Microsoft demos windows 7. Critics underwhelmed.

[Manedwolf]

Wow. Fisher-Price busybox toys you can push around, an onscreen...piano, and a photo touch interface that's halfway between an iPod Touch and MS's old news coffeetable thing that's been kicking around for years.

And damn, are the icons huge and ugly. Why do they keep making the icons bigger and uglier?

Are they trying to chase people to OSX and Linux and whatever else appears, or are they just that clueless, after the exploding turd that Vista turned out to be?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7422924.stm

How about updating XP, making it lean and sharp and offering optional customizing modules? Naaaaah.

Quote from MS: ""I will say that if you are impressed by the 'touch features' in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7."

Hm. How about stability, reliability and a speed beyond "first gear in molasses" before adding more bells and whistles? Considering that 7 is to use Vista's kernel, dumping more runtimes on top of the already resource-devouring system for the "touch" stuff should make it even more fun to use.

The few Vista laptops they got in here were so slow as to be a joke. And I mean "What, is this a 486?" slow when trying to even move files to a flash drive. They were sent back for XP. 

[PTK]

I'm currently running a slightly hacked version of XP to be lean and mean. If Microsoft were a bit smarter overall, they'd find the wonderful group that hacked XP, pay them to work for Microsoft, and release "XP 'Lite'" as I'm using.

[41magsnub]

I'm currently running a slightly hacked version of XP to be lean and mean. If Microsoft were a bit smarter overall, they'd find the wonderful group that hacked XP, pay them to work for Microsoft, and release "XP 'Lite'" as I'm using.

Amen, I'm using Vista at work because I have to understand it to support it on the rare occasion I am dragged kicking and screaming away from my servers and firewalls for desktop support, but given my druthers would be back on a stripped down XP in a heartbeat.

[RevDisk]

I'm currently running a slightly hacked version of XP to be lean and mean. If Microsoft were a bit smarter overall, they'd find the wonderful group that hacked XP, pay them to work for Microsoft, and release "XP 'Lite'" as I'm using.

I just chopped out a lot of the fat with nLite, and only installed drivers I actually needed.  Insanely fast on modern hardware.

[Gewehr98]

A haiku, or two:

Manedwolf slams Windows.
We've never seen that before.
Jim March is his bro?

Rose-colored glasses.
Mac worship's damned near a cult.
Doesn't help their cause...





And the world turns...

[PTK]

Gewehr98, you win the "odd reply of the day" award. 

[Racehorse]

I wish Microsoft would start focusing on performance rather than adding a bunch of pointless features that most people don't need or want. I'd gladly pony up the money for an OS that would increase performance noticeably, but I'm not going to spend $100-$300 to change the way my icons look.

[thebaldguy]

An ubergeek friend of mine finally got tired of Microsoft problems and got a Mac. He doesn't think he'll buy another PC again.

[Fjolnirsson]

I recently bought a computer to replace my home machine, which was a decade or so old, and failing. The new machine came with Vista. A vast improvement over my old one, which ran Windows 98. However, it runs like a special olympics version of my work machine, which is an inferior machine, but uses XP. I'm strongly considering ponying up the extra cash to "Upgrade" my home system to XP.

[Gewehr98]

That's interesting.

I just sold my PowerMac G4 because it was a piece de' caca, and bought another IBM workstation.  

I'll eventually buy another one, probably a PowerMac G5 to continue my Quark publishing (Printers want Mac Quark submissions, not PC Quark) in the not-too distant future, but I'll be under no misconceptions that it's gonna fix world hunger, be a substitute for my wife, or get me a Steve Jobs autographed premium pass to The Mothership.  

[AZRedhawk44]

I wish Microsoft would start focusing on performance rather than adding a bunch of pointless features that most people don't need or want.

Considering the incestuous relationship between Intel and Microsoft, I find it highly unlikely that Microsoft will do anything that might make a given current processor perform BETTER in the near future.  Computers are supposed to be disposed of every three years, and if we made more streamlined software then we couldn't sell bigger sticks of RAM or multi-cored processors with faster busses.

On a positive software note, I've started playing Age of Conan on my PC...specs:
AMD Athlon 64x2 5000 processor
4GB DDR2 800mhz ram
ATI Radeon 3850 PCI-e, 512MB video
Windows XP x64 edition

I was getting about 25-30 frames per second on my system (1280x1024 resolution on 19" LCD), then they released a series of patches last night for the game.  After installing, I got upwards of 45 frames per second.  Very pleased with the attentiveness of the programmers.

[Manedwolf]

A haiku, or two:

Manedwolf slams Windows.
We've never seen that before.
Jim March is his bro?

Rose-colored glasses.
Mac worship's damned near a cult.
Doesn't help their cause...

Do you know anyone who really likes Vista? I don't.

Do you think people who don't like Vista are going to like Vista with extra touchscreen runtimes further slowing it? I don't.

I really don't mind XP. Vista, however, is, a piece of garbage. I've never seen anything perform that poorly on basic tasks.

As others have said, I'm just wondering why Microsoft doesn't just dump the stupid Vista kernel, go back to XP, and restart with updates. Everyone would be happier. Nothing to do with Macs being superior in anyway, just that MS is being DUMB, and not listening to their userbase.

That userbase is crying "stripped-down speed and reliability, please!!!"...and MS's execs go "Look! Touchscreen piano!"

That's the disconnect I'm pointing at.

[K Frame]

You know, the LAST fricking thing I want is a bunch of fingerprints on my monitor.

