Windows 7 Trumps Vista By Reaching 20% Share

CWmike writes "Windows 7 cracked the 20% share mark last month, a milestone the problem-plagued Vista never reached, Web measurement vendor Net Application said over the weekend. Gregg Keizer reports that Windows 7's online usage share reached 20.9% in December, up 1.2 percentage points from the month before. Windows Vista, meanwhile, fell by half a point to 12.1%, its lowest share since July 2008. Vista peaked at 18.8% in October 2009, the same month that Microsoft launched Windows 7. The other standout finding: XP is projected to still account for 13% when it's retired in 2014." An anonymous reader adds news that Google's Chrome browser is nearing 10% market share.

Comments

Windows 7

[devxo]

I'm not surprised, Windows 7 is actually rock solid OS. Everything is done perfectly and feels good. Vista itself wasn't bad, but drivers for it weren't ready. It was the necessary to move from XP.

It's hard to think how Microsoft can make the next Windows better from Windows 7.

Re:Windows 7

[grasshoppa]

I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

The only reason to upgrade from XP is because security updates are due to end soon. And while that's a valid reason, most businesses are going to be asking themselves why they should upgrade if that's the only reason.

Re:Windows 7

[Mr_eX9]

Mac OS-style upgrades that are less expensive and focus on features over infrastructure (at least from a user perspective) would be pretty neat. And it would ensure that we don't have to wait 5 years between releases (or 7 years between viable releases) again.

Re:Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

I still feel that way about XP and Windows 2000. Welcome to the upgrade treadmill. You got on it by choice, now upgrade.

Re:windows 7

[joeflies]

I would have phrased your post as a question rather than a statement.

What huge improvement over Vista?

Windows 7 from the user experience is mostly Vista with feature tweaks and better driver support. The rest is mostly marketing.

Re:Windows 7

[Bigjeff5]

Time to read bud, there is a ton of info on it. Since Win 7 is basically Vista+, you have to start with the difference between XP and Vista. This is where the majority of changes occurred.

Read the following to fully understand the difference between 7 and XP, or cherry pick to get a basic idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista - stuff the end user will care about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista - stuff that actually makes it better
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_safety_features_new_to_Windows_Vista - stuff your IT guys will care about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_features_new_to_Windows_Vista - more stuff your IT guys will care about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 - stuff the end user will care about, including the features that were removed since Vista

Re:Windows 7

[increment1]

I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need )

Have you seen the transparent windows?

Re:Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

Decent IPv6 support, decent x86_64 support..not to mention that XP was TERRIBLE at managing multiple cores/processors and memory. XP would prefer the page file over real memory for some reason, too. Also, if you've ever done OS imaging via RIS, WDS is worlds better.

Re:Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

not to mention that XP was TERRIBLE at managing multiple cores/processors and memory

I'm surprised how often this isn't mentioned. To extend, XP also has problems differentiating between an SMT core and an actual real core (important with all these i5s and i7s). Seen XP SP3 think its a good idea to put a double threaded job on "processor 0 and 1" with 2 and 3 empty. Problem is 0 and 1 was the same core, so effectively half the CPU was unused. Windows Vista and 7 don't make the same mistake - and thats part of the reason you on a SMT capable processor often see certain cores facing much higher workloads on average than others.

Re:Windows 7

[damnbunni]

Windows 7 won't do an upgrade on an XP system, period. You have to do a clean install.

If you really, really want to upgrade from XP to 7 you need to upgrade from XP to Vista, then Vista to 7.

Re:Windows 7

[painandgreed]

I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

The reasons that we are is for 64 bit and ability to use more RAM. We're also in the medical imaging sector so both of those means that our programs can handle more images a lot faster. Also, it's getting to be a pain to support some newer hardware in WinXP as the base install disk doesn't have the drivers needed to boot some of it. Some companies simply aren't supplying drivers for their hardware for WinXP at all so backing down the OS is not really an option.

Re:Windows 7

[guruevi]

I'm a devout Linux/Mac user that has to support Windows 7 for a living. I can say that it's a dog.
- It doesn't work all that well on low-end hardware or virtual machines
- Every time you deploy an image you have to manually re-register the thing with Microsoft so it doesn't disable itself
- Still no decent backup system
- XP Mode is buggy and compatibility in general is bad (especially in the 64-bit versions)
- Still no EXT3/EXT4 (or any Unix-type), Large FAT or GPT support
- Limit of 2 physical processors? Really? It's easy to get 4 processors in a box these days with 8 cores each especially in the academic world
- Full Disk Encryption requires TPM chips which are missing in just about any system these days so you still have to go into a 3rd party solution.
- You still have to download a virus scanner, there is none built-in nor is the OS self-contained enough to be used without one.

