Will Windows 7 fail to live up to its hype?

I think generally everyone would agree that Vista was somewhat a flop for M$.

Expensive, heavy on memory resources, slow in driver support and generally unimpressive.

Windows 7 has been receiving a lot of thumbs up. But is it really a "better Vista"?

After experiencing the problems in Vista (especially for networking) I'm wondering if it's going to be the same thing for Windows 7.

In fact, I'm running the RC version and already it has given me problems relating to graphics and also to my tv tuner card (Avermedia does not yet have support driver for Windows 7).

What do you guys think? Are you going to jump in right after it's released or will you wait a year or so?

 

Windows 7 doesn't cause problems with your hardware - a lack of driver support from the manufacturer does that. If your hardware doesn't have Windows 7 drivers (or the Vista drivers don't work with Windows 7), then upgrading might not be something you want to do right now.

 

Consider the audience on this particular forum.... I suspect you'll get a pretty biased response.

I'm in. Running Win7 Pro x64 (RTM) now and won't be dropping back to Vista. I really don't have any issues with my T400 except for the lack of a hybrid graphics driver from Lenovo. Don't get me wrong, Lenovo's been amazing in terms of releasing beta Win7 drivers. I suspect some hardware vendors may lag a little, but they do still have some time before Oct 22nd (not much but some).

The biggest issue for XP to Win7 will be people whining about having to learn a slightly different user interface. Not much MS can do about that I suppose, some folks just love to whine and complain. The other potential issue for them is the non-mainstream hardware vendors not providing good drivers for Win7. People will tend to blame MS when the fault is with the vendor of that piece of hardware.

 

I have an avermedia tv card built in my laptop and I have the drivers, I had them for vista and have them for win 7, even for 64bit.

 

Windows 7 is overrated.

 

After the Vista launch, MS set the bar pretty low. I think it will be well received just because there will be better driver support when it is released. But there also seem to be enough improvements in the OS to make users happy.

 

its the best thing since windows 98 so yes it will live up to the hype

 

honestly i had a minumum number of issues with vista.. maybe in the beginning back that was just nvidia and other manufactors who had to make drivers...

 

I wouldn't consider it a flop for them, considering they made money on it. It just him them hard in the PR department.

Driver support is not MS's fault. And You'd consider XP heavy on resources compared to Windows 95, right? XP is from 2001, you need new hardware if you're complaining 8 years later your hardware isn't so good.

. I had extremely minimal problems in Vista. The worst problems, were annoyances at most.

The RC is not a finalized product. One would expect it to have problems.

I already have it, and it runs beautifully.

 

consider what vista has done for all computer users, without vista integrated video chipsets might still be stuck in the age of intel extreme graphics. at least now, integrated graphics support aero and the latest crop of them can even do hd video offloading.

thus you now have ati 3200 (or even better 4200), nvidia 9400, intel x4500hd

 

There is no hype. I’m running it, have been running it and it works great. As for your video card issue, what do you expect? You’re running an unfinished operating system and your vendor has not yet chosen to update its drivers (blame your vendor, not Microsoft).

 

In a way i kinda agree with this statement. Without a doubt 7 is an excellent OS, polished and elegant, forward looking with an eye to the future.

But in many ways Vista was the same way, it just got knocked back a bit by hardware and drivers that didn't catch up, preconceived expectations/notions about how an OS should run (the whole "all my RAM is gone...Vista suxxxxx!" thing, for example) and the abnormally large amount of time that people spent with Windows XP. (previous Windows releases were always just a few years apart, not 5 as in the case with Vista and XP)

People became very comfortable with Windows XP, they grew used to it's quirks and, even today, are quite fond of the OS. Main reason is because most people like most what they are most familiar with, and tend to resist change. Other reasons are because they heard/read bad things about Vista from influential people/things like coworkers, friends, family, and internet sites. Vista was both a cosmetic and internal design change from XP that took many time to get used to.

That said, the issues that were resolved in 7-better support/lowered footprint for low power netbooks and nettops that wern't even thought of when Vista debuted, refinements to the UI, lessened UAC prompts and a slider that lets you find the perfect sweet spot for it, and the added media and networking features, make it pretty compelling.

 

Some of you guys are ridiculous..You complain about 7 just because your using hardware from the 10yrs ago.XP is old and has reached its ends.Stop complaining about your antique computers with .333MHZ and 64MB ram thats not win7 problem.

 

I think the whole 'Vista sux for taking all my RAM" thing is the norm because of the inability of XP to have used it efficiently, showing unused RAM and making people think that once the RAM was free they could dictate what it was used for.

I have to admit, that was me initially when I first started using Vista. But then I went on Vista information sites and education myself on the product, got to learn what Vista did and why it did the things it did.

I have to say Vista is a much better operating system than XP now, in fact to the point that I remember with XP I had to do the bi-annual 'reinstallation' because of what my friend's would call "OS rot" aka registry cleanup. With Vista, nothing....I need to do NOTHING and this OS runs and tip top shape as though I just installed the bloody thing.

 

Windows 7 has a lot of "small" things over vista that makes me never wanting to go back to vista

 

I had a few issues with Vista, which were not helped by my migration to Vista64 a while back. Driver support even in 64bit was problematic for a while (not MS's fault).

But what was MS's fault...networking and handling WiFi connections absolutely SUCKED for me. All the XP machines worked right off the bat, Vista took its sweet time (and sometimes a reboot) to get it right. That was pretty much my only problem with Vista that has not disappeared over time.

But Vista did have a few major bugs that were worked out with SP1 and SP2; I specifically remember that my USB drives were practically useless because transfer rates wouldn't exceed 10MB/s. Even my hard drives (rated for around 100-120MB/s) were not running as fast. Networked/shared drives were much worse. I went back to XP until that problem had been fixed.

Anyway, I've been using W7 for the past two weeks and already I do not feel like going back. The user interface improvements are actually useful, I like what it has done to my productivity. The control panel kind of stinks, but I do not use that often enough for me to care. I have not yet played with "Libraries" on the OS, but I've worked with the networking a good deal and I am not having any of the problems I did have with Vista.

So for now, I'm planning on keeping W7 on my laptop once I finish up figuring out which Dell drivers I need to use (argh). The desktop is running a 30 day trial until I have time to reinstall with another MSDNAA license.

 

I ran Windows 7 on my previous laptop before getting my E4300, and I really liked it.

I can't wait to slap my MSDNAA license on my E4300 once my school officially supports Windows 7 and Dell starts releasing more drivers.

 

This entire post seems very uninformed, as if a random person in the general public who knew nothing about Vista and 7 decided to talk. Let's see.

Vista was I guess a flop. Why?
Vista was released what, 6 years after XP? People running XP computers (majority over 6+ year comps) expected to be able to run Vista nicely. I remember getting a desktop with 256 MB RAM and 2.5 GHz Celeron in 2005, 4 years AFTER XP release. Can that desktop run Vista? No. Hardware gets updated and Vista wasn't built to run in the past.

Epsneive ... etc. Can't comment on that, got Vista with my laptops. Heavy on memory, uses 700 MB idle for me. Heavy compared to OS X sure, but if you turn off all visual effects and make it Windows 98/XP like, you greatly reduce it (never tried it so dunno exact #s). You can't expect to get more for nothing. Plus, Vista was released in a time where RAM costs next to nothing, so sorry Microsoft for taking advantage of hardware. Slow driver support: support for old hardware MIGHT be slow, but for my laptops, even 1 I bought 1/2 a year before Vista came out, had all the right drivers either preinstalled or listed on the manufacturer's site.

Generally unimpressive: care to explain, or just going with the flow? With Vista I have had minimal problems, and trust me, I poke around a lot. In my 2.5 years using it (and I use a comp daily), I have had maybe 5 BSODs, mostly due to me undervolting. That's stability. Vista visual effects are MUCH more impressive than XP, and its organization of features and fluidity definitely beats XP. I had Vista on my old old laptop, removed it and put XP Home back on, then couldn't stick with it for over a week (literally) before I threw Vista back on. My old laptop had (Core Duo 1.6 GHz, 1 GB 533 MHz RAM, 100 GB 5400 RPM HDD, Intel GMA 945 with 128 MB shared). Ran Vista nicely.

Windows 7 is a better Vista, I mean it was built from Vista, so MS had to be retards to make it worse.

What was the problem with networking?

RTM is out. What is the graphics card you have and is it compatible with Vista/7? I have had the RC and the RTM and all my HW are fine. Then again maybe it's because I don't use HW from years ago.

I have already jumped into the final release so yes it's good. Once people realize that hardware gets updated over 6 years and no one would write software for hardware that's 6 years old, they will understand why people keep whining why their Pentium 3s don't run Vista well.

 

No it will fail in general public audiences, but at the same time will be an amazing OS. Why, well I will tell you why with 3 reasons.

Drivers.

Bloatware.

Pop culture of being different and special then everyone else.

See a resemblance? I do, none of them Microsoft has full control of, it instead is left up to lazy, incompetent, inefficient, useless, and greedy people.
Still Microsoft will take the blame and 7 will go down in the books as a "flop" like Vista.

/rant

 

Drivers are ready so thats not really an issue

Bloatware one I can agree with. It could slow down Windows 7.

Pop culture of being different. Yes, that's why people buy Macs and then regret the purchase thus buying a PC the next time they go out to buy. Don't worry, the door is still open even after you'd left and come back

 

This time around, I think bloatware is going to be the worst part of Windows 7. I think Microsoft didn't take too kindly to the terrible driver support for Vista and really pressed manufacturers to get better drivers for Windows 7. But as for bloatware, that will always be there, and it could really hit 7 hard.

 

Windows 7 will not fail in living up to the hype. One glaring difference is that when Vista came out most machines had 2gb or less ram--most of the machines on the market lately have 4gb ram.

Windows 7 seems to be scaled back some from Vista at least in the number of "out of the box" running processes. These two factors alone should guarantee it's success even without the improved GUI, improved performance, improved driver support, and generally improved hardware, CPU's, HDD's, GPU's,etc.

 

bloatware will be the reality for many pre-built systems because if not for bloatware, these systems would be more expensive than they are. after all, bloatware is just another type of advertisement and thus helps in lowering the overall cost of pcs.

 

I do not think that Win 7 is overly bloated.
At least not with a fresh install.
A pre-installed OS will definitely have addittional software that will bloat it and slow down the system.
The easiest way to deal with this problem is to remove the bloatware in question or make a clean install of the OS.
Granted, I still think that they could have trimmed down Win 7 ever further in size, but a clean install of it is better compared to Vista's.

I also haven't encountered issues with Vista in terms of functionality and compatibility (apart in some minor programs), but Win 7 has been a breath of fresh air, plus an improvement over the existing Vista when it comes to responsiveness and speed.

I do agree that the transition from XP to Vista was very rough ... but let's be frank here ... Microsoft messes up royally in multiple aspects when it came to Vista upon initial release.
Starting from resource consumption and HDD space demands, and inbuilt bloatware that indeed made it run rather poorly.

Let's also not forget how Vista was pre-installed on laptops/systems that met the bare minimum requirements and resulted in poor performance.
I mean, why did manufacturers install Vista on systems below 2GB of RAM to begin with?
It would have been better to stick with XP PRO SP3 for lower end systems and reserve Vista for better specs.
They didn't help the promotion of the OS that's for sure.

 

I actually have to third this. While some of the big hardware makers offer no bloatware configurations in their consumer lineup (Sony and Dell) they aren't exactly promoting it (at least in Dell's current method of having to step through every single option on their web configurator to make sure you deselected what you wanted-Many people end up skipping sections to get done out of excitement or lack of time and end up getting some junk on there) and HP doesn't offer bloatware free options at all.

I understand that the bloatware preinstalled on computers makes the price lower, and can make the computing experience for average/new users more complete and safer out of the box (Preinstalled security software subscription, and Microsoft Works for example) but sometimes the wrong implementaton it can make the experience a poor one, with icons for trials and crap all over the desktop/start menu......heck I remember reading a PC World (either them or PC Mag) comparison of the typical big computer maker's crapware install, and read about a Sony who not only had a Spider-Man promo wallpaper instead of the standard Windows Vista one, but was also stuffed with movie files that couldn't be played unless you opted to pay for it, Why!?!!?

Also, the advertising effort for Windows 7 has to be spot on this time around, there isn't time for abstract "artsy" crap like "the wow starts now" and vague, almost theatrical, commercials. Average people outside this tech bubble still have no idea about 7, and they need compelling, engaging commercials and ads showing just what the differences that 7 has to offer against OS X, Vista and XP.

 

Well that is why you get a laptop from the Business section, beside you also get a better warranty service (as you pay more), and get the OS disk. I prefer to pay the 100-300$ more from business and get these, than hvbing my laptop have more junk in the system than the trash produce in one day in North America. (HP Home systems being the worst)

 

True, but most consumers don't realize that they can order business line systems, so they bring home the crapware filled consumer system, experience errors and sluggishness and blame the OS.

 

bloatwared preinstalled os' are the killer for all os'. but after vista, microsoft fought much with dell, hp and the other companies to get a good out of the box experience. lets see how this will evolve this time, i wish them luck.

vista out of the box experience was sadly sometimes really bad. bad till bluescreen-bad. a simple reinstall made it highly performant and perfectly stable. i hope for microsoft, that this won't happen with win7 this time.

i personally only use business line systems myself, too. they dance around any "consumergrade" systems.



it will fail the hype for anyone except maximus anyways, as it will "just be an os" => it can not be everything for everyone everytime, unlike hypes always can be but lets hope that this time, it will, mainly in the internet, stay with the hype, making everyone believe it's good.

 

+1. Well said. IMO vista > XP. I hated that I had to do clean wipes with XP every couple of months. Backup and reinstallitions were time consuming.

 

Double the point with me.
XP was a project to make it work on a new computer, you had to re-install every 3 or so month because it slowed down, despite using several defragmentation tools, always act like if you are low in RAM (puts everything under page file instead your RAM), drivers are locked in to the kernel, so if they crash you get a BSOD. It was packed with bugs, even the toolltip box for the task bar was hidden by it most of the time. Windows update always has issues, after you upgrade service packs. Took forever to scan the system for new updates. 2 Windows Update (manual and automatic) were competing to deliver the updates (ie: you check for updates manually, then you got the automatic update running on the back installing or downloading update while you are checking for them), Windows firewall in XP was a joke, it alerts you half the time AFTER the software has fully access the web, sometimes I had it ask for the first time after I ran the program the second time. and I can go on.

Vista had a driver issue at first, true. But Vista was hundred time better than XP. You simply had to experience it for a few month to see this.

 

I don't know what garbage you were installing that caused you to have to do the reinstallations, but I have five XP machines at my office and I have left them running 24/7 for weeks without any crashes or problems. One XP Pro machine I just retired had been in continual use for 5 years and I never once did an OS reinstall. Still runs fast as ever.

But since I use my machines for business, I am very careful as to what I install and use a very small number of essential trusted programs and utilities.

However, I do agree with the other posters that it is the bloatware, poorly written programs and buggy drivers that cause ordinary users users to blame Windows. It is not usually the OS, and I have used Vista on my home computers extensively with much fewer issues caused by the OS itself that require advanced computer knowledge to unravel. Simpler networking is a prime example.

The average user whose computer has nearly ground to a halt is not aware that there are 50 processes running, 10 programs trying to access the internet at once to check for updates, a firewall blocking some of these programs, and a virus scan running in the background all at the same time. Eventually it takes 5 minutes to start the computer and 10 minutes to shut it down and the person wants to throw it in the trash. My girlfriend bought a new Vista laptop and it took me two hours to try to get rid of the bloatware and trial programs to try to get it running halfway decent. Even then, some of the programs did not uninstall properly or completely, and left the dreaded ghosts that may come back and haunt you later on. And some of the security suites bundled with the machines are the biggest offenders by hogging memory and cpu cycles with their constant activities.

At a certain point, some major OS redesign has to occur to put a stop to this kind of thing. For starters, how about integrated virus protection (as has been discussed many times) and some kind of a console to manage all program updating. With the Windows OS becoming increasingly secure, is it always going to be necessary to do a daily full HD virus scan? I realize the cost to MS would be significant to keep a team dedicated to staying on top of latest viruses and trojans, but they already do this to an extent with Windows Update and the malicious software removal tools. I would be willing to pay extra for this, because everyone and their brother writes virus utilities and we know some routinely miss major viruses and trojans. Finally, the unlimited access programs have to memory, the cpu, and the ability to load-on-startup has to be controlled in some manner by the OS.

How to do these things is far above my pay grade. I've always wondered if an industry-wide consortium could be formed to give sort of a "Good Housekeeping Seal" to programs (rather than just drivers) that comply with a set of guidelines. Or some kind of "safe mode" for children and users who are not computer savvy to protect them from system-clogging programs. I know you can lock down or otherwise limit the ability to install programs through user management but most people always run as administrator. Hardware problems -- well I don't know what you do but I wonder if Windows could be smarter in identifying and notifying the user of a specific hardware issue affecting performance.

I am not a software designer or programmer of any kind, and the above ideas are certainly nothing new or great insights, but I would think they are doable are would improve the average user's experience.

 

Windows already does this via Windows Defender and Windows Update. Any software manufacturer can add their updates to this system (you see this being done with many drivers), but most chose not to (probably because the solution is proprietary and they don’t want their users going to a Microsoft-owned portal for their program updates).

 

a lot of guys from microsoft say currently, that you wouldn't need an active vire scanner anymore on vista. they can't promote this, as stupid users still need an active scanner, they would even need that on a mac, on their cellphone, even the car..

but i live without virus scanning software since vista, and it's great

 

Agree with you here. Neither at work nor at home do I have anywhere near the number of problems I see posted on this forum.

Isn't this the concept behind managed code (i.e., the CLR) ? At one time, wasn't there discussion of only allowing managed code ?

 

that would be my happy day.. only .net managed code on an os would be awesome (as proven by singularity).

they can completely get rid of ring0 and ring3 like os' have to rely on currently, just to not bluescreen on some driver fault.. and the performance gains from not having to switch rings (kernel mode and user mode, that is) looks like it is quite big.

 

I actually think Window 7 will deliver!
I don't know though whether it will be a flop for Microsoft but I'm almost positive it will deliver.
Microsoft wont do the same mistake as Windows Vista, will they? In that case it would just be plain stupid.

 

Microsoft has offered AV protection for quite a while now (Windows Live OneCare-a subscription based security suite, and now Microsoft Security Essentials-a free security suite) The main reason why they can't integrate these into the OS is because the Security Suite makers would be up in arms over it, shouting "Monopoly."

Windows Vista and Windows 7 both include Parental Controls to limit what kids and non computer savvy users can do. If a administrator level account starts Parental Controls and the other accounts they want to manage are administrator accounts, they are walked through the process of switching said accounts to "standard" users.

 

I think what you are getting at is people don't feel like spending time managing their OS. An OS should manage the resources itself. This kind of self management though, is generally frowned upon by geeks and control freaks. Vista tried to make use of unused resources, and people cried about how much memory/harddrive space/ CPU cycles it was using. I can't count the number of post I see about people whining about what % the CPU idles at/ how much free memory/ how much free harddrive space while comparing the different version. I think it is hurting us as consumer not allowing the OS to do what it was meant to do: manage the resources of the computer.

There was a post on ZDNet where someone called made fun of the practice of bragging about their configuration by taking a snapshot of the task manager while the machine was idle. And I feel insulted when I see smart people on this forum use this form of subjective and shortsighted "benchmark" to compare OSes and configurations.

I would like something like this to happen. Microsoft is probably in the best position to move an initiative like this happen. The PR climate however is against them. Microsoft is already seen as too big and controlling, a hold over from the 1990 Industry monopoly PR disaster. Yet it was Microsoft in the 1990s that proliferated such items we take for granted: media players, Internet Browsers, Automatic update, Plug & Play, Real Time SpellCheck (red squiggle line), OLE and COM (for the technically savy), AJAX, Visual Basic, etc. All these innovations were made available through Microsoft industry position and market share. I personally would like to see Microsoft return to their old monopoly ways. Software innovations were moving at a breakneck pace back in the 1990s. Compare, in 10 years, we went from MS DOS 5.0 to Windows 98 SE. We went from friggin text editors to Office 2000.

Where are we after 10 years on non-monopoly Microsoft?

GUI to ....... GUI
An Internet browser on every computer to ......... an Internet browser on every computer
Automatic update to.......... Automatic update


Bring back Monopoly plz. K? Thank U.