OHMYGOD WINDOWS 7!!!!

[draggar]

We're now pushing Windows 7 to most of the remaining computers in retail stores - these are supposed to be "general use" computers - usually in the back for inventory or training.

Policy states that the users aren't supposed to keep any personal data on them and that we can just go ahead and wipe & install Windows 7 on the computers. I'm nice - I gave a heads up so they could back up anything they needed.

This wasn't the issue.

These upgrades are being done remotely - meaning I sit on my rear end in my office and then remote into the computer and do all the work from my office. this means I can do 3-5 computers at once in all different locations (to keep the store's network congestion to a minimum).

Most of the managers are being cool with this - some are looking forward to the upgrades. But so far 3 are trouble and I am rolling my eyes at.

Manager #1 wants me to go to their store for a day and train them on how to use Windows 7. Now, the applications are identical as before the only difference is the OS. If you don't know how to use Windows 7 - especially features that were available in Vista, XP, 2000, Millenium, 98, 98SE, and 95 then there is a bigger issue.

Also, I am not the training department.

So, no.

Manager #2 wants me to do the upgrade locally (at their site) and stand behind them all day "incase something goes wrong". While this would be nice, for everyone to have their own personal IT assisstant, it is not possible. Not only would this be a waste of my time but reduce my productivity by 75% (plus whatever other tickets I work on).

So, no.

Manager #3 claims that none of his computers will support Windows 7 and is insisting that I bring all brand new computers. Sorry, this isn't in the budget and I've been running Windows 7 with far more demanding applicatrions than IE and Outlook in my office on a lower PC for over a year. Not only that, the computers in his store are 1 generation away from the latest (and currently the most common model being shipped out from our depot).

So, no.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

What I find most amusing about Manager #3 is that, personally, I ran Windows 7 on a seven-year-old net book that originally had Windows XP.

I just love it when people who don't know computers try to talk as if they do, it's very cute. Kind of like listening to a little kid talk about the adventure he had in the backyard this afternoon.

[dboyes]

If you think Windows 7 is a hot steaming mess..

....just wait until they push Windows 8 to your machines.

O. M. G.

Talk about "what the hell were they thinking?"

No more Start button. That horrid, horrid "play blocks" interface from Windows Phone. Every menu item changed -- again.

I'm going to go hide under a rock until Windows 9.

[PawnPrincess Ardra]

is it just me, or is every 2nd windows OS complete and utter ridiculousness? Just my 2 cents

[sevendaysky]

I'm currently getting an IT Networking degree with an emphasis on administration. One of the last batch of "real" courses before my capstone is this one that is solely about Windows 7. (With the monster Microsoft-administered test at the end that everyone is panicing about to the point of the course mentors supplying THREE different documents on how to pass the test. I am not kidding.) Of course, with Win8 on the horizon I have to facepalm. Anyway, as I'm working through the 40+ hours of labs plus 12 chapters of bookwork plus "optional" 20+ hours of lecturing plus - I think I'm forgetting something, but you get the idea... one section talks about the differences between Vista and Win7.

As I'm sitting there looking at it, I think to myself, "OK, from a manufacturer standpoint, you want to impress people with New Whizzbangs and Geegaws to encourage them to buy your crap. However, from an IT and enduser point of view, they don't necessarily want all of these whizzbangs and geegaws. If it improves functionality of a preexisting item, great, all for it. However, if it's a huge change from what it was before (i.e. removal of Start button, the 'gadget' block crap) with no other good reason other than 'it looks cool' - it's pointless and will just piss people off in the long run until you have reached saturation, at which point you introduce Win9 with something ELSE to piss them off with."

[Ironclad Alibi]

is it just me, or is every 2nd windows OS complete and utter ridiculousness? Just my 2 cents

Since the beginning it has been said the even versions of Microsoft operating systems were crap.

[gremcint]

is it just me, or is every 2nd windows OS complete and utter ridiculousness? Just my 2 cents

kind of reminds me of the star trek movies that way.

