I’m down with Windows 7. I really am. It’s going to be a good, solid OS that will take us well into the next decade. Microsoft does this kind of thing every few years – they dump out a clinker (Windows ME) then amaze us all with something great (Windows XP). They’re not the richest company in the world because they’re dumb. They know what they’re doing.
The folks at DownloadSquad, however, note that XP mode isn’t just an admission of defeat by Microsoft. It is, instead, it is a way to allow folks to run POS systems on new hardware. Fair enough. But it is a cop out. It’s a cop out on the part of IT departments, just as it should be, in that it allows them to sit on tested – but old – software while updating their junky old hardware.
But why is the author so adamant that XP mode is a good thing? Of course it is. Anything that makes an IT guy’s life easier is a good thing. But this is a general purpose OS. Making the IT guys happy is a massive priority for Microsoft, sure, but I hope they also make us regular Joes happy as well.
Incidentally, Vista will stop being supported in 2012. Sucks to be someone who likes Vista.
My small company has 10+ PC’s and 3 Macs. I have never loaded Vista on any of them. I welcome W7 and I am downloading RC1 right now to give it a whirl.
Win7 RC1 is fantastic! The beta had tones of issues with my older computer with “unsupported” onboard sound. The RC fixed these compatibility issues (random system freezing) and it brings a ton of performance enhancements that I can enjoy on my older machine.
so there you go. Yay Windows 7!
I’m still a little unconvinced. I also haven’t really given microsoft a chance since they completely ruined my vista experience
Win7 is actually Vista with SP2 running. Kinda like when XP SP2 was relesed it was supposed to be an entirely different OS altogether.
On a more serious note been using 7 RC 1 for a few days and I am extremely impressed. Its currently running on my wifes laptop and will be installed on my rig soon. The upgrade option took almost 3 hours for the wifes laptop I hope it goes faster on the rig.
I skipped Vista since there was no “classic mode.” Having worked at MSFT since WFW and NT3.0, I’m somewhat stodgy in my ideas of an operating system, and being control panel and a registry (hives, anyone?) are important to me. I might give W7 a try, but chances are that I’ll keep on keepin’ on with XP.
oops, forgot to add that the best mode for XP is native mode.
I haven’t really had any problems with Vista. I’m no gamer, but my little laptop can handle Photoshop + Firefox + MS Word ‘03 without any problems. (It’s an ordinary laptop, too…$500, no mods.) I don’t really care if it hogs RAM (I have enough) or if it puts a lot of focus on glittery effects. It works. I haven’t had any issues with accessories or programs that don’t work or…well, anything, really. I was initially loathe to make the switch, but when my old laptop died in December I didn’t have many options available. I was pleasantly surprised.
Out of curiosity, why is Vista so evil? (Please don’t start a flame war…)
Our company upgraded to Vista, from win 2k, about a year after it got released and imo it was a bad misstake as the performance of almost everyones computers has gone down, even though we are running 3+ GB ram and Inter Core 2 Dou processors.
Applications like Eclipse and Clearcase constantly locks up and the whole operative system feels sluggish. Not to mention that alot of the “improvments” in Vista is crap. Like the search function, which was much better in XP (how do you make a feature worse?), and the fact that it takes longer for me to delete stuff from Windows Explorer.
Vista is just plainly … bad. A step backwards when it comes to usability and performance.