Happy First Birthday, Windows 7 (240,000,000!)

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"So, according to my calculations, Linux is in the process of overcoming the last hurdles to becoming a viable mainstream desktop OS."

Well, about time. The Linux brigade have been claiming that for years.

But each time I try it I end up with half the stuff on my computer not working and having to learn a command line OS lurking all too obviously behind the pretty interface.

Windows went from useless to highly usable in 5 years and to almost universal in 10. While Linux is surrounded by a halo of virtue and Microsoft is considered plain evil, the fact is that Windows works (albeit very inefficiently) and many people's experience of Linux is that it doesn't work, at least for them.

Personally having played with Win7 I can't summon much enthusiasm for it -- it's as hideous as Vista and contains changes for change's sake.

More worryingly it continues the trend towards the confusing Apple approach to naming -- first we had "Folders" now we have "Libraries" -- what the ! is that ? It's nonsense and merely confuses the new user about the actual disk structure and how to find stuff.
 
But each time I try it I end up with half the stuff on my computer not working and having to learn a command line OS lurking all too obviously behind the pretty interface.
Click to expand...
That's because GNU/Linux is a command-line OS. Which is a good thing, because GUIs are horribly inefficient and subject to confusing changes.

Windows went from useless to highly usable in 5 years and to almost universal in 10. While Linux is surrounded by a halo of virtue and Microsoft is considered plain evil, the fact is that Windows works (albeit very inefficiently) and many people's experience of Linux is that it doesn't work, at least for them.
Click to expand...
The same goes for Windows (or any OS). Microsoft keeps tech support in a job.

This is how big business works: Create a problem, create a solution, and sell both.
 
[citation][nom]gtvr[/nom]1.2B PCs with win 7 HAS to be wrong. OK, so some of you geeks on Tom's have a few PCs. There's 1B in China that mostly don't have PCs or PCs with Win 7, probably the same in India and China. What % of Africa even has a computer? You can't extrapolate PCs/person out worldwide that way.[/citation]
That's like saying "only geeks have PCs" back in the 1990s. The truth is, computers are all around you if you bother to look; 7 billion, if anything, could possibly be LOW. (though admitedly, Microsoft's only counting those that run OSes)

Most people who own computers will have both a desktop AND a laptop/netbook. And then there's also the separate computer at work or school. And remember that PCs aren't all that use OSes; there's consoles and other embedded computers, such as in your phone, your car, in supermarket cash registers, etc.So with nearly 7 billion people worldwide, seeing a 1:1 ratio isn't hard to imagine. Since after all, for every first-world citizen there's going to be perhaps 5:1 computers-people.

And many people forget that the 'rich world' still has a lot of people: 345 million in USA+Canada, 330 in the Eurozone, 239 in the wealthy Pacific counties, (Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan) and 90 million in wealthy European countries NOT using the Euro. (like the UK, Switzerland, Scandinavia) So right off, that's over 1 billion people right there in WEALTHY countries: so, say, 5 billion computers with OSes right there.

To say nothing of not-so-wealthy countries with computers... Sure, 1 billion might not have computers in China, but China's got 1.3 billion people. And they HAVE to have lots of gamers, since half of World of WarCraft's subscribers are Chinese, and China has tons of other China-exclusive MMOs even more popular than WoW. Similarly, India HAS to have lots of computers if that's where we're exporting tech support to.

Add on other not-dirt-poor-but-large countries, like Russia, Latin America, Philipines, and the entire Arab region... (anyone remember the role of Twitter and YouTube in Iran?) That's ANOTER 1+ billion. Their governments and wealthy businesses obviously use computers. So perhaps 1:1 there. Suddenly we've hit 7 billion! And I even forgot some wealthier nations like South Africa, Israel, and the Bahamas. There's still another 2-3 billion people left out of that count.

So yeah, there's definitely billions of computers in the world. Please stop assuming that geeks are the only ones with multiple computers... And thinking that the rest of the world is still in the stone age. Since the truth is, a geek will have a TON of computers to their name, as crazitrain02 mentioned; they're single-handedly making up for 104 people that don't have computers at all.
 
Good news for MS, they just need to complete the SP1beta that fixes 90% of the issues I had with Win7 "7600" .
Imagine that I can finally play more that 1 year old pc games on win7 who would have thought it was possible before Win7 SP1Beta.

IE9Beta is by now and probably in the next year or so the fastest browser dew to Firefox / Crash-A-Lot-Fox 3.6.9+ ~ 4beta7 as much as I hate that idea of IE9/MS winning.
Will still take a long time for me to have my main OS of choice be Win7, still evaluating it.
XP32/64 1st OS by choice / convenience / not the +/-100 clicks to change the ip address on my network adapter "static to dhcp - static" and 3 to 5 clicks winXP share folders instead of 3 weeks of hell trying to share files and ending up using a usb HD to transfer files "Win7 Experience 4 times reinstalled on 3 pc's"after using a proper Win7 sharing guide.

MS will have to make a xp classic desktop + classic explorer + classic control panel + xp classic everything for win7 with same laces / layout to get the 90% of pc users that use XP to jump to the irritation Win7 .

I still don't get why I have to pay good money for a fix that is not my fault XP bugs and so get win7 to fix it + be tortured and waist 3 weeks trying to get win7 to work the way I am used too.

