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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.

12 of 864 comments (clear)

  1. I'm so sick of this... by cyber1kenobi · · Score: 0, Troll

    Vista SUCKS. Period. It is an annoying kink in the neck. It's not just hype, it SUCKS. They can try all the spin they want "oh the bloggers gave us a bad rap!" BS If you create an operating system and purposely make it to annoy the users, what do you think you'll get?

    --
    Do or do not. There is no try. --Yoda
  2. Re:Lets be fair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's not difficult to be better than Vista

  3. Re:poor reasoning by HerculesMO · · Score: 1, Troll

    I'm sorry, I'm not the developer of Windows 7 so I don't have the details, but from what I've read (and I do read from places other than Slashdot), that Windows 7 stops allowing *some* applications to be written entirely like shit.

    That's not to say of course, that there won't be shitty applications out there, but the ones that *require admin rights* and other things won't function well. They are breaking compatibility for those poorly coded apps.

    Other things like Direct X, memory management, caching... I guess those are plusses too. On the enterprise end there are *lots* of enhancements and benefits, but since this is Slashdot, nobody's really going to care because they all work for Red Hat and don't use Windows in the enterprise (what a laugh).

    I think we'll see the benefits when it comes out.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
  4. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    And continuing to require virus protection? EPIC FAIL.

    • A necessary fail. It's either that or they implement their own half-assed solution, like Windows Firewall or Defender.
    • Go back to 4chan, faggot.
  5. Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed by zimtmaxl · · Score: 1, Troll

    As a matter of fact while people get older they get more used to the things they use. It takes time and effort to get acquainted with something new. Wether the new thing is a car, a new OS, other software or just new socks.

    I agree with you except for the Mexican standoff.

    To "prove my point in writing" I have tested Windows 7 on my older Tablet PC (motion LE1600) which was designed for XP. So I did use XP and Vista quite a lot of time on this machine. Win7 is far from prime time.
    There are still several bugs. But none the less is IS impressive.

    You can read more about installing and using Win7 here on my blog: http://max.zamorsky.name/2009/01/13/windows7-auf-einem-motion-computing-le1600-tablet-pcwindows7-on-a-motion-computing-le1600-tablet-pc/

    And here are some nice Windows 7 Humor things I found over at some sites: http://max.zamorsky.name/2009/01/14/windows-7-humorwindows-7-humor/

    --
    how IT is changing the world - http://max.zamorsky.name
  6. Re:Lets be fair by jo42 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The most easily understood comparison between Vista and Windows 7 is this:

    a) Vista => Turd

    b) Windows 7 => Polished Turd

    Q.E.D.

  7. Re:Well by Khuffie · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why is Linux absurdly exploitable then? My Linux webserver has been exploited a couple of times, even though it was kept up to date with the latest security patches.

    Every OS is exploitable, even the most hardened security system can be exploited. Don't kid yourself that Linux or OS X won't have the same amount of viruses Windows has now if it had a 90% market share on the desktop, because they would. Malware authors will concentrate their efforts on what will yield the greatest results, and right now, that's Windows.

    Really, not that I'm excusing unsafe security models, but the only real way to solve the virus issue is to educate your users. Pretty much every single time I've seen someone get a virus, it was because of their own idiocy.

    Unfortunately, even that fails sometime. It can't cover everything. Remember how I mentioned my Linux server got hacked? Well, it invoked a javascript code that redirected to a PDF file on all my sites, and when I visited my blog, Acrobat automatically opened it without even prompting (bad Acrobat! Bad!) which contained an exploit with Acrobat itself that infected my PC. Had to format. Ditched Reader and installed FoxIt instead.

  8. Re:Well by hairyfeet · · Score: 0, Troll

    Uhhh....you DO know that the WinNT codebase goes back to 1993, right? Did you look at the Win2K code that was floating around a few years back? While it was pretty well written there was also plenty of comments along the lines of -;HACK-don't know why but removing this kills Office 97 dead-DON'T TOUCH!;. The guys that wrote the original code have long left the organization and I doubt seriously there is anybody there that knows even a single subsystem completely, much less how those subsystems are interacting. So you can claim clean up the code all you want. The simple fact is even with all the money that MSFT has it would be a serious dent in the pocket book to go over those millions of lines of code and try to fix it without breaking two other things at the same time.

