Will Windows 7 just be a stripped down, final version of Vista?

Looking at the features and reading some threads about it it looks that way to me. Seems MS has stripped it down to speed it up, forcing featuires out to lIve services or as standalone products. And they've glitzed up some of the core areas (ex: device manager).

Anyone using the RC and Vista that finds signifigant improvements over Vista's resource handling and stability to justify a potential $100 to $300 upgrade?

Have an office mate that's a beta tester for MS products (not sure how he weaseled into that gig) and he is much more impressed with Win7 than Vista. When he was testing Vista I kept telling him that it was never planned to be a long term OS and that it was going to be a transitional one (a la ME). He has pretty much confirmed that now that he's tinkering with Win7. It's a lot less of a resources whore and will be (probably) better supported by MS than XP was.

I have read that Vista is just an upped rel version of ME and that W7 is essentially that too (a new rel ver to Vista) but, MS may opt to release it as a complete OS for the cash cow potential when it's really just a major upgrade (not a complete re-work).

GilaMinumBeer said:

I have read that Vista is just an upped rel version of ME and that W7 is essentially that too (a new rel ver to Vista) but, MS may opt to release it as a complete OS for the cash cow potential when it's really just a major upgrade (not a complete re-work).

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I guess we won't really know until the decision is made. All I can tell you is that with W7 you don't have to have an insane amount of RAM to successfully run the OS (as opposed to Vista). His machine is currently running at 4GB with a quad processor and 768 graphics card and my relic desktop at home can run XP about as efficiently as his geeked out laptop running Vista. You can take my XP from me when you pry it out of my cold dead hands. And you can never take away my RedHat enterprise!!

I have been running Win7 beta since it was released and it is way better than Vista ever hoped to be. In the past I removed vista from my machines and ran XP Pro, but put the W7 beata on my laptop and netbook and its the schiznit

I have the same experience as purechaos. Win7 is leaps and bounds ahead of Vista. Sure, it might use some of the same core look and feel as Vista, but from an operational standpoint it's like a totally new OS. I've been running some betas and now the RC and have also finally pulled the plug on all my dual booting XP and 2000 partitions and run Win7 exclusively.

To this day I still can't get Vista to work properly on my primary desktop, yet Win7 installed in about 15 minutes on the same machine, found every single driver, and hasn't crashed once.

I'm usually quick to put blame on Microsoft but for once I think they've actually done something right.

marubozo said:

I'm usually quick to put blame on Microsoft but for once I think they've actually done something right.

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For now....

SmugMug said:

Have an office mate that's a beta tester for MS products (not sure how he weaseled into that gig) and he is much more impressed with Win7 than Vista. When he was testing Vista I kept telling him that it was never planned to be a long term OS and that it was going to be a transitional one (a la ME). He has pretty much confirmed that now that he's tinkering with Win7. It's a lot less of a resources whore and will be (probably) better supported by MS than XP was.

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I also get to beta test many MS products. I am currently running the Windows 7 RC. I like it very much. I was a very happy Vista user, also. I never understood the issues with Vista. Unfortunately, Vista was not completely what MS wanted. I had a chance to play with some of the very early "Longhorn" pre-betas. Longhorn was going to be the followup to XP. It was going to be a interim release to prepare for "Blackcomb" (These are all codenames that MS came up with). Blackcomb was going to be a major upgrade to the NT family of operating systems.

Longhorn was focused on the interface and on the file systems. Some of the early interface concepts were awesome, but required significant graphics power. WinFS was going to be a file system merged with a relational database. Also a very cool concept but resource hungry. During the development of Longhorn, MS had to suffer the outbreaks of major malware hits. MS made the decision to scrap all of the work done on Longhorn and reset to the XP kernel version 5.2 (this was Windows Server 2003 R2).

This reset essentially moved development back 2-3 years. MS instituted a model for developing safer code and basically made security the cornerstone of OS development. They didn't have much of a choice as 97% of the world runs their OS. I think they rushed things a bit and the initial release of Vista was not as high a quality as it should have been. Also, because it had been so long since a MS OS release, many OEMs, i.e. Dell and HP, tried to put Vista on everything they sold. Vista had highter hardware requirements than XP, but many of these OEMs tried to showhorn it onto sub-par systems. Also, many hardware vendors were put of practice writing drivers and they really dropped the ball on getting drivers out for hardware. MS made that task a bit more difficult, because they forced vendors to write drivers for both 32-bit and 64-bit OS's. The only way to get a MS-certified driver was to have both a 32 and 64-bit version.

