Windows 7

[Americano]

I'm a little confused by what I'm reading about Win 7. The hype says it will run XP applications with an add-on available for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise, the three top-priced editions of the new operating system.

Does this mean the basic Win 7 won't run XP applications?

[drgoodtrips]

My guess is that it means Microsoft won't guarantee (for whatever that's worth) that they will run. They probably would, in the same way that if you grab something from a Windows 2000 box and stick in on XP, it will probably run.

[Michael]

Is this a new OS to replace or next generation of Vista? :ummm:

I've never heard of it.

[Americano]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

[Americano]

My guess is that it means Microsoft won't guarantee (for whatever that's worth) that they will run. They probably would, in the same way that if you grab something from a Windows 2000 box and stick in on XP, it will probably run.

Unless one buys the three aforementioned upgrades from basic Win 7?

[Michael]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
I should have known better than to ask a stupid question. With Microsoft, every question is a stupid question. The answer is always "WTF"? :rolleyes:

Needless to say, that website doesn't answer my question (surprise, surprise!).

One can pretty much guarentee that the one place one can never get a decent answer about Windows is from Microsoft. They have a vested interest in not answering particular types of questions.

I suppose I'll have to got search some tech blogs to find out the answer - though, to be honest, I just don't care what Microsoft is up to.

[Americano]

It's the 'new' operating system, superseding Vista. Formal release is scheduled this summer, before the school year surge of new PC buying, in hopes that it'll be included as the standard OS.

[drgoodtrips]

Unless one buys the three aforementioned upgrades from basic Win 7?

Oh, yes. I probably should have included that. :o

[Michael]

It's the 'new' operating system, superseding Vista. Formal release is scheduled this summer, before the school year surge of new PC buying, in hopes that it'll be included as the standard OS.
Hmmm... quick question:

Which MS operating system has had the shortest market lifespan? Vista or ME?

:rofl:

[Americano]

Hmmm... quick question:

Which MS operating system has had the shortest market lifespan? Vista or ME?

:rofl:

By me; I went from DOS to 3.1 to 95 to 98 to XP. Each change up to XP was a major personal and professional PITA.

[drgoodtrips]

Hmmm... quick question:

Which MS operating system has had the shortest market lifespan? Vista or ME?

:rofl:
ME, if memory serves. Microsoft was, at that point, on the cusp of merging its Windows 9x platform with its Windows NT platform (which it accomplished in XP). ME was a half-assed release on the shitty Win 9x platform that was already targetted for EOL. I'm not really sure why they even bothered instead of just issuing a service pack for 98.

Vista is a whole different animal - it was intended to be another coup on the order of XP, but it turned out to be a Spruce Goose.

[Americano]

ME, if memory serves. Microsoft was, at that point, on the cusp of merging its Windows 9x platform with its Windows NT platform (which it accomplished in XP). ME was a half-assed release on the shitty Win 9x platform that was already targetted for EOL. I'm not really sure why they even bothered instead of just issuing a service pack for 98.

Vista is a whole different animal - it was intended to be another coup on the order of XP, but it turned out to be a Spruce Goose.

One low-level flight and then museum status.

I never tried it but the thought of putting something on the market that required a minimum doubling of average existing memory to function seemed....stupid.

[Michael]

Just for the record, we did an 'informal' test on computers here at the office a few months back to test a hypothesis.

Lotus 123 running on an old 14 year old DOS box blew the socks off Excel running on Win XP on a machine that was about 50 times more powerful. DOS box booted up much faster too.

The competition wasn't even close. Lotus executed every command virtually instantly - the XP-Excel machine took its sweet time about everything (but still beat a very high end Mac machine running Excel for the same calcs).

[drgoodtrips]

Just for the record, we did an 'informal' test on computers here at the office a few months back to test a hypothesis.

Lotus 123 running on an old 14 year old DOS box blew the socks off Excel running on Win XP on a machine that was about 50 times more powerful. DOS box booted up much faster too.

The competition wasn't even close. Lotus executed every command virtually instantly - the XP-Excel machine took its sweet time about everything (but still beat a very high end Mac machine running Excel for the same calcs).

Yeah, no overhead really in DOS. You don't get to prioritize your tasks in any way through Windows (without jumping through a lot of hoops). If the kernel scheduler decides its time to check for Quicktime updates well, mister, your calculations are going to have to wait.

I'm taking a computer architecture course this semester and was introduced to a principle called Gustafson's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustafson's_Law). This basically states that while better (more parallel) processors may not scale up efficiently for individual tasks, you can do a whole lot of other crap while waiting the same amount of time for what you want to be done. Or, in other words, applications and OS will bloat to fill out the additional processing power you purchase.

Microsoft takes this optimistic principle and makes it ugly. Not only does their ongoing OS development fail to net you any improvements in performance, but it actually makes performance worse. This is justified, however, with "yeah, but you can do like 20 things more slowly all in parallel, and with cooler graphics!"

[drgoodtrips]

One low-level flight and then museum status.

I never tried it but the thought of putting something on the market that required a minimum doubling of average existing memory to function seemed....stupid.

Are you talking about Vista or ME? :lol:

[Dominick]

I read both the general and technical documents on the features of this new beast and didn't find anything at all that is significant or worthwile having. Faster and more reliable ? Sure. Heard that one before. As a matter of fact, it may be faster according to some benchmarks, but that's pretty useless when there's going to be yet more resource hogging graphical tidbits eating up that gain.
What I find fascinating about the Windows franchise is how on earth they always manage to create something that degrades over time. My Vista does this no less than my Windows 95 did. Initially, my Vista was slick. Now it's mysteriously requiring that the HD is reading/writing ALL THE TIME. There are no viri or malware, there's hardly anything running and yet, the process svchost.exe is doing a permanent benchmark test on my soon to be late harddisk. For no discernible reason whatsoever (Drg, does Windows has an equivalent for lsof ?).

[andrewl]

Just for the heck of it im going to offer my personal experience. I adopted vista when it first came out, then i went back to xp, then i had issues and switched out mobo, hdd and ram, and cooling. I also decided to give vista another shot, this time it was @ SP2.

All i can say is that ive run vista for 5 months and it is way better than XP, in my experience.

I think what happened is that the initial release of vista really sucked and when it was improved people had already given up on it. (that's not to say it would have been that succesful anyway, i work in IT sales and there was lots of resistance to it from both the private and public sector centered around the pointless expenditure of rebuilding image files and re-certifying IT staff, no matter how good vista might have ended up being).

Im expecting windows 7 to be a further improvement. (if indeed it is compatible with xp apps.)

[drgoodtrips]

I read both the general and technical documents on the features of this new beast and didn't find anything at all that is significant or worthwile having. Faster and more reliable ? Sure. Heard that one before. As a matter of fact, it may be faster according to some benchmarks, but that's pretty useless when there's going to be yet more resource hogging graphical tidbits eating up that gain.
What I find fascinating about the Windows franchise is how on earth they always manage to create something that degrades over time. My Vista does this no less than my Windows 95 did. Initially, my Vista was slick. Now it's mysteriously requiring that the HD is reading/writing ALL THE TIME. There are no viri or malware, there's hardly anything running and yet, the process svchost.exe is doing a permanent benchmark test on my soon to be late harddisk. For no discernible reason whatsoever (Drg, does Windows has an equivalent for lsof ?).

Not natively, but let me see if I can dig up a link for you over the weekend when I get back from my travels. There's a really nice set of utilities for Windows that does things like "taskbar" and more, but does it right and in great detail. I think that would cover what you want to do and some other things besides (like seeing what processes are controlling which files)

[Americano]

Just for the heck of it im going to offer my personal experience. I adopted vista when it first came out, then i went back to xp, then i had issues and switched out mobo, hdd and ram, and cooling. I also decided to give vista another shot, this time it was @ SP2.

All i can say is that ive run vista for 5 months and it is way better than XP, in my experience.

I think what happened is that the initial release of vista really sucked and when it was improved people had already given up on it. (that's not to say it would have been that succesful anyway, i work in IT sales and there was lots of resistance to it from both the private and public sector centered around the pointless expenditure of rebuilding image files and re-certifying IT staff, no matter how good vista might have ended up being).

Im expecting windows 7 to be a further improvement. (if indeed it is compatible with xp apps.)

I thought the major consumer problem with migrating to Vista was a lack of RAM and new computers being sold with only 1-2MG of RAM?

[andrewl]

I thought the major consumer problem with migrating to Vista was a lack of RAM and new computers being sold with only 1-2MG of RAM?

I never believed that excuse, RAM is dirt cheap these days and very easy to upgrade. Besides, 2GB of RAM is enough for Vista.

Andrew

[Americano]

I never believed that excuse, RAM is dirt cheap these days and very easy to upgrade. Besides, 2GB of RAM is enough for Vista.

Andrew

Most of the general public stuff was coming standard with 1GB and Vista. If you ask that general public what RAM is you're going to get a lot more huh? than correct answers.

