Its nice to somebody like Joe, who has the courage to just wait for the public beta of Windows Seven, instead of downloading a possible corrupted/compromised torrent. Thank you Joe for not doing that. It must have been very tempting however to do, as a lot of your colleagues did give in to that temptation.

I will be following your upcoming reviews on Windows Seven with interest. While it is doubtful that I personally will ever want or use Windows Seven, I would still be open minded enough, to say it should be an improvement from Vista. Why not, as it is Vista, an ongoing work in progress, to quote Steve Ballmer. Hopefully, you can do some in depth reviews for us, which will do more than just compare Windows Seven with Vista. Since most of the Windows users are still using XP, that comparison would be very welcome, not to mention a comparison with Mac. Also, and this is asking a lot, if Joe has the time, its would be nice to have him do an install on a low powered laptop and see how that works, maybe even compare it with linux on the same box.

Now I think that Windows Seven is getting a lot of early praise from the bloggers out there, and I look with distrust at those reviews, as I remember the praise most of these bloggers dumped on Vista. Its going be harder for bloggers to convince people that Seven is the cat's meow after how many out and out lied about how great Vista was.

Will Seven be able to run on all netbooks, that is an interesting question. MS and those indirectly on its payrolls, claim its so, but I am not convinced. A month ago I would have flat said no, now I am not as sure. But one thing is for sure, price. At the lower end netbooks, Seven will have to be given away in order to compete with Linux. And I use this link to prove what I say:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ALPHA-400&cpc=SCH

So how do you sell Seven on a $169 netbook? The answer is you don't, you cede that ground to Linux. Doubtful that Windows would run on a mips cpu anyway. At that price its comparable to some cellphones. Expect more of these low power netbooks to come on the market, and I think no matter how good Seven might be, it still costs too much.

I will reserve judgment on Win 7 because Ive yet to have any hands on experience with it, beta or not.
-
What I will say is that Chips IMO is spot on. Even if Win 7 is as great as MS claims, how on earth are they going to supply it onto a $169 netbook?
-
Like chips says they cant, and IMO Netbook popularity is partially based on being cheap and functional, something which in these economic times MS has IMO chosen to ignore by pushing forward the release of Win 7.
-
Like I say Win 7 may be great or it may not, but people are currently not wanting to spend money on new specs (IMO) and if they are not considering alternatives, then they are happy with XP.
-
If, for example the home user is surfing/wordprocessing quite happilly on their 3 yr old XP system, what possible incentive do they have to invest in new hardware and take the gamble that Win 7 is as great as MS say it is. Even forgetting the economic climate, who is going to want to do that?
-
I believe MS have failed to appreciate the end users opinion of "if it isnt broke, dont fix it"
Since XP is certainly not "broke", I suggest all the fancy features being touted as groundbreaking on Win 7 can easily be achieved on XP with 3rd party software (and I believe in many cases open source)
-
So to me the threat of open source to MS isnt simply the Linux users, its the people prepared to donate their time and code to the MS platform as well.
-
Good luck MS. IMO, if your Vista had been well received, you would have built up a loyal following and you may have even had what you like to call "fanboys" ready to jump on the Win 7 experience.
-
As I see it, there are no fanboys for MS here, and Id suggest a site such as MS watch attracts quite a broad spectrum of readers.
-
Funny that the thing MS supporters seek to ridicule (what they call fanboys) is something they, IMO would love to have themselves. If the allegations that have been made about shill posters are true, the only ones with good things to say about MS are the ones being paid to say it.

@Goblin :

"I will reserve judgment on Win 7 because Ive yet to have any hands on experience with it, beta or not."
----------------------------------------------------
Of course, there can still be changes to it up to the RC, I believe.

But here are some questions to ask about Seven when it comes out.

I believe it was Ralph or maybe Richard, that asked this very good question that was never answered well:

What exactly does Vista do that I cannot do in XP with a few 3rd party add on's?