I think Windows 7 takes the Vista core and tightens up the code. The removal of mail and such is an unfortunate side effect of the European Union sanctioning MS for the monopolist practices. I think it's actuaslly good, because now Windows Live Mail is a separate product and can be updated on a different schedule than the OS. I also like it much better than Windows mail or Outlook Express.

Vista drivers work in Windows 7 for the mmost part, so Win 7 won't have any issues with missing drivers. Also, the current hardware available which also runs Vista well, will not be lacking in Win 7. 2 or 4 GB RAM is common now, and most video is DirectX 10 capable.

I have one machine that I'll keep as a Vista machine, I see know reason to update it and I don't use it very often, but I will be updating my laptop to Win 7 when it comes out (October 22 for the general public). Hopefully I'll have the RTM build well before the Public release date.

PhreePhly

Will Windows 7 just be a stripped down, final version of Vista?

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According to Balmer, yeah thats basically what it will be.

This part not according to Balmer, rather according to me. Windows 7 is basically just going to be Vista with compliance for European Union anti-trust settlements built in. Basically its Vista Service pack including EU anti-trust compliance.

That, and its a rebranding to get away from the failed "vista" brand that nobody seems to want any part of.

There is not a lot of Windows 7 thats actually new - the API is the same. The .NET Framework is the same.

As far as using it on a desktop machine, there isn't any appreciable difference in Windows 7 and Vista.

If you really wanted to split hairs about the difference though, Windows 7 has a lot more in common with Windows Server 2008 than it does with Vista.

All I know is these crappy operating systems are really helping out my Apple stock

to keep is short, Windows 7 is great. It is what vista should have been. It does require more ram than XP but i don't really see that as a problem anymore now that most PC's come with 2gb+. I had it installed on my notebook (1.66ghz core duo, 2gb ram...) and it feels faster than XP or Ubuntu. Once I got used to the new interface I really started to like that as well.

I am planning on buying it at launch.

Mutilated1 said:

According to Balmer, yeah thats basically what it will be.

This part not according to Balmer, rather according to me. Windows 7 is basically just going to be Vista with compliance for European Union anti-trust settlements built in. Basically its Vista Service pack including EU anti-trust compliance.

That, and its a rebranding to get away from the failed "vista" brand that nobody seems to want any part of.

There is not a lot of Windows 7 thats actually new - the API is the same. The .NET Framework is the same.

As far as using it on a desktop machine, there isn't any appreciable difference in Windows 7 and Vista.

If you really wanted to split hairs about the difference though, Windows 7 has a lot more in common with Windows Server 2008 than it does with Vista.

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I disagree, somewhat. The graphics framework is enhanced quite a bit in Win 7. It uses the WDDM 1.1 model, which is far more efficient in creating windows. It adds Direct2D, which should help in moving us away from GDI/GDI+. It most certainly adds to the GUI, the Superbar (new Taskbar) is a huge improvement as far as I'm concerned. This is far more than a Service Pack by any stretch of the imagination.

Also the 6.1 kernel is certainly tuned better for lower spec'ed hardware. Vista and Win 7 on an i7 8 GB RAM setup are essentially the same, but Win 7 and Vista on a 1 GB Netbook is almost apples and oranges.

Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are exactly the same. The kernel is byte for byte the same. Server is tuned for background processing, so it has different services operating with different priorities, but the kernel OS is identical.

All that said, if you have a running Vista system, and are happy with it, I'm not sure I'd run out and drop $200 on an upgrade. However, if you are thinking about purchasing a new computer, and can wait until October 22, to get Windows 7 pre-loaded, I would certainly consider it.

PhreePhly

Weizenheimer said:

All I know is these crappy operating systems are really helping out my Apple stock

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Aaahhh yes, the panacea of OSes, OSX. All I can say is than <insert diety> that OSX is only on 3% of the computers in the world, 'cause that gaping hole of insecurity could actually form a black hole on earth

PhreePhly

phreephly said:

All that said, if you have a running Vista system, and are happy with it, I'm not sure I'd run out and drop $200 on an upgrade. However, if you are thinking about purchasing a new computer, and can wait until October 22, to get Windows 7 pre-loaded, I would certainly consider it.

PhreePhly

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I've not been thrilled by Vista since I got it. I have had lots of software issues since I purchased the pre-loaded machine. I am not a computer idiot, per se, but I alos don't really know what half of what you said (in the rest of the post) means. I get the context tho'.

