On May 5th, general users will have access to an entire year of Microsoft's brand new operating system, Windows 7 RC, for free! It is already available to download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. This version is only the Release Candidate and will expire June 1, 2010. The Release Candidate is merely the near finished product and is basically the final stage in testing. It's supposed to have all the features of the final version. We don't know when the final version will be released but rumors say it'll be either late 2009 or early 2010.
A beta version of Windows 7 was released some time ago, and from using it for a short time, I can gather that it was much faster and more friendly than Windows Vista. Indeed for those of you who hated Vista, Windows 7 is Vista done right. Windows 7 boasts a lot of new features including a new taskbar, libraries, jump lists, etc. Windows 7 will also come packaged with the newest Internet Explorer (IE8).
The biggest improvement with Windows 7 is the performance. It will no longer take 5-10 minutes to boot up your machine. Windows 7 now has a much faster startup time, beating out both Vista and XP. We will also see a new feature called Windows XP mode which lets you run native XP programs on your machine.
People are saying good things about this Windows. Microsoft hopes it will make up for all the bad things about its previous version. I've heard news about IT developers leap-frogging Vista and going straight to 7 in their companies. Personally I didn't mind Vista all that much (except when it first came out). Vista now is much more supported than it was when it was released. Once you figure out how to use it, its not that bad (of course, that's fail on Microsoft for making me waste a lot of time learning it in the first place). Either way I'm excited to make the change to Windows 7 and will definitely be there to help crash Microsoft's website on May 5th (did anyone try to download the beta? the site went down for several hours).


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windows 7
uyf66f6fvyughu8
wow
It looks good but still waiting for the actual full release to see how it ends up, the finished product could be much more different from the most recent RC
But how does it compare to
But how does it compare to OSX?
Windows 7 is more responsive
Windows 7 is more responsive and snappier than osx could ever hope for. default boot up time is comparable, if not faster than osx. The new compare feature is pretty nifty and doesn't really have a counterpart in osx.
Not to mention the fact that the platform is open, so you can build a computer with the hardware that you want, rather than the trendy on the out side, shit on the inside canned mac hardware!
Easy does it.
I can't vouch for "shit on the inside" being that controlled hardware/software development eliminates many of the problems Windows ME, 98, and Vista have faced. And when I can instantaneously find any file on my Windows machine and never drill into file folders when saving or opening then I'll take another look at what Windows has to offer....
huh
what kind of vague ass statement is that? what does problems with win ME have to do with win7? problems with vista? i never had any... on a cheap machine with 1GB. shit on the inside... like overpriced pre configured memory. overpriced, HDDs that are the same as what one can get anywhere else... you say they are the same as a PC. oh wait you're right. They ARE personal computers and they DO use the same components and cost twice as much.
Win7 beta is snappy. i'm looking forward to the 5th when i can download the RC... i'll be running it on my macbook (my school forces me to have it). (the hard drive, optical drive, and battery have gone out on me).
you want to pick a fight? pick a fight with something reasonable. dont be like that stupid mac commercial (the one where pc goes to the future) and asks if PCs are still plagued with problems and say that with a PC one has to always do windows updates and anti-virus updates. like i said before: vague and unsupported claims are bullshit. My school equipped macbook does [security] updates all the time... updates that require restarts... just as much as any computer i've ever owned. it also came loaded with symantec anti virus (which apple actually recommends their customers use) which i quickly removed... just like i didn't run any AV on my vista or XP machine... because. i'm. not. retarded... on the internet.
they are great computers... overpriced. yes. but fuck your couch if you're going to make some shitty kind of argument. you spend the same price on building a computer and you can easily have a case that hides the wires/cables like apple does. it is just as easy to access the memory in practically all notebooks. it was a bitch to replace the hard drives in the old macbook pros. also apple does not take into account the hardware they stuff into their stuff as they have been having problem with the thermals (mostly gpus)... and that last round where they picked nvdia when they were shipping out known bad boards. that firmware fix for fan control they put out came just in time, after it screwed up my girlfriends black macbook. thing sounds like a jet after the update and they wouldnt cover its goofy as behavior under warranty. super slow loading apps... crashing safari like crazy (even after fresh install of OSX). thats some bullshit
one of the few things they are doing right is adopting the milled out bodies on their notebooks. its about time a manufacturer did that... although i'm not sure its apple... i havenet looked into it. but i know its foxconn that does most of their stuff.
and i know this wasnt mentioned but i hear it all the time. is any bullshit that MS copies OSX design. this goes all the way back the GUI and the mouse. how can one get mad? say something ridiculous like "i stole it first" (pirates of silicon valley anyone?) apple steals ideas from 3rd party makers all the time. konfabulator is a very notable one. and its not like there are third party companies putting out stuff like object dock. its called competition. and apple does it too.
