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Windows Technology

Windows 7 Trumps Vista By Reaching 20% Share 404

Posted by Soulskill from the seven-of-one,-half-dozen-of-the-other dept.
CWmike writes "Windows 7 cracked the 20% share mark last month, a milestone the problem-plagued Vista never reached, Web measurement vendor Net Application said over the weekend. Gregg Keizer reports that Windows 7's online usage share reached 20.9% in December, up 1.2 percentage points from the month before. Windows Vista, meanwhile, fell by half a point to 12.1%, its lowest share since July 2008. Vista peaked at 18.8% in October 2009, the same month that Microsoft launched Windows 7. The other standout finding: XP is projected to still account for 13% when it's retired in 2014." An anonymous reader adds news that Google's Chrome browser is nearing 10% market share.
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Windows 7 Trumps Vista By Reaching 20% Share More

Windows 7 Trumps Vista By Reaching 20% Share

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  • Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by devxo ( 1963088 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:19PM (#34749348)
    I'm not surprised, Windows 7 is actually rock solid OS. Everything is done perfectly and feels good. Vista itself wasn't bad, but drivers for it weren't ready. It was the necessary to move from XP.

    It's hard to think how Microsoft can make the next Windows better from Windows 7.

    • Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:24PM (#34749382) Homepage

      I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

      The only reason to upgrade from XP is because security updates are due to end soon. And while that's a valid reason, most businesses are going to be asking themselves why they should upgrade if that's the only reason.

      • Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:31PM (#34749422)

        I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

        I still feel that way about XP and Windows 2000. Welcome to the upgrade treadmill. You got on it by choice, now upgrade.

        • I still feel that way about XP and Windows 2000. Welcome to the upgrade treadmill.

          Don't blame me, I'm still using System 6 on my Mac.

          • Viruses aside, System 8 is pretty decent, though 6 is black and white, and stretching your sanity ;).

            Even if Windows admins worldwide could suddenly enjoy security-through-small-marketshare status, they would hit the hidden brickwall of Web 1.5 to Web 2.0. You and non-geek home users stuck with 15-year-old PCs at home just realize their computer is a filing cabinet with marginal use

            Hotmail and Yahoo are daily sites you would need, but they use underhanded "comment tags that by recent convention really shoul

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by igreaterthanu ( 1942456 ) *

        Even the new task bar and Aero Snap alone give great productivity increases. It takes a while of getting used to them though.

        The "libraries" feature can be useful too. For example if you have a large amount of music on your external hard drive, some on a network drive and some on your local disk, you can create a "library" which is basically a virtual folder which combines files from multiple sources. You can have as many as you like and they show up as folders in Windows Explorer and in file dialogs.

        Then t

        • None of which is hugely useful to the average office worker, who will be confused by quite a few of the new things, such as the change to how search works.

        • Windows search is a pig. Ive had to disable it for example in Outlook because it slows everything down, or just plain breaks search. Most of the small things you list can be tacked on after the fact if you want them. 7 is nice in a lot of ways, but theres not a lot that it does that XP couldnt do, and 3rd party apps tend to do those things far better.

      • Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bigjeff5 ( 1143585 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:41PM (#34749482)

        Time to read bud, there is a ton of info on it. Since Win 7 is basically Vista+, you have to start with the difference between XP and Vista. This is where the majority of changes occurred.

        Read the following to fully understand the difference between 7 and XP, or cherry pick to get a basic idea:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org] - stuff the end user will care about
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org] - stuff that actually makes it better
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_safety_features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org] - stuff your IT guys will care about
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org] - more stuff your IT guys will care about

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 [wikipedia.org] - stuff the end user will care about, including the features that were removed since Vista

        • Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Interesting)

          by laron ( 102608 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2011 @01:42AM (#34751538)

          Not to forget:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org]
          A lot of little things are no longer there, for example the ability to display activity icons for each network connection (dial-up, VPN, WiFi, LAN) in the systray so you can actually see which interfaces are being used right now. Does anybody know a third party replacement for that?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by increment1 ( 1722312 )

        I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need )

        Have you seen the transparent windows?

        • The particular features I find most useful in 7 is instant search, SSD support, UAC, integrated backup, GPU accelerated desktop, Aero snap and peek, and jump lists.

