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RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

bigdaddy — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:54:03 GMT

Look forward to seeing it in print.
Good luck.:)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Dangerous Dave — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:47:09 GMT

OK. Rant tidied. :D I've put it ine the "submissions" section of the forum.

edit: D'oh. make that - "sent it as an email attachkment to Simon". ;)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Phitore — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:32:57 GMT

I agree too! that was a nice read, nice one Dave.

One point i'm not sure about is that this is the last time Microsoft can mess it's customers about, i think they got at least 75% of them by the short and curly's, the people i know would never try and learn another OS, and as long as they got the majority they'll always be on top, well at least for the forceable future.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

malc_wright — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:15:24 GMT

I echo BigDaddy, in that's a great summary Dave.

Well worth submitting to Simon.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:50:20 GMT

Yes, a very good summation, from the users view.
My biggest complaint with XP, (and now Vista) is the cosmetic changes.
Win2k was easier to use than XP in many ways, and a lot of the changes were illogical and confusing.
Under the thin skin, Vista is still XP, as you see when you dip beneath the gloss of the user interface to actually change any settings.

Each of the recent versions of windows has cosmetic changes that add little, or often detract from functionality, but they have to be made in order to sell the same product again, as a new version, not just an upgrade or bugfix.

There are still bugs in vista that existed in 98.
The fonts dialogue (if you can find it!) still looks like windows 3.1

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

gn2 — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:35:58 GMT

As I understand it, the current extended support status of W2kPro SP4 allows anyone with a valid product key (cough) to access free security updates until 2010.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Tippon — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:34:16 GMT

[quote][b]bigdaddy (09/05/2008)[/b][hr]An excellent summary Dave. Why not tidy it up a bit and submit it to Simon for inclusion in the Mag?
You deserve a wider readership.:D[/quote]

Exactly what I was thinking :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Bruce R — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:30:47 GMT

Enjoyable and very interesting slant on the MS story. :) If some MS publicity is to be believed, the new Windows could be emerging at about the time the NEXT Long Term Support release of Ubuntu will be due, let alone progress on the other Linux distros like the Portuguese 'David' - Vixta. Fun times for consumers, perhaps less so for MS, who seem to have started listening to their customers rather than just to their revenue-preoccupied sales men ? :D

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

bigdaddy — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:20 GMT

"Odd's death I'll print it" to coin a phrase.:D

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Dangerous Dave — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:26:05 GMT

Umm . . . OK, if you're sure it's not too much of a rant?

[quote][b]bigdaddy (09/05/2008)[/b][hr]An excellent summary Dave. Why not tidy it up a bit and submit it to Simon for inclusion in the Mag?
You deserve a wider readership.:D[/quote]

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

bigdaddy — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:58:33 GMT

An excellent summary Dave. Why not tidy it up a bit and submit it to Simon for inclusion in the Mag?
You deserve a wider readership.:D

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Dangerous Dave — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:13:26 GMT

Right, I've read Mike Pickavance's article now, and I've come back from a short break - so here are my comments!

Mike makes some persuasive points, about Microsoft's inability to develop a new OS so soon after releasing Vista; about the commercial suicide of upsetting customers with a "new Windows" so soon . . . and I'd agree with him. Except that Microsoft have done it before. Sort of. To elaborate I've based my theory around 4 points.

Point 1/. Back at the turn of the 21st century Microsoft wanted to merge their two desktop and server operating system families (win9x and NT). They did this by releasing a final update to the wildly successful Windows 98 called Windows ME, and updating their Workstation/server class OS (NT4) to Windows 2000 (initially called NT5). WinME was really just a stopgap OS until Microsoft persuaded games and apps developers to take up Windows 2000 (win2k)which promised full multimedia capabilities on a par with the then "gold standard" Win98SE + drivers for all (then) modern gaming hardware (read graphics cars, sound and joystick thingy's). In fact Windows 2000 shipped with the latest version of Internet explorer (5.5), DirectX (7) and Media Player (6.4), which was a great improvement on NT4 which had troubles playing digital content as it was only ever designed for Workstations and servers, not home PC's.

