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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.'"
"and we all might start liking them soon..."
Hi. You must be new here...
Though, since I am using Windows 7 beta, it might take a little while...
You know, it's funny, maybe 5 or 6 years ago it would've been:
Windows 2000 = lean
Windows XP = bloated
The Jerry ads destroyed MSFT's already fucked up image, by making it more fucked up.
In order to get their image repaired they have to embrace Linux, and Open Source and then they can claim to be pioneers again, like when they pioneered a UI based OS by copying Apple.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Almost every operating system has gone through this. All the Linux distributions are "bloated" compared with what we had several years ago. The latest Mac OS X is bloated compared with the prior ones. It happens when you keep adding more and more.
Microsoft's goal is to be like cable TV.
You pay about $50 a month to use their O/S. And then you pay an extra $10 a month for Word, or get the Premium package with Word, Excel, and Access for $20.
Is this where you want to be in 5 years?
I prefer to own, not rent my own PC.
I prefer to own, not rent my applications.
I want my applications to be mine and my data to be mine so that I do not lose access to them arbitrarily.
Microsoft is a big scammy company that provides extremely easy to use products that work reasonably well.
I don't like them as a company but I can deal with that.
I do like their ease of use and will miss it but the free competition is now only a couple years behind microsoft (and gaining).
But I won't be lead to market to slaughter and end up renting their OS and applications at the rates they desire.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
MS-DOS = lean
Windows 1.0 = bloated
(This is mfh posting as AC to avoid the karmic nicely hurting damage and such.)
It has been awhile since I've been excited about upgrading to a new OS. Why should I go to Windows 7? I just haven't seen the feature jump with the latest windows versions that seemed to happen between earlier versions.
Wow an article on Slashdot that doesn't say Microsoft is a total failure at everything it does. For a second I thought Slashdot was the one starting to change, but then I read the replies...
Microsoft donates to Apache ...and of course, the "Windows 7 might actually be rather good" article in TFA.
Microsoft donates to moonlight
Microsoft supports ODF
IE to be standards compliant by default
Microsoft assist SAMBA team with interop
Maybe; just maybe, Microsoft isn't the evil machine some slashdotters make out.
throw new NoSignatureException();
WOLF! WOLF!
Maybe we should wait until, you know, Windows 7 actually comes out to find if it's the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since Gitmo. Vista was supposed to be the awesome super duper OS everyone would love that would make everyone want to give Ballmer hugs for, but it turned out to (from what I read) be a stinking pile of dogshit.
Frankly, given their history at Microsoft, I have no doubt to give them the benefit of. They're going to have to deliver a slim, fast, stable OS and I'll actually have to try it before I believe a word of it.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Microsoft is going to have to prove itself.
Free Martian Whores!
All the Linux distributions are "bloated" [...]
My Gentoo is not.
All the Linux distributions are "bloated" compared with what we had several years ago.
But we can uninstall the bloat.
2009 will be the year of Windows on the desktop?
I love it when the scrappy little come-from-behind underdog is able to pull itself up by the bootstraps and get from a measly 89% market-share all the way back up to 95%. It renews my faith in the hope and outright tenacity of the little guy!
You know, it's funny, maybe 5 or 6 years ago it would've been:
Windows 2000 = lean Windows XP = bloated
Well, yes - because XP has been around for so long, hardware has overtaken it.
The other thing was that many people (probably the majority) skipped Win2K and the upgrade was straight from 98/ME to XP, so the extra "bloat" was justified by the move from a Mickey Mouse DOS-descended operating system to something substantially more solid.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
user #1 "Apple is for fags!"
User #2: Microsoft never did anything wrong. People who complain about their business practices are just cry babies!"
User #1: "Oh yeah!? Well, Linux Sucks!"
User #2: Cowers away from being beaten.
If Microsoft wants me to "like them":
1. Ballmer has to go. This guy is just offensive. Between the combat metaphors and the chair tossing, I can't respect any company run by this guy. AND, he's doing a poor job of running Microsoft.
2. The 'kinder/gentler Microsoft' has to become more open. That means opening up APIs and stop trying to manipulate standardization processes.
3. They have to improve their product quality. That will be a huge challenge given their code base, and maybe Windows 7 will be a substantial quality improvement. The record for Microsoft seems to be "every other product is OK" (Win 98 was much better than Win 95, Win XP is much better than Win 2k, hopefully Win 7 will be much better than Vista."
