Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Brad Johnson on January 08, 2009, 04:44:24 PM
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Appears that Microsoft has accelerated the Windows 7 release. I guess they finally realized it's cheaper putting money into an OS people actually like (and that plays well with others) rather than continuing to spend millions on the ad campaign for Vista.
It'll be interesting to see how this one fares.
According to the article below, the beta version will be available tomorrow. From Fox News...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477865,00.html
LAS VEGAS — Microsoft Corp.'s next version of the Windows operating system is almost ready for prime time. That's one message Chief Executive Steve Ballmer delivered on the eve of the official opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show.
The world's largest software maker also disclosed deals to make its Live Search programs the default search engines on more personal computers and mobile phones.
And it announced a new version of its Ford Sync in-car technology that folds in the voice-operated directory service TellMe, which Microsoft bought in 2007.
Gates passed the mantle on when he stepped down from day-to-day operations at Microsoft last summer, and Wednesday marked Ballmer's first time making the high-profile address.
"It feels like we've entered a period of reduced expectations, a time when we may be tempted to temper our optimism and scale back our ambitions," Ballmer said, in a nod to the recession. "But no matter what happens with the economy or how long this recession lasts, I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer."
Ballmer said Microsoft would continue to invest more in research and development than its technology peers.
The CEO announced that a nearly final "beta" test version of Windows 7 will be available Friday for regular PC users to download and tinker with.
The new operating system — which could be available for purchase on PCs within a year — uses much of the same underlying technology as its predecessor, the much-maligned Vista.
But Windows 7 aims to resolve many problems PC users had with Vista. For instance, Microsoft pledges to make it easier to install peripheral devices and to have the software pump out fewer annoying warnings and notifications.
Ballmer also pledged that Windows 7 will boot faster and drain laptop batteries more slowly.
"I believe Windows will remain at the center of people's technological solar system," Ballmer said. "We're putting in all the right ingredients: simplicity, reliability and speed, and we're working hard to get it right and to get it ready."
Ballmer is hoping to boost the number of people using Microsoft's Live Search engine, which ranks well behind Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in popularity, through a deal with PC maker Dell Inc.
Dell will put a special Live Search browser toolbar and Windows Live programs, including Microsoft's e-mail and instant-messaging applications, on most of the consumer and small-business PCs that it sells worldwide. That deal replaces a relationship between Dell and Google.
The CEO also announced Microsoft has formed a five-year partnership with Verizon Wireless that calls for the Live Search tools to be added to all Verizon cell phones in the U.S. that can access the Internet.
Among the other highlights from Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft: The company added Flash support — required for watching YouTube videos — to its cell phone version of Internet Explorer.
And it created a link between Facebook and its own Windows Live social network, so when people update their status message or upload photos on Facebook, that information appears on the Microsoft site, too.
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The beta has been 'available' for a week or so.
Initial reports that I have read are actually very positive, especially considering it is a beta. There's talk that MS wants it to be an OS that will work on everything from netbooks (cause XP will get killed one day) up. - http://www.trustedreviews.com/software/news/2008/12/29/First-Windows-7-Public-Beta-Leaks-Early/p1
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Sounds like they put a big band-aid (patch) on vista, then gave it another name and pushed it out as quickly as possible.
Hopefully not the case, just color me jaded.
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I'd would like for it to be something good... I've been avoiding Vista, hoping that I can use XP until the next (hopefully better) MS OS is released.
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Sounds like they put a big band-aid (patch) on vista, then gave it another name and pushed it out as quickly as possible.
Hopefully not the case, just color me jaded.
That doesn't seem to be the case, but I haven't seen it yet. However, as Brad mentioned, most of the reviews so far are positive.
Personally, I hope this thing ends up being the "XP" to Vista's "ME", i.e. a solid dependable OS replacing a complete flop. And if it can truly scale to use less system resources as they claim, then it may even be better than XP.
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The beta is already out and has been for some time now. It's not bad. The beta is extremely polished, near production quality. Claims have been made that it beats XP SP3, which I don't buy for a second if you use the same hardware for testing. Folks are claiming it is faster in starting up and shutting down than XP or Vista, which might be true. The stack loading is pretty efficient compared to Vista, I'll grant. They gutted UAC like a fish. The device manager feature has some improvements. And they're trying to make a huge deal out of including a few more fonts, which are available in the thousands online.
Aside from aesthetics, it's basically what Vista SP1 should have been. It's essentially just Vista, minus a few real charlie foxtrots and modest performance improvements. I'll be positive. It's a step in the right direction.
