs elevation.
Perhaps the blame should go to game company for their shitty programming. UAC has been around for a long time and if modern games still can't function under UAC, they suck. And if a game mod has one editing files in "C:\Program Files", the user should need root to do so--"Program Files" is a shared resource like "/usr/bin".
Consider it a test, if the user can't figure out how to get past the UAC dialog, maybe they shouldn't be fucking around in "C:\Program Files" anyway.
You can write javascript that enhances a page. One can quickly write an implementation that keeps each image a standard page (good for SEO, good for multi-tab) but can also swap the image and not reload the page. Then you can right-click "Open new tab" or just click on it and not refresh the entire page.
Javascript = good.
Shitty Javascript = bad.
My first, and only question is: If I replace XP/SP3 on my machine with Windows 7 nee Vista will my hardware and applications perform any better? The only improvement I've ever seen in a usoft upgrade was SP3 for XP which did have a small performance increase under certain conditions.
> This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with.
Yes, that is the definition of a beta. A beta should find bugs of minor importance which only appear in real use cases.
The final version does not have the "you could live with" phrase in the end.
The "Mojave is really Vista" campaign was one of the most embarassing marketing campaigns I've ever seen. Here is a company that willingly admits that the reputation of their OS is so terrible, they have to dupe people into trying it by renaming it something else. And now the same "I'm so embarrassed by my product I won't even mention its name" continues.
What happened to Microsoft's cojones? They should stand up and fight for Vista until its reputation is at least partly restored. Then they could introduce products under new names, without the overhanging cloud of shame.
As for the "review", this part is enough to make me laugh uncontrollably: "Here are some screenshots to whet your appetite:". What is this, a review of a new cellphone skin for teenagers hanging out at a mall? What is happening to ZDNet? Not that it ever was a source of great knowledge, but this?
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Over 100 comments and we still don't have a concise list of substantial features Windows 7 offers over Vista? As someone else pointed out, a name and theme change does not really qualify as substantial change. Ok, so WinFS was never promised for this version. What exactly are they offering this time besides a fix to the taskbar? I have yet to see an article that outlines changes outside the UI. Is this an elaborate prank?
[alk]
A female kind. Probably underage.
Those are hard to get rid off. It usually takes years before you get the ship em off to college or marry em off.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
What failed was developer training, not user training. Developers could basically assume a user was running root. That let them take shortcuts like writing shit to "Program Files" or messing around with system files.
You have to understand the history as well. Microsoft grew up as a single-user OS and slowly morphed into a multi-user OS. They didn't grow up with the culture that unix-like systems have where the system was assumed to be multi-user.
Bottom line is we will always need some variant of sudo (aka UAC). UAC is actually the best sudo implementation there is so far, at least in my opinion. Granted, there is still room for improvement, but that mainly lies in "integration". For example, the common dialogs need a way for me to load notepad.exe, edit "C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts", and give me a UAC prompt when I save the file. That way I don't have to remember to load notepad.exe with elevated privileges. Let me write a new file to a protected directory and UAC me then instead loading the app with elevated privileges. That kind of integration will make the new world of "dont run as root" more enjoyable. The goal is to make it so there is no excuse for nerds to disable UAC (thus running as root 24/7).
Microsoft changed the interface of Office 2007 to make it much better all around(atleast for casual and new users). Look at the bad rap that it gave them on here and elsewhere for being unfamiliar to power users and people who are used to toolbars and 'File,Edit,View' menus. Look at what happened to KDE 4.0 And you want MS to radically alter the UI of a OS with 90% market share? Can you imagine the comments here starting with 'My grandma who used Windows since 95 got Windows 7 and.....' ? I bet the ribbonish interface itself in Windows 7 will not be well received by some people.
This space for rent.
I can't help but shake the same feeling that I had when the Wall Street was being pushed through Congress... the first time around, EVERYONE hated it (except some of the Dems) but the second time around they "marketed" it better, the media said "oh it's SOOOOO different this time, you'll LOVE it" and then people said "well, I guess it's ok. let's try it" Isn't that basically the same thing that's going on here? MS says "Oh, pox on Vista, you want Windows 7, that's where it's at!" Whoever it was that earlier said they turn off all the UI snazziness on XP -- I totally echo that sentiment -- I use "classic view" and pretty much the only reason I switched to XP was for some of the performance and native-driver issues (and for software compatibility). Having a flashy OS doesn't make me want to buy it, because if it did, I would buy Mac. (Or install Ubuntu again)
... seems to be off.
Just bring up the DOS prompt and fix it using time and date commands. It is faster the clicking around through the program manager.
Current date is December 28, 2008. Not sure about your local time.
You might have some small problems convincing your computer that it is 2008 if it is not Y2K compatible though.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Some how create a way for .NET apps that are compiled as "Any CPU" to call libraries compiled as x86.
If you compile a .NET app as "Any CPU" the runtime will take your MSIL and compile it to the native instruction set of the CPU. That means if you are running 64-bit, it will compile 64-bit. If you run 32-bit, it will compile 32-bit. The problem is, a 64-bit library cannot call a 32-bit one. Thus if you compile "Any CPU" and try calling a 32-bit library when you run on a 64-bit system, .NET will throw an exception.
So what do most people do? Compile their .NET apps as 32-bit. Then they know it will run everywhere.
Now, I'm no expert in 32/64-bit issues, but it seems to be if Microsoft had a way for .NET apps compiled for "Any CPU" to transparently deal with 32/64-bit libraries, you'd see more 64-bit apps. Again, I'm no expert and there are probably some pretty good reasons this is hard, if not impossible, to do.
