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Gartner: Businesses don't need to wait for Windows 7 SP1

By | March 24, 2009, 7:51am PDT

Summary: Windows 7 hasn’t even hit the Release Candidate test phase, but already analysts at Gartner are advising business users they shouldn’t plan to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) to arrive before planning deployments.

Windows 7 hasn’t even hit the Release Candidate test phase, but already analysts at Gartner are advising business users they shouldn’t plan to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) to arrive before planning deployments.

From a March 12 research note by Gartner analyst Michael Silver (a link to which Microsoft is distributing to various press folks):

“The first Service Pack for Windows 7 is not necessary for the operating system’s stability and security readiness. However, organizations likely won’t be ready to deploy Windows 7 before SP1 ships, so they will include it in their initial deployments.”

The first part of Silver’s statement is, no doubt, music to Microsoft’s ears. Remember how much time and energy Microsoft officials spent trying to make the case that Vista was so solid that users didn’t need to wait until SP1 to deploy it? (OK — stop laughing now.)

Gartner is now saying what Microsoft officials have tried to assert for the past three years: SP1 shouldn’t be the milestone businesses await before even starting to plan for new OS deployments. Silver wrote:

“Conventional wisdom has been that organizations need to wait for the first Service Pack to ship before they deploy a new client OS. This used to be a necessity. The availability of beta software to test the new product was not as broad as it is today, and people expected the initial release to be buggy and unstable. The first Service Pack usually would ship approximately nine to 12 months after the initial OS shipment, and would usually represent a marked improvement in stability. Today, SP1 does not represent the milestone it used to.”

It’s actually the second part of Silver’s statement — that most organizations won’t be ready to deploy Windows 7 before SP1 ships anyway — cuts to the heart of the matter, however.

Most businesses cannot turn on a dime. Even if they wanted to rush to deploy Windows 7 as soon as it is released, few would be able to do so, given the amount of app-compatibility testing typically required. Gartner is estimating it will take even the most Windows 7-enamored businesses 12 to 18 months to deploy the new OS. And by that time — if Microsoft doesn’t do what it did with Windows Server 2008 and declare that SP1 was already built into the first release — SP1 for Windows 7 should be out.

It may seem early to be thinking about Windows 7 deployments — especially for the growing number of businesses that are just now starting to implement widescale Vista deployments they’ve been working on for months, if not years. But if Microsoft really does release Win 7 to manufacturing in Q3 of this calendar year, as still sounds likely, maybe it’s not as early as it seems….

What do you think of Gartner’s premise? Will SP1 be an irrelevant deployment milestone for you when planning around future Windows deployments. Why or why not?

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Topics

Microsoft Windows 7, Gartner Inc., Service Pack, Michael Silver, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: Gartner: Businesses don't need to wait for Windows 7 SP1
makrejktt48-24353614433154813928226228864324 11th Nov
xptbna,good post!
View in thread
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"OK ? stop laughing now"?
jk_10 24th Mar 2009
MJ,

i have a problem with this sentence. i call myself an IT professional. I worked as a software developer since DOS 3.0. I have worked on whole range of operating system. i DO NOT think vista has anything to laugh about. this is a solid operating system, with a solid security system. and fluent interface. yes, some old apps stop working. but that's something we know before we use it.

people's opinion about vista is just as stupid as anything can be. I don't care that is how many millions' opinion.
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Stop??? I just started
InAction Man 24th Mar 2009
You are too funny, ha ha ha ha...
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Re: Stop??? I just started
rmarkle 24th Mar 2009
I agree!!! All this proves is that Gartner is for sale to M$. NO ONE in IT jumps on a 1.0 of ANYTHING. Yeah, I'm going to risk my job by recommending that a move to Vista is a good 1 for my Company...
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No, but you'd be a fool not to be testing so you don't fall to far behind.
invmgr@... 25th Mar 2009
I'm no M$ schill, we must face reality. If your not testing the next generation OS against your apps, be it Linux, Win7, or even blista, your company will suffer eventually. And who's going to be responsible for that?
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Testing apps is far different from 'Don't wait for SP1 to Adopt'
rmarkle 25th Mar 2009
Usually SP2 is when M$ hits it's stride. This is a widely known fact in Corporate IT.

