No... Win7 works a lot BETTER than XP in almost every way. Easier/faster to install. Better, more responsive UI, with better productivity features. FAR better security. More stable. Supports newer hardeware that XP just never will. Better graphics subsystems. Runs more efficiently on multiple-core CPUs. The list goes on and on.
So no, XP doesn't work "at least as well" as Win7. XP on some harware will run slightly faster and in slightly less memory, but you pay a lot for that. Win7 runs acceptably on most netbooks, and beautifully on anything more powerful than an Atom processor.
I use Win7 on a domain at work all the time. When I need to log into a computer for the first time, I just type domain\username. Every other time, it's already there (because I use the same computer most of the time). Is your point that it's impossible for people to remember their domain? Really?
I'd be shocked if THIS was a reason that Win7 is being "kept out of the enterprise".
I use Windows 7 every day... it seems you don't because almost none of those things are issues. Specifically:
1. Non-customizable start menu like XP (yeah, you can type what you want, but there are advantages to having dynamic menus)
- I haven't missed this at all. With jump lists, start-menu search, the ability to pin applications to the start menu and to the task bar, I honestly don't miss this at all. The number of times I've had to go into the All Programs menu to find anything has been close to zero. I was a huge fan of this feature in XP and used it all the time. It annoyed in Vista when it was missing. But Win7 provides more and better replacements that are simple, intuitive, obvious, and easily replace this functionality.
2. Tree Views don't have line options anymore (removed in 7, were still available in Vista) In fact, the whole operation of the Tree View of folders is totally fucked up now. It tries too hard to estimate what you want to do.
- True, but really a minor issue. It works at least as well as Vista imho, and there are enough enhancements in the Explorer window that it's just not the issue I thought it would be. Have you used the "Favorites" section at the top? Drill down to any folder you use frequently, then right-click on Favorites and select "Add current location to Favorites". Boom. No more having to drill down (and thus have to deal with the "tree"). That's just one enhancement and short-cut that Win7 offers.
3. Movable address "toolbars" so you could customize the layout and look of your Explorer Window, (IE6 as well as XP)
- I don't even know what you're talking about here. Explorer is plenty customizable, and is vastly superior to Explorer in XP or Vista. I live in Explorer (as a developer), and everything I do is faster, simpler, and less frustrating in Explorer in Win7, as compared to Vista or XP. And I hope to hell you're not still using IE6.
4. Totally customizable toolbars so if you wanted to remove the favorites bar from IE you could and it wouldn't push it into the tab bar for some unknown reason... maybe this falls into or replaces #3?)
- This is an IE6 thing that has nothing to do with XP vs. Vista vs. Win7. Nobody should be using IE6 any more. Not liking the IE7 or IE8 UI has nothing to do with Win7. Nobody forces you to use IE of any version. Don't like it? Switch to FireFox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. You have options here other than whining.
5. Absolutely retarded Control panel, additional wizards all over the place (extra clicks to change options)
- The control panel is FAR more organized and easier to use (it takes just a few minutes to get used to, seriously). Everything I need is right there on the front page, nine times out of ten, and in an obvious category. I find all of it that I have used to be more efficient, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here. You CAN switch to "classic view", but I encourage you to try the new way, because it really is better. I know, I know, I was skeptical too. I was wrong. So are you.
6. Status "bar" at the bottom of windows shows too much information, no options to reduce this.
- Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here. The status bar is actually defaulted to off. If you're refering to the detailes pane that appears above the status bar (when the status bar is turned on), I find it very informative and useful and can't imagine being annoyed by it. It certainly reduces the number of times I need to look at file properties or customize the columns in Detail display, or whatever. Love the Preview Pane options as well. Oh yeah, you can turn it off very easily... Organize -> Layout -> Detail Pane... if it still bugs you. So yes, there's an option to reduce (eliminate) it.
7. Ribbons. Say what you will, I'd rather have toolbars... at leas
Windmills have brakes, so their spin can be controlled.
There is also Vanadium battery technology, which looks promising for massive energy storage with low maintenance and low degredation over time (and recharge cycles)... would love to see more installations of this on wind-farms.
Dunno about sheep, but wind-farms DO kill bats. The blades attract them, and the pressure difference as they fly by can pop their lungs. And Texas is a big state for bat colonies, so it's been a real problem in some areas.
