Slashdot Mirror
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).
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...
the title of that article is: Microsoft exec: Windows 7 is no service pack
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......
Because Intel's Atom CPU is 32-bit, and Microsoft wants 7 to be on netbooks too.
Yes it's a service pack and a theme pack all in one.
Then they should call it netbook edition or something like that to steer people away from continuing to use 32-bit desktops.
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.
answer this and you will answer your own question
why do they still make 32bit versions of linux?
I really don't understand the Slashdot posters who say 'I cant believe there will be a 32bit version'...
I will tell you why theres a 32bit version - because theres already a huge 32bit install base that may wish to upgrade, and by and large, the vast majority of your end user base doesnt need the benefits 64bit brings to the table!
If MS went 64bit only, they would be slated for it - they would be requiring an upgrade far in excess of any that previous Windows versions have required. Thats why there is a 32bit version - because this isnt about pushing the 64bit agenda.
Microsoft doesn't support 32 64-bit upgrades, only fresh installs. There will be those folks (I suspect a few million) on 32-bit Vista that would be forced into reinstalling without a 32-bit Windows 7.
"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
goofed - could be done it seems....
You can dual-boot windows 7.
http://i.gizmodo.com/5120606/how-to-run-windows-7-and-your-old-os-on-the-same-computer
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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.
I think this part in particular says it all.
One indication of just how neatly Microsoft is trying to thread this needle is the fact that the server unit is saying its version of Windows 7 will be a minor release. The product that had been code-named "Windows 7 Server" is getting the designation Windows Server 2008 R2. The "R2" designation has in the past been used for very minor updates to Microsoft products.
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.
I was afraid of that. Although given that the internet in Linux is unusable on my computer, nothing of value will be lost.
But what about Mojave? Mojave's AWESOME!
I think Microsoft would have less people complaining about speed if they required fresh installs for upgrades.
I hope at least OEM will produce ONLY 64 bit machines, except in the special cases of netbooks and the like. I'd like to see a push for all new machines to be 64bit, with 64bit OS. Microsoft could still sell 32 bit, but leave that for the upgraders.
If I were them I'd market it as Windows 7, and then you'd have Windows 7 32-bit as a special edition (like XP Pro and XP Pro x64, but in the reverse).
I'd say your best bet is just throwing 30 or 40 bucks at a 160 or 250GB hard drive.
This guy's the limit!
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.
what was that quote about ram/memory?
always mosh clockwise
Is it just me or does this download break on every browser but IE?
I tried:
Anyone else get similar results?
Why are you against 32-bit desktops, but ok with 32-bit netbooks? Only if *everyone* runs 64-bit windows will application development become simpler.
And they're abit pretentious on their download form: "*Whatâ(TM)s the primary client operating system that you use today?"
*Vista
*XP
*Early Version of Windows
*Other
Sheesh, If I was in marketing I'd want to at least differentiate between Linux and Mac users wanting to try out Windows 7.
Better yet, i can't believe people install the 64 bit version, only to get the same performance and software incompatibilities.
Unless you have over 4 gigs in ram it isn't worth it. It won't go faster if the software is not optimized to use the additional memory or cpu registers.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
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 ;).
Fixed that for you. Let's note that important difference, whether we like the reality or not. (source)
And I can tell you that yes, drivers are an issue, even today, hence why a 32-bit version. Besides, do you really think that MS is going to miss an opportunity to get it onto even ONE more computer?
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!
Probably another "more bits is better" specs fanboy.
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...
32-bit version is for the people with machines that cannot handle Vista. I think
that Vista was the perfect advertisement for Windows 7 (better than Seinfeld...)
as a shitload people and companies with XP *will* upgrade to Windows 7. Not OSX
and not Linux. Sad but that's the future. I hate the fact but Microsoft wins again.
Facts: :)
* After booting Windows 7 takes around 330 megabytes of memory
* I still haven't disabled UAC (after a week) it is actually quite non-intrusive
* it is pretty goddamn fast (still a subjective view, but that's what counts)
* file copying is fast, usually 30 Mb/s
* haven't crashed once after a week
I have a side-by-side installation of Vista, Win7 and XP on the PC just so I
can compare them.
And then you have to run some stupid java downloader on OS X. I just want a fucking link to the ISO. Way to go Microsoft, once again make it easier for me to just 'pirate' it.
I wasn't able to make the download when I selected Vista (which I have on dual boot) probably because I'm on ubuntu right now. What a joke.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
No, it's awesome that is AWESOME!
http://awesome.naquadah.org/
The URI for the ISO is in the page source.
How hard it it to guess?
Approximately 1 fuckton (1.21 metric fucktonnes) of people still only have 32-bit processors at their disposal.
That is all.
Do not attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by incompetence.
MSFT is (apparently) showing signs of wanting to genuinely wanting to improve their OS (Windows 7 seems to be going in the right direction) and make amends for the mess Vista has caused with everyone, regardless of what is was *exactly*. The point is, they're asking for another chance, and it'd only be fair if we gave them that chance. (obviously it's no good if it ends up like abused-spouse syndrome, but I can swear some of us like the abuse :P).
Bitter, not morose.
Do you mean that it is a disservice pack?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
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.)
Approximately 1 fuckton (1.21 metric fucktonnes) of people still only have 32-bit processors at their disposal.
You geeks and your fancy kitchens. My disposal is just a simple on/off switch hooked up to a motor. No 32-bit logic in there...
This guy's the limit!
Precisely. Very few people currently use or need to use 64 bit computing. Outside of servers, I cannot even think of any systems I have come across with more than 4GB of physical memory.
Palm trees and 8
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
Really? I thought that was because some device drivers that haven't been updated to 64-bits won't run in a 64-bit OS.
You just got troll'd!
F@H on your kitchen disposal!
You aren't doing enough to fight cancer... or is it Huntingtons?
Do not attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by incompetence.
My experience mirrors yours - only issue so far is with the ATI SB600 RAID driver that powers off the hard drives on reboot...
It's actually more responsive than XP on some things, which is impressive. It seems to have a definite "Mac-like" feel to it now as well...
Big! Strong! Wow! Tada-O!
You just need another partition formatted as primary/NTSF. After you've installed 7, the dual-booting should take care of itself. I've just now gotten around to trying x64 Vista/7(Soon after Vista) myself.
