Windows 7: The Best iPad Seller | Hacker News Reader

Windows 7: The Best iPad Seller

mikecanex.wordpress.com

23 pointsmikecane19 comments

I've never had these issues with Windows 7. The initial complaints are due to the apps you want to use requiring Java and Flash, that's independent of the OS, and would be the case with any Operating System that could use Java and Flash. You could of course said no to the updates.

Furthermore, it's completely unnecessary to install Avast, you can install Microsoft Security Essentials, free, and it works great. Microsoft can't bundle it, since they would be charged with monopolistic practices.

Your OEM provider installed a Norton trial, that also has nothing to do with Windows. Windows 7 only creates 2 Program Files if you're using a 64bit operating system. The (x86) is the 32bit programs, whereas the Program Files are native 64bit, it makes it a bit clearer when uninstalling or organizing your system. Since you can technically have 32 and 64 bit versions of the same program installed.

I could go on, but essentially there seems to have been an issue with the game. I don't know if I would outright blame the operating system.

All your arguments are correct, however they miss the issue.

For this person, the overall Windows 7 experience is flawed compared to the Apple OSX experience. You can say it's because of the games, or because Microsoft can't legally include something, but that doesn't change that, for this person, it's easier to use a Mac.

Not to nit pick, but he was describing the iOS and iPad experience, and not a Mac or OSX. I would say the OSX experience is closer to Windows than the iOS experience. He very well might have had similar prompts if he were using OSX.

No Automatic Updates for Java or Flash on Mac OS X ...

The main point here is that the iPad is a strongly opinionated device. There are things you can do and things you can't. Windows machines are weakly opinionated devices. They don't venture to guess what you might want to do with them.

Most people don't want every option, they want the right option.

If you want to compare apples to Apples, try installing Java and Flash and a CD-Rom Game on your iPad.

In short: the article bashes Windows 7 because of the terrible experience of managing security, OS updates and software updates.

The main thing Windows lacks is nice package management for external non-MS software and updates. Linux has been great at this from the word go. Steam did this for games on Windows, centralizing updates and keeping everything running smoothly. Apple's new App Store for OS X provides one place where all software you buy through the store can be simultaneously updated. Years ago I hoped Google Pack would expand to a full software distribution system to manage all this complexity for users, but it never happened.

To paint this as Apple vs Microsoft is to miss the bigger point. Regardless of how you trivialize the experience the author had with Windows, many people share it. Hell, a lot of the same is true for OS X; even with the app store. Likewise, the experience on the iPad is just as the author describes. The bigger question is, which will people prefer?

This is where it gets much broader. This isn't Microsoft vs Apple. This is space shuttle vs passenger car. One you simply get in and drive. The other you need a lot of training and a hell of an intellect to operate. I think it's pretty obvious which one your average person is going to prefer.

I disagree. Its more of a ferarri w/ manual transmition vs toyota prius. While you can do some good shit to break that ferarri, the prius can break, but its simple, just drive, just gas and break, no third pedal no thinking, simple small quiet. Oh you can't race it but thats ok you drive the speed limit anyways, gives you a nice rear-view camera so parking is a breeze, low gas usage, YAY! For the price of an ipad I can buy a windows box with specs an ipad can only dream of. For the price of an imac I can buy a machine with enough power to let it degrade in performance for 5 years and still not approach the imac's performance.

I think its not a shuttle vs car analogy. More of a GM vs Tesla analogy. GM is dying because they stick to the old "what works", "were too big to fail" approach, while tesla is sticking to "were more expensive, but we make a damn superior product"

"ip" = iphone, ipad, ipod touch

Lets debunk a few problems with the article:

1) Why was there 3 antivirus tools installed. Generally its a bad idea.

2) OMG ANTIVIRUS S0X0RS! I WILL BUY L33T H4X OS THAT HAS NO VIRUSES! Get over it. Windows is the most popular consumer-grade os EVER to date. Exploits exist for it. Wait hold up, remember the ipod explot that roots your "ip" by going to a website and clicking a button which exploits a PDF reader problem? THAT GAVE YOU UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE OS AND UNDERLYING EVERYTHING. It was used for good, could have been used for making your system a pure spambot using up your wireless data limits. Sorry dude, you suck.

