-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
XP Mode in Windows 7 is a scam
,----[ Quote ]
| IF YOU HAVEN'T been stuck in a cave lately, you will undoubtedly have heard
| that Windows Vista SP2.1, aka Windows 7, will have an 'XP mode'. Before you
| jump up and down for joy, you should know that it won't do what you think it
| will, it is a scam.
|
| Microsoft is conducting a very carefully crafted PR campaign to make Windows
| 7 seem less broken than the Broken OS (Vista / Me II), but it isn't. It gives
| long lead previews to people it knows will kiss up and not criticize the OS
| in order to create 'good buzz'. Sadly, with regard to Microsoft's Windows 7,
| the PC industry press is abdicating its responsibility to report objectively
| about a vendor's product, and the public is, well, dumb as rocks. It will
| believe almost anything it's told and never question the source. Yes, I am
| talking about you.
|
| [...]
|
| Why is this important? Well, the main difference between AMD-V and VT is that
| AMD-V is able to virtualize memory access in a much more transparent way.
| When AMD-V based VMs look to memory, they take a few cycles hit, but VT VMs
| get hammered by having to do a bunch of translations on the memory addresses.
| The speed difference is quite extreme, and it is why AMD had a huge advantage
| in VMM deployments for several years. With Nehalem, Intel has caught up.
|
| Neither however is able to virtualize peripherals, and the prospects of doing
| so are fairly dim. If either side puts that capability into the CPU and
| chipset, you will also have to wait for peripheral makers to get up to speed.
| On the high-end enterprise side, things like multi-port NICs will probably
| get there first, but consumer widgets won't see it for a long time.
|
| [...]
|
| Windows 7 will grab the GPU to run the desktop, and it can't share the
| device. If it were even possible, you could possibly assign the GPU to XPM,
| but that would mean you'd lose GPU acceleration for the desktop, CPU use
| would spike, and things would start to resemble molasses in the winter very
| quickly. This much brain twisting logic is unlikely to be implemented even if
| it could somehow technically work. Basically, the host OS, Windows 7, can and
| must own the GPU fully.
|
| [...]
|
| So, what you will get with XPM is not an XP machine but a bloated resource
| hog that emulates the worst of 2004. Slowly. It may be a good fit for green
| screen COBOL apps that won't run on the Broken OS, but that is about it, and
| you will pay for the 'privilege' in terms of resources used and speed of
| operation.
|
| We won't get into the funniest parts (yet), but think about this, Microsoft
| is claiming that XPM will be able to interact with Windows 7 apps seamlessly.
| I don't doubt that it will be appear seamless to the user, but there will
| have to be some pretty horrendous low level OS contortions going on under the
| surface to make it work.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/975/1051975/xp-mode-windows-scam
Windows 7's XP Mode may not work on many PCs
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp. touts that Windows 7 is nimble enough to run on underpowered
| netbooks. But the company also admits that its enticing new XP Mode may not
| work on netbooks or many other computers of recent vintage.
|
| The news that people will not be able to run applications designed for XP on
| Windows 7 by tapping virtualization, as XP Mode supports, is discouraging for
| cash-strapped consumers and small businesses that hoped to upgrade without
| ditching existing hardware or upgrading their software.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132340
Windows 7's virtual 'XP mode' could mean support nightmares
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp.'s decision to give some Windows 7 users a tool to run Windows
| XP applications in a virtual machine may have been necessary to convince
| people to upgrade, but it could create support nightmares, analysts said
| today.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132177
Recent:
Windows 7 distrust spurs Ubuntu for the desktop
,----[ Quote ]
| Ubuntu is emerging as an unlikely alternative to deploying Windows 7 or Vista
| on enterprise desktops as many IT managers express concerns over the upgrade
| path to the new Windows operating system.
`----
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/100968,windows-7-distrust-spurs-ubuntu-for-the-desktop.aspx
Windows 7: 83% Of Businesses Won't Deploy Next Year
,----[ Quote ]
| The survey, of more than 1,100 IT professionals, is one of the first
| extensive looks at Windows 7's early sales prospects. It found that a
| whopping 83% of enterprises plan to skip the OS in its first year. While the
| business market typically tends toward caution when it comes to new products,
| the figure is nonetheless surprising given that almost no large companies
| migrated to Vista and as a result most have been using XP much longer than
| planned.
|
| [...]
|
| The open source Linux OS also could benefit from slow uptake of Windows 7 in
| the enterprise market, as could Google's Android OS -- which some computer
| makers are reportedly testing as a netbook platform. Fifty percent of those
| surveyed by Dimensional Research said they've considered switching to a
| non-Windows OS to avoid Vista or Windows 7
`----
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216500331&subSection=News
The Windows 7 beta testing disaster
,----[ Quote ]
| So what are Windows 7’s damning problems?
|
| –Windows usage is on the decline, and while Windows XP was an acceptable OS
| from the standards of 2001, both the Mac OS X and Linux distributions such as
| Ubuntu have matured. Microsoft also launched many other business ventures
| that it had hoped to subsidize entirely as loss leaders using Windows and
| Office sales to run the other guys out of business, but with sales of those
| faulting combined with massive XBOX 360 hardware failures, giving up on the
| Zune 2 years in with 4% of the market, and failing to put a chink in Google’s
| services, Microsoft is getting desperate.
|
| –They’re not listening to real users, they’re listening to a focus group if
| that, and the focus group gave us the McLean Deluxe, which was a total
| disaster for McDonalds. But unlike McDonalds, Microsoft has the advantage of
| no competitors. If we want to put Windows in the McLean Deluxe analogy,
| Windows thrives because all restaurants are McDonalds, all grocery stores are
| closed, and the only thing on the menu is the mystery meat. At least til
| lately.
|
| –Abusing their OEM partners for years hasn’t won them any friends, and
| mainline PC vendors such as HP and Dell are marketing Linux systems now with
| no Microsoft Tax. This isn’t helped by the fact that the only thing Microsoft
| has that is nimble enough to run on the Netbooks that they totally failed to
| see coming is 8 years old (XP) and that they are giving Windows away in a
| massive dumping operation to keep Linux off these things, because Linux is
| far more capable.
|
| –There’s no way to actually file detailed bugs and communicate with Windows
| developers or to have any ETA on a patch if one is coming. If you need help
| it costs $49.99 per incident to get someone that probably knows less than you
| do on the phone. You can’t just go to an IRC room and talk to the person that
| wrote it.
|
| –Windows 7 is in short, Vista all over again. It may be masquerading as a
| huge upgrade but the changes have been trivial, superficial, and usually skin
| deep at best, and “eat my data” and “fail to even load my program” at worst.
| Even my dad saw it running on my test system while he was over the other day
| and thought it was Vista. I had to point to the Windows 7 build number on the
| desktop because there’s almost no way to tell them apart otherwise.
`----
http://izanbardprince.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-windows-7-beta-testing-disaster/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5c6bKAZQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfNr9YLcSH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJcHHqfLeQ
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAkn6DJ0ACgkQU4xAY3RXLo677wCfWaAYFcahSzrWa7xJGt5u59+d
lg4An3R25KCqR41c1Ab2VAduUNzi5ikQ
=w5gF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|
