[athenian200]

Well, as most of you probably know, Windows 7 is coming out (I'd always hoped they'd go back to version numbers and stop with the names ever since they released Windows 95).

The thing is, from what I've seen of it, it seems like it should be a service pack for Vista (or even what Vista should have been to start with) rather than a whole new version of Windows we should have to pay $150+ for. It's not really going to include a whole lot of stuff that won't run on Vista, it's just going to be more efficient than Vista and do most of what it does better.

The thing that really sucks (to me), is that XP users are eligable to upgrade at the same price as Vista users. Essentially, you get absolutely nothing for putting up with Vista's inefficiency for the past two years, not even a cheaper upgrade. You're stuck with a lame, inefficent stopgap that's clunkier than XP, and has less refined and buggier versions of most of the features of Windows 7. I'd be angrier if it were my money that had been used to purchase Vista (a relative purchased this computer for me and stuck me with a 32-bit version of Vista Ultimate on 64-bit hardware due to concerns about 64-bit backwards compatibility), but it's still very frustrating. Basically, people who stuck to XP and resisted Vista for the last couple of years are the winners.

I noticed that this reminds me of something... the difference between using a beta version, and a finished product. I actually feel like Microsoft somehow got Vista users to pay THEM to for the priviliage of beta testing their software, when most companies have to pay for beta testing. I'll admit, it's rather clever on their part that they got paid for something other companies pay for, but it leaves me feeling cheated.

Of course, this probably isn't the first time Microsoft has done this.

Lousy trick versions:

Windows 3.0 (post 16-bit era), Windows 95 (early 32-bit era), Windows ME (late 32-bit era), Windows Vista (post 32-bit era).

"Golden" versions:

Windows 3.11 (post 16-bit era), Windows 98SE (early 32-bit era), Windows XP (late 32-bit era), Windows 7 (post 32-bit era).

I'm probably not going to be upgrading to Windows 7, since my computer has 4GB of RAM and thus runs fine with Vista anyway, and Vista will be updated to include enough of the features of Windows 7 for compatibility (like IE 8, new DirectX versions, and new driver compatibility) that I'll feel silly upgrading, but will still retain the wasteful memory management and other undesirable "beta" quirks. Vista isn't awful and unworkable compared to Windows 7, don't get me wrong, but Windows 7 just better enough to be infuriating that I'm stuck with an inferior product that does the same thing only not as well.

Does anyone else who uses Vista feel like they got the short end of the stick, or is it just me?

[Frost46]

I disagree that Vista is a " lousy trick version " I think it's a stable reliable operating systems , About the best straight out of the box ever ! .

When ever a new OS comes out there are always Knockers and moaners this has always been the case " this is a load of rubbish I'm going back to ................. "

This was true of XP when it first came out , indeed it was unsafe until SP 2 and then it all changed , Today XP SP 3 Pro is a great system and will remain so for some

time .

I have been using Microsoft products for a very long time ( pre windows ) MS-DOS 4 was bad , I had to quickly go back to 3.1 or 3.3 Compaq OEM version this

allowed hard disk partitions larger than 30 Meg and recovered a few Kb of shadow ram .

Win ME was abandoned by driver writers because M$ wanted large sums of money from them to be signed , It was abandoned also because in an 18 month

period you had a choice of four systems 98Se , 2000 , ME , and XP .

You could argue that 98fe users should feel aggrieved about 98se and so on It's a progression with each a little better than the one before . Are they great

straight out of the box ? not always , keep updated and they get better . But is Vista lousy definitely not !!!

[NY2NV]

I've been using Windows since the first release, and participated in every Windows beta release, with the exception of Windows Me.
I was a bit disappointed that Vista users weren't offered a sweeter deal then XP users, however $49 for a pre-release upgrade was great. I now have both Vista and Win7 running on 2 PC's.
I'm really tired of all the MS bashing, yes they have made mistakes but in the end I still think they can produce a great product. Vista was good, Win7 is certainly Great one.

This post has been edited by NY2NV: 26 October 2009 - 12:50 PM

[amon91]

What you mentioned there is what happens in the world of tech everywhere. Things sometimes don't work as expected when they change a lot but let me tell you, Windows Vista always worked for me and many people who had the needed drivers. I know most consumers were left in the dark for a quite a while but fact is, it was a working OS.

Vista was an upgrade from XP, just like XP was an upgrade from ME/2000, just like 7 is now an upgrade from Vista. Technology keeps evolving and of course what you paid for 2 years ago won't last forever.

[Hanspuppa]

I've been using computers for over thirty years now, and never liked switching to anything new.

That is human nature. Humans, for the most part, don't like change.

But my experience has always been positive with the newer version of operating systems, except for those already mentioned.

I used Vista from the beta days, and still use it today. There are features of Vista that could have been done differently, but I managed to adjust certain settings, and never had or have any issues with Vista.

I have used Win7 since the beta, RC, and now RTM versions, and have had not one issue with Win7 RTM. I have made a few minor setting adjustments to suit my personal preferences, but overall, it worked right out of the box, and very well.