Bitter, not morose.
Microsoft told us that that Vista would be their last 32 bit OS and that future OSs would be 64 bit. So this is coming out in both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version to further confuse the market, to keep driver writes on their toes wondering which one they have to focus support on (sure, the answer is both, but look at 64 bit XP and 64 bit Vista to see that just ain't gonna happen) and to remind us that you can never trust what Microsoft says.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Copying Apple is what Microsoft does. Most likely a lot of people will find using Windows 7 very easy, especially after using Vista. My only gripe so far is the lack of possibility to use Windows classic start menu and taskbar.
and they are all to slow to run windows 7 anyway. what's your point?
Show me a cpu made in the last three years that doesn't support 64 bit
I understand you're taking precautions to avoid having rabid mac fanboys attack you (by posting AC), but seriously ... most mac users are limited to iLife and iTunes - I wouldn't worry about angry reprisals.
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
I know so many gaming retards that play Warcraft with 8 GB of memory. Also, with the rise in VRAM, its sometimes necessary. 2 GPUs with 1 GB of ram each limits your 32 bitsystem ram to roughly 2 GB. SO in some cases 64 bit is necessary even for mundane tasks
Good-bye
Tell me why the geek who fears his own shadow downloads an executable from a source like Pirate Bay.
Well played sir! Please pick any one free internet from the first row
Games? I'm a TF2 junkie and notice a 10-15fps drop when using Vista (with Aero turned off, even!). That has been the biggest deal breaker for me. I'm running a 7900GS.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
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
Exactly. I keep a Windows partition precisely for gaming, and don't see major advantages over XP yet, and I'm worried that *upgrading* to Windows 7 will actually hurt gaming performance.
However, if I can get Direct X 10, at Windows XP performance, and it really is as good as advertised, I might do something crazy like BUY A VALID, LEGAL UPGRADE COPY.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Likewise, I just don't understand the bashing of 32-bit. 64-bit application support never really took off, imho. A lot of apps and drivers aren't even available in 64-bit. Hell, I have a desktop and a laptop that are both 32-bit machines and they're perfectly fine for what I need them for (for now) - my desktop is a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz w/ 2GB RAM. And if Windows 7 truly turns out to be so much faster than even XP, that should be plenty of machine for 90% web browsing use.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
I just loaded it up in VirtualBox (the 64bit edition). Works fine (convince the VBtools that it's Vista). Its better than Vista, the startbar functions just like OSX's dock, explorer is more like Nautilus. Feels pretty fast, unlike Vista. I hope that they can deliver. Still don't like the looks (Gnome is teh sexy afaik).
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.
In my experience, most people don't realize they have viruses and spyware. Run a few good scans to be sure.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Where I work, we developers are currently in the process of getting new workstations which have quad core processors and 8 GB of RAM. Quite a step up from the current 3+ year old low-end officeboxes that we have been stuck with. Single-core Pentium 4 or AMD Sempron in them, and 1.5 to 2 GB of RAM.
The operating system will be Vista 64-bit, and also XP 32-bit in a virtual machine to maintain all legacy cruft that doesn't like Vista and/or 64-bit.
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
You aren't doing enough to fight cancer... or is it Huntingtons?
I can't say for sure, but I know it's definitely not Lupus.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Incorrect. Benchmarks and real-life testing has showed on numerous highend configurations with a minimum of 4Gb of ram a significant increase, XP 32bit vs. 64bit this was an average 15%.
With highend i mean these kind of righs, i've PERSONALLY, tested with:
CPUs: Core2Extreme 6800 (Dual 3Ghz), QuadCore Extreme 6700 (Quad 2.6Ghz), QuadCore Extreme 9650 (Quad 3Ghz, 45nm), QuadCore Extreme 9770 (Quad 3.2Ghz, 45nm)
Ram configurations: 2x2Gb 800Mhz CL6, 2x2Gb 800Mhz CL5, 2x2Gb 1066Mhz CL5, 4x2Gb 800Mhz CL5, 4x2Gb 800Mhz CL6
OSs we tested: XP 32Bit, XP 64Bit, Vista 64Bit
Of which, XP64 bit were by a huge margin fastest.
Furthermore, even if you have 'only' 4gb of ram you need 64Bit OS to use it all (Commonly 3.1-3.2Gb becomes usable). Ram is cheap, and only thing us keeping back from more ram and faster software is no 64bit adoption.
Granted, very few apps are 64bit compiled, but they too do benefit from 64bit OS, performance wise. Don't ask me the exact specific reasons for that, as i do not know, i've only measured Real Life Performance.
It's the Real Life Performance which counts afterall, not theories, not synthetic benchmark, no buzzwords.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Infact, 64bit servers are a compatibility maze. Simply put: A lot of 3rd party, commercial software does not yet support 64bit, miraculously enough, and even if they do, forums contain a lot of mystery compatibility issues.
I'm sticking with 32bit on servers for a little while longer, before risking it.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
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!
I don't think you mean in real numbers. I would bet that Windows 7 will run on many more computers than Linux ever will. I'm not saying that's a good thing, just that it's so.
My only gripe so far is the lack of possibility to use Windows classic start menu and taskbar.
I'd suggest you get used to it. :P
I got sick of altering the taskbar/start menu on every XP computer I'd use while working, and after using it for a while, I suddenly realized that the XP start menu has a more convenient arrangement of objects and controls than the old one, and the move to Vista presented more improvements.
It's hard to move away from what you know, but my experience is that Microsoft's changes to their UI are almost always improvements once you get over the shock of feeling screwed out of what you're used to.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I don't want to sound cynical about this and I'm not trying to get laughs, but I think Windows 7 still is Vista. This time last year we were talking about Singularity and new kernels and all sorts of magic. Then Vista tanks and miraculously we're here with a beta of the next release being thrown out to anyone who will take it. Aside from a theme resembling KDE3 rendered with Aero and a cutback on UAC it smells funny.
I'm seriously thinking that the Mojave experiment may actually have been brought from the marketing department to the shelves.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
I found that funny myself. It seems they're happier to be too stubbornly proud to mention other OSes whereas if I was running the show I'd be only too glad to release statistics next week saying how many Linux and Mac users were willing to switch to my new beta.
