Windows 7 - you going to switch?

[IronBits]

I don't like Vista period.
I don't like the interface, I don't like the theme, and I pretty much don't like anything about it actually and have not found one thing that I do like about it.
I've tried 32bit and 64bit versions (both look and feel the same old crappy way).
Why they couldn't just make XP better is beyond me. They had a great OS going back in Windows 2000, and it's gone down hill from there since they started to mess with the GUI interface.

So like the rest of the world, I am left waiting for Microsoft to fix there bloated, unnecessary CPU performance robbing GUI crap interface, and update their drivers etc.

Now they proclaim Windows 7 (probably Vista SP3) is the way to go.

Windows 7, already gets a black eye because it's really a re-worked Vista clone, but now they are going to make it even worse by bringing into it that gawd awful Office Ribbon interface and a Mac taskbar clone thing, with a dab of Ubunto KDE Desktop look. (which I don't like either)
Oh, and they are removing the option for the 'classic look' !

They will force you to use their OS the way they want you to and nothing less, until you will like it!

XP for games, everything else in Linux, either two computers or dual boot, whatever way it has to be, but I personally will not buy Windows 7, and I'd be willing to bet corporate america will steer clear of it to.

I think they should call it, Microsoft Windows Flop Deuce

If the Game developers would get busy and write good games for Linux, I wouldn't have bought Windows in the first place!

What do think?

[paleseptember]

I think you needed to vent!

I'm in agreement, basically. The next time I need to load an OS onto a computer, I will be heading down the linux path. Simple as that. I haven't had to purchase an OS in quite a few years. It's only fear and inexperience that is preventing me loading Mint or Ubuntu or something similar onto my home computer.

*shrug* I feel that Microsoft may struggle a little more over the coming years. Vista was a huge PR disaster for them. It's not nearly so awful now as it was when it was launched, but it's not as good as it could or should have been.

Just my two ¥en

[Brucifer]

It's sure never going to catch up to XP. I tried a vista system, as it came on the HP quad I bought for the wife, and off it came and on went linux-64, OpenSuse to be exact. Running a mix of Slackware, OpenSuse, and Ubuntu here, depending on what I'm using the system for. As far as I'm concerned, MS lost a customer when they tried cramming vista down my throat. The *ONLY* thing that would get me back to windows would be if they released NT4 or W2K into the public domain, and let the users build a windows that would actually work, and work good. That's going the be the only way they end up with a decent OS.

And we all know they aren't smart enough to do that.

[alpha]

What's wrong with XP? I'm still using it and like it just fine.

Who cares about Vista or 7.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Alpha couldn't agree more..
Why do MS not do if it's not Broke don't fix it..
I mean sure let's give the user something shiny to look at, and the dumb sheep won't notice they've been bent over and shafted royally up the rear end.
XP works, I see no real need for vista apart from DX 10 which everyone says looks super duper compared to DX 9, but then again I don't really care, if the game plays that does me, I don't need 100fps at 2,048 x 1588 with FSAAx8 etc on. i.e every option turned right up..
Sure it looks nice but I'd rather have it run a slightly higher fps with a lower res or no FSAA - I get on better with it that way..
Oh as a friend of mine for World of Warcraft would say, often after I'd been killed by the most unbalanced player class system - "well that's balance for you"..

I have been looking at linux are it works, runs faster on my existing hardware and is secure..

IF only MS could take some of the security features from Vista and port them into XP I'd be fine.
Ribbon interface / Mac'esquism can get to france..
Do they not realise we've gotten used to have our desktops a certain way - often the only fixed freaking thing in the office our own desktop - machine may change but desktop stays the same.

Oh and then there is the "software" itself - error I can't run, you've got a crap OS .... sorry Error Pista detected

MS listen up - we don't need "Shiny" we need "some that works, doesn't take 4gb of ram to run nice, 400gb space to install into.. etc!"

[Digital Parasite]

I must be the only person at Free-DC who thinks this but for the kind of work I do, I find Vista 64bit much *better* than XP. I don't game on it and it is not a dedicated crunching rig.

But I will be upgrading to Windows 7 because it should be an improvement over Vista which is what I'm using right now. I never paid for Vista and I won't for Windows 7 either, we get 1 free license through the school to use at home.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Oh yeah one MAJOR point to note to use it's new interface you will have to upgrade the PC as it's "touch screen"
i.e that windows table top thing they "demo'd" is coming to a screen near you.
Think iPhone meets desktop PC..

