Mossberg: Windows 7 narrows the gap with Apple's Mac OS X - Page 2

Homegamer,
Homeschooler,
Home business,
Homemaker,
Homebreaker, or
Homeless?

It's still Windows.
Still the same philosophies regarding usability and user experience.
Still the same endless dialogues and incoherent interface.
But this around, it's GPU-accelerated. Oh the joy!

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/top...ndows-vista-7/

See? Isn't it MUCH better with semi-transperent windows instead of the old boring gray?
*yawn*

Will this finaly destroy the Apple /Justin Long TV ads?
We can only hope.

My children run Windows 7 now, they really like it and my support has really gone down. The only thing I don't like is that there is no upgrade path from XP.

When I read this article I am pleased, this will keep Apple going to create an even better OSX. Microsoft deserves a win every now and then, after all they did have a hand at bringing the computer into the home, which benefits the entire industry.

I'm quite certain I don't follow your logic here. Two negatives don't make a positive, especially in computing! Windows + Flash should equal death. I've never had a problem with flash on Windows, definitely not close to death!

You took that seriously?

I so very much hope Apple takes a new route. Those ads grated on my nerves from day one!

I knew it was a joke, don't worry.

"After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced."

That was precisely what Walt Mossberg wrote in the WSJ on Jan 18th 2007.

Let's let the customers decide shall we?

I predict a riot.

Of dissatisfaction.

Aero peak and expose can't be compared. He said dock expose, which refers to clicking and holding on a programs icon to show all open windows of that program. Personally that is a feature I have never used. I use aero peak all the time though and it is quite useful and much more intuitive as it just requires you to hover over a program icon and all other programs become transparent. Document Flip or whatever it's called is the Windows version of Expose and it is vastly inferior.

I suggest you downgrade to Windows XP. Apparently Win7 isn't your cup of tea.

Last time I used Mac OS X and installed something I downloaded, it asked me if I wanted to run it. That's the same thing here according to what you said.

The only reason SL was the "must-have" upgrade was because it was ONLY 30 bucks, so cheap, why not? If it were 150 like normal, it may not have been the "must have" but a "nice to have". Windows 7 isn't required either.

Because it's the one platform where Adobe spends most of its resources on, and others are just an after thought, tick on the compatibility list.

This is why flash on Windows is optimized and probably even uses GPU to render its content, whereas in OS X it's a mess that needs all the system resources to render even the SD video (whereas quicktime will play 1080p video using 0.1% of CPU that flash does when playing standard def).

This is good news for Windows users but I fail to see why I should care. MS lost me as a customer in 1988 and I have never looked back. Apple has only given me more and more reasons to stick with Macs since then and with ebay offering me "pre-owned" and gently used Apple hardware at good prices, the only real sticking point I've ever had with Apple has been removed once and for all.

Bonus points: I am now considered hip by my nephews who have "discovered" Apple and sold their parents on them as well. To them, it seems that I was some sort prescient savant.

MS, enjoy your 99% dominance (or whatever it is now) and stop trying to compete for my dollar 'cause you have zero chance at this point. Save your advertising bucks, too. Use them to design the next iphone.

I have used Apples daily since 1983 with not one problem or needed phone call--Apple IIe--Mac SE--IMac -- am now waiting for the new iMAC. All Mossberg's reviews have trumped the superior qualities of Apple computers.
Now that Microsoft finally, and I say finally,has a good operating system it is terrible to say Mossberg has sold out. One plus is that it will encourage Apple to further improve their computers and operating system.

At the risk of being snowed under with vitriol, can I ask a simple question:

What's wrong with the registry? Surely it's just a meta collection of .plist files in a single database, rather than scattered to the 4 winds?

Before you beat the shit out of me, I run nearly every OS known to modern man, and prefer my Mac to most, but will admit under pain of waterboarding to be a Solaris man at heart...

IMA MAC...AND IMA PC...
"Excuse me Mac, but what is that line up of people for?"
"Well PC that's a crowd here to buy Snow Leopard for $29"
"If I pool them all together Mac, I can get one Home version of W7. Walt Mossberg
said it was almost as good as OS 10.6!"
"Right PC. And having the Flu is almost as good as being well!"
"Mac...do you think this new virus was manufactured?"
"Now your talking! Thats what PCs are for!"

You don't understand User Account Control at all. It asks you every single time you open some programs, and you can't tell it to not ask you again. If the prompts get too annoying, you have to turn it completely off.

In this case it's not a valid win32 application because it's a file which has 0 bytes. You can rename any file you like to have a ".exe" extension and that won't make it a valid Win32 application!

The problem in this case is that Firefox is still downloading your file. When Firefox is downloading a file and hasn't finished it creates a place-holder file of 0 bytes with the file name that will eventually be the downloaded file and creates a second file called <filename>.part where to store the partially downloaded file, until it's finished, at which point the .part file is copied to the real file name and the .part file is erased.

