Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's 864
Death Metal Maniac tips an Ars Technica piece suggesting that the media's coverage of Vista's flaws portrayed the operating system as worse than it was, and, if early reports on Windows 7 are any indication, positive hype will create the opposite reaction this time around. Quoting: "... the problem is exaggeration; ... bloggers and journalists alike use their personal experiences to prove their point in their writing. The blame doesn't solely lie with us, as Vista was by no means perfect, but we did manage to amplify the problems beyond reason. And if the beta is anything to go by, Windows 7 is going to fly. This is, by far, the best beta operating system the software giant has ever released. The media has locked on to this, and is using exaggeration already, before Windows 7 is even ready for prime time." Apparently a decent beta can succeed where $300 million and Jerry Seinfeld failed.
Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:3, Insightful)
but we did manage to amplify the problems beyond reason.
No you didn't. And yes, I've had to use Vista.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 7 is just Vista SP2 + 3 years newer hardware + drivers.
When Vista came out:
-people had slower CPU's and GPU's, which couldn't run Vista well. Also, MS said OK to Intel screwing everybody with the 'Vista-capable' debacle.
-people had older peripherals, which either didn't have drivers available for them when Vista launched, or the manufacturer decided to never make Vista drivers for them
-Vista itself wasn't particularly bug free or user friendly (UAC anyone)
Now, 2 years later (3 when W7 actually ships)
-people have thrown away older peripherals and bought new ones, that have Vista drivers
-drivers are also less buggy, especially graphics drivers
-people (particularly companies) have bought new computers, with a more capable cpu and gpu
-MS has looked to the other major OS's for tips on how to resolve their more egregious UI problems (Linux/MacOSX)
Windows 7 will be still the bloated pig of an OS that Vista was (and is), but hardware and time has caught up so that now, it runs at a reasonable clip on the latest hardware.
This is just a huge rebranding job for MS. It had to be clear to MS shortly after Vista shipped that Vista as a brand was dead from all the negative press it had received. Now, it's just a happy bonus for them to be able to sell you an upgrade to get a package that says Windows 7 instead of Windows Vista.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually not the first time Calculator has received an update, but of course When you change the insides, nobody notices [msdn.com]:
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pressing 3 + 2 * 2 = in windows calculator.
Standard: 10 (as a handheld calculator would produces, as it calculates 3 + 2 when you press *)
Scientific: 7 (as the scientific calculator on my desk produces)
What's the problem?
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't even know the two modes worked differently until now. In my eyes the problems are:
Both are pretty major issues for such a simple app, IMO.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Interesting)
actually there are two modes of operation (as the grandparent said). There is "standard" which works like an off the shelf cheap calculator. This mode *ignores* order of operations by design, because that's what cheap non-scientific calculators do!.
In scientific mode, it will properly use order of operations.
Funny enough, I do some contributing to kcalc for KDE and having a mode which ignore orders of operators to make it work like a "real calculator" is a relatively frequent request. I'm not a fan of this idea, so I never did it...but there is a demand for it.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet another reason why Linux has a 0.86% desktop market share... and dropping.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Informative)
But did they fix the [calc] bug? Or does it still produce 'scientific' and 'wrong' results for 3+2*2?
Ages ago. http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/05/25/141253.aspx [msdn.com]
The calculator in Windows 7 is also vastly improved: http://lifehacker.com/5078756/windows-7s-calculator-bundles-real+life-uses [lifehacker.com]
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:4, Informative)
Did they fix it so I can type '3 2 2 * +'?
Also, I seem to remember that Win2k notepad could handle Unix line endings, but the feature disappeared in WinXP. Did they forget to merge in the right code and never got around to fixing it again?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(3 + 2) * 2 == 10
in the same way that cheap calculators work, whereas scientific mode uses correct operation ordering uses
3 + (2 * 2) == 7
which is the correct order in maths. The people who claim this is a bug don't appear to fully understand the order of operations [wikipedia.org] and how it applies to real handheld calculators.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!
We like to keep a modicum of decency in these forums, what you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business.
Re:Please... (Score:4, Funny)
We like to keep a modicum of decency in these forums
You must be new here...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost all of those issues seem to be aesthetic, and that opinion will vary between person to person. For instance, I love the new control panel, the Ribbon, and the style of the windows/taskbar. Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!
The aesthetics still need work. They can't get a common icon theme thoughout the OS, for applications they own. For me it feels more cluttered and harder to use than XP. I don't feel the a UI expert was involved.
In the end what really gets me is that Apple is able to release
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:4, Insightful)
I still can't get over how they want me to pay for less. They seemed to have spent an exorbitant amount of time working on the gloss and glitter of the OS, but seemed to strip features that I liked out of the OS altogether. I love the ability to turn quicklaunch bars into menus. It made transitions from Gnome to Windows (and back) easier. (Maybe this was their point in removing them?) I also dislike that the classic start menu is gone. I understand people didn't like that depth of menus (which is what I actually liked, being able to customize the layout) but to remove the feature altogether seems like a knee-jerk reaction. Also, I read about someone disliking the new treeview and I have to agree. I want lines and I don't want my icons disappearing if the view loses focus.
