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Windows Vista Launches To Mixed Reactions

Posted by Zonk on from the new-opening-in-your-house dept.

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?

62 of 674 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you, brave gamma testers... by hal2814 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by Samalie · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    2. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by qortra · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.)

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    4. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by drzhivago · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by DimGeo · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    6. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by Orange+Crush · · Score: 4, Funny

      but you cannot, by default log in as root.

      sudo su

    7. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by aonaran · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    8. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by ender- · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Nothing to see here
    9. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by Mwongozi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

    10. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by clodney · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    12. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by Ubergrendle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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...

      --
      John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
    13. Re:Thank you, brave gamma testers... by clodney · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  2. I'll Answer This Later by dethndrek · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    --
    -JWR
    1. Re:I'll Answer This Later by networkBoy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "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

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    2. Re:I'll Answer This Later by eno2001 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    3. Re:I'll Answer This Later by jcayer · · Score: 3, Informative

      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

  3. Anyone stand in line to buy Vista at midnight? by xzvf · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Anyone stand in line to buy Vista at midnight? by Planky · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. I'll stick with Internet Explorer by andy314159pi · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:I'll stick with Internet Explorer by nytes · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --
      -- I have monkeys in my pants.
  5. No Way! by Robber+Baron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    --

    You're using her as bait, Master!

  6. 2008 by Conception · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:2008 by jimstapleton · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
  7. Windows Vista - The Cow Starts Now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

  8. What I like about Vista by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    is the memory tester :). I can't tell you how many OEM 98 boxen I've upgraded to XP only to have the install blow up due to bad RAM ( XP copies the contents of the CD into ram before coping it to harddrive). Wasn't there a /. story years ago about some major OEMs getting caught selling bad RAM because Windows 98 had that quirk where it wouldn't use the top 20% or system RAM unless you hacked the registry?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  9. It only just now launched?? by kahei · · Score: 5, Funny


    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*

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
    1. Re:It only just now launched?? by Goaway · · Score: 4, Funny

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

      You understand Slashdot better than anybody should have to.

  10. This launch... by igny · · Score: 3, Funny

    upgrades the DRM status from the DNF to the DOA.

    --
    In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
  11. Not for me... by s31523 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  12. Vista, why arn't you good? by Holy69 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  13. The world seems different by Alien54 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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....

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  14. Vista by LiquidFiend · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Vista by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 3, Informative

      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).

  15. It's Ok. by Laoping · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  16. Drama and security by ettlz · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  17. Tried a demo in the Best Buy by avalys · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank.
    1. Re:Tried a demo in the Best Buy by mordors9 · · Score: 4, Funny

      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

  18. Seriously comon... by Drakin020 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --
    The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
    1. Re:Seriously comon... by ciggieposeur · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

  19. Hmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Hmmm.... by Sku-Lad · · Score: 3, Funny

      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!

  20. Can Ballmer look cute? by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  21. Re:What about games and DirectX 10? by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  22. My impressions by norminator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  23. Re:What about games and DirectX 10? by A+Name+Similar+to+Di · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  24. Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating System by Dr+Kool,+PhD · · Score: 5, Funny



    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.

  25. Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Beowulf Cluster Computing with Windows

  26. Vista Rocks! by Bluesman · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
  27. Re:A short answer and a long answer by lurker4hire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  28. Re:Installed it a month ago by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  29. Re:Seriously common... by MS-06FZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!
    --
    ---GEC
    I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
  30. Since you asked.... by hawkbug · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  31. $400 seems like a lot to pay for Solitaire by tenzig_112 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  32. Re:Windows Vista Truly is an Amazing Operating Sys by CrossChris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  33. Re:What about games and DirectX 10? by A+Name+Similar+to+Di · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  34. Memory Testing by Prien715 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?)

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  35. Been Using Visio/ Office 2007 Since Friday by N8F8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
  36. mixed reaction? by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  37. Impression? by FridayBob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  38. My experience with 64-bit Vista by rbonine · · Score: 3, Informative

    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