Wouldn't that be far more valuable? I mean half of slashdot are downloading this while commenting here! I think Microsoft are afraid if they acknowledge the competition it will give them credibility
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Awesomer, awesomer, kid!*
*http://xkcd.com/483/
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
if MS wants this OS to be on my netbook, why am i downloading an .iso instead of a .img? why is it such a chore to install a windows OS FROM a thumb drive?
>> But what about Mojave? Mojave's AWESOME!
>
> No, it's awesome that is AWESOME!
nah. the dude in the commercial said it was "sick".... and it must be true coz he looked smart, was young, sleek and was on the telly!
i wonder how many people have actually visited the Mojave URL shown in that commercial...(?) my guess is that the number is pretty low when compared to the number of people who have downloaded Win7 in the last 2 days. just as Vista, the Mojave commercial was a waste of money. word of mouth is powerful.
Well, the desktop variants are 64 bit, but for some reason it's disabled in the netbook variants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom
All your base are belong to Wii.
On 32bit Windows even if they have 4GB of ram, they can only use 3GB of it. And being Windows that 3GB doesn't last long at all. Developers, gamers, lots of every day people (i.e. not servers) will be itching to move to 64bit Windows so that they can actually use 4GB+ of ram or even go out and get 8/16GB of ram. While it might be easier for Linux or OS X users to move to 64bit the every day user doesn't need to, but the Windows users will be eying it in the hope that it works. Looking on dell.com, the budget Windows desktop computer comes with the maxed out 3GB of ram.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
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.
and they are all to slow to run windows 7 anyway. what's your point?
Show me a cpu made in the last three years that doesn't support 64 bit
Well, it's 3 years and 5 days old, but close enough...
Intel Core
When you capitalize it like that, "Real Life Performance" sounds an awful lot like a buzzword.
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
http://www.xkcd.com/528/
. 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.
Just press the windows key and type out part of the program name, it'll launch the best match.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
That's misleading at best. The Atom netbooks released in 2008 had N270 Atoms. "Atom implements the x86 (IA-32) instruction set; x86-64 is so far only activated for the Atom 230 and 330 desktop models. N and Z series Atom models cannot run x86-64 code." (Wikipedia)
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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.
Windows 7 has DirectX 11 :)
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
No VMWare drivers? And have to go fishing around for a 32bit link? Oh well, I guess I won't bother then. I doubt that I would have liked it anyway.
That was the response you expected, wasn't it Microsoft?
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!
The empire strikes back!
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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...
You can use somewhat classic (ie vista's) task bar in windows 7 though. You just disable taskbar grouping. And concerning grouping (aka icons only in task bar) it is just another proof of microsofts copying bad and good things from os x. Besides these icons, I can only remember how well the awful copy of expose went down in history, flip-3d. One of the good things that they copied though is the 50% reduction of windows in networking. When they cut down the click count for everything else that would be some serious progress.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
The point that many people are trying to make is that any CPU that doesn't have x86-64 likely isn't powerful enough to run Vista/7 anyway, so why bother? All Intel Core 2 CPUs onward and all AMD Athlon 64s onward support x86-64, and those are really the only CPUs that should be running 7 anyway. Just because you can theoretically run it on a P III doesn't mean it's a good idea. I think anyone who is on hardware that doesn't support 64 bit probably isn't going to upgrade to Windows 7 anyway. The sticky point is the original Core Duo; they're faster than P4s but lack the 64 bit extensions that some later P4s had, and my understanding is that the early Intel Macs used Core Duos. However, I think that's not too much to worry about since the Core Duo was a very shortlived processor line. I think the best thing for MS to do would be to push the 64 bit version, and have the 32 bit version labeled as legacy or something, because the longer 64 bit is a second class citizen in the Windows world, the worse it is for consumers.
All your base are belong to Wii.
I still can't believe there will be a 32-bit version
PentiumIII
Pentium4 M
Pentium4 (pre EMT64 models)
Intel Duo (Pre Core 2)
Intel Solo
Intel Atom (Some Series)
Notice the last couple, I don't think people realize that there are shipping computers today that still have 32bit processors. If you look at computers in the last year you can find everything with some of the Intel Duo or Solo pre-x64 versions, like Mac-Mini etc...
Also there is Windows Embedded that is updated for 7, running full versions of Win7 on things like picture frames and routers. (Yes XP embedded is probably in a device in your house that you don't even realize) - And no this is not CE Embedded.
So why a 32bit version? Because Windows/NT works well on different architectures and ports rather easily, and with the client/server kernel subsystem technology, a Win32/Win64 subsystem model is not hard to maintain along side a standard 32bit version.
I saw a post like this before on here, it was an OS X user first insisting that OS X was 64bit, then after they Wiki'd it, they then came back and said that Snow Leopard would be ONLY 64bit and Apple was superior in moving OS technology to 64bit because it was only 64bit, which also was wrong.
There is no reason MS can't keep a 32bit version around for even another release or two if they want, it isn't rocket science to have the two versions and give people with older computers and older hardware without 64bit drivers something beyond XP, especially when Win7 is showing to be as fast or faster than XP and still keeping all the Vista features.
Seriously, clean installs make Windows so much faster. That said, the GP does have a point, because some people might just want to do it that way, even if it leads to more pain and suffering for themselves in the long run.
All your base are belong to Wii.
And because my home machine is still an Athlon XP.
I know hard to believe. Everywhere else I use 64bit Vista or XP but since I don't game or work on my home PC it's effectively a nettop.
The Beta is available for free to anyone that wants it. Why not go download and test it instead of making crazy speculations?
I mean, heaven forbid Microsoft bases a future operating system on an existing one, that's just stupid, they should start everything from scratch, right?
I've used Vista a LOT. Enough to know that it's definitely not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be, I mean it has issues, but it's not that bad. And right this second, I'm posting this from a Windows 7 installation and I can assure you that it's not just a new lick of paint, whatever they've done under the hood, it's definitely faster (than XP even). It boots faster, it shuts down (a lot) faster, general performance is faster, it even moved some of the various config windows back to where they should be, or at least made getting to them easier.
Overall, as someone who actually doesn't mind Vista, I can assure you that 7 is indeed a very fine piece of work.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
So, outside of your 'fucking' orgy...
