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How Vista Disappoints
MCSEBear writes "Writer Paul Thurrott has given Microsoft a verbal dressing down for what has become of Windows Vista. He details Microsoft's broken promises over the years since Longhorn/Vista was first previewed back in 2003. He demonstrates where current Vista builds fail to live up to Microsoft's current hype of the much reduced feature set. From the article: 'I don't hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don't hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn't even come close to meeting its original promises. I'm sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future ... It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, Windows Vista will do what so many other Windows releases have done, and simply offer consumers and business users a few major changes and many subtle or minor updates. That's not horrible. It's just not what was promised.'"
Well, in summary, the new Vista:
Thurrott says he still doesn't hate Microsoft for not delivering on all of these promises:
The world needs friends like Mr. Thurrott. He's a pretty forgiving guy. But, it would have been nice had Microsoft really been able to deliver this as promised. I was looking forward to buying a new upgraded computer!
'I don't hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don't hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn't even come close to meeting its original promises. I'm sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future ... It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, Windows Vista will do what so many other Windows releases have done, and simply offer consumers and business users a few major changes and many subtle or minor updates. That's not horrible. It's just not what was promised.'
... In some ways, my husband actually will exceed other men, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, he will do what so many other husbands have done, and simply promise us a few major changes and many subtle or minor ones. It's not so horrible that he misleads me and the kids. It's just not what I was promised at the alter.'
Hmmm... Sounds like something I've heard before from a sister-in-law:
'I don't hate taking care of the kids, and I certainly don't hate my husband for disappointing me and the kids with his actions that don't even come close to meeting his original promises. I'm sure I learned something from this debacle, and hopefully he will be more open and honest about what he can and cannot do in the future
Both sound like someone trying to apologize and explain away someone elses bad behaviour.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Heck I am still waiting for MS to give us what they promised us in Windows 95
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's not done yet!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
1 pound skirt steak, cut into 4 pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle chile powder, divided
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided
6 green onions
2 ears of corn, husked
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon finely grated lime peel
8 5- to 6-inch corn tortillas
Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Sprinkle skirt steak on both sides with salt and 1 1/4 teaspoons chile powder. Whisk 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon lime juice in 11x7-inch glass dish. Add meat and turn to coat; place in single layer. Marinate 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, brush green onions and corn with 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill vegetables until slightly charred, turning occasionally, about 2 minutes for green onions and 7 minutes for corn. Working over bowl, cut corn from cob directly into bowl. Coarsely chop green onions and add to corn. Stir in cilantro, lime peel, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon chile powder, 1/2 tablespoon oil, and 1 tablespoon lime juice. Season relish to taste with salt and pepper.
Grill skirt steak to desired doneness, about 2 1/2 minutes per side for medium. Transfer to work surface; let rest 5 minutes.
Place tortillas at edge of grill to warm and soften, about 1 minute.
Arrange 2 warm tortillas on each of 4 plates. Thinly slice skirt steak across grain. Divide skirt steak and juices equally among tortillas. Spoon relish over each and serve.
It's hard to trust the reviewer when he writes about how disappointed he is, but still gives the product 5/5.
My sig is too lon
"He details Microsoft's broken promises over the years"
I may have missed it somewhere, but did Microsoft ever promise these things? I mean, they may have said "Windows Vista will have feature X", but that is hardly a promise.
It is just it is a very bad thing to break promises, of course. But if you did not make a promise explicitly then I do not feel there is too much problem in saying "Oh actually that cannot happen".
I just don't like language like this that really gives a negative spin on things, when really language in this sort of thing should be neutral, I think.
- Jax
So it looks like Vista is to XP what 98 was to 95. Just a minor upgrade.
It doesn't matter if Vista is good, bad or indifferent, it will get installed on millions of new machines and eventually the majority of users around the world will be using it. You better get used to it, because you will probably have to use it one day.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
We tried out the live distro of GLX and most of us liked the new 3d accelerated Linux GUI better than Vista's Aeroglass. Since pretty is a big selling point that is very important. I have to admit I was shocked by how useful it was and how much Vista drove me nuts.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Since they're building DRM right into the core of the OS (including crap such as the Protected Media Path and all its ilk) I have absolutely no reason to think they won't allow corporate partners (RIAA, MPAA, BSA) to abuse this to kill pieces of "unapproved" media or "rogue" apps. What happens when the .*AA tells them Azureus is being used to pirate software or media? Shut 'er down! Even if you've only ever used it to share the latest fad video or big open source distribution, it won't matter. And that's wrong.
Whether I agree with them on issues of piracy or not (I don't approve of pirating software myself) I refuse to allow my computer to participate in extending or enforcing their policies, and I refuse to install DRM based media players. I'm going to keep XP on that machine for as long as it runs, or until I replace it with an open OS.
John
Can anyone here name any Microsoft product that lived up to its hype? Anyone?
And no, Freecell doesn't count.
I lost all interest in Vista the second they dropped the idea of WinFS. You see they were finally going to catch up with everyone else in the world of the file system and instead have proven they couldn't handle it. I think I also got fed up with all those pesky delays. Two years late and really chopped down, Vista is not anything like what is was supposed to be.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
This just in:
A product's performance doesn't live up to the hype.
I know we're all shocked that he unthinkable finally happened.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The only broken promise that comes immediatly to mind was the WinFS. Basically a SQL based file system. I know it was yanked from Vista but is still ( or atleast was ) being offered down the road. Frankly though, if the do a good enough job indexing files and reading/creating attributes for those files, and provide a nice Mac like search function, I dont think the end consumer will care me.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Windows Vista PC (Pentium 4/3000 w/64 bits of power) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than Windows Vista, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Firefox will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Windows Media Player 11 is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Vista PCs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Vista machine that has run faster than its XP counterpart, despite the translucent interface. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 3000 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Vista is a superior operating system.
Vista addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use Windows Vista over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
the days of bloated client-side OS dominance are over. Google will probably unveil google OS concurrently with Vista, thus completely crippling Microsoft, which they will subsequently buy out.
Watch this video
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-41344461
I've always been of fan of each OS borrowing from one another, but this is just sad. MS ripped everything out of Vista that was truly innovative and we are left with XP rethemed and few nice subsystem tweaks. Frankly Vista is a decent update if it had be released in 2003. WTF have they been doing for 6 years?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"In some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux..."
For example, with Windows Vista, you will get more:
- system instability
- viruses
- application crashes
- lost data
- maintenance time
- security patches
- bug fixes
But it doesn't stop there! In order to take advantage of all new features in Vista, you will also get to spend more money on fancy hardware, including juiced up graphics cards to render the fancy new user interface.
I'm going to keep XP on that machine for as long as it runs, or until I replace it with an open OS.
Just replace it already. The only thing I can think of DRM might be useful for is to stop viruses that use virtualization to avoid detection/removal.
He starts drooling over Microsoft's "Aero" interface, but it just looks like a cheap imitation of Aqua. It even sounds like "Aqua".
And my favorite understatement:
You don't say!
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Microsoft's grand plans for Vista have turned into a warmed over version of MacOSX. The new graphics engine is definitely lifted right out of Apple's OS. The advanced WinFS filesystem has been reduced to nothing new with a copy of Apple's Spotlight bolted on. Microsoft's User Account Protection is so annoying as to be pretty much useless. It kicks in when you delete a shortcut to a program? Are they nuts? Paul Thurrott lets Microsoft have it with both guns in his review.
"Promises were made. Excitement was generated. None of it, as it turns out, was worth a damn. From a technical standpoint, the version of Windows Vista we will receive is a sad shell of its former self, a shadow. One might still call it a major Windows release. I will, for various reasons. The kernel was rewritten. The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple's marketing materials.
Shame on you, Microsoft. Shame on you, but not just for not doing better. We expect you to copy Apple, just as Apple (and Linux) in its turn copies you. But we do not and should not expect to be promised the world, only to be given a warmed over copy of Mac OS X Tiger in return. Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth."
Microsoft has really fumbled the ball over and over with the development of this OS. It's nice to see them get called out for it.
Microsoft has pretty much done all that they can do with an OS, so why bother, apart from keeping business users on the upgrade train. Don't agree? Then tell me what apps run on XP that don't run on Win2K. I can't think of any.
You think MS can rewrite the API with each release? ISVs want a consistent platform. If MS releases an OS that can't run software for previous OS versions, no one would buy it. The only reason for new OS releases is to keep siphoning money in exchange for "current version support". The whole idea is bogus and designed to maximize profit. The last thing MS considers is what is good for their customers.
Nobody wants a change for the worse. But chances are that, just like Win95, 2k and XP, everybody will learn the new features, understand why the change is better and will be thankful they are past the old days of the previous OSs.
Of course the Linux and Mac activists will always hate and find negative aspects with anything MS related. But there are still a lot of people looking forward optimistically to the new features in Vista.
A friend of mine said, when Windows 95 came out that "it'll knock the socks off Linux..." and it didn't. Then he said "This windows NT 4.0 will kill Linux" and it didn't. Then "XP is the Linux killer, mark my words. It's got built in security.." and look what happened. Need I go on? The MS buffs continually postition various MS OS releases as Linux killers, and they never are.
Why is this so?
Simply, it is because for a very large number of people, Linux just works damn well. It's flexiable, fast, secure and when things break, they usually get fixed pretty quick. It's the Un*x philosophy that makes it work so much better and that's a philosophy that no matter how much MS try to copy, will never quite be there in Windows. They may have a new swanky command line interface, but it'll simply not beat any Un*x shell or scripting language for getting stuff done.
Sure Vista will look pretty, but I bet itll still bork and need driver disks when you plug your USB thingy into a differant USB port..
In reality of course every OS sucks, but Linux sucks a lot less than any Windows release.
Oh and whilst you're at it, you can stick yer DRM up yer IPC$.
super-human Microsoft shill. Why would you trust him at all?
The notable thing here is that, despite having his lips surgically grafted to Microsoft's ass, he actually dared to voice any complaint at all about an MS product.
