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Operating System Specific Discussions => Other Operating Systems => Topic started by: hayashi on October 22, 2009, 07:09:20 AM
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So... it's finally turned up.
Anyone here going to make the upgrade? I won't be; Linux and AmigaOS3 do pretty much every task I could want from an OS, and the only semi-functional Windows computer in my room is my Windows 98 retrogaming machine that I slightly messed up when I moved it to a new case. I hate Windows and all it stands for, and the only reason I'd buy 7 is if I desperately needed Windows and it suddenly crashed in price to be cheaper than XP.
And what the hell's with Microsoft throwing their crappy Ribbon UI around everywhere? To me, all Ribbons seem to accomplish is cluttering up the user interface, taking up a ridiculous amount of the screen, and cause users to have to wade through tons of irregularly laid-out tabs in order to find what in a toolbar system would be in plain view and (eg in previous versions of Office and IE) could be reconfigured into a layout that suited the user. It's like replacing a toolbox with a filing cabinet holding all the tools, and, in my opinion, it therefore ruins the desktop metaphor. (Who puts tools and only tools in a filing cabinet?)
One-man launch unparty time, I feel.
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I will be, but then I work in IT.
My next rig build will be before Xmas, most likely a i5 or i7 based Win7 boxen.
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It already turned up in August (I'm a Technet/MSDN member) and have been running the RTM for several months now. Good to be over and done with Vista, 7 feels a lot smoother and faster.
(running on an i7 machine)
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Running W7 Enterprise since mid July.
No objections so far. Compared to XP, most visible improvements include multitasking performance and networking subsystem. Maybe there are some other goodies, but those mentioned come from corporate/IT user arena, far away from gamers.
Pure gamers use "world's greatest game machine", right ?
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Pre-ordered and mine turned up early on monday due to postal strikes was sent out early. Seems ok so far. lot better than Vista so far and good compatibality VM stuff so some stuff that didnt run under vista now works again.
Im quite impressed so far to be honest.
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So... it's finally turned up.
Anyone here going to make the upgrade? I won't be; Linux and AmigaOS3 do pretty much every task I could want from an OS, and the only semi-functional Windows computer in my room is my Windows 98 retrogaming machine that I slightly messed up when I moved it to a new case. I hate Windows and all it stands for, and the only reason I'd buy 7 is if I desperately needed Windows and it suddenly crashed in price to be cheaper than XP.
And what the hell's with Microsoft throwing their crappy Ribbon UI around everywhere? To me, all Ribbons seem to accomplish is cluttering up the user interface, taking up a ridiculous amount of the screen, and cause users to have to wade through tons of irregularly laid-out tabs in order to find what in a toolbar system would be in plain view and (eg in previous versions of Office and IE) could be reconfigured into a layout that suited the user. It's like replacing a toolbox with a filing cabinet holding all the tools, and, in my opinion, it therefore ruins the desktop metaphor. (Who puts tools and only tools in a filing cabinet?)
One-man launch unparty time, I feel.
Already upgraded to MS Windows 7 Ultimate RTM (MSDN) since early Sep 2009.
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Loaded it on a couple of computers at work and my wife's PC at home. It's better than Vista, faster, cleaner. Generally we've replaced our Vista machines with Windows 7. You can turn off the bloody warnings. MS and Apple did similar releases, largely bug fixes. If you're an MS Windows fan you'll come, if your an Apple fan you'll go 'meh.'
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I like it. Been running it since June on my laptop which had Vista.
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I have and will transfer all XP machines at work and home, it a great OS buy now while the price is low. i have already bought 18 copies (dam i will be busy for a while... :( )
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Been running it for some time here as well, does pretty nicely even on an old single core laptop I have lying around.
Check out the awesome Resource Monitor, shows you your processes and how much memory/disk/cpu and even network they're utilizing, as well as what hosts each process is talking to: http://www.techsupportalert.com/files/images/rm_overview_1.jpg
Definitely a step up.
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I've been running it for awhile. Its sad that the best thing about it is "XP mode". I still don't see many reasons besides support & security that would make people want to upgrade from XP? Vista users will love it cause it way faster then Vista on the same machine.
