Vista RC2: More Refined, But Still Not Perfect

jcatcw writes, "Scot Finnie continues his love — hate relationship with Windows Vista. He installed the latest beta, RC2, on three machines. First problem: drivers — too many of them that should be available just aren't. User Access Control remains annoying and Vista's Software Protection Platform puts antipiracy above user security. Software compatibility is still in need even at this late date. However, previous problems with the Media Center were absent." And turnitover writes to point us to PC Mag's RC2 review. Their bottom line is that they expect an RC2+ or even an RC3 before it goes final. Here is PC Mag's slide show.

Update: 10/09 19:33 GMT by kd : michigano writes: "This late in the game and Microsoft has pulled firewire support from their OS! No one knows if its permanent."

Comments

So which is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

He installed the latest beta, RC2, on three machines [CC].

Is it a beta release, or is it a release candidate?

Re:So which is it?

[nine-times]

It's a beta.

Re:So which is it?

[Lxy]

All RCs are betas.

Not all betas are RCs.

Re:So which is it?

[Overly Critical Guy]

RC isn't a beta; it stands for Release Candidate, the stage after beta, meaning it's been released as a candidate for RTM to fish out any remaining unseen bugs.

The only improvement I've seen in RC2 over the last release is that Vista is no longer randomly blue-screening for me on startup. However, UAC is still INCREDIBLY annoying (you'll see...), it still takes too long to boot compared to the 12 seconds that OS X takes on the same hardware, and none of the sloppy interface issues have been fixed. It's a really inconsistent experience and still gaudy as hell. Some of it honestly looks like an amatueur KDE theme. This is surprising to me, since surely Microsoft can afford high-quality graphic artists. It was a relief to switch over to the Windows Classic theme, although some controls come out even uglier.

All that said, a couple of games that gave me incompatibility warnings in the last release no longer do so. I laughed last night when I discovered that accidentally hitting the Windows key STILL boots you out of a fullscreen game. That thing has to be the most worthless key ever invented. TheInquirer is reporting that Microsoft is telling industry partners that Vista runs games 10-15% slower than XP does. We'll see if that pans out according to benchmarks.

Re:So which is it?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Is it a beta release, or is it a release candidate?

With recent Microsoft products, evidence suggests it should be considered a Beta up to the release of SP2.

Re:So which is it?

[Planesdragon]

I laughed last night when I discovered that accidentally hitting the Windows key STILL boots you out of a fullscreen game. That thing has to be the most worthless key ever invented.

Odd.

1: Doom3, at least, is fully capable of telling the windows key to frack off.

2: Look up "windows shortcut keys" in the Windows help files. It's a fairly useful key. (And if you don't like it, you can always just remove it and cap the button. might take you all of ten minutes.)

Re:So which is it?

[gral]

I use Litestep on Windows, and have the Window Key programmed to about 15-20 shortcut keys. It works pretty good for me.

Re:So which is it?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Some games do ignore the key; some don't. There are a lot that don't, including recent ones. I'm aware that the Windows key is tied to several system shortcuts, but about the only one that some people use is the Run command. As for removing the key, it's silly that I would have to do that.

Re:So which is it?

[thoriphes]

In my mind, there's really no such thing as a FINAL Windows Build and Service Packs prove this. Sure, SPs will throw in a new version of Windows Media Player, but it's really the bug fixes you're after. That said, it seems Microsoft is providing more of a service than it is a product. Since any version of Windows will have its share of latent bugs, any so-called "release candidate" is nothing more than a beta that is perhaps 70-80% bug-free.

Re:So which is it?

[MrTufty]

Microsoft oddly enough recommend that nobody should ever lock out the use of the Windows keys. This is in their developer documentation. However, I think games need to handle it better. Too many times I've played games where accidentally hitting the Win-key or alt+tab kicks you back to the desktop but then the game is unable to resume. There's no excuse for that, it's just sloppy coding.

Re:So which is it?

[ffejie]

Windows Shortcut Keys

I knew a bunch of these, but there are a ton of good ones out there. Don't know how much I'll use them, but I'll take it into consideration. My favorite, by far:

Windows Logo+S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

Thanks, I don't have a key that already does that.... wait a second! The real problem is, my laptop cut the Windows key out and put the function key there instead.

Re:So which is it?

[xcrunner]

I do not know if you were trying to allude to this or not, but I found that hilarious considering what my geometry teacher taught me: "all squares are rhombus'" "not all rhombus' are squares"

Re:So which is it?

[OnlineAlias]

FYI, the very last thing MS does before releasing to production is "proof and polish." This is where the icons, spellings and interface graphics get all merged in and fixed. They have a huge crew of people doing nothing but fixing your graphics complaints and you won't see them until Vista actually releases...

Re:So which is it?

[Overly Critical Guy]

At the shell blog, they've already stated that it's too late to change interfaces (like the Install Font dialog that dates back to Windows 3.1). Proof and polish means the minor fixes you stated, not the glaring interface incosistencies I'm referring to (like the 5+ conflicting menu styles or the multiple Properties buttons).

Re:So which is it?

[Allador]

Its a very useful key:

Lock: Windows+L
Explorer: Windows+E
Minimize All: Windows+M

Plus you can use it to get to your start-menu items very quickly.

For example, on my setup (where my corp vpn starts with a U), I hit:

Windows, S, N, U

and that fires up my VPN in less than a second.

Re:So which is it?

[Lxy]

RC isn't a beta; it stands for Release Candidate, the stage after beta, meaning it's been released as a candidate for RTM to fish out any remaining unseen bugs.

Maybe according to the dictionary, but in practice "RC" doesn't mean anythign more than "Final beta". Until it ships, it's still in beta IMHO.

Perfect?

[Klaidas]

Still Not Perfect

First thing - it's a RC
Second thing - This RC is more like a beta :)
And well, when was anything perfect?
There's always more work to be done for everything, including vista

Re:Perfect?

[grammar fascist]

No kidding. These people expect too much. What do they want? A release candidate that's actually fit for release?

Sheesh.

Re:Perfect?

[noidentity]

Here's what you can say once it's released and people are criticizing it:

First thing - it's the first release
Second thing - The first release is more like a beta :)
And well, when was anything perfect?
There's always more work to be done for everything, including vista

Re:Perfect?

[stubear]

ummmm...note the candidate part. That means it's being judged for quality todeterminf if it in fact is good enough for release. This goes beyond the beta stage because the RC is feature complete, unlike a beta which still has bits missing and features that either need to be refined or added/removed.

Re:Perfect?

[DittoBox]

Yes. That's the point of an RC. RC builds are candidates for release and as such are Feature Complete. If any show-stoppers are found then they fix them and release another RC build. If, after a reasonable amount of time, no more show-stoppers are found then the RC is retagged and reversioned as the final build and subsequently published.

Release Candidates are supposed to be fit for release, if they aren't then changes are made to make them fit for release. Hence the term "feature complete" (depending on the project or manufacturer, some people consider betas to be feature complete or near-feature complete, where as Alphas are still in product and functional development) Once they are ready, they go "gold," that is the "gold master" media images are created and the product is manufactured for general popular consumption.

Re:Perfect?

[gardyloo]

This goes beyond the beta stage because the RC is feature complete

    Erm... Like support for firewire?

Re:Perfect?

[Frodo420024]

This goes beyond the beta stage because the RC is feature complete.

Strange. In my book, Alpha means feature complete, beta means most things should be workable, and RC means that bugs are hard to find.

Looks like Windows Update will be the saving grace of Vista...

Re:Perfect?

[noamsml]

Actually, I think that it's as the following: Alphas are NOT feature complete, but are vaguely usable. Betas are feature complete, but not fully refined. RCs are considered pretty much fit for release, but need some more testing.

Re:Perfect?

[whoop]

It's Microsoft. For them, betas are "I just made this program in VB++.net# version 18.8, tell me you like it." Then RCs become, "One of the thousands of people testing this app wanted more smiley faces, so here it is." Once it hits the store shelves (and OEMs), it becomes, "Eh, it should bring up a nice welcome screen at least." Forward a few months, SP1 is out for "Ok, it is just about where it should have been 6 years ago. And now Notepad has USB support!!"

Can I go on, please??

Re:Perfect?

[westlake]

These people expect too much. What do they want? A release candidate that's actually fit for release?

Who cares if you call it an RC or a Beta? If you are developing hardware or software for the Vista platform you are good to go and that is all that matters.

Re:Perfect?

[LordEd]

Yeah, i know. Look at these guys trying to release a second release candidate too: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/09/222923 4.

Oh wait, we don't bash open source here. I forgot.

Re:Perfect?

[nacturation]

This goes beyond the beta stage because the RC is feature complete, unlike a beta which still has bits missing and features that either need to be refined or added/removed.

Alpha is when there are features missing. Beta is when it's feature complete but still has bugs that need to be found. References: http://www.google.com/search?q=beta+feature+comple te

Re:Perfect?

[porl]

um, the difference there is that most users are finding the release candidate of firefox to be pretty stable and polished. it certainly has all the features in it.

Re:Perfect?

[oisteink]

Well... Firewire works for me. Just because someone have an unsupported card, it don't mean support is pulled. It just means that they should hammer their supplyer of firewire for a driver... You don't have to be stupid to use Windows ;-)

Re:Perfect?

[jonasj]

RCs are considered pretty much fit for release

No, a Release Candidate is exactly what the name says: A candidate for the release, which you expect to release without changes unless testing of the RC reveals showstopper bugs (in which case you fix those, roll a new RC, and repeat).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage

Drivers...

[crossmr]

Drivers are done on a per company basis. Since vista isn't out, there is no reason to expect official support of any kind on a particular device. As far as piracy controls go... There has to be an exchagne of money there somewhere. Microsoft has more than enough money to tell DRM companies to screw off, so they're getting compensation of some kind. Likely exclusive contract extensions from places like Sony, and other perks to ensure certain DRM compliance.

RC2 is the first "buggy" version for me

[cojsl]

I have a bench machine that I've tested with Betas1&2 and RC1&2. All except for Beta2 have been pretty bug free, but RC2 fails at the "testing hardware" dialog during install, and after reboot will not give me the Aeroglass option, unlike all previous versions. I'll do some digging later this week to see how to force a re-test of hardware for compatibility, but this was dissapointing after 3 functional previous releases

Re:RC2 is the first "buggy" version for me

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

To be honest, the only problem I had with this RC is: after being on for 3 days, it went to sleep and never woke up. (power save). After a hard reset, the registry was corrupt or missing and repair did not work.

On the plus side, the XP installation on the same box could access the Vista files.

I havent had the time to reinstall and test further, but...

Re:RC2 is the first "buggy" version for me

[Khuffie]

I had good luck with RC2. The only issue I had with RC1 was that Media Player wouldn't play avi files very smoothly, and media center would crash whenever I open my video library. They've been fixed in RC2.

First problem: drivers

[Viriatus]

Isn't that the big problem that Linux has?

Re:First problem: drivers

[BoberFett]

Unless MS has plans to let me download Windows for free indefinitely, I should hope the driver support is better.

More refined guys, in SP1 :)

[suv4x4]

No time for more refined. Unfortunately that's it.

It's obvious there's lots of patchwork in it. I browse the control panel and display properties and get the same feeling I have when looking at work I did in the last minute with a glue and duct tape.

IE7 still crashes like mad on Google Maps for some reason, and what's with the single tab display properties? What's the point of a tab bar, when you have always one single tab in it? We'll never know.

My Wacom tablet works terribly with Vista newfound tabletPC intelligence, it keep sassuming clicks I never have done, I had to go and basically disable all smart features and it still is funky (I can barely use a combo box with my Wacom in Vista).

It's apparent they'll be shipping it to the factory in few days either way, so I'm just hoping once they're done, they start working on a SP1 to be done for the January release that will fix all this mess.

Re:More refined guys, in SP1 :)

[arthurpaliden]

Vistas' not done till Google won't run......

Re:More refined guys, in SP1 :)

[6Yankee]

What's the point of a tab bar, when you have always one single tab in it?

Perhaps a subtle way of saying to your users: "Pssst. You can open up tabs." If they're hidden by default (as, for example, in Firefox), a user could go for months or even longer without even knowing they were there.

