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.

Comments

Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[M1rth]

but we did manage to amplify the problems beyond reason.

No you didn't. And yes, I've had to use Vista.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[duguk]

You forgot to mention, they've upgraded calc!! :o)

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Kopiok]

Almost all of those issues seem to be aesthetic, and that opinion will vary between person to person. For instance, I love the new control panel, the Ribbon, and the style of the windows/taskbar. Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[RalphSleigh]

Pressing 3 + 2 * 2 = in windows calculator.

Standard: 10 (as a handheld calculator would produces, as it calculates 3 + 2 when you press *)

Scientific: 7 (as the scientific calculator on my desk produces)

What's the problem?

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[A Friendly Troll]

But did they fix the [calc] bug? Or does it still produce 'scientific' and 'wrong' results for 3+2*2?

Ages ago. http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/05/25/141253.aspx

The calculator in Windows 7 is also vastly improved: http://lifehacker.com/5078756/windows-7s-calculator-bundles-real+life-uses

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[hardburn]

Did they fix it so I can type '3 2 2 * +'?

Also, I seem to remember that Win2k notepad could handle Unix line endings, but the feature disappeared in WinXP. Did they forget to merge in the right code and never got around to fixing it again?

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Taagehornet]

This is actually not the first time Calculator has received an update, but of course When you change the insides, nobody notices:

I wouldn't be surprised if these are the same people who complain, "Why does Microsoft spend all its effort on making Windows 'look cool'? They should spend all their efforts on making technical improvements and just stop making visual improvements."
And with Calc, that's exactly what happened: Massive technical improvements. No visual improvement. And nobody noticed. In fact, the complaints just keep coming. "Look at Calc, same as it always was."
The innards of Calc - the arithmetic engine - was completely thrown away and rewritten from scratch. The standard IEEE floating point library was replaced with an arbitrary-precision arithmetic library. This was done after people kept writing ha-ha articles about how Calc couldn't do decimal arithmetic correctly, that for example computing 10.21 - 10.2 resulted in 0.0100000000000016.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Cowmonaut]

Okay, glad to see that stuff like UI layout is being modded up. It only is a matter of personal taste but whatever. I personally hate the Office Ribbon, but haven't had to use Office 2007 much so I can't be sure if its bad or not. I have used Vista and played with Windows 7 and I personally like the new UI for Windows Explorer. I think its oodles better than the flat gray color used in Windows XP, 2000, and 95/98.

But who cares about the way the UI looks. That's really a minor thing compared to the issues that were amplified. The first poster here gets modded +5 Insightful for saying "Ars Technia is Wrong" without providing any evidence of the fact.

I'm sorry dude, but you are wrong. What was wrong with Vista? Well there were some hardware incompatibility issues that were resolved within the first four months, and for the most part that was strictly NVIDIA, who behaved like a child and got a few other vendors to tell MS "NO! We're NOT going to correct our drivers for the changes you made!" Granted, it was bullshit that MS made those kinds of changes that late in development, but really all they did was boost Intel and ATI sales slightly since OEMs needed "Vista Capable" hardware to go with the new OS they had to use.

Which brings us to the biggest issues with Vista: the hardware requirements. Oh no, it requires a whole 2G of RAM to XP's 1G. Given the price of RAM, this is REALLY a non-issue for people who build their own systems. All it did was irritate OEMs, and you just know it was a marketing guy at MS not one of the engineers who told the OEMs to use the 512 and it'll all be fine. I'll let the class action lawsuit settle that dispute. It was a non issue for myself and the people I know that built a Vista system were gamers, and for the most part the benchmarks for games while using Vista Ultimate x64 and XP SP2 were the pretty much the same.

The software incompatibilities were only to be expected. For the most part Vista's built in backwards compatibility modes work awesome and now that people have been needing to develop on 64 bit OS its a non issue. From the start this was a given for an architecture change and personally I don't count it against Vista since it was going to happen eventually anyways, but I'll count it against it anyways since everyone else seems to too.

The only other major issue I can think of was the file transfer times. Before SP1, I personally never noticed this issue. Not sure what I was doing different, other than most people seemed to be referencing Windows Server 2003 so these people were using Vista most likely around the office rather than at home. Given how many people that rag on Vista that aren't network admins and mention the transfer times I'm sort of interested to know if it was THAT widespread for home users but couldn't find any quick references. Either way, once SP1 came out I stopped hearing of this issue. Given its MS it was pretty obvious the OS would be flakey until the first SP. I'm not sure why people freaked out over this when XP had a few more issues along similar lines but whatever.

So mod on you MS bashers! I just love how a supposedly intelligent site like Slashdot has this rabid fanaticism about OS choices. The flaming of Apple's OS and the various Linux distros (not to mention the BSD based ones) never ceases to amaze. I guess humans just need something to cling to. With apologies to Terry Pratchett: "Give them a slogan and a uniform, and their hearts and minds will follow."

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Pr0xY]

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.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[LiquidFire_HK]

I didn't even know the two modes worked differently until now. In my eyes the problems are:

• That the mode is switched from a menu called "View", implying that there is only a visual, not a functional difference.
• A scientific calculator shows you the expression so far, while this one doesn't, despite having way more screen estate than a desktop calculator. So it functions differently from what it displays to the user (it remembers the whole expression, but only shows you the last thing entered).

Both are pretty major issues for such a simple app, IMO.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[blincoln]

What was wrong with Vista?

Vista, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:

1 - It still doesn't disable autorun/autoplay from writeable media by default. This is totally inexcusable these days. In fact, I would argue that autorun/autoplay in general is inexcusable. At most there should be a popup asking if you want to explore the volume or run the autorun/autoplay program.
2 - File copies are ridiculously slow. Unzipping files using the built-in handler is unbelievably slow compared to e.g. 7-zip.
3 - Apparently I can't share arbitrary folders as writeable, only the Users\Public folder. Everything else gets the "read-only" box checked as soon as I close the properties window regardless of the NTFS and share permissions.
4 - In order to allow write access to the Public folder, I have to use the asinine "Network and Sharing Center", the most pointless piece of crap middleman "utility" ever invented by Microsoft.
5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details. So like every other version of Windows, the first thing I did was to set the view to Details for a folder, go into the Folder Options, and tell Windows not to use unique views for each folder. Despite doing this many times, Vista will still randomly pick other views that it thinks are better (even though they're worse) for some folders some of the time. It also refuses to remember the sort order I choose for my Documents folder, and every time I go into it, it's sorted by Type, not Name.
6 - I still have to reboot after nearly every set of patches.
7 - It's bogged down with DRM.
8 - Because of the new driver models, support for a bunch of still-useful legacy hardware was dropped. Should I really have to buy a new analogue video capture card, for example? S-Video and composite haven't really changed much in the last few years.
9 - UAC. At least I can turn this off.
10 - As others have suggested, changing things for the sake of changing things (as opposed to making them better). E.g. the Office ribbon-style UI, the aforementioned Network and Sharing Center, etc.
11 - The stupid split-token behaviour for administrators if UAC is enabled (although I can't remember offhand if this is just in Server 2008 or Vista as well, because I turn off UAC on my personal system). If you're going to copy (K)Ubuntu, please do it right, MS.
12 - There's still no true equivalent of a root account. Even if you use psexec to start up a command line in the context of the system account, there are things it's not allowed to do.

I've been using Vista for about two years now, so these are not first impressions. The only reason I've stuck with it for so long is the volume of data I have on this system and not wanting to have to reconfigure everything by going back to XP.

