[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Windows 7 Beats Snow Leopard On Older Hardware Support here

[patterntangle]

Your definition of "supported" is a bit of a stretch.

[cg0def]

quite a bit of a stretch indeed. The first moment that you started changing hardware the "supported" term went away. The fact that you were able to install some software means absolutely nothing. It's the performance and productivity that counts and any way you look at it they'll all suck on that configuration.

[steveald]

If you were comparing apples to apples, you might have a valid initial point. But Snow Leopard is merely a refinement of the existing Leopard OS. So, unless you are one of those that considers Windows 7 to merely be Vista with new clothes on, then you need to compare it to Leopard instead. And Leopard minimum requirement is fulfilled by something like the PowerMac G4 867GHz which came out in - wait for it - 2001. As for the rest of the article, the likelihood is slim at best that there would be any issues with drivers, adapters or the Blue Screen of Death when installing Leopard on that 8 year old machine.

[GorgeClimber]

Now if only Windows could operate on a PowerPC without the Apple basics, life would be really great.

[pnosko]

Michael Scalisi has a firm grasp of the obvious.

[mscalisi]

@cg0def - The original DVD drive worked fine after installation, and others have been able to use the 3C905TX with XP drivers. All other hardware was original.
@steveald - You make an interesting point. Many argue that Windows 7 is just Vista with new clothing. I think of it as a Vista that doesn't suck. I wouldn't have bothered with this experiment with vista. I'd also like to note that I only had blue-screen errors when forcing 7 to use XP video drivers. The problem went away when I reverted to the standard VGA driver.
@GorgeClimber - NT 4 did have a PowerPC version, which nobody used.
@pnosko - thanks for the, um, compliment.

[pnosko]

Right back atcha...
bq. I think of it as a Vista that doesn't suck.
What praise!
I look forward to Snow Leapard. There are a few things I think Windows does better than OS X in general. But the time it takes to "maintain" a Windows machine is too costly for me. The point has been made that it is ridiculous to expect 3+ year old hardware to continue to be "supported" by newer OSes. It would not perform anyway.

[mscalisi]

@pnosko - I look forward to Snow Leopord as well! I disgree that 3+ year old computers won't perform well with modern OSes. I'd expect my 4 year old Dell with its 3 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM to work nicely with 7.

[ronjamin]

Windows 7 is still essentially the same-ole same-ole Windows that we have had since the beginning, albiet with more eye-candy and functionality.
It's a house made on a foundation of sand.
OSX, on the other hand, is rock-solid from the ground-up. Yes, older hardware is out, but then who really cares. These older systems work fine the way they are, and they continue to be updated for security and other performance issues.

[DTNick]

Two things:
1. Snow Leopard presumably can't run on older Macs because Apple stripped out the components that make it work on PowerPC Macs.
2. Since Apple didn't sell Intel-based machines prior to 2006 we have no idea whether or not Snow Leopard can run on slower Intel machines. We won't know until people start hacking Snow Leopard to install on their PCs.

[mistoffolees]

Slow news day, I guess. One can hack Windows 7 and make it limp along on an older PC. Big deal. Why didn't you try to see if OS X could be hacked to run on an equally old PC?
Hardware compatibility is a mixed bag for normal users (those not trying to run the latest OS on ancient hardware).
Based on 25 years of history, Snow Leopard will run nearly flawlessly on any Intel computer (virtually all Macs built in the last 3-5 years) but won't work on old, old hardware.
Windows will run sort of semi-half-assed on new and old hardware. Based on experience with Vista, XP, and all the earlier Windows OSs, many things will break and drivers will cause problems - even on newer machines.
So take your pick. Do you want an OS which will run well on supported hardware (admittedly, a smaller selection) or one which will run poorly on a wider range of hardware? I personally choose the former.

[veggiedude]

I think I'm going to write an article as dumb as this one: "Windows 7 doesn't even run on Microsoft Hardware". Yea, that's right. Try installing it into an XBox. Sorry old Microsoft, they made their machine with PowerPC technology.

[pnosko]

@mscallsi (in continued good spirit) I'd expect my 4 year old Dell with its 3 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM to work nicely with 7.
Which flavor of 7-- one comparable with OS X?. I heard it ws called 7 because it comes in seven versions. ;)

There is only one OS X flavor for the non-server Mac.

My 6.5yo Dell 3GHz 512MB uses rdram. So a memory upgrade would have cost me half the price of a MacBook Pro when I switched in 12/07.