So, I will steal this question and ask the same about Seven, what will it do that XP and/or Vista will not with a few 3rd party add on's? Why is it necessary to shell out good money for a product that is basically a service pack?

I'd say Joe is smart (well I hope he is) and already has installed Win7 but has not posted any review yet.

I installed Win7 yesterday.

After a fresh boot Win7 Ultimate consumed around 500MB of RAM, and the HDD footprint was around 10GB, so I'm not sure either that you can get Win7 even Home version to run on a Netbook. May be if it's a specific build/setup (no useless services) and with Aero disabled. In that scenario, using vLite I persronally can get Win2008 to only consume 240MB of RAM after booting, and it makes for a great workstation. Just as comparaison, using nLite, I can get XP to only use 50MB of RAM after booting, and this why XP is still the best Windows to use on Netbooks.

Eventhough Win7 has a more demanding hardware requirement than XP, it will be 3 years after Vista had launched, and even a $500 desktop will have a lot more punch than a $500 desktop when Vista launched 3 years previsouly. Win7 being a "fixed" and optimized version of Vista means that will have a better experience compared to when Vista launched.

As in Vista, there are things that I don't like in Vista UI desgin that are still there e.g. the Networking Center. In XP, When I right click on the networking icon in the tray bar I get a meaningfull list of options, in Vista/2008/7 I get to go to the Network center that has a very inefficient UI.

I won't get into the rest apart from the Taskbar. I was very fearful of the changes made here, I had read that you could not ungroup the running apps, that they were only big icons.

Now, running apps can be ungrouped and you can use small icons, but as many reviews pointed out: no more QuickLaunch. I see what MS is trying to achieve here for "normal" users and I think it will work. But for people who know how to use a computer and customize/optimize their desktop/launch menu/taskbar this is going to be painful.

I personally have 30+ quichlaunch apps. I position the QuickLaunch taskbar above the main taskbar so that it strech the all screen width, I run between 10 to 20 apps silmutaniously. Also, my running apps are ungrouped. With that scenario in mind the new taskbar is a mess. First all the icons will have a hard time fitting, and all the icons of unstarted apps are pushed to the right, or are sandwiched betwwen running apps. I don't know where to find the icons to start the other apps, whereas when using the QuickLaunch they are always at the same place. I sure hope MS will re-enable the QuickLaunch before the final version, may be it's just a regkey to enable actually.

Also, to launch a new instance of a running app, let's say IE, I have to right-click on the pinned icon and then select the right menu option. How is this more efficient? It's a 100% more clicks than previsouly when using the QuickLaunch.

This is one point that MS needs to address, they must provide a Windows UI looks and behaviours for average joes (e.g. Vista/7) and a Windows UI looks and behaviours for IT experienced users/IT professionals (Win2000/classic theme).

In the end, from a none touch-screen enabled PC point of view, Win7 is what Vista should have been. I had stopped my family and friends from upgrading to Vista and they thanked me for it. But I will "let" them upgrade to Win7 if their hardware is good enough, mostly enough RAM e.g. 4GB.

But from a Business point of view, with the recession, if businesses are happy with XP as they are, I don't see why they need to upgrade to Win7. If all you do is open a document (word/excel...etc...), use internet/intranet, and send emails. Plus, XP's support lifecycle is meant to go through mid 2014, enough to wait for the next-next Windows version. I don't think they'll wait that far, but I don't expect businesses to rush to upgrade to Win7 after they have reviewed it and realized that it's just Vista v2 and then say: "So what? What's the extra value? what does it fix/improve when compared to XP?". I think the majority of businesses will sit and wait for another year after Win7 launches.

We'll see.

hi David,
I found your article very interesting and it came across as an honest appraisal of MSs new platform
-
The thing I couldnt see however was any significant advantage over XP, and certainly considering its IMO massive requirements for which many will have to upgrade, I still cannot see the incentive and go back to my original point of, does MS actually realise there is a credit crisis on at the moment?
-
David, in your opinion, have you found any reason to upgrade from XP which is worth people upgrading their machines and buying Win 7?

