windows 7??

[manu4panjab]

There are lots of articles in online magazines such as PC Mag, PC World, Extreme Tech etc. I like the following article titled '7 Reasons to Get Windows 7 Today (and 6 Reasons Not to)'. Read the article here:

7 Reasons to Get Windows 7 Today (and 6 Reasons Not to) - 7 Reasons to Get Windows 7 Today - OS, Software & Networking by ExtremeTech

Cheers

thanks for the link sir ji

 

[BLASTO]

There are some rumours that Apple has been involved in the design.

Lol.. :lol: That is the biggest joke I have heard in a while..
Havn't you seen MAC vs PC ads in the youtube?

Having said that I agree with Cranky that stability is important.

Win 7 is stable as a rock. It is engineered with 'stability', 'compatibility' and 'performance' as keys. You can see it with bare eyes.

I personally know a fix made to improve the bootup time by 0.2 seconds. Such was the attention to detail.

Availability of third party software is another criteria, and it will be middle of next year before most popular software start running on it. I will consider shifting only when EAC, Monkey Audio, Irfanview, Total Commander, TextPad , Nero, and a couple of other 'I can't live without them' software are available on the OS.

If your applications were working with vista, They WILL work with Win7. There is also an XP more built in. Most XP applications will run on this mode from day 1.

 

[BLASTO]

Using a latency check, I get latencies in the 556uS range with 7. On the same system, using a three-year old XP install that has been through numerous hardware changes, it barely touches 100uS. That 5.5x the latency on 7 (lower numbers are better, showing quicker system response).

What is your system configuration in terms of processor speed and RAM? With 2.0+ Ghz processor + 2 GB+ RAM combo, I would be surprised if you got the numbers you mention.

Windows 7 is slower than XP on a 3 year old machine due to graphics processing and I agree. There should not be any noticiable difference in the configuration I mentioned above.

Also, Win7 makes better use of multi cores than xp. If your system is dual core, It would give bettr results in favour of win 7.

 

[BLASTO]

I've been using it for past 2 days and it's quite a improvement from Vista on performance. It did pick up all drivers on my 2.5 year old Dell laptop without any issues and there are some cool picks like pinning the application etc. Loading times and shut down times are bit improved than XP if not lot.

The new taskbar aka 'SuperBar' is a kewl little feature. Frequent/Recent items for the feature are just a right click away.

I also ask the XP users to start using the 'search' bar in the start menu. It is a single great feature you would find from XP. You can use it to find files, applications, even remote folder locations. You dont have to browse through the start menu ever.

IMO it's a progress in right direction for Microsoft, However this isn't a OS which won't revolutionize computing. Multi-touch is a good feature and if used with correctly with applications can turn interesting.

It WILL revolutionize computing with the correct hardware. There are multi-touch screen enabled laptops in the making which will come to market by 2010. Gaming will go into a new level with multi touch enabled desktop monitors. These are not far away.

There are also various multi touch mouse prototypes being tested by MSR, some of which will find light shortly.

 

[allajunaki]

The new taskbar aka 'SuperBar' is a kewl little feature. Frequent/Recent items for the feature are just a right click away.

I also ask the XP users to start using the 'search' bar in the start menu. It is a single great feature you would find from XP. You can use it to find files, applications, even remote folder locations. You dont have to browse through the start menu ever.

I can personally attest that. I have been using Windows 7 RC and Windows Vista on my laptop for sometime now, I can vouch for the fact that I dont dig into the programs section at all, Just click the windows orb (or "start") and directly type what I want. A perfect harmony of GUI and Text

 

[BLASTO]

Do you have any idea what latency actually is and how to measure it, and what it affects? If you knew that, you wouldn't need to ask me that question. Latency has nothing to do with hardware, it is possible for a 4-year old system to deliver below 100uS. It's operating system and drivers that are the issue, *not* hardware.

