On 12/13/2010 10:38 PM, Craig Bradney wrote: > > Really, I think we should only support Windows 7. XP is old, ugly, has a > million bugs and plenty of security issues. Vista was just a big old > mistake in its earliest versions. In its latest versions, it is actually > quite ok on the right hardware. Windows 7 will easily beat XP and Vista > in my experience in performance (even on 3-4 year old hardware with > reasonable spec) and usability, as well as security.
Where I work, for reasons which remain obscure but probably give evidence for the presence of Neanderthal genes in the population, XP is still the OS of our hospital's system, and not only that, but you must use IE6 and a severely outdated Java to fully access information that I need. Thus my setting up of an XP VM on my computers, and by the time I did this, I could only manage to find an x86_64 version of XP, something of an orphan's orphan, since no one, even Microsoft, has a complete set of drivers for various peripherals, and various work-arounds don't manage to work around the problems. This isn't to say that there isn't some ulginess with Win7. I bought a Dell with Win7 installed, with backup DVD, and one of my first operations was to wipe Win7 from it and install Fedora. I really wasn't interested in Win7 except as a means to be able to test Scribus on it, so after checking the EULA on the DVD, which gives me the right to install it as a VM, I installed it on this same computer. It more or less seems to work Ok, but now every time I start it up, it tells me that this is not a genuine version of 7, and that I need to correct this problem to be a good citizen. I tried to fix this via their online suggestion, but this failed, with the further suggestion that I need to call to straighten out this matter. Since it's still working, I don't bother. So in the process of making 7 seem like it's a good result following the release of Vista, they have embedded various tests to run every time you start up Win7, i.e., when you use 7, you communicate to MS (Mother Ship). Keep this in mind. Perhaps one day, a couple of guys approaching my house like Mormons will announce their reverence for the almighty MS, and suggest I repent my evil ways. Greg
