Is everyone having their Vista 2 party tonight? Here's a preview --->

[onehandle]

[zippy890]

1. is that from the service pack update?

me no likey this party

[Occulus]

The OP is just uninformed snark

There's no "blue screen" in Win7 (that I'm aware of). Apart from that, 7 is better in beta than Vista ever was. I've been running it for months alongside Ubuntu, and I haven't really had a problem.

7 seems to be a very stable OS. What happens when the masses begin to run older stuff on it remains to be seen, but I've seen huge performance increases (especially from games), and most of the drivers I've had to install "just work" (exceptions being older webcams and other old hardware that wouldn't even work in XP).

Microsoft is also offering a "Windows XP Mode" for users with 7 Pro, Enterprise, or Ultimate that lets you keep a virtual install of XP should you continue to need one.

Windows 7 isn't a "Vista service pack"; it's almost Vista redone the right way. Basically, Windows 7 is to Windows Vista as Windows XP was to Windows ME.

[Statistical]

12. Well more like XP as compared to Win 2000.

Windows ME was simply a windows program running on DOS (as was all of Win 9x line).

[thunder rising]

19. "it's almost Vista redone the right way" ordinarily that line would be a joke

Last I heard Linux is still Linux

[Lance_Boyle]

49. your last sentence is just plain wrong

Windows 7 is to Vista and XP was to Windows 2000 Professional - built on the same kernel, mostly cosmetic updates. Windows ME was a (non)service pack for Windows 98. Entirely different kernel from the 2000/XP OS.

[Spike89]

2. Help! I can't find the "any" key!

Is it next to the alt key? Do I need a special keyboard for Windows 7?

[hobbit709]

3. there's always the "Kernel Panic" error

Which pretty much sums it up.

[Craftsman]

4. Linux, the ultimate winblows service pack

[Ilsa]

5. My husband was uploading or backing up data for someone at work way back

in 1984, a VP in lending, I think. The message he got was "Press any key to reformat hard drive". He reached back, turned off the gargantuan IBM machine, then went to the bathroom to relieve his bowels that were about to explode after that scary experience.

[itsrobert]

6. It's like you want Microsoft to fail? If Microsoft fails

America fails.

[Toucano]

10. LOL!

Patriotic Corporatism!

That is what makes this country great!

[jinto86]

14. Wasn't it Microsoft that helped make the 90's such a great economic time?

[Xithras]

31. Actually, it was, though few here will admit it.

There were two things that fueled the technology boom of the 1990's.

1. The first was obviously the development of the World Wide Web, which made internet resources easier to find.

2. The second was the release of Windows 95 which, despite it's billion flaws, was quite frankly the easiest to use OS that had been developed to that time. And please don't cite "Mac". I was supporting both System 7 Macs and Win 3.11 systems when Windows 95 was released, and 95 was a step beyond either of them (and one of the rare instances when MS was actually ahead of Apple in the technology race). Win95 pushed Apple to redevelop and accellerate plans for System 8, which became one of their most successful products.

This is what PC users had before Windows 95:


This is what Mac users had when Windows 95 was released:


And this is what Windows 95 brought to the table:


It was much simpler, more visually interesting and less "technical", and was generally designed to be intuitive to "Joe Average". Despite every flaw in that operating system, it was really the first operating system designed around the question: "Can someone figure this out without training." I can tell you, as someone who was doing user support and training at the time, that Win95 users almost universally learned and adapted to the OS is far less time than users learning DOS/3.11 or System 7.

[Statistical]

32. Thanks for the screenies. Brought me way back.

I remember when the Win95 interface was considered revolutionary. The start button, program icons in a menu instead of set of folders.

[Xithras]

37. It was a flawed implementation, but a revolutionary concept.

It's easy to forget simply because it's been so long, and because operating systems have progressed so far since then, but Windows 95 represented the start of a revolutionary shift in the way people thought about computers. Up until that point, EVERY operating system was designed with the idea that users would recieve some sort of "training" to figure out how to use it. Win95 was the first attempt at building an OS around concepts that your average. reasonably educated person would already know. "Where do I start?" Click Start. "Where are my programs?" Click programs.