The cynic in me (see sig) wonders if it's actually because the rendering gets b0rked when you reduce the window height to display the tabs...

Re:More refined guys, in SP1 :)

[UnrefinedLayman]

and what's with the single tab display properties? What's the point of a tab bar, when you have always one single tab in it? We'll never know.

The answer is that the code to modify display properties is specially crafted and actually requires that it be displayed in a tab. This is true for a lot of applets in Windows. There are explanations for it from the Vista shell team at their blog site's forums.

There's a lot of creative reasons why Windows still looks like Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 and does so in a nicely inconsistent manner, but they all add up to "it would have been really hard to change that, so we had to make sacrifices and do other stuff." All the answers from the blog team are fluff and excuses, saying they didn't have the time or the resources to get it done and that other things were more important. After five years. After $20 billion spent in R&D. After $5 billion spent just on Vista. With 40,000 employees world-wide. With $38 billion in the bank. So there are windows with a single tab that can't be resized that have text boxes too small to fit their text.

But they fixed up Minesweeper, so it's clear they're honest about being busy.

Re:More refined guys, in SP1 :)

[cecil_turtle]

I think the default in Firefox should be to leave the tab bar with only one tab for the same reason. I actually prefer it because I just double-click on any empty space in the tab bar to open a new tab. Seems like the easiest thing to do for me (outside of gestures) - the empty tab bar is like a really big "new tab" button.

Love? Hate?

[webword]

Who cares about love and hate ?

What matters if it delivers value. What matters if it meets the requirements. What matters if it is usable. What matters is if it delivers on the promise. What matters is support. And so on and so forth...

Re:Love? Hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

What matters if it is usable.

From the point of view of normal users, this is where "love" and "hate" come into play, e.g. "Vista is so easy to use, I just love it!" or "Vista is such a pain to use, I f-ing hate it!"

Migrate to GNU/Linux, not Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Our company did last year, city of Vienna did, it should work out very nicely for you too. Our former XP users love KDE.

No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve some level of vendor independence all at the same time.

I overlooked it...

[ackthpt]

One good thing about vista, crackers and wormware writers will start focusing on that and, hopefully, leave my PC alone :o)

Re:I overlooked it...

[suv4x4]

One good thing about vista, crackers and wormware writers will start focusing on that and, hopefully, leave my PC alone :o)
[ Reply to This ]

Crackers concentrate on the weakest link, not on the toughest. Old (and unpatched) Windows releases are what they target, Vista will be targeted only if it's significantly easy to exploit (which, if we believe the features, won't be the case).

Re:I overlooked it...

[ackthpt]

Crackers concentrate on the weakest link, not on the toughest. Old (and unpatched) Windows releases are what they target, Vista will be targeted only if it's significantly easy to exploit (which, if we believe the features, won't be the case).

They also attack where the greatest number of targets will be. If there's a significant number of vista machines on the net they'll be toiling away trying to break in, I have no doubt they will succede.

Who knew?

[jeffs72]

Better security = annoyance

Re:Who knew?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle.

Who was expecting "perfect"?

[nine-times]

Let's ignore people's feelings about Microsoft for a second. A hypothetical software developer has made a lot of changes to their operating system, rewriting a lot of internals, and making huge changes to their UI. Who here is expecting that this hypothetical software release will be "perfect" when it goes gold?

At best, even assuming Microsoft is a great software developer, there will be bugs and problems when it goes out the door. I don't believe that should be our question. My questions are, Is it usable? Will it increase my productivity over Windows XP? Does the new UI offer something beyond being "new"? Are there new features that I'll actually want to use?

Or to bang all of those questions into one super question, Are there any reasons why I'll want to upgrade? If I could add a second, it'd be, Are there any reasons why I won't want to upgrade?

But if you tell me that there aren't drivers for everything yet, well of course there aren't because it's not released yet, but there will be drivers for most things soon. If you tell me there's some little bug on your particular machine, that doesn't bother me. Release broadens the diversity of hardware that software is running on, and so even if everything was perfect in the beta stage, there will be some bugs.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[garcia]

I can answer both of those for you right now:

Are there any reasons why I'll want to upgrade?

Yes.

If I could add a second, it'd be, Are there any reasons why I won't want to upgrade?

Yes.

Of course there are always going to be "features" you'll want to upgrade for and there will be "features" (like DRM) that you will want to avoid. The question is how many people will hold out until the DRM "features" will force them to "upgrade" to the new OS because nothing else will work anymore.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[tepples]

My questions are, Is it usable? Will it increase my productivity over Windows XP?

Yes. If your old computer hardware that ran Windows XP dies, your productivity drops to zero. If you buy a new computer, it will come with Windows Vista.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[nine-times]

No, it won't. If I have a computer die on me, I can buy PCs from Dell without an OS pre-installed and use my old XP license, which assumes in the first place that my Dell warrantee runs out. Either way, you're not going to see Vista in my company for a couple years, at least, unless there's a reason to upgrade.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[Anonymous Coward]

unless you have an OEM XP license. then you have to buy a new one.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any reasons why I'll want to upgrade?

When the time comes, Microsoft will make you want to upgrade by stopping support for XP.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[TheNetAvenger]

Ok, here is some advice from someone in the know...

Vista will not be 100% perfect on every machine. It will have less driver support and optimization than XP at first. This is a known fact, since so much of the internal of the OS has been rewritten.

XP had an advantage with drivers, because the win98/win2k driver generation worked flawlessly on XP for the most part. Vista is is only 'partially' true, because if the drivers are poorly written or try to do unsecure things, Vista won't let them do it.

There is also the massive Video changes in Vista. I know a lot of people think it is just pretty stuff, but it is far deeper than this. Not only has most of the Video drivers been moved back to User mode with even hot plug capability, but they also are doing things that NO video drivers have ever even attempted in the history of consumer OSes. Things like multitasking GPU functions, virtualizing GPU RAM to system RAM, as well as the implementation of a true Vector layer acceleration and Compoer layer. (To put this into context, think of OSX, it is basically Windows GDI+ with a bitmap composer, Vista goes far deeper by not only being a Vector composer, but only adds in a new level of GPU and application interaction.)

Ok, so there are going to be some issues with 'unsecure' software and bad older drivers. Hardware vendors will eventually get their crap together and this will not be a long term problem.

Vista does gain in the areas of user productivity in many areas, areas that most GEEKS haven't even tested or realize is there.

Let's take the Video driver changes for a quick example. Since the WDDM driver model in Vista can virtualize GPU RAM, you can run several high end games and 3d Applications that would consume your GPUs RAM, and Vista will just swap out memory from the GPU that is not speed needed, so these applicaitons will run side by side without failing because your Video card doesn't have enough RAM. In a way, it is like giving your Video Card a RAM boost.

The second part of the WDDM that is more productive, is because of the Vector acceleration and Vector composer that sits between the applications and what you see on the screen, a lot of BUSINESS applications see a tremendous boost in performance. I could give ya the standard answers that obscured Windows don't have to repaint themselves which should be obvious, but there are also applicaitons like CorelDraw and AI, where the illustration drawing is 10-20x faster in Vista because of the vector acceleration along with the less frequent application redraw messages. (For example, not only will Corel draw the images on the screen faster, but it won't have to repaint the image if you open your Browser in front of it.)

So in the long run, just for people that are doing graphic design and Video editing Vista is SEVERAL times faster than XP and OSX, and worth the change over, even on current hardware.

Other business applications also get these speed improvements, but they are less noticeable since they are not all about drawing complex vector or bitmpa images.

The other myth is that you need to upgrade your system. If you want to have the Glass effects in Vista, you going to need a very basic Video card. A GeforceFX 5200 with 128mb of RAM will more than cover the needed requirements. I think you can even get by with a 64mb version of the card for the 'glass'. These are REALLY OLD Cards in the cycle of a computer.

The other thing you are going to want is 'extra' RAM for Vista, as it does a lot more prefetch caching and will run faster with more RAM, that is why you need a system with 512mb of RAM. (And again, this is NOT a major upgrade)

So you if your computer has an AGP Video card with PS2 that was produced 3 years ago and 512mb of RAM, you are going to have a great Vista experience.

If you computer is above these specifications, then you will have a 'better than XP' experience in almost everything you do.

There are a few rough edges in Vista, and I'm not here to say it i

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[nine-times]

There is also a new level of stability in Vista. For example the WDDM video drivers are not only User level (for the most part), but you can literally unplug your Video card, the computer will make the plug and play sound and screen will go blank, and then plug in another video card or the same one while the system is running, and Vista will not fail and if needed restart the Video driver or install the new and just keep going. This is something that would have been impossible in previous versions of Windows, and still is impossible in most other consumer OSes.

Is that safe from the hardware side of things? I think I'd be hesitant to pull a PCI card from a live motherboard whether my OS could cope with it or not.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[TheNetAvenger]

Is that safe from the hardware side of things? I think I'd be hesitant to pull a PCI card from a live motherboard whether my OS could cope with it or not.



Well, actually it isn't the 'saftest' thing to do, but does demonstrate the OSes ability to recover from fairly major hardware problems. The design is to recover from a driver/hardware malfunction and not leave the user stranded with no display if for some reason the Video driver or card goes wrong.

XP had some ability to recover from video driver failures, but due to the nature of the video driver model in XP, it usually resulted in a corrupt screen or a lockup. In Vista, even blowing your Video card with a failed fan could potentially recover and default to a VGA level mode if it can get the Video card to restart at a basic level.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[nine-times]

Yeah, I guess that's cool, but I don't think I'd ever use it... ever.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[fbg111]

"Who here is expecting that this hypothetical software release will be "perfect" when it goes gold?"

People intend to hold the richest company in the world to a slightly higher standard than the average Linux distro. Though maybe we should give MS some slack, it's not like writing working operating systems is their core competency or anything.

Re:Who was expecting "perfect"?

[mgblst]

Well, the OBVIOUS answer is that it depends on the hardware. So, if it supported in hardware and software, then you are ok.

Please don't make me defend Vista with stupid questions.

Whats the point in look at RC's

[Timesprout]

MS could release builds amazing for their quality and /. would still find something to moan about. I have yet to see any major engineering project work perfectly out the door first time, there are always unforseen issues and problems. After the release of the first service pack is when I will start looking at the capabilities or lack thereof with vista.

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[Chaffar]

I have yet to see any major engineering project work perfectly out the door first time[...]

So you're saying that I shouldn't expect buildings to stand the first time they're built? Or cars to drive without breaking down during the first week ? Or those projects aren't as "major" as Windows is?

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[Surt]

You definitely shouldn't expect buildings to stand the first time they're built. There's not more than a handful of buildings that have stood even a thousand years so far. Whereas a lot of Microsoft software has executed literally trillions of software instructions without error.

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[604badder]

"....I have yet to see any major engineering project work perfectly out the door first time, there are always unforseen issues and problems" I hope the bridge you use to work in the morning is on SP2 :-)

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[rowanxmas]

I have yet to see any major engineering project work perfectly out the door first time. most bridges work well, amazing what testing can do :)

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[Tim C]

Or those projects aren't as "major" as Windows is?

Mechanics and engineering are extremely well understood disciplines that have been practiced for thousands of years.

Software "engineering" isn't, and hasn't.

In those respects at least, no, putting up a building or making a car is *not* as major as Windows, or a Linux distro, or indeed any complex application.

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[StikyPad]

Pfft.. most people know better than to buy the first model or major revision of a car. It may not be as impressive 2-3 years later, but it will almost definately be more reliable. That's generally true of any manufactured product, from TVs to refrigerators. It's simply not cost effective to perform exhaustive testing of products on the scale necessary to achieve 0 defects. You test the important stuff, put the product out, and fix it when problem reports start coming back. Sometimes you get lucky and nothing goes wrong, but it doesn't usually work out that way. That's why the warranty has become a staple of the modern marketplace.

Buildings, on the other hand, are rigorously inspected to find faults before people use them, and yes, there are frequently problems which need to be corrected, and occasionally problems which go undetected. Just search for cracked foundation, for example. And that's why we have home insurance.

