Microsoft unveils the final/product name for "Windows 7"

Or they are counting NT kernel numbers.

Windows NT 4
Windows 2000 (NT 5)
Windows XP (NT 5.1)
Windows Vista (NT 6)
...
Windows 7

Cheers
 
Does anyone know what is planned to be 'good & new' in this version?

DX11? Anything else?

Will Vista drivers work? (like how Win2k/XP & Win95/98/ME drivers mostly had cross compatibility)
A few years worth of driver support for Vista may make life easier for this version but if its a new driver ball game...

there's WDDM 1.1, I presume it will allow multiple graphics drivers to run instead of only one.
new API stuff like DX11, revisions WPF or .NET or whatever : I would expect that to be available on Vista too.
 
Windows 7 is certainly based a lot on Vista. They look extremely similar for instance. It's just a lot of refinement and much more effort into tying up the issues in the system, which is the direction they needed to take and a smart move in my opinion. Personally I'm really looking forward to Windows 7.
 
I hope they change the file manager (especially make it more customizable to remove features and add back others). it's the thing I liked the least in Vista (next one is the control panel that wants to behave like it's a web app, reducing functionality.)
 
I hope they change the file manager (especially make it more customizable to remove features and add back others). it's the thing I liked the least in Vista (next one is the control panel that wants to behave like it's a web app, reducing functionality.)

Eh? I didn't notice any missing features from past versions of Windows in the file manager. As for the Control Panel... that's what "Classic View" is for.
 
Eh? I didn't notice any missing features from past versions of Windows in the file manager. As for the Control Panel... that's what "Classic View" is for.

As an example, Vista's explorer is missing the "go back a directory rung" button from XP which many people used. I've always used the up-arrow key shortcut so I don't have a problem with that and the bread-crumb address bar is much more flexible but there you go.

You're right about the Control Panel but personally I use neither of those. I'm really enjoying Vista's integrated search so I end up searching for it, say "add" to go directly to the add & remove programs applet; or "wire" for the wireless configuratio apple. There's also the Recent Tasks on the bottom left.
 
That's not a missing feature since the exact same functionality (and much more, in fact) is reachable in one click as well.
 
Sounds like not much changed from Vista to me. Still I'll probably pick up the 64bit version for my next OS upgrade. Assuming Windpows 7 is available within 12-18 months that is, otherwise its Vista64 for me.
 
I like where Microsoft appears to be going with the featured pieces in the ArsTechnica article. Vista has been good to me thus far, so I don't have much to complain about thus far.
 
Nice new UI features. Vista has worked really well here too, so no complaints. Of course, updating from Vista to 7 propably isn't worthwhile. I might be in the market for a new computer in 24 months so perhaps I'll get it then.
 
Vista's explorer seems to lack any kind of toolbar customization! especially the "blue bar" (with the Organize menu and whatever there is) can't go away, and I like to have other buttons.

here's how my file manager looks like
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8075/burogt3.png

(alright there's a win2k icon pack I've found, and some funny customization, but the explorer file manager is genuine. except for that upper-right windows that went away with a reg setting)
(yeah that's a bit crazy but I don't waste time on that shit anymore. All is set up and I only use it)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Windows 7 kernel now supports up to 256 cores. People here can probably speculate what that means for future multicore/manycore CPUs.

Some really good discussion on kernel improvements in Win7 (which are pretty impressive IMHO, though MS was very careful not to break any driver interfaces).

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

- Removal of dispatcher lock. (This is a huge change.)
- Removal of PFN lock. (This is another huge change.)
- User Mode Scheduling
- Parallel plug and play
- Core parking
- Timer coalescing
- Trigger started services
- VHD mount
- VHD boot

Also, absolute clarification of what MinWin is.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
(6.1.XXXX)
That sums it aLL.

It saddens me that people on this board judge technology by version number and not by technical improvements (e.g. those pointed out by aaaaa00). :rolleyes: Ignorance is ok on the Internet. But on the technical board like this one it's just a mindblowing disappointment to see statements like this one.
 
I will probaby pick up Windows 7 sometime next year when I upgrade my HDD to a larger SATA unit along with the CPU/RAM and motherboard. I was going to get Vista but the driver issues scares me. Does anybody know if Windows 7 will be dual 32/64bit or there will be two different versions? I want to be able to make use of 8GB of RAM.
 
What do you mean by "dual"? Vista comes in two versions and AFAIR if you have box copy, you get both x86 and x64 disks. As for driver issues - it has been long solved but whatever.
 
I am not a Vista fan in the least, but I am honestly excited about Windows 7 and I am looking forward to grabbing a copy when Windows 7 SP1 comes out. No matter how good XP x64 is I am just a bit curious about the newer OSes :) I will probably build a new rig at that time and leave my current one the way it is for the most part and leave XP x64 on it.

It goes without saying there will be a x64 version of W7. Also I dont know what you mean RudeCurve but Vista is quite rock solid in terms of drivers and its getting better and better so since W7 is not doing that many changes under the hood, what runs on Vista will run no problems in W7.
 
It saddens me that people on this board judge technology by version number and not by technical improvements (e.g. those pointed out by aaaaa00). :rolleyes: Ignorance is ok on the Internet. But on the technical board like this one it's just a mindblowing disappointment to see statements like this one.

I agree. Especially since the version numbering is not decided by an independent party but MS. If they decided to make Win7's build number v9.5 I guess some people would argue that MS could charge three times as much because it was obviously such a big change from Vista's v6.0.

The opposite has happened too, most recently when MS put out .Net 3.0 when all it really was the same .Net 2.0 + WinFX 1.0 which MS was going to release separately but was clever enough to see that it would crash and burn if it didn't make it a core .net component.

I suppose whether Win7 is a major or minor release can be viewed by three paradigms. The first is deciding what's more important to you: low-level architectural changes or top-level end-user features. Win7 is clearly in the later category by MS's own admission.

You can also break it down by which version of Windows you first used. For people who were introduced to computing with Win95 and later then Win 7 may appear like a major release. Those of us that have used previous versions probably view Win7 as an evolutionary release.

Finally, you can decide by which version of Windows you're using now. For Vista users Win 7 may not be such a huge jump than say, someone still using Windows 9.x.

As a developer that is currently using Vista and whose first version of Windows I used was Windows 3.0, all that I've seen and read about tells me Windows 7 is a minor release with important end-user advancements.
 
Back
Top