There were a few things I thought were clever at first, like the "smart" sort order for directories. But even that seems like more of a headache than it's worth to me at this point.

I had really hoped that when I saw Server 2008 and Windows 7, I would see that MS had backpedaled after realizing what a bunch of jerks they'd made themselves look like with Vista. Sadly they haven't, and so my next desktop is going to run Kubuntu as the primary OS. I've been using it on a secondary system for awhile now and while it's a little rough around the edges, I vastly prefer it to Vista.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Midnight Thunder]

Almost all of those issues seem to be aesthetic, and that opinion will vary between person to person. For instance, I love the new control panel, the Ribbon, and the style of the windows/taskbar. Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!

The aesthetics still need work. They can't get a common icon theme thoughout the OS, for applications they own. For me it feels more cluttered and harder to use than XP. I don't feel the a UI expert was involved.

In the end what really gets me is that Apple is able to release a new OS increment almost every year, yet is able to include useful new features and what generally feels like well though out UI design. Sure they don't get it right every time, but since the incursion of MacOS X, they seem to be getting it right more often. Microsoft might have to deal with many more hardware platforms, but the issues they have with Vista are essentially hardware independent.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[nschubach]

I still can't get over how they want me to pay for less. They seemed to have spent an exorbitant amount of time working on the gloss and glitter of the OS, but seemed to strip features that I liked out of the OS altogether. I love the ability to turn quicklaunch bars into menus. It made transitions from Gnome to Windows (and back) easier. (Maybe this was their point in removing them?) I also dislike that the classic start menu is gone. I understand people didn't like that depth of menus (which is what I actually liked, being able to customize the layout) but to remove the feature altogether seems like a knee-jerk reaction. Also, I read about someone disliking the new treeview and I have to agree. I want lines and I don't want my icons disappearing if the view loses focus.

I also dislike the addition of more toolbars that cannot be removed. This seems to enforce the idea that the OS has to be a greater part of your computer usage when, in fact, I want it to get out of my way more.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[davester666]

Windows 7 is just Vista SP2 + 3 years newer hardware + drivers.

When Vista came out:
-people had slower CPU's and GPU's, which couldn't run Vista well. Also, MS said OK to Intel screwing everybody with the 'Vista-capable' debacle.
-people had older peripherals, which either didn't have drivers available for them when Vista launched, or the manufacturer decided to never make Vista drivers for them
-Vista itself wasn't particularly bug free or user friendly (UAC anyone)

Now, 2 years later (3 when W7 actually ships)
-people have thrown away older peripherals and bought new ones, that have Vista drivers
-drivers are also less buggy, especially graphics drivers
-people (particularly companies) have bought new computers, with a more capable cpu and gpu
-MS has looked to the other major OS's for tips on how to resolve their more egregious UI problems (Linux/MacOSX)

Windows 7 will be still the bloated pig of an OS that Vista was (and is), but hardware and time has caught up so that now, it runs at a reasonable clip on the latest hardware.

This is just a huge rebranding job for MS. It had to be clear to MS shortly after Vista shipped that Vista as a brand was dead from all the negative press it had received. Now, it's just a happy bonus for them to be able to sell you an upgrade to get a package that says Windows 7 instead of Windows Vista.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[palndrumm]

5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details. So like every other version of Windows, the first thing I did was to set the view to Details for a folder, go into the Folder Options, and tell Windows not to use unique views for each folder. Despite doing this many times, Vista will still randomly pick other views that it thinks are better (even though they're worse) for some folders some of the time. It also refuses to remember the sort order I choose for my Documents folder, and every time I go into it, it's sorted by Type, not Name.

Oh dear god yes. This has got to be my #1 annoyance with Vista.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[GigaplexNZ]

Why are you trying to use the power operation when multiply was specified? AC is wrong however, it is not a bug but is in fact intended design. Standard mode calculates it as
(3 + 2) * 2 == 10
in the same way that cheap calculators work, whereas scientific mode uses correct operation ordering uses
3 + (2 * 2) == 7
which is the correct order in maths. The people who claim this is a bug don't appear to fully understand the order of operations and how it applies to real handheld calculators.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[jabithew]

Wow, I don't know what you've done to your Vista but somehow or other you've monged it thouroughly.

1. Mine actually does this. In fact, the behaviour you suggest for default is...erm...the OS default. It's only if you click the "remember this choice" button that it changes.
2. They are slow, though that did improve witht he service pack.
3. I've shared arbitrary folders as writeable. I use it to mount my entire C drive from my Mac.
4. Or you could right-click->Properties->Sharing. Your call. You can't take the long way round and then blame MS for it.
5. I've never done this, so no comment.
6. This is the most annoying thing. Seems like every time you boot the computer you have to reboot it! But this is a flaw with Windows vs. Linux etc, not with Vista in specific.
7. Again, this is not something I've had a problem with (as in, my behaviour has never been restricted by it) but it may be true.
8. A lot of this was driven by the device manufacturers. See the Creative vs. Daniel_K fiasco, discussed here a while ago.
9. Most times I boot the PC I don't run into UAC. It does trigger too often (e.g. when changing user settings) but it doesn't really bug me much more than a privileges elevation in Linux.
10. I actually like the Network and Sharing center. It's a central interface for networking activities. I wish Ubuntu had one by default.
11&12. Yeah, but again, these are criticisms of Windows vs. *nix and the average consumer doesn't seem to care.

I've had no problems with Vista, or at least none that weren't caused by Creative.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[dontmakemethink]

5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details.

LIES!! You've got at least one folder that uses thumbnails view. We all do...

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[ozmanjusri]

Windows 7 is just Vista SP2 + 3 years newer hardware + drivers.

Exactly.

The only reason we're seeing so many "Windows 7 does [Nice Thing]" comments is Microsoft marketing. What they've learned from Vista has nothing to do with improving the product. It's that they have to prime the hype machine before it'll start pumping their way.

Mainstream tech journalism sold its soul decades ago, now all MS has to do is insert enough "I'm a Linux/Mac user, but I've found Windows 7 is so much better than Vista that I just have to switch" into the discussion sites, and the buzz will generate itself.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[shmlco]

Yet another reason why Linux has a 0.86% desktop market share... and dropping.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[zig007]

The innards of Calc - the arithmetic engine

Oh my god. Rewriting the "arithmetic engine" must have been such a HUGE undertaking.
I mean, changing the calculation library for, what, 30 functions???!
I can't believe that they wasn't praised by EVERYONE!

Instead, everybody opted to just view it as a bug fix and not the mammoth achievement, never before attempted, that it was.
Those darned ungrateful users. :-)

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Jurily]

Windows 7 will be still the bloated pig of an OS that Vista was (and is), but hardware and time has caught up so that now, it runs at a reasonable clip on the latest hardware.

To put this in perspective: I just installed Debian (latest) on a 2 GHz Celeron with 256 Mb RAM and 80G harddrive. Runs KDE3 with firef^H^H^H^H^Hiceweasel fine. Now tell me about bloat.

And don't tell me it's too old, the kernel is 10 days old.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[KlausBreuer]

Oh - so now that we have new and better hardware, we can drown it in slow systems? Just to make sure the old software doesn't run faster on it?

This is an OPERATING SYSTEM, for heavens sake. Am I such an old fart that my view "The OS stays quietly in the background" is a rare one? An OS handles the execution of other software. It's supposed to be hardly noticable. And if you load an OS into your PC, and it eats up so much RAM that ONE GIGABYTE of RAM is not sufficient for anything but the desktop background, don't you think they're overdoing it a little bit?

Yeah, a GB is not much these days. But seen as a data storage device, it's HUGE. No reason for your OS to eat it all up.

Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?

[Ant P.]

If you're part of the other 99.14%... good.

Well

[rodrigoandrade]

Call me troll, but I've seen several sub-par products that sold well on hype alone. Windows 7 will do just fine, whether it's any good or not.

At least Microsoft's marketing department is doing its job right this time.

Re:Well

[mikelieman]

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.

Re:Well

[HerculesMO]

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.

Re:Well

[erroneus]

There is a 64 bot Windows XP but they have stopped supporting it. I have it on two workstations at my office and it uses more than 4GB RAM just fine.

Windows Vista's and now Windows 7's most significant competition is Windows XP.

Re:Well

[bobsil1]

Win7 has superfast wifi connect and resume. Big benefit on laptops.

Re:Well

[wvmarle]

I would phase that slightly different.

The bar has been lowered.

Vista was compared to XP, which thanks to its long long long lifetime has become a standard, fairly polished, with known and mostly manageable security issues.

Vista comes along, does things different, breaks a lot, and is considered shitty.

Then Win7 is released, and it is now being compared to it's direct parent, Vista. Not XP. So MS only has to put a product in the market that appears better than Vista (reviewers won't complain too hard about drivers and other compatibility I suppose, it's beta after all), not better than the old and trusted XP.

That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.

Re:Well

[Creepy Crawler]

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.

Re:Well

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

And pray-tell, what real benefits are those?

Vista's Freecell is fully horizontally resizable. I've been waiting 15 years for that feature, if that isn't worth the upgrade I don't know what is.

Re:Well

[SolemnLord]

That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.

Actually, there have been lots of Win7 installs on netbooks, and the general consensus is that it runs fine. Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.

I've been running the Win7beta for a couple weeks now, and it's been a pretty nice experience. My machine's perfectly capable of running Vista, though, so I haven't noticed many speed gains. The UI touch-ups are nice, though.

Re:Well

[Eggplant62]

I'm running Ubuntu Intrepid on a Dell Inspiron 1501. It suspends to disk and resumes very nicely, thanks.

Re:Well

[Richard_at_work]

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...

Re:Well

[Richard_at_work]

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.

Re:Well

[cloakable]

There is a 64 bot Windows XP but they have stopped supporting it.
I wouldn't want to support a Windows install with that many bots either!

it uses more than 4GB RAM just fine.
Why does this not suprise me? Bots are hardly memory-efficient.

Re:Well

[dov_0]

The biggest failure of Windows 7 is that Microsoft is still pursuing their inherently faulty security model based on the main user of the PC running as root.

No wonder it needs so much protection - any malicious code that runs has free reign over the whole system. Vista and Windows 7 have only implemented the much loved security prompts to try and make it 'safer'. Only 1% of users probably understand them anyway...

Re:Well

[SanityInAnarchy]

Out of interest, how would *you* solve the virus issue?

First, stop making the product so absurdly exploitable. In no way should it be possible to contract malware from simply visiting a website, or leaving a network cable plugged in.

Second, make it obvious what you're doing, but not actually intrusive. It should not be possible to download and execute a program without realizing what you're doing. For an example of how to do this wrong, see VBA -- I should not be able to contract malware from a fucking office document. Nor should I have to memorize a list of dangerous file extensions. Compare with Linux -- until you chmod +x, or unpack the archive, it's not dangerous.

Third, provide known-good channels for obtaining new software. See: Linux package managers and repositories. Tie it in to Microsoft Update. Make it possible for third parties to run their own repositories. No need to host everything yourself, but it should at least be possible to periodically fetch, from a trusted source, a list of updated packages and signatures.

And finally, educate your users. The only computer which is secure from a user's own idiocy is one which doesn't let the user do anything worth protecting. Not limited to Windows, either, though it would help if the OS encouraged more secure, rather than less secure, modes of operation.

But until you've done the other steps, no amount of education will solve the problem. As long as the standard Windows method of installing software is some random EXE downloaded off a website, with at most an unverifiable signature claiming it's from that website, it requires too much effort.

Re:Well

[Richard_at_work]

The problem is, the *only* one out of your collection of 'solutions' that would be likely to have any long term effect is the user education, and even then it wouldn't solve it.

In a day and age where an email borne trojan, locked away in a password protected zip file, purporting to be an urgent fix for your computer can get a not insubstantial install base shows that your points 1 - 3 would be nothing more than short term fixes, if that.

Re:Well

[abigsmurf]

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.

1: opinion, I quite like the windows layout in Vista. Vista uses lots of resources as a whole, it's not down to the windows. Don't want your GPU being used for Aero? Disable it.

2: Are you serious? How many home users ever send a fax at all, let alone through their PC? I've not seen a PC built in the last 5+ years that had a fax modem.

3: That is one of the best features of Vista. Bad sound drivers were one of the main causes of blue screens in XP. Putting a software layer between the drivers and hardware prevents a lot of problems because manufacturers simply couldn't be trusted. I suppose the per application volume control and other benefits the Vista sound system brings are awful too?

4: I wish people would stop parroting this stupid point. The DRM Vista enables you to play things you otherwise couldn't play. You strip out the DRM and there's no difference except you can't play certain media types. Don't like DRM, don't buy protected media!

5: unused RAM is wasted RAM. So long as it frees up the RAM when a high priority application needs it, using spare RAM for caching can have huge benefits. Don't trot out the power usage argument. The difference in power between half full ram and full ram is miniscule

Re:Well

[SkreamNet]

How is one random user with one specific machine with something working moderated "Informative"? Suspend doesn't work on my Inspiron 6000.... so uh, I cancel you out? Not to mention that the latest Ubuntu boots and responds much slower than either XP or Win7beta on _this_ machine... but one machine tells you nothing doesn't it?

Re:Well

[forgoil]

If Microsoft audited their code and used the same kind of measures that OpenBSD does, they would be miles ahead of were they are now. Security models and sandboxes in all their glory, but a *lot* of the problems are down to faulty code, code that Microsoft owns and can audit and freaking fix. Only after they have done that can we talk security models and such things. With all the bugs and holes it is so easy to attack windows that nobody really will care about trying to do anything on a grander scale.

Re:Well

[smoker2]

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.

WTF has that got to do with Linux ? How did this malicious pdf get on "all your sites" in the first place ? How did the javascript get onto your sites ?

It sounds more like your pc was infected anyway. Especially as the only remedial action you mention taking is to get rid of Acrobat.

Re:Well

[aaron.axvig]

It only took ~6GB when I installed it.
7 ran quite well on 512 MB RAM.
Turns off defragmenter for SSDs
More efficient SSD formatting
Boot from VHD
CableCARD and H.264 support built-in
MP4, MOV, 3GP, AVCHD, ADTS, M4A, and WTV multimedia containers, with native codecs for H.264, MPEG4-SP, ASP/DivX/Xvid, MJPEG, DV, AAC-LC, LPCM, AAC-HE
UAC is way better--less prompts
Windows Biometric Framework
DNSSEC support
Powershell built in
Can burn ISOs
Wordpad supports OOXML and ODF
Libraries
Federated Search via OpenSearch
Re-arrange things on taskbar...yes you can make it look almost exactly like the Vista taskbar if you want.
Jump Lists
WinKey+Arrow Key for moving applications to one half of the monitor or the other
Touch integration

Yes a lot of these things can be had on Linux/through 3rd party programs. But now they are included in the OS, which 99% of the time means less problems/slowness/crashes. And developers can count on them to be there.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7#Core_operating_system

Re:Well

[gwait]

Please explain how acrobat had write permission to the operating system files.
----
This "No viruses for linux/bsd/osx because they are not popular" is simply microsoft propaganda.
If the 90/10 market share is true, then those systems should have 10% of the virus market by that logic.

Since so many web servers out there are linux, it stands to reason that virus writers would be more motivated to attack linux, owning a much more strategic point in the web than some end user's windows PC.

Google is a massively parallel network built on linux. You're claiming no virus writers would be interested in owning the google cloud?

Enough with the illogical propaganda.

Re:Well

[Fallingcow]

10GB install with no real apps (where did the space go)? yay solitaire.

Seriously, what the hell are they doing with all that space? Freshly-installed Vista eats more space than Ubuntu with every app I might conceivably want to ever use installed, even with Vista's disk-swap turned off!

Re:Well

[hardburn]

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.

Re:Well

[Khuffie]

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.

Re:Well

[msuarezalvarez]

But that is most probably due to a badly coded PHP app, which is not exactly an unheard-of thing... Was the system hacked, or only what was write-accessible by the PHP app you are running?

Re:Well

[msuarezalvarez]

You don't think virus writers are attempting to break into the Linux cloud?

What Linux cloud?! I don't think you understand what cloud is supposed to mean (which is not much, really: it is mostly marketing-speak...)

I *have* given you an example of a Linux server getting exploited and owned, but I guess you chose to ignore that.

You have given an example of a PHP app which got owned, which is a complete different thing.

If you had set up an ssh server in that box configured so that it accepts root logins with an empty password, then you would have got hacked in about 3 minutes. But, again, this would have absolutely nothing to Linux's exploitability....

Re:Well

[Khuffie]

Every single PHP file on the system was infected. Each PHP app can only write to the files under that user account's folder (the server had multiple websites/domains). So I'm guessing the system was hacked.

If it was a badly coded PHP app, why is one badly coded PHP app able to infect the whole system? Of course, the same question can be asked of Acrobat Reader: why is a badly coded app able to infect the whole system?

Re:Well

[shutdown -p now]

Servers on any OS are harder to attack, because most viruses (in fact, all viruses, if you go by the strict definition of a computer virus, as opposed to a worm) require human interaction at some point to aid them. As servers tend to run unattended most of the time, the attacker has to resort to fully automated methods to exploit the system (i.e. security holes).

With desktop, all that's really needed is tricking the user into opening an infected file one way or another. On a system with properly configured security (i.e. user is not root - such as any Linux, or Windows starting with Vista), you also need to trick the user to click the confirmation prompt to access files. It is fairly obvious that both Linux and Vista/Win7 have equivalent security measures to prevent this scenario (which are sadly still not enough to overcome the human stupidity). However, 90% of all desktops are still Windows, which is why it makes more sense to attack it. Well, and also because Linux users today tend to be more tech savvy and will actually wonder why their email client asks them to elevate - but that's another story, and is not something that can be fixed by technical measured today.

So, the argument is valid, and abundance of Linux servers does not enter into the equation. All that matters is the desktop.

Re:Well

[geekboy642]

If you ask me, an exploit in PHP shouldn't count as an exploit in Linux. First because php is completely cross-platform, second because only fools believe php is secure, and third because if your install was setup correctly, the webserver's user-account would have no write permission to code.

Let me repeat that last. When your webserver goes to hand out index.php, if it sees "rw-" for permissions, any exploit is YOUR FAULT.

Re:Well

[c1t1z3nk41n3]

Please. You're comparing a ninety percent virtually monolithic install vs a fragmented 10%. I'm sure every virus writer is thinking to himself "Well that last worm worked out well, but I've written 96% of my viruses for Windows. I better go after OSX next to keep it in line." They are gonna go for the biggest target, every time.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you have ssh with a simple password? Or did you use ftp over an wireless connection?

You mention php, is it possible that YOU did something stupid?

I doubt you'd admit any possibility that you left a gaping hole. But since you claim you have no idea how it happened, maybe you shouldn't use it as a case against Linux. Mainly because, as you can see, it can be turned into a case against you as well.

Re:Well

[Richard_at_work]

You do realise that what OpenBSD audits is very small in comparison to what you have to install for a usable desktop - thats why OpenBSD can use the measures they do.

Re:Well

[unfunk]

That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.

Heh. It actually boots faster than XP on my EeePC 1000HD (900MHz Celeron, 1GB RAM). It's also a touch more responsive overall. If it didn't have the interesting habit of crashing randomly, I'd replace XP with it right now. But it's a beta, what do you expect?

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

My Linux server was exploited, I'm not quite sure how (nor did the server management guys).

If you're not quite sure how it was exploited, how do you know Linux itself was at fault?
Overwriting a few PHP files could have easily been done through a security hole in the PHP app itself.

Re:Well

[firmamentalfalcon]

This "No viruses for linux/bsd/osx because they are not popular" is simply microsoft propaganda.
If the 90/10 market share is true, then those systems should have 10% of the virus market by that logic.

Probability only works with stupidity and virus makers are far from stupid. Probability only works when viruses are made randomly by churning out combinations of syntax and variables. Only then do you the 90%/10% virus market.

Instead, virus makers try to get the biggest bang for the buck. Why spend a year writing code that affects only 10% of the population when you can write code that affects 90% of the population? Thus, almost 100% of reasonable virus makers choose to infect Windows.

OS X and Linux do not necessarily have to be more secure than Windows to not be infected. They just have to be secure enough so that to infect it, hackers need to work more than 9 times as hard to write a similar virus for Windows.

The above is for personal computers people run at home.

Servers are a different playing field. I believe there are very few viruses. Servers are run by people who know what they are doing. I don't know my statistics but I find it unlikely that even Microsoft servers are infected with viruses.

Re:Well

[smoker2]

Every single PHP file on the system was infected. Each PHP app can only write to the files under that user account's folder (the server had multiple websites/domains). So I'm guessing the system was hacked.

You're guessing ? So your inexperienced musings count as fact do they ? "Linux is the bad because I am so used to windows that I blame everything on the OS." If you are sharing a server, it is highly probably that you are sharing an ip address. Bad guy pings the ip address for certain php files, and if they are found, automated injection takes place. No "hacking" required. Read up on php, particularly safe_mode and register_globals. Do you allow comments on your blog ? Does each site on this server come with pre-installed blogging software ?

If it was a badly coded PHP app, why is one badly coded PHP app able to infect the whole system? Of course, the same question can be asked of Acrobat Reader: why is a badly coded app able to infect the whole system?

Because the "whole system" wasn't "infected". Several text files contained malicious javascript. Unless you actively run those commands nothing happens. Contrast that to windows getting infected, when everything windows touches gets affected. In your case it was just php code not system binaries. That's the whole point - Linux does not allow php to affect system files. Linux does not allow the user to affect system files. You can't run a web app as root, unless you go way out of your way to set it up like that. And that is most unlikely in your case.

Re:Well

[Koiu Lpoi]

I prefer Windows 7, even at this beta stage, over XP - direct comparison.

Well, I prefer Windowx XP over Windows 7 - direct comparison. And I backed up my opinion just as well as you.

