Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hi there, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: with me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland as
Speaker 1: along the likum okay because in height wow Okay, So
Speaker 1: hi guys, um, you know what time it is already?
Speaker 1: What time is it? Listener mail time? Oh? Man? They
Speaker 1: love it when I throw those in at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the show. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is
Speaker 1: one of those shows where we actually respond to a
Speaker 1: listener mail and that forms the basis of our show.
Speaker 1: So if it doesn't go well, we can blame the listener.
Speaker 1: This mail comes from Stephen and Steven says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: guess what it's time for listener mail. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do it again. With Windows seven being rushed out of
Speaker 1: production because of Windows Vista's bad press in quotes, I
Speaker 1: think it would be interesting to talk about Windows Vista
Speaker 1: slash Windows seven. Have you used Windows Vista and or
Speaker 1: tried the Windows seven beta. What's your opinion on the issue,
Speaker 1: love the podcast, Stephen. Well, Stephen, I'm glad you asked
Speaker 1: this question. We actually do have a beta copy of
Speaker 1: Windows seven in the office. I picked it up from
Speaker 1: the Microsoft gurus themselves while I was at the Consumer
Speaker 1: Electronics Show the two thousand nine one just this past year. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, we've had a chance to kind of play
Speaker 1: with a little bit, and so we thought we'd talked
Speaker 1: a bit about Vista Windows seven kind of the whole
Speaker 1: brew haha around that. So, um, I guess we should
Speaker 1: start and set the stage by talking about Vista. Okay,
Speaker 1: So well, first of all, let's go way back, way
Speaker 1: back to Yes, it was August two thousand one, and uh,
Speaker 1: back in those days, those those happy days of two
Speaker 1: thousand one is the pre nine eleven days, think about that,
Speaker 1: just barely, but Microsoft released Windows XP and uh, and
Speaker 1: you know this, this operating system became sort of the
Speaker 1: standard in corporate America as well as most PC machines
Speaker 1: that were released from that point onward. And so um
Speaker 1: XP was was kind of the go to operating system
Speaker 1: for for most of the the personal computing world. Uh.
Speaker 1: Of course you have the Apple Mac users as well,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about most mainstream corporate America. So the
Speaker 1: nice thing about XP was that they managed to work
Speaker 1: out a lot of the kinks early on, and uh,
Speaker 1: and everything seemed to work pretty well, everything being things
Speaker 1: like you know, video cards and sound cards and uh,
Speaker 1: extra devices and applications. Um, things were running pretty smoothly.
Speaker 1: But after a while, the operating system begins to show
Speaker 1: its age and Microsoft starts to develop a new operating system.
Speaker 1: And they were actually in development for this new operating
Speaker 1: system for more than five years. Yeah, and uh it
Speaker 1: had a snazzy new name, um Longhorn, Vista, Uh Pallette.
Speaker 1: Oh you're so drolly. Yes, it was Vista, and and
Speaker 1: like it. Like we said, it was about five years
Speaker 1: in the making. And uh, some people would say that
Speaker 1: was one year too few. Um, when Vista came out,
Speaker 1: it looked pretty snazzy compared to XP. Oh. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a lot of a lot of I candy was
Speaker 1: some one of those things where everybody was excited about
Speaker 1: all the widgets and all the cool things that you
Speaker 1: could do because you know, hey, then the mac os
Speaker 1: had had dashboard and of course, uh, confabulator got gobbled
Speaker 1: up by Yahoo and turned into Yahoo Widgets. Widgets are
Speaker 1: the thing. So yeah, you know, everybody was looking at
Speaker 1: the pretty beautiful new Vista interface and said, you know,
Speaker 1: this has got to be the awesomest os ever. Right.
Speaker 1: So Vista goes gold in the fall of two thousand six.
Speaker 1: So when you think about it, that means that Vista
Speaker 1: of course was going into development the same time they
Speaker 1: were releasing XP. So that kind of gives you an
Speaker 1: idea of the the cycle of operating system development. What
Speaker 1: by the time something's coming out, they're already working on
Speaker 1: the next generation. And I think that's pretty typical of
Speaker 1: a lot of tech, right, Yeah, but it's interesting to
Speaker 1: think about, sure, at least for me, because you figured
Speaker 1: they would rest on their laurels for a year or
Speaker 1: so and then you know, I guess I should come
Speaker 1: out with another operating system or maybe you know, take
Speaker 1: some time to evaluate what's working and what's not working
Speaker 1: before they go into development of a brand new thing.