Re:Windows 7

[SpryGuy]

The start/all-programs menu for Win7 is vastly superior to XP, as is Windows Explorer. Have you actually sat down and tried to use them as they're meant to be used? Or have you tried to use them as if you were still using XP?

For example, I almost never use the "All programs" menu any more. No need. Everything I want or need is either on the task bar (pinned there) or on the start menu (pinned there or in the 'recently used' section), or available with just a few keystrokes typed in the search box.

I find I'm far more productive with Win7 than I ever was with XP. Going back to XP just gives me this feeling of XP constantly getting in the way... I feel utterly constrained by its limitations and annoyances. Windows 7 is a definit advance, and is definitely worth the upgrade.

I "upgraded" my XP laptop a while back (after using it at work for a while), and even though it's not a true 'upgrade', it was one of the most painless windows installs I've ever experienced (and I've done a LOT of them). Yeah, I had to reinstall my apps, but the data moved over pretty painlessly. I was up and running in under a day, easily.

I'm not sure what you even mean by the XP start menu working more "cleanly" than Win7's... the exact opposite is the case. The Win7 start menu is just vastly superior. Of course, you have to take the time to actually learn this fact.

Re:Windows 7

[LordLimecat]

The start/all-programs menu for Win7 is vastly superior to XP

I tend to agree, except when it just plain doesnt work, or when I install a new program-- and then typing 'calc' pegs the disk as OpenOffice loads, rather than the calculator app. Or when you want to open the command prompt with "cmd", but the system sees youve written a script somewhere on your computer with a .cmd extension, and assumes you want to use that. Good it may be in some scenarios, but its not a hands-down improvement.

Regardless, the GUI stuff can to some extent be tacked on-- there may have been work done to bring GPU acceleration to the desktop (why again?) which XP cannot replicate, but the start menu? Please. Launchy handles that sort of thing if you really want it anyways.

Re:Windows 7

[interkin3tic]

I hear you. I'm still running windows ME. It's safer really. Few blackhats bother to check compatibility of their viruses or malware with older operating systems. Some rogue antivirus popped up a message saying "Scanning: You have... Windows ME? Shit, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. Uninstalling..."

Re:Windows 7

[SpryGuy]

Almost nothing you cited is actually true. There's no 2 physical limit on processors (for the Professional and higher versions)... heck, I'm using Win7 on a 4 year old box with 4 procesors (dual CPU with hyper-threading for 4 "virtual" processors). We also use virtual machines all over the place and it works quite well... with no need to constantly 'register' them. And yeah, you have to download "Microsoft Security Essentials" separately, thanks to wanting to avoid issues with the DOJ and law-suit happy McAffee and Norton... not exactly Win7's or Microsoft's fault there. So basically all your rationalizations and justifications for why Win7 is a dog are complete bunk. Sorry.

Re:Windows 7

[LordLimecat]

Windows search is a pig. Ive had to disable it for example in Outlook because it slows everything down, or just plain breaks search. Most of the small things you list can be tacked on after the fact if you want them. 7 is nice in a lot of ways, but theres not a lot that it does that XP couldnt do, and 3rd party apps tend to do those things far better.

Re:Windows 7

[LordLimecat]

Ive heard arguments like this for things like Sharepoint, and usually what it really means is that "we have a solution, we're just not sure what the problem is yet".

Re:Windows 7

[Gadget_Guy]

XP's Service Packs were the equivalent of Mac OS's upgrades, but they were free. The most notable upgrade was Service Pack 2, which introduced the firewall, pop-up blocker, Bluetooth support, Windows Security Center, etc. Sure, it is not a patch on the monumental changes introduced with Vista, but when people say that XP did everything that they needed they actually should say that XP SP2 did all they need. If you gave someone a computer with the original version of the OS then they wouldn't be so happy.

Re:Windows 7

[ColdWetDog]

Ive heard arguments like this for things like Sharepoint, and usually what it really means is that "we have a solution, we're just not sure what the problem is yet".

No, that was Lotus Notes.

Re:Windows 7

[LordLimecat]

decent IPv6 support

True, except that it occasionally needs to be completely disabled to get things to stop breaking, when it insists on trying to do IPv6 AAAA lookups on a domain network where no IPv6 configuration was done. There are several articles on this, and it is quite bothersome.

