http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/ Engadget Comments for Windows 7 Beta in-depth impressions http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
I don't care how many editions there will be, but please, MS, put 64-bit install disk in every box, not only with Ultimate.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
You've gotten this wrong a couple times, just wanted to bring it to your attention again (sending you an email too):

GADGETS CAN BE PUT ANYWHERE IN VISTA, TOO.

They don't have to be locked to the sidebar:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/3221437032_28eb72cdf7_b.jpg

When the sidebar is open:

1) Click and drag the gadgets to the desktop

2) Right click on the sidebar and click "close sidebar"

The gadgets will remain on the desktop and the docking bar will disappear.

Please correct your information! Hope this helps fellow vista users! ]]>Jan 23rd 2009 6:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/]]>Jan 23rd 2009 6:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
Microsoft has Xbox Live. Everybody now has achievements, arcades and movie downloads. Steam is like a bad carbon copy.

Microsoft had touchscreen phones with apps for over a decade. It was mostly crappy because it was based on a decade old platform but the idea of a 'smart phone' wasn't Apple's (or Microsoft's but they certainly were on the forefront).

AppleTV? Bad Windows Media Center extender.

Desktop Search? That was in Vista public demos LONG before OS X had it.

Windows 1 had a dock/taskbar.

Tablet PCs anybody?

Netbooks are the Origami idea without a touchscreen.

I like the Ribbon in Office 2007. Office 2007 is still by far the most feature complete productivity suite.

Smart Displays were cool but too expensive.

Time Machine is pretty much shadow copy but with animation and on by default.

Windows Home Server?

Sideshow? Underutilized but the concept is really good.

DirectX is head and shoulders above OpenGL.

ZunePass is awesome. $15 a month for unlimited music and 10 free songs to keep. There is no equivalent for the iPod. The iPod can't wifi-sync. Zune had a wireless before the iPod.



]]>Jan 23rd 2009 7:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
they do/will...the beginning of it is windows live essentials and office live...the web-linked programs are in beta but will be integrated in W7 along with every other MS software.....check out Live Mesh and Azure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Mesh
]]>Jan 23rd 2009 7:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
I don't think I'll be getting it right off the bat.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 7:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
Imagine paying monthly fees for something I don't even particularly like - just to play games online with other people. What an innovation!

Hell...

Imagine Avatars in Steam... just eww.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 8:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
Windows 7 - This is the version you get if you're a consumer, it does everything that Vista Home Premium does. Has both 64-bit and 32-bit discs. This should be priced at $99 for upgrade and $149 for full version.

Windows 7 Business - This is tailored for the business market and won't be on retail shelves.
Windows 7 Ultimate - This is the one you get because you love spending $400 on OS to get Texas Hold 'Em as an extra, it has nothing else beyond the regular Windows 7 release. It does come with a gold chain and has a "I am Rich" desktop theme.

Or they could release just 1 version for $129. :)]]>Jan 23rd 2009 8:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
Time to upgrade your hardware then.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 9:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 9:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 10:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
There's also Windows 7 Amish Edition :)

Support Microsoft: don't turn to torrents!]]>Jan 23rd 2009 11:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 24th 2009 12:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 24th 2009 1:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Yes you can get more features and speed while keeping same hardware. Just go Linux. Look:

I have one of those Acer Aspire lounge-oriented boxes (AMD Athlon 64) precharged with MCE2007. Myriads of problems, CPU fan 100% most of the time, BSODs, hangups with the screen plenty of small coloured squares (very ZX Spectrum-esque)...

Now I have the same computer running Linux... and this means:
-Months without rebooting (and only do because I make changes requiring it, not because of OS failures)
-MythTV with 2 USB DTV tuners and a SAT PCI Card. And serving Live TV and the whole video/music/photo to three other Pentium III PCs and a PS3 (using Mediatomb) attached to TVs around the house.
-X10 support via Misterhouse free application controlling over 25 light switches, shade motors, IR presence radio controlles, interface to home burglar alarm system
-Asterisk VoIP for all phones around the house, and connections to my office's asterisk server for cross-calling home-office an mobiles
-Weather station data collection and graph generation, with information exchange with MisterHouse X10 and VoIP (yes, I can call home and hear info about temp in/out, alarm status, can switch on/off heating...
-After buying a 40$ nVidia AGP card, I also have a gorgeous 3D compiz cylindrical desktop with four "sides" (more can be defined) at full 1920x1200 TFT monitor (yes, above FullHD, for video and nice OpenOffice experience) and another 15" TFT at 1024x768 for Amarok (music app) and Evolution (connected to the Exchange Server at office mailbox), one at each side of a double sided virtual desktop screen....

I think I do far more with the same hardware than I could even imagine doing with the MCE back four years ago, don't you agree? And I'm missing some other functionalities for sure!!

PS: The CPU only goes 100% when decoding HD content or performing some heavy (video transcoding, graphics editing in Gimp) tasks. 99% of the time I can't barely hear it.]]>Jan 25th 2009 1:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/]]>Jan 24th 2009 11:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
Paint.Net (http://www.getpaint.net/) - tons of features
Sumo Paint (http://www.sumo.fi/products/sumopaint/index.php?id=0) - basically an online PhotoShop clone.