Your "problem" here has nothing to do with Windows7 and everything to do with how Firefox works and your failure to understand this.

With all Windows versions. They start off good. Just use it for 6 months of using the internet and loading programs. The registry will grind to a halt.

the registry and dll's are still in win 7. guess that means its still a pos.

Thanks for the correction. I can agree with that.


I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will explain, from what I know it seems to be bad use (by developers) of a bad concept. It basically allows them to screw with things that really shouldn't be changed - at least when you delete a program and .plist you're not affecting system files.

I don't get the big deal with UAC. My Mac has asked me to enter in my password and open safe files many a time, which I have no problem with.

revealing !!!

and posts like yours show how little you understand.

Mossberg is probably one of the few fair reviewers out there. Because he is neither 100% proWindows or proMac. He looks at them both objectively and without the glazed over eyes of a fanboy.

And in point of fact, compared to the tragedy that was Vista, Windows deserves some praise for finally stepping up and producing a decent and truly competitive OS. It is one thing to win but stomping the other team just isn't as much fun as a real fight. Now the game can finally really begin.

As Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes in Fortune:

The system for upgrading is complicated, but Vista owners can upgrade to the exactly comparable edition of Windows 7 while keeping all files, settings and programs in place. Unfortunately, XP owners, the biggest body of Windows users, wont be able to do that.

This is obviously the key piece of information that every Windows XP user should know before purchasing Windows 7. Sounds like a potential nightmare to me.

I have run the 7 betas from the beginning. When I can run 7 with no third party anti this and thats and never be told I have no this or that, I'll be a little more impressed. The nagging is still there and for a very good reason of course which was kind of glossed over in this review. It is still far more vulnerable to attacks than Mac OSX.

I'd also point out all reviews should be taken with a grain of salt unless in a real long term working situation and that includes Apple OSs. In my experience the first few hours, even days and weeks of any recent M$ OS instal always runs quite well ... then over time the issues start and it slows down. Plus the continual battle between messages from Kasperksy (or whatever) and the OS are still there. However, over all no doubt 7 is a great improvement over Vista, but then what wouldn't be, lol

There's no doubt that the desktop experience could probably use some sort of updates to smooth usage - SL actually seems to have made drag/drop between spaces worse. Where I used to be able to start a drag, invoke it, drag over the space I wanted, f8 again, focus doesn't seem to follow now and I end up back where I started unless I hit the space bar when over the target window. I do like the dock exposé, though once invoked it would be nice if you could still mouse over apps and get exposé to show what's on the other apps - like the Win7 taskbar, IIRC.

Win7 still isn't a compelling reason to move from OSX, but it's at least not wretched. On the other hand, it can't fix the rest of the windows apps with nasty user experience - there's just something about using apps there that makes them feel really awful and grates on my nerves, which I think is what Walt Mossberg was alluding to towards the end of the review as well. Something about Windows & its apps puts me on edge - and I've used it a lot in the past at work.

In terms of the underlying architecture - the GCD stuff is great (I've been converting some of my code from single-threaded onto this with ease, will move the already-threaded parts onto it soon...), but as you say, Mail and iCal while maybe a bit snappier won't really wow users. I did see a HUGE improvement on multithreaded render times on Carrara (renders with large textures would run slower on 4 cores than 2, now it's pretty much linear speedup as you would hope) - I think the updated SL kernel does a much better job of binding threads to cores, at least I assume the problem before was cache thrashing of some sort. Maybe there are visible improvements on other apps that aren't tuned for 64bit / GCD yet as well... But again, not sure how many users will notice that?

I'm actually wondering what tasks that 'normal' users do will really take noticeable advantage of OpenCL / GCD type improvements anyway - certainly surfing, mail, etc. aren't going to sell it. I have a 3 year old Mac Pro (the 2x2 @ 2.66GHz with 12GB RAM) and I have to say I really don't feel compelled to upgrade yet - it's still a fantastic box, even more so now with SL. (Now, I will upgrade when 6 or 8 core CPUs show up for a 12-16 core box plus hyperthreading - I use this machine day in/out for development and graphics work, and that would definitely at least speed up compiles and renders.)

Anyway, I think the plumbing on SL is much more of an improvement than what Win7 is over Vista - and that's still full of registry / dll / etc. junk, but Win7 'polished the turd' with more UI tweaks where with SL end users mostly will wonder if there's anything new. Wonder what the 8/16 core + OpenCL future will bring that really uses all of that horsepower...

Most corporations have no interest in Vista or Windows 7. They still run XP because of either proprietary software for the business, or the majority of their client boxes are crippled Celerons that are incapable of running anything beyond XP. Companies won't risk the cost of running Windows 7 if it is not compatible with their software programs, and won't even consider buying new hardware just to run it.