If I was boss, I'd also make it so a single 32-bit installer could detect what CPU you've got and install 64-bit binaries or 32-bit automatically. From what I can tell, right now you pretty much have to ship two installers--one for 64-bit and one for 32-bit.
I'm getting really tired of all the /. bitching and moaning over every little thing Microsoft does, so I'd like to go ahead and point you all to benchmarks showing that not only is Windows 7 faster than Vista, but also XP SP3.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3187
And look at that, it's even an older, slower build than the latest one.
Most nerds seem to turn it off assuming it is "flasy useless eye candy". Little do they know they basically turned off hardware accelleration. You do know that Vista, with Aero enabled, will delegate most of the window drawing to the video card. In fact, the more ram on your video card, the better, Vista stores all the window data on that instead of your system RAM.
If you've got a card that does DirectX10 it will even hand the fonts to the video card and let the video card deal with font rendering and caching. Once you turn off Aero, the video card is just an old-school video card. Since a certain set of nerds seem to hate nice looking things, I bet most of them turn off the one thing that makes Vista way more snappy than XP--Aero.
You bring up a good point, but my assertion isn't that we need to necessarily change the environment from what it is to something else entirely or partially.
Providing skinning abilities, or UI modularity (ala Glade for GTK and NIBs for OSX), such that you could eliminate or add elements to your UI -- the buttons and widgets simply pair up with under the hood events that get fired off based on events.
That way you could ship the 'same old' for the people who like it, and individuals could experiment with what they like 'more'.
Office 2007 probably isn't the best example of 'new design' in terms of success or failure -- Office long ago stopped being anything more than a dumping ground for committee sourced features that have nothing to do with providing a functional word processing environment -- rather catering/pandering to the perceived marketing requirements of the entire spectrum of users from amateur to pro. (Although for your post it's a good example of 'Hey you guys changed my thing!')
What you ask exists. Vista Virtual Store. Basically, if your crappy app writes to "C:\program files" in vista and you are running as a standard user, Vista will do exactly what you describe... it will redirect the file IO to a place owned by the user, not the system.
Your computer isn't going to be more responsive by adding extra load on the GPU, only (possibly) prettier.
You are telling me that there is no performance improvement in having a *graphics card* handle *graphics* instead of a CPU? You are telling me that rather then having to load a window from system RAM to the video card RAM every time you maximize or minimize a window is faster then storing both on the video card ram and then sending a quick set of commands to the GPU?
You do realize that in most cases, when you minimize a window in Vista, the GPU still keeps a fully rendered version of the "normal" size window in its memory? You do realize that that trick lets you hover over the taskbar and see "tail -f /var/log/messages" in PuTTY console while the thing is minimized, right? Can your CPU and the system memory do that? Turn Aero off and you loose all that, and eat more system memory.
We have powerful video cards these days and only a fool wouldn't exploit them to speed up the windowing system. Me thinks some are too blinded by hate and narrow imagination to appreciate cool things.
Over 100 comments and we still don't have a concise list of substantial features Windows 7 offers over Vista?
Features New to Windows 7.
Enjoy!
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Exploit the card for more then just drawing rectangles. For example, does the 10-year old card manage the entire rendering of a font on the GPU? Or does it just take pixels from the CPU? You realize on a DirectX 10 capable card, Vista will hand the entire process of rendering a font to the GPU, right? In fact, the GPU will cache the font on the video card instead of the system RAM.
Dude, 10 year old video cards could *not* handle what Vista needs. I'd wager the video card is the single most important hardware upgrade you need for a happy Vista experience. Even more then RAM or CPU. You need a modern video card for a fast, happy Vista experience.
Why are so many techies such damn "get off my lawn" about anything but their narrow little world? The 80 character green screen ain't coming back gramps... deal!
Besides the fact the Vista looking menu bar gave me the shudders, I had a sudden image of my computer being this dumb screen with a goldfish on it, nothing else, everything else being a click away on the Internet, paid for by the minute.
Thank God there are alternatives, even if I don't particularly like them.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
vs
"I own an iPhone" vs "I own a RAZR v3". "The new iPhone is sweet" vs "The new Samsung A610 is sweet".
Anybody else notice the difference?
Actually if you wanted a real replacement to previous versions of Windows wouldn't you suggest ReactOS?
You just got troll'd!
Windows Vista's performance "problems" have nothing to do with DRM. If you aren't playing back a DRM'd file, then there is no DRM-specific code running, and no penalty of any kind. The idea that Vista had any more DRM code running than Windows XP was a myth propogated mostly buy people who knew it wasn't true, and others who were gullible and believed anything that sounded bad about Vista.
If you don't want DRM, don't buy any DRM'd media. Having support for DRM'd media in the OS (like BluRay / HDCP / etc) has absolutely ZERO impact on people who don't use DRM'd media.
Vista had its issues and they are well understood, there is no reason to make up myths to blame them on.
Heresy! 2009 is the year of the Windows 7 desktop!
Considered how this type of prediction has proven to be self-defeating (kidding kidding, please don't hit me with the correlation!=causation stick), it's the only way to ensure the true coming of the year of the Linux desktop! Muahahaha!
You just got troll'd!
replying to cancel accidental mod
Providing skinning abilities, or UI modularity (ala Glade for GTK and NIBs for OSX), such that you could eliminate or add elements to your UI -- the buttons and widgets simply pair up with under the hood events that get fired off based on events.