While most people gripe about Windows Vista and its lack of this and that, as a software developer I am still very excited about Windows Vista.
Bottom line is, Vista will over new levels of creativity and originality in application design that will be unmatched by any other system using any other development platform.
Windows Presentation Layer (Avalon) represents a different approach to GUI design. While some operating system like Java Desktop or OSX may use 3D hardware acceleration to render GUI, Windows will take it to new levels. Almost every physical property of a Windows control can be animated, its size, position, transparency. This includes transforming the control by rotations, shears, scaling, etc, all in 3D.
Does this just mean more eye candy. Well, yes. Windows Vista will promote a slew of new visual bells and whistles that many might enjoy and others will want to turn off. But basically Microsoft will bring Flash like GUI programming for real programs, not little applets on the web.
I can already imagine hundreds of ways I can utilize this level of power and control of GUI elements and I am looking forward to using Microsoft's new tools for application design and development.
For the most part, Vista is like Tiger, it is representing a different approach to developing applications on the system. OSX Tiger, asside from its obvious bells and whistles like Spotlight and Dashboard, improved its foundation for application design, including release of a new version of XCode and other Core components. Microsoft will do the same with Windows Vista.
What most people are not understanding is the level of creativity and power people will have developing applications for Vista. While I too am dissapointed that WinFS and other key OS technologies will not make it into Vista for release, it still represents a new platform for application design which I think will change the way we write and use applications.
I am considering Vista analagous to Windows 95. Windows 95 was a new approach to the Windows OS, and while it had many significant flaws and problems, it represented a firm foundation for a decade of OS design. Security holes and issues asside, Microsoft worked from the foundation which lead to Windows XP, which is easy to use and stable, regardless of what many of you think. XP is an OS where I can run my computer for months with BSOD's or crashes, and with the proper security apps in place, I can leave it running without worrying about all the security exploits. I don't think that Vista is a continuation of that line, but a break in that line, and by offering a new foundation hopefully built with far better security then currently along with a dramatically new way or presenting GUI applications, while Vista might ultimately suffer its setbacks and have a less dramatic release then anticipated, it will provide a firm foundation for another decade of OS design.
Like Windows 98, I expect a new release of Vista 2 - 3 years later that will work in WinFS and other modern OS technologies. This will be the OS to anticipate.
I am not hoping for much out of Vista, but from a developers standpoint, it is exciting to see where this new Windows Presentation Layer will go. I am tired of static applications with dull grey buttons. I am looking forward to full 3D hardware acceleration and bringing rich, robust and dynamic GUI into my OS design.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Can anyone here name any Microsoft product that lived up to its hype? Anyone?
Word 2007 will easily live up to the hype. I've heard it's going to be absolutely amazing.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
What minor upgrade almost double (or dare I say, triple?) hardware requirement?
... for increasing the service packs and 'hotfixes(c)' file size.
Does vista include a Bittorrent client?
It's pointless to wait. They yanked the Themes and folder customization from Windows 98 and replaced it with junk in XP. I wish they would simply put it back the way it was. Also they need to fix Explorer's Toolbars.
I'm going to keep XP on that machine for as long as it runs, or until I replace it with an open OS.
So why haven't you replaced it now?
You can get Ubuntu up and running in minutes, with full functionality. If you're more of a tinkerer type, set aside a weekend and take the plunge with Gentoo.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
I don't hate Microsoft, nor do I hate XP or Vista. I have no doubt Vista will be an improvement over its predecessor, at least in some ways. But frankly, I don't care, I am not impressed, and I have no use for Windows at all. I use Mac OS X, a very solid, elegant and mature system with an abundance of supported hardware and software. And if Apple somehow happened to be swallowed up by a giant earthquake or tsunami, I would just switch to Linux, another very solid system. In a couple of years I will hopefully have forgotten all about Windows.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Actually, you are correct on this one. Win 95 was cobbled together from parts of the Cairo project that either fell apart. You can see exactly what cairo was supposed to be here Ironically, enough the part that still hasn't been introduced is Winfs. Yes that's right winfs is over tweleve years late.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The funny thing here is that Apple is going to get OS X 10.5 out the door soon after Vista is out. So if Vista will be a "warmed-up version of OS X Tiger," Apple certainly isn't going to let Leopard be the same. This is a great opportunity for MS mockage by Apple marketing.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
(said in a sorrowful voice) Oh, How Vista Disappoints...
If you are talking about user interface (or experience as they like to buzz) I'd say "Maybe".
But if you are talking about real OS features that can be exploited by a number of different software (not just yours) I'd say "Show me the meat!".
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
In my mind, the lack of new features in Vista isn't indicative of incompetence or anything like that, but is purely a business decision made by some bean counters.
Why release a feature in one release when you can charge extra for it in the future in the next vesion of Vista?
Microsoft has been developing (well, apparantly) quite a few things in the last few years and it wouldn't be a good financial move on their part to let all that money spent in development for the ~5 years since XP was released (yes, I know there was SP2, win 2k3 and they do have other software lines, so this isn't an entirely fair comparison) out in one release, but slowly trickle it out to the public in releases that they charge (whether it be single user licenses or agreements with businesses).
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Never been so glad to be a Mac user...
My copy of Windows XP Professional never required me to "activate" it.
I've been running vista on a partition for a few weeks now and I have to say I'm actually quite impressed. I don't like windows, never really have.. but I was pleasently suprised when I loaded this up. The interface is nice and is fast on my system, the start menu is done alot better than previous versions of windows and the way most of the programs just blend into the interface makes it alot more enjoyable to use than XP.
The security checks do get annoying, 2 or 3 dialogue boxes for one thing, and it doesn't remember what choices you made. Then again the product is in... what is it now... oh yeah, BETA. I love people complaining about minor things in a product that hasn't hit retail yet. And as for the complaint about telling the lack of differance between active and inactive windows... In every example shown I'm pretty sure that the majority of users would use the mouse to click on what they want, thereby bypassing any issue presented. Or they could just look at the screen and notice that one of the icons in each example is highlighted and that is the active screen.
Overall I am quite happy with vista, and if proper driver support was avaliable now, I'd probably be running with it as my primary OS. All the problems with the user interface and included programs seem to be very minor and I haven't had one real complaint yet.
...it's an OS. Get over it. You're putting way too much energy into thinking about and caring about what the next Windows will be like. We don't need a list of why you're disappointed after 3 years of pining for the next MS offering.
Oh wait, I just visited your site. You have bigger issues to deal with. Hopefully you're making a nice living off the ads. Carry on.
Once people started getting screwed hard right in their OWN HOME by the big media companies.. a lot of people will be looking for the change to take their home back from the corporate whorelords.
I don't even hate corporations, but this DRM crap and trying to tell us how we can live in our home owns is way out of line. And people will care too much. Maybe M$ should talk to Circuit City about their successful attempt in taking over a homeowner's living room.
And when this mass realization happens.. tons of small startups will form everywhere to help get people off M$ to Linux or whatever else is viable.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
I couldn't agree more. Windows Vista will exceed OS X and Linux the following areas: 1. p0wnage 2. ??? 3. profit!
Sounds like propaganda...
eventually the majority of users around the world will be using it.
The real question is how long this shift to Vista will take. MS makes money primarily by leveraging sales of Office and Windows. If it takes many years for owners to shift from XP to Vista, that could adversely affect Microsoft's income, growth, and ultimately, long-term prospects.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I agree completely with the above about Ubuntu and Gentoo. I screwed up one Gentoo Stage 1 install, then went over to SuSE, then Ubuntu when it came out. I love Ubuntu, and although I keep having Fedora 5 suggested to me for better compatability, Ubuntu just has the right flavour, and is faster, too. :)
I have *never* seen a reason to install Windows on an office box, either. As a sysadmin I just shake my head at the boss and say "well, you can have Freecell, or save two hundred bucks a box. Your call." - the decision's not hard.
I'm not ready to replace Windows yet. For one thing, my day job is as a Windows C++ programmer. I need tools like Visual Studio at home for both work and fun. And as much as we may or may not like it, most of the clients for software are still running Windows machines.
John
Exactly! Promise tons of needed (or not) new features that all disappear as release comes closer.
It happened big time with Win95, and is why I haven't used any version of Winblows since 3.1.
And still the author gives it a 5/5,what a sycophant... err, suckup.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this baloney. Let's see if I have this right: Microsoft's vaporware is better than an OS that is twice as fast, stable, and has no viruses . . . hmmm . . . Oh, but wait, I understand: MS is going to have to go up against Mac OS 10.5! not 10.4! Let's see, this should make sense now! Okay, okay, so OS 10.5, which will be faster than 10.4, and loaded for bear with extra goodies because we all know Jobs and company want Vista to look like old hat on the day it's released, will not be as good as Vista because . . . because . . . Cripes! I'm sorry, I just can't seem to get my make-believe working today. Maybe if I was a Microsoft apologist I could, but I'm not.
You look forward to exploiting the "3D interface". But you won't be able to. Here's why:
.NET updates and maybe force MS IDE users to use the interface (not as many desktops to migrate, and its a minor part).
The "home" edition of Vista won't support the interfaces. So, any software oriented toward home use cannot depend on the feature.
Corporate desktops are plain. The investment in the required dx10 infrastructure won't happen for years. So, the feature cannot be exploited in corporate applications either.
After eliminating home and coporate, what is left? AERO really won't have much of a place, outside of enthusiasts. Unless there is an application that can start in the enthusiast domain and drive the migration.
My prediction: the ONLY application that exploits this feature will be Vista itself. Possibly Microsoft may update some applications, but it must remain an optional part.
Microsoft will offer
Don't count on this feature as a platform for 3 to 5 (or more) years, though.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
It's sad actually. The Microsoft company name used to carry the cachet of having the best programmers in the world. Now Microsoft is just known for having the programmers who weren't good enough to work at Google...