Bill Gates is truly employing retards of monumental proportions.

[mtnbkr]

Vista runs halfway decently if you turn off all the stuff that makes it "pretty".  I set up a laptop for my FIL that I would consider marginal for XP.  With Vista as it comes out of the box, it was a dog, but after turning off all the widgets and "features", it runs fairly well.  It still needs more memory (only had 512meg), but it was perfectly usable for non-geeks.

Chris

[Gewehr98]

There's a joke in there somewhere, Mike, about a blonde and white-out, I'm sure.

I fail to feel the angst about touch-screens functionality, though.  A good portion of the retail establishments I visit use touch-screens - especially restaurants.

Since Windoze has to accommodate any and all hardware configurations that choose to run the OS, it doesn't surprise me in the least that they have enabled large icons and touch-screen functions.  It doesn't mean you have to use them, just that they're available.  I've considered having a touch-screen monitor for my reloading room computer, just to make things more convenient as I'm cranking away on the Dillon or casting boolits, etc.

That's just like the Windoze Accessibility menu, with all those extra settings.  You and I don't need them, so we don't toggle them on.

My XP machines run the classic Win2K desktop, with all the effects and Romper Room colors turned off. 

[mtnbkr]

My XP machines run the classic Win2K desktop, with all the effects and Romper Room colors turned off. 

Mine too.  That's also what I did to FIL's Vista machine.  It's amazing how much performance you pick up when you turn off all the crap.  It isn't fast, but it's not unusable.

Chris

[lupinus]

thing is, I shouldn't need to be a computer geek (even if a mild one) to figure out how to turn the widgets and gadgets off.

I want out of the box fast and reliable.  Not saying knowing how to tweak your system is a bad thing, but why should I need to buy a dog and know how to tweak it to make it worth a damn?

XP isn't bad, vista sucks.  I'm seriously thinking my next system will be a MAC, I really don't want to be stuck with Vista or worse that crap.  And I don't want to pony up more cash on top of the computer to switch to an unsupported OS.

[Boomhauer]

Bill Gates is truly employing retards of monumental proportions.

Amen to that.

The new machine came with Vista. A vast improvement over my old one, which ran Windows 98. However, it runs like a special olympics version of my work machine, which is an inferior machine, but uses XP

Hehe. That's why I hate Vista so much.

I think Microsoft should put down the bong and not touch XP, except to expand it's memory capability beyond the what, 4 gig limit?

I'm currently running a slightly hacked version of XP to be lean and mean. If Microsoft were a bit smarter overall, they'd find the wonderful group that hacked XP, pay them to work for Microsoft, and release "XP 'Lite'" as I'm using.

Links man, links, and can a not very computer savvy guy do it w/o a problem?

[zahc]

I'd gladly pony up the money for an OS that would increase performance noticeably,

Then why don't you pony up nothing and download a real operating system?

/linux plug

[RevDisk]

I'd gladly pony up the money for an OS that would increase performance noticeably,

Then why don't you pony up nothing and download a real operating system?

/linux plug

Windows XP x64 is limited to 128 GB of physical memory.  I highly recommend it

[Gewehr98]

I'm running swappable hard drives in my main IBM quad-Xeon worstation.  One hard drive is Suse 10.3, the other WinXP Pro.

I absolutely love the Suse Linux, but it by no means an easy system to install and set up for hardware.  As much as folks love to bash Windows, it still is truly an Everyman's OS. Linux has a long ways to go before it exits the domain of the computer geek.

The reason Mac users have it easy is because they're basically a sole-source system, drivers and apps don't have to be written to support a myriad of vendors and configurations.  Windows could be a lot more streamlined if they didn't have to support all those parts and pieces. 

It's already been streamlined in some circles. I've played with XP Lite and Tiny XP - they're great when you want optimal performance sans all the bells and whistles.  You also have to know what you're doing to build a Tiny XP install. Unfortunately, as an Everyman's OS, Windows XP and Vista are still trying to be everything to everybody.  They have to, including Ma and Pa Kettle, who just want something they can plug in and turn on, without having to upgrade, install, or tweak anything.  Short of going for the aforementioned sole-source Mac, they're going to either buy XP or Vista, because that's what they're going to find at WallyWorld, along with the software titles.  Unless they have a geek in the family or know one, they'll go no further. 

[K Frame]

"I fail to feel the angst about touch-screens functionality, though.  A good portion of the retail establishments I visit use touch-screens - especially restaurants."

Sure, touch screens are great.

I use them all the time.

But I don't want fingerprints on MY monitor.

I don't give a damn about fingerprints on a monitor/display I use incidentally for maybe 20-30 seconds while I'm getting cash or groceries.

But the absolute LAST thing I want to have to do is try to read a 200+ page system architecture document through a bunch of fingerprints. People at my office know that if they touch the surface of my monitor, they're going to catch three levels of hell.

I can't even begin to imagine what kind of frigging mess would be created if you were snacking on something greasy while you were playing the virtual piano.

It's a stupid idea in search of a functional necessity on a home computer.

[Sergeant Bob]

A buddy of mine who is a pretty serious computer geek is always telling me how much he likes Vista....
usually a while before he tells me he had to dump his TV card, sound card or some other card, and can't get this or that program to work properly.

[Finch]

After the latest attempt by Microsoft, I have grown very fond of Fedora. I have a box running WinXP which is primarily for games and other Windows reliant software, while my Fedora box is used for pretty much anything else.

[taurusowner]

I'm running a Vista laptop right now, and it works marvelously.