RSSWindows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade
By Carmi Levy | Published August 20, 2009, 11:12 AM
To upgrade or not to upgrade: It's the issue of the moment for Windows users everywhere as the hype machine for the October 22 Windows 7 release gathers steam. And as we gaze at our existing machines, either running a snappy but outdated XP or a pokey but still slick looking Vista, and wonder whether we should be planning a late night trip to the big box store for our very own copy, I've got one word for you: Stop.
There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to refresh your existing machine with a cool new operating system. Pre-release versions of Windows 7 have displayed impressive performance, stability, and usability. Device compatibility -- a major bugaboo early on for the ill-starred Vista -- is much improved. It's smaller and lighter than the OS it ostensibly replaces, a nice reversal from the years-long tidal wave of ever-more-bloated products from the world's largest software vendor. Win7 scales better and can take advantage of more memory and multicore processors. That the new OS looks cool enough to not embarrass Windows fans when they run into Mac zealots at parties is an added bonus.
I don't doubt that Windows 7 seems to be Microsoft's strongest OS in years. I also don't doubt that most of us will eventually use some form of it. I just don't think we should be running it on any machines we're using now. Unless you're a weekend tinkerer with extra PCs hanging around the house and a lot of extra time on your hands, upgrading an existing machine is for suckers.
Married to the hardware
Just because you can slap in some DVDs and upgrade your current machine doesn't mean you should. Call me old fashioned, but I'm a big believer in upgrading your OS when you upgrade your hardware. Windows isn't like a Linux distro you install yourself. Hardware vendors devote significant resources tuning it to support their PCs. Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch. Installing a retail-purchased box of Windows 7 on a machine whose vendor never certified the specific build is a veritable invitation to a litany of niggling little problems -- issues arising from the fact that the hardware was never intended to work with anything but the OS that was originally installed.
And what about those Linux boxes? There's a world of difference between a tech enthusiast's latest challenge and the laptops your company just deployed to your sales force. When you're the one doing the building and the configuring (and you presumably know what you're doing) there's an expectation that things will go wrong and you'll be able to figure out how to fix them. Tweaking is part of the fun when you build it yourself. I doubt that salesperson in the field would be too pleased after a driver compatibility issue at a client site turned the laptop into a doorstopper.
People buy mainstream hardware pre-loaded with mainstream operating systems because they just want it to work, and they don't have the cycles to figure it out for themselves. Drop an upgrade on top of all that integrated goodness and you're back in the world of white boxes and intermittent glitchiness.
Of course, even that risk may not be enough to deter some users from dumping their old OS, anyway. I admit some folks may not be happy with Vista's performance on their current machine and may be, to put it charitably, highly motivated to be the first to upgrade. Microsoft's design philosophy for Windows 7 -- namely make it smaller and lighter without compromising the omnibus, full-featured architecture that has always allowed Windows to seemingly be all things to all people -- holds promise for some that they'll finally be able to put Vista-induced pokiness behind them.
Time ticks down for XP
XP users may also want to jump, though for different reasons. While the older OS doesn't bog hardware down to the same degree that Vista often does, it suffers from an aged interface only its mother could love, lagging security capabilities and rapidly diminishing vendor support. Microsoft doesn't make as much money selling it, either. And while we really shouldn't play the little violin for a multibillion dollar global corporation, profit-seeking organizations can't sustain less than optimally profitable products forever. As much as some loyalists would like to keep XP alive forever, its time is clearly running out.
But the realities of tightly coupled OS/hardware packages signal the death knell for the shrink-wrapped boxes that used to signal a new OS release. We don't buy software off a shelf anymore. The OS comes pre-loaded when we buy our hardware, and as a result most of us have gotten used to upgrading to a new version of Windows whenever we get a new machine. Businesses, too, wary of the enormous costs of certifying a new OS build in complex network and application environments, are also beginning to see the merits of streamlining their OS roadmap and tying it to hardware refreshes.
Unlike applications, new operating systems rarely deliver the kind of functionality or productivity improvements that would justify the project cost. As organizations look for ways to shave unnecessary expenses, the standalone OS upgrade project has emerged as low hanging fruit. They're justifiably content to live with an older, not-quite-leading-edge OS as long as it works and doesn't fail in some way every other day. For the most part, XP and Vista continue to deliver on that front, so it makes eminent sense to keep them chugging until IT can deploy some shiny new Windows 7-equipped machines.
Sure, those poor users won't have as much to chat about at parties, and the Mac folks will be all over them for a little while longer. But as the OS increasingly becomes a commodity product, anyway, the prospect of investing time and money on something you'll get essentially for free the next time you visit Best Buy will increasingly be seen as laughable. For now, keep your wallet in your pocket and start researching your next PC instead.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
The economy is going to tank in the next year, even more, and paying money for bits is going to seem ridiculous in retrospect.
There will not be a recovery under current models for next 5-10 years.
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|Your kindness and professionalism overwhelm me.
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|Perhaps you don't want to upgrade, but writing an article about it telling everyone else not to upgrade is just stupid.
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|You may want to re-read the piece. I'm not wholesale advocating against upgrading. Simply recommending you wait until you get new hardware, and kill two birds with one stone. Cleaner, less expensive and less risky.
