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Microsoft Pleads With Consumers to Adopt Vista Now
SlinkySausage writes "Microsoft has admitted, in an email to the press, that 'some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release.' The company is now pleading with customers not to wait until the release of SP1 at the end of the year, launching a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'. The announcement coincides with an embarrassing double-backflip: Microsoft had pre-briefed journalists that it was going to allow home users to run Vista basic and premium under virtual machines like VMWare, but it changed its mind at the last minute and pulled the announcement."
Y'know against support problems, non working applications? No?
Thought not.
Deleted
Pleading with your customers to buy your product? Who do they think they are, "Head On"?
...
And it's no surprise they changed their mind about changing their mind about virtualization. Anything to forse, um, get a customer to upgrade to another level of Vista
Just say No.
XP is the end of the line for me and Windows. We've had a long and bumpy relationship, but it's over now. Time to move on.
Money for nothing, pix for free
... it's not like it will actually fix anything, anyway ;-)
Give it to me for free... As many licenses as I need. The best machine I have can't run it fully anyway: a laptop on sale in January is mere "Vista Capable". Sure, it's the graphic chipset, but under XP or Ubuntu it works perfectly fine.
This just shows that it is hard to sell an upgrade to a mature product....
MS has tried to glitz up everything rather than just giving customers what they need and want/ a decent OS at a fair price with good support. MS has BILLIONS in the bank. They should have spent a lot more to code up vista/apps as well as bump their phone support. As it is, MS is well known for some of the worst support.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I really hate begging. Doubly so when it comes from such a big company.
Now, bribery, I'm ok with... Maybe if they slipped me a couple hundred dollars, I would reconsider their operating system offering.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
I"ve spent the past couple of months trying to switch to Vista and I keep going back to Windows XP. There simply is no compelling reason to use Vista. Not only is it noticeably slower than XP, there are dozens of annoying little things that constantly get in my way.
Windows XP was a major improvement over Windows 95/98 (which is what most people were using when XP was first released) but Vista is a major step backward. Not to mention horrendously bloated and absurdly over-priced.
If I could do a double backflip I would be proud as punch! I would probably never walk again but it might be worth it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
we do know that Microsoft is at some point going to provide a complete replacement for the Windows kernel, moving from version 6.0 to 6.1 -- the same kernel found in Windows Server 2008
Knowing that is going to have bugs, wouldn't it be better to wait for sp2??
Quickly, Slashdot experts. Get in here with your predictions of how Microsoft is failing and Windows will be a memory in a short time and people will suddenly start caring about Linux. You don't want to be the last to get your load on the biscuit.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Device and application incompatibilities never stopped anyone from upgrading. With Vista, it's not so much that there's a reason to not upgrade, as there isn't a reason TO upgrade.
Too late, already switched to Ubuntu.
We are customers. An operating system is not like bread or coffee.
Annoy a billionaire... Install Ubuntu today!
(Feel free to replace "Ubuntu" with the name of your favourite FreeNIX: Slackware, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, you name it)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
What about the studies that have demonstrated that the new interface actually cuts down on productivity?
I don't want to sound like a fanboi here, but I'm more excited about the emerging technologies in KDE4.
Windows XP was actually a pretty decent OS. I found on the same hardware it could be configured to run better than Win 2k, it was relatively stable, easy to use, etc.
My biggest beef with XP was how poorly it was configured out of the box.
Given the poor usability issues, poor performance, lack of drivers, application breakage etc, the financial cost, I just can't see a single compelling reason to get Vista.
I used a beta for less than two days and was really put off.
I'll stick to my XP/Gentoo dual-boot, thanks.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Or possibly people are avoiding upgrading because when they test Vista, they discover that the interface is the most convoluted and annoying one ever developed. Windows Vista -- now with 500% more confirmation dialogs and notification tooltips! Because we don't care about real security, we just want to make sure when something breaks we can blame the user for clicking on the confirmation.
We have several people who've bought new laptops in the past few months, and every one of them is infuriated at how annoying the interface is. I certainly couldn't train a computer novice to use it yet, because it makes no real sense where anything is or under what conditions entire sections of the interface are hidden and revealed.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
SP1 might make things more complicated with even more bugs which will make more Microsoft Vista users to ditch it and migrate to Linux. Better get more people invest now, than hear more bad reviews after SP1 release. Smartass(for the dumb) marketing department.
Thank you. But i'll pass.
If I got a new computer I'd sooner use Vista than XP. Unfortunately, using Windows 2000 is not as much of an option these days as support has dropped off both from hardware vendors and Microsoft.
Of course a close second would be Server 2003. Either way you have to spend a day or two turning shit off (or on with Server 2003). Pain in the ass.
I am so happy I switched to Linux.
There are two possible groups of people here. Possibly three:
1. Those who already have a PC, are reasonably knowledgeable about it and are quite happy with how it's all running. What's in it for them? Re-learn how to do a bunch of tasks only to wind up with exactly the same as what they've already got but with a few extra bells and whistles.
2. Businesses. What's the benefit? Microsoft likes to peddle things like "increased productivity", mainly because it's impossible to measure and hence impossible to argue with. I would, however, point out that "the IT department having to make sure that everything runs on Vista, scripts don't break and users don't get confused with an interface change" doesn't increase anyone's productivity.
3. Those who either don't have a PC, or do but are unhappy with it (probably because it's dog slow under the weight of all the spyware, but they don't know that). This is the only group which may go with Vista - but they'll go with whatever the PFY in the store tells them to go with. If Apple started offering sufficiently generous kickbacks to retail partners, you can bet that their market share would go up quite a bit.
QUICK! kick 'em while they're down!
That's why somebody invented dual booting, all Vista capable machines should come with a dual boot with Linux for the backwards compatibility with peripherals.
It'll be a win-win situation whereby people will either drop their legacy applications/peripherals to use Vista or (cope with/get used to/learn to love) Linux and not need windows so much.
Dual booting on all OEMs by default FTW!!
thank you very much
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
Unless the thing that they are changing to solves a real problem for them, then they will not change. And having transparent title bars on windows is not a real problem for most people. No amount of begging will convince people that they have a problem when they don't.
Once again, Microsoft proves that its previous versions are its biggest competitor.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
It's good for you.
It would also demonstrate, yet again, that in the world of technology marketing trumps quality every time.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Over my cold lifeless body! Seriously, once I can no longer run XP, I will be moving to Ubuntu most likely. I already have a couple arch servers at the house, and regularly work with RedHat and Solaris at work... Nothing in my way of a Linux/Unix shift.
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
I'm not - I'm just waiting for the next OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_%22Vienna%22 )
Vista doesn't do anything (for me) that XP doesn't do - it just costs more, requires a more expensive PC and supports less of my hardware (and probably software). Result!
Part of Microsoft's success is the fact that Windows is everywhere, it provides a foundation for everything else to run on the majority of desktops, and if you want to use popular desktop programs, more often than not it's going to be Windows-only, and thus whether you like Windows or not you have to use it. Windows was in your face, all the time, and it can't be discarded (dual-booting is an option but it's actually rather inconvenient, especially if you want to run two things that require two different OSs at the same time).
Cheap, efficient virtualisation totally throws most of the downsides of multiple OS booting out the window (no pun intended). Suddenly you could run Linux or OS X as your desktop and totally ignore Windows until you need to run a Windows program. Windows thus goes from the Master Control Program of your computer to just some shared library that a program loads in order to run. This represents a loss of control over the user, and the one thing Microsoft fears the most is the loss of power, regardless of how small the loss is.
Microsoft loves your money, but it loves your obedience even more. Being able to discard Windows from your sight when you don't require it means you're not being a good little Windows user. Therefore, you deserve to be punished, hence the licensing restrictions.
Didn't think so either.
Not real sure why anyone would try to get work accomplished on a platform that is designed to slow the productivity to a crawl while inundating its users with business offers. Windows isn't an Operating System, it is a Marketing Platform designed to emulate an Operating System.
Some people may be waiting for compatibility fixes or Service Pack 1 before they upgrade to Vista.
Others, including myself, are simply waiting for Hell to freeze over.
Drop the vista kernel, lay the interface on top of Linux like what Apple did and join 'mainstream' computing again. Get with the program bill, lose the lawyers, get more geeks.
Hope is the currency of fools
...for me to change from XP. There are no benefits in it for me. XP works for me at the moment. I wont fix anything that isnt broke.
All you do with that, is pleasing another billionaire than usually.
Hey. This would be a good slogan for a T-Shirt! ;-)
assuming game developers jump on DX10, then gamers will be among the few who will upgrade to Vista.
Now, this is a chicken-and-egg situation. Since few adopt Vista, devs still write games for DX9. So, what if the killer feature DX10 fails?
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
We just loathe DRM, we don't want a system that's by 20% slower than its predecessor and we know that any MS OS so far has not been worthy the label "release version" before it had a "SP2" attached to its name. That's pretty much all that keeps us from using it. Aside of the "why the heck should I?" question, based on the fact that Vista offers nothing XP didn't already (and that actually offers some kind of additional value to the user). Or, in case you don't care about WiFi, 2k is already all you need.
What it comes down to is that Vista has no redeeming feature, aside of the forcefully opened incompatibilities with the previous versions. And so far, those incompatibilities don't really strike. For example, DX10 isn't really out the door yet, so there are no DX10 only games on the market.
It's not that we don't want the shiny, we just don't want the ugly. And so far, I see nothing in Vista that really offers any value for me. I don't care about the flashy interface, it's probably the first thing turned off to reclaim at least part of the performance hit. I don't care about the pointless "allow or deny pseudo security", actually I see more harm than good in it. I sure as hell care about DRM and I don't want it. Yes, yes, DRM doesn't keep me from using my old content and "enables" me to use all that DRM crippled junk, but the way I see it, if there is nobody able to see DRM crippled content, DRM crippled content is an Edsel. If people can't use it, people won't buy it, and studios will be forced to pull the plug or suffer even worse than they already do due to DRM. Either's fine with me.
So far, MS failed to show me any compelling reason to use Vista over XP or 2k. So, why shell out my dough for a new system if it doesn't give me anything I want that I don't already have with the old one?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am proceeding to continue using Windows XP on my machine that needs to be Windows, and using FreeBSD on my notebook and main desktop!
How much do you spend on your hardware and maybe even apps?
... sewage.
Why the hell would you toss all that $$$ down the tubes to put Vista on it just for a couple of hundred bucks? If you put a few drops of fine wine in sewage you get sewage. If you put a few drops of sewage in a fine wine you get
A $15K desktop with Vista on it is still an expensive turd. Even if M$ were to toss you $500 to put Vista on such a box, it wouldn't be worth it.
There are plenty of issues of Vista and Microsoft is painfully aware of this. Now, I like Windows as a product overall, but Vista is just not mature enough to use in a production environment. And I'm fine with this. Vista is a technology release, breaking lots of new ground and hence it's hard to get right the first time.
The reason people stay away from Vista is because they experienced actual issues with either compatibility, performance or reliability. Or they know someone who did. It's not just a bunch of myths.
One would expect Microsoft would make some marking noise on Vista's consumer release in January (as any company would) and then quietly back down and start working on fixing Vista so at SP1/2 it becomes a decent replacement for XP. But naaah, "proceed with confidence". Shame on Microsoft, are they really so disconnected from their customers.
If they keep this style, no wonder more companies completely switch away from Windows for their desktop clients, be it on Mac (most of them), BSD or Linux.
Heh, fact-rich materials that they won't show us.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
I've had experience with Vista both as an upgrade and as a supplied install on a new PC (Both Dell machines).
Bottom line - there is not enough support from key apps out there to make an upgrade to Vista sensible right now, and general performance kills it for most people.
Examples:
- Poor nVidia support
- Nero 6 doesn't work, so you need to buy an upgrade
- Peripheral devide support is poor, but again, you can buy upgrades
- deskop indexing kills the machine
- Aero glass keeps breaking due to app clashes (e.g. Quicktime)
- The overwhelming number of confirmation pop-ups is an extremely irrating feature. One struggles to imagine how Microsoft designers feel this is a good model. Most users won't understand the questions being asked (or the implications) and will simply keeping clicking "allow" until the windows stop popping up.
Both machines now back on XP Pro and working very well.
T.
Vista is out for many people as they just don't see why they have to buy new scanners etc just because they are a couple of years old and vista drivers are not available.
If Microsoft had any sense they would create a driver wrapper that would allow existing XP peripheral drivers to operate in Vista. After all, what use is DRM for a scanner?
I have a customer with several HP Officejet 6110 all-in-one printers. They work perfectly, but features such as the scan-to button on the printers will NOT work under Vista while they do work under XP. HP has indicated that they will not be adding this feature to their Vista drivers for the 6110, and that customers will need to buy a newer model to add the features that do not work under Vista.
So, people SHOULD be concerned about compatibility with 3+ year old equipment. Then again, if you have a computer that is 4 or more years old to begin with, then it would make more sense to replace the computer than to upgrade their older machine to Vista.
Vista isn't bad if you are dealing with new equipment that is supported by the manufacturer, but it's NOT a good idea if your machine is older. Needing to add more system memory and/or replace the video card to run Vista "properly" would be a good reason not to upgrade the OS.
...then they can drop the price below $100 and give me copies for my computer, my laptop, and my wife's computer.
I don't need this buggy, OVER-PRICED, DRM'd, over-hyped piece of bloatware. XP does what I need it to do and there's no reason to go to Vista. When an OS is more restrictive than a straightjacket, more bloated than Rosanne, Rosie O'Donnell, and an entire convention of over-fed, beached whales, and more expensive than any other component in the system (especially with the economy in the toilet) what does M$ expect? They don't have a great track record as it is...
I've some evidence.
Evidence 1: Their fact-rich sheet for "partners and customers" is in fact locked to only computer making companies who sign an NDA O_o. Yes, their "confident list" of reasons to use Vista is actually a secret. That makes me wanna switch to Vista for sure!
Evidence 2: How Microsoft explained that they changed their mind back on virtualization of Basic/Home? "The company said virtualization presents inherent security risks". Oh... My... God... They aren't even TRYING. What kind of damn security risk are we talking about? That people will buy cheap Windows Basic and run it on Parallels on Mac, isn't that the one. Pathetic.
So what are the new features found in Vista anyway? The only ones I've heard of are:
* Improved security (with many here at slashdot doubting its effectiveness, although we're typically anti-Microsoft here so its hardly surprising).
* Built in search that looks through documents as well as document names.
Is that it? Because all I've been hearing about it (outside of slashdot) is people having trouble with it.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
First, why upgrade my computer's OS when MS's own evaluation app warns me that my installed apps won't run or will need upgrades (my hardware level is just fine)? Secondly, I've been walking my parents through the process of learning Vista (lots of: where's this, how do we do that, why won't the printer work, etc), after they got a laptop with it, and I don't see the need? Sure it looks pretty, but I need to work, not sit back back and think about how pretty the desktop is.
Why, only about a month ago, we were being told that Vista licenses were selling like hotcakes, with an astounding 40 million being sold in the first 100 days -- the fastest launch in history!
Vista has a few things I could live without (like UAC and mandatory driver signing, both of which I have disabled), but it also has some features that I really miss if I have to use someone's XP box.
And for the programmer in me:
Sorry for replying to myself. But reading that again I heard my old boss yell in the back of my head "if you can't offer a solution, don't mention the problem". Ok. Let's see what could've been something that could have convinced people that Vista is the better thing.
Many people have MP3 players. A library with an API MP3 player manufacturers can hook into for easy transfer would have offered a lot of value. Interoperability is the current big thing in the home computer market, people enjoy plugging everything and their toaster into the computer, so how about catering to that crowd? A co-op with Nokia or Sony-Ericson would've also gone a long way, with libraries to easily transfer data from mobile phones to computers and back. More and more people have USB drives and sticks, so an easy way to (automatically) sync between stick/external drive and harddrive would've been nice. Or how about a standardized library for photo and movie editing tool makers that allows them to easily suck data from a digital camera, similar to what twain used to be for scanners?
