I've used Vista about 4 times for periods ranging from a week to 2 months and each time I couldn't deal with it - most recently about 2 months back (well after SP1)
I've never encountered it being faster so I find that link very surprising although I trust PC Mark very, very little it's still indicative of some kind of performance gain (assuming there's no Vista optomisations but I'm not going to clutch at straws to prove my point)
I'd like to see a disk to disk copy benchmark, network to network copy different disk to different disk, same disk to same, application opening and general use./
I'd be absoloutely extremely surprised if Vista held up, very very surprised.
This isn't me blindly spouting "I THINK blah blah durrr ker durrr" I've been using these things since DOS 5.0 and I'm nothing short of a performance nazi. Let's put it this way, a good geek friend of mine and I shared the same hobby (piracy) for many years. All we ever did was download files, extract, copy, move, delete, open, encode and burn - (not for money mind you, just hobbyist fools collecting crap) I've spent likely thousands upon thousands of hours in Windows Explorer, Winzip, Winrar, Winace and god knows what else. We were such performance nazi's that we both deliberately stuck out with FAT32 longer than most people because you could feel the performance difference to NTFS - it wasn't much but we could notice it and feel the sluggishness, that's pedantic but I could notice it.
I'm a pedantic ass and I know when stuff is slower. I'll have to accept your link I suppose but I will continue to question anything claiming Vista or Win 7 is faster than XP, because XP is very, very simple and damned snappy, consistently.
I can't use Aero mode, I've explained in multiple slashdot topics previously.
1, I require a very very fast OS, I work quick, using the keyboard and want things done NOW - my tools should not hamper me, my brain should 2, RDP, servers, Win2k, WinXP, Win2k3, RDP to any of those systems - all look relatively consistent in classic mode. 3, Simplicity and ease of data to my brain, it's clear, simple, precise - like a terminal - I just get the information I need in a simple box. 4, animations just lag things while waiting for them - see #1 5, I prefer the look
If you know where to find the show drive space, PLEASE tell me because I can't see it (I did find "Automatically Expand to current folder" - now THAT is a good feature)
I know several win2k die hards, we still use it at the govt organisation I work at. It's simialr to XP but you'd be surprised the little things you notice when you go back.
1, the usb drive, pop a file on to your drive, wait 5 seconds, pull the drive - the file disapears on 2k - you HAVE to 'remove hardware' properly. 2, the usb drive again, pop in a drive -label isn't shown in explorer. 3, quick time has to be an old version 4, nokia pc suite has to be an old version 5, who knows what else, IE support? FF, Chrome, Office - not sure but Win2k is slowly and sadly dying, for driver and app support.
It's vastly superior to NT4 and Win98SE but it's time is over (and I'll admit XP will go too)
I got linked to this the other day, it's without any doubt in my mind one of the most shallow, stupid pictures I've ever seen. I didn't have the heart to tell the guy (in my workplace) just how stupid it is.
So let me get this straight.
"Extract 1gb files" and lower is better, right? That gets a '6' (what does that even mean?) on XP SP3 '5' on Vista SP1 then all kinds of random numbers for Windows 7 beta, depending on the build.
You're going to tell me that Windows Vista, the operating system KNOWN to have slower disk performance (google it, I shouldn't have to) performs better than XP? You're going to tell me that Windows Vista and Windows 7, the OS's which are indexing hard disks and thrashing away at the drive half the time are going to be better than XP? Really? (Don't come and tell me the indexer is only at idle time, that's just plain rubbish, I can assure you - it's one of many reasons Vista gives me the shits)
There's so many factors here. Identical hardware? Correct chipset drivers per machine? AHCI mode or what?
Windows XP also loses at 'burn DVD' - what is 'burn DVD'? For a start, AFAIK XP can't even burn a DVD without 3'rd party software, what software was it? What speed is the burner, how did it 'lose' at burning a DVD?
Network transfer, another one where XP 'lost' AGAIN Windows Vista is KNOWN for poor network performance! I don't know why but it's a known issue, it's all over the damned web, so suddenly Vista and the OS based on it's kernel is superior?
