Frogboy Frogboy

Living in Windows 7: Part 1

Living in Windows 7: Part 1

I’m running the BETA of Windows 7 and it’s been running so well that I’ve decided to make it my quasi-production machine.

Windows 7 is a massive usability upgrade from any previous version of Windows.  Much of the changes are just minor in terms of effort but just make the whole system feel a lot better designed.

For example, if I want look at my connected devices I see this:

image

Notice I don’t see a bunch of crap. I just see the stuff actually connected to the machine. It’s a very nice change from what has been in Windows before.

One of the purposes of this series of articles is to let you know what programs I have problems with, and which ones work right.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll give you generalized reports on the progress of our software (Stardock’s) running on Windows 7 as well as highlighting cool little touches in Windows 7.

Now, for the purposes of making life hard on Stardock, I’m not just running a beta of Windows 7, I’m running a beta of Windows 7 64-bit.  By the time Windows 7 is released, all applicable Stardock software must run on this machine. :)

152,718 views 47 replies
Reply #26 Top
I do so love these Mac fanbois and their attempt at making what they think are balanced, objective comments or reviews. Heaven forbid if they actually thought before they posted. -
1. I remember number of similar "wow great" threads / sites / blogs during Vista beta and at the end it turned out to be pile of crap
End of quote
If it reall was "crap", why did so many people actually BUY it...and apparenly LOVE IT (based upon product return levels via retail channels)? -
2. So far what I read about Win 7 it feels like nothing else but "Vista patch" which is good news for sure but nothing to get me remotely excited...
End of quote
Nice bit of parroting there, "-=XX=-Nephilim" - You're just reguritating what the MS-bashers are doing so you'll look somewhat informed; suprise! Your disguise failed. The users who have used the Public Beta have been experiening huge...no, massive performance increases with W7 versus Vista.
3. Again, so far, I haven't read anything about fundamental redesigns to OS meaning that most probably we will have nice and fast system when freshly installed and then bloated hog 1 year down the line when we will eventually reach the point of full reinstall just like with every other incarnation of windows... Registry is still there, it is still not based on Unix, security issues are still there etc...
End of quote
How about trotting-over to MSDN's Channel 9 pages and try reading-up on W7's internals. Ever heard of "MinWin"? "Modularised Kernel"? "Modularized Services"? I guess not. UNIX is a dinosaur, and Apple couldn't code a high-performance OS, so it grabbed the MACH kernel and stuck a pretty face on it; PIG + MAKEUP=PIG.
4. I also see constant attempts to rip of OS X - pretty much continuation of Vista experience in that sense which I find pathetic to say at least... why not go for something original, inspire industry and put OS X in such position so its forced to rip of Win for a change...
End of quote
Guess what "-=XX=-Nephilim"? The lovely dock that makes Apple users all giddy and feverish - it came from....WINDOWS 1.0!!! Yep - Apple's only real claim to GUI fame was LIFTED by Jobs when he threw NextStart / NextStep together. He saw Windows 1.0 when Bill Gates & Steve Jobs showed him Windows 1.0 at the Mac launch; you can see it clearly in the 2nd screenshot on this page: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101. Amazing, eh? So much for Microsoft copying Apple; can you say "dead fork"?
5. Put functionality aside, aesthetics are still shit... I mean cant they at least employ designer or two so they make it at very least look nice!?
End of quote
I'll take Windows over the sterile, bland, diverticulitis-diet, artsy-fartsy UI in a heartbeat - so has 80% of the world's PC users. I used to wonder why just looking at a Mac made me sick, and I just figured it out; everything looks like it's been coated with Milk of Magnesia!
6. Sure... At this point Stardock comes in with Blinds, Dock, Desktop X etc... to fix the disaster. Which is great news but then again this thread pretty much turns into add for Stardock software which user should install to get out from usual Win visual hell... When I was Win user I had more less all of Stardock products installed just to make my experience of using computer remotely comfortable and modern...
End of quote
Are you serious? Microsoft doesn't own Stardock (the owners of WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, DesktopX and others), they're an independent company. Most of the work Stardock did was originally for OS/2 and not for Windows. Do we see Apple suing Stardock for their products ability to do things similar to Apple's Sacred Dock? In case you forgot, "-=XX=-Nephilim"; Stardock owns wincustomize.com - brilliant move, porkchop!
7. I am 101% sure OS X 10.6 will take a piss out of Win again...
End of quote
Wow - that means that OS X 10.6 will get Apple a 21% market-share? Bravo! Three cheers for mediocracy!
8. Win to gain trust and driving force again needs to be redesigned from scratch! - Untill then...
End of quote
Ummmm...it looks like your cut-and-paste from some other Apple Fanboi's rant didn't work too well with that point.
9. ... EPIC FAIL!
End of quote
And you have failed in such an epic manner in your post to make really any sense at all. Step away from your Macintosh slowly as to not disrupt the "Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field Generator" and you might be able to think for yourself. Apple has it's "Think Differently" mantra - The rest of the world just wants the Apple fanbois to "THINK" instead of swooning over every shiney bit of white plastic and brushed aluminumn.
Reply #27 Top