Re:Whats the point in look at RC's

[Doctor Crumb]

For your consideration, here is a quote I came across earlier:

"You might consider Vista an accomplishment to get such a huge project out the door, or you might consider it a failure to put it together in such a way that it has to go out the door in one piece." --Mike South

A vista build could be "amazing quality", but if it doesn't work with people's hardware, and if its security is easily defeated, then it is a failure as an OS. Microsoft has several bajillion times the resources of any competing company; why is it too much to expect they use some of their money to ship something that actually works? Why should anyone have to wait six months for a service pack to make Vista work as advertised?

Is this with or without hacked DRM?

[WillAffleckUW]

I was just reading on Gripeline that Microsoft is suing a hacker who has already hacked the DRM components of WinVista.

Inquiring minds with sharpies want to know ...

Microsoft should put UAC password prompts back in.

[Randolpho]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same guy who first bitched about the UAC always asking for passwords to do anything administrative? (read: mimics SU, only more annoyingly) Didn't Microsoft respond by taking the passwords out?

That was a bad move on both parties' account, IMO. There's a /. post still on the main page that shows why an annoying UAC (with password typing required) would be a Good Thing(tm). Where is it.... where is it.... ah!

IE7 Toolbar Mayhem

My cold dead hands...

[night_flyer]

You will get my Windows2k Pro when you pry it from my cold dead hands (or when I switch to Linux, and that time is getting closer by the day)

Re:My cold dead hands...

[Ruie]

You will get my Windows2k Pro when you pry it from my cold dead hands (or when I switch to Linux, and that time is getting closer by the day)

Want a free kubuntu disk ? Just ask..

Who do they expect to buy this?

[ShadowsHawk]

Besides bundled with new systems, who would actually buy Vista? I expect that we will see a slow adoption rate since most users are perfectly content with XP.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[jfengel]

Well, given that something like a half-billion PCs are sold each year, that's a bit like asking, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

They'll also sell a lot of Vista licenses to offices whose IT shops want to maintain only a single platform. Once they start having to buy new PCs with Vista, they'll want to upgrade the entire shop. The larger the ratio of users to IT, the more they're going to standardize their systems. It's a convenience for them, like replacing the lightbulbs all at once rather than waiting for them to burn out.

Individual users will continue to use their XP installations for perhaps 3-5 years. Over time bits of hardware fail and it's easier for many to replace the entire thing, especially when that elderly PC starts to feel pokey in comparison to the new computers; the new software will find ways to use the extra CPU power. And with a Windows installation, it may not be an illusion of contrast: between registry/DLL bloat in legal software, and the many users who will be infected with malware, it may actually be slower. Cleaning the OS and replacing components gradually becomes less efficient than just buying a shiny new one.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[0racle]

People who want to play DX10 games. People who like the latest and greatest of everything. People.

And admins who want to administer printers using the Printer management tool that came with 2003R2 without logging into a 2003 server.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[cp.tar]

People who want to play DX10 games.

Why do I feel I'll play them in CeDeGa?

One thing's for sure, I'm not upgrading the XP I have here for gaming purposes to Vista.
It's Jabba the Hutt of operating systems.
I mean, how many GiBs does a default install consume? 12? 20? And that just for a spiffy interface, Notepad, Paint and Solitaire?

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[redkazuo]

Of course they can *make* you move by delivering lousier and lousier security patches or maybe a couple that exchange security for performance, since XP users are obviously not gaming enthusiasts...

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, given that something like a half-billion PCs are sold each year, that's a bit like asking, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

That's just silly. Once John Wilkes Booth ran off, they had to cancel the play.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Individual users will continue to use their XP installations for perhaps 3-5 years

Then they will install a pirated copy of Vista from torrentspy.

Someone had to say it :) Let the flamewar being....

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[andreyw]

Why do you capitialize Cedega in such a weird way? It's not an acronym. It used to be called WineX.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[cp.tar]

I've seen it spelled like that.

If I'm wrong, I thank you for the information.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[UnrefinedLayman]

They'll also sell a lot of Vista licenses to offices whose IT shops want to maintain only a single platform. Once they start having to buy new PCs with Vista, they'll want to upgrade the entire shop. The larger the ratio of users to IT, the more they're going to standardize their systems. It's a convenience for them, like replacing the lightbulbs all at once rather than waiting for them to burn out.

This isn't true, especially not for such a major shift that Vista's bringing. It requires training for the IT staff and the end-users, or they can continue to run XP. Software Assurance has always permitted downgrade licensing, also, such that someone can buy an XP Pro license and instead run 2000. The same will be true for Vista.

Besides, what's easier to do: upgrade your entire organization with a new image for the same hardware platform buying new licenses for each PC, or keep the functioning licenses and image?

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[Tim C]

I mean, how many GiBs does a default install consume?

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that it was somewhat less than 4.

Compare that with the 6.5GB+ of UT 2004.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[mgemmons]

Slow initials sales are a possibility. But, that will last exactly as long as it takes for the first great game written only for DirectX 10.0 to be released.

Re:Who do they expect to buy this?

[thombone69]

Expect MANY people to downgrade back to XP once the only pre-load on new machines they can get is Vista. It will be fun to watch. Vista is out, MS is advertising it, and most people are still using XP with no plans to upgrade--even going so far as to downgrade when possible.

DivX Drivers...

[Anonymous Coward]

"There has to be an exchagne of money there somewhere. Microsoft has more than enough money to tell DRM companies to screw off, so they're getting compensation of some kind."

So did Circuit City.

Small gripe

[phpWebber]

I read the Computerworld article linked in the summary. The writer takes issue with how Windows Vista handles a perceived pirated copy (it starts disabling services). I eventually hit this sentence:

Hello! Is anyone in Redmond actually paying attention to what it's doing?

"Hello?" Have we reached the point where journalists mimic the stock, teenage cry of indignation?
Sorry, but I am really tired of that phrase. Its use restricts author credibility.

P.S. Get off my lawn.

Re:Small gripe

[Old Thrashbarg]

McFly?!

Re:Small gripe

[phpWebber]

Heh. Well I guess that addition would elevate it.

Re:Poo

[voice_of_all_reason]

Hey, nothing wrong with being proud with what you're best at.

Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect that all the Slashdotters who ridiculed MS for their lack of security in previous versions of Windows to spend all of their time now calling it 'annoying' and 'ridiculous'.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is, people will cheerfully trade freedom for security, but they will not trade convenience.

It's going to be interesting to see how many people continue to run Vista with admininistrative privileges, just to get around all the UAC warnings. I know I will.

Re:Yup

[Kineel]

First off, you cannot just 'run Vista with administrative privleges.' That doesn't work around the problem. What you CAN do is turn off UAC, which is done in the most stupid way possible. You turn off the option and then you must (wait for it) REBOOT VISTA. Excuse me? REBOOT? Then why will anyone ever turn UAC back on if they keep having to reboot to use it.

The problem isn't that Microsoft has implemented UAC, it is the horrible way that they did it. You don't enter a password to install new software, you must click on a button that is on a different part of the screen every time it pops up, and it can pop up a lot if you are doing administrative tasks. So most people will simply choose to disable UAC, reboot, and never re-enable it again. That defeats the entire purpose of the feature.

Proper way to do it: When the user needs to perform an administrative task, have them enter a password, then allow ALL administrative tasks performed within the next several minutes without asking. If the time runs out, ask for the password again. This allows people to perform Administrative tasks without constantly having to click on annoying dialog boxes for every step they perform.

For good examples of how to do this properly see Mac OS X or most versions of Linux running a GUI.

Microsoft can't even copy good ideas correctly.

Re:Yup

[oddfox]

Jesus Christ people are so fucking finicky.

Re:Yup

[drsmithy]

Proper way to do it: When the user needs to perform an administrative task, have them enter a password, then allow ALL administrative tasks performed within the next several minutes without asking.

The way OS X and Linux do this with sudo is a gaping security hole.

Added to that, I strongly suspect the functionality you are asking for is fundamentally incompatible with Windows's security model.

What sort of "administrative tasks" are you doing that are resulting in so many UAC prompts so quickly ?

Re:Yup

[dircha]

So it's just a little button that you click? I haven't seen Vista myself, but you'd think Microsoft would have learned its lesson by now about Yes/No and Ok/Cancel prompts.

It's painful to recall the number of infections I have encountered which originated from a user clicking Ok or Yes on a prompt box that he or she either clicked without reading at all, or read, failed to comprehend, and clicked figuring the computer knew best. That's not counting naive users who really did want to install Bonzai Buddy.

But I want to ask, do you really believe the OS X password prompt is significantly more effective? I use OS X almost exclusively at home and I have to say I don't feel that entering my password in a GUI prompt when installing an application makes me feel safer (assuming I initiated the installation action). Which is why I can count I one hand the number of 3rd party non-distribution applications I have installed across my machines. (Not counting Fink installed software, which I admit, I am, probably naively more trusting of than I should be.)

Whether it's clicking a button or inputting your password, all you really know is that your os may shortly be rendered inoperable, rooted, pwn3d, or all of the above.

My feeling is that an effective authorization scheme would be one where the application must present up front an exhaustive list of all specific object and operation authorization requests for review by the user: delete permission on foo, modify permission on bar, create permission in dir, etc. Algorithms would need to be developed to present to the user requests that were unusual and dangerous, without overwhelming the user. If I see in red highlight that the application is requesting delete permission to /, you better believe I'm gonna purge that bugger off my system! The challenge is communicating this to a user who doesn't that rm -rf / is something that shouldn't be happening.

There's no reason an application shouldn't be expected to describe what access it needs up front.

Microsoft has the power to take steps like this. Vendors jump when they say jump. If not this, there are surely enough smart people at the organization that they should be able to come up with something better than what we have today (and apparently have in Vista).

Re:Yup

[MightyYar]

The way OS X and Linux do this with sudo is a gaping security hole.

Well, it's MORE gaping than the current Microsoft implementation, and LESS gaping than when you turn off the MS implementation. In other words, it might make a nice compromise between security and convenience. A security feature that no one uses is not really a feature at all.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that rebooting is necessary is to avoid privilege elevation attacks. If you have found a bug that allows you to disable UAC, the only way to exploit that fact is to wait for a reboot, after which your process will no longer be running. Presumably anything which would allow you to make your process run after a reboot would be foiled by the fact that UAC would still be enabled when you try it.

Of course MS could have just implemented it the way Linux or OS X does, but after a year or two it would have been attacked and MS would have to fix it anyway. Don't you agree that it's best for MS to just do it properly in the first place?

dom

Re:Yup

[The MAZZTer]

If a user has to do so many administrative tasks in Vista that they need an administrator's password that often, they shouldn't be using a Limited User account in the first place... at least if you're an admin you only have to click a button.

Hate to love, love to hate

[UR30]

It seems that Vista divides testers in two categories, those who find - to their suprise - they like it, and others who get yet another confirmation of how bad Windows is.

Re:Hate to love, love to hate

[Anonymous Coward]

"It seems that Vista divides testers in two categories..."

I willing to guess that perceived expectations determine which side of the fence they fall. After 6 years in the making, some probably expect something revolutionary while others may find rebranded prior art "as to be expected" from the "leading" software "innovator".

Less of the euphemisms

[Anonymous Coward]

> Vista RC2: More Refined, But Still Not Perfect

It's Microsoft Windows, of course it fucking sucks!

Random thoughts

[bogie]

Photo Gallery needs sharpen! Somewhere there is a funny picture of how inconsistent the interface still can be with button and arrows moving around per application, Wish I could find that link again. Are the minimize, maximize, and close buttons still all screwed up in RC2? http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039 D51E3DB!6931.entry

Do translucent windows add anything to the use experience?
User: "Oh look, at the top of my window through a .25" space I can see part of the text of an icon on my desktop! How very useful!"

But I will say it's coming bugs and all so you all might as well get used to it. Just think of how much money you'll make installing and fixing Vista? Just think of how little I'll be paying for Vista thanks to having MSDN via work...Big kisses to MS now!

Re:Random thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think of how much money you'll make installing and fixing Vista?

Err... none? For comparison, I recently decommissioned a server that has only been rebooted 3 times since XP was released.

Just think of how little I'll be paying for Vista thanks to having MSDN via work...

