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Microsoft Brings 36 New Features To Windows 7
Barence writes "Microsoft has unveiled a slew of new features that will appear in the Release Candidate of Windows 7 that didn't make an appearance in the beta. 'We've been quite busy for the past two months or so working through all the feedback we've received on Windows 7,' explains Steven Sinofsky, lead engineer for Windows 7 in his blog. A majority of these features are user interface tweaks, but they should add up to a much smoother Windows 7 experience." In separate news, Technologizer reports on Microsoft's contingency plan, should things not go well in EU antitrust, to slip Win7 to January.
My PC runs Vista, so I can attest that it is slightly better than XP. At least Vista gives you a visual cue that it is busy and a basic progress bar while it is busy loading the folder contents.
But it still takes a long time and you can't access any of the contents that are displayed until the operation completes.
Apparently quicktime will be supported natively.... So that's about 4 fewer processes running on the standard install (quicktime agent/quicktime update/"quicktime install safari and set as default browser for my friends and family who are conditioned to press "yes" to remove dialog boxes - agent")
yay MS, this is years overdue :D
I am glad that you went ahead and characterized all of the improvements, that's very helpful and I thank you for it.
Thankfully, none of them look like they will require Processes, because when I first saw this article, I immediately thought "Bloat." But these are more "tweaks" than "new functionality."
As for your commentary, I think you're dead wrong. You seem to think that these are the only fixes and improvements that Microsoft is making based on user critique. I'm sure there are thousands, if not millions, of tweaks and bug fixes that they didn't mention. These, on the other hand, are pieces of untested functionality that didn't appear in the Beta _at all_.
Not ONCE in the actual article does it claim any of these to be "new features", merely changes since build 7000 (aka "the beta"). Blame /.'s stupid editors for claiming they're 38 new features.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
It prevents you from sending your audio playing from your pc to your airport express. BIG warnings about the protected audio path and it stops it from working. The workaround that airfoil had for Vista does not work under windows 7.
Oh, dont own a HDCP compliant monitor AND video card? cant watch HD content. it downscaled it.
I have not explored what other DRM gotchas are in there but so far those two will keep it as not recommend for all my companies clients the same as Vista currently is.
honestly there is no legitimate reason for any DRM to be present in the OS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
>I'm still on XP... you are saying that not only is this not fixed in Vista, but it's
> not fixed in 7 either? Yuck. I'm with you... I do a lot of VPN stuff and the
> responsiveness of the shell during network operations is my biggest beef with XP.
My perception is different.
My Vista machine is very slow browsing the local network (to say nothing about a VPN).
The Win 7 machine running in a Vmware Virtual machine hosted on this very same Vista platform accesses the network WAY FASTER. (At least twice as fast).
So: Same EXACT hardware, Win7 easily outperforms Vista. Even when running on top of vista. Go Figure.
If a VPN is involved it usually (but not always) implies a slow remote link. Explorer's file browsing traffic is indeed way to heavy for that environment.
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It prevents you from sending your audio playing from your pc to your airport express. BIG warnings about the protected audio path and it stops it from working. The workaround that airfoil had for Vista does not work under windows 7.
Does it prevent you from sending non DRM'ed audio or DRM audio? If so, that's a (unintentional?) bug. If it does allow DRM'ed music to be transmitted, the music labels will successfully sue MS for a few billions before you can say shazam.
Oh, dont own a HDCP compliant monitor AND video card? cant watch HD content. it downscaled it.
What a crock of BS. 'it downscaled it'? OMGWTF BBQ??? You can play full HD content shot on your home HD camcorder for all you choose. If you don't have a HDCP monitor, only the protected ones that have a flag set(don't think this flag is set on ANY media yet?) will not play. Simply stay away and watch the non protected full HD to your heart's content.
I have not explored what other DRM gotchas are in there but so far those two will keep it as not recommend for all my companies clients the same as Vista currently is.
honestly there is no legitimate reason for any DRM to be present in the OS.
If DRM was lacking in Windows 7, it doesn't mean that you can watch full HD in non HDCP monitors. All it means is that you'll be unable to watch bought/rented HD content like BluRays AT ALL. Wonder why this simple point is so hard to grasp. Looks like Slashdot gets its panties in a twist once DRM is mentioned. Or maybe you were karma whoring 'OMG it downscaled it'. Works well on here though.
This space for rent.
The feet-dragging on this may have to do with the fact that ISO is the primary way to acquire a Linux distro. Making it easy for people to burn/mount an ISO is opening a gateway away from Microsoft products. They'd rather not do that, so you get no support for ISO.
Mounting Linux ISOs in Windows is useless if you want to install Linux. What you want to do is to burn them, and - surprise! - Win7 includes a built-in "Burn CD Image" utility that is accessible from Explorer via right-click on an ISO file.