Windows 7. Jesus Christ, will Microsoft EVER get ANYTHING right???
So I downloaded Windows 7 RC1 and tossed it on a spare hard drive to see what's up. WinDose 7 has been in the works for a LONG time now and is supposed to be Microsoft's apology for Vista (kind of like XP SP1 and SP2 were apologies for XP in its original state). I'll save any possible readers a lot of time right now and tell everyone I'm keeping my XP machine. If that's all you wanted to know (should I still stay with XP?), then the answer is a resounding YES! For God's sake...keep at least ONE XP machine in your house. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.
Previously I posted about how bad Vista is. I'll admit right here and now that I'm writing this post on a Vista machine! Just installed SP2 in fact. It was my hope that Microsoft actually fixed the problem with their RSS feeds not updating properly. It didn't, despite claims right there in the release notes that it did! Vista is just SOOOO horrible. I get lockups so frequently, it's scary and they come without warning and robs you of all your work. Mind you, I have actually chosen to send them error reports in the hope of a fix, but gave up on that after nothing got done. So WHY am I typing this on a Vista machine? Because HP, Dell and everyone else are in bed with Microsoft (literally, I hear skin friction) and they FORCE you to get Vista with their new systems. Want a new laptop? You HAVE to get Vista. I even asked the kid at Best Buy "Can I have XP with this?" 'No, there's no compatible firmware with the hardware'. Over time that changed and firmware and drivers did slowly appear for my system. But they're only 80% compatible. Audio is the biggest problem as the audio and modem hardware are now a single piece of hardware on the motherboard. WHO DESIGNS THESE THINGS??? The MODEM and the AUDIO are slapped together??? WHY for God's sake? I'll buy the ethernet and modem together. That's fine. But modem and audio??? Anyway, the XP driver that works causes the modem to go wonky or the audio to not work or the headphone jack to work without shutting off the speakers or the microphone doesn't work at all...etc etc etc. The wireless light stays yellow and never goes blue so you don't know if you're ACTUALLY disabled or not. Basically you CAN go XP if you want, but you sacrifice a lot. So WHY aren't the hardware folks providing drivers for XP AND Vista? Money. They get an assload of money IF they play ball and go Vista. Otherwise, they get shit and that's something consumers should have pushed back on more. Some did, mind you and eventually force HP and Dell (especially Dell) to provide XP fallback disks and firmware/drivers for XP if the customer HATED Vista (which most did) but with each generation of machine that comes out, that fallback position gets weaker and weaker. So bad, in fact, that Ubuntu is now making major headway as the Vista alternative. Yep. People will go to great lengths and learn Linux rather than adopt Vista. I love that. The result? Microsoft can only claim a 25% adoption rate of Vista and that figure is SUCH a lie. Actual upgrades from XP to Vista cannot exceed 5%, they can't. The other 20% are people who get new hardware because they HAVE to get Vista with it. Period. End of story. Vista is an abortion and Microsoft KNOWS IT. So what are they doing? They're hammering their engineers, HAMMERING THEM to get Windows 7 out NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. They want to sell it at Christmas. "Here's our next piece of shit! BUY IT PLEASE!!!" Ok, I'm game...I downloaded your Release Candidate 1 and all the updates. My results?? Well if you've made it this far, you're a masochist, but OK...I'll list my results as only a masochist would want to upgrade to Windows 7. Seriously.
We'll begin with the total and complete lack of hardware support. Following right on the heels of Vista's 5% adoption rate due to lack of hardware support for legacy systems, with the 64 bit system most painfully lacking ANY drivers - even for PRINTERS, Windows 7 will be Microsoft's next push to keep the planet from using ANY hardware that isn't signed off on by the RIAA, MPAA and other major contributors to Microsoft's bottom line. My Soundblaster Live 5.1 card was dead from the moment the drive came up. DEAD. Worked fine with XP. Worked fine with Vista. Worked fine with Ubuntu. But as soon as Windows 7 came up...WHAM! No sound. I'm already unimpressed. Next...my ATI Radeon card functioned fine as a VGA device, but could not render any 3D imaging. What's going ON?? Well Microsoft, who used to LOVE Creative and made sure the Soundblasters worked out of the box starting with Windows 3.1, but ever since those damned MP3 files came out, the love between Microsoft and Creative was lost. WHY? Because Creative KNOWS its customer base and refused to nuke technology like recording "What you hear" and so forth and it has cost them DEARLY. I don't know of a motherboard manufacturer that utilizes Creative's decades of audio experience to create on-board hardware/firmware to give end-users Soundblaster technology without having to plug in a card or external device and that's really sad. So they sit, off to the side, watching PC/Laptop technology evolve so quickly that you can't get laptop with an expansion slot for different audio or video. You get what you get and you better like it or get something else. Oh, you COULD get USB technology for an external sound device (and I did) but that's a goddamned pain in the ass. Works GREAT if you have a docking station for your laptop at home and you use it for multimedia...but as for portability, creative has missed a boat that sailed 10 years ago. They're trying to make it up with MP3 players and all kinds of other stuff, but it's just not the same. I want CREATIVE technology in EVERY machine I use! Period. My ATI card has video passthrough technology...and that's also a no no so NO drivers for that either! Guess I'll have to use something else that's "Windows 7 Certified". Now, on to the O/S itself. Wow. Talk about underdeveloped. You know what I'm seeing with each generation of O/S that comes from Microsoft? Less and Less and Less advanced functionality for the user. And it all gets back to this itch Microsoft can't scratch...how to keep the end user as "stupid" as possible. The control panel is absolutely naked. I can't do a thing with it. I looked EVERYWHERE for that "Classic Control Panel" button but it's nowhere to be found. I'm assuming there's a setting I need to put in the registry or whatever...it's just...you know what? I gave up there I think. I said to myself "is this worth looking at any further?" and the answer was a resounding NO.
Windows 7 RC1 sucks ass and if this is their RELEASE CANDIDATE and they want a production retail run by Christmas???? COUNT ME OUT. No Windows 7 for me. No Vista if I can at all avoid it (which is getting really hard to do). I'm STAYING with XP SP3 on every single machine I squeeze it into. Forever and ever and ever and ever. WHY? Because it WORKS. Because it has FUNCTIONALITY I CAN USE! Because it was released only 8 years ago (can you believe that? October 2001...wow) and after like 6 years, they FINALLY got it right and that's why people LOVE IT and want to STAY WITH IT! You know what the smartest thing Microsoft could do right now?? Put Windows 7 back on the shelf and find a way to integrate the good stuff from Vista (like the visual experience, which really is pretty slick even though it's a MAC rip off) back into XP and release something like XSTA. LOL. Wait...that's a kick ass idea. HEY, MICROSOFT...gimme XSTA!
Previously I posted about how bad Vista is. I'll admit right here and now that I'm writing this post on a Vista machine! Just installed SP2 in fact. It was my hope that Microsoft actually fixed the problem with their RSS feeds not updating properly. It didn't, despite claims right there in the release notes that it did! Vista is just SOOOO horrible. I get lockups so frequently, it's scary and they come without warning and robs you of all your work. Mind you, I have actually chosen to send them error reports in the hope of a fix, but gave up on that after nothing got done. So WHY am I typing this on a Vista machine? Because HP, Dell and everyone else are in bed with Microsoft (literally, I hear skin friction) and they FORCE you to get Vista with their new systems. Want a new laptop? You HAVE to get Vista. I even asked the kid at Best Buy "Can I have XP with this?" 'No, there's no compatible firmware with the hardware'. Over time that changed and firmware and drivers did slowly appear for my system. But they're only 80% compatible. Audio is the biggest problem as the audio and modem hardware are now a single piece of hardware on the motherboard. WHO DESIGNS THESE THINGS??? The MODEM and the AUDIO are slapped together??? WHY for God's sake? I'll buy the ethernet and modem together. That's fine. But modem and audio??? Anyway, the XP driver that works causes the modem to go wonky or the audio to not work or the headphone jack to work without shutting off the speakers or the microphone doesn't work at all...etc etc etc. The wireless light stays yellow and never goes blue so you don't know if you're ACTUALLY disabled or not. Basically you CAN go XP if you want, but you sacrifice a lot. So WHY aren't the hardware folks providing drivers for XP AND Vista? Money. They get an assload of money IF they play ball and go Vista. Otherwise, they get shit and that's something consumers should have pushed back on more. Some did, mind you and eventually force HP and Dell (especially Dell) to provide XP fallback disks and firmware/drivers for XP if the customer HATED Vista (which most did) but with each generation of machine that comes out, that fallback position gets weaker and weaker. So bad, in fact, that Ubuntu is now making major headway as the Vista alternative. Yep. People will go to great lengths and learn Linux rather than adopt Vista. I love that. The result? Microsoft can only claim a 25% adoption rate of Vista and that figure is SUCH a lie. Actual upgrades from XP to Vista cannot exceed 5%, they can't. The other 20% are people who get new hardware because they HAVE to get Vista with it. Period. End of story. Vista is an abortion and Microsoft KNOWS IT. So what are they doing? They're hammering their engineers, HAMMERING THEM to get Windows 7 out NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. They want to sell it at Christmas. "Here's our next piece of shit! BUY IT PLEASE!!!" Ok, I'm game...I downloaded your Release Candidate 1 and all the updates. My results?? Well if you've made it this far, you're a masochist, but OK...I'll list my results as only a masochist would want to upgrade to Windows 7. Seriously.
