Hands-On With Windows 7's New Features 662
Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, and PC Pro has a series of in-depth, hands-on examinations of all the new features. The revamped user interface has clearly gleaned more than a little inspiration from the Mac OS X Dock, but it goes further than the Apple concept with 'jumplists,' new gadgets and an updated system tray. The much-vaunted multi-touch controls were there to play with, and it seemed to work well. Networking has been given the full treatment, with new features HomeGroup and Libraries. Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster. Finally, several new features could make PCs easier to manage and secure for IT departments, such as BitLocker To Go and Branch Cache." All in all, these features together lead some people to the conclusion that Windows 7 will "suck less than Vista" — that last link from reader ThinSkin, who also points to a related sampling of screenshots from the current iteration of Windows 7.
Re:BSD Network Stack (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
On a related note, do you know where I can pick up a copy of Tie Fighter that works on IBM's Extended Firmware Interface (EFI)?
The Windows 95 port ought to work just fine. You lose the MIDI music (as DirectMusic didn't exist at the time of the port) in favor of canned CD audio music edited from Williams' soundtracks. In return, though, you get 640x480 resolution in both TIE Fighter (which may have supported it in DOS?) and X-wing (which definitely didn't).
Vista is still better (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, Vista is able to address memory over 2gb (a software limitation of XP).
Second, Vista has better support for newer processors and hardware. This is especially important in Dual (or higher) Core processors, since XP Home only supports one processor (or core), while XP Pro only supports two.
Third, Vista has great support for legacy games, far better than XP.
So don't believe the Slashdot FUD- Vista is far superior for gaming. And when you take into account how it will allow you to use modern hardware to it's full capabilities, unlike XP, it's not even realistically possible for Vista to be "slower" than XP.
And just like XP, you can tweak Vista to turn off services you don't need in order to get it to run faster. The internet is filled with web pages featuring Vista gaming tweaks: the only thing stopping a person from getting the real facts is their unwillingness to look. It may be shocking, but Slashdot is hardly an honest broker of Windows-based information.
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty much. I was a bit unnerved when I went to Vista about 6 months ago. However, it's been pretty good to me so far.
Re:Capabilities (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it sounds like they will. From TFA: "If it works on Windows Vista, it'll work in Windows 7. The move from Vista to Windows 7 we expect to be seamless."
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think there will be any major kernel work. Vista includes lot of new low level stuff, the whole Audio stack, network stack, composite display (not to mention DRM, duh!), a lot of stuff that hard to get right on the first shoot.
And for a product delayed for a year, I bet the performance fine tuning would be the last thing on the TODO list.
Back to Win 7, I don't heard M$ will be revamping the kernel again. So there is much higher chance that they could stabilize and improve the stack (and hopefully backported back to Vista upcoming SP). All the other bell and whistles, as far as I can tell, could be implemented with the existing kernel framework. The features we are seeing mostly implemented in userspace code.
So go back to the benchmarking, if you mean the speed of running OTHER application, which is the performance of the kernel itself, I think Win 7 will actually be faster because it will be stablized in this timeframe. If you mean the OS features, well it's hard to tell until it is out.
Comparing Win 7 with XP would be like comparing Windows 2000 and Windows 98. If XP does the job, keep it as you wish.
Personally I am using Vista now and I really like some of the features like Start Menu Search, Network, Connectivity & Wireless UI, photo gallery and the UAC. (Yes I like UAC!)
I hope Win 7 HomeGroup feature would play nice with Samba. The next thing I hope is that I could get a DSL upgrade from the ISP...
Re:Vista is still better (Score:3, Informative)
processor != core. From http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx [microsoft.com]:
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using Vista all day at work for months, and Vista as my primary computer at home since it was in beta. I've had a few issues with drivers that have long since been cleared up, and that's it. Everything else just works.
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:5, Informative)
How about "everyone"?
I've downgraded something like 2 dozen computers since vista came out, primarily because people were complaining that they run much too slow. Of course, there were other factors too, but that was the biggest complaint I've heard. So, sure, computers will get much faster, but who really wants to spend $2,500 on a top of the line system when they can run an older OS on a $500 machine?
