Windows 7: A sound of thunder
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 16.1.2009
Tip: Click here to update all your PC's outdated driversI didn’t want to write this column. I live as Windows-free an existence as most people can these days. Of course I have to run Windows as part of my job, in order to make sure that Samba, the software I write, will interoperate correctly with all the multiple Windows versions out there.
I also have to install some Windows applications using the Open Source Wine project, which emulates Windows on Linux well enough that some binary Windows applications will install and run straight off the DVD. Like most people, there are some Windows applications I just can’t do without, although in this case it’s my three-year-old son who finds an amazing amount of joy in his toddler games, none of which have yet been ported to Linux. Wine works amazingly well these days for this sort of thing, well enough that my wife no longer complains about the computer “being hard to use”.
However, Windows hasn’t been my desktop environment for about seven years now. I have found I have no need for it; a Linux desktop does everything I need to do very well. That’s not easy to do, as I’m not a casual user. I do tend to have rather demanding requirements for my desktop, as regular readers of this column might note.
Yet Microsoft’s recent announcements about “Windows 7?, the new version of Windows, find me sitting here feeling I have no choice but to discuss it, or be drowned out as a hopelessly irrelevant columnist. This is the power of the marketing megaphone of the monopoly player on the desktop, even though it isn’t my desktop.
According to Microsoft, Windows 7 is the version of Windows everyone has been waiting for. According to the “What’s New” section of the Windows 7 website it will be “Faster and Easier”, it will “Work your way”, and give you “New Possibilities”. I must confess it sounds less than thrilling to me, but these are the things the Windows marketers thought it was worth pointing out about the new “center of people’s technological solar system” — to quote Steve Ballmer.
But wait a minute. Let’s get in the time machine, go back a few years and take our foot off the crushed butterfly of Windows Vista and look at what was promised for the previous version of Windows. Windows Vista is “safer and more reliable” and there were “dozens of wonderful new features”. Dozens! After five and a half years in development, there are dozens of new features.
Of course I’m being overly critical here — more than a touch of sarcasm — but I’m sure you get the point. The amazing thing about the world of Windows marketing is that everything a user might want is always available in the next version of Windows. Up until the time that version is released, then after a year or so of the reality of the software sinks in, and the upgrade drums start to beat about how wonderful the next version of Windows is going to be.
I’m reminded of the fictional TV show “Treadmill to Bucks” invented by Stephen King in his wonderful Science Fiction novel The Running Man (Don’t confuse this with the Hollywood movie of the same name. Just read the book. In fact, try and forget the movie ever existed, for all Hollywood adaptations of Steven King except “The Shining”.) Destitute patients with a heart condition are “invited” to answer questions on camera whilst walking on a treadmill of ever increasing speed to try and earn money for their relatives. This Windows treadmill never stops, and the endless stream of bucks being spent are those of Microsoft’s customers, forever on the road to upgrade nirvana.
source:
blogs.zdnet.com
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Comments(16)
i wonder if you could rant some more. the thing is, windows is what the world runs off.
everyone knows how to use it. i do not understand whats so hard to use about it. linux is
the least user friendly os out there. it takes forever to install a "program" because
it needs to be tailored for your specific linux version. and second off its not click and
install. i can never see linux as a major player in the desktop pc world just because its
so damn hard to use.
i used all of these ops , linux , mac and windows .but because windows for me as free as
others in this case it is better then linux .
i was kind of hoping he would have the gall to test the beta before giving his opinion on
the subject... my mistake.
i'm glad this article will allow him to remain
afloat and stay a hopelessly irrelevant columnist to all
hardware & software & games = m$
[nuff said]
is yet another rant from a arrogant linux elitist.
have you got your t-shirt?
http://www.amazon.com/jinx-arrogant-linux-elitist-t-shirt/dp/b00100zp9k
go bash mac osx instead, they're the ones who stole work&idea from your beloved unix and
deserve the beating.
windows is free (for us) and is the most universal of all os.
you didn't even try it. if you had maybe this article would have some merit. why is it
even on this website. hey, go play in someone else's backyard!
