MS sees Windows 7 leap, but XP workhorse refuses to die Most Windows 7 customers are satisfied with the new operating system, according to tech analyst house Forrester Research, but many stick-in-the-mud types still see no reason to upgrade from the OS that refuses to die - Windows XP. Forrester published the results of its study (subscription required) about take-up of Microsoft’s …
I bought a new home PC around the time Vista was getting slated in the press, so I ordered it with XP. Added Solaris and Linux as multiboot options, but XP still does all the windozy things just fine. I certainly see no need to risk trashing it by upgrading to an OS that doesn''t seem to do anything else that I need.
When I replace this system, or my XP laptop, I'll probably take W7 on the new one. Until then, it ain't broke so I ain't fixin' it.
Until I have an entirely new system, and would have to get a new OS license anyway to replace my OEM copy of XP, there's just no point in stretching my machine's limited capabilities further. Having said that though, I will probably be buying at least one upgrade copy of Win7, while I still have student status i.e. before finishing the old PhD, even if I don't actually install it on anything right away.
Without being able to do a repair install, unless setup is being run from within windows you need to keep better backup and license documentation. Yes, that means you cant do a repair install on a system that wont boot. And just wait till the virus lot start abusing junctions.
Win7 is simply a polished version of vista. ie a polished turd, treat with caution
They are annoying for one, rubbish for another, blatant lies (PR spin) for a third.
One tells you that you can home network as if Win7 invented it. One tells you that more than one person can use TV, file sharing and network stuff as if it is a new feature. One tells you that snap is an MS invention and new, despite linux having it for a while. One told you that you can see bigger windows by looking at the tab on the task bar like vista did. One tells you about parental controls which have been around from routers to browsers for yonks. One tells you that you get faster boot up times, faster than what? Vista definitely, but not faster than ubuntu or XP.
And the peple used are the kind of sad geeky techie morons or competitive dads that you normally wouldn't associate or listen to. They give us sad techie geeks a bad name. If I met a guy in a gym with a laptop, you don't think wow, you think what a sad ****er. And pushy dad who has networked his house, the look on his kids faces says it all.
the guy who says he's using the private browsing feature to buy his wife a present - yeah,right.
Although maybe his wife likes the same porn or sex toys as he does - although looking at him, he's probably into something scary.... like something unspeakable involving Steve Ballmer and a chair
If you're happy with what you've got as it works very well, why get something new that may or may not be as good?
It's like buying a brand new car because your's is 3 years old and you've got-to-have-the-latest-model...oh hang on, people (and I use that in the loosest possible sense) do that already.
Which also explains why my boss is in his wife's saxo because his brand new bmw broke after a week and went back to the dealer :-)
The only advantage I can see for upgrading from WinXP is that Win 7 will address more RAM.
So what?
oh and of course there was the if you don't upgrade all your hard drives will be doomed. Wanna bet watch this I haven't upgraded my hard drive and the old ones works just fine and dandy.
If you want me to spend a chunck of money upgrading to something new you had better give me more of a reason than flashy graphics.
Windows 7 32-bit and Windows XP 32-bit (even 32-bit Linux if you might ask) are limited to something between 3 and 4 GB of RAM (according to the motherboard manufacturer's mood).
That's why I don't see the point of selling laptops loaded with 64-bit Windows<your version here> and being equipped with 2 to 3 GB of RAM. If you don't have a specific need to use more than 4 GB of RAM (virtualization being one of these) then 32-bit is as good as 64-bit so you'll have to think of more reasons to move to Windows 7. Better DRM and WGA-sorry it is now being called WAT- matbe ?
I have had users in the past who've brought in PCs, and we've repaired them to find that the only disk that they have is a knock-off. I'm sure that there are many such users out there. The problem is that they won't buy anything, and they won't upgrade their PC, and they don't know or care if their machine is a zombie that churns out spam all day.
I read about corporate Legacy Apps, but they'll get upgraded long before the cheapskate home user ditches their knock-off Windows XP IMHO.
That's a pathetic way of letting Microsoft off the hook.
You automatically assume that an old Windows product can't be good to begin with and that one has to upgrade to get rid of zombified machines.
Well why the hell did MS allow a product onto the market that could be zombified in the first place? (Moreover, now that XP is there it should be fixed which negates the need for any upgrade.)
It never ceases to amaze me why people are continually being apologists for companies that make shoddy products--and with respect to security--Windows is perhaps the shoddiest product (and the most significant) ever made.
Again, it's proof that Goebbels was right when he pushed the 'Tell a big enough lie and people will believe you' argument. It's excellent proof that propaganda works, whether it comes from Microsoft, The British Government, Washington, Moscow or the Third Reich is immaterial, many people osmotically suck up the crap and turn it into gospel.
i only upgraded to windows 7 to escape the nightmare of vista. id had to buy a machine when vista was the latest thing.
while windows 7 is a lot better, its still a resource hog. perhaps microsft should focus on reducing its footprint and drain on the system as apple did before worrying about new features, erm bugs :)
esc? yes.. from vista
"No, really. Not being rude, just would like to know how Win7 can increase my productivity."
