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...

[Samalie]

I've Beta'd Vista since Beta 1, and while the software has.....matured....since the initial beta, quite frankly, its still not ready for primetime.

Vista will still peg your processor at around 30% most of the time, mostly for bullshit you don't need or want. User Rights Management may be great for Grandma, but if you know what the fuck you're doing its just obtrusive (although it can be turned off). Driver support is dodgy, even with the big boys (Your video card will probably work, but expect signifigantly lower performance).

Oh, and add in the time during Beta 2 where Windows Update fried my install completely. Thank you for playing, re-install your OS. Yes, it was Beta still, but shit, I can see breaking pieces, or degrading performance, or any other assorted issues I expect. Frying the OS I do not.

All in all, as far as I'm concerned, this is just the next WinME

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[qortra]

User Rights Management may be great for Grandma

Really? Why?

DRM isn't great for anybody, including the unethical institutions that espouse it (though most of them would disagree if asked).

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Samalie]

URM may be great for Grandma since it does bring up an annoying extra layer before Grandma deletes core windows files, or even her recipie folder. Of course, if Grandma just ignores the window and hits Continue, its all irrelavant anyway.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[qortra]

You don't need URM [DRM] to prevent deletion of "core windows files". Plus, XP already does it..

And URM [DRM] isn't responsible for "annoying extra layers" during the deletion of recipes. That is the purview of MessageBox calls in Explorer. URM [DRM] prevents you from doing things at all, and let's face it; the prospect of losing control is never a welcomed thing, especially for an old person.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[PCM2]

Vista will still peg your processor at around 30% most of the time, mostly for bullshit you don't need or want.

This is the second time I've heard this figure cited on Slashdot and I have no idea where it's coming from. I call bullshit. Here is the Task Manager of my Vista system running idle. This is a 3.4GHz single-core P4 system (with HyperThreading, hence the two CPU meters), with 2GB RAM and an nVidia 6600 with 256MB. I have Aero enabled and this screen shows the system with several processes running, including Thunderbird and the Windows Media Center services.

The only thing I can guess is that a lot of the people who are reporting outrageous system demands from Vista are running to check the performance meters right after the system boots. (Just because you can move the mouse doesn't mean it's done yet.)

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[drzhivago]

He meant, User Access Control or whatever it's called.

That's not the DRM aspect of the OS. If it weren't so stupidly intrusive (or so I've heard), then yes it would be great for grandma.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[aonaran]

Ubuntu doesn't downplay the user/admin split, it takes it to a higher level. Just like MacOS X, Ubuntu uses sudo for admin activities, and the actual root account is locked by default (has no login privileges at all).

This is not getting rid of root, it's making it more restricted in that you still have to have root access to do admin jobs, but you cannot, by default log in as root. Instead, you (if you are on the sudoers list) request root level access on an application by application basis, this way you cannot accidentally run something with elevated privileges, and you don't have to log out of your safe user account to do something as an admin.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[soxos]

What's the cpu at when you're accessing content (watching a movie, reading a pdf, writing to disk)? That's when the encryption hit happens. I don't care if the cpu is idle when the OS isn't doing something. I care about what happens when it's doing work for me, ymmv.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[DimGeo]

What's pegging your CPU at 30% is the rendering of the clock gadget. Sounds silly, but try turning it off (only the round clock gadget, not the whole gadget sidebar) and see the difference. Looks like it has something to do with IE7 rotating the clock hands images each second.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Orange Crush]

but you cannot, by default log in as root.

sudo su

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you very much for the screen shot of your task manager. OK, so your processor is only 1% used. I also see that Vista is using 1.08 GB of your RAM, and that you only have 30MB of your 2GB actually listed as "Free", after the caching is done. (I assume you took this screen shot after a clean boot, with no user applications manually launched.)

As a gamer, I like having my Athlon 3.5+ GHz system with 2GB of RAM only report that I've breached my first 1GB when I'm running a memory intensive game, like X3. Some of these games actually use > 1GB of RAM. Sorry, but until I see the how-tos for cutting all of the excess fat from the OS to make room for my games, not to mention assurances that DRM isn't going to get in my way, I'm not touching Vista.

Oh, and as far as DRM goes, I've only rip a few CDs to listen to on my MP3 player in the car, so I'm hardly the file-sharing pirate that the RIAA and MPAA claim to be targeting. I just want to be able to use my PC to enjoy my CDs and DVDs when I'm in the computer room. Yet, I'm very concerned about the way in which it sounds like Vista has been hamstrung in order to get the licenses from the media monopolies to use my hardware on the new OS.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Omestes]

I doubt my grandmother (or the general novice users we're using her as a symbol for) would even notice, much less get angry that her valuable right to hose her OS out of ignorance is gone. I for one LIKE this, since I am the family tech, and still can't sell my parents (uncles, grandfolk, etc) to move on to OS . There is nothing more fun than a lazy Sunday afternoon with the family, sitting in a dark room trying to find what version of "thisfilewillhoseyouros.exe" someone deleted, all while having 2 or three people in the background yelling "stop doing things so fast! you'll break it!".

Perhaps its like school, once your out of it you see that more restrictive measures are good, for the students own good. Being that Windows doesn't effect me (except something I get the joy of doing free support on), I really don't really have a stake. Geeks can turn this crap off, and have unfettered access to delete *.*, format C:/, and open email attachments with impetus, though why a geek would be running Vista as their primary OS is a little beyond me, but these operations are not things someone who has no clue what their doing should be permitted to do. Yes, they still CAN, but think of knowing how to turn of protection as a certificate of half-assed competence that Grandma needs to get before being able to hose her OS and call me.

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. Your free to install Linux on it, then Grandma can muck up as much as she pleases, or give her OS X, where she can do likewise.

Out of curiosity, is

chown

and permissions also DRM? Everytime I get flagged with "you must be root to do this operation" am I loosing some freedom? To me it is an aggravation, even if I do know I'm not running as root for my own good.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[aonaran]

exactly, sudo su or sudo bash will (depending on the configuration of your machine) allow you to open a bash session with root privileges but you can't log in as root. No telnet, no ssh, no console, nada. Yes you can still single user mode it, but that's it.

It is HIGHER security than usual root login because you now have to know the username and password of a user that has sudo access, not just the password of root, and scripts can't be run by accident as easily as before. Mind you you still have to be careful who you give sudo access to, but at least it is safer to give sudo to 5 people than giving out the root password to 5 people.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[ChronoReverse]

Because it isn't. I can't believe people are literally lying through their teeth about that.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[ender-]

When I'm setting up a new system, I hate using sudo for a ton of commands and would rather have access to a root shell while I'm first setting up a computer or when I'm setting up a new application.

There is an easy fix for this. If you've got a bunch of stuff to do as root, just use "sudo su -", and boom, you've got a root shell. Just remember to CTRL-D [or run 'exit'] when you're done.

Not that either method is any better than the other, but you don't have to type 'sudo' before each command, and it still keeps the root account locked.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Mwongozi]

When I'm setting up a new system, I hate using sudo for a ton of commands and would rather have access to a root shell while I'm first setting up a computer or when I'm setting up a new application.

sudo -i

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...

[caseih]

The amount of memory shown as "free" is meaningless in any operating system these days. Any linux distro I've used in recent memory always shows a small fraction of the main memory free. That doesn't mean that your main memory is not available. I would expect a 2 GB system to regularly use as much of that memory for caching as is practical. Given the size of the operating system files these days (and disks), I'd say using a big chunk of this memory for caching that is efficient use of resources. As your game loads and takes over RAM, the caches get flushed out of the way. No big deal. The game gets 1.5 GB of RAM. Seems like you are caught up in the numbers game here.

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.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Ubergrendle]

So instead of popping up Clippy (utilising system resources that are comparable to calculating Pi to the 10,000 digit) we get Clocky? I just demoed Windows Vista at Best Buy across the street over lunch and I can confirm the ~30% figure for the clock. The widget menu bar also has a 'cpu monitor' which conveniently lets you see real time how detrimental the new UI is to performance.

