How Vista Disappoints

Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by yagu · 2006-04-20 07:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, in summary, the new Vista:

Introduces the new user security model similar to Un*x, only 30 years later. But it is (so far) incredibly inane in its interaction model with the user (from the article):
The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness.
they've taken the "windows" metaphor to its (in their opinion) next logical step, i.e., "glass", offering translucent and transparent windows. But (FTA):
Anyway, the reality of glass windows is that they stink. The windows themselves are translucent, meaning you can see through them partially. But the visual difference between the topmost window (that is, the window with which you are currently interacting, or what we might describe as the window with focus) and any other windows (i.e. those windows that are visually located "under" the topmost window) is subtle at best. More to the point, you can't tell topmost windows from other windows at all. And don't pretend you can.
they've added a "Media Center", but (summarizing the article), it stinks.

Thurrott says he still doesn't hate Microsoft for not delivering on all of these promises:

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.

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!

Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by IAmTheDave · 2006-04-20 07:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's funny how one of Microsoft's biggest champions (and, despite that, a man I highly regard) really liked OSX and is honest enough to come down on MS when necessary.
This article and its points (good ones) make me respect Paul even more. Not to mention TFA has some really well thought out points. MS is blowing it, hard.

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Making The Bar Project
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Tibor+the+Hun · 2006-04-20 08:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Would you say he's griping about Vista or gloating?
You can't tell by the score 5/5.

Now imagine you get your college paper back with as much complaints and still get an A.
(Doesn't quite work like that, does it?)

No offense, but you've no reason to respect him even more.

That being said, the list of gripes is accurate and honest.
However considering how much money corporations and worse yet, individuals, have to spend each year fixing Microsoft's mistakes (viruses, security) I don't have the luxury of forgiveness that Paul does.

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If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by ConceptJunkie · 2006-04-20 08:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the biggest problem with Vista is that it doesn't really give us anything new. Just mild improvements (or not based on your comment) to what's there now. From what I've read, it sounds like Windows NT 5.3... some performance improvements (much needed, but will they be overshadowed by the inevitable additional bloat?)... lots of eye candy (wild monkeys must have designed much of XP's look... I hope Vista isn't so hideous)... and improved security (something we've been promised, and were owed, for many years).

I'm sorry. I don't see any compelling reason (or hardly any reason at all) to move from Windows 2000 or (for those couple of laptops of mine that have it) XP.

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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by diegocgteleline.es · 2006-04-20 08:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

Introduces the new user security model similar to Un*x, only 30 years later. But it is (so far) incredibly inane in its interaction model with the user (from the article)

IMHO it's isn't, NT had a unix-like security model (not exactly the same, but...)from the start. XP may created user accounts with administrator privileges by default, but the problem there is just a bad default, they could have changed it very easily in the vista code base or in a XP SP.

The vista security model is different. I'm not sure of what it is - some security expert may know better than me, all the information you can find today about vista is mostly full of marketing crap and the rest are docs about how to use what they've implemented, not about what they've implemented - but I'd say that Vista has a SeLinux-like access control thingy, which is really different from the typical unix security model.

Take for example IE 7 running under Vista. In Vista, IE 7 runs with *less* privileges than the user running it, which means they can allow the browser to run activex controls *and* ensure nothing bad happens to the user, because IE is not allowed to write/read files even if the files belongs to the same user that is running IE (unless you allow it). In theory you can extend this to every program connected to the net (email client, messenger). Even if lot of Linux distros are already using SELinux, I welcome this change in vista. Now, as Paul says they may have implemented a horrible UI, but that's another problem...
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by MightyMartian · 2006-04-20 08:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think he just describe MS' standard modus operandi: promise the world to stop companies switching. Then, when the product actually comes out without all those nifty features, promise the world in the next release.

Indeed, I can't really figure out why he, or anyone else for that matter, finds this surprising. Windows 95 was precisely the same kind of beast, as was Windows ME. Even Windows 2000, while one of the better MS operating systems, still didn't live up to expectations.
It's not as if MS is the only guys out there that pull this stunt, but why does everyone still, after all this time, act as if the new MS release is such a disappointment. It's almost as if they actually believe the hype coming out of Redmond, which, to be honest with you, would indicate some pretty big failures in the critical analysis abilities of such people.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-20 08:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

You can sum up Vista like this:
Microsoft spent years and billions of dollars redesigning their operating system around the idea of DRM... designing their operating system around a feature that not one single consumer wants... and that makes your computer do less than it could before.
Champion... money well spent.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by j3thr0 · 2006-04-20 08:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

"a means of managing access to administrative rights without forcing the user to always operate as Administrator"

You mean like sudo?

