The Geek Forum
Main Forums => Hardware, Software, and Other Imperialist Crap => Topic started by: Chris on October 22, 2009, 07:42:50 PM
-
So Windows 7 officially came out today. I was able to obtain a copy of the release for only 40 dollars since I'm still a student.
So far I'm pleased with what I've seen. Though I'm sure in time I'll notice a bug or two here and there. I'm also a little on-edge about the security of this OS, as it is brand new. Only time will tell just how secure it really is. The only gripe that I have so far is the fact that my dual monitor setup is currently backwards - My primary screen is on the right, when it should be on the left. I've even tried changing the position using the monitor setup utility built in to Windows. I know, obviously I'll just switch the physical location of the monitors to work around this issue.
Has anyone else used Windows 7 yet? If so, what are your thoughts?
-
I haven't used it yet, but only because I generally don't install a new OS until around three or four months after its initial release. However, a guy I work with installed it and is not stuck on perma-640x480 mode due to no supported graphic drivers available. :|
-
I've been using the final release since they made it available to MSDN subscribers.
It BSODs at least once per day.
Firefox seems to crash more frequently.
It's pretty and shiny.
I haven't done much with the newish features. My boxorz is pretty basic and I don't have TV-in or any means of using the media center. I pretty much just use my home pc for surfening the webernets.
-
Hard to believe there've been only 6 Windowses before this one. Seems like much more.
-
These are the operating systems that I can remember.
Pre-mainstream (don't count):
Windows 1.01
Windows 2
Post-mainstream:
Windows 3
- Windows 3.1 (16-bit)
- Windows 3.11 (16-bit)
- Windows 3.2 (16-bit)
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Microsoft can't count.
Wait... what? Windows ME and Vista never happened? Oh. Never mind. It is Windows 7, then.
-
Wait... what? Windows ME and Vista never happened?
In a perfect world....
-
I think its 3 and NT that don't count, since NT isn't so much of a consumer OS, and nobody cares about 3.
-
What? Windows 3.11 (workgroups) was by far the best OS that MS ever made.
-
concur
-
I mean, nobody nowadays remembers/originally knew about 3. stop a regular guy on the street and he'll probably tell you the first windows was windows 95
-
I loved Windows 3.1! That little "Ta-daaah" sound on start up, the little chimes upon exit, the big ass wallpaper behind all your little windows.
"OK, exit, go back to DOS and change to the Wolf3D directory. Time to kill me some nazis!"
-
I remember not "getting" the idea of a START button. The ad campaign bought the Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up".
"Start? Isnt this thing already running? How the hell do I run or open a program? WHERE ARE MY PROGRAM GROUPS??"
-
I remember not "getting" the idea of a START button. The ad campaign bought the Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up".
"Start? Isnt this thing already running? How the hell do I run or open a program? WHERE ARE MY PROGRAM GROUPS??"
"Start -> Shutdown" WHICH ONE IS IT?
-
and so the endless cycle of Windows bitching began...
not that I would know. before my time.
-
stop a regular guy a guy my age on the street and he'll probably tell you the first windows was windows 95 Windows 3.0 that he installed on his IBM PC-AT using 13 setup disks
-
I loved Windows 3.1! That little "Ta-daaah" sound on start up, the little chimes upon exit, the big ass wallpaper behind all your little windows.
"OK, exit, go back to DOS and change to the Wolf3D directory. Time to kill me some nazis!"
Oh, man. Good times.
-
The first 'windows' was Apple, wasn't it?
-
13 setup disks
lol
Were most people really into computers at the time? I wouldn't know. but I seem to recall reading about a lot of hype for 95 and almost none for 3.1
-
Not at home, no. At least, there weren't many that I know of. Of course, there was virtually NO internet then, too, so there was no really good reason to have a computer at home, except for budgeting and finances. There were a lot of BBS's; dial-up bulletin boards, but the majority I knew of were only for pr0n pic sharing.
-
Not at home, no. At least, there weren't many that I know of. Of course, there was virtually NO internet then, too, so there was no really good reason to have a computer at home, except for budgeting and finances. There were a lot of BBS's; dial-up bulletin boards, but the majority I knew of were only for pr0n pic sharing.
That is true. My perspective is skewed because I was a student and also working in IT at that time, so for me, computers were everywhere.
-
1982 was the year that we first got a computer at home. I did a lot of game programming in QBasic. I was a 1337 h4x0r according to my homies.
Thunder3Davis
BizB
-
13 setup disks. what a great way to start the windows franchise! no only a huge number, but an unlucky one!
how much data did those floppies have, individually?
-
I don't remember it ever being 13 floppies. Each disk holds 2.5 mb.
Windows 3.11 was 5.47MB.
-
I just got Windows 7 over the weekend from my student software update. I'm waiting for the most opportune time to do my annual HD wipe and fresh start to install it. I don't know if I am going to keep my 150 gig Ubuntu partition or not.
-
Each disk holds 2.5 mb.
Windows 3.11 was 5.47MB.
Where did you shop? The ones I had only held 1.44 MB.
The old 5 1/4's only held 1.2 MB but with a notcher you could use both sides.
-
You're right. My mistake.
-
I know the new ones can hold 2.5 megs.
according to wikipedia, the earliest 3 1/2 inch drives only held 264k
-
I know the new ones can hold 2.5 megs.
according to wikipedia, the earliest 3 1/2 inch drives only held 264k
There are "new" floppies???
-
I don't remember it ever being 13 floppies. Each disk holds 2.5 mb.
Windows 3.11 was 5.47MB.
I was exaggerating for humor purposes.
I think 3.0 came on 6 or 7 disks. I know they fit into a 10-disk container with room to rattle.
3.11 WFW was 8 disks.
After installing, it FELT like 13.
-
There are "new" floppies???
newer.
-
new-ish.
-
After installing, it FELT like 13.
But they were soooooooo much faster than the 5 1/4's.
-
95 did come on something like 15 floppies or 1 cdrom. I think you could even get either XP or 2000 on floppy as well, and there were something like 30 of them.
-
Windows according to Apple (http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/):
Windows 2
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Que?
-
windows 2? I thought that was a beta.
-
Windows 2
Windows 3.x
Windows 4 (Win95/98/Me)
Windows 5 (Win2000/XP
Windows 6 (Vista I guess)
Windows 7
-
windows 2? I thought that was a beta.
Windows 1 and Windows 2 were both released as finished products, but they didn't sell many units. Win 3 was the first big breakthrough for MS.
Apparently Apple doesn't count Windows 1 as a Windows release. Maybe that's because Apple and Microsoft were actually working together at that time, in a way. Apple licenced some GUI elements to MS for use in Windows 1. Win1 wasn't an OS -- it was just an app that extended DOS. So at that point, MS was more of an Apple customer than an Apple competitor.
Then MS came out with Windows 2, which I think was a complete OS. But what pissed off Apple was that MS made the Win2 desktop look like the Mac desktop. Apple sued. So the Apple/MS headbutting begins with Win2.
-
Windows 6 (Vista I guess)
:?
I thought Vista was the code name for the Alpha release of Windows 7?
-
I bet vista was secretly an alpha/beta for 7.
that would make it he worlds largest beta.
-
You beta you beta you bet!
-
It's been a week since the installation of Windows 7, and I have yet to have it crash on me. It's looking more and more like Microsoft finally got this one right.
-
Give it time. I've been running it for over a month and I have multiple crashes every day.
-
I have been running the release for about two months now. It's never crashed.
Edit: I'm not doing anything too strenuous with it, programming and media mainly.
-
Well, one thing's for sure. According to Microsoft, Windows 7 users will never have trouble with security holes or spyware or viruses again.
-
riiiiiiiight...
and all they do in area 51 is let off weather balloons, too.
-
Windows 7 decided that it would restart on its own accord last night because there were new updates to install. Granted, I know this is a setting that can be changed, but for such an option to be left that way as default seems to be a little obtrusive to say the least.
So far no lock ups. We'll see what happens as time goes on, of course.
-
anyone noticed the issues with the new firefox update? My tabs keep locking up, and refuse to close and then all the input messages seem to store in a queue and then after a while all execute in rapid succession. Very annoying.
-
anyone noticed the issues with the new firefox update? My tabs keep locking up, and refuse to close and then all the input messages seem to store in a queue and then after a while all execute in rapid succession. Very annoying.
Yup, same thing happening with me. I'll switch to Opera if they can't get this fixed.
-
The first time I install opera I ran it and typed www.google.com (http://www.google.com) and it said page not found. So I gave up on it.