Even if all that and more can be fairly easily already accomplished, it often takes an additional step between raw data and processed, and many people would be happy to eliminate that. Comfort and easy of use has always been a selling point for MS, and with Vista they are definitly moving away from that. And it shows in the sales.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
MSPaint got upgraded for Vista. It now has a "crop" function!!!!
Bill Gates is the devil.
Down with the evil empire.
Ubuntu is so EASY, my grandmother uses it all the time!
Hmm.. what else...
Oh yeah, I have a picture of Linus in my whackin' stash.
And I'm pleading with Microsoft to kiss my ass.
I'm not waiting until SP1 to use Vista, I'm waiting until SP481 comes out...
Seriously, how many home users actually bought Vista to run under VMWare? I'd be willing to bet most had no clue about Vista's VMWare policy. Currently, the major interest in virtualization is in the corporate sector.
Slow home user adoption is due to the shaky hardware and software support. This will only change when enough pressure is put on these manufacturers to support it. Thus the only thing that will fix Vista's problems is... adoption of Vista.
In the previous generation, the deep-seated OS was Win98, and it was such garbage that XP looked like a godsend. Now, XP is the deep-seated OS, and it is nowhere near as terrible as 98 was. So what will MS do to move consumers?
Interesting times.
I really wouldn't push consumers to Vista yet - it simply isn't ready.
I've spent most of this week trying to set up a Vista machine for one of the sales team in the place where I work. I've been genuinely startled at how bad it is - basic stuff simply doesn't work. For instance it randomly looses its network connection, or refuses to connect to a standard Windows network, for no discernible reason. IE7 crashes on start-up (this is on a brand new laptop with the manufacturers default install - probably caused by an add-on crashing but there is no quick way to determine which one), randomly sends incorrect machine ID information to the database server so it looses its DB connection periodically. And I'm getting really strange SQL errors reported in the main application which make very little sense. Oh, and it takes t takes about 5 minutes to be responsive on a boot, and about 3 minutes to shut-down. Vista isn't ready for serious use - stick with XP if you need a Windows machine.
My brother, who's a "travelling tech support" guy, has had the "opportunity" to help a number of people with brand new (not upgraded) Vista installations, and his recommendation is to steer well clear of Vista. I'm just waiting for the flood of cheap graphics cards that are not Vista-compatible but got produced anyway.
-Lars
My opinion: First, "Vista" is just a name. Actually, Windows Vista is a new version of Windows NT 5.1, or whatever. Giving a completely new name to a new version is a marketing trick to take advantage of people with little technical knowledge about computers.
Second, we were burned badly with the first version of Windows XP. We lost huge amounts of time; the cost of the OS was trivial next to the total cost of ownership.
We found that Windows XP on first release was VERY buggy. It was necessary to upgrade because our installations of Windows 98, all patches applied, were self-destructing. The registry or the file system would become corrupted and that tended to be too expensive to fix.
So, our rule now is the same as it was before: Unless forced by circumstances, never upgrade to a new version of Windows until the second service pack is released. Let other people have the expensive grief.
Third, read the forums. People are having LOTS of problems with Vista.
Busy now, have to wait to post more.
Now, think of what it would be like if you'd plunked down £100 for it. Any loss of functionality would see you saying "why did I plunk down cash for this!". When it's free, you probably found something missing or broken and thought "well, I've still got XP" because there is no lost cash.
Maybe the only way for MS to get Vista selling is to sell at the cheapest OEM price (or free) and encourage dual-booting between XP and vista.
You've been waiting several months too long.
Ironic that you should mention Mandriva in response to an article about corporate begging...
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Speaking has one who was "forced" to change - a broken machine, and not enough time to investigate alternatives thoroughly - I can confidently say you don't want Vista! Network problems, application problems, all sorts of unsupported hardware, no help from MS or other suppliers, not enough knowledge in the community to help, etc., etc. Let someone else, like me unfortunately, be the guinea pig.
I might switch over if the games that run under direct x ten look sufficiently more fantastic, but for now I've got no real reason to hop on the vista bandwagon.
I have spent a fair while on vista 64 trying to get the dang thing to work. After a recent driver update it now hard locks on startup and using the roll back option also hard locks so it looks like it will need a complete format and reinstall again. Vista 64 is one of the reasons I decided to just get an xbox360 to play games on instead. I only use windows for games and keeping windows running on this box is a pain in the neck. XP 64 works ok but not great, however some things like 3d sound don't work and many games just crash. The problem seems to be that I have 8GB of ram in this box and creative labs cards under windows have a lot of problems if you have more then 3GB of ram or so. Under linux every piece of hardware in this box works flawlessly. I have seen the direction that windows has been going, it seems to keep getting harder to get the darn thing working and take more fidling to keep it working. My kubuntu install worked the first time I installed and it has kept working, the most complex thing I need to do to maintain the box is to click on the update icon and tell it to go ahead. ;) This leaves my time free to get my actual work done, however I am tired of booting over to windows to play games only to have the games crash, the system crash etc. For me the consoles have won now, I have a wii and xbox360 and both of them are working great. If microsoft wants to really convince me that windows is the future they need to support some basic things better first. From what I have read so far it appears the major thing that xp64 and vista64 lack is support for an IOMMU which apparently can take care of all of these problems I have with the hardware under windows since that would allow transparently mapping 64bit address spaces for 32bit aware hardware. Apparently vista +1 *might* support it, meanwhile linux has supported it for a while and it works fine. So in 3-5 years maybe windows will be ready for usage again.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
From an IT perspective, I completely understand Microsoft's shift towards having the home basic, home premium, business, enterprise, and ultimate versions. Why do you need media center capability in the office? And why would anyone at home need remote desktop? Well, I do and I'm sure a lot of other people do too. I don't want to be charged the Windows Tax on a new laptop and get an inferior product when compared to good ol' XP. I don't care if it has swoopy graphics, Beryl does that for free in Linux, but few retailers are willing to offer a no-OS/Linux option on a new machine for fear of upsetting the powers that be. I don't think I should have to pay the huge premium for the Ultimate version either, especially when it isn't offered by an OEM source to come pre-installed, but rather through the ridiculous upgrade program. Because I want to sit at the computer twice as long to get my desktop back if windows has a hiccup and won't boot. Lastly, why price the ultimate version at $399 MSRP? Are they banking on the idea that "gamers" or "power users" will have extra money to dish out for an OS that wastes their hardware resources? Or would that money be better spent on more ram or faster processor and an un-neutered copy of XP? I love Linux and have been a fan of Windows for years (since WFW 3.11), so I have no hatred of Windows (which may get this modded down), but their new sales plan is silly and annoying. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a full version (I abhor upgrade versions and have since Windows 98), let alone select whether or not I want to go 64-bit with it at time of purchase if I don't want to wait/pay for MS to ship another DVD installer. I'll be staying away from Vista until the prices drop and problems start to disappear. Right now I have machines that all work, so why risk the headache?
Yes, but this billionaire has been TO SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCEEE! Doesn't that make him so much cooler? Oh, and the little thing about him dumping his billions into a community-developed operating system, and isin't necessarily going to get any money back on the deal
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
First, I called the vendor and started crawling up their butt about how they must have sold me a bogus copy. They tried the "it's outside of our return period policy" line, but I just came back with "Do you really want me telling Microsoft where I got my bogus Vista?"
So they gave me the number to Microsoft's WGA team. Called that number, gave them my story, and they told me I had to "Validate" now. I already activated, now they want me to Validate. So fine, I jumped through their hoop, got the goddamned thing "Validated."
And as if I wasn't already pissed enough, the helpful MS drone told me that if my hard drive died, I'd have to buy a new copy of Vista in order to reinstall on the new disk. My old activation code would not work now. (She acted like this was normal and acceptable to lose a software license due to a hardware failure.) I felt like I must have popped a blood vessel as I "forcefully" told her how I would never buy Vista again, regretted buying this one, and would make it my mission to convert people over to Linux, probably Ubuntu.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
People here are not going to like what i am about to say, cause i have a 100% different opinion than almost everybody here regarding Vista.
Everytime Microsoft releases a new OS, we hear the same song.
When Win95 was released, people complained to no end because it had problems, DOS was more stable, Win 3.1 was better, etc.
When XP was released, people complained again. They didn't upgrade to XP. People (read: most people) changed their OS to XP only when they bought a new computer that came installed with it.
With XP, i clearly remember people complaining that menus were not in the same place, the interface was annoying, that it was exhaustive on PC resources, that some older devices were no longer working properly (between the NT/2000/XP and 95/98/ME branch, for most people who switched), etc.
Now Vista. People complain about the interface is annoying, that menus are not in the same place and that it's exhaustive on PC resource, that some devices are no longer working properly... Feel similar?
Changing OS is never troubleless. But you know what? All of this was obvious from the very beginning.
- This OS was obviously going to take more resource on the PC. It wouldn't make much sense if it was LESS than XP. Stuff evolves on computers and they take more resource everytime. Guess what, each new version of KDE released ALSO takes more resources on your PC.
- Some menus were going to change place. This was obvious also. Guess what, each new version of KDE changes some menus also. The extent of the changes may vary, but change is to be expected. Vista didn't change most menus anyway, and you still have your "classic" interface available that looks very close to what was seen in Win 95/NT.
- Device no longer working. Microsoft warned people over 3 years ago about that. Seriously. When you change OS, expect some device to stop working. It's annoying, but it's to be expected. Switch to Linux, THEN tell me if all your devices are working properly. The only way to be 100% sure you won't have any problems with devices is to buy a PC built with Vista installed.
- People complained incessantly about security in Win XP. What can you do against security "holes"?
1) fix OS vulnerability.
2) prevent people from doing harmful tasks.
Microsoft did BOTH. They didn't fix ALL of the vulnerabilities, as it is virtually impossible. But they tried to prevent people from doing idiotic stuff. If they prevented it by "forcing" the user, then he would have complained he cannot do what he wants (i can't install by nudie-girl taskbar "enhancement" in the file called: "nud_girl_vir_us.exe". Vista sucks because of it!!!). What do you do? Well you give him a warning.
I use Linux everyday at work. Linux IS NOT yet at the level for most consumers. Far from it in fact. If you complain that Vista is too hard to get or teach to someone (as some have suggested), you havn't tried to teach Linux to the same people.
Yes it's different than XP, but please stop complaining about the change.
In a few years, i expect all the complainers here to start saying: "Vista was more stable, better structured and a better overall OS than Windows super-vista-XP that was recently released".
And definitely NO. The amount of complaints i hear about Vista isn't "WAY more" than what i heard about XP when it was first released, or Win 95 for that matter (the major steps of changes in Microsoft OS).
Funnily enough, I just put up this site last night: http://www.vistacompatible.com/. Ask and you shall receive? Give me a few days to get it up to snuff though. Hope it will help out those in need.
What Microsoft has done with it's monopoly is made it's customers so adverse to change or marginal improvement that they can't get their own customers to switch for their own product. XP is what every one knows and loves to hate. Vista may have better security or features (I can't really say), but does better security get XP users to switch to Linux in droves? Debatable... So nice job in making your customers stupidly complacent and set in their ways that they don't want to switch to ANYTHING else, not even your own product.
Money is the root of all evil?
Deleted
Now that Parallels and VMware on the Mac have their coherence mode, I don't need to even *see* windows on my mac desktop; I can just run that one-off program that I need to without having to resort to dealing with windows.
And, because I'm not looking at windows while I'm using the programs, XP works perfectly well; why install Vista when it has such outrageous requirements and I'm just going to hide it anyway.
Let's face it. Their batting average hasn't been stellar recently. I'm very surprised that Steve Ballmer is still CEO. Based on their stock performance, you'd think there would be a shareholder uprising.
If Microsoft wants to win over those waiting for compatibility issues to get resolved, and/or the release of SP1 for it why not just bit the profit bullet and man up on the problem?
A) Send developers out to work on site with hardware manufacturers who are having known device and/or software compatibility issues. (nVidia, I'm looking at you...)
B) Redirect internal resources to get SP1 ready by, say, August.
C) Find a way to build an XP style shell on top of the Vista style base. So you get the technology advantages of Vista (like improved app security), but you still look and feel like you're in XP.
Now, to get to why some people are really not upgrading it's cost. So let's address that.
A) Scrap the idea of "same program, with licensing enabling more features if you pay more" nonsense. At the MOST have a home and business edition.
B) Get price competitive. No, I do not mean give it away for free like Linux, but be comparable to what people are paying for OS X. Right now they're still on the Sony mind train of "early adopters will pay anything" and they need to get off it.
C) Take a page from how our government wants to handle illegal aliens. Offer a one-time cheap "Amnesty program" for people with illicit/older versions. "Have a pirated copy of XP, upgrade to Vista and get a permanent license for only $30. Have a legitimate copy? Upgrade for $20. But this ONLY lasts until XX/XX/XXXX..."
Some of step B I have seen already. At the local Fry's you can pick up the "System Builders" edition of vista for under $200, and it's the "ultimate" which I thought was costing upwards of $400. This, I think, was in response to the hobbyists who screamed bloody murder and were one of the most prone to switch to Linux groups.
The problem here is that MS has something along the lines of a DECADE of R&D costs to recoup with Vista. These ideas would cost them money. But at some point they need to ask themselves if they're in this to win it, or in this to milk it as long as they can.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Just why did people mod the parent funny? That makes no sense.
(I know... I shouldn't expect sense from /. moderation...)
Rethinking email
I'd like to try it but can't.
........
My box is aprox 3 years old, when I bought it it was a absolute state-of-the-art machine. All parts high-end, top of the line.
Nowadays my comp. is mediocre at best compared to new machines and parts. But still a viable box for homeuse and gaming.
I tried installing Vista, yet it won't recognise half my hardware and my raidsetup is something the install. can't coop with.
I'm sorry, but if MS expects me to buy a completely new comp just because it won't run Vista while my comp is still very viable by today's standards they need to get their heads out of their
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
In the past two days, I've been in contact with Microsoft support for over 4 hours. I'm waiting for another call from them today.
What's the problem? I can't open the control panel. When I open it, it immediately closes. The culprit? Either my display driver or the NVIDIA control panel. The display driver comes with the NVIDIA control panel, so I can't get one without the other.
And the hilarity? The driver is WHQL signed.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
After trying Vista, I have to say that I like it. I think the new GUI is really slick (yes, I know it was a total rip off of Mac. I don't care). The widgets on the desktop are really cool too.
Of course, I did get it for free (legally too!), and I would never drop the $200+ for a copy.
I mean, XP now is much better when it comes to stability and hard/soft compatibility (*) but this requires every time a very long list of updates to bring a SP2 installation to an acceptable level. What if they suddenly made the updates available only to -say- governments and very big companies? The rush of common users towards Vista would probably build the critical mass (userbase) Microsoft need to drag also big businesses into adopting Vista.
Ok, this is pure speculation, but what if they find a way to do it without risking a gazillion lawsuits?
This also brings the question: is there a way to make a DVD of all needed upgrades, to avoid spending entire afternoons at customers with slow internet connections?
* Compared to Vista of course. No flames, please. I'm writing this from a Debian machine in a 100% linux network, but sometimes you have to deal with that stuff when working with customers.
I haven't given Vista a try yet (and have no plans to) but I'm going to give my opinion anyway, since everyone else is. It seems a common Vista complaint is performance - XP runs faster on the same hardware. So, what I think MS should do, instead of offering multiple versions of Vista Home, and multiple versions of Vista Pro (or whatever it's called) they should just offer 1 version of Vista Home, which would include all those "helpful" dialog boxes and tooltips and whatnot, and 2 versions of Vista Pro - one version for those "look at my pretty taskbar, and my colourful wallpaper" people, and the other version for the rest of us - no fancy GUI, nothing we don't need during our workday, tuned for performance. It sounds to me MS is trying to sell us a "Corvette" with a 4-cylinder engine under the hood. Useless!