Re:Windows 7

[icebike]

Honestly, I'm not sure what you're even talking about. I haven't experieenced anything like what you're describing (and can't even really follow what you're talking about)... are you talking about just blind-typing really fast into the start menu search bar and pressing enter without even looking?

Essentially, yes, thats what he's talking about.

Lots of machines have that Windows Menu key now days.
Whack that, (or click the start icon)
Cursor is already in the search box.

At that point, if you know the name of the application, a fast typist, or a keyboard oriented user can launch just about anything faster than a mouse user drilling thru the start-bar.

 

Re:Windows 7

[icebike]

Really? 3000 apps?

You know, not every porn shot is considered an App.

Re:Windows 7

[bertok]

It doesn't work all that well on low-end hardware or virtual machines

It's been demonstrated to match XP performance on even quite low-end gear by several third-party tests. My experience is that's it's faster, particularly the 64-bit builds, which increase the file cache size from ~400MB max to "all of physical memory", which is a big improvement.

Every time you deploy an image you have to manually re-register the thing with Microsoft so it doesn't disable itself

You're Doing It Wrong. If you're supporting Windows 7 for businesses, you should be using KMS or MAK, and using the volume licensed Enterprise editions, not Windows 7 Home or whatever.

Still no decent backup system

It's the best ever - it has both file-level and image-based backups, it can take live snapshots of disks for both types, back up open files, it has a built-in scheduler, and a bunch of other features.

The VHD disk images created by Windows 7 can be mounted as virtual disks using a GUI or the command-line, can be used to boot from directly without having to be restored first, can be trivially converted into a virtual machine disk, and the install CD has a built-in restore wizard.

I haven't seen comparable features in any other operating system except OSX.

More importantly, if you're backing up desktops, You're Doing It Wrong. Laptops should use offline folders to sync with the master copy of the user data on a server, and shouldn't need backing up. Desktops should use folder redirection and/or roaming profiles. Back up your servers, not your desktops.

You can even do it the "Linux way" if you want to: I've seen sample scripts floating about that take a VSS snapshot of a disk, mount it as a folder or drive letter, and use rsync to incrementally update a backup, then release the snapshot automatically. I've done this myself for Windows Server 2003, about 6 years ago, it's nothing new.

XP Mode is buggy and compatibility in general is bad (especially in the 64-bit versions)

You shouldn't even need XP-mode most of the time, particularly on 32-bit editions of Windows 7. I've found that even the 64-bit editions will run just about anything if you simply set the "compatibility flags" on the main program executables. Just how bad are these applications that you have to support? Shouldn't you be blaming the app vendors instead of Microsoft?

Still no EXT3/EXT4 (or any Unix-type), Large FAT or GPT support

Are you kidding me? First, Windows has had GPT disk and boot support since Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, it has xFAT, NTFS on removable drives, and there's third-party EXT3 plugins.

If you think EXT3 on Windows is an important feature, again, You're Doing It Wrong. NTFS is a superior filesystem for Windows in practically every way. If you want to share data between Windows and Linux, use NTFS drivers on Linux, or a server with SAMBA.

Limit of 2 physical processors? Really? It's easy to get 4 processors in a box these days with 8 cores each especially in the academic world

That sucks, but 2 sockets is 12-16 cores these days. If you need more computing power than that, than you can afford a Windows Server 2008 R2 license, which gives you almost all the Windows 7 features, and more processor socket licenses. It's a commercial operating system, and it costs money.

Full Disk Encryption requires TPM chips which are missing in just about any system these days so you still have to go into a 3rd party solution.

The TPM requirement can be turned off using a group policy setting, but then it's not transparent to users, they have to enter a pass-phrase on every boot. External disk encryption doesn't require a TPM chip by default, I use that feature on my rather old laptop that doesn't have a TPM chip.

You still have to downlo

Re:Windows 7

[0123456]

I dont know that its "Useful" persay, but granted that is something XP cannot have outside of someone rolling their own explorer replacement

I'm always puzzled by people who talk about the glories of 'GPU-accelerated rendering', because Windows has had GPU-accelerated rendering since at least version 3.0. XP desktops are GPU-accelerated unless you have a really shitty driver.

It doesn't have fancy compositing, but who needs it on a business computer?

Re:Windows 7

[beav007]

I've often said that I'd upgrade from XP to Win7 once they get a file browser and start menu that works as cleanly as XP's

Classic Shell helps to fix those issues.

Re:Windows 7

[SpryGuy]

So... if unlimited cores and two physical processors isn't enough for you, then why aren't you using Windows Server 2008 R2?