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Vista actually has become pretty good now at the SP2 version ( 4 gig RAM on C2Duo @2.4 ghz) I still think the boot time is frustratingly long. I only buy windows with new PC's so no win 7 on my 8 month old laptop.
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pfft
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I will not install Windows 7 on my PC, unfortunately i need to use Windows for work and other hobbies like astronomy, which i need special software that only exists for Windows, Windows XP is enough for my needs. I don't usually play to Windows games, last game i played was Left4Dead, a great zombies FPS game, but i prefer retrogaming.
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I received a request at work today, a lab with XP PCs wants to upgrade to Windows 7, first time I've received a request from someone who wasn't running Vista. I'll let you know their reactions. XP is really starting to show it's age. I'm not a big Windows fan, but I've upgrade all the MSWindows machines in my personal life to 7.
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I won't install Windows 7.
Windows XP suits my Windows needs at home.
Windows 2000 and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS suit my needs at work.
I also use Windows 95 OSR2 USB on my "old-and-trusty" Siemens PG720 industrial computer (used for PLC programming)
(http://down.ca800.com/supply/2006-12-5/20061252105598060.jpg)
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I installed windows 7 (one of the late betas) on a low spec laptop. It sure is better than Vista, but slower than XP Home on the same laptop.
If you have XP and it works ok, I see no reason to go to W7. The only reason for getting W7 would be if you were unlucky enaugh to buy a new PC bundles with the bloated Vista.
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I'm going to dual-boot it with my current XP install for a while; probably going to do a total makeover on my wife's dual-core laptop next week or so.
I used the beta on a VM on this poky old machine (2 ghz AMD xp64 3000, 1 gig RAM, so that means the vm was essentially a 1ghz machine with a half-gig of memory...!) and it ran fine, just no aero effects as most VMs don't support OGL or d3d.
Overall I like 7.
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I installed windows 7 (one of the late betas) on a low spec laptop. It sure is better than Vista, but slower than XP Home on the same laptop.
If you have XP and it works ok, I see no reason to go to W7. The only reason for getting W7 would be if you were unlucky enaugh to buy a new PC bundles with the bloated Vista.
I see one or two...
DirectX 10 and soon 11... much nicer graphics in games....
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I see one or two...
DirectX 10 and soon 11... much nicer graphics in games....
That, too.
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Let's face it, we will all upgrade :) We all want to be on top of things :) I tried it and love it so YES, I will definitely upgrade. Face it, Windows XP is near it's last breath. I love my amiga though. :)
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I am very happily using Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro, but I will be upgrading my Samsung netbook from XP to Windows 7 at some time in the future (it's just being used as a external HD for the Mac now so I'm in no hurry). The time is long gone that I would ever have a Windows machine as my main or only computer.
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I love XP been on my systems that i built for work and home, but it is showing its age. I have Never put vista into any machine (tried it once along with office 2007) and both where crap.
But on every machine i have put Win 7 on in a work environment it has been faster then XP even on net books and such.
I just hope now Office 2010 is not bloat ware like 2007 was since office 2003 is starting to show its age especially the pst file size limit.
Anyway 2 computers done 16 more licenses to go on this batch. prob about another 50 computers to convert to Win 7 so far so good everyone is loving it, but i do have 1 secret i am teaming SSD's as C drive with Win7.... NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL FAST.
If you can afford it try a SSD with win 7 = made for each other.
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I see one or two...
DirectX 10 and soon 11... much nicer graphics in games....
I have a laptop with a Nvidia 7950 GTX card. No reason at all for me to "upgrade" or infect my machine with VISTA 2.0 I will stick with XP. and besides DX 10 CAN run on an XP machine, just google it.
I did the whole beta test for win 7 and was not impressed at all with it. XP ran faster and way more stable on my laptop, and everything just worked. A WHOLE bunch of things had no drivers in Win 7, so after the beta was over, I went back to XP and have no regrets at all. Everything just works. I can even use my (non USB ) Zip drive. Win 7 can't at all see a "Non USB device"
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Win 7 can't at all see a "Non USB device"
That sounds like a crap feature.