It would be very fun to program in avalon, but utlimately the best applications are the ones with the simplest interfaces. Too many comapnies try to be innovative and cool with their UI design and its crap. Its all nonstandard and does not behave the way all of the other controls in windows do. MAYBE avalon will entice those compaines to write all their crap in avalon, which will bring standardisation and a higher level of stability to these programs, but nto for a good 2-3 years after vista. Probley just in time for the update. I can't wait that long, as a user or a developer. I'd just rather use things ina simple elegent way without animated 3-d buttons. I'm not going to buy another computer, for a nother year at least. Even if vista is out then, I might have to take a real look at getting an intel mac Mac.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Actually I think 'Windows Vista' is a misnommer. Maybe 'Windows Political' would have been better, indicating that it promises many things, but crap at actually making them happen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I don't see what everyone is getting their panties in a bunch. #1 its still BETA. #2 hmmm a sales\marketing person promising the world to a customer then going back to developement and finding out its going to either take way longer than expected or not be possible at all.. whats NEW with that? We have all seen that 1000000 times over. I am currently running vista beta. I kinda like it. There are some things I dont like but who knows if that will be the case a year from now when they release it.
MISSING - Sig file. 2 years old black and white and very funny. If found please email me.
It's ok though. Ive started browsing these discussions at -1 so I'm sure to get the good comments. Browse at +2 or 3 and all you'll get is "im glad to be a mac user" and "windows sucks"
Truth of the matter is, I think alot of this stems from jealousy, that even with a mediocre product the company is still successful. Go ahead, mod me crappy, you know it's true.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
I think one thing I must give Windows credit for is its compatibility layer; it is quite remarkable that ridiculously old applications can still be run in modern versions of windows. Having said that, I think it's more of a big lead weight holding them back; Apple had the right idea with OS X, when they cut compatibility with the old stuff (well, unless you count Classic), allowing them to really move to the next level.
Enough of pandering to 3.1, time for the next level!
I have *never* seen a reason to install Windows on an office box, either.
Everyone's situation is unique, but you are probably in the minority. For most people there is a reason to install Windows on an office box, because they need Office on a Windows box.
And why is that? I don't need no stinking Vista at my house!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
From what has been described so far there does not appear to be any major features that will get the corporate world to jump on the upgrade bandwagon for Vista. If anything there are features that will cost a lot to use if you do upgrade. Many many companies will opt to continue to use XP for most of their systems for some time to come. Unless Microsoft can give corporate users a solid business reason to spend millions upgrading there won't be as big an uptake as Microsoft is hoping. The product has been delayed repeatedly, features have been cut, and there are viable alternatives available. As another writer wrote in another thread the reasons for the delay may be due to the software assurance deals they managed to get many many corporate users to sign up for a few years ago. Now that they have delayed the release of Vista long enough for those contracts to expire they can release the new version and charge those companies again. If they fall for it a second time shame on them. They deserve to through away that money on something that is not going to provide any real benefit to the end users. Eye candy is not a valid business reason to upgrade OS and hardware.
Most likely the biggest market for Vista will be cosumers buying new systems from the likes of Dell or HP which will bundle the new Vista OS with the hardware. They won't have a choice. Unless those vendors continue to sell lower priced systems with XP and reserve Vista for the high end systems which are apparently is needed to see all the eye candy.
A new name. Introducing the "MS Edsel" (Yep, in honor of the Ford Edsel.)
Blaming Microsoft for broken promises is like blaming water for being wet. When, exactly, has all the initial hype about any release of Windows actually been fulfilled? Never as far I can remember.
Windows and osx are way easier to use then linux. THere are many programs on linux that I had to recompile because there ready to run apps didn't run.
Didn't microsoft redo the code? I thought people wanted a secure and stable os? Not one with bells and whistles.
I find it funny that for years people complained about the security wholes and how instable it was.
Now people don't want that and want the bells and whistles.
I Just want a stable os. If we have to drop all the 3d stuff and everything else to do that so be it.
I think it's finally becoming clear that MSFT's best days are behind them. As a company they have jumped the shark.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
When someone doesn't care, it's called apathy. People keep telling me to consider what a person wants, but to do that I have to stop considering what that person will become. If the features were available for developers to use, the customer would have been better off, whether the customer as he is without the features knows enough to care about it or not.
The two dialogues from User Account Protection that Thurrott illustrates are pretty extraordinary. It's hard to believe that MS could have produced anything so shabby. They look like examples from the Interface Hall of Shame!
5 342_rev5_00.jpg is really contradictory and confusing.
5 342_rev5_01.jpg - is even more bizarre. "Windows needs your permission to use this program" "File operation". WTF? I mean, that is REALLY confusing, and again COMPLETELY against good principles of IU design!
The first one - http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
First of all - "File access denied" - you havent been denied access, you been denied the right to delete the file (or so it seems), THEN it says "You don't currently have permission to delete this file" - Okay, but THEN it says "CONTINUE" and allows you to delete it, but only through ANOTHER dialogue!
I mean that's bizarre! COMPLETELY against any principles of interface design that I was taught.
The second/next dialogue in the series - http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
I though all this stuff about MS getting in a tangle was just exaggeration, but now I seriously think they must be. Wow!
Cutterman
I am not very familiar with this guy, as I dont ussually read microsoft press, but how can he link to a dialog like this: http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_5 342_rev5_00.jpg (it says 'You dont currently have permission to delete this file." and then offers the choices "Continue", "Skip", and "Cancel") - and not point out what a total usibility disaster it is? How can a company like microsoft in today's world put up something that abnoxious and unusable?
In case you don't get it its making a decarative statement and then presenting options that have no correlation to the statement, I'm a professional in computers, and have been using them for well over 15 years and couldn't possibly even guess what each of those options should do. Continue what? if I dont have permission to do it how can I continue. Cancel what exactly?, as far as I can tell it just said it wasn't going to do anything anyway. Skip? skip the delete I was just told I can't do? I am baffled... based on the article I guess that it should have said something like "You currently don't have permission to delete this file, what would you like to do?" and given choices like "Grant Permission", "Don't Delete" etc...
I haven't really used windows extensively in a very long time so maybe if I did I would be used to figuring out these obscure dialogues, but I don't think I would ever stop cringing when I saw them. It reminds me of the dialog windows used to put up when you went to access help for the first time in an app, it would ask how big the search database should be (or something) and give you three choices similar to "small (recommended)" "medium" "large" and no other info, not even a clue as to how this would effect your help at all. do they still do that nonsense?
yeah WOW so you have a corporate edition your so cool..
anyways i have done the same things as the parent because win2k is so much more elegant and bug free compared to winxp.
i recently installed win2k on a celeron 400 slot1 with 160mb ram and it flies.
i wouldnt even attempt to load winxp on anything with less than 256mb of ram...
m$ peaked with win2k. i really hope they release the source one day so people can mod it. i could run win2k forever. xp offers nothing except bloat.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
"Then tell me what apps run on XP that don't run on Win2K. I can't think of any."
I can.
Speaking as a video professional, After Effects 7.0, Premiere Pro, and Encore DVD which represents 3 of Adobe's biggest video production software packages.
Why? I don't know and I don't care. Video is a competitive marketplace, and at the end of the day, if you aren't running the newest and best equipment/software, you're dead in the water.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I recently skimmed over Wikipedia's Longhorn* article and I got the impression that Vista was not meant to be a huge leap ahead, even though, when compared to XP, it probably is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_%22Vienna%22
*: Yes, 'Longhorn'. 'Longhorn' at least sounds like a solid OS, while I think 'Vista' sounds like a gay bar, but that may just be me**.
**: This is not Microsoft-bashing. Really.
I think Thurrot stopped drinking the company cool-aid.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Then tell me what apps run on XP that don't run on Win2K. I can't think of any.
Adobe Acrobat 7.0.
Not for any good reason other than Adobe having long ago having drunk the Microsoft Cool-Aid though.
For example, despite only having used Windows for about a year before giving up on it, I am still considered the foremost Windows expert in my family. Each time family members switch to a new Windows release, I spend a lot of time on the phone and in person setting up all the new applications, drivers, networks, etc.
Therefore, my ideal Windows release is as late as possible with as few changes as possible. I don't care what everyone else says. In my book so far, Vista rocks!
This space intentionally left blank.
Doh... I should have pre-viewed... I meant to delete one of those 'having's.
Also, it's just the reader.. If you pony up the cash for 'Pro' you can run on 2000.
Microsoft not delevering upon its first claims? Shocking!
it seems that the company is finally, if belatedly, fixing things. Stephen Sinofsky, a Gates confidant who oversaw a steady and regular set of Microsoft Office releases over the past decade, is now running the development of future Windows versions.
compared with:-
Sadly, Gates, too, is part of the Bad Microsoft
Here's what I'm missing...
He's described as a confidant to Bill Gates and http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+shake+up+Windows+ leadership/2100-1016_3-6052572.html describes him, as "a trusted lieutenant of Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer".
My experience of people who become "trusted lieutenants" is that they are generally people with a similar outlook. The sort of managers who are micromanaging pricks don't generally like free spirits working for them.
I'd really be interested to know where the "good Microsoft" is. All my experience is that the attitude of a corporation comes from the top. The chief exec hires people with his attitude and it cascades down. Those staff who are flexible follow the new order, those that hate it leave, and new starters will be picked based on likelihood to fit into it.
Much of what the author of the article complains about--excessive warning dialogs and sets of windows where the foreground window is not readily apparent--can likely be fixed by adjusting a setting somewhere, or slightly tweaking the default theme. These do not indicate profound shortcomings in Vista (though that doesn't mean there aren't any). Power users of Windows have always had to customize the settings to their liking.
NTFS has transparent compression.
File type implementation in shells available on Linux http://wyodesktop.sourceforge.net/mimetypes.html
His username is "VAXGeek." That dates him a lot more than this Mac troll does!
A fine, fine troll indeed, my boy!
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Windows Media Player 10.
you will probably have to use it one day.
Well, ok.... But only so long as it is only one.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Spin manipulator Thurrott, prefix Paul, operating site winsupersite, suffering severe drug violation. Extent pending. Thurrott subject to immediate arrest. MINDLOCK pending. MINDLOCK pending.