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I'm schizophrenic; no I'm not.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Jugalator · 2006-04-20 09:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

People consistently bash Paul Thurrott on pro-Windows forums these days and I find that sad because I think he's one of few people left that write thorough, and actually rather unbiased, reviews of Microsoft products these days. Heck, with this review he even got an MS employee (that I'll avoid naming the username of to not point fingers) to call him a "douchebag" in a one-liner flamebait as an opinion about this entire article. Such non-existant motivation behind a flame can only come from one with little to defend himself with.

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by lord_rob+the+only+on · 2006-04-20 09:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Except that new computers don't especially need to be sold. You know, I could be a new computer if I wanted to, but what for ? I'm still hapopy with my AMD athlon 900MHz running the latest Debian Sid. Sure it's not as fast as thunder but well... So what ? It's more than enough for what I need to do with it (writing programs, typing reports lin LaTeX, IRC, MSN, ...).

Apart from gaming, who really needs a new PC every time ?
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by drinkypoo · 2006-04-20 10:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

I haven't read about the permissions scheme in vista but I do know something about how both Unix and NT handle them. Mind you, I won't talk about Unix ACLs, because I've never used them, which is in turn because there are not convenient userspace tools for dealing with ACLs. (And it will never be as easy to handle them on the commandline as octal mask perms.)

The biggest difference between classic Unix perms and NT perms isn't ACLs, though. It's the fact that Unix gives most permissions, and NT gives least. More accurately, Unix perms are additive, while NT perms can be either additive or subtractive.

In Unix, permissions are OR'd together. If you or any of the groups you belong to have a permission, then you have it as well. In NT, permissions are more complex. There is both a permit and a deny, and most significantly, deny trumps permit. If you belong to both the "good guys" and "assholes" groups, and good guys have read permit, but assholes have read deny, then the deny wins (supposedly) and you don't have access.

I still don't know what NT is doing to perms... but the common use of NT perms is superior to the common use of Unix perms (since practically no one uses ACLs in spite of the fact that assorted Commercial Unixes have had them for aeons.)

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Admiral+Ag · 2006-04-20 10:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Please correct me if I am wrong, but Microsoft managed to avoid the disaster that was Windows ME by replacing it not long after (i.e. a couple of years) with XP Home Edition, which was based on NT. So at least they had some insurance.

If Vista is a disaster, they don't seem to have another OS ready to tweak to replace it. All their eggs seem to be in this basket.

More to the point, there are better competitors out there. Back in 2000 Apple was still selling the Classic Mac OS, and Linux on the desktop was quite crude. Now Apple is currently selling an OS that is at least as good as Vista and will release a new version that will probably be much better than Vista around the same time MS releases. Desktop Linux is starting to look really good, and the whole movement towards virtualization could conceivably provide backwards compatibility for people who want to move away from MS products (this is what Boot Camp and the rumoured virtualization in OS 10.5 are about).

There's a scene in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Steve Jobs confronts Gates about plagiarizing from Apple. Jobs claims he will win because Apple has better stuff, but Gates points out that this doesn't matter. The Gates character was proven right. But now this might bite the real Gates in the ass: Desktop Linux is probably not going to be as good as Vista, but that doesn't matter. Microsoft beat Apple because Apple had hardware lockin. Linux will beat Microsoft because Microsoft has software lockin, and because Linux these days is pretty much good enough.

We can only hope.

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"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Theatetus · 2006-04-20 10:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Get off of it. NT has had a fine grained, multi-user security model since it's inception, 13 years ago. In fact, until Unix got ACL's, I would say NTFS has a better file system security model.

He's not talking about filesystem security. And, yes, Linux didn't get ACLs as quickly as Windows did. UNIX, however, has had them for ages, before Windows was a commercial product.
UAP is a means of managing access to administrative rights without forcing the user to always operate as Administrator. Other than OS X, I know of no Unix-like OS that even attempts this.
Umm... how about all of them? As far as I know everything UNIX-like can run sudo

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All's true that is mistrusted
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Cunk · 2006-04-20 11:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

You're hardly a representative of general PC-buying public.

