Leaked memo offers glimpse at Windows 7 Update pricing

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Billy Bob here again. That bit of parenthetical verbiage after the word "Meanwhile" (last paragraph) should have come immediately after the word "Notepad". So much for *that* sarcastic comment.
 
I frikkin' HATE Vista, chiefly due to what it's had to make me do to get it to work properly on the very dang machine it came pre-installed on. 8 Gigs of RAM and a QuadCore Core 2 CPU, and everything still runs slow. And the system has hung up so many times, I habitually hold down the power button to Shutdown now. But it's not my machine, so I thankfully don't have to do that all the time (but I do have to deal with Vista issues a lot more than I've ever had to with XP Pro, and also have to make more house calls).
I find that extremely hard to believe. It would depend more on your definition of slow methinks. And the hanging is likely to do with hardware incompatibility, which is nigh impossible if the machine came bundled with Vista, unless it's from an in-store brand and not from HP, Dell or the like. The only other cause can be malware or a failing component.

Those of you who said Vista got better with SP2, or works well when the necessary patches are installed . . . Think about what you just said.
Most of us had to wait for Vista SP1 to come out before we started reading about it being (more) stable, and only then did a significant portion of the Windows user-base give Vista a chance before many went back to XP Pro.
Rubbish. XP was also only truly stable after SP2. So your point is moot.

I've been a tech for 20 years, working on DOS onward through every release of Windows. And in all my experience, I've gotta say that Vista is the NT-family version of ME. It may work well if you can find & afford just the right arrangement of hardware, but one shouldn't have to do that. If so, one may as well go with a Mac.

ME was and still is highly unstable, something Vista is absolutely not. And besides which, what hardware today cannot run Vista? Today's low-end desktops and laptops can run it quite easily, and with DDR2 RAM being the norm and so cheap, I don't see why people cannot afford at least 1-2GB of it.

Vista needs 120-140 Gigs of HDD space and an estimated 256 Gigs of RAM just to run Notepad. Meanwhile (if you can find where it got placed off the Start menu), Windows 7 just needs 20 Gigs of drive space and 2 Gigs of RAM (on 64-bit machines anyway; for 32-bit, even less so: 10 and 1, IIRC). An OS designed for the masses (and I mean Windows, whatever version) shouldn't have to require everyone learning how to troubleshoot problems. And if you're one of those computer snobs who think/say "the masses" shouldn't be using computers, or should get a Netbook, slag off and go play with your Linux box.
256GB of RAM and 140GB of HDD space? Riiight...

Still, since you are a tech you would know that Vista handles memory differently from XP, treating system memory like a cache much more aggressively and effectively than any other version of Windows. SuperFetch is what it's called, I think.
 
VISTA does some things better, and memory is one of them... But WXP does well with the memory actually needed.

It is not the "Stability" or lack thereof that bothers us... We have a lot of clients... admittedly, most are over age 40. At least 85 percent detest VISTA... Most have never warmed to it. VISTA is not nearly as user friendly as WXP Professional, and from our surveys we know that most of our clients would prefer to have Windows XP if they could find a way to get it back.

For the average person, Windows XP is not an alternative, and it should be. Lack of drivers is the biggest reason people cannot go back to WXP.

We hope Windows 7 works the way it is intended. We hope it has a WXP interface as an alternative.

Microsoft was arrogant and looking at their bankbook when they came out with VISTA, and Microsoft as a company will never be the same again. They have lost the respect and warm feelings that people once had for them.

If Microsoft does not turn things around, they leave the door open for another operating system to take over the marketplace...

Microsoft compounded their failure by then making Office 2007 worse for the average user.

The amazing thing is how a company with so much money, and incredible amounts of user opinions, could screw things up so badly.
 
Hi Raybay


im curious what your customers have said they dont like about office 2007? I think its fantastic, but i have noticed as well that i almost always have to send documents saved as 97-2003 compatible because they don't have it on the other end.
 
Billy Bob, a quad core with 8gig of ram shouldnt run like that? I dont think the problem is Vista related - check the rest of your hardware.

I work at a site with 1500+ Vista machines, all running on different hardware configurations. We dont have hard crashes or the shutdown issues you are experiencing.

My own personal machines are a Dell running Vista 64bit and it runs perfectly. I also have a Macbook running Vista in Bootcamp and in VM instances on the same machine. No problems.

I dont want to suggest you dont know what you are doing or are being dramatic to get your point across but my experience of Vista on many many different machines is so different to yours, its night versus day.
 
I work at a University in IT support. We replace hardware over a 5 year period and upgraded all our machines to Vista last summer. We have 5 different campuses. These all have multiple computer labs and also academic and support staff offices.

You don't have to take my word for it but since my job entails supporting all those users on their different machines (okay, not 1500 different configurations but we do not replace all machines at once so the oldest and newest machines are 5 years apart and everything in between) and if it was a bad OS, I would definately slate it here since it would be making my job hell. It doesn't and my job isn't.
 
How long did it take you to get them all trained to used them, and what was the cost of training?
 
Well Billy Bob, Rage covered about everything I would say in reply to you. I don't know what your problem is with getting it to run on good hardware, but there is a problem somewhere and it isn't Vista, and it probably isn't the hardware.

And if you are going to make a big rant it might be worth proofreading it before you submit so you don't make a silly mistake like saying notepad requires 256GB of RAM, well - I thought it was a silly mistake until I realized that you also said it requires 120-140GB of HD space, when in reality it recommends a minimum of 15GB of free space. When I built both machines I've put Vista on I've set the C partition to be 20 gigs and I install most things to D (unless they are pretty small) and I've not ran out of space on C, so saying it requires 120-140 is just flat out wrong. How are we to believe anything that you say when you get 2 things fundamentally wrong in a main point during your argument?
 
A lot of valid points made so far on both sides of the argument (not the original news story but the Vista bashing/not part), and I have to agree that Vista's failure was exaggerated and exacerbated by media, let alone bloggers who made a story out of it.

But Vista was also lacking the polish you would come to expect from the #1 software company and OS developer in the world, and clearly did not live up to the hype behind it. Driver support was deficient and buggy during introduction, but was fixed relatively quickly unless you ran unsupported (thank your manufacturer) or legacy hardware. And yes, speed was really not there. Those of us that didn't have a problem with it, were running fast machines already.

So in my particular case, Vista was an obvious improvement over XP. I never looked back to the old OS, but when presented with the occasional hiccup (e.g. poor network performance), I really hoped MS would get it all right the next time.

In that sense Windows 7 seems to be just that, the same Vista foundations plus a 1-2 years of heavy development dedicated to those small and big details that complement the experience. These improvements started to show in the first beta and now the RC1 which is my primary OS today.
 
'Tis an argument that will never end... Because Microsoft doesn't give a care anyway... WXPP is history. VISTA is history. We will soon be training Microsoft how to fix the problems with Windows 7 so we can get Service Pack 2, then things will calm down again until Microsoft needs another boost of easy money.
 
Cost for training per person is quite difficult to produce as we have a training and support department who took on the responsibility of the training as part of their normal work. Actually most users found their way around the OS themselves and with help from colleagues who had the software at home already.

Users were much more interested in training for Office 2007 as this was part of the new image we rolled out compared to the XP image which held Office 2003. Even then, most users were happy with the training Microsoft placed on their website - particularly a Adobe Flash guide that showed an interactive copy of the 2003 User Interface and showed where any command was found in the 2007 User Interface.
 
Hi Yukka,
I have a question, did office 2007 flop? the reason i ask is that i have to go back an inordinate amount of times and resend in 1997-2003 compatibility mode because few seem to be running 2007. is that perception, reality, or just dumb luck?
 
There is a compatibility update for Office 2003 that allows the older suite to open the 2007 files without you having to resend them. If the people you are sending files to have not installed that yet, they might not be the best subjects to base the success of 2007 on.