My current hardware specs are good enough to run vista with a "5 star rating", but I swill won't touch the fucking thing. It's slow, I don't like the interface, the constant "allow/deny" requests are annoying as hell, and I can't customize it the way I can XP.
The real question is "do the new features justify the extra resource usage", and in Vista's case, the answer is a resounding "NO!". I'd have no problem upgrading to a bloated OS that had some new functionality which would radically improve my computing experience, but MS hasn't brought anything really interesting to the table in quite a while. Every new "feature" in Vista can be done just as well, if not better, by third-party apps on XP, without slowing your system to a crawl.
With that said, the ONLY reason I would even think of switching to Vista is because it supports video hardware acceleration for the desktop. I just wish I could find an application to do that on XP.
Re:Cheap Hack (Score:1, Informative)
there fixed that for you...
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Gaming Performance: Windows Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 [extremetech.com]:
If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.
In fact, I'd been planning to run a few other gaming tests, but the results from these were so uninteresting that further work didn't seem merited. Love it or hate it, Vista is performing far better than it used to.
You were saying?
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:4, Informative)
Not just that, but an article on /. just a day or two ago talked about how Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 are slower than 7.10... and it took six months to figure out that 8.04 was slower than 7.10.
Hardware is getting faster. Even in gaming rigs, you are just talking about a few fps.
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:3, Informative)
If you want something that outperforms XP, try Windows 95, or Windows NT 4.
If you want something that runs 21st century software and games, buy Vista or Windows 7.
And if you want something that does all of the above, get just about any flavor of Linux.
I was going to say "disregarding games, of course" but then I remembered that the MegaTouch game machines you see in every bar run on Linux. The only reason Linux isn't an excellent gaming platform is because the home game companies won't write for it.
I can't stand all this "will it be EVEN SLOWER" crap. Of course it will, but who gives a shit?
Anybody who doesn't want to replace their machine just to run Microsoft's latest bloatware. Anyone without Bill Gates' fortune. I have a mortgage, a car payment, utilities, and food to pay for (and lots of beer). If I upgrade to a new app/OS, I want MORE Than I had, not less. Having to "upgrade" to a new version of Office just because they changed the file system and everybody else has is, to my mind, an incredibly sleazy ripoff.
Computers are getting faster MUCH MUCH more quickly than operating systems are getting slower.
On the contrary, the bigger my registry gets the slower my hardware runs.
I did a degree in computer science 10 years ago using a computer which had less RAM and Mhz than my *phone* does now!
I rest my case. I'd like to be able to do away with the ocmputer altogether and interface my phone with a keyboard and TV (using the TV as a monitor; my forst PC used the TV as a monitor).
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:3, Informative)
The benchmarks for what? I don't know whether or not I'm losing a percent or two for number crunching... but I do know that the UI feel is a lot faster, they've really improved load times and the lag from switching between programs.
I do think I've lost an FPS or two in certain games... and I may have lost a second or two on compiles (though I doubt that one)... but for the day to day benchmarks that actually matter to me it certainly seems faster.
Re:New features are irrelivant... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem here is that Vista is being shipped in new machines that aren't that much faster than those they are supposed to replace.
Therefore, Vista feels slow as molasses.
If we combine this with the natural resistance to change that all humans have, you'll see rabid resistance to Vista.
People upgraded to Windows 2000, even though it was slower than Windows 98, because the extra features were worth the perceived speed loss. The same is not happening with Vista.
Well, interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps they're taking hints from OSX, KDE and Gnome. It'd be a positive thing. Now, for some commentary on their new features..
--HomeGroup. This essentially turns all the Windows 7 PCs on the home network into a combined pool of data and files
I could easily see how one could do something similar on Linux vis automounter and Samba. DHCP could report the client list to Samba, which attempts to use a specially set password to mount other computers. From then, users would have rights as their own user, granting only rights that they natively have. This would provide security along with a standard solution that all Samba-speaking machines could use.
