Don't buy Windows 7

[bantamgas]

Are any of these posts available in the English language?:rolleyes4:

 

[dontknowitall]

dir /p, dir /s, dir *.* copy a:*.* b: ......

All that WAS the English language!

 

[petercj]

dir /p, dir /s, dir *.* copy a:*.* b: ......

All that WAS the English language!

dur /?

 

[zeebeedee]

Autoexec.bat and config.sys I loved making pointless startup menus and off course fdisk.exe for when you messed up!

 

[Howsie]

But you can't beat the beauty of vi and grep

Drove me mad in my younger days.

 

[peteheat]

"Hopefully, google will the first to break Microsoft's hold over the PC O/S market and provide people with value for money software that can be relied on."

Be careful what you wish for replacing one monopoly with another is never a good idea IMHO.

Google have control over our living by deciding what they think is a good web site and where it will rank in listings.

A little competition keeps them all (reasonably) honest.

 

[petercj]

"Hopefully, google will the first to break Microsoft's hold over the PC O/S market and provide people with value for money software that can be relied on."

Be careful what you wish for replacing one monopoly with another is never a good idea IMHO.

Google have control over our living by deciding what they think is a good web site and where it will rank in listings.

A little competition keeps them all (reasonably) honest.

Google is just one of many search engines available to any surfer, they don't have a monopoly.

 

[peteheat]

Google is just one of many search engines available to any surfer, they don't have a monopoly.

I know that, but in the real world they are the number one search engine that every web master aims to get the high ranking on, I would gladly sacrifice a number one slot on any of the others including Microsoft / Bing for a first page listing on Google, I could be wrong but I think most people think the same.

 

[wheeto]

Google is just one of many search engines available to any surfer, they don't have a monopoly.

And Windows is just one of many operating systems available to any PC owner.

 

[petercj]

And Windows is just one of many operating systems available to any PC owner.

The difference between google and Microsoft is that google has become popular through the choices made by its users on a level playing field, whereas MS Windows has maintained control of the field, often by using dubious business practices, some of which have been over-ruled out by the Courts in America, but many that have not.

The very great majority of programs are written to run on Windows, and breaking that hold on the market by MSW is a huge challenge in itself. Because of this fact, the very great majority of computer manufacturers sell their computers with Windows installed - usually a machine copy of Windows written on the hard-drive and linked by profile to the machine in question so that it can't be transferred to another computer, also, such Windows software is licensed to work on one machine only, and that license is not transferable to another machine. Make any substantial changes to the computer hardware, and you may find that Windows has been invalidated.

For Linux to become any kind of competition to Windows it would need massive investment, and require a company that was prepared to battle it out with Microsoft, who would play every card they have to make sure any threat of competition failed.

Google are one of the few companies that have the wealth and the influence to challenge Microsoft's grip on the O/S market. It can only be a battle of the Titans. I'll vote for google as the lesser of evils up against Microsoft any day.

 

[zzzjim]

Google have done a few dodgy things themselves , privacy and Wi Fi harvesting

Usefull --- BUT they DID NOT ASK FIRST ...

 

[DirksPlumbing]

Google is just one of many search engines available to any surfer, they don't have a monopoly.

You well underestimate Google. They are way more than that. It just silently creeps into everything. And many Google services you can not get to the extend and functionality elsewhere.

So there is a monopoly on its way too.

I think as well that the straight swap from one big player to the other will not make any changes for the good.

Saying that MS has the ultimate grip on the OS market is pretty much saying that you made it that and accepted. There is enough alternatives. Just few use them because it requires a lot of effort and time (or money) by yourself that has been spend by others already that used/targeted the MS market.

Nobody stood with a gun in front of your door and forced you to take and use MS Windows and predecessors. HP and co offer machines without MS license since more than a decade.
Just the driver situation does not allow you to make use of the full bandwidth of hardware available.

That means to you that you have to use Google to find suitable hardware for the alternative OS of your choice. Ooops

 

[DirksPlumbing]

By the way the validity of Moores law has been enabled by MS/Intel(AMD). No other processor market has been lasting long enough to proof it and took a similar development. Even though ARM might be able to follow up and has a very remote chance to overtake.And it was MS that implemented and pushed the implementation of new features and created the need for more processing power.You should not only blame the builder of the road for the bumps and pot holes in it but be grateful that you have that road to drive on.Who goes and buys a sack of tar and repairs the pot hole himself? It is not rocket science.

 

[petercj]

By the way the validity of Moores law has been enabled by MS/Intel(AMD). No other processor market has been lasting long enough to proof it and took a similar development. Even though ARM might be able to follow up and has a very remote chance to overtake.And it was MS that implemented and pushed the implementation of new features and created the need for more processing power.You should not only blame the builder of the road for the bumps and pot holes in it but be grateful that you have that road to drive on.Who goes and buys a sack of tar and repairs the pot hole himself? It is not rocket science.

The person who laid the foundations for the road was Time Berners-Lee, who didn't exploit his creation in the pursuit of absolute greed.

I don't underestimate google, and I'm not a cheer-leader for google, like the other Internet Titans, they are chasing the American dream - greed being the main motivator. However, if google can develop a viable alternative to Windows it will bring competition to a market where currently there is none.

To suggest that Linux is a viable alternative to Windows is akin to saying that the Green Party is a viable alternative to the Tories: a hypothetical possibility that we all know to be a non-starter, although the existence of the Green Party can be cited as evidence of democracy.