In addition to those two questions, factor in these other two questions:
What's the cost if we do something about it, but scientists were wrong (i.e. there isn't any real global warming, or at least human-caused warming) vs. the benefits of doing nothing in that case....
and
What's the cost if we do nothing about it, but scientists were right (i.e. human-caused global warming is quite real and accelerating), vs. the benfits of doing something in that case...
I have tried them all, I swear. Paid and free. And ALL of them annoyed me to no end, either with nagging, or slow-downs, or with pop-ups, or (shudder) VOICES that actually spoke out every freakin' time it updated its database...
Until I tried Microsoft Security Essentials. Not only does it work as well or better than most of the others (paid or free), it's less of a resource hog, and doesn't nag or get in my face. It does it's job and says out of the way otherwise.
I've NEVER been truly happy with an anti-virus package before. I'm kinda shocked that it's Microsoft's that I ended up being happy with, but that's the truth. I have since ripped out every other anti-virus on every other PC I use, home and at work, and use MSE exclusively now.
I think you need to differentiate between "awful" and just "different".
The "cutting off" of UI elements is a cue that there is more stuff to the right, making it far more intuitive and discoverable to swipe over to see the extra content.
It's actually not a bad design at all.
And the animations themselves give cues to what is going on and "where" you are going in the UI, as well as cues about how to get back (though a dedicated back button really helps out here).
It remains to be seen how well it works in real-world usage, and there are a lot of unanswered questions left, but so far I don't see anything that is truly "awful" about the UI, personally.
What you tell management = Double X and raise the units by one.
So if the initial estimate is 2 hours, then you tell management 4 days. If the intial estimate is 3 days, then you tell management 6 weeks. You get the picture.
The key definition to me is that planets orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, all in the same direction.
Pluto does not orbit in the plane of the ecliptic. It's orbit also crosses the paths of existing planets. It's clearly an Oort cloud object. And not even the largest one. It has more in common with a comet than with any of the other planets, in both orbit and composition.
I don't understand why there's even a controversy here. Even as a child, when I looked at the diagram of the planets, Pluto stood out in a "One of these things is not like the others" way to me. It simply doesn't fit.
The decision to demote Pluto from planethood was and is a good one, and everyone upset by it just needs to get over it.
Yes. And the main problem I had with the miniseries is that the look was AWFUL. It was completely wrong. Too clean, too sparse, too pretty. Just completely wrong in every way it's possible to be wrong.
Dude, the editor takes care of that for you. Why micromanage spaces and alignment when that's what computers are good for? There's a reason things like ReSharper exist. I never ever use tabs (option is set to insert spaces instead), and I've never had to deal with any of these issues the "tabs not spaces" crowed insist exist if you use spaces.
And of course selecting text and using Tab/Shift-Tab to change indenting works just fine if you're not using tab characters. Why wouldn't they?
I'm with you. I *hate* tabs embedded in source files. They're nothing but trouble for all the reasons cited in TFA by those who want the setting separated.
I always set the "Insert spaces" option for tabs, and the first thing I do with any legacy code or other code I take over is "untabbify" the entire thing. I've worked to make it part of our coding standards that there be NO TABS in source files.
Tabs provide no benefit, and cause nothing but problems. You are correct: they irritating and utterly unnecessary.
While actual performance may not be faster, perceived performance almost certianly is. It "feels" snappier, seems to respond better, due to some optimizations in locking and in the graphics subsystem that allows visual feedback in one app to not be blocked or held up by work going on in another app.
Agreed, but most of those issues disappeared with SP1 (and UAC was easy to turn off and/or work around to make it less annoying, and even if left in place, became less annoying over time as it really was hit up front as you installed everything and set everything up).
Since SP1 came out, I've been quite happy with Vista.
In fact, every time I have to go back to XP, I get frustrated with how old and obsolete and inefficient it is. I miss things like the screen snipper and the start menu search and a lot of the nice enhancements to Windows Explorer.
Vista stumbled badly out of the gate (bad expectations set with the "Vista Capable program" combined with too-high memory requirements, and poor compatability with older hardware, graphics cards, as well as the bugs in such things as the file copy issue). It's perception never, ever recovered, even though the OS itself more or less did.
And under Win7, UAC is even easier to work around and get to be non-annoying.
3) More featured (at least until this latest iteration of iPods... things like built in FM tuners, wireless access to the media store, etc)
4) Better quality sound from the same tracks on the same headphones. The DAC and hardware does make a difference here, it's not JUST the encoding.
