Why in gods name would we move to >64-bit any time soon? Theres no need 64-bit can handle up to 16 Exbibytes thats 16 Million Terabytes of Ram IIRC. Which is the main reason people are going 64-bit the 3 Gig limit in XP is not enough.

Even if the average computer would have 4 Gigabytes of Ram today it would take 22 Doubling's to need to move on or about 33 Years according to moors law, so theres no hurry.

And yes I know Moor's Law has to do with Transistor count and not Ram Storage but its the best approximation I have.

Also 128-bit CPU is not not 256-bit or at least there only working on 128-bit CPU at the moment.

Also in regards to the OP I agree its a shame 64-bit is not the Standard for OS yet. I also agree with you that Windows 7 does seem promising however I'm not going to beleive anything Microbucks says untill I have reviews proving there statments.

The cache of the Core 2 chips is more than double the cache of the P4s - plenty more than needed to make up any loss due to increased pointer size. Yes, some of Intel's chips have 12 MB caches (Q9650, Q9550, Q9450, and Q9100) - so what are you complaining about? They are already doing what you want them to do.

And quite frankly the increased amount of memory I am able to access and use without swapping to the harddrive more than makes up for any cache troubles and slightly bloated executables.

I've been tempted to audit a course at the local university just for the software discount. Not so much a factor now that I'm on Ubuntu which does everything I need save gaming, but it was nice when I was a student picking up software for $5.00 a disk - {G}.

Jonnan

 '

I was one of the people clamouring for UAC.  What can I say?  It works so well on Linux, and I maintain that it's a good design decision.  Another thing that breaks multi-tasking.  Why does it need to steal focus?  Why must it pause everything?  Why does it happen two or three times for one task?

It's interesting how many annoying things about Vista this thread has dragged up.  I still prefer it to XP, but the niggles certainly are piled high.  And so many of them are to do with stealing control from the user.

that's the whole dilemma. no use spending money on a version of XP at this point, let alone one that was poorly supported. so should i get vista? i guess it really depends on how soon i upgrade, if i get an X2 at all. but i equally loathe the idea of paying for vista when i know win7 is on the horizon, and when i'm pretty sure i'd prefer win7 to vista in a heartbeat. maybe one of my students can apply a discount on my behalf.

Faculty are generally eligible for MSDNAA access as well, if the school has it. Might want to ask your IT guy or whoever is in charge of it if he can set you up.

I disagree on the 64-bit part, Brad- my system is only a few years old and handles pretty much anything I throw at it, including Vista.  However, it is only a 32-bit P4.  I think 7 will be the last Windows OS for it, it would be too stupid to continue on with 32-bit after it, but it's too early, the driver situation is still not so hot and many consumers don't have a 64-bit CPU.

I think it is not important, whether the system is 32-bit or 64-bit. For most users is important the question: will the program XYZ work on that system or not? And the second most important question is: will I have to learn a lot, if I want to do the same things I did last several last years?

Because the second question is yes (I used tu use menus and I like them. It is simpler to search keywords than "keypictures") I don't want Windows 7 at all. It may not be the bad OS, but I don't want it, unless it gives me something really usefull. As a programmer I have enough problems with the compatibility of old operation systems.

What I would want to see in Windows 7:

1. Windows Powershell or some other usable shell installed by default on every machine, client or server.

2. A terminal window that actually supports line-based copy and paste using ctrl-insert and shift-insert keys.

3. Support for Java by installed by default on every machine, client or server.

4. Make moving and deleting files faster. On Mac OS X moving or deleting a file is a point in time. On Windows it's a period of time.

5. Repair the file system implementation to allow modification of files that are in use. Mac OS X can do it, why not Windows? Specifically, I am sick and tired of files I cannot delete because Windows _thinks_ some program is still using them. A reboot usually fixes that.

6. Fix that annoying thing were windows suddenly claim focus.

7. Install and run an SSH server by default.

And what I would want to see in Mac OS X 10.6:

1. Integrated .NET support like they did Java support. Apple can either work with Microsoft or Novell, I don't care. But I want C# support in the OS and in Xcode.

2. Windows Powershell, if point 1 is there.

3. Fix that annoying thing where windows suddenly claim focus. That only started happening with 10.5!

4. Allow Mac OS X VMs on Macintosh hardware.

5. Remote Desktop using a protocol other than the slowest version of VNC. Background remote desktop login would be useful too.

6. Run the SSH server by default. (It is installed by default.)

7. A clearer distinction between 32 bit and 64 bit. The current 64 bit support is as confusing as Windows 95 was.

After losing their legal case with Sun Microsystems, it's highly doubtful they will ever do that. Microsoft is moving towards C# and Silverlight as a replacement of Java.

