5 ms·

Things Windows 7 does that Vista doesn't

16 points by blazzerbg 17y ago

dkersten 17y ago
I dunno, since I switched to a tiled window manager, these types of "lists of cool features in ..." have become so anticlimactic for me.. most of those features just aren't that useful once you go get used to tiling.
- eru 17y ago
  I demand hardware acceleration for my xmonad!
  - mark_h 17y ago
    You joke, but... my work laptop (Dell D630) has some low-end intel video card, and it can't even drive dual monitors. The redraw when I switch between workspaces -- which I do a lot, especially when on the built-in screen -- is painful :(
  - dkersten 17y ago
    Not impossible. Not sure how much you'd gain from it, but I certainly wouldn't complain :-P
- blasdel 17y ago
  But Windows 7 introduces several window tiling features to the masses! Try dragging a window to a screen edge -- it makes it really easy to tile two windows.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- dkersten 17y ago
  The "more or less" is the important part here :-D
sp332 17y ago
Yay native ISO burner! Also, the Windows Explorer built-in .zip file manager isn't freaking slow anymore (though 7-zip still puts it to shame with speed and compression ratios).
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Presumably they don't want to add bloat by allowing more than one compression type, sticking in a free tar.bz2 compression routine would break the bank too I expect.</thinlyveiledsarcasm>
  - dkersten 17y ago
    Yep, because they care about bloat.
    - wizard_2 17y ago
      That's sort of the point of windows 7 isn't it? It's faster, smaller, and needs less resources.
      - sp332 17y ago
        But if they had a faster .zip compressor and/or a different format like 7-zip, it would be faster and/or need less resources.
- uhjnybt 17y ago
  But it won't let you mount an ISO to view files inside, or create an ISO so you still need the addin tools
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
The only thing I see as genuinely innovative their is the "problem solver" taking screencaps for every mouse click then creating a webpage and allowing commentary to be added. Seems like a nice little utility app - I'd like to see that in ksnapshot. The other things, MP3 preview, recently used lists (now with added marketing-ese), window placement, .. hardly revolutionary. They added a seamless VM to ease upgrade from XP, nice one (but not really innovation, I can have my virtualbox run seamlessly (but prefer it windowed)). Any reasons there to upgrade from Vista or XP? I didn't notice one.
ivank 17y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_in_Windows_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_in_Windows_7
jsonscripter 17y ago
I think we need an "X number of things every other popular operating system does that Windows doesn't" article. To start off: * Multiple users on the same machine at the same time * Software repositories * Useful software pre-installed (windows doesn't have IM, office tools, or photo editing software) * Advanced filesystems available
- ironsam 17y ago
  Microsoft often gets sued anytime they try to pre-install useful software with their OS.
jz 17y ago
17. Native ISO Burner. I haven't used Windows in about 5 years, but it still amazes me that this was not baked in to Vista. My parents purchased a Vista desktop computer a couple months back. My dad called me on day 2 asking me how to burn a cd. He gave up on Vista after day 3. The awesome dual core Vista box sits and collects dust while he continues to use his XP (1 Ghz) computer where he has Roxio or some other crap already installed/setup.
- DenisM 17y ago
  imgburn - free burner software
jz 17y ago
The article should really be called "18 things you never thought for the life of you would not be included in Vista that we will present as if they are groundbreaking features"
- DenisM 17y ago
  Because each product version should contain all features from all future releases?
- boredguy8 17y ago
  This is silly. I use OS X all day at work and can't WAIT to get home and work on my Win7 box where switching between applications, changing their size, and navigating within the window isn't a royal pain in the ass.
- lurkinggrue 17y ago
  The problem recorder seem cool, I will have to use it when making tutorials here at work.
thamer 17y ago
Ha. In the first picture of the article, the Explorer “jumplist” shows a directory named “20 cool things windows 7 does th...”. This article only lists 18. I guess the list was hard to fill?
bitbukkit 17y ago
The "Imagine Parallels on Mac OS X without the need to fish out money on an extra OS" comment regarding XP mode strikes me as a bit disingenuous. The more apt comparison I think would be Classic/OS 9 or PowerPC compatibility - which Apple did provide for free (Classic mode and Rosetta).

