Windows7 ? hmm ... maybe not !

[PeterSt]

I honestly can't say I am the most enthusiast about W7.

To me it looks like the least intuitive OS MS ever built. Difficult to explain, but things are just not in place. One example, and let's imagine you are a completely new Windows user (while at the background we sure know how things were) :

There you are. A new fresh system. Hey, that's nice, we can drag our IE icon to the taskbar, and now there it sits as a button. Great !
So, I use that button (click) ...
Allright. Let's start another instance of IE.
What the heck ... where is my button ?

You see ? this makes no sense.
We -who really know- know about the shortcut taskbar buttons (at the left). Well, MS thought to trade them for this new feature just described. I don't know, but the one who invented this should be hospitalized.

And you know, the old way of those buttons really is still there. But don't think you will be able to find out yourself how to do this.


Ok, somehow I heard only positives of you out there. It feels faster etc. Does it ? Well to me it does not. At all.
To me it looks like some technical MS nerd was set to tweak the lot without touching the real stuff. Backdoor solutions. Take for example this forum; Besides it seems impossible to type texts in an area like I'm typing in now (in some occasions), maybe you noticed the orange bar scrolling from top to bottom when a page is displayed. Well, if you know what I mean, you may have noticed that all is scattering and flickering. And no, this is not about a malfunctioning video driver (I think). This is about some opposite of Vista which virtually was slow but actually was smooth. Now it is virtually fast (flickering) but actually is slow.

All is slow, and all is less responsive. If you think otherwise ... don't believe it. Just watch carefully, and know what to watch for.

Internal priorities are hopelessly flawed !

Who says ? me. And MS better listen to it.

I now know why many suddenly have problems with audio and hickups. Watch it : this is about those who started using W7.
One of the major flaws I discovered (but it's a general thing I think) is that "media" (hence audio) doesn't perceive the highest priority anymore. Thus, when a piece of kernel code is supposed to fill a buffer while another piece of user code is doing something else, that user code now has preference. STUPID ! This is just where Vista was good at, and now it is destroyed. I don't say this can't be solved, but in the mean time it now *has* to be solved, where Vista was ok with it. So thank you very much.

The sound ...
I don't know yet, but after two days of listening it seems that I hear what I see. At the rate I see "task switching" (take the orange bar as an example if you perceive that the same like I do) I hear a fake timbre in everything. More raw. This is a bit difficult because it could be real, but if that is real I don't like it much. Strangely enough this seems more apparent with WASAPI (Engine#3) than with Kernel Streaming. Or maybe it is logic ... (about task switching).

Take a look at the resource monitor; what the hell is all that network traffic doing there ? mind you, all to your own address. This wasn't before ...

Ah, my bloodily setup remote isn't working anymore. Why ? dunno yet. But I do know I don't like it.

Yes, XXEngine3 is a kind of demanding to the OS (about auto-shutdown services which I didn't see yet in W7) ... but what in heaven's name is happening with a window I cross away and which may take 30 seconds, in the mean time the red cross shivering and shivering again at that "task switching rate".

Funnily it now exhibits all the characteristics of using a wrong SSD like I did at first with Vista. Well, something *has* changed in that area for W7. Maybe it is related ?

Oh, just a minor thing : Vista already couldn't cope with WASAPI and hybernation (it just wouldn't after playing with Engine#3 for a while), but with W7 this is even more fun : Now it hybernates, but as soon as it is waked up, it shuts down. Hahaha.
Well, at least shutting off the hybernating now works, so problem solved.

That OSD time showing for a second only ... when the Wallpaper changes the handle to the screen is distroyed. A technical issue of course, and now solved by recreating that handle. In the mean time this means a "memory leak". No big deal (because it hardly takes memory) but in the mean time a major incompatibility. Or call it a bug.


