Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ignore Vista Until 2008

Posted by Zonk on from the so-sayeth-the-wizard dept.

Blakey Rat writes "According to Gartner in a research note entitled 'Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista', businesses should wait until 2008 before installing Windows Vista, or 'pursue a strategy of managed diversity' by only bringing in new machines with Windows Vista and not upgrading existing computers. Although acknowledging the security benefits of upgrading, they explain in the report that most of the security-related benefits that come with Vista are available today through third-party software products."

74 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. The reason not to upgrade is... by Sinryc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if its not broke, don't fix it.

    --
    Yay, I have a sig.
    1. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by .darkaiyen. · · Score: 5, Funny
      if its not broke, don't fix it.

      wait, this IS windows we're talking about, isn't it?

    2. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by Sinryc · · Score: 2

      Windows works for what I need it, DVDs, Games, Music, ANYTHING I want to do. So, I wont fix it. Also, I will soon be using this machine for DVD productions. :-D

      --
      Yay, I have a sig.
    3. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by BigDork1001 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      if its not broke, don't fix it.

      My NES still works but I bought a SNES. That still worked but I bought a 64 and then a GC. My X-Box still works and someday long after launch I'll get a 360. They weren't broke but I upgraded.

      2000 worked pretty well for the most part(not too broken) but many people are running XP these days. XP isn't too broken but in the future many people will be using Vista. Improvements in functionality, security, and ease of use will eventually lead me to Vista. I don't plan on diving in the day it's released or anything but eventuall I will buy it and install it on my machines.

      --
      "Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
    4. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by cshark · · Score: 4, Funny

      God willing, I will be ignoring windows vista for much longer than that.

      --

      This signature has Super Cow Powers

    5. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by MoogMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      (Unfortunately) this is also the same reasoning for not transitioning over to Linux

    6. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by FidelCatsro · · Score: 4, Funny

      Some great movies have been made using windows : Crash , Unstable , Dos Boot , Virus,The spy(ware) Who shagged me , Homers The Iliad (Think troy) and Dawn of the dead.

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    7. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. But would you have gotten an Xbox if it still only ran the same games the NES had? Because that's a more accurate analogy than what you used.

      I would say that Microsoft ran out of ideas years ago, but in their case, it's more like they couldn't find any more to steal.

    8. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by birge · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I see your point, but I think it's really more of a polite way of saying "Well, they didn't fix the shit that's REALLY wrong with Windows so why bother." In the case of Vista, maybe they actually will improve security and reliability, but heaven knows the pretty GUI isn't exactly what Windows has been most sorely missing all these years.

      What's wrong with Windows may very well be something that doesn't exist at Microsoft: elegance, simplicity and modularity of design. They are trying for that lately, at least they say they are, but it's going to be hard to change the mindset of everybody at Microsoft. They've always had very clever people but not very smart people, as exemplefied by Bill Gates himself. He's a man who is as shrewd as any suit in the room, but he has no sense of elegance. He's like that guy everybody knows who can do any math problem you give him, but who has the creativity of a field mouse. Elegance goes a long way in design, and a good OS is equal parts design and science, I think. You can have the tightest kernel in the world, but when some dipshit comes up with an idea like the Registry, it's all over.

    9. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It does? Sony did make a few games that only worked on the PS2.

      They didn't just rewrite the old games to not work on the PSX, and then slap an "XP" suffix on the title.

      Oh, well, that explains the rest of your post, doesn't it.

      Funny you should put it like that. I mean, you haven't noticed that word processors were pretty well modern sometime in the middle of the 80s? Or that spreadsheets were not long after? File and print sharing too, for that matter. So just exactly where is the killer app that will take advantage of your 3ghz machine? Game consoles basically have the killer app built into them, the personal computer doesn't.

    10. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by Jeff+Hornby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But most people aren't interested in knowing more about computers and pcs in general. They just want things to work. How much do you know about an internal combustion engine? If somebody told you that you should buy a car that required you to spend a few hours every week being a grease monkey, would the car be a great tool because you felt you accomplished something or just a pain in the ass when you are late for an important meeting and need to do a two hour overhaul on the engine yourself to get there?

