There's a dirty little secret that's extremely unfashionable to say but is completely and utterly true: Vista isn't that bad.
The problem with Vista is that it was bloated, didn't add much of value over XP and was initially MS forced it to be rolled out on low-end machines that couldn't handle it. Hardware support was initially flaky too, adding problems for the tech-savvy crowd who also were underwhelmed considering its long development cycle. All these things gave it a bad reputation, especially as the good largely didn't make up for the bad.
Windows 7 will likely be appreciated, even if it's not a radical change from Vista. Access control should have settled down now it's been introduced to developers and MS have got its act together to make it less annoying. Since there's no driver changes, it's no longer an issue. It'll likely not be significantly slower than Vista. Everyone loves eye-candy, and hopefully Microsoft have added another layer of sheen to Vista's above-par sleekness and removed the inconsistencies left from XP, integrated everything together better, added some niceties and improved the UI a bit. I don't think a huge departure is needed, just a lot of tidying up.
Oh, and having an upgrade path doesn't really matter to most people - people tend to buy new PCs that'll come with it and most of those running XP won't be able to handle Windows 7 anyhow.
Your post may be entirely true, but it's conspicuously missing a reason to spend $150 for something that "isn't that bad". Particularly if I'm a business, and the true cost of switching (measured in IT time) is way, way larger than $150.
"Windows 7 will likely not be significantly slower than Vista?" Wow, what a great selling point. "Everyone loves eye candy and UI improvements?" Perhaps -- but those who do have bought Macs already. "Now with better access control support?" Gosh, that's what I really hate about XP -- it doesn't have enough DRM to slow down my machine and lock me out of my own data!
The best selling point for Vista would probably be security. But Microsoft seems oddly reluctant to play the "switch to Windows 7 because our earlier products are so riddled with flaws that they put your life at risk" card. ;)
(I should point out that I'm joking -- I'm no security expert, and in fact I'm not sure that XP is really that much less secure than Vista. And that, itself, is part of Vista's marketing problem, isn't it?)
Most people don't spend $150 on an OS, they get it "free" with their PC.
The business sector, as it is, inevitably upgrade to whatever Microsoft puts out once they pull support on old versions of their OS. Microsoft have basically no competition in the business sector - they're pretty much only competing with themselves.
A large proportion of people dislike like Vista because they've either heard it's bad or have had bad experiences using it on low-spec computers. This is unlikely to happen with Windows 7, especially considering improvements in computer speed in the meantime.
Apple products make up around 10-15% of the market in the west and much, much less worldwide - a relative minority. People like pretty things whether or not they own, or can own, a Mac.
"Access control" isn't DRM, it's a security decision, and actually a good thing that had to be introduced into Windows eventually to improve its much-criticised security model. There was always going to be some criticism over it.
Microsoft don't need to make a great product, just a better one. Their product is the natural upgrade path, they just need to create a "Windows 7 fixes the problems with Vista" message which looks like the direction they are going.
The business sector, as it is, inevitably upgrade to whatever Microsoft puts out once they pull support on old versions of their OS.
I agree with this. And, yet... once you cross the line from nominally working for your customers to overtly extorting money from them, you can't go back.
So I doubt that Microsoft will pull support for XP until the demand is gone. And the demand won't be gone until there's a real reason to upgrade to Windows 7. A "Windows 7 fixes the problems with Vista" marketing message will be nice and everything, but I'm guessing that IT departments will not be easily fooled. They've heard a lot of marketing doubletalk; they're pretty used to it by now. They will have to have to be given actual reasons before they will switch.
If you think that it's "inevitable" that XP will eventually be retired... I know some Cobol programmers that I could introduce you to. ;) Not that I believe that XP will last as long as Cobol. I find it hard to believe that it could possibly be supported for much longer than another decade.
There's a dirty little secret that's extremely unfashionable to say but is completely and utterly true: Vista isn't that necessary.
As an Operating System, XP firmly falls into the 'good enough' category. At 7 years old, it's actually matured into a reasonably solid product that works. If you run Windows 2000 on modern hardware (providing you can get driver support) you'll find it runs like shit off a shovel. I'm not talking Office 2003 versus 2007 fast, I'm talking Windows 3.1 versus Windows Vista fast.
Therein lies the problem.
Microsoft have the unenviable task of pandering to a massively diverse range of users in order to retain market share, anything that they do to XP will piss off at least a minority. Anything that they fail to do to XP will piss off at least a minority.
Pretty much the only option for Microsoft in terms of releasing a new Operating System is to add features, but doing so without slowing the OS down is a massive challenge.
I don't believe that Vista will ever be considered a success by anyone outside of Redmond, but I do think that Windows 7 will do better simply because of the timescales involved and the fact that it's not Vista.
This is the odd thing - you seem to be trying to disagree with me yet we agree almost completely on everything, except that "Vista isn't that necessary" seems to be an extremely fashionable thing to say.
So, as someone who has been a Mac user since before it was fashionable, I greet this kind of stuff with skepticism. I lived through the OS X transition - yeah 10.0. People are all talking about how certain things look off in Vista and how it can be a resource hog, but 10.0 was worse.
10.0 took forever to load on brand new hardware. Want to launch a web browser? Got a minute? Want to minimize that window, please hang on. Everyone on Mac message boards was complaining and many hoped Apple would just go back to the OS 9 codebase. Plus, since Aqua (the OS X interface) had such different dimensions from Platinum (the OS 9 interface), nothing lined up right even if they were native OS X apps. 10.1 helped a bit with the speed issue, but things still didn't look right and Windows XP ran circles around it in most cases.
It was painful. I mean, I have been using Macs since the LC & Quadra days and 10.0 just sucked. But it turns out they were just growing pains. Today, OS X is awesome. I'm amazingly happy with it and its future, but it wasn't so bright a year or two in. 10.3 was really the breakout release IMO and it was 10.4 that started attracting the hackers in droves.
I've used Apple eMates more than I've used Vista so I might just be full of crap, but while most current Mac users were on the sidelines for the OS X 10.0 growing pains, I was in the thick of it and I can say that Vista is a ton better than 10.0 was. Of course, we are nearing the two-year anniversary for Vista and that's about when 10.3 came out. . . Maybe Microsoft isn't able to smooth out the rough edges quickly enough.
Ahh, those were the days. I remember being really excited when I went to install 10.0 on a beige G3 desktop. I was still excited when it was finished 2 hours later! :)
The problem I see is that the jump between OS 9 -> OS X was way bigger than XP -> Vista. There are just too many vestigial bits in the core of Vista right now. It's not even close to Apple's Carbon situation. It's far, far worse. I am pretty sure I saw an icon from Windows 3.1 just the other day.
Of course, we are nearing the two-year anniversary for Vista and that's about when 10.3 came out...
You've found the problem. It's not that it's necessarily fatal to release a poor interim product. It's that you have to keep the "interim" down below five years, which is how long it took to go from XP to Vista.
As a customer, I will not use a system with "growing pains", unless it gave me some huge benefit. If they are unable to make it stable, at least make it great while it runs.
The crap that the average enterprise shop loads on the disk image does way more to slow down the os than anything that comes prebundled with windows. Password managers, sketchy rfid card reader drivers, short cuts to help desks and enterprise portals ugh it makes me sick.
Call me back when it ships, and I'll look at whatever it might be then, and whether it's competitive with whatever else is available then. Until then, I really don't care.
"Whether due to pride or stubbornness, Microsoft's refusal to create a more accessible migration path from XP to Windows 7 is simply inexcusable."
I'm amazed that industry mouthpieces still don't get this. It has nothing to do with pride or stubbornness, and has everything to do with helping pc manufacturers sell new plastic. OS upgrades don't sell new plastic.
I do remember one of Windows 7's biggest features is virtualization for backwards compatibility... then again I still remember a lot of Longhorn's promised cool features too. Most of them except for the new UI never made it into Vista.
That is the longest way I have ever seen anyone write "Windows 7 as an OS will fail completely because I might not be able to upgrade directly from XP".
And I'm pretty sure that was the only argument the writer had.
well with laptop prices in 2009 likely to be under $600 for numerous choices of decent hardware, the notion of adding another $150 to the price just to boot the thing is no longer competitve. the pc vendors should just throw weight behind ubuntu, or go download freebsd7, do some work on wine tuning, and ship it. only 20% of people who bought vista will buy 7...the numbers are starting to dwindle, xp is and always will be the most used windows version
"Bloat" typically means profligate memory consumption and unnecessary features, not rampant CPU usage: using a lot of virtual memory wouldn't significantly effect power consumption (unless you end up spinning up the hard disk to swap stuff out, but even then it should be marginal).
This has to be one of the more idiotic statements I've read on here. Sure, crappy software that uses more disk space, memory and CPU cycles probably requires more power, but you can't seriously believe this is a real issue. If you do, in fact, believe this nonsense then saying your priorities and efforts are misguided would be the understatement of the millenium. There are plenty more environmental issues that need to be tackled before even speculating about the power consumption of bloated software.
I'm still holding out hope that your comment was a joke gone awry.
Expect more comments like the GP on the back of reports like this:
The global information and communications technology
industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of
global carbon dioxide emissions, a figure equivalent to
aviation, according to a new estimate by Gartner, Inc.
despite software itself being accountable for only a small portion of that 2%.
I don't find that report the least bit surprising. I would only expect that figure to increase. But it's completely ludicrous for anyone to suggest that it's the result of bloated operating systems. I'm not surprised I was modded down given my tone, but I don't why on earth anyone modded up the GP.
People generally don't care if software is bloated if it has a reason to be. If you're not a hacker, you use a computer to run applications, not to run an OS, and there's no excuse at all for a fresh Vista install to consume 800MB of RAM to idle. It drops to 700MB with Aero and Superfetch turned off. Really stupid.
On the other hand, my modern, much-more-flexible-and-capable Linux desktop uses 250MB idling at the GUI. With all four workspaces full, Firefox running for multiple days, Sonata, Pidgin, many other apps all going right now, I'm still using barely a gigabyte of RAM. On Vista, that's enough to run the OS and Firefox. Kind of dumb.
In your stated case, you are saving about half a gig of DRAM ~= $10.
Really stupid. ... Kind of dumb.
If you say so. Meanwhile, higher consumption of resources (such as DRAM) causes those very resources to get cheaper. DRAM is as cheap as it is, because software is bloated. If (to wage war on bloat) we switched to hand-coding all of our software in machine-language, DRAM could get very expensive. More on that general subject is here:
The problem with Vista is that it was bloated, didn't add much of value over XP and was initially MS forced it to be rolled out on low-end machines that couldn't handle it. Hardware support was initially flaky too, adding problems for the tech-savvy crowd who also were underwhelmed considering its long development cycle. All these things gave it a bad reputation, especially as the good largely didn't make up for the bad.
Windows 7 will likely be appreciated, even if it's not a radical change from Vista. Access control should have settled down now it's been introduced to developers and MS have got its act together to make it less annoying. Since there's no driver changes, it's no longer an issue. It'll likely not be significantly slower than Vista. Everyone loves eye-candy, and hopefully Microsoft have added another layer of sheen to Vista's above-par sleekness and removed the inconsistencies left from XP, integrated everything together better, added some niceties and improved the UI a bit. I don't think a huge departure is needed, just a lot of tidying up.
Oh, and having an upgrade path doesn't really matter to most people - people tend to buy new PCs that'll come with it and most of those running XP won't be able to handle Windows 7 anyhow.