Windows 7 -- Boy am I pissed!

I downloaded the Windows 7 preview DVD a while back. And, with my lab now back into shape I decided to load it on one of my bench computers. Well, after I got a look at how much better the user interface became, how much faster and simpler the installation process had become, and all of the other little refinements, I wasn't happy that they had finally gotten closer to fixing it.

No, I was pretty pissed that Microsoft has perpetrated another multi-billion dollar fraud on the public and got people to pay through the nose just to once again be test subjects!

I would say the difference between Vista and Windows 7 is significant. It is significant enough that you should wait until Windows 7 becomes available before doing any significant Windows XP-to-Vista upgrade projects. In my view, Microsoft came clean at the last developer conference where they published their roadmap for Windows 7 and released the beta. They have clearly given up on Vista and so should you if you are planning what to do with a Windows XP sites a few years from now.

Let's face it, we'll have to upgrade old corporate XP computers eventually. They will start to wear out. But, given what Microsoft said at the last PDC you'd be crazy to say that Vista is the way to go and then start buying new systems with Vista. I am sure there are millions of sites around the world that have stumbled into the Vista upgrade path by blindly buying new systems and now they are stuck with a dead-end OS. Seems like the Windows Millennium debacle all over again.

So, this puts a real squeeze on the computer manufacturers. After facing up to the fact that smart people are going to wait for Windows 7, now the computer makers are facing a worldwide recession. I suppose the industry can look forward to a "Windows 7 bump" sometime in 2010, but that seems like a long way off in March 2009.

-- Vern