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Windows Vista Beta 2 Available for Download
prostoalex writes "Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 is now available for download from Microsoft's official site. If you remember seeing reviews of it already, Microsoft made downloads available to a limited set of customers last month. For PC users that are already running Windows Vista Beta 2, Microsoft put together a list of additional downloads like product guide and feature lists."
Okay, go to the "resource centre link", provided herehere for your convenience. What do you notice? I'll give a hint:
Where the hell is the PDF? Aside from the fact that this is really fucking annoying it has some really worrying implications. They're trying to boot out the PDF format, which is nice, open and ubiquitous with their own format - and they're using their monopoly on the desktop operating system market to achieve this.
Let me be the first to call "Antitrust. Thanks for playing Microsoft! Please give the EU another 600 million euros.
For me, this little bit of text says it all. There's no PDF, they're pushing their own format that they know nobody uses. This shows that even after multiple multi-million dollar settlements and huge fines from the EU the company has not changed one bit. They seem to be acting much like a heroine addict, in that they're moving from one crime to the next, getting bigger and bigger fines but no matter how much you fine the company it is still pathologically anti-competitive.
I do have to say that the longer Microsoft remains on this path, and refuses to comply with the law, the more likely that it will meet it's end equally as sticky as the heroine addict. Is it a rule that all big companies go the way of AT&T eventually?
Simon
I hope it works on my ibook or mini - Hope it is not like other MS products.
I am a simple man.
... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware. Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.
I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.
There's no reason to preach to the choir, I have many machines (most of them Linux) that dual boot to many operating systems but you'll always need Windows because it's kind of the 'industry standard' for some people.
But when I look for an operating system the words 'form','function','marriage' & 'perfect' come to mind but not necessarily in that order. What I mean is, there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.
I run Windows XP professional & it works. It works well, which is surprising considering my history with the Windows operating system. It can be cut down to a pretty bare point of functionality and I like it.
So, Mr. Gates, why should I upgrade to Vista? Your "feature list" (the same damn thing I've been seeing for the last year) doesn't entice me at all. In fact, it scares me. You know what else scares me? It might not run the games I currently play
Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.
My work here is dung.
I got to play with this a couple weeks of go, and I think MS is doing alot better than expected. Earlier reviews of vista and longhorn before that rightly criticized it for some really bad issues but they're very cleaned up now, and given them more than six months more to complete it I think they can ship something great out of this. I don't say it will end up changing the dynamics of a desktop in competition with linux as they are now very distinct systems with their own niches, as vista is just more of the same, but it's more of the same made better.
Why would anyone outside of ISVs download this? So for the cost of re-imaging my system I get to test an unstable, feature incomplete OS that is likely to further the bane of human existance. Not only does the install expire but I then have to pay full price for a legit copy at the end.
/me hopes Vista never materializes and/or flops big.
And for all my bug reports I send in I get ???
At least when you beta test an OSS OS you then get rewarded with a stable OS that you can freely install as you choose...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
getting the serial # is easy enough, but the download page has been overloaded. here are links for direct download of the english iso
/ en/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso
/ en/x64/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x64fre_client-LB2CxFRE_EN_DVD.iso
Windows Vista 32bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2
Windows Vista 64bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2
they should have had a torrent option.
ill download my antivirus updates ...maybe if this windows is in the wild it will be detected before i get it
I ran Windows 2000 for years, just because I hated Windows XP for the very same reasons. Now I run Windows XP.
Trust me, you will follow....
Hey kid! You wanna taste the new Vista? Come over here and try some sweet Vista. Don't worry about expirations, vendor lock in, security, assimilation or anything else. I'll take care of all of it for you.
Come on, kid. You know you want a taste. Come try this new Vista Beta. It's free! And I know how much you like free...
As an individual, you have the freedom to decide what you put on your website. Aside from a few taboo subjects, you have the freedom to do pretty much whatever you want.
Why should MS be different?
Sure, you can point at artificial market constraints as a reason MS should play nice. But, at the end of the day, you either support freedom in the software marketplace, or you don't.
If you support free software (and individual freedoms), you have to believe that MS should be allowed to publish *their* documentation in whatever format they choose. If the market likes the XPS format, then the market will go that way.
If, however, MS tried to make Acrobat run poorly or not at all, then you'd have a valid complaint.
Remember, by providing documentation in their own format, they are not removing your choice. You are still free to download Acrobat at your leisure.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Shame on you, such a big corporation not spending a little bit of time on making your site interoperable. :)
New games will appear, probably Vista-only, as DirectX won't be released for XP. So it'll be either upgrade or play old games. (Unless the game makers will find a way to avoid OS-dependence).
http://ascending.wordpress.com/
Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.
What?! Arguably the single largest corporate sponsor of Linux and assorted OSS projects doesn't seem too interested in Vista?
Say it ain't so!
there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.
So set the theme to Windows Classic. Sheesh; you make it sound like Aero Glass is the only option...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.
Well, while I agree with all your points. The thing is: I said exactly the same a few years ago when I was running Windows 2000. I thought I would never upgrade... Yet, now I run Windows XP Professional. Why? Well, XP had one thing I really liked (and is very useful on a multi-user-home-machine: fast user switching. I only "upgraded" to Windows XP in 2005, so I am "late" to Windows XP. I always end up upgrading late, because I think it's better that other people test the damned thing and find the quirks.