Okay, just let me finish thinking of all the time you'll be spending installing and fixing it first!

Big kisses to MS now!

I've seen some pretty gruesome BDSM online but nothing so obscene as that little gem. Seek help now.

Re:Random thoughts

[cp.tar]

For comparison, I recently decommissioned a server that has only been rebooted 3 times since XP was released.

I'll take it XP wasn't installed on it, then... it takes more reboots just to install it.

Re:Random thoughts

[Mixel]

Just think of how much money you'll make installing and fixing Vista?

Err... none? For comparison, I recently decommissioned a server that has only been rebooted 3 times since XP was released.

I don't think that disagrees with parent. Assuming Vista is buggier than XP, you'd make more money fixing Vista than XP :)

Re:Love? Hate? Ignorance?

[rumith]

What matters is ignorance of 90% Windows users. What matters is nobody knows about alternatives, and nobody cares. What matters is that every single one of them who has the money will sooner or later switch to Vista to keep up with the Johns. What matters is that too many people will do what they think every "law obedient, god fearing taxpayer" should - buy Vista, that is. And finally, what matters is that very soon most software vendors, especially bigger ones, will be 'convinced' by Microsoft to develop Vista-only stuff. And so on and so forth...

My experience..

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed it yesterday for kicks to see how it's progressed since RC1. The installation is much faster, the bootup is faster, and it doesn't crash as much. The network is VERY fast now. I get a full 1300kb/s on my cable connection that I was lucky to get 700kb/s from hooked to a crappy netgear RP614 and motorola surfboard 5100. That said, a lot of work needs to be done. Also, there are some major annoyances. Turning off things like the sidebar and the constant pestering for permission to do anything should not require a reboot. It needs another 6 months, but I can see progress.

Wow

[valkabo]

That looks sweet! MAN! Thats gonna kick as- Microsoft made it? Eh, its gonna suck. Fuck gates! HES A MONERY GRUBBING THIEF!!! BASTARD!

It's done

[Anonymous Coward]

Works better than XP, driver issues, some software due to changes doesn't work.

Face it, Vista is ready. It's more ready than XP or 2000 ever were.

So do it already

[tclark]

What's holding you back? It's time to quit talking about switching to Linux and actually do it.

Re:So do it already

[night_flyer]

whats holding me back?

Linux: More Refined, But Still Not Perfect

W2K does everything I ask it to with no fuss, my next machine may have Linux, but then it may have W2K again.

Re:So do it already

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, would be happy to run Linux on my computer. Two things stop me. First, it's a laptop with a Broadcomm wireless card, and last time I checked, getting that card working under Linux requires one of a number of ugly hacks, none of which I have been able to accomplish to my satisfaction. This reason will only remain until I buy a new computer, which I'll specifically spec out with easily supportable hardware. The second reason is gaming. I want to play Company of Heroes, for example, and it sounds like it barely works under Cedega.

Right now, I'm running XP. I'm not thrilled about that; I would prefer 2KPro. But I certainly won't be switching to Vista when it comes out, and my new machine will not run Vista, either.

Re:So do it already

[tclark]

Buddy, you're using Windows, so clearly you don't usually insist on perfection.

It sounds like what you meant to say was, "My system isn't broken, so I'm not messing with it." That's pretty reasonable.

Re:So do it already

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like what you meant to say was, "My system isn't broken, so I'm not messing with it." That's pretty reasonable.

Funny, that is the same argument that is keeping me on Linux

Damned RAID

[Kyokugenryu]

I'd love to try it, as I have it on DVD and I got a key, but my Silicon Image 3112 Raid Controller isn't supported!

Re:Damned RAID

[jschoenberg]

Have you tried the XP drivers?

Re:Damned RAID

[Barlo_Mung_42]

I have the same controller. Just need to download the drivers, load them onto a USB drive (no need for floppy) and when it gets to the stage where it asks for a partition to load on click the Load Drivers button to load your drivers. Poof! it now will see your drive.
I've no idea why the RAID controller folks didn't work harder to get their drivers into the box.

Microsoft and DRM

[Dobeln]

Microsoft hope to be a (the?) major conduit for media content reaching the home in the future. However, they can only make money off content if it is protected by DRM, otherwise piracy will be able to become "too mainstream", seriously eating into profits.

Hence, they support DRM as long as it's not harsh enough to dissuade a significant portion of their customer base. Which the current setup will probably not do.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[crossmr]

Considering that they're at a stage where if you rip mp3s with media player you can't easily send them to another PC you use, they're already there.

Some PC manufacturers and vendors are multi-interest like sony. Linux sure as hell won't turn around and say, yes give us your DRM! MS can use that kind of leverage to work on some exclusivity to make sure a few vendors won't turn around and be tempted to put linux on their machine and in return they give you all the DRM you want.

There isn't one end user out there that wants more DRM, so MS isn't doing it for the mass market.

When you make changes for the mass market there has to be something in it for you. I don't think MS is so concerned about being a media deliverer so much as they want to make sure they keep their desktop share. Sort of the same thing but not quite. If MSN were to turn around and say you know what, DRM is garbage, we're not going to support any of it in Vista, many of the companies like Sony would turn around and trash them at every corner. This would hurt their bottom line.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[oddfox]

Considering that they're at a stage where if you rip mp3s with media player you can't easily send them to another PC you use, they're already there.

Stop spreading this goddamn lie that I see coming out of the mouth of every fool who hasn't even bothered to see if it's true in Vista! You don't even have the capability to enable copy protection on MP3 files encoded in Windows Media Player 11! It doesn't even default to using copy protection when you encode to WMA or WMA Pro!

There isn't one end user out there that wants more DRM, so MS isn't doing it for the mass market.

Some people might not want their own personally created and original content redistributed to other machines.

By the way, there's plenty of DRM support making it's way into the Linux world, you obviously don't know where to look if you haven't seen it making it's way.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[crossmr]

Stop spreading this goddamn lie that I see coming out of the mouth of every fool who hasn't even bothered to see if it's true in Vista! You don't even have the capability to enable copy protection on MP3 files encoded in Windows Media Player 11! It doesn't even default to using copy protection when you encode to WMA or WMA Pro!

I was speaking on the general state of windows computing. Currently under XP this can happen if you're not careful what you check. I had someone ask me about this just yesterday. MS isn't known for admitting they screwed up and backtracking on something like that. If they have, great, but the fact of the matter is they already went down that road. Its just proof that they have no problem testing the waters with highly restrictive DRM.

Some people might not want their own personally created and original content redistributed to other machines.

and I doubt they form 51% or more of MS customer base.

By the way, there's plenty of DRM support making it's way into the Linux world, you obviously don't know where to look if you haven't seen it making it's way.

Then educate us oh enlightened one.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[oddfox]

I was speaking on the general state of windows computing. Currently under XP this can happen if you're not careful what you check. I had someone ask me about this just yesterday. MS isn't known for admitting they screwed up and backtracking on something like that. If they have, great, but the fact of the matter is they already went down that road. Its just proof that they have no problem testing the waters with highly restrictive DRM.

I'll check that out next time I boot my XP to play The Sims 2 (Currently gives me some minor graphical glitches in Vista RC2 that I haven't bothered investigating). If you would be so gracious as to provide proof positive that Microsoft did make copy protection the default for MP3s in any iteration of Windows Media Player that made it to XP, please let me know since I'm going to be so gracious as to provide links to you that you requested.

and I doubt they form 51% or more of MS customer base.

So we only care about the majority of users with something that's entirely optional. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to provide all these tools for creating your own music, video, whatever with tools that come with Vista, and instead of making it easy on content creators large or small, we decide to instead tell them that they need to go elsewhere for that when it's trivial to implement? That makes no business sense.

As for your education, here you go oh lazy one:

on DRM in KPDF

Re: DRM-crippled Banshee has no copyleft protection

Torvalds: "DRM is Perfectly OK with Linux

Linux and DRM - succeeding where MS failed?

The RIAA - Hollywood - DRM - Linux Suicide Pact

GStreamer to support DRM

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[crossmr]

I'll check that out next time I boot my XP to play The Sims 2 (Currently gives me some minor graphical glitches in Vista RC2 that I haven't bothered investigating). If you would be so gracious as to provide proof positive that Microsoft did make copy protection the default for MP3s in any iteration of Windows Media Player that made it to XP, please let me know since I'm going to be so gracious as to provide links to you that you requested.

I didn't say it was the default, I said its possible if you don't pay attention to what you check. I don't use media player myself. I've just heard of this issue and was exposed to it yesterday when a friend of mine mentioned he'd ripped some mp3s with media player and couldn't transfer them to another machine of his. He certainly didn't intentionally try to drm his mp3s. He's the level of user I'd label "Joe ComputerUser", so I'm sure he's not the only one who's accidentally drm'd up his music.

So we only care about the majority of users with something that's entirely optional.

Its only option if you want to download the content from file sharing networks pre-stripped of the drm, otherwise you'll be required to use it if you want to use any media on your PC. Its the unprecedented level of support that looks likely to appear in Vista. My point was that if they're doing something to benefit a group of users who are not the majority there is a kickback of some sort in there for them. I never said every decision had to be for the masses. Decisions for the masses are made to improve your product.

lets ge through your links:
First link: We don't want DRM in KPDF
Second link: Banshee could possibly be used to support DRM. Thread doesn't indicate that it is.
Third link: Linus has no objection to people using DRM in linux, again not a link stating there actually is DRM in linux
Fourth link: more talk about the possibilities of DRM, no actual DRM
Fifth link: A link about how the MPAA and RIAA don't want you to play your content in linux
sixth link:Gstreamer may support DRM in the future

Wow..you're right. Linux is FULL of drm. I'm surprised I can navigate the pixels without tripping all over it. While (from your links) there is the possibility of DRM support under Linux, its not shoved down your throat like MS makes it, it won't be a default install, and because of the modular nature of Linux, you'll be able to work around it quite easily if you don't want it on your system. However its also the support of MS that is the problem. Because of their willingness to include this support, its being used. If MS turned around and said you know what, too bad. Companies producing DRM content would have to think twice, because they realize a lot of their content is accessed through Windows machines. Whether Linux supports DRM or not is meaningless to them.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[zachdms]

I said its possible if you don't pay attention to what you check
No, it's really not. There's utterly no option to put DRM on the MP3 files, ripped or not ripped with WMP. Your friend is confused and you're slighting Microsoft for something that is visibly not true and never has been true. Try it: if you select Rip to MP3 or WAV, "Copy protect music" is unchecked and greyed out. Not possible to do this even if you want to, and never has been. =)

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[oddfox]

I'll say it again, you have to tell Windows Media Player that you want to encode copy protected WMA files, by default it does not and apparently WMP10 in XP SP2 doesn't even give you the option of encoding to MP3, which WMP11 in Vista does. I was able to successfully do my first rip with WMP10, it defaulted to 128kbps WMA non-protected, and copy the file over to multiple computers here at home and have it play back without issue. I call bullshit on your story about your friend and postulate that he pulled a stupid and enabled settings that were disabled by default. I told WMP10 when it started the rip process to keep the settings that it already had (This is a fresh XP SP2 and I hadn't used WMP10 for anything before since I have WinAMP Pro for audio, Media Player Classic for video, and CDex for ripping).

The DRM-ed music that you get from the various music stores that do use DRM (And there are plenty that don't, they simply don't have the market share from what's already a tiny market) does not in any way enforce DRM on files that you personally create on your computer, they are not viral and they don't force anything other than the installation of the proper utilities that enable playback of the protected media.

Finally, I never said Linux was full of DRM! I said DRM is making its way onto the Linux platform as we speak. Sure you'll be able to work around DRM in Linux, the same way you work around it in Windows, by not using it or purchasing files that are protected. KPDF already has DRM in it, and you can compile it without DRM, I first realized this when I noticed some time ago that KPDF has a nodrm USE flag in Gentoo. Banshee is working on iTMS support (Or at least playback of files obtained through iTMS) which in turn enables DRM support in the program. Linus is perfectly willing to allow DRM mechanisms to function on a Linux system, though he speaks mainly about signing binaries or kernel images. This is a voice of reason that generally is drowned out by the zealotry that can cloud vision. As for GStreamer, it is going to have DRM through other means in the near future and already does through Fluendo.

