First of all, let me begin by saying that I have been running Vista since the day it came out and I have loved the system from day one. Offloading interface to GPU as and superfetch are the most awesome features. They make the OS smooth and snappy on a decent machine. For the life of me I could never figure out why the feedback was so negative. The system definitely was better than XP from my POV in pretty much every aspect. It's true that I have never tried to run it on P2 300MHz, but why would I ever want to do that?
Now a few years later Win7 comes that is supposed to fix the "issues" with Vista. A question begs itself: what issues? Let's address these one by one.
1. Vista runs slow and needs beefy hardware.
Guess what? Windows 7 needs nearly the same level of hardware to run well as Vista. It may work all right on some marginally lower-end machines, but the difference is not that great. Recommended memory is still 2GB. As it should be. I am running Win7 now, and it's taking up 1.2 GB of RAM. Good, and I hope it's using the rest to pre-cache programs for me so that they pop-right up when I open them, just as they do in Vista. And Windows 7 is snappy on my machine...every bit as snappy as Vista.
But why are there no people complaining about how slow Win7 is? Well, because it's not being compared to XP level of hardware requirement. That does not reflect the quality of the OS, just the direction marketing people pointed us in. But look at the logic here. Vista is bad because its hardware needs are steeper than XP. Windows 7 is fine, even though its hardware requirements are virtually the same as Vista's. Mkay...
2. OMG UAC---halp. Hey Win7 has it too, and it requires nearly as many clicks. One place where I found it needs less is when you copy a file to restricted location. It needs one quick click instead of 2, and that is definitely a positive change. Other than that, it's still all there. Moreover, it's a feature that's also been in Mac for ages. But again, Win 7 - OK, Mac - OK, Vista....bad.
3. "Vista is horrible in general, though I have never tried." This is great, because for those people it goes to, "Windows 7 is great, though I have never tried it."
4. I don't like the look of Vista. Ok, but Win7 looks virtually ideantical.
There are plenty of other examples.
What I think really happened was MS made Vista....and for some reason everyone decided it was horrible, even though most initial reviews were positive. So Ballmer and Gates held a meeting which went something like this:
"Ballmer, man, we are losing our touch. They hate Vista...wtf man. That OS has so many new technologies, and everyone just clings to that retarded XP thing...."
"Well Bill, we'll just have to do better next time--there has to be SOMETHING we can do that people will actually like."
"Like what? All our cool ideas are already in Vista. It's pretty hard to top."
"Well, Bill, you and Steve Jobs are close friends, and everyone LOVES Apple, let's call Steve and see what they can come up with...if anyone can save us, it's Steve!"
"Jeez, man, he's never going to let me hear the end of it...He bet me $1 that I will come to him for help after Vista...but I suppose for Microsoft I have to."
***Rings***
"Hello?. Steve? It's Bill speaking."
"Oh hey Bill. What's up?"
"Well Steve, you were right. I mean, I thought we had something here, but...you were right, we just can't come up with anything good that people like."
"Ah! And you're coming to me for help?"
"Rub it in Steve."
"Hahahahaha....all right, all right, I'm sorry Bill. Just couldn't help myself."
"Look, just help me out man, if this was your OS, what would YOU do? If anyone can help us, it's you Steve!"
"Well, that's true I suppose.Here's what I suggest. STOP TRYING SO HARD!!!"
"Steve...really, you're such an ass sometimes"
"I mean it Bill. Look, there is nothing wrong with Vista. Those fudge monkeys out there are just clueless. Just tell them you're coming up with a new OS that's great and will fix everything. Go on vacation for a year. Then come back, have your people fiddle around with the task bar a bit and add a few gimmicks. Then Call it next Windows and release. They'll gobble it up."
"Steve, we can't do that--our customers will hate us even more than they do now if we stop trying to improve Windows."
"Bill, my poor Bill. They won't. We've been doing this for years. For our next OS, we are just going to rename Leopard and 'release' it again. Heck, I don't think we're even going to rename it all that much. Might add some stars to the wallpaper though..."
"...."
"Bill, just do it. I've gotta run. You owe me a dollar btw. Bye."
Now a few years later Win7 comes that is supposed to fix the "issues" with Vista. A question begs itself: what issues? Let's address these one by one.
1. Vista runs slow and needs beefy hardware.
Guess what? Windows 7 needs nearly the same level of hardware to run well as Vista. It may work all right on some marginally lower-end machines, but the difference is not that great. Recommended memory is still 2GB. As it should be. I am running Win7 now, and it's taking up 1.2 GB of RAM. Good, and I hope it's using the rest to pre-cache programs for me so that they pop-right up when I open them, just as they do in Vista. And Windows 7 is snappy on my machine...every bit as snappy as Vista.
But why are there no people complaining about how slow Win7 is? Well, because it's not being compared to XP level of hardware requirement. That does not reflect the quality of the OS, just the direction marketing people pointed us in. But look at the logic here. Vista is bad because its hardware needs are steeper than XP. Windows 7 is fine, even though its hardware requirements are virtually the same as Vista's. Mkay...
2. OMG UAC---halp. Hey Win7 has it too, and it requires nearly as many clicks. One place where I found it needs less is when you copy a file to restricted location. It needs one quick click instead of 2, and that is definitely a positive change. Other than that, it's still all there. Moreover, it's a feature that's also been in Mac for ages. But again, Win 7 - OK, Mac - OK, Vista....bad.
3. "Vista is horrible in general, though I have never tried." This is great, because for those people it goes to, "Windows 7 is great, though I have never tried it."
4. I don't like the look of Vista. Ok, but Win7 looks virtually ideantical.
There are plenty of other examples.
What I think really happened was MS made Vista....and for some reason everyone decided it was horrible, even though most initial reviews were positive. So Ballmer and Gates held a meeting which went something like this:
"Ballmer, man, we are losing our touch. They hate Vista...wtf man. That OS has so many new technologies, and everyone just clings to that retarded XP thing...."
"Well Bill, we'll just have to do better next time--there has to be SOMETHING we can do that people will actually like."
"Like what? All our cool ideas are already in Vista. It's pretty hard to top."
"Well, Bill, you and Steve Jobs are close friends, and everyone LOVES Apple, let's call Steve and see what they can come up with...if anyone can save us, it's Steve!"
"Jeez, man, he's never going to let me hear the end of it...He bet me $1 that I will come to him for help after Vista...but I suppose for Microsoft I have to."
***Rings***
"Hello?. Steve? It's Bill speaking."
"Oh hey Bill. What's up?"
"Well Steve, you were right. I mean, I thought we had something here, but...you were right, we just can't come up with anything good that people like."
"Ah! And you're coming to me for help?"
"Rub it in Steve."
"Hahahahaha....all right, all right, I'm sorry Bill. Just couldn't help myself."
"Look, just help me out man, if this was your OS, what would YOU do? If anyone can help us, it's you Steve!"
"Well, that's true I suppose.Here's what I suggest. STOP TRYING SO HARD!!!"
"Steve...really, you're such an ass sometimes"
"I mean it Bill. Look, there is nothing wrong with Vista. Those fudge monkeys out there are just clueless. Just tell them you're coming up with a new OS that's great and will fix everything. Go on vacation for a year. Then come back, have your people fiddle around with the task bar a bit and add a few gimmicks. Then Call it next Windows and release. They'll gobble it up."
"Steve, we can't do that--our customers will hate us even more than they do now if we stop trying to improve Windows."
"Bill, my poor Bill. They won't. We've been doing this for years. For our next OS, we are just going to rename Leopard and 'release' it again. Heck, I don't think we're even going to rename it all that much. Might add some stars to the wallpaper though..."
"...."
"Bill, just do it. I've gotta run. You owe me a dollar btw. Bye."