Windows 7: The good and bad

[Arthur]

Also an OS that exercises RAM "beyond the limit" sounds a little bloaty, no offence. I'll probably still buy Windows7 to play games on though.

No offence - it might seem so if you know little about how RAM works. As semiconductor engineers know well, overstressing RAM crops up as an issue from time to time. It is quite feasible for RAM to work with an older opsys and become flaky with a newer. A little reseach will establish this for the skeptics.

 

[Arthur]

Driver issues? so what are you supposed to do if those are the only drivers available? wait 5 years till they finally get the BSODd down to a tolerable level?

Sounds like a failOS model.

Blame the OS, of course! But then I can't recall you ever blaming other operating systems for poor or non-support of devices. A different standard applies to Microsoft, of course.

 

[d0b33]

Blame the OS, of course! But then I can't recall you ever blaming other operating systems for poor or non-support of devices. A different standard applies to Microsoft, of course.

If a 3rd party device driver of for example a soundcard can bring down the entire OS, then there is a problem with the OS.

 

[Noruk]

Driver issues? so what are you supposed to do if those are the only drivers available? wait 5 years till they finally get the BSODd down to a tolerable level?

Sounds like a failOS model.

Hey Dude, not sure what you're doing wrong but I regularly exercise my work PC to the point of BSOD. Part of writing device drivers.

But during normal operation, when I'm not messing with system memory, I've only had 3 hang ups that I couldn't explain, over 5 years. So either you don't play nicely with your computer or you have a hardware configuration that Windows happens to break. Maybe your RAM is faulty or your chipset is busted.

WinXP is very stable!

Notice though I'm not saying it's perfect, just not nearly as unstable as you are suggesting.

Peace.

 

[porchrat]

No offence - it might seem so if you know little about how RAM works. As semiconductor engineers know well, overstressing RAM crops up as an issue from time to time. It is quite feasible for RAM to work with an older opsys and become flaky with a newer. A little reseach will establish this for the skeptics.

That is fine, but then I'd still prefer using an OS that isn't going to overstress the RAM.

You cannot tell me that the amount of RAM Vista requires just to run is acceptable.

I know you're going to tell me that Vista does a lot more than XP did, and fine, perhaps it does (personally I can't see what exactly these things are, but I'm sure they exist), but I would really like to find out what Vista does that Linux distros don't do that justifies all that RAM usage.

 

[killadoob]

Blame the OS, of course! But then I can't recall you ever blaming other operating systems for poor or non-support of devices. A different standard applies to Microsoft, of course.

Boo-ya

Aqua your the linux user who hates microsoft and you can see it in how you post bud. How you get windows to be so unstable i have no clue, yes sometimes i load a driver and it does not take, not the biggest problem and i find a solution, mostly the company releases updated drivers. Not a big issue. the way you describe windows i am almost 100% sure your have no idea what your doing in regards to windows and should stick to linux.

If you don't like it stop using it, if you cannot get windows 7 to work stop using it and talking about it, if your hardware has poor windows 7 drivers wait for the full release as its beta software for now.

Go enjoy linux and enjoy the games you play on linux, i heard gta runs like a dream on linux as do many games, o wait ....

Porchart do you know that memory of 4gb for vista costs 800 bucks for 4gb of memory, do you know back in the day memory cost 10 rand a meg so 128gb of memory set you back 1.2k so who gives crap how much it uses when it's dirt cheap.

Is linux and windows the same? nope so they will work on different stuff. no point getting into the linux thing, if you don't like windows don't use it. If you love linux then use it.

 

[cfvh600]

Boo-ya

Aqua your the linux user who hates microsoft and you can see it in how you post bud. How you get windows to be so unstable i have no clue, yes sometimes i load a driver and it does not take, not the biggest problem and i find a solution, mostly the company release updated drivers. Not a big issue. the way you describe windows i am almost 100% sure your have no idea what your doing in regards to windows and should stick to linux.

If you don't like it stop using it, if you cannot get windows 7 to work stop using it and talking about it, if your hardware has poor windows 7 drivers wait for the full release as its beta software for now.

Go enjoy linux and enjoy the games you play on linux, i heard gta runs like a dream on linux as do many games, o wait ....

Porchart do you know that memory of 4gb for vista costs 800 bucks for 4gb of memory, do you know back in the day memory cost 10 rand a meg so 128gb of memory set you back 1.2k so who gives crap how much it uses when it's dirt cheap.

 

[porchrat]

Porchart do you know that memory of 4gb for vista costs 800 bucks for 4gb of memory, do you know back in the day memory cost 10 rand a meg so 128gb of memory set you back 1.2k so who gives crap how much it uses when it's dirt cheap.

Uh maybe because not everyone can afford a machine capable of handling 4GB of RAM?

What I'm saying is that the use of resources is excessive and you don't really get any increased functionality for that massive use of resources.

You now need to buy a new machine just to run your OS, not to have it do anything mind you, for that you need more RAM. Currently I can run the latest version of Ubuntu on an ancient thinkpad with 512MB of RAM, Vista doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of doing that. Thing is, even by Linux standards Ubuntu is bloaty, but it still doesn't chew the kind of resources Vista wants.

XP would run fine on that thinkpad too, I had it on there previously and it worked like a dream, SP3 slowed it down a little, but it was still usable, then along came Vista. Now I'm not saying XP wasn't bloaty, but compared to Vista it is like a size 0 runway model.

 

[DJNgoma]

Only BSOD I've gotten in Vista has been from iTunes, now that says a lot.

 

[killadoob]

Any machine can run 4gb of ram, do you don't need the latest 20k pc to run 4gb of memory.

Besides windows 7 runs really fast on even slower pc's, celeron can handle 4gb memory and windows 7 runs like butter on a celeron with only 2gb memory . So i dunno what you mean not all machines can run on 4gb memory.

If your machine is slow than stick to linux, i mean it is not like that machine could game anyhow because it's so slow, so just load linux on it. What's the problem?

Why can't my riva tnt run crysis, it's really annoying hey. I mean why do they make games now that require hardware from the last 3 years, why can't they keep making games for my riva tnt. Why not just stop all development because i mean really why do i have to buy faster cpu's? Why does my dad's old 286 not run today's software?

Why do we bother developing computers? why not just go back to the 286 days because then everything will work.

 

[DJNgoma]

Any machine can run 4gb of ram, do you don't need the latest 20k pc to run 4gb of memory.

Besides windows 7 runs really fast on even slower pc's, celeron can handle 4gb memory and windows 7 runs like butter on a celeron with only 2gb memory . So i dunno what you mean not all machine can run on 4gb memory.

If your machine is slow than stick to linux, i mean it is not like that machine could game anyhow because it's so slow, so just load linux on it. What's the problem?

+1, same misconception people have on Africa and Norton 2009, broke ass and a mess, whilst they make it seem that way.

 

[porchrat]

Any machine can run 4gb of ram, do you don't need the latest 20k pc to run 4gb of memory.

Besides windows 7 runs really fast on even slower pc's, celeron can handle 4gb memory and windows 7 runs like butter on a celeron with only 2gb memory . So i dunno what you mean not all machines can run on 4gb memory.

If your machine is slow than stick to linux, i mean it is not like that machine could game anyhow because it's so slow, so just load linux on it. What's the problem?

Why can't my riva tnt run crysis, it's really annoying hey. I mean why do they make games now that require hardware from the last 3 years, why can't they keep making games for my riva tnt. Why not just stop all development because i mean really why do i have to buy faster cpu's? Why does my dad's old 286 not run today's software?

Why do we bother developing computers? why not just go back to the 286 days because then everything will work.

You're missing my point. You get nothing more for the increased use of resources. Vista, from what I can see, doesn't do anything that XP didn't do and that the latest Linux distros don't do and yet it uses all these resources. Why?

Yes you can argue that Vista is more secure (than XP, not than Linux, OpenBSD etc.) and that all of that security chews resources, but the security of a machine depends largely upon the user. Granny Smith is still going to open that email telling her that it has an amusing picture of a cat inside, regardless of her OS.

Also what about laptops, if you want to run a laptop that can address 4GB of RAM and run Vista (or presumably Windows7, but lets hope it is better) it is going to set you back a fair bit. As far as I understand it it doesn't matter what chip you run, it is a matter of whether or not your memory controller can address 4GB, the CPU has nothing to do with it, unless it has it's own memory controller, which celerons don't, I could be wrong though, I mean I'm not an electronics engineer.

 

[d0b33]

So either you don't play nicely with your computer or you have a hardware configuration that Windows happens to break. Maybe your RAM is faulty or your chipset is busted.

Nothing wrong with my hardware, I have 7 running properly now after I avoided that driver on the second install attempt. I also have it running in a virtual machine using 2GB of my 4GB of ram and I'm not afraid to give half the available ram to linux because I trust it that much was not that confident when running windows as the host.

If you don't like it stop using it, if you cannot get windows 7 to work stop using it and talking about it, if your hardware has poor windows 7 drivers wait for the full release as its beta software for now.

I got 7 to work, it runs and I can game now no problem. I just don't trust it as a work machine and I think it it's overpriced and overrated.

 

[killadoob]

Look windows and linux operate different thats all that matter, if you hate windows then don't use it. If you love linux then have fun and enjoy.

asking why vista is such resource hog is near impossible for me to answer but it is nothing like xp, may do the same thing but let's be honest windows 98 does what xp and ubuntu does as well. Even windows 95 could do what linux and windows xp/vista does. Why windows 98 could run on a 64 meg ram and a p1 but vista does not i have no idea.

Mac does what windows does as well but also needs some power, all different platforms.

 

[d0b33]

if you hate windows then don't use it.

Unfortunately that is not an option.

 

[daveza]

I used Gparted Live to create a partition on my drive, burnt the Win 7 iso to DVD, selected the custom install option to point it to the new partition and installed without any problem.

Very impressive install, new look reminds me a little too much of Vista for comfort but so far no complaints.

Perhaps their most stable RC product ever from what I can see.

 

[killadoob]

Daveza it looks identical to vista man , the task bar though is legend dude, you will see the more you use it the more you will see the differences

My fav are the taskbar which is insane and putting 2 windows next to each other but dragging each on left or right. The speed is amazing compared to vista.

Aqua it must be hard to game with all those blue screens though, i would freak if my windows was that unstable and caused so many problems for your gaming.

 

[daveza]

I have become so used to the XP interface - and have yet to be convinced that the new interface is an improvement.

It's a lot prettier I will give you that but I'll give it some more time and see if it grows on me.

And yes - love the Taskbar !

 

[d0b33]

Aqua it must be hard to game with all those blue screens though, i would freak if my windows was that unstable and caused so many problems for your gaming.

I don't get a BSOD when I game, it was only the time I had the driver conflict on RC, 7 beta gave me a BSOD when I used vbox but never while gaming.

 

[killadoob]

So then windows works for your games and linux works for all your other kuk, seems good to me.

My fav thing about the toolbal is when you something like firefox or even work stuff, you can have 10 windows open and they are in the one icon and not cluttered like xp and vista.

Don't worry about the interface, right now your very lost if your so used to xp, when i first used vista i had to spend a few hours investigating what was going on, now i get lost in xp haha.