Black Raven Dragoons

[Snobal]

So when I went to download and install the Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser, I noticed MS had a spelling phail. Look at the "Instal" button.





Edit: Its apparently been fixed as of 9 a.m (EST) Oct/25/09.

[Grimblast]

Silly out sourced programmers! They spiel chick gud!

[Zancarius]

Now that's hilarious.

As an aside, never order software pre-releases from Amazon. I probably won't be getting mine 'til November! Not that it matters--I've been using the RC for months.

[Snobal]

Now that's hilarious.

As an aside, never order software pre-releases from Amazon. I probably won't be getting mine 'til November! Not that it matters--I've been using the RC for months.

They've done really good with all of my stuff in the past. I guess Windows7 is just a wee bit too much for them to handle.

[Zancarius]

They wanted an extra $6 on top of what shipping already would have been to "process it on release day."

Screw that. It's ironic... if I paid $30, I could've had it this week or early next week via Amazon. If I ordered it via Newegg, I could've paid the same price as Amazon and gotten free 3 day shipping.

As it stands, it shipped late Thursday evening (Oct. 22nd). Unfortunately, since it's coming via USPS, that means I probably won't get it for a week or two.

[Snobal]

Gah that is the suck =/ I'm going to start backing up all of my computers and switch over the couple of weeks.

[Tirian]

I'm waiting at least a couple more weeks till I get out some important papers. Can't risk PC downtime right now. That said, I'm excited to move to Vista Not-Fucked-Up... and will probably do a RAM upgrade in the process as well.

[Snobal]

I'm waiting at least a couple more weeks till I get out some important papers. Can't risk PC downtime right now. That said, I'm excited to move to Vista Not-Fucked-Up... and will probably do a RAM upgrade in the process as well.

Its probably for the better, anyway. That'll give them some time to release updates, hotfixes, etc. I'm coincidentally buying myself some more RAM as well.

[Zancarius]

I'm waiting at least a couple more weeks till I get out some important papers. Can't risk PC downtime right now. That said, I'm excited to move to Vista Not-Fucked-Up... and will probably do a RAM upgrade in the process as well.

It's funny, because most recommendations follow this general path:

1) If you're happy with XP, stick with XP.
2) If you're unhappy with XP, upgrade to 7.
3) If you're happy with Vista, upgrade to 7.
4) If you're unhappy with Vista, upgrade to 7.
5) If you're unhappy with Windows, buy a Mac. (We don't want you anyway.)

Its probably for the better, anyway. That'll give them some time to release updates, hotfixes, etc. I'm coincidentally buying myself some more RAM as well.

The RTM (Release to Manufacturing better known as retail) has been out since August. Most of the major fixes have already been pushed to Windows update. Any fixes that will be coming out since Oct. 22nd will be to address oddball things that weren't reported during the first two months following the MSDN release.

That said, I think the public beta and RC releases of Windows 7 were an absolutely BRILLIANT idea on Microsoft's part, and I'd be willing to bet that these freely available releases were responsible in large part for making 7 a better release than Vista. Anyone could try out 7. But the best part? The whole driver fiasco that screwed Vista over is virtually nonexistent with 7. Yeah, some things might not work, but my experience has been largely positive. I haven't encountered a device that didn't work out of the box. Can't say the same thing about Vista (or XP x64 for that matter). So far, I've not heard a bad thing about the launch yet.

I'll give you one bit of warning: The taskbar WILL take some getting used to. They've given it a non-trivial overhaul. You may hate it at first but it does grow on you. One particular tweak that I found necessary was to right click Start -> Properties -> click the "Taskbar" tab, and change "taskbar buttons" to "combine when taskbar is full". This creates a setting that is analogous to XP's default taskbar and adds text to the buttons. Icon-only application buttons just don't cut it in my book.

[Snobal]

The RTM (Release to Manufacturing better known as retail) has been out since August. Most of the major fixes have already been pushed to Windows update. Any fixes that will be coming out since Oct. 22nd will be to address oddball things that weren't reported during the first two months following the MSDN release.

That said, I think the public beta and RC releases of Windows 7 were an absolutely BRILLIANT idea on Microsoft's part, and I'd be willing to bet that these freely available releases were responsible in large part for making 7 a better release than Vista. Anyone could try out 7. But the best part? The whole driver fiasco that screwed Vista over is virtually nonexistent with 7. Yeah, some things might not work, but my experience has been largely positive. I haven't encountered a device that didn't work out of the box. Can't say the same thing about Vista (or XP x64 for that matter). So far, I've not heard a bad thing about the launch yet.

I'll give you one bit of warning: The taskbar WILL take some getting used to. They've given it a non-trivial overhaul. You may hate it at first but it does grow on you. One particular tweak that I found necessary was to right click Start -> Properties -> click the "Taskbar" tab, and change "taskbar buttons" to "combine when taskbar is full". This creates a setting that is analogous to XP's default taskbar and adds text to the buttons. Icon-only application buttons just don't cut it in my book.

From some of the things I've read, Microsoft has still been addressing some pretty serious stuff. Its pretty generally accepted, though, that pretty much an OS release is going to bring with it some problems; even after launch. We see it with generally everything. As for the RC comment, I agree. Whatever marketing genius came up with that idea, kudos to him and his massive paycheck. Finally, thanks for the task-bar tip. Icon-only buttons would've probably driven me into shock. Its kind of sad in a way to see that we're moving to a McDonald's-like system. By that I'm referencing the cashiers that mash pictures day by day because the recent surplus of illiterate employees to flood industry. Oh well.

[Tirian]

The GIS guys in my office are all upgrading, both from XP and Vista. I'm shocked -- I was pretty sure that some of them would not let XP be torn from their cold, dead hands.

[Zancarius]

Most of the "serious" patches I've seen were released during the RC and early RTM release phases. Yeah, there's probably bugs after the Oct. 22nd release, but I doubt they're that severe. Some of the patches seem to have been added "just in case," even though most of the CERT advisories I've seen indicate Win7 is unaffected.

The GIS guys in my office are all upgrading, both from XP and Vista. I'm shocked -- I was pretty sure that some of them would not let XP be torn from their cold, dead hands.

Windows 7 Pro and up include Windows XP mode. It's a fully licensed copy of Windows XP--in a VM. I wonder if that's part of their motive?

In any case, I think that's telling about how much of an improvement Win7 is. Even if it's just the XP mode itself that served as "reason enough" to upgrade. Or, maybe I'm just kidding myself and we're finally at the end of another 3-5 year upgrade cycle and MS finally timed this one right.

[Tirian]

They're not doing it for the shell, though I do think it helps. ArcGIS and associated software does pretty much run on Vista without problems (unless you have a pirated copy) -- these guys made their decisions to stay with XP and now upgrade based on other factors, especially broader system stability (these GIS models run for days sometimes).

[Zancarius]

In that case, it makes sense. Vista was awful for stability. XP was so-so. (I've had Explorer crash up to 15 times one day, but at least the system wouldn't die unlesss it were left on for about a week.)

Conversely, 7 seems fairly stable. Sleep even works; I've had my system on sleep for up to a month before I finally decided to reboot. I would've pushed it further, but the taskbar started to act a little flaky. Not that it was unusable, it's just that the mouse-over previews would sometimes "stick." To be fair, I do abuse the hell out of my system. I'll leave editors and IDEs open until they crash. So far, I've not had any of the stability problems that'd sneak up on XP yet. That says a lot.

[Damorte]

I got a free Windows 7 upgrade with my new laptop, I submitted proof of purchase on the release date, its still being "verified" so I have no idea when I'll have it.