That way you could ship the 'same old' for the people who like it, and individuals could experiment with what they like 'more'.
Office 2007 probably isn't the best example of 'new design' in terms of success or failure -- Office long ago stopped being anything more than a dumping ground for committee sourced features that have nothing to do with providing a functional word processing environment -- rather catering/pandering to the perceived marketing requirements of the entire spectrum of users from amateur to pro. (Although for your post it's a good example of 'Hey you guys changed my thing!')
I'm confused. Isn't glade somewhat like the old VB or MFC? You could skin your application in Windows from a long time ago. Remember Winamp 1.0? Are you talking about OS UI or program UI?
And I wasn't talking about the features in Office 2007 like you are. I am just talking about the user interface which I think was the most major rehaul ever since the first version. And for that, MS got some major bitching around the place from previous Office users. Never mind that almost every new and casual user simply loves the new interface. And we had people on here saying that OO.o was much better for the Office 2003 folks to transition to, because it was more familiar.
This space for rent.
Just one of 97 windose 7 torrents right now at that site.
They keep claiming, I have yet to see it happen. I've been more satisfied with my commodore 64 than with any Microsoft product.
Windows is all the rage. Was then, is now, will be then. God Damn! It's Good to be KING !!
Anyone know how the new beta compares (in terms of speed, etc.) to Server 2008? I ask, because some people used Server 2008's "Desktop Experience" thing as a replacement for Vista, and says it runs a lot better.
Was just wondering ...
IMHO MS just "doesn't get it" and is doing stupid things by design, maybe the problem is too much "design by committee" or something.
The problem with Vista / Win7 / etc. wasn't that they tried to do TOO MUCH, it's that they tried to to TOO LITTLE. They're about 10 years BEHIND the current hardware (the mainstream CPU has been '64 bit' for YEARS even on low end parts). Given Moore's law it'll be even more pathetically inadequate in 2009/2010 when we're supposedly to be using Win7. By then we'll have at least cheap 16GB RAM, 64GB SSDs, 2TB HDDs for a song, 8 core 64 GFLOP CPUs, 2 TFLOP GPUs, better HD screens, 4Mbit/s+ broadband into more and more houses, and still we'll be stuck with .... notepad .... and corrupted registries and driver cleaner / crap cleaner / applications that won't install / uninstall / backup / transfer properly most of which being 32 bit.
Now for netbooks / mobile internet devices, OK, yes, for those, design a lean efficient low bloat OS. That is not the same product as your desktop / laptop offering.
I have relatively little problem with 'bloat' if it gets me major new generations of CAPABILITIES. Wake up, the HARDWARE we use today is LIGHT YEARS ahead of the SOFTWARE's capabilities to even USE it in 99% of the cases. Lack of 64 bit applications and applications that intelligently use RAM is one example -- 8GB of RAM costs as little as $40 today. Every one of my family's desktops has 8GB installed now, and if it wasn't for the stupid limitations of the motherboard / chipset, I'd have put 16GB or 32GB into the heavily used machines for these kinds of (commodity) RAM prices.
My quad core CPU is still something like 90% idle doing most OS / web / desktop stuff even under Vista with all the eye candy on. If I complain about it being *slow* it is probably because it is ALGORITHMICALLY broken in some buggy brain damaged way (like the horrible network throughput when you're playing audio or something) not because it is inherently trying to do something that exceeds the capabilities of my actual hardware given well designed software.
The main problem is that we can't even take good advantage of the multi-gigabytes of RAM, multi-terabytes of disc, multi-cores of CPUs, multi-teraflops of GPUs we have. A typical 'power user' desktop today exceeds the compute / RAM / storage capabilities of a 'supercomputer' in the 1990s, yet we're using a OS design / implementation that is BARELY any better than what we had then -- e.g. NTFS, FAT32, 32 bit OS being the most common, et. al.
I wouldn't care too much if they wrote vast portions of the whole OS in something uber bloated / slow like VB or JAVA as long as the performance critical bits were fast and the overall thing was well designed for reliability, stability, and easy extensibility to take full advantage of the system.
There needs to be a REVOLUTIONARY improvement in things like filesystems (say start with ZFS then migrate MOST EVERYTHING to use a full featured relational database model on top of that with MAJOR emphasis on metadata, schema use, RDF, et. al.). There needs to be a REVOLUTIONARY improvement in things like BACKUP. Ever had a 1.44 MB floppy or CD go bad on you and lose valuable data? Didn't that suck? The average joe in 2009 will be having 1TB drives! Can you imagine losing a LIFETIME of data in one catastrophic event -- ALL your family pictures / movies from maybe 3 generations of family, ALL your documents, ALL your personal files, et. al.? That's going to be a common occurrence due to viruses, hardware failure, or whatever, and the OSs like VISTA are just PATHETICALLY mis-designed to help people manage their storage / data / metadata, do backups, do searches, synchronize, transfer, etc. -- basically they're beyond uselessly bad at giving storage management resources. Heck not a day goes by that I am not even limited by the silly 128 character 'path length' 'limits' even in the latest VISTA 64.
No, Windows Home Server is not a solution. Forget backwa
How many of you have friends and family that call you before ordering a computer? Personally, I make 50 to 60 recommendations a year. Always the same--order from the web, order from the small business section, and pay extra, if you have to, to not get Vista.
I build my own machines. Dealing with the Vista WGA was too much of a pain in the ass for me to ever want to switch to XP. For this reason, I tell people if they do get a machine with Vista, not to call me with their problems.
