Headlines - Windows 7 will run on Vista's recommended hardware

[dangel]

*cough* opus *cough*

Can't abide explorer. Tis the work of the devil.

[cordas]

Ah, yes, because one (massive) delay means that's company policy



Good question - speaking as someone who uses it every day (for the past 1.5 years or so) who somehow manages to 'cope'

Pretty much every OS that MS has released has been delayed from its original projected launch date. Its not a complaint or critism its just a fact of reality... Personally I would rather they delay their new OS and get them as right as they can, rather than rush them out the door to meet unrealistic release dates.

As for Vista I have been using it for the last year or so and really like it (now they have fixed the networking issues when file sharing with XP machines who would ever think in this modern day that people might want to network 2 machines together that are running different version of MS OS ).

[dangel]

Pretty much every OS that MS has released has been delayed from its original projected launch date. Its not a complaint or critism its just a fact of reality... Personally I would rather they delay their new OS and get them as right as they can, rather than rush them out the door to meet unrealistic release dates..

I think the point is that the Vista delay was an exception to the rule, rather than general policy. No Windows release has ever had that kind of push-back period. Talking about 7 being 2 years late is pretty silly - it's just not going to happen (for so many reasons - both technical and political).
I agree entirely that it's better to get it 'done' but the fact of the matter is Vista *itself* was a darn good release of Windows - but one hamstrung by terrible driver issues that were external to MS themselves. Yes, there were bugs (and still are) but people forget how bad things were the last time around all too quickly.

A fact of reality is that "projected launch dates" are just that. I have to estimate release dates for my own software all the time and it's often pretty much "how long is a piece of string" because of both technical issues actually implementing it and the fact that the goalposts appear to be on wheels.

[TheAnimus]

not a fan of opus. the UI looks like something from Norton Desktop for windows 3.1!

The plugin model is much more restrictive than explorer, so i suppose it will more stable, but thats kind of hte wrong way of doing business. Plus its API is a classic DLL based design, COM is better than that, and i'm complaining that COM's had its day.

Fact of the matter is you can make explorer work fine by disabling half the features. If i wanted that, i'd be running KDE a lot faster, and cheaper.

[TheAnimus]

one hamstrung by terrible driver issues that were external to MS themselves.

Which largely where of their own making!

the HAL changed so damn much, between early beta versions and the RCs, i think MS really should of spent resources on developing the drivers with ATI nVida and Intel, they should of realised early on that their key partners weren't ready, and put more resources into it (ie, done their job for them) its not as if they didn't have the money, and didn't do this before with NT4 and Win95!

[dangel]

not a fan of opus. the UI looks like something from Norton Desktop for windows 3.1!

Can't say I agree at all there - it looks fine for me (on Vista) and is (very) customizable in any case. If you're refering to the 'commander' layout then click dual hor, dual vert, explorer(!), filmstrip, images or single You can flip between them on the fly..

The plugin model is much more restrictive than explorer, so i suppose it will more stable, but thats kind of hte wrong way of doing business. Plus its API is a classic DLL based design, COM is better than that, and i'm complaining that COM's had its day.

Haven't checked into it - there's not a lot of plugins for it anyway because a: it does so bloody much already and b: all the explorer shell extensions work in it too. The reason I use/like it is it's so powerful/flexible compared to the std POS built in Anything that saves me time/tedium on a daily basis is a good thing.

Fact of the matter is you can make explorer work fine by disabling half the features. If i wanted that, i'd be running KDE a lot faster, and cheaper.

Each to his own - no problem with that - but i'd argue i'd struggle to find as flexible or deep a file manager on Windows as Opus period. I make good use of it and i've billed it to the company (along with the other 7 licences we bought for colleagues suitably enamoured with it's merits) so it's cost me nothing

[dangel]

Which largely where of their own making!

the HAL changed so damn much, between early beta versions and the RCs, i think MS really should of spent resources on developing the drivers with ATI nVida and Intel, they should of realised early on that their key partners weren't ready, and put more resources into it (ie, done their job for them) its not as if they didn't have the money, and didn't do this before with NT4 and Win95!

But you're glad they did it, right? I am - it was the right technical decision to make - and it provides a much better footing for Seven as a result. With hindsight (it's a wonderful thing..) i'm sure they could of done some things differently (sure) but at the end of the day some manus did a far (far) better job of drivers than others.. Telling?

[TheAnimus]

oh yes, but i think the fact the WHQL is so detached from the idea of making windows versions dosen't help things.

With 7 it will of been a bit of natural evolution that helped the drivers get where they should be. Can't help but feal that would of been better served by a big fat cash injection of training for developers, and a closer relationship with the companies.

