I installed the beta last week and, holy shit, this is great. i don't have enough vista experience to make that comparison, but it makes xp feel like a relic (and i guess it is). everything worked from the start, it is a breeze to use, and has a really slick design. i havent even noticed a performance drop off compared with xp (laptop /w core2 duo 1.6ghz, 2 gig ram, onboard video).

i think it should put a real dint in the premium people are willing to pay for macs.

what you guys think?

 

Where can I get one?

 

you can download it free from ms here

burn to a dvd and install. it will work until march 2010.

 

windows 7 = windows vista with a different GUI and, more importantly, a different name...that's it


I don't mind vista since I have a fast enough system so I'm sure windows 7 will be....well the same. It ain't no OSX but it can play videogames so that's why I have windows

 

Don't forget support from software developers. There are still programs that don't work on Vista.

 

I've had the Windows 7 Pre Release running for about 3 or so months here and I've found it's lightyears ahead of Vista's final release version. Hasn't crashed or frozen once, and the only challenges I've had is getting some drivers and software for devices like my multifunction HP printer to install correctly.

I'll be upgrading all my computers when Windows 7 comes out in final release form, and I may even actually pay for the licenses this time.

If I were Microsoft I would be offering an extremely discounted price beyond the upgrade price to come from XP, to make up for all the BS that Vista customers have had to deal with. $50 flat rate upgrade from Vista (any version) or something.

 

^^ good luck with that....microsoft is hated mostly due to the outrageous prices they charge on products


Snow leopard is costing me 27 dollars since its more of an upgrade to leopard. Windows 7 ultimate will still be what 300 dollars or something stupid initially? Luckly if you bought vista from like july till when 7 is being released you get a free upgrade disk.

 

Yeah, as I understand it:

2000/XP was based on the good parts of NT, originally MS's anti-IBM OS, based on key Apple infrastructure and GUI. XP was based on the smaller Server 2000 as 2000 was bloated, and later upgraded with Aero interface to = Vista, but terrible 3rd party support, annoying security popups, and a failed multi-million dollar marketing campaign meant that Vista never got off the ground. The aborted OS was also rushed out the door, which didn't help. I won't even go into the failed three-year experiment that was Longhorn.

Instead of updating Vista, MS decided to remarket the update Windows 7, and worked more closely with 3rd party vendors for drivers to avoid the driver debacle that exists on Vista. MS also started finally cleaning up the XP code, so you, finally, after 10 years, get decent boot times, optimized performance, etc.

To help ensure W7 isn't as big a failure as Vista is, MS is offering it free to Vista users (on computers, not Netbooks!) and I'm sure it will make a big deal of the adoption rates being x% better than Vista.

Unfortunately, you still have the registry, ActiveX, and some other throwbacks that make for huge security holes, which is why MS is considering a BSD-based OS in the future, like, um, OS X is.

 

That's not true, there are plenty of differences and back-end changes (I won't say "improvements" across the board - we're talking about Microsoft here). Windows 7 is a substantial rework, taking a step back from Vista to XP in the development process to avoid ending up with many of the same issues and failures that Vista's final release had.

It's funny how for a period of time we disliked XP until we discovered it was the lesser of potential evils.

 

Windows 7 is great. It is responsive and more user friendly than Vista ever was.

The only thing I wish it had was virtual desktops. Ubuntu has me spoiled.

Windows 7 needs to be optimized more, because XP still beats it in some performance categories, but the differences are slight. And the features and looks make up for a 2ms delay.

Yeah Windows 7 will be about $200 for a ultimate copy. But most could get home for around $100 and new PCs, (that are cheaper than Macs) will have it pre-installed.