Windows Vista - Not So Bad?

Shantyman writes "ZDNet has a counterpoint to the negative impressions of Vista's Beta 2 going around. Entitled Vista Beta 2, up close and personal, Ed Bott writes: 'I've spent the last three months running beta versions of Windows Vista on the PCs I use for everyday work. February and March were exasperating. April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"

Comments

Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[yagu]

From the very first paragraph of the article:

Up in Redmond, Microsoft developers proudly talk of dogfooding the software they write. Running beta software is the only way to learn what works and what doesn't. A copy of Windows Vista running on a test machine in the corner isn't likely to get a serious workout. To find the pain points -- another popular Microsoft expression -- you have to run that beta code on the machine you use every day.

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees? That doesn't sound like "eating their own dogfood". As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.

Since Lowest User Access (LUA) is a huge issue around tightening Windows security, running Vista within Microsoft means little around testing security. And, unless they're shipping Vista with defaults of non-admin user accounts, the beta testing world isn't likely to bang on that code hard enough.

It's not clear from the article, nor do I know enough about the Vista beta (not about to try it on any of my machines...) whether the LUA concept is in play. Any beta testers out there care to weigh in?

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[feldsteins]

Jesus, do they actually use the acronym LUA? *shudder* It's just a vivid reminder that they make this stuff for corporate IT departments and not for me.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Tackhead]

> Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

Just two things to say about dogfood:

1) Food is what goes into a dog, not what comes out of a dog. (Corollary: That which comes out of a dog isn't food.)
2) It's coming out of the end of the dog into which food doesn't go. (Corollary: Unless you're into that sort of thing, in which case, we don't wanna know.)

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[CastrTroy]

Also, having the developers using Vista and having grandma use Vista are 2 entirely different things. I don't have any problems running windows 2k and keeping it free from viruses/spyware/bloat. Yet this seems to be the biggest problem for home users.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[EvanED]

There's one very important thing that you're missing: just because the current employees have admin priviledges doesn't mean that they aren't running with LUA, it just means they have the OPTION of running as admin.

MS employees apparently really do believe in the dogfood thing (from what I hear from an employee) so I find it reasonable to think that at least many of them usually run as LUA.

The news from the other day would remove the option and force them to run as LUA, which very well may make things worse from this point of view because then there won't also be a lot of people running as admin.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[boldtbanan]

Have you ever watched a dog? They eat their own shit/vomit all of the time, just like MS.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[CagedBear]

Microsoft's best practice courses preach to always login with a restricted account and use runas to execute anything requiring higher privileges.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[VertigoAce]

With Vista, even admin users don't run with elevated permissions. I'm logged in as an administrator right now. If I try to create a new text file at C:\ I get an access denied message. If I click the button to continue with the operation, I get a second dialog box warning me that a program is about to do something that requires higher permissions. This then gives me the option to continue or block the operation.

I assume with a limited account, you would have a similar experience, but would need to type in an admin password to continue.

The point is that programs do NOT automatically have permission to do admin operations. Admin or not, the user experience will be quite similar, forcing programs to work without elevated permissions.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Fry a Lad Up]

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees? That doesn't sound like "eating their own dogfood". As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.

I thought the idea was to see if the system was usable without admin privileges. Haven't some people argued that it's too much pain to run as a non-privileged user? that people are almost forced to run in admin mode which generally makes the system more vulnerable?

So may be dog food is "non-admin mode is usable". And it will help identify the tasks the actually require privilege escalation. And help reduce those tasks or ease the process in some way.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Otter]

As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.

They're not all running with admin access, as I understood the story, just the developers. The whole thing sounds like the usual struggle between programmers and engineers wanting everything exactly the way they want it the moment they want it, and the sysadmins who want to keep them from breaking things. You get that on Macs, Unix, VMS, or anything else.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be sure to shit on their lawn the next time I'm on the Microsoft campus!

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[jamesl]

MS has over 60,000 employees and not all are programmers, developers, engineers, testers etc. Those that have no need to run as admin shouldn't. Their feedback on how Vista performs in a non-admin environment is valuable also.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[TheNetAvenger]

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees? That doesn't sound like "eating their own dogfood". As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.


I really don't want to debate this, and I think this is kind of trivial.

With that said, what you are referring to about allowing employees to have 'admin' rights on their systems is not a big issue up until this point, as the UAP system in Vista wasn't even close to a final stage until a month or two ago, and is still being tweaked to accomodate applications that were written by 3rd parties with the Win9x mindset.

What MS has been doing currently is NOT running their employees at Admin level in the sense I think you are refering to either. They have been running the computers in the new Vista Admin mode, which is like a 'default' user on OSX. Understand?

It is not the Root Admin level like previous versions of Windows. Even the actual administrator account on Vista doesn't get the conceptual 'root' access level.

What the other article was talking about was forcing MS users to not even get the 'admin' rights to make changes to their systems, which would include installing software, etc. This would be more like a hybrid between a User and Power User in the old Windows Security Groups.

Microsoft is turning down their employee 'admin' rights to ensure older applications that try to run with user credentials that never cared about NT security before still run properly in the restricted level of access.

There is no big story on this, nor a big story on lack of security. Vista is bring the abstraction between administrator and root security, to a point that even exceeds most *nix environments, while still not making it too tough on users. Think of it like a combination of the way *nixes do security with a combination of having NO Root account whatsoever to ensure people will NEVER be running with higher priveledges than they should.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Oztun]

4. Microsoft admits their products are only suitable for dogs and not for human consumption?

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[AgentUSA]

I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[zcat_NZ]

Perhaps you can tell me this then; is it true (as I have heard) that you get the same 'warnings' when you do something as trivial as remove a shortcut from your desktop?

Do you honestly think training people to blindly click 'yes' or 'next' or 'ok' every time a dialog box comes up is really going to improve security?

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[bill_kress]

Good point, very few people recognize that a warning that pops up every single time that you do a "Valid" operation with a slight chance of being "Invalid" is barely more useful (and much more annoying) than no dialog at all.

I have to believe that MS would have (or will add) the ability to enable a class of operation, for instance, give the user the ability to create & delete all files within their profile without warning.

Also, hopefully, they will ship with reasonable defaults.

Not that I have any intentions of going any further down that road than I have to--I'll try to stick with XP for games and migrate towards Linus for everything else.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Tackhead]

> > I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
>
>That's gotta be one mothafuckin' charming pig.

"Windows is a bitch to use. I don't use things that are too complicated."
"Dude, DOS is gooood! Linux is gooood!"
"The OS may run like a wet dream, but I wouldn't know, 'cuz I wouldn't use the complicated motherfuckers."

- "User Friendliness Goes A Long Way", in .WMV, or .RA.
, from Cyberpunk Fiction" , 1998.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Tony Hoyle]

Beta 2 is better than Beta 1 (which prompted you so much - usually for rundll32 - it got tiresome). It still overprompts though.

Now they've released the second beta I've finally got to run tests on vista.. most stuff works, but the admin control panel, run by administrators... doesn't work because adminstrators don't have admin rights!

Trying to find a way around this... I might cheat and fudge an admin token to elevate the thread :p There's no documented way to create a thread with admin rights (the LUA dialog seems to be undocumented) - the MS documented way to do this is to use ShellExecute with special flags to run a new application, which won't work for us.

What I'd do for a setuid call...

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[mgv]

> Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

Just two things to say about dogfood:

1) Food is what goes into a dog, not what comes out of a dog. (Corollary: That which comes out of a dog isn't food.)
2) It's coming out of the end of the dog into which food doesn't go. (Corollary: Unless you're into that sort of thing, in which case, we don't wanna know.)

If you remain uncertain about point 2, a simple test will suffice.

Put your finger into the dog's mouth. If you cannot feel any teeth, then that isn't the mouth. What you are feeling with your finger probably isn't food, either.

Michael

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[jacksonj04]

Defaulted to least priveledged on my machine when I installed Beta 2 today.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[colinrichardday]

Not that I have any intentions of going any further down that road than I have to--I'll try to stick with XP for games and migrate towards Linus for everything else.

Don't migrate too close, or Tove might get jealous.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[makomk]

So basically, it's the opposite of Linux: On Linux, you don't login as root, but when you are root, you can wipe your entire hard disc with one well-aimed command (and no warnings). On Windows Vista, you run everything as an administrator by default, but you can't do anything even vaguely administrator-like without clicking "Yes" to loads of warnings (and they even pop up for silly things, apparently).

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Asphalt]

Vista looks cool. Very, very cool.

But here's the thing.

I don't really care all the much about the operating system. Probably not a ton of people do. I cdo are about the applications. Firefox on Linux, Firefox on Windows. Cool. Open Office on Windows. Open Office on Windows. Cool.

If I need to put another Gig of RAM into my computer and soup up the CPU to run the exact same applications that I run now, then I feel that the OS has gone from being an OS to being an application.

Right now I can do cool transparent window things with my two Nvidea 6800 Ultra's and Nvidea's window application manager. I can do alot of nifty things tha Vista does already with some add-ons.

I don't know that a few file system and window manager upgrades are worth hardware upgrades. And you can already get the window manager stuff.

I mean, maybe i'm way off base here. I still run WindowMaker when I use Linux instead of KDE or Gnome. If I want a GUI file manager, I use one. But for goodness sake ... if you need to add another GB of RAM to your machine just to optimally run the OPERATING SYTEM, which in theory should be little more than a kernel, device drivers, a file system, and window manager ... then Vista seems more like a MAJOR application more than something that you just use to launch your applications.

I'd rather have my apps, data, files, etc using the memory. Not the OS.

Or maybe I am just getting to be an old set-in-my way geezer now.

I just don't get the hype. And I am a "fanboy" of both Linux and Windows. I use both very extensively. There just isn't anything overtly compelling in Vista to me.

That being said, I'm sure I will be forced to get it at some point.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[drsmithy]

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees?

TFA was unclear whether "admin access" meant "logged in all the time as an Administrator" or "can run things as an Administrator when required".

There is a rather large difference between these two things.

For example, I run as a regular user (and have done for ~10 years), but I can also run things as a local Administrator whenever I choose, either via "Run As" or specifically logging into the Administrator account. I would class this as "admin access".

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[surprise_audit]

So how does that work with the boneheaded games that want to access the install CD all the time to make sure you have a legitimate copy?? Certainly *some* of the games my kids play in XP require them to have admin rights due to the way the game wants to access the CD.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[VMSBIGOT]

Just so you know, the reason it prompts you for deleting an icon off 'your' desktop is that its a shared icon under the 'All Users' profile.

Create your own, new icon, and then delete.... no prompts.

Its the fact that you need admin rights to delete something that is shared (since users should not be able to do anything to affect other users)

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Anonymous Coward]

while this has raised my confidence in windows vista somewhat, it has disproportionately lowered my confidence in the Microsoft campus cafeteria food.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[suv4x4]

Also, having the developers using Vista and having grandma use Vista are 2 entirely different things. I don't have any problems running windows 2k and keeping it free from viruses/spyware/bloat. Yet this seems to be the biggest problem for home users.

Well, have you asked if your grandma considers to apply for a job at MS?

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[indifferent children]

On Windows Vista, you run everything as an administrator by default, but you can't do anything even vaguely administrator-like without clicking "Yes" to loads of warnings (and they even pop up for silly things, apparently).

If I wanted to respond 'Yes' to a bunch of warnings, I wouldn't have specified " -rf ". Some people think that they are servants of their computers; the rest of us use Linux (or some slightly less popular, but equally satisfying, UNIX clone).

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Anonymous Coward]

a surprising amount of times this statement gets labeled insightful. This supposedly high end interface will make everyone upgrade their hardware if they want to run it......FALSE. This already came and went in Windows XP, it too has an interface that is fancier than usual and takes more juice to run, guess what, disable the themes service and your back to the same GUI as Win2000 and you don't require the extra juice.
 
sorry to rant, but i keep seeing posts saying that this is the reason you shouldn't get Vista and it's just not true at all. if you don't want the fancy GUI, don't turn it on. Here is the fix for the complaint "it runs slow when i do ____", don't do that then, it's not rocket science is it and it's definitely not required, in fact it's more than likely even easier to change than changing from KDE to WindowMaker (although i have only read about Vista, not beta'd it, but the above is stated in numerous places and in WinXP, changing from using themes for the GUI to without themes is one click in the services control panel). all that being said, the OS i'm looking forward to is the next Ubuntu until my Windows games require Vista.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[somersault]

The point is, that the only reason for getting Vista over XP, if you know how to use your computer fairly securely (don't use IE, don't run executables without virus scanning, blah blah..), is for the flashy graphics. It is an interesting idea to use the capabilities of latest machines to make the OS more shiny, but I agree, that I don't want to have the OS taking up all those resources. Turning off Aqua will probably help, but Microsoft aren't exactly known for efficiency. Meh.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[jsoderba]

Then the game is broken, not Windows. Try fixing it.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[TClevenger]

Right, but Microsoft will force the issue in a year or two by putting XP on the "critical fixes only" list. Personally, I'd rather pay $10 a year for fixes to XP than $200 (plus equipment upgrades) to go to Vista.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[somersault]

Personally, I'd prefer not to have to pay protection money to the Microshmafia..

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[ravenshrike]

Now all we can do is wait for the hordes of hell to appear.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[richlv]

Vista looks cool. Very, very cool.

Like that ?

Might be...

Runs flawlessly

[MarkByers]

Wow it runs on at least one computer. Excellent! Good job Microsoft.

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[daern]

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.

Works fine here.

Well, you did ask...

Re:Runs flawlessly

[Mayhem178]

Turns out the guy didn't really get it working, he just had this taped to his laptop.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[lucifig]

It seems fair, as there are about 5 articles a day on /. about how bad Vista is.

It is odd how a positive review isn't news but the myriads of negative ones are.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[MarkByers]

Nah... to be fair they should post at least 30 stories about people getting it working, to be a fair represntativ sample.

Because you know, every time a program works as intended, it deserves a Slashdot story.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[Overly Critical Guy]

From the article:

April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'

Wow! And to think, I've been running OS X Tiger since April of last year.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[gunnk]

Better yet, he claims it has been running flawlessly for three weeks, but the screenshot he posted:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19

indicates a system crash on 5/21.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[TheNetAvenger]

Wow it runs on at least one computer. Excellent! Good job Microsoft.

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.


Well we have it running of several 'different' computers.

So I guess that proves they are even out doing Apple and OSX which only runs on about 6 different computers, right?

(Smile, it is a joke.)

Re:Runs flawlessly

[The_DoubleU]

I'm not sure what to think of that screenshot. A "System Stability Chart", instead of waisting development time on that couldn't they make it more stable?

Re:Runs flawlessly

[EvanED]

It also indicates that's not the product in question. Or have our reading comprehension skills gone down?

I suppose it's possible that he's lying, but unless you can present some evidence to the contrary, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[jocknerd]

Maybe to him, one system crash in 3 weeks is "running flawlessly".

Re:Runs flawlessly

[Craptastic Weasel]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=23

See the email titled "Has Vista a code injection pro.."

hrrm.. problem? program? pro-rate? I bet the former, and I bet the answer was "It's not a problem, that's a feature!"

Modded: Too late to be funny

Re:Runs flawlessly

[humina]

It also indicates that's not the product in question. Or have our reading comprehension skills gone down?

Not the product in question? The product in question is windows vista. The screenshot shows a system crash. Reading the article and looking at a picture is not rocket science.

