It’s October 22 today. A completely random date in the grand scheme of things (we Dutch lost a big naval battle to the Ming dynasty on October 22 1633), but it also happens to be the release date of the newest version of Windows – Windows 7. Since Windows is still the most popular desktop operating system out there, this is pretty big news.
The problem, of course, with releases like Windows 7 is that the new operating system has already been torn apart and examined in great detail over the past 10-12 months, so there’s little in there that will surprise anyone who has’t been living under a digital rock the past year or so. I could list the new features and improvements, but you probably already know everything there is to know.
I’m sure the people who were really enthusiastic about Windows 7 pre-ordered it, and are currently tearing the box it comes in to shreds (or are still waiting for the mail man, as I’m anxiously waiting for my pre-order of “Borderlands”). For everybody else, you can of course buy a boxed copy from a retail store, but it’s much wiser to simply wait until you need a new PC – retail copies of Windows are quite expensive, but OEMs get nice discounts.
If you do insist on buying a retail copy, you’ll be in for a lot of work if you already have a functioning Windows install. Windows XP users will have to perform a clean install, which means backing up your data (you already have a backup, right…?), whereas Windows Vista users can perform an upgrade, but if it is wise to do so remains to be seen. Conventional wisdom tells us a clean install is better anyway.
Windows 7 carries with it a lot of expectations. The operating system has been very well received by the press, but the public will eventually always make up its own mind. Vista left a very bitter after-taste in people’s mouths, and it’s up to Windows 7 to wash that taste away. More problematic are probably the legions of Windows XP users, who swear by the ageing operating system. Getting them to switch to the new operating system could prove to be the biggest challenge for Redmond. And let’s not even get started about companies and enterprises.
For what it’s worth, I’m actually quite satisfied with Windows 7. I’ve been using it on all my machines (from an overpowered desktop to a small and tiny netbook) for about 10 months now, and I haven’t really run into any problems with Redmond’s new baby. I especially value the overall polish, something that was sorely missing from Windows Vista.
Have fun tearing Windows 7 apart today!
While being a very polished version of Vista Windows 7 has its shortcomings.
The default install is insecure, malware and virii authors rejoice.
And it is not as fast as XP, no benchmark proves that and if you run a lot of applications it will be slower because the point where it has to swap is reached much sooner than in XP (XP just uses way less memory, no point in denying that.)
Edited 2009-10-22 13:02 UTC
Sure it uses more RAM then XP, but then again, XP used more RAM then 2k. If you upgrade your software from XP, then it’s probably a good idea to upgrade HW as well, a PC from the beging of the XP era wouldnt be much of joy today anyhow..
With that said, I run 7 just fine on a EEE 1005HA-H(atom n280, 1.66Ghz, 1GB RAM), 7 is using about 50% as base after a boot. Havent got any problems with running out of RAM. Ofc I dont have 3 FF windows with 20+ tabs in each, alongside 720p video playback and editing photos in Photoshop. For regullar netbook usage, its perfect!
EDIT: I also have as habit to not shutdown the EEE, mainly using hibernation/sleep, still not any real RAM related problems..
An other point, HW that runns 7 good on the desktop isnt that highend, most HW sold today should manage 7 with areo without probs, 2/4-core cpu, cheap nVIDIA/AMD/Intergreated Intel graphics card with 256-512MB video RAM and 4GB RAM should not be very expensive, and really do you expect to be able to run a modern OS on soon 10yrs old HW? Can you run the latest Photoshop on that old HW? modern versions of anything more advanced than notepad etc?
On a side note, been using 7 for a month or so on the little EEE, and couldnt be more happy, ~8hrs battery, nice UI, Im happy
Edited 2009-10-22 13:25 UTC
I thought Win 7 was meant to be good for netbooks? My netbook came with 512mb of RAM, so basically with Windows 7 it would fill my RAM on bootup.
Vista reportedly used about 400mb on bootup, so things have gone backwards. And sorry to drag out the Linux comparisons again, but I came close to running out of RAM on Ubuntu 9.10 on my netbook – running Compiz, Update Manager, Software Center, Prism, Firefox and Opera (yeah, three web browsers and two package managers, don’t judge me!).
So 512mb of RAM used just to display a pretty desktop… that’s crazy resource use.
I think he meant Windows 7 uses 50% of whatever available memory you have in your computer. All that “used” memory is actually cached anyway.
