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Wait... what is the point in Windows 7?
(190 posts, started )
Quote from The Very End :
And, how does it work with games, driver wise? Is xp/vista drivers compatible with windows 7, or will you have to download new drivers for these?

the vista drivers i tried worked fine (apart from my old soundcard driver software which manages to crash / freeze the whole pc to death).
Quote from AstroBoy :The point of windows 7 is to make Windows 8 look better
Oh thats right i said it

Actually if your going to believe a conspiracy then go for then Vista is there to make W7 look better...

Honestly just try it - takes less than an hour to partion, install, install your apps and get a feel and i'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised...

Only issue i'm having atm is getting my laptops Bluetooth working, but this is the ONLY part of my laptop i've had to look for drivers for and it doesn't even work properly in Vista!
Quote from Bob Smith :Oh and FWIW it's worth, I always have my Windows set to Classic style, OSs beyond 2000 have just been wasting more and more pixels. My screen real estate is there for my programs, not for the OS to fill with blinged start bars and window titles.

Which is one of the reasons from win2k onwards I've been using blackbox as a window manager as some kind souls had ported it to win32 about then. The whole thing, preconfigured (plain text configuration) to use my keyboard shortcuts and such is under a megabyte.

Pixel hunts should be reserved for a tiny segment in point'n'click adventure games when the game designer has run out of inspiration for a decent puzzle, not for using or configuring an interface. In the long run you end up running errands for it rather than it doing work for you.
Quote from Jakg :Actually if your going to believe a conspiracy then go for then Vista is there to make W7 look better...

Honestly just try it - takes less than an hour to partion, install, install your apps and get a feel and i'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised...

Only issue i'm having atm is getting my laptops Bluetooth working, but this is the ONLY part of my laptop i've had to look for drivers for and it doesn't even work properly in Vista!

Tbh i didnt even know there was a Windows 7 until i saw this thread, so i figured id make some smart ass remark and go from there, but if its good and you say its good then i belive you that its good
Installed it and so far I'm impressed with it. Mind you I have only been on MSN and browsed the internet with it, so haven't really tested it with any programs as of yet.
Quote from Bob Smith :Oh and FWIW it's worth, I always have my Windows set to Classic style, OSs beyond 2000 have just been wasting more and more pixels. My screen real estate is there for my programs, not for the OS to fill with blinged start bars and window titles.

true but on the plus side the new windows taskbar is the first i know of that works on the side of your screen (as in actually properly work without looking disgusting) which does make sense on the more and more common 16:10 monitors

Quote from xaotik :Which is one of the reasons from win2k onwards I've been using blackbox as a window manager.

hasnt that not been updated in 2 years or so?
Quote from Shotglass :true but on the plus side the new windows taskbar is the first i know of that works on the side of your screen (as in actually properly work without looking disgusting) which does make sense on the more and more common 16:10 monitors

That's something that's been baffling me for a while. Why are no-one trying to make better use of these wider monitors? We have tons of space out on the sides now that can't be reasonably used for content, but instead of taking advantage of it they are in many cases making things even worse by using more vertical space. The Windows 7/Office ribbon for instance is usually much taller than the tool-bars it replaces, leaving you with the tiny gun-slit for actual content.

Seems to me the smart thing to do would be to pile all menus and tool-bars over to the sides to leave more vertical space for your documents and web-sites. Or am I talking rubbish and Windows 7 already supports this in some way (apart from the taskbar I mean)?
Quote from wien :That's something that's been baffling me for a while. Why are no-one trying to make better use of these wider monitors?

I think it's simply that the big monitors have only really come to the masses very recently, and it takes years to develop an OS.

It's a good point though.
Quote from wien :That's something that's been baffling me for a while. Why are no-one trying to make better use of these wider monitors?

because theyre not wide enough yet
even at 1920 a normal 1024 sized browser window will eat up more than half your screen
ive found the intarblag is too wide to make tiling window managers useful for all monitors ive used so far (still have to try any of the 30" ones those might be large enough)
so youd either have to put 900px worth of ribbons and other junk there or youll have issues using the monitor effectively no matter where you place things
Quote from Shotglass :hasnt that not been updated in 2 years or so?

Nor has it crashed in as much, if not longer, on any PC I work on. There simply is no need to update it. Any extra functionality is added by developers in the form of plugins. I think there are some branches of it that are still being actively developed that basically incorporate things from popular plugins or add some minor bling, which sort of defies the concept.
well for one a 64bit version might be nice
Oh, most versions have been recompiled with 64bit support in mind. Some even got ported to full-blown 64bit apps and AFAIK several plugins are available for x64 as well.