I also dislike the addition of more toolbars that cannot be removed. This seems to enforce the idea that the OS has to be a greater part of your computer usage when, in fact, I want it to get out of my way more.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, glad to see that stuff like UI layout is being modded up. It only is a matter of personal taste but whatever. I personally hate the Office Ribbon, but haven't had to use Office 2007 much so I can't be sure if its bad or not. I have used Vista and played with Windows 7 and I personally like the new UI for Windows Explorer. I think its oodles better than the flat gray color used in Windows XP, 2000, and 95/98.
But who cares about the way the UI looks. That's really a minor thing compared to the issu
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:4, Informative)
What was wrong with Vista?
Vista, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
1 - It still doesn't disable autorun/autoplay from writeable media by default. This is totally inexcusable these days. In fact, I would argue that autorun/autoplay in general is inexcusable. At most there should be a popup asking if you want to explore the volume or run the autorun/autoplay program.
2 - File copies are ridiculously slow. Unzipping files using the built-in handler is unbelievably slow compared to e.g. 7-zip.
3 - Apparently I can't share arbitrary folders as writeable, only the Users\Public folder. Everything else gets the "read-only" box checked as soon as I close the properties window regardless of the NTFS and share permissions.
4 - In order to allow write access to the Public folder, I have to use the asinine "Network and Sharing Center", the most pointless piece of crap middleman "utility" ever invented by Microsoft.
5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details. So like every other version of Windows, the first thing I did was to set the view to Details for a folder, go into the Folder Options, and tell Windows not to use unique views for each folder. Despite doing this many times, Vista will still randomly pick other views that it thinks are better (even though they're worse) for some folders some of the time. It also refuses to remember the sort order I choose for my Documents folder, and every time I go into it, it's sorted by Type, not Name.
6 - I still have to reboot after nearly every set of patches.
7 - It's bogged down with DRM.
8 - Because of the new driver models, support for a bunch of still-useful legacy hardware was dropped. Should I really have to buy a new analogue video capture card, for example? S-Video and composite haven't really changed much in the last few years.
9 - UAC. At least I can turn this off.
10 - As others have suggested, changing things for the sake of changing things (as opposed to making them better). E.g. the Office ribbon-style UI, the aforementioned Network and Sharing Center, etc.
11 - The stupid split-token behaviour for administrators if UAC is enabled (although I can't remember offhand if this is just in Server 2008 or Vista as well, because I turn off UAC on my personal system). If you're going to copy (K)Ubuntu, please do it right, MS.
12 - There's still no true equivalent of a root account. Even if you use psexec to start up a command line in the context of the system account, there are things it's not allowed to do.
I've been using Vista for about two years now, so these are not first impressions. The only reason I've stuck with it for so long is the volume of data I have on this system and not wanting to have to reconfigure everything by going back to XP.
There were a few things I thought were clever at first, like the "smart" sort order for directories. But even that seems like more of a headache than it's worth to me at this point.
I had really hoped that when I saw Server 2008 and Windows 7, I would see that MS had backpedaled after realizing what a bunch of jerks they'd made themselves look like with Vista. Sadly they haven't, and so my next desktop is going to run Kubuntu as the primary OS. I've been using it on a secondary system for awhile now and while it's a little rough around the edges, I vastly prefer it to Vista.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh dear god yes. This has got to be my #1 annoyance with Vista.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I don't know what you've done to your Vista but somehow or other you've monged it thouroughly.
1. Mine actually does this. In fact, the behaviour you suggest for default is...erm...the OS default. It's only if you click the "remember this choice" button that it changes.
2. They are slow, though that did improve witht he service pack.
3. I've shared arbitrary folders as writeable. I use it to mount my entire C drive from my Mac.
4. Or you could right-click->Properties->Sharing. Your call. You can't take the long way round and then blame MS for it.
5. I've never done this, so no comment.
6. This is the most annoying thing. Seems like every time you boot the computer you have to reboot it! But this is a flaw with Windows vs. Linux etc, not with Vista in specific.
7. Again, this is not something I've had a problem with (as in, my behaviour has never been restricted by it) but it may be true.
8. A lot of this was driven by the device manufacturers. See the Creative vs. Daniel_K fiasco, discussed here a while ago.
9. Most times I boot the PC I don't run into UAC. It does trigger too often (e.g. when changing user settings) but it doesn't really bug me much more than a privileges elevation in Linux.
10. I actually like the Network and Sharing center. It's a central interface for networking activities. I wish Ubuntu had one by default.
11&12. Yeah, but again, these are criticisms of Windows vs. *nix and the average consumer doesn't seem to care.
I've had no problems with Vista, or at least none that weren't caused by Creative.
Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS? (Score:5, Funny)
5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details.
LIES!! You've got at least one folder that uses thumbnails view. We all do...
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
At least Microsoft's marketing department is doing its job right this time.
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like their marketing department has refined what appears to be their only effective strategy.... Which we've seen before with Win98->WinME->WinXP.
You HAVE a perfectly serviceable product, WindowsXP.
You release something really shitty, Windows Vista.
The expected backlash gives you an opportunity to announce the release of the panacea for all Vista's ills. Windows 7.
Now, since Windows 7 APPEARS TO BE so much better than the APPARENTLY SHITTY Vista, there's a lot of positive attention.
But at the end of the day, Microsoft's PRODUCTS still aren't compelling -- Windows 7 main selling point is that it just doesn't work like shit -- and that appears to be good enough.
But 'not working like shit' is what we already HAVE, with XP.
Brilliant.