[IronBits]

I know where you can get some free POOP to

[Death]

[Death]

what are you doing?
testing windows 7 beta
and why it shows you Hitler photo?

I dunno, can't do anything else.
It there any interface?
nope, Hitler only.

Do you try ctrl+alt+del?
Hitler is blinking only.
Wow.

Well, that's better than Vista.
Sure.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Death, that appeals to my rather twisted sense of humor... I like.

[Brucifer]

What's wrong with XP? I'm still using it and like it just fine.

Who cares about Vista or 7.

The problem is that XP will end up like W2K, no support, phased out, dead end.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Like 98, like 3.11, like 3.1

Vista is like ME, no-one likes it.. Actually I'd prefer Win ME to Vista anyday.

[IronBits]

The problem is that XP will end up like W2K, no support, phased out, dead end.

And if the game developers would get it together and port their windows ware to the Linux world, I think we would see a huge surge in Linux adoption to.

[alpha]

The problem is that XP will end up like W2K, no support, phased out, dead end.

Right, so let's worry about that when it happens, not now. Even if this was a concern for me (which it isn't), what's the point in worrying about it years in advance? Let it be a problem when the time comes and I can assess whatever versions of Windows are on offer then. It doesn't really matter to me about Vista or 7 as long as XP is going strong. That's just my opinion though.

XP will probably be the last version of Windows for me anyway. I don't play PC games any more so there is little reason to stick around. Also, I find all the WGA and activation crap to be annoying, and the sort of thing I don't need to be wasting time with.

[IronBits]

I'm downloading the latest beta of Windows 7 now.
Don't get me started on activation crap!

[PCZ]

Been using it for a while.
Much prefer it to vista.

I like that it feels a lot faster than vista.
No issues apart from it liking to take little nibbles out of your MP3's
There is a patch to fix that.

The loss of the classic menu bothered me at first but the new taskbar has grown on me.

I will be requesting wobbly windows as an ultimate extra

[Death]

frieng geek says thats previous builds that flow around net was better than current public beta 7000

he try 2 prev builds and says beta 7000 sucks. they remove some features and so...

[matrix_fan]

That's the Microsoft way, set the bar high, tell us it will be in the next version, and then include it two OSes later. They removed a lot of things from Vista that were supposedly going to be. New file system?

That being said, Microsoft is a monopoly and you can't get around the compatibility issues with business software, and obviously gaming.

That also being said, I don't think the fudge up with Vista has created any problems for them. It's not like anyone can run anywhere. ALOT of people didn't upgrade to Vista. They are waiting on Windows 7.

Me, I built two rigs + one laptop. The first desktop with Vista x86, and the desktop and laptop with x64. I noticed driver issues etc, but after the SP1 patch, no such problems. Much more stable than my XP system. I game occasional, strategy games, C&C, that's about it. I don't find Vista any slower, but I do find that all the graphical blab makes it seem slower. My philosophy here is, Vista is great when you baby it and give it everything it wants. (quad core, 4 gigs ram, etc etc.) You put it on a economy level system, it works like shit. Less than 1 gig of ram you can laugh at. And until you get two gigs you can't get optimal performance.

All in all. Vista is a resource hog, but works fine for me. Micro$hit is a monopoly, and I've come to accept that.

On a sidenote- Anyone tried ReactOS?

[IronBits]

Well that was so much fun
Got it all installed, only to find out it doesn't provide the Shuttle Marvell 64bit NIC drivers, so can't do anything with it.
Overwriting the install with Windows Server 2003, bet that works right out of the box.

[IronBits]

Six new annoyances introduced in Windows 7

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3261

[IronBits]

Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=632

[outlnder]

Give me XP Pro 64 anytime.

[TheOtherPhil]

I don't think I'll be "upgrading" anytime soon to Windows 7. I refuse to put anymore cash into MS. I am currently dual booting Vista 64 and Ubuntu 8.1 64. I pretty much use Ubuntu for everything but my partner is in the middle of completing a Masters in Forensics and is using Vista alot for some of the software she needs. Once she's finished, Vista is history lol.

[jasong]

Six new annoyances introduced in Windows 7

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3261

Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=632

Seems about par for the course. Solve x number of problems, cause x number of problems. Just be glad they didn't increase the total number of prooblems.

As for not throwing good money after bad, some have suggested that Windows 7 will simply be a service pack for those who already own Vista. I don't know for sure, just regurgitating Internet rumors.

[alpha]

Looks like I'll be giving the beta a try after all. I've heard it will fly on my netbook in comparison with XP, and I'm interested to see what this thing is capable of whilst I'm waiting for FreeBSD to fully support the hardware anyway.