[draggar]

It got better. I started a bunch the other day but after I started the application we use to push software went down. Great - can't do manual. I sent an email to all the affected users, these computers aren't supposed to be used that much so it should NOT have been an issue.

Of course, one gets mad that, despite I told them that they would have nothing installed decided to call me a dozen times (sorry, I have more important things to deal with than their complaining. Of course, they escalated to my boss stating I didn't even do it right, I messed up their computer, I should know what I'm doing, their computer is unuseable.

So I just forwarded my boss the email I sent and they were OK with it. Of course, it was working when the app was back online and I installed everything.

What I find most amusing about Manager #3 is that, personally, I ran Windows 7 on a seven-year-old net book that originally had Windows XP.

I just love it when people who don't know computers try to talk as if they do, it's very cute. Kind of like listening to a little kid talk about the adventure he had in the backyard this afternoon.

Sadly, I do have a few of them and quite a few of them are corporate users who think they're a lot more important than they actually are. I love hearing the excuses sometimes.

....just wait until they push Windows 8 to your machines.

I won't mind it but it seems that we migrate to every other OS (95 -> 2000 -> XP -> Win7). My company does do a test of the inbetween OSs, I was on a very short Vista test which quickly got abandoned.

is it just me, or is every 2nd windows OS complete and utter ridiculousness? Just my 2 cents

That about sums it up - but I know I'm going to be laughed at for this but I liked ME. Sure, it wasn't the best (far from it) but I don't think it deserved the ridicule it got. But, Win3.1 (or Win32) - good, Win95 - meh, Win98 - good, Win98se - great, WinME - meh, WinXP - great, WinVista - joke, Win7 - great.

As I'm sitting there looking at it, I think to myself, "OK, from a manufacturer standpoint, you want to impress people with New Whizzbangs and Geegaws to encourage them to buy your crap. However, from an IT and enduser point of view, they don't necessarily want all of these whizzbangs and geegaws. If it improves functionality of a preexisting item, great, all for it. However, if it's a huge change from what it was before (i.e. removal of Start button, the 'gadget' block crap) with no other good reason other than 'it looks cool' - it's pointless and will just piss people off in the long run until you have reached saturation, at which point you introduce Win9 with something ELSE to piss them off with."

Luckily the dev team will take out or disable a lot of the crap that they like to "enhance" with (or at least make it not the default). The sad thing is that we have to add so much security to prevent users from installing crap that it slows down all the computers.

[EricKei]

I had Win Me on my comp for all of half an hour. That's how long it lasted before its first BSOD, and that's *including* installation time o_O

As for upgraders to 7 -- If they were on XP or before, I can see them needing a day or two of fiddling to get used to the new interface and the fact that 7 does do some things differently, but training for that is something they should have arranged for *locally*, and in advance. I can see them going "WTF is UAC?!", tho...or, for the 95/vanilla 98 users, "WTF is USB?!" (not supported natively until 98se)...

For Vista users, uh, no excuse. It's 90% or better identical as far as the basic user interface goes. In my experience, 7 actually seems to use LESS computer power and (especially) RAM than Vista does. Any comp capable of running XP at decent speeds should have few issues with 7. Any Dual-Core or later with more than a gig of RAM should do just dandy, and even 1 gig will suffice in a pinch.

It does actually make sense to me that the major test would be on 7, not 8 --- by now, the people taking the test would be used to 7 and all its quirks, while 8 is yet to even reach a proper RC state, unless I am mistaken. While I think they should probably have thrown in some Win8 training and maybe had 5-10% of the test be w8-specific (at most), the fact remains that the vast majority of support calls these days for Wintel units are gonna be XP, Vista, or 7.

[Geek King]

is it just me, or is every 2nd windows OS complete and utter ridiculousness? Just my 2 cents

Part of the problem is the cycle.

