Essentials of the Windows 95 user interface remain in Windows 7
Posted on 11/05/2009 8:58:34 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Nevertheless, Windows 7 on its launch today is a better experience than Windows Vista was when released in early 2007, thanks to a UI polish, faster hardware, better drivers, and new features that users actually enjoy - Taskbar, Libraries, Aero Peek - rather than features that were detrimental to usability and compatibility even if there were good reasons for them. Yes, User Account Control, I'm thinking of you.
It is a good effort from the Windows 7 team, though its task was easier than that facing the Windows Vista crew. Windows 7 is a refinement of Windows Vista, whereas Vista was meant to be revolutionary.
Essentials of the Windows 95 user interface remain in Windows 7
The interesting questions about Windows Vista concern not what was delivered, but what was omitted. I attended Microsoft's 2003 Professional Developers Conference (PDC), where we heard about the now-notorious "three pillars of Longhorn": Avalon, later called Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF); Indigo, later called Windows Communication Foundation; and WinFS, still called WinFS, still not shipped.
WinFS was the relational file system that was itself a delayed variation of the Object File System promised for the Cairo project originally talked about in 1991. Making it work sensibly, though, proved too difficult. With two of three pillars removed, no wonder Windows Vista tottered.
Ah, but surely Avalon was left in? It is true that WPF did ship with Windows Vista, but Avalon as originally ....
(Excerpt) Read more at channelregister.co.uk ...
Nothing like looking back and comparing what was promised to replace windows 95...and what we have now...we still don’t have everything.
I read somewhere that people installing S7 their PC’s kept booting over and over - didn’t matter where they got S7 - retailers or download from MS ... anymore truth to that???
If it's not "really different," how can it be "much better?"
You can purchase an Windows Upgrade Key from Ebay for about $25. I think it is well worth it if you intend to keep your present computer for a couple of years.
It’s “better” because it looks different, I’m sure. I have a free upgrade to 7 that I am afraid to exercise. Vista on one computer keeps trying everyday to back up all my files and I can’t stop it. Annoying as hell.
I can’t even find a decent directory structure and the computer updates itself regularly and causes Word Perfect to make backups in a directory I can’t find. One “update” knocked me off the net for about a month right after I bought the computer because it updated to the point the aircard wouldn’t work. Sierra and AT&T both lost trying to figure it out.
Microsoft just oughta make a bare bones operating system for those of us not on the cutting edge. An OS that runs the hardware and software without all the crap.
parsy, who will one day migrate to Apple
The author is really not that competent.
To be fair, Win95/98/ME and WinNT/2K/Vista are completely different OS’s under the covers...
When MSFT decided to end the 95/98/ME product line, everyone perceived a huge increase in the bloat and complexity of Windows - because there in fact was a huge increase in the complexity under the GUI. So there was no getting around that.
The mistake MSFT made was trying to make the GUI appear to “be” the OS and branding the GUI relentlessly as “the OS” to customers. As a result, the customers have (on average) little to no appreciation for the huge increase in functionality under the GUI. MSFT makes each new release do a whole lot more things, especially in what they’re providing for 3rd party app developers, but the end consumer continues to just see gratuitous GUI changes - that can be undone with a simple system setting to make the system look just like Win98 or thereabouts.
There’s some things MSFT has done pretty well, but the planning of the long-term future of their flagship product... hasn’t been one of them.
I’m going to hang onto XP for another year. It works for me.
I’m sure that’s happened to a couple machines....but not enough to bother mentioning it.
parsifal just posted an excellent summary of what I’m talking about - the jaded “it is better because it looks different” reception by customers.
That’s MSFT’s failing, not the customers’. They make these huge, sweeping and largely gratuitous changes to the GUI, confusing users to a point where MSFT has to put in a “give me back my old GUI!” knob in the system. Click that box, poof the system reverts and you’re left with the following, unshakable feeling:
“I’ve been gypped.”
You won't regret it. I'm doing a "creeping" changeover at home: Replacing Windows machines with Macs as they get old. But they do cost a bit more.... For a few apps I have that absolutely, positively must have Windows, I use Parallels (which creates virtual machines that can have any operating system, like Ubuntu Linux).
Is there one of those in Vista, or just W7?
No one has ever made so much money (Bill Gates) selling such a crappy product (Windows) in the history of this world.
This thing
Such a simple trivial thing, but it made searching for files so much easier instead of that (*^!@ ribbon BS
What was happening that during install when the PC has to reboot to do its thing it would just keep booting and rebooting. There was no way to stop it and no way to get back to VISTA. Reason I’m asking is I have a laptop with VISTA P. and would like to upgrade to S7 but afraid to do so.
I just bumped my home workstation and older Core duo 1.73 gHZ laptop up to Win 7. It’s a breath of fresh air. The laptop behaves as if it’s got a whole new lease on life, thus extending it’s useful life, and the workstation is much snappier in every respect. This what Vista should have been.
And the point’s well taken WRT the three pillars. I worked in the SQL Server division from ‘94 to ‘99 and there was all sorts oftalk about converging OS and DB functionality into one system. To obad they neve followed through. Whether it was a failure of imagination or lack of agreement on direction, I’ll never know.
Anyone out there remember the Pick OS? How about Metaphor Computer Systems?
That goes back to the late 80's early 90's doesn't it....another flavor of UNIX?
Metaphor Computer Systems
Was that a processor?
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