I never thought it was possible, but as it turns out, Microsoft has managed to produce some pretty good commercials for its brand new operating system, Windows 7. They are quite product-oriented, and carry the slogan “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea”.
Microsoft is clearly trying to let the world know that it listened to customer feedback when making Windows 7.With Vista being almost universally disliked, this is actually a pretty clever approach to marketing the new Windows release. The ads also clearly show off Windows 7’s new features, so viewers get a good idea of what it’s all about.
I really like the way these ads focus on the features in Windows 7 – there’s no silly name-calling, no derogatory comments towards competitors – just the product they’re trying to sell. There are also a number of “7 second demo” ads which show a new feature in just 7 seconds.
This is a lot better than some of the other stuff we’ve seen coming out of Redmond. What do you think?
Took away Ultimate Extras, changed the control panel, moved simple stuff like printers around, changed the start menu and forcing the new start menu on people, and all the dumb things like UAC are still dumb.
Its Vista Service Pack 3, with forced changes (no Classic start menu), it will piss of IT organizations again, it really didn’t add anything new, in fact, it took things away.
This is more or less another big disappointment. Its money for an effective service pack. It makes forced changes to appeal to the 10-15% of people who aren’t using windows and gleefully risking pissing everyone else off (the long term Windows users).
Moving things around also makes support harder. And, just to make sure where I am on this, Ribbon stinks, and real applications like Illustrator and Photoshop don’t screw with the interface because what is there works for people who actually DO WORK.
I think the biggest leap in innovation was from 3.1 -> NT 4.0, it was huge. It was cutler bringing NT kernel in and making real changes. Things have been incremental till Windows 2003, which in my mind, is the Windows operating system’s peak.
Now its a sad boring death, and it isn’t even that exciting to watch anymore.
I have administrated highly heterogeneous networks and IT systems, I use Windows every day, I game occasionally, but I also use FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris every day as well.
Windows XP did everything I need Windows Vista and Windows 7 today, save support more modern wireless encryption with ease (and that could be fixed in XP if MSFT wanted to).
Also, with Windows 7 XP mode, IT will really hate it, now they have to buy 2 seats of antivirus and junk like that for every workstation.
Windows 7 should have at least included a real Antivirus, like DOS 6 used to have it (MSAV). But no, in the age of taking stuff away and calling it new, Windows 7 fits right in I guess.
64-bit support still remains “hacky” as well, seems we are stuck with system32, wow64, and (x86) bs in certain directories.
In a word: Fail. Vista SP3. NEXT. Its worth using simply to get bug fixes but offers nothing new and isn’t worth the money.
….there are so many things wrong with your post, i mean…. wow.
i could comment on every inacuracy, but I just don’t have time.
Win7 is not vista SP3. there are a LOT of changes that warrant a new release and not a service pack. vista was a stepping stone to windows 7, we all know it. not that vista was particularly bad per say, but it’s no windows 7.
Microsoft did good, as much as some some people hate MS (insert your own reason here), you have to hand it to them when they do something right. Been using windows 7 since before the official beta and its been great. no waiting for SP1 here.
Nope. Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY
Everything I said is correct, you cant debunk any of it. You are a bold-faced liar.
I have used every windows NT from NT 3.1. There is nothing new here. The interface is, to me, an effective regression.
Sorry. New windows fanbois are not a decent source of information.
Nobody cares, upgrades wont sell well, all sales numbers will be tied to new hardware sales.
Ding, fries are done.
These kinds of posts are the reason that I don’t converse with socially-inept geeks with Asperger Syndrome.
Try “bald-faced” for this situation, you nitwit.
Yup, get ’em ready for my drive-through order.
Edited 2009-10-23 03:50 UTC
Hardly a stepping stone.
Vista was basically a completely new platform, 7 is an enhancement to Vista.
I’m not saying it is a service pack, but don’t call Vista a stepping stone.
to be honest, all this “7 is great” stuff is pretty freaking iritating. Most of what is in 7 is in Vista. The reason why Vista was iritating was because things like drivers had to be re-written from scratch, so they sucked, things weren’t in the same place so people were no longer comfortable with where they were, people had to get used to UAC (people say UAC is annoying, it is really no different than sudo or OS X’s pirvleage elevation system, people just weren’t used to it), etc…
Vista hate was all hype (negative hype), 7 love is all positive hype.
In the end, it’s ALL hype, and sheep go along with it.
Don’t be surprised if the fanboi censorship artists whack your score to make sure an opinion other than their own never gets heard.
Its like Eugenia INFECTED legions of people to act like her;, SUPPRESS DISSENT AND ORIGINAL THOUGHT! DEATH TO ANYONE WHO HAS SOMETHING CRITICAL TO SAY!
Edited 2009-10-22 23:14 UTC
Being critical is one thing, and is by all means not only acceptable but necessary. But your not just being critical, you are insisting everyone is wrong but you. That^aEURTMs not having an opinion and presenting it, that^aEURTMs suppression of everyone else^aEURTMs. I agree with some of your points (I too think that 2003 was the god of OS^aEURTMs, 2003 R2 ultimate 32 bit has been my desktop OS for a long time), but opinions are just that. It^aEURTMs not a distinct science where scientific method rules out another educated guess by trial, error, and proof; to say that windows 7 (example) is not worth the upgrade and is not worth paying for is not based on fact and therefore people who think it isn^aEURTMt are no more correct than those who think it is. Case and point, no one is wrong OR right, it^aEURTMs all just words^aEUR|
Edited 2009-10-22 23:26 UTC
I agree that windows 7 really doesn’t feel that much better. In fact I am annoyed that the “classic” mode looks so not classic. The only thing that made me go “cool” was the changing desktop background, but that wore off fast.
