Hi guys --as a long time "HATER" of Vista I've been trying out the new Windows 7 Beta -- what a difference --it surpasses Windows XP for speed etc etc. and it leaves cludgy Vista for dust.
Whilst I know the "Mac die-hards" out there won't care I can honestly say that if you are a Windows user then the new Windows 7 is what Windows should have been -- even on my Beta everything works (unfortunately no 64 Bit trial yet but the 32 bit version still runs like "greased lightning" even on a relatively lowly specced laptop 2GB RAM T5500 Dual Core 1.6 GHZ processor) -- Photoshop CS4 also works fine.
As this is only a "Beta" I'm really looking forward to the official release.
For once M$ has come out with something decent. PS CS4 runs fine on this even on a low powered laptop which struggled with VISTA.
Don't install too much on Windows 7 just yet as it will expire in June / July (it's only a Beta so if things do go wrong then that's par for the course when using trial software).
So far everything I've tried has worked first time including Printing.
Not yet -- I set the printers up as "Local TCPIP Ports" so I can use existing XP / Vista drivers.
I haven't got any special hardware apart from an old "Minidisc" recorder which I still use but on a Windows XP Virtual machine.
Intel Graphics accelerator stuff etc including 945 chipset, o2 / mmc SD etc. card readers etc all seem to work fine with the native Windows 7 Install and my DVD playing program (WinDVD) also gives no problem.
So far I'm impressed.
BTW Happy new year everyone. -- It's too cold for me to go out (-2 C) so I'm on the Internet instead with a nice "Hot Toddy".
You can take doze out of Windows, but you cannot take evil out of Evil Empire. The horror story I heard about Vista was the memory footprint (2GB to boot). Any improvement there?
Happy New One! It's -9C this evening in balmy Chicago, up from -20C last week.
Hi there
Windows 7 boots up really quickly (faster than XP) and doesn't use much memory on boot -- haven't analysed in detail -- not that much of a "Geek" but the whole system is MUCH MUCH snappier than VISTA and even XP and disks don't seem to be in use so much --with VISTA I'd often get disks with their activity lights hard on for as much as 10 minutes even when I wasn't running anything which slowed the system down so much it was almost useless..
I'm only testing the 32 Bit version at the moment - No 64 Bit Beta currently available (or at least I can't get hold of one).
I'm using latest build 7000.
Office 2007, Vmware, CS4 extended , DVD playing also run no problems.
The only bits I don't like are :
1) You can't switch to the old "Windows Classic Menu styles" - not a real problem.
2) On VMWARE Workstation install you seem to get a phantom user _vmware user_ which is also shown in the logon screen which you can't get rid of. Going into User accounts this user doesn't exist (or I can't find it). The user name is as shown with the leading and trailing underscore(_) - maybe this indicates something that one of you windows gurus can explain.
3) Using Vodafone Mobile Connect is a bit fiddly -- even though the program reports No Connections you can connect manually via the Network connection in the control panel. Connect to the USB HSDPA device. Then the Internet works fine even though the Vodafone mobile connect program says No Connections open !!
4) On my laptop sometimes typing jumps to random places on the screen -- this is not a specific Windows 7 problem -- I had this problem on XP and Vista and even on Linux. - I cured this by downloading the Synaptics Vista driver and disabling the Touch pad -- I hat touchpads anyway. This fixes the problem - but be sure you plug in a USB mouse !!.
Note it's a BETA release so I can live with these --so far I'm impressed. I am NOT going to use VISTA any more. (Actually this Beta behaves more like a Release Candidate rather than a beta).
I'll keep XP on my Live machines until Windows 7 is released officially.
Good things -
1) I get propernative screen resolution without having to find any extra drivers from the Net - worked stright out of the box. 3D and Video acceleration (INTEL) also work properly (at last).
2) Sound (Realtek HD sound driver) worked as well straight from the box.
Built in SD /MMC card reader also worked straight out of the box.
3) TV (DVB-T Digital TV) - Pinnacle worked as well -- this was flaky under VISTA.
4) Internet browsing much quicker and smoother -- no more flaky screen jerks due to poor Video performance - the Intel Video accelerator hardware works seamlessly with this version of Windows.
5) all round snappier system performance - boots up and shuts down really fast as well.
