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.

Comments

Vodka

[sopssa]

Microsoft Vodka? When do they learn to use Russian Standard Vodka (worth checking out btw, some style for the Saturday night).

But for that matter, haven't it been established for long already that Win7 is basically Vista with the quirks removed and improved features. Vista was more like a transition, while actually still being a good OS.

Re:Vodka

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. I have had vista on my PC for a while and I like it except for annoying UAC messages. I am definitely going to upgrade to windows 7.

Re:Vodka

[commodore64_love]

Staples is selling a brand-new AMD X2 desktop with brand-new Windows7 at only $300. A comparable Mac costs about $1500.

Re:Vodka

[malkavian]

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 (I got the UK preorder, which came early due to the postal strikes here).
So, your end of story isn't quite the end of the story it seems (isn't that always the way with someone that says "end of story"? It usually means "I can't think of any evidence, or any proof, so don't want to talk anymore in case you prove me wrong").

Re:Vodka

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Bullshit! try reading known issues on Technet for Vista. I personally saw this little gem a lot http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929762 Pull your head out of your ass Vista pre SP1 was very unstable, slow http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/02/04/2826167.aspx, and buggy http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/03/vista-capable-lawsuit-paints-picture-of-buggy-nvidia-drivers.ars. How does this horseshit get modded up? Not all of it was Microsoft's fault some of it came from an unprepared Windows ecosystem (nvidia). But since Microsoft largely drives that ecosystem the lack of prep could be laid at their feet as well.

I have been running Windows 7 since RC and it seems much more stable faster etc... (granted that's my anecdotal experience) What Vista should have been.

Re:Vodka

[Anonymous Coward]

The secret key combo is Alt. I know the Illuminati have been working hard to cover it up, but if you crawl on your belly to some dark corners of Freenet and know Finnish as well as the proper incantations, you can find people that will tell you where the Alt key is and what it does.

You spent three hours and then reinstalled the entire OS. That's like retyping a letter because you don't know what backspace does, and then complaining that keyboards are not user-friendly. Look: none of this stuff is user-friendly, nor is any of it intuitive. There are only the secret tricks you know and the secret tricks you haven't learned yet. But there's always "TFM," and being an engineer doesn't mean you're so high and mighty that you don't have to "R" it. And if that sounds harsh, well, I see you on here every day being harsh to people so you should be able to handle it.

Here's some more arcane magick in case you need to change your resolution again without reinstalling the OS: the second Google result for "ubuntu change resolution 640x480 no ok button" comes back with "sudo xrandr -s 1280x800". There's also xorg.conf, which unlike the Windows registry is a consistent and discoverable place, is well-documented, and can be modified with a humble text editor.

Computers are complicated, and even Macs have a learning curve. But Windows is by far the nuttiest. I have spent time with people who tried to switch *to* Windows, and they have a ridiculously difficult time of it. Ever try to make the font larger on your received messages in Outlook 2003? Two menus and three dialogs deep, not one saying anything about font size. The final button on this journey is very helpfully called "other settings". We don't see it because we're so used to it, but most of Windows is like this. Microsoft never saw a piece of over-engineering that they didn't like.

To contrast: the other day I was checking the mail on an old SCO Unix box. You know how to do that? You log in and type "mail". How's that for intuitive?

And forget Joe Six-Pack when thinking about desktop linux viability. Having a safe, clean Windows box that does what you need it to do and only spies on you a little bit takes years of training. It's understandable that people don't want to give up that investment, but to blame linux for that is stupid, yet people come on here and do that every day.

Re:Vodka

[dave562]

Lets see here... 6 lock ups and disk drives failing to wake up. That sounds like bad hardware, not a bad OS. In all seriousness you either have bad RAM, a bad mainboard, or both.

Re:Vodka

[ajlisows]

I've also been running Windows 7 for quite some time. Since the Beta or whatever...two different (Reasonably new) machines. I wanted to run the 64-bit version but it was crashing at least once per day. All too often, after it crashed it simply would not boot into windows until I ran a "Startup Repair". With the 32-bit version, it has been rock solid. I realize the 64-bit crashes were probably driver issues, but I tried tweaking all the drivers to no avail. Maybe it isn't Microsoft's fault that they kept crashing but that hardly matters. If it isn't stable it isn't going to work out.

Re:Vodka

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like my WinXP box. I only use it to run Games & Tax software. Just 4 games at that. It still crashes (bluescreens) regularly. I've tried updating drivers. Frequently! No help there.

But when I dual-boot it into Linux, with the same hardware, then it's rock solid.