Unless the RTM is significantly different than the current beta (near total rewrite, that is), my company will give it a pass until 2012 or so. Obviously, we will NOT be implementing Vista whatsoever. Our reason is very simple. Vista grants us zero performance or productive gains (quite the opposite), coupled with expensive training costs that would be required for nearly all employees. We'd have to be flat out insane to upgrade. We pay the same costs regardless, as we have an enterprise agreement with MS.
Every major company I am familiar with has made the same business decision. I am not familiar with a single large corporation that is en masse upgrading. I know of a few that are doing "large looking" downgrades to Vista at a location or two that won't cripple production. I'm familiar with a few were hoping to gently start phasing in Vista machines into their environment. Microsoft unofficially promised a lot of large companies that SP1 would un-CF Vista, so they shouldn't wait until Win7. SP1 turned out to be strictly bug fixes and patches, effectively zero performance improvement and absolutely zero interface improvements. A lot of companies are extremely displeased at shelling out significant money for "software assurance" clauses that would have allowed them to upgrade later "at a fraction of the cost". The scam was "Go ahead and buy XP today, plus x%, and you can upgrade to the next OS which is absolutely wonderful at no additional fee later." Well, obviously no large company is upgrading to Vista. That money could have been spent better if it was burned in the parking lot. Companies are wary that Microsoft is pulling another Vista SP1, and won't pre-buy licenses. They're waiting for a potential sucker to invest heavily and see what happens.
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Really, they'd have had to try really hard to make it as bad as Vista.
Here's hoping they give it a light footprint.
I have plans to migrate all my older personal HW to linux, whatever Win7 does.
RevDisk:
Yeah, nobody at jfruseremployer is using Vista.
Our InfoSec gal said she'd gut anyone who tried to bring it into a closed area. In a nice way.
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I'm looking forward to it as a whole. As an SMB IT consultant linux will never happen at a large chunk of my customer base. Vista is ok after it is cleaned up but still a little doggy. Whenever I can get away with it I still push XP for new desktops but I know that is not going to last much longer.
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All my customers get XP on new builds. I have not had a single one ask for Vista in any flavor.
I've actually had a few pay good money to have me downgrade their systems to XP.
I'm going to fiddle with Windows 7 beta, if for no other reason than I've never messed with a beta before. Plus, I'm curious as to how it stacks up to XP in performance and ease of use. Hopefully it will be easier than that damn Vista.
I've got a bench test machine and an extra hard drive or two.
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I've set up a spare hard drive cassette for it, just to see how it goes.
I'd like to skip the bloatware that is Vista entirely if I can. If they get Windows 7 cleaned up and running as non-bloated as XP Pro, I'll be happy.
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My biggest issue with Windows and Microsoft's OS design philosophy was trying to do everything and be everything all at the same time. Microsoft wanted Vista to be fast so they have silly schemes, like trying to cache all commonly used data and preload programs when Vista thinks you want to use it, that increase bloat and demand for system resources. Microsoft wanted Vista to be able to do almost anything out of the box which means bloat. Fast, and stable, operating systems are fast, and stable, because they reduce bloat, they are minimalistic and do only what is needed to be done at any one time (fewer parts means less to break, just as true with software as hardware). Microsoft needs to wake up and try taking a minimal approach to OS design. I am approaching W7 with jubilant trepidation.
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So now they're saying that Windows 7 Beta will only be available to the first 2.5 million takers, and that it's configured as an upgrade to a machine already running Vista SP1 - no clean installs, XP to Windows 7, etc.
Feh.
Not only that, but their server is already overwhelmed, giving me a "Too many users" error.
Way to go, Microsoft. =|
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http://xkcd.com/528/
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgs.xkcd.com%2Fcomics%2Fwindows_7.png&hash=cbb87401be02bf8de3226d9157660dadad23d305)
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Microsoft = dumbasses. The people they have to convince are the XP community. If they don't offer a clean install or XP upgrade, they ain't gonna get much of a user base.
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So now they're saying that Windows 7 Beta will only be available to the first 2.5 million takers, and that it's configured as an upgrade to a machine already running Vista SP1 - no clean installs, XP to Windows 7, etc.
Feh.
Not only that, but their server is already overwhelmed, giving me a "Too many users" error.
Way to go, Microsoft. =|
You can get it off torrent sites, but I assume the no clean installs restriction also applies.
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I'm even closer to making Linux my next desktop OS. I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on an old Dell Lattitude. Ubuntu 8.0 didn't easily do *everything* I wanted (never could get wireless to work). On a desktop/laptop, I prefer things to just plain work without me having to put my sysadmin hat on. Ubuntu 8.10 does that (even wireless, it just works). I'm missing my ham radio management apps, but I can probably run an old version of Windows in a virtual system for those.
I haven't bothered with Vista and I may not subject myself to Windows 7.
Chris
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I'm continually amazed at Microsoft's massive dominance of the market, given what epic morons they are.
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I'm continually amazed at Microsoft's massive dominance of the market, given what epic morons they are.
Because, believe it or not, few other software companies actually understand that businesses want to make money and don't care about technical stuff in the least. XP/Office 2003/Exchange is damn near perfect for the typical office user, and a surprising number of line users. Useability wise from the avg employee's perspective, not maintenance/security/backend/technical/etc wise. No obscure command lines, no weird locations for common tasks, and every piece of business software works well enough on it.
Few alternatives to Office/Exchange work as well in business email. I wish to the Gods it was not so. I was an Exchange admin, and I hated it with a burning passion. But there's no real alternative. You can get sendmail to handle ten thousand users on the same box that Exchange could handle maybe 800. But sendmail doesn't handle all of the business features that Outlook is capable of. I'd be willing to pay through the nose (and a couple veins) for a drop in replacement that could handle every Exchange does, but less retarded on the back end. Never happen.
Microsoft has enough money that they can buy out threats. If they can't buy a product from a company, they steal the product and repackage it as their own. They can afford enough lawyers to bankrupt anyone who sues them. Every business knows, unless you're IBM, you will not win a legal battle against Microsoft. You cannot win. They will hold you up forever and cripple your business' main products to starve your business out. If a company comes along with a better product, Microsoft slaps together a crappier version and bundles it with their existing products to choke out the competition. They can and will make money on it down the road.
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Rev: wasn't the anti-trust judgement against MS supposed to stop that sort of thing?
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Rev: wasn't the anti-trust judgement against MS supposed to stop that sort of thing?
Supposed to, perhaps, but didn't. I work at an office that used to be Small Company A. Microsoft blatantly (and quite provably) ripped off our intellectual property to create one of their products (Infopath). Attempting to litigate would have been a joke, with the small business vs the Behemoth. We were bought by Large Company B, which has a no-litigation agreement with Microsoft, thus the issue was dropped. Doesn't change the fact that it happened. This was several years after all the antitrust stuff.
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Supposed to, perhaps, but didn't. I work at an office that used to be Small Company A. Microsoft blatantly (and quite provably) ripped off our intellectual property to create one of their products (Infopath). Attempting to litigate would have been a joke, with the small business vs the Behemoth. We were bought by Large Company B, which has a no-litigation agreement with Microsoft, thus the issue was dropped. Doesn't change the fact that it happened. This was several years after all the antitrust stuff.
As lawsuit happy as everyone is, and as deep as MS's pockets are, you'd think tile-crawlers would be lining up for a piece of the action to sue em.....
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Rev: wasn't the anti-trust judgement against MS supposed to stop that sort of thing?
Microsoft is the only entity on the planet that can fight the US government with impunity, win at ease and make a profit. The settlement, specifically not a judgement, was a very light slap on the wrist. Which expired on November 12, 2007 anyways, so it is no longer relevant. And no, it did not and was not supposed to stop such activities.
Heck, through a proxy, they tried to arrest the progress of Linux by having SCO attempt at asserting ownership. SCO was bailed out, always very indirectly, through Microsoft cutouts. Tis the only reason they were kept alive as long as they were. Marnoot's story is just one of hundreds of such stories.
As lawsuit happy as everyone is, and as deep as MS's pockets are, you'd think tile-crawlers would be lining up for a piece of the action to sue em.....
No. First, Microsoft only settles penny ante stuff. At big stakes, they don't settle. They fight, and fight, and fight, and appeal, and appeal, and appeal. Continued until everyone else is bankrupt. No lawyer that isn't inside counsel would ever take them on. Certainly not on the hopes of making a cut on the settlement. Second is, a standard joke is that Microsoft hires more lawyers than coders. And they rotate through a lot of them. Gives them a nice, large pool of lawyers who cannot sue Microsoft and stand to pick up a couple of bucks as a regular kickback.
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Aren't intellectual property violations a criminal matter in some cases? Could an ambitious DA go after them?
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Aren't intellectual property violations a criminal matter in some cases? Could an ambitious DA go after them?
Yes, they can be criminal in some cases. Yes, an amibitious DA could go after them. Said DA would lose or, at most, issue another slap of the wrist.
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From what I have heard it is what Vista should have been, which is still not needed by most people, but thanks to them limiting DX10 (DX11 in Windows 7) so that XP users don't have it, a fair number of PC gamers have switched to Vista. I have used XP for the longest time, though I bought a laptop with Vista, and am now used to it. I even put it on my XP rig (Dual-Boot) that I game with, and to be honest I haven't had any major issues. I'll repeat again that Vista offers little incentive for 90% of the population to upgrade.
I think I will leap on the Windows 7 wagon once I build my i7 platform.
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As could be expected...
Microsoft screwed the pooch on this beta release.
Definitely not confidence-inspiring. =|
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As could be expected...
Microsoft screwed the pooch on this beta release.
Definitely not confidence-inspiring. =|
Maybe.
But what if they wanted to ensure that the downloader has already paid the stiffest M$ tax? Requiring an install over Vista would help to ensure that.
Also, what if M$ wanted to expend as little time/money to get the beta out as possible? Letting the first hungry few download from M$ and then dump it into a torrent would allow wide distribution using other people's bandwidth and disk space.
I guess the above relies on the assumption that M$ is evil & conniving rather than stupid.
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I'm actually running the Windows 7 beta on a laptop that's now 6 years old, and it's running very well. Not quite well enough that I'm going to put it on my primary machine, but so far, I'm impressed. The GUI is very similar to Vista, with a few minor changes, but the performance is drastically improved.
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It is probably faster because many features are not implemented yet.
BTW: Do they have WinFS eventually? and the new command line?
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and the new command line?
What's the new command line?
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In the build I am using, the command line is the same, and my HD is still NTFS (didn't get an option to change it during install). Here's a few screen shots:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi39.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe181%2Fparagonusmc%2Fdesktopscreenshot.jpg&hash=01a8bba74b2f24961505c5bcb1044d3f4b8b08c6)
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi39.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe181%2Fparagonusmc%2Faps.jpg&hash=83d0897bff64ec5b8212ebee0b6e50d8310d4ce9)
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Windows command line?
That is what cygwin is for.
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I'm actually running the Windows 7 beta on a laptop that's now 6 years old, and it's running very well. Not quite well enough that I'm going to put it on my primary machine, but so far, I'm impressed. The GUI is very similar to Vista, with a few minor changes, but the performance is drastically improved.
My primary machine IS a laptop that's 6 years old. What're the specs on yours? ???
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IBM T30 with a 2 GHz P4 chip and 512 MB RAM.
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IBM T30 with a 2 GHz P4 chip and 512 MB RAM.
And it ran ok? I thought you needed at least a gig of memory.
Chris
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The first install failed and gave me a note that I had to have 512 MB for the installation to continue, so I had to scrap some memory out of another machine. Considering what it's working with, it does pretty well. With no applications open, the OS is using about 280 MB of RAM.
I haven't tried to install any applications past the OS yet. Also, the machine I'm using does have an internal bluetooth module, but the device manager isn't seeing it. This machine previously ran XP, and there was an option to upgrade from XP to 7 without formatting.
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My first install attempt failed, too. It stated that the files on the DVD were corrupt.
I blew some compressed air into the DVD drive to clean the laser lens, and tried again.
It's running on this IBM 3.0Ghz dual-processor Xeon MP machine (4 processors hyperthreaded) right now, after I downloaded and installed the Kaspersky v8.0 antivirus software.
So far, it's pretty smooth, but I don't see it being any faster than my XP Pro install on the other hard drive cartridge. I'm only running 2Gb of RDRAM, so maybe 3Gb would speed it up a smidgen. We'll see, I haven't really run the OS through its paces yet, nor do I know what will or won't install software-wise.
I may be a bit harsh on my expectations, because I run a cleaned-up XP Pro, with a lot of features turned off, like Indexing, messaging, etc. I also run Bootvis to make for quicker boot times.
This version of Windows reminds me a bit of my Mandriva Linux, in some respects. Now I'll play with it for the 6 months they gave me on the beta user license... =D
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I understand how you feel completely. This machine also had a stripped down version of XP loaded. I'm not really missing anything, as this machine's soul purpose before loading Windows 7 was to connect to a network share on my media server so I could listen to music in the garage.
Your key is only good for 6 months?
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What's the new command line?
PowerShell. Yea, it's in Win7. It's going to be in all future MS products for quite a bit of time. The newest version of Exchange is heavily dependent on it for common tasks. Haven't had time to mess with it on Server 2k8 and the newest group policy extensions, but I hear it's possible to automate a lot of routine sysadmin work with relative ease. In fairness, PS isn't that bad. Some insanity will be required because it ties into .net...
I dunno. With a handy copy of nLite and stripping out surplus languages/drivers/etc... XP SP2 is an excellent OS. Any specialized tools I require on other OS's, I just make a virtual OS instance on VMware workstation or our test ESX server.