I'm expecting real improvmenets with the 64 bit version if the 32 bit version is anything to go by.
OK I know a lot of people regard M$ as the Evil empire -- but at least it does look like "The Sinner Repenteth" - at least a little !! and is attempting to try and make a DECENT Windows version instead of that treacle like performance most people experience with VISTA.
For Pro shooters with decent hardware I think this release of Windows will really address a lot of the Vista performance issues.
I'm not wanting to fire up the Macbooks / Apple vs PC's Windows argument -- but you can get some really CHEAP high end PC hardware now -- with this new Windows it's almost a "no brainer" -- as you can sometimes get 3 fast machines for the price of a single macbook. - In the UK at the moment you can even get a decent FREE laptop if you sign up with some mobile phone companies ("Credit Crunch" throws up some winners as well as losers if you can take advantage of it).
Cheers and a Happy and "Credit CrunchLESS" New year to everyone. Hope the gigs keep rolling in this year for you all.
rico wrote:
You can take doze out of Windows, but you cannot take evil out of Evil Empire.
I used to think the same thing - but now that I know Bill and Melinda are spearheading one of the largest philanthropy companies ever with their Billions, I have a great deal of respect. How MS business was handled in the past... that was business, pure and simple... aggressive and effective: yes.
rico wrote:
The horror story I heard about Vista was the memory footprint (2GB to boot). Any improvement there?
No offense, but memory is $10/GB today.
How is the footprint to boot the OS a problem, when the 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 2^64 addresses, equivalent to approximately 17.2 billion gigabytes, 16.8 million terabytes, or 16 exabytes of RAM. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit)
Today we shoot 21Mpix images in RAW and still want more, but nobody is complaining about how much drive space it all will take up. ('cept me, I'm about to fill up my 9TB with 4Mbit images)
Your 9TB are CHEAP these days -- I've just bought 4 X 400 GB usb drives which don't require ANY extra power source and are small enough to carry around in a vest pocket. Cost around 40 USD per drive. The size of the drive is a bit like an old fashioned "Hip Flask".
Disk space is really NOT AN ISSUE any more (apart from the issues of how to organise storing that much data and retrieving it sensibly).
I do agree that the Mr Gates Foundataion does a lot of very good work out there -- as I previously posted "The Sinner doth repenteth".
Unlike the Rapacious and scumbag banks which planet wide are getting a TRILLION dollar cashfest out of hard pressed taxpayers like me , Mr Gates is actually putting something back into the community - ok he took loads out but at least he's putting lots back as well.
Happy new year again everyone -- and for once I hope thw Windows 7 does actually deliver like the beta seems to promise.
Hammy wrote:
I used to think the same thing - but now that I know Bill and Melinda are spearheading one of the largest philanthropy companies ever with their Billions, I have a great deal of respect. How MS business was handled in the past... that was business, pure and simple... aggressive and effective: yes.
Very, very true. And if you look at how Apple operates, it's the definition of an "evil empire". But for some reason they get away with it because of slick marketing that seems to blind people into thinking Steve Jobs has their best interests at heart (when he's probably even more money grubbing than MS ever was).
Business is business, and the market will dictate whether a company is successful or not. I personally have never had a problem with Vista (32 or 64) in 2 years, but it's only niggle to me is how rather bloated it is in memory requirements. Windows 7 sounds like it may be a winner. Great thread.
rico wrote:
The horror story I heard about Vista was the memory footprint (2GB to boot). Any improvement there?
.
One thing to add... 2gb of ram is cheap. Vista cooks with 2gb. I remember when I was finally able to get 512mb for XP.. it's sweet spot. I remember how much of a dog it was with 128 megs of ram. I think I paid less for my current 8gb of ram than I did getting 512 megs for XP. It is all relative.
All depends on the suppose the problem with microsoft is that its too open ended. People have different video cards/motherboards etc. DRIVERS will be the key. If the other companies don't support it. It will not fly, and it will not be stable no matter what.
Hi there -- so far as I can see IT's DEFINITELY NOT VISTA SERVICE PACK 2. This operating system works faster, slicker and in some respects more intuitive . True some of it is Vista like (well it's Windows isn't it) and Microsoft have definitely taken the "Bloatware" out of Vista, and only a small number of "Services" are actually started on boot.
