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

I don't want Windows on my netbook

[Gothmolly]

I have a Dell Mini 9, and it does just fine with Dellbuntu 8.04. Even the 512MB RAM is fine - the screen size and form factor does not lend to massive multi-app multi-desktop kind of work. It's an über PDA, that I can put Postgres on if I need it.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[jmorris42]

> That said, there's the question of why you'd want it on a netbook.

And that is their problem. Lets assume they really do make it faster than XP. (I know, but go with me here.)

You are looking at netbooks. Three options are lined up:

1. Linux. Cheapest on display, looks pretty but not Windows so it makes you a lottle nervous. (From POV of lifetime Windows user)

2. Windows XP. Only a few dollars more than Linux, familiar, safe choice. That's why it is smoking the Penguin now. Of course this is only because Microsoft is basically giving it away.

3. Windows 7. Folks say it actually runs a little faster than XP! Of course you pay even more than XP but you only get to have three apps open.... unless you pay a LOT more.

So hands up if you would pick option 3. Uh huh, and that's their problem. Cheap XP stopped the Linux threat but now XP is likely to kill Windows 7 just as dead on the netbook. And if they kill XP the odds are pretty good that the penguin will resume rampaging all over the netbook market. But if XP is kept available and security updates are kept going how the heck do they get the corporate desktops to do a full refresh? Because they WON'T believe Windows 7 will run so well they won't have to refresh most of their hardware. And in this economy that probably isn't in the budget, especially if staying put on XP is an option.

And all these careful plans are subject to being void if the ARM netbooks ever show up in force and live up to their prerelease publicity. Because then it is full Linux with OO.o, Firefox+Flash+plugins and repos with thousands of apps vs WinCE fighting it out in a segment where the prices will be falling into the $100-$200 range. Even if Microsoft 'wins' the hit to their revenue stream from competing with zero is going to start to hurt. Meanwhile those $400 x86 netbooks are falling to $300... at least if the cost of a Windows license stays cheap... but then it kinda has to since Linux isn't likely to have a price increase.

And it gets better. As more corporate IT peeps learn Microsoft is handing out XP licenses for darned near $0 but won't let them get it unless they pay extra on top of a full Vista Business license they just might start asking their Microsoft sales weasels questions that really have no good answers. Or run some Linux pilot projects and make sure word get back to Microsoft, since that seems to get their attention. More downward pressure on revenues.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are looking at netbooks. Three options are lined up:

1. Linux. Cheapest on display, looks pretty but not Windows so it makes you a lottle nervous. (From POV of lifetime Windows user)

2. Windows XP. Only a few dollars more than Linux, familiar, safe choice. That's why it is smoking the Penguin now. Of course this is only because Microsoft is basically giving it away.

3. Windows 7. Folks say it actually runs a little faster than XP! Of course you pay even more than XP but you only get to have three apps open.... unless you pay a LOT more.

So hands up if you would pick option 3. Uh huh, and that's their problem.

They are paying OEMs to put Windows XP home on netbooks. Savvy people are buying these, wiping the disk, and putting Ubuntu on them. A full, unconstrained version of Ubuntu. Exactly what Microsoft cannot compete with and doesn't even want to try.

Savvy people such as the French gendarmerie:

http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-millions-with-open-desktop-and-web-applications

I find it amusing to think of Microsoft subsidising the hardware of my ex-XP Home-now-Ubuntu netbook.

The really amusing thing is going to be watching Microsoft try to figure out how to get Windows 7 installed on future netbooks in place of XP Home ... and yet still make a profit.

Same price as current XP Home ... no profit.

Reasonable price for Windows 7 ... no Windows 7.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[whoever57]

I just love this stement in the article:

The decision in 2004 to move to open source, was raised by one of the Gendarmerie's accountants. "Microsoft was forcing us to buy new software licences. This annoyed our accountant, who tried OpenOffice." According to Guimard the proprietary software maker then started lobbying the Gendarmerie, which is how the general manager found out about the experiments. "When he saw OpenOffice worked just as well and was available for free, it was he that decided it should be installed on all 90.000 desktops."

Talk about firing both barrels of a 12 gauge footgun!

Re:release date

[Technomancer]

Take any linux binary compiled 10 years ago and run it today on a shipping kernel. Oh wait... you can't.

Sure I can! This is probably the oldest binary app that I have and coincidentally it was compiled more than 10 years ago.

root@damage:/usr/local/games/quake#ls -al quake.x11
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 427892 Feb 10 1999 quake.x11

root@damage:/usr/local/games/quake#uname -a
Linux damage 2.6.26.8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 22 02:52:09 PST 2008 x86_64 Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 285 AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

root@damage:/usr/local/games/quake#date
Tue Mar 10 22:28:41 PDT 2009

root@damage:/usr/local/games/quake#./quake.x11

Added packfile ./id1/pak0.pak (339 files)
Added packfile ./id1/pak1.pak (85 files)
PackFile: ./id1/pak1.pak : gfx/pop.lmp
Playing registered version.
PackFile: ./id1/pak0.pak : gfx.wad
Console initialized.
UDP Initialized
Exe: 14:08:23 Jan 25 1999
  8.0 megabyte heap ....

and so on