Vista SP1 Guides for IT Professionals Released

wilkinism writes "Microsoft released several detailed documents explaining just about everything you ever wanted to know about Vista SP1. Highlights include a Deployment Guide, list of included hotfixes, and a 17-page list of 'Notable Changes'. In reviewing the Notable Changes document, it seems the company focused on improving reliability & performance in really specific scenarios, so it's no wonder that most reviewers are reporting no noticeable gains."

Comments

Specific scenarios?

[ccguy]

From the changelog:

25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine

Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory with many files underneath.

I don't think those two (from a quick glance at the doc) are very uncommon...

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving a directory? Why is that complex?

You don't actually physically move the files & directories on disk. You just change a few index entries.

This isn't bleeding edge stuff - I'm sure this was done more than 20 years ago.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless of course the files inherited permissions from the folder they were in recursively, then when you move the folder, the permissions have to be updated...

Re:Specific scenarios?

[MMC Monster]

That's what I'm wondering. A move of a directory tree on the same disk should be changing a couple links and that's it. Regardless of the underlying filesystem.

What would be interesting is if they implemented a faster "copy directory on same disk" that involved hard links and copy-on-demand when files change. (Something like what Sun's ZFS)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[ccguy]

The move operation itself might be as simple as that. The problem is that vista has a tendency to open files for no good reason. For example you can flag 40 files, press shift-del to delete them forever, and have the operation fail because one of the was opened by explorer to display a thumbnail. It's really hard to believe that MS can't put a couple of interns to work on explorer and get rid of these incredible annoying things forever. Or fuck, buy someone else's replacement.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[abigor]

It's not Explorer's fault. From what I recall, you can't delete a file off an NTFS volume if a program has opened it with exclusive (ie not shared) access.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[ccguy]

It's not Explorer's fault. From what I recall, you can't delete a file off an NTFS volume if a program has opened it with exclusive (ie not shared) access.

How it's not Explorer's fault if it's explorer the program that opens the file I just told to delete? If it really really needs to open it so it can show a thumbnail or display the dimensions etc for a few milliseconds before it's deleted, at least it should implement a 'panic close', or 'delete queue', or any other dumb solution they can come up with... anything is better than displaying an error message saying that the file is open (which it's not true by the time the message comes up, btw).

While they are at it, they could ALSO try to not to cancel long operations just because of an error in a specific file...i.e. copy 500 files from one place to another, file number 219 fails and the operation is cancelled? 218 files copied, 287 files that COULD have been copied not copied, WTF?

Ah, and a final suggestion... if the user asks to copy 50 Gb to a drive with 40 Gb free space, fucking start doing it if the users really wants to, instead of completely refusing to even try...you don't know if the remote is making space at the same time, or compressing, or just reporting an invalid free space number for whatever reason.

OK, just needed to vent a little :-) Feel free to defend explorer at any time.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

so? skip the undelete-able file and keep going with the rest of them. I fail to see the problem - unless you have some crappy code with the 'cannot delete' exception getting caught at the wrong level where there is no way left for continuing the delete operation.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between a folder and a file.

I don't think it's Microsoft's job to educate you on that point. I suggest you take a "computing basics" course.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[techno-vampire]

So handle it the same way *nix does: the deletion takes place when the last program using it closes the file.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[ccguy]

I forgot to mention that putting the screen blank for a second, asking for administration rights -i.e. the microsoft way of showing how supersafe their O.S. is- to delete a file that is on a remote system and that can't be deleted because the remote won't let you is stupid.

Just because you are an administrator in your vista machine doesn't mean that you can expect to get administrative permissions in my computer by clicking 'allow'...

It's like the FBI trying to arrest someone in a foreign country by flashing their badg...um...nm :-)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[rudy_wayne]

"While they are at it, they could ALSO try to not to cancel long operations just because of an error in a specific file...i.e. copy 500 files from one place to another, file number 219 fails and the operation is cancelled? 218 files copied, 287 files that COULD have been copied not copied, WTF?"

That happens with Windows XP (and yes it's really stupid and should have been fixed in a Service Pack) But they actually fixed it in Vista. With Vista if you are copying, moving, deleting. whatever, more than one file and an error occurs, you can skip that file and keep going. One of the few things they actually got right in Vista.

Well, sort of.

Unfortunately you still end up with the problem of selecting a few hundred files to copy, leaving, and when you come back your computer is sitting there waiting for your input in a dialog box because an error occurred with file number 11.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Thats why I wrote my own copy program for windows. It copies and or moves each file individually, taking into account exactly what I intended it to do if the operation failed. Sure it *might* take a little longer, but I only use it in cases where I'm copying/moving hundreds of files and don't want to stand in from on the computer for the entire operation.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[seaturnip]

Vista (or Windows XP w/ Resource Kit) already includes a robust copy tool, called Robocopy.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[MadnessASAP]

Well you see in Microsoft world where everything is 20 years in the past this is bleeding edge stuff, plenty of the technologies being used in Vista really are very old concepts such as: ACls, non root user accounts, multi-user support. So of couse finally being able to move and copy files at a reasonable speed rather then something comparable to a tape reel from the 50s is a pretty significant event.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Goldberg's Pants]

That'd be funny if you had to physically do it.

All I know is a friend installed SP1 last night... And spent the rest of their night reinstalling the OS on their now bricked system. (Couldn't get to a command prompt, safemode, anything. SP1 murdered the system.)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Interesting. I wrote mine back in the windows 95 days, so I'm used to it. Long story, but I still do support some 98 boxes occasionally for an overseas charity.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Yvanhoe]

I am still shocked that it takes a service pack to get these right.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[abigor]

Woah, I'm not defending Explorer - I'm not even a Windows user. I'm just explaining how NTFS works, that's all ;)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[abigor]

Yeah, fair enough. I was just explaining the current situation, not offering a smarter way to do it. I'm not a Windows user either, and I'm well aware of better file management strategies ;)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Permissions, indexing, shell updates (change the tree in explorer, etc), there's alot going on behind the scenes.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's deleted exactly when you ask it to. If it's an important file and the program still seems to be working, it's because it's pulling the file from memory instead (it's stored there when the program starts up, since memory reads are faster than disk reads). If you try starting a new instance of the program you'll see it fail. If the file wasn't deleted until the first instance of the program was shut down, you'd still be able to start another instance.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out SuperCopier2. Eliminates these headaches.

http://supercopier.sfxteam.org/

Re:Specific scenarios?

[techno-vampire]

The way I understand it, it's removed from the directory right away, but the inodes aren't cleared until the last program using it closes it. Of course, I'm not a *nix guru and Could Be Wrong.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great. But it leaves me wondering why something so fundamental as copying files took 3 versions and several OS releases to finally get it right. It's bizarre.

It drives me *nuts* when I'm trying to delete or move files and realize one is open in some program, or when it isn't open, but there's some file handle dangling somewhere even after the relevant program is closed (Windows XP is sometimes insanely slow letting go of them). On OS X or Linux machines the delete or move proceeds unabated. Heck, in most cases a move doesn't even affect the opened file -- the program is notified of the filename change and usually updates itself to reflect the name change. Why is NTFS so finicky? Is this meant to be a feature to prevent users from accidentally deleting or moving active files, or is it an undesirable side effect?

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, it has nothing to do with the file being in memory cache, the cache does not always contain the whole file. The space is only freed after the last hard link to a file has been deleted and all open file descriptors on it are closed, that's why the program can keep reading from disk. Another one of those things Unix does right as opposed to Windoze.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[OldManAndTheC]

Vista (or Windows XP w/ Resource Kit) already includes a robust copy tool

Which makes you wonder why such a tool is necessary in the first place. Why can't normal Explorer copy operations be robust?

Re:Specific scenarios?

[balloonhead]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Windows Vista rig (a 4GHz Intel Core2 Extreme w/ 4 GB of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to move a 17 KB file. 20 minutes! At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running Windows 3.1, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this behemoth, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Firefox will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even my IDE is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Vista machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Vista system that has run faster than its XP counterpart, despite Vista's modernised architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster with Photoshop than this 4 GHz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Vista is a superior machine.

Vista addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use it over other faster, cheaper, more stable Windows environments.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[ta bu shi da yu]

Uh? Why is explorer putting an exclusive lock on a file to create a thumbnail in the first place?!?

It's most definitely Windows Explorer's fault. You wouldn't believe the number of times I have had it crash in Windows Vista AND Windows XP. You'd think they could get something so fundamental right, but evidently this is beyond a multi-billion dollar software corporation.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[BosstonesOwn]

Came witht he new laptop I bought , and $139 for an Xp license to run it is insane ? Not to mention the need for legit windows for work and not a pirated copy ?

Re:Specific scenarios?

[gad_zuki!]

Whats wrong with xcopy or the new robocopy? In Windows copying via the GUI is a slow task made with lots of 'are you sure' prompts for non-technical end users. This has been true for a long time, its not new in Vista, although the Vista buginess makes it worse.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[spge]

20 minutes (even two minutes) does seem rather slow when handling a 17KB file. Did you mean 17GB?

Re:Specific scenarios?

[dantezco]

You know there's something wrong with your OS when you need a robust tool to copy files.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Sczi]

Listen buddy, you obviously have a driver problem or some incompatibility on your bleeding edge hardware, because I do a lot more, a lot faster, on a lot less computer, all the while using Vista. Since evidently you are smart enough that someone thinks you're worthy of such a beefy rig, I'm sure you know that yours is the exception and not the rule. At 20 minutes per 17k, it would take aproximately 87 years to install the OS, which it does not. I directly support a handful of Vista machines at work, and I find most problems of the type described (ie, random bs) are easily solved by trying again. If you really want an intelligent reason why anyone would choose it, it is because when you get it stable (or rather, if you don't make it unstable, because I have found it 100% stable on all systems, right out of the box), it A) works, B) is good, and C) has all the new Vista stuff in it. If the new stuff works just as well as the old stuff and doesn't give you any trouble, then why the hell not? And from my fairly considerable (yet admittedly anecdotal) experience with it, I can state very matter-of-factly that it IS good enough, for 90% of users. If you have some app that won't run, then those are the breaks with a new system. Or someone messed up your system before you got it. Did you install the OS yourself?

Regarding your 486 comparison, might I humbly suggest that you start the diagnosis by quieting background processes? I know that's been slow-system-troubleshooting 101 for the last 15 years, but go ahead and give it a shot anyway. It might still work. Specifically make sure Windows Defender isn't actively processing. You can also go into Task Manager, Performance tab, click Resource Monitor and Allow, and then check the disk utilization. I find that Defender and Indexing are the biggest problems. Hopefully SP1 will make them smarter.

PS, please mod me UP for a change. Sarcasm aside, I'm 70-620 certified, and I know what I'm talking about. Vista is maybe not worth the hassle everyone (to each his own, etc). Other OS's are good too, etc, but stop acting like Vista definitively sucks by every available metric, because that's just fantasy, even as an x.0 release. /OS agnostic, FTW

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Allador]

The utility he's referring to, robocopy, is basically rsync, or very similar. Allows continuous mirroring of directories, a large number of configuration points, etc.

It also does a very good job of retrying failed transfers a configurable number of times, with a configurable delay.

It's really too complex to be embedded into explorer. Though I do wish they'd do a better job of it in explorer.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[OldManAndTheC]

It was a rhetorical question, more or less. I'm currently using Robocopy on a project -- it's very handy.

But the GP (GGP?) was right -- Explorer is bothersome for doing unattended operations. Drag a folder from one folder to another -- it says it's going to take 10 minutes, so you go make some coffee. Come back 5 minutes later and Explorer is asking you "Are you sure you want to move the read-only file blah_blah_blah?" Sheesh.

For server-side stuff Robocopy works great. For day-to-day work I'd appreciate a little more help from Explorer. It shouldn't be that hard, and I'm sure the M$ types have run into the same problem.

(20 minutes into copying tree from REDMOND1 to OFFICEDEV): "Are you sure you want to move the read-only file World Domination Plan (post BillG).doc"?

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Allador]

FWIW, there's something else wrong going on there, or you've got that one in a million configurations that exposes a bug that causes this.

I'm on a new HP Compaq 8710w laptop, 2.4GHz core2duo, 4gb ram, massive 512mb graphics card, running Vista Business x64. It's very very fast, and has been absolutely rock solid for the first few months I've had it so far.

File copying is fast for me.

UAC is superior to all the runas.exe you were forced through on XP.

The desktop doesnt hang and tear when apps hang, or when there are network glitches (big bennie of the new desktop manager).

The whole desktop doesnt lock up when there are network holdups (finally!).

Start menu is better, shutdown controls are worse.

Explorer file manager is much more stable, but has some stupid defaults, and for the love of God, no UP folder button. I cant comprehend why they ditched that.

I'm convinced that Vista is even more ridiculously dependent on drivers for experiences and performance than before. It's the only way I can reconcile the wildly different experiences, where the only difference is hardware.

Overall, other than some of the bad choices I think they made in the explorer file manager, the overall desktop is a better experience. Aero is just smooth and nice. The desktop never gets hung up or slows down because of other things hanging, which was always a big problem in xp and prior.

They also are approaching a sane file-structure and names. In other words, c:\users\ is soooooo much better than c:\documents and settings\, and so forth.

It's a mixed bag, but other than the DRM garbage .... there are some really solid improvements in the underlying technology. Most of it you wont see though, it'll just work better overall (once we're past the driver teething issues).

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should consider running BeOS R5, as this guy here seemed to get much faster performance with that than XP when trying to copy a file. Quote: "20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder."

(At least this comment one has some variation in it, although not much, wish they would have kept 17 Meg rather than 17 KB)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[balloonhead]

Hook, line and sinker...

Original by kottke

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Sczi]

Heh, yes, maybe the gp was a troll, but the sentiment is all too real, and specific arguable "evidence" was there to be refuted, so why not? I look at it a bit like trademark defense, defend it, or lose it. I'm not convinced that was 100% troll anyway, 50/50 at best.

Re:Specific scenarios?

[balloonhead]

I was the original poster. 100% troll. An oldie but a goodie.

PS I use Vista. I will have to say I preferred XP but I don't care enough to go to the trouble of changing. For most things it is fine.
  - UAC is annoying
  - Very slow for the hardware (Turion 64 2GHz, 2GB) particularly start up where the usual windows annoyances of taking ages to load all the services with an essentially unusable but visible desktop, keeps taking focus from mouse so if you try and click on anything before t is fully ready it doesn't work, and a million little balloons in the corner telling me exactly the same thing it tells me every start up (including from sleep) and sometimes multiple times in one session
  - IE for some reason has slowed to a crawl and is unusable. Phishing filter now off and no better. Other browsers are fine. No idea why, MS KB unhelpful (i.e. solutions don't work, as above)

Re:Specific scenarios?

[Sczi]

I was the original poster. 100% troll. An oldie but a goodie.

Lol, ok, I'll be more careful next time. So were you lying about the 4gig machine or not?