[andrewl]

Most of the general public stuff was coming standard with 1GB and Vista. If you ask that general public what RAM is you're going to get a lot more huh? than correct answers.

Yes. 1GB was far too low.

Andrew

[Dominick]

Hmm. RAM. I wasn't quite aware how much I had so I checked.
Hmm. 1GB reported as 838 MB.
:o:o:o A trip to the hardware store is in order :o:o:o

[Americano]

Hmm. RAM. I wasn't quite aware how much I had so I checked.
Hmm. 1GB reported as 838 MB.
:o:o:o A trip to the hardware store is in order :o:o:o

My wife became interested in using Corel's Paint Shop Pro on digital images under XP and 1GB didn't do it. She thought she had a new machine with 2GB.

[Michael]

I consider 2GB RAM the bare minimum for running XP with applications.

[Dominick]

I consider 2GB RAM the bare minimum for running XP with applications.
Well, I came from Win98 and am otherwise used to Linux so I didn't really pay any attention to it. Putting in 4GB tomorrow.

[Americano]

I consider 2GB RAM the bare minimum for running XP with applications.

2GB does it for us but we don't use serious databases, Cad, games or other resource hogs. I've been told +/-3GB is about all XP can use.

[Americano]

Interesting article:

Microsoft may soon drop VISTA



http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/05/04/Microsoft-may-soon-drop-VISTA/UPI-13261241442826/

[Dominick]

Interesting article:

Microsoft may soon drop VISTA



http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/05/04/Microsoft-may-soon-drop-VISTA/UPI-13261241442826/
Sigh. I only just got the bloody thing ! If it wasn't for poker and some other assorted games I'd never come anywhere near that whole franchise.

[Americano]

Sigh. I only just got the bloody thing ! If it wasn't for poker and some other assorted games I'd never come anywhere near that whole franchise.

This quote form the article must have enraged you:

"It's been a long time since we've had a version of Windows that will actually run better (than the previous version) on the hardware that most customers have," said Mike Nash, vice president of the Windows product management group at Microsoft, during a recent conference call.
Customers who purchase a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed will be allowed to downgrade to Vista," Francis said."

I read that as a comment on lack of sufficient RAM in most PCs to properly run Vista.

[Michael]

This quote form the article must have enraged you:

"It's been a long time since we've had a version of Windows that will actually run better (than the previous version) on the hardware that most customers have," said Mike Nash, vice president of the Windows product management group at Microsoft, during a recent conference call.
Customers who purchase a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed will be allowed to downgrade to Vista," Francis said."

I read that as a comment on lack of sufficient RAM in most PCs to properly run Vista.
I'd read that as an admission by Microsoft that they make shitty new products that are more problematic than previous versions. :D

My favorite comment about Microsoft Office (usually applied to MS Word specifically) - if they go and "improve" that bloody software any more, it won't work at all!

[Dominick]

Things are a bit smoother with 4 GB RAM, to make the understatement of the year. I still can't believe I didn't think of that.

[Americano]

Things are a bit smoother with 4 GB RAM, to make the understatement of the year. I still can't believe I didn't think of that.

Going from 838 MB of RAM to 4GB had to be like switching from a Vespa LX 50 to a Ferrari Dino.

[Dominick]

Going from 838 MB of RAM to 4GB had to be like switching from a Vespa LX 50 to a Ferrari Dino.
Quite so. Actually especially so with the race simulator. That thing must have been swapping back and fro to the harddisk all the time. Even the infamous Nordschliefe (a 22km track) now runs as smooth as a baby's bottom.

[Michael]

In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft's long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company's reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users. PC makers will rush to flood physical and online stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who wish to upgrade.

This comment is particularly interesting...
The system for upgrading is complicated, but Vista owners can upgrade to the exactly comparable edition of Windows 7 while keeping all files, settings and programs in place.

Unfortunately, XP owners, the biggest body of Windows users, won't be able to do that. They'll have to wipe out their hard disks after backing up their files elsewhere, then install Windows 7, then restore their personal files, then re-install all their programs from the original CDs or downloaded installer files. Then, they have to install all the patches and upgrades to those programs from over the years.

Source (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459293141191728.html)

After reading this review of Windows 7, I can't imagine any reason in the world why I'd want to upgrade to this OS.

That's one thing these reviews never answer - "why bother?" What will Windows 7 do for me? I don't want any new features. Heck, I want to get rid of most new features from XP and 98. :shrug:

After 15 years of using Win98, I've only just upgraded to XP. I expect to use that at least until 2020.

[drgoodtrips]

I believe they're banking on the move from 32 bit OS to 64 bit OS. As a quick, "why should I care about this tech-speak" primer, a 32 bit OS cannot practically map more than 4 gig of RAM.

So, basically, OEM's are pushing the latest and greatest and they've got a nice arrangement with Microsoft - if you want the best hardware, you need new windows, and if you want new windows, you need the best hardware. I'd imagine they view that time is on their side because, while corporate users have no reason to switch, time is on MS/OEM side, since your computer will crap out sooner or later.

Edit: 4 Gig is the upper limit, actually. I think there are issues even before that.

[andrewl]

Corporate and enterprise users don't really have a choice. They must upgrade to windows 7 - MS is ending support for XP.

Andrew

[Americano]

Corporate and enterprise users don't really have a choice. They must upgrade to windows 7 - MS is ending support for XP.

Andrew

I thought they were going to offer an XP support package (fee based) for business entities?

[Americano]

I believe they're banking on the move from 32 bit OS to 64 bit OS. As a quick, "why should I care about this tech-speak" primer, a 32 bit OS cannot practically map more than 4 gig of RAM.

So, basically, OEM's are pushing the latest and greatest and they've got a nice arrangement with Microsoft - if you want the best hardware, you need new windows, and if you want new windows, you need the best hardware. I'd imagine they view that time is on their side because, while corporate users have no reason to switch, time is on MS/OEM side, since your computer will crap out sooner or later.

Edit: 4 Gig is the upper limit, actually. I think there are issues even before that.

3 Gig is what I've heard as the max usable for XP.

[Michael]

3 Gig is what I've heard as the max usable for XP.

If experience is any guide, the newer hardware running older OS systems tend to perform way better than the same hardware running the latest OS. :shrug:

Bigger hardware to run bigger resource hogging OS holds no attraction to me.

I'm old enough to remember DOS machines and the actual speed and ease of performance. Windows is a slow-moving fat-pig and always has been. Overall application performance seems to get slower and slower as machines get faster. :shrug:

[andrewl]

3 Gig is what I've heard as the max usable for XP.


On a 32 bit platform that is sort of true. The space from 3-4 is allocated to other mobo peripherals, but if you have a board that supports 8Gb you will get 7GB, with the 3-4GB space allocated elsewhere.

Andrew

[andrewl]

I thought they were going to offer an XP support package (fee based) for business entities?

XP support won't actually expire until 2014 for critical patches and stuff. I have not heard about any fee based support extending beyond that, could be though.

I do know that what im hearing is that the general perception is that MS is sooner rather than later going to end support for XP. Business users are making preparations to migrate over the next few years.

Andrew

[drgoodtrips]

If experience is any guide, the newer hardware running older OS systems tend to perform way better than the same hardware running the latest OS. :shrug:

Bigger hardware to run bigger resource hogging OS holds no attraction to me.

I'm old enough to remember DOS machines and the actual speed and ease of performance. Windows is a slow-moving fat-pig and always has been. Overall application performance seems to get slower and slower as machines get faster. :shrug:

Generally true, but it depends in this case. The "32 bit" and "64 bit" refer to the size of the integers that the processor internals handle. 32 bit ranges up to a little over 4 billion, which loosely corresponds to 4 gigabytes of addressable memory. So, your 32 bit XP operating system on a 16 gig machine would literally not know how to access 12 of your 16 gigs of memory. If you told it to go to gigabyte 5, it would roll over and go look at gigabyte 1. As this would cause all manner of problem, XP simply wouldn't allow it to happen, and would tell itself that your OS had 4 gig.

Of course, running XP on your 16 gig machine might seem faster with the 16 reduced to 4, given that XP only takes ~256 Meg of your memory while newer windows OS will happily gobble up as much as you'll give them. So, in the end, it really depends how you use it. And, if you buy a new machine with only a gig or something, you'd be absolutely right in general.

[Americano]

If experience is any guide, the newer hardware running older OS systems tend to perform way better than the same hardware running the latest OS. :shrug:

Bigger hardware to run bigger resource hogging OS holds no attraction to me.

I'm old enough to remember DOS machines and the actual speed and ease of performance. Windows is a slow-moving fat-pig and always has been. Overall application performance seems to get slower and slower as machines get faster. :shrug:

I can't say that about my experience with DOS and spreadsheets in the early-mid '80s. The saying then was put together a big spreadsheet, hit calc and go to lunch.

[Michael]

I can't say that about my experience with DOS and spreadsheets in the early-mid '80s. The saying then was put together a big spreadsheet, hit calc and go to lunch.