Re:Well

[Chops]

1. Linux desktops get 95% or more of their software from a single, trusted source, and savvy users will not click on random executables that they download. Windows users are forced to run executables they download from web sites without really having a way to verify that the source is trusted. I have to do this all the time on Windows; even though I consider myself reasonably savvy, there's simply no way around third-party software if you want to get your work done. That right there constitutes the largest difference between the two in terms of desktop security IMHO.
2. "Opening an infected file," if that file is a data file opened by an already-installed program, and being compromised, indicates that the already-installed program has a vulnerability. Linux security advisories consider these vulnerabilities serious business (they make up the majority of Linux security patches), and have a centralized mechanism for solving them, neither of which seem to be true on Windows in my experience.
3. Servers, by their nature, process requests from anyone anywhere in the world. There's no need to "trick" anyone into clicking on something to get your foot in the door; you can run any CGI program with any input you like anytime you like. The CGI program has to be vulnerable, just as a user program has to be vulnerable to the "infected data file" that you're putting into it. I think the two are different (not really one more vulnerable than the other; they're just not immediately comparable), but saying, "once you've gotten the exploit onto a consumer PC, they're more readily vulnerable than a server is once you've gotten the exploit there, therefore desktops are easier to attack" is just as one-sided as saying, "it's much easier to get access to a server to exploit it than it is to get the exploit onto a desktop PC, therefore servers are easier to attack."

TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[localroger]

Consumers don't care. They didn't care about Vista, except that it didn't work like their old XP box and they had to learn new stuff. Consumers don't like learning the new stuff but they do it because it's easier than jumping through the hoops to get another XP box.

IT people killed Vista, and I see no reason why they will be any happier with Win7. I have talked to dozens of industry people, from the guys who network mom & pop shops to guys who run databases for Fortune 100 companies, and NONE of them wanted anything to do with Vista. Their complaints were that it was entirely too dependent on internet connectivity, it was totaly different and therefore a major hassle to integrate with their existing network infrastructure and to maintain at the user level, and could not be locked down in a corporate environment properly. Win7 is a finger in the eye to these people -- it doesn't even have Classic mode any more. I've only spoken to a couple of them since Win7 was introduced but they aren't impressed.

And it is a truism from the days of Dos 2.0 that people do prefer to use at home what they use at work. When the tech friends they depend on to fix what they can't insist they run XP, they will insist on XP. Office and Word became popular not because they're all that good but because people brought them home and became comfortable with them there.

This has all come down to a giant Mexican standoff between Microsoft, which wants to determine how your computer looks and acts, and corporate IT types who want to determine those things. (As for you determining those things, that ship has sailed; the end of Classic mode tells that tale.) The IT guyes will not give up their control. Microsoft has obviously dug in their heels. It is not clear to me how this will end, but from what I have seen it will not end with widespread Win7 on the corporate desktop.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, if you don't want Windows 7 or Vista, you don't have to buy them.

Until they stop supporting your current OS with security upgrades and activation.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[Anonymous Coward]

IT will lose because it's the Boss who will want Vista/Win7 and make it so, regardless of its (lack of) technical merit.

Personally I miss Windows NT/2000 where I didn't have to screw around with the activation shit. I hate dealing with that crap. As a developer I change my hardware all the time and continuously have to waste time on licensing issues for software that I own.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[gbarules2999]

What if a computer of yours dies? You can't exactly go out a buy an XP machine anymore; well, not without a price. That's worth complaining about.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[Dr Egg]

it doesn't even have Classic mode any more

Depends what you mean by classic. Classic start menu organisation no, but classic theme yes.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[symbolset]

You can't exactly go out a buy an XP machine anymore; well, not without a price.

You can't? Try hp workstations. They've got what you crave.

Genuine Windows Vista® 32 downgrade to Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional 32

That means it comes with a Vista license, but XP Pro installed. There is finally one "Vista installed" option, at $2199. XP Pro installed options start at $699. The "price" is decidedly not in Vista's favor here. I seriously doubt the major vendors are going to let go of XP before W7 is fully in the market, and maybe not even then for a year or more. They're not in the business of telling people they can't have what they want.

Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed

[Washii]

Motherboard dies ten years out because of blown traces in the sandwich layers. Very few replacements exist that far out, and most are in-use.

How do you repair it?

Vista Lite

[usul294]

From what I've been hearing, Windows 7 is pretty much Vista with alot of the bloat turned off. Having done that myself in my Vista install, even with all the fancy graphics turned on, I've had a good experience. I hope everyone else gets the same in Windows 7 and gets to love the fancy 'start search' bar as much as I have.

Re:Vista Lite

[nwoolls]

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.

Re:Vista Lite

[Mascot]

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 get your point, but...

[Reality Master 201]

What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.

You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move to Win 7 - where you can at least expect some of your software to continue working. Developers can keep cranking out crap in VisualStudio (which is a shitty fucking IDE, whatever it's cadre of loyal adherents say about it), executives can continue using Outlook and schedule meetings with each other, your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).

Re:I get your point, but...

[AceofSpades19]

What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.

You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move to Win 7 - where you can at least expect some of your software to continue working. Developers can keep cranking out crap in VisualStudio (which is a shitty fucking IDE, whatever it's cadre of loyal adherents say about it), executives can continue using Outlook and schedule meetings with each other, your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).

You will still have to retrain your staff to use the windows 7 interface and the new office interface

Re:I get your point, but...

[SanityInAnarchy]

What alternative is there?

Linux. OS X. ReactOS and FreeDOS, if it comes to it.

You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies...

So you put it in a virtual machine. If you can't lock it down from inside the OS, lock it down from outside the OS.

You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux.

With Win7 or Vista, you've got to completely retrain your staff on the OS, anyway. With Office 2k7, you probably have to retrain them on applications, too.

So you take the legacy apps you care about, and you run them in Wine and/or Crossover. Maybe you even donate/pay your Windows 7 licenses to the Wine/Codeweavers people (respectively) to get them to support the apps you need.

your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).

Let's take this as an example. Let's assume I take a copy of XP, with IE and everything (probably IE7) ready to go, and never, ever patch it again.

So I put it in a virtual machine. I take a snapshot of the VM state. I configure it to only have network connectivity via a tun device, which I then firewall such that it can only connect to the other tun device I'm using for the VPN. I configure the VPN server to only allow connections to itself, not between peers, and I lock it down, hard. I set up the ActiveX server there.

I configure each firewall to only allow connections from the VM, to the ActiveX server, on only the ports it needs.

It is now physically impossible for anyone to get at the XP virtual machine unless they crack the host first. Even if something somehow does happen -- maybe some instability, maybe the user makes a mistake -- it's pretty much one button away from a known-good snapshot. And no matter how much work that was to set up, it's pretty much zero maintenance -- that snapshot will be good forever, or until the shitty ActiveX control has to change.

And when the shitty ActiveX control changes, hopefully they'll think twice about relying on a proprietary technology from an unreliable (and untrustworthy) vendor.

Re:I'm so sick of this...

[AceofSpades19]

If you create an operating system and purposely make it to annoy the users, what do you think you'll get?

Assuming you're talking about UAC, then you'll get a more secure and only slightly more annoying operating system. That was actually one of the things I liked about Vista, though it could have been implemented better. What killed it for me is how bloated and sluggish it is.

The thing about UAC is that it doesn't make it more secure if all you have to do is press allow, users will just click allow each time because it requires no effort

Choice of pain

[localroger]

I know plenty of people (not as many as 2 years ago, but still some) who run Win2K because of their objection to the license key checks introduced with XP. As long as they aren't playing games or HD multimedia, it doesn't seem to matter.

