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Giz Explains: The Windows 7 Beta Fine Print

Time: 23:53 EST/04:53 GMT | News Source: Gizmodo | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

Windows 7 is the largest OS beta test ever. If you followed our guide you're already snapping, peeking and poking around in it. But did you read the fine print before you clicked install?

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#1 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 1/15/2009 7:54:53 AM

Mine is running in a VPC 7 container. When it's over, I just toss it in the trash...

TL

#2 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 1/15/2009 8:28:38 AM

There are lots of ways to test - but to do so fully, requires a physical host dedicated to the task. As we develop or designs, establish and solidify our baseline and test hardware components, software, and just about the entire ecosystem around all of it, we'll deploy it on some of the most problematic configurations we have recorded. We'll throw it some softballs, too, but they'll be fewer. When the BETA's and RC's are done, we'll do it all over again with RTM bits. It's the same ole drill we've all been through many times.

When we're "done done" we'll build our first networks around it and just as carefully.... and pundits will still say either: "It's just Vista 2 and it still sucks, or it's just Vista 2 and it is what Vista 1 should have been."

We'll scratch our heads a bit more and wonder yet again - as Latch tells me and you that good PC's are impossible, or some less than worth the effort result of alchemy and voo doo only shills like me take the time to practice.

#3 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 1/15/2009 2:30:23 PM

#2: "...or it's just Vista 2 and it is what Vista 1 should have been."

Well, MS has said that 7 is essentially Vista R2. What's wrong with that?

as Latch tells me and you that good PC's are impossible, or some less than worth the effort result of alchemy and voo doo only shills like me take the time to practice.

Um, what? I'll try to parse that and hopefully derive your meaning from it. I never said good PCs were impossible to get. I said that it was pathetic that you had to have a hand-tweaked, top-tier box to get decent performance out of Vista. Big difference.

#4 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 1/15/2009 8:26:41 PM

See, I said that it was pathetic that you had to have a hand-tweaked, top-tier box to get decent performance out of Vista this is simply not true.

You can build a PC that runs Vista extremely well for under 500 bucks. It is pure nonsense that anything particularly special might be required.

#5 By 432 (209.167.107.58) at 1/16/2009 7:27:55 AM

I will tell what is pathetic about vista. That is that Win7 Beta 1 runs better on my Dell Inspirion 600m with 1gb ram, then Vista SP1 does on my Dell Latitude D630 with 4 GB.

Compare the specs, and then tell me how Vista could have been that much of blunder? Either way, it don't matter now. Win7 is coming fast and furious and it would seem from my testing, it is Vista (Fully Baked) edition and it runs well. So much like many others...we will skip Vista, and go straight to Win 7.

#6 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 1/16/2009 8:00:49 AM

#5, oh... many reasons.... processes being monitored and brokered to the scheduler and process and memory managers. Here's a question: which is safer? Vista, or Windows 7?
Which favors bursts (what we normally use day to day) vice long reads and writes (which we use much less often)? Which one scores more highly in bench marks? Here's another question: which is a better OS? Vista or Windows 7? You might be surprised to learn the answers.

The answer of course is: it depends.

But that does not matter.... perception is everything and in our modern world, facts don't seem to matter to people at all. Things like delayed start are used more often in Windows 7 - so initially, one's perceptions are that it is faster - but is it? Let it run a bit and it evens out - same with Vista - once it loads, it's fast and scheduling takes over. Indexes are all updated and instant search is, well... instant. Not so in Windows 7, which is shaped around perception.

Finally, one has no way of knowing how up to date your drivers were on your original Vista build, but I can about be certain that the drivers in your Windows 7 build, or upgrade are newer. This matters a great deal more than one can imagine in terms of systems performance and stability. Bonus question: which one actually uses memory better? Which one shapes perceptions based upon memory usage? Which method delivers better performance?

#7 By 116 (66.193.251.146) at 1/16/2009 11:59:43 AM

So is it your contention that Vista is better than Windows 7?

#8 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 1/16/2009 12:03:05 PM

I think he's saying that things are not always as they appear.

#9 By 116 (66.193.251.146) at 1/16/2009 12:22:07 PM

Granted, but seriously have you used Windows 7?

#10 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 1/16/2009 8:39:46 PM

#7,8,9 Yes, posting from 7 now - been testing it on a very wide variety of clients for some time.

#8, Exactly that and in the case of V/7 it could not be more true.

Vista was a sea change. Its emphasis was on security at any cost - even performance.

Forget the UI and features new to Windows 7 (for now), they are interesting and some are truly innovative. The new task (super) bar is very helpful - especially on wide format displays. But get past that for the purposes of this post.

