Microsoft quietly extends consumer support for Windows 7, Vista

Now that's good.
Although 10 years seems a bit long, given the fact that every 3 or so years they release a new version

 

Hurrah! Vista will never die!

 

Yikes - I hope this doesn't get out of control like with XP.

 

I do ... only kidding ... ... I think XP's longevity was more to do with hardware incompatibility though. As hardware upgrades to being actually able to run post XP Windows, upgrading the software won't be such a problem. Unless you'll need 8 Gb of RAM to run Windows 9.

 

To the contrary, I'd say MS is getting in control with this move/decision...

 

I don't. I think it was because Apple succeeded in convincing people that Vista sucked. To this day the perception people have of Vista in general was that it was a horrid and broken OS, even though the people that feel that way never ran it. Most of those same people couldn't tell the difference between Vista and 7 if you put a PC in front of them with either one. People are already stirring the pot with Windows 8. "Oh no, they changed the logo!"

 

I agree with that. I used vista for a few years and it worked well. only reason i got windows 7 was a cheap retail license preorder deal.
Windows xp took till Sp2 to be good
vista took till SP1 to be good
7 worked great from day one

I feel thats good progress.

 

I never felt Windows Vista to be broken, for me it was very good from the beginning and never gave me headaches.
I used Vista since it was released until Windows 7.

 

A big part of the "Vista Sucks" was that it didn't run well on the hardware at that time. People would install it to a system with 1GB of RAM and a P4.

Daveski makes a good point. Windows 7 and 8's hardware requirements are the same or lower than their previous versions (negating XP.)

Since HW requirements aren't going up support really doesn't need to continue. You no longer have to buy a new computer just to make use of the latest OS (unless you're on a decade or older machine.)

 

I bought a desktop with Vista installed and I thought it was fine until 7 came out and I replaced it with 7. That's when I was able to see (by comparison) just how much better 7 really was, and how slow and bloated Vista really was. I would never go back to Vista. I'm glad MS is extending support on both though... I will probably stick with 7 for a long time, based on what I've seen of 8 so far...

 

I "upgraded" to Windows 7 in 2010 when I was unable to find an anytime upgrade pack for Windows Vista. After installing and booting it up, I found that the UI felt snappier, but that was all.

I ran benchmark after benchmark, test after test, application after application, and not even in one significant instance did I find Windows 7 to be much faster. It was actually slower in one or two games but I'll be happy to put that down to measurement error.

What I did notice was that Windows 7 had a lower memory usage, less "annoying UAC" (Vista's UAC never bothered me though), and some improvements in network stability and performance.

If you look up some professional reviews of Vista SP2 vs. Windows 7, you will see that in most cases, the performance difference simply isn't there. For that reason alone I think Windows 7 was a bad deal for someone already using Vista.

Vista was much maligned not because of its architecture or heaviness - it was because of UAC, system requirements and advanced anti-piracy protection (believe it or not), which, for different reasons and groups, took time to "get used to" and caused immense resistance in "certain markets" like Asia and Eastern Europe.

That being said, Linux has always been a better platform, but Vista was a good step forward for MS. They'd do well to not sideline it.

 

I still have to disagree. My experience was that almost everything I did in Vista took twice as long.. from installing drivers, and apps, to Win updates and so on. Vista was painfully slow compared to 7. If I take out my Vista disk and install it and update fully, I can guarantee you it will take twice as many hours as the same process with 7, and not just because there are more updates to process now in Vista, but because Vista is just simply dog slow at everything.

Perhaps this isn't everyone's experience, as different hardware will give different results I suppose, but this was certainly my experience.... As I've said, you couldn't pay me to use Vista again after using 7 for the past two years.

 

I'm with you whether you are serious or not. I'm very pleased with Vista, I don't care what some people say about it. I've tried Window 7 and found it a tiny bit faster than Vista, but that was it, certainly not a reason to upgrade.

On the other hand I'm planning to get a new machine in the near future, and I'll be very happy to get Windows 7 or 8 if it is available. I like to keep my machines with their original OS mainly because the hardware is usually optimized with what's available at the time.

 

I agree completely, and I would like to add that in some cases Vista came bundled with a large number of programs added by computers manufacturers which slowed down the OS noticeably. When I bought my Asus notebook, it had more than 80 processes running normally. After uninstalling a lot of unnecessary stuff, I have about 54 processes and the OS is really very fast.

 

Vista and 7 have identical kernels. In terms of performance there is very little difference - a tweaked superfetch (Vistas was actually too aggressive and held items for too long, leading to what people called bloat) and some redrawing as well as some driver updates leading to slightly better performance for multiple CPUs and iirc USB drives.

If anyone noticed a big jump between 7 and Vista it was because something was wrong with their Vista or maybe they had a driver incompatibility issue.

 

Let's try avoid spewing complete nonsense please. Even with all the improvements that were done in 7 and backported in Vista's SP2 still don't make the kernels identical.

 

Honestly, I said this before, I have always liked Vista since the day I first used it, in fact, I thought it was a huge improvement on XP. It is a tad RAM hungry compared to Win 7, but apart from that there is very little difference. I believe they have the same kernel. I have no intention of upgrading my notebook to Win 7 (I like my Win 7 64 bit desktop) & the notebook is working fine, so it's a matter of if it ain't broke; don't fix (upgrade) it with me.

 

What I meant was that if you didn't have at least 1 Gb of RAM you couldn't upgrade to Vista. Many machines running XP quite happily just physically couldn't upgrade because the hardware couldn't support Vista.

 

I'm pretty convinced my notebook was designed with XP in mind. However, it has a GB of RAM & just about handles Vista. I use a light AV (MSE). I am also convinced many of the original problems with Vista was that it was installed on machines with less than a GB of RAM & low CPU ability.

 

A lot of the problems were with it being installed on hardware that really was barely what was supposed to run it. That coupled with the overaggressive superfetch really didn't mix well.

Apple then decided to run with it with the "I'm a Mac" commercials, taking full advantage of this, and ran completely idiotic commercials like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY

Which is hilarious since OSX has the same exact system.

 

Thanks. I am still using Vista I see no significant difference between vista sp2 and windows 7. Vista consumes a little more ram when compared to 7. But when I close an opened window vista closes quickly but 7 lags a bit before closing. Is it a bug or is it by design?

 

True, but by 2007 when Vista was publicly available I had 2GB of RAM anyway and most OEM system were coming with that. The only real problem with the release of Vista was that both ATi and nVidia failed at making drivers for it for several months after its release.

Most of the people that still badmouth Vista today never ran it. Same with ME. It wasn't a bad OS but the new network stack made for poor drivers support for NIC's for a bit after its release. Every time someone makes a comment about how much ME sucked I ask them if they ever ran it, and the answer from them is always "no". The same question asked of Vista gets a "no" about 90+% of the time.

In my opinion the P4 was a far bigger failure than Vista was. It didn't run XP well. I ran AMD all of the years of the P4. I'm glad Intel came back with the CD2 and have been on a roll ever since.

In any case I could see someone sticking with 7 for a long time. I hope 8 is amazing or Microsoft will be sorry (nobody will upgrade). Can't wait for that consumer preview next week.

 

I'd heard rumours about driver incompatibilities in early releases. By the time it came to the UK it seemed to work really well & got superb reviews. I still like it anyway.

 

What you guys are saying is somewhat true, i have lots and lots of friends that dislike Vista and when i ask them why, they just go because it sucks.

What i mean is that people tends to follow the crowds, if lots of people say x thing sucks then everyone will say it sucks.
But IMO Vista was very good since the beginning