Windows 7

[Deleted User]

i-Citizen wrote: »

again back to that uni point sorry - but say my uni is under the microsoft academic alliance and windows 7 has been out for a couple of months with a few initial bugs sorted out, do i just go to my uni tech department and just demand for it - surely they'll want a fee, i mean dishing out os to thousands of students is bound to cost them?

Things might have changed, but when I was at university you were enrolled as part of your course and you received an email to your university account with the address and password to access the site where you downloaded the image files and burned them to a cd yourself. The corresponding serial codes were emailed to you as well. Things may well have changed and the universities may well be able to provide you a disc with it on for a small fee.

Leopard

I-Citizen,

I'm glad you found my principal posting on the topic helpful to you. Thank you for your courtesy in indicating so.

As one whose operating system of preference is neither Linux nor Windows in any of their various flavours I watched the debate above rage from the sidelines - and there is always something to be gleaned, even for the uninvolved, when knowledgeable people lock horns in intellectual dispute.

I suppose the one thing that struck me most was in the arguments of market share, Linux versus Windows. While these two bears are fighting each other, and one of them's family is fighting among itself, somebody else is quietly, increasingly and very profitably stealing ever more of their honey.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/12/02/safari-and-mac-market-share-up-in-november-08

What's put the skids under Microsoft was releasing a new version of its fundamental product that so much of the market found (and still finds) less pleasant to use than the previous version.

It's rather like a car manufacturer that produces a whizz-bang new model that people find less appealing than the previous one and before they've got it working properly. And for which tyre manufacturers don't support the wheels they've put on it.

Still, Apple may have made the same mistake in removing Firewire 400 ports from its latest range of laptops and denying MacBook Pro owners a matte screen option. Many Mac users (and I am one) prefer the previous models and some are anxiously seeking them out instead of buying the new ones.

Having brought Apple into this, what I'd add is that the reason for Apple's high customer satisfaction is that for the last seven years it has been building each successive version of its operating system on the previous one; so, drivers and software have not really presented any problems (nor incurred additional expenditure, except perhaps for more RAM) with each succeeding generation. True, it was obliged to migrate from Motorola/Freescale to Intel, and now to other CPU/GPU configurations, but the user interface has remained the same and with each new version extra features are just added and most previous drivers and software still run happily.

Both Conor and TonyHague make the point - the former for Windows, the latter for Linux - that however much you might like or dislike a new operating system, it's rendered futile if it won't run devices and applications that you want and perfectly good equipment in which you may have made a substantial investment.

Without seeking or intending in any way to take a swipe at anewhope, who has made a very valid point about display drivers in Windows and all the complications that can arise, I find it pertinent that when I bought a Hewlett-Packard 30" monitor (which was a fairly significant investment) it arrived with all sorts of discs and instructions and drivers for setting it up with different versions of Windows, but nothing at all for a Mac (let alone Linux). With some degree of anxiety, I plugged it into a MacBook Pro to see what happened and how to set about dealing with that, and, to my delight (and considerable relief) the monitor just fired up and produced a perfect display. It has run faultlessly ever since.

The same applies to Hewlett-Packard's Bluetooth laser mice (of which the postman has just now delivered me yet another one, which cost me £15, new, on eBay - Mac ownership need not be expensive). They come with discs and Windows drivers and all manner of other things, but if you just put the batteries in them and switch them on they pair with a Mac without you having to do anything.

That's why people really love Macs and it's for that sort of thing that Apple's share of the computer market is rising, at the expense of Windows and Linux - at least for consumers. The superficial and the Magpie-mentalitied may be attracted to Macs for their appearance but those who really use them and like them buy them because of their operating system.

As a final point of proof, I would not have spent £350 on an MSI Wind netbook, which is supplied with Windows XP, if it were not possible to hack Mac OS X on to it.


All of the above does have relevance to you and your dilemma. Your concern is whether and by what means you will be able to run Windows 7 on a laptop you purchase now. Or whether you will even want to. I'm not going to tell you you should buy an Apple laptop instead - despite the fact that they can run both Vista and XP natively - but it is certainly true that if you bought an Apple laptop now it would be able to run Apple's next operating system with no problems at all (and if that's released at the annual MacWorld Expo next month, you'd get a free upgrade to it, as well!)

The way that I see your problem is this. Buy now, with Vista, and hope that Windows 7 will (when it's eventually released), run on it without hassle, or, alternatively, keep what you've got until Windows 7 does come out and then buy something that has been tailored to it?

But you don't yet know if you will even like the Windows 7 user experience, let alone whether it will work properly.

You also need to consider the fact that once existing stocks of laptops in Britain have been used up (and it's the less-desirable ones that will be left at the end) the new Gordon Brown mini-£ is going to buy you a lot less foreign-manufactured imported computer for your money. And that's come January, let alone next June, or whenever.

So, if you are committed to Windows (and don't even want to run it on an Apple laptop) my advice to you would be to soldier on, if you can, with what you've got until Windows 7 escapes and then see whether you like it. If you don't, you will then still (for a while) be able to get a Vista laptop instead.

If, however, soldiering on with what you've got is not a practical option, discover everything that you can about what resources and hardware Windows 7 will need in a laptop and buy a Vista laptop that will accommodate this as soon as you can, before Christmas, before existing stocks of the nicest ones run out and the prices go up.

One final thing to bear in mind: the last thing you will want to do is embark on a possibly troublesome upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 when you are in the middle of a crucial stage of your studying. So leave that until you have a decent amount of free time to perform it and trouble-shoot any complications.

Good luck! :money:

[Deleted User]

Leopard wrote: »

Without seeking or intending in any way to take a swipe at anewhope, who has made a very valid point about display drivers in Windows and all the complications that can arise, I find it pertinent that when I bought a Hewlett-Packard 30" monitor (which was a fairly significant investment) it arrived with all sorts of discs and instructions and drivers for setting it up with different versions of Windows, but nothing at all for a Mac (let alone Linux). With some degree of anxiety, I plugged it into a MacBook Pro to see what happened and how to set about dealing with that, and, to my delight (and considerable relief) the monitor just fired up and produced a perfect display. It has run faultlessly ever since.

The same applies to Hewlett-Packard's Bluetooth laser mice (of which the postman has just now delivered me yet another one, which cost me £15, new, on eBay - Mac ownership need not be expensive). They come with discs and Windows drivers and all manner of other things, but if you just put the batteries in them and switch them on they pair with a Mac without you having to do anything.

That's why people really love Macs and it's for that sort of thing that Apple's share of the computer market is rising, at the expense of Windows and Linux - at least for consumers. The superficial and the Magpie-mentalitied may be attracted to Macs for their appearance but those who really use them and like them buy them because of their operating system.

The large majority of software that comes with hardware is unneccesary crap, more just companies putting their own front end on functions that the operating system already has control over just so they have some kind of real estate and have their branding on the computer.

Displays always come with useless programs to calibrate the display, ineffective as they are I suppose it gives the impression that it's a complete package. Anyone who would require monitor calibration will have already invested in a hardware device that will calibrate accurately, as opposed to the inaccurate eye.

More people should just plug it things in and see how they work. They'd probably have a much happier experience on their computers if they did.

DatabaseError

Just a couple of minor points, Leopard.
The disk with the monitor (which I so want:) )will be colour profiles for photoshop and other high end graphics/dtp applications, the monitor would work 'out of the box' perfectly for most applications and people, and very few would notice if the pallet was not exactly to a certain application's spec, but I am impressed that the mac understood the full modes of the monitor by default.
The driver issue will always remain while one company makes the operating system, and hundreds of others make 'compatable parts', apple hold a monopoly over their primary hardware vendors, making life simple for themselves. Microsoft with their driver signing and certification are, at least, attempting to get a hold on the issue, but without forcing hardware down the monorail that is apple's upgrade path it will never be perfect.
Last point, I kinda wish I'd not put my full name, I'm getting fed up of seeing it, I might have a look at changing it here, or just start again (but I would want thanking 642+times in my 1st post to keep rep/kudos...or something)

Conor_3

I have two, no three things against Macs.

1) Overpriced hardware.
2) It's even more locked down than Windows is. It's Jobs way or the highway.
3) OS X users misplaced belief that OS X is completely secure.

1+2 is a shame because OSX could be so much more. Point 3 is just people being misguided and the first mass infection will soon cure that.

Leopard

TonyHague,

I think that what really happened was that when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and found it on its knees after all the people who had conspired to fire him several years earlier and had then, after driving the company into the ground, depleted its funds still further by baling out with golden parachutes, he realised that if Apple was going to survive and OS X was going to work, it would have to incorporate drivers for people's kit into the operating system itself.

So many people were writing Apple off, prematurely, as history that accessory and peripheries manufacturers weren't prepared to invest money in writing drivers for a new operating system from a "doomed" company that Apple was obliged to sit down and write these drivers themselves.

Things have improved now - to the extent that most major manufacturers now boast "Mac compatible" on their packaging - but it's taken a long time and Apple has continued that tradition; it works closely with peripheral manufacturers (who now come to Apple, instead of vice-versa) and every few months a routine updater is released, adding drivers and support for popular third-party devices.

