Every windows version "fails" miserably when released, yet windows continues to utterly dominate the market. Perhaps the fault is not with windows but with the people who insist on turning anything they see into conclusive proof that windows has totally liek failed guys omg.

Mac OS has just as many fundamental problems as Windows. The only difference is no one bothers running advertising campaigns to point out those issues because Mac OS is not a substantial threat to much of anyone... and there is no indication that it ever will be. If Apple ever manages to capture some significant market share you will hear more whining about how each successive Mac OS version has "failed" as well. This whining will most likely from the people who use it more than anyone else, most of whom are traffic-hungry bloggers and 'journalists' (as if those exist anymore).

In short: people are sensationalists, extremists, narrow-minded, and have the memory span of gnats. Win7 is a lot more secure than XP and leaner than Vista. Other OS's are fine too. In general, OS updates make most sense when buying a new computer. You do not need to upgrade. You may want to.

Quote: Original post by LockePick
Mac OS has just as many fundamental problems as Windows.

But it is important to recognise that the Mac has a very *different* set of problems, many of them due to being a minority player in the OS world. Among other things, a lot of key software never makes it to mac (market too small), the software that does is often badly ported (i.e. games), and manufacturers rarely deliver drivers in a timely manner (small market, again)

By contrast, many of Windows' problems are a result of being the majority player. Windows has to support an obscene variety of hardware (mac hardware is uniform, and quickly obsoleted), and an obscene quantity of legacy software (mac 'clean slates' every now and again).

The user experience (at least since OS X and Vista) has been very similar between the two OSes, and which you prefer from an underpinning point-of-view just depends whether you are tied into the unix or windows development world.

Personally, I hope that the entire desktop metaphor dies an ugly death with the rise of haptic interfaces, and thus both OSes are forced to drastically evolve to deal with a new world [smile]

Quote: Original post by Katie
It's still Windows. It still has that annoying thing of not being able to move a window to a better location while the application is "busy"... Periodically applications just explode. Took me four goes to install VS2008 -- the CD was a bit dodgy and when it hit the bad read, the installer would lock up the machine. Nice.

your hw is your problem. none of these happen to be true on my machines. but i've seen some cd roms locking up whole machines when they have read errors indeed. then again, cds.. so '90ies :)

Quote:
On a 64bit machine with oodles of RAM it's actually not even turgidly slow :-)

actually the 32bit version is fast even on an old p4 with 1gb ram.

Haven't had a single problem... Even using a lot of old games and applications... 64 bit ultimate...

XP feels old after using Windows 7...

Overall I think it's a very good OS.

I just installed Windows 7 this past week at home and use OS X (Snow Leopard) at work. I didn't like Vista much at all, but I have to say that I like Windows 7 slightly more than OS X. For one thing, I really like how they implemented the dock/taskbar in Windows7.

That being said, I think both Win7 and Snow Leopard are amazing operating systems compared to just a few years ago.

So you guys think that people are just out to get Windows? And that it actually isn't bad?


Here's another question: why is it that Windows 7 hasn't at all been sensationlized like Windows Vista was? I feel as though that Windows 7 has barely gotten any attention unlike Windows Vista, which, even if it was blasted, got lots of attention in the public. Less complaints with it? Or has Microsoft not publicly advertised it? Or is this all just me?

Quote: Original post by kryotech
Here's another question: why is it that Windows 7 hasn't at all been sensationlized like Windows Vista was? I feel as though that Windows 7 has barely gotten any attention unlike Windows Vista, which, even if it was blasted, got lots of attention in the public. Less complaints with it? Or has Microsoft not publicly advertised it? Or is this all just me?

They certainly did advertise. Its just that the launch was a lot smoother. Vista brought a lot of changes to the table with UAC, a new driver model, and 64-bit as a real contender. As a result, there were a lot of issues when people started moving their software and devices to Vista. With Windows 7, they've had several years to iron out the problems, and let software developers catch up.

>>you can ignore OEM sales all you want,

Im not ignoring them, Im saying ppl are not choosing to actively going out and buy the new OS. Im saying the vast bulk ~99% of windows OS sales are from OEM sales from when a person buys a new PC. Arguing that ppl are picking up windows7 in huge numbers is like saying eg ppl are picking up firestone tyres in huge numbers, since some new cars have them :)

I just had a look at the nz dell.co.nz site, all PC's from what I could see came with win7 there was not an option of buying a PC without a OS, or a different OS etc

An ideal situation when u get a new PC, would be PC's ~$50 cheaper, + then the user chooses what OS to install on it. Give the customer choice

Quote: Original post by zedz
Arguing that ppl are picking up windows7 in huge numbers is like saying eg ppl are picking up firestone tyres in huge numbers, since some new cars have them :)

That's a horrible analogy. People don't buy new cars because Firestone put out some new kind of tire. People do buy new PC's because they want a new version of Windows.

Quote: Original post by MJP

Quote: Original post by zedz
Arguing that ppl are picking up windows7 in huge numbers is like saying eg ppl are picking up firestone tyres in huge numbers, since some new cars have them :)

That's a horrible analogy. People don't buy new cars because Firestone put out some new kind of tire. People do buy new PC's because they want a new version of Windows.

I agree. An OS is more like an engine than tires. If car manufacturers built cars around engines they themselves didn't create then you might have been able to get an analogy out of that. But tires? The web browser is closer to tires than the OS!