Comments on: Let’s look at Windows 7 as a fresh start

By: StevenHodson

StevenHodson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:56:15 +0000

interesting point of view but I think that once Microsoft has stabilized itself around Windows 7 we'll start seeing some innovation in future versions of Windows. However I would point out that has been doing some pretty interesting stuff as evidenced by things like PhotoSynth and Seadragon. Even their browser could be looking at some real improvement if the work on Gazelle is any indication.

I wouldn't count Microsoft out just yet when it comes to innovation or quality – they've just needed to find their feet again and I think Windows 7 has done that.

By: StevenHodson

StevenHodson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:49:19 +0000

just a quick note about Media Player 12 – this is another thing that has seen some real improvement over past versions. It takes up a much smaller resource footprint than previous version. WMP has alway been a resource hog so it was nice to see this big improvement.

By: StevenHodson

StevenHodson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:40:26 +0000

On the surface there may not seem like much of a reason to move to Win7 but there are some definite reasons under the hood to make the move. Win7 is a smaller tighter code base than than Vista and the driver support is the best I have seen with any Windows release. I remember with Vista that both nVidia and ATI driver support was terrible. With Win7 both of them have been right there since the earliest beta with video driver support. I also think that when it comes the 'eye candy' Win7 is a vast improvement over Vista.

Unlike Vista I would heartily recommend Win7 as a viable upgrade for the operating system.

By: pb

pb — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:40:38 +0000

Strangely enough, our household used to swear by XP, and now there isn't a single XP machine in our house, and life is honestly much simpler.

My wife got a new desktop at almost the exact same time they released the W7 beta, so it was a logical candidate, particularly since she was running win2k before that. She seems really happy with w7. My main leisure desktop that is used mostly for web email & multimedia etc, was an XP box, that ran into several issues, that i could never resolve. I'm now using a variant of linux for these tasks, and have done so since a few months before the w7 beta was released. Thanks to synaptic, and a helpful Open source community, life is a whole lot easier.

I have a laptop that ran vista, and had been toying with moving it to either W7 or Linux. I recently loaded W7 for one primary reason - Media player 12. That is the only UpnP media server I have been able to find that just works with my new TV, the setup hassles I was having with vista and some of the 3rd party apps, meant that after a lot of research I stopped with the first one that worked.

The other great thing is al of the games that used to work ok on XP and then refused to run on vista now work again on W7.

I think most Joe/Jane computer users are likely to be using vista rather XP as they will have gotten their computer at a discount from a big box retailer using easy credit with vista bundled and will come by w7 the same way.

For me, if w7 had been more of the same vista retardedness, I would have continued with linux. If my wife had disliked w7 i would have tried getting her to install linux - (I had already convinced her to give it a try when the w7 beta was released while the new desktop was being shipped).

The challenge for me now, is that up until now, the price of running w7 RC has been the same as running Linux, with a similar ease of use. I am prepared to bear a reasonable cost to use w7, as it is a really good OS, but if the cost becomes unreasonable (after all the laptop is simply an upgrade from a Vista home premium), then I'm likely to continue with linux.

I am actually amazed at how easy life is since changing to these 2 OSes

By: I’m a Computer Enthusiast and I’m a PC | Armchair Theorist

I’m a Computer Enthusiast and I’m a PC | Armchair Theorist — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:48:27 +0000

[...] to go back to Windows (Technologizer doesn’t think it matters). WinExtra sees Windows 7 as a fresh start for Microsoft. I agree, and that is a good starting point for us to use to measure the success of Windows 7 in [...]

By: zota

zota — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:21:11 +0000

The central problem that John pointed out is that although Microsoft may know they've screwed up, in response they've completely surrendered quality and innovation. Marketing Windows as "crap you buy when you can't afford something good" does not look like the path back to market dominance.

As a dedicated Mac user, I find this especially upsetting. Where Apple is one among other options (hardware, OS), they offer many excellent reasons to choose their tools. Where they have managed to dominate the market (iPod, iTunes, App store) Apple is a pushy, closed, unresponsive bully.

If Microsoft is now done with giving people reasons to actively choose Windows (aside from "cheaply made hardware") then I'm selfishly afraid of what it's going to do to Apple...

By: Pa_2

Pa_2 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:43:30 +0000

This is a serious question, “What compelling reason(s) does a Joe/Jane Average XP user have to upgrade to Windows 7?” Aside from the 'Microsoft will discontinue supporting XP' concern I have difficulty recognizing a clear benefit from upgrading. (I will acknowledge the “Eye-candy” value of W7 which has always been a driving force in the PC world.)