Slashdot Mirror
What Vista SP1 Means To You
An anonymous reader writes "Geek.com has an interview with Nick White, Microsoft's Vista Product Manager, covering the upcoming release of Vista SP1. The interview goes over some of the new features, how the change will affect admins, and how Microsoft decides if a change should be rolled out as an update or as part of the service pack. One of the most interesting questions asks whether people should feel that they have to wait until SP1 to upgrade to the operating system, a common practice with Windows users. White writes off this practice as no longer being necessary and notes how Windows Update has lessened the importance of the release of a service pack. Just the same, a News.com article explores the possibility that this update will finally begin driving users to Vista."
So, with the service pack you're finally getting a stable product? Where's the value for all the money you're laying out? Pay hundreds of dollars, put up with anal probe product activation and wait almost a year for what you should have gotten in the first place.
I'm sure that makes sense on some planet...just not this one.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Mr. White's assertions aside, IMHO, MS is releasing this service pack as early as possible to entice people into believing Vista is "ready". The practice in the industry to wait for the first few updates is to firmly entrenched for them to simply "write it off".
And in my experience, lest my FOSS bias shine through, the idea of waiting for the first few updates goes for most software, not just Windows or other MS software.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
So you are saying that everybody ships unready products. These days everybody have patchs. Some calls it Service Packs, others call it updates, others just patchs, and finally other call it Leopard ;-)
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Sorry, but I just don't buy it. People don't switch to Vista because of:
1) hardware compatibility issues,
2) software compatibility issues, and
3) annoyances such as UAC, which negatively impact hinder the user experience (though, I do understand their utility).
In a corporate setting, the first two are, without question, show stoppers, and the last is a burden for support staff. Further, XP *works* for most people, so there's little reason to switch. A service pack for Vista does nothing to address these issues (nor could it).
Apparently it did, otherwise you wouldn't be rambling on about how cool you are to not use software from Microsoft.
You know something's wrong when you're talking about driving people to use software rather than attracting them to it.
DNA just wants to be free...
I used to know a guy on a campus social sciences mailing list that could not discuss Islam or Islamic society without using the term "islamofascist". Every single time. And all his references were to blog entries he had written, most of which were plain wrong or simple misrepresented facts. It gets old after a while, but more importantly it's the equivalent to using "poopyhead" when talking about someone you don't like. It's impossible to have conversations of any sort with people like that.
It's funny that you talk about Microsoft's credibility here, given that your slaughter of intelligent discourse also eliminates most of yours.
I like Slashdot but lately it's becoming more and more like Digg.
Stability and performance are not the same. I never said performance was not an issue, nor did I say stability was unimportant... so I really don't see your point.
And please, enough with your stupid journal already. Its already been picked apart, and even the anti-MS crowd here is starting to see you for the nutjob you are.
Q: Microsoft's biggest competition is...
1) Linux
2) Mac OS X
3) Old MS products
The correct answer is 'C'. I know a company that is *very* Microsoft-centric. Last year they were announcing ambitious plans to move to Vista as soon as possible. Not only are they still on XP, they evidently now have no plans to move to Vista. I guess a cold dose of reality was enough to bring them to their senses.
MS is facing two problems with regard to Vista adoption: 1) Vista mostly sucks* and 2) XP is mostly OK. Either one would be an obstacle. Both together are nearly insurmountable.
In the next 2-3 years, I predict...
- most apps will work OK on Vista
- driver issues will have been worked out
- another service pack or two will shave off all the rough edges--they'll fix that networking/multimedia issue, they'll have better default settings so UAC isn't as annoying, etc.
- OEM hardware with Vista will work pretty well
Basically, they'll get past the current state of Vista having "no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes." But I really do think that will take 2-3 years, and it'll be interesting to see what MS does in that time. I'm sure Vista will eventually be the dominant OS, but I think it'll take that long--which is too bad, because spam simply will not go away until the bulk of the boxes on the Internet are not insecure Windows systems. (Of course, if Mac OS X or Linux wins, that'll be fine too.) MS really screwed up, though. Once Vista was spiraling out of control, they should have pulled back and did what Apple did with OS X--release a whole new OS with the old OS in a VM. That way they could have had a relatively cruft-free OS with the old crufty stuff contained in a VM, rather than making the single largest collection of cruft ever.
* where "mostly sucks" means "some things that used to work are now broken, and the things that are new and work aren't really that great."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
M$ has burnt a lot of what little credibility it had left with Vista. Apologies from editors are not going to do the trick as long as there is real fair and independent review of performance. Windoze users have waited seven years for an upgrade and they can easily afford to wait another to see if Vista has anything that warrents it's cost and restrictions.
Coincidentally, I just sat down and used Windows Vista properly for the first time today. Clean installs, first in Parallels Desktop and then Boot Camp. And I utterly fail to see what it so objectionable about Vista. It's not earth shattering, no, but it's at least better than XP, if not as good as OS X. It's not that much slower than XP was on the same hardware, even with all the Aero stuff enabled. The UAC prompts...I had "one", on installing Apple's Boot Camp drivers (which, on the negative side, crashed the system.)
This is my personal experience only, true, but as far as I'm concerned it's far from the sinking crater that you seem to think it is.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
It's sad that you got modded up, but at least the moderator was smart enough to use "underrated" to prevent from being M2ed for modding up crap.
:headdesk:
It's not like Microsoft is not releasing bug fixes until Q1 2008
RTFA. That's exactly what's happening. Straight from the article, straight from Microsoft's product manager himself:
SP1's purpose is not primarily as a feature-delivery vehicle but as a way to improve the user experience and enhance it in some areas.
... On the other hand, security may be a greater concern, and numerous I.T. professionals and system administrators have provided ideas for enhancing the security advances fundamental to Windows Vista. Among these was the ability to extend BitLocker encryption beyond the bootable volume to other partitions on your hard disk, as made possible by SP1.
Yes, that's right, you'll have to wait until Q1 2008 to be able to encrypt more than one partition. Read the whitepaper they link to: it provides a nice list of the bug fixes you'll have to wait to get.
Looks like Apple's got some innovative plans in the works . . .
Should this come to pass, would we have to re-work the "If Microsoft built a car" jokes?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Don't be fooled by his attempt to confuse the issue. Microsoft Windows is EXPENSIVE, in my opinion, and becoming more so. We often have had to re-load Windows XP to remove system instability caused by sloppy coding and by system files modified by malware.
It has been more than 2 years since WinXP service pack 2 was released (August 25, 2004), even though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170 Megabytes of files, a difficult problem when there is no internet connection or only a dial-up connection. The Windows XP updates of just last Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes.
Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using their XP operating system. But the really major problems in Windows XP stopped only after the SP2 was released.
We have had eight different kinds of problems with Microsoft update; Microsoft Update gets my vote for the buggiest Microsoft software, and that's a tough title to get. Other people have many, many different kinds of problems with Windows Update. See, for example, Windows Update Discussion Group.
I'm guessing that tens or hundreds of millions of hours and billions of dollars are lost every year because of the sloppy coding in Windows XP. Steve Ballmer took Bill Gates' position as the Chief of Grief.
Corporate Rule: Never use a new version of Windows until after the 2nd service pack has been released, and others have had a chance to see if there are problems. It is expensive in re-training costs to use a different operating system, so a company that has a virtual monopoly can abuse the customer by releasing unfinished and sloppy software, and still not lose most of its customers.
Remember that the cost of Windows is much more than the cost of the OS itself for many reasons besides the high maintenance costs. Microsoft's biggest customers are the giant computer manufacturers, and they want to manipulate people to buy new computers. So, each new version of Microsoft Windows requires more powerful hardware. Those who use Windows are dragged through the adversarial business schemes of one of the most anti-customer large corporations in the world, in my opinion.
Microsoft Windows maintenance is so expensive that people throw away their computers and buy new ones because the maintenance cost is so high. See, for example, the New York Times article, Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster. (Free NYT registration required.)
Many people depend for making a living on maintaining Microsoft Windows. Many of those people have no other way of making a living. They often try to confuse discussions of the maintenance costs of Windows and discussions of Microsoft's adversarial practices; don't be fooled by their misdirection.
XP user at work
Linux user at home
Vista user at home
Never had an issue with vista since I installed it right when it was first released. Runs well on my old Dell Domension 8300 box. Not crashed. Not slow when copying lots of files. I use it to serve all my MP3 (>250 Megs) throughout my house. I run NTI Shadow 3 in the background to backup My Docs, photos and music to my LACIE network drive. I run McAfee in the background and a bunch of other stuff. I'm not a tech-boy, I installed it myself and I use it for general home use. Honestly, I'm not seeing where the big issue is. It does it's job and that's all I ask it to do.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Actually, there's one key difference. This story is unfinished. There are two endings. One includes the phrase "malware and viruses" and the other doesn't. I'll let you wait for the virus/spyware world to catch up with Vista before you realise yours is the story with the bad ending. Then again, you can rewrite this story in a few years subbing Vista for XP, so bookmark this page and in a few years, when you come back to it, remember to thank me for saving you the effort to have to rewrite it.
Free Software games list and commentary
To speak of Vista's "failure" in the marketplace is desperately premature, if not inane.
A new OS or fork that fails to gain more than 4% of the user base in 9 months could only be considered a success in Redmond. We have already been through a Christmas and back to school sale. Why should next year be any different? M$ still thinks xbox and zune are competitive, so what do I know?
If you want to talk about desperate, think about M$'s position. Release a brand new OS and a brand new Office suit and then see no difference to your bottom line. See banks, airlines, hardware stores and others deploy rival software, "where it counts". See vendors sell the same rival software. Their software is buggy because they opted for the great content lockdown instead of taking care of things that mattered.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
From the comments I would propose that the traditional linux stronghold has been lost. Anyone making negative references to Microsoft products seems to be modded down and 'out yelled', whether the comments are on technical merits, anecdotal or opinionated, or derogatory.
Of course derogatory for its own sake should be modded down. Technical conversations should be directly rebuffed unless they are obvious lies (it goes both ways Twitter...). Anecdotal; ymmv. Opinionated should be reasoned with technical basis in a civil manner. Unfortunately civility is a dying characteristic [that is an unsubstantiated opinion modders] in the world in general following chivalry.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Ick! XP is ugly and feels slow compared to Vista. There are so many little things you pick up, like there is finally an easy way to see the full path to running processes, once you try to support people using XP you just get frustrated! Vista is a huge improvement over XP.
That doesn't mean there aren't bugs. Their new TCP/IP stack has all kinds of bugs. There is a bug (and I'm too lazy to find the KB on it) that fucks up how it sends ACK's to other devices. As it turns out, it will hang the MediaMVP in my bedroom. Some vendors software gets buggy too - Vista changed a lot of the API for explorer (the file one, dammit!) that seems to crash TortiseSVN every now and then (though explorer.exe is the one that does the crashing...)
Given a little more time to mature, I suspect many people will look at this like XP vs 3.1. They really just look and act that much different.