# Windows 7



## Dradolan (Dec 23, 2008)

Everyone should, by now, realise what a complete flop Windows Vista was. Even for someone who loves windows so much, and hates MAC to bits, would prefer a great MAC computer than a Vista.....*slaps myself* What am I saying. I don't even know where the start button is on those things. God...

Anyway. I hope to learn by the replies I get from this, that a few or (Hopefully) more than some realise that there is a new windows. I'm sure someone is bound to be getting new windows to their house with a great frame, but I mean the system, the OS, Windows smegging 7 that is. I say that, because Vista really needs to be better. It should be anyway. Those that haven't had a slight problem with Vista (For those that have used it or have it) will certainly meet a problem with Vista in any time soon. My dad and I were very disappointed in Vista, and unhappy about it. He is probably annoyed slightly that his new laptop is a Vista. Sucks to be him I say, but its certainly better than my piece of crap of a laptop. He recently had a problem with it. TIP: NEVER install multiple updates with Vista. 

To the whole new Windows 7, it will look...like the god damn same style. Ugh...i hate the style on it, now apparently more gadgests will be put on it to improve on the others, I'm unsure about that though. Plus, a system that runs on Vista, should, and i mean should, run faster on Windows 7 (I don't give any promesses). It should be more stable (Hopefully) than Vista is, should be (I doubt it) be the most secure version of Windows. Any application or device that runs on Vista, should work on Windows 7. 

Its funny, that Microsoft is making Windows 7, and to make it good, they will hope it will gain the trust of XP loyalists like myself. When it does come out, I shall let people take it out first and watch. Comment and see if there are any bugs. And laugh if there are because XP will do me fine. I hate the look of Vista and its toolbar.

To be honest, I am a little bit excited. To see if this will be as good as they say. Or it will be yet another complete flop. Me and my friend found macs too user friendly. And Vista are well....copying off MAC in a way, making it user friendly. I swear, if they get it up to like MAC. I will Garrot Microsoft with my mouse cord for making another OS that i will drive me crazy.

So....any thoughts or words to all of this?


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## Kesteh (Dec 23, 2008)

Dicks.


Seriously, I just stopped paying attention to MS after they came out with their "fuck the oldfags" initiative and started moving ahead constantly. (AKA Vista beta)


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## net-cat (Dec 23, 2008)

I don't really expect much from Windows 6.1 7.

I'll probably use it on my tablet PC if they fix my special usage case that Vista utterly fails at.

(I/E: It can't tell that Virtual PC and VMWare networks are trusted networks, so it boots up in "Public Network" mode. This would be fine, except I need to be able to access it over RDP without having to log in locally first. And no, I'm not permanently disabling the firewall, as I _do_ get on public networks.)


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## Magnus (Dec 23, 2008)

i like windows 7, it's faster then vista, handy taskbar, works with most drivers and it runs games smoothly.

if the final build will stay close to the beta's then it's certainly vista's successor~


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## Dradolan (Dec 23, 2008)

How so? What's it like and how does it compare to Vista?


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## Neybulot (Dec 23, 2008)

I haven't tried Vista yet, but I figure I'll try Windows 7 once the first Beta comes out. (Not the Pre-Betas, retards.)

If Windows sucks this time around, I'll probably give up on it altogether and pursue Linux as a main OS.


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## mrredfox (Dec 23, 2008)

yep, i decided to buy a macbook for 949 than a vista machine. and i hate mac.


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## CaptainCool (Dec 23, 2008)

well, i cant be worse, right...?
i hope se7en will be better... if it is ill give it a try.
everything i heared so far sounds promising but well see how it turns out...


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## mrredfox (Dec 23, 2008)

CaptainCool said:


> well, i cant be worse, right...?
> i hope se7en will be better... if it is ill give it a try.
> everything i heared so far sounds promising but well see how it turns out...


naah, im going to stick with my good ol' xp.


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## CaptainCool (Dec 23, 2008)

mrredfox said:


> naah, im going to stick with my good ol' xp.



someone i know will have it sooner or later after the release (ill test the beta, too), ill check it out there.
if it sucks ill stick to XP


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## Magnus (Dec 23, 2008)

Dradolan said:


> How so? What's it like and how does it compare to Vista?



hurr hurr hurr, 7 uses the same core as vista, how can you not compare it?


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## Phineas (Dec 23, 2008)

It's really too early to say anything about Windows 7. I really doubt they're going to stick with the same Aero theme, as the average consumer now thinks that a new operating system means a new GUI. We probably won't even see screens of any new interface until at least six months before the retail release.

My only experience with 7 was a Virtual PC installation I did some months ago. To be honest, I really don't remember anything spectacular about it XD


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## Aden (Dec 23, 2008)

I think they should borrow some ideas from OS X to try to make their OS better.

Oh wait.


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## incongruency (Dec 23, 2008)

Personally, I believe that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been in the first place. I tired the alpha release, and it was exactly what I would have expected of Vista given all the promises made with Vista.

I'm still not going to use if though; I've already made my transition to linux and I see no reason to go back at this time.


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## Biles (Dec 23, 2008)

Will Windows 7 get better or worse? It probably depends how well a job the U.S. government committee M$ does in trying a different approach to a solution. From what I understood, Windows 7 is going to be a lighter and less resource intensive compared to Vista. I suspect it might be because they're redesigning a kernel entirely from the ground up, something they should have done at the start.

M$ at this point has to get their acts together, otherwise if they drop the ball on Windows 7, the shit's gonna really hit the fan this time and they won't be able to do anything to stop or stem the damage and repercussion from a possible failure. On the other hand, it might restore some balance in the computer market. Cause now M$ would have no choice but to compete fairly by having to innovate rather than trying to monopolize like they have done in the past couple of decades.


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## Eevee (Dec 23, 2008)

Dradolan said:


> Everyone should, by now, realise what a complete flop Windows Vista was. Even for someone who loves windows so much, and hates MAC to bits, would prefer a great MAC computer than a Vista.....*slaps myself* What am I saying. I don't even know where the start button is on those things. God...


I really have to wonder about people who claim to outright _hate_ the OS X interface.  Windows has been using the same barely-functional UI for years now; what, exactly, is there to like?

I hear you can rearrange taskbar items in Windows 6.1!  Only took, what, fourteen years?



Dradolan said:


> Me and my friend found macs too user friendly. And Vista are well....copying off MAC in a way, making it user friendly.


I..  what.  Do you know what "user friendly" means?

And wtf why are you capitalizing "Mac"?  It's not an acronym.



mrredfox said:


> naah, im going to stick with my good ol' xp.


That will only work for so long, you realize.  Eventually Microsoft _will_ stop supporting XP.  A proprietary environment being what it is, you will rapidly become screwed as developer tools vanish, software drops support, and security holes abound.



Magnus said:


> hurr hurr hurr, 7 uses the same core as vista, how can you not compare it?


What on Earth does this sentence have to do with the one to which you were replying?



Phineas said:


> I really doubt they're going to stick with the same Aero theme, as the average consumer now thinks that a new operating system means a new GUI.


Which is part of the problem, really.

Many Linux distributions do incremental upgrades, say, once or twice a year.  There's a little bit of breakage sometimes, but the previous and new versions are similar enough that it's hard to hose anything entirely.

Apple did a clean break with OS X and moved to a shiny new kernel, emulated old software (which was rapidly replaced anyway), and releases a new point version every couple years.  A few things go wrong, whatever, it gets fixed in the first patch or two.

Microsoft releases an entirely new-_looking_ version every _three-to-five years_ for reasons I cannot fathom: 3.1, 95/98, XP, Vista.  Everything breaks every time, everyone has to relearn everything, it looks completely different, etc.  And yet in the name of backwards compatibility, everything _kinda_ still works, except where it doesn't, so the platform as a whole doesn't get all that much better.  What a mess.


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## Runefox (Dec 23, 2008)

Wow... I... Agree with Eevee.

Either way, and this will piss Eevee right the hell off, benchmarks and user feedback so far place Windows 7 to be a lot faster than Windows Vista out of the box, but when you look at it that way, it doesn't have much of the out-of-box experience that Vista has. Add in things like Media Center and the other bits and pieces that make Windows... Windows, and you'll probably realize the same performance point as Vista.

Now, with THAT said, I dislike Mac OS's interface, because I dislike it. I'm more a fan of Gnome and KDE, which provide much more customization and general usefulness. XFCE is pretty good for that, too, but I honestly can't understand things like Fluxbox. They're a little TOO minimalist.

... That didn't mention Windows, mostly because it's been fundamentally the same since Windows 95, and even in Windows Vista, a very similar interface is available (more Windows 2k in particular, but that wasn't so very different from Win9x to begin with).


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## indrora (Dec 23, 2008)

Honestly, I'm going to say this: I'm only now going to attempt touching Vista, with a BIG failsafe to go back to in case SFBU. 

When 7 comes to maturity, I'll consider it. Maybe. For the time i'm sitting and backing up my disk with DD, i'm playing around with OpenSUSE 11.0


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## Dradolan (Dec 23, 2008)

I capitalise MAC because i am saying it in a dislike way. I don't like MAC, i will never get MAC, nor do I want to get MAC.

Though of course, i must admit, that Mac's new OS is far better than Vista.

Funny this, I think Vista should have been a BETA for Windows 7. because it had so many bugs in it and was a doosy.


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## Runefox (Dec 23, 2008)

Italics make the point a little clearer; MAC stands for Media Access Control.


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## Dradolan (Dec 23, 2008)

*shrugs* i don't care. I say what i mean to say. And i'm saying it in a Dislike way. 

Though...if i want to get into IT i will probably will learn how to use Macs.....>.>...>.<...<.<...
Okay fine! Mac is good! Mac is Great! Vista's a FLop, but Mac is great! Lets hope Windows 7 is great so I can shut up.


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## Nanakisan (Dec 23, 2008)

heres how i define MS over the years
windows DOS = omg i can play text games
windows 3.1 = rainbows and crap
Windows NT = wooot its got ntfs
windows 95 = rainbows
windows 98 = rainbows and stupidity
windows 98SE = wtf was MS thinking!!!
windows ME = 1st official pile of crap they made
windows 2000 = now we are getting somewhere
windows XP SP1-2 home and office = alright wheres the hackers
Windows Vista = wtf MS you strike again with this BS!!!


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## Dradolan (Dec 23, 2008)

Lol. So true. Win ME was a piece of crap. Even worser than Vista i say. Which is sad, because the computer in the office use to be Win ME, and my dad gave my friend a computer that had ME on it. Of course my dad knew how bad it was, he just didn't have XP or anything better than ME to give my friend.


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## Nanakisan (Dec 23, 2008)

Dradolan said:


> Lol. So true. Win ME was a piece of crap. Even worser than Vista i say. Which is sad, because the computer in the office use to be Win ME, and my dad gave my friend a computer that had ME on it. Of course my dad knew how bad it was, he just didn't have XP or anything better than ME to give my friend.



actually

i hated ME to the ground but it was no where near as bad as vista is
ME actually had a chance if MS had not botched the coding on it so badly


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## Runefox (Dec 23, 2008)

> windows DOS



Uh...


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## Nanakisan (Dec 23, 2008)

Runefox said:


> Uh...



muhahahah

yes
it was called MS-DOS
to be more exact

lol
its virtually the starting line and for some scary a$$ reason its still integrated into Windows

kinda proves MS's stupidity if you ask me


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## Runefox (Dec 24, 2008)

I know all about MS-DOS, I'm just kinda wondering what you mean by Windows DOS, since it was never called that (arguably you could call it that for the versions shipped with Win9x/ME and the current version used for bootable floppies). It was included with all of the 9x/ME series, and dropped entirely with the Windows NT/2k/XP/Vista kernel/revisions. An emulated 16-bit COMMAND.COM is still available in the 32-bit distributions of 2k/XP, but AFAIK, dropped entirely with Vista (can't confirm). CMD.EXE is a 32-bit shell based on DOS, but it isn't really DOS; More a stand-alone command shell, like bash (or to refer to the window containing it, xterm). It has several features that aren't found in the older COMMAND.COM, and isn't 100% compatible.

It's actually rather powerful as it is currently, and while PowerShell and *NIX shells outpace it by a huge factor, CMD.EXE can do a whole lot more than you think, with the right utilities, and it's a huge lifesaver in some cases, especially in the realm of a virus infection or anything requiring the termination of explorer.exe.


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## net-cat (Dec 24, 2008)

Runefox said:


> An emulated 16-bit COMMAND.COM is still available in the 32-bit distributions of 2k/XP, but AFAIK, dropped entirely with Vista (can't confirm).


I think it's still there in the 32-bit version. The 64-bit version, like the 64-bit version of XP and Server 2003, drops the 16-bit subsystem entirely so it's not in those.


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## Eevee (Dec 24, 2008)

Runefox said:


> Either way, and this will piss Eevee right the hell off, benchmarks and user feedback so far place Windows 7 to be a lot faster than Windows Vista out of the box


Grr?



Runefox said:


> Add in things like Media Center and the other bits and pieces that make Windows... Windows, and you'll probably realize the same performance point as Vista.


Nothing makes Windows Windows.  Windows right now is nothing more than a creaky foundation for running apps better than the crap that comes with it.  Everything else is still just minor focal points of effort tacked on to put more bullet points on the box.  I have yet to see a Windows release that gave the impression of being well-designed and cohesive.  It's always felt more like thirty different teams upgraded maybe half of the last release independently, and someone scrambled at the last minute to redraw a lot of the icons (but not _all_ of them!) so it at least looked like it came from the same company.

Windows 7 is at least giving some attention to the smaller builtin apps...  except now they have exactly the same shoddy functionality but are being used to push a gaudy UI experiment that's not really necessary for a 32kb program.  Joy of joys.



Runefox said:


> Now, with THAT said, I dislike Mac OS's interface, because I dislike it.


Sure, that's fair, but for the most part people seem to go GRR I HATE MAC WHERE IS THE START MENU.  Case in point: OP.



Runefox said:


> I'm more a fan of Gnome and KDE, which provide much more customization and general usefulness.


Exposing too much flexibility in a consumer OS probably drives up support costs.  Linux doesn't care.

OS X is far better about customization than Windows, though, even if it's not so easy to change paradigms.  They found their thing and they polish the crap out of it, to the point that every other system has a dozen dock clones desktop ricers love to use.


