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Tom's Hardware Looks at Microsoft Vista Beta
RockClimbingFool writes "Tom's Hardware has a pretty good overview of what the current beta version of Microsoft Windows Vista has to offer. The article is written from an average user's perspective, specifically highlighting exactly which differences the average computer user can expect to see from Windows XP to Windows Vista. It covers everything from IE7, to the new Windows Aero interface, to brand new games." But if you'd like your eye candy open source and downloadable now, check out Lunapark6's review of the current version of Ubuntu Dapper, with "emphasis placed on helping someone set up the system for everyday desktop usage."
Nice article posting, but was it necessary to shill for Ubuntu as part of the post? Advocacy is one thing, but it's really starting to get out of hand around here.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
Yippee....
I like how clicking the link "operating system" in an article about Vista brought up a mini-advert for Sun.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
And this is relevant to the article how ... ?
It does nothing good for the Open Source movement to desperately insert some plug at any opportunity. It just reinforces the notion that it *needs* the desperation (which may not be false, but that's another subject). See also: religious cults, Amway (or any MLM), smokers who quit, Libertarians, and the Apple Macintosh. If people just want you to Shut Up Already, you're not helping your pet movement.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
But if you'd like your eye candy open source and downloadable now... Now I understand the Slashdot bias, but some of us are just genuinely interested in the progression of computing; and yes, a new version of Windows qualifies. Not EVERY article needs to be an ad for Linux. Yes, I tried it, and yes it was neat. That's...well, that's pretty much it. I'm still going to use a Mac, I'm still going to dual-boot Windows when needed, and I'm still going to be interested in occasionally reading articles that don't mention Linux whenever the words "operating system" appear...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/31/windows_vis ta/print.html
Well I was able to get through about 30 pages of this "review" and pretty much gave up. Hundreds of screen captures of Vista "stuff" with a caption describing said capture does not a review make.
So, I went to the last page to work my way back for summary and recommendation info. Turns out, last page is the summary. Save yourself some time, the gist of this article is:
This is a review?
Windows NT built on Empty technology Windows 2000 built on NT technology Windows XP built on Win2k technology Windows Vista built on XP technology Whats new?
Come on, stop talking about Ubuntu like that. :)
I'm assuming there aren't any +5 comments yet because everyone is still busy R'ing TFA, right?
Oh and typical Tom's 40 pages of screen shots means 40x the ad revenue [next].
No big deal to fix though. All I had to do was edit the xorg.conf found in /etc/X11 and change the driver from nvidia to vesa.
I stopped reading when I got to this point.
If this is supposed to be "Linux For The Masses" and it (1) can't recognize common commodity video cards correctly, and (2) requires you to hand-edit a config file to correct the situation...
Well, let's just say I won't be recommending it to Mom anytime soon.
Yeah it's a great review! I was on the edge of my seat when they were going through how they changed the look and feel of the newest and greatest parts of windows, solitare and minesweeper! I just can't wait to get my hands on a copy of vista now that I know that they've updated the card games to look flashier! I can't see how OS X can hope to compete against a (for the first time ever mind you) completly reworked version of Spider Solitare.
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
The windows vista still has some major issues. I understand that it's just a beta, but there are still some major bugs to be worked out.
Current Problems:
1) Not all wmv, avi, or mpegs play properly. Some of them can take 5-10 minutes to load and then give an error. The exact same file plays flawlessly in XP
2) IE 7 needs has some compatibility issues. I understand that some pages have issues as they were designed for IE 6, but when Firefox and Opera render them correctly, that's an issue
3) The new file system.....garbage......I don't need to be babied. The simplified file system is nice for normal users, but I want an option to have full control over my file system.
4) I like the fact that an instance of a program dies when an error occurs, instead of the whole file system, but an error message would be nice.
5) Sometimes when the processor usage gets high the screen goes black and won't revert back. That may need to be fixed.
There are some nice features, but they have a lot of work to do before this thing is ready.