4. They also need to pay attention to both Apple and to their own research arm, and start -innovating-rather than blindly copying what others are doing.
5. Until 1..4 are achieved, I'm not going to like Microsoft. More importantly, I'll not even consider a car (e.g. Ford) that has Microsoft products in it, and the idea of the current Microsoft trying to "fix health care records" scares the fertilizer out of me.
Just my $.02...
Exactly, Windows 7 == Vista SP3
Chris Flores from the Windows Vista Team Blog said,
"One of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7."
So how exactly will Win7 fit on your Dell Mini 9? It won't, Microsoft just figures if they lie often enough there will be enough suckers who believe it.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
New tag: writerwillwinalaptop
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
that's a pretty clever ploy when you think about it. Vista is way too bloated for current machines, which has been a major hindrance to widespread adoption. but by waiting for consumer desktops to catch up to Vista's hardware requirements, they can appear to have developed a faster OS simply be re-releasing Vista under a different name with some slight UI modifications. and by the time Windows 7 is released it'll be as stable as an OS that's been out for 4-5 years.
"Oh, wow, maybe people won't just buy whatever crap we try to shove down their throats. This is going to take a bit of rethinking of our strategy..."
Sorry, couldn't resist. I understand that the automobile industry is going through the same realization. We can hope that a few others might get the clue...
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
But isn't Windows 7 just a service pack for Vista?
No. Service packs from Microsoft doesn't come with new features on the scale of new task bar systems, federating search to external data sources via OpenSearch, revised UAC, etc. Even the most extreme service pack thus far, Windows XP SP2, mostly focused just on security and a (too) simplistic firewall to solve urgent trojan problems.
Windows 7 could perhaps be called Windows Vista SE though, if the brand name wasn't as tainted. But I don't think MS would ever do a service pack release on this scale with touches throughout the OS, although many still minor. The normal SP from Microsoft is mostly just security fixes with under-the-hood changes like supporting new standards or hardware.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It seems that Windows 7 is still a lot like Vista to me.
Shouldn't be surprising to anyone with a half a brain in his head (or has any memory of Microsoft product releases), but that said, take it from the horse's mouth.
PBS' Charlie Rose interviewed Bill Gates a few weeks back and asked him whether Windows 7 was indeed new, or it whether it represented an incremental improvement to Vista. Gates became uncomfortable, went silent for a few seconds, and muttered it was the latter. An awkward pause ensued before the next question was asked. Unsurprisingly, he was more forthcoming and talkative when the questions were general, and weren't about Microsoft or Windows.
So there you have it kids. Windows 7 is the marketing name for Vista SP3. It should really be SP2.5, but the small collections of features to Windows 7 as sales enticements merit some recognition. But then, that's from someone who thought Win98SE was kind of cool.
Well, yes - because XP has been around for so long, hardware has overtaken it.
That's one thing that annoys me about Microsoft (as well as games companies). When I finally get a fast enough computer for the goddamned program to run well they stop supporting it!
Free Martian Whores!
Of course more features means more resources consumed. I'd argue that bloat isn't the system using more resources, but using more resources on crap you don't need, don't want and/or shouldn't use that much resources.
The Long Now Foundation
You are right in your evaluation. In fact, MS does not design software to fit the slowest or moderate CPU at their anticipated delivery date. They want to design an OS that will be able to stick around and take full advantage of the CPU's and memory advances for several years (at least). This means that several years before the CPU's are developed, they must guess where they will be for the next 5 years and try to take advantage of that processing power to create an OS that will do more than play videos and music.
The real problem with Vista was the minimum requirements. They allowed far too many PC's around the world that were using 2003 technology run Vista. The newest CPU's and higher memory machines with better Mobo did great with it (once the drivers all became available, of course).
This was exactly where we started with XP.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
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();
It's not so much a prettier hog, as better lipstick.
Hey Microsoft, want to improve your image?
1: Remove all the Vista DRM crap out of Windows 7. It's my computer, not Hollywood's.
2: Interoperate better with Open Office and support their open standard in MSWord, not your own.
3: No more per processor licensing agreements. If we want Windows at purchase time we'll ask for it ourselves.