@David:
I found your post very interesting and informative. Its the kind of post that informs and is a pleasure to read. Thinking of vLite, brings me back to the day of slipstreaming my old XP disk with all the service packs, hotfixes, and making it unattended. Sure saved at lot of time when you had to reinstall. In many ways I was that XP fanboy back then.

I still have a lot of respect for old XP, actually. At least compared to what has become of Windows now, Vista. Linux users are mostly former windows users, or users who use both systems to some extent. It is why we are so good about posting about the problems of windows. XP did have the malware problems, was not really portable, like linux, which could be even put on a usb stick. But then, Mac sort of suffers this portability problem like Windows, but perhaps not as much? By portable, I mean transferring you installation by removing the hard drive with your operating system on it and putting it in a completely different (hardware) computer. Linux does well here, as did windows 98se, but not commercial OS like Mac and XP, Vista, Seven, as MS wants you to just buy another disk. Then of course, Windows still suffers a stability problem, when compared to Linux and most likely Mac.

But I think the point you were trying to make is that Seven is not going be able to run on older machines that are currently running XP? Because it still requires too many resources. I would add that the driver database for Vista/Seven is also different and poses problems for anyone attempting this too. BTW, I agree with your point.

What I suggest then, is that Seven, just like the Vista it is, will not sell a lot of the full standalone boxed versions in the stores, just like Vista failed to do, and for the same reasons we just talked about. It will be about 90% OEM and business versions that sell, you know, the hard monopoly sell, the one (MS Tax) that you have to pay when you buy a new PC. And this, does not bode well for MS, as the recession is turning out to be worse than predicted so far.

So here's the thing, MS is writing off the market of older machines out there, as I see it. Why not continue XP with a newer version so they could sell the "classic coke" vs the "new coke" Vista/Seven? There is a lot of folks out there with older machines that their computers still do everything they want and as much as the newer Vista/Seven machines will for them, and faster too.

Just to sum it all up mostly in a brief statement, will Windows Seven be able to replace XP on older computers with less resources, and on lower resource Netbooks?

I have not made up my mine completely on this one yet, but tend to think Seven will not be a drop in replacement for XP. XP will live on, and Linux and Mac will be the true upgrade path.

I agree chips, what worries me (on behalf of the potential customers) is that the RC of Win 7 may be very different to the beast we are reading about here.
-
In addition the specs it appears to require seems to suggest that the system running on "average users" hardware and performing a few tasks may well be a much different experience than those we are reading about.
-
Unfortunately for MS the Mojave experience further proved the ethos of what has been said many times before. On high specs that MS provides in a controlled environment the product performs well. Take it home and thats a different matter.
-
Its comments such as "if their hardware is good enough, mostly enough RAM e.g. 4GB."
that worry me. The average user (or locked in firm) has come to accept the requirements of MS software (IMO). Rather than saying "Ill get 4gb of memory then", they should be saying "What the hell do I need 4gb for? and what one earth is 7 giving me over XP thats worth having more memory?"
-
I hope David returns, maybe there is some feature which he forgot to mention which makes the upgrade worthwhile. I did though find he post very interesting, and its a shame more pro-Win 7/MS posters cannot take "a leaf out of his book"
-
As I see it, Win 7 isnt so much receiving "its the best OS ever.." its more of "Well its an improvement on Vista". and as Ive said before, MS still has the bad PR to battle with, ontop of any issues Win 7 may or may not have.
-
I really do hope that Windows 7 is good for users. Ive said before that mass migration to Linux (IMO) would be very bad for a platform and Ive also said before that I think Windows users are largely to blame for the binary slug of Windows with their demands and expectations that Microsoft try to meet all of.
-
In my ideal world, I would like to see an equal distribution of users on Windows/Linux/MacOS as I believe this encourages richness and diversity. Regardless of what people may believe, I do not want everyone using Linux nor do I want to see any platform dominate. We have in the past, and look what it resulted in, Vista.

Thanks goblin / chips b malroy
There are many things I haven't looked at Win7 and don't mention at all. I'm just picky about the one feature that everyone uses all the time, the one with which you start your apps. The taskbar has some neat enhancements but I really think disabling QuickLaunch is a mistake, and MS should enable it back without having to hack the registry. And if QuickLaunch gets enabled then disable pinning apps in the main taskbar but still leave the option available for someone to do both if they want to.

I did found the regkey and tweaks to get it back working as I like.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html

For other features, you can find many good reviews around the web and I'm sure Joe will provide a good one too.

@goblin
For an average user (mom & pops, average joe) who use their PC for basic tasks (browsing, a bit of word processing, viewing photos, some casual gaming) I don't see any real technical advantage for Vista/7 over XP. But from a pre-configured point of view Vista/7 come a bit tighter from a security point of view by creating by default new user with only "User" rights and not "Administrator" rights. UAC might add a bit more "security" but many users see it as another annoying window to click yes to without reading it. Aero is a big eye candy that is really pleasant to use.

On XP nothing stops you from changing the user rights too and install something like Windows Blind, but for an average user it's already too much. For example some of my friends and family have no clue what they can change/customize, they have difficulty understand folder/file management, and certainly not the beginning of a clue about what happens in the background on their machine. So for average users Win7 is a prepackage Windows config that will answer the needs of the most common users, and this is them that MS aims Win7 with its current config and looks, and enabling services like file indexer with Windows Search 4.0, many wizards for network install ...etc... , and creating the Win7 Libraries. About Libraries I think they're going to creating more confusion for these average users but I like the concept. I'm not sure I'll use them as I organize my files pretty well and have enough hdd space to avoid splitting content around.

Historically their have been several hardware requirement pain points in Windows migrations to move from one usable system to another that would give the same usable experience:

- DOS/Win 3.1 (8MB RAM + 10MB HDD) to Win95 (16MB RAM + 40MB HDD) Ouch!!! That was a bigger change at the time to have a fast and usable Win95 system. Then Win95 OSR2 inflated a bit more, then Win98 and Win98 SE up to 48MB/64MB RAM + 200MB HDD.

- NT4 (64MB RAM + 100MB HDD) to Win2000 (128MB/192MB RAM + 800MB HDD), Ouch!!!

- Win2000 (128MB/192MB RAM + 800MB HDD) to WinXP (256MB/384MB RAM + 1.5GB HDD), which wasn't too bad.

- WinXP (256MB/384MB RAM + 1.5GB HDD) to WinVista (3D Card + 2GB RAM + 10GB/15GB HDD at least), WTF!!!

Yes, 7 is requires a lot more resources than XP but at price/hardware power ratio does it become irrelevant? I think the time is right.

I'm not sure how low of hardware spec you can go with Win7 to still have usable and enjoyable system. For people who are monotasking, or do limited multitasking, when using a computer. I'd say a 3.0Ghz Hyper-threaded P4 with 2GB of RAM, with a true 3D graphics card (something like a old nVidia 7600) is the minimum I'd consider. But on such a system I'd prefer to run XP.

The one thing I personally think works better in Vista/2008/7 is the network. I haven't ran any benchmarks (there are many to find around the web) but I find file transfers, file reading, file browsing across a network between 2 machines with Vista SP1/2008/7 to be a lot smoother/snappier when compared to XP/2003. But this is a subtle background improvement like many others in Vista/7, and will only benefit advanced users and companies that running the majority of their client under Vista/7 and servers uder 2008 with whatever Web Services.

Also, from a gamer point of view it seems that during the last 6 months, some games using DirectX 10 have finally got an edge over DirectX 9. So if you're a gamer yes Vista/7 will finally provide some advantage if you have the right GPU, if you're not a gamer then you don't care.

