I think 50-Calibre AssHole! makes some very good points.

SLaX wrote:I attended a MS conference in Tampa FL after I got my MCDST that was for the release of Vista and Office 2007. In one of the workshops they said that Vista was supposed to introduce a new filesystem but that they ran out of time. They promised Vista to be out and decided to put it out still running NTFS. They also said they were going to finally include (sneak) the new filesystem in a service pack update.

I believe you are referring to WinFS? This was originally announced as part of Microsoft's "Cairo" project back in the early 90's, which was little more than smoke and mirrors to keep people from moving to Apple, Next, or IBM. Cairo was never finished and was mainly used to buy time as Microsoft continued developing NT.

This trick from the 90's was essentially replayed with Vista. As many people predicted, WinFS was pulled out of Vista before it was released.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cairo#Features

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/ ... 99D7D.html

I just got me a copy of this crap off a a popular torrent site and put it on my old spare PC that was running XP. My XP was hella slower (probably for a variety of reasons) but more stable . I've had two blue screens show up since installing 3 days ago. They haven't led to anything serious thus far. The only feature that I can see as an improvement is the ability to have a regular user require an admin pass when doing anything that requires admin privileges. Other than that it is prettier, and that's about it.

I never got a chance to use Vista so I am not familar with it. But can tell you that even with my last MS experience being with XP, it's really just more of the same crap with Win7. Some of the new features are features that have existed on the open source platforms for years now. Was kinda shocked at this, well not really, I guess I was expecting some drastic changes. Thor out...

MS is fail

OK, I consider myself the last person to advocate windows or any other OS, because few people really understand what an OS is about, and most stick to the pretty menus and neat effects they see on their N number of switchable desktops... However, having migrated to Windows 7 from XP (was lucky enough to try them beforehand, thank you amazing job) and having made that decision before they even came out, I think you're being biased. Here's why:

Have you compared searching between XP ( ) and 7?
Does XP have any protection against malware?
or full disk encryption?
or applocker?
or DirectX 11?
or powershell?
Have you compared performance on multi-core processors?
Have you seen how fast Windows 7 is on a SSD?
Have you compared the virtualization support? (what? you had to pay for it in XP professional? did I hear that right?)
The new networking API in 7 is just awesome. (I thought I'd mention since I'm already using it a lot)

and the only feature you see as an improvement (UAC) is terribly, terribly broken (it's already easier to exploit than its Vista counterpart implementation).

And yeah, most features have already existed outside an OS for quite some time, but if you're gonna compare OSs...

PS. Haven't seen a bsod since 2004. I'm the last person to take into account on that.

mfukar wrote:OK, I consider myself the last person to advocate windows or any other OS, because few people really understand what an OS is about, and most stick to the pretty menus and neat effects they see on their N number of switchable desktops... However, having migrated to Windows 7 from XP (was lucky enough to try them beforehand, thank you amazing job) and having made that decision before they even came out, I think you're being biased. Here's why:


Have you compared searching between XP ( ) and 7?
Does XP have any protection against malware?
or full disk encryption?
or applocker?
or DirectX 11?
or powershell?
Have you compared performance on multi-core processors?
Have you seen how fast Windows 7 is on a SSD?
Have you compared the virtualization support? (what? you had to pay for it in XP professional? did I hear that right?)
The new networking API in 7 is just awesome. (I thought I'd mention since I'm already using it a lot)

and the only feature you see as an improvement (UAC) is terribly, terribly broken (it's already easier to exploit than its Vista counterpart implementation).

And yeah, most features have already existed outside an OS for quite some time, but if you're gonna compare OSs...

PS. Haven't seen a bsod since 2004. I'm the last person to take into account on that.

You will not be the last person to advocate an OS. While true, most ppl don't understand what an OS is about, I believe I do. I also believe MS is still obviously trying to improve this. I believe closed source development cannot ever achieve what an OS is about. MS tries to make the OS seem as if things are built in and native to windows, but this still isn't entirely true. It's still relying on more 3rd party code for alot of the features you have mentioned, or addins at the least. This, from where im standing, is proving to be fairly problematic on Win7.

1.)Yes, what's your point? It does the same thing, without the wizard dude or jumping dog....

2.)Malware protection is installable on XP, I always just ran ccleaner with custom settings, always clearing my temp files. I never really caught anything with my malware scanners afetr doing that. At this point in my life im simply not gonna believe any MS based built in malware protection is worth a damn right now.

3.)Truecrypt I was using on XP, Open source ftw. Bitlocker is a neat feature, but again, not a new concept in computing at all.

