Silverlight has 'close competition' from Flash? I think a better description would be "Silverlight is trying very hard to be taken seriously as a credible competitor to Flash, without a great deal of success"

Yeah, the one with the massive installed user base in the pocket, thanks.

"The more interesting aspects of Windows 7, things like ..... the sensor and location API, are near-invisible for most users, awaiting the moment when more hardware and applications support them."

Windows 7 ..... for a Clearer View of your Competitive Computer and Virtual Machinery Needs with Total Information Awareness Drip Feeds/Life Support.

It is, however, always going to play Second Fiddle and Third Party Support to Virtuouso Operations in Cloud Configured Control of Intellectual Property Power Systems ....... which, they [Microsoft] might be able to Lead with HyperRadioProActive IT Assured Azure Developments .... with CyberIntelAIgent Research ProgramMING.

I don´t think that MS did get long filenames right. They allow the use of a normal whitespace, and underneath Windows still uses that as a delimiter.

I´ve come across several PCs that throw up errors such as "Cannot find C:\Program" because the name of a program contained the space in "Program Files" and windows gave up looking as soon as it saw the space, or links to files only containing the first part upto a space.

Yes, I know about all the bad things you can put in filenames in Unix, but MS had the opportunity to do this right from the outset.

You took two pages to say Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was a big jump but Windows 95 to Windows 7, even though it is a lot more stable, a lot more secure and runs things 3.1/95 could never dream of running, isn't anything that special? oooook then......

If it delivers 'faster hardware' !

Is a motherboard included in the shrink-wrap then?

I assume that if UAC is no longer there then Microschrott have give up completely on any idea of security.

Well that's another reason not to go there.

Don't forget NT came out in the same period (3.1, 3.51 and then 4.0). This provides the evolutionary basis for Win7 technology. Under the hood this was a big improvement over the Windows Elastoplast stuck on top of DOS provided by Windows up to the pain of Millenium Edition.

Regardless of opinions, NTFS, the bootloader and the driver/services model spring from the NT side. Only the gloss comes from the not-so-bright siblings (such as DirectX).

A nice snapshot about how we got from there to here with Windows. I particularly liked the phrase "sensible utility" to describe Windows 7. I think that's what most of us want from an OS, something that just works, with a tiny touch of pixie dust to make using it, if not a pleasure, then at least not too painful.

"the world is moving on, to mobile in one direction, and to the cloud in the other"

You forgot about the third new front, which is living room computing - and Microsoft is doing really quite well there, certainly much better than Sony/Apple, with 15.7m Xboxes installed in the US...

I agree that windows hasn't done anything really world-shaking since W95. That brought a whole new way of computing, with so much you could do even in its comparatively primitive environment. Since then though we've had only minor increments. XP can really be seen as 95 with support for modern hardware.

I personally won't be buying Windows 7 though. At least not yet. I just don't see the need. I use linux for general internet/document/photo/file work because I like the interface available through gnome and the speed and stability. I use Windows XP to play games, and while it doesn't see all of my RAM nor support DirectX10, I still find it quicker and more reliable than Vista. W7 may improve on both of those counts, but I'd lose the wider compatibility. Maybe when a game comes out that I want to play that needs W7 I'll upgrade.

In response to one of the comments of the article: I like UAC in Vista. We use Vista at work (yikes) and UAC is a very good business tool. It allows us to lock down user rights much better than XP does. My own work PC has UAC turned on, and I am not a local admin. For everyday use it never bothers me. Apart from the initial setup period, how often do even administrators perform privileged tasks on their own PC? I guess it can be pretty annoying for a home user though, when you own the PC and it's an affront to that ownership to be pestered for authorisation so much. I think a better bet for Windows 7 would've been to retain UAC for a domain environment, but switch it off for workgroups.

I only made the switch to XP because 2000 ended up unsupported, and there were a few very nasty viruses out there that could really ruin your day if you were running a Win2K box. Since it was, at that point, Microsoft's decision to put Win2K out to pasture - and given the virus landscape at the time, I felt I had to switch in order to stay protected. I didn't like it - especially because Win2K came without any kind of intrusive product activation, which has become the norm ever since. But my work required a machine that had a passable level of security - not to mention the ability to run industry standard apps (which immediately ruled out Linux, and has continued to do so ever since.) So, WinXP it was.