Edited 2009-10-22 13:39 UTC
Another myth. All cache .. suree.
The difference between XP and 7 is not all cache otherwise it wouldn’t start to swap much sooner on machines with just 512 mb.
7 has a lot of new and cool feature, but they need RAM. The new audio and video layer is very cool and maybe currently the best there is, but they need more RAM.
So stop believing the hype (as I already mentioned
)
Check this out (paraphrased a bit):
“Windows 7 needs 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit) and 16 GB
available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Windows XP Mode (available in Windows 7 Pro editions only) requires an
additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space,
and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V
turned on”
So much for an XP replacement! There’s no way that’s anywhere near acceptable if all you want is XP-level app compatibility.
Have you actually found any software that requires Windows XP Mode? I haven’t.
I don’t have 7, only Vista, but I know of various things that don’t work there.
At home, no, everything I use currently works fine with Vista, so I’m sure XP mode wouldn’t be required under 7. However, at work I know of several apps with 16-bit installers that would require XP mode in the 64-bit versions of 7, which is where I think XP mode will be used most.
You should test those apps natively first if you haven’t already. Windows x64 detects some 16-bit installers and substitutes the 32-bit version at runtime.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384143(VS.85).aspx
If someone is really running a shop on 64MB systems, then they have no business trying to Run XP.
In my company, we have a 3 year life cycle on desktops. our old P4 systems have 512 MB of memory. those systems are completely gone as of last month. The current old generation system has 1 gig in it. the system being deployed for the refresh cycle currently has 2 gig. I expect 4 gig to be the next point we go to in the next years replacements.
By the end of next year we will be able, hardware wise, to put windows 7 on 90% of the systems in the environment. Most businesses are probably capable of doing it now. To complain about memory requirements is simply a canard.
Windows 7 is one of the best OSs ever. it is as good as Leopard (snow leopard is actually crappier than leopard) and better than Ubuntu in many ways. Its relative goodness being an opinion, but calling it crap or less worthy, especially when compared to XP is just foolishness by any metric.
No it adjusts to whatever specs you have.
Not in 2009 it’s not.
Wasting memory has always been something morons who don’t know how to code do.
PDP11, max 4MB of RAM. Lots of stuff got done in there. PDP8 maxed at 32K. Piece of junk that used to help run the world.
Multics systems maxed out at around 48MB memory, the last of which was retired in 2000.
This is a nightmare what people are doing to abuse memory, and more isn’t getting done, more people spend more time doing useless things that could easily take up less memory, yet they chose not to do so. The problem then is with everyone being pigs with memory there is never enough even though there is, in a historic sense, many orders of magnitude more of it.
Constraints , particularly with memory, lead to the greatest explosion of technological paradigm shifts in the computing world.
Once the constraints were lifted, things have dragged on, rudderlessly, listlessly, directionless, with companies fighting over what the next anti-standard they try to own should look like. Its rather pathetic, less is getting done, except DRM is everywhere.
Progress.
I agree with your sentiments. I’ve done great software and hardware jobs with C=64, but in front of a modern PC my hands are tied.
There is no progress in IT, there are just greater and greater amounts of energy thrown into this industry.
lol every system you mentioned was an absolute pile of living shit when it came to user interaction and usability.
If you want to stare at a black screen with a blinking cursor as a form of user input to the machine then sure low RAM requirements would be easy to hit.
People do not want that in this day and age. Sadly they want flashy stuff and programs that integrate together. All of this sucks up your machine’s resources as the developers add more and more background processes all eating ram and cycles to provide the functionality.
Now I do agree that ‘tight coding’ is just not taught in this day and age and that is a downright shame.
Whatever happened to the ‘profiling’ stage of development? Its largely gone.
The garbage collector was invented, huge frameworks took the place of in house libraries, and the rest is history.
Basically… unless you are in an embedded environment there is no need to bother profiling code anymore. Even there, frameworks are taking root.
however, none of those systems are in the same universe of capability at general computing tasks as modern Operating Systems.
A netbook with only 512MB of ram? Are you kidding? And you expect to run a modern OS on it?
Obviously there are people who think that UI = OS.
Well, I can’t agree with you here. Of course hardware gets better, but if I buy new hardware I want more power. I don’t want my resources being used up, especially not by my OS, because the OS it not the application.