Please. This is an utterly ridiculous complaint.

Re:Windows 7

[grcumb]

Sorry, but that's really lame, short-sighted reasoning. Many of the features would be useful to average office workers, and the "confusion" is a very short-term thing. It's transient. It's not big enough to justify never upgrading, given all the other benefits (security, stability, easier to use, easier to support, etc, etc).

Unless you're suggesting a switch to Linux, in which case it's the only reason you'll ever need.

Okay, seriously: I can see the point on both sides of this argument. Change is disruptive, and until the change is accompanied by a perceived reward significant enough to offset the short-term discomfort, it's simply human nature to resist it.

Apple got a lot of people moving in their direction by very successfully leveraging the social benefits. (Snide remarks here and elsewhere about metrosexual hipster-wanna-be Apple users are a not-so-tacit criticism of this effect.) Linux got most of the geeks onside because it rewards technical prowess (or, in some cases, the illusion thereof).

But Windows has been relying on its own inertia^Wmomentum for so long that fear of change is a legitimate argument against upgrading. In short, the Windows XP user base is increasingly self-selected for this trait. My prediction: the first 20% for Windows 7 is the easy one.

Re:Windows 7

[SpryGuy]

This remains an utterly silly argument for staying with XP and avoiding upgrading to Win7... especially for, oh, say, 98% of people for whom most of these issues you raise are just esoterica.

It's certainly not alien in the universe of software (especially at microsoft) that you pay more for more advanced capabilities. You can legitimately call into question the entire practice, but my point is that this is an utterly ridiculous argument for staying with XP over upgrading to Win7.... which is the current topic.

Re:Windows 7

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Except when an application isn't in the menu you thought it should be in and now you have 20 folders to hunt through. KDE does the same thing and it drives me insane.

Re:Windows 7

[IICV]

Windows 7 "just works" in a way that XP never did. It took an HOUR to install a recent HP all-in-one photo printer on XP. Same install on Win7 took a minute or so.

That.... has literally nothing to do with XP vs 7, except inasmuch as HP drivers are a giant piece of shit and Microsoft might be bribing them to increase the quality of the Windows 7 drivers (e.g, send it to the slightly less retarded driver development department).

Anyway, I have to admit that I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've used all of XP, Vista and 7 on my computers these last few years (work computer was XP, laptop is Vista until I put Linux on it, personal desktop is 7), and there's only one feature Windows 7 has that I find myself missing on XP (and Vista as well) - the positional window resizing stuff. It's really nice to be able to fullscreen a window just by tossing it at the top of the screen and window it again by dragging it off, but that's literally the only gesture I use. Other than that, I might as well be using Windows XP. Maybe if you provided some concrete examples, we could get an actual discussion going?

Re:Windows 7

[beav007]

You will use it the way the gods intended, and you will like it.

Ever had the feeling that computers should be white plastic and brushed aluminium, or that your mouse has a far greater number of buttons than you're comfortable with?

Re:Windows 7

[parlancex]

There is actually a fundamental reason for this rather than just oversight. The ATA BIOS command set gives you a 32-bit sector index to load data off the disk in real mode (2 TB of addressable data). On a conventional BIOS system execution will start in real mode after the BIOS has loaded the boot sector (first sector) of the boot device, which of course is just 512 bytes. Normally this sector would also contain your MBR partition table, but the BIOS doesn't really care. Whatever boot device you point it at it's just going to load the first sector into memory and start executing it in real mode. In order to access data beyond 2 TB you need to:

1. Initialize at least 32-bit protected mode, which itself involves several steps and data structures
2. Complete basic hardware enumeration with the information given to you by the BIOS
3. Load a suitable driver for the disk device class.
4. Now you can load and read the GPT and figure out where the OS is actually located and load THAT, then finally transfer control to it.

Step 1 alone will take generally take the 512 bytes available to you if you do it robustly, so where do you put the code for the other steps? Wherever you put it, it needs to be within the first 2 TB of the disk. Windows COULD support booting from GPT on legacy BIOS systems, however, there would have to be 1 of 2 restrictions: Either your OS partition would need to start in the first 2 TB of the disk, or Windows would require a dummy partition located in the first 2 TB of the disk to use as the second stage boot loader. Although you might see those things as a reasonable compromise, the folks at Microsoft obviously don't and have decided that trying to shoehorn it in with restrictions and gotchas is probably just sillier than using the modern EFI boot system for the modern GPT partition table.

