Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 24th Apr 2009 23:44 UTC, submitted by google_ninja
It's something lots of people here on OSNews have been waiting for. It's something we've talked about, something we've theorised about, and something we've declared as the future for Windows' backwards compatibility - and now it's here, and official. Over a month ago, Microsoft bloggers Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott have been briefed by Microsoft on a technology for Windows 7 called Windows XP Mode. Available as a free download for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate users, it's a fully integrated and licensed copy of Windows XP SP3 in a VirtualPC-based environment, with full "coherence" support. In other words, it's Microsoft's variant of Apple's Classic environment, and it's coming to Windows 7, for free. Near-instant update: The Windows 7 RC will indeed be available publicly on May 5. TechNet/MSDN will get it April 30.
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RE[3]: Still worse than XP...
by naranha on Sat 25th Apr 2009 12:35
in reply to "RE[2]: Still worse than XP..."
Member since:2009-02-25
I still prefer WindowsXP over WinVista even though I have a quick machine with 8 gigs of ram. I rather run XP with 3 gigs of ram than use Vista with 8. I just had so many bad experiences with it. Most important reason is, that XP still feels a lot snappier and faster.
For example this happened recently:
While running Vista win explorer showed a strange behaviour, i could not click on files, open them etc. Then the machine hung and I needed to reboot. Vista was not able to read the NTFS filesystem anymore. I started Linux and I was able to browse the filesystem and back the important stuff up. I started from Vistas recovery cd and ran chkdsk, this nearly took 4 hours and there was a lot of fixing. Still the MBR was gone and somehow not fixable. Additionally I was not able to mount the drive in linux anymore. I reinstalled Vista on a new drive, but I gave up as the first bluescreen appeared while installing the SP1. Now I'm back to XP and I will stick with it for as long as possible. At least it makes me somewhat independent from microsoft terrible update packages, since only real important updates will show up in the future.
RE[4]: Still worse than XP...
by Thom_Holwerda on Sat 25th Apr 2009 13:12
in reply to "RE[3]: Still worse than XP..."
Member since:2005-06-29
The only way I can see happening what you described is if you had a bad driver, or gave permission to install shady software. Vista doesn't just crap out like that for no reason. Or, a faulty hard drive. considered that one?
It's not XP we're talking about.
Edited 2009-04-25 13:13 UTC
RE[4]: Still worse than XP...
by google_ninja on Sat 25th Apr 2009 15:46
in reply to "RE[3]: Still worse than XP..."
Member since:2006-02-05
RE[4]: Still worse than XP...
by kaiwai on Sun 26th Apr 2009 03:57
in reply to "RE[3]: Still worse than XP..."
Member since:2005-07-06
I still prefer WindowsXP over WinVista even though I have a quick machine with 8 gigs of ram. I rather run XP with 3 gigs of ram than use Vista with 8. I just had so many bad experiences with it. Most important reason is, that XP still feels a lot snappier and faster.
So let me get this staight, you are basing your assessment of Windows 7 on Windows Vista even though there have been reports after reports, articles after articles showing a dramatic decrease in memory usage, improvement in performance over Windows XP on the same hardware. So rather than looking at facts you resort to lying to justify your decision - interesting to see that honesty is a rare commodity on this forum.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2006-11-19
There were many benchmarks on Windows 7 vs Vista vs XP. Basically if you have a modern machine (4GB RAM, etc), Windows 7 is the OS you'd like to use for the maximum performance.
XP is old, and if your machine is so too (like 5+ years), then you should stay with XP.