For now, I do not see any reason to upgrade to Windows Vista, but we'll talk again in 2008, when WinXP isn't supported anymore. Currently, I am evaluating FreeBSD as a complete replacement (and I like it...) Perhaps in 2008, I'll be running FreeBSD exclusively. If not, then I'll probably will be running Vista. You'll probably end up in the same boat as me: either a free OS or Windows Vista. Espcially when you buy a new machine and can't get a (legal) copy of XP anymore...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
They seem to be acting much like a heroine addict, in that they're moving from one crime to the next, getting bigger and bigger fines but no matter how much you fine the company it is still pathologically anti-competitive... Is it a rule that all big companies go the way of AT&T eventually?
Quite possibly. The documentary The Corporation pointed out how such corporations, while legally people in some respects, would be more like psychopaths than any other kind of people, as they do whatever they can get away with on their quest for more profit, showing a complete disregard for morals and the law.
If it's cheaper to break the law and pay a fine than it is to obey the law and profit less, they'll break it.
Should've released it on 6/6/6.
http://ascending.wordpress.com/
Honestly, the only reason I'm interested in Vista is the Expose-like feature. I use a mac at school and Expose makes working just a little less frustrating.
Ho hum. 3GB of something that expires July 1st. Great.
I, for one, won't waste bandwidth with that.
R Tape loading error, 0:1
If you go to this link: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpslicense.mspx You will find, This CNS provision will only apply to companies engaged in the following businesses: Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) focusing on printing technologies that consume XPS Documents in printers IHVs focusing on scanning technologies that create XPS Documents with scanners Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) that support the above types of IHVs through the development of Raster Image Processors (RIPs) and drivers You'll then notice there are Microsoft patents involved in the closed standard. Conclusions? 1. Typical OSS project is screwed 2. Closed standard designed to extend and extinguish competitors. (So is PDF in some ways) I'm not saying Adobe is the good guy here, but the print industry has had YEARS of working out the kinks in PDF's. I'm not sure what Microsoft brings to the table.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
That's pretty much what they are: People without any kind of moral.
Morals are something we have, because we feel remorse for doing something "bad". We have morals, because our conscience is nagging when we have something to blame on ourselves that we did wrong. It enables us to function in groups.
Corps don't have that kind of mental safeguard against going postal. Corporations don't act by themselves, they use their employees to act for them. Those are, by definition, human beings who WOULD have a conscience. But that conscience doesn't kick in, because they can brush it off on the corp.
You're about to fire someone. You even know him, he's deeply in debt, has a sick child, his wife died half a year ago. You wouldn't fire him, your conscience would nag you for kicking him out. Yeah, his stats don't look good, but hey, considering his situation, that's understandable. You'd normally give him a little time to recover.
Not in a corp. You fire him. Because if you don't do it, you're fired as well and someone else does it. Same jusification that fascist regimes (and the people serving in them) used to squelch any kind of remorse. You can't help it. You gotta do it. Or someone else does it.
The difference is that the ultimately "guilty" person is no real person. It's the corp. And corps have no conscience.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...is where was the photograph taken that's shown on the Vista page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/?
In fairness, it *does* work using Firefox. So they're doing better than usual. Contrast to Windows Live Safety Centre (http://safety.live.com) which breaks if you even try to do anything in firefox (let alone anything else).
--
Craig Ringer
For all my constant bitching about how much I despise Microsoft and hate having to reimage my computer every 6 months because of bit rot, you better bet i signed up for this as fast as my little fingers could type. Yeah, I feel dirty, but assuming my computers will support it and I can actually get the iso, I'll be attempting to install Vista this evening.
So set the theme to Windows Classic. Sheesh; you make it sound like Aero Glass is the only option...
That's akin to trying to sell a Lotus race car to someone who only wants to drive within city limits and telling him "So what, simply don't shift past 2rd gear".
He does not NEED the stuff Vista promotes as the best thing since sliced bread. Why bother getting a system (especially if it's far from being free) when you don't need what it offers?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
on Virtual PC on a G5 quad with masses of memory, if at all?
What makes you think you're part of the targeted audience?
Hint: the masses do like glass faces and real marble and don't care about the inner workings of an operating system.
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
At a guess I'd say it's taken from the Barrow Downs above Bree looking towards Weathertop. Although that stretch of water could be the River Anduin near Cair Andros, which makes that mountain at the back right Mount Doom. Whatever, if you view just the background the image without the site search input field, you can just about make out nine black dots flying high in the sky.
A co worker of mine is trialing Vista and, from his limited playing with it, he seems to quite like it. As he only installed it on monday night I'm guessing it's this build (we work at a place where we get advance access to MS betas etc.)
The one thing he has noticed though is that the idle temperature of his GPU has increased from an average 34 degrees to 45 degress. And he's not even tried any games with it yet (apparently this used to get the GPU temp up to about 44)
So one thing's for sure - there's definitely lots of hot air around Vista.
Just nit-picking/trolling, but if you can boot into many operating systems then wouldn't it be a mulit-boot? Doesn't dual boot mean being able to boot from one of two operating systems (ie Windows/Linux or Linux/*BSD, etc)?
From dictionary.com:
This isn't a direct shot at you, but I think there are a lot of people that misuse that term.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
Games which require direct X 10 (vista only) should be able to degrade nicely just like current games can operate dx 7 or dx 9 pathways.
I can see though the marketting people having to specify on the promotional materials "available for XBox, PS2, PC(XP), PC(Vista)"
Whilst there is still a market for XP the game makers won't abandon them.
Hell, microsoft might get so much stick about DX10 that they backport it, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
liqbase
I want to try the beta out. Has anyone been able to install Vista alongside XP (dual-boot)? What about with Linux?
Despite vowing never to touch vista I decided to try the beta just to see if it is as bad as people claim.