Yes, that's true. But compare a DOS-box with windows-box using equivilent hardware and there is no competition which has better application performance. We tested this at the office a few years ago. :)

[heavenponting]

Windows 7 is one of the best OS in the world. Linux is good but Windows7 is awesome. These are It's features :

Speed
Compatibility
Search and organisation
Automatic Desktop Wallpaper Shuffling
Run Apps as Another User

[Michael]

Windows 7 is one of the best OS in the world. Linux is good but Windows7 is awesome. These are It's features :

Speed
Compatibility
Search and organisation
Automatic Desktop Wallpaper Shuffling
Run Apps as Another User
With all due respect, I had Desktop Wallpaper Shuffling with Win95 using freeware.

Likewise, Windows XP allows the running of apps as another user.

Search is web feature.

As for speed, I've always said that I had computers back in the 1980's that could run Lotus 123 spreadsheet calculations or dbase calculations way faster than anything on the most modern machines. Heck, just opening up MS Excel takes a heck of a long time compared to almost instant load back in the old DOS-days (with an OS that was just 16 kbytes in RAM).

It seems all of the advances in computer technology and processing speeds over the last 20 years are used entirely to support an ever larger and more bloated OS and graphic interface.

[Donkey]

Either way, 7 is undoubtedly a huge improvement over Vista.

[Michael]

Either way, 7 is undoubtedly a huge improvement over Vista.

That doesn't say much! :lol:

Better discussion might be which is the worst OS ever created!

Apparently VISTA is a candidate, but so must be ME!

[Zarquon]

That doesn't say much! :lol:

Better discussion might be which is the worst OS ever created!

Apparently VISTA is a candidate, but so must be ME!
I'd sat ME, given that for starters, nobody bought it.

[Michael]

I'd sat ME, given that for starters, nobody bought it.

Actually, my brother-in-law did. And Vista too!

It really freaked me out. I've spent years trying to teach this guy to be conservative and suspicous about 'new software' and never install the "1.0" version of anything. He always seems to understand the argument and agrees entirely - especially after the encountering the nightmare of frustration that he got from ME.

But he did it again with VISTA - just like ME - he bought it and installed it the very first week it came out. :shrug:

At that point I gave up and will not help him with any computer problem. When he asks me, I just say, "you shouldn't have installed that fucking OS".

Needless to say, VISTA has been replaced by Windows7. That switchover has also been a nightmare for him, though it is certainly better than VISTA.

Otherwise, I've not heard much praise for Windows 7 at all other than it is way better than VISTA!

When it comes to the OS, I'm hyper-conservative. I just switched from Win98.2 a couple years ago to XP with a new computer and have no intention to change it any time soon. Both the laptop and the desktop both run XP.

[Donkey]

I'm plenty content with XP. Though I'm not doing much with computers these days (outside of basic functions), so I'd probably be pretty content with anything.

[Zarquon]

I'm on windows 7, because somebody else was paying for my laptop;)

[Donkey]

I'm on windows 7, because somebody else was paying for my laptop;)
Yeah funny how that works. :)


(Though have you thought about double-booting with ubuntu?)

[drgoodtrips]

That doesn't say much! :lol:

Better discussion might be which is the worst OS ever created!

Apparently VISTA is a candidate, but so must be ME!

Personally, I'd say that Vista was more of a failure from a business and marketing standpoint than a technical/OS one. Behind schedule, over budget, creating unreasonable expectations, including the wrong features and leaving the right ones out, annoying users, etc. From a purely technical perspective, the OS itself (omitting the higher level software packaged with it and whatnot) was better than XP...

....but the product Vista, as opposed to the OS vista, was a disaster.

Ironically, a big part of the thing that made Vista so reviled was that it corrected something stupid that Microsoft has been doing/allowing from Windows 3.1 through XP. Namely, there has been no concept of escalating privileges as you see on Linux/Unix/Mac.

On XP and earlier, all applications are allowed to install and run as "administrator". Developers responded to this by making their code require running as an administrator - it's more expedient because you don't really need it, but you don't want to get weird permissions problems in the field, so better safe than sorry. Of course, the issue here is obvious -- "Weather Bug" and the like install on your system with full privileges to run amok, start web servers and pump out SPAM as part of a bot net. (This is a big part of the reason that Windows has viruses and other OS's don't suffer as much from this).

Vista stopped the permission gravy train, but developers didn't stop writing administrative-requiring applications. The end result was that you couldn't do anything in Vista without the OS telling you that something wanted to escalate permissions, which is incredibly annoying. That's a failure of Vista the product, whereas Vista the OS is the first Microsoft OS that's behaving well in this regard.