8 reasons not to avoid Windows 7

My thanks goes to Ed Bott, legendary Microsoft columnist and author, for pointing me to this rather depressing article on Wired this afternoon. Before you begin reading my rebuttal, I’d like to remind all of you that I quite like my Windows and quite hate my Apples, so if you’re an Apple fan, lover, loyalist, and/or propagandist, you can save yourself a lot of adrenaline-inspired organ damage by avoiding this article.

With that aside, let’s get to it.

Brian Chen, a self-admitted Mac user (I’ll explain why this is bad at the end) and writer for Wired Magazine, has come out swinging hard at Windows 7, likely out of his own fear of seeing Apple’s marketshare decrease once Windows 7 gains traction. His current piece, eloquently titled “7 Reasons to Avoid Windows 7” strikes at the most commonly misunderstood points in Windows without properly dissecting the logic behind any of Microsoft’s decisions. In this piece, I’ll be going through each of Mr. Chen’s points, one by one, in order to explain exactly why both Windows 7 should be embraced and why Mr. Chen’s writings should be avoided. Awesomeness exposes itself after the jump.

This gets long, so here’s a summary of my rebuttals for those who would probably end up commenting with TL;DR:

• Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install: Users who bought computers between 2006 and 2007 (not including corporate boxes) without the intention of upgrading to Vista later on are likely out of luck and will need to back up their stuff before doing a clean install. My highly forgiving guess puts this at 5 percent of all computers in the United States once all corporate boxes and older XP boxes are accounted for, but there are no scientific stats to actually put a number on this group. Corporate networks, the largest source of XP computers in most studies, will be completely unaffected by the clean install mandate. Netbook users will also be mostly unaffected due to the direct correlation between the willingness to install Windows 7 on a netbook without an optical drive versus technology savvy-ness.
• The Upgrade is Expensive: So is the upgrade to Leopard. Users are already being charged for a service pack, and users who bought their computers with Tiger without moving to Leopard will be charged even more, unlike XP users moving to 7.
• It’ll Cost You Time, Too: but many more businesses are willing to upgrade to Windows 7 now than they were at around the same time back when Vista was first released, XP was first released, and so forth. It all boils down to doing cost-benefit analyses, which is something Brian Chen didn’t look into or even consider.
• It’s Still Windows: but Windows is more usable, far easier to use securely, is much more stable on a much wider hardware base, and is already a home run with critics, analysts, and anyone who isn’t a fanboy or Brian Chen.
• Security Isn’t Automatically Better: actually, it is. By default, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are more convenient to use securely than XP, which is enough of an incentive to upgrade. Unlike OS X which I can use without an antivirus because of security by obscurity, I can use Windows 7 without an antivirus because of security by ease-of-use and common sense.
• Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM: The DRM exists in Windows to satisfy the MPAA and RIAA, but it has hardly been implemented at all by any content distributers. Brian even admits that this is a reason derived from fear than from substance.
• Snow Leopard Is Almost Here: Windows 7 is more usable than OS X, to the point where Apple blatantly copied Aero Peek straight from Windows 7. That’s not including how easy it is to use Windows out of the box (unlike Brian’s argument that it doesn’t “just work,”); almost every possible hardware configuration capable of running Windows 7 is supported out of the box, and new drivers can be downloaded after installation to make those configurations which don’t work, work.
• Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User: actually, this isn’t a rebuttal. It’s just confirming the truth. I suppose this one might actually require you to read everything I wrote, which starts below.

Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install

because, you know, supporting an upgrade from an OS which liberally encouraged bad resource usage as well as being nearly a decade old is definitely a wise choice. Keep in mind that the vast majority of users “upgrading” from Windows XP to Windows 7 will not be doing so at home. Most computers running XP will most likely be corporate machines, and not only will this network upgrade not be immediate, it also won’t be an upgrade.

