I came across an article on a major US cable news network yesterday, that leaves me feeling a bit baffled. And wondering what happened to the idea of independence in journalism.

The article is a piece on Windows 7. And it proceeds in short order to say that “A whopping 31% of clients have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7″. At the same time, the title of the piece is “Windows 7 complaints begin” suggests something completely different to the mind.

Here’s why it irks me.

The basic problem I have with this article is that it’s misleading. The itle suggests that the3re are problems with the operating system itself. However when you actually start reading the item, you find that it’s not actually the operating system itself, but rather the installation that’s the root of most problems..

On a slightly deeper level, if a reader were to scan the title, the sub-headline and the first 2 paragraphs, they might easily come to the conclusion that Windows 7 = Bad. In this case, it seems like this particular media outlet has some sort of beef against the OS, or the company that made it.

I understand the principle that sensationalism sells papers, but at what expense? Truth?

The facts presented in the article paint an entirely different story that the title suggests. Most of the problems encountered were with the installation itself, and revolved around application compatibility. And by that, they’re talking about the myriad ways we can personalize Windows XP or Vista to make it our own. There are so many tweaks and add-ons that can be had to make thing look and behave exactly the way we want them. And it’s this same expandability that causes the issues. There’s no way Microsoft could have tested all possible setup scenarios. It’s just not realistic.

Add to that the fact that at this point, it’s mostly the early adopters who have jumped on board the Windows 7 bandwagon. This is the same group that’s most likely to have some of those same customizations in place, and the newest, least tested software and hardware. Conversely, you could look at it from the perspective of “69% of users encountered no problems with the new operating system”. For a product that’s been available for about 6 weeks now, I’d say that’s an astoundingly good number.

And let’s not get me started on the “One in seven users also complained that the sleek new “Aero” theme doesn’t work” statement from the halfway point of the article. The article itself points out that the majority of those problems are hardware compatibility issues. Of course, they don’t phrase it that way, but that’s what it means.

The bottom line to this little tirade is that no scenario is going to be perfect. That’s a given. However articles like this one don’t do anything but contribute to the FUD factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). For the most part, the transition from Vista to 7 is a seamless one. And if you know what you’re doing, going from XP to 7 is a cake walk as well.

This is why, for businesses, you should talk to your local tech support service provider. If nothing else, they should be able to provide some guidance and hints on possible ‘gotchas’ for the installation/ migration process. So you can move forward seamlessly.