Is Microsoft giving up on Vista? (CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

Microsoft's Ballmer touts 'best version of Windows ever'

By Brandon Griggs
CNN

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday with an impassioned endorsement of PCs and a sneak peek at the company's future Windows 7 operating system.

As expected, Ballmer announced that Microsoft is releasing a beta version of Windows 7, which will be available for download beginning Friday. The news suggests the world's largest software maker may be giving up efforts to rehabilitate its often-maligned Vista operating system, which was released worldwide in January 2007.

"We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever," Ballmer told an audience of several thousand tech professionals and journalists inside a cavernous ballroom at the Venetian hotel. "We're working hard to get it right and get it ready."

Without mentioning the security and compatibility issues that have dogged Vista, Ballmer promised that Windows 7 will make PCs faster and easier to use. He didn't offer a timetable for its official release, although Windows Vista went on sale more than two years after it was issued in beta form.

Early reviews of Windows 7, which was leaked to the Internet in beta form in late December, have been positive. iReport.com: Will you try Windows 7? Are you attending CES?
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/08/microsoft.ballmer/index.html

OP reflects CNN's original title, which changed this afternoon to something much milder

[MidwestTransplant]

1. My laptop has Vista. It SUCKS

I would bet that Vista is responsible for more than a few people switching to Macs.

[stopbush]

6. Love my Mac at home.

Tolerate my PC at the office.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. How can MS get in touch with you? They saw your endorsement --

want to feature it in their advertising. :evilgrin:

[Yes We Did]

14. I got a new laptop with 3 gigs of ram...

And my photoshop and golive programs work faster on my 5 year old desktop that has 1 gig of ram.

Vista sucks.

OH, and now... photoshop stalls out every time I try to open up my layer styles menu.

[HillWilliam]

34. Get a copy of The GiMP

It's free, doesn't crash, does everything PhotoShop does and a whole lot more.

[roseBudd]

53. I got a new desktop with 4 GB of ram & 64 bit vista & I love it, I leave multiple Adobe apps open

for weeks at a time, multiple browsers & other apps & have not had any issues.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

24. It worked for

my husband.

I have always had Mac's. Got my first one in 1987.

My husband has always had PC's - after a year of struggling with Vista and all the other crap with Microsoft and observing my computer(s) run smooth and non-problematic - He asked for a Macbook for his birthday.

He has to use PC's at his work - but he loves his new Macbook.

He uninstalled Vista and went back to his other OS... Microsoft knew it was releasing a POS when they sold Vista to the general population - What a horror show.

[backscatter712]

49. That's why I run Linux on my machines.

I barely tolerate Windows XP on them, won't tolerate Vista on them, but 99.99% of the time, I'm running Ubuntu. Much faster and leaner, less buggy and more secure. That and NO DRM!!!

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

60. Another Ubuntu Linux vote....

and mine is ULTIMATE!!! That is Ubuntu Ultimate Edition. Every thing just works.

So far the only thing gave me problems is my Canon Camcorder hooked up via Firewire, but after five minutes Google, I had it working.

BTY: When I tried Vista, I came to the conclusion Vista doesn't like my AMD system. Yet XP works fine on it (swap hard drive boot) I think I'll stick with this flavor of Linux this time.

[girl gone mad]

67. I'm going to be full time Ubuntu starting next week..

I'm so excited to finally be breaking the chains. :)

[onehandle]

2. Yes. They're back to MS-DOS... I mean Windows. nt

[Solon]

3. If only they went back to DOS, no blue screens of death there!

:)

[POR]

21. Exactly!!

I know I am sounding very 1985 techy with this but if you go back to DOS or UNIX you get rid of 90% of the performance issues everyone is always complaining about. Of course it would require everyone know more about PC programming but whould that be a bad thing.

[dysfunctional press]

40. actually- it would be a GREAT thing...for Macintosh.

[backscatter712]

50. Why do you think I run Ubuntu on my systems?

Of course, I'm a software engineer with enough knowledge to get under the hood when I need to, but the current versions of the major Linux distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are very friendly to newbies.

