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."

Comments

Ooops, Antitrust

[Ckwop]

Okay, go to the "resource centre link", provided herehere for your convenience. What do you notice? I'll give a hint:

Download the Windows Vista Product Guide

Available in Microsoft Word format (60 MB) or the new Windows Vista XPS document format (12 MB) . (emph mine)

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

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Professor_UNIX]

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.

And you find this surprising? Here's another newsflash, try watching videos on the MSNBC website without running Microsoft Internet Explorer on Windows. Of course they're trying to hold onto their monopoly, it's what dying companies that fail to innovate do.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[tomstdenis]

Technically though it's their website and they can put whatever lame duck format on their they want. I don't think they'll get rid of PDF. Look at WMF it's technically a replacement for Postscript yet people still use that.

The XPS format will either get opened up or nobody but MSFT websites will use it. Especially since Vista will still run Adobe...

What you should be questioning is why XPS exists at all. PDF seems to do the job of portable document format just fine being that it renders [or can be rendered] pitch perfect anywhere. Unlike say Word which is a just a crime against professionalism...

Tom

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[cliffski]

Good. PDFs suck. My system is 99% stable, the only two things that lock it and grind it to a halt are Battlefield 2 crashes and opening a sodding PDF file. The sooner that cludgy file format dies the better.
Im sick of having to read stuff formatted for print on a computer screen.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[betterunixthanunix]

For its shortcomings, PDF is an open standard. Can you say that about XPS? Imagine what would have happened if Microsoft tried to force a proprietary networking protocol on you, rather than just complying with TCP/IP?

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[zidohl]

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. Essentially, they weren't pushing their own format, they were going to provide PDF support as well as the XPS format, but Adobe it seems will be suing because they're not charging for the ability to convert to PDF format.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Evro]

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

You make it sound like that's such an awesome feature... who cares? 10 years ago I could drag a PDF to the printer icon in Mac OS and it would print it. Why not just open Acrobat and hit print? I still fail to see how this makes it worthy of a completely new format.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[m-wielgo]

download Foxit PDF Reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

It's much faster than Adobe Reader at opening a PDF file and being a self-executable, requires no installation

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[DaHat]

PDF is an open format? That explains why Adobe doesn't fancy the idea of Microsoft including PDF exporting functionality into Office 12!

As for the openness of the XPS... why don't you hop on into the site linked to above and visit the Licensing Overview page.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Threni]

> Of course they're trying to hold onto their monopoly, it's what dying companies that fail to
> innovate do.

You're confusing fantasy with reality, I'm afraid. You mean it's what the world's most successful companies do.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[gowen]

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

So, XPS implements the same technology that PostScript has implemented for years, only using the wholy inappropriate XML, rather than a stack based schema.

Oh, and PostScript being an established, stable open standard, of course.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[GeffDE]

Before asking badly designed rhetorical questions, maybe you should know a little more about your subject. Mac OS X handles all of their graphics through PDF. That's what it sends to printers, and that's what its windowing layer, Quartz, uses. So maybe XPS does that, but so does PDF. In addition, PDF supplies "options and features" that are "widely applicable to many different levels and applications." I mean, Macrodobe is basing a whole new Flash application type system around PDF. As I said, Mac OS X uses PDF exclusively for displaying any sort of graphical content. So not only is PDF the standard for portable documents it is extremely versatile.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[amorsen]

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

Err, just about all decent printers? Support for Postscript Level 3 basically implies support for printing PDFs.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[DaHat]

Apparently you don't know much about print spooling... in short print spoolers tend to play to the lowest common denominator between printers in such a way that images spooled on the desktop end up getting dithered a few times before heading to the printer unless there is some decent software on the system that is designed specially for the printer... and this software isn't always free.

