Slashdot Mirror
Vista RC1 Build 5728 Publicly Released
ClausValca writes "Doing some late-night surfing last night and came across a post over at Cybernet News: Limited Time Only: Vista 5728 Available To The Public. Although apparently intended for the TAP and Technical Beta Testers....it is available for download to the public via this Microsoft public download page for Vista 5728. There is a link on that page as well for direct download of the latest 64-bit flavor of that version as well. An Ars Technica post also has some background info on the new release. Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think."
Are Microsoft still nuking everything in their path, or do they play nice with the MBR now?
I think we're beyond blaming incompetence if they don't play nice...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I think I don't need it. I would have to buy new computers to use it and I don't see any benefit to justify the expense. In past, I've upgraded when there was some benefit to be gained. For instance, I went to Windows (3.1) in the first place so I could run CorelDraw. I could do stuff that previously had been available only to Mac users. The choice was clear cut and I was delighted to switch.
Microsoft alienated me with the first commercial release of XP. You couldn't change anything about your computer without calling them for a new authorization number. There were also the rumors that XP was 'calling home' with information about what was on your hard drive. I vowed that XP would never enter my house and never sully my work computer. I switched to Linux. It does everything I need done. Why would I switch.
My wife's computer runs Win98. If it weren't for OpenOffice, she would have to switch to be able to read files that her customers send her. As it is, OpenOffice reads all those files just fine, so she doesn't have to switch either.
Microsoft is going to have trouble selling Vista. They are also having legal trouble in Europe. Their response is to say that the economy will be boosted if everyone switches to Vista. http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000097 They're nothing if not creative. But no thanks anyway Bill.
How does that undermine what I just said? It quite clearly indicates that RC1 was in no way in hell a real RC -- it was a beta. The code diff between RC1 and what actually goes gold with be massive.
The explanation given is that they've frozen the API, and you are safe to develop against it. To the extent that is true, the "RC" designation would seem to be justified.
(In other news, I have this bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, for sale cheap. Paypal accepted!)
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Freezing the API does NOT mean its a release candidate in anyone's universe except Microsofts'.
A release candidate should be what the term implies - something that is actually a candidate for release as the final product, not something that you throw over the wall and hope that it stinks a bit less than the previous attempts.
That they're still beta testing should tell you something about how much their development culture continues to suck.
So, download it early, download it often, and help artificially inflate those "look at the interest" numbers ... just don't install this trojan:
Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.
Unless you install to a different partition/disk. Then it's no problem rolling it back.
What's stopping someone from changing the date in the BIOS to, say, september 24th, 1990, then doing a clean install?
If Vista thinks it's still 1990, and you make sure it doesn't phone home for the correct date, will you have 17 years worth of use?
-- Fuck Beta
My experience has been that the OpenGL renderer will work find so long as you install the proper drivers for your video card (NVIDIA seems to work well, at least in the games I've tried). No real differences in speed, though I haven't done many benchmarks yet. DRM is paranoia plain and simple; it's only really related to HDMI/HDCP support and since you'd have similar DRM being used in XP if XP is to support HDMI/HDCP, then I don't see the worry. There's far too much FUD from the Open-source advocates to see the truth sometimes; download the RC and play around with it yourself.
Well, it is more stable and a bit faster than the pre-RC1.
It's still pretty.
Explorer likes to hang when transfering files.
IAC is still annoying, and over done.
If Vista doesn't specifically recognize that you own a file, it's read only. This means you have to either download a file, or have it in your directory. Deleting or moving something on any secondary drives (I have 3 other hard drives) is a serious pain. This means usually manually changing ownership, changing read writes, and then repeating this process a couple of times since it doesn't always save the new settings.
Oh, and google's desktop bar is better than the new-built-in-hard-to-disable M$ desktop bar.
And anyone looking for the nifty 3-d desktop should look elsewhere for something to install on XP. Windows are stacked in slightly more than 2-d space, and you have to click a button to view that. Don't worry, you can use that feature to flip through buttons. What happened to rotating windows with side title bars? Hell, don't ask me. I dunno.
Last, and probably least, the "Ultimate Edition Extras", a new windows update category, doesn't even have a sample download. Ultimate edition just gives you all of those fancy (cough, cough) graphic features I mentioned.
PS: That is what part of the alphabet would look like if the letters "Q" and "R" were removed.
Why do you say that? They can head over to WalMart and buy a new replacement copy of XP Home for only about $100.
.iso installer onto media before borking their whole hard drive, there is always a highly rational 'recovery plan' they can take.
Your concern for these poor people is misplaced, and just posturing on your part. You are not prohibited from copying down the license key number and retaining it at multiple locations. Hell, you can even write down the license key number on a little slip of paper, bring it in to that front area of the WalMart store, pay a few dollars to have in engraved on a metal luggage tag, and wear it around your neck if you so choose.
And anyways, as long as they've burned a fresh copy of the NetBSD
Microsoft created a product that, IF USED CORRECTLY (and programmed to correctly), works just fine. If Microsoft locked out applications that didn't behave the way Microsoft thought they should, everyone would be up in arms that they are using their monopoly power to push other companies out.
Finally, The products you compare against are purpose-built. They do one thing, and they do it well. They also don't allow extensibility. With the rare exception over at thinkgeek.com, I can't program my toaster to sing the star spangled banner.
Hmm....I've reinstalled XP on this machine how many times in the last 5 years? Thats right. NONE. The ancient 450mhz K6-2 laptop? NONE. And the Win2k machine in the corner? Yup, NONE. How many times have I used the "rollback" feature? NONE -- that was the first thing I turned off.
Now, the Win95/98/ME line, yeah, those were POS OSs that you had to reinstall every month or so. And I understand Joe-sixpack is more likely to click on random "bad things". But has it occured to you that maybe, just maybe, Windows has improved, and that many (but not all) of the problems aren't from windows, but from the layers of shit that people pile on it (Norton, I'm looking directly at you).
Because you haven't used windows since Win98, please stop spewing lines that are no longer true.