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Is Windows Vista Ready? 'No. God, no.'
torrensmith writes "Paul Thurrott answers the question that some IT folks are asking: 'Is Windows Vista Ready?' His answer is not only no, but 'No. God, no. Today's Windows Vista builds are a study in frustration, and trust me, I use the darn thing day in and day out, and I've seen what happens when you subject yourself to it wholeheartedly. I think I've mentioned the phrase "I could hear the screams" on the SuperSite before.' He also addresses the more important question, 'When Will Microsoft figure out what's important?' and to Paul, like most IT pros, its not about when the next OS will be released, it is about having the OS work."
...how can Microsoft still be saying RTM by November with corporate available in December?
How can Vista possibly be ready on time?
No point in having an OS that frustrates you when you already are using one that frustrates you less. Users don't care about release deadlines (other than some who want the latest toys ASAP). The only people who care about Vista release "deadlines" are corporate stock holders. There's no value in rushing it out if you end up angering customers who may later switch to another vendor.
Developers: We can use your help.
More importantly though, will it be ready in time? From the relevant part of the article, which of course is omitted from the Slashdot summary:
I do.
People said the same thing for years before and after its release about it's compatbility with Windows 3.x software, about how un-behaved the beta's were, but that didn't stop it from becoming the most popular OS in the world for quite a few years...
How many times is Slashdot going to be suckered by Paul Thurott? He has one basic strategy: first, review it poorly. This gets him all kinds of attention and credibility as people rush to hold him up as such a wise person, who is willing to tell the truth! Then, later, surprise! Everything he wrote before is better now, and $PRODUCT is the best thing ever to exist, and if you believed him then but don't believe him now, you're obviously a lying hypocrite!
Seriously, people, get a grip. This is a set-up for when Vista is available to consumers, at which time - mark my words - he will write about Microsoft's amazing efforts to pull off the seemingly impossible and deliver a polished product that, despite not completely living up to Paul's high standards, is still the best ever made! Highly recommended!
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
You think it was hard to get biz to upgrade from win2k to winxp? Wait till Vista comes out. Even WITH Enterprise agreements (ala subscriptions) I don't think CIO's are going to deploy it for years.
The average user is able to use exchange, word, excel and surf the web without constant crashes (unlike with win98). As far as many managers are concerned, if their PC's can do that then their employees OS's are just fine. Microsoft is going to have to have something REVOLUTIONARY to get them to upgrade, OR simply they'll have to end support for XP to force many buisnessess to upgrade.
If even ONE app on the enterprise has to be retrofitted to work with Vista you can bet Vista will be the one put on the back burner, not the apps they have to fix.
Vista SUCKS because 3rd party software that is documented to NOT WORK IN VISTA and even issues a pop-up to that effect, in fact, doesn't work in Vista Beta 2.
And his company's website is run by evil trolls.
And some unspecified prerelease of Office 2007 doesn't work exactly right.
Therefore, Vista must suck.
(OK, there were some valid complaints in there about Vista. But mostly not.)
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
So, software that openly declares itself to be incompatible with the new OS doesn't work.. And somehow it's even worse when it only works a little bit instead of crashing theatrically or outright refusing to install.
So, his employer created a bizarre, inflexible web application, and the one browser it's compatible with will soon no longer support it? Oh, no! God forbid he should have to use older versions, let alone non-beta browsers, for his nonstandard web apps.
Damned if I know...
So when using his beta word processor on top of his beta OS, he found some bugs.. Stop the presses.
I don't see why he's complaining. If all these problems were in a commercially released version of Vista, that would be a big problem, but he chose to use the beta version not only for occasional tooling around but for his primary OS. I'm sure it's frustrating that it doesn't work, but I can't really hold it against Microsoft. If he has all these problems with Vista, why not keep an XP machine, or at least an XP partition, around? In a few months these will either be show-stopping bugs or long-fixed, but until then, why does it even matter? Nobody, except apparently Paul, uses beta software for important tasks.
No kidding. I switched last year and I expect OS X to be a little better. I was amazed what the difference was, and using XP often drives me nuts because of how much it misbehaves.
Now I read about Vista being worse than XP, popping up "Enter administrator password" boxes all the time, etc. They already took out all the interesting Vista features (WinFS, for one).
The fact is, when Tiger was previewed Apple had all those banners that said "Redmond, start your photocopiers". They obviously need new ones, because in that time they have not only not managed to copy most of the features, but Apple is about to release the NEXT set of great stuff at about the same time as MS's copy of Apple's last 3-5 years.
