Windows 7

[Kazrog]

I'm very seriously considering switching to Windows 7 if Apple doesn't open up OS X to third party hardware - and I've been a die-hard Mac user for about a decade. I've always payed attention to Windows and I am very familiar with the platform due to the various corporate/developer/IT jobs I've had, but pretty much hated it until today. This is the most impressive beta OS I've tested, the performance is astoundingly great, even if configuring my FP10 was slightly glitchy (but it is a beta and I assume PreSonus will update their driver soon.)

 

[Ermz]

That's very heartening to hear. Is it worth switching over to as a functional OS even in its beta form? Could we expect Vista drivers to generally work for it?

 

[devouredremains]

I'm very seriously considering switching to Windows 7 if Apple doesn't open up OS X to third party hardware - and I've been a die-hard Mac user for about a decade. I've always payed attention to Windows and I am very familiar with the platform due to the various corporate/developer/IT jobs I've had, but pretty much hated it until today. This is the most impressive beta OS I've tested, the performance is astoundingly great, even if configuring my FP10 was slightly glitchy (but it is a beta and I assume PreSonus will update their driver soon.)

The only problem I had was with my fp10 as well! A user on the presonus forum had found that using the 1394 legacy drivers corrected the issue. My other audio interfaces worked fine from the start.

Here's the link to the driver fix I mentioned in case you hadn't seen it yet:

http://forums.presonus.com/showpost.php?p=36790&postcount=6

@Ermin:

It's definitely tempting to make the switch already! Something tells me I shouldn't but everything is running so well that it makes you think about it. I would at least download the beta iso and get a key from Microsoft because I heard the beta is limited.

 

[Razzee]

Installing Windows 7 right now... the installer is by far the best I've seen from Microsoft, with a very nice partitioning utility. Impressed so far. They are catching up with Apple, slowly, but surely. I beta tested Vista at my old company and it was horrible. Conversely, Windows 7 is the most excited I've been about an OS since the Mac OS X public beta. That's saying a lot!

I wonder what Snow Leopard is going to offer in terms of speed improvements, and how Cubase will run in Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard. Should be interesting to see what happens.

it's the same installer that vista had or am I missing something?

So far I'd say it's faster than Mac OS X 10.5 on my hardware, eats up about the same RAM footprint while idle, and has been 100% stable. WTF happened to the sucky Microsoft of every year previous to 2009?

and it will even be faster in the final. there are some extra tasks running on ms betas to help error reports.

That's very heartening to hear. Is it worth switching over to as a functional OS even in its beta form? Could we expect Vista drivers to generally work for it?

yes, afaik you can load all vista drivers (there may be exceptions)
my installation recognised everything but the smbus on the first boot. Impressing for a windows.

[...]
@Ermin:

It's definitely tempting to make the switch already! Something tells me I shouldn't but everything is running so well that it makes you think about it. I would at least download the beta iso and get a key from Microsoft because I heard the beta is limited.

you can run it untill august if I remember correct

 

[devouredremains]

you can run it untill august if I remember correct

I was talking about a limited amount of activation keys not the length of time that the beta will be running for.

 

[Kazrog]

@devouredremains - I found that thread on the PreSonus forum, which is how I got it working on my system as well (legacy driver.) Only thing that bugs me is that in the Sound Control Panel I see like 5 instances of the FP10, but only one of them actually works. Again, it's beta so I am very tolerant of this and glad it works at all. It also doesn't seem to be happy running as a system sound card at any sample rate other than 48k.

@Razzee - I seem to remember the Vista installer still having some DOS garbage go on before the GUI, this installer only has a brief (tastefully done) text mode progress meter before the GUI loads - impressively fast even off a boot DVD. The install went very quickly and smoothly, I'd say even faster than installing Mac OS X 10.5.

MS is really giving Apple a run for the money with this release. It will be suicide if Apple doesn't start trying to get Dell, HP, etc. to start shipping machines with Mac OS X, if this beta is any indication of the future greatness of the Windows platform.

 

[Ermz]

How's the whole anti-virus/spyware thing on the beta? Have they started building in that functionality or do you think Windows 7 will still need to be augmented by a ton of 3rd party apps?

 

[Razzee]

I was talking about a limited amount of activation keys not the length of time that the beta will be running for.

there are public keys.
it's not the time the beta will run, its the time the os will run, I think it will lock it self after that.

How's the whole anti-virus/spyware thing on the beta? Have they started building in that functionality or do you think Windows 7 will still need to be augmented by a ton of 3rd party apps?

you need a active virus scan for sure.
can't say about spybot.
I don't need more that this on XP (except some progs to keep my programms up to date to get security problems from there fixed) atm.
And Windows Defender is already doing a good job on vista and xp, so it should also with 7.