I see though that you don't even want to bother with understanding that the state of DRM on Linux is the same as it is on Windows, it's there but you're not being force-fed anything unless you happen to procure restricted media from a source of your own choosing. If you don't want to deal with DRM-ed files, don't buy them and don't encode them. What the hell is so hard to understand about that? And guess what, if Microsoft didn't enable support for playback of these files through their own programs, the demand would be fulfilled through whatever means necessary.

P.S. -- If you're making copies of your files by exercising your fair use rights, you shouldn't have any problem saying "Oh, I fucked up, let me re-encode this file that I accidentally made copy protected."

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[zachdms]

apparently WMP10 in XP SP2 doesn't even give you the option of encoding to MP3
To clarify, WMP8 and WMP9 let you encode to MP3 if you purchased an add-on 3rd party encode pack. WMP10 and newer include an MP3 encoder from the get-go.
But your point that WMP cannot DRM MP3 is correct.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[oddfox]

I dunno why my WMP10 doesn't have an MP3 encoder, in that case. Here's what mine looks like.

Re:Microsoft and DRM

[zachdms]

(following up in email: generally this should cover it, though.)

Why perfect?

[dryekindrew]

I only need it to be good enough.

I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[TheGratefulNet]

here's what I wrote about it (I wrote on photog forum since that was my main interest - photo processing stuff):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?for um=1004&thread=20378448

in short, these things didn't work for me:

- avira antivir (threat to MS on their own 'defender' ?)
- monaco optix xr pro (screen calibrator 'puck'; aka 'colorimeter'. pro photog guys NEED this)
- oem nero6 (I need that for lightscribe work. MS doesn't do LS, I don't think, and sadly neither does unix)
- cisco vpn (I use that to login to work remotely. this is a must-have for me.)

it also didn't like my epson scanner (1640su). a very standard and high quality flatbed scanner - not on the supported list.

it took 4 hours to do an upgrade (at the MS building, on sunday, yesterday) on an amd64 x2 3800 dualcore system. sigh.

its good that I cloned my disk before I brought my box over to them. that disk will get scrubbed and put back on the shelf and I'm back to using XP for pshop/cs2 work - where ALL my hardware and sw continues to work.

zero reason to upgrade to vista. zero. in fact, it brings me backwards and forces me to re-buy perfectly good hardware. that color puck was $300. I will NOT be re-buying THAT again - it works fine in xp and does what its supposed to.

vista is very close to shipping. and there are MAJOR failings. this does not bode well.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a beta version of Cisco VPN that works with Vista RC1->RC2
vpnclient-win-msi-4.8.01.0410-k9-BETA.exe

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[yakumo.unr]

antivir - redundant - why would anyone expect old security software to work on a system with an entirely new kind of security model
monaco optix xr pro - redundant - driver issue
nero 6 - redundant - app needs updating to access new optical drive system/drivers
cisco vpn - redundant - app needs updating to work with new networking system/drivers

scanner - redundant - driver issue

would you be surprised your Honda gearbox wouldn't fit your new Lotus? Other spares etc?

upgrade installs take forever as it's actually trying to get your things to work, fresh installs can be done in under 25 minutes.

These are things that are all personal to you, because you want your things now. They're not failings at all let alone major ones, it's up to the 3rd party companies to update their drivers / applications appropriately, sorry.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[benzapp]

- avira antivir (threat to MS on their own 'defender' ?)
- monaco optix xr pro (screen calibrator 'puck'; aka 'colorimeter'. pro photog guys NEED this)
- oem nero6 (I need that for lightscribe work. MS doesn't do LS, I don't think, and sadly neither does unix)
- cisco vpn (I use that to login to work remotely. this is a must-have for me.)


This kind of software almost NEVER works with a new OS.

vista is very close to shipping. and there are MAJOR failings. this does not bode well.

Come on. We've had 12 years of major OS releases where people have experienced the same problem as you. Guess what. Things were fine. These are not major failings. You're just being alarmist.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[bertramwooster]

vista is very close to shipping. and there are MAJOR failings. this does not bode well. You mean "this bodes well".

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[TheGratefulNet]

call me an alarmist?

wow.

I report that some tier1 apps break and you think that's alarmist?

I am afraid of what would finally cause YOU to react, then. house on fire is 'just some warm weather' to you? ;)

an os exists TO RUN KILLER APPS. not to exist by itself.

when I jumped from freebsd 4.11 to 6.0, not nearly as much stuff broke yet it was kind of close to the level of upgrade that we are going from in xp to vista. well, not a total gut-out - but then again, unix doesn't NEED a total gut-out. it got things mostly right 10+ yrs ago. 20+ yrs ago, actually.

on linux, when I went from 2.4 to 2.6, the /dev/sg device kind of broke and we had to resort back to using /dev/hdc as the burning device (ie, stop using scsi-emulation and move back to native atapi burning). no sweat! a one line change, pretty much.

I was able to take my ipfw rules from bsd 4.x to bsd 6.x with zero effort. but I can't do that with antivir - MS locked them out of the market for vista, it seems. and no, I don't trust MS to do their own antivirus - you cannot solve a problem using the thinking that got you INTO that problem (that should be as clear as the notion of NOT letting foxes guard the chickencoop).

I expect the os to be more stable and secure but I do not agree that it HAD to break all the things it broke for me.

I reject that. and you should too.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[fistynuts]

1. Hello, this is a release candidate. It's not the final product.

2. Your hardware not working with Vista is a DRIVER ISSUE. If you want it to work then you should pester the manufacturer.

3. There's a new security model in Vista. Your anti-virus program will need updating to be compatible. Again, contact the manufacturer.

It's pretty rich to install a beta of an OS then moan on public forums when everything doesn't work perfectly.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[TheGratefulNet]

hello yourself and see how you like it..

this is an RC. RC is post-beta. RC is due to be released to vendors in weeks.

stuff that doesn't work now probably WON'T work when cd/dvd goes gold.

if they had years to get it right, you think that the last few weeks are going to show anything serious beyond what they have now? seriously??

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[Anonymous Coward]

Again.. Drivers are not MS's responsibility. Contact your manufacturer, seriously.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[TheGratefulNet]

Again.. Drivers are not MS's responsibility. Contact your manufacturer, seriously.

MS distributes drivers. don't they call them 'inbox' drivers or something like that? the ones that come on the cd.

some are MS written and most are vendor written. you mean to tell me MS doesn't have pressure to exert on vendors? I'm SURE they do! isn't it in EVERYONE's best interest to get drivers on the cd that leverage the os and show it in the best light as well as the hardware from the vendor?

either way - its a failing in the system. they invented themselves out of the park. they tried to be 'too smart' and broke compatibility (which is fine, in a way) but also FAILED to ensure that the major players will be there in full force come gold-day.

I just am not convinced. there SHOULD have been some backwards compat mode. this whole thing stinks to high heaven. the value of the system is its hardware (drivers) and its apps. I have found drivers and apps - key ones - that won't work and may never work (some of them). I have NEVER found old hardware to 'stop working' on ANY version of freebsd or linux, for example.

you can excuse MS all you want - but the vendors did have drivers that worked once. MS re-broke their os and now many things have to be re-written. and there was no bridge mode - that was my main point. not middle way to run things in some compatibility (and contained) mode. ie, THIS WAS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT.

Re:I went to the vista install fair in mtn view

[TheGratefulNet]

I sent email to nero asking about vista support and my newly bought (less than 1month old) lightscribe burner. this is their reply:



Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your email.

Windows Vista RC1 is not supported by Nero 7 yet.
As soon as Windows Vista will be officially launched, Nero 7 will support this n
ew operation system.

Before Windows Vista will be officially released we will offer a test version of
Nero 7 which can be installed and tested under Windows Vista.
This Nero 7 test version will be available within the next weeks, but we cannot
schedule the exact release date yet.

Thank you for your patience.

Nero 6 will not support Windows Vista at all.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.


wonderful.

TRAINWRECK coming - get out of the way...

Seriously, they must be joking

[dingen]

Browsing the slideshow, I found this beauty.

Please, somebody pinch me. IE is clogging up 1 GB of memory in the final build of Vista before launch?! Well, it explains the insane sys reqs though.

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[Randolpho]

Look at the CPU usage: 46 percent. I'm betting he was tasking IE at the time, maybe with a very large web page or XML file. Or maybe with a webpage that loaded some wonky, memory-leaky javascript.

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he was browsing a lot of sites just then. Or maybe it just likes to cache heavily, and nothing else needed the memory. (It's not like using more memory takes more power, as using more CPU does. In fact, since it may mean it has to hit the disk less often, using more memory can use *less* power.)

What is funny/sad about that screenshot is that they finally solved the age-old Windows problem ("what's uhcrwj.exe do?"), and solved it in the age-old crappy Windows way (duct tape!).

The Mac uses human-readable names for applications, which means you can have single-icon apps that you can install or move or copy by hand, and also means the Activity Monitor can show human-readable names. Imagine that.

Microsoft's solution? Keep the crappy filenames, and add a "Description" column. Oi. Really, what do those guys in Redmond have against naming things what they are? OK, maybe keep "cmd.exe" as a link for compatibility, but there's no reason to not use real names for new programs. It's not like anybody's going to be running Vista on a FAT12 filesystem. Call it "Desktop Window Manager.exe", and then drop the ".exe" from the Name column. Naming programs with 3-letter names made sense in 1970's Unix when you had to type them a bunch, but "dwm.exe" is just stupid.

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[Anonymous Coward]

And what the hell is csrss.exe?

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[dr00g911]

I can confirm that a bare metal install of Vista on several 2GB RAM test machines that I have tie up 780mb of RAM without a single app open other than the task manager.

Vista will not be ending up on any of my renderfarm machines for that very reason.

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[ThinkFr33ly]

The amount of RAM used by Vista varies by the following:

1.) Available Physical RAM - the more RAM you have installed, the more it will use by default because it enables certain in-memory caching features and other performance related boosting features. I have a machine with 512MB of RAM and RC2 installed. On startup, with nothing else open, it uses about 320MB of RAM.

2.) Current Memory Pressure - Windows will relinquish memory that it is uses if it detects that applications need it. Sometimes this is through the managed framework (.NET) and its garbage collector, and sometimes its through other mechanisms.

The point is that looking at task manager for the amount of ram being used by a fresh boot is not an accurate way to guage Windows Vista's memory usage patterns.

Re:Seriously, they must be joking

[mgblst]

Microsoft have finally integrated ie into the system, so don't be surprised by this. There is a whole bunch of kernel function, and not to mention Aero, that go through ie now. This promises a more integrated feel to everything you do. IE now acts not only as the browser, but the web server, sql server, and a few other important things.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You basically get a choice

[Sycraft-fu]

If you run as an "administrator" you are really a normal user, however when the system requires privilege escalation, your credentials are valid for that. So you don't need to enter a password, just give it the ok with a click. If you run as a normal user, nothing changes, except that you don't have credentials so you need to enter a password of those that do.

Basically you get to choose how you want it. Now you are right in that normal users won't use the password option but you do have to be realistic here. You can't make security too arduous for people or they'll simply turn it off. We faced that problem with Tiny Personal Firewall back in the Win2000 days. We tried to get people to use it, but it was just too much of a pain. They'd turn it off because they got tired of the massive number of popups. Even though the most secure software firewall ruleset is to make extremely granular rules (TPF 2 make rules per application, port, protocol and direction so if any of those were different it would pop up for a new rule) it was just too much for normal users. What we had to do to make them use it was set it to permit all outbound, deny all inbound (what the MS firewall does by default). Then it didn't bother them so they'd leave it.

Re:You basically get a choice

[EXMSFT]

If you're a user, you also have to specify ANOTHER user's account and password - meaning whatever you're about to do runs out of context from you. Great for installers and applications with profile-specific configuration

Re:You basically get a choice

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is an MSI based installer, it isn't a problem. Admin access is not needed for profile specific operations. The install runs primarily in the context of the invoking user, only running in the context of the admin user for non user-specific operations (ex: runs as local user for HKCU access; runs as admin for HKLM access).

