Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7 | MS Tech News

Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7 | MS Tech News — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:26:42 GMT

Pingback from Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7 | MS Tech News

Windows 7 hope for UMPCs. Worry for Linux. Not for MIDs. | UMPCPortal - The Ultra Mobile Computing reference site

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:25:18 GMT

Pingback from Windows 7 hope for UMPCs. Worry for Linux. Not for MIDs. | UMPCPortal - The Ultra Mobile Computing reference site

The Trouble with Tribbles | NUrdRadio

The Trouble with Tribbles | NUrdRadio — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:27:36 GMT

Pingback from The Trouble with Tribbles | NUrdRadio

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Waethorn — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:05:36 GMT

"I'd advise spending significant time with a product before you think you have actual expertise even if you've read a book or two. I know that's always been something we take into account when deciding which questions to keep in an exam and how to weight them."

I've seen too many f***-ups by people that try to set up SBS by using their Windows Server knowledge. Those people don't have a clue. SBS is different. You can't use your enterprise-level knowledge with this stuff, or else you break things. I've had to clean up more SBS servers because of improper initial setup than I'd care to count. If you come from an enterprise IT firm and never set up SBS, try and write the test for it (70-282). If you don't actually learn the best practises for it first, you'll fail miserably, and you should just forget about deploying it altogether.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Waethorn — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:58:03 GMT

"it may be dangerous to let Win 7 to superfetch everything in memory like Vista did, because this may have been one of the reasons of the extremely poor battery performance in Vista notebooks compared to Macbooks. So I hope Sinofsky and Co understand this and maybe they will turn off aggressive disk caching into RAM when running on battery."

It all depends on how the caching is done. You can cache disk contents on initial loadup, for faster reloads in the same session, or you can prefetch it using intelligent algorithms based on usage models (or a combination of both). Vista already lets you customize SuperFetch for battery usage though.

The way I see it is this:

The CPU uses probably the most energy of any component in a system. It's better to cache when it's idle, because when it needs to process information, it can process it from what is already stored in RAM, rather than spinning up your hard drive. If it has to do both at the same time, your battery gets drained faster. Aggressive disk caching actually improves performance and battery life more. It just needs to be optimized, but again, optimizations are best left to the engineers.

If you think about how hybrid disks work, and why they're designed that way, you'll understand why I say that.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

mikegalos@msn.com — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:00:11 GMT

Lindy

If you think Windows 7 is close enough that you can pass an MCP exam on it with the trivial exposure you've had to Vista, then I encourage you to try. Preferably in a place that doesn't offer free retests. :-)

For everyone else, I'd advise spending significant time with a product before you think you have actual expertise even if you've read a book or two. I know that's always been something we take into account when deciding which questions to keep in an exam and how to weight them.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Lindy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:24:44 GMT

I have Zero need to learn it inside and out, unless I want the higher level cert.

I am on a Windows server team. My customers are developers that use/jackup my servers. I dont do desktop support at work.

I only have it on my Macbook to help friends and family that are lucky/unlucky enough to have it and often need help, mostly how too.

I was on a Vista pilot at work, from Beta 2 until shortly after it came out Feb of 2007?? My company like many I know of is skipping Vista.

I had a Toshiba notebook at home that came with Vista in 3/07, I gave it to my sister when I got my current Macbook in 12/07, after I put XP on it per her request.

I have spent much time as of late with 2008 server which is Vista stripped down to the bone and able to install stuff like DHCP, DNS, WDS, and much, more.

I have had enough Vista fun for this life so far. Like I said if I decide to take the 70-620 then I will endure just enough to pass the test, and then probably wont use it again. Maybe MS will come out with Vista 2 in June of 2009 and there will be a 70-621 or 70-620-A, and I can take it instead. Their tests and classes feel like sales pitches these days.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

shark47 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:12:24 GMT

Mike, If you're a Mac fanatic, all you need to know and all you probably know about Vista is the content of the Mac ads. Spew the marketing BS to a thousand people, maybe if you're lucky, 100 will switch, if not more.

Lindy, that was another example of using the "generic you". :-)

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

mikegalos@msn.com — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:18:46 GMT

Lindy,

For someone who is commenting that eventually he'll have to learn about Vista, you sure do have a lot to say about it.

Isn't the process of sharing knowledge supposed to work the other way around? First you learn something and THEN you tell people about it...

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Lindy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:11:05 GMT

"Yes, I sure do believe you" Cant tell if you are being sarcastic or not, not that I care. I dont use it unless I have to. Currently I use to help relatives that have Vista on new PC's.

If I decide to upgrade my MCITP - SA to an EA then I will probably have to learn way more about Vista than I care to.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

animositysomina — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:54:59 GMT

Wae, it may be dangerous to let Win 7 to superfetch everything in memory like Vista did, because this may have been one of the reasons of the extremely poor battery performance in Vista notebooks compared to Macbooks. So I hope Sinofsky and Co understand this and maybe they will turn off aggressive disk caching into RAM when running on battery.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

Waethorn — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:39:14 GMT

"That memory footprint isn't particularly impressive. It may be that Windows 7 is lighter on both the disk and the CPU than Vista, but I'd like to (and think we will) see the memory footprint reduced."

Two things:

If they're optimizing services, then yes, background memory consumption should be reduced.

That said, unused memory is wasted memory. If you have free memory available, use it for disk caching to improve loading speed of applications and data. Idle memory load is not a good way to rate operating system efficiency unless you turn off caching. When you turn on disk caching, if programs load up faster because the disk cache is set to a higher amount by default, all the better from a user standpoint. Users don't care how much memory is used at any one time, so long as their programs load up faster. Determining how aggressive a disk cache should be, vs. how dynamic it is at freeing up memory for programs is a task best left for software engineers.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

shark47 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:11:11 GMT

"It may be that Windows 7 is lighter on both the disk and the CPU than Vista, but I'd like to (and think we will) see the memory footprint reduced. "

I would assume so. Sinofsky has asked people not to use this build for benchmarking, so I'm sure they're working on improving it. Or making it worse. :-)

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

shark47 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:09:25 GMT

@sjaak327,

Thanks. Was just curious to know if they've fixed that issue.

re: Dell 9 Mini running Windows 7

shark47 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:07:22 GMT

"I actually have Vista in a boot camp partition on my Macbook with 4gig of RAM. I run it in classic mode, turn off the side bar, turn off UAC, use FireFox3 as a the default browser, and use Symantec Corporate edition AV (which shuts OFF defender) and its almost as snappy as XP with 1gig of RAM."

Yes, I sure do believe you. I run Vista (or used to until I upgraded because of iTunes and WMC) on an HP Pavilion desktop with 1 Gig of RAM and it's almost as snappy as XP with 1 Gig of RAM.

The only thing I find slower is going to/resuming from sleep.