[cordas]

I think the point is that the Vista delay was an exception to the rule, rather than general policy. No Windows release has ever had that kind of push-back period. Talking about 7 being 2 years late is pretty silly - it's just not going to happen (for so many reasons - both technical and political).
I agree entirely that it's better to get it 'done' but the fact of the matter is Vista *itself* was a darn good release of Windows - but one hamstrung by terrible driver issues that were external to MS themselves. Yes, there were bugs (and still are) but people forget how bad things were the last time around all too quickly.

A fact of reality is that "projected launch dates" are just that. I have to estimate release dates for my own software all the time and it's often pretty much "how long is a piece of string" because of both technical issues actually implementing it and the fact that the goalposts appear to be on wheels.

I dunno Xp was delayed about a year I seem to remember, ME for longer than that, 98 was about a year and so was 95 if my memory serves me correctly, if you look at the original projected release dates.

I also think that producing new OS is becoming ever more complicated as they try to add more and more functionality into them and the code / foot print of the OS grows ever greater. This in turn is going to create ever more complex bugs and problems that are going to take longer to fix, add into that my firmly held belief in the incompetence of management and its inability to realise these issues or realisticly figure them into build times.

[dangel]

I dunno Xp was delayed about a year I seem to remember, ME for longer than that, 98 was about a year and so was 95 if my memory serves me correctly, if you look at the original projected release dates.

Possibly - I thought XP was delivered on time actually - but it's hardly in the same league now is it?

I also think that producing new OS is becoming ever more complicated as they try to add more and more functionality into them and the code / foot print of the OS grows ever greater. This in turn is going to create ever more complex bugs and problems that are going to take longer to fix, add into that my firmly held belief in the incompetence of management and its inability to realise these issues or realisticly figure them into build times.

Yup OS' are getting bigger and more complex - that's inevitable as users demand more and more features. I think MS' dev process is pretty good actually - the reduction of Vista's bug count was rather dramatic and they have a simply massive testing team/process (envy).
I agree that MS had internal management issues - hence why so many heads rolled and there was (and is) a great deal of change at Redmond. Ultimately, I think they got to a point with Vista (when it was based on XP) and realised the codebase was out of control (and therefore unmaintainable). Whether that is the fault of management for not realising it sooner or not we'll never know - regardless such a huge stumble became a catalyst for change.

[muddyfox470]

Are they going to try and make it less bloaty ? They should definitely consider some better memory management though. Expecting people to have 2Gb just for it to run smoothly is a bit much, no?

[kalniel]

Are they going to make it a subscription based model, rather than one off payment?

[dangel]

Kalniel - I shudder when I hear that

[this_is_gav]

Are they going to try and make it less bloaty ? They should definitely consider some better memory management though. Expecting people to have 2Gb just for it to run smoothly is a bit much, no?

It works perfectly well with 1gb (I've said before it's fine with 512mb in many situations). Problems arise when you start installing Adobe Reader and Quicktime and things like that, with all their startup entries and services. Soon you have all sorts of crap and that startup speed turns to a dribble.

Compare a virgin OS (be it XP or Vista, though Vista is harder to gauge earlier with its SuperFetch and indexing) to one when you've installed everything you need. 20 seconds to the OS turns to a minute.

Perhaps MS could implement an incentive not to add multiple startup entries, but they shouldn't need to. It's not Microsoft's fault that, for instance, Apple want to include Quicktime and Safari with iTunes when a simple plugin would suffice, and Google Toolbar is included with every sodding program on the planet.

I love simple and clean, and would love nothing more than to have Windows 7 streamlined into a teeny little naked OS with a memory footprint that would fit on a floppy, but it's not going to happen. It's the programmers of other software which need to pull themselves together. Who at Ahead thought Nero would be better if version 8 was 10-15x times the size of version 6, while being pretty much the same? Cyberlink? [shudder] Norton?

I'm not saying Windows couldn't be greatly improved in this respect (the ever-increasing size of the Windows folder being the main bugbear) - just that they're far from the worst offenders.

[TheAnimus]

I've said it before and i'll say it again, people don't understand that using RAM is good, and that vista runs smoothly with just 1 gig, seeing 90% of it been used, is what you'd want an expect, even if 'nothing' is running, it means it dosen't have to touch the HDD when its time to run.

In many aspects its less bloated than XP was, plenty of core OS operations are faster.

[this_is_gav]

I don't think that's aimed at my last post, but I'll clarify anyway. I'm not really saying anything negative about Vista, more so companies like Apple where you install Quicktime, and another process is loaded at startup. Adobe Reader, you get 2 or 3 processes (1 which is to preload components, which if Reader was written properly, Vista would handle much better, and choose whether it's used often enough to warrant it) and Ahead's Nero, with yet more bits and pieces hooked into the memory.

Using RAM is definitely good (I love SuperFetch), but let the OS decide. And definately don't want a tray icon so I know I've got Quicktime installed (I use QT Alternative anyway, but that's besides the point) or Nero bloody Scout.