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Windows 7 Beta Released To Public After Delay
Z80xxc! writes "The Windows 7 Beta release is now available for download by the general public, in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Microsoft had previously announced availability around 3 PM PST on Friday, but after unexpected numbers of people proved to be interested in the download, had to postpone it to add more servers."
...and we still don't care. :P
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Microsoft exec Bill Veghte confirms here that Windows 7 is just a service pack for Vista: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10112149-56.html
By the way, for some reason the user information page (right before the download page) has trouble loading when using Chrome, but works fine in IE. I don't know why this comes as a shock to me...
I still can't believe there will be a 32-bit version.
No doubt it'll be cheaper and attract more people and companies will cater towards that version more than the 64-bit version.
trying it out now on my media center pc. media center seems pretty cool so far, but im having trouble with the tv tuner. had to find the real link to install their drm infested playready service. so far my findings are: it's not a major release, its vista sp2 basically I dont think its going to fare any better than vista did
They finally released it after a delay.
The delay?
They couldn't figure out how to upload the torrent to PirateBay.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
seems they want to own your computer outright - no multiboot (MS world foreign concept) visible on first glance...
I happened to pull up the webpage a few minutes after I got back home and saw that it was live. So I signed into my Live account and grabbed the 32-bit version (gonna slap it onto my Mini 9--it's nice having a small expendable machine around--though OS X is running really smoothly on it at the moment). Anyhow, their buggy sign-in system ended up giving me two license keys. So I went back to the download page and opted for the 64-bit version, too. Again, it gave me 2 license keys. Anyone else getting this?
This guy's the limit!
Boot from a virtual disk (VHD) without virtualising -
http://it-experts.dk/blogs/rsj/archive/2009/01/01/booting-windows-7-from-a-vhd-file.aspx
After playing with it for a day or so, I think Libraries are interesting but I need to play with them some more before committing. The taskbar is nice, and works well - several of the 'cute' features are well thought out, such as the 'Show Desktop' functionality now being a small sliver of the taskbar on the right hand side, which if you hover over makes all windows 100% translucent, and if you click it minimises everything. Each 'window preview' on an application instance icon in the task bar does something similar if you hover on it - only keeps that apps windows opaque. Nice.
It seems very stable - the installer was the Windows 2008 one, it literally asks what language you want, where you want it installed and do you want to upgrade or fresh install. Then its away and installing - everything else is done afterward.
IE8 has issues on this website - lots of refreshing to a blank page for seemingly no reason. Not ready for the prime time - Chrome and Firefox work fine though.
One thing that struck me, and other people I have talked about, is that due to the focus on icons for the task bar now (instead of the label, as Win95 to Vista uses), some people are really going to have to polish their icons (Putty - the icon is nice when its small, but it sucks at larger sizes - at the moment Im using the Kterm icon for Putty!).
While I cant say Ive heavily stress tested it, theres been no show stoppers for me as of yet. I'm currently using it as my main desktop (aside from my OSX systems), so we shall see how we get on in the coming months.
oh why oh why?
what exactly is the point?
"Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 support the Windows 7 Beta download experience. "
It's even an experience just to download it, one that my Firefox seems not to enjoy.
I really hope this is better than vista. With XP gone from retail, this will probably be the OS installed and upgraded to on the few windows computers I manage.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
I tried to download the beta, and ended up with a sign in page that offers no ability to sign in anywhere. Perhaps they don't like my browser?
I am running Konqueror on KDE (in FreeBSD). I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to test that combination for their web site.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Windows 7 still doesn't have virtual desktops. OSX has had them for a few releases and every major desktop environment for Linux has had them since the beginning.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Here is a link to the download of the much improved operating system.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I had zero issues downloading the beta with Firefox - both from the public beta site and their MSDN subscription sites. Worked 100% fine for me in Firefox.
And from my experiences over the past 24 hours - it is better than Vista.
How would I go about trying this? I am mostly interested in trying the 64 bit version, having had 64 bit processor for over 4 years yet still using 32 bit windows. Would I need some sort of special partition to get it working? Unless someone can tell me that I am not missing much using 32 bit windows.
Slashdot's current quote of the day, "No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid." shown in context of very this article appears to be most relevant quote of the day today.
There you are, staring at me again.
strange. This is on an almost clean windows XP install. Pushing the "Download now" button produces some loading and activity on the status bar, then stops and nothing happens.
It would be ironic if it was because of load problems on the servers, but i doubt it on a saturday night (and everything else is snappy on the site)
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
tried with IE now, it installs some kind of activex download manager. That was probably the reason Firefox couldn't handle it.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
This is interesting since I had to finally use IE to download it because the website wants to install some silly activex for a download manager.
Justify my text? I'm sorry, but it has no excuse.
Is it just me or does this download break on every browser but IE?
I tried:
Anyone else get similar results?
I've installed Windows 7 32-bit Pre-Pre-Release (build 7000 for inquiring minds) on my gaming machine and it works surprisingly well. Ventrilo took a bit of fiddling to work right, but other than that it worked better out of the box than XP Service Pack 3 does. It didn't need any extra drivers, although it did prompt me to update the Graphics card driver, which it happily did automatically.
Then the trouble started.
Since I had several firefox tabs open, I opted to put the computer into Hibernation for the night so I could continue with them this morning. It obliged surprisingly quickly and shut off the system power. Fans went off, case lights went off, and the USB devices lost power. The system was off. Off I Tell you!
I went to bed. While reading Paris in the 20th Century by Jules Verne, almost an hour after I had shut off the machine, quietly returned to life! I thought that some bump or vibration or some minuscule cosmic ray had activated the case button and quickly dismissed it as some one-off odd event. I went back to reading about Le Grande Entrepôt.
About a chapter later, I don't know how much time had passed, the beast roared back to life with the ferocity of all fans at one hundred percent and the squeal of the system speaker! Twice in one night was too much for coincidence. I put the machine into hibernation once again, unplugged the power supply and resigned myself that if it came back to life once more, I would call a priest for an exorcism. (which would be quite a phone call, considering that I do not frequent churches)
Tonight, I will be sleeping with a copy of dBaN by my side.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Does it remove, or add, more control of my machine?
