Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Clean Install Only In Europe
jbeale53 writes "It seems that to install Windows 7 in Europe, you'll have to wipe the system and start over. There will be no ability to upgrade. From the article, 'The unfortunate side effect has been caused by Microsoft's decision to avoid any further EU censure on Windows 7 by removing Internet Explorer 8 from the OS. Because Internet Explorer is so deeply integrated within Vista, it's not currently possible to perform an upgrade that removes IE.' Why would Microsoft cripple it this way? Just to try and point fingers at the European Union? Because the EU didn't tell them to remove IE, they only told them to offer other browsers to be installed during setup."
The only problem with this once-good advice is that in a world of DRM-restricted ****, a complete wipe and reinstall of your system almost guarantees you'll lose something, even if you think you've backed everything up.
I suppose this is what we get for using an operating system that doesn't clearly distinguish between data that can change (real or configuration metadata) vs. fixed code/data for the OS and applications that changes only if and when you install a different version. It's also what we get for using an OS that lets applications mess with things like your boot sector to implement DRM (I'm looking at you, Adobe) and provides separate storage for configuration that isn't in the main file system at all (registry), so there are all sorts of places for vital information to hide and avoid being backed up in the first place or easy to restore even if it is saved.
Unfortunately, until Microsoft grow up on this front or someone writes software as powerful as Creative Suite to run on Linux, this is the world many of us are stuck in. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I learned to image a long time ago, makes things much faster.
I get the base XP install with ALL the security updates. *snapshot*
Next time it's time to do it again, I start from there, install all the security updates. *snapshot*.
Quite a bit faster.
How many upgrades does it take to get from Windows 3.11 to 7?
(shows BSOD during the upgrade from 95 to 98)
... The world may never know.
Knowledge Brings Fear
Just to add to this... I've upgraded 2 machines from Vista 64 Ultimate to Windows 7 RC (both of them FAR from clean installs - one was 2 years old with a few hundred gig of games and other crap on it, the other was a work machine with a year worth of junk on it) and they both went pretty well. The only thing i had to do was do a repair of VMware workstation, as Windows 7's installer clobbered the network devices.
I figured "why not, I may as well see how it goes" as I'd need to do a reinstall anyway (and all the shit i care about is on a separate disk) if i wanted to do a clean install... but i was pleasantly surprised at how painless the upgrade was. ESPECIALLY considering it was only the RC...
I agree, you'd be dumb to *rely* on an upgrade to work and not be prepared to reinstall, but so far I've been happy with not doing it, using the RC.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Why would Microsoft cripple it this way? Just to try and point fingers at the European Union? Because the EU didn't tell them to remove IE, they only told them to offer other browsers to be installed during setup.
Actually the EU has not ordered MS to take any specific action. They do seem to favor multiple browsers installed by default as a remedy, but haven't "told" MS anything other than that they think MS is committing a crime and are looking into it. MS's announcement that they are excluding IE in Windows 7 was a preemptive strike by MS in the hopes the EU would not order a more effective remedy, but the EU basically told them they weren't dropping the case and were going to investigate and determine the most effective remedy regardless of what MS does at this point.
Assuming all the above premises hold, it seems likely this is just MS being lazy and incompetent and not wanting to expend effort to write an upgrader for Europe that won't install IE.
Because when Microsoft includes a product on its Monopolistic OS, they are leveraging that Monopoly in order to gain one in another market. When Apple does it, it's business as usual. Different rules apply to Monopolies. Thems the breaks kiddo.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
how do I go and download FireFox?
"So you can save 5 minutes backing up your stuff?"
Hell, I don't even worry about that anymore. Partition for Windows on C:, partition for all my data on D:. C: gets wiped, D: remains untouched.
I guess I'm just dumb, then.
I've run the same windows system with just OS upgrades (95-2000-XP Pro), no fresh installs, for about 12 years now. That's around 6-7 MB/CPU/Ram/HD/Video hardware upgrade cycles, since I always build my own and tend to upgrade pieces most of the time. I still have the original Win 95 install files in a sub-directory on my hard drive.
I'm currently running a dual-core with 2 GB of ram and a RAID 1/0 hard drive config (4 drives), so maybe that's it (although hardly unusual in today's market), but my computer seems much faster to me than any other computer I've worked on in the last few years, even brand-new computers with "fresh" installs.
I have 200+ applications installed, many of which are old enough that I'd never find the install media again, if I ever did a fresh install (packed away in some box somewhere, I suppose, since I've moved 4 times in the last 12 years).