The crisis/recession around the world is something that happened pretty fast and Win7 was planned/designed/architected and already well advanced before it all started last summer. MS is in the software business to make money and they are good at it. I think their marketing went too far with all their pointless flavors of Windows Vista, which was MS way to prepare for something they already new: Vista would be "debacle". For 7 they seems a bit more restrained with only 3 flavors as far as I can see (Home, Pro, Ultimate). I still think it is one too many. They should have Windows 7 (for home and workstations) and Windows 7 Ultimate (for Media Center and connected Digital Media Life...bla bla bla). If Netbooks is a strategic area, at least in the sense of taking some of the space to avoid Linux being unchallenged, because I don't think MS nor Intel are interested in them, then it's OK to have a specific lean and mean build called Windows 7 Netbooks, but they have to get it right. I remember reading that Win7 kernel would become the foundation to all Windows system PC, Embedded and Mobile. So I guess, long term for Netbooks (if that type of hardware still lives on) they need to write a brand new, lean and mean UI and user land apps, but I don't see this happening soon. May be Windows Mobile 7, once released, could be adapted for Netbooks and would be a better suited OS. But WinMobile7 is using WinCE 6.0, so an all Win7 kernel family of OS on any hardware/device won't happen for another few years.

@chips b malroy
Like you, I think that XP SP2 raised the bar pretty high and it's the problem for anything that came after it. In my experience, Windows is OK at being ported from machine to machine but it has that bit of software to verify if it's a legit copy and it goes mental if it detects too many hardware changes.

From a stability point of view I truly believed they are hardware related (crappy or failing hardware, poorly written drivers). I've got very few BSOD since SP2 got released, and the majority of them were do the hardware failing (cpu, hdd or ram) after years of usage.

I don't think there is a big driver issue with Vista/7 anymore (they have the same driver model) if it works in Vista it will work in 7. It's just that driver model differences between XP and Vista was pretty big and even when trying to install a driver in XP compatibility mode it would not be that great. I'd say most of the hardware manufacturer that wanted their devices to work in Vista have created the drivers and they won't do more for 7 to write driver for old hardware.

The XP Virus/Malware problem is a configuration problem and a user problem. With XP, MS should have pushed for user to only have "User" rights, not admin rights, actually it should have been pushed for with Win2000. The reason why this wasn't implemented in XP or Win2000 is because developers on Windows are "sloppy" and get their apps to write temporary files and other stuff in the wrong places e.g. folder that require admin rights. Software architected correctly for NT4/Win2000 still run correctly in Vista with logged only with "User" rights. When Vista changed that behavior the majority of developer still had not changed their software to work in the right way and this was one more "problem" added to the pile of Vista reputation.
From a user point of view, most a gullible and will clink on any window presented to them without reading them.

Actually, on my XP machines, and Win2008, I still log on them with "Admin" rights, but the browsers (IE, Firefox) are started using a batch file that executes the "runas" command calling a "User" rights profile. So that any file downloaded and executed from the browser will fail to install anything, same for any dodgy page with active scripts trying to install something, they will fail too. So far it worked pretty well. Personally, I was expecting more sandboxing from Win7+IE8.

Like you, I agree that on old machines XP is king, but it still need to be configured properlly, and MS should keep it available.

As I said before, Win7 is what Vista should have been, it's finally working and even if the hardware demand is bigger than XP it is now an old story because the average hardware you can get it up to the task. The only reason MS isn't calling it Vista R2 or SE, like they did for Win95 or Win98 is because of the bad rep Vista has. If Vista had been a success if 7 would be called Vista R2. On a Server side it will be called Windows 2008 R2, not 2010, because on the server side they decided to have one big release (changing name) every 4/5 years, and have a minor release in between, also Win2008 is well received and perceived. And as written in many reviews and comment MS never said they would revolutionize the OS world with 7.

The beta 1 works fine but nothing is mind blowing. As usual I do what I did on every OS since XP: I disable System Restore and File Indexing, that because I know what I'm doing, I know where my files are, and I hate having my HDD churning for no good reason all the time and slowing down what I'm doing. I also move my User Data folder to a partition other than C: and update the paths in the registry so that if I ever have to reinstall the OS (using a backup made with Acronis or a full re-install) I don't have to worry about anything.