16 points by blazzerbg 17y ago

I dunno, since I switched to a tiled window manager, these types of "lists of cool features in ..." have become so anticlimactic for me.. most of those features just aren't that useful once you go get used to tiling.

eru 17y ago
I demand hardware acceleration for my xmonad!
- mark_h 17y ago
  You joke, but... my work laptop (Dell D630) has some low-end intel video card, and it can't even drive dual monitors. The redraw when I switch between workspaces -- which I do a lot, especially when on the built-in screen -- is painful :(
- dkersten 17y ago
  Not impossible. Not sure how much you'd gain from it, but I certainly wouldn't complain :-P
blasdel 17y ago
But Windows 7 introduces several window tiling features to the masses! Try dragging a window to a screen edge -- it makes it really easy to tile two windows.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

dkersten 17y ago
The "more or less" is the important part here :-D

sp332 17y ago

Yay native ISO burner! Also, the Windows Explorer built-in .zip file manager isn't freaking slow anymore (though 7-zip still puts it to shame with speed and compression ratios).

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Presumably they don't want to add bloat by allowing more than one compression type, sticking in a free tar.bz2 compression routine would break the bank too I expect.</thinlyveiledsarcasm>
- dkersten 17y ago
  Yep, because they care about bloat.
  - wizard_2 17y ago
    That's sort of the point of windows 7 isn't it? It's faster, smaller, and needs less resources.
    - sp332 17y ago
      But if they had a faster .zip compressor and/or a different format like 7-zip, it would be faster and/or need less resources.
uhjnybt 17y ago
But it won't let you mount an ISO to view files inside, or create an ISO so you still need the addin tools

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

The only thing I see as genuinely innovative their is the "problem solver" taking screencaps for every mouse click then creating a webpage and allowing commentary to be added. Seems like a nice little utility app - I'd like to see that in ksnapshot. The other things, MP3 preview, recently used lists (now with added marketing-ese), window placement, .. hardly revolutionary. They added a seamless VM to ease upgrade from XP, nice one (but not really innovation, I can have my virtualbox run seamlessly (but prefer it windowed)). Any reasons there to upgrade from Vista or XP? I didn't notice one.

ivank 17y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_in_Windows_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_in_Windows_7

jsonscripter 17y ago

I think we need an "X number of things every other popular operating system does that Windows doesn't" article. To start off: * Multiple users on the same machine at the same time * Software repositories * Useful software pre-installed (windows doesn't have IM, office tools, or photo editing software) * Advanced filesystems available

ironsam 17y ago
Microsoft often gets sued anytime they try to pre-install useful software with their OS.

jz 17y ago

17. Native ISO Burner. I haven't used Windows in about 5 years, but it still amazes me that this was not baked in to Vista. My parents purchased a Vista desktop computer a couple months back. My dad called me on day 2 asking me how to burn a cd. He gave up on Vista after day 3. The awesome dual core Vista box sits and collects dust while he continues to use his XP (1 Ghz) computer where he has Roxio or some other crap already installed/setup.

DenisM 17y ago
imgburn - free burner software

jz 17y ago

The article should really be called "18 things you never thought for the life of you would not be included in Vista that we will present as if they are groundbreaking features"

DenisM 17y ago
Because each product version should contain all features from all future releases?
boredguy8 17y ago
This is silly. I use OS X all day at work and can't WAIT to get home and work on my Win7 box where switching between applications, changing their size, and navigating within the window isn't a royal pain in the ass.
lurkinggrue 17y ago
The problem recorder seem cool, I will have to use it when making tutorials here at work.

thamer 17y ago

Ha. In the first picture of the article, the Explorer “jumplist” shows a directory named “20 cool things windows 7 does th...”. This article only lists 18. I guess the list was hard to fill?

bitbukkit 17y ago

The "Imagine Parallels on Mac OS X without the need to fish out money on an extra OS" comment regarding XP mode strikes me as a bit disingenuous. The more apt comparison I think would be Classic/OS 9 or PowerPC compatibility - which Apple did provide for free (Classic mode and Rosetta).