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.'"
And the Lord spake, saying, (Score:5, Funny)
"First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceedest on to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen.
Re:And the Lord spake, saying, (Score:5, Funny)
I try to tell them. Just look at the bones!
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Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) (Score:5, Informative)
So I've never heard of you before, but you seem to like throwing your initials round APK, or Alexander Peter Kowalski.
Your initial comments seemed idiotic, you were complaining about your 15mb+ hosts file being slow to load. Sorry, but what the fuck? You have a 15mb+ hosts file? are you really that clueless about IT?
But you try and justify it all by talking about security so I figured hey, I'll see what this guys credentials are. Well, a quick search turned this up:
http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=51276 [ca.com]
A piece of software that can arbitrarily run applications invisibly? Sorry what, did you really try and throw such a security threat onto consumer's PCs??
But wait, it appears you didn't stop there, I also found this:
http://www.thorschrock.com/2008/05/19/how-to-respond-when-people-threaten-to-sue-you-on-the-web/ [thorschrock.com]
So not only do you produce an app. that is a massive security risk, not only do you fail to see why it has been validly categorised as such, but you throw a hissy fit and threaten to sue? Not only that, but continue to spam the comments section of that site for over a month continuing to whine?
People make mistakes though so fair enough, I figured I'm sure there's more to this guy. I found this:
http://www.thenewtech.com/forums/chit-chat/today-4378/index32.html [thenewtech.com]
Er, a program built entirely around breaking the hosts file using it for purposes it is simply not intended? Again, do you have any idea about the subject you preach? Do you realise that your very own programs pose a security risk? Do you realise how trivial it would be for Malware to hide malicious redirects in hosts files of the size you are talking meaning yet another one of your programs is a vessel for anti-security?
And there's more:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/51009562/m/3680937305 [arstechnica.com]
Threatening to sue again on online forums because people didn't like the fact you were using them to advertise your dodgy Delphi programs?
Other than that, all I could find was a couple of dead web pages of yours and mention of a couple of long obsolete Delphi programs.
Your complaint is about the performance of using the hosts file for something it's never meant to be used for and the resultant performance drops of reading such a large file.
The fact that using the hosts file so incorrectly inherently severely decreases performance of DNS lookups anyway seems lost on you.
You talk of security yet you produce applications that are security threats.
You threaten to sue anyone who points out that your applications are security threats, you threaten to sue people who do not like you using technical forums to advertise your programs.
You complain here about how people obviously aren't programmers because they disagree with you yet your language of choice is object pascal via Delphi, hardly the language of choice for an expert programmer and second only to pre-.NET Visual Basic for the horifically bad bloatware it results in.
Do us all a favour, quit posting anything to the internet, spend a few years updating your knowledge to learn a worthwhile language like C++, Java or one of the .NET languages. Get a clue about security and understand why your applications are a far bigger security risk than anything you talk of and finally, stop threatening to sue anyone you disagree with.
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Re:And the Lord spake, saying, (Score:5, Funny)
Thy enemy shall be known as "End User".
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Build number (Score:5, Interesting)
This does indicate it may be the RTM build, but not because it has a new build number... but because it has a build number ending in 00.
Larry Osterman's post Thinking about Windows Build numbers [msdn.com] goes into this in more depth.
Re:Build number (Score:5, Interesting)
It does seem like this may be the RTM build, although the timing is a little early yet.
My first reaction was the build number 7600 is very similar to the XP build of 2600 (yeah, I'm grasping at straws here.) It would be in MS favor to strongly relate this to XP and try to distance themselves from refencing Vista, which the correlation I just noted might help backup in people's minds.
However, the timing is just a little too early. The stated general retail release date from June's Computex is October 22. Historically, a MS OS RTM is released 30-45 days prior to the general retail date. That would place the RTM as beginning of September at earliest. Even a generous 60 day RTM date would place the date in mid-August, a month from now. Pressing and stamping aside (and what's to say a RTM DVD can't be downloaded over the net from a registration server similar to how volume and open license customers can already do), that's a little early yet.
And can anyone draw any significance from 16384 being 2^14? Or would that just indicate something like the 14th build of the master OS?
