Dan's Scans

Microsoft Says Vista 2.0 . . . er . . . sorry -- Windows 7 Will Suck Less

 

By Dan Robinson

 

Microsoft had a party Tuesday (Oct 27, 2008) for software developers. Amid the gaiety and hail-fellow-well-met camaraderie, MS announced that the upcoming version of Windows, dubbed 'Windows 7', will nag users less with fewer alerts and warnings than Vista.

 

According to Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president in Microsoft's Windows group, "we had all the best intentions" (in trying to secure PCs) "for novice PC users who needed to be protected." He did not mention that it was Windows' vulnerabilities that those unprofessional new users needed to be protected from. That statement also infers that users need to be experts to know how to adequately protect their computers.

 

This is in direct opposition to the folks at Apple, who assume that users should not need to do more than accept occasional software and security updates.

 

MS really dropped the ball on Vista. Then they compounded their errors with denial and, most recently, a $300 million ad campaign that not only fell flat, but caused even more derision to be heaped upon poor Vista's bruised and bloody head.

 

So, MS decides to cut their losses and start promoting Vista 2.0. Oh, they're calling it Windows 7, but it'll be Vista under the hood. Hopefully they'll have the bugs worked out of V2 before the projected 2010 release date. But if history teaches us anything, it is that projected Microsoft release dates are ephemeral in nature. Vista was originally expected to ship sometime in 2003 as a revision of Windows XP on the way to Blackcomb, planned to be the MS's next major operating system release. But, like Topsy, it 'just growed' until it became the bloated Vista we love to hate released in 2006.

 

Reportedly what they'll do is give users the ability to turn off some of the warning messages. Another will be to streamline Windows so it will not be such a resource hog. This will allow W7 to run on cheapie laptops and netbooks that currently choke on Vista. Other than that, it appears that they're just moving things around and calling them "features." But few of those features offer anything that you couldn't already do your own self. A good ferinstance is "Libraries," which shows files meeting certain criteria like Photos or Word Documents. Sounds for all the world like the Macintosh Smart Folder with the addition of sifting through other local networked computers. Speaking of home networking, it is supposed to be much easier on W7.

 

I expect there will be many, many things the Gnomes of Redmond will improve in W7. It would be really sad if they loused it up again.

 

In a side note, MS Office will have online "cloud" versions similar Google Docs. Google isn't exactly setting the internet on fire with its cloud computing apps, but several organizations I know use them to share editing of documents among widely separated people. But I don't know of any individuals who are using them to the exclusion of onboard applications. The question there, is how are they going to promote their Cloudy Office without eating into sales of their retail version?

 

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Vista 2.0!