Slashdot Mirror
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?
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
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).
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.
So which is more difficult for XP users to switch to? Linux or Vista?
Yes, why?
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.
"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.
Duh. Do you also remember the alternatives? Hm.. OS2 was quite alright actually; if only it could print. :)
No, Vista will definitely be released before the year 2029; The Terminator clearly tells you this when he says "Hasta la Vista, baby".
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
... 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.
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.