I ran the DVD inside Windows, then I chose to archive the old installation and install the new version from scratch.

Here is a screenshot of the archived Windows folder, apparently Microsoft has implemented some alien technologies we are not aware of that magically bend time!

Click on the thumbnail for the full size image.

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Let’s start by taking Jack’s points one by one.

1: Inconsistent Windows releases

So, according to Jack, “One of the things you can always count on from Microsoft is that you can’t count on its new operating systems to be reliable“.

Seems fair enough?

Until you see his take on Windows NT as “Attempted to bring enterprise-level seriousness to the operating system; would have succeeded had it not taken Steven Hawking-like intelligence to get it working“.

Let’s see, when was Windows NT released? 3.1 in 1993, 3.5 in 1994 and 4.0 in 1996. Obviously Jack is a Linux guru, so he was already very familiar with the ins and outs of Linux, but what about us general consumers? I know when I used Red Hat 6.0 around the Windows 98 days, I hated it. Back then Linux’s GUI was nowhere near as glamorous as Ubuntu’s or <insert the name of your favorite Linux distro>’s is today.

I know I’m looking forward to the Windows 7 release. The early (leaked) betas and the public beta have impressed me.

2: Consistent Linux releases

I’m not exactly sure what Jack is comparing Windows to, Linux or Red Hat? Surely I wouldn’t call this consistent. Please, Linux has its fair share of inconsistencies due to the number of distributions available (or no longer available for that matter).

3. Continuing Windows price hikes

Let’s be honest, no one likes to pay for things that are also available for free. But ask these guys why they use RHEL when there is CentOS.

Apple has ‘Apple tax’ on its hardware, why shouldn’t Microsoft apply ‘Microsoft tax’ on its software?

4. Stable Linux “prices”

To simply put, the society wouldn’t work without economy. No reputable Linux distributions can survive without a strong financial backup. The money has to come from somewhere. Instead of arguing Linux being free, I would have thought that arguing about Linux’s open standards would be more effective.

5: Windows hardware incompatibility

Oh dear! You are not serious, are you? Last time I checked, installing my digital TV tuner on Windows XP/Vista was just a matter of installing the driver came with it. On Linux? Nope, not a chance even with hacking.

Don’t get me wrong, Linux’s hardware compatibility has been improved drastically, but there is still a long way to go until most of the major hardware vendors start releasing Linux drivers.

6: Linux hardware compatibility

“With new distributions (such as Fedora 10), X configuration is becoming a thing of the past“. Well, I beg to differ. Unless messing around with x.conf isn’t considered part of configuration.

7: Windows promises

Apparently Jack takes marketing gimmicks too seriously. I don’t even want to argue this point…

8: Linux transparency

Seriously, the majority of consumer users couldn’t care less. Don’t believe me? Talk to anyone who is not an enthusiast (which happen to be most of the users).

9: Feature comparison

Among the 10 points Jack listed, this has to be the most pointless one. Since when could any individual know what others need/want?

10: Hardware requirements

Yes I am very impressed with Linux being able to run on mid 90′s hardware, so what? It doesn’t concern most of us. It’s not like I will be using Windows 7 for my server needs or anything. Another pointless point.

Am I biased? I don’t know. I love Linux, all my websites have been / are hosted by either a Linux distro (mostly Debian and CentOS) or FreeBSD. I have been a long time Windows user (from Windows 3.1 to 7 beta). I am now a full time Mac OS X user.

My question still remains, why should Linux triumph Windows? I am happy to have choices.

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Things have been improved since then. I know quite a few people who are happily using Vista without any glitches. For the others including myself, it was too little too late. Some people chose to downgrade to XP, and I chose to fully migrate to OS X.

This is not a post about OS X vs Windows though.

It’s all about Windows.

Microsoft did not stop advertising Windows Vista or start pushing the development of Windows 7 without good reasons. And I can see why.

People say Windows 7 should really be called Windows Vista SP2/SP3, well, I agree to some extent. However, Microsoft is known to be aggressive in marketing, and there is no way they’ll stick to the already damaged product name. Windows 7, a very uninspiring name, but at the end of the day, it’s not the name that matters, it’s the image that drives, shines and glows the name.

My Windows days are pretty much long gone. I do sometimes fire up my quad core, 4GB RAM desktop computer to do some trivia things (like watch digital TV on the TV tuner, etc), but I can live without them. The desktop computer has Windows XP SP2 on it, and in general I am happy with it.

As a web developer who uses OS X as the main system, I obviously need a Windows system somewhere for testing web pages in the good ‘ol IE6 and IE7 (and soon IE8). At work I use Parallels, and at home I use VMWare Fusion, they are both great products.

A couple of days ago I installed the latest version of Windows Vista (SP1 with streamlined updates) in VMWare Fusion. I installed it on my main computer, which is a 2.4Ghz, 4GB RAM Macbook Pro, hooked up with a 20″ LCD monitor. I gave the guest system 2 cores and 2GB RAM, it ran okay, sluggish at times but it was definitely better than when Vista was first released.

Today, out of curiosity, I installed Windows 7 Build 6801. My first impression is: it’s fast! Obviously with a fancier GUI it won’t be faster than Windows XP, but it surely kicked Vista left to right! Kudos to the Microsoft engineers who worked hard to fix, tweak and improve the underlying architecture that powers Windows Vista/7.

I’m not sure if it’s a pre-beta thing, but by default there are no gadgets on the desktop, hooray! Back then the first thing I do when I installed Vista, was to turn the damn sidebar off!

Another welcoming change is the UAC (User Access Control). I know Windows engineers are trying to improve their system’s security, but in my humble opinion, UAC is a complete failure – it annoys users more often than it helps them. Now, in Windows 7, we can finally turn if off easily, without a reboot in order to take the effect of changes. :) (update: I was wrong, it still needs a reboot to take the effect of changes.) But even so, I still prefer the UAC to just die peacefully. I mean, look at Linux, BSD and OSX, these *nix based systems have similar security measurement in place for years, I don’t see why Redmond have failed to just be a copycat. Instead, they chose to be ‘creative’ and make the system far worse.

The enhanced task bar is also good. We can now manage the icons a bit better and less clustered.

One minor issue I noticed during my short experiment with Windows 7, is that the Windows Firewall thinks of itself as the king. If you turn it off, a balloon will pop out of the task bar, and if you click on the balloon (which tells you the Firewall is turned off), it automatically re-enables it! Doh! (But yes, you can turn the firewall off by not clicking on the balloon itself. Click on the ‘X’ or just ignore it instead.)

Overall though, I am quite impressed with Windows 7, even if it’s only a pre-beta and doesn’t have much to offer in terms of features (or eye-candies).

Now please Microsoft, I beg you to stop wasting your $ on the marketing campain…

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