Slashdot Mirror
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."
The sun is HOT!
Seriously, New Beta is more stable then Old Beta. A company takes the advice from beta testers and fixes issues the everyone complaines about.
Congratulations M$, you have amazed us all again!
-EL
Printable view herem mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9001888
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co
Wincopy
I wonder how much time is really spent on fixing bugs and improving the system overall, as opposed to putting in various limitations and DRM compliance. Maybe I'm going on a limb out here, but I've lost trust in Windows platform ever since the WGA hit the news. Most likely XP is going to be the last MS-based _personal_ use OS I will ever use (hopefully).
Some of the goofs in Beta2 (and earlier) were so clear-cut that the sceptical among us might be tempted to believe they were made on purpose to get exactly the kind of good PR exemplified by TFA.
Guess they still did not prepair for my 2 networkcards with different IP-addresses and different firewall rules and forwarding.
'Share on one, share on all with password protection (but we do not tell which share is password protected).'
Was that sarcastic ?
Am I in Slashdot!
Wincopy
The server is pretty sluggish right now, so here are some choice tidbits:
..."
... license verification now involves a latex glove for Microsoft's safety, and astro-glide for customer comfort, a major improvement over ..."
"... when powering up the hardware required by Vista, we had a brownout affecting neighboring homes -- a massive improvement over the four-city-block blackout resulting from the prior build. This is likely because I was able to pull several pre-release Xeon 5100 boards out of the render farm for Aero
"
"While it was annoying to have to confirm my Firefox download 18 times, Microsoft graciously refrained from sending another squad of Khazak mercenaries to 'verify safe uninstall of hacker tools.'"
"Vist has not yet drowned the remaining kitten."
taco needs to create windersvistabeta.slashdot.org for all this shit.
Seriously why does a friggin beta need so much coverage here.
I wonder if this build was delivered wrapped in hundred dollar bills.
> Duke Nuken Forever?
Yes, and the TV ads will be done by the Prophet Zarquon.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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.
I find it interesting that Bill Gates at a recent symposium told Microsoft affiliates that there is a 20% chance that Vista would slip again. Since I live in Seattle, I have friends who are developers over there who swear it will never make the January deadline.
I love it when they are already talking about the new release slipping when they have already made promises through their teeth for the last 3 years.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
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.
Aha, I knew the Union Aerospace Corporation had something to do with it.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Does this mean they have fixed the bug when you try to install vista in vmware it was coming up with Unknown error during install and going into an infanate reboot loop.
Might have to give it another bash soon.
Dear Internet,
Serve the interests of your users, or DIAF. I don't really care which.
Sincerely,
The User
None of the features impress me. It`s still the thing that Microsoft do, take code of A already created program (server 2003) and than put everything in that look nice, but isnt really new. It`s still a to big a to slow system to use. And he what is blurring of a window mean to productivity ? No vista for my.... baby
Ugh, I can't beleive I just said that. I feel like a troll.
It's no Gnome w/XGL mind you.
I think Vista is still easier to kill -- even if billg is the Borg!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I believe the proper phrase is "we're making good progress".
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.
2K?!? For a modern operating system? The average Atari 2600 game is larger than that!
Thanks, but I would not kill trees for that... ;)
However, it's always nice to have a "viewable view".
You failed to notice the previous builds had every application of every version consumers will pay for in Longwait plus debugging. So it was gigantic in comparison to what ships.
Per the insightful post above, it's going to be business as usual as soon as this thing is shipping. It will keep me gainfully employed because there is no incentive to make it secure. There never was. There's a huge windows security industry that proves me right.
Meanwhile my family and I have great peace of mind running (insert your distro here) and KDE.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
So, how many clicks are needed now as it has bee improved greatly?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Printer format TFA. PFTFA? I think a new acronym shall be made.
+5, Truth
From May/June of this year
s ta/page18.html [tomshardware.com]
Tom's Harware:
"But Microsoft hasn't taken this principle entirely to heart, either. The first user defined during installation is automatically granted administrative privileges. Worse yet, the reserved account named Administrator is not required to have a password to log into the machine!"
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/31/windows_vi
Did they fix this?
If someone nitpicks about how Linux's sudo is somehow equivilant, it's not. Stop spreading the FUD.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
According to eweek http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1991064,00.as p
the install time was around 50 minutes. That is a lot longer than what it takes
to install equvalent functionality on e.g. Linux, it is far more than
what it takes to install MacOS-X.
In 50 minutes you can install Linux, including office suites, database software
e-mail software, windows file servers, image editors, software development tools,...
With Vista you just get a plain OS.