[DJ13]

5. Windows hasnt used DOS since Win98

[Solon]

9. True, Windows XP uses the NT kernel, its technically called NT 5.1...

Windows 2000 is NT 5.0, Vista is 6.0 and Windows 7 is, well, 7.0.

[AntiFascist]

55. Much of Windows NT is based on RSX-11...

why can't they graduate the kernel to Unix like, you know, Linux did?

[Solon]

58. Actually, Linux was originally based on Minix, which was...

basically an educational version of POSIX compliant OSes(Unix being the granddaddy of them all). Linux is fully POSIX compliant, Windows NT only ever had partial, and even that was broken half the time.

[AntiFascist]

61. Apple has also updated to Unix with Mac OSX...

which is based on NEXT's Unix implementation.

[Angleae]

12. Technically Window ME was the last DOS-based.

It's still there, they just disabled the users ability to access it.

[crispini]

23. Open up a command prompt... you can do it in the run window.

Even in Vista, you can still get to the little black line if you need it. :D

[Solon]

30. Thats cmd.com, not command.com...

All versions of Windows NT run a MS-DOS virtualization layer, or emulation layer, hence why many old DOS games and other DOS based programs are broken on Windows NT, its emulation isn't perfect, particularly because it doesn't let DOS programs have low level access to hardware, which a lot of them used to work at the time.

[anigbrowl]

57. That's a shell, not the operating system.

There are Things You Cannot Do at the command prompt if Windows has already started. For example, you can't kill winlogon or otherwise bypass the kernel.

[Occulus]

64. But, finish the thought.

"...like you can in linux."

su <--- switch to superuser

QEcz;RT.""! <--- root password

ps -uax | more <--- display all processes and pipe it to a command that pauses each screen so it doesn't scroll away

kill -9 xxxx <--- kill that process with prejudice.

:D

[SpiralHawk]

48. "Mercury is going Retrograde, you Microsofties." - Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer

"Get a clue, Microsoft."

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer

[Hydra]

4. "Faster and easier to use"?

Since when has Bill been able to provide that with his copycat chop jobs?

[Yes We Did]

13. It is faster... over 1000 times faster

AT CRASHING!

:rolf:

[Hydra]

15. HA!

:spray:

"No more 5 minute wait times- when it's crashed, you KNOW It's crashed!!!"

[Yes We Did]

18. My laptop bluescreened the FIRST time I turned it on.

I've had my desktop for 5 years an NEVER had it do that.

[Greyhound]

71. Just a note, Bill no longer has anything to do with M$, he left the board

about a year ago and left the CEO position a year before that. He is all Gates Foundation now.

Ballmer is in charge of M$ and knows just about nothing about software (he is a marketing guy), in the past when Ballmer went on his sales motivated tangents/rants, the geeks went to Gates and he intervened. Without Gates intervention we got Vista, that is the result of Ballmer's leadership and ignorance.

Vista is ME 2.0 a monumental kludge beyond repair that M$ is going to walk away from without even being required to offer a free replacement for.

Thanks for the billions, suckers. Here try this one, it works, sort of, maybe.

[HillWilliam]

8. In related local news from Raleigh

RedHat revenues are up 20% last year, thanks in part to Vista. NC thanks Redmond for the boost :evilgrin:

NB: I haven't used anything but Linux at home for years, though I did recently switch from Fedora to Ubuntu. (Sorry, Raleigh!) One's about as schweet as the other, but Ubuntu has a slower release cycle and more exotic hardware drivers. All bug-checked to the teeth. (Forget what you think you know about upgrades, package-adding and dependency-checking -- that's a decade old. Everything is either automagic or a mouse-click away.) You want software? Any kind of software? Go get it. It's free, too, and far more bug-checked than anything I deal with on a daily basis for Windows at work. And we pay far too much for buggy windoze shite at work.

[Mojambo]

10. I love Ubuntu to death

The only problem is that I can't get my iPod touch to work on it. It keeps telling me it's a camera when I plug it in.