If it adds to my current XP2 configuration, fine, I'll CONSIDER it as a replacement on this machine when XP finally goes belly up.
If it REMOVES any control of my machine, in any way, then it is just another Vista, in my mind.
I keep seeing benchmarking, eye-candy comparisons, etc, etc, but no real discussion of embedded DRM schemes, hidden processes, etc.
It is the stuff that I cannot see on my monitor that concerns me the most when considering a OS.
They were fast in developping a new product. But how are they gonna sell Vista when the customers knows that a new product in coming to the market ? I mean windows Vista is great, but windows 7 is even greater than windows Vista... which is already a great product.
I've been periodically checking my MSDN AA site, but it hasn't been put up yet. I was considering using it as the OS on the machine I just rebuilt for my non-technical brother, but I ended up using Vista. I hope the UAC things annoy the shit out of him, as he does me ;).
I applaud Microsoft for this fairly open beta which could really help Windows 7 take off, however why are they sticking to a very traditional download route? I'm aware that you'll be able to download the beta from many unofficial sources but Microsoft should be looking to utilize bit torrent. Any problems regarding agreeing to a license could easily be done on installation.
Windows 7 beta needs IE (and therefore windows) to download, so looks like no virtual machine for me.
Direct download links:
32-bit
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
64-bit
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Why is this story tagged "hitler"?
xkcd WHAT?
FYI, I had no luck trying to download this using Firefox on my Mac. I had to boot up my VMWare Windows instance and start the download using IE 7.0. The download forces you to install a new download manager ActiveX control.
I would've preferred a torrent...
Dumped OS X earlier this year and switched to Vista once SP1 came out and absolutely love it. The new features in Win 7 will be a nice upgrade in a year or so. But nothing must have to want to run a beta OS.
What I find amazing about Vista/Win 7 is that unless I'm simply the luckiest Windows user in the world every single virus and spyware problem have gone away. Even with massive and constant and out right bat shit insane Net behavior I haven't had a single virus or spyware/malware incident.
It will be nice to have the few places UAC still needs to be tweaked fixed in Win 7, but whatever they did over the past few years to fix the security nightmare Windows use to be worked. Amazingly well.
I still remember the days of 'owned in X minutes or seconds' years ago for Windows. No more.
For getting work done, I need and want to use Linux. But since I only use Windows for playing the occasional game, I just can't get excited about XP vs. Vista vs. 7.
All I really care is that I have some environment capable of running Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and maybe some old Might and Magic games. I'm happy regardless of whether it's Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Linux+wine, Cedega, etc.
(Actually, I'm happiest if it's wine or Cedega, because they're way easier to install than Windows and way cheaper. Unfortunately wine / Cedega are a bit of a crapshoot for an arbitrarily-specified game.)
They're using an Akamai download manager, which sucks ass... depending on your Firefox configuration, it won't even show up at all (not even a "Firefox blocked this application" bar.) I think you need Java to get it to run... but I'm not sure since I refuse to install Java. (I got it downloading correctly in IE, but it uses an ActiveX widget which is almost as irritating as Java.)
Anyway, blame Akamai, not Microsoft. Although I guess blame Microsoft for picking Akamai...
Comment of the year
"I still can't believe there will be a 32-bit version."
I still can't believe people's obsession with Long Mode.
Well, actually, I can, simply because 64 is larger than 32, and thus 64-bit equates to "better" in the eyes of lots of people. But lots of people are fools, too.
But seriously, the majority of computer users have absolutely no need for Long Mode. They do things like browse the web, forward email, watch YouTube, and look at porn. You barely need Protected Mode for that.
The scenarios benefiting from Long Mode would be:
That's about it, really.
Most people are concerned solely with the amount of memory Windows reports in the System Properties dialog, and get their panties in a bunch over 700 MB or so of "missing" RAM. While I can understand wanting one's OS to be able to use all the RAM one paid for, most of these people aren't actually ever going to use that much of RAM. They just want their number to be bigger, because that obviously reflects on the size of their testicles. That's why they bought 4 GiB of RAM in the first place.
But even then, Long Mode is not needed to win the penis-length contests. Proper support for PAE would solve the problems. Just about any Intel-compatible CPU made in the past ten years supports PAE. With PAE, the processor can directly address up to 64 GiB of RAM in i386 Protected Mode, even though each user task (process) is still limited to a 4 GiB virtual address space. But it's very rare for a single task to actually need that much.
Of course, on Win i386, it's a little worse than that. Processes are limited to 2 GiB of user address space (with the kernel having the same 2 GiB in every process). But even 2 GiB is a lot of memory. Even Firefox only needs half a gig or so. ;-)
Win i386 actually uses PAE, sort-of. It needs to obtain the NX (No Execute) bit in page tables, for "DEP" (Data Execution Prevention). But Win i386 still limits physical addresses to under 4 GiB to keep crappy drivers from crashing the system. Since Microsoft's all about driver signing these days, they could just add an flag to the driver signature indicating it's qualified to work above 4 GiB, and have an OS boot option or something which allowed all memory to be used. Refuse to load PAE unqualified drivers in that mode.
Meanwhile, Long Mode is not without drawbacks. Long Mode, for those who don't know, is the processor mode AMD introduced which enables native 64-bit virtual addressing. But when in Long Mode, the processor can't do 16-bit Virtual Mode at all. There's still a lot of Win16 code floating around in the Windows world, sadly. Long Mode also means potential compatibility issues with crappy 32-bit code. Sure, it's crappy code, but I've found most code is crappy code. There can be performance costs, too (64-bit everywhere means more stuff than 32-bit most places), although they're minor and may be offset by equally possible performance gains (instruction architecture improvements such as more general-purpose registers).