I find it interesting that there's no big launch party, midnight madness, etc for Vista. Wii got it; PS/3 got it; Xbox 360 got it; heck even The Burning Crusade got it. There is a definite lack of hooplaa with this release. I think the retailers know that its a dog sales wise; its a standing in place upgrade whose main sales will come through OEM equipment.

This is probably the most underwhelming release since Windows ME. I get the sense that Microsoft really has jumped the shark. 5 years for this? Oi vey...

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[clodney]

I can well believe you with respect to the linearity of RAM usage. I am not claiming anything in particular about the behavior of Windows in situations where it has to treat RAM as a scarce resource.

What I am saying, is that so far as the O/S is concerned, there is no downside to using more RAM, up until the point where it runs out. If the system decides that it can benefit from having 1/2GB of disk cache, and no one else has asked for that RAM, why not let it have the cache? The RAM isn't being used for anything anyway.

My point was rather narrow - RAM that is not in use does nothing for you, and if by using it the system could prevent a page fault later, it may as well use it. Hence my contention that RAM usage in the idle state need not be a good predictor of O/S bloat or how memory constrained the system really is.

Once demand for RAM heats up and the system has to determine how to parcel it out to the running tasks is where things get interesting, and where a well designed memory manager will make a big difference.

It is kind of like screen real estate. You may not need your browser maximized to read /., but if your eyes aren't looking at anything else there is no downside to maximizing. It is only when you try to do that and watch a compile and watch a news feed that you have to decide how to apportion display space.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[spoco2]

But it's an operating system, it just launches applications and provides base services, file system, GUi etc.. You're missing the point...

While there is nothing else wanting to use the memory, the OS should be using it to cache data, pre-fetch things, and whatever it can use it for to make your use of the system more responsive and pleasant.

As long as the system gives these RAM resources over to an application/game when it's requested for there is NO PROBLEM.

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[rjstanford]

Forgot another thing - free memory means you can do more with the machine later without starting to page more. If my memory is maxed out, that means in the future if the next version of Anyware uses more memory, then it will degrade my performance to upgrade. If I want to start having X + 1 programs running instead of X, again I take a hit. So having free memory has upsides.

Not really. You're confusing "free" memory with "available" memory. Most OSes will happily fill your memory full of cached disk pages. The thing is, only a very few of these at any time are dirty. Of the clean ones, a bunch haven't been checked in simply ages. When any program, even a new version of Anyware, asks for more memory, it gets it with no waiting and those old cached pages are discarded.

What doesn't make sense is to throw away cached disk pages that are already in memory before you need to. After all, even if there's only a .001% chance they'll be needed before some program does a malloc(), there's a 0% chance they'll be available if you toss 'em. And they don't cost you a thing - not a single cycle, not a spare watt. Nothing. If your thoughts are shared by a lot of people I could see splitting the cache pool into two labels - "current cache" for pages that have been accessed recently (or just by currently running programs, or whatever), and "opportunistic cache" for all the other stuff. Or call the second pool "Available" or something. Either way, its an education issue not a technical one.

For that matter, what's different about memory compared to any other resource? Should your processor

Seti@Home? Folding?

disk access, disk space,

BitTorrent? Local copies of email and newsfroups and pr0n?

and internet connection all be maxed out all the time too?

BitTorrent again I'm afraid...

As long as directed use of any computing resource trumps background use with very little lagtime, and there isn't a power/burnout factor involved, then why do you care what the computer's doing behind your back, as long as the net result is a better/faster/gniftier experience for you, the user? Serious question.

Re: Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[Dolda2000]

just use "sudo su -"

I can't believe I see people using that command all around. Instead of spawning two extra processes with two extra execs, why not just run "sudo -i" or "sudo sh"?

Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers...

[suckmysav]

They offer support for TPC, and some of the DRM used may insist on a TPC platform, but this is not actually anything to do with Microsoft.

How can you say that with a straight face? They designed the whole TPC specification. It is they who wanted it in the first place.

It is not something that they have begrudgingly decided to "offer support" for as you have attempted to imply.

The fact is that if Microsoft's vision of a rosy DRM future for us all comes to fuition, we could potentially see linux PC's being denied access to large swathes of the internet simply because Microsoft deems them to be "untrustworthy", due to their refusal to comply with Microsoft's DRM requirements.

I'll Answer This Later

[dethndrek]

Since XP support is due to last until 2011, I'll let you know how it is in about four years.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[networkBoy]

"That's a nice music library you've got there, be a shame if anything happened to it..."

So long as my existing music works then no problem. The moment I'm locked out of my own files to force an upgrade we're talking RICO suit.
-nB

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[Blue Stone]

I think I'll wait too. Especially since Microsoft's indefensible policy of charging TWICE the price for Vista in the UK as in the US. (Bunch of crooks!)

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[eno2001]

That's always been my main issue with MS: cost for doing the serious stuff at home. While many people might want to relegate people like me to the insulting category of "hobbiest", there are some of us who want enterprise functionality at home and use it in a serious way. Of that set, there are those of us who want to play by the rules and would therefore buy legitimate copies of an OS. If MS was really smart, they'd realize this and would provide multi system license packs for home users who want enterprise features. I'd happily pay $500 to have the right to legitimately install Windows Vista on five of my fifteen machines at home. I'd happily pay $750 to set up a full Windows AD domain at home with Win2K3 + five Vista clients. While my needs may not be mainstream, there are more people like me that you'd think.

But since MS only focuses on the largest markets, many very important sectors are ignored. That's where F/OSS and GNU/Linux come in. Thanks to FOSS and Linux I've been able to more than accommodate my need for 15 machines plus seven virtual systems without having to worry about licensing or cost. The money saved goes where it counts: large amounts of redundant storage, RAM and CPU.

Regarding the insulting moniker "hobbiest", my main problem is that it downplays the need that the average home has for enterprise class storage, user and resource management, print management and distributed computing. We don't call electricians who work on their wiring at home or plumbers who work on their plumbing at home, "hobbiests". In fact we tend to praise them as being self-sufficient and skilled. The same metric should be applied to the IT guy who sets up enterprise class centralized storage (Global Network Block Devices or iSCSI), hardware assisted virtualization or paravirtualization (Xen + AMD SVM or Intel VT) and centralized application serving (persistent remote desktops using VNC or NX protocols). These are serious solutions to real problems encountered in the home. The age of the standalone PC is long dead, but MS doesn't seem to get that.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[jcayer]

If you are willing to spend $500, sign up to be a partner...it's free and buy the Action Pack: https://partner.microsoft.com/actionpack
It costs less than $500 and includes piles of licenses, etc for guys like you.
josh

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[man_of_mr_e]

That's not really a requirement. Have you ever fixed someones computer for them? Did they give you anything in exchange? Even if it's a can of coke? You just sold your services. Big deal. Microsoft doesn't really care.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[billcopc]

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.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[Qoroite]

hmmm? The Math's not that far off; certainly not enough to whine about, here's an example: Vista Ultimate Upgrade in the US(we'll use CompUSA): $259.99 = About £132.06 Vista Ultimate Upgrade in the UK(We'll use PCWorld; may be able to find it cheaper, who knows; I'm not biting yet): £249.99 = About $490.37 So yeah that's not 2 times; but ~1.89 times the price is bad enough.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[gsslay]

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate US RRP: $399.95
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UK RRP: £369.99
Current exchange rate = £0.5095 : $1
UK equivalent dollar RRP: $725.70
That is 181.44% of US price. Not twice the price, but close enough.

Re:I'll Answer This Later

[Some_Llama]

"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.

Anyone stand in line to buy Vista at midnight?

[xzvf]

I drove by the local Best Buy and Circuit City and didn't see any lines.

Re:Anyone stand in line to buy Vista at midnight?

[Planky]

No, I was in my car... checking for lines...

I'll stick with Internet Explorer

[andy314159pi]

I prefer the Internet Explorer to the Vista. And If I have to buy a new Vista then I hope the fucking drinkholder doesn't break on the first day I use it.

Re:I'll stick with Internet Explorer

[nytes]

My Macbook doesn't even have a drink holder! It just has a slot to store my credit cards.

Re:Still happy on my old stuff

[Nos.]

