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

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?

[gardyloo]

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

    Erm... Like support for firewire?

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.

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.

Re:So which is it?

[Lxy]

All RCs are betas.

Not all betas are RCs.

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.

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: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.

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.