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Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's
Death Metal Maniac tips an Ars Technica piece suggesting that the media's coverage of Vista's flaws portrayed the operating system as worse than it was, and, if early reports on Windows 7 are any indication, positive hype will create the opposite reaction this time around. Quoting: "... the problem is exaggeration; ... bloggers and journalists alike use their personal experiences to prove their point in their writing. The blame doesn't solely lie with us, as Vista was by no means perfect, but we did manage to amplify the problems beyond reason. And if the beta is anything to go by, Windows 7 is going to fly. This is, by far, the best beta operating system the software giant has ever released. The media has locked on to this, and is using exaggeration already, before Windows 7 is even ready for prime time." Apparently a decent beta can succeed where $300 million and Jerry Seinfeld failed.
It looks like their marketing department has refined what appears to be their only effective strategy.... Which we've seen before with Win98->WinME->WinXP.
You HAVE a perfectly serviceable product, WindowsXP.
You release something really shitty, Windows Vista.
The expected backlash gives you an opportunity to announce the release of the panacea for all Vista's ills. Windows 7.
Now, since Windows 7 APPEARS TO BE so much better than the APPARENTLY SHITTY Vista, there's a lot of positive attention.
But at the end of the day, Microsoft's PRODUCTS still aren't compelling -- Windows 7 main selling point is that it just doesn't work like shit -- and that appears to be good enough.
But 'not working like shit' is what we already HAVE, with XP.
Brilliant.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Problem is that it relies on OLD technology to 'work well'.
In that case, why upgrade the Linux kernel, ever? It works well. Why upgrade your car? It gets you from point A to point B. Why upgrade anything, ever?
If you're in that mindset, you would suffice with having a butter churn and live by candlelight. They are servicable too.
But for the rest of us who want "next gen" technology, I think Windows 7 does have some benefits (as did Vista, in a much crappier package) over XP. And if you don't see that, then stick with XP. I don't see the big deal.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Then you've been hearing wrong. Which is sort of the point of the article. There's all this positive hype around 7, true or not, just like there was negative spin around Vista, true or not. Show me one thing in Vista that's "turned off" in 7, bloat-wise. Windows 7 is Windows Vista with performance optimizations, visual tweaks and UI improvements.
And pray-tell, what real benefits are those?
Badly composited windows that take way too many resources?
Removal of receiving and sending faxes from the home (crippled user) version?
Non-accelerated sound system?
DRM system built in on the audio and video subsystems?
Ram gobbler (2GB.. not enough)?
10GB install with no real apps (where did the space go)? yay solitaire.
I was ready to throw Vista out of the window within minutes of my first encounter with it. So far I've clocked a few hours in Win7 and, as of yet, the same compulsion has not struck me.
Only time will tell if that's going to last. UAC really *really* still needs a "remember my answer for this file" checkbox to avoid being turned off completely. It makes no sense what so ever that I should have to click "yes" every bloody time I start my defragmentation application. Sure, if something tries to start it without my direct interaction, tell me. But as long as I'm selecting the menu option to start it, and I've previously said "go ahead", and the file hasn't changed... Just bloody start it already!
I've been using the beta for several weeks now, and its certainly no complete rewrite, but it has had stuff rewritten - its an OS I would more than be happy to use, and that's including any comparison with XP as well as Vista.
Out of interest, how would *you* solve the virus issue? Because its not something you can ever completely solve through OS security alone, when your users still need to do stuff...
I think you will find a lot of comparison between XP and Windows 7 is going on, you are simply assuming your view is correct.
I prefer Windows 7, even at this beta stage, over XP - direct comparison.
The users I support are going to have *huge* problems with the new taskbar. First, they have a problem with grouping tasks into one icon. They never did get the hang of that, so we ended up just unchecking that feature.
Second, the default is to have no text under the icon. They are going to have a hard time figuring out what is already running. They'll end up double clicking everything.
Third, the taskbar no longer appends each new application to the end of the running tasks. That will throw people off.
In addition, they are really going to confuse themselves with all of the new mouse gestures.
Other than that, windows 7, like Vista, and XP before it has the same basic interface as 9x. Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, Menu launcher in the lower left hand corner.
Windows 7 should go back to home and pro setup no 5+ vers like vista. Maybe also have a enterprise ver with extras apps / tools for that as well.
Also all packs should oem and retail should come with the 32bit and 64bit disks or let people down load the 64bit iso for free and let them use there key that they have.
That's a dumb argument. I still slice bread with knife, a technology which has been around for thousands of years - I could move to spiffy new computer controlled laser system, but why? It's expensive, both to acquire and replace, it's more work to service, and it doesn't get me much.
So what if the technology is old? Why is the new technology any better? What is the new technology that Win7 introduces that makes it so much better than XP? You don't mention it in your post.
Speak for yourself. My PC has some seriously expensive and very recent technology in it, and XP has lots of problems with it. I get lockups, driver issues (XP seems almost incapable of reliably running my Geforce 280), and the boot time is appalling.
And no, its not out of date drivers or too much stuff loading at startup. I have antivirus and gmal notifier, that's all. Plus my drivers are all up to date. The problem is that XP is ten year old technology. Patched up or not, its still far too old. It seems that once you move past a certain technology threshold, XP just can't cope.
The Ubuntu I duel boot runs the same hardware smooth as a jolly smooth thing, so its not crappy hardware either.
WIndows 7 Beta loads fast, has *zero* driver issues for me (the geforce drivers need to improve, but they work, and it is a beta...), and overall beats the crap out of XP in every respect. I even tried it on my laptop (usually that runs Vista), and the improvements were imediatelly apparent in terms of speed.
