Summary: Vista 7 has some more serious bugs that only get discussed in forums but not yet in the mainstream press

THE release of Microsoft's latest Windows ,which is just Vista with some necessary-but-insufficient fixes^*, was released in a rush because sales of Windows declined very, very sharply. The release of Vista 7 did not restore sales (Microsoft Windows profits continue to decline over the years, largely because of GNU/Linux).

A couple of weeks ago we found that McAfee had scraped Windows [1, 2, 3] (compensation is being offered now) but Windows too turns out to be scraping Windows, according to this summary from Slashdot, which points to microsoft.com where a person says:

I did a clean install of Win7 about 3 1/2 weeks ago and have had no problems. 2 days ago I discovered that no system restore points were available. After spending many hours researching the issue, I've taken the following steps but none have helped:

1. Completely uninstalled AVG and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. 2. Tried turning off System Restore, rebooting, turning it back on. 3. Checked the SR schedule in Task Scheduler, all seems fine. It creates restore points just fine, it just won't keep them on reboot. 4. Scanned computer thoroughly with three different anti-malware programs, no problems found. 5. Did a sfc /scannnow, no problems reported.

No, I'm not running a system with dual booting.

Slashdot says that "Win7 Can Delete All System Restore Points On Reboot" and the concise description is as follows: "Astonishingly, the so-called system restore feature in Windows 7 deletes restore points without warning when the system is rebooted. This forum thread on answers.microsoft.com shows some of the users who have experienced the problem. Today I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (no dual boot), and noticed that whenever the machine rebooted after installing an application or driver, the disk churned for several minutes on the 'starting Windows' screen. Turns out that churning was the sound of my diligently created system restore points being deleted. Unfortunately I only found this out when Windows barfed at a USB dongle and I wanted to restore the system to an earlier state. This is an extraordinarily bad bug, which I suspect most Windows 7 users won't realise is affecting them until it's too late."

Well, that's what people get for assuming that Windows is predictable and reliable. Microsoft makes false promises every time a new version comes. Is it time to hype up Vista 8 yet? Surely the next version will Fix Everything™. ⬆

"In the face of strong competition, Evangelism's focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

_____ ^* Our reader who is a former Microsoft MVP says that Vista with Service Pack is more reliable and polished than Vista 7.