I have been curious if W7 will resolve these issues. If it does, then IMO it'd be worth the money just to not have to troubleshoot my machine constantly. The only fail I see in the hardware for this machine is the crap on-board video but, I don't game and it's still a low grade 3d video section. The most graphically intensive thing I do with this machine is edit still photo's in RAW format. Beyond that, it's a typewriter.

I'd like to see Windows make better use of the 8GB of RAM I have but, have come to realize I have more than is necessary for what I do with it.

The good thing about the release client is that you can give it a nice long trial before you commit. As much as I like XP it is getting long in the tooth and while 7 is a slight improvement over Vista I personally would not buy it seperately but if it came on a new PC I wouldn't roll back to XP.

Word of advice:
NEVER buy an OS until the first (technically 2nd) SP has been released. You're going to inherit a buttload of security holes. They can't catch them all until it's out there being used by the masses for different purposes.

GilaMinumBeer said:

I've not been thrilled by Vista since I got it. I have had lots of software issues since I purchased the pre-loaded machine. I am not a computer idiot, per se, but I alos don't really know what half of what you said (in the rest of the post) means. I get the context tho'.

I have been curious if W7 will resolve these issues. If it does, then IMO it'd be worth the money just to not have to troubleshoot my machine constantly. The only fail I see in the hardware for this machine is the crap on-board video but, I don't game and it's still a low grade 3d video section. The most graphically intensive thing I do with this machine is edit still photo's in RAW format. Beyond that, it's a typewriter.

I'd like to see Windows make better use of the 8GB of RAM I have but, have come to realize I have more than is necessary for what I do with it.

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Do you know what the video chip is? Is it an intel or ati/nVidia? If you're comfortable backing up your data and installing a new OS, give the Win 7 RC a try. It's free form MS, will operate until March 2010. You will need to update to the full version, and that will probably take a clean install (my suggestion, anyway).

For that matter, did you get the Vista install disk with your computer? The problem with pre-loaded machines, is that the OEMs tend to include a ton of craptastic softeware that you just don't need, but they set it to startup automatically so you see it. Another option is to do a clean install of Vista on your computer and see if that helps.

I build my own PC's, so I always do a clean install, and if I buy a laptop, I blow away the pre-installed OS and perform a clean install. I tend to avoid problems that way.

PhreePhly

SmugMug said:

Word of advice:
NEVER buy an OS until the first (technically 2nd) SP has been released. You're going to inherit a buttload of security holes. They can't catch them all until it's out there being used by the masses for different purposes.

Click to expand...

That's usually true for an enterprise setting, where you need to update tens of thousands of PCs, but for home, all of the major OSes have pretty decent update systems. OSX, Windows and most Linux distributions have all caught on to that.

PhreePhly

Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are exactly the same. The kernel is byte for byte the same.

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Vista SP2 and current builds of Windows Server 2008 R2 have different kernal series though. Windows 7 and upcoming Windows Server 2008 are both NT 6.1 while Vista is 6.0. Next version of Windows 2008 will be Windows 7 as 64 bit only build - same code base, while Vista's code base is dead - its a maintenance only minor version.

phreephly said:

Do you know what the video chip is? Is it an intel or ati/nVidia? If you're comfortable backing up your data and installing a new OS, give the Win 7 RC a try. It's free form MS, will operate until March 2010. You will need to update to the full version, and that will probably take a clean install (my suggestion, anyway).

For that matter, did you get the Vista install disk with your computer? The problem with pre-loaded machines, is that the OEMs tend to include a ton of craptastic softeware that you just don't need, but they set it to startup automatically so you see it. Another option is to do a clean install of Vista on your computer and see if that helps.

I build my own PC's, so I always do a clean install, and if I buy a laptop, I blow away the pre-installed OS and perform a clean install. I tend to avoid problems that way.

PhreePhly

Click to expand...

It's an nVidia chipset. The OS was pre-loaded as was all the crap. It did not come with an instal disk but I did burn a Install/Recovery disk. I expect it's the same thing eh? I've also kept the recovery partition on the hard drive for this too.

I did strip out all the stuff I don't use and would never use (LightScribe, Money, etc....) and ran registry cleaner and a defragger. Startup programs are minimal. I don't even let Adobe load the quicklaunch. Running processes are questionable. I di search many of them only to find the y were system processes. I have yet to disbale any of them due to ignorance about what they are for.

I did manage to delete the startup registry entry for Windows Defender and that sucks! Because I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it back. I was viewing the startup entires and hit the wrong button ( I meant to disable not delete) and mindlessly confirmed my action. Never could find an "Undo" for that. :cross: I have added the launch icon shortcut to the startup section but it doesn't launch right and I still get the "...defender is turned off" warning everytime. I have tried to download Defender but it always tells me it's there and part of Windows. Well Duh! Yet, the recovery disc doesn;t show Defender as an application it'll re-install.

I have seen step on doing a Vista upgrade install to attempt to fix the OS but haven't been ballsy enough to bite the bullet. The recovery utility warns that all programs will have to be reloaded. I don't have many programs to re-install but, Uggg. I do back up my files regularly but, haven't made backups of programs with there most recent updates. Most of the photo editing software I use doesn;t have auto updates and I have to DL and install teh available updates sequentially to get the features to jive with each other (friggin Canon software). But, I adore the software functionality. I does everything I need an nothing I don't need.

I have also stripped all add-ons to IE8 out with the exception of a Norton 360 toolbar that controls my password vault and checks for site safety/blocking.

I guess I am just going to have to bite down and try the Upgrade install to see if it will just repair Vista and leave everything else intact (that is the promise).

There are some applications showing in the Control Panel / Programs window that I don't know what they are but, they are associated with Vista (server?), IE8 (Silverlight), or Office 2007 so I let them be since I don;t know what I'd be killing. Everything else is stripped out.

Also, I don't even have user accounts. Not even as a Guest. I know Vista doesn't recommend this but.....

Mutilated1 said:

Vista SP2 and current builds of Windows Server 2008 R2 have different kernal series though. Windows 7 and upcoming Windows Server 2008 are both NT 6.1 while Vista is 6.0. Next version of Windows 2008 will be Windows 7 as 64 bit only build - same code base, while Vista's code base is dead - its a maintenance only minor version.

Click to expand...

Yes, but Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 are totally different operating systems. Server 2008 R2 is Windows 7, just like Server 2008 was Vista. Server 2008 cooked longer than Vista, so it came out with Vista SP1 and they unified it there.

This is different from Server 2003 and Server 2003 R2, which just added services. Ironically, this has to do with the market. Vista was much maligned and MS had to move away big time, so they introduced Windows 7, however, Server 2008 was highly regarded, so instead of coming up with Server 2009 or 2010, MS creates Server 2008 R2.

Had Windows been accepted as Server 2008 was, I'm sure that Windows 7 would have been marketed as Vista R2.

I look at this way, Windows 2000 was kernel 5.0 and Windows XP was kernel 5.1, just like Vista is kernel 6.0 and Win 7 is 6.1, minor steps, but steps nonetheless.

PhreePhly

SmugMug said:

Have an office mate that's a beta tester for MS products (not sure how he weaseled into that gig)

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Most everyone can beta test for microsoft these days,

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/download.aspx

GilaMinumBeer said:

It's an nVidia chipset. The OS was pre-loaded as was all the crap. It did not come with an instal disk but I did burn a Install/Recovery disk. I expect it's the same thing eh? I've also kept the recovery partition on the hard drive for this too.

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Unfortunately, the recovery disks are often images of the initial pre-install, so if you "recover" you just end up with the original pre-install and all of the crap along with it.

The embedded nVidias arent that bad a GPU, I think they are 8600 or 9600 class, so the Win 7 RC should run that just fine. How much RAM do you have?

GilaMinumBeer said:

I did strip out all the stuff I don't use and would never use (LightScribe, Money, etc....) and ran registry cleaner and a defragger. Startup programs are minimal. I don't even let Adobe load the quicklaunch. Running processes are questionable. I di search many of them only to find the y were system processes. I have yet to disbale any of them due to ignorance about what they are for.

I did manage to delete the startup registry entry for Windows Defender and that sucks! Because I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it back. I was viewing the startup entires and hit the wrong button ( I meant to disable not delete) and mindlessly confirmed my action. Never could find an "Undo" for that. :cross: I have added the launch icon shortcut to the startup section but it doesn't launch right and I still get the "...defender is turned off" warning everytime. I have tried to download Defender but it always tells me it's there and part of Windows. Well Duh! Yet, the recovery disc doesn;t show Defender as an application it'll re-install.

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It sounds like you've done a pretty good job of removing crap. I'm not a fan of registry cleaners, but it looks like your still running. I read lower down that you are running Norton 360? If that is the case, I think it disables Defender, anyway. You can google "reinstall defender in Vista" and get some pretty good options. All of these require you to edit the registry, so you need to be careful.

