Thoughts on Windows 7...

[Davemon]

The speaker for Microsoft was very good and new his stuff. I spoke with him a few times.

Concerning Windows 7. He said that it is the first time that Microsoft has made an OS that is designed to work on older hardware. I asked and he confirmed that 'no' the data stream between the hardware and the CPU is not encrypted like Vista. AND probably the biggest reason for Vista's poor performance for many.

John showed various features that the GUI has, like dragged windows auto snapping to half screen based on user studies. Another feature was a little box on the right end of the task bar to auto hide everything. This didn't impress me. The Windows key and M combo do this. If anything, this should have been there many years ago or they should have the option to create many little boxes that can be pre-programmed for any key combo and then configured for color or a pic.

Also, the shrunk down applications on the task bar can be drag-arranged.

He also showed a utility where the end user could recreate their problem, and the utility would screen capture snap shots and then easily get it to tech support. Linux has had for over a year, the ability to record the whole screen and create a movie showing the issue/problem or create tutorials.

Windows 7 is set for a September 2009 release date.

He said there will NOT be a direct upgrade from XP to Win 7. You can go from XP to Vista to Win 7 but it would be much easier/better to back up your data and then wipe XP/install Win 7. There WILL be a Vista to Win 7 upgrade. Considering how many people are sticking with XP, no direct upgrade to 7 is a bad idea. I said so and John concurred.


There were a few more things that he showed but the Linux GUI is way ahead of them.


John Weston expressed an interest in showing at the FWLUG and I said that would be fine.



Davemon
P.S. I did show my table some of the youtube Compiz videos.

[maczimus]

I have the RC installed on my laptop in Virtualbox... It runs ok in that environments and I have only given it 900MB of ram..

I'll have it at the meeting tommorrow in case anyone wants to check it out...