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## Shadow_Wolf (Dec 24, 2008)

Well I know this might make me sound like a jerk but im not running anysort of windows that should be legel im running a windows vista xp hybrid... if you want to know more pm me ill show you


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## Raithah (Dec 24, 2008)

Shadow_Wolf said:


> Well I know this might make me sound like a jerk but im not running anysort of windows that should be legel im running a windows vista xp hybrid... if you want to know more pm me ill show you



That sounds just freakin' hilarious to me for two reasons; one being that illegal software is interdicted on these forums ('Private Messages' aren't altogether that private to the admins), second is that you just described Vista - with an XP skin. Possibly XP with a Vista skin, but for compatibility w/Vista only applications (?) it'd likely be the former.

Edit: Whoops, 'hit the enter key prematurely. What I _meant_ to ask is whether or not anyone had tried [Windows Server 2008], which is to Windows Server 2003 as Vista is to XP. I recall reading from someone, wherein it was recommended, that Server '08 fixes many of the compatibility flaws found in Vista while stripping away most, if not all, of the unnecessary GUI additions (Aero). Is it worth upgrading to?


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## Biles (Dec 24, 2008)

I guess when it comes to using a different OS GUI, especially from Windows to Mac OS X, some may end up drinking too much Hatorade simply because it's a far different environment than they're used to. This is what you call a xenophobic. Other than a stark contrast in the GUI design, the performance is also greatly noticed too. However, I've heard cases where new users will flinch in the mere press of an interface button on a Mac because they expect some sort of error to occur that they've been used to on Windows.


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## Nanakisan (Dec 24, 2008)

you want my advice

use Ubuntu or Suse linux

very good free distros

there is a super powered security distro no longer updated named phlak
i think net-cat or yak would have a fun time with it
hahahahahahah


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## lilEmber (Dec 24, 2008)

I have no idea what the hell is wrong with people and Vista, it's like one person said they didn't like it and told two friends, and they told two friends, that's like 10 people right there. Har har.

But seriously, most people that don't like it haven't seen it (let alone tried it) or tried it the day it was released, on old hardware that barely met necessary. If you meet recommended specifications, it purrs -FAR- better than XP ever did for me. Vista was also -much- less of a hassle than -any- install I've done of XP.

So far from what I've seen and heard about Windows 7, it's basically a greater version of Vista with some additional features, such as: the superbar, multi-touch, re-done ms-apps, and overall touched up interface and theme. It runs on lesser hardware than Vista, too.


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## Nanakisan (Dec 25, 2008)

NewfDraggie said:


> I have no idea what the hell is wrong with people and Vista, it's like one person said they didn't like it and told two friends, and they told two friends, that's like 10 people right there. Har har.



because vista is the grandest pile of crap MS ever came up with.
lol

to be more blunt i'd say windows is the true root of all known hacking targets.

i mean when was the last time on the news you ever heard of a unix server or a Mac server or heck even a linux server getting the word on being hacked for once.

nope
its always 99.9999999999999999999% windows that gets all the coverage.
virtually serves em right for hiring shoddy programmers and crappy designers.

they had 4 chances to make a good OS
ME was the first and they failed epicly
2000 was ok
XP is cool and i rather prefer it
Vista is as i said grand pile of crap and deserves to come face to face with the burninator Trogdor

mwuhahahahaha


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## Archibald Ironfist (Dec 25, 2008)

I sure hope w7 beats the piss out of Vista.  Else i've decided my next PC will be a Mac.


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## lilEmber (Dec 25, 2008)

Nanakisan said:


> because vista is the grandest pile of crap MS ever came up with.
> lol
> 
> to be more blunt i'd say windows is the true root of all known hacking targets.
> ...


Uh, not to be rude or mean, but you honestly have no idea what you're talking about. :\

Mac and even Linux would have just as many bugs if it was used by 95% of the worlds population.

But Vista is awesome, in every way it's better than XP and what do yo yo u mean they had FOUR tries...? For you? They don't care about if you thought their latest four was good, for you. But anyway, W7 is lookin' really good. I hope it will turn out as good as it sounds and seems now.


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## Aden (Dec 25, 2008)

NewfDraggie said:


> Mac and even Linux would have just as many bugs if it was used by 95% of the worlds population.



Security by obscurity is kinda bullshit. It helps, sure, but just look at OS 9. Tons of bugs and exploits, yet used even less than OS X.


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## lilEmber (Dec 25, 2008)

Aden said:


> Security by obscurity is kinda bullshit. It helps, sure, but just look at OS 9. Tons of bugs and exploits, yet used even less than OS X.



Now... timeline.

Also you have to think about what Apple did, OS 9 and OS X. You can't run 9 apps on X, windows is backwards compatible and that also carries over the bugs people have created for -years-.

I'd also love to see you show me some of these "bugs" you speak of, on Mac OS9. I haven't used that OS, ever. But I'm sure it has a lot less bugs than you're saying, prove it and back up your claim.

Windows is currently in control of what, like 95% of the entire computer market, personal or work. If I were to create a viruses, hoping to hit as many people as possible or get money or -what ever- it would be, what am I going to choose, 90-95% for Windows, 2-6% for Mac, or Linux?

But yeah, you're also right; if the OS is -completely- garbage, flooded with holes. It simply won't work and bugs will be so easy to create a single person can push out several a week. But, clearly Windows isn't that bad, and if you get most things it's because you have no idea how to run a computer, have no firewall or router, have no anti-virus or anything at all. You deserve it, because even with Mac and Linux you should have protection on the PC.


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## Runefox (Dec 25, 2008)

> because vista is the grandest pile of crap MS ever came up with.
> lol











> to be more blunt i'd say windows is the true root of all known hacking targets


Hmm, really? I dunno. Windows is pretty easy to pwn, but so is anything (ESPECIALLY *NIX) if it's not behind a firewall. If by hacking, you mean malware/viruses, then yes, that's true. But hell, I wonder how many Linux boxen are out there with SSH wide open? I mean, with my web host, I don't get terminal access, but with a well-written PHP script, I've got access to everything on the system. That's pretty big. I would argue that *NIX boxen are the most widely-hacked OS out there (in that sense).



> they had 4 chances to make a good OS
> ME was the first and they failed epicly
> 2000 was ok
> XP is cool and i rather prefer it
> Vista is as i said grand pile of crap and deserves to come face to face with the burninator Trogdor



Hi, was Windows ME your first OS? Have you used Windows 2000? Why is XP better?



> Security by obscurity is kinda bullshit. It helps, sure, but just look at OS 9. Tons of bugs and exploits, yet used even less than OS X.


See, the main reason people don't pwn Mac machines is simple: It's easy enough to piss off an Apple user just by saying "OS X sucks!". I mean, say "Vista sucks!" or "XP sucks!" and most people who use it will agree with you. I mean, it'd be funny, sure, but letting a Mac OS virus into the wild would probably cause a few Steve Jobot heads to literally explode and result in a federal inquiry and death row if you happen to live in USAsia. 

Anyway, to hell with Vista and OS X and Windows 7. With the new Linux kernel, us ATI users will finally (eventually) get proper, "Done the right way" DRI through GEM (and everyone else will get a properly-managed graphics stack which can be used for many, many things, including kernel graphic mode switching (meaning SVGA sooner, etc)). That means my Cedega will work properly, which means Gentoo leaves Vista in its dust. =D


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## LizardKing (Dec 26, 2008)

Nanakisan said:


> windows 98 = rainbows and stupidity
> windows 98SE = wtf was MS thinking!!!



Heresy! 98SE was awesome. Had as much security as a cardboard box, but still...


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## lilEmber (Dec 26, 2008)

LizardKing said:


> Heresy! 98SE was awesome. Had as much security as a cardboard box, but still...



What...are you talking about? Cardboard box is far more secure than anything, ever.


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## Runefox (Dec 26, 2008)




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## ZentratheFox (Dec 27, 2008)

MICROSOFT BOB was the SHIT! I still have my install disc that came with my oldschool Gateway 2000!!


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## Neybulot (Dec 28, 2008)

NewfDraggie said:


> What...are you talking about? Cardboard box is far more secure than anything, ever.



Pfft. That's only against stupid soldiers.


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## lilEmber (Dec 28, 2008)

Neybulot said:


> Pfft. That's only against stupid soldiers.



You'd fall for it....


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## Hyena (Dec 28, 2008)

Yeah, I'd really have to agree with Newf. 

I've been on Vista Home Premium for just barely over a year now, and I have had only 1 error ever with it, and thats when one of my video games .exe's decided to not shut down properly which it usually did on XP Pro. 

I find it kinda hard to go back to Windows XP from Vista anymore, solely due because Vista is really a very very fast OS. This is due to its RAM management. Vista views unused RAM as wasted RAM, so it will load just about everything into RAM on startup already for you. Vista will load all these things, or will be loading all these things and yet you can still use the OS very easily with no noticeable lag. Then when gaming, Vista pretty much goes "ohh look, this app wants 1.5GB of ram *frees ram* " There have been times with recording software, while playing Bioshock or Dirt the Vista OS was using only 190MB of RAM to run itself, something I've never gotten XP to accomplish. 

Another common complaint I hear is that the UAC interferes with everything... when its honestly one of the easiest things to disable. just a simple visit to the control panel. 

Another would be that Vista is too user friendly? Well I guess I just dont see too much wrong with that, while vista is user friendly, it still retains all the old tools that you need, so I guess I cant see this argument. 

Vista is loads better than XP in a lot of ways, Sure XP is better for older hardware, and if you put Vista on a old PC then you are asking for trouble. Vista doesnt require a very "new" computer to run perfectly. I've been running Vista Buisness X86 Dual boot X64 on the system mentioned below with no problems

AMD Sempron 2800+ 64
ECS Something or other mobo
Nvidia Geforce 6200 256MB AGP 8X
2X Western Digital 80GB drives IDE. 

Now, this computer is pretty low end in about 2005. the average time you should be replacing a computer with a newer one is about two years anyway, so Vista came out in 2007... two years after 2005 so Vista runs quite on the target for system requirements pretty nicely. 

I did take it one step further though, I wanted to see how old of a PC could Vista run on, so I found one that XP ran on pretty well, and installed Vista Home Basic onto it. 

AMD Duron 1800+ 1.6ghz 64kb L2
768MB DDR Ram
20GB Maxtor HDD
ATI Readon 7500 64MB AGP 4X
old old ECS mobo. 

Now that computer I've had since 2000. So its 7 years old : \ Vista Basic actually ran as well as XP on there, but it had just a hint more trouble with Vista trying to find support for drivers for the old technology. 

I think that if Windows 7 improves on everything that Vista had to offer, then it should be a very good OS. Sorry for my little rant, I do like to defend Vista because its considered cool to bash it, when most people haven't really given it the time to mature and work on their PC. (usually takes Vista about 2 days to fully dial in to your PC.) 

Windows 7 looks somewhat okay, I haven't really tried it yet due to not having time.

If Windows however makes Windows 7 at the ME level of quality, I can see a lot more people trying to move to linux. only because linux for me, seems to just be nothing but problems and its nowhere near ready to be a serious full time OS for the common user.

/end rant. :3


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## Biles (Dec 29, 2008)

NewfDraggie said:


> Now... timeline.
> 
> Also you have to think about what Apple did, OS 9 and OS X.


You have to remember that Apple back in the 90's isn't Apple of today. Much of what makes Apple the most profitable OEM company was when Steve Jobs returned to Apple.



			
				NewfDraggie said:
			
		

> You can't run 9 apps on X, windows is backwards compatible and that also carries over the bugs people have created for -years-.



True, you can't but you can run an emulator called Classics Environment to run those apps. But this backwards compatibility was only meant to be temporary. At some point, you have to let go legacy otherwise you'll kill performance in the end.



			
				NewfDraggie said:
			
		

> I'd also love to see you show me some of these "bugs" you speak of, on Mac OS9. I haven't used that OS, ever. But I'm sure it has a lot less bugs than you're saying, prove it and back up your claim.



I've experienced more various kinds of problems when I ran those classic OS than I ever did with Mac OS X. Most notable bugs and problems AFAIK mainly dealt with extensions that created many conflicting problems. That's why when Mac OS X came out, Apple did away with extensions and extensions manager.



			
				NewfDraggie said:
			
		

> Windows is currently in control of what, like 95% of the entire computer market, personal or work. If I were to create a viruses, hoping to hit as many people as possible or get money or -what ever- it would be, what am I going to choose, 90-95% for Windows, 2-6% for Mac, or Linux?



Actually, Windows' stagnant marketshare is on the 90-80% threshold if it hasn't passed that already. Apple's marketshare is on the rise actually, but at a slow pace. What you say about viruses if Apple had the highest marketshare is true.....

theoretically...

Right now, it's theoretical to believe that since Windows has 90% of the marketshare, then they will have about 90% share of the viruses leaving Mac with 10% of viruses per marketshare. But that is not the reality. Mac OS X's kernel is open-source and it has been for quite some time now. Hackers had more than enough time to tinker around and deliver the kind of detrimental damages Windows users face. Another example, look at server marketshare, Linux dominates that while Windows has a tiny fraction. Yet Windows server has more while Linux is clean as a whistle.

There's an expression "The tallest nails will get hammered down first" that will be true. If Apple has a majority of the marketshare, virus "attempts" will be on the rise, but given the attempts in the past "The nail won't go down as easy".




			
				NewfDraggie said:
			
		

> But yeah, you're also right; if the OS is -completely- garbage, flooded with holes. It simply won't work and bugs will be so easy to create a single person can push out several a week. But, clearly Windows isn't that bad, and if you get most things it's because you have no idea how to run a computer, have no firewall or router, have no anti-virus or anything at all. You deserve it, because even with Mac and Linux you should have protection on the PC.



Still, no consumer should be forced to become rocket scientist just to merely operate a computer if the reason behind purchasing a computer was to be productive.


----------



## lilEmber (Dec 29, 2008)

If you don't have an anti-virus, Mac, Windows, of Linux... and complain about bugs on any OS. I really hope all your files go bye bye. :\


----------



## Eevee (Dec 29, 2008)

Hyena said:


> Another common complaint I hear is that the UAC interferes with everything... when its honestly one of the easiest things to disable. just a simple visit to the control panel.


protip: that everyone fucking disables it is kinda the problem


----------



## Neybulot (Dec 29, 2008)

Ok, Windows 7 Beta 1 is out. (I grabbed it from a torrent, of course.) If I can install it on my storage NTFS drive, I'm so ready to try it.


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## Koda (Dec 30, 2008)

From what I heard (from probably an unreliable source) windows 7 is supposed to be a totally new Windows kernel, which is more like the linux kernel than windows ever was before. New stuff for handling drivers and I/O, that kind of thing.

Their main focus seems to be on memory consumption, so they're streamlining Vista. I hope if they go this route, they offer something to the poor Vista users... 



Dradolan said:


> ...It should be more stable (Hopefully) than Vista is, should be (I doubt it) be the most secure version of Windows. ...



What the poop are you doing where vista is crapping out on you? I've been using Vista 64bit for a few months now to fully take advantage of my new motherboard and processor and I've had nothing but a good experience. No crashes, blue screens, random restarts.. and any driver issues I have are simply because the hardware I'm trying to use is butt-old and I should upgrade anyway. (Stuff like PCI Modems, broken CD Rom drives, and old HP Scanners [wanted the Scanjet Copy Utility, but it's not supported on vista :/])

So stop poking at your hard drive or motherboard and wondering why Windows is locking up! j/k

As far as security goes, a computer is only as safe as the user using it is responsible. Windows does what it can to protect stupid people, but theres only so much they can do :/

(Btw, Kubuntu/Ubuntu has made huge steps in usablity.. if I really hated Macs AND didn't want Vista, I'd go the GNU route.. Too bad multi-monitor support is still shit in Linux)


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## lilEmber (Dec 31, 2008)

Nice one Koda, can you post a link or two about the new Kernal? I haven't hear much about that and it might be a good read.

I've heard a lot of rumors on Windows 7 but I know it will be a lot lighter, apparently Windows 7 Beta 1 is better than vista already and feels like it's a finished product more than a beta.

Vista 64 bit hasn't given me any issues and in fact is faster and better in every way to XP.


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## Vontagon (Dec 31, 2008)

Honestly, sometimes I really hate how Windows Explorer is set up in Vista. Pisses me off and makes it a pain to get to files, most of the time. But that's because I'm impatient and got used to XP over the course of years to the point where I was on total and complete autopilot. From what I've read, it hasn't changed, but I'm going to install it here shortly to see for myself.

I haven't had any problems with Vista that weren't a result of bad hardware. Everything runs pretty smooth, it's just Explorer wrecks my shit sometimes. I'll probably never get over it, but I'm not parting with Vista yet. 

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I realize that I've had *far* less problems on Vista than I did on XP. That's really amazing, to me, after all the trash talk of Vista. I'm looking forward to see what exactly 7 offers over Vista. I heard off-hand that there wasn't a new kernel, though. Or maybe that was about the filesystem MS was speculating about. Either way, they denied one of those.

Oh yeah, and supposedly more compatibility issues will be fixed with older programs! :3


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## Alex Cross (Dec 31, 2008)

Windows 7 looks good, but I don't know how it works. 

Someone said they may be using a different Windows kernel. I sure hope so.


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## Pi (Dec 31, 2008)

Alex Cross said:


> Windows 7 looks good, but I don't know how it works.


This is the general case when you replace "Windows 7" with "almost anything", these days (not meant as an imprecation towards you, just a really big generalization)


> Someone said they may be using a different Windows kernel. I sure hope so.


Microsoft has said that they are not.

The windows kernel is actually pretty well done. The windows userland is in need of some reworking.

Also, fuck that Ribbon shit.


----------



## FabiFox (Jan 1, 2009)

I'm running the latest beta build of Windows 7 on one of my machines and i'm impressed with it so far. They've actually made some additions to the interface that people might even use, the whole thing with snapping windows to the side is really useful for a lot of people. Seems to be using a lot less of your system resources as well. I can't stand the new task bar though, I really hope there will be an option to use the 'classic' vista/xp style for that...

As far as I know the kernel is basically just an improved vista kernel, with better multi-core support and overall better performance. Thats a good thing really because the Vista kernel is an impressive piece of work. It just needed a good bit of optimising and that seems to be exactly what they've done.

Windows 7 seems a little more responsive on slower machines, i've got another copy running on my EeePC 901 without a problem.


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## Pi (Jan 1, 2009)

FabiFox said:


> As far as I know the kernel is basically just an improved vista ker



stop talking about things you apparently do not understand, thanks.


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## LizardKing (Jan 1, 2009)

Pi said:


> stop talking about things you apparently do not understand, thanks.



Happy 105th birthday!


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## Biles (Jan 2, 2009)

> > Someone said they may be using a different Windows kernel. I sure hope so.
> 
> 
> Microsoft has said that they are not.
> ...



I think Microsoft's legacy support using a primitive kernel that is decades old is going to be a mistake IMO. I think if they want to really boost performance with ultimate satisfaction, they are going to have to make some major drastic change by adding a new kernel to Windows 7, be it a new design or adopting UNIX.


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## Pi (Jan 2, 2009)

Biles said:


> I think Microsoft's legacy support using a primitive kernel that is decades old is going to be a mistake IMO. I think if they want to really boost performance with ultimate satisfaction, they are going to have to make some major drastic change by adding a new kernel to Windows 7, be it a new design or adopting UNIX.



Excuse me? How much kernel programming or even research into kernel design have you done? Have you even looked at the design of Linux? Your claim is patently false to anyone who has spent the remotest amount of time looking at the Windows kernel. The Windows kernel is fine. It does not need to be replaced.

Sorry to sound like a bitch, but I'm tired of dilettantes trying to lecture authoritatively on this topic.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Jan 2, 2009)

Pi said:


> Excuse me? How much kernel programming or even research into kernel design have you done? Have you even looked at the design of Linux? Your claim is patently false to anyone who has spent the remotest amount of time looking at the Windows kernel. The Windows kernel is fine. It does not need to be replaced.
> 
> Sorry to sound like a bitch, but I'm tired of dilettantes trying to lecture authoritatively on this topic.



No comment...


----------



## verix (Jan 2, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> No comment...


came here to post "lol":

lol


----------



## Eevee (Jan 3, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> No comment...


newsflash: this is a comment


----------



## Wait Wait (Jan 3, 2009)

mac osx rules


----------



## djslum (Jan 4, 2009)

a good way to show just how troubling Windows Vista really is, there is even a magazine just for the OS, and all it's problems.


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## djslum (Jan 4, 2009)

At least it was better than dare I say... ME. The worst OS ever made. Seriously, why not cross over to Linux Ubuntu? It has a reasonably good GUI, multi virtual-desktop capability, and it's coding ability is amazing, not to mention it has a lot better way of managing resources than Vista. 
 besides, as slow as things are, you could run windows applications (not reccomended for games) in WINE. 
The only leg up vista has on XP, is that it supports DirectX 10, and has games that only run on it and not XP. Also they fixed some, not all, security flaws that were manifold in windows XP.
The soul reason why Microsoft came out with cruddy vista was because of mac. 

You see Microsoft, the rich boy in the sandbox, had all the cool shiny tools, and stood above all. Then this new mac kid starts getting even shiny-er and cooler looking toys. Then Microsoft forgot about making good sandcastles and then got even shiny-er tools and said "Look at me! Look at me! I have a shiny looking thing too!" and now, microsoft is that little kid at the edge of the sandbox, with the teachers, talking about linux  becoming the new sandbox leader over for better company management, while the rest of the kids go to mac, after hearing all of microsofts crap about vista, cause they just want a operating system that looks good and runs well.

moral of the story, Microsoft doesn't like other kids in it's sandbox. Microsoft doesn't really like being shone either, and envy never ends well, especially when it comes to making operating systems.

Meh, just fell out of my mind, sorry if it doesn't really make sense xD


----------



## lilEmber (Jan 4, 2009)

djslum said:
			
		

> Seriously, why not cross over to Linux Ubuntu? It has a reasonably good GUI, multi virtual-desktop capability, and it's coding ability is amazing, not to mention it has a lot better way of managing resources than Vista.


I have Linux Ubuntu, but again it's because of games I use Windows, also windows vista isn't even bad. At all, in fact it's better than any other version of windows, in my opinion. Windows 7 beta 1 seems to be working better than vista, and will come with dx11 among other things that no other OS has or will have for at least a while.

On Linux I can't even run DX9 without paying for it, and even then it's iffy with ATi, and iffy in general.

If I had a lesser computer, or didn't game, I would run Linux, right now it's something I only run when I'm bored and wish to remove boredom for a moment.


----------



## djslum (Jan 4, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> I have Linux Ubuntu, but again it's because of games I use Windows, also windows vista isn't even bad. At all, in fact it's better than any other version of windows, in my opinion. Windows 7 beta 1 seems to be working better than vista, and will come with dx11 among other things that no other OS has or will have for at least a while.
> 
> On Linux I can't even run DX9 without paying for it, and even then it's iffy with ATi, and iffy in general.
> 
> If I had a lesser computer, or didn't game, I would run Linux, right now it's something I only run when I'm bored and wish to remove boredom for a moment.



I love linux, I'm acutally running a Ubuntu webserver :] LAMP, and I'm not one of those Mojave people. I use Vista every day. I just don't like it. I like XP better cause I don't get asked "Are you sure you want to do this" twice, every time I want to do something like deleting a file or something. It needs to STFU. Although I did here there is a way to turn that off, but I've been to lazy to find out. Besides I take vista and slim it down and make it look like windows 2000 anyway xD


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## Neybulot (Jan 4, 2009)

One thing I can definitely say as a main user of Windows XP. When I put Windows 7 through it's paces, it performed almost as well as XP, and in some cases even better than XP.

The only thing I have for 7 right now as of my experience with the Beta is praise. Except the new menus, but that's probably just because I'm incredibly used to Windows XP.

EDIT: For clarification purposes on why I'm pleased with it, check out my specs here.

EDIT 2: Oops. Fixed the link.


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## lilEmber (Jan 5, 2009)

djslum said:


> I love linux, I'm acutally running a Ubuntu webserver :] LAMP, and I'm not one of those Mojave people. I use Vista every day. I just don't like it. I like XP better cause I don't get asked "Are you sure you want to do this" twice, every time I want to do something like deleting a file or something. It needs to STFU. Although I did here there is a way to turn that off, but I've been to lazy to find out. Besides I take vista and slim it down and make it look like windows 2000 anyway xD



Vista never asks me to do anything?... turn off UAC.


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## djslum (Jan 5, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> Vista never asks me to do anything?... turn off UAC.


thanks. :]


----------



## lilEmber (Jan 5, 2009)

djslum said:


> thanks. :]



No problem, UAC is a pain in the ass, and it's for morons that know nothing about computers to have on, that's why it's on by default. Having it off saves a more computer literate person a lot of bullshit.


----------



## net-cat (Jan 5, 2009)

... I still want to know what the hell you guys are doing that's constantly tripping UAC.

Seriously. Once I got everything installed, I saw a UAC _maybe_ once every couple of days.


----------



## Werevixen (Jan 5, 2009)

Pi said:


> Excuse me? How much kernel programming or even research into kernel design have you done? Have you even looked at the design of Linux? Your claim is patently false to anyone who has spent the remotest amount of time looking at the Windows kernel. The Windows kernel is fine. It does not need to be replaced.
> 
> Sorry to sound like a bitch, but I'm tired of dilettantes trying to lecture authoritatively on this topic.



How much have you done? Aside from whining and bitching at people, you hardly explain yourself elaborately and seem to refrain from showing any of your oh-so shining expertise. I think you're talking shit, sir.


----------



## lilEmber (Jan 5, 2009)

Werevixen said:


> How much have you done? Aside from whining and bitching at people, you hardly explain yourself elaborately and seem to refrain from showing any of your oh-so shining expertise. I think you're talking shit, sir.



You should already know everything, if not you're not allowed to talk to him.

Even knowing sites he hints at that you've never heard of, you better know them, or you know nothing at all and can't talk about any subject.


----------



## Werevixen (Jan 5, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> You should already know everything, if not you're not allowed to talk to him.
> 
> Even knowing sites he hints at that you've never heard of, you better know them, or you know nothing at all and can't talk about any subject.



Riiight... *Whip lashing sound*

Point me to someone that knows everything, and then the world will explode, because it's impossible to be perfect.


----------



## Pi (Jan 5, 2009)

Werevixen said:


> How much have you done? Aside from whining and bitching at people, you hardly explain yourself elaborately and seem to refrain from showing any of your oh-so shining expertise. I think you're talking shit, sir.



I've targeted code to the Windows kernel, the NetBSD kernel, and the Linux kernel. I have a (legal and licensed) copy of the Windows kernel's source code. I read bootup routines for fun. Rest assured, I do know what I am talking about.


----------



## Pi (Jan 5, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> You should already know everything, if not you're not allowed to talk to him.
> 
> Even knowing sites he hints at that you've never heard of, you better know them, or you know nothing at all and can't talk about any subject.



no, you just don't know a damn thing about computers. 

When you say you have benchmark content showing some fact, and all you can link to is the same press release, I'm fully within my rights to say that, too.


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> You shouldn't talk as if you're an authority on an issue when you clearly don't know anything about what you speak of, if so you're not allowed to talk to him.


fixed it for you


----------



## Werevixen (Jan 5, 2009)

Pi said:


> I've targeted code to the Windows kernel, the NetBSD kernel, and the Linux kernel. I have a (legal and licensed) copy of the Windows kernel's source code. I read bootup routines for fun. Rest assured, I do know what I am talking about.



Not really hard to get legal and licensed access to the Windows kernel's source code, all you need is an official affiliated institute for them to relate you to, and an explanation of intentions.


----------



## Pi (Jan 5, 2009)

Werevixen said:


> Not really hard to get legal and licensed access to the Windows kernel's source code, all you need is an official affiliated institute for them to relate you to, and an explanation of intentions.



All's I'm saying is, the people denigrating the design of the Windows kernel are, in all likelihood, not in possession of the source code and as such cannot make a sound judgement.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

Werevixen said:


> How much have you done? Aside from whining and bitching at people, you hardly explain yourself elaborately and seem to refrain from showing any of your oh-so shining expertise. I think you're talking shit, sir.



That's the thing about Pi. He believes he's a know-it-all and anyone that thinks different from him is automatically wrong.


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> That's the thing about Pi. He believes he's a know-it-all and anyone that thinks different from him is automatically wrong.



well you're doing a shit-job at disproving his status as a know-it-all


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## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

verix said:


> well you're doing a shit-job at disproving his status as a know-it-all



I would, but I don't want to be banned from FAF.


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## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> I would, but I don't want to be banned from FAF.





