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Latest Vista Build Making Real Progress
feminazi writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie has reviewed the newest Vista build and found some significant improvements over Beta 2, which he had previously criticized in pretty strong terms. There's improved performance, greatly reduced installation time, four network control panels and some wizards have all been combined into one nicely organized Network and Sharing Center. Microsoft is also reducing the number of annoying User Access Control (UAC) prompts. There are some minor improvements in the way Media Center handles windows, but it's still buggy."
Agreed. Right now, the dev team is still working full time on Vista because they can make any change they want and not worry about it breaking a few hundred million installs, because of course, Microsoft would NEVER do that. *cough*WGA*cough* Once Vista is released, development will slow down, new bugs and exploits will be found, and they'll be so overwhelmed that we will return to our regularly scheduled Windows updates.
Some goofs may be obvious to us because they were seen with fresh eyes. When you work with something long enough you tend to forget that bad things are there.
"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
That's an odd criticism of UAC. With XP, if you run as a limited-access user, it simply prevents you from deleting the All Users shortcuts at all. Of course Vista's UAC would require a password for that. You don't have permission to modify that folder.
Apparently the criticism must be coming from people who never ran XP securely. That said, it's probably more convenient now. No right-clicking Windows Explorer and having to hit Run As like you do in XP to delete All Users shortcuts.
It's news because when you're dealing with MS software, you can't take forward progress for granted. Compare win98se to winME.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It is kind of bizarre to read the reactions to Vista's progress towards release from Linux and OS X fans.
It's like there is an underlying bitterness that Vista is coming together that is attempted to be covered up with sarcasm directed at Microsoft.
I guess it is dawning on people who hoped that Vista would crash and burn and Microsoft customers would come fleeing to their favorite niche OS that that simply won't be happening.
Regardless, golf clap for Microsoft for taking so fucking long just to get a system that for the most part should have been released at least five years ago. Linux will continue to make incremental gains mostly outside the US, OS X will continue to fade into market-share irrelevance, and the rest of the world will upgrade to the latest version of Windows.
Same old, same old.
Jeeze - MS releases their new OS to lots of beta testers and takes their advice and bugs and fixes them - and you are a sarcastic asshole. It's not news that the new beta is better than the old... but do you have to hate on MS just to try to fit in here?
I'm surprised you didn't compare how easy networking is in Linux, and MS is just copying, and Linux is this, and MS is that, and blah blah blah.
That's not to say that I love MS - I'm a Mac fanboi for sure. But why the abject sarcasm for doing a good job?
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Dear Internet,
Serve the interests of your users, or DIAF. I don't really care which.
Sincerely,
The User
Am I the only one that is hoping that Microsoft can deliver a better OS? Like it or not (or for most ./ers), it's widely used, it will be in use at some point, and frankly, if it is an improvement, then doesn't that help everybody out. Less windows problems and better windows software seems to mean less headaches for everybody all round. Wouldn't three major (okay, 3.5 Sorry BSD folks 8-) great OS choices be better than two? Personally I don't think XP/2003 is all that bad, I use them everyday.
I just don't buy the whole Microsoft is hurting Linux/Apple/BSD etc. because all of those systems are growing and getting better all the time. Linux is getting better and better, OS X is super cool, and so on.
Sure, I think some people would hope that a awful Vista will sink MS. Well, it won't. because if ME didn't, I can't see Vista doing it. So, maybe it's best to hope for a good OS from MS, more secure, less bugs, less @#$@#$@#%%^ spyware/adware infections for us to all fix, etc. etc, and then just focus on using what we like.
"Seriously why does a friggin beta need so much coverage here."
Hmm, lets think about this Einstein. Maybe because the Windows franchise is the most widely used consumer desktop OS on the planet?
Quit being such a fuck-tart, you don't have to click and read the story if you don't like it. Filter the MS related news if you don't want to read it. Based on the number of responses this story gets, I imagine that a number of people are genuinely interested in what progress is being made on a OS that will be shoved down all our throats over the next 5-10 years.
I agree. How many more "BullyWare" items will they build in?
