Black Raven Dragoons

[Zancarius]

I was going to bump Sno's Microsoft Fail thread, but this list grew too long too quickly. I therefore elected to submit my thoughts in a dedicated thread.

If you're interested in Windows 7, keep reading. If you have Windows 7, feel free to add your own commentary; you might even find some of my points interesting or perhaps you've noticed some of these changes, too. If you're an Apple fanboy, I will slap you with a very large trout and ask you to take your pathetic watered-down Unix elsewhere. (Yes, you read that right Mac users--it's watered down because your beloved Apple gives you a crappy userland that requires nursing to get it to the point where you can do anything useful with it. Don't give me this "but it's BSD!" crap; if you want real BSD, go here for a non-sissified version.)

1) "Tasks" now work correctly. Under the RC, I couldn't ever quite get them to show up. Most applications don't support this feature quite yet. Of the ones I've tested only Google Chrome and Valve's Steam do. Here's what they look like from the start menu (items with an arrow next to them support tasks):

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-tasks-start-menu.png[/img]
(Click for a larger version.)

Clicking and dragging UP on the taskbar entry for applications that support tasks reveals the same features (I suppose they added this for Mac users since it's the same thing as right-clicking--a concept foreign to the land of one-button mice):

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/tasks-taskbar-drag.png[/img]

Though tasks were supposed to work in the RC, I never noticed them.

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2) Overall performance seems a little snappier than the release candidate, even for non-Windows applications like GIMP. This might be due to the fact that I installed Win7 Pro on a slightly faster hard disk.

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3) Windows 7 Professional and up (Enterprise or Ultimate) support the use of Windows XP Mode. It isn't included on the DVD, so you have to download it separately. There are two files; one is a preinstalled, preconfigured, and preactivated image of Windows XP SP3 and the other is the VirtualPC integration to the Windows shell. Walls of text are dreadful for people who don't like to read, so here's a few pictures:

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-virtualpc-xp-mode-01.png[/img]
List of virtual machines. Near as I can tell, you're able to download a fully functional copy of Microsoft VirtualPC, free of charge. It'll even boot non-MS operating systems.*

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-virtualpc-xp-mode-01.png[/img]
Starting up the virtual machine is somewhat disappointing if you've used other virtualization solutions. You get no graphical interface until the Windows guest has booted up. I'd assume this doesn't affect non-Windows guests.

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-virtualpc-xp-mode-01.png[/img]
Windows XP Mode, fully booted to a workable desktop. Notice the system information window differs slightly from a genuine Windows XP install. It appears they've made some minor changes to the version of XP distributed with Windows 7.

* VirtualPC sucks. If you're going to run non-Windows guests, you really ought to use VirtualBox. In fact, you should even use VirtualBox to run Windows guests--more on this in a minute.

Definitions:

In this context, the term guest or guest operating system simply refers to the operating system that is currently running under virtualization, such as VirtualPC. In this case, Windows XP Mode is a guest operating system under Windows 7.

The host or host operating system is the OS currently running the virtualization software that provides an artificial environment to the guest operating system.

Virtualization isn't anything special; it's simply a method of emulating hardware under one operating system in order to fool another into thinking it is running on its very own dedicated hardware.

It is important to note that VirtualPC will not work unless your processor supports virtualization extensions. You must therefore have an Intel processor that supports VT-x or, optionally, and AMD processor that supports AMD-V. Both of these features must be enabled from BIOS before they can be used; I'm unaware of any motherboards that ship with these features enabled by default. However, even if you don't have these extensions, it may still be possible to run Windows XP Mode...

Enter VirtualBox

VirtualBox is Sun's rebranded acquisition of xVM. I won't bore you with the details (look them up on Wikipedia if you're curious), but it's essentially a FREE, open-source competitor to VirtualPC and VMWare, thought VirtualBox is far more like VMWare in both its UI and capabilities. VirtualBox also supports many more features than VirtualPC. Here's a spare license of Windows XP that I had sitting around booting in VirtualBox. Notice that VirtualBox will show you the full boot-up sequence of the guest:

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-virtualbox-boot.png[/img]
Yay, boot-up screen. VirtualPC isn't this polite.

[img options=nowrap,noborder]http://forums.blackravendragoons.com/filelib/2/win7/thumb-virtualbox-loaded.png[/img]
My copy of Windows XP (a genuine SP2 install, upgraded to SP3 with some modifications to uxtheme.dll)--NOT the XP Mode.

It is somewhat ironic, but it is also possible to boot VirtualPC disk images (including XP Mode) under VirtualBox 3.0.x. Therefore, it should be possible if you have purchased Windows 7 Professional but do not have virtualization extensions to run a copy of Windows XP under Windows 7. Simply download the first file on the link to XP Mode's site and try installing it. I'm not sure if the installer will check for virtualization extensions; if it doesn't, there's no reason you can't run it under VirtualBox. The install is unlikely to work unless you have Windows 7 Professional, however.

Side note: If you've been running VirtualPC, you have to kill the vpc.exe process before VirtualBox (and probably other VMs) will be able to boot any VMs.

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4) I've noticed some minor changes to the sound schemes under the RTM. Calligraphy (my favorite thusfar) has seen some minor alterations since.

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5) My HT Omega Striker card seems to turn off the S/PDIF output as soon as any audio stops unless something has it locked (like a game). This is mildly annoying, but I can live with it. It's likely a driver change and not the fault of Windows.

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6) I've heard that boot-up times have been improved, even in contrast with the release candidate. I haven't actually observed any noticeable change.

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7) There are some minor visual improvements between the RC and the actual RTM. I'm sorry; I can't really point them out because they're subtle. Window manager URGENT hints are delivered in a slightly different manner than was present in the RC (I think) and it's much less visually jarring.

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So there you go--a "small" addendum to previous posts of mine related to Windows 7. Got thoughts of your own? Post 'em here.

[Snobal]

Quite a bit changed, but as you stated, most of it was just very minor things of little to no importance.