

Microsoft All But Abandons Vista: Upgrades To 7 To Be Offered In July  - escapade
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/microsoft-all-but-abandons-vista-upgrades-to-7-to-be-offered-in-july-msft

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makecheck
I'm reminded of Mac OS X 10.0 being so sub-par that Apple decided to make 10.1
free, to compensate. This turned out to be an advantage for developers as
well, as they could simply forget 10.0 existed and require 10.1, fixing some
problems.

Vista certainly qualifies as a sub-par OS worthy of a free upgrade. With
Microsoft having lots of money, and a need for really good P.R. right now,
they would be smart to mail off a Windows 7 box to all of their Vista buyers.
Developers and OEMs could then forget that Vista ever existed, and apps could
move forward to require Windows 7 (or XP) as a baseline.

~~~
quantumhobbit
Didn't they also ship all Macs with OS 9 and an optional OS 10 disc until 10.2
or something like that? What annoyed most people was that they couldn't get XP
as easily anymore.

Edit: OS 9 was the default until the release of OS 10.1.2. Thank you
Wikipedia.

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redrobot5050
I think Win 7 is still "too Vista-y".

Honestly, its not just the bloat in Vista that makes it suck so much. Bloat
you can at least throw hardware at, and solve. Its Vista's poor design.

They took away the "Add/Remove Programs" control panel. The Add/Remove control
panel has been in Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, 98SE, Win ME, Win 2000,
and Win XP. In Vista, for some reason, it was renamed to something like
"Program Changes and Features" or something to that extent.

Even if its a truly bad convention (e.g. the Add/Remove Programs control panel
does more than Add or Remove) its better than nothing. At the very least, if
you're going to rename it -- have names that are clear and obvious like
"Uninstall Software" for its name.

So yeah, basically Windows 7 is going to still suffer consumer rejection from
having sub-par UI design. Power users, if they haven't forever already
abandoned Windows for Mac/Linux, will skip this upgrade or cross-grade for
Mac/Linux.

~~~
iofthestorm
What? I think you complain about stupid things and miss real features. It's
called "Programs and Features" now for one thing, and it features a lot more
detail and information than the Add/Remove programs dialog of old. Also, being
able to search for a program specifically saves so much time it's ridiculous.

You seem to be one of those people that complains that Microsoft didn't add
enough features in Vista in one thread and then complain in another that they
changed everything around. You're complaining about superficial changes and
willfully ignoring real functionality - the search-focused UI is a dramatic
improvement, and you can claim it was taken from OS X or what have you but
that doesn't make Vista's implementation any less useful.

Real power users will learn the new methods and features and probably learn to
love them, and probably upgrade and/or dualboot/virtualize Linux. That's what
I've been doing, and I'll continue to do that. On the other hand, whiny noobs
on the internet will continue to whine about everything Microsoft does because
they can't adjust to change.

~~~
redrobot5050
>Even if its a truly bad convention (e.g. the Add/Remove Programs control
panel does more than Add or Remove) its better than nothing. At the very
least, if you're going to rename it -- have names that are clear and obvious
like "Uninstall Software" for its name.

I decided to re-quote that. Its just one of the tenants of Human-Computer-
Interaction. Microsoft apologists can ignore that all they want, but an
existing convention, even a wrong one, beats a change that is equally poor.

Does "Programs and Features" do anything more/less than "Add/Remove Programs"
in Vista SP3? No.

Its like if MS had done a UI study and concluded that left-click and right-
click's functionality should be reversed. Sure, maybe it is "more usable". But
to those of us who have been "right clicking" for a contextual menu for 15-20
years, it will feel alien.

>You seem to be one of those people that complains that Microsoft didn't add
enough features in Vista in one thread and then complain in another that they
changed everything around. You're complaining about superficial changes and
willfully ignoring real functionality - the search-focused UI is a dramatic
improvement, and you can claim it was taken from OS X or what have you but
that doesn't make Vista's implementation any less useful.

Sir, I've made no such claims, and you're putting words in my mouth. With
regards to search, I've found their implementation inferior not only to OS X's
spotlight, but also Google Desktop Search. Especially pre-SP1 Vista search.
But assuming you don't have Google Desktop Search installed (like the
_average_ user) it is still a usability win. But again, not worth a $400
upgrade, considering Google Desktop Search is free and runs great on XP SP3.

>Real power users will learn the new methods and features and probably learn
to love them, and probably upgrade and/or dualboot/virtualize Linux. That's
what I've been doing, and I'll continue to do that. On the other hand, whiny
noobs on the internet will continue to whine about everything Microsoft does
because they can't adjust to change.

Most of us Real Power Users whine about Microsoft is because they only time
we're exposed to Vista is when something has broken. Like most Real Power
Users I've adapted to the big change (internet apps) and haven't seen MS as
technically relevant since I stopped working as a .NET developer in 2005.
(Disclaimer: In the past six months I've started doing .NET development
again.)

So yeah, most of us have adjusted to change. By bypassing crap when there are
better alternatives.

~~~
iofthestorm
> Does "Programs and Features" do anything more/less than "Add/Remove
> Programs" in Vista SP3? No.

Actually, yes. You can search the list of programs, and there are a lot more
columns that you can sort them by, which is _hugely_ useful when you're trying
to find something.

> With regards to search, I've found their implementation inferior not only to
> OS X's spotlight, but also Google Desktop Search. Especially pre-SP1 Vista
> search. But assuming you don't have Google Desktop Search installed (like
> the average user) it is still a usability win. But again, not worth a $400
> upgrade, considering Google Desktop Search is free and runs great on XP SP3.

Care to give any specifics? I've found it to be better than Google Desktop
search and a recent annoying problem with an OS X Macbook convinced me that
spotlight is useless. I was trying to browse the network, and I tried
searching for network and it would not show the network browser in the
spotlight (apparently it's hidden in one of the menus in Finder because Apple
thinks its users are too stupid to use networks, or something). And really,
$400? Are you really trying to say that Vista costs $400? Sure, that was the
_retail_ price of Vista Ultimate when it launched, but now even the most
expensive edition is only $300, and upgrades or OEM versions are half as much.
And most people upgrade their OS when they get a new computer, so that's a
stupid argument.

>. Like most Real Power Users I've adapted to the big change (internet apps)

> So yeah, most of us have adjusted to change. By bypassing crap when there
> are better alternatives.

Huh... one thing doesn't follow the other. But keep thinking that if you
want...

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ilamont
I was encouraged by the demos of 7 running on netbooks. If the OS stays lean,
that will be a good thing for Microsoft and consumers.

What do developers think?

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biohacker42
Even if 7 is very Vista-y I'm still very surprised.

I did not think MS would dump Vista _that_ fast. And I wonder what exactly 7
is all about, I have not paid much attention to it... until now!

~~~
jcl
Regardless of any technical improvements, MS is eager to dump the Vista name
and associated stigma. This was their point with the "Mojave Experiment" ads:
When given a product demo, people claimed to like a new version of Windows
better than Vista, _even if the new version was a just renamed version of
Vista_.

While the "experiment's" methodology is questionable, MS's quick release of
Windows 7 indicates that they have faith in the results.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mojave_Experiment>

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dotcoma
>Microsoft All But Abandons Vista

assuming Windows 7 is not just another version of Vista, you mean ;-)

