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Microsoft Had Doubts About the 'Vista Capable' Label
dionysus writes "Last April, Microsoft was sued over its 'Vista Capable' labeling, and in hearing last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs presented evidence that Microsoft employees were skeptical about the 'Vista Capable' marketing. Some of the most damning evidence comes from Microsoft executives: 'Mike Nash, currently a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine." Jim Allchin, then the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, wrote in another e-mail, "We really botched this ... You guys have to do a better job with our customers."' The judge in the case is currently considering the plaintiffs' request to make it a class-action lawsuit."
Indeed, I just got a replacement HP laptop for one that died. The old one had Windows XP and 1gb and ran like a charm, the new one is actually a faster machine, but with Vista and just 1gb is a horrible sloth. I'm bumping the RAM up naturally, though I'd much prefer to downgrade to XP since I don't like feeding the memory-hungry monster that Vista is, but apparently downgrading this model to XP is fraught with troubles.
I'd go to Ubuntu, but I can't get it up and running either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...otherwise known as early adopters.
To be fair Vista introduced to an unsuspecting IT world the shocking concept that's been around in *nix that "You don't have root level access as a norm!" (Gasp!). This alone caused issues for the majority of Windows software, and is probably the cause of the majority UAC complaints too. Remember too that, this type of security really isn't appreciated by your average Joe, who honestly couldn't give two shits if someone has rooted his box. He'll care when he can't write documents, send emails and check the football results on-line (even if it does require closing various popups)...but a Windows SUDO was long overdue.
Also, Vista is the first iteration of Windows that's seriously supported 64 bit...XP does I know, but it's something of a stop-gap in my opinion, and very rare to see. The 64-bit shift was too, on it's own, bound to cause upgrade havoc, much like the "good old days" of Win95 not running legacy 16bit apps too well.
Finally, Vista does overhaul other areas of Windows that has been for the better in the long-run, but a world of hurts in the short-run. Check out the propaganda here - http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel-en.mspx
There's a tonne of reasons why Vista has been a painful upgrade, but these reasons above I feel are the most prominent, and not so much fault of Microsoft either in my opinion. Yeah, security should've "not sucked", the tech is still very new (many will say 'too' new), and the 64-bit switch-over is unavoidable at some point, but frankly Vista's getting better every day (for instance, just today this was released - http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B943899&x=14&y=11) but much of Vista's problems have been blown up bigger than they are by people that quite frankly, just want to see Microsoft fail, die, whatever...and are willing to "stretch the truth" if it helps that happen....
Hang on; I've just realised where I'm posting.
throw new NoSignatureException();
He was just trying to make a point. A MS VP bought a "Vista Capable" machine that was installed with XP. His understanding was that when Vista came out, he could upgrade to Vista Premium with no problems. Unfortunately in his case, even though he bought a fairly decent machine, it couldn't run Vista Premium reasonably. He gets none of the features of Vista Premium and his machine is slower than dirt. He can only really do email and maybe surf the web now and then for $2100. If he works for MS and got this experience, what are the experiences of normal customers?
He was speaking for the customers. Their understanding when they bought the machine was that it could be upgraded. They could have waited but they were reassured that buying then didn't matter as opposed to buying later. It did matter. Now, what are they supposed to do after an upgrade? If XP was already installed by the manufacturer, sometimes all they get is a Restore XP disc which formats the HD and erases all their files and settings. Very few may have actually bought the retail version of XP which gives more options.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's a 85% ethanol/gasoline mixture fuel.
I run the blogs over on Intel Software Network, and this has been a hot topic of, erm, "discussion" there. People are REALLY mad when they buy a new laptop that says "Vista Capable", and find out later that it really meant "Sorry, you can't run the Aero theme eye candy, DVD Maker, or Movie Maker, because your Intel 915 integrated graphics chip doesn't qualify for a WDDM driver." Somehow explaining that they should have bought a machine that was "Vista Premium Ready" doesn't make them feel better.
Seriously, between the two blog posts (one with video!) on the topic that I've done, there are over 800 comments (by FAR the most visited and commented on posts on the whole blog), most of them mad at Intel for not providing a WDDM driver for 915 graphics chipsets. Problem is, we can't. It doesn't meet the WDDM spec, which is controlled by Microsoft.
Here are the posts in question:
Video: Why Intel 915 graphics don't have a WDDM driver for Vista
Update on the 915 Graphics WDDM Vista Driver Issue
I'm actually relieved to see this news story come out, not that it makes me happy to point the finger at Microsoft (it doesn't), but to at least point all those angry blog commenters at a 3rd party source that sheds some light on the problem. I maintain my naive hope that it will educate and placate them all, and they'll stop emailing me and calling my cell phone. ;-)
The poster who recommended the alternate ISO has the correct advice, although the Linux driver from nVidia in the repo is most certainly not a beta. The open source nv(4x) driver doesn't handle some configurations of the mobility chipsets, especially the 8xxx series, very well so the ncurses based installer on the alternate disk (looks a bit like the Debian installer, which is hardly surprising) will get you up and running enough to {Ctrl}{Alt}{F1} to the console and "sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new" which should also pull in the restricted kernel modules package, assuming this is Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) we're talking about. Then just throw "sudo nvidia-xconfig" at the CLI and reboot. Things should go swimmingly after that.
Or not. You specify your OS by the applications you wish to use, not to satisfy some Slashdot flame-warriors. Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
What UTTER bullshit.
I have not seen a computer come up in less than perfect resolution following an install since pre XP, with one exception (an onboard SiS video card on an Asus box. Running Windows 2003). I just put Vista on this desktop last night, and when the first boot came up, it had detected my Nvidia 7600 GS, and enabled both my LCD panels, one at its native 1600x1200, and the other at its native 1920x1200.
Or my Asus laptop, with XP SP2, and an ATI Radeon Mobility X600. Hey, whadda you know, the vanilla (not the vendor supplied) XP Pro SP2 disc got the laptop up and running at its native 1440x900.
Or my wife's Dell, with XP SP2 and then Vista. Native Windows drivers for the Geforce Go 7900 GS? No problem, 1920x1200, right there (although one of the OS's, can't remember which, did say "Your display is running at a less than optimum resolution, click here to open the display panel" and hey, whadda you know, native resolution, right there.
Or my work Sony Vaio SZ, also with an Nvidia card, native resolution 1280x800. Worked fine.
It's F8, btw.