Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista Launches To Mixed Reactions
Several users have submitted stories reporting on the launch of Microsoft's newest operating system. The Guardian focuses on virus warnings already threatening the OS, while the New York Times discusses the bug hunt that's begun. With hackers writing scripts to attack, and well-paid bounty hunters looking for bugs to defend, Vista's first few months on the market are sure to be interesting. In the meantime, what is your impression of the OS? Have you had a chance to use the retail version yet? Are you supporting it in a business environment? What's the launch of Vista been like for you?
Thank you, brave gamma testers for being bold enough to put this OS on your computer now so that at least some of the more glaring bugs can be worked out by the time some software company puts out a "must have" app that only runs on Vista at which point I'll have to upgrade.
We got a business copy to play with, and I decided we aren't going to deploy it until 2008. Untested, not significantly better than XP and as such, not worth the time and money to retrain techs and users.
I watched the Vista introduction video this morning. On most of the stuff they demoed I was thinking to myself, "I've had this on Mac OS X for a few years now."
;)t es.mspx
A few things I see Windows/Vista as being ahead of the game in are:
1) Microsoft Office 2007 (The Mac version will no doubt be way behind the Windows version in both UI and feature parity.)
2) HD Home Theatre/Media/IPTV (Apple TV has potential, but it's not quite there yet)
3) Gaming (I personally don't care much about gaming)
4) Enterprise - Active Directory, Exchange, GPOs, SharePoint, etc. (I wish Apple would tackle this)
What do you all think about Vista or it's introduction video? That family lady was sure proud she invented the "burn to cd" button
Video: http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billga
is the memory tester :). I can't tell you how many OEM 98 boxen I've upgraded to XP only to have the install blow up due to bad RAM ( XP copies the contents of the CD into ram before coping it to harddrive). Wasn't there a /. story years ago about some major OEMs getting caught selling bad RAM because Windows 98 had that quirk where it wouldn't use the top 20% or system RAM unless you hacked the registry?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
http://jobbank.com/ - the job bank. Search jobs, post resume, post job, career tools.
JohnE
jobbank.com - Search jobs, post resume,
Sounds like there is a lot of "overhead", and by overhead I mean fairly useless crap to support eye candy. I am a software engineer. I need my PC to run applications, with the machines resources dedicated to my compiles, debug session, code searches, CASE tools, etc. I don't need a search agent running, a little animated doggie, crazy OS graphics, monitoring software for unauthorized content playing out of my audio port, or any of the other "features" of Vista.
In my opinion, M$ should dumb down Vista. It sounds like they spent a lot of time revamping their kernel and they should have released (or should release) a lean version with, as the Nissan Xterra commercial says, "everything you need, nothing you don't".
I just wish more of my development apps ran under Linux.
Utterly irrelevant. I haven't used Windows for years, and Vista isn't going to bring me back; if anything, it's pushed me further away. They spent half a decade on a new OS, and all they've got to show for it is higher requirements, a shiny new UI, features other OSes have had for a very long time, and DRM. While I'm sure that the average computer user is in awe at the additions Vista brings, anyone who uses a non-Windows OS is laughing, saying, "We've had that feature for n years, and it's better done, too."
I certainly see the value in web-based "Web 2.0" AJAX" applications. I use gmail on a daily basis and I've tinkered with the online office suites. But there is just no way a web-based application is going to be able to deliver the power needed to video editing, 3D game playing, or even serious photo manipulation. An online version of Photoshop might be interesting, but imagine the back-end server horsepower required to apply filters to 12+ Mpixel images to hundreds of users at the same time, wowzers!
I think there will be a split in the computer world.... small, dirt-cheap devices with integrated graphics running lots of web-based applications.... and traditional motherboard+video card+fast local storage PC for more CPU/Graphics intensive applications.
Side note: if MS sees the future as web-based applications, then why does Vista prefer to have a DX10 graphics card?? Why didn't they start with XP and then slim it down into more of a web-deliverable package? Maybe move the traditional XP desktop & taskbar into an AJAX platform, make the whole desktop a single fullscreen IE7 window so it could be accessed literally anywhere. I think MS is facing the same split I mentioned above.
Are you seriously going to ask that here at Slashdot? Thats like asking a liberal "So what do you think of Bush?"
