Several weeks ago, one of my customers that I am mostly volunteering (he is over 80) asked me to assist him in buying the new PC. He brought several brochures from HP and Dell. To my surprise, ALL of them where 64-bit systems. The surprise was unpleasant since I did not shop for the new PC for at least 2 years since I bought Dell 8400 with 3GHz processor. Why unpleasant? Did you try to install Office 2003 on 64-bit machine? How about a bunch of other applications that you get used to but CANNOT use with 64-bit hardware?
Do you see where I am pointing to? The PC manufacturers force the consumers to buy the 64-bit systems and, at the same time, force to update ALL applications, games, utilities because they are no longer compatible... What amazes me that I did not see the articles that scream aloud about this situation?
There were many discussions about reasons to skip an upgrade to Vista in favor of coming Windows 7, the newest Microsoft’s desktop OS coming in the beginning of 2010. I have contributed to several articles where I explained why I am NOT going to upgrade to Vista but what I would like to discuss is what to do with Windows XP now.
*** Windows 7 is being dubbed "Vista done right" ***
Plenty of sources have detailed the exciting changes that Microsoft is bringing to Windows 7, the successor to Vista. Microsoft heard the screams of PC users who said they hate Vista, and therefore the new version focuses on the user experience heavily.
Here is what I found on the net:
"While some of Microsoft's competitors focus first on flash, then on the underlying architecture, Microsoft took the reverse route this time. Now, at least, the roads come together. Windows 7 is sexy, usable, and streamlined. It was demonstrated on an ultra-lite computer with a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM... the OS can run in less than 512MB and boots up much faster. It's likely to have fast boot options that will provide functionality for watching DVDs or other media without requiring the full OS. And because Windows 7 is built on the same kernel as Vista, we won't suffer from vendors who leverage a Windows upgrade to obsolete their drivers and hardware… in other words, no compatibility problems. Thank goodness!" Check this out also:
http://www.wservernews.com/X9Q2B1/081103-Windows-7
At the same time, you know, I am happy about Windows 2008 server, and particularly, Windows Server 2008 R2 that is also on the horizon. It really makes sense to add the power to the servers. The updated version of Win2K8 R2 comes with significant improvements to virtualization and virtual machine (VM) management. What is interesting, this upgrade is 64-bit only (the fact is known since Microsoft did not make a secret from it). The new PowerShell 2.0 and the new PowerShell-based consoles will be added, including the Active Directory Administration Console. Check this out: http://www.wservernews.com/X9Q2B1/081103-SQL-Server-2008
*** Is it a Great Time to Buy a New Computer?!**
All the major vendors have just released brand new models based on the very latest, thinnest, most power-friendly Intel (and AMD) chipsets. New models offer more storage, better power utilization, and key new interfaces including eSATA. On the "high end", there are some laptops that even can edit High Definition video and burn it to a Blu-Ray disc. By the way, about the Blu-Ray. I see that it did not gain mainstream due to high cost of licensing for manufacturers and high retail cost.
How would you justify spending $150/$200 for a new player if you can buy pretty decent quality copies of HD movies that can be played on most of the DVD players? The market of Blu-Ray players is barely 4-5% of total market (and it is after defeating the HP with their own HD format!). I believe that the new format will be introduced by some of the known firms in the closest future.
Since Windows 7's hardware requirements might actually be lower than Vista's, the new PC 2010 could be a power horse.
I don't know about you but I am not going to upgrade my 3GHz system until Windows 7 (or whatever name it will have) will be available along with thousands of utilities and applications compatible with 64-bit system.
How about you?
