So windows 7, eh?
 

As a part time PC user, I feel like XP is really outdated, especially comparing it to my Mac. After having to install Vista on my dad's computer.. several times.. I decided to stick to XP for a little while longer. But now that Windows 7 is out, is it worth it to upgrade, or is it just a nicer smelling version of Vista? Anyone of you guys use Windows 7 so far? :rolleyes:

Been on it for a couple months. I like it much better than XP now, and doesn't have any of the issues I had with Vista.
Probably the first time I've actually been impressed with an MS offering for a long time.

Don't have it, and likely won't for years to come. My gut feeling is that MS is getting an awful lot of credit because of extremely low expectations. In then end though, making something that doesn't suck isn't the same as making something great.

All the testimonials I hear, even from non Windows users are all about the same, saying the Windows 7 is a very decent OS.

I will wait till SP1 comes out before I jump on it.

haha.. that could very well play a part in it. :)
Although, for my part, I've been very impressed so far. I'll have to give it a few more months and see if it slows to a crawl like the previous versions tend to.

Look at it as Vista SP2 with a new look. Or, since Vista SP1 is what Vista should have been had they spent more time making it stable and getting drivers ready, you could say that it’s SP1. I understand your reservation, but I see no reason to wait.

The thing that I think is strange...well... It's just kind of odd because I got razzed by a few Windows users for getting a $29 upgrade for my Mac, from Leopard to Snow Leopard. But what about Vista Service Pack 2? --I mean Windows 11 (or 7, or whatever it is). It costs around $200 for a service pack? I mean really?

When is the fact that windows users are paying, essentially, $400 for Windows Vista going to sink in? They finally make a version that works and they charge another $200 for it. Astounding. If the popular media figures this out Microsoft is going to have a PR nightmare.

I hope Win7 is great..... it should be... it looks heavily influenced by 10.5 & 10.6

The more people using Windows = less problems for Mac users.

I used the beta and RC (still using that) and it is a fine OS...still no snowleopard. But win 7 from vista is a much more noticeable upgrade then leopard to snowleopard

And you haven't mentioned the 32/64 bit roadblocks they've put up. That means lots of people who get 32 bit now will have to pay again to get 64 bit later! Oh, and some who get 64 bit now will have to pay to downgrade for an app/driver they hadn't accounted for!

@cwtnospam -- Very good point, hadn't event occurred to me.

It gets even worse, because you can't just pay the extra costs and upgrade/downgrade. You have to do fresh installs! Only Microsoft can pull off crap like that.

It is far more than a service pack. Most the changes are done under the hood. Read up a tech write on the differences. Windows 7 has more done to it under the hood than say 10.6.

I agree that MS markets it in a fashion I don't really find attractive, but people are lining up to buy it.

No they don't. 32bit apps and drivers work fine in the 64bit, in fact when you upgrade to 64bit it just adds the 64bit kernel extensions and the memory/hardware addressing as it does the library files.

I don't know where you got that idea.

No, he's right--there are no "kernel extensions" in Windows (at least as you know them in OS X) and one doesn't simply upgrade from the 32bit version to the 64, you must do a fresh install, and 32bit drivers can't be installed on the 64bit version.
He just being a bit melodramatic about it. Pretty much any PC made in the last 5 years will probably be fully supported by Windows 7--the amount of built-in drivers is impressive, and most manufacturers have gotten the clue and started writing 64bit drivers for their products now.

Melodramatic? Have you installed Windows on anything recently? I'd rather go to the dentist. Of course, if you've got an IT department doing it for you, then who cares?

I'm a .NET developer. I have the "pleasure" of installing multiple versions of Windows on several different platforms all the time for testing and debugging. It's not fun, but it's necessary for the work I do. I've got Win7 running on some ancient Dells and HPs right now, that require additional drivers under XP before they'll work, but did not under Win7. That was nice surprise.
When was the last time you installed Windows, or more to the point, Windows 7?
Even as a developer, I bag on MS all the time for instability and buggy code, but this latest iteration of the OS seems to be pretty damn stable so far. I have not found anything to truly bitch about yet, but give me time.

I already have a few issues with 10.6, their server to client relationship that Apple likes to break every new OS.

I am no fan boy of MS, but I do gotta give them credit for making their products all work and talk together. Where as Apple has a lot to learn on that market, and they are gaining market share in enterprise now. They even just shifted their whole software licensing purchasing programs towards more enterprise type volume licensing. They don't come straight out and admit it, but they are in fact an enterprise company.

If I look at any OS in depth I can find problems, issues, and bugs with it. No OS is exempt from this.

I remember how NT was described as being "bullet proof" back in the mid 90s. Any OS can look good with no apps installed and very little exposure to users. Remember, 7 still has a Registry and it comes from a company that has never gotten the user experience right. Maybe they have produced something worthwhile this time, but I'll wait a decade or two before trying it, just to be sure.

Don't get me started on that. The way Windows handles 32 and 64 bit is so wretched it isn't even funny. A lot of my 32-bit software would burst out in hives if I bothered using it on Vista x64. Installed Win7 x86 and it was never better.

But, Snow Leopard? 64/32 bit is seamless. You really don't even know it's happening.

I have Windows 7 installed on my MBP, but it just seems to randomly lock up, requiring a hard restart. Most recent time was when I was playing a game of Starcraft.

Aw, seriously? A single file that can get corrupted? ... still?

So you were playing a 10+ year old video game on the newest build of Windows and it crashed? Come on man! Don't even get me started how every major Apple OS update breaks half the software I am using on my Mac.

The single Win 7 thread on my fav Mac Forum, I could not resist :)
Seen this?: http://tinyurl.com/yjfncoq

Hi, I'm about to purchase Windows 7 to install on my Macbook Pro (running Snow Leopard).
Should I choose 32-bit or 64-bit?
I don't need to run anything advanced in Windows mode.
Should I stick to the 32-bit or will I encounter problems in the future?
Or will I encounter hardware problems, if I run 64-bit?

EDIT: I've read that VMWare Fusion 3 will be able to run Windows 7 in 64-bit, so I guess I might as well install the 64-bit version.

You'll know better than anyone. What do you plan to use Windows FOR? If you plan to use 64-bit apps, then you should go 64-bit. If you need compatibility with some older software, then you should use 32-bit.

Me, I haven't used Windows for about 5 years. I have Macs at home, and Macs at work. Frankly, even if Windows 7 had all the features of 10.6, and more, I still wouldn't use it.

The main thing I need to use Windows for is an accounting system. I probably won't be using Windows for a lot of other things, really.
But I thought that if I could run 64-bit, why not do so?
But again, if there might be problems with running the accounting system software in 64-bit, I should probably do the safe thing and run 32-bit (at least for now - does all Windows 7 versions come with both 32-bit and 64-bit? - I could always install 64-bit later then, if I change my mind)

Been thinking about Microsoft's naming conventions.

Why 7? I don't remember any 6, or 5, or 4. Last number I recall was 3.1.

They dream up all sorts of funny names, just putting their heads on the block and saying, "Cooee! You with the chopper!" Thus we had Centennial, Millennium and NT, put the first two letters of each together and they spell "CEMENT". (Not that I had anything against NT2000, that was my poison until I switched.) Then XP, which presumably stands for something, maybe Express. Next Longhorn, which I suspect represented sucking-up to a certain politician from Texas. Apparently no one reflected over what emerges from the back end of a male Longhorn; or maybe they did, since it eventually (and how) saw the light as Vista. Well, I suppose you see a vista through the windows, so for the first time it makes some kind of sense. Follow that logic and the next should maybe have been Garden, or Beach, or Hotel Dustbins. Instead, we get a random number.

Maybe it's for the film with Brad Pitt. Seven deadly sins (let the geeks compete to pick them) and installing Windows is like receiving your wife's head in a box?

I tried to follow the logic… Lessee… 3.x (Actually the first that worked at all), Win95, Win98, Millennium (2000), XP, Vista, Win7. If you ignore the major upgrades disguised as SPs, That would make this number 7.

Apple's "Promise" commercial makes mention of Windows 2, but I don't remember ever seeing that version in the wild.

The 9x kernel died with Windows ME. So, you need to look at it this way.

NT 1, NT 2, NT 3, NT 4, NT 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7. Technically XP was the combination of NT and the 9x to make it both consumer and professional OSes.

I count 8 builds of Windows there. Then again, maybe they are saying 7 is a combination of Vista and 7?

This is reminding me of amateur exegesis of the Book of Daniel in order to make the succession of empires (the horns of the beast) finger the EU as the last one.

Even if 7 is the seventh after some starting-point, I still say there was never anything called "Windows 6". You guys who know your kernels from your shells may follow the logic, but the average user will just think the nomenclature is nuts. Maybe they'll call the next one Bitter Almond.

It's been broken up since at least XP. 6 main files (called hives), with a transaction log for each, and every user has their own registry hive in their profile to store user-specific settings. They've gotten good at backing them up at each boot too.
But yes, still a lot more consolidated than an /etc/ folder with a bunch of config files like most unix-style systems.

Maybe they just needed all the luck they could get?