For most things it is fine.

Except copying 17k files? Do you see the real problem with subtle trolling now? =]

Re:Specific scenarios?

[balloonhead]

The template is an old one (1998 I think) which usually comes up in mac stories. It is only subtle when you haven't seen that particular one before - you'll see it again.

First page

[roman_mir]

The first page of the instructions say: Uninstall Vista, install something else.

Re:First page

[STrinity]

The first page of the instructions say: Uninstall Vista, install something else

It's a bit more complicated than that:

1. Open Start Menu
2. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
3. Click Control Panel
4. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
5. Double click Administrative Tools
6. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
7. etc.

Re:First page

[roman_mir]

mmm, no.

1. Reformat the drive.
2. Install something else.

Re:First page

[4D6963]

The first page of the instructions say: Uninstall Vista, install something else.

Argh! Please, stop with the overly subtle sarcasms, I'm so confused now!

Re:First page

[bondsbw]

It's a bit more complicated than that:

1. Open Start Menu
2. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
3. Click Control Panel
4. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
5. Double click Administrative Tools
6. When the UAC dialogue comes up, click continue
7. etc. .
.
.
42. Profit! (Cancel or Allow)

Re:First page

[whopub]

everything you ever wanted to know about Vista SP1 In my case an unprinted stamp sized leaflet would do just fine.

Re:First page

[marcello_dl]

You think you are funny? I just bought a laptop.
I said to myself: look, Microsoft is evil and Vista is a POS according to many reports- but you have it with your new lappy, keep it for compatibility tests with the other POS explorer. Just dual boot. You already multibooted two macs, three intel laptops and an old alphaserver.

Ok. Let's try.
Booted vista, made backup dvds. Looked around. Ok Vista seems to suck. Slow, and every desktop is different from the others, due to personalization by laptop manufactured, so it's the usual popup galore plus new widgets. Totally different from the macos -> osx transition, which was totally smooth, except for the fact that OSX till 10.2 was not even complete.

But I gotta repartition. Let's do it from vista, lest they did some FS trickery that linux installers do not yet know about.
oh three partitions? well at least data is separate. OUCH but it won't resize to more than 50%. Defrag. OUCH no defrag Data partitions only, defrags everything. STOP. defrag.exe from commandline after looking for the proper options. Just like that difficult to use OS called linux. Defragged. Still won't resize. I guess I must get to windows forums looking for answers, just like that other difficult OS? No way- But I'm not using only 20 out of 120gb of disk for my main OS. Let's do it from linux. Resized, cut some 60gb of free space between two partitions. The linux zealot in me thinks: "wanna see that vista won't tolerate even leaving free space in the middle of his partitions?" reboot. Indeed, the restore screen comes up.
That's it, vista goes. Kept in my house for two hours. Subtract one from vista install stats :)

Re:First page

[Anonymous Coward]

"Argh! Please, stop with the overly subtle sarcasms, I'm so confused now!"

... that's because the phrases "Vista" and "IT Professional" don't belong in the same sentence ...

Re:First page

[602]

I put Vista on my iMac a couple months ago just to run Halo 2.

I uninstalled Halo 2* last week, so now I have no reason to keep running Vista other than laziness.

*Crappy physics, slow movement, useless weapons.

Re:First page

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you use a preinstalled os? Even for every linux box I get, I format the hdd and reinstall.

Almost never is the hdd partitioned the way I want it. Yes, for the record, I dont put my data on a second partition if its the same hdd. just slows things down - with disk space so dirt cheap, I have atleast 2 online backups of my important stuff, and more offline.

Re:First page

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I see no reason to reinstall from scratch if resizing partitions works.
Shrinking an xp partition and installing linux is easy, I had created the restore dvds, just in case, and used knoppix and voila my compaq was dual booting. The most effort went into getting rid of the windows sticker, my poor fingernails...

Re:First page

[BosstonesOwn]

Yes they do !

My friend who is an It professional helped me remove Vista from my laptop.

See it works on so many levels.

Re:First page

[sbate]

If you want to run halo any flavor on XP (after you purchase your copy from Wal-Mart) go online and get the Dopeman rip that will run from a folder. Also he has a great many good games that run from folders with out installation. Like the wonderful version of SIN episode 1

Most important recommendation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recommendation no 1: Do not install it on your personal PC ....

Re:Most important recommendation.

[The Living Fractal]

Sort of a nitpick but.. you told everyone not to install it on their personal Personal Computer.

So.. yeah. You can -troll me now ;p

Re:Most important recommendation.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually not as silly as it sounds. One can have a "personal PC" at home, and a "work PC" at work.

Re:Most important recommendation.

[AnarkiNet]

Wouldn't they then have a PC and a WC?

Re:Most important recommendation.

[The Living Fractal]

No, they would have a PC and a Workstation.

Re:Most important recommendation.

[ThePromenader]

Depends on which computer is running Vista; that one's the WC. Still takes a long time to transfer "data", as it has the world's slowest flush.

Suckage Removal Subsystem

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Still not present in the list of fixes. ;-)

Eye candy is beautiful, but no SP is going to polish this turd.

Not to be redundant

[dg41]

But I've been running the RC for SP1 for a bit now, and my system still crashes like the RTM version. I've been meaning to uninstall Vista for awhile. I think it's my hardware being too old, though (Athlon XP 2000+, ABIT NF7-S2 motherboard, 1.5GB RAM)

Re:Not to be redundant

[CastrTroy]

Having an older system really shouldn't affect the stability of the system. Perhaps some of your RAM is dying. You should run a memory test. Apart from that, it may be some buggy drivers, but it probably has nothing to do with the Athlon 2000+. I have a Celeron 1.5 with 512 MB of RAM. Vista is extremely stable. Although it's unbelievably slow. Which is why I run Mandriva. Of course, the wife refuses to use Linux, Although all she does (web, watch videos, msn) can be done just fine on Linux.

Re:Not to be redundant

[benzapp]

Vista actually includes a pretty decent memory tester too. It's under the administrative tools folder.

Re:Not to be redundant

[quazee]

On older motherboards it often helps to change the Power Options from the 'Balanced' setting to 'Always On'.
This way Vista will never throttle down the CPU, or use chipset-specific low-power states (STOPGRANT, etc.) while the system is running.
You can still set up your own monitor/hard disk/sleep timeouts if you like.

Re:Not to be redundant

[gnuman99]

Vista's memory tester is basic of the basic type memory tester. You can't really compare it to memtest86. One hint would be that Vista's memory tester runs a few magnitudes faster than memtest86.

You can boot memtest86 from USB stick.

Re:Not to be redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a dual core 1.86GHz processor with 1GB of RAM, and an NVidia Geforce 8800GT with 256 MB of RAM. When I try to install the Nvidia drivers in Vista it tells me I don't have enough free resources for 3d acceleration?

XP works fine, but of course Ubuntu works better. :>

Re:Not to be redundant

[aussiedood]

Of course, the wife refuses to use Linux, Although all she does (web, watch videos, msn) can be done just fine on Linux. I think we're married to the same person ;)

Right

[Anonymous Coward]

"Vista SP1 Guides for IT Professionals Released"

Right... So no one will ever read this.

Vista SP1

[paxgaea]

Codename: XP SP2

But first you will have to click the Allow button to 'upgrade'...

small proportion

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, so that's 2 items in 17 pages

2GB+ Installation fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

The number one thing Vista should fix, and I didn't see it on the list (I could have missed it), is including the fix that will allow machines to install Vista with over 2GB of memory. It is pretty silly that one of the huge benefits of using a 64-bit OS is the ability to have over 4GB of RAM, but Vista has a problem with that.

Vista bashing aside, who would want to install any OS first by REMOVING some of their RAM, installing the OS, applying a patch/fix, then adding back the RAM. What a hassle!

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[Gr8Apes]

You've got to be kidding me!

Not that it matters, I've got Gutsy Gibbon ready to go on my new 4GB system.

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[uhlume]

Are you sure you were installing the 64-bit version?

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[UnknowingFool]

That itself isn't a problem with Vista as it is with 32 bit operating systems. 64 bit Vista doesn't have this issue. There are caveats to running 64 bit Vista. The first thing is that many hardware drivers have to be written specifically for Vista 64 bit, and the second thing is that not many applications are written for 64 bit Vista. Most, if not all, 32 bit applications will run fine, but 64 bit versions are more required if you want the best performance for the application. Many applications don't really need to be in peak performance to be acceptable. i.e. Solitaire. But for things like databases, 64 bits is a huge improvement.

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes vista 64 will bork at 2+g generally...sometimes you can be lucky...you need kb929777 to get it to run reliably....lucky first update installs it as well.....but if you get caught at install you have to pull2 sticks of ram if you have 4x1g...and for me it did cause a rearm

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[Neil Hodges]

I haven't really booted into my 32-bit Vista install after adding two more 1 GB sticks, but it seems silly that 32-bit Vista can't access 4 GB of RAM when 32-bit Linux has the option to access 64 GB.

For the most part, I stay in 64-bit Linux, anyway.

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[ISwearNotmyPorn]

To state that Vista will fail to install on a computer with greater than 2Gig of RAM is grossly exagerated. You would need to satisfy all three conditions listed below to hit this bug. The computer uses more than 3 GB of RAM. The computer uses a storage system that is running the Storport miniport driver. The computer uses a controller that uses 32-bit direct memory access (DMA).

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[Allador]

Hopefully this guy gets modded to obvlivion.

For those of you falling for this nonsense, there is no such thing as he's describing.

The 32-bit version of windows has the same limitation as all non-PAE 32-bit operating systems have.

But x64 Vista does quite fine with 4GB or more of memory on install and use.

Re:2GB+ Installation fix?

[Allador]

Both windows and linux use exactly the same technology to go beyond 3-4GB on 32-bit OS's. It's PAE.

PAE has been in use on windows for many years.

In XP sp2 32-bit, they disabled PAE from being used on the desktop OS, because many drivers misbehave if they werent designed to possibly run in an PAE environment.

So the limitation isnt technical on the windows side, and at various versions its worked.

In the case of both XP and Vista, if you run the x64 version, you can use all the ram you can afford.

I have Vista SP1 RC installed

[HeavensBlade23]

It did fix a few issues for me, most notably being the widely-reported file copy speed problem. After installing the RC my drive-to-drive speed went from 20MB/s back up to XP levels. That was one of my top-five gripes about Vista.

Re:I have Vista SP1 RC installed

[rucs_hack]

Me too. Copying from my vista machine to the other machines I own was horrificly slow. I'm somewhat concerned that they got a 45% improvement in copying to a non vista machine with the first service pack though. It doesn't speak well for their quality control if a flagship product gets released with that level of error.

I wonder if they've just quietly disabled some of that stupid drm stuff.

Re:I have Vista SP1 RC installed

[ashridah]

Let's be clear about this. Copying from disk to disk is a different bottleneck than copying over the network. Network copies are affected by the media playback QoS, AND the relative chattiness of SMB2 (the new version of the CIFS protocol that vista likes to use if it can). Media playback will put an emphasis on prioritising access to media so that it can keep the buffers as full as possible when the QoS service is active (i don't recall what it's called, sorry,) and SMB2 just uses a shitload more packets (and thus, more latency, particularly on busy networks) than SMB1 did.

The DRM components may well be having an effect as well, but it's not the only thing.

ash

Re:I have Vista SP1 RC installed

[operagost]

I don't SMB2. It's like a totally different Super Mario Bros. game. I hear SMB3 is going to totally rock, though! Rumors are that it will be featured in that "Wizard" movie that's coming out!

Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow volume

[Billly Gates]

This will bring your disk access speeds close to XP with or without sp1. SP1 from what I read mainly effects lan speeds.

With all these things going on the disk access will slow down considerable and no service pack will fix it. Most users dont care and just want their system to work so this is why its enabled by VISTA by default.

Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[headkase]

Bucking the slant around here, I bought Vista the very same day that SP1 RC1 became available exactly because of that. In a short while SP1 will be final and Vista will get incrementally better. It's been a pleasant experience for me so far, all of my software works but about 1 in 15 needs to have XP compatibility checked. UAC doesn't annoy me very often as well - maybe that's because I don't go into OS configuration screens or run XP ticked programs all that often. Now, with all that said: the day Linux runs all my games and all games are released for Linux is the day I say: "Vista? Yeah I used to use that.". Linux has everything but entertainment and for me entertainment is the primary use of my computer.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[bigstrat2003]

Vista is actually pretty good, contrary to popular opinion. I was foolish enough to install SP1 RC1 on my home computer (risky, I know), but it's worked out well for me. The only issue I did have with Vista, a really weird one where DNS would randomly stop working until I restarted, has gone away now. Much better than the last Windows service pack I installed, XP SP2 right when it came out, which broke literally half my games for some reason. In fact, Vista SP1 actually made KOTOR run somehow, which I couldn't manage before.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[Gr8Apes]

Look at MythTV...

There's my entertainment.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[headkase]

#1 ... the day Linux runs all my games ...

Accomplishable through api-translation programs such as Wine or Cedega (isn't Cedega a branch of Wine??)

#2 ... all games are released for Linux ...

Will happen when enough feedback (see first point for how to achieve feedback) makes Linux a profitable target.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

linux doesnt even have the everything but entertainment. It lacks a lot in the area of content creation as well.

Gimp is a peice of shit folks. Lets be real.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[Bandman]

I hate to play the Devil's advocate, but Wine/Cedega is a damned poor excuse for a viable solution.

I don't play PC games, so I don't have to worry about it. If I want to run Windows apps, I fire up VirtualBox, and run XP, where there aren't any of the API compatibility issues (aside from the normal Windows issues), but of course there's no 3D acceleration for gamers, so they're left without a solution.

API translations are good, but they're constantly playing catch-up, and they'll never be 100% compatible as long as they have to reverse engineer software to continue their development. Sad but true.

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[headkase]

I'm hoping they'll eventually just cover a segment of what's available: games written only for Windows before Linux took over completely (and when all (new) games are therefore written for Linux) :)

Re:Support Blender and Ogre3D!

[LingNoi]

Gimp is a peice of shit folks. Lets be real.

Maybe for professionals in the printing industry, but for someone that needs to do image editing for computer graphics it works great.

To really use the GIMP UI though you need to be on Linux where you can "right click -> Always on top" a window. That helps to keep the tools window on the top so that your "image window" doesn't go over it.

Second page says...

[christian.einfeldt]

... "Please protect your Windows investment! Don't use Microsoft products to access the Internet. Instead, go here to request a free (as in beer) CD with the latest anti-spam and anti-virus software. When your CD arrives, just place it in your CD-ROM, and reboot your computer before going on-line. You will then be able to surf the web in full comfort knowing that no viruses, spyware or spam will take over your machine. When you are ready to return to the full Genuine Windows Vista experience for running your favorite games, such as BSOD, simply reboot your machine and take the CD out of the CD-ROM before the reboot starts."

Re:Second page says...