I like Windows (since Win3.1) but as I said I know how to use it, how to get the most of it and I know my hardware. I like slick Mac hardware but it's too expensive, apart from the Mini (still overpriced for what it is) and I have one running a slim Win2008. But I totally hate Mac OSX look and feel. It's foundation with Unix/BSD/Next isn't the problem it's actually very very good and I'm sure MS got a lot of architectural principals inspiration from it for Vista/2008/7, but I truly find the look and feel awful.

Hi David, nice speaking with you again.
-
Quote David "The crisis/recession around the world is something that happened pretty fast and Win7 was planned/designed/architected and already well advanced before it all started last summer."
-
IMO it seemed that mid 2008 Win 7 was being talked about being released near the end of 2009 at the earliest. As we approached the end of 2008 it seemed to me that MS were looking at a pre-June release date. I could be wrong, its just the way I see it.
-
Quote "Also, from a gamer point of view it seems that during the last 6 months, some games using DirectX 10 have finally got an edge over DirectX 9"
I cant really argue with that, but then PC's are no longer considered the definative gaming platform IMO since consoles seem to cater more for that market. I dont believe there is a future in PC gaming (to the extent of the past) and I believe the PC will be looked at as the productive machine within and household, and entertainment, games/video will be catered for by the console (in the near future)
-
Speaking as a coder, what I will say is that IMO the demoscene (in the main) has certainly not moved away from the Windows platform, if Win 7 is as functional as people have said here, it is one area where latest hardware is a "must have", and I certainly see them taking up Win 7 aswell.
-
That being said, whilst Davids post is very comprehensive and obviously he knows what he is talking about, Ive still yet to see anything that justifies the investment in an upgrade to both Win 7 and the hardware it requires. Thats no offense to David and his appraisal. Windows 7 from early reports sounds like what Vista should have been (and something that many people here have said many times)
-
The question is now, will the customers who have been burnt by Vista, and are now quite happy with XP, want to upgrade? What "extras" will it offer them?
-
Will there be a discount for Vista users?
-
For everyone else, and especially those buying a new computer, they wont have much of a choice since most major PC suppliers will only offer Win 7. Question now is, how long before the its deemed in the EU "unfair competition" and how many people in these troubled times are actually going to buy a new machine this year anyway?
-
I suggest that maybe the popularity of netbooks is due to the fact people dont want to spend much.
-
Time will tell, but Im putting my money on a early release for Win 7. I am also putting money on a very slow start, and since IMO MS has such a bad image at the moment, I dont believe people will jump in on Win 7 until its been out a while, for fear of it turning out to be another pig.
-
Whatever happens, its going to be interesting, although I am concerned that a beta has such high requirements. 4gb? Thats a little OTT when you consider that its just an O/S, and surely the purpose of an OS is to run quietly and unassumingly in the background, using as little resources as possible and acting as a launchpad for other apps?
-
Thats my opinion, maybe Im being old fashioned.

Since the comments here in regards to Win 7 seem to have reached as far as they will go, I hope readers on this site will let me indulge in some predictions I have not had the chance to make.
-
Yes I now we are powering through January at an alarming rate, but I have a list of things that I believe will be ocurring this year.
-
I hope you allow me to indulge, and all the people who take delight in attacking my character/beliefs or choice of OS should be pleased that im putting myself up on offer to be laughed at later in the year if I am wrong on ANY of them:
-
1. Zunephone will be either announced with an impending date or physically released onto the shelves. I believe it will be an incorporation of Zune/Silverlight/WM/Mobile phone, and offer an all inclusive mini entertainment package, much like MS's direction with the Xbox did with home entertainment, only in your pocket. Afterall, what else can MS do with Zune/Silverlight and WM when (IMO) they have all but conceded defeat in their respective markets (IMO).
-
2. Microsoft will begin (IMO) targetting Wine and/or Codeweavers, . I believe MS sees Wine as more of a threat than the Linux platform, and it also gives MS its "one neck to throttle" should it decide to take action. I think the Wine project does alot for Linux migration and certainly offers people a viable route to continue using their favorite packages whilst making the transition to Linux.
-
3. I believe MS will attempt (or warn of) some sort of action against Canonical. IMO I cant see MS sitting back and letting Canonical continue to be seen as a viable distro for even the newest of computer users. Its popularity and growth (and Im not going to argue what that is) must be alarming to some at Redmond (IMO)
-
4. I believe Windows 7 will get a release April/May this year (and I wait for the insults after that remark! :))
-
5. I believe we will see many more apps released by MS on the Ipod, and I think MS's plans of penetrating the ipod with their apps is part of a long term strategy. To what end? Who knows? but is anyone here really thinking that MS is releasing apps on the Iphone "for the good of Apples customers"?
Just like Mono "the gift to the world" Whats the real intention here?
I must be the only here who thinks this is like the Horse of Troy story, only this time, the "hidden troops" are sitting ontop of it having a cigarette as its wheeled into the city.
Are people here not suspicious? Or is my post the ramblings of someone who never grew out of the A500 demoscene?
-
I hope I havent bored anyone. I just wanted to get these off my chest. Let see come this time next year, how many (if any) are correct.
-
Cheers all!

@David:
Thanks again for the enlightening reply and information. And basically I would agree with you, except for maybe one thing.

I believe the user rights vs administrator rights that you are talking about in Windows Seven Beta, is about the UAC? The reason I ask is this, in Vista, the default user "account" is an administrator account with UAC active. This I know from checking many Vista machines that I have worked on. The easy check here is to go into control panel--user accounts, (well thats what they called in XP) although it might be named something a little differently in Vista/Seven. If it doesn't say "Limited User" in user account when you try to edit it, then its an administrator account. UAC sound not be confused with a "True Limited user account." I would be greatly interested if Micro$oft has made by default, Limited user account as default, with UAC. Could you check on that please, thanks.

Now I would not disagree with you or others, that for some newbies, that UAC is not an slight improvement in security, but it is not the same thing as creating and using a true "Limited account" as you can do, and most larger corporations do. And one you can do with some knowledge in XP as well as Vista. Better for those with knowledge to do it in XP, and more of the 3rd party security apps will work there, as opposed to Vista/Seven. In many respects, I used to find that the 3rd party freeware app by Mike Lin for XP, called StartupMonitor was better in some ways than UAC for Vista.

BTW, David, if its truely a Limited User account setup in Seven by default, with UAC on top of that, then I would say that Microsoft has finally done something meaningful for users.

Not that I believe that Windows even with a limited user acount running, and tons of antivirus/malware programs going, would ever be as secure as Linux or Mac. The reason is because of all the bad design allowed to go on for many many years, there are too many windows malware out there that knows how to "elevate" to administrator privileges, and once that is done, the old malware then can work. But still, if Windows could say, get to say 60% of the security of other alternatives, I would be greatly impressed. This would alleviate a lot of pain out there, for many windows users.

@Goblin
The PC isn't the definitive gaming platform, but isn't the most accessible gaming platform but it is surely a high-end gaming platform, and for some type of games nothing beats a mouse + keyboard FPS, Strategy, Flight Simulation, that doesn't mean that proper input devices cannot be made for the Consoles. MS "Games for Windows" strategy didn't work as well as expected but it's is another platform that MS must not ignore to fight Sony's PS2/PS3. I think "Games for Windows - Live" is pretty cool as it allows to pit Windows players against XBOX players. Maybe with 7 MS has a better strategy for it, and might provide some tuning to booting 7 in some sort of gaming mode.
-
About the E.U. and anti-competition, MS provides them with very early builds. 7 doesn't include that much extra software, evne less than in Vista. I guess MS will still provide a N version without the Windows Media Player.
-
Given what the current Beta of 7, I really think Netbooks will not be it's forte. Apparently it runs on a Dell 9 Mini, that has 2GB of RAM. May be MS has some tricks in his bag that we haven't seen yet to slim down even more 7's hdd foot print and memory usage, or may be MS is betting on Netbooks specs to be raised, 2GB RAM becoming a standard. Also, I remember reading some interview or comments from some of the Windows team members asking if people would be interested in a almost instantanious but very limited version of Windows that would do the bar minimum e.g. Browse the web, work with emails, play photo/music/videos. All I can say is that they almost already have something like that OS: It's the XBOX OS which somewhere must have some of its kernel related to Windows. And again Netbooks might be the right platform for something like this.
-
Anyways, I'm old fashioned too :)
-
1. ZunePhone: It would make sense for Windows Mobile 7, which release was delayed to the second half of 2009, to incorporate all the best features of the Zune software/library. But MS wouldn't be making a ZunePhone itself.
And I can't resist to link this old video : hxxp : // www .you tube . com / watch ? v = WRLRjKCGHek
-
2. I'm not sure what you mean by "targeting".
MS might not like Wine, CodeWeavers, or ReactOS but I'm not sure they can do much about it, http://www.codeweavers.com/products/licensing/
-
Also, MS don't want to be appear as a bully anymore, and MS has been making gestures towards the OSS community. Taking any action against these projects would raise their level of awareness in the general public, and get the whole OSS community in arms against MS.
-
3. Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "action against". The only thing I can see MS doing is trying to demonstrate that its OS and Software provides more (whatever more is: value, fun ...etc..) to the users and it that it's worth paying for it. For once, they might be able to truly back it up with Windows 7, the new Windows Live services, and Windows Mobile 7.
-
4. You're crazy ;) , how's that for an "insult"?
Windows 7 is well advanced and stable, but no way they can release it to the market, not even internally before the summer. They need to gather, review and work on all the Beta feedback. May be they'll skip Beta 2 and provide a release candidate straight away but Beta2 or RC, that's what will be available around April/May, a pre-release.
-
I'd bet on a end of year release and I'm sure MS doesn't want to miss the Xmas target, but also they'd want the whole ecosystem ready around 7 to be ready too. With with Vista, not only it was a big architectural change with failed promises and a lot of issues but nothing around it would take advantage of what ever changes was actually working.
-
Even if Windows 7 is ready early, all the partners have to be ready too e.g. hardware, distribution, retailers, advertising...etc... And given the current economic situation I suspect everyone working "with" MS is pretty motivated to get all this ready on time to cash in and make up for a poor 2009 year. On top of this, add a new wave of Windows Live improvements that tie into 7, also add a Windows Mobile 7 release, not sure if any handset would be ready for the end of the year though, and you could have a perfect storm.
-
5. iPod/iPhone are popular devices, if MS is able to create cool/useful/efficient software then there is no better place to "advertise" their know-how and change people's perception of their software.

PS: I should never have sold my good old 500. Running AIAB isn't the same.
-
And Mono exists because (taken from Wikipedia): "Microsoft submits the specifications for the Common Language Infrastructure (which includes the core class libraries, Common Type System, and the Common Intermediate Language),[4][5][6] the C# language,[7] and the C++/CLI language[8] to both ECMA and the ISO, making them available as open standards. This makes it possible for third parties to create compatible implementations of the framework and its languages on other platforms".
-
The strategy behind this is to compete with Java, expose developers to MS technologies, may be lure them to MS technologies, and also provide Windows developers with a path to cross-platform software. So what? It's called business it's an acceptable approach when compared to what MS did in the past when they "bastardized" Java with functions that were not cross-platform compatible?
-
-
@chips
You're right about the default user level and UAC. I can't verify it on 7 anymore I installed the machine back to 2008. I can only hope MS decides to create every user as a true limited "User" during setup. Or at least offer both options to user and educate them about why running as a "User" is safer. But again from experience 90% of user don't understand or don't want to make the effort to. So I'd say MS should take the decision for them.