So... rather than force each printer manufacturer to have to build their own high end interface to the PC, Microsoft builds a standard and allows hardware and software makers to target it... kinda sounds like the evil that is DirectX doesn't it? You know, that evil thing that makes games so incompatible with different hardware and configuring your system a nightmare when you change hardware devices, IRQ's or games? Oh right, that doesn't really exist with DirectX anymore... that's how it was before we had a common standard for such applications.

You can really summarize the difference and reason for XPS as the difference between analog or digital... say in display devices. In VGA the monitor is told "this pixel is about this color" while in DVI it is told "this pixel is exactly this color". While in both cases it is up to the end device to decide exactly what will be drawn to the screen and how, DVI is at least providing far more detailed (and more abundant) information with which the display can do it's job.

Which kind of precision would you like to have in your printer?

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me where in the license it says "unrevocable", then you can talk about openness. It's not a standard if it comes with strings attached.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Tony Hoyle]

So Microsoft want to make printer manufacturers use their own proprietary protocol rather than Postscript which has been doing this job rather well for the last 20 years?

You also don't seem to know how print spoolers work. They do *not* work for the lowest common denominator, they are pretty much device independent until they hit the driver itself... even Windows uses a display language to describe the page rather than Bitmaps (Unix of course use postscript throughout, so if you print a postscript document on a decent printer no driver is ever involved).

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[alexhs]

Especially since Vista will still run Adobe...

Don't give them ideas...

"Vista isn't done until Adobe Acrobat won't run"

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[azuravian]

So, it's ok for Adobe to push their proprietary protocol, but not MS. Admittedly, I don't know a lot about print spooling, etc., but isn't PostScript a decidedly Adobe created format.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[elrous0]

No kidding. If anyone thinks for a second that MS is going to promote Adobe after Adobe threatened to sue them and forced pdf out of Office, they must be on some pretty powerful hallucinogens. I'm not exactly a big MS fan (they still owe me for the havoc that Frontpage wrecked on my entire website directory in 1999), but even I can't blame them for this.

-Eric

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[elrous0]

PDF is an open format

Apparently not.

-Eric

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[timeOday]

Obviously you can't be a monopoly without being the most successful company in your field, and after establishing a monopoly you can hardly fail to be successful. A company would be foolish not to desire monopoly, which is exactly why the public would be foolish not to actively thwart them. Why, if you're not careful, you could get a company so "successful" their key divisions make 85% profit margins year after year without releasing a new major product for 5 years, which consistently "earns" billions of dollars they won't even return to their own shareholders. Which is fab if you happen to be them, but a drain on the economy as a whole.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Dr_LHA]

Why exactly would Apple give any money to Adobe to use PDF? Your believe that Apple paid off Adobe is totally without merit or evidence. Apple are simply using an open format, as is allowed by the licensing.

Of course Microsoft want to to, and personally I don't think Adobe have a leg to stand on in complaining about it. The only worry with Microsoft as always is that "their" PDF won't be quite compatible with everyone elses.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[isecore]

They seem to be acting much like a heroine addict

Yes, it's quite easy to get addicted to the likes of Wonder-Woman and Lara Croft! Quitting them? Now that's much trickier!

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[mrchaotica]

Imagine what would have happened if Microsoft tried to force a proprietary networking protocol on you, rather than just complying with TCP/IP?

I imagine they'd call it NetBEUI!

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[David Jao]

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

You're about 20 years too late on this one. An Apple LaserWriter from 1985 can print postscript files just by doing cat file.ps > /dev/lp0 in linux, or copy file.ps lpt1 in DOS, or whatever technique your operating system uses to send raw postscript to the printer port. The whole idea of a postscript printer is that it prints raw postscript on the wire.

If you absolutely insist on pdf files as opposed to postscript files, any postscript level 3 printer can handle raw pdf files on the wire with no host processing whatsoever. For example, the HP LaserJet 2420 ships today and allows printing of raw pdf files.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[omicronish]

Of course Microsoft want to to, and personally I don't think Adobe have a leg to stand on in complaining about it. The only worry with Microsoft as always is that "their" PDF won't be quite compatible with everyone elses.