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I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by misleb · 2006-04-20 12:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

IMHO it's isn't, NT had a unix-like security model (not exactly the same, but...)from the start. XP may created user accounts with administrator privileges by default, but the problem there is just a bad default, they could have changed it very easily in the vista code base or in a XP SP.

The reason they use such a bad default is because a lot of programs require admin rights to run and your average user doesn't want to bother (or doesn't know how to) use the "runas" feature. In this regard, the security model is bad. It should be more like OS X where the system knows when you need admin to do something and it automatically prompts for a username/password with admin rights. This is a superior security model for a consumer desktop, IMO. It has one great thing going for it: It is dead simple. Microsoft has gone out of their way (as usual) to make things very complex. One wonders if they've ever heard the old engineering mantra: Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS).

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by Bing+Tsher+E · 2006-04-20 13:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

I hate to just post what some will interpret as flamebait, but on the surface, not one single consumer wants the UNIX security model, either. What people want is a computer they can easily add to and change to suit their purpose. No security model addresses that. With Windows, it's either an out-of-control insecure nest of spyware, viruses and trojans, or the new DRM model of locked-down-no-fun. With the freenixes, it's locked-down-no-fun or months of learning how to get around 'the barriers' of 'the rest of the world' and DRM.

The 'PC Revolution' came about when an MS-DOS machine could be had at low cost and could do the now-considered-limited things that a PC in that era could accomplish. Which was VERY liberating at the time, because the only other computers to be had were locked-down multiuser systems that the regular person wasn't even allowed to be in the same room with.

The Microsoft 'a computer on every desk and in every home' was a cool aspiration. The fact that it's now time for those computers to no longer have much (if any) software from Microsoft doesn't make it a less cool aspiration.

To a person who liked writing graphical programs in GW-Basic, who got into the hardware and learned how to do cool low-level things with, say, Turbo C 2.0, any modern system makes your computer do less than it could before. Simply because hardware abstraction and a modern 'security model' took that all away.

It's point-of-view and what you want to do with the gear that determines 'more' and 'less.' To some people 'more' is a DRM-enabled system they can download crappy TV shows onto.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft by ladoga · 2006-04-20 23:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

not one single consumer wants the UNIX security model, either.
Not one single consumer?

Im quite happy with Unix security model. Im a Linux noob and it took me few hours to get hang of the basics of UNIX security concept. Root / user division in user accounts, filesystem and devices. I much prefer this security approach to windows one (or should i say lack of).

Maybe *nixes aren't just your thing? Im not saying that security model is ideal (tho i cant think of better for myself), but i fail to see how it's so hard to use or uncustomizable. OSX users don't seem to have so hard time with it either and sure you can set up sudo for other *nixes too if that matters.

A credibility problem by clevershark · 2006-04-20 07:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's hard to trust the reviewer when he writes about how disappointed he is, but still gives the product 5/5.

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My sig is too lon

Vista will dominate by MarkByers · 2006-04-20 07:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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I'll probably be modded down for this...

Re:Vista will dominate by It+doesn't+come+easy · 2006-04-20 08:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not this time for me...while Microsoft has been practicing their perpetually delayed rollout approach to OS upgrades, I have been getting ready to switch to Linux for good. I (that is, linux developers) have almost all of the issues worked out and as soon as I can get complete driver support out of the box (so to speak) for my existing hardware in either Ubuntu or SUSE, I'll be using Linux exclusively. Yee-haw.

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The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Re:Vista will dominate by RatPh!nk · 2006-04-20 09:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
What a terribly defeatist attitude. Maybe he won't use Vista, I won't. Maybe he will run linux, I do. Maybe he will buy a Mac, I did. Maybe (hopefully) more people will say enough of this crap and get something else. Do you need Windows to:
- Browse the web? No.
- Check email? No.
- Write some papers? No.
- Spreadsheets? No.
- Taxes? No.
- Games? Umm..err.. ;) (it is better than a couple years ago, most *major* games are at least dual platform)
I would imagine that very few people actually *have* to run Windows. They use it because it comes on the machine they buy, much like the reason they use IE. Those who *have* to, could use some emulator (hardware or software) or virtualization program. Maybe people will realize that it doesn't have to be so bad and move past the MS monopoly. Don't accept the status quo if you can help it, and when it comes to computers, we can help it.
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Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.