It installed nice and quickly (faster than xp in fact) on my P4 2.4Ghz 2GB ram box duel booting with XP MCE 2005 although vista takes about 4 mins to boot up.
I like the new file explorer interface but from the initial feel it seems to be more about the look than the functionality of the desktop. It is also nice to see an inclusion of a calendar utility which I always thought was lacking from previous windows versions.
Compatability wise; it does not detect my soundblaster pro 5.1 card and will not let me install the drivers for it claiming that windows compatability wont allow me to do so. The same is true of ZoneAlarm Pro and Avast! Anti Virus which I find insulting as a technically minder user but I do understand that most people who use MS products need to be saved from the "lets install anything" mentality.
Open Office and Firefox install perfectly but Vista brings an error halfway through installing Thunderbird.
The display manager will not allow me to set my screen resolution to anything other than 800x600 although the option is there for 1024x768 but nothing happens when the setting is applied and even at 800x600 the screen flickers eratically every few mins.
I have not installed the wireless networking yet but without my firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus products, I'm not sure that I even want to connect the the internet.
My S-video out is disabled on loading the desktop (closing the analog hole?) which makes the media center funtion useless on my current setup and the DRM is making itself known with periodic popups telling me that x has been disabled quoting "Macrovision corporation" in the details.
Media Center mode in my view has a better interface than MCE 2005 however AVI files will not work (or be added for that matter) in media center mode.
I am going to test the beta out over the weekend but I am currently of the mind that it is buggy bloatware and not something I would trust my fles to but I am open minded enough to accept problems under the fact that it is a beta release and is not supposed to be anything near a proper release candidate.
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
According to an article I saw on the Inquirer, a PC to PC sync feature has been removed from Vista. Is this feature just the same as rsync, or am I missing something?
I was forced to upgrade to XP because my video editing software forced me for no real reason other than their "partnetship" with microsoft.
Otherwise I would be still emjoying Windows 2000 and it's incredible speed over XP on most hardware.
When my video editing software supplier tries to force upgrade to Vista I will be making the jump to Apple.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I was writing a blog entry but figured I'd post it here.
Although the latest Beta 2 detected all of my hardware except my smartcard reader, I'm not impressed. There are some issues with 802.1x authentication which is quite a large hindrance (especially for corporate customers). Mainly, it does not work in my WPA2-Enterprise (WPA2 + AES + RADIUS) wireless network running at my home. Vista would send the proper authentication information and the Microsoft IAS RADIUS server (running on Win2k3) would grant access (confirmed via logs) but Vista would not grab an IP address. Statically setting an IP also failed to provide network access. I had to pull out an old WEP access point and finally Vista worked wirelessly. Due to WEP's insecurity, I have resorted to having to use the built in gigabit ethernet. Albeit that most of the public doesn't have as an elaborate of a set up at home, but I'm surprised that this is borked in Beta 2.
USB2 is horribly slow. I connected a USB2 memory stick to copy some files off the system when wireless wasn't working. The new Vista file copy progress dialog displays transfer rate. The fastest it ever got was about 300KB/s! Can you imagine waiting almost 10 minutes to transfer 150 megs locally? I almost went nuts. Again, I acknowledge this is beta software, but is it that hard to get USB Mass Storage drivers to work properly?
The Aero Glass interface isn't very responsive. Since Windows 95, the mouse pointer in Windows has never been afflicted by pauses when moving the pointer. I'm sure all of us remember these hiccupy movements of the pointer in X Windows in Linux distributions a few years ago, but the Linux community largely solved these problems. I was very surprised when I saw this behavior in Vista Beta 2. I was running the Vista nVidia drivers. I also noticed the screen compositing process pegging the CPU usage to about 30-40% and sometimes it would completely pause for a few seconds before updating the desktop and its windows. I tried XGL on this same system and never dealt with any of the problems. Maybe my Direct X 9-enabled, 128 meg nVidia Quadro FX Go video card may be 2 years old, I'm surprised with the lack of performance. Can Microsoft streamline and optimize this in time for a release? I hope so otherwise I'll be running the basic interface if I ever upgrade.
Vista Beta 2 is a resource hog. A full install with Office 2007 took nearly 14 gigs of hard drive space. After boot up, Windows commit charge was averageing nearly 750-800megs of RAM on my laptop equipped with 2gigs of RAM. Opening up Firefox with a few tabs, MSN messenger, and playing a DivX AVI in Windows Media Player 11 pushed up the usage to nearly 1.3gigs of RAM. I know any unused RAM is wasted RAM but when a basic Windows hogs that much, it shows that power users will easily have to push 4gigs of RAM if they intend to run Photoshop or a few instances of Office applications.
The other annoyance is the new non-admin user model. It is completely broken and illogical. Inevitably, those people that get Vista Beta 2 working on their hardware will complain about constantly being bothered to elevate privileges. The end result will either be people disabling the new protection scheme or learning to click without reading-both scenarios are disastrous and will render this protection useless.
As it stands, Microsoft needs to revamp the model. I want a Control Panel applet that will let me choose the level of incisiveness. Here is my proposal:
1. Off - If I'm logged in as an Administrator, then it will work as current Windows machines.
2. Default - The current default settings as shipped in Vista Beta 2. The user would be hand held even while in his/her profile (aka home) directory. Deleting, editing and installing any files would all require the annoying pop-up dialog confirming action.
3. Limited Power User - Following the Linux model as shown in Red Hat of yesteryear, Ubuntu and others with a modification or two. All system files, installation of software available to the
I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.
