Thread: Anyone using Windows 7?

Originally Posted by Elysia

Then you're alone.

No. He is not. Windows XP is still the most widely used desktop operating system, by a long shot.

Windows Vista was a major commercial and technical failure. Commercial, because it is the first operating system in Microsoft history to not be widely adopted and demote previous versions in a matter of months. Technical because a) it was plagued with numerous problems that took too long to be solved, b) it demanded the highest investment in hardware upgrade in Microsoft long history of modest system requirements, c) it failed to deliver a set of key technological improvements that were promised and would have indeed advanced the operating system.

It's quite irrelevant if you like it, and I don't. What speaks for itself was the martket adoption of this operating system from Microsoft that became probably the second biggest flop in their history, only surpassed by Windows ME.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

No. He is not. Windows XP is still the most widely used desktop operating system, by a long shot.

More specifically, alone on this board/thread was more to what I intended.
I take it that most here have actually tried W7 instead of dismissing it right off the bat.

Ah, gotcha. My bad.

Well, I'll blush and confess I haven't installed 7 on my computer yet. Currently I can't find the time or interest. Too many things going on. Still doing Erlang, studying the x86 instruction set, and following on with my current cpp project. Not to mention my recent move from Ubuntu to Arch Linux taking some of my time too. Oh, and I'm pretty much hooked on Z80 programming too, for reasons not important to discuss in here.

I said it here last year, and I will say again, that my interest in Microsoft operating systems may have met its end after 25 years of genuine servitude. Starting last year, I have been slowly dedicating more time to Linux than I have to Windows. I'm waiting for 7 to ship to make my final decision. If this becomes just a repackaged Vista and no real content, that will be the end of it for me.

There will always be a Microsoft operating system on my machine. For no other reason than the fact I like to play games and I still find Visual Studio the best goddamn compiler and debugger on the planet and SlickEdit the best IDE. But as a tool, the operating system will become secondary.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I said it here last year, and I will say again, that my interest in Microsoft operating systems may have met its end after 25 years of genuine servitude. Starting last year, I have been slowly dedicating more time to Linux than I have to Windows. I'm waiting for 7 to ship to make my final decision. If this becomes just a repackaged Vista and no real content, that will be the end of it for me.

Well, at least you aren't writing it off right away, unlike someone else who had never tried it and tried to persuade others not to try it out either
Well, perhaps there will come a time when you have time to try it out. Time will tell, eh?

What? Alone in what? How?

Originally Posted by Bubba

The biggest competitor for Windows 7 is Windows XP. You are lone ranger on this one because even Microsoft does not agree with you.

Vista and Win7 are the same freaking OS. What Microsoft says is just to pacify the market. There is nothing wrong with Vista, just as there's nothing wrong with Win7. The problem was the change in driver model, which tooks the manufacturers YEARS to cope with. Now they've coped with it. So Vista will be re-released with a new name and some UI changes, essentially. And the drivers are more stable.

There's no important system level difference at all between Vista and Win7. This was literally from the mouth of every MS person at WinHEC 2008.

Elysia, Microsoft put themselves in a tough spot. With Windows XP, they have created -- and allow me the elevated speech for argument sake -- the Perfect operating system: Absolute minimum requirements by today standards, delivers incredible performance, it is in line with most of today's technological demands, requires minimum maintenance effort, is today well understood and enjoys a huge knowledge base, and is yet a modern and very current operating system. It's a beast!

DX10 wasn't enough to displace XP. And that's pretty much what Microsoft can do to put an end to this OS; Create technology and do not deliver it to XP. Only problem is... where's that technology? Nowhere to be seen.

With 2010 end of support for XP, assuming there no second extension, they will finally put it to rest. But the decision will be pure business and will affect us customers greatly. Windows XP is today, and will still be next year a perfectly capable (the most capable) Microsoft Operating System in existence for the home market.

There have been a lot of smaller changes in Win7. The biggest visible change, or change in the way we use the OS, is the new UI.
Changes include enhanced audio, built-in bluetooth, kernel tweaks and so on.
Yes, it is Vista 2.0, but it is not Vista 1.0, so they are not the same. But Vista's "troubles" have never been "fixed" in Windows 7, because they are not needed to. It is as you say, driver problems, but they were fixed for Vista eventually and Windows 7 keeps on happily accepting them.
It's a minor upgrade, even though Microsoft keeps implying it's a major release (even though the server revision will be a minor upgrade!).

As for the whole XP debate, I don't agree. XP is old and technically crippled.
They broke a lot with Vista by updating that technology, paving way for the future.
Your methodology is mostly "if it works, then don't break it," and although that works well for end users, it doesn't suit well for developers.
It's really time that XP retire and hopefully Windows 7 will be a good enough OS to take up the responsibilities of XP.

Originally Posted by Elysia

It's really time that XP retire and hopefully Windows 7 will be a good enough OS to take up the responsibilities of XP.

Trully, I sincerely hope that to be the case.

