Microsoft's New Operating System Is Good Enough to Erase Bad Memory of Vista

[babylonsister]

A Windows to Help You Forget
Microsoft's New Operating System Is Good Enough to Erase Bad Memory of Vista

*
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG


In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft's long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company's reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users. PC makers will rush to flood physical and online stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who wish to upgrade.

With Windows 7, PC users will at last have a strong, modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP, which is still the most popular version of Windows, despite having come out in 2001. In the high-tech world, an eight-year-old operating system is the equivalent of a 20-year-old car. While XP works well for many people, it is relatively weak in areas such as security, networking and other features more important today than when XP was designed around 1999.

After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced. It's a boost to productivity and a pleasure to use. Despite a few drawbacks, I can heartily recommend Windows 7 to mainstream consumers.

Like the new Snow Leopard operating system released in August by Microsoft's archrival, Apple, Windows 7 is much more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary product. Its main goal was to fix the flaws in Vista and to finally give Microsoft customers a reason to move up from XP. But Windows 7 is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience.

Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.

more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703298004574459293141191728.html#mod=todays_us_personal_journal

[thunder rising]

1. still spending money on a Virus Enabled Operating System?

[RKP5637]

2. Ubuntu - Linux - http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://www.ubuntu.com/

[thunder rising]

4. Good enough to erase the bad memory of Microsoft alltogether

[RKP5637]

5. Yep! Definitely True!

[thereismore]

23. Ha! A good one. A SuSE user here. nt

[RKP5637]

SuSE is great too! I've used both SuSE and Ubuntu, anything but MS!

[BumRushDaShow]

42. +1000 for SuSE

SuSE 11.1. SuSE user since 1999. :applause:

[Swamp Rat]

33. 9.04 Jaunty

:thumbsup:

[Touchdown]

66. That picture's dirty! Japanese tentacle sex manga!

Looks like their having ear sex!:puke: :rofl:

[gkhouston]

68. One person's stink is another person's kink.

:evilgrin:

[personman]

73. I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional, programmer, technician, and web-designer, and I LOVE Linux!

Don't buy in to the FUD: it's not junk and it is not a toy.

http://anarchismtoday.org/News/article/sid=138.html">Kubuntu 9.04 Alpha preview (slightly dated, but still largely relevant.)

It is perfectly capable of doing the vast majority of tasks the average user needs to do: If you use your computer for web-browing, YouTube, E-mailing, and Word Processing, or a variety of other tasks, you need not spend another penny on Microsoft software.

My current distribution of choice is http://kubuntu.org/">Kubuntu, which is a version of Ubuntu based on the state-of-the-art KDE 4 desktop.

I have about 5 networked computers in my house, all running Kubuntu and OpenOffice. If I were to purchase a copy of Windows and Office for each PC, we would probably be looking at around $1400 in software... I should mention this is a conservative estimate: If you buy premium editions of Windows and Office you might double that amount...

If I had to purchase Windows and Office for my computers, I would have to sell my computers. I've not even factored in what it would cost to keep 5 commercial anti-virus softwares up-to-date...

To put it simply, I can't afford Microsoft. Can you? And even if you can, SHOULD you?

-Andy Rink

I should mention you don't NEED Linux to run OpenOffice: It is cross-platform, and Windows versions ARE available.

[alfredo]

81. It runs well on OSX, and there is a Java version called NeoOffice for OSX.

[Statistical]

101. Why would you pay for Antivirus.

Avast is one of the few programs to ever be awarded VB100 award (stopped 100% of viruses in the wild during testing) and has received it for multiple years.

Tiny foot print, not a resource hog like the "big 2", just works and is free.

[BabbaTam]

76. Ubuntu/Netflix

I love my Ubuntu, but can't stream Netflix! Any suggestions?

[RKP5637]

78. No, sorry, I don't use Netflix. I was just looking at the Ubuntu forums and...

it certainly seems problematic to me at this time...

[Toucano]

91. What a stupid move.

It is a highly competitive industry, that content delivery.

Why in the world would Netflix choose to put an obstacle like Silverlight between them an a paying customer?

Then the geniuses wonder why piratebay thrives.

[RKP5637]

96. I was amazed! I would think NetFlix would want it as compatible as possible. ...

Bad business plan to me! Apparently now it works with Macs. From some brief searching it was rumored to be avail. for Linux mid-2009. It looks like now it might be supported for Linux by "Boxee," but I know nothing about Boxee. http://www.boxee.tv/homepage/

[RKP5637]

97. Please see my post in this sub-thread. It might work with Boxee now for Linux.

I don't know anything about Boxee, but here is a link to it. http://www.boxee.tv/homepage/ Maybe this will help some. Hope so. I was searching around some for you.

[Toucano]

92. Pure joy, Ubuntu! n/t

[thunder rising]

3. Doesn't this thread belong on ... say ... slashdot?

[paparush]

7. Nooooo. Slashdot leans pretty heavily to the right.

[thunder rising]

13. And MS pay-to-play monopoly enforced operating systems is a *lefty* kind of thing?

Looks like somebody got ass-kicked on the tech-sites and so pushing this crap here licking wounds.

[krawhitham]

48. And how many operating systems does Mac have?

[SpiralHawk]

55. When you have one OS that works, that's all you need

You just keep making it better and better...

[niceypoo]

94. Or you abandon it all together like Apple did...

...and start running a Mac interface on the UNIX operating system.

[niceypoo]

93. When Mac comes out with a new OS, you have to buy a new computer

...because they stop supporting the old one. Macs are fine, but they basically rape their customers.

