Windows 7 — Page 2

Wow, what's with all the hate toward Vista and Windows 7?  Is this coming from personal experience or just what the "blogosphere" says?  I could understand if this was January 2007, but Vista's 3rd party driver stability has improved a ton since then (yes, Vista's stability problems were in fact caused by bad 3rd party drivers, most notably from Nvidia).  And service pack 1 fixed just about anything else that cause people trouble.

Do you all think that just because there was a 6 year lag between XP and Vista that Microsoft wants to wait another 6 years to release a new OS?  Vista has been the exception to every single rule of every OS that MS has ever released.  Every OS has been released no more than 3 years from the previous one except Vista.  Service Pack 1 was the only service pack ever released that couldn't be easily integrated with the OS before installing it and that won't be happening again.

The reason you're having trouble finding XP is because, like all Microsoft software, it reached its end of retail life (planned long before Vista was released).  If you needed a copy that bad, you should've bought one before the end of July (I believe it was July of this year that its retail sales were ended).  It was very well publicized that you wouldn't be able to get it after July 31st.  Do you seriously think Microsoft should just continue to sell and support all versions of their OS until the end of time?  Windows 95 and 98 reached their end of sale and support life cycles a long time ago, but nobody bitched about that even though some people are still running it.

Vista has plenty of new features to bring to the table, not the least of which is better memory management and better search capability.  And if you're running with 4 GB or more of RAM, the 64-bit version of Vista has much better driver support than XP ever did.  Vista also has much better support for multi-core systems.  Since most new systems are running multiple cores, you're much better off with Vista than you would be with XP.

If you've just upgraded to Vista, then don't worry about Windows 7.  Yeah, they're leaving the same basic kernel architecture intact.  What does that mean?  It means that all the software you're running on Vista right now will work just fine on Windows 7.  It means all your drivers will work just fine too.  Why would you expect another major change?  XP used the same basic kernel architecture as 2000 and 2003 used the same basic architecture as XP (which is why games that work on XP work just fine on 2003), so it shouldn't surprise anyone that they aren't changing that for Windows 7.

I've used Vista extensively myself.  When it was first launched (pre-SP1) the only trouble I had was slow file transfers.  It was actually faster on the same hardware than XP was, with all the eye candy turned on.  It was the first OS Microsoft ever released where I didn't want to disable any eye candy because it was fast and actually improved the OS.  After SP1, slow file transfers were fixed and I haven't had any problems with it.  I actually leave UAC turned on too because it let me know if anything weird was going on.

Ferris, if Dell sold you a computer with the XP downgrade option and didn't include drivers for XP, your beef is with Dell, not Microsoft.  Dell is responsible for making sure you get all the drivers you need, not Microsoft.  If you had built the computer yourself, then you'd be the one that would have to make sure everything had XP drivers.  Most large manufacturers do still provide XP drivers, so they shouldn't be that hard to find.

My dislike of Vista is from personal experience. I am not a huge Microsoft hater or anything, Windows 98 was pretty rough, but I thought ME was great, and I'd go as far to say I loved XP. I have never had a hard time getting anything to work under XP, its compatibilty mode has always worked for me to get programs to work on it, and for the rare few that had glitches, I'd use virtual PC. It also ran OS8 beautifully through Basilisk II, which I used for all my old Mac programs.

Vista, even with all the bells and whistles turned off, is a slow piece of crap and a resource hog. Its "security features" (though they can be turned off, most people don't know how) are incredible annoying. "Oh, what? You want to open this program? Are you sure about that? I mean, really, really sure about that? It might not be a good idea, it could cause the end of the universe or severely alter space and time, are you really sure you would like to open this program? Are you an administrator on this system? Oh, you are? Okay, you can go ahead and open this program, so long as you are sure that is what you would like to do. You are sure about this aren't you? For my part, I don't think it is a very good idea, but I am just your computer, what do I know? Shall I open this program for you then? I wouldn't if I were you. Well, if your mind is set on it I guess I am going to open this program for you, that is, unless you care to reconsider"

"Allow, allow, allow, allow, just open my damn program already!!!

So, yeah, I have been less than impressed with Vista on many aspects based on my own experience. I have no idea what the "blogsphere" says about it, but I am not surprised if they don't like it, as I did not.

negative1 said:

vbangle said:

Oh, I think he does get it....oh yeah, he gets it alright.

 

well, if you're so smart..

explain it easy to understand words that people can comprehend,

instead of being so cryptic..

 

is it a joke?

 

later

-1

Warbler?

Ferris, I wasn't necessarily referencing only your post.  My message was a pretty generic reply to all the posts that were complaining about Vista.

For the record, MS didn't try to force Vista on anybody.  Dell jumped the gun the moment Vista was available.  They withdrew XP without MS telling them they had to.  It was several months before systems became available with XP again.  I know because I was actively looking at their systems each week.  At work, we were going to need systems, but I hadn't had a chance to test Vista yet.  By the time we really needed them, Dell had made XP an option on the Optiplex and Precision lines again.  A lot of people blame MS for this, but the fault lies squarely on the OEMs.