What is so bad about drive letters really? Is C:\ really so different from hda1, sda1 or /volumes/? I haven't actually played around with it much, but I would almost assume that drives are accessible without directly accessing the corresponding letter within Vista/7 it's just not fully implimented yet...
I have no problem whatsoever with using backslashes, programmatically or manually... I prefer to think of \.\.\ as "into the computer" whereas /././ is "outside" the computer... but there really isnt a standard anyways
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(computing)
If you have tested and/or seen any videos on Win7, they do have something close (but largely inferior) to Expose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8AqXaNr8ag
And with the whole thumbnail API and stuff it would be fairly easy for someone to make pseudo-port of Expose to Windows...
Vista is trash, at least in comparison to XP, or Win7, but so far I really like Win7, and if it remains and/or improves on it by RTM release, i'll switch immedietly to it.
All of our workstations and servers have 8GB of RAM. We do 3D rendering. So when you have 80million polygons and there are 100million photons bouncing around and millions and millions of raytrace calls plus millions of particles all interacting... you need a lot of ram.
Also when a single frame is 120MB uncompressed and you want to play back a short sequence to review in full quality prepare to see your RAM cache get filled very very quickly.
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???
Because not all GNU/Linux software is converted and/or works with 64 bit software...
Here be signatures
Plain wrong. A guy in my class had a 32bit version of Vista and that version was a lot slower than the 64bit version he installed later on... I guess it has something to do with encryption and decryption which Vista is full off...
Here be signatures
I have a computer with 8GB ram and I do not need 64bit Linux to use that 8GB as 32bit Linux can access 64GB if you want to...
Here be signatures
Except that Windows 2008 came out over a year after Vista was launched. And it uses an updated kernel version.
A more accurate description would be that Windows 7 is actually a service pack for Windows 2008 which is actually Windows 7.
This is no different than Windows 2003 which came out a little while after XP and blew its socks off for performance. Windows 2003 was still in my mind the best windows for performance. Even in 3D Performance I saw 100% increases in framerates. I was shocked and awed.
It would seem that Microsoft is sneaking in Windows 2008 R2 + User friendly UI as windows 7. Which I'm fine with because it wouldn't make any sense to reinvent the wheel if they've invested a lot of time and money into the kernel.
Also a large amount of work being put into Windows 7 is in the user interface department. Easier networking, More features for the home user etc etc.. none of these are useful for Windows 2008. So Without ALL of the UI work being done to make it a better operating system for the user (beyond performance enhancements that 2008 ALREADY HAS) I can see why R2 is a minor release.
I do have it. Yep certainly it's not an actual build of Vista, as I mentioned the interface is slightly different for a start. My point was that Vista was to be a big rewrite and ended up falling short and now they've done it again. I would agree that it's not as bad as it is made out. In fact I'm a strong supporter of the UAC approach and have berated so-called power-users for wanting to turn it off. The same power-users whose PCs I'm am busy repairing most of the time.
My point was more along the lines that they didn't make a huge change in Vista, at least not to the extent promised and it looks like they won't be doing it this time either. The kernel is 6.1, which is a minor release. It is for the most part Vista with the few sore spots smoothed over.
Are you missing the main point that the issue of getting Windows 7 to market so quickly is because Vista was a failure? XP was on the streets for a hell of a lot longer before we saw a replacement, even in beta form. This is a marketing move (not that there's nothing wrong with that) and not the major release number that it's selling itself as.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Actually, yes, I would say it does matter. Even more than if you're already a customer. The Linux/Mac users are the people they want to get. Most of the Windows users will upgrade, eventually. They may be able to skip Vista entirely, but when they need to replace machines and their choices are Windows 7 or switching to Mac or Linux, they'll get Windows 7. So if Microsoft knows they have a number of Ubuntu users interested in Windows 7, they need to know what attracted them and what they need to do to close that sale.
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.
I don't think most people here particularly care about Windows servers. Linux and *BSD servers have been running on 64-bit platforms (eg, SPARC64) for years, so it's quite mature.
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.
Unless someone can tell me that I am not missing much using 32 bit windows.
You're not missing much using 32-bit Windows.
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.
Installing Windows Vista or Windows Seven from a thumb drive is just a matter of formatting it and copying the DVD on it...
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?
Don't forget, XP is 5.1 and Windows 2000 is 5.0. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty "minor", but that doesn't mean that a lot of work has been done on the OS.
I'm not sure how much you've used Vista, but 7 is definitely leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of performance. Everything else may seem somewhat of a minor tweak and undeserving of the "7" branding, but from a User's point of view, the difference really is night and day.
It may look a bit like Vista, it may act a bit like Vista, but it feels like a completely different OS, it feels like how Vista should have been.
I'm sure you didn't mean to, but you imply that Vista didn't actually change a lot (Referring to the "Vista was to be a big rewrite and ended up falling short" line), but it really did, it's easily the biggest rewrite to the NT Kernel, it's just a shame that all the improvements got overshadowed by the problems it had at launch. For a lot of People, Vista probably seemed like a couple of steps back from XP (Which itself got plenty of Flak on release), so perhaps Windows 7 really does deserve a better Moniker than "Vista SP2" as some are calling it.
One final point: It's a bit strange to say that 7 is a quick fix to Vista, when it's due out in 2009. Vista was released in 2006. Why is that significant? Because Windows 95 was released in (strangely enough) 1995 and even discounting the bugfix releases a couple of years later, Windows 98 was...1998 (that's 3 years). And don't forget, 98 pretty much had the same criticism Vista has been getting, but Microsoft released 98SE a year later. Lets forget about that for a second, though. XP was 2001, as we all know. Notice a pattern?
1995 -> 1998 -> 2001
And I'm sure I don't need to point out that 95 -> 98 was a huge leap forward and 98 -> XP was an even bigger leap forward. Vista is the exception here.
Each Consumor/Desktop OS has typically been 3 years apart, Vista is the exception to this rule, probably due to the code reset it had, but 7 is right on track to be released (roughly) 3 years after Vista.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Yup, because things like a higher RAM limit and more general registers wouldn't improve performance!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
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.
Because of all the third party software... And that argument was lost since Vista came along...
Here be signatures
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?
You really are dense are you? Are you arguing with your nerdpost that the need for 64-bit is common among most computer users? We get it, the work being done at your place where you are the IT janitor require more than 4 GB of RAM. Fuck you and fuck everyone. I fucking hate the selfimportant nerds posting here sometimes. Fuck.
