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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).
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.
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.
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.