Surely if you buy a burger "XP" and is happy with it but it tasted bland the burger joint will not go and put sweet desert on see weed + add swimming pool acid mixed with dog no:2's then call it the same burger just improved like what MS is doing with Vista /win7 and expect us idiots to pay ? What are they smoking ?
 
Best Windows OS yet. I didn't think MS wouldn't have recoverd quickly from the giant sucess that XP had especially after the mess with Vista, but they showed they could and they did with Windows 7.
 
[citation][nom]WarraWarra[/nom]IE9Beta is by now and probably in the next year or so the fastest browser dew to Firefox / Crash-A-Lot-Fox 3.6.9+ ~ 4beta7 as much as I hate that idea of IE9/MS winning.[/citation]
Er, no, just because IE can beat FireFox doesn't mean it's the fastest. Opera and Chrome have always beaten the tar out of FireFox; FireFox was never GOOD, just that it was "better than I.E."

So if you're displeased with FF, don't necessarily go back to IE; remember that there's more than two browsers out there. 😉
 

Are Opera and Chrome "good" or are they just "better than FF"? 😉
 
floorpug :

If win 7 has 1.2 billion copies on pcs worldwide, and a 17% share of all OSs, does that mean that there are 7,050,000,000 computers worldwide? WOW


Im not sure that the 3 billion people living on less than $2.50/day would have a computer each...


 
[citation][nom]WarraWarra[/nom] the +/-100 clicks to change the ip address on my network adapter "static to dhcp - static" [/citation]

i dont know what version of win 7 your using but in my experiance it only takes 6 clicks, which i can say isn't to different to XP

from what i read on here the biggest problem people have with windows 7 is nothing to do with what it does or how it works, and this problem is shared with every thing new, people are very resistant to change. people get used they way they do things and get scared when they have to do things differently and do every thing they can to avoid doing it differently even though the new way could be heaps better
 
How in the world was the 131% return on investment calculated? You either spend several hundred dollars on a new machine plus wages for the IT workers who install and configure them or you pay the wages for IT staff to upgrade existing machines and pay for the licenses. Is Microsoft contending that Windows 7 increases productivity SO MUCH that the average computer user is 131% more productive with Windows 7 than they were with Windows XP? That's ridiculous and no where near accurate.

The majority of my company uses Windows XP but any new machines are installed running Windows 7. I have not noticed ANY increase in productivity from the users running Windows 7 and I can't imagine having ANY positive return on investment if we made a company wide switch to Windows 7. We would most definitely NOT be coming out on the positive.
 
[citation][nom]floorpug[/nom]If win 7 has 1.2 billion copies on pcs worldwide, and a 17% share of all OSs, does that mean that there are 7,050,000,000 computers worldwide? WOW[/citation]
A license doesn't necessarily need to go on a physical box. I'm sure plenty of those Win 7 licenses go onto VMs.
 
[citation][nom]WarraWarra[/nom]Good news for MS, they just need to complete the SP1beta that fixes 90% of the issues I had with Win7 "7600" . Imagine that I can finally play more that 1 year old pc games on win7 who would have thought it was possible before Win7 SP1Beta.IE9Beta is by now and probably in the next year or so the fastest browser dew to Firefox / Crash-A-Lot-Fox 3.6.9+ ~ 4beta7 as much as I hate that idea of IE9/MS winning.Will still take a long time for me to have my main OS of choice be Win7, still evaluating it.XP32/64 1st OS by choice / convenience / not the +/-100 clicks to change the ip address on my network adapter "static to dhcp - static" and 3 to 5 clicks winXP share folders instead of 3 weeks of hell trying to share files and ending up using a usb HD to transfer files "Win7 Experience 4 times reinstalled on 3 pc's"after using a proper Win7 sharing guide.MS will have to make a xp classic desktop + classic explorer + classic control panel + xp classic everything for win7 with same laces / layout to get the 90% of pc users that use XP to jump to the irritation Win7 .I still don't get why I have to pay good money for a fix that is not my fault XP bugs and so get win7 to fix it + be tortured and waist 3 weeks trying to get win7 to work the way I am used too.Surely if you buy a burger "XP" and is happy with it but it tasted bland the burger joint will not go and put sweet desert on see weed + add swimming pool acid mixed with dog no:2's then call it the same burger just improved like what MS is doing with Vista /win7 and expect us idiots to pay ? What are they smoking ?[/citation]

Yes, because you not being adaptable enough to handle a new OS is their fault somehow? What would be the point of making a new OS exactly the same as the old one? If everyone did that you'd still have a Win 3.1 interface.
Things change, get over it. Good luck trying to buy a manual car in 10 years - will you have a rant about that as well?
 
[citation][nom]gtvr[/nom]1.2B PCs with win 7 HAS to be wrong. OK, so some of you geeks on Tom's have a few PCs. There's 1B in China that mostly don't have PCs or PCs with Win 7, probably the same in India and China. What % of Africa even has a computer? You can't extrapolate PCs/person out worldwide that way.[/citation]

Its not wrong. Don't forget that companies buy thousands of computers every year. Think of all the call centers and companies where every person has a PC at work then 2 or 3 at home.

Its easy to see that there are more PCs than there are people. Knowing that, the machines have already taken over.
 
[citation][nom]bochica[/nom]There are volume licenses and student licenses (most of which are free, like my two versions of 7 Pro (1x 32-bit/1x 64-bit).[/citation]
Don't you love that? 😀
i got vista, xp and server edition 2008 too. Feels good to be an IT student sometimes :)
 
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