And it's been ages since I last used Calculator, as I do everything with Google (http://www.google.com/help/calculator.html), even conversions: currency, degrees, weight, etc.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
how did you forget gimp!?
http://gimp.org/]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
It's that when I think Gimp I think Unix. But you're right, of course.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
A good, simple, open source alternative to Paint would be something like Krita or Tuxpaint.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 5:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
And please, please, please, no Paul Chapel commenting in this topic... ;)]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
and eight year old OS will always outperform a new one. even os x. the fact the it even rivals xp is great. and as for sli support, it wont be natively supported by any os. you will need drivers for it, but it will work. Its not natively supported on xp and probably wont be]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
And also, the MP3 thing was a bug. That got fixed. Because it's a beta. And that's what you do with a beta. You find bugs. And you fix them. I hope I've broken it down clearly enough for you.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
They are putting the onus on the card manufacturer's - just like it is now. SLI will work the same as always, but nVidia and ATI NEED to be, are, and will continue to be responsible for making something they came up with work they way they want it to.

Why the hell should it be something supported natively within the O/S in the first place? Please explain to me in great detail the reason that this would be good, and something you feel you deserve.

Oh, and which O/S is faster, etc is such an unoriginal point that you stick to. Seriously, MS-DOS 3.1 will run a TON faster than any of the Windows will on the same hardware, but guess what - that doesn't make it better or something we should all cling to or start using again.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
The people here that praise Microsoft for doing what they should have done years ago are part the problem of why Microsoft has so much trouble innovating. Believe me when I say that if Microsoft had come out with something original, like the iPod or the Playstation or the iPhone, or the Wii, or the Google search engine, I would be praising them, but you see, they didn't. They came out with a bunch of products, (think Zune, think Xbox, think Live Search) only after someone else in the market showed them exactly what to do. They never make a product that's the answer to a problem, it's always a reaction to someone's success.

And then they embarrassed me in my fit of XP fanboyism by falling behind OS X. Seriously, I've ragged on some of my best friends because of this cult of Microsoft. I watched with sullen disbelief as Apple created upgrades ON TIME. I watched as Apple created devices that everyone wanted to copy.

No more. I'll use everything from now on, and if Microsoft can't up their game, I'll become what you call a "switcher."

]]>Jan 23rd 2009 5:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
you know what? microsoft doesnt want you to buy their product. infact they're not even going to sell it to you.. so go torrent your little trojan infected iwork09, and see how osx works out for ya eh?
]]>Jan 23rd 2009 5:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
I can agree that the zune is just a market reaction and it sorta failed, but to be fair so was the iPod except it didn't fail.
The x-box is also a market reaction, and it is doing pretty good but that is because they knew how it should be done, they could support it with software and services, hows the gaming on your flashy new macbooks?
And coincidently that's why the iPod did so good, because it had iTunes.
No one ever just invents something completely new all the time, it's a steady phase of baby steps to evolve it to something better, Microsoft has seemingly hit the mark this time, they did their homework and they will come out on top in the public eye thanks to this.
It's no accident they are getting pretty decent reviews this time around.

Meanwhile the folks at apple are starting to wonder what the f happened, they didn't learn the lesson, they didn't do the work to reduce the threat from viruses, and their system is probably riddled with bugs that no one notices because there are almost no third party drivers running on it.
They now have to start the same process that microsoft did after win me and not just add new shiny graphics to everything.
Nothing apple does is innovation, it's mainly just marketing something that already exists somewhere else that you didn't know about.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 6:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
If you're looking for some multitouch hardware to mess around with Windows 7 on, I'd recommend either a Latitude XT or one of those admittedly awful HP Touchsmart machines.

The Latitudes have been Microsoft's multitouch reference hardware for a while now. Just be aware, the N-Trig drivers that are Windows 7 compatible only work in either pen, or multitouch mode. For some reason, they haven't released ones that do both at the same time yet. It isn't a windows limitation, it's a we-haven't-finished-the-drivers thing. I can't speak to the touchsmart ones, but I've seen virtually every demo on those.

Something nobody has talked about are exactly those features, especially for tablets. I ran windows 7 on my Latitude for a while and was very impressed. They've clearly taken a lot of time to think about the tablet functionality this time around, and nice things like persistent glowy on-screen keyboard presses, auto-transparency of the tablet input panel, as well as the inclusion of a math input panel (which is absolutely mindblowing, by the way. It fully understands virtually every Greek character I throw at it, functions, integrals, square roots, complicated polynomials, trig functions, matrices, everything I use). It's well-worth getting some hardware to mess around with those. Plus, OneNote seems (qualitatively) snappier.]]>Jan 23rd 2009 7:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 5:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 24th 2009 10:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 4:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/Jan 23rd 2009 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
hehe poor Mac users stuck with WOW...]]>Jan 23rd 2009 8:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/windows-7-beta-in-depth-impressions/
"Peek" looks like it has "card" mode just like the Pre!

I wonder who owns the patent on them!

(perhaps "thumbnail windows" would apply to both, eh?)
]]>Jan 23rd 2009 4:22PM