And if a large organization has to make a major unscheduled effort because Microsoft is ramping up the pressure -- you can still get XP but it's more expensive, available on fewer models, and deliberately more poorly supported -- then you have to ask whether to take the next step on that treadmill which is only going to turn again in a few years, or go in a different direction. I have heard the words "Apple" and "Linux" uttered by people who would never have taken either seriously a couple of years ago, and you can see how that's working out for Apple very clearly.

Microsoft's headlock on the desktop is slipping, and with it their lock on the OS. A lot of stuff that used to require Microsoft and Office can now be done just fine with Linux and OpenOffice. My own company would never have considered moving away from Microsoft even two years ago, but now they're asking for a couple of test boxes to be set up, and they also pester our local Apple fanboy a lot about his system.

poor reasoning

[Reality Master 201]

Problem is that it relies on OLD technology to 'work well'.

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.

Re:poor reasoning

[Reality Master 201]

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).

or to translate, "Waaahh. I don't know the specifics, and if I did, nobody would care anyway because they're linux meanies and have cooties, and they suck and my dad can beat up theirs. Waaaahhh!"

So basically you're a low-level Windows admin with not that much understanding of technology and a chip on your shoulder? Cause that's what you sound like.

Re:poor reasoning

[thermian]

Problem is that it relies on OLD technology to 'work well'.

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.

Re:poor reasoning

[SanityInAnarchy]

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.

Unlikely. There is no operating system, or framework, or magic sauce which will prevent an application from being written like shit.

It is, however, possible for a language or a framework to encourage applications to be written like shit -- IMO, PHP does this. Are you suggesting that XP does as well?

the ones that *require admin rights* and other things won't function well. They are breaking compatibility for those poorly coded apps.

In other words, they're doing exactly what they did in Vista. Which, while a welcome change, the way they enforced it was moronic and irritating -- the app still ultimately requires admin rights, but now I have to click "Yes, I want to give it admin rights" five, ten, sometimes fifteen times.

Other things like Direct X, memory management, caching... I guess those are plusses too.

Gee, I didn't know XP didn't have DirectX, or caching! Oh wait...

On the enterprise end there are *lots* of enhancements and benefits, but since this is Slashdot,

Since this is Slashdot, it would help if you cited even a single enhancement or benefit that isn't already in XP.

Re:poor reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you're a low-level Windows admin with not that much understanding of technology and a chip on your shoulder? Cause that's what you sound like.

Speaking as a Windows admin, and having performed comparable procedures on Windows XP and Windows Vista, everything that used to require ugly hacks to work properly on Windows XP (universal imaging is a perfect example) is the default behavior in Vista.

I don't know if you prefer to deal with inane bullshit in your line of work, but if I can utilize a new tool to get my job done more effectively and easily, I can't see a reason not to use it.

Re:poor reasoning

[Vancorps]

Vista and Win7 introduced image based installers so you can use one image on all your enterprise hardware without having to worry about weird interactions like you did with unattended installations of XP.

Full disk encryption can be deployed centrally with keys managed centrally. Vista introduced a lot of new technologies that people are still learning. Group policy support has been greatly extended in Vista and Win7 allowing for much tighter control over the enterprise environment.

I would go into more details but I am just learning how to use all the new features myself as I am only beginning the process of deploying it out to the corporate desktops. It will take me a little while longer as I have no plans to upgrade XP, I'll only move to Vista or Win7 when hardware leases are up.

Centralized software licensing, auditing, encryption, and indexing are all new features in Vista that would appeal to the enterprise. This is in addition to things like bringing volume shadow copy to the desktop with automatic versioning.

The enterprise side of the house has a great number of features which make the experience worse for the home user but that's the trade-off. Microsoft should separate out the operating systems as they are trying to service everyone and making no-one happy.

Re:poor reasoning

[rubycodez]

Do some research spewing assertions that are incorrect. Serrated blades have been used for bread for thousands of years, and have been found in N. Africa, Egypt and Great Britain. For example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/472505.stm

Re:poor reasoning

[Haeleth]

The Ubuntu I duel boot

That sounds exciting. Does that involve you fighting Ubuntu, or is it Ubuntu versus Windows to decide which gets to load?

Re:poor reasoning

[budgenator]

I simply tell people if it doesn't run as a limited user it isn't Fully XP/Vista compatible.

Re:poor reasoning

[Tubal-Cain]

if I can utilize a new tool to get my job done more effectively and easily, I can't see a reason not to use it.

True, but RealityMaster's point is that he doesn't see any improvements for him, and HerculesMO wasn't offering any examples. You did so by mentioning the universal imaging.

Re:poor reasoning

[im_thatoneguy]

Since this is Slashdot, it would help if you cited even a single enhancement or benefit that isn't already in XP.

Integrated Desktop Search that's fast and responsive.

Integrated media sharing with XBox 360

A calendar on the desktop.

The ability to 'dock' windows to the side of the screen.

Libraries handled at the OS level so that every application knows instinctively where all your music and videos are at without having to build its own database.

A video driver model that's better sand boxed so that your video driver can fail and the OS can restart it.

Alt-Tab that gives you a preview of the document or window beyond the icon of the application.

DX10 and 11. (No they can't be back ported.)

I like Jump lists! Handy for document related applications.

I like the "Free space" meters on drives.

Desktop search which works on a network with x64 computers.

Vastly improved home networking.

Reliable Wifi management.

Document previewing. With the preview pane you can read the contents of a document without opening it. HUGE time saver when looking for a specific document.

Vastly improved handwriting recognition and pen-computing UI enhancements.

"Breadcrumbs" in the explorer so that you can click on "computer" instead of hitting "Up" 10 times.

The ability to crop and realign a photo without an extra application (Now removed in Windows 7 by default but was included in Vista and therefore "after XP")

Easier configuration of rights between your PC and devices (Laptop, xbox, playstation etc).

Gamma calibration for your monitor out of the box.

Installation to RAIDs is actually easy.

Aero peek to glance at a document without actually switching to it (saves a lot of alt tabbing).

Integrated fingerprint management to use your fingerprint everywhere on the computer as your login (Great on laptops which have it.)

And let's not forget Windows XP SP2. They could have been assholes and left out all of the security enhancements being developed for Vista but instead they spent many months back porting the new Vista stuff to XP to keep XP as a viable and secure product. Imagine the opinion of Vista compared to XP if XP hadn't gotten all the security enhancements given for free in SP2.

Well that's all I can think of in 5 minutes of quickly browsing around my computer. I'm certain if I were to pay attention for a year of testing I could fill a Slashdot comments section with new things I like and find useful.

Re:poor reasoning

[saleenS281]

In other words, they're doing exactly what they did in Vista. Which, while a welcome change, the way they enforced it was moronic and irritating -- the app still ultimately requires admin rights, but now I have to click "Yes, I want to give it admin rights" five, ten, sometimes fifteen times.

In other words if the application developer does their job you'll receive at most ONE, and often times NONE of the prompts because they'll take the proper path and ask for minimal rights instead of being lazy and asking for admin priv's.
Don't blame MS for your application dev's failure. ESPECIALLY when you sound like one of the zealots bitching about their security track record.

Gee, I didn't know XP didn't have DirectX, or caching! Oh wait...

It has directX 11? Care to link to it, or are you just being an asshat?

Since this is Slashdot, it would help if you cited even a single enhancement or benefit that isn't already in XP.