Woah, that was the biggest
Woah, that was the biggest over-response I've seen in a while. You accuse the parent of picking a fight, but I found his post to be quite fair. He simply made the point that canned hardware reduces the complexities of supporting it in the os, and because of that Apple doesn't have to deal with the same kinds of issues as Microsoft. That's a very accurate and balanced statement. The author then said that he likes the file browsing features of OSX, which is a reasonable opinion.
Then you went and flamed him, and ranted like a 2 year old. Great job.
Well said. What a rant.
Well said. What a rant.
controlled hardware
The controlled hardware in those Mac boxes you love is what's going to be their big downfall. It's much easier to make a virus or some kind of exploit on computers that use the same or similar hardware, and it's to my belief that because Apple is so very shy about new hardware, they will be destroyed by some silly little virus/bug. Just my 2 cents.
Shitty on the inside?
I guess you haven't seen then inside of a Mac Pro before, otherwise you wouldn't make such a misinformed statement. Take a look here http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/14/apple-nehalem-based-mac-pro-unboxing-... and notice how there are no wires and how easy it is to access the drives and memory. You call this shitty? I find it funny that you juxtapose trendy and shitty in the same sentence as if one necessarily leads to the other. Are you implying that you can only have good quality if its not trendy? How silly. I don't blame you though, those arrogant Mac ads go a long way to making people hate Mac.
The bottom line is that Macs can be built with memory, hard drives, graphics cards and cpus that can be found on PCs. The components used in Apple computers all come from the same manufacturers (Intel, AMD, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba etc.) as PCs which are all made in China. The only choice you don't have is the motherboard, which for the most part is a non-issue, unless you are interested in over clocking. Macs these days are essentially PCs except they run Mac OS X.
your entire point is
your entire point is terribly, terribly one sided. And wrong.
But you still need to
But you still need to download drivers individually. That's so 1995.
Troll
You just lost the game.
You are a retard
How does OSX compare to Linux? Eat shit and die, fag.
OS X is linux based.
OS X is linux based.
Uh...no it's not. Mac OSX is
Uh...no it's not. Mac OSX is a hybrid of NextStep and the Mach Kernel. As such it shares most in common with the BSD's.
I think the reason people (ignorantly) compare it with Linux is because it was designed with similar UNIX philosophies, and is POSIX compliant (which is why it can run GNU tools and programs written originally for Linux). It is NOT directly related to Linux though.
OSX
Fucking stupid troll. (I'm also a Mac user, btw.)
I want Windows Vista
I want Windows Vista
I am friend microsoft
I am friend microsoft
pleaz
pleaz
I am test from error and for
I am test from error and for the better ever
WTF! You don't mention any
WTF! You don't mention any giveaways in the article!
Except if u mean that the RC will be working till May 2010!!
The article says that is will
The article says that is will be active until June 1, 2010
article should properly be titled
Microsoft to let users download Windows 7 Release Candidate.
come on - you're better than this...
Plenty of Windows 7 is
Plenty of Windows 7 is looking and working great. Especially some of the nice improvements to Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, it's still just a clunky MS OS. There's aspects of it to lure people in, but it's just not enough. It's just more of the same old bullshit we've all been dealing with for far too long. Microsoft is not even capable of anything top notch enough to be a Windows revolution in any respect. It's a dead end. Don't waste your time. Use what is best, but please take your time to do some real testing.
Mac OS X is currently the best option out there for anyone trying to get work done. It's VERY far from being perfect, along with Apple (with can be very shitty as a company in their own regard). For anyone wanting to "move on" from the current crop of backwards operating systems, learn the best of OS X... you won't be disappointed. You don't even need to run it on Apple hardware these days (check out the osx86 scene which has made huge leaps.)
Linux(Ubuntu mostly) would also be a big contender, if it has some of the big industry apps (like Adobe CS).
I do a lot of very serious work on a LOT of computers every day (think 3d rendering, photoshopt etc). I've been very involved with technology since a young age.
At the very least, please at least question if Microsoft is best for you or your business. Their time has already been, and passed. Lets move on for the best of everyone. They're a dysfunctional "design by committee company".
Cheers
Anonymous (who has spent at least a bit of time working or contracted by Microsoft)
Misinformed.
