For many Microsoft Windows users, Vista will fade into the obscurity reserved for other misbegotten products like Windows CE and ME. Good riddance to bad rubbish, right? Not so fast. The much-awaited Windows 7 is built on the Windows Vista chassis, and will likely be around for awhile. The biggest complaint that Microsoft heard regarding Vista was its lousy, mangled driver support for common hardware.

Microsoft Has Heard The Complaints About Drivers

Cynics may find this hard to believe, but Microsoft heard the complaints. As in, did something about them. Microsoft has toughened up its standards for hardware manufacturers. This stance should improve things not only for Windows 7 adopters, but also for Windows Vista users who won’t be upgrading right away. In order for manufacturers to keep their Vista-compatible logos, they’ll need to demonstrate that their drivers also work with Windows 7.

Microsoft is also spending its summer vacation cleaning up the drivers that will be released with Windows 7. Microsoft can’t afford two OS disasters in a row, and it’s going the extra mile to make sure Windows 7 doesn’t get clotheslined with the same issues that brought down Vista.

Microsoft thought enough of the development it put into Vista to rework it into Windows 7. Though few people have seen the actual product yet, the Windows 7 Release Candidate has been exceptionally stable – a considerable improvement over early Vista implementations. You won’t find a lot of new development in Windows 7, but you will find that many of the services Microsoft built into Vista have been improved.

The difference between Vista and Windows 7 reminds me of an adage an old teacher of mine used to drag out regularly. “If you can’t find the time to do a task correctly, how are you going to find the time to do it over?” Microsoft seems to have taken this to heart. Windows 7 is more than a “do-over” for Windows Vista. Provided that Windows 7 has learned to make nice in the networked environment, you can correctly think of it as a proper evolution of the operating system, though incrementally, it’s not a major shift from Windows Vista.

For its part, however, Microsoft must consider its user base and the costs they incur to upgrade to a new operating system. Many costly enterprise-level applications are at the center of a business. Expecting these businesses to chase after a half-baked OS at their own peril is asking too much. Hopefully, if a lesson has been learned in Redmond, it’s this: when you introduce a new OS, make sure it represents your “A-game.”

Photo Credit: Ernie Bello, via Flickr

If you migrated to Windows Vista Home Basic, you were, no doubt, disappointed to learn that there’s no easy upgrade path from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows 7. You may think that there’s not much you can do, other than bite the bullet and re-install Windows 7 on top of your existing copy of Windows Vista Home Basic.

Second Upgrade Option For Windows Vista Home Basic

That’s actually one of two things you can do, if you’re intent on getting Windows 7 onto your computer. While it’s true that there is no upgrade path for Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows 7, there is an upgrade path from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows Vista Home Premium, and if you purchase that upgrade now, you will get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released on October 22.

What does that get you? It means that you’ll get to keep the Vista hardware drivers you have loaded on your computer right now. That may not seem like a big bonus, but it could turn out to be, if Windows 7 doesn’t have the driver(s) you need. You may spend significant amounts of time locating, re-installing and troubleshooting drivers if you install Windows 7 on top of your existing Windows Vista Home Basic installation.

If you decided to take advantage of Microsoft’s sale on Windows 7 earlier this month, the upgrade to Vista Home Premium will mean that you’ll have shelled out about $240 to get to Windows 7 from where you are. A new copy of Windows 7, which assumes a fresh install, is expected to hit the shelves at $199. If you passed on the sale, the $183 upgrade price to Windows Vista Home Premium with a free Windows 7 upgrade will save you about $16 over buying new.

The free upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows-Vista-Home-Basic-turned Vista-Home-Premium will only last until January 2010, so you’ll have to think about this and come to a decision quickly. After January, Windows Vista Home Basic users will need to pay to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium, and then pay again to upgrade to Windows 7 in order to keep their stuff intact.

That’s bound to downgrade a few users to “unhappy” status. The other, less costly alternative at that point is to bite the bullet, upgrade to Windows 7 with a clean installation and re-install your applications and drivers. Driver Detective can also locate and install drivers to replace those that are missing, corrupted or incorrect.

Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy of Microsoft

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 To Manufacturers
Microsoft announced today that it had finished development on the Windows 7 Release Candidate and was shipping it to PC manufacturers. The official release of Windows 7 will be October 22. Microsoft will now turn its attention to Windows drivers and other critical applications like anti-virus and anti-malware software to make sure they will be available when Windows 7 hits the store shelves.

Hold The Vista Encore, Please!

Microsoft doesn’t want a repeat of the Windows Vista release, which saw many manufacturers claiming that their hardware and drivers were “Vista-ready” when in fact they weren’t. While the list of consumer complaints about Vista was long, the complaints persisted long after many of the most serious problems with the OS were fixed.

Windows 7 is built on a Vista chassis, but don’t expect Windows 7 to be “more of the same.” The new release of Windows 7 doesn’t contain a whole lot of dazzling, new features. Instead, Microsoft spent time repairing the underpinnings of Windows 7 to avoid repeating the Vista errors. The result is a more stable operating system that has fewer glitches out of the box, has tested drivers, and is most likely more secure.

For Windows XP diehards, Microsoft will allow users to purchase downgrade rights on new computers for about six months following Windows 7’s release. After that, Microsoft will try (again) to unhitch its wagon from the aging-yet-ageless operating system that so many users still run.

For Windows 7 to be a success in the IT market, it will have to play nice in a networked environment, something Windows Vista never quite learned to do. Most IT professionals looked at Vista as a “home-user” operating system that had nothing to offer users in the enterprise environment.

Being rolled out on the fringes of a recession didn’t help, either. Companies had a difficult time justifying the expense of rolling out a new operating system that didn’t provide any significant benefit over what they had, was slower, less stable and didn’t have the drivers they needed to run their hardware well, if at all.

Corporate IT often gives a chilly reception to new operating systems, so don’t be surprised if Windows 7 initially gets the cold shoulder from the business crowd. But at the same time, don’t be surprised if the same crowd embraces Windows 7 with open arms within the next 18-24 months.

Admittedly, the stakes are higher for corporations than for home users; corporate IT departments must be sure that their million- and multi-million dollar investments in their enterprise software won’t be laid to waste by a carelessly designed OS. Microsoft has, for the most part, addressed the major complaints with Vista. Whether new complaints are waiting to take their place has yet to be seen.

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Microsoft released the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Beta 2 this week, in another sign that the company is ramping up for the release of Windows 7. Earlier this week, the company squashed rumors that the OS was being released to manufacturers. In a statement, the company said that while it is eager to get the OS to manufacturers, final development work on the new OS has not yet concluded. A spokesperson for the company hinted that the RTM ship date for the OS could fall within the next two weeks.

The MDT is designed to help enterprise-level users deploy the new operating system. The MDT contains tools that standardize installations, verify the availability of compatible drivers, and supports automated deployment. The MDT supports the deployment of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. The toolkit is available at the Microsoft Web site.

For most small organizations and single users, the MDT won’t be of much use. The kit is meant to support a mass rollout of a Windows operating system. Organizations that use a uniform disk image, or that wish to do a complete, simultaneous rollout will get the most use out of the MDT.

The appearance of the MDT is more confirmation that Microsoft will meet its October 22 general availability release date. Although the kit is listed as beta software, enterprise level users will have time to familiarize themselves with the kit as they prepare their rollout plans. Microsoft may be somewhat disappointed by the tepid response that Windows 7 is expected to receive from the enterprise user community.

Most IT directors had no immediate plans to incorporate Windows 7 into their operating environment. Many IT directors cited lack of a compelling reason to upgrade and internal upgrade cycle conflicts as the primary reason for not pursuing an immediate upgrade to Windows 7. Most enterprise level users are expected to migrate to Windows 7 within 18-24 months of the OS’s October release.

Microsoft’s volume licensing program allows those users to load any Microsoft operating sytem they choose, including those that are no longer supported. Microsoft has said that it will drop downgrade installation rights for Windows XP approximately six months after Windows 7 is released.

Most enterprise level IT departments say they prefer Windows XP because it supports a wide range of hardware drivers and is exceptionally stable in a networked environment. Since the introduction of Windows Vista, the company has encountered strong resistance from users to its plans to drop Windows XP.

Photo Credit: Microsoft