I'll be installing from an 8GB SDHC card, so that should be interesting in itself.

[IronBits]

That's what VISTA was delivered for - to force users to buy new hardware so everyone could make more money off the end-user suckers.

You'll hear a lot of things about Windows 7 - but the fact remains, it is still VISTA, make no mistake about that.
If you didn't like VISTA, if your programs didn't run under VISTA, if your devices wouldn't work under VISTA, it will be that way in Windows 7.

Older printers, scanners, network cards, and other peripherals simply didn't work with Vista.
Here's the bad news: They won't work in Windows 7, either, because Windows 7 uses the same driver model as Windows Vista.
So XP users will be out of luck and Linux will gain a few more fans.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/why_x...love_windows_7

Windows 7 won't flop quite as bad as Vista, but it will flop, and big companies, corporations in the know, will not swallow the crap...

[alpha]

I was reading a thread over at Ars where a lot of people were saying that Windows 7 was detecting all (or most) of their hardware after installation without them having to provide drivers.

OK, so maybe that doesn't help people with devices that already didn't work under Vista, but that sounds like at least one step in the right direction. My netbook is a fixed hardware specification - if several people on the community forum say it flies on 7 in comparison with XP I'm interested enough to try it myself. The common opinion is that Vista is less than satisfactory on this model, so even though 7 "is" Vista, it must be significantly improved in certain areas, particularly performance.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

"...The common opinion is that Vista is less than satisfactory on this model..."

Vista heck I'd rather suffer Win ME!

[the-mk]

I gave it a try with my Q9300 and 8 GB RAM with the 64 bit edition. It is not that I don't like it, it feels different to XP, some things have changed. After installing the vista network driver it was able to find all drivers via windows update, which is not running in internet explorer anymore (don't know about vista).

I also had Vista on my computer some weeks ago and I think I prefer Windows 7 more than vista, because it "feels" faster than Vista.

That all was only for trying (both OSes didn't run longer than 6 hours on my computer...), I'm continuing with Windows XP Mediacenter for my main workstation... a reason why I don't continue using 7 or Vista, especially in 64 bit mode: I can't run the VMWare-server on it... bought the 8 GB of RAM for nothing

[Digital Parasite]

I was reading a thread over at Ars where a lot of people were saying that Windows 7 was detecting all (or most) of their hardware after installation without them having to provide drivers.

The way you Vista haters are talking is sounds like you only have experience with the original Vista released at the very beginning. Although I agree it was a very rocky start, with SP1 and the time companies have had to figure out the new driver model, it should work fine out of the box for any systems built in the last few years.

Vista is definitely more bloated than XP, but it sounds like Windows 7 will trim some of that fat. It still uses the same driver model and based on the same kernel heritage but those are both nice improvements over XP, especially the 64bit version.

[IronBits]

I don't hate VISTA...
I'm just very very disappointed, having used and supported their products from the very beginning.
I still think Windows 2000 was their best ever, and they should have improved on it and released XP based off that.
An OS should be snappy, XP is not, Vista is worse, Windows 7 fixes some of that so it compares to XP, but it's still not snappy as it should be.
When you have a solid foundation/kernal, you can add GUI to that, users can decide how much CPU, snappiness, they want to sacrifice for it.
But the users get no such options. First thing I do when I sit down at a windows box is turn off all the gui crap I can and switch to classic, disable themes etc. I have no need for a pretty computer, I want functional, but that's really hard to get with Vista.
Yes, I have Vista 64 bit installed on one computer, but it is a dedicated cruncher, and I use XP 32bit for my day to day work and gaming to keep me as compatible as I can with devices and software packages that I use.
If they made it secure, then we could remove a lot of Anti-Virus and Spyware software that slows down the computers even further.
Remove the bloat from their Office products, make it more secure and compatible while there at it.
Dump the stupid ribbon crap, or at least allow users to use the familiar menus they are used to, and works quite well I might add, classic interface to it as well...
Of course, if they did all that, they wouldn't need a bazillion tech support guys, and a lot of 3rd party add-on software would go the way of the do-do bird, can't have that now can we...

So they went from pretty good (win2k), to worse/ok (XP), to very bad (Vista), and heading back to worse/ok (XP) ... that's not progress in my book.
But they won't be giving end users a choice... one of these days they will send out the drop dead bit to all computers not running what they want us to run...
forcing folks to choose between Mac or Linux, or swallow the blue pill again and pay that M$ tax that costs almost as much as a computer.

