Windows 7: what's the early word?
 

Any of you guys try Windows 7 yet? A public beta will be available for download tomorrow.

Here's a story about it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/08/microsoft.ballmer/index.html

We downloaded today. 2.5 GB for the image. Supposedly its lighter than XP, but I don't know how at 2.5 GB. Oh, there's a patch already too that didn't make it to the image. I should know more in a few days.

Thanks, Joe. Are you downloading it for personal use, or in a more server client atmosphere. I was thinking about Windows 7 for our network here at work.

I grabbed the ISO yesterday too. This being the first public release of the beta, it will be interesting to see the extent of the default device drivers that are included.

I usually don't let someone get 7 tries to get it right.

Using that logic ( using the term loosely), Porsche has been trying to get the 911 right for 44 years and we should have all given up on them at the beginning.

Yeah but I don't have to hook up my 911 up every other day at 2 AM to get the ECU flashed for updates.

Actually, I think they got it right in 1964. :)

LOL it'd be nice if all we had to do was turn on our 911 so Porsche could make it work better for us and make it harder to steal, all for free ;)

BTW that 2 am thing is user set, you can change that to any time you want and as often as you want.

Evaluation for corporate use. We should be installing it on some PCs n the next few days.

what's the early word?

Linux

What's so wrong with XP that MS keeps trying to 'improve?'

• DRM
• licensing revenue
• support revenue

At this rate, it will be a miracle for me to consider buying a PC for my son when he graduates this spring............Hello Mac!

MS needs to get their $hit together.

I agree. except for the sleazebag hackers and virus creators who are always trying to ruin it for everyone else, XP works just fine.
The problem is a company like MS needs to come out with a new product occasionally to make money. Built-in obsolescence so to speak.
They may have shot themselves in the foot because XP is hard to top, re: vista.

If you sell a really good product that works well, is popular, and lasts a really long time, you need to either find more customers or go broke. There aren't very many new computer customers out there.

you go ahead and pay 3 times as much for an equivalent product and then tell us how dumb we all are.

Mac owners are automatically smarter. And better looking. Haven't you seen the commercials?

LOL, yeah, those commercials crack me up.

I own an early 911. What's your point?

You're just not as picky, John. ;)

That smug laid back Mac guy is someone who is just begging to be smashed up and stuck in a trash can. Or run over by a bus.

rjp

Its not bad, will post some screenshots in a bit. Was available on MSDN on the 7th to me, and I'm surprised the public beta is so soon to the MSDN release.

I can partition part of the hard drive on my Mac to run Windows. I wonder how 7 might work in that environment? Hmmm...I might work on downloading it tonight.

What kind of mac do you have? People on the mac forums have got it to work flawlessly with their macbook pros. The only real "tweak" you need to do is download the vista version of the sound drivers.

That's like saying you are dumb for paying $75,000 for a new 911, when you can get a Honda civic for a lot less and it will get you to the same destination.

A MacBook with OSX 10.5.5. I've had XP on this machine before. Now it's just straight Mac OS.

I do plan to put a Windows partition on it, though, so I may as well try 7 once I do.

Not a lot of usage info yet, but it installs into 8 GB, which is nice and small.

8 GB. I like that...

8GB is nothing anymore. In the business world we use storage in increments nothing smaller than 300GB and often well over several terabytes. You want a small OS footprint you better be ready to deal with limitations.

Hell, ever our SLES 10 servers are set on 50GB partitions now, and they use most of it. Welcome to the modern age. 8GB is more like the minimal amount of ram you want to have by next year.

Howz that non-galvanized short wheelbase with lead weights on the front bumper thing and the solex carbs workin for ya? ;)

My point is that the 911 has evolved over the years and is still evolving. It has been modified and improved many, many times. Most of the time the changes were for the better, some were not. Very similar to MS products.

LWB, didn't need lead, MFI, and I'm sure it would make you wet yourself on the track. :)

μsoft made a number of crap OS's over the years, is plagued with all kinds of security problems, and keeps trying to get it right. The recent ad campaign they ran to change people's thinking about Vista was just pitiful. I didn't/don't see Porsche doing this. Simply a bad analogy.

So you are saying that an equivalent Mac is many times better than a PC?
I know they have better commercials, but I usually don't pay that much attention to what they say.

To compare a honda to a PC and a 911 to a mac:

A 911 is a little faster than a honda and handles a little better. It costs three times more than a honda but is nowhere near three times faster. it does not handle three times better. It's lap times might be 10% or 20% better but not 300% better as the price difference would suggest.

