LAPTOP briberies and censorship [1, 2] are hardly enough to prevent truth from being told about bad products. We are continuing to see people who are disgusted by Vista 7 and no... they are not GNU/Linux or Mac aficionados. Some of those who feel disappointed are Microsoft's biggest fans who make money from Microsoft, including Paul Thurrott.

Some Fanboys Don’t Like Windows 7 Either

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Amazingly, the Windows Supersite of Paul Thurrott is showing some falling out of lockstep with Redmond.

This is bad.

Over at Linux Journal, similar thoughts are expressed, but it's easier for outsiders to rule these out for being "biased".

I realize Windows 7 is still in Beta. I really do. I read that it’s supposed to have backwards compatibility with Vista though. I have a corporate version of Symantec Antivirus, designed for Vista, and I can not get it to install. You tell me I must be administrator. If I try to run as administrator (BTW, why can’t you just prompt me for an admin password?), I get crazy messages about insecure installation mode, unsupported somethingorother, and you ask if I’d like to install with the correct permissions. Sadly, clicking on “YES” brings me back to the start.

It scares me to run Windows without anti-virus software, so the inability to install Symantec worries me. And that brings me to the interesting observation I made while testing Windows 7. Linux has better support for software. Give the average user a Beta install of a popular Linux distribution, and a Beta install of Windows 7 -- and guess which one will be easier to use out of the box? Linux! Which is easier to install software on? Linux! Which requires you to enter an absurdly long alphanumeric key in order to install? Not Linux!

Microsoft: I was expecting great things with Windows 7, and the most I can muster is, “Meh.” I think I’ll go format that hard drive now, because a Windows machine without virus protection makes me nervous.

So where does Windows go from here? Gizmodo, which joked about Vista 7 showing no "innovation" in BSODs, has just launched a contest for redesigning Vista 7's BSOD mode. It's not exactly a compliment because Windows makes bad engineering and system crashes "acceptable" in many users' eyes.

Vista 7 is far from a release (some suggest that it will be released in 2010), so it might be the least serious among Microsoft's headaches. According to this report, Internet Explorer continues to be messy.

Microsoft's forthcoming Internet Explorer 8, which is now in its second beta version and closely tied to Windows 7, is showing so many bugs that it causes even some of the company's own browser-based software to crash.

As long as that's the case, Internet Explorer will continue losing market share. It is possible that Vista 7 will not even come with Internet Explorer saddled onto it. ⬆

Microsoft MVP Chris Pirillo