    And as for Win7? Mark my words, and mark them well. Win7 wil be as big a flop as Vista. It will go down in flames with the bloggers screaming "I knew it was a turkey!" after the fact. Everyone seems to forget that the pre-release buzz on Vista was overwhelmingly positive. After all, those guys writing the reviews were running to o' the line gaming hardware, not the stuff you get at Best Buy, which is STILL standard at 1Gb of RAM and single core CPUs BTW. Home users learned how to work Windows by memorization. They know "hit this button, go here and click that button and I get my program." which doesn't work for Vista7 because they changed so much for change sake. And by removing the option of "classic" mode they are stuck in a GUI they don't like, understand, or feel comfortable with. And they frankly hate it. And SOHOs and SMBs don't like bling bling. They want boring and gray low resource using OSes because they don't want to buy gamer rigs for their secretaries. They also have many users that work by the "click here" method and don't like retraining and loss of productivity. They too will hate it.

    So mark my words, the bloggers can write about how Win7 is the second coming all they want. When it is on store shelves running on Celeron and Sempron processors at Best Buy you will see the truth. The users will hate it and be avoiding it like the clap just like Vista. There are still tons of single core machines being sold, and Intel and AMD are both still making tons of Celeron and Sempron chips. There are also tons of machines still being sold with only 1Gb of RAM. And when those folks get their new machines from Walmart and Best Buy and see what a slow mess of a multimedia bling bling OS they have they WILL be taking it back. Putting lipstick on the pig doesn't turn the pork into steak. Sorry.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  9. Re:Why Vista Really Failed by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 1, Troll

    Completely wrong. There are two reasons why Vista failed. The first is that it's a crap product.

    What a well-researched, well argued point.

    Here's the problem: everyone telling me that Vista is crap can't seem to tell me why. Sure, they rumble up a few reasons like "performance", "stability", or "hardware support", but when you ask them for the hard and fast stats the numbers paint a very different picture.

    Vista is a few percent slower than XP, except in some specific edge-case microbenchmarks. Vista works with everything I own, from my EEE PC to my T61 to my home-built desktop. It supports every app that I run. It doesn't crash.

    So, I guess I actually like this "slow, bloated, crashy OS". Perhaps it's because Vista 64 is better supported than XP64 ever was. Perhaps it's because the audio system works better with my odd speaker setup (5.1 missing the rear speakers). Perhaps it's because it's saved my ass more than once by keeping shadow copies of things I've overwritten or deleted.

    So, unless you have something better than "it's a crap product", please stop pissing on Vista. Vague, unspecified reasons aren't going to cut it.

  10. Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? by HermMunster · · Score: 1, Troll

    Give me a break. I fix computers for a living. There's nothing troll like about my response. Vista is and was that bad. I have to fix it every day. Ars was wrong then and is wrong now.

    There are 47+ programs in Vista that collect information and sends it back to Microsoft and that information includes your IP and the date/time. Microsoft militarily drafted the hardware manufacturers denying them certification if they didn't implement the hardware circuitry to verify that the DRM wasn't being tampered with, even if we the consumer never wanted to purchase such a product. Microsoft took to degrading video content whenver they felt that certain content being played was not valid copyright and this was proven as fact by numerous sources such as the Doctor that looked at high rez x-ray photos for a living and found the images were degraded when he played an MP3 file. It was further proven that when you played an MP3 file that the bandwidth for copying files over even your local network was seriously degraded.

    There are serious issues that exist today.

    I have 3 machines that have vista on them and several with XP and several with Linux. I am not trolling. I was a bit lazy to not push out my reasons why I believe ARS to be wrong--and it is that they are wrong.

    Vista was well known as a pig with lipstick. Win7 is just Vista with a different taskbar and some other changes. They could easily have rolled that out as a patch to Vista instead of trying to siphon off more money from the public.

    Microsoft is not innocent, even after being convicted in the US as a criminal monopolist and having the individual states in the US conclude the same. The EU has also found Microsoft a monopolist and that they have acted in a criminal way, even so much as to recently, within the past week, announce that the integration of IE into the OS is anti-competitive and criminal.

    So, please, get control of yourself and stop acting like anything being written that disagrees with ARS is a troll.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  11. Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? by HermMunster · · Score: 0, Troll

    Not my fault you can't read. Are you not paying attention or do you just lack the ability to actually understand what is written? Have you never been a member of a family where the father was in the military and he treated his family/kids in a militaristic fashion? How about after he was out of the military? Have you not seen people act in a militaristic fashion to get them to do something? Many businesses work in the same way.

    What I wrote is correct and accurate and long standing knowledge, from even before Vista was released. It isn't my fault you are so naive that you can't get out from under your rock and read up on it.

    Of course there are 47+ programs and these don't count the WGA/WGN. There are 20+ more that I didn't reference. Microsoft acknowledges this and has admitted to it. It isn't possible to turn those programs off without disabling Vista near completely. Even Microsoft admits that.

    As far as the playing .mp3 files and copying other files over your local network goes, this is also a long standing fact that Microsoft admitted to.

    As far as the degradation of HD content playback due to suspected copyright violation (of anything being played back) that has also been acknowledged by Microsoft. When are you going to get your ass up and look around you?

    I'm not creating FUD. I'm not creating false rumor. These are there and they are well known. You just didn't or wouldn't take the time to learn about them or you are so easily duped that you think it is OK for it to happen.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  12. Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? by HermMunster · · Score: 0, Troll

    I don't know who Gutmann is and I have no idea what he's done to take away your trust. And I don't care.

    Prior to Vista we had XP, Win2k, ME, 98, 95, 3.1, etc. None of these had this shameless DRM at the heart of the OS. Putting it in was a choice. Not only that it was a bad choice. Microsoft expected to be able to grab revenue from content creators by licensing them the DRM technology. What this meant was that any content created for the Windows system wouldn't work on any other, such as Mac OSX or Linux. This was because the system that maintained the DRM was at the heart of the OS. That's the only reason why they implemented it; as a revenue stream from the content creators and a way to lock in the consumer to Windows due to a committment to the DRM'd technology adopted by the content creators. If you bought $3,000 a year in DRM'd content that ran only on Windows and in 5 years decided you were unhappy with Microsoft you would have to choose--loose the content or stay with Microsoft.

    Microsoft was trying to do with all other content exactly what Apple had done with the iPod. In case you don't understand it that content purchased for the iPod that is DRM'd won't play on any other mobile player other than the iPod. Though with the advent of iTunes for Windows it can be played on Windows PCs. But, it can't be played on any other OS without hacks.

    If you can look at the revenue stream Apple has from the DRM'd content then you can see how much more that revenue stream would have been for all other content. And no, Microsft had no intent of licensing it to other platforms.

    The only fly in their ointment was that just at precisely the time that Vista was being released there was an uproar over DRM. Ever wonder why? It was due to the fact that people understood that DRM content was bad and that lock in technologies were bad and that Microsoft was taking advantage of it's position in OSes to gain another position in DRM'd content.

    So, we can easily rebut your comments as being self centered because you 1) don't like who he sources (which others should be suspect of your motive) and 2) you don't know the history of the development of Vista nor of the release timeframe which lead to vendors dropping DRM content (or at least fighting it to the point it isn't discussed much any more). We can also tell that you make reference as such that you believe that Microsoft had no choice but to add DRM to the heart of the OS and that you mislead without stating fact, how they are doing it.

    On that last part, we already know that other OSes don't have DRM at the heart and we know that it isn't necessary for the consumer as the consumer is almost always hurt by DRM. Those that want to copy content illegally can.

    What you are also trying to say is that if it wasn't for Microsoft implementing the DRM technology in Vista no one would be able to actually view their HD content. Well, this is patently false. HD content can be accessed already on products without DRM being at the heart of it. You are also saying that this is best for the customer because it is best for the content creators. That itself is patently false.

    Microsoft with 47+ programs collect information about your activities and sends that back to their servers. They claim they don't keep the info and they claim they collect no identifying information. But this isn't true. They may not keep the masses of information that doesn't yield a positive for violation but they do keep that which they believe is. They also send your IP address and the date and time, which is precisely the way that the RIAA used to identify people.

    This is akin to having Walmart show up every Sunday morning demanding to go through your stuff and then after searching and finding that you are valid they toss out the paperwork of their visit. You wouldn't let Walmart in, you wouldn't even let the police in, so why would you even consider letting Microsoft it.

    First, you didn't take the time to investigate nor did you disprove a

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.