I've been a huge fan of securable-objects and the UIPI brokering agent. Vista is draconian in its treatment of ANY change to ANY object. Windows 7 is less so and its surface area is intentionally larger and more exposed - it is more like an XP in this sense, and that is what the people want and as easily, enterprise network admins at least, can turn up the policies on 7 (but will they? No! - not where it matters - in small business).

Windows 7 isn't Vista. Yes, it is refined, but it is also less. On load it does not cache as much and while it boots more quickly, it isn't quite as efficient right away in many significant ways. Windows 7 slants long writes over burst - just so perceptions about the monitoring of file transfers will "appear" better/faster - it displays that it is done faster and that is all that matters, because the nitwits testing use a stopwatch and the UI, vice any form of scientific examination of actual write locations.

It is entirely appropriate that Windows 7 has a slicker UI - more Aero and against a better spec and a much more evolved ecosystem. It's appropriate because Windows 7 is most about adjusting perceptions early in any session - it has a lot of torque, but less horsepower than Vista and by the way, if one understands how to tune Vista, you can make it fly and I mean haul the flipping mail - and yes Latch, good builders make that their baseline and their images are consistent and repeatable.

So here is where I am - I dig the new UI in 7, but I love the heart and soul of Vista. It's tight as a tick and where it matters most, it's a better OS. 7 is like that really hot lady that you find out later has had 100 grand in aesthetic surgery - you're gonna have some dog ugly kids, because the genes don't lie... I'm going to write a lot more about all of this in coming weeks... and for now I want to ask... do you really think that MS could ramp a new OS so substantively different/better in so short a time? Not me. Windows 7 is Vista, only less Vista. That's okay - great even, but bet that my images will be as much Vista as they are 7 - tuned, of course and best reflecting the balance I think our customers want.

#11 By 116 (66.193.251.146) at 1/17/2009 12:45:37 PM

Fair enough, lketchum. Do you have any examples of what you do to tune a vista installation? I would love to see what you are doing. How would you tune Vista to run well on a netbook with limited resources (atom processor) and 1 gig of ram? I have an old Dell Dimension 4100 that could only take 1 gig of RAM. It can't support any more and without that extra RAM Vista just is slow. I love Vista on new hardware (ITS GREAT!). But on older stuff Win7 really shines. I think it would be awesome if you could write a Vista tuning guide and share it with everyone on Activewin and even one for Windows 7 with the changes you think should be made by default. That would be super helpful and moreover educational. Im not saying you are wrong but if you could explain your point some more I think everyone would benefit.

#12 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 1/17/2009 6:43:13 PM

Hi red,

I would be happy to do that. I have not written much - not in about a year. I had specific goals I had set for that, and met them largely. I have my unpublished third part to my perfect PC guide, which I need to hit the publish button on. I should publish more, but once I got going with that, a lot of people began to write for private assistance and I ended up devoting a lot of spare time in that way, which was a lot more fun and I knew that we were helping. I'll begin to publish more this year and about how we do what we do. We fixed a lot of domains, code and more than a few Exchange servers.

You should know that my demonstration box, the one I demo OSes and our software on each day to customers is what I call "my smoke and mirrors box." It's five years old and nothing special. By intent, it is old and weak. It's designed to crush the idea that Vista needs new hardware to run well. Most people remark that they have never seen a machine run as fast, or operated as quickly - hence its value. I can and do make their own modest PC's run as well. I push machines very hard and very fast and as I demo for people, I will often fix things as we talk. That sells better than any other method I have ever seen. They ask what I am doing and I explain... activity verifiers for bank ATM machines... recovering files that a doctor lost for an important lecture, or remotely programming a smart phone... all examples of little things that people need from among our base. and all from a machine that is pretty old and should be "slow" Of course I have monster machines, too, but I don't demo from those - that would be foolish as people would believe that they needed to spend mad money to get performance. That's just not true. I have said many times: "Let's build yours right now as we talk and you can take it with you; if it is not the finest experience you have ever had, you can keep it and walk away; if it is great, can I earn your business?" I always win that business. When I build our baseline and reference images, I work for days and weeks. Once I get it just right, I capture the image and document it. Then I train it. The main thing to remember is that it is repeatable. Machine after machine features the same capability and it is easy to do once I have the image right. It's not alchemy, it's work. Oh, and I always seem to go back to that older machine... it's weird, but like a set of great boots, it feels great and never lets me down.

#13 By 4240821 (213.139.195.162) at 10/27/2023 7:48:00 AM