Remove the code that was likely supplied by the RIAA/MPAA and maybe I'll consider Vista. I have two machines that will run it with flying colors but right now XP certainly exceeds my needs and I don't want to lose functionality (or video/audio quality) by going to Vista. Of course, I would still wait until SP1 to help ensure that most of the bad bugs are detected/removed by the time I switch.
Pleading? That will bring good results. Leave it to Microsoft to plead. On a side note, I run Vista and it's quite annoying. Given the chance again, I wouldn't have purchased a new Laptop with that installed.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
You mean like most of the graphics cards already out there?
Here's how would measure it:
So, ineffect, MS is saying:
Buy vista.
????
Profit.
But, the "???" is lowered indirect costs.
I'm not an accounting teacher (obviously) but that's how I would explain it to a PHB. No the trick is how to avoid blame if their margins don't increase!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
LOL - I thought vista was selling so good?
go eat s*#* microsoft.
they only reason vista sold is because you are making "Deals" cough cough with corporations to get it deployed.
to this day you still practice your illegal tactics while you have the DOJ in your back pocket. you will never change and so I will never buy your products again.
you are talking as if vista was a plain, neat, clean os.
its not. its a drm ridden crap with routines and functions that are bent on controlling whatever crap you are doing with your computer. and for that reason its never going to catch up. too bad they bought the riaa deal and delayed vista long enough to put those shit in. but its good for us.
Read radical news here
I'm the network manager, I decide if we move to Vista or not. Here's why we will not be migrating any time soon:
1. Roaming Profiles. Microsoft has a nasty habit of releasing a technology, proclaiming it as the "standard" and then changing the fucking thing. This time, Vista uses a different profile structure than Windows 2000 or Windows XP. That means EVERYONE's existing profile will not work on Vista. How stupid is that? Favorites, Desktop settings, Application preferences...and the list goes on and on. Microsoft should have migrated the existing profile in the absence of a "V2" profile, but I guess 5 years is not enough time to work that out.
2. Mandatory activation. We re-image machines constantly - currently we use Windows XP Pro volume license so we don't have an activation problem. Now Microsoft wants me to run a Key Management server and all my machines need to touch my network at least every six months. Bullshit. Why is their piracy problem my problem?
3. No perceived benefit. I've been running Windows Vista on my laptop now for a couple of months, and I can't see a single damn reason to go through the headache. Sure, Microsoft moved a bunch of shit around, but it doesn't seem easier or harder than Windows XP - just different. That is not enough of a reason.
No amount of press releases will fix these designed-in fuckups.
-ted
"Microsoft has admitted, in an email to the press, that 'some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release.' The company is now pleading with customers not to wait until the release of SP1 at the end of the year, launching a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) Vista is not ready for customer consumption. I personally don't plan on using it... ever. DRM and other issues made that decision for me long ago. I have a family down the street who just purchased a new computer with Vista Home Edition and have had nothing but troubles. Several programs which ran just fine under XP are now crashing Vista hard.
The latest Print Shop (for instance) isn't compatible I'm told along with other commercial packages. Very sad. XP wasn't this much of a pain.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Two data points. My wife and my son.
I had not discussed Vista with either of them. Short story: Both of them bought new PCs this year, both of them after Vista's release. My wife wanted a Dell but ended up picking up an HP at Staples because Dell told her she couldn't get a Dell PC with anything but Vista. My son wanted a Dell and, as it happened, it turned out he _was_ able to get a Dell preloaded with XP, and that's what he got.
Both my wife and my son are what you might call computer-literate, but neither of them has any love for computers. They browse the Web, they do a little word processing, a little spreadsheet, they download and print pictures from their digital cameras, and don't buy new computers until they're forced to.
In my wife's case, she'd been using Win98 SE on a 2000-vintage Gateway. (She picked Gateway because she liked their cow-themed boxes and because in 2000 they had retail "stores" that catered to non-techies). What forced her to buy a new PC was the lack of updates for her Win98SE version of Norton Antivirus, and for IE--and the increasing number of websites she visits that cause her version of IE to hang or crash.
Her approach to me came about a day or two after Vista release and what she said was, "You know, I think I'd better buy a new computer now before I'm stuck with one that has Vista." What put her off of Vista was the impression she'd gotten from the mainstream news that it was a) brand new, and b) rough around the edges. Incidentally, she wanted a Dell, but ended up buying an HP because at the time she called Dell they claimed, truthfully or untruthfully, that they would not sell her the low-end machine she wanted preloaded with Vista. (The reason I even suggest untruthfulness was that the person she talked to said that Dell would not sell any PCs preloaded with XP to anyone nohow no way, that they had switched 100% to Vista, and claimed that every other computer maker had, too). So we drove to the nearest Staples and she bought a sweet little compact HP, new in its box, that had XP SP2 preloaded.
A couple of weeks ago, my son called asking whether I had any idea why performing a virus scan on his machine would make the screen go to black and make the machine reboot. Long story short: Bad fan on the power supply. After reviewing options, he decided that the option he liked was to buy a new machine.
Again, I had not discussed Vista with him. Again, _he_ called _me_ and asked whether I thought he should get Vista. He said he was leaning against it, "because Moose" (a friend of his) "says I'd be crazy to get Vista at this stage," but he was on the Dell website and couldn't find a home machine without one. He asked if I thought it would be all that crazy to get Vista. I gave him the most honest answer I could, which was that if you just want a plain-Jane reliable box, well, XP is mellow and mature and not too bad, while Vista is new and does have significant teething pains. I added that if he was going to go with Vista he should get Home Premium, not Home, because it would be silly to have the headaches and not at least get all the fancy new usability and UI good stuff, and that he should have at least double the minimum "recommended" RAM and disk space and should ask hard questions about the video card.
He called me back an hour later to say that he'd found that if he ordered the machine as a "home" system, he could only get Vista, but he'd found that the exact same CPU... which incidentally happened to be one Consumer Reports liked... was also sold under "small business," and ordered that way XP was an option. And the machine ordered as a "small business" system with XP actually cost a little less than the same machine ordered as a "home" system with Vista Home Basic.
He went with XP.
So, yeah, I'd say Microsoft has a problem. But I think it's a problem with Vista, not a problem with perception, and they'd be better off improving Vista than conducting ad campaigns. No ad campaign is as powerful as word-of-mouth and the word-of-mouth on Vista is bad.
And, just maybe, when Microsoft thinks about "customers," they should be thinking of my wife and my son and attending to their needs... not the needs of PC manufacturers and the RIAA.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Funnily enough MS sent me Vista for free for watching some technical videos. The high price was the #2 and #3 reason not to get it. You got it for free. That knocked 2 items off the list. http://apcmag.com/5049/10_reasons_not_to_get_vista
The truth shall set you free!
Server market already IS linux.
Read radical news here
I'm not "upgrading" to Vista ... period. M$ can go blow.
In the last 6 months:
Vista ships on less than 50% of new PCs
Macintosh sales increase 35%
MSFT up 2%
AAPL up 45%
"some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues"
Yeah, and some of us have tried Vista and have first-hand experience with those "rumored" device and application compatibility issues.
I doubt any marketing campaign, no matter how "fact rich," can change users personal experiences.
1) I can't securely delete a file. Vista "helps me" by remembering infinite versions, unless I turn this off, which I can't, because it will always remember at least one version back no matter what I do.
2) Office 2007 is a mess. I hate the ribbon menus, I don't want to retrain myself on a whole new menu system just so I can use the same old shit, and things work badly (Excel recalc, for example, is subtley broken).
3) Shadowing of files. The shadowing of Program Files is broken. If a Program Files file is shadowed, and then updated with an install utility, the shadow copy is not updated; yet the shadow copy overrides the newly installed copy. Net result: upgrade fails.
4) It's slow. I don't know why -- this laptop is new and should be screamingly fast (which is obvious once I'm running an app). But the OS is sluggish compared to XP.
I'm not that bothered with the security pop-ups. I agree that they are useless for the average user, but so far I am not irritated enough by them to complain.
I have an old laptop, specs here, and it's been running Ubuntu and other flavours of Linux for years now - all without hindrance or laggish behaviour. Recently I installed Beryl, and have the wonderfully looking desktop that Mac users have had for years, except I don't need to buy the latest hardware for it.
Think about it. Beryl or Aeroglass (or whatever they've called it in Vista) - keep my current PC, or upgrade and spend too much just so I can run an unreliable, unproven and overpriced OS?
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade for me please, i'm staying put.
'nuff said.
ilovegeorgebush
I'm one of those saps that actually went out and installed Vista on my existing machine, but I ended up removing it after only a week.
The device compatibility wasn't that bad in the end (only my external soundcard failed to work), but the main reason that I went back to XP was the fact that pretty much everything ran so much slower. I've not a terribly old machine, but it is hamstrung with only 1GB installed RAM.
So any application that needed more than a smidgen of memory would grind to a halt as it struggled with the amount that Vista wrenched from me by default.
Back on XP there's nothing that I miss at all, so my copy of Vista is likely to just sit on my shelf (or get ebayed).
"I lost a few documents when it reshuffled user data folder structure, but other than that, completely flawless."
LOL... Losing data is not flawless. It's the exact opposite.
Apart from that I'm glad your minesweeper game still functioned correctly.
I'm the 'computer guy' for our office. Every time XP pops up with a message about virtual memory or other alert, I get someone calling me over to their desk because they don't know what to do. I had to set up XP to look like Windows 98 just to stop the yelling about how XP had 'broke' the computer because they couldn't find anything.
Do you have any idea what kind of hell Vista would make my life?
Yes I will wait for a SP1...like I waited for a sp1 for XP...
It's common sense, it's not like people never been burned by 'final product' from ANY company in ANY kind of license...
But more than that, I think I will wait till I don't have to bend over by phone or internet to use my purchased software. Not EVER, if I buy a box of vista, I buy it....not RENT it....
postpone....could not be more fitting
...and only one is currently in use. The one I am using right now. This is how enthusiastically we are embracing Vista. Trust me, it's not worth the bother. It is slow, clunky, and cluttered. I've already disabled window transparency because it was too distracting, UAC because it was annoying the hell out of me, and my productivity has actually decreased, not because I'm just getting used to the new stuff, but because I'm having to wait around for the OS to catch up with what I'm doing - and this is on a PC a little over a year old. Now I know XP was a dog when it first came out (I worked on first line support at the time, and our call volume literally doubled), but I never remember it being this bad. If this is the best MS can come up with after six years, then they really have a lot to worry about. I'm not saying they're doomed or anything, but considering the R&D budget they have, and the huge pool of talent they can draw from, saying Vista is a disappointment is like saying it's a little chilly in Siberia.
... And that would be Leopard.
Microsoft needs people to upgrade. I will be buying two PC's in the next month. They will be Windows XP. Every piece of software that I have runs fine on XP, but not on Vista. I still have 2 Win98se machines for games for my children that do just fine (PIII-500mhz). Of'course they are not connected to the internet. My other machines are W2K and XP, internet connect and they are just great, no problems. Why do I need the expense, software upgrades, etc of buying Vista and new machines? I can pick up P4-3ghz machines ate Micro-center with XP for the same cost as Vista and none of the headaches/DRM crap. I am looking at the new MAC's and perhaps that's what really has Microsoft worried....
I've been on Vista for 3 months now. When I bought my new Thinkpad I made the leap, thinking that it would be better to be slightly ahead of the curve than to have to upgrade my OS at a later point. Big mistake. Don't do it. Below is a quick summary of the hassles I have endured since day one, and continue to endure. Anyone else see this shit?
- Yes, it's slow. I hear the figure 20% tossed around, but it seems much slower than that compared to XP. My new laptop has exactly four times the RAM of my old one that ran XP, and a processor that is over twice as fast. The hard drive is 5 times larger. Yet my Vista machine seems to run at about the same speed as the old one... and that one had four years of installs and re-installs on it, and an 80% full hard drive. What did I just pay for, again? Needless to say, to maximize performance I have turned off the transparent windows and all the other fancy gimmickry, which make my upgrade even more pointless now.
- When Vista becomes "stressed", such as when I open too many apps, rather than simply becoming slower as was the case on XP, weird behaviours begin to occur. Everything still opens and seems to operate normally. But then the weirdness kicks in, the most frustrating example being the disappearance of buttons and other widgets in dialogues. For example, effects windows will open in Photoshop with all the buttons and sliders that let me tweak the effect. But then when I go to apply it... lo and behold, there is no "Apply" or "OK" button. Just vacant grey space. Fantastic. This happens in many applications, though it does seem to be getting less frequent (maybe those daily patches are helping, hmm).
- When application A crashes or starts running slowly, strange behaviours (such as the missing dialogue buttons mentioned above) will start happening in some other random application B. When I close application A, application B starts working normally again. Annoying.
- When apps start to crawl or crash, and I have to kill them, a helpful "Would you like to save your changes?" dialogue pops up. Of course I would. But sometimes the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons are missing. So I can't save my content. Fine, I think, I'll just select the text in the file, copy it to the clipboard, and in a few minutes I'll open a new file and past it back in. No such luck. When apps begin to crawl or crash, copy-and-paste to the clipboard will not work. Bottom line: you're screwed. Notepad is the most frequent app to display this behaviour.
- I can't print to my printer. It's a common, cheapo Canon. Worked fine from the get-go when I plugged it in to my Mac or my old XP machine, but Vista fails to recognize that any printer is installed at all. Spent a bit of time digging around looking for drivers or settings, got annoyed. Now I just email my files to my Mac and print from there. Welcome to 2007.
- When Vista starts to crawl or crash, and I can't close apps normally, I want to open the Task Manager to kill the offending process. About 50% of the time, however, it won't open, either through the CTRL-ALT-DEL menu or by right clicking on the taskbar. Great. What's the point of having a Task Manager if, when you need it most, it is often not available? Reminds me of Windows 95.
- Every few days, the menus in my IE 7 suddenly disappear. If I right-click on the menu area, the menu pops up and there is a checkmark beside "Menu Bar". Strange. But regardless of whether I check or uncheck this, the menus are still missing. So I randomly check and uncheck some other widgets, like "Links" or the "Google Toolbar". Then I recheck the menus bar. The menus reappear! For now. Whether this is a specific IE 7 issue or a Vista one... I can't say.
- Some mysterious key combination - I believe it involves SHIFT or ALT something - causes the keyboard layout to switch instantly from US to whatever else is installed, in my case Canadian French or Canadian Multilingual Standard. For the first month I h
switching to vista implies that I buy both vista AND a new system that runs it so I can have almost the performance I had with my current XP/gentoo system. If I really had money to spend on eyecandy, I'd do like everyone around me and buy a macbook pro. At least I'd have both eyecandy AND performance.
Sorry Microsoft, but XP is still your best product so far; performance is good, stability is ok and it's simple enough for anyone to use.
My Grandpa recently got a shiny new Dell with a shiny new operating system, a shiny new graphics card, and a shiny new 20" wide-screen LCD. You know what? He loves it. He thinks "the new computer" (read windows) looks fantastic. After looking at it myself, I have to admit, it looks pretty good. It'll be the second biggest thing going for it in the home computer market (after OEM lock-in), and its no small victory.
But yeah, in the geek/corporate market, it'll flop.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
1) Allow me to run it in a virtual machine for the first 12-18 months, inside Win XP
2) Allow me to use the same install on my main machine when I decide everything works well. (Deleting the VM beforehand.)
I'm not buying Vista twice. I'm not buying a version of Vista only to discover it won't run in a VM. I'm not going to install Vista now because I just finished reinstalling XP, apps and games (again) after a clean install last October. Three days messing around with no computer once a year is plenty, thanks.
Right now a few of my customers are running Vista, but that's their lookout. My software works on it, and that's all they care about.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
You should have stayed with 2000. 2000 was the best Windows ever made. It's all been & will be down hill after.
You've a nice healthy Mac or Linux waiting when you next need a machine. I'll be peaceful & pleasent.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Um... no...