      --
      Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
    11. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      You can have the tightest kernel in the world, but when some dipshit comes up with an idea like the Registry, it's all over.

      What's wrong with the *idea* of the Registry ?

    12. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by damiam · · Score: 2, Interesting
      All critical system information stored in an easily corrupted proprietary binary database, that's what's wrong. Even on NT-based Windowses, the registry is fragile, and if something happens to it the system is utterly hosed; it won't even boot to a command line in safe mode.

      Now, if all you mean by the "idea" of the registry is a standard preferences management system, then there's nothing inherenrtly wrong with it, and other vendors (notably GNOME with gconf and Apple with NetInfo) have done it quite well. But the Windows implementation is horribly flawed.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    13. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      All critical system information stored in an easily corrupted proprietary binary database, that's what's wrong.

      You seem to be talking an awful lot there about implementation there. Not to mention irrelevancies like "critical system information".

      Even on NT-based Windowses, the registry is fragile, [...]

      Amazing how with the registry being so "fragile", I've yet to see a single example of an actual Registry corruption in the wild, despite having been a sysadmin for many years.

      About the only thing that is likely to corrupt the Registry is a physical hardware error of some sort (memory, disk, etc). I hate the break it to you, but that sort of thing is going to cause problems on any OS.

      [...] and if something happens to it the system is utterly hosed; it won't even boot to a command line in safe mode.

      You make it sound like this doesn't happen to other OSes.

      Now, if all you mean by the "idea" of the registry is a standard preferences management system, [...]

      The "idea" of the Registry is actually a system-wide database. "Preferences management" is but one of many functions it performs.

      But the Windows implementation is horribly flawed.

      Hm. Yet still I've never had any major problems with the Registry, out of hundreds (if not thousands) of Windows machines.

      Seems to me "Registry problems" are like "major XP SP2 problems". Rare, but widely referred to as being commonplace.

    14. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by skotte · · Score: 2, Informative

      I saw a preview of Vista at trade show yesterday. (the fFreshly compiled build was made Tuesday.) fFeatures to be seen:

      * They are embracing the Google Personal Toolbar model; All explorer windows will have a "Search" bar embedded in them. Personally, the pervasive Search Toolbars annoy me, so this does not make me happier.

      * MS is enforcing driver signing. More devices will require more strictly signed drivers. Supposedly, if it isn't signed, it won't install. The idea is to fForce manufacturers to write better code.

      * The "Start/Run..." button will be simply "Start; Begin Typing" A small textbox is built into the bottom of the start menu. So you can simply hit the "start menu" button on your keyboard and type the name of the program you wish to run. This is done to eliminate one extra mouse click. A very small improvement, but possibly my fFavorite so fFar. Makes me wonder if such a hack can be made fFor other versions of windows.

      * You no longer have to log in and out of different users to do various tasks (such as set the clock). When the user does an action he is not allowed to do, he is asked fFor the administrative password. So when the actual admin wants to do something, it is really easy to do. I'm wondering how often it will ask the admin password, however; some apps which try to do things like change the registry every 5 minutes will annoy my users greatly.

      * The kernel is tied to IE just a little bit more each iteration. In this version, if you try to visit a suspicious website, the web browser's toolbar will glow red if it thinks you are in an insecure website. What constitutes an "insecure website" appears to have a much broader meaning -- the example given was "If you go to www.micr0s0ft.com ..."

      * GUI improvements have been made, and talked about all over. Much of which seems rather pointless to me. However they are taking the "preview" mode of icons a couple steps fFarther. When you browse to any directory, it tries to automatically look in each fFile and generate a preview of every document in that directory. This seems like a profoundly bad idea to me, fFor one simple reason: browsing your computer now takes 10 times as long because you have to wait fFor it to cache every document and every preview. The demo machine was insatiably bogged down by this task.

      * fFor the fFans of wasting time, traditional solitaire will be saddled up side by side with a number of other games, including what is supposed to be a pretty good chess game.

      Lastly a word on the presentation: Insufferable. The number of bugs apparent in the dev version made the whole presentation largely unwatchable. So it was a lot of "well, this is what it will be able to do, and.. uhm .. on to the next slide."