I suppose it's possible that he's lying, but unless you can present some evidence to the contrary, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Evidence? He posted a frign picture himself. He should explain that crash. He should have written near flawlessly or that vista runs as well as Microsofts current offerings. He's probably just exaggerating. That's as far as my benefit of doubt extends. I can't look at that image and come to the conclusion that the machine he's running is running flawlessly.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[EvanED]

Not the product in question? The product in question is windows vista. The screenshot shows a system crash. Reading the article and looking at a picture is not rocket science.

But a different version!

Right from the page:

Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.

He claims that beta 2 has been running flawlessly, not 5381.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[kimvette]

where Windows is concerned, "flawless" is a relative term. Remember Windows Me?

Re:Runs flawlessly

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Windows crashing once per day is FLAWLESS....i mean really....what did you expect? OS X or Linux reliability...

Re:Runs flawlessly

[jacksonj04]

Sorry, and I'll probably get modded for this, but give the OS X comparisons a rest will ya? We *know* it shares a lot of features of OS X. We also happily acknowledge that OS X was there first. However, OS X doesn't run on my PC. So until it does, Vista seems like the best approach and you can give up with the "Oh wow, what an amazing feature! OS X only had it 2 years ago! LOLOLOLOMGWTF!"

Re:Runs flawlessly

[djrogers]

He claims that beta 2 has been running flawlessly, not 5381.

According to TFA, 5381 *is* beta 2...

Re:Runs flawlessly

[quest(answer)ion]

...didn't he note in the caption above this very photo that the screencap is from build 5381, and *not* from the Beta2 build he's writing the article about?

yeah, he did.

and he was pretty upfront about the earlier builds being crappy and unstable.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[Kumagoro]

maybe you should try to RTFA before you judge it's accuracy. The few sentences above that very screenshot make a note that it is not from Beta 2.

Quote:
(Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.)

Re:Runs flawlessly

[EvanED]

Hmm, so I see. I sort of retract what I said.

Upon further investigation, it appears that Beta 2 is based on 5381, but not 5381 itself; 5381 is a pre-beta 2 release.

So my original point stands that the screenshot is of an old version. However, there is a new problem that destroys the overall point that I was trying to make. The problem is that Beta 2 itself has only been out for two days.

So what we can conclude from this is:
1) He hasn't been running beta 2 for three weeks flawlessly
2) He has probably been running build 5381 for three weeks
3) 5381 crashed
4) Thus what he says he's been running for three weeks flawlessly hasn't been so flawless

Moderators are free to mod down my post; I deserve it.

(There IS one more possibility though, which is that Windows caught and logged the error internally, but fixed itself before any effect was visible to the user.)

Re:Runs flawlessly

[mabinogi]

sure, they'll just add a call to setSystemCrashFrequency(0) at the beginning of the code.
while they're at it they'll uncomment the goFaster() function call too!

Crashes happen - even on the most stable of operating system (hardware can be buggy too), and one of the best ways to stop them from happening is to capture as much information about them and the circumstance under which they happen, which will then allow someone to fix the problem.

So I don't think it's a waist(sic) of time at all.

Or, to put it more accurately

[RLiegh]

MS's checks from april and may cleared.

Article is really a collection of screenshots

[drinkypoo]

There's no article here. It's a collection of screenshots with a little blurb at the top. He's excited that you can change Vista's theme to one of eight different colors. This is not news for nerds.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

Yes, because Slashdot has never run a story of just screenshots of KDE, Gnome, a Linux Install program, or any other pre-release software.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[MarkByers]

To be fair it does try to explain what is new in Vista Forever compared to the earlier incarnations. The blurb is a little brief though and I wasn't exactly getting excited reading it, but then I am not the target market. I am sure some people get excited about the new true transparency effects, which is the only thing I can see that would make me upgrade (the continuous promises of upgrading to get more security sound good - but I no longer believe it).

the new Reliability Monitor, which sifts through event logs and helps you track down the cause of crashes and slowdowns.

Well at least they finally admitted that Windows can crash. I wish they had called it the Unreliability Monitor though. ;)

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[Ucklak]

Reads like a MS fanboy or an MS plant job.

The Vista interface
You've heard all about the Aero interface and Glass effects, but did you know you can select from eight colors and vary the transparency of the see through window elements? There's no denying that the Vista interface is better looking than the bright blue XP Luna look...

So they called it Luna? I thought it was Fisher Price. And 8 colors to choose from? That means it's pre-programmed that way and not dynamic like the current appreance settings you can change.

File management
Oh, and Vista has a Backup program you might actually use.

If I can't restore a backup on a different machine, it has no use.

Security
There's no question that the new security features work as intended.

As intended by whom? Will it protect the user or just confuse/piss off? Is it just some default interface that professional Windows users will understand how to navigate AND is it easy enough to understand for a common person that may only spend 4 hours a week with the OS?

Performance and reliability
Vista is packed with a bunch of features that have hardly received any publicity. You've probably seen the hokey Performance Rating dialog box, which measures your PC's resources and assigns a 1-5 rating. But I'll bet you haven't seen the Performance Diagnostic Console, which is like Task Manager's Performance tab on steroids, or the new Reliability Monitor, which sifts through event logs and helps you track down the cause of crashes and slowdowns.

My above comment hold true for this. How is a common person who uses email and stores images going to benefit from this when they won't even understand what they're looking at? This is more of a powertoy for heavy users and shouldn't be a featured bullet point of why someone should purchase this.

On the web ...a suprisingly useful Calendar program

About damn time. Seriously Microsoft, always late to the party.
And that should be a bullet point of an application that is included.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[gregbains]

To be fair to Microsoft in the screenshot it has 8 preset colours but also a transparency bar and a colour mixer to select your own settings, so it is dynamic, it just comes with some pre-picked ones to make it easier. See here

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[MarkByers]

To be fair to Microsoft in the screenshot it has 8 preset colours but also a transparency bar and a colour mixer to select your own settings, so it is dynamic

So you're saying that I can choose any colour?

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[FidelCatsro]

That seems to imply that people around here don't find those articles just as annoying , and they do.
The only difference is that it is highly unlikely that there was any payment received for the reviews(to be a touch cynical).

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

How is a common person who uses email and stores images going to benefit from this when they won't even understand what they're looking at? This is more of a powertoy for heavy users and shouldn't be a featured bullet point of why someone should purchase this.

Who do you think is reading these articles?

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[tehshen]

When Slashdot runs a story of screenshots of KDE, Gnome, a Linux Install program, it's usually when there's a new version out and screenshots are actually necessary.
This 'article' doesn't offer anything I haven't seen before. New GUI? Yep. That annoying security account thingy? Nothing new. Someone trying to make Vista seem better? Yes, still there.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

The only difference is that it is highly unlikely that there was any payment received for the reviews(to be a touch cynical).

OK, as designated "shillboy", let me offer this advice to all -- If this article is pissing you off, you better just unplug the Internet for the next six months, because you head is going to fucking explode by the time Windows comes out.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

when there's a new version out and screenshots are actually necessary.

Well, this is apparenlty the first real beta version, it came out yesterday, and I hadn't seen any thing more than some trival stuff before this. So it's interesting to me. FWIW, I also like Linux screenshots

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[ctr2sprt]

You're not being cynical, you're being optimistic. Keep an eye out for the "X is also owned by VA" or "X is also part of OSTG" notes. Think about the effect a Slashdotting (against a capable server) has on the revenue of an ad-supported site.

Now unlike much of Slashdot, I don't see a conspiracy everywhere. I don't actually believe that's why VA/OSTG articles make Slashdot. I also don't believe that ZDnet received money from MS in exchange for a good review. As the saying goes, never explain by conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

... because they are all still BETA??

In real terms, yes.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

Well, VA/OSTG is rather explict that they exist in order to monitize the online Linux community, so it's not really a conspiracy to believe that Slashdot story selection is driven by this.

It should be pretty obvious that Slashdot will have a lot of Vista coverage, usually with negative spin ("not so bad?") because it riles up the fanboys which spikes ad revenue. In general, positive stories about Linux here don't get very many comments -- the "opens source community" is much more interested in hearing about how a guy couldn't install Vista on his laptop than positive alternatives.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[mangu]

Slashdot has never run a story of just screenshots of KDE, Gnome...

Yes, but when they did it was because the screenshots showed something new. In Vista, the only new thing is that the "K" in the KDE menu was substituted by the MS-Windows logo. Everything else seems like it was copied from the almost-next-to-last version of KDE...

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[kimvette]

I wonder if Gates is going to buy rights to any classic rock hits like he did for the last true major upgrade - remember the "Start me up" commercials for Windows 95?

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[kimvette]

. . . and to be fair, KDE's kwin copied the kmenu from Win9x/2k/etc. Start Menu. . . and Windows 95 copied heavily from Mac OS, IRIX, and Motif.

Want Windows Vista minus the DRM? Install Windows 2000 or Windows XP, then add the Desktop Sidebar ( http://www.desktopsidebar.com/ )

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[dbIII]

Yes, because Slashdot has never run a story of just screenshots of KDE, Gnome, a Linux Install program, or any other pre-release software.

Slashdot was started off by a guy who made colourful themes for the enlightenment window manager - so what do you expect - it's been like that since day one.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[maxwells_deamon]

I will use the performance and reliability tool. When the user tells me it got slow or started to crash. I can look here and see when it really started to crash. It also logs software installs in the same framework.

So the crashes that have been happening for a "couple of weeks" and the software that was installed only a "few days ago" can be tied together.

I ask users "does your computer always take this long to boot?" and the respond "I dont know, I just power it up and then get coffee".

yes, many/most users will not be helped by this, but we who help them will be if I understand the tool

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[drinkypoo]

The last major upgrade for home users was Windows XP. Windows 2000 never came out in an ordinary-consumer version, though it was supposed to - that "feature" got pushed back to NT 5.1. Microsoft doesn't have to run big stupid campaigns to business users, who are already quite aware of what they are bringing out. They run them for the home user, who has to be suckered into shelling out for another OS upgrade with flashing lights and loud noises.

Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[pla]

April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.

I haven't tried b2 yet, but from my experience with b1, I didn't so much have a problem with "stability" as the fact that it had nothing new that I wanted.

Not to say it doesn't have PLENTY of new ways to waste CPU and memory, as well as DRM-to-the-core, but I can't really say I consider those a reason to upgrade.


Rearranging the clicky-widgets doesn't make it "new", and taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved". Making it harder to pirate doesn't make it "secure". Throwing in an SQL server turned on by default might make it "biger", but not in a good way.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[SEMW]

>...taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved".

I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machines, in contrast with Linux, MacOS etc. Finally Microsoft agree and take them away (not an easy move considering that, since it'll be installed on the computers of people who have no idea how to use a computer, transparent ease of use has to be near the top of their priority list), and all anyone can do is complain about it.

I agree that the early implementationg (UAP) were severely flawed, but apparently that's one of the things that the beta 2 release much improves. Criticise them when they deserrve it (admittedly 95% of the time) but give them credit where it's due too.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[Golias]

Windows users are spoiled by the preceived "convenience" of always-on admin rights. Taking that away will create bitching from some of them, and I would agree with you that it's unfair, had Microsoft not lovingly made the bed in which they must now lie.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[pla]

I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machine

You could quote my own posts on that topic back to me as well. :)

But I didn't mean that to refer to Vista (possibly) making users run as non-admin by default - I meant to refer to the entire Secure-Foo-Path nonsense (aka DRM) that Microsoft has seemingly chosen to embrace, thoroughly against the wishes of just about everyone except Hollywood.


I actually applaud MS for UAP - if they can get it to work well. The biggest problem I see there will come from getting (at least most) preexisting 3rd-party software to still work... Yes, they could just take the stance that apps need to specifically support it, but even Microsoft would know that amounts to quite a cop-out.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Not to say it doesn't have PLENTY of new ways to waste CPU and memory, as well as DRM-to-the-core, but I can't really say I consider those a reason to upgrade.

What DRM does Vista have that XP doesn't, besides the ability to run protected HD-DVD and BR discs? (And why would you want Microsoft to eliminate the ability to play such discs?)

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[10101001 10101001]

I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machines, in contrast with Linux, MacOS etc.

Uh, no. People criticize Windows for requiring *programs* to run with all rights on their own machine. Simply put, very few programs really need permissions as high as an administrator, let alone as a regular user. The real rights necessary are much less. If you're looking for an OS that gives the absolute minimal permissions necessary to programs, you're looking at CoyoteOS. The middle-ground is something like Linux or Mac OS X which have you run as a regular user and leave the system protected from rogue programs through a password system. And the Windows way seems to be to just pray that programs won't fuck you over.

Of course in the long term, the middle-ground leaves you susceptable to key loggers which can defeat the password system, but at least then the attack vector might take a while to occur. The long-term answer is to give users much more control over what programs can do. And that means making a much more resilient system. That's one reason why CoyoteOS seems very interesting.

Finally Microsoft agree and take them away (not an easy move considering that, since it'll be installed on the computers of people who have no idea how to use a computer, transparent ease of use has to be near the top of their priority list), and all anyone can do is complain about it.

As far as I'm aware, Microsoft's approach is to move towards the middle-ground, not superceed it. But in the process, they're not even interested in really giving their users more control. Instead, they're more interested in giving the programs more authority than the users. That's an even worse situation for users. Admittedly, it's somewhat understandable if one assumes that users are ignorant and cannot be moved to change. But the real answer to this problem is to make the system much more resilient and reversable, not lock-out the user to being able to make changes.

Of course, making such a resilient system is a monumental undertaking (I'm not even sure if MS has enough money to even begin to create such a system). Something like CoyoteOS hinges on making perfect code in some core components. I'm not sure if that's a reasonable expectation or not. Never the less, such is required to do better than the middle-grounds that we have now. So, is it any wonder that people will scoff at Windows as it is as well as what they're aiming to be, something slightly worse than the middle-grounds that already exist?

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[antiMStroll]

DRM, not user priveledges. Interesting how even misconception-laden pro-MS posts get instantly modded up though.

I agree

[theheff]

I have to agree with this post. I ran the April and May release quite a bit, and was extremely impressed. Simply put, Vista is eye candy. In the early betas Vista was almost identical to XP, it just looked a new skin and the same old OS, but the latest releases have really turned my head. It's easy to bash something new from MS and write bad reviews about how it won't install right on your Lenovo and such, but after I actually gave it a chance, I was thoroughly impressed by the performance and usability. I can't wait to see the final product.

Re:I agree

[eln]

Okay, so it's pretty, but what does it actually DO? I don't care what new skins they've come up with, I want to know what features work, what features don't work, which new features are useful, and which aren't. This thing has been out for almost a month, can't somebody write an actual in-depth review beyond "I could/couldn't get it to work on my laptop?"

Re:I agree

[Chosen Reject]

Simply put, Vista is eye candy.

So you're saying that "upgrading" to Vista is for looks?

Hey everybody, I got a new version of Linux!!

Re:I agree

[MarkByers]

You don't get it. A skin doesn't look cool until Microsoft copies it.

Re:I agree

[drsmithy]

Simply put, Vista is eye candy

Vista is a *significant* upgrade to pretty much every aspect of Windows, easily on par with major Linux distribution moves (kernel 2.4 -> 2.6 and the like), or the updates Apple made to NeXT to get OS X.

It's a hell of a lot more than "eye candy".

Running smoothly?

[Devil's BSD]

He says it's running smoothly, but the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19

At least Microsoft has given us a way to prove how unstable our systems are... whenever Windows Vista is finally released.

Re:Running smoothly?

[bishiraver]

I love it. "Failure Type: OS Stopped Working." Real informative there!

Re:Running smoothly?

[NutscrapeSucks]

I have to say that MS must have enormous balls to add a "stability monitor" to Windows.

"Stability Index" is going to become the new "Uptime".

Re:Running smoothly?

