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Microsoft Concedes Vista Launch Problems

Posted by samzenpus on from the who's-to-blame dept.

notdagreatbrain writes "Maximum PC just posted a lengthy feature looking back at the myriad problems that went into Microsoft's 6 billion dollar failure of the Vista launch. Aside from running benchmarks comparing Vista at launch how its performing now, they also found a Microsoft exec who was willing to speak frankly about Vista. The Microsoft source blamed bad drivers from GPU companies and printer companies for the majority of Vista's early stability problems and described User Account Control as poorly implemented but defended it as necessary for the continued health of the Windows platform. He assailed OEM system builders for including bad, buggy, or just plain useless apps on their machines in exchange for a few bucks on the back end. Finally he conceded that Apple appeals to more and more consumers because the hardware is slick, the price is OK, and Apple doesn't annoy its customers (or allow third parties to)."

56 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. So...... by Anachragnome · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He blamed everyone but Microsoft?

    Why does that not surprise me?

    1. Re:So...... by jacksinn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh its totally not Microsoft's fault! I mean, doesn't everyone have access to the source so we can learn from it and create better software and drivers?

      --
      Life==Jeopardy. All the answers are right in front us - the hard part is coming up with the correct question.
    2. Re:So...... by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft has no control over the shit quality of drivers released by hardware manufacturers.

      I'm not sure I would go so far as to say they have zero control over that situation. Apple would not be a fair comparison since they control both the hardware and the software. So, I have to compare the Windows approach to the Linux approach since I am most familiar with it.

      With the one exception of the nVidia proprietary driver (which I use over the open-source driver for performance reasons, not stability reasons), every last driver on my machine came with the kernel. I don't need to trust the quality of anything produced by any hardware manufacturer. I can use drivers that I know will work and that I know will be extremely stable. I'm sure someone out there is using some strange hardware combination and this is his cue to pipe up that this was not his experience, but I believe the vast majority of desktop Linux users can say the same thing. The Windows approach is demonstrably inferior in this case, and I just don't believe that Microsoft is the pitiful helpless victim that's powerless to change this.

      They have no control over the shit quality of apps loaded by OEMs.

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system? Either they don't and whether they are shit quality is moot, or they do and this is rightfully considered a shortcoming in the overall design of Windows. I don't see any third options here.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    3. Re:So...... by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system? Either they don't and whether they are shit quality is moot, or they do and this is rightfully considered a shortcoming in the overall design of Windows. I don't see any third options here.

      I call trolling. If I install an app on any OS which integrates itself into the browser, runs as a background task consuming enormous amounts of RAM and network bandwidth and otherwise misbehaves, it's going to make the experience shitty. And no, this isn't a "shortcoming in the overall design." Any app needs to be allowed to do everything I just described (for RAM and CPU, see Photoshop, for network usage, see BitTorrent, etc.). Blaming MS for vendors loading shitty software onto a machine and claiming its a design flaw is bullshit.

      --
      $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
    4. Re:So...... by bberens · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You had me right up until that last paragraph, then I realized you're just a shill. I mean seriously, I could write some REALLY shitty software for linux that eats up all your resources unnecessarily and bogs down the system. How is that Canonical's or Redhat's fault? Similarly, the reason your linux drivers work so well is that linux hasn't had the ginormous revamp that the win32 kernel just underwent. Hardware vendors needed to make significant changes to their drivers and thought they'd get by with shoddy (probably outsourced) effort.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    5. Re:So...... by juventasone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system? Either they don't and whether they are shit quality is moot, or they do and this is rightfully considered a shortcoming in the overall design of Windows. I don't see any third options here.

      Any operating system can run resource-intensive or dysfunctional applications!

      Most of this third party software is installed because the OEM gets a small kickback. If the user purchases an activation/subscription/upgrade, the OEM gets a larger kickback. The only thing to blame is falling margins, the dominance of Windows on the desktop, and lack of consumer interest.

    6. Re:So...... by Belial6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have no control over the shit quality of apps loaded by OEMs.

      I disagree. The hardware vendors are allowed to sell modified "OEM" Windows disks because MS chooses to let them. While technically, they might not be able to stop the loading of other software, they certainly could require that a pristine off the shelf copy of windows be included with the system, and all other software come on a different disk instead of encouraging vendors to ship heavily modified versions of their software so that the end consumer has no way of doing a clean install.

    7. Re:So...... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference is, is Firefox hangs on Linux I can usually manage to click on a terminal or switch to a terminal to kill it. On Windows the entire system locks up.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    8. Re:So...... by wampus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You haven't actually used Windows since around 2000, have you?

    9. Re:So...... by sjf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft has no control over the shit quality of drivers released by hardware manufacturers.

