Microsoft Training: Windows 7 Better than Linux
Microsoft up to its tricks.
Many companies across many industries partake in some form of evangelism (though some would call it propaganda) for its products. Some of the best evangelism starts at the retail level, where employees can 'inform' the buying consumer while trying to sell a life-saving in-store warranty policy.
A Best Buy employee, who happens to also be an overclock.net forum poster, recently partook in a Microsoft ExpertZone training exercise (with the incentive to be able to buy Windows 7 for $10) encountered materials from Microsoft that push certain superiorities that Windows 7 possess over Linux. While some points were valid, others were untrue.
One of the slides that Microsoft used (above) is fairly misleading, as World of Warcraft is supported in Linux through WINE. Windows Live Essentials are indeed a Windows-only product, but there are many other free alternatives. Video chat is also supported well on Linux through Skype and Pidgin. See here a mirror of the original thread.
It seems that Microsoft is trying to fight off Linux machines that are sold through Best Buy, which if any, are netbooks only. We can't imagine that there will be many customers who will wander into Best Buy without a clue of which operating system he or she should go with – the new and shiny Windows 7 or the mysterious, counter-culture Linux.

Other than gaming, the only thing keeping me on Windows is Adobe Creative Suite. I can't build and customize my rig if I go Mac, and that's the only other platform Adobe supports.
As for hardware, I've had more hardware troubles with Windows than with Linux. XP still won't find my Brother wireless laser printer. Ubuntu was happy to install it on both my desktop and laptop without complaint. Maybe that speaks more of Brother than of Microsoft, though. I'm not sure.
For gaming, entertainment, day to day stuff Windows is better, has more apps, more options, and usually not a big deal finding drivers or configuring some weird stuff.
...and with Core i5 released today you can't even say it's a slow news day...
When I go to a popular download site such as download.com and search for software, the majority of the results are windows based. hence why it generally makes little sense to go out and buy a mac and rely entirely on mac osx (which is a modified beos, a type of unix). And yeah I know you can google for linux software. You guys writing this article think that most Windows/mac osx users would be able to install all the hardware and software they want? Think again, linux is not a newbie o/s and most people aren't going to put the effort in all the training involved in setting up linux. At least M$ isn't going on here claiming that win7 is a better solution than linux for use as a server o/s so I don't really see much point in why this article was written.
It was installed on my coworker's home computer but mcafee forced me to uninstall it. It seemed like a decent piece of software but between mcafee and ms live essentials I'd want to check other vendors besides those two. M$ has been a total slouch about their malware protection over the years and mcafee as well. Norton right now is the best one but even they don't catch everything.
And yeah I know the other features in live essentials such as automatic defrag and such. That stuff is cool and all but how often do you realy need to defrag a windows drive? once a day? no, I didn't think so. it is very rare for me to need a defrag and it generally has no performance benefit on anything I do it on regardless if the drive is 22% fragmented or 11%, once it is done defragging the PC runs exactly the same.
Other than gaming, the only thing keeping me on Windows is Adobe Creative Suite. I can't build and customize my rig if I go Mac, and that's the only other platform Adobe supports.
As for hardware, I've had more hardware troubles with Windows than with Linux. XP still won't find my Brother wireless laser printer. Ubuntu was happy to install it on both my desktop and laptop without complaint. Maybe that speaks more of Brother than of Microsoft, though. I'm not sure.
Wrong. Linux is great for every day use esp. considering how many viruses,etc are out in the wild aimed at Windows. If you use Torrents, Linux is the way to go.
Agreed. It's NOT hard to run Linux any more. With Yast2,etc the days of dependency hell are usually solved. I mainly use Linux for every day stuff now, only use Windows for gaming, CS4, SolidWorks,Inventor. And yes, I do run Windows 7 x64 and Vista x64 and XP x64.
Again, wrong. Linux has much better security and low over head. Why do you think most web servers run LAMP? And FIY Linux does cost quite a bit to deploy on the cooperate scale yet people still do it due to the benefit.
That's a moot point. Skype or AIM are also not part of the Windows kernel.
Also I lack knowledge of the other features but I would assume that limited on all that stuff is true. They aren't saying not supported for multimedia, just limited. Meaning that there are programs just not as many as for Windows which more than likely is true.When I go to a popular download site such as download.com and search for software, the majority of the results are windows based.
No, most of those claims are flat-out lies. No authorized support for Linux? Tell that to Canonical, Novell, or Red Hat. Driver support goes both ways, too. My HP LaserJet 1012 worked out-of-the-box on Linux. On Vista? I couldn't get it to work for over a year until finally HP decided to release a driver. There are lots of older devices which vendors don't support under Vista/7 but Linux compatibility is provided by the kernel or by standard, open-source drivers.
hence why it generally makes little sense to go out and buy a mac and rely entirely on mac osx (which is a modified beos, a type of unix). And yeah I know you can google for linux software. You guys writing this article think that most Windows/mac osx users would be able to install all the hardware and software they want? Think again, linux is not a newbie o/s and most people aren't going to put the effort in all the training involved in setting up linux.
Again, I disagree. I've set up a dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu for my parents. It turns out my mostly computer-illiterate parents CHOOSE to use Linux for many tasks since they find it simpler.
I had to look it up to see what it even was.
OSX is not based off of BeOS, it is based off of NeXTSTEP. NeXT was the company Steve Jobs co-founded after he left Apple, that was later bought by Apple instead of Be. Also, BeOS isn't even a type of Unix, NeXTSTEP was based off of Unix. Anyway, there are plenty of sites with Apple freeware and hardly anyone would Google for Linux software, that is what package managers are for.
Is that a joke? You bet the majority will be for windows, Download.com has been a bloat ware site for Shareware based applications for which alternatives could be found (Most of the time) on http://sourceforge.net/. God, I found about download.com a long time after I first found sourceforge.net. Some one needs to learn how to use his internet in a better way.
Who would even expect Windows Live Essentials to work on Linux? It's a GOOD thing it doesn't work on Linux because it's a load of crapware anyway and there are much better GPL programs.
Linux does not have a lack of support for games, the games have a lack of support for Linux. The problem is the reverse of what the slide says. Wine is not Linux support. Wine is Windows libraries on Linux.
As for Authorised support, that's a load of rubbish. there are several commercial distributions with full support. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Enterprise Linux come to mind.
Just so many things wrong with that training, ack, bull shit meter exploding (must be an iPhone App). As for the quip about different versions of Linux just how many different versions of Win7 do they plan to put out? As a web developer I'm pretty tied to Adobe Creative Suite more than is good for me. I've tried to wine it, but too many small annoyances really. Well that and games keep me glued to Windows more than Linux
Windows live essentials is a windows only option.
Windows does support video on ALL major IM programs and linux doesn't (this isn't to say linux doesn't support it it just doesn't support all of them)
Windows runs just about every game natively without emulation and linux doesn't.
Most linux distro's use communities to provide support rather than a formal support regime and those that do exist have been pretty limited in my experience.
Hardware support for windows is by far better than linux. Ever had a device that wouldn't work in any version of Windows? I don't think so.
So is this really some big lie being spread? Because the only potential point of contention I can really see is the authorised support sections.
This is not a reason why Windows is better than Linux per se. Linux is not the problem, the game developers and publishers are the problem. Of course, to the end user it looks like a Linux problem and Microsoft is preying on that ignorance here.
If you don't pay for the software then nobody is obligated to provide support. It's completely logical. If you want support you have to pay, whether that be commercial Linux distributions or Windows (or OSX for that matter).
That is debatable. For some devices, like wireless hardware, this is certainly true. For other devices, particularly very old ones, windows no longer has support. Windows 7 has almost completely dropped support for my 6-year-old printer.
Look at the other slides as well. http://quaoar.ww7.be/ms_fud_of_the_year/569458-microsoft-attack-linux-retail-level-probably.html