It's a good thing that Redmond isn't in South Dakota
to put the WHOLE DAMNED REVIEW on ONE FUCKING PAGE?!? I'm still digging because there are 40 pages to this stupid article!
My MythTV HowTo
The first things I notice:
1.) This review is forty pages. Thanks, toms hardware [next] for really cashing [next] in on those ad [next] impressions. They've been doing this for years, and if they didn't actually have substance to their reviews, it would be remarkably annoying. Err. Something.
2.) The very first screenshots of the Aero vs. Vista Basic interfaces look identical. Just to make sure, I loaded them up in photoshop. The "preview" window is exactly the same between the two. What?
Still reading...
sig?
But if you'd like your eye candy ... downloadable now...
There's Pirate Bay. Oh, wait...
But yeah, it was out of place. Wow, I should get a levelheadedness record.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
touche... (pardon my french)
This is a review?
Welcome to Intarweb 2.0
KFG
If I'm not up to "read" 40 pages of screenshots, what, besides gfx of the UI (which has been already backported to XP as "skins") has changed in Windows?
Oh, Vista-only apps. Yay. Now why won't they work in XP? Some essential feature of XP missing? Or just to boost Vista sales? Want new game? Buy new Windows. And of course a new computer, because even if your current hardware could handle the gfx of the game if it was running under XP, it won't handle compound load of the game and Vista.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I have seen a lot of these Windoz reviews, showing off the Fancy graphics and transparent windows. Sadly few people without new or super system will ever see the fancy graphics and transparent windows. Last I read it will take the newest video card and over a gig of ram to run anything. Joe average will buy the upgrade, then find out that his computer wont look the same after its installed I bet.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
40 pages?
Fourty. Fucking. Pages?
Look, Tom's hardware used to be a useful site. It's not anymore. Stop posting their paginated ad-cancer garbage until they realize that so long as they make their stuff intentionally difficult to read, people won't read it.
because deleting a shortcut is just a few clicks away.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs.
Necessary I don't know, but it is useful because so many people out there are totally unaware of the great features offered by alternative OSes. Regarding Ubuntu, in no particular order: Aero-like features already available via Xgl (while Vista is not yet released), centralized package management system, 1-click full system update and security patches installation (under Windows, MS-only software is upgraded), generally easier to use than Windows (according to one of my family member who is an average desktop computer user), easy to install, no drivers to download from the hardware vendors (the kernel recognize everything by default), etc.
Look at the icon for this story. Broken Windows. And it's been six years since the release of the ultra stable Win2K and five since XP.
The editors have made a decision to foster this attitude which is no wonder we're still burdened with tragically unfunny blue screen and clippy jokes. Is this to their benefit or loss? I don't know.
That is the ultimate edition. I wonder how much space other editions will take up? And I don't suppose the installer lets you choose which components you want to install? Also, are Windows Server versions usable as desktop operating systems?
This site has quite possibly committed the worst sins of "maximizing advertising revenue at the expense of usability" of any site I would ever admit to browsing of (admit, mind you).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I've been suffering XP for almost six years now. Is this beta going to define Windows for the NEXT six years? If so, I'm unimpressed.
Don't get me wrong. I welcome a much needed update to Windows. The features of Vista, however, aren't quite wowing me. The performance should be worse than XP given the heaftier requirements. There's still no WinFS, promised back in '96. The Win64 API is pretty bad (I'm a developer). Other than eye candy and clones of the most popular Mac OS features, what will I be getting for my money?
Stability, performance, and enterprise features are what I want... not an updated Minesweeper. Will the Bluetooth protocol stack be less problematic than XP's? I hope so. Will they support WPA2 natively, without 170MB of updates? Will IPV6 be native? How about IPSEC support? Will it actually work this time? How bad is the new Windows shell? Is it close enough to Bash or even csh to be useful? What's Task Manager like? Do I still have to wait seconds for it to appear when a process runs amok? Does the UI remain responsive during heavy calculations (I do a lot of 3D)? Can I install games without worrying about which version of DirectX is installed? Will the new version of Office install things I'll have to disable, like toolbars, fast find, and Word integration into Outlook express? Do I still need to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to do things?
