

8 hours of Windows 7 Amazon sales outstripped Vista's entire pre-order period. - xelfer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8151342.stm

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reedlaw
I am already using Windows 7 RC as my primary OS. It's so much faster than XP
and the UI improvements are fabulous. Vista was just a beta version of Windows
7, or another Windows ME. XP lasted me almost 10 years and I figure 7 will do
the same.

~~~
old-gregg
Faster than XP? Can you please elaborate on this? I'm a long time Windows
internals geek although haven't seen a windows PC in a long while, so I'm
genuinely curious.

~~~
reedlaw
I haven't benchmarked it, but subjectively speaking, the boot time is greatly
improved, applications launch faster, and file operations are speedier, with
the exception of opening an image in Windows Photo Viewer, which for some
reason takes 2-3 seconds.

~~~
misterbwong
A lot of the perceived speed comes from barely-noticeable tweaks to the UI.
Win7 does benchmark a bit faster than Vista, but it really is the UI (window
response/refresh times, etc) that makes a world of difference.

~~~
litewulf
(In general, people notice response time not throughput. I think thats a bit
difficult to capture in benchmarks.)

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spatulon
I'm still a little baffled by Vista's reputation. I'd rather not run Windows
at all (alas, I enjoy PC gaming too much), but even just the addition of Aero
makes it a much more enjoyable experience than XP for me. UAC is also clearly
the right thing to do, and, begrudgingly accepting Microsoft's need to
maintain backwards compatibility, they did a pretty good job of it. I've also
had very few problems.

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conorgil145
I have been using XP for years now (on my tablet for over 3) and it has been
reliable. After lots of research and colleague input I decided to actually
wait to upgrade my machine entirely so that I could avoid the entire vista
fiasco (wasn't in the mood of paying more for a downgrade).

A buddy of mine has been using 7 as his main OS for a bit now and tells me it
is greatly improved over Vista. I hope its true because I am not totally
comfortable using Linux as my main OS and I would love to get a new Windows
machine soon...

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treak007
I'm currently running Windows 7 on my laptop. It's a lot more responsive and
stable then Vista, so this is no surprise.

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Ravenlock
And I managed to miss out on the half-off preorder. Sigh.

Hopefully they'll run another one before release day.

~~~
rufo
Can someone explain to me how the whole half-price sale made sense?

The general tone of Windows 7 seems to be "Vista done right." As a similar
example, Apple's tact with 10.6 is "Leopard, but better," and has decided to
price Snow Leopard at $29 as an incentive to upgrade.

Microsoft seems to have far more at stake in Windows 7, and most average users
who might be interested in upgrading have likely missed out on the half-price
sale. (Hell, I'm about as tech-savvy as they come, and I completely forgot to
order my copy.) Doesn't it make sense to leave it at $50 for quite a while
longer to get people to upgrade?

~~~
designtofly
Well, I think the half price sale was a very smart move on Microsoft's part.
By the end of the promotion, it was sold out on Newegg.com, and it dominated
the software category on Amazon. This created a lot of buzz and demand over a
short period and generated a lot of positive publicity.

Microsoft's biggest mistake with Vista was not controlling the PR. This
promotional campaign lets Microsoft create a big enough lead-in demand so that
it will continue to build until the actual release date.

In the end, IMHO, I think that Microsoft will continue to offer these
promotions for its retail customers up to and after the official launch.
Hopefully they realize that, for retail buyers, Windows 7 MSRP is still too
high. They need as many people as possible upgrading, but not at the expense
of the corporate buyers. Therefore, I think they will continue to offer
promotions for retail buyers at pretty heavy discounts.

I'll also chime in to say that I was pretty impressed when running Windows 7
RC for a few days to test it out. Coming from XP, it was very fast and
intuitive interface. I ordered 2 copies of the Professional Upgrade edition
during the promotional period.

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tybris
Congrats to the guys at Microsoft.

~~~
snprbob86
I don't work on Windows, but I'm sure the guys over on that team really
appreciate the sentiment. After all, most of them are hackers too!

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staunch
I'm about to build a gaming PC, so I need to buy Windows. I use Linux for
everything normally, so I don't keep up.

Is Windows 7 supported by all the major games (FPS/RTS)/drivers, etc? Is it
recommended for a gaming PC, yet? What version should I get, for a dual core
8GB machine? Home edition enough?

~~~
kenver
I've been playing with Win7 64bit on a quad core/4GB ram setup with NVidia
graphics since the RC came out. I've ran a few steam games, DoW2, warhammer
online and not had any problems with them.

The graphics card manufacturers seem to have Win7 drivers out already. I've
also found that running vista drivers seem to work fine too.

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gmac
A half-price pre-order deal on the full (not upgrade) version runs in the UK
until 9 August.

But, somewhat infuriatingly, the Windows 7 EULA isn't yet available
(<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/eula.aspx>), so I'm left
wondering whether "Home Premium" will be licensed to run in a virtual machine,
which is the only reason I'd be buying it.

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scscsc
In the EU, how will people download Firefox if they don't have a boot-strap
browser already available?

~~~
cracki
a friend's USB drive...

~~~
nailer
Yes, that's correct.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_8436755...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_84367553_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000321063&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=special-
product-
offers-3&pf_rd_r=0A52C6F2NNGBDRA0QKND&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=470371993&pf_rd_i=B002DUCMTC)

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leadnose
Requires a clean install? Is this really the state of the art in the Windows-
world?

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NoHandle
Was tempted myself, but the installation seemed aimed at individuals who are
not particualarly computer savvy (really awkward to format and reinstall) and
their biggest concern is that they are pissed off at vista (Not using it).

So close MS, almost made me buy an OS for the first time(Aside from OEM
includes).

~~~
nopassrecover
Seriously, a visually updated install process put you off the whole OS?

~~~
NoHandle
I should have included the caveat, I am currently using the RC at home and
love it. My problem is installing Vista/XP so I can install Win7 every 6 or so
months when I want to format my computer.

~~~
Elepsis
Have you ever actually installed an "Upgrade" of Windows? You don't need to
install Vista or XP first to use an upgrade version of Windows 7. Indeed, just
having an old Windows 7 install on your machine is more than enough.

~~~
NoHandle
That is exactly my point. I want to install a fresh copy of the OS. Not pave
over the previous instance.

~~~
Elepsis
Let me make it clearer for you: _you can do this with the upgrade DVD_.

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jsonscripter
So, one concludes that that Vista 7 has more hype than Vista had? Is that what
should I be getting from this?

~~~
biohacker42
That a large number of people are familiar with Microsoft's pattern of: Screw
one up and "fix it" with the next major release?

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rokhayakebe
No surprise there. The devil (angel I guess in this case) is in the name and
user's perception. People are familiar with the name Windows and 7 means a
better version. Vista means something totally new and after years of being
comfortable with Windows why switch to something new.

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TweedHeads
Honest question: who in his sane mind pre-orders an OS???

~~~
NoHandle
50% off is a pretty good incentive to do so. However, I heard a lot of people
were burned when they preordered vista. And I don't just mean they paid good
money for a shitty OS.

~~~
nopassrecover
Oh wow I didn't realise it was 50% off.

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ZeroGravitas
I note it repeats the lie that Microsoft took IE out because of an EU ruling.
I can only hope this plan backfires on them and people install Firefox or
Chrome instead.

~~~
nopassrecover
Why is this voted up? This is just irrelevant and incorrect Microsoft bashing.
Microsoft didn't take IE out of all copies, just EU copies.

"Because of a recent European Commission anti-trust ruling, Windows 7's
European version will not be integrated with Windows' Internet Explorer,
meaning that a browser will have to be installed separately."

~~~
ZeroGravitas
As I said, that line you quote, from this very article, is not true. That
makes my point both relevant and correct "Microsoft bashing" and you, on the
other hand, are just misled by the very PR spin I'm calling attention to.

Can you show me a link to this "ruling"? No you can't. Why not? Because it's
not happened yet. And when it does happen, the EU has been pushing for the
installation of multiple browsers with a choice at startup.

Removing their own browser from the Euro version was an attempt by Microsoft
to head off that ruling. Obviously they felt that either a) people would be
more likely to install Internet Explorer this way, and/or b) that the negative
reaction could be skilfully deflected onto the EU.

Sadly, part b) appears to be working judging by our posts relative scoring at
least, again I can only hope they're wrong about a) and this leads to a
further increase in market share for non-Microsoft browsers in Europe.

~~~
nopassrecover
Ah I misinterpreted your comment as "non-EU copies have IE so Microsoft wasn't
forced to remove it everywhere". I see what you mean was that even in the EU
Microsoft isn't forced. Having understood that, they were getting pretty hefty
fines there and this along with other measures went somewhat to fixing that.

