Windows 7 to replace Vista, try out the beta

Been using it for about two months now, buld 7000 and then 7100 (RC).

Kicks Vista ass, and to me it seems at least as speedy as XP. Haven't had much experience with compatibility problems to be honest...
 
Just about everything I tried to play. Currently playing LOTRO, played Doom 3, KOTOR 1 and 2 (with minor difficulties - had to run them as admin), Gun...
 
It also has XP compability mode, AFAIK solved as virtual machine , so there shouldn't be any more problems than on XP
 
Xellos said:
It also has XP compability mode, AFAIK solved as virtual machine , so there shouldn't be any more problems than on XP
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except support for it is extremely limited. ;)
 
Xellos said:
It also has XP compability mode, AFAIK solved as virtual machine , so there shouldn't be any more problems than on XP
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I suspect what you're referring to is MS packaging VirtualPC with some versions of win7.

This will not play games, since the emulated gfx card is an s3 virge (not even a 3d card).

That said, I have yet to find a Windows game that win7 has been unable to play (64-bit version as well).

However, please don't expect your old games to work without a substantial (and I mean it) amount of tweaking, patching, testing, and luck.

It is more difficult to get old games running on win7 than xp, but what did you expect? :p
 
Now I have an instal of windows XP that I'm extremely happy with (good protection, no fat, well organized) so I was wondering what the reasons to upgrade are other than it being "as good as xp".

Now I think that Vista does some Direct X stuff that XP is incapable of, does 7 have graphics capabilities that XP does not? I would like to know because I heard that some of them improve Company of Heroes which is one of my favorite games.

So I'll upgrade when I know how it is better than XP, and since you guy's are testing it you sound like people who would know.
 
lugaru said:
Now I have an instal of windows XP that I'm extremely happy with (good protection, no fat, well organized) so I was wondering what the reasons to upgrade are other than it being "as good as xp".

Now I think that Vista does some Direct X stuff that XP is incapable of, does 7 have graphics capabilities that XP does not? I would like to know because I heard that some of them improve Company of Heroes which is one of my favorite games.

So I'll upgrade when I know how it is better than XP, and since you guy's are testing it you sound like people who would know.
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Win7 RC is free until June 2010.
MS is ending XP asap.

Those two combined, I decided to download and install 7.

Most of the changes, except a couple nice UI improvements, are under the hood. So you aren't really getting anything visibly better than Vista.

Since I skipped Vista, this is my first impression of Aero, and it's quite nice. I can't see any reason to dislike Aero at all. The whole UI is tighter and crisper than XP ever was. ClearType for Vista is also worth using (in XP it was crap).

I wouldn't go back to XP now. Not because it was bad, and 7 is fantastic; just because you have to get used to 7 since MS will brutally kill off support for XP soon. DX11 (which will be what DX10 should have been) is once again exclusive to MS latest and greatest, and tough luck everyone else.

But one thing is certain: gone are the days of massive steps, like from 3.1 to 95, or 98 to XP.

From here on in, it's small increments. If MS doesn't reflect this in their pricing, then frankly we're all going to be ripped off.
 
I don't see enough reason to switch to 7 yet.

I have to say my hopskotch method of adapting has worked well so far, but the small increment change k9 mentions might change that.

Still, going from 98 to XP and skipping completely over ME and Vista seems to have been a wise thing to do.

k9: I can't say I've really missed DX10 support so far. No game I've been interested in makes it obligatory.
Anything more drastic I should be worried about, k9? I figure I'll just stick with XP as long as the ride'll last really.
 
So right now I'm thinking 7 is inevitable for me, but I'm in no rush. I'm contemplating building a new PC early next year because when I built this one a few years back I went cheap on the MOBO and because of that I can use good graphics cards and ram but I'm stuck with a pretty outdated processor and no upgrades.

So sometime near the end of this year or start of next: new case, new mobo, new power supply, new processor... same ram (3g) and video (512) for now. And of course new OS.

BROTHERNONE: I got to use ME because it was on the computer of a girl I moved in with years back... I just loved the frequent crashes followed by system restores followed by "click here to get your desktop background back".
 
Well apparently DX10 was going to be a much different beast than it ended up.

Apparently (from what I've read), ATI managed to implement all of the DX10 features on time (that will now become DX11), but nVidia could not do so.

At nV's request, therefore, MS dropped a lot of stuff from DX10 and shifted it to DX11.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of any of that. Suggest google would be your friend ;)

Anyway, people are already recommending postponing gfx card upgrades until DX11 card hit.

If what I wrote above is true, ATI should be more than capable of producing DX11 cards on time, since the first DX10 cards they made were essentially DX11 compatible.

Of course, we have to assume DX11 may have evolved in the meantime, to incorporate features that may have been destined for DX12 initially...

