Windows 7 to boost SSDs

[Afterburner]

"Windows7 will be able to identify a SSD uniquely," according to Gregory Wong of Forward Insights. Certain ATA commands will improve the speed that solid state drives write to disk, Wong said

More here

*posted earlier @ vr-zone*

[RealTelstar]

So i'm gonna migrate to w7

[XS Janus]

It would be sad if it didn't.

I must say I am satisfied at how MS is handling its new Win development. They are doing it pretty publicly... so people are familiar with it. Good call!
Sort of like Intel did It looks like MS is becoming more customer friendly.

[JAG87]

It would be sad if it didn't.

I must say I am satisfied at how MS is handling its new Win development. They are doing it pretty publicly... so people are familiar with it. Good call!
Sort of like Intel did It looks like MS is becoming more customer friendly.

I agree. Much better then keeping it under a veil and then when it comes out people are like WTF is this

[RejZoR]

Damn, i love my Vista but i'm also looking forward to Windows 7. It really looks promising.

[EniGmA1987]

Wouldnt optimizing the file system code to work well with SSDs mean they are changing the NTFS file system?

[Helmore]

As far as I know, not really. They will mainly be optimizing the OS in such a way that it will handle random writes and stuff like that a little different. The filesystem is mainly about how the data is organized and called upon on the disk, not what the OS' read and write behavior is like. Current OSs would optimize for sequential reads and writes, but for an SSD it could be done a little different to more efficiently utilize its performance characteristics. One of the other goals for Windows 7 is also to minimize disk access or, as some would sometimes call it, disk trashing, which will also be nice for an SSD's endurance/longevity/lifespan (and speed up Windows 7 in general).

[NaMcO]

Damn, i love my Vista but i'm also looking forward to Windows 7. It really looks promising.

Totally agree with you, but that taskbar is SO putting me off

[cozwin]

Totally agree with you, but that taskbar is SO putting me off

yes because you should always choose a operating system based on the looks of the taskbar ... *face palm*

because you cant change it in like 30 seconds can you.... *face palm*

[Helmore]

Totally agree with you, but that taskbar is SO putting me off

It's putting me on though, what part of it don't you like?

[iddqd]

i'm fairly sure you can change it back to windows 95 style taskbar.

that's how we roll.

[randomizer]

It's putting me on though, what part of it don't you like?

I just don't like having my entire desktop covered in glass. As long as I can pick the Vista taskbar, I'm happy.

[AnXioZ]

This is just the pre-beta. They will definitely change the look of the OS, just like they did with Vista, Longhorn.

BTW, look at the file history for Windows 7's desktop @ WikiPedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows7Desktop.png

[Helmore]

I just don't like having my entire desktop covered in glass. As long as I can pick the Vista taskbar, I'm happy.

You can use small icons, which will basically turn the taskbar back to the width of the Vista taskbar and you can enable a tittle in the taskbar (only for active windows).

This is just the pre-beta. They will definitely change the look of the OS, just like they did with Vista, Longhorn.

BTW, look at the file history for Windows 7's desktop @ WikiPedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows7Desktop.png

No they will not change the look of the OS, only some slight refinements.
The reason why their Longhorn OS looks so different from Vista is because they restarted back from scratch with Vista. They made some promises about what Longhorn was supposed to be in 2003, but in the meantime they threw a lot of that in the garbage can and started over again for Vista and that's also why Vista was such a let-down after all their promises for Longhorn.
BTW, the reason for the restart had to so with XP SP2, which they suddenly had to work on (for security reasons in XP) at full force and everyone working on Longhorn was made to work on SP2. After SP2 they started to work on Vista, but they for some reason (probably some things they learned during the SP2 development) deviated quite a bit from their Longhorn promise.


On my post #7, I'm apparently quite wrong with my assumption that the filesystem won't really matter that much. They can ofcourse optimize in other areas than the filesystem, but according to SanDisk as new filesystem for SSDs will get you some major advantages. Just check this:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15843
It's about their new filesystem for SSDs called ExtremeFFS and it can be used in both Vista as well as Windows 7, not sure if it will be integrated by default in Windows 7.

[Anemone]

Given the rapidly expanding presence of SSD's I don't know why they are waiting to Win 7 to put this in place. XP or Vista, either one, should detect if a SSD is in place and adjust all settings to preserve and work best with the device automatically.

Oh, but then there wouldn't be anything new for Win 7? /sigh

[comc49]

so when does window 7 come out??

[YukonTrooper]

Hurray for XP -> Win7 users!

[safan80]

I wonder if windows 7 can boot off GPT partitions yet? vista can not.

[XS Janus]

that's how we roll.

+1

I wonder if we can finally get away from BIOS and go to EFi... more push of this from MS would be nice.
I mean it IS the 21st century after all and I had a BIOS on my XT back in 1987

I for one don't want my tombstone to spell: "used BIOS his entire life"

[xsbb]

Sweeet.

XP -> W7

I'm hoping it'll be a huge jump. I've been waiting for things to speed up

[Omastar]

I wonder if windows 7 can boot off GPT partitions yet? vista can not.

Isn't GPT only useful for arrays larger than 2TB? Looking at your sig, though, you'd fall under that category.

[Serra]

Given the rapidly expanding presence of SSD's I don't know why they are waiting to Win 7 to put this in place. XP or Vista, either one, should detect if a SSD is in place and adjust all settings to preserve and work best with the device automatically.

Oh, but then there wouldn't be anything new for Win 7? /sigh

Yeah, because redesigning the disk handling subsystem is just a 2mb hotfix update for XP/Vista.

I'm sorry, but it seems that anytime Microsoft announces a new feature for a new OS people just start complaining that they aren't hotpatching an old one, no matter the fact that it could be a ridiculous upgrade.

[Helmore]

Yeah, because redesigning the disk handling subsystem is just a 2mb hotfix update for XP/Vista.

I'm sorry, but it seems that anytime Microsoft announces a new feature for a new OS people just start complaining that they aren't hotpatching an old one, no matter the fact that it could be a ridiculous upgrade.

They apparently don't know how Apple handles these kinds of things....

BTW, SanDisk's new filesystem will also be made available for Vista so no worries.

[Shintai]

Isn't GPT only useful for arrays larger than 2TB? Looking at your sig, though, you'd fall under that category.

2008 can. So Vista could actually. However it might be artificially limited.

[Lestat]

if you havent played with it its vista, and a harder vista to work with, they burried crap even deeper now and i cant stand the damn fact that i have to do so many F'ing steps to find out what my dam IP is compared to XP.

i would say it's probably a little faster than vista but its vista,, there is NO doubt about it,, 100%, with some improvements but overall they are going deeper and deeper into the more complex overly hard OS, instead of going back to the basics.

its an OS, not a machine that is going to perform brain surgery

they also have whats called your 'home network' (if i remember the name correctly) in regards to sharing files. its annoying as hell but doesnt necessarily need to be used. you can still use standard sharing.