Re:Windows 7

[ShakaUVM]

>>The start/all-programs menu for Win7 is vastly superior to XP, as is Windows Explorer. Have you actually sat down and tried to use them as they're meant to be used? Or have you tried to use them as if you were still using XP?

Amazingly enough, yeah - I use Win7 all the time. I have a Win7 laptop I use on the road and an XP machine at my house, and a Vista machine at my "office". Not to mention as any tech guy worth his salt, I've spent considerable time playing around with all three of them.

In short: Win7's start menu is inferior. Actually, the whole UI is inferior - it unoptimizes the common case to optimize the uncommon case. As anyone in software knows, this is a Bad Thing. For example, switching windows with >I'm not sure what you even mean by the XP start menu working more "cleanly" than Win7's... the exact opposite is the case. The Win7 start menu is just vastly superior. Of course, you have to take the time to actually learn this fact.

Yes, yes. Naturally the only reason people would hate the new start menu is because they haven't used it. /snort

Fucking nonsense. Their file browser and taskbars are likewise crippled, optimizing the uncommon case at the expense of the common.

Re:Windows 7

[YoshiDan]

You can get around this with the Win 7 Upgrage version. I installed it on a blank hard drive and it wouldn't let me activate. So I booted from the Win 77 install dvd again and chose upgrade then chose the existing clean installation of Win 7. After that it lets you activate.

Re:Windows 7

[laron]

Not to forget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista
A lot of little things are no longer there, for example the ability to display activity icons for each network connection (dial-up, VPN, WiFi, LAN) in the systray so you can actually see which interfaces are being used right now. Does anybody know a third party replacement for that?

Re:Windows 7

[ShakaUVM]

Grr, slashcode ate a paragraph.

Anyhow, long rant short - looking at some common tasks. I'm not comparing stock XP against stock Win7, but my tweaked versions of both, because I'm a bit OCD about reducing the number of keystrokes to do things to the minimum possible.

1) Launching very common apps via the taskbar. XP - quick launch toolbar to launch, taskbar to switch. Win7 - One taskbar to both launch and switch. Victor: XP. The user knows better than Windows when he wants to launch something, and when he wants to switch. It *is* possible to get the quick launch toolbar back in Win7, but requires a hack to do so.

2) Launching common apps via the start menu. XP - I have a folder off the start menu containing all my common locations and tasks, reachable with two keypresses (Win, I). A third keystroke takes me to the directory or task I want to get into. I've got 10 items in the base directory, and more from the hierarchical directories inside of it. Win7 - can pin a (small) number of things to the start menu directly before it gets too ugly for words. Keystrokes don't work all the time, since they're sitting on the root start menu, so it's usually a matter of hitting Win, and then scrolling to or (ugh) clicking on our commonly used task or directory. Victor: XP. Looks much cleaner, and doesn't require using the mouse at all to navigate the UI quickly. Switching to mouse = loss.

3) Switching tasks via alt-tabbing. XP - hit alt-tab. Win7 - hit alt-tab or Win-tab. Win7 allows previewing the windows before switching to them, instead of relying only on name. Victor: Win7

4) Switching tasks via toolbar. XP - click on the toolbar. Win7 - click on the toolbar, look at the popup that appears, scroll through the live task previews, and with the mouse (ugh) click on the one you want. Victor: 1 click vs. 2 clicks and a scan? XP. (Note: Win7 can disable this via options, unlike the start menu, which is fixed in it's broken state).

5) Launching uncommon apps. XP - Win, P. By default, this just shows you the last few apps you've run. Expanding it out (down arrow) shows you your hierarchical organization of tasks. Recently installed apps near the end, otherwise they've been sorted (by me) and easy to find. Win7 - type the name of the task. If it's working properly, and you know the name (pop quiz - what's the name of that HDR photo editing suite you bought three years ago?) and you only have one copy of the name, it works well. Unfortunately, those three things break all too easily. I was giving a workshop, and half the laptops couldn't launch sound recorder from their start menu. The other half could. So I had to take very valuable time walking a classroom of teachers into the Windows directory to launch it directly, since their start menus were not indexing correctly. When you have to hit "all programs" on Win7, that's just an epic loss compared with the hierarchical organization of XP. Victor: XP, by a clear margin. Faster, more reliable, more organized.