If there is something everyone in the computer industry should pay attention to, it's the WWDC keynote on Monday. Vista has become a joke, and I don't expect much to change. Even if they can release it on time working perfectly with all the features they currently say it will have... it will be outdated and uninteresting.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Agreed - SP2 is definately what one should be running, but it's definately the best.
For Mac fanboys (that includes me) SP2 isn't that bad, considering that Tiger is on 10.4.7 - that's like XP being on SP7.
Getting off of the 9x kernel was the first great step, and 2000, XP, and 2003 are solid OSes. MS is right in one aspect - a whole boatload of the OS problems are caused by 3rd party drivers, hardware, and software.
As for viruses and rootkits, etc - all OSes are hackable. MS just happens to be the OS that turns a virus into a nuke instead of a pesky BB pellet, were it written for Linux or OSX.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
So why does it matter that MS gets Vista out before Christmas? I'm betting that one of the big problems Microsoft faces is that its Software Assurance program was meant to deliver value, in that it ensured the right to upgrade. If I were an IT manager who had signed up for Software Assurance and paid out tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and got exactly sqat I'd probably be a little pissed. I'd probably be reluctant to sign up for another three years because even if MS to deliver Vista the older machines can't even run it, so you can't upgrade. You might also be a little worried that your entire business could be cut off at the knees if Microswoft ever decided to use Windows Genuine Advantage to disable PC's.
Eh, that's more Digg. Yeesh, if someone can come up with an age filter for online comments, they will make billions. Slashdot: come for the story, stay for the comments. Digg: come for many more stories, stay for...don't stay.
Software developers are usually the ones who want to make sure software is as bug free as possible before it is released. The problem lies with the pointy haired management who insist that deadlines be met at all costs, and usually it is the comsumer who pays the costs.
"I call bullshit. I have a friend that had Winblow$ XP, crashed every other day. On top of that had viruses spyware"
- Maybe learn how to use windows? If that were truly the case, there would be far, far, far more outcry than there is. It's stable (not secure), that's all there is to it. Instability is more often caused by 3rd party drivers.
"When will people realize that Linux is easier to use... "
- When it becomes true.
Who says we have to switch to anything? XP works fine.
Even so, it's looking like a good time to get a Mac. I can have OSX, and continue to use XP.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
If Microsoft is going to start from scratch with a new kernel (by this, I mean new to them) then why wouldn't they do it using a kernel developed in-house?
Microsoft switching to Linux would totally undermine their method of gaining and maintaining marketshare, which is to make everything interoperate with everything else (as long as it's all their stuff).
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Keep in mind, these are the same people who rush into Offshoring because "according to Gartner group, everyone else is doing it." I just hope they're still accountable when it all collapses around them a few more years from now and THEY are outsourced because they don't understand the industry.
That's easy, Vista.
Now, that's not a strike at all against Linux... it just has a very different way of doing things than Windows. So, even with the annoyances and differences, it'll be easier for your average XP user to switch to Vista where most of their applications will work, and where it'll mostly act the same. It's ultimately more familiar still.
Because he gets to feed and clothe himself and perhaps his family with the money he makes there, I'm guessing.
I'm amazed at how much Microsoft gets away with. You'll be happy as long as Vista isn't totally broken? ME should never have seen the light of day. Why should anyone settle for this non-upgrade 'upgrade', when we have a perfectly functional version of Windows called XP?
I'ts like we're living in Soviet Russia. "What can we do? Microsoft is on every computer... just eat your gruel and be happy that it wasn't posioned like the last batch..."
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Maybe when Linux users stop calling Microsoft Micro$soft and Windows Winblows so others can actually take them seriously.
I'm not sure how many hotfixes and patches OS X has had but my guess is that's an unfair statement. There have been countless updates that don't constitute a service pack. In fact when I install from my XP cd, I have to first get an update to the updater, then around 15 updates, then SP2, then 15 more updates. Not to mention the bi-weekly security update. On this note XP would closer to XP.2.30(+++).
At least Mac is honest about the version of software you are running. I'm sure there's a change log for 10.4.6 -> 10.4.7 but I would be hard pressed to tell you what the hell I downloaded last week and what it did to my system short of "updating it".
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
Because the music of today is actually better off looked at than listened on? ;-)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Duh. Windows. I admit that OS X isn't a gamer's platform. But guess what? Intel Macs can run Windows, too. You have the best of both worlds.
I don't know; what apps do you use. I had no trouble switching over from Windows and FreeBSD to OS X. However, all of the apps that I use are either open source and/or have OS X equivalents.