      Then again, TFA admits that Apple does a better job preventing third parties from giving the user a poor experience.

      I think that there is some truth to this. In the case of the kernel, Apple's IOKit uses embedded C++. For ubiquitous drivers, this is an absolute godsend, most of the work of a driver is already done for you. Writing a driver largely consists of just writing the details that are specific to your device. It's Apple's job to build the framework for devices of your class, not yours.

      Secondly, Apple's definition of a real time operating system is subtle, but significant: it's difficult to do things in kernel mode that will degrade user mode (application) experience. It's a pain in the ass sometimes: doing work on a true primary hardware interrupt is hard to achieve, but there are few devices that really need this. The upshot is that a "badly" written driver is unlikely to stop iTunes from playing back media.

      Thirdly, certain classes of driver can be entirely user mode. This is a good thing !

      Apple's approach is not perfect, if you need real time performance in the kernel then it's truly hard work, and there's little documentation to support you. Thankfully, such drivers are not common. (I worked on drivers for broadcast video editing and effects, IOKit doesn't provide a base class to derive such drivers from !)

      My point is not (just) fanboiism. I believe that there is a lot that can be done in architecting an API to encourage well behaved drivers, and other code. Microsoft could do something about it. It would just take dumping an entire driver model and replacing it something better though.

    10. Re:So...... by vux984 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With the one exception of the nVidia proprietary driver (which I use over the open-source driver for performance reasons, not stability reasons), every last driver on my machine came with the kernel.

      You know, there is really no reason whatsoever that you can't use an open source driver with windows. The driver API is well published, and there is nothing stopping the community from stepping up and writing its own drivers.

      The biggest reason oss drivers exist for linux is that the vendors couldn't be bothered. There is really nothing stopping the oss community from writing oss drivers for windows.

      I can use drivers that I know will work and that I know will be extremely stable. I'm sure someone out there is using some strange hardware combination and this is his cue to pipe up that this was not his experience, but I believe the vast majority of desktop Linux users can say the same thing.

      I guess that's my cue: until extremely recently wireless was a nightmare, it still is sometimes; multiple monitors is still half-baked; SLI/Crossfire is even worse. Gizmos like usb-network adapters, print-server boxes that use 'virtual usb ports', and all sorts of other stuff just doesn't work.

      The Windows approach is demonstrably inferior in this case, and I just don't believe that Microsoft is the pitiful helpless victim that's powerless to change this.

      Microsoft would be perfectly happy if the OSS community released drivers, especially for hardware the vendor has abandoned.

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system?

      If you install crap on Linux it screws it up too. For the moment, there isn't a lot of useless browser toolbars to popup ads because the scumware creators don't see much ROI ... yet... but if linux ever became mainstream, the crapflood will come.

      Luckily for apple, they are the sole vendor, so they don't have to worry about OEMS crufting up your Mac for a few extra nickles, and the crud makers have to do it the old fasioned way... convince end users to install it. But it is starting to appear.

    11. Re:So...... by syousef · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft has no control over the shit quality of drivers released by hardware manufacturers.

      Of course this had nothing to do with code maturity and putting yet another burden on hardware manufacturers by changing to a new driver model yet again. (How many times was that in the last 2 decades!? DOS->Win95->Win98->WinXP->Vista).

      I'd argue this man is incompetent because he doesn't understand that the first version of anything isn't going to be rock solid and stable. If you can't take that into account you have no business writing a new OS. Didn't Microsoft have driver certification programs? In fact don't drivers have to be signed? What the fuck happened to that?

      I purchased an HP printer for that desktop system. It literally took me a week to get the damned thing to install.

      Hang on isn't this the same company that has solid and stable XP drivers? Doesn't that say something? Perhaps Vista drivers are harder to write. Perhaps they're just not mature yet. However automatically blaming HP is unfair. It MIGHT be fair it if were just one company or a small group, but MOST companies had trouble. THAT to me suggests the problem IS in fact Vista.

      How about Vista's own networking and file system drivers? Are they someone else's fault too? Because early on you'd be lucky to get a large file transfer not to just hang and estimate the age of the universe as when the file copy will finish.

      Other than that, I actually like Vista Ultimate

      Good for you. Hope you enjoy the bloat, the pretty effects and having your rights restricted left right and center? Oh and the popups. Can't forget the popups.

      Vista has exactly 1 thing that I want in XP, and only if you go 64 bit. That is it allows addressing memory larger than 4GB. I am going to hold out on XP for as long as I can, then I'll probably move to Linux because I'll have lost the one thing I truly can't replace on XP - gaming. Gaming on Vista is shite compared to XP and will be for the forseeable future (with the exception of a handful of really hardware intensive resource hogging DirectX 10 games so encumbered with DRM I won't touch them anyway).