Allright, if it weren't for you out there just using W7 which *thus* has to be supported, I would go back to Vista !!
But, when I can't get the sound right, I will anyway. If I can't get those priorities right, we better all go back. Keep in mind : "you" now (mostly) solved this by "tweaks" meant for changing SQ. So, your bandwidth for that has been taken away. This is not the intention of it all ...

Peter

[mojave]

I have found that I like Windows 7 the best and feel it is the most intuitive. Regarding the button issue, are you talking about shortcuts pinned to the taskbar? If you right click the Internet Explorer icon in the taskbar and click Internet Explorer it will open another session. I like it that the taskbar shortcuts become session icons when the program is running and only open new sessions if you want them to. This takes up less space in the taskbar and I am more likely to want to return to a current browser session than to open a new one. Some more info on the taskbar can be found here.

[Telstar]

The thing i agree the most is the new taskbar. I absolutely hate it with the explorer folders/library. i cannot open a second instance from there, i have to use the desktop.

I dunno about priorities and such technicalities, but in general the system FEELS (which doesnt mean is) smoother.

They said that they improved the audio stack. If and how i dunno, and let you and the drivers writers to do it. i do have a problem with latency on my dedicated pc and i already took the decision to go back to vista. Probably i'll stick to it until w7 SP1 comes out.

This is from an early adopter of all MS OSes. W7 betas and RCs had lots of problems, and the RTM needed about one month of updates to be stable.

[christoffe]

Hi Peter,

I started to use the XXH under W7 since October 09 and was not familiar with the SQ under VISTA. 

My main target is to listen to a really good SQ, the menues of the OS are not that important.

VISTA SP2 is installed on the Sony VAIO laptop since 2009-12-29, and the difference of the SQ is by wide margin. I'm not talking about a small increment.
This are total different worlds.
Under VISTA the SQ has timbre, depth and width. Unbelievable.
For the next time the Vista OS with the XXH  is my preference for real music replay and I can sell my CD-player.

christoffe
 


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows VISTA SP2> XXHE 09-y4 / Q1/2/3/4/5 = 4/0/0/0/0 / No Invert / Playerprio = Low / ThreadPrio = RealTime / Scheme = 3 @ UnAttended / *Quad Arc Prediction Upsampling* > Sony Vaio VGN-AW4 Series>|- Weiss Minerva -|- Dartzeel NHB-108B > speakers: Anat Referenz II Studio>

[PeterSt]

Thank you for sharing Christoffe.

Btw, I am not here to stir something which may not be justified, but I think I know when I don't like something. For now this is the sound of W7, but it could be (somehow ?) my setup.

All I now by now (all confirmed today) is that the whole priority scheme is mixed, mixed up, doesn't work or anyway does not do at all what I expect from it, and what I was ever used to (hence the program is used to ). For those with doubts : look at Taskmanager and the Performance tab. Isn't it so that it completely stalls when a track is loaded ? why ? there is no reason to. Not according the priorities, and not according the affinities (which processor core is allowed to do what).

I just spent several hours to get something running with some decency again, and it needed to set the lowest priority to a certain task, plus the deviding over two cores. Before it ran on the highest prio and one core was sufficient. It just doesn't make sense.

I know, to most of you this may encourage for a "so what ?" ... but I know how much these things influence sound. And coincidentally I don't like the sound at all.
If I do like something it may take a week before I don't. The other way around is no option ...

Bweh.
Peter

[manisandher]

... I don't like the sound at all.

Well look what you've created now. Us W7 users are all frantically searching for our Vista disks now and dreading hours of reformating, reinstalling and reoptimizing...

Thanks Peter

Mani.

[Gerard]

... I don't like the sound at all.

Well look what you've created now. Us W7 users are all frantically searching for our Vista disks now and dreading hours of reformating, reinstalling and reoptimizing...

Thanks Peter

Mani.

