Bad beginning… detected avast5 as false positive…
By the way, disable the antivirus (before booting).
system
1644
Thanx for the info, Tech. To my pleasant surprise, somehow, issues I came across when I installed it before seems to have disappeared.
Yes, it seems to be FP. I disabled the antivirus function on the machine on which Avast! is installed as well.
nmb
1645
Marc57
1646
Windows 7 Preorders Better than Vista and XP Combined
And so it begins: On Tuesday, online retailing giant Amazon.com began shipping its Windows 7 preorders to customers around the globe for delivery on Thursday. But Amazon also had some good news to share with the world: Windows 7 is already a bestseller, and its preorders are stronger than the preorders for both Windows Vista and Windows XP… combined
http://windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott/article/articleid/102997/windows-7-pre-orders-better-than-xp-and-vista-combined.html
nmb
1647
Windows 7 engineers: how feedback shaped the final release
Last night, we had the pleasure of talking with three members of the Windows 7 product development and planning team: Bernardo Caldas, Group Product Planner; Steve Scallen, UX Research Manager; and Cameron Turner, Group Program Manager for Telemetry.
more : Arstechnica
system
1648
Thanks for the info. Due to their “failure” in Vista, Microsoft seems to have learned to listen to the users as well as their “partner” companies. I guess Microsoft seems to have done their best in securing their position against other OS’s such as Google Chrome OS and Snow Leopard. In any case, if these companies are going to polish their products for their users, I think the free market is working rather properly.
DavidR
1649
Failure isn’t too strong a word, now that the Vista market share is on the wane and it never got above 20% (19.6%) at the same time XP still retained 70% market share.
No wonder MS wanted to move on.
system
1650
The issue here is if we should move on as MS want us to do so. As an XP user, I guess I’ll follow the maxim of “If it is not broken,…” 
DavidR
1651
I quite like XP Pro, have been using it for many years feels like a comfortable pair of slippers ;D
When I bought this system just over a year ago, I bought XP Pro again even though I could have got Vista Home Premium for less. Vista just never inspired me and there was nothing in it that I couldn’t already do in XP Pro.
nmb
1652
There was nothing wow in vista. as they say…
xp pro is the one I am using right now. will consider win 7.
nmb
I still don’t like how much it costs, especially compared to Apple’s OS X. However, I realize that microsoft isn’t creating and selling the hardware to go with it’s operating system, and charging a lot for the whole thing.
You can’t get a decent machine that runs windows or linux for $400-$500 from apple, so I guess I know why MS doesn’t charge less.
Additionally, I’d just like to say that I’ve used Vista on a few machines, and although it has some quirks with some software, and it takes a few more keystrokes or menus to get to what you need, I feel that it’s so much better than XP. I’m just sick and tired of XP’s “cartoony” interface. I mean, we’ve been working with the same OS for how many years? Just plain sick of it.
I want something new and more advanced looking. Hopefully, windows 7 will do the trick. I have yet to work with it, even though I’ve had the RC of win7 for about 4 months, but I look forward to it soon.
yet I don’t like to pay for seven, because Vista is working very well for me, currently I’m running Vista in Laptop and Linux in desktop.
just I’m planning to buy a MacBook Pro which I very like! I think Mac is more handy for me, not 7.
even as what “scythe944” said and I’m agree with him, Mac for his war to PC, has offered very nice price with all new and quality hardware, also I like Mac applications too, so why should I spend my money for Win7? Vista+Linux+Mac is fine for me and all what I need 
I know win7 has changed alot, many things new and many things improved (and some new minor problems added of course, not problem, I call them “Wrong Moves”, for example a buggy windows media player library for my 20000 songs and low-quality video codecs with a lot of problems), but it has not a very important new change that I say I would upgrade.
for example it was totally “Virus immunized” or some new important change I would upgarde, I would wait until buy next laptop which come with windows 7 pre-installed
mkis
1655
I’ve used XP for years and its served me well. Because I can install legit XP Home and Pro I have stuck with the tried and true. For maintenance and repair, it helps to come back to a system that you have set up just right for you to come back to. ;D
At the same time, friends have bought Vista so I worked on that OS and to be honest I think Vista is a very underrated system. Even tho it carries a much larger footprint (registry 3 times size of XP), something I particular hate, I just can’t bring myself to hate Vista. My friends don’t have problems with it (which I love). From the start they liked to demonstrate their UAC for me, not at all like it was an obstacle. So I got to look forward to the times when I was going to be using it.
