Wait For Windows 7 SP1, Support Firm Warns Users

CWmike writes "Users should wait for Microsoft to work out the bugs in Windows 7 before jumping on the new OS, computer support company Rescuecom said on Friday. 'From the calls we're getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft's operating systems, we're recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle,' said Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom. Citing a litany of reasons, ranging from the risk of losing data during an upgrade to tough economic times, Kaplan urged Windows users to put off upgrading to Windows 7 or buying a new PC with the operating system pre-installed. 'There are some compelling reasons for both businesses and home users to move to Windows 7,' Kaplan said, 'so we're saying "just wait for a bit."' Upgrading an existing machine — whether it's running the eight-year-old Windows XP or the much newer Vista — is particularly risky, he added, especially if users haven't taken time to make a full backup before they migrate their machines. Some users have found that out first hand. Among the top subjects on Microsoft's support forum is one that has put some PCs into an endless reboot loop when their owners tried to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft has not yet come up with a solution that works for all the users who have reported the problem, sparking frustration."

Comments

It will be different this time

[symbolset]

Trust me.

Re:It will be different this time

[Anonymous Coward]

I read some mac forums because I have an iPhone and apple crap is just as buggy. The latest problem on the new iMacs is screen flickering and extreme chopiness when playing flash content. People who boot into windows via boot camp say the problem never comes up in windows

All OSes have bugs (read the Ubuntu forums for verification), that's what the forums is for, although I would still maintain that Apple (or Ubuntu, once set-up) needs less baby sitting - especially for the computer illiterate who are apt to fuck things up royally.

I've been running Windows 7 since July, and while I like it a lot compared to previous Windows, I just been running a registry cleaner with a ton of results. I don't get malware/spyware as much but the babysitting to get it back up to speed is quite annoying - I don't really have to do this on a *nix system. (I wish they just got rid of the registry, period).

Re:It will be different this time

[93 Escort Wagon]

The first version of Windows (don't think it was called "Windows 1", but I could be wrong - it was a long time ago) could multitask two DOS programs. Either Windows 2 or Windows 3 broke that... for good reason, but still I remember that causing an issue or two.

FWIW my favorite part of that ad is Hodgeman's "Miami Vice" look at the end.

Re:It will be different this time

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows 1" is kinda of like the big bang, no one is really sure how it happened.

Re:It will be different this time

[Anonymous Coward]

These Mac ads remind me of a politician who has nothing good to say about his own policies and platform, so he spends his time badmouthing the other candidates. I make it a point never to vote for those kinds of politicians.

Re:It will be different this time

[angelwolf71885]

so basically you dont vote

Re:It will be different this time

[Anonymous Coward]

I have that problem on Slashdot 2.0

Re:It will be different this time

[geekboy642]

Something to think about:
Registry cleaners have a huge incentive to be ridiculously oversensitive. They have almost exactly zero incentive to be competent and intelligent about what gets labeled as 'registry cruft'. Who's gonna pay for or download a reg cleaner that says 'nah, this is mostly clean, just a bit of stuff from an old trialware software to remove'?

Re:It will be different this time

[maglor_83]

I make it a point never to vote for those kinds of politicians.

I try, but voting is compulsory in Australia.

Re:It will be different this time

[icebike]

Yup.

Registry cleaners can do a lot of harm.

If you find the same registry entries being cleaned time and time again, its time to pay attention and see just what it is they are removing. Google helps in this.

But wantonly wading thru the registry tossing out stuff is not a good idea. Keeping the packages that stuff unwanted crap in the registry makes far more sense.

I'm waiting for Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html
to state it works with Windows 7 before I apply it. It pre-loads registry entries that malware tends to use, but its no panacea. If Spybot can put in these entries, so can any other software.

Re:It will be different this time

[Interoperable]

Spoil it in a hilarious manner.

Re:It will be different this time

[Quarters]

So a company that is on the fifth (sixth?) version of its tenth operating system airs a commercial about its competitor's seventh OS release. In the commercial they attempt to insinuate that each new release is to fix the mistakes of the previous.

It makes one wonder why we aren't all still running Mac OS v1.0...

Re:It will be different this time

[RedK]

Seventh release of Windows ? Hum... Let's see... Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me (ok, so I skipped Windows 95 OSR b, Windows 98 SE which were OEM only releases). Then the NT family, Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and now Windows 7.

Windows 7 is only the seventh version of Windows for a very strange definition of seventh.

Re:It will be different this time

[DocMAME]

Sorry I posted the above as AC... forgot I hadn't logged into Slashdot with my new Windows 7.0 32-bit Pro install. So used to being autologged in that I forgot to check first. No problems installing 32-bit or 64-bit 7.0 Pro on former XP machines except audio card support.

Re:It will be different this time

[Skuld-Chan]

I know slashdot group mind will be upset, but honestly those mac ads are pretty ignorant. I haven't had too many problems with Windows, but I have a Mac, and you know what? It has just as many annoyances as any other OS - maybe more so, because it seems like every patch apple releases breaks something I have. I can't honestly remember the last time a hotfix or service pack microsoft released broke anything of mine.

Re:It will be different this time

[rubi]

The first "windows" version was the "MS-DOS EXECUTIVE". Later, they came out with something called "Windows 1.1". This much I remember from some video I saw a while ago while browsing around some "vintage computer" sites (don't remember exactly where). HTH!

Re:It will be different this time

[pha7boy]

CCleaner does a pretty good job. Spyboy S&D... eh, seems like a resource hog to me... but maybe I just don't like shit running in the background. But the point is valid - know what you delete! (on the other hand, unless you do a reg clear on a regular basis, you'll have dozens of entries to check in google.)

a decent antivirus (and paying attention to what you do) should protect you from crap

Re:It will be different this time

[webmistressrachel]

Windows 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 we progressively less blocky (graphically, anyway) 16-bit builds of an 8 bit OS based on a 4 bit etc etc you've heard that joke before.

Windows 3.1 added Win32 and Windows 3.11 added Workgroups. Windows 95, 98, NT4 and Win Me can be interpreted as updates of v4.

Windows 2000 Pro and Server series are v5, and XP and Windows Server series are v5.1.

Finally Vista is v6 and Windows 7 is Version 7. I've heard say that Microsoft got sick of yearly names around the time they unified Whistler Server etc and the Service packs aligned at XP SP2 (XP SP1 was the 2003 RTM and 2003 SP1 is XP SP2).

Re:It will be different this time

[webmistressrachel]

Windows 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 WERE progressively less..

There, fixed that for myself before Mr Troll could...

Re:It will be different this time

[RudeIota]

I just been running a registry cleaner with a ton of results

Keep doing that and you'll have some problems soon enough... I've seen a tremendous amount of harm done by these things and I don't care how 'good' it is, it is going to mess up eventually. When it does, you're going to be wondering where your start bar went or why you're getting some nagging error after opening Windows Explorer.

The worst part is reg scanners don't make your system unbootable where you can just system restore your old registry; rather, it just gradually creeps problems into your install that you never notice until you can't go back far enough to fix them. ;)

Re:It will be different this time

[Quarters]

That same logic can be applied to the last eight years of progressive Mac OS X releases, too.

Re:It will be different this time

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yes, the first version was Windows 1.0 I have seen it, it is even uglier than Windows 2.0.

If I recall correctly, you couldn't truely multitask until Windows 3.0. That's what DesqView386 was for...

I was going from memory - I'm old enough to have used the original Windows. It wasn't "proper" multitasking, I suppose, but IIRC it took advantage of 80386 protected mode to allow multiple DOS programs to basically operate simultaneously - I remember writing a couple of Fortran programs that just iterated a counter over and over, to test it. But that first version of Windows was pretty much a one trick pony, and that was its trick.

Re:It will be different this time

[Ixitar]

And then they had Windows 286 and Windows 386. Two different versions based on what processor you were running.

Re:It will be different this time

[Quothz]

The first "windows" version was the "MS-DOS EXECUTIVE". Later, they came out with something called "Windows 1.1". This much I remember from some video I saw a while ago while browsing around some "vintage computer" sites (don't remember exactly where)

No, Windows 1.0 (not trademarked then, tho') was the Microsoft Windows Operating Environment. I still have the original box, disks, and manuals and I'm lookin' at them right now. The manual lists 1.0 as the version, although it's not on the box anywhere.

Re:It will be different this time

[King_TJ]

To be fair, Apple did a *lot* of these commercials, and I remember quite a few that point out benefits of OS X. They're not ALL about bashing the other platform and saying nothing about themselves. Sometimes, it's indirect but just as valid - like the "Wheel of Vista" commercial they did, to emphasize that OS X only has one version for everyone, unlike Microsoft, where they have all these different "flavors" at different price-points.

On the same note, if OS X was deployed as widely in big, corporate settings as Windows is, you'd have the exact same thing going on as this story talks about. People would say "Don't upgrade to Snow Leopard until they release 10.6.2!" I've *never* seen a new OS released that didn't have patches released for it soon afterward. History shows that the patches for the more severe issues tend to get done first, and then the little nit-picky stuff slowly gets ironed out after that. So it's always wise to wait a little while before deploying a brand new OS release.

Re:It will be different this time

[Runaway1956]

I installed Windows 1.1 and 1.3 from 5" floppies. It was labeled "Microft Windows" as nearly as I can recall. And, they were quite clunky - you could find a variety of DOS programs better suited for whatever you were doing. Even Windows 3.1 was pretty clunky - it wasn't until Windows 3.11 for Workgroups came out that the product really became worth anything at all. Then they ruined things with Win95, by putting a 32 bit overlay on top of a 16 bit operating system. Phhht.

Re:It will be different this time

[obarthelemy]

tsss tsss; Qemm was Quarterdeck's extended memory manager (or was it expanded ?): lin MS's emm386, only better: remember DEVICEHIGH=...

You mean DesqView.

Hand in you senior geek card, please !

Re:It will be different this time

[93 Escort Wagon]

Ah, you're right, it must've been version 2.1 since it was right around 1989 when we (at my job back then) bought our first PCs. Before then we did everything on an HP 1000 centralized "minicomputer", as they called it.

As a side note, it was easy to convince the boss to buy the PCs because we were paying something like $600 a month for the maintenance contract with Hewlett Packard up until that point. The "PC revolution" really was a sea change, funny how we take cheap computing for granted now...

Re:It will be different this time

[AliasMarlowe]

Actually you left out other wrinkles in the version trail. Windows 2.0 morphed into Windows 286 and Windows 386. Windows 386 was the precursor to Windows 3.0. Then after Windows 3.11 came Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Then there were the various SP updates to XP: SP2 was as big a change as the 3.0 to 3.1 switch.

If anyone still has a Windows 3.11 or Windows 3.1 system, they can use its calculator applet to compute the difference between those versions. Just use it to calculate 3.11 - 3.1 and be amazed by the answer.

Re:It will be different this time

[KingMotley]

The first versions of Windows could only task switch DOS apps, but could multitask windows applications via cooperative multitasking.

Windows NT was the first pre-emptive multitasking Windows OS.

Most people consider pre-emptive multitasking to be "true" multitasking. I believe you are thinking of cooperative multitasking where each application calls a special function often, and only while inside that function may the OS switch to another task.

Qemm was a memory manager, you are most likely thinking of DesqView or one of it's later incarnations.

Re:It will be different this time

[Zontar The Mindless]

You left out Windows 95 OSR C from the list of versions that you said you were leaving out. :)

Apparently not too many people ever had this (or ever even heard of it), but it's what came with the first PC I ever actually bought for myself. (As opposed to used machines I bought or had given to me by friends/relatives, or machines I used at work.)

(It was a Sony VAIO, BTW. 166MHz MMX CPU, 32 MB RAM, 1 GB disk. A fairly high-end machine for those days, too.)

Re:It will be different this time

[AmiMoJo]

I've *never* seen a new OS released that didn't have patches released for it soon afterward.

Depends how far back you go. Before the internet was in every home software companies had to get it right the first time or risk having to send our thousands of floppy disks with updates. Most of them managed it too, even if arguably software was a lot simpler back then and security flaws were much less of an issue.

Thinking back to Amiga OS, RISC OS, System 7 etc. they all managed to get released with no "show stopper" bugs. To be fair to Windows 7, if you discount the security issues (which would have affected those older systems if they were released today due to every machine being connected to the internet) and issues with third party software and drivers then it's actually been pretty stable and generally issue free so far.

Re:It will be different this time

[AmiMoJo]

The thing about registry fluff is that it isn't really a problem. The registry was designed to replace .ini files for settings, and if there are old settings related to long removed programs it isn't really going to affect anything. You only start to get issues when the settings for things you are using are wrong, and registry cleaners usually don't have any way of fixing those kinds of issues.

Ditto for driver updaters. If your driver is working, don't try to fix it. If it isn't working, go to the manufacturer's website and download the correct one rather then hoping one of these scamware programs will do it for you.

Re:It will be different this time

[Cassius Corodes]

Thanx there AC - we look in awe from our corporate chains to your inspiring and radical free thought. My heart races just reading your origional and thought provoking commentary and wonder how you have the courage to express dissent to windows 7, on slashdot of all places! Oh! How I long to express my true feelings on windows 7, yet fear the horrific backlash it would provoke, hence I say things like "I have had no problems using windows 7" or "It runs my games fine" - such lies! and all in the hope that people will not know my terrible secret - one that would have me expelled from this community. Truly you are a man beholden to nobody!

Re:It will be different this time

[commodore64_love]

Yes. I do. I don't vote for president (why bother? Maryland always goes D so my vote matters not), and Libertarian for everything else. I would love to get a libertarian in Congress. Actually I'd be happy to get *any* third party in Congress, simply to break the back of the D-R duopoly.

Mac Ad:

"Hi I'm a Mac. I am easy to use and just work."

"Hi I'm a PC."

"That's it?"

"I have nothing good to say about myself."

(shrug). "I'm a Mac. I am easy to use and just work."

Re:It will be different this time

[commodore64_love]

>>>voting is compulsory in Australia.

So much for liberty - maybe you should just start calling yourselves "serfs". Oh and remember to plan corn on Senator Conroy's back 40. We have to keep the manor looking nice.

(Every day, as I read report after report from down under, I feel sorry for the Aussies.)

Re:It will be different this time

[commodore64_love]

>>>to emphasize that OS X only has one version for everyone, unlike Microsoft, where they have all these different "flavors" at different price-points.
>>>

Not true. Depending on when you hopped on the Apple Ferris Wheel, you could have OS 10.2 (like me), or 10.3, or 10.4, or 10.5, or 10.6..... all of which have different levels of support (I can't find a decent browser for 10.2). It's not as simple as saying "I have XP" and be done with it. You have to dig into the requirements and see if the program supports 10.2.

Or require expensive annual upgrades to keep up (in contrast I haven't spent a dime upgrading XP since 2001).

Re:It will be different this time

[ozmanjusri]

Ad hominem
A Latin phrase that has come to mean attacking your opponent, as opposed to attacking their arguments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda?#Techniques

Re:It will be different this time

[RedK]

I don't see where your post addresses the claim that Windows 7 is not the seventh release of Windows. And lumping Windows 9x and Windows NT 4.0 into some kind of magical "4th release" is funny, since both OSes weren't even related, minus the Win32 layer.

