Comments on: Free Windows 7 won't last forever

Just a reminder that you only have until August 15 to download the free release candidate version. Also, life is going to start getting annoying for those still using the Windows 7 beta.

[sebastien.kalonji]

So they won't you to fork up money for this service pack once they release it?

[monkeyfun14]

Get back under the bridge troll.

Snow Leopard is the real service pack here.

[BogusBasin]

I will install it when THEY pay ME.

[scottthesculptor]

Yup, just like the last two. NT 5.1 & 6.0
Amazing what they figure they can call "new".
For me, Vista has been less stable that Windows95 was back in the day.
I run NT 5.0 for stably for months on my M4300
Vista can't make it 3 hours without crashing and requiring a reboot on the same machine.
I *have* to use Vista because the USB 2.0 driver for NT 5.0 doesn't have the throughput to watch bluray.
So I boot up Vista just to watch movies - and to count the different ways it'll crash.

So I'm supposed to trust NT 6.1 aka Windows 7?

[Mr. Dee]

I see that Apple has a penchant then for copying features from 'Service Packs'. Have you checked out the bug fix called Snow Leopard? Even Apple is admitting its a bug fix for the bug riddled Leopard which so far endured 7 maintenance updates with an 8th one in the works.

Yes, Windows 7 is an upgrade to Windows Vista. Yes, it is based on Windows Vista/Server 2008 technology. That's a good thing, it means the investment over 200 million users have made in that version of Windows will be brought forward in terms of application and hardware compatibility.

Look at OS X, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6. Those are all updates, not upgrades. In fact, OS X users have been paying for fixes from versions 10.1 to 10.3. You have to admit, OS X didn't get stable until 10.4.

As for Linux, thats a kernel, and every distro based on it is just using a minor update to the kernel. Are there any major differences between Ubuntu 8.04 using kernel 2.26 to Ubuntu 9.04 using kernel 2.27? Are there any major differences that justify upgrading from even 8.04 to 9.04?

You should download the Windows 7 RC before jumping to a conclusion about product you obviously have not used. Features such as Jump List, Improvements to the Start Menu, Aero Snaps, Aero Shake, Aero Peek, Windows Touch, interactive Thumbnail previews, Improved Search features such as Input, Search Federation, AppLocker, BitLocker To Go, Direct Connect, Network Backup, Remote App, Firewall Profiles, Location Awareness, HomeGroups, Media Streaming, Play To, Internet TV, Sticky Notes with Ink support, Biometrics. Along with that, improved user experience in areas such as Personalization, Windows Update, performance - On demand loading of devices and services, efficient utilization of resources such as spinning up a DVD or a NIC, Battery performance allowing efficient use based environment lighting, improved multi-monitor support, DirectX 11, improved Windows applications such as Paint, WordPad...just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, lets not forget about freebies such as Windows Virtual XP.

Yeah, Windows 7 is just Vista with some problems fixed.

[CNET editors' note: Personal attack deleted]

[lennie22]

@Mr. Dee:

+1

@scottthesculptor:

I think you have a hardware problem because I don't see how it can't run for more than 3 hours for you. are you sure your video card is not orverheating? this can happen when you overclock too high, if you're running an nvidia card download rivatuner and turn up the fan speed, my 8800 and 8600 was defaulted at around 33% and 25%, i upped mine to 54% and 48%. if you overclocked your processor, up the fan speeds also and make sure you do a stress test to make sure the overclock is stable. plus make sure memory sticks are seated properly.

I had a vista box running (before I installed windows 7 in it) for months sending media all over the house to my xbox360 and to my other computers. windows 7 is doing this even better...it was much easier to setup.

next time, don't blame the software for your hardware problems. Vista has been very stable for me and Windows 7 is much better. It is a win win situation

[viper396]

@scottthesculptor, try fixing your computer and stop conveniently blaming your obvious lack of technical troubleshooting skills on the OS. The sarcastic rhetoric only makes you look too incompetent and unqualified to be critisizing any OS.

[montex66]

@Mr. Dee

Just because Apple uses a different naming convention for it's OS releases doesn't mean that they're all bug fixes. Frankly, I happen to enjoy the fact that Apple is constantly upgrading and fixing issues that arise as time goes by. It is completely ridiculous to insist that Apple has poor software because they continue to refine it. You must be one of those people who is incapable of understanding the complexities of software engineering and expect the first release of an operating system to be perfect in every way. When you can write perfect code that never needs updates, you will be the richest man on earth. Until then, ****.

