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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

The Windows 7 'give away'

25 comments

TAGS:desktop linux, Vista, Windows 7
IT TOPICS:Development, Linux, Operating Systems, Software, Windows & Microsoft

If Microsoft likes anything more than making money, it's completely dominating a market. After years of uncontested desktop operating system rule, the combination of the Vista flop, the growing maturity of the Linux desktop, and the Mac's growing popularity, Microsoft was losing its grip. So now, by giving away the Windows 7 RC (release candidate), which won't expire until June 1 2010, Microsoft is now in the free software business.

Mind you, Microsoft isn't making Windows 7 free in the sense of truly free software, where the real freedom is the freedom of thought and open-source code, but free as in 'free beer.' This actually goes further than my own suggestion that Microsoft owed its poor, benighted Vista customers a free upgrade to Windows 7.

It's a good deal for Vista users. I've been running Windows 7 both on PCs and netbooks. There's no question in my mind that Windows 7 RC is already better than Vista SP1.

So Vista users should go out of their way to thank Linux users for getting free, early access to Windows 7. Does anyone think for one moment that Microsoft would have ever made this offer if it hadn't for the community Linux desktop distributions? I can't imagine it.

Of course, there's nothing 'free' about Microsoft's Windows 7 RC offer. If you own a Vista PC, you already paid for the operating system once. If you're going to buy a new PC for Windows 7, chances are, again, you'll be paying Microsoft for Vista anyway. You may have hated Vista. You may never use Vista, but you almost always end up paying Microsoft $50 to $100 on any new PC. Linux users know all about this Microsoft tax.

At least Linux users, unless they go to the trouble of getting their Microsoft tax back from their PC's maker or buy a computer like the Dell Mini 9 or a System 76 computer that comes with Linux preinstalled, only have to pay off Microsoft once. If you end up using the 'free' Windows 7 RC, you'll get stuck with an upgrade fee on June 2, 2010. In other words, you'll end up paying twice for the privilege of running Windows.

Enjoy your 'free' operating system! Still, at least you won't be stuck with Vista and that is something to be thankful for.

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I can't imagine how anyone

Submitted by Anonymouse on May 2, 2009 - 11:45 P.M.

I can't imagine how anyone could call restrictive spyware "free". The "best" scenario I can think of is that after playing around for a few months the system throws up a gazillion nag screens "please register and pay to use your copy without seeing these nag screens".

I think it's really funny that MS fought the DoJ and bent over backwards to avoid the likely scenario that the DoJ orders MS split up (anyone remember US Bell?) In restrospect splitting MS would have forced the separate entities to focus on product quality and consumer demands rather than focusing on market tactics to ram the products down a helpless client base's throats.

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I think it is more like "try

Submitted by Anonymous on May 2, 2009 - 1:53 P.M.

I think it is more like "try before you buy". People are more likely to try Windows 7 that way, the RC will not generate any support requests (because it is not an official product) and the 13 month time span may get people hooked on Windows 7 so that they are more likely to cough up the insane license fee, especially when the RC comes as the full featured version.
Nice thing is that this will give hackers 13 months time to figure out a way to switch the expiration date off.

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"Free" Windows 7

Submitted by billfranke on May 2, 2009 - 5:15 A.M.

You may have a point here about healthy competition between MS and Linux forcing MS to change its market strategies. I'm all for that. I'm happy to see that Windows is getting better. That makes life easier for us Windows users.

But when you say stuff like this, "Mind you, Microsoft isn't making Windows 7 free in the sense of truly free software, where the real freedom is the freedom of thought and open-source code, but free as in 'free beer.'", I have to wonder where your head is and who you are talking to. I am a techie but not a programmer. I couldn't care less about open-source code in open-source apps or open-source OSes. All I care about is that I can use the apps and OS to get my work done.

Okay, this is a techie blog and most of the readers here are techies who belong to one OS cult or another --'Nixies, most of 'em -- so you must be talking to them. Nobody else cares about wallowing in source code to genetically modify a committee-programmed OS (all contemporary major OSes are committee-programmed, of course, because they're far too complex for a single mind to deal with in a reasonable amount of time).

You aren't just preaching to the choir, but you, like so many other IT bloggers, are practicing the special kind of demagoguery shared by all OS-partisan believers who blog. It's too bad that so many of the singers here (and in all other denominational blogs) who raise their hallelujahs in chorus find it necessary to ululate in the key of V-major ("V" for "vile", "violent", "vitriolic", "vicious", and "virulent"). [NB: I want to emphasize that I don't think that 'Nix cultists are any better or worse about this than Windows and Mac cultists. All fanatics are obnoxious.]

I suppose that you need to write IT demagoguery to maintain a loyal readership. If you wrote objective pieces about OSes, stuff that might be of interest to end users instead of fanatic cultists, you and most of your blogging-frères would have a much larger and more interested audience, but they would also be folks that you'd feel that you have to talk down to because they don't comprehend technical IT-speak.