Seriously, What latency are you talking about? There is latency in everything.. Disk latency, network latency etc.. Are you reffering to OS footprint in terms of response time? You might be using the word 'latency' in your field to mean something I dont understand. Can you clarify? What equipment/software did you use to measure it? What makes you think that your measurement is flawless?

Don't fall for hype, go measure. For desktop use, it's fine, a regular user won't notice the lag, but for a professional user who needs latencies under 200uS, it's a no-go.

Who is a professional user? A S/W professional? Tell me who is this 'professional user' who will find Win7 5 times slower than XP?

Also, I don't have to fall for the hype. And I seriously think it is not hype. I know certain things. I work with Microsoft Windows team.

To give you a picture, I have a netbook with 1.6Ghz and 1GB RAM and it does just fine.

 

[BLASTO]

Hype: Works with almost any piece of hardware that works with Vista.

False: Firewire-connected hard disks do not, not even one of them - do the research. Nor does my Linksys wireless network adapter (4 years old), nor does the m-Audio professional series of cards. And this is short list from one user. I had to jump through multiple hoops to get things installed.

Did you do a windows update? It is supposed to sort out things perfectly. If not sent out the list of devices. I can help.

Hype: Superbar is useful, and so is the search box in the start menu.

False. You cannot open more than one window of a program pinned to the taskbar. To switch windows you still have to use Alt-Tab or manually click through. What exactly has changed? And I rather like to see things pinned in useful places, because I kind of like to keep things organised. It seems M$ is catering to people with gradually declining intelligence. On the plus side, you can actually strip away a lot of the flab.

Don't spread bad information if you don't know. Please try out before you post.

1) Right clicking the pinned icon and clicking on application name opens a second instance. (If second instance is not prevented by the application itself)

2) You can click the active icon and see the preview and select the instance you want. You can also use the aero peek to select the program you want.

3) What is your point? Almost everything you know is wrong!

Hype: Win 7 is quicker.

False: It's not, not by a long shot, not if you go under the hood instead of depending on your judgement and feelings. A well-optimised XP install would consume 300MB or memory. Win7 ups this to 1.4GB, a little lighter than the ~2GB of Vista, but for what? Eyecandy and poor compatibility with plug-and-play products. Across the board, and including games, it is slower than XP.

A 4GB ram costs 20$ Roughly equivalent of 3 meals of a US citizen. Who cares really? Did you try to bring down the graphics to the level of XP and test out (if it is really what you want)?

Well, Can you refer me to any of the Microsoft's communication which says that Win7 is faster than xp? Being a knowledgeble person you are, Can you say if it can be attained? Where are you getting your 'hype' contents from?

Talking of poor compatibility, Do you know of how many issues Pre SP1 Xp had with the then prevailant Windows 98 OS? Win7 case is much better compared to that.

Games, There are a lot of things to consider here. Many expect a game developed for XP around 2005 with directx ~8 to work flawlessly with windows 7 with directx 11. The point Iam trying to make is, Apart from the OS, there are a lot of other components involves like directx, rendering engine, graphics card etc. Let us say, Win7 is 'perfectly' backward compatible with XP. Even then a small glitch in any of the components above with regards to backward compatibility will make the game slower! The reason is because, THE GAME IS NOT DEVELOPED FOR WINDOWS 7. There can be only so much we can do. See the plus side, most of the Win7 games, you cannot even play with XP.

Now they need to get Win7 up to the performance level of XP. Given the architecture, I don't know if that's possible. Having used it for a few days, I know I'll be keeping it on my surfing rig, but not on my music or gaming rigs. Those need to be killer performance and super low latency machines, and 7 doesn't have what it takes. Not yet.

You might be someone who cares nothing about security, graphic performance, out of the box stability etc (multiple times than pre SP1 XP) but there are people who want them. In a word, XP is not secure. It is only as secure as a 7 year old OS.
You are welcome to use XP if it solves you purpose. Win7 does cater to a bulk of people who finds it better than XP. And it is not a small group as you might see in the sales.

