Hi Charles, Yes, in some respects Vista is better than XP in certain areas like security, better graphics technology, support for blue ray movies, etc. However, there is no arguing that Microsoft rushed the release of Vista, the initial release was unstable, and it cost Microsoft a lot of respect and credibility. Microsoft had to release Windows 7 quickly to address a number of issues in Vista to hopefully regain the trust and support of their user base. That said, I think Microsoft has learned from their mistakes because Windows 7 is far more stable than Vista, runs much better on the same hardware, and is the operating system Microsoft should have released instead of Vista. Plus as I've said I've had some experience with the new Windows 8 development beta and it seems to be very rock solid stable for a beta. So while Microsoft did make a catastrophic mistake with Vista its not likely one they are going to make again any time soon.
You are certainly right in saying Microsoft should be more careful to test their new software for stability and reliability, and I think they are now doing that with Windows 7 and Windows 8 respectfully. When Vista was released companies like Del, HP, Compaq, ran two different lines of PCS one with Vista and one with Windows XP. Marketing serveys clearly showed that the systems running Windows XP out sold those with Vista on them. Too make matters worse Del and some other manufacturers actually began shipping PCs preloaded with Linux on them which further cut into Microsoft's Vista market. Apple's sales of Mac OS X nearly doubled between 2007 and 2008. It couldn't have been more clear to Microsoft that Vista was a complete failure. Do you honestly expect them to repete that mistake again? I for one don't think so. I've seen Windows 7 and Windows 8 first-hand and both are huge improvements over Windows Vista. They both are also better than XP in a number of areas as well. For example, Microsoft SAPI 5.4--which comes with Windows 7---has some improvements over SAPI 5.1. Improved speech recognition, Microsoft Anna is better than Sam, support for real time ssml tagging for realistic speech output, etc. The ability to pin applications to the taskbar for quick reference. As Valiant mentioned if an application like Internet Explorer is pinned to the taskbar you can press a keyboard combo like Windows+1 from anywhere in Windows and immediately jump to that window without having to alt+tab through every open window on the desktop. Windows Explorer now has improved backup features such as the ability to burn data cds, music cds, data dvds, and convert unencrypted movie files to video dvds. This saves the Windows 7 user the cost of having to purchase Roxio DVD Creator, Nero Burning Rom, etc. You only need something like Nero for advanced cd and dvd creation tasks. Microsoft's DirectX 11 API is a huge leap forward in 3d graphics for games and other applications. XAudio2 has a number of key advantages over DirectSound including true 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound support, the ability to submix sounds in real time, better handling of custom DSP effects, etc. XInput allows you to share game devices between your XBox 360 and your Windows 7 PC. In terms of hardware Windows 7 supports more ram and hard drive space than Windows XP. If memory serves me correctly Windows XP was only designed to support up to 4 GB of ram where the 64-bit version of Windows 7 can support up to 128 GB of ram. While it sounds like that much ram is unecessary the fact of the matter is that high definition video such as realistic 3d graphics rendering and blue ray video technology is upping the hardware requirements on memory and file size every day. It probably won't be that long before games and home movies needs 50 GB of ram to run the way we are going with realistic graphics and video technology. Already most Play Station and XBox games ship on a blue ray dvd because they are 20 to 25 GB in size. Most of that size is do to high definition video clips, 3d graphics, and high definition audio files. Moral of the story is the more we lean torwards high definition multimedia the more CPU power and memory it takes to run it. Something like 128 GB of memory sounds rediculous now, but looking ahead I can clearly see a day when software developers will need it to meet the needs of high definition multimedia tomorrow. Therefore what Microsoft is doing with Windows 7 is looking ahead at what is needed to support this or that higher end multimedia and meet those demands in a newer flashier OS, and its not simply a case of just upgrade XP because that doesn't necessarily work when an entire API or technology has to be rewritten from scratch to meet the demands of newer technologies coming down the line. Plus Microsoft probably has reached the peak number of sales for XP so aren't likely to make anything off of rewriting what needs to be done to XP to upgrade it to meet current marketing demands and release A free service pack. After all, they have a business to run and they have a vested interest selling the changes in a new version of Windows. Cheers! On 12/13/11, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > Was Vista better than XP? Is Windows 7 better than Vista? Am I right in > that Windows 7 came out to be Vista with the bugs worked out? And was > Microsoft already working on Windows 8 when 7 came out? One thing I would > like to see, if Microsoft insists on continually coming out with a new OS > time and time again, is that they quit rushing them to market before the > bugs are worked out, and give us a solid stable product that has thoroughly > been tested and proven to be stable and reliable, rather than a junky > troublesome buggy product. I know the task would be massive, and I know it > would take an enormous amount of time and effort, but it would sure do a lot > to regain the credibility they once had, and it would also be more readily > received by the customers. > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