Installing the OS and bootup faster? for more data, really? one comes on a CD for a start and chews about 1gb of hard disk space, the other two come on DVD and chew between 2.5 and 5gb (I don't recall the precise figure)
I'm sorry that you're going to have to take my word on this (although I'd be very surprised if no other 'hardware porn geeks' reply) but that chart is frankly, a complete and utter load of shit or the hardware was vastly different.
Point me to an article at some of te web sites which damned well know how to work a machine properly, anandtech, techreport, arstechnica, extremetech, storagereview or even tomshardware for goodness sakes - hell throw in HardOCP to boot. I am amazed at such a ridiculous chart, Vista and Win7 are KNOWN to thrash and pork about in your hard disk like a nosy schoolgirl, the poor drive is always busy but now disk intensive operations are faster? Compressing files (almost entirely CPU bound) is faster?
Cobblers, total and utter cobblers. P.S no offense intended to you, you may well just be relaying the information - but whoever made that chart up is kidding themselves.
The need for 64bit is rare? It's 2009 my good man, how the hell is the need for 64bit rare?
I mean for goodness sakes, how hard is it to manufacture a 64bit CPU now? I'm damned well surprised we still make 32bit chips, I'm being serious here and I swear to you I'm not being closed minded.
Ok I'd love us all to have dual core chips nowadays, I'd love to see single core disapear but I can understand why it's still here (budget segments) but really, 32bit CPU's? It's not acceptable in the slightest.
Also, I'm going to make a stupid post, see if I can get away with it. NO ONE will ever host in this country (for overseas) because it's like hosting on the bloody moon.
You can have a billion gigabytes a second to the moon, it's useless if the latency is at least 200ms.
Better internet, great, 43billion dollars of better internet, when we've got retirees who just lost 50% of their money due to a bubble bursting? What about the housing crises? I don't know if this is true but I've read several times, thisi s one of the most difficult places in the world to purchase a house based on average income, unlike the states, while our share prices bubbled (and houses) we did NOT over-build, so at least in Melbourne, average wage is what - 50k but houses are still 350+ if not more.
Let's solve some real issues, let private business's like iinet, internode, optus and even telstra deal with providing better products by putting in fatter pipes to the exchanges and better ADSL technology to us. I hear there's some kind of DSL coming at 80 or 100mbit or some such - surely that'll do us for 5 to 10 years.
Finally, I'm personally not having kids but hell - I'd rather if I did they could breathe clean air, not have to rely on a coal mine or shipments of oil and turn on a lightswitch without worrying in 25 years.
Indeed, another good point, XP loaded with 55 different apps vs Vista or Windows 7 with 2.
OMG IT'S FASTER!
Seems you're a bit late now though, the bandwagon is in full effect trying to get trivial. I have to wonder how many naysayers have actually been using Windows here and for how long or if they've just decided to debate for the hell of it (this is the internet, I'm just as guilty)
It's not some myth, it's an observation I and every technical friend or colleague I know has come across, it's pretty straightforward - more services, more features, higher resolution backgrounds, more 'stuff' it's slower- it might be better but it's slower.
It's feeling like a digg pileon - well, perhaps these people can do some testing and get back to me, I don't have much to worry about, I do this horrible stuff for a living sadly so I know I'm right. (be nice if it was true for once though)
I couldn't agree with you more and I'm surprised to say I agree with segmentation at this level.
Windows 7 is meant to be such a powerhouse of an OS, why tailor it to support such low end hardware and such high end? This netbook fad is all fine and dandy but for goodness sakes don't run a fully fledged, desktop OS on a little palmtop computer.
As I said earlier also, sure if you're crazy enough to fine but if you've only got a 32bit CPU in your netbook, I wouldn't complain to Microsoft for not supporting 32bit (if only!) I'd complain to the manufacturer for using a 32bit CPU in 2009 / 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit We've had 64bit 'consumer level' desktop CPU's since 2003,.... that's only 6 years ago, sheesh.
You and several other people are missing the point of the post.
The point is not to debate the feature set or if performance is king, the point was dispute the constant nagging rumour that "X new product will be faster than Y previous product!" Certainly some things are worth the sacrifice.