I will probably buy an entire spare "Twilight" build of a Kentsfield and XP, as the last Windows machine I want to grind into dust. I'm sure UAC (even with reports of improvement) will be a disaster, and I'm absolutely terified of the "1000 programs will break because programs can't write where they want to anymore". See the key comment : "There's really nothing here to WANT".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Did they really say that Beta software has bugs? That's like saying Alpha software isn't released. Life sure throws curveballs sometimes.
Sure, I care about the next release of OpenOffice or Firefox because it's the features in these applications that interest me in my day-to-day usage but the core OS is pretty much transparent to me.
I also use XP (to a lesser extent). It seems pretty stable and once I got rid of the appalling "nursery school" default GUI and got it looking like Windows 2000 again, I'm pretty content using it. Yep, it's got big security holes but I avoid Outlook and IE, run the occasional virus check/anti-spyware application and avoid installing and uninstalling too much software - as a result, it stays pretty clean and works well. I've got drivers for all my hardware, stick all my important files on a Linux SAMBA share and I can search and index every file I have with Linux command-line tools.
If you're an application developer, it's pretty important to know what the next version of your OS will have in terms of libraries, APIs, etc. But why do the 99% of *mere desktop users* care about the OS? Isn't it better to stick with an OS that's a few years old, has been patched and service packed to run much better than when it first came out rather than trade it all in for a new OS that will have new bugs and problems?
I don't use Apple machines and think much about being an Apple user is about image - but to give them their credit, they do seem to care less about the OS and more about the applications they can run on their machines which, to me, is the only thing a normal desktop user should care about.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
How is this a troll? WinME was a horrible crashfest that was actually less reliable than Windows 98, and ran less software. It's pretty hilarious to me that they eliminated the 16 bit system in an effort to make it more reliable, and failed completely, only accomplishing a dramatic reduction of backwards compatibility.
If you were going to give the parent comment a negative mod, it would be flamebait. The difference between a troll and flamebait is that you believe your flamebait, but trolling by definition means you are expressing a view that you yourself do not believe in order to elicit a desired response. However, I consider it to be a salient point given Microsoft's track record. WinME isn't the only example, either, I can remember a service pack for NT4 and another one for Win2k that both screwed things ALL up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And an important one :).
"Intuitiveness" is a measure of the "discoverability" of new, similar functionality based on knowledge you already have (eg: discovering how to drag and drop selected text, once you already know how to drag and drop icons). A more verbal description would be "ease of learning".
"Ease of use" is a measure of efficiency - once you know how to use it, how well does it work. This is a mixture of finer measurements like intuitiveness, consistency, etc.
Actually, it's far more of a problem for casual, non-technical pirates than the handful of legitimate customers who have been misidentified.
I personally know of at least half a dozen people who have subsequently either a) purchased a legitimate copy of Windows, b) downgraded back to their older, legitimate version or c) bought a Mac, because they lack the technical knowledge to keep up with the WGA arms race.
WGA is certainly going to reduce the level of Windows piracy. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it's going to do so because some people will move away from Windows altogether.
Now if you have a legitimate activation required license of Windows, that is when you have to deal with WGA spying on your every keypress and sending the data off to Redmond with your credit card number.
Yay for ignorant hyperbole ! Also, don't forget to mention that WGA kills puppies...
Simple fact is that WGA is utterly transparent and utterly irrelevant to most legitimate users, and even those it isn't, it isn't an issue for very long.
Where the hell do comments like yours even come from? There is so much negative PR around Vista that I guess people just ignore the reality of the system.
Download Beta 2 (you can get it for free), install it, use it for 20 minutes, and you'll see just how stupid a lot of the FUD is. Vista is very, very much like XP in terms of DRM, restrictions, and the like. TPM support is minimal (only used for BitLocker), you can still install unsigned drivers, uTorrent and Azureus still run fine, K-Lite Mega Codec Pack still installs fine and XVID movies still work.
I guess the most annoying thing about posts like yours is that they are so nondescript. Which DRM features are you referring to? What limitations are you referring to? I see an OS that is no more restricted than XP. The new DRM features don't mean a thing to me because I don't buy WMV-DRM movies.
Vista is making real progress and is shaping up to be a substantial, albeit not revolutionary, upgrade from XP. Slashdot doesn't like that.