Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Failures of Vista 7 Lead to Increased Exploration of GNU/Linux

Vista 7



Summary: Vista 7 slammed or at least criticised in the press; GNU/Linux offered and also tested as a substitute already

THE reality behind Vista 7 is more than some people are willing to bear. Ahead of the release it was harder to find rants because those who had used Vista 7 before it reached the shelves were mostly Windows enthusiasts and/or computer veterans. It was exactly the same with Windows Vista.

It is difficult to know where to start when it comes to Vista 7 rants. Here is one roundup from IDG. It's like Vista all over again.

Don't go to their new stores expecting to talk to anyone who know more about Windows than you do. I had to be passed off to 4 different employees, they called it escalating, before I was able to talk to someone who could tell me if Windows 7 still used a "registry", and it does. The same old house of cards is still the basis for the "new" OS.

He says it took him more than an hour to upgrade his 3-year-old ThinkPad, and now he's decided to switch to a MacBook Pro. (Hey, maybe Apple will feature him in a commercial.)


Our reader Ryan tells us that "Hotmail is pinning Windows 7 spam to all email you send." He explains that Microsoft has added "Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more." to the bottom of all sent messages. Hotmail has been quite a mess recently. Well, anyway...

Harvard University may move to more of GNU/Linux (it already uses some) now that it's testing Vista 7. New from The Harvard Crimson:

He added that he would not recommend that Harvard switch its computers over immediately because it uses so many clients. Uchiyama also mentioned that Ubuntu, a competing operating system, is due to release a new version today, which gives FAS IT another option. Harvard currently uses Ubuntu on several Science Center computers.


BetaNews has just published an unusual article, considering how much in favour of Windows that Web site really is. The headline says: "Unconvinced by Windows 7? Ubuntu 9.10 debuted today!"

In addition to the new desktop interface, a Karmic Koala Netbook Remix and Server Edition (featuring Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud) were also released today.


Another person calls Ubuntu 9.10 the "easiest, cheapest upgrade ever."

Having run the upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 beta, I’m not too worried about any snags. We’ll see how my freshly configured Joomla! install holds up after the upgrade, but since I was already using the most up-to-date versions of MySQL, Apache, and PHP, there shouldn’t be any issues there, either.


Tux Radar provides actual proof that Ubuntu 9.10 performs better than Vista 7. It's a video depicting one test.

Hot on the heals of the final release of the Karmic Koala, we've put together a video montage of 64-bit versions of Microsoft's Vista and Windows 7 operating systems booting alongside Canonical's Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10. Watch all four at once and see which one wins!


The Denver Post has this new piece which explains Vista 7 and promotes GNU/Linux.

For instance, when you read "best Windows ever," you should remember that reviewers said the same thing about turkeys like Windows ME and Windows Vista.

Further, Microsoft is a big company with thousands of smart employees. Wouldn't you expect the latest rendition of its flagship product to be the best to date? After all, you expect that from other companies.

When the reviewer says "product activation went smoothly," it means "to please Big Brother, who may be watching your machine all the time, you'll need to enter an arcane 25-character activation code, and it may take several tries."

"Exciting new features in the desktop interface" actually means "You'll spend many frustrating hours trying to do familiar tasks because they've moved everything around."

"You may need to install new drivers for many of your peripherals" means "You will have to buy a new scanner because the scanner company does not make a 64-bit driver for your five-year-old device, and the driver that worked fine under 32-bit XP will not function under 64-bit Windows 7."


More about the Vista 7 hype:

Listen closely. Can you can hear it? It's the kapocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the Microsoft hype machine, as the Windows 7 launch bears down upon us.

Though it's never worked quite as well as it did back in the halcyon days preceding Windows 95, Microsoft still drags the thing out of the basement every few years, fills the tank with diesel, cranks it up, and hopes it doesn't spew oil on the carpet or overwhelm us with fumes.

[...]

Of course, this time Ballmer really means it. He also really meant it when he said the same things about Vista, XP, NT, Windows 98, Win 95, and every other Windows OS going back to DOS 2.1, with the possible exception of Windows ME. More disturbing is that he truly believes it.


Ballmer actually knows that Vista 7 will fail in the market.

"[W]e're not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been."

--Steve Ballmer



Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
 
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025