C3PX, I don't know what program you're trying to launch on Vista, but it only does that when you try to either change system settings, load up some kind of admin tool, or install a program.  I used Vista for about a week at work and at no point did it ever prompt me to open any programs other than admin tools.  I never got prompted to change my screen resolution.  I never got prompted to launch DreamWeaver CS3, FireFox, Outlook 2003, or any other of a number of programs I use on a daily basis.  What I ended up doing for my initial install was disabling UAC, install all my programs, and then reenabled UAC.  I never ran into another problem after that.

Maybe the program you're trying to launch is an older one that, for some stupid reason, needs admin access.  I say it's a stupid reason because many old programs unnecessarily required admin rights just to run (this is mostly true for games, but AutoCAD was a huge offender of this).  Any program written in the last few years shouldn't have this problem though.  So I'm really curious to know what program caused this.  Unless of course you're constantly installing new programs.  That would of course explain it too, but then it's still performing exactly the way it's suppose to.  And interestingly enough, it performs almost exactly the same way a Mac does.

Please tell me you at least tried it on modern hardware.  If you tried to run it on the same thing XP shipped with (remember that XP is 7 years old), it wouldn't surprise me that it was slow.  On proper hardware (anything about a year or two old) it runs beautifully.  That'd be about 1 or 2 GB of RAM and a dual core processor.  Amazingly enough, that's the same thing most Macs ship with, yet Apple takes no heat for having a "slow and bloated" OS.

I just find it pretty amazing that people will still complain about an OS that may have had problems almost two years ago, but they haven't tried it recently, so it must still suck.  This is as bad as people saying that Windows just sucks, but their only experience is Windows 98.  Well, in that case, Windows does suck, but that also means it's time to upgrade.

I've been using Vista since last summer. It still sucks.

Nanner Split said:

I've been using Vista since last summer. It still sucks.

 so, go back to xp already, why did you even bother?

maybe your computer sucks?

later

-1

C3PX said:

 but I thought ME was great,

you've just lost any technical credibilty you might have had

with this one statement, i find it hard to believe you can

type that with a straight face...

Vista, even with all the bells and whistles turned off, is a slow piece of crap and a resource hog. Its "security features" (though they can be turned off, most people don't know how) are incredible annoying.

 there's a program called tweakUAC, get it, i had it from the beginning and never had any

issues like you talked about..

later

-1

And if you're running with 4 GB or more of RAM, the 64-bit version of Vista has much better driver support than XP ever did.  Vista also has much better support for multi-core systems.  Since most new systems are running multiple cores, you're much better off with Vista than you would be with XP.

Yes, but how many people do you know that are running programs that are multi-core aware? The extra cores won't help you if the programs as well as the OS don't recognize them.

but I thought ME was great

Oops...forgot about ME. I didn't use that version either. In fact, the only reason I went from 98 to 2000 was to recognize file sizes larger than 2Gb.

negative1 said:

Nanner Split said:

I've been using Vista since last summer. It still sucks.

 

so, go back to xp already, why did you even bother?

maybe your computer sucks?

later

-1

1) Maybe you're made of money, but I'm a poor college student. I don't have the cash to run down and pick me up a new copy of XP

2)I didn't bother. I didn't have a say in the matter. I received this laptop as a gift from someone who knows fuck-all about computers

3) Yes, my computer does suck. But Vista isn't making it any better.

negative1 said:

C3PX said:

 but I thought ME was great,

you've just lost any technical credibilty you might have had

with this one statement, i find it hard to believe you can

type that with a straight face...

First off -1, stop being such a fuckwit. Thanks. Yes, I can type that with a straight face. ME worked great for me, after years of trouble with 98, ME felt like a great breath of fresh air. It basically felt like a version of 98 that didn't constantly plummet me into the blue screen of death. Also, it was the first one to have the compatibility mode feature, which I really liked, always worked well for me, and I use a lot of old programs.

Nanner Split said:

negative1 said:

Nanner Split said:

I've been using Vista since last summer. It still sucks.

 

so, go back to xp already, why did you even bother?

maybe your computer sucks?

later

-1

1) Maybe you're made of money, but I'm a poor college student. I don't have the cash to run down and pick me up a new copy of XP

used copies are pretty cheap, or if you had to , you could 'borrow' a copy from someone?

 

2)I didn't bother. I didn't have a say in the matter. I received this laptop as a gift from someone who knows *****-all about computers

 

ok, fine, then it should have worked on that hardware if its newer.

did you download the service pack? update all your drivers?

3) Yes, my computer does suck. But Vista isn't making it any better.