...and the training wheels DONT COME OFF

[PatGund]

105. Wrong...

I still have a G4 tower that started off as a 400Mhz machine running OS 9, that I got in 1998.

Eleven years later, it's been beefed up to a dual processor 1.25 Ghz, new graphics card, larger hard drives, and is running OS X 10.5.8

Since I've had it, it's ran:

OS 9

OS X Public Beta

OS X 10.0

OS X 10.1

OS X 10.2

OS X 10.3

OS X 10.4

OS X 10.5 (final version, as 10.6 removes PPC support.)

I also have it set to boot into an earlier PPC version of Edubuntu as well.

You also have full terminal and can boot into command line if you want.

So no, you don't have to buy a new computer with each OS X version, and you can remove the training wheels at any time.

[Art_from_Ark]

107. Actually, it's true to a certain extent

My iBook clamshell, which came with OS 9, won't run anything higher than 10.3.
My iMac Lime and Indigo machines, which also came with OS 9, also won't run anything higher than OS 10.3
My silver PowerPC will run 10.5, but with great difficulty (and only from an external HDD)
My iBook 14-inch will run 10.5 well enough, but I have heard that 10.6 will only run on an Intel Mac

[PatGund]

116. Tray or slot loaders??

If the iMac are tray loaders, then yes, they lack firewire and they top out at 10.3 (which still leaves 5 versions of the Mac OS they were able to run.)

If a slot loader, they top out at 10.4.11

I don't know what your silver one is. G4 tower with mirrored doors, or G5? In either case, the problem with 10.5 sounds like an internal bus problem rather than an OS issue.

and yes, 10.6 is Intel only

[niceypoo]

120. LOL

Good luck getting support from Apple

[PatGund]

122. *shrug*

I've had absolutely no problems getting support from Apple in the past for my equipment, so why should that be a problem.

[PatGund]

103. Well, let's see.....

On my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, I currently have;

OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

Windows XP (Dual Boot and Virtualization)

Windows 7 public beta (Virtualization)

Ubuntu 9.04 (Virtualization)

So that's four so far.

[Xithras]

34. Not really, Slashdot is full of libertarian/meritocritous utopians.

So says the guy with a 5 digit Slashdot ID (though I haven't posted there regularly in years). It's full of technophiles with a strong head for geekspeak, and an amazing dearth of understanding about how the real world works. It's also a great example of why unions never had a chance in the tech world.

[Terry in Austin]

86. A lot like _Wired_ magazine

I stopped subscribing, but it had that same strange political vibe, kind of extropian digital Ayn Rand or something.

I saw one description of it as "the default politics of the Net." I think that was from the book Cyberselfish, by Paulina Borsook.

[still_one]

6. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, unfortunately Microsoft will not provide XP users

a direct upgrade path to windows 7, so the thousands of business users on XP will be in no hurry to upgrade to Windows 7

This could provide an opportunity to Apple and others, but I don't see Apple lowering their prices, and no one can touch the development environment that Microsoft provides

It is amazing that the effective hardware and software Apple produces, its development environment software can't touch Microsoft's development tools

[MattBaggins]

8. What Vista should have been

Windows 7 is a giant service pack to fix Vistas flaws and bugs... and MS is going to charge full price for it.

[still_one]

85. It is a hell of a lot more than just a standard SP /nt

[CatholicEdHead]

88. I would agree

I see this as Vista SP3 actually done correctly. XP was a pain until SP2 and then it became a useable OS.

[Statistical]

9. What business in their right mind runs an OS upgrade?

1) Backup data (likely already done in realtime in a domain environment)
2) Nuke the drive.
3) Install windows 7 (clean install), all drivers, all apps, all patches
4) Make image
5) Deploy image
6) Restore user files via backup.

Even if there was an upgrade option any competent IT department would do the same thing.

[MindPilot]

25. I want to work there!

Realtime backups? Standardized hardware? Driver availability? Next you're going to tell me there are spare computers available to users while the re-image is done. Those are some kick-ass hallucinogens you're doing, man!

[Statistical]

26. Actually we do have hotspares.

If you support a helpdesk with 800 workstations it is a negligible cost to have a dozen hotspares.

The hardware isn't completely standardized but Dell does (or at least did) do a good job of maintaining lifecycle compatibility where core components (NIC, northbridge, bios, southbridge, etc) remain the same for a set period of time (usually 3 years). There are methods to automate non-standard hardware. The drivers for all version of the hardware are on the image, the device removed from the device manager and the image cut. When image is installed a script refreshes device manager and it "notices" the "new" hardware and automates installation.

Realtime backup via roaming profile isn't as cool as it sounds. Generally speaking it lags your system when you least want it.

Still even IF you had none of that no competent business would even consider trying to do an "upgrade install".

[MindPilot]

47. It must be nice work under actual management

The last job I was laid-off/outsourced/early retired from they didn't spend a dime on infrastructure. A team of five of us supported about 2700 users. I don't think there was more more than a dozen of them who had identical machines. Many of them were the users' own built-from-what-the-hell-ever-parts boxes and it wasn't unusual to have to get out the magnifier to hunt for some kind of identifying marks on the chips so you could then go hunt for a driver.

A computer purchase was over $500 so that made it a capital expense which would almost always get denied; but they could go buy a computer's worth of parts, each purchase under 500 bucks. Then they would hand the box of parts to the IT guy and say "here, make it work."

We were on 10MB hubs and dial up gateways until about 2003. We used the free versions of malware and adware removal tools because management would spend the money for licensed enterprise versions.

I absolutely agree about the upgrades; they almost never go well. But we were forced to do the upgrades because the users couldn't afford the downtime to do it right. I've seen machines running XP that began their life with NT.