To me it feels comparable to 2 gnome releases. I just don’t see why its getting such praise, except for the fact that dell/hp/microsoft is telling everyone its the best thing ever and everyone seems to believe it.
Note: I have only used it for around a day now, so my opinion might change. Also I don’t have a negative opinion of it, just not “wowed”.
No, it’s not. In OS X (and linux afaik) you only need to sudo when installing something, when you mess with protected files and when you change system setings. I can’t understand why people keep saying that a system needing administrative rights to do the simplest things is a good thing.
In my opinion UAC is not only annoying, but also ineffective. Given enough false positives, users will start ignoring it. And since false positives are the only thing I’ve ever seen from UAC that’s what everybody is doing. If it would fire up only once a month (when needed), then a user wouldn’t be so eager to press continue.
Which are exactly the ONLY use cases for UAC, too.
Which are exactly the ONLY use cases for UAC, too.
True, but MS failed to separate the user completely from the underlying system. E.g in Vista there was a mix of user files and global files on the desktop. While UAC responded correctly to actions which required elevated privileges, the context in which these prompts occured were illogical.
When I’m messing about on my own desktop or in my own user folder, I don’t want to see privilege escalation prompts. What is in my account, should be my files with permissions set to my privilege level.
Vista’s UAC was right on the money in the need for privelege escalation for certain actions, but Vista failed to cleanly separate the users own environment from the system. Which resulted in vexing prompts which seemed to make no sense.
I hate to break it to you, but that is all that Vista uses UAC for as well.
Part of the problem is things that get installed in to the “All Users” profile.
Most of the problems with UAC trace back to the fact that they’re trying to use a privilege-escalation-based security system with an account that already has administrator rights.
In most Linux systems, you’ll log in as an unprivileged user. When you need to do something sensitive, you’ll use sudo to run a process as root that will perform the task you want done. Once you run a process ass root… it’s root, no more questions asked.
In Vista, you’re a privileged user by default. UAC guards certain functions that even the privileged user cannot perform without authorization. UAC will therefore annoy you every time you perform that action, even if you’re doing it multiple times from within one process that you’ve already authorized once.
That’s the big problem, IMHO. If Vista had used a Linuxy model, where you weren’t privileged by default, you only ever had to escalate a process once, and once you where privileged, the security system wouldn’t ask you any more questions, then that approach would’ve worked fine. The big problem is that you can take pains to run a process as root… and UAC will still whine at you, possibly repeatedly.
su != UAC
UAC is more akin to sudo, where you DO need to type sudo before each command. Now you do get a time-span where you don’t have to type in your sudo password, but you do still have to type sudo.
Edit:
Longer post replaced with, “while your statement is not completely accurate, I think trying to say what I was trying to say.”
Edited 2009-10-23 22:48 UTC
I didn’t even wait for it to be released.
OK. So you want to tell us that everything in this post is wrong…………but you don’t want to say why.
I think you need to re-read that and understand the implications of it. The 64-bit criticisms were certainly valid and worth exploring as well as the braindamaged approach for Windows 7 XP mode. You address none of that.
Sorry, but I’m afraid shouting “Everybody hates Microsoft, pity them!” is not any kind of response or rebuttal.
Good for you, but that doesn’t answer the criticisms of the OP.
I don’t blame him. I spent awhile on it, largely because I figured someone needed to.
They’re valid, but as I point out, linux has the same problem with lib and lib64, and there are 32 bit and 64 bit binaries, and each link to their own set of libraries. I’m not aware of an OS that can seamlessly link 64 bit and 32 bit executables to the same dynamic libraries.
As for XP mode, it’s essentially a free copy of a VM. Could as easily be VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels… and still largely unneeded. The only practical application I’ve found is for 32 bit apps that refuse to run on 64 bit Windows 7– and those are rare.
Yes, but shouting “It’s Dumb!” and not providing any reasons why it’s dumb other than “It’s not what it was” isn’t really valid either.
The OP’s criticism’s seem to be about as valid as the Apple ad campaign in response to Windows 7– a lot of dull, invective, personal opinion that has very little to do with the reality of Windows 7.
If you mean the UI works because people just happen to know where the features they need to use are, then sure it works because people learned where the features they need are.
But if you mean works as in that 90% of all features requests from already existed in the existing software, then no, the old UI did NOT work.
The whole point of ribbon is to bring all features of the software to the user contextually rather than the user having to go around and find what they need, often times getting frustrated because they can’t find it.
Does it suck that in the new version you can no longer find what you need? Sure, but if you take the time to learn it, those problems will be gone, and you’ll probably even find that you know how to do more faster.
Nope. Photoshop. Illustrator. Proof you are wrong.
Not everyone has a 30″ monitor you need to offset the disgusting amount of screen real estate that garbage ribbon takes.
Also, WYSIWIG, nah, not even on 30″ in portrait with the ribbon sucking up space.
For people who actually WORK on a computer, Ribbon is nothing.
Have fun with the new mspaint ribbon. Its great, right? Not enough to make anyone ditch a real program for it.
We should all upgrade to 7 for that.
Edited 2009-10-22 23:13 UTC
Photoshop, etc. is not completely menu driven as Office and other MS products were.
Again, I’m not saying one way is better than the other. But Microsoft had an issue where their users didn’t know how to access features that already existed so they did something about it.
It’s called featuritis.
You are clearly wrong. Although every version of office had commands that no users knew about, Office was and is an excellent package. There are others, but they all copied Office.
Now I personally use OS X, so I haven’t really used the ribbon more than 10 minutes in my entire life.
I didn’t like it because I’m a dinosaur used to the old Office menu, but I can see where it makes sense to have that.
The examples you cite, (Photoshop and Illustrator) have, in my opinion, the worst possible UIs ever designed for a professional Windows application. Palettes in both applications fly around and are inconsistent in every possible UI paradigm. People use them because Photoshop’s UI has a lot of years and I guess we got used to it.
On the other hand, I don’t think Photoshop can use a Ribbon like, because it would simply take out screen estate you need to work on the image. Maybe in the future when more DPI/bigger screens make it possible. Maybe an autohide ribbon? Don’t know.
But please don’t cry about the ribbon. It’s a pain to relearn the location of new commands (it was for my in my short experience), but once you grab it, i’m sure it works fine. (That’s what ribbon users told me, even long time old Office users).
Edited 2009-10-23 09:09 UTC
While I could be as vitriolic about the Ribbon as mickrussom,(even after nine months of use), I will tone it down a bit.
While the Ribbon solves the problem of getting the most options in the users eyesight, it is not without its costs. Trying to present everything is like serving all courses at once at a restaurant. The Ribbon is horribly cluttered.
Office 2007’s Ribbon is also poorly separated on contextual actions. There is some duplication and there is some randomness in the allocation of actions to the separate tabs. As an example, why are text layout and copy/clip/paste + search and replace “Start” items? I mostly start with an empty document and only after typing a body of text, will I start putting in bold/underlined/italic emphasis. Plus, when you start, what is there to copy/clip/paste?
What also vexes me is the increase in the number of actions I need to perform to complete a task. I need to traverse a lot more distance with the mouse, switching through tabs and hitting the right button. Some actions also take more clicks than the old conventional menu.
Then there are extra contextual tabs which only appear with certain tasks such as inserting pivot tables. Even more traversing en mouse clicking.
The Ribbon is ultimately a “Noob Interface”. It gets all options in the face of someone who doesn’t know where to look. The problem with that, is that it also gets all the options in the face of someone who already knows very well what he wants. Someone who’d like some control and ability to create real custom interfaces and have stuff that is rarely needed out of the way. The quick launch bar is a very poor substitute.
An ever changing UI is hardly a way to optimally use a program. They screwed it because they need to put as much “features” as possible with each release to keep selling their shit. True is 99% of people don’t ever user more than Bold, Save as, Underline, Change Typography, Align, and a couple of other expected features. I don’t think a program should have so much features, it makes it very difficult to learn/master. Don’t even mention having to relearn how to use a damn word processor with each new release.
And idiots keep saying something like LaTeX is too hard to learn.
Um, the team that built the ribbon based its design on telemetry data of which features people actually use. People in the real world definitely do use more than the five features you listed. If you think the discoverability of features in Word is bad for typical users, how do you think they’d cope with the comparative brick wall that is a compiled document format?
That’s great news for TELSTAR, but what about us earth-bound folk?
The Troff I learnt 15 years ago still works today, and well into the future. The ~6 week learning curve that just keeps on giving
There is just no incentive, commericial or otherwise, to go fiddling with something that works so well.
Unlike a certain bundle of popular office applications.
as dumb as it is, I really hate the new start menu
Agreed, though personally I’ve always hated the start menu concept. Browsing through your actual application folders rather than shortcuts is the way to do it imho.
That would be seriously annoying and time consuming. I did this on the Amiga back in the days but hadn’t much of a choice.
There are an army of users out there that would disagree with you on this.
If the 7 start menu works like Vista does, then just hit the window key and start typing what you’re looking for to find it on the Start menu. That is vastly simpler than opening an explorer window and browsing your applications folder.
That’s even better than the Apple key+shift to do the same thing on MacOS, and people say Microsoft never innovate!
I see people saying they hate the new start menu. I bet 90% of them still hunt in the All Programs menu.
The new menu is supposed to be searched, and to have quick shortcuts to important system directories. Everything the old menu had is there anyway, just moved around.
No, the biggest leap in innovation was from VMS -> NT
/ducks
The best you can say about windows 7 is that it’s not as bad as it used to be. It has lots of good stuff under the surface but looking at the competition it barely serves to bring the operating system up to date.
I’m still waiting for a usable shell in windows and a comprehensive command reference (like we’ve had in OpenVMS since version 7.1). Powershell is admittedly more powerful but you also end up writing almost as much code as you would if you just wrote a C# program anyhow and the entire documentation for how to write a usable Powershell script is hardly supplied with the operating system.
I’ll wait for the series of commercials called “Windows 7 was my idea and they f–ked it up”.
I’m still waiting for a versioning filesystem.. but seeing as Windows 7 is actually Windows 6.1 under the hood, I’m not longer conviced MS could get it right.
LOL so true!
Err.. You do realise OSX and Linux also have UAC, but they call it sudo/policykit. Its just as annoying, except that it prompts you for your username and password. Same thing pretty much. And because its missing in Windows XP, in windows XP, if a hacker compromises one of the programs you are using, boom, every account is compromised, and it could happily rootkit the entire OS. But I guess you are one of those people who will blame Microsoft if your computer starts crashing after your IRC client got hacked?
