Since Windows 7 isn't going to fix Vista's resource-usage problems, that means they're going to have to continue to offer XP in the netbook market, to avoid ceding even more ground to Linux.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Dimdows XP had a longer life than Vista?

@Lawrence,
HI!
I think thats already happened. I might be wrong but I believe MS expected by now the majority of games developers would be DX10 only (and that will probably be the main reason for the homeuser wanting vista). Obviously thats not the case, and from my experience games developers want to dive into the Vista waters about as much as the current XP users do.

Many people (including myself) have said this from day 1 when Vista slithered onto the market, that it would be the next Windows ME. I dont see how the Vista perception can be changed now, because fundamentally the software is flawed, and even if it wasnt, public opinion of it is rather poor. Add to that a global recession hanging over us all.

MS even seem to be distancing themselves from it aswel, and its all Windows 7 on their lips now.

There was no comeback to the Mac advert belittling Vista, but then again how could there be?

I am quite sure XP will have a longer life than expected, Im sure Vista will chug alongside it, like an embarrassing relative, but I also think a few more customers will be dropping off the MS train in favour of an alternative on the road to Windows 7.

But as MS supporters like to say "Dont worry it'll be fixed in the next version"

The question I always ask though, is which "next version"?

and before the pro-MS people start making comments about me saying Vista is fundamentally flawed. Let me explain.

Buy a new PC with a Vista instalation and its probably going to run fine. Try upgrading your machine to Vista and see what happens, it may work, or it may like the many forums show, have many many problems which are causing the user issues.

This wouldnt be so bad if this was Vista day 1, but its not, its been out a considerable amount of time, and as the users with problems are pointing out, its not performing to their expectations.

That about does it then. That other OS is dead. The ribbon will kill all interest in M$'s offerings. Users addicted to that other OS and Office hate "the ribbon", someone's nightmare. Check the mileage on your mouse. The ribbon more than doubles it, if you can find stuff at all.

Business, which had a hard time swallowing Vista, will choke on Vista II. They do not want to retrain all the staff again. If they have to do that, why not switch to a less expensive/complex platform like GNU/Linux? OpenOffice.org does not have the ribbon and it does many things better/easier/faster than Office. Staff familiar with older versions of Office are already half-trained with OpenOffice.org.

IT does more with less when it uses an OS with features chosen for performance, not internal politics/fake innovation.

Dare I say it; Lipstick on a Pig!

I see it as a logical step, I actually was creating a mockup of Paint similar to what we now see to suggest, but it looks like Julie was a few steps ahead of me. As you noted, I like that synergies between Office and Windows are once again being shared. Hopefully more of Windows Live like Writer will also incorporate the Fluent UI, it just seems like an obvious path to go with something that is an almost watered Microsoft Word for blogging.

Explorer is a different area to tackle, my core issue there is lack of common productivity boosters like Cut and Paste, Move and Copy To, I don't want to dig into a menu just get to those commands. I personally thought that was a step back from XP. The fact that the Command Bar is not customizable is a big mistake. Customization is an important asset, and the user should feel in control, I hope the Windows 7 Team embrace.

Well....this is a revoltin'development....or perhaps lack of development. If the resource usage issue isn't addressed then what's the point? Part of a system's usability is the percieved speed at which the machine runs. End-user frustration won't abate and the additional "complexity" of that nonsensical ribbon will create yet more disgust.

I work in an organization with a rather high median age so I'm no doubt seeing things differently. I'd appreciate it if someone who works in an organization with a lot of "Millenials" would shed some light on the younger generation's "user experience" in a work setting. There's more to computing than Facebook.

"Dimdows"? Is that the best you could come up with? That's *almost* as clever as using a $ for the 's' in "Microsoft". Almost.

