Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Trades Email and Photo Apps For Downloadable Ones
arcticstoat writes "Microsoft has said that it plans to remove a lot of the standard apps from Windows 7 in order to make the new OS 'cleaner.' Among the apps for the chop are Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker, which will no longer be included with the operating system as standard.
Instead, equivalent versions of the apps will be available from Microsoft's Windows Live download service as optional free downloads, much like the new BETA versions of the apps that Windows Live offers today." Meanwhile, jammag writes that "tech pundit Mike Elgan posits that the rushed-to-market Windows 7 — due in 2010, now being beta released this October — may in fact merely be Vista with new packaging.
Is that the new Mojave thing we've been hearing about?
I rather like the idea of having an OS with as little on it as possible.
That way I can add what I see fit, much like the Server OS.
Hey it's a step in the right direction.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
As long as they make sure that OEMs include some. Any, doesn't matter if its Outlook, Windows Live Mail, or whatever third party or open source app you want... Else customers will not be too happy out of the box.
However, historically, with other things that were not included (like, let say, anti-virus for a while), the total trash that OEMs put on it (because they're paid to) really sucks ass, even if there are free alternatives that are really, really good.
Customers are not going to be happy...
Not RTFA is bad enough, but apparently you didn't even bother to read the summary.
Similes are like metaphors
Among the apps for the chop are Windows Mail...
Er... I guess you don't see it this way, Microsoft, but I sure as hell always thought that checking your e-mail was basic computer functionality in this day and age. But hey, what do I know?
Microsoft can talk about a "cleaner" OS all they want, but watch them change their tune when people scream about not being able to check their e-mail on a new PC.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
That would be newsworthy!
Reinstalled your XP anytime recently? There's a basic version installed with the OS, assuming you didn't customize it with nLite.
It's about the training of the consumer to accept upselling to subscription based services.
load "$",8,1
Well, if it's Vista minus the bloatware, DRM and huge resource requirements... it might be actually a decent operating system.
Interesting that Microsoft appears to be actually listening to their users over Vista. That, or they're panicking and being forced to...
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
and no matter what Microsoft does I'm going to bitch and complain about how they should/shouldn't have done it years ago and that Linux is far superior.
Partly right. Microsoft didn't get prosecuted for merely being a monopoly or for bundling apps with their OS. They were prosecuted for abusing their monopoly to force competitors out of the market with unsavory tactics including threatening their own hardware partners. Intel wanted to develop a faster, cleaner Java compiler. Microsoft called a meeting insinuating that they were going to favor AMD in their development if they did. The made sure that their OEMs understood that to keep their OEMs prices, the OEMs would not pre-load Netscape onto their machines, etc.
For Apple to do the same thing, they would have to threaten BestBuy and Fry's that loading Picasa2 would be not tolerated and the like. Also Apple would make it nearly impossible to uninstall Mail or iPhoto. Right now to do that is the same as any other app: delete it. Now you can't fully uninstall QuickTime as some of the basic libraries of QuickTime are used in their Quartz rendering engine. But nothing stops you from using another movie player.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Except minwin was chopped from Windows 7-- and instead they're going with an 'evolution' of the NT-series Vista kernel.
When I recommend the Linux distribution I use, one of the things I promote is that:
By this, I mean that you can get set up and ideally have a complete working system right away. Browse the web with a strong browser, set up your email right away, view PDFs (with a fast PDF viewer), listen to music, write documents, spreadsheets, etc. Now, in practice some things don't work right away, but for that I blame general difficulty of installing any operating system (driver issues etc.) and licensing issues (goddamn MP3 license). I think installing an OS will always be a PITA, just on varying levels. Licensing is getting better with more distros offering paid legal licenses for MP3.
Anyway, what I'm getting to is that I feel a complete OS offers a solid platform on which to build. From my experience, casual users are satisfied with the included apps in a modern Linux distro save for maybe a better music player for the music buffs or better photo management for digital camera users. I think a minimal OS translates more to a Slack or Gentoo approach, which I doubt the everyday user wants. This also encourages OEMs to put their crap into EVEN MORE basic uses.
I think the association of Windows and bloat comes not from included MS apps (maybe not including Movie Maker), but instead from OEMs putting their shit on these computers. Good for Microsoft for making ANY change, but I think the real reduction in bloat happens at the installer level, not the OS producer. Let me know when a pig sprouts wings and the OEMs start putting less shit on their builds.
I didn't even read the *title, so I'll just cover all my bases:
Steve Ballmer, the RIAA, Sarah Palin, and software patents are evil and must be *stopped!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I think the old error message ABORT, RETRY, FAIL? pretty much sums up Vista.
But it's not vista Beta 3 as much as it named after the movie SEVEN.
it's got the seven deadly sins including sloth and gluttony.
And at the end, you'll with it was your head in the box.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
has a good ring to it.
Not only did this ship with XP, as others have noted, but you couldn't remove it.
Well, actually you can, but you have to fiddle with some obscure (and hidden) inf file in order to do so.
As i'm a really nice guy, i found a ms kb about it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223182
Talk about informative (nudge, nudge)...
Hell, Windows itself is optional.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
I didn't even read the *title, so I'll just cover all my bases
You can cover them all you want, but you can't cover the fact that they are belong to us.
The problem with Vista was people tried to use current software on 6+ year old computers.
The problem with Vista was that it wouldn't run decently on the computers it was being sold on .
Put identity in the browser.