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    12. Re:So...... by afidel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And this is where the small premium for a business class laptop pays off bigtime. Buy an HP business laptop or a Dell Vostro machine and you get pretty much a clean OS install with working drivers and a minimal (of often helpful) third party apps.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    13. Re:So...... by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft should have been harder in their WHQL driver certification for Vista.

      Agreed. They should test every piece of hardware in a system with every other piece of hardware to make sure no two drivers interfere with each other. They should spend months probing every part of the driver to make sure there are no security vulnerabilities. They should have a system with every possible configuration, to ensure that the drivers are stable no matter what. Windows should cost tens of thousands of dollars to pay for it all, too. Right.

      You're a Microsoft shill.

      I used to work in compatibility validation at Intel. What you describe above is exactly what they did with all their hardware and software. Very elaborate programs were set up to test Intel hardware with various other hardware and software in every conceivable combination. People were even paid to sit around and play video games and look for problems. How much do Intel chips cost? Certainly not tens of thousands of dollars.

      If MS can't afford to put some serious validation effort into their software, and their partners' software (yes, the hardware vendors are in effect their partners, because their drivers' quality directly affect customers' perception of Windows quality), then they're doing something seriously wrong.

    14. Re:So...... by registrar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I could write some REALLY shitty software for linux that eats up all your resources unnecessarily and bogs down the system. How is that Canonical's or Redhat's fault?

      Nothing personal, but this thread has gotten ridiculous, based on the premise that Microsoft has no power over third party drivers or applications. The simple fact is that the competition (Redhat, Apple, Canonical, take your pick) does have control, and Microsoft should have it, they suffer rightly for not having it, and they don't suffer enough!

      If Redhat allowed their brand to be associated with your software, then they would deserve what they get. Instead, Redhat tightly controls what can be associated with "Redhat Linux" and they benefit from it.

      The problem is not a technical one. Windows is largely technically excellent software, and it's correct that bad applications will always be able to stuff up good systems. MS exploits user ignorance, confusing the line between "Windows" "MS application" "other application" and "computer." Redhat on the other hand, is very clearly clear about what is and is not their responsibility. Also, I assume Microsoft could exert tighter control over what gets bundled with Windows if they were not a monopoly. Whether the reasons are legal or practical, it just so happens that Windows sucks partly because it is a monopoly---those reasons just don't apply to the competition.

      Another aspect of the problem is partly technical, partly greed: Microsoft cannot and will not proper basic installation disc with each machine. As a result, customers cannot easily bypass the OEM applications. Again, the competition manages to work through the problem.

      Now for the real rant. Slashbots are too focused on technical problems. The problem with Windows is mostly not technical but social. Microsoft is ultimately responsible for the quality of the apps installed by OEMs, and excusing them on technical grounds clarifies nothing. Learn from RMS! He was a technical kind of guy who identified that the technical problems had underlying social causes, and required a social (legal) fix. And it worked.

      Whether your mission in life is to tear down Microsoft, to be a good programmer or helpdesk operator, to cure cancer, or to write insightful comments, you will not get far if you focus on technical fixes to social problems.

    15. Re:So...... by causality · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system? Either they don't and whether they are shit quality is moot, or they do and this is rightfully considered a shortcoming in the overall design of Windows. I don't see any third options here.

      I call trolling. If I install an app on any OS which integrates itself into the browser, runs as a background task consuming enormous amounts of RAM and network bandwidth and otherwise misbehaves, it's going to make the experience shitty. And no, this isn't a "shortcoming in the overall design." Any app needs to be allowed to do everything I just described (for RAM and CPU, see Photoshop, for network usage, see BitTorrent, etc.). Blaming MS for vendors loading shitty software onto a machine and claiming its a design flaw is bullshit.

      No, you misinterpreted what I was saying and that's at least partly my fault. I was referring to the impact on the overall stability of the system. The overall performance of the system is a completely different metric. First I discussed how this applies to third-party drivers, then I said a bit about how this applies to OEM-supplied crapware. I said further that if the crapware doesn't affect the rest of the system, then whether they are shit quality is moot. I was referring to the stability of the rest of the system (i.e. BSODs), not every possible effect that poor-quality software could conceivably have (that'd be quite a lot to cover in only a couple of small paragraphs, don't you think?). You found a possible effect that it could conceivably have, which is that being a resource hog might bog everything down.

