

Why Microsoft can't afford Windows 7 to fail  - bdfh42
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8310867.stm

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makecheck
The article listed at least one thing -- compatibility with older Windows
versions -- that isn't part of _every_ version of Windows 7.

I hate this kind of marketing soup: nobody knows what Windows 7 will really be
like, because articles and commercials can claim anything that's in the $399
version. It's time for someone to upgrade a 10-year-old-laptop after spending
$100 on the cheapest version of Windows 7, and write an article about that
"Windows 7".

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michaelcampbell
It won't. Does anything truly think it will? I'm no MS shill, but I haven't
heard any "faults" from anyone using Win 7 that will affect the vast majority
of users, and that's where their bread and butter is.

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rmason
Very suspicious of all the hype. Vista had a lot of over the top enthusiasm
and we know how that one turned out.

~~~
ezy
Vista was really obviously bad on release. I mean _really_ unusably bad. It
wasn't just that it was only on par with XP, it was substantially _worse_.

Windows 7 is quite different. It's not going to blow you away, but it works
and looks a better than XP. The "bit" better puts it right about on par with
OSX for various tasks -- although the GUI consistency is off because Windows
as a far longer history than OSX, and can't afford to blow off bw compat
(that's part of the Vista error).

There are parts that still feel like they're stuck in 1991 (especially the
command line), but that's Windows for you -- and I don't expect that to
change.

If anything worries me, it's MSFT itself. Their management really stinks,
which makes me question how stable the internals of the system are -- are they
managing the development of windows more tightly than, lets say, their mobile
effort? One hopes so... but one never knows for sure.

