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?

Comments

Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[hal2814]

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.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[clodney]

Wanting to have free memory makes little sense. RAM is a resource that the system should use whenever it gets a benefit from doing so. If by using more RAM it can increase working sets, disk caches, display caches, whatever, it should do so.

RAM that is not in use is a resource that you paid for that you are not getting any value from. The only time RAM should be free is if the O/S can't think of anything useful for it to do.

The hard part comes when the O/S has to figure out how to sensibly allocate RAM with the system under load. That is a hard problem, and I make no claims to know what it should do. But looking at RAM usage in the idle state is not a good indication of how the system will perform under load.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I understand that "DRM" is something very nice to rant about, but in this case I think you over step, and wax a bit overecstatic, this is not Grandmothers the world apart losing their valuable rights, this is a silly bunch of over priced computer code with some protections built in. Yes, code is not life, contrary to /., and accordingly deleting Vista's "vitalfile_001.exe" is not a right.

Actually, yes. Deleting any file I please off of my hard drive is a right. And yet again, WinXP has critical system file protection; and without DRM to boot! Please don't turn the DRM issue into an argument over basic OS safeguards, it isn't about that. The DRM isn't to protect system files even moreso (you can beat XP's, but you have to boot into an admin console and manually overwrite files or use kernel hacks; not something "grandma" will be doing), it is to protect the media industries' rights to charge you for the same media over, and over, and over and over again. Got a scratch on that flimsy unprotected disk? Another $20, please. Want to upgrade that VHS to DVD? Another $20. Want to upgrade that DVD to BD-DVD? Another $30. BD-DVD to HVD in a few years? Another $40. Want it on your iPod and cellphone? $20 and $20, please. Nevermind that you won't be physically able to play your VHS tapes in a few years when they are no longer on store shelves, or your iPod video file when your old iPod breaks and your new one doesn't support the old format anymore.

Everyone knows that if you can see something with your eyes, and hear it with your ears, you can copy it. And it only has to be copied once: even if it requires millions of dollars of equipment to do it, it only has to be done once by a professional and the protection is forever broken. Pirates will always pirate, and only the people who legitimately want to pay for their media and support the artists (eg, me) will lose out. Now, not only do we have to keep buying the same media again and again, but our PCs will no longer obey us, hobbyist drivers will no longer be possible to create and distribute, we'll pay more for our DRM/HDCP/TCPA protected hardware and have to replace all of our old "non-compliant" hardware, and we will incur greater speed penalties from all of these extra protections running constantly in the background. Ah, but thankfully Intel and co are stepping up to sell us newer, faster hardware to meet these ever increasing hardware requirements.

2008

[Conception]

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.

Not for me...

[s31523]

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.

Re:A short answer and a long answer

[lurker4hire]

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

Re:Installed it a month ago

[ivan256]

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.

Re:Seriously common...

[MS-06FZ]

Are you seriously going to ask that here at Slashdot? Thats like asking a liberal "So what do you think of Bush?" ...Right, 'cause we all know that The Liberals are inherently incapable of answering a question like that in a reasonable manner. There won't be any meaningful thought, there will only be Liberal Bias, because The Liberals hate America.

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!