[Ash Vince]

When you are ready to return to the full Genuine Windows Vista experience for running your favorite games, such as BSOD, simply reboot your machine and take the CD out of the CD-ROM before the reboot starts. I find that game too frustrating. I never seem to make any progress with it so I have given up and stuck with Mahjongg instead.

SP1 includes stability fixes for bios hacks!

[BitZtream]

Also coming with SP1 but not in the current release candidate, we will also be including updates that deal with two exploits we have seen, which can affect system stability for our customers.

• The OEM Bios exploit, which involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on copies of Windows that are pre-installed by OEMs in the factory.
• The Grace Timer exploit, which attempts to reset the "grace time" limit between installation and activation to something like the year 2099 in some cases.

Funny ... I don't seem to remember the bios hacks or grace period resets causing stability issues that weren't there already. I'm sure glad they are going to fix them and release them without giving the rest of us a chance to know they are safe to deploy.

Atleast it'll give the 31337 hax0rs something new to work around, keeps them off the streets, prolly requires more drugs though.

Re:SP1 includes stability fixes for bios hacks!

[0racle]

I wonder if these will show up in XP SP3 as well.

Re:SP1 includes stability fixes for bios hacks!

[VENONA]

More CPU, more RAM, now more drugs?! Where will it end!

Professionals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista SP1 Guides for IT Professionals

Who are these "professionals" that install Vista? I have yet to meet one.

Cliffs' Notes

[The Clockwork Troll]

In my opinion, here are the fixes and improvements ones that the general Windows population might actually care about:

Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices.

Enhances the MPEG-2 decoder to support content protection across a user accessible bus on Media Center systems configured with Digital Cable Tuner hardware. This also effectively enables higher levels of hardware decoder acceleration for commercial DVD playback on some hardware.

SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.

Improves power consumption when the display is not changing by allowing the processor to remain in its sleep state which consumes less energy.

Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory with many files underneath.

Improves performance over Windows Vista's current performance across the following scenarios1:
  25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine
  45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system

Improves responsiveness when doing many kinds of file or media manipulations. For example, with Windows Vista today, copying files after deleting a different set of files can make the copy operation take longer than needed. In SP1, the file copy time is the same as if no files were initially deleted.

Improves the time to read large images by approximately 50%.

Improves IE performance on certain Jscript intensive websites, bringing performance in line with previous IE releases.

Allows users and administrators using Network Diagnostics to solve the most common file sharing problems, not just network connection problems.

SP1 includes a number of changes which allow computer manufacturers and consumers to select a default desktop search program similar to the way they currently select defaults for third-party web browsers and media players. That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista with SP1. 3rd party software vendors simply need to register their search application using the newly provided protocol in Windows Vista SP1 to enable these options for their customers.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Aladrin]

"Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices."

Holy propaganda, Batman! Are we to honestly believe that Microsoft will be able to shove a new filesystem down our throats that will -only- work on what is widely being hailed as the worst operating system ever? What a joke!

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[ShakaUVM]

Nice Summary, thanks.

I'm kind of on the fence with the Vista thing. I just installed it on a new computer instead of XP simply because XP requires a floppy drive to intall RAID drivers (or slipstreaming a new install disk), both of which are a total pain in the ass. After spending a few hours with Vista, I managed to get it to look and feel like XP. With these performance fixes, I might finally be happy with it.

Well... happy with everything except the fucking green circle button in the windows explorer that does *nothing*, which replaced the very useful "up directory level" button there was there before (and they changed backspace from being "up directory level" to "back" as well, which also pisses me off). If SP1 changed that brain-dead behavior, I'd have even sent Bill Gates a box of oreos. As it is, I still think they're all brainless morons who don't understand the difference between looks and functionality.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[kamochan]

As an IT professional, I would like to highlight a few additional items (please do bear with me, a point should follow :-)

• Adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) industry standard PC firmware
• Improves reliability by preventing data-loss while ejecting NTFS-formatted removable-media
• Improves wireless ad-hoc connection (computer-to-computer wireless connections) success rate
• Improves Windows Vista's built-in file backup solution to include EFS encrypted files in the backup
• Improves network connection scenarios by updating the logic that auto selects which network interface to use (e.g., should a laptop use wireless or wired networking when both are available)
• Enhanced the BitLocker encryption support to volumes other than bootable volumes in Windows Vista (for Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs
• Enables a standard user to invoke the CompletePC Backup application, provided that user can supply administrator credentials
• Adds full support for the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n wireless networking
• Enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or "patched") while they are still in use by a running process
• SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location

Reading the list in another way: this means that with Vista SP1, Windows users will now have modern, cutting edge features such as:

• Vista can now boot on modern PCs!
• Vista now reports the actual amount of RAM installed (although it can use only 2GB of it)!
• Vista can now eject removable NTFS-formatted drives without data loss!
• Vista can now create and participate in ad-hoc WLAN networks with >50% success rate*!
• Vista now allows users to encrypt their data drives as well as the Vista system drive!
• Vista can now back up user's files even when the hard drive is encrypted!
• Vista now allows a user to actually run a backup!
• Vista now support 802.11n WLAN networking!
• Vista can now install fixes to software, without requiring a full system reboot!
• Vista now allows a user to create a folder with just one (1) UAC verification prompt!

Et cetera... in other words -- I had no clue that Vista was this badly broken to begin with. Data loss when ejecting removable NTFS volumes? Doesn't know which network interface to use? Cannot encrypt other than the system drive? Cannot backup encrypted drives? 2GB RAM limit? WTF?!?!

Boggles the mind, quite frankly... If I'd had any of the abovementioned issues in my current home/work machine line-up, I'd had probably found a new system vendor very quickly. I'm constantly moving between a number of 802.11n and g and wired networks, both infra and ad-hoc, often multi-homed, with 2 or 3 virtual machines running various Linux versions, alongside MS Word and Powerpoint, on encrypted disks both internal and removable, and yes backups are critical as this is business use. (Although we know how to make all this happen also in Linux or BSD, having things just work was why me and most of our company has moved to macs...)

Just amazing.

*) 50% figure by NOOMA**, ****
**) Based on wording "improved success rate" taken to imply a significant*** failure rate.
***) Significant = double-digit percentage figure.
****) NOOMA = Numbers Out Of My Ass.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Up directory level" is no longer useful in Windows explorer thanks to the breadcrumbs interface. Just look up in the address bar for the directory you want to go up to and click on it. Not only can you go up one directory, but any arbitrary number of directories. Alt+Left arrow is the new keyboard shortcut for up one level. I am not even sure what green circle button you are referring to.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[the 99th penguin]

Try Alt+up arrow for up one level in Explorer

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Tim C]

and they changed backspace from being "up directory level" to "back" as well, which also pisses me off

You mean they finally made the backspace key behave the same way in Windows Explorer as it does in Internet Explorer (not to mention Firefox)? About time too - I cannot tell you the number of times I've hit it in explorer only to go "Oh, yeah, up a level not back, d'oh".

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[mlts]

exFAT was initially designed for Windows CE, for embedded applications which need a filesystem that can handle larger volume and file sizes than FAT or FAT32, but where the embedded device doesn't have the CPU power for the overhead of NTFS. exFAT also supports some optional additions (such as transactions), so if an embedded appliance does have the CPU power, it can support some power failure recovery.

exFAT is not really meant as a primary desktop or server OS filesystem. Its more intended to allow video cameras to make bigger than 4GB movie files on media, allow still cameras to store thousands of photos in a directory (for example, a time-lapse camera which stores a picture every 1-2 seconds), or allow a commodity MP3 player to have a more robust filesystem than FAT.

I just hope Microsoft allows the full specs of this filesystem out, so other operating systems can understand this filesystem. Its a decent successor for FAT32, although for desktop or server duty, NTFS, ext3, xfs, jfs, etc. would be a better choice.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[ShakaUVM]

Right, because clicking on a directory name is so much easier to see/click on than the large up directory button.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't help noticing you didn't mention the copy protection and DRM improvements. You've done a nice job for Microsoft here, I hope they give you some good bennies for doing what the probably think isn't obvious viral marketing.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

About the 2 GB mem limit it is actually not microsofts fault as much as it is the hardware companys and driver-makers.

When driver-makers does their things right 32-bit windows will enable PAE automatically and thus have windows support 64 GB of memory (I think, from my memory). If they had not disabled this bad drivers could try to access bad memory-adresses and crash the system.

On the other hand: if driver makers had done their things right they would had made 64-bit driver, making it possible for more OEMs releaseing their machines with 64-bit editions of windows without consumers complaining about "this hardware does not work" (Yes, I tried windows XP x64-bit edition and all of my tried software except some idiotic web-plugins (read adobe) did work. too bad my webcam, mobile-sync program, and other hardware I like to use did not), and the 2 GB memory limit problem would also be gone as well as a lot of other 32-bit problems.

Re:Cliffs' Notes

[Aladrin]

But that still doesn't answer why Microsoft thinks they can push this format that will -only- work on their newest operating system, the very same one that people are removing to put the old system back on? The old one that Dell was practically forced to put on their list of OS's again?

If MS -did- release the specs, that would be 1 thing. But they haven't yet, and Vista supports it already.

I'm not saying the format is dumb, or that it should be used for a desktop or server hard drive... I'm only saying that it only works on the the least-popular Microsoft operating system, and nothing else.

I can only imagine that Bill said 'That is the dumbest idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft' and someone misinterpreted it.

Re:Failed to include the upgrade to Ubuntu button

[bigstrat2003]

Look, here's what the intelligent people want from you, and the others who are posting to rip on Vista. Shut the fuck up. We know you don't like Vista, and you've had an entire fucking year to make that plain to everyone. Now, when a Vista story comes along, just shut up so that we can have some sort of sensible, intelligent discussion about the topic.

I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved...

[SirLurksAlot]

even though they're issues which shouldn't have been issues to begin with. I mean, come on!:

(From the list of changes):

Allows users and administrators to control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on.

and

Improves the copy progress estimation when copying files within Windows Explorer to about two seconds.

Why in the world was defrag set to not give the user a choice on what drive it ran on? Also, why should defrag take an admin password to run??? And why the hell did it ever take longer than 2 seconds to estimate how long it would take to copy files? These are the kind of things that should never have been problems to begin with, and they're indicative of so much of what's wrong with Vista. I got Vista Home Premium with my new PC just to check it out and see what I thought, and I've seriously considered wiping it and installing XP several times. I'll probably wait for SP1 though, which I guess makes me a masochist at this point.

So long, Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using vista almost for a year now. At first, I was quite happy about it, it is supposed to have exiting new features like IO priority, readyboost, superfetch and all that. And I liked Aero at first. And better security (I must say, I like UAC, it's really no greater pain than sudo).

But it's SLOW. And while I could live with that, I just couldn't stand it hijacking my desktop. How many times did the system start doing some heavy disk IO, without ANY option to stop it. Even task manager didn't respond so I could check what was going on.

As time passed, I upgraded from a 3 year old laptop to a new one (Acer 5920G, a fine machine I must say). The only problem is, Vista is not any faster than on a 3 year old system!? Wtf??

So, the other day I was doing some linux stuff and installed Ubuntu to an external USB disk.

OH MY GOD (spoken in that-lady's-voice-from-friends-series).

It's fast. It's nice. And it's fast. And it uses only so little of my 2 gb ram. And did I tell you it was fast? Oh, and file copy is a snap!

So I've been using it for a week or so and I love it. But then... yesterday I came across this "compiz fussion" thing.

OH MY FSCUKING GOD THAT'S AWESOME!

So guess what. About an hour ago I've "cp -a /dev/sdb1 /dev/sda1". Yup. Vista no more (well, it is saved as an image on external drive, just in case).

I do a lot of .Net programming and I've set up a vmware XP box for development and virtualized XP is waaayyy faster than vista ever was.

Since SP1 doesn't solve any performance issues, I probably won't use that beast ever again. When I have to use Windows, I'll use XP.

So... Is Linux winning the desktop in 2008?

Totally!

Re:So long, Vista

[operagost]

Err... doesn't the article say that SP1 DOES solve some performance issues?

Re:So long, Vista

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Linux will never win the desktop in 2008, until it supports the dam iphone, itunes, adobe applications, and any of the other billions of windows apps that people use.

They wont go to linux.

Linux is still a pain in the ass to configure compared to windows. The average person isnt going to linux... They're going to APPLE.

Just go to your local Apple store if you have one. The one in NYC, and the one out here on the island... (long island) Is Jam packed from the minute it opens.

Apple is winning my friend.

I dont own a mac, and the times i've had to use them for work (video post production), i've found it to be rather odd, and apps do crash btw... but anyways i found it odd... but i'm not saying i couldnt switch. Apple makes it a lot easier than any linux flavor will ever.

But lets not kid ourselves, Apple is just as evil as Microsoft. They purposely fuck up windows iTunes, to drive Mac sales.

I do like my iphone and ipod though.

Re:So long, Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT YHL HAND.

Did someone actually take that post seriously?

Re:So long, Vista

[Prof.Phreak]

It depends. I've personally switched three `computer illiterate' (well, not programmers) folks to Linux. They installed Ubuntu, and guess what... they're using it. I doubt they realize it's not Windows, but... for everything they do, it just works. No issues.

They use the Internet, play games (well, card games, sudoku, etc), listen to music (mp3s) and watch movies (dvds, mostly).

Artists are a weird bunch, and there's a culture behind Apple, so... they're not gonna switch. But 90% of computer users at home don't need anything beyond basic internet terminal with music/video capability---and that's where Linux shines compared to the rest (well, price/utility).

Oh, and it makes a great server :-)

Re:So long, Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cool the dude found a solution he likes. I virtualize XP also, except my host O/S is now OSX. I got a Mac, and like you said Apple is winning. I don't really know. But I like Leopard a lot more than tiger, and I can run 2 VMs and probably more at once and they're all fast on top of stuff running in Leopard which is mainly browser/email/cog... Got a few VMs of various linuxes... Lots of things to dislike on Apple (iTunes and all that). But Steve Jobs as the benevolent dictator. I like that view. I'm nervous about vendor lock in and I did spend a lot more for to try out OSX. I've been really pissed at Apple sometimes too. But Leopard has been running for a couple weeks and I think it is a big improvement.

So I've seen Vista in the stores, and read about horror stories on slashdot. I'd love to see it become a stable fast real improvement over XP, and also hopefully completely gutted of DRM and hacked to hell and back so that people who want to run it don't have to worry about fascist activations and stuff. I leeched it off the net and I could run it in a VM, got it just-in-case. But I doubt I ever will install it. I'm a little partial to seeing MS fall flat on their face and ppl jump ship in droves. But really I guess it doesn't matter what I think, I'm not the average end-user. Oh yeah you're right about apps crashing on the Mac, a lot, and actually a lot more than on XP for me, but the O/S is stable. and updates force a reboot, reboot, reboot... I can hardly see how anyone can make fun of MS for that.