It forces me to do all my ipod stuff on my laptop which is a major pain

[HillWilliam]

11. I'm still getting used to it

I hate the networking, but other than that, it's pretty slick. KDE4 was a shock after being so far behind times on Fedora, but oh! the NVidia drivers work gorgeously. I've seen Vista and I've seen KDE. KDE kicks Vista's ass from here to the moon. Faster and (quelle surprise!!) no crashes. All my stuff from Fedora still works. Every. Single. Thing. I lost nothing in the move. Nothing at all.

[Mojambo]

17. I occasionally have a hangup with the system sound

But on balance it's been far more stable than any Windows release I've ever used.

Just wish the ipod was doable.

[Greyhound]

72. Songbird, save your money. n/t

[knowledgeispwr]

28. I'm also loving my Linux

I've been using (K)ubuntu 8.10 (I prefer KDE) and I'm impressed at how far KDE 4 is coming (I'm using KDE 4.2 beta 2). I have much fewer headaches than in Windows and I have more control over my computer. On top of that, web browsing is a lot safer.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

68. Installing the madwifi drivers (needed for Atheros wifi, present on every fucking notebook)

is a fucking NIGHTMARE under Ubuntu. And Linux's native driver sucks aardvark testicles.

Under Fedora/RedHat/Centos, all you have to do is install the RPMForge RPM, yum install madwifi and off you go.

I tried Eeebuntu for the spanky new Eee PC I bought at Milwaukee* and gave up in disgust. I'm going to install Fedora shortly.


_{*Ask whoisalhedges, dolo amber, PeaceNikki, eyesroll, fudge stripe cookays, reprehensor, and jane_pippin about the degree of glee I was in when I bought the thing. :loveya:}

[I814U]

16. At the expense of being run out of town on a rail...

...I actually like Vista (please, put down the torches and pitchforks).

But after this I'm feeling what I can only label as "consumer fatigue".

[Yes We Did]

19. The sun shines on a dogs ass some days...

Maybe you got a good copy. Although, you are the only person I have ever heard say they like it.

It's cosmetically appealing... but that's where it ends for me.

[roseBudd]

54. I like Vista too, I'm glad I let go of the fear & did not cling to XP, I'll never switch to Mac..

There are too many programs only created for Windows I prefer

I prefer Homesite (no WYSIWYG) to Dreamweaver

WinSCP to Filezilla

But my biggest complaint once I was forced on to an iMac at work was when I discovered the thumbnail view I use constantly and had been using since Win 2000 did not exist.

My iMac runs Bootcamp

[Greyhound]

73. Psst...

All the stuff you like about Vista was done in Linux 10 years ago.

For free.

Without the spyware, registration headaches, memory limitations, massive overhead, etc.

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

20. Do you mean to tell me

that this crap on my computer was out in beta form for two years BEFORE they released this fucked-up version????

What did it start out as, 'Pong'???

[damntexdem]

22. I want nothing to do with Vista, but ...

neither do I like newer versions of the Office products, so don't trust what they might do with Windows.

[HillWilliam]

43. I've been using OpenOffice for years now

and I interchange docs and spreadsheets with Windoze users all the time. They never know the difference. Except that at home my stuff never crashes and at work I'm always having to jump through hoops to recover stuff or bitching about what MSO won't do.

The free stuff seems to work better than the high-dollah M$ stuff every time.

[Occulus]

65. I'll agree completely with HW

but respond to you.

You really owe it to yourself to check out OpenOffice. OpenOffice is to MS Office as the GIMP is to Photoshop.

By the way, GIMP is awesome.

And Blender rocks.

[Ms. Toad]

76. The Office suite is far worse than Vista...

Virtually everything I do routinely requires several steps more to do than on the old Office Suite - when I can figure out how to do whatever it is I want to do. I spend half my time using the Help function (which I rarely used before) typing in whatever single command I wanted to use - and getting the response, "I bet you are looking for XXX from the old Office Suite - it's been moved. Here's where we've hidden it in the new one."