Now I'm out looking for work again, I surprised to find out the whole world is not like that.

[Statistical]

64. Well I wouldn't go so far as to say "Actual management"...

we still have some issues. Mainly network issues, it is gigE but doesn't feel like it and as I indicated we recently went to roaming profiles where windows syncs to remote server periodically. Network fail.

Down thread someone else indicates it can be done with no latency. I would give up a pay raise if they could do that. :)

However I have never seen a setup like what you described. Sadly if management is "non techie" they tend not to realize the expensive IT stuff isn't "geek toys" but rather a productivity booster.

Standard images are pretty common. Hardware is dirt cheap these days. Having to custom install each machine when it goes down "costs" (in terms of productivity lost and hours spent) far more than just buying new machines. Most vendors now when you buy system X will sign a contract guaranteeing replacement systems with same core drivers for x years and parts for y years. This makes it much easier to keep the whole floor on the "same sheet of music".

Good luck in the job hunting. Hopefully tech bounces back early in the recovery.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

77. Been there, done that, and even got the tee-shirt..

I hope it gets better out their for all of us! I sometimes miss the long EOM Tape Backups that took 6+Hrs and somehow deal with all the other "hats" I wore.

[jmowreader]

109. EOM *tape* backups? Loo-zers!

Actually, I don't think you can do it this way anymore...

When I was still making America safe from democracy (Reagan was in office at the time) one of my jobs was to go downstairs twice a week and back up the mainframes. We did daily incrementals to 9-track tape, but these were full backups. Each machine had two 300MB CDC hard disk drives, the kind with removable disk packs. The procedure was pretty simple, but it took a while.

Step 1: Determine which of the three sets of disk packs had the oldest write date. Set the two packs on the floor in front of the drives they're supposed to go in. Disable disk writing on drive A--there's a switch on the back to allow just that.
Step 2: spin down Drive 2, remove the disk pack from it and set it on the table. Put the "system pack" disk on the floor in the empty drive and spin the drive up. Do an A:B copy. Steal two chairs out of the conference room. Use one for each disk pack you pulled.
Step 3: spin both drives down. Take the disk packs out of the drives, and put one in each of the chairs you stole. Put the disk pack off the table in Drive A, and the one on the floor in Drive B. Do an A:B copy.
Step 4: spin down drive A, and put the system pack copy you just made in drive A. Re-enable writing on drive A. Try to restart the computer--normally it will start fine.

Our computer had a 4MHz processor and 8MB RAM and needed three hours from shutdown to restart.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

110. We...I mean they don't do it any more.

The one thing I don't have a job with them because they got a new system (made this century) and everything is done a main servers across the LAN. Before the upgrade the Server was Unix 486 and used Imation™ 4mm tape that holds only 512MB.

BTW: For me, EOM means End Of Month, :)

[jmowreader]

111. I thought EOM meant End of Month for everyone

We did complete backups as often as we did because if we lost a drive the standard was we had to be back up and running WITH the data as close to current as is humanly possible within 20 minutes.

And when you lose a drive on those big CDCs, it's pretty fucking spectacular: I was downstairs doing some work on an output processor one day when the spindle motor on one of our drives went out. The heads fly above the media on a cushion of air, and that went away while the disk pack was still spinning. The heads crashed into the media. A crack formed in one of the platters, and the platter tore itself apart...taking with it the other 12 platters, the heads and the arms the heads were on. It sounds like a bomb going off when it happens. For THIS sort of catastrophe, it takes 30 minutes to get back online: unhook the power and data cables from the back of the cabinet, use the pallet jack to remove the drive from its location, put one of the two spare drives where it was, hook the two cables to it, put in one of the spare disk packs, copy your last backup to it, use the incremental tape and the chronolog tape (chron was nice, it stored everything that was done on the system all day) to restore the drive to currency, and restart operations.

We had a contingency book that lists every disaster we could think of, and the first instruction on each page was, "don't panic any more than necessary. It's just a stupid machine. If the colonel comes in here making irrational demands, invite him to fix it himself."

[comtec]

117. Now THAT is a spectacular self destruct!!!

Now they just raid 5 everything (I know now it's 5,0,1) and pop out the failed drive and go on their merry way.

Hee hee I'm former IT (god I miss it) and I know my IT guys very well...so certain requests are easier for me than others.

I'm also sure the IT in the head office hates me.

My job pretty much demands that everything be on my desktop.... which is around 2 GB in size now.

When it comes time for me to change systems, they'll have to boot it on friday, for the entire file exchange to be ready for monday morning LOL (im in Europe, home office is LA)

[Xithras]

35. Why are user files being stored on the desktop?

Bind a network drive to the user account at the AD and create a group policy to redirect the desktop and user folders onto that drive. Another group policy can limit people from writing their files elsewhere on the computer. It's basic mobile desktop stuff.

Once that's done, all you need to do is push the image onto the desktops, and the users files will be accessible the moment they log in the first time. No backup or restore needed.

[Statistical]

40. Agreed however ther are limits.

Network capacity is finite. Even with 1Gb ethernet transfer times can be frustratingly slow.

Windows attempts to compensate for that by using offline files and synchronization but personally I hate it. It helps the company out but simply makes my life more difficult. The bigger the files and the more writes you do in a day the less useful remote files are.

[Xithras]

44. I think it depends on the types of files the users are working on

On a full duplex switched gigabit network, using decently performing desktops, you can get real world network throughput of 80-90 megabytes per second. Unless you're working with multi-gigabyte files, the performance is fairly good in my experience. For average users working with general productivity software, the latency is almost invisible.