Since this is slashdot he assumed the readers were informed on technology. Or at the very least, knew how to use google.

yes, but

[Reality Master 201]

That doesn't address all the other stuff - software that you can still reuse, stuff with an upgrade path to new version. It's still far cheaper to move to a newer windows than a completely different OS for most businesses.

Believe me, I'd love to see MS lose it's market position, but it's probably not gonna happen because people refuse to move to Win7.

Re:I'm so sick of this...

[sigismond0]

Sounds like you never used Vista. Or you only used it when nobody made drivers for it--which wasn't Vista sucking, it was vendors not making new drivers that sucked. Every single person I know that actually uses Vista (Read: Didn't use it for five minutes and then switch back) loves it. More stable than XP, much better looking, and just a tad slower; though, the ability to drop in more RAM more than makes up for that. Also DX10/11.

ease of deployment

[m0s3m8n]

When I looked at Vista, ease of deployment was a big turn off. We are mostly a Novell shop and I use imaging to push out software / os. Someone mucks up their system, two clicks, a reboot, and 30 minutes later they have a shiny new system. Sysprep allowed this with NO USER INTERACTION (Corp license key). Vista was not so nice about this and 7 will probably be the same way.

Windows 7: Lowered Expectations Edition

[Renderer of Evil]

After the shit sandwich that was Windows Vista anything can look like a winner. Microsoft could have repackaged Windows 2000 and the technobloggers would have gone nuts how stable and clean it was.

I have friends who will run out of breath arguing how Vista is perfect and has gotten a bad rap due to vast Apple/Media conspiracy to spread rumors and undermine the OS. It's nearly impossible to convince them otherwise. Every objection is met by sarcastic remarks like "LOL MIKKKRO$OFT AM I RITE?!" and the like. You're either an Apple kool-aid drinker or a Linux zealot if you don't submit to Microsoft's talking points on how amazing their latest Windows is.

Soon after Windows 7 Betas appeared and couple of high-status media degenerates started hyperventilating about how perfect the OS was, every Vista evangelist suddenly came out and openly distanced themselves from Vista.

I can bet you lots of money that all these Windows 7 superfans will turn on it as soon as Microsoft pre-announces Windows 8.

Why Not as Fast as XP?

[SerpentMage]

>Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.

You see I don't get this comment. Since the operating system 7 years ago had to run on much slower hardware, well, don't expect that now?

WHY F***G NOT! What on earth does an operating system have to do so that it sucks up ever bit of my quad core machine?

Here is the irony. Superfetch... Superfetch makes my programs faster to load and run. Well, are they counting the time that superfetch takes away while I work?

Oh yes, I remember, it runs in the background. Yes, that's right background if you count not moving your mouse or keyboard. BUT you see I write trading systems, and have traders, and they actually don't move their mouse or keyboard. Guess what thinks, it is ok to startup run, and cycle through a terrabyte of data? Yes anything that should run in the background!

I would actually like a faster operating system! I have a hate list of Vista, and not a single thing has changed in Windows 7! Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!

Re:Why Not as Fast as XP?

[KingAlanI]

>>Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.

>You see I don't get this comment. Since the operating system 7 years ago had to run on much slower hardware, well, don't expect that now?

>WHY F***G NOT! What on earth does an operating system have to do so that it sucks up ever bit of my quad core machine?

Hear Hear.
Yeah, early computing tech was slow, but at least the programmers were on average more careful with resource use.
Today's increase in tech level has allowed people to make bloated stuff where the bloat isn't really necessary. There are improvements in general, but so much of it is just stupid waste.

I shouldn't _need_ 42 bazillion megs of RAM for my computer to work properly

Re:Why Not as Fast as XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!"

I don't think "literally" means what you think it means.

Re:Why Not as Fast as XP?

[HAKdragon]

Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!
 
I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Why Not as Fast as XP?

[failedlogic]

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.

Re:Why Not as Fast as XP?

[91degrees]

It all comes down to the cost of programmer time and user time. I once wrote an application that took several minutes to run. I could have spent a few hours getting the runtime considerably lower. I didn't bother because it all ran as part of an overnight batch so it took no user time to run. The flipside is that some experts at IBM have spent weeks knocking a few seconds off Linux boot time. Is it worth it? Yes! The cumulative user time saved is much greater than the time spent by the experts.

Even with Vista, we assume that most users will have a modern PC with at least 1GB of RAM, and that will only go up over the next few years. Why should Microsoft waste their resources for the benefit of a handful of people with older hardware?

whats with the fanboi encroachment ?

[unity100]

ANY post that is even mildly criticizing of vista is modded down. another marketing strategy by m$oft ? like, release in-house fanbois to fight for the product ? maybe that is why 7 is getting good reviews.

windows 7 has flaws too

[jd142]

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.

Re:windows 7 has flaws too

[im_thatoneguy]

I agree. I really really did try to use grouped icons without labels and simply couldn't do it. It just was slow and bothersome to me.

If I have 10 Slashdot pages open I have NO IDEA which is which just by looking at them. So I have to hover my mouse over each window to figure out what is what. Terrible.

And I'm someone who in general loves all the new stuff (Ribbons, Start Menu, peek, gesture etc etc.)

I think it's just BAD. It's not "new" or "different" it's empirically measurably worse for both new users and experienced users.

I would like to believe that since EVERY SINGLE BETA TESTER. ALL 2.5+ MILLION of them hate it they'll change the default.... I would like to believe this but am afraid it 'just aint so'. So oh well I guess it'll be a small setting I need to change each time I install a copy of Windows 7 at home and recommend friends and family do the same. But it's really the only thing I can find that Microsoft completely botched in windows 7.

Damning with faint praise

[Tau Neutrino]

This is, by far, the best beta operating system the software giant has ever released.

Is that the best that can be said about it?

The IT guys will not give up their control

[unity100]

and they hell shouldnt.

they are being paid to make sure that the it infrastructure that their company works on works AS the company wants it, and in the fashion company wants it.

not microsoft.

no company can accept an outside company dictating it, networking and security procedures within their own network. its actually unbelievable that we're even discussing this.

Why Vista Really Failed

[slyn]

The real reason Vista really failed is the same people who are hyping up 7, the media.

Vista changed the way drivers needed to be written for security reasons, and because hardware vendors suck at writing drivers for whatever they make, there were all sorts of problems with hardware compatibility, ESPECIALLY with older hardware. Add to that UI changes ranging from minor to extensive in both Vista and Office 07, overzealous UAC, and a million other little things (on top of the million other little things that didn't make it into vista (i thought it was funny that theirs actually a wikipedia page for "Features removed from Windows Vista")), and obviously, almost no ones first impressions were good. Tech writers ravaged it, the mainstream media picked up on their stories and killed most of the little momentum Vista had by simply parroting the tech writers.

However, since then drivers have gotten good, service pack 1 has come out, and Vista has matured. You'd have a hard time finding a second impression review of the OS that did nothing but bash the OS like the first impression ones did. In fact, lots of reviews coming out now are actually praising Vista for becoming better than its predecessor (granted only with modern day hardware).

Windows 7 is Windows Vista++. A refined UI, refined UAC, drivers are mature now, performance is approximately as good or better than vista (which is as good or better than XP on the right hardware), IE8 is shaping up to be an improvement, and the whole package seems to just work better. Most of the tech writers have already been won over by Vista, windows 7 appears to be better than that (and its just a beta!), so obviously they write favorable reviews. The mainstream media is picking up on their stories and hyping up the slowly growing mass of momentum Windows 7 has by simply parroting the tech writers.