Mercicontrol respectfully submits a 5254, immediate destruction, on the basis of an ECO TR-X 314; totally incurable chemical imbalance with marketshare deteriorating consequences.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Either the reviwer is an ignoramus, or he thinks his target audience is compused of computer-iliterate lusers. After downloading and installing Firefox (good) he tries to delete the install program and complains about the security warnings before he can delete a "shortcut." If the install program is on his desktop, it's because that's where he told IE to put it. It's a program, not a shortcut. Even Win 98 will warn you before you delete a program in case you didn't realize the possible consequences of your action. Once I saw that, I knew this wasn't a review by somebody who understands computers, just an opinion piece by a flack. Take it for what it's worth, if anything, but remember that the writer doesn't have a clue about how computers work, or what's going on when he clicks his mouse.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I downloaded and lived with one of the many Aero Glass clones found on the Wincustomize website (running on Stardock's Windowblinds) for a month, and if you really think that the glass look is a good idea, that it contributes anything useful to the computing experience, you should do likewise. Only by living with it on a daily basis can you truely appreciate how much it sucks.
Even setting aside issues like DRM and high hardware requirements, what does Vista offer you except for a pretty new interface that you'll turn off after about a week? All the promised enhancements are either missing (e.g., WinFS) or broken (UAP implementation). Plus, since by their own admission they scrapped a lot of code and started over, a lot of what's left is the equivalent of 1.0 software. We all know how great Microsoft is at version 1.0 of *anything*, right?
So, all Vista gives us is Aero Glass, and like the Emperor's New Clothes, we can see right through it. Bill Gates walking around in his underwear. God, now that's a mental picture I didn't need!
Nothing to see here, move along.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Second thing: He deletes the shortcut after installing Firefox... choose not to place a shortcut on the desktop during setup!
Blame the user, not the software.
The only reason there was a reduction in features is microsoft wants to release the next version after vista sooner. In order to do this they need some features that they can say is new. Its all about cash...
God, I feel ticklish
Oh wait - God... if you exist, please get this man's comments out there.
Skype for one. Their new video stuff requires XP, and does not work on 2K.
It's just that Microsoft has been peeing in the pitcher.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I understand that Windows VISTA will support 64bit processors much like Windows XP 64bit Edition. However, XP64 has a major flaw which is keeping it from being widely implimented. It has no 16bit libararies. Over 99% of all the available apps, utilities, and games for XP have 16bit installation programs that require the 16bit libraries that are a part of the 32bit version of XP. Without these libraries 16bit code cannot run.
:-)
If Vista does not have 16bit libraries the OS is dead before it even ships. The Golden Age of Apple will begin.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
Could someone please review the upcoming Vista product(s) for the only thing i'm interested in: Can you easily Process Information?
Not to be vague, but I would like a serious look at a task-based review. TFA got a little close with the delete shortcut skit, but it'd be great to have a lot more. Perhaps just a delta from XP, so that we know what's going on.
I could care less about the "coolness" of the UI, but speed, efficiency and intelligent presentation should somehow get reviewed. I sure hope MS isn't missing this.
"I just can't seem to get my make-believe working today"
No, you did just fine with your make-believe definition of "vaporware".
I seriously can't believe you people are this surprised and up in arms about this!
What did you expect?
Is this your first day out of school? Are you using your first pc with your very first OS?
Come on people wake up, they have been doing this for years. It's called marketing.
Anyone remember the Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 shift? Or is that ancient history?
Win 95 to the 98 Upgrade? Or 98 in general? What about 98 SE? WinME? Win2k? WinXP with various patch states?
I used Windows both at work and at home, I have used pretty much all the OSes long enough to know a few things about them. I prefer 3.1 over all but 2k. SE crashed on me daily. XP is a tramped up version of 2k. ME was alive for all of a week. Pre 2k, 95 was the best version, barring NT of course.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Is far as I am concerned, if they want to fix Windows, they have to:
1) get rid of the stupid explorer desktop and put on a decent window manager, something with focus follow mouse and multiple desktops. And X style cut and paste. I am not talking about PowerToys or whatever they call it, that's a sad joke. VirtuaWin with TXMouse are better, they almost come close to what you could do with fvwm 15 years ago. But there needs to be something well integrated with the system, instead of a hack that is slaped on and working against all odds.
2) Good shell, with a good command line, completion, history, etc. Cygwin's bash is ok, but you have to install it separately, and it still does not integrate with the system well enough, you have to set your path, find where all the applications you need to use actually are, etc. There needs to be a good built-in shell, that will integrate with the system and give you full access to it from an easy to use command line. And it needs to be installed on default, so you don't need to go hunting for it all over the net.
3) Include a full TeX distribution on the Windows DVD already!
AccountKiller
> WTF have they been doing for 6 years?
They were doing what they _had_ to do, which was nothing.
Almost all PCs were being shipped with XP and Office so changing to something new would not bring in any more money, but would require more hardware to be sold thus reducing the % of total revenue shipped to MS.
Many (most?) corporates were paying 'software assurance' so a new OS would not generate much new revenue there.
Everyone else (eg Unix) was being driven out of business, SCO winning would get rid of that annoying Linux. There ws no need for anything new.
There is no need for anything new where there is no competition.
So again, this looks, like it's getting closer to being XP service pack 3, only at $129! (or whatever)
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
Windows and osx are way easier to use then linux. THere[sic] are many programs on linux that I had to recompile because there[sic] ready to run apps didn't run.
Your logic is very broken. Here's something analogous: Windows is much harder to use than Linux. I ran a bunch of programs included with my computer and some installed spyware and others did not work.
There are many different distributions of Linux and some set of applications, just as there are many different sets of Windows and applications distributed pre-installed on computers. You can't blame an OS for failings in applications run on top of it.
Didn't microsoft redo the code? I thought people wanted a secure and stable os? Not one with bells and whistles.
Actually, people want a secure and stable OS and bells and whistles. What they are getting is a rehashed version of Windows XP, with some GUI elements, and a bunch of half-assed security add ons.
I find it funny that for years people complained about the security wholes[sic] and how instable[sic] it was. Now people don't want that and want the bells and whistles.
What leads you to the conclusion that these two things are mutually exclusive? Anyway, I think most people would prefer stability and security, but it does not look like they are going to get it.
I Just[sic] want a stable os. If we have to drop all the 3d stuff and everything else to do that so be it.
I find Windows XP to be pretty stable, in and of itself. Most of the problems I see fall into two categories: unstable hardware drivers and hardware conflicts and failures. Neither of those is really something MS can control. Applications on top of the OS are more than a little unstable and the UI can really die when the machine tries to multitask multiple heavy CPU using programs, but that usually does not result in a crash.
Regardless of what you want, what you are going to get is not really a good answer to customer feedback. Aside from the GUI flash, most of the features that were not ripped out are anti-features. You get even slower OpenGL performance to try and kill non-proprietary graphics. You get DRM to make sure others can veto your ability to display what you want with data on your machine. You get a built-in, proprietary PDF replacement to try to kill another open standard and lock you into Windows even more. Need I go on?
Well here are a few reasons I need XP
Altium Designer (CAD Package)
Microsoft Outlook
HEW (Hitachi/Renesas Embedded Workshop) IDE/Toolchain for microcontrollers
Several Hardware Emulators that run Win only
Microsoft Office... and yes I have tried Open Office, but I got too many complaints from people who still use office and complain about OO screwing up doc conversions... plus OO is resource hog and takes ages to load.
Microsoft Project
I'm afraid if you work in the electronics field... you have no choice but windows... (ok perhaps not no choice.. but a life of uneeded misery).. and then I'd probably use mac before linux
46137
I'm not going to belabor the point, but Linux has been doing this since it's inception. UNIX has been doing this for 30 years. Programs can run under whatever user you create for them using whatever permissions you give them. This has nothing to do with SELinux.
The biggest problem with Windows is how it handles access for multiple users. I am not familiar with the Windows server products, I only use XP Pro, so maybe the server products have solved a problem. But here is the problem:
In Unix, I can assign a file an owner, one or more groups, and the type of access I want groups, owner, and everyone else to have to that file.
I can also be logged in as a user, and then also log in as root if I need to make some system changes, without logging off as a users. In Windows, I must go through an annoying process of switching accounts to log in as an administrator.
Finally, the system doesn't have a coherent way of managing permissions. For example, if I install a program as root/admin, it will create a directory in Program Files, and assign the permissions as such, that when a non-root user logs in and the program installed tries to write it's data to that programs directory, it will cause an error. I know that modern applications are not supposed to write to the Program Files directory and are supposed to write to the Application Data directory under the users specific directory... unfortunatly, the majority of software programs are not created to do that! It makes it VERY VERY difficult to use a machine for everyday use and not have admin/root access (Which, of course, causes a lot of security problems).
If Vista doesn't fix this, then Vista is going to be a big pain in the ass. Why can't Microsoft just borrow the Unix permission system, it is not like it is patented or anything?
The problem with things like warning dialogues for deleting shortcuts is that people will just get fed up and get used to clicking "continue". As they see deleting shortcuts as a "low risk" option, they'll also perceive a more dangerous operation (like installing an application) as "low risk" too.
There are a few useful nitches for transparent windows, but applying them to system windows is a giant no-no.
You'd think MS would learn from Apple's mistake... instead they took it to the next level of ridiculousness. When OS X first came out it was littered with transparent menus, menu bars, dialogs, etc. A lot of the elements have either been removed, or brought up to about 98% opacity. You might not even notice the transparency unless you really look closely.
Drastic transparency looked -awesome- in marketing screen shots, and it was promoted as a way to know if content existed behind something such as a window bar. However, it was really annoying. Interface elements become difficult to distinguish and it hindered the speed in which it took to accomplish a task.
But, at least MS gives users the option to turn this crap off. Apple never did that. Mac users needed to wait for Apple to slowly remedy the UI elements we were complaining about.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Let me first state that I run both Windows and MAC OS machines at home and one of my all time favorite devices is the Empeg Car Stereo. But I make a living by writing software for the Windows platform.
I believe that the single biggest drawback with Windows 2000, Windows XP and I'm sure Windows Vista is that they are all written with legacy support. This makes the operating system extremely bloated and pretty unstable when using any older hardware or any type of 16 bit application.
I believe that if Microsoft were to offer two versions of Vista, one with ZERO legacy support that it would be a far superior product and would be WAY more stable than anything that will eventually make it to the shelves.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Parent spews some thoughts about how much he hates this reviewer and 3+ people mod him up?
... that other tech news website.
Come on.
Someone gives a fairly honest evaluation of Vista and its shortcomings and you're modding up the guy who says the reviewer sucks?
Sheesh. It's nearly as bad as
Happens with every release of Windows. The happy users just keep coming back. Classic abusive relationship.
Although I don't agree with it, I respect your opinion that 2000 is better than XP as a workstation.
What do you think about Windows Server 2003 compared to Windows 2000 Server? I would hardly say that MS has "peaked" when you compare those two products.
"One of the most highly-touted features of Windows Vista is glass windows, a part of the Windows Aero user interface. It sounds like a great idea, and heck, let's give Microsoft a bit of credit for the ingenuity of taking the windows metaphor to its logical conclusion. Maybe Apple can add stained glass windows to the next version of Mac OS X in response."
heh...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Somehow, I don't think your requirements are even CLOSE to what an average person wants.
Virtual desktops? Do you have any concept of how confusing that would be to most people? (Do you have any idea how many free virtual desktop programs you can download if you really want the feature?)
And follow mouse? Just plain annoying.
Shell? Most users never even know it's there.
I have to agree with this right here, some of the large clients I work with are just getting around to this newfangled "XP" nonsense, *if* Vista proves itself useful to the business world it won't be on those machines for anywhere from 3 to 5 years (hopefully, at least) and even then who's to say it won't get leapfrogged by more business capable OSs.
As another poster mentioned Vista won't make an appearance on any of my home rigs for some time (if at all), it reminds me of the Windows ME release; over-hyped and dysfunctional trash.
crazy dynamite monkey
Well I dunno about Ubuntu, but I'm about ready to fly over to the US and go postal on the Kubuntu Breezy folks. I'm sorry but DHCP should just work, not work differently every time I boot. I've been using Linux since 1998 and I haven't had this much aggravation for such a simple thing since about 2000. And Kscd is incapable of playing CDs even though Amarok does it quite happily, wtf is that all about? Also could someone please explain why the networking bit of systemsettings doesn't seem to have anything to do with the actual operation of the network?
"Vista Disappoints...And How!"
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
I must admit that I am taken aback at the verbal beat down Paul gives Vista and Microsoft in general. Quite refreshing! Very sad to hear about the various failings. Guess the gut is so big now they can't see their feet anymore...
but I quite often hear statements to the effect that Windows and OS-X look better than KDE/Gnome. Have you ever seen what people are doing to their desktops? Sure it's half an hour (or half a day) tweaking the stuff a bit, but seriously, stuff like this looks better than OS-X to me, and this looks a lot better than Vista, never mind XP. It just seems somewhat unfair that Linux is seen as being the uglier OS, just because some people run XFce on the 486-33's and compare that with Vista on a dual-core with 5 gigs ram.
And that was just stuff I found from the first page now, I've seen lots of nicer stuff, both eyecandy-wise and usability-wise.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
I love the stuff he comes up with.... The kernel is being rewritten? Seriously, all M$ bashing aside, the NT kernel is quite good -- and yes, its the same kernel (plus tweaks) that has powered Win NT from day one.
There is and always will be minor tweaks to the kernel. But I would say a good 90% of the "kernel" code (not kernel-mode code) -- the executive has received minor tweaks. The kernel team is always doing things like reducing paged pool pressure or scalability enhancements.
I'm sure lots of device drivers were re-written; but very little of the executive (NTOSKRNL.EXE) is all that modified.
Before people reply with stuff like "But now some drivers can run in user-space" thats not as big of a change as you might think. Windows NT always supported a very fast form of communication called LPC in the native API. Its not exposed to the win32 layer though. Well, it isn't a big deal to take an IRP and poop it over an LPC connection and then poop it back.
Homer: "This gets my worst review yet -- seven thumbs up."
The article was a good summary of what is and isn't in Windows Vista, especially from a UI perspective. That said, I think there may be some enterprise level features that were not discussed that may get corparate america fired up. Federation is one such feature that I've heard a little about.
I want to believe we are watching the demise of a monopoly, but I will not count MS out until they are bought out by OSTG.
you imply you are providing a Vistar perspective from a "non-programmer" yet you talk about programming aspects of the OS (mainly the UI features) and refer yourself as a software developer. Please make up your mind.
- sigs are for wimps.
But... as companies buy new computers, Vista will be installed at the faactory, yes?
This means that most companies won't have a choice but to adopt it. Then, 5 years down the road when every desktop is "Vista-ized", there will be a new Windows shipping and the process repeats itself.
And since the Chinese are going to be installing "Licensed Operating Systems" on all the computers they manufacture, and since "Shipping naked PC's is bad for the computer industry"(tm) like we've been told - Vista creep is inevitable.
Allow me to explain. You are an accomplished noob. LOL @ you not being able to setup dchp correctly or edit kscd's configuration after so many supposed years of experience.
Gates is just spanking the monkey..err..Balmer for the last 3 years
The corporate world will jump on the upgrade bandwagon for 2 simple reasons:
1) New PCs will be shipped with Vista
2) XP (security) updates will be discontinued.
Wonderful windows, amazing media center, Texas H'ld them won't be the moving force.
...and Flight Simulator.
This is still an unreleased product but the author slams it as if it were a catastrophe.
Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.
So it has slipped from its release date a few times, plenty of projects do just that. I'll judge the product when I see it released in final form..
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
When Paul says :
"More to the point, you can't tell topmost windows from other windows at all. And don't pretend you can."
Yes I can, it's the one with the red X (the top-right command to close the window). I agree it's not intuitive, but it is an easy way.
While I'm sure some (smaller?) companies will use whatever OS comes by default, many do not. When I order computers at my office, we have a corporate web page with Dell. Our new systems are all "No Image" systems. When they arrive, we toss in the corporate image disk, tell it what its name is on the network and who its user is.
Our corporate disks are now XP, have been for a little over a year. *Maybe* two. I seriously doubt we'll be using Vista anytime soon! (In spite of the fact our IT department is seemingly in bed with MS...)
What's that? Why yes, I do have kids. How did you know?
When using the word "shell" I was vaguely thinking of Gnome or KDE as a shell over X Window. All I know is that the author of that page recently said that it wasn't done very well in Linux.
You are an accomplished noob
Anyone who uses the word 'noob' obviously lives in their parents' basement and plays too much xbox live. Luckily you found some spare time to dick around with Linux enough to boost your ego by talking down to people who don't know how to edit config files. I pity you, I really do.
Because they give us something to hate!
Plus, their apps have lowered the bar for functionality/quality, although their UI has raised the bar for user experience (Yeah, Apple did it first).
ya win some, ya lose some
Insert random sig here
Microsoft has some inovations... I'm sure of it.
Microsoft is THE ground breaking innovator on what a very large and rich company can do (or not do) to stay ahead of the competition. Its capitalism incarnate. This is how business works.
.
Most of their products follow this same strategy (and always have):
. Some other company (or poor bastard individual) comes out with a new innovative technology or product and creates a new market.
. Microsoft immediately floods this new market with their inferior rip off.
.
. the M$ (and Dell) fanbois with their blinders reinvent history... "Microsoft invented this!"
.
.
. Profit!!!
I'm just pointing this out, so hold off on your flamebait mods.
I don't hate Microsoft, and I couldn't be happier with them!
God Bless America!
The Admin and the Engineer
Magic 8-ball knows! Seriously, though, what's so great about Outlook?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They will...all new software from Microsoft will ONLY work correctly on the new Vista OS. Want to run Visual Studio XXII? Sorry, built especially for Vista. Office 21? Sorry, Vista only. Halo 2 for the PC, sorry...well, you get the point.
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
No matter what my opinion on DRM may vary to, one thing always remains secure in my mind, and it's this: my computer has no business wondering whether it can trust me.
Come to think of it, I will now spout that phrase at least once whenever someone asks me what DRM is. It's a damn good point.
At least for Windows, not really, IMHO. I used various free unices since 1998, so Windows 98 was my last Microsoft OS. Until recently, when i had to use Win XP because of hardware issues. IMHO ACLs or no rights managment at all, no free available documentation and dozens of running services just after startup doesn't make Windows easier to use than Linux.
-The hardware
-Age of Empires
-Halo
-Flight Simulator
Good techs by MS are either games or hardware. Any office product is bound to be crap.
Someone come up with an example of a version of Windows or Office that works great, please.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Are you saying that the GP is claiming that they are mutually exclusive? What is the default meaning of "or"? Exclusive or inclusive (but not both)?
So, either you plan to change your job very soon into something like a Linux programmer, or you can't ever change. It's that simple: a Windows programmer will need to go on with the programme: you go to the next version of Windows or you are obsolete in no time as a Windows programmer.
If you were talking about your home computer, that's okay, but professionally you are pretty much bound to all Microsoft products.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Don't be stupid. Microsoft makes most of it's money by licensing Windows to OEM manufacturers.
I understand that MS makes a considerable amount of money by licensing Windows to OEM manufacturers, but I also understand that for many years the hardware upgrade cycle in the Windows world has been influenced by updates to Windows. Over the years many people have purchased new hardware specifically so it could run the latest spiffy new version of Windows. Is it any wonder hardware OEMs are upset?
Now people who have been holding out on buying a new Windows PC have two options: Wait until Vista ships, or buy a box this year with XP, and decide about upgrading at a later date. So at least some portion of those folks will, as you pointed out, not upgrade. Instead, they'll buy a PC now, and stick with XP after Vista ships.
The Q4 buying season is huge. By missing it, Microsoft is slowing down the Vista adoption cycle. By repeatedly missing their target dates, they've sent the message to consumers that they should just buy now, rather than wait for Vista to ship.