We use a multihomed Cisco network with gigabit to the desktop and 10 gigabit fibre backbone (gigabit to the switches, 10 gigabit between the switches and routers). We have a fibre connection to our EMC SAN, which offers our users 16Tb of storage across 60 spindles. Latency doesn't even become apparent until the files get bigger than 150Mb or so, and it's trivial until they start approaching the 500Mb mark.

[Statistical]

58. Well your companies is "progressive" in understanding that big iron can't be replaced with a prayer.

Networking is not my specialty (software development) but my understanding on our network the limit is the servers connection to the network. 80-90mb sounds great until it gets split a hundred times. :(

No doubt the issue can be resolved with good planning, and high troughput however that is something we are lacking.

Short sided thinking. sure big iron isn't cheap but the lost productivity of 30 seconds here, a minute there it adds up and that isn't cheap either. :)

[still_one]

84. They did it for XP to Vista, and I will tell you most business users who are on XP right now

won't change to Window's 7 for a lot longer because there isn't an upgrade path

[Statistical]

102. Sorry but in the enterprise world nobody installs an os over another os.

That is what you are doing when you do a so called "upgrade".

Enterprise has 3 options
1) volume licensing is PER YEAR PER SEAT so they can upgrade at anytime without cost. Our company could have upgraded to Vista 2 years ago at no cost however we chose not to for other reasons.
2) Clean install. Most large companies (100+ seats) simply use imaging software to push out an image. When you cut the image you want it as perfect as possible and that doesn't invovle doing a stupid "upgrade install".
3) They simply will wait to replace hardware and get Win7 on new hardware.

Most companies are on either 3 or 5 year upgrade cycle. Figure most bought new machines in 2004-2006. When Vista "flopped" they pushed back the upgrade cycle, then we hit the recession. By the time Win7 gets its first service pack (likely fall 2010) most machines will be 4-6 years old. Beyond 5 years the cost to keep machines running is not much less then the cost of buying new ones, plus lost productivity due to downtime, inability to acquire parts, and the substantial performance boosts from new hardware means most enterprises don't push more than 5 years on client hardware anyways. Hardware is insanely cheap right now. It makes up a tiny fraction in the TCO = total cost of ownership.

The Win7 launch is at a good time right in line with a cyclical hardware replacement timeline.

A couple major deadlines for business support on Windows XP:
Apr 14, 2009 - Mainstream support ended (no technical support provided for business who didn't purchase an "Extended Hotfix Support Agreement")*
Jun 10, 2010 - Sales of XP for netbooks ends. No legal way to acquire an XP license after June 10.
Apr 8, 2014 - All support for Windows XP ends.

So mainstream support ended. Our company is currently using XP but we didn't pickup an EHSA which means Microsoft will provide no free support except security updates. If some software doesn't work or a hotfix breaks compatibility with existing software they will do nothing. This is calculated risk on our part. We weighed the cost of an EHSA vs the fact that most of our systems are currently 3+ years old. It is simply more cost effective to plan for a W7 rollout in late 2010 rather than pour money into old software and purchase an EHSA. There are plenty of Fortune 500 companies in the same boat who made similar decisions.

[cliffordu]

32. X tools, the glibs and the rest.

Unless you need a gui to develop, then, alas, you are dependent upon Balmer and his ilk.

[Sebastian Doyle]

53. Yeah, I don't understand their thinking on that one.

You would think - since M$ is trying to leave XP behind them - they would make it as easy as possible to upgrade existing XP PC's to W7. Of course you could always upgrade to Vista first and then to W7, but nobody is actually going to BUY Vista in order to do that, if they don't already own a copy.

W7 is definitely a better product than Vista, but I'll keeping XP on my current Windows machine for now.

[Statistical]

59. You can backup your files and do a clean install of W7.

You can even buy the reduced price "upgrade" version.

You just can't installed W7 over XP. You can only install W7 over Vista however I always recommend to anyone to always always always always do a clean install.

[quiller4]

60. actually Microsoft is providing a direct upgrade for XP. I got

a notice about same and plan to make the switch to Windows 7 from XP

[Statistical]

62. You can purchase the "upgrade license" = cheaper but you still have to do a clean install.

There are hacks to get around it however I would strongly recommending backing up your files (data not apps), pop W7 DVD in drive and boot.
It will give you an option to nuke the drive and install clean.

[seabeyond]

10. i refused vista a long time. 6 months ago hubby finally put on. two months of crap

i understand what people were saying about vista. horrible. and to think of the people that used for long term.

hubby put on window 7 a couple months ago.... computer industry adn gets things early

has been grand

[napi21]

11. I wonder how many compatability problems I would encounter

if I upgraded to "7"? Things like MagicJack, digital camera, etc? That's where I ran into problems when I bought a new computer that waspreloaded with VISTA.

[Xithras]

36. Actually, driver support is one of 7's strengths.

MS finally figured out something that the rest of us have known for a decade...bad drivers are the root of most system problems. Microsoft has done a few things with 7 to keep that from happening again. First, it has a Vista driver compatibility mode. If there is a driver for Vista, 7 is capable of using it in a way identical to that of Vista. 7 drivers are obviously better, but nobody should see any loss of functionality when moving from one to the other. If you MagicJack works with Vista, it will work with 7.

When drivers do crash, it also has a better mechanism for trapping those crashes and resetting the drivers before they take down the operating system or application. Most driver crashes will be fairly invisible to the user. That is a HUGE step forward...I don't think any other operating system is doing that.