just another (misplaced) example of how a giant company has the money to maintain the ~n
linux versions and flavors available who tries to apply itself to the single-user case:
"because the code is open source, even if the vendor does not support an older version
anymore, there are third parties who can be contracted to maintain versions indefinitely"
- you talk about using linux at home -- because that's what you're selling in here
(review the "sound of thunder" of your "attempt" to convince users to try linux at the
end of your own article, if you don’t remember) -- and then, to show just how easy and
affordable it is, you give an example tailored to giant companies who really have the
money to “contract third parties” to maintain some old apps “indefinitely”. i hope that
your work at the (marketed in here) samba product is not as ridiculous as your attempt to
put logic into this article… because, if this is the case, than no kind of marketing will
make it work.
you we’re right about not wanting to write this article… normally no
one wants to show publicly how incompetent they are.
smell the coffee.... you go to all this trouble to write about what exactly? your in a
minority, and you even make your kids suffer!!!!
how utterly predictable!
i gave linux a fair shake...used it as my primary
desktop for a full year. using it is like "looking through a glass darkly..." every
simple one-step operation that i once did in windows took five steps in linux. it isn't
particularly fast or responsive, and looks like hell to boot. i had fun tweaking around
in linux, learned all of the primary commands, tried over 20 different distros, etc. fun
to experiment, but it was more work, and in the end, i was much less productive in linux.
as far as performance, even the much maligned vista blew linux into the weeds on my
machine.
ah, it's the new year. every new year, i always hear this, "this year is the year of
desktop linux.".
i've been hearing it for i dunno how many years. it's still
1%.
i've never been much of a vista fan just like the author but i also never had any
problems with it either, even x64. the statement that its a forever road to nirvana is not
quite correct as the process of designing os's is an ongoing process not 10 commandments
written in stone, hence the betas releases. microsoft derives much of their new designs
from both positive and negative feedbacks they receive over the course of , for example,
vista release in the last few years. the new windows 7 is far from never never nirvana
land as you'd like to imply. i've been using it for a month or so and its far superior
to anything linux distros have to offer, and they in turn are already coming out with new
betas as well which don't fare too well from my experience. at least redmond knows how to
release workable beta unlike other os mfgrs. when windows 7 gets on the market, i'm sure
there will be further improvements made down the road but i wouldn't go as far as
comparing this process to your treadmill example, given your limited experience as a
microsoft user in first place. i tried mandriva and it simply does not have either the
punch, the graphic design nor software adaptability of microsoft, i think most users would
agree with that.
i think it's good everyone likes the oses they choose to use. majority of the users are
window based. microsoft has made a good os but thats not what's driving it. it's the
application and software makers that are sticking to microsoft.
if linux or
mac had more game developers i would see ms market share go down. but at this point i
don't see that happening. ms has the upper hand for a longtime but they are not to blame.
all the oses has features people like and has features people don't like. most important
thing for me is the apps/games i play. i like mac interface, i like linux open source able
to modify a lot of stuff and i like ms app/games compatibility with most of my hardwares.
people don't want to think. microsoft and mac has done a good job. who wants
really wants a operating where you have to tinker with more then using it?
maybe in the next 10 years things will change.
just my 2cents. enjoy whatever
os your using. in the end it doesn't matter what people think it's more what you think
of it and if ur happy. two thumbs up!
btw, os wars will never stop, its the consumer that stops them, just like circuit city
going bankrupt due to lack of sales.....
every time someone mentions linux as a desktop there is so much fuss about it from other
users that it's getting boring. most of you windows fans say "i've been using linux
etc. to make yourself more credible" while the real linux users see your ignorance and
your lack of knowledge, for example, ranger, you show your ignorance by showing us that
the installation of an application is hard, i won't write more as the ignorants will
still be crying and shouting how windows is great, it is good and i personally never had
problems with it nor it's performance.
in order to be somehow more mature open your
minds and stop behaving like a 3-years old child that shouts "i have and it must be the
best!! everything else is worse (even though you've never used it)", so grow up.
i've used a windows os since 3.1 came out. mac is better. i rarely use it, since i am
a developer and my video software is win-based, but i thought it was particularly funny to
hear a windows user tout ease-of-software installation when on a mac all you do is drag
one file and it's installed. you don't want it anymore? delete the one file and
that's it.
norton: i was upset about circuit city. really though they had to
shoulder some of the blame when they place their store next to a competitor. great deals
on the closeout though. i paid $90 for a $150 bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
to
the op: actually try the os, will you? i'm a beta tester of windows 7 and it is in fact
a leap above vista in many ways (it's almost macish, in fact).
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Wow Rant some more
By Ranger on 17.01.2009 - 00:01