[lantzn]

The whole idea behind Snow Leopard WAS to streamline it and make it perform the best possible. It's all under the hood with few features added.
This meant trimming the fat (PPC code) and creating technologies that take advantage of 64-bit, GPU processing and multiple processors. All this IS what Intel Macs are all about. This makes since for Snow. Leopard 10.5 is for everyone else. I have a 400MHz G4 PowerMac tower with a 1GHz OWC processor upgrade which I have 10.5.7 running on it. This serves as my media server with 2 800GB mirrored drives. It serves up music, movies photos, etc. over my G network and Apple TV. It works great! How that for new on old technology?

[WinTard]

I'll believe Snow Leopard when I see it released to the public ^1^. To compare it to Windows 7 is ridiculous. To compare the existing Leopard to Windows is insane...

OS X can't compare to Windows in terms of hardware support anyway. Not in the same class to begin with.

Why not compare OS X to Linux? That would be a better comparison...

^1^ To do justice to Snow Leopard, I'll have to take it for a test-drive, like I did for Windows 7. Beta or preview is okay. But just seeing it and not using it means nothing to me...

So far, my impression rests with multiple-sources of info like this one (in addition to all we read at PCWorld): http://www.eweek.com...erprise-116999/

During the keynote, as Apple was introducing its new operating system, Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software, took the stage to discuss the company's latest operating system. He immediately fired a shot at Microsoft. Instead of ignoring Windows 7 and focusing the audience's attention on Mac OS X, Serlet said "Windows 7 is just another version of Vista."

It's a tough comment from a company that is far behind Microsoft in the operating system market.

[mistoffolees]

Wintard managed to earn his name.
You're right. OS X can't compare to Windows in terms of hardware support. OS X just plain works on all supported hardware. With Windows, it's a crap-shoot--even for hardware that's supposedly supported.
And why wouldn't one compare Snow Leopard to Windows 7? They're both revisions to existing OSs and due out later in the year - although OS X is scheduled to be out before Win 7 -- not to mention that Microsoft has NEVER hit a release date that I can remember while Apple routinely does so.

[WinTard]

mistoffolees said:

Wintard managed to earn his name.

You're right. OS X can't compare to Windows in terms of hardware support. OS X just plain works on all supported hardware. With Windows, it's a crap-shoot--even for hardware that's supposedly supported.

And why wouldn't one compare Snow Leopard to Windows 7? They're both revisions to existing OSs and due out later in the year - although OS X is scheduled to be out before Win 7 -- not to mention that Microsoft has NEVER hit a release date that I can remember ^1^ while Apple routinely does so.

Wrong doh! Windows supports the hardware on Apple Mac hardware... Not the other way around. Doh!

And Snow Leopard is as different to Leopard, as Windows 7 is to Vista... Doh!

Quote

[http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Apples-Snow-Leopard-or-Microsofts-Windows-7-Which-Is-Better-for-the-Enterprise-116999/]
Apple also announced that Snow Leopard will support 64-bit applications. All the apps built into the operating system are optimized for 64-bit chips and should run faster than previous versions on Leopard.

Once again, Apple hasn't shocked the world with the 64-bit announcement. That's been around for decades. Microsoft first started supporting it with Windows XP. (2002!)

Minus support for PPC chips... ?:|

^1^ And for the record, I've been using Windows 7 Build 7000 x64 since Jan 13 2009... And am now at RC2... I also believe Microsoft won't miss the official release date as published.

[bet011]

Don't worry WinTard, I've used the RC of Windows 7 too, and while it's better than Vista, it's still got a file system, registry, and poorly conceived interface that feels like its an OS from the 90's (It makes sense, most of its code base is from that computing era)
There are stabs you can take at OS X that won't embarrass yourself, but 64 bit support isn't one of them. OS X had kernel support for 64 bit back at Tiger several years ago, had 64 bit support for user level applications a couple years later, and this new OS merely rewrote most of their code base in 64 bit itself. Not to mention they did all this completely behind the scenes, one OS X release for all users, across two different processor architectures (PowerPC and Intel) and bit structures (32 bit and 64 bit). No worries about choosing between Windows Home premium 32 bit and Windows Ultimate 64 Bit.
They're cutting off PPC because guess what? They have made the choice of performance and compatibility with the future. Their new OS coming out this September is all about building up for the next decade, and Windows is still trying to build their first Win32 OS. Good luck!

[flatrock19]

Not really a fair test for Windows 7. While Apple sells you the hardware and software, Microsoft is just a software company and relies on hardware vendors to supply their own drivers for most hardware.
There is a good chance that there will be drivers for most four year old hardware. With 8 year old hardware some will be supported, some won't.
However if you bought a PowerPC based PowerMac, which were still being sold at least until Aug 2006 if not longer while existing stock was sold off, you're out of luck.
That's less than 3 years.