Windows 7

[jsiv]

What restrictions?

Maybe I want alpha channels, maybe I want to draw an antialiased line. There are lots of things GDI just is not capable of doing. Now, true, I could do this with the aid of GDI+ which can do this in software before passing the bitmap off to GDI, but it's incredibly slow, and doesn't help at all if GDI is being called indirectly by, say, the button control.

If I wanted a picture on that with a transparent (per pixel) background, I'd have to essentially rewrite the button control myself to use GDI+, and 200 lines of code later I'd have something that should really only take one line in a modern GUI framework.

Also, note that the driver is now hybrid with viddeo both in user mode and in kernel mode. If your video driver crashes, Vista will just reboot the subsytem and the user will get a notification that the driver has reset. No more BSOD.

Yes, and it really was sorely needed when you consider that it only takes one incorrect line of code in a game's shader to crash the GPU.

But the consequence of these changes is that if you paint a circle with GDI now, you're calling the GDI library which then calls the GDI kernel driver, which then calls the DWM which converts the GDI bitmap into a Direct3D texture and then calls an intermediate API (that it shares with WPF) which then calls Direct3D which calls the driver that displays it on the screen.

What is needed is a new API designed to take advantage of the 3D hardware to make all the drawing operatings as fast as possible, and then a new GUI framework that sits on top of this API. It also needs to be simple to use and high-level, so you can get the job done quickly without being a masochist.

 

[PhreePhly]

Maybe I want alpha channels, maybe I want to draw an antialiased line. There are lots of things GDI just is not capable of doing. Now, true, I could do this with the aid of GDI+ which can do this in software before passing the bitmap off to GDI, but it's incredibly slow, and doesn't help at all if GDI is being called indirectly by, say, the button control.

If I wanted a picture on that with a transparent (per pixel) background, I'd have to essentially rewrite the button control myself to use GDI+, and 200 lines of code later I'd have something that should really only take one line in a modern GUI framework.

No, you would be using WPF, which bypasses GDI, or new for Windows 7, the Direct2D libraries, which, again, bypass GDI. Direct2D is a new library API that is part of Direct3D 10.1. It incorporates alpha channels, splines, curves, anti-aliasing, etc.

BTW, I am enjoying the back and forth. You have obviously spent time dealing with NT in the past. I am somewhat new to .Net, and have been dealing mainly with C#. Most of my code had little graphical interface, but was server side code. Lately I have been learning more about WPF and Vista's new Driver Model.

PhreePhly

 

[BenBurch]

Backwards compatibility means you get to keep your mistakes, after all.

 

[aggle-rithm]

OK--

I went to lunch today and my Windows 7 machine had gone into hibernate, for some reason. When I brought my session back up, this is what SQL Management Studio looked like:

I was able to fix it by redrawing the screen, but no such luck with Outlook. All windows with text in them were blank, including the contextual help.

Had to reboot.

 

[PhreePhly]

OK--

I went to lunch today and my Windows 7 machine had gone into hibernate, for some reason. When I brought my session back up, this is what SQL Management Studio looked like:

<image removed>

I was able to fix it by redrawing the screen, but no such luck with Outlook. All windows with text in them were blank, including the contextual help.

Had to reboot.

That looks like a video driver issue. Unfortunately, sleep and hibernate rely on the motherboard and bios to properly wake components. Is your system fairly new?

PhreePhly

 

[gumboot]

I installed Windows 7 about a month ago and am very pleased with it, particularly given its stability with the plethora of applications, peripherals, and drivers I am using - given none of them are designed for Windows 7 obviously.

I was an XP user who refused to switch to Vista, but I will definitely be switching to Windows 7.

My only bug, and I don't know if it's the OS or not, is that for some reason when I shut down it doesn't actually turn my computer off - I have to do that manually. Performance hasn't really been an issue given my computer's specs but benchmark tests have it performing comparably with XP, which, considering it's a Beta, is promising.

I don't know anything about code or kernels or popcorn or whatever, all I care about is how well it works for me, and it does that in bucket loads. And the handwriting recognition software is a neat (though fairly pointless) little trick and impressively sophisticated - it appears to actually be "learning" what my specific handwriting is so it gets increasingly accurate.

 

[GreNME]

My only bug, and I don't know if it's the OS or not, is that for some reason when I shut down it doesn't actually turn my computer off - I have to do that manually. Performance hasn't really been an issue given my computer's specs but benchmark tests have it performing comparably with XP, which, considering it's a Beta, is promising.

