Preventing Another Vista-like Release With Windows 7 396
CRE writes "An article at the OS News site details how Microsoft could best avoid Windows 7 becoming another Vista-esque release. The author advises Microsoft to basically split Windows in two. Windows 7 would be a new operating system based on the proven Windows NT kernel, but with a completely new user interface, with backwards compatibility provided by VMs. In addition, to please business customers and other people concerned with backwards compatibility, Microsoft should create 'Windows Legacy', basically the current Windows, which will receive only security and bug fixes. Relatedly, APCMag is reporting that Microsoft has moved Julie Larson-Green (the driving force behind Office 2007's Ribbon UI) over to work on Windows 7's interface."
Oh no (Score:1, Interesting)
Ribbon UI... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, no...
As for the future Windows, I say build it to be a VM store, capable of taking on the personality of any VM---allowing you to have new fancy features as well as the legacy Windows (heck, maybe they should include everything, all the way to DOS, Win3.1, etc.). You don't really `need' an OS (assuming they figure out ways of enabling you to efficiently use the hardware from VM)---you might have a `primary' image that you use all the time, and a buncha others provided for compatibility with previous versions.
Release Success (Score:5, Interesting)
It's that simple.
Whether or not the Vista release was successful or not is generally troll bait but from my personal perspective it had none of the things I wanted and featured many things I didn't. I certainly won't be touching it until well after SP1 and even then only if there are several great games for me to play. It was a release "failure" to people like me who expected some goodies and a new Windows iteration but Microsoft delivered a more restrictive operating system. No thanks!
Office 2007 UI? (Score:4, Interesting)
They already tried that (Score:1, Interesting)
dom
Re:Office 2007 UI? (Score:5, Interesting)
I beg to differ. First of all, they're not going to 'mirror' the new Office UI into Windows 7. If they wanted to do that, they would just need some code monkeys. They moved the guy who did it into Windows 7 development, which I think is a good move looking at how he improved the usability of Office. Lets hope that he work a similar type of magic for Windows.
I find the new Ribbon UI leaps and bounds ahead of the UI in Office 2003. The menus are just way more accessible instead of navigating through a labyrinth-like maze of dropdowns. You are more likely to use many features while you never knew even existed earlier because navigating was a chore. Also, I think it makes very good use of the extra pixels that modern screens have(a few years ago, it would have been a colossal waste of screen space).
Take the anecdotal evidence for what it's worth, but almost every person at work seems to love the new interface. I think that this is a good move by Microsoft.
Virtual Machines (Score:5, Interesting)
That just gave me an interesting idea: Why doesn't MS ship fully functional versions of previous OS's, wrapped in a VM, with newer versions? What would they lose? I know I'd be far less worried about upgrading to Vista if I knew I could load up a built-in VM of DOS 6.0 or Win98SE or WinXP and play all my favorite shareware games from the '90s as easily as the latest-and-greatest. Same goes for here at work...it would be nice to know that some of our older software could just be loaded in a VM until the vendors catch up with Vista. As long as they maintain security on the sandbox itself, they wouldn't need to worry overmuch about keeping the old OS up to date, and it's not like people would be buying Vista just to exclusively use it to run XP, but it would make for a much more obvious upgrade path than the current hard cutoff in backwards compatibility.
Re:How about pulling a Mac? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is a serious question: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This convinces me that linux is going to make i (Score:5, Interesting)
The OSS model is working a lot better at spreading out the complexity and costs of innovating within an OS. Its simply a more sustainable "business" model than Microsoft's.
simplicity... (Score:4, Interesting)
For Server: no client access licenses. When you buy a copy of the server software, you can have as many clients as you want. Each server version is capable of everything, including clustering, load balancing, and everything else.
For Workstation: one interface. It could be new or old, whatever, but exactly one. If it's new, we all need to learn the new version. Don't like that? Get Linux or a Mac.