I have over 4G of RAM. And even if you don't, are you sure you won't have more than 4G of RAM before you move on to the next OS?
Installing 64-bit now makes a lot of sense.
I haven't had a problem with software incompatibilities. And I use some esoteric stuff. I was sure AnyDVD wouldn't work. I was wrong.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
iso = An ISO image is an archive file (a.k.a. disk image) of an optical disc using a conventional ISO (International Organization for Standardization) format that is supported by many software vendors.
img = a leading talent agency originally known as the "International Management Group"
or
img = The IMG file format is an archive format used for creating a disk image of floppy disks.
hmm either way, I am sure that .iso is more of a standard for creating DVD installations disks then img
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?
Because people like myself still have a perfectly good Pentium 4 3.0ghz with 4gb of RAM and a GeForce 9800GT at their feet, which runs Vista just fine with Aero on and will run Windows 7, that's why.
I also have a perfectly good 1st gen MacBook Pro that dual boots Mac OS X 10.5 and Vista Home Premium right now. It's 32bit only.
Alienating a large group of users who could upgrade would be stupid from a money making perspective.
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?
There is no 64 bit agenda - 64 bit has been here for quite a while and offers real benefits to even the regular consumer. The cost of supporting 32 bit and 64 bit simultaneously is quite high for both software and hardware companies. This cost results in either higher priced products or worse - lower quality products to preserve the profit margin. While few people actually need 3 gigs of ram, the disk subsystem is still the slowest part of the system and using ram for cache helps a lot (at least until SSDs replace spinning disks). Windows 7 is turning out to be a good OS that everyone will standardize on (home PCs, enterprise PCs, workstations and servers). It is really unfortunate that Microsoft doesn't demonstrate more leadership here and cut 32 bit completely. While Microsoft has been making much better technical decisions recently, the quality of their business decisions has really dropped and they will continue to struggle with finding growth (and this is independent of the economic issues we face)
clearly you have yet to install any of the various linux/bsd(s) that allow you to download a .img file which is then used with the dd command to dump on your thumb drive.
dd if=disk_image.img of=/dev/usb_drive (sda, sdb, whatever)
i've found that installing from a thumb drive is much faster, and performance on live distros makes you want to never touch a cd again.
That would be admitting that these exist. And giving windows users that do not know there is something other than windows something to Google. That *is* risky ...
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
guess i may need to update it ;)
BZZT! R2 has not, in the past "been used for very minor updates to Microsoft products" - Windows Server 2003 R2 is a major incremental upgrade to the base product, includes many new features, and Windows Server 2003 non-R2 can not be upgraded via a trivial patch. R2 was not a minor upgrade to Windows Server 2003, as noted here and expanded on here.
Ken
TF2 is the only reason why I have a windows partition at all. Thanks for the tip that vista (and presumably win7) will slow down my FPS.
moox. for a new generation.
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
What was the lag between win98 and win98SE (se is latin for "usable edition")? And the lag between XP and XP SP2 (sp2 is latin for "vista dominating version")?
98SE was the first (microsoft) OS with real plug'n'play support, decent USB support, mousewheel support out of the box etc and for it's time, lightyears more stable than 95 and 98SE. XP brought a bunch of complaints and it wasn't till SP1 that we had a release canidate quality OS and XP SP2 is so good it pretty much made Vista stillborn at launch and even three years later.
My point here is, it might be 3 years between releases that ultimately get patched to a usable state, but it's how long from usable patched version to usable patched version.
win95 (1995) -> win98SE (may 1999) -> winXPsp2 (august 2004) -> win7sp1 (march 2010???)
The reality is it's closer to 4-5 years between "Stable" OS versions that an IT department is willing to commit to installing on all their workstations. Win7 is probably better than VistaSP1 but I'm going to wait till Win7sp1 before I even consider making the jump.
moox. for a new generation.
IMO the best argument for going 64 bit only is that the quality of the drivers goes up substantially. There's no reason for someone with a 6 year old computer to need to upgrade to windows 7 (i thought vista was supposed to be a consumer grade OS?). The sooner we make the break with 32 bit, the sooner we can start amassing a huge catalog of 64 bit drivers that will rival what already exists in the 32 bit world. Hopefully it'll be 10 years or more before we need to jump to 128 bit drivers.
moox. for a new generation.
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
If you want to test-drive a beta OS then I think a Live CD is a pretty fucking valuable feature. If you insist on a car analogy, then it's like a dealer offering a vehicle for test drive, except you have to bring and mount your own tires.
Your point on Virtual Machines is well-taken though. I have played around with some VMs in the past, but wasn't sufficiently impressed. Is there a technology you recommend?
Ah yes. Third party software. Thank you for reminding me. I knew it wasn't anything Microsoft did.
Go to "System" -> "Administration" -> "Create a USB startup disk"
Oh, oops, forgot this was Windows we were talking about... ;)
No sig for the moment.
Many people enjoy virtual machines for this sort of thing, and you can get Virtual PC for free. Admittedly, not the same as a live CD, but hardly difficult.
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
Then again, you aren't running Windows. So Xen, VMWare, etc...
Precisely. Very few people currently use or need to use 64 bit computing. Outside of servers, I cannot even think of any systems I have come across with more than 4GB of physical memory.
This isn't an argument against, because yes I fully agree with you.
But just wanted to point out (aka brag), my new laptop has 4gb ram, and it was the smallest memory upgrade i could make to the factory 2gb ram.
It only has two dimm slots, so replaced the two 1gb sticks with 2gb. mismatching a 1 and 2 gb stick caused problems.
So effectively I have a wasted gb of ram, since i do stick with 32 bit OS's on it in all cases.
Alot of people I hear from have the same issue, just with less understanding. They do have 3+ gig of physical ram, but outside of that, no other need for 64 bit. No apps that use it, no apps that need more than 2gb each, etc etc (same as me, except maybe photoshop, but even there i don't know if CS3 is 32/64 or just 32 bit compiled. its just the only app i have i can think of that actually Could take some advantage of being compiled 64bit)
What is so bad about drive letters really? Is C:\ really so different from hda1, sda1 or /volumes/? I haven't actually played around with it much, but I would almost assume that drives are accessible without directly accessing the corresponding letter within Vista/7 it's just not fully implimented yet...
The biggest problem is that they're not combined into one tree, so it's both a pain in the ass for programmers (who have to deal with an API that keeps track of volumes instead of just being able to 'cd' to wherever you want to) and to users who are limited to how they mount their information. You can mount a volume within another volume's FS (for instance, I got a new harddrive to store my music/movies and wanted to keep it in the same location to not break playlists) but it's not simple and when I was doing it, there wasn't an interface exposed for it (and it occasionally wouldn't pop back up on boot)
-Bucky
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
Precisely. Very few people currently use or need to use 64 bit computing. Outside of servers, I cannot even think of any systems I have come across with more than 4GB of physical memory.
Need is such a subjective term. If windows was consistently 64bit, applications that take advantage and thus need 64bit would start really appearing. Its not like developers made programs support 24bit color when the OSes only supported 1bit or even 8bit color.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I did download this - ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso, but it didn't work on my DELL XPS720 as it didn't like the video card (Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX).
... maybe they dont have over 4 gigs because the most common opsys wont support it ?
On my dev box i'd happily install an additional 40 gigs of memory for all the virtual machines i would like to keep open.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I don't think he's saying he's "okay with" 32-bit netbooks. It's just that Intel insists on using 32-bit CPUs so Microsoft is obviously going to want to have a presence (read: make money) in a fast growing computing segment. Yes, ideally we'd be completely moving to 64-bit, but that's largely up to Intel/AMD to push. If Microsoft just stopped 32-bit support, they'd lose out on an entire market segment to linux or even their own older (cheaper) OSs
Try glancing harder.
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.
And to add to this: it runs Windows 7 beautifully (and before that, Windows Vista). The Intel Core that is.
Technically, you don't even have to have over 4 gigabytes of RAM to see the benefit. Having just 4 gigabytes of RAM installed with a 32-bit Windows running will leave you with only 2 - 3.5 gigabytes available (3.1 gigabytes being the average).
I use 64-bit at work because I want to:
Certainly. I know several Mac users who would probably go (back) to Windows if it didn't suck so horribly. You're gonna have a hell of a lot tougher time selling it to me as a free software user, because I can assure you that my concerns about Windows are not being fixed.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
but I would almost assume that drives are accessible without directly accessing the corresponding letter within Vista/7 it's just not fully implimented yet...
I'm not positive if this is what you mean, but Windows NT has supported volume mount points on existing file systems for a very long time.
So, if you wish to mount a drive to x:\my-drive, you can. This functionality dates back to Windows 2000. The only major limitation is the file system you are putting a mount point on must be NTFS (FAT32 and alike don't support anything like this).
I really don't see the problem with drive letters, I don't find them unintuitive, and if you wish to use a more traditional Unix-like model of grafting everything onto a root filesystem, there's nothing to stop you. The only difference is you obviously must have at least one HD assigned to a drive letter, C:, which you can effectively think of as your Windows equivalent to '/'.
Outside of servers, I cannot even think of any systems I have come across with more than 4GB of physical memory.
Yes, but those extra registers in x64 mode are rather attractive for other apps too...
> 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:
You can have my maximize button when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
part of my job is buying machines for developers on my team, and the standard dev machine that i have been getting is a quad core with 8 gb of ram. try as i might to dissuade them, some people still insist on whacking the box and putting a 32 bit os on these machines.
Better yet, i can't believe people install the 64 bit version, only to get the same performance and software incompatibilities.
Unless you have over 4 gigs in ram it isn't worth it. It won't go faster if the software is not optimized to use the additional memory or cpu registers.</quote>
Actually, 64-bit Vista is supposed to be 15% faster than 32-bit Vista. Apparently having a 64-bit register means that twice the amount of data can returned in a single call for 32-bit apps, which was one of the optimizations Vista used.
While it would be suicide to stop producing 32-bit editions, why is it that 64-bit is portrayed as a 'special' edition - there are the normal Windows editions and the 64-bit editions. It would be better if they clearly labelled one 32-bit and the other 64-bit. Most modern computers have 64-bit CPUs, even if they don't have more than 4 GB RAM, and a 64-bit OS could use that, as I discussed above.
P.S. excuse the formatting, Slashdot is playing up and I can't access the options.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
Are you arguing with your nerdpost that the need for 64-bit is common among most computer users?
No. But I think you would suprised to find that there are millions of users with needs exactly the same as mine. 64bit falls firmly into the old arguements of "Who needs more than one core!?" Well... 3d rendering and VFX was one of the first industries that really was able to take advantage of multi-core technologies. "Who needs a large display!?" Again VFX industry and 3D Rendering were industries which needed large displays and helped push 23" LCDs into the mainstream. "Who needs a touch interface!?" Flame Flint and Inferno workstations have been indirectly "Touch" interfaces for over a decade (through the use of Wacom tablets) now we iphones. "Who needs a RAID!?" VFX and film industry needed to push massive amounts of data very quickly to lots of workstations. Some of the very first fiber switching was for VFX related NAS. Now we have USB3.0 and new SATA specs which boast HD uncompressed speeds.
There is even a company called Boxx computers that produces workstations exclusively for the VFX industry. The 3D Architecture industry is suprisingly large with millions of users. Where VFX goes so goes mainstream because often our needs are right at the cutting edge. By the time Windows 8 is released everyday products will be using raytracing and realtime 3D Visualization. It might not be needed at this very second but games will undoutably be using vast amounts of RAM. Photoshop is far from a non-mainstream product. Look at cameras. We're seeing consumer 12megapixel cameras now. Expect 20 and 30 megapixel cameras within 5 years being common. Editing a photo in photoshop (or HP's Photo Studio) on a consumer camera will require gigs of memory.
Democratization of media is inevitable. Simulations of everyday places and things will become common hat.
I would say we're already at the point where we need at least 2GB of ram in every computer. And it's not like memory is expensive I just saw 4GB for $60 yesterday.
I don't think pushing 64bit is important right now. But to say nobody but a server needs 4GB is short sighted. 8GB will be the norm well before you know it.
The Beta is available for free to anyone that wants it. Why not go download and test it instead of making crazy speculations?
I tried to download it, but it seems to involve a classic bit of Microsoft fuck-wittery and incompetent development. The old "well, the download works in my browser so it must be OK" response of the sixth-rate programmer.
A bit of research tells me exactly what's broken about the download, and I could go and find a different PC in order to complete it, but there's absolutely no reason why I should have to do that. The broken downloader doesn't even say, "Sorry, the configuration of your system won't allow me to work" - it just pauses for a few seconds and then does nothing. No message, no information - nothing.
Now why is it that I can download stuff from millions of sites all over the 'net but a big corporation like Microsoft can't master such basic technology?
*This* illustrates exactly why Microsoft products aren't fit for everyday use - they break in really stupid ways. From the broken FDISK in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows (would pretend it couldn't see Linux partitions half the time) to a broken downloader on their web site. It illustrates precisely their attitude to customers and reminds me exactly why I stopped using Microsoft products.
Actually, I suspect Windows 7 is heavily based on Windows Server 2008.
I use Windows Server 2008 at work and it seems much much better than Vista (it's not an apples-to-apples comparison obviously since I run it over remote desktop, but it just seem way better).
So I think Windows 7 = Windows Server 2008 - server-related services (you can enable the 'desktop experience' on the server to make it feel like a desktop anyway).
No it is not a service pack. Vista is actually the code name for Windows 7 Alpha.
So, outside of your 'fucking' orgy...
What is so bad about drive letters really? Is C:\ really so different from hda1, sda1 or /volumes/?
Yes, it is.
For one, sda1 or hda1 are /dev entries. The point is, you can mount those devices anywhere you damn well please. Of course, I do recall DOS commands JOIN and SUBST, which kind of enabled the same thing, but it was less transparent, and I don't even know if they are still available.
Furthermore, /dev/hda1 is /dev/hda1. It is the first partition on the first IDE HD. OTOH, C: is the oldest partition on the first HD. That is my best interpretation, anyway, as I have at one point decided to reinstall Windows, rearrange the partition layout, and left one partition intact. That partition became C:, and my system partition is now D: although it is /dev/hda1.
The whole alphabet-drives thing is also divisive instead of integrative, which is probably merely a matter of philosophical approach, but still.
Ignore this signature. By order.
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.
Yes more memory is better.
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
Congrats. You are not 99.9999% of computer users.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
, the sooner we can start amassing a huge catalog of 64 bit drivers that will rival what already exists in the 32 bit world.
I agree, but this is already happening more than most people realize.
In the Windows world for example...
With Vista MS now requires that all MFRs provide 64bit drivers in addition to 32bit drivers to get MS Hardware Logo/Approval, which is important and has forced virtually all new hardware since Vista was released to have a 64bit driver.
There is also the Windows Logo/Approval for Applications, which means that even if the MFR doesn't provide a native 64bit application, the 32bit version must work on Vista x64. This eliminates the the Applicaitons that try to use 32bit only services/drivers as a part of the application, as they must also put out a 64bit version of the lower components.
If you look at even freeware or OSS windows projects like Daemon tools, you will notice even they provide native 64bit versions and drivers, even if the 64bit drivers are MS Certified, they are at least available.
A bit of trivia that helps put this in perspective. Windows Vista x64 has more hardware drivers available for it than Windows XP 32bit does.
Yes, this sounds 'out there', but it is true, and means that MS is getting the 64bit movement going better than most people realize. (Of course there are older devices that just don't have 64bit drivers, but you will find this offset by hardware that is Vista only and has 64bit drivers available.)
So, if MS is making the 64bit drivers and application compatibility happen, while keeping a 32bit version of Vista or Win7 available, why not...?
Not so much that as it is: more bits IS better if you require large memory support. I have 4GB of RAM in my desktop so 64-bit is required to use all of it.
With that in mind, the more people using 64-bit, the more likely drivers are to come out for 64 bit, and software is to actually work right on 64 bit. If the 32-bit option is still there, many people might continue to use it resulting on less support for the better version.
Put it another way: WinNT was always better than Win9x. I remember using Windows 2000 way before the NT kernel was marketed for general users. HOWEVER, there was a lot of software back then that didn't quite work right on Windows 2k because Windows 9x was still around and many people used it. It wasn't until XP (when users really had not choice as to NT kernel or not) that you really could trust software to work right on Win2k+.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Use Internet Explorer.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
So the download didn't work and it's proof that ALL microsoft products are rubbish?
I think you'll find that Linux has issues as well, so does MacOSX, so does just about every piece of software ever written and when you have a company as large as Microsoft, with literally thousands of people working on different projects, it's not a big surprise when something, somewhere breaks.
In this case, it's the team that maintains the site. They have little, if anything, to do with the team that built Windows 7, so why put the Windows 7 team down for it? Go get the ISO elsewhere and see if, in this one area at least, Microsoft did a decent job.
Otherwise it's like complaining that Linux is a rubbish desktop OS because Vi isn't very user-friendly.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
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.
Currently, 8 GB of ram costs about $80. Well within the budget of most users. If you do anything even slightly memory-intensive on your Windows system, like encoding video or using large Java apps, you could use the extra memory. Another example of something I do every day is compressing and decompressing archives (ZIPs, tarballs, etc.).
If the applications a built for 64bitness, and nowadays apps like video encoders and compressors and the JVM takes advantage of 64bitness so there's more out there that you think.
Saying "nobody will use 64-bit" is akin to saying "640K should be enough for anybody".
No, the real reason is the lack of 3rd party 64 bit support.
I am running Windows 7 x64 now, and albeit I haven't had any problems, IE 32 bit is still the default because there is still no 64 bit flash player except for a testing version on linux. Which is also annoying because I went to get a 64 bit version of Minefield and I can't use flash!
I wonder if Silverlight is 64 bit capable?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Microsoft told us that that Vista would be their last 32 bit OS and that future OSs would be 64 bit.
When ?
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
very few Windows(R) apps are 64bit compiled
Fixed that for you.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
So the download didn't work and it's proof that ALL microsoft products are rubbish?
No - please read and respond to what I actually wrote rather than putting up straw men.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
"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.
Would you know what the conversion factor is for a metric buttload?
"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.
Nobody is, assuming there's more than 1 of them.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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
Only if *everyone* alive is a member of the Master Race will life become simpler.
You know I've even heard there are entire operating systems other than Windows? That there are CPU architectures other than x86? If you're the kind of developer who refuses to support every operating system except Win64, supporting Win32 would be only slightly less of a crime.
Sam ty sig.
He means it runs on a set of computer types which has a higher cardinality than Vista's. Linux natively runs on architectures that no Windows has never even been emulated on, let alone run natively. Now embedded + desktop + server hardware is almost all coming together as x86, so Windows is no longer at such a disadvantage, but what he said about the current number of types of machines Linux running on is correct.
Sam ty sig.
30 MB/s is your idea of fast file copying? On Linux I get 20 just off old external hard drives, 40-50 with eSATA on 2.5"s, and 70+ on any modern 3.5". What the hell is Vista doing that makes file copies so slow? Read block, write block. Where is all that overhead coming from such that you're getting less than 50% of my throughput just because you booted Vista?
Sam ty sig.
Windows Vista SP1 shares the Server 2008 kernel code though.
So should this be called Windows Vista SP2? No, I don't think so. Microsoft don't do this kind of wide ranging stuff and feature modifications in service pack. Windows XP SP2 was a freak service pack, really, out of emergency reasons.
This could be called Windows Vista SE though, IMHO. It's so similar to Vista in usage. And MS might perhaps have, if they didn't want to get rid of the tainted Vista brand name. I think that's also why they're reading a new release this soon, although it won't have major feature changes. To get rid of the Vista brand quickly.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This is no different than Windows 2003 which came out a little while after XP and blew its socks off for performance.
News for you: Windows XP 64 is the 2003 codebase. Without the extra crap. Which is why it's better.
Now, reality check: it took Microsoft how many years to write Vista? And you're telling me that in one single year (a year that year saw hundreds of thousands of users whole-heartedly reject Vista) they manage to write a completely new OS?
Well, ain't that convenient . Anyone who thinks Windows 7 is anything more than a Service Pack for Vista needs to get their head examined. Why do you think your Vista drivers work in Windows 7?
This is just Microsoft's second attempt to shove Vista down everyone's throat. They're betting that because everyone completely rejected one OS, they won't have the balls to reject two releases.
It's like going to a restaurant, ordering a steak, then two hours later you're served a pile of dog crap. Then, when you send the plate back to the kitchen and demand a real meal, they re-heat the pile of dog shit and serve it to you again, thinking you can't possibly refuse the same shit twice, not after waiting so long.
So this is coming out in both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version to further confuse the market[...]
No, you don't understand.
Windows 7 is simply a Vista service pack. That's it. It's a Vista service pack with a few extra spiffy services. That's why your Windows 7 drivers will work with Vista drivers. Because they're the same damned base.
That is why they're releasing a 32-bit version. Because Vista has a 32-bit version. Because they're the goddamned same.
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.
You know, people who respond to posts with "BZZT!" come off as somewhat obnoxious.
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.
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/
I am comparing Windows 7 to Vista.
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.
I have a 64-bit processor at my disposal but I still am using a 32-bit distro.
I used to have a 64-bit version installed but I ended up forced to mix 32-bit and 64-bit packages since not everything is available in 64-bit still. The end result was just more headaches with no perceivable benefit and so here I am back to my 32-bit kernel. Sometimes less is more.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
So can 32 bit server versions of windows, MS just crippled the desktop editions (they claim this was due to driver compatibility issues)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Remember current 32 bit desktop editions of windows are limited to 4GB of PHYSICAL ADDRESS SPACE. In a machine with onboard graphics or a low end card this normally gives about 3.25GB-3.5GB of usable ram but with high end graphics cards it can be much lower. I haven't personally seen a system with two high end cards in SLI but I suspect it would end up with less than 2GB of usable ram.
At uni I see lots of systems being deployed that have 4GB of ram but can't use it all because they are running a 32 bit desktop edition of windows. Sadly software compatibility issues are preventing many people switching to 64 bit (and cost prevents most people running server editions on thier desktop).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Of course, Linux doesn't have a billion and one crappy binary drivers that don't support PAE to deal with. THAT is why Windows x86 is limited to 4GB of physical address space, even though it does support PAE, and could use the same 64GB if it hadn't been disabled by MS in XP SP2 to stop all those driver crashes. In fact the server versions do still support PAE, because the signing process for server drivers required PAE support.
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
Anyone who thinks Windows 7 is anything more than a Service Pack for Vista needs to get their head examined. Why do you think your Vista drivers work in Windows 7?
Could it be for the same reason that windows 2000 drivers largely work on XP, that is, microsoft care about backwards compatability, and the driver model is fairly stable?
Besides, MS started writing windows 7 back in 2006, so it's 2 years from then to the beta, plus probably 10 months to RTM. Bear in mind that at least one reason why vista took so long was the massive security rework that took place for XP SP2 and diverted most of the development effort from Vista
I know linux tends to break driver compatibility with minor revisions, but that doesn't mean all minor revisions have to break driver compatibility.
Windows 7 is massively more than a service pack, as it contains new functionality, which automatically means it's not a service pack. It probably isn't really enough to call it a major release, and instead it's more of a point release, but that's a marketing decision, and probably the right one to draw a line under vista.
Your childish rant is obviously suitable for the majority /. audience, but it's pretty far off base.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Are you allowed to say that here?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Wrong. Anyone doing 3d modelling & animation, photography, music, video editing, special fx, programming, running multiple applications at once, enjoys better performance (no disk swapping), etc... should be running a 64bit os. 32-bit is dead. Stop holding all of us back by insisting that it is is not. Dont you see the damage you do by keeping us in a 32bit OS? Do you know how hard it was to get 64-bit drivers for XP? Vista helped a lot since MS forced everyone, but it is still extremely important that we do not limit progress, just because grandma cant do shit with her computer.
Yes but, 64bit Windows has a 32bit emulation layer so you can run 32bit software. It works quite well with no performance penalty. Yes you cant install Vista or Windows 7 on a Pentium Pro 200, but who the hell would want to? Its not for those old 32bit cpus.
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/
Don't forget, XP is 5.1 and Windows 2000 is 5.0. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty "minor", but that doesn't mean that a lot of work has been done on the OS.
It's always felt to me that there was more difference between XP RTM/SP1 and XP SP2 than there was between 2K and XP RTM/SP1 .
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"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.