Posted on 01/29/2010 2:44:11 AM PST by SmokingJoe
Seattle - The successful launch of new operating system Windows 7 propelled Microsoft to record revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, the software giant reported Thursday.
Microsoft reported net income of 6.7 billion, a 60 per cent increase on the year prior, while revenue rose 18 per cent to 19 billion dollars.
'This is a record quarter for Windows units,' Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, said in a news release. 'We are thrilled by the consumer reception to Windows 7 and by business enthusiasm to adopt Windows 7.'
The company said it sold more than 60 million Windows 7 licenses in the second quarter, making the operating system Microsoft's fastest-selling in history. That helped the company's Windows and Windows Live division rack up 6.9 billion dollars in revenue, an increase of about a third over the period a year earlier
Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1529370.php/Windows-7-sends-Microsoft-to-record-revenue#ixzz0dzqdko84
(Excerpt) Read more at monstersandcritics.com ...
I’m beginning to think that they snookered folks with Windows 7. I just read an article where Microsoft could be planning on releasing Windows 8 next summer. Anyone else hear this?
I only use windows os for my first-person shooter games, and for ms flight simulator. Some of the newer games won’t run on windows 2000 though. I’m having a hard time trying to convince myself to shell out $150 or so for windows 7, just to run games on. If it were $40, I’d do it.
It was their latest version or whichever version that was for XP if I recall. It was free on MS's website I definitely remember. I then downloaded an iso version of Win95 and installed that on the Virtual machine. I had an old Win95 disk but couldn't find my serial key. So the .iso version worked well.
I used the standard drivers as my high end video card wouldn't have 95 drivers..but luckily those games never needed high end cards anyway. I'm a WH40k nut so I played games like Chaos Gate, Final Liberation, and some of the OLD SSI games like Panzer and Allied General.
For you older game enthusiasts out there I can purchase downloadable old games such as those for $5-$10 on a site called www.gog.com Good Old Games. I've purchased several, they are already patched to the latest and you usually get a bunch of downloadable goodies along with them. I highly recommend it as a safe and reputable site.
You're absolutely right, there is a place for both. I keep a pretty decent video card and maxed out RAM for my XP machine...can play pretty much any new PC game out there. But I also have an XBOX 360 for when there are two versions...if there is a version for both PC and XBOX I almost always get the XBox version as that's what that game was designed for IMHO.
That being said, i'm not a big FPS or arcade style gamer, though I play them occasionally, my love is for strategic and Role Playing. Though the consoles have come out with some great RPG's lately (Fallout, Dragon Age, Mass Effect) I still love the ability to roll your own full 6 character party and not be stuck with just the 3 characters the console tends to let you have. (PC versions of the Original Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment are some of the best RPG's EVER to grace any machine)
And when it comes to strategy games, no console game has ever come close to what the PC has fielded. I have an intense love for turn-based strategic games as I liken them to Chess, I love thinking my moves through...and the ever sleep deprived addiction of "just one more turn" before I go to bed. :)
I have been told that if you upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 you must reinstall all your software. Is that true?
This is only true if you wipe your hard drive clean and do what is called a "clean install." Otherwise you do what is called an "in-place" upgrade/install and you don't have to re-install your programs.
I did an "in-place" upgrade after weighing all the pros and cons (for my case, I could easily have done either one) and I had no problems. I'd recommend that if your system is in good shape to begin with.
If your current system has not been kept in top working condition you may be happier if you wipe clean and install from scratch although it will take many hours longer to do so.
We got Windows 7 to run an IBM Thinkpad t21 with 512 ram and it runs awesome! Better than XP on the same hardware. Its amazing. Other tests have been good too... We are starting to deploy Windows7 here @ work. Starting out just a few clients to see how it goes. So far so good.
I'm not sure about what DRM you are talking about but if you use a good firewall and anti-virus/malware scanners (Comodo firewall and avast! anti-virus/malware are both free) then you won't have any trouble. I use those and have no problems. The scanner catches whatever tries and stops it. I've been virus/trojan free for years on XP, Vista and win 7.
60 million Windows 7 units sold in just over 2 months is just insane.........