Even if Windows 7 is 4x slower than XP, it may well still be a smart buy in the long run. If a process takes 1 minute on Windows 7 and 15 seconds on XP, with a slow machine that might be perfectly fine on a high end machine where it's.25 seconds vs 1 seconds (negligable time period) So yes, I agree with you that sometimes it's worth having a slower OS, it doesn't change my point though - believing such rumours is succumbing to the will of marketers and fools.
I disagree that Windows 7 isn't getting a warm reception.
Pure marketing spin is going to get Windows 7 a tonne of sales, it will be heralded but a tonne of Vista haters purely because it's not Vista, that name is now a tarnished brand (it simply can't be repaired) In 18 months you'll STILL see XP vs Windows 7 discussions (fewer I admit) but Vista will simply forgotten, much like Windows ME or the Xbox 1.
I am in the camp which feels 7 IS an improvement but I'm not in the "OMG IT'S NOT VISTA! IT MUST BE GOOD!" camp. I still follow the same rules I did with XP and Vista, I'm in classic mode, I'm primarily using it for day to day and I find the user interface...... frustrating but improved.
Explorer is 'cleaner' some small simple additions make explorer easier to use, there's even 1 single improvement over XP (that I've found) There's still some absoloutely stupid rubbish (the status bar in explorer has had the drive free space removed, WHY?)
Overall, Windows 7 feedback is very very positive from what I hear, I don't believe I've blindly drunk the cool aid and I'll call it out when it's stupid but it is better than Vista. It 'feels' partially faster on disk thrashing Explorer is 'cleaner' in several ways. The gadgets don't need to be tacked on to a sidebar.
etc. You are ultimately right though, they need to look at why people love XP and expand upon it but sadly they aren't thinking in that direction
You raise an excellent point I won't deny but I'll just come out and say my opinion here.
1, I couldn't care less about netbooks, I totally don't understand the fad, give me a full 15.4" laptop anyday OR a smartphone, this inbetween thing doesn't interest me. 2, I would argue a netbook is the kind of machine you want to run quickly and seamlessly, XP, linux, or even Vista 32bit are all options you can take, if you want Windows 7 buy a 64bit netbook. 3, The CPU manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves, a 32bit CPU should not be selling anywhere anymore, my god this industry is ridiculous sometimes.
Well for the sake of the post, the entire argument was speed, other features are a moot point.
Sure we can derail the thread further and make other arguments but you won't be negating the original point at all, newer operating systems from Microsoft are almost always slower than the previous version, it's simple bloat. As I just said in a similar post, sometimes the performance hit is worth the sacrifice, other times not.
From my testing so far, Windows 7 seems usable, it still irritates me several times a day but unlike Vista it's not mind-boggingly frustrating. I am (thus far) happy to accept the performance loss for the sake of being able to run a 64bit OS with decent driver support and embrace what I'm going to have to eventually (linux arguments aside)
It just surprises me to see such a comment on a forum like slashdot.
I can't think of a similar analogy but I've heard the same comment bandied about since Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, 95 will be 'faster' - sure it was it did several things better than 3.11 but it's requirements were so much more taxing on the hardware of the time that it was completely slower than Windows 3.11
It's been happening for a long long time, it's simply not true yet it continues to be thrown around the industry and each new OS has the rumour, I heard it for XP and I heard it for Vista. Sometimes the sacrifice is worth it (XP to 2k) other times it's not (XP to Vista) That being said, if you've got a 12gb machine with a high end i7 CPU, the machine is likely a beast, put an SSD in the machine and honestly? even if it's slower than XP overall it's still going to be damned fast.
While your point is technically correct, this is a very very different argument, this is version to version.
XP 64 will be quicker than Vista 64 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff' XP 32 will be quicker than Vista 32 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff'
I appreciate you pointing it out but I think we both know what I meant and I stand by it.
Someone else has already brought up the 64 / 32 bit point. Firstly, Vista (AND Windows 7!) are not 64bit exclusive operating systems, infact if 7 was, I wouldn't have made my initial post.
and yes though, you're right, there's times where 64bit can obviously smash 32bit in performance.
However for the sake of argument. ANY computer you purchase now, be it a quad core i7 or a single core Athlon 3200+, Windows 7 and Vista will be slower, due to things which 'apparently' make it faster, like superfetch and the disk indexing tool (which works only in idle time,.... yeah right..)
