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Is Microsoft Improving Its Image?
nk497 writes "Writer makes the case that Windows 7 is a turning point for Microsoft, and we all might start liking them soon ...
'While it's not winning everyone over, there are real signs that Microsoft has taken criticisms on board where it matters most: in the software and services that it provides. The idea of a faster, slimmer Windows is one that most Vista owners would automatically put on their wishlist, and it seems that Microsoft has genuinely done something about it. It's not just reignited interest in the Windows product line, but it's got users appreciating a fresh approach from Microsoft as well.'"
But isn't Windows 7 just a service pack for Vista? From what's been touted about it doesn't look and leaner or meaner they've just put some speed improvements into the UI to make it look faster.
The majority of the stuff under the hood is still vista so people will probably have the same problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The real problem is that Windows 7 is just a service pack for Vista.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7
throw new NoSignatureException();
I see the Redmond shill machine is in full swing now. First it gobbles up MSZD.Net. Now another publication is releasing "features" on how "performant" and "fantastic" Windows 7 is.
Bull Fraking Shit.
Windows 2000 and NT 4 was as lean as it got! Want a reminder? Load up Windows NT Server 4.0 in a virtual machine and see how much resources are being used.
20 fraking MB!
Even XP is bloated! Ever wonder why Windows Explorer sometimes takes a few seconds to create a folder on a Quad Core 3.0GHZ 4GB machine? A second on this machine has probably 1000 times more processing power than the Voyager probe and the Apollo 11 Moon lander (if you believe in all that). Yet I have to wait and twiddle my thumbs...
Its been downhill since Windows 2000. That OS ran gorgeously on my dual Pentium III 350 (250MB). XP pigged that machine in the space of time it took to install XP.
I company I worked at recently still used NT 4 to run SQL Server... and it ran like the wind... until a US company took us over and due to Sarbanes Oxley (read "license to print money" from a Redmon/corporate friendly regime) we had to upgrade to SQL Server 2099 (which sucked and was oh so .Net slow), Exchange 3059 (which sucked and was oh so .Net bloated) and a Server OS that gobbled up about 15 gig RAM just on startup.
OK. I exaggerate... but you get the picture.
I was tempted to pull out my old faithful PIII 350 (which happily runs Linux now) and install Windows 7... but why bother?
These days I console myself by liberating PCs from Windows and getting refunds for bundled Vista + Works licenses (thats £120 + vat in Blighty) on all PC purchases.
FOSS bias aside, it will take a lot more then a less broken flagship OS for the general IT community to like them again. They also need to stop removing features from new editions of server products like they did in SQL 2008 and Exchange 2007. And start focusing on quality and usability over useless "new" features. It took me 2 weeks on the phone with support to get the latest edition of CRM installed on my company's domain. Why? Because some developer used a library from another project that caused the CRM install to look for Active Directory entries that are totally unrelated to anything CRM does and kill the install if they are not there. After numerous escalations we finally got to someone who knew about the problem and was able to help me setup the random stuff that needed to be there, but all I got was a weak apology...no indication that they actually intend to fix the problem.(hint: if you have Office Communications Server installed on your domain before you install CRM, you are probably ok). How about the PDF render bug in Reporting Services 2005? They know all about it, no indication that they intend to fix it though. STMP component bugs in SSIS? I could be here all day...
See, that's precisely the problem.
In Windows, IE has been shoved into places where there's really no good reason for it to be, other than for MS to be able to claim it can't be removed.
Why is an HTML rendering engine needed to access network shares? Why is it needed to access FTP? Why is it needed to get updates?
Even MS had to recognize that updates through ActiveX in a website have disadvantages and had to code an actual application (the systray update applet) to do things that they couldn't shoehorn IE into. But of course they had to stop one step short of making it fully functional, because if it was, the windows update site would look stupid, and one of the places it's not possible to remove IE from would no longer exist.
Windows XP has been out for -eight years-, can you name a Linux distro that old that you can still get support on?
First, bear in mind that there have been 3 XP "service packs" during that period, which were, in effect, pretty significant upgrades (not to mention 3-4 Internet Explorer versions which also tinkered with the core OS). Genuine question: can you get any XP support that doesn't start with the instruction "first install SP2 or later"?
Second, Open Source makes a difference: once Microsoft withdraws support for something, that's curtains. If an old version of an open source project is in widespread use, you're likely to find someone, somewhere backporting patches - or you can do it yourself. Not a solution for Joe Endluser, of course, but Microsoft doesn't do long-term support for Joe Endluser's benefit either.
Thirdly (and this is less of a defense and more of an explanation), XP is "just" the core operating system, GUI, admin tools, a few bare-bones apps and (until the EU gets its way) web browser. A typical linux distro is a full-blown, all singing, all dancing application and development suite, often with a choice of 2-3 GUIs, a couple of office suites, 2-3 DBMSs, various web and file sharing servers, TeX/Latex, PDF creation and viewing utilities, 1000 elephants and a hard-boiled egg. Its pretty inevitable that you can't support that lot for too long. If you really were looking for a long-term support solution, the "mugs eyeful" desktop distros might not be the best place to go.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Why is it needed to get updates?
Even MS had to recognize that updates through ActiveX in a website have disadvantages and had to code an actual application (the systray update applet) to do things that they couldn't shoehorn IE into. But of course they had to stop one step short of making it fully functional, because if it was, the windows update site would look stupid, and one of the places it's not possible to remove IE from would no longer exist.
Apparently you've not seen Vista yet, but that's ok.
In Vista, the Windows Update site does nothing, other than tell you to open the Windows Update app.
As for why they had to code an actual application? It's so it can run in the background. Otherwise you'd need to open your browser every day to check for updates.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
But is 10.3 and 10.4 being faster than 10.0 and 10.1 really an achievement? Early OS X releases, if we are to be fair, were crap.
They were only "crap" in the sense that not everything in the window manager (essentially) had been worked out as much. People didn't like Finder as much as the old, there was not as much software - but the core was in OK shape.
Even the earliest releases were still based on a lot of solid components, like BSD and Apache and so on.
So yes, it's impressive that the CORE system is faster overall with less bloat than the original OS X versions. Just look at what Apple did with launchd to replace a number of different processes and speed up boot as an example...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That doesn't actually remove IE. It's still on the system.