Despite being told that Windows 2000 was "the most secure Windows ever", we were also told how easy it would be for windows to download and install drivers and software components because the OS would do this for us. Automatically. In the background. Great. In fact normal users wouldn't even realise that Win2000 was installing a codec for a video, or a driver for a device, or an add-on for Internet Explorer as it was all done without user intervention, although the defaults could be changed.

In fact, all was rosy in the MS garden. For about 3 months after launch. ;) Because that was when users suddenly realised that not only codecs and drivers could be updated automatically, but unscrupulous websites and application programmers could suck in *any* code they wanted to a PC, including viruses, key loggers, diallers and all the malware you could shake a stick at. McAffee, Norton and all the security companies want ballistic iirc! Microsoft responded with a Service pack soon after launch (August 2000), and another in May the following year that reverted the defaults for many of the "install on demand" features, and plugged the many security gaps in the OS. Big business was mollified - they had to be. Microsoft had been working on Win2k since releasing NT4 in 1995 - the marketing machine at Microsoft had been building support for the new OS for at least 2 years publicly, and longer than that privately with business software developers. Then in May 2001 a second blow hit Win2k - Apple release MacOS X 10.0. Reviewer went wild in adulation of the sparkly new interface and *nix underpinnings. Apple's innate style and good design threatened to wow home customers away from, the now pedestrian looking, Win2k (and WinME) and take the Games market along with it!

How did Microsoft respond? In october 2001 they released Windows XP - a new operating system! Only 18 months after releasing win2k!!! Iirc the IT industry was up in arms - the new OS required more processing power, hard disk space and RAM than Win2K and wasn't completely backwards compatible, making all the recent investment in new PC's and servers to run Win2k, wasted. But the ploy worked. People *had* to buy WinXP if they wanted to stay with Microsoft, and since there were no games for MacOS, and Linux was too far away from maturity, Windows was the only game in town. In fact WinXP was only Win2k repackaged with a new UI (Luna), Internet Explorer 6, Media Player 7, driver rollback (and system restore) and a bunch of new wizards to make accessing all the Win2k functionality easier. Service pack 1 in 2002 made backwards compatibility better and added support for new hardware standards and eventually Windows XP became an "almost loved" Operating system. The rest is history.

So, that is what Microsoft is capable of. But what will it do now that Vista is under threat? And how does Windows 7 (Blackcomb) come into all this?

Point 2/. Microsoft brought out XP in response to MacOS X 10. Microsoft was wrong footed by Apple and saw that the best way to compete was to re-launch a tarted up version of Windows 2000. Of course Microsoft didn't start work on XP when MacOS X 10 was released (May 2001), they started in 2000 - probably around the time that Beta's of Apples new OS were doing the rounds. This parallels the current situation, with Windows Vista being wrong footed by the new OLPC/UMPC mini-laptop offerings. Vista can't run on those laptops because its footprint is too large, so why not prepare a slimmed down version of Vista for them. OLPC/UMPC has been rumbling on for nearly 2 years, easily long enough for Microsoft to realise the danger and prepare a response.

Point 3/. Microsoft released Vista without many of the components that it promised. I remember being promised WinFS - a journalled SQL based file system, Virtual Folders, Stored searches, MONAD (a power users CLI) and other things that didn't make it into the final release. Even things that did appear like the "Trusted Computer Initiative" seem to have been watered down. But I don't think Microsoft ever stopped working on those features (in fact Vista was initially never going to have those features), and so releasing Windows 7 so soon after Vista makes sense if these features (that couldn't be released as part of a service pack) are included. That'll make Windows 7 the OS that Vista *should've* been. Sure, developers and early adopters will be outraged - they were when Windows XP came out - but Microsoft may rationalize it as being a price people are willing to pay to keep using Windows. It worked before, right? Of course before, MacOS and Linux weren't the stable well supported and capable operating systems they are now. It'll be messy and there'll be more defections away from Microsoft this time, but the Windows/MS Office inertia should allow this tactic to work. Though probably for the *last* time.