What's weird is that I believe that menu bars are in fact one of Windows' streight. They bring consistency, easy learning of keyboard shortcuts, and scale to multiple keyboard shortcuts.

with ribbons, there is a huge burden on developers (and users) for icons, we'll be loosing keyboard support through time and therefore Windows will be no more productive and additive than OS X or linux.

the barrier of entry for developers to make a well working and usable ribbon compared to a menu bar and a basic toolbar is very high. This means massively inconsistent experience between applications, and tough learning curves.

I really wish this ribbon thing would go away, believe it weakens Windows's story.

Windows *was* more consistent than the Mac. Now it's all gone to hell starting with IE 7, Windows Media Player, and then Vista.

For Office, I'm relativly satisfied with Outlook 2007, but killing the menu, and moving the File stuff in a round button at the top left simply doesn't 'help' anything usability wise. It just cause mayem and inconsistencies.

Another problem with the ribbons is that MS has patents on them and if you use them you are subject to a rather restrictive legal agreement. So does this mean that we are going to have a fundamental feature of Windows that programmers have to sign a legal agreement to use?

Is MS trying to make it illegal to develop an application that runs cross platform, ie runs on Linux and Windows with the same UI, conforming to the underlying operating system's UI standards?

This would be a first for Windows where MS has actively encouraged development of Windows applications following Windows UI standards without legal obstacles. Is this a first step in kicking ISVs off of Windows entirely?

Couldn't believe Microsoft took out the standard menu totally when it implemented the ribbon in Office 2007. Simply causes loss in productivity. It could have easily offer choice of Classic/New(Ribbon) interface and let users take time to adjust. I cannot argue with MS if it wants to go the Ribbon route but at least think of giving choice of 'classic/new' - it has done so for the control panel in XP for eg.
At my office, we bought Classic Office Menu add-on on all Office 2007 system @ $30 a pop to cut down on unnecessary support cost. (not advertising for that add-on but think its worth it considering the lack of thoughtfulness on the part of Microsoft).

Oooh yeah. Windows Paint was last used by me, if I can remember even, somewhere between windows 3.1 and windows 1.0 And that screen capture is very revealing that it has not changed much at all.

Wow.

Personally, I am looking forward to the day that Microsoft develops an operating system that completely ditches all the reverse compatibility functions and is only x64 bit and built upon the latest in PC Technology.

"Windows Extreme..."

Recommended System Requirements:

Intel DouCore or Quad Core Processor at least 2.6 GHZ
4 Gigabytes of DDR 2300 Memory
ePCI 2.0 x16 258 RAM DX10 compatible Video Card
80 Gigabyte SATA II 32 Megabyte Cache Hard Drive
DVD x16 Disc Drive
Broadband Internet Connection
USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 (minimum) Ports
Recommended Resolution: 1280x1024, 32 Bit, 1440x900, 32 Bit Resolutions...
--------------------------------------------------

Man, you think people are wining now...

When i first encountered the "Ribbons" and no menus I was horrified.

But within couple of days I found, to my surprise, that I was very comfortable with them. I use both Office 2007 and Open Office (version 3, beta), I would chose the Office 2007 UI over OOo every time.

The other day I used a PDF composer at a client's site (can't recall its name), it had Office 2007 like Ribbons, it wasn't a MS product.

I suspect there are Ribbon components in .NET, if not there's source code at CodeProject that implements Ribbons.

I question whether Ribbons are patented, the code would be copyrighted but that's different to a patent.

Going to say something nice about Windows here. The user interface has basically stayed the same from Windows 95 up to XP. It was easy to upgrade to the newest Windows, as everything was in the same place, mostly. This made the learning curve to upgrade easy.

Then Vista came along, with its pointless renaming of items, and rearranging of the user interface. A whole lot of people complained about this. Obviously, Microsoft was not listening to its customers once again, as now its the Ribbon in Windows Seven.

Even in Linux distro's I prefer those with the KDE window manager, as its laid out more like the old Windows user interface was. Some of us wish that Microsoft would stop fixing that which did not need to be "fixed."