OS X is more than just looks and feel. I didn't switch to OS X because of Aqua; if the only thing that OS X had to offer was Aqua, I would still be using Windows and FreeBSD right now. The reason why I switched to OS X is because it beats having to install BSD on a laptop, it does all of my Unix work (while still maintaining an easy-to-use interface; a feat that Linux/BSD still needs much work on), many proprietary packages are supported (Office, Photoshop, and the like), I don't have to struggle with either malware (unlike Windows) or hardware support (unlike Linux/BSD), and the actual machines have quite good hardware at a competitive price (I love this Core Duo, for example). I didn't switch to OS X just because it looks nice (although it is icing on the cake); I switched to OS X because it is nice.
But if you feel better with Windows and Linux, then by all means use them. But don't diss Macs before you have some experience with them. OS X may be a "toy OS" (using your definition), but, gosh darn it, this is the best darn toy that I've used in my life.
The difficulty with Windows is NOT in anything that BSD could provide... a scheduler, a network stack, a filesystem. In fact there's nothing really wrong with Micrsoft's NT kernel anyways. Microsoft's value (and at the same time, their bane) is in supporting all the PC hardware and software from thousands of companies over the last 15 years, and in providing a reasonable GUI to manage it all. What Microsoft calls an "OS" is not analogous to an entire Linux distro (with 1000s of user apps), but neither is it analogous to the classical definition of an OS as "whatever runs in priveliged mode, plus a little more." The real issues, I think, are in providing an integrated user experience between all the little apps and administration utilities that are part of Windows - from firewalling, to remote administration, to a flashy GUI, Internet Explorer, and on and on...
... were waiting for Windows 3.1.
Or Windows 95.
or Windows 98.
or Windows NT 3.51
or Windows 2000.
How quickly we forget...
This isn't long at all. Microsoft is re-inventing the wheel here, and it will take a while. and it will suck mightily in many areas for the first release and first service pack.
Gang, I first ran Windows when it was called 'Windows'. And had a CPU board in the box. I thought I would grow senile before they fixed it. I was rewarded with Windows 2.0, which broke my favorite (ok, only) game. 3.0 was a joy, I need only reboot every few hours or so. 3.1 and then 3.11, and I need only reboot twice a night, while using a dialup ISP to run AOL. Admit it, you did too. Or IRC. Or USENET.
I neglected OS/2 at this point. Just as well. Only my bank, my ATM, and my whacked buddy were running it. Who cared? It was almost like Windows. Almost.
With 95, I bought the upgrade, installed it without trouble, and ran it without rebooting for *29* days! Woot! Then the first service pack came out. Never ran that long without rebooting again.
Windows 'ME' we will let rest in peace. I never ran it save for testing and support. Poor blighters that got it pre-installed. We forget...
The NT saga was just as painful. 3.0 stank. 3.1? 3.51 was tolerable compared to nothing. 4.0 finally rewarded us with a server that needed rebooting only once a week. My Novell servers sneered, and rightly so. And they lost. You think Microsoft has security trouble now? NT exposed the kernel like a pervert at the playground. Very bad. We forget...
2000 at least delivered on the promises. After a service pack. We forget...
I am in no hurry to buy Vista. I may even let it cook until SP1 is out. Besides, I got lots of other stuff to look at. Suse, Fedora, Ubuuntu, the list goes on...
But carping about delays with Vista? Yeah, whatever. I hope you get it quickly. those who want it NOW, you deserve it quick. And dirty. Ewwww.
We forget...
rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I can take the pain of a troll or flamebait mod, but from memory, this search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for the disappointment is what Windows has been like since 95. It kills me when I'm having Linux issues that are oftentimes obscure and rare and I'm talking with people that come from Windows backgrounds, they say, "Did you download the latest drivers?" "Did you reboot?" I bite my tongue and think to myself, "Real operating systems come with drivers and don't need chronic reboots for them to run. Rebooting means, not running".
Maybe I'm just getting old or spoiled by Macs, but is there an end in sight to the mantra of fetch driver and reboot and accept things as they are?
I don't reboot my car, and don't chronically have to update it, and search the web to drive it. I don't have to screw around with my timed thermostat for my house, search the web, reboot, and screw with it. I don't have to do this with my DVR which is a computer and works well. I don't have to do this with my Mac either.
IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes that just work like microwaves, car stereos, cars, and everything else. They are not a religion or a cult, they are appliances that do stuff.
I guess I am getting old, and I'll gladly take my sysadmin paycheck for monkeying with Linux, Solaris, BSD, and any other *NIX variant that gets the job done, but for general stuff, I'll just buy a computer that just works. No spyware, no viruses, no popups, none of that crap.
Exactly. Why hasnt anyone thought of blatantly ripping off the Windows GUI for a Linux distro? They did it to Apple without impunity, after all. It would sure as hell give people an easier time to switch.
