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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...
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.
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.