Windows 7 is NT 6.1, not Windows NT 7.0. Just run the ver program and find out for yourself how wrong you are.

The fact is, no matter how you want to count it, you have to use pretty convulted logic to make Windows 7 somehow be the seventh release of Windows, in any shape or form, even counting only paid upgrades (all your "4.0 releases" were paid for upgrades. You couldn't get the Windows 98 patch for Windows 95 for free, you had to purchase an upgrade).

Actually, that's wrong, you can get to 7 one way. Paid-for releases of Windows NT. NT 3.1, NT 3.5 (let's leave out the paid for 3.51 update), NT 4.0, 2000 (NT 5.0), XP (NT 5.1), Vista (NT 6.0) and now 7 (NT 6.1). I had to use convulted logic for even that one!

Re:It will be different this time

[RedK]

Same logic ? Because I fail to see where Apple claimed that Mac OS 10.6 was somehow the 6th release of Mac OS. The point is, Microsoft did make such a ludicrous claim.

Re:It will be different this time

[webmistressrachel]

Windows 95 and Windows NT4 were released concurrently and were announced as consumer and corporate versions of the same thing, introducing the 95 interface and API which were unified. That is how I (and Microsoft) came to "lump them" together as v4.

I do not disagree, however, that this is somewhat convoluted. However, the description I have given is a pretty accurate description of how THEY think they got here (7), and I find your 2-point by default, karma whoring, addds nothing to my post, condescending reply somewhat misleading for those reading my post. You haven't actually corrected anything, even though your opening statement implies that you will!

Re:It will be different this time

[RedK]

Windows 95 and NT 4.0 were never lumped as the same thing. Except maybe by you. Or other ignorant people. Microsoft sure never lumped them together at all, and they are not v4 of the same thing. I guess by your standards, NT 3.5 and Windows 3.1 were the same thing because they shared Progman as an interface and you could install Win32s to get access to the Win32 API on Windows 3.1.

NT 4.0 is part of the NT family. It has many APIs that weren't available on the DOS shell based Windows of the time. Win32 is only one API, and about the only shared between both systems. Microsoft isn't daft and knew this and never promoted NT 4.0 as Windows 95 for corporate users.

So please, stop spreading this crap and calling others troll because they correct you.

Re:It will be different this time

[left00coaster]

Sorry, as a long-time user of both OSs, Mac OS products are rock-solid in comparison to Windows counterparts. You may argue that that's because Apple also controls the hardware side of the equation . . . but that's the whole point to paying a bit extra for the seamless, solid and ultimately satisfying experience that is Apple.

Re:It will be different this time

[maccam]

However, this Mac ad is humorous because it does accurately reflect statements/promises issued about the Windows releases mentioned in the ad.

Re:It will be different this time

[BeanThere]

What a strange strategy; I vote mainly based on a candidate's policy positions and track record. But hey, I suppose you could go on other random, arbitrary things.

Re:It will be different this time

[afaik_ianal]

No, actually. Attending a polling place is compulsory; voting isn't.

Re:It will be different this time

[webmistressrachel]

No, NT 3.5 and Win 3.1 were not the same thing, I was aware that they are parallel codebases, however I do distinctly remember Microsoft bragging about bringing the interfaces and APIs from NT into consumer windows in 95.

As for calling people troll because they correct me, this is because people Mod me troll all the time even if my post is just a fact, and I wasn't so argumentative before, but it looks to me that the highest scored posts (i.e. those considered helpful) are often pointless corrections put in an aggressive way (Get offa my lawn!). I will, however, try take your last words as advice and attempt to be more civil and less defensive about participating and being trolled. Thanks for your time in pointing that out. Rachel

Re:It will be different this time

[thunderclap]

so basically you dont vote

I would agree with that assessment. However, back on topic, I have a 2 yr old acer 4720z that I upgraded from Vista home premium to 7 ultimate. It had no issues upgrading at all. It did it while I slept! What did I do right? I disabled everything that was user controlled, antivirus, everything. I dont use Norton or Mcaffee so I was home free. I honestly feel that this time, it is bad software (itunes, Norton, Mcaffee) left running in the background that hose the upgrade.

Re:It will be different this time

[dotgain]

Do you often bump into the slashdot filter "That exact same comment has already been posted" much?

It's just that I could swear I've seen you trot out that same story dozens of times. Let's say you did buy Leopard when it came out, and upgraded your machine. You'd still be supported now, and you'd still have spent well less than a copy of XP Pro. You'd get install media that would just work for you and not require you to prove you have the previous OS, and would work on other friend's macs should they unfortunately lose their copy.

Users got a disproportionately good run out of XP. Back when people were talking about "Longhorn" I was almost confident XP was only going to be in the game for a couple more years, I'm sure that was Microsoft's hope at the time too. I don't think the support lifecycle of Win7 will be anywhere near as long.

Again, consider if you have have bought Leopard (10.5) when it came out. Now imagine if, at the same time, you instead decided to switch to PC, so you get a new one. At the time, you would have got Vista. Which boat would you rather be in now? And how handy is that Vista-OEM install DVD going to be? Better not lose it though, chance are you won't be able to use anything else to recover your install with the only key you've got. Likewise, you won't be able to use your DVD to reinstall someone else's machine because the probability of finding another person with the same model is practically zero.

It's hard to compare the deals you get between OSX and Windows completely on price, but if you have have upgraded just once over that time, you'd be getting a much better deal in terms of support, and still come in cheaper than the purchase of a Windows OS.

Re:It will be different this time

[dotgain]

By your (un)logic, MS released the 2000th version of their operating system about a decade ago. Porsche scrapped 910 different designs before setting on the immortal 911. Sun Microsystems gave up development of 5.11 in 1995 and started selling old copies from their archives, beginning with 2.6, then 2.7, before shocking the world and jumping all the way up to 8!

Re:It will be different this time

[dotgain]

From memory that was the only Win95 with USB "support".

Re:It will be different this time

[norpy]

I like you think that compulsory voting makes us "serfs".

A representative government isn't really representative if it only represents those that can be bothered to vote (they are generally the rich/educated/old)

Compulsory voting with a secret ballot means you don't have to vote (you can just scribble all over the ballot and drop it in the box) but you do have to show up if you don't want a $50 fine. Getting everyone to show up means that people are more likely to take an interest since they have to show up anyway, but those that really don't want to vote for whatever reason can pay a fine or waste their vote.

Oh, and we manage to get 99% certainty of the winner before polls close in the west with a hand counted paper ballot. Machine-aided voting really is a terrible idea.

Re:It will be different this time

[Quarters]

By that thinking Windows 95 , 98, and 2000 haven't happened yet, nor will they for decades and centuries. I guess Office 2007 is still thousands of versions off and Adobe Illusrator 88 has yet to happen, even though it is 21 years old now.

Say what?

[jcr]

Wait... Windows 7 is the vista service pack.

-jcr

Re:Say what?

[joaommp]

I tell you... I never had a problem with Vista (and then again, I was a late adopter). Never quite disappointed me and ran as smooth as it could for the hardware I allowed it to infect. I always followed all the discussions about Vista, and Vista vs XP and the like. Yesterday I bought a new laptop. It came preloaded with Windows 7. YUCK! It might seem strange, but I really do prefer Vista to 7. Vista seems so much smoother and organized. Seven, to me, seems to be more of a poorly done copy of Mac OS X's widgets and a computational mess. Thank me, that I only wanted the laptop to use something other than Windows.

Re:Say what?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Fuck it, we're waiting for Windows 8.

Re:Say what?

[jo42]

"The [polished] turd needs some more polish".

Re:Say what?

[calmofthestorm]

From what I hear Vista cleaned up dramatically after its initial release (more frighteningly, the RCs seemed good), but the reputation damage was already done.

Vista SP1 (aka win7) seeks to be following the same path. Aside from a picture of Hitler that just flashes his eyes, the RC seemed smooth to me, the release has its issues, and perhaps MS will clean it up.

That said, I haven't really used windows or (os x for that matter) for anything but occasional gaming since high school.

And I still can't make Vista work with several of my friends' shiny new /preloaded/ computers' wireless cards. Is there an inverse ndiswrapper?

Re:Say what?

[jcr]

Fuck it, we're waiting for Windows 8

Also known as "Windows for Godot".

-jcr

Re:Say what?

[maxume]

Windows 7 is Vista SP2, SP1 was released awhile ago.

Re:Say what?

[calmofthestorm]

Ah sorry about that, I get confused sometimes.

Pichu evolves into pikachu evolves into richu, I think.

Re:Say what?

[mister_playboy]

Actually, Vista is on SP2 currently... so you should be calling Windows 7 "Vista SP3".

Re:Say what?

[joaommp]

Well, I was unable to make 7 work with the Ericsson F3507g 3G card that came integrated with the laptop... for which the right drivers were also preloaded on the 7 instalation. XP and Vista actually worked better there. I hate hardware manufacturers... I really do. And I believe I'll still sue a few more. Compaq - check, Fujitsu - check.

Re:Say what?

[Starayo]

Pikachu evolves into Raichu. You Pokénoob.

And only with a thunderstone. :P

Re:Say what?

[bsDaemon]

ah, you kids and your damned music...

Re:Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista will have an SP3 with DX11 and the Win7 bits rolled back. Win7 is more like a fork of Vista SP2.. like Mac OSX is a fork of BSD. Hmm.. Windows 7 is Mac OSX.

Re:Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The [polished] turd needs some more polish".

It's not actually polish they use, but frosting.
Windows 7 broke the turds (aka DLLs) into pieces small enough to swallow whole without chewing.
With enough frosting and no chewing, the turds go down much more easily.
So Windows 7 is a (s)HIT

remember, no chewing!!!

Re:Say what?

[lena_10326]

Your comment caused me to envision sending dried turds to the chrome shop. Nice and shiny chrome. Nice and shiny OS.

Re:Say what?

[Kratisto]

Slashdot apparently isn't too thrilled with existentialist literature references.

Re:Say what?

[Totenglocke]

Funny that you say Win 7 is "ugly", since it's identical visually with Vista except for the taskbar and getting rid of the side bar. Also, I've yet to meet anyone who tries to claim that the new taskbar isn't cleaner and easier to use.

But hey, thanks for trolling anyways!

*throws the troll some moldy bread* Yup, I feed trolls! =D

Re:Say what?

[LoRdTAW]

I have only three complaints about windows Vista.

-Viusta eats memory like there is no tomorrow. After a fresh boot and idle it eats up about 2GB. And that's after turning off all the memory hogging services.

-Nvidia SLI has been impossible for me to get working. I don't know if its Nvidia or Vista but I had it working on XP.

-Camera picture importing software is a pathetic waste. the version that came with XP allowed you to select which images you wanted download. Cant do that in vista.

Re:Say what?

[pha7boy]

yeah... that freaking line is so old - just wait for SP1. businesses might, or at least some businesses might. I know the place I work at has no intention of going to Win7 anytime soon. But to say that you run the risk of loosing your data when you upgrade? back your data the fuck up. and plus, who does an in place upgrade anyway?! that's begging problems.

Re:Say what?

[NotBornYesterday]

I know. Anything beyond Natalie Portman & grits memes, and forget it ...

Re:Say what?

[pha7boy]

a +1 for funny good sir. a +1 for funny.

Re:Say what?

[pha7boy]

What's the matter, a little too highbrow for Windows fanbois?

now, now... no need to insult windows fanboys. maybe that was a fun of the play who did not appreciate it being used in association with the aforementioned OS

Re:Say what?

[wmac]

And ubuntu 9.1 is service pack for 9.0 and 9.0 is for 8 and so on... Mac 10 is service pack for 9 , 9 for 8 .... What's your point? You expected MS to rewrite the whole OS every time?

Re:Say what?

[jcr]

Hey, I'm not going to be too upset about being modded down for reminding someone of Beckett. Thanks for the support, though.

-jcr

Re:Say what?

[camperslo]

With enough frosting and no chewing, the ..... go down much more easily

The secret launch party snacks?

I hope they're not handing out left-overs for Halloween.

Re:Say what?

[jcr]

They really ought to call the next one "Windows, this time for sure!"

-jcr

Re:Say what?

[chrispycreeme]

I've never met one of these mythical windows fanboys. Can someone point out to me where they are? I mean the unpaid rabid fanboys like the ones apple (or linux) has. I use windows almost exclusively, not because i like it but because:

1. I am lazy
2. I make a living because i can make it work pretty well
3. I am lazy

I would make a longer list but.. eh, why bother? I just don't hear people ever saying how awesome windows is for anything (except games maybe). Windows jockeys just like using something that is standardized, supported by a large company and is easy to google answers for, and make a living at managing. Plus you can do almost everything without learning any messy command line stuff (although the stuff you do have to do with command line is just as cryptic if not moreso that any *nix flavor)

Windows fanboys are as rare as screwdriver fanboys, sure screwdrivers are useful but they are just a tool that works okay, why get excited about them? I've never understood the whole religious operating system wars.

Re:Say what?

[mgblst]

I don't know what you are talking about. Windows 7 has a completely different theme to Vista. Well worth the extra money.

Re:Say what?

[ozmanjusri]

What's the matter, a little too highbrow for Windows fanbois?

They don't want to be seen laughing while they're at work. Marketing is a serious business.

Re:Say what?

[JDeane]

I like to think of all OS's as tools too.

To me this is how it looks.

Linux its like a swiss army knife it does everything but always seems to be too complex or lacks something you want but its free!

OSX its sort of like a more expensive swiss army knife only its missing the tooth pick but its gold plated!

Windows its the rusty tool box it has everything you want to do the job but you may need to do some digging to find the right tool and sometimes finding the right tool takes forever but it does do the job and its useful for almost all jobs.

Re:Say what?

[orangeplanet64]

Actually, Vista is on SP2 currently... so you should be calling Windows 7 "Vista SP3".

.... until Vista SP3 came out :)

Re:Say what?

[obarthelemy]

That's very true.

I've found 1 bug, though: it's actually harder to move a user's data off to a different partition than it was under XP. XP needed just a right-click on My Documents, 7 doesn't seem to have any interface way to do that.

And YES, this is so dumb it qualifies as a bug.

Re:Say what?

[roguetrick]

I went to high school with the Zune tattoo guy. He slathered his facebook page with information about his windows 7 launch party. They're out there.

Re:Say what?

[man_of_mr_e]

Exagerating doesn't really help your case.

Vista does *NOT* use 2GB after a fresh boot. The most i've seen it use is, on a 64 bit system with 4GB or more of ram, it uses about 1.2GB, much of which is buffers and caches of various types. If you have 2GB of memory, the 64 bit version will use about 800MB and the 32 bit version will use about 600MB. If you have 1GB then it uses about 600/400 respectively. I've never run the 64 bit version with less than 1GB, but the 32 bit version uses about 200MB on a 512MB machine.

Of course it's really stupid to run Vista with less than 2GB anyways when 2GB of memory costs less than a meal at a decent restaurant.

Re:Say what?

[drsmithy]

Also, I've yet to meet anyone who tries to claim that the new taskbar isn't cleaner and easier to use.

