How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development

snydeq writes "For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company's Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to 'define a feature set early on' and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature-complete, although its final release to business customers isn't expected until November." As a data point for how well this has all worked out in practice, reader The other A.N.Other recommends a ZDNet article describing rough benchmarks for three versions of Windows 7 against Vista and XP. In particular, Win-7 build 7048 (64-bit) vs. Win-7 build 7000 (32-bit and 64-bit) vs. Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 were tested on both high-end and low-end hardware. The conclusions: Windows 7 is, overall, faster than both Vista and XP. As Windows 7 progresses, it's getting faster (or at least the 64-bit editions are). On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best. On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best.

Comments

Re:release date

[marcello_dl]

> It's still the same operating system, same applications, same API, etc.

nope, it's a refined OS, or one with unrefined but new functionality that tries not to break too many older stuff. The same apps run more reliably or faster. The API gets extended instead of changed.

What you call higher standards are artificial barriers. You live in them for some time, you forget about them.

To get to MS higher standards Apple and linux should instead reinvent the wheel every iteration, changing the GUIs, getting performance problems in things like file copy...

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[ozphx]

You are wrong. If your source is Engadget, then Engadget is wrong. Its also not a primary source... go read the MS site on this - its basically the same as Vista - which also had a Home Basic (no media center / aero) and Starter (developing markets) SKU.

Re:release date

[CrazeeCracker]

Each new release of OS X might, at best, be compared to a service pack.

I think the reason for this sentiment is that every release of OS X is a logical development from the last. Same fundamental idea, same feature set, wich a few things tweaked here and there, a few flaws removed, and a few features added.
With Microsoft, on the other hand, the development from OS to OS is more along the lines of: "fully redeveloped, complete with new UI, written from the ground up, extra extra, etc." Or at least that's how it's been since XP came out.
I don't know if it's a programming philosophy or a marketing strategy, but it gives people the impression that these systems are a "whole new OS experience," rather than just the next logical step in OS design. I think that's another reason for why they don't bother naming Windows OSes with incremental version numbers.

(just my $.02)

Re:release date

[vadim_t]

Linux support. te-he. I don't think that even existed in 2001.

Sure it did, the box in question ran Red Hat, and AFAIK the whole point of Red Hat was providing support for Linux. Red Hat itself was founded in 1995.

My car's alternator only works when it's above freezing, can only make left turns, and has one flat tire. But other than that, it's perfectly functional.

Well, since you mentioned Win95, it has no SATA, USB (in the initial release), or RAID support, doesn't have dynamic volumes (Windows' LVM equivalent), and doesn't have anything comparable to valgrind to my knowledge. So it doesn't do any better on that point.

Backwards compatibility is quite a bit different than "future-proofing", which is like unicorns, santa claus, and transparent changes. They don't exist in IT. And for the record, the latest versions of firefox, vim, and gcc are compiled under a new glibc that would break horribly on those older systems with regard to binary compatibility and you know it.

You're not making any sense. If you're going to compile something from source, you're not going to have binary compatibility issues by definition. Whatever you compile will be binary compatible with the system you built it on.

By coaxing you mean recompiling the kernel, tweaking six different config files, and pulling your hair out for days trying to understand documentation that references C header files.

Such things if they ever needed to be done were done on that box years in the past. To my knowledge that box had just been plugged in and running without anybody touching it for years when I arrived at the company. Also from the comment on the C header files, you seem not to know how to use the man command, which hardly requires a lot of experience.

Which is exactly the level of knowledge we should expect from every single person who's going to need to service that machine. That's what amazes me about the linux crowd -- sure, you can figure out a way to do whatever kludge you want, eventually. But when you need it working right now, and you don't have a guy who was born with Donald Knuth's book in his left arm and a keyboard in his right, you're kinda screwed.

You're confusing Knuth with somebody else, I think. Knuth heavily contributed to computer science and wrote books on algorithms. Things like the KnuthMorrisPratt algorithm may be very useful in computer science, but I fail to see how would that help administrating a Linux box, or any other OS for that matter.

I don't think it makes sense to continue this conversation any further. You're clearly demonstrating that you don't really know what you're talking about, and are trying to find anything that will support your position, even if it doesn't make any sense.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[darien]

Microsoft's page on Windows 7 SKUs confirms that Windows 7 Starter is the edition that supports "up the three concurrent applications", while Home Basic is for "emerging markets only".

So not only are you obnoxious, you're also wrong. And the guy you were sneering at was right.