They need to stop chasing the Apple and Ubuntu interfaces to.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

IB can't disagree with you there on any point..
I mean I booted up a live DVD of Knoppix the other day, since I did have the CD version from way back and it was fast, this was a little slower than that but I think that was the DVD I burned it to, It was a bit snapper than XP but well you could tell when it hit the DVD it slowed down but overall as snappy as a fresh install of XP.

I'm like you I don't need all this "oh look it's all colourful, oh it must be soo goood if it's this colourful..." It could be black n white for all I cared as long as it runs fast enough..
I wonder what would happen if you compared says a 400-500Mhz AMD-K6 / Pentium II/III running a fresh copy of 98 running with 512mb of ram, APGx4 Graphics card
to a "4000/5000" Mhz AMD AM2 / Pentium V/VI(?) running a fresh copy of vista with 2gb of ram, PCI-E Graphics card

Which would be faster out the box.

[matrix_fan]

What is it that is "not as fast" or "worse" than XP? On minimal requirements, yeah vista is a hog. But otherwise, what makes it so bad?

Beyond the original vista driver issues, anybody ever had the XP SP3 constant reboot problem? I remember there being problems with XP when it came out too, and now everyone loves it. People don't like change. I think the same thing is happening here.

Some proof is in the Windows Mojave experiment. Vista got this horrible rep. at the beginning. First impressions are everything, and Vista didn't do too well.

I use to be one of the VISTA "haters." My brother got a new computer with VISTA, and my friggin 1GB flash drive couldn't be recognized. What the heck? But after SP1, I've never had a problem. And now I love vista. I can tell you that the main family computers runs 24hrs a day for...weeks at a time without a reboot. XP couldn't do that. Not for me anyways. Three users "logged in" simultaneously. Honestly, if you sit down with vista for more than a couple of hours, your perception might change.

In the end- we all have our own needs/wants from our computers. That is why there is different OSes/versions.

[Bok]

I'm installing it now. What the hell, the machine has had Vista Business 32bit on it for so long and is stable enough, I wanted to go to a 64bit OS on there anyhow, this way I do it for free (for now).

My biggest gripe with Vista after using it for so long is that when it wants to do updates, if I ignore them, the machine starts acting pretty odd. I've had the network driver stop working, drive associations disappear etc etc. Do the updates, reboot and all is magically fixed. I'm probably just paranoid though...

Bok

[LAURENU2]

Give it to Mikey he will like it
Well if we don't buy it Just think of the Tech support people that will be out of work

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

I'm installing it now. What the hell, the machine has had Vista Business 32bit on it for so long and is stable enough, I wanted to go to a 64bit OS on there anyhow, this way I do it for free (for now).

My biggest gripe with Vista after using it for so long is that when it wants to do updates, if I ignore them, the machine starts acting pretty odd. I've had the network driver stop working, drive associations disappear etc etc. Do the updates, reboot and all is magically fixed. I'm probably just paranoid though...

Bok

No Bok I don't think your paranoid, it's the new "Please Reboot" message
remember XP's update "Reboot Required" every 5 minutes!

[Bok]

Installed. Got Firefox installed and itunes busy importing my library now (which is on a separate machine).

BOINC 6.6.0 X86_64 is installed and it picked right up from my backup of the program_data directory.

Seems just fine so far, no problems. It autoconfigured my dual 22" display at 1680X1050 (each) which I thought would be the biggest pain.

So far, so good.

[LAURENU2]

Ok that did It I am going to send all my PC's to Bok to Setup
He has the magic touch

[Shish]

Well I gave up on Vista at the 3rd try as even without the fancy bits, it was pitta to sort out the way I wanted and still a memory hog whichever way you run it and not really suited to my present dual AMDs with 1 Gb. They also gutted it of the new things I was waiting for after they ran into problems so there wasn't any point in running anything but 2K3 and XP SP2.
However, after around 2 years of install and messing it up with progs installing and uninstalling, my current XP is ready to fail so I'm downloading Win7 to give it a go when I'm ready (couple months) to upgrade the 3 main systems in the house just now. 2 of them aren't crunchers but do need a good server type architecture for video storeage and serving so I'll give it a try as I still haven't had much spare time in a conscious and brain steady state recently and have had to concentrate most of my physical and mental resources on other peoples problems, as usual. And that's my excuse for also not getting to grips with Linux after not using Nix for many years. It's also a lot quicker to just keep a standardised XP backup image as my prog use doesn't change that much and upgrades don't realy change much or haven't for around 5 years.