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Microsoft Admits Vista Has "High Impact Issues"
EggsAndSausage writes "Microsoft has granted, in a roundabout way, that Vista has 'high impact issues.' It has put out an email call for technical users to participate in testing Service Pack 1, due out later this year, which will address 'regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues.' It's hard to know whether to be reassured that Service Pack 1 is coming in the second half of 2007, and thus that there is a timeframe for considering deployment of Vista within businesses, or to be alarmed that Microsoft is unleashing an OS on the world with 'high impact issues' still remaining." In other news, one blogger believes that Vista is the first Microsoft OS since Windows 3.1 to have regressed in usability from its predecessor (he kindly forgives and dismisses Windows ME). And there's a battle raging over the top 10 reasons to get Vista or not to get Vista.
Since when does "one blogger"'s view qualify as "news"? I'm sure at least "one blogger" thinks that OSX sucks or at least "one blogger" thinks that Linux sucks. Would that qualify as "news" as well?
The quality of the "news stories" that slashdot carries has gone downhill drastically in recent months.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
That's just cruel.
Before you mod me troll, RTFA #5. Then mod me troll.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with Vista file transfer performance? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Vista box for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Color iBook G3, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Vista compatible heavy duty hardware, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Explorer will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Notepad is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on my Vista beast, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Vista machine that has run faster than my old C64, despite the latest dual core goodness and a $400 video card in this Vista box. My TRS-80 color computer with 16 KB (that's "kilo", not "mega") of ram runs faster than this core 2 duo machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Vista is a superior OS.
Vista addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use Vista over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The fact that so much people are thinking just like us "I'll wait Vista mature a bit, at least until SP1, before I give it a try" is the exact reason why Microsoft is going to rush out the fastest Service Pack you're ever seen.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Can you give some examples of programs you love and/or can't do without that worked with XP but won't work under Vista? I'm both honestly curious and "calling you out" because a post such as yours should have included such examples in the first place.
Oh, and basing your post on RC2 (a "release candidate" - not the final version, if that needs to be said) doesn't help, either.
Apparently the "Folders" tool on the left is too hard to use. Take a look at his picture, if he just clicked on the "Folders" link on the left he would have a nice, easy to navigate tree right there. Yes, the address bar's drop-down is a sort of history. As for the web sites, mine seem to spawn a web browser (Firefox even) just fine.
Again, the author shows his ignorance. Just click on the breadcrumb of where you want to go, ta-da! you're now there. Granted it's not a button, but it's infinitely more useful. Not only can I go up one level with one click I can go up n levels with one click.
This one I will give him is a wash. The built in search rocks. And personally, I'm used to <Win>+R to open the run dialog. <Win>+R then 'c:' still gets me an explorer window at c:\. Though I tend to use <Win>+E and then using the folder tree to get to the c:\, but to each their own. My major complaint with this is that shutting down has changed for me. I used to use <Win>, U, S, <Enter> to shut down. That's gone now, now I just hit the power button on my laptop.
This one I'll give him. Changing IP addresses is now buried yet another layer deeper. You had to dig enough in XP. This "Network and Sharing Center" is a bit annoying. Though one thing it does have going for it is that you can quickly tell whether you are sharing folders or not, and control it from there. Overall, more of a "meh" than a problem.
And, we're back to stupidity. There is a little box in the upper left hand corner of the Explorer window, oddly labeled "search", it's even visible in some of his screenshots. Type a string of letters in, and Presto! Vista goes and finds any file with the applicable search string (it even checks inside Word, Excel and text documents.)
This is another one I'll give him, copying and the associated network issues are a problem MS needs to fix. For the entire OS to seize up because a network location is unreachable is just stupid.
Overall the author of the article manages to just show that he's only touched Vista long enough to be annoyed with the changes, and not get used to them. I've been running Vista since RC1, and excepting driver support which sucked in the release candidate, but that's to be expected, I've generally liked Vista. Most of the complaints I have heard are either ill-informed or just downright wrong. That's not to say that there aren't still issues with Vista. Driver support still sucks, the network hang-ups should really be fixed (or at least give me a cancel button for when I know I mistyped), changing security and network settings are now buried one layer deeper in almost all cases, and getting used to the security pop-up takes some doing. Though, in defense of the last one, this is something that people have been asking for; just running everything as a local administrator is insane, you wouldn't run Linux as root all the time would you? One thing that Vista does lack in this regard is a non-admin way of viewing settings that should require admin level rights to change. I'd like to be able to view the Computer Management snap-in without running it as admin.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Apparently the "Folders" tool on the left is too hard to use. Take a look at his picture, if he just clicked on the "Folders" link on the left he would have a nice, easy to navigate tree right there. Yes, the address bar's drop-down is a sort of history. As for the web sites, mine seem to spawn a web browser (Firefox even) just fine.
At the same time, there is still a valid criticism here. First, why change a perfectly working UI by not only moving the previous functionality to somewhere completely different and unconnected to the old location, but then using the old location for something else instead of removing it?
Secondly, why is there a web history in the open/save dialog at all? Can anyone think of a remotely plausable use case where this would be helpful?
Microsoft swore up and down that they would have a new service pack for Windows XP after Vista.
Who cares if Vista is broken? Most computer users will not see it on their systems for years. Windows XP is still "good enough" for most everybody, except... The hours of patching and updating after a SP2 install.
Microsoft: Are you listening? This user wants a consolidation of all the XP fixes into one service pack.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
I'm not a strong believer in the "Microsoft has no real choice" hypothesis. I don't think MS need the RI/MPAA members of the world as much as they need MS. First of all, MS are a part of, and presumably very active, member of the AACS licensing agency. I know this because it says so in the specifications. Maybe the other members could block them from implementing it, but I consider that unlikely (and why would they want too?).
Secondly, and the real point, MS rule basically every desktop in the world already. Do you believe that computes to leverage FOR or AGAINST Microsoft when negotiation with the MPAAs? Truly, the MPAAs would be at the mercy of MS. "Here's the DRM we're willing of giving you in Vista, be glad you're getting as much!".
I'm more a follower of the "Microsoft is doing this for their own, lock-in based, reasons". The history of Microsoft is the history of vendor lock-in and market control through technology.
Maybe MS really want the RIAAs and MPAAs on their side in the fight against the iPod? Maybe if MS give the RIAAs and the MPAAs what they want. One back scratched for another... If I didn't despise the MPAAs of the world, I'd raise a warning about MS long documented betrayalish ways, but I do.
BTW. Do you know what company I didn't see stamped on the first page of the AACS specifications?
Apple.
Lesser members perhaps. Now who is in control?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Right now it's running perfectly fine, with no BSOD, no DRM issues, awesome graphics, and a wonderfully intuitive OS/desktop combination (that can't be matched by any other OS on the face of this earth) on my brand new Acer Ferrari 1000 laptop computer, that I got from my good friend Steve Ba.... wait, uh... Palmer.
Did I mention it's also runs blogging software without any problems?