I saw some blog posts on the ZDNet site a few days back and thought a couple of them were interesting enough to comment on. (For the remainder of this article I’ll abbreviate Windows 7 as Win7)
The first one, by Ed Bott, Five things Steve Ballmer won't tell you about Windows 7, has a somewhat provocative title but makes some interesting points. His first point “some of you are going to hate our new OS, no matter what we do” is not uniquely insightful, but I do think his comments are worthy. His reference to “Microsoft sucks” commentary from InfoWorld and his own colleague, Jason Perlow, pretty much reflects my experience with their stuff as well. In fact, Jason’s blog post “Windows 7: Mojave, my ass” is primarily a diatribe against the Vista/Win7 UI from his jaded and parochial point of view, I think Ed’s subsequent second paragraph commentary on Jason’s “back-ward looking strategy” is insightful. In fact, I’ll do my own YMTC commentary on Jason’s blog in my next post, so stay tuned for that. Ed’s second point, about finding XP drivers, is something all of you should know by now, that Win7 is built on the Vista kernel so the driver model and other plumbing stays the same, which is actually good news from a compatibility standpoint – everything you currently have that works with Vista should “just work” with Win7. Ed’s third point, about the impact of OEM vendor installations on Vista performance, is a must read IMHO. His point about poor implementation of drivers, hardware, and added 3rd-party software is most likely a real factor in the negative perception of Vista, and his own “true story” about his experience with a Sony laptop, although anecdotal to be sure, is nonetheless fairly compelling. And his point that the OS is dependent on so many other factors around drivers, hardware, and software is spot on. And that’s part of what we’ve been trying to remind everyone in the SB2 event series Vista section. His 4th point about no “killer app” for the OS has mostly to do with the need to maintain backward compatibility for the customers’ sake, but I’d offer that if any of you have learned to use the search functionality of Vista to any great extent, like me, I’ll bet that you consider it somewhat of a killer app (something you don’t want to live without). And his final point about licensing, well, what can I say, even as a Microsoft employee, I have to agree that we could potentially do better here. Although I would remind you that licensing, though you (and I) may not understand it from our “micro” perspective, is not some arbitrary thing, but rather the result of market research and a whole lot of smart folks making many decisions with a “macro” view of things. It’s so easy for us sometimes to take the Jason Perlow approach and announce that anything that we don’t understand or agree with is a mistake on someone else’s part, but I submit that if we had to make the same decision from an informed and macro perspective (that is, with the same information and objective) it would very likely be the same one, so a little understanding is useful here, but hopefully, we can find ways to make it simpler.
I was originally going to comment on the Perlow post here, but I’ve decided to take those comments to a new post. But I would point out that Ed did another provocatively titled, but nonetheless interesting and informative post called If you love Windows XP, you’ll hate Windows 7 which I would recommend. The primary thrust of this post is to counter the same Perlow comments as I discuss in my next post, but as you should see, Ed comes up with some more specific and detailed rebuttals. In fact, here’s an excerpt that will hopefully whet your appetite…
Ed writes: “Jason thinks this [the Win7 UI] is “change for the sake of change.” I disagree. I’ve been talking to Windows UI designers and usability testers for years, and I can tell you that moving this stuff off the desktop is a huge usability win for novices and experts alike. If you rely on desktop icons, you have to minimize all open windows first before you can even see the icons on the desktop, then you have to click them. That adds unnecessary steps to every navigation option, and adds still more steps to get back to the windows you were working with previously. Once you wean yourself from desktop icons, all you have to do is tap the Windows key or click the Start button and you are one click away from any common file storage location. You can also press Windows key+E to open Explorer, where common locations are neatly arranged in the navigation pane.
Jason thinks the option to restore those desktop icons is “not intuitive.” Well, if you open the Start menu and type “desktop icons” in the Search box, the very first result is “Show or hide common icons on the desktop.” There’s another shortcut that’s even easier to discover. Every Windows user quickly learns how to right-click the desktop and choose Personalize, so they can adjust the desktop background (you old-timers remember it as wallpaper). When you do, you’ll see a very prominent “Change desktop icons” option at the top left.”
And, as my parting shot, I’ll do another quote from the start of Ed’s article: “The sad thing is, all the things he hates are improvements, in my opinion, which just goes to show that you really can’t please everyone. But what’s sad to see is that every setting Jason describes as broken is in fact easily customizable so it works the way he wants it.” That’s the whole point of my YMTC (you make the call) series, where I highlight examples of industry writers who characterize things as “broken” or “mistakes” and where they apparently haven’t even done enough research or due diligence into Vista to give it anything approaching an objective treatment, but I give you my counterpoint and then encourage you to “make the call”. Hopefully, you’ll want to read Ed Bott’s article and my next post as well.
BTW, I’m getting to be a fan of Ed Bott, if you haven’t read any of his articles or blogs, I’d recommend a look, he puts out some good stuff IMHO.
Which also reminds me, that I should remind everyone of the standard disclaimer. These posts are “as is” and represent nothing more than my opinions and come with no rights or guarantees of any kind.