You could argue that this doesn't matter, because purchasers are still paying MS the OS license when they buy a computer, whether it's XP or Vista. However, Microsoft's strategy has always been about growth. If they can't get people to adopt Vista at a solid clip, the market will determine that MS has lost its ability to dictate terms to consumers. Changed perceptions will in turn embolden competitors and hurt Microsoft's share prices as well as their ability to negotiate with other companies in all of their ancillary ventures.
Sure, MS is a goliath. But they got that way by letting their opponents make mistakes, while minimizing their own. Now they're in a situation where they're making mistakes, and several of their competitors are executing very well.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Imagine how poor Melinda Gates felt on her honeymoon, when she discovered what Bill had been promising her for years was going to be "the greatest thing ever" could be summed up in two words -- "micro" and "soft".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
From his example of trying to remove an icon created during installation, check out this screenshot:
WTF is "this" referring to? Any attempt to delete a file for the rest of all time? Everything in this particular adminstration operation? Every file delete during this operation? Who knows?!
Also note there's no Tooltip help for this. It's like playing Jeopardy, "I'll take 'Skip' for $400 $600 and $800, Alex, now what was the question again?" Argggghhh, this is worse than the DLL Hell questions during program uninstall.
On Linux or Mac the app makes you sudo to get elevated permissions, and stays with them for a minimal time, guaranteed to end at the end of the install. It looks like Windows Vista can't, or doesn't, do this.
=S
1) The corporate world uses volume licenses. The vast majority of PCs they order (using special corporate accounts with the PC maker) have no OS on them. They can continue to use their Windows XP volume license on new PCs.
2) XP Pro updates will be discontinued in 2011 at the earliest.
And you're right. DHCP should work, and I shouldn't have to resort to hacks like this to control it. There is ifplugd, but as far as I can tell, it's not usually included in the default boot process of any major distributions. I may be wrong on that, but I'm talking from the outside looking in - unplugging my network cable during boot time gives me that 60 second wait even in the likes of OpenSUSE.
"Vista is a fucking train wreck" 5/5!
"I like Mac OS X a lot" 4/5!
The guy is a shill. If you want to trust a shill, that's your business, but at least admit to yourself that you like having smoke blown up your ass.
ps Zax
If you don't run SE Linux, you'll get an empty column.
middle managers and vice presidents of various levels and titles, - They have been getting a lot of the blame lately.
Visual Studio 2005 works with Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista. Office 2003 works with Windows 2000 and XP.
On the other hand, Windows Media Player 10 requires XP, even though there's no good technical reason why it won't work with Windows 2000.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Here's the good news. In Windows Vista, Microsoft is indeed moving to this kind of security model. The feature is called User Account Protection (UAP) and, as you might expect, it prevents even administrative users from performing potentially dangerous tasks without first providing security credentials, thus ensuring that the user understands what they're doing before making a critical mistake. It sounds like a good system. But this is Microsoft, we're talking about here. They completely botched UAP.
Is this surprising? This is the same company that, when pressed about different user accounts and secure logons, provided the lame user model that existed in win98. Yeah, you had to logon, but click Cancel and you had access to the full machine. Oh yeah, with the added benefit that doing this while using their insanely stupid "schemes", the machine would never boot again!
Somebody needs a fuckin' clue at Microsoft!
It'll probably go down well in England. To quote Bill Bailey, maybe they should rename Vista to Operation Enduring Dissapointment.
Task Mangler
and yes I have tried Open Office, but I got too many complaints from people who still use office and complain about OO screwing up doc conversions... plus OO is resource hog and takes ages to load.
Many of the complaints I hear along these lines are usually referring to the 1.x versions of OOo, and were true at that time. However, the 2.x versions of OpenOffice are very stable, not as resource intensive, and much more mature than their 1.x counterparts (Sun had a big hand in that). Document conversion from MS Office is a problem still, but even Microsoft has problems converting between various versions of MS Office, so it's hardly a showstopper.
Bottom line: employees are usually retrained when an office upgrades to a new version of MS Office anyway, so why would this be any different? And because the native format of OpenOffice is OpenDocument, once you make the costly conversion from MS Office formats, you will not have to worry about conversion again (not necessarily because OpenDocument is the end-all of formats, but because it is open and documented, so that third parties can easily write batch converters for whatever new formats might pop up).
Admittedly, third party Windows-only software can be a problem. But just work that $200-a-seat savings into a contract with some software firm to get electronics or drafting software ported to Linux. Many CAD programs exist for UNIX and can be easily ported, and the Windows-only programs could run through an emulation layer such as Wine. The long-term cost savings would be quite high.
The bottom line is that there are absolutely no technical barriers to switching to Linux/OpenOffice on a workstation computer. There are only human resources challenges such as training, fear of change, and complacency, and perhaps budgetary concerns during the initial switch.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Shame on you, Microsoft. Shame on you...Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.
Maybe not, but you gave it a valliant effort Fland^h^h^h^h^h^h Paul.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Wasn't OS 400's file system based on DB2?
SteveM
Windows XP runs fine on my P2-333 with 64MB of RAM. You just have to disable visual themes and it does not run any worse than Windows 2000 in my experience.
Centralization breaks the internet.
How Microsoft, a software company, can develop such crappy software while Apple, arguably a hardware company, can develop such good software.
Even more interesting is that half of the features missing from the stripped down version of Vista are already in Apple's OS X and have been for about a year now. And Leopard is right around the corner.
Keep up the good work Bill & company.
Whether I agree with them on issues of piracy or not (I don't approve of pirating software myself) I refuse to allow my computer to participate in extending or enforcing their policies, and I refuse to install DRM based media players. I'm going to keep XP on that machine for as long as it runs, or until I replace it with an open OS.
Come on, give it up. You know the copy of XP on your system now is pirated. Just admit it. You will feel better or so I'm told.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Though you are definitely correct, with Wine or better yet, Cross Over Office from Code Weavers, Office is flawlessly working in my place of employment. Now, to be fair, I can only get 2000 to install perfectly (and the version preceding it) but the rest of my office doesn't use anything beyond 2000 and all the workstations not running linux are using the latest Windows 2000 build anyway. So the point is moot. For most things, Office 2000 would suffice but 2003 and certainly Office 12 would be wonderful to run on linux for those who always want the latest and greatest. In time, I'm sure it will happen.
... and you're flaming people on Slashdot. Obviously your life is much more fulfilling. :)
Poor Melinda Gates? C'mon! The "greatest thing ever" that he promised her could be summed up in three words -- "fifty" "billion" "dollars".
KDE and Gnome have a simple dialogs that changes the level and color of transparency in their applications.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think, if you really hurry, you could get your post printed by MS's PR dept. They are the ones who usually put out blurbs like that, praising the "Radical new technology of Windows -insert version here-".
.NET thing anyway, since it's Windows only.
You lost me the second you mentioned the most radical new thing since whenever. MS has said that same thing with the the release of every single version of Windows, and I don't really see how much will change with the whole
What's shocking is that the rhetoric has been toned down from the usual. While this shill is still calling it the best windoze ever and better than anything thing else, he's admitting that other systems might be better in some way than the mighty late Vista:
It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised.
That's quite a step from the kinds of morons who once told David Korn all about korn shells.
They need the humbling because they have never been the best at anything. They have, at best, vended a cheap alternative to even more restrictive and expensive code. Vista will have most of the flaws of their older junk and almost nothing new but decorations. Their networking still sucks, DRM will make media suck even worse, and their UI runs a distant fifth behind OSX, Enlightenment, KDE and Gnome. Even After Step goes beyond what M$ has. The same projects are eating their lunch on the application front too. KDE and Gnome have better PIM software than M$ can hope for. I don't even want to think about their browser. Sun's OO is better than M$ Office in many ways. If M$ had half a brain, they would hope and pray KDE and other projects manage to port decent software to their platform. Without that kind of third party support, M$ will quickly sink without a trace. They have lost their vibe and won't be getting it back without a lot of help.
Sales of Vista are going to be worse than those for XP and that's going to get their attention fast. They have already missed Christmass, which translates into a whole year out of the domestic market. Many of those disappointed people are going to install free software and they won't be back. The defections are going to go from a savvy trickle to a freaking flood in 2007.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This isn't 1997, where businesses really wanted to upgrade their word 6 in order to get great new features. Office is basically mature. Plenty of businesses are still running on Office 2000, and without a compelling reason to upgrade will remain there.
Since I am slowly learning how to deliver good humor here on Slashdot, I'll offer my alternative wording:
Imagine how poor Melinda Gates felt on her honeymoon when she discovered that Microsoft wasn't just the name of her husband's company.
Installed on the systems? Maybe not...but I'm thinking all those companies with software assurance from MS will suddenly have "jumped" on the upgrade making it "widely" adopted. Microsoft wills you to forget about the downgrade clause...
(Im the insulting guy, so we're clear. Just got back from class. Not sure, but I'm just gonna assume you're the guy I insulted. And you're just trying to preserve karma or whatever.)
/b/tard)
k scd/k scd/configuring-kscd.htmlk scd/kscd-options-tab.html
/etc/fstab file (the entry you want will have an iso fs).
First. I'm not apologizing for calling you a noob. I never apologize and you are one. In my mind a noob is someone who doesn't know wtf they're doing and is either too stupid or just not motivated enough to learn. Next.
"lives in their parents' basement"
Not since a year ago. (Yay!) Moved out a month after my 18th b-day.
"plays too much xbox live"
Video games are (IMO) a huge waste of my time. I try to devote most of my free time to study, thank you very much. ("The XBOX is too HUEG to fit in my apartment. It orbits a nearby star. LOLZ." -- some annonymous
"found some spare time to dick around with Linux"
I'm just intelligent and motivated. Instead of bitching about things not working, I ask "why not?" and attempt to fix it. The biggest block of spare time I've needed so far is two weekends to learn how to install Gentoo (back in high school when my weekends were always free), and occasionally an hour or two a week when I did upgrades and things broke. Not that hard. Although I did have some practice by growing up with Macs and then playing a bit with their UNIX when they switched.
"enough to boost your ego by talking down to people who don't know how to edit config files"
A config file is a plain text document. Much easier to edit than the Windows registry, IMO. Anyway, I haven't used Kscd, but seeing as it's a KDE app, there's probably a setting in the GUI to fix your problem.
Here's the handbook. (First freaking google hit.) http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/
Here's the section on configuration:
http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/
And here's the section on configuring the CD player:
http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/
What you're probably looking for is to change the cdrom device "/dev/cdrom". You need to be sure it matches whatever is in your
What was the other problem? *checks* Okay DHCP. What's wrong with your dhcp? I'll try to help, if you'd like. In the mean time, I'm gonna go help the other guy and his 60sec-wait-if-theres-no-cable-in-the-nic annoyance.
Also explain by what you mean here: "Also could someone please explain why the networking bit of systemsettings doesn't seem to have anything to do with the actual operation of the network?" My guess is that you just don't know wtf you're talking about. Noob.
And this made me laugh: "I pity you, I really do." Reminds me of that Jehovah's Witness kid who used to live down the street from me. He always asked if he could pray for me becasue I always refused to go to his retarded church with him. I don't need your pity. And my ego is perfectly capable of surviving on its own without me having to communicate with noobs. In fact, I usually tell them to RTFM and then ignore them completly .
For far too many years Micro$haft has concentrated it efforts and resources on the wront things. Instead of using Marketing, and anti-competitive and monopolistic practices to dominate markets and destroy competitors, they should have focussed on ONE thing. Creating a high quality OS and software that give people what they want and need instead of a poorly designed and written OS and software that give the consumer what M$ wants them to have. If they had concentrated on building a quality product, they could have competed fairly. And there would be a much more bug-free and usfull Windows, and much better software from M$. At least some people (and corporations and governments) have realized how bad M$ programs and operating systems and that there are alternatives that are both better and less expensive.
C:\FOO> Error deleting FOO.BAR
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
...and I spend a good bit of time developing windows software...on a VM running on my Linux box. I'm your basic, dumb-as-a-rock, self taught database devloper, the very person that should be the most dependant on MS and all their ease of use goodies and eye candy. Yet I just despise windows anymore, and I can't even offer a rational explanation why. Hundreds of hours (albiet billable ones) cleaning up viruses doubtless has something to do with it, that and the rapacity of the company (which shouldn't bug me...survival of the fittest and all..but it DOES bug me.) Maybe I'm just ever in search of Something New, and MS just seems to be fresh out of that. I'll be running this XP vm for the next 5-7 years, by which time I hope to be able to write native Linux apps and get my clients switched over.
I'm not a big GUI hacker (services and components are where I shine,) so the new chrome in Vista will have no impact on my code anyway.
Even once I do get into .NET development, the .NET 2.0 framework is going to continue to run on XP for a long time to come, as is Visual Studio. That's one of the positive aspects of .NET -- it's not bound to the OS.
That's why I'm not likely to switch my main home machine over to any of the flavors of Linux any time soon; although with mono approaching 98% feature completion it may become a possibility. I don't want to rule out any options, but at this point there is nothing in Vista to attract me and plenty to repel me.
John
In case you're wondering, you can download TweakUI, which is part of Microsoft PowerToys. It becomes part of the Control Panel settings, and lets you tweak the behaviour of the system, such as having applications flash [user-defined-number] times on the taskbar instead of grabbing the focus, or stopping data CD's and/or music CD's from autoplaying on insertion, etc.
At least, that was available for Win2k when I was still using Windows. I was recently reminded of this, having upgraded my wife's system from Win98 to Win2k --she hates the product activation of WinXP on our new computer, so we removed the WinXP-installed hard drive before ever turning the computer on. I think I remember reading somewhere that it also works for WinXP, but you should verify that.
For myself, I stop the focus grabbing by going to KDE Control Center > LookNFeel > Window Behaviour > Advanced > Focus stealing prevention level, where you can set it to one of five levels. This is on Mandrake 10.0o, which I think came out around the same time as WinXP.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
The true victim of the Microsoft monopoly is Microsoft. I could see the writing on the wall with Windows ME. Microsoft was no longer the underdog but the standard, so there was little incentive to get features right. Windows XP was an improvement but fast forward 5 years later and we know it had (has) major issues. But again, it seemed that Microsoft was more interested in milking its monopoly than getting it right. Now Vista is on the horizon, will they finally get it right? I don't believe so. The broken promises section seems to illustrate that Microsoft bit off more than they could chew. They had to copy OSX but they had to completely outdo Apple. That was the problem beacause while Apple was improving the OS in little jumps, Microsoft engineers were throwing away months of coding to start over. Now, OSX will be pretty close to Vista when it comes and they may have to move Vista out to show something for their years of work (what is the bug-o-meter going to read for Vista). Also, I think the bloated system requirements was for the sake of OEMs selling more expensive PCs than providing the user with innovation. I am glad I move off of Windows when I did because this is silly. Apple, being the underdog, has good incentive to get it right.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Odds are you didn't choose the right distro.
to your
The first line says that your first (counting from 0) ethernet interface (NIC) should use DHCP to obtain an IP address. The second line tells dhcpcd (the DHCP daemon - the process that sits in the backround waiting for interfaces to need the DHCP service) that it should timeout after 10 seconds instead of the default 60. If you're on your home network and don't have a lot of traffic, you could make this value smaller if you want. Experiment. If you ever need to refresh your IP, do:
to renew the lease.
Is that the new vista commercial?
"We are sooo disapointed but it's still better then everything else."
It works now, not quite sure how I convinced Breezy to stop changing my NIC from eth0 to eth1 to eth2 and back again but I did, at one point it was using my wireless card as the default device and connecting to my neighbour's network even though I specified the Ethernet card at boot and several times after to be the default. /etc/network/interfaces file didn't work. No doubt I could have reinstalled some package or other but without internet access it would have been a tedious cycle of reboot to Windows, save webpage, nope that doesn't work, rinse, repeat. All that for something that Linux has always supported and should, by now, be child's play for home networking (and PS works fine on Mandriva :P)
I ended up reinstalling because I couldn't find any help in Breezy's documentation and following the slightly obscure stuff in the man page for the
Good, bad, or indifferent, Vista will be deployed and will become the new "standard".
At this point Microsoft could ship a stinking turd of an OS and it would "sell" just as fast as a brilliant one which actually gave customers what they're asking for.
And that, folks, is what's wrong with the IT world in 2006.
No sig today...
Utterly.
It appeared from the earlier posts that people were talking about groups reinvented badly. Unless you are doing something weird like time restrictions on file access you are talking about very basic file permissions and sensible group setup, so I agree with the earlier poster that something functionally similar has been in *nix (and NT) for a very long time and perhaps has not been applied well in NT due to all the people and applications coming in from an MSDOS background. Effectively letting users add whoever they like to their group without oversight sounds like a massive step backwards to me anyway, so that's one bit of role based security I don't like.
I really don't see this as making any difference with Vista if Outlook and IE are still going to have full access as per the stupid MSDOS attitude that still prevails, and I really dislike the concept that there are files that root or Administrator cannot have access to. When things go wrong and you have clearly seperated roles you do not want to have to go to twenty people to just restore files on a single system!
God Bless you, VAXGeek!
I'm a big fan of the kottke troll in it's various incarnations. This is definitely one of the better ones.
Now maybe someone will do a "Vista is dead, Netcraft confirms it" troll.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
From TFA:
"Among these missing features are the various Vista Ultimate Extras (features and services), including a Texas Hold-em game that was developed by the people behind Windows Calendar and Sidebar, Virtual PC Express, Media Center support for the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender, automatic hard disk defragmentation, themed slideshows, Windows Movie Maker HD, and so on."
I know a lot of people only use Windows for games... but stating the first missing feature to be a Texas Hold'em game is hardly important!
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
Is that 512MB minimum memory recommendation for Vista with debug code or Vista without debug code?
Nah, I'm not buying that women have incredibly high expectations about marriage. Unless you count emotional intimacy, providing for the family, responsibility, and faithfulness as unexpected obligations of marriage...
The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race. - Don Marquis (1878-1937)
He says, "just get it ported", as if it's the easiest thing to do. AutoCAD is on a yearly release schedule these days. I doubt you could get a Linux CAD application up to par with any released version of AutoCAD in one year, let alone keeping it up with the current year's release. As for something like AutoCAD Mechanical or Electrical, forget it. Just forget it. There's nothing even close to those in the market (effectively a full CAD application with underlying database elements to track every part, component, tag, cable, wire, etc on all the drawings in a project). I doubt you could port or develop an alternative to that in a year, and by then the new release is out.
Never mind PLC programming software, SCADA software, etc. Windows-only. Period. Try to run those on an emulator and you'll get run out of whatever plant you're in.
Bottom line: anyone who says "there are absolutely no technical barriers to switching to Linux on a workstation computer" has never seen an engineering workstation computer.
Yeah. Other people go plant trees or something to get feel good buzz about "doing something" (while driving there on a SUV) ..
Mr and Ms gates have enormous foundation which funds things like malaria research which poor widdle pharma corps can't be arsed with because profit margins are not lucrative enough.
You can have expensive hobbies when you have enough money. And actually do some honest good with that money. That said, I would've rather used the on beer. (the part of my cash in Gates' coffins)
Oh, dear God.
Vista is a disappointment primarily because of what was promised, and because of the number of years that have passed. Vista, however, isn't where the feathers are going to fly. That'll be the next release. (Is it the next release after Longhorn still codenamed Blackcomb, or have they re-codenamed it now? Anyway, that one.) When XP was released, other systems were still catching up. Today, they've not so much caught up as zoomed past, and Vista is still next year's promise. Fine, it's normal for competing systems to go back and forth, with whichever one has the latest and greatest release out taking the lead. But the problem for Microsoft is, what's going to happen _after_ Vista. Vista right now is scrambling to get back in the lead. It's only got a couple of things going for it, that the other players haven't already got. Aero glass? Okay, nothing like that has yet made it onto the typical Linux user's desktop... yet. But the freedesktop.org guys have been playing for a while with the technology to do that sort of thing, and once the bugs get worked out, it's actually a better implementation. (You think translucency is nice in the titlebars of your windows? Try taking an entire window, such as a clock, and making it 30% opaque and always-on-top.) This will probably not hit the typical Linux user's desktop before Vista is released -- but it won't be long afterward in coming.
The next release after Vista, and specifically the _timing_ of that release, is going to be the key. It needs to come out a year or two after Vista, circa 2009. It needs, desparately, to not be delayed into the 2012-2013 timeframe.
So here's the question: have the long delays for Vista been because of specific mistakes that were made for that particular version, and because of the needed rewrites (which hopefully will not have to be repeated yet for the very next release), or have they been because of inherent organizational issues within the Microsoft Windows team that are going to continue to dog subsequent releases? When Vista finally ships, can Microsoft turn around and build on it quickly, or have they lost their agility? This I consider to be the critical question for Microsoft right now, the one that will determine, in 2010 or so, whether they can continue to keep the OEMs on board, and whether Microsoft products will continue to ship on practically every new computer sold.
The OEMs are already testing the waters, playing a sort of game of footsie, as it were, with other operating systems in general and Linux in particular. That worries Microsoft, but it doesn't actually hurt them, yet. But it demonstrates a mindset in the OEMs: they're _looking_ at alternatives, one could say looking *for* alternatives. They're not entirely _satisfied_ with Microsoft. Microsoft needs to hold their interest. Vista will help, but it's not 2001 anymore, and Vista will not hold the OEMs' loyalty as long as XP has done. If 2011 rolls around and Microsoft is promising the next release after Vista for 2012, the OEMs are going to start defecting. (I mean really defecting, not playing with a model here and a model there with another OS, but switching over their entire product lines.)
One really long delay the market has tolerated, but the next product is going to have to ship on time, or the industry is going to turn elsewhere, and the bottom line is going to hurt.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Isn't it interesting to see the UI aficionados having to interpret the meanings of the buttons? What the button "cancel" implies to me is that ...
How about something more like Radio buttons?
---BEGIN---
You are not permitted to delete this file. What would you like to do?
* Give me permission to delete the file, then go ahead and delete the file
* Forget that I started this
---END---
Now you can quibble over my copy and I'll admit that it's not perfect, but isn't it much more clear and thus usuable (not requiring any mystic "interpretation") to not feel the need to coerce the choices into tiny little ambiguous-yet-shiny buttons?
I have *always* hated the "Yes / No / Cancel" buttons. What the fuck is the difference between "No" and "Cancel"!? (At this point a UI sage will likely step in to "interpret" those buttons for me.)
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
"like teenage girls at a Justin Timberlake concert, volleying for the best seats"
Not as resource intensive eh? I'd like to know what you're smoking. The transition to Ooo2 made it almost unusable on my iBook running Ubuntu with 288MB of RAM, it's constantly swapping with a single document open. 1.x worked very well.
I wasn't explicitly trying to state that MS would do this, just playing Devil's Advocate and providing an example of a "compelling reason" for businesses to upgrade.
Where I work, we didn't go to Windows XP until around 2003, and only just this year moved all of our enterprise backends to Server 2003.
MS would be extremely stupid to screw over the business world, and I am sure that they know it. I would guess that most businesses would not upgrade until whenever Vista Server comes out. If MS does the same thing they did with Server 2003, it will most likely be released after most of initial issues of Vista are taking care of (a la a Service pack rollout). At that point I would really expect to see businesses migrate up.
Of course, most new businesses would most likely just buy Vista on their new systems, and of course home users will get it with nearly every new PC purchase unless they wipe and reinstall with XP. There is no compelling reason for me personally to switch to Vista at the moment. Now if in a year or so the gaming experience is so much better with Vista, then I would upgrade my system and get Vista with it.
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
Exactly. With that kind of money she can hire a nice pool boy.
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, Longing for the warmth of bedsheets, Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets: Having reached the bottom line, I took a floppy from the drawer. Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command But got instead a reprimand: It read "Abort, Retry, Ignore". Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion? These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before. Carefully, I weighed my options. These three seemed to be the top ones. Clearly, I must now adopt one - Choose : "Abort, Retry, Ignore". With my fingers pale and trembling, Slowly toward the keyboard bending, Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, Praying for some guarantee Finally I pressed a key -- But on the screen what did I see? Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore". I tried to catch the chips off-guard -- I pressed again, but twice as hard. Luck was just not in the cards, I saw what I had seen before. Now I typed in desperation, Trying random combinations. Still there came the incantation - Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore". There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted; Getting up, I turned away and paced across the office floor. And then I saw an awful sight, A bold and blinding flash of light, A lightning bolt that cut the night and shook me to my very core. The PC screen collapsed and died, "Oh no - my database", I cried. I thought I heard a voice reply, "You'll see your data -- Nevermore!" To this day I do not know the place to which our data goes Perhaps it goes to Heaven where the angels have it stored. But as for productivity - well, I fear that it goes straight to Hell. And that's the tale I have to tell - Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.
-
People will switch to Vista from WinXP for the same reason that I switched from Win2K to WinXP. Users will find that their new hardware just magically happens to work better on Vista then XP. Love it or hate it, this is the price that I (and others) pay for using the dominant platform.
But just work that $200-a-seat savings into a contract with some software firm to get electronics or drafting software ported to Linux.
I think that anybody who has worked in the real world should see through the "use Linux to avoid paying licensing costs" argument. I would argue that any money you save on licensing costs are quickly eaten up by lost productivity due to users having to operate in an unfamiliar environment. Plus, you then have to manage the interoperation of applications running on various platforms. This is unless you plan on moving your entire shop over to Linux, and doing so in one fell swoop. (good luck) More IT costs. I also don't think that emulators are the answer. By adding an emulator, you're increasing the complexity of your system, and thus increasing the chances for things to go wrong. And then there's always the performance hit.
As irritated as I am with MS, and as much as I respect the Linux community, I think that we're stuck with Windows for a little while longer, until the webdev community gets its act together and produces a suite of viable web/ajax alternatives. If I were to make a prediction, I would say that Linux won't truly take off in the business or consumer markets until web/internet-based technologies render the OS to be largely irrelivent.
It's pretty damn good. Almost a drop in replacement. Take a look for yourself.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Please keep paying that price. It helps drive down the cost of systems for the rest of us using those non-dominate operating systems. I really appreciate that.
From the sounds of things, they're going to need a Vista SP1 within 6-9 months after Vista release, and probably an SP2 within 12-18 months. And if they don't have a follow-on ready around 24-28 months, they're going to be in a world of hurt.
... MS needs to step up to what Apple is doing with frequent, stable, incremental improvements in their point releases... Apple is busy cleaning MS's clock here).
(Let's face it, the frequent OS X updates are almost equivalent so "SP" with a few refinements in features
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
"(the part of my cash in Gates' coffins)"
Unless you're implying that Gates is some sort of monetary necrophiliac, I believe the word you're looking for is coffers.
I've never had a problem with OO's conversion, way better than MSs. The only serious drawbacks are VBA, and that's become kind of a joke in this internet world.
Document conversion from MS Office is a problem still, but even Microsoft has problems converting between various versions of MS Office, so it's hardly a showstopper.
This is the ultimate showstopper. I can look at Word docs in linux, I just can't edit them because the numbering gets screwed up. This may be a Microsoft problem underneath, but it doesn't change the fact that the docs just don't match up. I still have to reboot into Windows. And yes, I'm using the latest OpenOffice.
KDE and Gnome have a simple dialogs that changes the level and color of transparency in their applications. With transparency in xorg, real transparency has been here a while now.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
and i jus' hadda go an' click th' link, and all I kin se' i' "you're dead on thar"
but it was funny as ____, and I am personally having a hard time trying to convince myself not to go get one for my wife. She's an amateur shutterbug, but she had a couple of bad experiences with Macs in HS, and so now won't have anything to do with 'em. Could I but get her to try it with her camera, I know she'd have a different tune, but you know the saying:
"If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"
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Can anyone else find the flaws in this, in that this process would really allow people to do what they're wanting, where the viruses and such that piggyback in would only have CU access, not Admin. Also, the bloaters on the system could easily be identified:
"Who has a 15GB user's directory? Okay, time to talk to xxxx." Maybe they have a big program that would be usefully installed on the LM, or maybe they use that big program on several machines, but they don't want to install it on every machine on the network (for roaming profiles) and they actually installed it to a "C:\USER_NAME\Programs" directory instead of to "C:\"&&WINDOWS_DEFAULT_INSTALLATION_PATH**&&"\Pro
With any luck, MS has foreseen this and decided to write it in, but in all likelyhood, no. Sadly, it's going to be no. Mark my words.
Back to your point, the registry is the better tool for these users (those who are not admin, e.g. home users) needs, and I wholeheartedly agree with your point. How many users could be expected to find every
Insofar as Mac goes I definitely agree that the install process is much easier, as is working with the
Okay, now I'm donning my flame-retardent suit, go!
** Where this is applied via my plan, such that instead of "C:\Program Files" you also have "C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\My Installed Programs" etc, etc, etc.
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xp doesn't prompt you to, but it does allow the same functionality. In this regards, I think they got it right. Tell people that they can't install this, so they have to think about the ramifications before just jumping over and installing
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Heh heh. Annoyingly, Dapper still does this, and is steadily walking the number of my wireless card upwards. The bug is identified and is related to some kind of ifrename / udev / scripting gubbins. Popping the card in and out also fixes it when it gets into one of its timeout and reboot card cycles.
Aside from this and the somewhat cruddy auto-hinting (fixable with a tweak and recompile of libfreetype6) Dapper is running really nice. On my newly mem-expanded (from 192 to 483 Megs) thinkpad it's getting on for matching my PBook 12" in performance and 'feel'.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.