Tag: windows vista

Windows 9 looms into view

Microsoft campusWhile very many people haven’t yet upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, and very many people have stuck with Windows XP, it seems that Microsoft will show off Windows 9 soon.

Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows has delivered some Windows 9 screenshots from sources he is not ready to name in advance of Windows Technical Preview – due out in October.

And guess what, Microsoft is bringing back the Start menu.  There was much gnashing of teeth when it decided not to build it into Windows 8.x Start menu, particularly among corporate users of the operating system.

The preview uses the same Store as Windows 8.1, while mobile apps will run in floating windows on the desktop, according to Paul Thurrott.

Microsoft has a long running record of producing versions of Windows that are dogs followed by versions that are functional and popular.

Windows Vista was a dog, and Windows 8.x is a pooch too.  Perhaps Windows 9 will be better.

Microsoft shows clear signs of OS desperation

windowscomputexMost people were reasonably happy with Windows 7. For that matter, most people quite liked Windows XP. No one liked Vista.  And it’s pretty clear that Windows 8 has gone down with the most enormous thud.

Even Microsoft seems to acknowledge that – our sister publication TechEye is reporting that it is saying Windows 7 isn’t that secure.

Actually, it’s Microsoft that isn’t that secure. And its insecurity is linked to Intel’s insecurity too.  Microsoft, like Intel, was way too late to jump on the tablet bandwagon and its efforts to get into the smartphone market have been somewhat of a big fail too.

The truth is that it’s all about money and has very little to do with security. These endless patches from Microsoft for operating systems have always been a nuisance and demonstrate that on the OS front, at least, the software giant hasn’t really invented anything.  It’s all been borrowed or acquired.

You can’t get a new PC from a retailer now without it being installed with Windows 8.1. Want Windows 7? You’ll have to buy it separately. And if you believe Microsoft, it’s not that secure anyway.

At the launch of Windows XP in London all those years back, Steve Ballmer told us that it was the most secure version of Windows ever. Some of us remember what happened with that one.

I have a machine here that’s running Windows XP and there’s no way I’m “upgrading” it to Windows 8.1.  That will leave me insecure, according to Microsoft.  Insecure I will be, then. But I do get the definite feeling that I’m not alone in sticking with an OS I like and without the tablet feel I expect on a tablet, not on a PC.

IE 10 arrives for Windows 7

msMicrosoft’s channel partners will be greatly relieved to discover they will no longer have to explain to corporate clients why they can’t have the latest Internet Explorer, even after they upgraded to Windows 7.

Redmond, in a desperate attempt to push Windows 8, delayed the release of its new Internet Explorer 10 so that it did not run on Windows 7, even though that is mostly what corporate customers are upgrading to at the moment.

Corporations usually run a generation behind on operating systems and the system has been compounded by many of them hanging on to Windows XP and ignoring Vista.

But IE 10 also has some important security improvements and is an all-round better browser with better access for things like HTML5 functionality and do not track functions. It also plays nicer with web standards and fits into 30 that were not adopted in IE9.

Like IE10 for Windows 8 and Windows RT, IE10 for Windows 7 is optimised for touch, which will be largely seen as pretty pointless for corporations. However unlike the Windows 8 and Windows RT versions, IE10 for Windows 7 places the URL bar at the top of the screen, not the bottom.
These sorts of functions and the fact that IE 10 on Windows 7 includes improved JavaScript performance, and a focus on battery life improvements for mobile PCs means that it will make an easier sale to outfits who are mulling over a BYOD policy.

More from Microsoft here.