The masses however DO what that kind of stuff. Look at KDE. Look at GNOME. Look at XGL. Look at all the GUI stuff on a Mac. Bling-bling sells.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
No it doesn't, because it's impossible to explain something that never happened. MS only took PDF out of Office because they suspected that Adobe might threaten them with a lawsuit. They don't even know, this is just speculation, and so far nothing has happened. It's just MS inventing an excuse to justify not using PDF. Come on, if you were on the verge of releasing a completely redundant format that was supposed to overtake one you were constantly using, and you needed your format to look more important, what would you do?
Twinstiq, game news
Slashdotters, we should be pleased this shinny new Windows is coming to the masses. I have tried it already, and uninstalled it already - it being unusable as it is in a Virtual Machine.
My critique of Vista thus far is summarised as such:
-Vista is furthers the very Microsoft-based philosophy that it knows how to run your machine better than you do - a good thing for average users; a bad thing for geeks.
-Security has been improved & tightened (better firewall, more built-in protection); more or less a good thing for everyone, even if the more technical people may tweak this.
-Improved kernel; a good thing for everyone too, but maybe once it's stable.
-Very pretty graphics. Good for some people; irrelevant for people with slower machines, and damned frustrating for geeks.
Overall, the masses win in most cases and the geeks have very little to benefit from Vista.
The things that I noticed perhaps the most however, are the minor unsung improvements to how user-actions flow together just better; a bit like the small but noticeable improvements WinXP made over Win2k. For instance, the setup process - I must've made about 5 mouse clicks in total; the wizard is simultaneously even more slicker and patronising than ever - good for users, bad for geeks.
Anyway, I very much doubt I'll be upgrading myself as I can handle my own machine perfectly well on my own, but assuming Microsoft can pull it off, I say this is a positive thing for the majority of computer users that, frankly, want Microsoft to take as much care of their machines as possible. The more Windows can take care of a machine; the less irritating requests I'll get to "fix my bloody computer please!"
throw new NoSignatureException();
My only Windows PC at home is running 98. The only reason for having it is that my kids have a few 'edutainment' titles that use it. If I could get those running on Wine I would switch it to Linux.
98 is getting a pain to use as when you install it you have to get a newer IE in order to run the Windows Update.
I have no desire to buy any newer Windows at the moment. If my kids start demanding better games I might consider a console.
My Win98 CD came with my first PC and has migrated to various PCs over time. Only installed on one at a time of course.
Broadband Internet connection (highly recommended)
Yes, I would also recommend broadband for a 4.4GB file...
What would a mongoose do?
What part of Beta did you not understand?
What part of community feedback do you not understand? Users like Critical_ are the type that find the problems and give feedback to Microsoft. Next time it would be great if you tried reading and contributing before trolling like a typical n00b. Critical_ wrote: Again, I acknowledge this is beta software, but is it that hard to get USB Mass Storage drivers to work properly?
And *you* talk as though Aero is the only thing Vista offers...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.
It's cute how you justify Linux' lack of features by convincing yourself you didn't want them in the first place.
I'm gunna try it out on my laptop, what the hell. Computer guy .. gunna have to support it anyways.
Besides, I gotta know how to make it run and look like XP, right?
FWIW I might even put a different HD in my PC and install it to that just to take a looksee..
= Grow a brain...
Eventually the industry will collude to force you to upgrade. new games won't run right. new versions of file formats won't display correctly and all of the other kids will make fun of you. I'm not even sure why I upgraded from Windows 2000. XP doesn't have any visible features that matter to me. Eventually stuff just didn't quite work right anymore and I got tired of playing warcraft 2.
not everything is a science experiment!
Windows SuperFetch
You may have experienced sluggish behavior after booting your machine, after performing a fast user switch, or even after lunch. Although too many carbohydrates might slow you down after lunch, your computer slows down for different reasons.
A Microsoft desperate attempt at humor ?
BTW NeXTSTEP had a similar feature back in 1989 (still present in Mac OS X) : You just don't close an app you opened... Of course it's not "Intelligent Prioritization Scheme" (TM) but at least it works...
I'm also impressed by the "Windows ReadyBoost"... Wow ! Adding memory is hard, so use a USB thumb drive with its impressive write speed (hope MS "Intelligent Algorithms" don't make mistakes), and last but not the least, that swap space is encrypted ! What's the point of encrypting that swap space ? If you're storing user data in that space, it means you will write often to it, that's slower than HD and your USB key will die quickly. And of course, if you're removing the drive "at any time" you're losing data.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
oh cool now we can bitch about how much it sucks and we won't have to wait!
If you don't want to run the Beta, fine, don't run it. However, to my mind you lose all rights to complain about misfeatures and bugs if you had an opportunity to find and report them, and didn't.
Mate, that's the worst idea I've ever heard.
Essentially, you're saying that the entire QA burden of software development should be carried by the general public, correct? And that bugs that slip through a public beta are somehow no longer grounds for criticism?
It's kind of like politics; if you can vote and don't, don't expect any sympathy from me if you bitch about the state of your government.
A better analogy would be a Brit such as myself bitching about the state of your glorious president, when I could have emigrated to the US, applied for citizenship, registered to vote in a swing state and then voted Democrat.
Anyway, I have solid arguments as to why I don't personally vote, and I bitch and moan about my government with a clear conscience.
For those of you who have tried this, could you please let me know how long it takes, on average, to:
...because these things are too damn slow in XP.
