Who owns your PC? (Win7)

gav Wrote:
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> But you've not actually said why Vista is
> supposedly unfinished.

Uhm, being slower than, or at best marginally faster than the system it was supposed to replace, is not good enough for you? They developed for 5 years, and that is the result, and now with w7, which is just a tweak, the system is suddenly massively faster, wasn't good enough for you?

> Added to that, some of you
> sources, none of which actually say anything,
> don't even cite sources themselves, merely "a
> source". One of them even seemed to base his
> (apparently big hammer stance) on "reports"!

Admit it, you didn't read the links. There are plenty of names mentioned.

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97kirkc Wrote:
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> Dude, seriously chill! It's just a nice (or was)
> friendly discussion on OS practices.

errhh, no dude. The topic is named "Who owns your PC?" and the original post deals with corporate abuse of power and user rights. Learn to read.

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Morbid
Uhm, being slower than, or at best marginally faster than the system it was supposed to replace, is not good enough for you? They developed for 5 years, and that is the result, and now with w7, which is just a tweak, the system is suddenly massively faster, wasn't good enough for you?

Slower and faster. Slower on low systems and faster on medium upwards.

Faster at every single thing from an administration/network managers point of view.

Win7 is a tweak, but it tweaks it in the right places, correcting the only thing which was wrong with Vista (the fact that it was slow on older PCs which were designed for XP) and adding a few nice other features (again, some of which are powerful tools when explored).

Yeah, I'll admit I didn't read all your links. As you said yourself there is more to life.

gav Wrote:
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> > Uhm, being slower than, or at best marginally
> faster than the system it was supposed to replace,
> is not good enough for you? They developed for 5
> years, and that is the result, and now with w7,
> which is just a tweak, the system is suddenly
> massively faster, wasn't good enough for you?
>
>
> Slower and faster. Slower on low systems and
> faster on medium upwards.
>
> Faster at every single thing from an
> administration/network managers point of view.
>
> Win7 is a tweak, but it tweaks it in the right
> places, correcting the only thing which was wrong
> with Vista (the fact that it was slow on older PCs
> which were designed for XP) and adding a few nice
> other features (again, some of which are powerful
> tools when explored).

Had you bothered to read the last link, you would have found a test, on a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9770 Extreme processor, 4GB of DDR2 memory, a 1TB Barracuda 7200.12 drive, with an ATI Radeon 4890 videocard, that shows that statement to be very wrong indeed. Unless of course you consider that to be a slow system for Vista.

> Yeah, I'll admit I didn't read all your links. As
> you said yourself there is more to life.

Seriously, you might be right. I do not pretend, that there aren't better things in life, than to discuss with me, or even listen to what I have to say. That is a totally valid position to entertain, and I would not fault you for it.

But then you should stay true to your conviction, and NOT faff about in a discussion, where you pump out statements based on half-assed assumptions, posing as someone who actually participates on the premises that a proper discussion requires. This is the second time you have done this, in this thread.

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Quote
Morbid
Had you bothered to read the last link, you would have found a test, on a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9770 Extreme processor, 4GB of DDR2 memory, a 1TB Barracuda 7200.12 drive, with an ATI Radeon 4890 videocard, that shows that statement to be very wrong indeed. Unless of course you consider that to be a slow system for Vista.

Wrong in what way? Please elaborate.

What have I assumed?

In all honesty, if you think there are better things in life, than pursuing this, then by all means don't!

But if you do, commit. Read the links.

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I'm specifically talking about the link you've mentioned (the final one). In what way am I wrong?

*I love popcorn.*

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Morbid Wrote:
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> It is the old Pepsi-challenge, re-tooled.
>
> "The official goal of the Mojave Experiment is to
> get consumers to decide for themselves rather than
> accept the commonly held negative perceptions of
> Windows Vista"
>
> They had to decide for themselves, so people on
> Microsoft payroll misinformed them right from the
> get go, by telling them that it was something it
> was not. This is a publicity stunt, and I swear
> that Microsoft payed millions of dollars to top
> level PR-strategists and communication experts, to
> engineer this "test" in such a fashion, that you
> would conclude exactly, what is the presented
> conclusion here.
>
> This is not a proper test of Vista.



this is my favourite part of this whole thread.

Basicly morbid is telling us, that a company letting people make there own decisions based on using a product the company created is bad.

NeilPearson Wrote:
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> this is my favourite part of this whole thread.
>
> Basicly morbid is telling us, that a company
> letting people make there own decisions based on
> using a product the company created is bad.

