Windows 7

[AUtigers350z]

Running the new Windows 7 beta through VMWare Fusion 2 on the Mac :D It is running it off my Boot Camp partition and only shows up as 512MB RAM instead of 4GB in Fusion, but shows up as all 4GB in actual Boot Camp. Windows 7 is supposed to blow XP and Vista out of the water at final release. We all know how the Windows hype goes though.. guess we'll have to wait and see.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/3167694015_87a33c12d5_o.png

[Grider]

Some of the reviews say it smokes in 512mb where Vista chokes on less than 2GB. Might have to download it and try it in Fusion.

How much ram in your Mac?

[AUtigers350z]

Some of the reviews say it smokes in 512mb where Vista chokes on less than 2GB. Might have to download it and try it in Fusion.

How much ram in your Mac?

4GB DDR3. I downloaded it from Demonoid if you're interested. Or I could burn you a copy if you're gonna be in AU anytime soon.

[AUtigers350z]

'Nother semi cool thing about W7 is the new home networking feature "Homegroup". Don't know why Microsoft waited so late to implement an easy home networking solution into their operating system though. Seems a lot like Bonjour for Mac.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n271/autigers350z/Picture4.png

[insert_car]

<====== cannot compute running windows on a mac.

[Grider]

I have XP in Fusion 2. There are a couple CSC (company I work for) intranet sites don't work right on anything but IE.

I really don't understand running BootCamp on a MB or MBP but that is becuase I don't play games on them...

[Alex]

What's the difference between bootcamp and fusion??

[Grider]

What's the difference between bootcamp and fusion??

Bootcamp is not virtualization. It provides a software layer for windows to emulate a limited BIOS since the Macs don't run one in the classic sense that regular x86 boxes do and that windows has to have to work. Also it provides some HFS+ and drivers for the mac hardware in windows. You run either Windows or OS X; you cannot run them both at the same time.

Fusion is a computer emulator. It completely emulates a stand alone computer using software. Fusion is different from standard VMWare products because it is Mac native and can do some nifty things like Unity where your Windows apps run in normal windows like any other Mac OS Application.

Another advantage to Fusion is that you are running OS X and Windows at the same time. You don't have to reboot to get from one os to the other since Windows is running in a window.

I have Fusion running XP Pro, Windows 7, and Ubuntu Linux. Probably going to put a Server 2008 and/or 2003 image on as well just to have running to answer a few questions that come up from time to time.

[Drew]

yeah I've been running 7 for about 4 months now. Running build 7000 right now. I'm very impressed. It seems that more or less all the drivers and programs that are vista compatible are 7 compatible. It does seem to share the same program backwards compatibilty issues that vista has though (I guess since it's based off the vista code)

But performance wise, yeah it smokes vista. You really only notice it on older machines. I loaded it for fun to test out just HOW good the minwin platform they used for 7 really is by loading it on an old 2.3 ghz P4 w/256 megs of ram and motherboard's on board graphics (shared 16mb of graphics I believe) and surprisingly enough, it feels faster than XP SP3, though I haven't ran sandra benchmark tests side by side with the XP machine to verify actual hard data proving higher benchmark scores... I think sandra is more of a hardware test than operating system speed/efficiency test anyways. I'd have to set up a dual boot on the same system to get any meaningful numbers.

Granted you don't get the fancy eye candy with on board graphics but you get nothing with XP so it's really not a drawback.

I think it's biggest downfall, like vista, is going to be driver issues and app compatibility. there are still programs that just don't run quite right in Vista (hence me staying with XP) and it seems as if people are still getting Nvidia and ATI driver errors like that all to common "the video driver stopped responding" error. On my laptop, I get that and eventually a blue screen on 7 using both the ATI mobility drivers that 7 installs and with the updated ATI win7 drivers. If I turn off the Aero interface, the problem goes away. Vista does the exact same thing.

no one apparently knows what causes it so until that issue and programs still not jiving quite right with vista/7, I'm sticking with XP.

Good news for you guys running 7 is that Symantec is giving out their norton 360 (which is one of the best AV solutions out there) for free to those who want it. You fill out some quick info and then you download it and they email you a product key. I believe it's a 2 week trial though. Avast has something also but the link on their download page was broken. AVG has one as well but not for free (not that I could find)

Anyways, I'd say if you're happy and have no issues with vista, win7 will be a welcome upgrade. They've taken almost all the big issues with vista and fixed them and the GUI upgrades like the super bar or whatever they're calling it, I LOVE. mouse over an icon, if it has active windows it's using, you get the thumbnail, mouse over the thumbnail and all the other windows turn into a sheet of glass except for the window you're mouse is over. Love it.

[roadracer4life]

I am running 7 on a tester computer here at work and like Drew said it smokes vista for sure but still has some driver issues.. I am just testing it for some of the apps we have here and they all seem to be working.. Still not sure if its faster than XP and it definatly requires a solid 1 1/2 to 2 gigs of memory to work smoothly.. So far its 10x better than vista../
Sam

[xamraci]

vista can eat me...my computer is 6 months old and I have reloaded windows twice....

[2Fast4Radar]

Microsoft should give all Vista users the new software for free IMO. Vista was like a fucking guinea pig that never took course & that's bullshit IMO to market and load that software on so many computers that were sold.

Fuck Microsoft.

[xamraci]

Microsoft should give all Vista users the new software for free IMO. Vista was like a fucking guinea pig that never took course & that's bullshit IMO to market and load that software on so many computers that were sold.

Fuck Microsoft.


haha...my computer wont even let me install an earlier version of windows...

[2Fast4Radar]

haha...my computer wont even let me install an earlier version of windows...I've thought about popping in a copy of my XP Pro for realz. Vista is so temperamental and IE problems aren't exactly new.

[AUtigers350z]

Honestly, I had less problems on my HP laptop running XP Pro than I did running Vista Ultimate. Seemed like XP Pro was ALWAYS causing shit to go wrong on that laptop, I found myself factory resetting it every few months. Never had to do it with Vista. Wonder if its only the lower than Ultimate editions that cause the majority of issues..

[Obike]

Actually, the Vista fiasco has a lot to do with two factors... developer resistance and companies relying on 16-bit functionality and bugs in the Windows API. For anyone that's had to do a great deal of low-level Windows programming, it was quite a pain as you would have to read several addendums to the API just to get the proper behaviour that was the intent in the first place. Another key issue is that until Vista... all programmers relied on applications running as a local Administrator. You see a wide variety of compatibility issues on XP if a user is only a User or Power User instead of a Administrator.

A lot of the issues with video drivers (ATI & nVidia) is that there is a completely new framework for drivers, called the KMDF and UMDF. KMDF (Kernel Mode Driver Framework) is what a lot of low-level drivers need; i.e. video, hard drive, RAID, cd-rom, and motherboard devices. The downside to developers using KMDF is that it is a new paradigm they have to get used to with clean differences between the older framework, unfortunately causing a learning curve. UMDF is where things get awesome as drivers are now run as a user instead of the system. The result? If the driver fails a message is logged in the Event Viewer and the driver restarts cleanly. No crashes and no blue screens. The UMDF is available in XP, but it wasn't until Vista and Win7 that developers are pretty much being forced to adopt these new frameworks (which is a good thing). Both of the new frameworks have drastic security improvements, which will drastically cut down on the number of viruses/worms/exploits that rely on driver bugs.

A lot of issues with Vista can be blamed on Intel (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10097511-75.html) and Microsoft caving in.

[Nstig8r]

Look at history repeating itself again....

Windows 3.0 = SUCK; Windows 3.1 = Not so bad

Windows 4.0 (Win95) = SUCK; Windows 4.1 (Win98) = Not so bad

Windows 4.9 (WinMe - prerelease of 5.0) = REALLY SUCK; Windows 5.0 (Win2000) = SUCK; Windows 5.1 (WinXP) = Not so bad

Windows 6.0 (Vista) = SUCK; Windows 6.1 (Windows7) = Not so bad

What really sucks is that not all companies even have drivers for Vista SP1 yet. Sigmatel does not have a sound driver for Vista SP1 on my Dell M1710, so I am using a homemade version (read:dumbed down) version. I still get a BSOD on occasion from it, but I am forced by Dell/Sigmatel wait for a proper one... What is worse, if you google it, a TON of people have the EXACT same problem.

