What do you want to see in Windows 7?

[Mhurron]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Although M$ and backwards compatibility in the same phrase is kinda ridiculous.

Directions for Foot: Step one, insert into mouth.

A large number of problems that people have with Windows are caused by that very compatibility cruft that you seem to think doesn't exist. The complete rewrite that many people clamor for would get rid of that.

Getting rid of 9x compatibility would be a good thing. Things that don't run on XP and later Vista, are because of stupid things the applications writers did.

[Raydeus]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Oh don't give me that, messing with backwards compatibility is part of their bussiness model.

While it is true sometimes software developers step outside the compatibility standards, M$ is always trying to force people to get the new less efficient crap they make by getting rid of "old" apps any way they can.

[Mhurron]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Backwards compatibility is one of the reasons Windows became and is dominant. In fact, only Sun with Solaris does backwards compatibility better.

Backwards compatibility does not mean that everything that ever was works just as well or at all.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

I'm stuck with Vista on my laptop sadly. I've tried to put XP on it, no dice.

Wow that sucks. Do you mind if I ask what brand laptop you have? I have an Alienware and I put my XP Corporate Ed. on it just fine. There was so way in hell I was sticking with Vista. I was already slapping myself after my laptop was 1/2 built. ><

[Akashimo]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Do you mind if I ask what brand laptop you have?

HP Pavilion dv9000 series. Setup won't detect the hard-disk nor does any of the remedies I've found online worked.

[Feba]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

A large number of problems that people have with Windows are caused by that very compatibility cruft that you seem to think doesn't exist. The complete rewrite that many people clamor for would get rid of that.

Yeah, actually, I think MS should shift their backwards compatibility focus. Instead of building it into their OS, make it an external program, like Wine. Heck, I've heard that Wine has better backwards compatibility for some really old things than Windows itself-- with MS's internal knowledge, it would be a much quicker and simpler project.

I could even see MS releasing a product like that on Mac and Linux, just to try to EEE the Wine project..

[Akashimo]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

I could even see MS releasing a product like that on Mac and Linux, just to try to EEE the Wine project..

That'll be a scary day to come...

[dirtyclown]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

I went and got an Acer Aspire 4520, it was cheap and had good specs for what I do on the interbutts. The one glaring flaw it had was Vista Home Premium. I got it home and tried installing XP on it. No go. So I had to get into the registry and basically destroy the computer to get it to let me do what I wanted. After reformatting and installing XP, I booted it up...and nothing worked. So I destroyed this laptop for pretty much no reason, and ended up exchanging it for another one. After getting it home I turned off pretty much everything that Vista has switched on by default and it runs pretty smooth.

I found it odd that almost every graphical option was switched on, and then laughed quite a bit when I discovered that Vista even has a shadow effect on the taskbar. The fact that there was 40+ graphics options involving the taskbar alone makes me wonder if they spent any time on anything else. Without all that crap switched on it's a decent OS, and runs pretty smoothly, but it still kind of sucks to use in general. It has a different feel to it than XP did, and that's what I'm used to.

Something that sort of bothers me is that with Vista, you can't really get rid of anything. With XP I could scrape my HD clean and not have to worry about anything that I may or may not have done that has varying degrees of legality. Vista leaves cake crumbs everywhere, and the only way to get rid of said cake crumbs is to microwave the HD. And then take a hammer to it. >.>

[Feba]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

After getting it home I turned off pretty much everything that Vista has switched on by default and it runs pretty smooth.

Which really makes no sense. OS X and Compiz do much more impressive and prettier things, with more sparklies and such, and still use a fraction of the power. Expose was even snappy on my old iMac, which was truly impressive. I have to wonder if they did that to try to make it seem like all 3D desktops are resource hogs, or if they did it out of incompetence.

ista leaves cake crumbs everywhere,

XP does the same thing. They both use NTFS. Even on filesystems that write the information over with 0s instead of just removing the links to it it's usually not too difficult to recover.


shred -zv. It's the only way to be sure.

[dirtyclown]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Which really makes no sense. OS X and Compiz do much more impressive and prettier things, with more sparklies and such, and still use a fraction of the power. Expose was even snappy on my old iMac, which was truly impressive. I have to wonder if they did that to try to make it seem like all 3D desktops are resource hogs, or if they did it out of incompetence.

I'm going to go with incompetence. It's entirely possible to make things sparkly for graphics whores, but at the same time make it at least somewhat efficient in the memory usage department for those of us who use our computers for more than just looking at a pretty desktop.

XP does the same thing. They both use NTFS. Even on filesystems that write the information over with 0s instead of just removing the links to it it's usually not too difficult to recover.


shred -zv. It's the only way to be sure.

Even with a system that overwrites with 0s, you can run a scraping program two or three times and it's good enough. Even the FBI won't go more than 2 layers deep, scanning an HD like that is too time consuming. I find it slightly odd and a bit alarming that the NTFS system in general prevents anyone from truly getting rid of things they don't want on their HD, seeing as how NTFS is pretty much standard on many machines. It's a little bit scary that anyone who really wanted to find something on my old HD could just scan it and find shit that I did when I was a teenager. I think my old HD is about to have a date with my vice and deadblow hammer. >.>

[Feba]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

Mm, well, to be honest, trying to be secure and private and using closed source software is kinda contradictory. If you can't see what the hell it's doing, you can't trust it. I have read about Microsoft working with the NSA on their software, although what that work entails wasn't mentioned; there are also of course the urban legends about MS building backdoors into Windows for the NSA.

The thing is, even if it's untrue, you still would have no way of checking. Not to mention the fact that even if MS isn't intentionally building in security holes, there are still thousands of trojans, spyware, keyloggers, and so on out there for Windows that put you at risk.

[Mhurron]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

I have read about Microsoft working with the NSA on their software, although what that work entails wasn't mentioned

OOOOO the evil NSA, shut that Linux machine off, and Solaris, better get rid of that too.

even if it's untrue

It was horseshit

you still would have no way of checking.

Other then monitoring the system, which, you know, hundreds of thousands of people do a day.

I find it slightly odd and a bit alarming that the NTFS system in general prevents anyone from truly getting rid of things they don't want on their HD, seeing as how NTFS is pretty much standard on many machines

NTFS doesn't do anything special in this regard that every other mainstream file system does. In short, since most people aren't doing anything illegal on their system the ability to recover data in the event of a disaster is far more valuable then the ability to cover your tracks from 'the man.'

[Feba]

Re: What do you want to see in Windows 7?

OOOOO the evil NSA,

I never said it was evil. It's perfectly possible they're working to fill security holes and the like. I just said they have worked on it, don't know what, and if you're really that paranoid you shouldn't be using anything closed source.

I personally don't have much of a problem with using closed source stuff.