At this point they have no reason to make their PDF incompatible since Microsoft doesn't make a PDF viewer. Incompatible PDFs would simply make them look bad. Plus they have their XPS format; thus it wouldn't make sense for them to expend resources on making a PDF viewer and extending PDF.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[TheRaven64]

PDF is an open format?

Yes it is, as much as HTML or .txt.

Well, not quite. PDF is open in the sense that you can download the spec and implement it without paying royalties or having any additional constraints imposed on you. HTML is open in this sense, but is also open in the sense that it is controlled by a standards body (the w3c) and anyone can propose additions to the spec (which is how we end up with five ways of saying red in CSS, for example). PDF is controlled by Adobe. In my mind, this isn't a bad thing. As long as they keep the spec open and sensible, it is fine, and if they stop then there's nothing stopping someone else forking it.

Oh, and .txt isn't a standard at all. It is a huge collection of standards. What character encoding do you use? ASCII? EBCDIC? UTF-8/16/32? Mac-Roman? One of the Windows ones? What do you use for line breaks? Carriage Return? Line Feed? Both?

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[shayborg]

We (as in Microsoft) have demoed XPS printing at several events with Fuji Xerox, and their printers use some sort of Java runtime. Miraculously enough, Windows CE isn't the only embedded OS that can parse well-formed XML.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that only the most expensive printers understand PostScript, I think it's easy to see why Microsoft didn't choose that format. Another possibility is that they didn't feel like solving the Halting Problem just to figure out how many pages are going to print in a job.

The only way to do PS correctly is to license it from Adobe, which is why Apple changed from Display PostScript to PDF in their UI, and why only expensive printers use it. As it turns out, XPS is the Windows equivalent of PDF -- it's just a declarative description of what goes on a page, as opposed to a program to run that generates the page (like PostScript).

So why is XPS better than PDF? Because it's a text-based XML format. You can open it up in a text editor and read it. You can write it by hand or with a Perl script. You can write XSLT to convert it to another format or transform it in certain ways, like n-up printing. PDF is almost useless without a PDF parsing/generating library.

Another advantage is that XPS is a subset of XAML, so any programs written using WPF (Avalon) will be able to print very easily. Of course, being newer, it has many features that PDF doesn't have, like support for opacity and gradients.

dom

Started downloading...

[k1980pc]

I hope it works on my ibook or mini - Hope it is not like other MS products.

Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[eldavojohn]

I am a simple man.

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 ... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware. Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.

Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.

I got the chance to play with this

[Saven Marek]

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.

Point?

[tomstdenis]

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.

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... /me hopes Vista never materializes and/or flops big.

Tom

Re:Point?

[pintomp3]

if you have to support windows boxes, you will probably have to support vista some day. might as well get a headstart and get your hands dirty (best way to learn) even if you don't plan on rolling it out for a long time (a long time after release).

Re:Point?

[Tumbarumba]

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. And for all my bug reports I send in I get ???

You get:

• An opportuninty to test any software you have developed for compatibility with the updated platform
• The thrill of being on the bleeding edge, and to play with something before most other people
• Windows system administrators get a chance to update their skills, and perhaps be ahead in the job market

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...

... or you could install an unstable OSS OS and test features not currently available in current stable distributions. Same as what's happening here. Some people will be interested, most people won't.

Re:Point?

[h0oam1]

"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." This seems to me to be total crap. It is not my job (nor the job of most reading this) to test Microsoft's products for them for free. This is a commercial product, and it is Microsoft's responsibility to ship a good working product to PAYING customers. If it were an OSS project, your statement would be valid, but this is certainly not OSS. Since when did quality assurance for commercial software become the sole responsibility of the customers???

Re:Point?

[RealGrouchy]

> Actually in both cases you get exactly the same reward - absolutely nothing.

