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Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista
pennconservative writes "Michael Desmond, writing for PCWorld.com, gives us ten reasons to buy the next version of Microsoft Windows. Some of his reasons sound compelling, and it definitely sounds like Microsoft has found yet another way to ensure market dominance for a few more years. Desmond also gives a few reasons not to buy Vista, but the most compelling of those is the hardware required to run it. Since Vista will likely ship on every new computer anyone buys, I don't see that being a major roadblock."
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
DRM. Why would you pay for your own shackles?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
what feature will I get that I don't already have in Mac OS X 10.4?
I skimmed the list rapidly and I'm already using the equivalents to at least half of them, probably more (I wrote "skimmed"). Some of the features I have even used for several years...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Those are 10 reasons to buy vista IF you are currently running XP. As a Linux user who has always the option to open a maconlinux OSX window, the only reason would be the collaborative environment. All the other reasons were available to me on linux osx or both, since at least two years ago. Heh, the two way firewall :)
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
According to Microsoft, the requirements for Vista are almost as low of Windows XP, you just can't have all the pretty effects and such.
I was reading about Vista last night and it's including features like a revamped sleep mode which is a cross between standby and hibernation. They have have SmartFetch or whatever it's called so it knows what applications you typically use and at what times so it'll preload them into memory making it seem snappier.
All in all, it sounds like Vista will be a pretty good release (at least, in my opinion).
After paying for 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP I'm really starting to abandon cynicism and derision in favor of good old practical thriftiness. I just can't afford Windows anymore.
Idiot.
Good luck MSFT - you've got a hell of a challenge ahead of you.
The age of the compelling application is mostly over because existing hardware (even systems several years old, and thus dirt cheap) fulfill almost all of the average person's computing needs. I'd wager that 90% (or more) of average household computer usage is spent in two applications: email and internet browser. (the other 10% is word processing, accounting/taxes, etc.)
And no, gamers aren't "average" computer users. They're always looking for state-of-the-art.
Seriously -- other than as a new game platform, why would the average person buy a new computer? Mom & Pop don't understand/care about new video production, DVD ripping, file sharing, etc. They just want to occasionally look something up on the net, buy something off eBay, or get a photo of the grandkids. If they already have a system (and market saturation ##'s suggest that they do) convincing them to shell out a grand for a new box that doesn't offer them anything more than the old one is going to be a tough sell.
Will they get XP if their system does not meet the requirements? Surely Dell will sell a low-end machine that might not have the hardware to run Vista? Or worse yet, they sell a machine that meets the minimal requirements, and performs like a dog. I wouldn't think that they'd want that perception, right?
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
that support out of this box all this
1. Security : Something like Linux or OpenBSD
2. Internet Explorer 7 : FireFox 1.5.x is good enough
3. Righteous eye candy : Something like OS X
4. Desktop search : Google Desktop or bagel
5. Better updates : apt-get or yum
6. More media : Something DRM free
7. Parental controls : non root user?
8. Better backups : rsync
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration : wiki?
10. Quick setup : live CD to harddisk
yep that about covers it.
everything on the list is available for linux.
even that collaborative environement bullshit.
oh, gotta love the DRM, and all the built-in backdoors! eeesh!
seems more like 10 reasons to DUMP windows and get OSX or linux!
It could also be called, "10 reasons for buying Mac OS X Tiger"....
Monstar L
what feature will I get that I don't already have in Mac OS X 10.4?
Compatibility with more games. Other than WoW, what popular MMORPG runs on Mac OS X?
Compatibility with more vertical-market apps such as the one used by your employer.
Compatibility with more peripherals sold at retail stores.
Compatibility with web sites that are made exclusively for Microsoft Internet Explorer technology and for which there are no close substitutes.
I actually read though the list, and other than the last three options. (backups, install times, live shared docs) the other 7 were options I've been using for years on Macs.
Granted, not that I'm not happy that Windows is catching up, but I thought it was funny that to me at least, the only new features were the last three listed. All of which sounded very interesting.
Cupertino, start your copiers!
So the top reason to buy Vista is "you have to".
--
make install -not war
I read this yesterday and to be honest I am disappointed. The only thing that I really care about is security. Everything else matters very little (to me anyway). I will give Vista a run when it comes out as I have a PC that should be capable of running it (runs the betas fine anyway) then I will make my final opinion. I am seriously considering a switch to another platform though.
Windows Vista is a conspiracy to sell you the latest hardware that no one would otherwise need/want except gamers. Windows Vista force the web browsing, email checking and flash game playing people to upgrade to the latest hardware just to be compatible with the rest of the world.
Will they get XP if their system does not meet the requirements? Surely Dell will sell a low-end machine that might not have the hardware to run Vista?
Depends on whether Microsoft raises the system-builder license price for Windows XP once Windows Vista is released. Depends further on how many web sites with no close substitutes, such as the web site for the only provider of a given product or service in town or the provider of a service for which you have a long-term commitment, plan to require Windows Vista and its rumored support for Trusted HTTP.
Because you have made to beleive there is no other choice!
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/PhotoAlbum2.html
Because you can.
No wait, thats not right.....
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Improvements to IE and Windows media player? I don't use them now, why would I be interested in an improved version to sit idle?
1. What's good for Microsoft is good for the US economy.
2. Because they have a million tricks up their sleeve to obselete your old software.
3. You're too stupid to use linux.
4. Your new hardware has been sabotaged for any "pirated" software like linux.
5. Because we get kickbacks from Ballmer if you do.
6. As an american, you are culturally programmed to want new toys and to believe what marketing firms tell you.
7. Because it will be secure. *snicker*cough**snort*LOL... damn, I can't keep a straight face.
8. Because we at Microsoft have been busy trying to convince you that cool tricks are only possible on Vista, and considering our other OSs are steaming shitpiles, you just might believe it.
9. Because WE SAY SO.
10. If you haven't bought Vista yet, then the terrorists have already won...
Is there any way to mod this story 'troll'?
Actually there is.
Gee, where do we start?
Seems like I've had 8/10 of those for over a year with my Mac. Way to "innovate". As long as you have to buy a whole new computer to run this OS, why not buy a whole new computer and try a better OS than the one you have now. One that has been out for almost a year (10.4). One that isn't a "1.0" like Vista will be.
If you really like MS though, why not wait for Windows Vista "98" when they iron out the kinks. (OS X had 'em too early on).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I don't think M$ would think twice about imposing this to their users if asked by the government, industry consortiums, etc. I think this is the number 1 reason not to use Windows, at least for people who think their privacy and constitutional rights are important. An example is the request from UK's gov to have their own backdoor to the system: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/15/13 1222
1. new firewall almost as good as ZoneAlarm
2. new IE almost as good as Firefox
3. new eye-candy almost as good as OS X
4. new desktop search almost as good as Google Desktop
5. new update program almost as good as Mac Software Update
6. new media programs almost as good as iLife
7. new parental controls almost as good as proper parenting
8. new backups almost as good as things not breaking in the first place
9. new P2P almost as good as turning off your firewall
10. new quick install almost as good as all the other planned features that don't actually exist yet
So, instead of a wide open door with a 'PLEASE ROB ME!!!" sign taped to it, they've half closed the door and put up a sign that says "ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, I WOULD PREFER THAT YOU NOT STEAL ALL MY BELONGINGS, IF THAT'S OK WITH YOU."
When your starting from the gutter, the "next level" is only the curb.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
The registry thing definitely needs a backup solution (or something that can be rolled back). For everything else, given the current sizes of disks, I predict a revival of tape backup technologies. Travan tapes can get to 400GB a pop, so they seem a reasonable solution.
Well, considering there are more and more new computers being shipped with Linux, and how far away Vista's release is, maybe this isn't 100% accurate.
...top 10 reasons you should have switched to the Mac two years ago.
----- "All right. It was a miracle. Can we go now?"
And it seems to me that this is the primary benefit of Vista. I already turn it off in MacOS X. It appears Microsoft markets their OS as if it is an experience, like going to a movie or a theme park. What happened to running an OS for application support? To do stuff. I could care less about animated icons and 3D window warping.
I've posted a couple of jokes recently about old-time PDP-11 and CP/M software in relation to the modern stuff. But the joke has a bit of truth as well. Go grab a copy of WordPerfect 5.1 - the old DOS wordprocessor. Just what does the latest incarnation of Word do that WP5.1 couldn't? Sure - Word is wysisyg, WP5.1 is not. But if one needs document preparation and mailmerge that 20yo program still works just fine. It was moderately fast on a PC/AT - imagine how fast it would run on an Opteron!
There's something seriously wrong with just about every desktop OS - including Linux with KDE/Gnome. They do little more than a 20yo PC functionally and yet consume orders of magnitude more CPU/RAM/Disk. The only recent advances in need of the modern multi-megapixel displays and accelerated graphics are games, nonlinear video editing, and scientific / business imaging. Why aren't OSs -- even the free ones -- tuned to support these functions?
If you are young enough that you can not afford a copy of windows (and you are reading slashdot taking you out the impoverished demographic) then you are not old enough to have bought windows 3.1.
Even if you're a downsized IT worker who has had to switch jobs to food service?
they could start by disabling by default LM hashes... I'm not sure who in MS thought it was a good idea to leave a old security hole open because it was being used for reverse compatibility, usually you close security holes.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Sorry Billy, but your crappy OS will.
No matter how many new PCs ship with Vista, there is going to be 3 to 5 years before it dominates the market because that's the approximate time it will take for the existing installed base of PCs to be renewed. Can MS wait that long? Can apps writers? Can the media companies?
There are many more than 10 reasons to NOT BUY ANYTHING from Microsoft.
Developers: We can use your help.
[Windows Vista catches up to Mac OS X Panther] In terms of user-functionality.
Does that include being able to run the same game software that other people who live on your block or in your university residence hall run, in order to form LAN parties? Does that include being able to run your employer's telecommuting software? (For the price of gasoline to avoid having to telecommute, you could buy a PC that runs Windows.) Does that include being able to use the peripherals that you already own before switching or which are donated to you or to your employer?
...to Ubuntu. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.
Mike
I've been playing with some of the new features in Vista, and the entire product is dquarely aimed at businesses. We currently run a mix of XP SP1 and SP2 at work with a few stray 2000 and NT 4 machines. XP was a huge improvement over 2000 from an IT management standpoint, but it still needs fixing.
The biggest shift will be the whole "least privilege" thing that's been standard on Mac OS X and Linux for quite a while. For our users that do require some rights on their machines, spyware cleanup and slowdowns and virus infections are the worst things to fix. If they can't get on there in the first place, then life is better.
One of my favorites is the new provisioning model. Setup is done by deploying a custom disk image that is actually easy to make and maintain, unlike previous versions' Sysprep and such.
That said, it's not a compelling upgrade just for on-the-surface features. I still prefer Mac OS to the Windows user interface any day. Plus, the huge system requirements pretty much kill any of the eye candy for most of our users. We'll be buying it strictly for the improved manageability.
I remember when Microsoft's competitors got a lot of flack for just trailing MS. The times have changed. Most of the listed new features in Vista are MS playing catch-up with the competition:
1. Packet filtering capabilities, per-use administrator rights -- from Linux.
2. Tabs in IE -- from Firefox
3. Eye candy/transparency -- Mac OS X
4. Non-awful search system -- everyone was ahead of MS here
5. Better update system -- still no systemwide yum or apt, but the most abysmal thing about maintaining a Windows box was keeping it up to day, and IE was a piss-poor tool to do so with. See Linux.
6. Looks like MS is bundling the equivalent of rhythmbox/iTunes and gqview into Windows.
7. Parental filtering options -- Okay, I'm not aware of anyone else that bundles this in, so this may be new.
8. Better backups -- Linux's amanda.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration -- I don't yet know enough about what this actually translates to to be able to comment on it.
10. (apparently a wishlist item, not a real feature?)
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Don't be too sure. As the article points out in the last lines:
The simple fact is we don't know, so to say that it won't is BS, especially since Microsoft HAS been making a lot of noise - they want their own iTunes-style franchise. (I know, another case of Windows Mac Envy)
*Whoosh* That was the sound of the joke going over your head.
A public account: log in as "Communal Account", password is "kFhthALQ".
Oh great, there goes the RIAA and MPAA into meltdown.
First of all new computers will come with it. And then it is quite likely that some applications will require Vista. Hasn't Halo 2 been anounced to be Vista only (even though I can't think of any feature Vista might have that would make it a better target than XP)? That will pull some of the gamers over. And the next version of Office?
I'm wondering, does anyone know if they're going to come out with Windows Vista Tablet edition?? Beings so hardware intensive, it may not be the right move, or it could push tablet makers to make cheaper tablets that are faster as well.
1. Security, security, security: Good! Something we can all agree on. This is a great reason to upgrade!
.. This isn't a great reason. I can run IE7 on XP, or I can run Firefox - which is what IE is to be modeled after. Not a reason to upgrade.
.. gets a welcome update that turns the once-bloated player into an effective MP3 library I think it's spelled 'WMA DRM' not MP3. None the less, media is readily available for XP, OSX, and Linux. This is not a valid reason to upgrade.
2. Internet Explorer 7: IE gets a much-needed, Firefox-inspired makeover
3. Righteous eye candy: This could be a good improvement for those who want a showpiece. Your eye candy is hidden when running applications, and I don't see this as a sole reason in and of itself to upgrade.
4. Desktop search: Yeah, this is a very handy feature. See Google Desktop, Beagle etc. This is not a reason to upgrade.
5. Better updates: WinXP home's update service will be provided for 2 years after Vista has been released. WinXP Pro has approximately 5 years. This is a good reason to upgrade when your existing OS isn't supported.
6. More media:
7. Parental controls: From a technical standpoint, allowing you to block games by their rating could be good. The caveat to this is that parental controls should be done at a parental level NOT through technology. Good reason for certain parents to upgrade. Not a parent? Move along, nothing to see here.
8. Better backups: Working as a tech I found system restore to be only somewhat useful and really hidden. Average Joe user will still not know how to use it or be afraid to use it. Savvy users may employ other technologies to backup information such as Ghost. Products exist so you can store your backups in another location, if your HDD dies, this feature won't help. Not a reason to upgrade
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: Sounds like P2P, I have it and don't use it. Either way, this technology already exists on WinXP. No upgrade required.
10. Quick setup: Beta code alert: Quick setup vaporware. Not a reason unless it is actually released.
In conclusion, Vista will be a great security update. Most other features are already available for XP and are just now being integrated into the OS - could this lead to more anti-trust lawsuits? (IE and MediaPlayer are historical examples)
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
FTFA: "...Today, desktops routinely ship with 300GB or 400GB hard drives..."
I know HD's are getting bigger and what not, but most computer systems I see advertised are shipped with 40gb drives, but I don't recall any on the market with that much capacity, so is this a typo?
1. you do it because we say so
2. so your lousy software still runs
3. because you are an idiot
4. herding instinct
5. because you need a new mouse
6. so you can play dis new game
7. it's bitchen
8. you want to be like the guy next door with all the viruses
9. because you simply don't know any better
10. can't spell mackintosh
10) Upgrade hell....a new motherboard counts as a "new computer" and thus requires a new Windows license.
9) If you don't have a computer capable of running it to it's full potential...why bother?
8) DRM embedded into the OS. Less control for the user.
7) Viruses
6) Worms
5) Spyware
4) Vista will feature ads.
3) It's still Windows, so it'll still look like something made by Playskool.
2) You're going to have to relearn everything anyway, particularly the Office interface which will be radically different with the new release....might as well switch to something new anyway
1) Gates is evil. What more do you need?
Here's what to be excited about: 1. Security, security, security
Is Ballmer writing his own ad copy now?
From an old ars technica article, 15 vids (30-45 mins each) with MS programmers talking about and showing the system:6 /1/22/2614
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/200
the thing I like most about Vista (or what i've heard about Vista) is the new per-app volume control.
Sigs are bad for your health
Let's look at the reasons more closely, shall we?
