Legal Marketing & PR

Ross Kodner: Wait Until Your Computer Dies Before Getting Windows 7

By Larry Bodine

Tech expert Ross Kodner of Microlaw gave the most dim, faint praise for Windows 7 I've heard to date.  At best he said it's "sort of" time to upgrade your Windows XP computer to Windows 7.  Basically he advised lawyers at ABA Techshow in Chicago to keep those XP computers running until they die.

Then, Kodner said, you should buy a brand new computer that has Windows 7 already on it.  There is no way to upgrade from XP to 7. Windows 7 must be installed on "bare metal" on a computer hard drive. Even worse, your new Windows 7 computer license is unique to the machine and dies with the computer.

He did think Microsoft "got it right" with Windows 7, but the new features are few and far between:

• You can collect related documents and pictures in different folders into a "library."
• There is a good backup and restore function.
• You can show a mini-view of running software using a "peek" feature.
• You can minimize other programs by grabbing the top bar of the program you want to stay maximized, and "shake it."

That's about it. There is no compelling reason to get Windows 7.

Windows 7 won't run many of your old programs, unless you computer has 8 GIGs of RAM and you download software to run a "Virtual XP" mode. But then you are running one operating system on top of another one, you must restart your computer, and you have to close most other running programs to run your old software.

IMHO, you're nuts to get Windows 7 unless your computer died.  The disadvantages are huge. Ross said Microsoft will continue selling XP until June 2011, and that's how long I'll wait before I get Windows 7.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on March 25, 2010 (boomark / email).