... then... ViSTA
if windows XP 'required' 128mb of ram to even install. but took 1gb of ram to run smothly.
and
which REquires 1gb to even install......
screw that. i'll stick with old shit for a while until 8GB of ram is cheap as crap.
What's wrong with you?
Doesn't everybody want a crippled OS that takes away control from the owner?
Oh, wait, you're not the owner. You're just the "licensee"...
For Christ's sake, will someone please tell those people that:
A) Most people use a screen resolution higher than 1024x768
B) Some of us even--*gasp*--use our s-video outs on our video cards to clone our desktop to our TV
These two very simple problems (two of MANY) get at the heart of why I find Linux so fucking annoying. Until they can get it together enough to account for stuff like this without requiring the user to go into his xorg.conf file and manually edit it with a bunch of byzantine code (scattered throughout the file, no less), the Linux will remain a pure geek indulgence.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It took me a couple of months; I had to yank out the security software from MacAfee and other NagWare to get any kind of performance. It's still a dog thou, I could not with a clear conscious recommended it for a corporate server.
And that choice is the reason why "FreeNIX" won't overtake Windows.
What can you get for one of the richest men on his birthday? Your first legit copy of windows :P
Vista runs so slowly that people are paying a premium to stay with XP. Dell, for example, charges $99 more.
I just had a customer pay $300 labor to "upgrade" his two-month-old Dell Vista Business laptop -- CoreDuo, 1 GB RAM, Intel 845 video (which may have been the bottleneck) -- to XP Pro. He provided the software, which cost him almost as much again.
When he called, he said, "I either need to put XP on this laptop, or buy a new laptop with XP." I went to look at the laptop, turned off virtually every startup item except his Symantec corporate anti-virus client, and agreed that XP was the only cure available.
Once again, Vista makes me money... I love it!
cry me a river MS, but I wont be upgrading to anything you put out ever again. WinXP works just fine and Linux is way faster and coded much better. MS you can throw cheap bells and whistles at me and everyone I know but I will not buy into it, nor will they.
We all have new PC's that came with VISTA but we formatted and installed XP or Linux. Why on earth would we want your DRM and SPY software on our machines and have to pay for it to boot? F* that you pompous blow hart.
After a learning curve with SP2, I'm now finally comfortable with XP... I have a great understanding of the registry / hive, system files, I've finally got my utility set down, and now consider myself an 'advanced troubleshooter' when it comes to winblows. Bought my girlfriend a laptop last night, came with vista, I tried for 20 minutes to get the damn thing connect to my wireless network and gave up... I'm good with novell, great with windows, and decent with linux, iSeries, and solaris, but Vista is giving me major grief. Took 10 minutes just to turn off most of the eye candy and have it pretend to be XP, but after this, i'm never going to vista. When my xp machines die, the replacements will join the ranks of my linux machines. Man am I glad I got out of the helpdesk business.
they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release.
Yes, I do indeed plan to wait for a service pack...
Specifically, I plan to wait for the (deliberately) long-overdue XP sp3.
I have used Vista (I put up with it at work for about a week on a new machine from Dell, before I wiped it and installed XP). It supported my hardware well enough (if its performance ratings insulted a machine that kicks serious butt under XP). It just plain sucked. "Laggy", "bloated", and "needlessly rearranged" come to mind as a description.
And, although I had considered this point silly before experiencing it - Those who have warned us that the UAC will train people to automatically "allow" everything have a damned good point... It took all of an hour to condition me to reflexively move the mouse toward the right spot on the screen as soon as it started to dim, before the question even popped up.
M$ should hire the Video Professor to handle their ad campaign.... "So please, try our product!"
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
On two separate occasions I made a good faith effort to switch to Vista, the first time doing a fresh install, and the second as an upgrade to XP Pro (making sure everything worked in XP before the upgrade). First of all, Vista is a big fat pig, requiring far too expensive a machine for most computer uses. Dual Core processor and 2GB or RAM just to run email and write letters? Pah-leeze! Besides that, however, between the occasional blue screens in Vista (which I have never seen in XP) and the difficulty in finding anything in it -- seems Microsoft moved things just for sake of moving them, and I have a hard time getting anything done -- I was frustrated enough to give up right there. But the real PIA trouble came from the %$#*& DRM built into Vista's audio visual system. Because my drivers are old XP ones (the manufacturer refuses to update them for Vista, and instructs me to purchase new hardware to fix the problem -- ah, NO!), my video capture card produces a black screen and no sound in all Vista software except ones *designed* to bypass the protection. Unfortunaely, they don't do what I want. Oh, I've tried these drivers and programs in Server 2003, and they all work fine, which points another finger at Vista's DRM as the culprit. What else is it going to interfere with down the road? Do I really want to put myself in that situation? Can I honestly recommend companies I deal with use Vista when I don't trust it myself? Talk about Trustworthy Computing!
Not to start a flame war, but right now, I have *far* better hardware support in Ubuntu than Windows Vista, and that's just pathetic. Microsoft is supposed to be better than that. For the foreseeable future, I'm sticking with XP and/or 2003. When professionals like myself have a bad taste in their mouth from trying to use an OS, you can imagine what's going to happen when a PHB takes a sip of the Kool Aide!
IMHO, you can definitely call Vista "Windows Me 2"
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Vista is truly an evolution in what not to do with an OS.
Microsoft's incessant up sales of different versions of just about everything they offer is truly a lesson in extreme confusion.
I spend hours on trying to read through thier different product lines just so my company doesn't have to spend a fortune on crap we will never use or we overpay for.
MSDN?
Action Pack?
Cal's
I spent a week with it (Vista) and I was not going to spend any more time with an OS that was running on a top of the line Dell laptop with 2GB of memory and a 256mb graphics card that still had performance issues and software compatibility issues.
Cisco VPN?
Win2k was a godsend from Windows 98 and NT4.0, XP and 2003 were an even better step up. But Vista? WTH? They need to recompile and optimize. If it takes till service pack 2 to do it then they need to do that before they unleash anymore of their BS unfinished products to the market.
I am not buying Vista primarily because Nvidia has yest to release actual working drivers with the same performance characteristics as the XP drivers. I play games I need performance, pretty simple. Not Microsoft's fault directly, but still not going that route until I can get the same or better performance.
The other reason I am not buying is the utterly insane price. My OS shouldn't be the second most expensive componenet of the entire system.
The only thing in the system I paid more thana the price of a copy of Vista for is the SLI Video Card setup.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
> The company is now pleading with customers not to wait until the release of SP1
;-)
Who said anything about waiting until SP1?
Slow: "Please wait. And I emphasize the 'Wait'"
Intrusive: "Vista has found a number of movies and MP3 recordings that you may not be licensed for. Please wait while Vista authorizes licenses for these."
Obnoxious: "You've positioned your coffee on the left side of your keyboard this morning instead of the right side. Please wait while Vista reauthorizes your license. Sorry we've screwed up a script on our website so we'll assume the worst and now run your PC in degraded mode."
Dilbertesque: "To help developers test their software under Vista, we won't let you test your software on a virtual machine. Go out and buy a new PC and test your software on there. This will make you more productive, or so the crack-smoking marketing executive who came up with the idea thought."
Tedious: "UAC: An Application is about to do something. Are you sure?"
A Bridge too far: "Congratulations for installing DirectX 10: Only available on Vista! As the 10th person to use DirectX 10 you qualify for a special prize. This will be a DirectX 10 game of your choice, when someone finally decides to write one. (We're hoping a Mac programmer will do it. They like to target obscure niche markets.)"
I put Vista on my box at home and 24 hours later my video card was completely hosed. Thinking coincidence, I ordered a replacement and Vista hosed that one too. This was an alleged Vista-compatible card (BFG 7800 GS OC). I got a THIRD card and put XP back on my machine, and it has been running like a top for three months.
Yeah, incompatible software isn't exactly my first complaint (SEE: DRIVERS), but that said I hear plenty of guys in the office grumbling every day because the company ordered their new laptops with Vista and their audio recording software won't work, or their phone data sync software, or whatever.
Seriously, MS has a real problem here and they believe they know the solution - Namely, get the masses to adopt Vista and support for the OS will soon become ubiquitous. To them I suppose it's a Catch 22. However, those of us not working for MS probably tend to realize the larger picture - that MS products simply don't have the proven track record of reliability and performance that Mac and Linux have obtained. For me compatability has always been my chief concern in an OS, but as many posters have commented, I'm just too #@$%#* tired to even try Vista. Drivers are one thing, unneccessarily massively power hungry OS are another.
I'll buy a Mac, or install Linux.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
...that there's nothing wrong with XP, and no feature of Vista is worth the hassle of an upgrade?
Its a given that time between releases of major operating systems will keep on increasing. The ever mounting complexity due to demands on performance, useability and the obligatory bloatware addons will mean that you buy an operating system once every ten years maybe and that the beta period will be multiple years. I have two computers running XP at home and I dont understand why I would "upgrade" to Vista. It doesnt give me anything that I need and will only cost me money. If I want a OS that looks cool Ill use my iBook, macOS X is ten times prettier than Vista anyway.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Even if they included a Ginsu knife AND a lifetime supply of Orange Glo, I wouldn't buy it.
What is this "mandatory device signing", and why can something so mandatory be disabled? :)
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I have a 5 year old 1.6ghz/512mb system which dual boots debian and w2k. Everything is fast, stable, reliable, and everything just works.
To use Vista I'd have to buy a new PC, and for what?
I have seen countless posts saying: "this is kinda nice, and that's kinda nice." And I'm supposed to throw away a good working system, and spend all kinds of crazy money for that? I am supposed risk stuff not working, support msft's evil monopoly, and put up with the authentication scams, and DRM scams for that?
No thank you. I'm fine with what I have.
I have my WinXP install customized exactly the way I want it. This is what you will (might?) need for me to switch :
StleXP, ACDSee, Better File Rename, Metapad, TMPGExpress, Daemon Tools, Acronis TrueImage, Beyond Compare, UltraVNC, MediaMonkey, FileZilla, Agilent ADS2006A, PSpice 9.1, MATLAB, HFSS.
Some of these might already run in Vista as I haven't had the time to tinker with it.
You are so right! I recently bought a Compaq laptop that had Vista Home Premium on it. I found Aero to be a massive resource hog, even with the latest system and video drivers. Even listening to WinAmp with no visualization turned on would result in 25% CPU utilization! So, I shut off Aero after which the CPU utilization when listening to WinAmp dropped to about 5-10%. All right. Great. One hurdle overcome.
The big kicker for me was that I was completely unable to use Ulead's Media Studio Pro, which is my video editing software. The laptop has a Firewire port, so that made it a big plus for me to be able to do some editing on the laptop when I'm not at home. Thanks to the new way that Vista talks to the hardware, MSP was useless for all but basic editing. The Preview window didn't work and the audio didn't work, which made it impossible to be able to sync up audio and splice video segments together. Changing the compatibility mode in Vista made no difference.
On top of that, I needed to download a Vista-compatible DVD of Stuido 10 Titanium from Pinnacle's site. It was a free download and it worked fine as far as I could tell, but I'm glad that I have FTTH/FIOS because it was a 1.4 GB download!
There are also a number of other issues with Vista that cumulatively made me decide that enough was enough, like the initial issue that I had where my account would work fine but my wife's account, which I set up as an administrator-level account, couldn't log on stating that she didn't have the rights to log on. (!!!) I bought a 160 GB hard drive from NewEgg, threw it into the laptop, and installed XP. All of my hardware and software are working just fine. And now Microsoft is trying to push me to go back to Vista? They can kiss my ass. It's not happening.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
So where is this Email? who wrote it and what press was it sent to. I mean OMFG, if any idiot wants to just come out and write something with no backup no proof then this is the place to come I guess. Here is one for you then. Steve Jobs sent an email to Bill Gates 2 years ago seeking interest in a possible merger of the two companies. Gates rejected the idea because it would mean an end to the Windows line of OS's...Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And start writing something thats actually credible.
On all the computers that I'll be fixing at my job. Oh boy was I in for a treat. My game machine has never run worse. An earlier poster mentioned the Nvidia driver issue and thats going full tilt on my computer. I had to shut off Aero to get better game performance and on a dual core 3ghz machine with 4 gigs of ram and a 7900gtx nvidia card which all in all was a nice chunk of change to put together I should be getting more then 20-30fps and not have missing textures now and then. The games I'm running aren't brand new either and the drivers are all up to date. I miss XP and I really wish everything would just run on Linux, games and all.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
MS is going to lose a lot of their market share in the next few years, with Linux picking up most of the server business, and the Mac getting the desktops and laptops.
I'd like to think so but although your statement has some merit, it isn't a slam dunk. I'll reword it to fit reality:MS is going to lose some of their market share in the next few years, with Linux picking up a bit more of the server business, and the Mac getting a few more desktops and laptops.
The wins that Mac and Linux(OpenSolaris?) can expect from dissatisfaction with Vista tend to be a bit inflated by fans of other OSes IMHO. New machines will be beefy enough to bury most of the performance hit and a service pack or two will fix the most glaring issues. It will take longer than MS wants but in 3-5 years most machines will be on Vista. The plus side is Linux and Mac will be stronger for it just not as strong as the advocates for those would like.
I have used M$ products for years now due to a lingering problem, Linux games are nonexistent(nearly). I have had a second machine that I have run various flavors of Linux for me to experiment with on-and-off over the years. I play WoW and finally found someone that had successfully installed it using wine. I decided to go cold turkey. I went home and installed Ubuntu Feisty. I followed the instructions for installing WoW and you know what? Within 3 hours of install, fine tuning, and drivers install, I was playing. I no longer have a M$ problem. Ubuntu knew what my printer was and installed everything that I need. XSane showed up to help with my scanner. F-Spot picked up my camera and downloaded all my photos.
I got to tell you. It makes for a no regret situation when you get result like that. I have been running on Ubuntu now for 4 months now. Would do it again! But then again...I don't have to.
it's recently
decided that I don't have permissions to see the network status.. so all I get is 'connection status: unknown access is denied'.. also making it impossible to see whether I'm actually connected to anything...
Sounds like your Vista has already been rootkitted.
The thing is, Vista is actually quite a enhancement over XP and previous renditions of Windows. This isn't actually debatable; see:
- en.mspx/ 17/82188.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel
http://geekswithblogs.net/sdorman/archive/2006/06
Changes are top-to-bottom too; everything from thread scheduling, to the entire driver model, to the TCP/IP implementation, to kernel-security has been completely re-done. And good on them I say for doing it - operating systems must evolve.
The problem is that such fundamental changes can cause some fundamental breakages, and this is what we're seeing now, and indeed, expecting. Even with Microsoft's "it must be backwards compatible" philosophy, things will break. People are just waiting for things to start working again, that's all.
I think it's unfair to bash Microsoft because of these changes and breakages too; vendors have had years to prepare for vista (god knows it's been coming to long enough) so I'd suggest the slow adoption is largely the fault of vendors. Never-the-less, Vista is a positive re-write IMHO (the DRM is a separate issue of course).
Now, next question; was the time & money investment worth it for the consumer to pay for it? Maybe; maybe not. I can't see even my geeky mates wanting to upgrade on the basis of kernel enhancements alone. The pretty backgrounds, maybe, but certainly not for a re-written TCP/IP stack.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I tend to prefer GCC on Linux, and CL on Windows, largely because of the integration. But, for choice of C++ environment, I think Linux winds hands down for 64 bit C++ and I've been saying that for quite some time.
In general, I don't like Visual C++ for 64 bits at all, either the environment or the compiler, and I find myself preferring KDevelop on Linux for it. GNU is better about standards, to be sure, and I've documented a couple of those in my blog, but, I think that in case of templates, I actually do prefer the Visual C++ approach as it results in more readable code, even if, well, it was non-standard.
C99 support doesn't interest me too much as I do C++, but one thing that REALLY annoys me is the death of the __asm tag in CL for 64 bit work. I've never liked GNU's inline assembly at all, and thought MS did it the "right way". But, MS actually took away a really nice feature, more or less leveling the playing field at all.