That's not entirely correct either. With neither a closed-source nor an OSS OS do you *get* any direct profit on the sale of that software. But at least with an OSS one you don't *lose* the hundreds of dollars you spend on it.

In both cases, you *get* a decently functioning operating system. But your *reward* for purchasing Vista is bugs, viruses, and probably a decent one-way connection to the government/**AA spy agency of your choice.

If they want to have a closed-source OS, then Microsoft can hire their own monkeys to beta-test it instead of treating its own users and customers like drones.

- RG>

Re:Point?

[biovoid]

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.

You're kidding right? If I was to pay for Vista (ha ha) and found bugs or misfeatures, I would have no right to complain about them?! You expect me to beta test commercial software on my own time and money before I have the right to complain about bugs in software that I paid for?!

direct download links

[pintomp3]

getting the serial # is easy enough, but the download page has been overloaded. here are links for direct download of the english iso

Windows Vista 32bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ en/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso

Windows Vista 64bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ en/x64/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x64fre_client-LB2CxFRE_EN_DVD.iso

they should have had a torrent option.

Re:direct download links

[DrXym]

You'd think they'd release a torrent, but that's Microsoft for you. In their corporate mindset, to release a torrent probably makes them feel dirty. It's conceding BT (a defacto standard) has legitimate uses and that their servers can't cope with the demand. Oh well, I guess MS can explain tomorrow on CNet, ZD etc. why their servers crashed under the load.

Re:direct download links

[mkw87]

they should have had a torrent option

They Do

thanks for the update

[observer7]

ill download my antivirus updates ...maybe if this windows is in the wild it will be detected before i get it

Why run Windows XP ?

[Anonymous Coward]

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....

Get Your Crack Right Here!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Software Freedom

[Bios_Hakr]

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.

Re:Software Freedom

[mrchaotica]

As an individual, you have the freedom to decide what you put on your website.

As a monopoly convicted of illegal anti-competitive business practices, the rules change!

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.

No you don't. Microsoft should be forced to publish documentation in unencumbered formats, after what it's done. Maybe if it didn't have a history of abusing its monopoly to force its formats on people, it'd be different.

Remember, by providing documentation in their own format, they are not removing your choice.

Yeah they are! They're removing your choice to read their documentation without using their software!

Re:Software Freedom

[rkcallaghan]

Mod Parent (-1, Missed the Boat)

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.

I support software freedom. As such, I must actively oppose companies who violate our laws and in doing so, actively attempt to prevent software freedom.

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.

No, I don't. You see, Microsoft has been convicted of a crime; specifically, of predatory monopolistic practices designed to leverage their desktop OS monopoly to damage competitors in other areas. As such, in order to support free software, I must support positions that prevent them from performing this criminal act again. In this case, that means demanding documentation in an open format, or at least one not controlled by Microsoft.

Remember, by providing documentation in their own format, they are not removing your choice.

When they have an illegal Desktop OS monopoly; and use that to push their document format, then yes, they are removing my choice. To be more specific, by definition, their Desktop OS monopoly has removed my choices in that area. Documentation for that Desktop OS (that I didn't have a choice for) being necessary, if it requires that I use their special format, I didn't get a choice to not support their format.

~Rebecca

Re:Software Freedom

[Khuffie]

They're removing your choice to read their documentation without using their software!

The documentation is for their software. And that particular software (Vista) the documentation is for can read the file format fine without any extra downloads. And there's a .doc format which every program and his grandma can read.

Can't log in using Konqueror

[truedfx]

Shame on you, such a big corporation not spending a little bit of time on making your site interoperable. :)

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[exit3219]

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).

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[Tim C]

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...

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[jawtheshark]

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...

The motivation of corporations

[zoeblade]

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.

They're 2 days late.

[exit3219]

Should've released it on 6/6/6.

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[plutonium83]

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.

Re:It's Another Closed Standard

[asphaltjesus]

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.

Corporations have no conscience

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Corporations have no conscience

[Opportunist]

You can be the most responsible person ever, but you always have the corp to blame when you "have" to do something "unethic".

As a normal worker, you're doing your job, or you're fired. Yes, you're against DRM but still you code some DRM mechanism, because if you don't do it, you're fired and someone else does it.

As an exec, you do it because it's your responsibility to keep the shareholder value up, shareholders are after all who you are responsible to. Yes, you're firing "some" people, but would it be easier on your conscience to think of all those who invested their money for retirement into your company and now have to work 'til 80 'cause your stock fell and thus their investment?

As a shareholder, you don't even know what you "have". You went to your bank and "bought something" that your investor deemed ok. Hell, I might have Sony stocks without knowing it! You also have no influence what they buy or sell (unless you're doing it the good ol' fashioned way and buy/sell yourself).

As the broker, you don't care for the companies. You don't know about the companies, you know their 3-letter acronym that flashes by on the ticker. What they do? You hardly know. You know their general interest and direction, so you know which itches of the trade their options respond to.

Corps are not "evil". They're also not "good". Good and evil are concepts of emotion, of a conscience. And corps have neither. Not having feelings or a conscience is not "evil" by itself. We see it as "evil", because we try to be "good" people. And who isn't good is automatically evil.

Corps don't go out of their way to do "evil". It's not like chem corps produce a lot of chemicals at a loss only to dump them into the ocean. That would be "evil".

Corps simply have no "soul", if you excuse that religious term. They have no morals, no conscience, no emotion. They only have "intelligence", through the people that offer their intelligence to it. Putting intelligence into a corporation means more money for the corp, so it is encouraged. Putting emotion or morals into a corporation is usually costy for the corp, so it is discouraged.

The net result is a "person" with high intelligence and zero morals.

The only interesting thing about Vista...

[kooky45]

...is where was the photograph taken that's shown on the Vista page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/?

Location of the photo

[adnonsense]

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.

Out of Curiosity

[ghost of perception]

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.

Re:Out of Curiosity

[omicronish]

First of all, if there's anything you dislike about Vista, complain here. It's a beta release, so there's still time to fix issues. They also have newsgroups. Device issues, software installs, UI issues, non-working games, etc.; they're all good issues to point out.

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.

One of the new features I like is quick category searching via the column headers. I'm doing this from memory, but if you click on the button next to File Type, for example, you can quickly cull the current view down to all JPEGs and PNGs.

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.

Vista comes with a firewall and antispyware (Windows Defender). They're both in the control panel, and at least the firewall is quite configurable. I believe outbound blocking is off by default, but can be enabled. I haven't used Windows Defender to judge its usefulness.

Re:Out of Curiosity

[Tibor the Hun]

Duel booting is fine and good man, but here in Nebraska most of our duels involve trashy girls, broken beer bottles and crushed sinus cavities.

If you don't want your OS booting to end up like that, I'd recommend dual booting.

You'll avoid much hassle that way, because then you can specify which OS you'd like booted, as opposed to them dueling it out. :)

My thoughts...

[Critical_]

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

Re:My thoughts...

[tehcyder]

I was writing a blog entry but figured I'd post it here

Great way to start a post!

No it doesn't

[HalAtWork]

That explains why Adobe doesn't fancy the idea of Microsoft including PDF exporting functionality into Office 12!

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?

Re:No it doesn't

[omicronish]

Sure, they can keep xps, it looks like a decent enough format. Just be sure to publish the spec!

Specs are available here. It includes the XPS spec itself, which describes the format of the XML files to render pages, and the packaging specs, which describes how those XML files, resources (images, fonts) are packaged together. Office 2007 uses the same packaging specs, which is really just a zip file with certain XML files describing how stuff is connected. A nice side effect is that to generate an XPS document you simply need to output XML and resources, and zip everything up.

Good!

[Toreo asesino]

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!"

Broadband Recommended

[Hemmer]

Broadband Internet connection (highly recommended)
Yes, I would also recommend broadband for a 4.4GB file...

Seriously?

[mike260]

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.

Performance of the most basic stuff

[icybee]

For those of you who have tried this, could you please let me know how long it takes, on average, to:

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) ...because these things are too damn slow in XP.

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.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

[StarWreck]

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.

Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Microsoft has been slashdotted. Our life-long work has been accomplished.

Drop the X

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

Works Fine Here

[oddfox]

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. :(

Re:Works Fine Here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got Gentoo Linux, XP Professional and Vista installed and triple booting using GRUB. /dev/hda1 is mounted as /boot in Gentoo (ext2) /dev/hda2 is swap space for Gentoo (Linux Swap) /dev/hda3 is mounted as / in Gentoo (ext2) /dev/hda4 is the XP partition (NTFS) /dev/hdb1 is an NTFS data partition for Windows /deb/hdb2 is a TrueCrypt encrypted partition mounted in Windows and Linux /dev/hdb3 is the Vista install

Took the following steps (starting from a while back, but to give an idea of progression):

1a. Zero both drives
1b. Install Gentoo Linux
2a. Install Windows XP Professional
2b. Restore GRUB MBR from GRUB command line using a GRUB boot disk I had for other purposes
2c. Add XP Professional to GRUB boot list
3a. Install Vista, starting install from XP
3b. Restore GRUB MBR using aforementioned method
3c. I can now boot Gentoo straight from GRUB, and by using my old Windows XP entry in GRUB (now renamed) I can chainload the new bootloader which allows me to choose between the Legacy Windows System (read: XP) and Vista.

heroine addict

[blueZ3]

Can't get enough Laura Croft?

iBias?

[brunes69]

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.

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

[TigerTime]

So set the theme to Windows Classic. Sheesh; you make it sound like Aero Glass is the only option...

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.

Signatures? (MD5/SHA1?)

[Hobart]

For people who are grabbing the disc image from unofficial sources - can folks who've downloaded it directly from Microsoft post MD5 / SHA1 signatures and filesizes so we can be sure we're all getting the same stuff?

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!

To answer your question...

[Barlo_Mung_42]

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.

Intel Macs

[tempfile]

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?

Re:Astroturf?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm not questioning the legitimacy of Adobes possible lawsuit, but I'm saying that while Adobe is considering suing MS for having PDF support in Office 2007, they have a reason for not wanting to use Adobes PDF format and rather use their own...

Actually, you're still wrong. By implementing both PDF and XPS they can move people to their toolset and away from Adobe's before they have the format switch bump in the road. Adobe is making sure that bump is right away and thus making it harder for people to transition slowly.

I fail to see how MS allowing support for their own format in their software package is a violation of the law. By following your logic and interpritation[sic] of the law, basicly[sic] anybody could make a calculator for Windows, try to sell it and then file a lawsuit against MS for incorporating a calculator in Windows by default as a part of the price for the OS and thereby pushing their own software.

Have you ever purchased a calculator application, or downloaded one that was ad supported or while looking at ads on the page? If so, did it pre-date Windows inclusion of a calculator? If so, then yes that company can take MS to court and MS will probably lose.

The thing about antitrust law is markets not products. There is an existing market for PDF creation tools, thus if MS enters that market (either with PDF or XPS) they must not, in any way, gain an advantage from the fact that they have a monopoly on Windows. If they do, they are breaking the law. This includes a specific prohibition on tying products to one another (like with shared, proprietary file formats they both use but that others cannot freely use) and in particular they are prohibited from the form of tying called "bundling" where products are put in the same package and sold together for one price.

While I'm no expert in US law...

That is an understatement. I'm no expert either, but I've at least read the US antitrust laws and some expert summations of them. It is not all that complex. If I create a calculator program for Windows, but MS already has an existing one, they're not entering into the market, I'm trying to create one. That is not the case for portable document formats, for which there is an existing, healthy market. If you want to argue this stuff, at least educate yourself.