Ty Vulpine said:


> No comment...


hrm...


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## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

verix said:


> hrm...



That could have gotten me an infraction, not a ban. Like the derailing we're doing atm would be an infraction.


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> That could have gotten me an infraction, not a ban. Like the derailing we're doing atm would be an infraction.


You honestly think you would have gotten an infraction by making a respectable attempt at proving him wrong. Do you think the administrators here are mentally retarded and incapable of acknowledging healthy debate, or do you just think pissing matches are vastly superior to logical arguments?


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

verix said:


> You honestly think you would have gotten an infraction by making a respectable attempt at proving him wrong. Do you think the administrators here are mentally retarded and incapable of acknowledging healthy debate, or do you just think pissing matches are vastly superior to logical arguments?



There's debating and there's derailing. Guess which one you're doing at the moment.


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> There's debating and there's derailing. Guess which one you're doing at the moment.


You're accusing Pi of being a know-it-all and hiding behind the vastly-transparent wall of "I'll get banned!" while making some sort of meager attempt to completely avoid and ignore the blatant attempts to (apparently naively) point out that you have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion other than pseudo-intellectual chest-beating and smug attempts to defame someone who is, to put simply, an abrasive-but-knowledgeable poster.

Either shit or get off the pot.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

verix said:


> You're accusing Pi of being a know-it-all and hiding behind the vastly-transparent wall of "I'll get banned!" while making some sort of meager attempt to completely avoid and ignore the blatant attempts to (apparently naively) point out that you have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion other than pseudo-intellectual chest-beating and smug attempts to defame someone who is, to put simply, an abrasive-but-knowledgeable poster.
> 
> Either shit or get off the pot.



You mean either derail and flame the hell out of this thread and get an infraction or even a "vacation", or get the thread back on-topic? Guess which I'm choosing.


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> You mean either derail and flame the hell out of this thread and get an infraction or even a "vacation", or get the thread back on-topic? Guess which I'm choosing.



You have now made it blatantly obvious that you have no idea how to have a rational, fact-based discussion. Or, for that matter, what it even entails.

My job is done here.

*puts on shades*

*smirks*

*does a wheelie out of the thread*


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Jan 5, 2009)

verix said:


> You have now made it blatantly obvious that you have no idea how to have a rational, fact-based discussion. Or, for that matter, what it even entails.
> 
> My job is done here.
> 
> ...



No, I just more sense than to blantantly flame and derail a thread to the point of receiving a "vacation" from the FA staff. Maybe you should learn the same?


----------



## verix (Jan 5, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> No, I just more sense than to blantantly flame and derail a thread to the point of receiving a "vacation" from the FA staff. Maybe you should learn the same?



*ramps up*

*jumps over a shitload of sharks in flaming busses*


----------



## Aden (Jan 6, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> No, I just more sense than to blantantly flame and derail a thread to the point of receiving a "vacation" from the FA staff. Maybe you should learn the same?



Protip: You first derailed the thread by calling Pi a know-it-all.

\This post is not on-topic OH SHI-


----------



## Koda (Jan 8, 2009)

net-cat said:


> ... I still want to know what the hell you guys are doing that's constantly tripping UAC.
> 
> Seriously. Once I got everything installed, I saw a UAC _maybe_ once every couple of days.



*chuckles* Its more of an "I'll turn it off with the intention of turning it back on when I'm finished. Oops forgot "


----------



## net-cat (Jan 8, 2009)

Fair enough. It's a bit like "Ooops I forgot to put my helmet when I went biking" or "Oops I forgot to put a condom on when I had sex."

Bad things might not happen, but if they do, I reserve the right to laugh at you.


----------



## Thrakhath (Jan 8, 2009)

I  been running Vista on my PC for a  a little over a year. I honestly think some parts of the user interface is  a little confusing to Navigate. but performance  wise.. I like it. I noticed a huge  Increase in game performance. My games run smoother. I  also have not had a bad crash other than the typical window  "farts" I guess vista is  a take it or leave it OS. I look forward to trying out Windows 7.


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## Neybulot (Jan 8, 2009)

Let's get back to some real Windows 7 discussion.

Public Beta comes out on the 9th. Who torrented it early and who is waiting for the public release? (I personally did the former, but I'm going to deinstall and grab the 64-bit public on release.)

EDIT: It'll be here on the 9th.


----------



## sdm42393 (Jan 8, 2009)

Wait Wait said:


> mac osx rules



Glad there's somebody else.
But unfortunately I don't have a Mac...


----------



## benanderson (Jan 8, 2009)

I liked vista, I really did... but as an electronic musician I need audio power up the arse! In vista my soundcards (I've tried several) had trouble, press play and it would either drop the first few milliseconds or spazzout for a few milliseconds then play, in really simple songs it worked fine but when most of my final mixes use 25% of an AMD64 X2 5000+ sitting idle 'simple' doesn't occur often.

Vista has crippled MIDI support (it doesn't even have a damn applet in the control panel!) and there have been many cases of MIDI over U+SB in vista being terrible with a high degree of lag, even with expensive USB to MIDI devices like those from edirol.

I was trying to get the Gameport/MIDI interface to work, but of course vista dropped support for the gameport which is a shame seeing as the Gameport/MIDI uses the Roland MPU-401 interface standard for MIDI. Although the MPU-401 was released in 1984 its still one hell of a processing unit. (MIDI is from 1983 anyway)

The music asside, vista had poor backwards compatibility with older software, I witnessed no speed increase in any of my applications, my games didn't appear to run any smoother and applications provided by my college didn't work correctly.

I'm now back on XP and everything runs as expected.

In my eyes those who like vista are the ones who use it for general tasks. Little bit of internet, some games, word processing and the like. Get into a specialized task and it's a lemon.

If windows7 has better performance from sound hardware such as USB to MIDI devices I'll be all over W7 like a cheap suit! If not I'm getting a Macintosh or building my own Linux Machine and shoveing on a media distrobution like Ubuntu-Studio.

_Random fact: Since the release of Windows Vista sales of Macintosh computers have sharply risen. _


----------



## Aden (Jan 8, 2009)

benanderson said:


> Vista has crippled MIDI support (it doesn't even have a damn applet in the control panel!) and there have been many cases of MIDI over U+SB in vista being terrible with a high degree of lag, even with expensive USB to MIDI devices like those from edirol.



OS X Core MIDI ftw.


----------



## Runefox (Jan 8, 2009)

> The music asside, vista had poor backwards compatibility with older software, I witnessed no speed increase in any of my applications, my games didn't appear to run any smoother and applications provided by my college didn't work correctly.
> 
> I'm now back on XP and everything runs as expected.
> 
> In my eyes those who like vista are the ones who use it for general tasks. Little bit of internet, some games, word processing and the like. Get into a specialized task and it's a lemon.



Eh, this is going to sound like I'm a fanboy, but I haven't had any applications outright not work, and most perform about as well as they used to in XP, though that's subjective; I haven't run any benchmarks or anything like that, and that wouldn't really be authoritative for anything but my machine. For reference, I'm running Vista Home Premium 64-bit, and I use my PC for high-end gaming, browsing, IM/Chat, web development, graphics, the odd bit of audio mixing, and a bunch of other tasks like media encoding that aren't really specialized. It's a case of Your Mileage May Vary, but I haven't seen any cases personally where applications that used to run on XP fail to run on Vista. Then again, I've got UAC turned off, so a lot of applications that assume admin privileges simply get it - If you have UAC on and you don't use the Run as Administrator option, older applications that expect to be able to write to C:\Windows for whatever reason will break. You can turn UAC off by going to the User Accounts section in the Control Panel and choosing to disable it there.



Aden said:


> OS X Core MIDI ftw.



Lot of good that will do when the only MIDI interfaces a Mac will support are via USB, same as Vista. Unless you're shelling for a Mac Pro (ouch) or a clone (Psystar)/hackintosh, you're not even going to have any room for an expansion card for audio, anyway, and are stuck with standard Intel HDA without MIDI in/out. Which again means USB, which again means Vista supports that, too.

It's funny, actually. Macs never used to support MIDI very well until OS X (and from what I gather, still don't officially, but third parties provide good support), and now Windows, which used to be all over MIDI, has lost a lot of support for it. And people say they don't copy each other.

Gimme Linux over either, thanks. If only the ATI drivers would progress a little more and not totally break 3D applications when using Compiz or Wine, I could do my gaming, too, in my Gentoo install.


----------



## benanderson (Jan 8, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Eh, this is going to sound like I'm a fanboy, but I haven't had any applications outright not work, and most perform about as well as they used to in XP, though that's subjective; I haven't run any benchmarks or anything like that, and that wouldn't really be authoritative for anything but my machine. For reference, I'm running Vista Home Premium 64-bit, and I use my PC for high-end gaming, browsing, IM/Chat, web development, graphics, the odd bit of audio mixing, and a bunch of other tasks like media encoding that aren't really specialized. It's a case of Your Mileage May Vary, but I haven't seen any cases personally where applications that used to run on XP fail to run on Vista. Then again, I've got UAC turned off, so a lot of applications that assume admin privileges simply get it - If you have UAC on and you don't use the Run as Administrator option, older applications that expect to be able to write to C:\Windows for whatever reason will break. You can turn UAC off by going to the User Accounts section in the Control Panel and choosing to disable it there.



My millage does differ when it comes to audio production. If I'm not using my PC as an audio workstation then it's simply acting as a throughput (via a TV card) so I can play my PS2 on my monitor. So it's either running at max or laying idle, I don't often have an inbetween.

The aps provided from college are borland c++ and visual basic (the older version not based on .NET). VB refuses to install (a big ol' box pops up saying Vista has issues with the software) and C++ crashs on start-up. Alot of good that does me.

MIDI lag, gone in XP and the gameport works... but I found something out about the two audio cards I tried in my PC. The soundblaster was on it's last legs and the C-Media card I have is faulty cos it's just crapped out. I have increadable luck when buying hardware don't I? Â¬_Â¬
So in terms of MIDI vista is still a pile of crap, but I take back what I said about the audio because it looks like my soundcards were the problem. I'm in the middle of collecting all my files together so I can reinstall vista. Once I find my recovery disk that is...

I've basically changed my mind. Vista good, XP outdated and crappy (after spending time with it I realise this now... ugh)... apart from the MIDI implimentation of course, I'm still increadably pissed about that.
Even with Vista kinda redeaming itself in the last few hours I still don't like the look of Windows7. I've seen video's of it and it smell an aweful lot like a macintosh... The new taskbar that acts like the Apple Doc is a start =P
I hope they have a classic option for the taskbar. I like to know what windows I have open, not Mac style launchers and switchers.


----------



## CaptainCool (Jan 9, 2009)

i installed the beta today and im pretty impressed, i must say^^
its stable and very fast, pretty much just as fast as my XP! the interface is nice, its pretty userfriendly.
as far as i can see it really is that "better vista" they promised^^


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## Dradolan (Jan 23, 2009)

On earlier comments, which I have been unable to answer. I was talking about the earlier release of Vista :/. All the vistas I have seen are 32 Bit too >_<. If I did get the chance to try out a vista 64bit I properly would have a better view on it. I don't really know the difference between 32 bit vista and a 64bit vista. Is it possible to point out the obvious to me. Because I can't see it (I never owned a 64 bit computer. And only heard a few good things about it).

When I tried out a vista laptop, it couldn't find a way to show hidden item. That's how bad I am with them. They are in such a confusing format to me, me been a XP pro user. I was also amazed to how much ram it needs to just run. To me its kind of pointless. I think I heard Windows 7 will require less. But that might just be a hopeful thought.

BY looking at some screenshots of WIndows 7. It looks kind of good. Same toolbar though :/. But still looks flashy. Got a rather interesting place to put the gadgets....hmm....looks very weird. But I'm hopeful it is great as it has been said it to me. :/ *crosses fingers*


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## Adrianfolf (Jan 23, 2009)

I have high hopes for Windows 7. I've heard great things about it. I just hope MS delivers otherwise I'll stick to XP till they get it right


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## ToeClaws (Jan 23, 2009)

I haven't piped up in this thread yet, so here's my thoughts/opinion...

Yes... it's looking to be better than Vista, but Vista was a new low for Microsoft, so that's not saying much.  People who like Vista are those who are not aware of the inner workings of the OS, or the ethical issues surrounding it's licensing enforcement systems.  Though Windows 7 will not be quite as bad as Vista, those ethical issues with the EULA are still there, and those alone are enough to make me avoid it completely.  I will not, nor ever, let a corporation's product tell me what I can and can't run on MY computer.  It's none of Microsoft's business what we do with their product on our systems.

To me, no game or program is worth waiving my right to privacy and control of my property in any way.  I'm actually stunned that most people either don't understand, or don't care about their rights when it comes to something like Vista or Windows 7.

Anyway, what I'd ask is "Why do you need to use Windows?"  There's really not many reasons left to run Windows anymore.  Though it's never been very secure, it's losing it's edge as being the most usable nowadays since you can get equivalent or often better apps in other OS's.  The other OS's are more secure, by far, and usually easier to use and update as well.  More importantly, most of the other OS's are free and open-source.

So, for me, Windows 7 is better than Vista, but still a nasty breach of user rights and privacy that is not worth getting.  If, and only if, Microsoft changed the EULA to basically back off DRM, copyright enforcement and generally took a hands-off approach of only supporting updates to their product would I consider getting it.  I doubt, however, that it would ever happen.


----------



## ArielMT (Jan 23, 2009)

I work tech support as my day-job, and with Windows Vista two years old now I've had more than my fair share of Vista stories and trouble calls.

I've never seen an operating system with such a huge variety in stability as Windows Vista.  On some systems, it's as stable and reliable as the sunrise.  On others, just as capable, just as supposedly compatible, and known to be in good working order, it puts Windows ME to shame in bugginess and unreliability.

There's something fundamentally wrong with either an operating system that's so hit-and-miss in stability or its author and vendor.



Pi said:


> The windows kernel is actually pretty well done. The windows userland is in need of some reworking.



But it won't be much more than turd polishing.  To their credit, they did fix the shutdown to where clicking on the shutdown button actually shuts the system down, instead of putting it in standby mode without telling anyone, and they did make UAC much more granular than a simple on-off switch.



Pi said:


> Also, fuck that Ribbon shit.



Agreed.  Even Paint has the ribbon in Windows 7.

However, although it appears faster than Windows Vista, Windows 7 Beta with Aero disabled still suffers on hardware that Ubuntu 8.10 handles with ease and smoothness even with full Compiz effects.

I have not experienced any BSODs, but just like Windows Vista, I've experienced system freezes and GDI freezes that would make a BSOD a welcome alternative.  The Windows Experience Index Assessment failed to complete, predictably freezing GDI permanently (I gave up after a half hour of frozen state), and Windows Solitaire also predictably froze the system.  Unlike Windows Vista, no warning was displayed about graphics performance issues when starting Solitaire in Windows 7 Beta.

So far, Windows 7 is shaping up to be what Windows Vista should've been at release, but it's still shaping up to be just as hit-and-miss in stability and reliability.


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## Eevee (Jan 23, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> So far, Windows 7 is shaping up to be what Windows Vista should've been at release


Vista SP3, only $299


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## WarMocK (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Vista SP3, only $299



Cool, you get 299 bucks if you take their SP3?


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## ToeClaws (Jan 23, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> Cool, you get 299 bucks if you take their SP3?



Feh... still not worth the pain.  M$ could offer me $1000, and I'd not sell out my ethics to run their product.


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## WarMocK (Jan 23, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Feh... still not worth the pain.  M$ could offer me $1000, and I'd not sell out my ethics to run their product.



Erm ... who said that I would INSTALL it?


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## Aurali (Jan 23, 2009)

hrmm.. if they keep Win7 running the way it is, they might actually win back the f*tards not updating their pos XP.. I'm just glad I get the new crap for free.. (notice the 'get', not 'steal') cause I'm getting off Vista first chance I get.


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## LizardKing (Jan 23, 2009)

Eli said:


> the f*tards not updating their pos XP



wait what


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## Neybulot (Jan 24, 2009)

LizardKing said:


> wait what



He's calling the people that don't want to switch from XP to Vista "f*tards" and thus in some ways might not realize that not everyone can run Vista that runs XP.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 24, 2009)

Neybulot said:


> He's calling the people that don't want to switch from XP to Vista "f*tards" and thus in some ways might not realize that not everyone can run Vista that runs XP.



*shrugs* Users say a lot of amusing things, but it only goes to show that Eli, along with many others, have no idea what goes on under the hood of their OS's.  There are some people that like Vista, many for it's looks, and some because they think it runs better than XP did.

But this is windows we're talking about here.  XP, like all those before it, and also like Vista, has no ability to maintain itself in a healthy working state.  I've always wondered if this is somewhat by design because after 3 or 4 years of using it without maintaining it or reinstalling it, XP gets pretty bloated and slow.  Install a new OS, even one that's much larger and slower like Vista, and sometimes iti seems faster than the bloated and half-broken old one.

The facts are simple: Vista does not, at this time, offer a clear advantage over XP in the 32 bit world.  XP is a much smaller and faster OS on this playing field, and if you know how to strip down XP to a more Windows 2000 type weight, it can be even faster still.

When it comes to 64 bit, Vista does have some advantages and this is because it does 64 bit and all backwards compatible 32 bit correctly.  Windows XP had 64 bit added to it as more of an afterthought, and it uses emulation to handle different backwards compatibility and functions (and that doesn't work very well).

Then there are also license agreements.  Most folks with a high sense of ethics and morality will not agree to the Vista EULA (and probably won't agree to the coming Windows 7 one either), where as you can accept the XP one with only a mild sense of nausea.

There are also folks who just go for looks, and if that's all that matters, then yeah - Vista looks better.  You can make XP look just like Vista, but most folks don't now how to do that.  Of course, if that's someone's reason for liking an OS, they should really have a look at the many flavours of Linux or BSD: you can really customize how they look and behave!


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## Raithah (Jan 24, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> ... Then there are also license agreements. ... will not agree to the Vista EULA ...



I'll bite: I'm not well versed in law, nor am I intelligent enough to make sense of your average, jargon filled licence agreement. That being said, I can still understand simple english and [this] article seems to translate Vista's EULA effectively. Maybe there's a clause the guy missed, but from the quotations posted, there really doesn't seem to be anything all that sinister included. Mind shedding a bit of light on my confusion?


----------



## Aurali (Jan 24, 2009)

two things. I am Female. And I run Kubuntu.    It's not nice making assumptions to what you don't know.


I'm just a security freak. That's why XP is a no go for me


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## verix (Jan 25, 2009)

Eli said:


> two things. I am Female. And I run Kubuntu.    It's not nice making assumptions to what you don't know.
> 
> 
> I'm just a security freak. That's why XP is a no go for me



i run linux, i am secure *has computer compromised by a tarball*


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## whoadamn (Jan 25, 2009)

secretly, i've been making $0.05 for every :O about longhorn.

a few million more and i'll be thinking of ending this whole recession dealy.


----------



## Wolf Nanaki (Jan 25, 2009)

I've been running Windows 7 Beta build 7000 for about 2 weeks now.

http://wolfnanaki.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-windows-7-beta.html

I have to say, I love it so far. Can't wait to see the final thing.

The only thing I need to mention...the new MS Paint's interface takes some time to get used to.  I keep copies of the older editions anyway.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 26, 2009)

Raithah said:


> I'll bite: I'm not well versed in law, nor am I intelligent enough to make sense of your average, jargon filled licence agreement. That being said, I can still understand simple english and [this] article seems to translate Vista's EULA effectively. Maybe there's a clause the guy missed, but from the quotations posted, there really doesn't seem to be anything all that sinister included. Mind shedding a bit of light on my confusion?



The sinister aspect for me is not so much in the direct EULA as it is in the things that you agree to use via that agreement.  Vista has various copyright and certification management check systems built into it which comprise it's DRM (Digital Rights Management) capabilities.  In agreeing with the EULA, you basically agree to presence and use of those technologies in Vista, which I don't like.  I won't even upgrade XP to media player 11 because I don't like the added DRM abilities of that player.

I don't have anything that's digitally signed and would cause problems with this - it's just that I don't ethically agree with a corporation inserting code into their product which can hinder the functionality of the product that I paid for - a product that should not care what I do with it and why.  I regard such things as a massive breech of privacy.



Eli said:


> two things. I am Female. And I run Kubuntu.    It's not nice making assumptions to what you don't know.
> 
> I'm just a security freak. That's why XP is a no go for me



*laughs* Awesome - well why didn't you say so!  I used Kubuntu for a while myself, but being sort of a minimalist, I found KDE to be too flashy.  I try to stick with Gnome, XFCE, Ice or JVM (in the case of some of my Puppy Linux installs).  And security freak is a good thing. :mrgreen:


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## reian (Jan 28, 2009)

Vista actually made me switch everything over to Ubuntu....yeah...no more problems now^^

Although I do have one desktop that has Windows 7 beta on it and I have no major complaints so far.  I have some problems hooking up my zune to it, but nothing really major.  I haven't had the horrible random turn offs that I had with Vista, which I'm happy about and it is much more customizable.


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## Koda (Jan 29, 2009)

I've been using Vista 64bit on my custom PC for months now and its great. The only down side that I've really come to hate about it is the fact I cant have audio output on both speaker out and optical out at the same time. 

Ir really frustrates me, because in XP I could, so I know the hardware is at least capable of it, but according to realtek, (who are basically the makers of every freakin' on-board audio card on the planet) vista never "gave a specification for the function." Or something to that extent.

Yeah, thats right. The Vista team didn't go "oh, make the driver so you could have output on both outputs at once", so to get WHQL certification, Realtek's drivers had to follow MS's specs to the bone.

Hoping Windows 7 they bring that functionality back. And maybe release a single version of the OS? This whole Home, Home Premium/Business, Ultimate thing is just retarded. Hey, lets write Vista Ultimate, and then CRIPPLE it, and sell those as cheaper versions! Yay! I'm glad I didn't pay much for my copy...


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## ToeClaws (Jan 29, 2009)

Koda said:


> Hoping Windows 7 they bring that functionality back. And maybe release a single version of the OS? This whole Home, Home Premium/Business, Ultimate thing is just retarded. Hey, lets write Vista Ultimate, and then CRIPPLE it, and sell those as cheaper versions! Yay! I'm glad I didn't pay much for my copy...



Unfortunately no... I just read on Slashdot the other day that they're going to release multiple versions again. >_<  

reian: Good move.   Why consider going to Windows 7 if you got Ubuntu?  Games (my #1 reason for a working copy of Windows, heh)?


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## net-cat (Jan 29, 2009)

verix said:


> i run linux, i am secure *has computer compromised by a tarball*


Okay, I need you to open up a shell and type this...



ToeClaws said:


> Unfortunately no... I just read on Slashdot the other day that they're going to release multiple versions again. >_<


Of course they are.

Why sell one OS to everyone for $150 when you can sell the same thing to some people for $400?


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Of course they are.
> 
> Why sell one OS to everyone for $150 when you can sell the same thing to some people for $400?



Aye - of course, my counter thought is "why pay ANYTHING for an Windows OS when you can have a vastly superior one for free?" :mrgreen:


----------



## net-cat (Jan 29, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Aye - of course, my counter thought is "why pay ANYTHING for an Windows OS when you can have a vastly superior one for free?" :mrgreen:


Non sequitur. People are willing to pay money for Windows whether you understand it or not.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Non sequitur. People are willing to pay money for Windows whether you understand it or not.



Oh believe me, I gave up trying to understand general logic a long time ago.


----------



## Irreverent (Jan 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Why sell one OS to everyone for $150 when you can sell the same thing to some people for $400?



Three-tiered marketing (consumer, soho, enterprise)......after all, Marketing is the worlds _second_ oldest profession.


----------



## saviliana (Jan 29, 2009)

Well.......It sure that W7 is a Finished Version of LongHorn (Vista) Project.
That means.
It still is a Vista SP2


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## Wild_Wolf (Jan 30, 2009)

windows 7 awesome i have the beta installed on one of ym computers and i love it so far, i havent had any issues with it.


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## AlexInsane (Jan 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Aye - of course, my counter thought is "why pay ANYTHING for an Windows OS when you can have a vastly superior one for free?" :mrgreen:



Because you have to have to WORK at understanding alternative OS's, unlike Windows, which practically wipes the user's ass for them.

tl;dr: Windows is for lazy bums who can't be arsed to care.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 30, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Because you have to have to WORK at understanding alternative OS's, unlike Windows, which practically wipes the user's ass for them.
> 
> tl;dr: Windows is for lazy bums who can't be arsed to care.



Heh, which I felt is a problem all along - the easier the OS gets and the more it does automatically, the less the user ends up learning.

Still, that said, if I were to compare the complexities of installing an OS, updating it, and installing applications, and say compare Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu is way, WAY easier in every category.

I think the biggest obstacle is "change" - people are used to Windows.  We've been cursed with having it on our PCs for nearly 20 years, so we're talking entire generations that have grown up with it and know nothing else.  To change to a completely different platform is very intimidating and people tend to avoid it.

Interesting thing though is that it's getting that way anyway.  Windows XP tried to mash up the Explorer shell a little, which most people disliked (and you can set it to "classic" mode to go back to the older 98/2000 style interface).  Vista really changed up the interface, and I imagine Windows 7 does as well.  In staying with Windows, people will have to accept change anyway, so much of the built up apprehension of trying something different is unfounded.  

Besides, the beautiful thing about a lot of the other OS's out there is that they come on LiveCDs, so you can boot up the CD and actually see, use and play around with the OS without even installing it on your PC, and that way know if it supports everything and is something that you want to actually go-ahead with.

There are reasons though that Windows will stay on some people's systems, and there always will be.  Games, for one, is the big one.  Until games are made for other platforms (which is unlikely unless they become a larger market share), Windows is really the only choice for games.  And there are also other applications like Photoshop or Visio which are not made for all the other OS's.  And then there's just user preference - some people just like it, even having tried other stuff.  I mean... some people liked the Chevy Vega, even though every one knew it was a crappy car.   And some systems are so proprietary that nothing else works properly on them or supports them.

I have Windows on two of my machines - my laptop, because it falls into that mega proprietary category (can't even run Windows 2000 or 2003 on it, even though they're based on the same kernel as XP).  And my main PC because it's job is Games.


----------



## net-cat (Jan 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> When it comes to 64 bit, Vista does have some advantages and this is because it does 64 bit and all backwards compatible 32 bit correctly.  Windows XP had 64 bit added to it as more of an afterthought, and it uses emulation to handle different backwards compatibility and functions (and that doesn't work very well).


Hmm. I was skimming the thread again and I just noticed this. This is false. Windows XP x64 Edition, like Windows Vista x64, is actually derived from Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition. This is evident in the kernel version (5.2.3790) and by the fact that it follows the Server 2003 update schedule. (Including service packs. Server 2003 and XP x64 are only up to SP2.) All the AMD64 versions of Windows (Server 2003 x64, XP x64, Vista x64, Server 2008 x64) use the same processor features to run 32-bit code at the same speed. They also all share the fact that there's no way to run 16-but code natively. (DOSbox or VirtualPC is required.) And none of them can use 32-bit device drivers.

There was, however, a short-lived Itanium port of XP derived from the Itanium port of Server 2003 that was never released outside of a limited beta that _did_ use software emulation for 32-bit, mostly because the Itanium was not in any way compatible with x86. (That was its downfall, really. It was marketed as a replacement for x86, but wasn't compatible with it. That's why the AMD64 extensions were accepted in the market and Itanium wasn't. I remember back when Intel was still clinging to hope that the Itanium might become a consumer product they were downplaying AMD64 by calling it things like "Extended Memory 64 Technology.")



ToeClaws said:


> There are reasons though that Windows will stay on some people's systems, and there always will be.  Games, for one, is the big one.  Until games are made for other platforms (which is unlikely unless they become a larger market share), Windows is really the only choice for games.  And there are also other applications like Photoshop or Visio which are not made for all the other OS's.


Indeed. That's why Windows won out back in the day. Their platform is "open." Anyone can write code that runs on Windows. The Platform SDK is now a free download, and has always been available for relatively cheap.

And it's kind of also what shot them in the foot. Anyone with an internet connection can get the Platform SDK and write crap code for the OS.

... Apple is going to find themselves going down this road since Xcode is also free and they're getting popular. Linux will experience the same if they get popular, too.



ToeClaws said:


> I have Windows on two of my machines - my laptop, because it falls into that mega proprietary category (can't even run Windows 2000 or 2003 on it, even though they're based on the same kernel as XP).  And my main PC because it's job is Games.


I have XP on my laptop. Mostly because too many things about Linux outright don't work with it. (Standby, Hibernate, Tablet, Screen rotation, Power Management...) I managed to hack an Xorg driver to make the tablet usable in a minimal sense, but the rest of that stuff is rather critical to the operation of a laptop, and I really don't want to spend days poking kernel config variables or building custom kernel after custom kernel because "some guy on the internet" said "it might work if you do this."


----------



## Irreverent (Jan 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> I think the biggest obstacle is "change" - people are used to Windows.  We've been cursed with having it on our PCs for nearly 20 years, so we're talking entire generations that have grown up with it and know nothing else.  To change to a completely different platform is very intimidating and people tend to avoid it.



Resistance to change may be part of it, but for the consumer/soho market, I suspect bundling is a big part too.   Windows is pre-loaded on 90% of the boxes out there.  I think Dell also dropped their linux preload images on residential boxes.  Did Gateway's ever get off the ground?  And really, what linux nerd would use a pre-loaded linux image anyway? 

Fewer customer service/techsupport functions that have to be insourced back to NA when basic windows supportcan be outsourced offshore makes windows the model T of OS....any colour as long as its black.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 30, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Hmm. I was skimming the thread again and I just noticed this. This is false. Windows XP x64 Edition, like Windows Vista x64, is actually derived from Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition. This is evident in the kernel version (5.2.3790) and by the fact that it follows the Server 2003 update schedule. (Including service packs. Server 2003 and XP x64 are only up to SP2.) All the AMD64 versions of Windows (Server 2003 x64, XP x64, Vista x64, Server 2008 x64) use the same processor features to run 32-bit code at the same speed. They also all share the fact that there's no way to run 16-but code natively. (DOSbox or VirtualPC is required.) And none of them can use 32-bit device drivers.
> 
> There was, however, a short-lived Itanium port of XP derived from the Itanium port of Server 2003 that was never released outside of a limited beta that _did_ use software emulation for 32-bit, mostly because the Itanium was not in any way compatible with x86. (That was its downfall, really. It was marketed as a replacement for x86, but wasn't compatible with it. That's why the AMD64 extensions were accepted in the market and Itanium wasn't. I remember back when Intel was still clinging to hope that the Itanium might become a consumer product they were downplaying AMD64 by calling it things like "Extended Memory 64 Technology.")



*bows* I stand corrected.  I had not much read up on the 64 bit, and I must have read on that prototype and not read anything more.  I do know that the 64 bit capabilities of Vista were a lot more polished than in 64, but then, that's often the case.  Windows 95 was 32 bit, but the "A" version was a FAR cry from efficient or functional.  And wow... the Itanium... that was a horribly failed processor.  Not that the idea was bad, but the first iteration of it certainly was. 



net-cat said:


> Indeed. That's why Windows won out back in the day. Their platform is "open." Anyone can write code that runs on Windows. The Platform SDK is now a free download, and has always been available for relatively cheap.
> 
> And it's kind of also what shot them in the foot. Anyone with an internet connection can get the Platform SDK and write crap code for the OS.
> 
> ... Apple is going to find themselves going down this road since Xcode is also free and they're getting popular. Linux will experience the same if they get popular, too.



Oi, crap code, totally.  When I originally went for my degree, I wanted to enter programming, but when I got exposed to having to use the Windows libraries... good gods... what a mess.  The code was brutally inefficient and very redundant.  Actually turned me off to programming and I never went back.  



net-cat said:


> I have XP on my laptop. Mostly because too many things about Linux outright don't work with it. (Standby, Hibernate, Tablet, Screen rotation, Power Management...) I managed to hack an Xorg driver to make the tablet usable in a minimal sense, but the rest of that stuff is rather critical to the operation of a laptop, and I really don't want to spend days poking kernel config variables or building custom kernel after custom kernel because "some guy on the internet" said "it might work if you do this."



*nodsnods* Yep, same batch of fun I had on mine.  I was able to get the ACPI stuff to work with some edits to the acpi config, and some modules config tweaking.  In the end, the one thing that I could never make work correctly was playing DVDs, which I do constantly on my laptop - there was a problem with the nVidia driver for the older 440 Go GPU and it's never been fixed.  The screen updates at a different rate for the top than the bottom and made it unwatchable.  Unless someone fixes the driver, there's no way around that one. :/  Will likely get my next laptop from System76 to avoid the proprietary OS curse.


----------



## net-cat (Jan 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> *bows* I stand corrected.  I had not much read up on the 64 bit, and I must have read on that prototype and not read anything more.  I do know that the 64 bit capabilities of Vista were a lot more polished than in 64, but then, that's often the case.  Windows 95 was 32 bit, but the "A" version was a FAR cry from efficient or functional.  And wow... the Itanium... that was a horribly failed processor.  Not that the idea was bad, but the first iteration of it certainly was.


Oh, yes. There are many things. Like the distinction between IE 64-bit and IE 32-bit. That existed and was quite prevalent in XP x64 and Server 2003 x64. In Vista x64, they assume you want the 32-bit IE, as few extensions have been ported to 64-bit. (Flash, for example.) The 64-bit is still there should you care to go looking for it.

The transfer from 32-bit to 64-bit generally went a lot smoother than the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit mostly because it was done on NT, rather than a hack on DOS. NT has always been quite portable. Back when it was new, it supported a half a dozen different architectures.

And they made a clean break for some features. We all remember DOS-mode drivers from Win9x. Microsoft decided that there would be none of that shit in 64-bit. If you want a 64-bit OS, you need 64-bit drivers.







ToeClaws said:


> *nodsnods* Yep, same batch of fun I had on mine.  I was able to get the ACPI stuff to work with some edits to the acpi config, and some modules config tweaking.  In the end, the one thing that I could never make work correctly was playing DVDs, which I do constantly on my laptop - there was a problem with the nVidia driver for the older 440 Go GPU and it's never been fixed.  The screen updates at a different rate for the top than the bottom and made it unwatchable.  Unless someone fixes the driver, there's no way around that one. :/  Will likely get my next laptop from System76 to avoid the proprietary OS curse.


See, that's part of the problem I've encountered with FOSS in general. If the developer doesn't have the problem, then the problem doesn't exist and will never, ever get patched.

*cough*Interlaced PNG in Python Image Library*cough*


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 30, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Oh, yes. There are many things. Like the distinction between IE 64-bit and IE 32-bit. That existed and was quite prevalent in XP x64 and Server 2003 x64. In Vista x64, they assume you want the 32-bit IE, as few extensions have been ported to 64-bit. (Flash, for example.) The 64-bit is still there should you care to go looking for it.
> 
> The transfer from 32-bit to 64-bit generally went a lot smoother than the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit mostly because it was done on NT, rather than a hack on DOS. NT has always been quite portable. Back when it was new, it supported a half a dozen different architectures.
> 
> And they made a clean break for some features. We all remember DOS-mode drivers from Win9x. Microsoft decided that there would be none of that shit in 64-bit. If you want a 64-bit OS, you need 64-bit drivers.



Agreed, and I believe they also got better at optimizing the chips for 64 bit sooner than later.  32 bit was, technically speaking, released in 1985 with the i80386, but 32 bit was no where near optimized in the CPUs until the Pentium Pro's P6 architecture over a decade later.  On top of that, as you said, the 32-bit code was a joke since it was built on the back of a 16-bit OS which was a hackjob from what was originally an 8 bit OS.  Bad, bad design. 



net-cat said:


> See, that's part of the problem I've encountered with FOSS in general. If the developer doesn't have the problem, then the problem doesn't exist and will never, ever get patched.
> 
> *cough*Interlaced PNG in Python Image Library*cough*



*chuckles* Yep - that's right up there with blackbox programmers - either way, they don't see past a certain point, so they don't worry about it, and that hurts the end product.  What burns me most about it when it comes to stuff like the driver issues is that there are no lack of reports coming in from folks all over the world that the issue exists, but more often than not, the developers just ignore them because they either don't understand there's a problem for others, or just don't care because there wasn't one for them.  In some instances, it's also because the problem exists for a group that developers consider to be "diminishing" and too small to be concerned over.  Like in my case, the 440 Go GPU is 5 years old, and not many are out there anymore so "why scramble to support them?"  

Oh well... this is the spice that makes the computer field interesting.


----------



## net-cat (Jan 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Agreed, and I believe they also got better at optimizing the chips for 64 bit sooner than later.  32 bit was, technically speaking, released in 1985 with the i80386, but 32 bit was no where near optimized in the CPUs until the Pentium Pro's P6 architecture over a decade later.  On top of that, as you said, the 32-bit code was a joke since it was built on the back of a 16-bit OS which was a hackjob from what was originally an 8 bit OS.  Bad, bad design.


Hmm... How does it go? "Windows 95: A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition."

To be fair, the x86 series started out as a budget microprocessor, which is why they caught on in the first place. Starting with Pentium, they abandoned the roots of the architecture in favor of a more efficient RISC-like core and slapped an instruction translator on it. (Yay for being able to cram more transistors onto a single chip.) x86 persists because the translator takes an utterly minuscule amount of silicon to implement compared to the rest of the chip, and feature size just keeps getting smaller.




ToeClaws said:


> *chuckles* Yep - that's right up there with blackbox programmers - either way, they don't see past a certain point, so they don't worry about it, and that hurts the end product.  What burns me most about it when it comes to stuff like the driver issues is that there are no lack of reports coming in from folks all over the world that the issue exists, but more often than not, the developers just ignore them because they either don't understand there's a problem for others, or just don't care because there wasn't one for them.  In some instances, it's also because the problem exists for a group that developers consider to be "diminishing" and too small to be concerned over.  Like in my case, the 440 Go GPU is 5 years old, and not many are out there anymore so "why scramble to support them?"
> 
> Oh well... this is the spice that makes the computer field interesting.


Heh. True. Like my adventures getting my GeForce 7600 to work in XP x64. It worked until SP2 was released. I (and many, many others) reported to the issue to nVidia and were ignored. EVGA's answer was that I shouldn't be using Server 2003 or any operating systems derived from that. (Pre-Vista) Ultimately, I had to buy myself a cheap Radeon card and use that in the mean time. Several driver updates came and went, but the issue was never resolved.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 30, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Hmm... How does it go? "Windows 95: A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition."



*laughs* Yeah, think that was it - totally true though.   It's like building an inverted pyramid, and the instability showed rather well in the Windows 9x days.



net-cat said:


> To be fair, the x86 series started out as a budget microprocessor, which is why they caught on in the first place. Starting with Pentium, they abandoned the roots of the architecture in favor of a more efficient RISC-like core and slapped an instruction translator on it. (Yay for being able to cram more transistors onto a single chip.) x86 persists because the translator takes an utterly minuscule amount of silicon to implement compared to the rest of the chip, and feature size just keeps getting smaller.



Aye, and there in was the mistake with the Itanium - they wanted to break from the x86 translator.  Though is a technically sound idea, it also meant breaking the ability of the thing to work with ANYTHING that was not custom designed for it.  x86 will likely be around a long, long time (even though it's not directly used).  And yes - the move to the RISC-like core was a sweet one.  I remember drooling over Alpha chips for the longest time 'cause they made the (then) current crop of x86 CPUs look so feable.



net-cat said:


> Heh. True. Like my adventures getting my GeForce 7600 to work in XP x64. It worked until SP2 was released. I (and many, many others) reported to the issue to nVidia and were ignored. EVGA's answer was that I shouldn't be using Server 2003 or any operating systems derived from that. (Pre-Vista) Ultimately, I had to buy myself a cheap Radeon card and use that in the mean time. Several driver updates came and went, but the issue was never resolved.



Ouch.  Yeah, that reminds me of a few generations of GPUs before that when ATI made the Rage Fury MAXX.  The thing was a beast and was easily the most power card of it's day, only, they had very limited drivers for it.  It only worked on Windows 98... that's it.  Moreover, you had to visit ATI's site to learn some of the custom tweaking you'd need to do to get it to work fully in 98, at that.  When 2000, XP and so on came along, the card was pretty much abandoned.


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## dietrc70 (Jan 31, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Heh. True. Like my adventures getting my GeForce 7600 to work in XP x64. It worked until SP2 was released. I (and many, many others) reported to the issue to nVidia and were ignored. EVGA's answer was that I shouldn't be using Server 2003 or any operating systems derived from that. (Pre-Vista) Ultimately, I had to buy myself a cheap Radeon card and use that in the mean time. Several driver updates came and went, but the issue was never resolved.


 
I remember that was one of my reasons for being pleased with ATI (and sticking with them to this day). I was an early adopter of XP x64, and they had full driver support very early. XP 64 was a great OS. As you say, it was Server 2003-64 in a workstation package. With heavy use, it proved itself noticeably more robust than XP.

Vista 64 was a mess on release. After about 6 months of updates, it became quite decent, though, and it's what I use now.

I used Linux for business servers in 1999-2004, and saved my employer a fortune. I switched to Server 2003 before leaving because I liked it (it is a fine server OS), and because it was much easier to get support.

I don't use Linux because I use lots of apps (i.e. Acrobat Pro and Photoshop) that have no Linux equivalent. I also like Vista aero better than any desktop manager I've seen for Linux. Vista's a good OS at this point.

I've tried out the Windows 7 64 beta, and I'm very impressed. It is noticably faster and leaner, and does not act like a beta at all...it seems more like a late Release Candidate. I think MS did it's homework this time. Vista was really not ready at RTM.


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## Biles (Feb 1, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Because you have to have to WORK at understanding alternative OS's, unlike Windows, which practically wipes the user's ass for them.
> 
> tl;dr: Windows is for lazy bums who can't be arsed to care.





ToeClaws said:


> Heh, which I felt is a problem all along - the easier the OS gets and the more it does automatically, the less the user ends up learning.



Geez, you make it sound like it's a bad thing. I understand it's okay for tech savvy professionals to tinker around with powerful workstations and rigs, but don't expect an average Joe or a soccer to care much what is under the hood. The home consumer and small businesses are not going to buy a personal computer simply to toy around with, they want a reliable tool to help them become productive in life, be it home personal, or business.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 1, 2009)

Biles said:


> Geez, you make it sound like it's a bad thing. I understand it's okay for tech savvy professionals to tinker around with powerful workstations and rigs, but don't expect an average Joe or a soccer to care much what is under the hood. The home consumer and small businesses are not going to buy a personal computer simply to toy around with, they want a reliable tool to help them become productive in life, be it home personal, or business.