Win2K contained most of the advantages of XP, shared the same driver model and had stability in spades. I bought my copy on the day it launched, and I immediately scrubbed the Win98 and WinNT4.0 dual-boot config I had, and replaced it with Win2K for my games and apps. Several of my games (which had been written for Win98 and were not supported on Win2K) actually ran even faster than they had under Win98. As far as the user interface was concerned, I couldn't fault Win2K - everything was where I expected it to be. It was, being really honest, the very best operating system I had ever seen come out of Microsoft, for the time. Having used a 32-bit OS for yonks on Amiga and Acorn platforms, I was thrilled that the PC had finally, finally caught up with a consumer-friendly OS that was also fully 32-bit. Even it it WAS from Microsoft. :)

WinXP added a bit more cruft and a few annonying themes (like the infamous Teletubbies one), but nothing that couldn't be turned off fairly easily - and with judicious disabling of certain services (especially Themes), its memory usage was pretty close to Win2K's. One of the first things I usually do with XP when I set it up is immediately switch to "Windows Classic" and disable all the cruft - and only when it looks almost exactly like Win2K, will I stop. At this point, it also only consumes about 100MB of memory when idle, so it's a worthwhile exercise in tuning. Pretty much the only feature I missed in Win2K that was present in XP was ... get this: Folder thumbnails. Yes, that's it. (I kept my music collection organised in albums, and I had a scan of the cover art for each album. It's quite nice to have a visual cue when selecting an album to play.) Other than this, there wasn't much of a compelling reason for me to go to XP - and I was a latecomer anyway - only switching from Win2K in 2003.

For me, Windows 7 isn't that attractive - as my father would put it, it's like having to learn a new fighter jet. (He would know: He flew enough Vampires, Hawks, Hunters, S-211s and various other aircraft in Africa, until the early to mid 80s.) As far as I'm concerned, I'm not interested in buying a hammer that requires retraining in order to use it effectively. My work involves far more skill than that required to navigate the Windows user interface, and I prefer a minimum amount of distraction. With my config of WinXP, I know where everything is, I know how to find what I need at a moment's notice (and in any language machine I have to support, BTW - my current employer has me supporting a variety of machines - and none of them speak English.) A Windows Vista / Windows 7 is actually far more expensive in terms of time for me to support, even if it was in English, than a German, French, Spanish, Portugese, Polish, Japanese, etc. version of WinXP. With WinXP, I *know* where everything is, so the end language does not matter - but with Vista / Windows 7, you can get yourself into a deep hole very quickly. It's the same for Office 2007 vs. 2003 - and the sole reason why, with the exception of very few people who really need 2007, everyone else uses OpenOffice. It's crap, but at least it's available - and the staff know where everything is. The business owner isn't too keen on retraining everyone, either - he knows what it will cost, and he also knows it will deliver nil value for his business.

Yes in business - In peoples homes where games are being played "Cloud" is not going to happen no matter what the companies want.

I installed the RC a few months back and my overwhelming feeling is that Windows 7 is Vista with a new Start bar. I think the author of the article should listen to that nagging voice in his head that says the OS is barely different from Vista.

Win 7 is just a name change to get Windows away from the tarnished reputation of Vista. The reason Win 7 seems faster to everyone is because most people now have dual or quad core CPUs and 2GB+ of RAM. Back when Vista came out those were very high end specs, now they're the sort of thing you'd buy cheap in PC World. So Win7 isn't blazingly fast, it's just hardware has caught up to the bloat of it and Vista.

The reason why so much hardware works on Windows 7 is because it uses drivers that already work on Vista, and 2 years on most hardware now has Vista drivers. Win7 can't be too different internally if Vista drivers work on it.

I've no problem with people saying they like the OS, but back to reality it's just a repackaged Vista that seems so much better this time around because the hardware and software are ready and compatible.

I think it's quite a clever marketing move by Microsoft to rescue the Windows brand in this way.

If you like Win7 ... Great!

If you dislike Win7 ... Great!

If you feel the need to upgrade ... Great!

If you don't feel the need to upgrade ... Great!

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his Heaven -

All's right with the world!

Now don't we all feel better???

Hope you explained to your Father that he can only drive his shiney new mac mobile on 5% of the roads!

On the outside it just looks like a repackaged Vista with a few cosmetic changes and some "new way to view photos," or whatever it was they said. Aero is still the ugliest thing ever to appear on a computer screen, Linus desktops included.

Microsoft are just selling new layers of glitz on the same tired OS, using smoke and mirrors to disguise it as a new product. Nothing revolutionary since Win2000, IMO - and Win2000 remains their best OS.

Such as Notepad still flickering wildly on resize in Windows 7.

