Windows 7

[madeyes]

Anyone tried demo coding on Windows 7 yet....I downgraded to XP from Vista because I couldn't run DOS ASM and do 256 byte demos (that and Vista made me mad). But now I'm thinking of getting Win7 as it's supposed to be good....so does it run DOS programs OK fullscreen?

There's always DOSBOX I suppose but not always fast enough. Or a virtual machine with FreeDOS in it could work.

[Praecor]

Yeah Windows7 works great for that. + people r sooo gonna switch to it in 1 years time. + it's gonna last at least what xp lasted + Whatelse u're going to use if u do seriously modern stuff dx10/dx11.

nVidia display drivers for 7 atm work great

Not sure about that basic 13h support anymore though, yeah noticed on vista they had dropped it, guessin 7 does it too

[Jim]

There's no DOS fullscreen support in Win7.
I also know there are quite a few people here on 64bit Windows 7 now, and that means no 16bit DOS programs at all.
Other than that, Crinkler works well on Win7 32 and 64 bit.

Jim

[Shockwave]

Sorry for duplicating a little bit here. But here are my personal findings;

1: most 4kb's need to be re-packed, it's really simple, just use the latest version of crinkler and then;

Code: [Select]

crinkler.exe /RECOMPRESS input.exe /OUT:output.exe

2: 13h doesn't work at all.

3: Textmode demos are fucked up a little.. You cant run them in fullscreen (you can still view them though, when you try to maximise them it displays them in a window)

It's really stable though, I haven't encountered any problems apart from these, boot up time is lightning fast, it really is a joy to use.

I never thought I'd say that about something that Microsoft made but it's true.

[va!n]

From my experience with the 64 bit Windows 7 version (from the first public beta) i must say, its a great, fast and stable OS! I would never again move back to my old beloved old 32 bit XP nor to Vista for any price! I agree with nick and i have to say: MS did it - never thought i would say this one day in my life

Btw, tiny intros like 1k, 4k and probaly 256 byte intros may be fine. But who really want/need 13h screen and 16 bit coding, when we are in an age where we have extremly fast 64 bit CPUs, Gigabytes of RAM and Gigabytes/Terrbyte of harddrives? I think its still nice to see what is possible in 256 byte but personnaly i think, this is a coding/hobby where you still reach only a hand full of people (only those who are interested in it and where the stuff runs).

TextMode demos are working fine here for me in window... cant switch to fullscreen.

Closing word: XP was nice but if you think a little bit about XP and Windows7, XP is afaik now nearly 9 years old and you cant compare XP with Windows 7, because Windows 7 is the latest and even moderner OS of choise!

[madeyes]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I still find it fun to do mode 13h with asm, but I can probably live without it - there's plenty of other stuff I want to play with and limited time
A friend of mine had performance problems on win 7 with the desktop window manager using all of one of her cpus  - but I don't know the spec of her pc. It was probably underspecced for win 7.
I think I've made my choice. Off to get my Vista upgrade.

[va!n]

A friend of mine had performance problems on win 7 with the desktop window manager using all of one of her cpus  - but I don't know the spec of her pc. It was probably underspecced for win 7.

Thats strange! I installed Windows7 on an old AMD3200 with Radeon9600 and it runs very fast and stable! The spec requirements for Windows7 are lower as they has been for Vista! Due fact of your friend performance prolems, it would be interested to know if he is using one of the new ATI Radeon 5000 series graphic cards, because for 3D they are in benchmarks very fast - faster as my Radeon 4870 which is a burner for the price/prerformance!

But back to the Radeon 5000 series... i have read that this serie my be extremly / unenjoyable slow for 2D like window management on desktop! (even some very old graphic cards can do this acc 2D drawings faster! *shocked* Thats the reason i dont have updated to my card to a 5000 serie card like the 5870 with 1GB!

However i just wonder, that your friend has such CPU and generall performance problems! Things i could think about the problem:

a) Installed RAM < 512 or 1024 MB?
b) Wrong or non installed graphic / chipset drivers?
c) Graphiccards memory is < 128 ?
d) Any other background task eating all the CPU ussage?

However, just try out Windows 7 and i am sure you dont will miss it anymore Btw, the only thing i missed a littlte bit on the first start of Windows7, is the good old QuickStartBar... But you can add this just with a few mouseclicks and you still have the good old quickstartbar, which makes life easier ^^

[Praecor]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I still find it fun to do mode 13h with asm, but I can probably live without it - there's plenty of other stuff I want to play with and limited time

Understand completely why you would want to code it + it sucks its been taken away.