[Renegade Knight]

Yes, they wan't you to buy the fix to Vista.

[Seaspray0]

And the macfan smear campaign continues. Give it up, guys. Windows 7 is not vista. If you had even tried it, you would know that. Apple has pretty much abandoned the apple/pc ad smear campaign because it's no longer working. Take the hint.

[thisnamestoolong]

@Mr. Dee -- The difference between the Ubuntu upgrades and the Windows upgrades is that it is FREE to upgrade Ubuntu ($100-$200 for Windows), you don't even need to wipe your HDD. Then when you consider the fact that there is a new version of Ubuntu every 6 months or so, you realize that we are talking about a totally different animal here, Canonical sends out a new version of Ubuntu as soon as they have it, so that your O/S is always cutting edge. Are the updates small and incremental? Of course! But they are also free and non-invasive to install. (And yes, there are differences in each new release, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.)

I mean come on... Vista came out 2 1/2 years ago, coming on 3 years by the time 7 comes out. If you are going to make me wait 3 years for a new O/S, expect me to wipe my hard drive to install it, and then charge me $100-$200 to get it, I am going to be expected a vastly different experience, not Vista 2.0.

[achernow]

Did people really think it'd last forever?

Honestly, though, I'm a big, big fan of Apple (insert fanboy joke here), but Windows 7 is something I'm seriously considering to purchase a license for to install on my spare desktop. I had been running Linux on there because the computer was crawling under Vista (and that's the included Vista BASIC not the less), but it flies with the Windows 7RC.

-Adam

[nmcphers]

How are driver installs under Windows 7? It seems to take centuries under Windows Vista. Some Windows updates seem to have taken a step back as well in Vista, going trough additional configuration steps after a reboot. Is that stil present in Windows 7?

[goodspeed8701]

It is very easy. My installation works well with my hardwares and i cant think of any driver issue i had. Even if you have a driver issue, windows 7 can fix it through windows update. Windows 7 rc is the best os ever.

[hafenbrack]

I installed th RC on a laptop tha tis 4 or so years old. It detected all the hardware on the machine and I was able to run faster than when I purchased it with XP on it.

[camel2009]

I installed Windows 7 RC1 on an ASUS bookcase P4 machine with 512MB SDRAM. The only problem was that I have to dig out a network driver for the onboard NIC card. After network was connected, Windows 7 found all other drivers from Windows update. Better than I expected. Windows 7 beta didn't work well because of no suitable graphical adaptor driver.

[sebastien.kalonji]

Call me troll? Snow Leopard is indeed a service pack but contrary to MS they are not trying to hide it. It's Balmer that said that Windows 7 will be Vista but improved, not me!

[Mr. Dee]

No ones denying that, its based on Vista SP1 codebase, which means architectually, its a better Vista, but user experience wise, its a major upgrade. The reason why its Windows NT 6.1 is simply to simplify the compatibility experience. The could have designated the Kernel NT 7.0 but, unless you want to go back through the first 6 months of Vista's problems on the market, they chose not to.

[Lerianis3]

Windows 7 IS built on the Vista SP1 codebase (with numerous improvements) but has gone so far as to genuinely WARRANT the name of Windows 7 and not Vista SP3.

I've seen many under the hood improvements with the thing: faster networking speeds compared to Vista (and Vista's already were awesome to be honest), faster bootup times compared to Vista (this is one place Vista STUNK ON ICE!), etc.



Windows 7 simply is NOT Vista SP3. It would be like calling Vista Windows XP SP3.
[CNET editor's note: Offensive comments deleted.]

[gv_walker]

BTW, 6.1 is the version number that they said they would use until the OS is RTM. At that point the version number would increment to 7.0

[ncalishome]

@sebastien.kalonji "So they won't you to fork up money for this service pack once they release it?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet-Troll

To answer your question, yes, monkeyfun14 did quite accurately call you a troll

[Hunnter2k3]

And they expect Win7 not to get hacked to remove their silly bi-hourly shutdowns and final expiry date?
Ha, oh Microsoft you crazeh fools.

[lotrsw86]

Anybody willing to do that is just asking for problems.

Sure maybe somebody will break the expiration on the RC, but MS won't be releasing any security patches either.
Sounds like a good way to become part of a bot-net to me.

