09.16.09
Vista 7 Hype is Torn Apart, One ‘Feature’ at a Time
Summary: The next version of Windows Vista gets publicly criticised, but Microsoft will not take this lying down
Linux already does multi-touch, and it does it very well. In order to enable this, however, not only is software support required (it’s built into Linux) but hardware support too. In fact, the whole hype about multi-touch on the desktop is to do with touchscreens, which are an old technology from the 1980s.
The facts suggest that Vista 7 has no “killer feature”, except perhaps the ability to run XP, which hardly counts as a feature per se. Just being “not as bad as Vista” does not imply that Vista 7 is wonderful. That’s what Microsoft wants the world to believe though, and highly-paid PR agencies were hired to impose this illusion. They are specifically assigned to protect the image of Vista 7.
Here is a new post from ZDNet, which is titled “Windows 7 Needs Liposuction.” It says:
The complaint I have with Windows OS that Linux addresses to a certain extent, is that I can strip out or NOT install big chunks of software that is more rightly defined as application layer software instead of the bloat the has driven Windows into the ground performance-wise.
Scan the comments for potential Microsoft perception management [1, 2] in action (maybe just a Microsoft partner). They seem to be attacking any critic of Vista 7 with a load of text that ridicules the author and/or pitches all sorts of selling points. They hijack the conversation to guard the brand. Even Microsoft employees are instructed to comment in ZDNet under false identities.
Moments ago in the news we also found a rebuttal to Microsoft’s touchscreen nonsense, which it tries to attribute to Vista 7. Microsoft is extolling the virtues of a hardware feature enabled by OS support that GNU/Linux already has (unlike Vista 7, which is not released yet).
Windows 7 touch: Dead on arrival
[...]
Whereas Apple quietly added touch to Mac OS X Leopard a couple years back, Microsoft has hyped its Microsoft Surface technology for more than a year. Beneath this hype has been the suggestion that, with Windows 7, a touch revolution is brewing.
Or maybe not.
[...]
Here are the key concerns that make PC touch useless for most people — and that will continue to plague any notion of a “touch revolution” on the desktop PC for years to come.
The largest volume of Microsoft AstroTurfing will start next month. It is always the case when Microsoft has a major release of Windows (especially and more so with Vista), so experience simply suggests so. It’s strategically crucial because Microsoft pressures businesses and OEMs to blindly adopt early. In addition, Microsoft will improperly count “sales” of Vista 7 to create hype. Whether those lies are capable of being reported to (and handled by) the ASA is another matter. █
“[W]e’re not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been.”
–Steve Ballmer, a year ago
twitter said,
September 16, 2009 at 9:49 am
I don’t think you should say that Vista 7 will run XP in any kind of usable way. People predict XP emulation in Vista 7 will only be good enough to run, “green screen cobalt” applications. It’s hard to believe it could be that bad because Parallels, Crossover Office, Wine and many others have done very good XP on gnu/linux for the better part of a decade. M$ is new to the game and Windows has always been clumsy when it comes to sharing devices, so this may be true. The sad fact of the matter is that Vista broke compatiblity and Vista 7 won’t get it back. People who want to run XP applications on a modern OS are better off using gnu/linux.
twitter said,
September 16, 2009 at 9:51 am
Oh yeah. Here is my tear down of Windows 7 hype and my Windows 7 failure log.
Mikko said,
September 16, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Virtual XP wont work on Sony VAIO same for many business version HP PCs
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
It has GPU acceleration problems on some chipsets as well.
VirtualBox with GNU/Linux might be the better option, or just a GNU/Linux partition.
Mikko Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I’ve read that sony have some security concerns about enabling VT
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sony should not have security concerns. They do rootkits.