Month: April 2014

I’ve been transitioning from Windows XP. I didn’t use it very much anymore, but I decided to move to Windows 7.

I know, lots of you out there know I like Mac systems.

Hey how can you go wrong with a Mac?  At it’s core it’s running BSD UNIX. You can even set the system up to just present you with a command prompt.

VMware Fusion allows you to run practically any other operating system you’d like on your Mac. Red Hat Linux? No problem. Windows? Which version would you like?

Mind you, it’s not like I have Windows running all the time. But I have some applications that don’t have Mac equivalents. Those applications are important to me, so it’s worth it to me to have the option to run Windows.

Recently, I converted my 32bit Windows 7 from my old netbook to a Fusion Virtual machine. It worked OK but was so large (40 GB) that I found myself rethinking the merits of keeping Windows around.

After tinkering for a couple of weeks off & on, trying to trim the size, I was about to chuck it and keep using “Old Faithful” (My Windows XP) until it became useless or I no longer needed Windows.

Then I happened to notice Amazon was selling copies of Win 7 Professional 64 bit at a very reasonable price. “Hummm, I said to myself, that could be a solution to the problem.”

After some research and soul searching I ponied up the cash to Amazon. Yesterday I received my shiny new Windows 7 disk. Less than one hour later I had a working version of Windows 7 Professional.

The Win 7 that I’d transferred from my netbook to Fusion was 32 bit and slow. It was what Microsoft called Windows 7 Home, I’d upgraded it to Windows 7 Home Premium and even then I wasn’t impressed. I couldn’t back up to my network drives. Windows contains a backup utility, but it was crippled in the Home edition so that it would only backup to DVD or some kind of physically attached storage.

Sorta makes the backup utility useless and meant that I didn’t have a backup of the netbook. Sound familiar?

After seeing what Windows 7 Professional is like I realized what Microsoft had done and that’s when I felt compassion for the Microsoft engineers.

The software developers created a very nice operating system with Windows 7.

It’s obvious that they worked hard and tried to correct issues that people had complained about with previous versions of Windows. At the same time, they clearly worked hard to advance user convenience and make a robust feature rich system.

They succeeded! Dare I say it, Windows 7 Pro is actually pleasurable to use.

That will get me excommunicated from the Mac world!

In the case of Windows 7, I think what we have here is a case of marketing run amok.

There appear to be no less than 4 different versions of the OS.

I remember looking at the versions when I got the netbook and thinking really? There were all these versions and they all had different price points. ALL EXPENSIVE! and it was unclear what you got from one version versus the next version.

The average user doesn’t give a damn. But their experience with the OS is unsatisfying when they find they can’t change their desktop backgrounds, or that they can’t backup to their network drive unless they upgrade. 

It feels like Microsoft is nickel dimeing them to death for simple and realistically expected features. (This is especially true when Apple distributes a fine robust operating system for $20 or as they’ve done most recently for FREE.)

The software engineers probably built two versions of Windows 7, a 32 bit and a 64 bit version. They probably built some ad-on packs that made the security more robust for corporate America.

They tested it and called it good. Then marketing came along and said “It’s nice but we’d like to charge for features that the ‘Average’ user will never use. so we’re going to need you to remove all this nice stuff and create a Home user edition.”

That’s when the butchering began.

Think of it like this, You’re lying on the operating table and the doctor has just finished surgery for some illness. Then the accounting people from the hospital come in and tell him to remove one of your kidneys, one of your lungs, perhaps one of your testicles or ovaries, and oh, one eye. After all they’ll preserve these things and should you decide you really need them, they’ll charge you to put them back in.

I’m sure that the Software engineers were pretty bummed out. There’s nothing worse than having to butcher your creation in the name of dollars. Especially when the changes you’ve been told to make are tantamount to hacking the shit out of it. (Interesting side note, The number of security fixes for Win 7 Pro, is significantly less than for Win7 Home Premium.)

Now that I’m using a version of the OS that is probably close to what the engineers intended I’m actually impressed.

I’m glad I got a copy of Windows 7 Professional to replace my old Windows XP. Hopefully, I’ll get 6 or 7 years out of this version.

It also occurs to me that in this age of bring your own equipment, I’ll potentially have an OS that will work just fine if I end up at a company that does the BYOE thing.

The other surprising thing was that this installation of Windows only takes 12GB. I’m happy, it’s fast, small, and really a pleasure to work with.

Oh, by the way, The VMware folks produce a product that is absolutely awesome. If you’ve got a Mac and need to run Windows, buy their product. If you’re thinking of buying a Mac but are afraid of leaving Windows, VMware has you covered and their product is worth the price.

Microsoft, you really should reconsider the complications you’re creating. Have a couple of Operating Systems NOT 90! It will make it easier for you to maintain, and it will make it easier for us to decide what we’re willing to buy.

Just Sayin…