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HARDWARE

Microsoft: Windows 7 kicks Vista's butt

By Todd Bishop on November 5, 2008 at 9:17 AM PST

Comments (8) | Permalink

Personal computers | Microsoft

A slide at WinHEC shows crash trends in Windows Vista.

LOS ANGELES -- Most companies talk about how much better they are than their competitors. Microsoft this morning kicked off its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference by detailing how much better it believes Windows 7 will be than Windows Vista in areas including boot time, battery life, graphics rendering, reliability and performance.

It was an implicit acknowledgement of Windows Vista's problems. But the company is walking a fine line as it makes the case. On the one hand, it wants to convince PC and device makers that it has its act together this time around. However, with Windows 7 not expected until early 2010, the company also risks hurting Windows Vista's sales in the meantime if it talks about how much better the successor will be.

Windows engineering executive Jon DeVaan also stressed improvements Microsoft has made in Windows Vista since its January 2007 release in areas including crashes and driver availability. And he promised that the pain Microsoft, PC users and the industry have experienced with Vista will translate into a smoother Windows 7 introduction.

"We have the tenet that if something works on Vista it really should work on Windows 7," he said. "That will make the first day of Windows 7 in the market a lot smoother from an ecosystem readiness perspective."

More to come from WinHEC ...

Jake of 8bitjoystick.com said:

on November 5, 2008 at 10:56 AM

The MS Hype machine starts early.. I thought that Windows Vista was supposed to be better than XP.. and XP was supposed to be better than 2000... that was supposed to be better than ME. that was supposed to be better than 98.. that was supposed to be better than 95 that was supposed to be better than 3.1

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rick said:

on November 5, 2008 at 11:17 AM

I love the "Lower is better" note on the slide about OS crashes. And while I get that it's probably there to convey how SP1 has improved stability is "now less sucky" really the message MS wants to push?

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Bob said:

on November 5, 2008 at 11:20 AM

"Most companies talk about how much better they are than their competitors."

Most companies don't have 90% marketshare. But it would be nice to see MS set the bar at (and talk more about) "best available" instead of just "best from MS".

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problem said:

on November 5, 2008 at 8:24 PM

MS is shit.
Thats what they said when they wanted people to move from XP to Vista. This is crap, i would say, if i was given a chance, i will kick their ass for lying then and lying now. I have seen myself how crappy windows 7 is.. stop fooling people about future. talk about present, and if you cant improve vista how can you have a better copy of that OS as a new OS ! Also remember you are saying that you will make something better than your latest OS, well thats crappy, since that shows you dont want to improve vista and you want others to shell out huge on a new OS !!!!!! Why not give vista free now then ? Why force people to buy Vista now ? When you are giving something better in future, then remove your ass out of the computers now, till you have something better. Stop BS, and stop the future is better tricks, that you have always used to kill people.

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MicroNix said:

on November 6, 2008 at 12:01 PM

Wow, that extra 5 seconds is going to make Windows 7 sooooo worth it. Why does anyone take the hype when Vista was supposed to load faster than XP? I really don't care how fast I see the stupid desktop, DRAG RACE UNTIL THE FIRST APP OF *YOUR* CHOICE WILL LOAD AND FUNCTION!! If Vista hit the desktop before XP, it sure was not "ready" at that point because you need to wait for Vista to kick the heck out of the hard drive before you can even launch an app....

Smoke and mirrors

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None said:

on December 10, 2008 at 5:32 PM

Wow, what a bunch or retards...

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None said:

on December 10, 2008 at 5:32 PM

Wow, what a bunch or retards...

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Julius Thyssen said:

on December 14, 2008 at 1:50 PM

I always loved MicroSoft, until they decided to NOT advertise and release Windows XP Pro 64 bit Edition. Aren't they the biggest fools on the planet?

XP64 still beats each and every bench-test versus Vista x64. Yes, still. Why would you EOL such an OS? You must be completely out of your mind!

I'll give up on Microsoft software the day they stop supporting XP64.

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Todd Bishop's Biography

Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle. READ FULL BIOGRAPHY

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