Speaker 1: Now you're just talking gibbering, I know. So anyway, two
Speaker 1: thousand sixs A gooes gold. By early two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: that's when most of us could get our grubby little
Speaker 1: hands on it because but you know, two thousand six
Speaker 1: it was mainly big enterprises that we're getting hold of it,
Speaker 1: or UM or a computer manufacturers who were installing it
Speaker 1: on the computers that they were offering in stores. So
Speaker 1: two thousan and seven, the rest of us get a
Speaker 1: chance at it um And there are some problems. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's some major problems, and most of them have to
Speaker 1: do with things like well, the two big ones would
Speaker 1: be drivers and application compatibility issues, so not to mention
Speaker 1: the massive amounts of RAM that it takes to run
Speaker 1: all that I Candy I was talking about, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, there was also that problem is the fact
Speaker 1: that it was extremely resource heavy. Actually Windows has always
Speaker 1: been that way really, I mean some more than others.
Speaker 1: But you know, for someone who comes from the good
Speaker 1: old days of Doss, where we were used to our
Speaker 1: operating system not taking up a huge amount of our
Speaker 1: our computer's resources, Windows has always kind of had a
Speaker 1: sour taste. Um, I'm just saying. You know, I was
Speaker 1: one of those lated adopters for Windows three point one.
Speaker 1: If you can believe it, you know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a reason Bill Gates said that Windows would only require
Speaker 1: a certain amount of am and you know that was
Speaker 1: before they decided to get into all this stuff. So right,
Speaker 1: So beyond the massive amounts of resources that it would drain,
Speaker 1: meaning that you would need a powerful computer just to
Speaker 1: run Vista effectively. Uh, the two big issues, like I said,
Speaker 1: we're driver problems and and application compatibility issues. So drivers
Speaker 1: think of drivers and sort of a liaison. It's a
Speaker 1: liaison between various hardware, uh, items that you have installed
Speaker 1: on your computer and the applications that you run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you plug in that new printer and you're going, okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta print this thing out from my class. It's
Speaker 1: do at ten o'clock. And then you find out that
Speaker 1: your computer won't drive your printer and actually print the
Speaker 1: document because it doesn't have the the proper plug in
Speaker 1: and it's it's really a tiny piece of software, but
Speaker 1: without it, you're stuck. And you know, the a lot
Speaker 1: of the operating systems out there will detect hardware soon
Speaker 1: as you plug it in and will search for the
Speaker 1: proper driver and make sure you have it so that
Speaker 1: it ends up being kind of a painless operation. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the whole plug and play um philosophy. You know,
Speaker 1: you plug it in and you don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1: The computer does all the work and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it works. Well, Vista wasn't working like that, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't just things like printers and copiers and fax machines,
Speaker 1: which in fact did have problems. In fact, Chris Parillo
Speaker 1: had a major problem getting his copier to work. And
Speaker 1: if Chris Parillo is like a geek genius, if he
Speaker 1: has trouble with his network on Vista, what hope is
Speaker 1: there for the rest of us. But the the issue
Speaker 1: here was that things like like video cards weren't working
Speaker 1: with this stuff. So you would try and boot up
Speaker 1: a game and it wouldn't work because your video your
Speaker 1: computer wasn't recognizing the video card. UM. And there were
Speaker 1: so many of these problems early on that that people
Speaker 1: began to abandon Vista. They began to say, you know what, UM,
Speaker 1: I preferred Windows XP because all of my stuff worked
Speaker 1: with XP. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna downgrade back to that system and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: wait until the next operating system or until Microsoft manages
Speaker 1: to fixed Vista. UM. Now, once that happened, businesses tend
Speaker 1: to move a little more slowly than consumers when it
Speaker 1: comes to this, and it makes sense. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if you've got tons and tons and tons of users,
Speaker 1: you know, thousands of users at your company. You've got
Speaker 1: to support all those people. And if you move them
Speaker 1: over to a brand new, untested operating system, that's not
Speaker 1: going to be an effective use of your time because
Speaker 1: you're gonna be running around like crazy and just just
Speaker 1: rolling it out. We'll take tons of time. Like imagine
Speaker 1: something like a T and T where you've got thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of employees. You'd have to roll that out
Speaker 1: department or division, probably department at a time, um, because
Speaker 1: you can't. It's just too big a job to do
Speaker 1: all at once. So you really want to make sure
Speaker 1: you're you really want to move to a new operating
Speaker 1: system before you start the process. So businesses said, hey,
Speaker 1: there are problems here getting things like printers to work
Speaker 1: or video cards. Maybe we should just wait because XP
Speaker 1: is doing what we need it to do, um, and
Speaker 1: we don't need the headaches that Vista might might create
Speaker 1: for us, So let's skip this one. This was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge problem for Microsoft and uh, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you even paid attention at all to the tech news.