I think a lot of people feel that way. The first thing I can see that may "encourage" me to go to Vista would be some fabulous new game that looks better in, or requires DX10. Other than that, I don't have a reason to upgrade. I'm actually picking up a new box in a few weeks, and I'll be getting a copy of XP with it. That will be my first box with XP. My Windows workstation at home is 2000, and has been for at least 3 years.

No Way!

[Robber Baron]

Are you supporting it in a business environment? No way I'll be deploying this anytime soon. We've only just managed to get the kinks ironed out of XP.

For one client who is a medical service provider, I'm pretty sure that the "rights" that M$ has awarded itself via Vista's EULA are at odds with the requirements for keeping clients' medical records confidential. So until someone can provide assurances to the contrary, Vista isn't coming anywhere near their facilities.

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.

Re:2008

[jimstapleton]

slow down cowboy! 2008? Isn't it a bit risky to go that fast?

Note: as much as that may read like sarcasm, it wasn't. I'm quite serious.

Re:Wait for sp1

[lonechicken]

I have a free copy of vista and I am thinking about waiting for sp1 So do I. MSDN tempts me to install lots of stuff early, but Vista wasn't one of them. Too much of a potential pain to go back if something goes wrong.

Windows Vista - The Cow Starts Now!

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

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/billgat es.mspx

Re:Windows Vista - The Cow Starts Now!

[NeMon'ess]

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."

As true as that may be, Vista has them now, and it's going to be harder to get people to switch to OSX.

What I like about Vista

[rsilvergun]

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?

Re:What I like about Vista

[Volante3192]

is the memory tester...

That's not an reason. Just pull off a freeware tester. I've used http://www.memtest.org/ using the bootable CD
version on a few occassions and had it pick up problems on two seperate occassions.

Re:What I like about Vista

[|/|/|||]

Here's a link to the MS memory diagnostic tool, which doesn't require vista. It extracts to a bootable CD image. Pretty handy to have around if you think your RAM is causing problems.

As for this whole vista release thing, it's nothing but a disappointment in my view. As many others have pointed out, it's only a matter of time before a really useful piece of software *requires* vista. I'm in a situation right now where I'm going to have to go from 2000 to XP in order to use some new software.

Note that I don't think OS upgrades are necessarily a bad thing - in fact they're usually a *good* thing. The problem that I have with the newer versions of Windows is all of the crap that MS is slipping in behind the scenes. Sure, I'll buy a new OS with better stability (they've come a long way since Win98) better multimedia capabilities built-in to the OS, etc. Forced DRM, product activation, "Trusted" computing, and gestapo paperwork checks in order to download patches? No thanks. Hopefully by the time XP is no longer supported, I'll be able to do everything I need to on Linux.

It only just now launched??

[kahei]

Wait, I've been hearing about Vista on Slashdot twice a day for the last six months (at least that's how it feels) and it only just now launched?

I cringe at the thought of the barrage of Slashdot articles that will inevitably ensue!

Feb 1st, 5am: Vista failing to meet sales targets?
Feb 1st, 9am: Vista crash ruins breakfast for millions
Feb 1st, 6pm: Vista's first day: an in-depth analysis on some blog-type thing
Feb 2nd, 1:30am: Vista! Vista! Vista!
Feb 2nd, 8am: Vista still available after several days
Feb 3rd, 1pm: Vista 'ate my hair' claims Sacramento teen
Feb 3rd, 5pm: What's wrong with Vista? Six beardy Unix guys have their say
Feb 3rd, 11:30pm: Vista vs MacOSX -- a Mac fan comments
Feb 4th, 8:15am: Vista a flop already, say pundits
Feb 4th, 9am: Poll: Is Vista inadequately covered on Slashdot?
Feb 4th, 9:45am: Ten things fatally wrong with the Vista shutdown menu

*panic panic*

Re:It only just now launched??

[Goaway]

What's wrong with Vista? Six beardy Unix guys have their say

You understand Slashdot better than anybody should have to.

This launch...

[igny]

upgrades the DRM status from the DNF to the DOA.

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:Not for me...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Sounds like there is a lot of "overhead", and by overhead I mean fairly useless crap to support eye candy.

Actually, what happened is about 4 years ago someone realized that most of the time fancy graphics processors are sitting idle, so someone decided to offload some of the basic UI functions to it saving CPU use. They also realized they could add "eye candy" that was cool looking and in some cases actually useful, as in providing visual clues to the user about what the OS is doing without any real cost in currently used resources. Not all "eye candy" is useless. Now Windows has caught up in adding this stuff, but it is only available if you have a sufficient video card, in which case it isn't really using much in the way of resources that are normally constrained.

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...

I find the realtime indexing and search in OS X quite useful for finding the right file or function call in large builds. It's also nice for finding that preliminary design doc I was e-mailed months ago that was never checked in but which contained more useful info than what is. The fact that I can hit cmd-space-"GRE tunnel redundancy"-enter and have it open a PDF file that might be in my e-mail or in a CVS checkout, or I dropped in a folder somewhere is really useful, to me anyway.

...a little animated doggie...

I haven't seen a doggie anywhere but MS Office, and I think it is gone from there too. Certainly I've not seen it built into Vista. Is there such a thing I missed?

...crazy OS graphics...

So long as it is not using my bottleneck resources, some nice graphics that mentally mark where a Window has minimized to, is useful. Not all the graphics are, but some are. It seems like a net win though.

...monitoring software for unauthorized content playing out of my audio port...

I'm not sure how exactly the DRM monitors output, but I agree in principal...

...or any of the other "features" of Vista...

Well, there are a few nice additions in Vista, including some of the items I listed above. There are also a lot of anti-features designed to benefit MS at my expense. All in all, it seems like about a draw. The expense, especially for running in a VM will keep me using Windows XP for my Windows needs, for the foreseeable future. That doesn't mean all the features are useless, however, and as they say, you shouldn't knock 'em till you try em. I never would have suspected the searching feature on OS X that MS cloned would get used, but it does, every day. It often happens that a new feature does not sound useful until I use it, then I can't imagine living without it.

Re:Not for me...

[Traa]

I just wish more of my development apps ran under Linux.

Now there is a painfully honest line that explains a lot.

Vista, why arn't you good?

[Holy69]

I've been using Windows Vista for about a month now and I have found it to be more problems then a big worth while upgrade. Vista seems to be a extreme large resource hog that even with my 1 gig of DDR2 ram and a Pentium M 2.0 processor, it still runs somewhat slugish. As time has gone by and the more I use the OS I have run into countless software conflicts, video driver issues, and many other problems that just should not exist in an operating system that has been in the making for so long. Aero, although looking attractive, still poses problems that in the long run should just not exist. If your going to copy Apple, at least make the system itself work properly.

The world seems different

[Alien54]

Sort of like all the colors are in HiDef, slightly oversaturated.

and everthing looks slightly puffy

like it's bloated, or slightly over-inflated

Almost like the world has been redone in the Microsoft Cute Theme.

Can Steve Ballmer look Cute? (Now that's an image ....)

Will let you know when I see more....

Vista

[LiquidFiend]

I've been using Vista at work for just over a month now. I personally like the sidebar, not that it's anything that I couldn't have downloaded seperately anyway, but I enjoy having the CPU usage meter right on the side, along with a calender, the weather and a currency converter. I do not have Aero installed since this computer would not handle it, nor would I want to use it even if it could. The operating system itself has not crashed on me, and it has run suprisingly smoothly. I've got everything I need for work installed without a problem. There is one thing that drives me absolutely mental though ... in the windows explorer there is no "up" button, and back does not do the same thing, and yes, I am aware that I can just hit backspace, but when I'm in "mouse only" mode, this does not cut it.

I like the added shortcuts (ie windows key+0-9 to launch quick launch programs) but I hate having to use the "search" method in control panel to find the things that should be in the obvious spots. Also the defrag is terrible, while the command line version is significantly better, I would still like a visual display of what is going on.

All in all though, it has worked for me quite well at work, however it will be a long time before I would use it at home, it's simply not worth the money IMO.

Re:Vista

[Tony Hoyle]

that drives me absolutely mental though ... in the windows explorer there is no "up" button, and back does not do the same thing, and yes, I am aware that I can just hit backspace, but when I'm in "mouse only" mode, this does not cut it.