      So yeah, a process consuming a large amount of resources (RAM, bandwidth, CPU) will definitely bog down the system. It will reduce performance and slow things down. I really thought that this was so utterly obvious that it went without saying, so my first thought was not that someone would assume, contrary to the focus of every other part of my post, that I was referring to anything other than system stability with those three sentences. This really is the only ambiguous part of my entire post, and your entire response hinges on it:

      That certainly is true, but then, why should so many user applications have the ability to affect the rest of the operating system?

      If I had said "have the ability to affect the stability of the rest of the operating system" you could not have misunderstood me. That much was my fault, I should have more clearly said what I meant. But, you read into that one sentence a meaning that was inconsistent with what I was saying prior to it and this did not make you hesitate for a moment to wonder if I really meant what you thought I meant. The mods followed your example in their own way, and so did several who also responded (apparently I'm a shill now -- more namecalling to follow, I'm sure). Is it really that hard not to knee-jerk? I increasingly feel like I have to idiot-proof my posts against every possible misinterpretation, which is effort better spent expressing ideas, because certainly whenever there are multiple potential interpretations the one that makes the weakest argument for the other guy is the most appealing to you, the one that you just know he had to have meant, right? Isn't that how it works for most of you? I wonder how much time that could be spent in productive debate is wasted guarding against this low-hanging fruit "haha, gotcha!" type of shit.

      The only negativity I feel about this at all is that I honestly expected better from this group. If I were doing a presentation about Windows design vs. Linux design for a national TV news show, I'd have had no such expectations and would feel that the misinterpretation is 100% my fault.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    16. Re:So...... by jesterzog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well I'm really just trying to be helpful for someone who's posting on Slashdot and so might actually be able to follow these ideas.

      I agree with what I think was a sarcastic sentiment. For myself though, I really only care about me having a decent desktop and in my case, Unix-like systems work great because I'm happy to use exactly the methods I just mentioned when things go wrong. I'm still careful about who I recommend it to, but then I don't easily recommend Windows to many people either. It can be at least as much of a pain to fix when things break.

    17. Re:So...... by Simon+Rowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Similarly, the reason your linux drivers work so well is that linux hasn't had the ginormous revamp that the win32 kernel just underwent.

      The Linux driver APIs are in a constant state of flux, in fact people that insist on shipping drivers without source are always whining for a fixed binary API. Linux drivers are generally more reliable because they're written and maintained by people who can program rather than thrown together my a h/w engineer as an afterthought.

    18. Re:So...... by Laurence0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not so sure about this. I've seen badly written Flash or Java apps consume vast amounts of CPU power, pegging the system permanently at 100% CPU usage. When I ran Windows (XP), whenever this happened, the entire system would become sluggish and virtually unusable as there was no processing time left for the GUI. Now that I'm running Linux, I've seen that happen a couple of times, and the only reason I've realised is because my laptop fan spun up. The performance of the desktop and other apps was fine, it was only by looking in top that I spotted the problem.

      So, the OS can manage programs which are using too much CPU. You just need an effective scheduler. Network usage is a different, but similar issue. By implementing local QoS or scheduling, you could ensure that no one application is allowed to hog all the bandwidth if other apps are trying to use it.

    19. Re:So...... by Valtor · · Score: 1, Insightful

      ...I really only care about me having a decent desktop...

      This is how most Linux users thinks. Which is exactly why it is still not a drop in replacement of Windows. The worst is, I am not sure there is anything anyone can do about it.

      --
      "Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
    20. Re:So...... by flablader · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not true. OEMs are perfectly free to include an install disc which just installs Windows, nothing more.

      It seems to me that while OEMs are free to include the default Windows install disk, they never do. GP is saying that other O.S.'s get around this limitation. Apple completely controls everything, and F/OSS makes the default install disk image available to anyone. Neither of these approaches will work for MS because they don't control the entire machine (see previously mentioned legal problems), and they don't want to make their OS freely available. The only solution I can think of is to require OEM's to include the Windows disk in it's original form in their distributions as well as whatever else they want to add.

      I will say that since I built my own PC (for the first time) and bypassed all of the OEM crap, Windows hase been more stable and usable than ever before.

    21. Re:So...... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You can set resource limits per account.

      I agree that there isn't much you can do to make an OS resistant to performance degradation if somebody is loading junk on it. However, that doesn't mean that *nix can't enforce resource limits if correctly configured. Also, MS is happy to lean on OEMs in other respects, surely they could do the same with craplets?

    22. Re:So...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Microsoft has no control over the shit quality of drivers released by hardware manufacturers.

      It's a little like that one despair.com poster titled "Dysfunction". All the crashing Vista driver authors have one thing in common: a Microsoft Vista kernel with APIs one must call into. For Win2k/XP those APIs are bizarre, highly complex, and not as well documented as they should be. For Vista Microsoft could have simplified things, but they didn't. They added complexity.

