HP promotes Windows 7 PCs | Hacker News Reader

HP promotes Windows 7 PCs

smh.com.au

30 pointshiharryhere47 comments

What's really interesting to me is the trend that all these OEMs just don't fear Microsoft anymore. That coupled with the fact that people are using all kinds of non-MS mobile devices mean that they don't tie their very survival to the whims of Redmond, so they feel emboldened to really try things that would be unheard of in the past.

Things like Linux laptops that they actually promote, and actually acknowledging that Windows 8 is A UI pile of poo publicly, these are all moves they wouldn't have made back in the day when MS was the scary juggernaught and Windows was the only option anyone even considered.

Windows 8 suffers from the problem of not knowing what it wants to be. I like the Apple approach of having a hard division between OSX and iOS, because touch interface is inherently different from one that’s keyboard and mouse driven.

Someone once described Windows 8 as a large estate house, with many rooms and corridors. For the most part, all the rooms look great. You have the west wing (old windows) and the east wing addition (the new metro UI side). But as you wonder around the building, you on occasion stumble into a room that has no paint, the walls are ripped up, and there is an under construction sign.

Now that I think about it, maybe Windows 9 has a chance after all though. Think about it:

  Windows 3.0 - bad - quite terrible
  Windows 3.1 - good - worked ok
  Windows 95 - bad
  Windows 97 - good
  Windows Me - terrible
  Windows XP - very good
  Windows Vista - bad, basically Win 7 Alpha
  Windows 7 - good, stable and get’s out of your way
  Windows 8 - bad, has no idea who it’s target market is
  Windows 9 - ????

Above is just my opinions, of course, but notice the pattern. Maybe there is a hope for Windows 9 yet.

Windows 8.1 is Windows 9.

I was at Microsoft over the summer but this is public knowledge. I got a Windows Blue t-shirt a day before the announcement. Even the existence of the "start" button was a last minute thing. Windows 8.1 is no service pack. It was developed by the entire Windows division. Service Packs are only developed by the Sustained Engineering sub-division.

I've mentioned this to friends but they were not convinced. After all Windows 8.1 adds so little. You must keep in mind that Microsoft was, and may still be, trying to move Windows to a yearly release cycle. This is why Windows 8's upgrade was so cheap. They've caught on that time based release schedules work, and work well. Ubuntu made it popular in open source and things from your kernel to your browser are on it.

Remember the person responsible for getting Windows 7 out the door? Steven Sinofsky. He got fired. In his place was promoted Julie Larson-Green, the women responsible for Windows 8's new interface. She is still in charge.

Windows 8 knows what it is about: managing your computer as Microsoft sees fit. Windows 8.1 may have given back the start button but in exchange you are now forced to create and use a Microsoft account.

Those who continue to use proprietary software should be prepared for the future. If you want to keep control of your computer you must make an effort because your overlord is not going to do so for you.

Sorry, I suspect my Internship just made me more of a open source zealot.

> Windows 8 knows what it is about: managing your computer as Microsoft sees fit. Windows 8.1 may have given back the start button but in exchange you are now forced to create and use a Microsoft account.

For the time being you can still opt out and choose a local account. One just needs to select to create a new account, followed by clicking on the bottom text for having a local account instead.

But I do agree it is not easy to find.

I was under the impression that the first service pack was usually made by the main engineering team, and subsequent SPs were done by sustained engineering.

Why would you insist that "8.1 is 9", after admitting 8.1 isn't much of an upgrade?

Windows 8.1. "start button" thing isn't "giving back the start button". No one was asking for that, they were asking for the start menu, instead of the annoying new full-screen launcher.

The way Windows alternates between good/bad has always been a running joke among my friends and I, and we always assumed Win 8 would be crap, and Win 9 would be good. Most my friends didn't even upgrade to 8, being so sure that this is going to be the case, and are waiting to see 9 instead.

You skipped Windows 2000. Windows 2000 was NT5, XP is NT5.1… same as how Vista is NT6, and '7' NT6.1.

8 and 8.1 are only considered 6.2 and 6.3...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms72...

Windows 2000 and NT were "server" systems which sometimes were used on workstations.

Windows 2000 was certainly not only a server system. Windows 2000 was very popular outside the consumer segment. Like Windows XP organisations used it well beyond the intended lifetime. E.g. see this article from 2005:

"Just as Microsoft prepares to end mainstream support for Windows 2000 next week, a report surfaces from AssetMetrix, an asset management software provider, that indicates Windows 2000 is still installed on nearly half of corporate desktops."

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/two/two062205-story01.html

In other words, four years after the introduction of Windows XP, half of the corporate desktops was still using Windows 2000. The success of 2000 was only eclipsed by that of Windows XP.

Windows 2000 was a good stable system, but it was hard to find it on laptops, and it was targeted to the corporate world, not consumers. You could not go out to a store an buy a Windows 2000 desktop or a laptop. You had to order a business workstation or install it your self. I am not arguing that NT and 2000 should be dismissed, I was simply talking about consumer grade OS MS has been putting out.

> You could not go out to a store an buy a Windows 2000 desktop or a laptop.

On my home country you could.

Windows 2000 was the true next step for Microsoft after 98, not Me, as they prepared to jettison the DOS line entirely. Me was simply an extension of 98 with a lot of improvements backported from 2000. While it may not have been marketed as such, 2000 was as suitable as any Windows for consumer purposes. It turned into XP after relatively minor cosmetic and usability improvements.

No, it wasn't. 2000 was the successor to NT in the business line the same way that Me was to 98 in the consumer line. And, while it was more usable for consumer purposes than NT, because it was a different code base and not marketed as a consumer OS and much consumer software was written to quirks of the 95/98 line, it wasn't as consumer usable as XP was (which IIRC had more backwards compatibility features, but more importantly was the target against which new consumer software was written and tested once it was released.

To me the important thing to note is that the DOS line died with Me about a year later, and 2000 turned into XP which people are still using as a mainstream OS.

Anyway, my original point was that it should be on his list of Windows versions. I don't mean to throw a wrinkle in his narrative, but 2000 was the predecessor of XP and it was neither wonderful nor terrible.

Windows NT was a business (as opposed to consumer) OS, and included both Server and Workstation versions. 2000 was the direct successor to NT and filled the same role.

It was a special time in Windows history, though, since it marks when the server and consumer OS started using the same kernel. That's why I think 2000 belongs on the list but not NT4 or Server 2003.

There was no Windows 97.

Rewriting history aren't we?

First, Windows 2000 is missing (as discussed in other comments), which was stellar and widely used in corporations. Second, Windows 95 was very popular and received very positive reviews at the time. It wasn't an ME or Vista. Windows 95 basically turned Microsoft's DOS monopoly into Microsoft's Windows monopoly (effectively killing OS/2 et al.).

Windows NT 3.5 and 4.0 are also missing.

Who's surprised? When the Surface / Surface RT line released in 2012 Microsoft had a decade of sales data for their Tablet PCs to prove that traditional Windows applications and touch doesn't mesh. As for Metro apps, the obvious problem is ecosystem size (vs iOS and Android). What Microsoft should have done (and this is not hindsight, that's still their way forward) instead of getting into a battle almost impossible to win is to find a good story of why laptops are still relevant, invent new physical formats which are small to carry but much larger in usage (think Sony Tablet P or the old, old Thinkpad with the butterfly keyboard) and stick to its guns. Ultrabooks are not a bad idea, make them lighter weight but obviously it was not enough. That Google beaten them with the Chromebook in the laptop arena just highlights the absolute ineptitude of MS.

MS opened the door for the chromebook by killing off the netbook market with their silly limitations on the netbook format. People wanted the devices, just not the crippled ones. Chromebook just filled the hole intentionally left.

Chromebook still feels pretty limited to me -- that's just a less malicious version of crippled... Or do I misunderstand?

My understanding was that the relatively high licensing cost of windows (relative to the hardware) was a major problem.

Activate dev mode, get access to a full Gentoo-based distro....

Chrome alone is pretty capable too, especially with Chrome Native Client...

> Activate dev mode, get access to a full Gentoo-based distro....

If you have to do that, it is a prof that it doesn't fulfill the needs of the users.

Plus which normal user is going to do this?!

https://sites.google.com/site/chromeoswikisite/home/what-s-n...

Which normal user needs to? I could easily use Chrome alone for any 'normal' tasks. The only native apps I use are Vim, some specialised content creation apps, and command line tools. Don't tell me the average user needs these.

Chrome OS' popularity is proof that for many, it is enough. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see OEMs shipping Ubuntu or Suse, but Chrome OS is more capable than it gets credit for.

> Don't tell me the average user needs these.

The users that use PC as a TV do not, surely.

> Chrome OS' popularity is proof that for many

On US I guess, I am yet to see them anywhere else.

I would argue that the "crippled" Windows netbooks were just fine for normal tasks too... so what are we debating?

Nope. Hardware that ran Linux fine was insufficient for Windows. So Microsoft made requirements for larger screens, bigger memory or they'd take away the windows discount. So manufacturers stopped making 7" and 9" netbooks. And the 11" that they did make we're not as appealing to the people who liked netbooks at the time - the price/performance/weight/size difference was not reasonable compared to a bona fide laptop.

Which probably was microsoft's intention in the first place.

> Chromebook just filled the hole intentionally left.

A tablet is more usable out of the box than a Chromebook. No developer mode does not count, as it is not a simple configuration switch but rather traditional Linux installation party fest.

