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Mossberg - Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter S. Mossberg says Vista is the best version of Windows yet, but doesn't represent a major step forward: 'Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP.' More from the review: 'Nearly all of the major, visible new features in Vista are already available in Apple's operating system, called Mac OS X, which came out in 2001 and received its last major upgrade in 2005. ... in my tests, some elements of Vista could be maddeningly slow even on new, well-configured computers. Also, despite Vista's claimed security improvements, you will still have to run, and keep updating, security programs, which can be annoying and burdensome. Microsoft has thrown in one such program free, but you will have to buy at least one more. That means that, while Vista has eased some of the burden on users imposed by the Windows security crisis, it will still force you to spend more time managing the computer than I believe people should have to devote.'"
Vista is indeed a worthy improvement, but not a worthy upgrade. I'd buy it on a new PC, but in no way buy it outright...
UAC is one of the biggest improvements in my opinion; not in that it makes Windows nicer to use (far from it in fact), but that finally, Windows has adopted a more *nix based approach to user-security (in at least, you don't have to be a full admin to do anything useful, and full-admin rights are difficult to obtain) and thank god for that!
But like I say, I'm not rushing out to buy it...and not many people will either if you ask me.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Windows Vista is not going to be the godsend to users like microsoft made it out to be. Instead of focusing on user needs and wants, microsoft design with its own profitability in mind, ie DRM, licensing, authenication, certified drivers, and of course protected premium content (HD). A compnay has every right to do this but I think it is going to backfire unless microsoft starts working with users instead of against them.
Vista Help Forum
Windows Vista Help Forum
So when can we expect games with DirectX10 as a requirement, thus forcing gamers to buy Vista?
WinXP will never progress beyond DX9 so not upgrading is not possible.
That's sort of like overall this year's flu virus is a lot like last year's. Or President Bush's new Iraq strategy isn't much different from the old strategy. Hardly a recommendation.
I just spent an hour finding and killing some mysterious Browser Helper Object on my wife's XP-SP2 PC that devoted its life to helping out the browser by popping up ads in IE. At least I think I killed it. Every year, the malware gets more clever. Every release, the software gets more bloated and complex. Every year, the Internet becomes more of a mess and it is harder to find information on exorcising malware, or on persuading Windows to do even the most simple and basic things. And every year I get older, dumber, and less interested in dinking with Windows just in order to do stuff I do find interesting.
Screw it. I never upgraded to XP, and I don't believe that I'll be upgrading to Vista. I have finally moved from Windows 95 to Windows 98 despite the fact that W95 boots faster and runs as well. But only because I think eventually I will need USB that works and I don't think that will ever be available in Windows 95.
I don't really hate Microsoft, but they are going to have to do a lot better than NT based Windows desktops to make me a customer again. Let me know when MS releases an OS worth buying. It hasn't happened for quite a few years, and doesn't look likely to happen again any time soon.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
The DRM embedded in Vista has been well hashed here and I believe the implementation will cause many people headaches, especially those wanting to view digital media.
I'm concerned about the new security levels of the OS and that there are two levels higher than Administrator, namely System and Trusted. The sticking point for me is that (as far as I know) no user on the system, not even the admin, can access these higher levels. In other words, we are not and cannot be "trusted".
I don't like the idea that there may be things on *my* computer that I cannot access, but Microsoft, or other entities they trust, can. I'm not sure I trust them that much...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
CoreImage and CoreVideo came with 10.4, as is CoreData.
The 2 first get's used in some games and some compositing software, the other is still in it's infancy and should get more maturity with 10.5.
So, to the user, it's almost as big a step between 10.3 and 10.4 than between WinXP and WinVista.
Menzoberranzan Networks
If it wasn't for the games, I wouldn't even consider vista. I have a mac laptop, and that serves most of my needs just fine. However, the selection of games on a PC is better, so I keep upgrading mine to play them.
However, I'm starting to challenge my gaming habit, as it is getting tiresome to keep that PC going. It's not a technical challenge - I'm a typical slashdotter with experience in PCs, Macs, Unices of various sorts and so on. Nor is it a financial challenge; I have a decent job and could replace my PC now.
