The world as frankps sees it!
Posts tagged Windows Vista
First look at Windows 7′s User Interface
0Yesterday ars technica published a brilliant introduction to Windows 7, a brilliant summary of Microsoft’s first public demonstration of Windows 7.
Microsoft has let on that the taskbar will undergo a number of changes, and that many bundled applications would be unbundled and shipped with Windows Live instead. ars technica writes that the user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago. I am not sure, from the screenshots, I would rather say that the GUI is a continued development of the one introduced with Vista.
ars technica then continues with one of the best paragraphs I’ve read about Microsoft and Windows:
Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista. Vista brought a new display layer and vastly improved security, but that came at a cost: a significant number of (badly-written) applications had difficulty running on Vista. Applications expecting to run with Administrator access were still widespread when Vista was released, and though many software vendors do a great job, there are still those that haven’t updated or fixed their software. Similarly, at its launch many hardware vendors did not have drivers that worked with the new sound or video subsystems, leaving many users frustrated.
So, so true. Most online tech sites had not had a grip/clue about Windows Vista. It’s been comments like stay away from Vista, continue with XP and it’s now time to move to another OS. One of the biggest problems with Vista that I and my co-workers have experienced is the fact that many of the software vendors on the Windows platform are lazy! Lots of old software will not run on Vista, cause of the introduction of Vista’s new set of extensive security features, User Accounts Control (UAC). Third party developers don’t fix their software, or rather don’t rewrite their software according to the guidelines that come with each new version of Windows. It’s horrible to see that some companies are still trying to sell software that was basically written for Windows 95/98.
Microsoft has done a lot to help the lazy developers with compatibility modes and shims, and we can only hope that the software houses by now have understood the importance of coding guidelines and that UAC is here to stay. Microsoft will continue this work with Windows 7, and the next version of the OS will improve on Vista’s compatibility manager by making it smarter. Improved “shim” technology will allow the new compatibility manager to figure out what’s causing an application compatibility issue, and recommend the fix.
Time to head to the office again, and migrate more users from XP to Vista. Yesterday I started looking in to Vista x64, bought upgrades of Stata 10 MP (25 dollars per license, going from x32 to x64). Sadly, there wasn’t much of news about Windows 7 and x64 support, other then Head of Windows Product Management, Mike Nash, saying:
64-bit software is used more and more, at least consumers are often buying computers with more then 4 GB RAM.
Of course Windows 7 will support x64, but I wonder will x64 be default and x32 be made available for older computers? Will the installer analyse the hardware and automatically choose a x64 bit version of the OS if the CPU supports it?
Want to read more about Windows 7? Thought so, here is one link:
Why Windows 7 Will Suck Less Than Vista – Extremetech
Testing Windows Live Writer
0For quite some time there has been an easier way to edit blogs when using Windows, by using Windows Live Writer.
Windows Live Writer automatically recognizes the blog type, in my case WordPress, and adds a link to viewing the site and to fast access to the Dashboard.
What’s better is that you can extend the Writer with plugins. I, of course, tried to install the Flickr plugin, Digg This and InsertGeoMicroFormat, and Insert IMDb Info. Gonna try them out as the need occurs.
This is my first blog entry from Live Writer.
Opera Files Antitrust Complaint with the EU Against Microsoft – A Shot in the Dark!
0Opera Software recently filed a complaint with the European Commission that was to aim at giving consumers a genuine choice of Web browsers. So far so good. The complaint describes how Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its browser, Internet Explorer, to the Windows operating system and by hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards. Opera has requested the Commission to take the necessary actions to compel Microsoft to give consumers a real choice and to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer.Microsoft of course defended themselves with the fact that alternative browsers could not only be installed on Windows, but also be set as default, but this seems not to be enough for Opera Software, as they want EU to force Microsoft to remove Internet Explorer as part of Windows (the OS). Funny how Opera hasn’t learned the lesson from the highly successful Windows XP N and Windows Vista N Editions. Not a single PC manufacturer has delivered a single PC with these editions, and in fact most EU citizens will have problems getting their hands on them as the demands are so low that shops don’t have them on their shelves.
When it comes to the tying the browser in to the OS, Opera is completely right. Internet Explorer has been integrated in to Vista in a way we have never seen any browser in to another operating system. And it has been successful, I dare say that Internet Explorer 7 on Vista is the most secure browser on the market today. When users have not turned off UAC (which they have been told to do by so many IT Professionals), Internet Explorer 7 will run with less privileges then a normal user. This is a Protected Mode that provides the safety of a robust Internet browsing experience while helping to keep hackers from taking over your browser, damaging your system and installing software. Internet Explorer Protected Mode protects users and their systems from malicious downloads by restricting where files can be saved without the users consent, and further Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista cannot modify user or system files and settings without user consent. Protected Mode requires the user to confirm any activity that tries to put something on your machine or start another program. By ensuring the user consents to these kinds of actions, the likelihood of automated and/or unwanted software installation is reduced. This feature also makes you aware of what a website is trying to do, giving you a chance to stop it and take time to double check the trustworthiness of the website.
Now this is not bad from an enduser’s perspective and should not let Opera Software demand Internet Explorer to be removed from Windows. What Opera Software should be heard with is the possibility to do the same with their browser as Microsoft has done with theirs, and for that Microsoft needs to corporate with other browser vendors.In my eyes Opera Software did another mistake, as they through interviews (Wium Lie) have been focusing more on forcing Microsoft to support all major web standards that are commonly accepted within development communities. Internet Explorer 7 was a little bit better then 6, and Microsoft had already announced that version 8 would be released in not a to distant future. Well, yesterday Microsoft showed that IE 8 was passing the ACID2 test.
I’m asking myself what Opera Software have achieved with their PR stunt, and what do they think that they now will achieve with an EU trial? Even though I have never liked the bloated Firefox, Mozilla Foundation has shown that they are capable of competing with Microsoft on the desktop. A free advise for Opera Software, if you want to have any chance of competing with Internet Explorer and now Firefox, enable sysadmins to set settings through group policies with .admx files. For me group policy settings are far more important then voice, online storage of bookmarks and Ogg Theora support. They are all great features, but not something for the enterprise users. I don’t let my users get the option to use Opera, and with the latest security problems for Firefox, I have started to remove as many Firefox installations as possible. Safari is so far not an option. So in the end Internet Explorer will be the only browser that I let my Windows users have.I guess it is just a matter of time before Opera Software will find that they are only a small browser vendor in also the embedded market. Apple and Nokia seem to have great success with their webkit browsers. More and more companies get in to problems competing with open source projects.