:)

Sorry, but your post just made me stay away from Windoz even more...

I am also sorry if my post offended you since that was not my intention.

 

I was Win user for 10 solid years until 2 years ago when another company "persuaded" me that stuff can work as well as look much better than what I was used to...

I will have no problem switching back to Win when Microsoft manage to "persuade" me that it is the right thing to do...

And somehow, I don't think Win 7 will succeed in that mission - but who knows...

 

All the best man and take it easy :)

Reply #29 Top
I don't know if it's a fanboy thing really. Windows is just not good. I have 64bit Vista Ultimate and it runs great but I also am constantly running registry cleaners and deleting cache and whatnot. I know there is a lot of feelings about registry cleaners but I will tell you after just a month I downloaded a reg cleaner and it found a little over 8000 "errors". I threw caution to the wind and deleted them all and the speed improvemen was 100% or better. Shouldn't be this way.
Reply #30 Top
One thing to keep in mind: Even if Vista compatible programs are supposed to work on W.7, even Microsoft themselves have a different W.7 beta driver for most of their own hardware (I have a Microsoft Media 3000 Keyboard). So obviously they do realize not everything is compatible.
Reply #31 Top
Going from Vista to Windows 7 was not at all problematic for me except for having to install a fresh set of SiS900 drivers. I've been using '7' since it was released in the beta form and it has been a wonderful process of discovery on the new features as well as how some of the older features have been reworked. As a truly welcome surprise, try Stardock Fences on Windows 7...it's really great! :CONGRAT: 
Reply #32 Top

2. So far what I read about Win 7 it feels like nothing else but "Vista patch" which is good news for sure but nothing to get me remotely excited...
End of quote

It's a bit more than a patch - they've made some real improvements with the new driver control panel. The underlying driver model is the same, but they've put a lot of work into making the UI a lot better. Same with pretty much everything else: Windows 7 doesn't just "fix vista," it also cleans up and improves the user interface a lot.

3. Again, so far, I haven't read anything about fundamental redesigns to OS meaning that most probably we will have nice and fast system when freshly installed and then bloated hog 1 year down the line when we will eventually reach the point of full reinstall just like with every other incarnation of windows...
End of quote

Vista was that fundamental redesign, and yes, they're continuing to make progress in the aspect of design.

It sounds like you have invested so much time absolutely hating Vista that you've completely failed to realize that it did improve a lot of the underlying technologies. A lot of the stuff underneath is very different, but you are pretending it is somehow the same.

4. I also see constant attempts to rip of OS X - pretty much continuation of Vista experience in that sense which I find pathetic to say at least... why not go for something original, inspire industry and put OS X in such position so its forced to rip of Win for a change...
End of quote

Everybody rips off everybody else, essentially. If you trace everything back far enough, it all goes back to Xerox ;). Seriously, though - do you have something in particular you want changed?

5. Put functionality aside, aesthetics are still shit... I mean cant they at least employ designer or two so they make it at very least look nice!?
End of quote

What's wrong with the look? I like Aero far better than Luna. Vista and Windows 7 look as good as any other OS, IMHO.

8. Win to gain trust and driving force again needs to be redesigned from scratch! - Untill then...
End of quote

They did, essentially. Vista is about as much as they can redesign without absolutely killing backwards compatibility. They're even doing a lot of virtualization to keep backwards compatibility with things they made fundamental changes to. How much more "fundamental" do you want??

Question: Do you have anything particular in mind that you want redesigned, or do you just think "redesign" is a cool word?

I have 64bit Vista Ultimate and it runs great but I also am constantly running registry cleaners and deleting cache and whatnot.
End of quote

Something's wrong, then. I haven't had to do such a thing. The biggest problem just seems to be my natural tendency to install too much, and that's not Microsoft's fault . . .

