Windows 7: Evolution Or the Same Old Stuff
PC Magazine columnists spend a lot of time writng about Windows. No wonder, over 90% of the world’s personal computers use it as their operating system. John Dvorak wrote a column wondering why nothing has replaced the 25-year-old Windows operating system. This is a remarkably stupid comment from someone who surely knows better. The only thing that hasn’t changed about Windows is its name.
Over 25 years ago, Windows emerged as a shell that sat on top of the DOS operating system. This is very similar to the current Apple Macintosh OS that is a user interface on top of the freeBSD Unix operating system. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this concept. In fact, Microsoft pioneered it. As Windows evolved, it followed two paths: the consuemr version, like Windows 98; and the server version, Windows NT. While both looked alike on the surface, they were very different. NT was designed as a very solid operating system that resembled Digital’s mini computer OS VMS. It should. It’s architect was hired away from Digital.
Windows NT was designed as a powerful kernal (the heart of the OS that interacts direectly with the hardware), surrouned by various services that performed work. The user interface was one of those services. Like VMS, Windows NT could perform true multitasking. The consumer version remained a single threaded OS that continued to evolve on top of DOS.
Why does this all matter? Without getting too technical, it matters because Windows was evolving, not remaining the same operating system over all those years. Microsoft planned to merge the desktop OS with the more advanced server technology with the release of Windows XP. It didn’t quite do it, but made a lot of progress. The old bit-mapped DOS file system was replaced with the much more robust NT file system. File names could be longer. File extensions could be more than three characters. The interface with the outside world was made stronger and safer. That’s why there was so much pain getting printers and other peripherals to work with XP when it came out.
Few of us remember the months of pain wating for drivers to make our printers work on Windows XP. Meanwhile PC’s were getting cheaper and more people were buying them. People with no technical or programming skills were buying PC’s to perform word processing, send and receive email, and surf the web. The PC was becoming an appliance. The new PC consumer was not interested in installing operating systems or performing other computer maintenance tasks. By 2008, more than 90% of Microsoft Windows sales was to PC manufacturers. The operating system became part of the purchase.
This was good news for consumers. If you bought your PC with the extras you wanted (video cards, sound, TV, etc.), you were assured that all would work well with Windows. Meanwhile, Microsoft was perfecting its Windows Update service to make updating the operating system and getting new device drivers automatic and pain-free. Windows was evolving.
Along came Vista
When Microsoft announced Vista, it touted it as a new direction in operating systems. To consumers, it didn’t seem all that new and came with a host of problems that threatened to sink Microsoft’s operating system business. Vista was years late. It didn’t include all of the features the Windows team promised. Printers and other peripherals failed to work with it. Apple started it’s successful commercials poking fun at Vista’s shortcomings. Microsoft started losing market share to Apple.
Vista was a new operating system. The changes from XP were large and widespread. Security was beefed up, new features were added. Vista finished the transition to the NT kernal. The reason so many legacy printers, scanners, tuners, and other things failed to work was that Vista created a new way for peripherals to interact with the OS. Many of the hardware companies were reluctant to make the investment in writing drivers to support older hardware. There was no profit in that for them. Microsoft took the blame for that.
Windows 7
In the next few months, Windows 7 will be released. Unlike Vista, Win 7 is not a new OS. It uses all of the Vista infrastructure and adds some new functionality. Also unlike Vista, the new OS was feature complete with its RC (Release Candidate) version. This allows selected testers months to make sure everything works. It also has some nice user interface improvements that will please consumers of all technical capabilities. Microsoft is now moving on a smooth, evolutionary path.
The central point that the columnists always seem to miss is why anyone would want to upgrade. If the assumption is that most of us only get the new version when we buy a new PC, perhaps that point is irrelevant. Maybe only PC makers should care about changes in the operating system, since the OS can make or break a hardware company. TV tuner makers learned this when Vista Ultimate and Home Premium (the two Vista versions taht include Media Center) didn’t have the Media Center on the start menu. Consumers stopped looking for it. Retailers stopped ordering PC’s with TV tuners installed since customers didn’t seem to want tuners. Out of sight, out of mind.
That brings us to the central point about Windows and other operating systems. It really doesn’t do much good to keep adding features if people don’t know they exist or have any interest in using them. How many of us have changed how we use our PC’s because of a new Vista feature? Not many I would guess. This is because the PC has become an appliance. Would you buy a new toaster because it had a setting for warming donuts? Not likely. I, for one, don’t eat warmed donuts. Even if I did, I wouldn’t waste the time or money seeking out a toaster that could do that. Do you know that Vista lets you type a program name in the search box and the program will start? Do you care? Would you use it? Not me. Did you know you could edit photos with Vista? I didn’t until I saw that 4-and-a-half-year-old do it in the commercial. Too late. I have Photoshop.
The point is that there is little reason to care what version of Windows you have unless the new version has some features you can really use. Most of us don’t change the way we use our PC’s from year to year. This could change. Maybe Microsoft or someone else will come up with that “killer app” that only runs on the latest version OS. That could motivate a lot of new PC sales. In the meantime, the vast majority of PC users just want to be able to do what they have always done with the least fuss and hassle they can.