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Dell Documents Reveal Microsoft's Pre-launch Vista Errors

twitter writes "The New York Times has a piercing analysis of documents from the Vista capable lawsuit. The documents show that Microsoft seems to have put a wrench in Vista's driver situation only at the last minute. 'Late OS code changes broke drivers and applications, forcing key commodities to miss launch or limp out with issues,' said one slide in a Dell presentation dated March 25, 2007, about two months after Vista's launch at retail and availability on new PCs.' We have all heard the lazy vendors don't believe Vista will launch excuses but few of us have heard Steven Sinofsky, chief of Windows development, second and third opinions. 'Massive changes in the underpinnings for video and audio really led to a poor experience at RTM,' he said. 'This change led to incompatibilities. For example, you don't get Aero with an XP driver, but your card might not (ever) have a Vista driver.' Finally, said Sinofsky, other changes in Vista blocked Windows XP drivers altogether. 'This is across the board for printers, scanners, WAN, accessories and so on. Many of the associated applets don't run within the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver models.'

9 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Link to original by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/197498

    In case anyone wants to enjoy the usual "M$ Windoze" grade school creative spelling that the /. editor had to remove.

  2. Give it up, dude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You're wasting your time. Slashdot has officially degenerated into IHateVista.org. You'll just get shouted down by the adolescent Linux fanboys for daring to contradict the orthodoxy, whether you're right or not.

    1. Re:Give it up, dude by MightyMartian · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      What orthodoxy? Microsoft fucks over lots of consumers with a not-quite-ready-for-primetime operating system, and shills like you try to act like it was no big deal.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Just what we suspected... by OglinTatas · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    That Vista RTM had been delayed due to DRM issues... That the OS was probably scrapped in the first place to be rewritten with DRM as the underlying security model.

    I had long thought, and I'm sure I'm not alone, that microsoft should have pulled an apple and damn the backward compatability. They should have rewritten the OS from scratch after windows XP, and shouldn't have dropped key features along the way like the new WinFS, for instance. They should have bought VMware and integrated a virtual machine with a full copy of the appropriate WindowsXP (pro for pro, home for home)to run all the older "mission critical" software in "classic mode." They could have deprecated the win32 API and most of MFC, and forced all NEW development to move to the .net runtime.

    I suspect that the idea crossed their minds, whether or not they started to implement it, but they couldn't figure out how to guarantee front to back digital restrictions with such a dual-OS model.

    Something, though, made them panic and start over a few years ago, scrapping any progress they made. And integrating DRM along the way kept making things worse.

  4. Re:My Postmortem on Vista by thomthom · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So what does this say about Ubuntu that releases a new version every 6 month? I'm not buying your argument. Did you expect them to take a break after Vista?

  5. For all of those stuck in the 'Vista Capable' camp by Dr.D.IS.GREAT · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Hey guys, the vista capable sticker means it can run vista. weather it can run aero or not thats your problem! The one really good thing about Vista's aero is it is forcing manufacturers to push better substandard video cards to the masses that offer more features than just being able to do 32 bit colors. If you think about it, its not a bad thing; ati is seeing a healthy boost in buisness and so is nvidia. i have to say that the low end shader 2 compatible cards they are implementing sucks but its better than being stuck with a card with no 3d acceleration at all (intel video...) If your still pissed about your vista capable sticker i think that shelling out 100 bucks on a 2600 XT 256 GDDR3 card wouldnt be a bad investment. if you have a laptop, bitch at someone else, you bough a closed non upgradedable system, just let go, get a 45, cap ur self and dream about splurging that allmight consumer dollar ona new emachine with them failing bestec power supplies. dont get me started on emachines... DR D

  6. Pot and Kettle by Eskarel · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Microsoft hashed the release of Vista, but the Linux community of all people has no right to talk about new releases making drivers incompatible. Backwards compatibility doesn't exist in the linux world.

  7. Re:Yes, this is a new example of old behavior. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Your use of dated, incorrect references and those dollar signs are just hilarious. Most of the things in those bullet points of yours are memes and fabrications. You're joking, right?

  8. The usual twitter lulz by dedazo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Only on Slashdot can someone get modded up and then two posts down say "fuck you asshole, I have a sockpuppet" without repercussions.

    --
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