5) Zune Pass
The Zune Pass is actually really killer... for $14.95 a month, you get 10 downloaded MP3 tracks of your choice (no DRM) every single month, PLUS you get unlimited access to virtually the entire marketplace for songs. Hear a track you like on the radio? Click, and it's downloaded to your Zune to listen any time you want. No "sampling" 30 seconds of music, you can listen to the entire thing before deciding to sync it or not. And the Zune software's mix-view and "Social" also really aid in discovering new music. In fact, the on-line component, with friends, allows you to share playlists, earn "badges" (sort of like XBox 360 Achievements) for your listening habits, track plays and do all sorts of other fascinating things that really hook you deeper in to the music you're listening to.
The drawbacks of a Zune compared to an iPod?
1) PC only. No Mac, no Linux, etc, unless you run Windows in a VM or multi-boot configuration
2) No real 3rd party after-market, so choices are limited when it comes to external speakers, covers and cases, and those kinds of options.
3) More limited selection of videos and TV and such as compared to the iTunes store.
4) Pretty much available only in the USA (and even if you can get the player in other countries, the marketplace and ZunePass only work in the US)
However, it's pretty much a superior piece of hardware, with superior software, a superior UI, superior sound and video, and with the Zune Pass, a superior ability to listen to and discover new music.
Those limiting factors are, however, killers. Thankfully, none of them affect me. I have a zKicker for external speakers (GREAT sound), premium headphones, and live in the US.
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No... Win7 works a lot BETTER than XP in almost every way. Easier/faster to install. Better, more responsive UI, with better productivity features. FAR better security. More stable. Supports newer hardeware that XP just never will. Better graphics subsystems. Runs more efficiently on multiple-core CPUs. The list goes on and on.
So no, XP doesn't work "at least as well" as Win7. XP on some harware will run slightly faster and in slightly less memory, but you pay a lot for that. Win7 runs acceptably on most netbooks, and beautifully on anything more powerful than an Atom processor.
Why is that a problem?
I use Win7 on a domain at work all the time. When I need to log into a computer for the first time, I just type domain\username. Every other time, it's already there (because I use the same computer most of the time). Is your point that it's impossible for people to remember their domain? Really?
I'd be shocked if THIS was a reason that Win7 is being "kept out of the enterprise".
I use Windows 7 every day... it seems you don't because almost none of those things are issues. Specifically:
1. Non-customizable start menu like XP (yeah, you can type what you want, but there are advantages to having dynamic menus)
- I haven't missed this at all. With jump lists, start-menu search, the ability to pin applications to the start menu and to the task bar, I honestly don't miss this at all. The number of times I've had to go into the All Programs menu to find anything has been close to zero. I was a huge fan of this feature in XP and used it all the time. It annoyed in Vista when it was missing. But Win7 provides more and better replacements that are simple, intuitive, obvious, and easily replace this functionality.
2. Tree Views don't have line options anymore (removed in 7, were still available in Vista) In fact, the whole operation of the Tree View of folders is totally fucked up now. It tries too hard to estimate what you want to do.
- True, but really a minor issue. It works at least as well as Vista imho, and there are enough enhancements in the Explorer window that it's just not the issue I thought it would be. Have you used the "Favorites" section at the top? Drill down to any folder you use frequently, then right-click on Favorites and select "Add current location to Favorites". Boom. No more having to drill down (and thus have to deal with the "tree"). That's just one enhancement and short-cut that Win7 offers.
3. Movable address "toolbars" so you could customize the layout and look of your Explorer Window, (IE6 as well as XP)
- I don't even know what you're talking about here. Explorer is plenty customizable, and is vastly superior to Explorer in XP or Vista. I live in Explorer (as a developer), and everything I do is faster, simpler, and less frustrating in Explorer in Win7, as compared to Vista or XP. And I hope to hell you're not still using IE6.
4. Totally customizable toolbars so if you wanted to remove the favorites bar from IE you could and it wouldn't push it into the tab bar for some unknown reason... maybe this falls into or replaces #3?)
- This is an IE6 thing that has nothing to do with XP vs. Vista vs. Win7. Nobody should be using IE6 any more. Not liking the IE7 or IE8 UI has nothing to do with Win7. Nobody forces you to use IE of any version. Don't like it? Switch to FireFox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. You have options here other than whining.