Finally, both server and workstation should support a single hardware compatibility list. If your hardware isn't on the list, you can't load it; update the list monthly through Windows Update. There is Driver Signing already, but you can get around it by ignoring the warnings. Eliminate getting around the warnings.
That's a good idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
What they really ought to do is something more like what Apple did with the Classic Mode environment for supporting OS 9 applications, which ran within OS X. Thing is, MS will probably have to support theirs indefinitely, while Apple was able to successfully kill Classic Mode within about 5 years.
MS Already Failed At This A Couple Of Times (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft has already failed at all of these things people want them to do, you have to look elsewhere and fast because Windows 7.0 is just one release after Vista (6.1) it is going to be mostly the same. Microsoft Research hasn't fixed major architectural flaws. The sloppy security of the app platform is just one problem. For example the apps are all hard-coded to 96 dpi and nothing has been done to move forward. Displays with 300 dpi are essentially print devices, MS hasn't got any printing chops, even Word is only WYSIWYG by 1980's standards. MS also does not have a Web 2.0 browser or a lightweight browser or modern media support (MPEG-4) and their 64-bit transition is a disaster.
This guy is the kind of dreamer Microsoft feasts on. He's so full of excuses for MS yet bitter also. He wants a reward now for all the years he did free grahics driver QA. Sorry, that time is gone for good.
Re:How about pulling a Mac? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problems with Windows are all at the Win32 layer. This is a huge problem for Microsoft, since their biggest competitive advantage is backwards compatibility. There is a lot of Win32 software around. Hardly anyone runs Windows because they like Windows, they run Windows because they need to be able to use some bit of Win32 (or, in some cases, Win16) software, and trust Windows to do this more than WINE.
Re:Coke Classic (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll be missed! (Score:0, Interesting)
Lemmie guess, you've used pre-2007 MS Office a bit?
In user testing, Microsoft found that for people who had used old-style Office, the success rate for old-style and new-style UIs was the same (though they bitched about it, as you are). For people who had never used it before, the new-style UI had a much higher success rate.
I know a bunch of people are religious about "if it doesn't look like MS Word 5, I hate it!", but Ribbons mean more people can use it, and more importantly, that *new* users can use it. All you old-style users will be dead, eventually, and keeping UI-backwards-compatibility will be as useless as CPM-backwards-compatibility: upgrade to keep up with the times, or die out.
Normally I can't stand Microsoft apps but this time they've got it right.
Re:Office 2007 UI? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have found the new UI, after using it day in and out (work related) to be exceptional and well thought. I work more quickly as I've learned the menus.
It's entirely different, and that does put people off using it with ease, but different doesn't mean bad necessarily. It takes getting used to, just like anything else.
Re:How about pulling a Mac? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Vista is not a failure (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well, I doubt that's the reason for the bomb (Score:5, Interesting)
Install was easy if not quick. The UAC pop ups were expected and not so annoying to begin with. I started clearing them and changing the factors that caused them. Everything I did caused another one. I started trying to get my SLI and dual screen setup to work. Vista would never see the second screen. I went to download the latest nVidia driver (~60Mb) via IE 7. It took it nearly 12 minutes over my 15Mb FiOS connection. Installed the driver and still Vista would not see my second monitor. That did it for me. Three hours was enough time wasted when I should have been surfing at the speed of light and playing.
Installed XP and updated it in less than 2 hours. Downloaded the same ~60Mb patch via Firefox in less than one minute. By hour three I was playing World of Warcraft faster, more smoothly and more richly than I'd ever seen it before.
I could have eventually worked through the technical glitches, but there's no way I can improve Vista and IE 7's sluggish performance THAT much.
An OS lesson from... STAR WARS??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Old computers that still kick A55 and would be a shame to throw out. I have a PIII-400 that stills does what it needs to, and a Mac 8500 that still does nearly everything I ask, except that IE Mac doesn't work on most sites. What we need to do, sometime <BLINK>REALLY SOON</BLINK> is to freeze a subset of computers and OS forever into an R2-Unit standard.