The exception to that is in the field of synchronisation with mobile 'phones - Samsungs and LGs in particular - and Sony always tries to pretend that Apple does not exist (except as a purchaser of self-combusting laptop batteries) - but Apple supplies links to third-party niche software companies who make a living from producing synchronisation utilities.



You'd be wise to keep your posting and Thanks record if you can - and also your mailbox - when changing your User Name. It gives you credibility with the powers-that-be on MSE if somebody despicable, to whom you've never sent a PM in your life, suddenly claims maliciously that you've been bombarding him/her with abusive PMs.

There is a poster in this thread who did need to change his User Name and I am sure he will now be kind enough to explain to you how it's done.

Personally, I am always very wary about PMs and the extent to which the system can be abused: I apply the same philosophy as one should with emails generally - don't open them if you don't know whom they're from or they're from somebody you do know but don't like. There's one sitting, unopened, in my inbox now, from one of the latter, but I've no intention of getting drawn into the potential consequences of letting that genie out of the bottle by clicking on it and reading it!



Conor,

Those are valid comments.

For consumers (as opposed to media professionals) it's newcomers to Macs who tend to get stung by the high retail prices of the hardware. Those experienced in Macs learn ways to buy them much more cheaply. (The last MacBook Pro that I bought had a retail price of £1,600 at the time but I tracked down one from a private seller who parted with it for £550 - and, yes, it checked out legal! All it needed was a charger, a hard drive upgrade and some more RAM; all of which I had in a drawer. Similarly with Applecare: Apple charges £270 for it but you can buy this on eBay for £100 - my companion did that ten days ago!).

For me, personally, I'm quite happy about it being locked down if that also means that what I don't want is locked out. But my use of Macs is not ambitious and I don't encounter the limits of the envelope.

Watching Apple saying Macs don't need anti-malware reminds me of watching Muhammed Ali dancing round the ring, with his fists at his waist, taunting "Hit me, mug. Hit me, if you think you can." (That might also remind you of a certain poster on here...) All I can say is that I agree with your point and that I use anti-malware on my own Macs. My house has never burned down, either, but I keep it insured.

But then, of course, somebody once called me "A RETARD" on here, so what do I know?

Marty_J

Conor wrote: »

I have two, no three things against Macs.

1) Overpriced hardware.

People can (and do) pay more for similarly spec'd PCs

2) It's even more locked down than Windows is. It's Jobs way or the highway.

Only running on certain hardware is a positive in my view. That's why it works so well. I read a news story awhile ago about how Microsoft might be going down the Apple route with tighter integration between hardware and software.

3) OS X users misplaced belief that OS X is completely secure.

I don't see what that has to do with Macs, but OK.

DatabaseError

Leopard wrote: »

There is a poster in this thread who did need to change his User Name and I am sure he will now be kind enough to explain to you how it's done.

If that poster would like to step forward (by PM will do if they are shy, confidentiality guaranteed) ....
I don't 'need' to change mine, I just fancy losing my name from a well indexed by google board

As to losing "thanks", it's not really important, and there are things I should be doing other than posting here (and elsewhere)

[Deleted User]

tonyhague wrote: »

If that poster would like to step forward (by PM will do if they are shy, confidentiality guaranteed) ....
I don't 'need' to change mine, I just fancy losing my name from a well indexed by google board

As to losing "thanks", it's not really important, and there are things I should be doing other than posting here (and elsewhere)

I'm fairly sure that I emailed [Removed by Forum Team] and just asked them to do it with a little explanation of why I wanted too. Props to them, it was done quickly.

i-Citizen

wow leopard, you sir may well be the king of long posts

but to keep it simple I cant imagine myself buying a macbook, sure it looks good, keyboard types well etc but the majority is with windows and until everyone bats for the other team (apple) then no - the cam doesnt even work on msn lol. I was quite shocked when you said buy before christmas - isnt it normal for prices to drop after christmas? this has happened since ive been born - clothes, furniture etc

Im looking at the dell studio 15 with 4gb ram, 256mb graphics, core 2 duo 8***, 250gb hard drive, I think that will cope with windows 7 - like I said ive read that 7 runs okay even on a 1gb ram netbook. The one I customised on the phone cost something around 650 - quidco = near the region of 625, now if after christmas that comes down to 580, then ill be happy but even if it stays 625 then ill still buy it, but what your saying is that the price is going up lol thrown a spanner in the works havent you lol

and tony just email abuse link and they'll change it within 3 daays - do give a reason