5. Absolutely retarded Control panel, additional wizards all over the place (extra clicks to change options)
- The control panel is FAR more organized and easier to use (it takes just a few minutes to get used to, seriously). Everything I need is right there on the front page, nine times out of ten, and in an obvious category. I find all of it that I have used to be more efficient, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here. You CAN switch to "classic view", but I encourage you to try the new way, because it really is better. I know, I know, I was skeptical too. I was wrong. So are you.
6. Status "bar" at the bottom of windows shows too much information, no options to reduce this. ... if it still bugs you. So yes, there's an option to reduce (eliminate) it.
- Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here. The status bar is actually defaulted to off. If you're refering to the detailes pane that appears above the status bar (when the status bar is turned on), I find it very informative and useful and can't imagine being annoyed by it. It certainly reduces the number of times I need to look at file properties or customize the columns in Detail display, or whatever. Love the Preview Pane options as well. Oh yeah, you can turn it off very easily... Organize -> Layout -> Detail Pane
7. Ribbons. Say what you will, I'd rather have toolbars... at leas
Bravo. Extremely well stated. Dunno why your reply is rated a 0. I wish some mods were left to mod this up.
Vista and Windows Server 2008 are from the same code-line/base.
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2 are from the same code-line/base.
They have anything to do with the 3->95->98->ME codeline/base.
SP3 did NOT add "a lot of new services and processes" as compared to SP2. SP3 was merely a roll-up of all the existing patches and fixes since SP2.
And seriously, a 2004 PC that can't hack running XP SP2? Whatever she paid for it, she paid too damn much for it. That's pathetic.
You obviously haven't used Windows 7. It's remarkably more stable and usable than any flavor or SP of XP, even prior to SP1.
There's really no good excuse for staying on XP any more. Really, for 99% of use-cases, there isn't.
Windmills have brakes, so their spin can be controlled.
There is also Vanadium battery technology, which looks promising for massive energy storage with low maintenance and low degredation over time (and recharge cycles)... would love to see more installations of this on wind-farms.
Dunno about sheep, but wind-farms DO kill bats. The blades attract them, and the pressure difference as they fly by can pop their lungs. And Texas is a big state for bat colonies, so it's been a real problem in some areas.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/25/wind-turbine-bats.html
In addition to those two questions, factor in these other two questions:
What's the cost if we do something about it, but scientists were wrong (i.e. there isn't any real global warming, or at least human-caused warming) vs. the benefits of doing nothing in that case....
and
What's the cost if we do nothing about it, but scientists were right (i.e. human-caused global warming is quite real and accelerating), vs. the benfits of doing something in that case...
Win7 was released without built in USB 3.0 support ... will it be added with SP1?
I have tried them all, I swear. Paid and free. And ALL of them annoyed me to no end, either with nagging, or slow-downs, or with pop-ups, or (shudder) VOICES that actually spoke out every freakin' time it updated its database...
Until I tried Microsoft Security Essentials. Not only does it work as well or better than most of the others (paid or free), it's less of a resource hog, and doesn't nag or get in my face. It does it's job and says out of the way otherwise.
I've NEVER been truly happy with an anti-virus package before. I'm kinda shocked that it's Microsoft's that I ended up being happy with, but that's the truth. I have since ripped out every other anti-virus on every other PC I use, home and at work, and use MSE exclusively now.
Mod. Parent. Up.
You honestly think they're not hard at work on "Microsoft Web-Office"? All this stuff benefits them as well.
I think you need to differentiate between "awful" and just "different".
The "cutting off" of UI elements is a cue that there is more stuff to the right, making it far more intuitive and discoverable to swipe over to see the extra content.
It's actually not a bad design at all.
And the animations themselves give cues to what is going on and "where" you are going in the UI, as well as cues about how to get back (though a dedicated back button really helps out here).
It remains to be seen how well it works in real-world usage, and there are a lot of unanswered questions left, but so far I don't see anything that is truly "awful" about the UI, personally.
Actually I always use this:
X = Initial Estimate
What you tell management = Double X and raise the units by one.
So if the initial estimate is 2 hours, then you tell management 4 days. If the intial estimate is 3 days, then you tell management 6 weeks. You get the picture.
The key definition to me is that planets orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, all in the same direction.
Pluto does not orbit in the plane of the ecliptic. It's orbit also crosses the paths of existing planets. It's clearly an Oort cloud object. And not even the largest one. It has more in common with a comet than with any of the other planets, in both orbit and composition.
