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Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar
Foofoobar writes "Due to a strike with the UK's postal system, people in Great Britain are getting copies of Windows 7 early and have already posted their experiences about the install process. Some have an easy time but others post installs taking 3 hours including Windows asking them to remove iTunes and Google toolbar prior to installation." The article indicates that many of these early users, though, are having better luck.
If you upgrade Windows on top of another installation you are in for a bad time.
iTunes and Google Toolbar are annoyances anyway. If they could permanently get rid of Quicktime, I'd be a happy camper.
Finally, a good idea from microsoft.
Oh, wait, they expect us to muddle along with the windows media player instead. Pot, kettle, frying pan, fire.
If they didn't do this we would be reading about how the upgrade breaks competitor's software. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
TFA says Windwos7 asks you to remove some drivers and apps and then successfully re-installs them when done. That's not quite what the summary implies.
I've no plans to upgrade to Windows 7 from XP whatsoever but if people are being asked to remove iTunes and Google Toolbar, this implies they are using an "install over the top" upgrade method, rather than "backup, format and install from new".
And if these people **REALLY** believe that upgrading any OS in this fashion, let alone MS Windows, will end up giving them a nice clean install afterwards, then they probably shouldn't be anywhere near a computer in the first place.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You could make the case that the fact that misbehaving user-space software could theoretically interfere with the upgrade process points to a deep design flaw in Windows as a whole. I recently upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard, which turned all the core parts of my operating system from 32 bits to 64 bits... I did have a few bits of third party software stop working after that. None of them affected overall system stability, though... And definitely not the install.
A) Only upgrade installs
B) The 7 installer detects known incompatible software and asks you to uninstall it, making it very clear that it's going to do so.
This is a non-story.
And program installers shouldn't need to touch OS components to do program installs.
Unfortunately, neither of these hold in the world as it actually exists.
Yes you could make that claim.
But some parts of iTunes don't run in user-space.
Apple Mobile Device runs as a service as does Bonjour.
Its this device driver that needs to go (temporarily) and the system needs a reboot with it gone (in true Microsoft fashion).
After the upgrade, when you re-install iTunes, the Apple Mobile drivers will be subordinate to the new Windows 7 Device Stage, and all will be well.
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Supposedly windows 'upgrades' are basically an install of the new OS then it tries to copy over/grab all the stuff from the 'old' windows. It's an ugly process, and probably errors are caused by programs it doesn't know how to copy over. Stuff that embeds itself in the OS, itunes messes with USB, Google with search and god knows what, Anti virus with everything could work fundamentally differently on a new OS than an old and figuring out how, if at all, to copy that over is probably a difficult business. This might even be problems with specific versions of said programs rather than the application as a whole.
Uninstalling applications in an automated way is a bad idea. They may or may not remove *data* associated with the application that the user wants to keep, and may not know how to easily copy over. Believe it or not most people care more about their data, and access to it, more than the OS they use to launch the applications. It's probably better that people who know something about what a 'directory' is, and how to browse them, try to figure out how to copy data over than a lot of users for whom such a terrifying concept is completely foreign.
An operating system shouldn't need to touch anything but OS components to do an upgrade install.
Device drivers, such as the iPod driver that comes with iTunes, are obviously operating system components. (If you disagree, please explain.) Google Toolbar is a web browser component, and Microsoft calls Internet Explorer part of the operating system.
> iTunes for Windows is maximum bloatware with questionable value...
Unless you own an iPhone, in which case its value is pretty well dictated to you by Steve Jobs.
You really can't own an iPhone without it.
But somehow, Apple gets a pass for that kind of behavior, and Microsoft suffers FUD posts like this on Slashdot for Apple's misadventures.
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I'm definitely not a windows fan(or user). I'm totally a Linux guy, but it seams there's no issue here. The only issue I see is /. loosing credibility with this kind of stories. A major version change of operating system should be installed by a clean install and only morons upgrade. It's only natural that in the process of a new installation Windows tries to uninstall shitty software that mess with the core of the system.
Windows has plenty of real issues to bash about without this kind of shit.
If I was some windows user or Fan I would say: "If this is the kind of arguments /. has against windows all the other windows stories must be non-issues also"
First off, there's no legitimate reason iTunes has to use QuickTime for MP3/AAC decoding. There are plenty of other options. If Apple insists on eating their own dogfood, there's no excuse for installing more than is necessary. Installing iTunes doesn't mean I want their stupid, crippled movie player or plugins.
And leave the awful player and browser plugins out.
Windows is not Unix.
Continue your research.
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For me, the more Slashdot bashes Microsoft unfairly, the less I despise Microsoft. If Microsoft is supposedly so rotten, why does Slashdot feel the need to lie? It makes Slashdot look like it's run by a bunch of idiots with an agenda, and makes me question how much of the bashing of MS is legitimate.
Actually, I prefer "emerge -vuDN world" as whilst I'm part XP user, I'm more Gentoo Linux user.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The MS haters are running scared right now. Windows 7 seems to be getting extremely favourable press overall, and the public is highly interested in it. Apparently on Amazon UK, Windows 7 preorders are not the highest for any product they've ever sold, a Harry Potter book holding the previous record. http://gizmodo.com/5386553/windows-7-amazon-preorders-beat-even-harry-potter
Thus it isn't a surprise we are seeing zealots step up the FUD machine and try to spin anything they can as Windows 7 being bad. They are worried that people are going to like it and use it and Microsoft will continue to maintain a position of dominance.
Oh really? Eye TV 2.x (don't know 3.x), it is self contained .app which you drag to /Applications in mac (pre OS X) fashion. It sits idle there until you launch.