Speaker 1: You had heard someone complain about Vista and how Microsoft
Speaker 1: needed to do something too sweet to fix it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, unfortunately they didn't do anything too sweet, although
Speaker 1: they did do something. Yeah, they released some service packs
Speaker 1: which addressed many of the problems that Vista had. In fact,
Speaker 1: by the by the final service pack of most of
Speaker 1: the big problems were taken care of, and many of
Speaker 1: the smaller ones too, to the point where if you
Speaker 1: were to, uh to give Vista a try, and you
Speaker 1: didn't know that it was Vista, you might think it's
Speaker 1: a really cool operating system. Microsoft had a whole ad
Speaker 1: campaign based off that, where like, hey, guess what it
Speaker 1: really is. This operating system you thought you were using
Speaker 1: is actually Vista. You know, it's like those old coffee commercials.
Speaker 1: Let's replace this operating system with Thista and see if
Speaker 1: he notices. And the idea here was to show that, hey,
Speaker 1: this is really not that bad. The problem is, the
Speaker 1: damage was already done. Uh, it already gained this reputation
Speaker 1: and nobody really wanted to get back into the Vista game.
Speaker 1: Plus again, it's still very resource heavy, so even with
Speaker 1: the problems being fixed, there were still issues with just
Speaker 1: the fact that it's gonna consume a lot of your
Speaker 1: your computer's processing power. So that meant that Microsoft only
Speaker 1: had really one option, which was to come up with
Speaker 1: a new operating system, which they were already doing because
Speaker 1: they had rolled out Vista, right, so they were already
Speaker 1: hard at work on the next version of the Windows
Speaker 1: operating However, you know, look at the time frame here. Okay,
Speaker 1: so so FP we're talking two one, Vista we're talking
Speaker 1: two thousand six, two thousand seven, and these seven we're
Speaker 1: talking two thousand So that's pretty quick turnaround. So the
Speaker 1: message that might send is that Microsoft is saying, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: we kind of screwed up and we want to regain
Speaker 1: your trust. So we've built this really killer operating system
Speaker 1: that is so much better than everything you've ever seen before.
Speaker 1: Please do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain,
Speaker 1: which would be Vista. Um. And some people are even
Speaker 1: calling Windows seven really what Vista should have been all along. UM.
Speaker 1: I have to admit for my own personal use, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't have a copy of Vista that I normally use. Uh.
Speaker 1: The computer that I have here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com is running XP um. Although some of us
Speaker 1: here in the office do have Vista. UM, I am
Speaker 1: not one of them, so I haven't really spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time on it, mostly on other people's machines. UM.