I agree - to a point.  Back 10 years ago, for example, Linux-based OS's were clunky and difficult to use.  You would never see them as the operating system of a novice user because you had to be really tech-savvy to run it.  Same with the BSD world.  I remember thinking back then that if Linux and BSD ever wanted to be a real competitor to Windows, they had to become easy enough to use and maintain that a novice could do it.  Hardcore geeks were quite against that at the time because they felt it would ruin the OS, but they also came to realize that there would never be any way for the OS to become popular if it didn't make that change.

So, fast-forward to today and you have version of Linux and BSD that are incredibly easy to use - in fact, I would go so far as to say several flavours of them are much easier to install and use than Windows.

But... there is a fine line between making things easier for the users, and making things a little too automated.  There's no harm in learning a few simple operations of the computer.  For example, when you plug in a USB drive, you used to have to go open up Windows Explorer (in Windows anyway) and go to the drive to access it.  In XP and later versions, they added a service that pops up a little window showing the contents and basically offers you stuff to run the contents with.  To me, that's an example of going to far.  The user now has little concept of what the drive he/she is using really is or where it is, or how to find it in the listing of drives and directories.  Instead, they have this cute interface that they can click through to use stuff on it.  It wasn't hard to do before, and at least before, users learned a bit more about the file and directory structure of their PCs.

So what I like/want is just a happy balance between automation and user understanding of the system.  Windows 2000 (in the Windows world) was probably the best example of a version of Windows that was sufficiently automated enough to make things easy, but manual enough that the user could still learn and understand their computer.


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## RidgeCityFM (Feb 1, 2009)

I am SO glad Windows 7 is already on its way. I was afraid I'd have to use Vista when I get a laptop someday, especially after hearing that Vista actually performs worse than XP overall. Then again I never actually heard that from a RELIABLE source.


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## WarMocK (Feb 1, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> So what I like/want is just a happy balance between automation and user understanding of the system.  Windows 2000 (in the Windows world) was probably the best example of a version of Windows that was sufficiently automated enough to make things easy, but manual enough that the user could still learn and understand their computer.



QFT 
Win 2k was the best OS Microsoft released so far.


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## dietrc70 (Feb 2, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> QFT
> Win 2k was the best OS Microsoft released so far.


 
It is definitely a classic.  I was quite anti-Microsoft in the 90's.  They consistently released crappy DOS-hack OS's, bullied their OEM's to keep out competitors, and killed better software suites with the horrible (at the time) bundled Office.  Windows NT was a horrible joke.

Then Win2k came out, and it didn't suck.  I couldn't believe it.  I am sure that the threat of the anti-trust lawsuit against MS scared them into getting their act together, and they realized they would be toast if they didn't do something to win back the good will of their users (like releasing a piece of software that didn't suck).

I have a Virtual PC Win2K on my Vista 64 machine.  It's great for running anything old and weird (or 16-bit).


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## Irreverent (Feb 2, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> To me, that's an example of going to far.  The user now has little concept of what the drive he/she is using really is or where it is, or how to find it in the listing of drives and directories.  Instead, they have this cute interface that they can click through to use stuff on it.  It wasn't hard to do before, and at least before, users learned a bit more about the file and directory structure of their PCs.



I think you're blurring the line between core OS functionality and user interface design.  Earlier OS's lacked robust UI, both as a function of hardware and time to market pressures.  As hardware becomes cheaper and faster, UI should evolve to the point where it becomes ubiquitous and pervasive; a "turn the key" and go mentality.  The average car driver is more concerned with programing the hvac controls than the PCM and embedded OS that is running the engine management system.

 The initial moves to-wards virtualization, application service providers and so-called "cloud computing"  would seem to bear this out.  The end user should be isolated from the intricacies of OS-to-hardware interfacing.....that's for professionals.

This will be come doubly important once we free ourselves from the dependency and limitations of the current crop of graphical user interfaces.  Once UI start to become driven by presence and location awareness, the average user will have little to no use for foundational OS elements (file systems, network stacks, memory alloction et al).

Or put another way, "Computer, tea, Earl Grey, hot!"

Saddly, there's none of this in windows7.  Sure, you can add it on as an application, but there's no built in extensibility to the OS.


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## WarMocK (Feb 2, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Or put another way, "Computer, tea, Earl Grey, hot!"



"Whiskey!"


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## ToeClaws (Feb 2, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> "Whiskey!"



*laughs* Think I'm with WarMock on this one, but NO SYTHAHOL! 

Irre - You make a good point sir.  I have a bit of a minimalist and old-school way of looking at what's required at a minimum for the OS to launch the app needed by the user - I don't like fluff in the way of functionality.  But I'm a professional... my viewpoint's just not the same as the average user.


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## WarMocK (Feb 2, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> *laughs* Think I'm with WarMock on this one, but NO SYTHAHOL!
> 
> Irre - You make a good point sir.  I have a bit of a minimalist and old-school way of looking at what's required at a minimum for the OS to launch the app needed by the user - I don't like fluff in the way of functionality.  But I'm a professional... my viewpoint's just not the same as the average user.



Synthohol? No way! Bring on the booze! 8)
As for the minimalist part: Like everything else in life, there is a line shat you shouldn't cross when stripping something down to the bones. If you tell a normal user to use the commandline for day-to-day work he'll laugh and go away. The commandline is the tool of choice for the admins, and the last resort for the average user. ;-)
However, a user should know where he put his docs/music/pics etc, just in case he installs a new app and needs to configure it. the last thing an admin needs is a call from someone asking him where his music files are. xD


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## Biles (Feb 2, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> I remember thinking back then that if Linux and BSD ever wanted to be a real competitor to Windows, they had to become easy enough to use and maintain that a novice could do it.  Hardcore geeks were quite against that at the time because they felt it would ruin the OS, but they also came to realize that there would never be any way for the OS to become popular if it didn't make that change.



I always had to wonder what the computing industry would have been like had Apple not allow their GUI code get stolen in the first place. I think that much of the requirement to be a rocket scientist to learn to operate a simple computer probably derived from when Windows really took off in a big way in the mid 90's when they appealed to the corporate world. Unfortunately, they assumed they could easily appeal home consumer by using a "trickle down" market strategy that would work down to the consumer level. I think to this day, they haven't really gotten the knack of it even though Microsoft still holds a dominant but a stagnant market share. Windows have continued to suffer from the usual troubles, crapware, and viruses for so long that the average consumer assumes that this is the "norm" for *all* computer brands.

Apple on the other hand, appealed to the home consumer, education, and multimedia market first. They never had, and probably never will (as far as I'm concerned) have any plans for targeting the corporate sector. The responsibility to maintain their relations to that market means more dedication to innovating friendly-user designs into their products at all levels. Ironically, it's the friendly-user design that has had some companies from the corporate sector turn their heads. Occasionally, Apple has offered support such as bringing Exchange to the iPhones, and having Microsoft develop Office for the Mac platform (amusing that the '08 version came out for the Mac first before Windows).



> So, fast-forward to today and you have version of Linux and BSD that are incredibly easy to use - in fact, I would go so far as to say several flavours of them are much easier to install and use than Windows.



Yeah, I think Linux is gradually coming around to make the OS function a little easier, but for the moment it's not really a true OEM OS, but an open-source one. If they want to enter the home consumer market, they would have to continue adding changes and implement more features and design to their OS.

Overall, I'm not saying there ought to be a computer that is 100% perfect, that would be ideal but this is not such the case. Now I do agree that consumers should know some information about some of the functions of their computers, as long as it's not counter-productive.


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## WarMocK (Feb 2, 2009)

@Biles: I think you mean a consistent Look&Feel. You could strip out half of the features provided by Linux and it still would be ahead of Windows and OS X. ;-)


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## Irreverent (Feb 2, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> However, a user should know where he put his docs/music/pics etc, just in case he installs a new app and needs to configure it. the last thing an admin needs is a call from someone asking him where his music files are. xD



*growls*  Couldn't disagree more strongly.  The OS should tell the user where IT put his files, and why it put them where it did.  The OS needs to evolve to the point where IT is the traditional sys admin, freeing the wetwear up to do more important tasks, like OS-assisted capacity, redundancy and resiliency planning.

The traditional OS/gui model may work well (or not) for today's edge device, but when you're dealing with a cloud of virtualized processors and a file system composed of geographically diverse, mutli-petabye RAID 1000 strip sets, it just ain't gonna work anymore.  Searching a 5 petabyte san for a users missing vacation photo's is already a pain.....

At this, windows 7 (and all current OS's) fail miserably. Nobody is really building an OS for the cloud yet.


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## Kujila (Feb 2, 2009)

I barely skimmed the thread because it's like 7 pages now, but I just wanted to put my two-cents in on Windows 7... I like it!  I have been using Windows 7 on my laptop that I use at work on a daily basis.  Not only have I found it to load a bit faster than Vista, it seems to operate a little more stable as well.  It's super smexeh with its new Mac-inspired taskbar, and the minute (My-newt) new features like the Left/Top/Right window dragging shortcuts, and the "peek" bar in the bottom right corner of the screen really make it feel more polished than Vista.  Like Microsoft said, though, it's the successor to Vista in the respect that it basically _is_ Vista.  I think that's a good thing because everyone just got to the point where software and hardware is working with Vista, so Windows 7 will carry on the torch and Vista drivers and software runs perfect in Windows 7.  I haven't had any compatibility problems, aside from having to reinstall PDANet in order to get it to work after a Vista ==> 7 upgrade.

Overall, I think once it's polished and released it will be a welcome replacement to Vista.  Current market guesstimates Windows 7 will be rushed out before December, the biggest month in retail.

Now I just have to get my coworkers to stop calling it "Windows Vista, SP2" and laughing behind my back ;_;


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## WarMocK (Feb 3, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> *growls*  Couldn't disagree more strongly.  The OS should tell the user where IT put his files, and why it put them where it did.



Meh, do you think the average user who believes he's a pro just because he found the power switch of his PC would care what their system tries to tell them? I worked in two offices by now, and I frequently ran into people that needed a HOWTO list in order to open a CD-ROM drive >_<. If Langensheid (German dictionary) should ever search for pics showing an example of the common DAU (DÃ¼mmster Anzunehmender User <=> stupidest user possible) I could send them a flyer of the company I worked for and tell them to pick one of the photos inside. 

"DAU: Hey, I used a program called GOOGLE yesterday for the first time. Someone installed it on our PCs. I wonder where I can buy it, it's great. ^_^"


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## lilEmber (Feb 3, 2009)

xD Awesome warmock, awesome.


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## Eevee (Feb 3, 2009)

Kujila said:


> I just wanted to put my two-cents in on Windows 7... I like it!  I have been using Windows 7 on my laptop that I use at work on a daily basis.  Not only have I found it to load a bit faster than Vista, it seems to operate a little more stable as well.  It's super smexeh with its new Mac-inspired taskbar, and the minute (My-newt) new features like the Left/Top/Right window dragging shortcuts, and the "peek" bar in the bottom right corner of the screen really make it feel more polished than Vista.


it is kinda sad that everyone is fawning over windows 7 even though its feature list is:
1. sucks less than vista
2. borrowed something else from apple


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## ToeClaws (Feb 3, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> Meh, do you think the average user who believes he's a pro just because he found the power switch of his PC would care what their system tries to tell them? I worked in two offices by now, and I frequently ran into people that needed a HOWTO list in order to open a CD-ROM drive >_<. If Langensheid (German dictionary) should ever search for pics showing an example of the common DAU (DÃ¼mmster Anzunehmender User <=> stupidest user possible) I could send them a flyer of the company I worked for and tell them to pick one of the photos inside.
> 
> "DAU: Hey, I used a program called GOOGLE yesterday for the first time. Someone installed it on our PCs. I wonder where I can buy it, it's great. ^_^"



Hence why I often used to say that users should require a license to own and operate a computer, making sure only skilled people with the capacity to fully understand it can have them.  Of course... this would kill the industry, not because most people couldn't attain the license, more like most people would then consider it too much work to bother.

Ah well, I look at it this way: Confused users mean more IT jobs.


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## Irreverent (Feb 3, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> "DAU: Hey, I used a program called GOOGLE yesterday for the first time. Someone installed it on our PCs. I wonder where I can buy it, it's great. ^_^"



I'm not sure if you've missed my point or made it for me. 

(L)users are to be protected from themselves, and it should be the responsibility of the OS to do this.  That way, they don't have to anoy scarce admin resources with trivial, irritating requests.


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## WarMocK (Feb 3, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> I'm not sure if you've missed my point or made it for me.
> 
> (L)users are to be protected from themselves, and it should be the responsibility of the OS to do this.  That way, they don't have to anoy scarce admin resources with trivial, irritating requests.



The question is: HOW do you protect them? By isolating the complete system from the user, or simply by "offering" the DAUs a practical and (almost) fail-safe solution to their day-to-day problems so they don't even consider touching the critical parts of the system? The first solution is dumb, the second version is what Linux (or any other OS) should work like (imho). ;-)


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## Irreverent (Feb 3, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> The question is: HOW do you protect them? By isolating the complete system from the user, or simply by "offering" the DAUs a practical and (almost) fail-safe solution to their day-to-day problems so they don't even consider touching the critical parts of the system? The first solution is dumb, the second version is what Linux (or any other OS) should work like (imho). ;-)



Short answer, a little from column A and a little from column B.  End users should have no access to the OS (nor even be aware that it is an OS) ever.  To them, it should just be a simple suite of hyper-interactive tools (physical, location, presence, voice, TUI, wireless etc) that interpretes what the user wants, and acts as the end users proxy to lower-level subsystems, bound by a feature rich kernal and a networked, AI-based executive.

At the end of the day, windows (any flavour) macOS, Unix, Linux, Vtam, MVNS.....all just entry level subsystem managers (video, cpu, memory, disk, io) that loosly bind an abstracted hardware layer together with a simple executive.  Even the best of them (arguably linux) is nothing more than CPM/MS-DOS with racing strips and a hard-on.   *flicks saftey off* 

Windows7's bigest disappointment is that, while it may be a superlative replacement for Vista, it still can't make the cloths drier talk to my audio visual entertainment centre, or push home-calling logic back up into the VoIP network.  10 years (9 if you prefere) into the new milenium, and we're still running WFWG 3.12a on steroids.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 3, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Windows7's bigest disappointment is that, while it may be a superlative replacement for Vista, it still can't make the cloths drier talk to my audio visual entertainment centre, or push home-calling logic back up into the VoIP network.  10 years (9 if you prefere) into the new milenium, and we're still running WFWG 3.12a on steroids.