It seems simple now, and every OS from OSX to Ubuntu does it to some degree, but it really represented a paradigm shift in the way developers thought about computer users at the time.

[hunter]

55. Oh, poppycock. Win95 was late to the table, and damnedly ugly inside and out.

Microsoft built it to crush their competition and strengthen their monopolies.

The underlying structure of Windows 95 oozed corporate malevolence.

[Xithras]

60. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

First off, there was no MS OS monopoly until AFTER Win95 was released. Before that, you could run Win 3.1 on DR-DOS or OS/2 on top of MS-DOS. You could run OS/2 applications on Windows, and Windows applications on OS/2. Before Win95, you could buy computers from a computer store and CHOOSE the OS installed on it. There was more interoperability of operating systems back then. Microsoft was certainly a powerful company that liked to flex it's muscles, but the OS monopoly developed BECAUSE of Win95, and because of the various strongarm tactics that MS employed to promote it. Those tactics, and the eventual monopoly that arose from it, are completely divorced from the revolutionary aspects of the operating system itself. Besides, it's entirely possible to admire the tactical revolution that the V2 rocket represented while still hating the Nazi's. One does not preclude the other.

Second, they weren't late to anything. At the time it was released, Win95 was the easiest-to-use operating system available to the computer novice. There was NOTHING easier to use. Sure, there were operating systems with better stability, better technical specs, etc., but all of those operating systems missed one critical thing that MS nailed and everyone else had forgotten...one thing that is pretty core to software development today: The easier your program is to use, the more successful it will be. There's a market for "feature rich and hard to use", but there's a much bigger one for "good enough to get the job done and so easy an idiot can figure it out". MS went the second route and made billions.

[hunter]

62. How would you compare it to Apple's System 7 of 1991?

I imagine Windows 95 developers spent a few hours looking at that...

I'm not a big apple fan, btw, I bought into Windows 95 just as soon as I had the hardware and I kept it for a long time. I only upgraded to 98SE when good usb support became too important for me to ignore.

But I didn't see anything "revolutionary" about it. It was ugly and kludgey under the skin, and there was a lot of stuff in there meant to stifle Microsoft's competition.

Who knows where all this is going? Looking deep into my own (sometimes defective) crystal ball I see Microsoft desktop operating system development getting offloaded and merged into wine or set loose to fend for itself. Desktop operating systems lose their glamor when everyone has got one that does more or less the same thing.

[Xithras]

63. From a usability perspective? Win95 was far better than System 7

As I said upthread, I was a technology support tech at a company that had both System 7 desktops and Window 3.11 machines when Windows 95 came out. System 7 was certainly better than 3.11, but it was an outdated operating system by late 1995. Hardware capabilities had bounded ahead, and Apple was scrambling to play catch-up at the time (remember, this was the post-Jobs Apple corporate era when they quit innovating and everyone was expecting them to go out of business "any day"). When Windows 95 was released, there was nothing else like it.

The thing with your argument is that you keep falling back on the classic technology buff argument that "It was ugly and kludgey under the skin." I completely agree with you there. System 7, or OS/2, or even BSD w/ X, were all far better operating systems under the hood. They were more stable, less crash prone, and far more secure. The problem with all of them is that they were all tricky to learn. The revolutionary idea with Win95 was the notion that you could build an operating system around common concepts that people would intuitively know. Prior to Win95, you generally had computer software written by computer people for other computer people. MS borrowed an old Apple idea (building a computer for the everyman), took it to the next level, and built an OS that even a kid could figure out. That's what was revolutionary, and it's one of the few good things that MS has ever done.

Like Apple did in the late 80's, MS has largely forgotten that lesson nowadays. I like Windows 7, and I'm typing this on Windows 7 right now. I think it's the best OS they've put out in a long time. That said, it's nowhere near as easy to use as Win95 was. There are now so many widgets and doodads to learn that a novice computer user could never hope to figure it out on their own. Windows 7 today is where System 7 was back in 1995...a good, solid OS that is overcomplicated by UI gimmicks and features that just get in the way for most people, and which will simply leave the uninitiated scratching their heads.

