Windows 7 Gets A Lukewarm Reception Across the Pond

It looks as though the English are among those who aren’t yet convinced that Windows 7 should be sold with a red ‘S’ emblazoned on a yellow shield on the front of each box just yet.

After looking at some of the English websites, and the English magazine PC Advisor, it is easy to come across stories with title like “5 Ways Windows 7 Could Be Another Vista“; these are stories that have been published post introduction.

The Brits seem to be much less receptive to the overt courting of Microsoft than those in the United States, as the above story fleshes out the –possible problems – after the long beta and Release Candidate cycles.

1. UAC: still there

UAC – the bane of Windows Vista – hasn’t gone away. Microsoft just altered its behaviour and added a configuration slider than enables the user to select what level of protection UAC will provide, thus controlling the volume of pop-up alerts generated by UAC.

However, after much debate with the security community during beta testing, the default setting is still set to what users experienced with Windows Vista. Frankly, UAC serves a purpose and it is better to leave it alone. But, those who dislike UAC are going to have to go into the control panel and modify the configuration to their liking or be faced with the same pop-ups that annoyed the world with Vista.

The thing about UAC is that it is easily turned off, as it becomes Pavlovian for most; they see the pop-up, take no real notice, and let it pass. It takes a person who really cares (having cleaned up a mess or two) to force the actual attention to details, and whether the process should be allowed or stopped. This is one thing I truly wonder why Microsoft never clued in on.

2. Hardware and drivers

Windows Vista stumbled and fell right out of the blocks as a result of lagging hardware and device driver support. The vendors just weren’t ready when Vista was launched and Vista never really recovered from the damaged reputation even after most of those issues were resolved. The legal issues Microsoft faced with the ‘Windows Vista Compatible’ logo debacle didn’t help either.

Users get upset when they get a new operating system and find out that their existing printer, wireless router, webcam or other peripheral hardware doesn’t work with it. They are left with the choice of not having the hardware or coughing up for new hardware that’s compatible, which doesn’t make them happy campers.

Putting hardware driver selection upon Windows Update means that Windows Update gets much more a work-out than ever before, and I believe that time will show this to be a bad idea (I believe it is a small nod to Microsoft’s continuing anti-piracy measures, nothing more. As much as they are charging for each version of Windows, a second DVD, with nothing but drivers and things like the Windows Live Essentials should have been included. After all, they have now managed to wriggle out of putting any paper manual, or even small guide, into the releases of each operating system. If your memory goes back far enough, you remember that Windows 3.1 came with 3 manuals, one larger and two smaller, which weren’t complete by any means, but it did show some effort!)

3. Performance improvement: minor

A lot of fuss has been made about performance tweaks that ostensibly make Windows 7 faster than Windows Vista or Windows XP. In my opinion, vendors in general and Microsoft specifically should make these improvements, but not market them.

The problem is that ‘performance’ is so subjective to the exact hardware the operating system is running on, or the types of applications being run, or the number of applications being run simultaneously. Citing performance as a selling point almost always backfires because A) the performance improvement is generally not enough to make a difference to normal users, and B) there are almost always just as many studies and reviews showing equal or even slower performance which turns into a sort of he-said/she-said marketing nightmare.

Actually, I think this is the part that can be most effectively argued. If you never waited around (or should I say waded through) the time when Vista was becoming Vista SP1 and then Vista SP2, you might not really know that Vista actually did become somewhat faster – the comparison to bare Vista is a fairly astonishing one – I have a system that was a test system for Vista, then had it taken off, and now has Windows 7 Enterprise on it. The (perceived – remember, perception becomes reality) difference is amazing.

4. Expensive

Face it. Windows 7 is not cheap. For those who are purchasing a new computer system with Windows 7 pre-installed, Windows 7 is great. For those running Windows XP or Windows Vista and just wanting to upgrade the OS on their existing hardware, spending hundreds depending on the flavour of Windows 7 can be a tough pill to swallow.

Not much to say here. Unless you got in on a deal, you will be paying much too much for this, no matter the version. The traditional thought of the average Brit being a bit tight certainly figures highly in this, too.

5. No direct upgrade from XP

To me, this is the most obvious mis-step by Microsoft in developing Windows 7. Maybe it just couldn’t be done, but I would have had all of my best developers working night and day to figure out how to make it happen. After the issues with Windows Vista, and knowing that the vast majority of users – both consumer and enterprise – are still relying on Windows XP, it seems like a direct upgrade path is a necessity.

Many users may be frustrated by the lack of upgrade path and having to do a fresh install, reinstall all of the other software and migrate user settings. Microsoft has provided tools to ease the pain, but this is still the biggest opportunity for negative PR or backlash related to Windows 7.

My take: Windows 7 will be a success and restore some lost faith in Microsoft. I also think that Windows XP users should upgrade to something… anything. The Windows XP operating system is a decade old. If you don’t like Windows 7, by all means switch to Mac OS X or load Ubuntu Linux or something, but enough already with the Windows XP.

This will come back to haunt them. There truly is no excuse, because many will not want to pay someone else to do the upgrade, and will fear the results of a self-directed one.

Again, for the money that Microsoft charges per copy, adding in the lack of a paper manual, the forced search for drivers, and the only recently added ‘upgrade advisor’, makes it seem very cheesy of Microsoft to not have had an automated method of upgrade for the overwhelming number of people who might want to switch. They are leaving many behind – this leaves dollars on their table, and also shows a disdain for the customer.

I completely disagree with the assessment that it is time to dump Windows XP for something else. More than 8 years of updates have made Windows XP the most widely used operating system on the planet. It also makes it one of the most bug-free. Anyone who states the contrary is delusional (or works for someone that has a monetary gain in your switching, or both.)

Much as Microsoft would like to dismiss it, it is true, and because of the lack of a swift and certain upgrade to Windows 7, might continue to be, for much longer than they wish.

I fail to see why people are so in need of something new. If something works, and works well, you don’t dump it for something unknown – and any flavor of Linux, Mac OSx, or Vista and Windows 7, are largely, if not completely unknown.

Only an idiot would switch without a good reason.

My own experience with Windows 7, from public beta (I didn’t get in on the non-public ones, at first I was not interested, then it became too late) to release candidate was very disappointing. Then, after deciding to try the released version, my experience was certainly more than tolerable, and other than the menu problem I already knew about, was almost jubilant.

Unfortunately, some things are coming up, and I am finding small problems that were not there upon first look, such as the inability of a help file viewer that is listed on the Microsoft website as for Windows 7, to install. (KB917607)

With the foul ups for many with the transition to a current mail program, one could simply dismiss it as poor performance on the part of the customer, but since the customer is ‘always right’, it would have been so simple to have put a pop-up in the upgrade, advising what to do before it became problematic.

Add in the problems with the Digital River purchases, and the slow response of Microsoft (apparently too busy partying to respond quickly to customer needs), and you start to see a repeating pattern.

No wonder the Brits are less than overwhelmed.

In effect, it comes back to something I have said many times before, Microsoft does not seem to learn from history, and tends to repeat its own mistakes … frequently.

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Quote of the day:

The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.

- John Blake

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