Author Topic: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing) (Read 244,562 times)

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #125 on:** January 15, 2009, 10:14 AM »

Personally I prefer the cleaner look of Win 7 as it is. I know you can set the task bar to hide but I don't particularly like to do that and something like you suggest would take up too much screen real estate. I can't see what you really gain by having thumbnails large enough to distinguish.

The other point is that applications are pinned to the task bar for ease of access - if only thumbnails get pinned you would have to find each app in the Programmes menu which partially defeats the objective of the redesign.

MS seem to have taken the idea of QuickLaunch one step further - and if you think of the task bar as being an amalgamtion of a taskbar and quick launch that is the underlying phiolosophy behind it.

40hz · « **Reply #126 on:** January 15, 2009, 02:05 PM »

I'm somewhat impressed by how much faster and better organized Win7 is than Vista. And the interface is actually quite nice (except I hate that baby blue default color scheme

).

So...does it look like Microsoft finally has a viable XP replacement here, or is it just me?

Lashiec · « **Reply #127 on:** January 15, 2009, 03:26 PM »

So far I've been very impressed with Windows 7. It's really much lighter (it just uses 6GB of disk space and ran fine with a mere 512 MB), and for being a beta it seems very stable, the only thing worth reporting I found is Windows Defender being deactivated at random (mostly when I launch an Internet browser). The UAC is less annoying (I hope the new approach does not mean worse system security) than before, but it could be better (you don't have permission to view certain folders, you need to go through it whenever you want to check Defender's history), and generally most annoyances and idiosyncrasies of Vista disappeared or turned out for the better. It still needs lots of polish here and there (lacks consistence between different parts of the system), but it's shaping to be a really great OS. And FARR works! :)

Now, if I could find which folder is the new "My Documents" (Libraries or Users\<my name>), and how to move my entire profile (or at least the personal folders) all at once, instead of one by one...

40hz · « **Reply #128 on:** January 15, 2009, 05:34 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on January 15, 2009, 03:26 PM

It still needs lots of polish here and there (lacks consistence between different parts of the system), but it's shaping to be a really great OS. And FARR works!

My impression too.

As long as Microsoft doesn't go insane with pricing, I strongly suspect that me and my FOSS cronies will be kissing The Year of the Linux Desktop good-bye one more time!

Josh · « **Reply #129 on:** January 15, 2009, 05:37 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on January 15, 2009, 05:34 PM

Quote from: Lashiec on January 15, 2009, 03:26 PM
It still needs lots of polish here and there (lacks consistence between different parts of the system), but it's shaping to be a really great OS. And FARR works!
As long as Microsoft doesn't go insane with pricing, I strongly suspect that me and my FOSS cronies will be kissing The Year of the Linux Desktop good-bye one more time!

shhhh, Zaine might murder you for such a statement.

But seriously, from what I've seen and played around with, Win7 is proving to be a great OS and one I am very much looking forward to acquiring. We shall see how it plays out from here.

Darwin · « **Reply #130 on:** January 15, 2009, 06:00 PM »

All I want for Christmas is an affordable upgrade from Vista Ultimate 64-bit to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

I've been playing around with the VPC version and I like it. Of course, I still see it as Vista SP-2 at the moment... Vista SP-1 is very stable on my hardware and I like it a lot. I think that the whole Win 7 name is panic on MS' part in the sense that Vista is so maligned that they need to distance themselves from the name. That's why SP-2 (or perhaps it's more equivalent to SP-3?) is being re=badged... Kind of like this is the Mojave experiement on a grand scale? Of course, I am not generally in a position to appreciate the subtleties between the code bases for versions of Windows AND in the instance I've barely dipped my toe in the Win 7 waters, so perhaps there is enough in Win 7 to justify a name change and new full release?

f0dder · « **Reply #131 on:** January 15, 2009, 06:04 PM »

Darwin: afaik, Win7 is mostly user-mode enhancements, not really much new stuff happening kernel-side (although the window manager got an overhaul and now makes better use of video card memory?). Releasing it as a new OS is probably a bit of a stretch, but it seems like more than just a service pack to me.

Darwin · « **Reply #132 on:** January 15, 2009, 06:23 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 15, 2009, 06:04 PM

Darwin: afaik, Win7 is mostly user-mode enhancements, not really much new stuff happening kernel-side (although the window manager got an overhaul and now makes better use of video card memory?). Releasing it as a new OS is probably a bit of a stretch, but it seems like more than just a service pack to me.

Gotcha

So... not quite a new OS but more than SP-2, eh? More like Win98 -> Win98SE, then (or, perhaps more like Win98SE to Win ME

)? I wasn't affected and do not remember, what was the upgrade policy going from Win98 to Win98SE?

I'm in a painting frenzy this week (family is away so freshening the house up in their absence), but I hope to do a real world install of Win 7 soon and will thus be able to evaluate for myself

MrCrispy · « **Reply #133 on:** January 18, 2009, 09:37 PM »

Well, there a few significant kernel changes in Windows 7 -

- its now scalable to upto 256 cores
- it has the new 'Min-Win' kernel, which is refactored and componentized.

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #134 on:** January 18, 2009, 09:46 PM »

I reported elsewhere that there seems to be a problem installing Win7 (32 bit and 64 bit) on some systems (you get constant reboots when it is getting ready for first use). This arose with some nForce motherboard with integrated graphics combos.

I discovered that swapping the graphics card allowed you to install and then once installed you could change the drivers for the most recent Vista drivers (at least this worked for nForce 630/GeForce 7 combined motherboards).

Someone has now suggested a simpler solution (esp. if you don't have a spare graphics card). Apparently if you are plagued with this problem and using a LCD monitor with DVI or HDMI connection then swaping to the D-Sub connector for installation (ie. VGA analogue signal) allows Win 7 to install, you can then find suitable Vista drivers and move to your preferred interface.

f0dder · « **Reply #135 on:** January 19, 2009, 04:48 AM »

Quote from: MrCrispy on January 18, 2009, 09:37 PM

Well, there a few significant kernel changes in Windows 7 -

- its now scalable to upto 256 cores
- it has the new 'Min-Win' kernel, which is refactored and componentized.

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

That was a pretty cool video - there's gone a lot more work into Win7 than I thought. Definitely worth giving i the "Windows 7" name and not just a service pack (most users won't realize those things, though, so no wonder people say "it should just have been a SP").

zridling · « **Reply #136 on:** January 21, 2009, 10:48 PM »

No matter how much good press Win7 gets, as Carol warns, I wouldn't go near it until all drivers are ready to go for my existing hardware. I'm tired of [not] learning that lesson.

f0dder · « **Reply #137 on:** January 22, 2009, 12:09 AM »

Quote from: zridling on January 21, 2009, 10:48 PM

No matter how much good press Win7 gets, as Carol warns, I wouldn't go near it until all drivers are ready to go for my existing hardware. I'm tired of [not] learning that lesson.

Basically, Vista drivers should work fine on Win7 - they haven't touched the driver architecture. In reality, both DaemonTools and MagicISO break, though... but fortunately, (free) SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive works as a charm. I'm considering whether to drop MagicISO on my workstation and go for VCD instead.

Anyway, it's a bad idea to install a Beta (or even RC) operating system as your main OS. You should test with virtual machines or dedicated test-machine... I'm probably going to install it as a dual-boot option on my laptop, though, since we're now outside of exam periods @ study, and I have all the important stuff on the laptop under subversion control

MrCrispy · « **Reply #138 on:** January 22, 2009, 12:24 AM »

One of the virtues of trying out a new OS is you get to do a clean install, and discover new replacements for old standby's, sometimes out of necessity.

e.g. when I switched to Win 7 I ditched Roboform, and switched to lastpass.com.

nontroppo · « **Reply #139 on:** January 22, 2009, 02:15 PM »

Really nice summary of the new Win 7 taskbar from the perspective of the conceptual differences of applications <-> windows between Windows and OS X:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/dock-and-windows-7-taskbar.ars

And a similar kludgey attempt by Gizmodo:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5131933/giz-explains-why-the-windows-7-taskbar-beats-mac-os-xs-dock?skyline=true&s=x

zridling · « **Reply #140 on:** January 22, 2009, 09:06 PM »

I like it, too. Isn't this what we all hoped Vista would have been two years ago? Imagine living in that world. But this is what Microsoft has always done. They build something, and then they make it better. But since XP had outlived itself, the pain caused by Vista was acute, since most businesses didn't adopt it.

A nice ancillary benefit? Since netbook hardware is quickly growing in power, Win7 should run fine on them.

nontroppo · « **Reply #141 on:** January 23, 2009, 11:21 AM »

InfoWorld have done another set of benchmarks, showing that Vista and Windows 7 are birds-of-a-feather, closely identical in CPU intensive workloads, and are still significantly less efficient than XP:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/09/01/22/03TC-windows-multicore_1.html

Quote

It should come as no surprise that Windows 7 performs very much like its predecessor. In fact, during extensive multiprocess benchmark testing, Windows 7 essentially mirrored Vista in almost every scenario. Database tasks? Roughly 118 percent slower than XP on dual-core (Vista was 92 percent slower) and 19 percent slower than XP on quad-core (identical to Vista). Workflow? A respectable 38 percent slower than XP on dual-core (Vista was 98 percent slower) and 59 percent slower on quad-core (Vista was 66 percent slower).

His point is that on dual and quad-core systems, XP is still causing much less CPU activity to do the same operations, but it fails to scale as well, and that by 16-core systems, Windows 7 should finally overtake XP for comutation efficiency in the kinds of tests he used. Whatever kernel changes MS made to Win7, they are still not enough to negate the simpler code paths of XP unless you have many cores. That still also suggests XP will remain speed king on current and low-end newer hardware for a few years to come.

Caveats: will RTM Win7 be significantly faster than the beta?

f0dder · « **Reply #142 on:** January 23, 2009, 11:51 AM »

Heh, from that article (and damn I hate sites that use CSS to hide selection color):

Quote

(sorry, Windows 2000, you're 32-bit only)

- that's wrong

. It doesn't run on x86-64, though...

Btw, I find it relatively lame that the article keeps mentioning DRM for tasks that have nothing to do with (and aren't influenced by) DRM. Yes, there's nasty DRM in Vista and it's real enough and does have real-life effects. But please, don't use it as a catch-all when it's not in effect (except, perhaps, for the WMP test).

I wonder what exactly makes Vista and Win7 slower in his tests (does he use clean OS installs, or multiple OS installs on a single disk, meaning OS #2 has a "closer-to-disk-end-slowness" disadvantage - et cetera) ... and how other kinds of benchmarks would fare.

zridling · « **Reply #143 on:** January 23, 2009, 12:27 PM »

Is it true you can dock the taskbar on the side of the screen like KDE allows?

f0dder · « **Reply #144 on:** January 23, 2009, 12:41 PM »

Quote from: zridling on January 23, 2009, 12:27 PM

Is it true you can dock the taskbar on the side of the screen like KDE allows?

You've always been able to do that afaik, but with Win7 it finally *feels right*

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #145 on:** January 23, 2009, 01:06 PM »

Quote from: zridling on January 23, 2009, 12:27 PM

Is it true you can dock the taskbar on the side of the screen like KDE allows?

Yep - just unlock it and drag it to the edge you want. It looks very nice too

nontroppo · « **Reply #146 on:** January 23, 2009, 06:27 PM »

I think he mentions DRM because his test is a parallel test, the media test runs at the same time as his other tests (testing mutlithreading workload), and I think he thinks it therefore makes a difference. As I asked earlier, I don't know what happens to the codepath with no protected content, but looking at the diagrams, the DRM architecture is all still there, just that the output is not disabled/enabled?

nontroppo · « **Reply #147 on:** January 25, 2009, 04:40 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 15, 2009, 07:49 AM

Btw, I really love the new taskbar. It might be *cough* inspired *cough* by OS X (although I think the jumplists and other stuff goes beyond that?)

OS X had "Jump lists" since inception, and apps like iTunes, Finder, Terminal etc have customised contextual lists that are very useful even when the window is closed. But the problem is that they don't populate when the *App* is closed. They work well when opened, but some of the advantage is lost on exit. OS X icons still seem richer in functionality terms (animations and status updates are very prevalent among apps), but I think we just need to wait for developers to implement the richer status possibilities now available in 7.

The main differences between dock and taskbar are perfectly summarised by that Ars Technica article I linked to above.

nosh · « **Reply #148 on:** January 25, 2009, 06:14 PM »

[Post edited, my bad]

Take something like a file manager, how many Total Commander, DOpus or Xplorer² users are going to dump their utility of choice coz Windows Explorer got OMG so damn good with Windows 7!! Xplorer² or XYPlorer for instance are both the product of individual developers. I cannot fathom why MS with all the talent and resources at its disposal hasn't come with anything really close to these apps after so many years in the business. File managers aren't exactly specialized applications for an OS either.

And sorry about being a wet blanket but jump lists seems like a cute little system utility that one hears about in a Lifehacker post and forgets a week later. *Nosh refuses to sing the Windows 7 anthem*

nontroppo · « **Reply #149 on:** January 25, 2009, 11:36 PM »

Scott Finnie ain't singing the Windows 7 anthem either:

http://blog.scotsnewsletter.com/2009/01/18/windows-7-beta-1-im-not-impressed/

He doesn't see the performance boost he saw with Win 7 alpha, suggesting this is a classic cycle where the MS OS gets slower as it marches to RTM... And homegroup can be less than ideal to setup. Why can't Windows 7 interoperate, it can't play with any Macs on the network, yet Leopard can see both Macs and PCs. Bonjour is open-source and wouldn't kill MS to extend its interoperability.