We'll begin with the total and complete lack of hardware support. Following right on the heels of Vista's 5% adoption rate due to lack of hardware support for legacy systems, with the 64 bit system most painfully lacking ANY drivers - even for PRINTERS, Windows 7 will be Microsoft's next push to keep the planet from using ANY hardware that isn't signed off on by the RIAA, MPAA and other major contributors to Microsoft's bottom line. My Soundblaster Live 5.1 card was dead from the moment the drive came up. DEAD. Worked fine with XP. Worked fine with Vista. Worked fine with Ubuntu. But as soon as Windows 7 came up...WHAM! No sound. I'm already unimpressed. Next...my ATI Radeon card functioned fine as a VGA device, but could not render any 3D imaging. What's going ON?? Well Microsoft, who used to LOVE Creative and made sure the Soundblasters worked out of the box starting with Windows 3.1, but ever since those damned MP3 files came out, the love between Microsoft and Creative was lost. WHY? Because Creative KNOWS its customer base and refused to nuke technology like recording "What you hear" and so forth and it has cost them DEARLY. I don't know of a motherboard manufacturer that utilizes Creative's decades of audio experience to create on-board hardware/firmware to give end-users Soundblaster technology without having to plug in a card or external device and that's really sad. So they sit, off to the side, watching PC/Laptop technology evolve so quickly that you can't get laptop with an expansion slot for different audio or video. You get what you get and you better like it or get something else. Oh, you COULD get USB technology for an external sound device (and I did) but that's a goddamned pain in the ass. Works GREAT if you have a docking station for your laptop at home and you use it for multimedia...but as for portability, creative has missed a boat that sailed 10 years ago. They're trying to make it up with MP3 players and all kinds of other stuff, but it's just not the same. I want CREATIVE technology in EVERY machine I use! Period. My ATI card has video passthrough technology...and that's also a no no so NO drivers for that either! Guess I'll have to use something else that's "Windows 7 Certified". Now, on to the O/S itself. Wow. Talk about underdeveloped. You know what I'm seeing with each generation of O/S that comes from Microsoft? Less and Less and Less advanced functionality for the user. And it all gets back to this itch Microsoft can't scratch...how to keep the end user as "stupid" as possible. The control panel is absolutely naked. I can't do a thing with it. I looked EVERYWHERE for that "Classic Control Panel" button but it's nowhere to be found. I'm assuming there's a setting I need to put in the registry or whatever...it's just...you know what? I gave up there I think. I said to myself "is this worth looking at any further?" and the answer was a resounding NO.
Windows 7 RC1 sucks ass and if this is their RELEASE CANDIDATE and they want a production retail run by Christmas???? COUNT ME OUT. No Windows 7 for me. No Vista if I can at all avoid it (which is getting really hard to do). I'm STAYING with XP SP3 on every single machine I squeeze it into. Forever and ever and ever and ever. WHY? Because it WORKS. Because it has FUNCTIONALITY I CAN USE! Because it was released only 8 years ago (can you believe that? October 2001...wow) and after like 6 years, they FINALLY got it right and that's why people LOVE IT and want to STAY WITH IT! You know what the smartest thing Microsoft could do right now?? Put Windows 7 back on the shelf and find a way to integrate the good stuff from Vista (like the visual experience, which really is pretty slick even though it's a MAC rip off) back into XP and release something like XSTA. LOL. Wait...that's a kick ass idea. HEY, MICROSOFT...gimme XSTA!
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