So even, if I have the best hardware available I want to use it for my application and not for an OS. This doesn’t make any sense.
Most software developers try to make software faster and less resource intensive. For example Mozilla Firefox. You can think about this browser what you want, but with higher versions it became faster and used less memory, while adding other enhancements. I can’t see any reason, why I need new hardware for new software.
Oh and there are things like netbooks, nettops, etc. They have lower specs and besides this more (used) resources means wasting more energy usage. This isn’t good for your battery life, your UPS or the environment.
And think about the (toxic) waste you produce. Bad for the environment, cost a lot of money, creates more traffic (the waste must go somewhere), even worse for the environment and for the people.
Think about it. Windows is used on A LOT of systems, so yes all these effects are BIG!
Windows XP isn’t more secure than 7 though. Yes, 7 is a little less secure than Vista (UAC whitelist), but way more secure than XP can ever dream of being.
XP uses way less memory, but memory is made to be used. I’m fine with 7 caching parts of apps in memory for faster loading.
How is the default install insecure? It’s much more secure out of the box than XP, so I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion.
Read the comment currently above yours or there is this site you might know OSnews, they had an article about it:
http://www.osnews.com/story/21499/Why_Windows_7_s_Default_UAC_Is_In…
That doesn’t make it more insecure than XP. That just makes it slightly less secure than Vista, which was very secure.
I just said insecure. I never compared the security to XP .. stop putting words in my mouth, people.
Then insecure compared to what? Vista? OpenBSD (of course, but much more usable) XP? OS X? Perhaps we wouldn’t have to put words into your mouth if you actually said something useful. Oh, and they made changes in the RC and RTM to mitigate the flaw.
I can call Linux insecure too, and give no comparisons, no valid reasons, and I would get called on it (violently) so why should you be any different? Win7 is much more secure than it’s main competitor, WinXP. It’s much much more secure than Win2k, and only a hair less than Vista.
MS’s response after changing their mind about the flaw:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/05/uac-feedback-and-follow…
Things can simply be insecure. What a concept!
(Like the linked article said.)
But if you want: The default install of Windows 7 is insecure compared to Vista, Linux, OpenSolaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonBSD and OSX (and a few others.)
BECAUSE every program the user runs can effectivly gain admin right without any problems (read Thoms article again if you think that is just “a hair less”.
( Better read it twice. Just to be sure. ))
Edit: And they didn’t really fix anything. The better tech journalists still tell people about the security flaw and advise people to set UAC to the highest setting.
Edited 2009-10-22 15:36 UTC
I use FreeBSD, and Linux, and for most users, they are non-starters (takes too long to get a BSD system into a workable desktop) OS X is safer, not really more secure. No normal user would even know where to begin with OpenSolaris, and Vista was universally panned by users and critics. Sometimes tradeoffs are made,a nd for the right reasons. People complained about UAC, that’s a fact.
Windows 7 is almost universally claimed to be the “Vista that should have been”, so what we lose with this little insecurity (mitigated from the RC going forward) we gain in a much more usable desktop.
This flaw hasn’t been mitigated. Where did you get that idea?
http://www.osnews.com/story/21653/Microsoft_Won_t_Fix_Windows_7_s_U…
Right here:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/windows-7-uac-fix,news-3451.html
Right here
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/windows-7-uac-fix,news-3451.html
That is just wrong. German C’t magazine was still able to uninstall the virus scanner without the UAC interfering.
So the RTM is still insecure PERIOD.
At least I posted a source to my comments, even if I am proven wrong. Googling my arse off here, I thought they had fixed it during the RC, but I am starting to doubt myself, thanks Thom. 🙂
I’m confused. Does your post say that everything people are raving about in this thread is wrong? It appears from your posted article that they’ve set flags to warn of any such program gaining elevated privileges. Sounds like a giant flag you got malware if its trying to change your UAC level. I’m satisfied with this patch if its in windows gold code?
It’s OSNews, and it’s a windows release. you should know better than to be direct, honest and vague all at once.
lol
i co-sign 7 being better than Vista, but that’s all it is. well it’s a ‘new release’ as well. Other than that, it’s Vista with lipo & a face lift.
I’d still hit it. But Ubuntu be going through my phone when i’m not around. If i get caught with 7 i’ll lose myself.
Would she know if i VM’d it?