Of course, I've also never bought into the idea that the only way to clean up an infected windows box is to reinstall everything from scratch. It takes me about 30 minutes of work to clean up the worst infected windows computer I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot). That's 30 minutes of work for me and about a day or so of work for the computer. Saves the end user a ton of work reinstalling everything, though.
I mean, I know that windows can be stupidly convoluted sometimes compared to unix, but it seems like the "fresh install of windows solves everything" crowd tends to be people who just don't understand what's going on under the hood enough to actually solve the problem they've run into.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
A monopoly is defined by the amount of control over a market as a whole, not the amount of control over the products offered up in that market. For example, IIS could never be an example of a product with a monopolistic hold on a market as long as Apache maintained significant market share, no matter how tightly IIS was locked down.
When you're comparing it to Linux, you're comparing it to a version of Linux from 2002, right? That's when XP with no updates is from.
I install every time I need to use Windows, so twice a year or so. The balance of the time I have just one drive in my tower, and that's a 30GB SSD with 20+ free GB on it. No room for Windows there, and my office is plenty warm and noisy enough without it.
My spinning hard drives live in the file server or on the shelf in the basement. I suppose some of those might contain a Windows install, but why take a risk? There's probably some boxes down there with old underwear too. Although it's probably laundered, I ain't throwin' it on without at least a short cycle in the wash, thanks.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
My what an ignorant jerk you are. The EU and the European market represent a huge share of Microsoft's profits, how likely do you think they are to screw with that? How stupid can you get?! If Microsoft wants to play here they have to follow our rules.
I'm so tired of hearing fools like you talk about how Microsoft should just "pull out" of Europe. When are you going to get it? They don't want to! They can't unless they want to lose markets all around the world! European international corporations would move to European Linux distributions (in all the countries they operate in around the world).
The EU asked them to include more options for browsers, do you even know how to read? They did not ask them to remove IE, but that's fine too. After all it's not a problem since manufacturers can add whatever they like OEM-style.
The EU is a massively powerful entity and Microsoft has no power to "lobby" their way out of this or any other issues unlike in the US. So you better get used to having your "American" corporations "screwed" over by us Europeans! Don't worry, the EU screws European corporations exactly the same way!
I think your definition of 'just works' is very different from Joe PC's definition of 'just works'.
Comparing the original XP release without Service Packs (circa 2001) to a much newer Linux install (2009) is a cheap argument. Next you'll tell us that nVidia's GeForce 256 is trash next to an ATI Radeon HD 4000.
An XP CD with SP3 slipstreamed is slightly faster than earlier versions, if reports are to be believed. If you manage to make an XP system as slow as Vista on the same hardware you're doing something wrong.
I read "D:" and my brain parsed it as an emoticon.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Because the EU didn't tell them to remove IE, they only told them to offer other browsers to be installed during setup.
Saying "only" doesn't make that statement any less absurd. How is the selection for these browsers to be made? Because you know the moment Microsoft announces they're to put "select few" browsers in Windows 7, everyone will want theirs in.
;)
Opera says "top 5" browsers, but picking browsers by market share, in order to promote less popular competitors results in a bitter irony. Not to mention the magical number "5" comes from Opera being 5-th in desktop browser market share. If it was "top 3" they wouldn't even be in that list, depriving them of the purpose of their own lawsuit. Have you seen what YouTube says to IE6 users? Please upgrade to a modern browser: Chrome, IE8, Firefox. Opera's nowhere in that list. Should they sue YouTube?
What the EU commission wants from Microsoft is a solution that can't be carried out in any sensible manner. But maybe that's exactly what they want, have you seen what EU charges Microsoft for failing to abide? To paraphrase another euphemism, let's call it "surprise tax"
I read "D:" and my brain parsed it as an emoticon.
...which shows exactly what you'll look like if you wipe the wrong partition
I have installed Ubuntu on a bunch of machines lately, and on all of them it worked straight out of the box with no tweaking required...
2 Dell laptops, a C610 and (i believe) a D800
An eee 901
A custom built box with an asus motherboard and quad core cpu
A fujitsu lifebook e-series (old, p3/700)
An HP workstation, not sure of the model
An older custom built box with a single core amd64
It supported wireless out of the box on those machines that had wireless, and it came with a set of apps ready to run... On the machine which used proprietary graphics drivers, it told me i needed them and i just had to confirm i wanted to install them.
A windows install is a lot more hassle, if the machine is especially new it wont have drivers and you might be forced to load them manually... I have seen lots of windows installs running with generic vesa graphics (ie extremely slowly) because people didnt realize they had to install proper video drivers.
And once you have got windows and all its various drivers installed, you still have a pretty useless system that can't do very much until you install some applications (which you have to do manually).
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!