How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development

snydeq writes "For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company's Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to 'define a feature set early on' and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature-complete, although its final release to business customers isn't expected until November." As a data point for how well this has all worked out in practice, reader The other A.N.Other recommends a ZDNet article describing rough benchmarks for three versions of Windows 7 against Vista and XP. In particular, Win-7 build 7048 (64-bit) vs. Win-7 build 7000 (32-bit and 64-bit) vs. Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 were tested on both high-end and low-end hardware. The conclusions: Windows 7 is, overall, faster than both Vista and XP. As Windows 7 progresses, it's getting faster (or at least the 64-bit editions are). On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best. On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best.

Re:Vista SP2

[zonky]

Surely Vista R2 is more accurate.

Re:release date

[marcello_dl]

> It's still the same operating system, same applications, same API, etc.

nope, it's a refined OS, or one with unrefined but new functionality that tries not to break too many older stuff. The same apps run more reliably or faster. The API gets extended instead of changed.

What you call higher standards are artificial barriers. You live in them for some time, you forget about them.

To get to MS higher standards Apple and linux should instead reinvent the wheel every iteration, changing the GUIs, getting performance problems in things like file copy...

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[quickOnTheUptake]

GP was mocking W7's imposed limit of 3 concurrent apps in it's netbook/basic/whatever-they-call-it version. Not the power of netbooks.

Re:release date

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider the difficulty/inability to run iTunes on Ubuntu to be a relevant factor when considering Ubuntu vs. W7

sudo apt-get install amarok

And you're done, with a better application that won't force you to reorganise your collection

Re:release date

[jstott]

You're comparing apples and oranges. Each new release of OS X might, at best, be compared to a service pack.

No, the OSX equivalent to service packs are noted by changes to the minor version number (10.5.5 to 10.5.6 was the latest one — in Microsoft language, that would be 10.5SP6). Major releases (10.4 [Tiger] to 10.5 [Leopard]) involve significant changes to the API and introduce new features to the OS, as you can plainly see [apple.com] from Apple's web OSX page (Apple claims 300 new features added with the upgrade to Leopard; I can't verify the count, but I've found many of them to be very useful additions).

So yes, the shift from Vista to Windows.7 is comparable to one of Apple's major releases. That Windows upgrades leave a trail of wreckage has more to do with the general level of quality control [third-party's as well as Microsoft's] than the scale of the changes.

-JS

Re:release date

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo apt-get install amarok

And you're done, with a better application that won't force you to reorganise your collection

And also won't initialise an ipod (or reinitialise a corrupted ipod), won't sync new ipods, won't connect to itunes (so no free iTunes-U, or sales from the biggest online provider of music), ...

Brilliant!

Re:Will Windows 7 support the devices I already ha

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Vista twice trashed an XP system that was dual booting on the same system.

Let that be a lesson to you. Never, ever, under any circumstances should you use a dual boot system, no matter what two Operating Systems are at play. It's the one surefire way to guarantee you will have problems down the road. You went asking for trouble, and it found you.

If for some lame ass reason you need to go back and use XP, use VirtualBox [virtualbox.org] or get a cheap spare hard drive.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[Colonel Korn]

We have talked about W7 performance on netbooks [slashdot.org] which will only allow to run 3 apps. Perfect for an antivirus, a firewall, an antispyware, the WGA [microsoft.com]... oh crap!

The 3 app limit will only be for the starter edition, which is being aimed at "developing markets." Expect African, Asian, and South American users to be dissatisfied and perhaps unwilling to use Windows 7 when they're targeted.

I've run both on my netbooks...

[jddeluxe]

I have both an Asus eee 900a upgraded to a 32Gb SSD drive and a Samsung NC10 netbook; both systems upgraded to 2Gb RAM. I have to have an MS environment for some systems at work, and have had both systems set up dual boot. Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.10 run fine on either system, after tweaking for the Atheros WiFi hardware. Windows 7 Beta runs BETTER than XP Home on the Samsung NC10 with a 160Gb HD, and is a better choice if you HAVE to run an MS environment. I have to run multiple versions of all Windows versions on work systems to test device drivers and system side software for products my company manufactures, and hands down even being a "Beta" Windows 7 outshines the other Windows commercial OS products. On the other hand, it is more sluggish running off the Asus eee system with the 32Gb SSD drive.