Real freedom, it seems to me, is not having to wonder whether my OS will allow me to get all my work done without having to spend too much time and energy learning how to use it, and too much money upgrading, updating, and otherwise maintaining it. Real freedom is software that will recognize all my hardware; will allow me to play whatever games I want to play without having to buy a second system with a different OS; will not crash and burn for no apparent reason; will not require me to reprogram, repair, or reinstall it when it doesn't do what I want it to do; will not require me to compile or recompile source code when I want to add apps and functionality; will not force me to search the Web for non-commercial apps that may or may not allow me to do the kind of work that commercial apps already allow me and everyone else to do; and will not require me to use the command line to type arcane programmer-speak just to get a little something done.

Programmers and IT-cultists who have nothing better to do with their time can always freely choose to create their own OS and compatible apps and then set their better mousetraps to snap up the world. Those of us who have families who need to be attended to and need to be supported will always have to spend money for the hardware and software we need, or use what our employers provide us. We just can't afford to be OS groupies.

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Here's one reason whay it matters

Submitted by Ron on May 2, 2009 - 7:27 A.M.

I couldn't care less about open-source code in open-source apps or open-source OSes. All I care about is that I can use the apps and OS to get my work done.

The difference here is that security bugs get fixed within a snap of the fingers in the open-source world. Users of proprietary, closed-source code are at the mercy of a limited number of programmers who will fix the code as soon as they can, or as soon as their employer makes it their highest priority.

Even if MS gave away their operating systems for free (and I suspect that's where they are heading), that won't solve the problems associated with closed-source code that is illegal to even look at.

And yes, I am a firm believer in 'nix. I got there after working exclusively with Windows for fourteen years.

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Beating Windows dead

Submitted by Bobby on May 2, 2009 - 6:49 A.M.

if Stephen is beating Windows dead then I would like to know how I can help to dig it's grave. The fact is that Windows is already dead, what you all are seeing of Windows are simple Zombies.
I was forced to buy Vista (pre-installed) recently just because I couldn't get a 17" Notebook with Linux, however, openSuse is the OS that I use daily. Vista is there more like a souvenir for me.

The computer vendors haven't given Linux a fair chance to compete with Windows on the desktop because very few of them pre-install Linux and only on specific hardware versions. But do Linux users care? No, they know how to find and install the latest and greatest of the best OS around.
The fact is that Linux has already won the battle because it's everywhere.

Balmer once described Linux as a cancer, yes it's seems to be the incurable cancer that has affected Windows. As Linux grows from strength to strength M$ is struggling to put it's fallen Humpty Dumpty together again.
Windows 7, 8 or 9 can come (and i will test them too), that won't stop Linux. Instead it will only make it stronger, even on the Desktop.

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I have been using Windows

Submitted by RJ on May 1, 2009 - 9:25 P.M.

I have been using Windows Vista for more than 18 months now and just love it. Its rock solid stable, as an operating system ought to be. Even after 18 months, I still marvel at the ability to search for any information which ever crossed my laptop, as fast I can type the search term. The time saved right there would be the reason to recommend Vista.

And I love the aesthetics of its user interface. I run Office 2007, three different VPN clients, edit and burn video DVDs from my Sony camcorder - I am yet to get Flip guys, do video chats for hours at end on Sundays. And that my daughter can still run programs I wrote for my son 8 years ago (Win 98 then).

I am genuinely keen to know if their is in deed a dark side to Vista that I have not yet encountered. Or could people are just bad mouthing it like parrots?

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It's not really bad, it's

Submitted by Anonymous on May 2, 2009 - 9:46 A.M.

It's not really bad, it's just that the UAC is annoying as hell, and that it is awfully slow. I get the time to get annoyed for something as trivial as file browsing >.<
Seriously, it takes forever to do anything, even updating took a long time, it was suppose to update 2 things and it used 20 minutes to install it, and that was after the updates was downloaded.
On school I also have experienced that Vista even struggled to change background image and a long time to get to get to the image.

Some people seem to be lucky and not experience it, or maybe they have gotten used to the sluggishness I don't know. Only thing I know is that I rather use Windows XP or Win7 than Vista, since I prefer it to be fast rather than slow, and somewhat bloated.

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Congratulations on your success

Submitted by Ron on May 2, 2009 - 7:39 A.M.

Obviously, since you have written programs, you are an educated geek. Perhaps that's why you have flown through issues that would perplex other less geeky users. And perhaps you have shared your knowledge with others less knowledgeable than yourself to make their own Vista systems rock solid.

I have done the same, only with Linux.

However, with all due respect, you can't deny the outcry that has caused MS to basically give Vista the ME treatment in whipping out a replacement OS in record time.

What makes Vista successful, when it is successful, is the NT kernel. The biggest leap in reliability that MS ever took was going from giving the general public the 95/98/ME kernel to Windows 2000's, and later XP's, NT kernel.

Vista's dark side is in MS's managing to crap it up by loading it with extra garbage (the DRM, for example) that turned it into a resource HOG (shouted for emphasis). Plus, while you may love its interface, the general public is apparently not fond of having to relearn their desktops every few years.

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