 

[BLASTO]

DPC Latency Checker System latency... The overall system has a latency once the OS is installed. this is primarily determined by its architecture, and how it interacts with installed hardware. All hardware devices are controlled by the operating system using interface technology called 'drivers'. Overall system latency is the smallest amount of time a system can take before any device issues an Interrupt request (call to action). The lower, the better, and for pro audio and video performance, under 200uS latency is recommended.

I dont know what this software is and how much accurate its measurements are. But I will do a check and post the results.

 

[BLASTO]

Attached the results of my machine as JPG.
I dont know where to see, but the the graph settles around 120uS

I dont understand how your results are so bad if you are saying that it is dependant on OS & Drivers. Time to check your drivers!

Edit: This is with Full AERO.

 

[teky]

It WILL revolutionize computing with the correct hardware. There are multi-touch screen enabled laptops in the making which will come to market by 2010. Gaming will go into a new level with multi touch enabled desktop monitors. These are not far away.

There are also various multi touch mouse prototypes being tested by MSR, some of which will find light shortly.

Not getting into arguments - But when I said revolutionize I mentioned that Microsoft have taken good things from elsewhere and polished it.

Gaming on a touch screen, not sure how good this will be unless you get great games.

 

[BLASTO]

I tried, and it did not. You need to stop reading website reviews.

I have already wrote that I work for microsoft. Iam trying to help. Send me the application that failed to update.

In 0.6 point font size - how terribly useful

Iam surprised to see you try to read contents from there! If you hover over the preview (without clicking), It will 'appear' full screen where you can see the contents. Have you not tried it?

Below video should help. (starts around ~3rd minute)

YouTube - Windows 7 Aero Peek

The first few articles on Google, M$ sponsored websites and blogs which are nicely tuned to the Google algorithm. You may not believe it, but I did this for a living - tuning webpages to show up better on Google, and getting consistent hits on them so they stayed on top months after content was irrelevant.

Windows compared: Windows 7 vs Vista vs XP | News | TechRadar UK

Windows 7 build 6956 vs. Windows XP SP3 | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

So you assumed that these are sponsored by MS and are basing your claims on that. I cant comment on your assumptions. Also there seem to an issue in your system which you need to get rid of. Check my numbers for the same s/w you proposed.

No I can't, can you please point me to a link, thanks! I'd like to see some figures

Below is the list of best selling s/w in amazon.
Amazon.com Bestsellers: The most popular items in Software. Updated hourly.

I will buy 48GB of that RAM. Today. Actually, make that 96GB. and i'll pay hard cold cash. Point me to a link. Anywhere. And I'll show you my shopping cart and a Paypal invoice for proof.

I was wrong. Its ~$70. Does it change anything?

It's OK to like things, but you're taking this adulation of Win7 to ridiculous heights and taking criticism of the OS personally. That behaviour has a specific name on the internet, and be it not me to accuse you of it.

You are terming me a fanboy. Iam not. Iam a Windows7 developer!

 

[BLASTO]

@cranky,

So to summarise,

1) My computer (which I dont use for audio/vedio applications) show a 120uS latency with full aero using your measurement method. You can get it too if you get your drivers sorted out. I have posted the pic in another post, Here is the rapidshare link,

RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting

2) The Preview IS useful for selecting applications. "Hovering over the small preview image shows the contents in full screen" (aero peek). This is temporary 'full screen' and not 0.6 font.

3) The updater should ideally sort things out for drivers. It is rare it does not do that. Let me know the application.

4) Windows 7 is not faster than XP. It CAN be as fast as xp when it was released.


Also, You have written 'ditto' to

"Don't spread bad information if you don't know " and
"Almost everything you know is wrong!"

Can you pin point to what you were referring to? (Except the ram cost.. ) I'll try to explain.

I wrote it because, You need not use Alt+TAB atall. Just click on the running application ICON, A preview will popup (with 0.6 text), Hover over the preview and you can see it full screen.
Also, You can open multiple instances by right clicking the taskbar icon and clicking the application name. Try it out and post your comments!