Don't care. Don't want to care. by plover · 2006-04-20 07:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Frankly, I don't want to get excited about Vista.

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.

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John

"The Bad Old Microsoft" by mrchaotica · 2006-04-20 07:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

As I've noted in the past, the Windows Division retains, as employees of the software giant have told me, the last vestiges of the bad, old Microsoft. This is the Microsoft that ran roughshod over competitors in order to gain market share at any cost. The Microsoft that forgot about customers in its blind zeal to harm competitors.

He talks about it as if they've changed, but Microsoft is the same as it ever was -- and it always will be, because the core of those "bad" ways is the upper management, including Gates and Ballmer themselves.

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

Re:Promises by eln · 2006-04-20 07:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

So when people tell you they'll do something, you expect them not to do it unless they explicitly say "I promise?" Or do you require some sort of pinky swear?

Microsoft marketed a load of vapor to people for years so they would wait for Vista. And if someone is waiting for Vista, they aren't installing Mac OS X or Linux.

Either Microsoft did this to intentionally slow the growth of other products while their product was in development, or they screwed up so badly in their development that they were forced to strip out all of these planned features. Neither one of those options says anything good about Microsoft.

Another Windows OS... So what? by pegr · 2006-04-20 07:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

It's Paul Thurrott... by Senjutsu · 2006-04-20 07:55 · Score: 1, Insightful

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.

Re:It's Paul Thurrott... by diegocgteleline.es · 2006-04-20 08:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

super-human Microsoft shill. Why would you trust him at all?

Yeah, why would trust a guy that admits and critizes Microsoft problems when they exist, that admits that most of the things in vista are inspired in mac os x, and that owns a mac and likes mac os x?
Re:It's Paul Thurrott... by Jugalator · 2006-04-20 09:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, it is the guy who called the Vista Beta 1 a train wreck after all, so it's not like it hasn't happened before, and that's why he's the Microsoft reviewer of my choice. I mean, listening to e.g an open source enthusiast isn't going to give you a less biased review, and unfortunately I don't know too many reviewers that use to criticize Microsoft when it's due without for that sake being anti-Microsoft per general philosophy.

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

Disappointing? Certainly. But... by zapf · 2006-04-20 07:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

Most Windows users won't even know what Microsoft was promising two and a half years ago. They'll be happy with their shiny new glass windows and amazing alt-tab feature. Vista is ultimately going to be successful, despite the glaring development problems it's has had.
What Microsoft should really be concerned about is the poor current implementation of the User Account Protection feature. It is really annoying as is, and there's a night and day usability difference between it and OS X's implementation. This is something that regular end users will actually notice and complain about.
A deeper problem is interface consistency. Thurrott points out how Microsoft has basically turned into what it once despised: a reactive bureaucracy in the model of IBM in the 70's. This is really reflected in the current builds of Vista-- the interface is incredibly inconsistent compared to OS X, Gnome, or Windows 2000. It feels like twnety different teams worked on fourty different things without any real coordination or a common set of user interface guidelines.

Re:Disappointing? Certainly. But... by dbc001 · 2006-04-20 13:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Interface Consistency = Business Model
How does Microsoft make money? 1. Selling software. 2. Selling Books for that software. 3. Selling Certifications.
So what happens after everyone who is going to buy an OS, Book, & Cert has bought them all? What does Microsoft do? They announce that the old stuff is no longer supported, everyone has to buy the new stuff now! Then the mayhem starts. Applications slowly begin to break. Interfaces are no longer "flashy" or "in style". Then it hits the mainstream. "You don't have the new version yet? Wow, that OS is like 6 years old. You must not be on top of the IT world after all." Adoption hits critical mass, consumers start to flock to the new software. Now even the hard-core techies have to learn the bullshit new interfaces, programming languages, etc.

Point is, Microsoft's business model relies on breaking things. They can't sell the new stuff until they break the old. This is why Microsoft is dangerous to business on the whole.

Minor Upgrade...? (was:Comparison) by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-20 07:58 · Score: 1, Insightful

What minor upgrade almost double (or dare I say, triple?) hardware requirement?

Re:My Vista sucks by 955301 · 2006-04-20 08:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Because it wasn't supposed to be a year until the release. And yet they are having problems as severe as these?

Unless the folder he's trying to copy to is in his file cabinet, I'd say its a sign of mediocrity to come.

