I’m sticking with Vista. I like the under the hood changes on Win7, but the UI changes just suck.
“The “why upgrade?” argument is lame. If there’s no point in ever upgrading because what you have “works fine” then why isn’t everyone still using Win98 (or 95, or 3.11 for that matter) those all “worked just fine” at the time when that’s all we had and knew.”
That’s because we would like to wait a while. Microsoft’s best OS so far has been XP. We’d like to let it die naturally. Don’t kill it when its usership is so huge. Why force me to upgrade? Show me something exclusive. Maybe if VS11 or VS12 is Win7 only, then I’d HAVE to upgrade, of my own appeal.
"When XP first came out (and probably until SP1) plenty of people we’re doggin’ it calling it "Fisher-Price, toyish, and unprofessional and a resource-hog. Sound familiar?
Ten years from now when we’re running “Windows 2020” or something we’ll say, “Damn, XP, Vista, and 7 all sucked, what were we thinking!?”."
Well, when we’re running Windows 2020, then hopefully, we’ll be out of the NT kernel. XP was the last good NT kernel. Maybe try something new? That actually compells me to upgrade? If I had driver hell with the NT and non-NT, I’d upgrade.
And as far as the holding on, the OS market should be like the video game console market. People WANT a new console. They want to save up to get them. But computer users hang on to an old OS. Why? We’re not compelled. Point restated thrice. People see a new next-gen game, they WANT it.
It seems that people think that they will only have one OS, and that is easily true for plenty of people. One laptop or whatever. Game consoles are different. People have racks of NES’s, Saturns, PS1’s, XBOX’s, Wii’s, etc. If computer OS’s got CHEAPER, as well as the hardware, then we’d be able to have 2-3 computers cheaply. Then people would WANT a new OS because they could preserve their old ties. I would take Win7 if I had a new machine. But I don’t.
The problem, as well is the speed of upgrades for PC’s. If we could just have smaller performance gains, then we could stick for a PC spec for a while and wait till the stuff on the shelves got cheaper.
I just love the maths at Microsoft lets see now…
#1 - Windows 3.11
#2 - Windows 95
#3 - Windows 98
#4 - Windows 98 SE
#5 - Windows ME (named after a disease)
#6 - Windows 2000
#7 - Windows XP
#8 - Windows Vista
#9 - Windows 7
I thought it fair not to include Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0 as they were not really aimed at the home market originally, the only trouble was that their home market OS core was so bad they decided to dump it and use the NT core, so really in fairness it could be included in the list above making Windows 7 the 11th OS - lol
“Nobody is forcing anyone to use Windows” – not accurate
Windows 98 and 98 SE are not considered two separate Operating Systems like that, though SE did provide much needed improvements to 98. I’m guessing that 3.11 should not be included in that list either since it wasn’t actually an Operating System; it was closer to a graphical front-end for DOS.
“Heck, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
I still use a Commodore Pet. 4k and a green screen - works fine for me.
Why bother going to see the new IMAX films in 3D when everything was just fine in sepia and the sound was a guy playing a piano.
If you want to enjoy the latest stuff then you need to buy the latest stuff, if you just want to be an old crusty fart then stay with whatever worked decades ago.
Whatever floats your boat man…
@Sci-Fi Si
ummm… not quite.
Windows (MS-DOS Based)
* Windows 1.0
* Windows 2.0
* Windows/286 and Windows/386 (Windows 2.1)
* Windows 3.0
* Windows 3.1, Windows 3.1 for Workgroups, Windows 3.11, and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups (WfW)
* Windows 95 (Windows 4.0)
* Windows 98 (Windows 4.1)
* Windows Millennium Edition (Windows 4.9)
[edit] Windows NT
* Windows NT 3.1
* Windows NT 3.5
* Windows NT 3.51
* Windows NT 4.0 including up to Service Pack 6a
* Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0) including up to Service Pack 4
* Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1) including up to Service Pack 3
* Windows Server 2003 (Windows NT 5.2) including up to Service Pack 2
* Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (Windows NT 5.2) including up to Service Pack 2
* Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (Windows NT 5.1) including up to Service Pack 3
* Windows Home Server (Windows NT 5.2)
* Windows Vista (Windows NT 6.0) including up to Service Pack 2
* Windows Server 2008 (Windows NT 6.0) including up to Service Pack 2
* Windows 7 (Windows NT 6.1)
* Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows NT 6.1)
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows
@Ric C.
I not so sure that calling NT 3.1 and 3.5 etc… Is a different operating system, nor would I say it is correct to include server OS’s, I don’t thing the home users really go round installing Windows Server 2008 do you?
At least Windows 7 will make installing apps that use .NET 3.5 SP1 a lot easier.
Well, until .NET 4.0 comes out anyway 
I’ll just play it safe here…
I will wait until they release at least the SP2 on Win7 before I consider downloading an illegal copy and install it in one of my Guinea-Pig-CPUs just to make sure my actual CPU wont burst out in flames with it. After that I’ll just wait until some of my friends plays the “early adopter” card on his own PC and just hear his opinion. Then and only then I would seriously consider purchasing a OEM copy and installing it on my PC.
After all, My first XP installation happened on 3Q 2005. XP is relatively new to me =P
OS changing is like dumping you all time lady for a blond with fake boobs… you might get the time of your live… or you could en up finding out that the blond has an Adam apple and a rocket in “her” left pocket.