Appreciate the post none the less, good to see an AC not post something abusive and shallow. (make an account!)
Congratulations on trying to rebute my post with several points I'd already made in the post itself! You either didn't read it or chose to ignore them, either way your post has 'already been proven wrong'
I notice you're one of those people who have put a nice little red dot against your name to me, bravo - you're hard as nails internet avenger, hard as nails.
Firefox 3 is very, very feature complete and Firefox 2 is still getting basic security patches.
Considering my desired use of a browser, honestly FF3 does everything I currently want and I can't see it having something so mindblowingly awesome in 4.0 that I HAVE to switch. It will continue to work for me for 5 years, sure.
I can't believe I have to make this post, it's insane. (I was banned for 20 days on a VERY stupid and pedantic Aussie forum for arguing the same thing with someone who insisted 7 is faster than XP)
NO VERSION OF WINDOWS HAS EVER BEEN FASTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE, IT'S SIMPLY FUCKING BULLSHIT. PERIOD!
If you get new hardware then duh! of course it's going to be faster Get yourself a single core, 1gb machine with a medium speed hard disk. Put on Windows XP. Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7. It WILL be slower, period.
Now, get yourself a quad core 12gb machine with a 15,000rpm hard disk. Put on Windows XP Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7. It WILL be slower, period.
It does more, it may be sloppy code, it may be better code! but it's still, always always doing more, this rule of thumb has been since the dawn of man. Perhaps ONE operation or two might work faster or be streamlined but essentially under the hood the services always increase, the background tasks increase, it IS slower.
I can't believe anyone with any actual, genuine IT knowledge would question otherwise.
I'll put my only disclaimer here. It's possible, just possible that Windows 7 may break this rule and be faster than Vista, this is a possibiliy but I haven't tested enough to be sure. However besides this, 7 is slower than XP as Vista is slower than XP, XP is slower than 2K 98SE is slower than 95.... and so on and so forth.
This isn't opinion, this is fact, easily backed by a stopwatch or half an ounce of brain. Mark this post +500 and for god sakes link to it when some idiot claims otherwise, he's been reading too many marketing brochures or he's drinking the cool aid (or trying to defend a purchase he just made and wants to feel warm and fuzzy)
XP truely is a fairly slick and fast piece of operating system now. With Firefox updates, locked down security permissions, a decent AV and firewall just how long could an XP box remain useful to a small business, perhaps a POS machine or email / web / printing / burning terminal?
This is what's causing Microsoft so much trouble, I don't know about the rest of you but the most myself, my friends and my family do on a machine is.
Browse Email IM Video playback Burning Downloading Printing Collecting photos from cameras Write documents etc.
That's 99% of the work done on 99% of the machines I support and help with, this is one of many reasons why Vista is having so much trouble. If anything Vista is approaching things from the wrong angle, I don't believe any one of the above is significantly improved in Vista, if anything - due to the cluttered OS it's harder.
As an IT guy, I suspect I'm going to come across some really old but perfectly working XP installs over the coming 5 and maybe even 10 years, it's almost the DOS6.22 of OS's - just fire and forget.
Are you new to computers by any chance? Do you even remember the 16bit to 32bit era, do you know what having multiple versions does for developers and segmenting the market?
Please, come back to this thread when you have a clue or you've been in IT for more than 2 years.
Something is wrong with your machine or you're living in the past. PC's have stagnated for years upon years due to holding on compatibility of older operating systems and architecture.
The switch from 16bit CPU's to 32bit CPU's to true 32bit OS's was really, really far far too long. A mandatory 64bit OS with 32bit emulation through a VM would be far smarter than damn well releasing two different copies.
Microsoft, I'll give up my obsession with XP, skip Vista and widely support Windows 7, if you guys have the testicles to release Windows 7 as a 64bit only operating system.
I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.
Slashdot Mirror
I've used Vista about 4 times for periods ranging from a week to 2 months and each time I couldn't deal with it - most recently about 2 months back (well after SP1)
I've never encountered it being faster so I find that link very surprising although I trust PC Mark very, very little it's still indicative of some kind of performance gain (assuming there's no Vista optomisations but I'm not going to clutch at straws to prove my point)
I'd like to see a disk to disk copy benchmark, network to network copy
different disk to different disk, same disk to same, application opening and general use./
I'd be absoloutely extremely surprised if Vista held up, very very surprised.
This isn't me blindly spouting "I THINK blah blah durrr ker durrr" I've been using these things since DOS 5.0 and I'm nothing short of a performance nazi.
Let's put it this way, a good geek friend of mine and I shared the same hobby (piracy) for many years.
All we ever did was download files, extract, copy, move, delete, open, encode and burn - (not for money mind you, just hobbyist fools collecting crap)
I've spent likely thousands upon thousands of hours in Windows Explorer, Winzip, Winrar, Winace and god knows what else.
We were such performance nazi's that we both deliberately stuck out with FAT32 longer than most people because you could feel the performance difference to NTFS - it wasn't much but we could notice it and feel the sluggishness, that's pedantic but I could notice it.
I'm a pedantic ass and I know when stuff is slower.
I'll have to accept your link I suppose but I will continue to question anything claiming Vista or Win 7 is faster than XP, because XP is very, very simple and damned snappy, consistently.
I can't use Aero mode, I've explained in multiple slashdot topics previously.
1, I require a very very fast OS, I work quick, using the keyboard and want things done NOW - my tools should not hamper me, my brain should
2, RDP, servers, Win2k, WinXP, Win2k3, RDP to any of those systems - all look relatively consistent in classic mode.
3, Simplicity and ease of data to my brain, it's clear, simple, precise - like a terminal - I just get the information I need in a simple box.
4, animations just lag things while waiting for them - see #1
5, I prefer the look
If you know where to find the show drive space, PLEASE tell me because I can't see it (I did find "Automatically Expand to current folder" - now THAT is a good feature)
I know several win2k die hards, we still use it at the govt organisation I work at.
It's simialr to XP but you'd be surprised the little things you notice when you go back.
1, the usb drive, pop a file on to your drive, wait 5 seconds, pull the drive - the file disapears on 2k - you HAVE to 'remove hardware' properly.
2, the usb drive again, pop in a drive -label isn't shown in explorer.
3, quick time has to be an old version
4, nokia pc suite has to be an old version
5, who knows what else, IE support? FF, Chrome, Office - not sure but Win2k is slowly and sadly dying, for driver and app support.
It's vastly superior to NT4 and Win98SE but it's time is over (and I'll admit XP will go too)
I got linked to this the other day, it's without any doubt in my mind one of the most shallow, stupid pictures I've ever seen.
I didn't have the heart to tell the guy (in my workplace) just how stupid it is.
So let me get this straight.
"Extract 1gb files" and lower is better, right?
That gets a '6' (what does that even mean?) on XP SP3
'5' on Vista SP1
then all kinds of random numbers for Windows 7 beta, depending on the build.
You're going to tell me that Windows Vista, the operating system KNOWN to have slower disk performance (google it, I shouldn't have to) performs better than XP?
You're going to tell me that Windows Vista and Windows 7, the OS's which are indexing hard disks and thrashing away at the drive half the time are going to be better than XP?
Really?
(Don't come and tell me the indexer is only at idle time, that's just plain rubbish, I can assure you - it's one of many reasons Vista gives me the shits)
There's so many factors here.
Identical hardware?
Correct chipset drivers per machine? AHCI mode or what?
Windows XP also loses at 'burn DVD' - what is 'burn DVD'?
For a start, AFAIK XP can't even burn a DVD without 3'rd party software, what software was it?
What speed is the burner, how did it 'lose' at burning a DVD?
Network transfer, another one where XP 'lost' AGAIN Windows Vista is KNOWN for poor network performance! I don't know why but it's a known issue, it's all over the damned web, so suddenly Vista and the OS based on it's kernel is superior?
Installing the OS and bootup faster? for more data, really? one comes on a CD for a start and chews about 1gb of hard disk space, the other two come on DVD and chew between 2.5 and 5gb (I don't recall the precise figure)
I'm sorry that you're going to have to take my word on this (although I'd be very surprised if no other 'hardware porn geeks' reply) but that chart is frankly, a complete and utter load of shit or the hardware was vastly different.