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|Windows 7's interface is its greatest weakness. They took the already inefficient and unfriendly Vista scheme and made it even less useful. I have yet to find a single human being in RL who likes Aero, and I've talked to literally dozens both on the job and off. I have people bringing me new machines begging me to put XP back on. Usually I just enable classic mode and their happy, but one was adamant so I did it. And guess what? XP ran everything faster and actually recognized his printer, which Vista never did even with the latest drivers. Windows 7 is so unusable I ran it just long enough to realize I didn't' really *care* how well it performed..a GUI that God-awful makes everything else irrelevant.
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|"I have yet to find a single human being in RL who likes Aero, "
Amazing, considering your Bias likely greatly affects the type of people you hang with in RL?
Lots of folks here seem to like it just fine, even better.
WIn-arrow keys for arrangement, Win-P for multi-monitor, jumplists instead of toolbars, pinning, etc... If you can't figure out how to make these useful for you, perhaps it's a failing on *your* part, not of the interface.
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|What!? I upgraded to 7RC BECAUSE of my oldish hardware. Carmi is not just old fashioned but a troglodyte. I now run a fast, pretty secure, good lookiing OS which not only supports my hardware and latest software but runs BETTER than XP on the same machine.
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|I'm guessing troglodytes prefer Mac OS X, then?
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|Switch to a Mac!? Wow, really, best laugh I've had all day so far. I happen to enjoy Windows and I happen to enjoy how my system runs and keeps running, optimally, for years and years because of the hour it may take me to reformat a few times a year. I'm not delusional enough to think my time is so precious that it would become a bother. And I'd bet you probably all know more about computers than I do, officially, I'm just a pretty savvy user who does a lot of research and can figure things out for myself - usually. However, perhaps we can all agree that the systems we are running today are excessive at best (that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them!) and we don't need all these upgrades so often, but they are happening and this is the best one from Microsoft since XP, in my opinion. I got rid of Vista as soon as I played around with it for a few hours and that was on a computer that was "designed for Vista". I just firmly believe that you don't need to buy a brand new computer to reap the benefits of a new operating system if you have a little more than the minimum system requirements and I don't think we should be planting that seed in peoples heads. The technological inflation that has been going on the past few years is incredible and fairly disgusting to me, but also fun. Every day there is something new and better and I just happen to think this one is legit for Windows users. I'm not here to argue with people, I just wanted to share my opinion about this guy's article, which I do not completely agree with based on my own experiences, because that is all I have to offer. The End.
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|vivek:
The only one posting nothing of use here seems to be you. The only "fanboy/astroturfer" here seems to be you.
Dead giveaway: You provide nothing resembling an "intelligent reason" for your posts and the website you link gives us a nice Apple logo on the title-tab.
I thought you Apple fanboys were smarter than that....
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|I won't be upgrading until USB3 and SATA 6Gbps is firmly planted tested and stable on the ASUS motherboard of choice. I expect this to be Q2-Q3 of 2010.
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|Dear Carmi,
Thanks for a frank and brave article. I have gone through the comments. I hope they have not managed to unsettle you. They are laughable at best, Microsoft-sponsored at worst. Unfortunately, they are both. They are systematically going about downgrading the comments of those who support your views, so that the comment falls below the threshold level of (-4) and is no longer viewable in default mode.
Going through the people criticizing you, it is easy to spot the language of mercenaries. Their rants do not give one single intelligent reason, why a user should upgrade.
An operating system is not an end in itself. It is just a tool. If WinXP as a tool, suits you fine, you should concentrate on the output you produce, and on saving jobs - not on spending money on unnecessary upgrades - part of which flows to the bribable wordsmiths putting comments here under various names.
Vivek Shroff www.viveka.me
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|"They are laughable at best, Microsoft-sponsored at worst. Unfortunately, they are both."
"They are systematically going about downgrading the comments of those who support your views, so that the comment falls below the threshold level of (-4) and is no longer viewable in default mode."
Source? Proof? Of course not. Guess that makes you a paid-for Anti-MS FUD monkey, right? No? Then don't be so quick to judge others. :)
"Their rants do not give one single intelligent reason, why a user should upgrade."
Proof you haven't actually read the majority of the comments or are just dismissing them out-of-hand. Real good example of "intelligent reasoning" there....
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|After reading some other comments, I am glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks parts of this are just complete hooey and make this guy sound like he doesn't know that much about computers and how they work.
As many others have stated, I ALWAYS do a clean install whenever I buy a new computer, and then once or twice I year there after, so having the actual OEM disc is a must for me. And in my not-so-humble opinion, I think it should be a must for every computer user.
That being said, I'm currently running the Windows 7 Release Candidate on my recently purchased Lenovo IdeaPad S10 Netbook and on my desktop, which is few years older and a Dell. Both have taken it to it like a fish to water to say the least and I can't wait to be running the full released version come October. Plainly stated, this is by far the smoothest, most efficient operating system I have ever used and I'm loving it more and more each day.
Installing an operating system and likewise, downloading correct device drivers, has never been easier or faster than it now is with Windows 7, or was for me anyway! But it seems like all my device drivers were updated correctly, on both machines, during the installation process. In the past with XP, I used to have to go to the manufacturers web site and download everything after a clean install. There were a couple of things I had to install manually just like always though, such as the audio driver/software and other additional software of course (i.e. MS Office, etc.), but these are the types of simple things that most computer users can get through without any trouble. And if you can't, I would not recommend using computers at all. ;)
Also, let the record show that I have had no programs that I have used for years and love, not work with Windows 7 if it worked with XP. Some of them I had to go download vista updated versions or whatever, but this has really been a pretty painless upgrade and I think it will be for most consumers. Plus the few hours it might take to upgrade and customize your PC back to the way you like it or had it before, will be well worth it once they start realizing everything you can do so easily within Windows 7.