I think there is a reason why most companies still have users on XP Pro rather than Vista. Hopefully Windows7 will change that...

[xamraci]

my CPU was designed for VISTA...its supposed to be the MAC of PCs for photo shit and the like...

and ummm....NO IT ISNT

[Grider]

Tom's time line is a little off since it doesn't include Windows NT 4.0. All the cool kids who got tired of Windows 9x shit were running NT 4 (workstation or server). It kinda sucked but it was fairly stable. You just could not use USB natively or have driver support for stuff like 3d accelerator cards... which at the time was not that big of a deal because USB was kinda rare at that point. USB worked in 98 but it was still kinda sketchy. (I dual booted between 98 and NT 4 on a PII-233 with 512mb of ram and an original Monster 3D card...)

If you were coming from the NT4 side of the house Windows 2000 was the tits since it was pretty much the merging of the 9x line and the NT line. Most of the stability of NT with most of the driver and device support in 9x.

ME was an extension of the 9x line not the pre-release of 2000 line.

XP, after you got passed SP2, was pretty damn good.

Back on topic: I've played around with windows 7 in vmware. It has potential but I really don't think it is going to be as seamless in some functions as a Mac. But you know I don't think that is the point anymore. Windows has enough mind and market share that GE engineering works for it. (GE = Good Enough no relation to the GE company). It is the 800lb gorilla in the room and OSX and Linux are on the periphery. All MS has to do is release something evolutionary with a few new features without boning up some basics (example: Vista) and 7 is classic example of that. It should be XP2 for them...

[AUtigers350z]

Look at history repeating itself again....

Windows 3.0 = SUCK; Windows 3.1 = Not so bad

Windows 4.0 (Win95) = SUCK; Windows 4.1 (Win98) = Not so bad

Windows 4.9 (WinMe - prerelease of 5.0) = REALLY SUCK; Windows 5.0 (Win2000) = SUCK; Windows 5.1 (WinXP) = Not so bad

Windows 6.0 (Vista) = SUCK; Windows 6.1 (Windows7) = Not so bad

What really sucks is that not all companies even have drivers for Vista SP1 yet. Sigmatel does not have a sound driver for Vista SP1 on my Dell M1710, so I am using a homemade version (read:dumbed down) version. I still get a BSOD on occasion from it, but I am forced by Dell/Sigmatel wait for a proper one... What is worse, if you google it, a TON of people have the EXACT same problem.

I think there is a reason why most companies still have users on XP Pro rather than Vista. Hopefully Windows7 will change that...

In my personal experience.. never used NT or 3.1. First PC had 95 pre installed. Didn't really have anything to compare it to at the time but it didn't seem very solid. Upgrade from 95 to 98 was a nightmare. Windows ME seemed like one of those systems that was quickly put together and thrown out there to satisfy all the 98 nightmares (kinda like Vista). I actually really liked 2000. So far, it seems to be the most stable Windows OS I have worked with so far. When XP first came out, it was very badass. I liked it a lot. Then I bought my HP laptop that had XP pro installed and had quite a few problems with it. Upgraded to Vista Ultimate and had a lot less issues. Now after switching to Mac, there is no going back to Windows (permanently). PC games and school stuff would be the only reason I have now for keeping Windows around. 7 does seem pretty promising, but it IS still in beta. Hopefully MS will take their time and make sure everything's right the first time for final release. Just my take from a more consumer standpoint (not as technical into the server/programming and what not :D ).

[Grider]

98 was 100 times more stable than 95. But if you went the upgrade route and not fresh install then you got a ton of problems because it just never worked right. And a lot of the early problems with any MS OS are fixed or worked around in Service Packs or with 98 and 95 OSRs that were released to OEMs mainly.