You have now. The new Taskbar is a distinct step backwards for any sort of heavy multitasking (though in fairness most of the reasons it is originated in Windows XP) and the "preview" thing is just a pain in the arse, especially on laptops with their less accurate pointing devices.

In short, it has successfully duplicated many of the ways the Dock sucks.

About the only improvements are the unification of quicklaunch and window buttons, and the ability to drag & drop to reorganise button order.

Re:Say what?

[AmiMoJo]

For me it is largely down to the problems with other systems being worse than the ones with Windows.

MacOS is nice until you have a problem. Linux is better as you can find workable solutions to most stuff, but the learning curve is very high if you want to really understand it. For example, Ubuntu takes a long time to boot and you could probably optimise it a lot, except that to do so you would have to find a lot of information pulled from various sources scattered about the net. Windows may have it's fair share of issues in that department, but really they all boil down to uninstalling unused drivers and cleaning up a bit in msconfig.

Re:Say what?

[TOGSolid]

Yeah, basically. I use Windows only because I'm a gamer, not because I'm a Windows fanboy. If I could do serious gaming on Linux, I'd go with that, but that's not happening anytime soon. However, I will take every opportunity I can get to trashtalk Macs. God damned Fisher-Price my first computers.

Re:Say what?

[NotBornYesterday]

You know, you're right. As an English major, I should have thought of that.

Re:Say what?

[TheGreenNuke]

I thought this was a bash Microsoft thread, not a bash Google thread. Must have missed something.

Re:Say what?

[NotBornYesterday]

I don't know if I could point out one in particular, but they're around. Trying to talk to them about other OSes is either excruciating or amusing, depending on whether you are trying to make a point, or just messing with them. I worked with one guy back in 1998 - 2001 who insisted that NT4 and Win 2000 were more stable and secure than Solaris. Now, every OS has its vulnerabilities and Solaris is no exception. But you couldn't have a debate with the guy; he wouldn't open his mind up.

I generally run Linux at home. As I type this, however, I am doing an emergency install & patch of XP onto a salvaged desktop for my wife. I could take more time and migrate her to Linux, (the install is a snap, it's getting either a)- her Windows apps working under WINE, or b)- her data migrated to a comparable Linux app) but that task will have to wait for a weekend when I have more time. Lazy? Maybe. I prefer to think of it as "temporally economical".

Re:Say what?

[supersloshy]

Windows its the rusty tool box it has everything you want to do the job but you may need to do some digging to find the right tool and sometimes finding the right tool takes forever but it does do the job and its useful for almost all jobs.

Don't forget how the tools keep breaking and since nobody knows how the tools are made, the only viable solution sometimes is to buy a new one ;)

Re:Say what?

[Erikderzweite]

To be fair, I have installed Win7 and Ubuntu Karmic just yesterday and at the same time (VirtualBox rules!). Guess where I had needed cryptic commands to make the OS behave the way I wanted it? Win7. I wanted the OS to autologin and the proposed solution was (have to look it up again) "control userpasswords2". Ubuntu -- no need for a terminal so far.

Re:Say what?

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Right-click c:\users\[username]\My Documents, choose properties, find the Location tab. You're welcome.

Re:Say what?

[jnork]

Hey. As a screwdriver fanboy, I resent that!

Re:Say what?

[jnork]

I've never met one of these mythical windows fanboys. Can someone point out to me where they are?

Actually, read any story about Apple, Mac, or OS X on The Register and chances are the Windows Fanbois and Microsoft Apologists will be out in force making disparaging comments. Especially if the article points out a flaw.

(To be fair, the Mac Fanbois tend to do the same thing in Windows or Microsoft articles, but you weren't asking about them.)

Re:Say what?

[apoc.famine]

It's interesting, because I use Linux AND Windows for the same reasons. Linux, because I'm lazy. Ubuntu install takes all of 20 minutes, and I have all the shit I need to do everyday tasks. I don't need to dig up disks for drivers for all the hardware, office suite, hunt down video drivers, antivirus/spyware, unzip utility, terminal service, media player, photo editor, browser, etc. I still have to install java and flash, like on windows, but that's just as easy now with modern package managers.
 
I tried gaming on Linux for a long time. Lately, it's harder and harder to get a lot of games to run, and I'm lazy. I've got an XP boot for that. No AV, no nothing else. Just a handful of games. It doesn't get used for browsing, word processing, or even listening to music. All my XP boot does is play games. Why? Because I'm too lazy to get them running under Wine.
 
So there you have it - I have two operating systems, because I'm lazy. I'm too lazy to get games working under Linux, and I'm too lazy to get Windows set up to be secure and provide me with a useful working environment.

Re:Say what?

[hanger]

You either have no interest in IT or care only for some very specific area. To make it clearer, I'll take myself as an example . I rarely watch football, thus I don't really care much about which team wins. Consequently, I've never understood what's the deal with some team's fanboys going through the streets damaging public and private property after a match.

Re:Say what?

[thunderclap]

Wait... Windows 7 is the vista service pack.

-jcr

Service pack 3 to be precise.

Re:Say what?

[thunderclap]

I personally am waiting on PS9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvDWvVDIF_0

Re:Say what?

[thunderclap]

Windows fanboys are as rare as screwdriver fanboys, sure screwdrivers are useful but they are just a tool that works okay, why get excited about them? I've never understood the whole religious operating system wars.

You have obviously never been to a vodka convention. There are screwdriver fanboys everywhere.

Ok well I disagree

[Sycraft-fu]

I say get Windows 7 now, if you have a reason. If you have a new computer get it with 7 for sure. Get it for an old computer if there's a reason you want it (like DirectX 10/11 support or something) and your computer is reasonable (at least a dual core with 2GB RAM).

We have been deploying it here at work and it works great. It is a solid and fast OS. App compatibility is extremely good, even with our squirelly engineering apps.

But then seriously, how is this guy's story "news for nerds" any more than my anecdote? I would think nerds would be capable enough of doing testing to determine if 7 is right for their environment and then deploying it if appropriate.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[ColdWetDog]

That's all well and good, but make sure you have a functional, repeat, functional and I'll repeat again, functional backup.

If you trust your backups, you can do anything. Install Windows ME if you like.

But for bog's sake CHECK YOUR BACKUPS.

This message will be repeated in 10 minutes.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Penguinisto]

Yes and no.

While Windows 7 is less sucky than Vista (and is roughly comparable to XP SP3), simply plopping it in doesn't always make sense.

Most enterprises (mine included) are still just barely testing the things, and the help desk is still trying to determine what the gotchas will be (not only with specific in-house apps, but in general). As a group (like so many others out there) who held out with XP, there's going to be a shitload of user re-training that you simply cannot avoid, unless you really hate your help desk (which is likely why you don't hear Microsoft claiming that training costs are gonna inflate one's TCO these days, eh?) From a cold-hearted BOFH standpoint, it's much easier to let the users get that training at home for awhile first, on their personal equipment, if for no other reason than to minimize the re-training costs you'll have to spend at work.

I will be the absolute last human being stupid enough to demand that all the relatively new (and even not-so-new) multi-million-dollar tools out on the production floor get bumped from XP to Windows 7. I doubt even the tool vendors would have the temerity to ask for the massive downtime required to do such a thing. Move away from manufacturing, and you still have a whole lot of hospitals, service orgs, and etc who will also refuse to bump their machines and tools up as well.

Sure - XP Mode is great for a lot of things, I cna admit that. OTOH, most home users aren't going to have that option, and most small businesses are going to require a whole lot of persuading to buy an XP mode streaming app server for distributed apps.

At home? Meh - I have exactly one Windows machine - the missus' XP laptop. I figure I'll worry about that when I get her a new one next year sometime... and I'm almost willing to bet that I'll still be installing XP on that one - less than a week after she gets it. I doubt she's going to be the only one who does that.

One final question that's going to be asked a LOT by typical users: "Unless/until app makers start making Windows 7 -only apps, why would anyone waste their time with the upgrade, instead of simply waiting until the next time they buy their Dell, HP, whatever? " Security? Meh - they'll claim their home router firewall and sundry for that.

Okay, one more: Too many folks out there have jacked/pirated/whatever copies of XP installed (courtesy of friends, relatives, TPB, whoever), and will likely wait for a jacked/pirated/whatever copy of Windows 7 to come out.

Sorry... I'm just not seeing the rush to convert just yet, save for those who have no real choice (that is, typical users buying new computers).

/P

Re:Ok well I disagree

[drinkypoo]

Here's the thing, if you have only 1GB RAM and you have Vista then you're a fool not to get Windows 7 right now, because Vista is still a dog in "low" memory situations. If you're using XP, you could wait for Windows 7 SP1; if you're not compelled to move to Vista by the software you can't run on XP now, there's going to be little reason to move to Windows 7 before then. On the other hand, I've found game compatibility to be poor. Many home users care about such things. If you don't, then go to 7.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[FatherDale]

Mmm. Backups. Now that I have FEBE for Firefox, I not only trust my backups, I can restore what's important quickly, too. You are correct, good backups are everything -- this data set has been across three computers and three OS this year, and is about to move to another on Tuesday. This machine will get my daughter's data set (much to her delight) because she has good backups. Good backups that are EASY TO RESTORE and require no special hardware other than a cheap external drive. In summary, I like having good backups. It makes my data portable. Especially if I can restore them easily. Have I said "backups" enough? OK, let's toss in a "test your backup solution" and one more "easy to restore".

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Phoobarnvaz]

Even Microsoft was telling users NOT to upgrade during the beta/RC run.

Do a full install no matter what. Anything but a full install from partitioning to installation is a disaster waiting to happen...no matter what version of Windows you are running. Saving time and money doing something futile is not saving either.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[xanadu113]

(Disclaimer: Been a Linux user for years, since RedHat 4 or so..) I had SOOO many problems with Vista, turning my quad core into a single core... Freezing up, having to be power cycled to get running again... Switching to Windows 7 (And blowing all the dust out of the machine) fixed it.. I'm suspecting it was Vista causing the crashes..

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Skuld-Chan]

I deployed Windows 7 to about 200 lab machines at school - a mixture of optiplex 520's, 620's, 745's, 755's, and 960's - and it all went along without a hitch. Haven't had any app compatibility issues, and even deepfreeze works like a top (on x64 no less).

Re:Ok well I disagree

[fluffy99]

One step ahead of you - I have two separate volumes running RAID1 and RAID5 so I am set for backups. ;-)

Repeat after me - "RAID does not protect against anything but hardware failure". It does not protect against users accidentally deleting files, files getting corrupted, or the OS having issues. To actually recover from any of those things, you need a usable BACKUP. It needs to be a cold-metal type of backup that you can easily restore from ground-zero. Something like Acronis TrueImage or Ghost of the system drive and whatever backup you prefer for the data volumes. Keep the back files for a long time, otherwise I guarantee you'll have a file that got deleted last year and no-one noticed.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Verunks]

Okay, one more: Too many folks out there have jacked/pirated/whatever copies of XP installed (courtesy of friends, relatives, TPB, whoever), and will likely wait for a jacked/pirated/whatever copy of Windows 7 to come out.

the pirated version has been out since august and like vista it's much easier to crack than xp since you don't have to worry about wga

Re:Ok well I disagree

[ColdWetDog]

I like my current system - Daily backups of my application drive on my MacPro with SuperDuper. If the drive fails, I can either boot off the external drive (I can't believe Microsoft hasn't made something similar to target mode) or just copy it to another drive and pop it in.

Data is backed up to one of 3 2 TB external drives, one of which is on site, two are off site and changed weekly.

In addition, Time Machine is on another 2 TB drive that gets swapped out every couple of months to keep old files around. The laptops are backed up to a NAS via SuperDuper whenever I remember to do it (but the data gets stuffed into the MacPro every day).

It's expensive, but it all works and it's pretty much automagic. The only thing I'm missing is automated off site backup - but upload speeds are just too damned slow and cloud storage just too expensive to make it worthwhile for an individual.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Mashiki]

Biggest problem from my end? If you're still using apps that need specific unicode locations get used to using applocale. Otherwise, I haven't run into a single problem so far. I moved from XP64 to Win7x64, and I'll say I'm quite happy with it. Now the UAC on the other hand annoys the piss out of me still, so it died.

There are programs that I use that cause the UAC to go nuts for about 10mins even when they're setup properly, I don't need that hassle. If you asked me 4 months ago if I'd be sticking with XP64 the answer would have been yes, now not a chance I'm happy with this.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[triceice]

I have been a Windows user since 3.11 and have seen all the highs and lows of Windows. I have also been a Apple user since the Apple II+. I also have supported both OSes for over 20 years. My comment about Windows 7 is simple. It's Vista fixed.

I have 5 computers in my house and not a single one used Vista as it's primary OS. I have one desktop that did dual boot to Vista and XP (had to since I have clients that had Vista) but I never used Vista. After my experience with Windows 7 Beta 2 and it crashed my pc and screwed up my dual boot causing me to have to do a format and reinstall to get XP back up I was ready to just skip it but...

I have had zero issues since I installed it on a POS for testing 4 weeks ago. I only had to load one driver and that was for an old AMD processor.

I think the fact that they did such a widely available beta allowed them to actually do a good job this time.

My recommendation: If you have Vista upgrade yesterday. If you have a PC bought in the last two years and have XP upgrade when you want.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[the_humeister]

The latest Windows OS I had installed was Windows 2000. I've had a 20 GB Windows partition that I use every time I upgrade hard drives (just copy the partition over and partition the rest of the space). I'm mainly using Debian, but bought the family pack to upgrade my computer and my wife's (she's not liking Windows Vista anymore). I just finished installing W7 on the W2k partition, and so far it's not a bad OS. My only gripe is that the installation overwrites the MBR so I had to use an Ubuntu Live CD to reinstall grub.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could be cheap and buy more RAM.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[dontmakemethink]

I can wait for others to test Windows 7, and not feel the slightest regret, no matter how it turns out. And I'm running XP as happily as can be.

Or I can... man I don't even want to type out how much of a bitch it is to give a new OS a day in court.

I raise my glass to those who are keen enough to play guinea pig, I can't afford the downtime, or even the prep work.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[AmiMoJo]

Can anyone recommend a free, low overhead backup utility for Windows which supports network shares and versioning?

I currently use SyncToy but it does not do versioning. All the other systems I looked at seem either really bloated or lack one of those features.

I just want to backup to another Windows box daily, with off-site backups over the net (FTP) when I reach a milestone with my code. Currently using SyncToy for the former, WinRAR and an FTP client for the latter.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[Teun]

But then seriously, how is this guy's story "news for nerds" any more than my anecdote? I would think nerds would be capable enough of doing testing to determine if 7 is right for their environment and then deploying it if appropriate.

This is news for managers.

Because they wouldn't accept this logic from one of their own techs.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[drinkypoo]

If you only have 1GB of ram, you should purchase more ram, as an extra stick or two is going to be far cheaper than a retail copy of Windows 7.

