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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?
I think I've mentioned the phrase "I could hear the screams" on the SuperSite before.'
Yes, it's almost as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Someone initiated a vote for the Tech Beta testers to see if there will be a Beta 3. It's accessible only for techbeta, but it's here
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Maybe he's Fair and Balanced. After all, we had all kinds of opinions about his WGA reporting.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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:
It's not ready, so? Is it anything new about it?
First thing, it's still beta. And if open source/free software betas are almost 100% usable, that doesn't mean that Windows are like that too.
The second thing, I don't think they can do so much in such time *personal option*
Well, we just have to wait and see how it turns out
I believe that is called "pulling a 3d Realms".
Badass Resumes
Well if Vista was half-ready it would already be on the shelves. The holes can always be patched later... (Not flaming Microsoft particularly, but software developers in general :)
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...
OK, OK, so it's still in beta. But it seems to me that he is having problems with Windows that are not solely restricted to Vista. Why does he then put up with it? Why not simply say "Enough!", and try Linux or Mac instead? Surely the alternatives couldn't be any worse? Is it simply because he earns money by writing about Windows, so he HAS to put up with it, so he could pay the bills?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
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.
Where I work we've got a software product which to be kind would be best taken out and buried in an unmarked grave at midnight (with the mandatory stake, garlic and silver bullet) at some lonely crossroads.... its buggy, seriously flawed implementation of our design (the software is a third party product built to specs from my company). Every month we lurch from one crises to another but our programme management team will not face reality and allow us to slip release... we must release on time no matter how flawed is the message.
:(.
With 6ish months to go until drop dead date we can only fix major or critical issues which will seriously impact functionality of the entire system.
I have total sympathy with the MS developers and designers as I suspect they've got the same bone headed project managers as my firm
I am also using the latest Vista builds (not the public beta 2) at work. It is still NOT ready to me because it drives me nuts. The biggest complaint I don't like about it is the User Acess Control (UAC). I know it can be disabled, but the design is just annoying (memorized alt-c hot key so I don't have to move and click with the mouse) and I don't think it will be changed much. For every thing I run as an administrator seems to pop up the permit/deny. I read this interesting article about why UAC works this way. It remindes me of the way Mac OS X (10.2.8 -- haven't used the newer versions) works.
:)
What's worse on this test machine (ASUS K8V SE Deluxe, Athlon 64 3200+ 754 CPU, 512 MB of RAM, etc.), my screen tend to black out before and after the pop-ups occur. I don't see this problem on a co-workers' computers. Maybe it is because of the old ATI Radeon 9600 All-In-Wonder video card. I am using the Aero effects (very pretty). Or worse, the pop-up is in the taskbar minimized without focus. So I can be using a program that calls another EXE, then nothing happens because I haven't granted permission because it is minimized!
Other things that bugged me:
1. How do I access c:\ProgramData\Application Data\? I keep getting permission denied even though my account is already set with an administrator access.
2. How come tab, arrow keys, and F3 keys don't work in command.com/CLI? I miss being able to recall history and hit tab for autocomplete.
3. In command.com, I cannot seem to change long paths with cd command like: cd "Program Files". It says: Parameter not correct - "program.
I was a bit surprised when MS decided to declare RC1 a few builds ago (5472?). I really hope Microsoft decides to delay again and take their time! So what if it loses money! They're rich and can get more after Vista is released with few problems. Make it good and maybe I will use it at home (using XP, Linux, and Mac OS X).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"Or take IE 7. Please."
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
So Vista isn't close to being ready. I'm sure that if it is pushed to shelves as scheduled, that nobody will buy it because it is so incomplete. And nobody will pirate it either. This will definitely be the Windows killer that we have been hoping for.
Right.
Microsoft can box up a petrified turd and people will still buy it.
How could it be ready yet? They haven't perfected the DRM obviously, and you can't release an operating system that might allow someone to burn CDs with impunity, or use an evil analog video input device.
Oh You POS
The upgrade from 98 to XP was a no brainer because of how much more stable
and quick XP was. Vista honestly has nothing I want. The longer they take
the better since I heard that the next DirectX will be Vista only, probably
just to piss me off when I can't play new games.
I know someone who is developing software for the Vista platform. They are porting their product to the next step. For them, everytime there is an announcement of a delay in release of the platform, it is a cause for a quick meeting to re-assess the risk it poses to their plan.
That's the hottest thing I've heard all day.
" I especially like the way I can't delete certain items from the desktop (randomly, it seems, like a game)"
I think we recently read about MS' new and improved casual games on Vista
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
According to the recent build(s) (5487? and 5472), the bottom right said: Windows Vista(TM) RC1...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"...like most IT pros, its not about when the next OS will be released, it is about having the OS work."
Yeah, you first have to release the patch to patch the patch that patched the patch before the patch. Once the patches are in place, you gotta patch those. Then the OS might work. If not, patch it again.
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.
Microsoft Works?
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.
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.
Just my personal experience.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If the release slips, we don't care.
Really. We don't care: because it better freaking work when it arrives. Until then, do what needs to be done, Microsoft, lest thy name become Mudsoft.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
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.
...the more time Apple has to add features and functionality to OS X (according to the WWDC 2005, Leopard should be released in December or January), and the more time the FOSS community has to improve its offerings (KDE and GNOME get better with each release, Linux distributions get easier to use, and FOSS software offerings get a bit more compelling).
MS will still have a head start even if Vista is delayed another year, since Vista will be sold on all new machines, and not everybody is going to run out and buy a Mac or install Linux. However, more people are starting to learn about OS X and Apple's offerings (especially the fact that Apple switched to Intel, and the fact that they can still use Windows on those machines if they choose to, although OS X is really good; I showed my parents and siblings my MacBook and they got to use it for two days. They fell in love with it), and more people are starting to learn about FOSS. If Vista isn't all what it is cracked up to be, then Mac sales and Linux downloads would go up.
As for me? I hope that Vista improves. Us Mac and *nix users have to use Windows boxes for work and for school, so it would be nice if we got to use a much improved version of Windows. But, after they have gutted out all of the features that I have desired (such as WinFS and the Monad shell), I'm not so enthusiastic about Vista. And, yes, I've got a chance from a friend to use the beta for a few hours. Vista's interface is pretty nice, IE 7 is a browser worth using, and I am fond of some of the new features. However, everything I can get in Vista in January I already have on my MacBook, and the gap may be larger, depending on what Steve Jobs reveals next week during the WWDC 2006.
These same kinds of negative articles also came out about XP at the beginning of its hype cycle. The 'Windows-beta-has-problems' articles all seem to be organized by the M$ hype machine to get people talking about the next Windows version. That's all. Next come the 'we-fixed-all-the-problems-and-now-its-ready' articles. Finally, come the 'Windows Vista is G-R-E-A-T!' articles on or just prior to the release day. Since M$ is cranking up the hype, we can be sure that Vista is now on track to be released.
If you hate Vista so much why do you waste your time talking about it? Are you using it or XP? I bet you are. It is like talking about the fat girl down the road and then going and banging her every night when your friends are not around.
I think Vista should be shipped only if it is really in a condition to be deployed to corporate environments. We /.ers may be happy with their *nixes and macs.I myself is on mac but I know my data including credit cards other stuff are with different corporates almost all of them which are on Windows.
I've worked in multiple banks and I know most of the data is not safe enough from a determined cracker. I hope Vista don't come and make it easier for them.
What? Come on now. I know /. is very pro-Open Source, con-MS, but thats ridiculous. I have only had 1 actual XP crash since it came up, and that was due to a fan dying on the graphics card causing it to overheat. XP (Pro anyway, can't speak on Home), is extremely stable and it has been my primary development platform for several years. I was even co-founder and ex-pres of my Alma Mater's LUG, so I am not some MS fanboy. But the blind XP bashing really needs to stop around here, its very counter productive and not even funny anymore.
Or "Will it run on my current hardware?"
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
Maybe I'm not paying attention, but who is this Paul Thurrott? I'd rather read an article by someone who thinks Vista is ready (for what? He doesn't even say.), I'm sure it would make for a more interesting read.