I agree with deploying a few strategic servers, if only to identify an upgrade strategy. But I believe it unwise to throw out XP/Win 2k3 and just upgrade to Vista because Gartner says, "Naw, it's cool. Go ahead."
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Test is OK.
agohige 26th Mar 2009
It is fine to test and keep up on what is current, I always have a few, I want the latest junkies here, and they are capable. BUT for most of the staff here, a change from 98 to 2000 was dramatic, 2000 to XP was a drama. BUT all the applications worked and the GUI was still in place, Vista broke all that. I cannot afford to spend 4 months teaching a new GUI to people who cannot spell G-U-I and have no idea what it means...
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I agree.
agohige 26th Mar 2009
We are not installing Vista at all. it is not worth the effort. The software we use is not being made for Vista so why bother. Vista may be what Bluecollar said, but I am not spending my companies money on Vista trash. And yeah like bluecollar I have been in the industry from TRS80, PETCBM, 8086, DOS, even the early PC Jr's... (by then I had been working in the gaming industry for 5 years) OS changes are a load of crap. If it works for you don't mess with it.
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Contributr
laughing
Mary Jo Foley 24th Mar 2009
Hi.

My point is it was laughable for Microsoft to claim, first, that Vista SP1 didn't exist. Then they claimed it might or might not. Then it was, yes, it exists, but it is far away, so don't wait for it.

These days, even Microsoft admits that SP1 made Vista more usuable for businesses. Microsoft execs now publicly admit that Vista wasn't ready for release when it RTM'd; it was sluggish and not at all ready, in terms of driver and app compatibility.

That is why I said "Stop laughing now." In hindsight, Microsoft's claim that Vista didn't require an SP1 to be ready for prime-time looks ridiculous.

Hope that helps explain my use of the phrase here. MJ
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Vista's performance and compatability issues had little to do with...
ye 24th Mar 2009
...Vista itself and more to do with poorly written applications and drivers. Take those same applications and drivers and use them on a Vista SP1 system and you're likely to find the performance and compatability issues remain. SP1 did address a few performance issues. And I'm certain there were some compatability improvements. However, it is my opinion, the majority of performance and compatability gains were the result of new drivers and applications.
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So now you know more than MS?
storm14k 24th Mar 2009
Interesting...
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Apparently you missed the following I wrote:
ye 24th Mar 2009
"SP1 did address a few performance issues. And I'm certain there were some compatability improvements."
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Funny how...
storm14k 24th Mar 2009
...you knew right where to backtrack without me having to say a thing.
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This is the best attempt at saving face you could muster?
ye 24th Mar 2009
Seriously? I didn't write that much. It was a single paragraph with five sentences.
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There was no face to save.
storm14k 24th Mar 2009
You directly contradicted what MS had to say about their own product and then you tried to backtrack. Simple as that.
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@storm14k: I repeat: Apparently you missed the following I wrote:
ye 24th Mar 2009
"SP1 did address a few performance issues. And I'm certain there were some compatability improvements."

Those words are right in line with what MS said. Which leads me to repeat something else I wrote:

"This is the best attempt at saving face you could muster? Seriously? I didn't write that much. It was a single paragraph with five sentences."
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More specifically
Tiggster 24th Mar 2009
The majority of the compatibility problems were the result of third party developers failing to adhere to Microsoft's published guidelines for developing applications. It's hard to blame Microsoft for the failure of developers who were sloppy and hacked together solutions that violated Microsoft's standards. If more developers actually knew what they were doing and paid attention, most of these headaches would vanish.
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Agree 100% (nt)
ye 24th Mar 2009
.
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Disagree 100%
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
Microsoft knew that if they wanted Vista to be a
success, they had to build in backwards compatibility,
something they have claimed for every iteration of
Windows so far and something they have failed to do in
every iteration so far. Simply put, if you want massive
adoption of the new OS, then the existing software
must be able to run on it in one form or another.
Even Microsoft's vaunted "Compatibility Mode" has
been a dismal failure in every version of Windows since
'95.