Of the 50 to 60 people to whom I make recommendations, with how many do those share the advice to steer away from Vista? How many other resident PC guru's are making the same recommendations to their circle of friends?
Forget about in the office. Recommending a switch to Vista tends to be a career killer... There is a reason MS hasn't been too forceful in stuffing Vista down the throat of businesses.
As I write this, the parent is modded Off-Topic for responding:
They never left. I use Vista, and it's as snappy as XP ever was.
To a DIRECT QUOTE from http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1074689&cid=26250025 that was at 5 as I write this.
That seems patently impossible.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
How do I get past the blue screen at startup?
Can it copy files from one place to another in a reasonable amount of time now? Without tweaking?
Does the interface still hang for no apparent reason when browsing for files?
Are they still using hard links for the user profile directories?
I've tried Vista several times and as of a few weeks ago, with the latest beta SP, it's still crap at some of most basic things an operating should be good at.... navigation and pushing data around.
"It is called "sudo" and if your theoretical linux games would need root access to install mods as well. Or do you run your linux box as root all the time?"
No, no it's not. It's nothing at all like sudo.
Sure, it pops up a box once in a while asking for extra permissions. That bit is like sudo, or graphical sudo, but that's not all that UAC does, nor is it the annoying bit.
UAC blocks you from running programs at system startup on your own computer. It helpfully says that your administrator has set up a system policy to disallow it (lies). And I'm buggered if I can find a way to allow things to run that windows hasn't decided *on its own* that I'm not supposed to.
Add to that the pissing annoying virtual store technology that silently redirects activity aimed at files under Program Files to a directory under the user's private data area, without telling/warning/stopping anyone and screwing up multi-user uses of the machine (other users see a different version of the file). It doesn't ask for root, it just makes a total fucking mess. If they wanted to have restricted areas maybe they should investigate some goddamn file permissions. There is no dialog. It's a SILENT process that screws a lot of stuff up.
UAC sucks balls and is NOT like sudo.
As for the rest, if you couldn't function as a normal user in linux until graphical sudo came along, well, you were doing it wrong. Consider it a test, if you can't figure out how to go to a prompt and type sudo then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed near a computer.
Yes, you can skin your program in Windows (And OSX, and whatever else), but there's a level of 'ease' in which it's unattainable to most folks.
I wouldn't be surprised if we at some point see the concept from NeXT where the UI is structured drawing, NeXT tried postscript, I think they'd try SVG this time around. All old ideas become young again when reinvented.
And thanks for the clarification on Office 2007, I misunderstood.
They pretty much managed to make dialogs and all the other shit look like it's rendered through a browser engine.
Is that the "future" of "visual candy"?
Again you are mistaken.
You cannot store arbitrary data in GPU memory without incurring significant penalties, in particular if you ever need to read from something stored in video memory as you'll stall the GPU pipe. The cases where it is beneficial are when that data is in a format that allows the GPU to actually do work on the data, where the data won't ever need to be read back into system memory. For rendering a desktop, the 3D acceleration capabilities are useful because they allow the window surfaces to be stored as textures in a DirectX format supported by the GPU, which the GPU can then scale, animate, and composite natively.
I just got a Laptop for Christmas. Had a Vista Licence and XP preinstalled. Thought: "Ok. XP is on it, might as well take it for a ride." Installed all software I wanted to use on it. Netbeans/JavaFX, Gimp, Quake 3 Arena and some other stuff. Then it wouldn't shut down. Our Windows guy told me that when a app in userspace tries to do something like access WLAN and can't come by, Windows regularly freezes for 15 minutes or more on shutdown. Forced it through a powercycle and managed a shutdown without problems. Then I noticed WinXP accessing the HDD every second. Windows guy: "Oh, that's normal. You should be glad Vista wasn't preinstalled. Vista would be accessing the HDD constantly." Then he went on to tell me stories about WGA and how it kills your system after 30 days if it thinks your licence isn't valid.
The last time I used Windows professionally was back in 2001. The last install of Windows I used for leisure (games) was Win2k in 2003 or something. The 2.5 hrs with WinXP were enough to shoo me away again for another 5 years at least.
I can safely say that in my 23 years of computing - from obscure custom Sharp OSes and Commodore PET through early versions of DOS and Linux and Mac OS X - Windows XP, a proactively castrated piece of software, is one of the shittiest pieces of software I've come across. And I don't get the notion that Windows Vista is any better.
How anybody except the most novice users with no or nearly no computing experience who have been tricked into buying a computer with todays shit from MS installed is totally beyond me.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This may be too optimistic. The situation you describes applies mostly for home users: Their suppliers had few other options than making sure that their software would run on Vista.
But it doesn't really apply to other segments of the market. The Royal Navy recently put Windows in a nuclear submarine -- but they opted for Win 2K and XP. Most companies and large non-commercial buyers don't have applications that are that critical, but the smart ones still avoided Vista and are betting on moving from XP to Win 7. Many specialized software applications continued to run on XP, often the preferred OS for both vendor and customer.
Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that the software can't be run under Vista: Most applications made with recent tools probably will. It does mean, however, that there will have been a minimal effort in optimizing and troubleshooting these applications with Vista. This will now have to be done with Win 7.
"Even if I WANTED to use tree structured semantic filenames I couldn't due to Filesystem path / name limits e.g. things like the following quickly get you beyond the 128 character limit:"
..
