Mossberg: Windows 7 narrows the gap with Apple's Mac OS X - Page 5

Windows 7 also has Grand Central type workings under the hood. It's better than vista, nuff said.

I think what most are missing from the article is the the talk of Virus's, Security flaws still present in Windows or the bad NTFS file system it's still stuck with. It's not WRETCHED like it was but it's still not up to snuff with OS X, BSD, and some flavors of Linux in those regards.

What people are going to care about the most, end users, is that it's faster than the crap they had before (vista), can run XP stuff (XP VM) and it comes on the new $399 quad core PC they just bought at the store (yes, you can buy a quad core pc right now with windows vista and 4gb of ram for $399).

When all you've had to eat for the last 4 years were plain crackers, I stick a cheeseburger in front of you it's gonna be the best thing in the world, right? But what about the table next to you that's been dining on Lobster and Fillet for the last 10 years? They just got a new recipe, nothing drastic.

Your response has little to no truth in it.

I'm an avid PC user (as most in this room know and hate). If you are saying that 99% of Windows 7 users are going to get it with a new computer purchase you need to put down the pipe.

I've got 2 perfectly good PC's and have been testing Windows 7 RC in virtual mode on my laptop (Dell XPS). It has worked out great for me and I will upgrade both my desktop computer and notebook when 7 ships and has been used in the real world for a good month.

(As Snow Leapord Users should have done as well).

All of my PC friends are going to take the same path and none of us are currently in the market for a new PC (Netbook Yes) not a PC or notebook.

Yes, I think Win 7 is great but will only upgrade after it has been in the mainstream for a while and insure that I haven't overlooked anything in my testing.

Businesses will not make all new purchases in this economy, those that have been testing it (as the company I work for) will likely take the same path.

As for XP not being able to upgrade programs to Win 7. If you are running XP (as my desktop home computer is) a clean install is the smartest path to take. I may even do it for my laptop but I'll base that on user experience from reviews I read.

If this is true this embarrassing for him. Personally I don't rate him much at all and find his video reviews mega-boring and he style quite pompous.

That said I don't think Vista 7 is that bad. But, it's no OS X.

That doesn't make the cheeseburger any less delicious

Buahahaha... Omg! Has this user ever used the two of them and run into problems? Anything installed from the factory works well for a while. However, when Windows takes a dump, have fun! What a mess that childishly simplistic database they call a "registry" is... With Windows, you just have to reinstall it, spending countless hours reinstalling all your drivers and software. What a nightmare.

I think this is a bit misleading.

Windows 7 is precisely "Vista" underneath in that it is internally 6.1 and not 7.0 (Vista is 6.0). The underpinnings are the same as vista, but more importantly, the hardware requirement is the same as Vista.

It would be fair to say that Windows 7 runs a smidge faster on the same hardware, but to make out like it's different from Vista in that it may not require "modern" hardware is not accurate. Machines that can run XP, but were not "beefy" enough to upgrade to Vista are in the same situation with Windows 7 as they were with the Vista upgrade. The people that passed on Vista because their computer wasn't powerful enough are still going to have to buy a new computer to run Windows 7 (if they haven't already upgraded in the interim), and that's a fact.

Additionally, since you can't actually upgrade from Windows XP, these people would have to do an "erase and install" to even be able to try it out on the old Windows XP machine. Most users of XP will not be upgrading without changing their machines, and most will likely not even be able to do so. There is also the fact that both Vista and Windows 7 are "different" UI's and more Mac-like than any windows has ever been before them. It's as big a change for the average XP user as switching to Mac would be and lots of the older folks just won't bother.

The only people that will have the "pop in the disk and click upgrade" experience that Snow Leopard gave to Mac users, are the current Vista users who are pretty much already sold on Windows anyway. For everyone else an upgrade will be a rather gruelling experience. Even if you recently bought a Vista capable PC and smartly had it downgraded to XP, you now have to erase the whole thing, change to Windows 7, and re-install all your programs.

It's worth mentioning that the vast majority of computer users in general (on all platforms), use the OS that came with their computer until the day they get a new one. Unlike the readers of this forum, most don't even do point upgrades or patches. Most users will be experiencing Windows 7 on the next brand new machine that they buy sometime next year.

Agreed. Thought the same thing.


Snow Leopard is not a must have. And it's normally 129.

Windows 7, if you are on Vista, is not a must have as much as a must need. Need for speed.

If you would take the time to READ the full WSJ you would see the NUMEROUS reasons why it is different- a MAJOR difference. People only believe what they want to on here. JEESH!

Please READ it:
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091007...lp-you-forget/

Moss is definitely not in Microsoft's camp; very pro Apple. However, if I were working for Microsoft, I would make every effort to win him over. Let's face it, Windows 7 sounds like it's not just the 7th version, it's the number 7, itself: Microsoft is keeping it's fingers crossed: "Hey, maybe we'll get lucky this time".

When Windows 7 is released, IF it turns out to be a more user-friendly, stable, and efficient operating system, that's a good thing for all us. Serious competition will keep Apple on it's toes. However, I have no intention of ever switching back to Microsoft because of their poor customer service and business ethic. The OS is just a part of why I chose to purchase an Apple product; I have a 20" iMac 2009. Quality, design, customer service/support, software, security, ease of use, and peace of mind are among the other reasons that influenced my buying decision. No, Apple isn't perfect, but they are still better in more areas than just the OS alone. And yes, you pay a premium price for it, but "Once you go Mac, you never go back". Unless, of course, my ultimate nightmare comes true: The Microtosh by AppleSoft
http://forums.appleinsider.com/image...ies/1oyvey.gif

Can't both operating systems just get along? They both work well for the crowds. It's like Ford vs. Chevy.

I hate to stomp all over your moment of "genius", but OS X's Dock existed in NeXTSTEP long before Microsoft ever started working on Windows 95. NeXTSTEP also predates Linux altogether, even the first kernel release. That said, I don't think we need to hear any more "facts" that you feel the need to pull from your posterior. Thank you.

A clean install is best to do even if you own Vista. Its much less about whether or not you have to reinstall software and more about having the cruft left behind from Vista coming into your new Windows 7 install.

Reinstalling can be trivial for a lot of people who only use the computer for web browsing and email. It can also be trivial for businesses, who can utilize deployment tools, network installation and disk images to get their systems up and running quickly.

geez, nobody seems to get it. Mac and Win are NOT in competition with each other. Have not been in 20+ years. MS were and still are a language/operating system vendor, Apple is a widget provider. MS delivered what the business space needed, SOFTWARE (along with IBM's rep). Apple tried and failed then went the route of a "creative" persons computer for which I'm thankful.

Bill Gates = Businessman extraordinare
Steve Jobs = Dreamer/Visionary

Is it any wonder Bill&Co took over the world? Sad fact is not everyone can be an artist thus dooming apple to a niche player on the desktop. Still I'm glad to be in that 1% vs. the other 99. IF apple were to get their enterprise act together (cause it does not work) then maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.

just to add a little cred, I'm an SE of 25+ years and is platform agnostic for my profession (mac, win, unix) I've worked with CPM and sniffed X-25 packets.

been testing win 7 since february and as far as it goes, pretty darn good (for windows).

Windows 7 hasn't been out long enough to know how well it holds up over time. For instance, will users feel compelled to reinstall every 6-12 months as the garbage collects?

Take a look at your exe file size genius.. you have a 0 KB file and you want windows to recognize it properly :-)

Ok fine then - if they are not biased, then Microsoft just hit a grand slam and you must personally kiss Steve Ballmer's @$$!

That was well played. Zing!

Like why is my Safari not a snappy now as when I installed SL?

This is a fascinating thread... and I, for one, am glad that (by the looks of it) Windows users might be getting something better, after years of pain.

My question is this. I'm a Mac user (doing a lot of multimedia development), and my wife is a Windows user (doing tons of data processing for medical research). In both cases, we find ourselves running up against the 32-bit RAM ceiling (which I believe is 4Gb per application space). When we're both crunching big numbers, both current O/S's (XP and SL) have real problems from a RAM allocation standpoint.

I know that SL is now 64-bit ready, but I'm still waiting for the app devs to catch up to the ridiculous capabilities of the MacPro, including its big RAM capacity. Same for her, over in Windows land.

So the question is -- which O/S is best positioned (with its dev community) to get over this 64-bit hump once and for all, and release all of the power our hardware has, but can't use?

... or am I missing something obvious?

...that's exactly what I said. Most people are going to get Windows 7 when they buy a new PC, not by upgrading their existing one. That means, by definition, you're reinstalling all your applications. While the experience may not be as seamless as it should be, the end-result is a Windows machine that will run quite wonderfully for a long time.

Besides, I find its best to reformat the drive every so often if only to remove applications you don't need. Similar to a practice I do on the Mac, I'll reinstall the entire OS from scratch and only begin installing applications as I need them. You'd be amazed to find out how many apps one tends to use once or twice and never again.

Who cares where it originated - it who utilzed it first and for how long. Besides, Mossberg states in the review today, if you would READ it,

How many years did Microsooft have a taskbar before Apple had its dock?
(you can pull your foot out of your posterior if you dare too)

It all depends on which platform developers decide to take seriously regarding 64-bit. I would say Macs might be the way to go, only because they've been shipping 64-bit compatible operating systems for a few years now, while Microsoft's 64-bit versions only started selling regularly since last year.

Keep in mind that there are RAM limitations in the various versions of Windows. For example, Home Premium might only allow up to 16 or 32 gigs of ram, while Professional and upwards will support the theoretical 16tb. I don't know if my numbers are accurate, so please research that while making future decisions.

Some people have been using Windows 7 since January of this year. Yes, they would have had to upgrade or reinstall by now because of the beta expiration, but the RC and RTM have many enhancements made to them that make them superior to the beta, and the beta was already performing like a finished product.

Time will tell, for sure, but there's no doubt in my mind that you'll be better off 6-12 months from now with Windows 7 than Vista or XP.

I'm sorry, did I miss something? Did you not state that OS X's Dock was taken from Windows? I believe you did, and I corrected you. Jobs & Co. have been using the Dock far longer than anyone else.

As for the taskbar in Windows 7, it now provides the same funtionality as the Dock, only instead of Expose, it shows previews as thumbnails on the taskbar.

Yuusharo:

I acknowledge the MSRP for Windows 7 Ultimate is incorrectly stated in the article, and confirm the price is $320 and not $400.

If you re-read my message, I did mention "Intel based Macs" on a number of occasions and fully appreciate the fact Snow Leopard does not work with older PowerPC based Macs.

We will simply have different perspectives on what "runs well" on a given vintage PC, as we did not declare what application is being used on the system as a reference (e.g. office vs more graphic intensive applications).

As to "value", I maintain the opinion that Apple is still the better value-for-money proposition, as I failed to mention the "Apple Experience", for me, is much better than with Microsoft and a given PC manufacturer.

Lemon Bon Bon:

If the rumored polycarbonate based MacBooks (and new iMacs) are everything we hope for, then I think there is a good possibility it will give consumers more reason to pause and consider going Mac. Again, I'm all about value-for-money, but need to mention the "Apple Experience" is high on my priority list.

-YipYipYipee

definitely not 99%, but this is where most of their sales come from.

Can you Touch on your computer with OSX like you can with W7?

SHow me when /where. Somehow I missed that feature in OS9.
Who used it first?

OS X is NeXSTEP, therefore, the Dock has been there since 1988.

Windows 7 also means no iLife.

You're looking in the wrong place.

Your paranoia is extremely laughable.

WTF?

You make a post that says Apple didn't originate the dock, then when you are corrected (by several people), you say it doesn't matter who originated it? Are you crazy? Your just filling up the air with nonsense. There is even a posted link in this thread leading to a detailed history of the dock, where it originated and when, but you didn't chose to reply to that one.

You don't know what you're talking about, and almost no one cares what you think about this stuff. You can't even spell or write whole sentences for cripes sake.

Yes, it's called the iPhone. Maybe you've heard of it.

Well, that's the rub. I'm a firm Mac convert, and she's agnostic about O/S as long as she can get her work done. But either way, it's deeply irritating that in both environments, the machine is capable of so much more than the O/S / app architecture allows. Apart from all of the other valid issues in this thread, THIS is the one that makes me crazy. It's basic, people -- if you're going to build me a Ferrari, for God's sake give me the gas to run it.

sigh.

Put the OS X kernel on an SD card and we'll call that a Mac too then.

WRONG- Apple has not had a dock since 1988 in its OS. No more wasting my time.

Ha!

Oh that iPod I own where I can't run more than one App at a time ( unless you call listtening to music muiti-tasking)

I was talking about a laptop/ desktop- haven't you READ MOSSBERG?