d1stortion wrote:

Even the totally hyped up Windows 7 has not much over XP other than eye candy,

wha?

Superior multi-thread/multi-core thread scheduler
Superior memory management
Asynchronous disk IO (OS doesn't hang if a HDD/CD/USB-drive stops responding)
WDDM (OS doesn't crash if the video driver has a problem)
NTFS improvements (eg. symlinks, transactional NTFS, )

These were all introduced in Vista, but are all still present in Windows 7 and 2008r2.

The overall addition of useless clutter and removal of legacy features/compatibility offset the small performance benefits that 7 has over XP. Still XP performs better in a few CPU multithreading and gaming benchmarks. Here, here, here after a quick search. With XP being that archaic as everyone says, I thought it would be totally left behind in the dust? I don't see 7 trouncing XP anywhere by far, and very few of the alleged benefits are noticeable for regular use.

SquallStrife wrote:

Superior multi-thread/multi-core thread scheduler

I did not find this to be true in general.
for example:
http://blog.testfreaks.com/information/window … -vs-vista-vs-7/
(Edit: typed too slow, d1stortion's post now appears with the same link)

SquallStrife wrote:

WDDM (OS doesn't crash if the video driver has a problem)

The AMD/ATI XP driver has GPU recover for that.

SquallStrife wrote:

NTFS improvements (eg. symlinks, transactional NTFS, )

It is a shame the file system itself is not an open format.

Of course after all these years there will be some worthwile additions in the newer OS'es, but it seems a bit underwhelming to me.

gerwin wrote:

I did not find this to be true in general. for example: http://blog.testfreaks.com/information/window … -vs-vista-vs-7/ (Edit: […]
Show full quote

SquallStrife wrote:

Superior multi-thread/multi-core thread scheduler

I did not find this to be true in general.
for example:
http://blog.testfreaks.com/information/window … -vs-vista-vs-7/
(Edit: typed too slow, d1stortion's post now appears with the same link)

That is quite an old link, back before W7 got any service packs and the years of driver refinement it has now. That said, I'm having trouble finding comprehensive 7 vs XP benchmark tests done in the last 12 months. Plenty of anecdotal stuff tho, arguing both ways.

What I can say from my own personal experience, is that Vista and 7 assign threads to logical processors (whether that be a HT thread, or a core, or a single core chip) with consideration to layout. For instance, it typically won't treat HT threads as if they were discrete processors, and try to service different processes with them simultaneously.

Depending on your task, this could be a massive boost.

gerwin wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

WDDM (OS doesn't crash if the video driver has a problem)

The AMD/ATI XP driver has GPU recover for that.

There are a limited range of situations that ATi's GPU recover applies to, IIRC they are mostly hardware related. If the driver itself has some kind of problem, it can't save itself. XP's display system runs in the kernel ring, so if the driver has a problem, the OS bluescreens.

Driver crash recovery isn't the only benefit WDDM provides either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

gerwin wrote:

Of course after all these years there will be some worthwile additions in the newer OS'es, but it seems a bit underwhelming to me.

Absolutely, and that's quite different to saying "not much over XP other than eye candy".

It does depend a lot on what you do, naturally. If all you do is run word processing, spreadsheet, web browser, and DOSBox, you might prefer to stay on XP to save the effort of reformatting. Nothing wrong with that.

SquallStrife wrote:

you might prefer to stay on XP to save the effort of reformatting.

you may also install on another partition to save that effort too and still have xp for compatibility reasons 😀

SquallStrife wrote:

wha? […]
Show full quote

d1stortion wrote:

Even the totally hyped up Windows 7 has not much over XP other than eye candy,

wha?

Superior multi-thread/multi-core thread scheduler
Superior memory management
Asynchronous disk IO (OS doesn't hang if a HDD/CD/USB-drive stops responding)
WDDM (OS doesn't crash if the video driver has a problem)
NTFS improvements (eg. symlinks, transactional NTFS, )

These were all introduced in Vista, but are all still present in Windows 7 and 2008r2.

Oh god yes, the memory management is miles better, you can actually runs as long as you want with out rebooting and NOT have you ram eat'n by memory leaks.

I really hope Windows Blue will rectify or fix the poor usability of Metro, and the poor interaction between the Classic and Modern UI. Otherwise, we'll continue to see articles like this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhug … bsolutely-hate/

I removed my windows 8 update this week end and put back Windows 7.
At least I tried. Oh well.

d1stortion wrote:

removal of legacy features/compatibility

haha, I'm still wondering why they felt they had to do certain inexplicable things like removing full-screen text mode support. Not that it's very useful these days, but yanking it out feels completely arbitrary (and I still haven't come across any technical explanation). Though that was a Vista thing, so no fault of 7.