In Europe there are still lots of places, online and offline, where one can easily get Netbooks. In some stores even with Ubuntu pre-installed.

>> Repeat after me: An advertising slogan is not news.

>> A few tech journalists need to be reminded of that rule today, after piling on to the story that HP is bringing Windows 7 back “by popular demand.”

http://www.zdnet.com/hp-bringing-back-windows-7-pcs-not-so-f...

This article makes it sound like the slogan is just some marketing gimmick, but the slogan is actually just a fair description of the sad reality of the situation. HP is promoting Windows 7 over Windows 8 at this point - the default PC configurations feature Windows 7, and you can "customize" to get Windows 8.x. Good or bad, Windows 8 has been out for over a year, and is not making people want to buy PCs. I don't know if Windows 7 is making people want to buy PCs these days either, but it came out over 4 years ago, and has already served its purpose, which has nothing to do with today's PC market. If Windows 8 is supposed to be greater than Windows 7 in all conceivable ways, why is there still a demand for Windows 7, and why would a PC manufacturer need to market both versions, or even go so far as to promote the older version?

Topic already discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7092164

Maybe it's not obvious to the designers at MS, but the ideal touch screen interface just isn't the same as the ideal mouse and keyboard interface. Sure, put both modes in the same OS, just let us default to something that makes sense for the desktop on the desktop. There is no need for the start menu to be full screen, and there is no need to boot to a touchscreen interface. That's all there is to it.

Windows 8 isn't that bad. That is, it doesn't get in my way to an unacceptable degree. It's just that none of the visible additions are helpful versus Windows 7.

Windows 8.1 is pretty amazing and its a mistake to install Windows 7 on any machine that is "made for Windows 8". I have seen multiple instances where Windows 8.1 handles huge excel files better, makes SSD's faster and runs snappier than Windows 7 on the same machine. The updating for Windows 7 is also a pain and has a huge system folder size compared to 8.1. HP actually has been very good at upgrading drivers to 8.1 so I seriously doubt they are "promoting" Windows 7. Just another example of reporting a made up story to get clicks.

You can seriously doubt all you want, but the HP homepage boldly proclaims "Back by popular demand. Customize a new HP PC with Windows 8 and save up to $150 instantly."

Derp. I meant to write "Windows 7". What I get for commenting on HN using an iPad.

I use a Windows 8 laptop at home (in addition to a MacBook Pro and Windows 7 at work). I have not had problems with it. I'm not sure the reality of Microsoft's troubled OS's is as bad as the perception. 7 and Vista seem very similar to me.

The only problem I've had with Windows 8 was quickly solved once I learned the shortcut to search for applications. Win-Q to open the search page, type two or three letters, and hit Enter. It's much simpler than clicking the Start button and wading through menus.

In Windows 7, you simply hit the Windows button (or click the start button) and start typing. It works the same way, but takes up much less screen real estate and exposes you to the menus to wade through if you so desire.

I prefer the Windows 7 desktop paradigm. Which is why I install Classic Shell on Windows 8 machines. It basically converts Windows 8 to Windows 7 with a flat UI and some extra snappy-ness. A win-win in my book.

For me too Classic Shell is actually saving Windows. I don't think I'd even buy the Windows notebook without knowing that there's Classic Shell. And I also like "flatness" by the default on the desktop of 8.1. Windows 7 defaults are weird with all that button background shadings and all that shaded frames.

The next desktop Windows should look like Windows 8.1 desktop plus Classic Shell. Having different desktop and tablet versions is obviously needed.

Using just the Win Key will do the same - you can just start typing in the metro start screen. Since I'm used to Alfred as a Launcher on Macs, i feel right at home with this behavior in Windows 8.

The problem is the full screen launcher steals context. Also it is fugly on multimonitor systems.

When was the last time HP made the front page of HN? Probably something about how they should sell their hardware business or spin it off.

But when was the last time they made the front page because of a laptop or other consumer product?

They're only putting Windows 7 on PC's to get their name in the news.

They wouldn't be doing this if they didn't think more people are interested in Windows 7 than Windows 8. That would be a pretty silly reason to "get their name in the news", otherwise.

Funny, I was under the impression that they're installing Windows 7 because Win8 sucked.

It's interesting how HP, a loyal Microsoft partner and OEM, is now selling an old "outdated" OS. I think HP is the first major OEM to do so, and definitely not the last. Microsoft really screwed up with Windows 8 as they made it to complex for the average person, coupled with inconsistent UX. Build something people want, or at least, give people something they want.

I've wondered if Microsoft adopts a sort of "golden path" (a la Dune) strategy... intentionally make every other operating system unpopular in order to set the stage for their next version.

You need bad in order to see good.

The problem with that 'strategy' is that microsoft's bad makes people see the good in Apple and Google's offerings.

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