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Why is Microsoft Patching XP?
akkarin noted a story about a new Service patch for XP. Dubbed SP2c, the new service patch contains no bug fixes or features. Instead, this exciting patch exists only to add new valid active product registration keys. Oops.
Why is this labeled a service patch?
So if hackers figure out how to patch in some new "valid" keys with this mechanism, does that mean that no one will need to hack out a key anymore?
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That the balance of features versus benefits in Vista are not correct. Meaning, in Vista they were too interested in providing features that consumers did not care about, such as drm and copyright protection, and not enough benefits above XP. Not only that, but the XP version is even cheaper...
I suspect this is a shorterm problem only. Meaning I checked the Dell website and they are not providing XP as an option on all laptops, so I suspect M$ is simply providing this option to their larger customers until wider adoption occurs. Over time, it would be my guess they will slowly "fade" out XP and the forced Vista adoption will be complete. Longterm this will be seen as a major mistake made by them, in my opinion....
So, if you want a Honda, then go by Windows
I was with you until you made that statement (and I don't even own a Honda). Why do you have to disrespect Honda like that? Especially when Honda's cars are reliable, Windows not so much. Honda's cars are closer to OS X than Windows, in that they "just work." They also have very refined engines and well thought-out interiors (at least the ones I've seen). They don't require much maintenance. Yeah, they don't look all that great, but they aren't ugly (like Windows is), simply very vanilla.
It would've made more sense if you made the Windows analogy with Ford or one of the GM brands.
#!/
"I think it's more a matter of making the mistake of underestimating how many people are still going to be buying your old product line (XP) instead of your brand spanking new all-singing and all-dancing product line (Vista). And actually that is a bad mistake to make."
I personally made the switch from XP to Vista about two months ago because I wanted the driver updates to kick in first. There is no doubt in my mind -- I prefer Vista far more than XP because of all the nifty new features and the new look. I guess I was getting tired of XP.
I do however understand why people still purchase XP. It wasn't all that good in its early days, but a fully patched XP is actually pretty darn good and stable now. I really don't think XP ran out of keys because Vista "sucks", but because it was delayed for so long that XP had an exceedingly long lifetime. Had Vista been released a couple of years ago, then Microsoft wouldn't have this problem. So it's rather the delay of Vista, not the claimed "suckiness" of Vista.
Full Tilt
There are 2 red flags on this that would concern me. One that Microsoft would secretly bundle more rights restrictions into XP (admit it, it's certainly tempting, and it's not like they haven't done it before), and two, that this SP would seemingly make it easier to crack windows keys - I mean, here's all the necessary components, isolated and laid out for you to decipher. Well, that's just my 2 cents.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
The thing that gets me is how much less responsive new hardware is running Vista.
My neighbor got a couple of new laptops a couple of months ago. Naturally, they run Vista. He asked me to set them up on his network, and I was amazed at how much slower they are than my laptop (which I got in 2004) that runs XP.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Actually, it was a while back that I've done this, but I ran SO 7, and I think it was OOo 1.2 on the same machine.
SO 7 was blazing fast.
OOo 1.2? Dog slow.
Same machine. Same codebase.
My experience as a programmer leads me to disagree. Sometimes old branches of code reach the point where they simply can't be taken any further, regardless of what pressing needs (like security updates) are placed upon them. After a while, you end up with huge deltas between the current release codebase and the legacy branches, and it may not even be possible to reverse engineer patches from the former onto the latter. There eventually comes a time when you have to say "we've done all we think we can do with this" and wash your hands of it.
I'm by no measure a Microsoft apologist, but I won't hold this particular choice against them when it's one I've made myself in the past.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Clearly, MS are very fond of the letter C.
DirectX 9.0c came out years ago. Since then, DirectX has been updated almost every month - and it is still named 9.0c (except on Vista).
So when people are comparing DirectX versions to identify a game problem, they are not using version numbers. They are asking "Did you install the April 2007 patch for DirectX?"
It is perceived as slow to load, but MS Office amortizes some of its load time into Windows' startup.
Like any Java program, lots of components are lazy-initialized, and with most JRE's these are also slow.
But once you're operating, it's not slow.
What are you comparing? Computationally intensive resolution of spreadsheets? OO Spreadsheet isn't bad. When does a measure of "speed" enter into a Word Processor program, aside from the perception of font rendering, reflow formatting, preparation for printing, and that sort of thing? OO Writer is pretty good on these points as well.
My gripes about OO are also gripes about Excel. Reporting scientific research and don't like the scatter plots? Need to constrain error bars? These programs can be quite lacking, but it's not as though Excel surpasses OO in many areas. When I need something that Writer won't do, I'd be doing it in LaTeX anyway. I wouldn't bother with a spreadsheet for anything but the most simple calculation, since I use Matlab day in and day out.
Maybe I'm not qualified to speak on the virtues of spreadsheets, since I'm a scientist and those things are made for financial analysts who have entirely different use cases. Even so, I have yet to see a spreadsheet sans macro programming, that could not have been done on the 2.1 version of Lotus 1-2-3. If "speed" was really the concern, I am quite confident that 1-2-3 running in dosemu on a current machine will beat anything out there. Probably has a Y2K showstopper or something.
I just don't see the argument that it's "slow". And yes, I do run NeoOffice on a Macbook Pro. Takes a while to startup. So does MS Office, but it takes advantage of tight integration and hides it from you.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.