Farewell, Vista.

[Great Rumbler]

It's Windows 7 time!

[Dark Jaguar]

Yay! Well, in reality Windows 7's main draw is superior built in drivers and an enhanced user interface. 7 is basically just 98 to Vista's 95.

[Weltall]

Welcome to two years ago, ABF! :D

I'm sorry, that's mean. ABF won't actually make it to Windows 7 until the rest of the world is up to 10 or 11.

[Great Rumbler]

Also, since I jumped from a 32-bit to a 64-bit platform, I'm able to harness 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM.

[A Black Falcon]

Is 7 really that much different?

[Dark Jaguar]

Not really. It basically tweaked the user interface in a number of ways, added DX11, and had a vastly improved built in driver database so people didn't need to hunt down drivers as much when upgrading. There are a number of other "under the hood" enhancements, but that's basically all it is. As I said, Vista was the complete rewrite, the total shift from the framework of XP. 7 basically just smoothed out the rough edges. Again, it's akin to the difference between 98 and 95, or any two editions of OSX.

[Great Rumbler]

I also got it for free [along with the 8 gigs of RAM], so it's hard to complain really.

[Dark Jaguar]

Complain? Naw don't do that. It IS superior to Vista, just not by as much as the media generally likes to say.

[A Black Falcon]

Not really. It basically tweaked the user interface in a number of ways, added DX11, and had a vastly improved built in driver database so people didn't need to hunt down drivers as much when upgrading. There are a number of other "under the hood" enhancements, but that's basically all it is. As I said, Vista was the complete rewrite, the total shift from the framework of XP. 7 basically just smoothed out the rough edges. Again, it's akin to the difference between 98 and 95, or any two editions of OSX.

Yeah, that's about what I thought. I've never thought I'd upgrade before whenever I get another computer, anyway. This computer is aging a bit, but it's still good for now at least... (And I did upgrade from 2GB of RAM to 4GB this year, and added a 2TB HDD too.)

[Great Rumbler]

I was doing some upgrading [new i5 processor and a motherboard to support it]. Had to get new RAM because my old DDR2 RAM wouldn't fit. Changing the motherboard also meant my OEM copy of Vista didn't work anymore.

Everything worked out okay because a friend of mine had some RAM he didn't need anymore and I asked around online for Win 7 code.

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh you can change your hardware without messing that up. All you need to do is change a few keys in the registry and Windows thinks that's what your hardware has always been. Seriously MS needs to figure out a better way to let people use the software they bought.

[Great Rumbler]

The price of a copy of Windows is absolutely insane, given how ubiquitous it is. $100 for a one-use OEM copy or nearly $200 for a transferable copy. It's outrageous.

[Weltall]

And, that's why I don't use it now. If I get a new computer in the future and it's on there, sure. I don't have an aversion to Windows or anything, but I'm not paying that much for a copy.

[Sacred Jellybean]

How you liking your ubuntu?

[alien space marine]

Microsoft is declining noticeably, Apple has totally eclipsed in the post P.C innovations their now turning in more money then MS,as the OS market monopoly has long since peeked in profitability, The lack of a true competitor & rival on the OS market has made MS fat & the OS market stagnate,If they have no creative drive & real incentive to innovate they may has well just call the next windows "The peoples socialist Operating system 8",

[Great Rumbler]

Not to mention that Google Chrome is eating away at Internet Explorer's market share at an increasing rate.

[A Black Falcon]

Chrome is not better than Firefox/Seamonkey, but if it takes marketshare away from IE, that's great...

[Great Rumbler]

I've been using Chrome for over a year now and I have no desire to go back to Firefox.

[Great Rumbler]

Here's a graph of browser usage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usage_...unter).jpg

[Dark Jaguar]

MS has declined, sure, but their entire company is a complete 180 from what they were in the late 90s. Their entire design philosophy is a million times better than it was in those days, and these days all their products are incredibly well designed. Internet Explorer is a VERY capable browser now that has received nothing but high praise in the tech field, due in no small part to a completely different team behind it. That team, I should add, is directly responsible for NUMEROUS parts of the current HTML5 standard, working with the standards group for the last few years (along with Google, people at Firefox, and yes, Apple, though Apple has in a few ways been a bad actor). Their "sandboxing" of IE in Windows Vista and 7 eventually spread to every other browser maker out there, as well as their later "hardware accelerated rendering". It doesn't matter what browser you use, MS is responsible for a number of pretty important things in browsing these days (again, a complete shift from not even attempting to catch up several years back).

MS will never have an OS as successful as XP again, and that's great news for us. I really don't see MS going out any time soon though. They seem to still be a major player, just not at the monopolistic levels of the past, which is just fine by me as it fosters healthy competition and innovation. That's exactly what we're getting.

Biggest difference now? Windows can play the vast majority of my back catalog of games. Other OSs can't. So, I choose Windows. I'd go Ubuntu in a flash if "Wine" actually was more than a flash in the pan.

[etoven]

MS has declined, sure, but their entire company is a complete 180 from what they were in the late 90s. Their entire design philosophy is a million times better than it was in those days, and these days all their products are incredibly well designed. Internet Explorer is a VERY capable browser now that has received nothing but high praise in the tech field, due in no small part to a completely different team behind it. That team, I should add, is directly responsible for NUMEROUS parts of the current HTML5 standard, working with the standards group for the last few years (along with Google, people at Firefox, and yes, Apple, though Apple has in a few ways been a bad actor). Their "sandboxing" of IE in Windows Vista and 7 eventually spread to every other browser maker out there, as well as their later "hardware accelerated rendering". It doesn't matter what browser you use, MS is responsible for a number of pretty important things in browsing these days (again, a complete shift from not even attempting to catch up several years back).

MS will never have an OS as successful as XP again, and that's great news for us. I really don't see MS going out any time soon though. They seem to still be a major player, just not at the monopolistic levels of the past, which is just fine by me as it fosters healthy competition and innovation. That's exactly what we're getting.

Biggest difference now? Windows can play the vast majority of my back catalog of games. Other OSs can't. So, I choose Windows. I'd go Ubuntu in a flash if "Wine" actually was more than a flash in the pan.

You absolutely never had to develop for IE 9, it's still a major pain in the ass. Just today, I had a issue with a web app I wrote that I had to fix, and guess which browser was the only browser that had a issue.. Not to mention that IE9's CSS 3.0 support is damn near shitty as best, so my site looks like crap in IE9 only, unless I create a bunch of BS hacks just to conform to one browser.

[alien space marine]

The noticeably large exodus from I.E to open source alternatives really started in 2003-2005 when the menace of malware ,"drive-by install"s & active-X exploits where at their height, I.E being the most widely used browser was also the most widely cracked.

[Weltall]

How you liking your ubuntu?

Worth every penny!