1. Bi-directional Firewall. Full disk encryption. Security.
Anyone reading PCWorld should not be simply relying on Windows XP SP2's firewall. They should have already installed something like ZoneAlarm or Kerio - which are bidirectional firewalls. There goes that reason out. As for the full disk encryption: wait until a user forgets their password. There goes all their files. Apart from that, I expect to see a full list of exploits for Vista the first week its out.
2. IE7
Firefox. Does everything IE7 does, and then some. And what self-respecting person uses IE exclusively, except to check for compatibility when doing webdesign. There goes that reason.
3. Eye Candy
Although looks do play a role, it shouldn't be the defining factor for any heavy computer user (PCWorld crowd again). Plus, with the uxtheme.dll hack and custom themes, WinXP looks pretty damn good already. Plus, did you see the specs required to even run that eye candy? There goes all the regular computer crowd too.
4. Desktop Search
Current users (can) already have Google Desktop. It's very nice for Vista to incorporate these things, but I don't see it as a compelling reason for current XP users to switch. Especially with the compatibility issues that these users will face.
5. Non-IE dependant Update system
Already in XP, innit?
6. Better Windows Media Player
With XP, one can already run Quintessential Player, Winamp, Foobar... Media Player Classic, VLC, etc. Again, not a compelling reason for me to switch. Plus, I doubt that the new WMP will be able to let me switch dub streams, or select fonts for my anime subs. Features already supported by its competitiors. Again - no reason for me to switch.
7. Parental Controls
Finally, a potentially compelling reason. If I was a parent. And if I wasn't so very much against webfiltering. And if my kid weren't able to root my box in 30 seconds flat.
8. Better Backups
We're talking about a home desktop program here. I do backups, but I'm content with what I have. Namely, Nero. Nero lets me choose what to backup. I could see the use of this in a server environment; but not with a desktop environment where what you need to backup changes location every week.
9. P2P Collaboration
I prefer chalkboards. If I need to share files, I can do that already. If I need to share desktops, I use VNC.
10. Shorter install time
Yes, because a shorter install time (for something that's done once in an OS' lifetime) is truly a compelling reason to switch.
Now I'm glad that the author gave us these reasons. Because if this is the best he can come up with, I really see no reason to switch. Other than the fact that they're going to purposefully break apps to not work in XP (Halo2). And the reasons not to go with Vista? The author considers the fact that they didn't implement some new apparently confusing ideas (virtual folders) as being a reason not to go for it. Logically, that makes little sense; but such statements makes me wonder if the author is a payed worker by MS.
And what about the whole DRM issues and OPM ordeal? How MS Vista will refuse to play some high-resolution videos on your computer if it doesn't like your monitor, or if you don't have a certain (as of yet unreleased) video card. Or program compatibility with pre-Vista software, since this OS was written from scratch? What about those, truly compelling reasons?
To be honest, I can see alot of the ideas as being good for complete computer noobs. Those that don't patch their computers, don't install firewalls, and use IE exclusively. For them, there are some good reasons. After all, they'll never do anything that will hit DRM restrictions (unless they implement DRM for wordprocessors... Actually, that was implemented in Word 2003 wasn't it... I spoke too fast). But the grandpas and grandmas and the computer illiterates, are these the audience of PCWorld?
I'm really dissapointed at the lack of substance of the article. If anything, this was a "suck up to MS" article.
Who is in a hurry to upgrade their OS?
To pay more money, and go through the pain of a reinstall, there must be a killer feature. I use Win2k and I still don't see a feature I am missing.
My productivity/entertainment/leisure all comes from application features, not OS features. The OS is merely an enabler and I don't see any reason to upgrade yet.
Maybe on my next computer but even there with the levelling off on HW, my 2GHz Barton core with ATI 9700 Pro is still going strong and my Nforce (first version) with superb onboard sound and DD encoding still hasn't been topped. Zero reason to upgrade anything right now. The curve has definitely flattened.
"5. Better updates: Vista does away with using Internet Explorer to access Windows Update, instead utilizing a new application to handle the chore of keeping your system patched and up-to-date. The result is quicker response and a more tightly streamlined process. The update-tracking mechanism, for instance, is much quicker to display information about your installation. And now key components, such as the Windows Defender antispyware module, get their updates through this central point. Like other housekeeping features, a better Windows Update isn't a gee-whiz upgrade, but it should make it easier--and more pleasant--to keep your PC secure."
i see a nice exploit possibility "download trojans at 3pm daily w/o fail" =P
Exactly. Reading the feature list if Vista is like thinking "Great! Bubba's going to use a bit more grease this time...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Though I could definitely be classifed an "OS X fanboy", I cannot help but notice the heavy comparisons being made in this article between vista and OS X. It's probably not a useful comparison unfortunately, because for most windows users, the only OS option they see is the next release of windows. The people running OS X, linux, sunos, etc seem to have the open mind to consider that there are other operating systems out there besides the one they are currently using. So I think to compare OS X to Vista is a waste of time because the users that could make the choice to switch from windows are blind to the possibilities. Put windows users on a box with anything besides windows on it, for two weeks, and you'd swing better than half of them. It's not that they're too stupid to pick the better system, they just haven't ever seriously considered it.
So, you are saying that the main reason for buying Vista is compatibility with a proprietary but otherwise outdated standard.
Well, I'd say those are excellent reasons not to buy Vista, then: while running Windows for compatibility reasons may be be expedient in the short term, we have to pay for it dearly in the long term.
In fact, people have a simple choice: don't upgrade. Windows XP will keep running for many years to come, and in a few years, hopefully, your "compatibility" reasons will have disappeared, as even more apps are available for other platforms.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you probably know that the latest version of Windows--called Vista--is due to hit store shelves later this year (in time for the holidays, Microsoft tells us).
I confess that having been a Linux/OS.X user for years I knew nothing of the exact release date of Vista and had no plans on rectifying this. If that means I should be living under a rock, dibs on that large and jagged lump of granite, sandstone and basalt are sooooo 90s and marble is just plain gauche.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
1. bla bla Bla (random feature) 2. bla bla Bla (random feature) 3. bla bla Bla (random feature) 4. 5. 6... and number 10. Because Michael Desmond, writing for PCWorld.com received a hefty donation to his favorite charity (himself) to suggest you buy it. LOL
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
For the corporate environment the desktop is already locked down.
For mom and pop, what happens when current software can only be used in an admin account?
- Is the app vendor going to provide a free fix? yeah right.
- Is MS going to pay for software upgrades? yeah right.
They will stick with an admin account to keep things working, which defeats the purpose of Visa security.
I'd give you 30 seconds to change your mind after you have to explain to my Grandpa why the new software he bought for his grandchild isn't going to work because it only runs on Windows.
Parental controls - I honestly don't know if OS X has anything like this
It does.
Why upgrade when you have a robust, secure, beautiful OS in Linux available at an unbeatable price (free)?
Give Linux a try and you will never be disapointed!!
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
Why does everyone keep comparing Vista to MacOSX? I mean sure, OSX had most (if not all) of these features first, but the one and only reason a large portion of the market will upgrade to Vista is DX10, everything else is just gravy. And yes, the title is misleading, it should probably be "Ten reasons to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista".
rooooar
There = A location
That is not always true, exempli gratia:
There is always a grammatical error in any statement that points out a flaw in grammar. There is also a flaw in grammar in every signature which is written to show others proper grammar. There is something ironic about this.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I tried to - and these bugs annoy me:
* zip files: the build in stuff does not work, double clicking on a zip file creates a new window of
a process that hangs. you need to kill it using task manager. 7zip&co to the rescue.
* "security" implemented badly: everytime anything gets executed you get a prior popup where you need
to allow that. for example when I want to run the control panel, I get that popup first. or clicking
on anythign within the control panel. even worse are the details: they tell me that a dll is about
to be run as program. which dll? which application triggered that? of course that information is
missing. and of course, vista does not remember my choice. next time I run the same application, I
get the same popup. stupid.
* slow as hell, sometimes. also sometimes astonishing fast. a very different mix, it takes time to get
used to it. he slow parts of course are annoying, and the faster parts don't cancel out that effect.
* looks like mac os X. sure, some people like it, I prefer kde. and all the parts on mac os X look and
feel that I hate are now also implemented in vista. great.
* auto-run still active: autorun for cds was a bad idea. the sony/drm/rootkit story should have told them
at last. but they didn't learn it enough, so now you get a popup whether or not to run some autorun
(or some other software). kde has the same popups, they are a bad idea like almost every popup.
animeate some icon if you want or something, but don't move some software in the front.
* graphics don't work well - yet. the nvidia driver shipped with it doesn't work well, the result has
strange graphic effects that noone wanted (I tried only WoW, but I guess other apps will have them too).
nvidia has a driver for vista 32bit! but it doesn't install - finds no supported hardware. crap.
* sound problems? the driver works fine, the test tool works fine, but applications like WoW stay silent.
maybe the vista audio api broke and is no longer compatible?
* doesn't shut down. the start menu has a button that looks like it will shut down and turn of the
machine, and I was impressed how fast it is. but it does not do that, vista only suspends to disk.
* and of course for everyone (including me) to judge a product by a beta 2 version. oops, it is not beta2,
it is only community technlogy preview with buils 5270 - guess microsofts own QA department knows well
that while some parts have already the "beta 2" label, it could be called at best "alpha 2" if you take
the (missing) usability into account.
1) Hey its the latest OS from microsoft.
2) What do you mean dell doesn't ship xp anymore?
3) Fask, and m$ aint gotta release a patch for w32.gohide.and.pray?
4) Welcome to Office Live. btw your company uses us. change your operating system. come back.
5) BD/HD - DVDs. min requirements : Atleast 64-bit Arch. 5 GHz, 2 Gb Ram. Vista. Your Soul.
6) Dept. of Homeland Security Ordinence.
okay six reasons....
All the reasons listed there are totally unimportant to me (as well as the hardware requirements). The only reason for me to consider upgrading/switching is if the software I use doesn't support XP anymore.
Soon, some version of direct x (maybe 10?) will be vista only. Then games will come out needing that version. The game would have run on xp, but xp won't have that version of direct x.
The idea that Microsoft would ditch its own OS for Mac OS X came to me from Michael Desmond of PCWorld.com, whose writings convinced me that the process had already begun.
I was amused, but after mulling over various coincidences, I'm convinced he may be right. This would be the most phenomenal turnabout in the history of desktop computing.
Desmond made 10 observations: Microsoft's Vista is all about Mac OS X: Security, a Modern Browser, Eye Candy, Desktop Search, Better Updates, More Media, Parental Controls, Backup, Collaboration, and More.
Though these points aren't a slam-dunk for Desmond's thesis, other observations fully support it. The theory explains several odd occurrences, including Ballmer's freak-out and an insane defense over monopolistic practices. Like, who cares?
DRM.
I suspect a rather large bunch of unsuspecting users will hit a pretty hard wall once they realize they cant just d/l and use whatever software they like. With DRM pirating is pretty hard, compared to today it will be insanely hard to pirate an application that puts antipiracy rootkits in a DRM partition. For 98% of all the home users i know this will be an enormous reason not to get Vista.
The upside is that cheaper/free applications will have a blast. Once people mostly uses free software the step onto some other system is so much smaller. Either that or a whole bunch of software companies will have to lower their prices to a much lower price.
HTTP/1.1 400
Right at the bottom (links stripped):
Hot Products at Yahoo! Shopping:
Apple iBook G4 Laptop Computer
Windows XP
Mac OS
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Vista isn't even out yet and so many people are already cloning that 'Righteous eye candy' with KDE. /.ers, but I'd need more compelling reasons than the ones listed. Especially for the price.
I'm not as against Microsoft as some
P.S. Yes, I know I don't have to use Aero Glass, but I'm just mentioning it because it's one of the reasons listed.
Last I heard, Vista was going to include full speech recognition including built-in commands to open apps, move the mouse, click buttons, browse the web, and dictation with dictation commands - practically a full Dragon NaturallySpeaking setup plus some. And I thought even the beta version had that included. Yet no one ever mentions it. Has it been officially dumped, or is there a reason people don't seem interested in this? Personally, it's been the main reason I've been interested in Vista.
All these great things that I've already had on my Mac for a year or more - and I get viruses and spyware and bad karma, to boot! Yeeehaw!
Frog blast the vent core.
Hadn't heard about this. May be interesting.
Sure you have. It's called iChat in OS X. Again available for years. Don't be surprised if they add video conferencing capabilities to it with the first upgrade, something tthat is also currently available for the OS X.
To be honest with you, I overlooked that. Also I kind of meant the general mis-spellings one might usually see, such as "There always doing the same thing every day" (as opposed to "they're" in context).
space is pretty cool.
But, I don't see MS marketing Vista as an X-box replacement you can run on your old peripherals.
That's because you don't watch a lot of TV. I see plenty of commercials talking about "the world of applications and devices that run on Windows" on the cable news channels. The commercials for current Windows do play up compatibility with legacy products, but this may begin to end with the Windows Vista operating system, as its driver signing rules (especially on x86-64) exclude users from using older hardware whose manufacturer doesn't make a signed x86-64 driver available and, furthermore, exclude electronics hobbyists from making their home-built hardware compatible with Windows.
Because if you want to use Windows, eventually you'll have no choice but to "upgrade" to Vista.
Pretty soon we'll start seeing ads with morons in dinosaur outfits bemoaning that they're still using that archaic OS, Windows XP.
Sure, it will ship on most of the new computers. May not be a road block for M$, but then I'm going to have to go work on computers that are so slow because they are barely powerful enough to run them. It's like when someone goes and buys a PC from Dell for $500... the end up with 128mb of Ram and XP home... Not to mention a celeron processor... So we can just expect that to happen into the next generation.
Some reasons I didn't feel that strong:
- Eye candy -- I always get the feeling they're desperate when picking that.
- IE 7 -- for anyone who has heard about Firefox or Opera, it's not a notable reason.
- Desktop search -- too many (good, too) alternatives already.
- Windows Media Player getting a decent media library -- too many (good, too) alternatives already.
There are more unlisted examples of these things too, and Windows Vista looks in many aspects just add on tools that have awesome free alternatives going for them already. With this mini-analysis, I suppose the OS will be compelling for novice users, and more advanced users may be trapped with it due to future Vista products that can't be emulated well yet in alternative operating systems. At least that's why I'm on XP now. It's not really better than competitors, far from it, but I have things I need to do that doesn't come or work for Linux.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
[Various scenes of people being mock sexually assulted.]
Voiceover: "Being violeted doesn't feel good, does it?"
[Pictures of Windows Vista]
Voiceover: "That's why Windows Vista is built with security in mind."
[Pictures of Steve Balmer]
Voiceover: "Buy Windows Vista, or Steve Balmer will violate you."
When you ask a fan why do they support one team instead of the other, they don't really have a good answer, but you can bet that is something personal, like they come from my home town, or my father supported this team etc.
Any reasons to buy Vista in today's market of choices would be something personal like this. In earlier years past, it would have been there is no other choice.
1) Easier to live in non-administrator mode, I'm still gonna login as admin so who cares
2) IE7..I can get a beta of it already who cares
3) Eye candy..neat for like 10 minutes but who cares
4) Desktop search. If I wanted that I'd already have it from google, who cares
5) Better updater, the XP tray app is just fine who cares
6) Windows Media 10, I'm sure it'll be downloadable for XP who cares
7) Parental controls, I don't have kids who cares
8) Better system restore, sounds good but I backup my important docs with Nero so who cares
9) Collaboration tools, sounds neat but I doubt its worth it
10) Install time speedup, not switching from XP takes me *0* minutes, so who cares
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
Will it do this out of the box? Or will they cram it down your throat with another 'forced paid upgrade' ala xp pro ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
DVDDecrypter, DVDShrink, Quicken.
There are some dvd rip&burn apps for the Mac, but noe that I have tried come close to these two Windows apps. Quicken for the Mac is a waste of good disk space. And neither GnuCash nor Moneydance come close to offerring the full feature set of Quicken for Windows.