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is that it relies on OLD technology to 'work well'.
In that case, why upgrade the Linux kernel, ever? It works well. Why upgrade your car? It gets you from point A to point B. Why upgrade anything, ever?
If you're in that mindset, you would suffice with having a butter churn and live by candlelight. They are servicable too.
But for the rest of us who want "next gen" technology, I think Windows 7 does have some benefits (as did Vista, in a much crappier package) over XP. And if you don't see that, then stick with XP. I don't see the big deal.
poor reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a dumb argument. I still slice bread with knife, a technology which has been around for thousands of years - I could move to spiffy new computer controlled laser system, but why? It's expensive, both to acquire and replace, it's more work to service, and it doesn't get me much.
So what if the technology is old? Why is the new technology any better? What is the new technology that Win7 introduces that makes it so much better than XP? You don't mention it in your post.
Re:poor reasoning (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a dumb argument. I still slice bread with knife, a technology which has been around for thousands of years - I could move to spiffy new computer controlled laser system, but why? It's expensive, both to acquire and replace, it's more work to service, and it doesn't get me much.
So what if the technology is old? Why is the new technology any better? What is the new technology that Win7 introduces that makes it so much better than XP? You don't mention it in your post.
Speak for yourself. My PC has some seriously expensive and very recent technology in it, and XP has lots of problems with it. I get lockups, driver issues (XP seems almost incapable of reliably running my Geforce 280), and the boot time is appalling.
And no, its not out of date drivers or too much stuff loading at startup. I have antivirus and gmal notifier, that's all. Plus my drivers are all up to date. The problem is that XP is ten year old technology. Patched up or not, its still far too old. It seems that once you move past a certain technology threshold, XP just can't cope.
The Ubuntu I duel boot runs the same hardware smooth as a jolly smooth thing, so its not crappy hardware either.
WIndows 7 Beta loads fast, has *zero* driver issues for me (the geforce drivers need to improve, but they work, and it is a beta...), and overall beats the crap out of XP in every respect. I even tried it on my laptop (usually that runs Vista), and the improvements were imediatelly apparent in terms of speed.
I've shied away from using it as my main development OS thus far, but plan to in the next month or so.
Re:poor reasoning (Score:5, Funny)
That sounds exciting. Does that involve you fighting Ubuntu, or is it Ubuntu versus Windows to decide which gets to load?
Re:poor reasoning (Score:5, Informative)
Vista and Win7 introduced image based installers so you can use one image on all your enterprise hardware without having to worry about weird interactions like you did with unattended installations of XP.
Full disk encryption can be deployed centrally with keys managed centrally. Vista introduced a lot of new technologies that people are still learning. Group policy support has been greatly extended in Vista and Win7 allowing for much tighter control over the enterprise environment.
I would go into more details but I am just learning how to use all the new features myself as I am only beginning the process of deploying it out to the corporate desktops. It will take me a little while longer as I have no plans to upgrade XP, I'll only move to Vista or Win7 when hardware leases are up.
Centralized software licensing, auditing, encryption, and indexing are all new features in Vista that would appeal to the enterprise. This is in addition to things like bringing volume shadow copy to the desktop with automatic versioning.
The enterprise side of the house has a great number of features which make the experience worse for the home user but that's the trade-off. Microsoft should separate out the operating systems as they are trying to service everyone and making no-one happy.
Re:poor reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
from what I've read (and I do read from places other than Slashdot), that Windows 7 stops allowing *some* applications to be written entirely like shit.
Unlikely. There is no operating system, or framework, or magic sauce which will prevent an application from being written like shit [thedailywtf.com].
It is, however, possible for a language or a framework to encourage applications to be written like shit -- IMO, PHP does this. Are you suggesting that XP does as well?
the ones that *require admin rights* and other things won't function well. They are breaking compatibility for those poorly coded apps.
In other words, they're doing exactly what they did in Vista. Which, while a welcome change, the way they enforced it was moronic and irritating -- the app still ultimately requires admin rights, but now I have to click "Yes, I want to give it admin rights" five, ten, sometimes fifteen times.
Other things like Direct X, memory management, caching... I guess those are plusses too.
Gee, I didn't know XP didn't have DirectX, or caching! Oh wait...
On the enterprise end there are *lots* of enhancements and benefits, but since this is Slashdot,
Since this is Slashdot, it would help if you cited even a single enhancement or benefit that isn't already in XP.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I simply tell people if it doesn't run as a limited user it isn't Fully XP/Vista compatible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
if I can utilize a new tool to get my job done more effectively and easily, I can't see a reason not to use it.
True, but RealityMaster's point is that he doesn't see any improvements for him, and HerculesMO wasn't offering any examples. You did so by mentioning the universal imaging.
Re:You're out of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you actually tasted commercially packaged, pre-sliced bread? It is terrible. Go to a good baker, now, and get a fresh whole loaf. No, don't go to the supermarket, a real baker! If you're fast, it might still be nice, warm, and crispy.
Re:poor reasoning (Score:5, Informative)
Do some research spewing assertions that are incorrect. Serrated blades have been used for bread for thousands of years, and have been found in N. Africa, Egypt and Great Britain. For example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/472505.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
And pray-tell, what real benefits are those?
Badly composited windows that take way too many resources?
Removal of receiving and sending faxes from the home (crippled user) version?
Non-accelerated sound system?
