{"id":4545,"date":"2014-04-26T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=4545"},"modified":"2021-08-26T18:29:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T01:29:03","slug":"pity-the-poor-microsoft-software-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2014\/04\/26\/pity-the-poor-microsoft-software-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pity the poor Microsoft Software Engineers."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"th2TKQPARX\"<\/a>I\u2019ve been transitioning from Windows XP. I didn\u2019t use it very much anymore, but I decided to move to Windows 7.<\/font><\/p>\n

I know, lots of you out there know I like Mac systems. <\/font><\/p>\n

Hey how can you go wrong with a Mac?  <\/font>At it\u2019s core it\u2019s running BSD UNIX. <\/font> You can even set the system up to just present you with a command prompt.<\/font><\/p>\n

VMware Fusion allows you to run practically any other operating system you\u2019d like on your Mac. Red Hat Linux? No problem. Windows? Which version would you like? <\/font><\/p>\n

Mind you, it\u2019s not like I have Windows running all the time. But I have some applications that don\u2019t have Mac equivalents. Those applications are important to me, so i<\/font>t\u2019s worth it to me to have the option to run Windows. <\/font><\/p>\n

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. <\/font><\/p>\n

After tinkering for a couple of weeks off & on, trying to trim the size, I was about to chuck it and keep using \u201cOld Faithful\u201d (My Windows XP) until it became useless or I no longer needed Windows.<\/font><\/p>\n

Then I happened to notice Amazon was selling copies of Win 7 Professional 64 bit at a very reasonable price. \u201cHummm, I said to myself, that could be a solution to the problem.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

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

The Win 7 that I\u2019d transferred from my netbook to Fusion was 32 bit and slow. It was what Microsoft called Windows 7 Home, I\u2019d upgraded it to Windows 7 Home Premium and even then I wasn\u2019t impressed. I couldn\u2019t 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. <\/font><\/p>\n

Sorta makes the backup utility useless and meant that I didn\u2019t have a backup of the netbook. Sound familiar? <\/font><\/p>\n

After seeing what Windows 7 Professional is like I realized what Microsoft had done and that\u2019s when I felt compassion for the Microsoft engineers.<\/font><\/p>\n

The software developers created a very nice operating system with Windows 7. <\/font><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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. <\/font><\/p>\n

They succeeded! Dare I say it, Windows 7 Pro is actually pleasurable to use. <\/font><\/p>\n

That will get me excommunicated from the Mac world!<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n

\"thV76JZMNH\"<\/a>In the case of Windows 7, I think what we have here is a case of marketing run amok.<\/font><\/p>\n

There appear to be no less than 4 different versions of the OS. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

The average user doesn\u2019t give a damn. But their experience with the OS is unsatisfying when they find they can\u2019t change their desktop backgrounds, or that they can\u2019t backup to their network drive unless they upgrade.  <\/font><\/p>\n

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\u2019ve done most recently for FREE.<\/em>)<\/font><\/p>\n

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. <\/font><\/p>\n

They tested it and called it good. Then marketing came along and said \u201cIt\u2019s nice but we\u2019d like to charge for features that the \u2018Average\u2019 user will never use. so we\u2019re going to need you to remove all this nice stuff and create a Home user edition.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

\"thAA1L8H7O\"<\/a>That\u2019s when the butchering began. <\/font><\/p>\n

Think of it like this, You\u2019re 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\u2019ll preserve these things and should you decide you really need them, they\u2019ll charge you to put them back in.<\/font><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure that the Software engineers were pretty bummed out. There\u2019s nothing worse than having to butcher your creation in the name of dollars. Especially when the changes you\u2019ve 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.)<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

\"thH2BFDT2S\"<\/a>Now that I\u2019m using a version of the OS that is probably close to what the engineers intended I\u2019m actually impressed. <\/font><\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I got a copy of Windows 7 Professional to replace my old Windows XP. Hopefully, I\u2019ll get 6 or 7 years out of this version. <\/font><\/p>\n

It also occurs to me that in this age of bring your own equipment, I\u2019ll potentially have an OS that will work just fine if I end up at a company that does the BYOE thing.<\/font><\/p>\n

The other surprising thing was that this installation of Windows only takes 12GB. I\u2019m happy, it\u2019s fast, small, and really a pleasure to work with. <\/font><\/p>\n

Oh, by the way, The VMware folks produce a product that is absolutely awesome. If you\u2019ve got a Mac and need to run Windows, buy their product. If you\u2019re thinking of buying a Mac but are afraid of leaving Windows, VMware has you covered and their product is worth the price.<\/font><\/p>\n

Microsoft, you really should reconsider the complications you\u2019re 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\u2019re willing to buy.<\/p>\n

Just Sayin\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been transitioning from Windows XP. I didn\u2019t 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\u2019s core it\u2019s running BSD UNIX. You can even set the system … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pity the poor Microsoft Software Engineers.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,87,9],"tags":[174],"class_list":["post-4545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-modern-problems","category-musings","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4546,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545\/revisions\/4546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}