I have migrated and consolidated all of my Windows/Linux/Mac stuff onto a new iMac. The aforementioned 3 apps, keep me from shutting off the Windows machine.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
As an owner of both macs and linux/windows pcs, I'll buy vista because I can get rid of half my hardware and run everything on one hardware platform... bios > efi, or so I hope.
When you can download a pirated version?
Unfortunately, if you plan on ever buying a prebuilt computer ever again, you probably don't have that choice. Microsoft's monopolistic practices have made it virtually impossible to buy a desktop or laptop computer from a major retailer without also paying for a preinstalled copy of Windows. In those few instances that you are offered the option, the computer without Windows doesn't cost any less--you're still paying for a copy, you're just not getting it.
1. They wear out.
2. Network effect.
> I use Win2k and I still don't see a feature I am missing.
Me too, but once Vista is released I expect we'll be missing new patches and service packs.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
From TFA: Over the years, one of the key reasons to upgrade versions of Windows has been the free stuff Gates and Company toss into the new OS
While I'll agree that they like to "toss" things into their OS, I don't see what is so compelling about the free things they are "tossing" in. If Windows was a tossed salad it would probably be a boring iceberg salad with a whole ton of ranch dressing sprayed all over it.
"Vista takes security to the next level. There are literally too many changes to list here, from the bidirectional software firewall .."
.."
.. SuDO ?
.. tabbed pages"
..
.."
.."
.."
..
..
A software firewall isn't really a firewall more an emulation of one that runs as a system process one that can be hijacked by the next virus/worm.
And one that wasn't 'bidirectional' was never a real firewall in the first place> That you have now to tout such as innovative is ludicrous.
"to Windows Services Hardening, which prevents obscure background processes from being hijacked and changing your system
When you say 'takes security to the next level' you do mean Windows security, don't you ?
"Perhaps most crucial (and least sexy) is the long-overdue User Account Protection,"
Err
"Internet Explorer
Yawn
"new antiphishing features
How about a system that is immune to phishing, not that would be really innovative.
"IE7 on Vista will run in what Microsoft calls "protected mode""
You mean like Firefox running as a user proccess under Linux or Safari under OS X.
"The new OS tightly integrates instant desktop search
The old embed, engulf, make impossible to remove and devour switcheroo.
"And now key components, such as the Windows Defender antispyware module
How about building a system that didn't get hijecked by spyware just by browsing a web site. Not that would really be innovative, for Microsoft that is.
"You can also restrict each account's access by time of day or day of the week."
More innovation?
What's left, translucent windows that goes wavey when you move them. That I should live in such times
Fudwatcher
davecb5620@gmail.com
Windows 2000 - the all-business operating system for the new millenium.
You know, it's plainly obvious that windows development is a complete train wreck, and I was wondering who there was for the Evil Empire to turn to. At first glance, it appears that they've killed all of their possible saviors (and paid a pittance to the bankruptcy trustees of Be, Inc.)
When Copland cratered, Apple was able to buy NeXT. When DOS was proving too much of dead end even for the Empire, MS turned to Dave Cutler from DEC and ended up with a severely damaged VMS that they renamed "Windows NT". Vista is six years late already, and had to abandon the work in progress and rollback to the windows server 2003 code base.
Can they continue after Vista? Should they keep throwing good money after bad? Or, should they swallow their pride (if they ever had any) and buy a license for a modern, working operating system from Apple for probably a tenth of the money they've wasted on the Longhorn disaster?
If Apple can move to Intel, can Microsoft make a similarly daring move? Are they willing to pay Apple tens of billions in royalties on the OS, and make their money on the apps?
If this actually happens, I'll have to drastically revise my opinion of BG and the monkey boy. It would be one of the best things that could possibly happen for the computer industry overall, though.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
1. Security, security, security
.. we are still waiting. Can we cut the shit and focus on a more secure browser instead of glitz and tabs?
/s
This has never be a paramount feature of Windows V.anything. In fact, it's been anything but the 3 s's. We are still waiting for the IE fix as well as the grandiose top priority on security.
2. Internet Explorer 7: IE gets a much-needed, Firefox-inspired makeover
See #1
3. Righteous eye candy:
See #2.. Could we get something to nip that little spyware problem please? Enough with the froof.
4. Desktop search:
hot tip: [START] -> right click -> explore -> F3 (above the #4 key). if your 1eet, dir
5. Better updates:
Can we get that XP patch first? Maybe if you weren't dicking with the eye-candy, we could have this before 2007.
6. More media:
Ok, this looks like a good fix. Oh, wait.. no mention of fixing it I guess. How long has this been a problem?
7-10.. add your own
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Ooooh! I can think about a lot of people on the 'net who I'd personally like to offer that feature. And conveniently, their zombie bots, er, I mean, computers, are already running Windows. They'll just need to upgrade.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
That happens when you're an OS-upgrade lemming. I've had 3.1 (bundled with a PC), 95 (ditto), 98 (ditto), and XP (um, obtained when I built a PC). I just never saw any reason to upgrade my working and works-with-all-programs Windows versions on those computers.
/. "don't mod me down, I'm really a Linux user" disclaimer}
{insert idiotic
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
From TFA: Heck, it took me almost five minutes to find the Run command, which used to show up right in the Start menu.
I think this illustrates the differences between the Windows and Linux worlds. With the next version of Windows, they don't want you to be running commands or going into a command prompt. With the next version of KDE (at least in the mockups) it's been shown there will be a text entry area for directly entering commands integrated into the K menu. It's already been done in SuSE (and possibly others I'm not aware of)
This just goes to show that Microsoft thinks all of their users are idiots, and Linux developers want their users (even the newbies) to be more adept at using their OS.
"how far along is WINE? Will it run all of MS-office? What are its limitations?"
It's a pretty odd question to ask in a thread where we are discussing Darwine. People will run Mac-native Office if they really need to.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Against:
I can use third part applications to emulate these features (and if I used windows, I would have them already setup). It's not worth $150 (europe) to me every 3/4 years. Serious point: wtf is MS bundling DVD writing/photo organisation software in their OS? They've already sold the OS before release - it's not like they have any commerical x86 OS competition: why are they so actively taking away profits from smaller software firms? It is not necessary AT ALL. It's not like IE7 is the killer app that's going to force people to upgrade or anything.
For:
The knowledge that MS does and will continue to give a bucketload of cash to charity: I don't mind stealing from the rich to give to the poor, I just hope it continues to give - the company has enough money to make a serious difference in the world - it's in a very unique / lucky position - the richest company in the history of makind (probably). Use the money for good!!!
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
The real test of software comes when millions of people are using it. One of the benefits of the open source model is continuous improvement and immediate feedback; although, I suppose it might be possible to make other software work this way (such as windows updates). We won't know for sure how good/bad or useful it is until the complaints start rolling in. I personally would wait for service pack one or two. It will almost certainly be better.
Well, the timing you can't argue with – but the features it's advertising strike me as familiar. "Eye-catching graphics" are already available for other systems, in the form of eg. the X compositing engine and not to mention Enlightenment. Bundled applications I can't help but laugh at, especially considering that most Linux distributions have more than Notepad, Paint, and Media Player – hell, almost all of them come with a free office suite, which Microsoft users usually have to pay several hundred dollars for!
As for more-rigorous security, well, there's the first place I think the article's going wrong. Just by virtue of the fact that the word "more" is in there, you can easily see why so many people suspect Microsoft intentionally cripples the system to force upgrades. Viruses, spyware, and worms galore – and yet I have yet to see that on any Linux distribution I've used. And besides, I refuse to consider anything secure that's anything less than OpenBSD.
Again, it's "improving". Which infers that the security was, well, not very good before. And again, I still won't consider even Linux to be secure when compared with OpenBSD. As for the "spyware library updates," I don't think that they would even be necessary if Microsoft didn't make it so easy to get loaded with spyware in the first place.
/etc, /home, and /var.
Backup software is another thing worth mentioning on Linux. While it's not directly related to the article text here, it's worth mentioning one particularly understated feature of UNIX systems – how easy it is to back them up. Whereas with a Microsoft box you have settings scattered all over the hard disk, I can typically back up all my Linux boxes and even transfer the configuration to another system just by tar'ing up three basic directories –
OK, let's get on to the next paragraph. Continuing!
Now, what really puzzles me here is how Internet Explorer is
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I already have all this in Mac OS X, I have no reason to use or buy Vista over OS X. Microsoft are clearly playing catchup with things like security, an improved browser (everyone has Tabbed browsing and Google search bars already, IE7 is already yesterday's news), and search - Microsoft are acting like Mac OS X 10.4 never happened, because they're so arrogant. Oh well, everyone will still buy Vista anyway unless Apple do some huge Mac advertising campaign that'll kick Microsoft's ass!
I will not buy Windows Vista or get any hardware that bears it. Just because I can afford not to.
1. Linux, linux, linux.
2. Firefox. Konqueror.
3. Couldn't care less
4. See #3
5. Linux
6. See #4
7. See above
8. Shell script does it
9. I was wrong, I could care less.
10. ??? I can install Slackware in under 10 minutes, and have been doing so for the past 4-5 years. Is this really a selling point? If so I truly feel sorry for Microsoft.
So excuse me if I don't buy it.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
really? they're going to ship Vista on Macs and Linux boxen then? did M$ sneak a bill through the Congress that requires every new computer anyone buys to include Vista? I for one will be very happy to never own a copy of Vista--i've already got all the 'righteous eye candy' that I need, and all of the other 'features' that were listed...OS X, the future, today!
Is there any way to hide the very obvious fear of Linux Penguins worried that their already second-place (or less) OS will be further trampled by Microsoft? I think not. You slashdotters that are "linux uber alles" only give yourselves away everytime you start your 'anti-microsoft' diatribes - face some facts: Your OS is not making it vs. Windows Server 2003 in the workplace, or XP in home environs, even with the 'free beer' thing going for it (no cost), which is amazing in and of itself - you can't win even giving away your OS vs. Microsoft offerings.
This article does not include monty-pythonish foot, am I missing something?
All software is free on the internet. Vista will be too.
Every single last one of these features is redundant and lame, seriously.
I've always had a problem with an OS that systematically destroys the FS out from under itself.
How long has linux had journaling FSs? M$ STILL cannot make a FS that does not need constant user intervention (defrag) to stay healthy.
The reviewer didn't mention InfoCards and the Identity Metasystem. No wonder, since they are still works in progress. Still, InfoCards and the Metasystem will be a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista.
............... kris
InfoCards are built into IE7 and run on top of the new Identity Metasystem. InfoCards are metadata representing identity data such as username, password, VISA card number, age, etc., that are converted into tokens protected by private keys. These tokens will be passed to Metasystem servers on the Internet running the Security Token Service via Web service protocols standardized by OASIS and supported by Sun and IBM. These Metasystem servers running STS will process the token, validate the key with a public key, and allow user access to their remote resources.
The Metasystem itself is a major advance in identity technology because it layers itself on top of existing identity infrastructure rather than replacing it. In other words, it doesn't require web site administrators to rip out their existing directories and databases; they just deploy a running instance of the Metasystem and an STS server that talks to their local identity store and they can talk to InfoCards.
The end result is no more passwords, no more phishing, and users get to control their own identity information. Enterprise users will love it, IT administrators will love it, and it's just one more reason why I want to upgrade to Vista. I for one am sick of remembering ten million passwords and being phished and if InfoCards and the Metasystem can save my butt I'll be first in line at Fry's.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
shouldn't that be Meet the *new* boss, same as the *old* boss
i mean, that's the lyric
Supplies!
Now the OS will load my media player with my favourite clips at 06:45, 10:00, 13:00, 16:00, 18:30 and 22:00. All of the sudden, masturbation got a lot easier. Thanks Microsoft... I owe you one!
It seems to me there is a downward trend with MS in every area, marketing, innovation, product design, and security. I think that it has reached a very noticeable level to even those who are die-hard MS fans. Maybe it was the marketing by hype practice that put MS on an inescapable treadmill of eroded credibility. It seems harder these days for tech writers to stick their necks out and jump on the MS bandwagon to fully hype the new products. That was a pretty wimpy review of Vista, and I expected more hype from the writer, otherwise why cover a beta that keeps loosing features just to meet a release date.
/.ers, they are the followers and not the leaders of the "top ten reasons to buy an OS". Of course, in shear volume of sales they beat all other OSs hands down and they are truly the top dog of the desktop computer market. Why, then does MS seem to have to make such an effort to try and steal the "innovation" credit when so many know the truth is far down another road?
;-)
While not seeming to overcome fear of innovating a new OS, MS asks us all to live in their imaginary world and believe that they are the innovators of all things new to desktop computing. This may be the way to go if MS were better at the art of illusion, but they are not that good at it. While David Copperfield can make a live crowd believe he just made an elephant disappear before their eyes, MS can't convince PC prospects that they are not following Mac and Linux in the desktop innovations Vista claims to offer, maybe, at some future date.
Clearly, from the posts here by savvy
Perhaps being on top so long breeds fear of innovating. It may be safer to wait and watch others do the innovating, fumble around at a knock-off and proclaim you have just innovated a whole new set of features that everyone needs, right now. It seems to work to a degree, but is that also failing to keep the giant of desktop OSs on top, as more markets slip away from MS.
I switched from MS Win to Mac and Linux over the last few years. First by getting comfortable with Mac OSX at work and a couple of years ago I discovered Linspire. I still love the Mac, especially for graphics work, but I never got use to seeing MS products for the Mac, like MS Office and IE. So, Firefox and Open Office have been my primary browser and office suit for a while. I tend to rely more on Linux as my primary desktop OS now and have cut all but a couple of old ties to third party Windows software, that I rarely boot into XP to use. One of those is Swish, a light weight flash movie developer package. I tried to get Swish running in Crossover Office, but no go there.
These days, I don't consider myself to be a MS product user to any noticeable degree, and I need not wonder why. MS has performed so poorly as at the corporate level, like a bully loosing his grip on the desktop playground, doing desperate things in response to the slightest threat from any new kid (or those already not cowering in the corner like Mac). I thought I switched primarily for security reasons, and would have said that if surveyed at the time, but now I think it goes further. As MS continues to disappoint me almost daily with their attitude towards their users and others in the market, I realize that this is the real driving force behind my switching from MS products.
So, with regards to Vista, I don't see any thing for me in this OS shell game MS seems to be playing. In fact I think it may be the worst direction MS has ever taken their marketing in. MS seems to be resorting to carny trickery to milk money out of anyone they can. I wonder if this is the big downward spiral of the software giant that has been predicted for several years. It certainly is interesting to watch...
Sorry for the long reply on this one
I lost my sig...
... we end up with this:
0) It's very pretty
1) It's shiny
2) It will keep me from watching movies or listening to music
3) It comes with software that almost as good as the free stuff I can get from other places
4) It will crash a lot
5) It's slow
6) My 256MB 6800GT doesn't stand a chance running it
7) It's really expensive
8) It's the newest bestest Windows
9) Did I mention it's shiny?
Yep! Compelling reasons!
10. System freezes. 9. New bugs same as the old bugs. 8. USB2 only works half as fast as Firewire in real world tests. 7. 165,000 viruses knocking on my internet door. 6. The Registry. 5. The Registry. 4. What do you mean my $1,500 2-year-old computer doesn't have enough power? 3. Hey, you said my old software would run with this. 2. Bill's wallet keeps get fatter and mine keeps getting thinner. and the number one reason not to buy Windows Vista: 1. I'm tired of paying a lot of money just to get half of last years OS X features!
>Some people use their video production or audio DAW softwre a lot, others photoshop or other >visual studio (or such IDE) or statistical cruncher or MATLAB. THere is always that one >program that they use for their livelihood that will demand upgrades.
That is a small percentage of computer users.
Ask anyone who works with the public.
Emailing, browsing, wordprocessing, ripping cd's, watching dvd's is what joe consumer does the majority of the time. Games are also a very important part.
