If you care, you already know that Microsoft’s next OS – Windows 7 – is being released in late October (October 22nd specifically). Below is a video made by Microsoft as a “guide” to hosting your launch party.
REALLY WHY WOULD ANYONE HAVE A WINDOWS 7 LAUNCH PARTY!! This is Windows 7, i.e. Vista fixed and patched. Microsoft should be giving this thing away to anyone with Vista, not charging for a new OS / upgrade. All the real innovation got pulled out of Windows 7 to get this thing to market before Apple got even more of Microsoft’s market. Making it worse, the above video is about as compelling as 350lb desk jockey selling gym memberships.
Before you Redmond cultist start sending flaming emails / comments know that I make a living in the IT business. In fact I have done so for over 20 years. Everyday I work with Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2007, VM Clients, VM Ware, PC networks, Cisco phone systems, a few Macs, and numerous other fun little software / hardware toys. So, I am not some swing in and kick a PC while it is down type of guy. I am a IT professional that has to make this stuff work for a living. Additionally, know that right now between my wife and myself we have 4 XP desktops, 1 Linux desktop, 1 Mac, 1 XP laptop, 1 Vista Laptop, and a laptop running Windows 7 beta at our house, so I think I have earned the right to talk about OS’s and computers. I can tell you why each rig has merits and reason I would like to throw them out the front door as well.
Now back to Windows 7 Launch parties. What are you planning on doing having everyone see that Microsoft finally fixed Vista. Sure the OS has a few cool features, most of which relate to navigation on the task bar – very cool but that is not worth the price of the upgrade. Don’t tell me that the reduced footprint and CPU / memory consumption is worth the price of a upgrade either unless you want me to point out that Vista should never have had those problems to begin with.
Back to Windows 7, the fact that you can edit photos and make moves right out of the box, great but I don’t want to ever be in a photo or video of me at a OS launch party so lets keep that feature for when I am at my own home. Honestly, I am already geeky enough, no reason to give the world more reason to pelt me with rocks and garbage. Notepad and paint have a ribbon interface – WOW great – Notepad++ and Gimp are both free and work better then either of the above without a new flashy GUI. The ribbon is cool Microsoft, but it is not better as makes it harder to find what I want.
Bottom line, day in and day out I use a Wintel box because it offers me the development / management tools, infrastructure, hardware and software that I need to be efficient at my job and in my life. Everything I need to do I can do and do quickly on my XP box. I wish I could say that about my Win 7 laptop but apparently Win 7, AMD and Adobe don’t play well at least on my install. Moving on, the vertical integration and lack of options with Apple and the roll your own existence world of Linux are just not sufficient to supply me with what I need to be efficient. Can I use those tools to do what I do daily, yes but it takes more time and effort and rarely is as smooth as the old stand by Windows. Maybe cloud computing will change this long term, but right now this is still a Windows based world and I am going to stick with it because it works albeit slowly and not as smoothly as I would like at times. Sometimes the car that is paid for, that runs, that has a full sized back seat, that has a real trunk and that does all you need is better the a new sports car or custom ride. So, Wild Bill and your Redmond gang congrats on fixing the third worst product in the history of software (behind your BOB and ME products – but not by much) and charging people to fix your mistake. All I ask is PLEASE PLEASE don’t Vista my world again and stop attempting to act like your step out of your self dug ditch is equal to conquering K2.
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