Well, I just like Windows XP, what can I say … I can understand the pain of a developer, who has to support multiple operating system versions, but let’s face it - this is still a reality, that some customers use even Windows 2000 as their operating system. Especially in the rough times of an economic downturn we may find even big companies keeping their computers not just for 3 years, as it used to be a custom, but even longer.
Of course, the pressure is on and gradually they migrate to the newer OS version, but this process has not finished yet.
Sticking with Jeff’s original point and ignoring the Holy Wars that invariably come up with Operating System posts…
Network support is about 1000X better with Windows 7. Vista’s most frustrating thing was tring to share a folder so that you can access it from another PC.
dopes…
some of you dont see the point that they put this resource hogging OS on new (cheapy) laptops and give you no choice if you are a consumer to choose XP. I bought a $350 celeron laptop, no choice of XP, no support for XP, luckily im no fool and i installed it after I experienced the ass dragging speed of a celeron loading Vista.
The idea that it is forced with no other option or help otherwise is a crappy idea. Luckily there were still drivers available. Thats all that got me off and running. Still my Toshiba Hotkeys and a few other stupid features dont work with vista and they will not support anyone with an XP idea in their brain. The minute i muttered “XP” tech chat nearly had a fit and wanted every bit of info they could from me.
So, just because its installed with Vista… that means I cant put XP on it?
apparently they axed the option to diable Auto-Arrange in Explorer. Now someone has to include that in the new Tweak UI…
Hope that Windows 7 is not flop as Vista !!!
“Windows 7 is the best Vista Service Pack ever!”
Agreed, my problem is being offended by MS in that they demand payment for a full new OS when it’s really a fix for a crappy OS that I was lied to in order to get me to buy it.
I have been testing W7 for several months and it is definitely better than Vista. But, it still suffers from requiring new hardware, lack of driver support for older hardware, can’t (directly) run a lot of my older programs, and being slower than XP.
Microsoft is creating a situation where it is going to be easier and cheaper for people and corporations and governments to switch to Linux rather than having to pay large sums for an OS that was absolutely no advantage other than being a fix for a prior OS that was shipped in a fundamentally broken form.
To be perfectly honest, everybody bashing on Vista is pretty much doing it just for the hell of it. Also, Windows 7 shows almost identical performance on my home system than when I was running Vista Business. I’ve run benchmarks, tests, viewed memory management, etc. And everything is almost /exactly/ the same. You really can’t say that the performance is ‘way’ better, when both OSes are currently running on the /SAME/ kernel.
Also, for the people are arguing why they should stick with XP, by your logic we should all still be using Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.
I am an OS Fan. I love to partition and install new OSs on my home computers. I have installed just about every version of SuSE Linux since 1994, and equally all of Microsoft Windows since Windows 3.0. IBMs OS/2 Wrap was also one of my favorites and a couple of the less ‘unknowns’: BeOS, and every flavor of BSD. The last couple of years I have been playing with different Linux distributions as well.
I never really had any problems with my hardware being recognized by the OS, specially my aging HP Scanner 2200C, Canon L80 Digital Camera, or Orange Micro Firewire Webcam. With a little bit of research and luck I always found drivers or instructions on how to get ‘them’ to work with all the OSs. That all stopped when I installed Microsoft Vista and it frustrated me that I could not find any help on getting my hardware working. After over 2 months of searching I gave up and removed the OS. I must confess, I haven’t tried to install or work with Vista since then, but it left a bad taste in my ‘mouth’. So with all this hype about how Windows 7 is in many ways the same as Vista I don’t really have the urge of trying it.
Funny, I see it like McCain being compared to Bush and loosing voters for it.
Still very happy with Vista, with little or no evidence of the issues people keep complaining about (but I entered the game at SP1 with mainstream hardware devices). Still, I am upgrading to Windows 7 tonight, as it certainly is faster and much more consistent.
The biggest problem I did see was that many software and hardware manufacturers just ignored Vista and hoped they could hold everyone back on 32-bit XP. Hardly Microsoft’s fault, is it? Even Symantec appeared to be demanding Vista’s security be dropped to allow some nasty hacks rather than write good code. And don’t get me started about the Creative Audigy ZS2 fiasco…
Annoyances with Windows 7? For some reason it uninstalls Tinker, etc, rather than leave it there. I know Ultimate Extras are discontinued, but why take them away if you already have them?
Fortunately, it is trivial to put some of these features back in with a little hack or two. I will miss the stream/forest DreamScene which I used to relax while doing lightweight tasks, as I am not prepared to hack something that risky back into the system (even if it were possible).
As for XP - yes, it has its moments and it makes a great lightweight virtual machine, but it is a lot of work to secure it properly (takes a lot of setting file permissions and tweaking applications). The great thing about Vista is that it is locked down out of the box, and applications that were not even XP-compatible (ones that assumed admin rights) worked properly for the first time with no adjustments.
I would suggest that people hitting back at Jeff over XP should read between the lines a bit and realise that dropping XP is more about the enormous number of people out there running unsecured botnet pawns. Sure it does everything YOU want it to, but it may be doing everything that the criminals want as well…
If you are running XP from an administrator account for day-to-day work, have not locked down your file system, and are under the mistaken impression that having multiple antivirus, spyware and firewall applets will protect you, you are now a menace to society.
If you know how to protect yourself for real (not by forum rumour, water-cooler anecdote, or marketing hype which so often passes for professionalism), no problem. Even so, you can still lock Vista and 7 down to a greater extent, with more functionality retained, for far less effort.
I don’t really care what Windows 7 does better, just that the windows team hopefully stopped trying to dress up DRM as an OS, like with Vista.