To keep either of those from happening in the first place, MS has also been working directly with hardware and software manufacturers to get 7 certified drivers released before the OS is even out. By one estimate, over 30% of the Vista crashes reported by users in Vista's first year were eventually traced to bad Nvidia drivers. This time around, MS is working with Nvidia and everyone else to make sure the drivers work and are stable BEFORE the OS is installed on any consumer PC's.

I've said here before that I started running 7 in a VM many months ago, and it's now my main OS. Every once in a while Microsoft gets one right, and so far it looks like Windows 7 may turn out to be one of those rare successes for them.

[anigbrowl]

51. None, most likely. I've been running it for months, it's a non-issue.

[bigwillq]

12. I hated Vista.

My boyfriend had it on his desktop. I couldn't stand it.

[gkhouston]

14. No thanks. Macs or linux only for this household. n/t

[RKP5637]

22. Agree!!! I still don't understand people using MS stuff instead of Linux or Macs. n/t

[napi21]

15. Is the WSJ WRONG? There's an ad on my home page for

Windows 8. Ad says upgrade now FREE.

[Ruby the Liberal]

28. That is likely Internet Explorer 8, which is free.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Vista is why I bought a Mac.

I ain't likely to go back for my main work, although I may run Service Pack 7 in Fusion for the few Windows programs I need to run.

[Morning Dew]

17. I know there's a lot of Vista hate -

I must be a rarity but I haven't had any trouble with it.

I don't love it like I loved XP ( compared to my outdated Windows 98), but I don't hate it either.

It does what I need it to do.

[msongs]

19. no problems with vista ever....using 7 also,no probs there either nt

[Romulox]

24. Ask people what their SPECIFIC issue is with Vista...

<crickets>

[paulk]

29. specific?

well, you can't run Cubase SX on it, which is my main sequencer program...

that was a pretty big deal, since it was the reason I bought a new computer...

AE 6.5 had problems running on it for some reason that I never could figure out.

Had to buy a new printer, since the old one wouldn't work with Vista.

Lots of older versions of software wanted upgrades (to work properly with Vista) that I couldn't afford.

The list of problems goes on and on - my Vista computer has become our internet computer, because it did so poorly at the things I actually purchased it for.

I had to go out and buy another (XP) machine, since the chipset wouldn't allow me to "downgrade" the machine back to XP.

[Romulox]

30. According to Steinberg, Cubase is officially supported on Vista...

https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/knowledgebase_new/free_articles/kb_show/support-for-pcs-using-microsoft-windows-vista/kb_back/2020.html

"Had to buy a new printer, since the old one wouldn't work with Vista."

Honestly, blame lies as much with the printer manufacturer as with MS. Driver updates are a basic requirement of printer vendors.

"I had to go out and buy another (XP) machine, since the chipset wouldn't allow me to "downgrade" the machine back to XP."

Eh? Which chipset would that be, that is hard keyed to allow installation of only certain OS's? :shrug:

[Xithras]

39. Yeah, HP is really bad about OS compatability.

I had an old HP ScanJet that HP never released Vista drivers for. There was nothing wrong with the hardware, and it would have worked just fine with Vista, but HP decided that they weren't going to release updated drivers, and their support person "suggested" that I look into purchasing a new ScanJet with Vista drivers.

I ended up writing my own Twain driver for the scanner (using the Twain C libraries), and I'm still using it today. Works fine.

[Romulox]

79. That does suck. HP printers use a Razor/blades pricing model. They probably stopped making the ink

And so stopped making the drivers.

"I ended up writing my own Twain driver for the scanner"

Well done! :thumbsup:

[paulk]

52. nuendo, cubase 4 and 5 work with vista

SX doesn't, and cubase has no intention of making it work. The info is on the link you provided, actually. SX is listed on the left hand side as one of the programs the page applies to - but it's not one of the programs listed as working with vista. My version of steinberg wavelab also doesn't work with vista - I would need to spend the $ to upgrade to a newer version. I have quite a few other programs related to music making that have the same problems - older versions that would need to be upgraded. There is a reason that a lot of electronic musicians have stayed with XP...

I don't have the info on the chipset available - I researched it at the time - certain chipsets made for the vista machines could not be used with XP, and the computer I bought had one of them. It probably had something to do with the motherboard chipset drivers - perhaps it could be worked out if you were an IT guy, but for the layman it would be a nightmare.

I'm not a mac person, I'm not trying to start one of those wars - but, for certain applications vista cannot be defended, afaic.

Windows 7 looks promising and I'll most likely upgrade my vista machine with it.

[Romulox]

80. I actually am a Logic/Mac user. Never cared for Steinberg anything...

I assume SX is a "lite" version? If I record in Widows, I use Cakewalk/Sonar products, but in reality, Logic is just too good to stray from.

"I don't have the info on the chipset available - I researched it at the time - certain chipsets made for the vista machines could not be used with XP, and the computer I bought had one of them."

Well, I'll take your word for it, but I have to wonder if the issue was simply that you were using Vista 64 bit, and would therefore have issues with XP (32 bit), with RAM over 3g, e.g.

"Windows 7 looks promising and I'll most likely upgrade my vista machine with it."

Agree.

[paulk]

89. it's not really a "lite" version - I think Steinberg bought it out

as competition (mostly in the marketing) for programs like ableton or acid (which it isn't anything like). It's a full fledged DAW that was marketed toward the techno/electronica crowd. Kind of a mistake on Steinberg's part, and it's possible that they're not going to do more with it. Which sucks, because I have cubase 4 and don't like it at all. Don't like Sonar, either - I just can't get a good workflow on it. SX is more streamlined and easier to use, but just as powerful. Both the projects in my myspace links were done with SX (mastered in wavelab), one an electronica project and one a quite different guitar based rock thing, and the program easily handled both.