What really makes the switch to Apple bearable is VMware Fusion and bootcamp and rEFIt (for triple boot to linux too). Suppose I should mention parallels too cause I tried it first and then switched to Fusion as soon as I heard about it... you can run your bootcamp XP either native for full speed, or boot it in the VM and access your apps that aren't performance critical. If it weren't for that I'd probably be running XP as my main desktop on my iMac after a year of Tiger... I'm still hoping KDE4 gets some more improvements, but at this point, having spread myself across Gnome/KDE/XP/OSX... wtf, none of them are perfect, and they all have something good you can say about them... I like gnome the least of all though. Hate to say I like XP at all, but it's got a lot of stupid stuff I like about it even tho it's made by MS hehe...

Re:So long, Vista

[hyades1]

Dear Sir:

I am writing you on behalf of the Edsel Sonybeta Museum to request that you offer us the right of first refusal should you decide to dispose of that external drive with the Vista image.

It is our belief that an actual, working copy of Vista will in the not-too-distant future earn a place of honour in our Horace Q. Buggywhip Hall of Anachronisms & Quaint Curiosities.

I wish I could promise that I would be in the happy position of being able to offer you a great deal of money for this snapshot of a soon-to-be-bygone age. Sadly, I must say that it is unlikely ever to be worth what you paid for it.

Sincerely,

Winslow P. Fluker, Esq.

Re:So long, Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Artists are a weird bunch
 
can people please stop with this bullshit that the people who own apples are somehow more creative than other people? it's so false that it's nearly unbearable and now we have a bunch of fags in turtlenecks running around thinking that they're cool because of what they own.
 
normally people being considered cool for owning something is pretentious but we see the mighty apple hypocrisy rear it's ugly faggot head once again.

Re:So long, Vista

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Dont get me wrong. You can browse, email, im and listen to music in linux. But the average home windows user who does more than just that will find linux not entirely fulfilling.

Its still not there yet.

Again think iPhone, no itunes in linux to sync your phone. Linux is a capable os, and it is useable. It does a hell of a lot for the computer world as we know it, but it is still a very specialized os that hits a limit when it comes to the majority of desktop users who go a little beyond the basic uses.

Linux definitely hits a wall as a workstation os for content creators.

Apple will win more users over, than linux will, just because of ease of use... and there is a giant single corporation there to hold your hand at the Apple Store when you need it.

With Linux, you're alone on your own, in a world with many flavors and scary config files, dependencies etc

Re:So long, Vista

[jimicus]

Laptop disk speeds haven't increased that much lately. Certainly not with regards to seek times.

Therefore, if the thing that was slowing Vista was disk thrashing, upgrading to a newer laptop probably wouldn't have achieved much.

Re:So long, Vista

[ImaLamer]

I'm with you buddy. I'm a computer geek without a lot of money, so when I got a new position at work (and higher pay) I jumped in and finally got a laptop.

To be totally honest the copy of Vista the machine came with was a big draw. I surely wasn't going to go out and buy a copy to 'try out' so it was a great opportunity to have fun with new software (you can be a geek if you aren't at least interested in playing with Vista, or *BSD, SGI workstations from ebay, slackware, ubuntu, etc). The machine was refurbished and that discount was enough to negate the price of the Vista tax imposed by HP (I'm still reeling from the deal I got).

I found the shiny new dual core machine to be way too slow. For the first two weeks the laptop sat on the living room floor because it took to long for the machine to boot into a usable state. Hibernating didn't really help because some hidden process would start thrashing the disk on resume - to be fair this was most noticeable when the machine was hibernating for 4+ days. I caught the Ubuntu bug from Slashdot readers (and obsessed editors) and after running the Live CD I was hooked. It booted much faster, everything ran much better and the laptop replaced my desktop and HTPC as the go-to machine in the house. The oddest improvement came from running World of Warcraft under Ubuntu compared to Vista. The memory and video power used Vista itself made the game run choppy even on the lowest settings. Sure a laptop video card is usually weak, but I picked this laptop because of its touted dedicated nVidia card. Warcraft under Ubuntu was super simple to setup (copied the files over from the Vista partition to my /home/ and edited two ini files) and it ran with the options maxed out, beautifully. On my XP based HTPC (a powerhouse machine) there was such a delay alt-tabbing out of WoW that I tried not to do it much. On Ubuntu the WoW window just disappeared when I asked it to.

It just works better. I want to try this service pack though. Vista can play nice once you get under the hood, but IIRC, XP was the same way (and to be honest I like 2000 and XP cause they can behave nicely and are built well, on VMS of course. Their architecture is pretty strong, ignoring the security issues that come with proprietary kernels).

Re:So long, Vista

[gweihir]

Linux will not "win" the desktop. But what will happen is that we get several mainstream OSes from different makers (loosely used for Linux) and standardized file formats. The time were an application implementation defined a file format is over. Too many people have issues with old data and MS is one of the worst of the worse here.

As soon as theis has happened, I can run Linux, you can run something else and it does not matter, because we cans till exchange documents!

The same thing will happen (later) for applications. As soon as system interfaces are standardized as well, you can easily port apps or do not need to port them at all. It is no accident that a lot of OSS runs on OSX as well. It demonstrates what is possible. The only isolatd island left is the MS crowd. I hear that some of them are getting wise to what they are missing out on.

Re:So long, Vista

[NDPTAL85]

Apparently you've been unaware that Apple's desktop marketshare is actually increasing. Its at 7% now in the US.

As for Linux, even YOU will stop porting people over to it when you get sick of being their tech support. When those folks have problems with their Linux installs they'll have to come to you because no one else will be able to figure their systems out.

Re:So long, Vista

[rtb61]

Now, is it really that different from all the others thousands of articles that claimed that which ever version of windows, fixed which ever other versions of windows bugs, performance issues, stability and missing features claimed in advertising or we are sorry we lied but SP* of windows* actually really does fix, performance, stability, bugs and missing features promised in advertising in windows version*.

Oddly enough there were even thousands of artciles that proclaimed loudly and often that the bugs, performance issues, stability missing features never even existed in windows* that the Linux penguinistas made them all up. '"It's all lies, lies I tell you, everything is just fine, vista is perfect and doesn't need any patches, the penguinistas are committing suicide by the hundreds, they will all surrender" so sez 'Comical Ballmer'.

Re:So long, Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic. If you like vmware you may want to take a look at virtualBox, I've found it to be faster that the free vmware server on dual core machines. The networking in virtualBox does require that you read the manual, so it's a little more work.

Re:So long, Vista

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"As soon as theis has happened, I can run Linux, you can run something else and it does not matter, because we cans till exchange documents!"

Thats assuming the application is on both linux and windows. Even if its an open format, it doesnt mean there is an application to use it on linux.

In my field of 3d animation, i see the application still playing an important roll in each apps unique format.

Re:So long, Vista

[misleb]

So guess what. About an hour ago I've "cp -a /dev/sdb1 /dev/sda1".

Please tell me you didn't actually try to run that command. Just some kind of pseudocode, perhaps?

Re:So long, Vista

[gweihir]

Actually, no. It assumes that different applications for similar purposes use compatible file formats.

One task = One predominat app is a paradigm of the past. Sure, there are niches were this is still true. Especially less widely used things, as your field. But for mainstream stuff (text processing, spreadsheets, text-presentations, databases, etc.), it typically is possible to convert even today, if sometimes obscure and labour intensive. As more and more people do not need new features in the stored data, application specific formats are vanishing.

Of course, this is still abit visionary even for mainstream tasks. But we are getting there. There are the first governments that mandate storage in ISO-standardized formats, possibly because they could not read their 10 year old wird docs anymore or hat to convert them at significant cost.

Re:So long, Vista

[MindPrison]

*So... Is Linux winning the desktop in 2008? Totally!*

Yeah, I totally agree with you, I never really thought I would see the day when Linux became the "people choice" for the desktop, but the Ubuntu people know what they are doing. I have Ubuntu 64 bit installed alongside with the 32 bit vista my computer came with - and guess what I use 95 percent of the time? You guessed it! Linux, vista is just pure annoyance... the harddisk NEVER sleeps and it is annoying the bajezuz outta me, for f*** sake I have 8 gig of memory in my QUAD core computer...and they ship a lousy 2gb-capable only 32 bits yesteryear system called vista with it? My browser works faster with Linux, downloads are faster, the system is more practical in relations with file recognition....vista always complain about this and that when I want to view some files that I don't have a decompressor for and doesnt even suggest what I can do about it... Ubuntu came with easy installers both for open drivers AND proprietary (restricted) drivers and it all worked OUT of the box, no fuzz.

And Compiz? Some may call it gimmicky like Vista Aero...and hey..I guess it is, but it is still fun somehow, also quite practical if you have a bundle of programs open everywhere. I really like the Opacity-scroll-wheel function though where you can set the opacity level of each open window/program so..eg..you can watch TV behind the text...or watch people chat...while you are surfing...gives you more screen real-estate, very nifty. Ubuntu had better drivers for my Card-Reader too, this card reader that CAME NATIVELY with the HP computer..didnt even function properly under vista...oh well... Linux to the rescue once again, who cares about Vista?

Re:So long, Vista

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

yeah but different applications often do things differently. I'm not entirely sure all data is as cross compatible between applications of similar genre if you will.

An office format is a little easier than a cad file.

But it is interesting. I find it interesting how photoshop has managed to put a lot of its native PSD like info into TIFF files with layers.

I didnt say it wasnt possible, but i dont think an open format can apply to all applications and easily translate between them. I'm definatly speaking for a 3d animation point of view because things do get quite complex in each data scene... and each program does things a bit different so its not really easy to create an open format. Many have tried.

Re:So long, Vista

[gweihir]

Well, as to 3d stuff, I agree that it is more difficult, and may even be fundamentally limited in practice. But given the current mess with proprietary formats, I would say that having standardized, open formats for texts, spreadhseets, presentations and the like would be a huge and overdue improvement. More complicated things can come later. But it is embarassing to the IT profession, that processing text is a matter of what platform you do it on. That is entirerly unacceptable and decades behind the technological possibilities.

Re:So long, Vista

[Allador]

and they ship a lousy 2gb-capable only 32 bits yesteryear system called vista with it? So many things wrong with that statement.

First, x86 (32-bit) windows can use somewhere between 3.1 and 3.5GB of memory, depending on other hardware. Technically, it can go to 64GB with PAE turned on, but MS (for better or worse) decided that the support cost for poorly written drivers that failed under a PAE environment wasnt worth it, and disabled it on 32-bit windows.

So its not 2GB, its 3.something.

Second, if your laptop/desktop is an HP, then the OS disk it came with asked you when you first booted whether you wanted to install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Vista. The retail versions also ship with both 32 and 64-bit.

It's possible you got into some crappy consumer level stuff that HP wont support 64-bit on ... but that also means it cant be advertised as Vista premium ready (or whatever the up-level one is).

Re:So long, Vista

[MindPrison]

*So its not 2GB, its 3.something.* Agreed, I too remembered that it said that, 3.2 gb actually, but I've read somewhere that you can max. utilize something like 1.7 gb (eg. in Photoshop)? *Second, if your laptop/desktop is an HP, then the OS disk it came with asked you when you first booted whether you wanted to install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Vista. The retail versions also ship with both 32 and 64-bit.* Here you are a 100 % wrong - at least in DK. I did NOT get ANY choice between 32/64 bits install. The package was factory sealed and brand new. There are no disks with the machine only a harddisk. You can however create so called "recovery disks", these can not be upgraded to vista 64 bit - believe me - I've been on Microsoft support phone for hours, and they said that HP opted to deliver only the 32 bit version of Vista with this machine, and have only paid for that so it's HPs choice.

Re:So long, Vista

[Allador]

but I've read somewhere that you can max. utilize something like 1.7 gb (eg. in Photoshop)? Without PAE, processes running on 32-bit windows can only use a max of 2GB per process.

Using PAE, it can go arbitrarily large until you hit (64GB - system usage).

However, at least as I undertand it, apps must be written to use PAE, they dont just get it for free. The memory allocation & mgmt stuff has to be done a bit differently. But thats at the edge of my knowledge on this stuff, I dont do C/C++ stuff at this level.

Here you are a 100 % wrong - at least in DK. I did NOT get ANY choice between 32/64 bits install. That does suck.

I dont understand why the behavior is so different between models and classes even within the the same company.

I guess we've been lucky, the HP kit we've looked at since Vista time is all specced for 32 or 64 bit, with full support for both on HP. Maybe some lines they just dont have the drivers certified for 64-bit, and the hardware makers wont help.

There are some levels of 'works with Vista' certification that requires IHVs to release both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers to get the certification. But maybe thats not true with system OEMs or something.

I know the retail versions of the OS have both ... but I dont know anyone who buys these things off the retail shelf.

Good luck. I cant wait for a few more years to go by and we leave all this 32-bit/64-bit crap behind us, and the world just migrates to 64-bit goodness.

Re:So long, Vista

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

btw i'm all for opening up the formats. It doesnt mean that they will be cross application friendly, but it does atleast give a coder a data file they could possibly atleast read!. I'm with you on that.

does that procedure cause a re-activation?

[Anonymous Coward]

does that procedure cause a re-activation? (you're changing hardware configuration)

m10

Vista Ultimate 64-bit installs fine on 8 GB ram

[redstar427]

I installed Vista Ultimate, 64-bit, on a dual-quad computer, that has 8 GB ram, without any issue.

Re:Vista Ultimate 64-bit installs fine on 8 GB ram

[BrentH]

redstar, apparently, has something to compensate for, I conclude from his message, which has a bit too many comma's in it.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[heffrey]

I don't think it means that it took two seconds to estimate copy progress. I think it means that the estimate is now accurate to about two seconds.

But that's pure guess work because the text isn't precise.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[paxgaea]

I'm not being nitpicky (or at least I don't think so) and I honestly didn't get through reading TFA entirely (it is just painful to look at) but I would surmise that they are talking about getting accuracy of the result to within 2 seconds for the file copy, not the actual time needed to calculate the result.

Either way, from my experiences (granted, limited) Vista sucks. It is harder for me as an admin to deal with, so I can't see how it would be easier for a user to work with. Maybe I am wrong, or in the minority, but I am not a zealot for any OS but this one just seems bad.

Does it include:

[BlueParrot]

"Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to make sure." ?

Re:Does it include:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ah, a compassionate conservative. I look forward to many stirring debates with you."

One reason not to install on 64 bit

[JamesTRexx]

VMware server... I'll have to pick specific updates and avoid those that modify the original unsigned driver loading option.
I'm not going to use the 32bit version as having 4GiB would waste 1, and because it's for work running Vista is mandatory now. :-/

Too bad it seems the one hotfix in the list about file copy speed is one that needs a call to customer support.

Re:Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow vol

[ichigo 2.0]

I thought those were enabled as default in XP as well?

