Microsoft's reputation, future riding on Windows 7

Personally, I'm far less inclined to drama than the person who wrote the article. Windows 7 is sure important, like any new OS version, but there's nothing very special at stake in spite of what the article claims just so they can make a nice big headline. I really do not see any reason why MS' reputation or future would be riding on 7.

Apple making fun at MS? Now that is a problem... Apple has done that for years, and for what? MS is still dominating the market, and Apple still in the marginal. Nothing MS does with Windows 7 or anything can stop Apple from making fun of them. But then again, that shouldn't matter to anyone. It's not like attempts to make fun mean anything much in the real world. So, this one's a non-argument. The reasons presented in the article are very unconvincing.

MS able to put out an operating system? If anyone actually doubted that, they were fools. As for Vista being badly received, that was mostly the case with some geeks (which is to say, a small minority). With the average home and corporate user, Vista has been received quite differently - with little drama, just like a new OS version should. This one is a non-argument, too.

In the end? 7 will do at least decently, and MS will continue along ruling the OS market. Far bigger threats to MS than the success of 7 or articles written by people who need to make a headline are legal issues that may one day end up splitting the company. Just another article made so there is one and someone can get their paycheck.

Nothing against the OP, of course - just commenting on the news.

 

I'm sure that how Windows 7 goes over is very important for MS.
Their future and reputation are riding on it just like a product for any company. I don't think it would sink MS if 7 flops in the marketplace.

The key question for me as a potential future customer is- is this an improvement over Vista?

The article mentioned the age of XP. I will take a closer look at 7 than I did Vista.
I think MicroSoft will do well in sales of Windows 7.

 

No question a lot is at stake, namely credibility. After Vista, they need to knock this one out of the park. So far, things look good since the launch. Time will tell.

 

There's one little thing I'm looking forward to in 7 (assuming the idea hasn't been abandoned) that should have been included in the OS ages and ages ago. Supposedly that "already in use by another application" thing will finally tell you specifically which application is referred to, so you can more intelligently fix some problems without a major, and sometimes futile, trial and error approach.

 

It is a great improvement over Vista. I don't think I've seen an OS this CLEAN for a long time, if ever. So from that standpoint alone, it's very nice. I don't think any one OS release's success or failure is that big of a deal, but a series of perceived failures could have some impact on MS. But as long as it's their OS on most new PC's, they're pretty much insured success in the marketplace.

 

I think Vista got improved over the last two service packages into quite a good operating sytem. I think the lesson for Microsoft is to do incremental improvements in Windows. Most people aren't going to look kindly on incompatibility issues that result from a massive rewrite of the kernel. Microsoft has to decide if they want compatibility or if they just want to start over from scratch with something new. They can't have both and still keep all their customers happy.

 

It may be an important release for Microsoft, but before very long we'll hear about and have Windows 8, 9 etc.

 

Microsoft has started work on Windows 8. After the disaster with Vista, they won't be trying to promise things they can't deliver. They'll make small changes.

 

Says you or says factual evidence?

 

Some info was posted by CodenameWindows as far back as April this year with reference to a job advertisement for a Lead Software Development Engineer. Their blog has been following what little is known about Windows 8 development.

This site is also worth a look too, although it looks like there are unconfirmed reports there too.

 

what makes you say vista was a disaster?
after SP1 it worked fine. works even better with SP2.
xp didnt work properly until SP2 so how is vista a disaster?

 

Good OS, bad OS, it doesn't matter. It was a marketing disaster and widely perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a bungled Microsoft project. Even the Edsel had good things about it that were widely copied, but you say "Edsel" and it's synonymous with flop. Same thing with Vista. Perception is everything.

 

I agree it is all about perception. Since the hardware drivers for Vista became stable and the service packs released, it has become a lot more user friendly and reliable os. It paved the way for Win7. Hardware vendors not having the drivers ready, and some early performance issues and perhaps the os being released a little to early will always haunt the os regardless of how stable it is now.

 

Nick ADSL brings up a great point.

My first XP system came with 256 MB RAM. It was under-powered to say the least. If Windows 7 comes in a package with a better hardware match than XP did, that would go a long way to making me happy!

That and software compatibility are keys for me.

 

True, XP got slower with each SP. Vista got faster with each SP.

 

I like some of these posts " disaster with Vista" somebody else was describing "Vista's horrible death", come on let's get real, MS still has more than 70% of the market, I personally think Windows 7 is better than Vista as I think Vista is better than XP. Although I must say I'm going to upgrade or choose Windows 7 only if I have a good reason to do so.

 

I decided to bite the bullet and bought 7. Now I'm glad I did. The one thing that strikes me most is that 7 is just so CLEAN.

 

yep, its crystal

 

Apple laughs at Vista -- "tee-hee" -- a girlish giggle

MS response?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the dark shadows, Google laughs at Win7 --"bwa-ha-ha" -- a sinister, blood thirsty chortle.

MS response?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But seriously folx - what amount of RAM & what cpu speed will make Win7 as agile as XP? Does anybody know?

 

IMHO, the "agility" perception between XP and 7, is about Aero's special effects. If you use visual effects as they are out of the box, 7 will NEVER be as agile as XP. By that i mean working with explorer, opening, minimizing windows, etc. Because the "smooth" and animated visuall effects alone add too much to the time of execution. For example, with default visual settings, i can open and minimize probably 2 windows in XP compared to 1 in 7. That feels "agile" to me. So i tweaked the visual settings in 7 as following:

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1557/27412668.png

That feels as agile as XP, while maintaining aero activated.

I don't think the CPU is so important for common tasks, as is the VGA card (for Aero) and RAM.

I 've run 7x64 with 4 and 8 GB of RAM. I 'd say that with 2GB for the x32 bit and 4 GB RAM for the x64 you 're as good as you were with XP. Probably better, because RAM is cached.


If you disable Aero alltogether, i don't think that it makes much more difference than XP. Probably you can run at 1GB for x32 just fine. This, because you have to take into account that comes with many built in programs that normally would require 3rd party installation in XP and would use extra resources.

- No need for weather program (it has the widget).
- No need for defragmenter (the built in did an 8-pass (!) once for me)
- No absolute need for firewall.
- No absolute need for HIPS (UAC is good enough).
- No need for wallpaper changer program.
- The task manager is much better than XP's.

At the end, you end up more or less with the same amount of processes that XP uses (at least in my setups).


As for CPU, i 've read about people running single cores, even not very potent and having no trouble at all. MS herself says that in her index (score) performance rating, PCs above 3 can run 7 very comfortably. And it's probably true, since my VGA is 3.9 and handles aero with no trouble.

Bellgamin, make an image of your XP and do make a testing installation of 7 and see how things go!

 

FWIW, I installed Win7 on an old Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM laptop that had been running XP for years, and after two weeks of usage I've yet to notice any performance drop compared to XP. Did an install on an Intel Atom Z530 1.60GHz netbook (single-core processor, 2GB RAM) for a friend, and performance was fine as long as Aero is turned off.

Gonna try it on my girlfriend's 512MB RAM Fujitsu next, if she'll let me.

 

May I ask you how much did you pay, and whether it was an upgrade or clean install (I know you prefer clean installs!).