Thread: Windows 7 Released to Manufacturing

  1. #61
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    SSD: Improvements to SSD support are small but very significant over Vista. These disks will almost certainly become mainstream pretty soon. Certainly hard drives will stay for a very long time, but I cannot deny the performance improvements of SSDs when taking into consideration that their prices still can, and will, drop considerably.
    I think it's just about partition alignment and block size, to make SSD block erases more efficient. It applies mostly to first-gen SSDs without (or with tiny) DRAM caches, though. Newer SSDs with caches and good controllers benefit little to none from it. Even if you still want to do it, there are guides online that walks you through it step by step using fdisk (for Linux at least).

    Actually, I was rather impressed with KDE Oxygen, I thought it much better than Windows' Classic, Luna, or Aero theme. But hey, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, eh?
    I LOVE the look and feel of it, too. It can certainly pass for Windows 8 (yes, I have tried Windows 7). Too bad it kept crashing on me, and I had to switch back to my trusty GNOME. I think I tried a pretty early release of KDE 4, though, so it's probably better now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia
    And let me repeat: I am only saying you need to try Win7 before passing judgment. You can say, sure Win7 looks/is a nice OS, but it's not worth to pay $200 to upgrade to it.
    (red mine, bold original)
    And let me repeat: I am only saying you need to try Linux before passing judgment. You can say, sure Linux looks/is a nice OS, but it's not worth to pay $0 to upgrade to it.

  2. #62
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    Too bad it kept crashing on me, and I had to switch back to my trusty GNOME. I think I tried a pretty early release of KDE 4, though, so it's probably better now.
    It's a funny subject that of operating system GUIs. It's bigots vs zealots, most of the time. Linux GUI diehards scorn at windows GUI, but I've witnessed some of the most irascible GUI wars between KDE and Gnome self-appointed defenders. Next to it, Linux vs. Windows are intelligent debates. On the other hand Windows diehards scorn at Linux Gnome and KDE, but as soon as a new windows version shows up have no qualms in calling the previous version GUI a piece of trash.

    You can say, sure Linux looks/is a nice OS, but it's not worth to pay $0 to upgrade to it.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 07-30-2009 at 07:43 AM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  3. #63
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    It's a funny subject that of operating system GUIs.
    Shun them all, I say!

    It can certainly pass for Windows 8 (yes, I have tried Windows 7).
    http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/soft...9294810,00.htm

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    Hey, Visual C++ 6 works just fine, why upgrade? It costs a lot of money for nothing!
    Visual C++ 6 works fine for us. While some of us may want to upgrade it's just not worth it in the end. :shrug:


    Personally, I'm interested in W7 but it's just not worth it to me to upgrade from XP just yet.

  5. #65
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Oh man! I got the laughs from the "Will Office 2010 kill Google Docs?" video. A must see.

    People don't trust Google security. Businesses don't trust google security. Microsoft? Well, at least they are the devil you know.
    Precious!
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  6. #66
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    I've been using windows 7 since the RC 1 and I really enjoy it. It's much more compact task bar wise, I love the start menu, as it allows me to search my comp similar to a launcher program, minus the keywords.

    The only real thing I wish it had natively was a Window Manager akin to total commander or the like. I mean I use Free Commander to replace using the windows explorer, but it would be cool to have all window manager actions route to a Single manager like application. Of course this is just a big want and I already use Free Commander, but I just don't see the draw of having multiple folder windows anymore, it's just less efficient.


    But i'm going to buy it, I just would have liked for their upgrade process to be easier for people that have been using the RC 1.

  7. #67
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    I think it's just about partition alignment and block size, to make SSD block erases more efficient.
    SSD's have improved random access speeds, they do not have higher read/write speeds. They have advantages, but they will not be replacing HDD's any time soon, for one their storage density is much lower, and their production cost is higher per GB of storage. They do have a durability advantage, which leads me to believe they will replace HDD's in laptops and other field applications such as industrial or automotive environments. They will not be replacing HDD's in fixed applications where storage density, cost per GB, and read/write performance are the primary concerns.

    (red mine, bold original)
    And let me repeat: I am only saying you need to try Linux before passing judgment. You can say, sure Linux looks/is a nice OS, but it's not worth to pay $0 to upgrade to it.
    It doesn't cost $0 to switch to Linux. Its actually quite expensive, unless you can find a magical fairy whose time is worthless that will switch your system over for you. I have tried it, many many distros, I try a new one every 6 months or so, in fact I'm due to try a new one here in the next few weeks. They are all fail for my needs. When I find a distro that installs 'out of the box' without me having to do any more than click and forget, then I will start using and developing for Linux. Yes 'I' can figure it out, but can my customers? Do I really need the headache (and expense) of holding their hands through the switch until they get comfortable with Linux? Do I need to absorb the expense of converting all my existing code base to run on Linux? Does Linux offer any advantages over Windows that would make the switch a no brainer? These are all legitimate concerns that the Linux Fan-boy community fails to consider.