I'm very much looking forward to wrapping up my blog writer thing for Linux and using that republish my blog in a more readable format, along with more articles on the topic. I actually have Vista Ultimate slated to go onto my linux box on a separate drive, but, I enjoy Linux so much that I see no need to "upgrade". I'm actually more excited about KDE 4.0 than I am about Vista.
This is my sig.
Forcing my own hardware to restrict what I do? check.
Burning huge amounts of cpu and ram to restrict what I do? check.
Not getting adopted, ever? check.
I'm pleading you, give me your money. Isn't it the same thing Microsoft is doing?
:(){
Ballmer having a tantrum while slamming dual-wielded chairs against the floor trying to get attention :
"PLEEEEEEEEEEAAAASEEEEE BUY MY ABOMINATION OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM NOW, WUUUUUAAAAAAAAAH!"
It appears to me that Vista is aimed squarely at the home market. I can only assume that the business market is inconsequential to MS since it is heavily discounted. Anyhoo, Vista is useless for the military market. We can't allow stuff that keeps trying to phone home on military networks. XP is already a PITA since it needs to be activated every 6 months, so if you put a system in storage for a long time it is broken when you take it out. Vista is permanently broken. So MS cut themselves completely out of the armed forces.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I find myself more likely to spend $99 to get a Linux Distro with KDE 4.0 when it becomes available, then I see myself spending $250 to get Vista x64 for System Builders.
Is anyone else in the same sort of boat?
This is my sig.
If I'm going to buy vista, these are the things that would have to be there before I would consider it. 1. Backwords compatability back to MS-DOS 2. NO DRM 3. No nagging in the OS (I get enough from my wife thanks) 4. Virtually universal hardware support 5. No digital sig requirements, if I want to use non windows approved software that should be my choice, I wouldnt even mind if it warned me once, so long as the waring doesent violate request #3 6. If I buy a game for vista to play online, I'm not paying for online play 7. give me direct access to ALL user settings on accounts. Do that, and I'm in.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Here's a free clue for you, Microsoft: I'm planning to phase out the last of the Windows 98 SE systems at work later this year. Hopefully. Then all the Windows workstations will be XP.
As far as Vista, there is at this point absolutely zero reason for us to want to deploy it, as far as I'm concerned. The reason I deploy any version of Windows is because people are already familiar with it. Otherwise there are other systems I would prefer to support, because they're easier to maintain -- but they are unfamiliar to people. I deploy Windows XP in many cases because it cuts down on user training and support, because people are already comfortable with it. If I were willing to give that up, I wouldn't be buying Microsoft. So Vista needs to be out for at _least_ two years, preferably three, before I want anything to do with deploying it.
Then there's the situation on the home front. My family is still using Windows 98 SE, and I have talked to them about upgrading, and they want no part of it. As far as my mom is concerned, anything that changes the computer's OS in any way is distilled evil. She was not, at the time, very happy with the move from DOS 6 to Windows 98 SE, even though she only ever learned three or four things to type at the command prompt (none of which she now remembers I'm sure). It has taken her years to learn how to use Windows 98. She doesn't like when dad changes the wallpaper, because she gets confused about where the icons are that haven't even moved. I'm afraid the OS on that computer is almost certainly going to stay the same until the computer physically gets replaced. (Which will probably not be very many more years, but we'll put it off as long as we reasonably can.)
The long and short of it is, we wouldn't upgrade to Vista right now even if Microsoft paid us $100 per computer to do so. Naturally, they'd prefer to charge us for the upgrade. They can go to Redmond. We don't want it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Vista. There are some significant improvements there, not least UAC. I'll be happy to replace XP with Vista, when it's practical to do so, i.e., when the users are as comfortable with Vista as they are with XP. But that's going to be a while, so chill out, Microsoft. Learn some patience. We've certainly been patient enough with you, listening to your Longhorn announcements for five years or so now, waiting for it to actually materialize. Time for you to return the favor.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I use (and like) various flavors of unix/linux on various machines and the biggest problem I've had recently is with display resolution and managing to get output from my laptop (Ubuntu 7.04) to a projector. I've tried a variety of settings in xorg.conf and failed utterly. While I understand that this may be in part due to the nature of the video drivers (though I had the same problems with the "nv" and closed "nvidia" drivers), this is one thing that does need to be better managed.
Though, as long as I'm griping, a recent upgrade installed a kernel and modified grub, but didn't install the appropriate initrd file, so the system failed to boot. Not a big problem for me (though I'd prefer that upgrades not modify the grub file - in this case it took the kernel backwards as I'd installed a newer kernel by hand), but I can easily see this making a non-technical user very cranky indeed.
Instead of focusing on customer's wants and needs, Microsoft instead decided to listen and address the wants and needs of the RIAA and MPAA.
The result: a bloated, slower and less reliable OS that offers little real-world improvements to users.
Most people are willing to work through the quirks of new software when it offers features that they can't get elsewhere. Vista offers so little, that there is no reason for users to replace their existing hardware and live through the pain.
The real danger for Microsoft is that both OS/X and Linux offer users equal/better features without the DRM performance drain and with a more stability.
It's a different world. Microsoft is not used to competing on product features and performance.
I beta tested the darn thing. I got a free final copy though an MS promo. I can say with confidence is it NOT worth the money you would pay, even when they DO release SP1.
If you can get it free through a promo, it's STILL not worth the trouble until SP1 comes out, I think. :P
I have a very long list of grievances, including the startup folder doesn't work, occasionally Explorer will decide to cancel file operations even if you didn't, merging folder trees doesn't remove the original folders, Vista is slow as molasses and is NOT for games (I don't see how Halo 2 PC didn't immediately tank) although switching to Windows Classic theme helps a lot... so much for glass. And this is my ABRIDGED list.
"Technical features new to Windows Vista".
That's the real meat. New graphics subsystem (hardware accelerated composite graphics), new audio, new network, new I/O bandwidth reservation/prioritisation, transactional NTFS, new memory management. It is indeed a huge technological overhaul within the innards.
But why would I rain down on the "Vista = XP + shiny + DRM" parade.
Shame on you.
I'm running Vista at work to test how well it works as well as a copy home.
At home, I have a 3.5 year old machine. It was beefy at the time: 3.2 Gig Pentium, 2 gigs ram, 160 gig hd, etc. I have replaced the video card, since those tend to go out of style from time to time. XP on that machine was fast. As fast as I'd ever need for daily use. I was starting to need to crank down resolution in games to get acceptable framerate, but that's standard fare in the gaming world for computers getting long in the tooth. I installed Vista. Wow, is this machine a pig. It takes LONGER to boot (clean wipe install), takes forever to do file copies/moves, really creeps and crawls with anti-virus enabled, and popups galore with UAC enabled. It looks clunky, it feels clunky, and it runs clunkily. One would think that a 3.5 year installed XP would be slower than a fresh Vista install: not so.
At work, I have a dual core 2.4 ghz with 120 gig hd and two gigs of RAM. Under XP, it booted in like 10 seconds, but using it for work didn't feel much faster than my home machine. It has, of course, a crap-ass graphics card, but I don't play games at work. I install Vista (clean wipe) and have the same issues as above. It takes almost 3x longer to boot, file copies around the network are painful, even moving files around on the local machine takes forever. Symantec does have a version of their corporate av product, but it will spin the cpu at 100% for 24 hours during a simple av update (not Vistas fault, per se). I've had to run un-manged in order for that not to happen. Scheduled scans make the computer unusable where under XP I could hardly notice anything happening.
I recently recieved a questionaire from Microsoft asking when I plan on deploying Vista to the rest of our environment; my response, "I'm not planning on deploying this software this year or next year." This announcement certainly sounds like Microsoft must have gotten a lot more professionals stating the same thing.
We are buying Vista, though. We don't have another option with our computer supplier. Fortunately, we have Software Assurance on our copies of Vista. This allows one to run OLDER versions of software for which you have a license of a newer product. A license on Vista, we're told, allows you to run XP if you choose. So Microsoft thinks we're running 20+ Vista computers, but really we only have one.
you realise that this means you are using the computer on average less than an hour a day and it chews up half the battery? not 'great' battery life i'm afraid. especially as you 10-15 mins work probably isn't too cpu intensive (i may be wrong there though).
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I have been averaging a few junk mail packets a week from MS. The majority are post cards Touting how Vista is the best thing since sliced cheese and how piracy is the devil. The piracy one has me puzzled I have recieved it 4 times in less than two weeks. I have activated and registered a couple copies of XP for clients and have removed Vista from one machine for another...if thats what triggered it...arent they preaching to the choir? If I had intentions of pirating it would I bother to register? Just seems like a wasted effort on both counts. I have no intention to move to vista nor do my clients, if forced to through planned compatability problems on the business side similar to those home users I am more likely to get the final 2 machines I own that still run windows mirgrated to linux and would strongly present a plan to do the same for my clients. Vista offers nothing I need nor does it improve on any functionality I have seen. Ever try setting up a machine running vista on a small local domain?
So far the only benefit I have seen as a consultant is that doing any mundane netwoking things like joining a domain or getting on the internet are so obscure for situations other than straight plug in and go home use that its nearly impossible for average users to figure out. Things my clients used to be self sufficent in doing are now difficult tasks that require my help.
F? Check.
U? Check.
D? Check.
Any music file that ran on XP will run on Vista.
Any video file that ran on XP will run on Vista.
Well, I think your percentage is too high, but you've undoubtedly got a point. I mean in addtion to those who are moaning after having tried it, you have those who are complaining about not being able to purchase a Microsoft operating system unencumbered with DRM; those who are concerned that changing operating system will cost them much more than price of the OS, in hardware and software upgrades; and of course those who are sick of Microsoft moaning on about people not paying for Vista when they don't see anything wrong with the operating system they have at the moment.
I don't think any of those viewpoints are unreasonable, personally.
Admittedly, you also get people like me. I haven't tried Vista because I use Linux, and because MS burned me one time too often for me to willingly use their software - especially this early into a product lifecycle. Then again, I'm not moaning so much as laughing at Microsoft, so that's probably OK too.
Some of them are. But I'm seeing a lot of people here saying, in effect, "I've tried it and it sucks! I want to stick with XP!" Unless of course you want to invoke The PJ Principle and claim they're all lawyers employed by IBM or something...
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
When I read the summary of this story, I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose a bit. "Fact rich?"
Having observed Microsoft for years, I keep encountering that word. Bill Gates seemingly cannot participate in an interview without using it (that may be a subconscious thing, perhaps, given his wealth).
On a whim, I visited microsoft.com and entered 'rich' as a search term:
Rich Client
Rich Edit Control
Rich Internet Applications
Rich List
Rich Media Collaboration Services
Rich Media
Rich, Secure and Manageable E-mail
Rich TextBox Control
Rich Text Format
Rich User Experience
Rich Web Experiences
To name a few. And now:
fact rich
I find Microsoft's overuse of the word 'rich' to be, well, rich.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Are you aware of when UAC triggers? (wiki)
* Changes to files in %SystemRoot% or %ProgramFiles%
* Installing and uninstalling applications
* Installing device drivers
* Installing ActiveX controls
* Installing Windows Updates
* Changing settings for Windows Firewall
* Changing UAC settings
* Configuring Windows Update
* Adding or removing user accounts
* Changing a user's account type
* Configuring Parental Controls
* Running Task Scheduler
* Restoring backed-up system files
* Viewing or changing another user's folders and files
Exactly WHAT is wrong with UAC triggering these things? UAC will *not*, I repeat *not* trigger in normal usage. If it DOES trigger with say your RSS reader, your app is needlessly asking for admin permissions. In short, your app sucks.
Vista is far from perfect, but I have to wonder how many people here have actually used it. Now I know who owns Slashdot, so Microsoft getting cast as anything other than an evil, bumbling corporation is likely to get someone in trouble, but it's really not as bad as everyone says. Is there a lack of old hardware support? Sure. I'm fine with that. Microsoft had to release it at some point, so in a year or two when everyone buys a new system, their hardware will be supported. I know you want support for your ISA video card and if Microsoft won't support it, you'll just take your ball and install Linux. That's fine.
Vista runs well on my Core 2 Duo system, which is fairly high end, but that's what it's designed for. The widget bar is a nice addition and Vista has crashed exactly zero times on me. I can't say that about any system, Debian included. I can't answer for what took Microsoft so long to get this thing out, it really doesn't seem like it should have taken more than a couple of years, but until you've used it first hand for a while, don't discount it. That's no different from the "Windows fanboys" using Linux for two days and deciding that it sucks because it's not what they're used to. I didn't like Linux at first either, but now eleven years later I certainly appreciate why it is like it is. I wish that Microsoft would be bold enough to rip some Unix command-line functionality off.
My OS shouldn't be the second most expensive componenet of the entire system.
Err... I'd imagine that's precisely what Microsoft wants.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Sorry to go against the stream here, but I like vista. I'm not a microsoft fanboy (I use linux for my server needs), but I recently bought a laptop (high-ish end, $2000) and it works great. No major complaints to speak of, all the compatibility I want is there, and the interface looks pretty good. Is it the greatest thing since sliced bread? No. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. Is it a competent upgrade that needs a few work arounds (running as administrator instead of just double clicking)? Yes. Overall, I like the UAC (that only pops on when I'm doing something new :D) and it's decent and reasonably compatible with past versions. That's all I'm looking for anyway.
you should go buy vista right now. you will be greeted as a liberator.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Maybe it's just me, but if you were to run that for the entire useful time (according to your figures) you might get 125-180 minutes (2-3 hours) which sounds absolutely horrible. If you were actively using the machine running a game or other intensive app, you'd get even less. I haven't shopped for laptops recently, but if that's the standard I'll stick to my non-portable solution or my tablet which is clocking in around 8 hours.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I already bought a Macbook and if Apple keeps doing it like this then I'll never switch back. I love the thing!
The only reason I have a windows machine is that I am an avid gaming and gaming hardware fan. I spent ALOT of money on the latest and greatest video cards and motherboards to make my games jump off my monitor. I tweak my system to get the most frames at the highest detail and resolution. My current video cards are 8800 ultra's in SLI and on XP I get an average of 120FPS in 64 player online BF2142 matches, but under Vista this drops to 80FPS and I cannot run two cards in SLI. Now why in the hell would I take this huge of a hit in performance just to have the latest OS? On top of this is the DirectX 10 fiasco, where my new DirectX 10 compatable hardware will only run DX10 on vista, forcing me to upgrade to a lesser (for my purposes) OS. If MS wants to keep the only group of users that MUST use windows, they are going to have to find a way to give us our performance back under Vista, because no gaming geek is EVER going to put up with a DROP in framerates in order to use a new API, as all our efforts go into squeezing out the best numbers in benchmarks and we live to best our buddies in 3dmark scores... do they think I'll just give up and buy a console? (not if I got one for free thank you very much) So as far as I am concerned, until they fix the performance issues and make my SLI work again, I will not let a Vista dvd anywhere near my beloved hardware, not until I am convinced it will give me better performance than I am getting now on my XP machine that I have spent years of my life and thousands of my hard earned dollars (the two 8800 ultra cost me $2600CAN)
/. (anyone else find it odd that none of the geeks here are gamers?)
And that is the bottom line for me. Thought I should add all this as I never hear anything about gaming and 3d hardware on
Yours Truly The Bionic man.
I admit it. If Civ5 requires DX-10, I will buy a new computer and copy of Vista. Of course, as a perpetual Grad student, I'll get a deep deep discount on it, but I'll still feel dirty.
Blar.
This fundamental file copy issue is why I won't be supplying Vista (for a while yet):
? PostID=1358057&SiteID=17
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx
It has many annoyances but does seem stable if a bit head-scratchingly slow at some things.
I'm beginning to believe that the DRM encryption/decryption conspiracy is the root cause.
You can give away Vista.
Problem solved.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I am completely convinced Vista is a piece of crap. Out of all the opinions I read on the Internet - hardware review sites, software sites, Slashdot.org - it seems the overwhelming majority is against Windows Vista. The only real reviews in support of Vista seem to be people intent on trying to justify their $499 'Ultimate' purchase.
Then, out of all my friends - many of whom have upgraded their computers in the past few months - NONE of them are still running Vista. Though, a lot of them bought computers that either came with Vista or they installed Vista - only to uninstall it after finding it ran like shit.
And, for those that say this is just like people refusing to upgrade to Windows XP after Windows 2000 - it is NOTHING like that. Windows 2000 and XP were both fairly solid and stable. Even the first release of XP was rock solid compared to Vista. Vista actually crashes on STABLE hardware.
There are way too many disadvantages of running Vista that it makes no sense to run it or pay for it. Microsoft has always had its head in its ass.. but this time its head is so far up its ass that it's going to choke to death.
Consumers want more control over their media.. Vista locks it down tightly. Consumers want more security.. Vista prevents them from maintaining their own systems. Consumers want less DRM shit.. Vista activation is much worse than XP.
If Vista cannot show the average user how bad it is that Microsoft keep its monopoly, then Microsoft has nothing to worry about.
If Ubuntu ran games.. seriously.. games, there would be a mass migration.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Way to selectively comment on my comment. The documents lost belonged to an old user, and it wasn't stuff that was intended to be preserved. If it had been, I'd have backed it up first, like I did with the critical stuff. And for upgrading a cheap laptop from XP Home to Vista Business, with only an hour or so of my time and no other complications or aggravations, that's a pretty acceptable error rate.
I am, therefore you think.
I know, I know.
When I built my new computer though I wanted to upgrade to Vista, just get the upgrade done in one fell swoop.
But there's no drivers available for half of my hardware - namely everything that M-Audio makes. I'm not going to repurchase every single piece of sound production hardware I own on "good faith," sorry MS.
Isn't this the OS with a recommended RAM of 2 freakin' gigabytes? And a minimum of 1?
And we just bought a Toshiba laptop with Vista on it, including dual core processors, but it's slow as shit because it's always kerchunking the hard drive because Toshiba thought it'd be a good idea to sell it with just 500mb of RAM?
Actually it had more like 440 given 64MB was set aside for video RAM. Can't even play Second Life on it since the video driver is a POS.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Microsoft can go fuck themselves.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I think the real point is if it has something that I need. I realize that Microsoft needs it but I don't really care what they need.
If they made an updated version of XP that didn't add restrictions and was refined to be more efficient I would be interested in buying it. I'm not interested in anything that is new in Vista. Slow animated transitions? (I took them out of XP too...) More complex visual displays? A completely redesigned layout that isn't more efficient or intuitive?
Now why would you expect me to want to buy this again?
I bought a new laptop back in February when my desktop died. It came with a Realtek HD Audio chipset and Vista Home Premium. Realtek's drivers don't work correctly -- there's a popping noise on playback with the built-in drivers and with every single updated driver I've tried. The sound works fine under XP and Ubuntu, so I know it's not the hardware. (Needless to say, I formatted the hard drive and don't use Vista.)
that they used in the "Get the facts" campaign against Linux.
I wouldn't trust any of those.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
Now, I remember reading about how project Longhorn wasn't going to have a registry. It was going to use config files in an .exe's directory, be backwords compatible, and other similar things. Upon receiving Vista (for free, thanks to school), I installed it, turned it on, and ran regedit to make sure I didn't have a registry. ARG! stupid registry. After more looking around, it is a bigger, slower, prettier XP. Think the next OS will have any actual improvements? The only improvements with Vista is bcdedit, and that is a trivial one too...
"I've worked with Windows all my working life and, despite what you may hear, it has been a blessing to us all: without it we would still be running Wang word processors on Wang hardware that saved documents in a Wang file format that can only be read by other Wang applications and printed on Wang Printers. Or HP, Or IBM, or Toshiba: whatever. It took a Big Bad Corporation to build a big enough operating system that everyone uses it, and every other software vendor works with it rather than against it, each other, and the user population. I fully expect the Big Bad Corporation to make a handsome profit from their systems and I am certain that Microsoft have behaved far, far better than IBM would've done if their DOS and their visual interface had established the natural monopoly that emerges from a widely-used operating system. But Vista and Microsoft's implementation of DRM is a clear indication that they have failed to balance the constant commercial compromise of profit, competition, quality, and customer service."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I see the spinning-hula-hoop-of-death more often on a Athlon 64 X2 +4000 with 1 GB of RAM running Vista Home Premium than I see the spinning-beach-ball-of-death on a 400 MHz G4 with 512 MB of RAM running OS X 10.4.x or see the flipping-hour-glass-of-death on a 2.5 GHz P4 with 512 MB of RAM running XP SP2.
If you want prettier and slower, Vista fits your needs. If you are buying a new computer and expecting faster, don't get a computer with Vista.
Come on, this MS! Demand for 1 billion U.S. dollars!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Yep, this is the single biggest problem with Vista. Go check out the forums for Supreme Commander (Gas Power Games) and Lord of the Rings Online (Turbine). Both of these are "Games for Windows" showcase applications, and both have users screaming bloody murder over the constant crashes and poor performance in Vista with the latest NVIdia hardware (8800's). Naturally the majority of people are buying new computers with Vista and these video cards because they want to play DirectX 10 games when they become available. But they are finding they can barely play games recently released for Vista and DX 9.
Consumers beware. Vista is a fine and stable OS UNLESS you want to play modern games, which is probably the only advantage Windows really has over OS X and Linux.
What is really worrying is the fact that NVidia and Microsoft still haven't resolved these issues months after the products have released. I am beginning to worry that there is actually a problem with NVidia's hardware that can't be worked around with drivers.
Fortunately I have an ATI X1950 Pro, which I will keep until a suitable DX 10 card appears on the market.
-- Should there be smoke coming out of my CPU?
... have him become angry and throw some chairs. Those are always fun to watch. [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I'm curious are you spouting the usual slashdot group think opinion, what is actually making your life better? My experience has shown it to be XP with a few little extra features to make my life worse. I'll admit for most people there isn't a great disincentive to upgrade but if you have its worth using. I'm curious what's your answer going to be?
imho, i have no need to run windows in the first place, but if i were to run it, it would be in a vm.
My family computer is a Dell laptop that is over four years old. It still runs great (you go, Dell!), but it was low tech when I bought it, and it needs replaced. With Vista coming out, I am really motivated... To switch to Mac. The only question is Mini or iMac.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_privil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control
The short version: no, not new to Vista; the idea's been in the *nixes (and before?) for yonks. Windows NT/2k/XP did have different privilege levels but few used them for various reasons, everyone just ran as admin all the time (which was the default). The differences in Vista are, firstly, no-one runs as admin (the "administrator" account you create by default is actually a standard account in every way except that you don't need to enter the admin password every time you elevate); two, applications can request to elevate to admin privileges on a task-by-task basis if they need to (pre-Vista setup programs and the like are heuristically 'detected' and automatically told to request elevation for their entire runtime), and three, there's a ton of backward compatibility stuff to try and mitigate the effects of every program written before 2007 wanting admin rights because they're used to them -- even going so far as to virtualise
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
I believe the correct spelling is 'fast-rich' program.
I helped my brother pick up a new laptop from Dell, this was before they started offering XP on machines again. We were both initially worried about him having to run vista but after cleaning up the OEM crapware and installing the latest drivers for his video card, he's had zero problems. He loves it.
Will I be moving to vista, personally? Probably not.
Does it simply not work? Of course not.
--- Do you believe in the day?
Hmmm...BUT.... There is a BIG difference between a company swimming in money that is begging you to buy their products, or a company that had a very difficult time and asked the users to donate a small fee. The first one does not need the money, the second one is trying to survive..
Anyway - Mandiva is not longer begging for money. They where out of the (biggest) trouble some years ago now. Yes - you can buy a mebership, but you will get support and a few extra's. Yes - you can buy products like a 8Mb memory stick with a complete working distro on it.. The company HAS to make some money to survive you know... But you can still use their OS totally for free!! Now - does Microsoft do anything like that? Guess not huh?
You want me to use Vista?
OK then, but first I want you to get on your knees and beg me to use it.
Karma: Bad. (As in Good?)
I think Windows vista might go the way Windows ME did. I never install Windows ME in my system at that time,do to windows 98 was working fine. For the people that don't remember Windows ME was Windows 98 with more crap in it that did a half ass job, and it was highly likely you could see the B.S.O.D . Hum Microsoft just does not learn do they......tisk tisk!
If there were a perfect oracle that could somehow evaluate the total net damage the Microsoft monopoly has done (relative to what would have occurred without it), I wonder what the total would be. Billions of man-hours wasted? Tens of thousands of lives lost?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
My XP box died. Time for a new one. Aack ! All Vista. New Vista. Bought an iMac. Upgrade ! As my windoze boxes die out, they will be replaced by Macs.
Sell ultimate for 49.95, get rid of the others.
The current cost is an investment that is too high for users to update from a system that is currently good enough.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft tests you!!!
Doesn't Run Movies
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Wind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_n
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_safety_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_features_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_te
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
My day gig is a network and database admin, supporting Win2k/XP desktops and W2K3/Linux servers. (At home I have an OpenBSD firewall and a Fedora web/mail server, in addition to an XP desktop). Note that I've been working with PCs since the time they didn't even have hard disks.
/tsg/
My non-computer-literate neighbor bought a brand-spanking-new Dell a few weeks back. With Vista. I said I'd help her get it connected to my wireless AP so she could do email. Result: 4-6+ hours of banging my head against Vista and its idiotic "security" dialogues, and nearly zero progress to actually getting the job done. (This even though the Linksys USB Wifi adapter was "Vista certified".) But I finally got it working and left...even though it was gawd-awful slow compared to her old XP setup. (And by that I mean pure data throughput speed in IE alone...it was like being on a dial-up modem or worse. On a 3ghz Pentium with a gig of ram.)
Then I get a call from her about five minutes later. She'd moved the WiFi adapter from the _front_ USB port where I had it for the install to the _back_ USB port of the machine...and it completely stopped working. Even putting it back in the front port didn't restore it. I went back over and tried to get it up again, and completely failed - Vista kept insisting the adapter was already installed, but then wouldn't let me uninstall it to start over, either. I gave up for the night, suggesting she might want to start from scratch with the Dell system restore disks, if only to avoid all the Dell-sanctioned crapware that was on her Vista install.
So, the next day she takes her PC with her to work (a big university) where the tech had a spare copy of XP SP2 that convinced her to let him load - which he did. She took the XP system home, plugged in the linksys, installed and configered the driver and TCP/IP settings *herself* (including typing in WEP encryption keys and static IP addresses that I'd left on a sheet of paper). I get a call around 7PM that she not only was on the Net, but it was wicked fast - even with only 2-3 bars of signal.
Do the math:
Vista + network admin/computer pro + 6+ hours of work == Unusable system
XP + computer illiterate single mom + 15 minutes of configuring == Net.connected and happy
At work there's corporate edict (from much higher up than me) that Vista's not allowed in the front door. Funny, no one seems to have any complaints about _that_ particular IT policy...
You heard me, I hate Vista. I'v eplayed with it in stores and friends' computers, and I cant believe how slow and inefficient it is. It reminds me of a SLOW version of ME. It took MS forever to try to copy some of Mac OS, and this is their response? The 'all windows' feature take forever to load half the time, and the cpu and memory usage jump around like mad.
I've got a better idea, instead of being eventually forced into a shitty OS, switch to Mac. It's what I did, and I've got to say, even older versions of Mac OS blow Vista out of the water.
I still won't downgrade to it.
What makes my life better? Well my user experience has been improved this makes me slightly happy (well less irritated with the drudge of computer work) so what do I like?
....
Network Synching - This is available in the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista, while 3rd party solutions probably exist and XP may even have been capable of this the ability to plug my laptop into my home network and have it sync my university work folder with the folder on my PC (retaining newest copies) is something incredibly useful for me as a student in keeping work backed up. I had a system in place (which failed me once at an important moment) this is effortless and does the same job.
Games folder - I know this has now business purpose but being able to put all my games into one folder is helpful in getting at them. I'm well aware that in Xp you would only have to navigate a few folders but this takes that away gives me pretty pictures and also has the windows Index thing which is an interesting and something I can see as useful for the future.
Windows Index - I like the concept, the idea of seeing recommended 4.1 and minimum 3.6 on a box instead of reading the specifications is something I like. It simplifies things and creates a bit of fun normally for benchmarking I'd use 3d Mark xxxx however just being able to go I've got a score or 4.5 is easier. Its also useful for problem solving when a friend has been complaining about his slow laptop, you convince a reload might help since its showing other problems, you put Vista on and the indexing service shows everything on the system scoring a 5 except the ram which is a 2 you can suddenly see the issue, prove it and then help them speed the thing up.
Start Bar - This may be stolen the idea of hitting the windows key and typing a word quickly to open up a program is something I find useful and makes things that little easier. The down side of this is I loved the ability to hit the windows key then one of the shut down shortcuts, the removal of this is a negative for me.
Proper Drivers - Sounds stupid but I have benefited from this, I used to use XP x64 there was no cannon i865 driver for it so I was stuck driverless. My Creative Audigy also has driver issues, in XP Pro SP2 it can sometimes get stuck repeating sounds (after I close a game) in Xp x64 hiss was introduced on the inputs which rendered them useless. In Vista x64 I don't have the overly repeating sound issue and the hiss is a constant so programs like audacity can easily remove it without effecting my voice which is a huge plus. There is also a Canoni865 driver which has been a pain to setup for my networked i865 but I can print from my desktop again! The Audigy driver isn't perfect and doesn't support dolby yet (so WMP doesn't play sounds for DVD's, however powerDVD still works as normal.) I'd like to point out the Audigy SE driver in Ubuntu is finiky to setup and buggy so Vista really does have the best driver for it (atm)
Autosetup - Setting up Vista is like setting ubuntu (minus openoffice) up, everything auto installs from the initial installation. Its infinitely better than Xp's and makes things that little bit easier.
UAC - I like this, firstly I only see it when I authorise Fraps to run (or if I'm running VS2005) secondly I've been able to train my family (when they use my laptop or desktop) to read the messages and actually think before clicking. I'm aware that many dislike it, but
There's more but I have to dash off as I'm late for a meeting at the end of the day there isn't a compelling reason to upgrade. Most people won't notice the extra features and the only real time I would recommend upgrading is when you upgrade your PC. If you need to use hardware that isn't supported or software which doesn't function then use Xp or 98 if you must, don't complain because the new 'feature rich' OS wants more resources and supports DRM. Xp was a great step forward, vista's more like a baby step of improvements.
I see no reason to shell out over $200 for a platform when mine already has more 3D capabilities, has all the software that I need can be downloaded form a vast repository of free software, and runs perfect on my hardware without having to hunt for drivers, and disks. I switched from OS X Tiger to Ubuntu 7.04 last month. Bill can plead all he wants, but why put out all that money for software when I have everything I need for free.
http://images.linuxgod.net/desktop.png
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
Well, of course. I don't need to browse someone's livejournal to discover that the city isn't moving over to Vista -- a good proportion of them still haven't moved over to XP. What you're routinely conductioning six-figure transactions, you don't rely on *any* software that's barely 6 months out of RTM, DRM or no DRM.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Not all of the code was written from scratch. To prove this in a obvious way on any Vista machine do the following.
In the control panel clasic view open Fonts. Hit the alt key to show the menus. Select File => Install New Font...
Notice the style of the dialog box. This is the old 3.11 dialog box style. Notice the drive selection method. Hey, it still works.
Compare this to the dialog box used to select a file in notepad.
The "security" problem is that when running Windows Vista under virtualization, the user could access certain things Microsoft or the Mafi*aa doesn't want them to be able to access. If Vista runs under VMware under Linux, someone might be able to trap bit-perfect audio and maybe even video inside the Linux kernel, and save it to a file. People would be able to readily see what Windows is actually doing, too. It's not your security they are concerned with; it's their own "security".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Aero: I don't care, mostly.