Hell no.
I've been a "Windows guy" (admin) for many years now, and I have a pretty decent understanding of how the NT line of Windows works - particularly the security model. Up until Vista started getting all of this pub, I had never heard of the "Windows expert", Paul Thurrott. After reading his first flaming of Vista, where he bashed it for prompting him to delete an icon the all users desktop, I knew why I had never heard of him; He doesn't know all that much about Windows. Thurrott is your classic "Mouse Click Selection Expert", Windows user. He knows where all the buttons are in Windows that "do stuff", but he has absolutely no clue what's going on under the hood.
Most of his bashing of Vista has involved issues with UAC. This is an area (security) where his knowledge of Windows hovers right around zero. I really don't don't think he fully grasps how big an endeavor it is to switch over a user base of 500 million from an OS where everyone runs as "root" and takes those privileges for granted to an OS where everyone runs with a lower privileged token (and I bet Thurrott doesn't even know what a token in Windows is). Apple did it with OSX, but instead of fully supporting legacy apps, they damned the old OS/Apps to virtual machine hell.
I managed to STFA (Skimmed the Fine Article), and sure enough Paul's big griped have to do with things that are totally out of Microsoft's control. Specifically, he bitched that his Photoshop Elements doesn't work, and he bitched that some (ActiveX laden??) website didn't work in IE7. I've run Vista on several different computers both at home and at work, and not had any problems that were not related to third party software or drivers.
It very well could be that I, knowing quite a bit about Windows, don't perceive Vista as having huge problems, even though it does, so I won't declare Vista "ready". Thurrott on the other hand is hardly qualified to declare Vista "not ready", as his expectations of what an operating system should be able to do are unreasonable.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Apple sort of did it with OS X, basing it on Mach and BSD instead of Linux (well actually it was NextStep, but whatever). This is a model that MS could use as well
True, just another 5 years of development. Or microsoft licenses Tiger and builds a wine based compatibility layer...
but honest: Why does Ms develop IE when there is Firefox? IE is a product that is not sold. No one buys Windows because of IE.
MS may outsource a lot to open source... It is an ideology trap created by the media.
Is this a trick question? To anyone but a Geek, migrating to the alternative OS has all the appeal of root canal.
Even Walmart has given up on the idea that OEM Linux could become mass-market.
If I had mod points I'd mod you insightful. Why indeed?
Some could/would argue that Microsoft develops and releases IE because they have to refine their own networking and shell (explorer) code, and IE is just a UI on top of those that happens to hit http:/// links. They'd say that if they depended on Firefox, and Firefox "understood" that as a developer community, that Firefox could influence the direction of Windows development because it would be a core component - and one that Microsoft doesn't control.
I tend to agree with that. Microsoft doesn't want to spend cycles on a "free" product that's become ubiquitous... but they don't have a choice - they can't give up control to an outside developer pool and cede control over the direction of Windows in re WWW access. So, given that they have to maintain control, and maintaining control requires maintaining, to a degree, market share, they can burn just enough cycles to a) make it work enough for 90% of people out there and b) add enough new things / change enough things to generate PR about "why IE is teh bomb!"
You do remember that IE was, at one point, sold on store shelves and had a SKU, right?
Gaaa, look at all the excuse making and shine on. While the problems he's having are very funny from a man who so often uses the phrase, "just works" to describe things that don't, the double think involved is disturbing. What does it take to cure a fanboy?
Businesses have never lined up to install a new Microsoft operating system. They always install new Windows versions gingerly and years after the fact. We're all familiar with the "wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1)" mantra that many enterprises extol.
XP is on Service pack 2 but Windoze 2000 is still the most used "enterprise" desktop OS. Why? Because M$ has not added anything of value in six years. Conservative practices are not an adequate excuse here.
beta testers never think any Windows version is ready: If we left the ship decision to testers, we'd still be testing Windows XP.
The beta testers are right. With rooted Microsoft machines making up 80% of the world's spam, we can say that no version of their OS is ready, despite the newest being six years old.
I'm not sure what issue he has with this attitude. It takes non free software to create software elitism and it's all based on someone else calling the shots for you.
And then there are the online pundits, many of whom are barely old enough to legally buy alcohol. These guys are classic. Let's just say that a lack of experience and a strongly worded opinion don't result in the most coherent of arguments and leave it at that.
Once again, what a hypocrite.
We might call Windows Vista a "train wreck" for simplicity's sake. But it's getting better. Seriously.
Others have noticed he does this every release, shilling to get people ready to buy second rate.