    23. Re:So...... by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not sure I would go so far as to say they have zero control over that situation. Apple would not be a fair comparison since they control both the hardware and the software. So, I have to compare the Windows approach to the Linux approach since I am most familiar with it.

      Apple controls which hardware gets included in their systems, but they still use video chipsets from nVidia, ATi, and recently Intel, just like everyone else. Apple works very closely with their hardware vendors to make sure good quality drivers are available; in fact, Apple will do some of the development in-house if the manufacturers can't seem to get it right.

      You can't tell me Microsoft doesn't have that kind of clout with major hardware vendors. They just choose not to bother. That choice bit them in the ass, so I suspect they'll be making a different choice the next time around.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  2. They're playing the vista commerical now.. by Firethorn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where they invite users to 'try' the newest Microsoft OS, before revealing it's Vista.

    Sure, have users play around a bit with a top of the line machine with a Slim Vista install, it's great.

    Go to try to configure stuff, install 3rd party programs, run actual benchmarks, it's not so nice.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
    1. Re:They're playing the vista commerical now.. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Where they invite users to 'try' the newest Microsoft OS, before revealing it's Vista.

      I don't get those ads. I could see if the "before" shots were of people saying they'd heard bad things about Vista but had never tried it. However, they went all-out about how Vista is awful and how bad it's reputation is. The very first think you hear is confirmation of the current beliefs.

      I mean, I've never heard a McDonald's ad begin with a crowd talking about how much they hate McDonald's. Is this what passes for clever advertising now?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:They're playing the vista commerical now.. by bondsbw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. OS, hardware, software... they all have a significant impact in user experience.

      They should do this study with computers coming straight off the shelves of Circuit City, Best Buy, and from online stores like Dell. Install "Mojave". Give these computers to the average user for a year.

      Now, ask those people about their experiences. I doubt their answers would be anywhere close. The average response would probably be something like this: "I like how it looks better than XP, but I don't think it's any better really... I still can't find what I need, it's slow, and I think I need more memory or something. Fix that stuff, and some of the annoying boxes that pop up, and I'd probably like it better."

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  3. Step one: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. Good for them, I guess.

    1. Re:Step one: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. Good for them, I guess.

      Second step is to apologize to all the people you have wronged.

  4. Don't you dare blame the GPU/Printer companies! by gblackwo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They had to scramble to get drivers out the door because microsoft hardly gave them any time to work with the last revisions of Vista.

    1. Re:Don't you dare blame the GPU/Printer companies! by Idiomatick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes blame printer drivers. Crappiest bloated pieces of shit ever to be coded. Print drivers on modern printers should be under 5MB MAXIMUM. Often print drivers on modern 5in1 w/es are in excess of 200MB! holy god, even taking the bullshit ap and ui they needlessly tacked on how could it have gotten that bloated. Even trying to make the program needlessly huge the compiler would probably compress it to less than anything i could code.

    2. Re:Don't you dare blame the GPU/Printer companies! by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HW design counts too. ATI, particularly, had lots of issues with HDCP and DRM management, and they were one of the big opponents of the PMP during design, but ultimately had no choice because they don't control enough of the market.

      --
      ~ C.
    3. Re:Don't you dare blame the GPU/Printer companies! by Kerelslied · · Score: 2, Insightful

      hardly gave them any time

      Manufacturers had more than full year before the release date.

      It always takes time: Microsoft got five years before release to get everything right.

  5. Re:WTF?? by The+Ancients · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and described User Account Control as poorly implemented but defended it as necessary for the continued health of the Windows platform.

    Continued? What? Continued?? Health? What? Health?? I'm not sure those words mean what you think you mean.

    Did he explicitly state good health?

    --
    The Mothership
  6. Re:WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How else are you going to convince armies of third rate developers that they need to quit spewing crap all over the C: drive? You can't. You have to strongarm them because the developers that create these sorts of issues are exactly the ones that will not fix things unless they absolutely have to.

    UAC is still a piss-poor implementation, but MS has said before its real purpose was to force vendors to shape up. Too bad the users have to pay, MS gambled that recurring UAC dialogs would make the users blame the vendors, not the OS, and they were wrong.

  7. VISTA was lauched in BETA by Proudrooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with VISTA is that it was launched it BETA. Missing drivers, big footprint hardware requirements, and horrible power management (which drained many a laptop battery) caused the early demise of VISTA. I gave up on VISTA, but I understand that MS is slowly working out the problems. Legacy drivers will always be a problem for VISTA and the TPM/DRM features will continue to make smarter users shun VISTA.

    I am back to the DUAL BOOT Linux/XP on my older hardware and performance is decent. Same hardware with VISTA... forget about it.

    1. Re:VISTA was lauched in BETA by wild_quinine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with VISTA is that it was launched it BETA.

      This is an exaggeration!

      Missing drivers, big footprint hardware requirements, and horrible power management (which drained many a laptop battery) caused the early demise of VISTA.

      Hm. Alright. It's not much of an exaggeration.

      I gave up on VISTA, but I understand that MS is slowly working out the problems.

      This is true. What I really what to comment on here is the state of the FUD surrounding Vista. There were many negative reviews of Vista at time of release, which were deserved, if a little hyperbolic - I know, because I ran Vista and tested it.

      When SP1 came out the reviews were similarly negative. I didn't test it for several months. Most broken things had not been fixed, the reviews said, and I did not go back for seconds.

      Recently, I did test Vista with SP1. As it happens, I'm still running it. And whilst I'm not ready to recommend Vista yet, I'll say this gladly: most of the problems were fixed. And most of the articles bashing SP1 were just inaccurate FUD.

      It really irritates me when things are reported innaccurately in this way. I don't mind if you have a negative opinion of something, even if it's something I really like. But I can't abhor being LIED to, simply because you're a zealot.

  8. Re:No issues here by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, that would've been an extremely high-end workstation just a couple of years ago. Of course Vista should run like the wind on that hardware.

    Never mind that I have a similar machine and Vista runs like frozen molasses, but can't upgrade to XP because NVidia hasn't released XP-compatible video drivers. I'd switch to Ubuntu in a heartbeat if it weren't for a few critical application I absolutely must have.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  9. drivers by Edward+Kmett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So lets see, the drivers sucked.. maybe thats because, in order to get the WHQL/"Designed for Windows"/Windows Logo Program/whatever-the- marketing-team-decided-to-stick-into-the-name-today stamp of approval needed to be able to be able to supply a signed driver for 64 bit vista they had to run through a 6 month release gauntlet?

    Any software release cycle that gets stuck delaying that long between finding a bug and issuing a fix is going to suck

    --
    Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
  10. Re:Generalisation about Apple by meta-monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If wishes were horses, beggars would eat, too.

    Fact of the matter is, it's a pain in the ass to get a high-performance, non-bloatware infested Vista machine that doesn't suffer from driver-related crashes and all the rest of the mess they talk about in this article, much of which is STILL going on. And you're actually holding up the Zune, of all things, as a model of success to be emulated?!

    I've bought seven Macs in the last 5 years (I run a small business...graphic design/marketing/photography) and I simply don't have time to deal with Microsoft. I actually just bought two new Mac Pros. It was really easy. I went to the Apple store, said, "I'd like two of those please," they loaded them up in my car, and I was up and running later that day. No bloatware, no weird driver problems, decently usable software already installed...no problems. Could I have gotten something "equivalent" by building it myself for less money? Only if my time is worthless.

    Then again, I'm bothering to write a comment on Slashdot, so clearly my time is not worth that much...

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  11. Bad drivers? by stm2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So why their certified those faulty drivers?
    Most drivers carry the log "Made for Vista" with digital signature provided by MS. That is supposed to have some QA, isn't it?

    --
    DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
    1. Re:Bad drivers? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's also the problem that some less respectable hardware manufacturers cheat to pass certification, for instance by having magical registry keys that put it into "fast but unsafe" mode which certification runs without. WHQL is an automated process and isn't hard to defraud.

      But hey, at least it exists. The equivalent in the Linux world is "submit your driver, hope the API you used hasn't been completely replaced during the period you were writing it, hope that somebody can be arsed reviewing it, hope that it gets incorporated into the base kernel, then wait 12 months whilst your users upgrade before they can buy your hardware". I'll take WHQL over that.

  12. MS is blaming video hw/driver companies? by Alien+Being · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WTF? Operating systems are supposed to have two interfaces - an API and a DDI. MS fails at both.

    Their technical problems are directly related to their legal problems. They can't be a neutral vendor of systems code while they're competing in the apps market.

    Sure, Linux can be a pain in the ass to support, but usually it's a relatively simple build issue. And part of the pain is overly tight control of source code. With MS, there's simply no insurance that your technology will work with theirs.

    For anyone who hasn't been paying attention for the last two decades, MS IS ROTTEN TO THE CORE.

  13. MS did contribute to shit drivers by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Insightful
    MS should have set up a far better defined driver architecture than they did. Even better they should have provided a backward compatibility mode for existing drivers. If ndiswrapper can support (some) Windows drivers under Linux, then it should have been a simple matter to support XP drivers under Vista.