When does SP1 come out?! I cant take it anymore

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I run Vista 64, because XP64 has no printer drivers for my printer (s9000). I blame Canon. Canon wrote one for Vista64, but not XP64.

I hope Canon gets the big aids dick.

I like Vista in general. Yes it is slow, but there are some nice things about it. SOME.

I've been debating on going back to XP64, but i cant until i know for sure that Vista SP1 is a disaster.

I need SP1 to come out soon because i really need to know if it will actually improve Vista64, back to XP64 quality levels.

The sooner it comes out, the quicker i can decide whether or not to go back to XP64... printer be damned.

Re:When does SP1 come out?! I cant take it anymore

[petermgreen]

I run Vista 64, because XP64 has no printer drivers for my printer (s9000). I blame Canon. Canon wrote one for Vista64, but not XP64.
Did you try installing the driver they marketed for vista64 on xp64?

Re:Failed to include the upgrade to Ubuntu button

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't have a sensible, intelligent discussion about nonsense like cooking pasta in plastic frisbees. The only sensible comment is that you should get a cheap pot at the hardware store. Vista is such nonsense.

Re:The most startling "Notable Change":

[russlar]

Can we block this guy's IP? Please?

Vista shipped with a serious bug

[Anonymous Coward]

As a backup vendor, we write products which backup and restore system components. As we started developing for vista, we noticed that when we tried to do a online restore of the VSS system writer, the files would fail to copy. Something about the pre-boot process that runs the MoveFilEx files wasn't a privileged process. This turned out to be a bug that was fixed in SP1. So technically vista shipped with NO backup and restore support.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[SirLurksAlot]

Hmmmm, you could be right. Still, Vista takes forever to calculate how long a copy operation will take, and much, much longer to actually perform the copy than it would to perform the same operation on an XP machine with the same hardware specs. Vista isn't entirely bad, but there are very few features on it that are an actual improvement on XP. I do like the new explorer interface (drop down paths, which I've been told is similar to KDE) though, and program specific controls for sound are nice.

I don't really have any experience as an admin with Vista, but I've had to troubleshoot it plenty of times in tech support. I always groaned on the inside whenever a customer called in with issues with their Vista machine.

Re:Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow vol

[pla]

I thought those were enabled as default in XP as well?

Indexing no, restore yes (though I believe it works differently in XP, I still turn it off and see a not insignificant performance boost), shadow volumes no.

Though various things you install may turn those on for you, a vanilla XP SP2c Pro install has them set as I describe above.

Re:Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow vol

[Osty]

If your system is constantly creating restore points, you're doing something wrong and disabling system restore isn't going to fix that. Volume Shadow Copy service is really only used when a system restore snapshot is being taken or you kicked off a backup (either manually or through a scheduled task), so turning off VSS isn't really going to buy you much.

Indexing is a different issue entirely. You can certainly turn it off, but then you significantly cripple the search functionality available everywhere in Vista (for example, I've come to totally rely on the Start Menu's search function). If you do find that indexing is causing you problems, you can tweak a number of indexing settings, including which folders to watch for indexing. Changing watch locations is a bit of a judgement call. On the one hand, if you have a folder with documents that change often and thus kick off indexing, you might want to stop watching that folder for performance reasons. On the other hand, if the documents change often they're obviously important and so you might want to keep them indexed for quicker search access.

While I will agree that disabling indexing will definitely help performance in limited scenarios, at least for me the functionality of having it enabled completely outweighs what minor performance hit I take when it decides it needs to update the index. At least in my case it's been smart about when it starts (never had indexing run in the middle of a game or while on battery power, for example).

application and hardware compatibility?

[Animaether]

out of curiosity - which application and hardware compatibility issues are you referring to that are -not- the developer's / manufacturer's burden to correct?

Re:application and hardware compatibility?

[geekboy642]

Nobody blames the manufacturer when a shitty winmodem or onboard graphics chip doesn't work in Linux. Nope, they blame Torvalds and his band of merry dorks. "Oh, Linux doesn't work with my computer, maybe when they fix it it won't suck eggs."

Apply the same standard to Vista.

Re:application and hardware compatibility?

[pushing-robot]

Nobody blames the manufacturer when a shitty winmodem or onboard graphics chip doesn't work in Linux.

I hate cheap Winmodems and onboard graphics with a passion, and I blame the manufacturers for any problems that arise, so I guess that makes me nobody. Which is actually pretty awesome, since nobody's perfect.

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Every significant version of Windows has had software and hardware compatibility problems. And they always get solved the same way, software gets updated and old hardware dies. It's just been a while since we've had a new version of Windows and ISVs and IHVs have gotten a bit complacent.

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[bigstrat2003]

If this is intelligent discussion, then so is goatse. Bashing Vista isn't intelligent discussion, it's trolling, when it occurs in the context of a story about SP1. Intelligent discussion would be the merits/demerits of SP1, not saying "lolz people need an upgrade to Ubuntu button".

Ah, the finger of blame

[symbolset]

It's not like I haven't gotten that approach from the Redmond monopoly before.

You know what? As long as it isn't compatible with most software and hardware, whose fault it is doesn't really matter does it? It goes or it don't. Right now it don't.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[Keeper]

Also, why should defrag take an admin password to run???

Are you REALLY asking why an Admin password is required to perform read operations which effectively bypass ACL checks?

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[Planesdragon]

They failed to address the application compatibility issues, the hardware compatibility issues, the lack of a compelling new feature isssue Wait--that's IT?

That's the best you can come up with to say Vista is bad?

application compatibility: I'm sorry, apps that never followed the windows spec will fail. This is a GOOD THING. Apps that spend the hour it takes to follow the spec, well, they work. I mean, unless they use OpenGL on an ATI card. Which leads us to...

hardware compatibility: Vista is a teeny bit different from XP in the driver model. Close enough that XP drivers work for MOST things. For any piece of hardware you've got that (1) doesn't have a Vista driver, (2) won't work with the generic MS driver, and (3) won't work with its XP driver, it's the manufacturer's fault. We DO NOT want MS writing device drivers for everything.

New Features: Off the top of my head, I'll name "press one key and type to open ANYTHING", "backup to your CD-burner", "way better Wi-Fi management", and "Shadow-backups of user files". You might have a utility that does three of those for XP, but now they're integrated.

The reasons not to use Vista are, in order, a game-breaking incompatability, cost, a desire to use something else, like Linux or the Mac. If the choice is between XP and Vista, and there's less than $10 difference in price, go Vista. You know, like the decision process you use to decide if to use the latest stable version of Linux everything.

Re:Failed to include the upgrade to Ubuntu button

[bigstrat2003]

Not at all. It's my idea of a rant. I've gotten sick and tired of hearing the idiots who feel the need to bash Vista at every opportunity, and karma be damned, it felt good to vent steam.

which "Professional" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

...no sane professional has installed Vista yet, so why pretend this is intended to professional audience when mainly end-users has suffered from Vista force feed.

Moderation games

[symbolset]

Actually I'm enjoying myself today. One comment is "Insightful troll" and one is "Interesting flamebait".

Although the post reads like a troll, I was quite serious -- Thus far every Vista install I've seen lasted no more than a month. Some went back to XP, a couple decided as long as they'd made a change they might as well try something else before going back to XP... And that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, you wiped XP and installed Vista hoping for something better didn't you? Why give up after just one FAIL ?

A Vista /. thread is always going to be about axe grinding and nothing else. This is true both for the posts and for the moderation. For helpful discussion you would probably want a different forum. There you'll find helpful posts like this one.

Or you can read this helpful post about downgrading from Vista to XP. Personally I like the thread entitled "Windows Vista: Vista iTunes Video Playback Blame Game.

Here on /. this is what you get and that's the way it is.

Re:Moderation games

[bigstrat2003]

Here on /. this is what you get and that's the way it is. It shouldn't be, and the reason it pisses me off is because nothing else but Vista-related topics sees this kind of idiocy. I read topics about Macs, Linux, you name it, and everyone is generally civil and having a productive discussion. When it's a Vista-related topic (even other Microsoft topics don't have it this bad), everyone goes from normal mode, to "hate on Vista regardless of whether that's appropriate to the discussion" mode. Vista is the only topic that provokes that kind of behavior, and it irritates me, because there's no good reason for it.

Re:Moderation games

[Anonymous Coward]

yhbt

Re:Moderation games

[QuietObserver]

What I can't figure out is why you're getting so much nastiness from something that was such a clever joke.

Re:Moderation games

[Macthorpe]

What I can't figure out is why you're getting so much nastiness from something that was such a clever joke. Maybe because it's really not a clever joke. The same joke has been made about 5 times per Vista article since it was released.

In fact, scroll upwards from this comment. The 'upgrade to Linux' joke was made on this article two or three times already.

Re:Moderation games

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it, fuck off.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[dukieduke]

"Also, why should defrag take an admin password to run???"

Because it isn't set up as easy as Linux, where clearly everyone has total disk access.

Show stopper file copy bug

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the hells up with this file copy thing? Its a known issue for ages with nearly everyone online columnist and blogger cribbing about it. Is Microsoft so devoid of talent that they can't fix it even in SP1. Surely there has to be more to this than is being let on, is there some drm issue involved here.

Re:Failed to include the upgrade to Ubuntu button

[causality]

I've gotten sick and tired of hearing the idiots who feel the need to bash Vista at every opportunity

Think of it as a counterbalance, a reaction to Microsoft's need to promote Vista at every opportunity and the fact that they can make it widespread regardless of its quality. Why blame the reaction instead of the primary cause?

exFat

[kramulous]

The list of "notable changes" listed exFat and the wiki (sorry) states "free space allocation performance improved due to introduction of a free space bitmap".

I trying to figure out this "free space bitmap" and how it works. Can anybody enlighten me? Still googling.

Re:exFat

[mariushm]

They create an area on the drive where probably for each cluster or sector used, a bit is set to On, so for 8 clusters, there's a byte with the value 255 (11111111 in binary). This way, if you need to create a file of a certain size, you just have to scan for as many bytes with value 0 as needed, which is much faster than to keep in memory the position of all files on the drive and compute the free space between those files.
I'm not 100% sure about the above, but this is how I understand it.

Re:exFat

[kramulous]

Hmmm ... so they've reduced the search time from O(n) to O(m) where m = n/p, where p is an inefficiency of disk space saturation?

Re:exFat

[VGPowerlord]

You didn't know that all applications run better when screenshots of Descent FreeSpace are added?

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[causality]

They failed to address the application compatibility issues, the hardware compatibility issues, the lack of a compelling new feature isssue.

It could be argued that worrying so much about backwards compatibility is one reason (other than no incentive to care about quality until it hurts sales) why Windows hasn't vastly improved. Of course, Microsoft is in a bit of a bind on that one -- if this were not the case and users had to obtain/learn all new programs and a completely different OS anyway, then they might as well look into whether an alternative like Linux or OSX would meet their needs.

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[causality]

If this is intelligent discussion, then so is goatse. Bashing Vista isn't intelligent discussion, it's trolling, when it occurs in the context of a story about SP1. Intelligent discussion would be the merits/demerits of SP1, not saying "lolz people need an upgrade to Ubuntu button".

I can't tell which is less intelligent - expressing an honest opinion about Vista without ever representing it as factual or intelligent, or what you are doing which is 1) coming to Slashdot expecting information that is better obtained via Google and 2) getting all pissy because people (who owe you nothing) won't behave the way you want them to.

If you really want to change the nature of the discussion, how about posting your own review of the advantages and disadvantages of SP1 instead of saying "lolz people need to post the way I want them to".

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

We DO NOT want MS writing device drivers for everything.

Yeah, because then they might understand how the open-source community feels.

Yeah, that's about it.

[symbolset]

That's the best you can come up with to say Vista is bad?

Yeah, I would say "it does not work" is a fairly significant issue for most people. They don't care why all this software won't work including Novell Client, Brio Intelligence Explorer, SecondLife Client, Crystal Reports, Microsoft SQL Server (both 2005 and 2007) and the myriad apps that require that. They don't care why all this hardware won't work including VIA KT400 chipset with radeon graphics controller, many popular tv tuner cards and nearly all Adaptec RAID controllers.

What they care about is that it is their computer and they want it to do stuff that Vista won't do. There are enough problems that they're not corner cases - they are the main stream. For goodness sake how does Microsoft make an OS incompatible with any flavor of Intel NIC? Who doesn't save files from a share to a pendrive, or upload pictures from their camera? Don't you think a normal person would want that to happen in under a month? iTunes? It won't work with iTunes? You don't think people are going to consider that a deliberate failure? Or a fatal flaw?

That's it. "It won't do what I must have my computer do" is the dealbreaker for everybody I've seen use it so far.

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[petermgreen]

Microsoft SQL Server(both 2005 and 2007)
To be fair sql server 2005 has been patched ( http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/windowsvistasupport.mspx ) and 2008 (it was renamed from 2007 at some point during 2007 hasn't been release yet).

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[petermgreen]

that article on some random wiki is pretty vauge in many ways, has several 64 bit specific entries (yes backwards compatibility of the 64 bit editions of windows isn't great but that isn't a vista specific issue) and seems to list even things that have since been patched.

but generally I agree using vista right now is a pain for little real benifit but I don't see any fundamental problems that will stop it slowly replacing XP just as XP slowly replaced 2K.

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[Loiosh-de-Taltos]

Strange, my copy of Second Life seems quite happy.

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[MorpheousMarty]

For the record, I am typing this with Vista and Syncing my iPod with iTunes. So it does work with iTunes, but get this: if a video is playing off my SATA drives in iTunes, it stutters. As far as I can tell this is a Vista + nForce4 + iTunes problem, and no one is taking responsibility to fix it.

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[TheNetAvenger]

Yeah, I would say "it does not work" is a fairly significant issue for most people. They don't care why all this software [iexbeta.com] won't work

Maybe because this list is pretty much complete crap, outdate, rumor, or platform specific issues that have nothing to do with Vista.

Also don't forget that it is not MS's responsibility to fix 'badly' coded software by every donkey and their brother. If they wrote software that is crap and works like crap or does crap it shouldn't, MS can only do so much, and even in this regard the Application Compatibility system in Vista 'corrects' 1000s of software titles in realtime that are 3rd party problems, not Vista nor MS's.

It won't work with iTunes? You don't think people are going to consider that a deliberate failure? Or a fatal flaw?


Well iTunes does work, although iTunes is pretty close to crap. However considering the initial problems with iTunes were 'specifically' bad coding practices used by Apple, maybe you have an argument and should take it up with Apple that they were purposely trying to lock their customers out of using Vista...

iTunes STILL uses old rendering methods both audio and video, uses old or ancient timing practices for buffering audio/video and RAM usage (ie iTunes loves to mis-estimate local buffering and latency in a device like a HD controller can cause iTunes to hiccup.) And when I say old or outdated, they are not only outdated for Vista, or XP, but outdated for both the NT platform entirely and outdated for even standard methods, by using timing and allocation methods that would have been considered outdated in the 90s.