Have any questions? post here.

 

[BLASTO]

Iam posting some features in Win7 as some of us do not know already,

1) You can instantly go to the application instance you want or the window you want from a cluttered desktop. No need for ALT+TAB.

YouTube - Windows 7 Aero Peek

2) Click and drag a window/application (eg notepad) to extereme right/left side of the screen, It maximises to half screen in the side. You can pull an instance to extreme right and another to extereme left and have a comparison.
Click and drag a window/application to the top of the screen and the application maximises full screen. (Aero Snap)

YouTube - VCS HD: Windows 7 Aero Snap

3) If you want to minimise all windows/applications other tha current, just grab the window and shake it! (Aero Shake)

YouTube - Windows 7: Aero Shake! (HD)

4) Jump lists: You can view the frequent/recent items opened on an application by right clicking on the icon. You can select an already opened item by clicking it from the list.

YouTube - Windows 7: Jump Lists

5) Pinning an instance of an application on the jump list makes it stay in jump list permenantly. You can also drap and drop to get the same effect. (Eg: Drap a.txt to notepad icon on taskbar and it gets pinned there) Similarly, you can pin frequently visited websites to IE icon to access it with single click.

YouTube - Windows 7 Essential Training: Jump Lists

6) Multiple instances of a pinned application can be invoked in two ways. Either right click the task bar icon and select <Application name> from jump list or Press SHIFT+Click the icon on the taskbar.

7) Recent/Frequent items are just a click away, stored in the jump lists of applications.

8) You can close an instance of a program from the preview itself. No need to maxmise the instance and close it.

9) Connecting to a network, Making a network preffered is a breeze.

YouTube - Connecting to a Network with Windows 7

10) 3D Flip. Press Windows Key + Tab to browze running applications in 3D. (Vista has it)

YouTube - Windows Vista: Aero Flip 3D! [HD]

 

[Vijay_s]

I never went the Vista way and have been sticking to XP-Pro faithfully.

After reading a lot, I got a evaluation version of W7, and I must say I like it a lot. There are some rumours that Apple has been involved in the design, and magazines such as PC-World and PC Magazine have been singing praises. W7 seems to have a soft corner for multimedia and has a number features for that.

Having said that I agree with Cranky that stability is important. Availability of third party software is another criteria, and it will be middle of next year before most popular software start running on it. I will consider shifting only when EAC, Monkey Audio, Irfanview, Total Commander, TextPad , Nero, and a couple of other 'I can't live without them' software are available on the OS.

Cheers

All your application which run on xp may run on windows 7. I installed many application on windows 7 which ran smoothly without much tweaking.

I was offered beta test version from beginning and i tested it religiously until RC1 released. I found it is sleeker version of Vista with all the advantage of XP. I have installed many audio/video players on beta version and it worked well, I am sure that point of time vendor never would have been tested and proved their application on windows7 platform.

 

[thevortex]

I really dont understand all this adulation. Can somebody give me a powerful solution for moving from Windows XP immediately? And please - lets stop comparing security features of Windows 7 with XP SP1. Why dont you compare Windows 7 with XP SP3?

Cranky - is the underlying audio structure in Windows 7 the same as in XP? Or is it WASAPI as in Vista? If MS changes its OS to be realtime out of the box like Apple, I will certainly jump in and experiment on it forthwith.

If it is eye candy and useful taskbars and stuff which is the selling point of Windows 7, then I feel sorry for it. Any Linux distribution worth its salt would smash it to smithereens in this respect apart from being rock solid in terms of security.

There are a lot of other things that a lot of people expect from their OS. This lot may not be the majority, so MS may still end up selling their OS to a lot out there. Just like there were a lot of people going for Vista! No offence meant to Vista-lovers, but I personally have a very poor estimation of that OS.

 

[BLASTO]

Guess the variability of my personal experience is a bit much, eh?

Yes. And thats the problem. Windows 7 is properly tested for performance and no measurement can be 5.5x worse than XP. At the max you will get 1.5 times performance hit compared to xp and this is for high graphics intensive applications mostly.

