Windows-7 is a big winner. Apple is in for a very rough ride

First of all, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Windows-7 is not really a new operating system. Windows-7 is a marketing gimmick contrived to ditch the massive negative press dogging Vista. Windows-7 is actually Windows Vista SP2. It is the second major service pack, or redux, of the Vista operating system. Re-branding it is a smart move. It makes stupid & ignorant people {who generally don’t keep track of current events} take a second look at the system.

With that said, let me make another thing perfectly clear: Windows-7 is a killer winner. It is the real deal, the legitimate, genuine article. It has all the fit and finish we would expect in an SP2 level operating system. It is mature, stable and fast. It installs like butter and runs smooth as silk. It is faster & more efficient than Vista on 64 bit systems. It is somewhat lighter on memory use. All of your software packages work just— as well or better—as they would under Vista.

UAC, at least in my beta copy, has been toned down. UAC is still a bad idea and still somewhat obnoxious, but it has been improved a little. Don’t cleave too tightly to that statement though. Rumor has it that Microsoft is going to dial UAC up a notch due to the protestations of the FUD-ruckers. More on this subject in a moment.

After this weekend I have now officially installed Windows-7 twice. The first was on my new and luxurious Core i7 system. The second time was on my brother's Sony Vaio laptop. These are two very different systems, but both were installed from the exact same DVD-R disk. The results were basically the same in both cases. Both systems finished the install flawlessly. Neither needed any drivers. Both brought down two patches from MS-Update. Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to. You don't even need to Install the .NET framework 3.51. It is in the distribution. The system is butter-smooth. No problems.

My Config looks like this

1. Core i7 920 processor
2. MSI X58 Platinum Eclipse motherboard
3. 6GB of G.Skill DDR3-1333
4. 3GB of disk storage
5. Asus Radeon HD4850 with an Arctic Cooling heatsink
6. An LG combo HD-DVD & Blu-Ray burner

The bottom line is that this is a pretty high end system right now. It contains all the new-fangled hardware Intel just pumped out a couple months ago. My brother's system config looks like this:

1. 1.86Ghz Core 2 Duo (Conroe)
2. 2GB of DDR2-4200
3. 200GB disk
4. Intel X3100 graphics
5. Standard DVD
6. 3rd Gen Centrino chipset

Bottom line is that this is now considered an older entry-level laptop. It originally shipped with a 32 bit OS. Windows 7 Ultimate X64 went on smooth as silk and actually improved the performance of Ben's laptop. He said he felt as if the machine has a whole new lease on life. This is what we would expect from an SP2 level operating system.

My considered opinion is that Windows-7 is vastly better prepared to ship now than the original Vista RTM was. This is the best punch Microsoft has delivered since Windows XP SP2. When it ships, it is going to sweep over the land like a tidal wave. There mere fact that all you old and new hardware is supported in a rock-solid OS will be sufficient to cause people to jump. Easy setup makes for light migration pain. Quick setup makes for short rebuild-times.

Apple has had some fun in the past two years, but now they are in for a very rough ride. They need to batten down the hatches and secure for battle stations.

The one place where Microsoft can fuck themselves silly at this point is to listen to security wieners, and ratchet up UAC again. UAC was and is a bad idea. That is all. Only this and nothing more. We have always had unmanaged code in the system. It too late to impose management on unmanaged code. Attempting to do so is stupid and counterproductive. UAC should be entirely removed from the system. Fuck the security fagots.

I want to make another thing perfectly clear: All this paternalistic hand-holding has got to go. I don’t want to click “Yes I want to Install” 6 times before getting Adobe Flash installed under my web-browser. I do not want that system to prompt me before I unzip something I just downloaded. I don’t want the system to prompt me before running a Setup file I just unzipped after I downloaded. I do not want UAC to prevent NetBeans from launching Glassfish. I really get pissed when Windows interrupts large copy operations 10 or 12 times to ask “Are you really sure you want to Copy/Move this system file?” Fuck yes! That is why I copied/moved it, asshole! I do not want to have to go to PowerShell to type:

Copy-Item “C:\Music” J:\Music -Recurs –Force

Just to avoid the multitude of prompts UAC will throw when backing up my Music collection.

Honestly, I do not know what goes on inside these line-managers’ heads sometimes. Interfering with a backup process? They must be on drugs. Microsoft must have about 10,000 pounds of collective brain damage due to narcotics use. It takes 10,000 pounds of brain damage to cook up something like UAC. Just about all Windows developers shut off UAC immediately because of its wretched interference with simple productivity.

At the very least, you have to give us UAC setting levels where we can control how much disruption & interruption is going to be imposed on us.