MS Shills

For all you MS Shills that keep harping on how W7 is faster than XP. Stop it. It is questionably faster that Vista but that is it.

Benchmarks: http://gizmodo.com/5233098/windows-7-release-candidate-1-vs-vista-first-benchmarks

1ghz - 1gb Ram

I tried it (well, the beta) on an old 1,2 GHz AMD laptop with 256 MB Ram. Well, guess what? It works ! Granted you can't really work with it as the machine is swapping like mad, but it wasn't brilliant with XP already...

And I have it on a HP 2133 netbook equipped with a Via C7 CPU, that came preinstalled with Vista Home (Note to HP, putting a CPU that should be restricted to smartphones & Tivos in a Netbook and hoping to run Vista on it is just a very bad idea - put a real CPU inside!), and it runs quite nicely.

So, may I suggest to the penguin hugging crowd to stop babbling around, without even being able to back up their claims?

Like it or not, Win7 IS better than Vista (ok, that wasn't hard) performance wise, the interface is ok, and it doesn't crash every 5 minutes. Thing that hasn't happened since the era of Win9x/Me is over, and software can't just go write in memory segments that aren't theirs... And if your windows box still crashes, you might want to stop the urge to install all those sharewares you find on the CD given for free with a magazine you just bought ;)

Can't you guys just be positive ?

@Henry Wertz

The reason Linux and apples linux flavour have smaller footprints is because (drum roll for the elephant in the room....) they are smaller OSs, with fewer features.

Fewer features, you say?

Why, yes. The reason you don't know about the pretty staggering difference in feature sets, is because you're a user, not a sys admin.

Remember where win 2k came from? NT, the network OS. For the past decade MS have been dilligently working for us, not yourselves. Have a look in computer management at the services running, and google some of them - for the average home user, they do nothing. Stick it on my network, and I can make that machine positively sing and dance!

This is the true reason Linux hasn't made a dent in the corporate environment. Coupled with their overly simplistic implementations of ldap, kerberos and dragging their heals over DNS standards, lack or decent bandwidth management...

All of these features work out-the-box...

But I'm getting off-topic.

Win7 (Vista SP2) is actually a very toned and slim beast, considering what it's capable of.

(not @ Henry)

Oh, and if you've been having trouble keeping a post 2K MS OS running smoothly? How? Seriously, how utterly incompetent are you? I think you need a sys admin!

OK, I won't

So, what does windows 7 actually DO that windows XP doesn't?

I suppose being able to use more than 3gb of RAM has some merit, as that's probably a minimum requirement anyway.

But... but... what does it DO that windows XP doesn't?

If it delivers a faster, smoother OS experience, I'm sold - that's good enough.

You can throw all the eye-candy in the world into the interface, but if my programs don't run any faster, start quicker or run more reliably than under windows XP, why on earth would I switch?

Well, there's really only one reason - when the big software developers stop developing for Windows XP.

In the interim, Windows XP has such a wealth of software and customisation options, Microsoft are going to be hard pressed to convince users to switch.

To sum up, reasons to switch to Windows 7 for me would be:

1. Faster and more reliable

2. Cost - sub £200

All fine here.

Managed to download it fairly quickly yesterday morning - installed itself within an hour in an old Dell D610 with a gig of RAM. Feels a tad slower than the 7000 beta release, but works perfectly. I did however have to plug into the network to get the drivers for the wireless and graphics card but seems fine to me. Its certainly as fast as XP though.

Still looking good MS, but I'll still stop with 'nix for my home machines.

minimum specs

I think Microsoft have get the minimum specs about right for once. For vista they said 512 MB which was never enough. Vista runs OK on 1GB and windows 7 runs even better, much better on crappy hardware

Out of curiosity I put the 32 bit client on my now aging HP/compaq NX9020 (Celeron M 1.4) and it runs surprisingly well . Maxes out when playing full screen Flash content but so does my Macbook.

With Firefox running (which is a hog anyway) and avast installed memory Use is 602 MB

I dread to think what it would run like with Vista on it

Don't worry Microsoft, I won't rush to download it!

"your PC will begin shutting down every two hours" Don't worry about that either. I'm sure some enterprising person will figure out how to disable this "feature" in about two hours. I may take a whack at it myself.

The only reason...

.. I bought Vista was their promise of h264 decoding and satellite support in Media Centre via the TV Pack.

The same pack they then decided not to release to the public.

Lesson learned, MS like to shaft their customers.

Finally - an XP Replacement

I've been testing W7RC32 on a Dell Optiplex P4 2.8 with 512Mb RAM which is a typical machine around here. We were curious as to how it would run, but it's definitely faster than XP and our Intranet is like lightning under IE8 compared to an IE6 or 7 under XP which was a pleasant surprise. So far it seems a lot faster than XP on the same hardware, and feels lot nicer to use overall. No annoyances either which is nice.

