Windows 7 is a very bad name

M

MaxBurn

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 14, 2004
Messages
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Has anyone else noticed that when searching for help with windows 7 that you get a crap ton of irrelevant results, basically anything that contains windows and the number 7? Vista may not have been well liked but for a search term it was fantastic, excellent search results no matter what the search engine.

I see finding help getting much harder under 7 than it was for vista.
 
yep it should be called "Vista: fo' real dis time" :p
 
Here, give these search techniques a shot.

Remember, if you want to concatenate two words in a google search, or most any search engine, use "Quatation Marks".

As for why this is a Windows 7 or Microsoft Marketing fault, please keep explaining.;)
 
My boss told me there is no way they are naming it Windows 7. I still don't think he believes me to this day.
 
MaxBurn said:
Has anyone else noticed that when searching for help with windows 7 that you get a crap ton of irrelevant results, basically anything that contains windows and the number 7? Vista may not have been well liked but for a search term it was fantastic, excellent search results no matter what the search engine.

I see finding help getting much harder under 7 than it was for vista.
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Windows 7 is a bad name, a very bad name. I think I'll wish it into the corn field!
 
i think the op has a point... but the problem is the name "win7" is so wildly popular that i dont think anyone cares if you have to use special commands to search for it.
 
Unknown-One said:
Let me Google that for you
Click to expand...

Eh, as funny as this usually is, in this case the OP has a point. Obviously major Windows 7 searches will be fine, but when you want to find the obscure pages people don't reference Windows 7 in the same way that they would Vista or XP. For example, I recently had trouble getting a piece of legacy hardware to work on Win 7 and was trying to search for an answer. Because people use different terms in their post, I may not hit it with a google search and instead am inundated with tons of post specific to vista or XP or whatever...hopefully that makes sense.

edit: however, all this aside I do like the name and was about to come in and make a snide comment because way too many people bitch about the name when it is really logical. It's just a bad side affect that until there is a universally adopted short name for it, ie win7, then I can see this being a small problem. Fortunately though, many of the same issues can be solved using the same methodology (and drivers) that Vista supports. It's just those weird super OS specific problems that are weird.
 
It is more convoluted but still manageable.
Use this term set:
(W7 OR "W 7" OR Win7 OR "Win 7" OR Windows7 OR "Windows 7")
 
bigdogchris said:
My boss told me there is no way they are naming it Windows 7. I still don't think he believes me to this day.
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What a moron.

What you should do is make a wager... And then immediate after that just pull up Microsoft.com and show him what they decided to name it.
 
vsboxerboy said:
Eh, as funny as this usually is, in this case the OP has a point. Obviously major Windows 7 searches will be fine, but when you want to find the obscure pages people don't reference Windows 7 in the same way that they would Vista or XP. For example, I recently had trouble getting a piece of legacy hardware to work on Win 7 and was trying to search for an answer. Because people use different terms in their post, I may not hit it with a google search and instead am inundated with tons of post specific to vista or XP or whatever...hopefully that makes sense.

edit: however, all this aside I do like the name and was about to come in and make a snide comment because way too many people bitch about the name when it is really logical. It's just a bad side affect that until there is a universally adopted short name for it, ie win7, then I can see this being a small problem. Fortunately though, many of the same issues can be solved using the same methodology (and drivers) that Vista supports. It's just those weird super OS specific problems that are weird.
Click to expand...

I actually was concerned about search difficulty due to calling it Windows 7. But then as time has gone by I don’t seem to be having difficulty finding stuff. Somewhere in relevant content term “Windows 7” will usually appear. Even so, you have a point, at lot of XP/Vista often shows up however Vista information tends to have a lot of relevancy to Windows Vista as it and 7 are very compatible.
 
On that note, 24 is a pretty bad name for a TV show :p

For all we know someone may decide to rename Windows 7 before it ships at the last minute but at this point, it's highly unlikely as they've already released shots of the box art.
 
Tbolt said:
my questions is...why 7?
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It is the seventh OS from MSFT.

Actually I like the simple name but don't like having to jump through search engine hoops to find things.

They do the same thing with office:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12
 
MaxBurn said:
It is the seventh OS from MSFT.

Actually I like the simple name but don't like having to jump through search engine hoops to find things.

They do the same thing with office:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12
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Yea but because of all the superstitious people out there they're going from MSO 12 to MSO 14...

People don't understand how Windows 7 is the 7th variation, when you start skipping versions you'll confuse them even more.

I personally hope Microsoft just starts naming as versions. Windows 8, MSO 15, etc. Much easier, and tons easier to know what came after what.
 
i dont like the windows 7 name either.

but what makes me angry is intel naming their new cpus "i7", they say there isn't a purpose for the "i7" word, now that is stupid.
 
TechieSooner said:
Yea but because of all the superstitious people out there they're going from MSO 12 to MSO 14...

People don't understand how Windows 7 is the 7th variation, when you start skipping versions you'll confuse them even more.

I personally hope Microsoft just starts naming as versions. Windows 8, MSO 15, etc. Much easier, and tons easier to know what came after what.
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Yeah, it's almost as confusing as keeping track of the american Final Fantasy numbers.

I like the name Windows 7 though, I just wish they had called Vista "windows 6" and xp "windows 5" and so on. I'm a fan of minimalism.
 
seven is an excellent name, in fact, I like it so much I'm going to name my son that.
 
Ryan711 said:
seven is an excellent name, in fact, I like it so much I'm going to name my son that.
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Married with children was the shit!

I like windows 7 its simple. What version is snapple on now? X? leopard? snowtard? Pather? Thundercats hooooo!!!
 
MaxBurn said:
It is the seventh OS from MSFT.
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Specifically its the 7th release in the NT line:
NT 3.0
NT 3.5
NT 4.0
2000 (NT 5.0)
XP (NT 5.1)
Vista (NT 6.0)
7 (NT 6.1?)

I like the name. "Vista" was a better name than "XP" (I was worried they were going to call Vista "Microsoft Xtreme" or something :)) but neither was a good name.

And what's with the Vista bashing? It was a great OS.
 
yeah, 7 is 6.1

I'll agree. For me, Vista has been a very good OS since about April of 2007 (when 3rd party support for my apps finally came to be). That being said, I'm buying a Technet subscription so I can load 7 on all of my computers as soon as it comes out. This is the first time I've looked forward to an OS coming out.

(Didn't like XP until I noticed it could hide system bar icons and had better wireless than 2000; didn't like Vista but upgraded anyway, Aero eventually won me over. 7 gives better performance than Vista, Aero is much improved)
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Specifically its the 7th release in the NT line:
NT 3.0
NT 3.5
NT 4.0
2000 (NT 5.0)
XP (NT 5.1)
Vista (NT 6.0)
7 (NT 6.1?)

I like the name. "Vista" was a better name than "XP" (I was worried they were going to call Vista "Microsoft Xtreme" or something :)) but neither was a good name.

And what's with the Vista bashing? It was a great OS.
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I always hated the name "Vista" I thought it was a stupid name from the very start. I wasn't fond of the XP name either. I've always preferred version numbers to names for software.
 
Last edited:
yeah, 7 is 6.1. Marketing. :rolleyes:

However, I think it goes more like this:

Windows 1
Windows 2
Windows 3(3.0. 3.1, 3.11, NT 3.1, 3.5, NT 3.51)
Windows 4(95, 98, ME, NT)
Windows 5(2000, XP, Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, Home Server, Server 2003)
Windows 6(Vista, Sever 2008)
Windows 7(which actually lists as 6.1)

(there's more here, but close enough)
I'll agree. For me, Vista has been a very good OS since about April of 2007 (when 3rd party support for my apps finally came to be). That being said, I'm buying a Technet subscription so I can load 7 on all of my computers as soon as it comes out. This is the first time I've looked forward to an OS coming out.

(Didn't like XP until I noticed it could hide system bar icons and had better wireless than 2000; didn't like Vista but upgraded anyway, Aero eventually won me over. 7 gives better performance than Vista, Aero is much improved)
 
While the changes from Windows Vista to Windows 7 certainly would be deserving of a "6.1" version rather than a version number of "7", Microsoft can give it any version number they want. Vista was a good OS. I've been using it since just before it was released and I've never had any problems that were Vista specific. I ditched XP on most of my machines a long time ago. Windows 7 on the other hand just performs better and seems more refined comparatively given the state of development Windows 7 is currently in. This is why I'm switching to Windows 7 for almost all my machines unless they perform a function specifically requiring another OS. (Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise for my server, etc.)
 
Hmm, I didn't know that about the 6.1. I see on the command line it puts the string as 6.1.7100.
 
MaxBurn said:
Precisely. As to why vista is 6 and win7 is 6.1 that's just interesting thought material.
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No it's not. It's very simple. Too many retarded developers write code like
Code: 
OSVERSIONINFOEX osvi;
osvi.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(OSVERSIONINFOEX);
GetVersionEx ((OSVERSIONINFO *) &osvi);

if (osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) // BAD!  BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!!
{
    // do Vista stuff
}
instead of
Code: 
OSVERSIONINFOEX osvi;
osvi.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(OSVERSIONINFOEX);
GetVersionEx ((OSVERSIONINFO *) &osvi);

if (osvi.dwMajorVersion >= 6) // Good!  Well, decent.  
{ // It's better to check for functionality rather than version number anyway
    // do Vista stuff
}
 
You know whats funny is that occurred to me as I was leaving this site and heading over to thedailywtf.com
 
MaxBurn said:
Precisely. As to why vista is 6 and win7 is 6.1 that's just interesting thought material.
Click to expand...

Like Intel's Tick/Tock strategy, Windows 7 isn't a revolutionary change compared to Windows Vista. It is more like what Windows XP was to Windows 2000. It is the latter OS done better. It isn't new, its just better.
 
Dan_D said:
Like Intel's Tick/Tock strategy, Windows 7 isn't a revolutionary change compared to Windows Vista. It is more like what Windows XP was to Windows 2000. It is the latter OS done better. It isn't new, its just better.
Click to expand...

I like Arainach's explanation better, there is a lot of hype about program compatibility with vista.
 
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