    No, instead MS adopted their normal "fuck you all" attitude and forced a new, ill conceived driver model onto the IHVs.

    Sure, XP driver support would probably not been a good long term solution, but it would have been a good idea for a year or two: enough time to make the transition slicker.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:MS did contribute to shit drivers by ArtistFrmrlyKnwnAsAC · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So WDM is "ill conceived" just because it's *different*? You didn't really provide any other evidence, except to imply that MS just launched Vista one January with zero notice. Wake up, everyone who was making money selling hardware for Windows XP knew about Vista and WDM YEARS in advance. The implication that MS should institute OS-wide hacks like NDISWrapper instead of being allowed to change their ABI with years of advanced notice makes no sense at all, esp. since your evidence-free bitchings make me assume you're a linux user--someone who should know what frequent ABI changes are all about.

      Where do you even think NDIS came from? Do you think it was the first driver API ever created? I guarantee some DOS network card programmers feel the same way about NDIS that you do about Vista. Yes, the fact that NDISWrapper works at all is a testament to good ABI specification and stability, but WDMWrapper will be just as good five years from now when you're trying to get your next gen of incompatible network cards working on you linux/bsd boxes*. You're welcome ;)

      * threw that in for humor, Vista, etc. still supports NDIS 6.x+

    2. Re:MS did contribute to shit drivers by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, instead MS adopted their normal "fuck you all" attitude and forced a new, ill conceived driver model onto the IHVs.

      So, if they support backward compatibility, it's cruft and bloat and the reason Windows sucks. If they break compatibility in order to provide a more modern driver interface, all the while warning driver providers of the change well ahead of time, they've got a "fuck you all" attitude.

      So... which is it?

      Disclaimer: I'm definitely *not* a fan of MS or Windows. But come on, hypocritical much?

  14. Not just drivers, it's the added dummy software by burnitdown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Every printer, network card, scanner and camera I've installed on Windows in the last ten years has tried to add useless dummyware on top of the driver.

    You install the driver, then there's a "print manager" that has extra options, ink monitoring, visual queue monitors, and tons of crap that most people never need to do.

    Of course, it also takes up residence in the system tray, in case you need dummyware at a click.

    It's like our society in general. By attempting to pander to the stupid, it puts the smart in difficult positions and makes life worse for everyone.

    --
    Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
  15. Re:Top of the line? by AndyCR · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Maximize" it? You mean "use more ram than it really needs for no good reason"? Why would a program do that? Why would any program use more resources than it needs, when there are people who don't have 2GB of ram and will suffer due to it?

    Do you really think average Joe is going to buy a $500 laptop, notice it's slow, and think "Ah, I know what it needs. It needs more ram. I'll go buy ram, make sure it's notebook memory and be sure to get the right speed and sticks which aren't too large as to hit the limit in my machine, then take this cover off, slide this lever, pull out these cards, and put in these." It isn't going to happen.

    As for the "yawn" at the beginning of your post: show a little maturity. If it bored you, why did you respond? Of course, it didn't bore you - it served only as a tool of condescension, and I don't think anyone would deem condescension necessary in a civilized discussion.

    --
    If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
  16. Re:Generalisation about Apple by kklein · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What Microsoft needs to realise is not that Apple is gaining on it because it "just works", it is gaining because it works at all, unlike many aspects of Vista.

    Whoah. This doesn't happen often, especially not on Slashdot, but you just led me to a personal epiphany and a whole new way of looking at things.

    I bought a MacBook a year ago, mostly out of curiosity, but also because I needed a new laptop that ran MS Office, and I didn't want to get one with Vista on it. I figured that if I didn't like OSX, I'd just set my Boot Camp partition to be the default startup and run XP on it.

    I found that I basically never booted into XP. I found OSX and the suite of apps you get with a Mac to be a breeze to use. I started saying things like "It (really) Just Works."

    Now that I've been on it awhile, the honeymoon is over, but I'm still happy to be using it as my primary OS. I had tried to argue that it was because things just worked, but actually, yes, what I should have been saying and being more honest with myself about is that the issue isn't about it working well, it's about it working at all.

    I still keep an XP gaming partition going on this Mac Pro, but every time I boot it up, I find some irritating little problem that needs fixing. It forgot my default sound device again. Java is bugging me about an update. XP is complaining that my AVG isn't updated (it's doing it now; shut up!). And then when I start up a game, it crashes. Fiddle fiddle fiddle while talking to my buddy on Skype, who is fiddling with other stuff because he's having in-game VOIP woes, despite the fact that it worked last night...

    When you use something every day, you get used to this. But when you get onto a platform that doesn't need babysitting, it starts to really stand out. It isn't that OSX and the Mac and Apple are GREAT; it's that Windows is AWFUL. It's not that iMovie is GREAT; it's that MovieMaker is AWFUL.

    This computer and OSX drive me crazy sometimes too, of course, but it's not a constant barrage of things requiring my attention or requiring me to make workarounds for or requiring me to look for other solutions for. Apple is gaining ground not by doing a fantastic job, but by being minimally competent at their job while the competition does... What is MS even doing over there? It's shameful!

    A case in point is the revised Zune

    The Xbox360 is another example, in my opinion anyway, of where MS is doing a fine job. Same department, right? Maybe the gaming/music wing of MS can take over the rest and start delivering compelling products that work right. Apple is starting to get a little controlling and ugly, but that's what happens when you get too comfortable in your market. We'd all benefit from MS doing a better job on Windows, I think.

  17. Vista.. Problems? No Way! Say it ain't So!! by houbou · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Saying Vista has problems is like saying George W. Bush is a few fries shy from a happy meal.

    Yes, yes, yes, Vista = problems

    Of course, for Microsoft to admit that, it took what, uh, XP sales still surpassing Vista's? or the fact that most people downgrade from Vista to XP? (I should say Upgrade.. :)

    It's a crappy OS, takes too much resources, let's not even go with all the stupid security windows, etc..

    It is said that we can learn from anything, even failure, well Microsoft, Vista should be a heck of a classroom of a lesson for you, that's for sure!

    I think sometimes that Vista is to Microsoft, what "New Coke" was to Coca Cola.

    A big mistake.

  18. Re:Beta tester looking back by hughk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep, I have seen the published kernel docs for Windows and can agree with what you said. Between the kernel and user is a lot of crap which is wrecking the experience. Putting the GUI into kernel space was a performance improvement in NT4 days but it immediately meant that the GUI and the graphics driver became tightly bound and easy for their interaction to bring down Windows.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
  19. Not that helpful by TheLink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's what the Unix people like to say all the time, but it's not very helpful.

    AFAIK for Desktop users there's very little difference between rebooting and restarting X.

    They lose all their unsaved work - since most of it is still in apps in X. And the last I checked if you restart X, the apps die. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.

    Sure it's not a big problem for people who just use X as an interface to ssh and screen, and for some browsing. But I heard there's this push for "Desktop".

    In the old days Windows 95 ran on MSDOS, if it hung, even if you could get it to exit to dos and then you type win to start it back up, it's still not very helpful to most people.

    --
  20. Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Really? I must have missed it. But then i am still using W2K, works fine.

  21. Get Windows 7! by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Windows 7 won't have these problems! It'll fix everything!

    But really. Blaming everyone but Microsoft? The drivers, when they deliberately changed the driver model at the last moment so XP drivers wouldn't work? What?

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  22. Re:Generalisation about Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You don't have to be hoarding to your time to feel it's worth something :). Do you feel like wasting time when you eat lunch or take a dump? If reading and writing on Slashdot is your idea of entertainment, you're perfectly free to do it, and your conscience shouldn't have to suffer (unless, of course, you do it so much that your real job suffers).

  23. Re:Appe Doesn't Annoy Its Customers? by earlymon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recall reading somewhere that iTunes is essentially an xml parser/browser and the actual work is done by Quicktime.

    I may have that wrong in part, but it makes sense that they wouldn't duplicate functions. I suppose it might make more sense that they would simply be using shared libraries for media playback. Perhaps they do, but they don't try to manage library installation across two installers - they simply require QT installation for iTunes.

    It's been a while since I've installed either on Windows; I wasn't aware of the systray task install. I'd hate the hell out of that. What possesses people to think the systray must be used? My personal path was Apple II, CP/M, HP-UX, VMS, *nices, DOS, OS/2, Win and finally Macs. By the time I'd seen Win, I was no strangers to computers, but the systray was new and OK. When others decided to plant stuff there mysteriously, I learned to hate them. I had enough to keep straight. OK, sorry, I guess that's all "get off my lawn" stuff.

    I'm a Safari fan - but sneaking installs of it in? That makes it - what? - bloatware?

    Even though I far prefer OS X over Windows, here's something anyone with an ounce of sense can relate to - make your Apple experience bad under Windows and you're not going to blame anyone but Apple. How is that going to encourage you to become a bigger spender? It won't.

    A good salesman takes care of the big-ticket repeat customers.

    A great salesman treats all customers the same, recognizing that a dollar to one guy might be a lot bigger than a hundred bucks to the next dude - and through respect, builds those big-ticket repeat customers.

    I'm sure that whatever fool at Apple thought to do this to you did so convinced that being pushy was somehow a good thing.

    --
    Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.