          But...Steve Ballmer's a jerk!

        • SSD support

          XP supported SSDs; it does NOT support TRIM. There is a big difference.

          UAC

          XP has something similar, though, called RunAs-- several of my clients machines are set up so that if they attempt to install a program, a runas window pops up.

          integrated backup

          Ive personally found none of the integrated backups that windows has had to be terribly useful; but at least NTbackup supported tape, and individual file backup (rather than the all or nothing that 7 has)

          GPU accelerated desktop

          I dont know that its "Useful" persay, but granted that is something XP canno

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by 0123456 ( 636235 )

            I dont know that its "Useful" persay, but granted that is something XP cannot have outside of someone rolling their own explorer replacement

            I'm always puzzled by people who talk about the glories of 'GPU-accelerated rendering', because Windows has had GPU-accelerated rendering since at least version 3.0. XP desktops are GPU-accelerated unless you have a really shitty driver.

            It doesn't have fancy compositing, but who needs it on a business computer?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Decent IPv6 support, decent x86_64 support..not to mention that XP was TERRIBLE at managing multiple cores/processors and memory. XP would prefer the page file over real memory for some reason, too. Also, if you've ever done OS imaging via RIS, WDS is worlds better.

        • Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:54PM (#34749566)

          not to mention that XP was TERRIBLE at managing multiple cores/processors and memory

          I'm surprised how often this isn't mentioned. To extend, XP also has problems differentiating between an SMT core and an actual real core (important with all these i5s and i7s). Seen XP SP3 think its a good idea to put a double threaded job on "processor 0 and 1" with 2 and 3 empty. Problem is 0 and 1 was the same core, so effectively half the CPU was unused. Windows Vista and 7 don't make the same mistake - and thats part of the reason you on a SMT capable processor often see certain cores facing much higher workloads on average than others.

        • decent IPv6 support

          True, except that it occasionally needs to be completely disabled to get things to stop breaking, when it insists on trying to do IPv6 AAAA lookups on a domain network where no IPv6 configuration was done. There are several articles on this, and it is quite bothersome.

      • I'm still having a hard time understanding what technologies exist in 7 that don't in XP AND are something I ( or a business would need ).

        The reasons that we are is for 64 bit and ability to use more RAM. We're also in the medical imaging sector so both of those means that our programs can handle more images a lot faster. Also, it's getting to be a pain to support some newer hardware in WinXP as the base install disk doesn't have the drivers needed to boot some of it. Some companies simply aren't supplying

      • I really don't understand the claims that there are no improvements in Win 7 versus XP. I suspect they are only playing Minecraft.

        Just a few that are top of mind for me:

        A large base of 64-bit drivers; if a x86 driver exists, a 64-bit driver does too. Only needed if you want more than 4GB of RAM. What's that? No one will ever need more than 4GB of RAM? :P
        SSD TRIM support.
        A more usable taskbar.
        Searchable start menu.
        Usability improvements in native file explorer.
        Stability improvements. A misbehaving app doesn'

      • Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Funny)

        by interkin3tic ( 1469267 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @08:12PM (#34749690)

        I hear you. I'm still running windows ME. It's safer really. Few blackhats bother to check compatibility of their viruses or malware with older operating systems. Some rogue antivirus popped up a message saying "Scanning: You have... Windows ME? Shit, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. Uninstalling..."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        For users, or administrators?

        Here are a couple good reasons why a company employing IT types might want it:
        * UAC, as well as the signfiicant improvements in whatever mechanisms are used to authenticate users. It's now not a huge pain in the ass for an 'administrator' (or someone with heightened ACL privileges) to actually work on a domain workstation that's been locked down. (In XP, "locked down" meant "not an Administrator". For many years it was all but impossible do much at all w/o such privileges and/or