Microsoft's high upgrade prices allow them to make money off the home user because they made little or no money off the original purchase of the OS through the hardware purchase. More home users rush out to buy a new OS before any corporation would.

Yes, I really think Apple is not focussing enough on their apps. They should spend more time & money marketing these, and keep the development going.

Cheers for that. I would love for someone who genuinely understands what the registry does and how/why to explain why people hate it so much. I suspect that someone who knows his still well enough will probably say "Actually, it's OK in principle, the problem as that people don't use it properly, or find weird uses for which is was not intended" etc. I will happily admit that I don't know enough about it to comment.

I suspect most people bash it because everyone else bashes it, and it sounds as if you know what your on about when you join in. I'm no lover of windows, I put up with it as work, and my wife/kids all use it because it's familiar at work/school etc, but I can't believe it's all bad.

How often on a Mac is the solution to weird problems "Delete your .plist, it must be corrupt"? Quite a lot, in my experience, and I can imagine it's possibly only luck that a) they didn;t go the database route, and b) Microsoft did, but perhaps didn;t imlement it with enough bomb proof coatings to stop developers abusing it.

I missed that last time around ... kind of undermines his street cred a wee bit lol . Yes I know Walt is usually on the button

The Dock came from NeXT, and predates the Taskbar by several years.

Shut up.

You have done well to prove how stupid you are. You have no idea what you are talking about.

You do realize that Intel Macs run Windows, and some people have Windows installed on their Macs because they use Windows at work with software that will never be written for Mac. Some may install Windows so they can play games, specifically older games that were hybrid discs that will never be updated to run on the Intel version of Mac OS X. So this news may be important to them.

People will prefer to suffer under XP until their machines break rather than upgrade to Windows 7, unless they are PROSUMERs. Prosumers are being lost to the mac platform.

The problem is the Mac OS version of the Flash Player plug-in. It has never been as optimized as its Windows counterpart. That responsibility lies on Adobe to fix.

that comment can only come from someone that believes that there is only one group doing everything.

there isn't.

take a tour of Cupe. In this building is iphone/ipod development. that building over there is desktops, next to it laptops. the building on the other side of the quad is software, OS on the first floor, apps on the second.

and that building on the other side of the cafe is where they work on the 'niche' products, accessories.

And the building with no windows and the guard dogs. That's the secret lab for not yet released stuff. Once you go in, you can't leave or talk to anyone on the outside until the product has been released. Part of Apple's Cult of Secrecy.


an opinion but not one shared by many, particularly the general public. who are buying the current offerings aplenty


which goes against the very core of Apple. they don't do as everyone else does because everyone else does.


You assume they want to be a 'real competitor'

The main problem with the Registry is that it's binary and mixes settings of everything together. Thus:

• Corruption can be difficult or impossible to recover from, you can't simply edit or delete one app's/feature's settings separately from another.
• Finding the settings for a given app/feature can be very difficult at best because they are all mixed together and organized in unintuitive (to the average user) ways.
• The nature of the Registry makes it susceptible to malware attack and it can be difficult to identify and correct the problem.

Those are a few problems of the registry relative to text-based, separate .plist files

You're in luck - there will be no beatings today, even though I liked the old SunOS better than Solaris.

From when I've coded on Windows - it centralizes all kinds of information for apps and the system in 1 place. So if and when it gets screwed up, you tend to have real problems. It also makes it much easier for apps to modify and hide things since nobody can actually figure out what should be there in the first place. They used to recommend all of those text files with setting info instead (before the registry), which actually meant you could find those settings and if they got screwed it only impacted 1 app.

Just as an amusing story, my brother ran a 'registry cleaner' app to try to remove old settings from an app he had, but of course that cleaner app was malware and infected his machine to the hilt (adware + viruses + maybe rootkit stuff, though he could never tell...). Clean install time. Go Windows - and Windows users! Yes, I've told him he's a dork.

Exactly.
@ls1z28chris: That's why under your .exe it has the same name but it says *.exe.PART. Finish the d/l and the .PART file will disappear.
EDIT: I assume you are taking CCNA or similar, and ironically, the webpage for Cisco's packet tracer has an image for the trivia game that says "Do you really know how the internet works?"


I'll be buying Win7, it is good. I need it for my wife's Vista laptop and my MBP. M$ will finally be getting some of my cash, those bastards.
My $0.02 is that if you don't use it, you lose it. I don't want to be behind in any tech, let alone clueless as to how it operates. Windows included.
(Which means it's gonna cost me more than two cents I suppose \)

Doubtful. Corporations don't buy a new OS for fancy features, they need much more of a compelling reason. A lot of companies use custom software apps to run their business, and if their program won't run on Win7, they have no reason to upgrade. Also, most of their hardware are cheap PC's that won't run Win7.

While at work, you don't use any of the features of the OS, you are only running the software programs to do your work. Companies don't risk incompatibilities just because a new OS came out.