[bad GUI complaints] So you open Network from the Start Menu and wait ... and wait... and wait... while the damn thing finds all your networked PCs and servers. In XP, this process is instantaneous.
Instantaneous? Microsoft's brain, dead Netbios broadcast based networking protocol has never been instantaneous, quick or reliable. They made it complex in a failed attempt to keep others from being able to work with it. It compares very poorly to something like sftp through konqueror, where you can use organized bookmark folders to very quickly, securely and reliably reach any computer on the your LAN or the whole freaking internet. It looks like the networking in Vista still sucks despite the all the .NET hype.
Photoshop Elements 4 has literally gotten worse over time. Now, some key functionality simply doesn't work or, oddly, only partially works.
Is that an apologist reflex reaction, or what? M$ changes, product_x stays the same, but product_x has "gotten worse over time". I know what he means, but the language is amazing. Why can't he just say that vista changes broke Photoshop? He knows that lots of other programs are going to be broken too and that, as usual, everyone will have to replace all of their software when they buy a new computer if they want to maintain their current functionality.
As an aside, I wondered if GIMP would have the same problems. he does not seem to have ever tried or mentioned that program. How funny.
In IE 7, the rich edit control that forms the basis of the third party ActiveX control we used to post article bodies not only doesn't work, it is actually deprecated in Vista so that it will never work, even if you manually install it. That means
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Linux would be TERRIBLE for the average computer user. I mean, it is not even an option. Installing programs on XP is hard enough for some people (a girl once asked me to install iTunes for her). Installing programs on Linux? I use Linux occasionally and I mostly install perl modules, but it is something like:
perl MakeFile.pl
make
make install
make test
And no, your sweet mother would never figure that out.
Or maybe you could picture her searching google for some esoteric error message, modifying the code of some random file, doing her own troubleshooting, and actually getting something to work?
And in any case, if you are thinking of switching to Linux, please just switch to OSX instead!
The problem is with programmers' experience levels, which means it's a result of Microsoft organization and training. The code _must_ be developed with _all_ things considered the _first_ time. This includes things only veterans have the knowledge to protect from. Fatal exploits, limitations, workarounds and protections are learned from years of programming experience in a certain language, usually also by using the language for a specific niche such as graphic manipulation and/or with databases.
I don't know how they're going to do it. I work as a one-man developer AND supporter of PHP applications and web sites and still find myself learning how to improve design and structure in my programs and web site(s) after 5 years at it. (As most coders know) Everything must be minimized and placed into reusable (and secure) modules. You've got to lay out your CSS, JavaScript, databases, functions, etc. as simply and minimalistically as possible. If you don't, when it comes time to add things you can easily lose track of structure, push toward your deadline without backtracking thoroughly enough, and end up creating a slow and bloated site or app.
MS or any company wanting to take a chunk out of them needs to perfect the development model, bug reporting/suggestions -> developers -> all users, and offer fast, incrementing (stable, release candidate, etc), OPTIONAL updates to everyone.
As in Windows and as in any program they need to patch the holes and then apply what they've learned. Microsoft is trying, and trying hard, to finish Vista, when they've barely covered the bugs in the last version. Maybe it will work... maybe it won't. They might have learned, but I doubt it... What they should do is offer a free "expires in 2 years" version (call it RC1) and let regular users try it out BEFORE spreading it around to corporations. A 1-888 helpline (FREE, or $20/mo subscription fee?) wouldn't hurt either.
You've already decided to roll out an operating system that isn't finished or tested in your environment to 65,000 desktops? Thats a wise move... Whats your plan B?
They must be nuts! Surely any rollout on this scale should at least wait until SP1 is out? I wish I knew what company this was so I could avoid doing business with them...
Blah. Move along.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Are you telling me that after the Windows 95 + debacle, Windows 98 (and 98SE, or wait, what version is this?) Windows ME, the fun and good times we all had deploying XP SP2 (*strangles self*), that your company has honestly, seriously committed to deploy Vista acros 65,000x3 desktops? No, really, who do you work for, you poor, abused soul?
...putting it out on a corp volume licence implies they're satisfied it's up to enterprise-level stability.
No, that means that they think people who are in charge of 195,000 computers will buy it, and the quality will not be sufficiently horrid to drive them all to get rid of their Windows desktops and servers. Because really, how bad would it have to be to make you consider switching to, say, Linux? Pretty damn horrible, yeah?
So whatever that level is - as long as Windows is above that, they'll sell it to you. Have fun with that.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Did you read about his problems with WGA? A week later he remembered that it may not have been on the up and up when he bought it.
As a shill, you sometimes need to pretend to be on the other side to maintain your credibility