[GerardA]

Arghh, Seeing is believing, connected my Vista-laptop to the DAC and ooh..
Back (?) is a fullblooded sound that even surprised the little kids.
I tried the latest from Anouk which I almost had deleted for bad sound quality and
now it sounds incredible!


So how do I put Vista back from D: to C: after removing Win7 from C: ?
And what's the best way to use SSD on Vista?

So why everybody hears improvements but nobody hears things getting worse?

BTW I started to like the interface of 7 but had problems with videodrivers, satellite-tv and even the input of the phase 24FW was recognized as output.

Thanks Peter for getting us back to the right track!

[earflappin]

So Peter.....as a customer, what do you recommend I do to get the best sound quality given I'm a new Win7 user?  Do I go get Vista and install that until you get a release that works as well on Win7 as it does on Vista?  Is there any issue with reinstalling XXHE using the same activation code on Vista?

Thanks.

[PeterSt]

I suggest to hold on a bit for now. You (all) didn't complain in the first place, right ?

But if you go back to Vista and have problems with the Activation you'll get a new Code.

I still have my Vista (SSD) disk and will do some A-B the upcoming days.
But in the mean time, if people agree that SQ is worse, please let it know (and try to describe it).

Thanks,
Peter


PS: Remote works again (the 4 to be deleted Registry entries came back with the upgrade);
PPS: I deactivated TRIM because it seems to hurt more than it does any good (about the freezes); will let know what comes from this.

[manisandher]

You (all) didn't complain in the first place, right ?

I certainly didn't. W7 seemed a step-up from Vista... not necessarily in SQ terms, but certainly in latency terms.

I have absolutely no complaints about the SQ of XXHE on W7. But I'm still running the evaluation copy of W7... I wonder if that makes a difference?

Mani.

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Peter,

For me W7 is still the better feeling OS to work on, but very curious about an A-B to compare SQ.
I believe nobody did a true compare between the both, going back and forth I mean.

Do you have 2 SSD's (or partitions) to do a true compare between the two ?

And you are kind enough to let us know about your experiences.

To be honest, I did experienced the same thing like GerardA with listening to Anouk.(months ago)
Didn't like it, but didn't liked it much before either. (too harsh)
But a whole lot has changed in the mean time.
And then there is that latency thing

I will keep on using W7 untill the evaluation period expires (03-2010)
And we will see from there.

Still evaluating, I don't really care if its gonna be Vista or W7 on the audio-pc.

Roy

[earflappin]

Peter, since I never heard XXHE on Vista I have no frame of reference regarding if Win7 is better or worse...

Case in point....it wasn't until I installed an Antelope DA in between my PC server and my DAC that I realized how much my sound quality was being degraded by noise.  Now that I've heard the difference I could never go back.

My sense is compared to Samplitude v10 (a reference point for me as I did hear it on WinXP before upgrading to Win7), XXHE has greater resolution by at the slight expense of added coarseness.  Of course, this could be that XXHE is just letting me better hear the deficiencies still in my AES link and/or DAC....   

The only way to be sure is for you to do an A/B or for me to try Vista....  personally I vote for the former...     In the mean time I'll continue to use Win7!

[Leon]

I do not like to see a new schism, as there was/is between XP and Vista users. I really hope that Peter knows how to unravel the Windows 7 architecture and bend it into our advantage.

In the meanwhile I wish everybody a great and musical new year.

Leon

[HiFiTubes]

The one thing I can't stand about 7: the auto-maximize window feature.

I often want to leave some windows organized on my kitchen Touchsmart PC and if you get to close, easy to do using your finger, to the top of the screen, the windows are pulled into full focus and maximized. Probably I way to disable it but I haven't checked yet.

Overall, I am very happy, as I think Vista was the most unstable operating system I ever used.

Example, new PC at work, and they asked me XP or Vista (this was 4 months ago). I reluctantly said Vista for some reason, and I have some strange bugs; mainly compatibility issues no doubt but 7 on my 4 other PCs at home is quite smooth.