I'm going to reinstall a 5 year old machine (2.4GHz Q6600, 2 GB RAM), and wondering if I should go for 7 (64-bit) or just stick with 32-bit XP. With that amount of memory I can see the extra bitness being more of a loss than a gain.

VileRancour wrote:

haha, I'm still wondering why they felt they had to do certain inexplicable things like removing full-screen text mode support. Not that it's very useful these days, but yanking it out feels completely arbitrary

One of the perks of WDDM is that it does not run in the kernel ring.

As such, it has no direct access to BIOS calls, so no INT10, so no text mode.

You can get full-screen text mode by disabling your display driver in device manager, causing the OS to fall back to the VGA framebuffer driver, which is a non-WDDM kernel-ring driver. Obviously in this mode, there is no display acceleration, but you can get full screen text mode.

cdoublejj wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

wha? […]
Show full quote

d1stortion wrote:

Even the totally hyped up Windows 7 has not much over XP other than eye candy,

wha?

Superior multi-thread/multi-core thread scheduler
Superior memory management
Asynchronous disk IO (OS doesn't hang if a HDD/CD/USB-drive stops responding)
WDDM (OS doesn't crash if the video driver has a problem)
NTFS improvements (eg. symlinks, transactional NTFS, )

These were all introduced in Vista, but are all still present in Windows 7 and 2008r2.

Oh god yes, the memory management is miles better, you can actually runs as long as you want with out rebooting and NOT have you ram eat'n by memory leaks.

Not true at all - Win7 x64 fills the RAM even faster than XP x86. At least you can have more and RAM is pretty cheap though. Also 7 has that "feature" where it suddenly starts to load the CPU with whatever crap when you leave the machine idle for too long. Very annoying especially with notebooks and their loud fans.

It's not malware related, to prevent smart comments that point in this direction.

@VileRancour: You got it right, 64-bit won't be of much use to you with that amount of memory. Dual booting 7 and XP is the way to go though and I'm planning it for my main computer as well (currently only XP installed).

d1stortion wrote:

Not true at all - Win7 x64 fills the RAM even faster than XP x86.

Win7 at least attempts to fill it with useful stuff though.

Free RAM is wasted RAM.

Leolo wrote:

I really hope Windows Blue will rectify or fix the poor usability of Metro, and the poor interaction between the Classic and Modern UI. Otherwise, we'll continue to see articles like this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhug … bsolutely-hate/

We can hope and pray, but I'd prepare for the worst ...

Microsoft abandon the desktop to the Windows Blue

I really love XP's logo. Even Win 3.x's logo looks much better. 😉

It's like Microsoft is really pushing forward the trademark of their famous/infamous Windows' tendency of BSOD - Blue Screen 'O Death with their Win8. 🤣

TELVM wrote:

We can hope and pray, but I'd prepare for the worst ...

Dodgy Russian site? "Anonymous source"?

I'd take this with a grain of salt.

It's just logical that if the interface comes back full circle to Windows 1.0 ...

... the logo must do the same ...

🤣 😀

The whole industry is like that though.

We started with large, centralised computing systems, with no more than a keyboard and screen for the users. Then we moved to having computing power on every desk for a while. Now we're shifting back to centralised computing power, with a cut-down user-facing machine running a thin-client.

Things change, ideas come and go. It's senseless to be indignant about it, wasting all this time and energy getting mad and hanging shit on the thing you happen to prefer less. Just relax and use what's best for you.

It's far more senseless to behave like a passive sheep while the wolves try to shear you.

And no industry can dictate the market. The current W8 debacle is a paradigmatic proof of it.

TELVM wrote:

It's far more senseless to behave like a passive sheep while the wolves try to shear you.

And no industry can dictate the market. The current W8 debacle is a paradigmatic proof of it.

You evil conspiracist... maybe you just need a nice tin foil hat?

😉

TELVM wrote:

It's far more senseless to behave like a passive sheep while the wolves try to shear you.

Hahaha... Oh lordy! So much anger!

No middle ground with you, is there?

Who, pray tell, is "behaving like a passive sheep"?

People like me, who like the new OS? You're right, what entitles us to like something that you don't like? Heavens-to-betsy!!!

TELVM wrote:

And no industry can dictate the market.

That doesn't really make any sense. I don't know where you're pulling "dictate" from.

The only reason the industry goes where it does is because of market demand. There is demand for tablets and smartphones, the industry is only responding to that.