As far as the HP laptop with XP preinstalled, most the problems with preinstalled XP boxes was all the SHIT that HP, Dell, and others loaded onto consumer machines. The early Vista boxes suffered the same fate. I personally do not know if it has gotten better on their consumer grade stuff because I tell my relatives to order Dell Vostros that do not come with that crap on them and that has made a world of difference in the family support calls I have gotten from when they purchase a new computer. :)

When we bought Lauren's Toshiba Vista laptop back last spring I sat at Starbucks and spent an hour and a half taking crap off of it... such a pain in the ass.

[Cavy47]

As far as the HP laptop with XP preinstalled, most the problems with preinstalled XP boxes was all the SHIT that HP, Dell, and others loaded onto consumer machines. The early Vista boxes suffered the same fate. I personally do not know if it has gotten better on their consumer grade stuff because I tell my relatives to order Dell Vostros that do not come with that crap on them and that has made a world of difference in the family support calls I have gotten from when they purchase a new computer. :)

When we bought Lauren's Toshiba Vista laptop back last spring I sat at Starbucks and spent an hour and a half taking crap off of it... such a pain in the ass.

That's why I always Ghost it and save the orginial image straight out of the box and then reimage it. I can't stand dealing with the manufacturers POS apps. Makes your PC run much faster and its fun to do...in the nerdiest way...God, that's sad.

As far as Windows 7 with me, I loaded on an old Optiplex GX620 that has been sitting under my desk for a year. It has 2GB of RAM and a shitty video card. Runs fast and looks almost exactly like Vista. I haven't been able to put it on the network because of restrictions with the Army, so i'll probably take a XPS 1330 home tonight and try it there.

[AUtigers350z]

You can now get the Windows 7 RC download for free from Microsoft until June 2010. I believe starting in March 2010 it will shut down every two hours or some weird BS. But if you would like to try it for a while, here's the link..

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

[Obike]

I've been running RC1 since Thursday.

[Grider]

Paging Tom Patton, Tom Patton. Your netbook needs this instead of fucking Vista. :)

[Drew]

haha...my computer wont even let me install an earlier version of windows...

Wrong ;)

[AadosX]

Damn I come here to post this and Eric beats me to it!

[Drew]

has anyone running RC1 noticed how F'd up some of the wallpaper are?!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/forums/smilies/meth.gif

[AUtigers350z]

Damn I come here to post this and Eric beats me to it!

:D love you John

And Ben, I know RC1 has been out for a few weeks, just thought I'd post up the download link for those who want it :)

[adam p]

Ahhh, nice. Is the trial fully free or do I need a vista key or something?

I just bought my first legit XP Prof key too for my MBP haha, damn (for exams here at school)

[Drew]

they give you a key to use before you download the iso

[Jnic335i]

eh I really want to try this but don't want to go through the hassle of it. I'll just wait untill it comes out. I definitely want to get rid of shitvista.

[AUtigers350z]

eh I really want to try this but don't want to go through the hassle of it. I'll just wait untill it comes out. I definitely want to get rid of shitvista.

Dude, you need to let me bring my ext HD over there, back your shit up and either reload Vista or load 7 on there.

[A418t81]

Just threw 7 on my Vista machine I just put together and I like it better also. Much improved wireless networking interface which I always thought was slow and stupid as hell on vista. Wprime is a bit faster on 7 than vista as well.

[Grider]

Dude, you need to let me bring my ext HD over there, back your shit up and either reload Vista or load 7 on there.

QFT. Don't be a pussy Justin :D Get something better than that steaming pile of an OS on there.

[AadosX]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I love Vista. It's way better than this Leopard, and most definitely an upgrade over XP. The only downside is it's a little more resource heavy but QQ please.. build a better machine. More stable and has WAY more features than this OSX. The only thing I didn't like about Vista was the networking, as said before.

[Grider]

I think you are defenitly in the minority on this one John.

OSX > Linux > Windows 7 > Windows XP Pro > Windows Vista.

And that is being generous to Vista because after I use the wife's laptop for a few minutes I'd swear I could put Windows 95 on it and get things done faster....

And to feed the troll:
What feature in vista isn't in osx?

[AUtigers350z]

I think you are defenitly in the minority on this one John.

OSX > Linux > Windows 7 > Windows XP Pro > Windows Vista.

And that is being generous to Vista because after I use the wife's laptop for a few minutes I'd swear I could put Windows 95 on it and get things done faster....

And to feed the troll:
What feature in vista isn't in osx?

I agree with this 100% and John I'm also curious of Jason's question. OS X just seems to make so much more sense than Windows. It's hard to describe the little things, but once you get used to it, you will fall in love.

[Drew]

And to feed the troll:
What feature in vista isn't in osx?

The feature that allows you to play games as well as get real work done :flame:


(using boot camp doesn't count)

[Grider]

The feature that allows you to play games as well as get real work done :flame:


(using boot camp doesn't count)

That is not Vista; that is XP which became a pretty good OS after 7 years. After you spend an hour or two downloading stuff to make it useful like Putty and 7Zip.

Really I'd consider Vista the real Windows 7 beta program. Vista is a steaming pile whose only purpose was new for the sake of new. XP was long in the tooth and MS needed to release something anything new to start gettting money from an OS again, so here came Vista to fill that void.

Windows 7 is pretty damn good and the first OS since about Windows 2000 that people are somewhat excited about. Everybody had hope for Vista and it just kicked them in the back of the knee and took their lunch money with its fucked up memory requirements and lack of speed.

[Drew]

That is not Vista; that is XP which became a pretty good OS after 7 years. After you spend an hour or two downloading stuff to make it useful like Putty and 7Zip.

Really I'd consider Vista the real Windows 7 beta program. Vista is a steaming pile whose only purpose was new for the sake of new. XP was long in the tooth and MS needed to release something anything new to start gettting money from an OS again, so here came Vista to fill that void.

Windows 7 is pretty damn good and the first OS since about Windows 2000 that people are somewhat excited about. Everybody had hope for Vista and it just kicked them in the back of the knee and took their lunch money with its fucked up memory requirements and lack of speed.

Actually, after SP1, vista wasn't THAT bad. I did all the pre-deployment testing of vista here on base to test all of the apps and all the crazy group policy changes the AF requires and it turns out there really weren't any real issues on systems with 2+ gigs of ram and any CPU 2 years old or newer.

We had a few systems deliver constant BSOD's but I tracked that down to driver issues (drivers won't re-initialize when waking up from hibernation) so we disabled hibernation and one particular model HP notebook would give BSOD's from the display driver which was fixed by disabling AERO on that model through another GPO.

Aside from that, there really isn't anything that bothers me about it.


all of this is under the assumption that the system has at least 2 gigs of ram though and a decent CPU. Most systems we use have at least the intel core duo (not core 2 duo) or the 3 core AMD's.


However....



I still use XP at home on my main computer. My laptop has Win7 RC1 but video/audio driver issues with vista are ultimately why I can't/won't use it on my home PC. That and the all too common "XP just works" reason.

[AUtigers350z]

Actually, after SP1, vista wasn't THAT bad. I did all the pre-deployment testing of vista here on base to test all of the apps and all the crazy group policy changes the AF requires and it turns out there really weren't any real issues on systems with 2+ gigs of ram and any CPU 2 years old or newer.

We had a few systems deliver constant BSOD's but I tracked that down to driver issues (drivers won't re-initialize when waking up from hibernation) so we disabled hibernation and one particular model HP notebook would give BSOD's from the display driver which was fixed by disabling AERO on that model through another GPO.

Aside from that, there really isn't anything that bothers me about it.

That's pretty messed up Drew haha. Requiring a system with 2+GB of RAM and a newer CPU to run Vista. What a shame! And then having to disable features that are BUILT IN to the operating system to keep it from getting a BSOD?? That's ridiculous. You're absolutely right about the RAM issue though. Vista chokes hardcore on less than 2GB of RAM whereas I have Windows 7 running on an old desktop with 512MB of RAM and an OLD chipset and it seems to work great so far.

[phillyd]

It's nice to say OSX pwns all, but they are expensive and um, last time I checked...there are quite a number of applications that do not run on OSX, natively....blah blah blah parallels/etc. That's just one more thing to deal with.

If money was not an issue, I'd have a Mac. :eek: Buuuuuuut. Yeah. I can buy several laptops for the price of one MBP...and cannot justify spending that amount of $ on a computer.

Also, as far as BSOD...I have been using a Vista box at work for about 9 months now and I have had ZERO issues. I reboot every 2-3 weeks and usually install updates around that time, I have a bunch of apps install and have not had any driver issues. I have used XP at home for YEARS and have had zero...yes, ZERO, OS related problems. I have had a couple minor CPU speed/heat issues, but that is because I need to upgrade my CPU heatsink and fan..i built my home PC out of a bunch of random hotrod-ish parts

Do PCs have issues...sure...they are FAR from perfect. Are there about 11 billion more PCs in use than Macs...yes. So i think it is safe to say that PC problems will be more widespread and common. PC has/is/and will continue to dominate the market, this is just the way it will be for a while.

So for all you Mac nut swingers, keep swinging...Mac loves you and will keep taking your money. I hope you get the value out of your Mac that you think it is worth. Until the prices come down to within about 10-15% of what I can get a nice priced PC, I will stay on this side of the fence. :dropit:

My advice. Buy stock in MSFT and APPL and have your employer buy your computer =P

EDIT: have not done anything with '7' except read a few short articles on it.

EDIT x2: just started the 7 RC1 download...

[Anderson]

The feature that allows you to play games as well as get real work done :flame:


(using boot camp doesn't count)

What about parallels? (Edit: Didn't see phils post) Does that count. (So no i guess :() OSX does play the only game the matters....WoW

[AadosX]

I will get into this more when I have time. But lets start with one very simple fucking thing.

A PAINT PROGRAM! I can't even draw an arrow on an effing picture to post online without downloading a program to do so. But at least that's (sort of) fixable with a download. There are so many settings you can't change in Mac OSX that are annoying to me.

And then there's the fact that my iTunes has a mind of it's own and starts/stops my music randomly all the time without me doing anything. My Mac has also frozen/crashed THREE TIMES since I bought it 3 months ago. That might not seem like a lot but all I do on the damn thing is use the internet and listen to music. On my Windows VISTA machine I could do that while also playing games and transferring files to a hard drive and it NEVER crashed on me in the past year. I thought these weren't supposed to crash?

And don't even bring up the Virus bullshit because if you're getting a virus then you're an idiot or doing something sketchy. I haven't run an anti-virus program on my Windows machines for years now and never get viruses!

I have definitely owned this Mac long enough to know just about everything about it, which isn't much.. it's so damn simple, which can be good to the average user but leaves a techy person like me feeling unfulfilled. Vista (Windows) just has so much more room to grow in my eyes and right out of the box was WAY more powerful/tweakable.

Sure, Macs are great and the definite winnar when it comes to grandma or your girlfriend trying to use a computer, but for anyone who is into computers at all, Windows is clearly the better choice. Not to mention the hardware is infinitely more customizable on a Windows machine... and they cost less. I'll admit the only reason I bought the Mac was because of how it looked and because I really like the trackpad which is large and allows you to do a few things on it. If I didn't have the option of putting Windows on the Mac as well, I would never have even considered it.

And as far as Vista goes, it just plainly didn't give me any problems, so I loved it. It gave me TONS of problems about two years ago when it was new, but once they got it worked out, it was just as good as XP but with more features and it looked better, so clearly an improvement.

If you're still having issues with Vista then you just aren't doing something right (maybe using age old equipment with it?).

[AadosX]

And that is being generous to Vista because after I use the wife's laptop for a few minutes I'd swear I could put Windows 95 on it and get things done faster....

That's probably because the computer is owned by a WOMAN.;)

[AadosX]

That's pretty messed up Drew haha. Requiring a system with 2+GB of RAM and a newer CPU to run Vista. What a shame! And then having to disable features that are BUILT IN to the operating system to keep it from getting a BSOD?? That's ridiculous. You're absolutely right about the RAM issue though. Vista chokes hardcore on less than 2GB of RAM whereas I have Windows 7 running on an old desktop with 512MB of RAM and an OLD chipset and it seems to work great so far.

If you're using a computer with less than 2gb of RAM then get out of this conversation.:D

Yes Vista had some problems initially, mainly related to graphics drivers, as Drew stated earlier. But they were fixed, and now are long gone.

[AadosX]

And I use Boot Camp. Parallels is utter crap as far as I've seen. My buddy who has to use it at work (because his Mac won't run the programs they need.. go figure..) says it freezes up on him all the time. Also you're giving up resources (which you seriously need due to inferior hardware on a Mac. I can't imagine playing a Crysis in Parallels..) for no reason.

[AUtigers350z]

And I use Boot Camp. Parallels is utter crap as far as I've seen. My buddy who has to use it at work (because his Mac won't run the programs they need.. go figure..) says it freezes up on him all the time. Also you're giving up resources (which you seriously need due to inferior hardware on a Mac. I can't imagine playing a Crysis in Parallels..) for no reason.

Haha. I haven't used Parallels before but I'm fine with VMWare Fusion. Crysis in Parallels or Fusion is not an option. I've played it through Bootcamp but that's about it. Windows vs Mac is sorta like Auburn vs Bama etc. Not really a possibility of one side beating the other. As someone who does mainly photo/video editing I prefer Mac. Hell, when I met with the head of the Graphic Design department here at Auburn, he told me that the Graphic Design department REQUIRES you to own a Macbook Pro preferrably, Macbook at the least, and at the very very last resort a Windows PC. All of the computer labs in the GD department have iMacs. It's definitely the best choice for someone who has an art/photography focus, as far as gaming though I would definitely see a Windows computer running something reliable (XP or 7) being the best choice. Ricky just got some new toys for his gaming PC and for the price it's an AMAZING machine. No complete hatred toward Windows here, just MUCH prefer the Mac for what I do.


PS - I still luhz you John, no need to get upset :D

[Grider]

I have definitely owned this Mac long enough to know just about everything about it, which isn't much.. it's so damn simple, which can be good to the average user but leaves a techy person like me feeling unfulfilled. Vista (Windows) just has so much more room to grow in my eyes and right out of the box was WAY more powerful/tweakable.

Sure, Macs are great and the definite winnar when it comes to grandma or your girlfriend trying to use a computer, but for anyone who is into computers at all, Windows is clearly the better choice. Not to mention the hardware is infinitely more customizable on a Windows machine... and they cost less. I'll admit the only reason I bought the Mac was because of how it looked and because I really like the trackpad which is large and allows you to do a few things on it. If I didn't have the option of putting Windows on the Mac as well, I would never have even considered it.

And as far as Vista goes, it just plainly didn't give me any problems, so I loved it. It gave me TONS of problems about two years ago when it was new, but once they got it worked out, it was just as good as XP but with more features and it looked better, so clearly an improvement.

If you're still having issues with Vista then you just aren't doing something right (maybe using age old equipment with it?).

I would like to point out that EVERY systems engineer, network engineer, and programmer in my office uses a MBP. I don't know if you could find a more techy/geeky office than mine. We maintain over 1000 hosts (routers, switches, firewalls, & servers) through out the state. We can have pretty much whatever we want as far as hardware and we all chose MacBook Pros. We all have Windows laptops if we want them but they sit in
the inventory closet collecting dust.

The general consensus around the office is that OSX does everything we need to do without having stupid driver issues or resource wasting that keep shit from working. I can virtualize Windows (or hell anything else that runs on x86 based processors. I have a functioning Windows 3.11 for Workgroups VM...) when I need it seamlessly and it runs plenty fast enough. The "grandma simplicity" means I don't waste a whole day fixing my computer after a driver update or some shitty half-baked patch installs

All that said, I probably would not be running Windows on a laptop if I didn't have a MBP. I used Ubuntu Linux for 98% of the stuff I did when I was at Southern Union and I started to do that here until I got used to doing things on the MBP. I spend the majority of the day with a bunch of terminal sessions open either through telnet or ssh so the power of the command line of a *nix or BSD based system is going kick any version of Window to the curb.