[Lerianis3]

lotrsw86, that is quite right. Personally, soon as the actual Windows 7 comes out..... INSTALLED! I'll be looking for a crack to be honest (because I paid for Vista and see this as what Vista should have been in all honesty), but I'll install the actual as soon as it comes out.

[goodspeed8701]

Yes it will get hacked. And you will install the hack windows and loose all your bank accounts and other internet related information.

[meh100]

All you have to do is turn the clock back (It's too late once it starts, but that will stop it from ever happening). I don't even think that counts as a hack.

[walletless]

@Lerianis3 "because I paid for Vista and see this as what Vista should have been in all honesty":
Yes... Ideally, Windows 3.1 should have been was Win95 was... Win 95 should have been what Win 98 was... Win 98 should have been what Win98SE was... Win98SE should have been what Win2k was... Win2k should have been what WinXP was... and so on. Realistically, you cannot cram everything in a release, and each product in the world - whether its OSX, iPhone, or Windows - each product needs to improve incrementally. I am happy MS got it right finally with Win7, and I will be happy to pay up for it.

[viper396]

@Lerianis3.."(because I paid for Vista and see this as what Vista should have been in all honesty), "


You paid for what you got, not what it could be. If you buy a 2009 Toyota and then they come out with a 2010 model with better features do you really think you're entitled to a free upgrade? That reasoning doesn't apply to cars or any other products, why should it be any different with operating systems?

[bhartman35]

@walletless:

You can certainly make the argument that people expect too much in hindsight (expect Windows 3.1 to be Windows 95, etc), but I think there's a difference here: Win95 had a different GUI, 32-bit operation, and was a genuine graphical OS (rather than just a shell over DOS, as Win 3.1 was).

By contrast, Windows 7 (while it's admittedly much nicer than Vista was, in several ways) is much more incremental, and something that Microsoft [i]could've[/i] delivered in 2007, if they'd've taken their time with it, rather than rushing it out the door.

Having said that, I'm not complaining. It's a worthy upgrade, even if it should've been the OS of 2007.

[walletless]

@bhartman35- Agreed - Win 7 probably shares a lot of code with Vista.. but this is how MSFT has been doing for a while now. From what I know, XP was built on top of win2k, and Vista was built on top of XP. In fact, I would be pissed if this was not the case, since if they did not share a kernal and driver model, all my old peripherals would stop working! MS made that mistake with Vista (changed the driver model drastically, but did not work with the vendors to have them get the drivers ready for Vista) - I am glad they are not making the mistake again with Win7.

I still think that Win7 justifies the price tag, but still warrants discounts for Vista adopters.

[tonylnk]

I hope someone will find a crack so that when it comes to reinstalling back to Vista or XP after the term ends, I can continue to use it. :)

[eswinson]

@viper396 Actually, if you had bought a Toyota that turned out to be a lemon, you are entitled to a new truck or your money back. I'm not agreeing with Lerianis3 about stealing it but I wonder if MS would offer a discount to users of Vista who upgrade.

I'm a Mac user but I am using Windows 7 RC daily and I do like it and I will buy it once it is released. It plays nice in bootcamp and vmware (AIT 3d acceleration issues aside)

[nmejunkie]

I love how vista was so bad people are completely happy with a release candidate. OSX for a year now my mac has never crashed. lol seriously hasn't. and it keeps getting better :D

[Lerianis3]

WRONG! Fact is, most people were happy with Vista...... except the Lin- and Mac-tards who insist that Vista is "SLOW SLOW SLOW!".... which it is NOT from my benchmarking in REAL LIFE SITUATIONS.

[hafenbrack]

I've been running Vista since the day it was released (over a year) and have yet to experience a crash. Yet my sisters MAC has crashed twice (if my memory serves) since she bought it just about a year ago, I know because each time she called me and asked, "I thought MAC's weren't supposed to do this...?" I feel for her since she thought she was buying the "perfect" computer depsite my effforts to inform her that it's just another machine.

[meh100]

Lerianis, benchmarking only checks the processor and its not the processor that's the problem. It's the intense memory usage. It's painful to use Vista on anything with less than 2-3 GB of Ram regardless of how good the processor is.

[monkeyfun14]

@meh

Actually my rig with 3gb of ram runs vista faster then the same machine when its running XP

[El_Segfaulto]

First thing, please don't call Macs, MACs. A MAC is a hardware address encoded onto an NIC. I'm as against the cult as much as the next red-blooded Linux/Windows user but fair is fair. I've been running Vista on my office computer for a couple of years with no crashes either. If they're built right with decent components (you typically have to do this yourself) then it won't give any trouble. In all honesty half of Microsoft's problem is vendors like HP, Dell, etc. put a ton of crapware which bogs down a user's experience (why in the hell was there a trial copy of Spore creature creator on a new HP laptop?) and they tend to use shoddy parts in their lower-end machines which has the same result.