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I can even use my (non USB ) Zip drive. Win 7 can't at all see a "Non USB device"
If you're still using a parallel port Zip drive, you deserve an outdated OS.
..not to mention Win7 can indeed use non-USB devices. What a ridiculous idea.
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If you're still using a parallel port Zip drive, you deserve an outdated OS.
Some of us still use 880k floppy drives from the 80s. Where does that leave us? :-)
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Now they can get rid of those crap ports on the back of PCs, who needs PS2, Serial and Parallel in 2010? It ticks me off that I have to use a USB hub when they could have eliminated the junk and put more USB ports instead.
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Some of us still use 880k floppy drives from the 80s. Where does that leave us? :-)
Running Amiga OS.
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I actually came here to post a similar thread...
Since the PS2 I've felt like Gaming was finally cool again as the 64/Amiga days.
Since Mac OS X Tiger, I've felt that there was an OS out there that totally blew away the Amiga.
And now to my amazement, Windows 7 puts Microsoft on par with Apple. I've been using it for awhile both at work and at home, and it's just really a big change for Windows.
I'm using my Mac, with Snow Leopard, right now to type this.. And it's still my main machine.. And you have to give Apple some credit here.. They really have started to take off lately, and this was giving Microsoft some real competition, that drove them to make Windows 7 what it is.
This is awesome. We don't want to be ruled by one OS.. We want competition because that's what makes things better.
Thanks,
Neofree
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I actually came here to post a similar thread...
Since the PS2 I've felt like Gaming was finally cool again as the 64/Amiga days.
Since Mac OS X Tiger, I've felt that there was an OS out there that totally blew away the Amiga.
And now to my amazement, Windows 7 puts Microsoft on par with Apple. I've been using it for awhile both at work and at home, and it's just really a big change for Windows.
I'm using my Mac, with Snow Leopard, right now to type this.. And it's still my main machine.. And you have to give Apple some credit here.. They really have started to take off lately, and this was giving Microsoft some real competition, that drove them to make Windows 7 what it is.
This is awesome. We don't want to be ruled by one OS.. We want competition because that's what makes things better.
Thanks,
Neofree
So are you saying it's" Windows for Mac users?". My biggest "pet Peeve" with it was in the beta, there was no "Classic" mode (like all the other Windows up until and including XP). Because they moved and re-named many things, I couldn't find things or it took a while to guess where things would be.
tone007[QUOTE:]
Originally Posted by tone007 View Post
If you're still using a parallel port Zip drive, you deserve an outdated OS.
[/QUOTE]
Why on earth would I throw away perfectly good hardware just because it is not USB? Maybe you can burn your money away like that, but parallel port hardware works, and if it aint broke why screw with it? BTW some of the BEST printers ever made were never produced in USB. And also the beta of Windows 7 couldn't even find a parallel port never mind use one. MS had in one of its KB papers a reason why it "dropped support" for any and all parallel devices, basically, it was too hard for them to implement it and most devices had switched to USB.
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Sometimes is so boring read all the wonderfuls of OSX, i dont see all this wonders in that OS really, apple is overvaluated at all.
Windows 7 seems better than vista, but this is easy, but i stay on XP at the moment.
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XP users will migrate to Win7 or get left behind...
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So are you saying it's" Windows for Mac users?". My biggest "pet Peeve" with it was in the beta, there was no "Classic" mode (like all the other Windows up until and including XP). Because they moved and re-named many things, I couldn't find things or it took a while to guess where things would be.
It's completely awesome they didnt put a classic mode. You're missing most of the benefit of the new Taskbar (which is much like the OS X Dock) with it. It doesn't take long to understand the benefit of your program always being in the same place, instead of a scattered ADD mess of tabs. You can quickly go down to the same icon that's always in the same place, and quickly see the windows that are open from that icon.. Or.. if none are open you are using the icon to start the program. It really merges all the redundant systems, Start menu, Quick Launch, Taskbar (old), etc. The Mac has had this for years but Windows has finally got with the program. Just waiting for Linux to get a clue.
