Busted: Microsoft Copied Mac for Windows 7

I'm LMAO over an article that a friend just forwarded to me. It's the tale of a Microsoft employee that explains how Windows 7's interface design was modeled after Mac OS X... then Microsoft comes back with "OH NO HE DI'N'T! WE DID NOT COPY!"

We all know the truth.... one look Windows 7 says it all! (Now, I've had good experiences with Windows 7 thus far [running on my Mac's, of course, for the purpose of playing Ultima Online] - but come on, Microsoft... admit it. You've been copying interface design ideas your whole lives).

Here's the entire interview with Simon Aldous, Partner Group Manager for Microsoft:

http://www.pcr-online.biz/features/328/Microsofts-new-vision

And here's the quote of interest:

One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics. We’ve significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.

And here's Microsoft refuting the statements made by one of their own:

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32707/Microsoft-denies-Windows-7-was-inspired-by-Apple

In an interview with PCR at the Microsoft Partner Network event last month, Simon Aldous, Microsoft Partner Group Manager, made reference to creating a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics with Windows 7. Simon was incorrect in describing Windows 7 in this way and subsequent headlines claiming that the Mac OS inspired Windows 7 are totally inaccurate.

Bwahahahahahaaaaaa!!!! (that's me, laughing my ass off).

Quote of the Day

As Microsoft continues to tout the Apple Tax, perhaps it should look inward a bit and realize that people are willing to pay for Apple products for the high-quality user experience, and not settle for a subpar experience on a product they use every day.

As seen in: "Microsoft Windows 7: Upgrade or Just Buy a Pizza?"

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Not Enough Disk Space to Install XP Service Pack 3 on a Mac

I've been trying to update my Windows XP installation to Service Pack 3 for 2 hours now. It keeps telling me that it needs 4MB more disk space. FOUR MEGS! I have 10 gigs free!

Here's the glitch: it's not about how much free space I have. It's about the fact that I'm running XP on a Mac with BootCamp - specifically, the MacBook Pro laptop. Apparently, this also happens on the Intel based iMac's.

The error message:

There is not enough disk space on C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ to install Service Pack 3 Setup requires an additional 4 megabytes of free space or if you also want to archive the files for uninstallation. Setup requires 4 additional megabytes of free space. Free additional space on your hard disk and then try again.

The solution lies in the fact that Intel Mac's use the EFI format, which Windows does not support. (Feel free to Google more about EFI - all I know is, the solution I found on WindowsReference.com solved the problem for me!)

The fix:

1. Click Start - Run - Type regedit and press enter.

2. Navigate to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup]

3. In the right pane, right-click and choose New - String value

4. Name it BootDir and set its value to C:\

5. Exit regedit.

Re-try your SP3 installation, and all should be right with the world.