010 A new Windows comes out, looking much like what we're familiar with.
020 Users complain that Microsoft is pushing the same-ol-same-ol with minor graphic updates.
030 Microsoft delivers new interfaces and tries to push the envelope some.
040 Users complain about things not being where they expect and new things not always working perfectly with all configurations of software and hardware.
050 Users stop using new Windows Os forcing MS to rush next version and hide new code under old interface.
060 GOTO 010

[telecom_goddess]

I've used windows 3.1, then jumped to 95 or 97 I forget....then 2000, then xp ...I skipped ME along the way, and I had Vista for a while but it crapped out almost immediately. Now I have had 7 for a year and love it. Took some getting used to but it's not rocket science.

Now I also have an IMac and a linux box. someone who shall remain nameless asked me what I did with so many computers....and frankly I don't know I picked up the linux box and the Imac cause they were cheap, the XP desktop is my original computer from 10 years ago and the win 7 laptop is the fastest and nicest one. But I am enjoying figuring out linux and OS 10 on my own, just by dinking around. Can't hurt to learn that stuff

[EricKei]

Part of the problem is the cycle.

010 A new Windows comes out, looking much like what we're familiar with.
...
060 GOTO 010

Kinda related: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...easableFanbase

[Kogarashi]

I used ME for quite a while (it was the newest OS available when I got my first computer), and I do not miss it. The thing blue-screened if you looked at it funny. My parents' ME machine would frequently have issues with explorer.exe, making the entire taskbar and desktop icons (but not wallpaper) disappear completely, among other things, and required a reboot to get it functioning again. As soon as I could afford it, I bought an XP Pro upgrade CD from the campus computer store and got away from ME. I skipped Vista after dealing with it on my mom's laptop, and now have Windows 7 and am quite happy with it. I'd like to stick with it at least as long as I stuck with XP.

[Sonoma]

We're coming to the end of a Win 7 roll out at work. The fun thing is they give you only 15 minutes scheduled time to get a new password generated, and install all of you programs on the new system. Wound up taking me an hour & a half, and I'm one of the more computer-savy people on my team. I was one of the later people to get the upgrade, so no major software issues. I've been running Win 7 at home for the last 3 yeas, and have been happy with it. My old ME machine is now serving as a doorstop to keep the kitten from getting into the cabinet under the bathroom sink. So far, that's the only thing it's done without a BSOD.

[MadMike]

The thing blue-screened if you looked at it funny.

That piece of shit blue-screened on me when I was trying to install it! I was fixing someone's badly infected machine, which had it pre-installed. It was bad enough that I had to wipe it and reinstall everything from scratch. That's someone I hope never to have to do again.

I got my first PC back in '95. It was right before Win95 came out, so it had 3.11 on it. After about a year or so, I picked up a copy of 95 and installed it. Everyone seemed to either love it or hate it. I liked it, but I could see why some people didn't. There was a bit of a learning curve.

I didn't see a whole lot of difference between 95 and 98, and probably would have stayed with 95 if I hadn't bought a new computer with 98 already installed on it. I stayed with that for a few years, and eventually upgraded to XP. I liked it, although there were a few programs that I had to mess with to get to work, if I could get them to work at all.

I skipped over Vista. XP seemed to work just fine, and I had heard a lot of bad things about Vista, and it wasn't the easiest thing to work with on other people's machines when they had problems.

When the evaluation copies of Win7 came out, I downloaded a copy, split my hard drive in two, and installed it on the other partition. I didn't think I would like it, since at first glance it looked a lot like Vista, but as time went on, I found myself using XP less and 7 more. I actually pre-ordered it, something I've never done with an operating system before. A few months ago, I finally removed XP completely and recombined my two partitions back into one.

Now Win8 is coming out, and I really don't feel like upgrading again right now. It seems like I haven't been on 7 that long, and I just got rid of XP not too long ago. Plus, a lot of the things I'm hearing about 8 leads me to believe I'm going to pass on this one, like I did with ME and Vista.