[Vancorps]

Actually you're jumping to conclusions based on a picture. The mere fact that such items were logged tells you the system was functioning. If parts of it don't work well, its a beta, regardless the core stayed up and running along with the monitoring tools so it sounds like the user probably didn't even notice.

Again, that is me jumping to a conclusion based on a picture so I can be wrong as well but I do know if the memory got logged then the system wasn't that bad off. The scenarios surrounding it are completely unknown. The OS stopped working error could have occurred by running software that writes to protected memory and the resulting denial appears as the error. Lots of possiblities.

Proving XP instability is quite difficult not because the tools aren't there to mine it but because most people don't have stability problems unless they have hardware problems. Same with 2003. Let's move on please and concentrate on security and performance which is where Vista has yet to prove itself. Although in reality Vista performs better on equipped machines than XP does. When you get towards the lower end of the requirements XP becomes a better option. That will always happen though, kinda like running SUSE 10 on a 386. Granted not as dramatic.

Re:Running smoothly?

[rjstanford]

He says it's running smoothly, but the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19

From the link: "Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.)" Since the article and uptime comments were about Beta 2... I don't think you have a valid point. Good (almost) catch, though.

Re:Running smoothly?

[jandrese]

That really gets to the crux of the matter. Window's current logging is utterly pointless. I have never _ever_ been able to track down a problem by looking at the system event log, which is extremely frustrating because it's the first place I look when Unix based systems have problems. For some reason no windows application (or driver) ever logs anything more informative than "permission denied--but I'm not going to tell you where" or "crashed". They will happily log umpteen zillion useless "everything's Ok!" messages. Because of this, it's many many times harder to track down problems on Windows machines than it is on pretty much any other platform. Seriously, do the developers think their users would be scared if they actually told them what the problem was instead of just tossing up a generic "access violation" message?

Re:Running smoothly?

[truthsearch]

According to that chart, his system is becoming less stable almost every day. Starting from a "10" on May 6 he's down to about a "6" on May 22. It looks like Vista Beta is all downhill.

Re:Running smoothly?

[darkmeridian]

From the article you linked:
"(Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.) "

Re:Running smoothly?

[BagOBones]

Products like Exchange have many levels of logging that you can turn on.. If you turn it all on you can fill a HD in no time.

The event log has built in filters so that you can see only the types of even you want to. If applications are not logging errors it is the app developer not the OS that is at fault.. The event log API is not exactly a secret.

Re:Running smoothly?

[SilicaiMan]

the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...

From the comment above the image:

(Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.)

Re:Running smoothly?

[bint]

The best part was that even then it was at stability 5/10. I wonder what has to happen for it to go lower? Minor explosion?

Re:Running smoothly?

[jandrese]

I think the developer culture is at fault. Also, OS errors aren't exactly logged either. If you have a program that accidentally whacks an ACL in your system folder, you're not going to get a nice "permission denied trying to access foobar.dll" in your system log, it's going to be some cryptic "access exception" error and you'll never know what's causing it.

The logging API is there, but for some reason nobody uses it in a useful manner, not the OS developer, not driver writers, not even application writers.

Java is broke

[acidrain69]

Java doesn't work. We run it on a machine with a projector in our conference room. It was looking good till we tried to join an online conference :)

Can't necessarily blame MS for Java though. Although I can blame them for trying to change the spec and the whole Sun-MS lawsuit fiasco.

Re:Java is broke

[pimpimpim]

Your company runs a Beta OS on the PC in your conference room? Maybe you misunderstood the word "Beta" for "eternal version" (Can happen if you've used google too much lately).

Re:Java is broke

[acidrain69]

No, actually it is the perfect machine to test an OS on. It is not a server, it isn't used by an employee whose time equals money for the company. If it doesn't do something we need it to, we just throw a laptop onto the projector and continue on. Basically we are just running it because we have access to the Beta program. That's it. It may figure in to our future plans, but now it's just to try it out.

The proof is in the pudding

[Anonymous Coward]

Many reviewers wrote fawningly over Windows 95 back in the day. Their usage didn't happen to strike its biggest problems very hard. The test for Vista is when hundreds of millions of people are using it, not a few reviewers on their desktop and an odd laptop

Vista works

[Anonymous Coward]

Me and some of my coworkers have been running vista build 5308 and I just installed build 5381 on those machines and they have been running very well. The install was improved and the interface is running a lot smoother and the new ati beta drivers are working good too. It's also running directx 10 now compared to 9L in the last build. We also have Office 2007 Beta 2 running on it and that too is working very well, We have both machines on a 2003 active directory network with exchange. The UAC does get annoying when it keeps asking you if your sure you want to do things, but a quick skim through the local security policy solved that :-) All in all I'd say Beta 2 has improved greatly over the past few releases. The memory usage at least is way down. It was using about 750mbs on our machines. I am upset that an Athlon X2 4200, with 4 gigs of ddr-400, a sata2 80 gig drive, and an atix1300 with 265mb on the card only gets a 3 out of 5 on the stupid rating system. Especially when everything works smooth, including the 3d page flip. I do feel that the "minimum requirements" that microsoft posted are of course a joke but that's nothing new.

Re:Vista works

[Locutus]

I can see why it's going around that there's a GOOD chance that MS Windows 2007 will come later than Jan 2007. If they are still adding software to this 'kit' and they expect to have it pre-installed on millions of victims PC's( via OEM pre-install contracts ) then they've run out of time. If this was a feature freeze beta release they'd be pushing it.

And that rating thing, don't they show you where your system is getting 'dinged'? If not, it sounds like it'll take some huge machine to get a 4 or 5 rating. A 4200, 4 gigs of ddr400, and and ati-x1300 and you still get only a 3 of 5? Maybe there is still something left of the marriage with Intel. ;-)

LoB

Re:Vista works

[TheNetAvenger]

I am upset that an Athlon X2 4200, with 4 gigs of ddr-400, a sata2 80 gig drive, and an atix1300 with 265mb on the card only gets a 3 out of 5 on the stupid rating system. Especially when everything works smooth, including the 3d page flip. I do feel that the "minimum requirements" that microsoft posted are of course a joke but that's nothing new.


Don't worry about the rating you have, it will change.

The performance rating system is something that is still a work in progress. It is also something many have talked about in the beta.

We have seen systems with a 2.4ghz P4, 1Gb of RAM, and a 5600 NVidia 128mb Video card get a swimmingly 5 on the scale and a system with almost twice the CPU, twice the RAM, running a RAID with a new NVidia 512mb Card get a 3 on the score. We even have a system that is all 5s on each test with an overall rating of 3, so there is some messed up code in how it weighs the score. Besides it is should never be a replacement for a real benchmarking tool.

They have said not to take the numbers seriously at this stage of the beta, and from what we have seen, ya, don't take them serious.

Re:Vista works

[entrylevel]

You must be new here :)

Re:Vista works

[kimvette]

I like Windows 2000 a lot. I USED to like Windows XP, until I got fed up with the activation process. It sucks having to continually reactivate when making multiple hardware changes (if you work in a test environment it's very easy to trigger the need to reactivate). Aside from the constant phoning home XP requires, I like it. I just happen to like the freedom that Linux brings more, and I MUCH prefer Konqueror's fike management over Windows Explorer. Explorer sucks. Period.

They (Microsoft) ought to implement a DE-activate feature to facilitate migration, upgrades, and license transfers, like Adobe did in their creative suite. Adobe is the ONLY major software company I've seen get an activation scheme right.

Windows also needs to drop the DRM and stop sucking the MPAA's privates. If a user has a high-resolution VGA or DVI display, the machine should output ALL content at the correct resolution, NOT downsample paid-for content. Implementing that idiotic DRM is a surefire way to guarantee that professional "pirates" will be taking a much larger slice of the content market in the very near future.

I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

I was just thinking "i know i like it better, but really, what do i like better about it?"

Then something occured to me.

Right now, i am copying 4GB of files off a usb disk to a network share. The shell file copy stuff has been completely re-worked (shell file operations has always been something that i have hated)

In vista, you get an expand/collapse pane to get details of what it is doing, and it seems to happen in its own thread. The copy dialog window shows up as its own window that you can minimize/restore/whatever, and best of all, it doesn't hang/slow down the shell in any way.

Note that XP and OS X (as of 10.3) get this badly wrong - the file copy dialog in both tends to be slow to repaint itself or to respond to window messages, and if you use a separate explorer/finder window to try and access the destination you're copying to, the window lurches slowly to try and redraw.

Not so with Vista.

So there you go - here is something that was so annoying to me in XP that I had just stopped using the shell to do any sort of large file operation - i'd break out cmd.exe and xcopy. Vista has fixed at least some of the file copy problems very admirably.

There are a lot of cool "small" things that I see, but maybe you have to be kind of nerdy to apprecate them? The task manager has some cool features on the build I am running. The eventviewer (eventvwr) is a completely new animal and is way cooler than the old one

A nice use of the pervasive desktop search integrated into the explorer windows is in Control Panel. We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases, and I never remember which menu your system environment variables or enabling remote desktop or changing it so that the "Explorer:Start Navigation" sound is (none). Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to the control panel i want to go to.

Is any of that a big deal? No. Does it make me love Vista when i think about how much i hated doing that stuff on XP?

Yes

Apparently, there are a lot of "big" changes under the hood of Vista, but you don't always see them in a big way.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Malc]

What no more staring at "2 minutes remaining" for four hours? A feature of Explorer I first came to love in NT4.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[NutscrapeSucks]

Or if you pull the network cable out, the little piece of paper will keep flying forever as if something is happening.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[SensitiveMale]

Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to the control panel i want to go to.

Another feature stolen from OS X; specifically 10.4 Tiger.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Overly Critical Guy]

The copy dialog window shows up as its own window that you can minimize/restore/whatever, and best of all, it doesn't hang/slow down the shell in any way.

Yes, in OS X, copy operations appear in one window. If you're moving or copying a file, and you move or copy another file, another progress bar is appended below the previous one in a single window. Actually, I think NeXT did this 15 years ago, but I could be wrong about that.

Note that XP and OS X (as of 10.3) get this badly wrong - the file copy dialog in both tends to be slow to repaint itself or to respond to window messages

Um...it does?

and if you use a separate explorer/finder window to try and access the destination you're copying to, the window lurches slowly to try and redraw.

Not on my old iBook G4 OR my Windows XP machine.

I appreciate those kinds of small changes, but it hardly merits an entire operating system upgrade. They could have easily been introduced in a smaller update or even perhaps a service pack (since Microsoft long ago broke its policy of not introducing new features in an SP).

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A nice use of the pervasive desktop search integrated into the explorer windows is in Control Panel. We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases, and I never remember which menu your system environment variables or enabling remote desktop or changing it so that the "Explorer:Start Navigation" sound is (none). Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to the control panel i want to go to.

I've always felt this feature in OS X was wholly unnecessary, since the panels are well named and organized. I don't think I ever used it except to see the exceptionally pretty graphics they added just for it. I'll bet someone at MS saw those graphics and told them to copy it :) Still, given the ever changing control panels and large number of them in Windows, this does sound useful.

Since you have the search functionality in front of you, can you answer a question? First, what file types does it index content from? Second, is it a plug-in architecture. If I can't add open office files to the index, it is a non-starter.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[thatguywhoiam]

Note that XP and OS X (as of 10.3) get this badly wrong - the file copy dialog in both tends to be slow to repaint itself or to respond to window messages, and if you use a separate explorer/finder window to try and access the destination you're copying to, the window lurches slowly to try and redraw.

Haven't noticed anything like that in either XP or OS X...?

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Antony T Curtis]

Right now, i am copying 4GB of files off a usb disk to a network share. The shell file copy stuff has been completely re-worked (shell file operations has always been something that i have hated)

In vista, you get an expand/collapse pane to get details of what it is doing, and it seems to happen in its own thread. The copy dialog window shows up as its own window that you can minimize/restore/whatever, and best of all, it doesn't hang/slow down the shell in any way.

Note that XP and OS X (as of 10.3) get this badly wrong - the file copy dialog in both tends to be slow to repaint itself or to respond to window messages, and if you use a separate explorer/finder window to try and access the destination you're copying to, the window lurches slowly to try and redraw.

Congratulations Microsoft! You have eventually caught up with OS/2 which had this back in 1992.

Only 14 years behind but then again, the Vista codebase is 6 years behind schedule anyways.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Tim Browse]

Right now, i am copying 4GB of files off a usb disk to a network share.

Wow, it took me quite a while to realise that your post wasn't a reworking of the 'My freelance gig in front of a Mac' slashdot troll :-)

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[rbarreira]

Argh, when I read this:

Right now, i am copying 4GB of files off a usb disk to a network share.

... I thought I was bumping into another variation of the freelance gig troll :) Not that it isn't funny...

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Zebedeu]

I'm not the grandparent poster, but I can answer this one.
According to a demonstration I saw a few month ago, yes, it's a plug-in architecture.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[WinterSolstice]

Ok - that stuck me as odd, so I just checked it by copying an 800MB zip file onto my 1GB SD card (since I don't have one nearly as large a USB device as bmajik). The 800MB zip is coming from a Windows department server share (my "home" drive).

Not especially fast, but no screen paint issues. None of the three windows (source, target, or copy window) are showing any issues with updates. No lurches.

This is on 10.4.6 on an Intel Macbook Pro 15". I'm attached to the network via switched 100bT. I have OO.o with 5 documents (via X11) running, TextMate with two large Perl scripts, Lotus Notes, CotVNC, FireFox, Safari, iTunes, and two screens running. Also listening to music currently.

Now to be fair, I'm on pretty current hardware, but come on. That was a total troll... I want Vista to be awesome as much as the next guy (maybe more - this is slashdot) but still - that was a random unsubstantiated complaint there.

I also tried doing this copying a 4 GB DMG to my local disk - same results.

-WS

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Praise Allah, or Vishnu, or someone! Thanks for the answer. I've asked several people and no one has known for certain and most thought it was not possible to add file types. Finally, a feature that is included that I actually care about.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[rbarreira]

Same here :)

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

I did this just last evening on my wife's iBook G4 800 that i was rebuilding (hard drive failed and apple refused to honor the warranty, newegg to the rescue..)

I mounted my windows XP box from the Mac and was copying .dmg files off of it over the network. The copy progress bar was hung for over 30 seconds at one point; i was trying to move/cancel it to no avail. Eventually it started painting again - 20MB of progress later. During this time the Finder window looking at the same SMB share also became non responsive.

Machine was a 1 day old install of OS X 10.3 with all software updates.

You may very well be correct - that file copying works great for you. And I am not saying that it's a universally bad experience for meither. But last nite it was. And other times when dealing with network mapped stores, I've had similar behavior, on NT, W2k, XP, and yes, OS X.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Terrasque]

A nice use of the pervasive desktop search integrated into the explorer windows is in Control Panel. We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases, and I never remember which menu your system environment variables or enabling remote desktop or changing it so that the "Explorer:Start Navigation" sound is (none). Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to the control panel i want to go to.

Yes, tried that. Went back to classic view pretty fast. Want to know why? First, lets try with the "new" way. Click in search box, type in "s o u n", oh, there it is. move hand to mouse, click on icon.

Classic view: Click on icon.

You might spot a difference there. Sure, it takes a bit of time to find the right icon to click, but its still much faster than using the search system.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

Congratulations Microsoft! You have eventually caught up with OS/2 which had this back in 1992.

Tell me about it. BITD I downloaded the 2.11 CSD on my 14.4k modem to update my 2.1 install on my 8mb 486.

I loved OS/2 until I realized that I was never going to find decent modem / bbs software for it, and thus, all of my modem usage would be running under a virtual dos box. As you surely recall, DOS mode serial port usage _crushed_ OS/2.