These reviews rarely touch on any issue that's actually important to me. Yes, it looks pretty and it should dammit. But does it work as well as it looks? That's what really matters. Microsoft keeps pulling features and slipping the release date. I doubt the reviewers remember Cairo.
I beta tested Windows 95 / Chicago and recall how slow that thing was. The production release was hardly much faster, despite the assurances. In fact, the beta versions of Windows 95 ran more stable, IMO. The graphics were even slicker. I ran Win95 beta until Microsoft shipped OSR2. It was a matter of necessity.
When will Ars Technica do a thorough review? That I might be interested in.
Personally, I am looking forward to the Windows gadgets. I mean what a great idea!! Who could have thought of something so ingenius...
Forty pages of the same crap we have now with XP. Yeck. Talk about a company playing catchup and not doing well. And just because this qoute is too good not to be recycled.... "Putting Windows on DOS is like putting whipped cream on a road apple" -McNealy I dont think much has changed. All I see is whipped cream now, and apple makes much better eye candy than this. (for those who dont know what a road apple is...http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?ter m=road+apple)
Nobody ever lost their job at Slashdot for dissing Windows.
You know, Windows has some legacy junk, which hopefully
ReactOS(or a fork of it, once it is stable) will address/remove.
* DOS back slashes. Internet/C/UNIX slashes should be used. While windows internally understands '/' in filenames, many command utilities rely on '/' for flags.
* Two char dos new line. There is no real reason to keep using \r\n in text files to represent a new line. It wastes one byte for every line of every text file.
* Drive Letters are an obsolete and limiting concept. a 'fstab', simple drive labling, or windows junction points can all replace these 24 single letter drive names.
* A real console/terminal window. Yes, an xterm or similar that has real scroll bars, real cut/pass, understands terminal protocols and has a 'curses' interface that lets you run console apps locally or remotely.
Interesting point, however it seems the review writer doesn't realise that Apple sells hardware, hence Windows actually isn't competition for OS X. That's why Apple released bootcamp, OS X is just a reason to get people to buy their hardware.
And I think the people who want to use OS X aren't doing it just for the eyecandy. I know I didn't.
I'd slap you for that, but with the default theme they ask for that. First thing I did when I got dapper was fire up firefox in search any other theme but that.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Did anyone here actually click that Ubuntu link?
Why is there an Internet Explorer icon on the Ubuntu 6.06 desktop?
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Because that could be the fastest $200/cost of Vista I've ever made.
Oh yeah, you have to replace one word in one config file. If people can't do this, they deserve to shell out money for over-expensive crap like Vista.
So, I'm a tech security consultant.
I only bring it up because it means I see about a zillion different companies and talk to their IT Directors/CIOs/Whatevers, Fortune 500 down to Dave's Community Bank-member FDIC, every week.
They are all Microsoft shops. Yeah, they have some small-u unix boxes (various flavors of linux, bsd, solaris, or etc.) running important stuff. But the core of their network, the centralized authentication servers and groupware servers (read Active Directory and Exchange) -- which means their app servers are typically Microsoft-based even if their DB and web servers aren't -- serve the core of what they do.
None of them have any interest in Vista. Many have recently in the past year or two finally rid themselves of the last vestiges of 9x boxes. Basically, Windows 2000 satisfied any and all needs they had. Everyone running Windows 2003/R2 had a Microsoft partner consultancy come in to "help" them with their network.
That's not to say they're anxious to jump to other platforms. Most show at least mild interest in my choice of a 12" PowerBook G4 to travel with and would start switching if "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft". But no one is ready to start seriously investigating a wholesale switch to a non-Microsoft OS on desktops or servers.
There are many reasons for this.
But the core point is that enterprises have been pretty happy with their core OS since circa 2000. Everything since then is just features added to satisfy some niche constituency.
Vista would be dead on arrival if the PC manufacturers weren't so in bed with Microsoft that everyone who buys a PC after Xmas of 2007 had it coming to them by default. The reason OS X and Ubuntu, et al, are seeing their market share creep up is because they have finally caught up to the feature set and a bit of the mind share Microsoft had 6-7 years ago.
The computers in my house -- including my wife and kid's -- run OS X. My computers at work run Win XP, OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Open BSD. I am familiar with Win Server 2k and 2k3, many Linux distros, and various flavors of Unix.
Operating systems are a solved problem. The devils are in various niche details. Rational people with complete information (I heart Adam Smith) should be running OS X on the desktop and whatever they want/have to use on the server.
Flame at will.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I don't know about OS X, but I'm not aware of any great GUI feature that Linux has introduced.
Hey if I could make as much money as MS has on Windows since introducing NT, I'd be happy to build a product on Empty technology.
I know that it's been a pretty slow month as far as news goes, but please. This is the 500th "Vista Beta preview/review/OMG PONIES!" article that has been on /. this week and the 2nd Tom's Hardware ad I've had to NOT read. This is crap. The fact that a Ubuntu endorsement came with the summary is just silly as well.
Try again when Vista is about to hit the new Dell machines and then we will see what it can do. Enough of the "Vista is going to be the Suxor!" and "Yet ANOTHER look at M$ Vista Beta 5,000,000XP++"!
I have nothing to say.
The only reason you have to do this is because ATi and nVidia (and seriously, what's with the F'd up capitalization people!) won't release their drivers as open source. Since Linux is all GPL'd, it can't be distributed with software that won't include its source code. So the graphics drivers have to remain a seperate process. So don't blame Linux, blame your graphics card makers.
Now, I don't really see why someone who knew what they were doing (read: not me) could make a shell script that would properly edit the config files and do the install properly for such a unified distro as ubuntu and pack it into the ubuntu package manager, but I digress...
Ok, not Linux... but come on! How people can use any graphical interface without Virtual Desktops!?!
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Well, Linux and OSX made the command line trendy again!
Circumcision is child abuse.
I wish they'd made an argument or two to support that conclusion. After reading TFA (or rather looking at it, it's very low-wordage), I have come to the conclusion that it has a very nice user interface, it will be easier for average people to use, and if the security features work as advertised, they might have that particular problem licked. I think it will also spur the Windows fanboys to make hundreds of pronouncements about Vista's unquestioned superiority over Mac OS X, on the basis of two interlocking arguments:
These things given, Vista is a better operating system. But...
I think BillG and SteveB are convinced that MS will become the American Megatrends of the Internet-connected future if they don't take the lead and kill Google, which is causing them to gamble big on web services -- I just don't see such things as the end-all that the Win32 OS is.
If MS really wanted to make money off web services, they'd fully adopt open web standards, and then buy a telco or 3.
2 cents
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Um, how about the actual design of the Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons that were taken from a Gnome 2.4 theme and put in Aero.
By the way, by taken, I mean including sizes where close is twice the width of any others, the buttons are half the height of the titlebar and stretch off the top with slight roll over color variations. Check out an old Redhat 5 CD, believe the theme was "Glow".
It was good enough for Microsoft to copy ~5 years down the line after most people have forgotten about it...
I don't see how attempting to outshine translates to copy. If someone has a good || successful idea, it's only human nature to try to imitate it.
The sad thing is, such mindless slashbotism such as the parent is probably going to be modded Insightful.
Can it run Linux?
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
FTFA:
Microsoft appears to have researched and adopted a mass of know-how from its competitors.
Sure takes them a lot of words to say "copied."
So your mom would have an easier time installing windows?
In Soviet Russia, Windows installs your mom!
Is there a 'nonsensical' mod (and would it be + or - around here)?
Microsoft knows that an example of a valid domain is example.com, not treyresearch.com
At work i'm forced to work on a crappy WinNT box, so crappy in fact that firefox dies after a couple minutes. beware to everyone running IE6... one of those links apparently had a bit more then meta refresh. i started getting all sorts of activex, script, and download dialogs, along with a bunch of popups. the system locked, and on boot, even in safe mode, windows explorer refuses to run, even from taskmgr. my work box is pooched.
I'm just glad we're finally switching to gentoo at the office, and good timing too: i'll be getting it installed in a day or so.
So careful with those links...
Why does the most indepth part of this review need be on the included Vista games? Only office workers with nothing better installed and limited internet resources end up playing them.
Arlo Rose, Perry Clarke, and Ed Voas, the folks who invented Konfabulator, I think. Apple did steal the good idea first.
Houses faded by the sea are watching through their windows in this ghost town by the sea.
More and more it seems to me that Vista is all about gaming. It seems to me that Microsoft has essentially given up on creating a solid, secure platform for those of us who use their computers for work.
Which, I suppose, isn't all that bad a thing. The *nix OSes have such a long lead on all the important featuressystem uptimes, system security, solid code base, etcthat it probably really is best for Microsoft to focus on their XBox systems and cheezy Windows game-focused OS.
I'm pretty sure all the n00bs will be perfectly happy with Vista. It is very pretty, after all. Meanwhile, OS X, BSDs, and Linuxes start looking more and more appealing to people who actually want to get things done for real.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Personally, I can't see how Microsoft can release a new version of their flagship product, and expect to get away with ignoring significant innovations made in competing implementations. (I.e., "ensure solubility")
You've got it right on the money.
XP is certainly not perfect, but frankly, it's "good enough" in many ways that the pain of switching and/or upgrading is just not worth it for a large organization.
I've been using XP as my primary OS for years, and while it certainly has its share of atrocities (as do all OS's), it's the first MSFT OS I've ever actually found to be usable for the long term.
Would I like it to be better? Sure. But Vista is going in the wrong direction. Adding craptacular 3D UI is amusing, but I'd vastly prefer that they solve the problem of "I have to reinstall from scratch every year or so to clear out the vestiges of crud".
And yes, I know I'm making contradictory statements here...
It not clear that MS will even be putting more work into their OS over the next 2-3 years, since they're going to be turning the whole ship around and start bearing down on "Windows Live" and Internet featurism, built atop Vista's able platform.
I don't know what it is that you've pilfered out of Dvorak's stash, but I want a hit...
This is a review?
From the review:
The heart of this newest Vista version is Windows Aero, an entirely reworked user interface with semi-transparent windows that employ a "milk glass" effect.
You want to know what the real difference between Windows and the Mac OS?
Windows has "milk glass", Mac OS has "Aqua".
Now, which would you rather spend your day looking at? A recently emptied milk glass, probably swarming with bacteria, or nice cool water?
The review on the Ubuntu side seems nice and all-except for the fact that you don't get anything practical until you apt-type-get this that and the other for a long time. Look at the dang list of hoops to jump through! I am not seeing joe normal user being confronted with that and having clue one about it.
Here's a thought, have one big fat red button on the desktop at first boot, labled "let's get real here". You mash that baby, and you get the drivers and apps you really want on a desktop system. It goes and rebuilds the repo lists and goes to the offshore servers and the companies websites and fetches this or that and installs it, done. Purists can ignore the button, x it away or something. Please, no command line stuff for joe normal, this is 2006, it is a GUI world now. You can have it there of course,the CLI, no problems, just no *insistence* for joe normal psychically knowing what to do to get his video card working and to be able to view assorted content, etc. It is a sad fact, but notice that word "fact", there are a lot of things people expect and enjoy that might not be pure open, so just deal with it and move on, accept reality. It's a cheat to offer the workarounds even, if you are *that close* to having them-go ahead and stick them in there. Call the dang companies up and get permission. Those people want to sell hardware, they will cooperate I bet.
From the review:
This dialog box is a complete mess. Why even have this service? Why is everything on Windows so obfuscated as to need a wordy, three option dialog box just to ask people if they'd like to turn off the eye candy when the computer's performance suffers.
Dialog boxes like this are exactly why Microsoft is sliding farther and faster behind the simplicity and flexibility that Mac OS X and Linux represent. What a goddamn joke that Windows even needs such a dialog box or the tangled mass of crap that likely supports it.
man, this interface resembles the older attempts to make X look decent with apple-like wid, eh gadgets attached.
this interface isn't sure what it wants to be, other than penetrated by malware.
why don't they just get out of the interface business and allow the user to choose between Gnome and KDE?
The guys who came up with Desk Accessories for Apple's System 7 might disagree.
Wow. There's nothing more innovative in GUI design than the look of the Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons.
heavens to murgatroyd, you'd think this was slashdot or something
Ars Technica "tour". While it doesn't take up 30+ pages, it also doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time covering what's changed in Windows Solitaire..
Wow... under 50 pages... Tom's Hardware, I'm impressed. No, really. I'm sure you could have added in another 10 pages somehow... But really, people would probably stop reading your page, but they are too intrigued to see how many pages you've managed to bump up an article. But uh... so I can stay on topic... Vista is still a beta... and apparently these Ubuntu people have a release of Linux that looks almost like it says "Diaper".
DesktopX had them 6 years ago. Konfabulator had them in Mac OS X in 2003. The Windows Sidebar shipped in all of the early Longhorn betas.
Dashboard was very late to the game. Don't kid yourself into believing that Apple came up with desktop widgets in some fit of brilliance.
Mahjong is one of the oldest games known to man. According to legend, this game was supposedly invented more than 4,000 years ago by the bored wives of the Chinese emperor. There are many versions available for the PC, particularly among the multitude of Linux distributions. Perhaps this explains why Microsoft decided to include its take on this ancient exercise of luck and skill.
They keep stealing all our best features!
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
Although it's not exactly stable yet, Xgl is one of the most awesome GUIs I've ever seen. Can you rotate virtual desktops on a cube in Windows or OS X? Nah, didn't think so.
These are not issues these are the BEST features.
1)DRM
2)Standards hijacking
3)I don't even want to know (or mention) where this comes from. possibly an innovation? fucking gross. Is the 'g' in garbage silent?
4)Unix
5)OSX (not a feature but a byproduct of the new wm. bfd.)
These are only a drop in the bucket. Why would I pay for pure rip offs and cheesy "innovation?" Give your money to
these the true pirates and reap what you sow.
I repeat these are not bugs.
I don't think an article on Ubuntu for everyday desktop usage should include fiddling with gdm.conf to enable Xgl. That kind of eye candy really is not essential to desktop usage, and that kind of hacking only scares people away.
As features get added to Linux, should we list the operating systems that already have that feature? Are there any significant features in Linux that do not already exist in OS/360, MVS, VM, VAX, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, OS/400, BeOS, OS X, OS/2, Win2K/XP, etc. etc. etc.?
The original Mac OS had them in 1983: history.
I have to stop and think about this for a minute. When you say Linux, what do you mean? That a Linux distribution hasn't produced it's own unique GUI? I'm not aware of any. However, with most distributions using KDE or Gnome, and both being used with a majority of nix-based systems, I think a broader view is in order.
I couldn't help but notice the shear number of features in the article that appeared in nix-based systems first, including OSX. One example is the set of cascading windows rotated in a 3D view. I first used this feature a year ago while playing with Looking Glass under Gentoo Linux. I remember when I first used Windows 95. It was basically the same desktop I'd already been using for a year under Solaris.
Personally, I'm not aware of any great GUI feature that Windows has introduced, unless you count Clippy.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
There you go. All wrapped up in a neat, little def.
Bugger - where did my mod points go - they were there yesterday. The parent needs modded up. Timothy added comments which were themselves soly TROLL status. He deserves a serious reprimand for that biased editorial comment.