Since this is Slashdot, I have to mention that Linux i386 supports PAE just fine, and has no problem working with more than 4 GiB of RAM, making Linux x86-64 even less interesting than Win x86-64. Linux also doesn't manage memory the same way as Windows, so the user/kernel split doesn't apply. So Linux x86-64 has all the compatibility problems of Long Mode, with even fewer benefits.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
However if you edit the download web page source you will find an embedded JavaScript link: http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/.... copy and paste that and you'll get another web page telling you:
" If you have not already installed ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet, an information box will appear in your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser prompting you to install "ActiveX control:... If the Download Manager can not install the ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet in your browser, you may have system restrictions. If you have system restrictions, please: * Download products using the Web Browser method * Contact your organizationâ(TM)s Administrator to download products using the Download Manager method"
Blah Blah Blah. Look, Microsoft. This is easy. You give us a link, and we download it. Why do you have to drown something AS SIMPLE AS DOWNLOADING A FILE UNDER TONNES OF YOUR INSECURE ACTIVEX RUBBISH or even Java? You've got a separate ProductID you assign people, so what is your problem here (beyond your own myopic bureaucratic stupidity?)
Well okay Microsoft. I can't be bothered wading through your hopeless web programmers inane crap, so I'll wait for the torrent to appear and use my ProductID with that.
PS. I tried Vista for two months, thought it was total crap deleted it and reinstalled XP. I gave you another chance but you're really trying my patience. Please fire everyone who worked on Vista (especially your marketing) and your goober web programmers. They are really getting on my nerves.
I could not get the installer to download with firefox. I had to switch over to IE to get it to run. Otherwise just clicking the download button refreshed the page and did nothing.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
I'm not talking about the little kids who 'turn off that stupid UAC', but people with Vista and UAC left on as normal that have had a single incident of a virus infection?
I can't think of a single person who runs Vista or read of an incident occurring. It would be an amazing achievement for Microsoft if they have come that far with Windows.
The last Vista machine I saw was reduced to a single line of blinking text after three weeks of "support" by M$ which finally recommended removing a broken SP1. This fix bricked the thing. So, I have to agree with this opinion of what's better than Vista. It would be better to just move to free software than play along with this crap.
I downloaded this from MSDN yesterday and installed it in a vmware session. This is the first operating system I ever installed in my entire life that didn't just work out of the box in VMWare as the fricking well known ethernet drivers emulated by vmware (AMD PCNet) were mysteriously missing... No doubt just to piss off VMWare users.
All and all it wasn't very much different from windows 2008. Some of the extra PM features especailly core parking and the timer coalese seem like a worth-while addition to the core OS for mobile users.
They also effectivly addressed service manager sprawl issues by improving the task scheduler where service starting can be triggered by relevent hardware events leading to a significant reduction of memory usage compared with vista.
While the core OS seemed very solid and stable the UI still needs some work. Just dinking around with options in the control panel lead to repeatable crashes of certain applets.
My biggest gripe with Windows 7/R2 from Vista; a deal breaker for me is the classic start menu option is gone. You can't just quickly hit windows key, P to see all program groups installed on your PC at once without scrolling or dinking around with search or sub-menus.
Since there is no substantial difference I refuse to concider moving to this platform if they won't either put the old system back or add options to the vista start menu theme enabling similiar functionality.
This is interesting since I had to finally use IE to download it because the website wants to install some silly activex for a download manager.
It's a 1MB bittorrent like client for akamai content distribution - they're hosting it.
Tell me why the geek who fears his own shadow downloads an executable from a source like Pirate Bay.
Is this the version of Vista that actually works and provides some value for all the money it costs?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Because it means we need to shell out extra money to get Vista Ultimate Ultimate ^2 Edition.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I downloaded the 64-bit version with the intention of looking at on my Fedora 10 system. However, when I mount the ISO and view the directory listing this is all that I see:
$ ll .gvfs/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO/
total 1
-r-------- 1 user group 135 2008-12-13 08:51 README.TXT
README.TXT appears to be an empty file.
Is there a magic secret that's required to view the contents of this disk image?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
As far as I can tell Vista is just as secure as Linux and OS X. I certainly haven't seen or heard of a single incident. The Windows team really has done a huge job cleaning up the mess they had with previous versions of Windows.
The thing I find mind boggling about Win 7 is it is 2009 and:
* Still using fucking drive letters C:,D:, etc
* Fucking back slashes for path names. Joy! having to have to manually fuck around with strings to get them to compile correctly
* The fucking maximize button still lives. This albatros from the Win 3.1 days continues to keep Microsoft from bringing Windows up to OS X's desktop/app drag and drop integration throughout the system and with Expose.
Other than that, both Vista and Win 7 are rock solid systems. OS X is slightly more refined in its app GUI toolkit with too many Windows developers still putting out apps like it is still the Win 95 days. And Linux is a fiasco I've long given up even bothering to the yearly install and immediate delete of.
does it suck or not?
yes or no?
no shit!?! Guess what! That's what all software upgrades are. Including games. The very same description could be used for Oblivion and Fallout 3. The underlying code remains the same so they're practically the same product, right? Wrong.
What about Photoshop or 3DS Max. Underneath the new versions they're all using practically the same code.
I mean really, what a stupid point to make.
I got to a page that had a 'download now' button and a license key, and the download now button didn't work. (Using Firefox on Fedora 10 at the moment).
I did a view source, copied the url and pasted, it gave me some weird message on screen about IE and java, but the ISO started downloading anyway.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
http://www.xkcd.com/528/
http://thepiratebay.org/search/%5C%22windows%207%5C%22/0/99/0
MS is typically paranoid about really really old OSes, and uses a layout with a iso9660 visible file:
mount -t iso9660 -o loop 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.iso t
[root@localhost Download]# ls t
readme.txt
[root@localhost Download]# umount t
[root@localhost Download]# mount -t udf -o loop 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.iso t
[root@localhost Download]# ls t
autorun.inf bootmgr efi sources upgrade
boot bootmgr.efi setup.exe support
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm downloading the beta right now. I want to see if I can compile Wine under Cygwin or Mingw on it, after all ...
Hey, perhaps Bill will get the bailout he asked for so American businesses can afford to buy it.