System Administrators don’t go around putting in an upgrade disk for every single computer on the network. Smart sysadmins always isolate a segment of the corporate network, test the applications which they use in order to ensure that said apps will work with the new OS, and once all of this is done, they either

• sysprep an image on a sample machine with the apps they need followed by distributing that image across the network to all computers, or
• do a network install using the disc itself (or the iso) followed by installing the needed apps, or
• do a clean install for individual machines followed by the necessary applications (or a finished image), as needed.

That’s assuming they don’t just buy new hardware.

In IT, there’s no such thing as doing an upgrade. It’s taboo to even speak the term with regards to using the upgrade feature on an OS, let alone running such an upgrade en masse. I’d go so far as to call it career suicide.

Getting to the point: the minority tend to be the loudest. Here’s a rundown of computers likely running which OS:

• Computers bought prior to 2006 (which likely won’t support most of Windows 7’s customer-enhanced features anyway): XP 
• Computers bought between 2006 and early 2007: XP, upgradeable to Vista/7.
• Computers bought after 2007 strolled along: Vista (most likely).
• Netbooks: XP (most likely), Vista (least likely), Linux

So, the users most likely to want to upgrade are XP users who purchased their computers between 2006 and 2007, as well as some netbook owners. Keep in mind that a solid chunk of all computers running XP which are recorded in stats such as this are on corporate networks, and as noted above, these c
omputers will either remain on XP until end-of-life or be clean-installed up to Windows 7.

First of all, if you want to upgrade the OS on a netbook, unless you bought Windows 7 as an upgrade early on when it was cheap, you’re spending too much money for what’s almost a disposable computer. Second, I can’t think of a single netbook which actually comes with an optical drive, so how does a layuser plan on installing Windows 7 onto his/her netbook in the first place? The technically savvy user will find some means, but these users are also likely the ones to care least about upgrading in the first place. There you have it; netbook users have been ruled out.

Moving on to the 2006/2007 group: this is the group which will likely suffer the most from not being able to upgrade directly to 7, but this is also a minority group. Anyone who purchased a computer during this window specifically for the sake of upgrading to Vista once it came out… well, they’re now running Vista. Those who are still left on XP are the only unfortunate casualty of the decision to not allow XP upgrades, though in the long run, this is better for them in terms of functionality and in terms of making sure the press doesn’t bash Microsoft for failed XP-to-7 upgrades. Businesses which have computers in this block don’t care because, as noted earlier, they’ll just clean-install their way up or replace hardware down the road.

The Upgrade is Expensive

However, Apple plans to sell its next OS, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, for $30 to current Leopard users. This Apple power move alone makes Windows 7’s pricing look pretty steep. [emphasis added]

Brian’s argument here is self-defeating, as those outside the Apple Sphere of Influence rightfully see Snow Leopard as nothing more than a service pack. Apple is charging $29 for the same quality and number of features as what Microsoft delivers in a typical Windows service pack (the best example would be Windows XP SP2), and all of Microsoft’s service packs are free. Apple’s $29 charge is almost as bad as charging iPod Touch users $10 to upgrade to newer firmware (this is, quite plainly, analogous to highway robbery, but I digress).

Of course, that $29 price doesn’t come without a rather demeaning list of caveats, which can be seen on a post written two months ago by Ed Bott. The biggest point of contention here is that Tiger users have to pay the equivalent of upgrading first to Leopard and then Snow Leopard. Worse, there’s only one way to do it if you want to go straight from Tiger to Snow Leopard, and that’s by buying the Mac Box Set, which isn’t cheap and doesn’t offer anything which you can’t already get for free.

Brian himself noted that this is a power move by Apple to stunt Microsoft’s pricing on Windows 7, which means it’s nothing more than a marketing maneuver, which is clearly evident from the fine print of Apple’s upgrade terms.

As for this service pack business, I wrote about that two months ago as well.

It’ll Cost You Time, Too

That’s right. Everything costs time, and corporate IT departments realize this better than anyone else. That’s why most IT departments will wait until Windows 7 has been battle-tested before upgrading, but while the logic is simple, it’s not as plain as Brian makes their avoidance out to be.

