Microsoft delivers the goods at PDC 2008
LOS ANGELES--As developers began to get their hands on Windows 7 Tuesday, they offered varied reactions to the Microsoft operating system update.
Windows 7 arrived in various forms here at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. Windows VP Steven Sinofsky showed its key features on stage, the OS appeared on PCs throughout the convention center, and developers also got their own copies to take home with them.
Attendees to PDC 2008 received pre-beta copies of Windows 7 on DVD, as well as a 160GB Western Digital portable hard drive packed with code.
Here's the 160GB Western Digital portable hard drive and a pre-beta copy of Windows 7 that attendees of PDC 2008 received on Tuesday.
(Credit: Ina Fried)In addition to the Ultimate Edition of Windows 7 (Hint: it looks like Microsoft isn't planning to ax its notion of an ultra-high-end version of its OS), the hard drive also comes with, among other things:
•.NET Micro Framework development kit 3.0
•Azure Services Training Kit, a set of hands-on labs, presentations, and samples.
•Live Framework SDK, documentation, samples and tools to build on top of Microsoft's Live Services.
•Software Development Kit for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (pre-beta)
•Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 Express Edition
•Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 CTP
•Windows Azure software development kit
That said, there's still some room on that hard drive. Of the 149 GB of usable space on the drive, 91.8 GB are free.
During the keynote on Tuesday, all of the PCs scattered around the convention center for folks to check e-mail on were switched to Windows 7. Not everyone appeared to notice the change, though. One attendee, for example, said he didn't notice that it was Windows 7 until a reporter started taking pictures of the screen.
Screenshot of Paint and Word on the new Windows 7.
(Credit: Ina Fried)While attendees picked up the swag, others were trying out the new Windows 7 operating system in hands-on labs in the main hall of the event. The reviews were mixed.
"It needs some work as far as usability is concerned," Matthew Firth, chief technology officer of online pet pharmacy PetCareRX, said as he tried to move an image across a touch screen with his hand. "The controls could be more intuitive. I guess there's a learning curve associated with it. If they can get it right it could be just as revolutionary as the mouse was."
Falling touch-screen prices and the eventual adoption of Windows 7 will mean Firth will have to optimize his company's Web site for touch, he said.
Matthew Firth, chief technology officer at PetCareRx, positions an image in Windows 7 using a touch screen.
(Credit: Elinor Mills)In the meantime, Firth said he's thinking of getting a touch-screen monitor and Windows 7 for his kids to use at home. "They like to paint. It's less messy and my son won't eat the crayons," he said.
Allan Thraen, a software developer for Swedish content management firm EPIServer, said the touch capability was "totally cool" but complained that the operating system overall seemed "still a bit buggy; not totally smooth."
He and others also said that the Windows 7 user interface was too similar to Vista.
"It looks like a re-packaged Vista" with "a little bit of eye candy," said Daniel McGloin, a software engineer at Intuit.
Keeping the underlying code similar means fewer incompatibility issues with apps and drivers, but "is it compelling to the end user? I don't know," he said.
Other users saw Microsoft's decision to keep many things the same as a good thing. "This is what Vista should have been," was a refrain heard (and overheard) several times on Tuesday.
Not everything was about Windows 7, either. There were also a number of Microsoft's Surface machines, which is just now being opened to a broader range of developers.
In addition to a scavenger hunt sponsored by Microsoft, some third party developers were showing off applications written for the Surface multitouch interface. In this video clip, Meaghan McAllister, marketing coordinator for software development and design firm Identity mine, demonstrates the company's new an application written for Microsoft Surface that allows for the display of digital photos on multiple multitouch screens:
(Ina Fried of CNET News.com contributed to this report.)
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
Thats why nobody writes virus's for them its not that they are so secure, no operating system on earth is 100% secure, it's just that nobody cares.
Get over yourself.
You can't have it both ways - "Multitouch is soooooooo cool, how innovative" when Apple do it but then "What a rip off, MS shouldn't be using this" when Redmond try it out.
Just because Cadillac invented the electric ignition doesn't mean every other car should be hand cranked unless a manufacturer has an idea outside the boundary.
You act like if you have a pc that virus's are going to start coming out of your ears.
You act like apples are immune to virus's a (something that they certainly are not)
I don't understand why anyone that owns a apple hasa compelling urge to force his preference of computing platforms down the throats of everyone else.
At the end of the day Mac's and PC's do nothing more than push electrons around a metal box.
If Mac where so great by itself you wouldn't need to promote it so much.
We get it: you enjoy using closed proprietary systems with limited options and development capabilities.
However some of us enjoy the control and options available on the microsoft platform. From a developer perspective the apis, sdks, and computing platforms available with Microsoft are unrivaled within the industry.
Microsoft's success and the reason why they easily dominate both the desktop and pc markets is due to the rich development capabilities they provide to its developer base.
Appple has only managed to capture 3% of the desktop market, and its server market is a joke compared to microsoft.
Dont get me wrong I like apple I have one at home, its great for email, web, and photoshop, however I would never in a million years consider developing a enteprise level mission critical application on it, considering I fully understand the options available to me thorugh microsoft.
If you like Mac's great, however I really wish you would drop the notion that they are vastly superior to pc's because that is simply not the truth.
They come in at a higher price point, they have limited development capabilities comparitivily, and no they are not immune to virus's, and crashes (yes I have seen the Apple OS crash dont tell me it never happens).
This is a Microsoft Developer story please go peddle your macintosh fanatism somewhere else: to people that might actually care. Because all you've managed to do in this thread is annoy people.
- by Mr. Dee October 28, 2008 7:31 PM PDT
- Please note that the Windows 7 code attendees got is not the one demoed by Julie Larson Green on stage with Jump List and the new Taskbar, its actually a higher build number 69xx. The one developers will carrying home and testing their apps on is build 6801. Its to ensure you have your apps ready, it has the fundamentals in it.
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