While there's more, get started on this list now!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Windows XP = lean
Windows Vista = fat
Windows 7 = leaner than Vista = Windows XP
I must say that "bloat" is about the least information-laden phrase I hear bandied about :).
What's a consensus defintion of what it means? Wasteful use of RAM? Any additional use of RAM? Does hard drive space count? What if it's for optional non-RAM loaded stuff like templates?
Is is bloat for Vista to include a lot of printer drivers in the default image? It wasn't good for Netbooks with small SSD drives, but didn't impact system performance. And I remember lots of complaints about the full install size of Office back in the day, even though that was mainly templates that didn't need to be installed.
I think it'd be useful if we all were a little more specific about that.
My video compression blog
Okay. Let's start with Internet Explorer.
Why would you want reduced playback support in your OS?
Because if no one releases programs which play broken DRMed files, then people will eventually stop releasing broken DRMed files.
Media companies will whine and complain that the lack of DRM prevents them from selling their media on windows PCs, but it only takes one company to break rank and start making money (much like EMI with MP3s) and the rest will cave.
Besides, since I never buy DRMed media, it doesn't really matter to me whether any device I own can play it or not.
No, it's not. There, a picture of me:
Windows XP = lean
Windows Vista = fat
Windows 7 = leaner than Vista = Windows XP
Actually I think it is more like this
Windows XP = Coke
Windows Vista = New Coke
Windows 7 = Classic Coke
Sales of "Classic" Coke skyrocketed when it was RE-introduced to the market. People hoarded it just in case Coca Cola discontinued it again. I see sales of 7 to be quite brisk at launch. Whether you like Vista or not prevailing public opinion is not favorable so anything that replaces it should do well.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Time limited licenses are already the way of business applications. Companies don't "arbitrarily" lose access to the tools. If they allow the license to expire, they can't use it anymore. It isn't like one day they suddenly have no access anymore.
Unless the permission update fails for some reason other than non-payment. This happened at the radio station I used to work for.
The software that created the daily schedule for all on-air events (called the "log" by the on-air staff) would not update and refused to allow us to create about 2 weeks worth of logs. The vendor had to fly in and do some voodo to restore everything. Meanwhile we had to go back to creating paper logs (photocopier, liquid paper, and typewriter) for a couple of weeks.
At the next contract renewal time, we told them where they could stuff their software, and moved to another vendor who didn't have time bombs built into their software.
And you say you prefer to own your data? No shit? Are you implying that somehow this new version of windows is going to steal your data and give you access only when it wants?
If the application that is locked to that proprietary file format won't let you in, you've lost access to your data. Isn't that functionally the same as not having that data any more?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Microsoft is most certainly improving its image with Windows 7. They appear to be getting a lot of things right. They've improved system latency due to I/O over what was present in even XP, and the system is surprisingly stable (for a beta, of course).
Couple this with the fact that the Linux I/O scheduler appears to have moved away from a model which works well on the Linux desktop. For about the last year or so, Linux kernels have resulted in very latent desktop utility during even moderate burst-type I/O (programs/files loading, access of swap - not prologued disk writes). This may or may not be related to the bug supposedly introduced into the kernel in 2.6.18 - I don't know, I haven't personally tested it. But what I do know is that this behavior has become progressively more evident over the past 8 years: I blame the server-centric development focus in the kernel (2.2 and prior were blindingly responsive on the desktop).
With the fact that Linux desktop performance is somewhat lackluster these days giving it a perceived performance more on par with what Vista is capable of, I can see how it would sour people in preference for Windows 7, when Windows 7 appears to implement things properly - or, at least in a way which works to user expectations.
I should note that I've been personally using Linux (mostly Debian, some Ubuntu and OpenSuse) almost exclusively since around 2000. I don't make these criticisms lightly, and personally say it more as an admonishment of the Linux developers/community than I do as a proponent of W7. Whether it's a good product or not, I can not ethically approve of vendor lock in to the extent that MS software use encourages.
(Side note: has anyone noticed how W7's window effects/widgets (to the exception of the "MS-specific blurry/imperfect glass semi-transparent menus) looks shockingly like the bastard child of KDE 4 and OS X 10.5? I thought the first W7 screenshot I saw actually was KDE4 with a 'lookalike' theme.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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.