Backspace doesn't work (it doesn't go 'up' and more). They've tied it to the back key.

There's no way to go to the parent directory in vista that I know of other than clicking on the address bar & editing it.. which is hell for me (in keyboard only mode).

Re:Vista

[Dilly Bar]

The no up button caught me by surprise as well. There is something that gives you the same functionality (and actually a bit more). If you look at the address bar that usually shows the path of the files, you can click on a folder name and explorer will take you that folder. The nice thing about it is that if you want to jump to a folder up more than one, you can do that.

Confusing at first...

Re:Vista

[LiquidFiend]

Sorry, you are correct, the backspace button does not go up. The keyboard shortcut is "ALT + UP"

It's Ok.

[Laoping]

Well I have been using it for about 2 months. I am a developer and have it on my laptop, so I got it from MSDN.

It's pretty good. Nothing too wrong with it, I have had some issues with drives and a few program not working but that is to be expected. I guess I would say it you get it for free or if you get a new computer it's worth it. The instant search is the coolest "New" feature. It is prettier to look at. One thing I do have to say, I bring my laptop home, my wife, who is a non-technical person like it a lot. She likes the pretty interface, and instant search.

It does have a few annoying prompt screens, and they changed the control panel again, so I can't find anything again :)

I give it a good 7/10. I would not actively avoid it or pursue it. Is it better than Xp, probably, worth spending money on, probably not yet.

Drama and security

[ettlz]

From the BBC:

Windows Vista is "dramatically more secure than any other operating system released", [said] Bill Gates.

Meanwhile, in other news, several open-source developers in Calgary, Alberta were admitted to hospital for treatment of coffee burns and choking injuries caused on by an acute attack of the giggles.

Maybe for "office applications"

[green pizza]

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.

Re:Maybe for "office applications"

[drinkypoo]

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!

Well, that's the way an idiot would write it. Meaning that Microsoft's photo editor will do it that way. But it would be more intelligent to just deliver the application across the web in pieces as you need it, and have all the parts run on your machine. They might all communicate with one another through the server, though, aside from exchanging large image data chunks which would be done on your end.

Re:Maybe for "office applications"

[photomonkey]

Yup. I can see how a Palm-like internet appliance could eventually replace laptops for those who work mostly inside the productivity suites, but for anyone outside the cube farm such a device simply wouldn't work.

I'm a professional photographer (stills), and not only do I need a fast desktop to handle everything I do (and soon, I'll be expanding into video), but I also require a pretty high-end laptop for field work.

And certainly I'm not the only professional who will be tied to a traditional computer for much of what I do for a long time: graphic artists, programmers, modelers, researchers, draftsmen, engineers, mathematicians and, of course, those who can't see those damn little Palm screens.

I already have a portable Internet appliance (albeit a pretty expensive one) in the form of a Treo 650. It's great for making sure I can send and receive phone and data on the go, but it's pretty slow and not worth much beyond its telephone, DUN and email capabilities. The tech, even for rendering websites (especially AJAX-flavored) on mobile devices is still a long way off.

What I do see happening is again a splintering of the OS makers as the portable internet appliances become popular. Sure, the key players will stay involved, but we might see the advent of Linux as a popular desktop/palmtop OS. Others like Sony, Nokia or IBM might become involved. I mean, let's face it: PalmOS and Windows Mobile do what they need to kinda-sorta, but pretty much suck at anything beyond the absolute basics.

Installed it a month ago

[geighaus]

- GUI is beautiful. OSX pales in comparison. - UI has been revamped with all those subtle improvements. Liking it. There are a couple of bugs / annoyances (like disappearing folder view after deleting an item), but overall it is a great improvement over XP. - While some effects (taskbar window preview) are of a novelty value, they serve no real purpose and do not improve your productivity. - Same applies for the Alt-Tab windows preview. Nice, but I prefer the version with program icons. - Some changes are not so nice and confuse the hell out of me (like the redesigned network connections). - Pirating it is a pain in arse. Possible, but you have to go through hoops to get it working. Don't think it is unpiratable as MS claims. More like Vista is employing the security by obscurity principle here (considering the level of complexity and clutter of the OS). - Aero performance is ok on AMD x2 3800 with 1gb of memory and a nvidia 6 something graphic controller. - UAC is way too annoying. Had to turn it off on the - Got hit by spyware (something that never happened in XP with no antivirus installed). What's even worse I had no idea how to defend against it. Wiping all the spyware from the hdd, it just kept finding a way into my computer. As the result, had to reinstall the whole thing altogether. Now seems to be working fine. - 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). 3rd party firewalls for XP do not work under Vista. - Boot manager got screwed several times with no apparent reason. - Ultimate Edition extras are not worth it. Overall, I like the feel of Vista, but it makes an impression of a raw product. Oh and I absolutely have no idea why it takes 7.3GB of diskspace.

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:Installed it a month ago

[KermodeBear]

OSX has bash, and Vista still has the crappy ass DOS CLI. Game over.

I thought that Vista was supposed to launch with the Monad shell, but it seems that it has been delayed. FWIW it seems like it will be a lot better than DOS.

Tried a demo in the Best Buy

[avalys]

Best Buy had a Vista demo station set up yesterday. They were using what looked like a brand-new demo machine, with Vista branding on it and everything.

When I tried to turn up the graphics settings, I got a warning saying that the highest setting would result in severely decreased performance. When I tried to open the Media Center application, it crashed.

I looked around in the Control Panels, Start Menu, and Documents folders, and tried out IE 7, and was amazed at what a disaster the interface was. The cheap eye candy looked tacky and ran slowly, the "Flip 3D" feature was next to useless and an obvious failed clone of Expose, and I still found old Windows 3.1-style dialog boxes and icons littered throughout the system.

More than anything else, the interface was confusing, overly busy, and disorganized. I'm sure a power user would find what they're looking for eventually, but I got a headache just thinking about my parents, secretary, and other casual users trying to puzzle it out.

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.

Re:Tried a demo in the Best Buy

[mordors9]

Your IP has been logged and forwarded to our Civil Litigation division. Please cease and desist from any further spurious comments on our fine product.---Microsoft WatchDog Division

Re:Tried a demo in the Best Buy

[david.given]

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.

Re:Tried a demo in the Best Buy

[SandwhichMaster]

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?

Seriously comon...

[Drakin020]

Ok so I know im gana get trolled for this but I have to speak out

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?

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.

Re:Seriously comon...

[ciggieposeur]

Show me what Linux can do for a business, and I'll show you how Microsoft does it 20 times better.

My business is molecular modeling.

I need to do a lot of coding in C, C++, F77, and F90, along with some csh, ksh, bash, and perl scripting. I need to test the same code on my PC that runs on the 128-way SMP boxes in the high-performance computing facility, so I need compilers that support a POSIX-ish C api and MPICH, and I'll also need good (scriptable) connectivity ala ssh, scp, and rsync. Oh yeah, one of the data centers uses Kerberos. I also need reasonable data analysis tools like Matlab (though Octave will do in a pinch) and Maple. I need visualization tools like PyMOL, viewmol, vaspview, and GaussView, but also an X server so I can run beefier packages like Cerius2 directly off the big machines. I need to be able to write both small reports for quick printing and large (50+ page) papers with lots of mathematical formulas and endnotes/footnotes, and of course I need to output PDF. I also need virtual desktops to keep my workflow organized: desktop 1 is development, desktop 2 is remote terminals, desktop 3 is data analysis, and desktop 4 is general purpose desktop. Finally, I need to be able to back up my work easily, preferably with just a simple file copy, and all of my file formats will need to readable for 20+ years.

So far my needs are met at near zero cost with Debian Linux plus two commercial packages (GaussView and Maple). I have ssh, scp, rsync, perl, csh, ksh, bash, gcc/g++, g77, gfortran, MPICH, MPICH2, X11, LaTeX, Emacs, Octave, KMail, and OOo. And as a nice bonus with Debian my PC both plays DVDs (and ignores the UOP flag allowing me to skip directly to the menu) and browses the 'Net with ease, and so far I have had no problems with viruses.

I'm very interested in how a Microsoft solution will be 20 times better. Please tell us more!