Speaker 1: I didn't really have that many problems with it. But again,
Speaker 1: I wasn't spending hours upon hours, and I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to print or you know, use external hardware. UM. But
Speaker 1: having the opportunity to use Windows seven, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta say I like it. Yeah, it's pretty, and it's
Speaker 1: fast and it's fast. Yeah. I also have not used
Speaker 1: Windows Vista very much. My machines at home are either
Speaker 1: Max or they run which might surprise some of you, um,
Speaker 1: or they run Windows XP. And uh my computer here
Speaker 1: at work runs Windows XP because the tech writers shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to deal with the latest operating systems apparently, I mean,
Speaker 1: my boss listens to this. I mean I love Windows XP. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, considering some of the problems I've heard about
Speaker 1: Windows Vista, you're you heard about the the iTunes issue,
Speaker 1: right then if you have iTunes on Windows Vista. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the problems that you had with some people
Speaker 1: had with Windows Vista was, um, they would try and
Speaker 1: use iTunes, and then when they would try and pick
Speaker 1: the the safely remove hardware feature to to remove their iPod, Um,
Speaker 1: it would corrupt the files on the iPod. You'd have
Speaker 1: to reset the iPod. Yeah, that's a small issue. If
Speaker 1: you have five thousand songs on your iPod like I do,
Speaker 1: it's that's a big issue. It takes hours to fix that.
Speaker 1: So um, but moving on to Yeah, I've also tried
Speaker 1: Windows seven a bit and I agree. I I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty snazzy. Um. I'd just like to point out,
Speaker 1: mostly because it's a non sequitor, so before we get
Speaker 1: in deeply into two Windows seven, every operating system has
Speaker 1: these weird little things. I mean, it's it's not just
Speaker 1: Microsoft Windows. You know, mac os has had these problems
Speaker 1: from time to time, and I'm sure Lenox I've I've
Speaker 1: used one to a little bit. Um, you know, every
Speaker 1: time it comes out with a new operating system. My
Speaker 1: advice is this, don't I mean, unless you're just a
Speaker 1: hardcore geek who has to have it. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: don't jump on the very first release because you're asking
Speaker 1: for trouble. There's gonna be something that doesn't work with it,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter who the manufacturer or non manufacturer.
Speaker 1: In the case of lennox Um, every time you come
Speaker 1: out with the a new release, I advise that you
Speaker 1: wait till the dot one. Which Windows version was it
Speaker 1: that had uh that used the Rolling Stones start Me
Speaker 1: Up as its theme song? Was that? I thought it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time. I just I remember that
Speaker 1: whenever someone someone said that, Someone told me that that
Speaker 1: song is so apt because the next line is you'll
Speaker 1: make a grown man cry, which is exactly what you
Speaker 1: will do if you try to install this operating system
Speaker 1: on your computer. And it was the same thing. It
Speaker 1: was that the early build was a little buggy, and uh,
Speaker 1: they hadn't worked everything out, and you know, some things
Speaker 1: you just you can't predict until it hits the market
Speaker 1: and people start using it, and that's when you start
Speaker 1: seeing where oh, you know what, we never even when
Speaker 1: we when we did quality assurance testing, we never even
Speaker 1: put it through that kind of test because, I mean,
Speaker 1: the variables are huge, right, You can't plan for everything.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got a different cocktail of software in their individual machine,
Speaker 1: and you never know what combination of things is going
Speaker 1: to hang it up exactly. So uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: always a little better to wait and back up your
Speaker 1: machine before you install the new operatings. So important we
Speaker 1: to say that all the time. But yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's true. It is true. And it's just that
Speaker 1: Vista I think came out with less Uh. It just
Speaker 1: it just had more problems than the average, so that
Speaker 1: was a little Yeah, it's a little underdone. But but
Speaker 1: there are people who want Windows seven out the door
Speaker 1: before the beta testing phases even over. They're they're happy,
Speaker 1: they're so happy with it with the beta that they
Speaker 1: wanted out, and I think that they would have learned
Speaker 1: a lesson. Microsoft is saying it'll be out when it's ready.
Speaker 1: They have not as of this recording, announced a launch
Speaker 1: date to my knowledge, um, and they're sort of hinting
Speaker 1: that it may be before the end of two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: but you haven't anything said in December two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: January two thou ten is what I've heard. But that's
Speaker 1: just you know, that's not an official launch date. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a smart decision on their part, because
Speaker 1: one they're they've built up a lot of ex excitement
Speaker 1: from the people who are using the beta who say, wow,
Speaker 1: this is so much. This is what Vista should have been.