[Praecor]

If MS wanted, it could buy the whole DOSBOX (or rip it or code their own one etc) + integrate in their new OS'es so they all apps could run almost seamlessly in the system + supporting all legacy things forever, of course they don't because there's a risk it might block new development

[Praecor]

madeyes: have 'em all on 1 desktop using VMWare!! :p

this is also cool if u like having some honeypot 'puters, which u observe

UPDATE: the xp-virtual box for windows7 (official by MS) might be also worth checking out aswell:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

[JL235]

The spec requirements for Windows7 are lower as they has been for Vista!

Actually if you look them up you'll find the official requirements are higher (although only marginally).

If MS wanted, it could buy the whole DOSBOX (or rip it or code their own one etc) + integrate in their new OS'es so they all apps could run almost seamlessly in the system + supporting all legacy things forever, of course they don't because there's a risk it might block new development

The server editions of Windows have worse backwards compatability then there desktop counterparts, there is lots they don't run. But this is in return for greater performance.

There are also lots of special hacks that are supplied with Windows that are run when certain older popular apps are run. This is because MS often finds that after fixing bugs in Windows lots of existing apps break because the apps take advantage of the bugs or presume they will always exist.

Lots of old features are also still supported like 16-bit 8.3 DOS names for files which is enabled by default. It's enabled even though it increases disk IO and so makes your system slower.

My point is that with backwards compatability you end up supporting niche features and old bugs at the expense of performance and future maintainability.

[Praecor]

Doesn't that sound a little bit like an excuse to not support something? How much do you need to maintain it once its done? DOSBOX owners probably smoke pot at this very second. + They have thousands of peoples in the house to do it. For me it looks like, If it doesn't give them cash anymore it can be forgotten (in the meantime they work with bs like suggested sites and skydrive, oh wait a minute Windows ORB, Aero Shake

[JL235]

For me it looks like, If it doesn't give them cash anymore it can be forgotten

That sounds like a perfectly valid reason to me.

It's not a simple case of once it's done it never needs to be touched again. Old features will break in the future, or need to be rebuilt due to changes in the driver models or some other change of Windows. It costs money to maintain features.

[Jim]

I know demo coders like to have fun with 16bit stuff, it's great fun coding tiny asm .com programs, but it's time 16bit apps died and the CPUs use the silicon for something else and the cruft gets removed from the OS, IMHO.

Jim

[Praecor]

Old features will break in the future, or need to be rebuilt due to changes in the driver models or some other change of Windows. It costs money to maintain features.

Yes sure they must do some 'maintaining' (you always have to), and that's the hard part(?) + valid reason to drop everything? I think you are overcomplicating things here that don't have to be that, really.
These guys can do anything if they want. And this would be the relatively 'easy' one.

[Praecor]

But don't be brain-washed that they are unable to do something like this, please. Heck they could add it by the weekend.

[Praecor]

Sure it's easiest to have the operating system to develop/support/maintain which never changes drastically.

Keepin' still and things slow is one part of the strategy.

PS. yes it all costs money, even character-strings, that's why they have language-packs available in the Ultimate edition only.

[JL235]

Old features will break in the future, or need to be rebuilt due to changes in the driver models or some other change of Windows. It costs money to maintain features.

Yes sure they must do some 'maintaining' (you always have to), and that's the hard part(?) + valid reason to drop everything?

If no one uses it, then yes.

In some places compatability is really holding back development. For example there is no reason why CPUs still boot into 16-bit mode. 99.999% of the time it's only used to start 32-bit mode and boot the OS.

I'd much rather see new features in the next copy of Windows then to keep old ones. Especially losing those relating to 16-bit and DOS.

[Clyde]

An idea you could do a dual booting machine with xp / 7, for whenever you want to do 13h stuff. I have xp and the 2nd beta of seven ( soon to expire next month ).
Anyone tried the compatability settings?

[Jim]

Yeah, you can do that, you can multi-boot DOS, XP, 7 or any combination of the old OSs, as long as you install them from oldest to newest.
Alternatively, the VM/Virtual PC solution is possibly worth trying. The integration of XP-32 inside 7-64 that I last saw was excellent.  The 32bit XP apps just appeared like ordinary windows inside the desktop, even though they were running under virtualisation.  They even appear on the start menu.  But who knows if it would do anything sane if you put DOS on there?!

Jim