Recall that the R2 unit loaded into Luke's X-wing was the SAME unit that Obi-Wan used. How likely is it that ANYTHING we have on a computer now will even physically plug in, let alone work in 40 years. Some computers can do 90% of what we need from now until at least 20 years from now. Can we PLEASE pick a set of standards and let that class of computer be supported? For example, ATA-100, USB 2.0 (or Firewire800, I don't care), DVI, RJ-45... I have peripherals in my garage with no computer capable of connecting them. I still have a copy of X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter... as if. Something. Anything.
And Windows Whatever. XP, XT, 2KSP17. I don't care. That way, as we retire, the Geek Squad can say, "Do you want us to replace your computer? This one's seen a lot of wear." "Not on your life. That G4 Titanum and me have been through a lot together."
PS: The blink tag was fake.
Re:Well, I doubt that's the reason for the bomb (Score:5, Interesting)
Also XP brought us things like a built-in firewall, clear type, remote desktop, 64bit support, etc.
It also brought some unwelcome things like product activation and DRM, but on the whole it is widely agreed that XP is a respectable upgrade over 2000. This is where your argument pretty much falls apart, it is not widely agreed that Vista is a worthwhile upgrade over XP, in fact it is quite the opposite. So your statement that "But XP, in its current state, has no selling point." isn't really true. If it had no selling point then why are people still clamoring for XP and why are we seeing vendors who had moved to Vista had to cave in to the huge demand to bring XP back?
That simply did not happen on such a large scale with XP. I remember the XP haters(I was probably one of them) and the complaints about speed when XP first came out but they pail in comparison to the revolt I'm seeing against Vista. IMHO this is new and different then any other MS transition to date. Or maybe I should just say this is the worst Microsoft OS transition to date and when you look at what happened internally during Vista's development cycle nobody should be surprised at the outcome.
Your right that in 200x when Windows 7 comes out that these same old arguments will crop up, but unless MS pulls a rabbit out of their asses with Vista SP1 your going to see a huge amount of users sticking with XP until Windows 7 comes out.
Re:Coke Classic (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. New Coke was actually better. Blind testing proved that people loved it. It failed because people were terrified and resentful of change. They didn't hate the soda. They hated the change. The very idea of change made a delicious beverage taste bad.
There might be a lesson for those who long for large scale Linux adoption in that story.
Re:Coke Classic (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:An OS lesson from... STAR WARS??? (Score:3, Interesting)
"I want to buy a computer. What should I get?"
"What are you going to do with it?"
"I dunno, email, surf the net, word processor... Is Dual COre 3GHz with a 500GB hard drive enough?"
"You could do that on my kids PIII-400."
A lot of great advances have shown up since '95. USB, 500GB drives, LCD monitors, Wireless networking, DVD burners. Sure, Moore's LAw has boosted CPU speeds 128 times. Hard drives and RAM has gone up nearly that much... But have our emails gotten 128X bigger? Do we send 128X more of them? Do I chat with 128X times as many people? My kids PIII can send a 10MB email attachment. It can download songs, and shove them onto his iPod. Have we aquired 500GB of music that we want to listen to? Monitors won't get much bigger. Are they 128X better resolution? I just threw out a bunch of PS/2 keyboards. We have USB, we have Bluetooth. Are we going to get a keyboard that works 128X times farther away in 10 years?
I'm saying that when the last Dell with XP rolls off the line, it will still be able to connect, produce, download, rip, burn just as well in 10 years. So why upgrade? Because Belkin doesn't produce the USB to cranial-input standard adapter? Because some iPod Killer (titter titter) requires a 3-yo or less OS? Let's take that capability, and freeze it to an "R2-Standard"
If Open Source wants to HELP, then form a standard to which code could be ported forever. Call it Windows 7734ever.
Then, when I DO buy the Chronosynclastic Infindibulum Version of Windows XII, I can give my grandkids the Dual Core-3GHz and they may still be able to use it for something. Like watch YouTubeHD3D.