I still use some ms-dos applications. That's one reason holding me back to install W7 as my Operating System of choice.

Windows 7 is fairly dull. It seems to run a bit quicker but in reality the difference isn't noticeable on recent hardware (in fact I couldn't tell any difference in speed). Features wise, Microsoft have done the usual and played around with stuff - mostly for the sake of it. The Taskbar is about the only thing you can say is really different and that is a love/hate experience. I'm not sure why anyone would be excited with an OS these days - they're all dull (in that they just work).

Glad to have found a remote desktop server hack for Windows 7 Home Premium 'cause that would been annoying otherwise!

The Amiga Workbench OS is by far the best 😁

PowerPie5000 wrote:

The Amiga Workbench OS is by far the best 😁

Amen! 😁

cdoublejj wrote:

you can run the install disk "in the" RC1 once you go out and buy win7 this way you don't have to reinstall all your apps. also win7 32bit supposedly does as slightly better job at dos than 64bit.

Win7 RC1 is running on my laptop, and I'm planning to put a Win7 RTM clean install on a new desktop rather than on the laptop, since the desktop will become my primary system.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

cdoublejj wrote:

also win7 32bit supposedly does as slightly better job at dos than 64bit.

The 64-bit version of Win 7 will not run anything Dos related as it cannot run any 16-bit software. Are you sure the 32-bit version of Windows 7 supports Dos? Native Dos support was phased out years ago!

Yeah, as far as I know 64-bit Windows OSes have no 16-bit support - including no DOS/NTVDM subsystem.

This doesn't bother me though because I have no need to run DOS applications directly in Windows on a modern machine. If for some reason I need to do that, I still have WinXP on my laptop and old desktop, and a PIII-550 with Win98 in a closet.

Reckless wrote:

Glad to have found a remote desktop server hack for Windows 7 Home Premium 'cause that would been annoying otherwise!

I'd be interested to hear the details of that, as it would save me $30-40.

I'm not worried about lack of DOS support in Win7... it's not like XP DOS support was great either, unless you use something 3rd party like VDMSound.

I run DOSBOX under Windows 7... Runs great! It is emulated, so, slower than a native CPU, but do you need DOS apps at 'modern' cpu speeds?

As for the version I'm running, I'm still running RC on an old laptop. I might put it on my desktop. I'm not going to install the full version on my old computers; I will wait to buy it until I have a new computer built. I may not build one by the time RC expires... if thats the case I'll drop down to XP, if setting back the clock doesn't work 😉

My guess is that rolling your clock back will only work if:
- you don't have it connected to the internet at any time, and
- you don't let it hit the cutoff date before rolling back

My plan is to use my Win7 desktop for modern games, and DOSBox for DOS games, and either old computers for anything in between, or just do without until an emulation solution becomes available/viable.

> Yeah, as far as I know 64-bit Windows OSes have no 16-bit support

I'm running 64bit xp, it doesn't do 16bit, which is a pain, but the benefit is full access to my 4 gigs of memory. I might add, that this doesn't just restrict you to not running DOS programs, there's lots of windows apps that don't run either, the program themselves, the installer, the configuration util, etc. It sucks that AMD didn't implement full x86 compatibility for 64ibit.

It's not AMD.

Even on any 32-bit NT OS, 8/16-bit apps run virtualized with NTVDM and WinOldApp. You just never noticed because it works very well most of the time. I'm not sure but I think MS just decided to drop support for those old apps completely with x64 and move on.

Unless you need 3D acceleration, don't ignore the free MS Virtual PC as an option for old Windows apps. And obviously DosBox can usually replace NTVDM DOS.

No, it's AMD. They junked v86 mode and opcodes for their 64bit "x86" mode, and Intel followed suit. If they would have fully implemented x86, programs would work in 64 bit like they do for 32 bit, instead of unhappy surprises.

ih8registrations wrote:

No, it's AMD. They junked v86 mode and opcodes for their 64bit "x86" mode, and Intel followed suit.

Well that explains it then. 😀

I have been testing W7 (32bit) and although I have been able to get almost everything I have under XP running quite well there are still some issues I do not like at all.

+ NTVDM compatibility is non existant. I still use some ms-dos programs a lot and some of them aren't working properly under DOSBox (Display 1.90t5 by Jih-Shin-Ho for instance).

+ Both built-in and latest Catalyst drivers for my Ati card force me to use WRITE COMBINING (it's always on). I do not like it specially for games. It seems there is no way of disabling it.

+ If you think laser printer drivers were crappy under XP, wait until you see the 7 incarnations. There are even crappier. The W7 HP drivers for my Laserjet 1200 are a joke.

Other than the three aforementioned issues, W7 works quite well per se.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

+ Both built-in and latest Catalyst drivers for my Ati card force me to use WRITE COMBINING (it's always on). I do not like it specially for games. It seems there is no way of disabling it.

Where is this write combining option? I cannot find it anywhere in my Win 7 catalyst drivers 😖 is it only for AGP cards as both of mine are PCI-E cards?

In WinXP it was under the troubleshoot tab. Under 7, the button for video troubleshooting is grayed-out.

And no, I am using PCI-E. But this was a bus-related setting, present with every card (PCI, AGP, PCI-E).

Short explanation on Wikipedia

Regards.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

In WinXP it was under the troubleshoot tab. Under 7, the button for video troubleshooting is grayed-out. […]
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In WinXP it was under the troubleshoot tab. Under 7, the button for video troubleshooting is grayed-out.

And no, I am using PCI-E. But this was a bus-related setting, present with every card (PCI, AGP, PCI-E).

Short explanation on Wikipedia

Regards.

I cannot find any button for video troubleshooting in Win 7? Is it in the Catalyst control panel or somewhere else? Thanks 😀

EDIT: ok i think i found it... Is it the "change settings" button in the advanced display settings? if it is then mine is also greyed out on 3 systems using ATI and Intel graphics drivers. How exactly does write combining affect performance for games as i have not noticed any difference?

Write combining makes video updates a little faster and it's quite effective for 2D work but it also makes things jerkier (specially for games with scroll and or heavy 3D complexity). According to some tests performed by me, it seems Direct3D can benefit a little more than OpenGL and that when increasing resolution and making use of more demanding 3D games, performance tends to suffer more, if WC is enabled. Also, it introduces some lag (write combine buffer must be full before flushing it) and it tends to hog the bus a little, specially when it's operating with heavy loads of data.

The Write combine mode is also less backwards compatible than it's normal counterpart (uncached). Some cards and/or driver combinations can be somewhat picky when write combining is enabled.

In my humble opinion I would have left that option disabled by default.

I have even read on some Ati forums that Ati advises to have it disabled to avoid possible issues, like the infamous "infinite loop".

Regards.

Sounds as though ATI or Microsoft should do something about it! (i'm guessing it's Microsoft's problem as it's not only ATI drivers that are affected) Anyway it's still the early days for Windows 7 so i expect quite a few updates very soon 😁

I wonder if Nvidia drivers are doing well on 7. I have a Radeon 3600HD and the driver fails all the time, especially if I'm running Folding@home, which I support a lot!

Just a first impression but the same computer which had Vindows Wista 64 (?) looks and feels faster with Windows 7 64

Are there any adventages of windows 7 64-bit over 32-bit apart from using more than 4 GB memory?