  8. #68
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    S I'm due to try a new one here in the next few weeks. They are all fail for my needs. When I find a distro that installs 'out of the box' without me having to do any more than click and forget, then I will start using and developing for Linux.
    As a linux "fanboy" I sincerely hope that this trend continues and that you, abachler, never never ever even consider for a moment "switching over" or (worse yet) writing any software for the platform. Seriously, and honestly. You and your customers are best served by windows and it should stay that way. Forever.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  9. #69
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    When I find a distro that installs 'out of the box' without me having to do any more than click and forget, then I will start using and developing for Linux
    In my opinion, the best "out of the box" distro is Linux Mint. I suggest you give that a try for your next distro test.

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kennedy View Post
    Do these two seem contradictory to anyone other than myself?

    Sounds like either someone has stock in MS or "needs" to get some.
    I am arguing for trying, not selling. There is a difference... you know?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    Actually, I was rather impressed with KDE Oxygen, I thought it much better than Windows' Classic, Luna, or Aero theme. But hey, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, eh?
    It really seems that way. I would think every casual users--well most anyway--love the Aero theme. I do too, of course. But some do not. Are they Linux junkies? Or computer veterans? Or something else entirely? I don't know what binds these people together who just tries to disable the new interface and go with the old plain.

    ...and I really doubt 7 affords the user more control, rather, probably the other way around, and it's still Windows, which means viruses and such...
    As in control of the inner workings?
    At least there will be more productivity in the GUI features - such as Aero Snap. Very good feature, that. A favorite.

    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    now that's gotta be an old testament sin

    does windows still just have just the single workspace?

    MS does a really nice job with the bevelling of the window widgets. I think the only thing they do wrong is charge too much. They could be like the volkswagen of the OS world, except you get charged for a BMW. I bet if they charged half as much, they could sell twice as many copies to people who will otherwise stick with their old copy of XP or whatever. Which amounts to the same thing financially*, but might earn them more respect amongst users, who otherwise will probably wait until they buy their next computer to upgrade the OS -- so they don't care and aren't interested that there's a windows 7. If it were $110, way more people might think, oh, windows, maybe I should buy the new one. If it were $110, I might even have bought a copy. Instead, I will send another contribution to GNU

    * well, except they will have to provide some form of support to twice as many people.
    Ah, now here's something that's iffy.
    Microsoft arranged pre-orders for Win7 that cut off as much as 50% off the retail price.
    But the stock was kinda limited and was sold out in a few hours to a few days everywhere. What was the point of that, I wonder?
    Too few pre-order editions...

    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust View Post
    Yes it did, a long time ago, then they did it again, and again... Every version of Windows has a completely new UI. They keep shuffling all the menus around just to make it that much harder for me to find something in the Start Menu or Control Panel...
    The first thing I do when I get a new version of Windows is right-click the taskbar and select "Classic Start Menu".
    No, not a whole makeover like Win 3.11 -> Win 95.
    But otherwise they have tweaked minor stuff, yes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cactus_Hugger View Post
    You're kidding... right?
    • I can have 3 scrollbars/comboboxes/buttons/your-favourite-control-here on my screen that all look and act differently, but they're all in MS apps
    • start menu that forgets windows that are visible (there are visible windows not on the start menu -- clicking on the window, and the start menu 'remembers')
    • Windows don't actually know if they're maximized or not -- I can have a window, not maximize, but the buttons and the window border indicate it is. (I can move it around the screen, it's size != the screens size, etc.)
    • MS uses their own applications as examples of bad design in their (lacking) UX standards. (For a real treat, read the Gnome or the Apple HIGs.)
    • There is no real standard font -- windows seem to pick and choose for themselves. Setting the font to something different is particularly hazardous. (.Net is bad for this...)
    • I haven't noticed this since XP, but GUI stuff starts to fail at high window counts, but RAM is not exhausted. (This is defective-by-design, and a registry hack can increase the number of windows.) Depending on the number of GUI elements in the particular set of apps you run, the perceived number of windows can be quite low. Things fail in interesting ways when the limit is hit. (Who actually checks those return values anyways?)
    I'm talking about the fluffy stuff, the GUI (read: eye candy), not their start menu bugs and other bugs or non-working functionality.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
    However what I do not have is guaranteed continued support for DirectX 9.0c. I suspect that as W7 becomes standard that DX9 will be dropped and DX10 and DX11 will be supported. That is assuming that DX11 will be ready soon. Because of this I see major changes ahead since I'm still in the process of porting DX8 code lines to DX9. Just about the time I get those ported DX9 will probably be deprecated. Yay me.
    The good thing is that DX11 will work on Vista too. Yay for DX11 - it's the future.

