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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?
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/
No point in having an OS that frustrates you when you already are using one that frustrates you less. Users don't care about release deadlines (other than some who want the latest toys ASAP). The only people who care about Vista release "deadlines" are corporate stock holders. There's no value in rushing it out if you end up angering customers who may later switch to another vendor.
Developers: We can use your help.
More importantly though, will it be ready in time? From the relevant part of the article, which of course is omitted from the Slashdot summary:
I believe that is called "pulling a 3d Realms".
Badass Resumes
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).
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.
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.
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.
So which is more difficult for XP users to switch to? Linux or Vista?
Yes, why?
No kidding. I switched last year and I expect OS X to be a little better. I was amazed what the difference was, and using XP often drives me nuts because of how much it misbehaves.
Now I read about Vista being worse than XP, popping up "Enter administrator password" boxes all the time, etc. They already took out all the interesting Vista features (WinFS, for one).
The fact is, when Tiger was previewed Apple had all those banners that said "Redmond, start your photocopiers". They obviously need new ones, because in that time they have not only not managed to copy most of the features, but Apple is about to release the NEXT set of great stuff at about the same time as MS's copy of Apple's last 3-5 years.
If there is something everyone in the computer industry should pay attention to, it's the WWDC keynote on Monday. Vista has become a joke, and I don't expect much to change. Even if they can release it on time working perfectly with all the features they currently say it will have... it will be outdated and uninteresting.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
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.
"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.
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.
...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".
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.
... 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.
Hell no.
I've been a "Windows guy" (admin) for many years now, and I have a pretty decent understanding of how the NT line of Windows works - particularly the security model. Up until Vista started getting all of this pub, I had never heard of the "Windows expert", Paul Thurrott. After reading his first flaming of Vista, where he bashed it for prompting him to delete an icon the all users desktop, I knew why I had never heard of him; He doesn't know all that much about Windows. Thurrott is your classic "Mouse Click Selection Expert", Windows user. He knows where all the buttons are in Windows that "do stuff", but he has absolutely no clue what's going on under the hood.
Most of his bashing of Vista has involved issues with UAC. This is an area (security) where his knowledge of Windows hovers right around zero. I really don't don't think he fully grasps how big an endeavor it is to switch over a user base of 500 million from an OS where everyone runs as "root" and takes those privileges for granted to an OS where everyone runs with a lower privileged token (and I bet Thurrott doesn't even know what a token in Windows is). Apple did it with OSX, but instead of fully supporting legacy apps, they damned the old OS/Apps to virtual machine hell.
I managed to STFA (Skimmed the Fine Article), and sure enough Paul's big griped have to do with things that are totally out of Microsoft's control. Specifically, he bitched that his Photoshop Elements doesn't work, and he bitched that some (ActiveX laden??) website didn't work in IE7. I've run Vista on several different computers both at home and at work, and not had any problems that were not related to third party software or drivers.
It very well could be that I, knowing quite a bit about Windows, don't perceive Vista as having huge problems, even though it does, so I won't declare Vista "ready". Thurrott on the other hand is hardly qualified to declare Vista "not ready", as his expectations of what an operating system should be able to do are unreasonable.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Apple sort of did it with OS X, basing it on Mach and BSD instead of Linux (well actually it was NextStep, but whatever). This is a model that MS could use as well
True, just another 5 years of development. Or microsoft licenses Tiger and builds a wine based compatibility layer...
but honest: Why does Ms develop IE when there is Firefox? IE is a product that is not sold. No one buys Windows because of IE.
MS may outsource a lot to open source... It is an ideology trap created by the media.
If I had mod points I'd mod you insightful. Why indeed?
Some could/would argue that Microsoft develops and releases IE because they have to refine their own networking and shell (explorer) code, and IE is just a UI on top of those that happens to hit http:/// links. They'd say that if they depended on Firefox, and Firefox "understood" that as a developer community, that Firefox could influence the direction of Windows development because it would be a core component - and one that Microsoft doesn't control.
I tend to agree with that. Microsoft doesn't want to spend cycles on a "free" product that's become ubiquitous... but they don't have a choice - they can't give up control to an outside developer pool and cede control over the direction of Windows in re WWW access. So, given that they have to maintain control, and maintaining control requires maintaining, to a degree, market share, they can burn just enough cycles to a) make it work enough for 90% of people out there and b) add enough new things / change enough things to generate PR about "why IE is teh bomb!"
You do remember that IE was, at one point, sold on store shelves and had a SKU, right?
Gaaa, look at all the excuse making and shine on. While the problems he's having are very funny from a man who so often uses the phrase, "just works" to describe things that don't, the double think involved is disturbing. What does it take to cure a fanboy?
Businesses have never lined up to install a new Microsoft operating system. They always install new Windows versions gingerly and years after the fact. We're all familiar with the "wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1)" mantra that many enterprises extol.
XP is on Service pack 2 but Windoze 2000 is still the most used "enterprise" desktop OS. Why? Because M$ has not added anything of value in six years. Conservative practices are not an adequate excuse here.
beta testers never think any Windows version is ready: If we left the ship decision to testers, we'd still be testing Windows XP.
The beta testers are right. With rooted Microsoft machines making up 80% of the world's spam, we can say that no version of their OS is ready, despite the newest being six years old.
I'm not sure what issue he has with this attitude. It takes non free software to create software elitism and it's all based on someone else calling the shots for you.
And then there are the online pundits, many of whom are barely old enough to legally buy alcohol. These guys are classic. Let's just say that a lack of experience and a strongly worded opinion don't result in the most coherent of arguments and leave it at that.
Once again, what a hypocrite.
We might call Windows Vista a "train wreck" for simplicity's sake. But it's getting better. Seriously.
Others have noticed he does this every release, shilling to get people ready to buy second rate.
[bad GUI complaints] So you open Network from the Start Menu and wait ... and wait... and wait... while the damn thing finds all your networked PCs and servers. In XP, this process is instantaneous.
Instantaneous? Microsoft's brain, dead Netbios broadcast based networking protocol has never been instantaneous, quick or reliable. They made it complex in a failed attempt to keep others from being able to work with it. It compares very poorly to something like sftp through konqueror, where you can use organized bookmark folders to very quickly, securely and reliably reach any computer on the your LAN or the whole freaking internet. It looks like the networking in Vista still sucks despite the all the .NET hype.
Photoshop Elements 4 has literally gotten worse over time. Now, some key functionality simply doesn't work or, oddly, only partially works.
Is that an apologist reflex reaction, or what? M$ changes, product_x stays the same, but product_x has "gotten worse over time". I know what he means, but the language is amazing. Why can't he just say that vista changes broke Photoshop? He knows that lots of other programs are going to be broken too and that, as usual, everyone will have to replace all of their software when they buy a new computer if they want to maintain their current functionality.
As an aside, I wondered if GIMP would have the same problems. he does not seem to have ever tried or mentioned that program. How funny.
In IE 7, the rich edit control that forms the basis of the third party ActiveX control we used to post article bodies not only doesn't work, it is actually deprecated in Vista so that it will never work, even if you manually install it. That means
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
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.
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...