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A Tale of Two Windows 7s
theodp writes "It was the best of operating systems, it was the worst of operating systems. When it comes to the merits of Windows 7, it looks like Slate's Farhad Manjoo and PC Magazine's John Dvorak are going to have to agree to disagree. Manjoo gives Windows 7 a big thumbs-up (a sincere one, unlike Linus!), calling it a 'crowning achievement,' while Dvorak is less than impressed, saying, 'Win 7 is really just a Vista martini. The operating system may have two olives instead of one this time out, but it's still made with the same cheap Microsoft vodka.' So, for those of you who've had a chance to check things out, are things really different this time?"
Multiple readers have also pointed out that there have been problems with the download and installation of Windows 7 upgrades obtained through the student discount offer, which Microsoft has confirmed.
But for that matter, haven't it been established for long already that Win7 is basically Vista
Vista was somewhat unfairly blasted, Windows 7 is being somewhat unfairly hyped. The differences really are trivial, the Vista launch was just poorly managed. If you took an average customer and stuck windows vista and windows 7 in front of them they'd probably not notice the difference.
Dvorak is saying that there's really not a lot new. He's saying that Microsoft didn't bring into the fold those things they promised in Vista prior to the launch (all the interesting technologies they cut out). He's saying that Windows 7 is really just Vista with a few new eye-candy like things. Yes, it is a bit less resource hungry but even with all that the amount of performance gain is only about 5% over that of Vista, which goes unnoticed by the average user.
The feature sets that they added are not that significant and some of them aren't even based on Vista, instead they are based on add-ins such as WMP.
Technically, Dvorak is correct. It's just another run on the laundry where some of the more significant stains happened to come out.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I know this stuff has been beaten to death, but here's a guy who:
A) thought the mouse was a waste of time
B) thought the iPhone would fail
C) proclaimed there was no way Google would ever buy YouTube
among other things. In a strange sort of way, I almost admire him. He's managed to make a career of just complaining about stuff with not much to back it up.
The only thing I sort of remember is Dvorak claiming he had the scoop on Apple switching to Intel, but IIRC the rocket scientists at MacOS Rumors made the same claim. The implication here is that that prediction may not have been the most difficult to devine (i.e., saying that in the future, there will be a cure for cancer or some other disease.)
Quite frankly, if Dvorak is shitting all over Win7, my first reaction is that it's probably going to do well. In some ways, Dvorak is to tech as Jim Cramer is to stocks: Do the opposite of what they say and you'll be fine.
Mostly it sounded like Dvorak was annoyed that he wasn't being treated like the big cheese that he thinks he is:
"I haven't received a single personal note from a Microsoft PR person for roughly four years."
>>>Linux is still hampered by -perceived- usability problems
That's because it's written for programming geeks, not your average idiot. Heck even an engineer, like me, has a difficult time using Linux. (Change an Ubuntu screen to 640x480, and then try to change it back, without using secret hidden commands. Can't be done.)
Windows and MacOS are idiot-friendly. Even the ancient AmigaOS and C=64 GEOS are idiot-friendly. That's what Linux needs to become if it wants to be a universal replacement desktop, instead of just an isolated tool for technicians.
Uh oh. Here come the mods...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I agree with you. I have had vista on my PC for a while and I like it except for annoying security features.
Exactly. And theres lots of random issues like that. Once I installed Ubuntu some text we're randomly either really, really small and some we're huge. All the font sizes we're still normal and it was a fresh install. While I, who run linux servers daily, even couldn't solve the issue, how will a normal user do it?
Windows and MacOS are idiot-friendly. Even the ancient AmigaOS and C=64 GEOS are idiot-friendly. That's what Linux needs to become if it wants to be a universal replacement desktop, instead of just an isolated tool for technicians.
The day that happens, a new operating system will be created so that programming geeks can have a usable operating system...
The biggest difference is that Vista required a major hardware upgrade to run properly. Then when MS realized that there weren't enough "Vista capable" machines in existence to sell enough copies, they tried to shoehorn it into some platforms where it really couldn't perform. So Vista's failure was mostly the fault of the marketing people overriding the engineered design. Although the performance tuning of things like memory caching and the search service were also big problems.
Windows 7 has a much better chance of success because hardware sold over the past couple of years will have no problem running it. In fact, even some machines that couldn't run Vista should be able to run Win 7. However, if you are already running Vista on a dual-core machine with a couple gigs of memory, there's no real reason to upgrade unless you find the UI changes compelling.
Ironically, apart from the one-liner about the "cheap Microsoft vodka", Dvorak has absolutely nothing to say about the operating system itself. He spends the whole column railing about the incompetence of the MS marketing department and whinging that he is no longer treated like a press god. Looks like he's finally catching on that the industry has passed him by.
We are the 198 proof..
What doesn't make sense is why would happy people with a working computer go to a computer repair shop? Got you there, didn't I!
-nod- I suspect most people who've been using Linux for a while are spoiled by alt-window-dragging, which renders that problem moot
I'm sorry but on what planet is knowing a "secret handshake" to see a UI element you should never have to search for to begin with being spoiled?
Interesting.. I'm counting 2 BSODs, 6 complete lock ups and a few failures to activate disk drives waking up from sleep mode since Monday
If I saw this behavior I'd be thinking I'd had serious hardware or driver issues.
Oh good. Yet another iteration of a Microsoft product. They can't just add features or make the old ones better; they have to put them in new places. Take the "Run" command and put it somewhere new. Change the Control Panel. Screw up the Networking configuration screens beyond belief. Change for change's sake. They do this crap in all their products not just the OS; Outlook, Office, etc. It's to the point that customers don't want to upgrade because they don't want to have to re-learn everything.
People ask me how I can remember all the Unix/Linux command line instructions and I tell them that it's easy. They have not changed much in 25 years. Once you learn them, you've learned them.... all you need is to learn any new ones or any new switches to the old, reliable commands. Contrast this with every Microsoft product ever stole...er, innovated where you'll find new locations for old commands. We know what we need to do but we can't find the stupid command to click on to make it work.
MS has truly lost their way. The single greatest Apple commercial was the one where John Hodges decided to put all the money on PR and spend nothing to fix the product. It's so typical.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
except for annoying UAC messages
So I take it you don't like knowing when you or any software steps over the user/administrator boundary?
Whenever I get one of those I didn't anticipate, it's time to hunt for malware.
By that logc, you should not blame Linux is a driver does not exist, or is not full featured, for some piece of hardware.
IDLE-TIME PROCESS. Once in a while the system will go into an idle mode, requiring from five minutes to half an hour to unwind. It's weird, and I almost always have to reboot. When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I see that the System Idle Process is hogging all the resources and chewing up 95 percent of the processor's cycles. Doing what? Doing nothing? Once in a while, after you've clicked all over the screen trying to get the system to do something other than idle, all your clicks suddenly ignite and the screen goes crazy with activity. This is not right.
Nice going mods! Veeery informative...
Keep in mind that Windows 7 *is not* Windows 7.
If you're running what claims to be Windows 7, open a command prompt and run `winver`.
It is Windows 6.1. In other words, a dot release of Vista. The actual Windows 7 that was talked about after Vista was released was the complete re-write you're referring to, however after Vista bombed, they re-skinned Vista and touted it as Windows 7. Make no mistake, you all bought the same thing as the mac users going from 10.5 to 10.6. It's not a whole new OS - it's the same old OS shipping with a new skin, and few new minor updates. Nothing more, nothing less. The whole thing is a ploy to finally get people to move off of XP. If it succeeds, it's the ultimate example of sheeple-ship.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).