Windows 7: worth it purely for the usable share access over VPN
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In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
Shog, I don't work remotely often, but I have guys on my team that do, and this little bit of information will have them jumping over to W7. Thank you for mentioning it, I'm going to pass this along.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
whispering voices in the background "The injection seems to have taken effect, Doctor." "Good, good! Now for the next phase of my experiment..."
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
whispering voices in the background "The injection seems to have taken effect, Doctor." "Good, good! Now for the next phase of my experiment..."
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
What? Huh? What? :omg: :wtf: Inconceivable! I don't believe you. Shog, I really would like to believe that it is true, but what you are saying is just impossible. I mean if you had said all the existing progress bars didn't go completely insane every time the network slowed down, you might have a shot, but really, how gullible to you think we are?
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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What? Huh? What? :omg: :wtf: Inconceivable! I don't believe you. Shog, I really would like to believe that it is true, but what you are saying is just impossible. I mean if you had said all the existing progress bars didn't go completely insane every time the network slowed down, you might have a shot, but really, how gullible to you think we are?
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
A question on a related subject: Does Win7 still lose network share connections? WinXP drives me crazy, and always has. I rely on mapped drives on a server for most of my work, and though it reliably connects at startup, if I walk away for a few hours or, God forbid, overnight, it invariably informs me that the drive is inaccessible. There's no way to reconnect without rebooting, and this same behavior has persisted through many machines, installations, and servers. I'd almost pay retail if Windows 7 fixes this, even if only via a kludgy "Reconnect" manual button click.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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A question on a related subject: Does Win7 still lose network share connections? WinXP drives me crazy, and always has. I rely on mapped drives on a server for most of my work, and though it reliably connects at startup, if I walk away for a few hours or, God forbid, overnight, it invariably informs me that the drive is inaccessible. There's no way to reconnect without rebooting, and this same behavior has persisted through many machines, installations, and servers. I'd almost pay retail if Windows 7 fixes this, even if only via a kludgy "Reconnect" manual button click.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Since I connect to the network via VPN, i lose connectivity frequently - whenever the VPN drops, so do the share connections. And since I usually log in with cached credentials, they'd always be disconnected initially. I've not had any trouble with them reconnecting promptly under Win7, but... It wasn't ever an issue for me under XP either. The issues i've had with mapped drives in the past were due to the length of time it took for them to timeout: open and save dialogs would take ages to appear when VPN was down. This, at least, has improved in Win7. YMMV...
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Knowledge is half the battle
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
-
In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
If that's true, I'm sold. It's about damned time!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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In a product as big and complex as Windows, everyone has their own set of killer features ...and killer bugs. I certainly spend more time grousing about bugs than i do raving about features, but as a developer who spends most of his time working remotely, this feature is going to be the one that i remind myself of when i'm cursing the wretched programmers responsible for the bugs: Windows Explorer finally acts sanely when browsing file shares over a slow VPN connection. I don't mean that it's fast. It's a slow VPN connection, with terrible latency, although file transfers do seem a bit snappier. I mean it's responsive. Allow me to provide some background info for those who don't already know what i mean... You know how you can start loading a huge, image-heavy web page being served from a server running on an anemic 386 over a 56kbps modem from somewhere in Tibet, and it doesn't lock up your entire browser for the next 20 minutes? Explorer would. Heck, if you didn't turn on the "run folders in separate process" option, it'd lock up your whole task bar! Those of you who happen to sit directly above your servers, connected by Gigabit Ethernet, with mutant cheetahs for sysadmins... can stop writing angry replies consisting of "this never happened, you lying, MS-bashing malcontent!": you never experienced it because you happen to live in an ideal world, right next to a Unicorn, a Leprechaun, and most of the classic Explorer development team. Just trust me: Explorer was a dog when it came to file share access in the real world. Again, not talking about the speed of the underlying protocol: this got slightly better in Server 2003, a good deal better in Vista/2008, and probably better yet in 2008 R2. And you'll still be an idiot if you write a UI that blocks waiting for any non-local filesystem query. Just like those leprechaun-loving Explorer developers were prior to Windows 7. But enough about the past. Point is, Explorer in Windows 7 works when accessing remote filesystems. There's a progress bar, you can cancel requests, and random windows don't lock up just because each packet has to bounce off of every coast before finding their way to their final destination. Life is good. I'm happy... :)
5 ! Hi Shog, The eloquence and wit in this post, not to mention technical content, emerge from the haze of Lounge background-dooling by the usual suspects very nicely :) best, Bill
"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844
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If that's true, I'm sold. It's about damned time!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark, If you are planning on purchasing Windows 7 when it is released it may be helpful to know you don't have to wait to reserve your copy of Win 7! You can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional today. For more information, see the Windows 7 Pre-Order offer page here: http://tinyurl.com/nldc8p Also, if you are currently a student you may qualify for the $30 upgrade to Windows 7. For more information, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/m7nyxa JessicaMicrosoft Windows Client Team
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Mark, If you are planning on purchasing Windows 7 when it is released it may be helpful to know you don't have to wait to reserve your copy of Win 7! You can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional today. For more information, see the Windows 7 Pre-Order offer page here: http://tinyurl.com/nldc8p Also, if you are currently a student you may qualify for the $30 upgrade to Windows 7. For more information, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/m7nyxa JessicaMicrosoft Windows Client Team
OK, I just changed my mind.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!