1) Open a folder
2) Cut/Copy & paste a file to another folder
3) Delete a file
4) Open the full program list from the start button (or whatever has replaced it)
I really don't want, or need to upgrade, but my Dad will want to buy the next incarnation of Flight Simulator, so I might have to.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Where XP/2000 brought stability to their consumer line of OS, Vista brings security. That's reason enough for me.
and of course you have a language that printers have been speaking for quite a long time. You could even "send a document in PS format directly to a printer..."
Remarkable. MS once again on the bleeding edge of technology.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I have Windows XP, Vista Beta 2, and Gentoo Linux all booting on the same machine, but I've followed the generally safe practice of keeping XP on the first partition of the first drive, and having GRUB in the MBR. Once you install Vista alongside an already set-up XP and Linux dual-boot, it only modifies the boot manager Windows uses. I've successfully removed Vista just fine w/o having to mess with the changes it made to the boot manager, so the only inconvenience I have (Until I edit the config for the bootloader) is that when I tell GRUB to boot my WinXP partition, it loads the MS boot manager and I have to select Previous Windows Installation or some such since it defaults to the Vista that's not there anymore.
Not something for novices, probably, but it works just fine.
P.S. -- The reason I say the Vista that's not there anymore is because I'm in the process of trying to download the public release. Servers are so swamped right now I doubt I'll get it anytime today, which is why I'm taking the opportunity to freshen my Gentoo whilst at work. :(
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
Our company did last year, city of Vienna did, it should work out very nicely for you too. Our former XP users love KDE.
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve some level of vendor independence all at the same time.
If he had said his ONE machine dual boots to many OS's, you'd have a point.
What do you mean, "find" a way? Game makers know a way (OpenGL + OpenAL + SDL) but except for id they're too lazy to use it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, while I agree with all your points. The thing is: I said exactly the same a few years ago when I was running Windows 2000. I thought I would never upgrade... Yet, now I run Windows XP Professional. Why? Well, XP had one thing I really liked (and is very useful on a multi-user-home-machine: fast user switching.
I'm still using Windows 2000. Only I've moved it off of the dedicated box I was running it on and now run it in VMWare in Linux. I've only got about 2 apps which I use it for and those are very occasionally needed (a VPN client and DVDShrink, and DVDShrink I could probably get to work with WINE).
I'll admit though, if I were forced to use Windows in a work environment I would want to use Windows XP because of one reason: Microsoft's Remote Desktop. It works better than any other remote desktop solution for Windows.
Can't get enough Laura Croft?
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Dumb question perhaps, but why not stick them on the same disk and detect which to installed based on the CPU. Producing distinct versions is going to be a pain in the arse for everyone, not least for the poor consumers who don't know what the terms mean.
Why would you say this? Have u used KDE? Preview (check), anti-aliasing (check), Translucency (check), interface ripped off from OS/X (check), Panel (check) and so on. It's had these for a while.... And by the way, with Linux the user interface has nothing to do with the operating system itself- X11 and all that.
Why would anyone WANT to download Vista Beta? Ok I guess if you have a spare machine or two, IMHO it's not worth the headache. Even with the final release, I would wait at LEAST a year before considering Vista. Don't get me wrong, I'm a XP user both @ work and home, as well as Linux. The thought of Vista Beta just gives me the creeps.
32bit:/ de/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_DE_DVD.iso
/ de/x64/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x64fre_client-LB2CFRE_DE_DVD.iso
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2
64bit:
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2
I feel like I've slipped into a parallel universe or something.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No, there are other things. To stress the car analogy further:
It has an ashtray, but I'm a nonsmoker.
It has a cupholder instead, but I don't eat while driving.
It has reclining seats so you could sleep in your car, but I don't sleep in cars.
It can run on hydrogen, but in my country there are no hydro gas stations.
It has built-in TVs for the rear seats so my kids are kept occupied during long rides, but I don't have kids.
It comes with air condition, which the old model lacked, but I already installed an A/C from another vendor.
In other words, yes, there are a few new features other than Aero. Most of them, in my opinion, either cosmetic, SO overdue that there are already third-party products out there (which are by years more advanced, and, unlike the Vista components, TESTED) or not useful for me.
Note: In my opinion. YMMV. But so far, when I look and listen around amongst the people I deal with on a daily base, most of them can't be bothered to switch over towards Vista, if only for the sword of Damocles called "DRM" circling overhead. No feature warrants jumping into this shark pond before you know what it REALLY means in practice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Right on brother! I too am a simple man. All I need is my vt100 terminal and 9.6k modem. Now, can someone tell me what happened to all the BBSs? Perhaps I should try this Windows 3.1 I've been hearing about.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Where the hell is the PDF? Aside from the fact that this is really fucking annoying it has some really worrying implications. They're trying to boot out the PDF format, which is nice, open and ubiquitous with their own format - and they're using their monopoly on the desktop operating system market to achieve this.
Not to be a pro-MS shill, but supporting PDF over XPS is kind of like appls vs. apples. XPS is a totally open standard, its XML based. SUre, it's "controlled" by Microsoft, but PDF is "controlled" by Adobe. One is really no better than the other. PDF is just more popular right now.
*Going for Mr BadAnalogyGuy's crown here.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It seems that Microsoft dosen't even know how to do their own .doc file format!
I took the Windows Vista Product Guide (60,565KB) and re-saved it in OpenOffice.
Using OpenOffice and...
Doc file format - 56,172KB - (4,393KB smaller)
OpenDocument - 52,136KB - (8,429KB smaller)
"What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently."
Ahh, you're using Windows 3.1 I see.