Once I realized that there were no apps for OS/2 anyway, but that I didn't really miss them, and that virtualized apps sucked if they dealt with the serial port, I figured i'd look at Linux more seriously. Once I saw that linux was just like OS/2 - fast, nerdy, no apps - but that accessing the serial port with usable tools didn't simply crush the box - i was hooked.

IMO, MS did not ship any acceptable operating systems between DOS 5.0 and Windows 2000.

My aim here on slashdot is not to be a Microsoft fanboy - that's certainly not what I do at work. But - when we do something well (even well compared to how we used to do it, which may ultimately mean we're still doing it badly, but just less so ;), I don't mind saying so. I have to use the same software everyone else does, and its only been in the last few years that I personally felt like it was finally good enough for me to bother with. I want our stuff to be better, so yeah, when I see us start to get something right that should have been working 14 years ago, as you point out, i am happy about it :)

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

That was my approach in previous builds when the find either didn't work or i didn't realize that it worked :)

I find little honor or value in remembering where to look for things or how the internals of this stuff works in my day to day life. When I think like a software guy, it's handy/efficient to have remembered how it all works, but when i try and compartmentalize myself into a "normal user", i have to ask - why the hell should i learn all of these annoying details of the intriciacies of things that i don't even want to mess with in the first place?

IOW - i don't want to remember where i set sound schemes. Fixing settings like that is an interrupt driven task - i realize something is annoying me or needs to be changed, and then i want to get it unannoying in the least time possible, in a manner that causes me the least distraction, and that takes essentially no mental effort. I want to think about other things, not about how my computer works.

I just tried this again as I was typing this post. I opened control panel, hit classic view ,then scrolled to the bottom and started looking through the icons starting with "s". Sound... Sound.. wtf is sound? I scrolled through all of the control panel icons looking for something I might have missed. Eventually, I gave up and typed "sound" in the search box. Oh, i see today that it is called "Audio Devices and Sounds" or something like that.

For me, the intuitive behavior (that sounds are set under something called "sounds") is actually not what happens. I don't want to reprogram my own brain to adapt to the computer, i want the computer to adapt to me.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[mazulauf]

You're trolling. 10.3 isn't current, and hasn't been for some time. You're comparing an OS which is still in beta with one which is no longer sold.

Mike

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Antony T Curtis]

IBM's serial port drivers were a bit useless. Once you upgraded to a commercial serial driver, all serial port access was just great, in DOS box, VDM or native OS/2. I used the Ray Guinn's Fossil compatible OS/2 drivers (had a paid for license that my brother and I pooled together for). This also allowed us to use DOS BBS software, one modem per dos box, very happily.

As for terminal apps, I was very happy with TE/2.

Ahh... fond memories. But alas, all ancient history.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[smash]

Only 14 years behind but then again, the Vista codebase is 6 years behind schedule anyways.

6? Try 12+. A large number of the features in vista, including some of those that have been dropped during development (SQL FS, etc), were due in Windows "Cairo", which was originally slated for *1994*.

Still, will reserve judgement on Vista till i see it running. If it's actually good, I may even pay for it.

I doubt it though. Next machine is either a Mac or dedicated FreeBSD/Linux box, and Win2k is good enough for what I use Windows for.

smash.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[mazulauf]

I see, so it's ok to complain about an OS feature that's been fixed for over a year? Or think that software hasn't advanced from what came with your machine?

If that's the case, let me tell you about how sucky XP's security is...

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[kimvette]

Even on the beautiful OS X, which that we (Slashdot communal mind) know is of course perfect ;), a search facility is very necessary when you have to deal with hundreds of menu options, or better yet, documents.

As far as OS X's organization of the control panel and system utilities: I have to say I don't particularly care for it, nor do I care much for its finder. It's certainly usable and a huge step up from Explorer, but KDE's konqueror has really spoiled me.

Also: Linux has typically lagged far behind the rest when it comes to desktop usability. This isn't so any more. In SuSE 10.0, Novell integrated a kmenu search feature. Just type part of what you are looking for in the kmenu (the kmenu contains a textbox) and it will grey out any menus/submenus which do not contain what you are looking for. It's actually quite useful. Also, kcontrol (the KDE Control Center - aka control panel on other OSes) has had a search feature for quite a few versions now.

On the file search: I find it's great that not only did Apple beat Microsoft to the punch with Spotlight, but even Linux, which has tended to lag far behind Windows (in terms of desktop usability) not only has a vastly superior file manager/explorer (konqueror - and heck, even Nautilus is superior in many respects) but has a great indexed search utility now (beagle).

It doesn't matter HOW well one organizes files - eventually you will reach a point where finding a specific file is going to require a search facility. Microsoft has had one for ages (Find Fast) but it never worked well. I have to admit, that if their new search mechanism in Windows Vista actually works (I haven't run it since very early on when it was still called Longhorn) it may very well be worth the upgrade to get it. On the other hand, I don't know if it would really justify upgrading an entire OS which will likely break backwards compatibility (consider the typical Windows market) but it is a necessary feature.

FYI I used to hate and I mean HATE KDE. Now there is no other environment I'd rather work on. My desktop is laid out very similar in style to OS X but is far more usable. Nothing against OS X, I just don't think their environment was designed for power users, but more for uber-novices. It certainly is gorgeous and much better than Windows' explorer desktop, but I've found it quite limiting.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[kimvette]

Haven't noticed anything like that in either XP or OS X...?

I have (on XP) - it's not so noticeable on SMP or dual core systems though. When I upgraded (downgraded?) to a hyperthreaded Pentium 4 when my dual Pentium III bit the dust, I found Windows XP to be FAR less responsive than it was on the slower SMP system, particularly when working in the file explorer. Thankfully it was right around that time that I switched back to Linux as my primary operating system.

(YES DMA is enabled. YES unneccessary services were disabled. YES the drive was defragmented regularly. Batteries not included. No warranty expressed or implied. YMMV. Etc. Etc.)

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

Well, I have no reason to beleive it's fixed, but that's irrelevant. I specified that a specific version that I had experience with exhibited a problem, just like many other versions of other platforms have the same problem. Your brilliant retort amounts to "it is ridiculous to mention that something has a problem when there is something newer that doesn't". I disagree - i mention the Vista shell copy improvements precisely because i've had a lot of bad luck with shell file copying in the past, and this has been a multi-platform frustration.

That you suggest that it _was_ broken means you're disagreeing with what some other Apple fans have said. Or was it fine back then, and now it's even better? Or what?

Regarding telling me whats wrong with "XP security" - I'm listening if you've got workable solutions. Infact, if you can solve all our security challenges without breaking important customer scenarios, and make us some money in the process, we'll pay you any amount of money you can dream up. Or do you have some security advice that we haven't heard before? If you have some specific XP security problem you're running into please let us know.

I don't actually enjoy getting in grudge matches with people, and I am not really sure what you disagree with me on. We both apparently think that the file copy stuff in 10.3 was subpar (since by your admission, it is now "fixed"). Why are you attacking me? Is it because I had the "audacity" to point out what I have experiened in OS X and beleive is a shortcoming?

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have no reason to beleive it's fixed

Just because your employer has a lousy track record of killing off bugs from release to release doesn't mean everyone else has the same problem.

Of course, that's "irrelevant" to you, since you like the taste of your particular koolaid. Enjoy!

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[mazulauf]

No reason to believe it's fixed? How about multiple people telling you it is? Besides, how hard would it be to just give it a try yourself? I'm sure you can find someplace near you that has 10.4 installed. I suspect you don't want to, because that would hurt your argument.

As for "broken" - I think that's sort of a loaded term. It's true that in 10.3 and earlier there were issues with Finder windows (and the like) being slow to update. I have no idea what Apple did, but that particular issue has completely changed for the better in 10.4. Give it a try.

My point as to security was to mirror your "method" of ignoring improvements that have come out in recent years. Security in XP (as originally released) was atrocious. It's improved greatly since then. But if I purchased a machine with the original XP, by your logic, I could assume it hadn't improved. Not only that, but I could announce it to the world.

The main gist of my disagreement with you is that you're comparing an OS that won't be released for half a year (or more), with one that's been out of date for over a year. And yet you seem to think it's a valid comparison. Compare with 10.4 if you like (even though 10.5 may well be out by the time Vista is), but to compare with 10.3 is just silly.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Even on the beautiful OS X, which that we (Slashdot communal mind) know is of course perfect ;), a search facility is very necessary when you have to deal with hundreds of menu options, or better yet, documents.

You misunderstand. I said the special casing with special graphics and adding preference panes as a file type was unnecessary, not that a search feature in general was unnecessary.

As far as OS X's organization of the control panel and system utilities: I have to say I don't particularly care for it...

Okay.

...nor do I care much for its finder.

Again, Okay, but why do I care and what does this have to do with what we were talking about?

Also: Linux has typically lagged far behind the rest when it comes to desktop usability. This isn't so any more.

Linux has a few desktop usability wins (more and better virtual desktop options, for example) but I still don't think it is at the top of the heap yet. I'm not sure I'll ever willingly go back to the stone ages of a workstation without system services. I also, have become rather accustomed to expose, although that is less important to me. I also think OS X has a big win when it comes to application-is-a-folder and I wish Linux would adopt openstep and integrate it with their application managers and that Apple would adopt some of the application management features from Linux distros. Aside from that, Linux is still not there for software availability, which is a chicken and egg problem that hopefully can be solved by virtualization technologies in the near future.

FYI I used to hate and I mean HATE KDE. Now there is no other environment I'd rather work on. My desktop is laid out very similar in style to OS X but is far more usable. Nothing against OS X, I just don't think their environment was designed for power users, but more for uber-novices.

Heh. Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion. Yours seems to differ from that of most of the dozens of coders and security experts here though, most of whom have adopted it. Almost every issue I've seen power users have with OS X, has turned out to be that they haven't learned how OS X does something and are trying to do it "the old way." The only exception I've seen is getting some of the low-level kernel modifications for jails or kernel level network monitoring functioning, and most of that has been just the learning curve and getting the tools rebuilt for the different platform. The trend I have seen is a steady migration to OS X as users discover how powerful it is and how many pain points it solves. I know one guy who went from OS X back to Linux. For me as an individual, looking at the available functionality, it is not much of a contest right now.

Really though, I never, ever, ever want to train one more application's spell checker to know that SNMP is not misspelled. I did it once already. Why the hell shouldn't my web browser, email client, IM, terminals, publishing app, calendar, graphic editor, text editors, etc. be able to use the same knowledge. It is all text, after all. Until Linux catches up on that front, it will be a lesser choice for a workstation (although it is a damn fine server).

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Nick Number]

In vista, you get an expand/collapse pane to get details of what it is doing, and it seems to happen in its own thread. The copy dialog window shows up as its own window that you can minimize/restore/whatever, and best of all, it doesn't hang/slow down the shell in any way.

That is good news. At the moment I tend to use robocopy for large file transfers for just this reason.

Now have they fixed it so that Explorer doesn't freeze or slow way down if the link to one of your network drives dies?

Begginers will complain about the added security..

[adolfojp]

Windows 2K brought stability to the windows platform. Windows Vista should bring enhanced security through its pseudo sudo strategy.

Although win 2k and xp had limited user accounts it did nothing to enforce their usage because it would alienate novice users who wanted to install their shinny new Easy Birthday Card Creator software. Now the process that grants admin rights will be simpler to use but I can bet that many people will complain about the extra "hassle" that they will encounter when installing software.

Of course, you can only do so much to secure an operating system that is geared towards users. It is only a matter of time before Joe User decides that it is a good idea to provide the admin password to install the latest malware ridden "Fun Emoticon" package.

The best strategy that MS could do to improve security would be to bundle an intro into the OS that explained the basics of its new security features.

Yep

[bmajik]

I partially agree with you, and because of my unix background, I am running vista as a non-priviledged user.

There are two aspects of this. The first is that, if you truly are running as a low-priv user, you need to get elevation prompts at the correct times to be able to live life. This works pretty well, although I keep a cmd.exe window running as local admin sitting around sometimes.

The other aspect of this, however, is that in the real world, a lot of people just dont run as admin, and a lot of apps just can't. So a bunch of work has gone into making admins "virtual admins", so to speak, where operations that actually require priviledge use still involve user interaction/confirmation.

In that sense, people running "as admin" are getting the customer experience - and internally, the way the "did you really want to do this, Mr. Admin?" stuff works is passionately debated :)

My opinion is that people are complaining about the wrong problem - as we continue to eliminate things that require priviledge use, the amount that we have to care about putting up with a just-in-time priviledge escalation model goes down.

Re:Yep

[Elektroschock]

Nice, but the main problem for me is interoperability and control over my maschine. I have no problem with a root account, I know my password, I can change settings. But what annoys me most is having an administered machine with limited access rights running windows administered by person a.

And everytime I want to run the software which makes me productive or the machine usable for me, I have to ask a and a is unwilling because it requires work for them.

In my opinion admins are obsolete. I want a plug and play machine. I hat nothing more than corporate maschines.

I think the real news would be....

[zappepcs]

I think the real news would be "how much does it cost to buy a computer that can actually run Vista?"

Not trying to troll here, but ferchrissake! If I have to upgrade at a cost of hundreds of dollars just to run it, I don't want to know, I don't care, and I know its not going to run on that $100 laptop. While it might work for some, and perhaps many, it still looks like a very fancy gun for MS to shoot their own feet with. Testing stories so far don't seem to allude to any magical improvements, or reasons that Vista is a "must have" product. Nobody I know is buying up hardware so they can upgrade to Vista when it is released. Except for gamers and those with serious hardware requirements, nobody needs that much hardware performance really. Until streaming media is commonplace, they won't need it. Speaking of which, does anyone know if Vista does streaming media well? While its using all that hardware, does it get anywhere near acting like a multimedia system to replace all others?

Perhaps these are stupid questions, or just plain cynical thinking, but I just don't get it... to me, its sort of like building a bigger hummer with lower mpg while gas prices are climbing with nothing to stop them from continuing to climb. Not many of the bigger gas guzzlers are going to get sold....

Re:I think the real news would be....

[EvanED]

My computer is 4 years old almost (3 years, 10 months). It wasn't top of the line when I got it, though it was pretty good. It's gotten a RAM upgrade, but as far as internals go that's it.

The Vista hardware evaluation wizard thingy they had posted to /. a little bit ago had only one complaint -- the amount of hard drive space I have. And if I changed around my partitions a bit so that C: wasn't only 12 GB, it wouldn't complain about that.

The hardware requirements to run Vista, even Aero, I think are vastly overplayed.

Re:I think the real news would be....

[drsmithy]

I think the real news would be "how much does it cost to buy a computer that can actually run Vista?"

A few hundred US$.

Not trying to troll here, but ferchrissake! If I have to upgrade at a cost of hundreds of dollars just to run it [...]

Most low-end machines bought in the last ~18 months should run Vista (maybe needing a RAM upgrade).

Any mid-range machine from the last ~3 years should run Vista.

Any high-end machine from the last ~5 years should run Vista with a cheap video card upgrade.

(This is Vista "Premium", will the full eyecandy GUI, as well - if you just want the "classic" GUI then pretty much anything up to about 7-8 years old should run it, maybe requiring a RAM upgrade.)

Any remotely game/enthusiast/high-end/geek/whatever oriented user will probably have had a PC capable of running Vista since ca. 2003.

Vista *looks* better, but ...

[boxlight]

Judging by the screen shots, Vista certainly looks better -- but I hesitate to give Microsoft any respect for that as they've basically (once again) derived a look and feel from Mac. This time it's specifically derived from the glossy back Mac has been using here-and-there in Tiger and in their marketing material since the release of the black iPod Nano.

