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Ballmer Sets Loose Windows 7 Public Beta At CES
CWmike writes "The rumors turned out to be true. Microsoft will release a public beta this week of its next desktop operating system, Windows 7, hoping it will
address the problems that have made Windows Vista perhaps the least popular OS in its history. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will launch the beta during his speech at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Preston Gralla reviewed Windows 7 beta 1, noting 'Fast and stable, Beta 1 of Windows 7 unveils some intriguing user-interface improvements, including the much-anticipated new task bar.' MSDN and Technet subscribers should be able to get the public data tonight. The general public will have to wait until Friday."
...or doesn't it count because no one even tried to take it seriously?
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Early reports say that no audience members were injured at today's CES, a rare occurrence for a Ballmer speech.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Hardly. If anything, it's the *most* popular. Popularity doesn't necessarily mean that something is liked, but having a lot of people dislike something as in the case of Vista means it's pretty damn popular. Just not for the reasons you'd like. It's easy to tell which is the least popular Windows ever: Windows 1.0. (It would be Microsoft Bob, except that's not actually "Windows".)
However, even for the "most hated" award, it's a tight race between ME and Vista. I'd say the hatred of ME is more intense, while the hate for Vista is more widespread.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I, for one, won't sign up until it's given a cool name like 'Moab', 'Durango', or 'Rumplestilskin' and a slick marketing campaign designed to fool me into upgrading.
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
I love UAC. On XP, I used to have to de-malware my [anonymized family member]'s computer every couple of months. On Vista, I'm watching them use their machine, and UAC pops up with some spyware wanting to install. Box read, permission declined, no infestation I have to clean up.
Again, it works great for me!
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Here is a Computerworld article that states MS may give away free Windows 7 upgrades to those who purchased Vista after July 1st.
http://linksubmit.net/?8e8296
~ Ron Fitzgerald
Actually, they did provide a public beta for Windows Vista. I was pretty excited to get the next version of Windows to "beta test" before it was released. The whole "oooh new and shiny" factor.
But, the nice thing about the "resource intensive" API is that it actually uses your video card. Running Vista on a repurposed workstation at work, Aero without glass performs better than the software-only "classic" mode. (Though, this is anecdotal. The machine has 768 MB of RAM and an older Pentium 4.)
The funny thing is Vista tries to put the hardware you have to use. Have 8 GB of RAM? It'll use the unallocated memory to cache programs. Have a discrete graphics card? It'll be virtualized and time slices doled out to applications. Have System Idle Process running at 99% 'cuz your CPU is bored? It'll index files, or defrag your disk (if your disk is also idle.)
But, using hardware that would otherwise be idle is "resource intensive." It's a matter of perspective.
+1 rambling for me? I'd settle for a cookie.
DATABASE WOW WOW
From what I understand, Windows 7 is Vista with some GUI improvement, significant performance enhancements, and new features. It's not a rewrite. It doesn't break backward compatibility. It doesn't solve the 32-bit 64-bit dilemma that both Linux and OS X are addressing. It doesn't eliminate the behaviour of configuring user accounts to be admin/root by default. It also doesn't force application developers to break old habits.
It's definitely an improvement over Vista, but Microsoft is bound by backward compatibility requirements to keep shipping OS's that are fundamentally broken and that do not allow for 32-bit apps and drivers to run out of one 64-bit OS.
They missed a golden opportunity to fix these problems to keep their OS relevant in terms of keeping up with OS technology.
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A few audience members had scorched retinas from the spotlights reflecting off Ballmer's head. Ballmer says a new coat of turtle wax was to blame.
'To protect your MP3 files' - uhm, wtf?!
You're confusing issues. They are reviewing the new version of Windows. The specific definition of Operating System is ultimately meaningless in this discussion.
The new taskbar and other UI tweaks are a part of the new version of Windows.
New Task Bar? Do the words "Titanic" and "rearranging the deckchairs" come to mind here?
I think the phrase "rearranging the deckchairs" comes to mind ANY time Balmer is involved.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4632931/Microsoft.Windows.7.Beta.1.Build.7000.x64.DVD-WinBeta
You'd think so, but it's actually not true. I find it amazing myself, but UAC actually works. I work at a PC phone support center, and we get tons of calls about computers infected with Antivirus 2009/Antivirus Pro/etc. Out of the dozens (if not hundreds) of these calls I've taken over the last few months, I got exactly one call about a Vista machine that was infected. A good 99%+ of those calls we get are for infected XP machines, and I can guarantee you XP does not have 99x the marketshare of Vista, by any measurement. I also had another call where the caller had gotten a popup that would have infected her computer, and she believed the popup and pressed "scan". Only problem for the malware was, the next screen she got was a "continue or cancel" screen from UAC, and that apparently scared her more than the panic popup had, and she clicked cancel.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Seriously, Microsoft is right about one thing: if you set people down in front of Vista and dont' tell them it's Vista, they love it. Tell them it's Vista, and they hate it.
People are PRIMED to hate the OS based on the name and based on really over-blown and inaccurate Apple ads, and really bad experiences SOME users had in the first year (due to the "Vista Capable" debacle mostly).
Since SP1, Vista has been very usable. I've been using it almost since it came out, and it's a perfectly decent OS. In fact, I sorta hate going back to XP now... I miss too many good things about Vista, like the instant search features, new Start menu, and just some of the look and feel.
Nobody seems to remember how much people HATED the old "XP" when it first came out. It didn't really become popular until SP2 was released.
Most of the anti-Vista sentiment is simply irrational and baseless.
Are there some things not to like? Sure. I turn off UAC immediately. There are a few quirks in the new Windows Explorer that I don't like (and which seem to be unchanged in Windows 7). But really, beyond that? It's much more stable, and full featured than XP, and it looks a hell of a lot better. Yeah, it's a memory pig, but I run with plenty of memory for my needs, and have no problems. And after 2 years of use, it's "slowed down" far less than comparable XP machines have (the old "Windows Decay" problem).
Am I looking forward to Windows 7? Definitely. It seems to fix the memory-pig and performance issues that Vista admittedly does have (a bigger issue on laptops than my desktop), but the fact will remain that it's little more than Vista with some spit and polish... and everyone will love it because it's "not Vista".
Vista-hate is getting to be tedious and facile, and it really is more psychological than real.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
No operating system requires defrag. The OS is not what you defrag. All filesystems fragment over time. NTFS more than others. It is a popular myth that you never need to defrag a linux box. It's just that the fragmentation is slower. Much slower. Sure, when it comes to when-you-need-to-defrag, Linux is usually better than Windows, but this doesn't mean a Windows PC is the only one that ever needs defrag.
They've...taken Vista, polished it up and threw in some nice UI tweaks...It's much snappier, and I really like the facelift given to apps like Paint and Wordpad
Well, we couldn't ask for a more compelling review than that! I don't care what people say about 64 bits, UAC, DRM, or corrupted mp3's. Paint and Wordpad have always been there for me!~