Vista is ok I guess. But the fact that it take a newer computer to run when 90% of the world is using it to just browse the internet and check mail is fucking stupid. XP can do that just fine with a 5 year old machine that hasn't been upgraded since it was new. That is why a ton of businesses are just planning on skipping Vista all together because they don't have to invest in a fleet of new PCs just to run the OS; XP runs their apps just fine for less money.

I don't have issues with Vista because I don't use it unless I have to. I have not used it for day to day stuff ever. I don't like it as it felt like a slug when I put it on a computer that ran XP and Ubuntu just fine and did what I needed to get done.

[Grider]

A PAINT PROGRAM! I can't even draw an arrow on an effing picture to post online without downloading a program to do so. But at least that's (sort of) fixable with a download. There are so many settings you can't change in Mac OSX that are annoying to me.

http://www.sumo.fi/products/sumopaint/index.php?id=0

[Obike]

Use gimp for editing photos.

And the entire "You have to use MacOSX because that's the only thing worth using for graphics/photo/music/whatev" argument is complete and utter BS. Photoshop has function parity across the OS'. You can get a Wacom that is OS agnostic. 3DSMax is the only 3D modelling package that is Windows only, all the others are OS agnostic. Professional sound and video editing software is also highly OS agnostic.

OSX gets viruses and has exploits just like *NIX and Windows. Personally, I say use whatever OS you are comfortable with. You can always use Boot Camp/VM to run Windows, or a Hackintosh/VM to run MacOSX. You know where the real difference is? Price. And that comes down to what people feel like charging for the hardware. Want to run OSX but can't afford a Mac? Go buy a Psystar.

My main box runs Vista, I also own a mac mini that dual boots Windows 7, and I use VMWare Workstation all the time to run a variety of OS' in different configurations (32-bit and 64-bit, diff versions such as XP Home, XP Pro, Vista Home, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Fedora Core, etc etc etc). Stop the bickering about which OS/manufacturer is better because it's utterly pointless.

Now back to the topic at hand... I like Windows 7 because it's made my life easier as a programmer.

[AUtigers350z]

And the entire "You have to use MacOSX because that's the only thing worth using for graphics/photo/music/whatev" argument is complete and utter BS. Photoshop has function parity across the OS'. You can get a Wacom that is OS agnostic. 3DSMax is the only 3D modelling package that is Windows only, all the others are OS agnostic. Professional sound and video editing software is also highly OS agnostic.

I honestly do like editing photos on here better than Windows for a few reasons. One of the most important is how OS X handles RAW files. I can copy RAW files to my desktop and see the thumbnail previews in OS X. This may sound very minute but it's A LOT easier to pick which photos I'm going to edit in which program by looking at the thumbnails and not having to open each photo individually. I actually stopped shooting in RAW when I was still using Windows because it was so much of a hassle. Also, the time it takes for me to batch process a folder in Photoshop, export all of my photos from Lightroom, and even compiling an HDR image is significantly faster on here than it was on my Vista laptop. Granted the processing times could be attributed to the 4GB of RAM on OSX vs 2GB of RAM on Vista. Really it just comes down to personal preference as you said, but I feel that my MBP suits my needs a lot better than my Windows PC or any other Windows PC I've used.

[Jnic335i]

windows 7 is nice so far. it's very fast

[AUtigers350z]

Here's a script to remove the watermarked "Windows 7. Evaluation copy. Build 7100" from the bottom right corner..

http://digiex.net/guides-tutorials/1323-how-remove-desktop-watermark-windows-7-build-7100-rc.html#post11266

[Grider]

Here's a script to remove the watermarked "Windows 7. Evaluation copy. Build 7100" from the bottom right corner..

http://digiex.net/guides-tutorials/1323-how-remove-desktop-watermark-windows-7-build-7100-rc.html#post11266

*sigh* Funny how times change. We used to run scripts to show that shit on production Windows 2000 and XP boxes....

[Obike]

*sigh* Funny how times change. We used to run scripts to show that shit on production Windows 2000 and XP boxes....

Hahaha, no joke.

[Drew]

I can copy RAW files to my desktop and see the thumbnail previews in OS X.

me too :D


http://picasa.google.com/features.html