Windows 7 - Same gelato, different day
After the disaster that was Windows Vista, Adam Turner says Microsoft is determined to ensure Windows 7 is also bloatware.
Microsoft unveiled more details of Windows 7 overnight, the successor to the oft maligned Windows Vista. The fact we're talking about Vista's replacement less than two years after it hit the shelves would seem to be an admission that Vista was not the success Microsoft was hoping for. What has Redmond learned from this? Very little, it seems.
The trend these days is towards lean and mean, in both software and hardware -- partially in a backlash to Microsoft bloatware. In these fluctuating economic times, no-one wants to buy a completely new rig just because Microsoft feels like inflicting a new operating system on the world. Vista is the best thing that ever happened to MacOS and Linux.
Tiny netbooks like the Eee PC are a big hit with the punters because the price is right and because a 1 GHz processor with a good dollop of RAM is enough grunt to meet your day-to-day computing needs - assuming the OS is as lean as the hardware. Eee PCs run fine under Linux or even XP, but HP's sluggish Mini Note 2133 is an example of what happens when you tie the Vista millstone around a netbook's neck.
Microsoft has released a "pre-beta" of Windows 7 to developers and those hoping for a lean and mean rewrite of Windows will be disappointed. Early reports indicate it's just as resource-hungry as Vista. Rather than start again, it seems Microsoft has worked hard to improve some of Vista's more annoying features, for example toning down the annoying User Account Control and simplifying wifi and Bluetooth networking. You could be forgiven for considering it Vista Service Pack 2, even Steve Ballmer says Windows 7 is just Windows Vista but "a lot better". If so, why should Vista users be forced to pay for Windows 7?
It generally takes two Service Packs for Microsoft to get an operating system right. Given time, people might warm to Vista they way they warmed to XP SP2 -- but now Microsoft expects us to jump on the merry-go-around again with Windows 7. Vista saw plenty of users switch to other operating systems and forcing yet another upgrade on people isn't likely to stem the tide of defectors.
If this new operating system is more of the same, rather than a lean and mean rewrite of Windows, Microsoft would do much better to label Windows 7 as Vista SP2 and hand it out for free. This might convince long-suffering Vista users that Redmond is supporting them, rather than picking their pocket and taking them for another ride.
With Windows 7 it seems Microsoft is out to prove the old adage; you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.
Other Blog Entries written by Adam Turner:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comments: 2
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nix
Oct 29, 2008 4:15 PM
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It looks like Windows 7 will have more improvements to the UI than any version of Windows since Windows 95. Flicking through Paul Thurrott's excellent preview (http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_preview_02.asp) leaves me pretty keen to get my hands on it. A lot of the UI changes seem really well thought out, and it's nice to see them directly related to research MS has been discussing on the Windows 7 blog. So, in that respect it's really not the 'same old shite' as Vista at all.
Under the hood, maybe not a lot has changed. MS has claimed memory usage is greatly reduced, and the OS was demonstrated on a particularly low spec netbook (1GB RAM, 1GHz VIA, apparently). They claim it'll be able to be stripped down for low-resource situations. Seems like a good change to me, even though I've been sitting on a 4GB PC for some time now and have no issues with Vista's RAM usage. I'm not sure where the 'early reports' of high resource usage come from, but if true, I suppose it's to be expected for a beta OS (I recall Vista betas being even more RAM hungry than the final builds).
Also, I have no problem paying for an update to Vista more than 2 years after launch. I was previously a dedicated Mac user, and was forced to pay for Mac OS X updates yearly until they finally got their act together with 10.4. And I think the quality of Mac OS X before 10.3, at least, was a lot worse than Vista's.
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timk
Nov 4, 2008 11:37 PM
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Adam Turner says "The trend these days is towards lean and mean, in both software and hardware". Why? RAM costs less that $90 for 4GB. Why do you want to be lean and mean. Vista works beautifully in 4GB - most poeple can afford $90 for their RAM. I know I am far, far more productive using Vista than XP. I am talking about using office software, plus Visio, Photoshop and many more packages at the same time. Vista is more responsive than XP, when lots of software is operating in parallel (I use them both) and the fact that is quietly indexes (I don't hear it) every word of every document I use (this is in the thousands) means I can instantly find documents, spread sheets, etc containing key words, or words joined with boolean expressions.
I see no reason to me mean, or lean. I want my operating system and applications software to enable me to do everything I need, without having to download utilities, conversion routines, extra packages,etc. And I would like to be able to move from one comp[uter to the next and have all my standard applications there, without having to customise anything.
I used to write software, when memory was tiny - software had to be lean and efficient - and it took a long time to write that software. Thankfully, those days have passed. Now we can concentrate on productivity.
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