Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
After nearly a year-long build-up, Microsoft’s ongoing pre-launch campaign to woo computer users has come to a close, with the public launch of Microsoft’s latest and greatest desktop OS, Windows 7.
Windows 7 is being born in to a world of uncertainty, one Microsoft has never faced before to such a degree. Apple’s (and Mac OS X) market share is the highest it’s been in over a decade. Linux has finally gained however small a foothold in home computers through netbooks. And what was Microsoft’s next-gen operating system, Windows Vista, has taken enough backlash that it’s going to be in therapy for the rest of its life.
By no means are these troubled times for Microsoft, but never has victory been less assured.
Unfortunately, Windows Vista started life as a technical misfit, something even we didn’t fully comprehend until later. It ate too much virtual address space, it copied files slowly, and it ran poorly on the lowest of the low-end computers of the time. Microsoft fixed many of these problems by the time SP1 hit, but by then it was too late. Vista went from a technical misfit to a social misfit, with no hope of immediate redemption.
So Windows 7 is being launched with some gargantuan tasks on its shoulders, few of them technical. First and foremost, it needs to reverse Vista’s (and by extension, Microsoft’s) bad image among existing Windows users, in order to get them off of the old and insecure Windows XP. Then it needs to help stem the continuing flow of Windows users to Mac OS X, which has continued to grow over the years. And finally, it still needs to innovate enough so that Windows doesn’t end up stagnant, and ideally sell a few copies to Vista users while it’s at it.
It’s a large order, one that as we’ll see Microsoft won’t completely deliver on, but they’re going to get fairly close to.
In the meantime, we’re left a launch that has been a very long time coming. Between the public beta, the public RC, and Win7 having been finalized 3 months ago, virtually anyone that wanted Win7 has had the opportunity to try it. Anyone could get the release version by the middle of August through TechNet, MSDN, Action Pack, or any other of a number of sources that Microsoft released Win7 to well ahead of the public launch. The real launch was 3 months ago, so the public launch is almost a technicality.
And with that said, let’s get started with our final look at Windows 7.
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Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
It is Vista with a facelift. If you already have Vista i agree with you. I only have Win7 thanks to my Technet account. Doubt i would pay for the upgrade from Vista.But I still think Win7 is a very kickass OS. I have been impressed. Except for the dumbing down of UAC.
bigpow - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
If you're just going over the features, and installation of Win7 - why call it performance guide?"Intro to Win7" would be more appropriate.
We expect to see performance related GUIDES, when we saw that title.
Not just some boring and obvious old-recycled presentations the whole internet has already gone through.
So boring!
computerfarmer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Windows 7 was released and the people with AMD systems running RAID setups were in shock, no RAID drivers for windows 7. This is an issue. Today there has been RAID drives posted at the AMD site, with the posting date back dated to the 22nd.I had tried for hours try to get this new OS installed on the 23rd, but none of the available drivers were accepted by Win7. There for I could not install with a RAID setup. After Googling for a bit I realized I was not the only one, this was a far bigger problem.
My initial excitement of enjoying the weekend with the new OS did not take place. It is now monday and I am wondering when I will take another stab at another install attempt.
The link I have found for the AMD RAID driver is
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx">http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Why was this issue not covered by any review sit?
Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
This is an AMD issue, not a Win7 issue????How is it Microsofts fault AMD dropped the ball with their RAID driver support?
DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"Why was this issue not covered by any review sit?"Because it's not a Windows 7 issue.
computerfarmer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I believe you are half right.If a business runs a raid setup and most do, they can not use this.
If individuals run raid, they can not use this.
If millions of businesses and individuals can not use this. Then what good is an operating system that so many can not use. This is not good business.
The RC version worked with the existing drivers and the RTM version came with out warning that the rules had changed for this OS. The OS has changed, therefor this is an OS issue.
Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
How many businesses do you know run RAID on their desktops? I'd like to know myself because in the thousands of workstations I have built over the past years only a handful ever used any form of RAID. And those were RAID 1 and I am convinced the engineers who ordered them only did it to say they have RAID.DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"Certainly someone is going to bite my head off for this, but I don’t think Microsoft should have made such a fundamental change to UAC. More casual users may not have been fond of how Vista or UAC Level 3 handle security, but it was a more secure choice than Level 2."What are you doing complaining about security while running as admin?
UAC is about social engineering. That it acts like a security feature is because if you want to engineer towards the security model with limited accounts, you have to make the administrator account act like one.
The standard access tokens and UAC nags used by the administrator account are not a part of the tiered model's administrator level -- they're there to mimic the experience of a standard user account so programmers will actually program for standard user account access. (and so users will get used to the prompts for elevation that come with operating as a standard user.)
To obsess over a reduction in limited user -type security in the administrator account is to miss the point that that's not even aligned with Microsoft's security philosophy. Their model (along with everbody else) has been tiered privileges, not somehow patching all possible vulnerabilities out of root.
Vista's default UAC was pretty much universally reviled. People wanted fewer nags, meaning less limited-access -like behavior. But you can't have auto-elevation without a reduction in security.
Could Microsoft do a better job securing the hole they opened to god-mode from the administrator account? Yes. Would the amount of effort be insane, judged in light of the fact that an administrator account is supposed to be god mode? Yes.
Should Microsoft rewrite the Win7 kernel so that these apps run in protected space that restricts them to pre-authorized actions and disallows daughter processes just so the lazy and power-mad among us can dismiss the logical security scheme and continue to run as Administrators 24/7? There's always going to be system vulnerability from the administrator account -- that's kinda its purpose. Instead of trying to secure the unsecurable, Microsoft is trying to get people to embrace a better model.
And at least they took out the obvious stupidity, like MSPaint auto-elevating. (You can delete anything [like C:\WINDOWS] from its file manager when elevated.)
And, for the record, I'm one of those lazy and power-mad who run as Admin 24/7. But I'm also on a non-critical machine.
DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.0...">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga.../2009.07...ElectricBlue7331 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
What's the big deal about out of the box codec support? Is it really that difficult to get a different media player and/or codec pack?