I don't understand why there's even a controversy here. Even as a child, when I looked at the diagram of the planets, Pluto stood out in a "One of these things is not like the others" way to me. It simply doesn't fit.
The decision to demote Pluto from planethood was and is a good one, and everyone upset by it just needs to get over it.
I wish someone would try to film "Snowcrash".
Yes. And the main problem I had with the miniseries is that the look was AWFUL. It was completely wrong. Too clean, too sparse, too pretty. Just completely wrong in every way it's possible to be wrong.
Dude, the editor takes care of that for you. Why micromanage spaces and alignment when that's what computers are good for? There's a reason things like ReSharper exist. I never ever use tabs (option is set to insert spaces instead), and I've never had to deal with any of these issues the "tabs not spaces" crowed insist exist if you use spaces.
And of course selecting text and using Tab/Shift-Tab to change indenting works just fine if you're not using tab characters. Why wouldn't they?
I'm with you. I *hate* tabs embedded in source files. They're nothing but trouble for all the reasons cited in TFA by those who want the setting separated.
I always set the "Insert spaces" option for tabs, and the first thing I do with any legacy code or other code I take over is "untabbify" the entire thing. I've worked to make it part of our coding standards that there be NO TABS in source files.
Tabs provide no benefit, and cause nothing but problems. You are correct: they irritating and utterly unnecessary.
While actual performance may not be faster, perceived performance almost certianly is. It "feels" snappier, seems to respond better, due to some optimizations in locking and in the graphics subsystem that allows visual feedback in one app to not be blocked or held up by work going on in another app.
Agreed, but most of those issues disappeared with SP1 (and UAC was easy to turn off and/or work around to make it less annoying, and even if left in place, became less annoying over time as it really was hit up front as you installed everything and set everything up).
Since SP1 came out, I've been quite happy with Vista.
In fact, every time I have to go back to XP, I get frustrated with how old and obsolete and inefficient it is. I miss things like the screen snipper and the start menu search and a lot of the nice enhancements to Windows Explorer.
Vista stumbled badly out of the gate (bad expectations set with the "Vista Capable program" combined with too-high memory requirements, and poor compatability with older hardware, graphics cards, as well as the bugs in such things as the file copy issue). It's perception never, ever recovered, even though the OS itself more or less did.
And under Win7, UAC is even easier to work around and get to be non-annoying.
Well, as I said:
1) I like the UI on the device a lot better
2) I like the software on the PC a LOT better
3) More featured (at least until this latest iteration of iPods... things like built in FM tuners, wireless access to the media store, etc)
4) Better quality sound from the same tracks on the same headphones. The DAC and hardware does make a difference here, it's not JUST the encoding.
5) Zune Pass
The Zune Pass is actually really killer... for $14.95 a month, you get 10 downloaded MP3 tracks of your choice (no DRM) every single month, PLUS you get unlimited access to virtually the entire marketplace for songs. Hear a track you like on the radio? Click, and it's downloaded to your Zune to listen any time you want. No "sampling" 30 seconds of music, you can listen to the entire thing before deciding to sync it or not. And the Zune software's mix-view and "Social" also really aid in discovering new music. In fact, the on-line component, with friends, allows you to share playlists, earn "badges" (sort of like XBox 360 Achievements) for your listening habits, track plays and do all sorts of other fascinating things that really hook you deeper in to the music you're listening to.
The drawbacks of a Zune compared to an iPod?
1) PC only. No Mac, no Linux, etc, unless you run Windows in a VM or multi-boot configuration
2) No real 3rd party after-market, so choices are limited when it comes to external speakers, covers and cases, and those kinds of options.
3) More limited selection of videos and TV and such as compared to the iTunes store.
4) Pretty much available only in the USA (and even if you can get the player in other countries, the marketplace and ZunePass only work in the US)
However, it's pretty much a superior piece of hardware, with superior software, a superior UI, superior sound and video, and with the Zune Pass, a superior ability to listen to and discover new music.
Those limiting factors are, however, killers. Thankfully, none of them affect me. I have a zKicker for external speakers (GREAT sound), premium headphones, and live in the US.
They haven't been brown for years and years.
The Zune 80/120 is a pretty good device.
The Zune HD is even better.
Better UI than iPods (Nano/Classic), and far better desktop software than iTunes. Great sound quality too.