Sunday 1 February 2009

Windows 7 is really Windows NT6.1

If you're a Windows user planning on buying Windows 7 to upgrade your Windows Vista installation you should really stop and think for a moment. During a discussion following an earlier post I was lead to a Wikipedia article that assigns a version number of 6.1 to the Windows 7 OS. Which to me lends much credence to the conclusion many have come to that Windows 7 amounts to little more than a service pack to Windows Vista.

Basically Windows Vista users need to mount a campaign to force Microsoft to release Windows 7 or rather Windows 6.1 as a service pack. Because that is exactly what it is. Microsoft are ripping people off by changing the name from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Just like the infamous Mojave experiment, the name change is nothing more than marketing to dupe the public into buying something they effectively already have. Microsoft should at least be honest and call it Windows 6.1.

4 comments:

  1. No, it's because versioning it as 7 would break Vista compatiblity.

    They did it to stay compatible, not because it really is 7. You can blame the lazy developers out there for querying the version number instead of the actual API capabilities.

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  2. Changing the name of the product to 6.1 (as it really is) instead of 7 breaks Vista compatibility?

    Please explain to me exactly how changing the name on a cardboard box or an advertisement is going to break the code?

    Here is the truth about Windows 7. It's Vista or Windows NT 6.0 if you prefer, with a GUI and a few tweaks here and there. Sorry didn't mean to break the code.

    Windows 7 is a patched up version of Windows Vista. That's what the infamous Mojave project was all about. Finding out what would be acceptable and spinning Vista as a decent OS "if only it was set up properly".

    The product name "Windows 7" was chosen because it makes it sound like Microsoft have produced a whole new version of the OS. Microsoft are attempting to pull the wool over peoples eyes again. And it looks like they're pulling it off again.

    The sad thing is it's not even because of some genius marketing. It's because some people have used Windows so long they're scared to move to anything else. They really want to believe they absolutely must use Windows and nothing else or the sky might fall on them.

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  3. the .1 dosent mean its not a new os and just a patch

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  4. The "7" in "Windows 7" is supposed to make you think Windows 7 is a major departure from Windows Vista. It's a marketing gimmick. If you can't understand that then you deserve to be ripped off.

    The facts the matter are well documented across the web. Even Microsoft's pet bloggers only ever gave Windows 7 a look warm response. Not much of an endorsement is it?

    Point releases in the software world tend to be not much more than maintenance releases. They introduce minor bug fixes and change requests. They don't normally bring herald the introduction of a whole new product with all new bells and whistles.

    Major releases are the events where there are significant changes introduced to an item of software. Windows 7 did not herald the introduction of any significant changes to the Windows OS. The only really marketable feature was the new task-bar. Frankly a task-bar does not make an OS.

    Even the multi-touch technology introduced to Windows 7 was borrowed from Windows Surface. Which is actually just Windows Vista masquerading as a coffee table. Even worse is the small but significant fact that touch and multi-touch is actually more of a hardware feature than a software feature.

    All of which is academic though. You see Microsoft has just extended the downgrade rights for Windows XP to 2020. Which can only mean businesses are not opting for Windows 7. Which means other than the consumer space where most OEMs don't give their customers a choice of OS, Windows 7 is essentially dead.

    So if businesses aren't "upgrading" to Windows 7, what does that mean? Basically there's no selling points. Windows 7 doesn't bring anything new to the party that businesses want.

    So if you're happy for Microsoft to take full price for a minor update feel free to run out and buy every copy of Windows Microsoft releases. Because that is what the future holds for you.

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