Also Microsoft offers “Microsoft Security essentials” free to download. They probably would have included it, but they are getting sued left right and centre for anti-trust violations (because instead of sucking less, companies like opera prefer to complain). Microsoft security essentials can be installed for free in XP mode too (and I’d imagine Microsoft will probably integrate it into the installation process to automatically install in both too). You don’t need XP mode really either, because unlike Linux and OSX, Windows 7 has excellent backwards compatibility, and is still capable of running many programs designed in 1998. Just because new editions of Windows don’t constantly break older application’s (unlike Windows/Linux upgrades do), doesn’t mean it isn’t more useful to developers either.
And 64bit support I don’t think is that bad. OSX its good, but 3rd party hardware support is shockingly bad, and the entire linux filesystem is a mess. I agree I would like to see the Program files directories merged, but overall, 32bit/64bit support I feel works well.
You also are forgetting features such as Bitlocker to go (which is VERY useful to enterprises, and those networks of yours) and homegroups. In fact, clearly, you aren’t as professional a user as you claim, if you can’t recognise many changes aren’t cosmetic. Because there are plenty of features improved under the hood. In fact, Apple charges money for even small updates, and I don’t see you complaining about that (Windows users will get the primary new feature of Snow leopard for free, OpenCL). And a huge amount of their improvements were actually developed by the open source community, they simply take credit for it (such as the improvements to windows sharing).
So 2 words, “you fail”. And you fail even more as an admin, if you believe that UAC is nothing more then an annoyance.
That is not correct. Sudo/policykit in OSX and linux do not work like the UAC. First of all sudo on Linux is a token based system where you have super rights for a limited time and can do several superuser functions without getting prompted for the password again. Both OSX and Linux only prompt you to escalate rights when its something that will affect the system, UAC asks you to escalate even if its something only affecting you, which is silly. Also the user is still an admin on the machine meaning that UAC is only prompting the user to escalate privileges and not asking for a password to escalate privileges unless the user is not specifically set up as admin, which by default they are. UAC and sudo are not the same, there are subtle differences mostly due to culture and differences in architecture but if you’ve used both the differences would be very apparent.
I’ve not had any experience with Vista, but I’ve been using Windows 7 for a number of months now (with the UAC slider turned all the way up) and only get prompted when installing software. Can you give an example of when it would prompt for user settings?
Insert random falsehood.
Bash Microsoft.
Promote competitor/free software.
Advocate one’s pure objectiveness in the matter.
Profit.
Auzy astroturfed…
Not even remotely close to being the same thing.
I can’t speak about policykit, but I know at least in Ubuntu when I get hit by sudo and have to elevate permissions I get that password request–which proves that I have rights to the system. Moreover it remembers that I have elevated rights for awhile, so I can get whatever it was I was trying to do done.
UAC just looks over at me through bleary eyes and asks: “Are you sure you want to do that?” Then once I’ve told it that, yes I know that I’m performing a potentially dangerous system task, that might require elevated permissions to be granted–it doesn’t ask me to authenticate myself. It just hits me up with several more warnings as I go along, never once asking me to prove I have the right to perform these potentially dangerous actions.
Yes, with sudo may be a bit annoying to have to play “Simon says,” but at least the OS is aware that I AM Simon! UAC is a joke.
Auzy astroturfed…
How quickly they forget…
http://www.osnews.com/story/19620/_Vista_s_UAC_Security_Prompt_Was_…
Read the article and you’ll see quite clearly that yes, UAC was designed to irritate you, not to be functional.
–bornagainpenguin
Seconded!
Sudo and su in Linux work much better, both because they actually require you to authenticate, and because they’re process-based — meaning that, after I launch a process as root, I don’t get bothered again based on what that process does. If I felt like it, I could launch an xterm as root using sudo when I log in, and whenever I needed to perform an administration task, I could just use that xterm, and it’d never bother me for authentication again. Equally, if I know I’m going to be performing a lot of administration tasks, I can just log in as root; if I do that, the system never even bothers me.
That’s not entirely accurate. Yes, it does ask for a password, when logged into a non-administrator account.
That is the point! Why the **** do you “need” to access everything as an administrator!?!!? I have no idea.
Windows 7 UAC is a bit better tuned– Not sure I’m happy about an application being able to retune it silently, but that’s fixable.
UAC is more like interactive SElinux– Even if you’re root, it’s going to ask if you’re certain you want to do that.
Now, if you remove the “Administrator” flag (ie, take yourself out of the ‘wheel’ group) from your account, then UAC requires you to authenticate as someone with privilege.
For supporting our (non-privileged) users, this is very useful, as we get prompted for our username/password when doing administration, instead of having to either log out and back in, or having to do fancy “runas” tricks.
*sigh*
The whole “Product B is a service pack for Product A” is getting quite tired.
It’s goal of the “service pack” argument at this point is to say Product B has something in common, however tenuous, to Product A, so Product B cannot therefore be an actual “new” product.
Wouldn’t Windows XP be more of a “service pack” for Windows 2000 because of how similar they are, just reskinned with Luna and changed a couple things?
Windows XP is very popular for a long time now for it just being a “service pack”.
Since poundsmack won’t dissect your post .. I will.
Then don’t get ultimate .. you probably wouldn’t need it anyways seeing as how the professional is a superset of home premium with xp mode and enterprise level support and ultimate is a superset of both with more language packs, and did you really use Ultimate Extras anyways??
yes .. but you can still get all the icons to show if you really want them.
Yeah .. it new thing on the start menu called ‘Devices’ where .. oddly enough .. it shows all the stuff connected to your computer .. wow, what a concept.
it’s called change .. get over it. I personally like the fact they combined the quick launch and taskbar into one .. it’s less cluttered and oh look, if you hover your mouse over the icon you can see the thumbnail or multiple thumbnails if you have more of the same app open so you can switch between them easily.
no .. it’s for security. If you were really and IT person you’d know that, oh and you can TURN IT OFF TOO
That is complete and utter BS and you know it. The problem with Vista is that MS made it without interaction from the 3rd party makers. That changed with 7. MS sat down with them and collaborated to make sure everything worked. After Vista you bet your ass they made sure things would work out of the box.