[edit: I hope I didn't imagine all that. I have been having some pretty lucid dreams recently :D]
 
Ah yes, I found some info.

"Not really, DX10.1 was basically what DX10 should have been before Nvidia complained about the specifications. It gave something like a 30-40% performance boost in Assassins Creed before support for it was mysteriously removed, which is believed to be because Nvidia strong armed them into dropping support for it. Nvidia are pretty much the main reason why there is no very little support for DX10 and no support for DX10.1."

via google.

Apparently a large part of DX10 was supposed to be something called hardware tessellation, which got pulled. Consoles have had it for years, they say.

I'm not a huge hardware buff so I'll just pass on what I'm reading ;)
 
UnidentifiedFlyingTard said:
Vista is a memory whore.
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In my experience, Windows 7 doesn't use a whole lot less than Vista, it just seems more graceful/efficient about it, and can cope with limited memory much, much better.

TheWesDude said:
is there a 64 bit version of windoes 7 available?
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Yes, but for now I suggest staying away from it if you use an Nvidia graphics card. Nvidia's 64-bit drivers will cause a BSOD at random intervals. It's actually quite similar to Nvidia's early Vista driver problems, with nvlddmkm.sys often being the culprit. This may have been fixed in build 7127 and/or newer Win7 drivers. I'm can't confirm this, however.

@k9wazere: While I have been a bit of a fan of Nvidia's hardware in the past, they're really fucking things up nowadays. It's like they think they're the only GPU manufacturer in the market, and they're only digging their own graves by hindering development, strong-arming developers, making an enemy of Intel and seemingly counting AMD/ATi as a non-threat while their own driver and hardware quality (price and performance wise) falters. They can only survive on their name for so long, and it may be up to VIA to be their saviors in the future. Just speculation, though.
 
Totally skipped over Vista, for reasons that shouldn't have to be stated.

What exactly are the advantages of Win 7, asides from Aero (not that I'm a big fan of unnecessary UI elements that eat up CPU/GPU/memory resources) and DX10/11?

As long as it's not plagued by the same issues and annoyances as Vista, it may actually be worth "upgrading" this time...
 
Kyuu said:
What exactly are the advantages of Win 7, asides from Aero (not that I'm a big fan of unnecessary UI elements that eat up CPU/GPU/memory resources) and DX10/11?
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Well I guess it depends who you are and what you do.

Let's face it, for the average user, the way we use Windows hasn't changed since win95.

Your average guy on the street isn't going to see much if any difference between XP and Vista, apart from the new shiny looks.

There are some positives, but they're subtle. For example, letting Windows look for drivers online is now actually worth doing, since it - gasp - actually has a chance of finding them now.

That feature in XP was a complete joke. I never had XP successfully find a driver online. The whole thing was farcical.

However Vista has it's own "dunce" moments too. Using 7, after any sort of crash or program malfunction it will launch the "solution centre", which is totally useless, because it always ends in "no solutions found", which makes you question the value of such a feature.

The new taskbar is great. It works better than any other taskbar I've seen (windows or linux).

***

My conclusion is really this. 7 doesn't change the way we use Windows. Most of the enhancements are invisible to the user. They'd probably be hard to solidly quantify too.

It's hard to claim enhanced security or stability when I didn't have problems with either in XP.

Your mileage may vary.
 
for the solution center, the reason it doesnt work very well is that its a brand new service that is getting added to every day. it takes time for the answers to populate :)


and from what my friends at MS said there were 3 goals for windows 7

1) modularity : to help avoid anti-trust issues and other goals, they went to a module scheme where its far easier to add/remove individual components of the OS than before

2) scalability : they removed a lot of the old/fixxed limits in NT core and made it much more dynamic to allow scaling easier. with different functions depending on the scale of the user. using a small object list? it will use array, using a large object list? it will use arraylist, using a very dynamic with frequent changes in contents and size? it will use list functions.

3) back-to-basics : in vista they changed the NT HAL to accomodate DRM and IDE easier than before for the non-server version. it did not work out so well. they changed/removed some of the DRM changes they made in the HAL and kernal, with a return to SCSI native support in the HAL even for non-server versions, with the ability for firewire native support at HAL and kernel level which wasnt present before. returned back to IDE going through SCSI translation calls internal to the OS rather than native IDE calls. GPO/SPO are more featured and more powerful than before in a domain setup, for a localized setup or P2P network, improvements on the HAL-Kernal internal structure when communicating to ethernet devices. ( this will slow down those who use other protocols such as Token Ring vs previous NT flavors )

thats just some of the changes they told me have been made.
 
I'm not jumping to 7 anytime soon, it has compatibility problems with non-english games like Japanese ones. DX10 isn't worth it either, there aren't any games worth waiting for that are going to be using it anytime soon.
 
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