If I wanted a Mac I'd buy the real thing, not a poor imitation from a competitor. The fact that Mac sales are now 7%, rather than 2%, seems to suggest that others are making the same call. Unfortunately, some of the applications I use most are not available for Mac - but in the meantime, I've reinstalled my old versions of the Office Suite everywhere I can.

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. I just had to replace my computer, and now I'm stuck with Vista.

It sucks! And Microsoft had their heads jammed up their asses when they came up with Vista.

They need to have a class action suit filed against them for screwing everyone over with an inferior shit product.

[HillWilliam]

38. My new computer came with Vista on it

and that lasted until about 5 minutes after I got it out of the shipping box. The first thing that went on it was Fedora Core 10 (loved that) and then I thought I'd give (K)Ubuntu a try (almost equally well).

Stuck? Meh, not much.

[Neshanic]

26. Vista and the beta Explorer 8 have gigantic problems. Hotmail too.

[Deja Q]

33. IE8b SUCKS. Vista, with SP1, is usable, but with remaining glitches.

SP1 sometimes skipped around issues than fixing them (e.g. the search button in the start menu)

Vista is still way more stable than XP, especially the 64-bit edition, but I won't be doing Win7 without one heck of an incentive.

[CRF450]

59. I'm using IE8. Its a little faster than 7 but once in a while it hangs up on me

It has the useful features of Firefox, like a favorite bar. And if it crashed it only takes 10 seconds to restart it and the last browsing session. I use Firefox for DU, for some reason EI8 wont let me post on DU.

I'm also the few here who likes Vista. It hasent givin me any major trouble at all. Its runs ok on my 4 month old $700 HP laptop. But the gaming computer is a different story, it fly's!

[leftyclimber]

27. I hope so.

And I hope they give everyone who had to suffer through this Vista hell a replacement something or other. Preferably a Mac (my desktop computer's a first-generation iMac).

I really didn't mind NT 4.0 too much, but every other GUI-based OS MS has put out has been a piece of crap. Even the Win95 beta wasn't as awful as Vista.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. WILL NOT get Windows Seven until SP 1 comes out without a hitch

by then maybe MAC will wise up about games... and then we can kiss MS goodbye...

I already have...postiing from a lappie running xandros... and at home I use a MAC

[Rosco T.]

31. I'm using the Beta 1 of Windows 7 now....

and it's nothing short of incredible. Faster, smaller, much easier to install. They did it right with Win7

[Solon]

37. I have beta 1 where do you get smaller from? It uses up 3 gigs of disk space, and that's just...

the Windows folder. Granted its a slight improvement to Windows Vista, but only slight. I simply don't understand why it uses up that much disk space for an OS.

[Rosco T.]

41. I meant the MEMORY FOOTPRINT.. about 60% the size of Vista.. and...

Vista64 took up 11gb on my HD, Win7/64 took up 4.5... that's more than 'slight'

[Solon]

47. However, its also a beta version, and isn't fully functional yet...

who knows how many extras are going to be on the Retail version.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. THREE GIGS????????????

What the hell did they pack in there?

[Solon]

45. I have no clue, like I said that's just the Windows Folder, didn't include Program Files...

and even the basest install of any Windows OS includes a bunch of things installed into Program Files.

[Xithras]

51. Yeah, I pulled it off MSDN and set up a VM.

I haven't done much with it to try and make it crash yet, but so far it seems to be fast and small. It's much faster than my Vista VM, but since it's a VM YMMV. I AM a bit irked that they killed the classic taskbar though...I always preferred the classic bar to the new Aero taskbar. I do like the fact that it doesn't bug you with that stupid UAC alert all the time like Vista.

We'll see how the final works out, but it's looking like Windows 7 is really just Vista 1.5...which should have been Vista 1.0. No complaints yet, but the day is young.

[arcos]

63. Is it stable enough to use as your main OS? nt

[pinniped]

32. Just call it Mojave and maybe people won't notice.

.

[Rosco T.]

