-Selecting a wi-fi network just takes one click from the systray
-UAC is vastly more customizable
-No more Sidebar; gadgets can go anywhere
-Use Libraries to group folders all over your hard drive for easy access
-Revamped workgroup networking
-Native handling of AAC and H.264
Kickass times six. And there's a lot more on that page.
EDIT: I'm thinking that this should all be in Vista SP2, though.
Silvoculous on
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
you know what I don't get, everyone is so happy that the sidebar is gone and that you can put the gadgets anywhere. Do people not know that you can do that already?
I'm a Vista user, and a happy Vista user. I've been recommending Vista to people buying new computers for a year and a half now. Vista is a good operating system that had a botched launch and bad driver issues.
That being said, I'm really excited for Windows 7, and will be looking to get it pretty much on day 1.
EDIT: Also I've been reading and there are a lot of developers saying that the prebeta version (Milestone 3, or M3 as Microsoft calls it) is the most stable M3 version of any windows they have ever used, much more stable than XP or Vista were at this stage. This bodes well.
You know what else was really good up until its release? Just about every OS Microsoft has ever made. They have a knack for totally fucking it up right before the product goes out the door. Their internal last-minute polishing phase is software poison.
you know what I don't get, everyone is so happy that the sidebar is gone and that you can put the gadgets anywhere. Do people not know that you can do that already?
Apparently not, but it looks like the show desktop feature won't hide gadgets. I think that it's a bit annoying that windows key+D hides the sidebar in Vista (I assume it also hides gadgets not on the sidebar, but I haven't actually checked).
I haven't upgraded to Vista yet but like exis said if this is coming sometime in the near future (I read possibly next year?) than I may just skip it entirely and switch to this when it gets released. It has a lot of promise and hopefully Microsoft can really deliver on it.
Looks a lot like KDE4 but as said above that's not a bad thing. I probably won't ever go back to Windows but this does look like a solid release. Those annoyed by the 'rapid' release cycle between Vista and 7 need to realize that XP to Vista was an exception to the usual release cycle of Windows. 7 is right in line with the way Microsoft usually updates.
KDE4 is fucking aces. With 4.2, you'll be able to run it on UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Looks a lot like KDE4 but as said above that's not a bad thing. I probably won't ever go back to Windows but this does look like a solid release. Those annoyed by the 'rapid' release cycle between Vista and 7 need to realize that XP to Vista was an exception to the usual release cycle of Windows. 7 is right in line with the way Microsoft usually updates.
KDE4 is fucking aces. With 4.2, you'll be able to run it on UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Woah, really? That's impressive. I haven't used KDE in a couple years, and I might switch back if I can run it on every computer in my house regardless of operating system.
Looks a lot like KDE4 but as said above that's not a bad thing. I probably won't ever go back to Windows but this does look like a solid release. Those annoyed by the 'rapid' release cycle between Vista and 7 need to realize that XP to Vista was an exception to the usual release cycle of Windows. 7 is right in line with the way Microsoft usually updates.
KDE4 is fucking aces. With 4.2, you'll be able to run it on UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Woah, really? That's impressive. I haven't used KDE in a couple years, and I might switch back if I can run it on every computer in my house regardless of operating system.
I know the Windows port has been making progress but I didn't know it would be stable enough for a 4.2 release. Qt4 has been a big help for portability, and Phonon (the multimedia framework) has a DirectShow backend now. Qt 4.4 includes WebKit, so Konqueror on Windows will probably be using that.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
They broke the pattern when Vista took about five years until in was released after XP.
Unless they release Windows 7 in January (Vista went out to consumers Jan. 2007, business Nov. 2006), it will be about three years.
You suck at math. 95 to 98 was 38 months. That means 3 out of 5 home user operating systems have taken greater than 3 years to release. 5 years for Vista was abnormal, but they had XP out in the marketplace at the time and there was less of a rush: they hadn't just dumped Me onto everyone.
Releasing an OS with less than 3 full years of work on it WILL be rushed compared to most of the even remotely reasonable modern examples. Which means if it's out before 2010.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
They broke the pattern when Vista took about five years until in was released after XP.
Unless they release Windows 7 in January (Vista went out to consumers Jan. 2007, business Nov. 2006), it will be about three years.
You suck at math. 95 to 98 was 38 months. That means 3 out of 5 home user operating systems have taken greater than 3 years to release. 5 years for Vista was abnormal, but they had XP out in the marketplace at the time and there was less of a rush: they hadn't just dumped Me onto everyone.
