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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
> 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...
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.
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.