Not Everyone Likes Windows 7

Imagine everything you hated about Vista and XP in one version and you'll have Microsoft’s new OS. Yes, it’s that bad. In a word, awful, and I mean it.

How do I know this? I just helped my parents set up their new PC (their old one blew up a couple days ago). For some reason the Einstein’s over at Microsoft (MSFT) decided to make the new version look like Apple’s OS with a Vista twist. To make matters worse, the damn thing blue-screened during the setup. I am not kidding.

If I were Bill Gates I would sell all my shares of Mr. Softie and demand to not be mentioned in the same sentence as Microsoft ever again. I could say that Microsoft was just having a run of bad luck, but two product launches that simply suck? Come on. Perhaps I am a bit jaded. After all, who could be happy after the much-anticipated Windows 7 launch, only to have the thing blue screen dump on you during setup. Maybe it will grow on me like a fungus because I will have no choice but to like it since, like, Vista.

Now, where to begin with Vista? I am still waiting for my hand delivered apology and refund from Mr. Softie. I actually joked that the company should offer me a copy of Windows 7 for free, but not after my initial experience with it. My copy of Vista has had a critical update that it has been unable to download and fix for a year now, no matter how I try and load it. How about that for a FUBAR OS! This is the number one software company in the world I might add!!

Of course I could always choose an overpriced, under powered Apple (AAPL), but I don’t think I am that smug- yet. Actually, I plan on sticking with XP for as long as possible, I have a few copies so I am good. It is stable, I know it well and it freaking works, which is something Microsoft hasn’t developed since XP.

Yup, I am bitter, but did I mention it blue screened when I was setting it up?

Comments

[blazeking:]

You must have been one of those diehard Win98 fans back when WinXP was released. Please let go of XP after the security patches stop rolling through. I don't want the next time we meet to be with you as a Zombie attacker.

Oct 26 05:44 AM

[s3ntient:]

lol, can you say PEBKAC ?

Oct 26 05:46 AM

[SingHash:]

BSoD on install? Sounds like the old days, when I'd load Linux onto hand-built-from-parts computers. You'll like your Apples much better when you realise that your time is worth something. All those precious megaflops aren't worth much when they flop unexpectedly and you lose a pile of work.

When the dark side beckons, take a deep breath and repeat the mantra, "A computer is worth what you I do with it." Then open your eyes and follow where that logic leads you, wherever that may be.

Oct 26 05:56 AM

[SAF:]

Not everyone likes windows 7? That's a shocker.

Windows 7 will be a big hit. And there will be some segment of the population that hates it.

Oct 26 07:58 AM

[Edge_Jeff:]

"My copy of Vista has had a critical update that it has been unable to download and fix for a year now, no matter how I try and load it"

You know, I have a box running Windows XP SP2, that has Never, never since it was installed, been connected to a network, or the internet. Yet with fair regularity it still has managed to interrupt my work with a 'critical update' Where does it get them? After each such update, the box runs a little bit, almost imperceptibly slower such that now it sheer crawls along. Start-up's that used to take less than a minute now take two, or three. This is clearly built in to the system, and it is the #1 reason why we are transferring away from ALL microsoft products. And then there is the third party 'software'. Infected, dejected, needs to phone home to start up, crap. This is NOT helping run a business.

Oct 26 08:01 AM

[captainccs:]

>>>Now, where to begin with Vista?<<<

Just say No! Switch to Mac! LOL

Oct 26 08:10 AM

[dick black:]

Explain how aapl machines are under powered?

Are you spouting gibberish from the msft mothership, are you using an old PPC Mac or is this firsthand knowledge of a current Intel Mac?

Oct 26 08:11 AM

[citizen1:]

I think that it is time to forget that Microsoft

Oct 26 08:19 AM

[citizen1:]

Windows 7 is JUST out and I have heard nothing but good things about it. I have used it and it was fine. It is time to forget that Vista was awful and give Microsoft a chance to improve windows. I do not see lots of competition knocking down the door.