So did Microsoft post a torrent for this? . . . . . . .HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha . . . ha. Boy I kill me.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
FYI, even if you set it to "classic mode" in Vista, it still uses well over 500MB of RAM. Apparently "classic" does not include "classic" system requirements.
And I can't find a well-supported torrent. Anyone wanna help out? Thanks!
I am not left-handed, either!
Well, flamebait or otherwise, that's actually pretty accurate... probably a bit strongly-worded, but other than the political jabs I think that hits it right on.
I upgraded to Windows XP for a single feature, too: Cleartype. It was well worth it. I turned off all the excess crap and it really wasn't any slower than 2k, and it booted faster.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
On my machine anyway, foxit pdf reader slows to an absolute CRAWL in some PDFs.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you said the same thing when XP came out and you were running win2k.
Like most people, you will upgrade when you by a new system that comes with it pre-installed.
I ran Linux for years... and... well... I still run Linux. Trust me, you'd do the same if you weren't too stupid to use Linux.
Odd, I used to use Linux and even fix broken device drivers.
Now I use a Mac, because I value my time.
Linux is great and I still think it has a bright desktop future but that future is not here yet. In the meantime your statements make me question your own intelligence, or at least your open-mindedness.
Of course you're really just trolling but it had to be said in case you were serious.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A militant leftist on slashdot?! Well this is certainly uncommon. Next thing you'll tell me that you're also a socialist linux-zealot!
Seriously though, what the fuck is a "dubya"? You people really need to proper English....
That's Mt Hood off in the distance with the Columbia river down below. So it looks like it was taken from one of the bluffs along the gorge on the Washington side of the river.
My best guess anyway.
If you look carefully, she's not smug - I think that's wide angle lens distortion.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you install it, you have to buy it. Or reformat your HD. Most people who install this will end up shelling out the money to purchase. Great way to force people into upgrading. From the site: # Installation limitations There are two installation scenarios for Windows Vista Beta 2 (and RC1): 1. You can do a clean installation. This process will overwrite any data that you have on your hard disk or on your installation partition. The overwritten data will be lost and unrecoverable. 2. You can upgrade an existing installation of Windows XP. No other installation scenarios are supported. Upgrading to this beta from any other edition of Windows requires a clean installation, as described in option 1. In addition, once you install Windows Vista Beta 2 (or RC1) you cannot roll back to the previous operating system installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or reinstall a previous edition of Windows. Before installing Windows Vista Beta 2 on any computer, please remember to back up all your files.
in which people are actually admitting they run Windows.
I don't think it is a shame to admit running Windows, even on slashdot. You see, slashdot is not only for Linux fanboys, it is for all breeds of computer enthousiasts (and even other breeds of geeks, like scientists) Many people here like their games, and unless they completely switched to consoles (which is hard for some type of games), they will run Windows. Others are switchers and love OS X (Hey, I ran OS X for three years) Then others (like me), would like to run Linux but eventually we come to a show-stopper. Let it be a game, or something simple that really is much harder in Linux.
Oh, and then I also have to think of my family. I impose their OS, but I cannot (in good concience) inflict Linux on them if I cannot use it 100% of the time myself. I simply cannot give Linux to my wife (a kindergarden teacher), nor to my mom (absolute novice user) or dad (poweruser), or my brother (gamer) or my sister (flash-game-addict and musician).
As said, for personal use I think going FreeBSD but that is something completely unacceptable for any of the above people. They will run Vista some day and I will have to support it.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
There is, it's called OpenGL.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
So my question is, do you get paid to astroturf, or do you just read other astroturf and parrot it, while never bothering to read any related articles?
After Adobe threatened MS with a lawsuit for wanting to allow PDF writing for free in Office 2007 i can see why they'd rather use their own format.
Did you even read the article whose inaccurate summary you're linking to? It starts out, "Microsoft Corp. said it expected Adobe Systems Inc. to file an antitrust suit..." Making either PDF or XPS built into Windows is a gross violation of the law. Including them in MS Office (which is tied to Windows) is a violation of the law. Even just providing all Windows documentation XPS and not PDF is a violation of the law. So MS announces they are blatantly going to break the law and expect to be sued.
Essentially, they weren't pushing their own format, they were going to provide PDF support as well as the XPS format...
So they were going to break the law twice instead of once, or maybe you're not understanding what part of this Adobe is objecting to. I'll give you a hint, it's the part that is illegal.
No, they're suing because their competitor is illegally leveraging a monopoly to take over a market. Charging for PDF generation (instead of rolling the cost into Windows like they are illegally doing now) would be one way to mediate the effects on the market of MS breaking the law. You seem to think your choices are:
In reality your choices are:
The same thing goes for XPS, except there is no guarantee in the future there will be any other tools available. I wonder why Adobe would choose to take them to court for their illegal behavior. Those jerks.
I'm gonna give it a go to see if Counter Strike:Source & Battlefield 2 will run.
They both hang on XP pro using my Asus Motherboard & AMD64 X2 3800.
A problem a few people are having.
Assuming the Nvidia drivers etc all work.
Acid House saves Souls
Well, seems they've come out with another beta. I think it's a nice idea and all, but my main problem is the lack of a normal CD ISO. Sure, it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't support it. But can anyone convert the ISO into CD formats for those of us who want to run Vista Beta 2, but don't have $100 or so DVD-burners in their boxes? I run Ubuntu mainly, and I don't have a CD burner, so I would love to dual-boot Vista. But all I see is DVDs.
They say insanity comes in large dosages. I must be jumbo family size then...
It seems that Vista is going to be a decent piece of software, if even on Slashdot you can read people make positive comments. As I'm probably going to buy a Macbook, I'm really interested whether Vista is going to run on that. Has anybody tried?
