I am a little concerned about Microsoft and their business approach to their Windows product line, the impending roll-out of Windows 7, and what it will mean to me as an end user, and a reviewer and advisor to others and their technical needs. Windows 7 has a chance to bring Windows back to the fore as a desirable operating system. While Vista and XP combined still represent the majority percentage of PC computing platforms deployed throughout the world, I can not say that subjectively people go into a store wanting Vista. They are accepting it because they have no other choice. It is not like the rollout of XP where people actively wanted to upgrade to XP. Some of this is due to bad press, some of this is due to half-baked drivers rolled out by graphics card vendors, and some of this is due to Vista's own shortcomings.
As it is just past wrapping up its second year of deployment, I am ok with Vista. Most of the times I have an issue with it, it is because of an app, vice being the fault of the OS itself. I am now running four machines with Vista; two with the 64-bit version, two with the 32-bit. I think overall I am happiest with the 64-bit models, though I can not point to anything empirical that backs that up. In its first year, and a good bit into the second, Vista's standing in the public eye has been hampered by the surge of OS X and the prevalence of variations of the LINUX OS present in the rampantly increasing population of NetBooks on the market.
The problem with this is that a lot of people, myself included, listened to the slagging of the OS and therefore did not make enough of an effort to really put it to use and see what it does. I picked up my first computer running OS X, a MacBook, in May of 2007 and was immediately pleased with the OS. I then picked up my first Vista laptop in September of 2007 and was immediately hampered with problems. As I sang the praises of OS X through the end of '07 and the first quarter of '08, I eventually admitted that I needed to give Vista another try and a fair shake. Since then, Service Pak One has appeared, and a lot of graphics card driver issues have been cleared up. I can not now say that my computing experiences with my Vista laptops lag all that far behind those with my MacBook and MacBook Pro. While I still prefer the MacBook Pro over any other platform when I have to work with creative multi-media projects, I will say that I definitely prefer some of my Vista laptops over the MacBook.
News has been out for some time that Microsoft is readying their follow-on to Vista. From what I have seen, I am not sure how this OS is going to help. Most of the changes are presentation deltas from the way Vista presents info, but it does not really change the inherent way in which the OS handles PC operations. For this reason, my current judgment is that this is more of a face-lift being done to placate the masses rather than a major functional change-out of the OS. It is an incremental change, vice an evolutionary change. In fact, it is similar to Intel's tick-tock development cycle, with this being a definite tick.
The last time Microsoft did this was with the ill-received and ill-deployed WindowsME OS. The real changes came with the arrival of WindowsXP. In that instance, WinME should have never been deployed. An extra year or two of people complaining about Win98 would have been preferable to the launching of a hobbled OS meant to get everyone through until WinXP could arrive. Early in 2008, I accused Vista of being the descendent of WindowsME, and I was admittedly wrong. I do not want to be placed in a position to render a similar, but correct, judgment on Windows 7, although I do think that the OS will be an improvement. What I do not understand is why this is not just rolled out as Service Pak 2 to Vista.
CNET has run a recent article displaying some of the changes to come. Booting and logging into the OS will be done via the Windows Live Messenger interface, which I am not pleased to hear. I use Messenger because I have to. Because some of my friends are on it, and I have been unsuccessful in getting all of my friends and family to use a common, preferably open source messaging agent. I have also not had a lot of success with messenger apps that supposedly integrate all of your IM accounts, particularly since I use these apps across multiple operating systems. In most cases, Windows Live Messenger is a nagging app that I routinely have to cull out of my auto-start applications, so having it brought more so to the fore is not something I am interested in.
The major issue this highlights is MS' strategic intention to move to more of a cloud computing model. There is so much emphasis in the market now on going to apps that reside off the PC and via web-based access. The problem I have is that I travel a lot. I am not always connected to the web. My apps need to reside on my PC, not on the web. Once I am logged onto my PC, I do not want to have to log on to another account, or several accounts, to access the apps I need at my fingertips.
One Windows 7 change that is welcome is that Gadgets will now be able to be placed anywhere on the desktop, representing similar functionality to OS X's Dashboard. I have had an inherent dislike of the Vista Sidebar. However, it definitely has some useful functionality. It is a good choice to use for increased situational awareness when you are on a display where you do not mind giving up an inch or two of real estate, but not so much in laptop environments, where I have spent all of my Vista time. Some increased configurability is not a bad idea, as long as MS continues to decrease its impact on performance, which was a primary Achilles Heel of using the Sidebar during Vista's initial roll-out.
Overall, Windows 7 is looking better. As long as this is a truly new OS, this could be a great move. But everything I hear is that it is just Vista with a slightly altered GUI, and improved drivers and driver compatibility. One of the biggest reasons XP was such a hit was the improved manner in which it handled drivers over Windows98. A big driver jump will always be welcome.
Of course, as a student of market forces in the technology industry, I have to admit to the necessity of adapting your products to meet consumer needs. But the software developer side of me gets very wary when I see us changing our products just because the customer refuses to understand how the software really works or because they develop a perception based on hearsay and refuse to alter their view when they are shown proof that everything is ok. If Microsoft is making a lot of cosmetic changes with no real meaty changes in the kernel, I will be disappointed. More importantly, I will again not be barreling headfirst down the early adopter pathway if I can not be shown a tangible reason as to why I should upgrade.
Even if I do upgrade, I will only do so begrudgingly. I waited almost a full year before I willingly invested in a Vista machine. I have now been operating within a Vista environment with some level of frequency for just over a year. Windows 7 is supposedly going to be out as early as the Holiday season this year. Wow. I will have gotten 2 whole years out of Vista before I am already being asked to upgrade, or being asked go to a new OS if I decide that is time for another PC.
What I am perhaps most interested to see is how Microsoft will handle product positioning of Vista once it is no longer their flagship OS. Abandon it completely? Will it still be sold? I assume that tech support of it will continue, but will new Service Packs become available? Will there be any flow-down of software improvements from Windows 7 into Vista? Or will MS pull the same thing it did with DirectX 10, and force you to upgrade to their new OS in order to gain certain features that they refuse to make backwards compatible?
For us consumers, who will continue to hold on to Vista? Many people continued to hold on to XP and still do. Some of us have researched and found every avenue available to back our Vista-pre-installed new PCs back down to run our already held copies of WindowsXP. I think that I will be one of the people who leads this charge when Windows 7 deploys. I will insist on continuing to run Vista and make it work until I am given some undeniable reason to upgrade. In fact, for everything that people claim that Windows 7 does better, I will seek to establish that Vista does it just as well, until I am repeatedly proven wrong.
There are two areas in which I might be forced to give up this Don Quixote crusade earlier than I would like. If Windows Mobile 7 launches shortly thereafter, and I buy a new smartphone that runs WinMo7, and there are inherently tethered areas of functionality between Win7 and WinMo7. If the two OS' significantly leverage off of each other and there is a vast improvement in smartphone usability, then I would jump ship. My mobile devices are so very near and dear to my heart that I would suffer the shame of being proven wrong about Windows7 to improve my smartphone experience.
And, of course, if Windows 7 does something that significantly alters my gaming experience, then I am cashing in all of my chips to make the jump.