Sure. I'm just too busy right now to upgrade, but I already know how Windows 7 will upgrade my productivity because it has given me the last argument to switch to OSX. No more 10 minute boot times because my anti-virus hasn't had its daily 1GB download of patches, no more day long "reboot?" nagging after I made the mistake of allowing Windows Update to do its thing, no more overnight hanging of a machine because "shut down" doesn't mean shut down unless you confirm that hung app is really hung and you want to power down, no more worry about email attachments that may have something dodgy in (still have to be careful, but you can't argue against 16k malware progs on Linux and OSX combined vs 4 MILLION for Windows).
Oh, and it's more user friendly as well.
So how did W7 do this? Simple, by needing anti-virus again. A modern OS that is still incapable of protecting itself against the Internet is like supplying a modern car with brakes as an option. There is simply no way you can justify this.
So, I agree with the statement that Windows 7 will improve my productivity. Mainly because I will avoid it.
Note: not a Mac or Jobs fan, but a realist..
"The sad thing is all the good stuff was also present in Vista."
Maybe - but also along with enough shite to make the average PC feel like it was still using a 486 at it's core.
My old dog of a laptop (supplied with Vista) now runs a hell of a lot nicer with Win 7.
It has had zero problems so far, and although not perfect - works a hell of a lot nicer than with the abortion called Vista.
Cripes all these folks clinging to XP saying it does all they need. Then they cant be doing much..or very quickly.
After using 7 since launch going back to XP (even on decent gear) is awful. So slow and clunky when trying to do more than one thing at a time.
I sit with customers who proudly demonstrate their "perfectly good old XP computer" and how it performs and I'm just sitting there looking at my watch, tapping my foot saying "err yes thats really nice ahem". It's like watching paint dry.
I've upgraded many customers (several who did it begrudgingly, see above) to Win7 from XP and now none of them would go back.
I was a big XP fan but really guys, time to ditch that old crock, you are not helping yourselves.
Paul Shirley, you are so right, been regularly rebuilding Windows since forever; currently my business partner's XP desktop needs a rebuild, as it uses to start to desktop in 30-seconds or so and 12-months later its taking so long that he can go and make a cup of tea and get back to his desk after hitting power on (he never installs anything, never has, and doesn't even update drivers ... only security patches).
Why does Windows slow down over time, and why is the only solution to reformat the hard-drive and freshly install?
Cripes all these folks clinging to Windows 7 saying it does all they need. Then they cant be doing much..or very quickly.
After using Linux going back to Windows 7 (even on decent gear) is awful. So slow and clunky when trying to do more than one thing at a time.
I sit with customers who proudly demonstrate their "perfectly good Windows 7 computer" and how it performs and I'm just sitting there looking at my watch, tapping my foot saying "err yes thats really nice ahem". It's like watching paint dry.
I've upgraded many customers (several who did it begrudgingly, see above) to Linux from Windows and now none of them would go back.
I was a big Windows fan but really guys, time to ditch that old crock, you are not helping yourselves.
I might think about going all the way up to Win7... but good ole MS seems to ignore the fact that many of us gave a pass on Vista. WinXP *CANNOT* be upgraded to Win7. Too bad for MS, that means that even if I have a valid reason to jump up to Win7 (specifically, I'd like to see the full 4Gb o' RAM in my PC) won't do so.
MS FAIL.
A linux does not a windoze make. And vice versa.
Some people will not be able to cope with a linux of any sort.
(This will usually be the non-techy type person, or certainly someone who will not want to fiddle)
Others may not be able to cope with a windoze of any sort.
Personally I think windows is OK provided you're reasonably happy that you're running stuff you really haven't much of a hope in figuring out, whereas a linux system can be as simple or as complex as you so choose, and linux is better documented....
It's configuring Linux that puts the n00bs off. It can seem insurmountable to people with no desire whatsoever to use config files or the command line. But hand them a fully configured Linux system and they'll find themselves perfectly capable of using it.
Is Linux really so different to Windows in that respect? Installing an operating system, almost any operating system, isn't inherently difficult - it just takes people out of their comfort zone. They see their PC in the in-between stage of working and broken and they don't like it at all.
And don't suggest for a second that people don't have to configure Windows, they do, it's just that the simple commands they would have been able to run in Linux have been dressed up as complete software packages with $$$ price tags.
"It's configuring Linux that puts the n00bs off. It can seem insurmountable to people with no desire whatsoever to use config files or the command line."
I've been installing Ubuntu for the last three years. It's the same procedure as installing Windows... click, click, enter time zone, enter date and time, click, click.
My point, which you seem to have missed, is that average end users don't care how easy it is for us guys with a clue, they will find themselves bewildered anyway. In Windows AND Linux installs. It's just that Windows comes set up for them already and Linux does not.