I think when OSX or any *nix can run 1/1000th of the software Vista does perfectly, you can start to even chime in on Vista's ability to run software. People like you also seem to have misssed all the software that died or is incompatible with Leopard, and Apple has full control of the hardware, OS, and such a small software base, if they implemented an Application compatibility system like Vista employs they would NEVER have an application fail. Instead Leopard has more software incompatibilities than Vista in terms of % of software the platform runs. -And that is REALLY sad...

Re:Yeah, that's about it.

[Allador]

Microsoft SQL Server (both 2005 and 2007) MS SQL Server 2005 works just fine on Vista. I'm on Vista Business x64 and am running MS SQL 2005 right now. It works great.

There is no such thing as SQL Server 2007. There is a SQL Server 2008.

For goodness sake how does Microsoft make an OS incompatible with any flavor of Intel NIC? By changing the driver model, which requires the hardware vendor to release new drivers (or not, as they choose). This isnt hard stuff to understand.

You say that like all Intel NICs are great. They're not. There are a whole series of them that end up in cheapy corporate kit that are basically NIC winmodems. They're garbage and they're tremendously sensitive to driver quality.

Who doesn't save files from a share to a pendrive, or upload pictures from their camera? I do both of these things on my Vista laptop, it works fine.

iTunes? It won't work with iTunes? You don't think people are going to consider that a deliberate failure? Or a fatal flaw? You say that like its even physically possible for MS to fix iTunes. iTunes is a fairly unstable, poorly written piece of software. Remember how when it first came out, it took Apple months to stabilize it enough where it wouldnt BSOD a significant percentage of computers. And why a media playback device needs to install driver level software I'll never understand.

But even if you love iTunes, can you propose an alternative? What exactly could MS have done to make iTunes work on Windows without apple having to do any work?

iTunes is just another piece of 3rd party software. They had a long, long time after late betas and RCs were released to fix iTunes on Vista. They chose not to. They chose to wait until the GA release of Vista, and then START working on stabilizing iTunes.

Mods?

[kramulous]

I don't think this is "Flamebait". Maybe "Interesting" sprinkled with essence of "Funny"

Re:Mods?

[QuietObserver]

I totally agree with you. And, in my opinion, the comment doesn't deserve a Troll, either. I think all too often, flamebait and troll mods are based on the moderators taking offense at what is being said, which isn't moderation, but censorship. The way I see it, flamebait is when the comments are deliberately inviting a counter argument with inflammatory argument, which this doesn't even come close to making, and a troll is when it's obvious the post was made to harass the majority of viewers.

Can Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

If SP1 is half as "impressive" as Vista, it should be the "greatest" product ever produced by M$

Same old story again

[symbolset]

Every significant version of Windows has had software and hardware compatibility problems. And they always get solved the same way, software gets updated and old hardware dies. It's just been a while since we've had a new version of Windows and ISVs and IHVs have gotten a bit complacent.

Except Windows ME. Everybody forgets Windows ME. Or wishes they could.

Re:Same old story again

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Windows ME. Everybody forgets Windows ME. Or wishes they could.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who basically liked Windows ME. I went from MS-DOS -> Amiga 1000 -> Amiga 3000 -> OS/2 -> Windows 95 -> Windows ME -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP -> 70% XP / 30% Linux. Yeah, ME leaked memory like a sieve, but it ran the usual mail/internet stuff just fine and ran my flight sims (Falcon 4.0 & EA F/A-18). I sincerely hope that SP1 helps out some Vista users. The combination of Vista, Office 2007, & LCS/OCS (and maybe Silverlight) show that just maybe MS is starting to unravel around the edges, but they will have their tendrils into the general computing world for a long time. Then someday maybe we'll all be bitching about the evil Google or Adobe or Apple or whoever.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[muecksteiner]

Well, YOU (the user who obviously lacks such privileges) should not be the one doing the defrag anyway.

Defrag in the technical sense should be done by an entity in the system that is both capable and trustworthy, i.e. a trusted executable, or privileged daemon, or whatever.

All YOU do is to request that a defrag operation take place - the privileged centralised entity listens to the request of the unprivileged users, and then does its thing and performs the operation. Defrag is an operation that, in itself, cannot be harmful on a global level, so unprivileged users can request it - no admin password needed. All you have to make sure is that the entity that twiddles around the actual blocks in the filesystem is trustworthy.

THAT would be a sound design (one of many, and probably not a particularly good one - just the first one that came to my mind) that does not hassle its users, and that still prevents Joe Average from fiddling with the ACLs.

Just my 0.2E-32 cents

A.

Use a VM

[symbolset]

When you go back to XP64 install it as a guest OS VM in a more rational OS. That way when you realize you haven't used it for a while you can drag the image into the trash and recover the space more readily.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[VGPowerlord]

Defrag requiring administrative privileges has a really simple answer: They don't want normal employees running it in big businesses.

RTFA or read the cliff's notes

[v1]

In reviewing the Notable Changes document, it seems the company focused on improving reliability & performance in really specific scenarios

"Among many numerous optimizatings, the speed of multiplying numbers by 1 has been improved by 28%. Expect further optimizations (such as when multiplying by 0) in SP2..."

Vista now reports the actual amount of RAM install

[anss123]

Vista now reports the actual amount of RAM installed -- I consider that a regression. Why does it matter that I got 5 gig installed if the OS can use only 3? Oh, and Intel will now be free to limit their chipsets in any way they please as long as the BIOS reports the "installed" memory.

Yes, the finger of blame

[Animaether]

but hold on... you're saying "move forward to something else (or back to XP)". Which 'something else' will magically support all their hardware (I won't bother with software, unless you want to go the Wine / Virtual machine route running XP; in which case - you didn't really move forward at all), then?

Although Vista may not support some hardware that XP did, I daresay that Mac, Linux, BSD support far less hardware (more out of the box, but add drivers/etc. for download).

So if you're saying that "It goes or it don't.", then 'moving forward' is hardly an option for most people -unless- their hardware happens to actually be supported.

anecdotal and to tie in with my subject: my capture card isn't supported in any Linux distro, nor any open source 'media center'-style app. I've asked if they could add support - they pointed the finger at the manufacturer. *shrug*

I'm all for sticking with XP if XP is what a user wants (I have Vista on only 1 machine, and only for development testing purposes), myself, for what it's worth. There's no point in getting Vista, imho, unless you're getting it with a new machine in the first place.

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[petermgreen]

I'm sorry, apps that never followed the windows spec will fail. This is a GOOD THING. Apps that spend the hour it takes to follow the spec, well, they work.
Would MS have said you were noncompliant if you checked membership of the admistrators group to check for admin privilages? IIRC UAC breaks that.

anyway whoevers fault it is that things broke the fact remain that they did. That combined with the general lower performance is not worth the new features for most users right now. IMO an operating systems job is to multitask applications and provide a vendor neutral interface between applications and hardware and to do that as fast and reliablly as possible.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, why should defrag take an admin password to run???

Um because it has direct access to the filesystem? Because defragging system drives requires the files to not be in use/locked (e.g. restart)? Because it has access to the previously mentioned files? Because it's disk intensive and degrades system performance?

Might as well ask why on earth you need admin access to install software, or why you need admin access to change system configuration, or to do system maintenance (Hint 1: defragging is a system maintenance task. Hint 2: Even on Unix, such tasks require root privileges).

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[SirLurksAlot]

Ok, I can understand that, but why would admin access be required by default for a home installation? Access could easily be set using a group policy. I'm sorry, but for a home installation admin access for defrag is overkill.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[causality]

Why in the world was defrag set to not give the user a choice on what drive it ran on? Also, why should defrag take an admin password to run???

A better question: why are they still using a filesystem that needs to be routinely defragmented? Ext2 (and 3) hasn't been that way for how many years now? I think of things like this when I hear Microsoft talk about "innovation".

How many strikes before it's an out?

[dpbsmith]

So, for the last five years we've been watching Microsoft drop most of the important stuff from Vista, on the premise that by doing so they'd get a good, clean release out of the door.

The trade press looks at... what was that called? It was not a beta, I believe it was called a "release candidate..." and everyone says, "Gee, there's really some serious suckage here." Strike one.

But the Microsoft advocates say, "Whoa, it's not the release, it's just a release candidate, it's not fair to judge it, they'll get that all cleaned up for release.

So, it's released, and the trade press looks at it, and everyone says, "Gee, there's really some serious suckage here." ("Greatest tech disappointment of 2007" is how PC World puts it). No excited early adopters running into work and saying "Oh, boy! I just bought a new laptop. You've gotta see Vista. Aero is so cool. And it's so fast! I just love it." Strike 2.

But the Microsoft advocates say, "Whoa, everyone knows there are teething pains with the first release. It doesn't mean a thing. Sophisticated buyers and corporations know that it's SP1 that matters."

SP1 was Microsoft's second chance to make a good first impression.

So, is there anyone out there saying "It doesn't matter, it's not a big deal, SP2 is what really counts?

Not to answer your question, but...

[symbolset]

There's no point in getting Vista, imho, unless you're getting it with a new machine in the first place.

Tell me you're not an IT pro. Going with the OEM install of any Windows OS is just unspeakable. You probably don't have any idea how much access OEMs sell to their image files. Almost every OEM install I've ever seen was so loaded down with crudware it would barely run at all, if it would run at all.

It goes or it don't. Once you've discovered that Vista won't go for you (and believe me, they all must try it themselves because they just won't believe it without personal experience) then why not try something else before returning from whence you left?

Many of the IT pros I've talked to about Vista are sorely disappointed. They are for the most part heavily invested in Microsoft technologies. They've taken the courses, gotten their certs. They've expended time, intellect, money and personal credibility keeping up with and moving forward these technologies they can make work. Then here comes this disgusting beast and they realize they're expected to push it like it was the Next Great Thing and it's not. They know that if they push it they're going to be the ones who lose all credibility when nobody can get it to work. The odd thing is how much they try to not hear that there's something better -- that there always has been. It's sad, really, to see an otherwise bright person in so much denial they can barely function at their job. They're unhappy, and they know that, but they don't know why.

Most of the bright people I know are free thinkers, though. They've been playing around with Linux, Mac OS, BSD and they like where they're at and where they're going. They're investing the time and intellect to increase their understanding and spending the money to get certified. Time will tell but lifeboats are seldom a bad investment when you know the ship is sinking.

Re:Not to answer your question, but...

[jo42]

What needs to happen is that these "IT pros" need to speak up and say "Vista is a stinking pile of poop! Don't buy into it."

Try this for a Vista "feature": Leave the power management settings alone. Start to copy several hundred megabytes of data off of a Vista machine to somewhere else via xcopy in the Command Prompt. After one hour, about 20% of the way thru the copy, Vista will put the machine to sleep - WTF?!?!

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[aidan folkes]

Well, on my Vista system, there is a scheduled task called "ScheduledDefrag" once a week running under the SYSTEM user account. There is also a "ManualDefrag" task that can be activated at any time. It also runs under the SYSTEM account. I have not changed this configuration ever, so I assume it's the Vista default.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[muecksteiner]

Right, which is why you don't have to type in the admin password every time the scheduled defrag runs.

BUT: why doesn't a mechanism exist that allows you - as normal user - to trigger such a privileged defrag run? As far as I can see, there is no compelling reason why it could not have been done that way.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[aidan folkes]

BUT: why doesn't a mechanism exist that allows you - as normal user - to trigger such a privileged defrag run? As far as I can see, there is no compelling reason why it could not have been done that way.

As far as I can see, it's because scheduling/running tasks requires admin permissions. I think the thing that most people don't realise is that under the hood Vista is really Server 2003 with a lot of gloss on top to make it easy to manage. If you delve into stuff like the task scheduler, policy editor, event viewer and computer management you begin to realise just how much power an "administrator" user can wield.

Universal Vista Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Mac or Go Back

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[muecksteiner]

The power of admin users is all fine and dandy, and Server 2003 ist a good, stable workhorse system.

However, the fact remains that there is something missing here: you - as Joe Average - should have an easy way to talk to a service (daemon in UNIX parlance) which will do a job for you that requires more privileges than you actually have.

USE SYNCTOY!!!!!! by MS too

[cheekyboy]

Use synctoy, its MSs attempt at an rsync clone which is quite ok, though could be better for once off 'copys'

It does all you want, the way you want it, its what should be in the OS by default!!!

Im sure explorer has 15 years of legacy code and exceptions and 100 levels of tree decisions, its probly why they
dont want to change too much, especially if its bad code thats been cleaned up.

Re:Specific scenarios? synctoy dude

[cheekyboy]

You could have just used synctoy, and saved your coding efforts.

SyncToy
SyncToy: the smart way to copy files, at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

What Does SyncToy Do?
SyncToy synchronizes the files in folders of your choosing. It does so by copying, renaming, and deleting files.
What's So Special About SyncToy?
There are many ways to copy files in a Windows® environment. However, SyncToy is faster, easier to configure, more transparent, and easier to repeat than:
Using Drag and Drop from Windows Explorer,
Using Copy or XCopy from the command line,
Building batch files and/or scripts to automate file copy operations,
Using offline folders, or
Using Windows Briefcase.
How Does SyncToy Deliver These Benefits?
SyncToy helps you save time, minimize network usage, and save disk space by only copying when necessary.

The simple, fast, and familiar Windows interface lets you point and click to define your folders and the SyncToy actions you want performed on each folder pair. You choose the appropriate action when you create a folder pair, and the action determines how SyncToy handles file conflicts such as:

Files that have been renamed in both folders,
Files deleted from one folder and renamed in the other,
Files renamed in one folder and modified in the other, and
Many other file conflict situations.
SyncToy enables you to save how you want your folder pairs synced so you can sync again and again with a single click of a button.

SyncToy lets you sync a single pair of folders or all of your folder pairs with a single click. You can even set up SyncToy to run unattended .

The powerful preview feature in SyncToy shows you exactly what is going to happen before any files are touched. Preview even gives you a chance to unselect any proposed actions before you start.

most things? Bolony... PS maybe.

[cheekyboy]

How many apps require more than 2 gigs ram? buggy leaky apps? Firefox? (if it was diff process per tab it wouldnt)

Seriously, you would need to push hard to use more than 2gig ram per one app, DBs are split between multiple processes and threads etc... the cache would
be the largest path.

In any case, any 32bit app can use 64bit numbers.

Its truely rare for any app to need access to >2gig ram in one second, anything infrequent can be cached etc...
HD video editing might need it, but still not hard for 32bit apps, maybe CAD programs that use 2 billion rivets when designing a space station?

My point is that its only beneficial for hardcore servers and high end stuff.

Very few people do cad3d or HD video editing in proportion to all users. Still usefull, but its hardly a hobby requirement.

Re:most things? Bolony... PS maybe.