I have two laptops that won't expand over 1GB. Both are quite capable of running Windows 7 (one is Atom, the other has a Celery 900.) One is currently running XP.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[LordKronos]

Your joke would have been funnier if you said you were using RAID 0 for your backup.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[master_p]

I recently bought Windows 7 for my aging Athlon 64 PC (old PC for today's standards). It's not even multicore...WinXP could not handle the 4 GB ram I've put in the box...but Windows 7 64 bit handles it perfectly...I did not upgrade my WinXP installation, I made a new partition, leaving the old XP intact. No problem so far, whatsoever with Win7.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[supersloshy]

CloneZilla? It's linux-based, but it'll run as a LiveCD (aka, put the CD in and reboot). It comes in Live and Server editions for different needs. The backups are fast and you can choose how much compression you want as well. It can connect to remote drives and physical drives and I've just tried running the server edition at my old school (I volunteer there) and it works great! We got a whole lab of computers-around 20 of them-in only 3-4 hours! They were all running Windows XP.

And IIRC, it supports FTP and Samba/NFS. http://clonezilla.org/ for the regular LiveCD or http://drbl.sourceforge.net/ if you want a live server edition.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[supersloshy]

Oh, might I mention that CloneZilla is an /imaging/ program similar to Norton Ghost. It won't back up individual files, but it can back up individual partitions and drives. It only backs up the parts you need though and it can optionally split it into multiple files if you'd like. It only backs up the parts of the partition/drive that have data on it as well, so the file can only be as large as your partition is full. As I said, compression helps here and while it takes a little bit more time for it to finish (not much though) it saves a bit of space.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[tdwebste]

No you won't be installing XP on your new Laptop for the simple reason that XP drivers won't exist for it. I suggest XP inside a virtualbox or similar.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[fluffy99]

Acrons TruImage is an imaging program, and it can backup individual (or sets) of files. The imaging can be done as the full volume or incremental backups as well. Backups can go to a network or usb drive share. Bare-metal recovery is accomplished by booting with the rescue CD and restoring the image. I can restore a server system volume in under 15 minutes.

I really like Acronis, particularly since it can do the imaging without having to take the system down like Norton Ghost. I haven't used the file backup feature that much.

For my work servers, I have scheduled Acronis backups over the network of the system partition and BackupExec to tape handling the backups of the data volumes. The Acronis gives me fast bare-metal recovery of the system, plus the backupexec handles versioning and long term data backups. I've even remotely recovered a system using the RAC card in a dell server to boot to a local copy of the recovery disk iso and restore the image across the wan link - that slow but beat the hell out of flying 2000 miles to fix it.

At home, I just have my systems doing Acronis backups over the network to each other. If one dies, I recover using the image saved on the other.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[supersloshy]

...clonezilla can do all of that too. did you even check the site? and might I mention that clonezilla's free as in speech, and not super-expensive like Acronis.

Re:Ok well I disagree

[fluffy99]

...clonezilla can do all of that too. did you even check the site? and might I mention that clonezilla's free as in speech, and not super-expensive like Acronis.

No it can't. You can't run Clonezilla from within Windows to do a hot-backup. Clonezilla live requires booting from the CD and taking the system down. This isn't an option where the system must stay up 24/7 and you want seamless automatic backups. If I'm mistaken, please show me on their site where it claims this capability (I looked).

Last time I used Clonezilla, it had no clue about NTFS and simply used dd to copy any partitions it didn't understand. That also had the limitation that it could not resize the partition during restore. Their website implies it knows about NTFS now, but it's not clear if it can resize while restoring now.

Clonezilla also used dump and restore to backup ext volumes which can cause corrupted files in your backup if you use it on an active partition as files can change mid-copy. Even Linus says dump/restore is deprecated http://dump.sourceforge.net/isdumpdeprecated.html.

For workstation use, Acronis is pretty cheap if you look for their sales. I paid $11 for Acronis Home not too long ago. The server version is pretty expensive though.

Besides, who said speech was free?

They always say this

[Jugalator]

What's new? This is always the recommendation. It has never not been the recommendation to jump on a Windows product as soon as it's been released by a support firm. Is it just posted here to give Slashdot readers a space to vent their Windows 7 thoughts on?

Re:They always say this

[maugle]

Yes.

Re:They always say this

[TheRecklessWanderer]

LOL All they are doing is trying to get their name out there to make money. There is no such thing as bad publicity, right? and if you don't know that upgrading your microsoft OS from a previous version isn't a terribly good idea, then you really shouldn't own a computer. Well...maybe a mac.

But why?

[MtViewGuy]

Having played with Windows 7 Build 7000 (public beta), Build 7100 (RC1) and the final version, Windows 7 is stable enough as is to not need to wait for a Service Pack 1. The only thing we need are proper Windows 7 drivers, which will be coming over the next 4-5 months from hardware manufacturers that haven't gotten them available yet at the time of Windows 7's retail release.

When SP1 comes out (which I expect will arrive probably Summer 2010), I expect to be a "roll up" of the monthly security fixes plus additional driver support. This isn't like SP1 of Windows Vista, which had a LOT of bug fixes to correct a number of memory handling issues.

Re:But why?

[Sycraft-fu]

Especially since it seems most of the complaints are centered around people trying an upgrade install from Vista. Ok well:

1) Don't. Seriously, upgrade installs on OSes are bad news over all. Can they work? Sure I know people who've done upgrades that have gone off without a hitch. I also know people who have hosed their system that way. Windows, Linux, all the same, a reinstall is the way to go.

2) This doesn't matter for new systems. They are shipping with a fresh OS. As such saying to wait on a new system because of this is silly.

3) Seriously, don't do a fucking upgrade install!

While this bug should be fixed, that doesn't mean you shouldn't get the OS if you want it. Also, what makes them think it'll be fixed in SP1? If it is something real difficult and/or rare they may just recommend a clean install and be done with it. The more time that passes, the less people will care about the upgrade process.

Re:But why?

[schnikies79]

While Windows 7 is stable, how you can say it's more stable than XP?

I haven't seen XP crash in years.

Re:But why?

[MichaelSmith]

1) Don't. Seriously, upgrade installs on OSes are bad news over all. Can they work? Sure I know people who've done upgrades that have gone off without a hitch. I also know people who have hosed their system that way. Windows, Linux, all the same, a reinstall is the way to go.

I haven't reinstalled the two main ubuntu laptops here in at least two years. I upgrade them twice a year from dpkg. I am sure it is the same with debian as well.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might have trumped it had he been talking about Vista. Re-read it dumbshit.

Re:But why?

[Penguinisto]

The only thing we need are proper Windows 7 drivers...

Err, wasn't that the big Microsoft apologists' common excuse for Vista when it first came out?

Re:But why?

[Dunbal]

The only thing we need are proper Windows 7 drivers

      Is that all? Minor details like that, sigh, I mean who needs their peripherals to work properly. Now if Microsoft really cared about customer satisfaction, it would work with major peripheral manufacturers to ensure that drivers would be available on release. However I suspect that drivers have become so complex (even though a printer is still just a printer) and bloated that there just aren't enough resources at the OEM's to learn the new twists and tangles of the new OS AND keep up with the constant changes made by the development team.

      I've always asked myself why the hell a mouse driver has to be 50 MEGAbytes, a keyboard driver 80 MEGAbytes, and don't even get me started on sound and video drivers...

     

Re:But why?

[icebraining]

Reinstall? There are Debian boxes in my uni that haven't been *rebooted* for more than a year, with full upgrades (besides the kernel).

Re:But why?

[mister_playboy]

WIndows 7 uses the same drivers that Vista does... there isn't anything to wait for.

Re:But why?

[Bucc5062]

agreed!! I just tried an upgrade of Kubuntu 9.04 to Karmic and it crashed at 89% complete. This was a hole in the ground crash that now has me starting fresh. So I figure hey, lets try Fedora 11 or lets try something else.

I was able to recover 99% of my data so I am not that pissed, but this reminded me to NEVER upgrade an OS. Reinstall after good backups and a list of all actively used programs.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? You want to imply that a full upgrade on Debian is like switching to the next version of Windows? It really is not. What you are talking about is like applying a service pack.

A switch from Sarge to Lenny could be compared. And this is serious business. You really don't want to do that without a recovery plan. Expect things to break. Things that would be fine if you build new from scratch.

The same is true for the Ubuntu upgrades. There is no reason to assume a upgrade will be without trouble. The internet is filled with reports of all kinds of issues every half a year. Most of them problems that you don't encounter with a fresh install.

And now just take a step back. Windows XP was released in 2001. About a year later Woody was released. Imagine upgrading from Woody to Lenny.

Re:But why?

[MtViewGuy]

Usually, if I have to do a major OS upgrade, I just back up user data, then erase the drive and do a completely fresh install. That way, it is essentially a new installation without having to deal with the legacy code from a previous OS installation.

Re:But why?

[MtViewGuy]

But unlike Windows 7, at the time Windows Vista came it the OS was just TOO advanced for the commonly hardware available at the time. It wasn't until early 2008 with the wide-availability of dual-core CPU machines that the Windows Vista performance issues finally started to go away, spurred on further by the release of Service Pack 1, which corrected a lot of memory management issues.

In contrast, Windows 7 comes at a time when the average "mainstream" desktop or laptop computer sported dual-core CPU's. As such, we don't have serious performance issues, and "fresh" installations on machines built within the last two years works very well indeed.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well to be honest I can't even think of any bugs that Win 7 has, or at least the normal user will see. Now maybe after using the RC from week 1 of its release right up to the reinstall of the Win 7 the day it came out and never once running into a problem I just don't see these bugs, or maybe its for corporate users or people trying to use Windows 95 software or something but honestly I have yet to have a problem except some non support of the hotkeys on my keyboard in Win 7 RC but thats been fixed in the final release.

Re:But why?

[izomiac]

A fair number of the helper applications manufacturers bundle broke with the upgrade. On my Sony laptop installing the Vista version of the Vaio Control Center will trigger a non-Sony battery detected message at startup and force hibernation. A couple of my friends with tablets report that HP's new Windows 7 compatible tablet "driver" is missing a couple of features.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably has a hardware problem. My Vista box hasn't crashed in.. Ever. I've never seen it BSOD.

Re:But why?

[Dun Malg]

this reminded me to NEVER upgrade an OS. Reinstall after good backups and a list of all actively used programs.

Hard drives are so cheap, I don't understand why people don't just fresh install to a new drive and keep the old to migrate the data from.

Re:But why?

[Dun Malg]

I've always asked myself why the hell a mouse driver has to be 50 MEGAbytes, a keyboard driver 80 MEGAbytes, and don't even get me started on sound and video drivers...

Keyboard and mouse, you may have an argument. But sound and video drivers? Given that most audio hardware is entirely software driven and video drivers have to provide a fairly extensive DLL interface, why does this surprise you?

Re:But why?

[IRWolfie-]

I like how you call it "advanced" when I would have described it as resource hungry. (also It ran terribly on this dual-core laptop that it was sold with)

Re:But why?

[thejynxed]

The easiest way to prevent an in-place Windows upgrade operation from going badly:

Make sure the system is disconnected from the network.

Disable -all- unnecessary services, and stop them, including Networking services. Volume Shadow Copy or similar related service should be left Enabled and set to Manual. Important when doing an in-place upgrade to Vista or Win7, as they install their components from inside *images*, and not the older-style binary/compressed file duality that Windows has used at least since 3.11 for Workgroups.

Uninstall -all- drivers for hardware that is extraneous to the upgrade (Printer, Wireless Device, Network Card, 3rd-Party video card drivers such as Omega or NGO, all non-native Mouse drivers).

Uninstall -all- AV and Firewall software that isn't native to the OS.

Uninstall -all- 3rd-party software that makes kernel hooks or replaces default Windows system files with their own versions. Patched Uxtheme.dll files, extra MSS styles, etc. Font packs also.

Make sure you have your backups ready to go.

Run the upgrade install.

Go through the normal Windows system setup nonsense, check running services, restore your backed up data, programs, and device drivers. Reboot when necessary.

Reconnect to the network after your Firewall and AV software is setup again.

Install any updates it pulls down, reboot as necessary.

Run it for a few days without installing anything new. Create an image of the OS drive for future use if nothing goes funky.

Enjoy your new OS as normal.

I've done it several times before and it's worked every time. I don't know where some people have gone to school, but where I went, we were taught this in *basic* PC Repair classes. It was also taught this way in several Windows Internals and Windows Backdoor manuals. It's not a short process, no, but it has a rather high success rate.

I mean I've read the horror stories. In most that I've come across, the author either forgot to do one of the above steps (or didn't know about some of them) or got lazy and thought they could just skip all the steps they wanted and be just fine, and then reaped the dubious rewards for doing so.

It's insane that the world has gone this long with using Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix, etc and still manage to screw up everything possible on their computers. Computers that they use -!every single day!-

Re:But why?

[fluffy99]

Open problem I've had with Linux is that you must keep upgrading or risk getting too far behind. For example, Fedora only really supports upgrading from the immediately preceding version. Try upgrading FC6 to FC11 and you'll see what I mean. Stuff like syslogging stops working until you figure out what packages the installer screwed up. Support for anything more than a year old is non-existent in the constant drive to push versions forward, For distributions with a fast update cycle, that means you're forced to update as often as every 4 months. A real pain if you have unusual hardware that isn't natively supported in the kernel.

Re:But why?

[DarkVader]

Actually, I just did a Mac OS X Server 10.5 to 10.6 upgrade install last weekend.

Absolutely flawless, no problems at all. And that's the server version. The upgrade on 25 user machines went just as well.

While I wouldn't recommend a windoze "upgrade" install ever, I can say that Apple got this one right.

(And yes, I did a disk image of the server first, just in case. I'm not crazy.)

Hmm... Now that I think about it, I upgraded my Linux laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 beta last week too. Also flawless.

So really, the recommendation is never upgrade install a M$ operating system. But then, can it ever really be an upgrade when you're talking about M$? Of course not.

Re:But why?

[Mad Merlin]

While Windows 7 is stable, how you can say it's more stable than XP?

I haven't seen XP crash in years.

I have never seen Windows 7 crash. That sounds more stable than "haven't seen XP crash in years" to me. :p

I've also never seen Windows 7 crash. However, I've also never seen Windows 7.

Re:But why?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Sure Mac OS X has had it's share of upgrade bugs but in my experience (with 3 macs) I've never seen them.

Guess you haven't used your guest account.

Re:But why?

[Torodung]

Wait. What?

Microsoft seriously launched without the hardware vendors on board again?

Which vendors? 64-bit or 32-bit? I hope it's minor ones and not, say, nVidia again. The promise that "it's coming over the next 4-5 months" does not inspire confidence.

--
Toro

Re:But why?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

*11 step process of uninstalling drivers and software, upgrading operating system, reinstalling drivers and software

If you're going through all the effort of uninstalling, and reinstalling stuff, by the time you're done it'd be just as easy to backup (which you're doing anyway), wipe, install new OS, install applications, restore user data from backup. Then you reduce the chances of any cruft being carried over.

Re:But why?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

I've always asked myself why the hell a mouse driver has to be 50 MEGAbytes, a keyboard driver 80 MEGAbytes, and don't even get me started on sound and video drivers...

Ever seen the size of an HP all in one printer-scanner driver?

Re:But why?

[Blakey Rat]

XP could (and did, from my experience) crash from buggy video drivers. Vista and Windows 7 can recover from those errors without crashing. Buggy ATI drivers caused my Vista machine to blank out the video for a second, but it never blue-screened from it like XP would have.

Re:But why?

[Blakey Rat]

It has faulty hardware. That's about the only thing that can cause a bluescreen in Vista/Windows 7. If it's still under warranty, he should get it fixed/replaced... any OS he puts on it will bluescreen (or equivalent), since it has bad hardware.

Re:But why?

[AmberBlackCat]

Maybe normal people don't want to take their computer apart to install software.

Re:But why?

[Inner_Child]

While Windows 7 is stable, how you can say it's more stable than XP?

I haven't seen XP crash in years.

Neither have I.

However, that could be because i haven't used XP in years.

Smartass comments aside, from SP2 on, XP was remarkably solid, assuming you had a damn shred of common sense and didn't click on every suspicious-looking link under the sun.

Re:But why?

[bensode]

nVidia is on board. My Quadro FX1700 in my desktop and my nVidia in my Dell M4300 Precision laptop have 64bit drivers for 7. I also noticed that the FX1700 nVidia driver was released via Windows Updates recently as well.

I wasn't a big fan with Vista and I can see where 7 looks and feels like Vista. 7 for me has been particularly stable and the only performance problems I've noticed so far are with VMware Workstation 6, however, I read earlier today that VMware Workstation 7 was released this week that addresses some Windows 7 issues.

I miss my Debian install and thankfully it's on another drive waiting for me to return as soon as I get my head wrapped around Windows 7 for client support issues.

Re:But why?

[jim_v2000]

I thought Vista and Windows 7 drivers were the same thing...

Re:But why?

[Trogre]

64-bit? Isn't that some kind of Linux thing?

Seriously, it's like developers (not just driver writers) have an aversion for going anywhere near 64-bit hardware.

Re:But why?

[the_humeister]

When I tried upgrading from Debian 4 to Debian 5, some things just didn't quite work correctly (mostly X Window related issues). So then I just deleted everything on the partition except /home and did a fresh install of Debian 5. Everything just worked after that.

Re:But why?

[the_humeister]

Sounds like a hardware problem. It would probably crash with Linux on it too.

Re:But why?

[roguetrick]

My experience with Vista video driver crashes is it would crash, then come back, then crash again.

Re:But why?

[koiransuklaa]

A fast update cycle means shorter support times for specific versions. How surprising.

Really, pick the right OS for your needs, FC sounds like a really bad idea if you're looking for longevity. I'm a Debian guy myself but I picked Ubuntu 6.06 for my media server three years ago because Ubuntu had an actual schedule for support and I didn't want the continuous upgrade treadmill for that machine (I just want it to work). I intend to use it until end of life in 2011.

Re:But why?

[Nithendil]

You obviously haven't used Windows 7 much. It recovers from graphics driver and explorer.exe crashes much more gracefully. ctrl+shit+escape/ctrl+alt+del is nearly instantaneous. Actually I don't believe I've ever had to restart due to an out-of-control program, something I would have to do occasionally with XP. IMO stability is the one area 7 is worth upgrading for.

Re:But why?

[AmiMoJo]

Win7 is more stable because it can deal with crashing programs and drivers better than XP can.

Many drivers now execute in user mode as much as possible, so even a hardware failure has a fair chance of not crashing the OS. Explorer is more resilient to crashing DLL hooks. The window manager is also hardened and can recover much better than XP from a crash.

A good example would be my crappy nForce 680 based motherboard. The LAN driver is broken and causes the entire system to freeze when transferring files over a gigabit network (particularly when seeking in WMV files for some reason, but at other times too). If I use another NIC it's fine, and if I force it to 100Mb mode instead of gigabit it works okay too. The point is that it causes the entire system to freeze and a hard reset be performed, where as in Win7 just the driver crashes and is then re-started automatically and I can carry on working.

Re:But why?

[AmiMoJo]

Here is a trick to help avoid that.

Boot into a live CD OS, e.g. MiniPE or a Linux distro with NTFS write support. Create a directory on the root of the system drive called something like "old data" and move all the files and directories on the drive into it, which takes just a few seconds since the data is not being copied, only renamed. You can then install Windows as usual, electing not to format the drive. Once Windows is installed you can get all your stuff out of the folder you made.

Re:But why?

[adolf]

*shrug*

The X-Fi (an OEM model, SB0770) I have has worked just fine with 32-bit Vista, 64-bit Vista, and now 64-bit 7, including the bells and whistles.

A quick search says the going rate for this card is about $40, which is just slightly more than what I see the Xtreme Sound 7.1 selling for.

Re:But why?

[fluffy99]

A fast update cycle means shorter support times for specific versions. How surprising.

No argument there. FC seems to be gung-ho about charging forward on major versions, swapping out major subsystem packages, and barely getting one version stable before upgrading. I only use it on some workstations because its free or I need the latest bleeding edge hardware support. For critical systems that need more stability and version control, I use RHEL which requires a support contract.

I thought about switching to CentOS or Whitebox, but they are perpetually one step behind RedHat. Plus I feel like they are leeching off of RedHat's work product and drawing money away from a company that is heavily investing in Linux development.

Re:But why?

[jsoderba]

This is exactly what the Windows 7 installer does if you tell it to install to a partition with an existing Windows install. \Windows, \Users (or \Documents and Settings) and \Program Files are moved into a \Windows.OLD folder before the installation begins.

Re:But why?

[Briareos]

Try finding a soundcard on the shelf that even lists Vista-compatibility, let alone 64-bit...

Hello.

You can say about Creative's products what you want, but not supporting the latest version of Windows upon release isn't one of the things that happen with them...

np: Mr. Scruff - Eardrops (Keep It Unreal (Disc 2))

Re:But why?

[thejynxed]

Not everyone gets a proper install disc/key combo though.

Remember that recent thing where if you bought Vista-installed systems you qualified for that free Win7 upgrade? Well guess what? Quite a few people were given Win7 -upgrade- discs and keys, not Retail or OEM install discs and keys.

My wife and my brother did this, and my wife got a Win7 upgrade disc for her Dell laptop and my brother got an upgrade disc for his HP laptop.

Have fun wiping and installing from that without having first to reinstall Vista.

Re:But why?

[dotgain]

I have never seen Windows 7 crash. That sounds more stable than "haven't seen XP crash in years" to me. :p

It shouldn't. Windows 7 has barely been out a week.

Re:But why?

[dotgain]

Or has has used his guest account, and was one of the 99% of users not affected.

Re:But why?

[dotgain]

Hey, give them credit - I mean, you also get a tray app that tells you when to drop another hundred on ink cartridges, and slows down your login giving you time to pop down the shop and get some. That alone makes it worth the DVD-sized download!

Re:But why?

[MtViewGuy]

Question: how much RAM came with your computer? If you had less than 3 GB of RAM, Windows Vista would have run poorly even in 32-bit mode. On my HP Pavilion a6400f, since it has 3 GB of RAM, it runs well even with the Aero Glass theme running.

Windows 7, on the other hand, has much more code optimization, so even with 2 GB of RAM the system runs reasonably fast in 32-bit mode with the full Aero Glass interface running. Your "older" machine with 2 GB of RAM--provided your graphics car supports DirectX 9.0--should be able to run Windows 7 with no problems.

Re:But why?

[Civil_Disobedient]

normal people don't want to take their computer apart to install software.

It's four screws and a cable.

It's not like you're de-soldering capacitors and trying to line up surface-mount components with a magnifying lens.

Normal people "take apart" their cars all the time. You know... lift the hood, check the oil. CRAZY stuff.

Re:But why?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Not everyone gets a proper install disc/key combo though.

Remember that recent thing where if you bought Vista-installed systems you qualified for that free Win7 upgrade? Well guess what? Quite a few people were given Win7 -upgrade- discs and keys, not Retail or OEM install discs and keys.

My wife and my brother did this, and my wife got a Win7 upgrade disc for her Dell laptop and my brother got an upgrade disc for his HP laptop.

Have fun wiping and installing from that without having first to reinstall Vista.

Okay. Install, don't enter product key during install. After install insert product key and activate as usual. This site has a few other suggestions

http://tinyurl.com/yhyvy2f

You can also backup your registration token for the machine and then if you do a clean install on the same machine, restore the token.

Smells like FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

While no initial release is perfect (and nor is any currently deployed system), this seems like FUD to me. Win7 is small enough of a difference from Vista (and that's a good thing) that there's relatively few surprises switching to it. There's no major driver model change and real world app compatibility testing has been in progress for almost a year now.

Re:Smells like FUD...

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

A friend of mine wants to buy her very first PC.
She wants it to be running Windows (+ Word, Excel) because that is what she uses at work. I am giving her tech support to try and make sure she gets what she wants - questioning if that is really what she wants because it will cost xxx more.
I assume that they are running XP at work (she does not know), the place I am pointing her at offers XP for 100 more than (up until a week ago) Vista.
Of course I am pushing her to get the PC with Win 7. XP's security model (default user has Admin rights) would be a disaster for her and XP is approaching end-of-life anyway, all that for $150 more. No way am I going to point her at Vista. A teenage relative of hers has Vista and has made it clear what she thinks of it.

The situation is unusual - how many adults of her age have never owned a computer? - but having finally ruled Mac OS out there is no reasonable alternative.

I have 3 machines here which run XP (Laptop + 1 for redundancy) and will not be upgrading, 2 of them normally dual-boot into Linux anyway and I have no need for an OS which
- costs quite a bit more
- requires a fresh install
- imposes higher requirements on the hardware than XP

My laptop claims to be 'Ready for Vista' (it predates Vista by a few weeks) so hw requirements should be moot there. I even have access to one cheap upgrade license but I really cannot be bothered reinstalling everything from scratch - even though I could then get used to the way things are going to go.

They say this every time...

[masdog]

I hear this every time a new version of Windows comes out. While it may be good policy for businesses to buy time to test the OS, develop training materials, and fix any application problems, it isn't as big of a deal for consumers, and articles like this come off as anti-Microsoft FUD.

There is always risk in upgrading to a new operating system, especially if you don't have much experience with it. That shouldn't stop you from waiting for the service pack.

Re:They say this every time...

[Dunbal]

and articles like this come off as anti-Microsoft FUD.

      Yes because there was NOTHING WRONG with Vista or Windows Me, for that matter.

There is always risk in upgrading to a new operating system

      Only because you have been indoctrinated to believe that. There doesn't have to be. But because you "sign" all your rights away when you break the seal on the package, Microsoft doesn't give a shit. In fact, it helps create work for their support department.

Re:They say this every time...

[Dartz-IRL]

Yeah, It's the common thing. Of course, if everybody waited until something had been proved to be safe/possible, before going ahead and doing it, why would anyone ever do anything? We'd still be living in caves, using MS-DOS.

Re:They say this every time...

[Dudeman_Jones]

Actually, a quick glance through the article itself has raised a few flags personally. For example the security company chides microsoft's pricing of the new OS, calling it an unnecessary expense right now.

It seems innocuous, but I start to wave a big red flag as soon as a security adviser starts tacking on extraneous bits of subjective information to what should be an objective report.

Besides, who the hell is Rescuecom, and why are they receiving calls about windows 7 beta users?

Re:They say this every time...

[GigaplexNZ]

The main reason support firms recommend holding off is because they need time to play with it themselves before they are prepared to commit to supporting it. Apparently they don't follow Microsofts advice to start preparing early by using the betas and release candidates.

I work for a software development company...

[Anonymous Coward]

and we have seen a plethora of issues with people who have upgraded to Win 7. For example:

1.) SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 both have known compatibility issues. SQL 2005 will ALWAYS fail an upgrade to SP3 under Win 7 without a reg hack.
2.) We've had a ton of issues with other things like: Drive mappings, printer compatibility issues, memory leaks from Win 7 processes, just to name a few.

I agree with the FA to the point that if you have an intelligent IT dept who has the time and resources to debug and work these issues AND have a need or value added motivation to upgrade to Win 7 then you should do so, otherwise you should just let the "dust" settle and then migrate.

Re:I work for a software development company...

[GuruBuckaroo]

1.) SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 both have known compatibility issues. SQL 2005 will ALWAYS fail an upgrade to SP3 under Win 7 without a reg hack.

I have been able to install SP3 for SQL 2005 on exactly one (of 5) Windows 2003/2003R2 servers. That one success was a clean, fresh install that had nothing else on it. Every other system STILL fails to install SP3, after the 3rd (or 4th?) release of SP3. I don't blame that on the OS, I blame it on the patch. Or maybe on SQL 2005 itself, I don't know. But it isn't specific to Win7, at any rate.

Re:I work for a software development company...

[Anonymous Coward]

99 times out of 100 it's a borked up MSXML 6 patch that breaks SQL Server 2005.
Neither team will take ownership. Easiest thing to do is manually install MSXML 6 SP1 before attempting to install SQL 2005 and SQL 2005 will see that a newer version of MSXML 6 than it wants to install is already in place and will skip trying to install the version is has.

It works fine for techies

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I upgraded Vista SP2 Business to W7 Ultimate and it worked great. There are two things that I would caution on though. My printer driver doesn't work well anymore because HP hasn't upgraded their printer drivers and my Motherboard drivers had to be refreshed as I was having some problems with the chips that drive the ethernet ports. Printer and motherboard drivers are not a Windows 7 flaw though, but are dependencies. By the way, HP isn't planing to upgrade their printer drivers until Jan '10. What's up with that ?

Waiting for SP1 isn't a bad idea if you are not a techie. For those of us who are techies, bring it. W7 works great !!!! Unless I have to print something, which I still can, but I can't get any advanced functionality like duplex printing.

Re:It works fine for techies

[bensode]

Try using the HP LJ2300 driver built into 7. Most of the HP printers share the same basic print driver code and the 2300 is also a duplexing printer. Ever since Windows 2000, I've found the HP LJ4 driver a great generic printer driver for just about any printer I couldn't find modern drivers. Shame it's disapeared since Vista.

C'mon

[mzeb]

There's always one. There are enough information providers on the net that you can always find one saying what you want to write an article about. Sorry, smells like FUD.

Don't buy 1.0 of anything

[cryfreedomlove]

Purchasing version 1.0 of anything is always an act of vanity rather than practicality.

Examples include:

Cars (Tesla?)
Phones, including Droid
Operating Systems
Girl friends
etc, etc.

Re:Don't buy 1.0 of anything

[rantingkitten]

You purchase your girlfriends?

Re:Don't buy 1.0 of anything

[Dunbal]

You purchase your girlfriends?

      I suspect it's more like renting by the quarter hour...

Re:Don't buy 1.0 of anything

[an unsound mind]

And all of those it doesn't apply to.

I wonder if that was intentional.

Time Tested OS?

[SierraPete94]

They recommend "people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle". Would that be BSD or DOS 6?

Re:Time Tested OS?

[Dunbal]

I see no reason to upgrade from VAX/VMS...

Re:Time Tested OS?

[maxume]

You are going to positively shocked when you take a look at the hardware that is available for $1,000 today.

Re:Time Tested OS?

[Dunbal]

LOL I heard some guy bragging that he bought a chip with 2 GB of memory on it. I laughed so hard. Obviously the guy is lying, I mean, we had to build a whole new wing when we added 128k to the system...

Re:Time Tested OS?

[MichaelSmith]

I see no reason to upgrade from VAX/VMS...

How about upgrading VMS?

Re:Time Tested OS?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

I see no reason to upgrade from VAX/VMS...

How about upgrading VMS?

He should, it does really well on the Alpha.

Which happens to be a 64bit chip. That was introduced in 1992.

Of course VMS also convinced me to learn UNIX.

Re:Time Tested OS?

[MichaelSmith]

You are going to positively shocked when you take a look at the hardware that is available for $1,000 today.

Hell I can get old vaxen and alphas for free. The only problem is the space they take up.

Re:Time Tested OS?

[maxume]

Would it be worth feeding them electricity?

Re:Time Tested OS?

[MichaelSmith]

In winter, probably.

April Fools!

[DoninIN]

Right? I mean this isn't a real story is it? Surely the latest most bloated version of windows isn't buggy and unreliable? Surely even if it was the cats ass it wouldn't be the case that a bunch of morons tossed the disk in and clicked install without backing anything up, and their box was either inadequate oddly configured has defective hardware, three tons of viruses and trojans, nevermind the terminal stupidity of the people who are trying to do the upgrade. This is unbelievable.

Too Late

[Jesterace]

Too late I'm already running 7 Ultimate x64 :/

ok

[silentace]

"risk of losing data during an upgrade to tough economic times" So wait for SP1 because you're technically unsavvy? or because you don't have enough money to live the way you want?

Sure! I bet SP1 will definitely fix both of those problems. Seriously though, WTF issues does SP1 need to fix? I have been using RC 7100 for over 4 months now with little to absolutely no problems... what needs fixing?

Re:ok

[wolverine1999]

Hmmm.. my only issue with Windows 7 is failure to hibernate. I'm sure that should be fixed soon..

Of course

[Sycraft-fu]

But then you should have that anyhow. If you data matters, it needs to be backed up. How much it matters depends on how well you back it up. Reinstalls aren't the time to make backups, every single day is the time to make backups.

Re:Of course

[maxume]

Besides, disks are cheap, just install to a brand new one. Or at least make a duplicate and install the upgrade onto that.

Wow captain obvious....

[Jetrel]

I wonder how much they get paid to release that? Everyone knows to wait for SP1 in businesses.

Some things change...

[dark_requiem]

I'll be the first to admit that, in the past, this is exactly the recommendation I follow. However, I've used the beta, the RC, and I'm typing this on RTM, with an official install disk and license sitting next to me waiting until I have time to reinstall everything. Win7 has been rock-solid stable for me (aside from Creative's shite XFi drivers) through every version I've tried. If you are aware of any incompatible software that you need to run, then by all means wait (or run a VM), but otherwise, I have yet to see any reason to wait for a service pack on this one. If someone could provide some concrete reasons to wait, I'd take this article seriously, but otherwise, FUD.

As to upgrading, when has it ever been a good idea to perform a Windows upgrade installation? If you've been running any old version of Windows for 6 months or more, a fresh install is probably indicated anyway (although, I have been running RC on my home system since the day it came out, and I haven't had any Windows Rot yet, still runs as well as when I installed it). Backup your data, wipe the drive, and start from scratch. Bit of a pain in the ass, but that's pretty much a fact of life with Windows.

Re:Some things change...

[Jonah Hex]

^ This + I've even gotten Win7 running on several older machines and it runs better than XP. I'm loving it cranked on my newer main machine. As a die hard XP holdout, I am making the switch on all my machines and recommending clean installs to my family and friends. The wife gets Win7 this weekend as a clean install on a new drive.

So you disagree -- with Microsoft?

[whoever57]

But then seriously, how is this guy's story "news for nerds" any more than my anecdote?

Because the is a Knowledge Base article (KB975253) about this problem?

I'm smarter than Microsoft

[Turbo_Button]

"has put some PCs into an endless reboot loop when their owners tried to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft has not yet come up with a solution that works for all the users who have reported the problem,"

Download and boot a linux live cd, mount your NTFS partitions, copy all your data, install linux or reinstall windows

Re:I'm smarter than Microsoft

[Anarchduke]

As a responsible IT department, there shouldn't be any local document storage except on laptops. For all desktops, just reimage them with windows 7, then install your apps that have been previously tested to verify they all work in windows 7, be it in normal or compatibility mode. Then the domain login will point your end users to their network based storage locations. If a particular application requires local storage of some sort, an automated script should be able to backup that data before reimaging the drive.

For your laptop users, you run an automated backup script which copies all local data from the locations stated in your data management policies, reimage the drive, then restore the data using a restoration script that accounts for the switch from windows xp to vista.

Of course we are going to wait for sp1, but why are we going to spend all that extra time running an upgrade when i can prepare a disk image based on the limited number of hardware profiles, and then fresh install on those few machines that don't match our fairly well documented hardware profiles.

Really?

[solid_liq]

Gee, THANKS Captain Obvious! I don't know what we'd do without you!

Re:Really?

[mister_playboy]

Or if you're enough of a geek, rock out with your cock out and play with windows 7.

FTFY... /. isn't GameFAGs, you know.

Works okay for me.

[RatBastard]

The only problems I've had, and I only use my Windows box for games and keep my data on a server anyway, are
1: Quake 2 and derivatives do not run
2: My Turtle Beach surround sound USB headphones make Windows 7 bluescreen.
Otherwise everything I've tried on it works as well as it did under XP. I'm not happy with the new interface, but I remember not liking Windows XP when it first came out.

Re:Works okay for me.

[TheRealMindChild]

Your post seems most appropriate to add the few "differences" I have come across:

1) Windows 7 seems to play "old" games that no hacking in the world could get to work on anything but windows of its era on hardware of its era (Phantasmagoria2, TLC). Phantasmagoria 2 would just GPF if it wasn't on Windows 9x and hardware of the time (VMs would GPF too). TLC was an interactive movie that REQUIRED a dedicated hardware MPEG decoder card. I don't know what it does, but every Windows OS previous, it would flat out refuse to work. These are only a couple of examples of games running better that I have experienced.
2)Older DirectX games have issues. Age of Empires II has a corrupted pallet when playing in Windows 7 (I found killing explorer fixes this for some reason). Also, if you have a multi-monitor setup, then old DirectX games won't change the resolution of the monitor (so if you are playing Diablo II at 800x600, instead of setting the monitor resolution to 800x600, you get the game in an 800x600 box with a black border filling in the rest of the current resolution).

Re:Works okay for me.

[Johnno74]

Wow, thats really shitty advice. What they are saying is "our drivers aren't really thread-safe". Anyone with a dual core machine would have the same issue. Hopefully that is fixed by now, as dual-core machines are more common than not.

And "IRQL Not less or equal" is a generic message that basically means that the driver tried to do something that it isn't allowed. If it was a normal user-mode application you'd get "this application has encountered a problem and will be closed" but in a driver you get a bluescreen.

And with his quake 2 problem, I'd guess he isn't using drivers with OpenGL support.

Re:Works okay for me.

[petermgreen]

And "IRQL Not less or equal" is a generic message that basically means that the driver tried to do something that it isn't allowed
What it actually means is that the driver tried to do something while at two high an IRQL. That something may be trying to take the wrong sort of lock or trying to access memory that is paged out among other things.

There isn't really any comparable error in usermode because usermode doesn't have any concept comparable to IRQL.

Re:Works okay for me.

[FlyHelicopters]

This is why I keep an old P4 system with Win98SE on it and a SoundBlaster Live 24 card in it...

Too many old games just don't work right on the NT line of Windows. One of my favories is Star Trek: Armada (the first one). It never did run right on Windows XP, regardless of the tricks I tried.

It works perfectly on my old Dell 8200 with Win98SE and the SoundBlaster card (the onboard audio sucks in that old computer, it cracks and pops).

I do have a 386 in the closet as well, for really old Dos stuff, but to be honest, it hasn't been turned on in a few years, and probably won't get turned on again. Why keep it? *shrug* Why throw it out?

Re:Works okay for me.

[Lord Kano]

I upgraded my laptop to XP when I found that Vista didn't run one of the games that's important to me.

LK

Re:Works okay for me.

[ildon]

Quake 2 and derivatives do not run

Works for me in XP SP2 compatibility mode.

Re:Works okay for me.

[ildon]

Upon further investigation, it looks like Nvidia may be the one who broke Quake 2 for you, rather than Win7. Try the fix here.

Re:Works okay for me.

[dotgain]

You sir, just won that pissing contest. The only person who could take it away from you now would need to post the portion of Windows source code that emits the error.

Endure Vista longer

[Tanman]

... .. ..... ..

NOT!

Windows 7 is nice. I like. Upgrade time.

Wireless Connections

[NoYob]

Maybe it's my Lenovo, but when it comes to wireless connections, If I try to connect via the "Access Connections" (the tray icon with the vertical bars) then go through the "Find Wan" push button, the "Connect" button stays grayed out even if the network is available. To connect with Vista, I have to go through the regular network program (the tray icon with the two monitors with the little world icons) to connect. I just think it's definitely a shortcoming in the UI design at least to have these two different approaches for connections and yet, only one works.

Excuse my old fashioned way of calling UI elements since I haven't designed or written a UI since my win98 and OS/2 days.

Re:Wireless Connections

[bemymonkey]

Actually, I've found that these problems are usually just caused by Lenovo's crappy programming. Access Connections is a horrible utility that only works half the time :(

Try MWConn. :)

stability?

[Tumbleweed]

Look, unless you have an actual piece of hardware that is just flat-out incompatible, I don't think 'stability' is a reason to refuse to upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7. I used the beta for months on a laptop, and the only problems I had were waking up from sleep mode and from the screensaver kicking in. Once I swapped the beta out for the RC, I've had no problems at all except the fingerprint reader occasionally doesn't work, forcing me to type in the password to login. No biggie. For me, even the RC of Win7 has been more stable than XP SP3. YMMV, of course.

If you haven't upgraded the IE6 on your older Windows machine, stability is definitely not something you're worried about, so go for it.

Re:stability?

[Barny]

I agree to a point, for the home user, on a new (or 6mth old) pc, go for it.

For a business, hold off till SP1 or SP2.

One pc with interesting problems with a new OS can be sorted, if you have a few thousand PCs and you start getting interesting problems, your manager asks why you are spending money to make problems ;)

upgrade?

[ballyhoo]

So, given that upgrades from windows 2.0 to windows 3.0 were never supported, windows 3.1 to windows 95 didn't work at all, windows 95 to windows 98 mostly didn't work; windows 98 to XP was a fail city and XP to vista was disasterous, why on earth does anyone expect windows vista to windows 7 to have any chance of working?

Seriously, what person in their right mind would even _attempt_ an upgrade?

Re:upgrade?

[WMD_88]

I've done both 3.1 to 95 and 98 to XP, and both worked fine. There were missing drivers, but all I had to do was install them. Done. Oh yeah, and at work, I recently did XP to Vista to 7, and the system works fine. The Windows upgrade process has certainly gotten better. (Oh yeah, I also did 2000 to XP, which you didn't mention, for my brother, and that also worked fine. But those two were very similar anyway.)

Same old Vista, different name.

[miffo.swe]

Windows 7 is just a servicepack and some graphical changes to Windows Vista. Its still horribly incompatible with older applications, has very bad support for older hardware like printers and scanners and are a real resource pig. Frankly, Vista/Windows 7 still sucks just as bad despite the name change.

If you have a working computer at home with XP there arent any reason whatsoever to install Windows 7. The benefits just doesnt exist.

Buying a new computer and getting Windows 7 is something else but to get rid of a functioning XP install in return for a world of pain? Im not even sure Vista users will get that much out of installing Windows 7 unless the install is 100% flawless (wich it looks like it never is).

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[GuruBuckaroo]

Windows 7 is just a servicepack and some graphical changes to Windows Vista. Its still horribly incompatible with older applications, has very bad support for older hardware like printers and scanners and are a real resource pig. Frankly, Vista/Windows 7 still sucks just as bad despite the name change.

I call bullshit on this post. Maybe it's a service pack, maybe not - but the incompatibility scare is complete baloney. I've tested Win7 extensively with some of our oldest apps, and have yet to encounter a single issue (one exception: some webpages need "compatibility mode" in IE8, but that's not the OS). Win7 finally makes ReadyBoost and the new caching algorithm (Hypercache? I forget the name) really shine, and work as they were intended.

If you have a working computer at home with XP there arent any reason whatsoever to install Windows 7. The benefits just doesnt exist.

I couldn't agree less. I'm extraordinarily happy with how Win7 is performing on my systems, both at home and at work. I think anyone who isn't seeing benefits is either not looking for them, actively avoiding them, or running an underpowered system anyway.

I will say this - if you're running it with less than 2gb of memory, you might have issues. But frankly, I wouldn't run XP on a machine with less than 1gb, and with the improvements seen with 7, I think an additional gig of memory is a small price to pay.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[Barny]

Older versions of quicken software, older versions of MYOB, anything that interfaces with a gameport and I can't ignore the $15,000 laser cutter software I was trying to install on it the other month that couldn't see its parallel dongle (because there were no vista drivers for the dongle) and wouldn't run.

In short, if your current business PC is doing its job, don't fuck with it, just leave it.

If you need to upgrade to 7, the PC and the OS cost may be the cheapest part of your upgrade ;)

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[jim_v2000]

"Its still horribly incompatible with older applications"

Like what? I'm genuinely curious because I can't think of any programs that I haven't been able to run.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[jim_v2000]

This is going to sound crazy, but did you try the XP driver? I installed an older ATI card on a machine with Vista awhile back and used the XP driver because I couldn't find a Vista one and somehow it worked. Odd, but cool.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[miffo.swe]

"They all use XP SP3."

Good point, really good. Compared to XP SP2 the XP SP3 is a real resource hog. On most machines at work the performance drop was pretty big.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[miffo.swe]

Living a nice life under that rock? You ofcourse totally missed that Microsoft just happens to ship a whole virtualized XP enviroment for compability? They complain about Google making the attack vector of IE bigger by making a plugin to render pages with Chrome. Then Microsoft goes out and ship an OS with another OS ontop thats not even supported or fixed for serious security issues anymore...

Windows 7 is horribly incompatible, that XP thing they toss along it for compability isnt.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[miffo.swe]

Windows 7 sucks just as bad as Vista did. Nothing has really changed. I still have my documentation from when i did testing for Vista and when i do the same tests with Windows 7 the same things makes and upgrade not worth the troubles.

I respect you being satisfied with Windows 7 but to me, its still an incredibly sucky product that brings no apparent benefits compared to XP. The applications is whats importand and Windows 7/Vista is like an ADHD kid jumping all over screaming and shouting for attention and breaking stuff while im trying to get work done.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[marciot]

Older versions of quicken software, older versions of MYOB

Your business software isn't old enough to be compatible. I just ran VisiCalc for DOS (copyright 1979) and it ran fine under Windows 7.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[jim_v2000]

Thanks for not answering my question and going off on a tangential rant.

I have tons of apps installed that I use on a regular basis, and they're many of the same ones that I used in XP. So when I hear someone say that Windows 7 is "horribly incompatible" and my experience has been that it IS compatible, I feel like I need some examples that I can test to see for myself.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[xtracto]

Its [sic] still horribly incompatible with older applications,

I wonder why does people moan about this lack of compatibility when all the alternative Operating Systems (BSD, OSX, Linux), have the same or worst application compatibility. Try installing anything older than 5 years and you will see.

Re:Same old Vista, different name.

[Barny]

None available, there are win98 drivers for it, they are a little shaky under 98se, but the first one runs em fine...

That particular system ended up as a VM running under vista.

Backup your data

[Mistakill]

I set up dual boot on my PC the other week on a separate partition on a separate HDD (i have Vista 64 installed already, installed Windows 9 Professional)... and the partition decided to corrupt itself after 4 days (probably would have happened with any other OS, bad luck is bad luck).

I formatted the partition and using True Image, i restored the partition to the way it was after the clean install (AV/Office/FF/handful of favourite progs installed). This took all of 30 or so minutes... and it's running fine... I'd suggest alot of people aren't backing up data, and crying foul when something fails during an install, upgrade, or the likes...

Remember, if its important, back it up... :)

Re:Backup your data

[Mistakill]

I made a typo... meant to say Windows 7 Professional... damned customers interrupting me :)

Re:Backup your data

[maxume]

Punch em in the wallet!

In related news...

[pridkett]

Apparently upgrading your computer can cause all sorts of strange problems that the OS developer couldn't have anticipated. Why just last night my Ubuntu box ate itself when I upgraded to Karmic. Oh wait, this is supposed to be an attempt at a Windows bashing story circa 1998. Okay, move along with the reality distortion field...

Seriously, this passes for news? One support firm says to wait until Windows 7 SP1? The same firm will probably say wait for Windows 7 SP2 once SP1 comes out. In fact, they'll probably caution people against Windows 7 SP1 because of the upgrade process (remember XP SP2 and SP3?). Also, have folks actually looked at this support firm that most people have never heard of? Their web page (http://www.rescuecom.com/) doesn't inspire the greatest confidence. Love the stock photos and the fact they say they'll hook me up with anything.

The fact is Windows 7 is one of the best operating systems from Microsoft ever*. It's solid, it works, it's fast, it's pretty, it has the best multimedia support of any OS, and like it or not, it's going to be the new standard. However, a legacy of bad decisions by partner companies, manufacturers, and even Microsoft has left existing systems with problems -- drivers with memory leaks, crapware, and the occasional security hole. Moving your grandma to Linux because Windows 7 had problems installing on her crapware loaded PC isn't the solution, nor is moving her to a Mac, plan9, haiku, inferno, *bsd, OS/2 warp, xenix, dr-dos, vms, minix, or system z.

Although, if you migrate your grandma to System Z please provide a writeup of how you managed to do it. I've been trying to get my grandma to understand the z/vm hypervisor for years...

* If it helps out, feel free to insert the phrase "Imma let you finish, but..." prior to this sentence

Re:In related news...

[mgblst]

Ok, so Windows 7 is no better at upgrading than Linux, is that something you really want to brag about? Congratulations, a multi-billion dollar company can't get upgrading right, compared to an open source application, written for technical users.

Pleased with Windows 7

[QX-Mat]

I'm pleased with Windows 7... So in order the counter the FUD i'll explain. Also, don't read this to merely complain I'm spewing crap: I know I am.

I'm an 'old school' zipslack 3.4 user. I not-so-recently installed ubuntu on an away-from-home PC that sits at my parents, and admin a decrepit centos-4 virtual machine. I've come a long way on RH machines.

I'd like to think I know what I talk about when I talk about the desktop: I've tried QNX ("things work"), BeOS (50Mb of "everything works all at once, weee"), and various Linux GDMs - fvwm95 being "good enough" for me. I'm a part-time KDE fanboy too. I'm a Vista-hater, although I do put up with it on my laptop because I have to (came pre-installed/don't want a Linux laptop)

Prior to Windows 7 I ran XP64. I didn't upgrade to XP32 until after Win 98 was largely depreciated and support began to stop (for the first time), as Win 98 was "perfect" for me (so was Communicator 4.72, but that's another story). SP2 was out shortly after I upgraded to XP, so I didn't feel any of the pain people consistently remind me XP had. I upgraded to x64 a few months after it came out, (again missing pre XP SP1 problems since XP64 is Win 2003 + SP1) even though I couldn't use any wireless adaptors, I praised the Win 2003 'core' stability.

So... with all that: I like Windows 7... *BUT* I have a brand new 4-core, 6Gb, dual ATI beast to enjoy it with. My initial reason for buying it outright on preorder (£140!), and not going the student edition upgrade route (£38) was that I wanted the "Pro" edition for gaming, and another licence not an upgrade in situ copy (I've plenty of working license via my MSDNAA membership, but this year I don't have access to Windows because I've switched away from the Computing dept).

I also wanted to experience a newer OS that had multiple cores in mind. As an LWN reader and Con Kolivas fanboy, I knew I wasn't ready to move to a full Linux desktop: I don't want to configure my graphics card to work, and the new open source ATI drivers won't power my games like they do under Windows (I spent money on my graphics card, and I want to make use of it!).

I usually theme to Windows classic without exception, and did the same with Windows 7 until I decided I wanted a transparent taskbar - so although I've small icons, quick launch and zoomed out on my desktop for smaller icons (CTRL-mouse wheel everyone), I'm happy with the Windows 7 UK theme. The new Win-key short-cuts are pretty useful!

It's the little things I'm pleased with. The console defrag has a parallel option, and works great out of the box - I can defrag a HD and watch videos without *any* stuttering. The native h.264 codecs work well (although I haven't tested them much they were the 3rd thing I upgraded b/c of a TV Versity transcoding limitation - ie: upgraded to recent codecs/and TVV needs to be a "user" service etc).

I'm pleasantly surprised with the instantly available/stripped down Media Player: under Windows 7 it's x2 as fast to start as Media Player Classic - the only annoyance I have with it is how small the track bar is, and that I can't use space to pause or my mouse wheel for volume.

oooh time to go to the pub!

Don't wait.

[GuruBuckaroo]

While I hate "Me too" posts as much as the next guy, I have to agree that this article is FUD for the management types. I installed 7 RTM as soon as it was available from TechNet, and haven't had problem one yet.

Well, I have one problem - it doesn't seem to connect to Windows 2000 Server shares, and it doesn't like my (very outdated) Samba network. Apparently it requires Samba 3.3 or higher. However, that aside, I have to say my existing PCs (original P4 3ghz, 3gb or 4gb memory) are noticeably snappier than they were with XP - granted, some of that may have been the accumulation of crud that happens with any windows installation. Clean installs are always speed-boosters.

Speaking of which - yeah, don't bother with an upgrade. With as cheap as USB drives (even USB HDs, not just flash) are these days, you have no real excuse for not doing a clean install. I'll be deploying Windows 7 starting in April to the 500+ workstations at my company, and every install will be a wipe & reinstall using Acronis TrueImage with a nice sysprep'ed image. All of the testing I've done so far has made me a happy camper and Win7 evangelist.

Prior releases... yeah, waiting for SP1 was always a good idea. Hell, we waited for XP SP2 before deploying it. I really think they've finally gotten this thing right.

But of course, I could be wrong.

Re:Don't wait.

[Corporate Troll]

I have to say my existing PCs (original P4 3ghz, 3gb or 4gb memory) are noticeably snappier than they were with XP - granted, some of that may have been the accumulation of crud that happens with any windows installation. Clean installs are always speed-boosters.

A correctly installed and administrated XP machine doesn't accumulate crap. Sure, it implies Admin/User separation and careful application selection.... But, with correct care an XP installation does not deteriorate. You just need a good Admin... Which pretty much nobody has.

Re:Don't wait.

[lamebrane]

I love installing the most recent versions of any OS, but really don't like going through the incredible gyrations to re-install the 300-400 apps that I use. I run several W2K3 servers and multiple XP desktops. There isn't an upgrade path that I know of that will keep my current installed apps running smoothly. Isn't this the real problem with MS Windows? There are so many hooks into the OS by the installed apps that once you decide to upgrade the OS most of the apps (Registry based) stop working. Of course, I have few problems with the open-source software that installs nicely in any folder you want - Windows upgrades be damned.

Re:Don't wait.

[Nimey]

Umm, I've had only one Win7 computer unable to connect to my Debian Lenny fileserver, which runs Samba 3.2.5. Said server is joined to our Server '03 R2 Active Directory. Last time I had that sort of problem was when I was still on Debian 4.0 and Vista SP1 came out, which broke 4.0's copy of Samba (something in the early-mid 3.0 series, IIRC). Upgrading to debian-testing solved it, as much as I disliked not using debian-stable on a server.

Oddly enough, the same guy's Mac can't connect either (even with my credentials), but that's also the only one.

Re:Don't wait.

[weicco]

No, no. Article is right to the point. I'm still running Linux from year 2001 and waiting for all the bugs to be fixed.

No no, we can't do that

[roc97007]

If Windows 7 doesn't get a huge initial fanbase, who would do quality testing?

I've only tested Win7 out on a handful of machines

[steppin_razor_LA]

RC and RTM and haven't played with the final release yet, but I have to say I've been very happy with the results. My experiences with Vista (both in beta/RC as well as final production release) was very different. My "favorite" vista experience was showing up to work one day and finding my system jacked so hard from the windows updates the night before that it could not longer boot + using the system restore points didn't help. I've had nothing but terrible experiences with any Vista system I've used for a chunk of time. So far I've had nothing but good experiences on my Win7 testbeds (ASUS EEEPC w/ 2GB of RAM and a Core i5 desktop w/ 4GB). We've kept our ~200 desktops running XP. Time to start thinking about Win7 deployments...

Oh wait

[lymond01]

I'm a middling "security" company writing about a product
i haven't tested but somehow, somehow, I've made the front page of Slashdot. If it wasn't open source I'd be wondering who to make the Check out to.

Seriously.

Re:Help me out here...

[GuruBuckaroo]

You missed Windows 2000, which is actually where they merged the NT kernel.

Re:Help me out here...

[GuruBuckaroo]

OK, sorry, missed the point. Let me see if I can clear this up.

The "7" in Windows 7 refers to "workstation" systems. 2003 was never available as a "client" version, just server.

1 - Windows 1.x

2 - Windows 2.x

3 - Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11

4 - Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME

5 - Windows 2000, Windows XP

6 - Windows Vista

7 - Windows 7

(and Curse You, Slashdot, for not supporting <ol> properly)

Does that clear things up? I think those were the official release numbers associated with the various product names.

I don't get this attitude.

[pclminion]

If everybody followed this advice, there would be nobody using Windows 7, and therefore nobody would be uncovering issues, and therefore no service pack would be released. The quickest way to find and fix problems is for everybody to use the thing and report what's broken.

Re:I don't get this attitude.

[theskipper]

Because it's not Ubuntu, it's an off-the-shelf commercial operating system and should be expected to work out of the box. Why would anyone be expected to serve as unpaid beta testers for a product that they bought?

Microsoft should be held to the same quality standards as any other manufacturer. Would you say the same thing about "working the bugs out" of a Ford vehicle?

Re:I don't get this attitude.

[pclminion]

Because it's not Ubuntu, it's an off-the-shelf commercial operating system and should be expected to work out of the box. Why would anyone be expected to serve as unpaid beta testers for a product that they bought?

Why would anybody expect software, commercially produced or not, to function flawlessly on billions of systems without the slightest defect? Yes, MS should be held to quality standards as much as any other company. I don't know what companies you do business with, but I don't know any who produce perfect products.

Re:Help me out here...

[mister_playboy]

If want to understand the Windows family, use this chart.

Re:Help me out here...

[AaronW]

Also missing is Windows NT 3.1, 3.5 and 3.51

Re:Help me out here...

[leathered]

Windows 7 is the 7th release of Windows NT

NT 3.5 (+3.51)
NT 4
NT 5 (Win2k)
NT 5.1 (XP)
NT 5.2 (2003 and XP x64)
NT 6 (Vista)
NT 7 (Win 7)

time-tested OS

[FudRucker]

that would be Slackware. and i am sticking to it.

Re:Help me out here...

[AJWM]

Windows 95, 98 and ME were, respectively, 4.0 (not to be confused with NT 4.0), 4.1 and 4.9.

Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003 were based on NT and numbered NT 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2.

Windows Vista was NT 6.0. Windows 7, though, is apparently NT 6.1, not 7.0 as the name suggests.

In other words, the Windows version names are decided by Microsoft's marketing department and have almost nothing to do with any real version numbering. I'm just waiting for a couple of versions down the road where they try naming the release after Windows 9 as either "X Windows" or "Windows/X".

Do we see this FUD in other arguments?

[HockeyPuck]

How often do we see the respective trade rags publish this stuff? ...wait for solaris 10 SR1 ...wait for AIX 6.3 ML 0001 ...wait for HPUX 11.11.11.i.1 ...wait for OS/400 ... z/OS ...

Re:Ubuntu 9.10

[Interoperable]

I'm eagerly awaiting the openSuse 11.2 release in 12 days myself. Linux releases aren't really much of an event though. They happen every 6 months (maybe a year) and don't really do much other than provide stability as compared to rolling releases.

wait, wait, wait.....

[ushere]

and wait some more.....

one would think this company should have waited a little longer before telling it's readers to wait.

as they say elsewhere - buried

Re:Help me out here...

[Zugok]

What, no-one loves 3.51 and NT4.0?

Hell, I've gone back to Vista

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean I kept running into this issue in Win 7 where the Windows Firewall just blocks the internet after installing other apps. (Yes, this means all of a sudden IE 8 doesn't work and I get an error about not being able to get to the internet.) Unfortunately the error message doesn't actually tell you what's stopping you from getting to the internet. (Which would have been helpful. The trouble shooting doesn't either.) The only way to find out was to ask around and then play around with the Win 7 install and see that yes if you shut off the firewall all of a sudden it works. Fortunately I had installed 7 on a new drive so I just switched back to boot off of my old drive and I'm back in Vista. (BTW yes Vista actually works for me.) Hopefully SP1 fixes all of that.

Re:Hell, I've gone back to Vista

[Legion303]

Actually, it sounds as if MS is being proactive in protecting end users from remote exploits. I applaud this bold move to completely shut out the internet before it can hurt you.

Re:Hell, I've gone back to Vista

[Totenglocke]

.............no idea what you're talking about. I've used the beta, RC, and RTM and never had that happen, and I'm no wiz when it comes to firewalls. Maybe Steve Ballmer just hates you? Either that or you're either 1) incapable of using a computer without breaking it or 2) full of crap.......