    Is that why they replaced the good old fashioned menu with the ribbon bar? Definitely a step backwards in user interface.
    Again, eye candy, not the functionality. Functionality is often hidden or obscured. Not a good thing if you ask me.
    The ribbon was a breaker for me too. Suddenly all your menus are gone and you have no idea where stuff is located.
    The good thing about is that some functionality is faster to reach, like strike-through in Word. And if a program is built with the Ribbon first, I'll bet it will be no different than menus. It's just that you can't just remove everything people was used to...

    Quote Originally Posted by laserlight View Post
    It may be better not to upgrade if those compilers were still supported by the vendors and if you do not need to cater to other compilers in the near future. On the other hand, you need to consider the fact that new hires may be trained in standard C++, hence there would be a cost in getting them up to scratch concerning the non-standard aspects of these compilers so that they can correctly maintain the software.
    That can be said about new users too. They would be used to Vista/Win7.
    And XP will not be supported forever. It's actually amazing that it's still supported considering how much Microsoft wants to get rid of it.

    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    (red mine, bold original)
    And let me repeat: I am only saying you need to try Linux before passing judgment. You can say, sure Linux looks/is a nice OS, but it's not worth to pay $0 to upgrade to it.
    I have tried Linux. But it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
    Linux is a different breed of OS--it works differently than Windows, so I wouldn't say you can "upgrade" from Windows to Linux or the other way around. You can "switch," if you want.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  11. #71
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    I am arguing for trying, not selling. There is a difference... you know?
    Not really, you can sell things on a trial basis. What, you think all that trial ware is made available because the marketing folk are nice people?

    As for your sales pitch it still is the worst I've ever heard.
    As for the whole upgrade for me... well, I do like Win7. But is it worth the money to upgrade? No. Never.
    If you want to get a bigger commission one day, you need confidence in your product. Because now all the crowd knows we'd just be using something you wouldn't. Unless you got a bootleg.

    Just sayin'

    But really don't troll

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    The good thing is that DX11 will work on Vista too. Yay for DX11 - it's the future.
    Oh, please. The future is DX12... no wait... DX13... err... 14?

    Most of us have been around long enough to know what the future holds; A big bag of smelly hot air. That's what.
    That's not the future. That's just one goddamn piece of software. And one at that that a huge portion of the Microsoft user base (which is businesses and an important percentage of home users) doesn't give a damn.

    The future is much more important things. Like a bloody relational file system for once, or a mouse replacement, or a true GUI abstraction, or sandboxed secure system environment, or speech recognition, or a full-proof natural language architecture, or serious AI advancements, or... gosh, a new Operating System to end all operating systems that finally understand that an OS shouldn't be a stupid tool, but an intelligently invisible layer between the user and what he wants to do.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    Not really, you can sell things on a trial basis. What, you think all that trial ware is made available because the marketing folk are nice people?

    As for your sales pitch it still is the worst I've ever heard.

    If you want to get a bigger commission one day, you need confidence in your product. Because now all the crowd knows we'd just be using something you wouldn't. Unless you got a bootleg.

    Just sayin'

    But really don't troll
    I don't need to market, because I don't sell.
    If I wanted to market something, it would probably be different and I'd spend a lot more time over thinking and refining it, so... no. No marketing.

    MarioF: Haha, this is true. But small steps at a time, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  14. #74
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    The future is much more important things. Like a bloody relational file system for once, or a mouse replacement, or a true GUI abstraction, or sandboxed secure system environment, or speech recognition, or a full-proof natural language architecture, or serious AI advancements, or...
    Well, maybe first you guys should ask for more than one workspace
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  15. #75
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    I don't need to market, because I don't sell.
    For someone who thinks 'want' and 'need' mean the same thing, you've started an awfully long argument that's all about semantics, and now you're being picky about the word 'sell'. You're trying to 'sell' us on the idea that you should try things before dismissing them, when nobody ever really dismissed Win7, they just said they didn't need it - you can bet they've at least looked at what Windows 7 offers, and if MS's marketing fails to show them exactly how it can help them, nobody needs to investigate further. That's exactly the same as saying that you dismissed Linux because you won't try all the distros. Well of COURSE you're not going to do that, because nobody's been able to show you a compelling reason why your particular situation demands Linux.

    You're trying to defend a company that's made billions of dollars on less-than-unquestionable business practices, telling us we need to give them a chance? Yeah right. If you like it, more power to you. But you can't honestly say that anyone in this thread has made an ignorant, uneducated decision to ignore anything. Abachler makes a very good argument as to why he doesn't need Linux, and I think it's abundantly clear in everyone's post why they're choosing to not investigate Win7 further. I haven't seen any of the typical MS-bashing in this thread, it's all be very moderate statements like "I can't afford to upgrade" or "I'm going to wait a year to see how it does in the battlefield".

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