8 hours of Windows 7 Amazon sales outstripped Vista's entire pre-order period. | Hacker News Reader

8 hours of Windows 7 Amazon sales outstripped Vista's entire pre-order period.

news.bbc.co.uk

58 pointsxelfer57 comments

I am already using Windows 7 RC as my primary OS. It's so much faster than XP and the UI improvements are fabulous. Vista was just a beta version of Windows 7, or another Windows ME. XP lasted me almost 10 years and I figure 7 will do the same.

Faster than XP? Can you please elaborate on this? I'm a long time Windows internals geek although haven't seen a windows PC in a long while, so I'm genuinely curious.

I haven't benchmarked it, but subjectively speaking, the boot time is greatly improved, applications launch faster, and file operations are speedier, with the exception of opening an image in Windows Photo Viewer, which for some reason takes 2-3 seconds.

A lot of the perceived speed comes from barely-noticeable tweaks to the UI. Win7 does benchmark a bit faster than Vista, but it really is the UI (window response/refresh times, etc) that makes a world of difference.

(In general, people notice response time not throughput. I think thats a bit difficult to capture in benchmarks.)

I've similarly upgraded a Win XP laptop to Windows 7 RC, and it is noticeably snappier. This led me to pre-order an upgrade copy during the half-off sale, which is something I'd otherwise never recommend. However, given my surprisingly good experience with the beta and the release candidate, I was very much convinced to make the move to Win 7 ASAP.

Likewise. I dualbooted my laptop during the BETA, but as soon as RC came out and I knew it would be a stable and was supported by updates (as opposed to needing to reinstall a new release every few weeks) I moved entirely to 7. Since then I've done the same to other PCs in my house as well as my girlfriends notebook which ran Vista like a sloth but now excels under 7.

Couldn't be happier.

Yea I agree. Windows 7 is solid. Now that I've gotten used to the new task bar, I love it way more than OS X. I get overwhelmed on my Mac because my windows are all over the place and I can never find the one I am looking for. Windows 7 fixes that and almost makes workspaces outdated.

Same here. I've been using the RC for months as my primary OS. Build 7000 had a few stability problems for me, but I think those were driver related issues. The latest RC has been rock solid for me.

The multiple monitor support has been flawless for me, even with out of the box drivers. Throwing windows around between 3 monitors with "Start+Shift+(left/right)" really speeds up my productivity when programming.

Integrated desktop search is a huge win: fast and accurate. The new taskbar is a big improvement in managing multiple windows, especially when you have 3-4 powershell or cmd windows open. Mouseover the taskbar icon, and you see previews of all your open windows.

The UI is also very responsive and snappy. Bootup times are in th 20 second range for me. That's on a dual core, 10,000rpm HDD with 4GB ram. The only upgrade I made to my hardware when I installed Win7 was a faster HDD and I replaced my 8 year old pci video card that I used for the 3rd monitor.

All in all a big win, and if you're a BizSpark member, you can get unlimited licenses for your startup for $100, paid after 3 years.

I'm still a little baffled by Vista's reputation. I'd rather not run Windows at all (alas, I enjoy PC gaming too much), but even just the addition of Aero makes it a much more enjoyable experience than XP for me. UAC is also clearly the right thing to do, and, begrudgingly accepting Microsoft's need to maintain backwards compatibility, they did a pretty good job of it. I've also had very few problems.

I have been using XP for years now (on my tablet for over 3) and it has been reliable. After lots of research and colleague input I decided to actually wait to upgrade my machine entirely so that I could avoid the entire vista fiasco (wasn't in the mood of paying more for a downgrade).

A buddy of mine has been using 7 as his main OS for a bit now and tells me it is greatly improved over Vista. I hope its true because I am not totally comfortable using Linux as my main OS and I would love to get a new Windows machine soon...

I'm currently running Windows 7 on my laptop. It's a lot more responsive and stable then Vista, so this is no surprise.

And I managed to miss out on the half-off preorder. Sigh.

Hopefully they'll run another one before release day.

Can someone explain to me how the whole half-price sale made sense?

The general tone of Windows 7 seems to be "Vista done right." As a similar example, Apple's tact with 10.6 is "Leopard, but better," and has decided to price Snow Leopard at $29 as an incentive to upgrade.

Microsoft seems to have far more at stake in Windows 7, and most average users who might be interested in upgrading have likely missed out on the half-price sale. (Hell, I'm about as tech-savvy as they come, and I completely forgot to order my copy.) Doesn't it make sense to leave it at $50 for quite a while longer to get people to upgrade?

Well, I think the half price sale was a very smart move on Microsoft's part. By the end of the promotion, it was sold out on Newegg.com, and it dominated the software category on Amazon. This created a lot of buzz and demand over a short period and generated a lot of positive publicity.

Microsoft's biggest mistake with Vista was not controlling the PR. This promotional campaign lets Microsoft create a big enough lead-in demand so that it will continue to build until the actual release date.

In the end, IMHO, I think that Microsoft will continue to offer these promotions for its retail customers up to and after the official launch. Hopefully they realize that, for retail buyers, Windows 7 MSRP is still too high. They need as many people as possible upgrading, but not at the expense of the corporate buyers. Therefore, I think they will continue to offer promotions for retail buyers at pretty heavy discounts.

I'll also chime in to say that I was pretty impressed when running Windows 7 RC for a few days to test it out. Coming from XP, it was very fast and intuitive interface. I ordered 2 copies of the Professional Upgrade edition during the promotional period.

People keep trying to compare Snow Leopard to Windows 7, in an attempt to prove that Windows is overpriced.

You have to realize that Apple has already made their money off of you, since you bought a MacBook. OS sales are Microsoft's only source of profit in this space, and they got what, $20 dollars from the copy of Vista preinstalled on your laptop, so you can understand the higher retail price.

Congrats to the guys at Microsoft.

I don't work on Windows, but I'm sure the guys over on that team really appreciate the sentiment. After all, most of them are hackers too!

I'm about to build a gaming PC, so I need to buy Windows. I use Linux for everything normally, so I don't keep up.

Is Windows 7 supported by all the major games (FPS/RTS)/drivers, etc? Is it recommended for a gaming PC, yet? What version should I get, for a dual core 8GB machine? Home edition enough?

I've been playing with Win7 64bit on a quad core/4GB ram setup with NVidia graphics since the RC came out. I've ran a few steam games, DoW2, warhammer online and not had any problems with them.

The graphics card manufacturers seem to have Win7 drivers out already. I've also found that running vista drivers seem to work fine too.

Yes and yes, it doesn't differ much from Vista and the launch issues from Vista such as poor driver support have largely been ironed out.

Get Home Premium unless you need to connect to a network domain, hard disk encryption, Location Aware Printing, Remote Desktop hosting, networked backups, or XP mode.

A half-price pre-order deal on the full (not upgrade) version runs in the UK until 9 August.

But, somewhat infuriatingly, the Windows 7 EULA isn't yet available (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/eula.aspx), so I'm left wondering whether "Home Premium" will be licensed to run in a virtual machine, which is the only reason I'd be buying it.

In the EU, how will people download Firefox if they don't have a boot-strap browser already available?

a friend's USB drive...

Yes, that's correct.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_8436755...

wget? :)

Requires a clean install? Is this really the state of the art in the Windows-world?

Was tempted myself, but the installation seemed aimed at individuals who are not particualarly computer savvy (really awkward to format and reinstall) and their biggest concern is that they are pissed off at vista (Not using it).

So close MS, almost made me buy an OS for the first time(Aside from OEM includes).

Seriously, a visually updated install process put you off the whole OS?

I should have included the caveat, I am currently using the RC at home and love it. My problem is installing Vista/XP so I can install Win7 every 6 or so months when I want to format my computer.

Why not just buy the standalone OS? You are not forced to buy the upgrade, and if you are reinstalling that much, it'd probably be worth it.

My understanding of the deal is that it is only for upgrades. I tried to find an instance of the stand-alone, but could not. If I could get a stand-alone copy of Windows 7 for the deal they were offering, I would have bought one without thinking.

Have you ever actually installed an "Upgrade" of Windows? You don't need to install Vista or XP first to use an upgrade version of Windows 7. Indeed, just having an old Windows 7 install on your machine is more than enough.

That is exactly my point. I want to install a fresh copy of the OS. Not pave over the previous instance.

Oh right didn't realise this was upgrade copies.

Let me make it clearer for you: _you can do this with the upgrade DVD_.

Actually, that's been changed with Windows 7. It now requires the presence of an activated installation of a prior version of Windows.

Which, again, doesn't change the fact that if you already have a Windows 7 install (I don't mean RC, I mean final), you can use the upgrade DVD, blasting the old install away during the process.

So, one concludes that that Vista 7 has more hype than Vista had? Is that what should I be getting from this?

I think it has more to do with how displeased they are with whatever they are using already.

That a large number of people are familiar with Microsoft's pattern of: Screw one up and "fix it" with the next major release?

I'd say W7 has more positive news and response than Vista. I actually think there is less hype.

No surprise there. The devil (angel I guess in this case) is in the name and user's perception. People are familiar with the name Windows and 7 means a better version. Vista means something totally new and after years of being comfortable with Windows why switch to something new.

Honest question: who in his sane mind pre-orders an OS???

50% off is a pretty good incentive to do so. However, I heard a lot of people were burned when they preordered vista. And I don't just mean they paid good money for a shitty OS.

Oh wow I didn't realise it was 50% off.

he (or she) who wants to get their new OS as soon as it comes out. Why is this a surprise to you? People interact with the operating system all day and its exciting to be getting something faster, different, with new features.

I did. Just like I pre-order every OpenBSD release. Windows 7 pre-order is a good value and buying now will give you the most bang for your buck over its lifetime.

I'll be putting in a pre-order today. Windows 7 is the first release since I've graduated and been gainfully employed. I like having Windows VMs around, and I'm happy to purchase the OS now that I'm able.

I note it repeats the lie that Microsoft took IE out because of an EU ruling. I can only hope this plan backfires on them and people install Firefox or Chrome instead.

Why is this voted up? This is just irrelevant and incorrect Microsoft bashing. Microsoft didn't take IE out of all copies, just EU copies.

"Because of a recent European Commission anti-trust ruling, Windows 7's European version will not be integrated with Windows' Internet Explorer, meaning that a browser will have to be installed separately."

Moreover, this only applies to the European SKU's. OEMs can still install IE.

As I said, that line you quote, from this very article, is not true. That makes my point both relevant and correct "Microsoft bashing" and you, on the other hand, are just misled by the very PR spin I'm calling attention to.

Can you show me a link to this "ruling"? No you can't. Why not? Because it's not happened yet. And when it does happen, the EU has been pushing for the installation of multiple browsers with a choice at startup.

Removing their own browser from the Euro version was an attempt by Microsoft to head off that ruling. Obviously they felt that either a) people would be more likely to install Internet Explorer this way, and/or b) that the negative reaction could be skilfully deflected onto the EU.

Sadly, part b) appears to be working judging by our posts relative scoring at least, again I can only hope they're wrong about a) and this leads to a further increase in market share for non-Microsoft browsers in Europe.

Ah I misinterpreted your comment as "non-EU copies have IE so Microsoft wasn't forced to remove it everywhere". I see what you mean was that even in the EU Microsoft isn't forced. Having understood that, they were getting pretty hefty fines there and this along with other measures went somewhat to fixing that.

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