The biggest driver in the sale of PC software and hardware is computer games, 99% of which are written for Windows. Even if the latest hi-res games were written for Linux the software wouldn't cope. Microsoft have so much stuff copy written and claimed as their creation that it will be hard for any developer to compete.

To suggest that Microsoft has gained it's hold over the O/S market by fair means is indeed naive.

Whatever supremacy google may have achieved, they have done it while up against various other popular search engines with similar capabilities, which has not been the case with Windows.

 

[Alex1411]

But i think the windows 7 is good and latest windows in this modern age i am also using this windows this windows have all the new features and options so i think there is no problem in this windows....

 

[DirksPlumbing]

But i think the windows 7 is good and latest windows in this modern age i am also using this windows this windows have all the new features and options so i think there is no problem in this windows....

No, Win8 is the latest but it takes effort to get used to and even more effort to administrate it.

 

[petercj]

Life is like a box of chocolates!

 

[DirksPlumbing]

I don't underestimate google, and I'm not a cheer-leader for google, like the other Internet Titans, they are chasing the American dream - greed being the main motivator. However, if google can develop a viable alternative to Windows it will bring competition to a market where currently there is none.

To suggest that Microsoft has gained it's hold over the O/S market by fair means is indeed naive.

Well that is lacking proper information. There were OS2, various Unixe, BeOs, Linux and numerous other alternatives which over the time had been forgotten about as the support for them was not in comparison to that for Windows.
Some of them were/are superior in terms of either usability or security.
But to the day I am struggling to do any of them to 'my mom' simply because I would not get any night sleep anymore since the phone would ring constantly.
This does not work, I forgot that password, can you sort that for me...

As for the Copyright that has not anything to do with it as you can program the same thing as long as you do not steal the original code in any form. Just the effort for complex software can be to much for a small number of people not to forget that even the most engaged people still have to feed and live.

Regarding the green party it has a lot of potential just again it does not target the mainstream and sometimes even dreams up ideas which are logical but not sweet enough for the public. I would rather vote for them than anybody else. Just I would not expect major changes as this would lead on paths where we do not know what lurks aside them.

Finally I use MS just as much as Google where they offer me the better solution.
If Google comes up with "the" OS you would find me using it and installing it at many more homes in my spare time. Especially now that I need to spend a lot of time to learn how to use and administrate Win8.

 

[petercj]

............ "administrate"?

 

[DirksPlumbing]

............ "administrate"?

What would be the right word for fiddeling about with system and/or network settings?

 

[petercj]

What would be the right word for fiddeling about with system and/or network settings?

nerding

 

[DirksPlumbing]

Even though it appears useless. Most of the limited accounts I have set up have been superseeded with admin accounts in order to not needing to put a password in in case an exploit/worm etc. would require it for the installation .

And the few existing ones hacked my attempts to give them a stable system via hardware. For example by switching of the socket during update installations in order to safe energy. :banghead:

 

[petercj]

Just to recap: do you consider that there has been adequate competition to Windows over the years?

 

[DirksPlumbing]

Just to recap: do you consider that there has been adequate competition to Windows over the years?

Well I tried a lot of OSes over the time and checked the usability of them some even lived for weeks but mostly then just as a parallel partition that got used less and less. Often with growing needs the reboots into the good old Win* just became too many and then Win finally been the OS of choice again.

Would you not consider OS2 as competition? To small a company?
What about Linux? You can buy it preinstalled since at least a decade on major PC manufacturers.
Apple OS? What would have been if Apple would have allowed its usage on PCs?
Digital Research was a main competitor just slept through the upcoming graphical user interfaces.

I personally have not seen the MS employee with the gun in the PC shop.

Now it could happen to Microsoft themselves as they slept through the upcoming mobile market.

By the way until Win8 they not even attempted to gain users via price.

 

[petercj]

Open source O/S are an alternative for the average individual if they want to surf the net, word process, and play some of the low end games.

But most people want more than that, and they don't want to make the use of their O/S into a nerdy hobby.

As already stated, technology in the domestic computer scene is driven by games that use high-level graphics, and 99% of top end PC games are written to run on windows.

Bill Gates had his big break when IBM decided not to carry on with development of their own O/S, and he hasn't looked back since that time.

Microsoft have done a very good job of bridging the gap between the language that computers understand and people's native tongue, I would never dispute that. But they have done it in a clear field and without any real competition.

99% of computers are sold with Windows installed, the very great majority of games, and most of the PC applications on the market are written for windows, which has been the case since 1998, which just happens to be the name of an edition of windows - what a coincidence!

Open source software is written by developers for developers, and there has been some attempt at making some of the O/S more popular, but to get anywhere near the versatility and user friendliness of windows would require massive financial investment in the development of software, and even more financial investment in marketing. The things that might persuade computer vendors and game writers to switch to another O/S are: comparative versatility combined with at least the same level of user-friendliness at a lower price!!!

To have any chance of entering the market the O/S would need to be able to run windows based games and applications, which would no doubt lead to legal wrangles with Microsoft over various aspects of copyright.

Microsoft have a monopoly on domestic O/S, and I can't see anyone challenging them for a substantial share of the market - there are much easier mountains to climb.

If Gates gets his way, windows will be run on a yearly licence fee basis, which will bring home to people the monopoly that microsoft have on the O/S market.