DRM system built in on the audio and video subsystems?
Ram gobbler (2GB.. not enough)?
10GB install with no real apps (where did the space go)? yay solitaire.
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
And pray-tell, what real benefits are those?
Vista's Freecell is fully horizontally resizable. I've been waiting 15 years for that feature, if that isn't worth the upgrade I don't know what is.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
And pray-tell, what real benefits are those?
Badly composited windows that take way too many resources?
Removal of receiving and sending faxes from the home (crippled user) version?
Non-accelerated sound system?
DRM system built in on the audio and video subsystems?
Ram gobbler (2GB.. not enough)?
10GB install with no real apps (where did the space go)? yay solitaire.
1: opinion, I quite like the windows layout in Vista. Vista uses lots of resources as a whole, it's not down to the windows. Don't want your GPU being used for Aero? Disable it.
2: Are you serious? How many home users ever send a fax at all, let alone through their PC? I've not seen a PC built in the last 5+ years that had a fax modem.
3: That is one of the best features of Vista. Bad sound drivers were one of the main causes of blue screens in XP. Putting a software layer between the drivers and hardware prevents a lot of problems because manufacturers simply couldn't be trusted. I suppose the per application volume control and other benefits the Vista sound system brings are awful too?
4: I wish people would stop parroting this stupid point. The DRM Vista enables you to play things you otherwise couldn't play. You strip out the DRM and there's no difference except you can't play certain media types. Don't like DRM, don't buy protected media!
5: unused RAM is wasted RAM. So long as it frees up the RAM when a high priority application needs it, using spare RAM for caching can have huge benefits. Don't trot out the power usage argument. The difference in power between half full ram and full ram is miniscule
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
It only took ~6GB when I installed it.
7 ran quite well on 512 MB RAM.
Turns off defragmenter for SSDs
More efficient SSD formatting
Boot from VHD
CableCARD and H.264 support built-in
MP4, MOV, 3GP, AVCHD, ADTS, M4A, and WTV multimedia containers, with native codecs for H.264, MPEG4-SP, ASP/DivX/Xvid, MJPEG, DV, AAC-LC, LPCM, AAC-HE
UAC is way better--less prompts
Windows Biometric Framework
DNSSEC support
Powershell built in
Can burn ISOs
Wordpad supports OOXML and ODF
Libraries
Federated Search via OpenSearch
Re-arrange things on taskbar...yes you can make it look almost exactly like the Vista taskbar if you want.
Jump Lists
WinKey+Arrow Key for moving applications to one half of the monitor or the other
Touch integration
Yes a lot of these things can be had on Linux/through 3rd party programs. But now they are included in the OS, which 99% of the time means less problems/slowness/crashes. And developers can count on them to be there.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7#Core_operating_system [wikipedia.org]
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, what the hell are they doing with all that space? Freshly-installed Vista eats more space than Ubuntu with every app I might conceivably want to ever use installed, even with Vista's disk-swap turned off!
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
I would phase that slightly different.
The bar has been lowered.
Vista was compared to XP, which thanks to its long long long lifetime has become a standard, fairly polished, with known and mostly manageable security issues.
Vista comes along, does things different, breaks a lot, and is considered shitty.
Then Win7 is released, and it is now being compared to it's direct parent, Vista. Not XP. So MS only has to put a product in the market that appears better than Vista (reviewers won't complain too hard about drivers and other compatibility I suppose, it's beta after all), not better than the old and trusted XP.
That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.
Actually, there have been lots of Win7 installs on netbooks, [liliputing.com] and the general consensus is that it runs fine. Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.
I've been running the Win7beta for a couple weeks now, and it's been a pretty nice experience. My machine's perfectly capable of running Vista, though, so I haven't noticed many speed gains. The UI touch-ups are nice, though.
Why Not as Fast as XP? (Score:3, Insightful)
>Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.
You see I don't get this comment. Since the operating system 7 years ago had to run on much slower hardware, well, don't expect that now?
WHY F***G NOT! What on earth does an operating system have to do so that it sucks up ever bit of my quad core machine?
Here is the irony. Superfetch... Superfetch makes my programs faster to load and run. Well, are they counting the
Re:Why Not as Fast as XP? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.
>You see I don't get this comment. Since the operating system 7 years ago had to run on much slower hardware, well, don't expect that now?
>WHY F***G NOT! What on earth does an operating system have to do so that it sucks up ever bit of my quad core machine?
Hear Hear.
Yeah, early computing tech was slow, but at least the programmers were on average more careful with resource use.
Today's increase in tech level has allowed people to make bloated stuff where the bloat isn't really necessary. There are improvements in general, but so much of it is just stupid waste.
I shouldn't _need_ 42 bazillion megs of RAM for my computer to work properly
Re:Why Not as Fast as XP? (Score:4, Interesting)
When someone always decides to reinvent the whole fucking wheel, its always wasteful. I care for mother earth - the only thing I really need to upgrade is a higher efficiency PSU. Requiring a new computer for an OS is good for the economy. Landfills are getting more and more computer and related equipment which was perfectly functional but wasn't good enough for a new commercial OS. Productivity software and and the Internet work just fine for most people until a new OS shows up.