Just get rid of the shortcut, it's a lot easier than trying to rip out vital parts of the OS because you'll just get all whiny when removing the only web accessing part of the OS too.
You'll whine that you can no longer use FTP, you'll whine that for some reason you can no longer connect to network shares, etc. What you want to get rid of, sir, is the shortcut. After all, IE is basically a wrapper around the internal engine (Trident.)
Anyway, there are still some applications you should not remove from most distros. Remove apt from Ubuntu and have fun setting it up again, stuff like that.
I've been wondering how much Windows 7 would tone down the DRM that they keep deliberately conflating with security-- when they say anything at all about it. As far as I've seen, they aren't dropping Windows Genuine Advantage and they still aren't being entirely forthcoming in acknowledging that WGA is totally unnecessary for usability even if they did back away from claiming it was a vital security update. Liars. And Windows 7 uses Vista drivers not XP drivers because it requires the DRM disfunctionality. In other words, no change from Vista. How much faster could Windows be if they stop wasting cycles checking whether you're pirating? For me, the DRM would be question #1 on the FAQ about Windows 7, and they ignore or weasel around the issue. I just don't trust MS.
We've fallen down ourselves. Remember the big stink over each Pentium III having a unique number and the concerns over privacy? Intel backed off on that one. And the flap over XP phoning home when 2000 did no such thing? MS didn't back down, and has only made things worse, with WGA next, and then Vista. The almighty consumer could have squelched that if they'd yelled louder and walked when bitten. There has been some of that, but evidently not enough. MS is like a pit bull owner variously putting on an oblivious act or laughably extolling false virtues in defense of their dogs.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
In my heart I am still a software developer, a hardcore IT guy and a Linux advocate... In 30 years I worked for 5 start ups blah blah blah. Lots of hardcore techy cred if I want to pull it.
But, now days I make most of my income as a teacher and I make most of that teaching money teaching basic computer literacy and MS Office to people on the wrong side of the digital divide. These are not stupid people, they are not old people, most are under 25 but some are as old as 65. All are high school graduates and some have college degrees. They just don't know much about how to use a computer. They never learned and they don't care about anything but getting their job done.
I dare say that they represent a fairly large percentage of todays population.
You know what? While most of them (not all) have heard of Microsoft, they have no strong opinion of the company one way or the the other. To them windows are something that you open when you want fresh air and for some weird reason is also what makes using a computer hard or easy (depends on the person). If they know the difference between XP and Vista it is because they learned a little about using a computer with XP and then bought a computer with Vista and they are pissed because the it is different from the one they learn on. (OTOH, there is a small percentage who stumbled upon Vista and love it.)
They don't buy any thing from MS. What they have from MS came on the computer. In most cases the only software they ever buy are games and mostly they buy games for their consoles. They down load games for PCs because they can, and as one student so bluntly put it "How can it be illegal when it is so easy?"
What I am trying to say is that for the people I teach Microsoft is like the road they drive to work. They only notice it when there is a problem with it. When there is a problem, they don't blame MS, if anything they blame the company who made the computer. From their point of view rebooting windows is just like driving around a chuckhole or getting stuck in traffic. It happens, shit happens, the live with it. They don't even think about the possibility that it shouldn't happen, because it has always happened.
They do not have an opinion about MS. They don't see MS. They don't buy from MS.
Microsoft has become like the air in a big city, you only complain about it when you can see it. And, Microsoft has taken great care to make sure they are not seen, they are just there, like transparent but polluted air.
Out side of IT and the small number of IT enthusiasts in the world, nobody has an opinion about MS.
Stonewolf
You seem to mostly be talking about "install bloat", not "runtime bloat".
Although both are bad, I think that these days it's pretty much agreed that using 2GB more hard drive space probably isn't a big deal.
The problem is that Windows has so many background things running that really are required to do anything useful (like using the network), plus all the extra background tasks that you might not feel you need, but turn out to be required for things like applying updates. A Windows XP install with just the Microsoft standard background tasks takes about 300MB of RAM to do nothing, and Vista is far more bloated than that.
Good examples:
This kind of bloat where Microsoft has "important" background programs running that you can't turn off but don't really need just does not happen in a Linux install. Yes, there are some stupid Linux installs that have too many services running by default, but you can just turn off the ones you don't use, and nothing else stops working.
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.
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