Re:What about games and DirectX 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus dude, everyone knows "order the operating system Friday" means "do i torrent XP?"

Hmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista will still peg your processor at around 30% most of the time

I can imagine needing to run Vista on a Beowulf cluster to get decent speed.

Re:Hmmm....

[Sku-Lad]

Thanks for the Spoiler Alert!!! Now I might as well not even read Beowulf! Oh, well, The 13th Warrior is on tonight. I love that movie!

Re:Still happy on my old stuff

[Mondoz]

To me, Vista seems quite a bit like the current state of the next generation DVDs. Most people don't need them or get any benefit from them, but the media companies are really pushing to re-sell the same stuff to people that they already have.
People already have most of what's in Vista, they really don't need the upgrade, but MS would have you believe it's so much better that it's actually worthwhile to get... just so they can re-sell the same stuff to people that they already have.
There's no real need for this stuff, but they're trying to create a market there anyway.

Personally, I've never gone beyond W2K. I still don't see a compelling reason to "upgrade"

Midnight release

[green pizza]

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).

Re:Midnight release

[Omestes]

Hooray troll feeding:

From 10.2 to 10.3 was quite a leap, not a mere upgrade, as was from 10.3 to 10.4, which added metadata, better internal databases, more core functions, spotlight, dashboard, etc... By all intents and purposes a major release. Yes, the GUI is pretty much the same (albeit slightly more schizophrenic), and the actual user experience is pretty much the same, but that is somewhat the point, not having to relearn an OS every new version, keep it similar. And no, 10.3->10.4 does not equal an upgrade, its just how Apple's branding works (yes, I do think its idiotic). Think of 10.4 as OS 14, if you want.

10.5, on the other hand, seems mightily like an upgrade, adding software features, and not decent internal features. Sure versioning is nice, yes virtual desktops are good to finally have native on a non-KDE/Gnome desktop. But there is nothing as big as, say, Spotlight.

Can Ballmer look cute?

[spun]

If by cute you mean "slightly puffy like it's bloated, or slightly over-inflated" then, yes, yes he can look cute.

Re:What about games and DirectX 10?

[ZachPruckowski]

You're in a bind. Drivers and speed issues with games are a mess for Vista right now, but a decent bit of that might be sorted out by year's end. And while there are no current DX10 games, they'll be coming within the year. So the answer is: XP for games now, Vista by the year's end.

My impressions

[norminator]

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.

Re:What about games and DirectX 10?

[ShannaraFan]

I downloaded and installed Vista from MSDN over the weekend, I've only tried two games so far. On the exact same machine, under XP, I could run Civ4 and Neverwinter Nights with full graphic details enabled, no problems. After installing Vista (fresh install, reformat, etc), Civ4 continues to run (you have to download the latest patch) without issue. Neverwinter Nights, on the other hand, is EXTREMELY choppy, even at the bottom end of the graphics settings.

Overall, I'm not greatly impressed. Lots of shiny stuff, and it "feels" new, but I just really don't see any improvement over XP.

Re:What about games and DirectX 10?

[A Name Similar to Di]

I've been poking around for a while trying to ask the same questions. There's a fairly good write up at Tom's Hardware on performance differences. Tom's hardware is typically pretty even handed in their benchmark reviews (IMHO), they'll often use a demo or script for a video game and run it a few times to get a solid number.

As you can see, the difference is small but present (favoring XP for games) with the notable standout of Unreal Tournament 2004, however as the reviewer notes, this has a lot to do with the current driver support.

As far as I can tell, I think in the long run when games start making use of DX10 and such, we'll see some nice results, but in the short run games will be better run in XP.

If you need a Windows OS (and I just built a gaming computer myself, so I'm in a similar boat) some stores will sell XP with a free Vista upgrade. That's what I purchased, that way I can use XP for a few months (while Vista figures out what it's doing) and upgrade when I'm good and ready. I'd list where I purchased from, but I'd hate to have my post be construed as advertising, suffice is to say you should be able to find some offers via google.

Hope that helps.

Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating System

[Dr Kool, PhD]

I waited several hours in line on the night before release to be one of the first to use Windows Vista. I must say that Vista is an amazing operating system. It is hands-down the best product that Microsoft has ever put out, and probably the best operating system that the world has ever seen.

Why upgrade from XP? There's so much new in Vista that your head will just boggle. From new Internet Explorer 7 to desktop search features to a virus / spyware scan utility that eliminates the need for Norton, Vista is on the cutting edge of technology. Another thing that impressed me is the improvements Microsoft made to the little games that come with the OS. Solitaire, Minesweeper, and all your favorites are back with improved graphics and game play along with newcomers like Chess and Hold'Em. Did I mention the the Aero desktop environment is the worlds first 3D desktop?

Windows Vista is more than just an incremental upgrade, it's on a whole new level compared to XP. Congratulations to Microsoft for releasing an amazing product. They spent $6 billion and five years on this operating system and it really shows.

CS Students get your Free version to test out

[ookabooka]

Just wanted to remind fellow CS student slashdotters that your school is most likely part of the MSDN Academic Alliance, and you can get all sorts of microsoft stuff for "free". The only stipulation is you can't use it for for-profit stuff. In any case its a great way to get legit keys to use so you can get the updates "legally". I'm downloading the DVD of Vista right now, I'll prolly install it on a separate partition just to get a feel for it, but I'm gonna stick with XP for a little while.

Linky for the lazy like myself :-D Though you'll have to talk to your CS dept. about how to obtain login information.

Its not bad...

[trogdor8667]

I got a free copy of the business edition, and I installed it over XP Pro 64bit. To be honest, it runs much more quickly than XP 64 (less CPU usage, programs appear to start more quickly).

However, Microsoft did a presentation here on Vista, and I have to disagree with a lot of their reasoning for "improvements." Users want more security, and, in my opinion, UAC is more annoyance than security.

Our presenter said the new start menu and search came from research that said most people use their keyboard to move around choosing programs, not the mouse. Ok, the search feature IS nice. However, if you do use your mouse on the start menu (and most people I know do use the mouse here, sadly), its harder to use than the menu in XP. My favorite thing when it comes to this, is that everywhere, Bill Gates has said that everyone will be blown away by the Vista Search the moment it comes out of the box. My computer is basically a brand new top of the line system, and it took it 12+ hours to index my almost empty hard drive. While it is doing this, it gives you a message telling you to try the search later. So much for it working immediately out of the box.

Now, one place I have to give Vista props is the look. Vista looks nice overall; I didn't know my $30 graphics card could show images that crisp. Aero isn't bad either.

Vista has not crashed yet. The only problem I've had is with Visual Studio 2005; it likes to complain a lot, but it runs.

Anyway, those are my two cents on Vista. I had no idea if I'd like it, but its honestly not half bad. I'll still stick with my MacBook Pro for most stuff, though.

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Beowulf Cluster Computing with Windows

Re:Duh

['nother poster]

Damn, you beat me to it AC. Beowolf is an architecture of using a server node to manage (usually) multiple processing nodes to "maximize the speed" of processing using commodity HARDWARE, There is no particular "Beowolf" software.

Vista Rocks!

[Bluesman]

I love when Microsoft comes out with a resource hog OS.

It just means that when I buy my next low-end PC, the hardware will be incredible just so it can run Vista, and FreeBSD will run like a dream on it.

I think we all owe MS a great deal of gratitude for pushing the envelope so that decent OS's can make use of commodity hardware that ten years ago was unimaginably fast.

don't know about Vista...

[freeradica1]

...but I queued up at midnight for dapper drake.

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:Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating Sys

[drinkypoo]

I also fail to see how it's the first 3D desktop. OSX and Xgl/Beryl have been out for a while, dude.

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. :)

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!

Since you asked....

