Windows 7: is Microsoft really listening, or throwing more candy?

[oROEchimaru]

There is a real reason why vista has not caught on, businesses do not like the switch. Not because its harder to use, many non-tech savvy people find any pc difficult to use. Not because its annoying...

because it doesn't always work. Yes it works with the latest games, it can pirate the latest music, you can even visit [h].

This is not what sells. A large group of buyers who do not pirate are large corporations.

problems:
1. If windows 7 is like vista, it will not be compatible with many 32bit applications, even in the 32bit version. so why even make an archaic 32bit version? This is my personal rant.
-memory makers are upset, 3gb-4gb limitation of 32bit o/s is reducing their sales since you can only buy 3-4gb of ram... not 8-16gb like a 64bit os would like
-why do we have all these 64bit chips... ?

2. most important... many medical, government, business, database etc applications do not work in vista, or they crash, or corrupt data... so why make the switch?

3. citrix hosted applications do not always work on vista... since many companies are moving to remotely hosted applications... will windows 7 even be compatible?

4. drivers... most companies are not going to do hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade their printers and pcs to be compatible with windows 7, when windows xp does everything on these computers already, without problems vista has and most likely windows 7.

-most companies use printers they know work with their applications
-most companies need special printers/drivers that work with special needs software (accounting, medical, government, schools etc)
-most companies use archaic and picky programs, not supported by vista.. or use at your own risk

5. windows 7 looks like a prettier and easier to use GUI than vista... nothing more.

and as cool as it might be... windows 7 will most likely make us happy gamers, but not happy workers.


****
MAGIC BALL SAYS: Windows 7 will be prettier, faster, more efficient and still not compatible with major business applications, thus leading to the same poor business cycle of vista.

Windows xp, built on what works... not what was broken. Windows 7 is making things better, but so far is not being marketed as a SOLUTION.

 

[k1pp3r]

Personally, i havn't found much that vista won't work with except my cisco VPN (running 64 bit)

Have you ever done a Enterprise OS migration?

Business put if off because its time consuming, and honestly a pain in the ass. Its not that Vista is crap, after SP1 it has gotten much better and software companies are getting off their butts and writing their software to work with it, or discontinuing the software all together.

You must have read the PC World article on windows 7 didn't you? These guys just flatout flame Microsoft all together. How long do you think it took to get XP as solid as it is today?

 

[MrWizard6600]

I'm sorry that last remark just about made me fall out of my chair.

"Windows xp, built on what works... not what was broken."
is that a joke?

1. I dont know about that. Sandboxi doesnt work in 64bit vista because of A)driver signing and B)aggressive kernel patch protection, nothing to do with the actual memory bus. Aside from that I dont know of a single "32 bit app" that hasnt worked in the in vista 64. Vista's 32bit emulation layer is brilliant and has minimal overhead.
edit: oh wait System Shock 2 (1996?) had some troubles. Had to hack it to get it to work.

2. I was reading an article in "popular science" about the B2 (and the next generation stealth bomber) and they brought up something intresting: the worlds most expensive and sophisticaed stealth bomber, the majestic and source-of-many-UFO-stories B-2 "spirit" bomber, runs on, get this, Pentium 386's. In 1987 you bet that was the hottest thing on the block. Point is, if it ant broke don't fix it. Why should businesses upgrade? Why does a hospital need aero? Their software runs in XP. Vista has APIs that XP doesnt have. If you want a program written for an older OS, its going to cost you more because its going to take a software firm longer to produce. So why should your examples upgrade?

3. They dont work because of UAC, and there is a silverlight interface to UAC that allows remote acess the abillity to work with UAC. That was actually impressive to me, when a friend tried to remote control my desktop to show me something, the instant UAC came up he was disconnected. Sounds good to me.

4. As I said in 2, doesnt sound like a problem to me. New PCs should get vista, but dont fix what an't broken, and if your printers and printer drivers arnt broken, why move them to a new platform? An OS's sucess isnt built on business upgrading current machines, its built on future machines.