Still -- it does look better, I'll begrudgingly admit.

But that being said, Microsoft continues to neglect the more important although subtle useability aspects of their UI. They still insist on using huge amounts of real-estate for insignificant information. They continue to overuse pop-ups and tool-tips as band-aid solutions to problems conveying system information.

Since Microsoft has no qualms blantantly copying others' features, I don't understand why they continue to settle for a second rate implementations.

boxlight

Well, that's their marketing sorted

[adamwright]

"Buy Windows Vista - It's not so bad!"

I wonder when Slashdot get's their creative fee? ;)

Re:Well, that's their marketing sorted

[Billly Gates]

Sadly that worked for Windows95.

I and many others (we didn't know better at the time) installed it quite frankly because Windows 3.11 sucked so hard. Mainly because it sucked not nearly as much as windows3.11.

Still with the 65k bugs I found it alot more stable than windows3.11 on my 486. Even a simple screensaver program I had that displayed 16bit images of paintings rendered many times faster under Windows95.

However I feel XP is much closer to Vista in terms of stability so that argument might not fly around this time.

A great accomplishment

[Anonymous Coward]

ZDNet confirms it: Windows Vista is "not that bad". By attaining the coveted "not that bad" status, Microsoft has created the greatest operating system of their entire history.

that sounds like a selling point

[sentientbrendan]

Windows Vista "Not so bad"

Windows Vista "Almost as good as XP"

Windows Vista "Several new themes"

I think microsoft has a winner here

Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[Quantam]

I disagree with your assessment of the situation. Microsoft employees running as admin means two things. Of course it means that they don't have to worry about programs that require admin (or have bugs if not used in admin mode). But even in this case, your hostility is misdirected. MS produces some of the programs most capable of performing correctly in limited user situations I've ever seen (in fact, I can't think of any notable bugs in MS programs when running as limited user, apart from obviously administrative programs, like chkdsk or defrag). That's why I was completely indifferent to the news that MS employees might have to run as limited users: they already know how to play nicely in the limited user situation. What REALLY needs to happen is that third-party developers who write these steaming pile of shit programs need to be forced to use limited user mode. There's absolutely no reason some of these programs (Intuit's It'sDeductable comes readily to mind) need to be admin.

However, running as admin opens them up to all the nasty exploits and viruses (especially if they're using IE), those being probably the biggest blunder on Microsoft's part. As a limited user, a virus can delete your MP3s and porn. As admin, a virus can reformat your entire hard drive, install a rootkit, etc. If that isn't eating your own dog food, I don't know what is.

Sorry this post is a bit scatterbrained. I'm in a pretty big hurry :P

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[MindStalker]

Oh No.. How is sony now supposed to install their secret rootkit DRM into your computer now if it has to ask permissions??! /The correct answer of course is that Vista will come with this DRM already installed.

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[I'm Don Giovanni]

As a limited user, a virus can delete your MP3s and porn. As admin, a virus can reformat your entire hard drive, install a rootkit, etc

A virus deleting my files is just as bad as reformatting the drive, as far as I'm concerned. And since I do weekly backups, the former is actually worse. If my drive gets reformatted, I'll *know* it and restore the files. But if a virus deletes or corrupts my files, I won't know about it, and to make matters worse, those deletions/corruptions will make their way to my backup drive when I perform a backup. :(

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[antiMStroll]

"How is sony now supposed to install their secret rootkit DRM into your computer.."

My guess is it'll be an official Trusted (TM) app.

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[bob65]

. As a limited user, a virus can delete your MP3s and porn. As admin, a virus can reformat your entire hard drive, install a rootkit, etc

Or stated differently, as a limited user, a virus can delete your address book, last 6 months work on a research paper, etc. As admin, a virus can additionally mess up your installed programs - which you have copies of on CD anyways.

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[mattpalmer1086]

This is entirely because any application that runs, runs with the full privileges of the user , even if those privileges are limited to only that user's resources. Until people stop only focussing on restricting what users can do and start focussing on what individual applications can do, this problem will never go away. But I guess it's a bit soon for that. After only decades of operating system production, MS are finally getting around to limiting user privileges a bit by default. Wake me up in another 20 years... sigh... (for those who think I'm just MS bashing, unix has it's own set of privilege problems - setuid is not the answer to everyone's prayers!)

Re:Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[makeajazznoisehere]

But... you made backups, right? RIGHT? OH MY GOD YOU DID NOT MAKE BACKUPS? Well, you're screwed then.

and in other news

[joeyspqr]

.. Denise running away with Sambora makes Charlie look like an ok guy ...

Amazing...

[MosesJones]

Ever wonder how MS get their media coverage? Here is a classic example, we are potentially TWELVE MONTHS away from widespread release on a product thats been in development for FOUR YEARS and people are "impressed" that a SECOND beta is relatively stable. And this is considered a news story.

Talk about generating buzz around a product to make people want it, and to cover up the yet more slipped release dates and the reduced functionality over what was promised. And it all comes down to a new look and feel and a bit of threading and the su command.

WOW FIVE YEARS DEVELOPMENT to get this into production.

I live in awe at Microsoft's ability to generate positive news.

Re:Amazing...

[connor_macleod]

Don't underestimate the power of the dark side. This is an incredible release, it is not just a new operating system. The WPF, WCF and WinFX will change face of windows development, and indefinitely influence almost every other development platform.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eval uate/overvw.mspx

Re:Amazing...

[westlake]

people are "impressed" that a SECOND beta is relatively stable. And this is considered a news story.

The public beta of the OS is certainly news. The public beta of Office is news. IE7, Windows Media Player 11, Messenger 8, Windows Live!, etc. There is nothing to be gained by denying that the take-up of the next generation of MS prograns and services is going to be enormous, or that these stories have no significance to the Geek.

Re:Amazing...

[MojoStan]

we are potentially TWELVE MONTHS away from widespread release on a product thats been in development for FOUR YEARS and people are "impressed" that a SECOND beta is relatively stable. And this is considered a news story.

I don't think this would be a Slashdot news story if Slashdot's previous Vista beta news stories hadn't been overly negative. Note the phrases "Not so bad?" and "counterpoint to the negative impressions of Vista's Beta 2 going around" in this story's summary.

To me, it looks like Slashdot is making an attempt to appear "fair and balanced" after posting negative reviews by computer illiterates and self-important blowhards. Also note that this "positive" news story is from a blog.

Re:Amazing...

[Pecisk]

Didn't want to spend my time on reply to your excelent post, but hey, you got me here :)

In short - sadly, people like to be owned, to be part of the crowd. And what is biggest IT user crowd in world? Right, vir...sorry, Windows :)

People like to be beaten, used, cracked, their private information stolen, etc. But as long they don't have to take responsibility - hey, there are Microsoft to blame (let's pretend that we don't know that those people have chosen Windows in first place and have no one else to blame but theirselfes) - you will see hype of new Windows, Office, whatever.

It's not like Linux users are sometimes different - there are lot of pseidogeeks or just kids who wants to "play with OS". No matter that they leave sshd turned on with root password something like 12345.

They are just users. They are weak to shiny, colorful things. It will be long time that they would like to use computer as tool, not as toy. Microsoft simply has a marketing aimed directly at them. Why do you think Vista has almost seven versions like collectionare Tomagochi?

Re:Amazing...

[MosesJones]

WinFX - ooooh its a new GUI
WCF - ex-Indigo - WOW its like Spring with annotations... oh but its only client side so half-of Spring but a little bit better, so lets say its 0.6 of Spring without the actual aspect oriented stuff. Or about 1/10th of SCA.

WPF - Rich GUI controls for Data.... on a thick client. So like Java Server Faces stuff but on a thick client, with some thin client stuff... hang on it IS JSF but with less available controls and developers of new controls.

Influence or "copy"?

Re:Vista and MS is for CS noobs

[j_kenpo]

Funny... I always thought Gentoo was for Ricers

Re:It doesn't matter.

[linguae]

I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes

Why? Some people need proprietary OSes and software in order to do their jobs. Some people need it because the best tools are available only in Windows or OS X. Some people use proprietary software simply because they like it better than the FOSS alternatives (provided that they know about the alternatives).

I'm a user of proprietary software every day (although I'm also a FreeBSD user). People aren't going to switch to FOSS software for everything until it does everything that the best closed source software does (plus more)., and very easily too.

My problem

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

My problem with recent Microsoft operating systems has nothing to do with how well they run. I have to admit that they have been progresively better about that. My problem is how intrusive they are. How much control do I have over what my computer (my property that I paid for with my money) will and won't do.

Re:My problem

[OakDragon]

In light of your post, from page 14:

Vista's firewall is capable of blocking outbound connection, but this feature isn't available for your control. You'll still need a third-party utility if you want to do more than stop inbound intrusions.

Why is that feature not available for our control?

Re:My problem

[|/|/|||]

Exactly. When I saw the "not so bad" headline, I assumed that the story was that Vista's intrusive DRM/Trusted computing "features" had been dropped. Those are the things that make Vista "bad". I'll take an OS that crashes over an OS that supervises how I use my data.

Sorry Microsoft, but I'll never buy (or even *use*) that kind of crap.

Re:My problem

[drsmithy]

Why is that feature not available for our control?

Probably to avoid the standard cries of "antitrust" that spring up every time Microsoft implement a feature their customers ask for or their competitors already have.

suse + kde

[sum.zero]

looks a lot like kde on suse, even uses lots of green and yast-like interfaces.

sum.zero

Re:suse + kde

[sim82]

Exactly what I was thinking, when I saw the screenshots. Looks like kde from 3 years ago when the (now) uber-ugly keramik theme was state of the art. At the first look it was somehow stunning, but today ...
that kind of super glossy gui has not aged gracefully. Now it just looks dated.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[adolfojp]

I use Windows XP, Ubuntu 5.10, and SuSE 10.1. I develop software for a living.

There are many things that I don't like of the three operating systems. In theory, I could modify Ubuntu and SuSE to my liking. The reality is that I couldn't do that if I tried, and if I tried, I wouldn't have the time to achieve anything significant.

The idea that Open Source software is needed because it allows the end user to modify its own system is utopic at best. Most people can't use a command line to change a configuration file. Most people want their software to work. Windows Vista and OS X was designed for most people.

I drive a car. I do it every day. The fact that I can't or don't wish to tweak it doesn't take away from its utility or value.

"Not so bad" isn't good enough

[EmbeddedJanitor]

"Not so bad" is OK when you have little control over the product/service/whatever ("army food is not so bad", "the weather is not so bad") or when you have to make some sacrifices to get something you want ("the weather was not so bad, but the view was great").

However, you have to do a lot better than "not so bad" to convince people to buy your product when they have choices. Would you go eat at a place that was described as "not so bad"? Win98 was the last release of windows where most customers could see some real benefit in switching from the previous generation (hey I still have a W98 box here). For most people there is no compelling reason to switch to from W98 to ME and then XP. I expect that for most people the difference between XP and Vista will be even less compelling.

It's a sad reflection on a once-great company that their flagship product that has cost billions to produce is "not so bad".

Re:"Not so bad" isn't good enough

[assassinator42]

Of course there was no reason to switch from 98 to ME (as ME performed worse). But, isn't XP quite a bit better than 98? Like being more stable? I do agree that I don't see much of a reason to switch to Vista from XP. Vista makes it easier to run as non-admin. That seems to be it's biggest non-eye candy improvement. I'm wondering if you can not install all the bloat. I don't want it if it needs to use over 4GB just for the OS.

This is awesome!

[mmell]

But will it run Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:This is awesome!

[rbarreira]

Yes.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[OmegaBlac]

The best strategy that MS could do to improve security would be to bundle an intro into the OS that explained the basics of its new security features.

And I'm sure that most users will skip it, quickly launch IE, and begin downloading all the malware-infested apps that they feel they can't live without. And if they can't skip the "intro" by pressing Cancel/Exit/Skip, they will get up and do something else until it is over. The average Window (l)user just does not take security seriously and no video tutorial will change that. It's people like that, that keeps money depositing into my bank account. ;)

Three weeks? that's amazing...

[geekoid]

well..... No, it's not.

Let me know when it runs 366 days straight, even through patches.

People need to learn abuot program maturity. The industry is aware of it, but conviently hides it away so they can make more money.

I don't ahve a lot of hope for a product thats 4 years behind schedule. Sure it will be released, but the bloat is going to be tremendous.

For the recrd, I hope I am wrong.

Re:Three weeks? that's amazing...

[Daath]

You're being silly. Why would you want to have your computer on for 366 days in a row? *Especially* a laptop. I turn my computer off every day. You know, it saves power.
I just hope that Vista is as stable as XP is. My machine never crashes :-)

Re:Three weeks? that's amazing...

[smash]

Because if it crashes after x days, that means there was some sort of bug or memory leak, etc that caused it to crash. It also means that under more serious load, it's likely that the machine will crash in a shorter period of time.

Operating systems should not crash, except under cases of hardware failure - and even then, if possible, it should attempt to fail "gracefully" (i.e., print what was wrong and wait for user input. of course this is not always feasible, eg if the display hardware dies). Anything less is due to programming error and needs to be fixed.

I'm aware that no operating system is perfect, but that doesn't mean we just have to accept it when things crash for no good reason.

Computer's don't "just crash" - they crash for a reason... and usually it's shitty code.

If i want to keep a machine running for 366 days, it should keep running for 366 days. Anything less and the operating system (or hardware) is broken.

smash.

The pudding and the vermin...

[Savage-Rabbit]

The test for Vista is when hundreds of millions of people are using it, not a few reviewers on their desktop...

That and how Vista measures up when the malware designers go to work on it.

...and an odd laptop.

The way the market is evolving Vista will probably end up being installed on more laptops than desktops.

Re:The pudding and the vermin...

[B2382F29]

The way the market is evolving Vista will probably end up being installed on more laptops than desktops.

The rate Vista is evolving, it will be installed on Bio-neural gel packs ...

Re:Not So Bad

[EvanED]

Did you miss the part about how MS employees are currently running it in Redmond as a matter of course as part of their "eat their own dogfood" thing, or did you just not RTFA?

Or does doing development on it not count as real world use?

Windows Vista - Not So Bad? Almost as good as...

[VinB]

Windows Vista - It doesn't suck! Really! No, really. ... ok, stop it. Really! ... Well, maybe a little.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[croddy]

I drive a car. I do it every day. The fact that I can't or don't wish to tweak it doesn't take away from its utility or value.

No, there's a significant difference here. Modifications I make to *my* car cannot be instantly and trivially copied to yours. Modifications I make to my copy of a piece of software *can* be instantly and trivially copied to yours.

The overriding benefit of free software is not that you *personally* can modify your copy if you wish, but that you can benefit from the aggregation of the modifications of others.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Overly Critical Guy]

I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes

Then make your open source OS as good or better. For me, that means you have to match or exceed OS X Tiger. Good luck, and I'll be awaiting the community's results!

DX10, Uh no

[djohnsto]

You might have the DX10 runtime and software reference rasterizer on the system, but you are NOT running DX10 with an ATI X1300. DX10 is NOT backwards compatible with DX9 hardware. In order to run DX10, you WILL need to upgrade to a graphics card that isn't publicly available yet.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[Sax Maniac]

2K actually had semi-working limited-user accounts, I ran one for a long time. How did I get around the occasional (read: every) errant application that wanted write access to some random place? ACLs. I figured out where Quicken and every app want to write, and gave them write permissions. It was actually not too hard.

Then I upgraded to XP home, when I bought a new box. XP doesn't have ACLs. Sorry, back to user accounts with Admin privs. I feel so dirty.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Slashdot might not as well cover how good or bad Vista is because in Vista and OSX are closed source OSes. Users have no say in how good or bad a proprietary OS is. So we might as well not deal with it.

