News - Steam survey suggests gamers are warming to Windows 7

[lodore]

See I haven't figured this out yet.

IIRC, when Vista came out we were told that it had a new kernel, so rebooting after driver installs would be a thing of the past. I thought reboots would become fairly rare instances after Vista was introduced.

As things stand though, I'm rebooting these damn things for the sake of Defender updates or other nonsense.

Windows defender updates dont need reboots. i do those manually and its fine. but if you click on the arrow at start menu it will ask you if you want to install updates and reboot even thou defender def updates dont need a reboot.

Im glad I can uninstall and install a new graphics card driver without reboot thou. once I accidently had games open so it asked for reboot. I closed it off and then installed new driver without reboot still.

Other operating systems can install thousands of updates without needing to reboot.

Maybe someone will chime in and help us find out why in 2010 windows still needs to reboot so often.

Ive had to reboot twice in one week because of internet explorer updates. its not so bad for a home desktop system but it must be a major pain in the ass for companies..

[12GaugeShotty]

Or perhaps engage brain before clicking?
If all users did that, malware would almost be a thing of the past!

QFT! I find it hilarious that people blame Windows for things that they do by not paying attention.

[Blastuk]

Other operating systems can install thousands of updates without needing to reboot.

Probably because they don't make use of the new files until you reboot anyway. They use the old version that's still loaded in memory.

[Ruddrage]

I think the sudden uptake of Windows 7 must be from people fleeing Vista, heck I was one of them. I wonder if we will get to a point when Windows Vista is no longer supported by Microsoft but XP is.

[TooNice]

I am not surprised. Windows 7 RC was very well received by all but those who feels 'cheated' by Vista.

[daveyhue]

I have only briefly used windows 7 but I personally prefered it over xp and vista for speed,compatibility and usability.

[mrb_no1]

yeh w7 was great from the beta testing that i did on it, it lacked proper gaming support but worked sooo well in other areas it was lovely. Then the rc came about, games worked perfectly so i was sold and got the full os as soon as possible. As the economy recovers and gamers and enthusiasts find better work i think it will aid the new os take up. And to be honest, i never tried the 32 bit version, the 64bit allows that much extra memory aswell as a few other tweaks. And someone mentioned the loss of vista support, and the continuation of xp support in the future...lol +1 for that dude!

[lodore]

Probably because they don't make use of the new files until you reboot anyway. They use the old version that's still loaded in memory.

Hello,
incorrect. apt-get will restart services so the new versions are updated without a reboot.
if you are using firefox 3.5 and use the package management system to update firefox to 3.6 next time you open firefox it will be 3.6.

the only time you need to reboot linux is when a kernel update is done.

[Temi_D]

lol how did this turn into a complaint thread about reboot issues. Becides since win7 officially came out, theres only been about 4 updates (dont you just miss them?). Having to reboot isnt that big of an issue...

[Timmy!!!]

I did that on Windows 7 already. I still get prompts for IE patches. Just got KB978207 yesterday even though IE8 has been uninstalled for over a week.

The reason the update is still showing is becaues the IE backend is still installed on your system. There are many programs that completely rely on IE being installed (For Example Steam) to use the OS's built in web rendering technology.

By uninstalling IE8 you simply remove the GUI and all the shortcuts - the rendering engine remains, and will therefore be updated with any relavant updates.

Win7 has been rock solid for me, and the lack of UAC prompts has been a very welcome change. I haven't noticed the reboot issues that some people have commented on. I turn my PC off when I'm not using it so it isn't really an issue.

[TheAnimus]

the only thing that really annoys me about windows 7 is the reboots after even the smallest update..

I dont even use IE so why do i need to reboot to patch the bloody thing?

if any program is using trident engine why cant it simply ask me to close it?

I actually asked a mate of mine about this, because MS have made this dynamic in-use patching thingie, which was quite clever and mostly quirk free.

Problem is they need to force a restart of every app that would use it. And thanks to really bad design in windows (and the same is true of plenty of 'desktopped' posix!) they can't just say ok this->that->theother, restart them in the exact same order.

Personally I vote for applications having a new 'hibernate' style state. Where its up to the platform they are using to serialize the domain and view state. Yes you could just nock the .DATA? down, but this would be more elegant way of re-starting with minimal inconvenience. Most browsers do this now, opening up the tabs you had before. Why don't more apps? Either way i digress.

According to this guy, they do it to force all apps to use the latest libs, you don't just want to blindly patch the .CODE hoping that it everything works OK. I have no real issue with this, as a reboot is 15 seconds more than a re-log anyway.

[kingpotnoodle]

lol how did this turn into a complaint thread about reboot issues. Becides since win7 officially came out, theres only been about 4 updates (dont you just miss them?). Having to reboot isnt that big of an issue...

I have to agree, reboot complaints are a bit over-stated. I sleep my PC when it's not in use, and have recorded weeks between full restarts using Windows 7. However according to my WSUS server there are 49 updates possibly applicable to Windows 7... some of those are the MSRT and 2 versions for 32/64 bit... but it's a few more than 4 in total though!

It's not a server OS, a reboot for updates is hardly a big deal anyway - better that than having them half applied and conflicting. Linux only asks for reboots after Kernel updates (and not all distros ask then) but in my experience after a heavy update session a reboot is still a good idea - I've encountered things not working quite as planned until a reboot is done.