Couldn't agree more, whatever happened to the database file system they were going to introduce in Longhorn in 2004, something similar to what was in BeOS since 1996
davecb5620@gmail.com
http://snipurl.com/978kj
davecb5620@gmail.com
[...]instant Start Menu search[...] breadcrumb navigation in Windows Explorer [...] However, these are things that can be added to XP - I just wish the authors of such addons would refrain from making them look exactly like Vista, because that doesn't look good with my XP classic theme.
Links to apps (I'm sure others exist too):
Vista Start Menu
breadcrumbs
Why call "Vista service pack 3" "Windows 7"?
I can see 2 reasons
1) Microsoft can stop running bad adverts on TV telling people Vista is not as bad as they think it is.
2) They can charge people who already have Vista to upgrade to service pack 3.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
XP can not really do 64 bit.
I get so tired of hearing this. Granted, XP x64 edition isn't really XP, it's a 64-bit version of Server 2003 renamed to XP, so technically you're right. That said I've been using it on my main system for over two years now and it works beautifully. I have 4 GB of RAM which is 100% utilized. ALL 32-bit apps I have tried work with no problems (you do have to get used to the two separate Program Files directories and the slight difference in the registry structure). I game a lot and have had no problems there whatsoever. Granted, I took the time when I first built this machine to make sure the hardware all had 64-bit drivers (Logitech in particular has great 64-bit support). I've had just a single blue screen in two years, caused by a failing video card which was quickly replaced. I'm also still using the original install of the OS - I've never needed to reinstall it. I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but if you make smart choices with your hardware, XP x64 is as good as it gets right now. And I'm one of those people that stuck with Windows 2000 over XP.
All Microsoft betas are time-limited, so they are in effect trials.
Yeah, it's still copyright infringement, technically, but in this case there is really no "losses" to claim.
You know that 64-bit Windows has always been able to run 32-bit software, right? The only thing you can't use is 32-bit drivers.
A 20 year old Amiga 500 could do a GUI with it being fully responsive, and the massive advancement in graphics hardware, even when not fully utilising the GPU, is still more than enough to handle the increase in screen resolution since then.
Yes, a GPU can use more tricks that Aero might use. But you have not provided any evidence that these make the slightest bit of difference in Vista. You're like the people who claim things would be done faster in assembler even before actually writing it. Things only make a difference in performance if it's a bottleneck, and the only way to find out is to test it.
Even when fully using the GPU, you still have lots of information travelling across to the graphics card, as the CPU still does a lot, which causes the screen to change, not to mention software that still uses the CPU to draw graphics or otherwise affect the appearance of the application.
I'm also not sure you understand how graphics cards work. It's been years since the CPU had to be used to laboriously draw every pixel - even on the Amiga, there were specialised chips to quickly draw blocks of memory. What's changed with the GPU is that the graphics processor is now a fully fledged processor (i.e., turing complete, and hence can run any program on it).
You admit that you gave up on Microsoft / Windows in 1999
"I gave up when Windows 2000 came out and they started shoveling more user level stuff into the kernel and they never fixed the security system. That was in 1999, over 8 years ago..."
So, what your saying is that windows 2000 wasn't an improvement over NT4 or Win98/Me? If you can't provide constructive criticism/comments then STFU and go crawl back in the hole in which you came out of troll.
You mean 2009 will be the year of the Linux desktop?
*yawn*
There is no point in doing anything with that machine if you don't tell dad to make his daughter a separate, non-admin account. That is advice that would be taken for granted with linux, but no OS can do anything for you if you have a teenager who is downloading and running P2P software while logged in as an admin.
Now that's offtopic for saying the parent was on topic, and the parent is fixed by labeling him a troll.
Yep, the mod system is here for your amusement.
I mean, seriously.. WordPad?
I like the taskbar and quicklaunch, even the start menu (classic). New stuff looks more and more like apple. If that is what we're going to get, we'd be better off getting an apple. *sigh*
Make it boot fast, run fast and light. Save the hardware resources for the programs we use!!
Microsoft will be microsoft 4 ever. No body will change that. Only work for play games, nothing else.
Perhaps because ReactOS is "not recommended for everyday use", as indicated on it's website. I've used it. It's a cute idea, but about as stable as dynamite in a smelting plant.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
There is application and driver compatibility. Their track record with applications has been relatively decent (The notable exception was migrating Win9x market to NT kernel, where a large number of things didn't work right). Drivers they break relatively commonly.
Essentially, I would give them about equal score on compatibility since XP release that I would give glibc ("Linux" would be a misnomer, the kernel strictly speaking hasn't been perfectly consistant on syscalls and glibc has abstracted it away on occasion, and "Linux" as a term for an OS includes things like Python, that have *not* maintained good compatibility, regardless of running on Linux or Windows). Linux inherently breaks binary drivers and frequently the API to compile against, just like Windows.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
All of the marketing 'buzz' around this - oops, I mean journalistic excitement - certainly has a manufactured feel, which is right in line with every MS product for the past 8 years at least.
I approached Vista similarly to how I approached Windows 98 - having not used MS's products for several years, I thought I'd give it a chance and give them the benefit of a doubt for having worked out past deficiencies. I bought a laptop and didn't go out of my way to avoid Vista.
Vista has performed about as well as Windows 98. Explorer (the task bar portion) crashes 2-3 times a week. The system has been been 'losing' my audio driver lately, and gives conflicted information about this. The configuration options are still a strange mix of sophisticated and primitive, and very vague and indefinite compared to Linux. I would be a fool to think that Windows 7 is going to be any different. I'm quite confident that this will be, like Vista, a window washing on an old OS, and that I'll be sticking with Linux, which keeps getting better and better.