Re:Release cycle is not a measure of quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has LTS releases for those that need stability.

Why do people keep peddling this falsehood? Allow me correct you...

Ubuntu has LTS releases for those that need security.

Correction Correction

[Lifyre]

It looks like the updated the order to anything that connects to the networks. Originally it was just Windows machines. Gotta love complex bureaucratic shit like this... It's my job to enforce these orders and even I can't keep up with them all...

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[westlake]

We have talked about W7 performance on netbooks which will only allow to run 3 apps.

We were talking about a third-world starter edition for absolute beginners that can run on hardware far less robust than the ATOM netbook you can buy at any stateside WalMart.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag? (rant)

[Anonymous Coward]

This got modded informative. On slashdot.

Shame on you, mods!

For the record: I run Xubuntu 8.10 on my EEE900A, and use it as a Desktop replacement & deelopment machine (It's my year abroad). An it works freaking fine, even if I have to make extensive use of a Ramdisk sometimes (upgraded to 2 GB Ram).

I learned most of the skills necessary to do that here. And that's why I am reading this site and why I like it. Not because of people like you who say "oh, don't bother, that's just a toy"...

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[ozphx]

You are wrong. If your source is Engadget, then Engadget is wrong. Its also not a primary source... go read the MS site on this - its basically the same as Vista - which also had a Home Basic (no media center / aero) and Starter (developing markets) SKU.

Re:Whitewashing

[YttriumOxide]

Thankfully, not everywhere in the world. Mostly just the Americas I believe. They still use sugar in Europe, Australia and NZ at the very least. Haven't specifically checked elsewhere. I almost choked first time I had a bottle of coke in the US - the HFCS just makes it "thicker" which is quite disturbing when you're not used to it.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[jaavaaguru]

I run 2 virtual machines, Komodo IDE, other development tools, manage my photo collection and play music/video on my netbook. It's really handy as I travel a lot. It handles all of those things flawlessly. And with an external monitor/keyboard plugged in, I don't use much else at home or in the office. It does the job, and isn't slow. Granted, it's not suited for big number-crunching applications, but is ideal for most things.

Netbooks being for just web surfing and email checking is a myth, and will be more-so once we start seeing dual-core netbooks.

Re:Will Windows 7 support the devices I already ha

[DoofusOfDeath]

Oh come on..

Do you honestly believe that the Linux driver ecosystem is better?

I'd say they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Windows has the advantage that every consumer device that plugs into a computer is going to get a Windows driver from the manufacturer, and the driver will be pretty full-featured typically. Not so with Linux, where the typical lack of hardware documentation leads to drivers that take longer to develop, and sometimes lack the bells and whistles of the manufacturer-developed Windows drivers.

However, the Linux drivers generally have these things going for them:

• Once they're developed, they tend to be maintained with the rest of the kernel for years and years.
• They're freely available, and often baked into the kernel itself. So if a Linux driver for a device does exist, it's often very easy to get it, if you even have to install it at all. Contrast to Windows, where for older devices you sometimes have to do lots of searching to find a driver.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[David Gerard]

For comparison, a MIPS notebook is currently available and doing reasonably well in the UK and the Netherlands: http://littlelinuxlaptop.com/ [littlelinuxlaptop.com] - the firmware is ass, but the haxx0rs have come up with their own distro which is presently at early-beta stage.

(I've tried typing on one. I can actually touchtype properly on it, which I can't on an Eee 701.)

A MIPS or ARM chip of a given processing power will always give better results with less heat than an x86, because RISC is actually better for that sort of thing. I realise all modern x86s are RISC inside with an x86 microcode interpreter on the front, but that interpreter's still fat enough to make the difference.