Out of curiousity: Does anyone know anything about this? Google doesn't turn up anything for "PXHjpa64.sys"...
...instead of just adding eye-candy all the time. Seriously, it looks like Vista only features better graphics, and few necessary features. Looks like I'll stick with Gentoo through this one (not that I wouldn't otherwise, though).
So which is more difficult for XP users to switch to? Linux or Vista?
Right know i'm building a list of the stuff that is really not working on my vista, and it gets bigger everyday:
* Sound, since i've installed AC3 codec
* Internet Explorer, god knows when it stopped working, the first thing i've done is install firefox, I think IE detected it and stopped working, it has some personality
* Libjpeg in use with Gaim (nothing appers, ok I like gaim in windows, and it worked fine on XP)
* Network access to other windows machines
* The Bug reporter, that uses some IE functionality
* The video's thumbnails freezes Explorer.exe (i've to set it to details on every folder before it loads thumbs)
* Microsoft Visio with spell checking (type Andre freezes every time you try)
* Emule is writing to a folder that doesn't exists (C:\program files\emule\incoming) but, when i try to open what i've downloaded from emule, it works misterously from the neverland! I still can't find the files.
* Unzip anything, it moves the file inside the zip to the outside, and leaves the zip with 0 bytes (nice way to loose your files)
And the list keep growing everyday, total of 2700 bugs send with the automatic bug report, and can't send manual errors because of the great broke bug report.
Yes, why?
History has shown that Microsoft products aren't stable until the second service pack. That's about when I'll upgrade to this Vista crap.
see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/funny
I signed up for the free download of the beta. After the download I installed it on one machine, a lesser of the many machines I have. Nonetheless it was a very capable machine. It was an AMD2500+ with an nforce2 board. It also had a 128mb 8x gforce 4 AGP card. Topping it off was an 80gig HDD with 1 gig of DDR 333 RAM. Oh, and it had a wireless card in it from ASUS.
As you can see that machine is very capable by today's standards.
I did a clean install without any other partitions. The install went well. After it booted up and I was able to work with it I noticed there was a driver for the video card but there was no AERO interface features. I searched and searched to see if I could find a spot to force it on. After some searching I found nothing.
I also found that the wireless card was essentially non-functional. This was also very disappointing. I connected up a wire and installed the nvidia drivers that were available for Vista. I managed to get to the internet and do all the updates where Microsoft's online update finally found a driver for the wireless NIC. I installed that and rebooted. After booting the OS reports that the connection for this is limited or has no connection.
I worked with it for a while. I looked and looked for video drivers that might provide me with the AERO interface. I also looked and looked for drivers and found none.
Most of the chipset drivers I had to use were older XP drivers. It was a serious hassle trying to get and install vista drivers.
I let that machine sit for some time but went back to it periodically to try to learn more about the interface. Networking sucked pretty bad. I couldn't find drivers for some devices. The lack of the AERO interface indicated that this was just XP with a new face. Sure there was IE 7.0 but I had given up on IE long ago in favor of Firefox. I looked at the configuration screens. Confusing but everything seemed to be there. One thing to note is that there were too many ways to get things done. There was a high percentage of features that didn't work and it was obvious that even the screens that did pop up for configuration often had the old XP graphics--indicating they were just altering existing code to work with Vista.
I then received a copy of Vista in my AP subscription and as coincidence would have it I had just backed up and was whiping my main XP box which has a 64 bit 3200+, 1 gig of ram and gforce 6600GT, and a few hundred gigabytes of storage.
I did the install and found that I had the AERO interface. I liked it. After using it for a while I downloaded the beta vista drivers from nvidia. I installed them and the system seemed fairly stable. I did notice huge clunkiness to accessing files and folders and determined that it was the promise SATA drivers. I moved my connectors to a different set of SATA ports off the mobo and the clunkiness went away.
I used Vista for a few weeks and tried to test every piece of hardware--printers, cameras, networking, external harddrives (usb and eSATA). I tried the microphone. Tried burning CD/DVDs. Tried flashcard readers, etc. Most everything worked. The only issue I had was with the file access. Opening a drive could take 30 seconds. Opening a folder after that another 30 seconds, clicking back another 30 seconds. Closing and reopening. More 30 second intervals if it even opened them at all. It didn't matter if it was my IDE drivers, my SATA or eSATA. It was incredibly slow. Often times it would lock.
No, Vista is FAR FAR from ready.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
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
XP is the most stable operating system I've seen come out of Redmond, with the exception of DOS.
:)
However, Linux has me spoiled. I was pissed when I discovered I couldn't use remotedesktop to log into an XP Pro box while someone else was logged in locally.
(So was my cousin...I kicked him off in the middle of a COD2 round.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Honestly, Linux now is even better than Vista.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
So what if Vista isn't ready--finally we have a Windows OS that's VIRUS FREE!!
Way to go, Microsoft!
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.
Mr Thurrot writes about using the Vista OS every day to do necessary tasks.
Dude, this is a beta version. Put it on its own hard disk, play with it and do nothing of importance on it. Do your daily work on an stable OS release.
I am not sure how Microsoft had the balls to call it a beta. I've used lots of MS betas and in the main they're quality products with a few bugs to iron out. Not this time around, this was alpha country. I've never seen such a lamentable effort. I knew within 30 minutes of playing around with it that there would be no release this year.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
What the hell??? I use Win XP on my laptop all the time and it crashes. I have at least one call a month from customers who have rebooting XP (home and pro) becuase of a hardware problem and they mostly loose their data. I admit to using GNU/Linus on servers - but its for very good reasons - It's more stable. XP isn't and from what I have seen in Vista - that isn't either. At least call a spade a spade.
Because you always need a smart fox!
I have only had 1 actual XP crash since it came up, and that was due to a fan dying on the graphics card causing it to overheat.
I've got one lonely XP Pro box on my network and it is very stable and I manage to get a lot of productive work done on it. However, I don't surf the internet with it. The only time it gets to see the internet is behind a NAT'd firewall for updates, then cut off.
I'd argue that if you spend a lot of time online with XP, you will have problems. I credit my XP box stability to the fact I do my surfing with Firefox and Linux.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
*sniff* Bullshit. You mean to tell me this guy is using a MS beta on a production (read his personal / work) PC? Good God! How stupid must you be to do this? He couldn't at least get a spare PC to run the beta while preserving a clean XP install?
I'm sorry Paul, but I smell a big pile of Bullshit. No self loving geek, IT guy, sysadmin et al. would *EVER* run a beta, let alone a Microsoft Beta, on a production machine. Heck, I wouldn't even let a beta of any kind touch my data.
the future is but past forgotten
"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.
I've just downloaded Knoppix 5.0; Maybe Microsoft could be a mirror site for Knoppix until their "vista" improves?
I will only run computers behind a good hardware firewall before connecting to the internet. Anything else is just inviting the virus sillyness to your front door. Linksys routers with Linux firmwares are very good at filtering anonymous internet requests and redirects.
Here I am, here I remain.
A single, uniform operating system for everyone is much desirable from both a customer, as well as a programming and maintenance, POV. There should just be one 64-bit Vista All edition going forward, and quit trying to upgrade machines that probably aren't up to it in the first place.
This way all Vista application software could be 64-bit earlier. We're never going to get to a clean 64-bit world as long as MS is selling 32-bit Vista, and Apple is selling 32-bit IntelMacs!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How about pervasive pen interface support with good handwriting recognition, and pervasive speech recognition support and use within both the OS and Office 2007? I haven't bought a copy of Windows since win 3.0, but if they get those two features to work right I might just dump OS X and migrate to a Windows based tablet. This thing is simply too cool for words. heh.
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).
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
When they dare to release in Q4, the service-packs will follow quicker than you can say "Bob".
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
GNU/Linus? I hope they didn't GPL him in the process... Imagine, you would have the right to "use" Linus as long as you mention his mom and dad.
Got MILF? It does a body good!
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.