. . . usually if I uninstall the hogs, though, I get my performance back.

Reply #33 Top

The biggest problem just seems to be my natural tendency to install too much, and that's not Microsoft's fault . . .
End of quote

It's not?!

I thought everything was Microsoft's fault!

[/sarcasm]

Reply #34 Top

Now, for the purposes of making life hard on Stardock, I’m not just running a beta of Windows 7, I’m running a beta of Windows 7 64-bit.  By the time Windows 7 is released, all applicable Stardock software must run on this machine.
End of quote

 

A corporation pushing for 64-bit compatability!  I fucking love StarDock!

Reply #35 Top



6. Sure... At this point Stardock comes in with Blinds, Dock, Desktop X etc... to fix the disaster. Which is great news but then again this thread pretty much turns into add for Stardock software which user should install to get out from usual Win visual hell... When I was Win user I had more less all of Stardock products installed just to make my experience of using computer remotely comfortable and modern...

 
End of quote

 

 Well it is a thread on a StarDock forum, by the CEO, so I think the responses can be forgiven bias.

Reply #36 Top
Hi On my Laptop with Windows 7 x64, i run Objectdock ,Thememanager, CursorFX ,Fences and Impulse. I install Impulse in Vista-Mode
Reply #37 Top

I do so love these Mac fanbois and their attempt at making what they think are balanced, objective comments or reviews. Heaven forbid if they actually thought before they posted.
End of quote

The very same thing can be said about the Windows Fanbois as you so effectively proved with your post.

 

If it (VISTA) really was "crap", why did so many people actually BUY it...
End of quote

Errrrr, coz they dind't know better, or had no other choice because it came pre-installed and getting an XP-Downgrade was hard to come by?

Or because they feared that when XP support ends they wouldn't get any drivers for new hardware?

Also your statement might hold some merrit concerning private end-users, but face it: Almost NO major company even THOUGHT about switching to VISTA. Even MS had to admit that. That's actually why they had to extent XP support and are so hard pressed to release Win7. Even more so eversince a major web book manufacturer stated that they plan on pre-installing Android on all of their machines coz VISTA is such a rampant ressource hog.

 

 

+1 Loading…
Reply #38 Top
I did a clean W7-64 install on an older Dell laptop. (no vista vista video drivers so it's slow) But CursorFX, Fences, soundpackager and logon are working for me.
Reply #39 Top

Reply to few posts above :)

 

Regarding "fanboy" stuff - lol, just forget it... It has nothing to do with being a "fan" or not but about comfortable, reliable and secure work environment. As professional designer and photographer who happens to be spending most of his time in front of computer for me "comfortable, reliable and secure" is imperative and after huge number of years using Win I can only be happy to move away from it... For the time being, OS X is the way to go - no doubt - but in near or distant future it can easily be something else - Linux or perhaps Win again if M$ gets their act together... I will have no problem ditching all my Apple Mac stuff for hardware / OS that performs better...

 

Redesigning Win from a scratch - I meant exactly that... It is ugly, bloated, insecure, under performing hog from early 90s. It is so out of time and tact its not even funny... When they get rid of REGISTRY they will be on the right track - until then I can only yawn at topics like this and smile while using OS X :)

 

Regarding few posts that talked about 'installing too much' on Windows... Well, spot on! Regardless which version of Win we are talking about 95, 2000, XP, Vista and I am sure it will be the same case with Win7 we are always having the same problem. Fresh install works great but as soon as we install everything we need on it performance drops drastically and various problems starts to sneak in. Usually within year or two we are forced one way or the other to wipe the disk and reinstall everything... I mean HELLO!?!?! Anyone there? On my Mac I have more things installed than on all PCs I ever owned put together - and guess what - it performs in exactly the same way as almost 2 years ago when I bought it... Guess another thing - yeah, there is NO REGISTRY in OS X...

Did you ever imagine your computer life WITHOUT REGISTRY? 

I remember when I was Win user dreaming of it frequently :)

 

Regarding defensive posts on way Win GUI looks...Taste is personal thing at the end of the day so it is hard to argue about it... Personally, however, I find it extremely ugly hence I was hardcore user of all Stardock products back in the days which did allow me to customise the looks + add much needed yet missing features from the OS itself. 

