Windows 7 version lineup revealed: Prepare for disappointment

Yahoo ^

[Chet 99]

Remember when Vista was announced, and Microsoft decided to release six different versions of the operating system, much to the confusion, disappointment, and ridicule of potential buyers? Well guess what? Microsoft is back with the Windows 7 strategy. What has it learned in the last three years? Pretty much nothing.

While Microsoft is touting the "two primary editions" of Windows 7 -- a Home Premium edition and a Professional (intended for business) edition -- the fact is it's sticking with the same six different versions (or SKUs, stock-keeping units) that it had for Vista.

The real difference is that Windows 7 Home Basic -- the much-reviled stripped-down version of Vista that was designed for bare-bones PCs -- is now being shunted to emerging markets only, though it will still exist. But to confuse matters, a Windows 7 Starter edition, which will run only three applications simultaneously, will also be available.

[Irish Eyes]

Nortons hasn’t been relevant since Norton’s 2002. Bug resource hog, and bloatware. I usually uninstall the trial ware crap like that or McAfee ASAP with a new computer.

What do you use instead?

[Golden Eagle]

I am not working *for* anyone. It is my own company.

I had my own PC consulting company too for a couple of years back when PC's were first getting popular. Had too many people wanting to constantly quible over the nickels and dimes is what drove me out more than anything as I just got sick of the constant negotiation. Hope that doesn't become a problem for you in this current economy, but it sounds like you have plenty of users with problems, maybe that's not such a bad thing to have right now either.

Have a good evening.

Thanks, you too.

[Blue Highway]

Any of the free A/V programs work well Avira, Avast, AVG 7.5 (not 8.0), There was a limited time that the Kaspersky (AOL) A/V program was free. I still have the setup program and serial # for a later install as it worked well as a real time scanner and guard.

[Right Wing Assault]

I remember some time after calculators first came out, there were all kinds of brands. One company sold two models: basic functions and full scientific. They were the same size and had the same case. The basic one sold for probably $20 and the other for a lot more.

The basic one looked odd since most of the front was just a large, bare faceplate with the digits and a few function keys at the bottom. One day, someone dropped their basic model and the faceplate popped off. Underneath were all the exact same touch pads as the scientific model, and they worked. A perfect cripple.

[Right Wing Assault]

The other day I opened a pdf on my networked XP laptop at work and when I went to print, it just spun for ever, no print.

I got out and forgot about it. Later, I started getting spooler errors and saw no printers onboard. A few apps won’t open. I ran chkdsk a few times and it got better for a while, but now it is bad again. Off network it works fine.

[Golden Eagle]

Depends on how your network printing is setup, such as direct to the printer’s IP but based on your description more likely through a queue on a server that’s acting up. I’d delete all your printer pointers on the system and verify the system otherwise works fine, then try to setup to point direct to the printer’s IP if you can, if not, reconnect to the server queue on the server, and if the problems reappear tell the server admin. Sometimes a reboot of the printer server will help clean it out and get things back working smoothly as well. Good luck!

[Richard Kimball]

I've been away from Windows for a while, except at work, where I stick strictly to Outlook, the web and Office, but when I left, part of the problem was that install programs wrote directly to the registry and could modify any part of the system. It was common for several programs to have the same DLL file name, and for one to write over the other. Programs frequently used the same memory spaces to store information and would write over each other if you were running them at the same time. One of the big reasons for reboots was that programs, unless they were well written, would grab memory and not let it go when they were finished. These are usually 3rd party apps. MS had guidelines to tell programers which memory spots to use, etc., but didn't have anything in the system to prevent the bad practices.

A lot of this wasn't MS's fault, other than they let programs do it, rather than making programs run in a sand box.

Agree on dumbing down the GUI, although I'm not sure if I'd call it dumbing it down or goofing it up. I get very annoyed with Office 2007, as after over a year of using it, I still have to go to help to find commands that they moved to different menus for no particular reason.

