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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.
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
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..
-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.
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.
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...