I honestly cannot clearly understand the XP/Vista phenomena. It's the first time anyone is witnessing it, and a lot of ink has flown already. I need to remind you that something very similar happened with the 3.1 to 95 transition (buggy transition plagued with problems and with a new interface) and yet there was a quick adoption and 3.1 was displaced in months in our homes and businesses.

I can only marvel at what is happening this time. But that doesn't detract me from what I believe to be the real problem here: There is no real technological demand for a new operating system. This is what is at the core of the problem. And this is what has put Vista down. Not his problems. XP too was a bug circus when it was launched, but offered real technological incentives. This is what lacked in Vista and I'm seeing lacking in 7.

But I have very little doubt that 7 will finally prevail. But will be win of attrition, not of its own merit. There's so much XP can take before it lowers its arms. Especially considering we are rapidly approaching the end of its support cycle.

EDIT: And it is yet to be known the effect this will have on businesses. Fact is, even with a smaller performance impact than Vista, 7 requirements will still mean a considerable effort in hardware upgrade. All companies that I visited throughout these couple of years, appointed that has the first cause for not adopting Vista. The second was training costs not being met by a real gain of new features that could benefit the company.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I can only marvel at what is happening this time. But that doesn't detract me from what I believe to be the real problem here: There is no real technological demand for a new operating system. This is what is at the core of the problem. And this is what has put Vista down. Not his problems. XP too was a bug circus when it was launched, but offered real technological incentives. This is what lacked in Vista and I'm seeing lacking in 7.

I'm not so sure. Security is everything these days and Vista delivered many new things to help that. But Vista was stillborn. Hopefully Windows 7 can take up from Vista and deliver security to the masses.
And to me, it seemed that Vista's problems were the things that was its downfall. So much bad reputation.
Well, I'm just guessing. Guess we'll see.

EDIT: And it is yet to be known the effect this will have on businesses. Fact is, even with a smaller performance impact than Vista, 7 requirements will still mean a considerable effort in hardware upgrade. All companies that I visited throughout these couple of years, appointed that has the first cause for not adopting Vista. The second was training costs not being met by a real gain of new features that could benefit the company.

7's requirements are higher than XP's, true. However, I believe this mostly to be merely as an upgrade incentive or just insurance "that it works".
It's meant to be an evolution of Vista, so I assume they didn't want to change those specs. But Windows 7 can run on much lesser specs, as we know. It works great on Netbooks as many sites report. There shouldn't have to be such huge upgrade costs this time around, me thinks.

A little offtopic question:
What'll happen to Windows 7 after this month?. I have installed both XP and Windows 7 on my PC. Although i like Windows 7, i don't use it much as i faintly remember that it will expire on August 1. Will it just stop working without affecting XP?. I heard rumors that Windows 7 makes some changes to XP during installation.

Originally Posted by whiteflags

I'm looking to build my own rig pretty soon with a new better processor and everything, so I am looking forward to using win7. Just felt like saying since it will be the first time I do it.

Do what?
Upgrade that old junk of yours with butt burns? Or using 7?

Sure hope you don't lose it though. It's machines like that, that water our eyes mate.

This was literally from the mouth of every MS person at WinHEC 2008.

Interesting. But it's not what I'm hearing at all.

In short:
XP: Awesome, best ever
Vista: Sucked so bad it increased sales of XP
W7: It's rival - XP.

Not sure where you are getting your information or if you are just getting 'what they are supposed to say'. I guess we will have to wait and see.

However having experienced Vista firsthand both at home and at work (until we removed it and went back to XP) there is nothing that anyone can say or do to make me believe for one minute that it is a good solid operating system. Spin it how you want but the sales aren't there, the users aren't there, DX10 flopped b/c of it, etc. The list is so long and the evidence against it is so strong I cannot believe you buy into the idea it is somehow great. If it was soooo great then every single game out there would be coded for DX10 AND they would drop DX9 like a bad habit. News flash they are not dropping DX9 yet b/c almost 75% of computers out there are still on XP. If 7 lives up to its name and hype then I envision MS will drop XP and DX9 like a bad habit and we can continue to move forward instead of sitting in place spinning our wheels b/c that is what Vista has caused my PC to do. But I'd rather spin my wheels and go nowhere with XP than have them fall off with Vista.

XP is the best Microsoft operating system to date that has ever been shipped. Notice that no one is comparing Windows 7 performance to Vista and really taking it serious. They are all comparing it's performance to XP since more than half of the people reading the articles are on XP. XP is the benchmark by which Windows 7 will be measured. When 7 is released it will be a huge war between XP and 7 and Vista will slowly slip out of view only to be forgotten. XP will not just slip away at the release of 7 and it will be a slow transition from XP to 7.

Plus there are people who have used both Vista and W7 RC and hands down they all say W7 RC is far better and the next phrase they say is 'it's almost as good or better than XP'. If they said it was 'much better than Vista' then everyone would laugh at them b/c what OS isn't better than Vista? There is no conspiracy theory to smear Vista - it really just sucks that bad.