I may not know which processors are 64- or 32-bit by name, but I certainly understand the difference between the two.

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Anonymous Coward said:
Whenever I see praise for W7 (which I’ve tried), I notice similarities and patterns such that I cannot help but wonder how many of the anonymous heroes, pundits, glitterwhores &c are employees or mercenaries of Microsoft that attented a seminar on propaganda and were told to go out and about on the Internet proclaiming how like much like XP it is (it’s not), and how much it’s better than Vista (it ain’t).

It seems to me that Microsoft hasn’t done anything of note in operating system design since Windows 2000. Who are these people portraying average users raving about the bliss that upgrading from Vista or W7, or whatever, gives them? In the real world many, many people cannot even distinguish between Windows and UNIX as long as you provide them compatible applications.

Are we really expected to believe that granny was freely compelled by some utterly insignificant and invisible change in Windows Se7en to comment on a blog and tell everyone how much like XP it is (it ain’t) and how much better, faster, leaner than Vista it is (it’s not)?

So which is it? That it is not similar to XP, or that its completely different? You seem to be arguing both.

All the early comments have been coming from early adopters, mainly those using the beta or release candidate edition. While I'm sure that there are some elderly folk in amongst them, I don't think we're talking about the kind of person who couldn't tell Windows from Linux. Your conspiracy of a astroturf campaign on the part of Microsoft notwithstanding, I don't think anyone has asked us to believe what you are claiming.

I've also not heard anyone suggesting that W7 is an innovation. Indeed, the phrase I've heard most regularly is 'Vista done right,' hell, the Guardian even ran its review with the headline, "Windows 7 review: like Vista, but good."

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It seems to me that Microsoft hasn’t done anything of note in operating system design since Windows 2000. Who are these people portraying average users raving about the bliss that upgrading from Vista or W7, or whatever, gives them? In the real world many, many people cannot even distinguish between Windows and UNIX as long as you provide them compatible applications.

Are we really expected to believe that granny was freely compelled by some utterly insignificant and invisible change in Windows Se7en to comment on a blog and tell everyone how much like XP it is (it ain’t) and how much better, faster, leaner than Vista it is (it’s not)?

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Most threads have less than 200 comments (usually far less) – easy enough to read if you are actualy interested in the topic and people’s views.

Re-ordering posts by ‘rank’ could be useful if you get 1000+ comments (eg YouTube) but makes it harder to have discussions, instead of just isolated reactions to the original article.

‘User ranking’ of posts can lead to a ‘popularity contest’ syndrome which can work against decent discussion (also the earlier posts in a thread tend to get bigger rankings – both postive and negative – so you are still left with ‘first arrival’ bias).

If you are really bothered by where your post appears you could abuse the RPS system by “replying” to the first comment in the thread although I personally wouldn’t be impressed.

If you want people to read your posts then create a reputation for making decent posts.

If you want to appear ‘high up’ in comments threads then keeping checking RPS for new articles.

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The fact that it runs about as fast as XP (and starts up faster) makes it worth the price over Vista. Although, if you’re happy about XP, there’s really not a whole lot that will make it worth purchasing except for a better UI. There’s something nice about slamming a window into the top of your screen to make it maximize.

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Almost all games are for windows, that is a fact.

It’s also true that most linux users are anything but casual computer users – and they should understand it’s often not as simple as “this works on Linux” – What might work on ubuntu may not work on another distro, what works on one guys linux machine might not work on onothers (depending on what hardware they run and the drivers involved) – a game might work but might require a fair bit of work and fiddling to get it to do so.

Anyone using linux as a gaming platform is aware of these problems and should know that if they want answers they need to find them themselves anyway.

This is a gaming blog, about the games, about the content of the games, not about the platform they run on.
Yes it defaults to windows, because the majority of the gaming world defaults to windows.

I’d love for a day where a game just ran, on any OS, or hell a day when games didn’t NEED an OS at all, they ran on their own (ironically probably linux based) OS.
That’s the day where we buy games on a little memory-stick like module, that contains all the drivers, instructions and code needed to run it that just boots from within any OS we happen to be running.

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Apple have no one to blame but themselves, they didn’t support games, they didn’t support open hardware – they made expensive proprietary machines and focuses on a niche little market.
Microsoft grabbed gaming and provided Devs what they needed to make it better, open hardware (to push advances) and software support in the form of DirectX – Apple were too cool for nerdy videogames for a LONG time (publicly and often saying that they had no intention to go for the gaming market), hell until the IPhone basically.

Apple would be dead now if not for their Ipod line (and a hefty loan from Microsoft) saving the company, but they are still an overly expensive style over substance company.
Which is fine, some people like style, some people care about brand names and design, a lot of people when it comes to gadget land.

I’m simply not one of them.

For years I had to suffer using Macs as I was involved in music production and graphic design, it was very much a love hate thing, I loved them when they worked, but more often that not they didn’t (not the way I wanted them too anyway, Macs work their way or no at all, windows lets you customize) – still they were well ahead of windows machines in terms of audio drivers and software.

In the line of style -> substance it’s very much:
[Style] Apple OS ———– Windows ———- Linux [Substance]

I personally refuse to pay a +50-100% hardware premium for style.

It’s easy to bitch about Microsoft dominating the market, but you have to remember they got their by making the smarter, better business decisions (then ruthlessly maintained it).

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