[hawkbug]

I've been running Vista since the RTM was released. I'm running Vista Ultimate x86. I have a dual core AMD Athlon system on an Nforce4 motherboard with 2 gigs of RAM. I'm not interested in trying betas or release clients at this point in my life, I've got more important things to do with my time. So when the RTM came out, I decided to use it on my primary workstation in a dual boot environment. I have nothing good to say about Vista actually - and lots negative. I use my workstation for the following things:

1) Email, web surfing, word processing - all the basics.
2) Video editing with tools like Adobe After Effects, VirtualDub, DivX, etc.
3) Web development - I have a version of ColdFusion dev installed, which is supposed to work with IIS.
4) Database development - SQL Server 2005.
5) Local network administration for the windows network here in the office - Active Directory, Exchange management, etc.
6) Linux server management, I only need an SSH client here.
7) Backup DVDs to either my iPod or for backups for our car.

While I may not be the prototypical end user, I think most of the stuff I do would be common and stuff that Microsoft would make sure was ready - ESPECIALLY their own tools. Here is a list of the tools that don't work are aren't stable on Vista:

1) Exchange 2003 System Manager, won't even install. It uses IIS6 for some stupid reason, and IIS7 (despite what it says) is not backwards compatible.

2) Active Directory - as a result of no Exchange tools, you don't get the exchange based tabs to administer basic email properties of user accounts. M$'s solution is to RDP to a server. Nice.

3) Windows Live Messenger - crashes all the time, mostly when you go to exit the program. It's annoying as hell.

4) SQL Server 2005 - You get a warning when it installs about how it won't work, but I did it anyway. It's mostly functional, but you still have the occasional system freeze, etc. Good times.

5) Since none of my 3rd party DVD making apps seem to want to work with vista, I tried Windows Movie Maker. After opening a raw avi movie file straight from my video camera, movie maker decided it didn't want to work. It just hung and after a failed attempt to kill it with task manager, I had to reboot. I tried again with exactly the same results. WTF?

And those are just the Microsoft products that don't work, which seems completely idiotic to me. You would think with an OS in development for 5 years, you'd iron some of that shit out with your own software. Now for the 3rd party apps:

1) Nero - I use it for CD and DVD burning like everybody else. For whatever reason, everytime I move my mouse over an mpeg or avi file in windows I get a RunDLL32 stop error and windows freaks out. This only happens after installing Nero. I'm running the latest verison as well, straight from Nero.com as of yesterday. If you do anything with videos, windows throws up these errors. Makes video editing impossible.

2) iTunes 7.0.2 - basically, nothing about iTunes works for more than 5 minutes. You can't burn cds, so that's bad. Then if you leave it open for 5 minutes, eventually the user interface freaks out and starts blinking in parts and removes the colors, etc. Then if you minimize it, you'll never get it back without restarting or manually killing it with task manager.

3) Firefox - about one out of every 10 times I open up Firefox, I get the blue screen of death with a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT error. This only happens on one of the workstations I put Vista on, the other doesn't have this same issue despite the fact that it's the same hardware exactly. Very strange.

4) Nvidia drivers - using the latest nvidia drivers from their website as of yesterday, my machine becomes completely unstable. Windows Explorer crashes every so often. I had to roll back to the default microsoft drivers for my Geforce 7600GS.

Now if all that isn't bad enough and reason to stay away, here are my gripes about the OS itself:

1) It's slow as he

Re:Since you asked....

[DiscoOnTheSide]

Are we using the same RTM? I've got it installed on a AMD A64 3200+ with 1.5GB of ram and a Geforce 6600GT 256MB.

Not sure about the Exchange stuff, didn't try to install it.

Windows Live Messenger - I've had no such problems.

Nero 7.5 - Works just fine. Burns CDs, DVDs, without a hitch.

iTunes 7.0.2 - While I do get ONE graphical glitch from iTunes, it fixes itself quickly and works fine. When you first open the program it's window is nothing but flat black. Maximize and minimize the window and it redraws it properly.

Firefox 2.0 - Works just fine.

NVidia drivers - Graphical system was buggy BEFORE installing the latest version, afterwards made it incredibly stable.

---

I find the interface to be quite snappy. The "shiny"(tm) shouldn't bog your system down at all due to its sitting on your 3d card, not your system.

The only major quibble I've had is the driver for Broadcom wireless cards currently sucks. Every once in a blue moon it gets a bug up its ass and does a cycle of connect/disconnect until you reboot. Flaky drivers are to be expected with a new OS however...

Not trying to say you're lying, just that maybe you got an incredibly buggy install.

Hell World of Warcraft averages 5 fps more on my vista box than on XP. I've always stuck to OS X for my "fuck around on the internet" and IM usage... Windows was just games, that was it. Now Microsoft has finally made a Windows that I feel is comfortable to sit down and use for whatever I need. Yeah, yeah. Some things changed. It happens. If it didn't change people would be bitching "What did they do then with all that time!?"

Apple at least has the balls to say "Ok, listen. We're changing it. Deal with it. Oh, and if your computer is more than X years old...we won't even let you install it." This I feel is needed for an easier path forward. Vista really needs to start cutting off the tail end of it's legacy support... just little by little... I've always felt that Windows was weighed down by it's legacy... if they said "Ok, nothing made before XP is working with Vista..." it'd be a decent start.

Meh, went on a rant there, but I see too many people saying they used it and it sucks and assuming that's the "experience" for everyone. Buggy installs happen. Happens on Mac, happens on Windows, and to a limited degree, Linux can get it too, as I've learned with Gentoo.

It actually is the best attempt they've done so far. XP made them look like they weren't even trying. Vista at least shows there is some effort to it.

Re:Since you asked....

[man_of_mr_e]

While I don't doubt you that you've experienced this, all i can say is that some of your problems were real and have already been solved, some of them are not common and you seem to be the only person i've ever heard with them, and some are definately legitimate.

I've not seen nany problems with Live Messenger since RTM. SQL Server has had a publicly available beta patch available for quite some time (along with Visual Studio). DVD and other apps have always had a lot of trouble with new versions of Windows, because the API's change (usually for the better, to provide functionality that those apps used to have to do themselves). iTunes... well, Apple has always had trouble writing decent software for Windows, so that doesn't surprise me. I don't use it. Firefox has a couple of dozen known bugs that effect Vista. I have a nVidia 6600GT that has worked well for ages under Vista. Even with the newer Forceware drivers.

As for performance, it's been pretty fast for me. Both on my P4M laptop with 512MB and on my Dual Core 2GB desktop.

As for the default view, i'm not sure if i understand. XP has worked exactly the same way for me, left to right for folders in icon view. The desktop has always been top to bottom. Or are you referring to open and save dialogs? Those work more like normal explorer now and exhibit the behavior you are talking about.

The start menu i guess is personal preference. I like it, but then I use the keyboard most of the time, and I find it easier to get around in.

$400 seems like a lot to pay for Solitaire

[tenzig_112]

REDMOND, WASHINGTON- With the launch of their newest solitaire engine, Vista, Microsoft hopes to bring the art of single player card games to a whole new level. Gone is the flat green background, replaced by a seductive green-to-dark-green gradient. The "play" and "quit" buttons are pleasantly shiny like beads of glass, softly inviting you to click them. Even the diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs all have a sexy updated look. After poking around Vista for a few hours, it's difficult to imagine stacking sequential cards of alternating suits with anything less.

Even harder to believe is the steady stream of bad reviews for Vista. After five years of waiting, it would be understandable if some members of the press felt that Vista should represent a bigger jump from its predecessor than it does. For instance, they point to Microsoft's original promise that all versions of Vista would feature a common 64-bit architecture- but that makes no sense at all since the game only has 52 cards. It seems fairly clear that anyone talking trash about Vista just hasn't played it.

Excerpt from ridiculopathy.com Somehow I don't think this is serious.

No, M$ is going down.

[twitter]

From the Gaurdian:

The company has already felt the ill effects of launch delays: last week it announced a 10% drop in earnings for the six months to December.

I doubt anyone trotted out last night to give M$ money and that's a sign of things to come. It's safe to predict that 99.99999% of Vista sales will be OEM installs. The low price of new computers combined with the high price of Vista will kill over the counter sales. For the price of new software that won't work well with what you have, you can buy a computer with the same. For the immediate future, forcing Vista will hurt computer sales because no one wants it. As the price of computers continues to decline, M$ is going to have trouble gettin money out of OEMs. The margins don't allow it. The end of the M$ monopoly is here.

Re:Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating Sys

[CrossChris]

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.