Speaker 1: And second of all, that does give them the opportunity
Speaker 1: to work out any bugs that they've found before or
Speaker 1: it hits market and then people are like, wow, at
Speaker 1: first I thought it was cool, and then I tried
Speaker 1: to do this and everything went to hell in a
Speaker 1: handbasket or whatever. UM. In fact, and and Microsoft cut
Speaker 1: burned so badly that it's gonna There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are taking Plette's advice about waiting before
Speaker 1: adapting adopting rather this operating system. UM. I read uh
Speaker 1: that a survey conducted by UM by Information Week that
Speaker 1: U of companies that they surveyed said they would delay
Speaker 1: adopting Windows seven until two thousand eleven at the earliest.
Speaker 1: That's funny because a survey I read from Dimension Research
Speaker 1: Permensions putting it off. Wow, that one percent. You know,
Speaker 1: there's probably some guy who changed his mind. Oh wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait, that's I guess that's assuming that
Speaker 1: they surveyed the exact same people, and that's probably not likely. UM.
Speaker 1: Just as a point of curiosity, if you're wondering what
Speaker 1: they would do if they weren't going to change. UM,
Speaker 1: twenty seven percent of them would consider using mac os instead,
Speaker 1: And you'd say, well, that's that's pretty significant. That's more
Speaker 1: than in core. That's actually down from the previous year.
Speaker 1: Most people. The only group that are only operating system
Speaker 1: increased in that survey was blunt to other flavors of
Speaker 1: lennox Um, including red Hat all dropped. But you know,
Speaker 1: so there it's possible. If if Microsoft doesn't pull off
Speaker 1: a home run with Windows seven, you know, they're opening
Speaker 1: the door for other operating systems to move in there. Interesting,
Speaker 1: and we should also point out today, the day we're
Speaker 1: recording this podcast, is an historic day, two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the final day that Microsoft will provide support or Windows XP.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it. No, I don't either, but that's
Speaker 1: supposedly this is this is the day. So if you
Speaker 1: aren't hearing this podcast is because the world ended, or
Speaker 1: you know, possibly I r S reclaimed all of your
Speaker 1: stuff because you didn't get your text is on time tomorrow, um.
Speaker 1: But anyway. The other the other thing that's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting about it, and everybody's making a big deal about
Speaker 1: it in the in the articles that I've read, is
Speaker 1: that Windows seven comes with an option to downgrade your
Speaker 1: machine to XP uh not to Vista, mind, you to
Speaker 1: xp gepping an entire operating system. So if you if
Speaker 1: you're not happy with it, you can you can back
Speaker 1: it up. But it's not really that big a deal.
Speaker 1: They've offered that to uh to Vista users too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's well demand it. Well you know. That became
Speaker 1: actually a point of contention at one point. Let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about a couple of things about Windows seven. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, let's let's you know, rather than talking
Speaker 1: about what might go wrong. Yeah, let's let's talk. It's
Speaker 1: got some neat features. It's got some really understand before
Speaker 1: I get into the features though, Okay, okay, there's one
Speaker 1: other little thing I want to talk about. That is
Speaker 1: the versions. There six There are six versions of Windows seven,
Speaker 1: although you won't have all of those. You'll only encounter
Speaker 1: a few of those. There's Windows seven Starter, which is
Speaker 1: kind of I think that's for like netbooks, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. I saw listed for emerging markets, so I
Speaker 1: saw that for Home Basic. Uh, the Home Basic package
Speaker 1: was for emerging markets. But started they're really scaled now Yeah,
Speaker 1: Starter only allows up to three applications to run uh
Speaker 1: concurrently and you can't run high definition monitors with it,
Speaker 1: so so I think it'll pop up a message in
Speaker 1: fact to say, hey, you know, if you really want
Speaker 1: the seven experiences, you might want to upgrade your operating
Speaker 1: nice nice, busting out the accent. So then you have
Speaker 1: So you've got Starter, Home, Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise,
Speaker 1: and Ultimate And um, I hate that they call it Ultimate.
Speaker 1: That is just because everyone's gonna sit there and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta have Ultimate. If I don't have Ultimate, I'm
Speaker 1: missing out. And really Ultimate has some cool features, but
Speaker 1: not not what the average consumer needs. Well from what
Speaker 1: I read, it's going to be limited availability anyway, that's good.
