Windows 7 and eCabinets

[Adam DAgosto]

Hello.

Does anyone know how Windows 7 and eCabinets will get along? Windows 7 should be released October "09 and I imagine it is being tested with eCabinets by now.

Is there any info available on this?

Adam

P.S. If eCabinets IS NOT being tested yet on the Windows 7 platform, let me know that too. I might be able to help there. BTW, Windows 7 is HOT. It's like Windows XP on all sorts of steroids with the look of Vista. It runs VERY well now.

[Jason Susnjara]

Hi Adam,

I am not a computer tech so I will try my best to explain. My understanding is that besides the security issues and other nuances, there is no real difference between Vista and Win 7. Once we get eCabinets working well with Vista (V6), it should work with Win 7. And if there are a few quirks with Win 7, then we will deal with them. Maybe Dan can jump in and correct me if needed.

[DanEpps]

...Maybe Dan can jump in and correct me if needed.

If you insist.

As far as I know that is correct. Caveat: I have not done any development or testing with either Vista or Windows 7 so I am just going on what I have read.

[Adam DAgosto]

Well for what it's worth, from what I understand, Windows 7 is, at it's core, more similar to XP than Vista. All the security crap has been stripped and they essentially took the XP platform and modified the UI and added a bunch of other features.

I actually have a computer running it right now. It is more intuitive than Vista, but I think that's because it's more like XP than anything else.

You ought to try and get a beta version and run eCabinets on it.

That's why I was suggesting I might be able to help. Unfortunately, the computer I have is testing a few other applications and it's tapped out. I'd have to come up with something else.

Anyway, good luck with it.

[Rick Deskins]

they essentially took the XP platform and modified the UI and added a bunch of other features.

I do not believe this is true. Windows 7 is not based off the codebase of the XP platform. Windows 7 is all about the user experience – in other words, putting the finishing touches on Vista.

[DanEpps]

they essentially took the XP platform and modified the UI and added a bunch of other features.

I do not believe this is true. Windows 7 is not based off the codebase of the XP platform. Windows 7 is all about the user experience – in other words, putting the finishing touches on Vista.

Correct, the only relationship between Windows 7 and XP is the word "Windows." Beyond that there are no similarities at all--code or otherwise. In fact, XP mode for running incompatible programs has had quite a number of problems during Windows 7 development and testing.

Microsoft announced yesterday that developers should abandon development for Vista immediately and target Windows 7.

The Windows 7 development team is being headed by Julie Larson-Green who was responsible for Office 2007 development. It is for this reason that you will see numerous similarities between Windows 7 and Office 2007.

Here is a link about Ms Larson-Green: http://www.newsday.com/technology/ny-bc ... 6266.story

[Dean Fehribach]

I cannot divulge too much about products in development, but Windows 7 is not being ignored here.

[Dean Fehribach]

The main issue in Vista with backwards compatibility is what's referred to as User Account Control (UAC). In Vista, it had two settings, either on or off. With Windows 7, there are now four settings for UAC:

Untitled.jpg (42.72 KiB) Viewed 19354 times

The changes allow some fine tuning by the local administrator.

[Adam DAgosto]

Okay I actually got ahead of myself here and misspoke. Windows 7 is architecturally speaking not closer to XP but in fact Windows NT. I sometimes use those synonymously and that's wrong.

When they reworked Vista they took several steps backward before taking a leap. In doing so they introduced a new version of virtuualization to run XP as the OS (just like you can run a Windows 98/95 program in XP). The differences is the way the process inturpets the XP application. Currently XP only sees a max of two processors where these new CPUs look like 4 or 8 processors. The big question is, will the virtualization feature of XP within Windows 7 see more than 2 processor and will it see more RAM than 3 gig max?

The stuff I'm testing runs significantly better on Windows 7 than it does on Vista. The improvments were so significant they couldn't call it Vista anymore (plus the PR of Vista sucks).

Depending on how eCabinets was written will determine if we will be able to use 64-bits, but if all else fails, the virtualization may be the ticket so long as your processor will permit virtualization. Did I spell that right???

[DanEpps]

Okay I actually got ahead of myself here and misspoke. Windows 7 is architecturally speaking not closer to XP but in fact Windows NT. I sometimes use those synonymously and that's wrong...

Sorry, but you are still wrong on that.