Over the past 12 months Ive installed Kubuntu and various other Linux flavors on more than a dozen machines belonging to my parents and their older friends. Many of the machines were P3's and even one P2-400.
For the things I mentioned above, apart from gaming, Linux was just fine.
In the store where I work, the first things I ask is what use they need their computer for and the number one answer is 'surf the net'. The amount of time someone tells me they need it to run the latest version of some Abobe software or audio/visual is few and far between. Of the applications most mentioned, the Office suite products like Excel are top of the list.
You should stop using your personal group of friends as a benchmark for the general population. Most of my friends are techies and gamers, you know, lunatics who will buy the latest video card at 600$ even though there is no game that can take advantage of it yet.
If I was to use my personal experience to extrapolate what joe blow wants, youd have a prety skewered view.
Micrrosoft has taken a rather narrow view with their Vista. Problems facing computers today do not relate to "yet another UI attempt" and there are already much more interesting UI advances from other companies (try multi-point touch display f'rinstance.) MS needs to address stability, security and performance. Stability of its own applications would be a start. Security to remove or control its own mistakes in design compromises. And performance in terms of delivering a near real-time experience to the user. Isn't it interesting that the only machines that never need to reboot (in my household) are the TiVo (Linux) and the house file- and print-server (also Linux) but my Tablet PC can't go a full day without something coughing up a fur ball. And my Windows Media PC needs constant attention to drive fragmentation and a level of technical "intervention" that would be completely outrageous to a TiVo user. It's also interesting to note non-English speaking visitors tend to end up on the Mac for browsing or checking their email. They also tend to use the TiVo (which involves learning how to switch away from the Media PC, which is usually sitting there with a list of movies and a browser window open to a Google page) but they know how to use TiVo ... even the remote is immediately easier and more familiar.
If they built a stable, secure OS that ran smoothly, I think the customer base would increase. As long as we get upgrades to Windows for Workgroups, like NT, XP and Vista, it's just more of the same.
I run Windows 2000 on my Athlon 2400s I am a lot less than impressed by this list.
1. Security - Nice, but we have not any real problems, probably because we use Mozilla browsers and e-mail.
2. Internet Explorer 7 - I have used IE only for websites that won't load in Moz. Makes no difference to me.
3. Righteous eye candy - I am over the age of 12.
4. Desktop search - Google and its free.
5. Better updates - Win 2K is no longer being updated. Besides, I never let any progrm load stuff on my system that I do not know about.
6. More media - Might be interesting if did that sort of thing, which I don't.
7. Parental controls - My yougest is 18 now. He is on his own.
8. Better backups - So what? The old one sucked so badly, I just bought some 80GB drives and put them in USB 2 enclosures. Problem solved.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration - I don't work in a multi-national conglomerate. I run a very small business -- 2 people, my wife's business is even smaller. We don't need it.
10. Quick setup - And if I don't buy it, it will take even less time to install.
Over all, I see no reason to shell out the big bucks for a new Micro$oft product. It does not solve any of my problems and it costs money. Besides, I would be concerned about the inadequacy of my hardware that is only a couple of years old. I don't want to shell out even more bucks for hardware.
Summary, no economic reason to spend money.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Security, Security, Security
...need... eye candy.
...just use Google and Yahoo like you do normally anyway since they're already here and better.
yeah, they're so good at this. The world's richest man wants to 'protect' you from people who will give him more money for the opportunity to sell you junk that you don't need, using commercials on your desktop, or 'jump-outs' in your application.
Plus since we're talking security here, what makes you think that you're going to get any from the guys who bend over backwards to put ordinary people in Chinese concentration-camp prisons. You can be assured that anything from Redmond is going to have plenty of backdoors for the Gitmo Gomers to read and monitor everything that you do on your PC. And Linux won't have this.
Internet Explorer 7: IE gets a much-needed, Firefox-inspired makeover...
So use just FireFox. 'nuff said.
Righteous eye candy...
Do like Steve Jobs and just drop some acid if you
Desktop search:
Better updates:
one word...sourceforge....next?
More media
more embedded DRM, you mean.
Parental controls
we are already grown-up, and we don't need any more excuses for library restrictions on web access. Like prohibiting 17-year-olds from getting information on effective birth control, just cause 'Jesus or Allah says no'.
Better backups
the application programmer's responsibility, not the OS.
Peer-to-peer collaboration
they seem to want to make that quite illegal if I recall correctly.
So how much money or honey did they give this guy for writing such a transparent puff-piece about an operation system that doesn't even exist yet?
communal account's karma is now worse than Anonymous Coward!
Communal Account destroyed! WOOT! WOOT!
The main reason to buy it is so that Michael Desmond gets his check from Microsoft for writing the review.
Every one of his ten reasons to buy is a feature that OS X has had for at least a year.....if not longer. As a matter of fact when Vista is released to the masses I imagine most features will look like copies of present OS X software. Microsoft is not really known for creativity and by Bills own words they take whatever has already been done and try to make it better.
Unless they require a password for ALL software installs their security is going to fail in a big way. My prediction.....their security will actually be an inroad for infecting the computer.
Whooo... How much did that guy paid for the article? It's lousy, really...
...so what reasons do I have to buy Vista?
... Tiger, already has all of the "breakthrough" features that Vista is supposed to have. Oh, and has already delivered. Let's wait to see what Apple has when Vista finally ships.
please excuse my apathy
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not running everyone as admin does NOT constitute security. In fact, I would have no reason to switch from my *nix systems for this security. Gonna have to try harder then that.
2. IE 7
I've gone of the "upgrade" list of IE 7 quite closely to find... nothing new. Everything they "add" is already in another major browser. As for that anti-phishing feature, as a student in IUs Applied Cryptography:Phishing course, I can tell you it's worthless. Because it relies on a file on disc, probably built into IE, this can be easily circumvented by malware. Sorry, I don't trust IE at all, just from the track record. Need a better reason? It's still built into the OS. Not... smart... at... all...
3. Eye Candy
Granted, I only have a Windows box for my gaming pleasures, but still it is stupid to require a high-end system for the desktop. Most users will not be playing games on it, so most won't automatically have the hardware to run this. What I'd like to know is if it comes on by default? I'll bet it does, which means that it'll run very slow before users realize to turn it off. Plus, why is this necessary? I realize I'm a little bit of a purist, and prefer a command line, but even when I use a desktop, this seems like overkill. Has anyone ever desired to see what's on a window without actually opening the window? Does it really save that much time?
4. Desktop Search
Ok, again this is a good thing to have, and one of my main beefs with Windows is the slow search feature (hard to find the virii on friend's coimputers). Now, my *nix box is damn quick thanks to how they do searches. I wonder if Microsoft has gone to that model. Also, will it search hidden and system files by default? Something it *needs* to do, and doesn't by default.
5. Better Updates
Nice to see them getting away from using IE for everything, but again, this is a feature in Mac OS, and *nix already. Not exactly a reason to "upgrade".
6. Media
Ok, I'll give 'em more media is gonna be a selling point for the average user. Good smart marketing *clap*. But my question is this. Are these going to be strand alone programs? Or Microsoft's usual anti-monopoly move, and built into the OS. If built in, as the DVD Maker sound like, why? All this is is a new way to add vulnerabilities. I think as little as possible should be "OS", and the rest offered as downloads that don't have root permissions in the OS.
7. Parental Controls
Now, this argument is personal, but hear me out. I don't like cencorship, and I think that a better parenting method is to teach kids how to use the computer correctly and trust them not to be going against your will. Locking it while you're at work, kinda petty. Some parents might agree with this, and I'm not a parent, but I definately don't like this practice or some of the stuff AOL is doing. I also think this could be a fun attack vector. Imagine blocking file downloads for the update client? Or locking out the admin account, then un-priviledged virii can have all day to scan the hard drive for information.
8. Backups
They tout the fact that the backup client is upgraded for the first time in years? Not a selling point.
9. Peer to Peer
I am willing to place $1000 on the fact that within a year of Vista going public, this feature is exploited in at least 5 virii. More than that, it will be used by Phishers to get people to join false workgroups, and steal information. Perhaps a SEPERATE program would be a better idea here? Something that doesn't come on, right out of the box?
10. Quick Setup
If it comes with this, awesome. No OS has quick setup right now, and even *nix is plauged by bloat (FC4 takes over an hour, 6.5 GB). However, I don't believe this number, "15 minutes". Is that like Windows 95 will run on 4 MB RAM? (For the record, it DOES, just barely... the mouse lags). Perhaps on a high end system.
But, this article is not about getting other OS users to switch, it's about getting XP users to upgrade
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I was intrigued to see that system restore is being "tweaked" to make it even more useful.
Really, has anyone EVER used this thing and EVER found it useful?
I've turned it off and never used it. HOWEVER, I found where they hid the Backup program on the XP Home CD and I use that each week! Glad to hear it seems like it will be installed as default.
Eye candy and an mp3 player
let me get my cheque book
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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Im not saying that Microsoft engineers can't do it right, i mean that there are usually things that end priorizing things that goes against security (drivers in ring 0, internet explorer integrated, needing to be admin to run games, the past is full of examples). Will that kind of things happen again? Dont want to bet that much being already very good alternative options.
1) Help microsoft pay for ongoing anti-trust legal battles
2) help those who have stock in MS to see a growth in their stock value
3) Help homeland security worm its way into your personal affairs, thru windows back doors.
4) help those who have stock in MS to see a growth in their stock value
5) help suppress open source software.
6) help those who have stock in MS to see a growth in their stock value
7) help the economy by requiring more people to be hired to handle windows IT issues.
8) help those who have stock in MS to see a growth in their stock value
9) help MS to buy out and shut down better products.
10 help those who have stock in MS to see a growth in their stock value.
I said HONEST..... I didn't say anything about Ethical.
There was a time when investing in stock was based upon believing in a company's products and services.
Today that doesn't matter, so long as you have a positive return (do a google for "trillion dollar bet" for the extreamly unethical side of this.
Both the original page and the link to it by slashdot.
Like most other folks here, I hadn't heard of "Windows Collaboration" before
The "P2P" is peer-to-peer in the original sense of the word, as Microsoft's IPC and printing mechanism is peer-to-peer -- you don't need to specially designate servers. This is not a "P2P filesharing" application in the vein of Gnutella.
It looks like it might be basically NetMeeting (kinda like vnc with an emphasis on multiple-user simultaneous use) but with the ability to text chat and offer files to other people connected. I could see it being quite handy, but I don't think that there's anything that you can't do with an IM application or IRC plus vnc. It might be somewhat more convenient to bundle the above.
If Microsoft wants to make real, technical improvements that would help their market, I've got a great one -- provide a version-control system for Office apps. Let people merge their changes. It's incredibly annoying to have long documents that multiple people cannot work on at once. This is no problem if we're working on a text document or HTML document or LaTeX document or whatever, but you can't work simultaneously on a document in office. Grr.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Where the hell is "stability"? With all the new toys they added to Vista I sure as hell hope it's at least stable when it comes out.
Security, security, security
What about my Linux partition?
For the first time, Microsoft is building high-end graphics effects into Windows.
What was the deal with the XP look then? And is there a medium choice if I don't want the crappy Classic look but also don't want to need dual 7800s in SLI? Hell, they've got quad SLI now, is that what I'll need to run F.E.A.R.?
Windows Vista boasts a much-improved backup program that should help users avoid wholesale digital meltdowns.
You mean Knoppix?
Parental controls
Haha, you're kidding, right? MS couldn't stop releasing of their own source-code and CD-keys before XP came out, and they are still plagued by security problems, so what makes you think that a kid with above-room temperature IQ couldn't get around this? Actual parenting is the solution. My school has priveleges and download locks, DeepFreeze, and N2H2, and you know what we do in class? Get through the filter, go Download.com, download the Unreal Tournament demo installer, install it, and play for an hour.
Desktop search
How hard is it to put things in folder? C'mon people. If you are really lazy or forgetful, Google desktop will be better the same way that Google search is still better than MSN. Is this for the people that dump EVERYTHING on to their desktop? Could it include a bomb to kill them off?
Better updates
Unless the updates themselves are better, I don't care. When I can download a Service Pack and have it NOT ASSRAPE MY SYSTEM then I will be happy. A service pack should not add 8 minutes to the start-up time, like it did with mine (reinstalled XP with included SP2, no more problems than usual)
Peer-to-peer collaboration
Bittorent? Doens't Ubuntu come with that already? Or is this a new security hole? Or is this like the same Handouts/Dropbox feature already in operation at my school?
Quick setup
Dream on, kid.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Because the app writers will force you to.
:)
It's that plain and simple. Companies writing applications for Windows will enjoy the new DRM features. Not to mention that everyone will HAVE to buy the new DRMed version or their system will refuse to run the DRMed apps they have at the same time as the non-DRMed.
So companies will jump onto the DRM bandwagon for the simple reason that you can't pirate their stuff anymore. Well... let's just assume you can't, just for the sake of not starting an argument about whether it's vaporware again or not.
They'll THINK it does prevent pirating. And that's what matters.
Joe Shmoe Average will not know how to circumvent it, so he'll buy all the new shiny apps. And new apps will not work on "legacy" (read: current) systems. Especially game companies will jump onto it like blowflys swarm a piece of turd.
So no matter what "wonderful" features the new piece of tur... software from Redmond offers, people will buy it for the simple reason that their new apps will not run on anything else.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The real reason not to buy Windows Vista is that Microsoft has a history of abusing its customers. This version will be secure?
Remember that Windows XP had many problems, besides being extremely vulnerable, until Service Pack 2. I suggest everyone wait until Vista SP2 to evaluate Vista. That would save a lot of time.
Remember the last Microsoft encryption scheme, that is built into Windows XP? No? If you have never heard of EFS, I can tell you why. Many, many people lost all their files because of the bugginess and poor documentation of EFS. EFS doesn't work at all on stand alone computers, unless you think that not being able to have a valid backup is "working". (If you argue with this, you will be arguing with Microsoft technical support, who has verified this more than once. On stand alone computers, EFS encryption is tied to the SID of the OS installation. If you change stand alone computers, you cannot decrypt your files.)
Will you trust your files to encryption by a company whose last version was buggy and poorly documented and lost customer files? (Try TrueCrypt instead.)
Remember that Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista are ALL the same operating system, but just new versions. Microsoft renames their products and takes advantage of people with little technical knowledge, who think that they are buying a new product.
Remember that Bill Gates is the Dr. Death of software. HE decides when Microsoft's software is no longer usable, not the customers.
When someone abuses you, never forget. Try not to be involved with habitual abusers.
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
WTF! I still haven't seen a list reasons why I should dump my Windows 2000 Pro + SP4 + Security Roll Up for buggycrappy Windows XP SP2 ?!? Features my ass! Am I missing something here... (honestly?)
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
I grew up in a family that used AOL, and I had to endure parental controls for most of my life. Since I love computers so much, it was perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of my life, and it was extremely shameful and demoralizing because it sent me a message that my parents didn't trust or respect me. During those years I despised them because there was no personal or human aspect to our relationship--only control.
Having third party software that does this is one thing, but building these features into the operating system is something entirely different, and I find it abhorrent. I feel really sorry for kids growing up now that are going to have to fight Vista in the home.
I didn't see anything on that list that Mac OS X or your favorite Linux distro doesn't already have. I looked, point by point, and could think of a comparable feature on either Mac OS X or Linux or, usually, both. That's what I wish Windows users would understand, particularly home users. Microsoft, despite their dominance of the OS market, sells, by far, the least advanced operating system of the big three. Linux gets features as soon as someone contributes code, which happens all the time. And, if you're impatient like me, you can install Debian testing/unstable and always have the latest features as they come down the pike.