[Vegaman_Dan]

People who installed and used Vista on a daily basis were too busy using their computer to complain about it. Those that do complain usually have other ulterior motives such as the fanboys and trolls found here who haven't actually used the product, but feel fully qualified to pass judgement on it.

All OS products have issues. I had to restart my MacBookPro because Firefox got hosed bad enough to take down the OS. Do I blame Apple for it crashing? Nah, it's a computer, I don't expect it to be perfect.

@meh100:

"It's painful to use Vista on anything with less than 2-3 GB of Ram regardless of how good the processor is."

Perhaps it is painful for you- how many applications did you have running at the time? 15? 20? 50? Vista is fine with 1 Gb, but it likes 2Gb more. It's not needed however. It runs in as little as 512 if need be. If you find your system is slow with that amount of memory, then you need to look elsewhere than the OS for your performance issues.

[topgunb2]

mac didn't crash? it proves you don't use it much

[ncalishome]

@Vegaman_Dan "People who installed and used Vista on a daily basis were too busy using their computer to complain about it" well put

I have two Mac's running OS X. The laptop I use mainly on my couch when I'm not doing anything remotely productive has not crashed once. My dual quad-core workstation that I use on a daily basis for work has crashed many, many times.... Like complete system lockup.

[Inconnux]

Vista is a slug... I ran Fritz 10 benchmark (Fritz is a top of the line chess program) on my 2 yr old desktop (amd 64 dual core, 2gb ram) and then ran it on a brand new Toshiba laptop (amd 64 X2 3gb ram) Desktop runs XP, Vista on the laptop and the 2yr old XP machine ran over TWICE as fast as the Vista machine. after a whole day tweaking the vista machine I got it to benchmark a little better but the XP machine still was far faster... Vista in my real world application ran like a slug. Hasn't crashed yet, but still a slug.

[santuccie]

@meh100:

There's a reason for the intense memory usage, to boost responsiveness. Rather than loading frequently used dlls and such to virtual memory on the HDD, the slowest player on the team, Vista caches what it can to RAM. This slows boot and shutdown time to be sure, but greatly improves performance during the session. And these days, 3 GB of RAM doesn't cost much (unless you're using Rambus, which would suggest you have deep pockets anyway).

[Gandalf2050]

I have been using windows 7 RC pretty much since it was released, the only issue I had initially was I have a crappy wireless card that wasn't detected right away, so I had to hook my desktop up wired, and by the time I got ready to look for the driver windows 7 had already fixed the problem, I actually was shocked considering I'm a bit of a tech geek, and was expecting to have to update it manually.

Personally, my experience has been this, it runs snappier than xp, I think it may have crashed once, and it was a driver in beta problem, which is already no problem. The interface is clean and easy to use, there's relatively few annoying pop-ups when I want to change anything, updates and installations are seemless, the task bar is amazing, especially compared to xp, and overall, I'm so impressed that I plan on buying it as soon as I can, considering that I adamantly refused to buy vista, and stuck with xp, now I wouldn't stick with xp if you payed me.

Oh and why not linux? My primary reason is I can't use MS Office on it, and with windows 7 being so good, I don't want linux anymore, not that its bad.

Don't even get me started on overpriced Mac merchandise, but I do know this, all the studies done recently show that windows is way more secure than mac, it just so happens that mac is not used enough for people to want to hack it. So you mac users, just you wait, you'll be installing antivirus software soon enough!

I will admit mac equipment works well though, I just can't justify paying for it when my windows pc works great, and costs half the amount if not less.

So for those who haven't tried it, I will say this, I use windows 7 as my only operating system on my only computer and have no problems and love it, in fact I made a noob mistake and overwrote my xp os on my partitioned drive, and still somehow windows 7 kept all my xp files and so I just rescued my documents and pics and got rid of the rest and I was good to go, I almost fell over when I found out.

[Wookiee-1138]

But you can restore a backup after the final version clean install, right?

[Chebwa]

Well I sure hope so! Who wouldn't want to **** all over a nice clean final OS installation with a shady backup from an older version?