Speaker 1: Um that and it shows you know, fling a flying
Speaker 1: disc at you right. So home premiums what most of
Speaker 1: us will will encounter and need for our home computers. UM,
Speaker 1: Professional would be what small businesses use, an enterprise would
Speaker 1: be business is used. So that's that's the versions. Um.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that also got some
Speaker 1: criticism from you know, uh folks. You know, Windows Vista
Speaker 1: had the same thing where they had multiple versions and
Speaker 1: that that drew a lot of criticism. So unfortunately that
Speaker 1: has not changed and I assumed that you know, Microsoft's
Speaker 1: already fielding criticisms based on that. But let's go onto
Speaker 1: the features go for it. Um, multi touch yea, you
Speaker 1: have to have a monitor that also, I was getting that. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be quiet. Unlike Apple, which is uh incorporating the
Speaker 1: touch system into its computers through like the track pad
Speaker 1: on your on your laptop, you know, basically you have
Speaker 1: touch screen or know touch sensitivity, you would move your
Speaker 1: your finger on the mouse pad. Well, multi touches using
Speaker 1: more than one finger like um, if you have used
Speaker 1: an iPod touch or an iPhone, you can squeeze your
Speaker 1: fingers together, move them together to make things smaller, or
Speaker 1: if you want to magnify things, you move your fingers apart. Well,
Speaker 1: that's sort of what Windows seven incorporates, except you can
Speaker 1: do it on a touch sensitive monitor. Um. And that's
Speaker 1: not how Apples doing things. So they're they're moving there'
Speaker 1: zagging unless the unless Apple actually is going to offer
Speaker 1: that tablet that we've heard rumors about, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen anytime soon. Well, you know, but
Speaker 1: you know this is this is a pretty neat It
Speaker 1: shows you how much Microsoft thinks touch uh touch functionality
Speaker 1: is going to be incorporated into the computer of tomorrow
Speaker 1: because it's you know, they're bundling it into the operating
Speaker 1: system itself. And we got a little hint of that
Speaker 1: when they introduced the surface U. Yes, but those don't
Speaker 1: surface very often because those are very expensive and so
Speaker 1: only businesses really have them. Some other things that Windows
Speaker 1: seven has it has some new power saving features. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't used your uh, your computer and a
Speaker 1: little bit like haven't touched any keys and it's not
Speaker 1: yet time for it to go to screen saver, it
Speaker 1: might dim the screen briefly, which will lower the power
Speaker 1: consumption rate. UM. Let's see what else. There's the the
Speaker 1: taskbar previews. So you've got a task bar at the
Speaker 1: bottom of your screen where you can when you have
Speaker 1: when you open up an application, a little icon pops
Speaker 1: up on the task bar at the bottom, and um,
Speaker 1: if you want, you can pin that application to the
Speaker 1: task bar, so it's always there and it makes it
Speaker 1: pretty fast for you to to activate it. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why you need this, uh, because you could
Speaker 1: always put desktop icons on your desktop, which essentially do
Speaker 1: the same thing. Now, granted, the task bar gives you
Speaker 1: a preview, which is very useful, but really, just to me,
Speaker 1: it just means is more clutter. I mean, unless you
Speaker 1: decide that you're not going to have any files listed
Speaker 1: on your desktop at all and you're just going to
Speaker 1: use the task bar, but you're really just relocating files
Speaker 1: or icons at that point, right you know, when I
Speaker 1: looked at it, I've read some reviews, and then when
Speaker 1: I actually played around with the Window seven a little bit.
Speaker 1: If you're used to using Windows and haven't use a Mac,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a little weird because you're used
Speaker 1: to seeing a tab in your task bar that shows
Speaker 1: you an instance of the program, the program that you're running,
Speaker 1: and it will say, you know, I have a little
Speaker 1: text in there to say what's going on. Um. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to do that in Window seven. Uh. It
Speaker 1: shows you the icon, which is what I don't get
Speaker 1: about the pinning it to the to the task bar
Speaker 1: is it still looks like the icon for Mozilla Firefox,
Speaker 1: where whether it's running or not. Now if you mouse
Speaker 1: over it, then you see that there is actually a
Speaker 1: window open or more than one window open, um, and
Speaker 1: all of them are together, unlike in the past, you
Speaker 1: might have you know, Firefox and four other programs that
Speaker 1: open in another instance of Firefox, they'd be a different
Speaker 1: ends of the taskbar, not so anymore exactly. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a little different, and it might take a little
Speaker 1: getting used to. And there's some other neat things about
Speaker 1: Windows seven. Uh. It makes networking a lot easier. Um.