Let's review:
Security Every Linux distro I know of forces you to make a non-privileged user account. There are plenty of features built into GNOME and KDE now that let you do a graphical 'sudo' to do administrative tasks. On the Mac, this is the default. They have their own graphical 'sudo', which works incredibly well. And, aside from the occasional exploit, neither OS has the same kind of inherent security problems that Windows does. IE 7 One word: Firefox. OK, two: Safari. Both great browsers that already offer all the same featuers. Righteous Eye Candy The GNOME and KDE themes have improved dramatically over the past few years and they look pretty good. Maybe not "Aero Glass" good, but then again they don't require an outrageous graphics card to use. Mac OS X has Aqua. Very pretty indeed, and far less distracting than Aero Glass. Desktop Search On Linux, locate. On the Mac, Spotlight. And developers can write Spotlight importers that give those apps better control over how their files are indexed. Windows has nothing like this. Oh, and if you are using Windows, use Google Desktop Search. It works well. I like it. Better updates On Linux, set up a cron job to do an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade every now-and-then and you're set. On Mac OS X, Software Update already updates every piece of software Apple sells with about one or two clicks. And, it runs automatically. Done. More Media iTunes, QuickTime. And with Flip4Mac, you can play un-DRMed WMV files right in QuickTime. On Linux, there are too many media players to name. No, they won't work with Windows Media, usually, but there's definitely no lack of MP3 library apps. Parental Controls Now here, I don't know about Linux, but I'd find it hard to believe there isn't some way a person couldn't use PAM to control when and where his/her kids use the computer. On the Mac, parental controls are already built in, system-wide. Better Backups Sure, it costs $99/year, butGranted, Linux still has to do some catching up in terms of user-friendliness, but like all UNIX, all the pieces are there if you know how to assemble them. There are more and more graphical tools appearing everyday to put those pieces together for you. Mac OS X already has just about every feature the article describes and they're planning a new release about the same time as Vista appears.
And Microsoft would do well to drop certain features. The Windows Registry, I think, is one of the worst-conceived ideas ever. If Microsof
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
Reasons people will buy vista: 1. Because it will come with all computers after release 2. Microsoft WILL make XP obsolete, example, Halo 2 for PC has been announces and will only run on Windows Vista 3. Most windows users either only know about windows, dont know how to use anything ither than windows, dont know how to get anything else.... they dont sell powerbooks at walmart 4. We are the only ones that actually KNOW about the imbedded DRM, the standard mom & dad have no clue what it is, or what it does, so naturally Microsoft isnt about to tell them about it. 5. America doesnt care about anything other than what TV tells us, with few exeptions It is the job of guys like the one who wrote this article to bring the issue of DRM to light, because the average user doesn't read comments on slashdot, the people in the media need to let these people know what they are getting themselves into, rather than talking about features that dont really matter, because that is who can reach them and give them the info that really does matter. about security, vista does take a step in the right direction, even it does fall behind other OSes in this respect, they are finally taking security into account in design, rather that giving it out after release in updates. As an administrator of a windows/linux network, i am happy to see this, as it has been long needed. Is it really that terrible to steal from the best? I mean, this is Microsoft's specialty isnt it?
Microsoft may boast better security but the fact is, until it's been put under the microscope and examined by the experts, it's just marketting hype. Microsoft must be stupid if they think that hackers are going to post exploits on the beta releases. They're going to wait until the official release when it's on everyone's machines. If Microsoft really wanted to improve security, they would allow their code to be audited and tested by the experts. Just as the RIAA grades its own progress on piracy, Microsoft grades its own progress on security.
TFA's author says IE7 is a compelling reason to go to Vista - but won't it be available for other flavours of Windows?
Take a look at iTunes and Safari again, both have parental controls already. If you don't mind the command line, OS X has backup tools. #10 (quick install) doesn't really exist yet.
So yeah, pretty much everything in Vista is already in OS X, except for the rumored collaboration tools.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
iTunes, GarageBand, Final Cut, iDVD. Etc. Apple's been shipping this stuff for years. MSFT's just talking about what they hope to release, and talk is cheap.
The last three could never be made and released by Microsoft as part of Windows... never. Plus you've got to remember that these may ship with your Mac but they aren't aren't 'part of' OSX. And when it comes to iTunes, well MS has had DRM'd music since Windows Media Player 7 (...or was it eight). Ever heard of WMA?
Hell, even as far as "Music management / photo management / drm / desktop search " goes they all were in Windows XP - just not noticeably. Music could be managed with Media Player, photos don't really need management - but they could be sorted, filed and viewed with XP out of the box and desktop search is in there (you just have to turn that indexing service - that everyone told you to close - back on).
DRM? Well XP is DRM'd! They hold the patent on a DRM'd OS and no one but MSFT has the desire to make a DRM'd OS.
God, I'm defending Windows.
Get your Unix fortune now!
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can only be an improvement. As I've said before, I turn off the Themes service on any computer I possess. A service to handle themes? Overkill! Then they locked it to only work with signed themes... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=uxthemes+patc h
Since Vista will likely ship on every new computer anyone buys...
Um, apple, anyone?
1) You can't avoid it because the hardware you'd like to buy happens to be pre-loaded with it, and the company will not dare to displease big Bill.
2) Because the content providers are so caught up in their own paranoid customer hating trip that they prefer to give full control to Mr Bill rather than authorize an open source compatible player for their content.
3) Because Vista is fully compatible with buying Outsourced products at WallMart, eating Genemodified food, wearing overpriced Nike shoes while watching spectator sports that have strictly no relationship with you but give you a fake feeling of "bellonging".
a lot) Because counting up to 10 is actually hard work.
I'm late to the party with this comment, but...
Is it just me or have nearly all the "cool bundled apps" and visual eye-cady already been done quite well by KDE and OSX?
How can those factors be "reasons to upgrade"? There really is only ONE reason to use VISTA. That is most people are afraid of change. So if they are going to be forced to change, then they are going the "safest" route and staying with MS. OSX will always have better eye candy, and frankly the screen shots I have seen only look impressive if your used to the ugly interfaces MS generally provides.
I am sure this launch will be a big splash to most of the ignorant IT world and home computing world. But I'll be perfectly happy splitting time using KDE and OSX. What I am really worried about is VMWARE, with the huge system requirements a virtual machine may have some trouble with this latest incarnation of super bloatware.
-MS2k
Is if my house has empty frames in the walls.
Was "high price, pay often" one of the reasons?
Let's see. IE 7 will be more like Firefox and Vista will be more like OS X and Linux. So much for original thinking.
Safe sleep has been out on mac for months, and believe it or not it's something in the OS, so not just the new macbooks, but ANY mac can do it with the one time input of a few shell commands to unlock it, NEXT!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
1. Security, security, security: Windows XP Service Pack 2 patched a lot of holes, but Vista takes security to the next level.
One of the beta's for Vista already had a security patch issued. So yeah. Okay. They're ahead already!
There are literally too many changes to list here,
We would have to use a bunch of security lingo that you would not understand.
from the bidirectional software firewall that monitors inbound and outbound traffic to Windows Services Hardening, which prevents obscure background processes from being hijacked and changing your system.
Obscure processes will have to be signed by Microsoft. If this signing is forged somehow or there's a hole, yeah, goodbye Windows Services Hardening.
There's also full-disk encryption, which prevents thieves from accessing your data, even if they steal the PC out from under your nose.
JOE USER DOESN'T USE A PASSWORD WHEN HE BOOTS UP HIS COMPUTER. See a problem?
Perhaps most crucial (and least sexy) is the long-overdue User Account Protection, which invokes administrator privileges as needed, such as during driver updates or software installations. UAP makes it much more convenient for users to operate Vista with limited rights (meaning the system won't let them do certain things, like load software, without clearance from an administrator). This in turn limits the ability of malware to hose your system.
Okay, after laughing at the "and least sexy" comment for a bit and forgetting about the fact that Unix has been doing something similar for years with things like sudo, su, etc, let's take this apart:
This will have no bennefit for home users. Guess who has the root account? The owner of the machine! This is the same thing with OS X. A home user, when installing an application, has been trained to enter in the admin password when they want to install something. So if weatherbug prompts them, they'll do it. Once a program has admin access, of course it can do all sorts of things, rendering this UAP protection moot. The game is over.
Try again Microsoft...
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It's essentially a 64-bit Windows XP skin with a few added security features. Whoop-dee-fricken-doo.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Drag your user folder into blank CDR icon or external USB/Firewire drive. Done.
I don't think Microsoft is offering anything near to a full system restore backup with thiers either.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
2. Internet explorer - Don't use,
3. 'eye candy' - I want my OS to run the applications that I need to use. NOT look pretty. These are things I turn off anyway. (I mean geez, the default XP skin looked like a Fisher-Price toy.)
4. Desktop search - I know where my files are. Most times it would take me longer to get a query started than to just go to the folder.
5. Better updates. - "We shipped a broken product but we're going to make it easier to get it fixed now." yep...
6. More media - A lot of people make better media editors/players that microsoft.
7. Parental controls - Right, because most parents who need this kind of help don't already rely on their kids for computer support.
Most of the new features of Vista are old and well used features of Linux.. We don't have to open a webpage to update our systems. We have YUM, YUMEX, APT, Synapic, etc.. We've had the ability to render 3d desktops for a while. As for spyware and virus protection, not really needed.. At least with our OS we can run it on cheap and old machines and still get better boot times and program load times than Windows..
I'm not a total Linux snob, I still have a windows machine for school stuff, but my main machine is the one that I can keep running for days or months on end. Most Windows machines would choke and blue screen on you within 3 days time.. Or just slow to a near stop..
But to each his or her own.. Use what you like and like what you use I suppose..
My $0.02
Jimi Spier
www.jimispier.com - My tunes
I still run Windows 98SE on at least half the machines in my office. Microsoft discontinues support? Big whoop. I use BigFix + AVG + Firefox + Eudora. I bypass the vast majority of crapware that is responsible for most of the security updates in the first place. I run 99.99% of all popular applications on a decade-old operating system and every time Microsoft threatens to obsolete a platform tier, I laugh. You should too. Vista is accounts payable candy for big corporations. The vast majority of advantages you might get with this OS can be gained alternatively by not being a n00b when it comes to safe computing practices.
Just say no, to software mafia: Microsoft, Symantec, Quicken, et. al.
... I wish these features would make it into Vista.
.exe self-extractors. Software should come in a standard package format like MSI or be denied installation.
1. I'd like to update all my software in one place - even third-party applications.
2. I'd like hardware drivers to be present at such a place - even third party drivers. You know that cheap TV-tuner I bought? I'd like those drivers to be available there too. Before I buy new hardware I would like to be able to see if the drivers are available.
3. I'd like to adjust the deadzone of all my analogue input devices, including my Logitech joystick and my XBOX 360 controller for PC. It should be part of the calibration-process.
4. I'd like games to adhere to a common standard so that I don't have to reconfigure my joypad for every new game I buy.
5. I wish headsets would work better out of the box. For some reason using a microphone is always preceeded by an hour of troubleshooting.
6. I'd like chess to be one of the bundled games.
7. I'd like improved Bluetooth support. Support should be built-in for headsets, mice, joypads, keyboards joysticks and speakers. Without any need for third-party drivers.
8. I'd like the Device Manager to get its' own icon in the Control Panel.
9. I'd like to subscribe to NHL-games and watch them on my laptop/tablet on my way to work.
10. I'd like a search tool similar to Beagle with open APIs so third-party developers could define how data from their applications should be processed.
11. Just say no to
Damnit! That's eleven! If one has to go you can leave out chess.
1. Security, security, security: New holes, new holes, new holes.
2. Internet Explorer 7: GetFirefox.
3. Righteous eye candy: Ooohhh shiny...
4. Desktop search: Learn to organize.
5. Better updates: Why update? Because it was broken in the first place!
6. More media: More DRM!
7. Parental controls: Real parents don't need an OS to babysit their kids.
8. Better backups: Already have that.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: ???
10. Quick setup: Why am I running setup more than once anyways?
In short, 10 compelling reasons why you don't need to upgrade to Vista.
Does it strike anybody else as odd that all the features (maybe minus the eyecandy, although probably not) are not actual parts of the OS, but applications that should be completely separate from the OS. Doesn't microsoft have enough monopoly troubles without tieing more crap into the OS?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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So let me ask (because I don't really know) what would happen if you have to install a version of MacOS released before SATA (so w/o drivers) on a machine with a SATA HDD?
You won't be able to install at all. The installer knows what machine you're installing on and if it's supported.
I can hardly wait....
1. Lack of updated (signed) hardware drivers fo Vista.
2. Expensive software updates for those versions that don't run on Vista.
3. The search and expense for alternatives programs and hardware that will never be ported to Vista.
4. "Better Virus support.?" So, MS expects to still have viruses?
5. A boatload of lousy Windows programs that will (unfortunately) still run on Vista.
6. New and improved licensing schemes, activation, and shiny new rate plans.
7. Microsoft Access Vista (and the PHBs who will say it should replace your relational DB)
8. A new round of "Well business X is sending us Vista documents, so we need to upgrade too."
9. New technology, new training, new TA ("Hey, dude, where do I find Run on the menu?")
10. New Technology new Servers.
And Number 11...
Microsoft generated FUD on Windows XP and earlier technology.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Just have a look at my hacked up version to get an idea of how clean and easy a desktop can be.
Here's how it looks by defaulte b2006min0vj.jpg
http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenief
Here's how it looks when you start expanding thingse b20064nh.jpg
http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenief
Everyone bashes MS for being monolithic, but look at how little Active Desktop caught on. AD let's you customize your desktop more than any desktop I've ever seen and a lot more simply. Sure right out of the bok it's not the easiest thing ever, but with a couple of MS wizards and Clippy I'm sure it wouldn't be a stretch for a mildly interested user like Joe Sixpack to play around with.
Timeless Rogue Star - Defile Convention - Transcend Time, Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The "Average Joe" comments are getting long in the tooth now.
For instance, I remember just a few months ago when the Sony Rootkit fiasco was just becoming known. Here at Slashdot and other sites people were doing the "Nothing will come of this. Sony will do what they want and others will follow them because Average Joe User doesn't care about this and blah blah blah". Well, we all know what happened with THAT don't we? Unholy hell broke loose and EVERYONE...including the "Average Joe's" were up-in-arms about this to the point that Sony had to recall all the infected CD's.
It's about time we stop trying to sell the consumer short. The buying public is becoming more savvy. If this DRM thing that is suppose to be coming out for Vista finally hits, I would expect there to be major backlash.
Only time will tell.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Do you think I wanna have to go buy an nVidia 7800 GT (I *eventually* plan on getting one) just to be able to run Windows and play games like Battlefield 2 on low graphics (which my machine handles fine with its builtin ATI Radeon 200 Xpress). And whereas currently you easilly use a single 7800 GT and put all graphics on high, if you run Vista, running high graphics would mean using dual 7800 GTs in SLI, which would mean I'd have to buy an SLI mobo (my current board has PCI-X, just not in SLI) and a new power supply to provide all that newly added requirement for extra juice... so from the sounds of that alone, no thanks, I'll stick with XP for now...
So I agree with this guy below,
Tho as an avid OS X user, I do have to say that #7 and #8 are not found on my computer.
I MUST point out something I feel most computer users don't get about macs:
Mac OS X Tiger, with all it's whistles and bells (and a few more added for good measure) runs absolutely great on my DUAL 450 MHz G4 COMPUTER. Don't ask me how old this computer is. If I hadn't recieved this comp. as a present, I'd still be using my old Single Proc. 400 MHz G4.
So I use it for FTP (and SFTP/SSH), web server (apache, PHP etc.), audio streaming (via web), DVD burning, photoshop (intensively) and all that great stuff, all on my (by PC standards) ancient computer. With the newest OS. All those Dashboard, Exposé, and additional plugs (like multiple desktops, with transitions like 'cubing' for fun) all work.
I'll be DAMNED if I'm ever going to fall for the "Buy a WHOLE new computer every 2 years" B.S., i think that's really stupid. I had a hard drive *start* to act flaky a few years ago, and replaced it. I've NEVER reinstalled the OS from reformatting in 4 or 5 years. If your OS needs the brand-spankin' newest most hardcore processor and graphics card, that it's obviously REALLY BADLY MADE.
(obviously this holds for Linux too, but linux is definitely not for most people. For me, OSX is plenty Linux/Unix. i use the command line often, and install from source occasioanlly, but don't *have* to use command line all the time) I've noticed that every time a new version of OS X came out, it was *faster* that the last, not way way slower, as Vista sounds like it will be.
It's like the difference between getting the newest Honda or Nissan, vs. buying a new BMW or Benz. Pay a bit more, get a lot more that'll last for a longer time.
quote:
by Yahweh Doesn't Exist (906833) on Saturday February 18, @09:41AM (#14750091)
1. new firewall almost as good as ZoneAlarm
2. new IE almost as good as Firefox
3. new eye-candy almost as good as OS X
4. new desktop search almost as good as Google Desktop
5. new update program almost as good as Mac Software Update
6. new media programs almost as good as iLife
XX -> 7. new parental controls almost as good as proper parenting
XX -> 8. new backups almost as good as things not breaking in the first place
9. new P2P almost as good as turning off your firewall
10. new quick install almost as good as all the other planned features that don't actually exist yet
PS. I wonder if quick install is actually anything new. Also, unfortunately any mac user knows that Firefox was a great port of Safari (with a few nice added features). I was really hoping Vista would have something COOL about it, but it's all just catching up with Apple again.
And to think it only took you 7 releases to figure it out. If the rest of Micro$oft's customers are as willing to waste their money, their future is very bright.
an ill wind that blows no good
You finally get all the features every other operating system had from the fricken beginning!
> Why would you pay for your own shackles?
Because my wife complained that the garbage bag zip ties were irritating her wrists.
LOL! Everyone knows slashdotters don't have wives!
I installed the same beta in a VMWare session. That thing is a PIG. Windows XP, 2000, 98, 95, Linuxes of various sorts? All nice and fast under VMWare.
.. making it crawl.
.. and Windows XP (for all it's faults) fits the bill for now.
Vista Beta by itself took like 500 megs of ram JUST for the OS to be loaded. Nothing else. Because I only allocated 470 megs on the VM, it started paging hard
It is a lot of eye candy, yes. Do I want all the bloat? No. If I wanted eye candy, I'd go to KDE on Linux. I want a fast responsive system for my desktop PC
I was thinking much the same. For example, when I read this...
...I thought most usability research had pretty much thrown out this sort of visual jiggery-pokery some time ago now, having discovered that since monitors are basically flat, 2D surfaces, trying to project things in funky 3D or to impose layers through transparency just disorientates users. It's always possible that Microsoft have come up with a new and qualitatively different approach to that of the research labs at other big software places like Sun or IBM, of course, but I'm betting heavily on "gimmick" until I see any evidence to the contrary.
It seems to me that the vast majority of the 10 "reasons to buy" have already been more than adequately addressed on Windows platforms by third party software, some of which will presumably still be necessary since it sounds like MS isn't going to include any anti-virus software unless you pay for it. On other platforms, it either was never an issue, or is likewise addressed by third party add-ons. Putting it into the OS may or may not be an advantage relative to starting with nothing, but relative to where we are, who cares?
Of the remainder, if they're genuinely getting serious about security, that's great, but on the flip-side, we all know about the Trusted Computing rubbish, DRM, and all that jazz. On top of that, we have the recent stories about national governments wanting backdoors and entering talks with Microsoft to ensure they get them. If a government cracker can break my system, so can a script kiddie with the right friends, and that's game over for Microsoft's security drive. It's not secure if it has deliberate backdoors!
The more I read about Vista, the less I care, and I'm someone who (at present) does run XP both at home and at work, and uses some OSS for practical rather than philosophical reasons. I've been looking seriously at shifting to an alternative platform for a while, and with all the security and DRM badness going around lately, the obvious commercial alternative -- Apple -- is pretty much ruled out of the game by its own actions. This could be the best thing to happen to open source software since forever.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The thing that gets me is that Vista was touted by Microsoft marketing to be revoloutionary in the Windows lineup. All of the features that the author lists to be the main reasons why you would switch to Vista just seem to be either cosmetic or ancillary utilities to the core OS.
Remember that Bill Gates is the Dr. Death of software. HE decides when Microsoft's software is no longer usable, not the customers.
I decided their software wasn't usable a long time ago. Bill Gates didn't have to tell me that.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Up to the storm drain, then the gutter.
After three steps, you reach the curb.
Executive Summary: The only sure thing is that it will cost you a lot of $$$ per seat, and that seat has to be an EXPENSIVE seat as well. Forget using you one year old Dell box. You'll need to buy anti-virus/Trojan software. It still won't give you any more than you can get installing SUSE 10.0 or SimplyMEPIS-3.4.3 on your old Dell box, and either of them will cost you less than $100. and much less if you burn your own ISO.
...The new OS tightly integrates instant desktop search,
... the free stuff Gates and Company toss into the new OS, and Vista is no exception.
...screen out objectionable content ... restrict each account's access by time of day or day of the week...
;-) Only time will time.
1. Security, security, security:... but Vista takes security to the next level.
Echos of Ballmer. And what level of security can that be when one of the negatives is that Vista won't be shipping with anti-virus? Linux still doesn't require antivirus software, even though antivirus software houses have done their best to create the illusion that Linux needs their products.
User Account Protection, which invokes administrator privileges as needed,
A feature of Linux since the beginning.
2. Internet Explorer 7:
A FireFox wannabe. Everything IE7 is 'going' to have is already in FireFox, and FireFox will add features and patches much faster than Microsoft service IE7.
But Vista users get an important extra level of protection: IE7 on Vista will run in what Microsoft calls "protected mode"--a limited-rights mode that prevents third-party code from reaching your system. It's about darn time.
So Microsoft is going to try chroot. Nice, but a little late.
3. Righteous eye candy:
Expensive eye candy, considering the hardware you need to buy to see that candy. Are there enough games and gamers to give Microsoft a return? Such eye candy won't be necessary for SOHO/Enterprise business. Maybe Microsoft is trying for the Hollywood movie production firms?
And is it me, or is Microsoft's VISTA just another way to eat up CPU cycles from the new expensive hardware that it needs to run on? Will the spreadsheets or databases run any faster?
4.
Wow! Can you say "locate" folks? It does everything VISTA's search function is supposed to do and it can be done from a commandline or from a gui interface. It has been in Linux almost from the beginning. If Linux developers had Microsoft's patent propensity they could lock M$ out of the search game.
5. Better updates: Vista does away with using Internet Explorer to access Windows Update, instead utilizing a new application to handle the chore of keeping your system patched and up-to-date.
Microsoft saw Synaptic running apt-get and said "Wow!". Now they are copying it.
6.
Free? There's NOTHING free in Windows products that the consumer doesn't pay for several times over.
7. Parental controls:
Copying Linux again? In Linux you can give each child their own account, and when they can access it. And, control which websites they have access to and when they can access them. I don't need an expensive OS that will further restrict what I can do with my own computer to do that.
8. Better Backups
Anything would beat using IE to drag files to your CD icon, but excellent backup software like K3B has been in Linux for several years.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration:
Will that work as well with "cracker-to-cracker" collaboration?
10. Quick setup:... slash setup times from about an hour to as little as 15 minutes...
Microsoft's "setup time" has NEVER been as low as an hour unless it was partially setup by the vendor. Those that purchase XP separately can count on setup times that will stretch to four hours, IF they have drivers for all their hardware. They can also count on several reboots.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Like many have already pointed out, the list is merely listing things that are offered for free (Nix) / as part of other OSs (Mac). Even XP can have most of those features w/ the right third party apps. Backup? Parental Controls? IE 7? aargh! FFS who cares - and anyone who does will have already found a perfecly usable solution by now. E.g. anyone who is technically proficient and values their data already has some kinda backup routine / system that works for them, even if it is as simple as periodically copying your data directories lock stock and barrel onto another machine or medium. Eye candy is moot, you use your OS to do things, NOT for eye candy. If you want eye candy, you watch a movie, or look at some visual art, or play the latest 3D game. Seriously who really cares about how good their office application looks as long as it works and doesn't make you sick just looking at it. As for security and multimedia, coming from M$, I'll believe it when I see it. Bidirectional firewall... er... you mean like all those nice FREE 3rd party firewalls? Or that nice 'iptables' thingy that comes by default with Nix? oh. Multimedia? You mean DRM? AAARGH DOS, Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP. Note the trend: needs faster computers to run, all do fundamentally the same thing, but we're forced to upgrade when the software we want to use stops being supported by the legacy OSs. Oh yeah, and the cr@ppy security and networking 'features' that were built into the OS in the first place. Not to mention the good old "640k is enough of everybody" saga that led to years of fun with EMS, XMS, conventional memory et al and windows 95 putting the window dressing over the fact that the problem still existed until 2000. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I can't wait till I'm confident enough to port everything I do over to 'nix, and keep windows strictly for those one or two killer apps + games. Now if only Nix would fix them damned driver issues... hehehe
10 reasons to buy Windows Vista? I am WAY ahead of you, already bought it, and the features are great. When exactly? Oh... got the new iMac a month ago.
Reason #11, and I'm not kidding, is because it's such a bloated piece of crap that PC World will sell a TON of magazines. Vista will be new, different, confusing, poorly working, and LOTS of articles will need to be written to re-educate the masses on how to use Windows Vista and how to "tweak" it. If I was selling Windows magazines, I would be praying for Vista.
Sony showed you what rootkits and crap can do to you... now there is DRM and MS and others are backing it big.
If you see even a hint of DRM then do no buy... let them go back and rethink.
2. I like freedom
3. I like freedom
4. I like freedom
5. I like freedom
6. I like freedom
7. I like freedom
8. I like freedom
9. I like freedom
10. I like freedom
Hence, I use a few different variations of Linux on my boxes. No MS. No Apple. Just open-source and freedom. I don't give a shit that I can't play the newest games. I don't give a shit that I can't run the latest and greatest commercial apps. I don't give a shit that I can't use every cheap off-the-shelf piece of hardware. I don't give a shit that I don't belong to a an elitist club with a superior GUI. I value freedom over all. Am I an idealist? You bet.
Meh.
You win. This is the best answer I have seen yet.
Meh.
Somehow Linux is able to give high security without preventing it's users from doing anything but stare in stupor at the shiny bells and whistles.
I'm a musician and electronics tinkerer, and I'm wondering how this will impact playing with DSP/MIDI homebrew hardware/software, as well as the choice in vendors for commercial digital music processing/creation/control hardware and software.
There are two levels of driver signing under Windows Vista: signing by the author ($500 per year to VeriSlime) and signing by Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (I'm guessing roughly $1000 to $2000 per driver revision). If you see a "Designed for Windows" logo on the box, then the vendor is already paying for WHQL testing. Microsoft may be shooting itself in the foot with homebrewers, sending them to GNU/Linux or *BSD or the like.
I don't know why anyone would "upgrade" from Win 2K it's compatible with (90% ?)of XP apps, supports games that use direct x 9,and is relatively stable. It suffers from the usual Windows mediocre security, but that can rectified with the free zone alarm firewall, + the free avg anti-virus, + the free adaware and the free spybot search and destroy. Having a light interface it even is "teh snappy" on an old school Athlon 700 machine I found at a thrift store for 7 bucks. It also isn't encumbered with activation and DRM.
:) Even recent games render OK on the geforce 5200 fx upgrade card.
Would I rather use OS X on the desktop and Linux or BSD on a server? Yes of course, but I do think Win 2K pro was the best version of Windows Microsoft ever issued if one is forced to use Windows for games or work.
Vista I predict will be a resource hog and a DRM hell in exchange for transparent windows that won't be as classy as OS X. Who needs it the current games I can play on Windows suit me fine, Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed rulz.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
- Security: it may be better than in previous versions, but still ain't nowhere near good enough
- Internet Explorer: this source of uncounted security holes is still so tightly integrated into the OS, it can't be completely removed
- Eye Candy: as long as they don't care to use hardware acceleration (as in, say Xgl) I wouldn't even care to turn it on and thus waste my CPU clycles
- Desktop Search: Gee! With a frontdoor like that no hacker will ever need a backdoor to access your valuable and confidential data...
- Updates: I don't care how pleasant the update process is if I have to wait weeks or even months before critical security holes get closed
- The Media: Two words: Stop It! I don't want more of that DRM stuff getting shoved down my throat. And get those patent-covered additions outta my face, thankyouverymuch
- Parental Controls: Those who give up essential liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety!
- Backups: I've had it with better, really. I'll prefer a simple shell script with tar and gzip anytime over any sophisticated, shiny, super-polished, proprietary solution
- P2P-collaboration: First get the security model right (and prove it), then add new network stuff... (*sigh!*)
- Quick Setup: Yeah! I'd even take a slow one, if only it would run on my trusty albeit old boxen
</rant>But then again, I'm not the typical cabbage head user. I'm happy with my current OS, because it:
I don't find it very intelligent to choose a OS platform based on the availability of one game.
Tell that to anybody who bought an original Game Boy just to play Tetris, a Nintendo DS just to play Nintendogs, or a PSP just to play GTA. But you're right in one way: the people who bought a PSP to play Lumines are screwed.
Where were you Unix/navel centered bitheads in the mid-1970s when Bill and company were doing great things for the infant microcomputer industry.
I've worked with Unix/linux/qnx crap where one utility would do anything from showing a directory listing to scrubbing my back depending upon which of several hundred switches/parameters were included on the command line. All I had to do was memorize all of those switches because the app itself couldn't tell me what they were. (I once sarcastically told an employer that I was going to write a program that would do everything and I would name it god.exe.)
Where the unix/linus/qnx OS would consistently execute an older version of the application which I had just compiled...despite my efforts to get it to execute the just compiled version.
Where were you in 1976?
There were better operating systems back then than Unix/linux. There were better microcomputers (PCs to you younguns) back then other than the ones that became popular with the nutheads.
Only the mediocre operating systems and PCs won the public's eye. And we're still forced to use them...Linux included.
Fata viam invenient.
I swear on Howard The Duck that a significant portion of new pc purchases these days are because of malware infestations. Computers these days are fast, but not fast enough to browse the web while being ravaged by all the malware a typical user will pick up after a year or so of web browsing (or in some cases minutes of web browsing).
And here's the kicker-- typical users don't even know what they are dealing with. Many new pc purchases will come from those that believe their malware-slowed computers have simply become "obsolete." Now Vista will give them yet another reason to buy a nice, new, shiny and fast computer to replace their old, aging and slow 3.2ghz Pentium D.
Or, Howard willing, they'll buy a Mac.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
So take your pick: a whole evening with MS, or maybe an hour with Suse (answer all the questions up front, let Yast do the driving, reboot once at the very end and log on to a functional system).
If I Google "ten reasons to buy the next version of Microsoft Windows" will it give me similar results as Googleing "French military victories"?
Would I rather use OS X on the desktop and Linux or BSD on a server? Yes of course, but I do think Win 2K pro was the best version of Windows Microsoft ever issued if one is forced to use Windows for games or work
K ernel/default.aspx
r nel.mspx
Do you really not understand technology, or just pretending you don't?
WindowsXP has a massive scale of compatibilty, security, application stability and even tons of kernel enhancements over Win2k. People that see WindowsXP as Win2k with prettier graphics must also see a porshe as just a VW Bug with prettier paint.
Add in SP2 that forks off after the Windows 2003 server security and optimizations. (remmeber the reports that when Windows 2003 was first released it was faster on the desktop than XP? Well that code was pushed into WindowsXP in SP2.)
WindowsXP is not only safer, more compatible, has a ton more features, a more robust kernel, but is actually faster than Windows2K, even with the 'pretty' themes turned on. Average tests in our labs show XP consistently 10% faster than Win2k.
Here are some 'real' tech points, and these are just the changes in XP prior to SP2.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XP
Here is the MS version of some of the same topics:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/kernel/xp_ke
Happy reading and please for the love of God people stop believing that Win2k is A) Faster or B) more solid than XP. Both are false and just lead users to staying with an older OS and avoid XP when they could be benefiting from it.
Take Care,
TheNetAvenger
> Er...yes. Applescript is a legacy Mac feature and has nothing to do with the Unix shell. It can't even pipe text.
e ference/Manpages/man1/osascript.1.html
5 .html
Manual Page for osascript(1)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/R
Saying "[Applescript] can't even pipe text" as an argument is like saying "bash can't even manipulate the GUI controls!"
Anyhow, osascript can take scripts from std-in just like perl can.
Further, applescript can use the output of other shell scripts just like the backtick operator. http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn206
Finally, you used to have to kludge the shell to pipe text into an osascript, I don't know if this is still necessary (here's the proof of concept):
#!/bin/bash
#copy fd 0 (stdin) into a different fd...
osascript 10<&0 <<EOF
set linefeed to ASCII character 10
set u to "/dev/fd/10"
set p to POSIX file u
open for access p
copy result to stdin
set u to "/dev/fd/1"
set p to POSIX file u
open for access p with write permission
copy result to stdout
read stdin before linefeed as text
copy result to linebuf
set lp to POSIX file linebuf
tell app "Finder"
get comment of (lp as file)
copy result to file_comment
end tell
write (file_comment & linefeed ) to stdout
EOF
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Some of the top ten reasons are already good reasons to switch to GNU/Linux instead of Windows Vista. Here I go:
1. Security, user account protection (asking for administrator privileges only when necessary), integrated firewalls, preventing background processess from hijacking your computer. It's all already there in all mainstream Linux distributions.
2. Internet Explorer 7, it says it provides many different firefox-inspired enhancements, like tabbed browsing and a mode to not run third party code. All mainstream desktop Linux distributions come with Firefox and all this stuff, only new to Windows.
3. Eye candy: allright, you got me here, most Linux desktop are somewhat plain. Hopefuly Xgl and similar projects will start to implement a graphical interface that can make full use of OpenGL hardware acceleration. In the meantime though, it's not as important because what you miss in eye candy, you gain in compatibility with old hardware. So you save some bucks if you don't go for the extra candy. It can be thought as a good thing for new hardware but a bad thing for most users that don't want or need to change their computers.
4. Desktop search: Granted, Windows Vista apparently got there first. There have been many efforts going on to make it work on Linux, but apparently they're still not mature enough since they haven't been included on most mainstream desktop distributions.
5. Better updates: they say Windows doesn't need to access Windows Update through Internet Explorer anymore, and it has a new dedicated application for that. Linux has that already, and not only upgrades the OS, but all packaged applications. This is already there and more mature in Linux.
6. Media and games: we have good games and multimedia applications and frameworks on Linux. It's very good and can compete with Windows Vista. I say we might have a tie here. There are many things that are more polished in Linux while there are other things that work better on Windows.
7. Parental controls: Microsoft got this one. We still don't have anything friendlier than "Dans Guardian". Good but not easy to setup. And not really secure for only one computer. I don't see this as very useful though. But some other parents may find it more useful (maybe fascist ones).
8. Backups: OK, it seems Microsoft got here first too. There are still no user-friendly backup solutions available for Linux that I know of. See that I wrote 'user-friendly', not 'geek-friendly'.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: I won't say my opinion here, I don't know what this does, but apparently Linux doesn't do this in a way that's user-friendly. It's probably a point for Windows Vista.
10. Quick setup. no chance they can beat Linux here. Linux install a complete working environment in about half an hour, while Windows just has the base Operating System in 15 minutes, and then users need to manually add a whole bunch of applications. It normally takes 4 hours easily on XP. Maybe now it will take only 3. Still doesn't beat Linux.
Some other reasons to get Linux instead:
1. Free: it's free because you can download it for free, and it's free because you can do whatever you want with it. Even sell copies and get all the cash for yourself, and modify it without risk of going to jail. Just free in every sense. Windows Vista is expensive and restrictive.
2. Complete working environment: you can start doing productive work right away on Linux, you don't have just the Operating System and need to buy extra applicaitons to get the computer to do something useful.
3. Community support: you get free technical support from online communities all around the World.
4. Free upgrades: don't need to pay for upgrades.
So far I've put 9 reasons to use Linux, and 10 to use Windows, 5 of the 9 reasons to use Linux are also reasons to use Windows Vista.
Linux has many other things useful to advanced users. Some of the reasons to use Linux have much more weight, like the $0 price tag.
I think I will not pay the price for Vista, and stick to my Linux desktop.
I take two online courses for my college, only way to take as many credits as I do. Although Angel (the online course system that SUCKS) is not platform dependent, the stupid ITS dept. at my school has screwed up the scripts so that it becomes incompatible with anything else. (it won't allow any posting or uploading) Either I can not post anything (which will fail me as interaction is required) not have any popups (which is reqired to upload files, and allows you to preview and view a lot of stuff), or I can use IE.
I hate my school
Perhaps most crucial (and least sexy) is the long-overdue User Account Protection, which invokes administrator privileges as needed, such as during driver updates or software installations. UAP makes it much more convenient for users to operate Vista with limited rights (meaning the system won't let them do certain things, like load software, without clearance from an administrator). This in turn limits the ability of malware to hose your system.
You could do this already in XP but hopefully it works properly and is the compulsory default. Even going so far as to not allow 'admin' logins without changing a deeply nested option would be good so the stupid nubs who would still insist on loging in as admin would atleast find it a bit harder to hose their system.
For those who can't RTFA: ...
1) Less broken security than XP
2) Don't need that annoying 10 minute wait downloading Firefox to get a tabbed browser
3) Eye candy (if you buy a new high-end video card)
4) Don't need that annoying 5 minute wait downloading Google Desktop to get a search that finds stuff
5) Does security updates exactly the same way as XP does... er
6) Don't need that annoying 10 minute wait downloading a useable media player and image organizer
7) New parental controls mean it will take your kids as long as 18 seconds to get to porn.
8) Built-in back-up software now easier for your mom to ignore.
9) Collaboration software the OS team found in the Office team's dumpster one night
10)Something that wasn't in the beta the reviewer saw, but MS said was positively, definitely going to be in there.
Whoopee. Now for the negatives:
1) You have to give Microsoft money
2) Less broken security than XP, but still broken.
3) Your PC is too slow to run it.
4) They've moved everything on the menus about at random again.
5) Windows Mail is Outlook Express with grep ran over the source code. Hey, I think renaming it is a positive, in a few years I won't have tpo explain that the bloody thing is not Outlook.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
What sort of world does this guy live in? 300 or 400 GB hard drives, standard? I've yet to see a popular desktop computer, that isn't a server or a gaming machine, with more than 100 GB... It's possible to get 300 and 400 GB hard drives, certainly, but excepting the more extreme computer applications (i.e. games, server apps, design apps), this space is rarely necessary.
games journalism blog
Ever heard of Konfabulator ?
dont know bout xp, but the i cant kill a process indicates extreme newby in windows2000
(right click my computer, manage, services...)
Only Windows 1.0....Steve Balmer REALLY pushed the solitaire in his commercial.
Hey, It was the 80's, and I was drunk, OK.
Won't do THAT again...
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Yeah, great job. If you go through and set up Windows XP correctly, you know what you're doing, and you use the non-GUI installation interface, you can install WinXP in 25 min. I've done it. Theortically, if you installed from a network, with higher speed drivers, you could install in 15.
BUT, the question is, will anyone ever experience this ideal situation? I think not.
What I thoght exactly as I read the list!!
1. Security, security, security: I don't have to worry bout this. I don't have to worry bout this. I don't have to worry bout this.
2. Internet Explorer 7: Safari...
3. Righteous eye candy: OS X has been pretty from 10.1
4. Desktop search: Apple has always had a decent search function... Always... All the way back in Sherlock One. And now with Spotlight, It is simply amazing.
5. Better updates: I run Software Update regularly. I check the updates I want do download. I click Install. I click Accept to any EULA's. I wait for them to Download and Install on their own. I restart the computer, if needed. The End. No Hassle
6. More media (This gets special consideration...): Windows Media Player gets a welcome update that turns the once-bloated player into an effective MP3 library. (iTunes has always been an effective MP3 Library...) The Windows Photo Gallery finally adds competent photo-library-management functionality to Windows, so you can organize photos; apply metatags, titles, and ratings; and do things like light editing and printing. (iPhoto baby...) The DVD Maker application, which was still very rough when I looked at it, promises to add moviemaking capabilities--along the lines of Movie Maker--to the operating system. (iMovie and iDVD) There are even some nice new games tucked into the bundle. (All have been here for years and all have been included with every new computer...)
7. Parental controls: *Looks in Safari Preferences, iTunes Prefs, System Prefs, Finds parental controls in all...*
8. Better backups: Umm... I never need to Defrag my mac. If I do need to completely backup my computer, I do the firewire hard drive thingy and make a copy of the computer, basically.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: iChat and Very simple networking. 'Nuff Said.
10. Quick setup: I put in my disc. I start up the computer. I enter my info. I click install... The End
OR on an existing computer
I put in the disc, I click "Install Tiger"... The End
*Hugz me Macs*
You forgot to mention stability....
Oh...
Do I know you on Last.FM?
Give Linux a try and you will never be disapointed!!
Well, I'm disappointed with linux almost daily, but I still keep using it. Of course, its irritations are nowhere near as bad as WindowsXP, which seems to have been designed specifically to irritate the power user.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
Do you have anything other than Microsoft's own FUD to back this up? We all know how reliable their Linux benchmarks are and what an incentive they have to get us to "upgrade."
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Hahaha... yeah. Well, color me unimpressed.
.NET 1.1 can talk XMPP and has messaging APIs.
They extend the presence concepts (Jaber, XMPP, Google Talk, everybody's doin it) and notification APIs (what, on top of UPnP, right?). Never mind that you need to have apps that support it.
Basically, Office.
Oh, and Office on other OSs (2000/XP) will support the same workflow features.
So, what's so great about this? It's not like you can't bundle a simple API with your API to talk the talk. UPnP was available in XP Gold.
Big. Fucking. Deal.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Is so you can talk about Windows without accidentally referring to features from the outdated 5 years+ old XP that were removed in Vista...
-- Provided that auditing is turned on and you're logging the minimum of: process execution / fork system calls, opens, closes and process exits.
Have a cron job that runs daily and mines the audit data for file access that happens after execs of programs (on a per program basis). Have it analyze at least N execs and find all the common file open-for-reads that happen consistently in that process or any child. (You need to log closes/exit so you know the scope of a process and when to stop looking for file opens that might belong to a process you're interested in... speeds up log processing).
Once the cron job has culled enough data, it would create a "prefetch profile" listing the files that are common, and stat them to find how big they all are. If there are a lot of small files, it'll check to see if the blocks of each file are roughly in the same area of the disk. If not, unlink and copy in place to try to coerce them into the same allocation group.
Finally, it would create a small script or config file in a directory somewhere, one for each monitored program, listing the files in sorted order by their block positions on the disk. This file would be read by a system service that runs before login and occaisonally wakes up and reads those files, thus forcing them into the buffer cache. It would decide which file groups to read first based on the amount of time each parent exec process ran during the log interval examined (100% of the time, 50% of the time). A certain weight would be given to programs that are started repeatedly (since they may incur many disk IOs [page in AND page out] better to do it upfront).
The file service would constantly run, reading files aggresively when the IO load is otherwise low (sort of like the minimum and maximum transfer rates of the softraid kernel threads), but throttling back when in IO contention. It would wake up after short intervals, find the most "important" program it hasn't loaded files for that isn't already running, and work that file list. Then go to sleep for a time that keeps the average IO rate below the max threshold.
A side effect of this might be that the page flush kernel threads need not run so frequently since this program will put page-out pressure on old pages.
And the service would go to sleep for a long time when IO counters indicate less than a certain threshold of page-ins since the last time it ran (and collected said statistics)... this indicates that it can no longer improve any program's startup time.
Wow. This is intense. I wonder if the optimizer in OSX is anything like this, or the RedHat prefetch service.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
My bosses have been buying computers like they were going to stop being made for the last year. (I did too--to avoid being locked in to VISTA-TPM slavery). The Big Boss hasn't trusted MS in years. In fact, after my new box was set up and my files transferred I was allowed to install Linux on the old box! Who really believes that "Trusted Computing" is really for the benefit of users users or even owners, instead of being for MS, it's ilk and and whichever of their business partners they "lease" access to? VISTA-TPM "owners" will just be suckers whose computers will be controlled by distant third parties. Believe what you want to believe, though.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
So lemme get this straight. You say that Mac browser's suck. So that means:
;) Make sure you brush your teeth.
Konqueror sucks (which Safari originated from)
Firefox/Camino/Mozilla/Netscape suck
Opera sucks
Wow... that's quite a load of FUD you're spitting out there
The ONLY browser that I will agree with you on is IE for Mac which MS abandoned quite some time ago. All the others I listed are pretty much identical to their Windows or Linux counterparts and are quite nice.
1.) Security. Yeah... XP showed us how great MS is at that. But forgetting XP, 'security' doesn't mean much until it's out and circulating, and people start trying to use that 'security'.
.\shortcut\folder\file. Oh. And backslashes. MS, aren't your programmers screaming at you for having to type things like: "\\\\blah\\folder\\blah"?
2.) IE 7: Seven eh? Wonderful, I'll breeze right past six, being a five users. If it's Firefox-inspired, is it finally detached enough from the OS to be useful? Tabs are nice, yes, but Firefox and others beat you to it MS. And add some shortcut keys for Heavens sake! One of the things I love about FF is that it can be controlled without a mouse. Productively.
3.) Eye candy. Processor hog, maybe, but I dig computers that look good. As long as it's smooth. Lose the smoothness, and you lose the eye candy.
4.) Desktop search: He complains about the XP search, I do hate that thing. Now we've all got a better reason to store all our documents inside that pretty "My Documents" folder. Forget organization. (I'm guilty of this too...)
5.) Better updates: IE and Windows Update separated? Praise God if this is true. I've installed XP on computers only to have Windows Update crash, fresh out of the box. That, and the upgrades themselves often crash.
6.) More media: A good thing, but this guy loses points: "one of the key reasons to upgrade versions of Windows has been the free stuff Gates and Company toss into the new OS" Very interesting, given the price tag with three digits to the left of that decimal point. Wow, free stuff I pay for!
7.) Parental controls: Reminds me of the little HAL-control installed on Discovery. Worked well.
8.) Better backups: A good thing, whoops, more lost points: "Today, desktops routinely ship with 300GB or 400GB hard drives." Oh yes. Let's make replicas of all our files on our harddisk? Then the entire disk gets lost in some accident, and... well. I've been brought laptops that were "acting bad", whose problem was they'd filled the harddisk up with copies of itself...
9.) P2P collaboration: I can collaborate, joy, but can we share files? (Yup, this OS will sell...)
10.) Quick setup: A good thing, whoops, this guy just seems to shoot himself in the foot: "will slash setup times from about an hour to as little as 15 minutes." An hour, eh? If that's XP you're talking about, it's not an hour. There's install, which takes at least an hour, then patching, patching, and my God, more patching. Then you have to install real software, given that Windows computers come with none themselves.
There's just one thing I want. (Well, maybe not quite) Symbolic links, like what Linux and Macs have. I'd kill for symbolic links. And no, 'shitcuts' do not count. If I use a shortcut to a directory, I can't say:
Don't get me wrong here though: It could be a huge improvement over XP and family. Unless it's disasterous, I plan to get it myself. (Dual-booting with Linux, and OS X, if possible...)
What was wrong with the NTBackup supplied with XP (developed by Veritas, wouldn't you know)?
* Easy to pick exactly what you want to back up
* Easy to add pattens or folders to always exclude, with a sensible default list.
* Volume shadow support
* Schedule it to run anytime.
Why... it didn't support burning to DVD?
It doesn't take anyone who has the sense to make backups more than minute to see you can drag that file into a DVD burning application.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I never saw the point in moving from Win2000 to XP (I won't call this an 'upgrade', because it sure as shit isn't), and there's nothing whatsoever compelling in Vista that would make me even consider throwing my Win2000 away. Granted, I generally only use my Windows partitions for games, but then - so do most 'power' Windows users. Those that aren't power users are content with email, browsing, playing music, maybe watching an occasional video - and you can do each and every one of those things on Win98, much less any newer version of Windows. You certainly don't need anything beyond Win2000 for any of this.
The only people I see actually going out and spending cash on Vista are those buying a new stock computer, pre-made from someplace like Dell - because they'll need a new computer just to boot the fucking OS. The average Joe and Jane User already have machines which far exceed the specs required for their usage, machines that they're used to and have configured 'just so'. Not to mention the headache of moving all of their data, a real chore for Joe and the Missus.
There aren't any more 'must have' apps for Windows that convince people to upgrade before the life of their machine expires. We already have everything that 99% of us need, and what the other 1% thinks none of us gives two shits about. As for the win/machine combo upgrade, most people are going to say "been there, did that far too many times, fuck if I'm going to do it again anytime in the near future", and move on - without Vista making so much as a blip on their radar.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
You know, you don't actually have to write "TheNetAvenger" at the bottom of the post, it says it riiiiiight up the top just underneath the subject line, for everyone to see.
The bounty for finding a critical bug in Windows seems to be about $10,000. Microsoft never gets new technology right, the first time. Vista won't cost $10,000 a seat. How can you possibly fail to make a decent income off the bounties alone, for the remainder of your working life?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Vista is a collection of third-rate copies of features that already exist in other systems. It is very unlikely to be more secure than XP. It is even more bloated and power-hungry than its predecessor.
It will sell jillions and jillions of copies.
Big cons are glanced over here. IE is probably the most used feature on most peoples' computers. From surfing for fun to surfing for business, I'd say most users spend most of their time in their Web browser (or maybe a document editor). Especially with 'web applications' being so popular.
Local network connectivity? Is this going back to Windows 98 days where despite being on the same network, with the proper settings, you still can't use file/printer sharing with the computer you can easily ping? Isn't this a big thing for home users (broadband) and more importantly corporate users (files, printers, workgroup, shared workspace, groupware, and of course the Internet).
these two things should be the first to be made rock-solid. They're well into beta testing, with it being over a year (let alone alpha testing internally before). These would be the first thing I would perfect, especially considering the huge dependency on it.
Yet this guy just runs over it, as if they were minor bugs, like an interface quirk or debugging message. Already a few paragraphs in he discredits himself by paying no attention to the biggest glaring errors. Talk about being PAID to be positive about the article.
Now one more issue.
Greeeeaaaaat. Just what we need- another interface look. Get with the program. The interface should by consistent. 100%. Turn off rendering shadows and transparencies. Turn off anything 3D. Make it a 2D bitmap for all I care. But keep it looking the same. Replace the 3D bar with a static image, and then don't need the rendering features. Look is the same, but it's not as crisp. This is just another way to tell users to look for the little green start button and them to go "you mean the blue one" because they were dumb enough to feel the need to change it.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Makeover?? Rip-off! Anyone tried IE7? That shit is just a pure imitation of Firefox. It looks like Firefox, but it acts as a 38 ton truck.
You just got troll'd!
Yeah. DRM. If you have it installed and use that software and DRM'ed material. Why does my DRM'ed W2k3 still play all my MP3s? BECAUSE IT CAN.
Sooooo sick of hearing about DRM this DRM that. Anyone would think a Windows install can't rip a CD.
Just shut up about it, or at least learn what the hell you're talking about.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
I'm surprised that the article didn't mention the fact that DirectX 10 isn't being backported. Sure, how many games are going to need it in the near future... but on the same hand, how many developers and publishers are just going to shrug and move on to use it when MS pushes it out?
>1. Security, security, security: Windows XP Service Pack 2 patched a lot of holes
I've had no virus/spyware problems on Win2003 or Win2000.
>2. Internet Explorer 7: IE gets a much-needed, Firefox-inspired makeover
How does this affect Mozilla users?
>3. Righteous eye candy: For the first time, Microsoft is building high-end graphics effects into Windows.
Pointless.
>4. Desktop search: Microsoft has been getting its lunch handed to it by Google and Yahoo on the desktop,
>but Vista could change all that.
Not if I keep using Google.
>5. Better updates: Vista does away with using Internet Explorer to access Windows Update
I don't use Windows Update.
>6. More media
Media is the biggest canard ever in the software industry. If you do anything based on the word "media" then you have a lot to learn.
>7. Parental controls
Don't care.
>8. Better backups
Again, don't care. I don't rely on M$ to store my data.
>9. Peer-to-peer collaboration
Huh? Most of my friends don't even use my keyboard. What does collaboration have to do with Windows?
>10. Quick setup...will slash setup times from about an hour to as little as 15 minutes.
Most Windows installs are designed to run for months. If setup time matters, then by definition your install doesn't.
I would actually be interested in improvements in Windows Vista. For what it's worth.
There are several excellent reasons for even "Average Joes" to upgrade from 98 and XP. I _thought_ the article was going to highlight improvements like Kernel upgrades, Network Stack and IPv6, and Memory Management with the fluff stuff but was sorely disappointed.
;)
I was pretty ambivalent about up upgrading until I watched these interviews. Of course, given the source I take what they say with a grain of salt. On the other hand, these guys are the coders and not the businessmen, so I think I'm more willing to listen to them when they say they're onto something cool.
Dang it, there I go trusting something M$ has to say...another marketing victim
This crap happens all the time. It happened in NT4. It happened in 2000. It happens in XP.
When I'm root on a *nix system, about the only thing that will tell me to suck it is a hardware problem. (For instance and HD read error. Sometimes you can't even kill the service reliably.)
"Access Denied" is something I should NEVER see when running as an admin.
BTW. Apple ripped off the task bar from Microsoft
OS X is the direct descendant of NeXTSTEP. Notice the same Dock in the screenshots? Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Windows Taskbar is a ripoff of the NeXTSTEP Dock. Even the Recycler was ripped off (the Recycle Bin). Thanks for playing and please drive through.
Captalism can be either a beautifull thing or a nightmare.
People do not care about serious issues. They just care for a fancy GUI.
Let them have it.
Some time ago I decided that the majority of people are running on stupid mode.
Let them have their stupid pill.
The description in this article of the peer-to-peer collaboration seem very similar to what ICQ was doing with their "corporate version" before AOL bought them dismantled the product....
Everyone keeps hating on Microsoft for including all this (God Forbid) DRM in Vista. Guess what.
... all the way to the monitor. Recently, ATI got caught with their pants down claiming that
OSX nor Linux are ever going to have a chance of playing Blu-ray or HD-DVD in their current forms.
The only way that would ever happen is if they were loaded up with drm and the hardware was locked down. I
guess a lot of people don't realize that their beige box 'puters that they install their brand new copy
of Vista on aren't even going to play HD-DVD in its highest resolution. You think Microsoft LIKES putting
DRM in their OS? What do they have to gain if the studios didn't require it to play their content (I mean
it must be their content since we can no longer do with it as we please).
Anyway, back to my small rant. In order to be certified to play HD-DVD or Blu-ray there must be a complete
trusted path
they were selling a card that had HDCP support. I guess someone forgot to tell them they can only sell
THOSE cards to OEMs that were certified.
Now a lot of people will say: "Well just don't buy Vista or HD-DVDs". Sorry folks, a LOT of people myself
included WANT to be able to play HD-DVD on their home theater systems. So, some will say: "Just buy a
standalone player". Again, I don't want to. I like all the things an HTPC gives me. So, bottom line, since
the STUDIOS require the DRM, I don't see why everyone is busting Microsoft's chops.
-- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
Msft is coming out with seven different versions. My guess is that the standard version, the version that ships to most home PCs, will prove inadequate within a few months.
Fortunately, msft will provide an upgrade version for $149.
" Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista"
But I still haven't seen a real reason to actually buy windows yet... I mean, as opposed to, well, y'know...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
microsoft should target their OS at a broader audience. if i were them, i'd dump the current code and start from scratch like OS X, with Unix foundation and everything. i'm sure they've got the cash to develop this, if apple was able to... thanks.
This is exactly why I've always said that we should promote Free Software for its ethics rather than any particular feature that it happens to have at a particular moment. The technical advantages (such as security) that products like Firefox might have over other products will always come and go, but the ethics of Free Software will only cease to matter when if all software eventually guarantees users' freedom.
Ethics, shmethics. Although that's a good reason, a better (and more simple) one is this: use Free Software because everything else is hostile to you . This is getting (much) worse because of Treacherous Computing and Digital Restrictions Enforcement, but this reason existed even way back when Stallman was trying to get his printer to do what he wanted (instead of what the manufacturer wanted).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yes, that's basically what ethics means to me. By hurting others in our society, we hurt ourselves because we have to live in that society too. So it's much the same as being hostile or selfish. But, as always, finding a simple, catchy way to communicate the issues is the difficulty.
Slashdot needs something like a "-1, Ye olde chair joke" mod or such. Or perhaps a "-1, meme" mod? I wish mods would mod up insighful stuff or genuinely funny comments instead of old crap that hasn't been funny in a long time. Modding the right comments up instead of this crap is what makes slashdot worth reading in the first place.
...Billy G. needs the cash.
Could someone PLEASE explain to me why everyone is annoyingly comparing Windows to Mac and other OS? Windows is updating WINDOWS, it's not updating MAC. You people are impossible to please. "It's not like Mac!" Hmm, maybe because it's Windows? And if Windows didn't try to start to "compete" with other OS, you'd all start a topic saying, "Eh! Microsoft still doesn't know anything! What are they waiting for!?" Just because Mac has had 'better security' since...ever...doesn't mean Windows can't attempt to have it either. If you like your mac, good. Stay with it. And for the people who like Windows, I'm sure they are happy that their company is upgrading.
I understand your concern, but I believe that it is misplaced. All libraries have porn filters for children's machines. But that's quite different from being unable to find information on breast cancer because the local bible thumpers forced the local library to deny any access to a website that has the word 'breast' on it. I've even seen library filters deny me access to Safeway grocery ads because chicken breasts were on sale there.
I typed 'horse pictures' into Google and got pictures of horses. Search engine companies are very sensitive to having children access accidently hard-core porn images when doing innocent searches. This is a concern between the porn industry and the search engine companies. They have to come to an arrangement that prevents this kind of thing from happening. It's very bad for their businesses. Having children innocently and accidently come across porn images will become rare in the near future. It is much less common now than it was five years ago.
But that will happen without over-restrictive filters on websites on public-access computers.
never heard of it before, but a quick google search starts settnig off alarms immediately
"
System Requirements:
* Windows XP with Service Pack 1 installed or Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 installed, or newer, or Mac OS X 10.3 or newer.
* A connection to the Internet.
* 512 megabytes of RAM is recommended.
* Lots of spare time.
"
Not exactly a small footprint, which goes against the grain of being simple and innovative. The increase in computing power isn't an excuse to add bloatware to a desktop. I think that's one of the reasons Macs have done as well as they have (even if only a minor one), they don't leave widgets that'll painfully slow things down for the user. I don't know about you, but I think a lot of users like to crank all the settings up, which can lead to sloppy performance if there is bloat left around. For consumer software, it doesn't matter which product has more features if the core of the product is sluggish and gets in the way of getting something done.
Timeless Rogue Star - Defile Convention - Transcend Time, Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Looking at it from a Linux perspective, this is the area that Microsoft seems to be furthest behind to me (with the software on XP). The last time that I looked there were at least three "Windows Update" versions - "Windows Update" (which seems to be called "Microsoft Update" these days), "Office Update", and MBSA.
Even if these were consolidated into one I can't see the third-party suppliers letting Microsoft manage their updates the way that equivalent Linux suppliers let the Linux distributions do.
For example, Realplayer and MS Media Player don't exactly "play well together" - I can't see Real agreeing to be included in some MS equivalent of Yast or apt-get. The equivalent Linux media players need the distributions and the distributions need the software - it's a beneficial relationship that doesn't exist in the Microsoft world. Windows XP thinks that it can do everything (there was an interview a while back with someone from Microsoft claiming I think that "everyone talks about iLife but no-one talks about Scanners and Cameras Wizard") but it sometimes doesn't seem to recognise that sometimes other people can do a better job than you and if it's selling your OS - that's still good for you.
We've got 3rd-party applications as the standard for many things on Windows, how about a 3rd-party package manager? With a trustworthy name behind it it could make sense. It would have to be free at the point of use, though...
What about people that currently run older machines?... how well does it operate on an Athalon 750 with 512 of ram, and a 32m Nvidia Ge-Force 2 GTS? Really!...... i'd like to know! because my budget isn't looking too good for upgrades for a while.
Do you have anything other than Microsoft's own FUD to back this up? We all know how reliable their Linux benchmarks are and what an incentive they have to get us to "upgrade."
I do; however, shouldn't you rethink this a bit? It is their OS, and their kernel technologies, who do you think would know them better than MS? Why would MS even put time into 'changing' what was in Win2K if it wasn't to improve it?
Secondly, the facts Microsoft present, like "Larger Device Drivers and System Space" are facts that any geek can check to see works in XP and will fail in Win2k as there is limited space.
As for the non-Microsoft FUD, the first link I posted was from a MS site, however the article was written by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon, and Mark is of SysInternals, a company that has been both assistive and quick to point out truths of flaws in NT over the years. You can find their site at:
http://www.sysinternals.com/
So unless they were just being paid to say what MS wanted them to say and risk their credibility with items that could easily be proven wrong if they were wrong, then ya, all I have is MS FUD.
If you don't believe the links I posted, go freaking test it yourself, try to break XP and prove to the world that MS has been lying about XP for 5 years and no one else but you were smart enough to find it. Prove that the Registry Limits are the same as Win2k, pick anything.
There are also a lot of other system changes that are only casually mentioned or skipped in these articles. For example, did you know that in WindowsXP if an application makes a very bad call, instead of just shutting down the offending application as Win2k would do to protect the OS, XP will try to figure out what the application was trying to do, and fix the call and pass back the correct information, address, etc in real-time, so the application doesn't fail and the user never even notices. All for compatibility to correct mistakes of 3rd party programmers that were idiots to keep the 'software' running as expected. That is enough of change in the OS between Win2k and XP to warrant the upgrade alone, let alone the performance, stability, and other improvements.
Does anyone here even think anymore, or does the Microsoft name invoke a knee-jerk reaction and bring out the 'idealistic anti-MS ignorance'?
You know, you don't actually have to write "TheNetAvenger" at the bottom of the post, it says it riiiiiight up the top just underneath the subject line, for everyone to see.
:)
No I didn't notice that, oh my God... (just funning with ya)
Actually, it is a habit so that your name doesn't get forgotten. (i.e. business communication, sign, repeat, sign, etc.)
And although not intended in this instance, it looks like it worked, I bet you won't forget it.
TheNetAvenger *Smile*
The Fedora Project is making great strides with SElinux, but as you note, the browser (and e-mail client) are tough cases, because they can launch other apps (OOo, media players, plugins) with different security requirements from the browser. Handling these transitions in a flexible but secure way is challenging. But with the progress being made now, a solution will almost certainly be shipped in the Vista timeframe. The expectation is that Linux desktop releases that appear in late 2006 (FC6?) -- around the same time as Vista -- will use SElinux to sandbox desktop applications.
You put forth that users must either choose between user-friendly with "bloat", or lean and mean but user-hostile. This, however, is not the case.
I will surely upgrade to vista when it is released. coz it rocks,i think it is going to have a good 64 bit support. Check this too: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1931917 ,00.asp
http://www.alieneyes.uni.cc/