4.)You just don't work from the admin account on XP...Yes, I mentioned that, or I meant to memtion "applocker" more specifically. This was the only thing I noticed at that point in my use. This will undoubtedly become a hugh attack vector and be rendered crap in time. We will then look for things to install to help us, ie. MS security updates and tools that will slow the PC down.

5.)Neato, proprietary graphics for proprietary games. Doesn't that go with fancy graphics department though?

6.)Had powershell on XP, what's your point?

7.)Too poor for newer multi core processors at the moment, so no I haven't. Nor would I honestly run an XP vs. Win7 comparison test for this. But being that multi core is more popular now, I'd expect support to be better.

8.)Have not seen the blazing speed of Win7 on a SSD, but mentioned it's seems faster even on my old POS lappy. I have read there are vast improvements there. But so are alot of things when stored like that. Plus I have't infected it yet and installed very many things, I'm sure I can slow it down soon. lol

9.)Virtualization support, From what I've read isn't really ironed out yet. It seesm to be power hungry also. Yay, I can still do XP on my new Win7.....I'd say

10.)Networking API, will explore more. Is this supposed to be a .net replacement?

I try to keep as many differnet OS's, distros and software on hand as possible to compare them, and play with them and ultimatley break them. My first glance was it's looks the same and works similar to lder Win versions. I still believe so today. Is this that far from the truth? Despite your revelations?

PS. Haven't seen a bsod since 2004. I'm the last person to take into account on that.
// Good, I suppose I'm unlucky then. Strange how I got this with my upgrade install though. Can't say I've had many either for some time when on XP. This doesn't mean that the masses haven't reported this, because the masses not only have been reporting this, I have experienced this in a short time with next to no outside software installed also.

Please understand each users experience will differ, I personaly don't use a win based PC for power computing, even with things you have mentioned in 7, it just isn't able to work how I need it to.


Believe me when I tell you I have't taken the time to learn the ins and out of my fav disrtos and platforms because of eyecandy. Understand what an OS or software in general is about and you may not be such a MS advocate.


My overall personal review is that yes, there has been some improvements. It runs smoother also so far with the exception of the glitches I encountered. Could be because it's a new install....Was apparenly desiged to really take advantage of higher end hardware and blah blah. Will the improvements stand the test of time and prove to be very good? Only time will tell.

Is MS still fail regardless, yes.

As always, to each their own.

I don't want to get into a Windows vs * discussion so I'll try to keep it from getting there, but in the meantime....

mfukar wrote:PS. Haven't seen a bsod since 2004. I'm the last person to take into account on that.

You're very lucky! I used to see them more than I liked on my work laptop (XP SP2 -> SP3) -- having a heap of various work-related software installed didn't help, the chances of conflicts increases with the more shit you have on a system

Thor wrote:You will not be the last person to advocate an OS. While true, most ppl don't understand what an OS is about, I believe I do. I also believe MS is still obviously trying to improve this. I believe closed source development cannot ever acheive what an OS is about.

Isn't the purpose of an OS just as subjective as any other opinion? If not, then what is an OS *really* about?

Thor wrote:My first glance was it's looks the same and works similar to lder Win versions. I still believe so today. Is this that far from the truth? Despite your revelations?

I would agree with this; Windows 7 does look and work similar to previous Windows versions. But this should be a given; MS would be taking a huge risk in making radical changes to Windows at this point.

IMO, Windows 7 is, essentially, the same as Windows Vista, which is also, essentially, the same as Windows XP. I'm not referring to kernel versions, bloat, or eye candy, but to the feel of the OS, it's essence. An XP user can (with varying degree of slight frustration) jump on Vista or 7 and navigate the slight changes in UI. This is one reason why everyone uses Windows: they know it. If MS changed Windows to run more like a Linux distro, for example, then we'd be singing a different tune, because it's painfully obvious that people don't like change.
(Keeping in mind the majority of people have only used two or three versions of Windows, and didn't experience the overhaul of 3.x > 95).

Thor wrote:My overall personal review is that yes, there has been some improvements. It runs smoother also so far with the exception of the glitches I encountered. Will the improvements stand the test of time and prove to be very good? Only time will tell.

Indeed, only time will tell. I find it interesting that I've been using Windows 7 since New Year's, at which time I formatted my Windows Server 2008 desktop install in favour of the leaked Windows 7 beta version. I installed Windows 7 RC once that was made available from MS. And to this point, I haven't had any problems. The word on the internet is that Windows 7 is getting mixed results: some people are having stability issues and software problems, while others are cruising along flawlessly. I'm fortunately part of the latter so don't really have anything negative to say about Windows 7.
The difference, though, is that I'm still running the RC version while the people with issues (at least, the ones I've read about) are running the retail version.

