

First look at Windows 7 - mrkurt
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.html

======
sfphotoarts
I haven't used Windows in years, but this looks like a significant step
forward. Its always easier to criticize, but to me this looks like Microsoft
is 'getting it' and going to a lighter, simpler, less fussy UI. Good for
everyone.

~~~
cstejerean
This is pretty good for Microsoft. There's finally a feature in the Windows UI
that I would like to steal for my Ubuntu machine:

"Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it automatically;
dragging it off the top of the screen restores it. Dragging a window to the
left or right edge of the screen resizes the window so that it takes 50% of
the screen. With this, a pair of windows can be quickly docked to each screen
edge to facilitate interaction between them. "

~~~
s3graham
Haha, that's pretty funny: I use Windows all day, and "Dragging a window to
the top of the screen maximizes it automatically" will be the absolute first
thing I disable. How is that useful on 24/30" screens?

~~~
thwarted
Yeah, I already have periodic problems with metacity's "dragging a maximize
window unmaximizes it; dragging to the top of another screen maximizes it
there" feature, when I over/undershoot a panel or window buttons.

------
lux
I have to say, once again I'm unimpressed. Most of these changes can be summed
up as copies of Expose, smart folders, and file previews from Mac OS, and
toolbar thumbnail previews straight out of Ubuntu. Oh, and moving some desktop
apps online, so instead of just communicating with an online service, now the
whole app has gone Java Webstart on us. Nice...

And if there's nothing else that's really new under the hood since Vista, as
he said, what exactly is so new and bold about Windows 7? Seems like a "me
too" grab, and a rather weak one at that.

~~~
m0digital
I totally agree that these "new" features seem like a rip from other OSs.

I think the new and bold thing about Windows 7 is that it doesn't suck...as
much. You gotta look at it from the perspective of a typical non-techie users.
My mom had Vista and whens she needed help it took me quite a while to figure
out all the crazy control panels and cryptic hidden settings. She once even
deleted her network connection and couldn't get it back. Windows 7 will
hopefully reduce the clutter and make it easier to use than Vista.

~~~
lux
Hopefully. I'd love to see "Cleaned up Control Panel that finally makes sense"
in that feature list... ;) Vista wireless setup is ridiculous.

------
laut
Looks like they managed to copy some simplicity from OS X. Good for them and
good for the users.

~~~
river_styx
They also copied the dock and expose.

~~~
halo
And Apple copied the dock from RISC OS...

------
lhorn
The review hasn't addressed the most important question: will it run smoothly
on 512MB of RAM, the maximum I'm willing to give it under VirtualBox.

Currently I often run two instances of XP with about 300MB RAM each and
they're quite fast. Vista was built with an assumption that everybody has at
least 2GB with half of that going to Vista itself and another half - to
Internet Explorer. I hope they learned that some users have a lot less RAM and
they like running other software too.

~~~
halo
I'd like to see Apple address that too in Snow Leopard - Leopard runs like a
dog under VMWare which makes cross-platform development a pain.

~~~
maximilian
I also want to know this. Is there a magical hacked os x that runs under
virtualization?

~~~
demallien
The license for OS X Server lets you run it virtualized. I don't remember if
they have actually released the products yet, and I'm too lazy to look, but
both Parallels and Vmware have been working on it.

------
cbrinker
Everyone copies everyone else, if no one copied anyone else we would have 1
operating system, 1 car to drive, and 1 type of dessert cake to eat.

Anyway, I'm interested to see where Microsoft takes this product. I hope Ozzie
(SP?) is helping move Microsoft in a new, better direction. Science knows
since after the 2003 suites they've been making worse crap than usual.

------
nuclear_eclipse
> _By default, new tray icons are hidden and invisible; the icons are only
> displayed if explicitly enabled._

So now it's even easier for crapware to sneak onto your system and steal all
your resources if you don't remain vigilant and constantly check the control
panel for what tray apps are running?! Where do I sign?

~~~
snprbob86
Crapware can always just not show a tray icon and keep on running in the
background. Preventing the installation of crapware is a very, very different
problem to solve than putting the user in control of the user experience.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Sorry. I was meaning more along the lines of things like Quicktime, Real
Player, and other such programs the user has installed as a means to an end,
but now can't easily figure out that it's always running and starts to wonder
why their brand new PC is running slow...

------
chaostheory
"Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching
architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista."

Vista already looks great. It's what's under the hood that matters; I'm not
excited.

~~~
altano
They're saying Windows 7 isn't going to bring wide-sweeping architectural
changes that break backwards compatibility, but it IS a stated goal to make
"under the hood" changes such as improving boot times, general performance,
etc.

------
aerocapture
Looks a lot like Kubuntu. I like it.