*ponders*
Edited 2009-10-22 16:02 UTC
If you turn superfetch off, 7 doesn’t use that much more RAM than XP. At least compareable from 2000 to XP, unlike Vista (with superfetch off).
But turning superfetch off will slow down the OS.
The reason Vista failed was not because of the pretty GUI, and the success of 7 isn’t because of the pretty GUI.
Vista failed because it was crap under the hood, and undeployable in an enterprise with legacy applications.
7 is much better under the hood, and fairly deployable.
I did some benchmarking today.. WHY OH WHY does windows 2000 still beat XP, Vista and 7 (the win7 to win2k margin is about 25% for 2k) in dx8 and 8.1 and i really dont want to go into the dx9 performenace of 7 vs 2k as the 7 is abyssmal in comparison… but i have to add that it is atleast a few % better than vista =P.
I thougth that OS’s would be faster and better for each version. As long as long as i dont surpass 28 cpus/cores in win2k. (ms does not have a limit there, but memory management and cpu reallocation threads gets screwed up about there… try it. Or if you have allready.. you know what i mean)
Best wishes to win 7 but ill be one of those bozos still sticking with win2k för all my windows needs…. it still does everything XP does. (allthough some stuff need some hacking to get it to install and work properly, like cleartype, high resolution icons and some games.)
Edited 2009-10-24 01:21 UTC
“…the fact that Linux continues to be largely irrelevant in comparison with its proprietary rival. In fact, according to statistics provided by Net Applications, Windows 7 had surpassed Linux in terms of usage share even before it was available to the general public. Such a rate of success certainly deserves a thumbs-up, perhaps even from Microsoft rivals.”
From http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Gets-Thumbs-Up-from-Linux-…
Regards,
Peter
Edited 2009-10-24 06:04 UTC
I agree about the polish. Windows 7 not only looks nicer; it seems to work better and has a smaller footprint than Vista. Subjectively, it’s sort of like the best of Vista + the best of XP with some added eye-candy.
Edited 2009-10-22 13:05 UTC
Windows 7 is a massive improvement over Windows Vista and Windows XP but it still leaves a heck of a lot of problems unsolved. Hopefully Microsoft in the future will finally do something about it or otherwise alternatives will take market share off them.
What problems in particular are you talking about?
I’ve outlined the problems many times; ranging from the structure of it to the UI design and principles behind the design. It is pointless talking about the problems with it because Microsoft is never going to take any of my wishes on board so it is best to stop the absurd conversation in its tracks at this point.
Nikola rulez! Now please vote me down.
Just a note to say that my special pre-order retail disc came with IE on it, no ballot screen either. All that hoohah, and nothing’s changed.
That should not be a surprise. You have been following it, so you should have known that it was not going to ship with the ballot screen. It will be put into an update, once the ballot screen is approved.
I’d like to say that I give a shit but I really don’t. The ballot was retarded Opera stunt from the beginning and I won’ miss it. Not that it would have bothered me any way, seeing as I dont use Windows much, but it was a stupid idea regardless.
I was just expecting _something_; what, given the massive EU fine and all. I suppose I was stupid to not realise that like everything else, Microsoft talk alot and don’t do very much.
Kroc, don’t talk nonsense. If it were up to Microsoft, the ballot would already be here. It were the other browser makers who were not satisfied, and on top of that, it takes the bureaucratic mess that is the EU quite some time to approve anything.
Please, be reasonable.
Why would Microsoft want to have a ballot screen where users could choose a competing product? How would that make any business sense?
What would be reasonable, if one was going to ship an irremoveable browser with an OS that users were given no other choice to purchase, would be to require that that browser implemented web standards.
So if Microsoft aren’t prepared to be reasonable, why should Kroc have to be?
Who cares if you cant remove it? What’s important is that it can be replaced.
If you can’t remove it, it remains on your Windows system as a security weakness.
All Windows systems are compromised by its presence.
I believe the idea was that OEMs could choose whether or not to have the ballot screen and what browsers to put in it (e.g. you buy a new computer from Dell and it asks you whether you want IE, Firefox, or Opera).
I can’t imagine that the EU would be able to force Microsoft to include other companies’ products in its operating system.
I’ve been using Windows 7 on a test machine since the RTM came out. It really is VERY good. It is smooth, stable and very polished. There are lots of thoughtful touches included. “Aero Peek” is VERY cool & very useful, along with the snap-to feature. The new “dock” style taskbar is a vast improvement, though it does take a little getting used to.