Well, It's Nice For Me With 2GB Of RAM And An Intel Atom 330 (Dualcore, 64bit, HTT, 1.6GHz)
Too Bad I Only Have The x86 Version, I CAN Run x64 Too

Thor wrote:I try to keep as many differnet OS's, distros and software on hand as possible to compare them, and play with them and ultimatley break them. My first glance was it's looks the same and works similar to lder Win versions. I still believe so today. Is this that far from the truth? Despite your revelations?

No, of course it isn't. Windows, despite our constant nagging, works (ok, most of the time ) and I wouldn't expect MS to change that. On the other hand, I consider Win7 an improvement over previous versions of windows, even if it's a slight one.

Thor wrote:Please understand each users experience will differ, I personaly don't use a win based PC for power computing, even with things you have mentioned in 7, it just isn't able to work how I need it to.

Of course, not everyone has the same experience with software, which is why we're having this conversation in the first place.

Thor wrote:Believe me when I tell you I have't taken the time to learn the ins and out of my fav disrtos and platforms because of eyecandy. Understand what an OS or software in general is about and you may not be such a MS advocate.

I'm sorry if I came off as insulting, I was only trying to point out that when I "take sides" on such topics I'm not vouching for the eyecandy - which I find more impressive on linux, for example, heh. It's just that I've seen people praising Vista just because of Aero and /vomit one too many times.

Thor wrote:My overall personal review is that yes, there has been some improvements. It runs smoother also so far with the exception of the glitches I encountered. Could be because it's a new install....Was apparenly desiged to really take advantage of higher end hardware and blah blah. Will the improvements stand the test of time and prove to be very good? Only time will tell.

Is MS still fail regardless, yes.

I totally agree.

All good in da hood. I still have my Win7 Ultimate on my other computer. I have had a variety of things happen with it at this point in time, mainly what seems to be compatability issues with some software. I had Comodo firewall running on it for awhile, but it seems to not like it very much; causing reboots after 30 minutes and network problems. Currently the machine isn't actually even booting. My hardware specs may be a little too low for it though. I dunno, when it works it's fun to play with. As with anything else, when it's broke it's no fun.

One thing to note of interest about Win7 Ultimate before my failure was this though (and this may be for ultimate only PC's). If I remember correctly , my default install had 13 open ports (netbios on by default, a variety of RPC stuff and all typical MS scan output). I was able to lock it up to only 4 open fairly easily. It was very easy to poke at from my other computer next to it. It really is set up for all types of sharing with other computers. Gotta lock dat ho up. If I didn't have a standalone firewall in my network this could have been an easy target if this would have been seen by the public web.

Windows 7 is just a combination of Windows-XP and Windows Vista. It looks like Vista and work like XP. Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, Direct Access, and kernel improvements. The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes. One of the biggest new features makes Windows Media Player useful again: you can now stream media files from one Windows 7 computer to another, across the Internet and out of network.

calieigh wrote:Windows 7 is just a combination of Windows-XP and Windows Vista. It looks like Vista and work like XP. Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, Direct Access, and kernel improvements. The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes. One of the biggest new features makes Windows Media Player useful again: you can now stream media files from one Windows 7 computer to another, across the Internet and out of network.

Yes, that PC to PC media stream share was one of the default services running that was causing an open port. Not entirely sure how vulnerable that makes things.

Thor wrote:Yes, that PC to PC media stream share was one of the default services running that was causing an open port. Not entirely sure how vulnerable that makes things.

That's one of many new network resource sharing features that are potential vulnerabilities. Fortunately, you have the ability to disable them (streaming media, shared drives, blah blah), and typically they're not an issue if you're running them over a secure home network. Schools and businesses are another matter.

Windows 7 has more non compatibility issues with software than I have ever seen before. Another trip back to the drawing board and return with the drivers for previous software editions either that or be prepared to dish out anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand to replace simple programs, lets hope the future is better, if possible I will return to Vista and even XP..

michaledoughlas wrote:Windows 7 has more non compatibility issues with software than I have ever seen before. Another trip back to the drawing board and return with the drivers for previous software editions either that or be prepared to dish out anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand to replace simple programs, lets hope the future is better, if possible I will return to Vista and even XP..

You know that you can use Vista drivers for Win7, right?

michaledoughlas wrote:Windows 7 has more non compatibility issues with software than I have ever seen before. Another trip back to the drawing board and return with the drivers for previous software editions either that or be prepared to dish out anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand to replace simple programs, lets hope the future is better, if possible I will return to Vista and even XP..

Windows XP had some rather severe security problems. Microsoft made a tough decision with Vista and 7 to fix some of these security problems, which broke compatibility with some XP programs and drivers. A lot of programs written for XP assume full admin access, which simply will not work on Vista and 7.

Personally, I am glad Microsoft decided to do this.