Bill: "It's all because people aren't confident to spend their money. In fact, they didn't start buying Vista in 2007 because they were expecting this even then. A subsidy to buy good, honest American computer operating systems is essential to the health of the economy, or my part of it anyway."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I was also unable to download it using Firefox (3.0, OS X). As arabagast said, it just reloads the page and then stops. No amount of reloading helps. When I try from IE8b2 on Vista, it installs an activex control. I then had to reload the page, and then it installed the download manager itself. Then after reloading the page several more times (seven or so) it finally actually started the download. Typical MS. There is no reason whatsoever for the download not to work in ANY browser. Doesn't exactly make me think 7 will be good...
Caesar's Grunt
Bespoke website design at affordable prices!
Didn't Vista have an issue with drivers from XP not working, and thus lots of hardware not working, and thus consumers not wanting it?
Well, the first driver I tried to install? Worked in Vista, doesn't work in XP. This does not bode well.
It doesn't help that it's my ethernet adapter, or that it hasn't been supported by nVidia since BEFORE Vista came out. I'm still waiting on proper VISTA drivers for it.
Guess what nVidia's site says I should do? Use Windows Update to install the latest drivers for my hardware.
I hate you too, nVidia.
If I can't fix this I'll probably skip 7 like I did Vista, except I'll go for Jaunty instead. Ubuntu is the ONLY OS I've used where networking has worked OUT OF THE BOX on this computer. And those devs aren't being paid to do that kind of amazing stuff, what the hell is Microsoft doing wrong?
The only thing keeping me tied to Windows at this point is gaming performance, but Wine is quickly changing that...
There is no Live CD, right? So if I want to try this thing without endangering my existing install, I either have to get another computer, or buy another hardrive, open my case, swap the drives, do an install, then reverse the process when I'm done.
Remind me again why Windows is considered "ready for the desktop"?
Yes, but all the examples you mentioned are not Operating Systems, so he still has a point.
Leaving legacy kernel/userland code from the NT 3.5 days in Windows 7 for "backwards compatibility" is a terrible for progress. Nothing makes a sysad's life more of a nightmare than dealing with the same bugs (features) in XP, 2003 and Vista that have been around since NT.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
wget http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
Also: got full speed on my connection during the entire download.
Is this really an argument of my instruction is twice as wide as your instruction?
Other than the PCI addressing limitation of the 32-bit world truncating the amount of free memory available if 4GB is installed, there is little reason yet for the average consumer (you know, the 98% of all computer users out there) to migrate to the 64-bit world in terms of capability.
Ayup
Minesweeper needs Direct X???
By low-end, I mean a 1ghz cpu, and 1gb or ram.
You'll still need a key for it to work, but thank you anyway for God know what reason my computer wouldn't start the DL.
Drivers for Windows 7 and Vista are one and the same, as indicated here:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9091618
Microsoft Corp. will require hardware makers to test their device drivers on Windows 7 to receive certification for Windows Vista, according to documents posted on the company's Web site.
Wow... Just enough knowledge to be dangerous..
PAE is not a panacea. There is a performance penalty and it is a hackish way of solving the problem. As you acknowledge, it does not address the per-process limitations. With certain desktop appplications, notably more advanced games, I could see the per-process limit being hit, even if PAE gave you at least warm fuzzies about your apparent total memory. There is a reason why distributions provided PAE-disabled kernels in x86 world.
Though you mention buggy 32-bit code having problems in long mode, I have never seen that occur in Linux or Windows. In terms of 16-bit code, I was unaware of that, however considering the vintage of such code (i.e. Pentium 60 was last processor on the market before Win95 became essentially ubiquitous), I suspect a fully emulated environment is quite possible. I haven't run into 16-bit applications in an eternity though.
I will say that Linux and Windows don't provide a facility to make the situation trivial for application vendors. I'm not sure if Apple is going to do something for x86/x86_64 applications, but they certainly have proven a useful strategy in the PPC/x86 case of leveraging application directories and conventions to have 'Universal Binaries', along with convenient checks in their development tools to build such a thing. I don't use OSX as there is much I'm not crazy about, but they did an excellent job of enabling application vendors to support two very different platforms without putting too much burden on their build environment or the users.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I don't Vista was any cheaper for 32-bit edition.
My question is why they have to make it more confusing by bundling it separately. If they are striving to be an easy sort of experience, they should be able to have a unified media, perhaps with a special option to disable 64-bit even if possible at install time.
I also wonder why they don't have any strategy like Apple had for 'Universal Binaries'. I suppose they are at a disadvantage for not having a more comprehensive application directory strategy, which Apple easily made use of to get multi-architecture applications that looked like a single icon to the typical end-user.
I understand the need for 32-bit (many Atom, pre-core2 non-netburst Intel processors), but it wouldn't frustrate users and stall application developers so much if they had taken certain measures.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Let's suppose I have a medium sized business. I have a tight budget, and I have 100 desktop systems, all running XP.
It seems to me that moving to a new OS would be very expensive. I would have to buy, and install new hardware, I would have to move all the apps, and data, over. Everybody would have to learn the system.
Okay, so it would be a big expense, it would difficult, it might slow down productivity for awhile. But, I am willing to do it, if I have a good reason.
So what is my good reason? By "good" I mean damn good - as in a compelling reason. Is there some killer apps that will not run on XP? Will vista or win7 really increase productivity? If so, how? Will vista or win7 really increase security? If so, how?
I think it's a fair question.
BTW, where I work, it's all XP. We are not even thinking about vista or win7. Why should we?
You know this could all be done without burdening the user with two of the most annoying and crappy pieces of software technologies on the planet, ActiveX and Java. But that assumes the people involved don't hold their users in utter contempt.
Why does everything from Microsoft turn into a kick in the nuts to the user?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm trying to download it, but whenever I click "Download Now" it reloads the page.
It's been doing this for hours. I may have to torrent it?
Just out of curiosity why doesn't Microsoft use bittorrent to provide Windows 7 beta to lessen the load on their servers? Anybody know why?
