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Engineers Tell How Feedback Shaped Windows 7
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica took the time to talk to three members of the Windows 7 product development and planning team to find out how user feedback impacted the latest version of Windows. There's some market speak you'll have to wade through, but overall it gives a solid picture regarding the development of a Windows release."
7 truly is Vista SP3. And I don't say that in a negative fashion; Vista runs very well on my two desktops and laptop.
However, minus the new taskbar (which I think is a massive step forward), there really isn't that much that's new. A little bit faster, a little bit less buggy.
In the end, 7 is Mojave Experiment 2.0. Microsoft tried an ad campaign, it failed because people wouldn't get over how "bad Vista is". Microsoft gives it new clothes and a new name- now it's the best version of Windows EVER!
In short, Microsoft went back to marketing after the Vista launch floundered and destroyed its reputation (due to a bunch of underpowered computers with poorly written drivers giving the OS a bad reputation).
What's your point? That mojave marketing stunt didn't address Vista's actual problems.
Yes I've used it. I found it hideous for all the usual reasons, plus some of my own.
My brief use of windows 7 RC just confirms that Microsoft are taking windows down a path that I don't wish to follow any more.
Well not really. The sudden concern for netbook users was caused by the possibility that people might switch to linux. When the original linux powered Asus EEE PC was released, it was so popular, it pushed Microsoft into third place behind Apple and Xandros for OS shipments that month. I imagine that would give monkey-boy a bit of a fright.
I'll partially agree. You seem to indicate that Windows 7 is pretty much just a continuation of Vista. Truthfully, I can't disagree there. I've ran Vista on my laptop since launch date, and ran it for about 6 months on my desktop (I switched to 7 RC when it was released on MS's website for preview). Overall, after a bit of shakedown time, some driver updates, etc, Vista isn't THAT bad. Don't get me wrong, it shares the same issues and gotchas as Microsoft OS's always have, but overall, compared to other versions of Windows, I just didn't see what the fuss was about.
Windows 7 - truthfully, is about the same. It's little tweaks and there. Still behaves much like Vista. Still behaves like Windows. Take that as good or bad, but it's still Windows, and as someone still using both (and still using XP here at work), I think the most important new feature for Windows 7 as far as Microsoft is concerned is that it's something new that isn't named Vista.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Vista wasn't terrible to begin with.
Vista was terrible to begin with when it just got released. I ran it for 2 months, hoping for something to improve - some magic hotfix pushed through Windows Update, or better drivers, or whatever. I'm a patient guy, which is why it took 2 months to realize that I can forget about it till the service pack.
Vista SP1 now, that was usable. And, of course, 7 is built on everything that was in Vista SP2, and then there are some quite real tweaks perf-wise, and new taskbar is neat...
I have one other theory about why 7 is so much better received than Vista: part of it is the visual design.
If you recall, Vista had that weird color theme with yellow-green background and dark, almost solid black window frames and taskbar (and window frames were entirely black when maximized - and most windows are maximized when working). There also were those dark yet glossy green-cyan toolbars in Explorer that somehow made me think of uranium glass. The overall effect was fairly eye-straining and kinda "meh". It killed all the bling that Aero was supposed to bring on the spot.
Enter 7: bright blue wallpaper with a bright, highly saturated colored Windows logo in the middle. Almost transparent window chrome and taskbar with a light blue tint. Very pale blue selection highlight in menus, and toolbars are almost white. The entire design has a very "lightened" feeling about it because of the color choice.
I strongly suspect that, especially when seeing 7 right after Vista, there's a strong subconscious impulse to differentiate the two just because of the design difference, and not in Vista's favor.
While I think you got it backwards, I get your point. 3.1 -> XP was a bigger jump than XP -> 7
However:
3.1 required 2 MB, ran OK on 4
XP required 128 MB and ran OK on 256. That is 64 times what 3.1 needed over 9 years
7 requires 1 GB and runs OK on 2 GB. That is 8 times XP over 8 years
7 doesn't look too bad.
Vista wasn't terrible, but 7 is much more polished. It feels faster because of GDI fixes, changes to a lot of other systems that make things just flow a lot better... I'd pick 7 over Vista any day. I prefer how relatively lightweight XP and 2000 are, but they don't have the DRM required by MS so they'll never get the DX10 and 11 features that new games are using, so... I'll go with 7 for my games, and keep doing my actual work under Linux.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You're ignoring that computers have more RAM available.
And you're ignoring that computers come in a wider variety of form factors and price ranges than just mid-to-high-end desktops. How comfortably would Windows 7 run on even a one year old netbook with a 900 MHz Celeron, half a GB of RAM, and a 4 GB SSD?