[UnknowingFool]

How many apps require more than 2 gigs ram? buggy leaky apps? Firefox? (if it was diff process per tab it wouldnt)

The limitation is not with just the apps. 32 bit Vista like 32 bit XP cannot address more than 3.1 GB of RAM regardless of how much is installed. Microsoft recommends that Vista computers have at least 1GB RAM. Vista will run with 512MB but that's the minimum. So if you install 2GB RAM, you're okay but half the RAM is already used by Vista. However if you install 4GB RAM, you're wasting almost 1GB as 32 bit Vista can't access it. That's what the OP was complaining about.

What the SP1 Guide REALLY says...

[Khyber]

"You're better off using Windows 97" (No, it's not a mistake, Europe had Windows 97.)

Re:What the SP1 Guide REALLY says...

[Farmer Tim]

No, it's not a mistake, Europe had Windows 97.

It's factually accurate, but that doesn't mean it's not a mistake.

Re:What the SP1 Guide REALLY says...

[Khyber]

Point Taken. ;) However, funnily enough. Windows 97 had none of the issues Windows 98 had. That's really strange.

Re:Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow vol

[dbIII]

Shadow volume is really all that distinguishes a toy you cannot backup from a operating system that you can backup.

Hate comes from fear

[symbolset]

But since you're so nice have a fun video of XP running in a VM under Ubuntu.

Nice graphics, eh? I wonder if Vista SP5 will compare - or be as compatible.

Re:Specific scenarios? synctoy dude

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Wish I could edit posts. As I replied to the other replier, I wrote the program in 1996 it took maybe an hour or two.

SP1 modifies the text in the Ultimate Extras...

[Shemmie]

...SP1 modifies the text in the Ultimate Extras Control Panel to describe the Ultimate Extras program in more general terms. LMAO, superb. I'm assuming "Thanks for the money, chump, we'll get back to you on actual extras" is deemed "more general terms".

my own Vista guide...

[Tumbleweed]

...wait for XP SP3.

Running service pack 1 now

[hklingon]

...well, the release candidate anyway. It does fix some issues, but Vista just doesn't feel stable. Period. It is very hard for us to make the business case for vista because it doesn't seem to hold up well under load. What do I mean? Well, things like Mega-Tasking with lots of apps open, lots of I/O, lots of network activity.. it craps out in strange ways.

We've been using vista 64 business for over a year (because if we didn't use it on our work desktops we wouldn't properly test it..eating your own dogfood..and all that) and in no short order we have experienced all sorts of fun issues. Just off the top of my head:
*unstable video drivers (crashes, black screens, etc. SP1 makes this worse)
*slow file i/o
*explorer is unresponsive (its just like on windows 98 when some program in the co-operative multitasking would flake out and take the system with it.. except command prompt windows continue to run just fine)
*the tiff viewer that comes with vista is broken. the solution from ms? use the office 2007 document viewer. Nevermind the "new improved" built-in fax stuff on vista.
*backup with vista has never worked (maybe in sp1 its ok?)
*attempting to uninstall sp1 rc1 resulted in bluescreening (whee)
*users that want to change the font or size run into Serious Issues with minor changes.. text cutoffs etc
*random window placement/size issues on multiple monitors
*people that like to use the keyboard in the default save/save as dialogue cause all sorts of weird issues if they hit arrow keys. google this one... its weird
*explorer isn't smart about huge files and generating previews.. big images cause explorer to hang which seems like the whole system
*have I mentioned horrible performance?

SP1 Vista Driver Crash and Slow File Copy Whee.

At one point forums.nvidia.com had 110+ pages of people having driver issues in one thread. I can attest that things have not improved to xp-levels of stability in the past year.

I really, really hope Linux continues growing exponentially. Good windows app support on linux would be golden. I am super impressed by wine at this point.... so tempting.

Re:Running service pack 1 now

[Allador]

explorer is unresponsive (its just like on windows 98 when some program in the co-operative multitasking would flake out and take the system with it.. except command prompt windows continue to run just fine) It's interesting that you bring this up.

In my experience, also on Vista business x64 (on an hp compaq 8710w laptop), the explorer issue where it hangs if anything (including the network) hangs, is completely fixed in vista.

I've actually never seen the shell/explorer hang and go unresponsive on Vista. Not once. Individual apps that hang degrade gracefully, by getting 'faded' out when you try to interact with them.

Hopefully what you're seeing is a hardware/software specific issue ... as thats the thing I've been most happy about on Vista so far. The shell is just bulletproof, and never hangs. At least for me.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[VGPowerlord]

So that not just anyone can run it on a family computer?

Little Girl: Hey mommy, what's this "defwag" pwogwam I keep stawting and stawping wepeatedwy?

The VM solution

[symbolset]

You're on to something there. Here is a sample of XP running under Ubuntu. It's stable, it can be secured. You can use all the free stuff that's a couple clicks away for all Linux users - an embarrassment of choices actually. It supports all of your processors and memory. It's updated more often. It's more secure - and not in the context of "the most secure Windows ever" either. It doesn't have millions of malware applications. Drive-by installs are unheard of. The only anti-virus available is just in case you happen to be serving mail to vulnerable Windows clients.

All that and you can open up a copy of your base VM and if it gets exploited or its configuration goes haywire or something you can just delete it and open a new copy. If it crashes it doesn't take the computer with it. You can keep all the licensed software you paid so much for - and your XP software doesn't expire or phone home and it works with everything XP does except a few games - and fewer every week. Using Samba you can share work folders from the real computer to the VM so your precious data isn't hostage to your flaky Windows environment any more than it must be in order to use all those Microsoft Apps in the first place. Remember to store stuff you care about in portable formats.

Yeah, I like that plan. When you upgrade your computer you can just copy the VM over and it will run again just fine. When you realize you haven't used it in a long time because Windows is like, so last century you can just move it to offline storage and forget it - or move it to a server and remote in. Migration has never been this easy before.

And portable in ways that Windows never has been? How running XP on the PS3 under linux grab you? It apparently grabbed the attention of 700,000 other people. Localization for the OS and apps on a scale Windows has never had and never will - the foreigners will like that.

And well, it looks nice too. From the number of views on this one I would say Vista users are suffering a little bling envy.

How is this not moving forward again?

Customer Experience Improvement Program

[conureman]

"To help improve the quality of SP1, installing the RC version of SP1 will activate the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) for the computer regardless of the previous settings. This program will be activated until SP1 is uninstalled. CEIP collects basic information about computers and how users use the product."

Are you running broadband? Perhaps the data buffering for the uploads to momma is overtaxing your swapfile. For windows I partition about four gigs on the outer rims of one of the drives (E:, usually)that is for swaps.

Re:Customer Experience Improvement Program

[conureman]

"Users who did not opt-in to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) will be prompted again to join after installing SP1. The experience will remain the same and the default will continue to be opt-out."

I guess I need to read ALL TFA before I post. The previous MS quote misled my beliefs until corrected by the newthink MS quote. MY humble apologies. Does anybody know what the default really is? I haven't upgraded since xp-64.

Re:Customer Experience Improvement Program

[conureman]

Okay, I was kidding about how much resources the uplink to the mothership uses. It was the alleged reconfig that bothered me. But how much resources are used to constantly refresh the latest Britney Spears templates from the RMS Server?

"Enables polling of RMS server at regular intervals to identify new templates and download them to the local template store."

Seems like a significant load is possible. What sort of algorithm are they running?

Re:Customer Experience Improvement Program

[Allador]

RMS isnt what you think it is.

It's a corporate tool for controlling access to corporate documents. MS isnt running RMS servers that you connect to. CEIP is pretty boring vanilla instrumentation. You may not want to release the info, but it is one of the things you can do to help make the product better.

Nope - the new game in town is OLPC

[cheros]

If you look what gets Microsoft and Intel BOTH seriously worried, it's a little cheap laptop made for kids in 3rd world countries, and there are a number of damn good reasons for that.

(1) It shows IT doesn't have to cost buckets of money. The power in an OLPC is so low you can probably emulate 10 concurrently on your average Linux desktop and they'd still be faster - so why are we producing so much landfill? Faster animated cursors (those who have tried Vista know *exactly* what I'm talking about)?

(2) It shows both MS and Intel up as the resource wasters they are. AMD has seriously kicked ass with the chipsets they have produced there, and it shows clearly that Intel is hanging on to the 'top' position in more or less identical ways as Microsoft (the recent "leaving" OLPC events have proved that once again): FUD. It would be nice if they could actually deliver something instead, but I guess (like with MS) *THAT* would cost effort.

(3) It demonstrates that intelligent, user focused design does not depend on the existing paradigms. Negroponte's team came up with a new way of doing things, and it's *seriously* good. So good that it MUST be stopped or it will show up clubs like MS as the non-innovators they are. Let me remind you to compare the size of Negroponte's team (minus the Open Source component here) with the huge amount of 'top' people working for Microsoft? That THEY can't produce innovation is a sign they're seriously mismanaged.

If you're an intelligent shareholder you should see by now that the show is over for MS and Intel. Sure, they will continue to produce revenue but neither have created any kind of real innovation in over a decade or so, and the tide is turning against the methods they use to hang on to their position in industry despite those flaws.

You could say that OLPC is a bit the Nintendo of the computing world. Someone sat down and went back to basics: WHY do we use something? In Nintendo's case the answer was "fun", and the Nintendo Wii was born which totally nuked the "more/faster graphics/computing power" race. I see a similar thing happening with OLPC. All it takes is a next version made for adults and all hell will break lose. And in my opinion that can't happen early enough.

Re:Vista now reports the actual amount of RAM inst

[Extide]

Geez could you guys STOP SPREADING FUD about this already.

32bit vista CAN support 4gb of ram. So can any 32-bit XP, and S2003. In fact 32bit s2003 can support 64 GB.

You need two things for this to work (and THIS ALSO APPLIES TO LINUX):
-PAE enabled in the kernel
-BIOS memory Remap

Now the reason you 'cant use' some of the ram near 4gb is because all kinds of other stuff in the system (like all your video memory, puls much more stuff) need virtual memory addresses that must lie in the 0-4gb range. When you enable the BIOS remap it maps all those things above the default 4gb.

DRM improvements

[conureman]

Yes this is doubleplus good. I like that the DRM is so diligent, And the RMS Server has been enhanced for us. Thank god somebody's thinking of the children.

Re:This is the sensible discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

We DO NOT want MS writing device drivers for everything.

Why don't we want this? They charge enough to coer the deelopment costs.....

To be fair?

[symbolset]

That page leads to a link, Readme for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2 which says:

5.5.1 Scripting Incompatible with Microsoft Windows Vista In this release, Microsoft Visual Studio for Applications (VSA)--the scripting development environment and run-time engine that the Script task and Script component in Integration Services use--is incompatible with the final version of Windows Vista. If a computer is running the final version of Windows Vista, you cannot use that computer to edit or debug scripts in Integration Services, nor run Integration Services packages that contain scripts.

Let's just add that to the incompatibility list, shall we? Development tool and all the applications ever developed with it.

Thanks for the link. So the database runs, that's compatible, if the app that requires it installs and/or permits SP2. Yay. No SSIS scripts though. I've never used SSIS, but I bet somebody thinks that's important.

Let's see what Microsoft has to say about SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), shall we?

This paper discusses the challenges that face businesses that rely on data integration technologies to provide meaningful, reliable information to maintain a competitive advantage in today's business world. It discusses how SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) can help Information Technology departments meet data integration requirements in their companies. Real-world scenarios are included.

Hmmm. Reliable. I don't think that word means what they think it means. I should think if I relied on their reliable SSIS to maintain a competetive advantage and then discovered the very next year that it was incompatible with the OS that was in Beta when it came out, that would be the last time I relied on that particular vendor.

Y'know what? If you have any more corrections to this thread, why don't you go ahead and just post them to the wiki. It's a wiki, y'know. You can fix what's wrong with it if you disagree with it - but it seems to be more reliable than your information. Anyway, Mary Jo Foley seemed to like it. On a completely different note, she's blogging today about Microsoft relenting on the disabling older file formats issue. A reminder to those that don't know: Microsoft chose to disable access to some older file formats because it couldn't be bothered to clean up the code that opened those file types. They didn't do it because they wanted to render archived documents unreadable or to force people to buy newer versions of Office as some here have claimed.

Re:To be fair?

[Allador]

You're really reaching here, arent you?

Script components are a tiny niche piece of SSIS. SSIS works in general quite well.

And then your rant about reliability. Well, if you think its reasonable to run production database ETL processes on a desktop (ie, Vista), and that causes reliability issues for you, then I think you may not have the best thought out environment.

If you want something real to complain about ... pick something real. For example, it's ridiculous that VS2005 has as many issues as it does on Vista. You basically need to be running VS 2008 if you want everything to work right on Vista. Thats a shame, and how long it took them to deal with it was a shame.

Thats a real issue. Your multi post on a tiny little issue of mssql 2005 is not.

Regarding new features

[ribond]

In nt4 sp2 Microsoft added a bevy of features; the net effect of this was that they spent nt4 sp3 re-stabilizing the OS. The experience from this release led to a policy preventing feature creep in service pack releases.

The objection to Vista sp1 (that they haven't added features) is likely attributable to that policy change. The goals for the service pack are all around stabilization, reliability and performance, none of which are aided by new widgets.

I'm happy with it, rc1 is running well. The service pack fixed the issue that was killing vista for me (around trustedinstaller eating my processor) and gave me back a functional OS.

hallelujah.

Re:I'm glad to see so many issues being resolved..

[Anonymous Coward]

Joe Average shouldn't even have to know about defragmenting the drive in the first place; the system is more than capable of handling the operation itself. Which, you may notice, is what Vista does.

The people don't care. It doesn't work.

[symbolset]

Also don't forget that it is not MS's responsibility to fix 'badly' coded software by every donkey and their brother. If they wrote software that is crap and works like crap or does crap it shouldn't, MS can only do so much, and even in this regard the Application Compatibility system in Vista 'corrects' 1000s of software titles in realtime that are 3rd party problems, not Vista nor MS's.

Let's have a look at some of that software that is crap and works like crap or does crap it shouldn't as you so eloquently put it. It appears that the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2 has something called Visual Studio for Applications - the scripts for which are not compatible with Vista.

5.5.1 Scripting Incompatible with Microsoft Windows Vista In this release, Microsoft Visual Studio for Applications (VSA)--the scripting development environment and run-time engine that the Script task and Script component in Integration Services use--is incompatible with the final version of Windows Vista. If a computer is running the final version of Windows Vista, you cannot use that computer to edit or debug scripts in Integration Services, nor run Integration Services packages that contain scripts.

Can we forgive Microsoft for not supporting a development tool that was updated last August and still isn't compatible?

What else might use Visual Studio for Applications? Apparently it was an early version of .NET. Microsoft seems to be in the process of memwiping it from their webservers. This is not the web development platform of the future you were looking for. Google remembers though. If it weren't for Google and archive.org the only thing we'd have to remember this aborted plot is all the applications that won't run any more.