Two of my mac musician friends have switched over to Logic from MOTU digital performer - it really does seem to be the best package these days. If I had a Mac and the money, I'd certainly take that route.

[niceypoo]

95. Where do I start

I would say the most glaring specific issue is the operating system endlessly pestering the user for permission to do even mundane tasks, like defragging. "Windows needs your permission to continue." Of course you need admin rights just to defrag, wouldnt want hackers defragging your maching now, would we? I want an operating system, not a babysitter.

The folder navigation system is a trainwreck and vista constantly changes the views without warning. They got rid of the tree navigation 'up' button which sucks if you work with directories constantly.

I would say the worst of the worst though is the fact that it ran like molasses on a dual core with four gigs of RAM. Pitiful performance.

Just the first two idiotic design fuckups alone led me to uninstall Vista off my laptop (after suffering through a quarter of school using it) and install Ubuntu. It took a bit to get the wireless to work with Ubuntu, but my laptop has not crashed once in the two years since, and everything WORKS the way it should.

[woo me with science]

98. Exactly my complaints. nt

[Romulox]

123. I turned off UAC on day 1. Agree on that.

"The folder navigation system is a trainwreck and vista constantly changes the views without warning."

Same as XP.

"They got rid of the tree navigation 'up' button which sucks if you work with directories constantly."

It's a "back" button now. Same thing. There's also a "forward" button. I think they took the icons from IE.

"I would say the worst of the worst though is the fact that it ran like molasses on a dual core with four gigs of RAM. Pitiful performance."

It's hard to comment without knowing what software you're running. Since Vista has been the only game in town for 64 bit + DX10 support for some time now, many game machines are running Vista (including this one). My machine certainly isn't running like molasses, and there's plenty of objective benchmarks to prove it.

Honestly, the two big problems with Vista:

1) UAC (discussed);
2) Aero interface too graphic intensive for mainstream built in lappy graphics.

Turn both of those things off, and it's a fairly OK OS. More stable than XP for me by a long shot.

[Akoto]

38. Same. I have honestly had almost no issues with Vista.

I worked from home on a Vista PC before I got sick, I surf on Vista, game on Vista, write on Vista, etc. It has given me almost no problems worth remembering.

The security paranoia is a bit of a hassle, but there are even ways around that. Having said all of the above, I'm still interested to see what Windows 7 is like!

[MajorChode]

108. I have had no problems with it

The only issue I had was that Vista Home premium didn't include fax software like XP did. This wasn't a big issue for me as I had another computer running XP that I was able to send and receive fax.

Other than that I run the 64 bit version on a dual core machine and the performance is excellent.

[Eric68601]

18. I use Windows 7

I've been using Windows 7 for a few months now. And I have to say, the reviewers are absolutely right. It IS everything vista should have been. It's never caused me any problems, the features are great, it's definitely alot more zippy then vista was. I like Ubuntu as well, I actually use an Ubuntu/Windows 7 dual boot setup. I'm a big fan of Beryl !!

I have no real complaints about Microsoft's new OS except for one thing... the price. I'm using a prerelease version of Windows 7 ultimate, which will expire soon. I will of course buy it for the full version, but the cost is a bit outrageous. I'm really getting sick and tired of spending money on a new OS every few years while at the same time, I see Linux responding with something just as good and robust.

Personally, I think Ubuntu is here to stay. I've fixed some laptops and PC's for people who were before running Windows 98 or XP and switched them to Ubuntu. Each person has not had any complaints yet, and each have said their PC runs so much better with Linux on it.

[Greyhound]

37. It is simply better.

Ubuntu has made Linux simple enough for the average user. I'm putting it on every system I work on without much trouble.

I tell people, "I'll put windoze on for you, it will cost another $200 (plus 1/2 time), or you can try this for free". Nobody's chosen windoze yet.

The downside is that there are far fewer follow-up calls.

[HopeHoops]

20. Vista does a fine job of erasing its own memory.

Look at it this way: You can't get much worse.

[Statistical]

21. Microsoft will hurry it along.... just like Windows Millenium.

Windows Millenium = horrible replaced by XP less than 2 years later.
Windows Vista = horrible replaced by Windows 7 less than 2 years later.

Windows 7 has a lot of support from developers. It has a much safer kernel model. It likely will drive adoption of x64 and memory >4GB.

What a lot of people outside the industry don't know is development tools is Microsoft's secret weapon. Nothing comes close to Visual Studio. ASP.NET is making big inroads in replacing other website technology. Managed code is a big seller for many companies for the reliability and security it offers. MSDN is a invaluable resource that no other platform has.

[BumRushDaShow]

45. You can go back further than that

M$DOS 3.0 = WTF?
M$DOS 3.3 = stable
M$DOS 4.0 = WTF?
M$DOS 5.0 = stable (probably the last stable OS from M$)
M$DOS 6.0 = WTF?
Windoze 3.11 (on DOS 5.0) = better
Windoze 95 = WTF?
Windoze 98 (SP2) = better

M$ consistently produces a veritable roller coaster of releases. :rofl:

[ikri]

125. XP didn't replace Millennium

There were two separate OS branches for Windows, the NT branch and the DOS branch.

Windows 3.1 NT was the first of the NT line, followed by NT 3.5/3.51 and by NT 4 which came out at the same time as Windows 95. Windows 2000 (NT 5) followed NT 4. XP is NT 5.1, Vista is NT 6 and Windows 7 amazingly is NT 7.