Re:You basically get a choice

[cecil_turtle]

One thing they could do like some Linux distros is make you type the password even if you are a priviledged user, but have that be valid for X number of minutes of which you won't be prompted again.

The two biggest things that bother me about UAC is 1) it grays the whole screen when it pops the dialog box - this takes excess time and resources, especially on a multiple monitor machine running high resolutions, and 2) that you have to confirm EVERY admin action, if you're about to do 10 "administrative" things in a row.

900 megabytes of RAM for IE?

[jehnx]

Why does IE use up 900+ megabytes of RAM? http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s= 1489&a=190803&po=14,00.asp

Re:900 megabytes of RAM for IE?

[alx5000]

It's trying to mimmick Firefox's success... But maybe they got it wrong...

Re:900 megabytes of RAM for IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

PS: Grammar nazis, eat my shorts

Black box testing won't find most bugs

[garyebickford]

I used to run a "Software Quality Assurance Workshop" at Tektronix - I was an SQA engineer at the time, so I know a little bit about the topic. In researching this subject and also over time since then, I learned some interesting facts, which should be enough to scare the Vista SQA team.

1. There are strong mathematical reasons why it is near-to-impossible to find more than about 20% of the bugs in a system (of any significant size) using black box testing.

I don't recall the proof. As I recall the most important factor is algorithmic complexity - every additional two-way branch doubles the number of possible paths through the control flow. For perspective, a program with just ten branches requires 1024 different tests, for EACH grouping of input data.

Data issues provide more complexity. Heuristics may help discover as many of the pathological cases as possible. For example, every input data element (variable) must be checked at the 'fenceposts' (ends of the range), inside the range, and outside the range. Inside the range, there may be regions or single values that can affect the usage of other variables (e.g., angles might be defined in [0,2Pi] but tan (pi/2) is pathological), so those are another kind of fenceposts that must be discovered and tested for.

(There are many resources online. Wikipedia/Software Quality is a reasonable place to start.

2. Given a 'good quality' development system using techniques such as structured programming, code walkthroughs, manual and automated code analysis, and some other things, about 80% of the bugs will be in the original design document. (Another justification for Extreme Programming?)

Interestingly, something like 50% of these may be arguments regarding usage. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" is often a valid argument - a 'screwed up menu' for one user may be just perfect for another. Of course, providing options to the user as X11 does, is often itself considered a 'misfeature' for the general public, if not an outright bug.

3. Given the same system, only about 20% of the total resources (time, budget) will be spent in the development phase. As I recall, about 20% -> planning and design phases, 20% to development, 40% during SQA, and the last 20% after release.

4. Again with the same system, the designed, QA'd, tested, and released code will have approximately 1 bug every 200 lines of code (while there are arguments about using Source Lines of Code as a programmer performance metric, it can be more easily justified for this purpose, as we can assume that most languages will have about the same level of ambiguity regarding what is a line of code.) This ratio has been empirically shown to run true across all types of programming, from assembler to 4G database code. I recall reading a couple of years ago that Microsoft admitted a rate of one bug per 80 lines of code, but I don't have a citation, so I can't say for sure.

All modern OS have about the same number of lines (according to the above), using the same metrics - about 30 million. This is apparently true for XP and for various recent distributions of Linux - Redhat, Debian, and others, including the applications that came with the distributions. Therefore, every OS ships to the customer containing something on the order of 150,000 bugs. I once listened to a presentation by the then-head of IBM's OS software support group - I think for OS/360, but it might have been a later product. They released a new version every three months, and customers found another 2000 bugs every time.

A probable advantage of Unix-like systems is the relative independence of different applications and components. Each application presumes less about its environment, and so can be less susceptible to problems caused by interactions within the environment. This helps to break the algori

Re:Black box testing won't find most bugs

[bmajik]

Disclosure: I am an SQA employee at Microsoft, albeit not in the Windows org.

One thing that F/OSS advocates (rightly) point out (everytime there is a windows vs linux security bug count study) is that not all bugs are equal. While defects/KLOC is interesting in a variety of ways, it is not nececssarily a good indicator of how well the software meets the needs of the user(s), and ultimately, how well the software meets the needs of the user(s) is what matters (its what matters to users, and its what matters to developers/vendors)

So to be fair, some of the conceptual test problems you mention (like complete-path coverage, or all edge-case coverage, etc) are not necessarily important test scenarios, especially if those values fall outside of the expected use of the product.

For instance, it may very well be that Vista's IP stack will not allow 2^31 in-flight TCP connections simultaneously. A clever tester might write a test that tries to set this up, only to see it fail.

But a more clever tester wouldn't have bothered, mostly because they know that other issues would prevent 2^31 connections from working long before you got there, and that 2^31 connectinos isn't any kind of customer scenario in the lifecycle of Vista.

This kind of sucks at some level - you want the product to be "intellectually" bug free, i.e. if you konw of a defect, it is satisfying to know that it is going to be fixed. But not all bugs are created equal, and some just don't warrant the effort required to fix them.

In some teams at Microsoft, I'd argue that test tools and test automation are used too heavily, to the detriment of the product's quality. I'm a huge fan of test tools and test automation, but it has to free up tester time so they can actually use the product and find the things that computers can't (yet) find. Exploratory or ad-hoc testing still finds a ton of bugs, and if you're familiar with the art, you know that the "goal" of SQA is not to provide a body of tests for posterity, but to act as a feedback mechanism for developers to stop writing the same kinds of defects they did 12 months ago. Thus, many functional tests have a built-in expiration date, and ultimately, a test most effective if it simulates how the customer is expected to use the product.

Naturally, the rules change depending on the nature of the product - the majority of testing going on for security-sensitive applications is much different than the majority of testing for Office UI localization. In many security-sensitive areas, it is often more important that the product doesn't do what it shouldn't than verifying that it does do what it should, and what constitutes "security sensitive" is changing (mostly expanding) on a daily basis.

So back on topic - one thing we do to try and help with the quality of Vista, inspite of not being able to do theoretically complete test coverage, is extensive customer use. I've been running Vista on my main work machine for months. I'm running it at home on my media center machine. Tens of thousands of MS employees are running Vista (and Office 12). The claim goes - if a cross-section of Microsoft employees can survive their work and home computer usage scenarios, on pre-release builds of Vista, then Vista is generally "ok". We'll find a lot of the issues that customers are likely to run into via extensive real-world usage of the product.

Additionally, Vista has been deployed by real customers doing real work at multiple customer sites. And this is how it is with most MS products now. Any version of SQL server, Visual Studio, the .NET Framework - all had real companies "go live" on pre-release versions of those products, with the developers and testers from MS working directly with those companies on issues as they arose. The companies get a head start on using newer stuff (to solve real problems they're having) and we get incredible real-world feedback on the product.

I don't want to shrink the amount of effort we put into forma

Re:Black box testing won't find most bugs

[garyebickford]

One thing that F/OSS advocates (rightly) point out (everytime there is a windows vs linux security bug count study) is that not all bugs are equal. While defects/KLOC is interesting in a variety of ways, it is not nececssarily a good indicator of how well the software meets the needs of the user(s), and ultimately, how well the software meets the needs of the user(s) is what matters (its what matters to users, and its what matters to developers/vendors)

Yes, though I would argue that the term 'defect' includes many useability problems, while accepting that some of these will be a matter of opinion. Oftentimes if these problems can be grouped, they can be valuable signposts for refactoring of a user interface - thinking outside the box.

For example, at a company where I worked, users of a certain timesharing system complained about having to wait for a response back from the computer after entering a command. The staff streamlined the system until the maximum time was under two seconds, and the minimum was a fraction of a second. The complaints continued. They finally set the system so it always took two seconds, even if it was ready sooner. The complaints stopped, and everyone remarked how much faster the system was. The problem wasn't the real time but the perception. Once the wait time was predictable, users unconsciously factored that into their thought process and the wait 'disappeared' - in their minds.

At the same company, I wrote a field diagnostic program for a plotter, which worked perfectly until a year later, when an obscure test (literally, the one out of several hundred that I didn't document!) failed on plotters with the new firmware. They couldn't figure out what the test did, and I couldn't remember. They finally took the test out, and everyone lived happily ever after.

For instance, it may very well be that Vista's IP stack will not allow 2^31 in-flight TCP connections simultaneously. A clever tester might write a test that tries to set this up, only to see it fail.

But a more clever tester wouldn't have bothered, mostly because they know that other issues would prevent 2^31 connections from working long before you got there, and that 2^31 connectinos isn't any kind of customer scenario in the lifecycle of Vista.

Hmm. I think that the 'bazaar' F/OSS model may be advantageous in this area. Because programs must be developed without expectations except for 'standard' I/O, file and stream formats and protocols, bugs are probably more self-limiting than monolithic systems. They may 'waste' more time on sanity checks, however. Sometimes it's not good to have too much access to another development group.

But from the POV of Invariant Based Programming - (originally advocated by Dijkstra, AFAIK), if it's provable (from other software or hardware limitations, presumably) one might argue that if there is no way for the code to receive that many requests, then it's not a defect to not check for it.

Of course the problem is expectation vs. reality. Will future systems be able to surpass 2^31 connections? They probably already can in big routers. Systems have a way of surpassing our most grandiose imaginings, so how do we assure that our reasonable input constant isn't a future bug? The apocryphal '640K RAM quote', comes to mind. :)

In 1981 I worked in a graphics group where the marketing suits could not fathom that anyone would ever need one whole megabyte of RAM - for a graphics terminal. And in code I wrote yesterday, I considered using a fixed length 'default' variable for resetting a set of bit value arguments, making it 'long enough for any conceivable future expansion'. Then I rewrote it to eliminate the string entirely and determine the necessa

Re:Black box testing won't find most bugs

[TractorBarry]

Sorry I;ve got to add my tuppence worth here. Using lines of code as a programmer performance metric is plain wrong.

Where I work an external agency used to do this with their coders. Lo and behold on any code they touched all things like array initialisation were performed like so:

array_element(0) == nil;
array_element(1) == nil;
array_element(2) == nil;
etc. etc.

Note also that despite the fact the compiler automatically initalised array elements they were also all explicitly initialised because that was another line of code written for that day. Hell some of these clownns used to add completely unused areas to the code just so they could write vast amounts of initialisation code (I swear at least one of them had a set of routines which wrote all this crap for him)

As for subroutines forget it. If the same code was needed multiple times it was simply inlined every single time it was needed. They left an awful, awful mess behind.

Measuring programmer performance by lines of code written is just dumb.

Re:Black box testing won't find most bugs

[garyebickford]

Yes, I mentioned that using LOC as a performance metric has its difficulties, however that is different from measuring the ratio of defects or bugs per LOC. This is a ratio, and so is relatively scale-invariant with the number of lines of code - bogus lines and good lines probably have about the same rate of typos and other errors. Also, the studies I cited concerned projects where SQA practices such as code walk-throughs and peer review were used, so such antics would not have survived the process unless hidden in ways that are more work than doing the right thing. Walkthroughs and peer review can be brutal for those whose code is not up to par, or unreadable. I would also think that if the definition of defect includes such useless code, it might reflect badly on the programmer.

As I Recall...

[DeadboltX]

Windows XP wasn't a perfect gem when it came out either. Infact, I remember installing XP on my machine in the first month it came out, and it didn't work very well with my hardware. There were no drivers for my Voodoo3 graphics card, and it took a few months before some users hacked up some working Xp drivers for it(there never was any official support for it from 3dfx)

I kept using Windows98 until maybe 5 or 6 months down the road when XP became usable for the masses.. by this time all the major software companies had versions that worked in XP and all the major hardware companies had drivers that worked in XP..

So how is Vista going to be? I can tell you now.. It will suck completely for anyone who relies on a specific piece of software for work for at least 5 months, and it will suck 85% for everyone who does not buy a new PC with Vista pre-installed (read: a PC with 100% hardware compatability in mind and tested)

6 Months after the release, I'll give it a shot.

Re:Poo

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow, this all actually relates to the topic at hand.

Questions...

