Windows 7 to one-up Vista, literally
By Jonathan Schlaffer
The Vista saga has unfolded almost like a duplicate of what happened with Windows ME. It’s not really a secret that Microsoft wants to sweep Vista under the rug like some unwanted dirt. What does Windows 7 have in store for consumers?
Multi-Touch. That’s right, the only new feature Microsoft is touting for Windows 7 is multi-touch. You know, multi-touch like the iPhone/iPod Touch have. Multi-touch like every single touchscreen device seems to have.
By the time Windows 7 comes out, Multi-touch will be a three or four year old technology. Which is ancient in the technology field. Apple may even have a touchscreen MacBook out by then.
What will be new for Windows 7 then? Not Aero Glass, not even minwin. Minwin is just a stripped down kernel which is already implemented in some fashion in Vista (albeit not stripped down). So claims Microsoft.
The company has failed to kill off Windows XP with Vista. I know some people who are going to buy NetBooks just to get XP. Windows XP does what it is supposed to, it works and some of Vista’s security features were brought in with SP3.
ComputerWorld points out that Microsoft’s only hope may come from Midori, it’s current operating system “research” project which would be a complete departure from the “Windows” universe.
The company may not have the wherewithal to move in that new direction right now but something needs to be done. If Midori becomes reality then you can all look forward to absolutely no backwards compatibility with existing system, Vista, Windows 7 or any version of Windows and maybe that is a good thing.
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August 20th, 2008
Sigh….Midori is our only hope for change. Maybe by they’ll get it right next time.
August 20th, 2008
The whole Midori thing getting WAY overblown. PC-based operating systems will be around for a good long while, perhaps coexisting with Midori-like technologies.
OBVIOUSLY Windows 7 is being used as a way to sweep Vista under the rug, and that’s fine. Just fine. Windows 7 doesn’t need to offer anything new in particular other than stability and reliability and compatibility.
As long as Windows 7 does those three things as well as XP, then XP will no longer matter. If it does not do those three things as well as XP, then Windows 7 will fail like Vista before it. But Microsoft won’t fail twice in a row.
August 21st, 2008
What about the features M$ is NOT ‘touting’ but making double damned sure to include anyhow??
Like DRM out the wazoo, NSA-BackOrifice, Googallicious ad-tracker, welded TPM enforcing you to ‘trust’ them to responsibility remote-control your box, auto-KEYLoG+FoneHome features, EvidencePlantingPort … but you get the picture … everything needed to help USaNazi Gestapo conveniently manage you.
M$ is corrupt. Cure yourself … Try Linux.
August 21st, 2008
Windows needs a total overhaul like Midori. But Windows 7 offering nothing particularly new is definitely no bad thing.
If it works properly, there’s one improvement. And no doubt they’ll spring something on us nearer the time. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was that it only was 64-bit or something, that’d make sense.
Let’s not forget that Apple aren’t offering anything particularly new in their next OS, Snow Leopard, apart from increased performance and generally stuff in the background a user won’t notice.
That said, Apple already have a sturdy platform to build on. And it offers most of the features most people want.
Linux… if only they could simplify it for the average computer user while retaining the more advanced ‘terminal’ style controls for those who wanted it. At the end of the day, your average secretary or office worker won’t get their heads round Ubuntu very quickly, but they’ve already said they want to simplify it.
Microsoft need to act quick though. Apple are gaining ground very quickly on Microsoft. Like 40% growth in laptop sales last year compared to 15%
August 22nd, 2008
@Akers, you said “Linux… if only they could simplify it for the average computer user”.
I recently gave a Fedora DVD to a non-technical colleague at work, and told him “phone me if you have any questions or problems”. I didn’t hear from him, so I assumed he hadn’t tried the DVD. When I saw him next, I asked about this, and he told me that he had installed Linux with no problems at all, and he commented “I love firefox” (he had never heard of firefox before this). All the drivers he required were on the Fedora DVD, with the exception of one for his printer; however he found the appropriate printer driver on the web and downloaded and installed it. He had no assistance at all setting up and using his system, and everything is working fine. So just how much simpler do you think Linux needs to be?
