Windows 7 first look, Internet Cafe Owner 10 years Perth WA
Windows 7 Hallo all, My name is Henk, I run an Internet Cafe in Perth, Western Australia. I have been in this game for 10 years starting in 1999 with6 pc's on a 56k modem in a back room of a Vinyl Record shop. We have been fully fledged since 2001. We also do PC repairs, build Custom PC's and trade in computer items. My wife and I live withcomputers 80 hours a week so here we go, let us have a first look atWindows 7... In my bussiness our majority of computer repairs is simply removing windows Vista and putting XP back on pc's and laptopswhich is often not an easy task because literally hundreds of thousands of new computers come/came loaded with Vista and, as many of you already know - a lot of theseyou cannot find XP drivers for on the manufacturers websites, amassive hindsight mistake by whom? One fact thatMicrosoft should have been aware of by now is that the Vista operating system is not justgenerallydisliked, it is despised by most.This iseasely proved by the fact that XP is still going strong after8 odd years and Vista is gone already (launched only 2 years ago in 2007). Time magazinehas posted its list of what it views as the 10 biggest tech failures of the last decade, Vista is there at number 2... I have justloaded and am already dumbfounded attrying to find my way around the interface of Windows 7, it is not friendly and if I have trouble alreadyhow is the average user going to go? Ok - after 30 minutes it feels like another Vista from an interface point of view and the change in wording is extremely annoying. I was going to spend the day on it but have had enough already so looks like this post is going to finish early. I am looking at the barrel at having to learn this thing and then teaching my customers to use itbecause no doubt it will have drivers that XP does not, if this wasn't the case I would still be using '98. So, in the near future comes a big decision in my bussiness, do I learn Windows 7 or go Linux now? Linux is free andUbuntu looks promising... I hope you guys at Microsoft take a good look again because it is people like me who are the "hands on" that get to work with your products most. I will keep having a look at Windows 7 over the next week or soand keep posting, you never know I might get to like it. Henk
June 15th, 2009 5:51am

Henk,I like your point of view, as it is refreshing because of its realism. However, I disagree in some points:Regarding Vista. As I'm seeing it, the main reason for Vista's failure was to offer the wrong things at the wrong time. After a couple of years of XP being attacked from the professionals' side as the most unsafe and unreliable system ever (much stayed with 2000, if not NT), from the consumers' side as a less compatible and less easy-to-use system than its predecessors, XP since SP2 finally got to be a relatively mature product. Nobody felt a real need for a change at this time.Then came Vista. It needed better hardware than XP (bad for all), came with a new UI with nobody complaining the old one (especially bad for businesses), was again less compatible than its predecessor (bad for the gaming sector) - in exchange for what? The public impression was: For not so much more than a new "stylishness". The marketing did its best to strengthen this feeling (as if they were to sell an Apple to people outside the cult). And the result was expectable. Has anyone heard before from a widespread and continuous buyer's wish to downgrade a new OS to an earlier one? You are so right here, and it's truely not your experience only.But, regarding Windows 7. Ok, the marketing people seem unstoppable in repeating the same mistake over and over. Again a campaign to praise a new OS like a new multimedia, writing, gaming, one-fits-all "experience". Do they really believe the user's ultimate decision to buy a new pc or OS is based on his wish of a fantastic "new experience"? (Not to speak of the recession times we live in.) Why don't they focus on the real points of interest - and here I disagree with you, Henk: these are different from Vista -: (1) 7 runs on the same hardwareas XP at the same speed, and better on better hardware (unlike Vista, it doesn't need that, so users can delay their new pc buy until it's affordable for them);(2) yep, it comes with a new UI and it needs some re-learning, but here it is indeed "Vista better made", it's customizable both for those who need higher security levels and for those that want "family usability" without UAC standards so high that they need administrator rights to push a key on their keyboard;the firewall capabilities are so much better than those in XP; etc.(3) 7 (the final, not the RC) promises to be the first Microsoft OS ever that provides a high level in compatibility from start on; less needs for homebrew workarounds, driver searching, etc. than we are used to (even if that issue won't disappear completely, I bet).Lastly, regarding Linux. As far as my experiences go, that's the perfect system for an "Home Improvement" auditory. Perfect for tech enthusiasts that like command line works and want / are able to fix things for themselves. And it's safer than Windows, as less evildoers attack it, as less people use it. But a choice for your clients dreaming of the old XP ways? I don't believe that.Excuse this long sermon but instead of opening a new thread, I attached my opinions to yours. It's better to compare sights than putting them all separated.Best regards. Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)
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June 15th, 2009 1:05pm

Have you tried Linux? I want to see a normal home user install a program with a TAR file. We use both windows and Linux here where I work and Linux is just used in the background for our Hospital software and I am the only one out of the IT department that can install something on it without help from the vendor. I hated the Vista interface at first but now after using Win 7 for last 6 months I hate going back to the XP interface.Tim Comes
June 15th, 2009 9:48pm

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