Err.... no. What I am telling you, is that you do not let people make up their own mind, by handing them a lie straight off the bat. The experiment begins by misinforming the participants. Furthermore the participants did not get to interact with the OS at all (bold is mine):

Quote

The experiment has been criticized by Gadgetzone.com[3] for cherry-picking positive statements and not addressing all aspects of Vista. The necessary hardware and software was already set up for the participants and demonstrated by a salesman, so they were unable to try out the software themselves. The criticism from the blogosphere was echoed by the New York Times.[4]

The very first line of the article:

Quote

The Mojave Experiment is an advertising campaign by Microsoft (...)

You seek truth in advertisements?

Social scientist have worked for decades on the process of human decision making. It is quite easy to manufacture situations where people seemingly make up their own mind, but in actual fact, the experiment conductor decided the outcome before the test person was even selected. Derren Brown has made quite a show with exactly that aspect of human psychology.

That is why science normally works with double-blind tests (which this isn't), with transparant testing protocols (which aren't available here), with peer-reviewed results (which aren't here), that are reproducable (which has yet to be done).

I would not assign any truth value to that study, because it is NOT a study.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2010 12:46PM by Morbid.

So how would you have gone about trying to convince people that Vista is as good as it is, if you were microsoft?

Im talking hypothetical here, You work for microsoft, you have all your principles that you have now, you want to produce a study that shows how good your software is, but it has so much negativity. What would you do?

I would certainly do a media stunt like this. If I work for Microsoft, I am not in a position to provide truth. My obligation is to provide profit.

But let us say they wanted to provide truth in the sense of reliable data. The problems I see here are three-fold. There is the problem of object, method and independence.

Method can be solved be exporting the study to an external reliable party. The best way would be to order a controlled study by an independent scientific institute. Many companies actually do fund such external research on their own products as part of their quality control management.

With studies like these, that are intended as verification to a public audience, that is equal to the intended market, there are problems with independance, because the client has a vested interest in a positive outcome. Independence can be solved though, by setting up the funding structure, so that Microsoft can distance themselves as much as possible from the group that carries out the study. The more distance, the better. Control is on the OBJECT of study and deadline management, not the results.

Lastly, there is the problem of object: what do they actually want to show? Do they want to show that Vista got unfair bad press. That can be done in a scientific way. Do they want to show that the product is better on key issues than it's predecessors? That can be thoroughly benchmarked in a scientific way. Do they want to show that people are in general misinformed? That can be done too in a scientific way.

All of them are different studies though.

Microsoft of course already know this, as funding external independent research is the lifeblood of the computer industry. Doing studies as those I have mentioned here, cost around the same as funding the spin of the Mojave Experiment. Boards that do political decision-making and long term planning often request studies like these to aid decision making.

So one has to wonder, why they chose the Mojave Experiment and not the study.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2010 04:22PM by Morbid.

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Just to add my 2 pennies into this, at work we have a multitude of different Operating Systems on the workstations. We bought 3 new workstation PCs for a new office and they had Windows 7 pre-installed. Virtually nothing needed configuring or changing on it, it was just set to go. There have been zero (I mean zero) complaints about the PCs. Another office has 2 variations of Vista, both of which since having SP2 installed now run adequately. A few complaints about little niggles, but otherwise OK. Upstairs a plethora of OS's are used, varying from XP to Vista and in a couple of cases back and beyond. Some of the PCs seem so broken but are still working thanks to Vista's basic structure. XP on the same machine doesn't feel like the OS it should.

On the servers, it's Linux. Red Hat and Ubuntu. Why? Cos it works. And it's free. Server-grade operating systems free. Plus Exchange is a bit evil as a mail server. When one server is being thrashed daily as a mail and web server, and another is accessed regularly as a mail and CRM server, you understand why Microsoft server OS's wouldn't work in our structure. There's less give with MS server OS's.