The problem, of course, is that the industry as a whole has reverted to 1994. While Windows has become complicated again, so has everything else.

[hunter]

64. I've never found Windows "intuitive" probably because I go back further than that.

The first graphical operating systems I used were Motif, which the Geoworks desktop was based on, and the Macintosh.

An emulated clone of one of my basic System 7 machines looks like this:



And of course I posted the Geoworks screen elsewhere.

If Win95 was someone's first regular computer experience it became "intuitive." If not, it was as confusing as anything else.

"Look and Feel" is very subjective.

Just for fun, there were look and feel add-ons for Windows 3.1 that made it sort of like Windows 95:

[Xithras]

65. Win95 was much easier for first time users, not so much for existing users.

I know that a lot of longtime DOS users were furious with Windows 95, because the ui got in the way. They were already used to using a computer, and knew how to get things done.

But for a first time user, Win95 was much simpler. Go back upthread and look at those screenshots. "Where do I start?" Click Start. "Where are my programs?" Click programs. The basic concepts of the operating system were designed to be easy for any novice to grasp. Now go look at the System 7 screenshot. If you had never been trained on System 7, and had no familiarity with Apple, where would you start clicking to load a program? A new computer user can quickly puzzle out the navigation system in Win95 in just a few minutes. I used to regularly deal with phone calls from people who had no clue how to eject a floppy or delete a file on the Mac. It was a good operating system at a technical level, but it wasn't very user friendly to novices.

Part of 95's success was also dumb luck on Microsofts part anyway. When they started developing it in 1992, the Web didn't even exist and home computers were still very uncommon. I remember reading something years ago where some MS insiders revealed that the original planned demographic for Win95 was office secretaries and business users who were still fighting hard against the computerization of their jobs at that time. It wasn't until late 1994-early 1995 that they realized the possibilities that the emerging online world presented (though Bill Gates famously stated that the Internet was a fad and that proprietary networks like MSN would continue to control online communication). Microsoft had the trememdous fortune of releasing an operating system designed for the uneducated masses at the same moment that the WWW was starting to find its feet and the uneducated masses were suddenly becoming interested in buying a computer. Nobody else had a comparable product ready at that moment. It would be two more years until Apple got System 8 out the door, and many people (rightfully IMO) argue that Apple didn't fully clean up its UI until OSX was released 7 years later.

[tridim]

40. Remember Win NT with the "newlook" skin?

Ahh, the good ol' days. :)

[hunter]

53. That Windows 95 screen looks a lot like Geoworks...

DR-DOS 6 and Geoworks 1.2 played quite well together, were perhaps better looking and "less technical" than Windows 95, and were first released in 1991.



http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/GeoWorks%20v1-2/index.htm

Windows 95 was Microsoft's war machine, meant to kill off the remaining competition and potential upstarts. In one of the last battles Digital Research hacked together a DR-DOS that Windows 95 could run on top of, and IBM was going through all sorts of contortions with the more sophisticated OS2 (which was originally an IBM-Microsoft collaboration), but Windows 95 won the market.

[Toucano]

41. Ah, yes. Economic prosperity through monopoly and anti-competitive practices.

Just like Ma Bell and Standard Oil in their respective days.

[jinto86]

44. Okay fine we should have never had the .com boom

Then the Clinton years would have been known as merely average years.

[Toucano]

50. If it is so important to you (that the Clinton years be remembered as "good years"

Please consider the following:

1. Monopolies are inherently bad for the economy.

2. The dot-com bubble wiped out trillions of dollars from the economy.

3. The aftermath of the dot-com bubble is part of the foundation of outsourcing and chronic unemployment.

4. The Clinton administration really had nothing to do with sparking the dot-com bubble (good or bad).

5. No single company (Microsoft included) could be given credit or blame for the phenomena.

6. The Clinton surplus was already a reality in 1998 before the bubble took hold of the NADSAQ.

7. Other technology created booms (railroads, automobiles, radios) did not result in busts because they were based on good products.

and most important of all...

The Clinton administration Department of Justice brought the charges against Microsoft for anti-competitive practices.

In summary, Clinton good, Microsoft bad.

[Statistical]

51. Haha #7 was a joke right?

Try reading some history

Railroads, radio, autos all had busts.
The railroad busts of 1870s almost crippled the US economy.

Virtually every boom cycle has result in a bust even things like Tulips, housing, junk bonds, Gold Rush & commodities created substantial busts.

Technology was no different.

[Toucano]

61. Thank you, but I am not as ignorant as you have assumed.

I used those as examples specifically because the tangible products produced continued to be produced (successfully) until they were supplanted by innovation. The wild speculation that fueled the boom/bust cycle in those cases suffered a correction and the industry continued.

Railroads had a customer, an infrastructure, and a product. Railroad transportation exists.

Radio had a customer, an infrastructure, and a product. Radio exists.

Flooz.com had no customer, no product, and very little infrastructure yet raised $35 million to deliver an imaginary product that nobody wanted. Flooz.com does not exist.

I suppose I should have elaborated earlier, but ḿy point was about Microsoft in the Clinton years. The dot-com bubble being based on imaginary products was only an example.

[onehandle]

17. They're 'too big to fail.'

So they think.

[SpiralHawk]

20. Don't tell Rush 'DraftDodger' Limbaugh

since has has sworn that he wants America to FAIL like the Republicons FAIL.

OMG - this could be the THINGY that allows DraftDodger Limbaugh to succeed in making America FAIL.

[ChickenHawk]

7. Do you mean Windows 7?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Speck Tater]

9. That's just malicious. I had to CTL-ALT-DELETE cancel my browser. PLEASE don't do shit like that. nt

[Toucano]

13. It's a RICK ROLL.

Of course, I had to click to find out.

[here_is_to_hope]

11. OH NOES!!11!!!! (you rat bastard! lolz!) n/t

[DainBramaged]

24. And when people at work get screwed over for your juvenile prank

stoopid is as stoopid does...............

alt/F4 people stops t.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EOTE]

16. Funny, I've been running Windows 7 for close to a year now and haven't had a single BSOD.

I'm guessing you might be experiencing an ID 10 T error.

[tridim]

18. The BSOD is so 1990's.

But obviously that doesn't stop the Apple cult from bringing it up every time MS releases a new OS. At least you're consistent. :)

Seriously, I haven't seen a BSOD since Windows XP was released nearly a decade ago.

[tk2kewl]

23. i had plenty of them with Vista on my toshiba

[tridim]

26. I can't vouch for Vista, I never installed it.

Were your BSOD's hardware releated? If so, did you address the hardware issues or just ignore them like most passive users do?

[Xithras]

33. There are still BSOD's, but they're very rare nowadays

One of the things MS did way back in Win2000 was to isolate the ability of applications and drivers to take down the kernel, which was the source of the BSOD's in the 1990's. Even Explorer was isolated from the kernel. If you see one nowadays, it generally means that you either have a really nasty virus on your computer, or your CPU or RAM have gone bad.

Trivia question: Where did the Blue Screen of Death originate? Answer: IBM OS/2! Windows 95 was originally a collaboration between IBM and Microsoft, and several elements of OS/2 were brought into the operating system...including the BSOD.

And before the Mac users gloat too much about never having to deal with these things, I have two words for you: Sad Mac. Apple just made their errors prettier.

[tridim]

36. I was one of the 100 or so people who bought OS/2

It was really cool back in the Windows 3.1 days. Nice OS, no software.

I HATED Windows 3.1 so much that I used DOS until WinNT started getting good.

[Xithras]

42. I LOVED Warp, but as you said, there was no software for it.

IMHO, OS/2 Warp was hands down the best operating system that existed in that era. I was one of the people screaming for a criminal antitrust investigation when IBM signed the noncompete agreement with Microsoft and effectively killed it for the consumer market. Had they decided to fight MS instead, the computer world could be an extremely different place today.

Warp and BeOS will always be on my list of great operating systems that SHOULD have made it. Both failed for the same reason...mismanagement by the companies that made them, and not the technical merits of the operating systems themselves.

[Statistical]

38. Vista & Win7 take a big step forward in that department.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

The OS exerts much more control over drivers in NT6 (Vista & Windows 7). Win7 can even stop and restart video driver to avoid a crash when video drive goes down.

