JJ, I suspect a goodly proportion of Mac users have a legitimate installation.

Here's my reasoning: the Mac OS installation DVD is also your backstop should things go wrong. It's a bootable disc containing repair tools as well as the OS installation files.

Without the disc, you have little to rely on in disaster mode, save borrowing from someone else. And when there were fewer Mac users than there are now, that wasn't something you could rely on.

The same is true of the Windows disk. It's called the "recovery console".

Thing is, a copy works just like the original

Agreed, but I still say most Mac users either have an original disc that shipped with their Mac, or they buy the upgrades as they come out.

In my experience, most Windows users treat their computer as a commodity. It comes with the built in Windows and they have no idea what an upgrade is, let alone that they can install it! In fact, a majority think that the 3 to 6 month free trial of an anti-virus product that came with the PC will still be protecting them 10 years later, when they come to replace the machine!

They treat it more like an appliance. They don't upgrade the operating software on their fridge, why should they do that on their computer?

Arm Mac users not even more into this mind set? Few even have a machine that can have the HDD swapped out by the average user. Yet Mac users largely do upgrade the OS.

Mind you, on the Mac each new OS tends to make the computer faster to use and more feature rich. In the case of Snow Leopard it will have a lighter footprint than any Mac OS has had in the last ten years. (six OSs ago).

I would argue that the reasons that majority of Windows users don't upgrade is not the commodity mindset rather it is a combination of the following.

1) MS have often charged big bucks for the new one.
2) MS have often made many versions making it confusing for the novice.
3 ) MS have usually made their OSs much larger resource hog than the previous one so it won't actually fit on older hardware.
4) MS have not always had good early reviews of their new OSs. Vista being a case in point.
5) MS have not always made the installation process easy.

Were there not queues around the block for Win 95? Since then not so much.

I don't know enough non-tech aware Mac users to answer that question. The users either work in graphics design or IT, so are aware of what their computer has and does.

The average Windows home user buys a computer when the old one breaks. Talk to them about newer versions of Windows and they won't have a clue what you are talking about! For them, upgrades, newer versions etc. are meaningless.


The same goes more or less for Windows (Windows 7 has a lighter foot print than Vista) and are more feature rich. But, again, most home users are totally unaware of its existence, let alone a need to upgrade...

They will wait until their Windows 95/98/ME or XP Home machine gives up the ghost and they will buy a new bottom of the range machine, which will last them another decade, hopefully, before it gives up the ghost.


I would argue that most don't really have a clue what Microsoft is, they use Windows or they use a Dell... Microsoft has nothing to do with them, there is a disconnect there.

It is like asking why Ford owners don't upgrade to the newest version of the Magnetti Morelli EMU in their car (or whatever it uses)... The answer is, because Magnetti Morelli doesn't mean anything to them, it is a Ford...

I visited my girlfriend's brother yesterday. His wife complained that her laptop runs slower since I visited! The reason? For the first time in 8 years, the laptop is running anti virus software!


But MS did a lot of marketing for W95 but very little for the launches of XP, Vista or Windows 7, outside the technical press... But advertising Windows outside the tech press doesn't really achieve much. The users probably state blankly at the advert and think "but I already have Windows..."

I'd have to disagree with you there CC, Windows users have 'enjoyed' a large period of inactivity on the OS front. It's only been the last eight or nine years that the many have bought computers, many would have come with XP. With such a large period between XP and Vista, I suspect people didn't know that you would/could update the core software on the machine (like Dave said, you don't update the software that runs your washing machine).
With public 'knowledge' urging people away from this thing called "Vista", I suspect many people who may have had an inkling would have held off unless they needed a new computer. The market itself seems to scream "Throw away your old box and buy a new one with the new Windows", I've not seen a single advert on TV for Vista or Windows 7, but I've seen plenty saying that X computer comes with Vista but with a free upgrade to Windows 7.

Microsoft seem to actively discourage any other way - Vista ultimate when it was released was well over £200, probably closer to £300 - the OEM version was still around the £100-£150 mark but you are not supposed to buy those unless you are a system builder. People buy OEM if they know about them, but most don't. I think MS would have seen a better uptake if they had stopped ripping people off. Seems they haven't learned with the (post release) retail prices for Vista SP3.

Is Windows 7 out yet? No point advertising for it if it isn't

Vista launched with a big campaign. There was the WOW! slogan everywhere. The news was full of it. The advertising stopped when the "WOW!" became generally believed to be "Wow, my computer has ground to a halt and the printer has stopped working".

WOW! advert

BTW I have never actually seen a real computer do that waterfall thing with the windows that everyone was getting excited over. Whatever happened to that?

It's a little gimick, Vista is full of little gimmicks. It's one of the worst operating systems I've ever used.

Windows 7 is full of similar little gimicks unfortunately. The "Dreamscene" stuff was a nice thing to try and did look impressive to onlookers, but I don't spend enough time looking at my desktop to warrant it. It has now been replaced by a desktop slideshow - your background changes at set intervals like you can already do in OS X. If you hated Vista, W7 will take your expectations to a whole new low..it's down there with Ubuntu 6.10!

+1

Windows 2000 FTW!

At least it was a darned sight better than XP...

Elaborate? What does Vista do for you where XP failed?

I have Vista on my laptop, XP on most of my boxes and I've used W7 a small amount.

I was generally impressed with W7, especially the hardware support. It recognised a few USB devises which I would consider esoteric. However, in every day terms I think I still prefer XP. I'm using it right now, despite having W7 installed on the other drive.

One example of Vista being annoying - every time I connect to a new network, which I do several times a day, it asks me a bunch of questions which takes a minute to get rid of. I'm now on "network 9000" or there abouts. I don't want that - I just want to change my IP settings and keep my security exactly the way I set it up to start with.

Another example; there are a few applications which Vista always says "Wooo there! This doesn't look safe to me." Now, fair enough the first time you run them - but surely there should be a simple tick box to say "I trust this app, now stop bugging me!"? Maybe there is, but it's not in front of my face and I've not had time to search for it.

Then there's the performance. I had to upgrade the memory in my new laptop to 2GB to make it feel as barely adequate as my old one which only had 256MB.

Generally speaking, the things I notice about Vista that separate it from XP are those things that get in the way of me doing my job. I worked more efficiently with XP. It was pretty much invisible, the way an OS should be. I don't want to think about my OS - I just want to get on with my work!

My next new PC for general work will probably be W7 rather than OSX or Linux, but that's purely for security reasons. I can't keep running a vintage OS for ever.

At least Vista supports wifi from the word go, where was wifi support in XP pre-SP2?

As for UAC, it was to make up for the massive security liability that was Windows XP. They took a model of system security - Windows NT - and completely [LIFTED] it up. XP wasn't even reasonably secure until at least SP2.