(How is it that Linux is rock-solid with 25 virtual screens, 1000's of iconified windows, over 500 processes, all while concurrently running mysql & mythtv. Whereas Windows crashes at the start prompt with NO user apps running?)

Re:Vodka

[ls671]

When I was in school and later on specialized training, the teachers/instructors sometimes mentioned that a "true multitasking system" is preferable to accomplish the task they were talking about. I often asked them if Windows qualified and they wouldn't answer, but obviously, by their mimics, they thought no.

Windows 7 is just the same old thing improved. Microsoft would have to completely ditch their OS and rewrite something from scratch ($$$) to qualify as a "true multitasking system" and make it to server land like they have been trying to do since around 1999 or 2000. Just think about NTFS algorithm with regards to fragmentation. It is the same all over the place in memory/process management etc. All legacies from DOS which wasn't designed in the first place to be a "true multitasking system" which is needed for modern computing. Unix was designed from the start with those concerns in mind.

P.S. I use Windows for desktop and laptop mostly to ease dealing with the rest of the world but all critical business functionality/storage is ran under Unix. Serious stuff is also done on Unix through Xvnc displaying on my Windows desktop/laptop. It is uncommon for me to have X session run for a whole year. I still use XP but I will eventually upgrade to Windows 7 or better, I usually skip 1 or 2 versions ;-))

 

Re:Vodka

[kingturkey]

UAC is good in Windows 7; it's all the virus protection an intelligent user needs. In Vista, however, it popped up for retarded things and you couldn't customise the level of warnings enough; I got messages when deleting files from my data partition and for changing settings in Control Panel.

Re:Vodka

[saiha]

I'm very interested to hear your definition of windows that makes it not "true" multitasking while some other operating system would be.

It's more important MS had another release

[xtal]

If Windows 7 is any good or not is really a moot point. Every new, additional release of windows, and every new API they introduce dilutes the Windows XP/IE monoculture that was stopping the acceptance of alternative OSes. Microsoft is unlikely to ever regain the position of dominance they had on 2000-01, so it's only a matter of time.

I read both articles...

[trudyscousin]

...and came to the conclusion that I was dealing with a couple of cranks in Mssrs. Manjoo and Dvorak (not that the latter comes as any surprise).

Manjoo's piece attempted to 'prove' that Windows 7 was a better operating system based on one feature (Taskbar/Aero Views vs. Exposé) and provided a rather subjective critiqué even for that. I'd have liked to have learned more from him about why Windows 7 supposedly beats out Snow Leopard. Nonetheless, his first paragraph (with regards to crapware and the like) tells me what I've always known about the Windows experience: The more things change, the more they unfortunately remain the same.

As for Dvorak's piece, "cheap Microsoft vodka" paints a funny picture, but droning on about how he never gets any more press kits from Microsoft (is it really any wonder, knowing Dvorak?) doesn't tell me anything about Windows 7.

So what?

[VinylPusher]

If I pretend Vista never happened and I'm going straight from XP to 7, 7 is good.

I could do everything I need to do using just XP, but it wouldn't get done quite as rapidly or elegantly. The whole side-by-side window thing wins a bunch of gratitude from me to Microsoft. Windows key + left/right arrow = definite winner. Anything that reduces my interation with my mouse is a good thing. Works great with side-by-side monitors too :)

Windows 7 improves things *just* enough for me to have little moments of 'ooh, that's nice', which is something missing from XP and Vista.

USB device recognition: Fast. Very fast.
Multi-monitor support: Slick. Unobtrusive. A no-brainer.
UI interactions: Rapid. Responsive. Highly configurable. -- I tend to turn off all the animations / slide effects. Me click close gadget = window gone instantly. Thus my productivity goes up a small percentage.
Hardware support: Inconspicuous. Works just like magic. -- My Nokia N97 (with or without installation of Nokia's Ovi application suite) works exactly as I need it to when I hook it up.
Firewall: I will never need a 3rd-party firewall. Windows 7's firewall (once you get at its interface) is nothing short of perfect.
Networking: Again, it just works. No need to faff about with it. Even recognised my nForce 4 based motherboard's Nvidia ethernet port. Not just recognised, but supports TCP offloading. Not that I needed to know this, but I went poking around ;)

OK, I had to install graphics drivers to get any reasonable performance, but if I hadn't, I could still use my 1920x1200 native resolution and not really suffer *too* great a performance loss in office apps.

Windows 7 will see me through the next 6 years quite happily.

On Par with XP, Quality-Wise

[ovanklot]

I've been using Windows 7 for a couple of months now, since it was RTW, after using Vista for a couple of years.
There is absolutely no comparison to Vista in terms of speed and stability, as it it far better. I also love some of the new features they added. Windows 7 is to Windows Vista what Windows XP was to Windows ME.