As a wise man advised me in my early days of computing, look at it this way. Consider yourself waiting at a train station, about to take a journey. You know there will be a better train coach coming soon, so do you wait for the better coach, or do you board the next available coach and get on with your journey, as the world does, or do you wait for the better coach, and loose the best part of the experience.

For me, the question was a no-brainer. I jumped on with delite, the first available coach, and never looked back.

The experience has been, and continues to be, great.

Jump on the first train, and enjoy what will be an exciting experience.

This post has been edited by Hanspuppa: 26 October 2009 - 02:39 PM

[athenian200]

amon91, on 26 October 2009 - 09:14 AM, said:

What you mentioned there is what happens in the world of tech everywhere. Things sometimes don't work as expected when they change a lot but let me tell you, Windows Vista always worked for me and many people who had the needed drivers. I know most consumers were left in the dark for a quite a while but fact is, it was a working OS.

Vista was an upgrade from XP, just like XP was an upgrade from ME/2000, just like 7 is now an upgrade from Vista. Technology keeps evolving and of course what you paid for 2 years ago won't last forever.

Well, I know about that. It just seems a bit... tacky that Vista has so many bugs and design flaws that they're not going to fix, to such an extent that we'd have been better off sticking to XP until Windows 7 came out. I mean, I haven't encountered any games or applications that will run on Vista, but not XP. Several had to be updated or patched to run on Vista, though. It's only been in the past few months that I've encountered a single application that seems to take advantage of Vista rather than ignoring or being hindered by it.

It may have been a "working OS," but so was Windows ME. You see what I'm getting at? I mean, if it were cheaper to upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista than from XP, it would seem justified, but it's the fact that it seems like Vista adopters weren't given any real perks except the chance to preview and get acquainted with Windows 7's features before it was widely supported.

This probably sounds bad, but I really wish they had forced XP users to pay the full retail price for Windows 7, and only let Vista users use the Upgrade version. That would have seemed more fair, would have felt like I got something for my money.

Basically, I feel as if I was forced to contend with a poorer operating system than XP on this computer for the past two years, hoping I could just keep waiting for upgrades to make it better, and now I have nothing to show for it except dissatisfaction.

Now, by the time they start writing applications that take advantage of Vista's features, they'll be designed with Windows 7 in mind and thus will run in a degraded form on Vista.

This post has been edited by athenian200: 26 October 2009 - 03:23 PM

[PSYCH0]

Heck, I was under the impression that you couldn't direct upgrade from XP.... that's what my Win7 disc told me.

[dannytheone]

athenian200, on 26 October 2009 - 03:15 PM, said:

Well, I know about that. It just seems a bit... tacky that Vista has so many bugs and design flaws that they're not going to fix,

Please elaborate on this, I've never found a single thing wrong with vista, from my experience, the only problem is the person using the computer.

[Karmakaze]

I like XP, Vista, and 7. Big deal on the upgrade.

[amon91]

PSYCH0, on 27 October 2009 - 02:19 AM, said:

Heck, I was under the impression that you couldn't direct upgrade from XP.... that's what my Win7 disc told me.

You can't, but you're eligible for an upgrade license, not a full one. You can then take the upgrade DVD, back everything up and do a clean install (and yes, the upgrade key will work without any workarounds). That's what everyone should be doing anyway.

[athenian200]

dannytheone, on 26 October 2009 - 09:31 PM, said:

Please elaborate on this, I've never found a single thing wrong with vista, from my experience, the only problem is the person using the computer.

Oh, well, if it crashes all the time and runs slowly, yes that's the person.

But the thing is, from what I've read, they found a way to get Windows 7 to use less memory by default, use video and system memory in better ways, and generally run more smoothly. vista's performance is satisfactory, but I'm frustrated that they fixed the high memory usage issue, and are only making this available to people who pay for an upgrade. I've gotten Vista to use just under 1GB with nothing running (I have 4GB), but I've had to really tweak it to get it like that. Windows 7 will supposedly use just under 1GB with no frills running, by default.

I'm mostly up in arms about the fact that the WDDM 1.1 model won't be in Vista, and I'll be stuck with the inefficiency of WDDM 1.0, which sucks IMO. The WDDM 1.1 drivers will work, but they'll revert to the WDDM 1.0 model when used on Vista.

This has several consequences for memory and video performance under Vista that have been mild annoyances for a long time, and I was glad to see them fixed, but angry that they weren't fixed in Vista.

[amon91]

athenian200, on 27 October 2009 - 06:45 PM, said:

but I'm frustrated that they fixed the high memory usage issue, and are only making this available to people who pay for an upgrade. I've gotten Vista to use just under 1GB with nothing running (I have 4GB), but I've had to really tweak it to get it like that.

High memory consumption isn't necessarily bad, it means the OS is caching all more stuff on the RAM instead of loading it every time you use it. That will actually make your computer faster, not slower, and these days most computers already have 2 GB of RAM or more so that's a non-issue. I agree people with less than that simply shouldn't have upgraded to Vista and sticked with XP but that doesn't make the technology itself bad. That's my view anyway.