I’ve pretty much decided to go with Windows 7, but not sure when. I havent put too much thought into it and I will have to sort out any problems as I go. Much like when I started with XP.
Always need to learn more (Unix) / Linux. Tend to fall a bit behind here.
system
1656
If I lived by that maxim I would have to go chop down trees to stay warm and to build a hut then run around hurling stones at passing animals that eat my vegetables and hopefully kill it for dinner.
system
1657
found Vista fantastic from the beginning (yeah, such people exist)…switched to Seven because it’s better, which doesn’t mean for me that Vista was bad. Seven wouldn’t exist without Vista (Vista neither without XP but Seven is just a more advanced version of Vista, more performant too, but it’s basically the same OS). The biggest issue Vista had and that Seven might get with the time as well…let’s just wait a bit… is that there’s still not much that you can do in Vista/Seven that you can’t in XP. XP has still a couple of years to live I think; a possible end to it might come from a complete switch to 64 bit from the developers… as XP64, from what I read and heard, doesn’t/didn’t perform well at all, at the contrary of Vista/Seven 64. Vista/Seven interface is better in every way compared to XP. But if you want to run an application, almost any application, you still can in XP, and that’s a bit worrying lol ;D (and hardware compatibility’s still OK no ? ).
DavidR
1658
It has support until 2014 so some time yet, even then I suspect there will be some that will stick with it for some time after that, just as we are seeing with those with win98, etc.
Considering it still has 70% market share it will take some time for it to die ;D
Since 64bit hardware has been on the scene for some considerable time, developers have been very slow in this regard, they just don’t want to take the risk. Developers up to a point follow the OS and MS missed the opportunity to go 64bit only with win7. That would really have given them (the developers) a greater incentive to start pushing. Unfortunately MS didn’t want to take the risk either I guess, they couldn’t but major obstacles in the way or the take up of win7 might not have been so good. The last thing they wanted would be another Vista, that after three years was still at only 19.6% market share.
mkis
1659
XP64 doesn’t perform well as a mainstream OS. And then that is not quite true either. Mainstream market did not switch in favor of 64bit to the degree it was meant to (towards ‘Vista big-size’, especially with laptops), but instead threw itself even more wholeheartedly into inventive ‘32bit ready’ applications and utilities, thereby recreating the mainstream 32bit client/server standard. It was not conceivable to invest in 64bit more than what was needed to keep abreast (and even then…)
I bought Windows XP64 in 2006 (ouch, price still hurts!) and for a while believed the time would come when it wouldn’t be possible to run Vista on 32bit, so 64bit would become standard, and market would follow the lead by building software (especially drivers) to instate the new 64bit credo. This did not happen - 2gb ram was all that was needed to power 32bit Vista, and 32bit XP continued to set the benchmark for mainstream OS.
I think 64bit may still become standard. But there will be difficulties with this for a while yet. I don’t run my XP64 on the web because I would need to buy a new wireless modem, and I seem to be doing okay with 32bit like most other people. Personally I think Vodafone should exchange for my existing modem free of charge, but no luck there. Perhaps I should sell my 64bit OS and load Linux onto my 64bit hardware - as a start to a full conversion to the Linux environment. As Microsoft continues to confuse its user following, I feel more and more tempted to do this.
Marc57
1660
Really like Vista, but I like 7 even better. (Mines due to get here tomorrow) 
