Windows 7

[Santilli]

I've got this up and running, and, it's the fastest OS I've ever had on this machine, despite the 4200 rpm drive. Everything is actually using and working in RAM. It's making me seriously think about converting my XP DISK OVER and, so far, everything seems to work, just fine. I wish XP would get my ram up and used like this one.

 

[ddrueding]

Be careful using the Beta for actual work, I didn't look into when it expires.

 

[Santilli]

August, but, it's supposed to be registered in 30 days...

 

[Mercutio]

Windows 7 is presently showing that it is going to take 14 hours to copy 36GB of files from an external 7200rpm USB drive to my Thinkpad .

And, in case you are all wondering, it has shown this for the last 20 minutes, and has only decremented the counter by about 17 minutes in that time.

 

[Mercutio]

... and just to piss me off even more, another explorer window shows that the files are nearly completely copied, but the file copy dialog still shows 0 items have completed and I have 13 hours to go. I wonder how long the box will stay up?

Also, the "Send Feedback" button appears to be broken. It's saying that none of my Windows Live accounts are allowed to submit bug reports. Nice.

 

[ddrueding]

Before I was thinking that there is no way I can skip Windows 7 as well, and stay with XP for another 3-5 years. Now I'm thinking I can. Or at least ride XP out until we can go Linux.

 

[Mercutio]

I cannot believe that Microsoft can't get something as simple as a fucking file copy to work properly.

XP will be supported by everything for at least another four or five years, but windows games will move to DX10 in that time, and major security software will probably ditch it in that timeframe as well.

My clients are very interested in Windows 7, to the point that I've had people ask to evaluate it in-house. I've never had a customer ask for that before I brought it up.

Twelve and a half hours to go, if the dialog box isn't lying.

 

[Mercutio]

OK, my next point of interest:

My Thinkpad has a 320GB drive partitioned as 50/50/200something GB. I was planning to have it share between Windows 7 and Server 2008, and to locate the Documents and related profile folders on the 200GB partition.

In XP or Vista, relocating the Documents folder is pretty straightforward. You open up the properties tab and hit "move." Windows 7 doesn't do that; instead, the common profile folders are called Libraries. You can add an additional folder to the library and make a non-standard one the default, but that doesn't move anything out of the existing folders and into the new one, which is the behavior I was expecting. This means that if I'm copying all the data off someone's broken PC, and they've set up library folders, their shit could be all over the place and I'd have no way of knowing.

Not happy.

 

[LunarMist]

When will the Windows 7 be available to the public - late 2009 or not until 2010?

 

[ddrueding]

When will the Windows 7 be available to the public - late 2009 or not until 2010?

The public can download the Beta right now (the link is further up this thread). It will be available to buy in the Q4-09/Q1-10 range.

 

[LunarMist]

The website asks for a secret code or similar, not that I really want to use a beta OS for anything.

 

[Mercutio]

I like beta Windows 7 better than the full OEM copy of Vista Ultimate that came with my Thinkpad.

I especially like the part where Explorer doesn't crash, even if it does say it's going to take 14 hours to copy some files.

Also, the last day that the public can download the beta is February 10th.

 

[Santilli]

I just wasted 3 hours on Vista Home, trying to do the most basic connection to a wireless network. Don't know if it's hardware, or software, but, I'm done with both Vista and Dells...

Windows 7 is very fast, on a 4200 rpm drive, on my Panasonic CF 51.

As I said in another thread, the true value of Vista is expressed by Dell. They charge you 150 dollars extra to go with XP pro, a what, 10 year old OS?

 

[Santilli]

No disk defrager in W7, either...

 

[ddrueding]

No disk defrager in W7, either...

It is the same as Vista; you can't control it and Vista defrags when idle. I prefer to have control.

 

[Fushigi]

Vista defrags both ad hoc and on a schedule you can set. But there still aren't any settings to control how it defrags, which is why I kept Diskeeper on my personal machine.

I haven't looked at W7, but in Vista the defragger is in the exact same location (Accessories - System Tools) as it is in XP. Or run defrag.exe from the command line.

 

[Mercutio]

Windows 7 appears to default to doing a scheduled Defrag at 1:00AM on Wednesday, at least on the two machines I have here that are running it.

I finally ran a notebook out of power under Windows 7. It just completely shut off. No warnings or attempts to hibernate beforehand. I was briefly afraid my notebook had just died. That's a little disconcerting.

 

[udaman]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...dows_7_beta_on_a_mac_with_sun_virtualbox.html

Not sure why any sane person would want to do this...M$ beta software, beta 7 on a Mac?

After keying in that long license number, there isn’t much to set up during the install process, apart from optionally setting up HomeGroup, Microsoft’s new technology for sharing files and devices with nearly [emphasis added :mrgrn:] the simplicity of a Mac.

Be sure to write down the insane password it generates for you (below), as a weak password would be far worse than a strong password jotted down on a sticky note next to your PC.

The dual boot alternative

Using Windows 7 in a virtual environment is fast enough for running the occasional Windows app, but it isn’t suitable for playing Windows-only games or other applications that demand the full performance of the system. For that, you’ll want to set up your Mac using Boot Camp and install Windows natively.

The next segment will look at setting up Windows 7 natively on a Mac, and what additional issues are involved over using it in a virtual environment.

Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: competitive origins
Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Microsoft's comeback plan
Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Apple ups the ante


Just get Snow Leopard when it comes out before W7...mid-year?, better in every way.

 

[Fushigi]

Will OSX run on my existing hardware? No? Epic Fail.

 

[ddrueding]

Using Windows 7 in a virtual environment is fast enough for running the occasional Windows app, but it isn’t suitable for playing Windows-only games or other applications that demand the full performance of the system. For that, you’ll want to set up your Mac using Boot Camp and install Windows natively.

Fail. For that, you'll want to stop pretending you are using a competitive platform and just get the real thing.

 

[Mercutio]

The hacked versions of OSX run very well on lots of stuff. I'll probably switch my Acer notebook back to being OSX, if only so I have a machine to look at when I need to look at OSX. I don't really have a reason to have OSX other than to be able to support the handful of Mac users I know, though.

The new Macbook Pros have some pretty damned appealing hardware, too. 17" 1080p screens on notebooks that weigh under 3kg and run for eight hours on a battery? That's pretty impressive, no matter whose label is on it.

Right now, I am highly annoyed that I don't have any way to submit bug reports to Microsoft regarding Windows 7. I'm keeping a log for my own amusement at this point, but since the Send Feedback tool is broken, what's the point of soliciting beta testers?

Lenovo's Bluetooth connection manager won't install on Windows 7. Gives a bunch of registry errors.
I see a lot of graphical corruption and/or flashing on the transparent taskbar.
File copies sometimes take excessive amounts of time.
I can't find a working Intel Turbo Memory driver.
The Intel abgn 802.11 driver doesn't seem to want to connect to 5GHz networks, or at least not to my homebuilt AP or a Linksys WRT600N.
Being simultaneously connected to 802.11 and ethernet on different IP networks does not allow access to both, only the wired network.
The Send Feedback button is broken everywhere.
Windows 7 does not enable any kind of power management on notebooks by default.
I had a lot of difficulty associating 3rd party media players with certain file types, which I did not have with those same players under XP.
The automatic wallpaper switcher behaves inconsistently; if it's supposed to change wallpaper every two minutes, but sometimes doesn't change it for six or 10 minutes, that's an issue.
Some programs do not understand "libraries" as a location. I know Microsoft wants them to be seemless ways of abstracting multiple file locations as a single area, but if I still have to point my non-Microsoft applications at the individual folders, what's the point?