Wha!?  Whoa there... why on Earth would you want any of that tied into your PC?  Appliances don't need that level of sophistication nor does a home computer require any level of interaction of that magnitude.  It's bad enough that computers have already infested technologies that they don't need to be in, the last thing we need is all those frivolities actually talking with one another controlled by a Microsoft's Special-olympics version of an operating system.

*ponders* Well... actually there might be some merrit in that - if your house does become self aware, then at least it would be retarded and prone to crashing.


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## ADF (Feb 4, 2009)

Bleh have people seen this?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/158861/windows_7_to_ship_in_five_different_versions.html


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## X (Feb 4, 2009)

ADF said:


> Bleh have people seen this?
> 
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/158861/windows_7_to_ship_in_five_different_versions.html



i thought they learned their lesson D:<

why dont they just make TWO versions and call it a day? 32 and 64 bit, premium and business?


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## net-cat (Feb 4, 2009)

Eh... as improved-looking as Windows 7 is, it's looking like I'll have to give it a pass for a couple of reasons.

My major complaint about Vista hasn't actually been fixed or improved in any way, shape or form. The network is still "fused" or whatever and I have to go digging for control over my individual adapters. The service the recognizes networks still can't be easily disabled, nor can it recognize virtual adapters as trusted, causing the computer to start up as if it were always on an untrusted network. (And no, I'm not willing to completely disable my firewall, since I do actually use untrusted networks.) There are still a good dozen "adapters" listed in ipconfig, for some incomprehensible reason. (Looks like it has something to do with the way they've implemented IPV6, but I don't care. I just don't like it. I shouldn't have to scroll through screens full of output just to get my IP address. Give me the UNIX method. Just tag it with "inet" and "inet6".)

The other thing is that I won't be in school. The improvements are incremental at best (lol Win6.1) and that isn't worth $200 to me. (I'd buy Business OEM or Upgrade.)


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## ToeClaws (Feb 4, 2009)

net-cat said:


> ...(I shouldn't have to scroll through screens full of output just to get my IP address. Give me the UNIX method. Just tag it with "inet" and "inet6".)
> 
> The other thing is that I won't be in school. The improvements are incremental at best (lol Win6.1) and that isn't worth $200 to me. (I'd buy Business OEM or Upgrade.)



Amen brother!

With as problematic as Windows is, even offering it as freeware would still make me wary of it, but to have to pay for such poor product is rather insulting (to the consumer).


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## Irreverent (Feb 4, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Wha!?  Whoa there... why on Earth would you want any of that tied into your PC?



An immediate application would be home automation.  Unfortunately, its not caught on all that well, because at the current level of technology HA either a bitter disappointment or a quaint joke.  I'm disgusted by the fact that despite several cycles of Moore's law, personal computing is really no more advanced than it was circa late 1992.  Faster, brighter, quieter, lower power consumption, for sure.  But pretty much still doing the same things the same way.



> Appliances don't need that level of sophistication nor does a home computer require any level of interaction of that magnitude.



If you see the home computer as nothing more than a console, sure.  I'm looking to actually leverage the spare cycles of that quad-core processor into doing something useful.  Why can't my PC (with appropriate extensible OS and wired or wireless networking) ping my cell phone when the dinner is done?  Why can't it screen-pop a message on the 50" plasma when the cloths are dry?  Why doesn't the dishwasher tell the hotwater heater when to fire....and when not to fire?  Why don't any of the appliances tell the furnace when they are running, preventing it from firing and reducing  my power footprint and implicitly, my greenhouse gas signature?

My plasma tv, PVR, stereo, home computer, games consoles (Wii and PSP3000) all talk IP.  My Carrier furnace talks raw Ethernet, and a couple of dialects of IR, specifically PalmOS 3.3.  The LG internet fridge (which I dont have, sigh, but have played with) does too.  The new LG washer/dryer appear to have rj45 headers if initial reports are too be believed.  Technology is getting out there, but the OS is not keeping up with it.



> talking with one another controlled by a Microsoft's Special-olympics version of an operating system.



Given the current Windows roadmap (and most linux maps too) its not likely going to be a MS OS.



> *ponders* Well... actually there might be some merrit in that - if your house does become self aware, then at least it would be retarded and prone to crashing.



Which is why mission critical life services and most flight/guidance controllers don't run a MS OS...or any OS for that matter.  But we're going to have to cross that bridge sooner than later.

Just not on Windows7.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 4, 2009)

I dunno Irre - I can see some of that having merit, but surely a low-power custom house controller type computer would be better suited to all of that if you really wanted that level of automation in the house.  Spare cycles on a quad core are best used up with something like SETI, or... just turn it off if you're not using it. 

Personally I don't find as much value in appliances being Ã¼ber connected, but then, I don't have kids or other distractions at home which would make such a thning handier.  Guess it comes down to a matter of preference.


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## Irreverent (Feb 4, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Spare cycles on a quad core are best used up with something like SETI, or... just turn it off if you're not using it.



I've been part of SETI since Sagan was alive.....  Part of team CanadianGunNutz too.




> Personally I don't find as much value in appliances being Ã¼ber connected, but then, I don't have kids or other distractions at home which would make such a thning handier.  Guess it comes down to a matter of preference.



Exactly!  You don't have to use any of it....but you should be able to harness what's there, if its there. Dual quad-cores in a mini-tower and all I can run is TF2?  Bah!

"Computer, locate eldest daughter, begin review of days homework and advise location and ETA of mate!" " Next, burn latest torrents to DVD, upload to Ipod's 1 thru 6 and import into media centre.....oh, and start a search for my mates Valentines Day present....something in leather size 2."

We have the network and the CPU/disk hardware.....we just need an extensible OS, an attribute directory (probably LDAP) and a decent real-time protected executive.  3 out of 5 ain't bad, but we have a ways to go.


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## Neybulot (Feb 6, 2009)

Eh, with the whole different versions thing, look at XP. It has just as many.

Starter
Home
Pro
Media Center
Embedded
Tablet PC

Plus other offshoot editions that exist out there.

All you really need from 7 as a home user is Home Premium or Ultimate. Probably best to wait for the prices to see how bad it'll be.


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## Eevee (Feb 6, 2009)

^ half of those were only sold for and are only meant to run on specific types of devices.  vista/7's versions are all meant for desktops and are instead targeted at different users.


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## Biles (Feb 6, 2009)

Reminded me of a video I saw on Viddler.com
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Carloz800/videos/2/

Oh man, I can imagine Apple coming up with a new Mac ad campaign commercial.


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## lilEmber (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> ^ half of those were only sold for and are only meant to run on specific types of devices.  vista/7's versions are all meant for desktops and are instead targeted at different users.



Actually they're only selling two versions of Windows 7.

They'll have more, but they're only marketing two. Just like XP did with it's home and professional.


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## AxlePerri (Feb 6, 2009)

I will get Windows 7 when I buy new computer and it come with it. 



			
				Warmock said:
			
		

> I worked in two offices by now, and I frequently ran into people that needed a HOWTO list in order to open a CD-ROM drive >_<



:lol: I have seen.

But I agree more with Irrelevant's philosophy for common user.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 6, 2009)

Interesting article showing benchmarks of Ubuntu, Windows Vista and Windows 7:

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-windows-7

The good news is that Windows 7 seems to beat out Vista in most of the benchmarks.  The bad news (if you love Windows) is that it doesn't beat Ubuntu, in fact, it loses pretty badly in some of the benchmarks.


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## Irreverent (Feb 6, 2009)

well, bloated code is bloated....

Surprised by the disk metrics though, as I would have thought that intra-disk copies would be handed off to a hardware subsystem, so I wonder if their test versions had driver issues.  Looks like MS`s sata and ide subsytem needs to be reviewed.


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## lilEmber (Feb 6, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Interesting article showing benchmarks of Ubuntu, Windows Vista and Windows 7:
> 
> http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-windows-7
> 
> The good news is that Windows 7 seems to beat out Vista in most of the benchmarks.  The bad news (if you love Windows) is that it doesn't beat Ubuntu, in fact, it loses pretty badly in some of the benchmarks.



Well yeah.

But can Ubuntu game live Windows can yet? Until then I will not fully switch over. ;..;


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## ToeClaws (Feb 6, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> well, bloated code is bloated....
> 
> Surprised by the disk metrics though, as I would have thought that intra-disk copies would be handed off to a hardware subsystem, so I wonder if their test versions had driver issues.  Looks like MS`s sata and ide subsytem needs to be reviewed.



I've always had a sneaking suspicion that Linux was doing vastly quicker file copies.  Whenever I had to move some big files around, it was pain to wait for the Windows boxes to do it while the Linux ones zipped through it.  I had thought it was just a bad windows install or failing drive (didn't have time to investigate it).  Seems there was more to it.



NewfDraggie said:


> Well yeah.
> 
> But can Ubuntu game live Windows can yet? Until then I will not fully switch over. ;..;



No, and I doubt it ever will - that's why I run Windows myself for gaming reasons.   But there's a sadder fact on the horizon there - PC gaming is slowly dying off.  There's far more money to be made writing for consoles while there's also better copy protection for the games in those systems along with less compatibility issues.  Most game writers also loath the stricter DirectX10 requirements for PC games, and the new OpenGL 3.0 for Linux is a pain to code for.  I don't think it'll be long before PC games quietly go away. :/

*stares at Newf's avatar for comfort*


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## Irreverent (Feb 6, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> I've always had a sneaking suspicion that Linux was doing vastly quicker file copies.  Whenever I had to move some big files around, it was pain to wait for the Windows boxes to do it while the Linux ones zipped through it.  I had thought it was just a bad windows install or failing drive (didn't have time to investigate it).  Seems there was more to it.



But there's no excuse for it!  Disk I/O should be handed off to a subsystem and done in silicon, not cpu.  Same argument for network....1000baseT is the slowest I run.....Redmond has got to get its i/o subsystem act together.



> *stares at Newf's avatar for comfort*



back to work!


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## lilEmber (Feb 7, 2009)

;3

Well, PC gaming isn't actually dieing as some people think.

No matter how much money are into consoles, it will never die. Ever.


If anything, Consoles are actually starting to get worse right now....


All these companies (Nvidia, Microsoft, ATi, AMD, Intel, etc) will never let that happen, simply because who needs their elite things? Number crunchers and gamers.

MMO's.

When was the last game for the Wii that was really good?...
The PS3?...
Even the xbox 360 that last year got a bunch of good ones, the last one is still a few months ago.

PC has steam....


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## net-cat (Feb 7, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> ;3
> 
> Well, PC gaming isn't actually dieing as some people think.
> 
> No matter how much money are into consoles, it will never die. Ever.


Well, no matter how much piracy is committed or how much system-ruining copy-protection they try to ram down our collective throats.

PC gaming is not dying so much as the PC gaming companies seem to want to make it as much like console gaming as possible.

Then we have the occasional beacon of light like Steam. (Which still irritates me for a number of reasons, but you can run that shit under Wine.)


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## ToeClaws (Feb 7, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Well, no matter how much piracy is committed or how much system-ruining copy-protection they try to ram down our collective throats.
> 
> PC gaming is not dying so much as the PC gaming companies seem to want to make it as much like console gaming as possible.
> 
> Then we have the occasional beacon of light like Steam. (Which still irritates me for a number of reasons, but you can run that shit under Wine.)



Aye - Steam, overall, bothers me a lot.  It's not so much that it's a _bad_ idea as it is one that's not well implemented.  I'm pretty old school in that I like to walk into a store, buy a game, install it, and run it.  I shouldn't need to log into anything, shouldn't require a Net connection, and if I want to later move or install that game on another of my PCs, I should be able to do so because, gosh darnit, it's my game - I own it.

Steam introduced the ability for game companies to better moderate and control distribution and legal use of their wares, and while I understand their concerns here, I don't like the fact that it's "required" for playing, nor that I have to have an account which sends information (no matter how impersonal) to some centralized place.  I consider it incredibly intrusive.  

I would rather see Steam only be used as a centralized way to purchase and download games, as well as update them.  I can see it being used to initially license them, but only if there were also other off-line methods of doing so.  In short, Steam should NOT be a requirement to play a game that you purchased, and you should never have to register an account with Steam to play a game unless you actually want to do so.  Furthermore, it would be nice to have Steam not load itself up and chew up memory and resources for nothing in the background.  

Yeah I know... "ToeClaws, you're just bitter about everything!"  Yes... yes I am.


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## net-cat (Feb 7, 2009)

An internet connection isn't actually required to play Steam games. (Unless it's a completely online game, like TF2.) If Steam finds it can't connect, it'll offer to let you use it in "Offline mode." How many hours on planes and at airports have I killed playing Half Life 2 or Portal?

And you can install your games on as many computers as you want. (Though they can only be "enabled" on one computer at a time.)

Yes, the internet connection is the weakest link insofar as you need it to initially install a game or to transfer to another computer, but that's all you really need it for.

As I said, there are things about Steam that bother me. But as DRM goes, they've managed a functional, usable and relatively unobtrusive system.


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## Immelmann (Feb 7, 2009)

...Oh, 8 pages? I'm late.

I tried the 7 beta last night on my spare laptop, and I actually really like what I see. The fact that the task bar is also a sort of taskbar/Mac doc hybrid is pretty cool, and it looks like it's going to be very convenient.
There are lots of tiny glowy graphic bits that I kinda dig.

I guess I can't pass full judgment on it because I couldn't get the laptop online (not 7's fault), and since I actually like Vista better than XP, I don't think anyone cares what I say anyways.


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## Greyscale (Feb 7, 2009)

<- Currently posting with the beta.

It works pretty damn good.


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## Rakiao (Feb 7, 2009)

If its anything like vista, I'm putting linux on every one of my computers.


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## MRGamer01 (Feb 8, 2009)

Well, with all the hype and disscusion all over the internet, Windows 7 is so far the best (although its currently in beta, rumored to release full thing later this year).  Windows Vista, even though it does do a lot of work, is still full of holes that microsoft got fed up with.  At one point, it was mentioned as a rumor that Vista would be dropped like a hot potato and microsoft would return to XP.  I'm skeptical to download 7 however, because of the whole beta thing.  7 is also mentioned here and there as being better than Mac OSX or whatever its called.


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