A honda is more economical. A honda is more reliable. A honda has a better resale value. A honda makes more sense economically. Parts are cheaper and easier to find. They are often easier to work on.
A 911 may be more fun to drive but a honda is much smarter. For a few $ thousand you can make that honda handle better than a 911, go faster than a 911, and still be more economical to own and drive. If i want to screw around I drive my 911. But if i need reliability and need to get where i want to go without any problems ever, I'd be better off driving a honda there.

Funny that is a mac is sooooo much better than a PC, why they don't sell very many of them compared to PCs? Is it that good of a secret, or do most people simply know better to pay many times as much for a product that may only be slightly better?

My PC works just fine. no problems. I paid a couple hundred dollars for the parts and put it together myself. A comparable apple product would probably cost close to $700.
I can upgrade it at any time easily if I want. Not as easy with a MAC. More expensive with a Mac. Harder to find components for a mac. Similar to a 911 ;)

Major driver for PC's is that at the moment they are the legacy system. Most commercial software has Windows as its target and most corporations use Windows as their desktop. Historically that has been the safe bet as "everyone does it" and there was lots of support available hardware, software and assistance. Tradeoff was that the PC/Windows wasn't a great platform but it was good enough and did the job.

Vista changed that, now we have a heavyweight, intrusive machine hog that is seeking to extend its control into other areas of business (e.g. Sharepoint, DRM etc) and that is unacceptable to most companies as they have other solutions from other vendors that they are generally OK with.

What most companies need is a relatively lightweight, reasonably functioned desktop that is easy to manage and easy to deploy and does not unduly lock you into a single vendor, especially one such as Microsoft who's business practices are predatory to say the least. Vista is the opposite....if Windows 7 does not move towards that, then CIO's will begin looking for alternatives and the Mac may be one.

personally, having been CIO for the last 15 years at various companies, this is a trend that repeats itself....Univac did it, IBM did it, Digital did it and now Microsoft is doing it again. They will likely pay the price as people begin to move to open systems and some vendor will build a simpler platform on Linux (as an example) that will then rapidly eat Microsoft's lunch for them.

7 is Microsoft's last chance to get it "righter".

Dennis

...

I agree with everything Dennis said except "7 is Microsoft's last chance to get it "righter"." I do agree that they should act like it is, but there is simply too much invested corporately to walk away.

Now, that said, I just installed it while watching Titians - Ravens. Pretty straight forward install, I don't think an animal cracker could screw it up.

So far it is pretty much as advertised. Boot up and shut down is fast, and the old User Control stuff is dumbed way down. Seem to be lots of new user interface mods that will take a while to figure out.

I'll start adding a few apps and see how performance is affected. So far, so good. :D

I haven't had a chance to try the Windows 7 Beta yet, but it is very very fast compared to Vista x64 and XP.

I'm a pc overclocker at heart, and some of my overclocking colleagues are actually besting their own personal bests and world records with Windows 7 Beta.

That being said, I recently made the move to try out Vista a few weeks ago, granted I cheated and picked up a stripped to the bones "Lite" version and it is wicked fast and reliable for me due to the bloat being stripped off its bones.

Hopefully MS keeps Windows 7 like it is in Beta form when they go to release it, I really think it will be a home run, minus the stupid OSX like toolbar. ;):p

To be clear, my thought is that corporate IT-dom is waiting to see if Windows 7 allows them to move forward in a sensible way, if so, then any thoughts of going to a different platform will probably disappear, if Microsoft continues on their current trend and offers difficulty in any material way (licensing, upgrade options, speed, compatibility of the user interface etc) then they'll start looking and the dangerous slide for Microsoft begins.

For the first time in years some of my CIO chums are starting to seriously ask what life would be like if they gave Macbooks to the road warriors or executives. Worry for Microsoft is that once the high priced staff get Mac's, everyone else will get technology envy and want one too (what interests my boss fascinates me!).

Wouldn't have believed it 3 years ago....but it is real....

Dennis

It's too bad everyone can't stick to the original topic when computers come up here. It's almost as bad as politics.

I am anxious to see what 7 is like. I just bought a $500 laptop with 4gig memory, Vista 64, 2ghz dual core centrino. It is only used for surfing the internet, document creation, etc. I am hoping it will scream on 7. The only complaint I have about Vista so far is that it is a resource hog. Supposedly 7 will not be a resource hog.

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