-
I've been using Opera for a couple months now. Beats FF and IE. There is an occassional page that will only work properly in IE, but those are rare. For everyday scooting around the net, Opera is vg.
-
I pretty much use Chrome now for my work laptop (in house apps I use IE where they work best). For my home mac box I use firefox.
-
I pretty much use Chrome now for my work laptop (in house apps I use IE where they work best). For my home mac box I use firefox.
Another vote for Chrome. I've been using it since they first announced the beta more than a year ago. It's great. I've had only a hand full of pages not render correctly in Chrome.
-
My bank's pages don't render correctly in Chrome. Though, this is the same bank that won't allow "special characters" in there newly mandated "strong" passwords.
-
I'm a longtime Opera fan, but the last couple of releases (10.00 and 10.01) are both flaky as hell. I actually have considered going back to the Opera 10.00 beta 2 because that was the most solid I've ever seen Opera for Linux.
I've gotten so tired of random wackiness in 10.01 today that I've gone back to Firefox, and Firefox bugs me after only an hour or two most of the time.
-
I'm still on Opera 9.64.
Maybe I'll just stay there.
-
Well, to be fair, I'm only talking about the Linux version. I have no idea if the Windows version has those same problems.
-
I'll let you know.
It has some kind of fawncy file-sharing thingy my son's all excited aboot (he said, cleverly and inexplicably mixing eastend and canoodian accents).
-
Ah yes. Opera has had a no-frills Bittorrent client built into it for a while now (since v9.26, I think?).
-
I tried using that client. it tends to stick at 99%
-
I tried using that client. it tends to stick at 99%
I've had that problem too on occasion. I've found that a browser restart when it hits that usually clears it up.
-
I'm not sure what changed, but one of the updates that Windows 7 did made it more stable for me. I haven't had a crash in a couple of weeks.
-
It's been about 3 to 4 months since I upgraded, and I still have yet to have any major issues. In fact, I don't recall having it lock up on me once. I was running a buggy piece of software that was somewhat dated, and when I threw that out of the equation, Windows 7 has been great. It's probably been a good month since my computer's last restart, and it runs just as if it were to have been rebooted five minutes ago.
Has anyone else had the same luck as me?
-
Whatever it was that was causing my BSODs has been fixed by automatic updates. My PC has been running smooth and fast for months. I'm really happy w/7.
-
I was gardening one day and had an idea: an MS operating system that doesn't crash all the time.
So yeah...Windows 7 was my idea.
-
I was gardening one day and had an idea: an MS operating system that doesn't crash all the time.
So yeah...Windows 7 was my idea.
Fucking BRILLIANT. :-)
-
No wonder you're a Teacher.
-
at the risk of sounding like a moron, how exactly did the interface work in pre-95 windows? cause in all the screenshots the bottom of the screen is empty. the first computer i ever had ran 95, so yeah.
-
No taskbar; everything was on the desktop in Program Groups. "Windows Explorer" was more aptly called "File Manager".
-
"program groups"?
-
Start>Programs ...those are Program Groups. They didnt used to be in a menu. They were either on the desktop itself; or all grouped in one 'master' group called Program Groups (!); which was on the desktop. Basically just a desktop folder.
-
...so what if your "desktop" folder got messed up? or some idiot deleted all the icons?
-
http://tinyurl.com/yaycs5x (http://tinyurl.com/yaycs5x)
-
that wasn't helpful. i was asking here because Google couldn't supply a satisfactory answer.
-
Have you ever used a Mac?
-
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30 (http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30)
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/85862)
-
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.
-
so, what your saying...
His saying? Hm?
But yeah, from what I've Googled, that's been my consensus as well.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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. :roll:
-
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.
-
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.
-
Is that a problem with 7? I would guess using all available memory is not a good thing...
-
Sounds like Windows 7 doesn't belong anywhere NEAR a netbook then...
-
:apprehensive:
Cos I just bought a new pc with Windows 7 Home Premium...
-
most people don't mount dvds.
The hole is way to small for most people.
-
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?)
-
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.
-
well, thats vista for you.
-
I forgot to mention, prior to Windows 7 I was using Windows XP.
-
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)
-
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.
-
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 (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=kde4+screenshots&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=), 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 (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-7-classic-shell.html), 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.
-
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.
-
Hey, another one we haven't seen for a while! Welcome back, Pyrenus!