Ballmer Sets Loose Windows 7 Public Beta At CES

CWmike writes "The rumors turned out to be true. Microsoft will release a public beta this week of its next desktop operating system, Windows 7, hoping it will address the problems that have made Windows Vista perhaps the least popular OS in its history. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will launch the beta during his speech at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Preston Gralla reviewed Windows 7 beta 1, noting 'Fast and stable, Beta 1 of Windows 7 unveils some intriguing user-interface improvements, including the much-anticipated new task bar.' MSDN and Technet subscribers should be able to get the public data tonight. The general public will have to wait until Friday."

Comments

Re:I tried to watch some of his speech.

[TheKidWho]

The Reality Distortion Field has a large sway over you.

Flog that dog!

[The End Of Days]

Choke that chicken!
Whip that weasel!
Spank that monkey!
Crank that shaft!

I do so love these articles. You rabid anti-Microsofties never disappoint me.

Re:Oh, that's what made Vista fail!?

[whoever57]

I love UAC. On XP, I used to have to de-malware my [anonymized family member]'s computer every couple of months. On Vista, I'm watching them use their machine, and UAC pops up with some spyware wanting to install. Box read, permission declined, no infestation I have to clean up.

Which only shows how you have become conditioned to cr*p software. You and your family should not have to make such decisions (accept or decline installation of random software).

I use Linux as my desktop (both at home and at work). I don't have to make decisions about whether to allow installation of some random cr*p that I had not asked for. If your benchmark is XP, then yes, it's better (maybe --because people are conditioned to click "yes" anyway), but there are better benchmarks out there.

Re:Oh, that's what made Vista fail!?

[Jurily]

Or, making what was arguably Vista's best and at the same time worst feature (UAC) something that works without making itself so intrusive as to be the first time users desire to disable?!

You seriously judge a feature based on what first-time users think about it?

UAC is the way authorization should have been done a long time ago. Vista may be a horrible pile of other crap, but they definitely hit the mark here.

(Disclaimer: Yes, I have actually used it. On my home computer. For half a year. I'm still going back to Gentoo though.)

The Window of Opportunity closes

[phypsilon]

- sarcasm on -
Congratulations to all of us open source enthusiasts and fellow nerds.
We managed to do even worse then vista and couldn't get linux to be accepted on the desktop. Now we will be crushed between 7 and X.
- sarcasm off -

phypsilon

Re:Least popular??

[dave562]

Also, it's only 10 million because they dont sell (or support to varying degress) the others anymore.

That is complete bullshit. It seems like every couple of months a story pops up here on /. about Microsoft extending the XP lifespan, again. You can still get desktops from OEMs loaded with XP. They have realized that Vista is a steaming pile of crap and because of that, they aren't going to force anybody to "upgrade" to it.

dangerous publicity stunt

[Tom]

Getting desperate, Mr. Balmer?

So far, Win7 is largely underwhelming. It is certainly better than Vista, but what isn't? It will, however, be compared to Vista and XP, as well as the competition, especially OS X. After companies accepted the thought of not moving to a newer windos release (i.e. Vista), they will entertain the same thoughts with Win7. So this is not an "automatic update", it will have to bring some convincing reasons.

I've yet to see one.

Releasing a beta without any compelling reasons to prefer it over XP might well cause the kind of press that MS doesn't need at all - the kind that says "it's nice, but it does nothing old XP doesn't do".