Releasing an OS with less than 3 full years of work on it WILL be rushed compared to most of the even remotely reasonable modern examples. Which means if it's out before 2010.
You can't be serious can you? OSX has releases about every 1.5 years. The Linux kernel has gone up 8 revision numbers since 2003, and at least Ubuntu pushes for biyearly releases. Nobody wastes as much time as MS did between XP and Vista.
Big revisions take time to bake before you push them out to the public. MS (and even backyard OS 9) all have systems set up where they can branch those big changes off until they're stable to land, and even then they often hold off until they can be tested even more. Big changes do take years and years of time to bake. The Start Menu, taskbar, and most of this other stuff that's showing up in Win7 looks more like MS leveraging all the work they put into WPF. Rapid prototyping. Rapid testing. Harder to write buggy code.
The low spec Netbook craze is set to explode and totally bork Microsoft's timeline for retiring Windows XP, since Vista won't run well (or, in some cases, at all) on the majority of them. If Windows 7 has the ability to scale itself to be usable on a Netbook or older computers in general, then it might set the XP retirement timeline back in place.
If Windows 7 is in the same system requirements ballpark as Vista, then we'll probably see XP updates for quite a while.
you know what I don't get, everyone is so happy that the sidebar is gone and that you can put the gadgets anywhere. Do people not know that you can do that already?
Apparently not, but it looks like the show desktop feature won't hide gadgets. I think that it's a bit annoying that windows key+D hides the sidebar in Vista (I assume it also hides gadgets not on the sidebar, but I haven't actually checked).
Maybe I misunderstood, but I got the impression from ZDNet's gallery/summary/thing that hovering over the Show Desktop button hides windows, but not gadgets, and actually clicking Show Desktop hides everything.
it looks like Vista but with a slight visual change...they want this for next year? Man i am glad i didn't buy Vista because i almost just did not long ago. I can't believe they are releasing a new OS so soon after everything is JUST starting to settle down with Vista.
The low spec Netbook craze is set to explode and totally bork Microsoft's timeline for retiring Windows XP, since Vista won't run well (or, in some cases, at all) on the majority of them. If Windows 7 has the ability to scale itself to be usable on a Netbook or older computers in general, then it might set the XP retirement timeline back in place.
If Windows 7 is in the same system requirements ballpark as Vista, then we'll probably see XP updates for quite a while.
They are building Windows 7 with netbooks in mind. They've specifically said that there will be a build of Windows 7 explicitly designed for netbooks.
They broke the pattern when Vista took about five years until in was released after XP.
Unless they release Windows 7 in January (Vista went out to consumers Jan. 2007, business Nov. 2006), it will be about three years.
You suck at math. 95 to 98 was 38 months. That means 3 out of 5 home user operating systems have taken greater than 3 years to release. 5 years for Vista was abnormal, but they had XP out in the marketplace at the time and there was less of a rush: they hadn't just dumped Me onto everyone.
Releasing an OS with less than 3 full years of work on it WILL be rushed compared to most of the even remotely reasonable modern examples. Which means if it's out before 2010.
"Microsoft Windows 95 was released August 24, 1995 and sells more than 1 Million copies within 4 days."
I'll probably get the most expensive 64bit version of this when it comes along.
My computer is still on good ol' XP and I have been waiting for microsoft to announce the "New Improved Vista" for awhile now. Its nice to hear some details.
URL? I just googled it and all I get is phone stuff. - EDIT: D'oh, me being stupid. (I just got up) You mean switcher, yeah... switcher sucks, its performance is just plain nasty the moment you go beyond a couple of windows.
Also, from what I heard the taskbar as shown here? Yeah, that's going to be the only taskbar you can have. Apparently you cannot enable the old taskbar with names, just the half arsed copy of OSX's dock.
All I really want in a change of the windows taskbar is the native ability to reorder the fricking buttons so I don't have to rely on third party programs to give me that ability.
GrimReaper on
PSN | Steam
---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Well, that reordering is one new feature in Windows 7 :P
I quite like the taskbar idea, but we'll just have to see how it actually works in practice. I saw some reports that you could enable text for windows which were open, but the screenshots of it looked really bad (think current task bar items, but double the height.)
Actually, you can switch back the appearance of the taskbar (both icon size and text), as shown in this post of Long Zheng's. Having read that post, I'm even more enthusiastic about the new taskbar than I was previously.