My current system has 1 GB of RAM and a 2.4 GHz CPU which does more than enough for the work I need. Windows 7 add absolutely no value to me and does not help me more productive and organized. The marketing dept. at MS loves that line. But they can never prove it "productive and organized".Where's a better Windows Explorer? Its been a total rehash since Windows 95 days, but just some newer icons each time. Since MS likes Ctrl + C, Ctrl+ V, just give me OS X Finder in Windows already. Guess that comes with the next OS.
Why are you so sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I'm quite certain that if I tried to run Ubuntu 8.10 or whatever the newest release of it is (I've been out of the loop for a bit) on the same machine that I was running Red Hat 5.1 on ten years ago, it would choke.
I'm not. There are not really any more background processes. Code efficiency has improved... the only thing that probably would be slower is the GUI, but that's only the window manager and can be changed out easily or scaled back with settings changes.
Fundamentally Windows gets slower because the core system gets slower in the background, meaning the system as a whole needs more CPU just to stay in place. This contrasts with both Mac and Linux systems where new releases generally do not cause overall system slowdowns, even though they may add some components that are more CPU intensive.
Re:Why are you so sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
My Red Hat 5.1 (5.2 actually) machine was a Pentium 75 box with 16MB of memory. And, yeah, you could run X on it.
Do you really want to run GNOME or KDE on that?
Re:Why Not as Fast as XP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
I prefer Windows 7, even at this beta stage, over XP - direct comparison.
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
I prefer Windows 7, even at this beta stage, over XP - direct comparison.
Well, I prefer Windowx XP over Windows 7 - direct comparison. And I backed up my opinion just as well as you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.
Heh. It actually boots faster than XP on my EeePC 1000HD (900MHz Celeron, 1GB RAM). It's also a touch more responsive overall. If it didn't have the interesting habit of crashing randomly, I'd replace XP with it right now. But it's a beta, what do you expect?
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
There is a 64 bot Windows XP but they have stopped supporting it. I have it on two workstations at my office and it uses more than 4GB RAM just fine.
Windows Vista's and now Windows 7's most significant competition is Windows XP.
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
There is a 64 bot Windows XP but they have stopped supporting it.
I wouldn't want to support a Windows install with that many bots either!
it uses more than 4GB RAM just fine.
Why does this not suprise me? Bots are hardly memory-efficient.
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
Win7 has superfast wifi connect and resume. Big benefit on laptops.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Out of interest, how would *you* solve the virus issue? Because its not something you can ever completely solve through OS security alone, when your users still need to do stuff...
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of interest, how would *you* solve the virus issue?
First, stop making the product so absurdly exploitable. In no way should it be possible to contract malware from simply visiting a website, or leaving a network cable plugged in.
Second, make it obvious what you're doing, but not actually intrusive. It should not be possible to download and execute a program without realizing what you're doing. For an example of how to do this wrong, see VBA -- I should not be able to contract malware from a fucking office document. Nor should I have to memorize a list of dangerous file extensions. Compare with Linux -- until you chmod +x, or unpack the archive, it's not dangerous.
Third, provide known-good channels for obtaining new software. See: Linux package managers and repositories. Tie it in to Microsoft Update. Make it possible for third parties to run their own repositories. No need to host everything yourself, but it should at least be possible to periodically fetch, from a trusted source, a list of updated packages and signatures.
And finally, educate your users. The only computer which is secure from a user's own idiocy is one which doesn't let the user do anything worth protecting. Not limited to Windows, either, though it would help if the OS encouraged more secure, rather than less secure, modes of operation.
But until you've done the other steps, no amount of education will solve the problem. As long as the standard Windows method of installing software is some random EXE downloaded off a website, with at most an unverifiable signature claiming it's from that website, it requires too much effort.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In a day and age where an email borne trojan, locked away in a password protected zip file, purporting to be an urgent fix for your computer can get a not insubstantial install base shows that your points 1 - 3 would be nothing more than short term fixes, if that.
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
User education isn't going to work. People have been waving that flag for at least 20 years, and it still hasn't happened. Instead, computers are going to have to be more secure by default, while also having IT security departments more receptive to users' needs.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF has that got to do with Linux ? How did this malicious pdf get on "all your sites" in the first place ? How did the javascript get onto your sites ?
It sounds more like your pc was infected anyway. Especially as the only remedial action you mention taking is to get rid of Acrobat.
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
So my website had that javascript code infected on it. On my home machine, running XP (and an antivirus app), I browse to my website. It automatically redirects to the PDF, which automatically runs in Acrobat, which automatically infects my PC.
I was just merely pointing out an example that yes, Linux with all it's fancy security model CAN also get exploited, and even with lots of user education AND running AntiVirus apps, you can still get infected. The remedial action on my home PC was to get rid of Acrobat, because I didn't want to suffer any future exploits it had. The remedial action on the server was to reinstall the OS, restore the files from backup, and run through every PHP file and make sure it didn't have the injected javascript code on it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But that is most probably due to a badly coded PHP app, which is not exactly an unheard-of thing... Was the system hacked, or only what was write-accessible by the PHP app you are running?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If it was a badly coded PHP app, why is one badly coded PHP app able to infect the whole system? Of course, the same question can be asked of Acrobat Reader: why is a badly coded app able to infect the whole system?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're guessing ? So your inexperienced musings count as fact do they ? "Linux is the bad because I am so used to windows that I blame everything on the OS." If you are sharing a server, it is highly probably that you are sharing an ip address. Bad guy pings the ip address for certain php files, and if t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ask me, an exploit in PHP shouldn't count as an exploit in Linux. First because php is completely cross-platform, second because only fools believe php is secure, and third because if your install was setup correctly, the webserver's user-account would have no write permission to code.
Let me repeat that last. When your webserver goes to hand out index.php, if it sees "rw-" for permissions, any exploit is YOUR FAULT.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you have ssh with a simple password? Or did you use ftp over an wireless connection?
You mention php, is it possible that YOU did something stupid?
I doubt you'd admit any possibility that you left a gaping hole. But since you claim you have no idea how it happened, maybe you shouldn't use it as a case against Linux. Mainly because, as you can see, it can be turned into a case against you as well.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
My Linux server was exploited, I'm not quite sure how (nor did the server management guys).
If you're not quite sure how it was exploited, how do you know Linux itself was at fault?
Overwriting a few PHP files could have easily been done through a security hole in the PHP app itself.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain how acrobat had write permission to the operating system files.
----
This "No viruses for linux/bsd/osx because they are not popular" is simply microsoft propaganda.
If the 90/10 market share is true, then those systems should have 10% of the virus market by that logic.
Since so many web servers out there are linux, it stands to reason that virus writers would be more motivated to attack linux, owning a much more strategic point in the web than some end user's windows PC.
Google is a massively parallel network built on linux. You're claiming no virus writers would be interested in owning the google cloud?
Enough with the illogical propaganda.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Servers on any OS are harder to attack, because most viruses (in fact, all viruses, if you go by the strict definition of a computer virus, as opposed to a worm) require human interaction at some point to aid them. As servers tend to run unattended most of the time, the attacker has to resort to fully automated methods to exploit the system (i.e. security holes).
With desktop, all that's really needed is tricking the user into opening an infected file one way or another. On a system with properly configured security (i.e. user is not root - such as any Linux, or Windows starting with Vista), you also need to trick the user to click the confirmation prompt to access files. It is fairly obvious that both Linux and Vista/Win7 have equivalent security measures to prevent this scenario (which are sadly still not enough to overcome the human stupidity). However, 90% of all desktops are still Windows, which is why it makes more sense to attack it. Well, and also because Linux users today tend to be more tech savvy and will actually wonder why their email client asks them to elevate - but that's another story, and is not something that can be fixed by technical measured today.
So, the argument is valid, and abundance of Linux servers does not enter into the equation. All that matters is the desktop.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't think virus writers are attempting to break into the Linux cloud?
What Linux cloud?! I don't think you understand what cloud is supposed to mean (which is not much, really: it is mostly marketing-speak...)
I *have* given you an example of a Linux server getting exploited and owned, but I guess you chose to ignore that.
You have given an example of a PHP app which got owned, which is a complete different thing.
If you had set up an ssh server in that box configured so that it accepts root logins with an empty password, then you would have got hacked in about 3 minutes. But, again, this would have absolutely nothing to Linux's exploitability....
And again. (Score:5, Interesting)
We go over this all the time here. Yet some people never seem to read it. So, here they are again. In no particular order.
#1. Understand the difference between a "virus", a "worm" and a "trojan".
#2. Take a hint from Ubuntu and have NO open ports on the DEFAULT installation. That will pretty much wipe out worm attacks. Do NOT depend upon a firewall to do that. The firewall is a SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE that is often disabled because it interferes with legitimate apps that the user wants to run. I can put a default installation of Ubuntu directly on the 'Web and it will NOT be cracked.
#3. Provide a "known good" list of files (names, date/time, multiple checksums) for ALL of the OS files. This way, at least infections can be removed easier. It's easier to find a file that is NOT on the known good and remove it than it is to find a file that MAY be a newly obfuscated version of an old virus.
#4. Keep the OS directories CLEAN. That means that installing MS Office MUST NOT install ANY updated files in the OS directories.
#5. Move to INI files for apps instead of allowing them to edit the registry. If you really must keep the registry, keep it clean.
#6. Consolidate the various temp directories and DUMP them during the boot process.
Remember, viruses, worms and trojans are nothing more than code. They are not magical. Limit how code can be written to the system and you limit how they may spread. Enforce organization and you limit where they may be written.
Once the disinfection rate exceeds the infection rate, the viruses, worms and trojans will die.
Re:And again. (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's the reason for Windows' success, then how do you explain the fact that so many of the biggest Windows users (i.e. major companies) explicitly go out of their way to prevent that kind of behaviour? Most places these days have a horribly bureaucratic process required to get access to the most trivial of utilities. Many companies even use programs designed to sniff out unauthorised software, to ensure that nothing they don't know about ever gets run on their computers.
And of course it's worth noting that since Vista, Microsoft have been doing everything they can to move towards the Linux/Unix style, where even home users need to use an administrator password to install software. So apparently even Microsoft disagrees with you about what makes Windows successful...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The biggest failure of Windows 7 is that Microsoft is still pursuing their inherently faulty security model based on the main user of the PC running as root.
No wonder it needs so much protection - any malicious code that runs has free reign over the whole system. Vista and Windows 7 have only implemented the much loved security prompts to try and make it 'safer'. Only 1% of users probably understand them anyway...
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
If Microsoft audited their code and used the same kind of measures that OpenBSD does, they would be miles ahead of were they are now. Security models and sandboxes in all their glory, but a *lot* of the problems are down to faulty code, code that Microsoft owns and can audit and freaking fix. Only after they have done that can we talk security models and such things. With all the bugs and holes it is so easy to attack windows that nobody really will care about trying to do anything on a grander scale.
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed (Score:5, Insightful)
IT people killed Vista, and I see no reason why they will be any happier with Win7. I have talked to dozens of industry people, from the guys who network mom & pop shops to guys who run databases for Fortune 100 companies, and NONE of them wanted anything to do with Vista. Their complaints were that it was entirely too dependent on internet connectivity, it was totaly different and therefore a major hassle to integrate with their existing network infrastructure and to maintain at the user level, and could not be locked down in a corporate environment properly. Win7 is a finger in the eye to these people -- it doesn't even have Classic mode any more. I've only spoken to a couple of them since Win7 was introduced but they aren't impressed.
And it is a truism from the days of Dos 2.0 that people do prefer to use at home what they use at work. When the tech friends they depend on to fix what they can't insist they run XP, they will insist on XP. Office and Word became popular not because they're all that good but because people brought them home and became comfortable with them there.
This has all come down to a giant Mexican standoff between Microsoft, which wants to determine how your computer looks and acts, and corporate IT types who want to determine those things. (As for you determining those things, that ship has sailed; the end of Classic mode tells that tale.) The IT guyes will not give up their control. Microsoft has obviously dug in their heels. It is not clear to me how this will end, but from what I have seen it will not end with widespread Win7 on the corporate desktop.
I get your point, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.
You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.
You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move to Win 7 - where you can at least expect some of your software to continue working. Developers can keep cranking out crap in VisualStudio (which is a shitty fucking IDE, whatever it's cadre of loyal adherents say about it), executives can continue using Outlook and schedule meetings with each other, your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).
You will still have to retrain your staff to use the windows 7 interface and the new office interface
yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't address all the other stuff - software that you can still reuse, stuff with an upgrade path to new version. It's still far cheaper to move to a newer windows than a completely different OS for most businesses.
Believe me, I'd love to see MS lose it's market position, but it's probably not gonna happen because people refuse to move to Win7.
Choice of pain (Score:3, Informative)
And if a large organization has to make a major unscheduled effort because Microsoft is ramping up the pressure -- you can still get XP but it's more expensive, available on fewer models, and deliberately more poorly supported -- then you have to ask whether to take the n
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What alternative is there?
Linux. OS X. ReactOS and FreeDOS, if it comes to it.
You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies...
So you put it in a virtual machine. If you can't lock it down from inside the OS, lock it down from outside the OS.
You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux.
With Win7 or Vista, you've got to completely retrain your staff on the OS, anyway. With Office 2k7, you probably have to retrain them on applications, too.
So you take the legacy apps you care about, and you run them in Wine and/or Crossover. Maybe you even donate/pay your Windows 7 licenses to the Wine/Codeweavers people (respectively) to get
Re:TFA is totally wrong about why Vista failed (Score:5, Informative)
Last I checked, if you don't want Windows 7 or Vista, you don't have to buy them.
Until they stop supporting your current OS with security upgrades and activation.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't exactly go out a buy an XP machine anymore; well, not without a price.
You can't? Try hp workstations [hp.com]. They've got what you crave.
Genuine Windows Vista® 32 downgrade to Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional 32
That means it comes with a Vista license, but XP Pro installed. There is finally one "Vista installed" option, at $2199. XP Pro installed options start at $699. The "price" is decidedly not in Vista's favor here. I seriously doubt the major vendors are going to let go of XP before W7 is fully in the market, and maybe not even then for a year or more. They're not in the business of telling people they can't have what they want.
windows 7 has flaws too (Score:5, Interesting)
The users I support are going to have *huge* problems with the new taskbar. First, they have a problem with grouping tasks into one icon. They never did get the hang of that, so we ended up just unchecking that feature.
Second, the default is to have no text under the icon. They are going to have a hard time figuring out what is already running. They'll end up double clicking everything.
Third, the taskbar no longer appends each new application to the end of the running tasks. That will throw people off.
In addition, they are really going to confuse themselves with all of the new mouse gestures.
Other than that, windows 7, like Vista, and XP before it has the same basic interface as 9x. Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, Menu launcher in the lower left hand corner.
Damning with faint praise (Score:3, Funny)
This is, by far, the best beta operating system the software giant has ever released.
Is that the best that can be said about it?
Why Vista Really Failed (Score:5, Insightful)
The real reason Vista really failed is the same people who are hyping up 7, the media.
Vista changed the way drivers needed to be written for security reasons, and because hardware vendors suck at writing drivers for whatever they make, there were all sorts of problems with hardware compatibility, ESPECIALLY with older hardware. Add to that UI changes ranging from minor to extensive in both Vista and Office 07, overzealous UAC, and a million other little things (on top of the million other little things that didn't make it into vista (i thought it was funny that theirs actually a wikipedia page for "Features removed from Windows Vista")), and obviously, almost no ones first impressions were good. Tech writers ravaged it, the mainstream media picked up on their stories and killed most of the little momentum Vista had by simply parroting the tech writers.
However, since then drivers have gotten good, service pack 1 has come out, and Vista has matured. You'd have a hard time finding a second impression review of the OS that did nothing but bash the OS like the first impression ones did. In fact, lots of reviews coming out now are actually praising Vista for becoming better than its predecessor (granted only with modern day hardware).