[jesterpilot]

* Is it possible now to rename, move or delete a document when it's in use by an application?
* Is disk-defragmentation history?
* Does Vista provide a software manager connected to massive software-libraries on the internet, so we can install and update applications en masse?
* Does Vista have multiple desktops?
* Can we choose between different desktop environments?

Re:Questions...

[ChronoReverse]

1) Nope. The old lock system is still there. Irritating. You'd think they'd at least incorporate something into UAC to allow for closing all handles.

2) Theoretically yes. Vista will automatically schedule and defrag itself. A step up from just not telling you about it like on some platforms.

3) And get slammed with even more anti-trust suits? I thought we _didn't_ want to do stuff like that. And we all know there's no way MS would do that for non-Microsoft partners.

4) Even XP had that. However, it's a Microsoft Powertoy (figures). I don't see a built-in option in Vista either (blegh).

5) Hahahah.

Re:Questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Vista is not yet linux.

Re:Questions...

[sethawoolley]

1) boy I wish they'd fix that, annoying as hell to not be posix-compliant

2) hah

3) adware fits the definition

4) I had to use a windows laptop for a little bit recently. I installed blackbox on it, with multiple desktops, on xp.

5) again, with blackbox.

Re:Questions...

[r3m0t]

#3 (software updates) can be decentralised, and as simple as "your MSI should include a URL giving the address of an XML file on the web, which matches this DTD."

(Slashdot has removed my indenting)

An example:

<app>
<appname>Acrobat</appname>
<publisher>Adobe</publisher>
<versions>
  <version>
   <num>9.0</num>
   <released>2006-10-01</released>
   <upgradecost>50 USD or 40 GBP or 50 EUR; for students and other currencies see website</upgrade>
   <download>http://...</download>
   <changes>...</changes>
   <criticalupdate />
  </version>
  more
</versions>
</app>
<app>
<appname>Photoshop Album Starter Edition</appname>
...
</app>

A Windows service could get these XML files regularly, present the user with a list of updates (with the option to show a changelog) and offer to install them. It isn't too different from the new "game signature" XML files, which include the game's publisher, version, name and rating in various areas.

Installation and finding apps to install can wait for another day. But I'm disappointed in the MSI format wrt updates.

Firewire is NOT gone

[ChronoReverse]

Right now I'm running RC2 and the firewire controller on my Asus A8N-VM is right there in the device manager. However, Microsoft has removed the firewire networking that nobody used.

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Marcion]

>Microsoft has pulled firewire support from their OS! No one knows if its permanent ...

>Firewire is NOT gone

Shame, Firewire is fantastic, I was hoping that all the fab external firewire drives would become as cheap as cheaps for the rest of us who do not use Windows.

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Wizard Drongo]

Nobody uses it?? Since when. I find firewire the nicest way (by far) to network two machines when one of them is already configured for ethernet into another network. This is particularly true when (for instance) I want to transfer large files from my laptop to a machine on my Uni's (and before that, my college's) network. Then there is also the fact that most pc's lack gigabit ethernet, so firewire is at the least, 4 times faster for transfer speed. Which, when coupled with the above ease of connectivity (don't have to change settings back and forth for the ethernet etc) makes it a total winner. There's a reason why firewire networking is the default method of files between two macs when you buy a new one...... I currently do this regularly between my Macbook and said Uni pc's with little hassle. Looks like Windows Vista is gonna be even shitter than it was looking to be.....

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[ChronoReverse]

Well, it's still there as an optional component if you use it. It's just not installed by default it seems. But my guess is MS feels like squashing intercompatibility.

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Al Dimond]

Yay. 1394 networking, as Beck might say, makes me wanna smoke crack. At my job I use 1394 for driver debugging; if you boot into 1394-debug mode and 1394 networking comes on it kills your debug connection. So I disable the 1394 network adapter, but every time I move the HD to a different system (very frequently) it becomes re-enabled again (even when I use the same damn 1394 card). So there's always at least one wasted boot, or hangs because a breakpoint is hit after the debug connection has been killed. And I've yet to find a way to disable it entirely across any and all 1394 adapters that might get plugged in. Except, apparently, by moving to Vista.

I'm just amazed that TFA(uthor) misses it. 1394 networking seems to me to be the definition of a solution in search of a problem. When I read in the article that the author had a 1394 network up I did a double-take. I've never even seen hubs or repeaters for 1394, do such things exist?

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Wizard Drongo]

They do. I've used one, and most macs have 2 or three firewire ports anyway. Firewire is more handy as a direct connection between 2 machines though. Perfect for file transferring and fairly simple to achieve in windows without messing up your existing network settings (for ethernet) since windows is too naff to set different locations as in Mac OS X.

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Nik13]

It's nice in a way, but by saying nobody uses it, he's almost right (in the same sense as "nobody uses ogg").

Yes, it's faster than 100mbit ethernet. But then again, not every PC has firewire - only the recent ones do, and often those also have gigabit ethernet as well (even the kids' old socket A Asus A7V880 motherboard has it).

Gigabit uses rather standard cables (cat 5e or better) which is not exactly hard to find. Whereas for firewire networking I had to buy a "special" cable (2 male plugs - not your average firewire cable used by fw devices), which I've very rarely seen (I've only seen my own).

Firewire is already not very well known by the average consumer besides Mac users seemingly (I've been asked "what's that weird plug?" so many times). Combine that with the fact most wouldn't know they can network that way, various so-so drivers (Unibrain's are the best buy they're not free), and a special cable requirement, it's no wonder "nobody uses it". And that's disregarding FW is limited to a connection between 2 PCs only (can't just plug 'em all in one big switch permanently unlike gbit ethernet)

Speed is pretty good though (although fw tends to peak CPU a bit) - almost as good as gigabit: gigabit is limited by the average PC's HD transfer speeds (sustained, not peak) and such.

It was great for transfers of large files between 2 PCs next to each other like large AV files back when gigabit was too expensive, but I've given up on that (gigabit has come down a LOT in price). I only use it [rarely] with my DSLR to shoot tethered (no USB2 on it) and to capture DV every now and then. My firewire iBot2 webcam died of one too many falls on the floor and got replaced with a nicer USB2 model.

Re:Firewire is NOT gone

[Ster]

There's a reason why firewire networking is the default method of files between two macs when you buy a new one......

That's not quite correct. The way it works is that one of the machines (the old one, if the initial setup assistant is copying your settings from an older machine) is shut down and rebooted into what is called Target Disk Mode by pressing a key combination (Command-T, I believe) early in boot. This tells the machine's firmware to not boot the OS, and instead makes the internal drive(s) appear like any external FireWire hard drive. The newer machine then sees the older machine's drive(s) as regular external FireWire drives, and copies the data.

Of course, you can *also* set up the machines to use IP-over-FireWire, including sharing on machine's Ethernet network over FireWire to the other machine.

-Ster

Maybe they don't include drivers on purpose...

[saleenS281]

Call me crazy, but perhaps MS doesn't include * drivers by default as an incentive for the masses to use the final build instead of Beta2. You kind of have to keep SOMETHING back... otherwise why would anyone buy it at all? They could all just use the free Beta2 copies...

Re:Maybe they don't include drivers on purpose...

[ThinkingInBinary]

You kind of have to keep SOMETHING back... otherwise why would anyone buy it at all? They could all just use the free Beta2 copies...

The betas are programmed to expire in about 9 months (June 2007, IIRC). Withholding drivers is dumb because it withholds part of the experience of the OS.

Re:Maybe they don't include drivers on purpose...

[Marcion]

Well don't forget that the pre-releases blow up after 6 months.

a beta that's not perfect? WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ suxorZ!!!!1

One step further...

[mr_matticus]

Since when did the people in Redmond become "it" and not "he"? I know we like the Borg collective icon here on /. but they ARE still human, right? The excerpt should read, "Is anyone in Redmond actually paying attention to what he's doing?"

(Off topic part) Maybe they're Cylons? I, for one, hope to see the return of the After Dark flying toaster with Bill Gates' face on it. The Borg Gates is getting dated.

x64 support is less then stellar

[montge]

Basically I installed the x64 version, and I'd say compared to the XP x64 version the experience was worse. My challenge is that I want to do testing of 64 bit apps such as Exchange 2007 (using VMWare of course.) This makes me wish I had bought the Linux version of VMWare a few years back instead of Windows, as VMWare won't let you switch versions.

UI kept on crashing, Office 2003 install took so long I decided to give up and move back to XP on x86. Thinking about trying Vista x86, but at this point I needed a stable machine.

They did on LH Server

[kusanagi374]

Well, I'm giving Longhorn Server a go and, once you enable UAC (it has to be actually enabled, like su), it'll prompt for admin's password when you try to elevate a software the same way gksudo works in Ubuntu (but, of course, it asks for the admin password - not yours). That makes me wonder if they actually kept it in Vista, but disabled the option with a regkey.

People talk crap about UAC, but I actually like to know when a given piece of software wants admin priviledges - something I never had on windows but is just canonical on *nix.

Feels Like Street Fighter!

[EXTomar]

With naming conventions like this, it is starting to get close to Street Fighter levels of awesomenessocity. Next up: "Microsoft Windows Vista: Release Canidate 2 Beta Final Alpha Turbo 4...Professional!"

Re:Feels Like Street Fighter!

[J44xm]

Indeed. And the idea of shutting down my laptop by means of keying in "down, down-right, right, A" is pretty entertaining.

(As long as the overpowered Akuma service is disabled by default. It breaks the system.)

Another day, another RC

[davmoo]

I must admit I get a chuckle out of a lot of the posts here that bitch about the bugs in Vista RC2.

The funny thing is I have yet to see a Linux distribution release come out bug-free either. In fact, in the 12 years I've been playing with Linux, I've seen at least a handful of releases that, a month later, had hundreds of megs of "bug fixes". And I remember at least one distribution that, upon its final release, destroyed certain CD recorders. I won't even bring up the fact that I have PCs that Ubuntu won't even install on, much less run correctly on, but both XP and Vista install and run on all the machines without a hitch.

But I guess that's okay, since its Linux and we love Linux even when it fucks up.

Re:Another day, another RC

[oddfox]

You, sir, should get a cookie for speaking such truth.

Firewire Support

[Anonymous Coward]

"this late in the game it appears MS has dropped firewire support!!!"

right well some how some way my firewire external drive operates perfectly fine under vista.

i'm using RC2 (installed on friday)

thanks ok

Firewire

[OfNoAccount]

I'm running this box on RC1, and Firewire support is alive and well here. It installed automatically during setup without any hiccups. Transfer rates seem significantly better than XP/SP2 too.

Antipiract above security? Give me a break.

[SteveXE]

FTA...

"If validation code, written by Microsoft, decides that your installation of Windows Vista has been pirated, it turns off the Aero interface and a minor performance technology called ReadyBoost. I'm okay with that. But I am absolutely not okay with the third punitive measure: The disabling of Windows Defender, Microsoft's new onboard anti-spyware utility. Other punitive measures according to published reports include the disabling of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player."

You know this is a load of BS. I know I know its bad when spyware can infest a PC but lets be honest here people, Windows shouldnt run to its fullest potential if someone is pirating it. The one piece of software you should NEVER under any circumstances pirate is your Operating System. If some moron is getting blasted with spam and popups then thats the price he should pay for stealing.

There are always other anti spyware apps that they could use anyways and chances are anyone who is going to pirate will know that. Defender wont block virus's so this is a moot point if someone brings that issue up, and does anyone care if they cant use IE7?

I really dont understand how they are placing anti piracy above security. If your a valid user and you have an issue a quick phone call will fix it, MS has always been understanding in that regard as I've dealt with them before. They solved the problem quickly with no hassle. Also chances are unless you change your Mobo you will never run into that problem anyways. Of course If you pirated then I have no pity on you.

What?

[Quixadhal]

No firewire support?

My firewire external drives won't like that very much.

How much more complicated can firewire be, than USB 2.0? I mean, the code already exists and works for XP, they're supporting USB removable drives, how many monkeys does it take to port a few extra routines?

Re:Antipiract above security? Give me a break.

[Anonymous Coward]

The interesting thing about scurity is that it's not just limited to spyware the way you're alleging. There's all kinds of nasty stuff that can come through an unprotected internet connection, and I, personally, am much more woried about my computer catching a truly destructive virus than some piddley little spyware program.

