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[Incommunicado no more!] Windows 7 details! No new kernel, video of multi-touch, etc
squirly
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Okay, so Steve Sinofsky went all "No more flashy codenames!" on us and has in some ways changed how Windows is being developed so what we have is Windows 7 of which next to nothing was known but now, the D6 conference is on and it's confirmed that MS will have Gates and Ballmer on stage demonstrating some of the new GUI and other things.
The D6 conference is on in, well, I think it's on now or just happened but on the official Vista blog and elsewhere some small details about Windows 7 have appeared.
Official Vista Blog: Microsoft demonstrates Multi-touch [Video]
Officiall Vista Blog: Communicating Windows 7
Engadget live blogging of D, Gates and Ballmer on stage
CNet: 3 things learnt from an interview with Sinofsky (Release date is around end of Jan 2010 / W7 kernel is an 'evolutionary improvement' and not MinWin / Driver model is the same / Sparse, ambiguous details about features)
Another sort of live blogging of the presentation
CNet interview with Sinofsky
Overall, not a hell of a lot shown but at least it's something and it confirms things like multi-touch coming to Windows and shows the MinWin kernel rumour to be false. Also, W7 will still have 32 and 64 bit versions but I predict 64 bit being the most popular by far considering all the big companies now shipping 64 bit Vista on some of their machines to consumer and that W7 will be out in ~ 2 years..
Oh, and there will be public betas like there was for Vista and system requirements are more or less going to be the same as Vista. So, I can guarantee the performance and driver compatibility problems (Which were incredibly overblown anyway) will not be the slightest problem at all.
The D6 conference is on in, well, I think it's on now or just happened but on the official Vista blog and elsewhere some small details about Windows 7 have appeared.
Official Vista Blog: Microsoft demonstrates Multi-touch [Video]
Officiall Vista Blog: Communicating Windows 7
Engadget live blogging of D, Gates and Ballmer on stage
CNet: 3 things learnt from an interview with Sinofsky (Release date is around end of Jan 2010 / W7 kernel is an 'evolutionary improvement' and not MinWin / Driver model is the same / Sparse, ambiguous details about features)
Another sort of live blogging of the presentation
CNet interview with Sinofsky
Overall, not a hell of a lot shown but at least it's something and it confirms things like multi-touch coming to Windows and shows the MinWin kernel rumour to be false. Also, W7 will still have 32 and 64 bit versions but I predict 64 bit being the most popular by far considering all the big companies now shipping 64 bit Vista on some of their machines to consumer and that W7 will be out in ~ 2 years..
Oh, and there will be public betas like there was for Vista and system requirements are more or less going to be the same as Vista. So, I can guarantee the performance and driver compatibility problems (Which were incredibly overblown anyway) will not be the slightest problem at all.
Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
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lolmicrosoft
Who has said it's a flashier version of Vista?
No, performance improvements? There was performance improvements namely much, much better memory management, more efficient driver model, SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, I/O improvements, much faster install, etc. Think. Vista works on UMPC and so on already and do you really think the hardware on low cost laptops, like the EEE, are going to be exactly the same as they are now? Also, do you think MS won't make any improvements to Vista (Windows 7) in this area? People have already gotten Vista working on the original EEE PC too.
Like I said, think.
lolatyou
Anybody else having trouble figuring out what this sentence means?
According to your own links, W7 uses Vista's kernel, file system, and driver layer. The only improvements shown to us are in the interface, and it's gone balls-out crazy with transparency and bubbles.
And yet, for all those changes, Vista has a larger footprint and heavier requirements than XP. The driver model in particular has caused severe performance issues -- no accelerated sound, low disk throughput when the network is loaded, etc. Improved performance doesn't mean "add more RAM and this will run faster than the old one", it means "will run faster on the same hardware".
The only information I can find regarding Vista on the EEE suggests that it requires extensive modifcation/reduction of Vista using third-party tools, and using an external USB HDD to install on. As W7 is, according to your links, not including the footprint-reducing features so highly touted earlier in the year I doubt that it will be installable on the EEE without similar hacks and modifications.
