Prediction: Win7 will flop harder than Vista

[Ynot]

Christ almighty, read this http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9132177 Microsoft Corp.'s decision to give some Windows 7 users a tool to run Windows XP applications in a virtual machine may have been necessary to convince people to upgrade, but it could create support nightmares, analysts said today. Last week, Microsoft announced that it would offer an add-on called Windows XP Mode (XPM) to users of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise when the new operating system ships. Professional and Ultimate are the two highest-priced versions of Windows 7, while Enterprise is sold only through volume licensing agreements. Microsoft was clear about XPM's purpose. "Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7," Scott Woodgate, director of Windows enterprise and virtualization strategy, said in a blog entry last Friday. "I think that this will help the uptake for Windows 7, because it removes one more 'gotcha,' and that's never a bad thing to do," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. The idea of using virtualization to provide backward compatibility for older applications is neither novel nor surprising, Cherry continued. He called it a nice "safety net" for users concerned about abandoning XP who don't have access to centrally managed MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization). MED-V is available only to organizations that have a Software Assurance plan in place and also purchase Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). Microsoft launched MDOP 2009, which includes MED-V 1.0, earlier this month. XPM is a smart, if necessary, move, given the reception users gave to Windows Vista, Cherry said. "Because of the way Vista was received -- it's got enough baggage already -- the more they can do to address all those things [Vista was criticized for] upfront with Windows 7, the more likely that people will go to the new OS," he said. Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner Inc., echoed Cherry's take on what motivated Microsoft to offer XPM. "It shows the extent to [which] Microsoft wants to get people who use XP onto Windows 7," he said. But Silver sees some big downsides. "You'll have to support two versions of Windows," he said. "Each needs to be secured, antivirused, firewalled and patched. Businesses don't want to support two instances of Windows on each machine. If a company has 10,000 PCs, that's 20,000 instances of Windows." The other big problem Silver foresees with XPM is that it may cause some companies to neglect the real task: making sure the software they run is compatible with Windows 7. "This is a great Band-Aid, but companies need to heal their applications," Silver said. "They'll be doing themselves a disservice if, because of XPM, they're not making sure that all their apps support Windows 7." He also noted that while Microsoft is effectively extending the life span of Windows XP by offering it as a Windows 7 add-on, it hasn't budged on support. Microsoft shifted Windows XP out of mainstream support two weeks ago and will provide what it calls "extended" support only through mid-April 2014. "[XPM] will give some a false sense of security," Silver warned. "What happens in 2014, when XP isn't supported anymore? I think companies will be much better off if they make all their applications run on Windows 7." In the end, XPM illustrates a long-standing problem for Microsoft, said Silver: supporting aged applications. Silver and fellow Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald made waves last year when they argued that Windows was "collapsing" under the weight of nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions. "This sheds some light on Microsoft's compatibility problems," Silver said today, "which slows people down in adopting the newest operating system. They're using this as a way to get Windows out there [on enterprise desktops] quicker, but this isn't the answer. It needs to morph into something that's supportable long-term." Microsoft has said it will ship a beta of XPM "soon," but it has not pinned a more specific date to its availability. The company will, however, deliver Windows 7 Release Candidate to users of its MSDN and TechNet services on Thursday, and to the general public on May 5. So a virtual instance of XP running inside Win 7.... No software company is going to spend the time & money on certifying their software for 7, when they can just fall back on XP They already have to support XP (80% market share of Windows users) What's the incentive to support 7 natively? None Plus, this is a huge blow to businesses The hardware requirements alone is going to put people off Now you have to spend, say, £600 per machine, with beefier specs as opposed to £300? Just so you can accommodate running 2 OS's in parallel on all your workstations Also, the need to secure & anti-virus both OS's is quite scary One flaw in 7 could potentially open up a whole heap of pain on the XP side Well, this could be interesting

[ninja9578]

If you read my post in the predictions for the future thread, I predicted that Windows 7 will fail and Microsoft will pull and IBM and go down fast.

[Keresztanya]

I think this is a wonderful idea, actually. They are trying to promote business to get off of their old computers, and try newer versions of Windows. They are losing money by letting everyone stay on XP. Seriously, they are taking a step in the right direction by trying to kill XP once and for all. There are plenty of reasons for a business to upgrade to 7, as I'm assuming it has better features in it such as resource management, faster file indexing, and if they can choke up the money, it will use newer hardware better. This is a step in the right direction, XP needs to die soon.

[ninja9578]

I think this is a wonderful idea, actually. They are trying to promote business to get off of their old computers, and try newer versions of Windows. They are losing money by letting everyone stay on XP. Seriously, they are taking a step in the right direction by trying to kill XP once and for all. There are plenty of reasons for a business to upgrade to 7, as I'm assuming it has better features in it such as resource management, faster file indexing, and if they can choke up the money, it will use newer hardware better. This is a step in the right direction, XP needs to die soon. Companies aren't at the will of microsoft anymore. Until OSX, they couldn't use Mac because Macs were slow, had a crappy OS, and weren't compatible with anything. Now they are fully PC compatible, have better or equal software and after much faster. If M$ stays alive it will be due to the average consumer, not businesses. Businesses hire people to look deep into the computers and make decisions. The average Mac is a little more money, but lasts 3 times as long. Windows suffers from viruses, malware, and other harmful programs. Windows disks get fragmented and slow, programming it using DLLs is HELL and using static libraries make the software slow. Worse of all, it still has the registry at its core which is the main reason that the average PC has a lifespan just over 2 years. If they unixify the backend, Windows might be salvageable. If they stick with NT, they are doomed. XP was pretty good, I couldn't get a BSOD if I tried. In the past 2 weeks I've seen Vista's over 10 times.