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I just thought I would ask in here rather than a new thread. I have a reasonably good computer built it 2 and a bit years ago and cost me $2000 AUD just for hardware so its still pretty good and runs all new games on high graphics and smoothly. my question is I run windows xp home I chose xp as I was experienced with it and didn’t chose vista because of problems and difficulties with it and also I personally didn’t like the look and feel. Now that time has passed I am growing tired of the dated xp os and looking to upgrade. Mostly I use my computer for new gaming\retro games ala grand prix 2, Indianapolis 500 age of empires 1 etc and web browsing In here lies the question what operating system do I run. Mac OSX has recently got my attention by a completely different look and feel. It is also rumored that it has no viruses but that cannot be true every computer gets viruses it’s just less people use Mac osx. Also a big plus is that osx is cheaper $30 AUD for the os and $150 for apple protection plus so all together pretty cheap. But one of the downsides of Mac is that most of my games I have only used and don’t know if they run on osx. Also another downside is that if something goes wrong the local apple shop to fix it is really expensive. But then I learned of bootcamp in osx and I thought yes I can run the new sleek look of Mac and windows as well. I then sat down and thought i'm buying a new os to upgrade from xp but if I use bootcamp and osx I will be using xp through bootcamp 80% of the time thus really not making any ground. The second option is do I just upgrade to windows 7. As I mentioned before I didn’t like the look and feel of vista and 7 is still much the same. are the new features really worth it upgrading to 7 is really expensive I priced up windows 7 ultimate and it was over $450 AUD which is a lot of money just for an os. Ultimate is the dearest one but as a user if you do upgrade as with any technology even though it is the most expensive you buy it because it has the newest features and will stay newer for longer. Plus with windows you are nearly guarenteed that any new software will run with it. my final option which I have just about discounted is using linux I do not know much about it but with the little experience I did have with it running through virtual pc is that it is reasonably easy to navigate but I am not sure it has the same advantages as osx has with a bootcamp-like utility. So that is my question which os to run. I am open to learn about each os. If anyone else knows pros and cons about each one I would like to hear it.

Mac OSX:
Questions:
Do I pay the relatively cheap software and then run the risk of expensive repair fees?
Is it easy to run and feel with someone who has little to no experience with it?
Is it just w waste of money as I will still be using windows most of the time?
Is bootcamp reliable?

As I said I am willing to learn with how to use it and I really do like the look and feel with just the quick plays I have used it at the shopping centre. If I use bootcamp is it just worth getting the cheaper windows 7 and running it just for my games. Is dual booting and option is it stable?

Windows 7
Are the features worth the $450 to buy?
Will it play older windows 95/98 games/programs on them with no need for a virtual pc program?
Security I run full version avg is it enough with the range and different viruses out there
Is it easy to use for a long time xp fan?
Every new products have teething problems, are windows 7 teething problems ironed out?

As I said it’s bloody expensive seems a lot of money for a bulked up vista with some new features. Or do I just have to take off my rose tinted sunnies and upgrade to a commonly used and nearly guaranteed to run all my programs.

Linux
I am not experienced with it at all really.
Can it run windows programs and games?

Sorry this is so long I tried to ask all the questions I wanted to know and also to give you as much info about what I use my pc for and what I need out of an operating system. Thanks


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For Mac OS X you'll need an Apple, so unless you're intending to upgrade your PC, that option is out.

Also, OS X will be $30 for an upgrade license. If you don't have an Apple then you don't have an operating system to upgrade. You're forced to buy the Apple first, then effectively pay for a service pack.

As you say, if you get a Mac then game compatibility is an issue without Boot Camp, and Apple appear to be slowly removing support for Boot Camp, so I wouldn't invest on the assumption that you can dual boot OS X and Windows - it's currently available on most Apples, but even though it's a server OS from which it has been removed, that server OS is used on some Mac Pros and Mac Minis.

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torana_05
I priced up windows 7 ultimate and it was over $450 AUD which is a lot of money just for an os.

You don't need Ultimate. Unless you're on a domain (so have a server and log in through that), then 7 Home Premium is the ideal choice - and an upgrade license should be sufficient if you have a legal XP license. Here's a comparison between Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.

Regarding Windows, on any half decent machine, XP feels very clunky now. Its memory management is shocking in comparison to Vista and 7. If you give me the specs of the PC you intend to run on, then I've give you some thoughts.

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torana_05
Will it play older windows 95/98 games/programs on them with no need for a virtual pc program?

No 64-bit operating system (which is what you want) will run 16-bit programs outside of a virtual PC, and most of the Windows 98 games will be 16-bit. Windows 7 32-bit (which is only there for compatibility and isn't really recommended) will give you more chance of playing older games, but the chances of them running... well do a Google search first and see what luck others are having.

For that it's probably best to dual-boot between Windows XP and Windows 7 (I'll go into more instructions if you decide on that). Use Windows 7 for everything except those games which won't run.

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torana_05
Security I run full version avg is it enough with the range and different viruses out there

AVG is rubbish. Really. You don't need to pay for a decent antivirus. Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the best antivirus programs out there, and it's free.

