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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."
They will if they want to have a "Made for Windows Vista" logo on the outside, which would be all major PC manufacturers. Trust me, most OEMs are already well aware of the Microsoft Logo requirements for Vista. If it's going to ship on your PC (and by ship I don't mean your brother's girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's PC company down the street) it will probably be logo'd. If it has that logo, it will run Vista just fine.
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.
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?
Is there any way to mod this story 'troll'?
Actually there is.
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.
Have you seen what comes by default with Mac OS...?
Yes I have and it's not as great as Windows. iLife is not bundled with Mac OS although it is bundled with the machine. It's not the end-all of bundled software either.
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.
Compatibility with more games.
This may be an argument for XP, but it's not one for Vista. The only game I've heard of so far that will be Vista-only is the next version of Halo and that's strictly for political reasons.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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?
Are you serious? Windows Vista is clearly a revolutionary operating system from a company that really knows how to innovate.
Caution: May contain nuts.
Well, in a way it has. But the control in OSX aren't nearly as customizable as what Vista will offer. To be able to lock down computers based on time of day is worth way more to me than full bore program restrictions.
Like I said though, I don't have kids, so I'm looking at this from a lab administration aspect, where restricting based off of times would be great.
Yes, but only an Intel one because the PowerPC ones don't have TPMs (which is why I'm probably going to buy a non-Apple machine to replace my iBook once it gets obsolete enough).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
shouldn't that be Meet the *new* boss, same as the *old* boss
i mean, that's the lyric
Supplies!
Compatibility with web sites that are made exclusively for Microsoft Internet Explorer technology and for which there are no close substitutes.
;)
And which sites would that be (that people would care about)?
I have an offshore account, with a major bank. They used to only accept Netscape Communicator 4.72 and IE 5/6 as browsers (they'd check User-Agent: w/ JS, and not let you login if you don't match).
They kept on changing the system (HTML, JS, removed all JAVA stuff), and I've been using FireFox (with user-agent extension) for a year.
I've mailed them once telling them that systems works perfectly fine with Firefox.
Then I realized I don't use User-Agent extension at all and I am still able to login into banking system.
Moral of the story - things are changing. If major bank modifies its banking system so that it works with Firefox, I think it says something.
Either they care about users, or they have hired a switched on geek, aware of standards
Everyone who tries to get power tries to get it for the purpose of enslaving you. The only question is who puts soft padding to the inside of the shackles and who lines them with spikes. Whoever wants power wants it so he can wield it and force others to do his will; that doesn't mean that he has to be malicious, but it does mean that he wants to force you to his will.
Democracy isn't about being free, it is about being imprisoned in some way you can live with.
And before some libertarian starts piping up about their governmentless utopia, that would be far nastier slavery than what most Western governments nowadays practice. Bubba Bodybuilder and Cid Colt don't have to pretend that they have any goodwill towards you, they just have to be stronger and better armed than you.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
So the top reason to buy Vista is "you have to".
Well, only if you want a *nix/OSX like system that runs microsoft software.
Top ten reasons to switch to Ubuntu:
- User Account Protection
- Firefox
- Compiz/glx (backports of dapper only though)
- Desktop Search
- Better System Wide Update. (kernel, OS, and software updates)
- More Standard Media, default meda types don't bind you to a vendor. See also: VLC, XMMS, Songbird, and MPlayer
- Parental control (privoxy, dansguardian, and safesquid, for those of you who want the computer to parent your kids for you)
- Better Backups: Back up your entire system with a single command
- Peer-to-Peer collaboration.... networking? Filesharing? what is this new buzzword, and why does it sound like what all computers have been doing for ages now? Especially Linux
- Quick and accurate setup: Ubuntu allows you to resize partitions and dual boot without being an uber-geek.
And what the heck, I'll throw in some more:"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
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
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.
Another comment modded "insightful" that is just plain wrong. There is no requirement that users have a special monitor to view "secure" windows media content. They have, apparently, put in some code that will not allow you to view high resolution (hi def?) content in its highest resolution without the new displays because of the risk of people ripping off the content in the high resolution format. You can argue with that if you want but the point is that this post is just wrong. Who modded it insightful? If you mod that insightful then you should mod this comment insightful too: Linux will not allow you to view "secure" Quicktime movies without a special monitor. [ See, I said it therefore it must be fact and - of course - is also insightful.
it knows what applications you typically use and at what times so it'll preload them into memory making it seem snappier
Could you please provide a link to this article? While I'm interested to read it, I don't really buy this. Friggin' XP can't figure out how often I use programs now. (When you go to "Add/Remove Programs" it is supposed to tell you how often the program is used.) For example what XP says/actual:
Adobe Acrobat: "occasionally" / several times a day
APC PowerChute Personal Edition: "rarely" / is _always_ running
Gaim: "occasionally" / is _always_ running
Firefox: "occasionally" / default browser
Thunderbird: "frequently" / finally got one right
WinRAR archiver: "rarely" / several times a day
I don't want Microsoft deciding which programs it thinks I use most often and wasting memory + CPU "pre-loading" things. Maybe, just maybe if the damn OS wasn't so bloated they wouldn't need to preload applications. Then again, if the OS wasn't so bloated it would stop crashing because they could get all their garbage out of kernel space and back into userspace where it belongs. As it is, they have to put things in kernel space to keep the entire system from grinding to a halt when you run 'calc.exe'. Basically, get the entire GUI out of kernel space. AFAIK they can't do that because it would be way too slow.