The only gripe with that setup is that data goes from A to server to B, rather than A to B directly, with the server mediating connections. However, I think this could be made around if we allow direct mediation like FTP can be set up for (Server says send file from B to A).
--HomeGroup is its ability to automatically detect when your work laptop, for instance, is being used in the home.
Network profiles would be much more handy, so one could choose which profile where one is. Also, CUPS is much better than the windows counterpart, as it announces service. Announcement is so much more handy in that regard, because so many devices and OSes speak that. Windows is the odd one out, yet again, unless you go through the "advanced configs".
--Music and video streaming
Arguably, Linux already supports this via multiple protocols. If your client computer is beefy enough, one can "stream" the video from the server. Or, if the client is a low-powered machine, you could use a combination of a sound daemon and X to do the heavy lifting. I would say that there might not be enough bandwidth for raw video via X, but it IS compressed somewhat. X settings are easier, at least in my experience. The sound is more tricky.
There's a few ways to get remote sound. One is to use PulseAudio, and follow the instructions here [ubuntu.com]. They work fine. Also, another choice, if your program is ESD aware, you can use a syntax to target output at a certain server. In fact, I can play MP3s like that on my DS vis the command:
mplayer -ao esd:ip_address_of_ds music.mp3
Found here [dslinux.org].
It's a bit more of a setup, but Linux can either process the video locally OR remotely. I dont think Windows can do that.
As for the touch-interface, it looks a lot better than what Linux _currently_ offers, however MPX is a big thing to watch, considering is in the main X.org package. MPX is a multi-point server extension that allows up to 16 mice and 16 keyboard inputs, WHILE keeping backward compatibility with non-MPX-aware apps. This is a biggie, as MS could only figure out how to do multi-point and multi-touch with a special OS only for MP programs. All it takes now is Gnome, KDE, and Compiz to natively communicate with MPX so that we can realize the future of Linux over input development.
Add this to the Wiimote, light-pens, and a downward-facing projector, we could create a touch surface for 1000$ or less, and multi-pointer to boot. Things in Linux sure are picking up...
Re:No more registry? (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, in practice, it's a mess. Though, I really don't think the fault is entirely MS's. As you stated, too many developers simply dumped stuff in HKLM. The problem is, there is nothing in the design of the registry to stop that and it even encourages it. There is really no easy way to have a configuration in HKCU for one user replicate across all users for a system (the default user is only replicated when a new profile is created). On the other hand, HKLM is the same for all users.
This is actually one of the places where I really thought a Vista feature was great: Registry Virtualization [microsoft.com]. Virtualize out writes to system locations in the registry on a per-user basis. Unfortunately, it's not as comprehensive as that, and MS plans to deprecate it in the future.
Re:slashdot tags (Score:3, Informative)
On the front page, for this article, the tags are actually overlapping with the text. Someone needs to learn how to code CSS properly instead of coding "Web 2.0 hey-look-we-can-move-the-poll-up-and-down" stuff.
Re:Page fault madness (Score:1, Informative)
Most of the page-faults are soft-faults, where no performance-lost occurs.
See http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2008/06/10/the-basics-of-page-faults.aspx [technet.com] for details.
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:3, Informative)
You joke, but what good is the desktop environment to me when I'm playing a game? I liked the days of DOS games much better.
Having a real OS might shave off a few fps, but it allows you to set up your hardware just the once, and have it work in all of your software.
You're confusing a desktop environment with an OS :)
This is why GNU/Linux will -- eventually -- rock for gaming. Imagine being able to run just X and a game. No GNOME/KDE cruft, services or widgets slowing things down. I already drop out of GNOME and use Fluxbox + a terminal to launch Quake Wars or Savage, and it does make a big difference.
GoScreen FTW. (Score:3, Informative)
http://goscreen.info/ [goscreen.info]
Light, doesn't hog memory, and fast, etc. :)
Re:Vista is still better (Score:3, Informative)
2GB of memory was not an issue with XP. 4GB of memory usually shows up as 3.2-3.5GB unless you do the PAE switch. I always found it was better install XP with 4GB then add it later. Same goes with Server 2003 32 bit. You want 4GB+ of memory use a 64bit OS. XP has not had an issue with 2-3GB of memory. The older motherboards (back in 2001) may have that is a hardware issue not a software issue.
As for the actual core count, XP home supports one actual processor. If that processor is a dual core it shows up as a dual core processor unless my laptop is lying to me. I have not tested XP Home with a quad core I cannot speak for that. XP pro support to actual processor CPUs. Those CPUs can have 1 core each or 2 cores each or 4 cores each and all will be seen. So yes you can have an 8 way XP pro box. We have a few desktops set up like this at work. Wrong OS at first SP Pro 32 bit. It worked but could use all 16GB of RAM. Switched to XP Pro 64 bit to use all the RAM.
As for gaming, if you want all the eye candy that DX10 gives you should be on vista. If the eye candy is not an issue go XP. That is until they start making vista only games. Who knows when that will happen.
Everyone should be turning off things that they do not use in their OS.
Re:It takes 15 minutes to setup wireless? (Score:3, Informative)
Last time I tried Ubuntu on a machine with wireless, the wireless worked with no additional configuration (other than typing in the SSID and the key)...
Re:BSD Network Stack (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Page fault madness (Score:3, Informative)
osx, and linux and most all other operating systems that I've used will not swap memory until the machine is completely out of ram, and are noticeably faster in this area.
On my FreeBSD desktop with 6GB of RAM, I'm 200MB into swap with about 4GB of RAM free. During idle times, it proactively copies data to swap so that if a sudden demand arrives it can release lots of RAM without paging out at that moment. That's a far cry from needing to swap, though.
Re:Not Again! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:3, Informative)
People who are having problems and issues with Vista are not as common as you seem to think. There's just a vocal minority, especially on sites like Slashdot, that hates MS and will never say anything that isn't negative about Vista. And even when people do have problems it is usually because of either crapware added by the OEM (not something MS can fix), or device drivers written by the manufacturer that are buggy.
Provide me with evidence and examples of consistent problems with Vista itself that can't be explained by the two things I just mentioned. If you can't do that, you're just trolling.
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:2, Informative)
There are some services in Vista you CANT turn off, think DRM. There is plenty of benchmarking around showing that for some tasks the same system running 2008 is 10%-20% faster than running vista.
If you are a developer (or student *grin*) you can get server 2008 for free through MSDN. So cost does not need to be a factor.
It really isn't a bad idea at all if you need a good Windows workstation. No need to pan someone for tying to share a good idea.
Re:Page fault madness (Score:5, Informative)
You need to understand the difference between a "soft page fault" and a "hard page fault". The numbers you're looking at are a combination of both -- I would guess maybe 1000 hard faults, and 6.999 soft faults.
So you're looking at completely the wrong number (page reads/sec is a better number, subtracting that from I/O reads/sec).
If you want more information, I suggest you read up on the Memory Management chapter in Windows Internals.
Re:Page fault madness (Score:3, Informative)
That should've been "6.999 million".
Also, to clarify, a soft page fault is when a page is migrated from the standby list to the working set -- which is several orders of magnitude less expensive then a hard fault. Except for some TLB issues, there's no significant performance issue, and no disk access in any case.
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:3, Informative)
Care to name a single non-research desktop OS that cannot be brought down by a crappy vendor driver?
Actually, Vista is better there than most, with its video drivers in large part in userspace.
Re:What's a gamer to do? (Score:2, Informative)
Try this:
CTRL+SHIFT+ESC (opens task manager)
CLICK "PROCESSES" TAB
CLICK "SHOW PROCESSES FROM ALL USERS"
CLICK THE "CPU" COLUMN HEADER ONCE, THEN AGAIN.
You should now have all your active processes listed from the highest CPU usage down to the lowest. If you have a process using 50%-100% of the CPU, it's monopolizing your system and slowing it down. Do the same with the memory column. If you have anything utilizing more than 3-500k of memory, you've got an app with a memory leak or something similar.
I've found that 99% of the time, a slowly performing system with decent specs either has a hardware problem, or a third-party app or driver causing problems. This will give you a basic idea if that's the case.