Windows 7 is an interesting release in that many units were sold on a discounted basis. Microsoft sees a threat from Apple so has flooded the zone to get maximum visibility via pre-launch events and via discounted prices such as on academic editions. Microsoft is in fierce competition for the young people. Apple is hurting them there
With XP the serial number would only work with one physical disc (CD)
If you have a legitimate Windows 7 serial number it is not mated to a physical CD. I have a Windows 7 premium upgrade number and it works with a generic download of Windows 7 premium upgrade. Plus this upgrade (from Vista presumably maybe XP) can actually be used for a clean install very easily. Which is always the best way to go anyways
So Windows7 rules are kind of loose it seems
You can get the academic edition for about $30 if you or your child has a .edu email address
Years ago I read that Windows95 should be re-installed once a year to clean up the gunk. I try to follow this today for any Microsoft OS. I have had XP on one of my computers for two years and it is quite irritating. It needs a clean re-install
Haha...*gasp* Say it ain't so..
I am SHOCKED.
Aghast!
ROFLMAO.
That's the benefit of running an obscure, unpopular OS. No one bothers writing malware for it. I miss OS/2. or the C=64, come to think of it.
Just like when I had a Studebaker as a kid. Nobody ever stole the hubcaps.
Digital Rights Management (more properly and less ironically named Digital Restriction of Media) is a way for the big media companies to decide whether or not you get to use the data that you have. You are a thief until they decide otherwise.
Digital Rights Management manages digital rights like jail manages freedom.
DRM on Windows 7 does things like artificially crippling an otherwise normal, uncrippled cable television channel.
On the malware/spyware issue, what you are saying is that provided that you use additional software to protect your Windows system you could very well have trouble. And this makes Windows 7 no different than all of the other versions of Windows that came before.
I've been virus/trojan free for years on XP, Vista and win 7.
You know, I hear this a lot. I never hear someone say, "My machines are all eaten up with bots and malware!"
Yet somehow there are botnets that have 10,000,000+ compromised Windows systems in them.
The reality is that the new botnet malware is very discrete. You could easily be infected and not know it.
Often repeated, but wrong.
Windows v Linux security: the real facts
Myth Windows only gets attacked most because it's such a big target, and if Linux use (or indeed OS X use) grew then so would the number of attacks.
Fact When it comes to web servers, the biggest target is Apache, the Internet's server of choice. Attacks on Apache are nevertheless far fewer in number, and cause less damage. And in some case Apache-related attacks have the most serious effect on Windows machines. Attacks are of course aimed at Windows because of the numbers of users, but its design makes it a much easier target, and much easier for an attack to wreak havoc. Windows' widespread (and often unnecessary) use of features such as RPC meanwhile adds vulnerabilities that really need not be there. Linux's design is not vulnerable in the same ways, and no matter how successful it eventually becomes it simply cannot experience attacks to similar levels, inflicting similar levels of damage, to Windows.
Uh, actually that's extremely unlikely in my case but I'm not going to argue. I just offered my personal experience. YMMV.
Not unless you reinstall your OS from known, clean media on a regular basis.
Malware scanners and anti-virus software only help you after you get infected and only if the software can detect the malware. Malware writers have become exceedingly good at evading detection.
Report: 48% of 22 million scanned computers infected with malware
That's half. One out of two. So here's the experiment:
Ask the person next to you if they are infected with malware. If they say no, then it's you.
Fact When it comes to web servers, the biggest target is Apache, the Internet's server of choice.
Sure. Apache is run everywhere. But in OS discussions we are talking about the end user's desktop or laptop, not at the host...though we do see plenty of the effects of them, as well as serverside script hacks, SQL injections, etc., all the time.
I had to leave a host because of these. The morons outsourced all their work to Russia. Brilliant. Right into the belly of the beast.
But the argument is popularity==risk of attack. If that was true, Apache would be more at risk than IIS, but that's not true.
The reality is that Windows is a much easier target than Linux, OSX, xBSD or a proprietary Unix.
If Linux was at the same popularity level as Windows then it would NOT have the same problems because the vast majority of Windows infections are due to design decisions that Microsoft made and have refused to correct.
Ask yourself if you've been using computers and designing software since the early 1980s. If the answer is "no" then it's somebody else...
Cartoon suggestion:
(Image of 50,000 coders, all working in different cubicles, never talking to each other, and trying to make Windows secure, while Management and Sales are telling them to "enrich content" giving Users things they never wanted.)
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