 

Looking at various screen shots of Win7 on this and other forums it certainly looks like M$ still didn't invest into their design apartment :)

 

 

Reply #40 Top
Hey frogboy thanks for opening this subject.Iam also beta testing Win7 on my HP I am running a duel boot with Vista.install worked flawlessly.I first installed Win7 on a clean install and found i really missed vista,after all 7is just a beta and there are a few problems.So i wiped my drive,installed vista and then installed win7 in duel boot.I did get logon vista to work as it should.Boot skin pro crashes the system.Window blinds dosen't work eather.win7 is quite a bit faster than vista.but in my opinion it dosen't flow as well.I dont care much for the control panel set up.Anyway, Just like vista was so shall win7 be.How long did we wait for bootskin Pro for vista.Continued good testing frogboy!!!!
Reply #41 Top
Quoting -=XX=-Nephilim,

Regarding "fanboy" stuff - lol, just forget it... It has nothing to do with being a "fan" or not but about comfortable, reliable and secure work environment. As professional designer and photographer who happens to be spending most of his time in front of computer for me "comfortable, reliable and secure" is imperative and after huge number of years using Win I can only be happy to move away from it... For the time being, OS X is the way to go - no doubt - but in near or distant future it can easily be something else - Linux or perhaps Win again if M$ gets their act together... I will have no problem ditching all my Apple Mac stuff for hardware / OS that performs better...

End of -=XX=-Nephilim's quote

Mac is secure because their market share is so small, not because the OS is secure itself. Vista/MS blows Mac/Apple security any day of the year. If you want to learn more about Windows security and internals Mark Russinovich blog and videos are a great place to start.

Reply #42 Top

Vista/MS blows Mac/Apple security any day of the year.
End of quote

*LOL* Yeah, of course...  This is why MS has to constantly release critical security patches, huh?

Granted, the Airbook was the first one to be cracked when they tried it, a Vista notebook and some other nb I forgot about. Still, stating that Windows security works well is like saying coitus interruptus is a good way to prevent pregnancy.

And before you ask where I get my expertise from: I'm a ten year experience system/network engineer and administrator.

Haven't tried a Vista or Server2k8 rig yet, but with access to the LAN they're connected to, I'll hack you an XP or Win2k3 in 5 minutes.

 

Don't get me wrong. I don't say that Windows is the root of all evil, but it's heavily flawed. Can't testify on whether or not Mac OS is any better though, due to the lack of first hand experience.

Reply #43 Top

Quoting Star, reply 17

Vista/MS blows Mac/Apple security any day of the year.
*LOL* Yeah, of course...  This is why MS has to constantly release critical security patches, huh?

Granted, the Airbook was the first one to be cracked when they tried it, a Vista notebook and some other nb I forgot about. Still, stating that Windows security works well is like saying coitus interruptus is a good way to prevent pregnancy.

And before you ask where I get my expertise from: I'm a ten year experience system/network engineer and administrator.

Haven't tried a Vista or Server2k8 rig yet, but with access to the LAN they're connected to, I'll hack you an XP or Win2k3 in 5 minutes.

Don't get me wrong. I don't say that Windows is the root of all evil, but it's heavily flawed. Can't testify on whether or not Mac OS is any better though, due to the lack of first hand experience.
End of Star's quote

I have my fair share of security knowledge too. And I stand by my words, Vista is far more secure than Mac OS. I won't argue about XP as you are right there, but that OS was designed before the SDL was implemented in Microsoft. They learned their lessons with XP and it payed off in Vista.

Btw, hacking a Win2k3 server is not a great feat at all. As hacking a Linux box or hacking anything else. Most flaws when a site gets hacked are human flaws or security flaws from programs installed over the OS (bad developed applications, etc).

Reply #44 Top

So much for security...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/the-pwn2own-trifecta-safari-ie-8-and-firefox-exploited-on-day

 

Excerpt:

"In a repeat performance, Charlie Miller pocketed a $5,000 cash prize and a fully-patched MacBook by splitting it wide, and gaining full control of the device after a user clicked on his malicious link. Another white-hatter by the name Nils (pictured) toppled Internet Explorer 8 running on a Windows 7 laptop."

 

So it looks like Data Execution Prevention, Adress Space Layout Randomisation and so on are still of no use in conjunction with the usual internet browser...

 

Reply #45 Top

You think that's bad?

Reply #46 Top

Hacking a pre-beta-software in a beta-OS? Why, that's practically unheard of!

:grin:

Seriously though. Windows and Security Don't Mix. Because they have the largest market, they are the largest target and therefore face the largest threat.

Reply #47 Top

I wonder if there is a corresponding exploit for AMD processors...