Topic: Hola from Windows 7

[scottws]

I just installed Beta 1 (build 7000) of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on a VMware Server 2 virtual machine on my work laptop.

I've only messed with it about 30 minutes so far, but I already love it.

I don't know what it is.  I was never excited about Vista, so I can't explain why I am looking forward to Windows 7 when it is so similar.  I use Vista on my desktop, but I just feel it is a massive letdown.  All the cool features it was supposed to have were cut, and now it's just a bloated pile of poo.  Windows 7 still doesn't have a lot of those features and is overall very similar to Vista, but I don't know... it feels different in a lot of good ways too.  I really like the new taskbar, and I'm not even getting the cooler Aero version of it that I've seen demonstrated in videos.

I've read some performance benchmarks (where the benchmark numbers weren't disclosed due to beta NDA/EULA reasons), and Windows 7 seems to be winning in all categories over both XP SP2 and Vista SP1.

[idolminds]

As long as games dont require twice the RAM when using it (like Vista vs XP), then it might actually be worth checking out.

[Pugnate]

Well, I remember you were initially impressed with Vista as well, though were let down the more you messed with it. Let's see how W7 fares after a few days of use, though there has been a lot of goodwill towards it on the internet.

So far though, everyone I've asked, can't seem to explain why they like it more. They just do.

[scottws]

The taskbar is so much better.  It's a lot easier to find the window you want when you have tons of stuff open, which I always do.

My initial positive impressions of Vista were just related to Aero.  I immediately noticed file transfers to my Samba server were like 1/3 the speed they were under XP and hated that.

[Pugnate]

Well after looking at all the positive attention Windows 7 is getting, I might as well put myself down for the upgrade version. I just hope it works with Windows XP.

[Quemaqua]

I think Microsoft will be attempting to really make sure this one doesn't fuck up.  After the disaster of Vista, I doubt they want to take any chances, especially with Apple constantly gaining steam.

[sirean_syan]

Yeah, but Steve Jobs is dying so they might actually have to start producing products again rather than just marketing whatever their god gives them.

[scottws]

Interesting, I just learned that Steve Jobs was CEO of Pixar until 2006.  I had no idea.

[Quemaqua]

Steve Jobs is dying?

[Cobra951]

Cancer of some sort.  And yeah, Steve Jobs is probably the diplomatic and financial point man behind Pixar's success (Lasseter being the creative point man).

[Quemaqua]

You mean the iPhone doesn't cure cancer?  I think I may have been misled.

[Pugnate]

Cancer of some sort.  And yeah, Steve Jobs is probably the diplomatic and financial point man behind Pixar's success (Lasseter being the creative point man).

Well it hasn't been officially confirmed yet, has it? I think they are putting it down to a mystery illness for now.

He did beat cancer about 5 years ago though, I think.

[Cobra951]

Well it hasn't been officially confirmed yet, has it? I think they are putting it down to a mystery illness for now.

He did beat cancer about 5 years ago though, I think.

Does anyone really beat cancer?  It's like getting every last atom of a coke spill off your shirt.  And coke doesn't self-replicate.  I think that cancer may have come back, though obviously it could be something else entirely.

[beo]

well there have been a couple of photos of medical reports for a positive HIV infection, but wikileaks is currently calling "probably fake" on them.

not so sure...

[sirean_syan]

Sorta back on topic:

I just built a new computer and I thought I'd give Vista a go... I think I'm going to go back to XP and just deal with the authorization phone call to authorize the thing. While I haven't done tons with the system, I can't say I feel like the upgrade has done any good. I lost my use of Acrobat (I only have an older version), the only game I've tried crashes constantly (Fallout 3... which might partially be game's fault, but it runs well and crashes at the same places constantly*), and stuff just doesn't feel right. I might have also shot myself in the foot by going with the 64 bit version, but I wanted to try out having 6 gigs of RAM. Still, Vista itself hasn't pleased me with constant nagging for authorization to open nearly any program (which I turned off), the lack of a "safely remove hardware" feature which I use often for my external hard drive, and it's desire to scan said external hard drive every time I turn it on because of potential problems (which it probably thinks are there because I can't remove it properly). So, lesson learned, or maybe experiment failed. At least I have a full version now so I can upgrade to Windows 7 for cheaper.