No, the failure wasn't on the part of developers; it was
on the part of Microsoft, first on not ensuring new
drivers were available in time and second on not
allowing existing drivers to at least perform minimally
for compatibility with already-existing peripherals.

Vista was the result of a panic situation where
Longhorn was taking too long to develop and MS
realized they had to at least punch something out
before they lost relevance in the market. The problem
is, they stripped most of what Longhorn was supposed
to be in order to release what little they'd already
managed to develop. Win7 is likely to be what
Longhorn was intended to be from the beginning.
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Fail
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 25th Mar 2009
With Vista, Microsoft knew they had to BREAK stuff.

Vista fixed many, MANY known security, reliatbility, management and operations holes. Prevening non-admin accounts from writing to Program Files and large portions of the registry (HKLM), etc., caused MANY apps to break. Whilst MS did work with many of the larger app vendors to have them fix their apps, this was not anywhere near completion for RTM and there were thousands of smaller app vendors who'd not done their due dilligence and had not tested their apps on Vista and so they broke too.

Cycle forward 2 1/2 years.

Most apps have now been updated to no longer longer perform actions that require admin rights. Most apps no longer write to protected file and registry locations. If you still have apps that do so, complain to your app vendor.

Net-net: Win7 will have FAR less trouble on introduction than Vista ever did ... or could have had!
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Still disagree
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
It wasn't until SP1 that Vista actually started working
properly. Before that, everything I said before still stands.
It was rushed and underwent almost ZERO Quality
Control. This is NOT the hallmark of a company that
cares about their image.
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Microsoft has done an excellent job with backwards compatibility.
ye 25th Mar 2009
Some might argue too good. Do they ensure 100% compatability? Certainly not. But then not many people do. Maybe IBM with their mainframe and midframe systems. Sun offers binary compatability (as long as you, surprise of surprise, adhere to their guidelines). I would say in the majority of cases if you have a problem with an application not running under Vista there's a good chance it will if you disable UAC.

No, the failure wasn't on the part of developers; it was on the part of Microsoft, first on not ensuring new drivers were vailable in time and second on not allowing existing drivers to at least perform minimally for compatibility with already-existing peripherals

Microsoft cannot write a driver for every device out there. All they can do is make tools and information available to the hardware manufacturers. And they did. Blame them and not Microsoft. Also some drivers for 2000/XP will work with Vista. I've done this with network drivers.

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@de-void: This has existed since at least Windows 2000.
ye Updated - 25th Mar 2009
Prevening non-admin accounts from writing to Program Files and large portions of the registry (HKLM), etc., caused MANY apps to break.

Windows 2000 and XP, and likely previous versions of the NT line, already prevented changes to these areas by non-admins. The difference between Vista and previous versions is the default user account, even though a member of the administrators group, utilizes a non-admin security token until elevated through UAC. Run Windows 2000/XP as a non-admin and you won't be able to changes these locations either.

The security is there and has been so for some time. It just wasn't enforced because, by default, the user of the system had minimal restrictions on what they could do.
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How can you say that?
NIBONED 25th Mar 2009
@vulpine,
Do you understand that "backword compatibility" mean complying with MS's published guidelines and using the official API's? If developers chose to ignore these, for whatever reasos, then it is THIER fault, not Microsoft's. This is true of any system. Do you blame the Linux kernel team when you have to recompile an app for a new kernal?