Start Menu: Vastly improved. I love how you can type into the Search bar to find your program to run.
Suspend/Resume/Hibernate: HORRIBLY BROKEN! This OS does not handle transitions between power states well. I'd say about 50 percent of the time I try to suspend or hibernate, things do not come back correctly. Generally I just want to turn the computer off, but its tricky since the default option when I close the lid or press the power button is suspend to ram.
IE7: Whose bright idea was it to put a tabbable user interface element between the URL bar and the search bar? I'm accustomed to pressing ctrl-l for location, then tabbing to the search bar. Theres probably a hot key for search I just haven't found it yet.
Hmm. They introduced file and registry virtualization and redirected any writes to Program Files or HKLM to separate per-user locations. This isn't recommended, of course, but kept for compatibility reasons.
On the other hand, I noticed a while back that a Windows XP Pro workstation license that has not been used for a year or two could be reinstalled on a new machine without a hitch.
As for Paint, may I recommend the excellent Paint.NET, which was "mentored" by Microsoft (what that means in reality, I have no idea) and released under the open-source MIT license (which I assume is the reason they can't bundle it with Windows).
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Wow, so many Vista Experts on SlashDot
This is what I kept thinking to myself as I read through the tons of posts of how it didn't work for someone, or how they knew it was going to suck or how their friend had a horrible experience, or my favorite how aero sucked battery life and wouldn't play WoW.
Old Equipment Myth:
I'm sitting here on an a old test system that I pack around for Site Surveys, it is a 2004 Toshiba laptop 1Gb RAM, 64mb NVidia 5600 Video card, and the techs have WoW, CoH, SWG, LoTR installed odn it
Games Slower Myth:
The tech notes also show that in Coh, LoTR, and WoW the game runs 5-10% FASTER than XP for FPS and also allows higher texture settings in the games than XP because of the Video RAM Virtualization technologies in Vista (See it only has a 64mb video card, but is running texture levels for 256mb Video cards.)
Aero is Slow or Eats Battery:
This old test laptop is also running Aero, and the techs notes show that with Aero enabled, the battery life compared to XP is 5mins less, not a massive difference, but hey if people want to believe the negative hype, good for them. The tech notes also show that without Aero, Vista improves application drawing over XP in applications like AI, CorelDraw 10x. With Aero Enabled, this pushes to 15-20x because of the non-tearing the Aero composer adds to the already GPU assisted GDI/WPF drawing engine in Vista.
Vista Permissions:
If they really bug you, turn them off. You can run as administrator just like on good old XP(no prompts). And you would still be safer doing this than running XP. The UAC isn't as stupid as people think, but when dealing with milliions of Apps written without any concept of NT Security as was allowed on XP, there are going to be a few third party applications that need permissions.
Copying/Network Performance:
This is one we have seen. Here is a trick, Vista's network drivers turn off Flow control. If you are running on a 100/1000 swtich and other devices are 10 or 100 which is slower than your link into the router/hub, without flow control network performance can suffer as most home and small business routers/switch get overwhelmed. Turn on Flow control on your adapter - network file copying goes back to XP speeds or higher.
Vista is like WinME:
WinME was crap because it tried to stuff an 800lb gorilla in a DOS/Win9x OS, when many of the 'bloat/features' of WinME required a stronger kernel architecture to seamlessly handle all the new background process and features.
I hated WinME for many reasons, it was a rushed product, had no business putting things like system restore on an OS using FAT32, etc. If Vista sucked even a bit or sucked hard like WinME, I or one of my techs would be the first people posting here about how it sucks or to stay away from it. However, it does not. It is a natural progression of the NT technology line and continues to improve the underlying kernel technology and bring new ease of use to users.
Additional Notes:
Unlike the older test system I gave as an example, if you have the luxury of using Vista on a newer system, laptop or desktop, then you won't find even a 5min difference with Aero on or off, just like the 'themes kill performance myths' from the XP days.
Also if the laptop is newer(made in this year), you will find the Vista tie ins give the laptop a 10-20min boost of battery time over XP, and also more gracefully handles CPU throttling, video throttling, and entering sleep states. If the hardware is new and designed for Vista, it truly works better with Vista.
Vista is a Market Failure Myth:
Depends on what you base this on. However think in these terms, in six months there are more Vista users (by choice of the user) than there are Macs or OSX users in existence. Vista is the #2 most used OS on the planet right now with XP being #1, and this is six months into the product cycle, not 6 years like XP.
Vista Stability:
Vista is truly more stable and secure than XP and brings the NT code base up t
You are exactly right. He may mean by "make software work right" that IE7 is only available to XP and Vista. Or that .NET 3.0 is only available to XP and Vista? Of course, I don't know of any software that uses .NET 3.0 right now. You can even get .NET 2.0 for Windows 98. I'm not sure what the complaint there is. I suspect I could install Windows 98 and still do everything I do today on XP.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Well, the network is evil to MS interests.
They couldn't replace it with MSN.
All unpatched MS systems directly connected to the Web get infected in minutes.
Web apps are making some desktop apps obsolete.
They are afraid... very afraid.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Well let me tell you what happened when I tried to upgrade. Recently I attemptd to finally make the change from Win2K to XP. Not because I wanted to, but because the USB ports are falling out of my 4-year-old R40. So I bought a Core 2 Duo R60 with XP Pro. The experiment lasted exactly four days.
.NET v.3.0 lockout of XPSP1 and earlier is positively sinister. But it might backfire, because if people running legacy OS are locked out of new apps, they won't get used to them and changing to something else is thus easier. Back when Win95 was rolling out and all the new apps would not run on 3.1, I switched to OS2 (which would run 3.1 16-bit apps) for a while before that died. I'm going to have to make this setup last as long as possible, and when the time to change finally irrevocably comes, I'm going to be leaning away from Microsoft.
It broke half the legacy apps. I have these 10-year-old legacy apps that I'm not buying all over again, to do the exact same thing under XP or Vista. If I have to do that why shouldn't I buy them for Mac or Linux. I'm not interested in buying/learning/maintaining new software to do exactly what the proven stuff does. Interestingly, these legacy apps seem to run fine emulated in Ubuntu, but not directly on XP Pro SP2, even in win2k emulation mode. I dare not try Vista. XP Pro is not suitable for serious work. Why O Why does it take 1/2 hour to empty the Recycle Bin. For instance, on Win2K if I dump a CF with a couple gig of pictures onto the hard drive, then delete the folders off the card, *poof* they're gone. In XP you have to sit there for 4-5 minutes as it deletes each picture one by one. Then again when you empty the recycle bin.
XP throws balloon in your face, "You're not protected", "Click This Balloon to activate Automatic Updates" etc. Under Win2K we would suspect Malware but this sort of thing is now a paid part of the XP Experience, & I heard Vista is worse. This sort of handholding (if that's what it is) is not professional grade, they are instead aimed at the Least Common Denominator & just slows down serious work.
I noticed NO speed difference between the four-year-old R40 Centrino running 2000 and the Core 2 Duo running XP Pro. The Core Duo should KILL the Centrino, the old install wasn't even defragged. It had three times the RAM. What would it be like under Vista? OTOH, why upgrade the machine if the new software is going to make it crawl.
XP latches onto your external drives like a Rottweiler. I noticed the new machine has a tendency to eat USB-mounted hard drives which were originally formatted unter Win2K. One lost its FAT table but was easily recovered. Another corrupted upon attempting to eject hardware. I don't know if that's an XP issue or not but I'm not sticking around for more. I toyed for a minute with installing Ubuntu but in the end the R60 went back and the R40 'furbed.
I doubt Microsoft is "Begging" us to upgrade, more like "Strong-Arming." The
On the other hand, a brand new license would come with a new cardboard box, and my box has been getting a touch tattered...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Just for the sake of argument let's just put on our tin-foil hats for a moment and imagine a world where MS bowed to the MAFIAA and started locking down all non-DRM content, and now imagine a world were the soon to be 4 BILLION PC owners came together for a class-action lawsuit that would be like the Moon suddenly dropping out of the sky on MS and the RIAA. The day after that the real P2P network would kick into gear that makes current file swapping look quaint. All that is required is a six-pack, a 500gb external harddrive, some sneakers, and a few hours to kill.
I would be among the first to bail immediately and go pick-up the latest version of Linux, but the odds of that ever happening are about zero. So lighten up a bit. If you really hate DRM then don't use the products, it's really that simple. Vista does not interfere with anything you personally have created on your machine including ripping media.
I thought I would try to pick up a clearance PC for a project so I popped over to Staples' website.
On there there was a single clearance Vaio running XP and a whole raft of Vista boxes. The Vista machines were so deeply discounted that I could have bought a comparable Acer or HP + a *retail* XP license for about the cost of the Vaio.
One datum doesn't make a trend but you've got to figure that Staples, HPaq and Acer are not too pleased with Redmond right now. OTOH, if you want to build yourself a nice little Samba server or Myth box (or have ready access to cheap XP licenses), you can probably expect big discounts in July and August as they try to get the deadwood off the shelves before Back-To-School. It is also possible (but unlikely) that they will do something to stave off what is already looking like a disastrous September.
Wrong. Take the "second" out of that sentence.
I was initially being facetious, but now that I think about it, I've seen this in print, before. Microsoft wants to be THE value proposition of the modern PC. A while back, when the $100 laptop was just a twinkle in someone's eye and before Vista, Microsoft was complaining about how hardware cost too much.
Microsoft desperately wants to be a Universal Non-Commodity.
They've actually succeeded at doing it for decades now.
But I can't see it continuing indefinitely, the phrase "Universal Non-Commodity" simply highlights the oxymoronic nature of it all.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
ONLY OEM versions require a new license. But on each OEM hardware case from the likes of HP, Gateway, Dell, etc there's a sticker. That code is not the code used to activate that current OEM copy. That installed copy is a "royals" oem and doesn't require activation.
What does this little tidbit mean?
It means that the royal cd that you received (or the restore partition files) looks at your mobo and determines if it needs activation. If the motherboard bios says it is from that royal OEM you need not activate. So, you can buy another used board and keep that active for some time. OR
You can buy a new replacement motherboard for that computer and use the code on the sticker on the outside of the case and activate that.
BUT.
If you have a retail copy of XP you can continue to use that forever as long as you only have it installed on one machine at a time, no matter how many times you replace that motherboard.
SO.
Let's not mislead others into thinking they are loosing their license when their machine's motherboard goes tits up.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
"I think the real point is if it [Vista] has something that I need."
Exactly. Where's the beef?
Rule one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by circumstances, never upgrade to a new version of Windows until the second service pack is released. Let other people have the grief.
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive for us. If I remember correctly, SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and some of the fixes were not documented.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Microsoft is failing. Netcraft confirms it.
"The plural of anecdote is not data" -- Bruce Schneier
Since when is making up bad info about Windows and Microsoft *not* worth +5 Insightful on Slashdot?
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
A coworker of mine has a Macbook with Vista installed in Parallels; when the Vista VM is "idle" and showing no CPU activity, OSX shows Parallels using up to 25%! Note that this does not happen with XP, Solaris 10, or Linux VMs.
Perhaps that is why Vista eats notebook batteries so much faster than XP? It's always, secretly busy doing something.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Any "user friendly" OS that doesn't make an effort to keep you from shooting yourself in the foot is not an OS that I'm going to throw any more money at. I still haven't forgotten the time my mom "unshared" her shared directory in XP Pro (heinously easy to do!) and my embarking on a three day NTFS adventure to undo the damage (which left her "My Video" directoy icon the same as her "My Music" icon in Windows Explorer, *sigh*). It truly would have been faster for me to just back-up and reinstall: and that is what I do now for any XP problem that I can't fix in an hour. I can't honesly believe Microsoft when they claim that Vista is better than XP.
NO, NO, NO. Don't you see! You approve an app, and some malware later hooks into it. Or the database of whitelisted apps is compromised somehow, using this. UAC fundamentally cannot be trained as you describe it -- it defeats the very purpose. Like it or not, until apps are written properly, using as few privileges as possible (like on *nix/BSD), I don't think a better solution than UAC can be made.
As for a sudo-like "saving" of admin access for 5 minutes: malware can very easily attack in this window.
Again, your app sucks. Pressure the manufacturer to release an updated version.
Very funny, you knew what I meant.
So your anecdotal evidence in one (yes, one) laptop you want us to believe is better than the anecdotal evidence of quite a number of people on the site.
It would be almost funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Flamebate? Aww, come on, mods. I thought it was quite funny, myself. (If nothing else, points for composing the Windows encircled red X entirely out of forward and backslashes...?)
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Did anyone that modded me flamebait have experience with both systems I referenced? I doubt it. If so, please feel free to respond and thus remove your mod points from my post.
[sarcasm]And I thought Microsoft Vista was doing so well according to the sales numbers that they claimed...[/sarcasm]
Report: Vista's business sales stronger than expected
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
All of the complaints that I've read on this thread are complaints that I've heard before... back when it was DOS vs Windows.
I personally never thought that Windows would catch on. Specifically I said, "DOS is functional, and Windows is pretty, why upgrade" Or the infamous slogan, "want to turn your 386 into a 286? Install Windows".
Fact of the matter is, we complain about MS and it's newest version... but we still install it. And pretty will usually beet out functionality. Ask any Web Developer. If you make two apps, one that's web based and the other not, the web based version will be more desirable and popular in the long run. I remember all the complaints with XP (oddly similar to the complaints now), but it was still adapted. It's funny to hear everyone say how good XP is. This time last year, XP sucked.
My $0.02
Vista Rocks! If you want to live in the past and use an OS 5.5 years old stick with XP. Application problems? I had two, both easily fixed by running the app as an Admin (how funny the Vista bashers haven't even tried this, it fixes 99% of app problems). Hardware problems? Not one.
It works perfectly for me, better than XP even. The memory management is worth the upgrade alone, in comparison the memory management in XP sucked big time.
There is way more to Vista than just a pretty front end (which is a bit of a gimmick).
In contrast to many of the negative posts in this thread, I actually wish to thank Microsoft. When Vista was released I reformatted my home computer (XP) and installed it. After a few days of frustration with driver and application issues, not to mention general performance problems, I reformatted again and installed 64-bit openSUSE. I've never looked back. Thanks to Microsoft, I now run linux at home AND at work, and I LOVE it! If not for Vista who knows how long it would have taken me to switch.
"Windows 2000 security updates will continue until July 13, 2010, and Windows XP security updates won't cease until April 8th, 2014."
If you Don't buy Vista, who's to say M$ will be around to provide those updates?
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Why didn't she consider alternatives?
Um, then use another one that is still supported? Like AVG or Avast!. Or just run without an anti-virus. If she truly is computer-literate, she shouldn't get viruses, especially on Win98 SE. Provided that she uses a good browser, too, which is the next point...
Then why not switch to Firefox? Or SeaMonkey? Or Opera? Or even K-Meleon? Come on!
Who's waiting? I'm boycotting!
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
No. I will never switch to Vista, and you can't make me. It is my computer and I will determine what programs run on it. Windows ME II ... I mean Vista... will only be allowed through my front door when I have no other choice. As long as I have a choice, DRM-ridden crap will never run on my computer.
Microsoft will plead users to whack their foreheads repeatedly against their Microsoft keyboards.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
This is a HUGE one, which has not been fixed, and which MANY MANY users are dropping vista because of...
? postid=1759892&siteid=17
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/showpost.aspx
essentially, it seems moving, copying, even deleting files on vista has a serious slowness bug...
(my own personal theory is this is due to DRM forcing everything to be encrypted if its passed thru the system bus - see the new zelander's DRM Vista article for those gory details;)
those types of operations are 4 times slower then XP on average, sometimes more
Putting aside the question of cross-functionality, saying what-if all platforms were fully compatible with each other, would anyone truly need Windows? The answer would be the same as the upgrade-to-Vista question; a flat ‘No.’