Well yeah they wanna attract people to it .. it’s called growth and competition, and as for pissing people off. I’ve used just about every incarnation of windows myself. From 3.0 and 3.11 on dos 6.22 on up to win95, then 98, then 98se, then me, 2000, then xp (not really used NT4 except at school labs) and in my professional opinion this is the best one. I’m not knocking xp .. I used xp for a damn long time before I knew it was time to change.
what the hell is harder??? you have to learn things??
GET OVER IT. You’re in the computer field for a living which means you’re going to have to learn new things. Technology is changing at a rapid pace and if you can’t keep up then get out of the way for people who can.
Again .. this is your personal opinion and you are entitled to it, but also realize that those are 3rd party applications not created by MS. They can make the interface anyway they want to. I personally find the Ribbon quite useful. It’s the fact you got used to the old way and think the old way is the way it should be for all time. Again, GET OVER IT.
Not gonna disagree. The introduction of the NT kernel was a huge leap, but over time you have to move beyond it to cut the dead weight to support the new innovations.
Again, your opinion.
I’m wondering how someone who works in the tech field with this much experience can be so bitter about change. Once upon a time Linux and FreeBSD weren’t as polished as they are now, know why? THEY CHANGED. Things were added and removed to make things work better. 7 is no different.
Ah .. so this is why you’re generally pissed eh? They could but they won’t because it’s time to move on.
Then don’t flippin use it. I’ve thrown just about every 32bit app I can at Windows 7 and it’s barely blinked. Oh lord if you’re still using 16bit apps .. you need to really get the coders to upgrade the app.
Home users can get a free antivirus from MS .. it’s called Security Essentials or you can get AVG or Avast. If you mean IT, then no. That would mean it’s for a corporation and you have to pay for it. Yet again, get over it.
‘hacky’??? I’m on the 64bit windows 7 now and it’s not at all ‘hacky’ .. like I said, I’ve thrown about every program I can at it and it runs like a champ.
Then I think you should get out your line of work then. If it makes you that angry, you need to leave and let other people who will learn and adapt with change take over since, obviously, you won’t.
Start Menu –> Devices and Printers. Is that really so hard? UAC has been fine-tuned, and it’s still better than the binary security model on XP (Or 2003, for that matter) of “Admin or !Admin”.
Why is Microsoft the only company not allowed to change their UI? Vista’s the first new UI since Windows 95, and you know what? It’s significantly easier to use as a result. I *do* wish they hadn’t taken out the “Group” functionality in Explorer, and the lack of Virtual Desktops still drives me crazy. But Aero peek, while it sounds silly, rocks, and the keyboard shortcuts for launching / moving windows are very useful.
Ok, that’s three non-OS examples, but do you REALLY think we should all still be using program manager?
Well, I’m not sure if you mean NT 3.1, or Windows 3.10, but really, NT 4.0 was just NT 3.x with the Windows 95 UI. And there things stopped. I’ll let you in on another secret– Windows 2008 is better than 2003.
I have yet to see a real need for XP mode. We’ll probably have a few legacy applications that need it, but for the most part, XP mode is a nice bonus that most people won’t use. Oh, and make sure you write down the password.
Probably due to all those pesky lawsuits, but I guess you haven’t heard Microsoft Security Essentials?
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
You mean like this?
# ls -ld /usr/lib*
drwxr-xr-x 102 root root 28672 2009-09-19 18:42 /usr/lib
drwxr-xr-x 199 root root 135168 2009-09-19 18:48 /usr/lib64
Well I am glad somebody has admitted to it.
I have to say I”m a fan of the snap and the shake. They seem to have taken a play from Apple’s book in looking at the little things people can do to make working on a computer easier. Kudos to them for that.
Agreed.
I have to admit I didn’t even know about the shake feature.
Win-<number> – Launch taskbar slot <number>
Win-Left – Snap left
Win-Right – Snap Right
Win-Up – Maximize
Win-Down – Restore / Minimize
Win-T – Cycle through Taskbar
Win-M – Minimize current application
Win-D – Minimize everything
Win-Space – Aero Peek
This may be the first Windows that caters to the keyboard nuts out there.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts
I took a few minutes to watch all of the commercials in the article and found them entertaining and very well made.
Whoever brought this particular advertising campaign for Windows 7 did a great job as far as I’m concerned.
Its well made simply because they are doing a good job at pushing a lie.
Nothing to see here, move along, turns into visual art and BS commercials.
It’s not like it’s the first time they market a lie. People will say what they will about Windows XP, but it wasn’t until SP2 that it was in good shape. Previous versions were crap.
Excellent ads. No one is puking, no one is making really bizarre unfunny jokes, and Bill Gates isn’t draped seductively across a desk. What have you done with the real Microsoft?!
C’mon guys… an OS is a freakin commodity… you can’t try to sell it as a “cool” o “interesting” product anymore … nobody cares about an OS and its features. psst
Microsoft is stuck at 1997… out-fashioned, anachronic, uninspiring. Microsoft looks like General Motors ten years ago… bleak future.
Actually, I agree with you, to an extent. People don’t buy operating systems. They buy computers. And new COMPUTERS are “cool and interesting”. So your point is moot.
I dunno. Preorders for Windows 7 seem to be setting records, so apparently the world disagrees with your assessment.