 

when you're not being specific, it's hard to tell where or what the problem is..

even the newest computers have issues.... but if you ask someone, or try

to figure out whats wrong, you can resolve the problems..

speed issues? -> turn off enhancements

disk issues? -> get the service pack

works slow? -> optimize your hard disk

i could go on and on.. but the point is...  if somethings not working right,

why live it? instead try to get help or figure out whats wrong, since you're

the one using it..

there's plenty of people willing to help you out if you ask, or look on google..

later

-1

C3PX said:

 

First off -1, stop being such a ******wit. Thanks. Yes, I can type that with a straight face. ME worked great for me, after years of trouble with 98, ME felt like a great breath of fresh air. It basically felt like a version of 98 that didn't constantly plummet me into the blue screen of death. Also, it was the first one to have the compatibility mode feature, which I really liked, always worked well for me, and I use a lot of old programs.

that's odd, most of rest of the world (including microsoft) admitted that ME was a huge failure,

and there were several major issues with it:

============

Windows Me was criticized by users for its instability and unreliability, due to frequent freezes and crashes. A PC World article dubbed Windows Me the "Mistake Edition" and listed it as the fourth "Worst Tech Product of All Time". "Shortly after Me appeared in late 2000," the article states, "users reported problems installing it, getting it to run, getting it to work with other hardware or software, and getting it to stop running." Even Microsoft acknowledged its unpopularity.

The System Restore feature sometimes ended up restoring a virus which the user had previously removed, since its method of keeping track of changes is fairly simplistic. By disabling System Restore, the virus could be removed, but the user lost all saved restore points.

System Restore also suffered from a bug in the date-stamping functionality that may cause System Restore to date-stamp snapshots that are taken after 8 September 2001 incorrectly. This can prevent System Restore from locating these snapshots and can cause the system restore process to fail. Microsoft has released an update to fix this problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_ME

anyways, if you were using windows 98 service pack 2, it was rock solid,

and i still use it today (along with windows 95)...

i'm not sure what hardware/software issues you were having with 98,

but most people didn't have them...and waited for NT 4.0/2000 or XP before

upgrading again..

later

-1

ferris209 said:

Guys, I didn't begin this thread to have a pissing match about previous versions of Windows, I simply wanted to have some discussion about the upcoming Windows 7. Windows ME was a dog IMHO, but if it works for C3PX, who the hell cares, he's happy! My only complaint on this thread is that Windows 7 should be an SP of Vista, outside of that I don't give one iota of a damn about XP vs. ME or ME vs. 98 or 3.1 vs. 1.0!! Let's talk about Windows 7!!!

That Windows "peek" feature is worth waiting for. If they incorporate that into Vista's second service pack I'll get Vista, but otherwise I might just be waiting. Since they're saying that Windows 7 requires so many programmers, I'm guessing Vista runs too differently for it to be turned into Windows 7 in every sense. Peek should be easy though. I want to peek.

negative1 said:

C3PX said:

First off -1, stop being such a ******wit. Thanks. Yes, I can type that with a straight face. ME worked great for me, after years of trouble with 98, ME felt like a great breath of fresh air. It basically felt like a version of 98 that didn't constantly plummet me into the blue screen of death. Also, it was the first one to have the compatibility mode feature, which I really liked, always worked well for me, and I use a lot of old programs.

that's odd, most of rest of the world (including microsoft) admitted that ME was a huge failure,

and there were several major issues with it:

-1, sorry for calling you a ****wit, that was rude and uncalled for, and I know you don't like swearing, so I should be more sensitive to that. You just get very irritating sometimes in that you try to disagree with everyone for the sake of disagreeing.

I am now going to quote myself, just for kicks.

C3PX said:

 

ME worked great for me, after years of trouble with 98, ME felt like a great breath of fresh air. It basically felt like a version of 98 that didn't constantly plummet me into the blue screen of death. Also, it was the first one to have the compatibility mode feature, which I really liked, always worked well for me, and I use a lot of old programs.

C3PX said:

negative1 said:

 

-1, sorry for calling you a ****wit, that was rude and uncalled for, and I know you don't like swearing, so I should be more sensitive to that. You just get very irritating sometimes in that you try to disagree with everyone for the sake of disagreeing.

I am now going to quote myself, just for kicks.

 

not a problem, i try not to get worked up over things that don't bother me too much. it's my fault also for being so

confrontational in the first place..

yes, it's good that you were able to get it to work for you.. i keep an older computer

around and dual boot 95/98, because i have software (mostly games) that only works

with 95/98 and i can't get them to work with XP/vista because the compatability modes

don't work well...  i remember that ME dropped DOS real mode, i think, and that caused

me a lot of problems so i didn't care for it too much.

to get back on track (i'm guilty of derailing this thread also, sorry)...

anyways, back to windows 7, i think there are pre-beta  versions floating around the net,

but i'm not going to try them ..... i think in january their will be a public beta including the

new task mananger and more of the features we're reading about...

 that's not too far off...... looks like it will be fun to play with..

later

-1

Nanner Split said:

3) Yes, my computer does suck. But Vista isn't making it any better.

 

So what are you hardware specs?  Post some specs and we can tell you if the hardware is really capable of running Vista.  We can also suggest any upgrades that might help with any speed issues you might be having.

FYI, Vista isn't supposed to make hardware run faster.  You're either running good hardware that can run Vista properly or you're not.  XP was the same way back in the day.  I don't know anyone that ran XP back in 2001 with the default settings.  "It's slow", "It's bloated", those are all the things I heard about XP back in the day.  Now I'm hearing the same thing about Vista.

I'd very much like the idea of one version of the system.