"Windows 7 is a thing of beauty, far better than XP"
how?
"Nothing has pretty much changed in the windows software apart that when the user first get it, they go to the internet to find what matters to them."
right now, xp does fine. in 4 years, linux. already, it runs media apps, browser, email & decent enough office apps. probably need a card reader to transfer files from your camera. smartphones? can logon to account to get contacts list. transferring media files is probably the toughest.
@Dogg64. ok that makes sense. win7 is easier for large businesses. and retail pc buyers are mostly stuck with whatever oem version; few will go tothe trouble of installing xp to restore lost functionality. so the xp vs win7 argument is almost a non starter.
"Why guess as to whether you like it or not when you can download, burn and run?"
or run from a "burnless" liveusb version. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/using-unetbootin-to-create-a-live-usb-linux/
"8gb.. unless you want to brave the experiment that was XP 64bit"
i've read that xp x64's problems have been sorted out. i'd guess because increasing vista x64 encouraged xp x64 drivers.
anyway, most people running xp x86 don't need win7 x64 to handle 8gb of ram.
to paraphrase anothre reply, "did the extra 7.5GB help you to type it better than a regular 512MB laptop?"

vista file search is a broken kludge. it's not fixed in 7? fortunately, ransack works.

"continual court cases that makes them take the stuff out"
somehow i doubt eu courts forced ms to replace xp's decent filefind with crap... or replace explorer with an explorer that takes multiple amounts of time to display the tree pane and filepane... and requires mouse hover to see which folders have expanders... and makes it difficult to just grab more than one file with the mouse (though i've just recently found some sort of regedit that fixes that vista defect)... or replace visually distinct icons with murky oversized icons...

Microsoft's extending "downgrade rights" for Windows XP until 2020 means they will be supporting XP at least until that date (and probably later). So no one really need to feel pressured into dumping a huge load of cash into Microsoft's bank accounts to "upgrade" all their company's desktops/laptops.

Might as well skip Win7 completely, and get a nice bonus for saving the corporate IT budget in the process.

In the mean time, testing out Linux thin client/server systems for select users (and perhaps avoiding the huge Microsoft upgrade treadmill completely), could also save corporate HQ a load of dosh company-wide (and hopefully gain another nice bonus cheque for future-thinking IT managers).

If Gartner agrees with somebody, it's because they were PAID to agree with them. Period.

It seems that Inq is wrong on it's XP stance. 7 is gaining, and XP is losing ground...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-7-up-mac-os-x-down/9157?tag=nl.e589

Plus to you losers that think you miss out on thing in Windows 7, it wasn't MS that wanted to take them out, but rather the continual court cases that makes them take the stuff out. Get a clue. Besides, you can add it all and more back in with the Live Essentials, which will soon only run on Windows 7 anyway.

Win XP is good enough for web based apps, for now.

RE: the change from XP to Win7. The worst part is the time spent re-installing everything AGAIN.

FFS they really need to get this sorted. Why isn't there a checklist of existing programs that I can check and these are then installed on the new pc?

To the guy who is typing his comment on an 8GB RAM laptop, did the extra 6GB help you to type it better than a regular 2GB laptop? ;-))

I would like a fast new pc, but what do I actually do that requires this? My current PC is pretty quick and could probably run Win7 ok. Still I desire a new pc, mmmm lol.

I'd like to know what 15% of apps need to be entirely replaced to move to Win 7. Most will run fine if they ever ran in Windows XP. I didn't need to replace any of my apps when I switched over, and I had and have literally hundreds of apps, some dating from the Windows 95 era. Ironically, it's Firefox that has the worst memory problems with Win 7 64-bit, and that's updated regularly.

As for upgrade costs, Windows 7 ran decently on an old Athlon 64 system I had laying around with 1.5GB of memory and some old AGP video card in it. Only Flash didn't run too quickly, but it never did on that machine anyway. For another machine, I bought a cheap Dell ZinoHD for about $300 (it was a Christmas sale), and it works perfectly fine with 7 64-bit, on the Athlon X2 3250e. No hiccups at all. It even came with a copy of Win7 if I recall. Win 7 even runs on my low-end netbook I bought. Sure it doesn't have Aero, but it's quite snappy, and usable.

Sure, Win7 isn't a must-have upgrade. WinXP is still perfectly suited to running programs and games, and basically about anything. However, the cost to upgrade to Win7 really seems overblown. Even Ars Technica put the hardware upgrade costs to Vista (which is worse than Win7) for a machine from 2002 or so at about $150, mostly for a new video card and some RAM. Yes, less to pay nothing for no upgrade, but not a $1500 upgrade, certainly not for business machines which generally have a very fixed set of apps to run.

We have 3 computers in the home, 2 with xp and one with windows 7. My wifes computer is the 7. She hates the operating system and filing systems. I would love to upgrade the other 2 but the cost of additional memory, backing up and possible replacement of software, and the price of a required full version of 7 being required makes the purchase of new computers more economical.

However, Microsoft stupidly and greedily went for minimal application compatibility when you upgraded from Windows XP. They probably exaggerated how much was going to break when you changed, and the result - users didn't change.

As a separate issue, many developers and products, at least for consumers, ignored multi-user setup and security on XP. Legacy products from Windows 3 / 95 / 98 / Me assumed that the user owns the computer, is the administrator. If you log in as Just Some Guy then they don't work - a Hauppauge digital TV box that I owned, for instance. Indeed, on XP, decent security was user-optional.

Microsoft should have started sooner to certify applications for multi-user installations on XP, and offered a less prestigious comptaibility logo for compatible-as-administrator legacy programs.

If Win7/Vista search is the biggest featuer used in Win7 - what about Google Desktop Search or Windows Search 4.0 for Win XP? Not exactly same feature but saves the day!

I can remember when XP came out I was itching to get the upgrade at work. The move from the dodgy Win 98 model to XP was clearly worth while, especially if you are doing development - bad code that would blue screen Win98 would simply raise an exception on XP. This single feature was a *huge* time saver for me. There were other things in XP that really made the upgrade worth while: Proper multi-user support, centralized administration, virtual memory (at least I don't think Win98 did this... long time ago!), NTFS (large disks at last!), a sane driver model, multiple-monitor support... the list is endless. XP was *good*. And note, everything on this list is about managing computer resources.

What does Windows 7 offer? Fancy windows effects and animations? Meh! Increased security? The security in XP is fine, actually! Larger disks sizes? Yeah, but I'm nowhere near the 2TB limit in XP! DirectX11? I don't play games, so that's no interest to me. Besides, with a large chunk of the world still on XP, what is the chance the next wave of games will be built on OpenGL3.x or 4.x - offering the same functionality as DX11 - but on XP (and OSX and linux and Android and iPhones and...) as well as Win7?

And here's a thought - if Win7 really does offer extra useful features - what is Win8 going to offer? Win7 now supports 250TB disks for example. Not much room there for useful expansion...

Windows 7 is a mixed bag, which is why I'm still on Windows XP.

As some have pointed out, I'll gain performance benefits. As others have pointed out, I'll lose features.

But these days I use Ubuntu as my main OS. I have a copy of Windows XP I dual-boot to for gaming. (And a Windows XP image in VMware, for testing & occasional development - mostly bug-fixing of programs I wrote long ago.)

I know I'll have to upgrade sooner or later, if only to stay supported for security patches. But it'll cost money and time. Probably a whole weekend of time, as it's a re-install rather than an upgrade. So I'm reluctant, to say the least.

Ultimately, the most pertinent comment was made in the whole discussion is that it's just an OS. Its job is to let me run programs.
And just about every program I have ever run under Windows EXCEPT GAMES has an equivalent under other OSes which is more than acceptable for my needs.

It would be damningly accurate to say that Windows is the £100 of software that I run to reduce my £2000 computer to the capabilities of a £150 games console...

That probably sounds incredibly churlish and vicious. But it does accurately sum up my home usage. Windows basically does nothing for me, functionally, that I cannot get elsewhere cheaper.

Frankly, one of the main reasons I've delayed is that I've had more useful software to buy. And I suspect that in the future, subscriptions to services like Ubuntu One and Dropbox will by vying for the software "budget" that Windows 7 will have to come out of, too.

In summary, it isn't compelling, but it is necessary, so it's inevitable. But not a priority.

Based on that, Windows 8 will be skipped too. Windows 9? Depends on whether I can get games running on Linux by then...

Windows 7 is generally good, but microsoft blew it in a couple of areas.

There is a lot to be said about 64bit computing, i'm typing this comment on a laptop with 8gb of ram, obviously not possible with XP, unless you want to brave the experiment that was XP 64bit.

I really like the speed and stability of windows 7, especially the improvements to start up and shut down speeds, there are many other features of windows 7 that make it compelling as well, but there are a few flaws in there too.

First and foremost, chkdsk.exe /r, boy did microsoft really fuck this one up, why the hell does chkdsk have to use up all available ram in the system? microsoft says this is by design. seriously? really? you planned this? the bullshit excuse they give doesn't jive with me at all, saying that it gives chkdsk all the memory to get the task done and over with as soon as possible. unfortunately microsoft is a bunch of fucking retarded half witted morons when it comes to this subject. running the system out of ram makes chkdsk take 5x as long to complete.

I do small business IT support for a living, and recently due to the economy, i find myself doing residential support as well, I find myself running chkdsk /r alot, i mean several times a week if not a day, I use my laptop as my main technicians box, its perfectly suited for the job, except now for chkdsk. i carry an asus eee-pc 701 around with me for that task.

Here's a little redneck math for you microsoft, a 7in laptop with a celeron 900 under clocked to 600mhz with 1gb ram, and 4gb internal SSD running a neutered XP home is faster at chkdsk /r on any disk, using USB, than a DV7t with a core2duo t9550 2.66ghz, 8GB ram and 7200rpm hard drive with windows 7 ultimate 64bit using esata, by orders of magnitude... making it faster my ass, just admit you fucked up and fix it already, would you? i'll compromise, if you just fix it, we can forgo the admission. in the mean time while microsoft plays dumb and calls it a feature (like bad comb over) Z, i did find a work around in case i dont have my eee life saver with me, starting a virtual machine prior to starting the chkdsk, letting chkdsk eat all the ram then killing the VM to free up its ram does help.

That brings me to my next gripe about windows 7, 64bit virtual machine support, too lazy to write it in to the code? or did you go out of your way to prevent it? considering hyper-v supports 64bit quite nicely. aeriously, WTF? XP mode is not the only fucking reason someone would have to run a VM on windows 7, as a matter of fact its about the last reason i have to run VM's, but since you had to go the dipshit route on that too, i get to run my VM's on my choice of the ever so stable virtual(crash everytime someone sneezes)box, or the overpriced, system infesting, wrap its tentacles around everything possible VMware workstation.

The other areas of contention i have for windows 7 are libraries, i see what you were trying to do with those, but holy shit they're annoying, better luck next time.

Aero peak, was that meant to serve some kind of useful purpose? or was it put therejust to annoy the fuck out of me every time my mouse slides a little on the arm of my chair or palm rest that doubles as a mouse pad, because if it was meant for something useful, i fail to see it.

And finally, the taskbar, yes yes i know most of you are going to say its one of windows 7's best features. i dont think so, i find it fucking annoying as well, if i wanted a fucking mac i would have bought one. on the bright side, this little gem can be fixed, and quite easily too, it takes less than a minute to unpin and ungroup everything, make the icons small and bring back the quick launch toolbar.

barring those little complaints, i think windows 7 is the best OS microsoft has released yet. I started using Vista when it was released to technet in oct. 2006 and windows 7 almost a year ago to the day, so being 4 years removed from windows XP, when i use it anymore it feel like a fisher-price toy...

The fastest selling OS evah (!) is "slowly being adopted".....

I may be the rare white fly, but although re-installing everything was a pain in the butt, I didn't fork out a penny for applications, hardware or upgrade in general.

Besides, if Gartner says so, it's most assuredly 100% bull dong.... A tarot reader is more believable than those jojers

Windows 7 is a dumbed down Vista marketed successfully. See what you lose when "upgrade" from XP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista

A new version of Ubuntu comes out every 6 months, each with improved hardware capability across a wider range of hardware and cool new UI tweaks... I run KDE and there's just as much eye candy, much of which is actually useful as there is in the big vendor OSs.

As for Windows, M$ probably should have done what Apple did, scrapped the goal of legacy compatibility and added an emulator with bundled XP to run legacy apps and gotten an OS that didn't require massive upgrades or a complete new set of drivers to run.

Unfortunately for M$ stockholders, it's too late now.

Dissatisfied Windows users are invited to download a Kubuntu LiveCD from http://www.kubuntu.org , burn the CD, plug it into your computer, and see for yourself if it'll run straight out of the box on your computer and peripheral collection. Why guess as to whether you like it or not when you can download, burn, and run it?

Humans have an astonishingly strong desire to believe. Whether it's a deity, or an operating system their desires pull them very hard toward what they feel inside is true. Even when it's not.