Microsoft also removed most hooks into the kernel. These are used by anti-virus, disk defrag, and other low level applications. However poorly written programs can drag the entire kernel down when they misbehave.

Those that think Win7 is a pretty looking XP fail to notice the changes in plumbing below the surface:
New TCP/IP stack
Removal of unused functions (possible attack vectors)
Decoupling IE from the OS (no more run IE as admin and then enter c:\ to gain explorer admin access)
New Driver model
Improved operating file protection (applications can't overwrite key files)
Protected memory space
Randomized address space layout to prevent preplanned buffer overflow attacks
40% reduction in windows services

[slutticus]

56. I heard it was magenta now.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Ah, the Blue Screen of Delight! n/t

[hankthecrank]

22. Here is how to have one from Gizmodo from Funny or Die

Over at Funny or Die

a parody


http://gizmodo.com/5387674/host-your-own-windows-7-torrenting-party

[onehandle]

25. I don't know anyone who's paying for it. nt

[hankthecrank]

29. Not going there.

[Toucano]

43. That is funny! n-t

[LatteLibertine]

27. Wonder if they fixed the data corruption issue...

[Statistical]

30. I think you are thinking of the Mac.

Accessing Guest account on Snow Leopard upgrade can results in loss of all data.

[trotsky]

34. Shhh!

You'll upset the fanbois. Macs don't have bugs, or security holes, or ANY problems whatsoever. GOT IT?!?!

[Touchdown]

47. A handful of cases is not a widespread problem.

" In early September, a handful of Mac users reported the issue on Apple's discussion boards. The problem, when it occurs, goes like this, according to CNET's MacFixit: when logging into the guest account on their Mac first and then logging into their regular account, some users are finding all their data to be missing and their accounts completely reset.

It doesn't appear to be a widespread problem--there are fewer than 100 posts on several current discussion threads on the issue--but it's certainly topical. Microsoft is currently dealing with a massive data loss at its Danger subsidiary, the company it acquired that makes the Sidekick mobile phone."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10373064-260.html?tag=mncol;txt

And it's been fixed...

"A beta version of OS X 10.6.2 fixes the nasty Guest account bug that wipes the entire contents of your home folder. Until it arrives, though, turn off Guest account and keep Time Machine running."

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/the-second-snow-leopard-update-reportedly-fixes-the-user-data-deletion-bug-20091019/

Nobody ever said Macs are invulnerable. Just like everything else, perfection is elusive. At least restoring the accounts is painless with Time Machine.

[EOTE]

48. And what data corruption issue would you be referring to? NT

[onehandle]

52. They never fixed it. In fact the first Microsoft store was overwhelmed with complaints today.

Note the many 'blue screen of deaths' along the wall.



How embarrassing for Bill Gates' college roommate.






:evilgrin:

[Incitatus]

28. fucking Vista

lol

[MineralMan]

35. I used a screen like as a screen-saver graphic for a long time.

It bugged everyone pretty well.

[cherokeeprogressive]

39. Your hatred makes me YAWWWWWNNNNNN

Hate it hate it hate it hate people who use it hate everything associated with it hate hate hate.

Meanwhile, Windows users go on with their lives...

[Dreamer Tatum]

45. Yeah, yeah...Linux is sooo muchhh bettt zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[thelordofhell]

46. I have next month in the "When will the Windows 7 mega-virus hit?" pool

I'm gonna be rich!!

[krispos42]

54. Naw, it's been improved...

[Ignis]

66. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that.

Probably both, if I can finish this message before Windows cras--

END OF LINE

[slutticus]

57. kernel panic is never funny.....won't someone think of the children?

:cry:

[tridim]

58. Anyone remember "Guru Meditation"?

Best crash screen ever!

[LanternWaste]

59. Not tonight...

Not tonight...

I imagine mine will happen when I get my next PC. But as my satisfaction with my current Vista PC remains high, and the unit itself is holding up wonderfully, I imagine it may some time before I upgrade.

But then again, as I'm not wed to either Pepsi or Coke as are so many here, who knows...? :shrug: