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."

Comments

If even Thurrott is saying this...

[daveschroeder]

...how can Microsoft still be saying RTM by November with corporate available in December?

How can Vista possibly be ready on time?

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[timster]

Well, they say that, but when pressed on the issue they insist that they will definitely release on those dates, for sure, as long as it's ready. When asked whether it will be ready, the answer is that they are pretty sure. Bottom line is that nobody in the whole world can say with any certainty when Vista will actually be released.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You make the mistake of assuming that release == ready.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Schemat1c]

How can Vista possibly be ready on time?

They should just change the name to Microsoft Vista Forever and then they can take as long as they want.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Khomar]

Bottom line is that nobody in the whole world can say with any certainty when Vista will actually be released.

That is a reality of life that we all too often overlook. Nothing is certain until it happens, and even then our interpretation of it may be incorrect. Even if they were the most organized company in the world with stellar software engineering skills, Mount Rainier could erupt causing the release to be delayed (to put it mildly). No one can tell you with absolute certainty what will happen this afternoon let alone tomorrow or six months from now (except for God, but most people here don't believe in Him anyway). I dare say that even the best of us could not say with certainty the exact day that a project of this scale would be released.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[networkBoy]

"I dare say that even the best of us could not say with certainty the exact day that a project of this scale would be released."

While not an exact day, I feel comportable saying: before the heat death of the universe... maybe.

-nB

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Aqua OS X]

It'll probably ship around that time, but I doubt it will be ready.

It looks like MS is going to do what Apple did with OS X. They're going to get Vista "good enough" and ship that. By the end of the year massive patches will have finally made it usable.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Thurrott isn't a Microsoft shill

You've got to be joking. I've traded emails with this guy, and his lack of technical knowledge is surprising. He actually argued with me at one point that Apple's Spotlight was inferior search technology because it requires plug-ins to tell it how to read third-party file formats. I mentioned that Vista's search technology wasn't powered by a goddamn crystal ball and requires the same thing to read third-party file formats. He didn't reply.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Fred_A]

Unfortunately, our sun will have run well before then and the universe's time counter will have run out of bits.

Isn't that what 128 bit computing is for ? So that Vista can display the current date whenever it's released ?

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[jcr]

. He actually argued with me at one point that Apple's Spotlight was inferior search technology because it requires plug-ins to tell it how to read third-party file formats.

He was probably echoing something that some clown from MIcrosoft sputtered in reaction to Spotlight.

The funny thing about that is that it's Spotlight that sent MS back to the drawing board on this whole searching buiness. Their previous plan was that third party developers would have to conform their way of storing documents to work with the filesystem-as-RDMBS model, unlike the spotlight model where you write an importer that decides what metadata matters for your particular document types.

Right after spotlight was shown, MS went out in a panic to buy something that looked like it, and they grabbed an app that did full-text indexing of mailboxes.

-jcr

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[pilkul]

I don't know if you're joking or not, but that's hardly a good way to measure the amount of work involved. 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.

Re:If even Thurrott is saying this...

[Wolfrider]

Plus, I heard that when Vista is finally ready to ship, it will arrive bundled with a FREE copy of Duke Nukem Forever!!
:b

the force is strong with this one.

[User 956]

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.

There is a vote on this in the beta program

[gcnaddict]

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

Then wait

[truthsearch]

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.

Re:Then wait

[JonTurner]

>>What about the great hordes of corporate Microsoft certified IT weenies
>If MS drops the ball hard enough, for long enough, Apple will take these customers.

You don't know how true this is. Way back when, I was a Mac developer and my shop was also involved with the Windows 3.0 beta. The contrast was striking -- Microsoft reps treated us like gold -- they sent us free compilers, books, checked in to see how we were doing, offered assistance, etc. Apple, however, charged a small fortune for their compiler/development tools (MPW), we bought the multi-volume Inside Macintosh documentation out-of-pocket, paid for membership in their developer's groups, etc. The difference was like night and day. Apple acted like it could live without us, MSFT acted as though it COULDN'T live without us. Microsoft made it cheap and easy to port our software to Windows and made us want to develop for Windows.

Flash forward to 2006. I believe the tables have largely turned. OSX is a great environment to be productive, Apple includes their fantastic XCode development environment and developer documentation with every new Mac, etc. Meanwhile, Microsoft now charges a LOT of $$ for Visual Studio Enterprise Extreme Radical 2008 .Net (and yes, I am aware it is technically possible to develop .net apps from the command line just as it's technically possible to build your own house using nothing more than an axe and a drill) and unless you wanna get screwed and pay full price next year when there's an update you'll pay to join their developer club. IMO, MSFT has gotten complacent and Apple is now wooing developers.

The Alpha geeks I know are now carrying Macbooks and writing code on Macs. Funny what a difference a couple decades makes.

Re:Then wait

[kfg]

it's technically possible to build your own house using nothing more than an axe and a drill. . .

And if I've got an axe, I'll make the drill. Actually, only the axe head is the important bit to start out with, although chopping down that first hickory might go a bit slow.

Ahhhhhhhhh, screw it. I'm just gonna build with stone and mud.

KFG

Re:Then wait

[kfg]

In my spare cycles I think about what it would take to reconstitute civilization from scratch.

In my spare time I actually go out and try it. I've posted about some of it over the years.

Making the jump to metal (and I'm talking copper, not iron) is the highest hurdle, even if you already know how it's done. After that it's really all downhill, but not, as most people might expect, because it makes things possible. I can make a drill that will put a hole through a block of granite with nothing but plants and a bit of sand. Metal just makes things so much faster that one man can accomplish more in a given unit of time.

I mean, what if the whole of the world was reduced to the technology of Survivor Island, basically subsistance living?

See that phrase up there; "even if you know how it's done"?

It's the figuring shit out that takes the time. I guesstimate that a group of about 24 people on a reasonably resource rich land and sufficiently motivated to do so could rebuild from standing naked to pre atomics in about a decade, if they already know how shit's done (oh yeah, and if none of them have modern "issues." The big, strong lug is gonna haul stone and five foot two, eyes of blue is gonna spin and weave; and that's the way it is).

To save technology don't save too many things, save knowledge and make the things from it. Turns out that people are really quite capable of making some amazing things from nearly nothing. Who woulda thunk it?

Nor are we always as advanced as we think we are today. See those blue jeans you're wearing? Ancient Egyptian technology, only if he needed to the Egyptian would know how to duplicate them starting with no more tools than his bare hands. If you'll settle for linen instead of cultivated cotton all you need can be found along nearly any riverbed.

That's actually how American pioneers went west. They didn't carry much in the way of clothing because they knew all they needed to acquire more was a riverbed and some time. We're talking fine woven linens here, not crude bearskins or something.

The most prized possession they tossed into the wagon in Conestoga? An axe head. That first bit of worked metal is a godsend.

KFG

Re:Then wait

[Rimbo]

Yes, but the MPW compiler did have those groovy error messages...

These are some of the error messages produced by Apple's MPW C compiler. These are all real. (If you must know I was bored one afternoon and decompiled the String resources for the compiler.) The compiler is 324k in size so these are just an excerpt I hope. I'm not sure where I stand on the copyright issue. Tony Cunningham

"String literal too long (I let you have 512 characters, that's 3 more than ANSI said I should)"

"...And the lord said, 'lo, there shall only be case or default labels inside a switch statement'"

"a typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program"

"'Volatile' and 'Register' are not miscible"

"You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler"

"This struct already has a perfectly good definition"

"type in (cast) must be scalar; ANSI 3.3.4; page 39, lines 10-11 (I know you don't care, I'm just trying to annoy you)"

"Can't cast a void type to type void (because the ANSI spec. says so, that's why)"

"Huh ?"

"can't go mucking with a 'void *'"

"we already did this function"

"This label is the target of a goto from outside of the block containing this label AND this block has an automatic variable with an initializer AND your window wasn't wide enough to read this whole error message"

"Call me paranoid but finding '/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious"

"Too many errors on one line (make fewer)"

"Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a RAM upgrade from your local Apple dealer"

"Trailing comma not permitted in enum definition. (This time I'm letting you off with a warning)"

Re:Then wait

[ScuzzMonkey]

Ah, but it's not just the knowledge, it's the availability of the resources.

You get to the point where you start needing petroleum products, how easy is it going to be to get access to those oil reserves with your bootstrap technology, now that all the easy pickings are gone? Same thing with a lot of metals... the easily accessed deposits have been mined out, and the hard to get at stuff requires higher technology... which may well require the hard to get at stuff in the first place. Catch 22.

I think what things would look like if we had to restart civilization from scratch would involve entirely different kinds of figuring shit out... it would be about reuse and recycling rather than re-implementing old technologies from whole cloth. Why spend time with wood and stone when you've got a bunch of metal already laying around? I don't think the jump to metal actually would be the hard part; I think the jump to non-petrochemical bases would be the hard part.

Yeah, yeah, it's all off-topic, mod me down, I know.

Of course it's not ready - it's still beta.

[RonnyJ]

Of course it's not ready - it's still a beta - it hasn't even reached the first 'Release Candidate' stage.

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:

Will it be ready in time? Actually, I think it could be.

Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta.

[MrFlibbs]

Ah, but TFA also predicts an October release date would be followed by a steady stream of patches. The gist of the article is that several things are seriously broken and Microsoft should not ship Vista until it's ready, whenever that is. He admits he has no idea if that's this October or August 2007.

The article also raises the question as to why enterprise users are getting Vista first since they typically are slow to update. Perhaps because they're already paying for upgrades? TFA doesn't pose an answer -- the author just says he doubts very many will attempt an upgrade until SP1 and so why not give it to the consumers first.

Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta.

[laffer1]

Here's a possible answer. Many of the new consumer level features aren't present in corporate versions of Vista. Microsoft might be trying to get the core os done and then give them a little more time with the end user fluff. It might also be a shakedown cruise. IT people will most likely start testing vista right away for later deployment and find bugs in the process. I suspect a very quick SP1 release within 3-5 months of corporate customers getting it. Remember NT4 had a service pack immediately. Its also possible they will pull their old games and release a "b" release and later do a special edition or some crap. Windows Server R2 reminds me of Windows 98 SE. It allows them to EOL buggy software faster after they've got a service pack or two under their belts. It also is a great revenue source as people re-buy what they already have. Ballmer is calling the shots now and he's a greedy guy.

Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta.

[dan828]

The answer (put forth by a MS guy at a seminar I attended), is that many enterprise users bought software assurance contracts with the understanding that they'd get Vista as part of the contract, and a good portion of those contracts will be ending this December. No Vista this year would mean some bad PR at the enterprise level.

And yes, this is entirely hearsay.

Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta.

[Overly Critical Guy]

More importantly though, will it be ready in time?

That's the freakin' point of his article, Sherlock.

All Thurrott says is that it's possible, if Microsoft is able to fix all the current bugs. But it's been stated many times that this product is the buggiest of any Windows beta ever this late into the cycle. He says he could be proven wrong tomorrow.

FTA

[Reverend528]

In other words, Microsoft should have simply pulled an Id Software and said they'd ship Windows Vista when it was ready. Period.

I believe that is called "pulling a 3d Realms".

Stating the obvious.

[Chaffar]

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 :)

Remember Windows 95?

[MSFanBoi2]

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...

Re:Remember Windows 95?

[XCondE]

Duh. Do you also remember the alternatives? Hm.. OS2 was quite alright actually; if only it could print. :)

Why does he use it then?

[10Ghz]

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?

Re:Why does he use it then?

[gEvil (beta)]

I can't think of anything that Apple's officially announced for any version of OS X that they later pulled. As for security, yes, they release security updates. And they even release them when they're ready rather than waiting for the second Tuesday of the month...

Won't get fooled again

[amliebsch]

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!

Hm sounds like deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

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 :(.

Re:Hm sounds like deja vu

[monoqlith]

Because he gets to feed and clothe himself and perhaps his family with the money he makes there, I'm guessing.

Agreed. My two cents...

[antdude]

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). :)

Re:Agreed. My two cents...

[antdude]

Here is what even funny. Co-workers have Dell machines (Intel Pentium 4 CPUs) with 1-2 GB of RAM, and THEIRS run slower than mine!!

wow

[dolson]

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.

Of course it's not ready yet

[From A Far Away Land]

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.

Don't care

[resmungo]

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.

Re:Don't care

[steveo777]

As long as Vista doesn't end up like Windows ME, I'll be happy. ME was the absolute worst Windows OS experience EVER. I'd rather run 3.1. Back when ME came out, I worked as a tech intern for a warehouse/distribution center. There was me and my boss. That was it for tech support there. He would by Dell workstations every few months when one of the PCs crapped out and I couldn't fix it with spare parts. It was 2001 and there were still a lot of Windows 95 and a few 3.1 machines still being used. The 3.1 machines were out in the warehouse and my boss didn't care what happened to them, or about the fact that I was out rebooting them three times a day.

The thing that got me the most is that he was adament that windows NT, 98, 95, and ME were all more stable than 2000 which came on the new machines. I even set up tests where I left an NT, ME, and 2000 machine running with Office 97 running on each for three days. The NT machine was running like a slug, the ME machine BSODed after about 6 hours and two more times. In the end, he allowed 2000 on my machine, but the reality of it was that he was afraid to learn a new OS.

Re:Is it ready? no. so?

[peragrin]

There is a major difference betwen a F/OSS beta and a MSFT beta.

F/OSS beta's are basically feature complete and are being error tested.

MSFT beta's don't even have the full feature set yet and are being error tested while new or rewritten componets are being set into place for the first time.

I have been using Firefox since the 0.3 days of Phoneix. Since that time it has maybe crashed 2 dozen times. Can you say the same about ANY MSFT product?

To some, this is a lot of headache

[whoisvaibhav]

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.

casual gaming

[minus_273]

" 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

That's all I gots to say about that....

[Mykid8yours]

"...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.

Getting biz to upgrade

[Danathar]

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.

Hey - he mentions Slashdot...

[Bobby Orr]

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.

The more Vista gets delayed...

[linguae]

...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.

Re:The more Vista gets delayed...

[Yvan256]

If only there were a girl that was like this OS....

You mean, a girl like this?

Re:The more Vista gets delayed...

[MBCook]

No kidding. I switched last year and I expect OS X to be a little better. I was amazed what the difference was, and using XP often drives me nuts because of how much it misbehaves.

Now I read about Vista being worse than XP, popping up "Enter administrator password" boxes all the time, etc. They already took out all the interesting Vista features (WinFS, for one).

The fact is, when Tiger was previewed Apple had all those banners that said "Redmond, start your photocopiers". They obviously need new ones, because in that time they have not only not managed to copy most of the features, but Apple is about to release the NEXT set of great stuff at about the same time as MS's copy of Apple's last 3-5 years.

If there is something everyone in the computer industry should pay attention to, it's the WWDC keynote on Monday. Vista has become a joke, and I don't expect much to change. Even if they can release it on time working perfectly with all the features they currently say it will have... it will be outdated and uninteresting.

Re:Vista?

[rapett0]

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.

linux or windows?

[edmicman]

So which is more difficult for XP users to switch to? Linux or Vista?

Things that isn't working anymore on my Vista

[pcontezini]

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.

Folder Art

[flathead_iv]

Why did I just waste four years making nice album art for music folders and custom folder art for photos?

Yes, why?

Just Plain Bad

[HermMunster]

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.

Re:Just Plain Bad

[hackstraw]

I can take the pain of a troll or flamebait mod, but from memory, this search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for the disappointment is what Windows has been like since 95. It kills me when I'm having Linux issues that are oftentimes obscure and rare and I'm talking with people that come from Windows backgrounds, they say, "Did you download the latest drivers?" "Did you reboot?" I bite my tongue and think to myself, "Real operating systems come with drivers and don't need chronic reboots for them to run. Rebooting means, not running".

Maybe I'm just getting old or spoiled by Macs, but is there an end in sight to the mantra of fetch driver and reboot and accept things as they are?

I don't reboot my car, and don't chronically have to update it, and search the web to drive it. I don't have to screw around with my timed thermostat for my house, search the web, reboot, and screw with it. I don't have to do this with my DVR which is a computer and works well. I don't have to do this with my Mac either.

IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes that just work like microwaves, car stereos, cars, and everything else. They are not a religion or a cult, they are appliances that do stuff.

I guess I am getting old, and I'll gladly take my sysadmin paycheck for monkeying with Linux, Solaris, BSD, and any other *NIX variant that gets the job done, but for general stuff, I'll just buy a computer that just works. No spyware, no viruses, no popups, none of that crap.

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[Senzei]

I think they've given up on Windows for the future, and are looking elsewhere for help.

This has to be some kind of a troll, no one with any speck of sense in their head would possibly believe something this stupid.

Why it matters this time around

[Hairy1]

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.

Latest build is error free...

[suggsjc]

...broke bug report

Microsoft: We have received no errors from this last build...it must be ready to ship!

Re:Vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Anecdotal evidence an argument does not make

[vertinox]

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 don't care what anyone says...

[shoolz]

I'm still downgrading to Vista the second it's released.

Re:Vista?

[sid77]

I admit to using GNU/Linus on servers

I tried GNU/Stallman on a desktop but it was too bloated :D
ciao

Re:Vista?

[adwb]

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.

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[codemachine]

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.

Re:Vista?