I know I'm preaching to the deaf and blind here - that you're trying not to hear me. Compare all of the apps that will run on Vista with the apps that will run on Ubuntu using a virtual machine with XP and you see where the problem lies. We don't need to buy new Windows any more. Since Vista lacks any compelling feature, isn't better looking, is less secure and comes inseparable from a metric ton of WTFWYThinking? using it is pointless. We can keep all our expensive software and use it on all-new shiny hardware and we don't have pay Suckage Assurance for the continuing right to do so.

And no, I don't have any sympathy for people who throw their money away on DRM infested iTunes videos, nor whether they play on vista with any sort of hard drive or chipset, unless they're paying me to care. They care, though. More than they care for Vista, I'll tell you.

Shame

[FunkyRider]

What a shame, the best that Vista can do is to get its ass back to the XP level, so why do we have to downgrade in the first place?

Re:The people don't care. It doesn't work.

[TheNetAvenger]

Going to stop your idiocy at the 'Microsoft Software' examples... As I stated, the list is inaccurate, even others reponding to this specific thread have pointed this out to you and others, and all of these applications run fine on Vista, and even ran fine on Vista at release with or without the specific patches that were also available then. There are some 'specific' code examples that carry over from the early Win32 days when it was also a Win9X environment, so some of the scripts and code fail because it was created in the non-NT consumer days and simply fails with Vista's enforced NT security. PERIOD.

Now go back to iTunes, and one year later explain to your friends while Apple can't write or update an application to use common coding techniques from the last 10 years so that it isn't using an 'aged' method to predict local or remote buffering and failing miserably, so that if you have a fast HD control or fast connection that will have occasional latency, the freaking songs skip. This is what you call 'crap' software, and should be freaking embarassing to Apple at the very least.

I have two developers that in a matter of 8 or less hours could get iTunes working properly on both XP and Vista where there are still issues because Apple is a horrible software company when it comes to producing code on anything but their toy box and expect all users and platforms to 'adhere' to their 'godly' ways because they are Apple. You know, even little crap, like how Quicktime use to maximize the installation application over the entire desktop and taskbar on Windows during installation, assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...

Ok, I've been trolled.

[symbolset]

I was way past bored with beating you guys with the cluebat and was ready to give up this thread. I don't know how much you're getting paid for this but I'm on my own time and I've got better things to do than try to teach a pig to sing.

You know, even little crap, like how Quicktime use to maximize the installation application over the entire desktop and taskbar on Windows during installation, assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...

And then you had to go and say that. I can't let you go misleading the newbies like that. Listen, Mr. "I have two developers": I was writing code for Unix on my huge graphical X terminal multitasking all day so long before Gates and Company had heard of multitasking that they hadn't even stolen the idea for graphical windows yet. I believe at that time they were still trying to figure out that whole "subdirectory" concept. It would be more than a decade before they could figure out that preemption is better than cooperation. The crud they made back then was positively heinous but you had to know better to know how truly bad it was. You can not has multitasking. Not yours.

So as long as I'm here, on my preferred platform if the video player whose interface I liked got a flaky update that caused video to stutter, I'd fix it. I'd revert the version or click the source package download and bind in a video library and widget I liked using Eclipse and GPP. I wouldn't have to have somebody do it for me and it wouldn't take eight hours either. I really don't care that in some cases iTunes doesn't work on Vista unless at that moment someone is paying me to make it work. What I think is pertinent to the discussion is that so many things don't work on Vista that people are starting to see that the emperor has no clothes.

Your attack on the credibility of my sources is hollow too. If you have a better authority than Microsoft's own website on whether Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is compatible with Vista, I'd like to see it.

You know what this whole thread lacks? More than one person that has tried more than one of these apps successfully.

Enough. G'night.

Re:Ok, I've been trolled.

[TheNetAvenger]

hadn't even stolen the idea for graphical windows yet. I believe at that time they were still trying to figure out that whole "subdirectory" concept.

This is where we find out you are semi-retarded... Microsoft may be the evil monster in your closet, but they do employ the TOP programmers, theorists, engineers, and spend more on research than most other tech companies combined. If you really want to pick at Microsoft, find a credible topic like WinME, but I would stay clear of the minds they employ and little things like the NT architecture, which is to date still 'more' advanced than any other consumer OS kernel/architecture. I think you should go find a history book and leave your pet peeves for Microsoft under your tinfoil hat.

As for poorly trying to attack the NT platform for multi-tasking, you REALLY need to look up the process and thread manager in NT and the non-binding client/server kernel that doesn't have problems like monolithic kernels do, like the kernel in OS X that Apple has had to add a few tricks to so that the monolithic nature doesn't choke when multi-tasking kernel level API calls.

As for Quicktime and Apple's ability to create a 'credible' application on an alternative platform, they truly suck. From the horror Safari release, to the history of products they have tried to release and ended up running with their tail between their legs. Quicktime is horribly coded, uses horrible methods for how it handles its codecs, and virtually uses 1980s timing concepts when trying to stream, buffer, or play any audio or video content. A good IT person can take Quicktime and make it hiccup and skip on ANY Windows installation, and yet it is virtually impossible to do the same with WMP, WinAmp, etc. In fact, a good Mac IT person can show users how Quicktime can too easily choke on OS X as well, which is not only scary, but extremely sad, as Apple 'use' to be a multimedia leader.

If you want to further try to argue the multi-tasking issue as a Windows Vista issue, go look up BeOS, and arguments for real-time scheduling for multi-media. Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS that uses realtime scheduling for multi-media, something OS X just can't do.

You are biting off more than you can chew, you have no idea who this hornet nest you are smacking belongs to.

Re:Disable indexing, restore point, and shadow vol

[Allador]

Volume Shadow Copy service is really only used when a system restore snapshot is being taken or you kicked off a backup (either manually or through a scheduled task), so turning off VSS isn't really going to buy you much. On Vista, VSS makes a copy of every file in the OS that changes, and keeps some number of these old versions on disk and available. This is one of the things on Vista that slows down file access somewhat. It's alot more intrusive than VSS on prior versions was.

Now mind you, if thats a valuable feature (roll back to previous version of a file without going to backups), then its a great feature. But it does come with a cost.

There we go.

[symbolset]

Much better. Thanks.

A well considered argument with facts I can take. Now I'll go bash this twit one more time and go to bed.

Vista SP1 Guide in 1 sentence

[EdIII]

Downgrade to XP :)

LOL.

I know this runs the risk of being modded as trolling or flamebait, but seriously.... it was targeted at IT professionals.

I am one. XP, especially with SP3, does run better than Vista SP1. I just logically have to use the most stable platform and I feel that Vista is still in the beta stages even at SP1.

So now that I have said that... Mod AWAY :)

easy way to resolve all vista issues

[Meziked]

I will go step by step on how to resolve all issues with vista.

step #1: back-up data
step #2: format drive
step #3: Install working OS of choice.

After all steps are complete you will notice a considerable improvement of computer performance. The need for prozac or other anti-depressants will disappear. Your whites will be whiter, you will live 20% longer and your wife will enjoy your bold new confidence!

(Believe it or not my "anti-bot" word was hateful)

NetAvenger, you ignorant twit

[symbolset]

Microsoft does hire bright minds. It's a pity what they do to them. And with them.

As for poorly trying to attack the NT platform for multi-tasking,...

The "NT platform" didn't invent multitasking. They cribbed it from the Mach kernel with the help of Dave Cutler. That's what they meant by "Unix underpinnings". Unfortunately, like a psychotic french chef, they'll adopt the best recipe for bouillabaisse but they don't like the flavor until they pee in it. The result was so hideously insecure it nearly broke the Internet - and that's saying something. The Internet was designed to survive nuclear war, but Code Red nearly broke it. I will concede that NT was the first useful Windows platform - but not that better alternatives didn't exist even then.

You evade the point that by the time NT came out in 1992, Unix had had multitasking for more than 20 years. Let's not forget your statement, shall we?:

assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...

... As if .mac were the only alternative. Lovely. Say what you want about .mac and nobody cares. OS X is Unix. When Windows is a Unix, get back to me, k? Did you know OS X server has drag and drop clustering, and network imaging built right in? I didn't think so.

Disparage Apple's video playback all you want. I don't care for any DRM'd format so you're not going to bother me. I would bet a week's pay you couldn't decode a token string into a framebuffer using only the specification and C between now and the end of your pitiful existence, but I can and you miss the point: iTunes users care enough to avoid Vista, and that's the only thing saving this post from being off topic.

If you want to further try to argue the multi-tasking issue as a Windows Vista issue, go look up BeOS...

Cute. You're bringing up BeOS. You don't even do your homework well enough to check my slashdot user page where my favorite quote sits:

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." Jean-Louis Gassée, former CEO, BeOS

And you have the gall to call me semi-retarded.

Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS....

You know, if you narrow the scope of that statement any more it's going to disappear entirely. Who decides "major"? Who decides "consumer"? I'm asking because Shuttle has just announced a box that's going to clean your clock, the eee is sweeping the world, the olpc is selling in the millions of units and for years you have been able to buy a Linux PC at Wal-Mart, including the $200 PC I'm typing this on (but I got it from zareason and it works just fine, thanks, and no it's not my only one).

Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS that uses realtime scheduling for multi-media, something OS X just can't do.

OK, let's talk about the Vista scheduler a little bit. You've got some insight into this you would like to share. It's completely fa

Re:NetAvenger, you ignorant twit

[TheNetAvenger]

The "NT platform" didn't invent multitasking.

This is why you are semi-retarded. Even the beginning of your response you start arguing something I never claimed, nor purported to claim - especially since I was developer at Xerox and worked with multi-tasking platforms when you were still shitting yourself.

I didn't even read the rest of your post, the ignorance of the NT 'creating' multi-tasking was enough to see you are not worth the time.

I suggest you go find articles on the crap you are trying to argue and actually learn something, instead of trying to find support for your idiotic points. Pick stuff from the great minds on all sides of the aisles and quit freaking drinking a religion or kool-aid.

You probably think I'm a MS hack and ironically, if you are using ANY *nix, a lot of the stuff you are using comes from projects I was either involved with in ways that would make you go holy crap.

Like I warned you before, you have no idea who you are trying to talk down to, and the condescension is not going to get you very far, as I can easily bury you without the need for cute 'wiki' reference links. The stuff you are still finding wonderful, is crap I was designing or coding over 20 years ago.

Re:NetAvenger, you ignorant twit

[symbolset]

Pick stuff from the great minds on all sides of the aisles and quit freaking drinking a religion or kool-aid.

Stuff from the great minds on one side of the aisle is valuable intellectual property they're entitled to not share, and I'm moral enough not to want it if they don't want to share it.

The stuff you are still finding wonderful, is crap I was designing or coding over 20 years ago.

I found it wonderful then. These days the stuff I find wonderful is the stuff everybody can use and improve, like was the case back then. If in some way your contributions advanced the art, well, thanks for that.

You probably think I'm a MS hack...

That would be my current guess, yes.

Re:NetAvenger, you ignorant twit

[GaryPatterson]

The stuff you are still finding wonderful, is crap I was designing or coding over 20 years ago.

Not that I doubt your word more than anyone else here, but can you give details to substantiate this? It's pretty easy to claim all sorts of things here in the relative anonymity of Slashdot, making such claims essentially worthless.

Is this an admission?

[Avatar8]

By the list of fixes, isn't this equivalent to Microsoft admitting "Yes, Vista is broken."

Definitely does not sound as if these are enough improvements for me to try Vista again. I knew users and customers using Windows 98 until 2007. I'm sure XP will last until the next version of Windows that works.

You are right

[symbolset]

I get the need for Microsoft to have a presence on these boards to correct misinformation, equalize the marketing message and in general leverage the free forum to capture mindshare.

This guy though is doing it wrong. The net effect is negative if he just keeps aggravating me into posting links to disprove his crackpot theories. The OMG Vista R0xorz enthusiasm just isn't credible. The message that gets out is the most interesting and informative links I can post. Believe me I can keep that up forever and his objective will not benefit.

What I'm saying I guess is I need a better quality astroturfer assigned to me.

And just to touch the topic, Vista SP1 doesn't look this good, at least not to me.

One issue

[symbolset]

One of the biggest barriers to Vista adoption is that people don't know what it's incompatible with and trying every feature of every app is terribly time consuming. I know the list I quoted is out of date. If Microsoft would just publish the real information, or at least retask some of these astroturfers to create a current list on this wiki - which btw is what you find when you google vista incompatible - uptake would probably be a lot better.

I can't believe I just did that. Ew.

So you have any info on how soon Hyperion will be supported? For once I really want to know.

Re:One issue

[Allador]

Yeah, its not simple. I'm the only vista box in my company so that I can figure out all the breakages and pain, and prepare the rest of our staff to support it. And to make sure our software works on Vista. (it does, and did so without any modification. but we make boring (but profitable) business software.)

Cant speak to Hyperion. It's not a product we use or support.

It's a real shame too, because there were many a software company that used an embedded IE for a large chunk of their app UI on windows systems for rich client apps (*cough* quickbooks *cough*). This looked promising a while ago, but is a major disaster now. A number of companies got burned by that when IE started getting all locked down and not very useful any more.

Re:NetAvenger, you ignorant twit(Back to you Jane)

[TheNetAvenger]

This is a great straw-man argument, as 99% of the people on SlashDot cannot fully provide a verifiable background.

For me this rings even truer, as there are reasons I can't fully outline the projects or all companies of involvement, especially my work with the Pentagon and NASA. I can't even detail specifics of my work with X11 here as it would give a trail that would create problems time-lining my name to projects that do require non-normal levels of technical security from my past.

I can say, I helped designed technologies with security systems and devices in the 80s for the US Government. In the 90s I and my team contributed high and low level software systems to NASA, specifically working with ISS, and have software running on the ISS.

However, unless your name is Bush or Cheney, this is going to be a bitch for you to verify.

So let's pretend that 1/2 of what I say is bullshit about my career, read my posts and rethink the level of understanding I have on the subjects I comment on in my spare time.

I have an engineering background and not only understand technologies at very low levels, but have theoretical understanding of the subjects as well, triangulating knowledge from several fields within the industry. We could talk about theoretical OS technologies of today, or go through older OS technologies piece by piece at levels that you can't find in technical journals or run to Wiki to sound credible.

If you want to believe I am a newbie 'me too *nix rocks person' or a 'me too OS X rocks' or a 'me too MS rocks person', then maybe you haven't evolved past that point yourself.

Black and white does not exist when it comes to technology, and you have to work and accredit all things you encounter to various levels of gray or esoteric relationships that can take a poor idea and bring it forward to work with other ideas to make it brilliant.

This includes companies or people, as many of the SlashDot 'darlings' have done some really stupid stuff, produced bad ideas, and pushed the OSS industry in the worng direction.

Then there are the Microsoft's of SlashDot and they have actually done more good than bad, but that doesn't give people here a warm glowing feeling about them. Even if it was through market dominance, they created standards in a highly fragmented PC market and seem to be willing to work with current standards bodies again.