News HP switches to Windows 7 'by popular demand'

Anyone think this also has something to do with HP losing market share to Lenovo and Dell who happen to already offer Windows 7 on pre-built systems (afaik)

 

IDK as im not sure what is and isn't consumer-grade desktops on the Lenovo and Dell sites, but i was under the impression they offered a limited number of 7 PC's

Also, would i be right in saying HP is discounting several consumer PC's by $150 when equipped with Windows 7 ? Or have i been mislead by unreliable sources ?

 

As much as I love Win7, I wonder if it has a long life in front of it with Windows 9 coming next year. I suppose much depends on the corporate upgrade cycle.

 

I can't see Windows 9 making any drastic changes, what with rumors saying Microsoft is pushing for a late 2014 release.

Windows 7 will be like XP, corporations will leave it until the end of extended support in 2020.

 

Big business had started to migrate to windows 7 in places last year shows how far behind they are in comparison to the home user.

If you came into a IT job today you would be learning windows 7 systems.

 

Good for HP. I have tried Windows 8, time and again I have tried but that dam tile interface gets in my way until I loose patience and wipe the drive. I even found Linux as a new user better to use. Back to Windows 7 and a proper desktop so I can get my work done.

 

The company I work for has just changed (3 months ago) all 800-900 pc's to Windows 7, to replace Windows 2000...

Win7 is going to be like XP...

 

Aye, most businesses are inherently conservative when it comes to IT, which is why many are still using XP and others are only just getting round to migrating to 7. I should imagine that even if Win 9 comes out within the next couple of years, it'll not be adopted by many businesses as they'll be quite happy with 7 for the foreseeable future.

 

I'm surprised people still hate Windows 8. I thought the hatred was going to calm down like everything else that encounters an unnecessary change in the technology world, but it seems to have wholly remained the same. While I think the modern/metro interface was executed poorly, I thought it was very tolerable at the official release (the beta version was unbearably annoying). I still don't prefer it, but I can use it without gritting my teeth.

While I like XP for its relative cleanliness, I really wish it would just die. I'm somewhat looking forward to Windows 9 since from what I heard, that will be ditching 32 bit support, and will hopefully be leaner because of it.

 

Surely that would be like shooting them selves in the other foot, isn't x64 software still thin on the ground?(compared to x86)
And Windows will never be lean all the time they keep adding unnecessary bloat to the OS in their attempts to make it the jack of all trades (IMHO).

 

Windows 7 64 bit has a pretty functional 32-bit compatibility layer, albeit at the cost of RAM, and I think its safe to assume that it improved over to Windows 8. Aside from drivers, there is very little reason to stick with a 32-bit OS anymore, and we'll NEVER progress until MS puts their foot down. They might be pointing a gun at that foot, but they're not pulling the trigger.

Mac and Linux have been 64-bit ready for YEARS. Apple could get away with it because of their switch from PPC to x86, and Linux pretty much had support since the very beginning due to being open source. Windows is it's own problem - it won't get 64 bit programs until it encourages people to make them, but people won't make them if nobody uses 64 bit. With the 32 bit compatibility layer being as functional as it is, all MS has to do is force people to use 64 bit. With RAM prices as low as they are, this is hardly a problem, as RAM and disk space are really the only things that get eaten up by 64 bit Windows. The disk space issue is a problem for SSD owners, but Windows is BRUTAL toward the lifespan of SSDs anyway.

The underlying issue to all of this is MS wanted to please all customers, including those who use software from 15 years ago. But that just isn't realistic - Windows is incredibly far behind in a technical standpoint and as long as MS caters to their conservative customers (who, ironically never buy any of their newer products), Windows will always be left behind. The stupid thing is you'd think after having so little to implement that they'd actually spend the time and resources cleaning up their code base.

 

Sorry when you said "that will be ditching 32 bit support, I assumed you meant the x86 compatibility layer I.e A fully x64 OS without support for running x86 software.

 

This is what I'm hoping. I'm happy with it.

Truth be told, I'd still like to use XP but it doesn't support DX10, let alone 11 (because of, um, reasons). XP on an SSD is hilarious - less than a second to start IIRC.

 

XP doesn't intelligently operate SSDs (then again, neither does 7/8 but at least they're better), it doesn't support most extensions/instructions of modern CPUs, it's scheduler is severely outdated, it demands a paging file, etc. If you're still using a K10 or Core 2 based architecture and you're not using any high-end SSDs then XP is fine, maybe even ideal. But on modern hardware, the performance you gain from Windows 7/8 heavily outweigh the resources you save on XP. I just hate how cluttered Windows 7 and 8 are. I would like to use the Windows 8 kernel on an XP setup.

 

^Still love it though!

 

I'll say it again.

There have been no major innovations in Windows as a user experience since 1995. When they tried, with 8, they failed miserably - nobody wants it. Perhaps it's now the case that, much as books started off as stacks of paper that fold together on the left (at least in this part of the world) many hundred years ago, they still are. Similarly, perhaps the standard approach for operating systems is now more or less established. I hate to suggest the stifling of innovation, but I fear that may be roughly the situation.

About the speed thing: I went to windows 7 and an SSD from XP on a mechanical disk. I was expecting it to start quickly. It didn't. So how slow is Win7 off a mech disk?!

 

Not that bad. XP was slow to start for me too when I put it on for old time's sake a couple of years ago on my I7 950. I must say I expected it to be way, way faster than it actually was.

8.1 is the quickest OS to start because it doesn't really shut down. Not on my laptop any way. It makes clever use of hibernation and hiberfil to make sure that it's ready in seconds. And I don't have an SSD in the lappy.