How many times do your desktop icons disappear momentarily & reappear like the desktop is rebooting ?
That's a crash.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I used linux as my main machine for about 3 years. I did look at Ubuntu and Kubuntu when they were first released. I also looked at maybe 7 other distros. Although I did not have the same problems with Ubuntu that I had with Vista or even XP, I had a greater share of other problems.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
(Sincere aplogies to Mr. Python)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I have only had 1 actual XP crash since it came up, and that was due to a fan dying on the graphics card causing it to overheat. XP (Pro anyway, can't speak on Home), is extremely stable and it has been my primary development platform for several years.
And how many XP boxes have you supported? Just because you have programmed on a box or two doesn't mean there are problems.
Take it from a the peeps who do front tech support on the phones and at the corporate offices who have expirence problems from hundreds and possibly thousands of users on Windows XP... I can't remember these days since I've worked for so many tech houses)
WINDOWS XP HAS ISSUES!
And that is being kind. To be fair it is quite a great deal more stable than Win95, Win98, WinME, but there was some real growing pains between Win2000 and WinXp (so much so many corp IT houses still keep many boxes as Win2kPro)
But have you ever expirenced a dead WinXp TCP/IP stack? Windows 2000 didn't seem to have much of a problem and if it did it could be repaired... May god help you if your WinXp stack went bad in 2001 because no one knew what the hell to do. These days... As long as you have google you can get a tool on a CD pretty quickly to fix this. Not to mention the blaster virus that hit windows before SP2. That got us pretty good.
And supporting USB drivers and crappy firmware locks... Yes I have seen WinXP bluescreen multiple times on multiple computers in corporate environment.
That said...
Windows XP isn't that bad today (given the massive amounts of patches). It saved us a whole heck load of trouble since it has native CD burning software and PPPoE built in and the restore points often saved our butts all the time.
Heck... A decent Dell with WinXP on it is quite stable and chances are you'll not see a bluescreen anytime soon.
But don't you dare tell me that Windows XP never had problems when it came out... Because it did and caused many corporate IT desk, General helpdesks, and computers shop technicians a ton of grief!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I'm still downgrading to Vista the second it's released.
See, the problem I am having with Windows Vista is that IE just stoped working... And IE is required to report the problems to MS. Firefox works though, but not for reporting problems. Any way, I guess I'll have to reinstall to tell them about it or find another machine not running Linux.
That sounds like a "mouse driver" error to me. I work with XP every day in the corporate environment. It ain't perfect but it's pretty damn stable; the only reason I've been rebooting my machines lately has been due to trying to cut back on electrical useage otherwise my XP machines need to be rebooted once every couple months.
Tell your friend to avoid p0rn websites and XP is fine.
SunOS 5.5.1 is nice but I think it's time for me to move on. Lately I've been hearin' alot about this "windows" thing. I should probably give it a shot. Will it work on a Sparc 2?
Blind MS bashing on /.? Never. Ok, a bit.
Actually, the biggest problem with XP (and 2003) is that a driver problem or a program problem can escalate to a full system lockup. To me, the bigest change MS could make to the OS, which would help, would be to isolate the drives and programs enough that I can lose say the IDE controller in a SCSI based system and not end up at a BSOD (I'm actually dealing with this exact problem today on a Server 2003 R2 system). A similar problem I run into is on my laptop (A Sony Vaio). It has a fingerprint reader for logon, which is fun (if bad for security). The system is XP Pro with SP2, and all updates. However, the software for the fingerprint reader replaces GINA.DLL with a special DLL for handling login via fingerprint. That DLL is buggy and about 1 out of 10 boots and/or shutdowns, it crashes to a BSOD. Reboot, and everything is good.
The problem is, since it causes Windows to crash out, many people see this as the OS crashing, not as a driver crashing. And in the end, they are right; the OS lost it because of a non-essential DLL crashing, the OS is just as "at fault" as the DLL. For a DLL which runs the logon process, just let it die and restart it, don't punt me to a fatal crash screen.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
When you buy Vista, just realize you're really going to need the .01 or .1 upgrade that ships within a few months.
It won't really be an upgrade, more of a bug fix so it will actually function.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
XP Professional is a good operating system, but it is not in its very nature "crash-proof". My wireless campus uses at least 3000 Dell laptops running XP Professional, and they DO crash. Mine crashes less often than most, because I take care of it. And to be honest, most of the crashes aren't the OS's fault. MacAfee, IE, and all the other 400 MB of memory-consuming programs they put on the laptops are at fault. Bad drivers are a biggy. Hardware, occasional. They are portable, after all.
:-)). Windows crashes every couple weeks, or at least gets to where it performs better with a reboot.
But then, a good operating system *shouldn't* crash with bad drivers, or let a rogue program with improper memory needs clog stuff up. I can crash Linux (NLD 9) in a matter of minutes with a small program (just while(fork()); and see how happy YOUR computer gets
In other words, XP performs sufficiently for many people and environments. I don't mind the idiodic liscencing scheme with XP because I don't feel it - I use Enterprise Edition only. No registering. I would never recommend Home to anyone, though.
Linux is better in many ways for several types of development work, especially embedded systems where I work. But that's another story. Glad to hear XP works for you. But since the topic was Vista anyway, I should say that as long as it is up to me, I will never own it. Or more specifically, I will never, ever LEASE my OS. That's what it really comes down to. XP was close - you can't even transfer your rights to another person, legally. I can only assume Vista will continue the tradition. Cheers.
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t
have absolutely no plans to install Windows Vista within six months of it's "release date".
Not 5 percent.
Not 10 percent.
But 50 percent.
So, slipping the release date won't really matter, as most corporations are wise enough, according to the Wall Street Journal (print edition), to put off upgrading as long as is reasonable.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
yeah, right. Just too funny. lol!
But the blind XP bashing really needs to stop around here, its very counter productive and not even funny anymore.
Counterproductive? Oh, absolutely. Not funny anymore? Let's not be hasty. Personally, if I don't see "m$ suxors!!!1" written somewhere before I start my day, I'm in a really foul mood. I need that morning bash. It's like coffee, y'know?
to even read the rest of this as i have ubuntu in the toilet, which is where me me am sitting now with me warm knees laptop and shit to microsoft. USH slightly .. a there u go ... Wont be long, gnome is hard and fast.. and nice actualy.. big logs of it,
ciao
It is the opinion of most of IT professionals I work with that 99% of Windows XP crashes are due to sub-par driver programming by non-Microsoft developers.
To use customer calls as a source of evidence that Windows XP is unstable is rediculous. I would wager that 80% of Windows users are more destructive than productive if left to maintain their own systems. The fact that most people who install and use Linux systems are part of the other 20% (technical users) explains why you might not get calls about broken Linux machines.
In response to the "GNU/Linus" servers you run: What evidence do you have that they are more stable? My experience has been if I install a package without knowing exactly how it will effect the system I'm going to have unexpected problems with stability. This is true for Windows and Linux systems alike. I'm going to go out on a limb here and use the same logic I used before: If it requires more technical knowledge to install a package on a Linux system you will get fewer unexpected problems just because Windows-based applications have wizards. Just hitting next is a tempting alternative to actually reading the installation documentation.
So which is more difficult for XP users to switch to? Linux or Vista?
Based on everything I've been seeing, it's looking like switching to Linux will be easier than "upgrading" to Vista.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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. Open up or borrow the base layers, and build on top of it. With MS being in the virtualization market, backwards compatibility becomes less of a problem, as it can be built into the new OS.
Heck, rumour is that Apple has already implemented this Windows compatiblity this with OS X 10.5. Apple may have a better successor to Windows XP than Microsoft does.
Maybe when Linux users stop calling Microsoft Micro$soft and Windows Winblows so others can actually take them seriously.
If Vista will become a case study for software engineers about what NOT to do..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
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` ?
I have only had 1 actual XP crash since it came up, and that was due to a fan dying on the graphics card causing it to overheat. /ramdisk to make phone calls using my livecd linux. (I didn't want to put Skype in the CD permanently due to the license, etc.)
I had pet hair getting into that fan, causing XP to crash. Did have another totally unuseable XP partition that I had to give up on, extremely slow. Used the Dell restoration CD to "start over" in a new partition, on a new HD. XP seems mostly fine now, except when I allowed the updates that are rather sensitive when Excel is run, other users say it locks up.
While installing the new XP HD, I made two linux ext2 and one linux swap, so I could run my livecd linux with the "tohd" option, and also have one partition for storage.
Put Skype directories there, so I could copy them back into
Actually, I now rarely boot up into XP on that box, others do, so I keep it.
Overall, I am sorry to hear that Microsoft is having problems getting a new OS out the door, I have said all along that if it were not for Microsoft, we would not have all these cheap PC's around today. Computers would cost thousands more, and do less. When Bill Gates announced the rather high performance requirements for boxes running Vista, I thought to myself, "we linux folks will benefit when these boxes get tossed out by newbys and joe sixpacks that fowl them up." That's where all of my machines come from today. Given to me, cost $2400 new. One was over three grand new!
Another is a Mac, fun to play with, most are Windows 98, but still nice X86 machines that I enjoy running livecd linux on.
--Rapidweather
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
Maybe learn how to use windows?
Exactly!
I have been telling people for years that if they must run Windows, they should run it under VMWare on Linux or *BSD. The only way to run a broken OS safely, is to run it under emulation on a working OS.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Not if it had the FDIV bug, it couldn't!
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
so it's not a troll at all to say I expect Microsoft to switch too as their monopoly erodes.
Microsoft sells software. IBM, HP, and SGI sell hardware. I hope you can appreciate why the economics of switching to a free operating system would affect them differently.
Martin
"taking as long as they want" is what they do in the release/support phase.
...BSD.
I suspect there is already a skunk works project uniting aspects of Vista with some sort of BSD kernel/userland as we speak. FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD? Who knows. However, the BSD licence would allow them to completely "Borg" their chosen version of BSD and keep everything closed up tight.
BSD is a venerable OS at this point, proven stable and secure. Vista is in very scary shape right now if TFA is to be believed. If Microsoft released a "Windows" with BSD under the hood, they could in one stroke get rid of the earned perception that Windows is an insecure OS with stability issues.
They could do worse. As in maintain the status quo.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
No, Vista will definitely be released before the year 2029; The Terminator clearly tells you this when he says "Hasta la Vista, baby".
Microsoft actually had this functionality in a sp2 beta, but crippled it at the last minute. Check out this link for a quick fix for that problem. Works quite well. You need fast user switching enabled though, so you cant use it on a domain computer. http://sala.pri.ee/terminal-server-patch/
Will it be ready in time? Actually, I think it could be.
Flying pigs come to mind.
It does not matter when they get it out, they are hosed. They have been making and breaking promisses for five years now. "Don't buy anything, our latest and greatest is just around the corner," is a song they've always sung but Vista is a new low. It will be a miracle if they get it out the door within six years, and it's going to be so broken no one is going to want it.
Microsoft started work on their plans for "Longhorn" in May 2001, some months before the release of Windows XP.[3] It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP and "Blackcomb"
2003, 2005, 2007, they keep putting it off by two years because, fortunately, they can't get their worst lock down to work though they have been trying for 15 years. The non free software development model has been out of steam for just as long. When they threw DRM into the mess, they nullified their driver advantage for a system that's never going to work right. They have made all the wrong promisses to all the wrong people and their customers, who buy iPods have noticed. The list of new features are a sad kind of echo to all the Linux networking and desktop productivity improvements that they have been saying don't matter. Under the hood, there's even less. The lockdown is a massive waste that's ruining them, not saving them.
Their competition is running rings around them. Over the same time period, Debian has released two stable systems and is about to get in a third. Each has brought great improvements without adding too much confusion. The same software works everywhere, servers, desktops, laptops and hand held computers. Companies have been putting it in embedded devices and desktop penetration has been slow but steady. Apple has continued to rock on and is taking a sharp aim for Microsoft's bread and butter with new lower priced machines. In games, Xbox has been trounced. There is no place they are not taking a beating for their second rate offerings.
The release of Vista will be the end of them and it will signal the rise of the free desktop. It's not going to work right and people are going to be pissed. There's enough Linux out there for it to fill the performance void.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Apart from another brain-dead UI design, it appears that Vista has some annoying performance issues, which my be one of the reasons Microsoft snapped up Sysinternals.
Mark Russinovich's blog http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/ makes interesting reading.
isn't this the same guy who couldn't figure out he was using a PIRATED windows xp serial?
IBM sells services and the occasional bit of hardware.
HP sells hardware and isn't doing badly, but they're not having stellar financial results either.
SGI's filed for bankrupticy.
Bottom line: Services is where the money is, and that's what Microsoft's is trying to do. And failing.
Ooooh! Cruel! I like it. Apple: embrace, extend, extinguish... It is consistent with the move to Intel hardware, too. I hope they leave some crumbs for us GNU/Linux geeks.
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
Scratch that. My friend has a new Dell. It bluescreens all the time.
What? Come on now. I know /. is very pro-Open Source, con-MS, but thats ridiculous.
/. was very pro-Open Source, con-MS, but thats ridiculous.
What? Come on now. I know
There, fixed that for you. Come on now, they've even changed SlashBack to Backslash. The readership has changed dramatically, as has the demographic. It's not necessarily a bad thing, they're still Open Source advocates, but, eh, there are a lot of MCSEs on this site. Then again, there are a lot more MCSEs running Linux these days too. It's culture at work.
The general design of Windows is limited in scope to a very specific situation, but Microsoft has marketed Windows as a one-size-fits-all OS. It is great for use as a simple office computer, as you might find at a secretary's desk, but for anything more sophisticated I would avoid Windows as much as possible -- I certainly wouldn't use it for developing anything other than Windows applications.
Palm trees and 8
Who's Paul Thurott? :(
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I think SP 2 of XP is Microsofts biggest problem right now.
It works fine. I think a lot of the Vista re-designs and such have been to address the problem of "why would any volume license customers upgrade?" They've been having this problem with office since '97 (hence the dinosaur ads)
It's a larger problem in closed source software : eventually if you are successful, you dominate the market with a pretty functional product, and suddenly you're your own biggest competitor. There are a number of techniques to deal with it. Breaking compatibility is a classic (cough - Apple). Arbitrarily rearranging your interface (cough - Adobe) to force training headaches on your customers is another. Microsoft has generally had the benefit of a very fast moving target platform - generic x86 hardware - to make OS upgrades really needed. But computers are more similar to themselves 5 years ago than they ever have been, and XP is a flexible enough system that its unlikely that major changes around the corner will render it suddenly unusable.
Sure Vista will sell - nearly every new PC that is sold sells a copy of Windows, and in the long run, offices will probably have to upgrade - MS can offer cheaper service contracts or whatever. But the real question here isn't if Vista will generate sales, its if it will sell the slow but noticable drift toward Apple (just look at those laptop numbers) in the end-user market and Linux in the corporate market, and if it will have enough hard-to-reproduce features to prevent someone (google, IBM, some "anyone but microsoft" coilition) from releasing an actually functional-for-dummies desktop linux.
One wonders what MS would be looking like if Dell etc. weren't bribed into not offering OS-less PCs. Shouldn't I be able to use the XP license I had on my old machine on the new one I buy?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
...it oughtta work for Microsoft!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Which is why I fear the day our Dell machines start coming with Vista installed. My guess is that we'll keep installing XP for another few years and just not tell Microsoft >_> We don't have to stop supporting it until it's two versions old anyways, and at this rate, it'll be 2010 before that happens with XP.
so they can see what cool stuff to add. ;)
C'mon, I definitely know how to use Windows XP (Considering that I port games and other software to/from it for a living, I would have to)- it's unstable, rent with Spyware, Virii, Worms, and the lot because of bad design decisions. People don't bitch more because they've grown used to all the crap, weren't told the truth about things, and are amazed when they get told that other people using something else don't have a problem. Many assume that it's because we're technical and we're able to better avoid the problems. Nope. Your OS has issues- and when they're told the truth about all of it they're pissed as hell.