6) Saving a file to the desktop. XP - hit the giant bloody "Desktop" button right there. Win7 - made the link tiny, and buried it within a nest of worthless crap. On small screens, it tends to collapse the nest down to things that you don't actually need. Watching teachers spend 5 minutes trying to figure out how to save to the fucking desktop because Microsoft buried it within mountains of pointless (for them) crap makes me want to put staples through my fucking eyes. Again, they optimized the uncommon case at the expense of the common. Your average user saves to the desktop a lot more than they save to a workgroup file server. If they don't even have a file server, or even a workgroup, why is this shit eating up all of their valuable 9" screen space? Victor: XP

7) Navigate up to the desktop from a folder on the desktop. XP - hit the giant bloody "up arrow", or the backspace key. Done. Now you can operate with the files on your directory easily. Win7 - open a folder on the desktop. Look hopelessly at the breadcrumbs. Pound your head i

Re:Windows 7

[rastos1]

The start/all-programs menu for Win7 is vastly superior to XP, as is Windows Explorer. Have you actually sat down and tried to use them as they're meant to be used? Or have you tried to use them as if you were still using XP?

While typing is IMHO better than hunting the right entry in menu, Win7 has still some pet peeves:

• You can't drag&drop a file from explorer to cmd to get there full pathname. This was replaced with clumsy Shift->right mouse button to get context menu->copy the path to clipboard (killing the current clipboard content) and then pasting into cmd.
• You can't tab into the address bar to select and copy the current path to clipboard.
• Searching in start menu works badly in localized versions of Win 7 - where some less-used programs do not have translated names. So for some programs you need to type in localized name for some programs English name.

Re:Windows 7

[cyber-vandal]

Give me some examples of what would improve worker productivity so drastically as to justify the expense of upgrading of several thousand workstations.

Bad news for anyone doing web sites

[cyber-vandal]

With the continuing use of XP we'll still be supporting IE6, 7 and 8 for the forseeable future, given that IE9 won't run on XP.

Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[gad_zuki!]

Let me count the ways:

1. The UAC - unfortunately users can't be bothered to run as a non-admin and just use runas, so UAC is the next best thing. Running as non-admin is easier than ever.

2. 64-bit support with easy to find 64-bit drivers. If you want MS to sign your drivers you need to provide 64-bit.

3. Protected mode - not as in memory but as in a native sandboxing technology that IE and and Adobe X use. These apps interact with the OS via a broker process. This is also why so many exploit target the add-ons (Flash, pre-X Adobe, Java) and not the browser itself.

4. Bitlocker

5. Large disk support.

6. SSD TRIM support. I have 3 SSD drives and they would be a PITA without TRIM in 7.

7. Better security architecture. A lot of things dont run as non-admin in XP so you needed to run them as admin or system to make them work, which greatly increased your attack surface.

8. Better Windows update agent. I love the option to ether use my WSUS or go to MS to get updates . As well as a decent GUI that shows me that status of the updates, last update, etc.

9. Windows Media Center done right.

10. Powershell support native.

11. A decent taskbar, finally.

12. Performance increase. I've run 7 on 256 megs of RAM on an old P4 and it flies on modern hardware.

13. Youre going to upgrade anyway from XP eventually, might as well get something good.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[timeOday]

The importance of any upgrade is subjective, so YMMV. For me, the recent upgrade from XP to 7 was a hassle with no benefit. The main difference is I spend more time looking for stuff they moved around. I also found Win 7 definitely more RAM hungry, and the USB driver for my Garmin GPS doesn't work under 7.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[cyber-vandal]

For home users you're right. For the majority of business users however who don't get the latest version of Windows every 3 or 4 years:

1. UAC is irrelevant to business users who use a locked down XP Pro

2. 32 bit is going nowhere for the foreseeable future

3. The only point I agree with, however a good IT department and good security software will keep threats to a minimum

4. Bitlocker is irrelevant to most business users

5. It'll be quite a while before most business users need 2TB disk space

6. Few business users will have SSDs in the foreseeable future either

7. Few business users are allowed to run anything as admin

8. Again largely meaningless to most users who get their updates from IT

9. Meaningless to business users

10 Useful but not exactly a dealbreaker

11. As point 10

12. I'd dispute that but it's always YMMV on assertions like that

13. You shouldn't have to upgrade if the software does what you want it to.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[antdude]

12. 256 MB of RAM? I can't stand with 512 MB of RAM! XP Pro. SP2 and SP3 were faster especially when multitasking.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[chrismcb]

11. A decent taskbar, finally.

My BIGGEST gripe with Win 7 is the taskbar. It seems like every time Microsoft does something right, they do it wrong in the next version. The taskbar in Win 7 is horrible. I want my quick launch back. I want to know what will happen when I click a button. I hate that I have to right click to start a new instance. About the only the Win7 did right is make it easier to hide tray icons. Give me the XP task bar anyday. And get rid of the stupid aero look.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[l33t gambler]

12. Performance increase. I've run 7 on 256 megs of RAM on an old P4 and it flies on modern hardware.

No, it does not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToFgYylqP_U
Sorry for slamming (spamming is not in Operas dictionary) the thread with this link but people keep posting the same untruth.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[cbhacking]

A few more:

14. ASLR, which provides much better protection against exploits. The majority of exploits on Win7 were on old DLLs that didn't use ASLR, but going forward that won't be an option.

