Slashdot Mirror


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."

12 of 672 comments (clear)

  1. Pivacy Issues by Erris · · Score: -1, Troll
    --
    DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
    1. Re:Pivacy Issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      This guy was modded +3 Interesting? Geez, what is wrong with the moderators here? The structure of that post was classic and obvious Slashtroturfing.

      Microsofties have posted like that many times in the past here, along the lines of "Well, I do like my Linux boxes, but ahem, Windows Vista is looking not too bad nowadays and I may actually try it out myself one of these days, hint, hint, everybody."

      If his obvious Slashtroturf post was ratable as +3 Interesting, then mine must be ratable at some mega-moderated + Quintillion rays from God or something.

  2. Re:I tried to watch some of his speech. by TheKidWho · · Score: 0, Troll

    The Reality Distortion Field has a large sway over you.

  3. The Dangers Of Wacking Off To Jobs Keynotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You really have to feel for the Mac loonies facing Jobs taking a dirtnap soon.

    The days of jumping up and down and tinkeling their panties over every overpriced and overhyped Apple product with an 'i' bolted on the name and actually cradled in Steve Jobs VERY OWN HANDS right there on stage in front of you are over.

    Don't cry retard, you can still put on your emo black sweater and hold up your fucking iPhone in front of a mirror just like Steve did to relive the good old days...

     

  4. Flog that dog! by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.

  5. Re:Oh, that's what made Vista fail!? by whoever57 · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  6. Re:Oh, that's what made Vista fail!? by Jurily · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.)

  7. The Window of Opportunity closes by phypsilon · · Score: 1, Troll

    - 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

  8. Re:Least popular?? by dave562 · · Score: 0, Troll
    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.

  9. Re:Oh, that's what made Vista fail!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Insightful? All file systems fragment, period. Some try to employ various countermeasures to proactively prevent fragmentation but unless you literally have infinite hard drive space there will always be fragmentation. Wake up, fucktard, there are defrag utilities for Linux and MacOSX. There is a good chance that your system desperately needs it.

    In Windows, defragmentation isn't just about trying to keep files contiguous. Windows keeps statistics on files and will move commonly used files to faster sections of a volume.

  10. dangerous publicity stunt by Tom · · Score: 0, Troll

    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".

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  11. Re:I tried to watch some of his speech. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Why do you feel the need to "sign" your posts? Do you feel people are too stupid to look and see your name is already displayed clearly? Or maybe you are so enamored with yourself that you like to see your name written twice?