Juln
Their approach of compiling both ('Universal Binaries') conveniently in their SDK really smoothed the transition from PPC to x86. And I haven't seen MS do something analogous, but it is a tad harder to do without re-doing their executable format or application packaging strategies. It they add a third architecture (x86_64), it certainly would be slicker. I will say we can't call in advance what they will do.
Single install media for both editions and taking that page from Apple's playbook would be interesting, but undoubtedly at least the latter is patent encumbered.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
"The classic single-column start menu is no longer available"
*rejoices*
I'll never have to watch friends and family use that 14 year old UI feature^H^H^H^H^H^Heyesore again.
Crap is the name. I dont know whats different in Windows 7, and why cant it be service pack 2 for Vista ? Microsoft is fooling people, well if windows 7 is so called "better" what about people who paid for the shit vista ? Shouldnt we get our money back ?
This is a scam, even Xp was stable. I think its again a way to make people move within 2 years and pay. Give a better Vista first ! When you cannot clean up your old crap, how can you think of giving something new.
I had all sort of issues with this beta, vista works for me, though there are issues with sound drivers which keeps hanging on me. And yes vista creeps even with 2 GB Ram, how much more upgrades do i require.
And.... here's a quote...
To use the provided Windows Vista, simply follow the instructions provided. To use the Downgrade Right to Microsoft Windows XP Professional, simply start the system.
So not only does it have XP rights, it's XP that's installed. Cute.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Don't get me wrong, I love KDE and I been a KDE user since the 1.x days.
I write this because I constantly hear how Windows 7 looks like KDE4, and it's true, it looks similar, and no, I don't like it, I prefer KDE.
But you guys should seriously admit that KDE4 has copied a lot from the Vista style, and you should stop pointing your finger at how Win7 copies Oxygen (KDE4 style), because KDE4 has been copying a lot from Vista too, and when you point at others doing the same that you do, you only look like a bunch of hypocrites.
Get Vista running on a DX9 capable machine.
Open up a reasonable number of apps, with windows scattered around the screen. For extra credit, have them being actually animating something (video playback, whatever)
Open up Task Manager and look at the CPU utilization bars.
Turn off Aero Glass
Grab a big foreground window and shake it like crazy over your other windows.
Turn Aero Glass back on
Repeat shake
Note that without Aero Glass you get a huge CPU spike due to all the rendering that doesn't get offloaded to the CPU, while with Aero Glass you won't see a similar spike in CPU activity.
My video compression blog
This IS TRUE!
Microsoft has confirmed it!
Norton and AOL have said IT IS TRUE!
It is THE BEST BROWSER EVER!
You MUST BELIEVE This!
Please pass this to EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!
.
.
- aqk
F U
to some, security, reliability and performance are requirements for a computer OS. Microsoft has failed year after year at building a solid base OS. And now people are supposed to believe Windows 7/2010 they are finally going to get it right? Talk about being in a hole.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Hey Microserf moron, how does embedded, netbooks, and MIDs turn into desktops? Typical AC moronic drivel.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Make the product "hot". This is how you turn the Borg Bill meme to your advantage. Everybody knows geeks fantasize about being assimilated by Jeri Ryan. Then bring back Bill as a commercial actor as a Borg and remind us why "It's good to be king." Spin off some merchandising.
They won't, though. Probably shoot 30 seconds of some balding guy on his analyst's couch saying something like "I like this Seven more than Mojave." Marketing idiots!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The OS does no checking on files you work with. Windows Media Player will of course check media files you play to see if they are DRM'd, just as every media player does. This is part of the process by which it determines the media format type, i.e. is it an MP3? A WMA? A DRM'd WMA? This works exactly the same on Vista as on XP, and is the same sort of check iTunes and other apps do. There is no overhead here beyond that required to determine the difference between an MP3 and a WMA, and it only occurs at the time a file is loaded.
What Vista provides above and beyond XP is something called Protected Media Path. This is similar to Windows XP's Certified Output Protection Protocol, but more sophisticated.
Protected Media Path allows for a great many possible restrictions on both audio and video output, including those defined by HDCP. And since it is a protected process, it allows decoders to be run in a context that prevents them from being manipulated or attacked (i.e. having their memory scanned for secret keys and such). Whether there is any overhead for using PMP to host your decoder is debateable, if there is any it should be negligible at worst. It's the same code running, whether it runs in your app's process or in mfpmp.exe instead. Yes there's IPC overhead, but lots of media player do out-of-proc hosting anyway so that a bad decoder won't crash the media player and to dodge certain security issues like heap spraying attacks.
What's important, though, is that this is an API that applications *CAN* use, not something that is imposed on applications or users. The Protected Media Path code will only get loaded and used if an application specifically calls MFCreatePMPMediaSession. It will cause the application-provided code to be hosted inside the protected process (mfpmp.exe). You won't see mfpmp.exe running unless an application has specifically invoked it via that API call - which would most likely happen because you are playing a BluRay disc with a player that has decided to make use of PMP.
Windows Media Player on Vista does use PMP for all media decoding, and suffers no ill effects from it. However, you do have a problem with it, just use Winamp or some other player that doesn't invoke PMP.
Like I said, having the support for DRM or output protections like HDCP won't affect you at all if you don't use media (or applications) that request or require that support. It just allows developers to run their code in a protected space and place what restrictions they want on their content. It make no determination about whether such restrictions are necessary, wise, or just. It's just an API. APIs can be used for good or for evil, if you have a problem with how a BluRay app uses the PMP API, then complain to Sony or the app developer =)
I'd like to mention that I'm running XP right now, and I'm perfectly happy with it, but I wasn't always happy. It surprises me to see the multitudes of people that forget how crappy XP was before SP2.
That said, I'd also like to mention that a lot of the "fixes" in Windows 7 are just making the OS do what XP already does, but with an improved GUI (can run on a netbook, fast response times, etc). In my opinion what needs to happen is for a completely new OS to be developed. What's holding MS back right now is the need to make every new OS backwards compatible. That's all well and good, but if everybody's going to complain anyways that none of the programs work on the new OS, and all the companies are going to have to develop new programs and drivers for the new OS, why not just forget making it backwards compatible? If MS developed an OS around a secure platform instead of developing a secure platform for an existing OS, perhaps a lot of us would be more happy. Another often overlooked consequence of making an OS backwards compatible is that it makes the OS very clunky, and dull of code that really isn't necessary.
Honestly, I don't plan on checking back here anytime soon, so feel free to rant all you want about how I'm wrong and what not, but I find now that fair comparison between Windows 7, Vista, and XP is not even possible. XP is good, solid, trustworthy, and fairly good looking. Vista is slow, shaky, but very visually appealing. As far as I know, Windows 7 is just an attempt at combining the best aspects of both of these systems.
Is there anything Microsoft could do to improve on Windows XP? Or have they run out of runway? DOS was improved on by Windows 3.1, improved on by Windows 95, improved on by Windows XP... but the previous systems all had serious limitations. What is the serious limitation of Windows XP?
The prettier aero GUI is an improvement - nice, but doesn't seem to be needed. They now sell XP home on eee PCs for $40 - that improves on price (but price-cutting is a company's last resort, when they have nothing better to offer). I guess security (viruses, malware) was a big issue. Microsoft might have done better by introducing a new OS to fix the security problems of Windows XP, instead of the free service packs (which were really quite excellent). Then, the upgrade would have been needed.
What should Microsoft do to make a new OS that's worthwhile? Improve on:
features? performance? reliability? convenience? price?
Oblig
Hehe. I'm just having a smile-day today. Upgrading memory and a video card is considered "substantial" these days? Anyway for those you've never ordered a piece of hardware in say...the past few months. Computer hardware prices have dropped like a rock. You basically can build an entire machine for under $500.00. $200.00 can get you a nice flat-panel.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
brought a tear to my eye...
Since vista came out I've been pretty much linux-only at the desktop (prior to that it was probably 50/50 and i've been at it alot longer then probably 99.9% of people using linux today) and for the most part I like it. However, there are some things I find hard to tolerate.
First, people say linux is snappy. well, thats very subjective (i've seen "snappy vista") and the applications that run on top of it are often the pain. So my start menu comes up nice and quick? Wow, well firefox 3 on linux still isnt anywhere near as snappy and responsive as firefox 2 on XP. Anyone seen chrome on XP/Vista lately by the way, im praying to god chrome will be the answer to my web browsing pain under linux. But thats just me.
Second thing, about eye candy. I (off and on) run compiz for 1 really simple thing, the window shading - practically every OS does it but its quite useful to be able to look at a screen cluttered with windows and know where one begins and the next ends... More on that, I also appreciate a "small" window manager. I.e. one with very very little wasted screen space (Another reason i love chrome) and KDE 3.x used to be able to provide that. Then kde 4 (and yes i've tried the 4.x releases too) came out - a bloated WM that suddenly needed twice the screen real estate just for the window borders!?!?!?!. That was frustrating. I've tried fvwm (what i used to use ages and ages ago), and many others. But at the end of the day I bring up firefox or evolution or thunderbird or whatever and i'm forced to look at this massive amount of whitespace between buttons and menus.
I think, if you asked alot of desktop users, they'd want a "nice" desktop that utilised screen real estate while being able to be "pretty", I think compiz delivers on part of that in the prettiness sense (though could leave some desires for a bit more user friendliness on the finger-yoga key bindings), but its hard to find something that works well without looking like a desktop white-space hog. As an example, look at nautilus, look at the whitespace between the text in a button and the edge of the button (or just the location bar and the main tool bar, then compare it at the same resolution to explorer side-by-side - im not talking about the actual file list by the way, just the bars at the top)... what a waste of space. For a while I thought xfce might have been a valid choice, but im still searching!
As for MACOS X, i dont know how people stand that interface, but thats me!
As for W7 beta 1, well, the screen shots dont really tell you much when it comes down to it and i'm unlikely to listen to vague "its so much snappier" remarks with nothing backing it up... its quite bizare anyone would make a post about how its "so much snappier" and then give you static screen shots... They certainly don't answer any questions along the lines of "here's all the things you hate about vista removed!". After all, when it comes to "snappy", windows XP (and even vista) are snappy when first installed (on current hardware)... go figure, show me something that makes sence. I.e. show me a machine where vista will suck and windows 7 will not, then i'll be impressed. After all, the hardware has gone a long way to catching up when it comes to vista-pain.
Why all the bitching about eye candy? I for one welcome a change in scenery. I stare at a computer screen for 14+ hours a day. After spending the last 6 years staring at XP, its nice to look at something different. Its the same reason people like to repaint their bedroom every couple of years. We get tired of looking at the same old shit. I'm not going to say that Vista doesn't have its share of problems. Just quit bitching about the eye candy.
Very good John...
