Windows 7

[Moto]

First off, you can just pick up one of these USB to IEEE1284 converters from newegg for about 12 bucks.   I was forced to get a USB to serial converter because I had an expensive Garmin GPS that didn't offer native USB connectivity.  Some day USB will be obsolete and you'll need a parallel to usb to (whatever newest interface exists).  And sometimes the newer products aren't as good as the old.  I agree with the older HP printers being built better.  The laserjet series 2 was a tank!

All this crazy hype and "Windows 7 Parties" is just ridiculous.  It's just an operating system. It's a means to an end.  The year is almost 2010.  Is anyone else disturbed when a company as large as Microsoft can't create a stable, reliable operating system that doesn't need weekly security patches?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a MS hater.  I think they have some really great products like Visual Studio and SQL Server.   I use these every day in order to put food on my table.  And I really enjoy these products.  The inevitable upgrade that I will be forced to make from XP to Windows7 will not make my job any better or any easier.  But eventually the XP "patches" will stop coming and in order to keep my OS running securely and thus I will need to upgrade.  

I don't know about you guys, but after about the 50th time I've had to install Windows (starting way back with Windows 1.0 for me) I kinda lost that wow-zowie enjoyment factor of upgrading my OS.  I just look at the OS in the same light as I look at the firmware in my camera or the ECU in my car.  I expect it to work and not crash.  

Some day all of this won't matter as we'll be running very light weight terminals that can run any software by means of virtualization. The days of the BIG OS releases are numbered and I personally can't wait for it to conclude.

[tone007]

Tell us WHY? it sounds like you are trolling at this point (no I am not trying to make anyone mad here- it's just frustrating to see points like this with nothing to back them up). Please tell us why you think that a parallel ZIP (or any Parallel port device is "bad).

Parallel port hardware is slow, and not particularly plug and play compliant.  Storage devices using parallel port were a cheesy hack at best.  Want some backup?  Go try to buy a laptop with a parallel port, they don't make them anymore.  No point designing an OS to use hardware that doesn't exist anymore.  If you like playing with old junk machines at home, have fun, but don't expect them to be supported forever.  The Zip drive itself is a reject from the 90s, people can't give them away.

I argee to a point with that statement, but some of the best (non-network) printers ever made were parallel, for example, the HP laserjet 4 and most Okidata dot matrix. 30 years later and being used daily, these printers are still going at 100% in a ton of corperations, banks and such, if you need network the HP Lj 5 is still king.

Dot matrix is a special case, where impact printing is required.  Laser technology, however, has come a long way since the LJ4 and 5 printers.  Any business hanging on to those dinosaurs is cheap, and doesn't need much in the way of printing apparently.  Plenty of businesses use outdated junk in day to day operations, until it fails catastrophically and they need a new solution.  

Nope, its all about efficentcy. When a customer is paying by the hour and you can't find something, it is pretty bad. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have another 20 grand to spend on anothet MCSE course from MS -did that back in the NT4 days (I still say NT 4 was a better OS then XP, but thats a whole other thread for another day)

Right, makes you look dumb (and inefficient) when you can't find something.  You can blame Microsoft, but the client is going to (rightly) blame you.  Unfortunately, you have to keep up with the new stuff or get out.  XP is going down, son, enjoy it while you can.

[B00tDisk]

Tell us WHY? it sounds like you are trolling at this point (no I am not trying to make anyone mad here- it's just frustrating to see points like this with nothing to back them up). Please tell us why you think that a parallel ZIP (or any Parallel port device is "bad)

Not him, but...oh god, where to start?

Click of death, fragile media, per-megabyte ridiculously EXPENSIVE media, horrifically slow seek time, pathetic media capacity (even the 750's are just silly)...ah, what else...portability (seriously - yank a USB thumb drive out versus chasing down the cables for a P-port zip, then hope you have outlets close enough wherever you take it, etc.)...

Y'know you can talk about grandma's '486 with no USB ports and oh goodness what do we do when we have to back her data up??? but at the end of the day, if you're doing that, there's at least a couple of solutions better than that.  Going all the way back to P90 machines (and possibly before) you've got boards with PCI slots - if you've gotta get the data off, and the machine can't be replaced for whatever reason, bang a PCI USB card in...

There are many, MANY good reasons to ditch the P-port zip.  One for keeping I'll grant is if you need a backup solution on a machine that MUST stay up...but even then you can drag a notebook to the jobsite and use a p-port to rj45 and a crossover cable, etc.

Yeah, I don't get on my high horse about too much but for goodness' sake back up your data, format those disks and reinstall that zip drive in the trashcan

[quarkx]

Parallel port hardware is slow, and not particularly plug and play compliant.  Storage devices using parallel port were a cheesy hack at best.  Want some backup?  Go try to buy a laptop with a parallel port, they don't make them anymore.  No point designing an OS to use hardware that doesn't exist anymore.  If you like playing with old junk machines at home, have fun, but don't expect them to be supported forever.  The Zip drive itself is a reject from the 90s, people can't give them away.



Dot matrix is a special case, where impact printing is required.  Laser technology, however, has come a long way since the LJ4 and 5 printers.  Any business hanging on to those dinosaurs is cheap, and doesn't need much in the way of printing apparently.  Plenty of businesses use outdated junk in day to day operations, until it fails catastrophically and they need a new solution.  



Right, makes you look dumb (and inefficient) when you can't find something.  You can blame Microsoft, but the client is going to (rightly) blame you.  Unfortunately, you have to keep up with the new stuff or get out.  XP is going down, son, enjoy it while you can.

well if FORD decide to put it's accelerator  peddle in the trunk, because people were speeding too much- (which is the exact same thing in my and a lot of other peoples mind), and then re-named it something way out to left feild would that be ok with you?
But thats ok, I have retired from the tech support field because of VISTA and Windows 7. If a client has XP I have no problems supporting them. If a client has Vista or windows 7 and really wants me to work on it, I charge $300/hour min 2 hours work.

 Fair enough,( i concede, we are getting way off topic here, but I whole heartedly disagree on the ZIP,now putting a scanner and a printer on parallel- that was a nightmere) BTW I just use the Zip at home, was using it to sneaker net to the zip I had on my Amiga.
One of the biggest things that annoys me is the need for people to toss working hardware. no matter how old it is. If it works, use it.

BTW I see nobody here has any issues with the extreme amount of DRM and such in Windows 7 (it was a huge issue in VISTA -especially for home theater systems). For me it is just down right scary, but I guess the Win7 lovers have no issues with it.

[irishmike]

Personally, I upgraded to Win 7 (got it for free because I am a Computer Science Student and our school has a MS Academic Alliance which allows you to get a copy free of charge) and have been running it without any issues on my P4 3.0 GHZ machine (single core).  Since I am working on honing my programming skills in school, I have decided to replace my Optiplex with a Precision dual core machine which I will pick up Tuesday next week or so (10.27.2009).  I will see if it has any issues reactivating when I move the hard drive.  I suspect my MS Office 2007 and Win 7 will both want to reactivate at that point.

My .02 cents on the USB discussion is that I believe that the standard is with us for quite a while -- it is currently being updated for version 3.0 and that will approach transfer speeds for storage devices that we can't even imagine right now.  I kind of agree that thumb drives are better than zips, but I also really feel that if one is happy with their hardware and it does what they need it to do, why force them to get rid of it?  "Dropping Support" does not necessarily mean "the end" of something.  Heck, we of all people should know that being Amigans!

Anyhow, I have no love of Microsoft, and I have been a Macintosh user for years (actually needed to support both in my work) and I love my retro hobby as well... I am in a strange place there -- I love new technology and embrace it as an early adopter in most cases, at the same time, I respect and love to play with the older stuff.

[CSixx]

They said the exact same thing about VISTA and Windows Millenium Edition, BOB etc... It is just a big cycle and we see the same thing over and over again. come back after you have used it for 6 months and then tell us if you feel the same way. I HAVE used it for over 6 months, and I WAS a die hard MS supporter. Windows 7 is just some of VISTA fixed, but no where near what XP is period. All the maketing fluff in the world can't hide the facts. In a year we will just be pumping Windows 8, because Windows 7 is VISTA all over again.

All irrelevant. No they aren't going to stop developing OS's just because XP is good. They won't stop at Win7 either, is that a surprise? no...

If you don't currently have a need to upgrade, then don't. Continue to enjoy XP and watch technology advance from afar. You probably took a similar stance arguing Win98SE over XP, but the time obviously came for you to upgrade to XP.

XP will not continue to evolve, if you want to stay a step or two behind the technology curve, it's your choice. It's Win7 and the "Vista'ish" OS's from here on out (for Microsoft).

[bhoggett]

I've already told my customers - all of whom use XP - that they need to plan for an upgrade somewhere between 12-18 months from now. Working out the budget, testing, discovery of likely issues etc will all take time, and they need to do it before switching over becomes critical.

Eventually XP will be as easy to support as Win98 is now - which is to say, a total pain - and IMO anyone advising their customers that they never need to upgrade is misrepresenting their interests.

[mingle]

No classic mode in Win7? That's a pain... Might have to wait until there's a hack to bring it back...

I've always used classic mode in XP and found it to be quick, simple and just what I need.

I tried OSX and don't like or need the launcher eye-candy. One lower-spec machines like mine eye candy is nothing more than a CPU hog.

In XP the classic layout and quicklaunch funtionality is all I need to quickly and simply start my apps.

Advancement in the OS world is fine, but not just for the sake of it.

Mike.

[DonnyEMU]

If anyone is interested in help getting either WinUAE or AROS running on Virtual XP for Windows 7 please feel free to email me (on here) I will be glad to help out with anyone's questions as I have been using this configuration for months..

Also there are two big differences in Windows 7 and Windows Vista that would make a big difference in OS speed and chipset integration with the OS.. When you read this you might think oh wait BIMMER (you all do know what the BIMMER was right? :-) , Amiga Custom Chipset..

The Windows 7 kernel has been redesigned:

The redesigned dispatcher lock in the new Windows 7 kernel improves performance.  The lock was single and global in previous Windows versions, which will become a bottleneck in a massively multicore system.  The newly designed the lock has a "tiered" approach, so the fine grained locking mechanism wouldn't create too much blocking.  That'll enable easy scaling to 256 cores. (I'd look for 256 core cpu's in the not so far future by the way)..

second feature directx compute (using the GPU as a general purpose co-processor):

""With the introduction of Windows 7, the GPU and CPU will exist in a co-processing environment where each can handle the computing task they are best suited for," wrote Chris Daniel, product manager for software at Nvidia. "The CPU is exceptionally good at performing sequential calculations, I/O, and program flow, whereas the GPU is perfectly suited for performing massive parallel calculations."

Microsoft is doing its part by putting DirectX Compute in Windows 7, so that developers can make better use of the GPU for tasks other than just graphics acceleration. Having the GPU pitch in where possible will help take the load off of the CPU so that it can focus on other tasks. The ideal end result of this is that the PC should be more responsive thanks to efficient use of processing power.

Daniel gives an example of how a GPGPU could speed up a task: "With new software designed to take advantage of this capability you would be able to copy and transcode (convert a video from one format to another – a very computationally intensive task) a movie to your MTP supported portable media device up to 5 times faster when using the GPU as a co-processor with DX Compute, as compared to only doing the processing on the CPU."

Microsoft also natively supports GPU acceleration with a new Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center for H.264 video content, most of which is encoded in high-definition formats and typically more taxing on the CPU.

"Parallel programming is the next big thing for the world of computing – it has started already," said Daniel. "DirectX Compute will accelerate this discontinuity by enabling massive parallelism to the masses. What we are talking about is co-processing— essentially using the right tool for the job."

source Tom's Hardware US http://www.tomshardware.com/us

I personally would like to see WinUAE supporting both DirectX Compute, DirectWRITE APIs, and support parallelism as much as possible..

To all the Mac folks who want to remind me about OpenCL, developers have to take advantage of this by calling api's themselves, where as this capability is already more built-in with quite a bit further OS integration.. So that's where the differences are. It's interesting that Apple's bootcamp drivers are slower running on "pure" Apple intel hardware, than the same pure intel hardware on an INTEL branded motherboard.. I will have more info on that shortly, I think it's possible that Apple is trying to skew the benchmarks on their own hardware when it runs windows just to say they have a performance edge..

[motrucker]

Hasn't everyone gone to 7?  The pre-release version was out for ages. It's a great upgrade from Vista.
I'm not going to touch the zip thing.......never did like 'em.

[stefcep2]

If you don't currently have a need to upgrade, then don't. Continue to enjoy XP and watch technology advance from afar. You probably took a similar stance arguing Win98SE over XP, but the time obviously came for you to upgrade to XP.

 The big difference from 98se to XP for me was that XP was far more stable and had proper USB support.  These were genuinly useful reasons to upgrade.

XP supports more hardware than any other OS now, and because of the huge install base, will continue to support new hardware for several years to come.  Anti-Malware software will continue to be written for XP for years as well, beacsue of the huge install base.  There will also be support for new video and audio codecs from third parties, there will still be drivers for new graphics cards for years from ATI and nVidia, again because of the huge XP install base.  For many (majority ?) of users that will be enough to stick with XP for several years to come. Eventually people will buy a new PC and thats when the switch to Win 7 will happen for most users.  The leap from Win 98 to XP was bigger than XP to Win 7 for the average user.

[gertsy]

@tone007 ; The resource monitor is the same as Vista from what I can tell.

It's  like a SP for Vista really. And 5 secs faster than a vista 40 second boot up.  Revolutionary.!  
Really a full boot these days should take 10 secs.  When you consider the performance growth in the last 20 years, productivity speed has gone backwards. Better quality results but slower....

Vista was was the Win ME of the decade.  You've gotta have a poo poo product so when you bring out the next product it can be sooooo much better.. In 2011 XP will be 10 years old and still in use. But barely. A good run.

Gertsy