Windows 7

[PARANOiA]

After a bit of time with it I'm seeing the things I really like, and those I don't like so much come into play.

* VLC doesn't work as expected - going into full-screen sets the video to monitor one, regardless of which monitor the app is on
* Google Chrome has bit problems. You have to disable threaded plugins to get it to work at all, and even with that done performance is pretty poor, and I have frequent time-outs and crashes
* WMP7 will disable my second monitor (my TV) if my displays power down. To get it back I have to disable the second monitor and re-enable it (thankfully it's a few keyboard presses thanks to the Win+P trick)
* Space seems to be disappearing pretty rapidly. Lots of it is software... but I only really have installed CS3 (~8gb) and Office 2k7, and I couldn't copy a DVD since I didn't have 5gb free on my 50gb partition. A big bite in that was my Picasa cache, so I uninstalled that, but I have more software on my Vista partition without the space issues. Initially my install took up far less space, so it seems to be growing over time
* UAC is far less obtrusive now. I understood why it was needed in Vista, but you'd get to the stage where icons would have the red shield indicating you needed admin rights, then a popup would say, "you need admin rights to do this, ok?" and you'd click "yes" and then UAC would pop up and say "do you want to do this?" and you'd start yelling at the PC. In Win7 I don't really see UAC unless I'm installing software.
* The new taskbar on the left-hand side is fantastic. I don't need a desktop anymore - all my apps are a single click away.

I have noticed that there haven't been any updates other than Defender definition files for a while. I hear that more recent builds are floating around, so I hope us on the 7000 beta aren't left with a potentially buggier/less secure system when some issues have no doubt been resolved. Either way I'll be picking up Win7 on day one since it's nice an slick and fast.

 

[pcchen]

Anyone else experiencing diagonal scrolling lines using Windows Media Player (the version included with Windows7) when playing videos?

I also noticed this problem. It seems to be related to the built-in MPEG-4 video decoder. I can reproduce it with Media Player Classic Homecinema when choosing Microsoft's MPEG-4 decoder, but with other decoder (such as MPC's built-in decoder or other decider) there's no such scrolling lines.

Other media formats such as MPEG-2 or H.264 don't seem to have this problem.

 

[chavvdarrr]

Just whatever you do, don't try and install Daemon tools on Win 7...bad things happen.

Virtual Clone Drive works spiffy, though not sure if it messes with the activation like Daemon does yet.

I use www.pismotechnic.com and it works fine (it mouts iso-s in a folder)

 

[digitalwanderer]

Daemon shouldn't even install if you try it as far as I know?

You can force older versions to, sort of...I don't recommend it.

 

[Moloch]

Just whatever you do, don't try and install Daemon tools on Win 7...bad things happen.

Virtual Clone Drive works spiffy, though not sure if it messes with the activation like Daemon does yet.

I tried fine, it just failed, the spdt driver wont install, always wants me to reboot.
I just used winrar to extract the iso.

 

[Riptides]

I also noticed this problem. It seems to be related to the built-in MPEG-4 video decoder. ... Other media formats such as MPEG-2 or H.264 don't seem to have this problem.

Thanks for the heads up wanted to make sure it wasn't me losing my mind or my hardware. Thought I had noticed it when playing DVDs on my PC as well.

I tried fine, it just failed, the spdt driver wont install, always wants me to reboot.
I just used winrar to extract the iso.

PowerISO also works fine plus it's got a bit more utility as I can create an ISO file, mount it in Sun's VirtualBox, add files to the ISO on the fly via PowerISO, and easily grab them in the virtual machine OS without the lag of the network share between Windows and inside virtualbox.

 

[Richard]

Windows 7 SKUs "announced". Highlights:

• Each edition is a true superset of another.
• Ultimate and Enterprise are the same except for availability.

I (ab)used the smartart for you guys (who loves ya?):

 

[suryad]

Thanks, Richard though I kept seeing all over the net there were going to be 7 or so versions. And it looks like 3 of them are not going to be for the Western countries so I guess that matches up to your 4 that you are showing up there.

I remember seeing 3 different versions of Home actually, Home Starter, Home something or other and Home Premium. Looks like Professional is the version to go for instead lf the Ultimate/Enterprise.

 

[Kaotik]

Home Starter = Starter, the other one you're thinking of is Home Basic

 

[Richard]

Yep, Home Basic is now an SKU for emergent markets only; inversely, Starter is now available everywhere (cheap netbook edition I suppose). Likewise, I left out the N and K editions since those are also limited to specific markets.

 

[eezing]

Alright guys, honest thoughts here. Do you think multiple versions of 7 is a positive or a negative for Microsoft? Explain your answer.

 

[Kaotik]

Alright guys, honest thoughts here. Do you think multiple versions of 7 is a positive or a negative for Microsoft? Explain your answer.

Positive because it gives the customers choices
Negative because it gives the customers choices

There's no other answer out there really, it's both positive and negative at the same time for the same reason

 

[Dominik D]

Alright guys, honest thoughts here. Do you think multiple versions of 7 is a positive or a negative for Microsoft? Explain your answer.