When the original linux powered Asus EEE PC was released, it was so popular, it pushed Microsoft into third place behind Apple and Xandros for OS shipments that month. I imagine that would give monkey-boy a bit of a fright.
Monkey-boy has the instincts and habits of a winner.*
When the Atom netbook entered the market - typically with a larger screen, better keyboard, and twice the RAM and storage space of the competition - the Linux netbook was drop-kicked into the dumpsters behind your local WalMart.
For the better part of decade in the U.S., WalMart was the lone mass-market retailer to champion OEM Linux. It really, really tried to make a go of it.
____
*-monkey-boy." It's trash talk like this that makes me reluctant to reccomend Slashdot to anyone over the age of consent.
That and irritants like the Borg icon and the stained glass window.
Star Trek: TNG ended its run in 1994.
I'd say what really bit them in the ass with Vista was the whole "Vista capable" fiasco. I am sitting here staring at a Compaq Presario that I got for a whole $50 because the customer absolutely HATED Vista and wanted that box taken out of his sight. Those Worst Buy Vista capable machines really were a very bad joke.
We are talking a 1.8GHz Sempron, a measly 512Mb of RAM, and an ultra cheapo SiS IGP, anybody who has ever run Vista knows there is NO WAY in hell that thing will EVER run Vista at an acceptable speed, instead the customers would quickly get frustrated as the machine thrashed away (this particular box was even given a 250Gb hard drive upgrade from Compaq because it thrashed the original drive to death) and would quickly either dump the machine for a new XP box or bring it to somebody like me and say "get this Vista POS off and put XP on!"
So if MSFT wants to know who is to blame for folks hating Vista like the second coming of WinME, they just need to look in the mirror. Sure on a dual core with 2Gb+ of RAM it'll run decently, but the "Best Buy Specials" being sold at the time of the Vista release were single core Sempron and Celeron with 512Mb of RAM and really lousy Intel or SiS IGPs. Those machines should have NEVER had Vista come within a 1000 yards of it, yet MSFT let manufacturers put "Vista capable" on them along with that piece of trash Vista Basic and customers felt like they were scammed, which of course they were. I have many customers now with new XP duals and Quads and they are not looking at Windows 7 until 2012, if at all. Too many got burnt thanks to Vista Capable and are just gonna set out Windows 7.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh, that may well turn out to be a major decision: if OEMs and end users now expect to get their (netbook) operating systems for ~$20, how can Microsoft raise the price to $100?
That is a _major_ price hike for devices that now cost $200-$400 total...
Because it's an 8 year old OS. People aren't expecting Windows 7 on a "netbook", and Microsoft is setting that expectation. They don't like netbooks... there's no margin. MS would prefer that people always look at them like toys, rather than what they actually are, which is more than adequate for 99% of what people do with their computers. People will still pay for the "real" OS because they're being told that Netbooks are toys, and nothing more.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
This was something I noticed when Vista came out...
To make application I have written have the Vista Aero look I had to recompile. But I noticed that my old version of Microsoft Excel (2003) has the new look. So there must be some code in in Vista that handles Microsoft projects nicer. Which doesn't seem fair.
Absolutely. Intel looked like they were going to start producing "decent" integrated graphics when, in 2004, they announced the GMA 900. It looked to Microsoft like the world's largest GPU maker would finally have something capable of desktop compositing, so they figured they could finally add this capability to Windows without a huge performance hit.
Then, in 2006 Intel announced the GMA X3000, but couldn't produce drivers to enable the advanced features like Vertex Shaders (this took eighteen months). In the end, the perfrormance sucked, and most OEMs passed-over the capable G965 for the craptacular 915G and 945G. So, in early 2007 Vista launched, and Microsoft was screwed because Intel hadn't delivered acceptable 3D performance in time, and had to put "Vista-Capable" logos on 915G and 945G machines that were still shipping.
The whole Netbook debacle hit Microsoft like a ton of bricks becaused Intel tried to segment the market, and used predatory pricing bundles to prevent OEMs from making netbooks with dual-core Atom or 3rd-party chipsets (e.g. pricing the Atom N270 + 945G chipset less than the Atom CPU itself). This meant that ALL Netbooks were incapable of running Vista, not just the low-end ones, because the only way to make a profitable Netbook was to follow the herd and take the Intel deal.
Now that Intel is finally upping the spec on their new Atom dual-core netbooks (end of this year), and now that Windows 7 has been optimized to the point that it's "usable" even on low-end Netbooks, I think Windows "performance" is poised for a comeback.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.