Installation via WDS was also painless - simply load the WIM files from the DVD into a WDS server and instant network boot install. Installation is painless.

Very impressed so far - I plan to install it on my main work desktop machine for a real test

@ Michael Joyce - more English

Warning: here be some "Cut and paste" shenanigans:

<pedantic>

Bi

Main Entry:

1bi-

Function:

prefix

Etymology:

Middle English, from Latin — more at twi-

1 a: two <bilateral> b: coming or occurring every two <bicentennial> c: into two parts <bisect>2 a: twice : doubly : on both sides <biconvex> b: coming or occurring two times <biannual> — compare semi-3: between, involving, or affecting two (specified) symmetrical parts <bilabial>4 a: containing one (specified) constituent in double the proportion of the other constituent or in double the ordinary proportion <bicarbonate> b: di- 2 <biphenyl>

usage Many people are puzzled about bimonthly and biweekly, which are often ambiguous because they are formed from both senses 1b and 2b of bi-. This ambiguity has been in existence for nearly a century and a half and cannot be eliminated by the dictionary. The chief difficulty is that many users of these words assume that others know exactly what they mean, and they do not bother to make their context clear. So if you need bimonthly or biweekly, you should leave some clues in your context to the sense of bi- you mean. And if you need the meaning “twice a,” you can substitute semi- for bi-. Biannual and biennial are usually differentiated.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bi-%5B1%5D

(I appreciate the irony of cut and pasting from an American dictionary here, but I don't have access to OED)

So it does seem that bi-hourly could be correctly interpreted as either "twice an hour" or "every two hours". (Although the previous sentence would suggest they meant the second.)

</pedantic>

Ah... another classic

Since I've recently being playing around with Virtualbox I thought I'd have a look at the release candidate.

However going to the download page, I see I need a Windows Live ID... I don't have one... why is there no signup option? Why? Well because I'm using Opera 9 and their download page is broken when viewed with Opera and the signup button is missing!

Why bother?

After all, eComStation 2.0 RC6a is out, so why would anyone want W7?

Mine's the one with the install CD for GalCiv II Gold for OS/2 in the side pocket.

best ever

funny how most of you here probably haven't even tried Win7, but just love to slate it anyway! how sad.

i would recommend you stop the childlike bashing until you actually try the product...seems to me that just because MS have made it, you lot seem to instantly hate it. It is free, so why not uninstall the precious linux for a few weeks and give it a go. It's not that hard for all you techie's to rebuild a PC a few times is it?!

Windows 7 is the best O/S ever made, and it's not even finished yet! You will all see.

(and no, i dont work for MS).

All the best MS!

I tried the earlier version and I have to admit that it was a vast improvement on the "other " previous attempt, the big V. I wish MS all the very best for the future hope this works out well for them, no hard feelings.

I have to say, MS you won. Congrats! I simply couldn't keep up with the cracks and patches needed to keep Windows XP and Vista going, so I threw in the towel, dumped my PC and went Apple OS/X. I was lucky a relative bought me an iMac, finally using my PC to learn, rather than hording knocked off software.

Love, a reformed, former freetard!

june

@ DZ-Jay "Isn't "next June" a mere few weeks away?"

i think you'll find that is 'this' june.

Paris... go figure.

Bah

Bring on Snow Leopard. That baby's gonna fly.

@"As normal... "

Ha ha

If MS are so chuffed about how many people are switching from some dumbed down netbook OS then why don't hey give people the opportunity to declare their Windows love?

Surely they should be shouting it from the rooftops, no?

P.S. Why do all you MS shills/fanbois/investors post as AC all the time? It's like there's only one or two of you who just keep on posting the same old tired lines over and over and over and over.

Paris, because she knows nothing about being anonymous.

Daft question - Can I not just change the clocks date???

So if I change my clock to the correct date but year 2000 I have 10 years of usage for free? coooooooooooool! Coat needed??

@DZ-Jay

This is hardly the place for a complete feature list, and going into details over the the advantages/disadvantages between the Windows/Linux counterparts could take up a whole site, so at best I could give a handful of examples.

Bear in mind also, we are still discussing the OS footprint, so we are talking about features that are built in, laying dormant until a sysadmin with a domain controller carresses them into life. As opposed to separate entities or 3rd party apps that need installing.

Also, let's not hear any paranoid screams over security. These services are locked down tight as a drum (epsecially since SP3), and all communication with them is encrpyted by default (ironically, we've had to disable some of the encryption features to allow our Unix server to authenticate, due to it's limited Kerberos facilities.)

Background Intelligent Transfer Service

Commonly used only by windows update in the wild, it allows for interrupted file transfer resumes, but connected to a corporate network is also used to deploy OS installs, group policy updates and many other core features of the OS (as well as being an open API for 3rd party developers).