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mr_eX9 ( 800448 )
        I disagree--Windows 7 does a lot of good catching up to Mac OS and Linux in terms of keyboard shortcuts (Aero Snap alone is seriously worth $250 or more and is better than 3rd-party solutions,) multi-monitor management, and coherence of the different places that applications live. I can't wait till my workplace upgrades our machines to Win7 so I don't have to manually drag and resize windows anymore.
      • I'm not a windows expert by any means (mostly use Linux) but I use Windows at work...
        • Productivity. The new start menu is worth the upgrade cost alone. The task bar is also a huge improvement (although I tend to use full application names instead of the default icon only). I can't live without Aero Snap anymore.
        • Security. Not running everything as admin actually works well. Lots of new security features, some of which IE takes advantage of (you'll notice that many 0-day exploits are defeated by IE8 running
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mr_eX9 ( 800448 )
      Mac OS-style upgrades that are less expensive and focus on features over infrastructure (at least from a user perspective) would be pretty neat. And it would ensure that we don't have to wait 5 years between releases (or 7 years between viable releases) again.
      • Why would you want upgrades that focus on features over infrastructure? Features are essentially fluff and can be supplemented by applications; core infrastructure is critical to the performance and stability of the system. It sounds like you're trying to suggest that "form over function" is a good thing in core OS design, which is hogwash.

        OS X upgrades aren't generally cheaper, either; Leopard was the same price as Vista ($129) and Tiger, Panther, and Jaguar all cost $129 each where XP got free servic

      • Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gadget_Guy ( 627405 ) * on Monday January 03, 2011 @08:21PM (#34749748)

        XP's Service Packs were the equivalent of Mac OS's upgrades, but they were free. The most notable upgrade was Service Pack 2, which introduced the firewall, pop-up blocker, Bluetooth support, Windows Security Center, etc. Sure, it is not a patch on the monumental changes introduced with Vista, but when people say that XP did everything that they needed they actually should say that XP SP2 did all they need. If you gave someone a computer with the original version of the OS then they wouldn't be so happy.

        • Agreed.. XP wasn't even as stable as Win2K (notME) when released... Win7 is the only windows version other than 2K that was very stable at release... at least for me, until >32GB drives were more common.
    • I'm normally a devout Linux user, but I can set my biases aside enough to admit that Microsoft did a good job with Windows 7. Of course, Vista could have been much better than it was if its codebase hadn't deteriorated so much during its insanely long development cycle.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        I'm a devout Linux/Mac user that has to support Windows 7 for a living. I can say that it's a dog.
        - It doesn't work all that well on low-end hardware or virtual machines
        - Every time you deploy an image you have to manually re-register the thing with Microsoft so it doesn't disable itself
        - Still no decent backup system
        - XP Mode is buggy and compatibility in general is bad (especially in the 64-bit versions)
        - Still no EXT3/EXT4 (or any Unix-type), Large FAT or GPT support
        - Limit of 2 physical processors? Real

        • You still have to download a virus scanner, there is none built-in nor is the OS self-contained enough to be used without one.

          The DOJ made sure it wouldn't come with one bundled. Installing MSE is free, easy, and it works well.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by SpryGuy ( 206254 )

          Almost nothing you cited is actually true. There's no 2 physical limit on processors (for the Professional and higher versions)... heck, I'm using Win7 on a 4 year old box with 4 procesors (dual CPU with hyper-threading for 4 "virtual" processors). We also use virtual machines all over the place and it works quite well... with no need to constantly 'register' them. And yeah, you have to download "Microsoft Security Essentials" separately, thanks to wanting to avoid issues with the DOJ and law-suit happy

          • dual CPU with hyper-threading for 4 "virtual" processors

            What part of physical did you fail to understand? What parent said is right: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/win7/windows-7-product-editions-a-comparison.aspx#performance [winsupersite.com]

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by SpryGuy ( 206254 )

              So... if unlimited cores and two physical processors isn't enough for you, then why aren't you using Windows Server 2008 R2?

              Please. This is an utterly ridiculous complaint.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by guruevi ( 827432 )

                Windows Server only supports 4 sockets and up to 32GB RAM unless you pay for the Enterprise version and we are currently physically limited to 4-6 real cores (12 with HT) per CPU.

                For a workstation in the scientific or engineering field it is quite feasible to have a 4-socket system and more than 32GB of RAM SuperMicro makes quite a few of them in tower version.

                The complaint is that there is a limit based on the license you buy. This is really annoying that people can't use $OS_of_choice and have to use a Se

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by SpryGuy ( 206254 )

                  This remains an utterly silly argument for staying with XP and avoiding upgrading to Win7... especially for, oh, say, 98% of people for whom most of these issues you raise are just esoterica.