15. Aero Snap, the ability to tile windows side-by-side made fast, intuitive, and dead easy. Anytime I find myself using an older OS I'm always ending up with windows placed half-off the screen and wondering why they didn't snap.

16. Built-in multi-touch support. Although the base OS makes relatively little use of it (you can use it to zoom and various things), apps can take advantage of this feature. Not very useful to those without tablets, but if you have a tablet there's no reason to run anything older than Win7.

17. Much better video driver model. A video driver crash no longer causes a kernel panic, because the driver isn't in the kernel. Additionally, you can swap drivers in and out in seconds, without rebooting.

18. Instant search of everything. I never use the All Programs menu anymore, and I don't mind doing full-text searches for a specific mail or document (try this on XP, if you're really bored).

19. Jump Lists, while arguably part of "decent taskbar," deserve mention themselves - quickly open a recent document, a Steam game, etc. or run a common task with quick-and-easy UI.

20. VHD booting, which isn't intended for home users but is great for people testing drivers or testing software on multiple OS configurations, on native hardware.

21. Built-in ability to burn disk images. A small but handy feature that's long overdue.

22. Ability to control per-application volume with independent sliders. Very handy when one app is always too noisy, or you want to quickly mute certain apps without quitting entirely.

23. Bi-directional firewall. Although the default is to allow all outgoing traffic, you can use it to prevent certain apps from phonong home, or be extra secure by configuring it as a whitelist.

24. More helpful dialog boxes, such as the file overwrite or "this file is locked [by application X]" ones.

25. Volume Shadow Copies, typically known as the "Previous Versions" feature, allowing you to recover deleted or overwritten files or directories.

26. Superfetch, which pre-loads applications into RAM when (based on usage history) you're likely to run them soon. Makes launching a big app (games, Visual Studio, whatever you use) much faster than on XP.

27. Highly customizable power options, such as controlling how much the CPU speed will scale when plugged in vs. on battery, and whether to maximize WiFi capability or save power.

28. Hybrid sleep mode, where the computer enters suspend (for fast wakeup) but also writes out the hiberfile (in case of power loss, or for rapidly dropping to hibernation).
28a. Resuming from sleep or hibernate is *MUCH* faster on Win7 than on older versions, especially if you have a multi-core system (improved parallelism).

OK, I think that's long enough... I hadn't meant to write so much but it wasn't hard (especially as the user of a tablet PC) to come up with plenty of items. Hell, there's lots more little things, like the default path to user profiles not having spaces in it, that are nice. XP is a pain to use, and has been for years - I find myself doing things like opening the Start menu (with the Windows key) and typing, and instead of doing a search some random thing that started with a letter I hit happens instead.

For the record, the following items apply to Vista as well as Win7 (the others are new, or at least much better, in 7): 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 14, 17, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28.

Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts

[spongman]

I want my quick launch back

right-click, toolbars, new toolbar, %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

TL;DR version

[WinstonWolfIT]

20% of the computers currently in use were shipped with Windows 7.

Vendors are Lazy

[headkase]

Vista was actually ok and now it's up to Service Pack 2 it's not that bad. What gave Vista the bad reputation was that at launch drivers were horrible. Vista was the re-architecture step for Windows and vendors by being late to develop well-behaved drivers significantly contributed to it's negative reception. Now, fast forward to today: 7 is Vista+ and vendors are already up to speed with their drivers and it had a 1 year open beta to nail everything down. No hassles, good support.

Vista took the hits that prepared the wider software-ecosystem for 7.

Another thing to think about is that with Windows 7 64-bit is now entering the mainstream. My 7 machine is 64-bit and I have 8GB in the puppy. Of course, my Ubuntu laptop is also 64-bit even though it only has 2GB of RAM.

