I picked Windows 7 based on the understanding that "best desktop OS" is the one the average user is going to get along with the best.
However I, like hex, use Ubuntu day to day. I probably spend 10 hours a day using Ubuntu. And trust me, if I didn't get along with it, I wouldn't use it
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Well I've been using XP Pro for a good few years with very few problems, although every time I do a clean format and install the OS again the constant install updates and device drivers can get very annoying.
For my new HDD Array I tried out Ubuntu 9.10 for a week and in the end it just got right on my tits, the constant asking for passwords for stupid things, not recognising my Dell 24" monitor and being stuck in 800x600 Resolution, I had enough so I decided to try Windows 7, not bad I think considering the last time I tried Linux (Suse I think) it lasted all but a day before I went back to Windows.
Windows 7 is the Best OS I've ever used imho anyways, it didn't need one driver to start vs XP Pro SP3 where I had to install Mobo, Lan, Graphics, Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor n such, It was ready to go after first boot, which was nice. The Intuitive Start Bar is a nice touch too.
I plan to replace my current XP Pro SP3 with Win7 just as soon as i've backed up all my data n such.
So yeah, I voted Windows 7
Used 95, XP, OSX, Vista, Ubuntu and now W7 and find W7 to suit me the most. I even reinstalled my desktop on Sunday as the beta was running out and I had W7 pro sitting there doing nowt!
Not around too often!
I seem to be a dissenting voice.
I like windows 7, its usability, its coolness, its novelty and the fact that it's not Vista.
However, my PC s are not toys. I use them for work, and I run a lot of weird stuff that I know and love and need, and W7 doesn't do most of it that well.
I have a lot of data on board. I keep 20GB of music on my laptop, and I have perhaps 85 Gb of various bits of video I need access to every time I go on site. My company's main application eats about 5Gb for each version and I keep the last 3 plus a few major milestones. So when I want to find the presentation I made to the Moroccan Ministry of Finance and I know it's somewhere in my Videos library I simply start to type 'morocc' in the search videos box and it pops up, right? Does it arse.
I have checked and I have 13 presentations with the word Morocco in the file name, and how many does search find? Three. I have regenerated the index twice and if I do a custom search I can find them all, but the first search is a waste of time. Windows 3.1 could have found those files, even if it couldn't have played them, but 7 can't.
Little things, like Outlook hangs regularly, my favourite screen capture app is Paint Shop Pro 4.12, but it now captures the drags marks as well as the area I wanted, so it's now useless to me.
It also has an annoying habit of dumping stuff where I can't find it and it hates allowing my daughter to hack games.
I recently bought Sabaton's full back catalogue of war-themed power metal and added it to my music library only to find that none of my players now worked on any of my music. It was OK after re-booting, but I was working, and wanted all of my windows open.
I also have an external 500Gb USB drive (Western Digital) and every time I plug it into a Windows 7 machine it asks if I want to scan and repair it. If I do it says the same thing next time. It's fine with any other OS.
I once upgraded Office (from Office 2003 to 2003 Pro) and it screwed up so badly (Nothing except Excel would even start) that I tried to restore to the previous restore point and it told me that I didn't have one!! I had to completely uninstall, brutally, and then re-install from scratch. Thanks Microsoft.
Also the Office 2007 compatibility pack doesn't work for word or powerpoint documents.
There are incompatibilities with all sorts of my stuff, and that gets right up my nose. This catalogue of cock-ups is mind-blowing for an OS that people mainly like.
Having said all of that, I love what they have done with it. The UI is much, much better than any previous version, and it does so much, so smoothly that I can live with the faults, but I am impatiently waiting for SP1.
(Thanks Evilmunky)
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet intakes.
Reading between the lines..
Originally Posted by Brucelles
Which outlook, which service pack, which updates installed?
So old it probably has serious problems with the dwm display model (great in it's day but i've replaced it with the free Paint.NET and windows snipping tool) remembering it came out THIRTEEN years ago
Such as? I can't say it's being 'hiding' stuff from meAs for hacking games - what's she's disassembling them or just putting nocd cracks on? I can run nocd patches, trainers and what not just fine! I also develop on it on a daily basis.
Frankly, that's baffling - both on depth of information as to what actually happened and as someone who uses WMC, Aimp2, Winamp and WMP without issue on massive music collections (>100gb).
Puzzling. Filesystem?
Sounds nasty this - is there a KB article on this? Have you posted on MS' forums?