                  It's certainly not alien in the universe of software (especially at microsoft) that you pay more for more advanced capabilities. You can legitimately call into question the entire practice, but my point is that this is an utterly ridiculous argument for staying with XP over upgrading to Win7.... which is the current to

        • you still have to download a virus scanner

          Including a virus scanner with windows would a terrible idea. If you have a virus scanner monoculture, every virus will know how to bypass said scanner.

        • Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)

          by bertok ( 226922 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @08:52PM (#34749938)

          It doesn't work all that well on low-end hardware or virtual machines

          It's been demonstrated to match XP performance on even quite low-end gear by several third-party tests. My experience is that's it's faster, particularly the 64-bit builds, which increase the file cache size from ~400MB max to "all of physical memory", which is a big improvement.

          Every time you deploy an image you have to manually re-register the thing with Microsoft so it doesn't disable itself

          You're Doing It Wrong. If you're supporting Windows 7 for businesses, you should be using KMS or MAK, and using the volume licensed Enterprise editions, not Windows 7 Home or whatever.

          Still no decent backup system

          It's the best ever - it has both file-level and image-based backups, it can take live snapshots of disks for both types, back up open files, it has a built-in scheduler, and a bunch of other features.

          The VHD disk images created by Windows 7 can be mounted as virtual disks using a GUI or the command-line, can be used to boot from directly without having to be restored first, can be trivially converted into a virtual machine disk, and the install CD has a built-in restore wizard.

          I haven't seen comparable features in any other operating system except OSX.

          More importantly, if you're backing up desktops, You're Doing It Wrong. Laptops should use offline folders to sync with the master copy of the user data on a server, and shouldn't need backing up. Desktops should use folder redirection and/or roaming profiles. Back up your servers, not your desktops.

          You can even do it the "Linux way" if you want to: I've seen sample scripts floating about that take a VSS snapshot of a disk, mount it as a folder or drive letter, and use rsync to incrementally update a backup, then release the snapshot automatically. I've done this myself for Windows Server 2003, about 6 years ago, it's nothing new.

          XP Mode is buggy and compatibility in general is bad (especially in the 64-bit versions)

          You shouldn't even need XP-mode most of the time, particularly on 32-bit editions of Windows 7. I've found that even the 64-bit editions will run just about anything if you simply set the "compatibility flags" on the main program executables. Just how bad are these applications that you have to support? Shouldn't you be blaming the app vendors instead of Microsoft?

          Still no EXT3/EXT4 (or any Unix-type), Large FAT or GPT support

          Are you kidding me? First, Windows has had GPT disk and boot support since Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, it has xFAT, NTFS on removable drives, and there's third-party EXT3 plugins.

          If you think EXT3 on Windows is an important feature, again, You're Doing It Wrong. NTFS is a superior filesystem for Windows in practically every way. If you want to share data between Windows and Linux, use NTFS drivers on Linux, or a server with SAMBA.

          Limit of 2 physical processors? Really? It's easy to get 4 processors in a box these days with 8 cores each especially in the academic world

          That sucks, but 2 sockets is 12-16 cores these days. If you need more computing power than that, than you can afford a Windows Server 2008 R2 license, which gives you almost all the Windows 7 features, and more processor socket licenses. It's a commercial operating system, and it costs money.

          Full Disk Encryption requires TPM chips which are missing in just about any system these days so you still have to go into a 3rd party solution.

          The TPM requirement can be turned off using a group policy setting, but then it's not transparent to users, they have to enter a pass-phrase on every boot. External disk encryption doesn't require a TPM chip by default, I use that feature on my rather old laptop that doesn't have a TPM chip.

          You still have to downlo

      • When an application requires higher privileges, you should always get a UAC prompt, rather than quite often getting "access denied" instead. The control panel should make it easy to elevate permissions when necessary. It should be obvious (as in not having to search on the internet to find out how) how to run Windows Explorer in admin mode. You should never have to login to an admin account to do anything. In short tidy up the security system so that it is as seamless as possible.
      • Change as little as p

  • Bad news for anyone doing web sites (Score:5, Informative)

    by cyber-vandal ( 148830 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:28PM (#34749410) Homepage

    With the continuing use of XP we'll still be supporting IE6, 7 and 8 for the forseeable future, given that IE9 won't run on XP.

    • JChrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera run on Windows XP very nicely. IE 9 could run on Windows XP just as nicely, actually, but MS decided to make an artificial impediment.

      • I don't think it's so artificial, because of the acceleration enhancements, and the updates to the underlying graphics system from Vista/win7

  • Here come the "its not better than XP" posts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:33PM (#34749440)

    Let me count the ways:

    1. The UAC - unfortunately users can't be bothered to run as a non-admin and just use runas, so UAC is the next best thing. Running as non-admin is easier than ever.

    2. 64-bit support with easy to find 64-bit drivers. If you want MS to sign your drivers you need to provide 64-bit.

    3. Protected mode - not as in memory but as in a native sandboxing technology that IE and and Adobe X use. These apps interact with the OS via a broker process. This is also why so many exploit target the add-ons (Flash, pre-X Adobe, Java) and not the browser itself.

    4. Bitlocker

    5. Large disk support.

    6. SSD TRIM support. I have 3 SSD drives and they would be a PITA without TRIM in 7.

    7. Better security architecture. A lot of things dont run as non-admin in XP so you needed to run them as admin or system to make them work, which greatly increased your attack surface.

    8. Better Windows update agent. I love the option to ether use my WSUS or go to MS to get updates . As well as a decent GUI that shows me that status of the updates, last update, etc.

    9. Windows Media Center done right.

    10. Powershell support native.

    11. A decent taskbar, finally.

    12. Performance increase. I've run 7 on 256 megs of RAM on an old P4 and it flies on modern hardware.

    13. Youre going to upgrade anyway from XP eventually, might as well get something good.

    • Re:Here come the "its not better than XP" posts (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:48PM (#34749514)
      The importance of any upgrade is subjective, so YMMV. For me, the recent upgrade from XP to 7 was a hassle with no benefit. The main difference is I spend more time looking for stuff they moved around. I also found Win 7 definitely more RAM hungry, and the USB driver for my Garmin GPS doesn't work under 7.

    • For home users you're right. For the majority of business users however who don't get the latest version of Windows every 3 or 4 years:

      1. UAC is irrelevant to business users who use a locked down XP Pro

      2. 32 bit is going nowhere for the foreseeable future

      3. The only point I agree with, however a good IT department and good security software will keep threats to a minimum

      4. Bitlocker is irrelevant to most business users

      5. It'll be quite a while before most business users need 2TB disk space

      6. Few busi

    • Only 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 are really important. In a company environment, all can be addressed with correct policies in place. That's much cheaper than having to upgrade to Win 7.

    • As to Point 13 and specifically "eventually," if that moment is 2012, then maybe one could go from XP to the no-doubt-better-successor to Windows 7. Is the cost of XP to Win7 and Win7 to Win8 really going to be less expensive than XP straight to Win8? If it were, then people will choose to stick with XP. Costs and applications trump the underlying benefits of the new operating system, unless those benefits are realized with little user intervention. XP to Win7 was not such an upgrade.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      12. 256 MB of RAM? I can't stand with 512 MB of RAM! XP Pro. SP2 and SP3 were faster especially when multitasking.

    • UAC

      On the flip side, if they are running as admin, they only have to click "OK". Its better, but it doesnt protect against PEBKAC :(

      protected mode...this is why they target the addons...

      IIRC Protected mode isnt a huge barrier, as its been broken. Addons are targeted because they are wildly insecure, installed on a huge userbase, and are cross-browser-- so even though a very large minority(?) of users are on chrome / firefox, they are still trivially targetable.

      bitlocker

      I dont understand why someone wanting full disk encryption would pay the extra money for ultimate rath

    • 11. A decent taskbar, finally.

      My BIGGEST gripe with Win 7 is the taskbar. It seems like every time Microsoft does something right, they do it wrong in the next version. The taskbar in Win 7 is horrible. I want my quick launch back. I want to know what will happen when I click a button. I hate that I have to right click to start a new instance. About the only the Win7 did right is make it easier to hide tray icons. Give me the XP task bar anyday. And get rid of the stupid aero look.