This piece by Ina Fried tells a much better story of what’s going on. As of the survey [pdf] referenced in her article, 59.3% of respondents had no plans to migrate to Windows 7. The remaining 40.8% (rounding discrepancy: 0.1%) have either already begun deploying Windows 7 or will be doing so before the close of calendar year 2010.

That’s a lot of companies committing to a migration to Windows 7 before its release, and it’s a lot more than the 12-14% adoption rate of XP within XP’s first year.

Not considered in Brian’s highly subjective analysis of the business situation right now is a cost-benefit analysis of upgrading to Windows 7. It differs for each company, but the fact that so many respondents said they’re looking to migrate to Windows 7 prior to the end of 2010 means that they’ve done the CBAs and they’ve concluded that the benefits outweigh the costs of upgrading. Those who said they have no plans either executed CBAs at this point and decided that migrating now wouldn’t be beneficial to them or they’re just waiting to see how it goes everywhere else.

The same goes for the antiquated software argument brought up in Chen’s piece. This also gets factored into CBAs, and businesses will eventually have to migrate from antiquated software on upwards as the cost of maintaining older configurations increases versus the drop in technicians with the knowledge to support said configurations.

It’s as simple as that.

It’s Still Windows

Despite delivering an intuitive, modern interface in Windows 7, this OS is still Windows. In our first look at Windows 7, we complained about the OS’s inability to recognize an Adobe AIR file followed by its failure to search for software to run the file.

Also, Windows 7 doesn’t immediately know what to do with some pretty obvious tasks. When you insert a thumb drive, for example, you must tell Windows 7 what to do with it (i.e. open the folder and view the files) and customize a setting to get the OS to automatically behave that way. In short, when getting started you’ll have to do a lot of tweaking and customizing to get moving smoothly. That’s unfortunately an experience all Windows users are accustomed to — things don’t “just work.”

The fact that the Adobe AIR argument was the most important argument to list against Windows 7 being “still Windows” is an indication of the lack of objective substance in this argument, and that’s barring the fact that this is a already a highly atypical scenario (all Adobe AIR apps will check for AIR before being installed).

As for the “pretty obvious tasks,” the thumb drive example is a far better usability model than Apple’s “let’s just mount the drive and let the user do whatever he wants” model. The fact that Windows throws a prompt asking if the user wants to see a slideshow, play music, or simply open the files is highly welcomed by anyone I’ve spoken to who has used both PCs running Windows and PCs running Mac OS X. In fact, I’m quite certain that this is indeed an example of the things in Windows which “just work.”

Another example of things which “just work” in Windows would be the vast majority of hardware. Unlike Apple, which circumvents this issue by bottlenecking hardware supply and charging your soul for new hardware, Microsoft’s open hardware ecosystem lets users use whatever they want, and when the drivers (not written by Microsoft!) are WHQL-certified, the hardware almost always works flawlessly. I’ve yet to have a BSOD on Windows 7 RTM, and I’ve only had a few bad-ram-related bluescreens on Vista. Compared to my record running Snow Leopard and Leopard on the Macbook from which I’m writing this article, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have been far more stable, forgiving with hardware (even with Apple’s intentionally poorly-written drivers), and more responsive.

It’s still Windows, and as a result, it still just works, and it’s now even more usable, unlike Brian’s operating system of choice.

Security Isn’t Automatically Better

Computerworld’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols stands firm that Windows 7 won’t change anything from a security perspective: “Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car,” he wrote. “Millions of lazy Windows users are the reason why the internet is a mess. If you already do all the right things to keep XP running safely, you’re not going to get any safer by buying Windows 7.”

Good point. Because Windows 7 is still Windows, you’re again the primary target of attack for hackers and virus coders. Therefore, it’s up to you to protect yourself with anti-virus software and running update patches to keep the OS as secure as possible. (Compare this experience to Mac OS X Leopard, for which many don’t even run anti-virus software, because it’s more secure out-of-the-box compared to Windows.) Though Windows 7 does deliver some security enhancements, such as data encryption for thumb drives, and a feature for IT administrat
ors to control which applications can run on a corporate network, these are not general security improvements that change much for the overall user experience.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols is incorrect on a number of footings:

1. Being lazy on Windows 7 just means Windows 7 will be more secure by default than Windows XP
2. Windows 7 makes it easier to be more secure than Windows XP, which means layusers won’t have an incentive to become unlazy and disable features like UAC. Windows XP’s limited user mode was highly inconvenient because it didn’t offer an easy means of temporary escalation for admin-related tasks, which is why most users just kept their accounts with admin privileges. Windows Vista and 7 made life safer and easier both for standard privilege accounts (UAC prompt asks for a password for approval of administrative tasks) and for admin accounts (UAC asks for approval).
3. Windows XP users running in limited privilege mode are practically nil because it’s not convenient (as noted in #2), which means the number of people affected by security usability improvements in both Vista and 7 will be much higher than Steven’s argument tries to imply.

Chen tries to build on this with his “still Windows” argument. He admits that Windows is a target because of its expansive size but then chooses to say that Mac OS X is more secure out of the box without explaining that this security comes from the sheer lack of ubiquity, not from the code itself. While OS X gains its security by obscurity, Windows 7 can be used without an antivirus thanks to security by ease-of-use and common sense. There’s a huge difference between the two: security by obscurity falls apart if obscurity gives way to ubiquity.

Thing is, this security convenience (UAC) is a massive improvement for the overall user experience. Not only did it get more users to run under standard privileges, it got more developers to fix their code and write for non-administrative resource settings, thus making everyone safer overall and making UAC much less of the annoyance that it was when Vista first launched.

You’d be right to assume that this was Microsoft’s plan all along.

Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM

This argument was around during the Vista days as well, and it never took off because the DRM was both invisible by non-pirates and hardly used by anyone at all. It was only added by Microsoft to satisfy the MPAA/RIAA. This argument doesn’t hold any substance at all, and Brian even admits that this is mostly an argument of fear than anything else

Still, there are going to be people cringing in fear that one day PUMA and PVP will screw them over.

Right.

Snow Leopard Is Almost Here

Are you using a PC running Mac OS X? Sure, go ahead and get Snow Leopard. Are you using a PC running Windows Vista? You’re better off sticking with the more usable OS (hint: it’s the OS without a bite taken out of it).

Some of you likely remember my interview with Jensen Harris of Office UX fame. The tactics used in designing the Ribbon UI in Office 2007 were also applied to Windows 7’s user interface development, which means that Windows 7 is quite possibly the most intuitive operating system in the history of operating systems. Bold claim? Sure, but at least Microsoft actually researches usability rather than arbitrarily implementing features which look cool but have a steep learning curve.

That’s not including the features Apple copied from Microsoft, the support they dropped for PowerPC, the sheer length of time it took for Apple to implement 64-bit support, and the fact that they didn’t embrace touch support in Snow Leopard at all, despite the fact that multi-touch environments are becoming the way of the future.

Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User (I’m not rebutting this one)

and boy does it show. If you just read through all of the above, you probably caught onto a well-justified trend: Brian Chen’s entire piece had hardly any substance to back it up.

This is typical of the attacks implemented by Apple during their WWDC keynote and also typical of many Apple loyalists I’ve run into. It’s the cult of Mac which keeps many people from switching to Macs and has actually inspired many of my friends to switch away from Macs. I’ll leave it to Maddox (not work safe) to show how this unsubstantiveness comes into play as well as expose the phenomenal powers of marketing behind Steve Jobs.

My free copy of Windows Live Writer running on Windows 7 on top of my 1st gen MacBook which almost died on Snow Leopard would like to thank you for reading this ridiculously long thesis on 8 reasons not to avoid Windows 7.