You know what I'd be enthusiastic about? Comprehensive and integrated management of network settings, with multiple click-accessible profiles for different networks.
You know what I'd be enthusiastic about? Comprehensive and integrated management of network settings, with multiple click-accessible profiles for different networks.
Didn't they show that at the PDC unveiling of Windows 7?
At least for Wi-Fi networks available. Just click on the tray icon and a start menu-like list pops up listing the available networks that you can select from on the fly.
victor_c26 on
It's been so long since I've posted here, I've removed my signature since most of what I had here were broken links. Shows over, you can carry on to the next post.
You know what I'd be enthusiastic about? Comprehensive and integrated management of network settings, with multiple click-accessible profiles for different networks.
Didn't they show that at the PDC unveiling of Windows 7?
At least for Wi-Fi networks available. Just click on the tray icon and a start menu-like list pops up listing the available networks that you can select from on the fly.
This is not what I want. I want this to work for all networks - including, you know, plug-in networks. People use laptops with lots of those too.
You know what I'd be enthusiastic about? Comprehensive and integrated management of network settings, with multiple click-accessible profiles for different networks.
Didn't they show that at the PDC unveiling of Windows 7?
At least for Wi-Fi networks available. Just click on the tray icon and a start menu-like list pops up listing the available networks that you can select from on the fly.
This is not what I want. I want this to work for all networks - including, you know, plug-in networks. People use laptops with lots of those too.
Vista already has this. You choose the type of network you are connected to and it remembers that setting for the next time you connect to it. At least, it works that way for me for home/work on my work laptop. You generally don't need "on the fly" network switching for wired networks when most computers have 1 network jack.
Like the Location list thingy in the Apple menu on OS X. I seem to remember some of the older Thinkpads coming with a little app that let you do this, which was very handy because it meant that the users didn't have to fiddle around with proxy settings each time they wanted to use their laptops at home. I'm not sure why we didn't use an auto config file for them though... I suggested it while I was there and the boss didn't think it was a good idea for some reason...
Groovy new feature of 7: Aero Shake. If you have a bunch of apps running, grab an app's titlebar and shake it to minimise all the other apps. Shake the titlebar again and the apps are restored. Video at link.
Also, a rather unpolished version of the build 6933 taskbar can be enabled in build 6801 (the one distributed to PDC attendees).
Wow. I want a copy of Win 7 NOW. It definitely looks how they meant Vista to be.
It's actually kinda funny, I was talking with my Uncle (my wife's uncle actually) about Vista (he's a HUGE Apple guy - always has been and buys a new computer every year or two because he's rich) and his son hates Vista and wanted to downgrade to XP and I said that I love Vista and he was actually shocked. It's like he hasn't heard that someone actually likes it yet. Anyway, we got talking about Win7 and he said it sounds like MS is really moving Windows into something pretty cool, which to me was a huge win. He's never liked MS or Windows.
Groovy new feature of 7: Aero Shake. If you have a bunch of apps running, grab an app's titlebar and shake it to minimise all the other apps. Shake the titlebar again and the apps are restored. Video at link.
They can't just make the Show Desktop button do this?
Why, why has nobody thought to implement this earlier? I'm ashamed for never thinking of it.
Groovy new feature of 7: Aero Shake. If you have a bunch of apps running, grab an app's titlebar and shake it to minimise all the other apps. Shake the titlebar again and the apps are restored. Video at link.
They can't just make the Show Desktop button do this?
There's a difference. Aero Shake minimises all windows but the one you're using; Show Desktop minimises all windows.
The new version does indeed look sweet. Especially the progress bar in Taskbar. Funny how something so simple is making everyone slap their foreheads and go "oh yeaaah, that's ingenious!" :P
Is it me or does Windows treat 'Show Desktop' and 'Minimize' differently? Pressing the minimize button on a particular window is different to pressing the 'Show Desktop' button (I noticed this by XP's memory meter, minimizing the program frees up memory being used by said program). I suppose what I want is a 'Minimize All' button, as I rarely ever press the button again to bring up all my fullscreened windows/apps.
The new version does indeed look sweet. Especially the progress bar in Taskbar. Funny how something so simple is making everyone slap their foreheads and go "oh yeaaah, that's ingenious!" :P
Is it me or does Windows treat 'Show Desktop' and 'Minimize' differently? Pressing the minimize button on a particular window is different to pressing the 'Show Desktop' button (I noticed this by XP's memory meter, minimizing the program frees up memory being used by said program). I suppose what I want is a 'Minimize All' button, as I rarely ever press the button again to bring up all my fullscreened windows/apps.
