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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/
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.
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 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.
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.
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.