Speaker 1: It makes setting up a home network very easy. It
Speaker 1: makes UM, finding and consuming media online very easy. Yes,
Speaker 1: or you can even hook up a cable card and
Speaker 1: turn it into a media center. Um. The media center
Speaker 1: software is actually really really cool. I got to see
Speaker 1: a full demo of that at c ES and UM,
Speaker 1: and it is really neat. If I still had cable,
Speaker 1: I would use that, but I don't, right, so I
Speaker 1: that's why I don't use that, all right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it everything that I did, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't like. I said, I didn't spend a whole lot
Speaker 1: of time on it. Um, but everything seemed very fast,
Speaker 1: extremely stable, um, you know, very stable beta build. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remarkably stable. So um, it looks like it's going to
Speaker 1: be really positive. Yeah. I'd love to have it on
Speaker 1: my on my work machine, but I have the feeling
Speaker 1: that if I upgraded to Windows seven and they weren't
Speaker 1: ready to upgrade us all that, I would probably be
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble when August rolls around in
Speaker 1: that bag expires. Right. Yes, we tested it a little
Speaker 1: bit and it is pretty nice. I mean, I am
Speaker 1: curious to see if enough people adopted to keep the
Speaker 1: the desktop based operating system alive, because there are rumors that,
Speaker 1: you know, the next thing that people will move to
Speaker 1: is the cloud based operating system where you know, your
Speaker 1: your computer essentially just has a browser and you you
Speaker 1: log in remotely to access a an operating system. And
Speaker 1: Microsoft is working on something like that, so it may
Speaker 1: be you know, who knows, Windows seven might be the
Speaker 1: final Dusktop operating system offered by Microsoft. That's amazing to
Speaker 1: think about. Quite frankly, it's a pretty one. If that's
Speaker 1: the last one, it's a nice note to go out on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if they're working on getting things smaller, faster, more stable,
Speaker 1: that's certainly going to help them in the long run
Speaker 1: if they're moving to cloud, because that's what you need,
Speaker 1: right you just that in a broadband internet connection. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, well I am done, Yeah, I'm done talking
Speaker 1: about operating this. You know, I think we'll probably end
Speaker 1: up revisiting Windows seven we've had more of a chance
Speaker 1: to play with it and when it's closer to launch
Speaker 1: actually being released, because you know, there's far more that
Speaker 1: we can do with it. Um. But for now, I
Speaker 1: think I'm tapped out. Cool. Well, that means that that
Speaker 1: brings us to listener me. You just love pulling it
Speaker 1: on me, don't you? I do? Dear John and Chris.
Speaker 1: This is about your podcast about cameras. I tried out
Speaker 1: putting a fruit by the foot on my flash and
Speaker 1: it worked really well. Thanks for all, Tim, If you're welcome, Tim,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I pulled that weird camera trick the
Speaker 1: gummy bear the gummy bear on these and I all
Speaker 1: ups needed. But yeah, alright, folks, So if you need
Speaker 1: some gels really inexpensive that are also tasty um and sticky,
Speaker 1: you may need to clean the flash afterwards. Um, and
Speaker 1: if you don't, you might have some ant issues. Thanks
Speaker 1: very much, Tim. If any of you have anything you
Speaker 1: would like to say to us, you can write us
Speaker 1: text stuff at how stuff works dot com. Remember, we've
Speaker 1: got blogs up. You can find those at how stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Dot com. Just look on the right hand side and
Speaker 1: you'll see a whole bunch of blogs from various writers
Speaker 1: and editors here and how stuff Works. It's like a
Speaker 1: blog jam, right and sure is a blog jam. It's
Speaker 1: a blog jamboree. And uh and if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about operating systems, you can check out several
Speaker 1: articles we have at how stuff works dot com. And
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com? Brot to you buy the reinvented
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