The week in your words: Vista, Windows and Nvidia

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 11 Apr 2008 at 17:42

In a week that saw Vista threatened by Windows 7, Windows savaged by Gartner analysts, and Intel and Nvidia get involved in a nasty tiff, we take a look back to see what PC Pro readers made of it all.

Gates: Windows 7 "coming next year"

Vista's been hiding in a darkened room with the lights off this week, after Bill Gates announced (sort of) that Windows 7 was coming to get it. In true horror movie fashion, our forums split into those cheering for the killer, and those who watch the carnage with a strange kind of fascination.

"I find it hard to believe that MS could release a brand new operating system so soon," says PalMal. "There was a five year gap between XP and Vista. Also, Microsoft has just synchronised its kernel code for Vista and Server 2008, and a new desktop operating system would put that out of synch again."

Trippynet disagreed, someone always does.

"I think Vista was originally planned to be released two or three years after XP but ended up slipping, hence the resulting five year gap... I'm sure that Microsoft will definitely be looking at a much shorter turnaround for Windows 7 in comparison to Vista. Not least because of Vista's generally mixed reception."

Gartner: Where did it all go wrong for Windows?

The reception wasn't mixed in the Gartner camp. The analyst firm offered Windows in general the sort of kicking usually reserved for away day football fans who stumble into the wrong part of town. Among the highlights, the analysts claimed new versions of Windows take too long to arrive, aren't innovative when they do, and usually break everything that came before.

Grunthose wasn't impressed: "Might as well write: Gartner get publicity by jumping on the we all hate Microsoft band wagon! Bored now!"

We certainly could have written that, but it would have been a much shorter article, and we wouldn't have been able to include that excellent comment in this roundup - see, it's all worked out nicely.

Tablot_Avenger thought the old analyst boffins were dead right though: "I think the point about too many versions of Vista is spot on. Most PC vendors seem to offer Home Premium as standard anyway, so I don't think there's any need for more than two versions of an operating system like Vista. If Microsoft could start listening to customers more and concentrate on producing well-written apps rather than overloading them with pointless bells and whistles, that might be a step in the right direction."

Nvidia boss lashes out at Intel

Potentially, but on to weightier matters. We're of course referring to the playground name-calling that's broken out between Nvidia and Intel over graphics cards. Apparently an integrated graphics chipset won't be as fast as a £250 graphical powerhouse designed by a company with nothing better to do - who'd have thought it?

Glovepuppet reckons the pressure's beginning to tell on the 3dfx killers: "Could Nvidia be starting to feel the pinch as laptops, consoles (and possibly even the diminutive iPhone) undermine the pathetic re-packaging of tired technology shoehorned into a shrinking esoteric gaming market?"