A friend of mine sounded exactly as you.. He went ahead and tried it for awhile (pre-release) after realizing he just couldnt do classic and realized it was much better.
Thanks,
Neofree
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XP users will migrate to Win7 or get left behind...
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.
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It's completely awesome they didnt put a classic mode. You're missing most of the benefit of the new Taskbar (which is much like the OS X Dock) with it. It doesn't take long to understand the benefit of your program always being in the same place, instead of a scattered ADD mess of tabs. You can quickly go down to the same icon that's always in the same place, and quickly see the windows that are open from that icon.. Or.. if none are open you are using the icon to start the program. It really merges all the redundant systems, Start menu, Quick Launch, Taskbar (old), etc. The Mac has had this for years but Windows has finally got with the program. Just waiting for Linux to get a clue.
A friend of mine sounded exactly as you.. He went ahead and tried it for awhile (pre-release) after realizing he just couldnt do classic and realized it was much better.
Thanks,
Neofree
I am not talking about the TASKBAR, I am talking about things you need to use when fixing computers like the control panel. If you have things that are in the same place for 15 years, it gets to be a repetitive task to find and fix things. Easy and a lot less time waisted for you and your customers. Also A classic start menu is another thing also, but someone will make these tings in Windows blinds and make a ton of money. I don't care what the kernal is like, make the gui look close to XP so we can find things easily, with little or no fuss.
Again, I have beta tested it for over 6 months and found it extremely frustrating. Since I went back to XP, my laptop has been running stress free and 10X faster and everything just works. You cant argue with those results.
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I installed the win7RC just for the heck of it. It's curious how in Microsoft's version of math 6.1 rounds up to 7 (possibly related to the way 65,536 sometimes equals 100,000). In a way I was pleased with it, since I was able to successfully disable/change everything I didn't like to make it behave more like win2k. (and BTW I had no problem using a parallel port game pad.) I was surprised to find that the ancient win3.1-based FTP program that I use still works.
Not-so-impressive is the fact that the bare OS consists of about 8x as many files taking up 8x as much disk space, and eats up an extra few hundred MB of RAM. Aside from that, I'm not interested in buying any software that requires activation.
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I am not talking about the TASKBAR, I am talking about things you need to use when fixing computers like the control panel. If you have things that are in the same place for 15 years, it gets to be a repetitive task to find and fix things. Easy and a lot less time waisted for you and your customers. Also A classic start menu is another thing also, but someone will make these tings in Windows blinds and make a ton of money. I don't care what the kernal is like, make the gui look close to XP so we can find things easily, with little or no fuss.
Again, I have beta tested it for over 6 months and found it extremely frustrating. Since I went back to XP, my laptop has been running stress free and 10X faster and everything just works. You cant argue with those results.
Yes, MS decided to drop Classic option this time. Maybe they should had it for people like you, I would't mind it. IMHO, that's a good decision, IT won't make a significant progress if it's being dragged by legacy features. For that fact I'd like to see some departure from HW side, too. Something like evolution of BIOS, bus architecture or storage paradigm, or shortly improvement of all PC legacy which is still unchanged for almost last 30 years.
If you have older HW, then it's more than logical to use XP due lower resource footprint. But for newer and forecoming HW, this is no brainer. W7 and XP cannot be compared with multitasking/multithreading performance, for legacy application there's a XP mode already reducing some compatibility gap and that's just the tip of iceberg.
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I installed windows 7 (one of the late betas) on a low spec laptop. It sure is better than Vista, but slower than XP Home on the same laptop.
If you have XP and it works ok, I see no reason to go to W7. The only reason for getting W7 would be if you were unlucky enaugh to buy a new PC bundles with the bloated Vista.