Woah, that's a bug worth reporting. Is it a desktop or notebook? Also, do you know how to go into the device manager to check if there are any unknown devices without a driver? This sounds like a problem correctly sending the shutdown command to the mainboard controller, but you'd probably be seeing other bugs if you were lacking a proper mainboard driver.

 

[PhreePhly]

I installed Windows 7 about a month ago and am very pleased with it, particularly given its stability with the plethora of applications, peripherals, and drivers I am using - given none of them are designed for Windows 7 obviously.

I was an XP user who refused to switch to Vista, but I will definitely be switching to Windows 7.

I have to laugh at this a bit. As pleased as you are with Win 7, know that Vista is about the same. Win 7's stability can be attributed to Vista. Too many people listened to so-called tech media experts, and based their opinions on the crap that they wrote and not on actual experience.

It's unbelievable how many folks told be how bad Vista was, and when I queried them on whether they had tried it or not, almost every one of them said no. But they heard from a friend how bad it was.

My only bug, and I don't know if it's the OS or not, is that for some reason when I shut down it doesn't actually turn my computer off - I have to do that manually. Performance hasn't really been an issue given my computer's specs but benchmark tests have it performing comparably with XP, which, considering it's a Beta, is promising.

I've heard of this. Press the start orb, type "power" and an option for power options should appear. Click that and see if something is not in order.

I don't know anything about code or kernels or popcorn or whatever, all I care about is how well it works for me, and it does that in bucket loads. And the handwriting recognition software is a neat (though fairly pointless) little trick and impressively sophisticated - it appears to actually be "learning" what my specific handwriting is so it gets increasingly accurate.

Win 7, like Vista was designed to work on tablet PC's, so on those types of computers, the handwriting option is so very cool. If I could find a powerful enough tablet, I would probably get one.

PhreePhly

 

[gumboot]

I have to laugh at this a bit. As pleased as you are with Win 7, know that Vista is about the same. Win 7's stability can be attributed to Vista. Too many people listened to so-called tech media experts, and based their opinions on the crap that they wrote and not on actual experience.

It's unbelievable how many folks told be how bad Vista was, and when I queried them on whether they had tried it or not, almost every one of them said no. But they heard from a friend how bad it was.

I wouldn't say I think Vista was "so bad". I did try it, and I just didn't like it. Likewise I've tried numerous Apple OS incarnations, and I don't think they're "bad", I just don't like them.

I've heard of this. Press the start orb, type "power" and an option for power options should appear. Click that and see if something is not in order.

Everything seems to be in order, but GreNME might have it right, I checked in Device Manager and the drivers for my USB Camera didn't install properly. I've unplugged it (never use the stupid thing anyway) so I'll see if that does it on my next shut down.

Win 7, like Vista was designed to work on tablet PC's, so on those types of computers, the handwriting option is so very cool. If I could find a powerful enough tablet, I would probably get one.

I thought about using it with the "inking" function in Word 2007 to edit my writing, but decided in the end I much prefer editing by hand on paper. Still, it's fun for sending my friends hand written emails.

It's the little things in life...

 

[gumboot]

Woah, that's a bug worth reporting. Is it a desktop or notebook? Also, do you know how to go into the device manager to check if there are any unknown devices without a driver? This sounds like a problem correctly sending the shutdown command to the mainboard controller, but you'd probably be seeing other bugs if you were lacking a proper mainboard driver.

It's a desktop: ASUS P5KC, Intel Core2 Quad 2.4GHz, 4GB DDR2, GeForce 8800GT.

I'm pretty sure the Graphics Card is the only thing thus far that has an actual Windows 7 driver available, the others are all running on Vista drivers.

 

[GreNME]

Vista drivers should work just fine, and for anything that doesn't have a Vista driver available (like your USB camera), you can also try to force an XP driver and see if it works.

I doubt it would be the camera causing it to not shut down, but I guess I can't rule it out completely. Another track you can try is follow PhreePhly's advice again to get to power options, make a small change to a setting, apply, then change the setting back to normal.

 

[PhreePhly]

Gumboot,

Try going to Device Manager and your network device. See if there is a "Wake on Lan" setting and set it to no. It might be a checkbox, so make sure it is unchecked.