Windows 7 is Windows Vista++. A refined UI, refined UAC, drivers are mature now, performance is approximately as good or better than vista (which is as good or better than XP on the right hardware), IE8 is shaping up to be an improvement, and the whole package seems to just work better. Most of the tech writers have already been won over by Vista, windows 7 appears to be better than that (and its just a beta!), so obviously they write favorable reviews. The mainstream media is picking up on their stories and hyping up the slowly growing mass of momentum Windows 7 has by simply parroting the tech writers.
TL;DR: vista was killed by bad first impressions that the mass media ran with. windows 7 will succeed because of good first impressions that the mass media is running with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The real reason Vista really failed is the same people who are hyping up 7, the media.
Completely wrong. There are two reasons why Vista failed. The first is that it's a crap product. The media duly took their ad money and their Ferrari laptops and reported their unbiased finding that it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. They squandered their credibility because far and away most people who tried it hated it.
The second reason why Vista failed was us. We tried it. We put it through its paces. We compared it side-by-side with XP. We tried to prepare it for deployment to our myr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Windows 7 should go back to home and pro setup no (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 7 should go back to home and pro setup no 5+ vers like vista. Maybe also have a enterprise ver with extras apps / tools for that as well.
Also all packs should oem and retail should come with the 32bit and 64bit disks or let people down load the 64bit iso for free and let them use there key that they have.
Best beta ever? (Score:5, Funny)
It's not about hype, it's about value (Score:3, Insightful)
Blog hype or lack of it may change the impression of the product, or maybe MSFT finally has brought out the product Vista should have been, but the real question is does it provide value for the money it costs?
Microsoft's strategy of keeping itself inserted in the market by pressuring OEM's isn't going to last. There are already cracks in that wall. Netbooks almost got away from them, still could unless Windows 7 flies on low end hardware and doesn't add $100 to the cost. Maybe a lower cost version for low end hardware
Any way you slice it MS is in a bind. Sure they'll keep muscling the market via OEM's and leveraging school and government officials, the dead weight of legions of MCSE's and .NET developers, people invested in Microsoft, many in positions to influence decision makers. There's a lot of institutional inertia there. But if they field a crippled version for lower cost netbooks, Linux will eat their lunch on features. If they charge full price that will essentially double the cost of low end hardware. In addition, hardware OEM's want to sell more powerful and more expensive new desktops. But the market for high end hardware is not growing that fast. There's gaming, video, CAD and a few other specialized areas where you need beefy horsepower. The average productivity workstation doesn't need dual cores. For a majority of home users being able to see pictures of their kids, dash off a quick letter once in a while and check email is all they need to do and they don't need a $300 OS or high end hardware to do that. I just don't see a bright future for Redmond in this.
Haven't read all the posts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you create an operating system and purposely make it to annoy the users, what do you think you'll get?
Assuming you're talking about UAC, then you'll get a more secure and only slightly more annoying operating system. That was actually one of the things I liked about Vista, though it could have been implemented better. What killed it for me is how bloated and sluggish it is.
The thing about UAC is that it doesn't make it more secure if all you have to do is press allow, users will just click allow each time because it requires no effort
Re:Vista Lite (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Vista Lite (Score:5, Interesting)
I was ready to throw Vista out of the window within minutes of my first encounter with it. So far I've clocked a few hours in Win7 and, as of yet, the same compulsion has not struck me.
Only time will tell if that's going to last. UAC really *really* still needs a "remember my answer for this file" checkbox to avoid being turned off completely. It makes no sense what so ever that I should have to click "yes" every bloody time I start my defragmentation application. Sure, if something tries to start it without my direct interaction, tell me. But as long as I'm selecting the menu option to start it, and I've previously said "go ahead", and the file hasn't changed... Just bloody start it already!
Re:Not a Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
well put.
If microsoft wanted a real killer OS, they would release XP SE or something with updated drivers and fixes.
The only downside to running XP at this point is drivers are slowly becoming more difficult to get a hold of.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, why should businesses switch their desktops from XP to Win7? I mean businesses other than game companies.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. So it will use whats there to optimize itself.
Try something for kicks. Boot Windows 7 on a 256 megs of RAM machine. See how much RAM it uses.
Pro tip hint: its not going to hit the swap file.
An OS that cannot adjust its ressource usage for caching and optimisations depending on your system's specs is a failure. Vista ran just fine on a single core machine with 1 gig of RAM, and ran better on a 800 mhz 512 megs of RAM (extremely low end by the time Vista came out) than XP did on a 500 mhz 256 megs RAM (quite high end when XP came out). Win7 runs even better than that.
I installed it on a 256 megs machine that makes XP Home struggle, and it arguably runs better. Enough to be able to get something done without wanting to kill myself anyway. Now, I know, a certain other OS can run on even less than that better. I'm not going to say on an extremely low end machine that -any- versions of Windows will work better than a *nix, but its a total urban legend from people who don't know what they're doing that you need such a powerful machine for Vista (I don't care if you're a sysadmin who works with 100 thousand desktops: if you need 2 gigs RAM and a strong CPU to make Vista work, you don't know how to work a Windows box better than my mom can), and Win7 can run on seriously minimalistic hardware by today's standards: you CAN squeeze it on 128 megs of RAM before it gets actually painful.