Microsoft said shipping Windows 7 in Sept.
Microsoft could have Windows 7 on shipping PCs by September, Compal president Ray Chen said today at an investor’s conference. The PC contractor executive understands from plans that the software should be available in either late September or early October. The news would corroborate word of an April release candidate that would let Microsoft finish, manufacture and deliver Windows 7 well ahead of the holidays.
Upgrading From XP To Vista To Windows 7? Good Luck.
Has Microsoft really listened to beta testers beyond what’s crashing?
The antitrust judge is looking closely at Windows 7.
I was early adopter of MS OS-s until Vista. Vista joins the only other exception Win.ME. By all reports W7 is good improvement on Vista in performance and usability. However, I will try to stay away from it too because of the “philosophy” of design which is anti-end-user (where it closely follows Vista). Changes MS could make to get me back:
-No multi-versions of the OS. One complete version which the end user may downgrade for his specific needs. At the median price of current W7 “multiverse”.
-Elimination of in-OS DRM. It taxes performance and causes problems even for users who in no way deal with anything protected. If content provider wants something covered by DRM, it should be part of their product.
-Elimination of non-OS duties from the OS. Example: OS should be in charge of mounting ISO files (and if it can do it with one click, thumbs up). However, OS have no business in burning said ISO file to the disk – it should just facilitate such process for some software of users choice. What’s wrong with it? – needlessly bloating OS and opening door for MS abuse (say in W7 SP1 they introduce a “security feature” that non-MS approved content can’t be burned on disk… for example Linux distro’…). And this is just one of many examples of W7 OS overreaching.
Notice that all my complains give more to the end user with minimal effort on MS side needed to correct them.
# 30 Somebody_Else said, “Read my benchmark thread from post 4. The test rig I used to compare 64-bit XP, Vista, and the 7 beta has an Athlon 64 X2 4200 (2.4 GHz), 2 GB RAM,”
My users are on 32 bit XP machines with between 512 & 1 Gig. So put 7 on that and tell me it is faster than XP and maybe I’d switch them (if the cost of 7 was under $100/lic). Unless, there are unknown huge advantages to 7 (I know a few people on the dev team in Redmond) & they don’t know of any…
I await your data.
Absolutely will go to Windows 7. I refused to migrate to Vista for the right reasons by Windows 7 is a winner.
Windows 7 will also be my first complete transition to 64bit computing. All the pieces are finally in place to take the plunge at the end of this year.
– Intel Westmere 6 Core CPU (12 threads)
– WIndows7 , 64 bit
– 8GB DDR3 memory
– 64GB SSD flash for OS cache
– Intel Larrabee for graphics and application acceleration
Incredibly, my dual core, WinXP, 2GB machine is now sluggish with what I do with it.
#32
I can understand not upgrading to keep the cost down on older/really low-end machines, but it doesn’t make sense to discourage home users or businesses buying mid or high end workstations from using Vista/7.
Windows 7 does seem to scale well on less RAM and supposedly runs well on 512 MB. Personally I wouldn’t put less than a gig in a new machine even with XP. Its what, $10/GB now?
I have the beta installed on 2 laptops. One is an old Dell Precision M60 with 512MB and the other is a brand new Unibody Apple Macbook Pro with 4 Gigs of Ram.
It runs fine, or as it should, on both!!!!! The M60 exhibits the same performance issue it does under XP. If anything it is a small bit quicker under 7. Windows 7 runs beautifully on the Macbook Pro. Better than XP and very close to Vista on the same machine.
I have said all along that VIsta 64 runs fine on a machine that is current. My proof of that is last night I worked on a cheapo Dell that someone bought from Best Buy for $600. It had 6 gigs of RAM and it ran perfectly fine. No issues whatsoever. Now if you are so cheap as to complain about $600 for a new computer then you maybe ought to re-examine computing and it’s importance in your life.
#34 As I thought. You can’t list any real advantage… Other than spending $ on an OS that doesn’t need a replacement.
#27
Personally I have issues with Vista but that’s not the point. My customers have issues and I don’t sell OS’s, that’s their choice based on their needs. If you’ve read my posts, I made no complaint about Vista. I don’t need it, nor do most of my clients. Most of the things businesses are doing these days don’t require multiple processors at break neck speed with gigas of RAM, Vista or 7 does. The PC’s I build don’t usually consume more than 40 watts – I love VIA Epia – and many of them run 24/7 for years and years. My customers love me because I save them money and I love them because they pay a service contract and rarely call.
Oh best part on the M60 was the Graphic drivers. They don’t exsist for Windows 7 nor Vista. They XP ones installed and worked. I couldn’t believe it!!
