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Microsoft Tries To Prevent Further Discovery
An anonymous reader notes the considerable irony in Microsoft asking for relief from further discovery in the Windows Vista Capable debacle. This is the lawsuit that was recently granted class-action status, and Microsoft wants the wheels of justice to stop while it appeals that designation. It's easy to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs' email archives, with stories like this one from the NYTimes (registration may be required) revealing Redmond's highly embarrassing internal emails to a mass audience.
Perhaps people should invest all of this effort into learning and improving Linux, instead of relying on Microsoft's monopoly to provide software that isn't really what people want on a mass scale. Too many people are complaining about Vista.
I gave your mum a shag in the bum.
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Now at some point there yes new machine will have ONLY Vista, but hopefully by then Vista will be on sp2 and be something worth using.
Does Vista actually really not work with your infrastructure/systems? I am not familiar with 'Edir'; and I'm not suggesting Vista will just work, but had you actually tried it?
I still see absolutely no reason for Aero in a business environment.
Lets see... I have some 30 odd tasks open, I click the firefox task and it shows me a list of 15, I hover the mouse over any of them and it shows me a preview of whats in the window. That little aero feature has slightly increased productivity. The new Vista start menu... another slightly increased productivity boost. At least for me. The sidebar widgets thing, I have a decent calculator and a notepad in there amongst other items, again, slight boost to productivity. Shadows? Slightly more obvious window stacking. The ability to move a window without the training video clip/sound to cut out... It all adds up.
Sure the Windows 3.1 GUI might be adequate, but its hardly a reason to stop improving.
I agree its not worth paying $300 in hardware + $150 in licenses + $xxx in labor to upgrade. But choosing between Vista or XP on a new unit? I'd say Vista is already generally worth it, unless you need to work with legacy software or hardware which isn't compatible (yet?)
These are not play toys, these are tools for employee's to use and as such Aero provides no value, only additional resource requirements, just generally slows everything down and gets in the way.
On suitable hardware, Aero makes no discernable difference in performance. And 'suitable' hardware is not expensive. An entry level modern CPU duo with a budget aero capable video card does just fine. There was even a study done on it as I recall. Microsoft funded as i recal, but the tech community generally didn't disagree with the results.
As to UAC it is pretty pointless as these machines are locked down hard and I have encouraged these companies to implement IT policies that say in nice terms, You install software, you are fired,
Most companies employing even remotely skilled people rarely exercise that policy.
Yeah its draconian but these companies were pushed to that extreme by stupid users who tried to or installed any bit of virus spreading, mal-ware installing, root-kitting bit of garbage from places like Facebook, Yahoo, MySpace
You yourself admit its draconian and extreme. Doesn't that represent a FAILURE to you?
Its like your running an office that was so plagued by fires that you flooded the whole thing with water and make your staff where scuba gear to work. And then someone comes along as says, hey we've got this new fire-resistant office equipment and you say... "its useless".
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't need your office flooded and manned by frogmen. Maybe switching to fireresistent equipment will let you impose a less extreme and draconian solution? I'm not saying Vista is going to eliminate all your security concerns... but it does move the bar forward in a lot of ways; maybe even enough that you can afford to be "less draconian".
"When downtime costs upwards of $200.00 per hour per employee" do you really want your employees spending time writing business cases for a handy utility they need right now, then waiting to have it vetted by the IT guys, then waiting for it to be deployed? Wouldn't it be better if they could just download and install it and get on with being productive?? As it stands, most probably just forego the utility, and slog through it manually, or do it at home or on their laptop where the restrictions are less onerous... I personally consider a situation where an employee does something at home because doing it at work is too much hassle to represent the absolute failure of IT. And I've seen a lot of sites where this is the norm.
I've even seen one where more employees than not, brought there own l