When you launch, it asks for admin uname/password to install "a device driver" (kernel extension). What kind of horrible, evil things may happen right?
Well, guess what? Nothing happens. It is because of the kernel/driver model. OS X doesn't give a heck if the device is not plugged in, it just caches the symbols/plist files coming with the driver to a file. So, if you have a Eye TV driver but you don't have Eye TV, that extension will sit there, forever, ignored by the OS _until_ you plug the device having same USB signature. I think you were expecting some stuff outside /System/Extensions , some registry like files, some hidden files... No man, it is just .kext and HFS+ "bundle bit" magic with clever use of directory watching.
There is no software which will bastardize core drivers of OS X. If you listen to some trouble shooting idiots and downgrade your core OS parts in /System, it is your fault. Nobody is idiot (yet) to do it in automated fashion though. Lets not forget all OS X comes with time Machine now, for free, no "ultimate" etc. crap schemes. Every single OS X user having space on somewhere (USB, network doesn't matter) has hourly backups of changed files including a complete backup of system.
Oh if you were speaking about Unsanity APE, it was designed from the ground so nobody would feel the need of modifying system files for trivial hacks. What happened? Ask the Logitech idiots who shipped awfully outdated version of it which wasn't able to disable itself.
If they opened up the iPod communication protocols, none of this would be an issue. They could Mac up the Windows port of iTunes to their heart's content and it wouldn't matter, if people had the option to just choose something else.
Biggest single problem with Vista was people trying to use Windows 98-era software with it. The installers didn't work right, the files were in the wrong place and permissions were a huge problem because the rules changed.
It was possible, if you were determined enough, to install Windows 98 software on Vista. It wasn't a good idea, it made life difficult for the user and it didn't work real well, but it was possible. The fact that a lot of people encountered problems doing stuff like this makes it clear that Microsoft didn't make it clear enough to people that Vista was a huge compatibility break. The cry went out "But it worked on XP..." and people kept reading on and on about how awful Vista was.
If Windows 7 if pre-emptively uninstalling software that isn't compatible this is a huge leap forward. Now if it would only refuse to install software that wasn't compatible. Just abjectly refusing to install it with "No, it isn't compatible and it won't work right." This would probably solve 75% of the problems people had with Vista.
Most of the rest came from people installing software that was SUPPOSED to be compatible.
I never had this problem on my GNU/Linux system. Nor have I ever heard anyone about this issue on Mac OSX.
Try upgrading a Ubuntu 8.04 install to 9.04 or 9.10 on a Fujitsu S7110 laptop. Forget about pretty compbiz fireworks, wireless networking, and external monitor support without driver headaches post upgrade. I'm cool with it though. It's hard to expect more than MS is capable of doing on a $400 platform when linux is free...
As for MacOS. Snow leopard is notorious for problems with upgrades and costs at least as much as Windows when you consider the hardware premium. My boss (6 month old macbook pro) AND a friend of mine (1 year old macbook) ran into the "bricking" problem after upgrading to snow leopard(there is mention in this article):
http://www.pcworld.com/article/171129/snow_leopard_users_4_biggest_gripes.html
What I really don't like is how Apple will never never never ever ever admit that a problem exists, instead they insist that users are installing "unsupported software" or running with "corrupted files" blah blah blah. My roommate loves Apple and argues with me about this sometimes but I just think of Apple like any other PC/OS vendor, I'm not trying to pick on them (or any other vendor) they just aren't as good as a fanboys and "geniuses" will tell you (like any vendor's fanboys and sales people). And interestingly my roommate has yet to attempt the upgrade on his 1 1/2 year old macbook pro...
For me, the more Slashdot bashes Microsoft unfairly, the less I despise Microsoft. If Microsoft is supposedly so rotten, why does Slashdot feel the need to lie? It makes Slashdot look like it's run by a bunch of idiots with an agenda, and makes me question how much of the bashing of MS is legitimate.
Truthfully, I've been trying to understand why the delusional, pro-Linux groupthink has become so bad around here, recently.
Granted, there's always been some of it to a greater or lesser degree, but in the past, Slashdot used to be somewhat self-correcting; you'd get a blatant Linux or FSF fanboy making one of their usual insane statements, but then you'd get someone else exposing the first poster as nuts and putting them in their place.
Now, it never happens. The recent thread about Pulseaudio was a fantastic case in point; despite the number of people who've reported problems with it, the apologist developers and supporting trolls were out in force, and were also supported by people with mod points. The official stance was that Pulse was fine, there was nothing wrong with it, and if there was a problem, it was downstream's fault, so we should all just shut up, enjoy this miraculous innovation in Linux audio, and worship the tireless devs for bringing it to us.
And again, with the recent IBM/Ubuntu thread. Not only were my statements refuted, they were then down moderated Troll or Flamebait as well. The fanboys without mod points bombard you with ad hominem, and then the fanboys *with* points downmod your supposedly baseless post into oblivion, in order to ensure that it never sees the light of day.
The worst case of this was when I also suggested PostgreSQL as an alternative to MySQL. That got modded down to -1; the GPL fanatics are absolutely terrified of anyone using BSD licensed software; the BSD license is seen as a lethal threat, that must be stopped at all costs.
You really are deeply pathetic, Linux community. Normally when people report problems, the sane thing to do is to actually listen to said feedback, and try and improve. The Stallman-inspired (and make no mistake, I know exactly where the above toxicity originates from) strategy, however, is to do exactly the opposite. Continue to engage in abject denial, bury any dissent that appears, and if possible, silence the dissenter.
Now go ahead; mod me down, like good monkies.