- 99.9% of apps have no direct face with the printer driver. Its all done through a kernel controlled spool. In that sense, the application works with the OS, the OS works with the printer.
- I beg to differ but I've humord you
- right, and as I said in 2 and 4, they should stick with what works. I believe the single biggest problem between old aplications and vista is permissions. UAC allows a user to elevate an aps permissions to an extent.

Windows 7 will make gamers happy, NT 6 and NT6.1 will continue to keep security nuts happy (or at least, happier, the world is always ending in the world of security, MD5, one of the SSL hashs, was broken just a few days ago ), its lower footprint will allow for easier deployment where resources are scarce (netbooks? the fastest growing area in the industry as far as i can tell), the new APIs will continue to allow for even faster application development. The list goes on.

The failure of Vista is not in Vista's programming, it was in its marketing. Vista itself is a great OS.

 

[oROEchimaru]

I work at a healthcare helpdesk, we probably support 50 diferent government, medicare, medicaid, citrix, microsoft, healthcare, resident care... software programs.

some work with vista , some don't. some don't matter since they are ran in citrix.

trying to get these special apps to print is the hardest part since they all require picky drivers.

now add windows 7 drivers in the mix that might not even support the 100,000 printers or so we support (mostly hp).

do you think 100,000 printers will be upgraded just to run windows 7 that won't even run on so many thin clients hospitals and nursing homes use????

what about neowares, hp thin clients, whyse terminals.. no news yet on windows 7.

 

[MrWizard6600]

I work at a healthcare helpdesk, we probably support 50 diferent government, medicare, medicaid, citrix, microsoft, healthcare, resident care... software programs.

some work with vista , some don't. some don't matter since they are ran in citrix.

trying to get these special apps to print is the hardest part since they all require picky drivers.

now add windows 7 drivers in the mix that might not even support the 100,000 printers or so we support (mostly hp).

do you think 100,000 printers will be upgraded just to run windows 7 that won't even run on so many thin clients hospitals and nursing homes use????

what about neowares, hp thin clients, whyse terminals.. no news yet on windows 7.

sounds like a real mess. I can think of several ways you could clean it up though, but I'd have to be there (and you'd have to pay me ). A solid print server is your best bet. thousands of ways you could configure that though.

 

[Joe Average]

This just smacks of trolling, sorry, that's how I perceive it, and I can already see how this thread will end, and it won't be pretty.

So I'll speak my mind as you've done and cover it point by point as you did (the OP, of course):

1) Application software needs to be written to work with the OS, not the other way around.. The OS is the basis for the applications running on it, so realistically you simply cannot legitimately lay that general blanket of blame on Microsoft or on Vista just because there are a shitload of companies out there that can't or simply won't do what's necessary to keep their operations moving along smoothly with a new OS from Microsoft.

The entire reason for testing is to find out what works and what doesn't. Some of those large corporations you mentioned don't do that, and make a big decision of change and regret it later on because they didn't do the required testing on their platform to see what the hell is going on. Microsoft doesn't turn a deaf ear to people as long as they're being honest; if large corporations go to them and say "hey, we're having trouble with your new OS and our latest version, we could use some help figuring this out" Microsoft will do what it can. If it doesn't, it loses potential sales, and they might be a bit unwieldy at times, but they ain't stupid.

They make an "archaic" 32 bit version because if they don't they'll lose money, simple. There are more machines (even with 64 bit capable CPUs) running a 32 bit version of Windows than not. That's just a fact no one can deny or argue against. That won't change for a long long time. Look how long 32 bit code/processors/etc have been entrenched.

It won't change overnight... but it IS changing.

The RAM thing with the DRAM makers whining is a joke, 'nuff said. They've been reaming us for decades, now that RAM is cheap, fuck 'em. I just bought 4GB 2 days ago, and I'm about to go get 4GB for a laptop I just bought yesterday so I don't see what the problem is.

We have 64 bit chips because that's change. Don't blame Intel either, they didn't create the damned things, neither did AMD, but AMD did figure out how to apply 64 bit tech to x86 architecture technology, one of the few true innovations they've had.

2) There's no compelling reason, I'll agree with that without hesitation. What else needs to be said?

3) That's the fault of Citrix. Either they need to hire better coders or they need to fire everyone and start from scratch, but don't blame the OS. See point 1 above.

4) Companies that have products that have been on the market long before Windows 7 rolls in - and perhaps even before Vista set up shop 2 years ago - have already made their money by selling the products to you. You can't seriously think they're going to continue dumping development money into those old products when everyone under the sun knows "newer is better... and usually more expensive and profitable too..."

Here's a craptastic but hilarious way to look at the world: why not design, build, and market products with expiration dates, that would absolutely kill backwards compatibility once and for. Go buy Microsoft's newest OS? No problem, but it'll die on <insert date here>."

As long as your average Joe (not me, I assure you) wishes to keep trying to run VisiCalc from 1987 on his Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB of DDR2 800 and a terabyte hard drive and failing because he's running Vista Ultimate x64, well... you figure it out.

5) That comment shows a complete lack of knowledge about Windows 7 in general. You're excused.

The last tidbit there once again needs to be revised...

****
MAGIC BALL SAYS: Windows 7 will be prettier, faster, more efficient and major business applications will still not be compatible because their developers are lazy bastards that can't code for shit and bring their stuff up to date, thus leading to the same poor business cycle of vista.

Trust me, that's a far more accurate statement that the dribble you were trying to pawn off on those of us that are well aware of just what's going on and why.

Happy New Year...

 

[theDreamer]

I work at a healthcare helpdesk, we probably support 50 diferent government, medicare, medicaid, citrix, microsoft, healthcare, resident care... software programs.

some work with vista , some don't. some don't matter since they are ran in citrix.

trying to get these special apps to print is the hardest part since they all require picky drivers.

now add windows 7 drivers in the mix that might not even support the 100,000 printers or so we support (mostly hp).

do you think 100,000 printers will be upgraded just to run windows 7 that won't even run on so many thin clients hospitals and nursing homes use????

what about neowares, hp thin clients, whyse terminals.. no news yet on windows 7.

You are missing the point, do not upgrade if it is not broken.
The office I work is small, very small, with under 20 people. We have half Vista and half XP machines, and we are doing just fine. I ran tests on all our software before we bought our first Vista machine, and verified the software companies we buy from will support Vista. Since they all did, we gave the go ahead with Vista and are extremely happy.

If you do not think it will work, why bother looking at it? Do internal testing on Windows 7, find the problems, and if solution are found and things work better, upgrade. If not, then stick with what you know works.

On the topic at hand, Windows 7 will bring more than just candy, fluff, or eye sparkles. It will bring new features forward and hopefully ease the minds of the consumer market.

 

[oROEchimaru]

thedreamer that is my point!

most facilities use thin clients... if they are working... why upgrade to a new o/s that will just cause problems?

if they fail.. .they all support xp embeded... not windows 7 or vista... so microsoft is no longer supporting xp.. its retarded

 

[Void]

This just smacks of trolling, sorry, that's how I perceive it, and I can already see how this thread will end, and it won't be pretty.

So I'll speak my mind as you've done and cover it point by point as you did (the OP, of course):

1) Application software needs to be written to work with the OS, not the other way around.. The OS is the basis for the applications running on it, so realistically you simply cannot legitimately lay that general blanket of blame on Microsoft or on Vista just because there are a shitload of companies out there that can't or simply won't do what's necessary to keep their operations moving along smoothly with a new OS from Microsoft.

The entire reason for testing is to find out what works and what doesn't. Some of those large corporations you mentioned don't do that, and make a big decision of change and regret it later on because they didn't do the required testing on their platform to see what the hell is going on. Microsoft doesn't turn a deaf ear to people as long as they're being honest; if large corporations go to them and say "hey, we're having trouble with your new OS and our latest version, we could use some help figuring this out" Microsoft will do what it can. If it doesn't, it loses potential sales, and they might be a bit unwieldy at times, but they ain't stupid.