Re:What about games and DirectX 10?

[A Name Similar to Di]

No... I think there's some confusing language in the introduction of that article. Vista will support OpenGL ICD's and nVidia and ATI are already working on these. Apparently there was some question about the issue at first, but this is now old news from almost a year ago. I think what the article meant was that currently nVidia and ATI do not have the vista drivers for it. Correct me if I'm off base on this one, but that's how I read it.

My thoughts on Vista

[cashman73]

Well, I have a pretty new computer (as of October, 2006), so hardware compatibility is not an issue for me to upgrade at all. Will I be rushing out to upgrade to Vista? I have no plans to, no.

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,...

Windows Expert Edition

[Ullteppe]

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?

Memory Testing

[Prien715]

In OS memory testing is mostly useless in my experience.

1) You have to boot up your system to use it. Much of the time I've seen bad RAM, your system won't boot as the OS uses too much of said bad RAM.

2) If your system has had a virus and/or the OS is corrupted, you're not really isolating the problem as you're still testing the OS + hardware.

I've found Memtest 86 to be a better solution since (1) uses its own OS (freeDos, very small memory footprint, so it WILL boot) (2) doesn't rely on the system having on OS so it can be used with system corruption/viruses/with a hard drive (if you're building a system) and (3) is free (can download/use on as many systems as you own without needing to buy an OS license to check you memory)

Why is the Vista tool so good again? (Am I missing something?)

Re:Memory Testing

[Zone-MR]

No - it isn't. You can launch the memory tester from the F8 bootloader menu.

You should be watching CNBC right now

[gelfling]

They are reporting that Vista is incompatible with virtually every online game out there. They go on to add that for the most part all in-pace device drivers today will not run on Vista either nor do working drivers exist nor will ever exist for most 'older' hardware. They conclude that much 'older' software will never be made to work or work right either.

Now you have to understand that CNBC has been a MS corporate cheerleader from way back. Now I understand why Bill Himself has been pimping this out on TV personally. This looks like it could be a hellacious scary train crash.

Vista will learn lessons the hard way..

[GregPK]

I say this with over 15 years of successful retail experience... Microsoft is failing to capitalize on what made previous versions of Office and Windows Successful... That is retail.. In the past with windows 98, 2000, xp, office 2000. They gave much of the retail sales People a copy of said software and even gave it to the Microsoft field representatives who used it and showed trainings on it every day at retail... I call these people the seeds of Microsoft sales and products... They got free copies while early in their careers and always remember Microsoft with a kind heart and thus recommend and use it wholeheartedly... My family members who just happen to be IT managers at large banks... Are asking me that question... Should I upgrade?? At this time I'm very iffy about it. Plus, lacking a full product to play with.. I'm not inclined to recommend this product especially with the way Microsoft has been treating their overworked retail team and Retail lately. Eighty percent of decisions are made at retail and Microsoft is severely lacking at retail this year. Everything literally getting barely done in the 11th hour when they've had over 6 months to work on it and forcing those under them to work down to the wire to finish what could have been done with a higher attention to detail and fixing mistakes made up the chain but can't because of a lack of the ultimate premium called time.. At retail I'm seeing bad things.... All little stuff that's not reminiscent of the Microsoft I once knew. Who was detail oriented, Well planned, well executed, every time. I suspect Microsoft will learn their lessons from this... Its been too long since they launched a product... and these old lessons will come back to bite them and many of them know it just not the right people.. -Viken L

Less rebooting my ass.

[Vellmont]

One of the features of Vista I was looking forward too was less rebooting. The driver model is vastly different, so driver replacement should (in theory) result in no reboots. There's also a manager that's supposed to handle services better, so there's another area where reboots should be lessened.

Unfortunately, I haven't really seen much change in the number of reboots. I uninstalled fax and scan manager along with installing the new games. Reboot. I installed a new beta driver for my video card. Reboot. I installed the updates that came though today. Reboot. Not a great track record MS.

I've also been unfortunate enough to have a motherboard that has AGP drivers unsupported by Vista (nforce). So the video card runs on a PCI-PCI driver at reduced performance. Some may argue that this machine is "too old" to expect support for it. Maybe, I've got a video card that supports Aero, 1 gig of RAM, and a speedy HD, so the rest of the hardware is up to snuff. I guess you can put the blame for this one on Nvidia, as it's not Microsoft's responsibility to write drivers for the AGP bus. Aero is speed enough, I'm just not expecting good gaming performance with no support for my AGP bus.

So that's the bad side. The upside is that the new interface is pretty usefull. I really like the search function, no hunting around for different apps, or hidden control panels. The menu structure seems a lot more intuitive. The sleep function actually works! I haven't seen sleep/suspend actually work properly on a non-laptop running Windows before. It'll certainly save me some money on electric bills. I'm also glad to see they ditched the stupid IE interface for Windows Update. Ugh, that POS was nothing but trouble. It CONSTANTLY broke on my various windows machines. Hopefully this new non-IE based Windows Update will work properly. I also like the Aero theme. I'm quite glad the decided to ditch the Fisher-Price themed XP. I could never figure it out, and was a major reason why I never bothered with XP. I know you can switch the theme to Windows 2000 (and I did), but XP was actually less reliable for me than 2000.

Been Using Visio/ Office 2007 Since Friday

[N8F8]

Summary: 10% more usable OS. 35% more usable Office.

I upgraded a Compaq Z2615US 14" notebook (Semtron 1.8ghz, 128mb ATI 200M video, 1GB RAM) to Vista Business 32bit.

Aero Eye candy aside, I feel like I'm making fewer clicks and finding things easier. The sideshow doesn't have any really compelling widgets/gadgets yet (the weather gadget only show the current weather). The system feels more responsive. Had a few software compatibility issues (Visual Studio 2005 and Adobe 8 Reader installer). Office 2007 is simply wonderful. Finding things is much easier and the application seems to load a lot faster than previous versions of MS Office. Office PDF export is a separate download.

I installed a lot of third party stuff like XAMPP Lite, SciTe, Filezilla, Firefox etc without any big problems.

I ordeered the 64bit DVD and will probably reinstall everything when it arrives.

Re:Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating Sys

[nutshell42]

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.

mixed reaction?

[mcmonkey]

Some people say it sucks...others say it blows.

Leopard: A mere upgrade?

[buckhead_buddy]

Omestes wrote:

"10.5, on the other hand, seems mightily like an upgrade, adding software features, and not decent internal features."

If you think that Leopard sounds only like an upgrade of niche, end-user features, I think you'll be in for a pleasant surprise when it is actually released.

There are some compelling features under the hood that are being added for developers that will make their code less buggy, fit in better with the flash and glitz of Mac OS X, start taking advantage of newer hardware features, and offer more public access to the bits of code that Apple used to develop and keep private for Apple's own apps. Even if Apple doesn't reveal any other compelling end-user features (which I find an unlikely scenario), the ease Apple is making developers lives has already provoked some developers to say that the Leopard upgrade is a requirement for the next major upgrade of their apps. If Apple strikes out and offers no compelling end user features, then the blame will lie with developers as the bad guys who are forcing users to upgrade to Leopard. If Apple hits upon a compelling set of features for Mac users, the upgrade will be a no-brainer for everyone in the Mac community whose machines can run it.

If that's the case, why isn't Apple hyping Leopard up more like Microsoft did for Vista back in mid-2006? Time is getting short if the release is in the spring. My guess is that Apple is waiting for the Vista hype to die down before offering a more compelling set of end user features that will make even reticent Windows XP users want to switch platforms before Microsoft can copy the bullet list into a service pack release. Based on those banners at WWDC and MacWorld that everyone was talking about, I see Leopard as taking aim at Windows users rather than the Mac OS X Tiger community.

I guess we'll see in a few months.

Impression?

[FridayBob]

Mostly I'm just kind of disappointed that we weren't able to release KDE 4.0 or a stable version of Debian etch before this day.

Otherwise, I can't see how the consumers who have bought into Vista so far will have much to cheer about. It'll be a lot slower than XP, since the recommended hardware requirements are so much higher than for XP. Aside from the new interface, its supposedly improved stability and security, Vista is really all about DRM: preventing people from playing protected content, including in cases of fair use. What they get back in return for these heinous constraints is the possibility of playing high definition content on their PCs.