BitTorrent is a cool technology and everything, but people need to stop being so blind as to think it will solve all problems.
But it does solve the problem of distributing software while minimizing the bandwidth on server end. That's why pretty much every Linux distro uses bittorrent to provide their software. It's a no brainer. I guess bittorrent sucks for folks who want to track (control?) downloads, but for everybody else, it's awesome.
WTF Mods? How is the parent post flamebait?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
So that consumers have some level of certainty that the product they are downloading is the real thing?
The download URLs still work and I'm sure that more than 2.5 million downloads have already happened? I guess Micro$oft is setting the stage for the largest user trial ever conducted. Loaded my copy on an ASUS eee 900A (upgraded to 32 Gb SSD) that dual boots Ubuntu; so far I would have to agree with previous posters that Windows 7 is waht Vista was SUPPOSED to be. Note that when you install any open sourced software like Open Office in Windows 7, the system wants to report this back to MS.
guess i may need to update it ;)
User maintains more than a dozen sockpuppet accounts on Slashdot.
Stay away from this link. It redirects you to a gag Rick Astley video that resizes your browser window and moves it away from your mouse. Bad behaviour...
Absolutely. Everybody knows that because the Linux kernel is the same in every distribution, every distribution of Linux is exactly the same.
No, he doesn't have a point, and neither do you.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Most people have no concept of verifying the authenticity of a file. The ones that do are able to use md5sum or openssl or some other utility in order to verify a hash.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Windows 7 Beta is currently the most stable version of Windows, right? If I'm reading /. correctly, that seems to be the case.
So, should I go destroy my Vista installation to try out Windows 7?
Oh dear...the CAPTCHA is "headache". I wonder what that means....
I asked the digital media guys if there were any new features for encoding in Win 7, and they said that it supports up to 8-way threading for WMV encoding! The limit in Vista and XP was 4-way threading.
This requires either 8 cores or 4 hyperthreaded cores, and the resolution of the encoded file be at least 480 pixels tall.
I bet this will get used and abused by benchmarkers. Hopefully they'll use an easy-to-decode source file so that the encoder doesn't get bound by source decode speed.
Nerdy details at my blog:
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/8-way-multithreading-in-Windows-7/
My video compression blog
Use front slashes in C/C++ programs. They work fine.
For eg.
FILE * fp = fopen("c:/mydir/a.txt","r");
will work fine on windows if you have c:\mydir\a.txt
And from my experiences over the past 24 hours - it is better than Vista.
Well shit, somebody give them a medal or something. Making an OS better than Vista, now THAT'S an accomplishment worthy of being immortalized in song and tales.
Oddly enough, the actual download of the ISOs was fine. People had found a direct link when their servers were supposedly 'down' and I managed to download the ISO at 800k per second. It was the page that generated the serial keys that seemed unable to handle the load. Guess the code/database didn't scale properly.
...or download from microsoft's servers and not have to worry about it.
> Tell me why the geek who fears his own shadow downloads an executable
> from a source like Pirate Bay.
Just off the top of my head:
Despite having Moonlight installed, the shit won't let me download the iso. There go your testers, MS.
You're trying to be funny, but you seem to be going with the common misconception that translucent means less transparent. It does not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(optics)
A transparent material lets light (or other types of rays if transparent to them) through. Window glass is normally mostly transparent. Colored or grayish glasses or gems are partially transparent to either colored or white light. Skin is transparent to x-rays.
A translucent material can let all the same light through, but due to its surface, diffuses it. "Frosted" glass can let practically all the light through, but you will not be able to see through it.
As for the Desktop Preview feature, the poster is actually wrong, but not because he said 100%. He is wrong because while Vista/7 DOES offer translucent windows (by blurring what is behind them), the Desktop Preview does NOT blur the background, and is therefore 100% transparent.
I can
ping -6 ipv6.google.com without having my crappy ISP support ipv6.
Is microsoft going to do tunnelbrokering themselves to speed up adoption of ipv6 or is this merely to enable microsoft applications that are ipv6 native?
Pinging ipv6.l.google.com [2001:4860:b002::68] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Reply from 2001:4860:b002::68: time=331ms
Reply from 2001:4860:b002::68: time=331ms
Reply from 2001:4860:b002::68: time=333ms
Ping statistics for 2001:4860:b002::68:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 331ms, Maximum = 333ms, Average = 331ms
Perhaps, but AFAICT DOSBox is a virtual machine, one that is optimized for compatibility with old DOS games. For example you need full support for really old CGA/EGA graphics features to run Linux/Windows/FreeBSD etc. However these features are needed to run many old dos apps, particularly games, and DOSBox has these.
XP is gone where?
An MD5 hash cannot verify the authenticity of a file (nor can SHA-2 or any other unkeyed hash algo). And since 2005 (when it was broken) it cannot even verify the integrity of a file.
Did you know that some REALLY old school DOS apps bypassed the OS and wrote files straight to the hard drive?
DOSBox supports harddrive images. Presumably these applications would work if we used a hdd image. I do recall that there was software that didn't run on DOSBox though. I think the CA-Clipper compiled software didn't work properly in DOSBox, but did work properly in a Windows DOS window for some reason.
The difference being that they didn't promise a complete rewrite of the Linux kernel and everyone loves the Linux kernel so there is no need to completely rewrite it every time.
It's not like I said they should have completely written the OS when XP came out but then again XP was decent unlike Vista.
When did Microsoft promise that Vista was going to be a complete rewrite?
I see this quoted a lot but I've never actually seen a source for it.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
HAHAHAHA....
still the first thing I did after starting IE8, going to www.mozilla.com
and you were just rickrolled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickroll
http://www.xkcd.com/351
What's the big deal with ISO's. Just mount it a virtual disk (using Nero or free software). Alternatively, if you're installing on a virtual machine, just use the "capture ISO image" option. ./'er critize MS for not using industry standards... and when they do.
I don't know if anyone else had this problem but I don't have a way of using IE to download the ISO (I use Linux/OSX) and I was getting strange behavior from the MS servers since yesterday trying the direct link. It seems that right around the 300-400MB size of the download, the download would bail in every browser/downloader I tried (FF, Safari, Opera, wget). The download speeds were always close to my cap limit (800k-1Mb) so I feel this has nothing to do w/"demand" a MS was quick to assign. So just as an experiment, I added the IE7 UA string to wget and now the download is coming down w/no interruptions. Seems MS is picking off downloads that have different UA's than IE... Here's the modified wget command that worked for me:
wget -U "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)" -c http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
"There IS an OS boot string to let processes address up to 4Gb of RAM (or more)..."
No. Not for Win32.
There is the /3GB switch. This enables what Microsoft calls 4GT (4 gigabyte tuning). It changes the kernel/user split from 2/2 to 1/3. However, applications have to be compiled with a particular option (IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE) to use it. Further, it robs the kernel of memory it might need for other things, so it's not a no-brainer. It's mainly useful if you're going to be running a single large application on the computer (e.g., Exchange Server). If you're running a multi-process workload, you're often better off giving the kernel its memory. And you're still limited to a 4 GiB virtual address space.
There is the /PAE switch. PAE = Physical Address Extension, which changes the physical address word size from 32 bits to 36 bits. This will let the processor address up to 64 GiB of RAM. However, you're still limited to a 4 GiB virtual address space. It's useful for a large multi-process workload. For example, a machine with 8 GiB of RAM can run several large tasks, each task using up to 2 or 3 GiB of memory.
Further, on the "workstation" versions of Windows (2000 Pro, XP, Vista), the /PAE switch doesn't actually increase the amount of physical hardware address space the operating system will use. It does enable PAE, but Windows still ignores physical addresses above 4 GiB. Also, PAE will already be enabled on XP SP2 and Vista, to get the NX bit.
There is also AWE (Address Windowing Extensions). This is not an OS boot switch; it is a collection of system calls. AWE is just bank switching all over again (like the ancient MS-DOS EMS). To obtain more than 2 (or 3) GiB of primary storage (memory), an application can switch pages of memory in and out of its address space. However, it cannot access pages not actively mapped to its address space, so the application basically has to do its own memory management. Ick.
*None* of this applies to Win64, which is 64-bit everywhere. However, Win32 executables running on Win64 are still limited to 2 GiB of process address space (or 4 GiB if they were compiled with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE).
References:
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366796(VS.85).aspx
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
int69h wrote: "I can't believe you left out the fact that general purpose registers are doubled from 8 to 16 under long mode."
Um....
DragonHawk wrote: "equally possible performance gains (instruction architecture improvements such as more general-purpose registers)"
(Emphasis added.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"However, I've not run into any troubles using linux x86_64 with common software over the past three years. "
You're correct for most modern, Open Source applications. And plenty of others, too.
However, if you're dealing with older software that hasn't seen widespread adoption, a lot of it assumes integers and pointers are 32 bits wide. Such software is more common in niche environments, such as scientific, university, lab, and company-internal systems.
And if it's binary-only stuff, it's a whole 'nother ball game. Adobe Flash is the canonical example. They're still "alpha test" for Linux x86-64, and it was a browser-crash-in-a-box last I tried it. (Not that the i386 flavor of Flash is much better.)
If you're lucky enough to be able to run 64-bit clean everywhere, more power to you. :)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
i didn't say anything about not using industry standards, nor did i mention VMs. my comment was regarding netbooks and how much easier it would be for people to be able to install an operating system on a netbook (which don't come with an optical drive) FROM a USB thumb drive. the .iso format (iso9660) is for CD/DVD media.
netbooks don't come CD/DVD drives.
that leaves you with the following choices for installation media: external CD/DVD drive or thumb drive (i know... network install is in that list too, but getting the wireless network up and running on a netbook before installing can be a bit much).
i downloaded a .img file of PC-BSD the other day. dd dumped it to my thumb drive, and i was up and running with a reboot to usb device.
look, the point is: microsoft needs to stay on top of things like an easier way to install to the quickly growing netbook market. if my options are 5 minutes worth of an ubuntu install (for free) vs. purchasing new hardware (external CD/DVD), to do a 1-2 hour windows install, for what? $100? $200?, on a machine that i only use for network fun; well... i'm afraid that i'd have to go for cheaper, faster, better over pricey, slow, and... well... slow.
FYI, PAE doesn't get you anything much on workstation flavors of Windows, and the /3GB switch has a number of issues, too. For more information, see my cousin post here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1087813&cid=26408529
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Wow... Just enough knowledge to be dangerous.."
[insert vague insult on your knowledge or ancestry here]
"There is a performance penalty and it is a hackish way of solving the problem."
A good portion of the performance penalty is already taken due to DEP, which needs the NX bit, which is only available in the larger page tables PAE provides. So PAE is enabled, but workstation flavors of Win32 won't use memory above 4 GiB due to driver compatibility concerns.
"With certain desktop appplications, notably more advanced games, I could see the per-process limit being hit ... "
Games are not something I was considering. I'm a professional IT management weenie, so I don't get much exposure to the latest-and-greatest. (My home Wintendo PC tends to trail the curve; it's cheaper, and I don't have the time for gaming I once did). So my analysis is indeed lacking there. I'll bow to your experience in this area.
"There is a reason why distributions provided PAE-disabled kernels in x86 world."
Because certain workloads do indeed benefit from memories larger than 4 GiB, as I stated. It's not that a 64-bit architecture is useless -- hell, I was supporting 64-bit Alpha boxes running Linux back in 1996 -- it's just it's overrated. Most people use it as ammo in penis-length competitions, nothing more.
"Though you mention buggy 32-bit code having problems in long mode, I have never seen that occur in Linux or Windows."
It may not be common, depending on what you're doing. I address this briefly in my cousin post here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1087813&cid=26408607
"I haven't run into 16-bit applications in an eternity though."