XP is outdated and no longer the OS that is best for users today. But, pulling an XP user away from his belief is going to be like pulling a devout religious person away from his alter. Kind of like pulling an Apple Zealot away from the coolaid, it's just not possible. No matter how bad their situation is in reality.

Amazing isn't it?

I work in an environment with about 45000 clients. I am in charge of our XP - 7 transition. Out of our hundreds of applications and hardware types, I found 1 program that doesn't work on 7 and found 1 hardware problem on 7 64bit.

The software problem? A program so old it was patched to be able to work in Windows 95... The hardware problem? 64 bit printer driver connecting to a custom network printing tracking system. (our fault since we programmed it).

Benefits?

25GB of software images, down from 600GB!!!!!!!

We have our "standard" laptops/desktops and images created for them. Clients often require something outside of the standard. XP takes about 10 hours to put on these computers... Windows 7 takes about 45 mins to an hour.

Training costs? $100 for 2 books and $250 for certifications, paid for by my employer. I handled the rest. It benefited my employer, increased my resume and company value. Perfect.

As a now retired software developer consultant made rich by fixing what was wrong with windows from 3.1 through xp, well, I have to send a big thanks to MS and Mr Bill for making me able to retire young.

Now that I don't do that any more, I run linux (most often ubuntu) as a user and programmer for fun and the only windows around here is xp in virtual box for those things that just need windows, like the software for my mass spectrometer that won't run in win7 according to them.

My still working dev friends say that the hardware for win 7 is pretty nasty, as in don't try without 2 gigs ram at least. Now they use bloated software -- in other words, the microsoft dev tools, so they may need more, and any gamer would have tons of ram anyway, so maybe that's not that big an issue.

On the other hand, xp in a VB window screams, is protected by the linux firewall in the host, and runs what I need it to run -- usually vendor drivers for some oddball science hardware they've not bothered to update themselves for the newer Vista (no demand) or win 7 (hard work with the nuts security model, and the whole signed driver thing).

Windows in a window on linux is where windows is at for me. It's kind of nice that way, and backups etc become quite trivial as well. So, sorry Mr Bill, you get no more money from me.

I use Windows 7. I believe it is much better than XP, why?

I'm a gamer, XP does not support directX10 or 11. DirectX11 in particular has the potential to generate vastly improved visuals over DirectX9 in XP.

Windows 7 has good 64-bit support - I do CAD and 3D design work.

Windows 7 has that lovely search bar on the start menu, I just type 'ca', hit enter and there's my calculator.

windows 7 is fast. Any 3D app is faster than XP in my benchmarking, there's no serious general performance hit like in Vista.

Those are my favourite reasons but there are many more.

Vista was a bit of a mess, the new visual backend was great but file indexing and user interface were poorly thought through, but the bulk of the Vista OS made it through to 7.

If it's just for office work, you may as well stick with XP. For for anything involving 3D move to 7, it's worth it.

More and more drivers and software only work right on w7, and certainly not well on xp-64bit, and if you use a modern amount of RAM you need a 64bit OS, so yeah you are sort of forced towards w7 since no amount of money will help, the alternative is linux or OSX not xp-32bit I fear, sad perhaps, but they force your hand really.

One thing Microsoft should realize is that most consumers can easily go to specifications details to understand what is it that they really need. If Microsoft continue to think that it is a beautiful interface that is going to get consumers, then I say they should rethink how to do business with the client. Nothing has pretty much changed in the windows software apart that when the user first get it, they go to the internet to find what matters to them. When other operating systems can do that for a cheaper price or for free, Microsoft Windows won't matter so much.

XP was great but 7 is much better and hardly any of your software will need updating. This article is ridiculous. XP should be put to pasture. It's ancient. IE and Office should also be banished for being bloated crap. But Windows 7 is a thing of beauty, far better than XP.

"consumers will not put up with new versions being released just to crank the revenue wheel once every few years. It is this mature and reasoned behaviour that will force companies like Microsoft to innovate rather than churn out meaningless code packaged to masquerade as products"

I'd like to see the day that people wise up to apple and news articles start reading like: "consumers will not put up with new versions being released just to crank the revenue wheel every year. It is this mature and reasoned behaviour that will force companies like Apple to innovate rather than churn out lemon products packaged to masquerade as premium products.

Hey,

nobody is calculating the costs for upgrading peripheral hardware like scanners with ADF, printers and lots of other expensive hardware. Thats my main reason for not upgrading!