Oct 26 08:30 AM

[SRF4REAL:]

God uses a mac : /

Oct 26 08:39 AM

[fauxscot:]

fwiw...

I use XP and finally, after nearly a decade, can use it reasonably well and maintain it. It sill does things that I can't fix. Sadly, it's essential to some old software I need for engineering work, so I'll have to run it for quite a while more, but currently, it's running on the last non-Apple computer I'll buy.

I've watched my better half use her Macs over the years with no problems. Painless backups via Time Capsule. Complete integration with hardware/software. Plug stuff in; it works. Out of the box; it works.

I bill my time at $125/hr. Every year, I spend the equivalent of several thousand dollars dealing with my PCs. Sometimes, much more. She's a lawyer. Billing rate maybe $200/hr. Her annual computer maintenance cost equivalent? $0. Every year.

Ray, buddy, call Apple. Get a machine on loan. Try it out. Hell, load Win XP on it. Give it a month. Then call it underpowered and overpriced. (I suggest maybe you'd be OK with a Mac Mini at $600; you can use your current display and mouse.) I think you'll change your tune.

Of course, you could take $300 of that and just buy Win7 Ultimate and complain for the rest of your life, but you sound way too smart for that. Try something Different, why don't you?

Oct 26 08:42 AM

[Delegal:]

I made the switch to an intel iMac two years ago. It has performed flawlessly. As a result I am more productive. In order to run some legacy windows programs I have Vista Business installed on the iMac running under Parallels. I have never had a blue screen. What is burdensome is the constant downloading of updates, patches, fixes etc under Vista. In order to run Vista I also have antivirus, firewall etc that slows the windows operations. Having seen both OS's side by side, I amazed anyone would put up with a Windows OS. Get a Mac and get productive.

Oct 26 08:52 AM

[jervis:]

I wish I knew why people consider Microsoft a viable option. Is it the same thought process that people used to consider George Bush a viable option?

Oct 26 09:09 AM

[jervis:]

Please explain, "bit hit."


On Oct 26 07:58 AM SAF wrote:

> Not everyone likes windows 7? That's a shocker.
>
> Windows 7 will be a big hit. And there will be some segment of the
> population that hates it.

Oct 26 09:10 AM

[kdjkdj:]

Failure? Yes all systems fail even when initially installing. I

Oct 26 09:12 AM

[wusseldussel:]

The problem with Mac: when there is a major upgrade of OS you have to buy all the hardware new since the new OS does not support the old hardware. If you buy a brand new PC with Windows 7 I bet it will run without any problems. I think many XP users demand that after they buy Windows 7 their old hardware runs better than before. And Apple will not manage to do such a trick either.

Oct 26 09:12 AM

[uncleralph:]

"...overpriced and underpowered..." well, I guess that's the price for peace of mind and productivity.

This always kills me - in you house do you buy appliances that don't work because they are cheaper? - or would you pay a little more for ones that actually works...

Oct 26 09:13 AM

[kdjkdj:]

My post was cut in half.

Maybe you should let the neighbor kid come over. He could fix your problem. If you have kids, so much the better.

Oct 26 09:15 AM

[B12B:]

I am waiting to run Google

Oct 26 09:25 AM

[Maxi:]

Are you one of those Apple Jihadies trying all cheap ways to promote Apple and play down Windows 7. Man just stop it and accept the fact, Win 7 is awesome.

Oct 26 09:36 AM

[vassar:]

Mac underpowered? They now run basically the same hardware as most modern PC's.

Also, why be a Windows masochist? Just bite the bullet and get a Mac. I am tired of people complaining about Windows but too wimpy to get a Mac.

Oct 26 09:57 AM

[Jon T:]

I loaded 7 onto my Macbook Pro and dear oh dear, I felt I'd gone back 10 years in time.

7 is a disaster, the ship just isn't fully on the rocks yet.

Oct 26 10:01 AM

[SaturnFX:]

Actually, I bought a brand spanking new, high end PC with Win7 loaded the day it came out:

Problem 1: needed a wireless ethernet adapter...cant find a nice card with PCIe-1...ok, try one of those newfangled usb ones.

Win7 doesnt work with em...ok, burn a day waiting for a update from linksys...people at best buy are absolutely useless but at least they did burn me the CD of the patch while I waited...they didnt know how to install it, but I got it to work when I brought it home.

Problem 2: trying to sort out the issues with the wireless, I got a bluescreen...TWICE!

after that, its been pretty smooth. initially I was very unimpressed, but over it now and starting to give it a chance. Everythings been renamed and relocated, but hey, I dont mind relearning things..had a weekend to find all the crit stuff so I can be functional.

I am not crazy about the new look, but I reckon I will get used to it. I am one of those people that didnt load in windows 3.0 until necessary...was happy with DOS.

Just think...in 5 or so years, we can complain about Windows 8 or whatnot (I say just leave it here until we got holographic interfaces...but that wont happen so long as we keep paying for the new look)

Overall - Satisfaction at about 75% currently.

Oct 26 10:33 AM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

nns Microsoft (MSFT) is about to hit you with a massive marketing effort to buy its new Windows 7 operating system, which will be officially released on October 22. I have been an early adopter of technology for most of my life, and have been doing my own tech support for 25 years (remember Evelyn?) Do yourself a huge favor and skip it. A number of beta testers have told me that this is the upgrade from Hell. Windows 7 doesn’t explode in your face when you first turn it on, but it comes close to it. If you have the 32 bit version of Vista, which most of you do, then you will only be able to install the 32 bit version of Windows 7, unless you want to go through a tortuous custom install. I shudder at the prospect of hunting down my lost original installation disks, web addresses of download sites, and long forgotten product keys. That defeats the purpose of the upgrade right there, as the 64 bit system was the main oomph behind the new version, enabling you to use more than 3 gb of memory at once. You will need 20 gigs of free disk space for the upgrade, which will put it out of reach of many laptops. If you do somehow get the 64 bit version installed, then many of your peripherals won’t work. If you are one of millions who were too terrified to take on Vista and are still using the antiquated XP operating system, forget it. There is no upgrade. Better to save yourself $120, and wait a year until you buy a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled on it, with enough extra RAM to take full advantage of its real power. That gives Mr. Softy another year to debug it and come up with a product that really works.

Oct 26 11:00 AM

[wusseldussel:]

You can only migrate from 32 bit to 32 bit? Oh my god what a surprise. I am sure Apple would be able to migrate from 32 bit to 128 bit without any problems in just 30 seconds.

Oct 26 11:13 AM

[wusseldussel:]

20 GB out of the reach of many laptops? A laptop with only 20GB of disc space is something that belongs into a museum. Does Apple's OS Snow Leopard running smoothely just with 20GB of disc space? I doubt it.

Oct 26 11:16 AM

[mollytjm:]

Windows actually runs faster on a Mac than on a pc. I don't understand why people put up with all this stuff. Macs are very powerful these days and can run anything. They don't get viruses, their tech support is superb (and understandable),and their stores are great...you can actually talk to people who know what they're talking about.
I didn't have to buy a new Mac laptop to run Tiger or Leopard...but obviously old laptops don't have the gigs the new ones have...that's true for ALL laptops.
Time is $$$. All the extra time you need when working on a pc is a waste. There's a reason why Apple products have the highest rating in the industry. And they don't cost more when you figure in all the wasted time of dealing with viruses and buggy programs. And it doesn't take them 9 years to develop a program that works (if Windwos 7 does).

Since this is a stock page I'll add that Apple will be selling iPhones at 1000 locations in China starting in November. They have a wonderful reputation, no debt, tons of cash and a huge team of amazing innovators. This is a great buy and hold stock.
Long APPL

Oct 26 12:37 PM

[hwood007:]

"Usually setting a new PC does not require loading the OS, it comes pre loaded. So after that statement, everything else he says makes me wonder if this really happened.

Oct 26 12:47 PM

[hwood007:]

I like this advise, when I worked, there were over 20,000 PCs connecting to company mid size servers, where I was a system manager. We never bought anything during the first six months of it's life, we waited to read what happened to others, we could not afford to take down so many computers due to a new upgrade.

One of the anti-virus software firms took us down with a weekend upgrade, that was pushed out from our servers to our PCs. what fun that was, took all day for us to back it out, so it is not just OS upgrades that can kill your computer. There are several virus that tell you that an infection has gotten into your PC and suggest you down load their system (virus). I have seen that one at home and use PC tools to remove it. I use routers and firewalls at home and still the bad stuff fines a way in. I wonder if firms using apple have such problems??


On Oct 26 11:00 AM Mad Hedge Fund Trader wrote:

> nns Microsoft (seekingalpha.com/symbo...) is about to hit
> you with a massive marketing effort to buy its new Windows 7 operating
> system, which will be officially released on October 22. I have been
> an early adopter of technology for most of my life, and have been
> doing my own tech support for 25 years (remember Evelyn?) Do yourself
> a huge favor and skip it. A number of beta testers have told me that
> this is the upgrade from Hell. Windows 7 doesn’t explode in your
> face when you first turn it on, but it comes close to it. If you
> have the 32 bit version of Vista, which most of you do, then you
> will only be able to install the 32 bit version of Windows 7, unless
> you want to go through a tortuous custom install. I shudder at the
> prospect of hunting down my lost original installation disks, web
> addresses of download sites, and long forgotten product keys. That
> defeats the purpose of the upgrade right there, as the 64 bit system
> was the main oomph behind the new version, enabling you to use more
> than 3 gb of memory at once. You will need 20 gigs of free disk space
> for the upgrade, which will put it out of reach of many laptops.
> If you do somehow get the 64 bit version installed, then many of
> your peripherals won’t work. If you are one of millions who were
> too terrified to take on Vista and are still using the antiquated
> XP operating system, forget it. There is no upgrade. Better to save
> yourself $120, and wait a year until you buy a new PC with Windows
> 7 preinstalled on it, with enough extra RAM to take full advantage
> of its real power. That gives Mr. Softy another year to debug it
> and come up with a product that really works.

Oct 26 01:00 PM

[jack dee:]

win 7 is great, just about everyone who has touched it, loves it,
please go spread your hate and bile somewhere else.

Oct 26 02:04 PM

[TinyTim:]

The first law of technology-
"Never Buy Anything With A Low Serial Number"

I had a comp sci prof a few years ago when Vista came out who asked the class how many were going to migrate. The nearly unanimous answer was "We'll wait for Service Pack 1."

From what I'm hearing, W7 is probably Vista SP1 (or 2, or 3).

I'm still using XP SP2 (SP3 wouldn't install).
Used Mac years ago and loved 'em. Their newer OS's remind me too much of Windows, which is the ultimate irony.

Macs are useful and efficient tools for people who need that functionality. Most of the MS die-hards I know also want the ability to hack the hardware and software to satisfy their techno urges. This is anathema to folks who couldn't care less about what makes it run.

I pity the IT techs who have to support this MS stuff in large scale.
Job security.

Oct 26 03:02 PM

[cheaperCDs:]

On Oct 26 09:12 AM wusseldussel wrote:
> The problem with Mac: when there is a major upgrade of OS you have
> to buy all the hardware new since the new OS does not support the
> old hardware.

Can you give specific examples? Yes, there are times when old hardware doesn't work, but IMHO it is often when you get new hardware that doesn't have the physical ports. (Then again, I'm using an ADB keyboard from ~1985 on my Mac Pro on SnowLeopard through an ADB<>USB adapter.)

The major change I can think of is removal of AppleTalk, though I believe there are third party solutions for that (I could be wrong).

Oct 26 06:12 PM

[a. palmer jr.:]

I, like a lot of people have never used anything but a PC with windows (XP on my current computer). Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with windows that wasn't caused by me trying to make it better, like trying the beta version of internet explorer 8 which had me pulling my hair out. The regular version of explorer 8 is installed on my computer now and I'm happy with it. It seems that my computers have been just as good as the guy that's maintaining them.

Oct 26 08:12 PM

[GSlusher:]

Not quite so fast. A FEW major upgrades have been unusable on older Macs, but not many. My 2004 iMac G4 (NON-Intel) can use every OS through 10.5, though it initially came with OS 9 & OS 10.3. The same is true for my 2004 12-inch PowerBook G4. My first 15" iMac G3 (2002) could have run through 10.4, though it came with OS 9 & 10.1. Even the very first iMac can run through OS 10.3.9, even though it came with OS *8*. That meant that it could run EVERY Apple OS that came out from the time it was released in 1998 until OS 10.4 came out in 2005--almost 8 years.

OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" can run on any Intel Mac, which means essentially any sold new since early 2006.

That is quite different from a friend who found that his 1-1/2-year-old laptop couldn't use the "full" version of Vista, but only a crippled version. (Note that Apple doesn't make but ONE version of OS X---not counting the server version.)

On Oct 26 09:12 AM wusseldussel wrote:

> The problem with Mac: when there is a major upgrade of OS you have
> to buy all the hardware new since the new OS does not support the
> old hardware.

Oct 26 09:37 PM

[User 504673:]

Requirements for any new OS should we have to look after. Most of us when he install a new OS will never read the minimum hardware requirements the manufacturer asking for, read the long list attached with your hardware ,it will take time but not like time when you face serious problem to fix it.good luck (MSFT)

Oct 27 08:14 AM

[RatWatcher:]

Simply incorrect. I got Mac mini's for the kids, one several years ago. It runs 'tiger'. For $169 I can upgrade it to 'snow leopard'. I see no need to do this since it is working just fine for my son's itunes, but according to Apple store 'genius' it is just pop in the disc to upgrade. I can say for certain, the mini's for the kids has been great as they never have to call me for IT support...they just work.


On Oct 26 09:12 AM wusseldussel wrote:

> The problem with Mac: when there is a major upgrade of OS you have
> to buy all the hardware new since the new OS does not support the
> old hardware. If you buy a brand new PC with Windows 7 I bet it will
> run without any problems. I think many XP users demand that after
> they buy Windows 7 their old hardware runs better than before. And
> Apple will not manage to do such a trick either.

Oct 28 12:05 AM

[Neurotic Nomad:]

As a Mac user, I like a good Microsoft bashing... but this was complete crap.

Switching to a new OS is a bear, but it's often worth the hassle. I've gone from Commodore 64 -> Atari 400 -> Apple IIe -> DOS 5.0 -> DOS 6.22 -> Windows 3.x -> Win95/98/98B -> Win2000 -> WinXP -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard

I just bought a new Mac mini and will be -> Snow Leopard by tomorrow.

You don't like that Windows 7 looks different? Too bad. interfaces evolve. You can't get better if you don't change.

OK, it crashed during setup. BFD. Windows 7 can only be installed as a nuke-and-pave, so I know you didn't lose any settings when it froze. Wipe the drive and start over.

I thought Mac users were whiny. OK, they are, but apparently they don't have an exclusive contract on it.

Oct 29 01:44 PM

[roger that:]

You are speaking from extreme ignorance. Or you are intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Either way, you are wrong.


On Oct 26 09:12 AM wusseldussel wrote:

> The problem with Mac: when there is a major upgrade of OS you have
> to buy all the hardware new since the new OS does not support the
> old hardware. If you buy a brand new PC with Windows 7 I bet it will
> run without any problems. I think many XP users demand that after
> they buy Windows 7 their old hardware runs better than before. And
> Apple will not manage to do such a trick either.

Oct 29 10:32 PM

[JW.USC:]

Wow...does the baseless Micro$uck cheerleading ever stop from this clown?

On Oct 26 02:04 PM jack dee wrote:

> win 7 is great, just about everyone who has touched it, loves it,
>
> please go spread your hate and bile somewhere else.

Nov 05 03:35 PM