3) The game maker no longer exists. So basically you are expecting a game that is very old to just work on any operating system that has a Windows in it's name without a compatibility upgrade especially when coming to Win 7 (a improvement on lots of cruft that was on xp). Maybe windows defender WAS right and the damn disk had a real virus on it, oh wait did you have a hacked copy? Try using old mac os (pre x) programs on osx. There will be issues. Shitty performance is a big one. I cannot play warcraft 2 on a ppc running 10.4 because it requires an old macos and does emulation, the hardware requirements for warcraft 2 is a 166mhz processor damnit. Ever hear of problems running new games on old versions of "ip"? Well sorry the market is so tightly controlled that you can't even install it on the "wrong" device. If the game existed for the "ip" and was not compatibly your article would have been "to play this game: turn on my ipad, jailbreak it, fuck up, brick, get a new one, jailbreak, install game, does not work, get pissed, damn you steve jobs! this is why balmer is l33t h4x0r" please see the flip perspective of this whole mess. If you tweak windows just right you can probably get this thing working. Worst case install XP mode that MS provides and get windows xp full compatibility WITH a sandbox so it can't hurt you. So windows actually wins in this one.

4) Windows updates... ah the age old story. Sorry dude, I had times when I spent 4 hrs upgrading windows in an office; they had not run windows update in 5 yrs. You gotta run this shit incrementally. Just connect once a month and let it simmer. You CHOSE to wait while it worked vs just letting it download and install when you are shutting the machine down. Notice you didn't follow the "measure twice, cut once" approach. You didn't try to see what is the problem with the game and look up to see the company not existing that probably its just incompatible crap, instead you chose to assume your approach of waiting for the update was the only good solution and the right one.

I always right-click drag executables to desktop, asks me what to do like create shortcut. It even gives you VISUAL hints as to what it wants to do while dragging. Yes it could be better like assume dragging a .exe/.bat file onto the desktop = create shortcuts (seriously MS, small bug, been how many years? and still not fixed)

EDIT: Sorry I missed the java update. There is no JVM on the ipad. You can't run java apps on it. The end. MS Does not control java, you chose to install it on your machine, deal with it. Don't want it, dont use java tools. Not to mention that you can redistribute the OpenJDK with your application as part of itself so there is no requirement to have java installed and running on your machine, it can just be packaged with say your game or application and just run without any update nagging. Not MS's fault.

I hate MS just as much as the next guy, but please put blame where blame belongs.

A lot of people are already stating that most of the mess documented in this post is not necessarily the fault of Windows 7. The OEM is at fault for not installing current versions of Java and Flash. The OEM is at fault for installing Norton crapware instead of a decent antivirus. The software developers are at fault for producing a buggy game, etc. This is all true.

BUT a non-technical user will not know any of this. They will see all of this as the experience they had using Windows 7. If Microsoft cares about the experience users have on Windows 7 they must prevent OEM providers from shipping it in this condition.

And this is why Apple won't license their OS to hardware OEMs.

What makes me laugh is how often we make the same mistakes.

For years computing has been a conflict between users wanting their computer do everything and their sysadmin telling them to limit it to essentials only.

The only reason the ipad is a success and vista a failure is due to expectations. If microsoft had developed the ipad rather than vista there would have been riots. Where's flash? What's this proprietary hardware bs? Why can't I plug in my monitor?

People actually voted this blog post up?

How about me having to update itunes every other week and having to d/l 90M each time for a point version upgrade. Hasn't apple figured out how to do patches?

I end up updating my mac less because the updates are so freaking huge. Last update I did ended up being 1.2G. Yes, GIGS! And that was only after not updating for about 3 months. WTF?

There is a sort of cultural blindness to these problems. Once you know how to work your way through the mess, you can fix it without any thought. You can do it with your eyes closed, accepting the pain as just the way things are.

Just a typical rant on windows 7.

He could've just install the game on a new iPad, and throw the notebook out of the window.

But wait! It's not in the app-store? The nice thing about old windows-games, they'll keep running on windows 8 too.

There are better ways to make what is a valid point. Only geeks can forgive legacy baggage, but inevitably whatever MS do OS-wise is a balancing act. There's nothing new here.

Well, I am having trouble setting up this Linux server, so I might as well use this Gameboy.

The same concept can apply to web applications in general, not just iPad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com