Point 4/. In bringing out Windows 7 Microsoft will finally kill off Windows 2000 support and put Windows XP on "paid for only" support. You remember back in point 1 where I mentioned the great investment in Win2k that business made? Well, it's still there. When you queue up at a till in GAP, Tesco's or Homebase that till will probably be running a version of Windows 2000 (unless it's very new). Microsoft tried to kill support for Windows 2000 many times over the past 8 years, but big business interests always blocked it - even forcing an American High Court investigation in to the support Microsoft offers for it's OSes and caused it to be more transparent in that respect. Even so, Microsoft only actively supports the current and previous generations of its OSes, beyond that support is only given on an "extended" or paid-for basis (and only available to large corporations). Windows 2000 is currently on such support, and when Windows 7 is released, Windows XP will too be put into that support state. What that means is that Microsoft could justifiably pull the plug on *any* Windows 2000 support as it is now 3 generations old. If Mike Pickavance characterized WinXP as a Zombie trying to eat the flesh off Vista, then Windows 2000 is the daddy of Zombies - the true operating system that wouldn't die.

Well, that's my analysis of the situation. Microsoft could be planning any of points 2-4. Imho the mistake that Microsoft has made, is that it thought it could "spring" Windows 7 on to an unsuspecting IT world, like it did with Windows XP. But now that they must submit all releases of Windows to the American government for testing and confirmation that it doesn't contain "anti-competitive" features, means that it has been made public before Microsoft wanted to. But what are Microsoft actually thinking?? I don't know - I'm not a journalist. One thing I *do* know however, I'm trying to persuade my wife to use Linux more now . . .

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

steveori — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:42:00 GMT

[quote]Also, many large companies do not buy PCs, they lease them en masse for 3 years at a time.[/quote]

Tesco's do just that! :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

wyliecoyoteuk — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:27:45 GMT

[quote][b]IanMatthew (03/05/2008)[/b][hr]Remember, many businesses are one man/ womanbands working from a SOHO (spare bedroom, gerden shed, conservatory, study, space under the stairs) environment. they still count as businesses. The number of companies employing hundreds of people is not at great as you may think. most businesses are small businesses. Even though many businesses uses equipment until its worn out, some bigger firms stillbuy new kit. My sister has recently started work at a large company. She has been given a company laptop with Vista Business and Office 2007on it.[/quote]

I regularly deal, in the field, with businesses in the 1 - 50 employee range, as well as larger Companies, Schools, Churches, Colleges, Charities etc..
My own company only employs 27 people at present, we have about 2000 companies as customers, and we have quite a large network owing to the nature of our business.- we actually have more computers than employees, and so far 1 Vista install (despite receiving 6 licenses free with our MS action pack subscription). I use office 2007 myself- I have to, so that I can support it.
I do occasionally see Vista PCs, but surprisingly few after such a long time, and Macs are starting to pop up where they never have before.

Also, many large companies do not buy PCs, they lease them en masse for 3 years at a time.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Mitch — Sun, 04 May 2008 01:54:49 GMT

I'll take a 10-1 bet via paypal now, for a new major OS from MS in the next 3 years.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

IanMatthew — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:13:36 GMT

Remember, many businesses are one man / woman bands working from a SOHO (spare bedroom, gerden shed, conservatory, study, space under the stairs) environment. they still count as businesses. The number of companies employing hundreds of people is not at great as you may think. most businesses are small businesses. Even though many businesses uses equipment until its worn out, some bigger firms still buy new kit. My sister has recently started work at a large company. She has been given a company laptop with Vista Business and Office 2007 on it.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

wyliecoyoteuk — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:46:33 GMT

[quote][b]-Wiz!- (03/05/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]Tippon (03/05/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]-Wiz!- (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]Maybe M$ expected it not to be endorsed in that sector.[/quote]

But isn't one of the versions of Vista called Business Edition? ;) :P[/quote]

Yes but your not going to deliberatrly not target the market are you. Some people will buy those builds.[/quote]

I think that the multiplicity of versions doesn't help, either.
Home basic,home premium, business ,enterprise and ultimate.

And if they aren't bothered about selling it to business, they aren't interested in staying IN business.The home market is tiny compared to the business market.

Quote from MS website:
"Business
Windows Vista Business is the first edition of Windows designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses."
Enterprise
Designed to significantly lower IT costs and risks, Windows Vista Enterprise meets the needs of large, global organizations with complex IT infrastructures."