You're running Windows 98!!? DOS 1.0 is the way to GOOOO!! Anything later and you're just paying for a bunch of crap bolted onto a pristine computing environment. Excuse me while I get back to my vintage Wordperfect 2.20...
10 minutes working on a sig. What a waste.
So then you're paying 150+ for a 'new and improved search box'. Sweet deal.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
I know!! Linux isn't even out of alpha too!! Crashix! Updates/patches each week! Doesn't support your hardware!
Mac getting viruses! OMG SKY IS FALLING
XP wouldn't run on machines from days of yore either (or at least not at any level of performance we would consider reasonable these days.) And there are games it won't play as well. Yet here you are, running it nontheless. And in 2 years, you'll be running Vista too. This argument is tired, repetitive and serves no actual purpose except that some members of Slashdot are too young to remember that this has all happened before, or simply choose to forget. Everyone is gonna "upgrade", maybe not immediately, but they will. Just like they upgrade everything else in their lives. And those few of you who don't (who are still driving 80's era Hondas, using push mowers and have had the same cellphone for 5 years) have opinions which are not pertinent to such a conversation, since you are simply riding on the backs of technological innovation paid for by the rest of us who drive investment in new technology by purchasing new items. Eventually you too will upgrade - your pace is slower, but it's just as inevitable.
I guess they didn't anticipate as many people as are trying to download it now (the bandwidth must be costing them a fortune, a torrent would have been a much better way to go...)
I guess I'll look around for a torrent when I get home from work, want to make sure the one I download is the current legal version released today. Or maybe by tonight Microsoft will have their download servers working again.
So don't buy it then! Why the heck do we care?
Why don't we save the comments in the article about Windows Vista for people who are actually interested in Windows Vista?
And moderators, let's start using that "Off-Topic" button a little bit more, ok?
Comment of the year
Here are the checksums for the file downloaded from/ en/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso
e nt-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.isoi ent-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso
e nt-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.isoi ent-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2
$ sha1sum.exe vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_cli
2404153a60d81103861b876878893222a5529d3a *vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_cl
$ md5sum.exe vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_cli
0e733ab1a8e8ff9a8684fd3639332773 *vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_cl
File size 3355598848 bytes.
You can drag and drop a PDF onto any Postscript level 3 printer and it will just print. No driver, no hassles. It's been that way for years. PDF is mostly just a fancy EPS (encapsulated postscript for you youngin's).
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Dubya prop.n. Mock-southeastern-United-States for "W", most commonly used to describe President George W. Bush, the only man in our highest office ever to care if our children is actually learning.
Here's a cookie, kid. Now run along!
Nice to see we have such intelligent people supoprting the war. 3rd grad education much?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
So anybody want to bet as to when Vista B2 will be availible in a not timelocked not keylocked aka Quacked into Hyperspace version??
bonus points if the Vista Ultimate Quacked Version is availible -X days from Vista Launch??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This person got a different md5sum:p hp?storyid=13
http://en.theweeklyrant.com/modules/news/article.
I wonder if MS will release official sums?
http://plonkmedia.org/tracker the MD5 of the ISO from Microsoft.Windows.Vista.64Bit.Build.5384.4.DVD-Win Beta seems to match the public beta ISO's MD5, so please help out seed to those too lazy/with not enough time to refresh the Microsoft page that seems to be overwhelmed at times
Here's a hint...don't buy it then. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best
Anonymity of the internet is responsible for the views expressed in my post.
I decided to go ahead and give the new WIndows Vista a test drive. Right from the start Microsoft's website gives me the notice that "Due to high demand, downloads are offline at this time" and to "Come back later". Well, I tried it again in an hour, and now it tells me "You have been issued the maximum amount of Vista keys" and will not allow me to even download a copy. Hmmm. I was SO looking forward to trying Vista tonight. Since I now have nothing to do and a nice, fresh computer to play with can anyone suggest a good flavor of Linux for me to fire up and give a test run?
Please forgive me if this has been posted already - but it's late (up almost 18 hours already - too tired to read all the threads), but anyone try upgrading the XP partition on a Mac Book or any other Intel-based Mac? if so, any gotchas you'd like to share? I rarely use the XP partition, but thought it'd make a good test bed. Off to dreamland - good night all ./ers.
The MacSaber
Has anyone else noticed that it seems like for firefox users the download page for Vista displays a "high traffic message, come back later" message while in IE, it displays additional download options including one that works without a problem and if you try to access that URL directly through FF, you get an Access Denied error? I didn't think they'd go that low.
link in question
[alk]
I'm a little bit pissed that they can't allow a normal download manager to pause the download. Firefox 'pause' does indeed pause it, but if you try to restart it, then it just finishes up the file and says that its done. All 30Megs of it. Tried it 3 times.
Why would I want Akamai downloader or whatever it is they are offering? Every other download in the world is just fine with 'pause'....irritating.
I'll start looking for a torrent of the damn thing. Just plain stupid to not have a standard pause enabled download of a 3.2Gig file.
Yes This is a Flame. No, you shouldn't mod me that way. Mod me insightful...hopefully make more people seek other download options.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Downloading at 4260 kB/sec, as reported by Firefox. Going for the 32 bit versions for device compatibility. This is about 11 minutes in total for the 3200.1MB file :)
ISO certified == THX certified
the sha-1 checksum posted on msdn website for 32 bit is
2404153a60d81103861b876878893222a5529d3a
Where did you hear that? Last time I checked with IBM, they were very very happy with M$ burried in Vista, spending loads of cash on that OS. That leaves rest of the world in peace.
Imagine what the world will be if Steve Balmer had nothing else to do, he might try to bring the culture of throwing chairs in office. Imagine the marketing team sitting in front of CEOs of other companies forcing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H convincing them something like "If you promise to throw chairs 10 times a day, we offer you 10 licenses of Windows XP free".
hilarious
I'm typing this from the new Windows Vista Beta 2 and I am impressed so far. However, I figured it was just a given that Microsoft would have sorted out the variable display dpi issues which I've had with Windows XP in the past. I thought this would be easily fixed by Microsoft in Vista because Vista uses your video cards 3D features for rendering the desktop. Right?
So I set the display dpi to that of my spectacular Sony 17" notebook's widescreen of 1920x1200 at 133dpi. I allowed the machine to reboot as required and then got ready to see a gorgeous desktop... well no... just like Windows XP, the text is lovely, but most of the icons have seemingly now scaled up from their original size, to some very very ugly aliased bitmaps.
Also, this dpi change did not apply to all aspects of the system. For example, IE7 font sizes did not change, nor did the bitmap (little icons, etc) sizes within IE7.
What's the story? Am I missing something here or do Microsoft still not understand how to design a GUI from the fundamentals all the way up to the user?
OSX scales bitmaps in style, but I have not needed to change the dpi drastically, so I can't comment on that aspect of OSX (can that even be done?). I guess this is due to Apple going back to the beginning and doing things right from the ground up.
Does anyone know if this can be fixed with proper configuration or if this is an issue that MS will be addressing? Am I doing something wrong?
PS, I'm not a Mac zealot. Truth be told, I spend most of my time in xterms under OpenBSD/fvwm. For me in my particular line of work, Windows is a necessary evil, so I would at least like to make the most of it.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I confirm this.
e nt-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso3 32773 vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_clie nt-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso
$ md5sum vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_cli
0e733ab1a8e8ff9a8684fd3639
My computer tri-boots XP, Vista, and SuSE (GRUB bootloader). Installing Vista overwrites the boot sector with stage1 of their new EFI emulator (at least the older one was an EFI emulator; I haven't looked closely at the new one) ao you'll want to re-install the bootloader (boot off Linux disk, goto a repair console, mount and chroot into your Linux partition, run grub-install). You shouldn't attempt to add another chainloader for Vista; leave the one you had for XP and it will now run Vista's bootloader. Yes, you will need to go through two bootloaders to reach Vista, and you used to need (actually haven't tried yet; I used to test an older beta) three to reach XP because XP won't boot off the EFI emulator so that chainloaded the standard Windows bootloader.
Vista's version of NTFS is fully reverse-compatible, so the Linux drivers work. (It probably won't support the versioning-system-like shadow copy.) Also, the EXT2/3 drivers for XP loaded correctly in Vista (though they might not in the 64-bit, haven't tried that yet). I haven't found any compatibility issues with multipe OSes on one system, as long as they are perarated by partition. Vist will NOT install on anything other than NTFS, however. I haven't tried using th Windows boorlader to access Linux, though it might be possible (Vista's bootloader doesn't use the boot.ini file however, it's now controlled by a configuration app).
Vista can create (and even enlarge) but not shrink partitions, so use qtparted or a similar tool (Partition Magic if you want to use commercial) to create room unless you have a blank disk. Vista will install into as little as 12GB (barely, if you put the pagefile there... but you can put it on XP's partition and save some space; since you cannot hibernate one and load into the other they'll never conflict) but I recommend 20GB or more. That's enough space for the OS install, Office, and the necessary handful of other apps, then use a shared data partition beteen all three OSes. Before anybody cries bloatware, remember that the beta is the ultimate edition, meaning LOTS of stuff (Media Center, full Aero, Windows Collaboration, etc.) and probably has lots of debug code. I'm not saying it's thin, but it runs quite fast, the automatic defrag means you don't eed to worry about tune-ups as much, and on anything other than an older laptop that you're trying to triboot *sheepish grin* 20GB should be doable.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Boot from XP install disk, go to Recovery Condole, run fixmbr (to overwite GRUB and the Vista loader). Exit to reboot (remove disk). If you want to re-install GRUB so you can access Linux, insert Linux boot disk, go to a repair shell, mount your root partition and chroot to it, and run grub-install.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Has anybody noticed any major changes to battery life? Vista has dynamic processor scaling that far exceeds XP, and when running on battery my 1.8GHz Turion64 scales between 5% and 75% (a personal setting). If I don't turn off the Glass, however, the GPU (ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M) will keep running pretty hard, presumably draining power. I get a fairly good 3.6 hours (estimated, I haven't tried to run it flat yet) even on a huge (but dimmed) screen.
What have other peple seen? There is also a power option to switch to lower graphics settings in battery mode, which might help out. Any idea how much it helps? What about if you use Basic view? Aero Glass is nice, espcially comparing the alt-tab in XP (essentially the same as back in Win95) to Vista's thumbnail alt-tab or large-scale Flip-3D, and for making sidebar unobstrusive, but I'd happily trade it while mobile for some extra battery life.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
After great difficulty I downloaded Vista from microsoft site. This is my first mistake. Then I tried to install over my XP machine. Always it got stuck at 95% of copying files. Read the msdn forums AFTER numerous tries, got answer I am not alone. My suggestion to novice users like me to wait for stable version. It is waste of times and source of frustation. http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Pos tID=458904&SiteID=1
If you're still having trouble getting a copy, check out www.bittorrent.com to download Vista Beta 2.