As for the second, I doubt you will be allowed to get to define what "easy to use" is. It's not Windows.
MacOS, maybe, but not Windows. I won't say that Linux is "easy to use" (It is, but that's a different
discussion altogether...)- but that it's about as easy to use as Windows, it's just different than it in
some ways and many find that "Different" is "Difficult", whether it is or not.
Is any of your post "insightful" like the mods claim it to have been? Nope.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Hasta la Vista... and good riddance too!
Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in
Are you sure?
XP by default does a reeboot when it blue screens.
This way if you're not looking the only sign is all the open programs are missing.
Try checking your system logs.
I think he was pointing at the seminal example of "vaporware" in the entire
computer industry : Duke Nukem Forever. I think you'll find that 3D Realms
has been at DNF for...well...forever now, and while the tantalizing tidbits
that we've seen of THIS iteration of the game show promise, we still don't
have a working demo of the game, let alone the title proper- yet. It's been
MANY years now and it's still "Not Ready Yet."
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Last time I checked you are allowed to move a retail box copy of Windows to your new PC, but OEM's die with the machine. Dell sells Redhat or Suse on servers, and most of their product line without an OS . (Oddly enough the No OS option says: Microsoft add $0)
... 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.
Times have changed. An average corporate desktop bought in 2002, if they thought of the future at all, will have a Pentium 4 processor between 1.8GHz and 2.53GHz, probably 256MB to 512MB of RAM, at least a 40GB drive, a DVD-ROM or combo drive, and a Windows XP license on the lid. With $150 of parts (RAM and possibly a hard drive), these machines are more than adequate for most corporate tasks. While a few companies still toss machines at that age, regardless of condition, more and more are realizing that it's no longer necessary to toss that 2.53GHz machine, only to replace it with a 2.8GHz machine. These aren't the olden days where you threw away a 486 to upgrade to a Pentium Pro four years later.
Vista will be the same way. While Windows 95 was a worthwhile upgrade from WFW (at least it had an integrated TCP/IP stack, better UI, 32-bit app support from the get-go and better DOS compatibility), companies are realizing that Windows XP, and even Windows 2000, are more than adequate for their needs now. (A well-known Fortune 100 company still uses Windows 2000 on all their machines. The only thing that W2K doesn't have built-in is the WiFi software--and they don't support WiFi anyway.)
On the consumer side, the gravy train still rolls on, where people throw away perfectly good machines to get a $700 Vista PC with prettier menus and no spyware (until they get back on the web, that is.) But I think PC manufacturers (and Microsoft) better expect a large slowdown from their corporate customers for a while, until something rolls along that necessitates upgrades (and a pretty new version of Office isn't it.)
All third-party ActiveX controls are gaping security holes just waiting to be exploited in Windows. Now that they are gone this guy misses them. Surely someone can whip up a OSS solution.
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.
If this were open-source, you could file a bug report.
get whipped (you know you like it)
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.
from TFA : "Why ship Vista to enterprises with volume license agreements before shipping it to consumers? Businesses are not going to install Vista anyway. Why waste the effort?"
Answer: this is a way of sorta-meeting the (latest) promised release date. Saving face, as it were. So that the fact that you're full of hot vaporware isn't as obvious.
Just a guess
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Otherwise insightful but:
x /byo_xpsdt_700?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Dell without OS:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.asp
OK not 100% there but still.
Or if you simply screw together your own PC otherwise you can buy the retail version of XP which allows you to move your license from machine to machine.
OK Here's the dells without windows bundled.
/ desktops_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
http://www.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx
I don't know if that is entirely accurate. I just came from the future and found the following memo. Sure, this was meant to be more for entertainment than some deep analysis on the future of Microsoft. But it does make you think that the future of Microsoft is not in doing everything their way and from the ground up, but instead let others deal with the low-level stuff and they can focus on what they are really selling -- a GUI with lots of bells and whistles. Looking at Vista development, how much easier would it have been to use a tried-and-true Unix security and permissions model and focus their attention on how to provide the user with the best interactive environment?
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
Wtf? No internet checkers? That's the only good thing about XP.
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?
Combining a couple of threads, the problems that Microsoft risks with delays, is that they have to have something really ready to offer customers ready to upgrade.
XP is an aging workhorse. I peeked at my family's Apple laptops, and *definitely* disliked the entire feel. For better or worse, I developed my computer knowledge on the dominant platform of the day. "Yes, I know it's flawed, but it's time for mercenary business choices."
Now, All through the 95-98-2000-XP (after sufficiently repaired by SP's and driver updates) I was at least confident that each step improved on the last. Now I'm seeing many signals that Vista stands a real risk of failing mightily.
I know full well Paul has mixed objectives, but I don't think he's setting up for a thunderous "Go Microsoft" campaign. I think it's the "Little Heat" approach of explaining delays that internal experts at Microsoft already know.
A new OS shouldn't break everything alive. Paul's hinted three times that it very well might. This bad news is what directly leads to my decision to begin learning Linux in parallel to a Twilight Last-Of-Its-Breed XP machine as long as I can patch it together.
As an Ex-AppleFanboy, and a grudging MS user, they should be SERIOUSLY concerned if users like me have made the decision *NOW* to skip Vista. I'm not gifted in hardline IT, so Linux has given me pause. But both with this Vista news and the passage of time for improvements, it's looking like my next venture.
--TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It's even complete with proprietary lockin and DRM!
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Yup. I would consider that begining with 2000, windows had become pretty stable. However, it was too late for me. I have never been an early adopter and was always late in the hardware race. W2K and Win XP are too ressource-hungry for me. I am happy I am knowledgeable enough to configure a debian and not have to chose between security, stability and performance.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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.
The more "we" talk about it, the more FREE publicity M$ Veesta gets. All I need here is one Beta tester with +5 years in the field to suggest yea or nae...the rest of us fools are doing what another persone accused Paul of... Saying Vista is crap so he can then pounce when Vista is released and Hype it as Gold. There's much too much talk about uncertain quantities these days...even hoaxes are discussed into the ground. I say (even though I Beta test) That Vista doesn't exist ! It's a fake, a fraud, and that Beta download was a Hit and run between ME, XP and OS10 orchestrated by the NSA and FBI to have backdoors to all my porn files... There, I said it.
End of Line.
My meme along these lines in the ninja anarchist library castles. The basic idea is to set up a solar powered server with several terrabytes of storage and high powered wi-fi (remember we are talking Mad Max here so rules and regs re outtie). The basic idea is that if civilization crumbles that engineering knowledge, ethics, history, agriculture, art, etc, can be saved so we don't just have to start from scratch as ignorant peasants. As I said on my blog treefunk.net/forum/ it would cost about 3000 dollars and even if the end of the world doesn't happen it's still cool for the price of a beat to shit used car
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I doubt seriously that vista is really ready to be released as beta 3 let alone a RTM version. I just got myself a new AMD 64 machine... good graphics card, lots of ram and a sata 2 hdd. The company where I work is a part of the Microsoft Action Pack subscription program and we got the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Vista beta 2 to have a look at. I thought that I would take home the 64 bit version and install it on my 64 bit machine... that was last night... it comes off the machine tonight and I install kubuntu AMD-64 instead to see how that compares. Vista installs everything by default. You do not get asked if you want to do a custom install. You get all the crap that comes with it and it took approximately 2 hours to finish the install. Then this morning when I fired it up properly for the first time to use it, it took about 20 minutes to go through the setup and get to the login prompt and then about 3 minutes for it to actually login. I think that it is going to take my machine about 5 minutes to get to the login prompt on the next restart and that IMHO is not good enough for something that is about to get released to the manufacturers in about 2 months. I dont blame the businesses who are turning around and saying that they arent going to be upgrading to vista for a long time, if at all. The cost of the hardware upgrades alone will be prohibitive especially to those companies who in the last 12 months have upgraded their desktop hardware. For the average user at home, they might as well just go out and buy a new computer just so they can run vista... or better yet, look for alternatives to that over-priced piece of garbage that Microsoft is calling an operating system. Microsoft Vista... just dont do it...