By the way, Apple's ads have been going downhill since they started. They started out nice and truthful, highlighting Microsoft's failures and Apple's successes nicely, but now they've turned into mostly FUD and cheap-shots.

Revisionist History

[earlymon]

Vista was more like a transition, while actually still being a good OS.

That is revisionist history in the extreme.

Despite all who liked Vista - and there were many - no, it was not a good operating system if you use simple consumer metrics: a) it frustrated people, b) it caused many working Windows systems to no longer work, c) it created confusion without end.

You can even use this simple product metric - it was so bad that the company that made it decided to call the fixed version by a completely different name.

At the risk of being modded down as a basher - and I'm not - I say this because it's REALITY.

You might want to disagree with me as a happy Vista user - but that makes my point. You might WANT for reality to have been that Vista was great and poor, poor Microsoft was unfairly slagged and misunderstood - but that is not Vista's history.

Do you even remember Longhorn? How that failed to materialize? How Vista was supposed to be all of the Longhorn goodness that was supposed to be ready for prime-time release? You do know that Vista wasn't just some follow-on to XP that didn't get a fair shake, yes? And if it was supposed to be the transition to anything, it would have been to the lauded claims of Longhorn?

Vista failed. Microsoft fixed it (we hope) - but it was such a failure, they had to rename it.

That was not the fault of Consumer Misunderstanding or poor Microsoft being bashed by the Spiteful Media or People Like Me.

It failed because too us could get it to work - and fewer still were those that got it working that didn't still prefer XP.

Re:Revisionist History

[SectoidRandom]

You have stated very well the real and often unstated issue that Vista faced, nobody understood it!

I remember waiting in the customer service line of a big computer shop a few months back, and there was this lady at the counter screaming about getting a refund for her new HP laptop, why? Because she didn't understand this "Vista" thing? She wanted "Windows" and "Office" and nothing else.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that most people don't know or care a bit about operating systems and interfaces, they likely believe that frankly if they had to go through how many boring hours of Windows and Office training back in the day, who's going to be paying them to do it all again!?

Personally I think any steps towards a more intuitive and usable OS (in particular the IU) is a good thing, so go Microsoft, go Apple, keep up the good work. But change like this is not going to sell new computers by itself. Fortunately however for Microsoft and Apple, the previous versions of Vista and OSX have now been out for long enough that a good number (20% according to Vista stats) of people have been exposed to it, this can only help ease that learning curve. So one could argue that on that point alone Windows7 will have a better time that Vista ever could have!

Windows 7 faster than what?

[Posting=!Working]

OK, I have no problem with anyone saying Windows 7 is faster than XP. I've never actually seen Windows 7. But I have noticed this gem.

My laptop was disabled due to the cooling fans being completely blocked and my inability to find the 3 hidden screws to finally open the case. So I hooked up my old desktop, a Celeron 300MHz running Windows 95. When I finally got the laptop running, I could not believe how much slower a Pentum 4M 3.2 GHz with 4 times as much memory was at basic file manipulation. I'm not talking about running any programs, but just open folder move/copy/delete files. I have all visual effect turned off in XP, no thumbnail views, all explorer toolbars and options off, and all power options to Never turn off. Windows 95, double click on a folder and you see the contents before you can get your finger off the button. Same with moving, copying and deleting files, click and done. Everything responds instantly. Windows XP, click and wait. Tried shutting off everything, no wireless, no antivirus or anti spyware, nothing at all running at startup on a clean install, and still nothing responds as quickly.

Can anyone tell me why a computer that is 10 times faster with 4 times the memory is so much slower at responding to simple inputs? There's a perceptible lag when just single clicking a desktop icon to highlight it.

I liked computers so much better when the most important thing was reacting to what I was telling it to do.

There needs to be a Stop button, as in "stop doing everything that you're doing so you can respond to what I'm telling you to do right now."

Google "Farhad Manjoo" + Microsoft: Poodle

[curmudgeon99]

I suggest that you Google "Farhad Manjoo" + Microsoft. You will find clear evidence that he is a Microsoft Poodle. You can find dozens of places where he is obviously shilling for Microsoft. Don't trust a damn thing this "Farhad Manjoo" jackass says.

Golem 101

[epine]

So, it was marketing departments that forced this upon us, but it wasn't entirely Microsoft's fault...

That's the shallowest legitimate attempt to make sense of Microsoft marketing I've come across in years.

I'm reminded of the episode where Schlomo Teittleman accuses Tony Soprano of being a living golem. Teittleman creates the golem through a deal with Tony to deprive his ex son-in-law of his divorce settlement. Tell me, who created this "magic sticker" program in the first place?