Microsoft is lucky that they most of their software preinstalled on hardware.
However, the competion is shaping up even in this area. HP is to be planning to
ship some systems with Novell/Suse preinstalled, and that is a desktop that rivals
MacOS-X in usability.
The OS market development of the beginning of next year will be interesting to watch.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
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.
Yeah, Vista requires 512mb minimum. I recall trying to install it on Virtual PC with 256 and failing. Installing on Virtual PC and VMWare Server both worked fine with 512mb.
TFA is a serious bloat of splashy eyewhore for the amount of content-per-page.
It never ceases to amaze me the predictablility of Slashdot replies to any article about Vista. Much of the comments are either people complaining about slips, complaining about having to read Microsoft articles, or making generalizations about the bugginess of MS. You don't have to read these, you choose to read it, so don't complain. It's news because it is going to be the dominant OS in the world when it's released, like it or not. Yes, it's slipped a lot and will in all likelihood slip again. So what? Nobody I've heard or read that talked about the slips did it because they were disappointed and wanted to get on the Vista train, it's always point out that it somehow makes Microsoft stupid. I for one would rather they take their time and come out with a polished end product. And yes, as it has been pointed out umpteen-million times, Linux is more stable/more secure/humanities hope for the future, but point that out to people who mostly all agree with you is pointless. I sometimes think that if MS disbanded and donated all their money and technology to open source developers, the comments to the slashdot report would read like a bad eBay seller. "OMG TOOK FOREVER F--!"
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.'"
FTFA:
Won't someone think of the poor innocent oranges?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Best comment I've seen all day.
I don't think home users care how long Vista takes to install "within reason" (like not 45 consecutive days and has to end on Xmas day.) I know I sure don't cos I don't install every day. The only thing I want is not to have to "personalise" a new install if I want to re-install and there is a tool in Vista to capture your settings (USMT). From a business perspective the way to install Vista will be via imaging (Ghost, SMS OSD). This cuts the install time to tens of minutes, not hours (well, perhaps not OSD, depends on the network speed.) As you have kind of alluded to though, the big issue has always been the apps. Whether you pre-install or send the MSI's over later, apps are getting bigger all the time and the bandwidth requirements have risen with that. Hell, there was a DVD burning package at 350GB for XP. There are ways around it (carrier send in SMS for instance) but the true size of a Vista install that is usable by a business customer is close to 2GB (Vista, Office, Acrobat and their company's LOB apps)
and I have to say the whole experience is quite pleasant. It's pretty demanding on hardware but I'm enjoying the testing. Upgrade from XP-SP2 was on the whole OK considering it was beta, I had a few problems with the video card driver where it got stuck in a loop but a reboot sorted it out.
The interface is pretty slick and I keep stumbling over new things I hadn't spotted before, something that happened to me when I started using OSX which is a good thing. I could start using it straight away but the deeper more interesting functionality is not seen if you don't use it but you don't have to dig too deeply to find it and get excited by it.
Microsoft has been pretty proactive IMHO in engaging the developer community. I've had defects that I've logged responded to, live chats involve some of the heavy hitters involved in the project, and they even stated they're happy for us to blog about pretty much anything to do with Vista. Quite refreshing.
thirded - I really did LOL
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
Why shouldn't a company get teased or worse when their much-over-hyped product's release date slips again and again and again -and- drops all of their promised innovative and ground-breaking features?
Just like Duke Nuke'm?
If Vista had come out when promised, it would have been ground-breaking and innovative. If it had come out only two years late, it would have caught up. But now Windows is so far behind other modern operating systems that Vista will still be underpowered. If it weren't for vendor lock-in, they would have few new customers. So why shouldn't we laugh at them? The overbearing monopoly with more cash-resources than God, is slipping.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
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.
Microsoft's inability to disrupt free software is not from a lack of trying. See the Halloween Documents for graphic proof of their honesty, attitude and intentions. The attack includes all dependencies and weaknesses perceived eight years ago, discussion groups and standards of all sorts. If anything, those attacks have multiplied and intensified. The reality is that they are so paranoid and crazy that they won't be happy until every compting device on the planet, right down to your music player, runs their software without choice. The other day's "We own corporate search and nobody's takin food off our table," crazy should convince you before October that all is the same in the M$ world. Their inability to "fucking kill _your_favorite_thing_here" does not indicate a lack of effort so much as it indicates common sense elsewhere.
Strangely enough, they have helpers. Apple is insanely supporting them for many issues and the media companies are terminally stupid. The harm done includes:
Free software has managed to float above all that and will prevail. It's as inevitable as Vista is buggy, bloated and sorry improvement on previous offerings.