You can find more info here: http://www.lostinthebox.com/
Are there more people with dell computers that struggle with sound problems? Got some people on work here that has problem with windows 7 on Dell, their sound not working and trying to use vista drivers doesn't work either.
Quote from xaotik :Oh, most versions have been recompiled with 64bit support in mind. Some even got ported to full-blown 64bit apps and AFAIK several plugins are available for x64 as well.

You can find more info here: http://www.lostinthebox.com/

I installed fluxbox the other day actually as I have rampant explorer issues. Good piece of kit that is.
Huh, I didn't know fluxbox was ported to windows. It's my fav WM under X, I should check it out at some point. On the windows machines I use some version of bblean - I think the original stable one - there's a newer or several newer ones out since then.
Quote from xaotik :You can find more info here: http://www.lostinthebox.com/

hm interesting that page has a bit on kde 4 windows

btw does bblean have its own filebrowser by now? when i used it it always opened up explorer in the background to do file tasks which more or less defeats the purpose of having a different window manager in the first place

only problem is having used the win95 explorer for well over 10 years now its really hard to make a switch... and the normal taskbar is hardly wasting any space
Quote from Shotglass :btw does bblean have its own filebrowser by now? when i used it it always opened up explorer in the background to do file tasks which more or less defeats the purpose of having a different window manager in the first place

Nope - no blackbox incarnation under any OS ever had it's own filebrowser and actually no "honest" window managers do, it's not their job to. You can either use explorer (running it properly under blackbox won't bring up the taskbars and all that other system hogging junk - just opened up a bunch of explorer windows to try it and the explorer.exe task stays at 4Mb mem usage, I've removed most of the crappy handlers it has anyhow) or any other file browser, there are several floating around. I mostly resort to bash in a cygwin window for that stuff.
Quote from xaotik :running it properly under blackbox won't bring up the taskbars and all that other system hogging junk - just opened up a bunch of explorer windows to try it and the explorer.exe task stays at 4Mb mem usage

huh? my full blown explorer is currently at ~27mb which isnt exactly bloated is it?
Quote from Shotglass :huh? my full blown explorer is currently at ~27mb which isnt exactly bloated is it?

Considering that I'm seeing a 1.5Mb blackbox.exe + optional 4Mb explorer.exe I'd say: it is. But anyway, despite the memory footprints it's just a matter of preference in the end - I just never got used to having to trek to the start button to get something done, that's all. If I started out with a keyboard that had a Win key on it, or if my introduction to GUIs started with Windows I'd likely not even notice it. The period of using NT was the only time I had to put up with that and even then most of the things I used were bound to keyboard shortcuts.
Quote from xaotik :Considering that I'm seeing a 1.5Mb blackbox.exe + optional 4Mb explorer.exe I'd say: it is.

well yes but then again this isnt 2000 and the worst ive seen from explorer today was 32mb at work
mind you this was on a 8gig machine so while it might be enough to lose your licence it doesnt even register on a percentage scale

Quote :I just never got used to having to trek to the start button to get something done, that's all.

well yes the startbutton is useless which is why i click on it maybe once a week or so when im looking for a program i rarely use

Quote :If I started out with a keyboard that had a Win key on it, or if my introduction to GUIs started with Windows I'd likely not even notice it.

technically my introduction to guis was somewhere between norton commander and dosshell... boy im glad that didnt stay for good

Quote :The period of using NT was the only time I had to put up with that and even then most of the things I used were bound to keyboard shortcuts.

speaking of which windows 7 finally has some keyboard shortcuts i always wanted like win+t to controll the taskbar and win+cursor up/down to maximise and minimise windows
Quote from xaotik :Huh, I didn't know fluxbox was ported to windows. It's my fav WM under X, I should check it out at some point. On the windows machines I use some version of bblean - I think the original stable one - there's a newer or several newer ones out since then.

Nevermind... brain freeze, it's LiteStep, but for some reason the theme I have has the title thingie set to something different. sorry for confusion.

*runs* :hide:
Did anyone installed official release (not a torrent download) as a standalone installation? I've heard it requires Vista to be installed?

Please, only first hand exprience
Don't think so, I installed it on a 6GB IDE drive I had lying around last night, and it works fine. I installed it with all other drives pulled out, including my main Vista drive
Yeah, thanks for the info. I've read it now on MS site, it doesn't need it.

Some of my friends are really lazy and CBA to double check info.

Thanks again
Well i got bored of waiting for another hard drive so i have backed up my data and made a new partition instead

Got to say Windows 7 seem's fantastic, even in beta stage

It is a bit faster for me but Vista alway's ran very fast for me too (I don't understand the whole Vista bashing saga tbh).

Seem's very stable aswell considering it's in beta stage.

Only thing is they have robbed me of the classic startbar! (Send's feedback )

I can't see any reason so far why i won't upgrade to it when it's released

Wait... what is the point in Windows 7?
(190 posts, started )
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