Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Windows Vista Capable Machines Coming

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stop-being-an-enabler dept.

An anonymous reader writes "PC World's Techlog has a short piece talking about the upcoming emergence of 'Windows Vista Capable' PCs." From the article: "The Vista Capable designation doesn't promise that a PC will provide a great Vista experience, or even that it'll support all Vista features or features...just that it'll be able to run Windows Vista Home Basic in some not-very-well-defined-but-apparently-adequate way. At the moment, there are still new PCs on store shelves that don't meet the Vista Capable guidelines--for instance, low-end systems still sport 256MB of RAM in some cases. Wonder if that means that that A) we'll see some cheap systems that still have XP even after Vista ships; or B) the specs on even the cheapest machines will be beefed up; or C) we'll see machines that have Vista preloaded but which don't qualify as Vista capable?"

4 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Entirely unnecessary by petrus4 · · Score: 1, Troll

    The worst thing about all of this is that not only does it inconvenience a huge number of people, it does so for absolutely no good reason.

    Microsoft have done a lot of stupid things in their time, but Aero really takes the cake as far as I'm concerned. A 3D interface (at least in terms of how they're implementing it from the screenshots) is purely cosmetic...it doesn't offer anything in the area of usability whatsoever. For what therefore is a purely visual touch-up, a lot of people are going to have to shell out large amounts of money if they want to be able to upgrade. Great for the hardware manufacturers; a distaster for the rest of us.

    Thanks a bundle, Microsoft.

  2. Re:What we'll see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll
    The only problem with running Linux as a HOME user is that most HOME USERS don't want Linux. Most HOME USERS want to be able to go to Wal*Mart and buy software for their computer. Most HOME USERS want real programs supported by REAL COMPANIES.

    Sadly, my own Linux experience has been completely miserable each time I have decided to give it a shot as my own OS. On top of missing features such as support for audio and video properly configured out of the box, there is the disgustingly arrogant community that seems to have "Go do a Google Search" as their standard reply to a majority of questions. Don't get me started on Applications either. GIMP != Photoshop; OpenOffice != Microsoft Office (not even close). The commercial products kick the living shit out of the F/OSS products.

    Biggest problem with Linux as I see it? Too many goddamned distributions, because there are too many goddamned people that think they know "the best way" to do something. Sorry Linux folks, and I know, "blah blah blah, it's all about choice...", You wonder why Linux on the Desktop is not working out so good for home users? The very people you are trying to market your OS to, in this case home users, don't want 8,000 choices in how their OS is configured. They want a clearly defined OS that has support from a major vendor. They want to go to the store and buy programs from major companies, they don't want to have to search through 500,000 newsgroup posts/websites to find the answer to why their EDIR1024GFXTreme is only displaying 256 colors at 640x480 resolution. They want shit that just works.

    Until Linux has support from major software houses like Adobe, Microsoft, EA, Intuit, etc. etc. it will NEVER EVER be a force on teh desktop of 99.5356% of the worlds population...Fuck Linux and the Penguin it rode in on

  3. Re:Security ? Nix ? Consumer ? No . by Homology · · Score: 0, Troll
    What? What? Don't know what *nix you're running, but Linux and BSD distros all come secure.

    You mean like Ubuntu that writes the administrator password in the install log and it took several months before this was discovered?

    The hard part is setting up your network hardware, but after that, you're safe. This is exactly the sort of thing you're talking about, so you've basically proved yourself wrong.

    It's only hard to setup your "network hardware" if you run Linux. Of course, you are less safe after you configure your NIC, but less so if you run *BSD.

  4. Re:Security ? Nix ? Consumer ? No . by Homology · · Score: 1, Troll
    The password being in the log is a TINY problem compared with what Windows has.

    The password written in the install log is tantamount to write the root password since that user has unrestricted sudo privileges (i.e. "sudo su"). If this kind of errors are made in Ubuntu, one wonders what other security issues Ubuntu has.

    You can currently install Linux on a computer with a direct internet connection without problems. You can't do that with Windows. Patching it fully takes hours after installation and the average time before you get infected with something is about 30 minutes -- do the math. I actually tried that with a friend. Gave up after 3 tries, and ended up bringing it to my home so that I could install it behind my Linux firewall.

    It is always prudent to install Windows on a machine behind a firewall, and let it continue to run behind a firewall. For home users, a cheap DSL router will function as a simple firewall and will protect you during installation as well. If a real firewall is needed/wanted, then install OpenBSD on a machine and use pf