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You are checking your backups, aren't you?

Re:Filesystem by realmolo · 2006-04-20 08:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Catch up"? What other operating system in widespread use has an SQL-based filesystem?

Yeah, WinFS would and *will* be nice, but it's not a deal-breaker.

I'm more concerned that Vista is yet-another-version-of-Windows NT. I honestly would like MS to risk it all and make a brand-new version of Windows, written from scratch, that only runs "old" stuff under emulation. Just start over. It'll never happen, of course.

Re:View from a non programmer by The-Bus · 2006-04-20 08:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

"But basically Microsoft will bring Flash like GUI programming for real programs"

I know you meant to have that line as praise, but you've put the fear of God in me and anyone that's ever used a Flash-based UI.

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Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

Re:Don't care. Don't want to care. by ScottLindner · 2006-04-20 08:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.

Re:It'll exceed OSX and Linux eh? by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2006-04-20 08:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Um, when did Linux ever kill Windows?

I mean, to say something is a linux killer suggests that Linux is the mainstream OS that everybody is using, and so Windows will overtake their dominance.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but 95% of the world runs Windows on their Desktop.

Sure, Linux is dominant in servers and server technology. But I would never have claimed that Windows 95 would kill Linux as a server OS.

When Windows 95 came out, where as Linux? Linux back then WAS a difficult POS to use, a convoluted OS with a lot of potential and very little innovation. In fact, it wasn't until Windows 95 was released that Linux actually started to adopt a UI that people liked to use on it (i.e. no more X-Windows). Gnome and KDE all got a lot of big design cues form Windows 95.

Back then, people though Linux was going to kill Windows, and with each new version of Windows that was released since Windows 95, Linux failed to make a dent in the market.

Today, in 2006, with Ubuntu being the lastest flavour of the mont Linux distro(but waining with rumors of other must have distros like a Google version of linux), Linux still is failing to captivate an audience for desktop users. In the past 10 years, Linux has failed to focus into a consise and effective replacement of Windows, failed to take 100 renegage distibrutions and consolidate it into one super-uber-distro that could rule them all and truely compete with Windows. Linux, and all its fragmeneted groups of developers still cannot unite to develop ONE good replacement to Windows, and while they all feel they can make a better Windows, none realize how damaging keeping seperated is having on their beloved hobby OS.

I have no idea where your coming from saying something like Vista will require driver disks if you plug your USB thingy into them. At least on Windows, drivers EXIST. Driver CD's actaully come with the product, and you can download the drivers online at least. This is unlike Linux where if you have new hardware, until some open source developer gets around to buying it you won't get any driver support for it. Even once you do, if the driver isn't for the specific nightly build of the kernel your running, your SOL for getting it to install properly without configuring scripts for hours.

Sorry, I know your trying to make a point about how cool and great Linux is over Windows, but you have to have some platform to stand on. Never once did I even consider that Windows needed to be a Linux killer. Linux speaks for itself, 95% of the world computer users say so. They all can't be mindless lemmings.

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I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.

Re:I still waiting. by nine-times · 2006-04-20 08:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

You're right. The quote shows the author to be naive/uninformed:

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

This has always been Microsoft's MO. Late and with most of the intended features dropped out. They promise the world when they start development, but the new versions of their software tend to be the old version with a few tweaks, updates, fixes, a new skin, and all the controls in different places.

On the Programmers View by ratboy666 · 2006-04-20 08:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

You look forward to exploiting the "3D interface". But you won't be able to. Here's why:

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 .NET updates and maybe force MS IDE users to use the interface (not as many desktops to migrate, and its a minor part).

Don't count on this feature as a platform for 3 to 5 (or more) years, though.

Ratboy.

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Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061

I understand, but don't agree. by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2006-04-20 08:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.

Re:View from a non programmer by flooey · 2006-04-20 08:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Interestingly, I'm interested in the complete opposite. I think Dashboard (and possibly Windows Sidebar) is a neat idea because it has the potential to make my life easier. At best, animations and colors make my life exactly as easy as it was before, and (as the article mentions in relation to the active window) they have the potential to noticably impede me. I want things that do stuff, I don't really care what they look like.

Re:Resistant to change by Tim+Browse · 2006-04-20 08:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

By not using it?

Re:Sounds like an apologist by moorcito · 2006-04-20 08:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Both sound like someone trying to apologize and explain away someone elses bad behaviour.

