Win-7 migration resistance likely ?

I would extend this to consumers as well. I know of oodles of people still running X,P because they paid £600 (on average) or $1000 at the time. Not an astronomical amount of money, but still appreciable. If your computer still runs firefox, you can get on Facebook, do your homework, watch films and instant message your friends, why throw that away?

What people need to understand is that XP became the first stable operating system from Microsoft, that could run all your applications and connect to the internet, with decent graphics and sound. For the vast majority of users what XP does is 90% what they need their computer to do. With Windows 98, it was a differrent story, as that couldn't resolve IP addresses in most cases, and who thought to add a password system that you could just press cancel on?

The developed world has reached a state of saturation point with operating systems, and gone are the days where computers are like an XBox or Playstation where a new version necessitates an upgrade.

I don't see this as a bad thing, software is not a throwaway commodity anymore, and is being engineered to last. Microsoft will need to still develop the operating system, but look more to emerging markets to maintain profitability.

What more is there left in general purpose operating systems?

Buying my Mum a quad core machine seems wasteful. I think this is the same issue faced by business. If Office was suddenly multi-core or they would get a Silverlight application to utilise 4 cores while the OS uses the other 4 (octocore machine), then it seems to serve some function.

It isn't just Microsoft's fault, but hardware vendors are making these many-core machines that spend 90% of the time processing email from your boss, and performing CRUD in businesses proprietary software.

Has anyone tried Live Mail? Unlike outlook, this is lightweight, and performs its task really well. No bloat (that most home users need) so I am finding it increasingly hard to justify why someone needs a many core machine.

If Microsoft could nail many-core on the head with an OS that used all the cores efficiently and great performance, then most people would upgrade because there are tangible benefits.

The truth is that the software world is still playing catch-up with hardware, and the fact that there is no Pentium 5 but a Core 2 duo, is only beginning to "rear it's ugly head"

As will I [upgrade that is], but there is very little forefront in Technology in windows 7. The kernel updates via Arun Kishan are great, but even the new task bar with it's jump lists etc. are still the same Win32 ListView controls all implemented via GDI drawing.

From a Windows Forms developers, point of view, I have used ComponentFactory's controls for a project and already you have someone who has created a Windows 7 theme so I can create quite a lot of the controls in Win 7.

What they seem to have done is taken away a lot look at this in Live mail (and Win 7)



Apart from the new lighter theme, all they have done is remove icons. In previous versions you would have lot of icons indicating actions on the toolbar, which gives a feeling of simplicity to the toolbar now.

Again, look at the tree view (compare it with Outlook for instance)



They have just removed all the icons - genius!

Now I know you guys probably think I have an "icon fetish", but whether this is an improvement is subjective I guess.

The Glass in Windows 7 is clearer, and I don't need multitouch, especially seeing as there are no multi-touch applications available that are any good, so it all boils down to a return on investment.

What, you mean this is easier to use?



Too late now me thinks. Windows explorer and the Live product range have all used the credit crunch excuse.

It is inexcusable! Who decided this was a good idea?

That is because most windows 7 installations are 12 weeks old "tops" i.e. fresh installations,  whereas some XP installations have been running for 6 or so years.

Do a fresh install of XP for a like-for-like comparison!

I know this is a week old, but pertinent.