[Person8880]

I think Vista was quite a stable and good release of Windows after they fixed all the early bugs and driver support. I'm happy Microsoft decided to come out with Windows 7 and improve on their product, it might have been nice to have some kind of discount, but it didn't bother me.

[dannytheone]

athenian200, on 27 October 2009 - 06:45 PM, said:

I've gotten Vista to use just under 1GB with nothing running (I have 4GB), but I've had to really tweak it to get it like that. Windows 7 will supposedly use just under 1GB with no frills running, by default.

Where did you hear this?


This is my normal usage.


And, you have 4GB of RAM, why on earth wouldn't you want the system to use it? I mean what would be the point of buying the extra RAM if it's just gonna sit there unused like some useless plastic row of 1s.
7 and Vista both make huge improvements to the way memory management works, and they are very good.

This post has been edited by dannytheone: 27 October 2009 - 07:49 PM

[LMiller7]

amon91 and dannytheone have given some good advice, you would be well advised to take it.
The large majority of people who truly understand Windows 2000 and XP memory management consider it to be very good. Some have described it as brilliant. Vista and Windows 7 is better. Unfortunately, it has been thoroughly misunderstood, even by many computer professionals. The large majority of members of this forum have serious misconceptions of how it works. I have spent a great deal of time studying it and there is much I do not understand.

Do not be too concerned about what you think Task Manager is telling you. The chances are high that the numbers do not mean what you think they do. I would STRONGLY discourage any kind of memory tweaking.

[PSYCH0]

amon91, on 27 October 2009 - 04:15 AM, said:

PSYCH0, on 27 October 2009 - 02:19 AM, said:

Heck, I was under the impression that you couldn't direct upgrade from XP.... that's what my Win7 disc told me.

You can't, but you're eligible for an upgrade license, not a full one. You can then take the upgrade DVD, back everything up and do a clean install (and yes, the upgrade key will work without any workarounds). That's what everyone should be doing anyway.

Oh, thanks for the explanation.

The biggest difference (that makes a difference to me) that I've been told (and I could've misunderstood, or been given faulty info) is that Win7 accesses CPU cores in parallel as opposed to in series (which is how I was told that XP and Vista accessed multiple cores) which allows faster access to the processed items. If this is all indeed true, you're looking at a whole new OS that looks very similar to the last generation. Just my $.02.... and one of those is a counterfeit penny, so I wouldn't give too much value.

[LMiller7]

You have been misled.
Windows 7 has some important advances in the over Vista but there are no fundamental changes in the kernel. There are changes in the way multiple cores are handled but they are only incremental improvements. Accessing cores in parallel as opposed to serial access makes no sense. Neither term has any meaning. A great deal of nonsense has been written about Windows internals by people who have no real understanding.

The Windows 7 kernel isn't fundamentally different from that in NT3.1, released in 1993.

[PSYCH0]

Thank you for the info. I did know that all windows releases since XP were based on the NT kernel, but I didn't realize that they were that closely related (yes, I realize that 4.x and 2000 were also based on the NT kernel, but I was speaking of those releases aimed at home users).

[rasmasyean]

If you “upgraded” XP -> Vista that’s probably your problem.
The “correct” way of doing that type of technology gap upgrade is to buy a new computer with Vista certified hardware. If you did that correctly then you should mostly be fine like everyone else. Though you could have gotten a budget-type lemon from a manufacturer, which is really the maker’s fault.

Note also that 64-bit Vista is the “real” version of Vista. 32-bit is a compatibility version and doesn’t allow you scale to use Vista’s features to the best ability (at a cost of old program compatibility of course).

The most significant changes in Windows 7 are multi-touch and networking (from a tech point of view). The former requires now expensive screens. The latter requires clusters of computers with software that utilizes cloud computing principles….which hopefully will emerge as more developers find business models.

You are actually getting more ripped off from Vista->7 than XP->Vista in terms of buying new features.
Although one can argue that 7 polishes some things in Vista (mostly for legacy-class computers…which MS finally figured out much of the world has), most of the features are minor or aesthetic changes rather than extremely functional. If you had a decent Vista computer, you won’t notice much difference between Vista and Win7. However, using Vista for a while and having to use XP in older computers is actually a pain because XP seems a lot more archaic because of the huge gap. Even as such, Win 7 will still have a few things to debug in SP1 before any critical wide-scale adoption happens.

[amon91]

rasmasyean, on 29 October 2009 - 03:17 PM, said:

Even as such, Win 7 will still have a few things to debug in SP1 before any critical wide-scale adoption happens.

Well, remember 7 is not exactly like Vista. By "making it similar to Vista" they managed to make compatibility issues and bugs overall pretty minimal. I don't think we'll see people frustrated at how x app won't work, or at least not as many people as we've seen with Vista. I think companies that waited for 7 when Vista came out won't wait for SP1, only time can tell.