    15. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by Dwonis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "I haven't seen the problem, therefore no problem could possibly exist" is a troll.

    16. Re:The reason not to upgrade is... by yeOldeSkeptic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The registry is a real point of failure; despite your attempts to deny it. I believe your experience is not typical of the majority of users of MS Windows.

      A corporate system has characteristics that are unique to to such systems. For example: Corporate systems don't usually fill their hard drives with the myriad of software that are usually found in home systems: games, photo editors, educational programs, etc.

      If you haven't seen any examples of registry problems then I assure you you will be surprised at the horrors it can bring.

      You see, the problem is not with the idea of the centralized registry itself but with the fact that the operating system (in this case MSWin) assumes that whatever program modifies the registry will modify it in such a way that it is still left in a consistent state.

      Please read that again so you may understand. In other words, MSWin assumes that all installed software will play nice and that programmers have taken great care to ensure the safety and consistency of the registry.

      Unfortunately, this leaves the stability of the entire system in the hands of unknown programmers who may or may not have done their homework!

      What happens when a user decides to click on the cancel button in the middle of an installation and the program conveniently forgets that it has already modified the registry and thus should roll back whatever changes it has made? What do you think will happen to the registry now?

      Ever wondered why Windows advises users to exit all other running programs before installing new software? What happens when program A modifies the registry but before it was able to save the changes, program B modifies and saves its changes to the same central registry? What happens to the changes made by program B when program A now saves its changes? This is called the concurrency problem and it is a real problem when two or more processes access and modify the same resource.

      What if an installed program decides to insert information in the centralized registry that is specifically discouraged by Microsoft but which a lazy programmer decides is actually quite safe because it doesn't seem to have any deleterious effects in his system? Of course his system has very little installed software since it is a development system after all.

      We can go on and on with possible disaster scenarios. In fact, you can even make it into a learning activity.

      Discussion: List scenarios where a centralized registry is a disadvantage to the stability and consistency of a system. What do you think is a more reasonable compromise? Multiple configuration files with their attendant stability at the expense of complicated configuration management, or unstable systems but with a single API and thus easier configuration management?

      Points for discussion: How many times are you expected to configure a typical application? Do you agree with the Unix philosophy that since software configuration is typically done only a few times and more often only once, that a fire and forget policy is more reasonable?

      Additional points for discussion: Why is software configuration under a single registry system is not likely to be a fire and forget system?

  2. Perfectly Right! by c0l0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Of course I did not RTFA, but they must be speaking of "Third Party" Software Products such as, for instance, GNU/Linux or *BSD.
    ;-)

    --
    :%s/Open Source/Free Software/g

    YTARY!
  3. What 2008? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm still using Windows 98 so I guess I'll be upgrading in 2018 - ?

  4. Amazing by shmlco · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Amazing how many things stay the same. I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

    Though this article is pretty lame. First time I've read, "Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista client," in a summary and the linked article doesn't even bother to list them.

    This is news?

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    1. Re:Amazing by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Informative

      The wrong text is linked. That text is the title of the Gartner article that the zdnet.uk article is written about. The Gartner article itself isn't available for public consumption, as far as I can tell.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:Amazing by smartin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly, I wish I had mod points to mod you up. Each new generation of Microsoft operating system is suppose to fix the problems of the past, but each new generation continues to have them. The reason of course is that they simply can't throw the old crap away because they want backwards compatibility. M$ should really take a lesson from Apple when they switched to OS X. Toss the old code base and start new with a tried and true Unix kernel. Provide an emulation environment if you have to but toss it all out and go with what is known to work.

      --
      The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
    3. Re:Amazing by cens0r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Any old movies will not look perceptably better in HD

      WTF? If they do another scan of the film at a higher resolution before compressing it into and HD stream anything that was shot on film will look better in HD. In fact most films are scanned in in resolutions beyond what is needed for HD already, simply because they know HD is coming and it's cheaper to just scan the film stock once.

      Now certain movies and TV shows were shot on video and not film, and these will show no improvement. But they are the exception and not the rule.

      --
      Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
    4. Re:Amazing by JPriest · · Score: 5, Funny

      That is quite possibly the most impressive /. UID I have ever seen, can I touch it?

