Is Windows 7 the end of the line?

[Chuck(G)]

I was listening to a review of Windows 7 this afternoon and the technical commentator seemed to be pretty well versed.

One thing he observed is that Windows 7 is basically Vista with a lot of the bugs and bloat worked out, but that it's still Vista (and, I suppose XP/2K by extension) under the hood. From my own working with Win7, that seems to be a fair statement. The opinion was that Win7 was brought out mostly to win back corporate IT, who had developed a (healthy) mistrust of Vista.

So, is this "it" for Windows OS-es? CPUs seem to be getting their power through parallelism (clock speeds haven't moved that much in the last 5 years) and I don't hear anyone talking about a 256-bit CPU.

Given that desktop systems are falling into the minority, are we witnessing the end of an era?

If so, what's next?

 

[Unknown_K]

Laptops seem to run the same OS as desktops, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Sooner or later MS will need some major new feature in the OS and start over again just like they came out with NT when Win3x/95 was selling just fine.

Operating systems are like stereo equipment, you need to come out with a single new feature and some different cosmetics every year to sell the basic system over and over again. Every decade or so you come out with something so new/needed/good that people will junk their system just to stay current.

To be honest MS could just keep bolting on add-ons for the old Win2k and that would have kept selling the OS. I don't think that many people buy the retail OS anyway (too expensive), cheaper to just get a new system (or pirate it). Mostly they are competing with OSX these days in features and eye candy, linux is an afterthaught as usual.

 

[Ole Juul]

I have heard W7 referred to as a Vista service pack.

End of an era? I think that in a way the W7 and Vista pair are a turning point. Yes, the "big OS" is probably going away, but I think the real money has been from Word and that is probably a gonner soon. I notice in reading the Danish press (they're total MS fans over there) that there is a movement in moving from a $200 dollar licence for Word to a $0 licence for OOo. The arguments that MS come up with in that regard are weak - and to me that is a sign.

MS are trying all sorts of things, besides their usual marginally legal bullying haviour, to find a new way ahead. Bing is an example, but the only real effect of that is to show share holders that they are doing something. Bing is loosing money and the promised long term payoff is dubious. These, less than successful, attempts to break out are becoming the norm for MS. Unfortunately they are at the age where their internal culture is ossified and cannot adapt to a changing world.

Monopolies always come to an end. W7/Vista, and the recent loss of ground for Word, is the turning point - but it will take years to wind down.

 

[Chuck(G)]

One pundit suggested that since W7 Ultimate (I wonder if that's a subtle hint by MS--was Vista "Penultimate"?) runs over $300 and may not have the drivers for the older devices, that it might be most cost-effective to go out and buy a new computer with W7 bundled--or better yet, just buy a Mac...

I was surprised to discover that MS isn't really making any money from Xbox. It's going to take something major to get folks to move away from Google.

 

[Ole Juul]

Laptops seem to run the same OS as desktops, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

You will.

Sooner or later MS will need some major new feature in the OS and start over again just like they came out with NT when Win3x/95 was selling just fine.

It's a changing world. The days of NT are long gone. The problem has nothing to do with MS software. With their resources that will never be a problem. It is their business model which is becoming obsolete. As I mentioned above, it is stuck where it is. There is no longer the internal fluidity to make changes. Individual power centeres have replaced Bill Gates. It is not possible for such a huge company to start over. Like a freight train that has lost power, they will just keep going for a very long time.

 

[Lutiana]

Windows 7 is to Vista what XP was to 2000, BUT they have made huge changes in the core that make it faster and way more efficient. It is hardly fair to call it a service pack since it actually improves on the feature set of Vista.

And IMO Vista was not nearly as much of a disaster as most people would let you believe, only issues with Vista was the fact it was resource intensive, and initially compatibility was an issue (but was very quickly resolved and had little to do with MS). Vista ran flawlessly for a hell of a lot of people, but since it was so different (architecturally) to XP most people shunned away from it, and through ignorance it gained a very bad rep very quickly. MS gave people what they wanted, a more secure OS and then people responded with "I don't want it to be different" *shrug* that the general populace for you.

I am running 7 right now, and I love it. The new GUI is awesome. I highly recommend it.

and may not have the drivers for the older devices, that it might be most cost-effective to go out and buy a new computer with W7 bundled

If you change "older" for "ancient" or "antiquated" then your statement would be true. Windows 7 has a huge driver base, and since it will work with most Vista drivers (if not all) you should have no issue running just about anything, the only things that might not work are extremely old (more than 10 years and even then you'd be surprised) and odd ball propriety things.

Also it runs extremely well on low end hardware. MS says 1ghz, but I have hear it running just fine on 500Mhz (w/ 1 gb RAM mind you). I think they are poised to use it as a their netbook OS since it runs so well.

7 is a HUGE step forward for MS. It is a very robust OS that changes the way people thing about working with computers. Their concept is to make data/programs readily available and easy to find, and so far I think they are succeeding. More change will come from MS in the following years as I suspect they have a game plan that are not telling anyone yet.

 

[Lutiana]

The problem has nothing to do with MS software.

I agree completely. People (consumers or businesses) in general do like change, and only accept it when they have to. So if MS introduces an OS that is drastically different from what people are used to, they would quickly go out of business. So they have to introduce the change slowly in small stepping stones so people can get used to it.

MS is in a very precarious situation, they have consumers yelling at them that their products need improvement and they need to "fix" it, but if they do this then they loose those consumers as customers. Frankly I am amazed they have done so well and have implemented as much change in their OS as they have.

 

[Chuck(G)]

The DDK for kernel mode device drivers seems to be pretty much the same as Vista's (at least to a cursory glance), so has the "core" really changed all that drastically?

 

[Lutiana]

The DDK for kernel mode device drivers seems to be pretty much the same as Vista's (at least to a cursory glance), so has the "core" really changed all that drastically?

I will concede the major changes are all UI changes, but the "core" changes are almost entirely performance optimizations.

In a way Vista was a meant to get the 3rd parties to update their drivers, since most of the instability issues with XP and 2k were all centered on 3rd party driver issues.

MS delivers a pretty damn good product at the end of the day, and their track record has been pretty good (minus a few blemishes, ME for instance). There I've said it, let the flogging begin.

 

[Chuck(G)]

MS delivers a pretty damn good product at the end of the day, and their track record has been pretty good (minus a few blemishes, ME for instance). There I've said it, let the flogging begin.

It's okay and I'm not going to get out the cat o' nine tails yet. But I guess the gist of the topic is what is going to make users change to the next version of Windows, whatever and whenever that comes out?

Will computing have changed significantly by then?

 

[Lutiana]

what is going to make users change to the next version of Windows, whatever and whenever that comes out?

MS will. As odd as that sounds, they will simply retire their old OS and bring out a new one. The other OS manufacturers have not (yet) changed the playing field, but they are slowly starting to challenge MS and this will be good for everyone.

Will computing have changed significantly by then?

This is a tougher question, I think it will and I think that MS (and others) will ultimately evolve with the hardware. Its not the end for Windows per se, but I think its implementation will drastically change soon. I think we are approaching a cusp of change similar in magnitude to the DOS -> GUI change over, and I for one, cannot wait to see what is coming next.

 

[Ole Juul]

One thing that seems to be changing is that the "full system" type of computer that we all like because we can do whatever we want with it, is going away. Most people, including business people, only do a few things on their computer. They don't need a versatile and powerful piece of hardware. Netbooks are becoming popular and I'm sure we will see other kinds of appliance type devices in the near future.

The big problem with MS is that these limited power computers don't cost as much. If you pay $200, or less, then there is not a lot of wiggle room for the price of software. Right now they are getting more than the price of a netbook for their OS. How is that going to go forward? The big iron doesn't need them and if the comsumer device only has room for, say, $20 of software then where is their market going to be?

Where I'm going with this is that the market is changing. If the MS monopoly weakens (as I claim it will) then that in itself is going to have an effect on the way the market is going to go. I think at some point soon, we will see changes happening even faster than we do now. The whole netbook thing is just the beginning. To those of us who value affordable or free powerful multi-use computers, perhaps it's the beginning of the end. Actually, I don't think so. With our creativity and resourcefulness we'll just be taking advantage of different kit. Nothing is going to change much for us.

 

[linuxlove]

I've been a late adopter to windows 7. I've also tried out every single version of windows from 1.01 to 7. with each new version, there has been some enhancement that MicroSoft put in. Since windows is 20 years old, i think it's time for Microsoft to make the major enhancement and rip apart the aging NT kernel and replace it with a brand new core.

 

[paul]

Microsoft reminds me of that giant "Ferris" wheel in London (London Eye, is it?) - it turns constantly and is nothing but a money generator. Planned obsolescence is essential for their survival, something business users usually detest.

Windows 8 is rumored to be 128-bit, for what that's worth. Something to make 32 or 64 bit users feel inferior.

But I'm pretty happy with W7. When I was on recently on travel for a month I left my PC asleep with the task of recording HDTV programs with the media center. It woke up and recorded each of the 22 programs without a hitch, as it should.

 

[per]

I heard that Windows 7 is the very last version of Windows with Win16 API compability. This means that you can't play the games from the Windows Entertainement Packs or use Windows 3.x-compatible programs in the next version of windows.

 

[Lutiana]

I heard that Windows 7 is the very last version of Windows with Win16 API compability. This means that you can't play the games from the Windows Entertainement Packs or use Windows 3.x-compatible programs in the next version of windows.

They removed 16bit all together in their 64bit OS versions (the 32bit versions can still run 16bit apps).

It does not surprise me that they would go completely 64bit. I seem to recall them saying that Vista was only going to be a 64bit OS, but last minute they had to release it in the 32bit version.

 

[Unknown_K]

MS should have never merged Win9x and WinNT.

 

[barythrin]

I've heard that claim of no 16-bit and no dos/command shell for a while even in XP though. Plus I thought they wrote Vista from scratch or maybe I just heard that (they love to say that it seems).

As far as what makes people upgrade is kind of brute force/guerrilla marketing. They force manufacturers that want to be Microsoft Partners and Microsoft Certified vendors to write only for the new version after a certain point. That ensures that we the sheeple need to upgrade and buy the new version if we want it all to work or run at practical speeds.

Seems more like a game than real needs though. I only end up with new OS's from purchasing a laptop every X years. Other than that I upgraded to Windows 2000 because I ran into the 4GB file size limit on fat32 (not from a real useful point-of-view but I hit it) and wanted ntfs and the 9x ntfs driver (free version) was buggy for me so I needed to upgrade to something that could still play most of my games.

I upgraded to XP just in the last year on my desktop but mostly because I found an OEM copy that didn't complain when I tried it and it was out of boredom than necessity. A few weeks after that a friend gave me a business edition Vista for free and suggested I try it and he had luck gaming on it better than XP. So I'm there now 'cept now my slightly under a year system blew a cap and it's back to nothin while I try to figure out a local vendor that sells a smaller 1000u 7.6V+ cap. .. um.. ok sorry got off track there.

What I wanted to post was Gates and the Sun CEO a few years ago I think both agree'd the future would be more like the hardware is little or no cost but you pay for the software/usage fees. I don't like that at all to be honest but was so shocked that two higher ups agreed on that. I was trying to find the exact article but this is close http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Gates_gives_magical_software_tour.html (from 2004 talk with Gates).

 

[Chuck(G)]

No way is Vista or W7 completely from scratch. Compare the file sizes and versions of the command line interpreter CMD.EXE between W7 and XP. They're the same.

Maybe it depends on what's meant by "rewritten" and "scratch"?

For my own use, I've determined that I'm going to start using *nix/*nux more for my everyday work. I find that many of the tools I use (e.g. EDA) are available for both Win and *nix. I feel more at home in the CLI mode anyway.

It's kind of funny that most of the apps that come with 64 bit W7 are still 32 bit. I'd still like to see native 16-bit support returned to x64 W7. DOSBox or VPC is okay, but it's far from seamless.

 

[Lutiana]

MS should have never merged Win9x and WinNT.

They didn't. What they did was scrap the 9x kernel in favor of the NT kernel and the build a new GUI on top of it. This gave them a ton more stability and security.

The main reason they did this was because the NT based OSes were designed for stability and some security, but the 9x Oses were built for comsumers (so the focus was the bling). So essentially retiring the 9x kernel and focusing on some bling for the the NT kernel gave them an OS that was a lot more stable.