From Microsoft e-mails reveal Intel pressure over Vista

At the time, Intel was worried that it wouldn't be able to ship the more advanced 945 chispet, which was capable of running Aero, in step with Microsoft's proposed schedule for the introduction of the marketing upgrade plan.
...
"In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded," Microsoft's John Kalkman wrote in a February 2007 e-mail to Scott Di Valerio ...

Apparently, not all of the back-pressure came from the down trodden, and there was a clear second option: delay Vista-capable until Intel could ship the 945 in volume. Pretty risky, counting on Intel to meet volume targets.

Their second golem-making move was to set Vista up as a mandatory upgrade, so you got Vista whether you were happy enough with XP or not and then quoting Vista adoption figures as if it was a blockbuster out of the gate, fooling no one of any importance.

Finally--since I don't wish to continue all day--how could any sane company manage to screw up its QA relationship with nVidia while releasing an OS where the promoted benefit to end user is a more advanced graphical user interface?

Microsoft decided to push Vista into the marketplace where the customers didn't want it, and their partners weren't yet ready to fully support it. Major partners like Intel and nVidia.

It should have been handled more like the Windows 2000 roll-out. Let the losers continue to run Windows 98 if they're happy enough with it, force the issue with Windows XP when there's not much left to complain about. Imagine how the Windows 2000 roll-out would have gone if they'd discontinued selling Windows 98 pre-installed, without providing a stable nVidia driver, while Intel was still pushing volume on chipsets with no AGP support.

Even Microsoft's internal communication sounded a lot like a NASA engineer's memo from the launch pad declaring "I've got a bad feeling about this".

Windows 7 is not what Vista should have been, but rather when Vista should have been. A less arrogant refresh in between would have served the day. Was the entire MS marketing department too clueless to type Itanium, RDRAM, Caminogate, or Prescott into the Google search bar? A fine education in Golem 101 was there for the taking.

No Debate on Merits

[Grimfaire]

I'm not going to get into the whole Linux/MacOS/Windows mess, but talk about the Dvorak article. Manjoo at least looks at the OS and gives his opinions on it. Dvorak talks about the marketing that M$ does and does not once actually review the OS. He doesn't say one thing good or bad based on the OS itself. He bases his entire opinion on the marketing. That isn't journalism in any manner whatsoever. It is purely a crack pot writing what he thinks things are based purely on his opinion with no facts.

Re:Run the GUI - not the Computer

[Shados]

And aside for the very recent shift with PowerShell (which still can use the old commands anyway), Windows' commands haven't changed in forever either! WMI and you're good to go. Oh, you're talking about the UI! Yeah, that never changed in Linux, ever. No sir!.

Wait wait, i hear you... "But but...Linux is all about the command line! Windows is all UI!!!"

Yeah, right. Linux is all UI to the noobs too. So's Windows.

Re:Vastly superior

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I'm a Mac user by choice that is currently typing this from Kubuntu 9.04 with Windows 7 executing in a background. I was impressed with Windows 7 until I tried to play with networking. It wasn't working initially (turned out to be a conflict with VirtualBox's default 10.0.2.x NAT range) but I needed to see how Windows was configured (DHCP, etc.). So I go to Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> View Network Status and Tasks -> Change Adapter Settings. Then I left-click on "Local Connection". Now, to get the IP and gateway info, I have to click "View Status of Connection". To view whether it's set up for DHCP check the DNS servers, I have to click "Change Settings of this Connection", right-click on "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP)" and click "Properties".

By contrast, here is what I do in Mac OS X: Click the apple menu, click System Preferences. Click Network. There I'm presented with a list of all of my adapters. I click on one and I see everything I need.

In Kubuntu, I click the knetwork-manager applet and click "Manage Connections"

Now, which of the three is the most usable? Keep in mind that as I was troubleshooting the networking issue I had with my VM, I constantly had to repeat those steps. What is that, like 10 clicks? Look at the menu names ... "View Network Status and Tasks", "Change Adapter Settings" ... is this supposed to be intuitive?

Another thing, is that Windows pops up every time I jump on a network and asks me if it's a home network, work network, or public network, and initializes stuff for me (including home groups, which I don't want). Now, this is fantastic for end users, and a great feature. But as a power user running 3 levels of NAT at home (local net, work VPN, and NAT VMs) it is infuriating to have the details hidden from me and not know how to get to them.

I would definitely recommend Windows 7 to anyone who wants to plug something in and have it just work and be done with it (which is I think the point). But the configuration is hellish, so if you like to tinker, think twice.