In the windows case yes, in the husband case let's just say that wives have incredibly high expectations.

Re:Vista will dominate, maybe, maybe not by slashname3 · 2006-04-20 08:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

Re:But when? by slashname3 · 2006-04-20 08:32 · Score: 1, Insightful

You hit the nail on the head. Microsoft has been showing signs of a company that is past its prime and on the way down. Vista will seal the deal with its slow uptake and possible out right refusal by corporate customers. The past year or two they pushed some special dividends to allow share holders to extract some money. They will continue to do this over the next few years. Note that inertia will continue to carry Microsoft for many years to come. Just like it took a couple of decades for AT&T to dwindle down to the point that it was bought out by SBC. The downward spiral has started, the only real question is how fast will Microsoft plummet?

Re:So just for perspective... by jdbartlett · 2006-04-20 08:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

But seriously... Excel. I've thrown the rest of the Office suite out the window: I try to work in plain text, so Word isn't for me. I use SQL for databases, Access doesn't suit my purposes. Publisher is to DTP as Paint is to photo manipulation, I don't even bother installing it any more. I use Flash to compose presentations, I only use Powerpoint when forced to. Apple's iLife beats the stuffing out of Outlook, so the same applies there (I've been in offices that have an enforced Outlook policy). Gnumeric, KSpread, OpenOffice Calc... they're all based on Excel because it's a good application. Can't think of anything else, though!

Re:Insightful by IvyKing · 2006-04-20 08:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

The OP (or GP...) was both funny and insightful.

The Cairo prject was M$'s attempt to finsih killing off OS/2 and kill off the various desktop UNIX distro's (HP had a nice candidate with the 900/712 with Lotus 123 and Ami-Pro running natively on HP-UX). Kind of thinking that the WinFS idea is like speech recognition (or Duke Nukem Forever) - remember reading Jerry Pournelle quoting Bill Godbout about the 80286 will be powerfull enough for speech recognition, this was ca 1982.

Re:Posix and security by IntlHarvester · 2006-04-20 09:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is "role-based" security, not "user-based"

So, no, Linux/Unix has not been doing this since inception. There's been military versions of Unix that have done it for a long time, but it's hasn't been a generally available feature (and still isn't on the desktop even for SELinux distros).

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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.

But you keep coming back. by lee+n.+field · 2006-04-20 09:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Happens with every release of Windows. The happy users just keep coming back. Classic abusive relationship.

Somehow, I don't think you are average by Ahnteis · 2006-04-20 09:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Re:Vista will dominate, maybe, maybe not by decipher_saint · 2006-04-20 09:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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crazy dynamite monkey

Re:Posix and security by IntlHarvester · 2006-04-20 09:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, the program's rights are a subset of your user's rights.

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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.

Re:It'll exceed OSX and Linux eh? by rossifer · 2006-04-20 10:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

You've got a bunch of points (many of which are valid to one degree or another) but I'm only going to respond to one.

It [NT4] had full support for ACLs in the filesystem. Linux got that in, what, 2000? Does it even work with the standard filesystems?

ACL's are a filesystem feature, not an OS feature. NTFS has them, FAT and FAT32 do not. Ext2 does not have ACL's, though hooks were left for ACL's from the beginning and support can be patched into 2.4 and 2.6 kernels for Ext2 and Ext3. AFS (Andrew File System), which is the original king of ACL's, could be used on Linux in 1998. ReiserFS has them (don't know for how long). SGI's XFS is the same (I think this was pretty recent).

I've been using ACLs with UFS2 (the default FS) on FreeBSD for a couple of years, but I've not seen them in common use on Linux.

Evidently, people don't miss them, because the option has been available to Linux users about as long as NTFS has been on the scene. I would hazard a guess that ACL's aren't the "make or break" feature for most people's filesystem choice.

Now, I'm not going to seriously rain on your parade as the point of this argument seems to boil down to: NTFS is a great filesystem. I agree. NTFS is some sweet technology that works real nice in the here and now. But it isn't the only game in town for high performance journaling file systems (with ACL's no less). The fact that people don't really seek out ACL's on linux is simply that ogw permissions are so well understood by so many unix admins, and most of the time, ogw permissions are good enough.