I think it's because the process of installing an OS challenges their perception of the OS being the actual computer. (I suppose I'm referring mostly to the "AOL subscriber" section of the PC marketplace here)
@ Chemist
"For goodness sake - you DON'T need to use the command-line for a normal modern Linux installation"
You do need to change config files sometimes. That's not a criticism, it is a fact. (Have you never changed a config file in SUSE? Really? Really?) And how best to change config files? The command line. As PC geeks we know that the command line is the best and fastest way to access specific files, so we tell non-geeks to use the command line too. No they don't HAVE to use it, but they will inevitably get told to anyway.
My point, therefore, is that if you want to get idiots using Linux, you have to set it up for them and not go "wah wah wah its so easy". And THEN when it's setup already, they will find it just as easy to use as Windows.
I never said anything about editing config. files at some point but I wouldn't use the command line for that anyway. It's easy to start a GUI editor as root to alter a config. file. Many system config files can be altered in the YAST GUI in OpenSUSE for that matter.
I do use the command line for lots of things but that's personal pref.
To INSTALL a modern Linux you don't need to compile anything or use the command line.
"average end users don't care how easy it is for us guys with a clue, they will find themselves bewildered anyway"
Change that to "how easy it is, they will find themselves bewildered anyway", and I'll agree. :-)
I mean... insert CD, click, click, enter date and time, click... how hard can that be? A trained hamster could do it.
"You do need to change config files sometimes."
Yes, and if I count the number of times I had to do it in Ubuntu and in Win7... I think Win7 wins. A lot of annoying Win7 stuff had to be sorted through registry, until I got a satisfying result.
Now, if someone could point me to the idiot who changed the status bar in Windows Explorer...
At home I began weaning myself off of IE. It took a year running IE and FF before I was using the latter more than the former. About the same time I was running Windows 9x and installed XP to multiboot. Again it took about a year before I was using XP more than 9x. I must have been running Vista/Win7 for 3 years now but still overwhelmingly use and prefer XP.
Incidentally the pathetic bug in XP whereby Common Tasks change depending (in my experience) on the no. of certain types of file, e.g. enough JPEGs in ANY folder, on ANY drive, and you find, say, System32 is now supposedly a folder for photos, with view type set to thumbnails. Or set one folder to a particular view type and you find that My Computer has changed with it; change My Computer back and the other folder changes too. Well, not only have M$ never bothered to fix this in XP, it still happens in Windows7.
I figure there is a time in every user's life when the feel for computing comes together at last, like they will never be more attuned to this technological interaction than they are at that particular time. And the OS they're using more often than not becomes the one they swear by and thereafter resist moving on from. So maybe that is, for me, XP. But while there are a handful of changes in Windows7 that I quite like, and have been prepared to put in the time and effort to familiarise myself with, much of it seems detrimental, awkward, like change solely for the sake of making a new product to sell 'Windows' all over again.
I'll be interested to know how new PC users who do their apprenticeship with Windows7 find retrospectively learning XP. Not that many will, of course.
Witness the evolution of car, aircraft, motorcycle styling over the last 100 years. There have been many turkeys, but plenty of classic designs, plenty you could almost call works of art. But now most of them are so similar they're a boring, spirit sapping waste of resources. Perhaps they are ergonomically better, but I'm as sick of silver cars as Mr Anchovy was of Chartered Accountancy! Just because it is new doesn't mean improved and it seems to me precious few of the Windows7 changes are ergonomic rather than merely cosmetic, and when they're *un*-ergonimic even eye candy is tainted with fail. Time will tell.
... why are Microsoft surprised by people wanting to stick with XP? The average home user only changes their OS when they get a new computer, and businesses still can't guarentee all their business critical applications will run perfectly in Windows 7 due to the large changes in technology between the two versions.
Not to mention the price for Windows 7 is still too high for what it delivers that's different.
> and businesses still can't guarantee all their business critical applications will run perfectly in Windows 7 due to the large changes in technology between the two versions
that will be a business with out any sort of BC or DR plan then?
those sort of f**k wit run businesses deserve to fail
(and that's not just the small / medium sized ones either, just ones without any kind of effective audit oversight board = so most banks then!)
My reason for preferring XP is that it's the last windows that does not lock the owner out of the kernel. Vista and 7 kernels are both configured by MS to prevent the legitimate owner from installing custom drivers (self developed or open source).
I will avoid any OS which gives MS control over the policy of how my computer is used.
Why put yourself through the nightmare of upgrading? for what? It's funny, but has anyone ever paid attention to the screens when installing 95, 98, Me, or XP? All quote the same thing, "Now users can do (insert feature here)." and it's all the same! I've been using PCs since the early DOS days, I've been around long enough to know that most of it's all the same, just more bling. I don't plan on upgrading my XP to 7. just a waste of money. I'll continue to use that PC for the next several years (I do know how to take care of it) and I will eventually buy a new PC at some point with whatever version of OS is offered at the time.
If the upgrade from XP wasn't so expensive and possibly destructive, I may look into it. but I've had enough of spending money and wasting time trying to get the next fad to work when what I've had all along works just fine. To hell with worrying about the latest virus/trojan/exploit. That's scare-tactics. If someone wants in your computer, they will get it. If they want your personal info, they'll get it. A person needs to take other steps than loading down their computers with bloated software in order to protect themselves. It doesn't start or end with a computer.
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