Anti 'piracy'

[nurb432]

At this point, does it really matter?

hardcore 'Pirates' will get around it
large corporates dont care
average home users will have to upgrade anyway and most of the pcs they buy will already have the microosft tax.

The only losers are small businesses caught in the middle. And these days they have more options open to them, and can 'just say no' if they want.

MOLP

[nurb432]

If you have a corporate MOLP agreement you have to upgrade within a set timeframe as your license to use what you have now goes away.

And if that means more servers ( for their licensing schemes ) or new hardware, well, it sux to be you.

So to answer the question, lots of people will in time.

Seems somehow familiar...

[Kadin2048]

Proper way to do it: When the user needs to perform an administrative task, have them enter a password, then allow ALL administrative tasks performed within the next several minutes without asking. If the time runs out, ask for the password again. This allows people to perform Administrative tasks without constantly having to click on annoying dialog boxes for every step they perform.

So ... in other words .... sudo?

Re:Antipiract above security? Give me a break.

[SteveXE]

it didnt say a thing about the firewall

My experience w/RC2

[Simulant]

    I should have known better but my curiousity got the better of me.

  I Installed RC2 on a Athlon 64 system with a Nforce 4 chipset & Geforce 6800 graphics just a few days ago and here's what happened....

      Install went smooth at first... my system had a 160GB SATA primary drive/volume and a second volume made up of dual ATA drives in a RAID 0 config. Setup appeared (at first glance) to see the RAID volume and that's where I told it to install.

    Unfortunately... it turns out that while it detected an Nvidia RAID controller and saw a single volume, it actually only saw ONE of the drives. It installed itself on this drive, totally hosing the RAID 0 set (well... actually I did recover a some of the data) and of course crapped out after the first re-boot.

    Damn.... good thing nothing important was on the RAID volume. Oh well... I decided it was sort of my fault for not noticing that setup showed that size of the volume = the size of a single drive rather than two and realizing something was wrong at that point in the install.

  Try #2... This time I resized my SATA drive partition to free up space for a second partition and re-installed there. This time the installation completed successfully and I had a working Vista install with the full Aero desktop. (Btw, it turns out you need a frickin Windows key to do the fancy 3D task switching. You know, the stupid and previous useless key that some MS marketing guy got keyboard makers to add to all their PC keyboards? I always pull mine off as it interferes with my FPS control setup. Nothing like having the start menu pop up when you're in a firefight. Anyway, this really put me off... but you can still sample the effect from one of the quick launch items)

  Looking good... but wait! There's no sound and it sees my RAID set as two separate drives. I'm somewhat disturbed that RC2 doesn't support common Nvidia hardware that's a year or two old, but what the heck... Nvidia's been releasing Vista drivers, I'll just go download them.

  All I can find on Nvidia's site are RC1 drivers and sure enough, they won't install. Even worse, here's what happened while trying....

    The Nvidia drivers came zipped up and after downloading it, I browsed to the .zip in explorer and attempted to extract the files. Extraction starts then hangs. Then every other explorer related process hangs... and then, network connectivity ceases.

    I can still launch apps and a command prompt (via task manager) , but there's no network and no explorer. Attempts to logout, shutdown, and reboot all fail. I try to kill explorer with task manager but it won't die. After about 10 minutes I finally have to press reset.

      I repeat this about 3 times and then I give up in disgust. This is WAY worse than when explorer hangs in XP. Just kill it and and it usually restarts. With Vista RC2, it looks like you have to wait 30 minutes (maybe, I wasn't patient enough) or hit reset.

So.. I installed winrar instead, unzipped the drivers, and failed to install them as they were the wrong version.

    And that's about all the time I was willing to waste... I'll take another look when Nvidia releases RC2 drivers but I'm not impressed at this point.

    A few other annoyances during all of this:

        I was repeatedly told that the computer need my permission to do something that I just directed it to. It was incredibly annoying. Just about everything I did triggered the request and if I said yes once, it would still ask the next time I tried.

        Most of the management/system config stuff that I'm used to in XP have been hidden, moved, or obfucscated in Vista... though to be fair, I'd probably get used to this once I'm more familiar with the OS. No incentive to do that at present though.

        The new explorer interface bites, at first glance anyway.

    And that's my Vista RC2 experience. Good luck.

Re:My experience w/RC2

[Simulant]

Oh.. and on the off chance that MS is reading any of this:

MS, if you like to ingratiate yourselves with all of us Windows system administrators, may I suggest having a single option somewhere (hide it if you like), which when selected would configure the user interface to be optimal for a system administrator's use... ie prominent links to explorer, command prompt & other system tools, default detail view on everything, bells and whistles turned off, replace all wizards with a real configuration interfaces, have OS assume that everything the user does is permitted (ok, you can still nag for deletions & format), etc.... Then allow us to customize this configuration and the make it EASILY portable. As for what exactly should be set/unset, take a poll. We will love you for it.

    You have no idea how much time I've wasted during my professional careeer simply reconfiguring windows to make it useable for both myself and my users. (yes I know a lot of shortcuts now....however I still think there should be an 'admin friendly interface' available out of the box.)

Re: UAC password prompts

[Dolda2000]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same guy who first bitched about the UAC always asking for passwords to do anything administrative? (read: mimics SU, only more annoyingly)

I'm not saying that this is your opinion of choice of words, but I've heard it elsewhere as well, and I just wanted to clear it up a bit -- UAC has never been like su/sudo. su never automagically captures your terminal whenever you, as a normal user, attempt to run "rm -rf /" and asks you to type your password. Rather, you'll get a permission error would you ever try, and then you'd need to manually run su/sudo to get a root session.

If you ask me, the way su/sudo works is far better, and I always thought Microsoft should design Vista the same way. For example, a li'l button in the quick launch field that you click, type in your password, and get your privileges escalated. Then you click it again to revoke those privileges. The largest problem I see with UAC is that phishingware can fake the dialog, and make you give it your password. Since the UAC box pops up "on demand", you won't know if it is Windows which pops it up for you or if it is a phishing program that pops up one which looks just like it. Probably 90% of all users (and I wouldn't put many corporate administrators beyond it either) will just type in their password without thinking twice. In particular, think of what would happen if the next Gator included such a thing in their installation program -- people will be used to get a UAC prompt during installation anyway. su, on the other hand, will never ask for your password without you asking it to do so.

Another day, another mod.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or get modded a troll since moderation works so well.

Re:Another day, another mod.

[oddfox]

That was a troll, sorry to burst your bubble.

No IP over Firewire

[Pao|o]

No IP over Firewire support either

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/bus/1394/IP_1 394.mspx

Need signed drivers too

[Myria]

The worst part about Vista 64 is you need signed drivers. Not a single XP64 driver will work, even if it would work were it able to load.

Melissa

Re:Love? Hate? Ignorance?

[docrmc]

Ignorance certainly is the keyword, here.

What matters is ignorance of 90% Windows users.

Let's call it 90% of the world uses Windows, and only 10% of those are somethin akin to an expert.. oh how dread! How completely improbable! I mean, if i drove a car, and i do, i should know how to, say.. pick it down and put it back up again, part out my engine, manufacture a tyre... oh please. Only the truly ignorant would expect that everyone knows the inner workings of everything they use, even daily. We watch tv everyday, doesnt mean we could all repair one, or have even seen the inside of our tvs. We use cell phones everyday, does that mean we should know,say, Symbian inside and out? It is a tool. Most of us use the tools and dont delve. I may not be one of those ppl but i am not pompous enough to assume that everyone should be like me.

What matters is nobody knows about alternatives, and nobody cares.

There are some, perhaps even most, who dont know and/or dont care. But speaking as one of us who does know, employ the stuck on a desert w. one choice scenario... itd be Windows. Not because its so secure or anything, heck no, but because i like choice. Same reason ive bought Sony consoles first and foremost, the most games. But in fact, id use whatever it took to best get the job done, much like the console. If Madden looks better on cube or xbx, then well PS2.. sux to you. But if there is negligible difference, well, the default platform is prolly goin to be that most popular one. But if u like wonderin if i can use this program or this piece of hardware, go rite on ahead. Im sure ur representative of the pop'n....

...to keep up with the Johns.

Ah, so youre still using red hat 7? mac os 8?

...every "law obedient, god fearing taxpayer" should - buy Vista, that is.

im neither god fearing nor particularly law abiding, but if im goin to use Vista, im goin to pay for it, or not bitch if i get carted off to jail. u know what the stakes are. if jail were my biggest concern, id stick to freeware, which is exactly what i do (and why im not plannin an upgrade anytime soon.) (wo)man up, already!

...software vendors, especially bigger ones, will be 'convinced' by Microsoft to develop Vista-only stuff.

As history proves, big software vendors hate backwards compatibility, especially 1 OS update away. i mean, jus look how they shunned win2k for xp....


It helps that if youre going to be snide, be factual- derision w. holes begets derision. Empassioned cries are best left for blogs.

Re:Love? Hate? Ignorance?

[rumith]

1. About ignorance. When I speak of ignorance, I do not mean not knowing how the stuff works - I mean not knowing how to use the stuff. To my greatest displeasure, most of the 300+ people I am in charge of supporting [which certainly are brighter than most - I work for a nuclear physics institute; before you ask - no, I'm not from Korea nor from Iran ;)] don't. I mean, they panic and feel lost as soon as something unexpected happens [like Windows suggests them to reboot in order to install the updates]. And I could tell you tons of 'where is this any key' stories.
2. You like choice. Oh. Do you like choice of operating systems as well, or choice starts for you where Windows ends?
3. No, I'm using Debian. But my home PC is a 4 years old 32bit machine, and my servers aren't quad Opterons either, and the specialized software platforms I develop [Wi-Fi hotspots, surveillance cameras] run 2.4 [although pretty recent revisions], etc. Why fix something that isn't broken?
4. You're not god fearing and not particularly law abiding? Then we're not discussing your type here, period. My phrase was related to the 'GFLAC' class, and not to every happy Microsoft customer, so your comment was irrelevant.
5. About backwards compatibility: time will tell.

Re:Love? Hate? Ignorance?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What matters is ignorance of 90% Windows users. What matters is nobody knows about alternatives, and nobody cares."

  Actually,what matters is not that nobody cares about the alternatives,its that nobody wants them. Apples hardware may be of high quality,but its expensive and the selection is limited. (I just build a new machine,ATI 1900GT,core2duo 6600, intel motherboard,and crucial ram and an antec powersupply. All very good stuff and as good or better than most any pc you could buy. A equivalent dell would have cost over 2k. As far as I know,there isnt a mac that is in any way similar. They are either lower end,or higher,but nothing there. Even if there were,it would certainly cost more than the dell. I paid $700 for the whole thing due to some carefull web shopping. As for linux,its a joke. Linux users and programmers have this idea that ease of use is somehow a bad thing. They like to stroke their geekly egos by making statements like "Anyone who is too lazy or stupid to edit a few configuration files shouldnt own a computer." I dont have to search through a dozen different web config files,and two dozen howtos on the web to figure out how to set up something on my computer. I avoid linux except for those few programs I have that have to run under it. I had a simulation package called garfield I needed to run. Not only did it require linux,it refused to compile under most flavors I tried. The only one that worked was Cern Linux which is what it was written on. This isnt the only software that has that problem. Sure,I could spend the time to figure out what the problem was and make it run on whatever crazy linux distribution the alpha geeks say is the best this week,but who has time for that. I have things that I actually need to get done. If I want a 5000 dollar unix workstation,Ill buy a mac,if I want a low end cheap machine,Ill buy a mac,if I want anything else,Ill put it together myself,save a ton,get a higher quality machine and live with windows. At least it works out of the box. No config files to edit,no downloading six different distributions untill I find one that will run on my machine,(or crawling through directories editing text files while I play 80s music in the background,and expect Knight Rider or the Dukes of hazard to suddenly start playing on the tb)

  If the linux geeks want linux to be a viable os for people not in the pocket protector set,they should make it easy to use,easy to install and easy to configure. Put all the configs in one nice data base and make a nice gui interface to configure it all. Make it a modern os instead a throwback to two decades ago.