Microsoft Announces Windows 7 SP1 355
CWmike writes "Microsoft has announced service packs for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but declined to set a release date or a schedule for getting a beta in users' hands. A company spokesman said Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will primarily contain 'minor updates,' including patches and hotfixes that will have been delivered earlier via the Windows Update service, rather than new features. One of the latter: an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, the new remote-access platform set to debut in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be upgraded to SP1, Microsoft said, presumably at the same time as Windows 7 since the two operating systems share a single code base. Besides RemoteFX — which Microsoft explained Wednesday in an entry on the Windows virtualization team's blog — Server 2008 R2 will also include a feature dubbed 'Dynamic Memory,' which lets IT staff adjust guest virtual machines' memory on the fly. Microsoft did not spell out a timetable for the service packs, saying only that it would provide more information as release milestones approach."
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:3, Informative)
No Apple-sold computer that can run 10.0 can also run 10.6 - or 10.5, for that matter (at least officially). You wouldn't have bought all the updates, as you would have either gotten a new one on a new machine, or you stopped when your hardware was no longer supported.
In any case, Apple didn't force you to buy all the updates. I skipped 10.5 myself.
Re:Let the Games Begin... (Score:5, Informative)
Just because I'm bored: a Pyrrhic victory is one that comes at too high a price. An example would be if Windows 7 was an excellent product, but the development effort bankrupted Microsoft. Here you just mean that the praise may be disingenuous.
(I like being an asshole about language, alright?)
Careful about unwanted updates being included... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:5, Informative)
You referenced lifecycle and service pack support availability. Mainstream support for XP ended last year, while extended support ends in 2014. Both support cycles offer security updates, but non-essential hotfixes are only available to companies who have support contracts.
The first link details when they stop selling various licences of the software (not support)
The second link details when support for services packs end AFTER the introduction on new service packs.
To reiterate, XP has extended support until 2014. Windows 2000 support just recently ended.
Apple stops releasing security updates shortly after new releases, while Ubuntu LTS is 3 years for Desktop and 5 years for server...
XP is 13 years.
Re:Let the Games Begin... (Score:2, Informative)
I agree with everything except "reasonably priced".
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:2, Informative)
Alright. I'll play your game. Let's calculate this:
Windows path: 300 [amazon.com]+107 [amazon.com]+196 [amazon.com] = $603, if I'm adding correctly.
OS X path: 129 [wikipedia.org]+ 0 [wikipedia.org]+129 [apple.com] (at most - some users could upgrade for $20)+20 [apple.com]+129 [apple.com]+X+29 [apple.com] = 436+X, if I'm adding correctly.
I couldn't find a reliable price for Leopard, but as long as it was under $167, it looks like OS X is the cheaper route if you want to have all the features available. Yes, you could go with a cheaper version of Vista or 7, but you could also skip some OS X versions without much loss.
Re:What's With the Windows icon??! (Score:2, Informative)
It's just a joke. The same reason they have a gnu holding a blanket sucking his thumb every time there is a free software story.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:The wise user will wait (Score:2, Informative)
The only feature it's been playing "catchup" at is the display system. For pretty much everything else, OS X only hit parity with Windows *2000* at about 10.4/10.5.
[citation needed]
A bash command line (and Unixlike filesystem structure), a web browser that's actually standards-compliant (and was the first to pass Acid2), Exposé, a journaled filesystem, built-in support for reading and saving PDFs, built-in support for playing DVDs, and lower system requirements are all things OS X has had since before 10.4, and Windows 7 still doesn't have.
Windows didn't get the ability to rearrange taskbar icons until Windows 7 (8 years after OS X). Windows didn't get built-in indexed search until Windows Vista (4 years after OS X). Windows didn't get IPv6 support until Windows Vista (4 years after OS X). Windows ran everything as root by default until Windows Vista (6 years after OS X). Windows didn't get icons larger than 48x48 until Windows Vista (6 years after OS X).
Examples of features introduced since 10.4 that Windows still doesn't have include multiple desktops, and a bootloader that supports operating systems from more than one vendor.
Mac OS X also has the ability to edit .doc files, which Windows 7 can no longer do with the software that comes with the OS.
And then there's all the little things, like Grapher [wikipedia.org].
I'll admit the earlier versions of Mac OS X were somewhat flawed, but "worse than Windows 2000" is a pretty serious accusation, and one that requires evidence.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:4, Informative)
It still borks them unless you clear your cookies and change your IP.