GilaMinumBeer said:

I have seen step on doing a Vista upgrade install to attempt to fix the OS but haven't been ballsy enough to bite the bullet. The recovery utility warns that all programs will have to be reloaded. I don't have many programs to re-install but, Uggg. I do back up my files regularly but, haven't made backups of programs with there most recent updates. Most of the photo editing software I use doesn;t have auto updates and I have to DL and install teh available updates sequentially to get the features to jive with each other (friggin Canon software). But, I adore the software functionality. I does everything I need an nothing I don't need.

I have also stripped all add-ons to IE8 out with the exception of a Norton 360 toolbar that controls my password vault and checks for site safety/blocking.

I guess I am just going to have to bite down and try the Upgrade install to see if it will just repair Vista and leave everything else intact (that is the promise).

There are some applications showing in the Control Panel / Programs window that I don't know what they are but, they are associated with Vista (server?), IE8 (Silverlight), or Office 2007 so I let them be since I don;t know what I'd be killing. Everything else is stripped out.

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The add/remove programs panel is probably the best way to remove software from your system. Silverlight is MS's answer to Adobe Flash. I'd keep it. Office 2007 probably came with your system, and includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint at a minimum. If you use these programs you don't want to remove Office. Did you get an Office install disk with the computer?

If you want to try the Windows 7 route, you can perform an upgrade from your current Vista. When you perform the upgrade install, the installation will go through your registry, maintain the settings it needs for programs and transfer those to the Win 7 install. I've tested the process on a few Vista machines and haven't lost anything. A couple of points, you must upgrade to a like bitness. That means if you are running Vista 32-bit (also called x86), then you need to upgrade top the Win 7 x86 version. If you are running 64-bit Vista (x64) you need to upgrade to Win 7 x64. You are most likely running Vista x86.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Also, I don't even have user accounts. Not even as a Guest. I know Vista doesn't recommend this but.....

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Well, you have one account, the one you automatically log in to. It is setup default as part of the administrator group, but if you want to make system changes, you still get a UAC prompt. You are actually running it fine. Guest should be disabled. Ideally you shoul run as uer, and have a separate administrator account. The difference will be that whenever you get the UAC prompt, you will need to enter the administartor account password. The key is to be smart, and don't blindly click through the UAC prompts. Read what the prompt says.

PhreePhly

phreephly said:

The embedded nVidias arent that bad a GPU, I think they are 8600 or 9600 class, so the Win 7 RC should run that just fine. How much RAM do you have? PhreePhly

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8GB unless you are talking about the video memory and then, I dunno.

phreephly said:

It sounds like you've done a pretty good job of removing crap. I'm not a fan of registry cleaners, but it looks like your still running. I read lower down that you are running Norton 360? If that is the case, I think it disables Defender, anyway. You can google "reinstall defender in Vista" and get some pretty good options. All of these require you to edit the registry, so you need to be careful.

Click to expand...

N360 did not disable Defender. I have searched all manner of term for repairing my Defender registry. Except this, doh. I'll give it a try.

phreephly said:

Office 2007 probably came with your system, and includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint at a minimum. If you use these programs you don't want to remove Office. Did you get an Office install disk with the computer?

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I actually bought this one as the box only came with Works which I don't care for. It isn't bad but Office is Universal, so to speak.

phreephly said:

You are most likely running Vista x86.

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Nope. Home Permium 64 bit. But, I do use the x86 (32bit) Versions of IE8 and Photo Gallery.

phreephly said:

Well, you have one account, the one you automatically log in to. It is setup default as part of the administrator group, but if you want to make system changes, you still get a UAC prompt. You are actually running it fine. Guest should be disabled. Ideally you shoul run as uer, and have a separate administrator account. The difference will be that whenever you get the UAC prompt, you will need to enter the administartor account password. The key is to be smart, and don't blindly click through the UAC prompts. Read what the prompt says.

PhreePhly

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Yeah. The UAC got turned off the first day. "Yes MS Vista, I AM certain I want to run THAT program". That got old FAST. The Version of Vista I have doesn't give an options to the UAC except to have it On, or Off. I've read that to be able to tweak the UAC with Administrator rights I'd have to upgrade to Business or Ultimate. No thank you.

Yeah. I try not to click with a blind eye. Have you ever read "The Humane Interface". Love that book! Anyway, I agree with the Author that UAC prompts are too prevalent and should be minimized to really important confirmations rather than wanting you to confirm everything.

I half expect W7 to prompt "Are you sure you wanted to shake this window". (Tee Hee)