[jozeph78]

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.

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".

Not Linux...

[MsGeek]

...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.

Re:Not Linux...

[timeOday]

The difficulty with Windows is NOT in anything that BSD could provide... a scheduler, a network stack, a filesystem. In fact there's nothing really wrong with Micrsoft's NT kernel anyways. Microsoft's value (and at the same time, their bane) is in supporting all the PC hardware and software from thousands of companies over the last 15 years, and in providing a reasonable GUI to manage it all. What Microsoft calls an "OS" is not analogous to an entire Linux distro (with 1000s of user apps), but neither is it analogous to the classical definition of an OS as "whatever runs in priveliged mode, plus a little more." The real issues, I think, are in providing an integrated user experience between all the little apps and administration utilities that are part of Windows - from firewalling, to remote administration, to a flashy GUI, Internet Explorer, and on and on...

Hasta la Vista baby..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Vista will definitely be released before the year 2029; The Terminator clearly tells you this when he says "Hasta la Vista, baby".

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[NetCow]

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.

Re:Vista?

[colmore]

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?

This is insightful?!

[Svartalf]

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.

Apparently none of you...

[rickb928]

... 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

Re:Apparently none of you...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You forgot XP, so I assume you're with me in the group that stayed with 2000"

The large group that stayed with 2000, as in those of us who have a clue! ;)

XP is a festering pile of dog shit... it is several steps backwards from 2000 in my opinion. And I am sure Vista will be many steps further backwards! If it ever sees the light of day...

And M$ lies about the number of copies of XP deployed, they assume each license sold == an installed copy. WRONG! Since they have most large companies on this rip off "software assurance" program (which basically just assures M$ makes more money) they forced these companies to buy new XP licenses when XP came out. In order to stay in software assurance you are required to purchase the latest version of each M$ product you license as new versions of these products come out. In return you get discounts on the cost of these new licenses. If you refuse to purchase the new licenses your software assurance for that product expires, and next time you want to purchase an upgrade to a new version they will charge you the normal rip off rates. So in order to try and save money in the long run these large companies all bought XP licenses when it came out, even though they still run Windows 2000. And since you get downgrade rights with each license you can continue to deploy Windows 2000 in your organization even though you are buying new XP licneses. So there are a LARGE number of companies that still primarily run Windows 2000, even thought they where forced to buy all new XP licenses. Of course M$ wants you to think that XP is a success in the coporate world, so they go touting the number of licenses sold and try to make it sound like "everyone is switching to XP!". When in reality the majority of copies of XP deployed today are on home user systems and notebooks, both cases where you have no choice in the OS, XP is forced on you.

Any one ever notice that M$ was able to force all the major computer vendors to put the same "insertnamehere Recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional" tag on their web sites? In basically the same place using about the same font on every web site?!?!? If you don't beleive me or have not noticed this your self check it out! Browse for computers at some of the big OEMs sites and you will see what I mean. It was around the time that this happened, several years ago, that M$ forced all the major vendors to stop offering Windows 2000 as an option on new desktops and notebooks. This is why XP is "so successful" in the consumer sector and business notebook sector. It's because these people don't have a choice. Your average home user cannot install their own OS, and with a notebook you are typically locked into the exact version of the OS it shipped with. I know plenty of people who wanted to buy a new notebook but still wanted to run Win2K, but are refused that option. Of course if you know what you are doing, and generic Win2K drivers are available for all the chipsets in your notebook, you can pull this off your self. But it doesn't work in all cases and some features, such as sepcial function keys, don't exist in the generic drivers.

These are the reasons why M$ can claim XP is a success. Lies about deployment numbers in coporate networks, and forcing the hands of all the major OEMs. But's it's all crap! I'll stick with Fedora Core and Win2K thank you very much!

Is Paul Thurrott credible?

[toadlife]

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.

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[Elektroschock]

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.

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[mreed911]

Why does Ms develop IE when there is Firefox? IE is a product that is not sold. No one buys Windows because of IE.

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?

Laughing out Loud at the Apologist.

[twitter]

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.

... beta testers simply like their exclusive little clique to continue as long as possible

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

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[ceoyoyo]

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.

Re:Considering their recent acquisitions:

[pnewhook]

IBM sells services and the occasional bit of hardware

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.

not here

[RMH101]

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...

Re:not here

[sc00ch]

You've already decided to roll out an operating system that isn't finished or tested in your environment to 65,000 desktops? Thats a wise move... Whats your plan B?