Point me to an article at some of te web sites which damned well know how to work a machine properly, anandtech, techreport, arstechnica, extremetech, storagereview or even tomshardware for goodness sakes - hell throw in HardOCP to boot.
I am amazed at such a ridiculous chart, Vista and Win7 are KNOWN to thrash and pork about in your hard disk like a nosy schoolgirl, the poor drive is always busy but now disk intensive operations are faster? Compressing files (almost entirely CPU bound) is faster?
Cobblers, total and utter cobblers.
P.S no offense intended to you, you may well just be relaying the information - but whoever made that chart up is kidding themselves.
I'd love to change the username or at least lowercase it, however it's not possible.
Did you read his post to me or skip over it? Why do I have to modify my behaviour because he's naive and swearing at me to boot.
The need for 64bit is rare? It's 2009 my good man, how the hell is the need for 64bit rare?
I mean for goodness sakes, how hard is it to manufacture a 64bit CPU now?
I'm damned well surprised we still make 32bit chips, I'm being serious here and I swear to you I'm not being closed minded.
Ok I'd love us all to have dual core chips nowadays, I'd love to see single core disapear but I can understand why it's still here (budget segments) but really, 32bit CPU's?
It's not acceptable in the slightest.
I think if it was 43million sure, but 43billion?
How many of the following can be built with that money?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy
Also, I'm going to make a stupid post, see if I can get away with it.
NO ONE will ever host in this country (for overseas) because it's like hosting on the bloody moon.
You can have a billion gigabytes a second to the moon, it's useless if the latency is at least 200ms.
Better internet, great, 43billion dollars of better internet, when we've got retirees who just lost 50% of their money due to a bubble bursting?
What about the housing crises? I don't know if this is true but I've read several times, thisi s one of the most difficult places in the world to purchase a house based on average income, unlike the states, while our share prices bubbled (and houses) we did NOT over-build, so at least in Melbourne, average wage is what - 50k but houses are still 350+ if not more.
Let's solve some real issues, let private business's like iinet, internode, optus and even telstra deal with providing better products by putting in fatter pipes to the exchanges and better ADSL technology to us.
I hear there's some kind of DSL coming at 80 or 100mbit or some such - surely that'll do us for 5 to 10 years.
Finally, I'm personally not having kids but hell - I'd rather if I did they could breathe clean air, not have to rely on a coal mine or shipments of oil and turn on a lightswitch without worrying in 25 years.
Indeed, another good point, XP loaded with 55 different apps vs Vista or Windows 7 with 2.
OMG IT'S FASTER!
Seems you're a bit late now though, the bandwagon is in full effect trying to get trivial.
I have to wonder how many naysayers have actually been using Windows here and for how long or if they've just decided to debate for the hell of it (this is the internet, I'm just as guilty)
It's not some myth, it's an observation I and every technical friend or colleague I know has come across, it's pretty straightforward - more services, more features, higher resolution backgrounds, more 'stuff' it's slower- it might be better but it's slower.
It's feeling like a digg pileon - well, perhaps these people can do some testing and get back to me, I don't have much to worry about, I do this horrible stuff for a living sadly so I know I'm right.
(be nice if it was true for once though)
I couldn't agree with you more and I'm surprised to say I agree with segmentation at this level.
Windows 7 is meant to be such a powerhouse of an OS, why tailor it to support such low end hardware and such high end?
This netbook fad is all fine and dandy but for goodness sakes don't run a fully fledged, desktop OS on a little palmtop computer.
As I said earlier also, sure if you're crazy enough to fine but if you've only got a 32bit CPU in your netbook, I wouldn't complain to Microsoft for not supporting 32bit (if only!) I'd complain to the manufacturer for using a 32bit CPU in 2009 / 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit
We've had 64bit 'consumer level' desktop CPU's since 2003,.... that's only 6 years ago, sheesh.
You and several other people are missing the point of the post.
The point is not to debate the feature set or if performance is king, the point was dispute the constant nagging rumour that "X new product will be faster than Y previous product!"
Certainly some things are worth the sacrifice.