Not everyone does. It's depressingly common in the business world, though. Portions of Intuit QuickBooks were still using Win16 code three years ago, which was the last I touched that piece of crap. We've got an ERP system at work that's full of Win16 modules, too.
I expect, with the big push on for Win64 (for whatever reason, be it real performance or chest-thumping), code modernization is (or will be) becoming more of a priority for publishers. Which is certainly all to the good.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I normally don't reply to anons, since they usually aren't watching for replies, but you seem to know what you're talking about, and do raise some good points, so I'll make an exception. (Good for you!)
"Or they just realize the benefits of using a sane instruction set architecture."
x86_64 is not "sane", it's just less broken than i386. Take a look at the DEC Alpha architecture sometime if you really want a clean 64-bit platform. It's such a pity Intel had Compaq kill it off to keep it from competing with IA-64.
"The switch from i386 -> x86_64 is not about memory addressing. It's about alleviating the register starvation that plagues the Intel instruction set."
x86_64 is very much about virtual address word size, it's just not the only thing about it. Perhaps I do underestimate the benefit of increasing from 8 to 16 general-purpose registers. Maybe it's because most architectures have 30+ GP registers available, so it still seems like a day late and a dollar short. And as I mentioned, gains can be offset by costs. But hey, if the extra registers yield a significant performance improvement for your applications, more power to you. I'm just saying it's overrated, not useless.
"I'm not sure about this, but I read somewhere that on Windows XP and Vista, enabling DEP will disable the support for PAE."
DEP is implemented by setting the NX bit (No Execute) on memory pages containing only data. The NX bit is only available in the larger page tables you get with PAE. So DEP requires PAE.
However, workstation flavors of Win32 force all hardware address to below the 4 GiB mark, in order to maintain compatibility with drivers which assume a 32 bit physical address word. The "Advanced Server" flavors fully support PAE, allowing more than 4 GiB of RAM to be used on Win32.
References:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_bit
* http://blogs.msdn.com/carmencr/archive/2004/08/06/210093.aspx
But Win i386 still limits physical addresses to under 4 GiB to keep crappy drivers from crashing the system.
"It's not Windows that does this, but the BIOS assigns these addresses. Windows simply does not relocate them, and I don't know if such relocation is possible."
Such a relocation is indeed possible, if your hardware supports it. Actually, what is typically done is that non-RAM hardware stays below 4 GiB, and any displaced RAM is moved to locations above 4 GiB. Google "memory hoisting".
All this 64-bit support is tricky, because for it to work:
* CPU has to support it (but most do, these days)
* Core logic chipset has to support it (ditto)
* Motherboard OEM had to actually run traces for it (varies)
* BIOS has to not screw things up
* PCI stuff has to support DAC (Dual Address Cycle)
* Device drivers have to be able to cope with 64-bit addresses
* OS kernel has to support all of the above
There's lots of places for things to go wrong.
"Why should you worry about running 15+ year old [Win16] code on a new OS?"
Welcome to the world of business IT, where 30-year-old code is still in production use all over the place. :)
Long Mode also means potential compatibility issues with crappy 32-bit code.
"Can you give an example? 32-bit code doesn't even know it's running on a 64-bit OS unless it explicitly asks."
Lots of source code assumes integers and pointers are all 32 bits wide. Recompiling for a 64-bit platform uncovers all sorts of bad assumptions. Was a huge problem in the *nix world when 64-bit platforms arrived on the scene. Now it's a huge problem for the 'doze world.
Only applies to source recompiles, of course, but if you're going to target i386 for all your applications, why bother with a 64-bit platform? A chicken-and-egg problem, to be sure.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
.. for windows 8 expect a git repo :)
I think the biggest improvement they could make would be to drop the word "Ultimate" from the name, and only offer one version at a realistic price. having multiple artificial tiers of vista has done nothing to improve the microsoft brand. it may have given short term profits, but microsoft should really be looking at things in the long term, where they may or may not have the majority market share. I feel Windows 7 would have a lot more impact if it were released as a single unified product, instead of 4 cut down imposters and the one true release.
TIAEAE!
Hello pretender-to-the-throne-of-me,
Rebuilt =/= rewritten.
Please try again later.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
"IE8 has issues on this website - lots of refreshing to a blank page for seemingly no reason. Not ready for the prime time - Chrome and Firefox work fine though."
I had problems with Firefox downloading on Ubuntu 8.04. My solution was to look at the source of the download page and get the proper download URL from the [dumb] Javascript button call.
Other than that the ISO downloaded under, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, just fine.
I was also reading the various 'selling features' that they are promoting on the beta site. I must say, it seems like a lot of to-do about nothing.
I'll test it and see where all the security holes are and then....I mean it'll be interesting to look at.
After two years with OS X and some time with GNOME, Xfce and the like I just can't stand all the colours and fiddly little buttons that are EVERYWHERE. I'm in my early twenties; I can't imagine what it would be like for my 60 year old father. Luckily for him he's now enjoying Ubuntu, and he's commented more than once on how uncluttered it is compared to XP.
I wouldn't count on "dealing with [it] in another year or two".
I just tried to run the installer on my existing box, a WinXP system with an ATI RS400A chipset. Unfortunately the Windows 7 Beta installer crashes/shuts down on this chipset.
I'm guessing there are similar problems with many older systems which might not have Vista drivers out there, and even corporations are unlikely to do a wholesale replacement of hardware just to run Windows 7. The same arguments in favour of sticking with XP will still apply -- hardware upgrades, retraining costs, and the expense of regression testing of core business applications.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
While Windows itself couldn't be a single module -- it had too many functions for that -- it could be designed so that Microsoft could easily plug in or pull out new features without disrupting the whole system. That was a cornerstone of a plan Messrs. Srivastava and Valentine proposed to their boss, Mr. Allchin. Microsoft would have to throw out years of computer code in Longhorn and start out with a fresh base. It would set up computers to automatically reject bug-laden code. The new Longhorn would have to be simple. It would leave bells and whistles for later -- including Mr. Gates's WinFS, Messrs. Srivastava and Allchin say.
...