With the market share Windows has, I don't think there is any chance that "one edition to rule them all" approach would work. The right number of SKUs is a whole different question and I think that without proper market research MS (most likely) did, two, five, ten and twenty are equally meaningless guesses.

So here's mine. There are 3 SKUs you can buy at retail and 4 SKUs you can buy preinstalled on your box. Turbotax comes in 5 SKUs, BaseCamp has 4 SKUs, EpressionEngine has 3 flavours. My gut feeling tells me that 3-4 is not a bad number.

 

[Sxotty]

With the lawsuits they face for not having versions w/o IE, or WMP, or other things they obviously need more like 20 versions.

 

[Kaotik]

With the lawsuits they face for not having versions w/o IE, or WMP, or other things they obviously need more like 20 versions.

There won't be lawsuits afaik for having IE everywhere, I think that has been settled already, but there's of course N versions without WMP in addition to the other versions there is, though I honestly haven't heard of anyone[i/] actually having one

 

[eezing]

I personally think it's a bad move by Microsoft to offer multiple versions of 7; I'm talking in marketing terms here. Proof from Vista, having more than two versions hurt the Windows OS image (among other things).

I think if MS wants to succeed with Window 7, they need to do away with the Vista campaign all together. They have partly succeeded in doing that by changing/fixing features of the OS itself (I like it). Now, they need to improve the public image of "Windows"; improve it by being whatever Vista is not. So, if Vista has multiple versions, Windows 7 should simply have ONE.

"Windows 7" is a simple name; makes us feel as though were getting back to the basics, they've trimmed the fat, took out the trash and are restarting fresh...

and now they blew it.

 

[Florin]

There won't be lawsuits afaik for having IE everywhere, I think that has been settled already

There is an ongoing antitrust investigation.

, but there's of course N versions without WMP in addition to the other versions there is, though I honestly haven't heard of anyone[i/] actually having one

No, the EU neglected to force Microsoft to charge less for the version without Media Player. Hopefully that mistake will be rectified in future proceedings like the IE case.

 

[Dominik D]

Proof from Vista, having more than two versions hurt the Windows OS image

Really, how? People went to the store and got confused by the choice between Home Basic and Home Pro?

Now, they need to improve the public image of "Windows"; improve it by being whatever Vista is not. So, if Vista has multiple versions, Windows 7 should simply have ONE.

I see what you're saying: fool people into thinking that this is not Windows.

No, it's not going to work. You work for your image over the years, not with one marketing campaign. Windows 7 has to be good (and I'm fairly confident that it will be). Make sure your customers are happy and win their trust by providing great experience. This is the right approach from the consumer point of view and I'm surprised you want to be cheated.

No, the EU neglected to force Microsoft to charge less for the version without Media Player. Hopefully that mistake will be rectified in future proceedings like the IE case.

WMP is a free download == $0. Basic price - $0 = basic price.

 

[eezing]

Really, how? People went to the store and got confused by the choice between Home Basic and Home Pro?

I see what you're saying: fool people into thinking that this is not Windows.

No, it's not going to work. You work for your image over the years, not with one marketing campaign. Windows 7 has to be good (and I'm fairly confident that it will be). Make sure your customers are happy and win their trust by providing great experience. This is the right approach from the consumer point of view and I'm surprised you want to be cheated.

First, fooling people is not exactly what I had in mind. They need a new approach; we know this because Vista didn't meet expectations. Nobody wants more of the same from Windows right now.

Second, I have no doubt that Windows 7 will be a superb product. But, the product itself is only the half of it. You need to back up a great product with a great marketing campaign. Yes, people did get confused from the many versions of vista. The average Joe doesn't know his elbow from his a**hole when it comes to this stuff; the last thing he needs is choices he can't or doesn't want to understand. Most of all, having multiple versions of the same OS appears to be more like a scam than anything else through the eyes of the public.

Last, How would anyone get cheated from a single version with all features included?

 

[Dominik D]

No, we know Vista didn't meet expectations because... Vista didn't meet expectations. It has nothing to do with the marketing approach. Not only that but marketing since then has changed: life without walls and stuff. Giving companies and OEMs the ability to choose the right SKU for their business has nothing to do with it.

The way I see it is: there's a vocal group of people who will be dissatisfied with whatever Microsoft does. They are not necessarily target for Windows 7 yet they are very vocal about stuff they don't want and wouldn't use anyway. They are just complaining, stating things like "Microsoft messed up again", "yet again Microsoft proves it doesn't get it", etc.

I know it sounds cheesy but there's an excellent quote from Obama's inaugural speech: people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. I never understood why people wast time on hating stuff instead of going and doing something creative. Stop whining about MS, build Mac OS X applications or contribute to OSS. Prove that your way of doing things is the right way. It's easy to say that you have solution to the problem until you actually test it.

The average Joe will go and ask clerk in Best Buy. He'll get his questions answered and he'll buy the right HW/soft. There's a difference between forcing people to make uneducated guess and giving them choice. You're purchasing your software somewhere. You can always ask: A or B. It's that simple. Somehow there's no problem with thousands of laptops available on the market. That choice (much more complex than A or B) can be made by customers, right?