As far as drivers, yes, they are time consuming and expensive to develop, but driver writers had plenty of warning that kernel mode drivers were going to be a huge no-no, as these were the cause of the majority of BSOD issues.

The point is, properly written software and drivers lead to a more stable and secure system and also enable moving users to "standard user" rather than administrator. This alone blocks a majority of exploits.

Vista was a result of users crying about the lax security of Windows. When MS finally did something about it, all the crybabies came out of the woodwork complaining about "backword compatibility." Do yourselves a favor: do the necessary testing and remediation, move on and enjoy the benefits of a more stable and secure Windows. And quit your bellyaching.
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Here's how.
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
Do you understand that "backword compatibility"
mean complying with MS's published guidelines and
using the official API's?
Actually, No. Backwards compatibility means that
software made to run properly in the previous version,
including drivers and DLLs, will run in the new version.
I don't imply that Win95 software should run natively in
Vista, but software written for XP should be able to run
in Vista just as well -- something Microsoft is
notorious about for its failures.

As far as drivers, yes, they are time consuming and
expensive to develop, but driver writers had plenty of
warning that kernel mode drivers were going to be a
huge no-no, as these were the cause of the majority of
BSOD issues.
You consider nine months notice as "plenty of warning?
" Come ON now! You must realize that almost nobody
outside of Microsoft itself had decent warning that
Longhorn was going to be pushed out two years before
it was even projected to be ready. Win7 is the final
culmination of Longhorn's concept. Even Microsoft has
declared Win7 to be what Vista aspired to be.

The point is, properly written software and drivers
lead to a more stable and secure system and also
enable moving users to "standard user" rather than
administrator. This alone blocks a majority of
exploits.
Here I agree. But Microsoft is just as guilty of bad
coding as everyone else in this case. Windows is still
the most attacked and most compromised OS on the
market. Vista is better, but they still haven't blocked
the exploits.

Vista was a result of users crying about the lax
security of Windows.
No. Vista was a result of Microsoft realizing it was
taking far too long to develop Longhorn while pulling a
major portion of its development staff off of XP
development. XP wasn't getting the care it needed and
Longhorn wasn't going to be ready for at least two
more years. They needed to move something out fast,
and Vista ended up being the frog instead of the
prince.

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bug as a feature...
brokndodge@... 25th Mar 2009
i am actually going to defend microsoft... I can't believe it. There has been a long standing trend to write 10 lines of code that exploit a bug-as-a-feature rather than the hundred or more lines of code needed to do it right. Then, after this "feature" has been present for 7 or more years, someone at microsoft actually fixes the "feature" in the new version. oops, now every app that used that "feature" breaks. I will never forget when xp sp2 came out i was sitting with a buddy looking over the list of bug fixes when he exclaimed "D***, I used that feature!" of course, he was talking about a bug that had been present for many years. now he had to go back through a whole host of apps and fix them. in this one issue, and it is a major issue, it's not actually microshafts fault. follow the published api closely and your apps will run on the next version of windows. use those "undocumented features" and the next patch tuesday might just break your app.
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@Ye: I agree
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 26th Mar 2009
I should have been clearer in my original posting.

Vista's biggest change in terms of impact on the user was introducing UAC and the non-admin default user account. This one change essentially "turned on" many of the security features and protection mechanisms designed to prevent users from screwing the whole machine and prevented a vast array of unfortunate outcomes of malware penetration.

The point was that this had to be done. Vista had to break stuff in order to close the loopholes that malware had been taking advantage of for far too long.

It's funny that the vast majority of security issues over the last couple of years have largely been issues that only affect users of XP and 2000, not Vista.
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It's not so hard to blame Microsoft
Michael Kelly 24th Mar 2009
considering they nurture a culture which makes them so highly dependent on third parties doing a great deal of the programming necessary for a complete product, then fail to give them the tools or motivation they need to provide the quality Microsoft's customers expect.