*I just really hope this isn't a sign of hardware problems. I really haven't pushed my computer much yet, but it's not like Fallout would be the game to really test stability on. Everything else has been just fine and temperatures have been in a good range, so I'm leaning towards Windows/Fallout problems.

[beo]

vista has a "safely remove hardware" thing in the system tray. if it ain't there, something's borked.

[Pugnate]

Yea I have that thing in the system tray as well, and all my games seem to run as well as they do on XP.

In other news, wow, Sirean got a new comp.

[scottws]

Sirean, the things you describe don't really seem Vista-related to me.  I have the Safely Remove Hardware icon and use it constantly.  It looks like a plug now.  Fallout 3 crashes on me tons as well, but at random and I'm pretty sure it's heat-related since it's usually only after I've been playing awhile.  My case's design isn't exactly conducive to long gaming periods because it doesn't really have a good way to manage the heat in the upper rear portion of my case, where the videocard is.

Yeah, the Acrobat thing sucks but those sorts of issues are expected with really old versions of software on an operating system that changed quite a bit from the previous version.

I don't think you shot yourself in the foot going 64-bit.  I've honestly never had any problems that would not have existed in the 32- bit version.  Pug tells me my poor Crysis performance was due to it running on a 64-bit OS, but I've never seen it run any other way so I don't have anything I can personally compare it too.  Honestly people shouldn't shy away from 64-bit because you're pretty much going to have to go down this route in the next couple of years.  Plus, the one thing I like about Vista is that if you have extra RAM, its Superfetch technology caches closed, but frequently used programs in physical RAM so they open a lot faster.

I'm starting to get jealous of all the people that are having 6 and 8 GB of RAM now.  When I built my PC, I built it with 2 GB at a time people were getting 1 GB, then a few months later I went to 4 GB.  It seemed insane at the time but now I feel like I'm falling behind the curve.  I guess it's not a big deal.  Vista tells me that it's using about 2.5 GB with 1.5 GB being used for Superfetch caching so it's not like I'm borderline on some performance limit.

I still wish Windows XP x64 was better supported.  If it had that and Superfetch, I definitely would have no reason to use Vista.

[sirean_syan]

Well, that was fun. In my haste to downgrade to XP, I forgot about the whole issue with hard drives over 130gb and somehow ended up unformating my main drive in a way that even Vista wouldn't see it during installations. After some hours, I've managed to reformat it in XP under SP2 and just now got the computer to boot from it again. My next step: I just learned how to make a slipstream installation CD for XP with SP3 installed, so I'm going to start over again and hopefully be able to install from scratch on the bigger drive. I'm also considering partitioning it so that I can try out a duel boot to slowly work my way to Vista again.

At the very least, I want to see how this system feels under XP. Still, there's not a whole lot of reason to go to Vista outside of the RAM increase, but I should still be doing good with 3gigs (XP won't recognize beyond 3gig because I have a DDR3 triple channel setup going). We'll see.

Oh yeah, I think I did figure out the remove hardware problem as well. I hadn't turned on Plug and Play in my bios and it was off by default. Go fig.

[Pugnate]

I sense a lot of excitement.

[scottws]

Yeah slipstreaming is awesome.  I maintain an XP disc that has all service packs and Windows updates, and has IE7 preinstalled.  I also have one for Vista but that just has SP1, not any subsequent updates.

The 3 GB RAM under XP thing has nothing to do with your RAM setup. It has to do with the 32-bit limit and how Windows handles memory addressing.  My current system showed up as 3 GB under XP and I had 4 GB (two sets of 2 GB operating in dual channel, DDR2).

[sirean_syan]

Oh yeah. I forgot the RAM would only count to 3gigs, not 4. Either way, that was a large part of the reason I went with Vista 64.

We'll see how things go. I stepped out of the house for a couple hours and am about to install the slipstreamed XP. Now it recognizes my main hard drive at the proper size in the installation screen, so that's a good sign.

[sirean_syan]

So, I got everything working on XP last night and things are going great. Fallout 3 ran perfectly on Ultra settings for several hours and I think I'm good. To conserve some power and space, I took out the extra RAM chips which I'll hold onto until Windows 7 or I get brave enough to try Vista again.

I have run into a strange problem though. If I'm using a program that sends a fairly constant stream of data through my router like Windows Live!, my router will just stop working after a time and require a restart. This is a problem I had with my old computer and I eventually fixed it by installing a somewhat decent Intel network card. Currently I'm just using the on-board stuff in my new system, so I'm assuming it's a similar problem and will fix it by recycling the network card. Has anyone else ever had a similar problem? I'm pretty sure the "new" card will solve things for me, but I'm just curious if anyone knows why it could happen.

[scottws]

Well if the router requires a restart, I would say the problem is on the router end.  Maybe upgrade the firmware if you can?

[gpw11]

So, I got everything working on XP last night and things are going great. Fallout 3 ran perfectly on Ultra settings for several hours and I think I'm good. To conserve some power and space, I took out the extra RAM chips which I'll hold onto until Windows 7 or I get brave enough to try Vista again.

I have run into a strange problem though. If I'm using a program that sends a fairly constant stream of data through my router like Windows Live!, my router will just stop working after a time and require a restart. This is a problem I had with my old computer and I eventually fixed it by installing a somewhat decent Intel network card. Currently I'm just using the on-board stuff in my new system, so I'm assuming it's a similar problem and will fix it by recycling the network card. Has anyone else ever had a similar problem? I'm pretty sure the "new" card will solve things for me, but I'm just curious if anyone knows why it could happen.

One of those video streaming sights (quick silver screen?) used to kill my router (like it would actually crap out and all computers would lose it's signal).  I never could figure out why, considering the other ones didn't.  i just assumed it was an act of god and altered by behaviour accordingly.  I'm pretty sure i ended up switching my card for unrelated reasons while this was going on and i don't think it did anything.

[scottws]

I'm not sure about router killing, but I had an issue for a long time when I would view someone's photo album on Facebook.  It would load the first eight or so pictures, and then would time out on all the rest.

I finally complained about it somewhere and someone suggested changing my DNS setting from my ISP's DNS server to the OpenDNS servers (208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222).  I did that and it completely solved the issue.  I guess my ISP's DNS server thought it was being flooded with a DoS attack or something and started blocking traffic.

[scottws]

So I popped a new hdd in my desktop PC and loaded up Windows 7 Ultimate RC.  I've been using it a few days now.  I love it completely.  The new Dock-inspired Taskbar completely rocks and overall I've found Windows 7 to be much faster than Windows Vista was.  This last statement is hard to quantify in the sense that OS installations seem to get slower over time and my Vista installation was two years old, I believe.

Boot-up time is definitely faster, and things just seem much snappier overall.  Overall the interface (except for the new Taskbar) is very Vista-like so there isn't much to talk about there.

One thing I don't like is the Computer link now opens this weird window with tons of whitespace.  It doesn't show your hard drive partitions, removable drives, and network drives.  Instead it shows links to the personal folders you are most likely to use (My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, Downloads) and this new feature called Libraries, which is basically a type of smart-search folder that displays contents from both the Public and private locations.  Basically if you open the Pictures library, you see pictures from My Pictures and Public Pictures.  Over on the left it has some links to common things like the old My Computer.  But it seems very sparse overall.  You can still go straight to My Computer by pressing Windows key + E.

I've also had quite a few times where IE or Windows Explorer would hang explorer.exe.  Basically if I got too click happy and tried to close dialog boxes by pressing the X or before doing something else, the window would hang.  This has happened quite a bit so I hope it is something that gets fixed in the final release.

Edit: Clarification in the sentence about the taskbar.

[ren]

My favourite feature is easily Windows+Rightarrow/left arrow. It makes multitasking so much easier on a laptop. Recently I've had this strange thing happen where if I plug in a USB key or external hard drive it'll basically freeze up the computer for 10 seconds. It didn't happen at first though so it's probably something I've installed but I have no idea what.

Definitely prefer this to Vista. The taskbar took me about a week to get used to though. For the first few days I just hated it.