If you can ignore issues of dominant-market-share, what platform simply works the best under most circumstances? (the answer will vary, but clearly a vast minority will go, “Ooh! Ooh! Windows!”)
This Campaign of Desperation from Redmond is definitely the “white flag” to the consumer public... the tell-tale sign that MSFT is no longer relying on padded numbers to fool Joe Q. User into shelling-out for empty-CPU-calorie Vista.
I mean, look at the phraseology at work here:
‘fact rich’ program DEFINED: As “factual” as our ‘sales figures’ or ‘patent infringement claims’ ‘proceed with confidence’ DEFINED: ‘prepare for disappointment’ (the first, similar-sounding phrase that popped into my head was ‘proceed with caution’... go fig')This would be such an opportune time for RedHat, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Linspire and even Knoppix to step-up and really invest in a public-education campaign.
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
Try running Supreme Commander under Windows 2000. Oops.
And so on. What, you use Windows for something *other* than games? Weirdo.
Seems that a few at Microsoft missed some all-important marketing courses.
You don't "plead with customers to adopt" your product. What good is "begging" your customers to buy your product? If your potential customers are not interested in your product (and, say what you will, this entire thread is pretty good proof people aren't interested in Vista. Not right now, anyway.) then nothing you say will make any difference! How about a price reduction? I notice that that was most definitely NOT mentioned. In any non-monopolistic market position, that is the most obvious, most effective and least damaging (as I already mentioned, this plea to customers is a tacit admission that sales are not good at all) way to boost sales. The very fact that Microsoft has tried this tactic rather than a simple price reduction tells me that they certainly think they have all their customers by the short hairs.
"C'mon, you know you are gonna have to buy it sooner or later. And at whatever price we decide. So why not do it now?"
I ordered my son a new PC and it had vista home preinstalled. After just two weeks he asked me to wipe it and install Ubuntu for him. Granted he had Ubuntu prior to this PC, but it was on a 500MHz with 256mb of RAM but he said he still liked it better and seemed faster. I put Ubuntu on it last night and now he's in Heaven. 3.2GHz with a gig of RAM. That's by boy! ;-)
Even with Vista Ultimate you are not allowed to watch/play DRM-contents in a virtual machine. You can easily copy DRM-protected audio/video (especially easy with audio) if you playback it in a virtual machine and record it on the host.
you have to call MS up and tell them you're changing the motherboard
Therein lies the problem. What's keeping Microsoft from arbitrarily deciding to drop XP activation? Say two years from now Microsoft's upper management sees XP is still the dominant OS, while Vista sales are still disappointing. Are there any contracts or legal issues forcing Microsoft into keeping the XP activation servers online? Or can they simply pull the plug and say "Sorry, XP is no longer available. Buy Vista or screw off."
Due to changes in the driver stack, it's likely that vista will never have as good of 3d performance as with XP drivers. Most of the video driver runs in userspace on vista.
"...a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'. "
Boy, I hope it is as accurate as there "Get the Facts" web page that talks about how it's cheaper to buy Microsoft products than it is to use free software. You know the "Total Cost of Ownership" thingy that only looks good on paper if you assume you already own all of the Microsoft software.
Yeah, upgrade to Vista people. It's slower. It's showing itself to be buggy. Your drivers may not work and it breaks most of your software but hey, it's new.
The sad part is that they are going to shove it down people's throats.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I've wasted several weekends and evenings now purging both Vista off of peoples brand new computers and moving them back to XP or wasting hours trying to turn off every single UI effect in order to eep out a 1% performance increase to make the computer usable trying to put off the reinstall until I have the time to deal with it.
One of my friends calls me every other day begging me to put XP on his computer because nothing works in Vista, and I've told him he needs to atleast wait until his 30-day warranty period expires, and I don't think he's going to make it. He bought a brand new HP desktop with 1GB of RAM and the GeForce 6150. He only runs two progams, WoW and Picture Publisher Pro 10. Both of them failed right off!
I've wasted two evenings now trying to get PP10 to work correctly including setting the app to run in XP compatibility mode. No good, cursors get corrupted, screen refresh fails, no end of problems. Since this is what he uses for his secondary income, this has to be resolved. The program does everything he wants so "get him to buy a new paint program" is not on the table. He was also loosing his mind to get back into WoW so he's already bought an extra GB of RAM and upgraded the system to a GeForce 73xx series card just to get a barely tolerable frame rate.
Contrast this with my wife who bought the exact same systems spec but with XP preinstalled and the system screams. Games run great, 3-D apps run great. It's like night and day. MS can go screw themselves. They want people to run Vista, they better start sending out some major checks to us "family and friends technicians" to put up with this BS, I don't have time for it and 100% of the time I'm slicking Vista off every computer that comes to me. The real kicker is MS is still profiting off of this because of the people that have to go out and by a copy of XP to make their computer work.
Grumble grumble grumble
Supreme Commander is a little too fun. :D
I only run Linux on my machines but I do play SC at night on someone else's computers. The peer-to-peer model (rather than a server-client model) sucks, however. Try a 40x40 map with 8 players and a 500 unit limit. Often 3-4 seconds of real time = 1 second of game time (with only 4 players on a 20x20 map with good computers in the same room).
As a Linux game (with a server-client model), SC would rule.
Windows is teh suxx0r!
...Its sad this day in age people by now dont know how to work the registry or manipulate a system based off of windows 2003 server kernel. Windows is windows, you dont like it go somewhere else, dont make comments about an operating system thats still totally new and not everything is perfect, things need to be tweaked and tinkered with, xp wasnt perfect when it came out but eventually things got better due to service packs and fixes, same thing will happen with vista and whatever comes after vista and after that, Thats technology things are always changing and somethings will break but solutions will come arise. As for SP1 Microsoft has all the right to put pressure on the market to start adopting vista in its original state cause there basically telling you " your shit outa luck your gonna be waiting a while for sp1 might as well adopt now". SP1 will be something to look forward to, something I personally will enjoy to see. As for the mere idiots that cant figure simple networking issues get with the program its 2007 read a book, learn how to use the system, microsoft didnt make documentation for the hell of it, its there to read it, so do that. And the complaints for DRM, there are alota workarounds for that.(I've still havent had a problem due to DRM) Those worried about security learn to set rules and policies, and most of all learn to setup real firewalls.(hardware or at least a sonicwall router) Oh and those complaining about UAC you idiots brought that onto yourselves your just that idiots, cause you download and install instead of knowing before hand that not everything on the internet can be trusted. As for the firewall in vista, no issues on my part, the UI all i gotta say way to go Microsoft something refreshing hope those extras will over come the corny smoke screens from apples osx little animations...(now thats worthless smoke when burning a dvd , gotta catch the fanboys eyes somehow), Me i've had nothing but a smooth transition to Vista x64 runs smooth, everything works even my printer, and all my networked devices,and no i dont have issues with elevation previleges..thats for the fools who posted about issues with previleges, jaja... KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK MICROSOFT !!!! I BACK YOU 100%!!! GREETINGS TO EVERYONE ON CHANNEL9.....
The MSDN examples for Windows Scripting, last time I looked (2+ years ago ;)) all talked about using Notepad to edit Windows scripts.
... but it's absolutely pitiful that Microsoft will pimp Notepad as the "preferred editor" for scripts, and then continue to let it suck so completely.
It needs:
- syntax highlighting for batch files, VB, and preferably be customizable for use for other languages (or at least highlight comments!)
- powerful cut/paste and search/replace capabilities.
- change tab width (4-char, 3-char, or 2-char options are good!)
- format conversion (unix/mac/windows) of newlines, if desired
- tabbed view would be nice, too.
I guess this is why I pay money for UltraEdit, though
*Steve Balmer throws chair at Windows XP.*
"I'll bury f**king Windows XP"
Vista is not a server OS. We've got Windows 2003 Server, which is pretty good, and Windows 2008/9(?) Server in the wings. I'm sure that the server OS market isn't as much money as their desktop OS market, but it is critical because it supports their database and development tools. The combined market on the server side might be comparable to the desktop side
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
I recently got DSL through Qwest. My ISP is now officially MSN. I have a two month old MacBook. MSN software doesn't work outside of the Windows environment.
Then again, I haven't used an ISP for anything except connectivity for years. I use Yahoo and my web site for email, so the ISP is largely irrelevant to me.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
They only worked on it for five years! C'mon. Give 'em a break!
Good thing I just got Ubuntu 7.04. Cure MS - it can be wiped out in our lifetime.
The real kicker is MS is still profiting off of this because of the people that have to go out and by a copy of XP to make their computer work.
I wonder if they offer special downgrade pricing?
Today I "inherited" an HP 1100 printer and 6200C scanner from a fellow "Freecycle" member.
Why? She'd "upgraded" to Windows Vista, which won't work with either such device.
So I'm hoping more people in my area will "upgrade" - who knows what other hardware I might get as a result?
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000818.h tml
try taspring, it's very similar and has a supreme commander type mod i think...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I can understand that, I installed vista on my notebook and everything was running extremely slow compared to WinXP. I am now back on WinXP and evrything is much faster, plus my programs that refuse to work under Vista now work. Case in point PowerDVD 7 has issues with frequent puasing under vista, b ut had no playback issues under XP. And then there was Railroads which refused to run under vista but works great under WinXP.
I will not update to Vista until they fix alot of the issues it has.
It looks just like the US government when they were trying to make us buy the story that there were WMD's in Irak. Big statements, a lot of adjectives, no contents.
I'm sorry, but the whole choice of words just scream "fake!". The more rich and wolly words you use to convey the message, the thinner the message itself.
It's like a piece of gum on the street. You walk by it without noticing it but if you step on it and sticks to you, it bothers you.
hmm. so why did he purchase one anyway ? as it seems wou are providing technical support for free (which is kinda weird on it's own), i would gess he did ask for your opinion before making the purchase, right ?
Rich
I have been in the beta tests for Vista and have been very vocal on all the crap that showed up during the beta's. MS wouldn't listen. I even got a full Vista Ultimate license for free. It's in sitting in a drawer, I'm not letting Vista anywhere near a perfectly good working computer with XP or Ubuntu on it. Friends don't let friends run Vista.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Even if the MS somehow managed to find an interpretation of the EULA that approximated "you are Microsoft's bitch" and managed to persuade a court of that, I don't know about the US, but in the UK, that would easily fall under the Unfair Contract Terms Act. Failing that, there's a plethora of Sale of Goods Acts that you could sue under -- goods not performing as described, unfit for purpose, etc. Not to mention, the various antitrust bodies seem pretty receptive to complaints about MS's business practices these days.
I really can't see it happening, though. The bad press and added ammo the antitrust cases would have if MS ever did cut off XP come the end of support in 2014 would way, way eclipse any benefit considering tiny number of people still running XP then. Besides, considering the leap in system requirements from XP to Vista, what are the chances that computers running XP in 2014 will be able to run whatever OS Microsoft has out by then...!
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
"Downgrade rights", sure. But only to business customers...
The word Vista is spanish for view,,as in view into your privacy with all the spyware built in to windows vista.and all of the content control.you are not free to do what u want with your own files.if u have anything that violates copyrights,microsoft knows about it and is passing the info onto those that really care. installing vista is like installing the FBI ON UR PC!!!!! FUCK BILL GATES!!!
Driver problems actually ARE Vista's fault.
First, Vista was released with the drivers in that condition, with full knowledge that the two most popular video cards had relatively crappy support, and that it would be showing up on PCs on Day One.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the XP drivers don't work. Vista changed the driver model (again), requiring extra work on the driver front. And made it it complicated enough to make it difficult for the driver writers to get everything done in time (balanced wiht their other priorities).
You shouldn't absolve Microsoft completely for bad drivers on Vista, when they didn't necessarily need to make the old very functional and stable XP drivers break and have to be rewritten in the first place.
Its not you, its me. I've changed. Microsoft, you never change. Its time for me to move on. Stop asking, stop calling, stop writing. I don't want anything to do with you. You're a total asshole and I hate you. Yes, I moved in with OS X, and I'm seeing Solaris tonight and Ubuntu on Friday, not that its any of your business. Get out of my life. Get out, or I'm calling the police, I mean it, stay away from me, you ugly, shallow, unreliable, lying, two-timing piece of garbage.
The Admin and the Engineer
"The new Windows Display Drive Model in Vista, which underlies Aero, is a lot more than just a pretty shell. Microsoft have been working with the graphics hardware manufacturers to enable GPUs to be virtualised/managed by the OS, in the way that CPUs have long been, i.e. through virtual memory and interruptability (for scheduling)."
Uh, huh. This is probably a great idea, but unless I read it incorrectly, it also puts the OS in charge of the GPU. Which may be very good if the OS is hitting on all cylinders and driving the GPU briskly. But it also seems like OS problems will immediately be experienced as GPU stalls and errors.
In other words, we may have added a layer of complexity to the GPU subsystem, and introduced opportunities for sub-optimal utilization, particularly on equipment designed pre-Vista. This could account for the problems that are being reported quite frequently, when it would seem like video performance in Vista should be better.
My experience with Vista on customers' computers is universally negative. I dislike the interface, find performance excessively slow, and especially dislike the way networking and wizards are set up. Just my experience.
P.S. Another dumb idea. Is the Aero interface still accessing the GPU when the User is trying to play WOW or some other game? Does the Display Drive Model drop out, or continue to try to access the GPU? I seem to remember a similar problem with games way back when Windows 95/98 came out. Games like Doom wanted total GPU control, and couldn't get it without dropping everything on the machine straight into DOS. Maybe we've got something analogous happening with Vista?
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
His e-Machines laptop that he had purchase 3 years ago had the motherboard go out on him (I think he was running it overheated. So in a panic he came by my house to see what we could do to get it working. When we concluded that it was dead he wanted to drive immediately over to Fry's Electronics to buy a new machine right then and there as he had art commissions he needed to get finished. We looked over all the systems and found the best value vs. performance in his price range and the only option was Vista Home. I told him at the time I would #1 perfer he buy a Dell with XP pre-installed, or from some other online retailer if we could find it, but he didn't have a week to wait for delivery and couldn't afford the extra shipping cost for rush delivery, so I told him up front that for good or bad he was going to have to run Vista for the initial warranty period. If it worked great, but if not I would help him migrate back to XP. The last thing I want to do is deal with HP on a warranty support issue where we've changed the OS from what was shipped on it.
I was dead against him doing this from the get go and warned him every step of the way that this was not the best plan.
As for doing it for free. Like you charge bench fees to family and people that have been friends for 20 years? I make them buy the parts and when I do a scratch build I'll pad a few dollars of overhead to cover my time but please.
Does that answer your question?
Microsoft is grasping at straws after having spent tens of billions of dollars in development and marketing costs for what has turned out to be, quite frankly, a steaming pile of shit. I bought a brand new 'Vista ready' PC with Vista Home Premium installed and used it for all of a week before wiping it and buying a copy of XP. All the people I know who have recently bought machines preloaded with Vista are doing the same because guess what? It's good enough for what they need. Most IT people I know say their companies aren't planning on upgrading to Vista for a long time if ever -- they have tuned their XP environments to run quite well, and don't need another forced upgrade. Let's face it, Microsoft: ya done fucked up....
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
If Vista is 100 times worse, they can forget it! I just moved to XP Home sp2 (no extra hotfixes) from 2k sp4 only because I got tired of the ancient and ugly interface in 2k (XP seems to handle my Raid 0 and C2D E6700 better too). XP has its bugs like not remembering window size and placement with two monitors on an nVidia card (dualview) but am putting up with it for the 'pretty' Fisher Price GUI. Oh, did I mention that I tweaked the hell out of XP (Fresh UI is not bad but a little buggy along with manual regedits, etc) to shut off all the annoying M$ nag and spyware, well the poor average user doesn't know how, bless their poor M$ oppressed souls, I can just imagine their frustration with Vista, makes my head spin. >:-/
Will Linux ever mature? I hope so because I really don't want a Mac. =l