If MS's reputation depends so much on those drivers, then they need to take a bigger interest in resolving driver issues. If MS's reputation depends so much on programs that do not violate the programming standards MS sets, then they need to take a better interest in making sure programmers know how to adhere to those standards.

Yes, doing all of that would be a monumental task, bordering on impossible. But that's why MS makes the big bucks. If they're cool with taking those big bucks to the bank, they ought to be cool with doing whatever they have to in order to insure their products meet their customer's standards.
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They've published standards since Windows 2000 was released.
ye 24th Mar 2009
If MS's reputation depends so much on programs that do not violate the programming standards MS sets, then they need to take a better interest in making sure programmers know how to adhere to those standards.

Writing to these standards was required for certification.

Microsoft provides the information and tools necessary. About the only thing they don't provide are the people to do it and, maybe more importantly, they don't always lead by example.
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Considering the size of Microsoft...
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
...Microsoft provides the information and tools
necessary. About the only thing they don't provide are
the people to do it and, maybe more importantly, they
don't always lead by example... ... don't you think
they would be better able to ensure the drivers meet
their specifications? It's easy to tell someone to do
something, but how can you ensure it's been done
unless you check it yourself?
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@vulpine: Microsoft has a program in place to certify drivers.
ye 25th Mar 2009
However there is no requirement developers utilize this process.
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@ye...
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
Has? Or had? They might have one now, but was it in
place when they pushed Vista out the door? If you
remember, nearly every professional reviewing Vista gave
it poor marks at best, citing everything I said earlier. If
they'd actually worked with the hardware vendors and
helped them to rewrite the drivers, there never would
have been a problem in the first place.
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@vulpine: Had and has.
ye Updated - 25th Mar 2009
Microsoft had WHQL certification prior to Vistas release. Is it possible you could at least learn some of the basics before commenting?
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@ye...
vulpine@... 25th Mar 2009
Microsoft had WHQL certification prior to Vistas
release. Is it possible you could at least learn some of
the basics before commenting?
By how long, three months? Is this why it took
Microsoft fifteen months to release SP1 for Vista?
Come on! I said it before and I say it again: Nearly
every professional reviewer gave Vista absolutely rotten
marks and recommended steering clear until SP1.

Microsoft might have published those standards, but
they didn't do it in a timely manner to really make Vista
what they hoped it would be. Vista was essentially a
stillborn baby that should have gestated a little longer.
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@vulpine: It existed for Windows 2000 and XP
ye 25th Mar 2009
Like I said: At least do some basic research before commenting. You're making yourself look like a fool.

Come on! I said it before and I say it again: Nearly every professional reviewer gave Vista absolutely rotten marks and recommended steering clear until SP1.

I never claimed the world was free from uninformed opinion.
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Uninformed?
vulpine@... 26th Mar 2009
I never claimed the world was free from uninformed
opinion.

So you're telling me that people who are paid to do
reviews on hardware are "uninformed." That's a low blow to
all the reviewers out there, including the ones on ZDNet.

Sorry, ye. You missed the mark with that shot.
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@vulpine: Yes, I am.
ye 26th Mar 2009
So you're telling me that people who are paid to do reviews on hardware are "uninformed."

If they're spreading FUD then they're uninformed. You see either a product works for your needs or it does not. If it does not and the product is later updated, the update doesn't automatically mean it will now meet your needs.

People should have tested Vista according to their requirements. It would have either meet them or it wouldn't. If it does what benefit does one gain by waiting for an SP? Likewise if it doesn't the fact an SP will be released offers no assurances it will then meet your needs. So aribitrarily setting a a milestone of SP1 is foolish. The milestone should be "When it meets my needs".
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@ye: Let me see if I have this right
vulpine@... 26th Mar 2009
What you're telling me is that ZDNet's own
reviewers were wrong to give Vista a bad review
when it was first released, despite the quite
obvious problems it had. As such, you claim
that ZDNet's own reviewers are not only
uninformed, but spreading FUD about Vista
despite their hands-on experiences.