Si: "The reason Win 7 seems faster to everyone is because most people now have dual or quad core CPUs and 2GB+ of RAM. "

Bollocks.

In my case I've moved from Vista on a quad core pc to.....Windows 7 on a quad core pc. No change of hardware whatsoever...and it definitely is faster.

The only reason to use M$ products was because they were free to copy and would run on a generic cheap to assemble box. I have been using them since Dos 2 and only this year actually bought a licensed copy of XP, it came with a laptop downgraded from Vista.

Now I don't care how shiny Win 7 is, if it has DRM embeded in it I will not use it.

I would not buy a car that refused to break the speed limit, occasionally it might be necessary to save my life when pursued by jealous husbands , bailiffs etc.

Anyway here is my pennys worth:

Dos - usable but have you ever tried setting up multi language display/printing support?

Win 3.1 - Ooh look, an analogue clock! - crap

Win 95 - just crap

Win 98 - unusable

Win 98 SE - at last! Works fine if you give it 500MB of memory

Win XP - very good after SP2 but prone to break when the registry gets cluttered

Vista - just don't go there!

Win 7 - goodbye M$, hello Mr. Penguin!

It's now time for my medication, left hand pocket I think.....

It's available for Windows and Macs. I don't have it installed on either platform locally, but it's available. Every time I go near a Microsoft website using a Windows or a Mac browser the site pops up a window begging me to please install Silverlight.

The current Mac version of Silverlight, 3.04something, can be obtained here, if you don't want to go to Mickeysoft directly: <http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26623/silverlight>. You'll notice that it is not highly thought of. Gee. A Mickeysoft imitation Flash bloated plug-in thingie that's disliked by Mac users. Who'd have thought that such a thing was possible?

So .NET isn't used much inside the OS. Well knock me down with a blue screen. And there was me thinking .NET was a serious framework for serious coders , not a bloated laggy me-too marketing exercise aimed at Java and developers who couldn't handle C/C++.

"I agree that windows hasn't done anything really world-shaking since W95. That brought a whole new way of computing, with so much you could do even in its comparatively primitive environment."

That might have been work-shaking for sheltered and deprived Microsoft users, but there was no GUI concepts in Win95 that weren't in RISC OS (A British Operating system by Acorn) 6 years before, and done a lot better too.

I'm sorry but Windows 95 was terrorable in so many ways - I came from the Amiga scene and I cringed at Windows '95. The Amiga did pre-emptive multitasking properly but Windows didn't, it has improved but Windows 95 was generally terrorable at it and what's more the Amiga did this on a 7MHz 68000 with only 256MB RAM (Amiga 1000) and was usable - I can remember Windows 95 on Pentium 166 with 16MB RAM which couldn't.

Windows '95 generally was terrorable but alot better than Windows 3.11 but that's not saying alot. I know alot of computers which have been crushed by Microsoft and none of their software is anything to write home about - I don't understand why people even use it out of choice!

Mike

The number of XBoxes is greatly outnumbered by the number of TVs and Satellite/Cable/Freeview boxes. Most of the latter and an increasing number of new TVs generally run Linux without the end user ever becoming aware of it until they want to start hacking their own property.

"Good enough" constantly strangles "Great" at birth."

Good. That's as it should be. "Great" is usually crap. I've yet to see any technology being touted as Great not suck in a major way because some idiot, be it a marketdroid or head-in-ass coder, has shown a blatant disregard for the real world and what the users out here need. I usually bypass anyting blessed as Great - iPhone etc. "It has probably won a design prize" is not praise. And that's exactly how I like my OS too. Because I don't make money or have fun working with the OS, it should be just barely good enough. Which is why I still long for the days of Win2K - it just worked, didn't get in my way, didn't try to be Great. Win7 can be Great all it wants to, I'm not going there unless at gunpoint.

Nice article

In answer to the question of 'should I get windows 7?' my thoughts are this

I bought this PC 4 weeks before vista came out.. mainly because I'd already heard how crap it was, and installed WinXp Sp2 which has served me faithfully with only the occasional bsod (about 1 every 6 months)

Also I run Fedora 6 Linux for the main OS while Xp is reduced to being for games mostly and the occasional compatability test

Can anyone give me a rational justification for spending lots of money on buying a new OS ?

Because if they cant, then that money stays firmly in my wallet until I buy a new PC in about 2-3 yrs time

"and what's more the Amiga did this on a 7MHz 68000 with only 256MB RAM (Amiga 1000) and was usable - I can remember Windows 95 on Pentium 166 with 16MB RAM which couldn't."

256KB, not 256MB. :-)