Windows 7 is much better at “getting out of the way” and letting you get to work than either XP or Vista. New hardware is installed in the background, instead of popping up an annoying window, the number of “informational” balloons has dropped dramatically, and the UAC has been tamed to only pop up for important things. Startup and shutdown are reasonably fast, and I can finally have my widgets on the desktop instead of in a “sidebar.”
It is SO good that I’ve been recommending it to friends and family – and I’m a Mac user. Sure, I’d love for them to switch to Mac, but if they want to stick with Windows, this version is one to get.
Windows 7 still has a few issues: Some of the control panel windows were seemingly pulled directly from XP without any thought as to how to make them better, the 3D Alt+Tab window switcher feature from Vista is still there – as useless as it has ever been, and for some reason Microsoft found it necessary to remove the excellent built-in calendar application, instead building it into the email program. With more and more people getting their email through their web browser, this idea seems backwards. It also still has its moments where it hangs with the spinning “O” when performing a basic task like copying a file and you wonder “WTF is it doing??” And it is still retarded when it comes to USB devices: Plug a flash drive or printer in a different USB port than the last time, and it still thinks that you’re installing new hardware, and starts installing drivers. . . again.
Overall, though, it’s the BEST Windows I’ve ever used, and I’ll be installing it on all of the PCs in my home.
Well, you’re stuck with whatever hardware you’ve got already, so even if all modern 32-/64-bit Windows supported it (unlikely), then you still are more likely to find only the latest version pre-installed than anything older Windows (that might work actually better, *cough*).
Edited 2009-10-22 14:31 UTC
Actually, it’s running quite fine on a pair of 3 year old computers in my home, an Athlon 64 300+ (single core) and an Intel Pentium 4HT 3Ghz. Both machines have only 1GB of RAM.
I just installed the 90 day Enterprise version trial on a Pentium IV 2.8Ghz (single core). The startup times, and general performance are on par with XP (no numbers though). It is far, far faster for most tasks than Vista on a 3GB quad-core machine in our office. The action manager is a nice alternative to the notification area. The task bar, low-rent OSX Dock clone will take some getting used to.
Overall a good review but I disagree on the removal of the calender. Most people I know are using both web mail and a online calender like google’s so there is no need to have a default calender along with the added bloat. Microsoft did the smart thing and put the calender in Live Mail for those that insist on sticking with a traditional email and calender solution because these people are likely to be one in the same.
In most cases OEM’s are going to include Live Mail in their default configurations so this is not an issue for most people that just get a new os with a new PC.
A lot of the applications like photo gallery, movie maker, etc are available through the live installer. Decoupling the end user apps allows them a lot more autonomy on development cycle.
the calendar I believe is part of the windows live install.
Because of some software we develop, i was part of the Windows 7 beta testing since the beginning.
I even got a FREE complimentary ULTIMATE license.
I have been using the final version since it was released to MSDN.
And, as much as i want to like it, i’m desperately waiting the right time to get back to XP.
Windows 7 feels like a complicated Windows XP.
Almost all either takes more time, more clicks, is differently done, or all together, than XP.
I don’t get why is so difficult for Microsoft to do refinements to Windows XP, like apple does for OSX, or Linux.
They try so hard to change all that, it ends up so horrible.
The good thing is that it is better than Vista.
The bad thing is that it is worst than XP.
It is not the WORST Windows i ever used, that distinction goes to Vista, but it is the 2nd one.
Edited 2009-10-22 14:11 UTC
//It is not the WORST Windows i ever used, that distinction goes to Vista, but it is the 2nd one.//
You haven’t been around very long, then.
Watch … businesses will begin bailing on XP on switch to 7.
Wow! I had the exact opposite reaction, and I use XP at work. I find 7 much easier to use and am able to configure it the way I like it. Really I see no major differences from XP except for some of the nice new features like aero peak, better font rendering (in my opinion), a little bling… all good. Performs well on my machine (tho’ admittedly my machine is probably better than most users’ machines).
What is causing you more clicks? How is it getting in your way as opposed to XP?
Same thing here.
The day I wanted to give 64-bit Win7 RC a try on an average 3-year old Dell, with a nice video card but only 2GB RAM, a try was the last day I ran XP on it.