Even if Windows 7 is 4x slower than XP, it may well still be a smart buy in the long run. .25 seconds vs 1 seconds (negligable time period)
If a process takes 1 minute on Windows 7 and 15 seconds on XP, with a slow machine that might be perfectly fine on a high end machine where it's
So yes, I agree with you that sometimes it's worth having a slower OS, it doesn't change my point though - believing such rumours is succumbing to the will of marketers and fools.
I disagree that Windows 7 isn't getting a warm reception.
Pure marketing spin is going to get Windows 7 a tonne of sales, it will be heralded but a tonne of Vista haters purely because it's not Vista, that name is now a tarnished brand (it simply can't be repaired)
In 18 months you'll STILL see XP vs Windows 7 discussions (fewer I admit) but Vista will simply forgotten, much like Windows ME or the Xbox 1.
I am in the camp which feels 7 IS an improvement but I'm not in the "OMG IT'S NOT VISTA! IT MUST BE GOOD!" camp. ...... frustrating but improved.
I still follow the same rules I did with XP and Vista, I'm in classic mode, I'm primarily using it for day to day and I find the user interface
Explorer is 'cleaner' some small simple additions make explorer easier to use, there's even 1 single improvement over XP (that I've found)
There's still some absoloutely stupid rubbish (the status bar in explorer has had the drive free space removed, WHY?)
Overall, Windows 7 feedback is very very positive from what I hear, I don't believe I've blindly drunk the cool aid and I'll call it out when it's stupid but it is better than Vista.
It 'feels' partially faster on disk thrashing
Explorer is 'cleaner' in several ways.
The gadgets don't need to be tacked on to a sidebar.
etc.
You are ultimately right though, they need to look at why people love XP and expand upon it but sadly they aren't thinking in that direction
You raise an excellent point I won't deny but I'll just come out and say my opinion here.
1, I couldn't care less about netbooks, I totally don't understand the fad, give me a full 15.4" laptop anyday OR a smartphone, this inbetween thing doesn't interest me.
2, I would argue a netbook is the kind of machine you want to run quickly and seamlessly, XP, linux, or even Vista 32bit are all options you can take, if you want Windows 7 buy a 64bit netbook.
3, The CPU manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves, a 32bit CPU should not be selling anywhere anymore, my god this industry is ridiculous sometimes.
Well for the sake of the post, the entire argument was speed, other features are a moot point.
Sure we can derail the thread further and make other arguments but you won't be negating the original point at all, newer operating systems from Microsoft are almost always slower than the previous version, it's simple bloat.
As I just said in a similar post, sometimes the performance hit is worth the sacrifice, other times not.
From my testing so far, Windows 7 seems usable, it still irritates me several times a day but unlike Vista it's not mind-boggingly frustrating.
I am (thus far) happy to accept the performance loss for the sake of being able to run a 64bit OS with decent driver support and embrace what I'm going to have to eventually (linux arguments aside)
It just surprises me to see such a comment on a forum like slashdot.
I can't think of a similar analogy but I've heard the same comment bandied about since Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, 95 will be 'faster' - sure it was it did several things better than 3.11 but it's requirements were so much more taxing on the hardware of the time that it was completely slower than Windows 3.11
It's been happening for a long long time, it's simply not true yet it continues to be thrown around the industry and each new OS has the rumour, I heard it for XP and I heard it for Vista.
Sometimes the sacrifice is worth it (XP to 2k) other times it's not (XP to Vista)
That being said, if you've got a 12gb machine with a high end i7 CPU, the machine is likely a beast, put an SSD in the machine and honestly? even if it's slower than XP overall it's still going to be damned fast.
That is very much me, I won't deny it :)
While your point is technically correct, this is a very very different argument, this is version to version.
XP 64 will be quicker than Vista 64 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff'
XP 32 will be quicker than Vista 32 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff'
I appreciate you pointing it out but I think we both know what I meant and I stand by it.
Someone else has already brought up the 64 / 32 bit point.
Firstly, Vista (AND Windows 7!) are not 64bit exclusive operating systems, infact if 7 was, I wouldn't have made my initial post.
and yes though, you're right, there's times where 64bit can obviously smash 32bit in performance.
