Windows 7 Hits Build 7600 (Possible RTM) 671
Posted
by
timothy
from the all-aflutter dept.
from the all-aflutter dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on October 22, 2009, the day of General Availability (GA). The build string is "7600.16384.090710-1945," which indicates that it was compiled just a few days ago: July 10, 2009, at 7:45pm. Microsoft only increments the build number when it reaches a significant goal, and the only one left is the RTM milestone. The last builds that were leaking were all 72xx builds, so such a large bump is suspicious but at the same time it is something Microsoft would do to signify that this is the final build.'"
This is stunning news for MS-ophiles! (Score:2, Insightful)
For the rest of us: Not so much.
I just got sweaty palms... (Score:1, Insightful)
I just got sweaty palms and fell out of my chair.
Seriously? Windows 7? People are really going to play that game?
Does anybody recall any other launch of a Windows product? They always claim to have fixed all the bugs present in the previous one. They have claimed since Windows 98 that there is better security. Vista was supposed to be XP that had been fixed, remember?
After all these years and years of people eagerly anticipating the next Windows provide a lot of laughs, but it's really very sad when you think about it.
Windows 7 is the last appeal from death row. The same tired promises as ever, wrapped in fancier 3D windowing effects.
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, you mean, random shit that used to work, doesn't anymore?
Why can't I connect to my wireless network at home?
Why does krunner randomly crash? Or Plasma?
On second thought, maybe you're right. It's things like this that are the reason I left Windows in the first place. Maybe it's time to go back.
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because Microsoft has been directly "leaking" 7 to the p2p sites this time around.
I put that in quotes because it should be obvious by now that the leaked builds of 7 have the blessings of Redmond. Remember, they will give it away to keep you from even considering alternatives.
"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." William Gates III ca. 1998. http://tinyurl.com/nbo55t [tinyurl.com]
--
BMO
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:5, Insightful)
* Apple: OSX keeps getting better and better. Will they make enough improvement that people want to switch away from Microsoft?
I think OS X will only really beat MS if either A) Apple releases -cheap- computers or B) Licenses it out to other OEMs that make cheap computers. I mean, when I can buy a $400 laptop (not a netbook but a laptop) with Windows on it and do just about everything that a $999 Macbook can do, the choice is clear for most people. Yes, there are a few niche things that require OS X, but the vast majority of software works by default on Windows and may have a Mac port. I would imagine that a lot of people would love to have OS X rather than Windows but for a laptop that is $600 more than the competition that does the same thing, I can't see people flocking over to Apple when PC hardware is dirt cheap. Yes, Apple hardware is cheaper when you go by a component to component basis, but really for the average person, 3 gigs of DDR2 is going to be better than 3 gigs of DDR3 when the DDR3 RAM costs way more. If Apple lowers their prices, I can see them dominating, but these days who wants to pay $999 for Apple's cheapest laptop when you can buy a netbook for under $300 and a full laptop for $400 and under.
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:4, Insightful)
The main change is that Microsoft goes back to marketing a product people actually want. From what I can see, pushing Vista damaged their credibility pretty strongly, but with 7 they'll likely regain much of that trust, and in fact already have with the open beta/RC.
Other than that, nothing really, OSX isn't a contender and won't be for as long as Apple continues to ignore the business market, and Linux' freedom is far too tempting to OEMs to avoid fragmenting it and make it a viable long-term replacement for Windows.
beta! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's nice but wake me up when it leaves beta^H^H^H^H SP1
Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:2, Insightful)
People are really going to play that game?
Redmond is counting on that old saying, "there's one born every minute"...
I actually bought it during the preorder sale. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I think all MS products are pretty craptacular, and I'm mostly a UNIX fan for desktop / engineering work, I did buy the $99 Win 7 Pro upgrade preorder just to keep up with a reasonably modern generation of windows. Pragmatically I realize that for at least a couple of more years there will still be a lot of software that runs on Windows and not UNIX / MAC / whatever, so it is good to be able to run Windows when needed (even if only from a VM under your desktop UNIX / MAC). ...), networked backup, transportable file metadata, good integrated search/metadata database based content organization functionality, decent file systems [think ZFS], decent backup, or decent drive content organization. Abolish the registry, turn it into a SQL database if you must, make it possible to in
Now that 64 bit hardware and 4G+ RAM is so ubiquitous, and relatively inexpensive, I find that virtually all the PCs my family has or would be likely to get would be best served by a 64 bit OS, and having 4GB or or likely more of RAM. Thus I feel that XP-32 has pretty much outlived its usefulness as a primary desktop OS for mid-range or better new desktop hardware. That's also true because it seems likely that evolving security patches, security products, as well as media application products will likely function better on Windows 7 / Vista than on XP SP3 as 2010 and beyond progresses and XP becomes more and more of a legacy OS and Vista/Win7 become more and more mainstream.
The things I like about Win 7 are that they upgraded Media Center / Player for H.264 / Divx etc. They didn't go nearly far enough in terms supporting of other codecs (no Ogg, etc.), bad media format / file portability, no intrinsic HD-DVD / Blu-Ray playback (WTF?!), still bad DRM, etc. But at least the more ubiquitous Media Center functionality with integrated H.264 is a good step forward. I'm not thrilled about Silverlight / WPF, et. al. but I concede that to the extent that they'll be perhaps popular, Vista / Win7 are reasonably convenient desktop media platforms to run them on.
They got a clue and included all the features (supposedly) of Home Premium (e.g. Media Center) into the Pro. version, which I applaud -- doing otherwise in Vista was simply deplorable. Personally I think they should have just let all the features of Ultimate be the standard for Home and Pro use, and I think their crippled feature edition product differentiation still sucks (no ubiquitous Home/Pro bitlocker and no Home EFS and no 'full' Home backup tools?! WTF?!), but at least they've taken a tiny step toward making their mid-range Pro edition useful for cases where multimedia support and less crippled networking/security/backup [relative to 'Home Premium'] is important.
So basically I think that 64 bit is the 'killer feature' for mid-range or better desktop use for either Vista or Windows 7. It is good they decided to include 64 bit versions for Home and Pro editions, they should REALLY push for 64 to be the primary installed product, with 32 basically being for some netbooks and really underpowered legacy hardware with 1-3 GB RAM. In the respect of facilitating 64 bit access, Win7 is better than Vista since they made you jump through hoops to get Vista 64 Home/Business in many cases. Maybe by the time they get to Win 8 we'll finally get decent backup / RAID / NAS support, a better filesystem with WinFS and reasonable metadata support and no crippled path length limitations on NTFS, better codec / transcoding support, and truly ubiquitous encryption access/support. By Win 8 they ought to bundle next generation "home server" cloud support into the "family pack" too and have some kind of distributed secure cross-PC "cloud" sync/incremental backup system with transparent file synchronization and off-site encrypted backup integration APIs for internet hosted services like Carbonite, Wuala, Mozy, Windows Live SkyDrive, etc. too -- it's all overdue by years.
They apparently just don't get it about providing good file security (including bitlocker, PGP, ACLs
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaking? Jesus, the beta and the RC were both widely and easily available, and you can still download the RC.
The leaks are just that, they really would rather you not play around with the unofficial builds which have a lot of other debug functionality turned on a lot of the time.
Genius marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Say what you will about Microsoft, but they are geniuses when it comes to marketing. I mean they can tell everyone that 6.1 is equal to 7.0, and sell Vista to the same pissed off customers again at $400 a head.
Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:4, Insightful)
So what exactly does windows 7 have that is either exciting or even worth a hundred euros?
Support for third-party applications that require Windows 7, and security updates past April 8, 2014 [microsoft.com]. Whether that's worth 100 is subjective, of course; personally, that's only worth about 40 to me.
Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, you mean, random shit that used to work, doesn't anymore?
Why can't I connect to my wireless network at home?
Why does krunner randomly crash? Or Plasma?
On second thought, maybe you're right. It's things like this that are the reason I left Windows in the first place. Maybe it's time to go back.
Ubuntu is unabashedly and unequivocally built around gnome.
complaining about kubuntu not performing properly is like complaining a stretched hummer limousine doesn't perform to proper off-road specs. Sure they're based on their respective distro/model, but they're both a completely new animal.
If you want a true offroad vehicle you get a military surplus HMMV, if you want a truly seemless out-of-box KDE experience you should get a linux distro built around KDE.
Though, to be candid, I think GP's comparison of windows to kubuntu is humorously apt given the kludgy nature of windows in general (for the record, I use neither windows nor linux, i'm a mac man after a decade of using windows and 2 years of trying out linux distros)
Re:I am going to take a chance on Windows 7 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I'm not really doubting your FPS stats (and I actually quite like Win7, and generally despise Vista), I think a large portion of people touting Win7 is "way better than Vista" is because their Vista installation has been there for 2 years and has a bunch of stuff installed in it, their Win7 was probably cleanly installed a month ago after the latest Beta/RC.
Re:Windows Backup is actually quite good now (Score:3, Insightful)
The dd command's been around for almost 40 years, and does about the same thing.
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but whatever Linux distro I install, I can make it work like any other without having to pay extra.;)
Mind the gap (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bite, you troll
The big complaint is that Apple has chosen to leave a huge gap in its product line between the Mac mini and Mac Pro.
Re:This guy needs a mod-up (Score:2, Insightful)
Its funny how that when you take statisitics out of context or only looking at a small subset of the factors involved in a statistical analysis that you can prove just about anything.
Sadly you like to ignore the fact that a lot more people use Windows than Linux, so naturally Windows stories are going to be more popular.
Its not anti-Linux. Its pro-howTheWorldActuallyWorksIfYouAren'tWearingYourFanboyBlinders.
Why do you think Apple gets more press for its OS than Linux, but less than MS does for Windows?
Why do you think anything iPod outranks any other music player these days?
It must be beautiful to be able to ignore all the other evidence screaming at you in order to keep your inner fanboy happy.
IMHO, FreeBSD is a far more useful OS than Linux. Must be a conspiracy from slashdot since Linux stories get a lot of news here but FreeBSD doesn't.
Of course its more likely that most everyone here prefers Linux, but I'm going to ignore that and scream about your evil anti-FreeBSD conspiracy
!@$!@%!@%!@%!@
Re:This guy needs a mod-up (Score:5, Insightful)
That article had no statistics, just a guy who has had articles buried. It was all based on 'talking to his buddies' who have also had articles buried.
It may very well be happening, but that article/blog-entry thing provides no insight into what is going on at all.
Re:Efficiency (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaming.
Wii.
The Wii is great, if you're not into gaming. Or if you're 9.
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:1, Insightful)
Because if you enjoy playing games that aren't brown, you must be 9.
Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Quad-core Mac Pro + Applecare (to match the Dell's warranty): ~$2750.
Precision T3500, 2.66Ghz quad-core, 3GB RAM, 750GB drive: ~$1750.
Studio XPS, 2.66Ghz quad-core, 3GB RAM, 640GB drive, 3yr warranty: ~$900.
For nearly everyone, the $900 Studio XPS is equivalent to the $2750 Mac Pro.
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:3, Insightful)
nice job missing the point though. bravo.
Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:5, Insightful)
On what basis would you expect it to have marketshare even remotely close to XP's ?
The pirates would have moved to Vista right away if it was worth a damn. That's half of the market right there. By Microsoft's own licensing numbers, Vista should have passed XP sometime last year. Apparently a whole lot of people bought Vista who didn't want it. Why is that?
If even the people who steal their software won't use it, that's a damning condemnation right there.
Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) (Score:5, Insightful)
While 0 is a valid IP address and should work in a hosts file, dude, STOP ABUSING the hosts file like a clueless idiot! Seriously, 14MB of plain text that needs to be parsed for every lookup? That's the most retarded thing I've ever seen.
At those proportions, there are WAY more efficient methods. Think about it, a hosts file can only match fully-qualified host names. If you want to block a whole domain you waste enormous amounts of space because you have to specify each and every host. Following that, you should instantly realize that security doesn't work with blacklists, i.e. if you know that domain evil.invalid is hostile, you can't afford to miss some hosts below it. Otherwise, what's the point?
And anyways, diverting traffic to 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 is changing semantics in so many ways. Suppose you start running a local HTTP server for testing purposes and all that traffic is suddenly hitting it. It's just wrong.
"Blocking" hosts by listing them in the hosts file is an evil evil evil ugly hack conceived by clueless idiots that can't manage to run a local proxy where you could block domains with simple regular expressions and only for protocols which need them blocked. Or running a local DNS cache where you could blacklist domains so you get a semantically correct (for your purpose) NXDOMAIN error.
If you weren't abusing it like that the whole 0 vs 0.0.0.0 issue would fly past you because noone ought to modify the hosts file anyway these days. That's what DNS is for.
The things that excite me about Win7 (indirectly). (Score:2, Insightful)
I just realized that the things that will make me the happiest about Win 7 (potentially) are really totally indirect effects, but ones that will really help the overall computing world / experience.
No I'm not shilling about how great Win7 is -- LINUX has done most of this stuff well / much better for years, but the point here is that the UBIQUITY of market adoption of capable OS / HW platforms will enable better momentum for these technologies / opportunities than if they were just "niche market" demands as they currently are perceived to be.
* One: 64 bit windows will be a mainstream OS that 3rd party software / hardware vendors just CANNOT ignore anymore. I've been using 64 bit for years with Vista, but lack of good 64 bit SW/HW driver compatibility has been painful. Now that a good percentage of people who buy new PCs will be having Win7/64 by default, finally SW / HW makers will support it properly just due to their bottom line.
* Two: I realize that there's nothing special about 64 bit vs 32 bit for legacy hardware, but RAM is CHEAP now (at least DDR2 is). Moore's law tells me that 8GB, 16GB, 32GB RAM will be cheap in the near future. 32 bit OS/SW was a MAJOR obstacle to taking advantage of cheap RAM more than 4GB, so getting widespread vendor support for that means we can all have more cheap RAM and not have it be considered some "power user" or "enterprise" or "server" high end thing to have 8GB, 16GB+ RAM. Maybe they'll even start putting enough RAM slots in *consumer* motherboards and add the CPU support that you'll be able to install 32GB, 64GB+ cheaply within 3 years without a server class CPU/motherboard. More RAM is one of the best/cheapest upgrades you can get for a PC, even if it is just used mostly for disc cache, that's OK. With 1TB hard drives being cheap / common, we NEED lots of disk cache RAM just to speed up the disk metadata searching and filesystem journaling / buffering. 8GB RAM is less than 1% of the capacity of a $90 1TB disc, so really we've sorely needed more/cheaper RAM just for disk buffering for a couple of years.
* Three: This is the potentially BIG thing for usability as well as the environment. The system will boot faster, shut down faster, but most crucially, it will SLEEP better, and because it will be widespread, PC / hardware / driver / SW makers will get crucified if they DON'T have BIOS / drivers / software that don't deal well with ACPI / PC sleeping / "instant on" etc. This hopefully will enable MANY more people to actually make effective use of the power saving sleep / hibernate features of their PCs, saving a huge amount of energy and energy resources and TIME. It will also greatly increase productivity for people who don't want to wait for slow boot/shutdown times, sleep/hibernate functions that don't work right, etc. I think the OS functionality has sorta started being usably reliable since Vista SP1. Now with Win7, I think the OS vendors and BIOS / SW vendors will really focus on making instant-on PCs and fast boot/shutdown a reliable "it just works" situation. Maybe we'll even start seeing ability to "snapshot" your system state hibernate style, but "bookmark" various "sessions" of the entire PC's application state so you can quickly switch between "desktops" relating to working on one thing vs. working on another thing, etc. Combing quick boot + VM technology + hibernation etc. and you could see whole new paradigms of organizing your workflow on PCs where you can load / unload whole PC configurations and application suites in a few seconds. Replace the old "dual boot" with "oh just load up this bookmarked VM or hibernated snapshot in 5 seconds" and you're running something completely different / task-oriented. Have 10 word documents, 10 PDFs, 30 browser tabs open for a single project, e.g. doing your taxes or whatever? Just have ways to snapshot/hibernate/bookmark that whole set of context as a "desktop context" and quick-boot back to it as an hibernation context or migrate it transparently to a VM snapshot or whatever when you'r
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm no shill. I have several linux boxes at home and a mac mini in addition to my windows pcs, and I run a whole ton of linux servers (debian, ubuntu, vyatta) at the office running the website, imap/squirrelmail, DNS, VPN, some DHCP, a bunch of routing boxes and some fileservers. We run server 2008 for active directory, and linux for virtually everything else server-wise.
That said - ubuntu still sucks on the desktop for me, especially on laptops. I've tried to love it, I really have. But when you're running half the stuff you need in a virtual windows instance, you might as well just run windows native as save the grief.
Windows 7 is what vista should have been in the first place. I've replaced every single vista box with windows 7 RC. It's faster, it's snappier, ejecting usb keys is finally sane, media centre is a metric shitton faster and better, my other half loves the snipping tool. Is it faster than XP? I think so - my eeepc certainly runs better on 7 than XP. The hardware support is *much* better (built in AHCI support), I actually prefer the interface, and it's not about to be retired, either. Is windows 7 the best OS ever? No, there's still room for improvement. Is it better than linux? Depends upon what your needs are. Is it the best version of windows yet? Holy hell, yes, easily.
Would I pay full retail price for windows 7? No. Will I be taking advantage of technet, discounted upgrade pricing (when it finally starts in europe), OEM copies and using my schools agreement at the office to skip vista entirely and go straight to 7? Yes.
Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:3, Insightful)
You think CLIs are bad? Have you tried using something like Ubuntu WITHOUT the CLI? It's even worse - 5 ways to change the same setting, and only half of them work. Oh, and only one of the five options corresponds to the one you can set via the CLI...
Sure, if all you need is Firefox and Thunderbird you're not going to be changing a lot of system settings, but even simple things like changing screen resolutions or refresh rates for multiple monitors (stuff that takes seconds in properly thought out operating systems) take hours of tweaking and research...
All in all, I don't think Linux without the command line is feasible at the moment... it's just not functional enough without it.
Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop (Score:1, Insightful)
Best analysis of why Apple fails in the corporate arena I've heard yet. Bravo.
Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) (Score:3, Insightful)
Mine is only 216k and comes from here. [mvps.org]
At those proportions, there are WAY more efficient methods...
I use a custom
I agree that it's not perfect, but it's not like I run around engaging in any risky behavior just because I have a custom
And anyways, diverting traffic to 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 is changing semantics in so many ways. Suppose you start running a local HTTP server for testing purposes and all that traffic is suddenly hitting it. It's just wrong.
Well, first of all, I don't care about being theoretically "wrong" if the actual, real-life result is "just fine." I have noticed NO ill effects from running a custom
"Blocking" hosts by listing them in the hosts file is an evil evil evil ugly hack conceived by clueless idiots that can't manage to run a local proxy where you could block domains with simple regular expressions and only for protocols which need them blocked. Or running a local DNS cache where you could blacklist domains so you get a semantically correct (for your purpose) NXDOMAIN error.
Yeah, but it works. And it's easier than installing and maintaining yet more software. (I've tried a couple proxies in the past and both were non-trivial to get working.) And regarding this: "Or running a local DNS cache where you could blacklist domains"--didn't you just say "you should instantly realize that security doesn't work with blacklists"?
All I know is that whenever I go to another computer and get swamped by ads, I'm reminded of how great my little system is.
One more thing: if all you want to do is block an ad or a software update or a validity check, WHO GIVES A FUCK if you get a "semantically correct NXDOMAIN error"?!?!?!? I don't lie awake at night wo
Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Buying laptops for everyone would be even more retarded. They cost more, break more, are harder to repair, run slower, are more easily stolen, have shorter lifetimes, have batteries that wear out, and have poor ergonomics (unless you spend even more and buy extra keyboards/mice/monitors). It really only makes sense to buy a laptop for those that actually need one for their job, and unless they are almost always traveling they'll probably want a desktop too.