Windows Millennium Edition was the last of the DOS line. 95 & 98 were both in the same branch.

The DOS branch was simply phased out after Millennium Edition, it should have probably been phased out earlier since there was almost no need for it once Windows 2000 appeared.

Windows 7 is a pretty nice OS, I've tested the beta on a few machines and it runs very well, even on older machines that struggle with XP (it runs better on my old lappy with 768 mb RAM than XP SP3 does).

I've been holding off upgrading for a while, but there are things I want to do now that I can't do until I get a 64 bit OS, and since OS X won't run on my PC (AMD chip) and the applications & games that I run won't all work in linux I'll be upgrading to Windows 7. From what I've tested so far I don't believe I'll regret it.

[NeedleCast]

27. I love a good operating system thread!

Lets see if we can't beat the 600+ post count in yesterdays "moon bombing" thread!

and...FIGHT!

[Romulox]

31. I have Vista for DX10 + 64 bit support. It's just OK, but the histrionics about it are OTT.

:shrug:

[JackRiddler]

41. Wall Street Journal touts latest version of DOS monopoly - who cares?

I'm so happy to have liberated myself from 15 years of servitude to Microsoft products!

[strategery blunder]

43. Yay. I avoided vista completely.

I still run XP, and I bought a computer in 2007 when I could still get XP on it for the specific purpose of "last chance for new computer with XP on it."

However occasionally I have to log on to vista computers at school and vista is so bloated that it takes 5-7 minutes just to log in to the flipping computer.

I have been watching windows 7 (though I'm not in IT) and am glad that M$ learned from its vista mistakes (I tried ubuntu but had compatibility problems with the programs I needed).

The question I have is, how compatible will 7 be with running programs from XP? When I am able to get a new computer, I'm going to back up my hard drive and basically transfer all the data on it directly to the new computer. Which means I'm sure there would be a lot of old XP drivers floating around.

[CatholicEdHead]

54. Depends on the version

It is much better with Ultimate, Professional, and Business as those three license levels include XP Mode, which is Virtual PC 2009 and an XP image running in the background similar to what Apple did with all their machines in the 9.x to X.0 transition.

If you have anything lower (Home Basic, Home Premium), then good luck, it will be like Vista at that point with hits and misses.

[strategery blunder]

56. And if I have XP home but got a business version of 7?

what then? :shrug:

[CatholicEdHead]

57. As long as you do a clean reinstall (cannot upgrade there)

then you can have everything that comes with 7 Business, which includes XP Mode.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/business/windows-7.aspx

XP Pro is the OS in XP Mode, there is no XP Home option. Ideally you also need newer hardware with on-chip virtulization to make it run smoothly. Not sure about your CPU? Run this:

Intel:
http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/

Or AMD:
http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDownloads/CPUInfo_3.0.1.0031.zip

[strategery blunder]

61. It would be with new hardware---

that I won't be able to afford for a few months yet.

I'm just thinking about the future :)

[Statistical]

69. Compatibility is very good.

1) Compatibility is good to begin with
2) Microsoft has had some form of Windows 7 out for nearly a year now.
3) Vista uses same driver model so companies have been developing drivers for nearly 3 years now.

Everything I use installed out of the box for Windows 7 (I can't same the same thing about Vista).

Office, firefox, visual studio 2008, games, steam, flash, add ons, pandora, itunes, newgroup readers, msdn library, sql server 2005, 7zip, winzip, printer drivers, etc.
It all just worked.

Unless you have from some very old (pre xp) software or something exotic, or something from a company that has gone the way of dinos you should be fine.

[GivePeaceAchance]

46. The only issue I had with vista was sound card related...

Once I upgraded my peripheral devices I was good to go with Vista really. The thing am looking forward to with windows 7 is faster boot up, always useful.

[jeffbr]

49. Propping up a piece of trash

is what M$ is doing - again.

[LeftHander]

50. Replace with just more bad Winderz memories....nt

[thunder rising]

63. Yes indeed folks, step right and get your favorite bad memories wrapped in a shinier package.

[Statistical]

65. Have you even installed windows7?

By that logic the first time a car manufacturer made a dud model nobody should ever buy from them ever again.

Hell the closed beta for MSDN subscribers was far superior to Vista and better than XP on launch day. Open Beta 1 -> Open Beta 2 -> Release Candidate -> Retail.
Each build has only improved. Of course you wouldn't know that because you haven't even installed the RC for Windows 7 have you?

[thunder rising]

67. This is a joke, right? far superior to Vista and better than XP on launch day

[Statistical]

70. Say what you want but Windows 7 was the "easiest" OS I have installed.

It just worked. Right out of the box.

It worked so well that in beta a year ago I wiped my dual boot and used it exclusively.
Even stuff like installing SQL server worked without a hiccup.

However I take all your smiles to indicate you HAVE NOT installed Windows 7 so you have no idea what you are talking about.
Isn't that the definition of "ignorance".

[thunder rising]

72. Say what you want ... but mine was free and my old printers still work, no virus sw and no defrag ..

[B3Nut]

83. Running 7 Enterprise here

I've deployed it on a handful of machines. Slick install, and really snappy. I've got the 64-bit version running on quad cores and even a Celeron-D (an experiment I'm subjecting a data-entry employee to, I'm evil hehehehe) and even it's nicely responsive and fast enough for the apps it has to run. I have 32-bit 7 Enterprise running for one of my users on a Core 2 Duo 24" iMac under Parallels Desktop, with one core and 1GB RAM allocated to it. It's snappy even with NAV, Outlook, Word, and Excel all running.