Umm, I have no say in how well made most of my car is, does that mean I should spend half of every day walking to and from work, and take several month long sabbaticals when I want to visit my family?

People are going to use both Windows and OS X because they are the tools most suited to them, or because they are required to by their employer. Given that fact, it is very useful to have more information on what to expect. Further, it is a good idea to see what each OS on the market is doing for reasons of compatibility and because they might have good ideas that can be adopted.

I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes, and no, OSX is not an Open OS. I don't care how like BSD it is.

It all depends upon why you use a computer. If your purpose is to promote an open source model, then you've chosen wisely. For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create. To me, being open source is a feature. It is nice, and useful, and provides security going forward, but it is by no means the only feature or the most important one.

If you don't want Slashdot to cover other OS's, you can just flip a few toggles and you won't see them anymore. Problem solved. For the rest of us, this is certainly useful and welcome news and discussion.

Microsoft pays

[theolein]

Given that we've already had articles on slashdot about how the online tech sites are up for sale when it comes to articles (anadtech, tom's hardware et al, and I'm pretty sure ZDNet as well), I'm pretty sure that Microsoft won't let a major piece of criticism about their family jewels go uncountered online and will get someone or some tech site that is for hire ("want our advertising dollars?") to counter any negative article about whatever Microsoft has once again fudged.

I'm ok with working with Microsoft tools, but I don't trust anything or anyone who actually likes the company itself.

Re:I see Aqua!

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

None, Vista uses GPU aceleration and video memory for their UI.

Also, even though Apple came out with a better looking 3D looking OS, you can't patent/trademark the idea of making something look like glass in an interface. If you started that, then Linux, Apple, and Microsoft would simply get into a circular cycle of suing the hell out of each other because each has HEAVILY borrowed UI concepts from each other quite liberally. And honestly, Vista does a better job because they are actually making a glass like transparency which slightly diffuses the underling graphics whereas Apple just uses an alpha blend. Also, Aqua has been reduced to glass buttons and scroll bars in Apple, Microsoft doesn't use glass buttons, just a glass frame which surrounds a window, Apple doesn't even do this. So technically, there is no copyright/trademark/patent conflicts. Only people completely ignorant of Vista assumes it looks like OSX.

But honestly, when do you fully need to utilize 100% CPU cycles with a 4ghz CPU? For the most part, even compiling software all day, I rarely hit 100% CPU utilization for more then a few moments. If my windows borders take a few percentage of my CPU cycles, you won't notice it. By the time you enter a game, your running it full screen so the Vista UI isn't around to consume any clock cycles.

Problem Reports and Solutions

[Macka]

I like the look of this:

"In XP, when you send a report of a crash or Stop error, you rarely hear back. Vista tries to close the loop, with a Control Panel window that should - someday - offer patches, updated drivers, and other solutions to problems you report."

Mac OSX has a problem reporter too, but it's like the man said WRT XP. You have an application dump core on you; you fill in a description and submit it, and it disappears into a black hole somewhere inside Apple. To be able to get a list of the application dumps you've submitted and tie them to specific future fixes would be very nice indeed.

the truth is

[signore pablo]

that this has only really been in serious development since August 2004. That's when the code rewrite was implemented and everything before that was scrapped. So in terms of development if you believe that they really scrapped everything before that date, this has really been in development for less than 2 years. Which really isn't a very long time. No wonder they have to rush things now... if anybody doubts what i say, look it up on google, i read it in an interview and dont have a link, but its been said numerous times....... :P

.. says the Microsoft employee

[5i]

I couldn't help noticing the slip up with "We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases"

We?

following the link to your webpage, and sure enough - MattEvans, MS employee.

hmm. Is that a sales pitch I hear?

Re:.. says the Microsoft employee

[rbarreira]

That doesn't mean he can't make a true statement about what he thinks about the OS, does it? If you read his post carefully, it seems he's quite sincere, even bashing WinXP at some points, and admitting that many of the changes aren't so important.

DISCLAIMER: I work for Microsoft too (not in the USA, fortunately), but I'm trying to be fair here.

Re:.. says the Microsoft employee

[bmajik]

Fabulous work, Dr. Holmes.

The "we" was by no means a slipup - look at my slashdot user info. You didn't need to bother looking at my website :)

Re:This is probably paid advertisement

[Locutus]

isn't the authors name Bot or something like that? Maybe he/she's been BOUGHT or they really aren't a person but instead an automated roBOT for posting such things. ;-)

Sure reads like an MS Lemming wrote it that's for sure.

LoB

Retarded User Accounts

[LunaticTippy]

I've run into problems that can't be fixed with ACLs, but usually some security policy or registry fiddling fixes things. I always get cranky when I have to mess with these, they hide things in so many places it is always a bitch.

What!?

[Kaioshin]

Did TFA suggest we test (Microsoft) beta software on production machines?!

dos aint done til Lotus wont run

[Billly Gates]

Or that is my paranoid side talking.

Isn't MS crippling javascript on Vista to prevent gmail from working properly or is this just a rumor?

Re:dos aint done til Lotus wont run

[Khuffie]

That's your paranoia talking, because gmail worked perfectly in IE7 when I tried it. Not to mention that MSN's successor to Hotmail, Live Mail, heavily uses javascript too.

Stop it

[kanzels]

Please stop that hype about Vista. It's not even here... when it comes and is good, then start spreading articles about it. It's similar to cars... a lot of hype of some upcoming car, but nobody knows yet if it's safe and how does it work. Just some pictures and hype hype hype ;)

Really, what would he know?

[g0at]

...he's just a bott.

-b

Sigh, windows fanboys are getting silly

[SmallFurryCreature]

This was an article by MSNBC. MSNBC as in MICROSOFT.

A news site owned by Microsoft claims that Vista beta wasn't too good and everyone is falling all over it even claiming it is fud. Right.

You can't have fud on your own fucking product. Geez.

And can we get a slighly better rebutal of how good it is then the ancient "well it didn't crash for me so your insane" line?

Then again this one ain't as hilarious as all the MS shills suddenly saying it ain't MS fault if hardware makers don't have drivers ready while the constant line against linux is that it doesn't have drivers for every piece of shit hardware.

Make up your mind already okay?

The simple fact is that this was trying a beta. Now a beta is not the finished product BUT it is supposed to be as good as finished. Beta is when you say, okay I am done with the design and building and now lets test it to see if it works. Since this is Beta 2 they should be getting very close.

Build (no chance of working on any machine) Alpha (it sometimes works on the coders machine) Beta (Well it works in the development lab, lets see about the outside) Gold (We are fed up and don't give a shit anymore if it works or not just get it out the door already)

Vista Beta 2 should be near gold and then for it not to work easily on a big name laptop is not to good. If a linux distro failed to run properly all the MS shills would be all over it. When Vista fails, oh the user is an idiot.

Reminds me of the old rule of web design. If the site fails under mozilla it is mozilla's fault. If the site fails under IE it is the sites fault.

MS apologists taking the stupid to new heights. There is one clear sample of proof the Vista Beta 2 ain't nowwhere ready. The fact that it currently may and MS itself claims that it won't launch to at least january and possibly later. That could easily mean a full year till launch. If Vista Beta 2 was ready, they wouldn't need so much time to work on it. Not when they got so much riding on it (not just the holidays and saving face but that whole software assurance plan they sold to companies)

Re:Sigh, windows fanboys are getting silly

[EvanED]

The journalism sources that MS is involved with (there's also Slate) are held on quite a long leash by MS. By all reasonable measure, they are as independent as anyone else.

I've heard interviews with reporters for Slate that were talking about how they were quite critical of MS during the antitrust trial and never saw any bad things come of it.

Re:Sigh, windows fanboys are getting silly

[smash]

Whilst i agree with a lot of what you're saying - in-built driver support is irrelevant - drivers are available and easy to install from the manufacturer. If not, then it's the user's fault for not checking compatibility first.

If someone has driver issues with Linux then it's their own fault for not checking compatibility first.

Same shit... only difference is there's more commercial support for windows. Doesn't mean that you can't get linux hardware though - you just have to check the compatibility first.

I guess what i'm getting at is that regardless of O/S, driver support is a secondary issue that can be fixed after relase (driver update for windows, kernel upgrade/loadable module for linux). Getting pissed off with driver problems and calling the O/S crap because of it is retarded - whether it's linux OR windows. Evaluate an O/S based on it's core functionality, as that's what's important and less likely to change after release.

smash.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[Professor Bluebird]

Yes, XP Home does have ACLs. You need to boot into Safe Mode to set them, however.

Re:Not So Bad

[Roody Blashes]

Or does doing development on it not count as real world use?

If the answer to that is not obvious to you, nothing short of gene therapy can help.

Microsoft's Success is Due to Lemmings (Seriously)

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I have to attribute Microsoft's success to lemmings. Bear with me here for a moment. Yes, I know that Disney herded a bunch of them off a cliff for its movie, and that the entire notion of "lemmings" is just a myth, I only mean to use it as a metaphor.

Why do people upgrade their copies of Windows? Because everybody else is. And sooner or later, people no longer support the old versions. You can't read the new Word documents, you can't get drivers, when security vulnerabilities come out, you're just hosed (or pwn3d, as the case may be).

So basically, the reason Microsoft is still successful is that, like Disney did, it hurds all of the poor consumers off of the cliff with every new release, away from something with flaws they'd almost worked around, compensated for, or at least gotten used to, and off into a huge sea of new, buggy, insecure code.

It's not so unlike Lemmings, the video game. I still remember making all those poor little guys blow up for fun :-)

Re:No it DOESNT look like a mac, fanboy

[kitejumping]

It always amazes me how creative mac users can be when saying that everything originated from/ looks like a mac. If Microsoft designed refrigerators, you would probably come up with some way to say its design was copied from the ipod simply because they share similar shapes. I guess it just comes with the way a stereotypical mac user acts; it makes them feel special to think that they were the "first" and are "unique" because they are using OSX, when in reality many things in OSX originated somewhere else, and they just bought into apple's marketing. Previously, the source of the problem was the need to justify their purchase by praising apple as much as possible, but now as prices of mac's have come down this isn't as much of an issue.

For the record, I don't care what OS people use. I feel they should use whatever they are most productive with, whatever that may be. Because I realize this, you don't see me praising a certain OS and bashing other OS's in post's on /. like most of the people in this thread.

"Since Microsoft has no qualms blantantly copying others' features, I don't understand why they continue to settle for a second rate implementations."

As much as you may hate it, their implementation represents what the majority of the population finds most usable, and here you go again with your mac superiority complex implying that macs were the first/best at everything. This is the only way you know how to justify using OSX, as other people would look at you funny if you were using something other then windows because it "does the same things, but cost more $$$".

Re:It doesn't matter. So true

[sysadmintech]

FOSS is intended to survive against the monopoly. FOSS is about choice. FOSS shows the monopoly chose to attack charitable projects. FOSS allows the user to compare products.

You had me until,

[Grand Facade]

Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.

Have you actually used the pc for other than table dressing or to run a screen saver?

Mod Parent Way Down

[mpapet]

The Microsoft employee has deliberately misstated Apple's functionality.

Send me a check for USD$100,000 and I'll deliberately lie to promote Longwait over all other operating systems for 12 months.

They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[argent]

Here's their big security upgrade...

IE7 runs in Protected Mode, a low-rights security scheme that lets your standard user account browse as usual without giving spyware and malware access to the rest of the system.

This means that (a) they apparently haven't fixed the "normal users have access to the whole system (ie, run as Administrator)" problem, and (b) they've given up on keeping IE from being a slutty little spyware freak, and assume that no matter what they do it's gonna get infected.

Oh, and (c) when you do get infected, it might not infect the rest of the system but it'll still be able to steal your credit card number and send spam from your computer in your name.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[EvanED]

This means that (a) they apparently haven't fixed the "normal users have access to the whole system (ie, run as Administrator)" problem, and (b) they've given up on keeping IE from being a slutty little spyware freak, and assume that no matter what they do it's gonna get infected.

Mod the parent troll please. This is in lieu of a (-1, Flat out wrong) moderation.

If you had bothered to read almost anything about Vista from the last year, you'd know that they are much bigger on the non-admin roles. If you had done some more reading (say, some of the comments posted earlier on this story), you'd see that even if you are running as administrator you still don't have full root priviledges, and have to confirm certain changes.

There's such a thing as layered security. This means that you have multiple defenses. You might know it as the maxim "don't put all your eggs in one basket" as applied to security. In case the user does choose to run as admin, the IE improvements still could help. And even if not, anything running as that user still has access to anything the user does, so it still more than makes sense to protect against spyware.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[argent]

I have been involved in computer security longer than Microsoft has been shipping an OS with any security at all. That includes Xenix. I've been watching this train wreck called the Microsoft HTML control for a decade now, and every time I point out how horrible it is some Microsoft apologist comes up and tells me I'm trolling, and that Micrsoft has got it right this time.

So far they have never been correct.

If you had bothered to read almost anything about Vista from the last year, you'd know that they are much bigger on the non-admin roles.

Windows maze of interlocking privileges means that this doesn't matter. There's so many ways to boost privilieges that almost any combination of non-frustrating privileges is going to end up equivalent to root.

The first time I used WIndows NT, I tried out several obvious attacks on the privilege model, and succeeded more often than I failed. I was even able to boost Power User to Local System, which actually has more privileges than Administrator.

If you had done some more reading (say, some of the comments posted earlier on this story), you'd see that even if you are running as administrator you still don't have full root priviledges, and have to confirm certain changes.

"You have to cofirm certain changes" says absolutely nothing about the privileges you have.

Nothing.

Confirmation and approval dialogs are almost worthless from a security standpoint. They operate at the application level, and the component that generates them has to have the privileges they're allegedly protecting, since Windows doesn't use UNIX's far more flexible and secure "setuid" mechanism. This means that not only do they they provide little protection for accidents by users, they provide NO protection from exploit code.

None.

Zip.

Layered security is wonderful.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has yet to implement it.

One of the principles of layered security s that you design each layer as if it had to perform the whole of the security protection, then you implement the next layer *anyway*, and you design it under the assumption that the first layer will provide no protection.

Microsoft designs each layer so that it's only as secure as they feel convenient, in the naive belief that the other layers will be used and will cover for them.

Other operating systems allow you to bind services to unique ports and interfaces, so that local firewalls are an additional layer of security. Microsoft needs firewalls to prevent people from attacking insecure local services because they have no other way to limit them to listening only at localhost.

Other browsers treat untrusted documents as untrusted, and assume that if their security fails the whole system is broken. Microsoft has the browser trust the HTML control to do the job, and doesn't give the HTML control enough information to do the job, and rather than GET RID OF the whole pile of ActiveX and "Security Zones" and "trusted sites" they're now pushing people to use "we got it right this time in .NET, honest".

If I were to tell you exactly what I thought of this approach to "layered security" I'd be banned from slashdot for abusive language.

Troll, forsooth, for nothing less than the simple truth.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[drsmithy]

This means that (a) they apparently haven't fixed the "normal users have access to the whole system (ie, run as Administrator)" problem, and [...]

Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?

[...] (b) they've given up on keeping IE from being a slutty little spyware freak, and assume that no matter what they do it's gonna get infected.

The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources. They are inherently insecure applications. I'd say bundling the web browser up into its own little isolated pocket of permissions is a damn good idea. Expect to see OS X and "user friendly" Linux distros follow suit within 12 months.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[EvanED]

The first time I used WIndows NT, I tried out several obvious attacks on the privilege model, and succeeded more often than I failed. I was even able to boost Power User to Local System, which actually has more privileges than Administrator.

Windows NT is at least 3 versions behind Vista, probably 4. I know MS's reputation as well as anyone, but it really does look to me like they are making attempts to fix up the user model with Vista.

If it turns out that it's as easily broken as you say, I'll concede defeat; but, I think that considering it a foregone conclusion that it's broken is unfair and very possibly wrong.

Confirmation and approval dialogs are almost worthless from a security standpoint. They operate at the application level, and the component that generates them has to have the privileges they're allegedly protecting

Not the ones I'm talking about. See this comment, this blog (and keep in mind that the number of things that trigger warnings was reduced in Beta 2, though not by enough, and there's still discussion going on in MS about to what degree to require confirmation), and probably plenty of other sources.

At any rate, you still can't infer ANYTHING about the user model just by the fact that IE runs in a sandbox. MS may not deserve much credit when it comes to security, but doing so is grossly unfair to even them.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[ookaze]

Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?

Do you understand what chroot is ?
chroot is NOT for running a browser, nor is it included in a browser, that would be nonsense and useless. chroot is for changing the visible environment in its instance.
It can be applied to lots of things, from booting a live CD, to sandboxing a 32 bit environment in a 64 bit one, it's just not only a security tool.
Comparing chroot to IE7 mechanism is comparing apples and oranges.

The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources. They are inherently insecure applications

Where did you come to this conclusion ? What is that logic ?
It just means a browser is an application dealing with an insecure and potentially hostile environment. It doesn't mean the app itself is insecure, it rather means teh app have to be secure.

I'd say bundling the web browser up into its own little isolated pocket of permissions is a damn good idea. Expect to see OS X and "user friendly" Linux distros follow suit within 12 months

BS. COmpletely off base. The isolated pocket of permissions is already given by the OS in the case of Linux distro, so they have nothing to do.
If someone had to follow suite, that would be the web browser developers, not Linux distro. I doubt they will do that.
You believe that FOSS web browsers or OS are in as bad shape as IE and Windows, that's why you think others have to follow suite.
You're dreaming really, I say just hold to your nightmare, but you're better off not talking about other OS.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[argent]

Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?

If people were encouraged to routinely run Firefox or Konquerror chrooted so that malware couldn't infect the rest of the computer I would have similarly harsh words to say about Mozilla.org/KDE and/or whatever version of UNIX that this recommendation was made for.

The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources.

That's right, which is why no web browser should ever include a mechanism whereby, even with the user's approval, an untrusted document could request code be run with the privileges of the browser.

Regardless of the security zone, whether it's an intranet site, a trusted site, or a local file. Regardless of whether it's signed by Microsoft, God, or the user themself.

When Microsoft introduced this feature, around 1997, I was able to convince our CEO to ban the use of IE and Outlook and any other application that used the HTML control in Windows. Over the next several years we had no virus infections that got beyond a single infected computer, and that infection was almost always caused by the user running IE or Outlook despite the ban.

So...

That's almost 10 years now Windows apologists have been telling me that I'm wrong, that some doomed attempt by Microsoft to fix the problem without actually fixing the design that causes the problem is a great idea, and that everyone else will have to follow suit...

And every time, their "improved security zones" fail within six months.

I'd say bundling the web browser up into its own little isolated pocket of permissions is a damn good idea.

It won't do anything to keep you from having your credit card numbers and passwords stolen, and it won't do anything to keep your computer from being exploited as part of a botnet to spam people and distribute viruses.

It's a piss-poor attempt to deal with a deep problem that Microsoft has put too much reputation into to ever give up. I mean, they risked having the company broken up rather than lose face over their browser-desktop integration. They're not going to treat a mere few billion dollars in other people's lost money and time as worth worrying about.

Expect to see OS X and "user friendly" Linux distros follow suit within 12 months.

That's possible. They've been fooled into copying other stupid Microsoft ideas in the past. That doesn't make the idea any better.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[argent]

Windows NT is at least 3 versions behind Vista, probably 4. I know MS's reputation as well as anyone, but it really does look to me like they are making attempts to fix up the user model with Vista.

The particular exploit I used in NT 3.51 existed in NT 4, NT 5 / Windows 2000. I don't believe it's been changed in XP (since XP is basically a new shell on NT 5), but I haven't got an XP box here to check. I can't see it being changed in Vista, unless Windows adopts the UNIX setuid concept rather than simply creating more fine-grained privileges.

At any rate, you still can't infer ANYTHING about the user model just by the fact that IE runs in a sandbox.

The biggest security problem in Windows is the fact that IE (or rather the MS HTML control) is not, by itself, designed from the ground up as a closed sandbox without any mechanism for a document within the sandbox to even *request* access from outside the sandbox.

That problem is manifestly NOT fixed in Vista. Until they fix that, creating finer grained permission or even fixing the design of the user security model isn't going to make a lot of difference.

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[drsmithy]

Do you understand what chroot is ?

Very well.

Since you seemed to miss the point... I was trying to point out why the fact Microsoft are running the browser under a set of tighter permissions, does not at all point to the "conclusion" the GP drew.

Where did you come to this conclusion ? What is that logic ?

Well, let's see. It might have something to do with the fact that the whole point of a web browser is to connect to, and download data from, largely unknown, unverifiable and untrusted sources.

It just means a browser is an application dealing with an insecure and potentially hostile environment. It doesn't mean the app itself is insecure, it rather means teh app have to be secure.

(Modern) Web browsers are non-trivial applications. Hence, they have bugs. Hence, since their primary purpose is dealing with untrusted data, they are a significant security hole.

Many server applications fall into the same category. Large, non-trivial application -> bugs. Spend most of their time dealing with foreign data -> much higher probability of exploitation. Bugs + much higher chance of exploitation -> big security hole.

The isolated pocket of permissions is already given by the OS in the case of Linux distro, so they have nothing to do.

No Linux distribution I am aware of does this. Since you obviously haven't a clue what you're talking about, I'll help - this is *not* the same thing as defaulting to a non-Admin account.

If someone had to follow suite, that would be the web browser developers, not Linux distro.

No, it's an OS configuration issue and thus the distribution maintainer's job.

I doubt they will do that.

I don't. Let's come back in 12 months and see who was right. If anything, I'll bet there are even more applications running in these kinds of "jails".

You believe that FOSS web browsers or OS are in as bad shape as IE and Windows, that's why you think others have to follow suite.

No, I believe that web browsers are quite possible the single biggest security hole/malware vector in the typical PC. Closely followed by email clients and P2P software. Locking them down as much as possible is common sense.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[adolfojp]

You make an interesting and valid point.

This is slightly off topic, but it might be usefull info:

XP supports skins withouth the need for third party apps like window blinds. The problem is that it only accepts signed skins. You can download a patch that allows you to use unsigned skins on windows at native speed. These skins are called Visual Styles.

The patch

My favorite skin (Industry compact)

A couple of others

Ed Bott is a Microsoft shill

[ThurlMakes7]

His career depends on sucking up to Microsoft.

He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the best-selling Microsoft Windows XP Inside Out, Second Edition.

You don't think he's going to piss in that puddle, do you?

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[Quantam]

This would be Windows XP Pro on a stand-alone computer (my home computer), running Office 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 (I use those for all my university stuff, as well as my own amusement). Seriously, I've NEVER had to use runas to run a non-admin Microsoft program because it won't work properly on a limited user (yes, I'm defining installing new programs as admin stuff); ever. Though I must admit I've only tried running as a limited user on XP within the last couple years, and it could also help that I make sure I install the features of things like Office 2003 I need the first time around. Perhaps you could give some specific examples of major problems you've had.

Though I'll definitely admit that file permissions can be a bitch to deal with if you want to share stuff between different users/computers, or (heaven forbid) try to recover files from a physically damaged drive (I had the joyous experience of doing that; that's why I've only had this current installation of XP for six months or so). Or if you like to use naughty little programs like World of Warcraft, Neverwinter Nights, or WinAmp (had to deal with this problem a while back; dunno if they fixed it by now) which assume they can write to their directory in Program Files whenever they want.

Windows Vista - Not So Good either

[ALpaca2500]

I just installed the latest version of Vista available to TechNet subscribers, build 5308. While it's not as bad as was described here, it hasnt been completely smooth running either.

It seems to do some thing well. Dual booting with XP works great. maybe better than with win2k and XP. All the visual effects run fine, even on my integrated graphics (GeForce 6150, admittedly higher end for integraded graphics). Normal operation is a little sluggish, and sometimes it gets really bad. I've had it lock up completely at least 3 times, doing completely different things. One time it was just trying to open Freecell (which, by the way, they have updated).

I saw a post from a guy who works for microsoft, who said he's been running Vista for a few months, and doing all his work on it. From what i've seen of the build i'm running, I don't see myself being as productive on it as I am with my current XP setup, just becuase of some of these problems. on the other hand, it looks like once they get these things straightened out, it should be fine.

Re:Windows Vista - Not So Good either

[PhreakinPenguin]

Download the latest build and you'll notice a huge improvement. The one you're running is VERY old.

Five or six crash free days.

[twitter]

If you look at his, "stability monitor", you will see that the longest run between crashes and or software uninstalls was about five days. It's hard to read their crappy graph, so it might be six or seven. Other than those days, he had some kind of critical failure every day during those three weeks. In fact the last days looked worse than the rest. Looks like hell to me.

Crashes are logged in OS X

[amake]

~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[Quantam]

To clarify that last paragraph: I needed admin access for fixing most of the permission problems mentioned.

DX10, Uhm yes

[Daath]

He is running DirectX 10, but the Dx10-specific parts are software emulated, since there are no graphics adapters that support Dx10 yet.

Vista

[certel]

You know, it won't be so bad. Once they get some feedback on the system it'll turn out fine. I don't think Windows will allow a totally defunct product to be released.

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[lgw]

MS Office apparantly runs just fine as an ordinary user - on a Mac. This of course just makes it more frustrating that it fails on Windows.

Re:No it DOESNT look like a mac, fanboy

[King_TJ]

I beg to differ. I'm far from a "Mac fanboy" considering I do systems administration for a company using Windows 2003 and 2000 Server and XP workstations (plus an old SCO Unix app running in a virtualized session). I've also spent the last 10 years or more in roles supporting Microsoft products.

Despite that, I use a mix of Macs and Windows PCs for personal use. (I have a new Macbook Pro, which I'm happy can dual-boot into XP and OS X at will, and a PowerMac G5 I use much of the time at home. But I also own an Athlon 64 based PC that's good for gaming and other things.)

Anyway, I think the O.P. is largely correct. With the Vista feature-list, one can't help but cringe after reading a line-item list of features in OSX Tiger 10.4. If I read a bunch of them off to someone who didn't know which OS I was talking about, they could easily guess incorrectly.

Macs aren't first at everything, but they're first with a lot of innovative ideas - largely because they're less hamstrung by backwards compatibility with obscure products and millions of device drivers. The opposite occasionally happens too, but Apple tends to admit it more readily than MS does.

EG. Fast-user switching in XP. Apple admitted they "liked the idea so much, they implemented it themselves" in OS X - but with the cool, 3D rotating cube effect.

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[Blakey Rat]

How about some evidence for your claim that Office doesn't run in a limited user account, buddy? Before you get too far ahead of yourself. I have it on 250 computers, all running as a limited user account (and no, no domain-- we're Netware), and I've never encountered any problems related to permissions.

Coyotos

[dhasenan]

It's Coyotos, not CoyoteOS, and it takes a fair portion of its ideas from EROS. It's written in BitC, a language designed for security, among other things.

Re:Coyotos

[10101001 10101001]

Sorry. I knew I should have looked up the new project's name. And yes, I was aware that it was based off ideas from EROS. And while I'm only now recalling about it being written in BitC, the fact is that a language in itself isn't sufficient to provide security/resilience. The fact that it's designed for security is only a start. Like I said, I doubt even Microsoft has the funds to design an entire system around the ideal.

It comes down the fact that if there is a bug in the core system (and I'm pretty sure there's going to be at least one), then you're stuck either dumping the entire system (which effectively ruins any claims of resilience) or trying to retroactively undo any damage the bug might have done (something pretty monumental to perform). So, I'd love for Coyotos to prove me wrong; I'm just not exactly optimistic about it.

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[blincoln]

How about some evidence for your claim that Office doesn't run in a limited user account, buddy? Before you get too far ahead of yourself. I have it on 250 computers, all running as a limited user account (and no, no domain-- we're Netware), and I've never encountered any problems related to permissions.

I'll see your 250 computers with no domain and raise you 10,000+ 2000 SP4 and XP Pro SP2 machines on a domain with non-admin users running Office 2000 and 2003 with no issues related to the lack of admin rights.

GGP is correct - MS is *very* good at making sure their modern apps follow the guidelines for working for non-admins. Almost every other "enterprise" software company is not.

In any case...

[BrokenHalo]

"Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"

Three weeks?

Be still, my heart.

I've got an old Linux box here that has nearly three years

uptime...

Re: Permissions!

[mpapet]

Though I'll definitely admit that file permissions can be a bitch to deal with if you want to share stuff

Bingo!

Besides that minor functions of Office apps failed in very unusual ways with no errors given. These aren't power users by any stretch of the imagination either.

An extra strike for special third party developer apps that wouldn't work either.

Yeah big surprise...

[BlindSpot]

A ZDNet article praising a Microsoft product is like a pro-military speech from George Bush. I've been dealing with ZD's pro-MS propaganda every since my OS/2 days.

I'm not saying Vista beta 2 is as bad as the other story said, just that we shouldn't be trusting this particular source when they said it isn't.

Re:I think my Grandpa said it best....

[mvdw]

I personally use Ubuntu, and aptly wait for the June 1st launch of Dapper Drake.

Pun intended?

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[Asphalt]

I'll see your 250 computers with no domain and raise you 10,000+ 2000 SP4 and XP Pro SP2 machines on a domain with non-admin users running Office 2000 and 2003 with no issues related to the lack of admin rights.

Call him a urine-soaked booze hound!! Call him a urine-soaked booze hound!!

Thanks for mentioning that it's a ZDNet article

[DaveM753]

...that way I know not to bother reading it.

M$ dis-information: MAC + NIX ALREADY HAVE THIS

[wintermute000]

More example of M$ making an inferior product, then passing off 'improvements' that merely bring it up to par with everything else, as great leaps forwards

witness Win2000 vs Win95: massive improvement, but when u think about it, shouldn't 95 have been in that state when it was released????? (lets not even mention Win98 or ME)

'Nix and Mac OS already have 95% of those so called "improvements" as CORE COMPONENTS of their design for years. Aside from the 3D desktop, which is really the least critical part of the OS from a productivity / stability / security / speed POV....

Re:M$ dis-information: MAC + NIX ALREADY HAVE THIS

[wintermute000]

Yeah I know, but I don't count it as "core" part of linux as its only available in specific remixes so to speak and u will need to be nix techie to even get it off the ground (aside from the koroaa live cd of course). i.e. its not available out of the box. Though Fedora 6 should have AIXGL built in as standard and something similar I believe for the upcoming ubuntu releases etc. (I'm a red hat guy so bear with me if I'm mistaken) anyhoo 3D desktop is all good but like I said the rest of Vista's great leap forwards (i use that term intentionally) is merely catching up to the curve (ooh it pains me to praise Macs but there u have it)

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[drsmithy]

I'm sorry, what version of Windows is that? Where can I get one? MS Office certainly won't work right either.

Yes, it does. Unless you can provide some specific examples other people can verify.

Maybe you are on a domain? Things work better in a domain. The OS is not designed to do what you falsely claim it can.

The OS most certainly is designed to do that. The problem is 100% the fault of application developers.