That's my two cents.
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|Hi! You ALWAYS do a clean install of a new operating system, and then ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR after that! If you happen to value your time anything more than two cents, you should s*** to Mac.
Vivek Shroff www.viveka.me
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|What if his data is stored on a separate partition? What if he keeps the installs for his commonly used programs on that partition as well?
On such a system, WET would take 10 minutes MAX and the install would take ~30 minutes.
Better yet, what if his "re-install" consists of reverting to a previous image (all apps installed, data on second partition)? In this case, the entire thing takes about 20 minutes.
But no... somehow you *know* it's taking a *huge* amount of time...or at least enough to make spending an additional $1500 on a new computer a consideration. Funny how you can "know" that with so little *real* information.
Perhaps you don't "know" as much as you think you do.
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|Why? I service Macs and they break themselves too. Unlike Windows which is easy enough to fix, even a minor Mac flaw often leads to a re-install. Other than malware, there is no significant advantage in my book (and malware is a huge advantage, granted).
Call me when you can some decent games and OS X is available to whitebox builders. :p
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|For heavens sake. When is Microsoft going to start listening to what people want.
I am still a happy Windows 2000 user. Why? Its faster than any operating system to date. I have tried XP and its alot slower. I will change when and only when there is something equally fast or faster and that can run on my hardware without having to dump thousands into new hardware.
SPEED IS THE KEY! Not bloating the operating and putting in tons of services that are not needed
and trying to protect the operating system with crappy controls and well.. Microsoft LISTEN.
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|They did... Windows 7 IS faster than their previous iteration. It's also more secure (and about 100x more secure than 2000/XP).
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|If you can afford it and want the upgrade, do it. it will be compatible with any normal consumer software used today. as long as u dont rely on 10 year old applications or very specific apps for work, there's no downside besides money and time.
Windows 7 uses the same drivers as Vista and most vendors dont need to tweak anything for full compatibility while others only need slight adjusting. also, the drivers listed on PC MFGs websites are usually the best often for compatibility, they're really just rebranded drivers from that part's MFG, who may have a true Windows 7 driver released.
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|After evaluating advantages and disadvantages, in my case I don't find any valid reason for moving from Windows XP.
I find in the stats that we are a great majority all over the world who think this way.
Microsoft should respect the opinion of most Windows users in the world and not try to impose their doubtful new creations to anyone who buys a preinstalled new computer.
Moving from an OS to another means a lot of unneccesary problems for big and small enterprises. But Microsoft "life cycle" assures you that whatever of their OS you might have, one way or another you will be forced to upgrade in an increasingly shorter term.
First, they've got the control over your computer using RPC backdoors.
Second, the hardware providers receive their new products and preinstall them in every new computer, and stop providing drivers and spare parts to force the user to throw away whatever he might have, no matter if he needs anything new or not. This is the way used to kill Windows 98 SE: it is dead even when many people never needed any upgrade because they used the computer for routine task.
IMHO they should find new ways to improve their industrial profits, by listening the needs of computer users and giving them what they demand, offering complementary services, or searching new business paths.
Even when they are a great corporation, they are in the hands of their customers, and eventually it could happen to their every day more and more complex products the same that happened to the masterpiece Concorde airplane.
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|Dear PForbes,
Thanks for an excellent post. It is fun to see how the Microsoft sponsored brigade is going around censoring intelligent articles by downgrading them to below the threshold level - so that the comment is not displayed.
It seems - Microsoft is the ultimate Big Brother.
Regards, Vivek Shroff www.viveka.me
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|I can't help but notice you've provided nothing in this article but baseless accusations and assumption.
I also couldn't help but notice your website has a nice Apple Logo on it...
It would seem you resemble that which you accuse others of being more than they do. :)
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|vivek
This not a MAC thread, having trouble with your English comprehension??
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|13 millions of XP users maybe 1 million vista user they have.Thinks that 1 million Windows 7 Ultimate RC user have all over the world. And I think they love it. Must or should upgrade...Windows 7 Ultimate realy need ultimate protection.For instance music and film files are not allowed to download these days.Later the other will not allowed to download from internet.Think you are going to have them at the bazaar in your country.But we need ultimate protection that must save your IP from your habbits.I mean you are getting mails and when you read all of them your pc become a downloader pc but what or how did it happened you dont know. So your ultimate protection must save you from everthing that may make your pc downloader machine any of music or film movie file from unknown address.So try new type of protections.Block these files by the help of your operating system.Save all passwords that your ultimate gave you.Becareful when sharing your own productions and use bitlocks always.Lock your file folders and dont let them come in to your pc...Save it like a bank.
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|"it suffers from an aged interface only its mother could love, lagging security capabilities and rapidly diminishing vendor support."
the above is a pitch to buy vista but in reality your argument is illogical.
firslty, people who are now highly productive with their current xp configurations are no less vulnerable to security attacks than vista or win7.
secondly, people who are now highly productive with their current hardware have no need for vendor upgrades. Any support will still be provided by vendors and most vista hardware that can be purchased are still winxp compatiable.
thirdly, it would be cheaper for people to upgrade their old motherboards with a pentium 4 or quad core and more memory in order to revitalize winxp. winxp will fly at warp drive with better hardware.
on the other hand people who want to upgrade to vista or install win7 will incur more costs that could otherwise be deferred or avoided all together.
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|They said you need 1GB for Windows 7 to work.Did they give Ram speed MHz ? 1GHz Cpu There is no CPu type... Many has DDR,DDR2 and DDR3. DDR 1GB RAM but speed is 266 or 333 or 433....Many has more than that.Mainbord speed.HDD speed.Display Card speed and WDDM 1.0 and more. DirectX 9 ability.Not DirectX 8.. So Think what you have. Your computer is designed for Windows XP...Your are using XP Home XP PRO but there is no SP2 or SP3 symbol.You Have Vista Home or Vista Business and SP2 SP3...Now Windows 7 Home Windows 7 pro Windows 7 Ultimate comming.Also Windows 7 Family PC version. So you all have XP home or XP Pro did anyone format his or her dads moms laptops or desktops completely to understand Windows 7 Ultimate RC? So I Have IBM and Lenovo laptop XP pro and Vista business working on that machines.If they support these I will take two pc to their office and tell them change operating system only.If not I wont do that.If I buy new laptop or desktop I want windows 7 pro for business Windows 7 for home use.But I also need Ultimate version too.Because still using Windows 7 Ultimate RC still till march 2010.System is enough for old laptops and desktops.So what will I do for the Windows 7 Ultimate machine.Ultimate teaching me all of them...Windows 7 Ultimate have everything.Do backup do boot and recovery disc so I dont need to buy any software what it has inside.I dont need to tweak it.Old PC s work better with Windows 7 Ultimate but not good with old ones.Windows 7 Ultimate is better than the others.So I will buy Ultimate version.And I will buy ultimate protection.And I will buy ultimate time and money saving items for my life.See you soon. I want a protection saving me from my best friends may do bad jokes that I cant calculate or find the clues never.Do I need to rent dedectives too..
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|I have run Windows 7 x64 for several days/weeks now. It's better than Vista but not by much (unless you're a novice user). Here are several observations:
- menu system is very developed. It may be intuitive but in order to get seriously anywhere, you have to click, click and click until your fingers get tired.
- there are no options to customize interface to support use of multiple common dialogs/applications apart from flat "recently used" list. This is an issue if the number of applications used goes beyond single digits.
- the separation of x86 and x64 architecture applications still sucks like in x64 Vista. Permission issues, obfuscation and redirection - one wonders why they could not simply issue a warning about switch from one environment to another instead.
- interoperability with standard protocols and services (standard for corporate networks) is improved.
- Windows Xp mode is flawed, but it's not as bad as I was at afraid it would be. For experienced users, VirtualBox/VMare ae recommended.
- licensing and activations are as painful as before, i.e. they are fine as long as you work with single copies. Doing things en masse in corporate environment without licensing server can be extremely frustrating (unless your company is not investing in serious security).
- I haven't touched gaming - it's not my cup of tea.
- default diagnostic tools available to users are as bad as under Vista (i.e. overly complex and missing documentation).
- UAC works better but still is not as user-friendly as one available under Ubuntu. One wonders how much usability experts at Microsoft are being paid. For the record - I fully support and recognize UAC concept, but the way it is implemented makes me turn it off the moment I log the first time.
- Corporate features like roaming profiles, file caching, permission setting, directory structure, user environment separation, remote host management, remote client desktop are still as bad as under Windows Xp (well, a bit worse, since you have to click a lot more than before in some cases). There is no real progress there since Windows 2000 (some optimizations were made, it's just that in terms of actual usability remote shell, automated management and remote networking there is simply no comparison to things doable under Unix/Linux).
Hmm. That's just a few observations. I could go much longer but I have just realized that most of the issues pretty critical to me, are something outside of the scope of the experience of a regular user.
Suffice to say then, for corporate enviroment, Windows 7 does not improve over Vista. And due certain issues, it falls behind Windows Xp (simplicity and much better documentation of Windows Xp makes it much more suitable for wide scale deployment scenarios).
Regards,
Ruemere
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|Nice summary, exactly what I needed to know. Thanks.
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|holy run-on parapgraphs batman!
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|"[Windows XP] suffers from an aged interface only its mother could love..."
Not if you turn off Luna and go for Classic--or not, if you like Luna, as some people actually do. Personally, I find Windows Vista/7 to be the one with an ugly interface, with or without Aero (although slightly better with). And Classic is starting to look worse and worse as parts of newer Windows versions drift towards UI fashions that don't look well with this theme.
Give me Luna over Aero any day--but preferably give me Classic first. :)
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|"Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch."
Then why is that the first thing I did in the past with a computer from Dell, HP, and Sony was to do a clean install of the OS so that I wasn't using their tweaked image? Because it ran better and got rid of the uncessary junk that these companies add into their images.
That is why now, I have a custom built computer that I installed Windows on myself using the drivers that are provided with the hardware. I've never had a computer run so nicely without all the extra junk that comes with a computer.
Even Sony gives you the option of obtaining their computers with just a clean install of Windows and not their image (thought you have to pay a few extra dollars.
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|"Then why is that the first thing I did in the past with a computer from Dell, HP, and Sony was to do a clean install of the OS so that I wasn't using their tweaked image? Because it ran better and got rid of the uncessary junk that these companies add into their images."
AMEN!!!
Score: 0
|I doubt the vast majority of buyers are willing to pay extra for a clean install - or would even understand the value of such a thing.
This audience plays in a very different playground.
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|"Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch."
Ok, unless your system is built by a quality white-box builder who knows what they're doing, that statement is a pile of crap. The big OEMs (HP, Dell, etc) are known for NOT customising their images properly, and slapping the same image on multiple machines of different hardware configurations. See: Windows service pack upgrade failures on AMD systems with Intel drivers. Even now I've got a relatively new HP box in front of me that doesn't ship with (or supply through HP update) any chipset drivers: you're stuck using the default Microsoft ones written in 2001. (For those interested, it's the Intel 915 chipset).
I think the point you made is precisely why you SHOULD upgrade, or at the very least, format the machine you bought and re-install the software properly yourself. Your average computer-store, white-box builder will do it properly from the start: the OEMs do not.
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|What is going on with this site (betanews.com) I am slowly but surely turning away from it for a sensible view of the news.
Now that FUD articles such as this are becoming more prequint it only goes to convince me to seek IT news elsewhere.
Two articles, one entitled 'Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade' and another 'Windows 7 is coming: You should upgrade'... are you trying to cover all the bases or just confuse the hell out of those who visit your site to be informed and leave them less informed?
Score: 0
|Now I think I have seen it all: A complaint about us actually covering both sides of the issue instead of just one! It's obviously a conspiracy to confuse people -- how can anyone tell what side we're biased toward now?
-SF "Fair and Balanced, Dammit" 3
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|You can't please everybody no matter how hard you try lol.
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|Sounds like my best friend's third and fourth marriages :)
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|Depends on the user & the day. That will be one of those questions that will never be truly answered!
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|I'm sure this was already brought up, but don't have time to read all the comments. I think there are people that should upgrade and others I think they should hold off.
When Vista came out, that summer I build a Quad Core, bought Vista Ultimate to put on it. Now I had a copy of XP Pro so I installed both (dual Booted). But as things went on, Xp is where I installed office, so XP is what I used the most. Machine Ran fine with Vista.
Now my brother bought some Cheap Toshiba Laptop. One of those machines that really was an XP machine and got Vista on it. Its still slow.
For me, I have no reason to upgrade. My Vista machine runs just fine (and I added the RC of Windows 7 to it). No problems at all. I'll probably wait for Windows 8 unless I get a good deal.
But my brother! His machine would RUN better on Windows 7. Those are the people that need to upgrade, the ones that got some cheap Vista machine. Windows 7 is just better for that older hardware.
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|Good 'ol Carmi, did Bill G eat your cat or something?
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|Nah. That would have been cat-eating Steve.
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|I've never seen so many people here at Betanews agreeing on something before... that this article is simply stupid! There are too many "points" that are just wrong. It seems to me Levy does not know what he is talking about. Somehow.
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|Well he did get people talking....
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|Yeah, its a Troll post to generate hits.
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|I guess it's back to the non-troll posts for me, then. Better to have no one read and no one discuss. Thanks for clarifying.
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|Carmi, carmi, carmi,
Just who do you think is your audience? Fifth graders?
In your arrogant, self centered, ego driven mind, you clearly think you're smarter than a fifth grader.
After reading your article, I'm putting my money on the fifth graders! :-D
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|Based on some of the comments, I'm going to politely decline your request for a response.
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|I see that the running consensus here is that the author is a moron. I will throw in my 2c and concur...
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|Totally agree. It is silly Microsoft makes people pay for a service pack to Vista. Vista is still a bloated, broken pig of an OS. Vista 7 should be a free upgrade to anyone unfortunate enough to have to use it.
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|You realize you've stepped into a very Carmi-unfriendly area, right? Simply put, Microsoft fixed a ton, did the work to satisfy customers, and they've earned whatever (reasonable) pricetag they care to put on it. I wouldn't dare put something I worked my butt off on out into the market for free. Especially with the Word Ban possibly coming. You my friend join Carmi amongst the uninformed trolls.
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|Like OSX upgrades are free? Go troll somewhere else fatty... your opinion matters not.
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|If you're reading this it may be too late... DO NOT REGISTER TO POST HERE!!!! It's a trap... Do a barrel roll before you get rick-rolled.
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|You are supposed to include the link whenever you post the about the rick-roll.
Silly person... ;)
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|I couldn't this time, I'm on my work pc, which is so jacked up with Web-sense I can't even think about youtube without it giving me evil glares. >:(
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|Heh... We put in a DSL connection for our contractors. Somehow, I managed to snag it in a VM so I can "corporate" on the bare-metal and "youtube" on the VM.
Gotta love it.
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|Sounds like a T1 that got "mysteriously" installed last year into our office... funny, no one ever owned up to ordering it, but it's fast as hell when there are only 3 people using it and outside the firewall/proxy... lol
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|This article makes me sign up an account, just to post this comment.
What the hell he is talking about?
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|Score: 0
|*laughing*
Wow. I don't think there has ever, in the history of the internet, been so much agreement on one single topic. Seriously. I think we have broken a record or something...
Everyone: If you *really* want to see this crash and burn, Submit this article to digg. Sure, it'll give them more hits for this garbage, but watching the comments alone is so totally worth it. Do it, you know you want to; If only out of morbid curiosity (Like watching a train-wreck).
Digg it. Click away!
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|w8, so is this article legit?
Score: 0
|Clearly this 'journalist' has no idea what he is talking about. Has he even attempted to install windows 7? Personally I'm on win7 right now, on a custom built machine. And do you, mr. journalist, know how many drivers I personally had to install? NONE. The install was fast, it was easy, so much easier than XP (the gui is nice!). Any idiot with a mouse and keyboard can install win7, with full support for all thier hardware, old and new. Not only that, they will feel so much more comfortable. Win7 performs the way today's computer users expect. Man this guy pissed me off.
Score: 1
|I'm beyond thrilled for you, Mr. Rich. I hope you find peace. Being upset isn't a great way to spend the day. Bad for your blood pressure.
Score: 0
|Can we get an editor response to this, perhaps an explanation to your loyal viewers (me excluded of course) as to why this was allowed to go out to an audience that is obviously smarter than granny at Best Buy getting tricked by a teenager to buy an Alienware? All in favor of a response/excuse/last words from Levy or his editor?
Score: 1
|not sure there is an editor for commentary, though there should be if this is the quality stuff we get... lol
i submit myself as an editor! i'll turn round anything back into the face of a journalist if its only going to fan flames or complete BS and i promise i won't be biased, though i do enjoy Microsoft products, is there a position open? i don't have any qualifications but i guess, judging by the past few articles like this, qualifications aren't necessary?
Score: 6
|"but i guess, judging by the past few articles like this, qualifications aren't necessary?"
ROFLMAO!
Ahhh....there we go. Article redeemed by that post alone. It was all worth it. ;)
You sir, have been modded up.
Score: 2
|I look forward to seeing your published work. Should be scintillating.
Score: -1
|Even his picture is jacked up, the word "zoom" was cropped too tight, I guarantee he did it himself with a bootleg copy of Photoshop that his 15 yr old neighbor gave him. :P
Score: -3
|Lest we forget he's actually gone narrow-angle-zoom on us here.
Score: -1
|"Hardware vendors devote significant resources tuning it to support their PCs. Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch."
Huh? Other than laptops, I'd wager that most folks here build their own systems. Does the writer realize this is a tech enthusiast site whose community enjoy tinkering, tweaking, testing, and playing with the latest hardware and software?
Score: 3
|Um, yes, the writer does indeed realize who the audience is. The writer also realizes we don't live in a vacuum.
Score: 0
|Wow...I agree the vast majority of people reading this site will be or want to upgrade to the latest and greatest...of anything. Also I am pretty sure the avg person does not do OS upgrades. They upgrade with the hardware. Hell we can’t get the avg person to do updates let alone OS upgrade... The only people that will be doing an OS upgrade are the people who can and want to. This just a stupid article.
Score: 1
|Wow, i've never really felt I wasted my life doing something, but I just lost the few minutes it took to read this garbage. This was completely troll based. This dude wanted some attention and eh, he got it. Its too bad its not him, but betanews that is taking the hit.
I have not seen one negative based review about windows 7 yet, unless you count john c dvorak or this guys article. FUD all the way, and its completely baseless. I've been using windows 7 for a year now, and its great. No issues. Microsoft has redeemed themselves and opinion based stories completely biased and not balanced is not cool.
Score: 1
|and if you do try the upgrade look out for ID10T errors! :)
funny that I am using windows 7 on a 5 year old laptop (V2310 by compaq) with 2 GB RAM and Windows 7 rocks on that. a machine that vista actually choked on and died.
or better yet go buy a mac and leave us alone. write posts for the mac guys or something, mr carmi levy.
(my 2 cents)
Score: 2
|LOL just for the ID10T!
Score: -1
|Mr. Carmy Levy,
Your are talking to the wrong audience. They seek an informed opinion, not a preacher.
Score: 6
|Damn, there goes another possible career choice!
Score: 0
|I think someone needs to tell this guy no one cares what he thinks. Betanews, you need to get better writers and get rid of this guy.
Score: 2
|Time to get some editorial review before publishing?
Score: 8
|"Unless you're a weekend tinkerer with extra PCs hanging around the house and a lot of extra time on your hands, upgrading an existing machine is for suckers"
Are you writing for the right site? Last time I checked, this was BETAnews. The guys who read and participate with betanews knows that kind of stuff - "slap in some DVD" and upgrade OS, machine, whatever.
I believe you were trying to make some point, but I lost track of it before the first subsection. And "upgrading an existing machine is for suckers" was an insult directed people like me. So, see ya, mr Levy. I'm unsubscribing the Betanews RSS after that.
Score: 5
|I apologize to anyone who might deem it offensive if I say I stopped "reading" this load of trash two paragraphs in. As it appears many of you are in like minds as me when it comes to the software inaccuracies this article promotes, I will just skip that and move to the hardware side of the argument. NEVER should you ever justify a new hardware purchase or new pc purchase solely for upgrading your OS, nor should you be content with an OS you do not appreciate. I have never heard such an ignorant review of an OS, to say you should wait to get new hardware to run Windows 7 is basically the equivalent of screaming, "I know nothing about computers, nor have I researched this OS, please listen to my opinion because I will get fired if I write another garbage article."
The irony in me getting upset about this is two-fold, this is my first time reading a betanews article (Bad start if I say so myself), yet I actually registered to post this! Secondly, I've stopped using my oh-so secure Windows XP in favor of Ubuntu just for sheer speed in matters like web browsing and the like. However, I will most definitely be purchasing Windows 7. Now, on to read some more articles about the Word Ban... Carmi, I recommend going back to the help desk level in your career, just keep saying power off, power on and you will do fine by me.
Score: 3
|i liked Angela Gunn articles, i think she resigned :( given what we see here i would of too
Score: 4
|Sucks, tho'. Out of all of 'em, most of us probably enjoyed her articles the most. Sucks that the only one's that make these people money are the one's that bring out the flames (case in point) or the trolls.
Score: 5
|http://twitter.com/agunn
Just resigned Betanews. Relieved, cheerful...and not answering questions 'til we drive out of this storm! #goodthing5:18 AM Aug 9th from txt
Too bad, I was liking her articles more and more.
Score: 2
|Well that sucks.
Seriously. Might have to sign up for twitter just to see where she lands. Hopefully somewhere a little brighter. :)
Any way to follow someone's "tweets" (god, that sounds so stupid) without signing up?
Score: 2
|RSS it?
http://twitter.com/statu...user_timeline/29143.rss
Score: 1
|You are my Hero, sir.
See Art's been making time... ;)
Score: 2
|i was wondering why we haven't seen an article by her lately. too bad..... Was really enjoying them too :)
Score: 1
|Scott isn't that bad... at least when he isn't being all nostalgic (that computer shopper article? I think we all shed a collective tear). ;-)
Score: 0
|Horse hockey. This is one of the most ill-conceived articles this site has ever published. What a bunch of weak kneed nonsense.
If your hardware came with Vista upgrade it. Win 7 is for all intents and purposes the service pack Vista so badly needed. No one should stay on Vista unless they simply cannot afford to upgrade.
Score: 7
|"either running a snappy but outdated XP or a pokey but still slick looking Vista, "
Wow....2 flawed assumptions in one sentence; In the first paragraph, even. This won't be at all biased...
"Call me old fashioned, but I'm a big believer in upgrading your OS when you upgrade your hardware. "
Call me realistic, but if your hardware is anything resembling recent, and you could stand to use any of the new features or if being up-to-date on a supported OS, you might actually consider migrating. (Note: Migrating != upgrading)
"Installing a retail-purchased box of Windows 7 on a machine whose vendor never certified the specific build is a veritable invitation to a litany of niggling little problems.."
Funny. Works just fine on a 4 year old laptop from HP... Perhaps you haven't actually *tried* this method? (Note: clean installation)
"I doubt that salesperson in the field would be too pleased after a driver compatibility issue at a client site made turned the laptop into a doorstopper."
Bull. From start to finish. If the company provided the hardware, the company would be installing the OS..not the user. If you have to make up absurd, totally unrealistic situations to make your point? Perhaps the point simply isn't valid to begin with...
Stopped reading there. Seriously. What a load of crap. This deserves the "Jon Wilcox" byline, Carmi. You're better than this.
Where's the button to:
Mod Article: -1 (FUD)?
Score: 9
|"Where's the button to:
Mod Article: -1 (FUD)?"
Ohhhhh thats a brilliant idea ;)
This article gets -1 from me.
Score: 0
|I just still laughing at his photo...
Score: 1
|I'm*
Score: -1
|I am going to go on a "longshot" they need visits to the page so they come up with an article rest assured to provoke everyone. There is a RC they can try out until March 2010 that you would have to be living under a rock to know not existed.
Score: 1
|..... +1
Score: 0
|Because we all base businesses on sites and related online resources that have no traffic, right?
Score: 0
|I'm glad when reading the comments at the end of this article that I'm not the only one who thinks that this article is complete rubbish. I have tried the RC on about 3 PC's, one old P4 model, and 2 Quad Core models, and the old P4 model runs so well its hard to tell the difference between it and the Quad Cores. There's little need to upgrade hardware at all, that's half the advantage of Win7, unlike its bloated predecessor, it can run on almost anything within reason. Did this guy just lightly edit an old article from Vista's launch? Its articles like this, which are clearly not pre-checked for grammar or genuine research that's ruining BetaNews
Score: 3
|It makes it more interesting if you note who's written the articles you consider to be crap. In my opinion it's usually only 2 people.
Score: 2
|Joe Wilcox and....???
Carmi is usually at least somewhat lucid and relevant. This seems to be a huge break from the norm for him. I remember reading one of his first articles here and posting something along the lines of, "Best article yet seen on this site".
Well...now he's got the best...and one of the worst.
...wonder what happened to the "This site is totally bought and paid for by M$!" crowd. ;)
Score: 3
|Exactly... WTH Carmi?
Score: -1
|Yeah. I'm kind of in shock myself. Think I'll just...*sniff sniff*, go...read...something else.
Score: -1
|Be sure to wear safety glasses, as some PCs have been known to explode when upgraded.
Score: 0
|nah thats some other company you're thinking about
http://arstechnica.com/a...g-ipods-and-iphones.ars
Score: 0
|I built a Vista box in 2007 w/ a cheapo MOBO and 2 gigs of ddr, 3.4ghz dual pentium cpu w/ agp only.
I was laughed out for not buying a powerhouse intel board w/ pci-e slots, but the damn PC works great! even though the mobo was not "vista certified" it works with no bugs!!
ok, I admit ever since buying my first mac product (macmini intel 2.0core duo) i have not turned on my 2007 vista machine...lol as soon as i get home today i'm going to install vmware and add win7!!
so I must agree this article blows :(
Score: 2
|It is a bit of a resource hog with Fusion. I think that is probably VMWare's fault, not Win 7. I've got a mid-range core 2 duo and 4gb and have found I can't really use MSIE under Win 7 and even close to my normal app load on the Mac side at the same time.
Score: -1
|maybe i can try the other one, not vmware, but...parellel? i think thats what its called... ONLY reason why i even need windowsOS on my mac is so I can use "anydvd", since there is no mac version :(
Score: 0
|I could see this article being posted on a site that doesn't have a tech savvy following. But why would anyone tell a Windows enthusiast (especially in the scenario said enthusiast is using Vista) not to upgrade to Windows 7? For a Vista user, the only compelling reason I can find not to upgrade is the price (and the promotion MS was doing for upgrade pricing mitigates much of that concern).