I think it's a breath of fresh air, and while I love Macs, the business world runs on Windows and Office, so any improvement in Windows is a good thing in my book.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[ohheckyeah]

87. I am using XP on my desktop and would

like to switch to Windows 7 but the hard drive doesn't have enough room for that. How much should the labor be for a tech to clone the existing hard drive and install a larger hard drive? (Not including the cost of the hard drive.) I have no idea what kind of cost I'm looking at.

[Ezlivin]

71. I wrote my own Operating System

The hell with the big guys. I started from scratch and built my own kernel, wrote all the drivers and wrote it in assembly language.

It runs with only 500K of RAM, takes 2MB of disk space, is 256-bit and uses ZFS as the default file system/volume manager.

The OS is not administered by 'root', but by something deeper: earth. With this design viruses/trojans/worms are completely locked out of the system.

:)

[Nye Bevan]

74. I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!

But in a way Microsoft are geniuses. They release an OS that absolutely and completely sucks (Vista) so that their *next* release can only look fairly good by comparison.

[gkhouston]

75. What's impressive is that they've done it more than once. n/t

[JesterCS]

82. I use Windows 7

Its actually really nice. Runs stuff better than XP ever did.

[Toucano]

90. "I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced."

And I believe Spaghettios™ is the best product Chef Boyardee has produced.

That doesn't mean I want anything to do with it.

[jmowreader]

113. Chef Boyardee is not responsible for Spaghetti-Os

That particular abomination came from Franco-American, which was swallowed up by Campbell's. You haven't lived until you've been hooked to a whole truck full of Spaghetti-Os.

There really was a Chef Boy-ar-dee. His real name was Ettore Boiardi, and he was a real chef. (The "boy-ar-dee" was his idea; he wanted people to pronounce it properly.) I wonder...let's say we were to dig ol' Ettore up, put a couple of magnets on him and wrap him in wire, then take him to the Chef Boy-ar-Dee factory to show him what his name's going on these days before sticking him back in the ground. How many cities would Ettore's concomitant spinning be able to light? I've been in the Chef Boy-ar-Dee factory--it's in Milton, PA. The smell of fake spaghetti in that place will knock you on your ass.

[Toucano]

126. Thanks. I like knowing that. n/t

[Better Believe It]

99. Haven't had any problems with Vista at all. Not much software available for Mac's.

You just need a modern computer with plenty of zip that can handle it.

I have an Intel Core2 Quad with 3gigs of RAM and top notch video card.

Vista works really well and can handle anything I throw at it including CPU demanding games.

I also prefer a PC or Mac because so little software is available for Mac computers compared to PC's.

[jmowreader]

112. There is exactly as much software available for Macs as for PCs

We have Microsoft Office. You have Microsoft Office. Therefore, we have exactly the same amount of software.

As far as the rest of it, the Rule of Thirds has now been appended to be the Rule of Fourths: one fourth of all PC software is games, one fourth is viruses, one fourth doesn't work and the other fourth has been ported either from or to the Mac. They don't talk about this much anymore, but Excel started out on the Mac, the current Word started out on the Mac (PC Word was command-line only, and very few people bought it because anything was better--shit, "copy con" was better) and so did PowerPoint. The two that never went to the Mac were Access and Publisher, both of which fall into the "don't work" fourth.

[Better Believe It]

115. That's not true. You're not fooling anyone. All of my software, and I have a lot, works and .....

only a small percentage of the most popular games are available in Mac versions.

I have over 200 software programs on my PC. I like all of them. Fewer than 10% are available for Mac'.

Perhaps you just don't know how to use software you claim doesn't work.

[jmowreader]

127. Perhaps I just don't WANT to use software like...

"Greeting Card Maker." I can buy a whole program for a PC that does nothing but design greeting cards. Or...I can design them in QuarkXPress, which will let the operator design anything.

There are a lot of REAL narrow-focus vertical-market things for PCs which don't exist on a Mac, that's true. One I could really use: at the Oak Grove 70 Petro they sell a program that finds truck stops for you. You feed in where you are and how far you want to go to get to a truck stop and it will spit out a list of truck stops in that area.

But seriously, in the field of general-market applications (aside from games) you can do anything on a Mac you can do in Windows. You just won't have to weed through the fifteen bad programs to get to the good ones because bad software doesn't sell in the Mac marketplace so it never gets here.

[niceypoo]

119. PC does not mean Microsoft

You are overly influenced by TV commercials

[tXr]

100. Just reformatted an Acer netbook with Linux Mint.

Buh-bye windoze!

Everything works "straight out of the box".

Wireless works flawlessly.

Impressive! :thumbsup:

[Cerridwen]

104. Um, no. Not at all. Some of us are old enough to remember when

the US gov't helped MS create a monopoly.

Not really "un-remembering" a whole bunch.

YMMV (depending on your age and critical skills).

[Eric68601]

106. I like the virtualization.

A plus side is the virtual machine. Compatibility was mentioned, yes it's in there, but it's nice to go into a virtual machine version of XP or even 98. Just use your same licenses if you want. Yes LINUX does this as well, but for those who are used to windows, it is a good selling point for an upgrade.

[jmowreader]

114. That's not a very high standard

"Good enough to erase bad memories of Vista" means it doesn't crash or eat hard drives. Anything past that is a bonus.

[Stuart G]

118. I hope it is as good as they say,...I need a new computer..am waiting to buy..

[Statistical]

121. Good plan. I don't understand why anyone would buy right now....

unless they absolutely have no choice.

[dropkickpa]

124. Me too, come Feb and my tax refund

I'm FINALLY getting a new computer. Can't wait, my dinosaur is ready to be passed on to Dropkid.