They make an "archaic" 32 bit version because if they don't they'll lose money, simple. There are more machines (even with 64 bit capable CPUs) running a 32 bit version of Windows than not. That's just a fact no one can deny or argue against. That won't change for a long long time. Look how long 32 bit code/processors/etc have been entrenched.

It won't change overnight... but it IS changing.

The RAM thing with the DRAM makers whining is a joke, 'nuff said. They've been reaming us for decades, now that RAM is cheap, fuck 'em. I just bought 4GB 2 days ago, and I'm about to go get 4GB for a laptop I just bought yesterday so I don't see what the problem is.

We have 64 bit chips because that's change. Don't blame Intel either, they didn't create the damned things, neither did AMD, but AMD did figure out how to apply 64 bit tech to x86 architecture technology, one of the few true innovations they've had.

2) There's no compelling reason, I'll agree with that without hesitation. What else needs to be said?

3) That's the fault of Citrix. Either they need to hire better coders or they need to fire everyone and start from scratch, but don't blame the OS. See point 1 above.

4) Companies that have products that have been on the market long before Windows 7 rolls in - and perhaps even before Vista set up shop 2 years ago - have already made their money by selling the products to you. You can't seriously think they're going to continue dumping development money into those old products when everyone under the sun knows "newer is better... and usually more expensive and profitable too..."

Here's a craptastic but hilarious way to look at the world: why not design, build, and market products with expiration dates, that would absolutely kill backwards compatibility once and for. Go buy Microsoft's newest OS? No problem, but it'll die on <insert date here>."

As long as your average Joe (not me, I assure you) wishes to keep trying to run VisiCalc from 1987 on his Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB of DDR2 800 and a terabyte hard drive and failing because he's running Vista Ultimate x64, well... you figure it out.

5) That comment shows a complete lack of knowledge about Windows 7 in general. You're excused.

The last tidbit there once again needs to be revised...



Trust me, that's a far more accurate statement that the dribble you were trying to pawn off on those of us that are well aware of just what's going on and why.

Happy New Year...

Thank you Joe, i always look forward to your posts .

 

[MrWizard6600]

wait wait wait, your not one of those "the XP world ended on june 30th are you"? because Windows 2000 will continue to recieve security updates until 2010. Windows XP will continue to recieve updates for the forseeable future. Nothing about XP has been discontinued. Its getting increasingly difficult to get a retail copy, thats all.
this was intented for the post 2 above me

edit: Joe are you using Vista on that new laptop and 4gb desktop? are you using 64bit vista on either?

 

[oROEchimaru]

vista is not supported on thin client machines... so are they not selling any other thin clients until windows 7? doubt it.

if its so easy to make all these upgrades, and so effective... THEN WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE JUMP TO WINDOWS VISTA RIGHT NOW AND WE SKIP WINDOWS 7?

i'm just saying... windows 7 is windows vista with a different set of paint. thats it... and less annoyances.

if its up to users to spend thousands/millions per company to upgrade their computers, software just to work with a crappy o/s they don't need.. then its not going to increase sales.

microsoft will have high windows 7 sales because of the high amount of pcs sold... but if they do not make major changes... that will be the limit of their sales just like vista. there are no companies dieing right now to make the switch to vista, much less windows 7

 

[Andrmgic]

thedreamer that is my point!

most facilities use thin clients... if they are working... why upgrade to a new o/s that will just cause problems?

if they fail.. .they all support xp embeded... not windows 7 or vista... so microsoft is no longer supporting xp.. its retarded

All software companies stop supporting older versions of their products after a time. XP has had 7 years of life, longer than just about any other Microsoft OS in history, and you said it wasn't broken.. so why do you need Microsoft to support it?

The point is, it is on the software developers to make their applications compatible with the operating system. There will come a time when applications are written that won't run on XP. The same thing is happening to Windows 2000.. support has been dropped, not only from Microsoft but from software developers as well.

It will probably be a couple of years before that happens to XP, depending on the uptake of Vista and Windows 7 but it will happen eventually.

Software companies cannot reasonably be expected to continue supporting all of their products, particularly when those products are no longer a source of revenue from the company. It is just money out of their pockets and nothing coming in unless they're charging customers a ton of money to support it.

 

[oROEchimaru]

so... adobe cs4... originally was not going to support macs because they make software engineers have to recreate the entire program just to support a new o/s. their complaint is macs release a new o/s in to short of a time frame.

vista will be around less than 3 years before windows 7.

so your saying everyone should spend millions in:
a. upgrade software
or
b. upgrade computers/hardware

or c:
both.

then vista sucked... so now your saying... spend millions again to get it to work with windows 7.

thats a pretty big risk. if windows 7 blows... then was it worth the investment?

NO.

 

[maxius]

people i a was an avid xp user then i got 4gb of ram sure i could of went with xp 64 but i decided to step out on a limb i installed vista 64 and i like it. i have also played around with w7 all w7 is is in reality what vista should of been a completely polished release its more streamlined smaller and faster when w7 hits i will be picking it up. when the public beta starts grab it and toss it on a partition im sure you will like it as well.

 

[oROEchimaru]

does windows 7 prompt you 2-3 warnings for each copy/paste over a network?

i would have to do that about 3000 times a day which = carpal tunnel. lets hope its not as admin non-friendly.

what about running command prompt or any other high level program... when your on an admin account... why does it make you run as admin again..? kind of treats the user as retard

if they want a better solution they could have home-admin... then advance it users switch it to like poweradmin or something... that would be fine.

i don't mind my parents being treated like they are retarded with a windows interface, but when your an it tech it slows you down greatly.

 

[maxius]

does windows 7 prompt you 2-3 warnings for each copy/paste over a network?

i would have to do that about 3000 times a day which = carpal tunnel. lets hope its not as admin non-friendly.

what about running command prompt or any other high level program... when your on an admin account... why does it make you run as admin again..? kind of treats the user as retard

if they want a better solution they could have home-admin... then advance it users switch it to like poweradmin or something... that would be fine.

i don't mind my parents being treated like they are retarded with a windows interface, but when your an it tech it slows you down greatly.

uac has been tweaked so it does not annoy the crap out of you

 

[MrWizard6600]

Im confused...

I tried to come up with an example in my head but there are just too many variables. I'm going to use my college as an example because I'm majoring in computer science and I know their system.

Langara college, all PC's boot XP from a local hard drive (and I might add, they all include tens of thousands of dollars of accounting, programming, graphic, and you name it software), any changes are saved to a user profile on a serve on the network and the drive is sterilized and, on the next reboot, is identical to the way it was before. All printing is done through a unix box and spread across the network; walk up to any printing terminal, enter your credentials, it pulls up any print orders you've made to the unix print server, and you can print on the printer coupled with that terminal. The printing terminals are unix boxes.

Your thinking is that A) theres no reason for all the XP boxes to be upgraded to windows 7 and B) all boxes introduced after this (in any expansions or whatever, there is a new student union building going up), will all be windows XP NOT windows 7 because theres no reason to go with windows 7.

Because of A & B Microsoft will see limited Windows 7 sales.

Is that what you believe to be accurate?

OK, well, A is true and B is true to an extent. Sooner or later my college is going to want some feature a future OS offers. Might be for security (well all traffic in and out is routed through an Open BSD box, so I donno about that), maybe its for some feature the OS supports, maybe its just to make the college look snazzy. When my college does finally want to swap OS's (and that may be in windows 7, or the next version, or even for vista), the IT guys (of which they're are several) will be testing for weeks before any change is made to even a single box. When they do it it will be done over a break period so any kinks they didnt foresee can be worked out. Whatever new feature needs to be worked in will be worked in its entirety, and for years after that the system will work as-is. until the next upgrade is needed, for whatever reason.

But your right in one respect, theres no compelling reason to go out and buy Windows 7 on launch day, in fact theres plenty incentive to do the opposite.

Thats probably the thinking of most companies.

 

[alex2792]

Windows 7 beta >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Vista which is not saying much because Vista is slooooooooow. I can actually run Windows 7 in virtual machine with 1GB RAM allocated without having it take 5 minutes to open my computer.