*** I had a
They also want their users to use only IE instead of Firefox, Opera, or other browsers so that they will feel uneasy should they try to switch to Linux or some other operating system.
The more software packages one uses that have counterparts on other OS's such as Linux, the more one feels at home when trying out Linux and the more likely one is to actually switch to Linux. Thus, the better for the user and the worse for Microsoft.
That's a pretty complicated reason. I think the real one is simpler. By using IE Microsoft can dictate to a large extent how the web works. Yeah, there are standards and standards committees and such, but really, if it doesn't work with IE, it doesn't work. So MS makes IE just a bit different than the standard (do you REALLY think that all MS's programmers can't implement web standards properly?) and by doing so web page developers' support for everybody not running Windows is an afterthought at best.
Is it not obvious that Windows has become a joke of an OS? It's so crufty, so poorly-designed, so awful ... why in gods name would anyone even give a moment's consideration toward "upgrading" to Vista? It's just going to be the same old shit, a little stinkier than before, in a brand new bucket.
Purchasing Windows these days is as stupid as purchasing a Ford Pinto. Sure, it has four wheels just like all the other OSes, but it's gonna crash and burn.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Why spend time with wood and stone when you've got a bunch of metal already laying around?
Obviously something went screwy in my brain between reading your post and responding to it.
Still, the basic points remain I guess. My orginal post was made against a given scenario, that of Survivor Island and there is no "jump" to non-petrochemicals. That's thinking that derives from where we are now, not from where we'd be then.
And do not confuse our culture with our technology. They aren't the same thing at all.
KFG
No I don't mean about Vista, I mean about what Thurrott has to say. I've RTFA about a half-dozen times this year to his articles, and have become convinced that he's just not very bright. I don't get why his stuff gets linked to at all.
/. links to indicative, and if so, what keeps him visible? Is he buying off editors? (j/k)
Example from this time: the whine about IE7 and his employer's use of ActiveX. This is a problem of Microsoft's? I'm all for punishing them for their past sins, and ActiveX qualifies, but to use them doing the right thing to kill off dangerous controls in IE7 (which is what his description sounds like) as ammo in talking about Vista being broken is unfair, and worse: it's shallow. A deeper thinker might note that their choice to DTRT in IE7 will cause pain, but it really isn't part of a case for whether Vista is or is not ready.
So is this guy capable of writing anything that isn't a waste of the reading time, or are the things
I'd say they sell more than the occasional bit of hardware to sell over $24 Billion worth in 2005. And that's down from 2004's $31 Billion.
But you are correct saying services is where the money is. IBM made over $47 Billion in revenue from their services division last year.
To put those numbers in perspective, Microsoft's revenue for the entire company was $39 Billion.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Four years ago IE was an argument for the windows plattfom. Mozilla was not mature, some Linux users run an outdated Netscape 4.7.
This has changed. Microsoft may now catch up and IE7 does not look bad. However it is the less secure browser.
The first breakthrough happened when Microsoft paid AOL for using the IE engine. This is no option anymore because the IE monopoly is gone. Not that users do not take IE. But those who choose FF do it because it is the better browser.
We have now equal competition. I will upgrade to FF 2 but FF 1.5 is sufficient for me, I was pleased with gunmen parliamentarians start to hate microsoft. Anti-Microsoft sells, press likes these stories. And Bill Gates who was portrayed a kind of spirtual leader left development. Viruses, spyware, spam, delays. Ms is held responsible by its users.
You know how it goes - "I don' think she can take much more o' this capt'n!" Followed a couple of minutes later by "Oh, we just modulated the phase variance of the gobbledy gook."
It's a PR job. It's like the plot of an action movie - you get to the chase and the gun fight where you actually worry that the protagonist might cop a bullet to the head, but then he miraculously manages to shoot three of his assailants with his last two bullets and goes on to save the world. Everyone cheers and worships the hero du jour.
Microsoft Windows Vista will be on shelves before Christmas, with SP1 in January, SP2 in March, SP3 in May and a few dozen security updates sprinkled in for effect.
Actually, they count less because they only support a very specific set of hardware. Windows has to support everything under the sun and do it well. The difference in difficulty is night and day. Frankly, OSX is child's play compared to what has to be accounted for in Windows. That said, I think Microsoft is a mediocre software shop that's trying to develop something well beyond their technical ability.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Slashback still exists, and even had an Slashback in it last night.. Backslash is a new recapping section that has mixed reviews.
This is here so you don't ignore the last two lines of my posts.
Works great. Thanks!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
the only thing people wanted is an SP3 for XP with a server2003 kernel, nothing more. what s a waste of shareholder money.
I just wish it didn't feel like an upgrade every time a new maintenance release was issued by Apple. I have to run all this stuff (repair permissions, backup data, etc) to prepare to install the update, then install the update, reboot, run all that stuff again, reboot, run all my apps to make sure they all still work... maybe I'm being too careful, but when I don't run all that stuff something ends up not working. Can't all that stuff be part of their pre- and post-update procedures or something? I'm really really lazy and hate massaging my computer all the time. Not to mention having to hunt for the page that describes exactly what's in the update and what new goodies I should expect...
/gam/
what were we talking about again? Oh yeah. Vista. I'm *so* not switching back. Ever. hugs his ibook
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
Oh, don't worry. Their updates are slowly making it less and less stable. Eventually my wife will demand a new laptop... one that runs that other OS. Like the one I'm using right now which "just works". She hates me some days... but I know it's just mac-envy. Plus I'm not sure if saying "I don't have that problem on my computer" helps any.
/gam/
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
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.
Which is completely false.
One of the great things about OSS is that YOU can push the code in any direction you want. Microsoft is no exception to this.
They're free to fork the project any time they wish. The would NEVER be held hostage by an outside team.
The worst that would ever happen is that someone else would no longer be maintaing it for them for free. (Oh the horror!)
Life is too short to proofread.
Anyone who is running Windows XP and is not running SP2 is an idiot.
Took me a good 15 minutes to find http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0 DE2DB143FF932A3575AC0A961948260
1 997w3x.pdf
c ts
And some enigmatic stuff here: http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/archive/softlib/
And a cryptic reference to the Mach 10 and 20 here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeobsoleteprodu
Other than that, there is not much info left out there.
I think the Mach 10 was an 80186 with RAM and such on an 8-bit ISA card, probably an 8MHz or 12MHz part. The Mach 20 was a 80286, and cooler. Probably a 16MHz part. I think the Mach 10 would take 1.5MB RAM, as a heaping shovelful of 16- or 22-pin DRAM. The Mach 20 similar. Both had an InPort for Bus Mouse. I guess the Mach 20 could be had with or without the RAM expansion, and with or without an updated FDC to run 3.5" drives. I had an XT-Turbo at 8MHz that already handled 3.5" drives. Woot...
Just a quick look, but it seems about the only thing there with less info on it out there is Modern Jazz.
rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Oh
otherwise my XP machines need to be rebooted once every couple months
So you don't patch?
I don't think I've read an article more annoying than this before. Usually I lap up anything negative about MS or Windows, but this article is plain stupid.
... and wait... and wait... while the damn thing finds all your networked PCs and servers. In XP, this process is instantaneous."
Made all the worse by the authors need to talk up the quality of his opinion for the first 8 paragraphs.
It's a beta. Of course it has annoying bugs. The final betas for 2000 and XP had annoying bugs - many in Explorer. I remember a lot of pain and suffering using the betas. It's something you put up with to be able to use the software before it's final release. An "expert" should know this.
"So you open Network from the Start Menu and wait
It's a beta and a new OS. And there's any number of reasons for that sort of behaviour. It's hardly a reason to suggest it's not ready to shit.
"Here's a more insidious one. In Windows Vista Beta 2, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 would install but issue a warning when you ran it, noting that it was incompatible with Vista."