By your own statements, People should have
tested Vista according to their requirements. It
would have either meet them or it wouldn't. If it
does what benefit does one gain by waiting for
an SP..., you imply that they should simply
have ignored the problems and not said
anything. Well, if you ask me, that would have
been a HUGE mistake! Sure, MS would have sold
more copies up front... but their reputation, bad
as it is, would have immediately fallen through
the floor because now the bad reports would
have spread even wider through word of mouth
and would have soured any chance of recovery
through a service pack. In short, by forcing
Microsoft to acknowledge their error and
produce a service pack months before they
normally would have, these same reviewers
actually saved a significant portion of their
market.

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@vulpine: It depends.
ye 26th Mar 2009
If the review was negative based on actual Vista issues then I have no issues. If the review was negative based on non-Vista issues then yes, they were wrong. While Vista had some issues they weren't sufficient enough to conclude Vista was a poor OS.

Performance and stability issues with Vista were primarily due to poor drivers. Incompatable applications were primarily the fault of developers who didn't follow Microsoft's published guidelines (which have been available for at least 10 years).

There are too many clueless people who write for ZDnet. They don't understand why something may not be performing well. Instead they just blindly report on what they found.

The recommendation to wait until SP1 appears to have been good advice but not because SP1 made everything better. Between the time of RTM and SP1 developers had time to improve (or initially write) their drivers and applications. Thus someone installing Vista RTM today would benefit without ever having installed SP1. As I said before: Take RTM and benchmark it and in many cases you'll find it's not much different than SP1. Same with stability and compatability. However this is not to say there weren't some benefits to SP1. After all that's the whole idea of having an SP.
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@ye: So you admit...
vulpine@... 26th Mar 2009
... that Vista was rushed out long before it was ready and that the
majority of the issues were resolved by giving the developers time to
produce the drivers needed; exactly what I was saying when I first
disagreed with you here. http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12558-
0.html?forumID=1&threadID=62409&messageID=1151336

I never said the standards weren't made avalialble, I said they weren't
made available in time for release. This is not cluelessness by
the reviewers but rather carelessness on the part of Microsoft.

(Hey, aren't you proud of me? Through this entire discussion I didn't
mention Apple ONCE!)

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@vulpine: I am saying no such thing.
ye Updated - 27th Mar 2009
So you admit that Vista was rushed out long before it was ready and that the majority of the issues were resolved by giving the developers time to produce the drivers needed

Developers had plenty of time to write drivers. Microsoft released a number of Community Technology Previews (CTPs), beta, and release candidates well in advance of Vista's release (CTPs were released in 2005). Developers had plenty of time to write drivers. Why they didn't remains a mystery.
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Still doesn't explain why MS doesn't use
Deadly Ernest 4th Apr 2009
the industry standards or why they keep changing what they want to use just so they can force incompatibility and people to buy new software and hardware.

BTW They may put out what they think is enough paperwork, but they often change important stuff at SP1 or SP2 and thus invalidate all before that.
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You can lead a horse to water ...
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 25th Mar 2009
... but it's hard to make it drink if it decides it doesn't want to.

Microsoft has been publishing best practice guidance for many years. Most of it is freely available on MSDN. They also ship free code quality tools like FXCop and PreFix/PreFast. The Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a raft of driver quality testers etc.

Microsoft also offers a FREE service where any app with signed executables/assembiles can be registered with MS. When instances of those apps crash and Watson dumps are collected and sent to MS, the ISV can get notified that a new crash has been collected and can login to download crashdumps to analyze and fix their problems.

But most developers don't do any of the above. Laziness? Ignorance? Not-Invented-Here? Stupidity? Sun spots? Who knows what the reasons are!
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But if their livelihood depends on that horse taking a drink
Michael Kelly 25th Mar 2009
then don't you think MS should be looking for ways to make the horse want to take a drink?

That's my point. They've painted themselves into a corner. They didn't have to do that. Linux is one example of an operating system that took its destiny into its own hands when hardware vendors decided they weren't worth the time or money to develop drivers for. If they hadn't, you probably would have never even heard of Linux. Of course the method Linux used to achieve its goal was to be open. And the more open those hardware vendors were to Linux, the more open Linux was to them. Alliances were made, and as some hardware vendors became more Linux-friendly, the more necessary it became for their competitors to become Linux friendly.

I'm not trying to make this into a Linux vs. Windows flame thread, but see the example for what it is. Linux, with its comparatively low market share, has no business being in the same league as MS when it comes to driver support. Yet it's not only in its league, but it does not have nearly the issues Windows has when new releases come out. Add that to the fact that Linux has not painted itself into the x86 corner Windows has (even though Linux also has its roots as an x86-only kernel), and... well as I said look at the example for what it is. It pays to take control of your own destiny.
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@Michael Kelly
brokndodge@... 25th Mar 2009
Here I am defending Microshaft again... Why do I continue to read this thread? So here goes, the very strength of Linux is volunteer effort. Microshaft is closed, their venders are all closed... Linux is open, and loved by everyone that uses it. If we own hardware that isn't supported and we can figure out what it will take to make it run, we will hack something together and post it to the net, a few hundred other folks have the same hardware and take my hack to the next level, a year later and we have our own driver. Even companies who sell Linux for a profit get our free help, if they will just let us have a free copy of their distro. They are supporting Linux, our favorite OS.

Now, multiply that times ten thousand devices and you have a million or more devs working in their spare time on making Linux what it is today. For microshaft to use the same resources that Linux has available for free would bankrupt the company before they got halfway through the available devices.

the best microshaft can do is offer free online documentation to device manufacturers and paid certification and support. They are trying to turn a profit, after all.
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@Michael Kelly - my point remains
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 26th Mar 2009
It doesn't matter WHAT Microsoft does, (short of pulling an Apple) if a software developer chooses not to use the tools Microsoft gives away for free, then the developers' apps are likely to contain significant flaws.

The only way Microsoft could twist developers' arms is to require that each and every Windows app gets tested and certified before being signed by MS and then a modified OS installer allowing only signed app installers to run.

This is what Apple essentially do for their iPhone apps, but it stinks because software vendors' success is gated by Apples willingness and ability to process the number of app tests and certifiation requirests.

At the end of the day, it's up to App vendors, regardless of the platform upon which they run and regardless of whether they're closed or open source, to be professional and to use all the tools at their disposal to decrease the potential vulns in their code and ship safer, faster, more stable code.
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You said it!
jerry@... 25th Mar 2009
Shoot Bro, they (3rd party developers) are still "updating" audio drivers for Vista in March 09. I just can't understand the driver issues taking so long to get everything moving. And it's worse on the higher end products like Creative X-Fi and ATI 4800 series (and higher).

After building a new hi-end system just so I could do HD video rendering (and a couple of games that need it) it just amazes me that vendors are still updating drivers. Especially when MS has drivers for the same equipment in Windows 7 right out of the box. I only had to update the chipset driver but the computer still worked fine without it.
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How do you know all that?
InAction Man 24th Mar 2009
Or are those just figments of your imagination?
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Most of it is freely availble and well published
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 25th Mar 2009
Microsoft is perhaps one of the more transparent software development organizations in the world.

If you want to know how something was designed or implemneted, or how it works, ask your MS rep to hook you up with the dev team.

I've done this on MANY an occasion.
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Drinking the kool-aid huh!
InAction Man 25th Mar 2009
What about trying to think for yourself?
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Erm ... no ... I'm stating fact.
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 26th Mar 2009
What was your point precisely?
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RE: Gartner: Businesses don't need to wait for Windows 7 SP1
makrejktt48-24353614433154813928226228864324 11th Nov
xptbna,good post!

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