35. OFFICIAL: Open Beta for Windows 7 THIS WEEK, read how to get it here

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9125380

FAQ: How to get the Windows 7 beta
Microsoft this week is putting the new OS in everyone's hands

January 8, 2009 (Computerworld) Late yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the public beta for Windows 7, the follow-on and follow-up to Vista, which from all signs the company is trying to forget as fast as possible. CEO Steve Ballmer, in a surprisingly subdued keynote -- no real shouting -- made the announcement last night at the International CES. It wasn't much of a surprise, what with leaks to file-sharing sites and hints posted on Microsoft's own site in recent weeks. Still, it's a new version of Windows, even if some have dubbed it "Vista, a lot better." Oh, wait, that was Ballmer himself, back in October. And because it's fresh and shiny, there are plenty of people eager to try it out, wanting to decide for themselves whether Microsoft has hit a home run this time or just smacked another Vista. But where can you get it, how do you install it and what do you need to patch after you have it on your PC?

Questions, everyone has questions. We have some of the answers.

When can I download the beta? Starting Friday, Jan. 9. Microsoft said today that it will open the download gates worldwide at noon, Pacific time, tomorrow.

If you subscribe to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) or TechNet, you can grab it today from here.

Where do I get it? The public download will be posted to the Windows 7site here http://www.microsoft.com/windows7 , Microsoft said. The beta will also be posted to Microsoft's IT-oriented Springboard Series site, which will add a "Windows 7" tab to the existing Windows XP and Windows Vista tabs already there.

read more at the link...


also a good review of beta 1 here http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Operating+Systems&articleId=9125179&taxonomyId=89&pageNumber=1

[burythehatchet]

36. Please post how to avoid it at all costs

[Rosco T.]

39. I suggest you try it and do some reading before you shoot off knowing nothign about it

[burythehatchet]

44. no thank you. Successfully extracted myself from MS products about 8 years ago

very happily settled and don't really miss anything about it. Thanks for asking.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Readying the review you linked to...unimpressed

strip three seconds from MP3 tracks....

I know it is a beta but still...who the hell are they kidding?

Oh never mind me

THEY KNOW that if they don't get it right the enterprise environment will laugh them out of the top...

So this is partly PR...sleek PR, but PR nonetheless

[anigbrowl]

56. Easy - just stay on DU and grumble about MS

I, on the other hand, will likely upgrade. Since the 1980s, my experience with MS operating systems is that every second release is an extended beta for the one afterwards. So while I have Vista on a laptop here (and it's nowhere near as bad as some suggest IF it is configured right), Windows 7 looks like the new hotness.

[Systematic Chaos]

52. I'm one happy s.o.b. to have completely avoided Vista up until now.

I intend to continue avoiding it as long as possible.

I'm on an iMac, and I have Boot Camp running XP SP3. I spend about half my time in each os right now, and would gladly give up XP for good if the games I play would work in Leopard. Alas, they don't so I'm stuck with XP but honestly I've been quite happy with it and have never encountered the nightmares that Vista adopters have been plagued with.

I did tech support for Logitech around the time that Vista was released. It was so funny because our computers we worked on had just barely been upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP. I hate to admit it, but we really were flying blind when it came to helping customers maneuver around the interface, and relied mostly upon screen shots and diagrams and drawings which we developed as time and creativity allowed. Hell, we couldn't even guide the Vista users into the registry to re-enumerate their USB devices, which we could do in every previous OS.

[Sultana]

62. Macs Rule!

:evilgrin:

that's all...

[Kat45]

66. IIRC, I think I heard that this is actually a new version of Vista, but

they're not calling it Vista because Vista is known for all its problems, causing a lot of folks to want nothing to do with it. (Note that I said IIRC, and I'm really not sure if I'm remembering correctly--though I wouldn't put anything past Microsoft.)

[TheFarseer]

69. I resent buying a "faster" computer and it not being faster

and the reason is Vista is such a memory drain. Make the operating system faster and crash less! That's what people want.

[Greyhound]

75. Oh, if only people had any idea just how awesome their new hardware really was.

Vista could bring a Cray to it's knees.

[rosesaylavee]

70. Because of Vista - my next computer will be a MAC

MACs have all the software that PCs do and the updates/viruses/system slowdowns are not worth the trouble.

[atommom]

74. RIP, Vista