[Irish Eyes]

Thanks for the information. I had AVG 7.5 liked it but was stupid enough to upgrade to 8.0.

[calex59]

Thanks for the correction, 95 B it was!

[Blue Highway]

AVG 8.0 is crap.

[calex59]

Oh, so you admit that the BSOD if basically a legend of old. Thanks.

Nope, not admitting that at all.It was never a "legend" but is, and remains to this day, a fact. It happens more frequently with new releases, sometimes it is never fixed satisfactorily, as in the case of ME and Vista. I was with a friend 3 days ago, running Vista, the blue screen came up 3 times, and the system eventually crapped out on him altogether. He now runs XP on it(this was a brand new machine BTW that was supposedly made to run Vista), after downloading XP drivers from the web. No blue screen yet and as he has service pack 2 it will probably not happen for a long time, I think it will happen eventually.

MS simply does not take enough time before they release a new version of any product, especially any of their OS. They didn't need to bring out Vista, XP is good enough with the service packs installed, in fact, if 98SE found drivers as well as XP I would still be running it.

Once again, your claim for only ONE blue screen in 10 years is simply not believable, period.

[roamer_1]

Thanks for your reply.

I should probably preface my remarks with a bit of a declaration: I am afraid the flow of the conversation may have caused my remarks to seem rather anti-Windows. As with many people, that is true, in part. I have a deep and abiding love/hate relationship with Microsoft. I also have an ever growing love and respect for Linux. I do not find myself particularly drawn to Mac in the least.

Most of my current systems are Microsoft, running a broad range of OSes from DOS 7.10 w/Win3.11 WFWG all the way through WinVista and a Win7 Beta testbed. I know Windows up, down, and sideways. I hack it for fun. My critique, therefore, is well informed, well meant, and well justified.

but when I left, part of the problem was that install programs wrote directly to the registry and could modify any part of the system.

That sounds like early NT or 9x. Not as easy in NT5+, and much better WinXP SP-2 forward (still can be surmounted with no problem though, even in 7)

I am no fan of the registry. I find it a cumbersome and stupid idea, mainly introduced for obfuscation and protectionist reasons. I much prefer the old 3x model, where programs were self-contained and removing the program was as simple as deleting it's program directory, and it's configuration was contained in an inifile adjacent to it's executable. With the advent of thumb drives, the general demand for portability is moving things inexorably back in that direction, to my great delight.

It was common for several programs to have the same DLL file name, and for one to write over the other.

Again, this sounds like NT-4/9x... System file protection is vastly improved. The problem is not the shared resource. It is the installation of an earlier dll with some package or another overwriting a later dll. Added functionality is thereby removed which later programs may rely upon.

There is a lesser problem with an early program relying upon a discontinued resource within a later dll, but that is usually resolved by carrying an unregistered copy of the offending dll within the program directory of the early program. It will generally use the local resource if available.

Even in 9x the system file checker (sfc.exe) was generally capable of resolving overwritten dlls (at least system dlls) and since XP-SP2, system file protection has been fairly robust- not allowing an older dll to overwrite a newer one without expressed permission, and offering a rollback option in most cases.

Programs frequently used the same memory spaces to store information and would write over each other if you were running them at the same time. One of the big reasons for reboots was that programs, unless they were well written, would grab memory and not let it go when they were finished. These are usually 3rd party apps.

This DEFINITELY sounds like Win9x! Win9x had a memory leak problem, denied by MS for years, but known by most folks. That is why it had to be rebooted daily, and why there were so many mem-freeing programs written for it. The fault is in the OS, and can be easily proven by loading a Win9x system bare and leaving it run. Even with nothing but the OS itself, it will eventually get quirky and end up in a BSOD.

NT5+ systems do not have these issues at all, or they are greatly reduced. My first love of NT was the fact that my Win2k server could run forever (seemingly) without the need for rebooting... I got a month (!) without a reboot out of my first whack at Win2k gold.

A lot of this wasn't MS's fault, other than they let programs do it, rather than making programs run in a sand box.

But that is the problem- and that is the fault. Since SP-2 programs have become more and more "sandboxed", because that is the proper thing to do.

Even so, it is a very simple thing to get to a System cmdbox or desktop- Not Admin mind you, but System... Even in Vista and 7... As long as this is achievable, User level protection is a useless scenario, as UAC can always be trumped, as can any permissions and security scenarios.

While Win6 is a vast improvement over Win5, and Win5 is miles ahead of Win4 and Win9x, It still suffers from an unprotected root and a quasi-integrated userspace. Until MS admits the reality of this, and wholly removes the userspace from the systemspace (as *nix) It will remain exploitable.

[usconservative]

I have been running Win 7 on 3 computers, since the public release. Works like a charm and I have yet to have a fatal error or BSOD.

Any tips on where I can find a Gig-Ethernet driver for a Marvell Yukon NIC in a Shuttle SG31G2 SFF PC? I've tried the Marvell Yukon site, Shuttle and the Windows7 forums with no luck.

Other than not being able to get on my network with that PC, the speed and smaller footprint (memory, cpu) of Win7 vs. Vista is impressive.

I'm running Vista 64B SP1 on this pc and it's been running like a champ since install. Uptime monitor says it's been up 74 days, 12 hours, 16 minutes and some change without a reboot or hiccup. That's about right.

[Richard Kimball]

I didn't read your remarks as anti-Windows, just an acknowledgement of system issues.

I moved to Mac when I started my photography business, primarily over two Win problems. I was using NT, but at that time it didn't have support for flash readers, which were necessary to download my photos. I went to ME, and that killed it. After using all the eject buttons like I was supposed to, ME would lose the USB ports and I'd have to delete them then go and have the system do a search for them and reinstall them. It would also lose my video card driver, and frequently boot up in 16 color 640X480 mode. This was when I got seriously frustrated. I had bought an upgraded video card, and the "driver disk" may have had the drivers, but I never found them. All I was ever able to get it to do was install adware. I ended up downloading the driver from the net. However, even though the driver worked fine, Windows insisted it was the incorrect driver and I had to override several objection pop ups to get it to run the driver.

This was also during the Netscape/Internet Explorer wars, and although I had Netscape configured as the default browser, most MS programs launched Explorer. Explorer would always start with a screen that said something like, "You've been seeing that Netscape slut again, haven't you?"

I finally said I don't know whether a Mac is better, but I can't go on with this, and switched. I've been mostly very happy. I've never messed with Linux because I wanted to get away from having to deal with the guts of the system.

MS does a lot of things that aren't for the consumer, and that's always been my biggest problem with them. For example, most people weren't upgrading Office, as Office 98 had all the functionality they needed. So, in Office 2007, MS started zipping the files on save and going to xlsx or docx format. They're incompatible with earlier Office versions. The biggest reason, IMHO, for the change was to make earlier versions of Office out of date, and to create a proprietary file format that OpenOffice, etc, couldn't read. There's a choice, several menus down to default to Office 2003 format, but if you select that, you get several popups warning of incompatibility issues. If you ever select "Save in Office 2007 format" the program unchecks the "Save in Office 2003 format" and goes to saving in Office 2007. This was deliberate, and done so people would finally say, "aw heck, I guess I'd better get Office 2007 and quit worrying about the old format."

I know MS has an update for older versions of Office, but I've found that it's pretty clunky. OpenOffice has already written translators, but the whole point of Office 2007 was to force an upgrade based on making using the older versions of Office inconvenient, not by improving the program to the point that people saw value in the new version.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

New computer here too. Gateway GT5676 powerhouse with Vista 64-bit. I’ve gotten a couple of Blue death screens, but other than that, Vista is amazing. I’ll wait until the kinks are worked out with Windows 7 before upgrading again. But IMO Vista is much better than XP.

[antiRepublicrat]

Show me where that's ever happened to anyone, ever, for making a test copy

Eric Corley was sued just for making it available. A developer who worked for a software company that made software that ran afoul of this law (software that the FBI itself used) was arrested and prosecuted.

As far as your specific case being a concern, you're lucky. Those were in the early days and even the industry has realized the cat's out of the bag for CSS, so prosecutions are rare now. That doesn't mean your actions aren't illegal.

Somebody needs to tell Office Depot and Walmart then, cause they sell these ripper tools right off the shelf.

There were suits and legal threats to keep such software off the shelf. Eventually industry realized people will rip just as they used to format-shift with older analog formats. The DMCA is not applicable throughout the world, so tools were developed all over (no, not just Russia, as the best tools came from the UK and France) and accessible via the Internet. Suing became useless eventually, just as they couldn't stop people from making tape mixes or recording from the TV. I think money had something to do with it, as later big companies were selling DVD ripping software, and those companies could defend themselves. Meanwhile, free (not open source) software without financial backing such as DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter were being shut down with legal threats.

the laws are so unfair on those that try to steal

The DMCA has made criminals of millions of honest people. I don't know whether you're honest, but the DMCA has also made a criminal out of you.

[Golden Eagle]

the DMCA has also made a criminal out of you.

ROFL, you're hilarious considering all the posts you've made in the past defending Russian hackers from the term "criminal" for circumventing US copyright on a grand scale. They're not criminals but I somehow am, LOL at your double talk again.

[roamer_1]

I didn't read your remarks as anti-Windows, just an acknowledgement of system issues.

That wasn't really pointed at you- Your statement that you were using "something else" had already marked you as disgruntled... I meant to show that I am still largely a Windows fan (sort of), even though I am highly against their proprietary nature, and am offended by what they have done over the years to limit what should have been an open and encouraging environment.

I moved to Mac when I started my photography business, primarily over two Win problems.

I have no real problems with Mac, especially now that it is basically BSD. My main criticism of Mac at this point is still it's high cost and very proprietary nature. It is made more offensive to me in that it is so in the midst of the Open Source community- While it follows the letter, I am sure, it does not follow the spirit, and it rankles me that way.

I went to ME, and that killed it.

No argument there. The ONLY thing ME is good for is harvesting parts for improving Win98SE.

"You've been seeing that Netscape slut again, haven't you?"

ROTFLMAO!!! I feel your pain. Never a problem for me, as I never used any of the "boxed" Windows applications anyway... They never got turned on to give me that message :D

I've never messed with Linux because I wanted to get away from having to deal with the guts of the system.

That is largely a myth- There may be some few setup issues, but likely not. Try Ubuntu or Mint... You will be pleasantly surprised. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

My new laptop dualboots WinVista and Ubuntu and cost me 450 bucks. Of course, one might look at available graphics apps first. Other than the mighty and venerable Gimp, I don't know of any (though I am sure they are there)...

but the whole point of Office 2007 was to force an upgrade based on making using the older versions of Office inconvenient, not by improving the program to the point that people saw value in the new version.

I really could not agree more, and that is the case with everything MS does. They feel they must compete with themselves, and therefore use the despicable practice of "planned obsolescence", rather than continuing and preserving what they make. It is, and has always been, a very poor business practice.

[Blue Highway]

Sorry I can’t help you with the driver for your ethernet. If they have a Vista driver for that NIC then it will work in Windows 7.

[Golden Eagle]

The DMCA has made criminals of millions of honest people. I don't know whether you're honest, but the DMCA has also made a criminal out of you.

Here's perfect proof of your circle talk, when you've defended ACTUAL criminals on previous threads:

Your quote:

The DMCA covers this, and requires financial gain for an act to be criminal.

That's what you've always said in the past when defending criminal hackers in Russia, for which there are countess similar comments of yours on record, is that the copyrighted work not only had to be distributed, there had to a profit earned for it to qualify as being "criminal". Yet now you're trying to claim I am somehow the criminal for performing a simple test within the confines of my home.

LOL at the absurdity, hypocrisy, and most of all your deplorable defenses of ACTUAL criminals, on full display here yet again.