One of the main reasons is that it comes with 32bit and 64bitt as standard. where as XP 64bit was expensive, rubbish and hardly supported, at least with windows 7 if you have the chip the you can run 64bit which will blow xp 32bit awat in terms of speed
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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.
rubbish! XP is old, clunky patched to buggery and just about scraping by (i use xp at work and hate it!) i have vista on my spare pc and whilst resource hungry as long as you have a half about rig it runs circles around xp, and i use windows 7 on my main rig (7 months now) and its excellent, fast user friendly and stable, it really bugs me that users are holding back PCs with their "oh but XP is great" attitudes, doesn't anyone remember XP's launch? blue screen of death if you even looked at it funny.
come on peeps, give it up, move on and get over it windows 7 rocks and you WILL be using it!
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Why on earth would I throw away perfectly good hardware just because it is not USB?
A parallel port zip drive is not "perfectly good."
BTW some of the BEST printers ever made were never produced in USB.
Any printer worth a damn will have a network port, and if it doesn't and you're that attached to it, you stick a parallel to network print server on it.
I don't care what the kernal is like, make the gui look close to XP so we can find things easily, with little or no fuss.
I read that as "I don't like learning new things, and Microsoft is making me look stupid in front of people by hiding all my icons! Nothing should ever change!" Not the attitude that'll get you anywhere in IT, dude, you're on your way to being one of the useless users who can't find the internet without starting up AOL.
XP users will migrate to Win7 or get left behind...
It's true, Microsoft has already even refused to patch certain issues in XP, and no longer provides licensing information via the Microsoft Partner website for enterprise versions of XP. I imagine downloads will get pulled sooner or later.
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Some people are just down on Microsoft and always will be. I was probably guilty of it once upon time when I was a rabid Amiga user. But lets be honest windows 7 or any version of windows including 98se and up blows the pants of AOS4.
And the other genious piece of microsoft , xbox360. They really have pulled a decent machine with great online fucntionality, network and community tools together.
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A parallel port zip drive is not "perfectly good."
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). I am open, but to throw out hardware, just because a USB version is available is just plain waistful-especially in this day and age. When it finally dies, I will get (if I decide to) get a USB one. BTW- if anyone is compelled to throw away perfectly working hardware, just send it to me instead of putting it into a landfill.- the only caveat is printers you cant get ink or ribbons for. The only thing I can do with those is pull chips if any.
Any printer worth a damn will have a network port, and if it doesn't and you're that attached to it, you stick a parallel to network print server on it.
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.But I wasn't talking about networked printers back then.
I read that as "I don't like learning new things, and Microsoft is making me look stupid in front of people by hiding all my icons! Nothing should ever change!" Not the attitude that'll get you anywhere in IT, dude, you're on your way to being one of the useless users who can't find the internet without starting up AOL.
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)
It's true, Microsoft has already even refused to patch certain issues in XP, and no longer provides licensing information via the Microsoft Partner website for enterprise versions of XP. I imagine downloads will get pulled sooner or later.
Remember, we have been down this same road just 2 years ago with VISTA and we will be down it again as the Corporate customers refuse (again) to upgrade. I am sure if you look back at the threads on VISTA, they will mirror the exact same thing said here today.
BUT, OTOH, I have not, and can not comment on a 64 bit machine (my comments have been solely based on my 32 bit machine). I don't know how Win7 runs on an 4 or 8 core system with 16 gigs of ram. That XP can't do (and I don't think XP-64 was ever truely "finnished"). For that, you need to go to server 2003 for that was the last major upgrade to XP's kernal.
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We moved a dozen PCs from XP to Windows 7 today, a compete science lab. Everything works and users like the new interface. It seems about as peppy as XP. I'm going to schedule the upgrade of every PC under my control to Windows 7 that has enough power. In most cases it's just putting in a couple ram sticks to get them there. XP is just too ancient to be of use in 2010.
As a side benefit they seem to play well in a majority Mac shop. The hooked to the XServes without the normal problems that XP seems to have. We can share devices better and share files better. All in all a much more responsive and cooperative OS.
(http://www.cool-smileys.com/images/295.gif)
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First off, you can just pick up one of these USB to IEEE1284 converters from newegg for about 12 bucks (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156012&cm_re=parallel_usb_converter-_-12-156-012-_-Product). 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.
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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.
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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 :D
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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..
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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.
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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.
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@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