Re:Vendors are Lazy

[headkase]

My sister's laptop has 1GB RAM, some value-segment AMD Turion processor, and Vista 32-bit. It's not a speed demon but it's no dog either. 7 is undeniably better than Vista, but Vista, now at Service Pack 2, I reiterate, is not that bad.

All I know is that every Christmas when she comes by I do a complete format on that machine to refresh it for another year for her. She never complains about it! ;)

Re:Vendors are Lazy

[digitallife]

All I know is that every Christmas when she comes by I do a complete format on that machine to refresh it for another year for her.

I shuddered reading this, as I remembered what its like to use windows. Bleh!

good riddance to bad rubbish

[Tumbleweed]

I'll see you in Hell, Vista. You and RAMBUS!

Re:good riddance to bad rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll see you in Hell, Vista.

You mean, Hasta la vista? :)

Re:good riddance to bad rubbish

[DigiShaman]

I say we build a "Box-O-Doom". It will represent everything that is evil and shall be sacrificed in a volcano. It must have the following:

1. Case must be beige with other parts slightly discolored (yellowed) from the others.
2. P4 with RAMBUS.
3. Intel i740 AGP video card.
4. Connor IDE hard drive.
5. 1x CDROM drive that uses a CD caddy.
6. Winmodem.
7. Windows ME.
8. Office 2000 complete with Clippy.
9. MS Bob.
10. Norton System Works.
11. Subscription to AOL.

Bonus: Should have enough dust and cigarette tar, a fleece can be made of the stuff.

 

Re:Drivers, drivers, drivers.

[Xtravar]

Uh, what? Drivers aren't the bottleneck from DAWs that I've seen. It's that VST effects and other apps/plugins are 32-bit. Most DAW software has figured out how to bridge 32-bit VST to 64-bit now, though, by running a dummy 32-bit process to communicate with.

Why is this news?

[MikeV]

No one sells Vista anymore or offers it pre-installed. Everyone is selling 7 now and offering it pre-installed. /. is acting like this is some sort of race. Windows 7 is winning!!!! Winning against what? Vista is dead. Being proud that 7 is winning against roadkill is pretty pathetic.

XP features for Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot recommend ClassicShell enough to people who skipped Vista and (relatively) recently moved to Windows 7. It will not take care of all the quirks in Explorer, but a lot. Just the "folder up" button is worth installing this.

No, I am not involved with this project at all.

Re:XP features for Windows 7

[toddestan]

Well, a few things:

1. If you want to go up one directory, you can just hit the button to go up one and be done. With the breadcrumb interface you have to gu up to the top and find the right directory name to click.

2. If the window is not big, or the directory name is long, you don't get the breadcrumb thing at all, and instead you have to click the little drop down menu thing and then click the directory name.

3. Sometimes if I'm not careful with my clicks, it changes the top to an edit mode as if it thinks I want to type in something.

Overall, I don't mind the breadcrumb thing, just annoyed that they took the up button away. I will grant that most of my experience is with Vista, but my understanding is the Windows Explorer interface in 7 isn't changed.

Re:Who needs 64 bit?

[Straterra]

32-bit, what a waste! Nobody needs 32 bit programs that are wasteful by definition! BACK TO 16-BIT GUYS!

Are people getting Vista because it's better?

[aklinux]

Or is it just because Microsoft won't let 'em downgrade to XP any longer?

Agree, except about the Start menu

[LongearedBat]

The only real problem I've had with Win 7 is the very limited view of apps in the start menu.
Yes, I've pinned the 10 most commonly used apps on the task bar. And that's enough. It's not reasonable to pin all commonly used apps onto the task bar, because then it would get too cluttered.
And it's a royal pain when the start menu enforces a tiny view of a very long list.

The solution?
I installed http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ so I could get the full view of Programs.

Aside from that (and some small problems with file search) I quite like with Win7.

KDE4

[AlexiaDeath]

KDE4 does that for me for free.

Why?

[gillbates]

Everything I want or need is either on the task bar (pinned there) or on the start menu (pinned there or in the 'recently used' section), or available with just a few keystrokes typed in the search box.

Ok, I'm really trying hard not to troll, and I don't want to start a flame war, but you do realize that Linux users have had the features you've just mentioned for more than 12 years, right?

Are you that excited about these things, or merely that they're now available in Windows?

In 1998, the Gnome Desktop allowed you to drag icons to the "start bar", and KDE has had an Alt-F2 "search for executable binary" popup for as long as I can remember.

If these are the sorts of things which make Win7 vastly superior, may I recommend giving Linux a try? You'll probably be pleasantly surprised at how easy it makes it to get things done.