BTW, Forgot to ask yesterday, What Win 7 build are you? Iam using RTM with all optional updates installed.

120uS is a good result with full effects. A XP system with that figure would have a credible use in a production system, and it would be a good result for me with mine, I'd even be fine up to 150-160.

Thought so! The professionals you listed make the primary set of customers for MS. Nobody writes an OS for browzing the net.

I'm attaching the sysinfo file (RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting), it'll tell you my entire config details. There is a password to open the file, I'll PM that to you as I don't want the world and sundry to peep. I'm running an AMD Athlon II x4 620 (2.6GHz Quad, 2MB Cache), 4GB Crucial Ballistix at 4-4-4, I have a Radeon 3200 integrated motherboard, the 780G with 256 MB of assigned graphics.

There are three non-WHQL drivers.

One is the RALink Wireless card, it's a Linksys Wireless network adapter which I had to force some drivers on to get it to work.

Another is the m-Audio Delta 66, it's an audio card for pro users. This will probably take some time and I'm pretty sure MS can't do much about it - it will have to wait till a-audio releases a new driver.

Disabling these two devices do nothing for the latency - a little improvement (around 50-60uS less) but nothing earth-shaking.

The third problematic driver is the IEE1394 driver that is refusing to play with connected Firewire hard drives. It is probably not related to the network issue, but it does not indicate the need for an update. It was not working at all when it installed the default driver, and when I changed it to legacy it detected the drive and connected, but performance was terrible.

Since you don't use inf files any longer I can't seem to find the device ID for the hard drive that is not playing along, but the controller is the Initio chipset. Also, the driver is a WHQL driver that comes with Windows, and it does not show in the update list.

Anyway updates have run as you can see in the process list, I will restart as per instructions and check afterwards again.

Edit: The latency has not improved much. I get average 400uS now, and peaks of 700uS. I'd be willing to look at ideas. Did your test hardware have an add-in graphics card?

Will look into it and get back. Again, I persume, you are using the RC/RTM?

 

[Vijay_s]

Cranky - is the underlying audio structure in Windows 7 the same as in XP? Or is it WASAPI as in Vista? If MS changes its OS to be realtime out of the box like Apple, I will certainly jump in and experiment on it forthwith.

More details on windows 7 audio architecture available here, it contains loads of data which may take quite sometime to read & understand

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/audio/default.mspx

 

[anm]

that's very unfortunate. My impression was that it is exactly what windows is for. For serious work there are other platforms.

Nobody writes an OS for browzing the net.

 

[ajinkya]

Real Time does not automatically imply low latencies. A RT kernel can have a second of delay or more, as long as it guarantees that its task set can complete its hard (or soft) deadlines. Of course, if the task set deadlines are in the millisec or lower range, then this kernel cannot schedule the set. It is a common misnomer that 'faster' implies real-time. I have worked on systems with a 1 sec latency end to end for remote teleop and they were 'real-time' enough for our needs.
For people looking for RT alternatives to Win7, WinCE is made for exactly this purpose, with a much smaller memory footprint and deterministic millisec latencies. It is quite stable for what it was designed for, though driver support for commercial-grade equipment was lacking last time I used it. Various flavours of RT linux exist, using either Ingar Moler (spelling?) kernel patch or using a custom kernel.
WinXP/7 can never be a RT platform because of the non-determinism built into the architecture, just like a heavily pipelined processor or the Internet cannot give you cycle accurate times. These are built for best average case scenarios, not deterministic runtimes. All the 'real-time' add-ons notwithstanding

 

[venkatcr]

Win 7 is stable as a rock. It is engineered with 'stability', 'compatibility' and 'performance' as keys. You can see it with bare eyes.

This may not be entirely correct, at least in the upgrade process. Read the following article.

'Endless Reboot' Bug Hits Windows 7 Upgrades - Lab Notes by ExtremeTech

Cheers.