The usefulness is there and I’ve been able to index and be productive with it. Only gripe is that it seems to get sluggish quickly (again, only 2GB) ram whereas XP would be just fine on it.
I’ve been looking at building my next PC or grabbing one from Dell with win7. I like it, but you just gotta have the step up hardware to run it.
I have a core 2 quad w/8GB of RAM so I rarely run into trouble with memory.
Ditto… and I don’t think I ever want less in a machine again.
once you go quad, you never go back.
Just having the ability to encode an hour ov video in about 20 minutes makes my day.
Me too. I may try again, though.
Still, i would have liked a “better xp”. There’s way too much “glitz” in windows 7. Like that “command bar” that you CAN NOT remove from explorer. What’s up with that? It gives me retarded “shortcuts” like “burn to cd” and stuff that i know very well how to do, and when i want to do it i’ll open up nero or whatever…
And navigating the “control panel” is really confusing. Too many clicks to do simple things. And again these retarded “suggestions” in the side pane. LOL.
Also, one would have liked to think that by know, you could switch GUI/Icon theme without much effort. Think again. And the GUI engine looks pretty much like it have since windows 95 was first released. No, the pretty window borders don’t fool me.
Oh, and the icing on the cake was when ActiveX (some .net equivalent) found it’s way in to my firefox install without even alerting me about it. Nice touch Microsoft…
Still, it was rather stable though.
What short memories people have… nothing could be worse than the dark ages of Windows 98 and accomplices.
hmm… someone who knows how everything works in the old paradigm hates the new one… what a surprise.
Agreed that it is worse than Vista….but worse than XP? That seems unfair, aren’t most release applications designed for XP? As a Mac user I am pretty used to only upgrading the OS once the Apps require it, seems like that is backwards in the Windows world…why not wait until the applications are designed to leverage the OS before you jump out on the bleeding edge?
That said….I still think Apple ought to mail this http://tinyurl.com/yfvazaf to every Windows 7 buyer. Heck their more than halfway there with their latest series of Mac/PC ads.
Switched back from OS X and Linux to Win7 and finally it feels like I’m at home again. Linux and OS X font rendering is so crappy…. I almost got eye cancer. Finally I can enjoy reading text on my PC for hours again. Thanks Windows 7 !
I guess that depends on what you like in font rendering. After installing Windows 7 RC1 just to see what the hype was about, the very first thing I did was find out which settings in font rendering were the least aggravating for my eyes.
I still vastly prefer the result on my Gnome desktop at “best contrast” setting. But a lot of people seem to have no problems with being shown the rainbow at the edges of their letters. To each his own.
Turned off Clear Type in Win7 and switshed all fonts to Verdana which is best readable for me on TFT’s. No fluffy rainbow fonts – It’s all “quiet” and crisp.
You can install verdana and tune the font rendering settings in xorg too.
Yup, and it still looks like shit.
Dejavu Sans (Bitstream Vera Sans) and Freesans are the way to go. Make sure your web browsers don’t allow custom fonts.
However, on Windows, with Cleartype, Verdana and Consolas look the best, IMO (still inferior to the Vera fonts in X, but better looking than w/o subpixel rendering).
well, 512MB of RAM today is smaaaaaal
even for a netbook…
I havent tried but does the latest fedora/ubuntu/mandriva work well on a 512MB system with fullblown GNOME/KDE4 desktop and all whistles?
If you only have low-spec machines, dont use 7
It might work with slimed-down settings, havent tried…
Wouldnt install a modern(mainstream) linux-distribution on a low-specc machine either…
Yes, Fedora 11 runs OK on an Athlon XP 2000+ with 512 MB RAM.
I agree about the modern, mainstream statement. However, due to the almost infinite customizability of Linux, there are modern disto’s to run on just about every machine. I can run DSL (Damn Small Linux) on Pentium I and II systems – even with Firefox – and get a fairly snappy machine. That’s one of the things I like about the FOSS world, there’s an entry point for just about everyone.
I also like to install OpenBSD on older laptops. Combined with the default FVWM and “links -g”, I can surf just about every site (Gmail, Linux Today, CNN) on any Pentium 1 or better machine. Even with 64MB RAM.