Is he seriously suggesting that because an app, not made by MS, that was released for XP, that reports that it is not compatible with Vista is becoming increasingly less compatible with Vista with each new beta, even though it has never been compatible with Vista is a reason for Vista not to be ready to ship?
What complete nonsense. If there are issues with the product, Adobe will release a new version. They may charge for it. Good on them. That's what happens when you upgrade apps.
"Or take IE 7. Please. I use IE for one thing and one thing only: The magazine's Web portal requires IE to post articles, and because I post WinInfo articles every day, I need to use IE. Every day. 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 I will have to use an older version of IE, in a virtual machine, to post WinInfo articles for the foreseeable future. Stupid."
Thew only thing stupid here is the above comment. Use a proprietary ActiveX control and you expose yourself to compatiblity problems. That sort of stuff should be considered when making the decision to use the control.
Somebody who had been working with Windows Betas for, heck, over 12 years, should know better.
"And then there's that wonderful "Recent Items" entry on the Start Menu."
Typical sort of problem you get in betas. It will work in the final release.
"And why does the screen have to "pop" so violently when it switches between Aero and Windows Standard...(That application, by the way, is Virtual PC, which is required because of the IE issue mentioned previously. Auuuuugghhhhhh! It's a re-entrant annoyance!)"
Because you are using a proprietary activex control. It happens. Get over it.
"Why did I just waste four years making nice album art for music folders and custom folder art for photos? Microsoft changed folders completely in Windows Vista, and all that work just got flushed down the virtual toilet. (Microsoft calls this toilet the "Recycle Bin " as opposed to Apple's toilet, which was called "Mac OS 9.")"
Don't know, but I agree you did waste your time.
I don't recall a time when vista wasn't going to change the file system and potentially affect things like that. MS have been quite open about it. Somebody who had been working with Windows Vista for a long, long time should know that.
The rest of the article are typical beta style bugs. They'll be fixed in a future release. You get that when you use betas.
"Users are going to freak when their hardware and software doesn't work right. They're going to lose it when they can't do things that were easy in XP but impossible in Vista."
The same was true moving from NT 3.51 to NT 4. And from NT 4 to Windows 2000. And from Windows 2000 to XP
They also count less because you have to pay for things which should have been in the first release.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
Windows is definitely not Vista ready yet. Did I read that right?
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.
On large projects it can take a week to write a single line, if that line is (say) a bugfix for an bizarre race condition emerging from the interaction of several components.
The problem with Vista all along is that MS got embroiled into scope runoff. They thought they could deliver the world in terms of features. All the plans and designs started off with that intent in mind and by the time they actually realized they couldnt deliver on most counts they had already dug themselves into such a deep hole that now merely making the OS survive with all those dropped features is going to be an uphill task. I can probably expect Vista to be an OS with a lot more bloat than any of its predessors because a lot of code for [insert favourite 'intended' feature here] simply doesnt exist at this point but the code is probably halfway there. Given the usual intention MS has of "integrating" everything I wont be a bit surprised if they cant undo the damage so far. Now they have a mind numbingly complex system thats too heavy to fly and too complex to fix. They have to release just to save face.
Obligatory Apple reference at Folklore.org.
J
we've about 65,000 desktops in Europe (same again in US, plus a chunk in Asia) and they're all going to Vista. We didn't move to XP as we still had perfectly adequate Win2K platform, supported by MS until 2010, so there was no real advantage moving to XP. Now's the time to look at our next generation as lifecycle for 2k's getting shorter - so we're going Vista. We're not alone in this - all the organisations who didn't really see the point in XP in a corporate setting when they already had Win2K will be in the same boat. If it's ready, then it's ready: putting it out on a corp volume licence implies they're satisfied it's up to enterprise-level stability. Going corp first implies their confidence that it *will* be ready is high. If it isn't, and they were to put out an unstable build on volume licencing then that'd be about it for MS...
I had been using Mepis for quite a while, and SuSE before that. I looked at Ubuntu/Kubuntu in earlier versions, but though I could see the potential I declined to go for it at that time; I have only now changed over to Kubuntu with the 6.06 Dapper Drake (Long Term Support) version, and all I can say is that to me it seems fantastic.
Everything I need "just works", pretty much, the only minor hassle, as usual with Linux, was getting non-free formats (DVD, MP3, Flash, Java, etc) working - but then there's EasyUbuntu for that and it's not very difficult anyway, just a matter of following instructions. Otherwise, it looks great, works great, and seems to be every bit a finished release ready to be used.
If Linux, with distributions like Kubuntu/Ubuntu/Xubuntu, carries on improving in usability, functionality, and reliability at the rate that has been happening then within a year or two there won't be anything to touch it. Vista will be doing well to be released at all by then, from what I can see!
At least FreeBSD anyway. Play around plugging in and pulling out UBS devices without unmounting them first while processes are still accessing them and see how long it takes for the kernel to crash. Believe me , it won't be long. The same trick also works for mounted floppy disks. Someone in BSD land seriously needs to revisit the kernel mount subsystem.
Embrace, extend, extinquish. Microsoft switching to Linux would totally be in line with their method of gaining and maintaining marketshare.
"I can crash Linux (NLD 9) in a matter of minutes with a small program (just while(fork()); and see how happy YOUR computer gets :-))."
;)
See "man ulimit". IOW PEBKAC or admin error.
Whether there should be restrictive default limits of process counts established in common Linux distributions is another question, though...
At least he could use XP. This just shows how fucking stupid these people are. They have nothing to do all day so they use a fulty OS.
Blah. Move along.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Reminds me of the end of the walmart southpark episode, where the town set out to destroy a monopoly, by all shopping at the "small" shop, creating a new one.
Business is business, and people who think Apple are saints are completely naive, they're not, they're just smaller. They've done just as many anti-innovation things as anyone, dating right back to when they held and enforced a patent on allowing windows to *overlap*.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
A beta version has all the features that the final should have, has them in approximately the right spot, and is about bug-hunting.
Playing with an OS is not working with it. It shows you nothing of how the OS behaves, and only allows you to give the most shallow of reviews (e.g. "Well, it started up fine, and it looked nice, and then I shut it down again."). Actually subjecting it to real-life use brings out problems.
Many consumers will be sucked into buying what is increasingly appearing to be an inferior product because the salespeople in computer stores dont know ( or care) any better, and they have sales targets to meet ...... and prolly XP will disappear from shelves anyway, so the only MS os available will be vista, good bad or indifferent.
As a consumer that just wants the stuff I buy to work and work properly, it look like a good excuse to not "upgrade" and even to "switch"
Actually I think that as long as a product works and works properly, most consumers will wait if they believe that the wait will deliver a superior product.
Cheers
Sounds like my general expierience when installing a Linux distro.
May the Maths Be with you!
A clue that you could have spotted even without said experience: the guy compares installing itunes on Windows XP and installing perl modules in an unidentified Linux distro... Sound fair to you? ;)
With some shiney metal and a black pot, and some scrap pipe I can make a distillation apparatus. I can make a pretty good one if I can get some valves.
With a distillation apparatus, I can make all manner of volatile organics.
With volatile organics, I can make weapons and medicine.
With volatile organics as a base I can make polymers.
With volatile organics, I can make internal combustion work.
With polymers, I can make plastics.
Oil is not required; oil is primarily needed to support LARGE numbers of people as a energy source, and a convienent means to store energy for transportation.
The biggest issue with restarting civiliation would be dealing with all the religious nut-cases and cults, as a plunge into a dark age is a major risk. Assuming you can deal with that, the rest is actually pretty easy. The problems would start if you had the generation with the skills - the scientists, the engineers - all die because a fanatical dark age appeared. Then, all bets are off.
The big thing to come out of European Civilization was secular humanism. The rest follows.
..don't panic
Hurray for anecdotal evidence!
Perhaps an explanation is that you perceive that platform to be more stable because the crashes cause a quiet re-boot, which is quickly (for you) forgotten.
