It does sound silly, fairly sure you can do that right now in Vista.nidave wrote: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.
The Windows 7 Thread
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
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Charlie Wells
- Posts: 383
- Joined: Tue 02 Nov, 2004 16.23
- Location: Cambridgeshire
For anyone not aware the public beta is now available, though only seems to download using IE (rather typical).
There's a handy guide on how to install Windows 7 using a virtual machine...
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/ ... 7-sp1.aspx
There's a handy guide on how to install Windows 7 using a virtual machine...
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/ ... 7-sp1.aspx
"If ass holes could fly then this place would be an airport."
Just been playing around with it, I do think it's rather nice. It seems to have removed a lot of the annoyances in Vista. But I don't see how it will appease those who dislike Vista (for whatever spurious reasons), and I actaully really like the new taskbar.
In the ways Vista felt like a half-way step, 7 feels 'consistently' Vista-eque. There are much fewer XP-style (cr)applets and it is a lot easier to use in many respects. I was able to just sit down and use it which is more than I could say of Vista.
In the ways Vista felt like a half-way step, 7 feels 'consistently' Vista-eque. There are much fewer XP-style (cr)applets and it is a lot easier to use in many respects. I was able to just sit down and use it which is more than I could say of Vista.
I downloaded the public beta a couple of days ago. I have to say that I found the installer an absolute joy, it's the best installation process I've ever seen from a Microsoft OS (from any OS actually). Aswell as being fast everything just...worked, with next to no clickling or typing required. I particularly like the way that you are given a grace period to enter the installation key rather than the old draconian way of being forced to during installation - hopefully this will be carried through to the full version.
Only problem is that there are no decent drivers available for my graphics card, leaving me stuck in 2D mode, but then it is rather old.
Two things jumped out at me straight away. Firstly the default taskbar setup - large icons with no descriptive text in a controlled area of the screen - is lifted straight out of Windows 1.01 from 1985! As with others, I'm not a fan of this and quickly reset things to something more normal.
Secondly, despite being 'Windows 7', internally it's version 6.1, denoting a point upgrade from Vista, rather than an entirely new animal. Being that Microsoft will desparately want '7' to suceed where Vista didn't, maybe this is them being supersticious in that '.1' versions of WIndows have always done better than '.0'. If you look at Windows 3.0 to 3.1, Windows 95 (4.0) to 98 (4.1), Windows 2000 (5.0) to XP (5.1), in all cases the original '.0' release which actually made the technical breakthroughs and leaps forward ended up being largely deserted within 3 or 4 years of release whilst the updated '.1' ended up enjoying much greater longevity and popularity. This is particularly true of the venerable XP, still seen as a perfectly respectable operating system to be running almost 7 1/2 years on from it's release.
However, just when we thought that Microsoft's flirtation with giving Windows versions stupid names was coming to an end, it seems it's not; 'Windows 7' is actually Windows 6.1 (unless of course something changes between now and release).
I have to say, I'm surprised to find that I actually quite like it. I've never warmed to Vista at all, to my mind there are simply too many things implemented in a cludgy, messy way (like trying to move on from property sheet control boxes but have the 'new way' simply open up a property sheet with only 1 tab to actually control the feature - display properties in Vista is a prime example) and UAC is so annoying as to be useless. The whole operating system comes over as if they took it to late beta stage then just realeased it as was - it lacks the refined, finished, polished feeling which earlier versions had.
There's still quite a few things which need sorting (I don't know if it's because I'm in 2D mode, but there seems to be no obvious way to alter the colour depth, for example) - but then it is only a beta and hopefully these things will be sorted.
Even the 2D 'non aero' mode which I'm stuck in seems a bit more welcoming and developed than the equivalent mode in Vista. It seems that Microsoft have realised that some people actually have to use WIndows in this mode and but a bit of time and thought into what it will look like, rather than putting everything into making Aero look pretty and leaving 2D mode a crock of shit.
The number of small refinements you find is impressive (Wordpad and Paint having their first meaningful makeover since WIndows 95, a new, somewhat enhanced Calculator rather than the version which has stayed basically the same since WIndows 3.0 etc etc).
If Microsoft had taken the time to get Vista like this (and I see no reason why they couldn't have done - I see few if any technology improvements in Win7, just better implementation and useability), maybe XP would allready be dead and buried.
As it was, they didn't, and were taught a valuable lesson in the process; people won't just blindly upgrade en-masse to Microsoft's latest and greatest any more, an awful lot of people (not just the minority of years gone by) will happily hold onto an older platform if the replacement annoys them or offers no perceived benefits. Thus Windows XP, an operating system released in October 2001 and based on one released 9 years ago, still has it's crown, and much of Vista's market share is due only to bundling with new computers rather than an actual willingness to have it.
When they release a new Windows, they have to take the time to get it right and make people WANT to upgrade if they have a hope of an en-masse migration away from the previous version. This time, I think they've learned that.
As long as things keep moving in this direction and they take the time to polish this one off properly (it's still not quite there yet), I can seriously see myself purchasing the final version when it comes out.
Now, do I break my policy of not jumping on Microsoft's bandwagon and purchase a new graphics card just so I can run the 3D interface in a beta stage operating system when the one I have is absolutely fine for everything I want to do under XP?
Only problem is that there are no decent drivers available for my graphics card, leaving me stuck in 2D mode, but then it is rather old.
Two things jumped out at me straight away. Firstly the default taskbar setup - large icons with no descriptive text in a controlled area of the screen - is lifted straight out of Windows 1.01 from 1985! As with others, I'm not a fan of this and quickly reset things to something more normal.
Secondly, despite being 'Windows 7', internally it's version 6.1, denoting a point upgrade from Vista, rather than an entirely new animal. Being that Microsoft will desparately want '7' to suceed where Vista didn't, maybe this is them being supersticious in that '.1' versions of WIndows have always done better than '.0'. If you look at Windows 3.0 to 3.1, Windows 95 (4.0) to 98 (4.1), Windows 2000 (5.0) to XP (5.1), in all cases the original '.0' release which actually made the technical breakthroughs and leaps forward ended up being largely deserted within 3 or 4 years of release whilst the updated '.1' ended up enjoying much greater longevity and popularity. This is particularly true of the venerable XP, still seen as a perfectly respectable operating system to be running almost 7 1/2 years on from it's release.
However, just when we thought that Microsoft's flirtation with giving Windows versions stupid names was coming to an end, it seems it's not; 'Windows 7' is actually Windows 6.1 (unless of course something changes between now and release).
I have to say, I'm surprised to find that I actually quite like it. I've never warmed to Vista at all, to my mind there are simply too many things implemented in a cludgy, messy way (like trying to move on from property sheet control boxes but have the 'new way' simply open up a property sheet with only 1 tab to actually control the feature - display properties in Vista is a prime example) and UAC is so annoying as to be useless. The whole operating system comes over as if they took it to late beta stage then just realeased it as was - it lacks the refined, finished, polished feeling which earlier versions had.
There's still quite a few things which need sorting (I don't know if it's because I'm in 2D mode, but there seems to be no obvious way to alter the colour depth, for example) - but then it is only a beta and hopefully these things will be sorted.
Even the 2D 'non aero' mode which I'm stuck in seems a bit more welcoming and developed than the equivalent mode in Vista. It seems that Microsoft have realised that some people actually have to use WIndows in this mode and but a bit of time and thought into what it will look like, rather than putting everything into making Aero look pretty and leaving 2D mode a crock of shit.
The number of small refinements you find is impressive (Wordpad and Paint having their first meaningful makeover since WIndows 95, a new, somewhat enhanced Calculator rather than the version which has stayed basically the same since WIndows 3.0 etc etc).
If Microsoft had taken the time to get Vista like this (and I see no reason why they couldn't have done - I see few if any technology improvements in Win7, just better implementation and useability), maybe XP would allready be dead and buried.
As it was, they didn't, and were taught a valuable lesson in the process; people won't just blindly upgrade en-masse to Microsoft's latest and greatest any more, an awful lot of people (not just the minority of years gone by) will happily hold onto an older platform if the replacement annoys them or offers no perceived benefits. Thus Windows XP, an operating system released in October 2001 and based on one released 9 years ago, still has it's crown, and much of Vista's market share is due only to bundling with new computers rather than an actual willingness to have it.
When they release a new Windows, they have to take the time to get it right and make people WANT to upgrade if they have a hope of an en-masse migration away from the previous version. This time, I think they've learned that.
As long as things keep moving in this direction and they take the time to polish this one off properly (it's still not quite there yet), I can seriously see myself purchasing the final version when it comes out.
Now, do I break my policy of not jumping on Microsoft's bandwagon and purchase a new graphics card just so I can run the 3D interface in a beta stage operating system when the one I have is absolutely fine for everything I want to do under XP?