Granted TFA was very much non-technical, some things missing from the list: (If I'm wrong about any of these being in XP, please feel free to correct me.)
- for-real no-shit multitasking. Linux has it. OS X has it. It aggarvates me to no end that the system severely drags and/or blocks while doing things like copying large files, burning a CD, scanning the "network neighborhood", or basically any other process which the kernel determines is "intensive". I can do 8 semi-CPU intensive things at once with no problem on a *nix machine without X slowing to a crawl. Good luck trying that on XP. A user-space process or application should never be allowed to block.
- Real ability to disable write caching. This is more a technical point, but nonetheless. The little box that is supposed to disable write caching for USB/Firewire devices seems to have no effect. I'm constantly getting the "This device cannot be stopped right now, try again later" BS from XP. Again, this is a "feature" to speed things up because the system is so inefficent.
- Stop the auto-mounter. Goes along with the above: the ability to turn off automounting of filesystems, or at the very least mount them as read-only. Windows will *always* try to write to a filesystem no matter what. Writing to a hosed disk is a good way to make it worse. Sure you can mount the disk while acting as user who doesn't have write privs to files, but that isn't the same. XP stills writes system and metadata to the disk.
- Unbinding IE from the system. I thought this was decided by a court that they had to do this. The last time I tried to uninstall IE the clipboard stopped functioning in MSOffice. Until I reinstalled IE, of course.
- Make it easier/possible to stop services that are not critical. This fails on XP mostly because nearly all of the services are "critical" to the operation of the OS. Again, to compare this to the *nix model - I can stop almost any service except for init and the system will continue to run. Why can't I enable networking and disable the filesharing by stopping the service that makes the SMB ports listen? A firewall is needed, yes. But it would be even more useful to be able to stop those services which should not be listening anyways.
- Stop telling me "access denied" when I'm the fracking system admin. I really hate that. Processes can't be killed, services can't be stopped, files can't be deleted, etc because "Access denied". Kill the damn process if I tell you to.
- Stop with the stupid exclusive file locks. Some of this is the fault of applications
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
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?
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...
... 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.
You finally get all the features every other operating system had from the fricken beginning!
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.
Well,I can help with one of those headaches.Here you go==http://autopatcher.com/.Better than those moronic windows updates.One reboot only! And it has tons of great optional extras like clear type tuner/tweak ui/directX control panel.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
.....Just because you can run XP on a minimum of 256MB of RAM doesn't mean you should.....
XP run just fine on 256M and likely so will Vista. Just don't try to run any of the Applications you bought the computer for in the first place.
What will Vista bring to the art of computing, that OSX has not had for about a year now already? OSX 10.4 runs faster on our old G4 laptop than the OS 10.2 it came with. With MS, the new OS software generally runs slower on the same hardware or misses out on most of the improvements. One big pain with Windows has always been the difficulty of upgrading from an old to a new computer. When I bought a new G5 iMac for my wife for Christmas, getting all her stuff and settings from the old G4 to the new one was almost automatic. Boot the old one in disk mode, connect them with a cable (firewire) and click the mouse to automatically transfer all data, internet settings, account passwords, preferences and applications and all their settings and more to the new G5. I wonder if Vista will make it easy to upgrade from an older machine to that shiny new one.
If Vista users are no longer running as administrators (a good thing) how many of their current apps will cease functioning? If users have to re-purchase or upgrade much of, or most of their software, that will be a big disincentive to upgrade to a new computer or upgrade to the new OS on the old one.
All theory is gray
Signed drivers to collect a tax from hardware vendors I reckon.
No, Microsoft doesn't care about the absolutely insignifigant dollars involved in this. The operatig system refuses to load unsigned drivers to prevent you from installing unapproved code which could get around the system-wide DRM system.
By requiring drivers to be signed they:
(1) get to run the code through a testing and approval process to ensure it is fully compliant with the DRM rules;
(2) if a driver is found to have a deliberate or accidental security hole they have the signature to trace it back to the source responsible for the security violation; and
(3) they can REVOKE that signature, the driver gets locked out, and they close the security hole. Of course this pretty much means that your system doesn't work anymore untill you manage to get a new signed driver that *is* properly DRM enforcing.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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.