TL;DR: vista was killed by bad first impressions that the mass media ran with. windows 7 will succeed because of good first impressions that the mass media is running with.

Re:Why Vista Really Failed

[symbolset]

The real reason Vista really failed is the same people who are hyping up 7, the media.

Completely wrong. There are two reasons why Vista failed. The first is that it's a crap product. The media duly took their ad money and their Ferrari laptops and reported their unbiased finding that it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. They squandered their credibility because far and away most people who tried it hated it.

The second reason why Vista failed was us. We tried it. We put it through its paces. We compared it side-by-side with XP. We tried to prepare it for deployment to our myriad customers with their critical applications and legacy hardware, and found that it would not serve. Then we signed on to slashdot and cnet and ZDnet and every other news forum with comments and every time they posted yet another rave review we got up in the comments and told the truth. Never before have I seen such dissonance between news reportage of technology and the public comments available. We told our friends, our family. When we got a call on Saturday from Cousin Joe halfway across the country asking "XP or Vista for my new PC" we told him "Not Vista. If you can't get XP, get a mac." The consensus opinion became so strong that non-technical family members who had never tried it were warning me off of the thing.

That's why Vista failed. Will 7? I don't know. I've got it running and it doesn't seem bad yet. Windows explorer is a little crashy, but it's a beta. I haven't tried most of the critical apps that have to run before I'd recommend it, but the base system does not seem to have the dog-slow performance that Vista did. We'll see.

Re:Why Vista Really Failed

[Doctor_Jest]

one very good reason: Microsoft fudged (with the help of others) the requirements of "Vista Capable". How would you like to have bought a "Vista Capable" machine that was woefully inadequate to run the OS? (After you've been told how awesome it looks, etc.) Take away the Aero, etc, and all the visual tweaks, and all you have is XP+. THAT is why people are pissed about Vista. Technical folks have other reasons, but the grandmas, uncle Boogers and Cletus' of the world see it as a big, fat piece of shit.

Those are the people who are going to tell their non-techie friends how shitty Vista is... and that bad word of mouth isn't going to be affected by us on slashdot or other Windows tech blogs.

Re:Not a Surprise

[RealityThreek]

I can't agree with that at all, Dave. Windows 95 was fantastic at it's release. In converted many diehard DOS users when they had turned their nose to Windows 3.x. Windows 98 on the other hand was nothing but a bloated Windows 95. They just added enough "needed features" in 98, that you had to upgrade. I mostly upgraded for the USB support. Win2k was an absolute masterpiece at it's release. It just never caught on outside of enterprise, which was really a great shame. It was bad marketing on Microsoft's part. They worked out the kinks in their marketing with Windows XP, which again was just a bloated Win2k. Most companies transitioned from Win2k only because Microsoft stopped supporting it. (And many still haven't)

Re:Lets be fair

[jythie]

well put.
 
If microsoft wanted a real killer OS, they would release XP SE or something with updated drivers and fixes.
 
The only downside to running XP at this point is drivers are slowly becoming more difficult to get a hold of.

Windows 7 should go back to home and pro setup no

[Joe The Dragon]

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.

Re:If microsoft REALLY wanted to show it cared...

[will_die]

At the very least give a free upgrade to those who purchased Vista Ultimate, so far the only things of worth they have gotten is a so-so poker game and a neat puzzle game called Tinker.

Best beta ever?

[willoughby]

Isn't that something like "Best Mexican wine"?

It's not about hype, it's about value

[HangingChad]

Blog hype or lack of it may change the impression of the product, or maybe MSFT finally has brought out the product Vista should have been, but the real question is does it provide value for the money it costs?

Microsoft's strategy of keeping itself inserted in the market by pressuring OEM's isn't going to last. There are already cracks in that wall. Netbooks almost got away from them, still could unless Windows 7 flies on low end hardware and doesn't add $100 to the cost. Maybe a lower cost version for low end hardware

Any way you slice it MS is in a bind. Sure they'll keep muscling the market via OEM's and leveraging school and government officials, the dead weight of legions of MCSE's and .NET developers, people invested in Microsoft, many in positions to influence decision makers. There's a lot of institutional inertia there. But if they field a crippled version for lower cost netbooks, Linux will eat their lunch on features. If they charge full price that will essentially double the cost of low end hardware. In addition, hardware OEM's want to sell more powerful and more expensive new desktops. But the market for high end hardware is not growing that fast. There's gaming, video, CAD and a few other specialized areas where you need beefy horsepower. The average productivity workstation doesn't need dual cores. For a majority of home users being able to see pictures of their kids, dash off a quick letter once in a while and check email is all they need to do and they don't need a $300 OS or high end hardware to do that. I just don't see a bright future for Redmond in this.

Re:Tell me why I MUST have Windows 7

[walterbyrd]

Okay, why should businesses switch their desktops from XP to Win7? I mean businesses other than game companies.

Please...

[Colin Smith]

Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!

We like to keep a modicum of decency in these forums, what you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business.

 

Re:Please...

[moderatorrater]

We like to keep a modicum of decency in these forums

You must be new here...

Re:I'm not sure Windows 7 is actually something ne

[aaron.axvig]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 should help you find something of value. Fact is there are hundreds of new features, and adding features in SPs is rarely done due to application compatibility issues. Oh yeah, and because it costs money to develop new features, so they have to make some money by selling a new OS.

And again.

[khasim]

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...

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.

Re:And again.

[Haeleth]

Except that Windows is a sucessfull platform because it's the only one that actually allows lots of random applications to be executed without much help from technicians.

If that's the reason for Windows' success, then how do you explain the fact that so many of the biggest Windows users (i.e. major companies) explicitly go out of their way to prevent that kind of behaviour? Most places these days have a horribly bureaucratic process required to get access to the most trivial of utilities. Many companies even use programs designed to sniff out unauthorised software, to ensure that nothing they don't know about ever gets run on their computers.

And of course it's worth noting that since Vista, Microsoft have been doing everything they can to move towards the Linux/Unix style, where even home users need to use an administrator password to install software. So apparently even Microsoft disagrees with you about what makes Windows successful...

Re:You're out of time

[GiMP]

Have you actually tasted commercially packaged, pre-sliced bread? It is terrible. Go to a good baker, now, and get a fresh whole loaf. No, don't go to the supermarket, a real baker! If you're fast, it might still be nice, warm, and crispy.

Why are you so sure?

[SuperKendall]

You know, I'm quite certain that if I tried to run Ubuntu 8.10 or whatever the newest release of it is (I've been out of the loop for a bit) on the same machine that I was running Red Hat 5.1 on ten years ago, it would choke.

I'm not. There are not really any more background processes. Code efficiency has improved... the only thing that probably would be slower is the GUI, but that's only the window manager and can be changed out easily or scaled back with settings changes.

Fundamentally Windows gets slower because the core system gets slower in the background, meaning the system as a whole needs more CPU just to stay in place. This contrasts with both Mac and Linux systems where new releases generally do not cause overall system slowdowns, even though they may add some components that are more CPU intensive.

Re:Why are you so sure?

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

My Red Hat 5.1 (5.2 actually) machine was a Pentium 75 box with 16MB of memory. And, yeah, you could run X on it.

Do you really want to run GNOME or KDE on that?

Re:Windows 7

[Shados]

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.

Haven't read all the posts

[Runaway1956]

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.