Strickly speaking, ALL versions of Windows after Windows NT 3.x internally follow the version sequence that began with Windows NT 4.0. Open a command prompt and run "systeminfo." It will report Microsoft Windows 5.x for XP and Microsoft Windows 6.x for Vista. Windows 7 is just returning to the original naming scheme and getting away from catchy, markering names.

If you want to go even deeper, Windows, and even MS-DOS, were adaptations of Unix. Until Windows NT 3, Windows was strictly a GUI that ran on top of MS-DOS. Beginning with NT, DOS was removed from the picture and what remained was closer to the original Unix base--closer but not the same.

Just as Unix (and its derivatives like AIX, SunOS and Linux) have evolved over time, so has Windows. Just because an operating system has evolved does not make it "built on" that original code base. MS-DOS was developed using source code from Unix, which at the time could not be called Unix--Microsoft called their version Xenix. They took the parts that satisfied the needs of a single-user PC operating system and included them in MS-DOS. The reason that MS-DOS used a backslash (\) instead of a slash (/) for a path separator was so Microsoft developers could visually determine when they were in a DOS shell instead of a Unix shell.

Notice many DOS commands are straight adaptations of their Unix counterparts--mkdir (same as Unix), chdir (same as Unix), rmdir (same as Unix)...that still doesn't make MS-DOS "Unix" nor is it built on the Unix code base.

Windows NT is Windows NT, Windows XP is Windows XP, Windows Vista is Windows Vista and Windows 7 is Windows 7. Neither XP, Vista or Windows 7 are built on the NT code base--they are evolutions of post MS-DOS Windows.

[Adam DAgosto]

I disagree Dan because I essentially repeated the words of a Microsoft software engineer on the project.

Each OS is it's own yes I agree, BUT the birth of XP, Vista and now 7 are from the NT platform. All I am saying its that when they went to 7 they incorporated many of the XP language into it to enable XP applications to run more smoothly via the virtulization feature.

Dan, maybe it's just symantics. I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm currently testing the Beta version of Windows 7, actually I'm testing software on Windows 7 to be more correct. One test is for several Photoshop plugins and the other in a series of airline aircraft online training programs. I'll tell you what, no matter what platform Windows 7 is based on, it feels like XP on steiroids. It DOES NOT feel like Vista at all. It LOOKS live Vista, but when you start moneying around in there, its XP with more smarts. It's hard to believe its a Beta version. Microsoft always releases stuff way to early. As good at this runs, why not?

The big thing I'm waiting for is the virtualization feature (that's not in my copy). I hear it's out there, I just haven't looked to hard. No time.

Take care Dan. Good stuff.

[Dean Fehribach]

The XP virtualization introduced into Windows 7 is actually updated technology based on Microsoft VirtualPC, which Microsoft acquired from a company called Connectix (run Windows on PowerPC-based Macintoshes) so--in part--they could develop for the PowerPC-based XBox 360 and still run Windows. See Microsoft acquires Connectix Virtual Machine Technology.

Quite likely, the virtualization technology for XP Mode used in Windows 7 is more like the hypervisor technology available as part of Windows Server 2008 as a separate download since it requires a processor that's capable of virtualization at the hardware level, which only newer PC's would have.

Most assuredly, Windows 7 will run apps better than Windows Vista and from what I've tested it truly does. Microsoft has had nearly two and a half years since the release to manufacturing of Windows Vista to get a better Windows than Windows Vista.

The version number for my Service Pack 3 Windows XP is 5.1 Build 2600. The version number for my Service Pack 2 Windows Vista 64-bit Edition is 6.0 Build 6002. The version number for my Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 is 6.1 Build 7100. Microsoft has already stated that Windows 7's version number will be 6.1 instead of 7.0 so as not to break applications that rely on the major Windows version, which is what happened with Vista (6.0 vs. 5.1 and 5.0 for XP and 2000, respectively).

[DanEpps]

I disagree Dan because I essentially repeated the words of a Microsoft software engineer on the project...

Link?

[Adam DAgosto]

Dan that's a great question. He told me, what his "just said" was right off their site and I still can't find it anywhere. I'm not sure where he was referring to and "the" site is enormous! He usually talks in tongues and it's hard to follow him at times. I'll see if I can dig it up.

See ya.

Adam