They are treated differently. Quite often I'll have stuff stuck on the screen that I can't minimize, but show desktop will get rid of it.
I wonder how much dual monitor support Windows 7 will have. Would be nice if the Aero shake worked with maximized windows on a dual(or more) monitor setup. With 4 monitors it would be nice. Also a way to move a window from one screen to the other (without rely on third party apps(I still love you ultramon!)).
bigwah on
LoL Tribunal:
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
The new version does indeed look sweet. Especially the progress bar in Taskbar. Funny how something so simple is making everyone slap their foreheads and go "oh yeaaah, that's ingenious!" :P
Is it me or does Windows treat 'Show Desktop' and 'Minimize' differently? Pressing the minimize button on a particular window is different to pressing the 'Show Desktop' button (I noticed this by XP's memory meter, minimizing the program frees up memory being used by said program). I suppose what I want is a 'Minimize All' button, as I rarely ever press the button again to bring up all my fullscreened windows/apps.
They are treated differently. Quite often I'll have stuff stuck on the screen that I can't minimize, but show desktop will get rid of it.
Yeah, Show Desktop just seems to bring the desktop to focus (well... yeah...) instead of minimizing everything. Sometimes when I have a dialogue box that won't minimize, hitting Show Desktop will hide it until I open a new window/bring focus to an existing window, then it pops back up.
There is a Minimize All (at least, I know it's in Vista), though. The keyboard shortcut is Win+M.
EDIT: Actually, I'm not so sure on how Show Desktop works in Vista. When I hit it it hides everything, including the Sidebar, while Win+M doesn't, but clicking on windows in the taskbar brings them back with the maximize animation.
Posts
Looks awesome so far. We got:
-Selecting a wi-fi network just takes one click from the systray
-UAC is vastly more customizable
-No more Sidebar; gadgets can go anywhere
-Use Libraries to group folders all over your hard drive for easy access
-Revamped workgroup networking
-Native handling of AAC and H.264
Kickass times six. And there's a lot more on that page.
EDIT: I'm thinking that this should all be in Vista SP2, though.
I'm a Vista user, and a happy Vista user. I've been recommending Vista to people buying new computers for a year and a half now. Vista is a good operating system that had a botched launch and bad driver issues.
That being said, I'm really excited for Windows 7, and will be looking to get it pretty much on day 1.
EDIT: Also I've been reading and there are a lot of developers saying that the prebeta version (Milestone 3, or M3 as Microsoft calls it) is the most stable M3 version of any windows they have ever used, much more stable than XP or Vista were at this stage. This bodes well.
Apparently not, but it looks like the show desktop feature won't hide gadgets. I think that it's a bit annoying that windows key+D hides the sidebar in Vista (I assume it also hides gadgets not on the sidebar, but I haven't actually checked).
KDE4 is fucking aces. With 4.2, you'll be able to run it on UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Woah, really? That's impressive. I haven't used KDE in a couple years, and I might switch back if I can run it on every computer in my house regardless of operating system.
I know the Windows port has been making progress but I didn't know it would be stable enough for a 4.2 release. Qt4 has been a big help for portability, and Phonon (the multimedia framework) has a DirectShow backend now. Qt 4.4 includes WebKit, so Konqueror on Windows will probably be using that.
That's all.
You suck at math. 95 to 98 was 38 months. That means 3 out of 5 home user operating systems have taken greater than 3 years to release. 5 years for Vista was abnormal, but they had XP out in the marketplace at the time and there was less of a rush: they hadn't just dumped Me onto everyone.
Releasing an OS with less than 3 full years of work on it WILL be rushed compared to most of the even remotely reasonable modern examples. Which means if it's out before 2010.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Big revisions take time to bake before you push them out to the public. MS (and even backyard OS 9) all have systems set up where they can branch those big changes off until they're stable to land, and even then they often hold off until they can be tested even more. Big changes do take years and years of time to bake. The Start Menu, taskbar, and most of this other stuff that's showing up in Win7 looks more like MS leveraging all the work they put into WPF. Rapid prototyping. Rapid testing. Harder to write buggy code.