Vista not so bad, ah shuddupayourface

[syousef]

Vatsa matta you? Hey!
Gotta no respect. Hey!
Vista not so bad.
Vista nicea face, ah shudduppa your face.

I fear only the Aussies will understand the reference. It won't be as funny if it has to be explained but the following song made it to number one many moons ago here in Aus:

http://www.lyricsondemand.com/j/joedolcelyrics/shu tuppayoufacelyrics.html

Re:Vista not so bad, ah shuddupayourface

[tehcyder]

the following song made it to number one many moons ago here in Aus

And in the UK too, sadly. It kept "Vienna" off the top spot, at the time a major national embarassment.

Re: Mod MS Employee Down (again)

[mpapet]

a lot of people just dont run as admin

If they are the vast majority of Windows boxes then they most certainly are.

and a lot of apps just can't
I don't see a clear path to this "virtual admin" functionality.
Everytime I've got one of the desktops I support running something that requires a dip into admin priveleges for the apps that can't run in the user space, the OS is going to ask for verification.
Given this will be *very* annoying, I'm guessing there's a little checkbox to "remember" this decision. Lo and behold! The system is running in Admin!

the amount we have to care about putting up with a just-in-time priviledge escalation model goes down.
No. it doesn't. You are teaching them to:
1. click okay and let the chips fall where they may.
2. turn the PC into a DRM'd set-top box.
We all know you can't teach users anything they don't -really- want to know, so I believe you are paving the way for option 2 with Longwait.

Re: Mod MS Employee Down (again)

[bmajik]

Everytime I've got one of the desktops I support running something that requires a dip into admin priveleges for the apps that can't run in the user space, the OS is going to ask for verification.
Given this will be *very* annoying, I'm guessing there's a little checkbox to "remember" this decision. Lo and behold! The system is running in Admin!


So let me see if I understand this: You are discussing a "problem" with an approach that you are speculating might work a certain way, on a feature and operating system you haven't ever used?

There has been a lot of work to improve the admin problem in Vista, and there's probably more that you don't see than what you do. Please don't make up your mind on what the drawbacks of the approaches we've taken until you've at least tried - and maybe understand - them.

turn the PC into a DRM'd set-top box.

No rational person thinks this, but suppose anyway that that is our secret plan, and that we're going to come up with some scheme whereby apps can't run unless they're magically signed or some other scheme.

Guess what - we already have that, in a few forms even (i.e. SAFER, SRP, etc), and the majority of people don't use it, and don't want to, and even if we did have it, there will still need to be a box that says "run anyway". So "turning the PC into a DRM set-top box" doesn't even solve the problem you're suggesting exists (which, in reality, doesn't exist, fyi)

Is this whats...

[halfcuban]

Is this what's going to be going on up till and after the release of Vista? Everyone and their Grandma posting stories of how it did work/didn't work/saved my life/killed my firstborn? Does it really matter? Outside of some of the broader concepts and technologies that Vista will employ, do we have to talk about every single persons user experience. This is similar to the "I couldn't install one Linux distro so all Linux is DUMB 4 real" type posts that used to go around. One persons experience on a system that will be employed eventually in millions of computers, does not a definitive opinion make. Even sysadmins and IT people who oversee large numbers of computers can at best only have a slice of an opinion on something.

For me, either way, its irrelevent. I don't use Windows anymore, except for the rare need to open up an app (presuming it doesn't run in WINE), so what Microsoft does or offers is no longer an issue, since I'm not shelling out the money for the upgrade. I'd much rather break up the cost of whatever the upgrade cost for Vista will be (150?) and donate 10 bucks to my 15 favorite Linux open source applications.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[halfcuban]

Most people want the best value for their buck, and this applies to hardware as well as software. It's something Apple users don't understand, when they talk about "ease of use" and the justifications for the price premium Apple demands; it's something Microsoft doesn't understand when it makes increasingly larger requirements for its OS' for increasingly frivolous reasons.

The irony is for all the accusations of Linux being for "power users" and for people with buff systems trying to eke out the last bit of performance, the reality is more and more people are using Linux because its the only up-to-date and modern OS that can actually run on their damn machine without having to go out and buy a whole new one. You actually DON'T need to do heavy lifting to get a copy of Linux and KDE/GNOME to run decently on your computer, and the amazing thing is, you can actually get even faster if you put the time investment in. You can effectively lengthen the investment in your hardware by months if not years performance wise by switching and making certain changes. And that's the reality that people are waking up to, and the reality of why many desktop users are making the switch and dual-booting or simply installing clean out Linux.

Amazing...

[FFFish]

It is simply a sign of how frustrated people are with their choice of OS.

No

[Herby Sagues]

Maybe to him, running a version that was released three weeks ago for three weeks IS flawless. So it is to me.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[jawtheshark]

XP Home does have ACLs. On the command line there is something called "cacls". I have to admit that it was very dumb of Microsoft to remove the graphical ACL panels in the Home edition.

There is an addon to get the graphical configuration panels back. (Made by Microsoft themselves) Alas, I don't remember where to find it, but I'm sure a few googles will give you the answer. (I have the link in a bookmark at home)

Grinning as I type

[FoamingToad]

[Ahem]
Windows 95 + FAT16; wait for OSR2.1
Windows 98 - Horribly buggy; wait for SE
Windows ME - Utterly awful; wait for 2000
Windows XP - Fell over constantly, SP1 stable but flawed; at SP2 we got a reasonably reliable system
Windows 2K3 - needs a 350MB service pack post-install.

I'm not opposed to change or the Vista way of doing things (although I still prefer the Windows 2k style dialogues and start menus and have no interest in visual bells+whistles) but the primary rule-of-thumb for using a Microsoft product is "Wait until the first service pack comes out before using".

Maybe you have a small shop then

[gelfling]

I don't. I have to worry about the migration effort of hundreds of thousands of machines. Is the coolness factor worth that? Is it going to be 10% cheaper to administer? Is it 30% more stable? Will I have to rewrite 7% of my apps and/or patch 5-7% of my vendor apps?

And all of that could in fact be worth it if indeed the differences were that dramatic. But I don't see that. All I see is a 1337ness factor for home computing and gamers.

The MS dog eats garbage!

[amiga-x]

You can't fix a wrong answer no matter how much money you throw at it! Where did technology go...MS is still trying to get an OS that works. I don't see voice actvated interface or a computer that starts at a flip of the switch.
What I see is more fluff and useless eye candy. I guess ignorance is bliss; I'm disgusted!

Re:It doesn't matter.

[ookaze]

Umm, I have no say in how well made most of my car is, does that mean I should spend half of every day walking to and from work, and take several month long sabbaticals when I want to visit my family?

No, that means you should tell the vendor, and then choose another car. Cars market is far better, as you have several compatible alternatives, there is not one car forced on you.

People are going to use both Windows and OS X because they are the tools most suited to them, or because they are required to by their employer. Given that fact, it is very useful to have more information on what to expect

Wait a minute ! You gave no valid reason to use Windows or OS X. "most suited" ? What does that mean ? "Required by employer" ? Why ?
Anyway, that does not answer the question of why you should migrate to Windows Vista.

It all depends upon why you use a computer. If your purpose is to promote an open source model, then you've chosen wisely. For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create

Which is exactly the goal of FOSS software. What, you really believed FOSS was there to promote a model ?
The primary goal of the closed source model is to sell, not to get work done, communicate or create. This is a very naive view, as a lot of (I would say "most") closed source software out there is so bad that you need reviews to know beforehand if they really do what they claim, and some FOSS even manage to be way better than these.
So if your purpose is to get work done, communicate and create, and that you forgot you had to pay hefty sums of money to do that on closed source OS, that means one of two things : you have a pretty big wallet, or you are pirating everything you need (which means you're hypocritical about your purposes). In both cases, your advice is not really relevant.

To me, being open source is a feature. It is nice, and useful, and provides security going forward, but it is by no means the only feature or the most important one

What are the most important features ?
For me, it's assurance that I will always be able to access my work and old data for example. Being FOSS is a requirement to assure that, so it's more than a feature, it's a big prerequisite to efficient work done.
There are others : assurance that I will be able to use some program or hardware in the future. This is a big problem on closed source OS.

Re: Mod MS Employee Down (yet again)

[mpapet]

There has been a lot of work to improve the admin problem in Vista
Let me guess, it's all automatic now and works beautifully. What are the chances this solution becomes a vector for compromised machines like sooo many other "features" have in the past?

turn the PC into a DRM'd set-top box.

Personal innuendos aside, the roughly 4-5 out of 6 sku's are disabled forms of the OS.

Hey that's... Wait for it.... Digital Rights Management!

A rational person would say that Microsoft's plans aren't secret and you're not seeing the forest through the trees.

Based on your remarks, it's obvious I'll still have a job babysitting MS products with Longwait.

ZDNet Need I say more?

[skelator2821]

Microsoft bought and paid for editor! Come on people we all know that ZDNet and MS have been in bed for years. Going to the site is almost like walking into a car dealership selling MS cars... So a Un-Biased review of Any MS product from them is not going to happen. Thank Goodness for Slashdot :)

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[Sax Maniac]

THANK YOU! Wish I could mod you 10 times over.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

No, that means you should tell the vendor, and then choose another car.

Or, I can just choose the car I think is best suited to my needs based on all the criteria including price, rather than judging solely based on one.

Wait a minute ! You gave no valid reason to use Windows or OS X. "most suited" ? What does that mean ?

Well, maybe the task I need to accomplish is to get a Framemaker file to my client. In that case, I'd say some version of Windows is my best bet. Or maybe, my job is (and it is) some graphics work (bitmap and vector), some publishing, a lot of writing, layout, some PHP, a little light perl and python, some training, and collaborating with a hundred coders on a variety of platforms. In that case, I need a very flexible OS that offers customization and both commercial and open source software for integrating and collaborating with various other people's workflows. Right now I'm using OS X for my workstation, occasionally Windows for compatibility tasks, and OpenBSD and Linux for servers. If you want to know the particular software or OS specific features I'm using that are not available anywhere else, I can make a list. The short list is basically: application availability, system services, functional indexed filesystem, and reasonable multitasking.

"Required by employer" ? Why ?

Because otherwise they don't give me money. Haven't you heard of the golden rule? He who has the gold makes the rules. Now I have my choice of OS right now for my workstation, but in at least one previous job I've been given a Windows workstation, without administrative privileges and told to get to work. Rules prohibited me from installing any software at all, let alone another OS. If you want to be paid, sometimes you have to follow whatever random rules are in place.

Anyway, that does not answer the question of why you should migrate to Windows Vista.

Nor did anyone ask that question. We were discussing why it is useful to read about it. As for why I might upgrade a machine to it, well new features. Fast user switching for domain logins will motivate some. The indexed filesystem will motivate others. There are a few useful features here and there along with all the crap and anti-features.

Which is exactly the goal of FOSS software. What, you really believed FOSS was there to promote a model ?

That is not what I said. Go re-read my post. I said your choice of software was motivated by promoting a model, not that that was the purpose of the model. The purpose of pretty much all software is to solve a problem or complete a task. Some of us recognize that being open source is a very useful feature for much software. A few people, however, are more concerned with that one feature than they are with judging the overall ability of the software to complete the task.

For example, when I choose software for a project I evaluate a lot of different criteria. Latex is open source and very flexible. It also relies upon a crapload of hacks to do common tasks (images, colored text). Also, the toolset is not very learnable. Framemaker has a much better toolset, more features, and is much more learnable, but it is nowhere near as flexible and is not only closed source but only supported on Windows. Which should I choose? The answer is, "it depends upon the project." In some cases one is the most suitable solution and in some cases the other.

The primary goal of the closed source model is to sell, not to get work done, communicate or create.

This is usually true, but not always. Not that it matters for the most part, since there is this thing called a capitalist market that does a good job (with some exceptions) of giving money to those who solve the problems customers want solved.

This is a very naive view, as a lot of (I would say "most") closed source software out there is so bad that you need reviews to know beforehand if they really do what they claim, and some FOSS even manage to be way

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[jawtheshark]

Since I'm at home now, I have the link I talked about: Enjoy!. (Did not test link, my ftp-proxy is a bit flakey... I need to fix that when I have more time)

Jesus God, this is a troll?

[gelfling]

Ok everything is a happy puppy and unicorns on the big rock candy mountain thing. OK? It's alllllll wonderful. It's great - MS is the fucking savior. Have at it.

This is why I spend almost zero time at slashdot anymore - anyone who expresses any thought at all is criticized.

Stick to your games, kiddies.

Build #5381 has a major functionality broken

[c0sine]

Funny but especially that particular build has very bad problems with networking stack, e.g. it isn't possible to open Datagram socket from a user application. Which wasn't a problem before. So, Vista sucks long time. How much they paid for the spam, pal?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[halfcuban]

For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create.

I'm tired of this canard that the only people who use OSS products are those who have some ideological connection to it, and that people who actually use computers for doing things beside tinkering with the internals and getting off on Perl scripts, use other platforms. Guess what, a great number of people (myself included) use Linux boxes to "get work done, to communicate, to create". Funny enough, a great many corporations even choose to use Linux and other *nix-based OS for a great many things. I don't have a problem with someone not using Linux. The BSD's, OpenSolaris, Minix, and other OS (including Syllable, Haiku, and other hobby OS') are all great, and a good chunk of people use them every day to "get work done, to communicate, to create". It's not like somehow Mac OS X or Windows have a monopoly on this, and everyone else is just there for tech-nerds to get off on.

Actually...

[halfcuban]

Even the 3D aspect is available in Linux with the Looking Glass Desktop put out by Sun. So you really CAN have everything already on Vista, right now.

Re:The worst thing about /.

[gelfling]

I wouldn't mind except that I've been a target of serial modding and remodding here which has resulted in my being banned from commenting more than once.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm tired of this canard that the only people who use OSS products are those who have some ideological connection to it...

This is called a "straw man argument." I never claimed people use OSS only for ideological reasons. Nor did I claim that OSS is not superior for many uses. What I said was that I look at what I want to get done and then evaluate the tools based upon how well they will allow me to do that. The previous poster was arguing that if a tool is not OSS it should not be evaluated, since they seem to feel that being OSS is the only criteria that matters. I think that is foolish, given my purpose and the only purpose for which that validation method is not foolish is if your primary goal is promote OSS.

I don't have a problem with someone not using Linux. The BSD's, OpenSolaris, Minix, and other OS (including Syllable, Haiku, and other hobby OS') are all great, and a good chunk of people use them every day to "get work done, to communicate, to create".

Sure people all use different OS's (both open and closed source) for different tasks. If you read this thread you'd see that I earlier mentioned that I use Linux, OpenBSD, and OS X daily, as well as NetBSD and Windows on occasion. I use the OS and other software best suited to my task. I think evaluating every OS you can for functionality, or even for ideas to add to other OS's is great. Heck, here at work we've copied features we need from Linux and added them to OpenBSD a number of times.

The opposite of that, however, is when you refuse to even look at alternative OS's to the point where you advocate we should not even discuss the feature set of OS's here on Slashdot. I don't care if you only use Windows or you only use BeOS. When you are xenophobic to the point that you go out of your way to complain that others are discussing the features of another OS, unless your primary purpose is to use that OS, somehow, then you're being foolish. That is what the previous poster was advocating.

Re: The Truth Hurts

[mpapet]

I'm not the only one saying there's problems with a system I've never seen:

"excessive prompting for privilege escalation for seemingly common activities. On his blog, Steve Hiskey, the Lead Program Manager for User Account Control in the Windows Security Core group, details what the issues with the excessive prompting are,"

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/02/142824 0

Just pay me to promote Longwait and I'll change my tune.