Why can't Windows can take security seriously for the first time? This would be the perfect oportunity to break with the diseases of the past and start with a clean sheet, restructure the internals of Windows, build a secure system, and _after that_ add some nice GUI to it. Yet, even Tom's harware's review focuses on the GUI mainly.
They deliver integrated spyware scanner with Windows now. This is now evolution from the point of view of security, this is admitting that whoever uses Vista _will certainly_ have problems with spyware & co. They aren't event ashamed admiting it like they did it several years ago.
I grew up on Windows onfortunately, and only for the past year I switched to Linux. It was a bit weird to learn to do most of the things I needed without a GUI, but in Linux you can custom configure essentially _everything_ from a command line and using text-mode utilities, and that is actually a lot faster, cleaner and more transparent than clicking something on a GUI. Windows has a lot to learn from Linux yet.
For the last year while I used Linux, I completely forgot about spyware, worms and viruses. On my Linux machine I never ran a virus scanner, I don't even have a firewall on it, but have never seen any virus on it. On our LAN only the gateway has a firewall installed and properly configured. Now on the same LAN I installed a Windows, put a Firefox on it, went online, donwloaded ZoneAlarm to have some protection. I was online about 10 minutes. I installed ZoneAlarm, I ran the integrated antivirus-antispyware, I already had 17 viruses on it !!! Windows can handle being unprotected for 10 minutes, you get all sorts of programs runnig on it, doing whatever they like with _your_ personal computer. Now how does that compare to Linux?
Who hasn't tried Linux, doesn't know how it is like to surf relaxedly. Forget all about anti-viruses, anti-spyware, never think about updates, patches, critical security holes.
Vista coming with brand new APIs will certainly have a lot of unpatched holes, so the Windows experience will be that same.
My message to every Windows user: if you want a new OS experience, get a Linux distro. Vista is not the future, Linux is.
He's such a whore http://myspace.com/tom
It's not DRM it's file quality. It's about erroring bits, which should be shrugged at by XP, but cause the video to come to a grinding halt in Vista.
The black screen issue I've never experienced on my mac. It is a huge problem though as it is a guaranteed reboot.
As for paying for vista. Will I pay for it? I will, and won't think twice about it. It's a business cost. I'm in the support side of IT. My business is Customer Service and Support (I don't work on the Help Desk, but my work directly relates to their ability to support people). I have bought every copy of windows, I own a mac, and I have 3 - 4 *nix systems (At the moment 1 solaris, 1 red hat, and 1 slackware). Is vista going to be good for my users? I think it will be. I wouldn't replace a mac or a *nix system with it, but I am definetly looking forward to upgrading some of my XP users when the bugs are worked out and it goes live.
It covers everything from IE7, to the new Windows Aero interface, to brand new games.
How pathetic.
How the hell are you supposed to read that article? Click through 37 ad laden pages crap to get to the 2 paragraphs on each one?
Fsck that! That site blows.
User Account Control or Union Aerospace Corporation...
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
Here's a few things I found that looked cool and / or I would defintely use
This just plane looks sweet! It's like something that we'd do in our Comp Sci Advanced Graphics course
I think this could be quite useful too
About time
This would save me time!
500 hours of testing ... and they ended up with 8 of their 40 pages describing games!?!? Wonder how many of those 500 hours were spent playing those games?
Oh, and a side comment about the whole mothers et al installing windows / installing Linux.
To install Windows, you need the following:
To install Linux you need the following:
Obviously, the Linux list stops there because I am assuming a very rare "trouble free, all hardware works 100% of manufacturer's intention install." Basically the point im making here is..it is completely idiotic and a waste of time to discuss the ease of installation between Windows and Linux. 99.999% of Linux installs are done by the user. The exact inverse is true of Windows.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Welcome to Intarweb 2.0
On Intarwebs 2.0, "Tom's Hardware" is nearly indistinguishable from "PC Magazine".
There's still no WinFS, promised back in '96.