Score: 3
|mhmmm....
Score: 0
|"I don't doubt that Windows 7 seems to be Microsoft's strongest OS in years. I also don't doubt that most of us will eventually use some form of it. I just don't think we should be running it on any machines we're using now.'
wow, you dude are clueless... lol, STOP don't upgrade, wait until you get uber powerful hardware upgrades first, wait a second, wasn't 7 built to run on older machines and new alike? there is absolutely no reason not to upgrade, especially if you've run the Beta or RC and know things will work and here you are telling folks not to upgrade because you 'upgrade when you upgrade your hardware'?
alright, lost any respect i had for Carmi, offically batsh*t insane
btw, to those considering upgradeing but aren't sure, you can still grab the RC from respected torrent sites along with proper keys for use until march, now if you don't know what you're doing don't grab random files from the internets...
Score: 7
|I know what you mean. 7 works near-perfectly on my Acer Aspire One Netbook with just 1 gig of RAM and an 1.6 GHz CPU. It definitely isn't Vista SE.
Score: 2
|works better than fine on my Acer Aspire 5630 1.6 core duo 1gb ram, 5400 EIDE hdd, fact, runs better than XP MCE 2005 which came on the system, OP does not know what he speaks of lol
care to see something nice? http://is.gd/2qiwJ Windows 7 Boot, Sleep, Login & Shutdown in 60+ seconds
i prob could of done it faster but i was moving around a little ;P
Score: 1
|I've been saying for months now that on my HP Mini 1033CL (1.6 GHz ATOM, 2GB DDR2 RAM), Win7 is hands down the best OS from MSFT yet. The pre-loaded XP was horrible on this machine. Even Linux couldn't come close to making this machine useable.
Carmi, seriously, this is not something that I would expect from you or from BetaNews... WTH is Ed when we need him to actually be an editor?!?
Score: 1
|So should I hold onto the invitation to my birthday party, then? I was about to send them out.
Score: 0
|Oh look, a FUD article. I wonder who it's written by...
*rolls eyes*
Score: 4
|some folks do not deserve a podium to speak from... what can you do?
Score: 2
|This has unfortunately become a common problem with betanews. I still come here to read the good articles that are getting much more rare here, hopefully they don't disappear altogether though.;/
Score: 3
|Call me old fashioned, but what the hell kind of bullsh!t is this article? And keep in mind, that's just my viewpoint.
Aires is an independent free thinker, who doesn't need anyone to tell him whether to upgrade or not. He has a mind of his own thank you very much mate.
Score: 9
|I've been using Windows 7 beta then Windows 7 RC since since they day they became available. It's so much faster and hardware-friendly than Vista, I rapidly changed over on all my machines.
I would recommend:
1. Purchase a new 64GB SSD SATA drive, now cost about $120. Practically essential for a laptop as it will extend battery life. If you can't afford it, can even go with a 32GB version. Don't defrag these, by the way. If you have $$ spring for the faster technologies (i.e. X-25m)
2. Max out your RAM - don't stop at 3GB - use SIW or HDinfo utilities to tell you the max capacity. Also check to see if your Motherboard's chipset supports virtualization
3. Download the 64-bit version of Windows 7 RC and install it on your fresh new SSD drive. Most programs are still 32-bit, but I have run hundreds of programs flawlessly on 64-bit Win7. Drivers are not an issue except for the very oldest hardware.
4. IF YOU MUST --- keep using XP - one of two options: A) if your chipset supports virtualization, install Windows XP via Virtual PC - Microsoft is giving this away at the moment ... including an XP image - this works flawlessly and fully integrated into the Win 7 host. B) create a second partition when you set up your new SSD and install XP on that.Then Dual boot XP and 64-bit Windows. Dual boot gives you a more failsafe XP environment at the expense of no OS integration.
5. Take the plunge and don't look back.
For $200 or so, you will have a computer that will give Mac users WinEnvy.
Score: -1
|WHAT THE FUDGE ARE YOU ON ABOUT?
Windows 7 is an outstanding system putting all previous windows OS's, and apple to shame. This is a system that EVERY ONE should look to upgrade to, Like rtrif, i have been using the Beta and RC1 since becoming available and to be honest I think Carmi Levi is talking absolute nonsense telling people not to upgrade to this system.
Im not a Microsoft Fan boy, and I do quite like apple systems but this article has really possessed me to tell people this man is talking complete ... you get the idea.
This OS is the MOST USER FRIENDLY ON THE MARKET making it much easier and enjoyable to do tasks on your computer.
Im sorry Carmi if youve taken offence by this comment but i truly believe this system is for every one. So readers listen when i say:
WINDOWS 7 IS COMING - DO UPGRADE
Score: 6
|My feeling on upgrading has always been if you need it then do it. If your happy with what you have for a while longer then wait until you need new hardware. In most cases it will be cheaper to get a new OS with new hardware. But its not just about the hardware as we found out with Vista. Sometimes even software has issues with a new OS. I have tested Windows 7 and found it very compelling to upgrade to it. But after Vista SP2 came out I realized I was happy with it and its performance and decided for the price I could wait until I needed new hardware. If Microsoft decides to offer a better deal now that Apple has offered $30 for Snow Leopard I may change my mind. In the end I feel comfortable with Vista and that's what I'll stay with.
Score: 0
|