Windows 7

[12AX7]

that wasn't helpful. i was asking here because Google couldn't supply a satisfactory answer.

 There's even a link on that search results page where you can download the thing and answer all your own questions. How is that not satisfactory?

[Clear_Runway]

macs have a bar on the top, which is somewhat akin to the start button, but with more root buttons.

but windows 3.whatever is just totally blank, aside from the desktop. the most basic screenshot i saw (which happened to be on your link) had a totally blank screen, aside from a single icon (program manager). so my question is this: is it possible to delete that icon, and, if it is, how would one access the filesystem? would you need to employ keyboard shortcuts?

sorry for sounding like a noob, but I really have no experience with this.

[pbsaurus]

I don't remember that far back but there were several ways to get to the file manager.  Right click might have been one.  Or maybe control alt delete allowed one to toggle to it.  Like I said, I really don't remember.

[ivan]

I did some googling about to refresh my greyware. Here is the deal:

The Program Manager icon does not represent a file or a folder, it is a running application -- progman.exe -- which is the the default OS shell. After Win95, progman.exe was replaced by Windows Explorer as the default shell.

At startup, Win3x used the SYSTEM.INI file to determine, among a bunch of other things, which shell to run. Normally you'd see the line SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE in the INI file, but you could edit that line to run a different shell on startup.

If progman.exe was missing or corrupt, you simply could not use windows until you restored progman.exe from your install disks, or backups, or specified an alternate shell. I think Windows File Manager (winfile.exe) was useable as a shell.

You can piece together more info by searching the MS Support site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/85862

[Clear_Runway]

 so, what your saying is that windows 3.x is pretty much of no relation to the more modern operating systems, and that the interface - which hasn't changed much at all from 95 - is totally different.

[h4wt_b3t4]

so, what your saying...

His saying? Hm?

But yeah, from what I've Googled, that's been my consensus as well.

[Clear_Runway]

I figure this would be a good time for me to log my windows 7 experience so far. installation was easy: I opted to wipe my hard drive and start fresh, and it worked perfectly. it even recognized my mouse drive during startup. so far there have been no crashes whatsoever. startup takes around a minute, counting the time that the bios delays startup. shutdown time, however, is really impressive, something on the order of five seconds. at the moment the device manager lists 3 "unknown devices" which it apparently has no driver for, however I haven't the slightest idea what they are as the computer is running just fine without them. it even recognized my fingerprint scanner, and after a few minutes to enroll my fingerprints I was able to log on with it. (vista used proprietary software that came with my computer to do this, but 7 has native support, and it's much faster than vista was at handling them) 7 also uses less ram, less cpu time, and is faster than vista even when vista ran a minimalistic theme. and it looks better, too. even some of the Microsoft software that shipped with 7 seems to be better, such as windows media center, which i think i finally like. (IE still sucks, but that's par for the course)

a few annoyances: Microsoft has continued their tradition of being jerks by not shipping word with 7 (didn't word ship with xp?) and their are a few incompatible programs, though all of those seem to be games. I have not, thankfully, run into problems with 7 not being "truly 64-bit" but i figure I will eventually.

I will continue to mess around with 7 until i find out something I like, or something that annoys me.

[Clear_Runway]

well, i just got a BSOD, something to do with my display driver. probably has something to do with the fact that i was watching a movie from a mounted .iso file in my external hard drive, using windows media center.

[BizB]

Yeah, because that's not something that a computer should be able to handle.  I mean... that's way outside the realm of daily use. 

[Clear_Runway]

most people don't mount dvds.

In any case, it wasn't a crash, exactly. after i went to the blue screen, the text said that windows had been shut down to protect my computer, intentionally, due to the malfunctioning display driver. later a similar glitch happened, but it recovered, so it's probably getting better.

[BizB]

Nope.  Once W7 detects something like that, it allocates extra memory for that program so that it doesn't stomp on itself any more.  There was something on /. today about W7 using 100% of available memory.  I suspect this is the root of that.

[12AX7]

 Is that a problem with 7? I would guess using all available memory is not a good thing...

[Demosthenes]

Sounds like Windows 7 doesn't belong anywhere NEAR a netbook then...

[12AX7]

:apprehensive:

 Cos I just bought a new pc with Windows 7 Home Premium... 

[dcrog]

most people don't mount dvds.

The hole is way to small for most people.

[Clear_Runway]

There was something on /. today about W7 using 100% of available memory.

where on earth did they get that impression? my computer has 4Gb of Ram, and windows (7-64) only takes up about 700-800 Mb of memory on startup, which slowly increases to, at most, 1.3 Gb. a netbook would have at least 1Gb of ram, and since they would probably be running 7-32, it would probably only fill up about half or so(is it true that the less ram you have, the less ram the OS need to run, total?)

[Chris]

I too have 4 gigs of ram, and prior to upgrading to Windows 7 I had only 2 gigs and there were instances where I could notice the system slowing up as I can imagine it began reading and writing from the swap file.

My next upgrade is to get a solid state disk once they come down a little in price in and effort to reduce sound pollution and heat.

[Clear_Runway]

well, thats vista for you.

[Chris]

I forgot to mention, prior to Windows 7 I was using Windows XP.

[Clear_Runway]

ah. well, xp tends to get bloated with viruses and crapware and such. technically you only need 128 mb to run it out of the box.

but xp always did a thing to me where it would take around ten seconds for the start menu to load. random slowdowns were pretty common, and I never ran into that with vista or 7 (partially because my hardware is better now)

[12AX7]

  Well, got a copy of Win7 Pro 64 bit for $129 in a bundle from Newegg, so I took the 1T SATA out of the Gateway machine (which had Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit), stuck in the Ex-Burnt machine and formatted the whole thing; and installed Windows 7 without all of Gateway's crap. They use 19 freakin gig for recovery partitions, "dedicated system" partitions, and the like; then don't send you any discs nor will allow you to access those partitions. Whatever. I got rid of it, and now I know exactly what's on my machine; and have the install disc on hand.

  So far; "Eh." It's crashed numerous times; but each time I was doing something such as installing or setting up video in games, etc. It's a bit different than the Windows I've gotten used to; which is annoying- I can't imagine having this put on work machines and not having a significant production drop without some classes or something. There are certain customizations I've incorporated over the years; I'll have to figure out now how to accomplish those; or abandon my comfort/familiar zone.
  I was hoping for a "ohwow!!!" experience; and it was just an "oh." one. But at least it wasn't an "ohcrap!" one. All-in-all I like it; if things must change; as it seems they do.

[Demosthenes]

My experience with Windows 7 so far has been "different, not better".

There's new shinies, but that's really about it.  The way I see it, the KDE developers copied Windows Vista for KDE 4, and then Microsoft copied KDE 4 for Windows 7.

I dislike Vista, KDE 4, and Windows 7 when it comes to user interfaces, however.  So when I take that out of the mix using something like this, it really doesn't offer any improvements over XP when it comes down to it.

So, my verdict on Windows 7?  Meh.  Not as bad as Vista for performance. Not really any better than XP as an overall though.

[Pyrenus]

My first windows was 3.1.  Shortly thereafter, dos 5.5 came out.  Hurray for disk doubler! 

I remember being amazed by batch programs.  My buddy would copy games onto floppies for me.  I would type A:/GoPatrick.bat and it would install the game for me on my hard disk.  I was dumbfounded.

I'm now on Windows 7 64 bit.  I haven't had a single problem with the OS itself.  I did not beta, so they likely had all the bugs worked out before it got to me.

[Demosthenes]

Hey, another one we haven't seen for a while!  Welcome back, Pyrenus!