I found another person in a Windows 7 forum that is having the same problem. They even used the shutdown command from the command prompt, and the system went to sleep instead. I'm trying to find out what motherboard they have.

PhreePhly

 

[gumboot]

Gumboot,

Try going to Device Manager and your network device. See if there is a "Wake on Lan" setting and set it to no. It might be a check box, so make sure it is unchecked.

There was a "Shutdown Wake Up" option which was set to "off" but also under power management it allowed the network adaptor to wake up the computer so I told it not to, though I guess that probably won't make a difference since the issue is it not shutting down.

Also, it doesn't appear to be going into hibernation or sleep mode instead of shutting down - nothing will boot the computer up, not even the power switch, and there's zero activity - even the power light is off, it's just the fan etc is still running.

I have to hold the power switch down for a moment to switch off the system completely, and then press it again to boot up as normal. It boots cold without any sort of shut down error, and does a full boot up rather than a resume.

I'm thinking perhaps it's a hardware issue, however I had the system previously running on XP for almost a year with no shut down issues.

 

[Gangularis]

I have to laugh at this a bit. As pleased as you are with Win 7, know that Vista is about the same. Win 7's stability can be attributed to Vista. Too many people listened to so-called tech media experts, and based their opinions on the crap that they wrote and not on actual experience.

It's unbelievable how many folks told be how bad Vista was, and when I queried them on whether they had tried it or not, almost every one of them said no. But they heard from a friend how bad it was.

I've had almost an opposite anecdotal experience. Having worked in call centers since Vista's release, every call I get with a cx that's been using vista, has hated it. Vista's stability wasn't the issue. It was the lack of backwards compatibility, the constant nagging of the UAC, it's failed attempts to automate networking, and the fact that it provides new and difficult ways to get to the SAME old areas. Also, if you recall correctly, upon Vista's release, most techies in the media, that I knew of, were giving it nothing but praises.

 

[PhreePhly]

I've had almost an opposite anecdotal experience. Having worked in call centers since Vista's release, every call I get with a cx that's been using vista, has hated it. Vista's stability wasn't the issue. It was the lack of backwards compatibility, the constant nagging of the UAC, it's failed attempts to automate networking, and the fact that it provides new and difficult ways to get to the SAME old areas. Also, if you recall correctly, upon Vista's release, most techies in the media, that I knew of, were giving it nothing but praises.

Backward's compatibility with software or hardware? There were not many software packages that didn't work if you applied the XP compatibility switch. Hardware was different. Every OS release has hardware issues. The vendors wait until after RTM to get drivers out. Vista was in beta for almost 2 years, but nVidia couldn't get a stable driver until 8 months after release. HP still has printers that came out a year or two before Vista and haven't provided a Vista driver to date. Not MS's or the OS's fault.

Also, OEM's did a terrible job of putting Vista on proper hardware. My neighbor bought this great HP at Office Depot just after Vista's release. The system had 512MB RAM and used integrated video, which sucked 128 MB of the usable RAM. Yea, Vista might have a problem in that configuration, even in Basic mode. Hell, XP wasn't much better after I loaded it.

UAC is necessary. The general user is stupid. There is no way around that. If software developers had followed MS's recommendations, there would be fewer UAC triggers, but even after the fact, once the system was set up, UAC might trigger once a week or so. BFD. The UAC thing was another bullsh*t media hyped joke.

I don't recall many favorable articles about Vista. It was getting hammered even in the RC stages by the tech rags. It struck me rather odd how badly Vista was being reviewed. I was running it on a 5 year old MB at the time and was having little trouble with it.

Apple was smart, they saw these reviews and fed the horde. I'm not a Mac fan, but I have to give them marketing props. I think most of their "I'm a Mac" ads border on lying, but they skirt that narrowly.

Vista was not perfect on release, that i grant you. Some of the network copy issues were really bad choices, but things cleared up really well in SP1. I haven't played enough with SP2 to comment on how it is now. I work primarily on a Win 7 system.

PhreePhly

 

[GreNME]

Vista's stability wasn't the issue. It was the lack of backwards compatibility, the constant nagging of the UAC, it's failed attempts to automate networking, and the fact that it provides new and difficult ways to get to the SAME old areas.

Actually, the newer ways to get to the same old areas require fewer clicks on the whole for an average user and are more plain and clear about what they're for, whereas in XP/2000 it was constant drill-downs. Breaking tabs off into their own section was probably one of the smarter UI moves for Vista. The only other option would have been to put everything into a single integrated preferences table (like OS X), which would have been even more confusing. All in all, in my experience the main group of people who have had a problem with the menu and preference window structure in Vista are the ones who expected it to be like or had gotten used to the convoluted structure of XP.