Regards,
Ross

Re:It'll exceed OSX and Linux eh? by rjstanford · 2006-04-20 11:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

ACL's are a filesystem feature, not an OS feature

More to the point, ACLs are an OS feature, not a Kernel feature. To linux-the-kernel they are irrelevant. To linux-the-os they are important, after all you need implementations in the filesystem, the file utils, system libraries, gui file browsers, et cetera, to really implement them fully.

The grandparent was making the point that linux-the-os, in whatever flavor, was less mature than windows-the-os. Personally, I don't see that anything you said goes against that point, other than by pedantically treating linux as a kernel only.

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You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!

Re:Filesystem by n8_f · 2006-04-20 12:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Apple brought decent search to Mac OS X in 2005 after Microsoft announced it would implement it in Vista, then Longhorn.

As you'll recall, is was quite evident that Apple had been working on this long before Microsoft announced it. They hired Dominic Giampaolo, the co-creator of BFS, the first commercial file system with live search (AFAIK), some time in 2002. And since BeOS introduced this in 1996, around 10 years ago, nothing Microsoft is doing with search or even WinFS is original.

Re:Transparent Windows: learn from Apple's Mistake by misleb · 2006-04-20 12:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

And what makes it worse for MS is that they have such a long release cycle. So people are going to be "stuck" with a bad GUI for many years. Of course, you can probalby shut it off, but peopel are going to be impacted by the first (default) impression and some may not even think to try to fix it. 5 years from now, people are going to be buying new Dells with the same horrible defaults as Vista. Apple, on the other hand, has released several major versions of OS X in the time between Windows XP and Vista. And each time they tweaked things just a little bit... and almost always for the better.

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death

Re:I still waiting. by killjoe · 2006-04-20 12:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't see how any of this matters at all. MS could deliver a steaming pile of shit and everybody who bought a new PC would get it anyway whether they liked it or not. In two years all corporations would also be running it too.

It doesn't matter what MS delivers or doesn't deliver. That's the beauty of a monopoly. You have to eat whatever comes out of their bowels.

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evil is as evil does

Very interesting... by Warlock7 · 2006-04-20 12:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

But don't you remember the good old days? by BadEvilYoda · 2006-04-20 15:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

C:\FOO> Error deleting FOO.BAR
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?

Re:Resistant to change by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-04-21 03:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wait a second - why would OpenGL performance be crippled (this is a serious question, I didn't know MS was intending to cripple OpenGL at all)?

Vista runs all graphics via DirectX now. This means for a application to use OpenGL they hand the OpenGL calls to the OS, which hands them to DirectX, which hands them to the hardware. Basically add all the bottlenecks of both graphics methodologies together plus some additional overhead. This is their attempt to kill OpenGL entirely including OpenGL support in graphics cards.

How do we know that indexing will be worse than the other vendors pushing it, when we haven't seen and tested the final product(ok, rhetoric)?

So far the demoed feature (from what I've read) does not support plugging in new file formats for indexing. This means a search won't find files that contain the search term in an OpenOffice file, or any other filetype MS does not bother to add themselves.

Why isn't the Windows shell environment usable? The ability to shell script in Win2K3 surpasses any previous version of Windows to date.

According to MS, they planned to add the following features into the new shell environment:

Aliases, job control, command substitution, pipelines, regular expressions, transparent remote execution, command discovery via reflection APIs, object-based properties/methods, many server scripting, pervasive auto-complete.

That has since been "delayed." Note, most of these are features *NIX users take for granted and lacking them makes us cry. Every Windows machine here in engineering has Cygwin installed to perform a few simple tasks that for some reason are impossible or very hard with the normal Windows (DOS) shell environment.

As for the security enhancements, well honestly I find it laughable. The reviewers probably never used Linux or OS X, so they probably aren't used to the limitations of not running as Admin/Root/whatever.

The reviewer compares some of it to OS X, mentioning that OS X does not seem to make you click through seven dialogues to do a basic task. Some of the screenshots show also show some truly wretched UI built around it.

The other big complain from Mr Thurrott? It's taking too long, it's not delivering on promises, blah.

If you haven't noticed, Apple tends to under-promise and over-deliver. Linux is an open process and everyone can actually look and see what state of development features are in. MS on the other hand, tends to intentionally over-promise extravagant features to be released "real soon" in the hopes that people will delay buying from competitors and just use MS offerings. It works too. Obviously all software will have some level of bugs, especially if they announce a deadline and meet it. That does not excuse delivering buggy versions of features years late or not at all.

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