Slashdot Mirror
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!"
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?
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.
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...
This is a review?
Welcome to Intarweb 2.0
KFG
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.
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.
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?
o ws_Vista. Some notable features include:
A rather extensive list can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Wind
-New network stack
-New audio stack
-New driver framework
-New printing architecture
-New windowing system (DWM)
There are a substantial number of 'behind the scenes' changes in Vista. But for some reason the Slashdot crowd seems to think that the UI is the only thing that's changed. Oh well.
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...
Nobody ever lost their job at Slashdot for dissing Windows.
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 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.
Congratulations, you've just discovered how all of us who run Windows 2000 have been feeling for the last few years.
Microsoft has been holding back features from Win2000 for ages to encourage uptake of XP. Perhaps the most annoying example is their ClearType screen-font technology for LCDs; ClearType is XP-only, for reasons that I've never found particularly compelling. And the last two versions of Windows Media Player have been XP-only too. There's no reason that stuff couldn't be made to run on XP, given that XP is just 2000 with a facelift; so it's no surprise that they would pull the same act with Vista.
Read my blog.
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)?
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...
Yeah, but I think that's the point. The OSS community is doing just fine right now. It doesn't need mainstream attention to survive. It'd just be *nice*.
This is basically all of humanity though.
People buying HDTV early without doing research? Getting stuck with weird modes that can't do the copy protection as well...
People buying gas guzzling cars that need maintanance every two weeks.... oh well...
People buying over priced power sucking desktops for the most basics of tasks...
etc, etc, etc.
The recurring theme is "I shouldn't have to learn stuff to do stuff" like learn how to use a computer to use one, or how a car works to own one, or the gist of the HD specs before shelling out five grand on a TV, etc, etc...
Really I think people deserve what they get. If you're too lazy to actually work for something [e.g. a free and stable desktop OS] then you don't deserve one.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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...