      --
      Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
    5. Re:Amazing by bahamat · · Score: 2, Informative
      the linked article doesn't even bother to list them


      I was also rather disappointed at the lack of a list. TFA even italicizes the name of the research paper, but doesn't link it. Even a Google search comes up with nothing, and everybody around here is too busy making "I've got one good reason" jokes to even realize it.

      So...um...anybody got a link to the reasons?
    6. Re:Amazing by kzinti · · Score: 2, Informative

      I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

      You've probably heard it about linux, too. When 2.6 came out, I remember hearing lots of people say things like "That's nice, but I'll wait until about 2.6.10 before it's stable enough to try." And that took a full year, at least according to the timestamps at kernel.org.

    7. Re:Amazing by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Funny

      No touching!

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    8. Re:Amazing by ximenes · · Score: 5, Funny

      Touch it!

    9. Re:Amazing by Wolfrider · · Score: 2, Funny

      Eh, what's so special about it? :b

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
    10. Re:Amazing by ximenes · · Score: 2, Funny

      Those are the only threads that I ever post to anymore, by which I mean the last 6 years.

    11. Re:Amazing by IchBinEinPenguin · · Score: 2, Funny

      UID of 10 and you still haven't found anything better to do with your time than hang out with a bunch of ... well ... us?

  5. Summary: Too Little, Too Late by rsborg · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately.
    The majority of improvements in Vista will be security-related and most of this functionality "is available via third-party products today"
    Ouch.
    "Search is slow in Windows XP and files, email and calendar objects cannot be found with a single search." While Microsoft has tried to remedy this in Vista, "competent third-party desktop tools are already available" from companies like Google, Gartner pointed out.
    I'd hate to be furniture in Ballmer's office.

    My main problem with the article was the lack of options specified:

    The analysts acknowledged that companies who use IE7 and Vista will have fewer points of weakness.
    Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.
    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    1. Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late by dslauson · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately."
      Keep in mind that he's still recommending Windows. He's not so soft on it that he's tell you to install Linux or BSD.

      To me, it sounds like the guy's not really trying to rip on Windows, so much as he's offering sound business advice. Right? I mean, what's the benefit of rushing out and buying the latest version when the current one coupled with the third party software that you probably already have installed, is perfectly adequate?

    2. Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late by SRA8 · · Score: 2, Informative

      While installing Firefox with various plugins may be a simple decision for you as a personal user or small business, it is often a much large decision for a Fortune 500 company. Previous applications, particularly internally built and deployed applications, may rely on IE for functionality. YES -- you'll say that was a stupid decision, but given time/cost constraints and corporate sprawl, can you *really* prevent that from happening in a large organization? OK, with that out of the way, switching browsers is not simple. Many of these applications will break. Business users will be upset and raise hell for IT. IT's best bet will be stick with IE. No one ever gets fired for deploying IE -- because every problem will be in the papers and will be "known issues." Deploy Firefox and, while you may be adding value, you risk your job because you're vouching personally for a product unknown by business folks.

    3. Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late by bunnyman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.

      What, this Foxie?

      It's not a Firefox plugin at all. It's an IE plugin! It's not related to Firefox in any way except that they are hijacking the brand name. Don't let them get away with it.

    4. Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late by johnjohn23 · · Score: 2, Informative
      Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.
      To be clear, Foxie is a product which makes IE more like Firefox, not a plugin for Firefox to make it work with IE-specific scripting/ActiveX.
  6. Re:Perhaps we should wait until 2008 by JoeShmoe950 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wish there was an "EgoManiac" mod.

    --
    Help Fight SPAM today!
  7. 11th Reason.. by loconet · · Score: 3, Funny

    It will be delayed again.

    --
    [alk]
  8. Oh, great by FluffyWithTeeth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does this mean it will be released before 2008, then?

  9. Ten reasons?? by d3ac0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Heck. I can give you ONE reason not to move to Vista, and it's all you need.

    Trusted Computing.

    'nuff said.

    --
    Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    1. Re:Ten reasons?? by dumeinst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      aye aye.
      People who don't know what this really implies are going to be dumbfounded when they find out

    2. Re:Ten reasons?? by Proc6 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "The ultimate goal is to lock out cheap independent software (especially, but not limited to, F/OSS)..."

      I never understand comments like these. How exactly does DRM do that? How does DRM "force" a developer to charge a whole lot of money? If DRM were in place today and I was a freeware developer, what prevents me from just issuing a DRM key (or whatever the process is) and making my terms of agreement "anyone who requests one gets one and I charge nothing". Or does Microsoft beat down your door and say "NO, YOU HAVE TO CHARGE $500 PER USER!!11!!"

      If you think that Microsoft is somehow going to force all software developers to pay some rediculous per application fee, thus forcing them all to charge for their app, thus whittling down the market to like 3 major apps, your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

      If there's one thing Bill Gates knows its that his fortune was built on Windows having zillions of developers covering all possible realms of software from Diet Calculators to 3D Animation. Maybe the phrase "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" rings a bell. Developers have to eat too, and once all of them can't afford to turn a profit off writing code for Windows unless they're one of the few working at Symantec or Microsoft or Adobe, they'll find a new career or OS to write for.

      About the last scenario Microsoft wants is ONLY the major software developers like Adobe and Macromedia left standing, because they consistantly port their applications to OSX. If you were "forced" to quit using your $50 Paint Shop Pro, and replace it with $500 Photoshop instead, well then theres a 50/50 chance you may just become an OSX customer.

      Microsoft may be corporate-evil, but they definately believe in small developer shops and know legions of developers and all their varying business models from freeware to $5,000/user licenses are the foundation of the Microsoft machine.

      --

      I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!

    3. Re:Ten reasons?? by RoLi · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If DRM were in place today and I was a freeware developer, what prevents me from just issuing a DRM key (or whatever the process is) and making my terms of agreement "anyone who requests one gets one and I charge nothing".

      The ultimate goal is to create a DRM-structure of Microsoft-"approved" software, ie just like drivers. And a freeware developer can't afford that.

      Of course you will be able to run not-approved software (with scary warning dialogs) at first, but the final goal is to create a closed system that cannot run "bad" software.

  10. By that time... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...I'll already have ReactOS installed in my PC. Oh, btw, this week ReactOS reached version 0.2.8.

    Of course, ReactOS will be installed in a dual-boot with the latest Linux, which I hope, will be user-and-hardware friendly by then.

  11. As long as Linux keeps providing me with... by ylikone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... a cheap, free (as in freedom), reliable solution, I will continue to ignore Microsoft products for the forseeable future. Everybody knows MS is dead in the long run.

    --
    Meh.
  12. Re:So.... by Shinaku · · Score: 2, Funny

    (Ignore above post, meddling kids!)

    "It's been years since I used a 2 dimentional control interface, how ever did we manage?" - Julian Bashire from an imperfect DS9 future

    --
    -- :>
  13. Nukem Forever by Megane · · Score: 2, Funny

    So will OS X be at version 10.6, 10.7, or 10.8 by the time Vista is released? Will Duke Nukem Forever be released by then? Will we achive sustained nuclear fusion? Will we have flying cars? Warp drive?

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  14. Re:Let's jump the gun because we're researchers by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is possible that they have, you know, evaluated the beta? Huh?

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  15. Re:So.... by Dan_Bercell · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well if the differences in Office 12 require Vista to have all the new UI things then YES. The new features in Office 12 will mean a huge increase in productivity.

  16. Isn't this Already the "Word on the Street"? by eno2001 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where I work we still have more Win2K than XP Pro because the move from NT4 to AD was a long and involved process for 3000+ machines and a team of 3 people to do it. When we got to Win2K AD (we STILL have NT4 domains because of crap legacy software we HAVE to have!) the move to XP was not relished. We've been doing it a building at a time now (60 buildings) and it's going. But this is 2005 going on 2006 and XP came out in 2002. So, you could say we are doing "managed diversity" in a big way. I don't see how this approach to Vista is any different than the way most wise insitutions proceed.

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
  17. Re:So.... by Bassman59 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "Well if the differences in Office 12 require Vista to have all the new UI things then YES. The new features in Office 12 will mean a huge increase in productivity."

    Phooey. Most users don't bother with 90% of the features of the current Office.

  18. This is the LAST Windows you'll ever buy!! by malraid · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's right, every version afterwards will most likely be rented. Vista is just to get everybody slowly by slowly dependant on DRM for day-to-day activities.

    --
    please excuse my apathy
    1. Re:This is the LAST Windows you'll ever buy!! by slashname3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually isn't that the direction Microsoft is taking their licensing? They want an annual fee for each copy out there, not a one time upfront charge. So yes they want you to have to pay each year in order to run your computer. Plus that gets them in a position to have a recuring revenue stream they can count on. They can only sell so many new copies of an OS each year. With the number of computers that are out there now much larger than new systems being sold they want to get paid for all of those systems each and every year.

      Keep looking for Microsoft to try to reinvent themselves. The gravy train is ending and they need to find new ways to get money from people.

    2. Re:This is the LAST Windows you'll ever buy!! by krray · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Too late -- the last version I truly "owned" was their pinnacle version (IMHO): Windows 2000 "Professional".

      With Windows XP I won't be able to install/use it in 10 years if I so desire (and yes, I recently just installed
      a fresh usable MS-DOS box). With Windows 2000 I will be able to do this in 10 years (and block it from
      Internet access altogether [as is already practice for Windows boxes in our offices :]. When Microsoft
      discontinues XP what do you think the average Joe will do when it comes time to activate a product which
      won't be able to be used otherwise? You're already "renting" Windows whether you like it or not...

  19. You need 10 reasons? by vertinox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I only need 4 reasons not to upgrade.

    1. OS X
    2. Ubuntu
    3. Win2000
    4. $250

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  20. "Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista by CDPatten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A big problem with his premise is no companies would be able to purchase a computer from Dell, HP, IBM, etc. until 2008. As soon as Vista is released they will stop offering XP (almost immediately), and start offering only Vista. It's the way of the world. You can erase vista and install XP, but that would be foolish, not to mention they got a license for Vista with the purchase of the machine.

    I'm also disagree with his reasons, but I'm not going to take the "flame-bait" ;)

    1. Re:"Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista by Zak3056 · · Score: 2, Informative

      A big problem with his premise is no companies would be able to purchase a computer from Dell, HP, IBM, etc. until 2008. As soon as Vista is released they will stop offering XP (almost immediately), and start offering only Vista.

      Err, I don't know about HP or IBM, but Windows 2000 just dropped out of Dell's product line about a year ago. Three years after XP's release.

      I would expcet Dell to offer a similar choice after Vista is released, and for just as long.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    2. Re:"Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista by Whatchamacallit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Big companies have corporate site licenses for Windows without Product Activation, etc. We install WinXP or Win2k from the network. We boot a new machine out of the box with a networkable boot cd and kick off a ghost image onto the hardware. The only people actually installing Windows onto hardware the manual way are engineers putting together a new ghost image. The boxes coming from HP, IBM, etc. are never even booted into the OS that comes with them before they are wiped out. The engineers will probably play around with Vista but it is unlikely they will approve it for rollout to 12,000+ PC's until at least the first service pack.

  21. Windows ME all over again? by StarvingSE · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It sounds like vista is to xp, as ME was to win98. I don't see anything revolutionary in it that is worth spending money upgrading. The article hits it right on the spot I think. It doens't seem to improve the core OS, it just seems like they are adding/fixing other software like IE7 and Windows Defender. Most people I know have moved to firefox to fix their browser security issues and have at least a few anti-spyware solutions.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like they could even break software compatibility with XP users since they are so similar.

    --
    I got nothin'
  22. Ignore Vista Until 2008 by oztiks · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only until 2008? I was hoping to ignore it for much longer then that :)

  23. Re:The Microsoft Solution... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sure, and while you are waiting for Windows Vista to actually ship you can just run your business with some paper and a stack of pencils.

    Gartner has this one right. Unless you are willing to eschew using computers altogether you have to invest in the third-party products now. When Vista does ship you could toss that investment out the Window (ha ha) and pay extra to get Windows Vista, or you can simply hold off on purchasing Windows Vista until purchasing new machines. Considering the number of businesses that are still running Windows 2000, I expect that Windows XP should be Microsoft's most popular OS for some time to come.

  24. Developers - the musical by Steve Ballmer by xv4n · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Funny as hell! A little off topic but here it is anyway.

    Developers [mirror]

  25. Re:Not only Vista... by vertinox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft is onto something, they make software that is easy to use and everyone knows how to use it,

    I do corp help desk for a living supporting MS Office Applications and I would disagree with this part of your statment.

    MS Office Apps are not intuitive nor easy to use for the average Joe office worker. It is why they pay me money to show people how to use them on a daily basis.

    You may of course believe them to be so, but put someone who has no training infront of a windows box and you see the same mistakes over and over again by different people. Its a kind of bashing a head against my desk kind of job but its a living.

    I could give specific examples about Track Changes and a few other settings that people think they should act a certain way but don't, but I could go on and on.

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  26. Have you tried it? by JcMorin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did you run Windows Vista for real? I did, not just a few hours to write a review. I'm running Windows since the October 1st as my main OS.

    - Software development (VS Studio 2003)
    - Email / Browsing
    - Gaming

    First impression, wow this is great.
    After 6 weeks, my impression have change, Vista (as of currently is pretty crap). I've got multiple reboot, blue screen, IE 7 is having a lots of issue (page not rendering properly, JavaScript error for example Google Spell checker not working properly on IE 7). The search "engine" is not that great, why we can't keep our old *.exe find?

    Over that many application not working at all, some desktop application, other are game that just don't launch. Even stable program like SQL Enterprise Manager crash on Vista... :(

    Vista new graphical engine is deadly slow too, all is on graphic card but this cause issue like to see the backbuffer when switching application and more. Application are not build like game with "Begin drawing" and "End drawing" so that cause to constantly redraw the screen and see flicker everywhere...

    Iwill receive my new portable next week and I will definitely not install Vista on it... for me I agree with the report... I stay with Windows XP for a few years.

    1. Re:Have you tried it? by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      What did you expect, it's a beta version aimed at hardware manufacturers and software developers! I tried it too, and agree that it's buggy as hell (browsing folders locked up my computer), but I'm still going to try the final version.

    2. Re:Have you tried it? by JcMorin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I did run many beta include the Windows 2000 beta (before beta 2). It was very stable. Anyway I didn't expect Vista to be perfect but I just found too many issues...

  27. Re:So.... by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Or...Does a business really need a 3-D desktop?"

    Heh. "Does a business really need color monitors, sound cards, 3D acellerators, and DVD burners?"

    Considering that this 3D desktop paves the way for 300 DPI LCD screens down the road, the answer is most definitely yes. The catch is that it may not be an instant hit.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  28. Re:So how about...Macs by DECS · · Score: 4, Informative

    Choosing not to buy something that's available and updated regularly is not the same as having no upgrade path available.

    And of course you're just wrong too: Mac users have not had to wait more than three months for a update over the last five years. And Apple delivered a whole new version every 12 months for the last 4 years. Based on the upgrade statistics, not may Mac users have been waiting to upgrade.

    Preferably, the feature updates come out fast and furious, but remain compatible enough, so that you don't have to upgrade until you chose to do so. So, you can live without Tiger unless you want a some of the latest wizzy apps and features.

    Microsoft has given its users no major upgrades since XP in 2001. "XP Server" slipped to 2003. Longhorn/Vista was promised and delayed in 2004, 2005, and 2006. What does ship will be XP with some Tiger features.

    In the same timeframe, Apple has shipped four major OS upgrades and over 15 free "service pack" style upgrades that involve significant OS retooling, much faster performance on the same hardware, and lots of significant UI and API improvements. Including, of course, much of what Microsoft had promised in Vista.

    During that time, Microsoft has continuously redefined its planned feature set in Longhorn, lopping off promised features and extending the delivery date over half a decade.

  29. Windows XP actually released in 2001 - 4 years ago by Quevar · · Score: 2

    Actually, Windows XP was released in 2001 (October 25th - more than 4 years ago).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001

  30. I already have a plan. by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm going to ignore it until 2200.

  31. 2k is ok as a desktop if you keep the gates closed by daniel23 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think 2k is ok as a desktop, in fact I use it myself. It added some explorer weirdness NT4 didn't have but in terms of media handling it beats NT4. However, w2kSp3 came with that eula asking me to give MS the right to exchange software on my system w/o asking me, so I stopped with SP2. XP, which came with a laptop I bought, can be forced to almost resemble the w2k look but it's list of annoyances is longer, like the way it displays samba network drives.

    But none of them is suitable for the average computer user who has just one box s/he wants to use for everything, including going online. Win* just doesn't work w/o a linux box controlling the gates to the real world. And MS soft related to the net really never recovered from the initial rush when b. gates realized he had slept over the big thing happening and purchased mosaic to hack it into a killer app.

    They succeeded, didn't they? The blue e is a killer. But too many Win* users don't realize this and that's why I recommend macs for standard users, win* is just to hard to configure.

    Myself, I haven't had a single virus/trojan event in 20 years of computing, 15 of them with MS OSen. I contribute this on:
    - when it was bbs networking, I had more interest in pr0n than in games.
    - I stayed with netscape until there was opera, and eudora is the mail app.
    - I have that habbit of inverting most of the default settings on a clean MS OS install
    - I skipped 98 and ME, using NT4 instead
    - instead of c:\Windows it has been e:\WINNT all the time (don't laugh, the closest I ever got to catching an infection failed at that barrier)
    - I'm running linux on the gateway/firewall since '97

    Hm, maybe I should repeat that last line about 5 times or so...

    And Vista? Bringing all the benefits of paying for enhanced DRM and "trusted" stuff? I will have to buy it as soon as customers demand it on their list of supported OSen and if it won't run in a vmware I will have to invest in a new laptop with it preInstalled. But I will have it running in a cage of linux boxen guarding it and it will be safe...

    --
    605413? Yes, it's a prime.
  32. One thing regarding ReactOS... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 2, Insightful

    API features are implemented linearly. But the number of programs supported by ReactOS will increase exponentially. Perhaps in a year we might have a usable Beta of ReactOS.

  33. Re:So how about...Macs by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'd call XPSP2 an upgrade, not just a bugfix - IE includes popup blocking and security features, the firewall is improved and enabled by default, users are prompted to enable automatic updates, and the security center reminds you about needing antivirus software. These are significant features for most users.

    But um, that's basically two new things (IE popup blocking, and the Security Center which does the other things I mentioned - XPSP1 already had a firewall and automatic updates, this just makes them more obvious). So yeah, your point is still valid.

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  34. A single decision doomed Windows security by Myria · · Score: 3, Interesting

    People don't understand the truth about Windows security. It can be traced to a single fateful decision.

    In Win32, every module (EXE/DLL) is contiguous in the process virtual address space. The code and data are next to each other in each module, but not between modules. The stack and heap are allocated as blocks at essentially random addresses. The memory layout looks like this:

    empty code data empty stack empty code data empty heap ...

    The problem is that there is no single address that you could choose that says "only code is allowed below this address, and no code is allowed above this address".

    On the x86, before AMD64, it was impossible to tell the processor that certain memory addresses cannot be executed. Anything that was readable was also executable. This means it is possible to execute from the data areas, a fatal flaw.

    However, the x86 *does* have a feature that allows you to say "no code is allowed above this address". This is known as the "CS limit". By setting this, any attempt to execute from a data area would crash the program. Crashing the program is a lot better than taking over your computer.

    Win32's memory layout prevents this feature from being used, because if you try to set a limit, either you have data in the code area, allowing exploits, or you have code in the data area, preventing legitimate code from executing.

    AMD tried to correct this with the NX bit in the AMD64 chips, but it was too late. Too many Win32 programs rely on the ability to execute from a data section. As a result, in XP SP2 and Vista, the feature is only enabled by default in a few programs. You can turn it on for all, but then a lot of copy-protected games won't run.

    Linux usually has the same problem. However, because most Linux programs come with source, it is possible to modify every application in the system to work this way.

    Melissa

    --
    "Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager