Tell HN: Even Windows 7 is a horror show

Honestly I don't buy into the Windows is awful line of thought. There a couple of key points you never see with Windows:

A. You never see forums posts on the internet saying "I have notebook XXX, main board XXX, graphics card XXX, will Windows run?" It just does which is why it will remain the dominant operating system for a long time to come. MS has the unenviable job of supporting every form of PC style hardware and adapting to it. Do they do it perfectly? Of course not but they do it better than anyone else has ever managed to.

B. I have a small phone book application I wrote in 1993 on Windows 3. I still use it today and it hasn't been recompiled in 15+ years at least. I doubt I still have the source (or anything that would compile it). The app is not command line, it's a GUI app, and it still works perfectly. MS has ensured as best they can that any properly written Win app from 16bit on up still runs today. Being a business app developer and seeing the legacy applications many of my large clients have to maintain, this is beyond priceless.

I don't deny Windows problems... it's been around so long it is a bit of a hodge podge of UI design, it has been unstable, and it is built around an aging architecture model. Then again I also view these as byproducts of its age and focus on legacy and hardware support. The performance of hardware is now to a point where virtualizing older versions of the OS for legacy support is practical and I like to think that this will work well for Windows in the future as XP mode has in Win7. Hopefully MS will really make use of this more going forward.

Then again, with where things are heading what operating system you use to access the net is going to become largely irrelevant anyhow.

"MS has ensured as best they can that any properly written Win app from 16bit on up still runs today."

Unless you're running Windows 7/Vista in 64-bit mode. Then no 16-bit apps will run, and it's emulation time.

Being able to keep old code isn't a long term advantage. Old binary apps that require an old software stack will eventually have to be replaced or rewritten.

Source code that can be recompiled or ported is much better than old binaries, as at least it can be worked on.

Worst of all is if the data is in a hard to decipher format. I did some work with some space science data from the 70's that was basically binary files in a pre-ASCII character set - it was a total PITA.... Old non-dumpable databases are easily as bad.

I agree on most aspects but also respectfully disagree on a couple.

Keeping old apps isn't always a bad thing. Yes, the source should be preserved so the application can be ported forward as required, but from a business expense aspect, when an application is still doing what it needs to do, it is far more expensive to have to re-write it every OS iteration vs. getting 10,15,20? years out of the app then paying to upgrade it once and leap up 5 levels in technology. Rewrite when needed, and don't be afraid to, but it's a good thing if it's not needed very often.

And yes, agreed, that tipping point has essentially hit for 16bit apps to avoid emulation.

The pre-ASCII project sounds like a nightmare. On that one I would say the "needed" point was well passed!

>"Unless you're running Windows 7/Vista in 64-bit mode. Then no 16-bit apps will run, and it's emulation time."

Same situation with Windows XP Professional x64 edition.

But, if you're still running 16-bit apps, the 20 minutes it takes to set up a 32 bit virtual machine is a pretty small price to pay. Microsoft even provides a Virtual PC as a no cost download.

Your 16 bit app will be out of luck if you ever install a 64 bit version of windows ... though a 20 year lifespan is pretty decent.

You're having bad luck. I've never had a problem with Windows 7. I don't think you should be surprised that 16 months after launch, there are a lot of updates, and you not liking the ribbon UI doesn't make Windows a "horror show". If you were expecting a package manager then I have to assume you were just setting yourself up for disappointment - surely you know Windows doesn't have one.

From disk in drive in my macbook pro, to install Win7x64 ultimate, boot camp drivers and all the windows updates takes about 2 hours.

OSX takes about the same - though they seem to do a better job and slipstreaming updates so you have fewer dependency cycles in the update realm.

No offense but it sounds to me like you already made up your mind and are just bashing Microsoft for the sport of it.

I've found Windows 7 great in terms of installing drivers and updates. It's much smarter and most don't require restarts. Obviously the first time you update the OS they'll be a lot of them. How is that any different than an OS X update?

Most people actually like the W7 UI. The new taskbar is better than anything else in my opinion.

I think most of your frustration is because it's a brand new install. Once all the setup is done, most of those annoyances are gone and what you're left with is a fast, stable, and really usable OS.

Obviously the first time you update the OS they'll be a lot of them. How is that any different than an OS X update?

My experience is that the disk doesn't churn an hour before you can shut down. Instead, the disk churns a much shorter time upon restart. The latter is much less of a bother with a laptop, as you can take it with you and let it turn on at home. I've had the experience where I've had to leave a Windows machine at work because you can't shut it down in the middle of the updates.

Just a little thinking and a modicum of engineering, and you can avoid major headaches for the user. Apple does a bit more of this than Microsoft.

I didn't even have pain with the install.

I just set up a new VM to test IE9 in. From fresh install to working IE9 install + usual apps (flash, acrobat, Office etc. for fonts) took almost a whole day. Constant update after update, with restarts for each one. If you try and install an app whilst another installing, it doesn't queue, it just cancels itself, so you have to sit there and wait. Many updates to get the platform previews of IE working are hotfixes can't be installed for some reason (yep, even on a fully updated system), so had to give up trying to get the platform preview going (which was my main aim!).

There truely isn't a package manager, or even any way of setting a list of things to install so you can leave the computer to get on with it.

It makes you understand why so many people think they are "bad with computers", or say things like, "when I touch computers they break"...

- Restarts are required when core OS components are being updated. Linux doesn't make you restart for things like this, but it is still insecure until the restart has been accomplished. Microsoft just removed that option. I agree that they ought to sometimes be consolidated and should definitely be faster (although if it took an hour, maybe the computer is just slow), but it's a minor thing that happens once at system install time.

- Most people seem to think ribbons are a pretty good idea.

- Nobody except Linux users care about package managers. Mac OS X doesn't have one either.

Anyway, I don't see what about your review is related to 1998.

You're right, except the part about package managers. This is one of those things that Steve Jobs' quote about "People don't know what they want until you show it to them" applies.

People will LOVE the app store on OS X. For all intents and purposes, the iTunes app store is already evidence of that. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be easier to use than whatever we have now. And what we have now isn't as usable as an app store (or "package manager").

I find the lack of a decent package manager the biggest flaw in Windows. I get very irritated when my workflow is interrupted by an autoupdater from Adobe, InstallShield, Steam or whatever. I'd so much more prefer updating all my applications from a centralized service of some kind.

A good package management system should also serve as a solid foundation for an App store. OSX will have an app store soon, I guess Windows must follow the example.

The damn autoupdaters waste so much time and effort that it's embarassing. It hasn't been once or twice when I go in for a lecture and the professor opens his computer and then 200 people have to wait up to 20 minutes for his PowerPoint to install updates.

What comes to Windows 7, it's the best Windows I've used so far but that isn't very much to say. I have never used Windows for any real work, once I tried for a week but then I had to get actual work done and switched to my favorite Linux distro.

For package manager read "app store". People do care.

That's a fair point. I think you are right and I am wrong.

> Microsoft just removed that option.

Microsoft never had that option, because their filesystem is constructed differently (they could have introduced a special case workaround though)

Package managers are great. You don't miss having one until you've used one enough to understand how helpful they are.

Way back when, people used to argue (rightfully so) that Linux was painful to install and not desktop ready. You had issues with X11/graphic cards/drivers/etc. These days installing ubuntu (or any of the LiveCDs) is actually pretty straight forward.

Having had to deal with Windows 7 in recent years, it is the most convoluted of the three OSs as far as a desktop installation goes. For me, in order of increasing complexity the list is: OSX, Linux, Windows.

Things getting even more extra-special with Windows, if gasp you want to upgrade from a previous version (IE, have a valid XP/Vista license) and do so as a clean install. There are registry hacks there that sometimes work, sometimes you have to resort to calling MSFT tech support. If you swap out some hardware on the machine after activation and it determines you need to reactivate? That isn't always clear cut either.

Windows 7 cleans up a number of things but system installs and maintenance (registry, install/uninstall, updates) need serious work.

Microsoft doesn't care about the home/small-business user experience. Windows is optimized for being "deployed" en-masse to a corporation, with all updates and configuration pre-slipstreamed, and then managed remotely using Group Policy (as that's how, you can imagine, Microsoft's own computers are set up.) There's a package manager, but it's externalized—the sysadmin pushes packages to you, not the other way around.

Also, the cluttered ribbons everywhere is a side-effect of the success of Office's ribbon; there was a lot of user data-gathering put into designing that one, but all the rest are just slapped together because "I know what users use most in MS Paint."

"Microsoft doesn't care about the home/small-business user experience"

It sure seems that way. Maybe the Wintel intentional software bloat to sell more hardware has reached a critical mass and can't be stopped.

"Maybe the Wintel intentional software bloat to sell more hardware has reached a critical mass and can't be stopped."

Having worked on the performance team for Windows Vista (yes--it actually exists), I can tell you first hand that there's no conspiracy here.

Instead, there are thousands of developers each solving problems in their parts of the OS without a holistic view of the impact of their tiny little growth in memory use or CPU consumption or processes required at startup. Each team's impact is minuscule, but in aggregate, adds up to enough to fully use a new generation of hardware.

The perf team can help fix some of that, but only so much. And they only bother winning enough battles to make Windows run on the hardware that people willing to buy an OS upgrade are going to put it on. The vast majority of these buyers are tech freaks like us, or people buying a new machine from an OEM, so it's not malice so much as lazily chasing the easy dollars that causes commercial OSes to run best only on near-latest hardware.

Fwiw, Apple's similarly lazy...

When I installed Windows 7, I went from no OS to functioning desktop in 17 minutes. 2 of those minutes were spent crawling around on the floor to write down my license key. (Like an idiot, I stuck the sticker on my case before I installed the OS. Oops.) This was faster than OS X and Ubuntu. Until Windows 7, Ubuntu was the fastest installing OS I'd ever come across.

I did the Windows updates (after enabling updates for all MS products) in 2 restarts.

Your problem is that you're restarting whenever you finish uninstalling program X. The fact of the matter is that you can uninstall most all of the programs one after the other and then do a single restart, even if the uninstaller tells you differently. (The only exception I make is when removing AV software like McAfee and Norton.) Also, you might want to check out PC De-crapifier. ( http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/ )

For batch installs after you've cleaned a machine, you might want to check out ninite. ( http://ninite.com/ ) Select the programs you want on there and walk away.

When you run Windows update, make sure you have the option to update other Microsoft programs ticked.

(And you can thank the Justice Dept for making you go to the MS website to download even the most trivial of programs. Derp derp monopoly derp derp. It's ridiculous.)

The fact of the matter is that Windows 7 is miles ahead of XP in terms of installing updates and not requiring a reboot. XP used to take hours. Windows 7 took me about ten minutes after the initial installation.

Microsoft won't package much with the OS because of the antitrust problems they had ten years ago. Linux and Apple aren't afraid to do so.

Also, use ninite.com to install software to a clean install of Windows.

The initial setup is a horror show, but it isn't bad after you get it set up.

FWIW: (un)installers that say you must restart are usually lying. And when they're not, you can often avoid it by killing a lot of processes first.

Well, if you think Windows 7 is so bad, go and ask yourself why you did not install one of the bazillion Linux on your grandma's Dell.

Oh right! Because you cannot leave the house anymore if you would do so.

Install Windows from scratch. It’s a much better experience. I recently installed 7 from scratch on a cheap two year old Compaq laptop (that’s a HP brand) which originally came with a lot of bloat and Vista.

I didn’t have to download any drivers (Windows Update was clever enough to download them for me), I didn’t have to install any bloat and all the features of the laptop (special buttons, all ports, Wlan, …) work without any problem. I ended up with a squeaky clean fully functional laptop. Windows 7 is pretty awesome by Windows standards.

I really don’t know why HP and other manufacturers insist on putting so much crap on their computers when the experience with stock Windows is so much nicer.

I beg to differ. Windows 7 is among the best pieces of software I've ever used, and it's certainly the best OS I've ever had. I signed up for the beta when it first came out and got it as soon as it was out full.

Yes - you have to take a little while to install it and configure it, but after that everything is a breeze.

The installation and setup process of Win 7 is much much better are more smooth than for XP. After a fresh install my graphics were working at the right resolution, my wireless worked and my audio too. In XP I had to install all the drivers manually. In win7 it all installed automatically via WU.

While it s true that WU sometimes postpones your shutdown when you really dont want it to, but it never lasted for more than 15 mins (which is quite a lot)

Can you give an example of inconsistent layout? I am not sure what you mean by that.

I agree that the ribbon is over-bloated with buttons that I almost never use.

As for the applications, I use Ninite to automatically install some of the most common applications. You should try it.

fresh install of windows 7 is far better IMO than even Ubuntu. There are just way too many apps that Ubuntu installs (most useless) during installation.

Excuse me but I think you are complaining just for the heck of it. You don't have to restart every time if you don't want to. When I plug in new usb stick, it says "installing drivers", how is that confusing? Yeah if you would like to know the name of the drivers as well, then W7 is not for you. You don't like the ribbon? Microsoft is not making w7 for every individual. Most people like it (at least in my cirle) and that's what counts. Microsoft has done more usability studies than you can think of.

I agree with the package manager but with the amount of applications that are available for windows, I am not sure how would they implement it but you are right they should have some appstore kinda thing.

I feel sorry that you had to go through this. But W7 is still a great OS and installation experience is one of the best.

And why did you have to install Windows 7 on the first place? Any special software requirements (ie. games)? ... if not, why not just installing Ubuntu, the obvious restricted packages and OpenSSH server so you can connect remotely?