# 36 Paddy-O
Both Vista and Windows 7 are 64 bit and have driver support for the 64bit versions. XP 64 while wonderful has piss poor driver support. It also runs a little slower.
Memory access!!! Simple as that! Even 32 bit programs benefit from it because they can see a full 4GB all for themselves without the OS taking part of it under XP. For people that do more than just chatter on the intertubes having 16GB or even 6GB is a very big deal.
#36
Sure, in certain cases there’s no reason to upgrade embedded or low end systems that only do certain tasks, thats why there are still machines running older OS’s around.
At the same time there’s no reason not to get Vista/7 on a new machine. Its faster, more secure, and has more features. You just seem to hate Vista/7 for some reason.
#39–J==what I currently do under Win XP is record HDTV over firewire from my motorola 6624 to my harddrive. Then I edit my commercials out via Mpg.vcr or by avidemux. Then I burn to dvd. Works very well but I assume with a x64 OS it would be faster?
What system to you use to get from HDTV on TV/Cable to recording on Dvd?
# 39 J said, “For people that do more than just chatter on the intertubes having 16GB or even 6GB is a very big deal.”
Actually, no. The average office employee gains nothing from this.
Try again.
#40,
There is a certain ignorance about this whole discussion. I wouldn’t advocate tampering with a machine that is working and has no problem. Per the old addage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
In that regard, the one guy with his thing against upgrade installs is right.
As for the guy who has built his entire clients computer network on low power pico devices… Good luck with that. If there is one thing that is certain, it is that some bit of software is going to come along that his client needs to remain competitive. Anyhow, stranding them with a system that offers no upgrade path will work out to be a disaster in the end.
But that point is the same for all the people who are (or will be soon) stranded on XP.
My approach for many years has been to incrimentally upgrade the computers as the old ones break. Sometimes it is a year, sometimes the computers get downright ancient.
One person got all bent out of shape about a few points on some benchmark. Oh well… Because when computers are 2x as fast as they are in the next year in a half, all that avoiding upgrading they did will have made a bunch of sense… Oh wait, no it wont. That tiny difference saved will all be spent in having to fix what is broken by not taking an incrimental upgrade path.
My main point of this post is this. You save a little bit of money now by not upgrading ever, but it will cost you later, both in money and disruption. At the same time, it is just as wasteful and disruptive to go out and upgrade everything everytime some little enhancement comes out.
My other point would be, if you had trouble making the transition to Vista, you will have the same problems transitioning to Windows 7. But that is not Microsofts problem. That is your problem, and you should look for a different line of work, because you are not very good at what you do.
And I am not being an Ass. I am being a dick.
# 40 Somebody_Else said, “At the same time there’s no reason not to get Vista/7 on a new machine. Its faster, more secure, and has more features. You just seem to hate Vista/7 for some reason.”
For a NEW machine, I don’t see a problem with 7. Vista on anything but a H/W heavy machine was a dog.
Upgrading an existing XP machine, no advantage. More secure? Hardly. For years I did weekly consulting with MS security guys. Vista & 7 make it a bit harder to self infect. Vista & 7 are a step backawards when it comes to being ablr to protect against root kits due to the constraints placed on 3rd party security apps.
#40,
Don’t bother talking to that guy. He isn’t even interested in making the pretense of being honest. You are gonna spin your wheels with him, and you should try a differnent approach with him.
Ignore him.
# 41 bobbo
“Works very well but I assume with a x64 OS it would be faster?”
The recording part…..No. The editing part……………. possibly. Even if you use 32 bit editing software you could benefit from the extra access to RAM. If you have the right hardware it would be more noticable performance. A lack access to RAM can slow even a very fast processor. Sometimes what is left over from the XP OS isn’t enough.
“What system to you use to get from HDTV on TV/Cable to recording on Dvd?”
Many. For home I use a Tivo HD and Tivo Desktop. I keep all my stuff, for home, in it’s original format and resolution on an NAS.
At work I have a couple of BlueFish 2K Lusts with a 64 drive arrays. It is a tad bit more than your average user would need. I also have some low end stuff like a bunch of the Blackmagic cards like the DeckLink HD Extreme and Intensity cards.
# 42 Paddy-O
“Actually, no. The average office employee gains nothing from this.”
The average office employee does nothing more than chatter on the intertubes so they should not be the measure of proposed advancement. If we allow progress to be halted by the lowest common denominator then we would all be using a TI-85 calculators. Your position is one of “0” progress.
I have been impressed with Win 7 so far on my 2 machines. I will upgrade within 6 months of release.
I’m dual booting XP Pro/Win 7 on my netbook (HP mininote – Atom 1.6GHz and a gig of RAM) – no way I’m putting a beta OS on my main system (Lenovo laptop). I was surprised at how well it runs on such minimal specs yet it does seem a bit sluggish compared to XP. Having skipped Vista, there is a learning curve, but I’m getting there. So, will I upgrade? Probably not. Maybe it’s more secure but my systems are pretty secure now. Main system is hardware firewalled and has a good antivirus (ESET) while the netbook gets emptied of data after every trip and has a software firewall+AV. My needs fall more in the line of spreadsheets and word processors. Now and then, I use Adobe Elements but Picasa does about 95% of what I need. What I have works nearly flawlessly. Especially since MS has not indicated much compassion for the wallets of upgraders, I see no reason to throw money at a perfectly good system. Now, if I were doing cutting edge work or was into gaming, maybe I could justify that expenditure.
I will say the installation and software were better than I expected from MS but if they want me to dish out my money, they need to give me something worth the pain and effort. Something more than pretty pictures.
# 46 J said, “The average office employee does nothing more than chatter on the intertubes so they should not be the measure of proposed advancement.”
Umm, wrong. Employees mostly use apps in-house, to process data.
The reason MS Vista failed in corp environments (a huge source of lic revenue for MS) is that the OS didn’t bring anything of value to the table…
I’m running WinXP on a 1-year-old PC.
I installed both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows7 beta on a separate partitions and they run nice. But none of my apps will install properly on the 64-bit version.
But I will not upgrade. I will buy a new PC next year when it has Windows7 pre-installed.
BTW, what’s the deal with new PCs with 64-bit Vista pre-installed? How many people are buying these new PCs and get them home and find they can’t install half their apps on it?
MSFT should include a 32-bit version with the 64-bit version so that people can still run their old apps.
#50,
Like I said, if you are having problems, it is not windows, it is you. I encourage you to seek a different line of work.
# 49 Paddy-O
“Umm, wrong. Employees mostly use apps in-house, to process data.”
LOL that’s what they tell you they are doing but instead they are on facebook and twitter while watching porn.
Oh then you agree having more access to RAM would benifit that huge database or that large spreadsheet. Which is the exact reason Oracle has 64 bit versions and why I have heard time and time again that people run out of memory or their spreadsheet becomes slow when it gets too big.
# 52 J said, “LOL that’s what they tell you they are doing but instead they are on facebook and twitter while watching porn.”
I guess if a sysadmin were as computer illiterate as you, that could be the case. Otherwise, controls are in place…
#52,
Oh don’t you know it. Even the crappy in house access databases that I developed a decade ago run better on the newer software and hardware. The windows/intel upgrade cycle has taught me among other things… Humility. I had no busness developing software! WTF was I thinking??? But then as my assitant points out… The software has worked for a decade, it can’t be that bad.
# 53 Paddy-O
“I guess if a sysadmin were as computer illiterate as you, that could be the case. Otherwise, controls are in place…”
Yeah and there aren’t ways around that? LOL you are such a dolt! You are stuck in a box and that is why, if you ran a company, your employees would laugh at you and your supposed supremacy over them.
If you were a sysadmin everyone would be using slide rulers. No wait that would be too high tech for you.
# 55 J said, “Yeah and there aren’t ways around that?”
You already admitted that you know nothing about N/W security. Don’t embarrass yourself further…
#44
“For a NEW machine, I don’t see a problem with 7. Vista on anything but a H/W heavy machine was a dog.”
“More secure? Hardly”
I already posted benchmarks that showed Vista bests XP on midrange hardware at just about everything, and Vista has had fewer security exploits that the current version of Apple OSX.
Just minor details I guess. Did Apple hire you to troll all these Vista/7 article comments or something?
#45
Yeah, you’re probably right. I had to try.
# 53 Paddy-O
I don’t have to “control” my employee’s. I have two rules. Nothing illegal and don’t slow down the network. As long as they get their work done I don’t care if they watch porn or chat on facebook or twitter or whatever they want.
#50
What apps are you trying to install that don’t work? 64-bit XP, Vista, and 7 can all run 32-bit applications just fine.
You obviously need 64-bit drivers and some programs that are deeply integrated into the OS like defragmenters and anti-virus programs have to be 64-bit, but otherewise I havent had any compatibility issues myself.
# 58 J said, “As long as they get their work done I don’t care if they watch porn…”
That’s because you have a tiny company. At that size, it is easy to run things that way. When you run a large company, that changes. As well as the potential liability for your employees watching porn etc…