However, that last part isn't going to happen any time soon, at least not legally. To play high definition content on Vista, your graphics card and your monitor both have to be HDCP compliant, but according to this article, which is less than a month old, only two monitors tested last year were HDCP compliant and not a single graphics card. When will HDCP compatibile hardware start to appear? According to the article, many monitor manufacturers haven't even heard of it and can't say anything about it, while the graphics card manufacturers (nVidia, ATI) could do it, but haven't seemed to have found the incentive yet to do so. For the latter it seems to a be a chicken and egg story: no content? no support. And even if the manufacturers do decide to start making their products HDCP compliant, remember what Peter Gutmann had to say about the ridiculous guidelines M$ gives them: they're "fundamentally impossible" to comply with.

The future is also looking increasingly bleak for DRM. Even if Vista does well, it's content protection will not make much difference to the content industry if people can buy super-cheap Chinese media players that play every known file format without any restrictions whatsoever. Hell, only last week we heard that the music companies seem to be thinking about ditching DRM. If so, then Vista will become rather uncool in this respect and M$ will start to play down the protected content issue as DRM begins to disappear from music and movies.

Of course, for M$, the MPAA and the RIAA were never what the DRM was about: they really only added it to Vista for their own benefit. M$ is always looking for ways to milk more money out of its stagnant share of the market. For years now they've had only two options: raising prices and fighting piracy. Of course, with Vista they're doing both. Now all they need is for it to catch on. However, I'm not so sure it'll be that easy. Their plan may backfire on them. Why? I know a lot of people who have remained satisfied with Windows over the years only because they've been able to run so much software on their PCs -- pirated software. If they're no longer able to do that, I'm not so sure they're just going to roll over and start paying for everything they'd like to continue to use. I figure we're about to see the arrival of a new wave of Linux newbies as a result. Perhaps not a flood, but I figure it'll be enough to offset any financial gains M$ planned on making. Most important of all for consumers, M$ will lose market share.

Drawbacks of OEM XP + Vista upgrade coupon

[MojoStan]

If you need a Windows OS (and I just built a gaming computer myself, so I'm in a similar boat) some stores will sell XP with a free Vista upgrade. That's what I purchased, that way I can use XP for a few months (while Vista figures out what it's doing) and upgrade when I'm good and ready. I think it's important to note the possible drawbacks of this option (OEM XP + free Vista upgrade). The Vista Express Upgrade program only applies to "qualifying PCs" with XP preinstalled or OEM versions of Windows XP, not retail versions of XP. You were obviously referring to OEM versions of XP. The "free Vista upgrade" is apparently an upgrade version of Vista, which requires that OEM XP to install.

Possible drawbacks:

• OEM versions of Windows (which cost much less than retail) do not get phone/e-mail support from MS. I assume this is not a big deal to Slashdot readres because we should know how to use MS's support web pages, knowledge base, and Microsoft Update. However, it's worth mentioning if you're planning on installing it for a novice friend.
• OEM versions can only be used on one computer and cannot be "moved" to your next computer. MS has been pretty lax on this requirement for XP (just call them and they'll re-activate for you), but I've read that they might be more strict with Vista (I hope not).
• It looks like upgrade versions of Vista will require a previous version to be installed before you can install Vista. Previous to Vista, upgrade versions of Windows only required the user to briefly insert a previous version's CD. If you have a RAID setup, this might mean you need to go through XP's shitty RAID setup before installing Vista (which fixes this RAID issue). Note that, contrary to some news headlines, Vista upgrade versions will allow "clean" installs (format hard drive and start clean).

I'm sure most Slashdot readers would accept the possible OEM drawbacks. The drawbacks of the "upgrade" version of Vista might not be so acceptable. If I was buying now, I'd just get an OEM version of Vista unless they change the "installed previous OS" requirement.

My experience with 64-bit Vista

[rbonine]

I've been running Vista at home since pre-Beta 2. When the RTM version surfaced on MSDN in early December, I decided to hold my breath and reinstall using the 64 bit version.

Specs: I'm running a stock Dell box, D620 processor, dual core with 1 gb RAM. Video is ATI X1300 with 256Mb, Dell dual tuner card, no-name Web cam, USB external drive, built-in sound.

To my great surprise, all of my applications and hardware worked fine on 64 bit Vista. There was one minor exception: the SyncToy app from Microsoft would not run. Everything else - Office, Civ 4, Diablo II, WinZip, etc - worked great. Some dev tools did require updates - Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Express both had to be patched, although they seemed to work OK before I installed the patches. There is a 64-bit version of IE, but I don't run it, so I can't speak to plug-in compatibility. Most surprisingly, I haven't had any problems with drivers; even my el cheapo Web cam worked perfectly.

Overall, I like Vista. It looks nice and works well. Programs seem to load faster, probably because of the SuperCache feature that keeps commonly-used stuff in memory. The eye candy is OK, but probably not worth the price of admission - the important thing is that it has been rock solid so far.

Things I like:

- The sidebar is nice, although there aren't many gadgets available yet. The ones that are available look good.
- The OS is very, very stable. No crashes at all in almost two months. No "this program is closing" messages that I recall.
- The anti-spyware package seems to work as advertised. I'm running OneCare 1.5 for antivirus, and that works fine too. No problems with security, although I didn't have any under XP either.
- The new fonts are very nice - especially Consolas, the new fixed-width font. Looks great in Visual Studio.
- Boot time and resume from standby time has been much improved.
- No one seems to be talking about the voice recognition features, but they are awesome. It's possible to start Word, dictate a letter, save it, open Gmail, and mail it to someone using only voice commands. Accuracy is very good, and it's pretty easy to use. This is a killer feature that needs more publicity.

Things I don't like:

- Some of the new utilities are very, very dumbed down. NTBACKUP is gone, replaced by the most brain-dead "backup program" I've ever seen. This program is not backward-compatible, so if you have Windows Backup files, you'll have to download another utility from Microsoft to restore files from them.
- The disk defragmenter is also dumbed down to the point of absurdity. There is no status display at all - no disk block diagram, no percentage indicator - just a "please wait, this operation may take several hours to complete" message. VOPT did this better in 1983.
- Existing CD burning software probably won't work.
- The new search indexer searches only a small subset of the directory tree by default. While it's possibly to manually tweak the list of directories to search, there's no easy way to tell it to, for example, index every directory except those that hold temporary files. Non-index searches (in other words, a full grovel through the directory tree) seem to be slower than in XP.
- There is a "Run" box on the Start menu, but it doesn't work exactly as it used to. I have always used it to launch some programs and Explorer windows, and it still does this in some cases, but - for example - typing "D:" won't take you to the root of your D drive - it brings up the first application it can find that starts with "D". Very annoying.

Other observations:

- The ReadyBoost feature (that allows you to use a USB key as swap space) works, but I didn't notice any speed increase. This was with a very fast USB drive (patriot XT).
- The control panel utilities and desktop properties screens have been moved around quite a bit, which may confuse some people at first, but the new order probably makes more sense than the old one.
- There's a lot of FUD floating a

I find this really funny

[Sycraft-fu]

"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.

And

[xant]

The ability to use sudo su does not undermine the purpose of eliminating the root password in the first place: to make it inconvenient to operate as root all the time. As long as it is inconvenient to operate as root all the time, the elimination of the root password has its desired effect: keeping you from accidentally screwing up your damn computer, and keeping malicious attackers from accidentally screwing up your damn computer because you took a shortcut.

People will naturally do whatever's easier. Ubuntu and OS X made it easier to operate as non-root than to operate as root; Windows (at least as of XP) makes it easier to operate as root than to operate as non-root. Not surprisingly, people run as root on Windows, as non-root on the other two. Not surprisingly, they don't screw up those systems as often and they aren't as vulnerable to attack.

Re:Laptop with 512mb RAM with Vista loaded

[drsmithy]

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.

Re:Of course there was no midnight madness

[NFNNMIDATA]

Pretty sure there were midnight madness sales for win95 and win98. I recall tv news stories and newspaper articles about it at the time. What a time to be alive.