I have been using it in my last 2 jobs. Its expensive for home users to buy so they wont rush to upgrade but its a good product and works well in XP and Vista.
 
Office 2007 is just a mess. Words are replaced with icons. Toolbars and drop-down menus are shoved into a tiny 1"x1" space. Because the teacher's couldn't figure out where everything was (go figure) the school choose Office 2003 when they ordered new laptops.

Vista was a slight improvement, but was it really worth it?
I have been running Vista since November. It has corrupted blocks on the HDD (blue screen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - dont ask me why it's that message), had significant driver issues (blue screen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL), had NTFS file system corruption (blue screen NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM), and have had OC issues as well.

I've had to reinstall vista 3 times. It's been a pain, and I had to do it since I couldn't locate my WXPH install disk. The only thing that vista does for you that it didn't take me 1 minute to figure out in WXPH is set up your internet - had to call an IT department for that. My modem isn't WXPH compatable...

W7BRC is NOT a new GUI for vista. You can turn of almost all features - removing the "bloat" that you guys complain about.

I mean, really. If you're that concerned about system stability and security - switch to linux. It's free, runs on MS machines, is stable, secure - open source, so if there's a bug it gets fixed in a day or less.

W7BRC Isn't perfect either. But nothing is. If W7BRC was perfect, what would be the point of the beta? Nothing. People would turn back their BIOS clocks and run the Beta forever. But no, we must fork over a hundred dollars, just to get away form a cheap sale that we thought was good (I just bought it for Games for Windows Live) .

Thank god the pricing is low(er).
 
Vista has better security and deals with roaming profiles better. It has many more group policy options that allow administrators to better manage large networks. For the home user, it comes on new machines but I wouldnt ever tell anyone to throw out their copy of Windows XP to buy Windows Vista. I would say that a new machine with Vista is preferable to uninstalling it and slapping XP on a nice shiny new machine.
 
Thanks Yukka,Guest
wow guest, you have had a rough go of it with vista,i have had the opposite experience with both vista and 2007 and i really like them both. i have just felt like i was the only one on the planet at times who purchased a copy of office 2007 lol. i have been dual booting vista and W7RC and 7 seems to be a good revision if not a major release.
 
Must say I'm in a pro-Vista camp. It came out around time when I was building a new machine and CompUSA was going out of business. I picked up a copy at a discount, installed it, and never looked back. My son still uses WinXP Pro, and I must say I like VIsta better. No hard freezes, no problems with the network since SP1 (honestly, didn't have any network problems even with the original installation, but I have a simple network with 4 computers, file server and a couple of network printers). It's kind of funny how Vista bashers complain that they needed to wait till SP1 to fix major kinks - XP users needed to wait till SP2 to have stability issues fixed. My honest opinion - main hangup for vast majority of the people was relearning the interface and initial lack of drivers (but that's the HW manufacturers issue).

Also, about a year ago my motherboard decided to go belly up. I literally swapped the motherboard, CPU and RAM, leaving HDD, video, sound and network cards. I was expecting to do a full reinstall of the system, but all Vista did was to ask for new drivers and it was humming along ever since.
 
There is a lot of "it works for me so it must work" being posted here. The stability/success of an OS is not measured by how well it works on /your/ PC.
 
caravel said:
There is a lot of "it works for me so it must work" being posted here. The stability/success of an OS is not measured by how well it works on /your/ PC.