An interesting point regarding the above is that the PC in question originally came with Vista, and thus had one of the “180 million” licences that Microsoft has sold (”shipped”?) to date. Before I gave my workmate a steer towards Linux, he was so frustrated with Vista that he was about to return the PC to the store from which he had bought it. Not only that, but this story is being played out again and again - there are several other people in my workplace (some technical, others not) who are very satisfied Linux users, or who have definite plans to go to Linux, or who are contemplating the switch.
This is why Microsoft management are in such a panic - Linux is gaining ground at the low end (mobile phones, mobile internet devices, and sub-notebooks), on the desktop, in small businesses and data centres (web servers, mail servers, DNS servers, database servers, firewalls, you name it), and at the top end (over 85% of the world’s supercomputers run on Linux). How many operating systems can run on anything from a mobile phone to a mainframe (IBM S390), and anything in between? Linux is being used in embedded systems, in NAS and SAN devices, as a hypervisor … the list goes on and on.
Microsoft seems quite unable to stem this Linux flood, and, with around 90% market share, is a bit like Titanic, “the unsinkable ship”: it can see disaster looming, but is too unwieldy, and cannot manoeuvre to avoid it. It will be interesting, then, to see what Windows 7 brings, because Microsoft’s survival may now be hanging in the balance.
August 22nd, 2008
Well, W7 M1 was interesting.
Sidebar is integrated.
The OS starts way faster then Vista.
The GUI seems a little snappier.
Cant wait to get my hands on a later version that, well.. runs. LOL
Im looking towards W8 for new material. W7 is far to close and is a stopgap like the next Mac OS.
If you look at Server 03 and 08. There are few noticable changes. But when you look below the surface, you see a world of differance. Performance wise.
Its like they released the OS, then sat back for a moment and tidied up the code. Added a few features and rereleased it.
Its not clear right now, but there is a thought that W8 will be a true multi processor OS. Right now, W is based on single core programming from W2000.
Linux.. well, I use linux to run my home server, SAMBA and http://FTP. But it will never be my primary computer because it goesnt have the Grunt to perform the tasks I ask of W. The only other OS I could probably use it Mac OSX.
Okay, if I had a multi processor system then Linux might beable to handle it. After all, Linux was written for the super-computer world, as Unix first established it. But for a single/ Dual core home processor it falls short performace wise.
Iv tried opening office, Photoshop, A tabbed browser and GFX intensive program and Linux falls behind OSX and Windows… It will always be my workhorse slimline server platform.
As for Midori. We wont ’see’ it. We will see another OS that Midori has inspired, but thats a long way off for now. Probably beyond Windows X (watch out for that one though).
August 22nd, 2008
Microsoft needs to learn to support older OS’s. Some American company Omnicognic just released a large software program named InfoFind and it’s even supported on Windows 95. What then is it so hard for Microsoft to support XP? And who the hell is still on Win95 LOL!!!!
August 23rd, 2008
Hugh
Microsoft is hardly in a panic. They had record revenue of 60 billion dollars last year which was the largest percentage growth since 1999. It translated into 32% per share. If it was Apple, all the tech journalists would need IV fluids to replace all the peeing themselves in rapture at the numbers. Alas all you get is Vista sucks and Microsoft is in trouble.
I agree with your point on Linux, it’s a prime time platform that is currently fighting image, and not actual issue. But it’s not going to panic MS any more than Apple is. Going from essentially zero to minuscule, like Linux or from minuscule to small for Apple isn’t panic time.
MS is far more than it’s desktop OS. Apple isn’t interested in the Enterprise, where the $$ is for them and Linux will be a small player for the foreseeable future for a variety of reasons. It may be different in Oz, but that’s the way it is in the US.