Vista to Get Ribbonized

Not content to have the ribbon interface throughout Windows 7, it appears that Microsoft is doing a ‘favor’ for some of its Vista users and will backport the ribbon changes to Vista, through a download, in October.

Some will like it, some will hate it - but it will be an option, so it is not getting forced on those who like the stock Vista look. What is interesting is this is the first time I can recall Microsoft doing anything to change the interface of an older operating system. By the way, XP will not get the ribbon treatment, though I’m sure that there will be a band-aid solution, for those that must have it, while staying with XP.

from ComputerWorld

Microsoft will offer Windows 7’s ribbon-style application interface to Windows Vista users in an update this October, according to the company.

As first reported by Long Zheng, the blogger who writes the popular istartedsomething.com, Microsoft will provide Vista users an optional update that installs the code necessary to display Windows 7’s Ribbon framework on its predecessor.

The framework, called “Scenic Ribbon,” is a derivation of the ribbon-esque “Fluent” user interface that debuted in Office 2007 two years ago. Both feature a wide ribbon-like display at the top of a window that replaces the traditional drop-down menus, small icons and toolbars that have standardized Windows applications’ look-and-feel for decades. Office 2007 faced serious resistance from some users over the ribbon when it launched, although that has subsided over time.

More recently, complaints mounted over plans by OpenOffice.org to overhaul the interface of that open-source productivity suite. Some have blasted the organization for parroting Office 2007’s ribbon.

“The Office ribbon sucks. Please don’t copy it,” wrote one user in a comment to a Sun Microsystems blog. Sun contributes engineering and developer time to OpenOffice.org.

Earlier this year, Microsoft said the ribbon interface would be used by both Microsoft and third-party developers to distinguish new applications for Windows 7 from older versions that ran, say, on Windows XP or Windows Vista.

That won’t work anymore, because the only thing being differentiated is the look, not the OS the program can be used on. It would be like cutting off a huge supply of upgrades to do this, so someone at Microsoft finally saw the upcoming bad judgement and stopped the madness. With 60% of the market on XP, it would be totally insane to design something that only ran on Windows 7. In two or three years, maybe…

but also in the article -

A Windows 7 interoperability pack, known as the Windows 7 Client Platform Update, is to be released alongside Windows 7 in October of this year,” said Karl Bridge, a Microsoft programming writer, in a message posted last week to a forum on the MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) site. “This update provides down-level support for the Windows Ribbon framework and will be made available from the Microsoft Download Center and as a ‘Recommended update’ on Windows Update.”

Bridge added that the update will support all versions of Vista, including the entry-level Home Basic and Starter, which for Vista has been sold only in a limited number of markets overseas.

Application developers who build software with Windows 7’s ribbon interface will have to point users to Windows Update or Microsoft’s download site to grab the Client Platform Update, or silently call Windows Update as part of setup, Bridge said.

With no word on the size of the update, it will be either a long install (with a download during the install), or a large additional piece for the packages designed to use it. Pointing the system to Microsoft, and letting them do the hosting makes the most sense; hopefully they’ll go that way.

Call me a muckraker if you will, but I see this as a way to ‘shame’ many into upgrades, at least to move many away from the XP downgrades done, and back to the original Vista installs. It makes everyone get used to seeing the newer interface, and then wanting it all the time, forcing a move away from Vista. It’s the velvet glove instead of the lead hammer (Steve Ballmer spouting off about forcing things) treatment.

Not subtle, but getting there.

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If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.Margaret Thatcher

apparently a parallel allegory to “You’d complain if they hung you with a new rope!