[Lumiseon]

Actually, even though it's a clean install, you don't lose all your stuff. It just gets pushed into a folder on the root section of the hard drive named Windows.old. All your programs, music, photos, videos and stuff will be there. Programs will have to be either moved to the correct directory or reinstalled, but everything else is perfectly accessable.

[Wookiee-1138]

That's what I figured. It's the reinstalling programs part that's a pain.

Also, I wonder if the final version will be up on MSDNAA any time soon.

The free swag by itself makes tuition worth it. ^_^

[0ri0n]

How is this any different than a regular Windows version?

1.) you install it.
2.) you have a limited time to use it before it stops working, patches or no patches, bare bones install or not. (Generally about the time Micro$oft is trying to usher you into the next operating system)
3.) you discover setting the date back in your computer amazingly resolves a lot of issues.....

go figure. an operating system with a programmed life expectancy, kind of like Bladerunner, but its your operating system...

[Chebwa]

"you discover setting the date back in your computer amazingly resolves a lot of issues....."

Yes, do that when your RC stops working. I bet it fixes it! Moron.

[meh100]

Chebwa, it will help. If you want to see how these time bombs work, look up the Mech Commander shared source release (these lines of code are commented out but still there). Basically, it checks the clock. If the date is past the expiration, it stops working and then sets the trigger date to some time before January 1, 1970 (the earliest date you can set the computer clock). As long as you turn the date back before it triggers, it will never stop working.

[monkeyfun14]

1.) you install it.
2.) you have a limited time to use it before it stops working, patches or no patches, bare bones install or not. (Generally about the time Micro$oft is trying to usher you into the next operating system)
3.) you discover setting the date back in your computer amazingly resolves a lot of issues.....

go figure. an operating system with a programmed life expectancy, kind of like Bladerunner, but its your operating system...


When has XP just magically stopped working?

[goodspeed8701]

If you backdate the time you will get all sorts of problems. eg certificate on sites like mail.yahoo.com. One thing is for sure. The RC has the birth date which for example is june 1st 2009 then you backdate the time to june 1st 2008. It will stop working.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Setting the time back?

Modifying the system to trick the system into letting you run a pre-release version that is not supported and inferior to the final release?

Boy, you guys are seriously cheap to go to all that work just to save a few bucks. Perhaps that really says all there is to why you have problems right there.

As for me, I'll be happy to buy the OS from Microsoft and Apple as they are released. Go legit and you won't have any problems. Try to cheat and steal and you deserve what you get.

[DanRobinson]

Sorry. The only PC app I need is Internet Explorer which I can run without Windows by using Crossover Mac.

I really don't want the hassle of using Windows at all.

[goodspeed8701]

Same way i don't wont to buy an over price computer that will make me want to use crossover mac so i can run windows app.

[lennie22]

I dont' find using windows even close to being a hassle, it's running on my latop, workstation, family Media streamer and it's quite nice. I'm sorry to hear that it's been a hassle for you but it has been really great for me.

[svk1069]

Thank you for the Microsoft commercial disguised as "news". I wasn't aware that you were on their payroll now.

[ywkhgqo]

are you serious? Every single day cnet has apple stuff all over it. NEW MACBOOK THIS, IPHONE THAT, HEY LOOK AT THIS NEW APP FOR THE TOUCH.

Considering less than 10% of the pc market uses apple, and more than 50% of cnet's news is apple, i would say the opposite is true.

Nice try buddy, you're not on the cool side.

[_1_______2___3___4_______]

whatever!

[El_Segfaulto]

@ywkhgqo

Technically if he is an Apple user, he is on the "cool side". I wasn't cool in high school, I wasn't cool in college, and I'll be damned if I'm cool enough now. I'll stick with Linux.

[Seaspray0]

The "cool" factor evaporated when Janet Reno bought an ipod. Being "cool" is just another fad/fashion trend.

[ASROSS]

I have the RC running nicely in Sun's free VM on my little WinXP laptop... and the only thing stopping me from doing a full dual boot is that I don't want to have to install over the RC with the full release version when it comes out. It's not about the money... I'll pay the upgrade fee for the key... I just don't get why I can't permanently activate it when the RC times out if I am willing to pay. There's just no way I'm going to get my RC running just the way I like it to then do a clean install and have to start over. Lame!

[lennie22]

you really didn't just say that.......however, I'll just clear up something for you; there are a lot of changes that goes into the final release from Release Candidate 1 (RC1), therefore it would be stupid to treat and convert the RC into RTM without appying the changes....if they send the changes to the RC over Windows Update this will guarantee that not everyone will have the same copy and will intern be a support nightmare. so it is not Lame.