I personally am glad of that. MS is not the first company to promise to replace the file system with an associative database, nor are they the first to not fall through. Apple promised it for Copland. There is no evidence at this time that doing this is a good idea or even possible. MS is slathering an associative layer on top of NTFS (last I heard), which is a pretty good compromise. If it turns out to have benefit, they can rewrite the file system later and if it turns out to be useless, you don't have to pay the penalty for it.
Will they support WPA2 natively, without 170MB of updates?
That's a pretty stupid question. They'll roll the 170MB of updates into the initial release. All they need to do is write an installer script. You could do it yourself by slipstreaming XP. I don't really blame MS for this, 802.11 is a nightmare because of the updates. As more appliances support it, it gets worse and worse. How many can't even use WPA because they have a Nintendo DS, or media streaming device that doesn't support it? They need to pick a standard and stick with it.
Does the UI remain responsive during heavy calculations (I do a lot of 3D)?
No, MS hasn't figured out how to create CPU out of thin air. If you use up a limited resource, your machine will get slow. This is not a new thing.
Can I install games without worrying about which version of DirectX is installed?
This hasn't been a problem for years. Games always come with the DirectX installer they need. You just run it if you aren't 100% sure you have it already.
Will the new version of Office install things I'll have to disable, like toolbars, fast find, and Word integration into Outlook express?
Office isn't part of Vista. If you don't like it, don't run it. I don't.
Do I still need to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to do things?
Surely, because there's a security reason for that. Ctrl+Alt+Delete is a system trap on PCs. It cannot be captured by any process, it goes straight to the OS. So when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and a login window pops up, you know that it comes from the OS and isn't a false one put up to steal your password. Also, the system trap can't be blocked or rerouted, so using it to bring up the Task Manager means the Task Manager always (well, more than it would otherwise) comes up.
I ran Win95 beta until Microsoft shipped OSR2. It was a matter of necessity.
Win95 worked well for me, even before OSR2. It did get even better with OSR2.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
What I meant was that there wasn't a significant GUI feature introduced by Linux. I didn't make any claims about MS. In my view the core GUI came from Xerox and there's been minor tweaks since then.
Given that the only thing Windows is good for is gaming, since it's way too bloated, insecure, and unstable for any serious use...
Ooh, trollish! *anonymous powers: activate!*
I second.
Timothy sounds like a Michael Simms lite. What an asshat.
But if you'd like your eye candy open source and downloadable now, check out Lunapark6's review of the current version of Ubuntu Dapper, with "emphasis placed on helping someone set up the system for everyday desktop usage."
The link in the above paragraph leads to the IEPageSpoof Trojan
Sounds like Vista implemented in hardware...
> that Apple sells hardware
Apple also sells Software. http://www.apple.com/software/ Duh?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
"It not clear that MS will even be putting more work into their OS over the next 2-3 years, since they're going to be turning the whole ship around and start bearing down on "Windows Live" and Internet featurism, built atop Vista's able platform. I personally think they're overreacting to the whole google thing. BillG used to say that the desktop was their platform, but that all has gone out the window since they're losing ground in the Internet."
Where do you get your information? As if Microsoft doesn't have separate teams working on separate products. The mishandling of Vista/Longhorn over the past six years sucked for them, but now that they are (supposedly) reorganizing the Windows team into a more efficient machine, I doubt they'll get everybody working on new/different projects instead of working more on what they know just because RTM deadline is finally met after its 50th postponement. MS has stated time and time again that their core products (Windows, Office, etc.) aren't going anywhere.
I love how there are so many business experts on slashdot that know the true "best course" for the world's largest software behemoth.
You can pirate software, you can't pirate hardware.
e s/2006/04/os_x_on_generic.html) is close enough.
I can't find the article that discusses the point, but this (http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archiv
That's why Apple have Bootcamp, they want to encourage people to buy their hardware.
Duh yourself, no need to be rude.
I for one am a little less than thrilled to pick up this "news item" when browsing linux.slashdot.org
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW