Windows 7 owners are having problems installing their new operating system, especially over Vista, according to comments on Microsoft’s support site. Many find their installation goes into infinite reboot after 62% of the installation is complete. Switching off and rebooting doesn’t help either because the system no longer recognises the older operating system. Microsoft says the problem occurs because the Iphlpsvc service stops responding during the upgrade. But others may also be to blame. One user who followed Microsoft’s fix said it took 48 hours to get a working installation, with installation runs taking 10 hours a time. Even then he had to delete his wireless card and get the operating system to find it again. Sounds like something to be avoided until Microsoft get their bug fixes sorted.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer has ruled out reviewing its user licences, despite acknowledging the fine print and complexity can cause headaches for customers.“I don’t anticipate a big round of simplifying licences. The last round of simplification was done six years ago” he said. Ballmer has also said that the supplier was working hard to ensure the launch of Windows 7 was more successful than Vista. “My hope is that in the first three to six months [after launch on 22 October 2009] any new PC you buy will come with Windows 7. It would be a shame to see people acquire Windows XP machines in 2010,” he said. Whether Windows 7 takes off quickly or stumbles like Vista remains to be seen. It would be nice if Microsoft were to simplify its licencing terms; but don’t hold your breath. And it would be great if Microsoft were to acknowledge their pricing policy was unreasonable too. The next few years will become increasingly tougher for Microsoft as competitive products such as Open Office and Google Apps take chunks out of their revenues. Maybe Windows 7 will be the last great revenue hurrah for Microsoft before a long slow revenue decline sets in.  

Mirosoft Windows 7, due to ship on 22 October 2009, has received good reviews as the Operating System that Vista should have been. And it would appear that the large percentage of businesses that have held onto XP rather than go to Vista are no doubt planning to migrate to Windows 7. But Microsoft may be making it harder and costlier for them to do so. Under Microsoft’s planned enterprise licensing rules, businesses that buy PCs before 23 April, 2010, with Windows 7 preinstalled can downgrade them to Windows XP, then later upgrade them to Windows 7 when they’re ready to migrate their users. But PCs bought on or after 23 April 2010 can only be downgraded to Vista which will be of no help for XP-based organizations and could cause major headaches and add more costs to the Windows 7 migration effort.