While I will agree that OSX and *nix are fantastic, apparently you haven't worked with Win7 much. DWM and service host process resource usage have been approximately slashed in half, even on beta 7000 (x86), and overall RAM strain has been reduced with multiple programs on due to the changes in how DWM keeps minimized windows cached. The only thing that's slightly taxing as far as system resources go would be XP Mode. Don't be too quick to haze Win7 just because it looks and acts like Vista. So far, it runs like a dream.
One Opinion
At the moment my average run time before crashing on OSX is about 2 hours. The last two times I tried using an OSX system, One program locked up about an hour into using it. The other time the program just quit. No warning, no error message, nothing. OSX just decided I no longer needed to use that application so it should die.
I get so sick of people praising this operating system. It is the least secure desktop operating system on the market, it is just as reliable as Microsoft's latest Operating Systems, and the fancy desktop graphics are greatly overrated.
OS X crashing = bad memory
Sounds like you have a classic case of bad memory. Even more likely if you upgraded the memory yourself.
Hmm... should be a 'self fix'
You see, one more reason why Windows is better than OSX is this aspect. Changing your RAM on a Mac apparently makes it more likely to cause crashes. Why should this be? I upgrade my hardware whenever I want, however I want. When a new chip comes out that I want, I can go ahead and swap to it just like that. If I want to upgrade to a higher speed RAM, I can do that too with my Windows machine. On OSX, it makes it more likely to cause memory crashing? That is utter trash and 1 more reason why Windows is a more solid platform.
You are simply inexperienced
RAM is one of the leading causes for system instability across ANY platform. There is not a Mac available on the market that hinders the owner from replacing the memory. I have changed/upgraded the RAM on my Mac Pro (~$300 for 16 GB.. show me a Windows desktop that accommodates that!), my iMac, and my MacBook Pro.
I understand from the content of your post that you are simply enraged and are swinging back, but you are a novice.
I utilize Intel and AMD based servers running BSD and RedHat Linux, and Apple products for workstations. Once I took the time to convert from Windows to Mac (about 2 weeks), I have never looked back. When I use a Windows-based machine now, I find myself constantly asking "Why? For the love of God, Why is this so unstable? Why are things protected that should not be? Why, why, WHY would Anyone put up with this??"
I guess I just value my time more than others, as is the case with most Mac users.
Hmmm...Windows unstable?
Hmmm...Windows unstable? That hasn't been my experience, at least since the days of Win 9x, etc. Certain apps can be unstable, but my experience is that this is a problem that plagues all operating systems equally. Actually, let me take that back. Once in a while, a Mac app will crash and freeze the whole system. At least on a Windows box the OS isn't affected.
Take reality vs. what you see on the Apple commericals and hear from the fanboys (see above), and really both Windows and Macintosh are about the same. Each has its pros and cons.
"At least on a Windows box
"At least on a Windows box the OS isn't affected."
Woah, what fantasy land are you living? I administrate an office 250 computers and I can assure you that application crashes can take down Windows just as easily as Mac, if not more so.
Nope. I'm in a mid-sized
Nope. I'm in a mid-sized environment, about 60/40 PCs/Macs. OSX crashes with the apps way more than Windows. In either case it is the exception rather than the rule, but Macs are more notorious for it.
"Notorious?" I'm work IT for
"Notorious?" I'm work IT for one of the U's colleges and the Macs we have crash more often due to hardware failure than anything else. I'd say that Win and OSX are fairly comparable as far as full system crashes go - they're both pretty reliable at this point.
Just to add some anecdotal
Just to add some anecdotal evidence: As an owner and frequent user of both a mac and an XP box, I can say that the my mac never gets COMPLETELY hung, although it can allow programs to bog everything down until you manage to quit the offending application and get the memory back to your other apps. In Windows, the only full-system hangs I've ever had are when a particularly controlling full-screen game hangs.
So, they're both generally good about that, but in my experience XP is slightly worse.
i agree
I agree with you completely. I get so sick of ignorant windows users trying desperately to justify being cheap! You get what you pay for, period. I have used many machines running just about every OS imaginable and I have never used one better than Mac/OSX. It is just more polished, more stable and more usable. I have not had a single lockup or problem in years. I still use windows machines from time-to-time and linux servers constantly. I always second-guess myself and try new things, but I have not found anything that I would use over OS X. What gets me the most, is it seems the people who complain the loudest know the least about what they talk about. I hear bogus claims of hardware being 2x as expensive all the time, but once you challenge somebody to show real proof they cant! Do the work and make a fair comparison between a mac and quality pc machine (nothing hacked together yourself, because say what you like, the average person can NOT build a computer as well as DELL or HP or any of the companies that can afford to research hardware compatibility), and you will find that there is usually very little difference in price. So, what it all boils down to is the platform, not the hardware, and the Mac OS platform kills Windows (so far). We will see what happens in the future, windows 7 seems like a step in the right direction. But, for now, OS X cant be beat for the desktop.
