windows

Lucky number 7

So it’s that time again, the new Windows 7 public preview as been made available. I’ve been following it’s progressed by installing the leaked betas on aVM to test them out but that’s always slow and doesn’t make you take your feet of familiar ground (my tuned XP desktop) to really get to know the OS, so i felt it was time to jump in on the public beta and try and use it as a main OS for a month.

One thing I think needs to be clear, Windows 7 is Windows Vista plus polish, Vista had a difficult birth, suffering from numerous issues and that showed in the final product, vista was released as a ghost of what was “promised” and riddled with performance issues and driver issues from the get go, at it’s core it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t what I and allot of people were expecting, as such I gave it a pass and stayed with XP. But stay in the “past” forever isn’t usualy a good idea so I had to see if Windows 7 was ready for me.

First hurdle was the install, Windows 7 comes on a DVD, not having any kind of optical drive in my computer for a few years now (with a fast Internet connection and a big enough hdd it becomes pointless) I had to figure out how to install it without one, odds would have it Microsoft as made it very easy to make a Windows 7 install USB pen/HDD. So following some instructions I proceeded to install it without no issues on a side partition I save for alternative OS’s, score one for Windows 7.

But eventually it came time to setup my screen cloning and that’s were things went bad for Windows 7, or maybe should I say nvidia. It seems that the nvidia drivers available no longer support cloning with screen spanning, as such I’m unable to have cloning and native resolution on my main screen since it limits it to the maximum resolution both monitors can support. I tried installing Vista drivers, using UltraMon but Vista drivers didn’t have a working control panel and UltraMon didn’t even manage to start, so as far as trying out Windows 7 Beta that was it for me, just not willing to give up the convenience of my screen clone setup for Windows 7, hopefully drivers will get better as Windows 7 aproaches final and I’ll try it again.

From the few minutes I used it some I liked, the aditions to windows managing and the show desktop corner button seem great ideas even if it seems it will take some getting used to, the new taskbar however asn’t fully convinced me yeat but without everyday use I can’t really say for sure, some of my friends with simpler setups are trying it out as well so at least I’ll get to know all the kinks of it anyways for round 2…

Update: Got UltraMon to work by folowing some instructions in the forums, although mirrowing worked it proved very cpu intencive (40% cpu usage) and as such unviable.

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64 Bit is coming

Oh yes it is and I’d be jumping right in at lest I would if I could…

After a quick analysis of my hardware I’ve found it all to be compatible, NVIDIA has drivers for it’s Graphic cards and NForce Chipsets, Creative also as some beta drivers available but the TV card is not.

Not just that but DScaler, the application I use for my TV needs also uses built in drivers so it wont work as well.

I’ve sent an email Prolinks way to see what’s their position on 64bits but jugging by what other (better know) brands are doing I believe they’ll most likely ignore the subject.

So that’s my situation, I can move on to Windows 64 but I’d loose my TV and my 2 buttons on my gamepad (but that’s something I can live with).

With software, Daemon Tools would be the most important since it uses drivers but a beta version for 64bits is already being tested, also 7-Zip the most resource hungry application I use is planed to have a 64bit build in April after the Windows 64 release everything else should be compatible except win16 apps which I don’t use, but some installer still use win16 code so I’ll have to try and see. Almost forgot that there’s some other stuff that isn’t supported, but I’m not to worried about it.

In conclusion when Windows 64 comes out I’ll probably dual boot into it until the TV card situation is solved, in the end it’s better then nothing now if only there was a 64bit steam :p

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I HATE Windows, I HATE Linux

But I LOVE BeOS, and for one simple and (kind of funny) reason, the fact that I never used BeOS for more then an hour, that’s right you read it right. Am I insane you ask?

No, and I’ll explain why, the more I use a system the more things I find that gets me pissed, be it bugs, design flaws or just things you like done differently.

And that’s my reality, I’ve used windows (XP currently) for 5 years, and Linux for a couple of days, with windows I found things of all kinds to hate him, with Linux I just dislike the way it’s done (but I do like the concept, so Linux groupies calm down, ok ;)) but I never used BeOS (well more then 1 hour), I never seen it’s ugly side, only the wonderful qualities so like if it was a girl I’m still in love.

Maybe one day windows will be better, maybe one day I’ve come to see that Linux way is better, maybe one day I’ll actually use BeOS and find it’s not that good, who know?

Till then I’ll be using windows and bitching about it, life is cruel don’t you think…

PS: The spellchecker is K.O. so good luck trying to understand me.

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