Go ahead. Try it. Post, then refresh the page - your mods will be gone. If it's a really popular post, someone else may have modded it above +5, but for some score 2 post that only you bumped up, your mod will disappear.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:3, Informative)
The upgrade paths for Apple have been far more expensive, for far less features.
Recently I bought $29 Snow Leopard and a blank hard drive to upgrade a Macbook simultaneously and discovered that it never asked to see either the previous partition or an old install CD like the MS upgrades do. I even hard the Leopard CD out ready to show it.
Though it did say "DON'T STEAL" on the Snow Leopard Box.
So in theory... If you're hardware can run it... Its only $29.
Anways... Every OS X upgrade see the main improvement that I am concerned with rather than features which is mainly speed and performance.
Which is why Win7 was way better than Vista in my eyes.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:4, Informative)
you do realize that Vista and Vista SP2 are almost totally different operating systems under the hood? Vista SP2 was the first to desktop windows to use the same server kernel. Windows 7 is just an extension of that. Google Mini Win. MS knew that Win2000/2003/XP of putting everything in the kernel was a bad idea around 2001 and started a project to make WIndows more UNIX like and modular. Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are the first products from that project.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:1, Informative)
You seem to keep going out of your way to dismiss functionality as being available by 3rd parties. The whole point is that you do not have to install this support into OS X. It all comes with it out of the box. The very fact that you can find it from 10's of vendors indicates that it IS important.
I equate the task bar to the doc in OS X. Expose is an entirely different animal and the primary reason that Vista and Win7 now use similar 'preview' functions. To say the taskbar is equivalent to Expose is reaching at best.
As to the indexer, most people ended up disabling it in Windows XP and Windows 2000. It was a performance pig and tacked on until Vista was released.
NTFS sucks for fragmentation. Given a choice between a more modern FS from any Unix/Linux variant, I'd choose the Linux/Unix variants any time. Stating NTFS is comparable to even HPFS is ridiculous. Those arguments fall apart after a few months of regular usage.
Comparing the command prompt to Bash...wow. I'm surprised the ./ readers let that one slide. Powershell was released after Vista, many years later (Nov 2006). It is a shell in a truer sense than the abomination called a DOS prompt. It's nice compared to anything previously bundled with Windows, if you ignore how slow it is, but proclaiming it with such pride years after the fact and ignoring that the shell has always been in OS X due to it's Unix underpinnings isn't exactly winning your case.
The features that are key to me and implemented so much better in OS X are pretty basic, but very important:
Multi-user support - It was tacked on in Windows, and due to their legacy support, is still not fully accepted and adhered to by developers. Although Windows now fully 'supports' a true multi-user environment, it's a grab bag more often than not. Most software vendors have converted to utilizing user directories for program data, but they still, all to often, require admin access to install, dropping DLL's into the system directory, writing to non-user registry keys, and making a general mess of things. On a Mac, I can back up the user directory, and the app directory, and be confident that almost every app will run without issue just by restoring it on any target machine. The majority of programs can be installed without any admin rights (and no, turning off UAC doesn't count). Can you say the same for Windows? They have still continually failed to enforce proper user spaces for installation and day to day operations and the OS suffers for it. Programs putting pieces into system folders, requiring access to non-user registry keys, and general disarray.
The other key piece has to do with the overall degeneration of a typical Windows install. Having used Windows in the workplace, as well as supported it since Windows 3.1, I know first hand how often you're forced to reinstall. It may take a few months. Maybe a year if your lucky. Two if you're extremely lucky, but eventually you just get too much bloat and floating bits to the point where the system becomes unstable, or simply too slow or quirky to be usable. This doesn't happen in OS X. Want to delete an app? Drag it to the trash. Windows? Not so much. The registry becomes a vast wasteland of legacy 'crap', invalid keys, bungled key permissions, and version conflicts. Uninstall an app, and I guarantee you that the vast majority will leave reg keys, program folders, program files, INI's, etc.
Re:Careful about unwanted updates being included.. (Score:3, Informative)
It's "genuine" only if WAT says it is. Whether you paid for it or not is irrelevant.
Re:The wise user will wait (Score:3, Informative)
Full, non-OEM copies to start, and upgrades after that.
There is no such thing as a "full, non-OEM" version of OS X. You have to run it on a Mac, and you can't buy a Mac without it. Similarly, every copy you see on the shelves is an upgrade, and requires an existing OS X license (by virtue of requiring a Mac).