Oh, and: I'm comfortable calling myself a power user, and the only times I run into UAC are when I install software or am making a configuration change to the system. That's it. The claims about UAC are pretty much bogus. I've even attempted to get people to prove it to me by duplicating the behavior in front of me, and it always falls back to making system changes or installing software.

 

[jsiv]

No, you would be using WPF, which bypasses GDI,

But you neglect to mention that it's a managed framework and completely useless to native developers (most consumer software).

or new for Windows 7, the Direct2D libraries, which, again, bypass GDI. Direct2D is a new library API that is part of Direct3D 10.1. It incorporates alpha channels, splines, curves, anti-aliasing, etc.

Direct2D doesn't have a GUI toolkit. You could, I suppose, make a separate render target for each of your windows (ie buttons in my example) but it would be far from ideal and take the complexity of Windows GUI programming to a whole new level.

 

[jsiv]

The claims about UAC are pretty much bogus.

The extreme opposite is just as bad. You know, the people who say UAC is all they need to keep their computer secure and that it makes antivirus redundant, completely overlooking the fact that a program running as standard user still has access to all your files and data, and the internet. In other words, everything it needs to spy on you, steal your personal files, and even make you part of a bot net. All without ever triggering a UAC prompt.

Having administrator access is only an additional bonus for a trojan really, not a necessity.

Oh, and did anyone see the news story about a Windows 7 RC torrent containing a trojan and potentially infecting as many as 30,000 computers? Funny.

 

[GreNME]

The extreme opposite is just as bad. You know, the people who say UAC is all they need to keep their computer secure and that it makes antivirus redundant, completely overlooking the fact that a program running as standard user still has access to all your files and data, and the internet. In other words, everything it needs to spy on you, steal your personal files, and even make you part of a bot net. All without ever triggering a UAC prompt.

Having administrator access is only an additional bonus for a trojan really, not a necessity.

Of course-- most trojans for *nix systems aren't taking advantage of root, they're taking advantage of the user and its access level. Win trojans, however, have been notorious for grabbing at system-level processes to operate, so while they don't necessarily need it a good number of them count on it.

Don't take what I'm saying as an assertion that UAC is all one needs. Definitely count me in the "no way is that true" camp. All I'm saying is that the claims about the obtrusiveness of UAC are overblown, and it's no different than the password prompt that comes up in OS X in terms of how often one tends to see it.

 

[PhreePhly]

The extreme opposite is just as bad. You know, the people who say UAC is all they need to keep their computer secure and that it makes antivirus redundant, completely overlooking the fact that a program running as standard user still has access to all your files and data, and the internet. In other words, everything it needs to spy on you, steal your personal files, and even make you part of a bot net. All without ever triggering a UAC prompt.

Having administrator access is only an additional bonus for a trojan really, not a necessity.

Very good point. I think UAC was absolutely needed for Windows, but it is only a warning mechanism. However, viruses aren't the problem. Botnets, rootkits, ect. are typically trojans, that need to install in protected zones. That is by far the largest infection vector and UAC will usually catch those. Most infections happen as drive-by hits on a website, and with IE in protected-mode, any installation becomes much harder.

I honestly haven't been infected with malware, so i don't understand how it happens. My son has, he was trolling abount in the unsavory areas of the internet without a condom and got hit. It was an interesting rootkit, that I was only able to figure out by installing a live CD and accessing the drive. He was using XP at the time, but the locations where the rootkit files installed would have triggered UAC in Vista. He actually runs as a limited user in Vista, now, because I told him the only way I'll fix his computer if it get hit is if he is a limited user. He still goes to the bad parts of the internet (he's 19, I'm not stopping him) and he hasn't been hit, yet.

Oh, and did anyone see the news story about a Windows 7 RC torrent containing a trojan and potentially infecting as many as 30,000 computers? Funny.

I'm one of those that torrented the RC early. I let my MSDN account lapse, and wanted the new version. I knew that I would be out of town before the official release, so that was my weekend to do this. We had the hashes for the real version and a few folks were saying that their version didn't hash right. Most of us said stay away or find a copy with the proper hash, but many would not listen. Got bitten.

PhreePhly