windows 7 desktop
HomeGroup password
When I installed Microsoft Windows 7 beta on one of my computers, one things I’ve noticed was that it was a quick and rather painless install. It seems light with less “bloatware”. It reminded me of a linux install way back when Linux didn’t try to be “use-friendly”. Back then when you install Linux, you install an OS, nothing else. After installing the OS, you then go about installing what you want applications and tools to go with the OS. It looked like a majority of people, I guess because most are either busy or lazy and not wanting to deal with something “they don’t have to” didn’t like going through this and most didn’t even consider Linux. This made Linux the OS of geeks.
From the beginning, Bill Gates realized this and he capitalized on it. Success. People loved it because it was “user-friendly”. Microsoft began adding more and more stuff into its OS and it showed in the Windows OS that started coming out of Redmond. Together with flashy, epic naming schemes (remember Millenium Edition? ugh), Windows became increasingly bloated with each version. But because hardware because increasingly powerful and better, the bloat didn’t pose any significant problem to users. Adding more memory and faster peripherals seems to make the bloat a non-issue. Until Vista, when Microsoft found the straw that broke the camel’s back. I didn’t even installed Vista because the horror stories scared me. So I’m one of the many XP holdouts.
As I was saying, the install went well and the next few personalization setup were pretty easy as well. But then I tried working with networks and this is where a few issues were found. Can you believe it? This OS wants you to remember (it actually ask you to write it down) a series of alphanumeric characters because IT assigns a password you rather than just allowing you to create one, an easy to remember one. So primitive in my opinion.
And one more very important thing which really got into my nerve. You CAN’T upgrade a Windows XP computer. Yep, you have to wipe out the entire system and install fresh. In a few computers you would really want to do this but for some, a simple upgrade is the simplest and preferable way moving from one OS to another.
Tags: bloatware, Linux, Microsoft, redmond, windows, Windows 7, windows xp