      • I want my quick launch back

        right-click, toolbars, new toolbar, %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

    • A few more:

      14. ASLR, which provides much better protection against exploits. The majority of exploits on Win7 were on old DLLs that didn't use ASLR, but going forward that won't be an option.

      15. Aero Snap, the ability to tile windows side-by-side made fast, intuitive, and dead easy. Anytime I find myself using an older OS I'm always ending up with windows placed half-off the screen and wondering why they didn't snap.

      16. Built-in multi-touch support. Although the base OS makes relatively little use of it (yo

  • TL;DR version (Score:5, Informative)

    by WinstonWolfIT ( 1550079 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:41PM (#34749480)
    20% of the computers currently in use were shipped with Windows 7.

  • The thing about XP, it's familiar and simple. People are just so use to it. My experience with Windows 7 is that things aren't where they use to be. So, maybe that's the issue.

    Now, for the fun part of this post. Anyone here hanging onto unused copies of XP just incase you decide to build a new machine? I know I am.

  • Vendors are Lazy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:58PM (#34749588)
    Vista was actually ok and now it's up to Service Pack 2 it's not that bad. What gave Vista the bad reputation was that at launch drivers were horrible. Vista was the re-architecture step for Windows and vendors by being late to develop well-behaved drivers significantly contributed to it's negative reception. Now, fast forward to today: 7 is Vista+ and vendors are already up to speed with their drivers and it had a 1 year open beta to nail everything down. No hassles, good support.

    Vista took the hits that prepared the wider software-ecosystem for 7.

    Another thing to think about is that with Windows 7 64-bit is now entering the mainstream. My 7 machine is 64-bit and I have 8GB in the puppy. Of course, my Ubuntu laptop is also 64-bit even though it only has 2GB of RAM.
    • I love Vista. Its wonderful performance and "phone home" functionality that sends personal information to Microsoft made me become a happy Linux user. I haven't run Windows at home since.
      • If it wasn't for games I'd be Linux only too. Fact is WINE doesn't cut it and I don't want an XBox 360.
    • yeah, I'm not sure what Vista you're using but it's not the same as mine. Vista was a miserable pile of crap, particularly on a memory starved system - which every system that I used that ran Vista always was. It was slow, always swapping and .... cludgey. My laptop doubled in speed when I installed Windows 7, even on a fresh install it was miserable under Vista. Now I've moved everything over to Ubuntu and it's even better.

      • Re:Vendors are Lazy (Score:4, Informative)

        by headkase ( 533448 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @09:27PM (#34750112)
        My sister's laptop has 1GB RAM, some value-segment AMD Turion processor, and Vista 32-bit. It's not a speed demon but it's no dog either. 7 is undeniably better than Vista, but Vista, now at Service Pack 2, I reiterate, is not that bad.

        All I know is that every Christmas when she comes by I do a complete format on that machine to refresh it for another year for her. She never complains about it! ;)

        • All I know is that every Christmas when she comes by I do a complete format on that machine to refresh it for another year for her.

          I shuddered reading this, as I remembered what its like to use windows. Bleh!

    • Don't blame the vendors. The specs for Vista were metamorphosing from day to day until Service Pack 1, and no vendor could predict which way the other vendors would sway things, so there was no _point_ for them in alpha testing. And don't forget the nightmare that was WinFS, which has corectly been discarded entirely. Shoving an ill-managed, demonstrably fragile, resource gobbling and impossible to repair database into the kernel's filesystem components was a bad idea. It's why Berkeley DB was never success

  • good riddance to bad rubbish (Score:3)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Monday January 03, 2011 @08:10PM (#34749672)

    I'll see you in Hell, Vista. You and RAMBUS!

  • Why is this news? (Score:3)

    by MikeV ( 7307 ) on Monday January 03, 2011 @09:19PM (#34750068)

    No one sells Vista anymore or offers it pre-installed. Everyone is selling 7 now and offering it pre-installed. /. is acting like this is some sort of race. Windows 7 is winning!!!! Winning against what? Vista is dead. Being proud that 7 is winning against roadkill is pretty pathetic.

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