 

[devouredremains]

there are public keys.
it's not the time the beta will run, its the time the os will run, I think it will lock it self after that.

The issuing of beta keys ends Jan 24th.

"January 12, 2009 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. on Saturday ditched the download limit on Windows 7 beta, saying that users will be able to grab the preview through Jan. 24 -- even if the total exceeds the 2.5 million cap it had set earlier."

 

[ahjteam]

Useless for me. I don't host websites, and don't like id software games. I couldn't play Far Cry, Fallout, Mass Effect

Buy a game console if you want to play games, theres 3 major ones on the market, pick your poison.

, etc. couldn't run Cubase, couldn't use Wavelab, etc.

You can run Cubase on a Mac

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/musicproduction/cubase4_product/cubase4_system.html

Minimum System Requirements

# Mac OS X version 10.4 or 10.5
# Power Mac G4 1 GHz or Core Solo 1.5 GHz
# 512 MB RAM

 

[The Unavoidable]

Buy a game console if you want to play games, theres 3 major ones on the market, pick your poison.

That's not really right, since alot of games don't really translate at all to consoles (Most FPS games for example).

 

[JBroll]

Yeah, and you're not getting a whole lot for your money... fuck consoles.

Jeff

 

[John_C]

+1

 

[-Gavin-]

How's the whole anti-virus/spyware thing on the beta? Have they started building in that functionality or do you think Windows 7 will still need to be augmented by a ton of 3rd party apps?

You can only get compatible ones from Norton, Kaspersky and AVG...

The Kaspersky and Norton ones are in Beta and as such you get free keys if on W7 in exchange for a stupid number of popups, haha!


Installing win7 is the best OS decision i have made!

The new taskbar setup is cool and i love the temp-transparant desktop!

Runs without a hitch so far!

 

[Joematthews]

this is the first time I've ever been excited about a Microsoft OS. If it looks like vista, and handles like XP with more stabblity, smaller footprint and less resource dependent then I will cream myself.

Joe

 

[Kazrog]

This story has cured me of all interest in adopting Windows 7 as a production platform:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9125941

The patch that fixed the vulnerability exploited by this worm has only been out since October. I lag behind updating system software by much longer than that. I can't afford the risk that MS software updates might break functionality in a production environment (very common), and I can't risk my machine becoming a fucking bot. If that means I get to use fewer freebie VST plugins, or lag slightly behind with full 64 bit support in Cubase 5, then those are worthy tradeoffs to me.

 

[-Gavin-]

This story has cured me of all interest in adopting Windows 7 as a production platform:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9125941

The patch that fixed the vulnerability exploited by this worm has only been out since October. I lag behind updating system software by much longer than that. I can't afford the risk that MS software updates might break functionality in a production environment (very common), and I can't risk my machine becoming a fucking bot. If that means I get to use fewer freebie VST plugins, or lag slightly behind with full 64 bit support in Cubase 5, then those are worthy tradeoffs to me.

Haha, you couldn't wait for it could you?

 

[-Gavin-]

http://www.modmyi.com/forums/mac-ne...ri-vulnerability-discovered-os-x-windows.html

Looks like this will stop me buying anything apple for production work

 

[Kazrog]

Gavin - couldn't wait for what? I was intrigued by Windows 7, but I didn't realize that MS was still busy patching root-level vulnerabilities as recently as October. It's insane that this type of exploit is still possible, after all these years of Windows Security Updates. They need to rewrite their OS from the ground up, with a UNIX core, as I've stated before it is the only true "fix." Windows 7 has a great UI and is very responsive, but it simply cannot be trusted as a platform for any kind of remotely serious use, since at its core is the same underlying, single-user, moronic subsystem as all other Windows NT variants.

The Safari issue you link to is not even a confirmed security hole - at best, it is a potential vulnerability not known to have been exploited. Incidentally, I use FireFox as my default browser, whether I'm on a Mac, Windows, or Linux system, so I wouldn't even be vulnerable to this, even if it's a real issue.

That is far different than millions of Windows boxes getting infected with a worm in a day!!!

I'm not here to market Apple - in fact I have been disgusted with them since 2006. They simply make the best OS currently available - all they need to do now is support third party hardware officially with Mac OS X, and stop trying to rope people into their overpriced, underpowered, poorly made machines.

 

[JBroll]

BEWARE! Safari Vulnerability Discovered in OS X and Windows

BEWARE! Safari Vulnerability Discovered in OS X and Windows

Discovered in OS X and Windows

Discovered in OS X and Windows

OS X and Windows

Looks like we can't use Windows *or* OS X for production work, Gav.

(Suck BSD, bitches!)

Jeff