(AND, it's very nice to see someone here actually KNOWS & UNDERSTANDS something about how User32 + GDI work, while in combination with video card drivers (& many of the "Windows graphical primitives" being in place onboard the vidcard's OWN circuitry), also)
NOTE, as to Windows video card assist in hardware - It's actually been going on longer than back as far as Windows 9x as you stated: Back in the Windows 3.x 16-bit days, "Windows Accelerator vidcards" did the same.
APK
so here is then the next question, are the added features of Vista/win 7 worth it?
Windows XP is on a sales moratorium apart from netbooks and the "downgrades" for which OEMs have started to charge extra. Windows Vista is not. Isn't continued availability enough of a feature?
What do you have available that you did not previously and does this make life more efficient?
A newly purchased computer perhaps?
Come on, you get nothing for 2.4gig DVD?
Im sure there is bloat there. Whats the contents of the dvd by size?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You really need 2gig of 24bit samples in ram at the same time?
The application could/cache/load it when needed. And if this is your profession, and your HD is too slow, then buy a 512gig SSD drive, im sure as a professional its affordable.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Weren't they supposed to release a new OS after XP, but then only ever came out with a series of shitty, user un-friendly, broken betas ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It's totally bogus. None of it makes any sense or applies to the actual Windows Vista OS, and none of its predictions about Vista ever came true.
It said Vista would end unified drivers. It did not.
It said device drivers would become more complex / less reliable, and they have not. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
It says that drivers or devices coudl be and would be "revoked." This has never happened and there's no basis for claiming it's even possible.
It says that somehow hardware will cost more, but Vista (and Win7) runs on the same hardware as XP or Mac OS.
It makes all sorts of ridiculous claims about how Vista requires devices drivers to "poll" for some undescribed something or other that will make things slow, but such requirements do not exist. Heck, Vista supports the very same drivers that worked on Windows XP for most hardware.
It quotes hearsay about mfpmp.exe using CPU cycles while playing MP3 files, while not referring at all to the PMP documentation or noting that these are the CPU cycles necessary to *decode the MP3 file* - as mfpmp.exe is the host process for decoders. In the past those same cycles would have been used inside wmplayer.exe. No new CPU usage was added, it was only moved.
I find it especially ironic that you're here evangelizing such disinformation while admitting that you don't actually use the OS and haven't done any research at all into the authenticity of the claims made by the single document you're using as the basis for your claims. It's ironic because these are very much like the so-called Fear, Uncertainty, Denial attacks which Slashdotters used to blast Microsoft for making against its competition. I guess what's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?
That issue had nothing to do with DRM, it had to do with CPU scheduling / network throttling behavior designed to provide a better media experience, and a bug / oversight in the associated code.
Why would support for DRM restrictions impact performance or stability? That's just ridiculous. That's like saying having a password on your computer will make it slower. Well, there's more code to handle password authentication, and yeah the OS needs to do the appropriate checks to make sure you're authenticated. But does it make the system less stable? Of course not. Does it slow it down in a perceivable way? Of course not.
More importantly, "support for DRM'd media" and "support for the restrictions of DRM'd media" are the same thing. If you want to play BluRay movies, you have to accept the limitations imposed by the BluRay standard. That's just the way it is, at least in the world of legally licensed software.
I have no complaints about it. Most of my machines never play any such material, and so no DRM-related code ever runs on them. My media center PC has a BluRay drive connected to my Samsung LCD via a DVI to HDMI converter, and I play BluRay movies with PowerDVD at 1080p and use an optical output connection to my receiver. I don't know what DRM or other content protection measures PowerDVD employs or makes use of, but I do know that I have never experienced any problems at all with that setup.
When first reading your post, my initial reaction was to just tell you to stop fretting over mod points and to get over it.. what does it matter ?.. However, you actually succeeded in making a point of the "non mod" variety.
There are of course a number of people who will follow the crowd, or trends, and go with what's popular just for the feeling of belonging I suppose.. There are those who place way too much importance on the mod system, and probably follow these trends to gain these "valuable" mod points, or to punish those who they feel are outside the trend and therefore need ridicule.. and perhaps this skews things into the scenarios you described.. I myself when modding do fall into this category, but give points to people who actually make "a point" with their comment.. sorry, but don't have any to give right now.
If your interested in how some of this came about.. you might want to know that Linux was not always the popular kid on the block.. there was (and still is) a lot of bad information being presented as facts.. so I suppose that those of us who used Linux became somewhat a defensive group. On the other side with Windows users, you have people who have invested a lot of time learning what they know, who are unwilling to invest time in something else. These 2 stubborn groups have battled it out for years. Linux originally being the more obscure OS was more elitist in a sense.. and therefore more "nerdy", which appeals to those who think of themselves as "power users".. those Windows users who stuck with it for years suddenly found with the boom in PC's that there were more and more people finding their way around Windows and they felt themselves less of a "power user".. many of these people migrated to Linux.. Then with the distro's becoming increasingly easier to install (especially Ubuntu) well things just took off.
Having not been involved with OSX or anyone that uses it.. I'll leave that alone.. but I think it's users have come from Apple, Windows, and Linux camps.. and I am sure it's a great operating system.. all these OS's require an investment in time learning.. so of course you will have defenders of them all.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Here's a list of proven media problems. Those are not conjecture, they are what people report Vista does. Here's a much larger list of Vista Failure, once again reported by users, vendors and other non interested parties.
Compared to that, XP driver support being pulled before launch is a nit pick, but it goes a long way to show that you either don't know what you are talking about or you are lying.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
User maintains more than a dozen sockpuppet accounts on Slashdot.