Re:Hell, I've gone back to Vista

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Funny, I really didn't have to do much to get the problem to happen. I did a clean install of Win 7 on a new drive.(You'd think this would be the scenario least likely to cause problems.) Eventually I installed steam on my system. The first inkling of problems is when I rebooted Win 7 stopped at the start up screen and wouldn't go any further. It didn't give any info on what was going on and wouldn't respond to the keyboard. (I ended up leaving it at this screen for 1/2 hr figuring it'd work itself out since the icon was "twirling." Of course it didn't.) I ended up having to shut off my system (Yes I know, you're not supposed to do that but it didn't give me much of a choice.) boot into safe mode and disable steam at which point I could get into Windows. I re-enabled steam and this time when I rebooted I got into windows and that time but now the networking icon had a '!' next to it. If I tried IE it told me it couldn't get to the internet and gave a button to trouble shoot. The error didn't indicate what was wrong and after clicking the trouble shooting button it gave no info on what was wrong. (Actually all the trouble shooting button did was tell me to go to the internet which was a little difficult.) Anyway after looking around for advice and trying a few things don't you know it, turning off the Windows Firewall fixes the problem. (I still wondering why adding Steam disables IE and makes that icon show up in the lower right. I also don't know why when I explicitly added steam as an app that had permission to go to the net it didn't fix the problem.) Of course as I've said it's not like anything on the system told me what was going wrong.(Honestly, you'd think the average programmer thinks the concept of "data hiding" is a description of the correct way to write an error message.) Oh well, I might re-install again. (I don't really have anything in my Win 7 install so it shouldn't be a problem.) Still makes me wary. (I know, I can just get a 3rd party firewall that wouldn't have these issues.)

Re:Hell, I've gone back to Vista

[Totenglocke]

Ok, it sounds like your problem is not with Windows 7, but with Steam causing problems with your system (since I'd never pay for something DRM-ed to hell and back like Steam, I've never put Steam on any of my systems) - so the problem is with Valve not having made sure that their program worked with Windows 7, which is inexcusable given how much time they've had to test it.

Re:Ubuntu 9.10

[ppanon]

I did the same and ran into some problems. The main problem seems to have been the Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 conflicting with my Logitech USB mouse. If I unplug and re-plug the mouse, it works OK, but it's frozen again after a reboot. Seems to be an issue with evdev mapping. I've now got it re-plugged in as a PS/2 mouse and don't seem to have the same problem. What's interesting is that they worked together fine upgrading from 8.10 to 9.04, which is when a lot of other people were having problems.

I also experienced some minor difficulties because I was running ATI's binary fglrx driver and have switched to the ati/radeon open source driver. However that was simpler to fix and only took time because of the keyboard/mouse problem. Reconfiguring the dual head from mirrored desktop (default after driver re-install) to contiguous is actually pretty easy with the new ati drivers and display preferences panel. I really like KMS and RandR support. Next challenge will be to get userland working with a server kernel for virtualization (at least the kernel boots now).

Re:Help me out here...

[demonlapin]

Bzzt. Win 1/2/3 were the versions that you saw. WinNT 3.x was really OS/2 v2 (the original OS/2, an IBM-MS collaboration, rather than the OS/2 that IBM released later), so there was a jump there. 95/98/ME were v4 of the original Win16-rooted system (although they were Win32 systems). WinNT 4 was an increment on WinNT 3.x. WinNT 5 was better known as Windows 2000, while XP was Windows 5.1 (consumer and NT lines merged at XP). Vista was 6, and 7 is really 6.1 if you type "ver" at a cmd prompt. Conclusion: Windows version numbers reflect the underlying technology, while the names come from marketing.

I used a sub v1.0 version

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

It shipped with a zenith 286 which was top of the line at the time.

I forget exactly the windows version - .98 or something.

It was useful only for playing Othello.

There was no Solitaire, as I recall.

It came with dbase3 or 4.

And Paradox.

I've never heard of a 2.0 in the wild.

The windows version was pretty useless.
I'd load it every 6 months or so just to see if it was still useless.

Re:Help me out here...

[RedK]

3.1 is the first release of NT, not 3.5.

And Windows 7 is NT 6.1.

heh

[magamiako1]

I've never followed this advice, seriously--ever.

That said, I'm going to be developing a deployment of over 20,000 Windows 7 machines here. Booya :P

All I've got to say is: Yay imagex

olds ?

[Tom]

I thought that info was olds, not news? For at least the past 10 years, anyone who upgrades to a new windos version before the first big patchset is done is roughly on the same risk level as someone going to vacation in Afghanistan. As a woman. In a bikini. Together with your lesbian girlfriend. Who has an "I love USA" tattoo.

Re:olds ?

[Phoenixlol]

My ex is on vacation?

Re:Help me out here...

[Legion303]

Yes, I meant 2K, not 2K3 (which is, like NT 4.0 and below, not really a "home user" OS). And I probably should have put it before XP.

Re:Ubuntu 9.10

[LinuxIsGarbage]

The new Ubuntu version just came out. I upgraded right away and things are fine.

I always wait 6 months after a Ubuntu version is released before installing it. That way I know most of the bugs are ironed out.

This is an outdated recommendation

[slasher999]

Waiting for SP1 used to be best practice when it came to Microsoft operating systems. However, those days are far behind us and most of you reading this probably weren't around in those days anyhow. Since Windows 2003 released MS has done a good job of releasing quality operating systems at the GA release. Waiting for a SP is not really necessary any longer. Granted I wouldn't try to be the first kid on the block with any new OS in production, but that goes for all vendors and not just Microsoft. It also applies to other software and hardware as well.

In fact this is such crap that MS tried to beat people that still do this at their own game. When Windows 2008 was released as GA, SP1 was already installed into the OS. Did these people wait for SP2 before installing? Maybe. But I believe more people are starting to realize you need to test any software extensively before relying on it in today's fast paced production environments, regardless of what SP level you are testing.

Re:I've only tested Win7 out on a handful of machi

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Weird, exactly the opposite for me. (Admitteldy I didn't jump immediately on Vista, I got it after SP1) My Vista install has worked well the entire time I've had it. (Then again I've got fairly new hardware and nothing unusual at all.) Win 7 has just had problems the whole time. (And I've had Vista for about 1.5 years, 7 for 3 weeks and have already had problems with it.)

Flaws on the Microsoft support forum link

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

#1. Most people in the Support forum link in the article complain about upgrading from Vista Home Premium to 7 Home Premium. I done in-line upgrade from Vista Business to 7 Professional without any problems. And that is including software such as Roxio, SAS, SPSS, Matlab, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Acrobat 8 and Comodo Firewall Pro.

#2. If you scroll all the way down, a majority of the machines reported are Dell.

Stay with XP?

[Dudeman_Jones]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't using XP considered by more than a few to be a security risk because of long unpatched vulnerabilities? Besides, wasn't the whole open beta phase supposed take care of that awkward phase anyway?

By the way, who the hell is Rescuecom?

Re:Low Expectations

[Herby Sagues]

I upgraded the three computers I have, plus my GF and my parents computers. Not a single issue so far in any of those machines. While there must be bugs somewhere, they are obviously not as easy to hit as those in Vista (or in XP when it released). If you wait until SP1 you will just be suffering the bugs and limitations of what you are running today to avoid those you are unlikely to find in 7.

Duh?

[chucklebutte]

Who does an upgrade anyways? Serves them right the dumb dumbs. ALWAYS FRESH INSTALL ALWAYS.

Re:Duh?

[lukas84]

No kidding.

We've upgraded our entire office as part of an early adopter program for MS partners, and did it by using a customized image that was applied over the existing hard drive contents (including the move to Windows.old), and was then followed by a migration of all user settings using USMT. This worked perfectly.

So far, we've migrated two smaller customers to Windows 7 (each 10 desktops). They're very happy. Zero issues.

I did one upgrade - so far. Our CEOs personal home machine. He had a variety of programs where he lost the CD, Manual, Key, etc. and wanted everything migrated. Was a Vista Business SP2 32bit Machine. Uninstalled all the phone sync, antivirus, etc. software, run the Upgrade, reinstalled all the hardware interfacing software, and everything worked perfectly again. Took about 4 hours, though.

Re:Low Expectations

[dagamer34]

Upgrading from one OS to another, regardless of the platform can always lead to problems down the road. This includes Windows, OS X, and Linux. It is impossible to test every possible upgrade scenario to find all the bugs. SImply put, an upgrade install is there for the less informed and/or lazy. It isn't the best way to get a new OS, and the fact that neither OS X or Windows support upgrading from versions more than the immediate previous one (Leopard and XP respectively) just goes to prove that it's not worth their time supporting such an upgrade path.

contrary for kicks

[abonstu]

if the story title had been: "Upgrade now to Windows 7, Support Firm Encourages Users"... then all the replies would have been "Noes way!!!1! we neeedz to waitz for SP1z mine preeecious".

most of the time slashdot is just chock full of people who like being contrary - actually its probably a cornerstone of nerd culture.

Re:Low Expectations

[Brett Buck]

Upgrading from one OS to another, regardless of the platform can always lead to problems down the road. This includes Windows, OS X, and Linux. It is impossible to test every possible upgrade scenario to find all the bugs. SImply put, an upgrade install is there for the less informed and/or lazy. It isn't the best way to get a new OS, and the fact that neither OS X or Windows support upgrading from versions more than the immediate previous one (Leopard and XP respectively) just goes to prove that it's not worth their time supporting such an upgrade path.

        Oh, bullshit. I have NEVER ONCE done a format/install on a Mac OS that hadn't experienced a hardware issue requiring an HD replacement. And I have NEVER ONCE had a problem doing it. That goes back to Mac System 6->7, up to and including OS 10.5.8. I have found bugs in the new system, but NEVER ONCE an issue with the upgrade itself. Format/install is probably the only way I would do Windows "upgrades" but it's simply a non-issue with Macs going back ~20 years.

        Brett

Re:It's hard, isn't it?

[the bear troll]

Those ads are obnoxious. You'd have to have your iPhone pretty far up your ass to find them witty.

To Clean or Not to Clean?

[CrashNBrn]

AUMHA Discussion: Should I Use a Registry Cleaner?
[excerpt]
Mark Russinovich wrote:
No, even if the registry was massively bloated there would be little
impact on the performance of anything other than exhaustive
searches (ed. of the registry itself).

On Win2K Terminal Server systems, however, there is a limit on the
total amount of Registry data that can be loaded and so large
profile hives can limit the number of users that can be logged on
simultaneously.

I haven't and never will implement a Registry cleaner since
it's of little practical use on anything other than Win2K
terminal servers and developing one that's both safe and
effective requires a huge amount of application-specific
knowledge.
[/excerpt]

It's a very interesting read, that's just one of the many security
and computer experts that chimed in on the issue.Overall, the
consensus is No, you should not use a registry cleaner. Period.
A few end-users howl contrary.

I'll go with the expert's advice that aren't trying to sell or promote crapware.

I've worked with this dude

[ZeroSerenity]

And no, he's not really intelegent about what he does. We call him little napolean for a reason. My suspicions for this comment are so that people can stay with their current OS so they have more problems to fix. Rescuecom isn't a real tech "think tank" and shouldn't be treated as such.

Waiting for bugfixes (or SP1) is sensible

[AliasMarlowe]

It's not that there are very many serious bugs in a new release - it has been through a good deal of testing, after all. The concern is specifically bugs that will affect your systems (bugs that don't affect you are not your problem as a user). For any new release, there is an unquantified risk that bugs exist which might affect your systems. Let others be the willing guinea pigs, or canaries in the coal mine, or other sacrificial lamb metaphor.

This is why I always wait a week or two after an Ubuntu release, before deciding to upgrade my own PCs. Almost any serious bugs which only affect particular hardware/software combinations will have been found by then (and probably fixed).

A similar strategy should be used for Windows upgrades. Wait until the bugs found by early adopters are fixed. It should only take a week or two, right?

I never upgrade Windows

[The_Dougster]

If I was building a new machine, which I'm not at the moment, then I would probably get a copy of Windows-7 for it. However, I never upgrade a Windows OS on an existing machine because on those occasions in the past when I tried it, it always was a disaster. Better to start fresh, or as some poster earlier suggested, get an external drive. I ran the Windows-7 beta from an eSATA drive last year and it worked ok. It existed in peaceful harmony with my Vista installation and didn't cause any issues at all.

Amazing

[SmallFurryCreature]

So basically, you went to a restaurant and paid for a burger, and they served you a shit burger. Then to wash the foul taste away, you pay them for another burger.

There is a lesson to be learned here about humanity, but I can't think of it because I am huddled under my desk cradling a shotgun, crying.

Re:Low Expectations

[dcraigw]

You always experience a hardware issue requiring a hard drive replacement every time you upgrade a Mac OS? Yikes!

Re:Help me out here...

[91degrees]

95/98/Me were all Windows 4.x There was a separate series of NT based Windows that started on v3.x for various reasons including parallels with the home version of Windows, and source compatibility. Windows 2000 was NT 5. XP was just another NT 5 variant. Vista was windows 6, and Windows 7 is Windows 6 as well (actually 6.1).

MS made some justification as to why they're using a version number of 6.1, but really it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Fix XP-32 and XP-64 ffs

[u64]

Win7: still Vista
ServicePacks and WindowsUpdates hasnt fixed Vista.
Microsoft: WindowsUpdate replace your old Bugs with new fresh Bugs!

Btw Windows8 nickname W8
(because that's what ppl does to find a replacement for XP. _wait_ )

Why dont Microsoft just FIX XP-32 and XP-64 ?!?
Use nLite and you're halfway there. Add modern drivers.
Microsoft could add support for QuadCore and DX11 and whatnot.
Then XP would hold Linux at bay!
(fortunally Microsoft helps Linux nowadays, hehe)

Screwdrivers

[backwardMechanic]

I love a good screwdriver, me. It's a fine, honest tool. I'm a traditionalist - I like a flat blade. I've never liked those newfangled crossheads. I mean, they just don't have the elegance of a nice flat blade. They're rubbish for opening things too. You can jam a flat blade into just about anything. I'd ban crossheads, they're just forced on us by industry shills.

RAID is not backups!

[jnork]

*facepalm*

50 installs and no problem

[EmagGeek]

We've installed Windows 7 on over 50 PCs and have not seen any major issues with it. This is not like the Windows release of yesteryear.

We have all kinds of software and hardware running and it all works. It just works. I never thought I would say that about a Microsoft OS, but everything JUST WORKS.

I have yet to have to manually download a driver or put a CD in the drive to get a piece of hardware working - after ~50 PCs.

Windows 7 is pretty damn good. Dont wait

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

This is silly. Windows 7 is very good right out of the box. There is no need to wait for SP1.

Re:Help me out here...

[Windowser]

OK, leaving out 1.x and 2.x (3.x was where most people started after DOS...were 1 & 2 ever even released to consumers?)

Yes, I've used 1.x (well, used may be overstating, I played a bit with it, but since you could not run any DOS program in a window, and nothing was available for Windows yet, you basically just closed it and used DOS anyway). I also tried 2.x, and I still have the originals 5.25" floppy. Was pretty much the same as with 1.x, you could run Calc, Notepad and Paint (which stayed pretty much unchanged since then), but that was about it.

Running Windows 7 RC For Months w/o ANY Problems

[dontbesquare]

Subject Says It All....both at work and at home. No problems.

Re:The captcha didn't tip you off?

[dotgain]

Even some logged in users have to fill out captchas. It's quite a bit of work convincing slashcode that you're not a bot and have a ready supply of crack for the moderation.

Re:Low Expectations

[dotgain]

I'm not so much worried about the bugs that I am "unlikely to find", so much as the bugs others are likely to find.

Of course, I'm probably being paranoid, after all MS have told me time and time again that Win7 is going to be more secure, and I can be pig-headed at times.

Re:Low Expectations

[dotgain]

You always deliberately misinterpret people when idiosyncrasies of the language show up? Yikes!