Having said all of that, I also run Windows 7 on a beefy desktop for Games and .NET development. Also, I run it on a netbook with 2GB of ram (I would not go less than 1GB), and find it to be a much-improved OS. Kudos to MS for an improved Windows.
And now I wait for ChromeOS on ARM.
OpenBSD… an OS Grandma could use.
Are there significant differences? I will most probably get one Ultimate license from the work and want to know if it worth to replace my RTM install with the full one. Otherwise,I may wait until June next year. Really,it is just a Vista (my opinion) that moves faster. I’m looking forward to the home networking stuff but I understand all computers must run Win7. Well,I have only one computer running Win7. I still think Snow Leopard runs circles around Win7 in terms of simplicity and usability.But that’s my take (my main work machine is XP). It is sad to see that new OS’s release don’t get any coverage on Page 1. SL had some note on Page 2. Luckily there’s Ars Technica for quality reviews/previews.
RTM is the full release.
You mean RC? other than the fact that next June it will stop working… not too much changed.
Look, it comes with KDE 4 installed! :p
/end trolling
You can mod him down but he will become more powerful than you can ever imagine.
No, sorry. It doesn’t have the immovable cashew, it doesn’t use a half-developed zoomable UI that breaks when you try to use it, you can’t randomly rotate gadgets such that you have to stand on your head to read them, and most of all…
Microsoft listened to their customers when they designed the UI.
If you’re gonna troll, do it RIGHT.
But the lack of virtual desktops completely blows my mind.
I was just over at Ars this morning and a strange ‘fact/statistic/lie’ popped into my brain before the coffe kicked in, – – If you are in the five percent or so of users that Microsoft says actually upgrades their previous Windows installation (as opposed to buying a new PC with the new OS), the traditional received wisdom was to always perform a clean install of any new version of Windows;
I just can’t understand that as a way to run a business model. I didn’t hate XP and sort of like Vista (not for daily use but in a VM) but I cannot see buying a new unit unless the current one is dead or deathly slow. I mean there is nothing that I do on my MacBook Pro that I cannot do on my PC (Except Development – my job) otherwise it is all web and reports and stuff, and generally I will draft text in TextMate because it is open and then copy it into a bigger app.
My unit is four friggin’ years old I have never been a hardware fetishist who needs the biggest fastest newest, and most of my peers and friends are generally on their second laptop in the same time. I have run 10.4;10.5;10.6 and Vista. and the only issue that I had was using boot camp. The MBR format for the drive would occasionally throw ‘bus errors’ in XCode (but that is not “normal use”)
MY Point is THIS: If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If it is broke Patch it. Is Windows 7 not just patched Vista (*Mojave?*) If All that you are using Vista\Win 7 for is to use Office then how can that justify a new PC? Am I missing something. I mean MacOS and Linux have their quirks- I spend enough time in GDB to know what and why – but never to the point of get a new Machine.
That is my “Too Much Coffee Minute”
Most of the people I know could do work on a 5 year old machine running any generic operating system since they do e-mail, surf the web, and occasionally write something, plus they play solitaire. A few more people do something with photos, but most don’t use the machine for most of what it can do.
I’ve known bosses at various work places who had to have the latest machines while other machines were 5 years old. The only reason we upgraded anything is because the machines were causing productivity problems or couldn’t run special software.
Here’s hoping that Windows 7 doesn’t do something stupid like lose people’s data or become the biggest botnet on the planet within 1 month.
Much agreed. The Veeps and managers in Mahogany Row will run it with out any compelling reason(and expect Helpdesk to fix it now) And developer and other power users can install it on just about anything that can run it ‘reasonably well’. We are not the target market. I mean if I need a feature that I cannot write a script or tiny app for then likely someone else has And I can install it – if it breaks then I will fix it. If I do not get malware it is because I wasn’t going to that part of the web.
My concern is what is really going on with that group that keeps dragging the Windows (and MacOS) experience down. The consumer side is so bogged down with trying to keep the GUI to the Lowest Common Denominator while still giving that same user Admin rights.
So here is to hoping.
…BTW this is what they should have released 4+ years ago and with that ‘mystical/imaginary’ WinFS
To most people, a computer is a fancy appliance. The idea of putting an OS that didn’t come with it is sorcery, to left to the learned sages (those of us who don’t fear breaking our systems
).
Sad, but that’s how it goes. I don’t even know if most of them realize it would be possible to just get a new OS. Of those, too many are too afraid to try anything, so might get out off by labor+OS costs v. just buying a new low-end PC.
