Buy Vista or Else

theodp writes "Upgrade or keep crashing was the tagline when Windows XP was introduced. So how will Windows Vista be marketed? 'I'd hate to see something bad happen to your PC,' seems to be one pitch. Even if new features won't get you to upgrade to Vista, you should buy Vista for the security, urged Windows Chief Jim Allchin. Are commercials featuring Tony Soprano next? Bada Bing!"

Comments

Re:Security

[LiquidCoooled]

I would say if the codebase is entirely new, the chances of making the same mistakes again would be lower.
What worries me more about rebuilding any codebase is the possibility of introducing whole new categories of bugs.

Trying to be fair about it

[TheReaperD]

Of what I have read, there will be, at least, one thing that could improve Vista's security. Also, several people have commented on it without having read anything about Vista. Users will login to a limited access user account, rather then an administrator account as the default.

Unfortunately, there are several bad points with Vista that will make me hesitate on upgrading:

1. DRM This is a big one, for me.
2. Requires a P3 800 or higher, just to run the operating system with no tangible benefit to the user.
3. Visual enhancements require Direct X 9c compatible hardware.
4. No compelling features.

Re:Security

[CyricZ]

OpenBSD is a great system for secretaries and people in a finance department, for instance.

I worked at one firm that was having problems with the computer systems their secretaries and finance department were using. Many of the workers would play games, or worse, they'd manage to infect the existing Windows XP systems with spyware.

Considering they were doing basic word processing, spreadsheet and web-based data entry tasks, we decided that Windows XP was excessive. OpenBSD, OpenOffice, and Konqueror would be sufficient.

The main benefit was that the systems just plain didn't get infected with viruses, spyware, and some such software. The price was a big benefit, too. And the ignorance of the general staff towards OpenBSD, and UNIX in general, helped. Instead of playing games and chatting, the employees had little to do but work. Productivity rose significantly within the weeks after switching over to OpenBSD.

Re:Seamless switch?

[CyricZ]

KDE can be easily configured to be quite Windows-like. Many people didn't even notice, to be quite honest. We did our best to make the transition as seamless as possible, and we managed to do that well.

We labelled the OpenOffice Writer icon as "Microsoft Word", for instance, and people didn't know the difference.

We imported the Word templates and Excel spreadsheets they were using, tested them out with the OpenOffice equivalents, and for the most part they worked. The one problem we ran into was the font on the standard company letterhead was a bit too large under OpenOffice. That took about a second or so to remedy, of course.

When they asked about the games and MSN, they were simply told that they were deleted.

A little bit of preparation, forethought, and the use of quality software lead to a transition that went very well.

Re:Security

[utlemming]

I know that the Slashdot crowd has mixed feelings about VMware, but honestly, I am a huge fan of it. VMware is what allowed me to switch from Windows to Linux, while keeping the programs that I need for school, and keep my wife happy. Further, I can run a different Windows for whatever the different need may be. For example, I have one Windows for personal use, work, school, security/spyware/malware research, Windows Server 2003, Windows 98, an Oracle enviroment, FreeBSD, and several different Linux bases installed. Before I made the leap, I tried VMware in Windows, and decided that it was a viable alternative and then made the conversion to Linux. The great thing about running Windows under Linux is that I have not had any spyware problems since converting, nor virus problems -- probably because I surf the internet and do email under Linux as opposed to Windows. The downside to this approach is that it 1) Expensive, VMware cost $189 for Linux, but they do give you a 30-day license; 2.) You have to have a lot of memory in order to get the full benefit. 3.) You still need a license for Windows. However, I get better performance for my Windows installations under Linux than I did with a native Windows installation. And then you can do snapshots and other features. Even if you manage to hose your Linux installation, short of deleting your virtual machine files, your virtual machines are safe.

Anyhow, the point of the post, is that if you seriously would like to be able to migrate away from Windows, and need to be able to maintain compatablilty, then look at VMware. Unlike some of the other virtualization solutions, VMware is extremely professional, polished, and does a slick job. I am the president of a Linux and Unix User group and we distribute VMware disk images for use in VMPlayer (which is free) to help people get farmiliar with Linux. The quaility of VMware is such that after using a beta release for two months I couldn't help but buy it after the beta expired -- their beta was so professional, I was really impressed.

And no, I don't work for VMware.