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).
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.
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
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.
But what about Mojave? Mojave's AWESOME!
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).
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.
Direct download links:
32-bit
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
64-bit
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Why is this story tagged "hitler"?
xkcd WHAT?
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.
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.
Do you mean that it is a disservice pack?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
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.
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!
I also had trouble grabbing the download with Chrome, across 2 PC's. Had to open up IE and install some proprietary download manager. Going well now, only been running it for a couple of minutes and already at 20%.
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.
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?
Tell me why the geek who fears his own shadow downloads an executable from a source like Pirate Bay.
They'd probably want to keep track of the statistics: who, when, how, how many, etc.
Oh, and ego. Don't forget the ego. "Downloading is bad". The day when Microsoft are going to admit that p2p has bright sides will be a cold day in hell.
64bit:
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
32bit:
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
You just need to look for the direct link. The main page uses a download manager like MSDN, but its the only reason, and if you dig a bit you find the direct downloads. It seems to be up and down in getting the initial connection with the site being hammered, but once download starts its really fast.
Because it means we need to shell out extra money to get Vista Ultimate Ultimate ^2 Edition.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I 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
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Go to "System" -> "Administration" -> "Create a USB startup disk"
Oh, oops, forgot this was Windows we were talking about... ;)
No sig for the moment.
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
"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.
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
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.