The whole Video acceleration thing makes for a much smoother "ride" especially when using large hi quality monitors.
I run my OS on its own partition 'C' and have my data, / data bases etc. spread across various volumes. This way if I restore the OS I don't have to restore my data as well.
Vista 64 Bit even on a 2 GB laptop was using around 35 GB for the system and my apps (not too many - just Photoshop, Office Enterprise, Win DVD and a few others).
My OS for the same applications on Windows 7 is 12 GB (as this is a laptop I'm testing on you have to include the system Page file and some swap areas on the 'C' drive which adds to the size. On a Desktop I'll spread these over different volumes.)
Photoshop CS4 is definitely also quite responsive on the laptop making it quite feasable to process photos when you are in a Hotel etc. - OK you wouldn't want to do hundreds of photos but with VISTA I found it took forever to run PS on the same laptop -- test machine T5500 Dual Intel core with 2GB RAM. I changed the original hard 80 GB hard disk to a 250 GB one -- very easy to do for laptops and costs 35 GBP / 45 USD. (The faster hard disk was also used in the VISTA installation so it's not the changing of the hard disk which causes the improvement in performance.
All in all I'm very satisfied -- especially for a beta --haven't crashed it yet.
The only app which fails to install is the free version of Alcohol 52 which I use to mount a "Virtual CD / DVD" drive. I can live without that particular application for the moment.
One thi ng people might get confused at is that in Windows explorer there's no FILE==>EDIT etc menu. It's called Organise New Folder=> include in Library=> share with Burn. Once you get used to it I actually prefer that toolbar. The Organise New folder menu has the "classical" Copy/ Move/Paste etc stuff in it.
rico wrote:
The horror story I heard about Vista was the memory footprint (2GB to boot). Any improvement there?
Windows expert Paul Thurrott said on a podcast that the head developer for Windows 7 uses a netbook with an Atom processor and 1GB of RAM as his main testing machine.
Kyle Yates wrote:
I do agree that the Mr Gates Foundataion does a lot of very good work out there -- as I previously posted "The Sinner doth repenteth".
Unlike the Rapacious and scumbag banks which planet wide are getting a TRILLION dollar cashfest out of hard pressed taxpayers like me , Mr Gates is actually putting something back into the community - ok he took loads out but at least he's putting lots back as well.
-K
Actually, the gates foundation is by far the biggest private philanthropic organization in the world. Ever. And it's not even close. He's gotten Buffett to commit 95% of his wealth, as well as many others.
I don't really see how he's a sinner... you mean for revolutionizing the world? And what did he take money out of? The world? Did he burn this money? Who'd he take it from? Did he use a gun? lol...
mdude85 wrote:
Cool, but what's with the "$" in "M$"? Is this a typo?
It's a common shorthand, and dig, for Microsoft (ie it's all about the money).
7 really seems to be everything Microsoft needed Vista to be. Having played with it only briefly, even in the beta stage(!), it seems to be better than XP and Vista. Hopefully they don't eff up a good product between now and the release, because this would definitely have me upgrading almost immediately. They took most of the great features right out of OSX, and they even work!
I've kept hearing good things from Windows 7. I'm curious to try it out. I jumped ship to mac (and dont plan to look back) because of Vistas complete unusability for what I needed out of a computer so I probably wont be buying a windows 7 machine, but since I make a living fixing problems in windows I'm sure I will run across it
Hi evryone
All I can say that whatever the tests say out on the Net my experience with an "Official" i.e not one loaded from a Torrent or elsewhere is that Windows 7 runs rings around Vista and is even more is responsive that a decently tuned XP system.
(And I'm only testing a 32 bit system. Really looking forward to a 64 Bit system test).
Kyle Yates wrote:
Hi evryone
All I can say that whatever the tests say out on the Net my experience with an "Official" i.e not one loaded from a Torrent or elsewhere is that Windows 7 runs rings around Vista and is even more is responsive that a decently tuned XP system.
(And I'm only testing a 32 bit system. Really looking forward to a 64 Bit system test).
Cheers
-K
And I trust you Kyle - personally I can't wait to get it installed - from everything I've read including what you post here - it sounds like what Vista should have been when it was released -- do you have any idea as to a time frame to when Win 7 will be released to the public ?
The horror story I heard about Vista was the memory footprint (2GB to boot). Any improvement there?