Windows 7 crushed Vista in early launch sales

[Timonius]

Given the trend...it looks like M$ has done a great job so far (in comparison to Vista)!

 

[Guest]

Popularity of MS products is inversely proportional to cuteness of the name.

 

[SNGX1275]

I agree with almost all of the above posts. There really was no doubt that this would happen, people were reluctant to upgrade XP to Vista because XP was solid and Vista was pretty different. So its easy to ride that one out. 7 though, its out a few years later, and XP is getting really old now.

The only thing I really want to add is that Vista's install really isn't much different than 7, and it is MUCH easier than XP. So 7 isn't doing anything for the first time, a lot of these 'innovations' happened in Vista.

 

[red1776]

ET3D said:

Vrmithrax said:
As PUTALE said, Win7 is what Vista should have been. And it probably would have been, if Microsoft hadn't been in a hurry to get a product out to generate revenue.

Consider that Vista arrived late 2006, XP in late 2001. That's 5 years (or just a bit more), which is the longest time Microsoft ever went between OS releases. So sure, it might have waited longer, but it was already very late to the game.

Not to mention that if it shipped Windows 7 without Vista, it wouldn't have been considered such a good OS. Sure, 7 is a lot better than Vista, but it's only thanks to Vista that stable Windows 7 drivers are available, that software is largely compatible, things that made Vista's launch such a failure.

Vista also allowed Microsoft to learn the lessons. It's hard to release a new product and make it perfect. Vista was very ambitious, late as a result, and not ready (IMO it was ready at SP1). But Microsoft didn't foresee netbooks, its DX10 API was untested as were many new features. Having Vista on the market allowed seeing how things are used, where users are having problems, and fixing that.

So yes, it would have been nice to have Windows 7 to begin with, but it was impossible, and it's not a result of any conspiracy on Microsoft's part.

Maybe one of the most intelligent posts offered here on the news board!