As for me what do I think of it? I think it has a lot of bells and whistles perhaps a lot of home users might like. But for more hardcore computer geeks such as myself it may not be needed. I am looking forward to trying it however I do not support the whole DRM thing. I will be open minded, they did good with 2000 and XP.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I had to laugh when I heard about the whole "midnight release" thing. I mean, I can sort of see the excitement of getting the hottest new console or game like that, but even if Vista were every bit as good as it's cracked up to be, it's still just an operating system.
You haven't been to a CompUSA or an Apple Store when an update to Mac OS was about to be released, have you? There was even a line for Mac OS 8.5 at CompUSA in 1998! The longest lines I ever saw were for Mac OS X 10.3 (and rightfully so, IMHO).
I had one of the Vista RC's on my laptop, and just updated to the release version of Ultimate through the company's business copy. It runs like molasses on my P4 which runs XP and Ubuntu Edgy flawlessly. Shutting down takes forever, and logging in takes even longer if I'm not hooked up to the company LAN. I'll probably keep Vista on here for a while, but the next time I decide this laptop needs to be wiped and redone, I'll do it with XP.
One annoying issue I've been having, which I just figured out the other day, was sometimes when I would power on, I would get the "Resuming from hibernate" message, even though I hadn't remembered hibernating. As soon as it was done resuming, it would say "Shutting Down". I finally realized that sometimes after I hit shutdown, I unplug the AC adapter, then close the lid. For some reason, Vista doesn't know any better than to try and hibernate even though it's in the middle of the shutdown process (did I mention shutdown takes a long time?). So I had to change my power settings to not hibernate when the lid is closed on battery or on AC power. Also, I don't care for "the new sleep" (haven't there been versions of sleep since '95, and none of them work right?). At least, I don't like the idea on my laptop. Maybe it would be fine for a desktop. But I don't want the default shutdown option on my laptop to but it in a low-power state. What if I don't use it for a week or two, then suddenly I need to use it on battery?
The power settings are an interesting change, indicative of the rest of the change in the user experience. They have a simple, general set of power settings, then there's an advanced button that throws any possible power option at you. I think the idea is OK, but the presentation makes it feel overwhelming. I think they want to make everything "simple", but they do it in a way to try and draw attention to how simple it is, which ends up making it more complex when you actually have to do anything. I can't really put my finger on it, but I don't like their attempts at simplicity.
I don't see any compelling reason to use Vista for now. It amazes me that for 6 years Apple has made Mac OSX run faster with each release (at least, that's my understanding, I'm not a regular Apple user), and in the same time frame, Windows has gotten much, much slower. It's crazy to think that this laptop was a pretty fast, new machine when Vista was halfway through the development process. Just think about that: When they started showing off developer previews, the computers they were using to preview Vista back then would hardly run it today. I really do think Microsoft (and its customers) would do a lot better by having smaller releases, much more often, and for a much smaller upgrade price. That way they would stay on top of features, security, and performance better.
Just my 2 cents.
Frankly, I was amazed at how horrible it was. It seems like an early Beta release, at best - and not a very promising one, at that.
To be fair, that was a publically accessible demo machine, and they never work properly, regardless of what operating system they run. It was probably also loaded with some god-awful OEM version of Vista, too.
Still don't want to touch it, though.
The problem isn't the EULA, although that is a problem of course, the problem is with the technical measures implemented in the software to enforce the EULA.
Unless medical organizations can be 100% assured that installing Vista will not put them at risk of violating the law with regards to patient confidentially (and proper maintenance of medical data for that matter) they cannot install vista.
Having your data sent to MS is a stretch, but having Vista accidentally deleting your app with important medical data stored in the program folder (bad practise but it does happen) because it thinks it is "bad" is a distinct possibility. Heck, doesn't the EULA specifically mention technical measures to delete "illegal" "non-licensed" media? What if the measures incorrectly identify a very high res movie of an echo exam as an illegal movie and deletes it? Who has to pay for the re-exam at that point? the patient? the hospital?
anywho, no enterprise in their right mind will "upgrade" to vista before 2010, if ever...
l4h
Built-in firewall is too confusing and gives a green light to the OS components (god knows what communication takes place between my computer and microsoft).
A firewall that you can't block IE with is completely useless, as any program on your system can use IE to do its dirty work for it.
Call me when you can uninstall that crap and replace it with ZoneAlarm.
GUI is beautiful. OSX pales in comparison
OSX has bash, and Vista still has the crappy ass DOS CLI. Game over.
Besides the fact that YHBT (HTH, HAND) Beryl is a big pile of crap right now. I mean it's beautiful, and I enjoy using it, but I have to jump back to metacity in order to play Oolite because Beryl takes over my 3d card, and resizing windows from the bottom in truglass seems to be broken (or is that by design? I can't seem to find out) and it's just unreliable in general.
On the plus side, due to the way X11 is designed, at least the Expose-clone works. :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Or maybe it's possible that, among a group where the prevailing opinion is anti-Bush, or anti-Windows, individuals will be able to engage in rational discussion - and even if they've already formed the opinion you expect of them they may have very good, logical reasons for having done so.
Or maybe they're all just sheep. Baaaa! I think what I think because a man on TV told me to!
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
If you really believe that Windows Defender eliminates the need for antivirus and anti-malware applications, you're in for a horrible shock. We connected a "Vista Ultimate" box to the 'net, and it lasted 23 minutes before it was totally trashed. The "firewall" doesn't work, Windows Defender is useless, and there are endless ports open by default to the outside world.
Why do you think Dell are shipping all that "anti-virus" software pre-installed on their machines. It's because they want to minimise the "first day service" calls.
It's a real disaster, and hopefully will signal the demise of Microsoft.
Am I also going to slam it as a completely useless, worthless, and ridiculous product? Despite the enormous temptation to do so here on slashdot, no, I won't do that, either. ;-)
If we look at Micro$oft's history, they've admittedly had quite a few crowning moments back there. The upgrade from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 was big. It was a huge step at the time, and I'll admit, I was pretty excited about that back then. A much more user-friendly OS, the death of DOS (well, not really, but sort of),... I was even fairly excited about Windows 98, because, while it wasn't great, it did include a lot of little improvements to Windows 95 that made things run a lot better and smoother. Windows 98 was great until Windows 2000 came out, which made things a lot better. But 2000 still wasn't perfect, particularly in the arena of gaming, so 98 reigned for a bit longer in some areas.
I don't even think I should even give the dignity of even mentioning Windows ME, which, if there's any OS out there that deserves to be slammed more than any other, that's the one. I pity all the fools that were suckered into that,...
Windows XP was another crowning moment in Micro$oft's history. I really can't find anything wrong with this OS. They've merged the NT core of Windows NT/2000 with the legacy, gaming, and "home-use" aspects of 95/98. I have yet to see a BSOD in Windows XP. It runs all of the applications I need (well, except for a couple of molecular modeling apps that seem happier in linux ;-) ... It doesn't seem to be too much of a memory hog, at least not annoyingly so. The interface is decent, who really cares about some fancy eye candy; computers are there to get work done, not stare at graphics all day long while fancy-shmancy moving things dance all over the screen gobbling up RAM,...
So right now, I really see no reason to upgrade. Sure, I'll probably eventually get Vista, but it'll be in about 3-5 years when I buy a new PC that has Vista pre-loaded. Unless, of course, I opt to go for a Mac, which I almost did last year when I bought this computer, except that they're still a little pricey for the 17" and larger screen notebook models,...
The part I don't get is that MSFT launches twenty different flavors of Vista, but not a "PowerUser" edition or an "Expert" edition. This version would have all those annoying "help" features turned off by default and would be configured out of the box to run with as little overhead as possible. What about helping your fellow nerds a little, Microsoft developers?
An M$ rep came to demo Vista at my company and had similar problems too. While trying to show us the new features there was an akward pause followed by "...well, at least it should work...". If a demo doesn't work under ideal conditions, how can I trust it to work under normal abuse?
Actually, I would not have been surprised. The city I live in, Syracuse, NY, had no laptops for sale this past weekend. All of the XP machines were sold out and the stores were under quarantine from Microsoft not to sell Vista machines until the 30th or face a $100,000 "fine" from MS. This was according to a Circuit City sales person. There was a poor sap in Circuit City that was looking at them and complaining to said rep how his laptop broke and he couldn't buy one this weekend because no one could sell laptops.
Yes, MS is a monopoly.
I don't know what kind of plumbers you have in your area, but I certainly don't praise mine for what he does in his living room. If you take offense to the term "hobbyist" then you need to come back down to earth. A hobbyist is someone who has a hobby, aka something you do on your own time, to fulfill your personal interests. You're probably upset because your "enterprise class" endeavors get lumped in with your half-brained neighbor who keeps bragging about how he put 3 DVD burners in his K6-350mhz to keep up with demand. He's a hobbyist too, just like you. He's also a worthless imbecile, but that's a separate topic.
I have a funky home setup, probably even crazier than yours, with a compile cluster, bigass file server (8tb), and an 8-way opteron rig hosting a couple dozen virtual machines. I live in a small downtown apartment, I work a normal job that doesn't involve server administration nor programming. I do this crazy stuff for my own enjoyment, as a hobby. I am a hobbyist, and I'm certainly not the least bit insulted by the word.
If anything, I wish there were more like me, because having all that fast modern technology at my fingertips just makes me realize how utterly insignificant the OS is. On the virtual server, I've got Windows 95, 98, 2000, 2003, XP; a few Linuxes, FreeBSD, CentOS, and an old Netware. They all do more or less the same thing: run applications. The only reason I need all of them is because they've each got their quirks so that an app that was fine in 95 won't fly on XP, or a server that runs fast on CentOS will drag FreeBSD to its knees. Netware is in there for completeness, just so I can keep my skills current. Do any of these operating systems matter when surfing the net, or writing a letter, crunching a spreadsheet or burning a CD ? Not at all, all those tasks are performed by software like Firefox, MS Word, Lotus 123 or Nero. I don't give a crap about Vista, because it is yet another upgrade hurdle that breaks more than it fixes. Does it come with a word processor, spreadsheet and full-featured burning suite ? Nope. It does have a web browser though, the same one as XP, the same one as 2000. What can it do better than a Win 2000 machine from eight years ago ? Absolutely nothing. It's what you make of it that truly matters. Is it really that difficult to have a filesystem, graphical display and network stack ? Does it warrant 5 gb of disk space just for those basic features ? Are they worth the hundreds of dollars MS is charging considering you can hardly do a thing without spending yet more money on 3rd party applications ? I think not.
Sorry Microsoft, I may have all the CPU power, RAM, disk space and graphics horsepower to make your new OS scream, but if you're only going to piss away all that expensive hardware on security popups and rounded rectangles, I'll pass.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Congratiulations mods. It's refreshing to see that despite an asshat ratio of 20% (atm) there's still enough brains distributed among /. mods that deadpan jokes aren't automatically modded into oblivion.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
"Seriously, I won't use Vista until a) some app I want requires it "
Which is exactly why MS is providing DX10 on vista only, to cash in on the gamer market, first using the enthusiasts to buy the newest DX10 games, which will then drive more development of those games and less DX9 development, eventually to be able to play any "current" game wyou will need to be running Vista to use DX10.
Sucks because I always liked Opengl and it's not proprietary.
"Users want more security, and, in my opinion, UAC is more annoyance than security."
I seem to hear this a lot, often from Linux types who've been advocating the advantages of su for years. The problem is you don't get security for free. You cannot, barring something like TCPA that takes away your control, have more granular security access without having to deal with that. You want real separation between privileged and non-privileged? Ok fine you can have that, but then you have to provide input to switch, no exceptions. You can, if you want, fudge that but then there's no security benefit. To really provide a technical benefit you have to do it all the time.
It's similar to home security. Suppose you want to add an alarm system to your house to ensure that if someone bypasses the physical security (door and window locks) there's a backup. However, you decide that you don't like entering the keycode when you come in, too much of a hassle. So you wire it up to your lock instead. Well, you just negated a large part of the security benefit. If someone opens your lock via any means, the alarm doesn't work. The reason it's a separate code is precisely so that it's removed from the physical security.
So you just can't have it both ways. Either you want more security features and are willing to put up with the additional requests they make or you are ok with not having them. You can't say "Well I want this prevented but I don't want to do anything to make it happen." Want outbound connections blocked by default (really blocked, no backdoors)? Then you have to answer firewall popups. Want to run as a non-admin by default (real differential privilege levels)? Then you have to answer admin popups.
If you don't take the responsibility then you get feel good security, not do good security. I could design a firewall that "blocks malicious outgoing connections automatically" but then it's not really doing it's job, it's just a rules or heuristics based IDS, and if it fails to notice something it doesn't do it's job, it's not actually checking everything like a firewall that denys until it gets user confirmation.
This might be a good time to consider MacOS X. Any machine Apple makes will run their operating system just fine, quickly and with all features enabled.
No, they won't. OS X is even more RAM-hungry than Vista - Mac Minis and low-end MacBooks and iMacs are still shipping with only 512MB RAM (then subtract another 64MB for the video card).
Both OS X and Vista are usable in 512M for basic, light tasks. Both benefit dramatically from an additional 512MB (>1GB delivers diminshing returns unless your workload is heavy).
Given the price of RAM today and the significant, all-round performance boost it delivers, there's really no reason to have less than 1GB.