Build numbers by Microsoft follow an algorithm that encodes some odd information. Usually, it's desired by Microsoft to have a simply power of 2 for significant build milestones, especially for RTM builds. Why skip build numbers? That way you can still make builds of previous versions for commercial support, in order to make available patches for say, RCs and Betas, which both have a support lifetime as well. (Crazy short lifetimes, but they do.)
Messing with version numbers is a crazy stupid wrench in the "smooth" gears of the build system, and it requires authorization from significant master project managers. They would NOT be doing this if they were not important.
RTM builds also happen fairly early for things, especially because they have to have the RTM build, before they can complete localization, which means that if they want a synchronous release across X number of languages, they need to complete the RTM early enough that each of those localizations will be complete on time. Some of the localizations are just left for a late release anyways. But Japanese and German being Tier 0 languages pretty much means that they are important major goals to get as close to synchronous release as possible.
More interestingly is that this build was started at 7:45pm on a Friday... The build takes about 14 hours to complete, so someone was on call the whole weekend for completing the build... which potentially could have even TAKEN all weekend...
I think this is all just a really round about way of saying it, but "I. HATE. SAUERKRAUT!" No, really, you're totally on to the build number being of the form 2^x, but not that 14 has any significance to the build itself.
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Re:Build number (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice comment. One question: How do you know how long it takes to build windows? Is it public information? or do you work for Microsoft?
I worked for Microsoft. I'm actually one of the few people who have compiled Windows.
They may have improved the build time since I worked for them, but the build times were a monotonously growing function of time when I left...
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I'd like to see nicknames (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to see nicknames, like:
Bellicose Bill
or
Ballistic Ballmer
or
Screamin' Steven
rather than boorrrrring build numbers.
Just sayin'.
Re:I'd like to see nicknames (Score:5, Funny)
Chair Chucker!
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I am going to take a chance on Windows 7 (Score:4, Informative)
I pre-ordered a copy for myself and my son.
Of course my Laptop will dual-boot both Windows 7.0 Pro and Fedora 11, so that if Windows 7.0 fails me, at least I have Fedora 11 to use. I will try to use the Windows XP virtual machine option with 7.0 Pro to run legacy software.
My son has been begging me for Windows 7.0 so I got him a Windows 7.0 Home Premium, I could not afford two 7.0 Pro copies, so I bought him a Home Premium version. If he needs the 7.0 Pro version Microsoft allows an upgrade to 7.0 Pro via the Internet and I can afford that later if needed.
If the XP virtual machine does not work to well, I'll be buying two old copies of XP Pro from pricewatch.com and run them in Sun VirtualBox later. I hope I don't have to do that, but the current Windows XP licenses would be invalid after the upgrade to 7.0.
My son's system uses a wireless adapter that does not have Linux support, and he showed no interest in Linux, most of his games work in Windows XP, and if they don't work in Windows 7.0 I'll look for upgrade patches to work with 7.0 or he'll have to skip playing those games until I can get a virtual machine set up to play his games.
Both systems were Vista boxes, downgraded to Windows XP Pro, so they should run Windows 7.0.
I know I am taking a risk, but I hope to find out what problems friends and relatives will have when they upgrade to Windows 7.0 as they'll be calling me and asking for help. Upgrading from XP requires a reformat and reinstall, and most of my friends and relatives are using XP and some are using Vista.
I preordered before July 11 to qualify for that half off special on upgrade copies. I am not sure if the old XP licenses will still work if Windows 7.0 fails and I have to reinstall XP, or if I have to buy new licenses for XP to switch back to XP.
Anyway I could always buy my son a wireless card that works with Linux and install Fedora 11 with WINE and see if that runs his video games better than Windows 7.0 and save money on XP licenses and virtual machines, and teach him how to use Linux as an alternative. But it is more important that he learn how the Windows upgrade process works and any troubles with it and how to resolve them. Right now to him the Windows 7.0 is cool, but if there are issues and it won't run his video games, he will learn that sometimes newer technology is not always better and even if it looks cool, it might not always do what he wants it to do. Because eventually they will upgrade to Windows 7.0 in his school, too bad they don't support Linux.
You just typed yourself a shill or an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Interesting)
"As Microsoft strives to migrate their core technologies from the desktop onto the Web, so too is their propaganda machine migrating from the established press to the informal social web. Microsoft shills are invading social web sites everywhere - in forums, discussion groups, comments to news items, edits to Wikipedia, manipulation of search engines, comments to blogs - posing as innocent participants to promote their agenda and counter wide spread complaints about their shady marketing practises. Even in the comments section of blogs by Microsoft employees on their own corporate site they employ sock puppets to say the things the author felt inappropriate to say directly. They race to place their shill postings at the top spot in the comments section of news and blogs, or perhaps they are given advance notice enabling them to do this where they are a sponsor. The evidence is here on Slashdot for all to see, without embellishments from me. What I say here is amounts to only a digest of hundreds of postings by others. A careful investigator can see for himself the evolution of discussions on Microsoft related issues, especially those accusing them of their usual hard ball tactics. As one reads from Slashdot's historical record on through to recent times, the evolution of Microsoft's efforts to pervert Slashdot's discussions becomes readily apparent. Microsoft's ambition is to twist internet discussions around a full 180 degrees until these discussions become a platform for propaganda from Microsoft's "Ministry of Truth". A study of the comments of the shills posted here can be cross-correlated with postings on other sites. Their pattern of saturating a discussion with shill postings, and the repeating of mindless memes becomes obvious. Their harassment, ridicule, and suppression of criticisms is designed to intimidated those who would speak out against them. They seek to establish and enforce a discipline of giving Microsoft "fair treatment" and their propaganda the same consideration and respect a real person would deserve. In the process they are destroying Web 2 as we know it. This insidious attack on the infrastructure we rely upon to form our opinions in a complex world has both a direct and an inhibitory effect on free speech as a side effect. We must stop this while it is in its infancy. Once it fully established, it will become much more difficult to root out, and other ruthless corporations, organizations, and even governments will want to emulate the success of Microsoft's campaign. This is the nightmare vision of the end of the social internet as we know it."
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1284651&cid=28502473 [slashdot.org]
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This guy needs a mod-up (Score:5, Informative)
This is quite astute.
I'd also like to point out another story [computerworld.com] detailing a strong statistical anomaly in the speed at which anti-microsoft and pro-linux stories get "buried" on social news sites.
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Re:This guy needs a mod-up (Score:5, Informative)
Or, you know, Microsoft could have about one hundred thousand tech savvy employees (like myself) who also happen to frequent tech sites and have a higher than average opinion of the company. Doesn't have to be nefarious. That might not even be it either. Especially since the launch of Xbox, there are a surprising number of MS-fanboys out there unassociated with the company in any way.
Anyway, sorry to interrupt, I have no real evidence one way or another - conspiracy theory away!
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Re:This guy needs a mod-up (Score:5, Interesting)
I enjoy a pro-Linux article as much as anyone else. Usually I'll give them my vote, but what turns me off on a Linux article is when the author tries to promote Linux by throwing negativity at Microsoft. If we ever want Linux to be an actual threat to Microsoft, it has to stand on its own, and not just be an alternative to Windows. Whining about your position in the market will do nothing to improve it.
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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.
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Interesting)
Now - that being said. Eventually I found answers for those issues, and I'm pretty pleased with Win 7. There are a couple of quirks, but I'm fairly hopeful that the final build will have them fixed. However... discrediting every pro-Win7 poster as "shill" sounds a bit ridiculous. So with that in mind, where's your evidence that this is the case? You say it's "clearly visible" -- where is your "clear proof" that GP was a shill? Am I a "shill" now because after my initial issues I have had a relatively good experience (and holy shit, a TON better than Vista - even under SP1/SP2). How do you tell the difference between real people who like Win7 and shills?
Amusingly, your post - a copy-paste of someone other AC's unsubstantiated rant actually got modded "interesting", while mine will likely get modded down.
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Informative)
Performance numbers so far show the games to run at the same speed _or_slower_ under Win7.
Google begs to differ: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/windows-7-edges-out-vista-for-gaming-in-thorough-benchmark-tests/ [engadget.com]
However, common sense does tell you not to benchmark a beta OS.
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Informative)
The only things that run better (like video) are due to MS spending all of their time streamlining the DRM code that will prevent you from using *your* legally purchased files wherever you want.
The DRM systems are only active when DRM-encumbered media is being played. Further, the apply no more restrictions than any other DRM-enabled player capable of playing such media.
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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.