This seems like Windows Vista SP2 with a price tag.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
MinWin was never intended to be used in Windows. People just misinterpreted it from the start. When MinWin was first shown to the public, the MS guy said, "We've taken a shot recently at stripping out all of the layers above and making sure we had a clean architectural layer there ... This is internal only; you won't see us productizing this, but you can imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future." http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071019/eric-talk-demo-windows-7-minwin/
Those are the screens, indeed. Curse you DeviantArt.
Vista runs absolutely fucking terribly on low-cost hardware, which you'd know if you actually tried to use it and didn't just look at the first google hit for "some Internet dude makes Vista sort of technically run on the Asus EEE, holy shit!"
As to whether MS will make any improvements in this area, that's what MinWin was! I'm sure they'll put forth some token effort: the EEE initially shipping Linux-only probably had somebody at Microsoft shitting his pants. But it won't be a real solution.
And no, low-cost laptops aren't going to get much more powerful than they are now by the time Windows 7 releases. They'll get more efficient, lighter, and better on battery life, but they probably won't get much heavier on the CPU, and another of Vista's problems on such hardware is constantly writing to that damn SideBySide file, which is a problem when your only storage is flash.
It says the kernel behind Vista/Server 08/7 is quite different to the one used in NT/2000/XP.
> According to your own links, W7 uses Vista's kernel, file system, and driver layer. The only improvements shown to us are in the interface, and it's gone balls-out crazy with transparency and bubbles.
According to my links, it says the W7 kernel is an evolutionary improvement over the one used in Vista. The only improvements shown was a demo of some multi-touch programs.. what the hell else are you talking about?
> And yet, for all those changes, Vista has a larger footprint and heavier requirements than XP. The driver model in particular has caused severe performance issues -- no accelerated sound, low disk throughput when the network is loaded, etc. Improved performance doesn't mean "add more RAM and this will run faster than the old one", it means "will run faster on the same hardware".
What, the successor to a 7 year old OS has higher system requirements? Madness! The driver model hasn't caused severe performance issues, bad drivers from Nvidia [and others] caused some performance issues, well, the accelerated sound may be valid but the other things, AFAIK were remedied in SP1 and earlier patches. Vista may not as fast as XP on 5 year old hardware but on 2 <= year old hardware it will run faster.
> The only information I can find regarding Vista on the EEE suggests that it requires extensive modifcation/reduction of Vista using third-party tools, and using an external USB HDD to install on. As W7 is, according to your links, not including the footprint-reducing features so highly touted earlier in the year I doubt that it will be installable on the EEE without similar hacks and modifications.
Of course they had to modify it, it's not officially supported at all.What footprint-reducing features were so highly touted earlier in the year? This information is more or less the first we've received about W7 aside from some small comments by people like Gates mentioning "Oh yeah, we're working on performance." Where exactly in my links doesit discuss that?? If it's not officially supported, sure, modifcations will be needed and EEE or some comparable laptop, will be much faster in ~ 2 years. Maybe, you know, vanilla Vista just isn't for those types of low-cost laptops? Why must it be for everything?
They've already doubled the RAM in the EEE PC, increased the CPU, etc within ~ 1 year so why wouldn't they continue to make similar upgrades in ~ 2 years? Other ones like the MSI Wind have a 1.6GHZ CPU too..
Vista also works 'fine' on a ton of UMPCs with similar specs to the EEE PC. For example, the Fujitsu U810 has a 800MHZ CPU and 1GB DDR RAM and it's usable. There are a fair few UMPCs with CPUs twice that speed and with twice that amount of RAM -- do you really think in UMPCs and ultra-low cost laptops there will be next to no noticeable speed improvements, especially with things like the Atom coming out?
uh huh.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I am reminded of the writings of Douglas Adams.
"Not entirely unlike tea".
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
They're not changing how drivers work. Vista drivers will work on 7.
This is versus how Vista completely changed how they worked between XP and Vista.
Oh hey, I'm just fine with that. People not wanting XP now that its support lifespan is almost up and going with the Linux versions instead is a good thing in my book. I just didn't think that Microsoft felt the same way.