[scottws]

I didn't know about the Windows key + right or left arrow.  I'll have to see what that is about.  How did you discover it?

[ren]

I picked it up from some time before the RC came out. Win+R is the same as sliding a minimized window to the right of the screen and Win+L as sliding to the left. It takes the window and makes it 50% of the screen. Having two Word or Excel windows perfectly side by side at the press of a button is really convenient.

WMP is also really good for video. It's been able to play almost every single file I've thrown at it. I downloaded VLC out of habit and have only used it twice. Once for a file with subtitles and the other time for an flv. The only bad thing about it is that space isn't pause.

[scottws]

Yeah I found out what Win+R/L do last night.  Win+up is maximize and Win+down is minimize.

[MysterD]

October 22nd, 2009 is the official release date for Win 7

[scottws]

Wow.  That's a lot earlier than I thought it would be.

[gpw11]

They're not going to do like 7 versions again are they?

[Quemaqua]

Probably.

Also, I hope it's really a lot better than Vista.  Because after giving Vista a chance on my laptop, I can say with certainty that I absolutely fucking hate it.

[gpw11]

I kind of like it on my laptop, but the wireless networking lacks something.  That might just be me not being used to it though.  Can anyone suggest an app to find and connect to networks?

[Xessive]

I kind of like it on my laptop, but the wireless networking lacks something.  That might just be me not being used to it though.  Can anyone suggest an app to find and connect to networks?

I came across NetStumbler when I was looking for a better option.

[scottws]

Also, I hope it's really a lot better than Vista.  Because after giving Vista a chance on my laptop, I can say with certainty that I absolutely fucking hate it.

I find Windows 7 to boot and run faster than Vista.  Firefox opens almost instantly, where under Vista it was pretty slow to open.  I really like the new taskbar.  I find it to be much easier to work with a bunch of open windows than ever before.

That said, other than the taskbar and the performance, 7 is very much like Vista.  Oh and 7 has a much more flexible firewall than XP or Vista.

I have had trouble with some videos under 7.  Like HD videos on YouTube and videos on Netflix have this weird stutter to them many times.  Some others have complained of this too and it has been suggested that this is due to video driver immaturity.  I hope so, because it kind of sucks since this was not a problem area for me under Vista.

I kind of like it on my laptop, but the wireless networking lacks something.  That might just be me not being used to it though.  Can anyone suggest an app to find and connect to networks?

Wireless Zero Configuration is worlds better in Vista than it was in XP.  What do you mean that it lacks something?  Generally it shows available wireless, you highlight and push Connnect, it asks you for the WEP key/passphrase and viola you are connected.

It gets a little more convoluted if you have to do a custom setup for WPA2-Enterprise.

[Pugnate]

I just had to reinstall Windows Vista after a period of a year, and despite installing all my apps etc., startup is almost instant compared to before.

Despite running all sorts of maintainence progs., startup was still taking much longer. Sometimes fresh installs make a load of a difference

[gpw11]

I find Windows 7 to boot and run faster than Vista.  Firefox opens almost instantly, where under Vista it was pretty slow to open.  I really like the new taskbar.  I find it to be much easier to work with a bunch of open windows than ever before.

That said, other than the taskbar and the performance, 7 is very much like Vista.  Oh and 7 has a much more flexible firewall than XP or Vista.

I have had trouble with some videos under 7.  Like HD videos on YouTube and videos on Netflix have this weird stutter to them many times.  Some others have complained of this too and it has been suggested that this is due to video driver immaturity.  I hope so, because it kind of sucks since this was not a problem area for me under Vista.
Wireless Zero Configuration is worlds better in Vista than it was in XP.  What do you mean that it lacks something?  Generally it shows available wireless, you highlight and push Connnect, it asks you for the WEP key/passphrase and viola you are connected.

It gets a little more convoluted if you have to do a custom setup for WPA2-Enterprise.

It's just how the network list is organized and how it's more of a bitch than in XP to do things like change the order of preferred networks.  Granted, a lot of that is just a lack of familiarity, but it can kind of be a bitch.  Also, it seems to remember networks I've been on and often shows them in the list even though I'm fucking miles away...but that could be a laptop issue.