Added to that, MS licensing is a black art, trying to figure out which version of 2003 server has what, how many access licenses you need, etc, Microsoft ẹven run 3 different courses on it!

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:06:58 GMT

[quote][b]Tippon (03/05/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]-Wiz!- (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]Maybe M$ expected it not to be endorsed in that sector.[/quote]

But isn't one of the versions of Vista called Business Edition? ;) :P[/quote]

Yes but your not going to deliberatrly not target the market are you. Some people will buy those builds.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

ricedg — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:02:48 GMT

Nicely pointed out Tippon.

Multimedia is becoming increasingly important in business anyway, but you don't need Vista to do it.
We have been asked of we can include a 10 minute video in the online induction process.
The people that asked have no ideas of the implications on bandwidth etc which is why it's not being done.
XP is quite capable of displaying it.

Vista is really turning into a dog's breakfast.
It's gone from my PC now and I don't miss it, quite the opposite.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Tippon — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:14:35 GMT

[quote][b]-Wiz!- (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]Maybe M$ expected it not to be endorsed in that sector.[/quote]

But isn't one of the versions of Vista called Business Edition? ;) :P

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:36:41 GMT

I know i was joking. But not every O.S is created with business use in mind. Maybe M$ expected it not to be endorsed in that sector. After all it's feature are generally aimed at multimedia functionality. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Jason — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:31:59 GMT

Me was certainly not intended for business use. That's what Windows 2000 was for.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:29:10 GMT

I guess M$ has to keep rolling out products either way. ME was probably never intended for business use. ;) It's all part of the machine. Do we need new cars and models constantly? No its part of consumerism and the capitalist way.

We push products and brands to stay fresh in the publics mind. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:22:35 GMT

[quote][b]-Wiz!- (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]I'm not really speaking for the business sector. I was talking about folks like ourselves and the average joe who buys his pc from a retail shop with it preinstalled. :)[/quote]

I understand that, but the home market is a tiny fraction of the business one, the business market is where MS make their money,and the business market has turned its back on Vista big time..
I have to support Vista as part of my job, but I have just not seen more than a handful of Vista installs since it was launched, in any of our 2000 or so business customers..

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:12:59 GMT

I'm not really speaking for the business sector. I was talking about folks like ourselves and the average joe who buys his pc from a retail shop with it preinstalled. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:02:03 GMT

Trouble is most people don't have "modern computers"(was there ever such a vague description?).
Especially in business world, where I still have PCs from 1998 doing sterling service as Linux firewalls and FTP servers.
A business will buy a new PC when it needs to.
Vista is not a "need to" application, nor is office 2007, quite the opposite.
The business market is far bigger and more important than the Home user market, and is far slower to use Vista.
Vista is almost invisible in small businesses, much more so than XP was.
XP was embraced fairly early, mainly because it was perceived as stable and secure.
Vista is still rare in the small business user space, where people use the same computer for years.

EDIT: added to that, windows is a very poor resource manager.
I moved a HTPC from windows to Linux. the TV card picks up more channels, the picture is better, the stream processing works properly, no stutter on freeview. (compared to WMC2005)
This is all on the same hardware (AMD 3000+, 2 gb memory).
The same box produces more desktop eyecandy than aero, and faster, for much lower overhead.
So why is Vista worth it?
Answer-it isn't.

Vista is a big white elephant, and MS are about to dump it.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:42:43 GMT

Modern computers can easily handle the little more grunt Vista needs and it is worth it. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

FreakShow! — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:41:02 GMT

Useability wise, Vista = XP.

Speed wise, it used to be XP > Vista. However with recent fixes and service packs the performance level has increased. After exams I will be finding out what kind of performance hit there is.

I do find Vista to be nicer to use for certain functions. For example, when sorting through images, it's great to be able to increase the size of the thumbnails. Makes it much easier to see what the picture is of.

IMHO Vista is simply an alternative to XP, like Linux. Not an upgrade.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:54:57 GMT

People should not knock Vista so much especially if they have not spent much time with it. I think it's a lot better to use than XP. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Slipstreem — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:45:35 GMT

[quote][b]gully666uk (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]Vista for me aint a lemon its a bannana i ocasionally like it but choose other fruit above it.Xp is like a pear thats been left in the fruit bowl too long and looks a bit shabby.[/quote]
Ah. But you can re-skin the pear to look more like a lemon but still perform like a greyhound compared to a three-legged donkey... [url]http://tinyurl.com/y8kvea[/url]. :)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

-Wiz!- — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:36:18 GMT

I like that analysis...But I think Vista is a kumquat. An acquired taste. :)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

gully666uk — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:47 GMT

Vista for me aint a lemon its a bannana i ocasionally like it but choose other fruit above it.Xp is like a pear thats been left in the fruit bowl too long and looks a bit shabby.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Phitore — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:38:10 GMT

Whenever they release it, they better make sure the next one's right.
Two Lemons in a row is inexcusable. (some of you may disagree with the Lemon thing, it's personal opinion)

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

conrad101 — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:59:51 GMT

Kinda Stupid that Bill G even mentioned it really from a commerical perspective, should have kept his mouth shut if I had much sense. I agree Windows 7 ain't coming out any time soon.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

columbo77 — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:33:43 GMT

I haven't actually read the article myself yet, it is in my bag for lunchtime.

I realise they are a company out to make money, and I have given that argument before myself. But surely they must have paused to think that this rushing them out is only harming thier business int he long term as many people are looking to to other o/s.

I actually quite like vista (stop throwing tomatoes) But you do have to have a decent rig to use it easily, my others are a mix of Xp, Win2k and linux distros. I am moving further and further towards linux but will always have a windoze machine untill everything is supported on linux.

Columbo

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Dangerous Dave — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:17:25 GMT

I haven't read the article yet (on the passenger seat waiting for lunchtime!), and I suspect that the inestimable Mr Pickavance may have touched on this, but Columbo77's point only makes sense if Microsoft are interested in making "the finest operating system for PC's".

They're not.

Like all public companies; with shareholders, creditors and stock options they want to make *money* and lots of it. You can't blame them, it's the capitalist way - you might as well try and tell salepeople not to hype their product, it can't be done.

So, MS have a slow selling product (Vista) and they can see their profits being hurt. Of course they're going to come out with a new product ASAP, they want it to boost profits. Whether it's better, technically, or that Vista needs "fixing", is only peripheral to the argument.

Profits in the OS business are thin anyway, MS's real cash comes from applications such as MS Office and server software, so they're just trying to gouge the "early adopters" who will upgrade without thinking. It all happened before when WinXP was released a year after Win2000, remember.

[quote][b]columbo77 (02/05/2008)[/b][hr]They are not learning from one mistake and bumbling onto another? Trying to compete with Linux Distros coming out so often???

They need to take a few years and bing out a O/S that works properly (with minimum of bugs, as we know there is no chance of a completely bug free one.)

Col[/quote]

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

columbo77 — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:14:03 GMT

They are not learning from one mistake and bumbling onto another? Trying to compete with Linux Distros coming out so often???

They need to take a few years and bing out a O/S that works properly (with minimum of bugs, as we know there is no chance of a completely bug free one.)

Col

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

pas5898 — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:57:21 GMT

If they do rush out 7, would that mean Vista was another "stop gap" OS like Me?

Or are they just so concerned at Vista's poor sales and rushing out 7?

Havent purchased the new mag yet, will do so tomorrow.

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

LittleJohnSW — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:30:39 GMT

If MS did go down the rental road, I'd definately be switching to Linux. If XP Support wasn't continuing, I'd be looking into it now. I can see why people have the attitude towards MS that they do, when did MS last relsease an OS that was solid upon first release? I'm all for XP, which I admit was far from perfect when it first came out which was why I stuck to Windows 2000 Pro until I was left with no choice but to go to XP.

I see that they have conveniently forgotten about ME, that said, I think we'd all like to forget that one too......

RE: Windows 7: Coming next year?

Bruce R — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:20:18 GMT

It's no surprise that Microsoft would like to make the new Windows a rental system, like utility or ISP services, but folk are already getting annoyed with services that don't deliver as per ad-hype created expectation, yet expect contracted monthly bills to be paid.
When Microsoft take that tack will probably be the day that I completely switch to Linux, regardless of any limitations. ;)