The issue is the work involved just to maintain a security hole for gaming, especially when there are a few decent games available on the Mac. They may not all be exactly the games I want, but they're decent and it's only gaming.
Now add a substantial OS upgrade to the mix, and I really am having a hard time justifying upgrading my PC more. Maybe I'll just get a console for choice in my games.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
Meh. Lets see where that smug Apple derived self-satisfication goes when (or if) apple ever delivers an OS that has greater than 10% market penetration. I'm sure there are a few virus writers out there that won't mind a different target besides ol' faithful 80% M$.
Honestly, I hate M$ and apple for very different reasons, but i hate smug self-satisfaction from mac users the most.
(Insightful?? Mods are on crack)
Does anyone know why Vista is such a resource hog?
I've been thinking that it has to do with the tilt bits, and all the other cross-checks that are needed to pump Premium Content from a secured file on the HD to the screen and/or speakers. Monitoring so that nothing could leech the PremCon has got to put a hell of an overhead on the OS.
The more the Lunix/Apple/etc community whines about Vista, the more it seems they are shaking in their boots.
For years and years they have been throwing every complaint under the sun at MS... that people are being 'forced' to use MS (at gunpoint, presumably), that Windows isn't secure, that Windows isn't stable.
Well, MS addressed stability once they moved completely to the WinNT codebase back in 2000.
Since there is tons of choice available now (Apple is getting a lot of brand recognition), there is a lot of choice going around. And yet... WinXP still continues to be overwhelmingly prefered by businesses and consumers alike.
And Windows security has never been better. With Vista, there are under-the-hood changes which make it the most flexible and secure OS on the market... by a longshot.
* As the added notoriety of Apple is proving, their security is, was, and likely always will be a creature made of "security through obscurity". A Month of Apple bugs? There's easily enough material for a year. At least.
* If Lunix were ever to gain the same level of recognition, they would encounter the same thing. However, they have had decades to try competing with features provided by Windows 95... like being able to install software, or to have the OS automatically detect and configure hardware. So (fortunately?) Lunix will likely never have to deal with their inherent lack of security, since they can't even compete with an OS which is over a decade old.
So keep trying to spread that FUD about Vista. The only way you guys can 'compete' with Vista is by getting people to... not upgrade from XP.
Talk about your winning strategies...
Vista was a mistake in the sense that they stopped pretty much everything to overhaul security. Unfortunately that's the guts you never really see, but MS did a Hell of a lot of work implementing UAC which is only so obnoxious because Windows continues to work with over 20 years worth of software. Apple can't make any such claim; they eliminate legacy at a much higher rate which gives them the opportunity to clean house every once in a while. The new Intel Macs cannot run any software written for the Motorola Macs. That's a software lifecycle of under 10 years. If Microsoft were to announce that programs written for Windows 95 would no longer work you better fucking believe that Slashdot, and the market, would be up in arms.
But then compare the actual features. Yes, Apple did launch Spotlight first. But compare the actual features side-by-side. They are curiously similar, but Vista's Search is a lot more. Spotlight is limited specifically to files, and you can only index data by a file. What that means is that programs which store data in a single file database are completely unable to work with Spotlight. Vista Search is more of a general purpose full-text search engine with a fully programmable API. Not only can programs that store data in a single data file store and index that data, but programs with no files whatsoever could do the same, and programs can very easily tie into the search mechanism to search for things which aren't files at all. That is a pretty big difference from a functionality point of view. How did Apple's Contact manager deal with it? It also has to keep a hidden directory full of files, one for each contact, and keep that in sync with the contact database. Spotlight indexes that hidden directory to permit searching for contacts and when you click the file the Contact Manager opens, reads that little file and then searches for an ID. It's a hack because Apple could only think so far, and frankly they don't understand how to think one step beyond the next Jobs keynote.
Wake me when threading in OSX isn't so broken that two threads can access the I/O level of the kernel at the same time.
I'm confused. Are all the Anonymous Cowards the same guy in every discussion? Actually, if MS dropped support for Win95 programs, I'd believe somebody there had a fucking clue.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
I'm not so sure your claim is correct. I know for sure that OS X runs decently enough on a 350ghz G4 Mac (mine is 6 years old). I doubt ANY PC that is 6 years old will be able to run Vista, but I could be mistaken.