It's a direct reply to those who say "it doesn't work for me therefore it doesn't work" or even worse "I never tried, but heard it doesn't work for someone, therefore it doesn't work." So far in this particular discussion, "works for me" outweighs "doesn't work for me."
 
originally posted by Caravel:
There is a lot of "it works for me so it must work" being posted here. The stability/success of an OS is not measured by how well it works on /your/ PC.

very true Caravel, but nazarpt is correct about the increasing discussion here. while "it works for me" (and it does) is anecdotal, there is a lot of anecdotal, from a lot of people. and a long history of people who have declared vista a failure, and in the next breath say that they "do not" and "will not ever use it". consider this post from earlier in this thread.
I'm one of the ppl that have NEVER used Vista before. I am using the 7RC beta right now. With so many bloat, app, driver related issues on vista, I decided to skip vista all together and wait for the next MS OS. So far 7 seems to be performing very well. This is basically Vista done right. Many articles and videos do say that 7 is a bit snappier then Vista. I still haven't decided if I'm actually going to move over to 7, but if I do I'll probably wait for 7 SP2 since we all know there are bound to be bugs that will crop up after release. Was vista just another WinME?
while you can certainly read reviews and opinion on all things computer,and would be wise to before making a purchase. I am not sure how you can declare that an unfinished product is the "done right' version of one you have NEVER used. particularly something as complex and user interface based.
Yesterday we had in here (on this very thread)a poster who in a very rude and egregious manner. launch into a screed, declaring that he was a tech of 20 years and he "friggen hated vista" because, among other things,it needed 256 Gigs of ram to operate, and needed 120-140 Gb's of drive space. another gentleman on one of these threads gave as an anti vista,and Microsoft reasoning, that windows is too vulnerable to security attack. well those who author and launch viruses do so to watch the havoc of their efforts. what are they going to aim their efforts at? Linux? an OS that has just managed to capture 1% of the market? methinks not. I have the opportunity to meet the leaders, owners ,and managers of business in my profession. and overwhelmingly, those who use Vista report to be satisfied with it. while that may still prove to be anecdotal, to buy in to the notion that 'vista is a disaster' by those who offer faulty or disingenuous statement of fact, or those who have not even used it. would be asking me to deny my own experiences.....and im not going to do that. so to quote nazartp "works for me" outweighs "doesn't work for me" IMO

linux 1% market share source:http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&sample=35
 
I think perhaps Billy Bob meant to say "I tried to use Vista on tech that was 20 years old?" ;-)

Seriously though, I hope that any of you who stumble across these comments, or any of millions of other 'Vista sucks/doesn't' threads don't take posts like that too seriously.

Just remember that its the haters (for whatever reason) that are more compelled to go out and post about it. Most of us are able to use Vista without any troubles, or at least no more than people on XP, Macs, etc have.
 
aolish said:
I'm one of the ppl that have NEVER used Vista before. I am using the 7RC beta right now. With so many bloat, app, driver related issues on vista, I decided to skip vista all together and wait for the next MS OS. So far 7 seems to be performing very well. This is basically Vista done right. Many articles and videos do say that 7 is a bit snappier then Vista. I still haven't decided if I'm actually going to move over to 7, but if I do I'll probably wait for 7 SP2 since we all know there are bound to be bugs that will crop up after release. Was vista just another WinME?

I must have been the only one on Earth that *NEVER* had a problem with WinME. I had bought the $49.99 white box upgrade from 98SE, and it worked up until last year when I retired the computer.

The secret was NOT to install over 98! I had read an article about the upgrades only needing to read an orig 98 disc during the install. I tried installing it on a blank drive, and sure enough, it popped up "Insert a Windows 98 disc" which I did, and BOOM, after reinstalling the ME disc, I never had a problem with it.

VISTA, on the other hand, Ultimate 64 BSOD me a LOT. The machine would sit idle, I'd get a BSOD. I'd surf the 'net with MSIE 7, it'd BSOD. I tried updating a GPS, and the BSOD bricked my Magellian. I'm running a AMD Quad 9660 with 6GIG of RAM, radeon graphics. Thought for sure it would have been a powerful enough system for Vista, but I was wrong.

Will I migrate to 7? Nah, I'm happy with XP Pro on my powerhouse and Windows XP MCE 2005 on my video server. That runs REALLY nice on my P3 800mhz dual processor HP Kayak. For only have 768 megs of RAMBUS memory, it's smooooooooth.
 
no way i will pay !! I paid 259.00 for vista ult. Unless its a free update for vista ult. I won't pay I dime.
 
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