Vista = Windows 7 ?

[Gareth]

Hmm, I installed the Windows 7 RC on a perfectly good 5 year old (AMD Athlon
2500) legacy system and noticed that it worked exceptionally well
(perfectly) - which was odd because Vista did not work at all well on the
same system 6 months ago (serious driver problems).

I tried Vista again and noticed that the Vista Windows Update downloaded
exactly the same drivers as the Windows 7 RC.

Is it the case that Windows 7 is essentially a maintenance release for what
should have been a correctly functioning and free Vista update?

Gareth.

 

[Saucy]

No. Windows 7, while using the same architectural models is an improvement
over Vista. It also come with a new interface and improved UAC. A lot of
stuff has been re-worked, so it has earned the badge of new operating system
rather than just 'service pack'. It's faster, more stable, with a smaller
footprint both when running in RAM and on hard disk. Much of the
architecture is the same just for your reason i.e. to make sure the old
Vista drivers/software will work with the new system. That way, the switch
to Windows 7 should go much better than was the switch from XP to Vista.

When it comes to pricing, Windows 7 will be less expensive. As a matter of
fact, you can pre-order right now at a steep discount:

http://community.winsupersite.com/b...participating-online-retailers-in-the-us.aspx

And there is strong indication that there might be 'Family Pack' pricing
available:

http://community.winsupersite.com/b...08/windows-7-family-pack-and-wau-pricing.aspx

Here are some more links to webpages about Windows 7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/

Saucy

 

[Gareth]

You can call it what you want. Windows 7 was written using some of the
Vista code base.

Vista = Vista
Windows 7 = Windows 7

"Some" of the Vista code base? Pretty close to all of it I would guess.

Gareth.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

"Some" of the Vista code base? Pretty close to all of it I would guess.

Gareth.

OK Most of the code base!

 

[GTS]

Yes, although there are also some new features.

 

[JonK]

Yes I agree for the most part Saucy and I really like 7. I was confused
though on the issue of hardware support and drivers when it came to my home
PC video card. I have an ATI Radeon 1650 Pro PCI-express and it works fine. I
went to run Second Life and couldn't because it said the card didn't meet
min. requirements. I run SL in Vista and XP Pro fine from this same box. The
maddening thing is that ATI will not support the card for Win 7. I do need to
qualify this and say this with Win 7 beta, I haven't installed the RC yet. I
really hate to have to buy a new video card when it seems to be operating
fine until I hit one application that doesn't like it. In general Win 7 is
great!

Jon

 

[Eric]

Yes I agree for the most part Saucy and I really like 7. I was confused
though on the issue of hardware support and drivers when it came to my
home
PC video card. I have an ATI Radeon 1650 Pro PCI-express and it works
fine. I
went to run Second Life and couldn't because it said the card didn't meet
min. requirements. I run SL in Vista and XP Pro fine from this same box.
The
maddening thing is that ATI will not support the card for Win 7. I do need
to
qualify this and say this with Win 7 beta, I haven't installed the RC yet.
I
really hate to have to buy a new video card when it seems to be operating
fine until I hit one application that doesn't like it. In general Win 7 is
great!

Jon

Radeon has always had issues with compatibility such as where you say it
should meet minimum requirements for a game but the game says it doesn't.
Sometimes an updated driver will fix that. Sometimes games have updates to
fix that.
I wouldn't expect them to have an updated driver for a beta OS. Check for
one for W7 after the official release date.
I've heard people say Radeon cards get better performance, but Nvidia cards
have alwys had better compatibility.

 

[+Bob+]

Is it the case that Windows 7 is essentially a maintenance release for what
should have been a correctly functioning and free Vista update?

Exactly. It's SP3. But, MS will be gouging you for money to get SP3...
'cause they can.

 

[milt]

Is it the case that Windows 7 is essentially a maintenance release for
what should have been a correctly functioning and free Vista update?

Gareth.

I smell troll-bait.

 

[Gareth]

Exactly. It's SP3. But, MS will be gouging you for money to get SP3...
'cause they can.

This is interesting because I've noticed that since the Windows 7 RC release
a number of Vista drivers have also been updated. That said I notice that
Windows 7 does seem to be more effective in using mobo power management
features: I could never get any sort of sleep or hibernation function to
work with Vista (monitors would never wake up) but it works fine on exactly
the same mobo with Windows 7. I'm almost tempted to un-shadow "sleep" in the
Vista start menu to see if the problem has been corrected.

The Windows 7 "deal" feels like a bit of a ripp off - if, as seems to be the
case, it is simply fixing deficits in Vista whilst adding only a little
extra obvious functionality then it is not good. It even feels like Vista.

Gareth.

 

[Hooter]

Will Windos 7 Home Premium serve as a host for remote connections.
Presently only WindowsXP Pro or Vista Ultimate are needed to serve as
host for remote connections. I think some other editions of XP and
Vista may also serve as hosts.

 

[Dave]

Well, it depends on what remote software you use...
Home Premium won't have the Remote Desktop host, so you can't use Remote
Desktop to connect to it.
Home Professional will have it.
http://www.sevenforums.com/attachme...on-choose-win7_pro_ultimate_features_rev2.jpg


You can use products like VNC, LogMeIn, TeamViewer, etc. with Home Premium.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

That said I notice that Windows 7 does seem to be more effective in using
mobo power management features: I could never get any sort of sleep or
hibernation function to work with Vista (monitors would never wake up) but
it works fine on exactly the same mobo with Windows 7.

You and I must have the same mobo.

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

Windows Vista made radical changes to how drivers work and interact with
the system. So did Windows 2000. At the time that Windows XP came out,
you could by and large get Windows 2000 drivers to work under Windows
XP. A similar situation now occurs in Windows 7 with regards to Windows
Vista drivers. Same driver models, yet not the same capabilities. For
instance, if you use video card drivers made for Vista under Windows 7,
you lose the WDDM 1.1 improvements (massive memory savings and good
stability enhancements) since Vista only uses WDDM 1.0. It is more than
a service release, it upgrades a vast and large amount of kernel level
things. Thread management and multi-core utilization improvements,
improved memory models, all sorts of stuff. It is based off of the Vista
codebase, yes. However large swaths of it were completely rewritten to
be more streamlined and efficient, as well as to support newer
technologies.
Oh, JohnK, they made some changes to DirectX, so try installing the
Directx 9.0c components (Windows 7 only emulates 9 through a DirectX 10
and 11 layer), so that you have absolute packages for DirectX 9. This
seems to fix a lot of people's problems with games and 3D applications
that use older DirectX model API calls.

Thanks for the informative post, but how are people supposed to tell? I
mean it's great they did all of that extra work above and beyond what a
service release would entail, but many people who check out W7 can't
tell from using it. To them it mainly appears it's vista with more of
it's problems fixed.

--
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
- Linus Torvalds

DRM and unintended consequences:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=435&tag=nl.e101