Which service pack? They've recently updated it and there's specific install notes..
Well for most people it just works, and really old apps are only really supported at a push via XP mode on pro/ultimate and that's aimed at corporates. Personally I abandoned office2k3 a long time ago (2010 will be out soon enough) so i've not had any of those issues - i use maybe 10-15 different extenal drives and never get them marked as 'dirty' so that's darn odd. Not saying problems don't happen - they always do - but i'm presuming it's still a better choice than linux which is the thrust of this thread. TBH i've struggled to find stuff that doesn't work! I wish lotus notes didn't
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
Brucelles (10-02-2010)
As has been said, package managers are pretty useful! I believe that the way Windows manages "dll hell" is to bundle any necessary libraries in the installer.
EDIT: I'm also not keen on the whole "you need to restart the whole OS because you have installed an application...." something that runs in userland. ok - Win7 doesn't do this (or at least I don't think it does), but as we seem to be talking about the ghost of OS past
The funny thing about DLL hell, is that we've gone almost full circle in many ways.
The shared attitude ment the whole re-install thing, but ment that updates where often applied, the downside was that often broke things.
So then we went for everyone having anything in the same folder, so it was found via the Path (and don't get me started on 'path' thank christ they deprecated it for .Net with fusion).
And then we had Side by Side....... One of the most confusing things ever, "but i've got my crt libs installed". Absolutely horrific.
So how do you apply important security updates to common libs without breaking the app.....
Its really not an easy thing to solve. The only real one in my mind is to do each application from the entry point (trunk) down to the leafs controlled by the trunk. If the trunk hasn't been tested with a security update, it doesn't use the new libs, if the OS polecy dosen't permit running it, it doesn't run as a result.
Things like .Net where each 'Type' that is to say one of the many code components in a dll are known by the full name (version, build, cyrpto) rather than the filesystem name. This actually allows for half of an App to be on one version of a common lib, compared to the other.....
In short, this is fudging confusing, and I don't think there is a perfect solution EXCEPT full package management, which windows is really missing.
The question is how do you do it so its not monopolistic, well thats another thread
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
i love OSX and Linux but neither feel anywhere as good as 7. It just does everything and does it well. The results of this poll seem to relect this.
Thing is, sxs is actually not half bad - apps bind themselves via manifest and it 'just works' - it's far better than any previous solution and leaves the overhead with the developer not the end user in terms of binding to the right manifest and deploying the correct runtime. It's sensibly written too - new security updates to the c runtime don't break anything due to sensible up versioning, the only downside being when building new binaries against the updated runtime means you need to update your runtime deployment too. Either way, it's black box to the end user which is fine.The funny thing about DLL hell, is that we've gone almost full circle in many ways.
The shared attitude ment the whole re-install thing, but ment that updates where often applied, the downside was that often broke things.
So then we went for everyone having anything in the same folder, so it was found via the Path (and don't get me started on 'path' thank christ they deprecated it for .Net with fusion).
And then we had Side by Side....... One of the most confusing things ever, "but i've got my crt libs installed". Absolutely horrific.
So how do you apply important security updates to common libs without breaking the app.....
Its really not an easy thing to solve. The only real one in my mind is to do each application from the entry point (trunk) down to the leafs controlled by the trunk. If the trunk hasn't been tested with a security update, it doesn't use the new libs, if the OS polecy dosen't permit running it, it doesn't run as a result.
Things like .Net where each 'Type' that is to say one of the many code components in a dll are known by the full name (version, build, cyrpto) rather than the filesystem name. This actually allows for half of an App to be on one version of a common lib, compared to the other.....
In short, this is fudging confusing, and I don't think there is a perfect solution EXCEPT full package management, which windows is really missing.
The question is how do you do it so its not monopolistic, well thats another thread
Speaking as someone currently moving 347 projects from one compiler to another
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
Outlook 2003 sp3, part of MS Office Pro 2003 sp3. It shouldn't have any problems, according to MS.
Generally she's adding DLC packs, though sometimes getting a little deeper. I am not really sure, though I know she uses some scripting language. Still, that's not my problem.Such as? I can't say it's being 'hiding' stuff from me
This has happened more than once. I also did it by using Media Monkey to relocate my entire music library. MM has a great tool 'Auto Organise' that will allow you to define the path and filename for all or any of your mp3s (e.g. ..\<Artist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title>), so I did that, and that screwed up every media player I have. Of course I rarely rename 33 GB of music, so as a one-off I wouldn't mind that.
Well, it's formatted as FAT32, so it should be OK and I really, really don't want to reformat it, even though the chances of my ever finding another PC that can't access an NTFS drive are pretty low. It has about 370Gb of data on it. But I guess I could, just about, fit that onto one of my desktops, while I re-format. It always finishes the file system fix process with a 'No problems found' message, so I just ignore it nowadays. File it under continuous, ongoing annoyance.
I had a look around the MS Forums, but got nowhere. To be honest, though, I am over it and won't ever do that again, so I just seethe quietly when I think about it.
I just retried it with the latest version. It's not rocket science and it still works with Excel only. Word or Powerpoint I just get the message that this action is only valid for products that are installed. Quelle une piece de merde.
OTOH I guess that I should visit the MS forums and get some help. I haven't yet as I currently work on 3 PCs and only my laptop is on 7, so I have workarounds.
I thought that was its problem. It never worked particularly well.I wish lotus notes didn't
Anyway, thanks for making me think about it a bit harder. I will look at the fora, and see if there are fixes, and maybe, one day, I will do a complete reinstall. I really do like the OS, and I loathed Vista, so once my problems are all fixed I will be happy as a Catholic priest in the boy's showers.
(Thanks Evilmunky)
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet intakes.
By the way dangel, thanks for telling me about the Snipping Tool. I hadn't found it until you mentioned it. It works well with PSP4.12.
(Thanks Evilmunky)
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet intakes.
That is a refreshingly open minded attitude from a mac user unrealmost mac users I encounter rather than say that its a personal preference go off on one about how much better macs are than PCs without substantiating it. Its annoying, you don't need to! if you like macs you like macs and thats fair enough its whatever works best for the individual.
I am with you on the second point about reinstalling as well, with the previous incarnations of windows I found myself maybe 2 or 3 times a year thinking about or doing a format and reinstall... call me odd but they just used to feel a bit messy/dirty after a while. This brings me onto linux (possibly OSX to but I've not used it), I've used a dozen different versions and they have all had this nice clean feeling that I am refering to above and I don't feel the need to purge and start again if I am using them. Is this the same for OSX?
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I tried moving to 2k7 when I started my new job 18 months ago. It was hell. I just don't understand why they've taken the same tools everyone could find easily on 2k3 and hidden them in obscure panels, without actually making the core product any different! I'm going to hav to handle a 2k7 rollout here soon anyway (the university is making us all move) and I *know* I'm going to get hell for it from everyone *sigh* Anyway (he said, getting back on topic
You managed to make Lotus Notes work in the first place?... i've struggled to find stuff that doesn't work! I wish lotus notes didn't
Last edited by scaryjim; 10-02-2010 at 12:13 PM.
Quite so. That's why I haven't upgraded. I am beginning to suspect that the rubbish compatibility pack is a ploy to make me buy Office 2007, despite hating it. I think it was designed for half-wits.
(Thanks Evilmunky)
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet intakes.
Yeah it's great - as is the new problem reporting stuff as wellBy the way dangel, thanks for telling me about the Snipping Tool. I hadn't found it until you mentioned it. It works well with PSP4.12.
..as opposed to having everything on obscure multi level menus or tiny wee buttons with no text? TBH it's a 'adjustment' thing - once you get used to it (if you can!) you get the benefits. I love it personally - coupled with the real-time previews of changes it makes things a darn sight more pleasant. Problem is one of cognitive knowledge - you're so used to where it was that any change seems obscure and idiotic - but for new users it's a darn sight more pleasant.
You might enjoy reading this: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archiv...28/563007.aspx where a lot of explanation is given for the new UI and it gives you some insight into how much work actually went into it.
Well, I was rather hoping it wouldn't load, so we could get a proper email client at work. To give 7 it's due though - it makes it load and close quickly - this is obviously black magic.You managed to make Lotus Notes work in the first place?
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
If I'm being honest, I looked at it and thought "For people who use Word all day every day this will probably be a much better interface once they've got used to it". The problem for me is that I don't use any of the Office suite regularly so all the adjustments they've made to the UI, which I'm sure *do* have good reasoning behind them and *do* make it much more usable, just make my life harder on the few occasions I do use it. I'll be interested to see if any of those changes filter into Visual Studio, or if they reckon developers are less likely to benefit from the same approach...
That is black magic indeed - what *have* MS done to make Windows 7 so good?
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