Sorry, mate, but this is really unclear. What you are trying to say, I believe, is:
"The kernel behind Windows 7/Vista/Server 08/ is quite different to the one used in NT/2000/XP."
Because it is.
Sod multi-touch, give us WinFS.
electricitylikesme, fun fact: WinFS wasn't a 'file system.'
Idoliside, why do you want WinFS so badly?
What is interesting is that most people who clamour for WinFS and about the atrocity that was wrought on this great world when it was chosen to not be apart of Longhorn (Vista) tend to know nothing about it. Another fun fact, much of the underlying technologies have shipped in various forms/products and Allchin said that with Vista they achieved a fair few things they wanted to with WinFS (From a surface, consumer point of view and in some other regard - I listened to it a long time ago).
So, why do you people want WinFS so badly now? I mean, many of it's goals have been capable for some time, for example, the web has become a place for some of your data to live (Like contacts) so why bother with a local file with the intricacies WinFS would've brought? Another is desktop search (File indexing program), with Microsoft's desktop search products, Apple's Spotlight, Google's Desktop Search, the million Linux ones, etc it kind of made what MS wanted to do with WinFS too complex than it needed to be. One more example is why was WinFS needed for media files when programs like iTunes, Zune, WMP, etc seem to handle it fine?
With Vista you can sort by genre, artist, etc which gives us the surface sorting capabilities WinFS would've provided. Also, if you consider the related work they've put into SQL Server and other things you can see they're quite on their way to their WinFS vision. Seriously, once you look at what WinFS was going to be and what we have now, it seems silly to make violent proclamations that MS should bring 'WinFS' (It feels weird treating it as if it's a single entity, it's felt weird for years) back. There's also other things like SQLite being used in apps (Amarok, FF, etc) which is similar in some regards. Another thing to consider is Live Mesh.
The problem WinFS was going to solve has been solved, more or less. So, please, do tell, why do you want the mythical 'WinFS'?
(I have a [new] audio file to listen to that covers a lot about WinFS and where it is now too so I may update this post even more. Also, thank you PG/OSN and everyone forgive me for any technical mistakes in this post, it's late
(You could shorten those paragraphs to 'Shut up about WinFS, seriously, shut up' if you desire to :P)
Azio, maybe you should go skim CNet comments and watch a few Mac ads to understand the truth about Vista.
Geez...
In all seriousness, I'm kind of excited to see where this new video driver model goes after another revision. We're a year and a half after a fundamental revision to the driver model and Vista is already starting to (marginally) outperform XP (on some systems). A Win 7 "core install" with the next generations of new drivers could be an awesome gaming platform.
Assuming Server Core makes it back to Windows client.
I dunno. That sounds nice to me as a user. I don't like having to wonder if I'm going to have to retag everything if I want to switch to a different contact/calendar/music/whatever program. I'd like to tag something once and have it propagate everywhere. I haven't seen much of that make it into real products though for any OS. The closest thing we have right now is Metadata stuck in MP3 or Pictures files, which really isn't the same thing.
Well the company I work for does all of its data integration through SOAP, so being able to integrate with an actual client platform would be really neat depending on how Microsoft implements it. I remain slightly pessimistic though.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
But SOAP... I mean, there's not a whole lot of use cases for it. If you are controlling and delivering your data internally and you choose to build your data layer with web services then you are quite crazy or you just like slow programs.
But Microsoft making bullet points about mashup related garbage does not surprise me, that's also one of the big bullet points of IE8 (even though the functionality is wonky, IE8 wonky? Say it isn't so).
I have not and don't think I will ever understand mashups.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I don't know what specific differences there are in the implementation, but OS X essentially already has this functionality. If I add somebody's IM screen name to their Address Book entry, and then add that screen name to my buddy list in Adium (a 3rd party program, no less) their alias in Adium is automatically changed to their real name and their buddy icon becomes their address book picture.
Gnome and KDE both have similar functionality under Linux, although like anything in Linux, it works perfectly most of the time but sometimes violently explodes.