I love how by using XP mode you can install IE6, IE7, IE8 simultaneously – for testing web apps.
The best thing would be to push Web surfers to IE8. Or at the very least, IE7. Screw IE6.
//Screw IE6.//
You clearly don’t work for a large organization.
I would love to see companies move away from IE6. There are few good reasons to keep it around.
I know about momentum and supported apps, but 7 and 8 are much better security, and few web apps don’t have a IE7 compatible version. Furthermore, IE6 is holding you to XP, weather you want to be there or not.
I only support it for specific clients anymore myself, and loathe to do that.
Oddly enough, MSFT fell today, which just goes to show you, it’s all hype.
Sure, 7 is better than Vista, but a Ford Escort is surely better than a Pinto and there’s not much discussion about that, either.
Profit taking proves nothing. Several day traders buy stocks before an event to see the price increase sharply and at the peak, they sell.
Considering how much better the current (not the 1980s U.S. version) Ford Escort is over the best Ford Pinto, there is no reason to doubt that you hold Windows 7 in high esteem.
I don’t care to use Windows but everything tells me that Windows 7 is a good advance over Vista and instead of calling Windows the “65 % solution”, I might have to revise that to the “72 % solution”.
I guess he meant it’s a Ford after all, not a Lamborghini or a Ferrari.
Well, it has to be better than Vista. It surely can’t get worse. But I don’t think it will surpass XP. XP does what 99.9% of people want anyway, and with less hardware, with less compatibility problems. Just because it’s new and shiny doesn’t make it better. The only thing to consider is security, which is the most important part, as it’s what causes the most troubles for most of the PCs out there.
I’ve been using the release version of 7 for a while and have to agree it’s a nice upgrade. There are the usual frustrations with things that have moved (I skipped Vista so my perspective is relative to XP – which will actually be the case for many people) and things that now (seem to) take twice the number of clicks to perform in the name of security. It doesn’t have that “plastic” feel that I got when I found myself sitting in front of Vista – I’m not waiting for it to break – it feels pretty solid. As a predominantly OSX user I still find some things in the OS infuriatingly stupid, but then that’s a two way street I suppose – I also find some things in OSX infuriatingly stupid. I have found some driver issues but I suppose that’s also to be expected and should be fixed in due course.
If I was a Windows user I think I’d certainly be shelling out for the upgrade…
I purchased a hp mini 110 1030CA exactly 25 days ago, with xp on it. Of course it came with no xp disks, and as a student, I can’t afford an external cdrw or hd. So I installed hp’s mei linux on it , which hosed the whole disk and wouldn’t boot fully. No problem, on goes Ubuntu 9.04, then upgraded to 9.10. Smooth, I’ll just pick up win 7 when it comes out today. WRONG, not possible, even though the hp mini 115 with 7 starter went on sale for same damn price I paid 25 days ago!!! So unless I pony up $199 for win 7 home, no deal. Call to hp canada confirmed this, and no way in hell I’m going to first pony up $80 for xp discs, then $100 for upgrade. So windows can kiss my hairy hands…. again.
On a brighter note, it does look appealing, and it runs in virtualbox fairly well. Thanks Sun for opening that avenue up for me. Been open source for 10 years, but I would like to give it a real spin before passing critical judgement.
I wish you all a rockin’ Windows 7 party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ
I celebrate October 22 more for my Dad’s birthday (75! What a milestone.) than anything else.
That said, I held off buying a nice all-in-one PC for my Mom such as Lenovo’s C300 partly due to financial constraints but also partly due to wanting Lenovo to sell it with Windows 7 already installed, rather than with Vista and then getting the free upgrade. Why go through the hassle? And my current Asus TUV4X-based desktop with a 1GHz Celeron and 1.5GB RAM? I’ll keep XP on it.
Ok, ok, ok as a life long mac user even I have to admit that Windows 7 is a beautiful OS, I don’t know a lot about the internals but they did an awesome job on the user interface and it really flows like the Mac gui has for years. That said I find this e-card hilarious and maybe it is my vengeful side but Mac WAS first and Windows does have a pretty bad track record after Vista….so, I think Apple ought to send this e-Card to everyone that Buys Windows 7 http://tinyurl.com/yfvazaf
That would kick ass!