Sorry for you
Why are you using Apple products for workstations anyway. You could have gone for a PC with Linux.
They're simpler to maintain,
They're simpler to maintain, on average more reliable overall due to near-eliminated hardware issues, and they support apps like PS and other frequently-needed media applications that Linux does not.
So you have highlighted one
So you have highlighted one reason why a "PC" is better than a MAC. It's pretty much bullshit and says nothing about the windows operating system itself. OSX is the best OS I have ever used, I dropped windows after XP cause my roomate was using Vista and quickly went bald. I have not had a problem with crashing, and my hardware is good enough for me, no need to upgrade. When the time comes, I'll get another MAC, and pay for the beauty of OSX rather than cheap out and de-evolve back to windows.
You're either running it on
You're either running it on insufficient or broken hardware. I've had three Macs since 2000 and I've only had about 15 system crashes TOTAL in that time.
The possessive form of the
The possessive form of the pronoun "it" is "its," not "it's."
Microsoft hopes it will make up for all the bad things about its previous version.
Enough is enough !
What we saw when Xp came out was a complete transform from the old age of Win 98 (read : GUI Patched DOS) We were all out for it. And now, after 5 years - what Redmond came out with - Vista - an utter dissapointment and something which doesn't even deserve to be used more than an hour, and now what they are coming up with - a uber hyped Windows 7 is just a patch work over Vista just to triim it down - Hey redmond what do you think ? That you could pass it on under the sheets as a new OS ? That by giving it for free - you are gona get us into your traps ? We know you are a biggie and that you have big boys as your partners but you can;t sell shit for long.
Look at Apple for a second, agree their products are costly (I can't afford!!) but hey people are convinced to spend that extra buck, and they are happy too ! What have you got ? Whenever I think of buying a laptop - I am torn apart - Can't afford a Mac and a PC is gonna come with old shitty Vista and now what Windows 7 !!!
Go get a life, and some new people. Your time is over.
Is this even english?
Have you read your comment? What you said makes about as much sense as a Jew spreading Anti-semitism. Apple has a great OS, and XP was excellent, but XP was also their second attempt at a restructure of windows. Remember ME? Terrible.
I expect companies to try and fail and learn and IT IS APPARENT that Microsoft is doing that. They are going about it in an overly aggressive manner, I agree with that, but by also giving the release candidate for free for a year isn't a bad way of saying "Sorry, our mistake, lets start getting this moving in the right direction". Sure, its a product that they released due to dead lines and profit margin needs, but this time they have had the time to go thru and remove the problems and the dislikes. They did a decently timed beta test on the software this time, and they are still diliberating the Release Candidate which means they are trying to iron out as many bugs as possible.
If Microsoft decided to do what apple did with OSX (buy a unix kernel and build a gui off of it) sure, that'd make news and if it was really good and really stable and had really now system requirements that be great. I'd be impressed by that, but the fact that they are handing it out for free right now is a great move on their behalf, and the fact that its a RC and it gives them the chance to read thru blogs for complaints about whats terrible about it and whats great about it, what to fix and what to remove completely, will give them a strong advantage with the Vista Redux.
Need a free copy myself
About time too! I have so far re-installed Vista 5 times. I wish I could get one free.
ALL os/software is free if
ALL os/software is free if your not a noobtard.
I think you have it backwards.
Only a noobtard would make such a comment. To suggest that being honest is to be a noobtard is one of the dumbest things I have heard so far, but I am not suprised. I suppose you think antivirus software is a waste as well?
Only childish people waste their time pirating.
So, you pay for things you
So, you pay for things you could get for free? Doesn't sound so smart to me, considering how unlikely it is for someone to get caught pirating software.
Yeah--god forbid you actually
Yeah--god forbid you actually support the company whose software you use!
^ lulz
^ lulz
Or you could give up on Mac
Or you could give up on Mac and Microsoft and just switch to linux and be done with it. Just a quik move to the add/remove programs tab, download Wine and you can have any windows program running without the hassle of that overblown OS. Either way instaed of complaining try hoping in the MS forums and help them make it better. You people just like to complain and criticiser everything, try contributing for a change and pls stfu mac ppl, were all sick of it, grow up and stop acting like OSX is the most amazing thing ever. nuthin but linux witha mod gui bunch o retards.