[Keresztanya]

Companies aren't at the will of microsoft anymore. Until OSX, they couldn't use Mac because Macs were slow, had a crappy OS, and weren't compatible with anything. Now they are fully PC compatible, have better or equal software and after much faster. If M$ stays alive it will be due to the average consumer, not businesses. Businesses hire people to look deep into the computers and make decisions. The average Mac is a little more money, but lasts 3 times as long. Windows suffers from viruses, malware, and other harmful programs. Windows disks get fragmented and slow, programming it using DLLs is HELL and using static libraries make the software slow. Worse of all, it still has the registry at its core which is the main reason that the average PC has a lifespan just over 2 years. If they unixify the backend, Windows might be salvageable. If they stick with NT, they are doomed. XP was pretty good, I couldn't get a BSOD if I tried. In the past 2 weeks I've seen Vista's over 10 times. I stopped reading when you said "M$". Honestly, get over yourself. They are making money in a capitalist business. I don't see what's so wrong with it. Macs are not better, and do not have better hardware. You are paying MORE money for the SAME hardware. Why don't you mac users get this? Windows is not "LOL BSOD SHITHOLE VIRUSES". I've never gotten one BSOD, and only 2 or 3 viruses in the 4 years I've had my computer. And the 2 or 3 viruses I got when I was younger, and didn't understand anything about it. Viruses are not really a threat to a Windows user, unless you like going on LimeWire and downloading YOUNG TEEN GIRLS STRIPPING.WMV.EXE.

[Ynot]

I stopped reading when you said "M$" Actually, M$ was originally a joke about Microsoft's BASIC interpreter In Basic, you append a dollar sign to string variables, and early MS implementations only allowed for 2 character variables 10 M$ = "I'm a crappy string variable" It's only fairly recently that M$ has been used to infer money I'll ignore the rest, as it's crap

[ninja9578]

I stopped reading when you said "M$". Honestly, get over yourself. They are making money in a capitalist business. I don't see what's so wrong with it. Macs are not better, and do not have better hardware. You are paying MORE money for the SAME hardware. Why don't you mac users get this? Windows is not "LOL BSOD SHITHOLE VIRUSES". I've never gotten one BSOD, and only 2 or 3 viruses in the 4 years I've had my computer. And the 2 or 3 viruses I got when I was younger, and didn't understand anything about it. Viruses are not really a threat to a Windows user, unless you like going on LimeWire and downloading YOUNG TEEN GIRLS STRIPPING.WMV.EXE. The average lifespan of a PC is just over 2 years, the average lifespan of a Mac is 6. That's where the extra money comes from. The registry makes a PC unusable very quickly, and registry cleaners do not work as well as they should and most people don't use them. Viruses aren't a big thread, but malware and spyware is, the writers are getting very crafty. They are locking the processes and creating watcher processes that restart them after windows or you shut them down. A 10 hour battery isn't bad either, find me a PC that has one of those. Apples charges more for their hardware because they sell software much cheaper. M$ office is what, 300 dollars for everything? iWork is $79. Keynote is the industry standard now, not Powerpoint, Word is a terrible formatter, Pages has a LaTeX backend. Vista Ultimate is several hundred dollars, Leopard is $129. Windows comes with Windows Movie Maker, OSX comes with iMovie. Windows comes with Paint, OSX comes with GIMP. The software of the average PC can't even compare to the software of the average Mac. Actually, M$ was originally a joke about Microsoft's BASIC interpreter QBasic to be precise I remember having to declare M$ as a string, M% as an integer, and M& as a float

[[SomeGuy]]

Windows 7's developers decided to add support for Windows XP applications. I say that is a good idea for sales. But...how they did it is, interesting to say the least. From CWMike at Slashdot: "Microsoft's decision to let Windows 7 users run Windows XP applications in a virtual machine may have been necessary to convince people to upgrade, but it could also create support nightmares, analysts said today. Gartner analyst Michael Silver outlines the downsides. 'You'll have to support two versions of Windows,' he said. 'Each needs to be secured, antivirused, firewalled and patched. If a company has 10,000 PCs, that's 20,000 instances of Windows.' The other big problem Silver foresees: Making sure the software they run is compatible with Windows 7. 'This is a great Band-Aid, but companies need to heal their applications,' Silver said. 'They'll be doing themselves a disservice if, because of XPM, they're not making sure that all their apps support Windows 7.'" Now, is it really a good enough reason to upgrade? I don't see why they don't just integrate a layer for WinXP apps inside the actual OS instead of making a VM for it.