The key difference here is that you can define bandwidth throttling of all transactions across your network, to avoid conjestion, including cross-site link prioritization and scheduling. Crucial if you have a globe spanning network.

Windows Management Instrumentation

Incredibly powerful - Allows SQL querying of nearly every aspect of your client and vital for auditing of your software/hardware inventory. I was able to obtain the serial number off the battery of a users laptop from the other side of the world!

Microsoft Installer

MSI packages are not executables (most setup.exe files are self extracting msi packages) , they are relational database files that use the STANDARDISED (You hear that Linux devs?) MsiExec installer service. If the software developer has followed the well documented stadards, then the software can be fully managed and distributed to all clients from the server for automated (and virtually bulletproof) self-repairing installs.

Group Policy Management

Where to start? Every last element of a windows environment can be configured from the server by applying a group policy to the OU container that holds either the user or computer account, from what NTFS rights they have on the hard disk or registry, network resources, printers, roaming profiles, automated software installs, configuration of 3rd party software preferences, what you get in the start menu, whether they get the system tray clock...

These are just a tiny fraction of the features that Linux either isn't as good at, or simply doesn't have. For a hobbiest with a small workgroup, Linux is fine, but an enterprise administrator spanning multiple sites and countries needs a more mature, fully fledged and fully manageable OS both at the server and the client end.

Who cares about a few extra gig of hard disc space if it's going to save me countless man-hours in maintenance?

Lowest spec used?

OK.

<accent="yorkshire" python="monty">

I shall be using the same machine I used to test the beta, which was the same machine I tested Windows Server 2008 Beta on, which is a 1 GHz PIII with 512MB. It was good enough for those other systems, not to mention openSUSE 11.0, so it should be good enough for this.

And you tell the youngsters today, and they won't believe you!

</accent>

However, I should mention that the only problem I've had so far with W7Beta on this test system is driver related, which reminds me of every other Windows release going back at least to W95 and possibly before!

Mozilla won't install

Tried 3.0.10 and 3.5. Did not install. No error message, nothing happens.

If Microsoft are going to muck about with childish anti competitive behaviour like this then they can stick it.

works here

i installed it no problem, you sure it's not user-error?

@ Neill Mitchell

I'm writing this in Firefox 3.0.10 on my Windows 7 BETA .

OMG... Features!

Background Intelligent Transfer Service - Yup. We have Secure Shell for that. Also, Linux has loads of QoS options that you can use, should you desire to do so. It's actually pretty typical of Microsoft to implement bandwidth throttling in their file transfer program, instead of at the network level where it belongs.

Windows Management Instrumentation - Sounds lovely, doesn't it? I was most surprised when Linux told me the amount of juice left in my cordless mouse's battery. It would be even nicer if all hardware manufacturers would implement those management functions consistently. Just getting the serial number off all the machines would be nice. However, there are still machines where you're reduced to crawling behind them and copying faded little stickers...

Microsoft Installer - Oh my god... You mean MS has an installer now? Based on Relational Database Files? Yeah, whatever. I forget when the Debian Package Manager made its appearance, but it's been with us for a good bit. It will auto-install and auto-configure all software, and administer package name, version number and whatnot in a neat list so you can easily see what's on there. It also automatically resolves requisites, downloading them off teh Internets where required. (So nice not to have to worry about license keys, license daemons, activation, Windows Ginuwine Advantage, copy protection and all those other things that MS wastes your time with). Or you can point it at your own repository. The MS installer has nothing on Debian Package Manager and APT. You didn't think we were still busily hand-crufting installs with "make install" did you?

Group Policy Management - What Linux don't do out of the install images, you can usually control with a small shellscript. I can control up to the last comma what someone gets on their screen with Linux.

"(ironically, we've had to disable some of the encryption features to allow our Unix server to authenticate, due to it's limited Kerberos facilities.)"

Yeah... There's a reason for that. You see, what you Windows people see as "Kerberos", is actually Mostly-Kerberos with a few little non-standard MS pimples added, just to be incompatible with anything else. So-called-LDAP is the same. I'm actually surprised that MS *lets* you disable their pimples. You see, in our happy Unix world, the word "standard" actually means something. It means that all the Unix-makers (Sun, IBM, HP, and the Linux Hive-mind) have agreed to do things all the same. That means, for instance, that graphical X11 applications from all those platforms happily display next to each other on my Linux workstation. It also means that I don't care what Unix a DNS server is running, because it's standard and will always work. Even after fifteen years or so in IT, I still have to see my first correctly-functioning Windows-based DNS server.

So yes, any idiot can configure a DNS server on Windows. However, that also means that you get a DNS server configured by an idiot. Ask them to do something not immediately obvious, and they're at a loss and muttering direly about how only a freak would want something like that.