Anyway, since we're swapping anecdotes, my experience is that XP goes belly up about once a week. I can't remember the last time I haven't seen a public XP site (kiosks, public stations, displays, visible staff stations) without at least one machine noticiably hung. When I ask XP users how often they have an unplanned restart, it's usually several times a month. Sometimes it's more, depending on how much they use the machine. That does not meet my definition of stable.
Perhaps it's 'more stable' simply through a re-definition of stable. When I hear Windows fanbois going an about how 'stable' XP is, rather than refuting directly I have started to ask that they explain what they mean by that. Generally they seem to mean 'more stable' as in 'more stable than NT 4.5'. When asked how it compares to Newtare or Solaris, they go on about how those don't count as they are in a whole other (better) class of 'stable'.
Cry me a river. /. is not 'anti-MS' just for something to do. Real, legitimate gripes about poor quality, over-priced products and predatory business practices cannot be dismissed simply as bashing. Enough problems from one company and you get the back side of brand recognition. The 'bashing' will stop when the products and behaviors improve, but to-date it looks like more of the same instead.
Simply calling product 'stable' doesn't make it stable, nor does whinging about critique.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I then plan on putting it in a drawer somewhere for quite some time though....
Hey Microsoft hurry up and get this thing done before my student discount days are over. If I have to pay full price I think I'll be waiting a few years. During which time I will be getting more acquainted with Ubuntu.
was .. Re:I've been using beta and haven't had any proble
davecb5620@gmail.com
"It is the opinion of most of IT professionals I work with that 99% of Windows XP crashes are due to sub-par driver programming by non-Microsoft developers"
:)
.. people who install and use Linux systems are part of the other 20%"
You're kidding right? That would add up to a grand total of one. Search Google groups on 'Windows XP crash' results 192,000
"To use customer calls as a source of evidence that Windows XP is unstable is rediculous"
You mean it's evidence that it isn't unstable
"80% of Windows users are more destructive
There is no causal relationship between the number of support calls and the quality of the users. Perhaps there are more XP support calls because it is a crap OS.
"In response to the "GNU/Linus" servers you run: What evidence do you have that they are more stable?"
Because he don't have to reinstall every three months or after a 'service pack' borked the system.
"My experience has been if I install a package without knowing exactly how it will effect the system I'm going to have unexpected problems with stability. This is true for Windows and Linux systems alike."
Not true I'm afraid. You're confusing 'Linus' with Windows. Apart from kernel or library updates an application only installs into its own directory. Uninstalling consists of removing the offending application. Totally removing an application under Windows is near impossible. With Linux it's also unneccessary to do the logout/shutdown/reboot shuffle.
"the same logic I used before: If it requires more technical knowledge to install a package on a Linux system you will get fewer unexpected problems just because Windows-based applications have wizards"
That is an illogical statement if you don't mind me saying so. Ease of use under Windows does not equate to harder to use under Linux. What happens if the Wizard fails, which it frequently does. Under SuSE click on Control Center (YaST), click on software, click install or uninstall.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Just a note - SP2 will install those 15 updates that you had to do prior to SP2.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
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
Try again. They're 100% better now. No, really, we're using Dapper Drake (Ubuntu 6.06) in a production environment here at work. LOVE.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Microsoft develops IE to keep MSN the homepage on as many computers as possible. With the demise of ActiveX, there's no need for it to drive standards anymore. The hottest and easiest-to-develop standards aren't Microsoft anymore, even in a corporate environment. Nobody buys Windows because the web works better on it.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
This is a model that MS could use as well. Open up or borrow the base layers, and build on top of it.
Their base layer (=NT kernel) is good enough.. I don't see how Vista would profit from a Mach kernel...
Georg
"... 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..."
--- Really? How about this. Give someone a home built system, fresh harddrive, then give them a WinXP/2000/2003 CD/DVD, then hand them a Linux (or BSD) CD/DVD, and have them install. My guess they will be frustrated with both equally, most likely moreso with Windows because they don't have the existing driver support usually on the installation CD/DVD.
The issue is what you just labeled. 'Maybe learn how to use windows?'. When 99% of every system is sold with an OEM version of windows (where you don't have the original CD's to reinstall if you lose or corrupt the system mind you) how many people out there using it can you seriously say know how to 'use it'? Or really give a rats ass on bothering to learn?
Yet these are the same people who piss and moan about Linux being 'evil' or 'hard to learn'. Rather funny how that works.
Fact is, if you 'know how to make Windows work' you're still rebooting it every few weeks, if for nothing else than patching. And sorry to say, this DOES constitute down time. Linux (and most unix systems) don't need to be rebooted for the patches (barring kernel upgrades which happen in a blue moon).
Or better yet, do (what most people do) and have windows auto-update you. Always a fun thing when a patch partially fails and you're left with an unstable system. Oh that's right, just boot in single user mode, restore previous session (if you're lucky) or maybe uninstall it and cross your fingers that things wern't overwritten, because it shows in a log exactly what files were touched with the patch so you can recover from it, right? Oh yea, it doesn't.
For crashes? Try running multiple applications that are highly CPU intensive at the same time. Then talk to me again on how stable windows truely is.
So sir, it is I who call bullshit.
...with no coordination of those 2,000 coders required whatsoever.
What scale? Its XP with 10 million lines of bloat added.
Do the maths. 10 million lines devided by 2,000 coders = 5,000 lines each. Thats a puny project.
"She said turd!"
It has a fingerprint reader for logon, which is fun (if bad for security).
Why is it bad? Do users get a false sense of security?
Quite clearly not a lie if you allow for the passage of considerable time.
The original Apples appeared/became sufficiently available about 1985. Our first one was a Mac 512K from about 1986. Opposite to compare with was DOS, and Apple won hands down.
Thus began my Apple Fanboy period. It lasted all the way to 1998, though the last few years were spent stretching every last month out of a Classic II. That ended when the monitor caught fire. For the "official dates" of 1986-1994, Mac OS 5 through 8 had a clear progression, and I wasn't yet a power user.
I received a Free(Beer) Win98 machine in 1998, so down the road I went. Win98, Win2k twice, and I waited until the completion of Sp2 to get into XP. Last Christmas, I looked at Father's 10.x Laptop, and definitely did not care for the standard OS10 look.
Not a liar. Which is why you didn't append a name.
The Preview Word is "remorse", which I do not feel.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
No. The worst that could happen is that porting Windows applications to other operating systems would become easier. IE is a component used by many Windows programs; if Microsoft switched to Firefox, not only would it need to leave IE there to support those programs, but any new programs would use Firefox instead of IE, making them easier to port to Linux, BSD or whatever.
Windows is an inferior product compared to almost anything; what keeps it alive is the host of programs that only work on Windows. Even it being pre-installed is not sufficient anymore, since newer Linux distributions are very easy to install - put the CD in the drive and turn on the computer, in the case of LiveCDs. Hardware support is also very good nowadays - 3D cards are the only problems, but NVIDIAs drivers are pretty much "run me and answer yes to everything" to install.
For Microsoft to lose its lock-in means death. No one uses it for its own merits, since it doesn't have any. Even games generally work better under Linux, presumably due to more efficient memory management and better scheduler. Embracing any kind of standards is a death sentence for Microsoft.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Yeah, I hear that all the time. "You know, we'd like to switch to WIndows but our existing web app suite just doesn't work on IE!"
On Slashdot even, there are always people saying "hey, design for Firefox, Opera and Safari first. If you've got time make your stuff work with IE."
With IE's slip away from the high nineties marketshare things have changed a bit. MS doesn't wield as much power over the web anymore, but that just emphasizes the point.
...it'll be rolled out WHEN WE'RE READY, AND WHEN WE'VE QUALIFIED IT. it's not going out as soon as the corp isos are first released, for fuck's sake. I'm just saying we WILL move to Vista, rather than staying on 2000. Any fool who asks "how hard would it be to move to Linux" whilst assuming the answer is "not very" is an idiot.
Yes actually. I have had some who didn't realize that they should still change their password from the default. Also, a determined hacker can use Gummi Bears to fool them.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.