And Windows will never run on them ever (though I wouldn't mind trying NT4 for MIPS on the little laptop ;-) but GNU/Linux is exactly the same.

Re:release date

[CrazeeCracker]

Each new release of OS X might, at best, be compared to a service pack.

I think the reason for this sentiment is that every release of OS X is a logical development from the last. Same fundamental idea, same feature set, wich a few things tweaked here and there, a few flaws removed, and a few features added.
With Microsoft, on the other hand, the development from OS to OS is more along the lines of: "fully redeveloped, complete with new UI, written from the ground up, extra extra, etc." Or at least that's how it's been since XP came out.
I don't know if it's a programming philosophy or a marketing strategy, but it gives people the impression that these systems are a "whole new OS experience," rather than just the next logical step in OS design. I think that's another reason for why they don't bother naming Windows OSes with incremental version numbers.

(just my $.02)

Re:release date

[vadim_t]

Linux support. te-he. I don't think that even existed in 2001.

Sure it did, the box in question ran Red Hat, and AFAIK the whole point of Red Hat was providing support for Linux. Red Hat itself was founded in 1995.

My car's alternator only works when it's above freezing, can only make left turns, and has one flat tire. But other than that, it's perfectly functional.

Well, since you mentioned Win95, it has no SATA, USB (in the initial release), or RAID support, doesn't have dynamic volumes (Windows' LVM equivalent), and doesn't have anything comparable to valgrind to my knowledge. So it doesn't do any better on that point.

Backwards compatibility is quite a bit different than "future-proofing", which is like unicorns, santa claus, and transparent changes. They don't exist in IT. And for the record, the latest versions of firefox, vim, and gcc are compiled under a new glibc that would break horribly on those older systems with regard to binary compatibility and you know it.

You're not making any sense. If you're going to compile something from source, you're not going to have binary compatibility issues by definition. Whatever you compile will be binary compatible with the system you built it on.

By coaxing you mean recompiling the kernel, tweaking six different config files, and pulling your hair out for days trying to understand documentation that references C header files.

Such things if they ever needed to be done were done on that box years in the past. To my knowledge that box had just been plugged in and running without anybody touching it for years when I arrived at the company. Also from the comment on the C header files, you seem not to know how to use the man command, which hardly requires a lot of experience.

Which is exactly the level of knowledge we should expect from every single person who's going to need to service that machine. That's what amazes me about the linux crowd -- sure, you can figure out a way to do whatever kludge you want, eventually. But when you need it working right now, and you don't have a guy who was born with Donald Knuth's book in his left arm and a keyboard in his right, you're kinda screwed.

You're confusing Knuth with somebody else, I think. Knuth heavily contributed to computer science and wrote books on algorithms. Things like the KnuthMorrisPratt algorithm may be very useful in computer science, but I fail to see how would that help administrating a Linux box, or any other OS for that matter.

I don't think it makes sense to continue this conversation any further. You're clearly demonstrating that you don't really know what you're talking about, and are trying to find anything that will support your position, even if it doesn't make any sense.

Re:Vista SP2

[Lumpy]

I have found that most hardware problems stem not from Vista but from Vista 64bit. reinstalling with 32bit solves a LOT of issues. My company's IT wing does that for customers on a regular basis, and the number of calls from those people drop drastically after the reinstall to 32bit from 64bit.

the problem is that most hardware makers bork their 64bit drivers, and it's not easy to force the 32bit to install instead. I have seen it personally in the office with the Epson Workforce 600. Borked under vista 64bit, works under Vista 32bit and Windows 7 32bit.

Re:Will run on netbooks or drag?

[darien]

Microsoft's page on Windows 7 SKUs [microsoft.com] confirms that Windows 7 Starter is the edition that supports "up the three concurrent applications", while Home Basic is for "emerging markets only".

So not only are you obnoxious, you're also wrong. And the guy you were sneering at was right.