However for the sake of argument.
ANY computer you purchase now, be it a quad core i7 or a single core Athlon 3200+, Windows 7 and Vista will be slower, due to things which 'apparently' make it faster, like superfetch and the disk indexing tool (which works only in idle time,.... yeah right..)
Appreciate the post none the less, good to see an AC not post something abusive and shallow. (make an account!)
Congratulations on trying to rebute my post with several points I'd already made in the post itself!
You either didn't read it or chose to ignore them, either way your post has 'already been proven wrong'
I notice you're one of those people who have put a nice little red dot against your name to me, bravo - you're hard as nails internet avenger, hard as nails.
Next time read the post before hitting reply.
Firefox 3 is very, very feature complete and Firefox 2 is still getting basic security patches.
Considering my desired use of a browser, honestly FF3 does everything I currently want and I can't see it having something so mindblowingly awesome in 4.0 that I HAVE to switch.
It will continue to work for me for 5 years, sure.
I can't believe I have to make this post, it's insane.
(I was banned for 20 days on a VERY stupid and pedantic Aussie forum for arguing the same thing with someone who insisted 7 is faster than XP)
NO VERSION OF WINDOWS HAS EVER BEEN FASTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE, IT'S SIMPLY FUCKING BULLSHIT.
PERIOD!
If you get new hardware then duh! of course it's going to be faster
Get yourself a single core, 1gb machine with a medium speed hard disk.
Put on Windows XP.
Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
It WILL be slower, period.
Now, get yourself a quad core 12gb machine with a 15,000rpm hard disk.
Put on Windows XP
Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
It WILL be slower, period.
It does more, it may be sloppy code, it may be better code! but it's still, always always doing more, this rule of thumb has been since the dawn of man.
Perhaps ONE operation or two might work faster or be streamlined but essentially under the hood the services always increase, the background tasks increase, it IS slower.
I can't believe anyone with any actual, genuine IT knowledge would question otherwise.
I'll put my only disclaimer here.
It's possible, just possible that Windows 7 may break this rule and be faster than Vista, this is a possibiliy but I haven't tested enough to be sure.
However besides this, 7 is slower than XP as Vista is slower than XP, XP is slower than 2K
98SE is slower than 95.... and so on and so forth.
This isn't opinion, this is fact, easily backed by a stopwatch or half an ounce of brain.
Mark this post +500 and for god sakes link to it when some idiot claims otherwise, he's been reading too many marketing brochures or he's drinking the cool aid (or trying to defend a purchase he just made and wants to feel warm and fuzzy)
Interesting post indeed.
XP truely is a fairly slick and fast piece of operating system now.
With Firefox updates, locked down security permissions, a decent AV and firewall just how long could an XP box remain useful to a small business, perhaps a POS machine or email / web / printing / burning terminal?
This is what's causing Microsoft so much trouble, I don't know about the rest of you but the most myself, my friends and my family do on a machine is.
Browse
Email
IM
Video playback
Burning
Downloading
Printing
Collecting photos from cameras
Write documents etc.
That's 99% of the work done on 99% of the machines I support and help with, this is one of many reasons why Vista is having so much trouble.
If anything Vista is approaching things from the wrong angle, I don't believe any one of the above is significantly improved in Vista, if anything - due to the cluttered OS it's harder.
As an IT guy, I suspect I'm going to come across some really old but perfectly working XP installs over the coming 5 and maybe even 10 years, it's almost the DOS6.22 of OS's - just fire and forget.
Are you new to computers by any chance?
Do you even remember the 16bit to 32bit era, do you know what having multiple versions does for developers and segmenting the market?
Please, come back to this thread when you have a clue or you've been in IT for more than 2 years.
Something is wrong with your machine or you're living in the past.
PC's have stagnated for years upon years due to holding on compatibility of older operating systems and architecture.
The switch from 16bit CPU's to 32bit CPU's to true 32bit OS's was really, really far far too long.
A mandatory 64bit OS with 32bit emulation through a VM would be far smarter than damn well releasing two different copies.
Microsoft, I'll give up my obsession with XP, skip Vista and widely support Windows 7, if you guys have the testicles to release Windows 7 as a 64bit only operating system.
I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.