[_1_______2___3___4_______]

Nothing lasts forever. Can't wait till the real deal is released!

[SlimGem]

I've tried to encourage my fellow Mac users to try the Win7 RC, especially since so many have rabidly attacked it without really knowing anything about it. I find this attitude as illogical as those who attack Snow Leopard as being some kind of patch instead of the evolving step that it is. The ranting and raving from either side is unproductive and juvenile.

[z4dude4]

I've left Windows for good, and I'm not being ignorant. I left Windows because of XP, and that is far better than Vista so why bother stick around.

[Lumiseon]

Hopefully us RC users will get Windows 7 Ultimate either free or a major discount for it... Either way, Windows 7 is STILL then best you'll find now.

[sebastien.kalonji]

So why call me a troll when you yourself have to admit it is just an SP. Okay you use nice words to make it sound like an important upgrade, but why call it Windows 7 when it is actually just Vista? Only reason is to be able to sell it at full price!

[goodspeed8701]

Does vista have the mutitouch feature? Does it have the new taskbar? If no. Then its not vista.

[Seaspray0]

Because it's not vista, troll.

[sebastien.kalonji]

I understand what you mean but the reality is that Vista was not perceived well contrary to Leopard. There is nothing wrong with calling snow leopard a service pack because Apple even admits that, what is wrong is trying to sell a service pack as a full upgrade like MS is doing with Windows 7. Maybe its wrong of mac users to ridicule Vista but MS just does things that make it impossible not to ridicule it. If MS says to companies to wait with upgrading XP until Windows 7 is released it makes it very hard for people to not ridicule an OS that even is'nt backed by it's creator.

[goodspeed8701]

sebastein please read Mr. Dee's comment above, you may learn something there. I think you are so ignorant about this.

[Lumiseon]

What do you not understand, Sebastien, that Windows 7 is not a damn service pack!? Yes, it looks like Vista. But it feels NOTHING like it. Service Packs don't change almost the entire GUI, and interface. Windows 7 IS it's own OS. Otherwise it'd be free, obviously. ANd no, that's not the only reason, but it is one reason. Read all of the stupid comments on here and MAYBE you will learn something.

Don't judge a book by it's cover.

return 0;

[sargess25]

"Free Windows 7 ...."

would you buy and eat rotten vegetables, from your greengrocer, only because they're free?

[goodspeed8701]

How can you say would you buy? When you're actually saying it is free. Think before you comment.

[Tod Smith]

I agree that Vista is a good OS. It's not great because it isn't optimized, but MS should tweak Win 7.

[man_w_balls]

Windows 7 RC 1 comes with Green Dam surveillance software. It is in a file called "ieframe.dll.mui" located in 2 places: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\en-US\
and C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-ieframe.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_8.0.7100.0_en-us_1bf3afee85cb4074

This is not a joke. I installed Win7 RC1 two different times, and got two pairs of this Green Dam file in those same 2 locations. The first installation was never booted up for a first-run, because it failed to complete. So it became "Windows.old" on the second try. Update your antivirus to protect yourself from Microsoft.

[ArthurFatt]

False Positive.
Go and read the support forum at your AV vendor.

[jcenteno]

Windows 7, what's the hype? I've just tried last RC and it just sucks, come on people, even my ubuntu with samba works better with shared resources, try to create a folder in a shared resource, and tell me your results. Any operation on a shared resource, the explorer window jus don't get actualized. ***!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you want to see a really really cool interface improvement? Check http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/Plan and look for The Gnome Shell and The Zeitgeist Project, that's innovation. And that's just the interface with one of the alternatives for the desktop, forget about KDE 4.0 and other options, and last, forget about the price, the security, the no-DRM issues, the no-viruses, the fast response, the little hardware resources needs, and the list just keeps going....

Why does everyone has forgotten the DRM issues, security issues, the promised and never delivered features like a brand new file system ?

Hey CNET how much are you getting from M$ for your "good" reviews ?

[IanX211]

first of, this article ISN"T a review. It's talking about a "Free Windows 7" will expire and the author gave their opinion that people should give it a try. If you want to talk about how CNET are paid by M$, go to a review article.

Second, I visited the link you provided. It's good but I wouldn't call it innovated. Might be better than 7 and Snow Leopard (in some minds) but doesn't take the leap that will have others copy what they did.