On Aug. 27, 2004, Microsoft said it would ship Longhorn in the second half of 2006 -- at least a year late -- and that Mr. Gates's WinFS advance wouldn't be part of the system. The day before in Microsoft's auditorium, Mr. Allchin had announced to hundreds of Windows engineers that they would "reset" Longhorn using a clean base of code that had been developed for a version of Windows on corporate server computers.
One interesting note though was that as soon as it was up, it complained that it could not detect an anti-virus program loaded. This was kind of a surprise because I was sort of hoping this new version of Windows would be more resistant to viruses and would not immediately need a third party AV program on day one.
Hmmm, how about this as a shining example of Microsoft awesome:
"Win32 application programming interfaces (APIs) have a maximum path limit of 260 characters. Applications fail when trying to access a namespace that goes beyond that limit. If the path length of a DFS namespace exceeds the Win32 API limit of 260 characters, users must map part of the namespace to a drive letter and access the longer namespace through the mapped drive letter."
This dumbass limitation has been in windows since the win32 API has been around. Will they fix it? Noooooooooooooo, because it'll break compatibility with old fart software. Can you yourself then fork it and rewrite the offending code? Nooooooooooooo, because the softwre is proprietary.
This problem is the bane of my existence, as NTFS supports 2^32 addressing, but any win32 applications trying to manipulate paths longer than 260 characters suffer an epic fail.
I'm sorry, but such idiotic "features" are unique to Microsoft.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
That is sad. So you're saying this persists into W7? 260 bytes for a max path is a rather severe restriction. I think Unix supported longer filenames than that, even before there was a Windows. They can't still be on that, can they? That would be ridiculous.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
An MD5 hash cannot verify the authenticity of a file (nor can SHA-2 or any other unkeyed hash algo). And since 2005 (when it was broken) it cannot even verify the integrity of a file.
Sure it can. Post the hash on an HTTPS server with a proper chain of trust. I'm ignoring the fact that there are md5 attacks. The prudent course of action would be to use a SHA family hash.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
You're also ignoring the fact that your hosting provider can be:
a) hacked into
b) malevolent
If the server is insecure, HTTPS is not going to help you. I'm also not sure why you are ignoring the MD5 attacks, which made algo completely unusable for your purposes.
"I cant believe you are a computer user/enthusiast."
I'm an IT management type, which means I care a lot more about actual costs and actual benefits. I'm sure that makes me non-an-enthusiast, since I'm not enthusiastic about change for the sake of "my number is bigger than your number". Sorry if that impinges your sense of self-worth.
"Lets just limit CPU speed too then."
Apples and oranges. Increasing MIPS doesn't cost anything. Well, it costs R&D, but that's factored into the processor's price. And if you're an early adopter, you'll pay dearly for the latest silicon, but those of us buying on the price/performance curve do well.
"3D modelling and animation for a living. I definitely need 64-bit"
Like I said, it has its applications. I was lumping 3D into "engineering workstation", although I realize now that probably wasn't clear to those working chiefly in the consumer space. In the business world, high-end production like that is done on a class of computers generally called "engineering workstations", though they're not that different from what you buy off the shelf at Circuit City. Better graphics cards and better tech support, mainly.
I also left out games, which several replies have said are actually using datasets large enough to care about a 2 or 4 GiB address space limit. I'm not a gamer, so I'll take their word for it. So games might be the first practical application of Long Mode in the mass-market consumer sector.
"The same goes for Music. There are lots of folks editing their own music in their basements. How about video?"
Considering that music and video NLE was being done on 32-bit platforms with "Its quite easy to make a photoshop file that eats up 2GB of ram."
Doing the math, a 24-bit color bitmap with an 8-bit alpha channel at 2 GiB works out to roughly 32,000 x 32,000 pixels. That's a big image. I'm no photographer; what's considered "high rez" these days?
"Frankly I'm for now because i'm about progress ..."
Longer, lower, wider, faster, bigger, newer... must be progress, right?
I think the big press for 64-bit is more about propping up bloated software whose development is totally out-of-control and leaks memory like a sieve. Rather than improving software development -- which would would also yield better reliability, security, performance, and compatibility -- we just keep throwing more hardware at it. That's progress for you.
"Its also about running multiple applications at the same time that demand lots of ram."
As discussed, proper support for PAE would solve the problem of a multi-process workload whose individual needs fit within Win32 but whose total memory load exceeds 4 GiB.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
If my server can be compromised, a private key can be compromised which means that any signed hash would also be compromised. It's the same effective thing.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Nope. If you are a software publisher, you sign your packages locally on your computer, which you can secure quite easily (for example, by never connecting the box to the internet, etc). As soon as you upload the binaries to a server, you stop being able to control/ensure their security.
Yes, unfortunately it does, as windows 7 is a 100% win32 API backwards compatible OS.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
"Address way more memory in total, and way more per app"
As I've said to others: I never claimed Long Mode was useless, just overrated. If one is actually working with datasets that large, it's a huge win. And certainly Long Mode has some design improvements over Protected Mode. But architectural improvements don't trump practical concerns in my book. If my first priority was a clean architecture, I'd use a DEC Alpha. Compatibility and installed base are why we're all using 8086 descendants in the first place.
"Finally, the open source community only took a year or two to transition to perfect 64-bit support, and it's been fine since at least 2005."
A year or two? I spent significant time debugging 32-bit assumption problems with Linux on the Alpha in 1996. Not 2006 -- 1996. The problems have been out there for a *long* time.
Fine since 2005? I was just last week involved in trying to solve a 32/64-bit compatibility issue with IEEE-1394 support. Granted, the guy was using a CentOS 5 system, and CentOS doesn't adopt the latest changes as they happen. But that's because other people/software (even F/OSS) don't always adopt the latest changes either. It makes sense to wait for things to stabilize before adapting.
So I don't see the picture as so rosy. A lot of F/OSS code is okay (especially really popular things like Firefox), and things are improving all the time. But it's far from a given.
"Adobe, Microsoft... see, this is why we can't have nice things!"
No argument there.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.