Microsoft bets on Windows 7 as sales fall

something stinks

is it just me or does this whole windows 7 thing smell suspiciously fishy. By that i mean is the over hyped marketing to distract us and cover the short falls of Vista? I have worked with Vista in most of the varying distributions and found them all diabolically memory greedy, incompatible with more software than you can shake a stick at and designed for anyone who puts whistles and bells before any actual work that is meant to be done on that system.
It was blindingly obvious that the operating system was marketed on the glitzy frontend to attract novices and newbies but what microsoft didn't tell them was most the fancy stuff has been around in the open source world for quite some time. this left me pondering on a theory that, had microsoft not rushed the early release of vista and finished it properly we would acually have been buying windows 7 last year in the guise of Vista? or was this intentional to generate more money to fund the further completion/development of Vista?
Either way this ashamed behaviour should be questioned by the powers that be and allow all the people who bought Vista a free upgrade as a show of goodwill from microsoft. This would go someway to absolving there shoddy behaviour and for the promise of marvellous things that never transpired!
I personally did not buy a copy of Vista by the way, I used for some time but couldn't shake the instant dislike eventually opting to keep my trusty Windows XP (and Linux).
Windows 7 has had the same impact only with the exception this is an instant like, even with the several very annoying flaws i found (hardware signing and firefox crashes) but i suppose they will be sorted with the release of service pack 1 (hopefully next week maybe?)

By wes41880 on 23 Oct 2009

They may be betting on Windows 7, but it would be nice if once they've snagged a customer, and said customer has handed over their cash, that their download system would work properly. There seems to be a lot of people out there who either (like myself) can't get the downloaded files to unpack, or are getting error messages when unpacking on a 32-bit OS. All a bit of a mess really. I'm just glad I ordered the physical CD, although that's going to take a while to arrive given the postal strike...

By piphil on 23 Oct 2009

They may be betting on Windows 7, but it would be nice if once they've snagged a customer, and said customer has handed over their cash, that their download system would work properly. There seems to be a lot of people out there who either (like myself) can't get the downloaded files to unpack, or are getting error messages when unpacking on a 32-bit OS. All a bit of a mess really. I'm just glad I ordered the physical CD, although that's going to take a while to arrive given the postal strike...

By piphil on 23 Oct 2009

'is it just me or does this whole windows 7 thing smell suspiciously fishy. By that i mean is the over hyped marketing to distract us and cover the short falls of Vista?'

wes41880, how should I put it without causing you too much of a shock... If I say that even Microsoft admited that Vista indeed did have 'short falls' will that ruin your GNU powered vision of paradise? Windows 7 is not a diversion from Vista. It is a next edition of Microsoft's OS that is largely based on Vista and is pretty much what the Vista should have been. Again, even MS has been indicating that they share this point of view.

And piphil, if there is a problem with a downloaded file, it doesn't automatically mean that the supplier is to blame. The file might have got corrupted on your end just as well. I've been using W7 install from a downloaded ISO file for a couple of weeks now and I can guarantee you that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the image file I've downloaded. What measures have you taken to confirm that the file you downloaded was corrupted at the output?

By Josefov on 24 Oct 2009

I do indeed suspect that the file is corrupted, possibly at my end. The thing that make me suspicious that it may be something at the supplier's end is the sheer number of complaints building up on the Microsoft forums (which now appear to be down for maintenance). Part of the problem is they're not simply allowing a download as an ISO - it's via another package file which you have to extract using a proprietary .exe (which I'm personally, along with others, having trouble with), and then make into an ISO via a command-line tool, which in itself isn't exactly user-friendly.

After a night's sleep I'm less worried about the possible download corruption - shift happens. I'm more worried about the fact that it seems the procedures for using these official, paid-for downloads are somewhat techie in nature - I can imagine that the Microsoft support line is a bit busy atm!

By piphil on 24 Oct 2009

I've been running clean installs of Win7 RTM on Dell laptops since early August. No crashes, no BSOD. It's fast, looks nice and works well. Sleep mode works 100% perfectly, not rebooted in weeks. This is the best Windows ever. Well done Microsoft.....

By nrmsmith on 24 Oct 2009

I like it but ..

I have been using 7 on my laptop and virtual machines & I like it is better than Vista (although vista has improved over the years). Can't say it is much faster except for aero because aero uses the gpu in 7 rather than the cpu in vista freeing the cpu from this chore. Pity MS haven't managed to incorporate o/s controlled multi-tasking-time-slicing into the o/system as proper o/s do. Without it bad programs and processes which crash/hang still slow & crash the computer. Maybe one day!

By xnelmes on 25 Oct 2009

"Microsoft admited that Vista indeed did have 'short falls" Josefov.

Was my original argument! if MS have admitted it why are they still profiting from the people who made Gates one of the richest men in the world. Should they not be giving some of that back by now?
"Allow all the people who bought Vista a free upgrade as a show of goodwill" wes41880.
I'm not a total advocate of open source as I am aware of the complexities that some operating systems can carry especially when configuring the likes of FreeBsd but was in fact pointing out (for want of a better description) that the man stole it and is profiting from someone else's ideas via some clever, redressed marketing, fooling you into believing they invented it.
One final thing! my point about windows 7 was not intended to imply it was a diversion of Vista but more that, it actually was Vista, only a finished and complete working model that filled all the criteria it was meant to when it was originally put on the market.
I apologise if I appear to be anti MS! I’m not and I do believe windows 7 could be the next thing since sliced bread if it does what it says on the tin, but the statement
"It is a next edition of Microsoft's OS that is largely based on Vista" Josefov would imply a next generation of Vista rather than the fixed version that it actually is.
If more people were to champion the cause and stand up for the layman, instead of bending over for "THE MAN" he wouldn't have ludicrous profits like 3.6 billion at all (Note: profits like this could quite possibly sustain a small third world country for years)

By wes41880 on 25 Oct 2009

I'm sure limiting a companies profit will help the world recession no end.

It's precisely the lack of profits that is causing so many businesses to close down.
I think we need to stop this 'bash any successful company' idea as it is not helping us.

By curiousclive on 25 Oct 2009