Despite my love for the Java language and the excellent Javadoc documentation system (beats MSDN, no doubt about it), it's all too obvious that Microsoft never wants to get involved with Java again . Sorry.

Agreed. New windows should not be able to steal focus.

I'd rather they don't. I'm sure the command line and *nix people love it, but that's not really their core audience.

How is it confusing?

I don't know how well you know Mac OS X but I find it extremely confusing.

The 32 bit kernel starts up, checks whether Long Mode is available and if so switches to Long Mode, running itself in Compatibility Mode. Each process can then be 32 bit or 64 bit, with 32 bit processes having 4 GB of virtual memory each (2 GB system, 2 GB user) and 64 bit processes having 8GB+ of virtual memory each (4 GB system, as much as currently supported user).

There are 32 bit and 64 bit libraries and due to the Mach-O binary format that part is a lot easier than the Windows equivalent (System32 for 64 bit and SysWow64 for 32 bit).

Due to this architecture Mac OS X cannot use 64 bit drivers. That is an advantage now, no doubt.

An update on the topic at hand...

ARS just published a hands-on review of the new GUI. You read more about it here.

Well, I still don't  see any reason to go to this new platform. The new explorer is nice, but Total commaner is Total Commander.

No doubt. I'll likely hang with Vista64 if they dont remove the DRM crap to be honest.

It's really weird for me. For so many years I didn't go to Linux because, although I could handle the interface, it was at best clunky, it wasn't advancing fast enough to be worth it to me, and I didn't want to mess with it.

And now I'm on Ubuntu and looking at the "New and Improved" Windows going "But, I already *have* that and that and that".

There's just nothing going on with Windows 7 that I would consider better than Ubuntu. Well - no, I do have to manually restart my wireless connection occasionally, which the XP install has no issues with.

But, that's it.

Umm, would you write Galciv III to have a Ubuntu/Debian version please? We'll just setup a synaptic server and go?

Jonnan

Vista has that same DRM so does it really matter?

I agree. I don't know the number of allowed activations of Windows, but I had never any problem with it. If the number is reasonable, I can live with it. However below 10 it may have been a problem.

Unlimited on the same hardware, as far as I know you can change the processor/memory/videocard and harddrives without wasting another reactivation, and yes I am speaking from first hand experience when saying this. The only thing that counts is the motherboard. As long as you don't change your motherboard you can reformat as many times as you want, however if you do change your motherboard you WILL need to contact Microsoft and go through them to reactivate Windows. You can do this 10 times, but once your motherboard is changed and you've successfully reactivated Windows you may format as many times as you want with your new hardware without being worried about activation.

I have heard that people have gotten past that limit of 10 reactivations with a new motherboard, so it really depends on the person you are talking to on the other end of the phone. All in all 10 different motherboards for a single PC is quite a feat, the likelyhood that 95% of people will go past 10 is highly unlikely. And if they do then they probably aren't using Home Premium/Ultimate but Business/Enterprise due to the differences in licensing.

You are not quite right. If you change memory (WinXP), it requires the reactivation. I don't know, if it subtracts the number of activations or not, but after upgrading my PC's RAM  I had to run the activation procedure again (HDD, processor, mainboard and videocard remained the same). However 10 reactivations is still not a problem anyway.  It may be too few for several people, however AFAIK those can increase the number of activation by calling the helpdesk.

In Vista it does not, I wasn't talking about XP.

Not...

I remember the good old days, when an OS was just an OS... I don't want a "complete" system, I want a platform to run my own choice of software. Windows 7 seem to be going in the right direction.

As for Ubuntu to be better... Well... Sure... It has its good bits, but to run the software I like I need to install literally hundreds of different librarypackages, some of the HUGE, which includes 2 complete desktop systems (gnome and KDE). I need perl, tex, python and whatever... It's not a home desktop system, because even the smallest apps have a huge lot of dependencies that potentially cause a conflict because it upgrades a librarypackage, or some other component that program X uses. It works for business use though, since they rarely change alot when it comes to what software is installed.

I agree entirely as well.  I will upgrade to 64-bit only when Windows 7 is out though, or if Elemental requires it, which would be a great design but poor business decision.

If it is an Combisystem which is using 32 Bit Games, Programms etc. and 64 Bit Games without Problems, I will buy it. I mean the same like Windows XP (that is a Combi from Win NT [Industrie] and Win ME [Gamers]) where many older Games Work (which were produced for Win 95/98/Me).

Vista have to many Problems, so the most People must use WinXP and Vista on one Computer. I know some of this Peoples. And I remember a time where I must use Win 98 and Win 2k on one Computer, because 4 Games did´t start on Win 98 but running on Win 2k without Probs.