I've shied away from using it as my main development OS thus far, but plan to in the next month or so.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
User education isn't going to work. People have been waving that flag for at least 20 years, and it still hasn't happened. Instead, computers are going to have to be more secure by default, while also having IT security departments more receptive to users' needs.
Not a typewriter
You got it wrong. My Linux server was exploited, I'm not quite sure how (nor did the server management guys). Every PHP file on the server had javascript code injected on it. When people browsed the website, this javascript code forwarded you to a PDF that had an exploit when opened up in Acrobat, that infected your computer.
So my website had that javascript code infected on it. On my home machine, running XP (and an antivirus app), I browse to my website. It automatically redirects to the PDF, which automatically runs in Acrobat, which automatically infects my PC.
I was just merely pointing out an example that yes, Linux with all it's fancy security model CAN also get exploited, and even with lots of user education AND running AntiVirus apps, you can still get infected. The remedial action on my home PC was to get rid of Acrobat, because I didn't want to suffer any future exploits it had. The remedial action on the server was to reinstall the OS, restore the files from backup, and run through every PHP file and make sure it didn't have the injected javascript code on it.
We go over this all the time here. Yet some people never seem to read it. So, here they are again. In no particular order.
#1. Understand the difference between a "virus", a "worm" and a "trojan".
#2. Take a hint from Ubuntu and have NO open ports on the DEFAULT installation. That will pretty much wipe out worm attacks. Do NOT depend upon a firewall to do that. The firewall is a SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE that is often disabled because it interferes with legitimate apps that the user wants to run. I can put a default installation of Ubuntu directly on the 'Web and it will NOT be cracked.
#3. Provide a "known good" list of files (names, date/time, multiple checksums) for ALL of the OS files. This way, at least infections can be removed easier. It's easier to find a file that is NOT on the known good and remove it than it is to find a file that MAY be a newly obfuscated version of an old virus.
#4. Keep the OS directories CLEAN. That means that installing MS Office MUST NOT install ANY updated files in the OS directories.
#5. Move to INI files for apps instead of allowing them to edit the registry. If you really must keep the registry, keep it clean.
#6. Consolidate the various temp directories and DUMP them during the boot process.
Remember, viruses, worms and trojans are nothing more than code. They are not magical. Limit how code can be written to the system and you limit how they may spread. Enforce organization and you limit where they may be written.
Once the disinfection rate exceeds the infection rate, the viruses, worms and trojans will die.
This is actually not the first time Calculator has received an update, but of course When you change the insides, nobody notices:
actually there are two modes of operation (as the grandparent said). There is "standard" which works like an off the shelf cheap calculator. This mode *ignores* order of operations by design, because that's what cheap non-scientific calculators do!.
In scientific mode, it will properly use order of operations.
Funny enough, I do some contributing to kcalc for KDE and having a mode which ignore orders of operators to make it work like a "real calculator" is a relatively frequent request. I'm not a fan of this idea, so I never did it...but there is a demand for it.
When someone always decides to reinvent the whole fucking wheel, its always wasteful. I care for mother earth - the only thing I really need to upgrade is a higher efficiency PSU. Requiring a new computer for an OS is good for the economy. Landfills are getting more and more computer and related equipment which was perfectly functional but wasn't good enough for a new commercial OS. Productivity software and and the Internet work just fine for most people until a new OS shows up.
My current system has 1 GB of RAM and a 2.4 GHz CPU which does more than enough for the work I need. Windows 7 add absolutely no value to me and does not help me more productive and organized. The marketing dept. at MS loves that line. But they can never prove it "productive and organized".Where's a better Windows Explorer? Its been a total rehash since Windows 95 days, but just some newer icons each time. Since MS likes Ctrl + C, Ctrl+ V, just give me OS X Finder in Windows already. Guess that comes with the next OS.
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. So it will use whats there to optimize itself.
Try something for kicks. Boot Windows 7 on a 256 megs of RAM machine. See how much RAM it uses.
Pro tip hint: its not going to hit the swap file.
An OS that cannot adjust its ressource usage for caching and optimisations depending on your system's specs is a failure. Vista ran just fine on a single core machine with 1 gig of RAM, and ran better on a 800 mhz 512 megs of RAM (extremely low end by the time Vista came out) than XP did on a 500 mhz 256 megs RAM (quite high end when XP came out). Win7 runs even better than that.
I installed it on a 256 megs machine that makes XP Home struggle, and it arguably runs better. Enough to be able to get something done without wanting to kill myself anyway. Now, I know, a certain other OS can run on even less than that better. I'm not going to say on an extremely low end machine that -any- versions of Windows will work better than a *nix, but its a total urban legend from people who don't know what they're doing that you need such a powerful machine for Vista (I don't care if you're a sysadmin who works with 100 thousand desktops: if you need 2 gigs RAM and a strong CPU to make Vista work, you don't know how to work a Windows box better than my mom can), and Win7 can run on seriously minimalistic hardware by today's standards: you CAN squeeze it on 128 megs of RAM before it gets actually painful.
but the original article seems a rather twisted exercise in logic. ON THE SAME HARDWARE, I tested Vista and Win7. Vista proved a resource hog, ran slow, and caused a number of headaches due to incompatibilities. It's "security features" were intrusive, among other things. Win7 proves to run faster than WinXP, I ran into no compatibility problems, and the security seems to be a slight improvement on WinXP. No, it isn't all media hype that's responsible for Vista's flop, and Win7's impending success. The Win7 Beta is superior to Vista, plain and simple. The finished product is likely to be even better.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br