The Windows 7 Thread

Nini · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 14.39

lukey wrote:MS can *not* compete with Apple on the Cult of Mac angle. No-one is PROUD of being a PC user. I'm not DELIGHTED by Windows - it just works for me, lets me do the mundane shite I need to do, and that's actually good enough for everyone. The aspirational thing just doesn't cut it for your average Windows user in the way it does for your average Steve-Jobs-Keynote-Fangirl-SQUEEEEEEEEE, and you're right - what MS should do is tap into the one thing Windows does have - an ecosystem of unrivalled scale.

Aha, that's it right there! If you know this then why doesn't Microsoft know this? They're aiming at the wrong people and should be trying just to keep people who know and like Windows to keep upgrading as they have a huge userbase and shouldn't be trying to beat Apple at it's own game.

I do mundane shit on Windows, anything else goes to the Mac. For me I just want Windows to be fucking Windows, stand over there, look and function like 2000 does and nothing else. No transparent windows, no psuedo-dock, just stay out of my way as much as possible. If it does that then the mundane shit gets done faster and I get to play outside sooner.

And please, do not speak of Me, worst OS I have ever touched.

Pete · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 14.41

I, foolishly, bought ME. However as I've said before, IF you installed 98, then upgraded via the GUI rather than formatting straight into a clean ME, it was vastly more stable and didn't crash every ten seconds.

lukey · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 14.49

Isonstine wrote:It's interesting that so many of the bells and whistles are there already. Usually in betas gone by, you'd get the Windows 2000 style classic interface until the very last release candidate where suddenly the proper interface would appear. Although that hasn't been the case since Windows XP. I guess it's down to the fact that Windows Vista / 7 is more of a showcase when it comes to its UI than previous versions so it's important to have it there from day one for the beta testers to rip apart.

Yuss, essentially W7 is taking the technologies that Vista introduced and then actually building (hopefully) good bits of UI on top of them, rather than introducing much technical wonderfulness of its own. Vista had its new driver model (that everyone just *LOVED*...) but the end-user still had to contend with the dreadful Device Manager. Now, devices are meant to be supporting 'Device Stage' (and hopefully this will be happening retroactively for most major devices):
EDIT: Clicky for screeny
Likewise for wireless networking, which while it generally 'works' in Vista, is still a contradictory and overly complex experience in Vista.

m-in-m · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 16.09

Sput wrote: I used vista pre-SP1, is UAC less about dimming the entire screen, making a beep and not allowing you to do anything else until the password is entered now?

From what you have described UAC still appears in the same way however SP1 does seem to considerably reduce the times it appears - well at least for me as a home user.

cdd · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 17.29

I think what this boils down to is a benefit:cost ratio. New OSs come at quite a significant cost of extra learning, and with Vista they made that cost greater than it needed to be with all this change for the sake of change (e.g. Network Manager). At the same time, there are insufficient benefits in Vista to make it worth the average user upgading.

The 'security' aspect is an interesting one but I see just as many Spyware-infected Vista PCs as I did XP or Windows 98 ones. In my opinion, the only real 'security' defence is education - not protection software, and Vista doesn't help with that - it just makes life harder for legitimate programs to work. I don't believe, for example, that anyone ever clicks 'Cancel' to a UAC dialog. And if nobody clicks Cancel, what's the point? (I personally like the UAC+Auto-Elevate feature, I get the benefits of UAC like sandboxed IE and file VirtualStore without the annoying dialogs. I don't understand why that option isn't exposed in the normal GUI).

On that point I would also add: I don't personally use Virus Scanning software, the time I would spend maintaining it would be greater than the amount of time I would have to spend fixing a virus. But I think it's hypocritical that Microsoft actively encourages anti-virus software, but doesn't include definitions in Windows Defender for viruses. It's a concession that Windows isn't secure out of the box, which is wrong.

Stuart* · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 17.57

This is an interesting thread, and as a Windows user I'm doing my best to follow what you're all talking about. However, alot of it goes over my head because of the terminology used. I would appreciate an explanation which may be suitable for the layman, if that's possible.

For a start, what's a UAC?
Is it worth me having a look at the Beta version of W7, or will I be none the wiser for my noseyness?

Dr Lobster* · Fri 02 Jan, 2009 20.43

Stuart* wrote:

For a start, what's a UAC?

Is it worth me having a look at the Beta version of W7, or will I be none the wiser for my noseyness?

uac = user account control. basically, when an application tries to do a system level change which may affect the behaviour of the operating system, the screen goes grey and a dialog comes up asking you to confirm the operation. by default this will happen even if the account you are logged in with is a member of the admin group.

in theory, it's a good idea - a virus or trojan trying to embed itself into your system would trigger numerous uac alerts and so you would be able to prevent infection even taking place. in practice uac is seriously broken from a usability point of view, even doing simple things like renaming a folder in the 'all users' part of the start menu triggers numerous alerts, as do older programs not aware of windows vista. many users simply turn it off or blindly click allow making it useless.

should you have a look at windows 7? if you've got a powerful enough system to run it in a virtual machine or a spare pc i'd say go for it, if your only option is scrubbing your current system or risking a dual boot... i wouldn't bother.

steddenm · Sat 03 Jan, 2009 12.01

I have been BETA testing Windows 7 (Build 7000) for a while and find it a lot easier to use than Vista - see attached images...

desktop1.png

systeminfo.png

about.png

Stuart* · Sat 03 Jan, 2009 12.09

Many thanks, Dr Lobster*. I now at least have a name for the annoying panel which appears everytime I do certain things in Vista. I didn't realise I could turn it off, although I'm not sure it would be wise to do so.

Dr Lobster* wrote:should you have a look at windows 7? if you've got a powerful enough system to run it in a virtual machine or a spare pc i'd say go for it, if your only option is scrubbing your current system or risking a dual boot... i wouldn't bother.

What would be the minimum system requirements to run Windows 7 in VM? How would I go about creating one after I've located a copy?

Thanks for your explanation!

Dr Lobster* · Sat 03 Jan, 2009 21.05

Stuart* wrote:Many thanks, Dr Lobster*. I now at least have a name for the annoying panel which appears everytime I do certain things in Vista. I didn't realise I could turn it off, although I'm not sure it would be wise to do so.

Dr Lobster* wrote:should you have a look at windows 7? if you've got a powerful enough system to run it in a virtual machine or a spare pc i'd say go for it, if your only option is scrubbing your current system or risking a dual boot... i wouldn't bother.
What would be the minimum system requirements to run Windows 7 in VM? How would I go about creating one after I've located a copy?

Thanks for your explanation!

if you go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en you can download microsoft virtual pc 2007 - after you've obtained the iso disk image for windows 7, you can mount and boot from it directly. it's quite a useful thing to have on your pc as you can use a virtual machine to test software and other things without the risk of breaking your actual pc.

nidave · Sat 03 Jan, 2009 21.30

am writing this on a Windows 7 Virtual PC. I have recently bought a Pc which has vista 64bit on it. I like vista it has some things that are better than XP (including breadcrumbs in the explorer window). Windows 7 looks like it is building on that - Simple things like devices and printers... if it works the way I think, it will be a huge improvement on device manager (which is still there)... there is lots of information about the thinking at http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/default.aspx.
not 100% keen on the task bar as I like my quick launch icons on the top row and the running programs below that. again the Documents are different - its now libraries... the theory is good - will see how people cope...

There are a lot of information bars with useful things. (Just had one saying network discovery is off and had the option to turn it on or read more about it)

I think Windows 7 will draw a line under peoples perception of Vista - it has such a bad image the only way MS can move is to release this...

edit: spelling and sorry about the random mess was a very quick first look
This is going to sound very silly but you can customise the power button on the start menu to actually turn off the PC instead of hibernating as it currently does (took me a while to figure that one out).. Little things like that will make a huge diffrence.