Microsoft is not your friend. They never have been and never will be.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What is this Windows Presentation Foundation? Do I want to learn it or should I go off and do Java and be done with Windows dependency? What is this Windows Presentation Foundation offering for the developer in terms of features to make it worth the while? WindowsForms actually offered fewer features apart from the more streamlined object-oriented framework.
That's good news. No shortage of malware then.
It will take a couple of months, but UAC will be as useful as the windows "security" center.
No matter how much better it might be, it's still insecure.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
MS would be in court pretty fast if they started bundling their other apps into the OS. Don't take shots at something they can't control. Honestly people, the more we talk about MS the more exposure they get. Take windows for what it is, a gaming OS (at least for now), and dual-boot it. You can have the best of both worlds, all it takes is a reboot...
MS would be in court pretty fast if they started bundling their other apps into the OS. Don't take shots at something they can't control.
I think you're missing the point; while MS can't bundle everything in one install, it takes as long to install the OS as it does to install competitors entire desktop environment. It's not about what's included in the installation, it's about the time of the installation.
Installing Vista + the new MS Office, a database server, and other such things as are bundled in Linux distributions could be a day-long operation for even an experienced user.
Honestly people, the more we talk about MS the more exposure they get.
Agreed, but not talking about them doesn't make them go away. I've tried for years.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
(7th in Google, not bad for a fictional corporation.)
you had me at #!
Seriously--four network control panels, that's awesome. That's way better than OS's that only have two or three.
It is a recent story on Fox News.
\
What are the serious advantages of Vista over XP? I do not count the "improved" look & feel as an advantage, of course.
XP had some pretty serious advantages over W2K; many kernel improvements. What about Vista?
I know this goes against sheepthink, but it is a lot more secure. You cannot do really stupid things without specifically logging in as Administrator, which needs specifically setting up. You cannot install apps without being an 'admin' account, and being prompted for your password again.
Saying it's insecure no matter what is just MSFT bashing, download the beta and give it a whirl first.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
I have work with Vista BETA and frankly it still sucks in several areas:
1) IPv6, the operating system still has a pretty sucky IPv6 stack, which even through netsh doesn't let you disable teredo or tunneling, even though the CLI says it is disabled, but when you run ethereal and actualyl see tht traffic it is not true. Also DHCPv6 is still not working, and many services that do work on the platform will only work on IPv4 not IPv6. Ipv6 security is still lacking, in fact, 95% of hardening that my company is using on our Vista IPv6 boxes is through our own testing, Microsoft programmers don't even know their OWN STACK!!!!!
2) They still have fast user switching, and administrator and users can't disable that, which is a real problem, because me company goes by NSA security standards and NSA has documented that Fast User Switching is
a security risk because it does not provide a true seperation of users, this is also confirmed by Microsoft itseld.
3)BLOATWARE, need more be said?
4) Now, before any Microsoft Zealots start say I am a Micrsoft basher, I am a MCSE-Security+, so I am not making these statements just to bash Microsoft, but to clearly point out that Vista is not as good as many of the Microsoft Zealots will ahve you believe. Microsoft really went into the wrong direction, instead of making a leaner and meaner operating system they made a bloated fatman OS. That will just give more security headaches no only on IPv4 but on IPv6 as well.
No, it wasn't. IE is (and always was) a 100% userspace application. Architecturally, it's no different to its equivalents in KDE, GNOME and OS X.
You cannot install apps without being an 'admin' account, and being prompted for your password again.
So you can't install applications in your own directory?
I'll say it again, this UAC "security" is as temporary as all of the other security CF's before.
The parent's comment illustrates this perfectly. There is no clear path with UAC. Just like windows security center, it's designed to look like a fix.
What happens when there's a problem with a desktop application and I need to do something as administrator. Will I be able to do it? If administrator is not really the super user then what account is? Does Microsoft owns the super user account in Longwait?
Professionally, I'm actually in favor of this mess. Like a complex tax code indirectly benefits accountants, complex desktop "security" and a set top box environment benefits me endlessly. Bring it on. I'll get paid handsomely to support it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I never said Admin wasn't a superuser, I said you were prompted first.
Testing it in a VM, it let me delete the entire Windows directory when logged in as "Admin". It prompted me first and asked for my password again, but it let me do it.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
If you think that's funny, check his website.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Look, six years might be a long time for Vista, but look at the flipside; if it had been released in 2003, people would have complained about it being rushed. At least they're making an effort to make sure something's going to look right before the world before making a commitment to it, unlike you and your wife.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --