528: Windows 7

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Windows 7

Title text: Disclaimer: I have not actually tried the beta yet. I hear it's quite pleasant and hardly Hitler-y at all.

Explanation

This comic came out 2 weeks after the beta version of the at that time not yet released Windows 7 got leaked on the internet, and 2 days after a trojan-infected version got leaked as well. Megan is observing Cueball use a laptop on which he has installed the Windows 7 beta. However, the alleged Windows 7 beta is showing nothing but a picture of Adolf Hitler and Cueball is unable to do anything. This could hint at the version containing malware. Cueball then presses Control-Alt-Delete (the well-known Windows Secure Attention Sequence which opens Task Manager or displays a list of options which includes 'Shut Down' and 'Restart') as suggested by Megan, but only manages to make the picture's eyes flash.

The fourth panel shows Megan commenting that this Windows 7 beta is better than Windows Vista, to which Cueball agrees. The joke is that Megan deems a mostly non-functional and vaguely sinister OS, which is likely malware, better than Windows Vista, which was generally perceived as one of the worst Windows OSes.

The title text is a disclaimer stating that Randall has not tried the beta at the time this comic was written, but what he has heard about it he regards as at least mildly positive. However, he also damns it by faint praise, referring to it as hardly Hitler-y at all, a statement that could raise warning flags, as one would not generally expect an operating system to be able to be described as Hitler-y to any degree at all. "Hitler-y" is implied to mean pertaining to or having qualities similar to Adolf Hitler, the late German Nazi Party leader and perhaps the most notorious instigator of mass-murderer in history.

Transcript

[Megan is standing behind Cueball sitting at a desk using his laptop.]

Megan: What are you doing?

Cueball: Trying the Windows 7 beta.

Megan: Why is it showing a picture of Hitler?

[The laptop's screen is shown with Adolf Hitler's face on it, drawn in regular xkcd style with no facial features other than his hairstyle and mustache.]

Cueball: I don't know. I can't get it to do anything else.

Megan: There's no UI?

Cueball: No, just Hitler.

[Return to the original scene, except Megan is now scratching her head in confusion.]

Megan: Did you try Ctrl-Alt-Delete?

Cueball: It just makes Hitler's eyes flash.

Megan: Huh.

[Scene remains basically the same, except Megan is no longer scratching her head and Cueball is no longer typing on the laptop.]

Megan: Well, it's better than Vista.

Cueball: True.

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Discussion

Is this a reference to Godwin's Law? Saibot84 (talk) 21:59, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

An ironic one, possibly. --Qwach (talk) 13:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

A second opinion: No. 108.162.219.223 19:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the title-text joke is mainly in the word "hardly" instead of "not" when describing the hitler-y-ness of the beta. -- Gigahertz (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Hitler-y

I don't know but look at this: hitlery. It really seems that it belong to Hillary Clinton. Look at Goooogle: Hitler-y. This has to be explained, even for non US citizens. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:03, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I added some description clarifying the implied Hitler reference. I believe it has to do with Adolf Hitler because it has a hyphen before the "Y" implying a general characteristic description rather than a nickname. --themacman33 (talk)

I can't imagine the use of "Hitler-y" here, especially with the hyphen, is used to mean anything other than "Hitler-like". --Alex (talk) 23:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

The entry given was created by author "anti-communist/anti-fascist" who also wrote definitions for the terms "kkk" and "gay marriage." Not only were the entries written eight years ago, they were also written down the same day. It seems obvious that said author took that day to spread his own personal political views, and should not be treated as normal day-to-day speech. Furthermore, there is no other reference to Hilary Clinton in this strip. I am removing the incomplete tag from this explanation. If the need is felt to restore it, please give a more justifiable reason. Jimmy C (talk) 02:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that Hitler-y is simply the way Randall adjectived Hitler. 108.162.216.87 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Considering 1756, I am almost 100% certain it wasn't a slam on Secertary Clinton. Eeddgg (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that this is a reference to a German play called The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui). It's a satirical allegory about Hitler, where Hitler's name in the play is Ui. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistible_Rise_of_Arturo_Ui 108.162.221.173 12:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but there's no way this is the case. It's too much of a stretch for an incredibly obtuse visual pun. Hitler was just chosen because he's probably the worst thing you could have stuck on your monitor forever. 108.162.242.134 09:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Worse then the original goatse.cx?^{[link potentially NSFW]} 108.162.216.166 12:18, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Yo, Windows is NOT N*zism. Seriously. --162.158.187.239 18:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

This comic reminds me of a blog post Raymond Chen has written on The Old New Thing about Windows bringing out the Rorschach test in everyone. Funny enough, said blog post mentions about beta users mentioning that one the generic user icon looking like Hitler near the end when Windows XP was getting tested. Toastadieu (talk) 16:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Vista

Am I the only person in the world who liked Windows Vista? Hago caca en paginas (talk) 13:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I've done a quick survey of everyone in the room and the answer to that is probably "Yes", with 100% of me not liking Vista. And that is statistically significant at a p>0.05 level! 172.70.85.211 14:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I actually like Vista. I've never had any problems with it, and it had the beautiful Aero aesthetic that was only really appreciated when Windows 7 was released. Vandalbane (talk) 02:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

As a power-user, for me it marked the terminal decline of Windows being useful in 'just work, damnit' terms. XP was the perfect blend of NT robustness and 9x usability, then they started to add too many abstract and aesthetic-bells-and-whistles-over-everything changes (actually, XP's "Fisherprice" rounded buttons did that, too, but you could ignore them).

Vista added complications to the OS which caused cleaning up others' user-errors to be more... complicated. 8 annoyed even the everyday users enough that 8.1 was needed to bring it back in line with expectations, but still alienated me, 10 was "the last version of Windows they'd produce" but with the expectation of willingly accepting many more incremental updates that more easily broke perfectly servicable legacy products (or you stay offline, with other issues) and I haven't bothered touching 11 at all because who needs a major forced upgrade that we were told would never happen.

I've transfered my major computer use to other systems (while still retaining the 2K and XP systems that work how I need them for what I need them for) and where possible used an honest, not-at-all-Aero-like, desktop look that doesn't waste processor cycles on transparent pixels. And invent radical 'new' features (according to the ads) like being able to tile application windows (oh look, "tile windows vertically/horizontally" has been around since... at least Win 3.0, it seems, maybe earlier but I'd have to get some old system booted up to check).

Just my opinion, doubtless a minority one. And juvyr V'z urer, gurer vf n arj nppbhag jub cbfgrq ba Wnpxl'f Gnyx cntr gung V nz jnel bs. Haqvq fbzr penccvatf irel dhvpxyl naq abj jnagf gb xabj jura pncgpun tbrf njnl. Rvgure trahvar rntre crefba be gelvjt gbb uneq gb or 'gehfgrq'... Maybe I'm the only person who thinks like that, but I thought it worth putting down in the record. 172.70.86.44 08:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)