The low spec Netbook craze is set to explode and totally bork Microsoft's timeline for retiring Windows XP, since Vista won't run well (or, in some cases, at all) on the majority of them. If Windows 7 has the ability to scale itself to be usable on a Netbook or older computers in general, then it might set the XP retirement timeline back in place.
If Windows 7 is in the same system requirements ballpark as Vista, then we'll probably see XP updates for quite a while.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Maybe I misunderstood, but I got the impression from ZDNet's gallery/summary/thing that hovering over the Show Desktop button hides windows, but not gadgets, and actually clicking Show Desktop hides everything.
They are building Windows 7 with netbooks in mind. They've specifically said that there will be a build of Windows 7 explicitly designed for netbooks.
"Microsoft Windows 95 was released August 24, 1995 and sells more than 1 Million copies within 4 days."
"Microsoft Windows 98 was released June, 1998"
Am I missing something?
My computer is still on good ol' XP and I have been waiting for microsoft to announce the "New Improved Vista" for awhile now. Its nice to hear some details.
URL? I just googled it and all I get is phone stuff. - EDIT: D'oh, me being stupid. (I just got up) You mean switcher, yeah... switcher sucks, its performance is just plain nasty the moment you go beyond a couple of windows.
Also, from what I heard the taskbar as shown here? Yeah, that's going to be the only taskbar you can have. Apparently you cannot enable the old taskbar with names, just the half arsed copy of OSX's dock.
All I really want in a change of the windows taskbar is the native ability to reorder the fricking buttons so I don't have to rely on third party programs to give me that ability.
---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
I quite like the taskbar idea, but we'll just have to see how it actually works in practice. I saw some reports that you could enable text for windows which were open, but the screenshots of it looked really bad (think current task bar items, but double the height.)
Didn't they show that at the PDC unveiling of Windows 7?
At least for Wi-Fi networks available. Just click on the tray icon and a start menu-like list pops up listing the available networks that you can select from on the fly.
Vista already has this. You choose the type of network you are connected to and it remembers that setting for the next time you connect to it. At least, it works that way for me for home/work on my work laptop. You generally don't need "on the fly" network switching for wired networks when most computers have 1 network jack.
Also, a rather unpolished version of the build 6933 taskbar can be enabled in build 6801 (the one distributed to PDC attendees).
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/windows-7-ux-tidbits-color-hot-track/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLZcGDyacHo
Looks like W7 really is what Vista was supposed to be before it was castrated.
I'm not sold on a lot of this yet, but it's definitely looking like the programmers have had a much looser leash to run around with, so it's a start.
edit:
Progress bars right on the taskbar? Extreme win.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
It's actually kinda funny, I was talking with my Uncle (my wife's uncle actually) about Vista (he's a HUGE Apple guy - always has been and buys a new computer every year or two because he's rich) and his son hates Vista and wanted to downgrade to XP and I said that I love Vista and he was actually shocked. It's like he hasn't heard that someone actually likes it yet. Anyway, we got talking about Win7 and he said it sounds like MS is really moving Windows into something pretty cool, which to me was a huge win. He's never liked MS or Windows.
They can't just make the Show Desktop button do this?
Why, why has nobody thought to implement this earlier? I'm ashamed for never thinking of it.
There's a difference. Aero Shake minimises all windows but the one you're using; Show Desktop minimises all windows.
Fuck. I never thought I'd say it, especially after Vista, but this is really genius functionality: I can't wait for the next version of Windows.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
Is it me or does Windows treat 'Show Desktop' and 'Minimize' differently? Pressing the minimize button on a particular window is different to pressing the 'Show Desktop' button (I noticed this by XP's memory meter, minimizing the program frees up memory being used by said program). I suppose what I want is a 'Minimize All' button, as I rarely ever press the button again to bring up all my fullscreened windows/apps.
They are treated differently. Quite often I'll have stuff stuck on the screen that I can't minimize, but show desktop will get rid of it.
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
Yeah, Show Desktop just seems to bring the desktop to focus (well... yeah...) instead of minimizing everything. Sometimes when I have a dialogue box that won't minimize, hitting Show Desktop will hide it until I open a new window/bring focus to an existing window, then it pops back up.
There is a Minimize All (at least, I know it's in Vista), though. The keyboard shortcut is Win+M.
EDIT: Actually, I'm not so sure on how Show Desktop works in Vista. When I hit it it hides everything, including the Sidebar, while Win+M doesn't, but clicking on windows in the taskbar brings them back with the maximize animation.