Microsoft Store Opens to Scottsdale Campers
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/microsoft-store-opens-to-scottsd…
And yet, I can bet you my whole months salary, that most sales of Win7 will not come from pre-orders, but with new computers.
I already know that there was a drop in new computer sales because of upcoming Win7 release. As a result there are computers on sale with free upgrade WinVi -> Win7.
They are selling PCs actually, not Windows 7. As they can’t compete with Apple in that field, being Apple both a hardware and software company, Microsoft needs to sell the whole package, not just the OS. Nobody cares about the OS, probably most don’t even know how to get it. It seems way easier to buy a new computer.
Edited 2009-10-23 02:20 UTC
People pay good $$$ for certain brands of shoe, for no other reason than the logo. Why not operating systems?
Ssssh! Don’t tell Apple hear you!
I like the commercials they are actually well thought out and focus only on features which is a plus. I actually like Windows 7, enough to buy it? No, I went Mac and I’m not looking to switch again. Windows doesn’t have anything I need in-fact they have less than I need ( I use Logic Studio and Apogee hardware). That doesn’t mean that I’m not impressed with what they have done with Windows 7. I think handing off Windows to the same guys who did Office 2007 was a good idea. While the ribbon may not be the best thing in the world it was still a surprise coming form Microsoft. That team is willing to think outside of the box and focus on the UI experience. I’ma fan of the taskbar, if only because it reminds me of the OSX dock.
Look, I’m a Mac and Linux user. I have very little desire to run anything but OSX but you have to give credit where its due. My company is currently looking to upgrade to Windows 7, which considering XP is 8 years old may be a good idea.
I like the Ads. It short and nice. I like the Tag line “Win 7 is my idea”. I can’t comment on the OS, I haven’t tried it yet.
Don’t try to upgrade your existing PC from a previous version of Windows, it will prove very expensive (especially of your time) even if it is actually even possible:
http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2009/10/22/our-windows-7-special-of…
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1558769/gartner-pushes-win…
Ouch.
For an update of dubious value, that is a significant outlay if one has a number of users.
First the poster above was most likely talking about his/her personal PC which cost nowhere near $2000 to migrate to Windows 7. The average cost of a upgrade to Windows 7 for home users will be the cost of a OEM copy of Home Premium since Win 7 uses less resources than Vista and does not require significant upgrades.
Next the second link is the Inquirer and they are hardly a reliable source of information on anything related to technology. The Inquirer is nothing more than a technology gossip rag.
Why did you snip the links?
Is it because you didn’t want people to find out that this estimate of the per-user cost to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 came from Gartner?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner
So this is anything but “technology gossip”.
Gartner’s estimate:
My bold.
Note also the context: “Gartner urged companies to budget carefully“. They are talking about the per-user costs for businesses to upgrade to Windows 7.
Edited 2009-10-23 07:47 UTC
Ever hear of brevity? …on second thought, after looking at the rest of your post, I see the answer is “no.”
It is called brevity as another poster has pointed out. The links were redundant and people can go to the original post to click on them if need be.
You also have a comprehension issue when I specifically posted that the cost to migrate for home users would typically be the price of a OEM copy of Win 7. It damned sure is not the $1000 to $2000 you keep citing and even those figures for businesses is questionable when you don’t include the savings that Win 7 can provide in better power management and default security over 2000/XP.
I stand by my statement on The Inquirer as they like to cherry pick studies like these to always present Windows in a bad light. They are hardly legitimate news.
Edited 2009-10-23 23:32 UTC
Since fewer than 1% of people (eg. geeks, enthusiasts) actually do upgrades from one OS to another — and instead get their OS preinstalled when they buy a new machine — this is a non-issue for the vast majority of people.
First, that estimate is based on a projected cost for businesses, not consumers. Second, businesses can’t run XP indefinitely. XP is reaching its end-of-life support timeline and, so, businesses are going to ultimately have to incur some kind of migration cost, regardless of which OS they migrate to. Like everybody else, most businesses get their OSes preinstalled on new machines, and then depreciate those assets over some fixed time period. It’s not a question of IF but WHEN they will migrate. Third, future OSes aren’t going to make migration costs magically disappear. Fourth, these costs don’t factor in the use of virtual machine technology for keeping older applications running.
Edited 2009-10-23 18:59 UTC
My upgrade from Vista to W7 was very smooth. Almost everything worked, and the few things I had to fix were minor. It saved a great amount of time vs. reinstalling from scratch.
This seems improbably high for a home user, as the upgrade cost would be much higher than the cost of replacing their entire computer, printer, and peripherals. If they _did_ replace all their gear to get W7, the benefits are unlikely to be limited to the improvements in W7 itself. That is, because of progress in the industry they will be getting a much faster machine, more capable accessories, etc.
That isn’t always necessary though. As an example of low upgrade costs, my own machine is a couple of years old and started life running XP (though admittedly at the very tail end of XP). My printers are about 5y and 7y old and both work fine. My mice are 3-6y old, monitors are 1-4y old, external sound card is 2y old, USB video camera is 3y old, and my joystick is about 5y old. All of that gear, as well as all the internal hardware, work just fine, so there was no additional hardware cost to the upgrade.
Glad to hear that! I never upgrade, myself. I always pave a machine and start from a fresh OS install.
Gartner is including costs for retraining workers from XP to Windows 7, and possibly amortizing the cost of porting legacy applications on a per-seat basis. It’s hard to argue about those numbers, though, because every organization is different. So, it’s entirely possible that per-seat costs could be much less.
As for home users, there’s no way that the costs approach what Gartner estimated, but they said explicitly that the costs apply to businesses.
Oh… You are a lucky person to think that businesses buy new hardware when the old is “too old”.
A lot of businesses buy new hardware if:
the old one is broken
the support costs are too high
Most businesses will go with: “If it works, it works”.
The third category is only for IT related businesses, that are the only ones that actually renew their hardware on a regular basis. I work for such a company, our laptops are renewed every 4 years. They will even fix my old computer, if the spare parts have higher cost than a new laptop!
Really? Gartner’s broken out the crack pipe again, then, especially in IT environments.
Microsoft provides some nice tools:
1) User State Migration, to backup the profile(s) to a server.
2) Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to customize, image, and deploy sysprep-style images.
3) GPO or SCCM based application deployment.
So, backup the user profiles, wipe and re-image the machine, reinstall the applications automagically, and restore the user profile.
That covers 95% of my user base right there, at about 45 minutes to an hour per machine.
As for home users, I wouldn’t recommend upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 anyway. Vista to 7 shouldn’t be too bad, but XP is just too wild and unmanaged to make a direct upgrade safe.
I think the ads are pretty good by MS standards but the “I’m a PC…” part of the tag line is ill-advised.
“I’m a PC” is obviously a response to the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” concept from Apple’s advertising that has become a part of pop culture. Problem is Microsoft’s derivative use of it only shows a lack of comprehension.
In the Apple ads “Mac and PC” represent the actual computers, not the computer users. In fact the Apple ads never degrade people to the status of computers (see the “I’m a Megan” ad for evidence of this).
Using that concept that way makes Microsoft look like they are copying Apple without really “getting it”. What that says about the product itself is anyone’s guess.
If by “getting it”, you mean Apple misleading consumers with ridiculous hyperbole, then I’m glad Microsoft didn’t “get it”. That’s the wrong message.
I disagree.
When Apple created the Mac/PC ads, they deliberatley chose a dorky, middle-aged guy to play the PC, and a younger, more casual guy to play the Mac. The goal in doing so was create the impression that these were “typical” users of each platform. Since we live in a youth-driven culture, the implication is that buying a Mac is a way to associate oneself with the “cooler” crowd. Just as, for example, an ad for a sports car might feature a young attractive woman, even though most sports cars are probably bought by middle-aged men–often in an attempt, consciously or not, to attract the attention of young women. This kind of cultural association is common in modern advertising, and the subtext it creates in Apple’s ads was just as significant as whatever each one poked fun at (UAC, crapware, etc.). To say the actors were simply stand-ins for computers grossly misses the point.
Microsoft’s initial goal with the “I’m a PC” campaign was to break that association, by having people from all different backgrounds substitute themselves for John Hodgeman’s character. In doing so, they hoped to convey the idea that the PC is a sort of egalitarian device for every man, woman and child. You can debate the effectiveness those ads had in communicating that message, but I’ve certainly never come across anyone who felt “degraded” because they thought they were being literally compared to a few pounds of silicon, plastic, and precious metals.
Also, FWIW, Apple clearly asks “Which Mac are you?” on its website:
http://www.apple.com/getamac/
(The second item to the left of the header.) Do you feel degraded?
Personally, I think these new Windows 7 ads are pretty decent. Actually, they do what even Apple hasn’t managed to do up to this point: clearly and succintly demonstrate features of the product being advertised.
Edited 2009-10-23 02:20 UTC
I would gave said “retarded” but either works, I guess.
Or,
I think MS gets it, and in the campaign is subtly but purposefully rejecting it.
The kid in the “I’m a Mac” looks like he’s single, watches B&W foreign films, drinks fair trade coffee, and that his entire life is comprehended by understanding those few things. In a word, he is cool, and like very few actual people. The PC guy looks like an accountant who’s been working the same job for 20y, and goes home every night thinking of how someday he’ll really tell his boss what he thinks. He looks like more people than the Mac guy, but still a few sigmas away from the mean.
Now look at the people in the MS adds. A mechanic, a guy and his wife, a guy _working_ while in a coffee shop, a guy at home with his kids relaxing.
I think MS knows exactly what they are doing when they show “real people” with the “I’m a PC” tag line. Everyone does know the Apple ads, and everybody knows they are over-the-top, which is perfectly fine in advertising. However, if taken a just a bit too far, the “choose your identity” angle — the implicit point of the Apple add is: Who do you want to be? the old nerd or the cool kid? — you open yourself up to this kind of thing. It has an element of conversion. Stop being the old guy, join us and be cool…
MS is basically answering, “Which one?” with, “Neither,” and saying that people that use Windows have jobs (manual and white collar), families, and leisure time. Everyone of those is represented in these adds. In short, they are the normal people that make up 80-90% of the market, and that MS wants to offer them something they can use as they are, not as the first step of a transformation.
Edited 2009-10-23 18:27 UTC
I live in Australia, and I have to say that the ads here are abysmal. Microsoft has left it to the retailers to explain the benefits of Windows 7 in their ads, and this is the result:
“Easy photos
Easy music
Easy videos
Windows 7 works the way you want it to”
Another retailer advertised the multi-touch capabilities of Windows 7, underneath a huge grid of laptops for sale where none of them had touchscreens!
These are poor.
…and if they’re as successful as the laptop ones Apple will be in for another bumper quarter
Don’t you find the music in longer ads kinda resembles iPhone ads music?
Anyhow, I find it appaling how after all those years of training to maximise every window turning your OS basically into a one-task-at-a-time thingy they’re doing an about face and say how cool it is to have windows opened side by side! That’s some serious innovation. Good luck making people use that – they can’t get rid of this habit even on 24″ Macs…
Anyhow, I find it appaling how after all those years of training to maximise every window turning your OS basically into a one-task-at-a-time thingy they’re doing an about face and say how cool it is to have windows opened side by side! That’s some serious innovation. Good luck making people use that – they can’t get rid of this habit even on 24″ Macs…
And it will be with us for many, many, many years to come. The problem is not that computers cannot handle the multitasking, the problem is that humans themselves are basically massively parallel “one-task-at-a-time thingies”.
We can switch between tasks, but ultimately we can only handle one task at a time. Having multiple windows open is distracting, because it becomes difficult to focus at just one active window area between a lot that are not relevant at the moment.
How do you get rid of the distractions? Just maximize the window you are currently working on.
These ads has nothing on the Windows386 Ad linked a while back.
I will buy anything if Steve Ballmer yells about it long enough.
That ad reminded me of the old joke about the production values of Canadian TV in the 80s – it was like a bad porn movie, but without the sex.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/burger-king-selling-a-windows-7-…
I got a free copy of 7 at university yesterday and gave it a try. Ugh… Seriously, does anyone actually *like* this OS?
Yes. To be fair, I liked Vista as well, although I spend about 60% of my time on KDE 3.5.x (and will until KDE 4.x supports dual monitors as well as KDE 3.5 does).
For that matter, I even like OSX, although I think the Finder hasn’t gotten far enough away from NeXT.
So, do you have any specific complaints? Are you a Mac User stuck in a strange land? Or are you one of these people who knows far better than Microsoft was services and DLL’s you need, so you went in and disabled a bunch of stuff only to find out you either couldn’t, or now your computer doesn’t work? Or does UAC fill you with a sense of dread?
Or perhaps, you’re in a maze of twisty passages, all alike?
The ads are great; focused and not too much fluff. Real people using Microsoft products in the real world and using them in real world scenarios. The down side is, however, the product itself is horrible and this will come back and bite them if it doesn’t address the fundamental flaws of Windows.
They have the virtualisation software, why don’t the fundamentally throw huge amounts of Windows out the Window and virtualise what is required for backwards compatibility? But this is the same company whose programmers have been indoctrinated with this stupid idea of ‘legacy code is an asset” – no it isn’t. It is no more of an asset than a rusting car sitting out the front of the house on concrete blocks – it’s an eye sore that needs to be purged.
Windows can be a great operating system, it is the poor management that don’t allow the talent to shine – management lacking in creativity but up to their eye balls in MBA (Master of Bugger All) but no practical touch with reality and making the tough decisions.
It’s because their success isn’t attributed to being a superior offering, rather it’s something plagued by endless bugs and it’s only the established monopoly that kept them going. Comes as no surprise that they don’t know where to go next, they never had original ideas in the first place.
The flip side is that removing or moving all backwards compatibility is a monumental task that won’t give any benefits given the sheer diversity of software people tend to use and how much of that software likes to tie itself so deep into the OS…
Many people don’t want original ideas, they just want their computer to work. I’d sooner see Microsoft focus their energies on producing better middleware – maybe even provide a Silverlight development suite for Mac so that Flash can finally be killed off for the useless bloatware and browser-hangware that it is.
Why? all the hardware has already been moved to the new driver models – it is just a matter of removing the backwards compatibility that exists. The list of known safe win32 calls and deprecated parts have been known for many years – it would be a matter of simply removing those and providing a free copy of Windows XP in the form of an image and be done with it.
Edited 2009-10-23 14:44 UTC
nice ads. seriously. both for content and style.
But, for the FOSS community, I would stress the campaign focuses on simplicity first, then features.
I guess you can reach almost all that features also on a linux-based system, but no without investing several weeks in configuration.
And I think this is relevant because I can see many people thinking “OK, now the mission is to make linux technically able to do all that things.”, but they are wrong because this is not enough. Simplicity is also needed. Only accessible features serve real people.
Edited 2009-10-23 13:54 UTC
Haha…
Maybe to americans this is good but as a European I have to say they are laughable. They make me cringy watching them… they are worse then the vidoes for how to hold a windows 7 launch party.
This kind of advertising wouldn’t work here, thank god.
Someone pass me a sick-bag please.
Edited 2009-10-23 14:24 UTC
well said!
hard to believe that somebody can consider this as a good campaign.
Speak for yourself – I, as a fellow European, enjoyed the ads.
I find it hilarious that some people are intellectually threatened by the fact microsoft has put out a good product.
Head asplode??
With the economy the way it is right now, I have better things to do with my money and time……
6 more days and Ubuntu 9.10……
http://www.ubuntu.com/
that’s it really.
The ads were created by the Crispin Porter + Bogusky ad agency, website http://cpbgroup.com
There is a good, albeit brief article about the campaign at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i92ec830f386…
Microsoft made a good decision choosing this agency; this is independent of the quality of Windows 7, however.
“I’m a PC”?, NO! you’re a ‘PC’ user
Microsoft’s marketing staff watched the Apple ads and then didn’t understand what a metaphor was.
no .. I AM a pc. I plug myself into it every night at bedtime to become part of the collective.
resistance is futile. you will be assimilated.
These commercials are alright. But I think the ad promo for ‘Windows 386’ is the best advertisement ever to come out of Redmond… and the 80’s for that matter. There’s something about an 80’s, corporate, big-glasses-wearing, shoulder-padded, 9-to-5’er woman whose alter ego dresses like Madonna and raps about productivity applications.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swFlU-FKg30