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:4, Funny)
man nice
PS: That's no compliment, type it in a shell :P
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:4, Funny)
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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)
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Re:Windows 7 makes me excited (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 7: There are so many versions to choose from...
As opposed to, say, Linux distributions?
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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.
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Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Efficiency (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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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
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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.
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Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... (Score:4, Funny)
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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.
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Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bite, you troll.
Have you actually looked at the PCs in those office buildings full of thousands upon thousands of cubicles. The current hardware refresh is 1GB XP (or 2GB Vista) entry level core 2 duos.
Most big IT shops supporting thousands of users wants standardized PCs that they can swap the monitor out when it dies without having to touch the pc. And if the hard drive goes they want something they can open, plug a new one in, image it, and send it back. ditto the power supply and optical drive. And if the motherboard fails they just replace the PC.
So the imac and mac mini are both out of the running.
The problem isn't that the mac pro isn't good value for what's in the box. The problem is that almost nobody needs what's in that box. And Apple doesn't sell a box with the stuff business needs the way business wants it. They want imac specs in an easily maintained box, separate from the screen.
Apple refuses to make one, and simply puts themselves out of the running in this market.
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously? Windows 7? People are really going to play that game?
Yes - it seems there's genuine excitement about Windows 7. From what I can see, it does fix some of the glaring problems with Vista, and adds a few features:
* The backup utility actually lets you select what files to backup again, rather than just "Pictures" or "Documents".
* You can burn ISO files straight from Explorer.
* It's easier to enable BitKeeper. BitKeeper is pretty crap - it needs about 1.5GB unencrypted space to hold the 'system' files - but the installer now creates this space by default, so it's easier to actually turn encryption on.
But, as always, there are caveats:
* The backup utility actually stores backups as sets of 200MB zip archives. What. The. Fuck? Is something like Time Machine (which is like rdiff-backup) so complicated?
* You might be able to burn ISOs, but you still can't mount them. Loopback device anyone? Do I really need to pay $XX, or install some spyware-infested freeware crap, just to mount ISOs?
* BitKeeper is still only available in 'Ultimate' form.
Probably the most useful new feature is the Linux-like window manager shortcuts, so you can maximise, snap to left/right of the screen etc. I've been using these in KDE for donkey's years.
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:5, Informative)
* You might be able to burn ISOs, but you still can't mount them. Loopback device anyone? Do I really need to pay $XX, or install some spyware-infested freeware crap, just to mount ISOs?
As far as I know Daemon Tools is not spyware-infested.
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:5, Informative)
"Spyware-infested" if you say yes to the clear and unambiguous "Install Daemon Tools browser toolbar" option in the installer.
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/620/xp_small_free_way_to_use_and_mount_images_iso_files_without_burning_them/ [tech-recipes.com]
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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.
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Re:Windows Backup is actually quite good now (Score:5, Informative)
In all fairness, dd is a bit-for-bit image. That works fine except that it creates files that are just as large as the disk. Backing up a 40GB partition with 1GB worth of data on it creates a file 40GB in size. Not so great if you want to store multiple sets of images. Programs like Ghost and other more elaborate imaging tools know the format of the filesystem and copy only the actual data of the partition, making the file only as large as it needs to be, and making it possible to restore it back to a partition of an arbitrary size rather than only the exact size that the image came off of.
There are some tricks you can do to reduce the size of a dd generated image - namely defragging and zeroing out all unused space before imaging so that compressing the image eliminates much of the space, but that's a hassle and still carries the limitation of only restoring back to a partition of equal size.
Like most pro-Unix arguments that basically equate to "*nix has had xyz for ages.", saying dd is "about the same thing" is a gross oversimplification of the issue. dd has it's uses, but for most hard drive imaging tasks there are better ways to do things. I love Linux. I've used it for years, but the automatic tendency to assume that any and everything that ever occurs on any other platform has already been done better on Linux is just offputting, and usually not accurate.
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As Lincoln said ... (Score:5, Funny)
You can fool some of the people All the Time ...
"And that's our target market", said the marketing droid.
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Re:I just got sweaty palms... (Score:4, Funny)
Then, clearly, you're either masturbating incorrectly, or having a heart attack (or both). Unfortunately, the corrective actions for each are contradictory...
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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.
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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
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