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torana_05
Is it easy to use for a long time xp fan?

Yes. The only feature you need to get used to is UAC, which isn't intrusive if you make sure most of the software you install is the updated to the most recent version (lazy programmers using horribly thought-out code should mainly be a thing of the past since UAC was introduced with Vista).

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torana_05
Every new products have teething problems, are windows 7 teething problems ironed out?

7's teething problems were called Vista. Micorosft are using a tick-tock approach. Windows 2000 was a major new OS, XP just refined it. Vista was a major new OS, 7 just refined it.

To be fair to Vista, its main problem was an awful PR campaign and Microsoft's minimum specifications being far, far too low, hence it was deemed to be slow, as all the cheap laptops used cheap components, and it gained a reputation for being slow as a result. Vista itself was fine on a system which was actually built with it in mind, rather than just throwing the cheapest components together. Windows 7 does feel a bit slicker in comparison to Vista, but there's really not that much between them.

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torana_05
Linux
I am not experienced with it at all really.
Can it run windows programs and games?

In a word, no, but as with OS X and Windows, you can dual boot it.

The problem with Linux isn't the OS or the GUI, it's when something goes wrong and you need to know a command line, which is the same with every operating system, but it's more common than it is in some others. A popular Linux distribution (such as Ubuntu) will have a lot of documentation out there (nearly as much as Windows I guess, and far more than OS X), but somehow unexpected issues just seem that bit more difficult to get to the bottom of. If you don't know Linux, then I suggest it's not really for you. Give it a go in a virtual PC though, and see how you get on.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2010 12:10PM by gav.

thanks for fast reply here are my specs of my pc.


Obviously windows 7 seems to be the best choice. couple of questions then if i hold a genuine xp licence do i only need the upgrade pack or do i need the full retail version? what do i miss out on if i only buy the update disc? does this mean if i have to format i have to install my full version of xp then upgrade to 7 again? is there separate discs for the 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems? is it possible to dual boot with windows 95 rather than windows xp? as the games would probably run alot better than they do on xp. also what are the main difference between windows 7 home premium and windows 7 home premium family pack? thanks


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Quote
torana_05
Obviously windows 7 seems to be the best choice. couple of questions then if i hold a genuine xp licence do i only need the upgrade pack or do i need the full retail version? what do i miss out on if i only buy the update disc? does this mean if i have to format i have to install my full version of xp then upgrade to 7 again? is there separate discs for the 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems? is it possible to dual boot with windows 95 rather than windows xp? as the games would probably run alot better than they do on xp. also what are the main difference between windows 7 home premium and windows 7 home premium family pack? thanks

1) if you have XP then you only need the upgrade of Windows 7 rather than the full retail license. The retail license is a whole new license, so if you were dual-booting XP with 7, you'd need that. You don't lose anything with the upgrade license, other than your XP license, which becomes a 7 license.

2) Yes you'd have to format the hard drive with XP on it (or dual-boot), where you'd install XP and 7 on either separate hard drives or, ideally, separate partitions on the same hard drive. Other than that, with the upgrade license, I think you can just install as you normally would install Windows 7 or Vista. I've never upgraded to either to be honest - I've always done a clean install, which is the best way. Apparently you can't do an 'in-place' upgrade of XP though, so you have to do a clean install, even with the upgrade disk. There's a step-by-step guide here. As stated there, MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR FILES FIRST, as the hard drive will be wiped if you choose not to dual-boot. You should be doing backups anyway.

3) I believe only the full retail license comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit DVDs. With other licenses (including upgrade), you have to decide when purchasing which you want, though if you can acquire the other disk, the key works with both disks (though only 1 at a time of course).

4) Erm, I suppose technically there wouldn't be much stopping you dual-booting Win 95 and Win 7, but I'd be surprised if you could install Win 95 on modern hard drives, and the lack of SATA drivers would stop you installing it on a drive where IDE emulation isn't available. Even if you could install it, you wouldn't be able to find drivers for your hardware (mainly SATA drivers, sound drivers and graphics drivers), so it would be fairly useless. If the hardware could have supported it, I suppose there wouldn't have been much to stop you. If you're going to wipe the hard drive though, give it a go - it can't break anything, so it would be interesting to see what 95 runs like on a modern system!

5) Home Premium Family Pack allows you to install 7 Home Premium on 3 PCs. The other only allows you to install it on 1 PC.