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Internal Emails Released In Vista Capable Debacle

An anonymous reader writes "As previously discussed, Microsoft's attempt to shield itself from further discovery over the Windows Vista Capable debacle has failed and more internal emails have been released. Although Microsoft has successfully kept CEO Steve Ballmer away from the witness stand on grounds the he 'has no unique knowledge of the facts in this case,' emails suggest otherwise. An email was released in which Intel CEO Paul Otellini thanks Ballmer for listening and making changes to the program allowing their 915 chipset to pass the grade: 'I know you did it.'"

314 comments

  1. Witness Chair by Shambly · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those witness stand chairs are bolted down right?

    1. Re:Witness Chair by wild_quinine · · Score: 5, Funny
      Ballmer's got nothing to fear. We all know who's responsible.

      Developers.

      Developers, developers, developers...

    2. Re:Witness Chair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We should be okay as long as nobody says the 'G' word

    3. Re:Witness Chair by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Those witness stand chairs are bolted down right?

      Why is that?

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    4. Re:Witness Chair by Kerelslied · · Score: 1

      Ballmer's got nothing to fear. We all know who's responsible.

      Developers.

      I agree, had Vista not been late, only top computers could have run Vista.

    5. Re:Witness Chair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a G word for Ballmer.

      "Gorilla"

    6. Re:Witness Chair by gacl · · Score: 1

      Those witness stand chairs are bolted down right?

      Well, when Ballmer turns green it's not like it's goin' to matter.

    7. Re:Witness Chair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try to altavista for "Ballmer" and "chair"...

  2. Ballmer on the witness stand by discord5 · · Score: 1, Funny

    'I know you did it.'

    The witness then took the stand and threw it violently at the prosecutor.

  3. Link goes to a Google News Search by Mustakrakish · · Score: 1

    The link appears to be broken, it goes to a Google News search and not to the actual leaked emails.

    I was hoping to read about another MS Exec bitching about buying a $3000 email machine since Vista sucked so bad...

    1. Re:Link goes to a Google News Search by Nachos+Nakamoto · · Score: 5, Informative
      --
      Cover me in peppers and lick me, baby.
  4. Ummm... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did anyone doubt that Microsoft and Intel are in cahoots? I mean, seriously, what cave have these people been hiding in for the last 20 years?

    1. Re:Ummm... by V!NCENT · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Considdering the fact that they bought a computer with Vista preloaded, they probabbly have lived in the "I need a computer, but I don't like computers"-cave.

      --
      Here be signatures
    2. Re:Ummm... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Really MS has long worked closely their customers and partners. The problem is that for most users is that MS has never really considered them their customers or partners. OEMs and Developers are their customers. Intel, IBM (now Lenovo), HP, Dell are their partners too. Your average user, not so much.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re:Ummm... by datapharmer · · Score: 1

      What Cave? The famous wintel cave of course! It connects Redmond, WA to Santa Clara, CA via large underground 'tubes' (volcanic I think, but they run the internet either way).

      --
      Get a web developer
    4. Re:Ummm... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

    5. Re:Ummm... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

      What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    6. Re:Ummm... by Xerolooper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If it is mutually beneficial they will get in bed with each other.
      "The partnership between Intel and Microsoft has brought the benefit of using a dedicated computer software for use with Intel's technologies." - Wintel

      --
      "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
    7. Re:Ummm... by IgLou · · Score: 1

      What blows my mind away was there was any doubt that Ballmer has unique knowledge. I really doubt that the dealing between MS and Intel was in the mid management solely.

      --

      Oops, how did this get here?
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    8. Re:Ummm... by aztracker1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft writes software that runs on Intel processors. Intel likes to make enhancements to the instruction set to improve performance, and wants the biggest software vendor to leverage them. Microsoft, being the biggest software vendor likes to know what coming around the corner, it works.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    9. Re:Ummm... by pclminion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.

      Indeed -- at WinHEC this year, Intel and Seagate (along with another manufacturer I can't remember) comprised the "first class" sponsors, meaning they helped pay a huge chunk for the event. And Microsoft and Intel were obviously shmoozing throughout the conference. I wasn't surprised by it at all. What surprises me is that others are surprised.

    10. Re:Ummm... by servognome · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

      I would hope all those companies have some sort of partnership with Microsoft. It's in the best interest of everybody to understand what the other is doing. Microsoft should understand how Seagate handles data, what graphics capabilities are on the nVidia roadmap, and what changes to instructions and new capabilities are coming down the line for new CPUs.
      One example where communication with other component suppliers is SSDs, and the changes to software needed to better handle data for performance and reliability. Microsoft better be talking to the drive manufacturers directly, not with Dell, so they come up with a total solution for both hardware and software sides.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    11. Re:Ummm... by AceCoolie · · Score: 0

      All the big companies work closely with MS. I spent 5 years working on the Redmond campus with an "Orange" badge because I was an IHV doing video drivers. First with S3, then 3dfx, and finally ATI. There were countless other people from other companies as well. We had office space at MS and enjoyed most of the other benefits as well. In the last few years, as office space got tight, most vendors moved off site to make way for MS's own people but there is still a very close relationship.

    12. Re:Ummm... by fermion · · Score: 1
      Which is exactly why, for many individuals, a MS based machine is not the best choice. Indviduals customers are almost always a means to an end for MS. That is why Vista comes in so many editions and is not sold as a single edition for $100. There is no upside for MS in selling a single copy of Vista, other than the profit earned, so it must maximize the profit. OTOH, a machine sold with Vista does have an additional upsides, so MS can sell the OS cheap. However, the OEM selling the machine does not make a great deal of money, so they must come up with other ways to make money,and, again the end user is not the customer, so the end use does not get needs met. Most individuals buy a PC because it is what they use at work. How many individuals buy a SUN or SG machine because it is what they used at work. I know I did not. I bought a Mac.

      One customer that is not listed is enterprise. It is possible to make money out of enterprise, But even here the vendors suppling the hardware have squeezed profits because MS won't let them sell, in most cases, as far as I know, naked machines. So while MS might have a customer in enterprise, I wonder if the OEM are still in the mindset that they are building machines to run MS Windows, or building machines to run the end users software?

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    13. Re:Ummm... by hullabalucination · · Score: 1

      Really MS has long worked closely their customers and partners.

      I'm thinking you've got a couple of words transposed there: "Really MS has long closely worked their customers and partners."

      * * * * *

      This message approved by the National Council of Amphibians.

    14. Re:Ummm... by afidel · · Score: 1

      The interesting thing is with the x64 versions of Windows the install folder is called AMD64 since Intel was so late to the party with EMT64 that so much stuff would have needed changing that it just wasn't worth the risk. I also think it was developers quietly acknowledging the fact that it was AMD that advanced the ISA even if Intel did eventually follow their lead.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    15. Re:Ummm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if it wasn't for MS garbage code eating so much CPU, Intel wouldn't have improved CPUs 2000%. That would mean my linux servers wouldn't be able to run 8 VMs with 50% headroom.

      Thanks Microsoft!

    16. Re:Ummm... by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's that interesting. MS cozily teamed up with AMD to make a lot of those changes happen as well. They've also, in the past, worked with other processor manufacturers to have software work on their platforms, until a clear winner in x86 came out in regards to hardware sold to run windows (wrt servers/workstations). NT4 supported a number of processor platforms.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    17. Re:Ummm... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

      What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.

      Yes ... and there's even a colloquialism attached to that "partnership" ... Wintel.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    18. Re:Ummm... by madhurms · · Score: 1

      I am curious. Does Linux also do all these things?

    19. Re:Ummm... by servognome · · Score: 1

      I am curious. Does Linux also do all these things?

      Hardware makers can just make their own changes to Linux, which eliminates the hassle and compromises when dealing with Microsoft. Unfortunately, hardware supplier support for Linux tends to be spotty based on market need.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  5. Here's the link by stjobe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Link to the email conversation in question: http://media.techflash.com/documents/intelvictory.pdf (pdf)

    --
    "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    1. Re:Here's the link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love this part:

      "Finally, I want to acknowledge incredible team work to turn this around...MS badgering all weekend..."

        So in the end even MS can get bullied around.

  6. The 915 is Vista Capable? by Britz · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Cool, now I can run Vista on my Thinkpad X41? I'm gonna ... ... wait!

    No, thx, I think I'm gonna pass that one and stay with Debian. Mind you.

    That was close.

    (the hd on the X41 is a 1.8, not a 2.5, my hdparm -t gives me 18.29 MB/sec, imagine Vista on that baby)

    1. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by MrNaz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Totally off topic, but have you ever tried replacing the HDD in that? I have a batch of X40s all with faulty HDDs and finding the correct HDD is a royal pain as it has a non-standard 1.8" 44 pin connector.

      I was tossing up the idea of buying a SSD but as far as I can tell there is only one that will fit (an 8gb from Transcend) and the OEM no longer makes it. I've just ordered 3 of the Hitachi C4K40s from China, they are the model that was originally shipped with these laptops.

      Side note: The IBM x40/41 are excellent machines. I buy them second hand for anyone looking for a basic office/web/email machine. Small, light, full size screen/keyb, solid as a rock and excellent battery life. Looking at mine (which I bought for 1/2 the price of an eeePC) makes me think just how much of a sucker you must be to buy a netbook.

      --
      I hate printers.
    2. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by AndGodSed · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      True story - a colleague of mine had so many wireless issues with his laptop+ubuntu that today he installed Vista.

      Monday he's gonna start using it and see how it copes with the wireless - here's hoping it sucks even worse hehe...

    3. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wireless

      Vista

      Does not compute.

    4. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

      And that's exactly what I have been trying to tell him.

      Granted his wireless issues under Ubuntu is unlike anything I have come across before - but I am guessing it has something to do with his wireless mouse - as soon as he stops moving it his wireless network connection drops.

      Go figure...

    5. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      i know bootup time is bad, but 3 days to boot? maybe he should have gone with xp

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    6. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by hplus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I understand your desire to promote Linux, but why would you actively hope that your colleague's computer will malfunction? It's one thing to get a chuckle when the "other OS" (whatever that might be for you) acts up, but to hope that somebody you know has problems using it so that they will go back to "your" OS (which didn't work correctly either) is just mean-spirited.

    7. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by hansamurai · · Score: 3, Informative

      Did he try 8.10? I was having wireless issues and then I upgraded to 8.10 and they all went away and it works perfectly now.

    8. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by poetmatt · · Score: 1, Troll

      So the guy doesnt' know how to change his wireless channel?

      Genius.

    9. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Oldstench · · Score: 1

      True story - my HP laptop has had 0 issues with wireless and Vista.

      Yup, you heard right, runs like a champ.

      It streams media with no hitches to my XBox360 while downloading large files and/or torrents from the Internet.

      I never lose connection.

      I did lose connection several times running Ubuntu on my girlfriend's laptop...

      Guess I'm that elusive 0.1% percent that has had no issues with this most horrible of operating systems.

    10. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      I've not had one lick of trouble with Xubuntu 8.10 and wireless on my Dell Latitude D610 (old, I know, but it does have 802.11g). Not one lick.

      Seriously.

    11. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly, thia attitude seems to be quite common. Take a trip over to the official Ubuntu forums and you'll see it displayed on a daily basis.

    12. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

      Heh - you are right, on face value it seems mean spirited doesn't it.

      Truth be told we have a good in-office spirit, he already ribbed me about him going to the "other team"

      Just last week I penned "come over to the dark side - we have sudo" on a whiteboard in the Microsoft Dev's office (where I am sitting - a sysadmin gets no justice I tell you)

      Maybe I should've clarified my statement.

      Apologies.

    13. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      I had significant issues with my HP and its Broadcom wireless and Ubuntu until 8.04.1. Three minutes with it connected through the Ethernet port and whammo, I've got wireless. It's rock stable, and on my HP DV2500 with 1gb of RAM, which runs like it has alzheimers under Vista, is fast as hell under Ubuntu. What I'm really trying to find the answer to is whether there are any functional 64bit drivers out there, because then I'll go to 8.10 in 64bit and just run the few Windows apps I need in a virtual XP under KVM.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    14. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

      (to both the above)

      Yes he did in fact - I am betting his is an anomalous case.

      Not one of us other linux users (a mixture of Linux Mint/Gentoo (me) Gentoo (colleague), Mandriva(intern) and Ubuntu 8.10 (Another Colleague) have any problems whatsoever.

      And yes, we are majourly outnumbered at our office.

    15. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 1

      I had no trouble getting my aunt's Vista laptop and an iPod Touch to work with her Linksys router wirelessly. I had no trouble getting a musician's Windows XP and iPhone computer to work wirelessly in the same room with his Vista machine that has a wireless keyboard and mouse. And the list goes on. I'm thinking your friend's main problem is he has a go-to guy who knows nothing about Windows, or nothing about wireless.

    16. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      FWIW-- i've got vista intalled(i know, i know- geek credentials have been forfeited already)
      the wireless drivers for my belkin wireless n card have never worked correctly (pc freezes after a while).

      i dream of the day when all software developers go platform agnostic.

    17. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Oldstench · · Score: 1

      No. You are only a troll.

      Wow, you got me. I am trolling because I am posting my true experiences with oh-so-evil M$'s currently-most-hated OS versus the current champion of open source, free operating systems.

      I am not trying to champion, nor shill for, Mr. Gates & Co. Neither am I trying to take a giant shit on Linux/Ubuntu, which I happen to like, but don't get a chance to use as much as I like due to my work needing to be done exclusively in Windows.

    18. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by hplus · · Score: 1

      No worries - too often we're caught up in a "us v them" mentality which ends up being divisive and harming us and them. I'm glad that you recognize that it's all in good fun.

    19. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's a witch! We need a duck!

    20. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Toll_Free · · Score: 1

      Nope. My HP laptop, running X64 Vista Ultimate, has absolutely no problems, either.

      My Ubuntu system in the living room, however, is another story. Getting video cards to work in it is an excersize in futility. Getting pretty much ANYTHING working in it requires reading several MAN pages, getting a wireless ROM code on my hard drive, trying 4 different drivers (3 of which came with Ubuntu, 2 of those cause the machine to lock up while attempting to init the card, vista had no problems with it).

      Linux =! user friendly.

      Vista is an entirely capable O/S. It only takes current hardware to get it to work capably, like pretty much any O/S MS puts out. Win2k, sucked, until a few months after it came out. XP, NOBODY would run it, because 2000 IS SO STABLE. years later, everyone SWEARS by XP as MS's flagship OS for the desktop.

      In the meanwhile, 2K, XP and Vista all work flawlessly here on different systems. Linux, well, that's an excercise in computer engineering, just getting it to boot up, full graphics acceleration and have wifi.

      --Toll_Free

    21. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmmm, that is an odd choice. Local club I installed wireless for has had no issues with wireless connectivity for 3 years... until Vista laptops came along.

    22. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Alpha830RulZ · · Score: 1

      There are still serious issues with Wireless in 8.10 (and Fedora, and Sabayona, and SuSE). If you have an Atheros 5007 series chipset, you're hosed until the next rev of Madwifi comes out, which is supposed to Real Soon Now. I have hopes for Fedora Core 10, but we'll see.

      --
      I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
    23. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by hansamurai · · Score: 1

      Well, I really should have added a Your Mileage May Vary disclaimer, but for anyone with an HP DV9000 series laptop, you're set out of the box at least now.

    24. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Shikaku · · Score: 2, Informative

      The reason why Ubuntu 8.10 has better wireless capabilities is because in the newer Linux kernel, it has more wireless support. This is in the kernel itself now, not external drivers.

      http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

      This page is helpful for searching for support.

    25. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      --Troll_4Free...

      There fixed for you.

      (HINT: Don't by Vista Capable, buy Linux Capable)

    26. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Okay, so there are serious issues with wireless in 8.10 because one kind of WiFi chipset from one manufacturer doesn't work well? *blink, blink*

      By that definition, there aren't any operating systems without serious wireless issues. We wireless users might as well just give up all hope! All the OSes have horrible wireless! Oh noes!!

    27. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      My T61 works nicely with FC9 (except for suspend/resume) - I connected to my linksys wap, put a password in, and away I went. I rather enjoy the whole experience, to tell the truth.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    28. Re:The 915 is Vista Capable? by keeboo · · Score: 1

      Nope. My HP laptop, running X64 Vista Ultimate, has absolutely no problems, either.

      My Ubuntu system in the living room, however, is another story. Getting video cards to work in it is an excersize in futility. Getting pretty much ANYTHING working in it requires reading several MAN pages, getting a wireless ROM code on my hard drive, trying 4 different drivers (3 of which came with Ubuntu, 2 of those cause the machine to lock up while attempting to init the card, vista had no problems with it).

      Interesting that you've mentioned having a HP notebook.

      I've bought one HP notebook last year and had no problems installing and running Mandriva.
      Ubuntu worked (no wireless support because of lack of firmware) but I had to pass kernel parameters such as noapic nothis nothat etc.

      That said, I will never again buy a HP notebook.
      Let me put this straight: HP notebooks are pieces of shit.

      The hardware was so buggy you couldn't help but notice the Linux kernel warnings while booting.
      Sometimes the HD simply stopped responding and would stay that way until I powercycled the machine.
      3D for anything over 2-3 minutes, machine frozen.

      So let's update the notebook's firmware.
      Oh, what? The firmware update tool runs only under Windows?! So I had to backup my data, reinstall the horrid Vista which came with the machine, update the firmware and reinstall Linux.

      While it solved (well, workarounded the bugs) the HD issue. I didn't try 3D, but is not a real concern for _me_ anyway.
      There are still some warnings during Linux boot time, so it's not like the machine is fully normal.

      To be fair notebooks are not the only cheapo quality from HP. I've already had a traumatic experience with HP's slightly-better-than-beige-boxes x86 servers at work.

      So, really, if you want to complain that Linux is not good (or really bad) for XYZ reasons, no problem.
      But, please, compare Linux/Vista/etc using proper hardware.
      Not under the garbage from HP.

  7. Windows 7ven? by AndGodSed · · Score: 1, Funny

    I wonder how long it will be before this headline hits Slashdot only with "Vista" replaced by "Windows 7"

    I still remember reading that guys mail that said "I feel that I got burned..."

    1. Re:Windows 7ven? by abigsmurf · · Score: 4, Funny

      windows 7ven, the worlds first swedish OS?

    2. Re:Windows 7ven? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Windows Se7en

      It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    3. Re:Windows 7ven? by AndGodSed · · Score: 3, Funny

      After that - Windows 7ven of 9 - sexy and efficient.

      Sorry, your comment just gave me flashbacks of her in a tight trekkie uniform...

    4. Re:Windows 7ven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Linus Torvalds's family are Swedish-speaking Finns.

    5. Re:Windows 7ven? by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, I think you'll find that it'll soon be known as Windows Se7en, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

    6. Re:Windows 7ven? by Thrakamazog · · Score: 2

      No thanks, I prefer that Finnish OS.

    7. Re:Windows 7ven? by JCSoRocks · · Score: 1

      Windows 7ven of 9 will be the Linux killer. Linux and mac users will switch en masse. Resistance is futile.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
    8. Re:Windows 7ven? by vigour · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Windows Se7en It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      I finally get around to renting Se7en, avoiding any spoilers, threatening my friends if they tell me any details and then I get pwned on /.

      There's a moral in the lesson somewhere.

      Ah well :P

    9. Re:Windows 7ven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows Se7en

      It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      Windows 7 will use ReiserFS?

    10. Re:Windows 7ven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      No, I heard that ReiserFS has been cut from the final features list of Windows 7...

    11. Re:Windows 7ven? by pejyel · · Score: 1

      Windows Se7en
      It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      No threat for the slashdot crowd then !

    12. Re:Windows 7ven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have it confused with ReiserFS, maybe?

    13. Re:Windows 7ven? by cellocgw · · Score: 1

      Windows Se7en It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

      I finally get around to renting Se7en, avoiding any spoilers, threatening my friends if they tell me any details and then I get pwned on /.
      -------

      What, you didn't know the villain forces the cops to use Windows MovieMaker?

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    14. Re:Windows 7ven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Wikipedia - Windows_Se7en_Murders 14:28 04/07/2011

      The Windows Se7en Murders was a massacre that occured during the thanksgiving holiday of 2009. The motive was found to be the use of the number 7 to replace the letter v. This was not the official name for the operating system Windows 7, but was a creation by Rik Sweeney[1].

    15. Re:Windows 7ven? by kj_kabaje · · Score: 1
      I appreciate the joke, but does this Swedish OS count?

      http://xcerion.com/public-relations/press-release/xios-beta-is-launched/

    16. Re:Windows 7ven? by Lazyrust · · Score: 1

      Like any of the people on /. would actually notice their wife was missing. Well, some would notice the less nagging when reading /. but it would be a welcome break. Thwarted by nerds! Take that you Ikea loving killer.

    17. Re:Windows 7ven? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.

      You forgot "who's" and "whose".

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    18. Re:Windows 7ven? by RincewindTVD · · Score: 1

      Running on ReiserFS?

      /Too soon?

    19. Re:Windows 7ven? by zolaar · · Score: 1

      Maybe they came up with a Text-to-Speech voice profile that sounds like Morgan Freeman?

      (track 2 on the linked soundboard)

      --
      One man's constant is another man's variable.
  8. Suspicious by Andr+T. · · Score: 1

    'I know you did it.'

    Giggling: Com'on, big boy, I know you did it! Tell me! Tell me everything!

    --

    Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

    1. Re:Suspicious by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      I had a different flashback:

      Intel: I know it was you Steve; I know it was you, and it breaks my heart.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  9. Intel kissing up to Ballmer's Ego is not evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come on! There must be a bazillion emails from Intel kissing up to Steve Ballmer. This is not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap.

  10. People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    People want cheap computers with the latest and greatest technology, and OEM's want to maintain as high of a margin as possible. These fundamental conflicts of interest cause these kinds of problems.

    Shattered expectations aren't limited to computers either. Ever bought something that you should have spent more money on? I have a snowblower at home that's so underpowered that shoveling takes less time.

    My personal belief is that this problem is to blame on hardware manufacturers and OEM's trying, and horribly failing, to deliver what consumers desire (fast computers with brand new technology) and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

    And what do we do about it? We bash Microsoft. In fact, we bash them so well that everyone, including people who have never used it and those who currently use it (without major issue) that Vista is not a viable choice for them.

    Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7, which is almost entirely based on the now very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase. Not only will it improve perception of Windows due to its excellent compatibility and well honed kernel, it'll force me to shell out cash (unless I can get a Microsoft handout, which is how I got Vista) for the latest Microsoft OS, and prematurely outdate every single Windows License companies have bought in the meantime.

    Want Windows Vista SP4...err, I mean Windows 7? $299 please.

    We have no one to blame but ourselves.

    --
    Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    1. Re:People want cheap computers by andrewd18 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      [The] hardware manufacturers and OEMs [have been] trying, and horribly failing, to deliver [fast computers with brand new technology] and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

      The definition of fast can either mean a measurable metric like MIPS or clock speed, or it can mean what most consumers mean, which is "Look, Mom! Word started in less than 10 seconds!"

      The problem is not that the hardware manufacturers have been unable to keep up with consumer demand for new ideas and more speed. Look at the numbers on a video card or stick of RAM today, and compare it to the same components from your computer a decade ago. They've gotten quite a bit faster and have quite a few more features, if you haven't noticed.

      The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.

      The reason we bash Microsoft is because we're not brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the only game in town. We've used Linux, Mac, and BSD. We know that they're all viable operating systems that do what Windows does, and in many cases, do it better. Is Vista a viable choice? Sure it is. Is Vista the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.

    2. Re:People want cheap computers by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My personal belief is that this problem is to blame on hardware manufacturers and OEM's trying, and horribly failing, to deliver what consumers desire (fast computers with brand new technology) and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

      Vista even the basic version requires a much beefier machine. So if you're an OEM, what do you do? Your basic machine can't handle Vista but MS is getting rid of XP. Really most consumers want a stable, secure OS. That Aero stuff looks cool, but most users can do with out it. In other words, fix XP.

      And what do we do about it? We bash Microsoft. In fact, we bash them so well that everyone, including people who have never used it and those who currently use it (without major issue) that Vista is not a viable choice for them.

      We bash MS because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people, isn't an upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the average user, most of the changes were cosmetic. Other changes actually were not beneficial. More DRM. Shifting security to the user by having them approve everything? And MS wasn't very honest about what the real requirements were.

      Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7, which is almost entirely based on the now very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase. Not only will it improve perception of Windows due to its excellent compatibility and well honed kernel, it'll force me to shell out cash (unless I can get a Microsoft handout, which is how I got Vista) for the latest Microsoft OS, and prematurely outdate every single Windows License companies have bought in the meantime.

      From what I'm seeing Windows 7 isn't that much of a difference from Vista. By 2009, most of the hardware being sold by the OEMs will be able to handle it unlike when Vista was released. Hopefully MS learns from this fiasco and won't publish ridiculous hardware requirements (1GHz to run Vista, come on).

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re:People want cheap computers by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure people want cheap computers, just like they want anything else to be as cheap as possible. Nobody likes to spend more than they have to.

      The fact remains though, a number of people will spend more as long as they believe that they "get what they pay for". That's why Apple has been so successful, really. They charge more for nicely configured systems with more expensive case designs and better support (you can still take one in to any of hundreds of retail stores for servicing, unlike any other major brand of PC I can think of).

      Vista's problem is, it doesn't really make people feel like they "got what they paid for" in many cases. You generally need twice as much system memory as you did with XP to get comparable performance, and all the pretty f/x demand an actual 3D graphics card with decent capabilities. (Sure, it runs fine without that, but then you're negating one of the benefits that was supposed to make a user feel like they really had something "slick" when they used it.)

      When you buy a machine that actually runs Vista well, you're not buying a low-end bargain machine -- so that means people have higher expectations for that extra money spent.

      I don't think it delivers on those expectations -- and SURELY won't when you go the budget machine route.

    4. Re:People want cheap computers by gad_zuki! · · Score: 1

      Ever bought something that you should have spent more money on? I have a snowblower at home that's so underpowered that shoveling takes less time.

      Consumers have the right to demand the lowest price possible from businesses. Especially monopolies, if they can. I dont like the idea that the real problem is that people are just too cheap. The real problem here, if there truly is one, is more along the lines of the MS development cycle and vendor greediness, not how much the end user pays.

      When you look at markets that consumers have accepted a natural premium, youre really looking at a culture of economic madness and ripoffs. Look at the pricing of the fashion industry or the luxury goods market. Sure, the higher end producers have higher costs, but people dont just pay for that, they pay for branding, emotional attachment, lifestyle, bragging rights, showing off, etc. Id hate to see electronics move toward "lifestyle branding" and "rich corinthian leather" BS. We're already seeing it with Apple and its disgusting.

      MS and OEMs need to learn how to use the vast riches they have. Paying more isnt really a solution. We're paying quite a bit as is. Commodity items are a goal for consumers, not something to avoid.

    5. Re:People want cheap computers by foo+fighter · · Score: 1

      Intel knew for at least three years that WDDM was going to be a requirement for Vista (nee Longhorn) but kept foisting the 915 on OEMs.

      They had Microsoft and the OEMs over a barrel. Intel should have been able to get a product in the pipeline in time, but kept beating the 915 horse until they fucked over the entire industry.

      Customers that want and expect a budget PC that can run the latest Windows are the victims. Blaming them unfairly shifts the focus from Intel's and Microsoft's malice.

      --
      obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    6. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 1

      Ridiculous hardware requirements brought on by pressure from hardware manufacturers and OEMs who would rather sacrifice Microsoft's reputation than their own. After all, if you hear that Intel sucks, or Dell sucks, maybe you'll buy AMD or HP next time. But if you hear that Windows sucks, you're still going to get Windows when you buy your next computer.

      What the OEMs should do is either add an extra GB of RAM and charge $20 more, or load it up with more preinstalled crapware to make up for the cost (without of course consuming 1GB of memory when it runs in the process (and definitely don't take that as advocating crapware)).

      There is a problem with the fact that people are buying POS computers and blaming the result on the operating system, and not their uninformed purchase or the sleaziness of OEMs.

      It's really sad that, in most cases, cheap OEM computers run like such garbage when the only thing holding them back is a single stick of dirt cheap DDR2.

      Further, you mention UAC as being a problem (and you're right, it is) but Vista has been out for such a long time now, and programs that should never need admin access to the machine request it anyway to run, reinforcing the problem. Blame the damned developers.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    7. Re:People want cheap computers by cptdondo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's sort of like Home Depot and Grainger. Ever wonder why seemingly the same DeWalt drill costs twice as much at Grainger than it does at Home Depot?

      Home Depot sells mostly to non-professionals, so they demand that DeWalt cut costs to meet a price point. Thus the drill gets sleeve bearings and plastic gears, and a weak motor. The Grainger version gets ball bearings, metal gears, and a motor that will break wrists. It also costs $200 more. I've smoked one of those Home Depot drills in an afternoon.

      I blame the near-monopoly big box retailers and corporate greed on the part of the manufacturers, along with the general stupidity of the American consumer.

      So it is with computers. You want cheap, you buy the cheapest knock off crap you can, you take out every bit of hardware you can and shove it into the software drivers, and then you stick in a high-speed CPU so you can publish big numbers. I bought some Dell SCSI drives some time ago; they wouldn't work with my RAID controller. I called up and asked why - I was told that the Dell drives only work with Dell versions of Windows, as Dell has removed a lot of the hardware from the drive controllers and put it into software. Maybe it saved them a few pennies per drive....

    8. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 0, Troll

      Vista's problem is, it doesn't really make people feel like they "got what they paid for" in many cases.

      What I'm saying is that the fault of that lies not in the operating system but in the garbage machines produced by OEMs. If the "Vista Experience" is what you were seeking, but it is not what you got, I can understand that it's tempting to blame the OS. The fact is that experience is definitely there, but if you can't get to it because your computer can't bring it to you, that is totally the system builder's fault for saying it would happen when it would not (and yours for not investigating the matter first).

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    9. Re:People want cheap computers by foldingstock · · Score: 1

      Part of the problem there is the market for "marginal" $299 computers. People obviously want a cheap computer, but where is the commercial operating system to run on these sub-par machines?

      I think this is part of the reasoning behind the multiple variations of Vista. They could have a "basic" version that run with little resources, a "professional" version that run on more advanced hardware and specialized in corporate workloads, an "ultimate" version for gaming, etc. Instead of using this model and delivering a decent product, MS fumbled the ball. Vista is tolerable on new hardware with >=4GB of memory, but anything less then that is going to be slower then XP.

      Personally, I think MS could do well with a stripped version of Windows. A $299 home computer really doesn't need all of the services and "advanced" features stuffed into Vista. A light-weight OS that can run email, browse myspace, and play youtube videos is all most home users want.

      Linux could do good in this kind of environment, but as was seen with the EeePC people are afraid of using anything that doesn't have the shiny Windows logo on it.

    10. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 0

      I dont like the idea that the real problem is that people are just too cheap

      The problem isn't that people are cheap, it's that OEM's lied to consumers by convincing people they could be cheap, and in return they'll get the Ultimate (or perhaps Home basic :P) Computer Experience on a friggin platter.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    11. Re:People want cheap computers by erroneus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      People haven't realized we have gotten past a certain point with PC hardware.

      Long ago, when memory was expensive, we got as much as we could reasonably afford and dealt with optimizing swap space utilization.

      Now we have more or less reached a point where processor and memory speeds are the most significant things to consider for enhancing operational speed. Memory is cheap and people are maxing their systems bringing their swap space utilization to zero or nearly that. Adding more memory will not help.

      The real factor that will improve computing performance is better code optimization for the OS and less object oriented code slowing things down. In case people haven't noticed, we reached a processor speed plateau quite some time ago and Vista is slow on all of the best stuff.

    12. Re:People want cheap computers by arclyte · · Score: 1

      While critical of Microsoft's procedures, your post seems to be soft on Microsoft as far as the quality of their software.

      'very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase'? This sort of thing is simply not acceptable on /. Next you'll be telling us that you'd rather be running Windows than Linux. I am greatly disappointed.

      As much as I'm part of the collective slobber all over Steve Jobs' shoes, methinks that Apple has a similar history of charging for upgrades disguised as new releases (although not all of the OSX releases have been minor).

      To a certain extent, I think it's the nature of the beast. You need to continue making revenues off of your software and you can't continue to make changes to it without getting some return on the time it took to make those changes. Not saying that I like it one bit, but from their perspective it makes sense.

      Hopefully MS will mull this one over and charge current Vista owners much less to upgrade to Windows 7 than buying it retail. Of course, then that might be tantamount to admitting their wrongs, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

    13. Re:People want cheap computers by Abreu · · Score: 1

      Sorry, no.

      If I make a piece of software it is my responsibility to clearly state the minimum hardware requirements for it.

      We need to know if MS colluded itself with hardware manufacturers in order to place a "Vista Ready" sticker on computers that plainly would not be able to run it.

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    14. Re:People want cheap computers by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.

      Mac Plus vs. AMD DualCore

      The reason we bash Microsoft is because we're not brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the only game in town. We've used Linux, Mac, and BSD. We know that they're all viable operating systems that do what Windows does, and in many cases, do it better. Is Vista a viable choice? Sure it is. Is Vista the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.

      Another problem is that MS has a one-size-fits-all approach. Some people like the Aero interface, and others want the UI to be as slim as possible (See Ubuntu+Compiz, Gnome, KDE vs. Flux/Open/Black Box, Enlightenment, JWM) With Vista the most streamlined you can get is a Win2K-like look.

    15. Re:People want cheap computers by Abreu · · Score: 1

      It's sort of like Home Depot and Grainger. Ever wonder why seemingly the same DeWalt drill costs twice as much at Grainger than it does at Home Depot?

      Home Depot sells mostly to non-professionals, so they demand that DeWalt cut costs to meet a price point. Thus the drill gets sleeve bearings and plastic gears, and a weak motor. The Grainger version gets ball bearings, metal gears, and a motor that will break wrists. It also costs $200 more.

      ...but then it's not the same drill, is it?

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    16. Re:People want cheap computers by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Ridiculous hardware requirements brought on by pressure from hardware manufacturers and OEMs who would rather sacrifice Microsoft's reputation than their own. After all, if you hear that Intel sucks, or Dell sucks, maybe you'll buy AMD or HP next time. But if you hear that Windows sucks, you're still going to get Windows when you buy your next computer.

      You and I know that the requirements going all the way back were ridiculous. Many consumers don't. But MS cares more about the OEMs than the consumers because the OEMs have to handle support. As long as MS made their money on the license, they've pushed the support over to the OEM. If they cared about the consumer they would have kept XP alive longer instead ending it sooner.

      I am skipping Vista for the most part because my current machine is old but functional. When it dies, I may get a Mac or install Linux. Win7 may be in the future if MS has worked on stability enough to be reviewed favorably.

      Further, you mention UAC as being a problem (and you're right, it is) but Vista has been out for such a long time now, and programs that should never need admin access to the machine request it anyway to run, reinforcing the problem. Blame the damned developers.

      For the Vista transition, MS changed the model for more security. MS had to change the design for many things like video because previously these processes did require admin access for performance and MS just did it that way. MS never looked enough at the security ramifications of these decisions. Now that security is now an issue, how older programs work is no longer valid. And there was going to be a pain in the transition from XP and Vista. But I wouldn't say it's all the developers fault. If you were a company that had software that worked in XP, now you have to assign a few testers to ensure it works in Vista now. Oh wait, your driver no longer works because MS changed the model. The developer that wrote it 5 years ago? He's left the company by now. Someone will have to figure it out from scratch. And you don't have any free developers. So this fix will take time. By 2009, all these issues will have been worked out so the Win7 transition may not require any changes.

      True

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    17. Re:People want cheap computers by orclevegam · · Score: 1

      Actually this is both the OEM, and Microsofts fault. Microsoft came out with a program to certify OEM hardware as able to run Vista with acceptable performance. Had Microsoft actually done what they said they were doing things would have been fine. Instead when the OEMs started complaining to Microsoft that only the most powerful most expensive systems they were selling that year meet the certification requirements, Microsoft lowered the requirements knowing that by doing so they were representing underpowered systems as being able to run Vista with an acceptable level of performance. Apparently being able to boot in under 10 minutes and run solitaire without completely pegging all the system resources is considered "acceptable performance" by MS, but unfortunately for them not by anyone else.

      --
      Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
    18. Re:People want cheap computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7...

      After decades of the Microsoft shell game, you still believe they're going to release Windows 7 on time? It's going to come out years late, if at all, with most of the interesting features remove -- just like every other major OS release they've done.

    19. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 1

      It is true that hardware certified by MS to be "Vista Ready" that simply has no capability to run the OS lends culpability to them for the current debacle, however, I'm suggesting that said debacle is a result of market and business-to-business forces outside of Microsoft, compelling them to give a "Vista Capable" logo to hardware that shouldn't have it.

      However, for what it's worth, I run Vista quite well on old hardware (socket 939 nForce 4 stuff) at home, and what makes it fast isn't related to my FSB or CPU clock speeds, but simply the amount of RAM I have.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    20. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 1

      Should it get delayed, it'll only be to add features.

      Windows 7 is Vista + More features, plain and simple, but it sure as hell won't be marketed that way, and I firmly believe that is the fault of nerds worldwide decrying Vista for issues that either don't exist, aren't relevant (like DRM support), or overall speed of the OS (usually due to lack of RAM or excess of OEM crapware).

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    21. Re:People want cheap computers by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      Normally I would agree with you that if you buy a bad product, it's not somebody else's fault. But in this case, customers were being misled into thinking that a certain computer would be adequate for running Vista, whereas, really, that wasn't the case. If you actually made your purchase decision based on this misleading message, I think it is reasonable to blame whoever did the misleading.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    22. Re:People want cheap computers by hemp · · Score: 0

      You should try Windows Mojave. I hear it really really good.

      --
      Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
    23. Re:People want cheap computers by griffjon · · Score: 1

      To be fair, Vista leveled the playing field so that even people with super-powerful computers get a painfully nonresponsive and crash-prone user experience, just like the "Vista Ready" folks!

      --
      Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
    24. Re:People want cheap computers by sjames · · Score: 1

      Another problem is that MS has a one-size-fits-all approach.

      If only! They have a dizzying array of 'editions' and little clear guid to determine which is needed. Once you pay for that, comes the matter of how many of what license. Even MS isn't sure what the 'correct' answer is for that.

      They know all about modularizing when they can use it to nickel and dime the customer to death, just not when it might allow for a custom 'user experience' or, God forbid, allow their products to be un-bundled or replaced by better 3rd party equivalents.

      I still don't understand why they insist on welding a GUI to a server but refuse to allow media player to install on the same server OS.

    25. Re:People want cheap computers by griffjon · · Score: 1, Funny

      Excuse me, your neutral, well-reasoned argument fails to mention that microsoft sux, please consider revising and reposting with a more inflammatory, one-sided version. Kthxbai.

      --
      Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
    26. Re:People want cheap computers by cptdondo · · Score: 1

      Ah, but it looks exactly the same, it has the same name/noemnclature (but slightly different model number), and it is advertised exactly the same way.

      So it's definitely deceiving.

    27. Re:People want cheap computers by Toll_Free · · Score: 1

      Yeah, uneducated consumers (idiots) shouldn't shoulder the blame for making uneducated decisions.

      I'm so tired of this blame the corporation shit. Fuck, what happened to people actually READING up on something before making a big purchase.

      I remember when people looked at cheap computers as just that, CHEAP. They where relegated to the people that didn't DEMAND performance.

      You wanted a real machine, you bought something that costed quite a bit more.

      Of course, that actually meant people KNEW what they wanted, what they needed, and they actually researched their purchase.

      It's much easier to just go plop the credit card down at (insert_trendy_store_declaring_bancrupcy_here) and buy the cheapest thing. NO research in impulse buying. And computers have become so cheap, they can be considered a an impulse purchase now.

      --Toll_Free

    28. Re:People want cheap computers by plopez · · Score: 1

      People want cheap computers with the latest and greatest technology, and OEM's want to maintain as high of a margin as possible. These fundamental conflicts of interest cause these kinds of problems.
      what you have called is referred to as "market forces". deal with it.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    29. Re:People want cheap computers by _avs_007 · · Score: 1

      From what I'm seeing Windows 7 isn't that much of a difference from Vista.

      Actually Windows 7 is quite different from Vista. It's based on the same kernel, but there are LOTS of things that changed. I'd be more specific, but I'm under NDA. (No, I don't work for MSFT)

    30. Re:People want cheap computers by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Considering that Linux can run quite decently with 16 MB RAM and a 200MHz CPU (so long as you dump the GUI), it's outrageous that Vista can barely manage to boot with 1Gig of RAM.

      As for UAC, the blame needs to be shared. MS spent over a decade effectively training Windows coders (and users) to presume they have root (admin) access all the time. Now they don't.

      I agree that MS had no choice about not permitting everything as admin anymore, and that now that they don't, it's time for the developers to get with the program but the blame is shared. MS should have gone to better security a LOT sooner. They had a good opportunity when XP came out. They could have granted admin to the legacy apps only rather than to everything. Had they done that, there wouldn't be apps today that unnecessarily demand to run as admin now.

      For that matter, they could do something similar now, but would take more flak for it. Perhaps apps that don't have a 'vista signature' on them would display flies buzzing around their icon to encourage developers to update quick.

      Next release, installing an app without the signature requires clicking through big bold warnings and adds little heaps of dung to the icon to go with the flies. To add impact, the warning dialogs could feature pictures of an actual steaming pile.

      Finally, don't allow such apps at all unless the user drills deep into configurations dialogs and checks a box to allow it.

      By the time the next logical step would come around, the odds are that too many incompatible changes would have happened for the old app to run anyway.

    31. Re:People want cheap computers by Schuthrax · · Score: 1

      The real factor that will improve computing performance is better code optimization for the OS and less object oriented code slowing things down.

      Um, no, this has nothing to do with object oriented code; but the first part of your statement is spot on.

    32. Re:People want cheap computers by dpilot · · Score: 1

      > We bash MS because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people,
      > isn't an upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the We bash MS
      > because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people, isn't an
      > upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the average user, most
      > of the changes were cosmetic. Other changes actually were not beneficial.
      > More DRM. Shifting security to the user by having them approve everything?
      > And MS wasn't very honest about what the real requirements were.average
      > user, most of the changes were cosmetic. Other changes actually were not
      > beneficial. More DRM. Shifting security to the user by having them approve
      > everything? And MS wasn't very honest about what the real requirements were.

      That's all true, but it's really only part of the problem. Another essence of the whole thing came in several levels up in this thread, and that's *cheap* computers. What has really happened in the marketplace is that practically ALL of the value in today's computer is focused in 2 places, Intel (FAR more profitable than AMD) processors and Microsoft operating systems. Practically every other piece of the computer has been forced into commodity status, except these two. In fact, the profit situation is SO bad that PCs practically aren't profitable at all, until you get the advertising kickbacks from "Intel Inside" and "Designed for Microsoft Windows" stickers, or those 4 musical notes at the end of commercials.

      So monopoly power allows 2 companies whose contributions probably should be commodities to prevent them from becoming so - but it makes for an artificially twisted marketplace. When you consider the the Operating System should probably be an "invisible" way to get to applications, it makes things especially twisted. In order to get people to pony up for upgrade after upgrade, Microsoft has to change enough to make them think it's worthwhile, yet at the same time change for the sake of change is counter to the fundamentals of how an OS should be.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    33. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 1

      Considering that Linux can run quite decently with 16 MB RAM and a 200MHz CPU (so long as you dump the GUI), it's outrageous that Vista can barely manage to boot with 1Gig of RAM.

      You can do the same thing with Windows (Ok, well, Microsoft can).

      But you and I both know that that copy of Windows is not Vista/XP/2000/98/and so on, much as a Linux build that runs on the same reqs is not Ubuntu Desktop.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    34. Re:People want cheap computers by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      We bash MS because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people, isn't an upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the average user, most of the changes were cosmetic.

      i couldnt agree more -- what is the difference between window vista and xp+windows blinds?

      xp+windows blinds runs better

    35. Re:People want cheap computers by sjames · · Score: 1

      But you and I both know that that copy of Windows is not Vista/XP/2000/98/and so on, much as a Linux build that runs on the same reqs is not Ubuntu Desktop.

      OTOH, a minimalist installation of Debian can run on a rather small system, just not quite that small.

    36. Re:People want cheap computers by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      Vista even the basic version requires a much beefier machine. So if you're an OEM, what do you do? Your basic machine can't handle Vista but MS is getting rid of XP. Really most consumers want a stable, secure OS.

      If that was the issue, things would be easy: OEM's would just bundle Linux.

      Mostly, what consumers want is a computer that lets them access the websites they currently use (include the MSIE-optimized ones) and use the mass market software they are used to without glitches, which means OEMs will take whatever MS gives them as long as its the best way to do that.

    37. Re:People want cheap computers by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      It is true that hardware certified by MS to be "Vista Ready" that simply has no capability to run the OS lends culpability to them for the current debacle, however, I'm suggesting that said debacle is a result of market and business-to-business forces outside of Microsoft, compelling them to give a "Vista Capable" logo to hardware that shouldn't have it.

      Just who ran the "Vista Ready" program? My understanding is that it was Microsoft. And that's where the buck stops. If they certified hardware that they knew would not work, then they are in fact the ones to blame. Period.

      Yeah, sure... they were pressured. Everyone wanted to make a buck. Everyone had something to lose (including Microsoft). It's all a crying shame.

      But at the end of the day, cut-throat industry that it is, Microsoft certified hardware configurations that they KNEW wouldn't work. And they knew this because they were the ones to write the software in question as well as define the certification and run the certification process.

    38. Re:People want cheap computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vista even the basic version requires a much beefier machine. So if you're an OEM, what do you do?

      I bought a $299 (on sale vs $429 list) single core 1.6Ghz machine with vista basic, 1GB of ram and integrated ati x1250 graphics. Once I uninstalled the crapware Norton and other stuff that the OEM had loaded onto it for the $5 kickback or whatever, it's actually fine.

      I'll still upgrade the ram to 4GB (3+ of which it will actually see- 32bit) but that's because Blender and open office like ram, and I like them.

      If you hate XP, you probably won't like Vista. Religious issues aside, Vista's good. I prefer it to XP at this point. I've used vista basic, home premium (very nice media stuff if you have a tv card), vista business (the most XP like) and ultimate 64 bit on my gaming rig. Maybe Enterprise vista sucks, I don't know, I haven't used it, but the others? They're better than XP, cheaper than legal OSX/hw and more familiar than linux.

    39. Re:People want cheap computers by FrankieBaby1986 · · Score: 1

      I work at a computer help desk at a large PA university. Just yesterday I saw a lappy come in with complaints of "slowness, possible virus". Our AV didn't detect anything, but this was a lenovo laptop with a 1.6 gHz Celeron-M with 512MB of ram. This system was running, you guessed it, Vista WITH Aero enabled. Took 5 minutes just to shut the damn thing down! Seriously messed up! The best we could do was turn off Aero, adjust swap settings and recommend a RAM upgrade.

      --
      ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
    40. Re:People want cheap computers by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      To be fair, there's still a market for those cheap drills. Not everyone is building a deck in the afternoon, sometimes they're just wanting a drill to make putting up some shelves easier or light framing while redoing a basement or something. There's no need to pay $200 more for a drill if you aren't going to use it. No point in a Corvette if you're just commuting, and never race it.

      And I'll bet it saved Dell a few pennies per unit, and with as many units as they shipped, it was worth it to them at the time. Not for the goodwill they lost because of it (and their proprietary power supplies using the same plug, and all kinds of other lock-in crap), but it saved them money on the books the first few quarters.

    41. Re:People want cheap computers by Spatial · · Score: 1

      In case people haven't noticed, we reached a processor speed plateau quite some time ago

      Though I agree with the principle of your post, this is false. We reached a clock speed plateau of sorts, not a performance plataeu. But the work done per clock (and per watt) has been increasing constantly with each new generation of processor. And I mean per core, discounting gains from multiple cores.

      Take for example a CPU I've got. The AMD Athlon X2 6000+, a 3Ghz dual core CPU from (I think) 2006. The current 3Ghz dual core offering from Intel, the Core 2 Duo E8400, is 40% faster than the X2 6000+. These CPUs can also be easily overclocked to near 4Ghz; I suspect the only reason Intel doesn't sell chips with such a high stock clock is because of lack of competition from AMD.

    42. Re:People want cheap computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a snowblower

      You MUST be American! lol.

    43. Re:People want cheap computers by LarsG · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't that people are cheap, it's that OEM's lied to consumers by convincing people they could be cheap, and in return they'll get the Ultimate (or perhaps Home basic :P) Computer Experience on a friggin platter.

      And this entire article is about how MS aided and abetted that. See "Vista Capable"(r)(tm).

      --
      If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
    44. Re:People want cheap computers by Jurily · · Score: 1

      Shifting security to the user by having them approve everything?

      As opposed to, say, not asking you if you want to allow that email attachment you ran to change your network settings?

      Sorry to break the groupthink, but UAC is the one thing they DID right with Vista.

      Disclaimer: I'm a Gentoo fan, but I'm forced to use Vista for the time being, and the one time I didn't expect a Cancel/Allow dialog to pop up, the program triggering it was indeed malicious.

    45. Re:People want cheap computers by RulerOf · · Score: 1

      I know. It's easy to blame Microsoft (especially here) but I sincerely believe that the lion's share of culpability belongs with OEM's and Intel, and their impetus derives from stingy consumers.

      In some markets, a device is worth buying simply if it does the task it's sold for--like scissors cutting things, or cars moving down the road at posted speed limits. The problem is that the ability to simply boot an operating system is not the metric upon which a computer should be sold, rather they should be sold based upon their ability to run that OS at nominal speeds. OEM's and Intel's force upon the market has dictated that the former is an acceptable way to sell computers, but Microsoft takes all of the flak for it.

      --
      Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
    46. Re:People want cheap computers by foo+fighter · · Score: 1

      You totally contradict yourself. You say "what happened to people actually READING up on something before making a big purchase." then answer yourself with "computers have become so cheap, they can be considered a an impulse purchase now."

      --
      obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    47. Re:People want cheap computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an OS developer, I can tell you there is an upside. Microsoft's hardware requirements do two things:

      1. Force hardware to advance much faster. We'd still be on 8MB video cards if it wasn't for crazy eye candy in windows and other systems.

      2. Make open source stuff look lightening fast because we don't need so much hardware to make a machine haul ass.

    48. Re:People want cheap computers by LarsG · · Score: 1

      but Microsoft takes all of the flak for it.

      I agree that MS is not the only one to blame. However, MS was the one that ran the "Windows Vista Capable" program and MS was the one that had final say on what the minimum hardware requirements were for allowing OEMs to slap "Vista Capable" on their machines.

      In the generic case I agree with you, MS does not control the hardware market and the dynamics of the hardware market is such that manufacturers will try to cut corners to eke out a tiny profit margin. So I agree with you that blaming MS for sub-standard hardware is barking up the wrong tree.

      However, in this particular case MS had full control of which machines got to carry the "Vista Capable" certification and which didn't. MS fumbled bad here, they should have set the standard higher. Since they didn't, customers were misled and people ended up with "$2100 email machines".

      --
      If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
    49. Re:People want cheap computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wasn't XP based on the mature Windows 2000 framework? Wasn't Vista based on the mature XP framework? It seems like all of that maturity gets undone in the next version.

    50. Re:People want cheap computers by Detritus · · Score: 1

      Back in the old days, I was surprised at how cheap OEM licenses were for CP/M-80, the popular OS of its time. They were almost giving it away, compared to the retail price. The OS was a minuscule portion of the price of the computer, as was the CPU. RAM and disk drives were the big ticket items. It's interesting how things have changed. Intel has competition and has to struggle to keep prices and margins high. Microsoft screws everyone and can get away with shipping mediocre crap.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    51. Re:People want cheap computers by aaron.axvig · · Score: 1

      The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.

      It depends what you define as an operating system. DOS is an operating system. It only needs a couple MB of RAM. Vista is an entire platform including everything people need to be productive. You can edit documents, listen to music, run a Media Center, stream music to other computers, run a webserver, organize your photos, take handwritten notes, maintain a search index of all your files, have an interface that impresses all your friends with eye candy, edits movies, etc. the list goes on and on.

      The features have gotten a lot better. Are all of those the best tool for the job? No, but there are there and a lot of people use them and !gasp! actually get a lot of stuff done. Also, on my computers Vista takes less than 10GB ($1.00) HDD, less than 2GB ($60) RAM, and GMA950 integrated graphics (cheap).

  11. Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's common knowledge by now even amongst the general public that Vista exploded on the launch pad. At this point, the only thing this line of inquiry has to offer is to help Microsoft prevent a repeat of the last performance. If you ask me, Windows 7 will suffer many of the same problems -- namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough". Microsoft still hasn't learned that great programmers have a lot of experience outside programming, and to make the best code you need to give them the freedom to try different solutions and then listen to their feedback. From what I've seen, Microsoft is a hugely divided organization where hundreds of small teams compete to produce the most lines of code and nobody knows quite what everybody else is doing. Management constantly changes direction during the development process, to the point that a lot of work is wasted in duplication of effort and things being thrown away due to changing priorities.

    Windows has reached a level of complexity that these kinds of organizational mistakes can no longer be tolerated, but Microsoft is too large and entrenched to be capable of streamlining their development process. Maybe they get rid of UAC, and the DRM, and rewrite the driver infrastructure so it sucks less; And those are all fine goals to have, but it doesn't fix the real problem -- which is that the organization made these decisions in the first place when I know their developers were screaming at them "For the love of all things good and holy in the world don't do it!"

    Microsoft isn't the first to deal with this. One Mr. Richard Feynman noted similar organizational problems that led to the Challenger disaster at NASA. NASA has been trying to squelch this addendum for some time and you won't find a link to it on their main report anymore, but you can find it here http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt

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    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Yeah, and? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"

      Er, citation needed? Have you ever worked at Microsoft?

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      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    2. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 1

      No, I haven't, but I'm sure someone who has will be along shortly. Be patient. :) As to who's doing the development work, any query into google about the H1-B visa program and Microsoft will confirm the first fact. Here's an example: ahref=http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/bill_gates_lies_about_h1b_wages.htmlrel=url2html-811http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/bill_gates_lies_about_h1b_wages.html>

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      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    3. Re:Yeah, and? by nitio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code...

      You're right. We 3rd-world programmers suck. We tend to use something awful (C/C++/Java) and not the awesome technology in which the legacy code I received from my company, written in the 1st-world. The greatness that Microsoft Access 97 is.

      Don't be a douche. There are as many awful 3rd-world programmers as there are in the 1st-world.

      --
      http://stoploudness.org/
    4. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's a culture problem, not what tools are being used. Most of these foreign programmers are very good at following orders. The problem is that they're very bad at taking initiative; They want/need management approval to do much more than go to the bathroom. This is true for most eastern countries; People are more collectivistic by nature. Engineers in this country are taught to think critically and independently, and often clash with their managers. But the result is better engineering. As some non-engineering examples -- look at the Three Gorges Dam, which has a number of serious engineering deficiencies, arguably due to cultural differences -- nobody was willing to question their superiors. Of course, if I lived in China, I wouldn't either for obvious reasons.

      Here's an article that says it far better than I do. ahref=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Companies_should_avoid_culture_shock/articleshow/2811348.cmsrel=url2html-26813http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Companies_should_avoid_culture_shock/articleshow/2811348.cms> What I'm saying is that the horde technique churns out lackluster code, not the people used... though culture contributes to the problem.

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    5. Re:Yeah, and? by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 1

      So your saying a 3rd world developer is not as capable as someone from the US... Nice way to be xenophobic.

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
    6. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      er, citation?

    7. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Yeah, because it has nothing to do with economics (read: they're cheaper), it has to be race.

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      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    8. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Well you are a douche(or troll I can't tell).

      The problem is that they're very bad at taking initiative; They want/need management approval to do much more than go to the bathroom. This is true for most eastern countries;

      WTF?! I come from a 3rd world eastern country and nobody is like that.

    9. Re:Yeah, and? by King_TJ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I haven't worked at MS either, but I did know a guy who worked on MS Outlook for them for a while. His assessment of the organization was much like what "girlintraining" detailed.

      I remember one time, he told me how they had problems with promoting people internally. Developers didn't WANT to get a promotion that meant they'd become a "project lead" - and thereby be held accountable for all the problems. (Not to mention, the raises weren't deemed worth the additional hours they'd get stuck putting in.)

    10. Re:Yeah, and? by nitio · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      No, you're basically being a douche and trying to prove your point through meaningless articles. If you ever worked with people from other countries from serious companies you'd see that these people are not trained according to their culture but to the company's culture.

      Approval from management or confrontation is just a discussion with management and that obviously happens everywhere. It might be different in the 1st-world (I haven't assumed YET you're from US) where people tend to think that what's good about them should be mentioned, which I think is a good practice.

      If you want to talk about culture, what should I say to the more than 20 different persons I talked through last year from all parts of the 1st-world that didn't know that in Brazil, we speak portuguese and NOT spanish? Even better, what should I do about all the other co-workers from the 3rd-world who even took initiative to learn a few words in portuguese to exchange greetings and promote better relationship?

      Actually, don't say anything. I know from your culture that the workplace is not a place to estabilish relationships, and maybe that's why everybody else in the world has the idea that all of them are workaholics. A shame really.

      --
      http://stoploudness.org/
    11. Re:Yeah, and? by nabsltd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you ask me, Windows 7 will suffer many of the same problems

      The #1 problem of Vista was the poor performance on the average hardware available for sale at the time of the release.

      All software has bugs, but Vista just needed more machine than was possible to sell at a low enough price to get a large uptake.

      Microsoft will "solve" this problem with Windows 7 by doing nothing but let Moore's Law lead to the inevitable faster hardware for the same price. At this point, Windows 7 looks to be nothing more than Vista with just enough changes for people to say "ooh, shiny new", but none of those changes are significant enough to require more machine to run them.

      Add in the fact that it will use the same drivers as Vista, and Windows 7 will have much better hardware support at launch, which will also help the PR.

      Basically, Microsoft couldn't sell a crappy OS last year, but next year they hope to convince people to buy a service pack for that same OS just because they give it a name different from "Service Pack 3".

    12. Re:Yeah, and? by sundarvenkata · · Score: 1

      >>>The problem is that they're very bad at taking initiative; Yeah, that's why you see Indians traveling in space shuttles, Indian minds filling in the PHd openings in MIT, Microsoft opening research centers in India and so on... Talk about stereotyping!

    13. Re:Yeah, and? by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"

      Er, citation needed? Have you ever worked at Microsoft?

      Or the fact that Microsoft is composed of little fiefdoms and each major "team" often has a snapshot of code from other teams that doesn't get synced? E.g., Windows teams use a compiler that is older than the dev tools team is creating, Office uses DLL code that's been branched/modified/extended from the WIndows Shell, and is quite incompatible (ditto on dev tools as well). Which is why you can end up with 3 incompatible versions of the same DLL - one that ships with Windows, one that ships with Office, and another one that developers use for their projects (that ships with Visual Studio) - I believe one such DLL is common controls or common dialogs.

      Or how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?

      So not only is DLL hell created from different versions of a DLL with the same code lineage, there's also the troubles caused by the same DLL with different code lineages living on the same system.

    14. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you ever worked with people from other countries from serious companies you'd see that these people are not trained according to their culture but to the company's culture. First, name calling is pretty childish, and we're trying to discuss this as professionals. Second, does working for the 33rd largest company in this country qualify me? It's Target (TGT), by the way, an international retail establishment, and I worked there for two years doing (amongst other things) development work. Let me give some examples from my professional experience there: - My department was not allowed to develop a database in-house to do incident and call tracking. It was assigned to a team of 14 developers in India, and they worked on it for 16 months. When we finally got the product back it had none of the features we requested built into it, ran on .NET, and had a record limit of 64k records. Note, this was not a 64k record limit per database but for all databases that that software used. After consulting with two programmers on-site who were familiar with .NET, we concluded that we could have developed it in-house in about 2 weeks, with another 2 weeks for testing, using a team of... two programmers. But management declined our offer (again) "because it would cost too much". - I was assigned to do software deployments on the overnight shift. I worked two people from "a third world". They were highly educated, naturalized citizens of this country... And despite numerous improvements to the tools and process that I made that would have resulted in a nearly 10x increase in problem resolutions, they stuck with what they knew. Even when I sat with them to explain the new tools, they steadfastly refused to use them out of an apparent fear that someone above us would punish them. I wound up doing about 80% of the night shift work for about 6 months, mostly using custom scripts, while they slaved away at their administation tasks by hand. They were both eventually let go when we downsized. I liked them, I did, but I couldn't convince them for anything to try something new. ... I could go on, but there's a size limit to posts on slashdot.

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    15. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 1

      I can only speak to my experience in computer software development, and my post is about that, not space shuttles and MIT.

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    16. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, isn't Feynman that famous throad-singing artist?

    17. Re:Yeah, and? by nitio · · Score: 1

      Oh well, that was childish really and I apologize for the ad hominen attack. Though, where you work does not mean anything as I work for the #2 and still have the same problems as you. Might notice though that the problem with your statements is that you stereotype everyone from 3rd-world countries while saying your country (US then) holds the best knowledge.

      Again, you're only being a douche spouting stereotypes like that. I could name a few of the programmers from US that I hold some code-from-hell in one of the MVS apps I support (don't even get me started on Access 97). But also, I can name a fer programmers that are absolutely good when I work with them. I agree that there are a LOT of bad people in 3rd-world country, but again, there are a lot in 1st-world too.

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      http://stoploudness.org/
    18. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haven't worked for them, HAVE worked with them and honestly he's spot-on. Different divisions have different levels of quality, mind you, but the bulk definitely seems to work this way.

      Add into the mix an unbelievable amount of mismanagement (seriously, even from the outside it's blatantly apparent when you've gotta work with them. Try getting one software team just to TALK to another one and it's a roll of the dice as to whether it happens) and it's no mystery as to why their OS's tend to be subpar at best.

      I'm a little bit of a zealot for Linux but to be honest I think if Solaris, FreeBSD, or Linux had even HALF of the consumer industry support Windows has their market share would evaporate overnight. Call me nuts if you want, we'll never know for certain since it'll never happen, but it's what I think.

      Posting anonymously due to workplace.

    19. Re:Yeah, and? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unfortunately NASA only learned their lesson for a short time. When Columbia happened, initially people bashed the engineers for that failure. Why didn't they spot the damage? Why didn't they do anything about it? Well, most people didn't realize the internal power struggles and politics that were occurring. Engineers did notice the foam strike the wing. They tried to get more information.

      They asked for an EVA to check the damage. Too risky.

      They asked to redirect a satellite to take pictures of the wing. Too expensive.

      They asked to delay the return flight for more time to study the problem. That would be bad for PR. (Yes, a NASA manager actually argued that).

      NASA managers at the time were more concerned about the PR around delaying a return for safety concerns than the actual safety concerns.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    20. Re:Yeah, and? by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You might find that the reason you are not getting the same respect I do is not becuase you wear a skirt (as your profile page says) but because you start your arguments with broad generalities and blatant stereotypes. When you say it's a cultural thing that "they lack initiative" it puts people off, becuase no matter how many examples you site I can site an counter example. I've worked with plenty for people from India and all over the world for that matter and I can tell you you are making grossly wrong generalities about them. Conversely I work with Americans that couldn't make a decision to save their lives. Maybe this is becuase of your work environment. Maybe you should consider working for a different company that works to bring diversity in to the workplace, maybe Target just doesn't do it right. I don't know. No one culture is better than any other culture in our field and if you can't accept that then your going to find your professional experience getting worse and not better.

      Funny enough I was just complaining that my company (a leader in national defense hardware and software) was insulting my intelligence by sending out diversity in the workplace emails and requiring us to go to lectures/sessions on why it's important. I couldn't see how my generation could be in need of seeing things from a different POV, assuming we around the same age you've proved me wrong.

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
    21. Re:Yeah, and? by Abreu · · Score: 1

      ...the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"

      Your comment comes across as incredibly insulting.

      There are lots of great programmers all over the world, developing countries included, just like there are even more mediocre programmers all over the world, develped countries included.

      Now, this is not to say that I disagree with the idea that putting a lot of second-rate coders in a room and get them to compete in terms of number of lines of code produced is the reason why some modern software is so bad...

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      No sig for the moment.
    22. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The old-line win32 / NT developers are indeed a minority compared to the diploma-mill style indians and lazy american kids staffing MS nowadays..

    23. Re:Yeah, and? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      H1-B does not imply a bunch of unskilled "third-world programmers in a room" that will necessarily churn out very lackluster code. I know a few guys who have left for the US to work in Microsoft. They're all pretty smart.

    24. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 1

      I'm a 20-something, very probably so are you. And the only reason I'm posting at all on slashdot is because people really do look at what you say instead of who's saying it, and I'd like to find out if it's what I'm saying that's the problem, or (achem) if my suspicions are right.

      You're right, Target wasn't it, that's why I left. One of their senior executives decided to "offshore" 2/3rds of all contract positions within the organization. There wasn't a study done on this, no economic reasons, it was just given as an order and people carried it out. A lot of resentment came out of that decision -- because we lost a lot of good people who were trained and had them replaced by people that in some cases didn't even know how to take apart and put a desktop system back together. Is that their fault? No -- it's management, which was what I was trying to say in my original post... It's about how the group is organized and directed, not who's in it. And for the record, it wasn't just people from india; They also outsourced to an office in Quebec, Canada and the problems there were the same except they spoke better english.

      There really ARE cultural values that are prevalent in this country that I just don't see anywhere else. That's my only point. It's not to say people in another country are worse than this one -- I'm truly sorry it was interpreted that way -- people everywhere are the same as far as potential. This isn't about diversity; It's not about where they are coming from. My choice of wording was poor; It's just that most often when programmers need to be purchased in bulk, they do come from places like India, who are third world (though this is rapidly changing). I don't think that hiring a hundred mediocre programmers in this country would yield any better results.

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    25. Re:Yeah, and? by ericrost · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Oh come off it, 75% of indian technical graduates aren't qualified to work ANYWHERE. The other 25% are mostly subpar, and nearly 100% of those that are ANY good at all come over here to take jobs in the US. If you're an Indian in a technical field working in India its because you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

      Any time we outsource any development, it takes six times the time, which really negates the fact that the developers make 1/3rd the salary. Oh and to boot anytime we actually get someone to be productive, the leave to take a better job, HERE IN THE STATES.

    26. Re:Yeah, and? by girlintraining · · Score: 1

      Look, it was a poor choice of words. When big corporations want to hire a couple hundred programmers in bulk, they usually come from third world countries because they're cheap. It's not to say they wouldn't have the same epic fail if they did the same thing in this country.

      There are some cultural differences, but my professional experience is that it comes down to how hard it is to get them to start taking their own initiative rather than asking permission for everything. Indian programmers (especially new ones that just got here) won't say they see a problem with something a superior is advocating for cultural reasons. Yes, that ALSO happens in this country -- say between a doctor and a nurse. It's just that in the engineering discipline in this country, the engineers won't defer to management quite so easily if they see a problem. It isn't about competence, it's simply a communication problem, a culture problem. And it is solveable if people take the time to address it. The problem is, management usually doesn't because most managers are reactive not proactive and they won't see a problem unless it sets their nose on fire. So they're both to blame, really.

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      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    27. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That argument might have held some water had you not previously stated that your problem is with their *culture*. So not anything to do with economics.

      Sorry. You're still a close-minded bigot.

    28. Re:Yeah, and? by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      If you are going to make stuff up please go back to digg and/or reddit. Thanks!

    29. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah? So? Other countries did those things LONG before they have. What's your point? That they are slow to take initiative? Good job at proving her point!

    30. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      silly college boy.. if you knew anything about the world you would know what the definition of 3rd world means... its means they have a lower level of education, infrastructure, and development.. ie they are not as capable.

      If you think they are so great why dont you go to indonesia and have your next open heart surgery.

    31. Re:Yeah, and? by the_B0fh · · Score: 2, Informative

      H1B is not just 3rd world - 1st world programmers have to come in via H1B visas as well.

      I think what you want to say is lousy sucky programmers put out lousy sucky code, and that's not something that only H1Bs do. Plenty of lousy sucky American born programmers as well.

    32. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're an Indian in a technical field working in India its because you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

      Not true. Many H1B's who some here are bottom of the barrel. But then, many Americans I've worked with are pretty pathetic as well. (I'm on my H1B in the US). The problem is that there are so many stupid people in IT, especially in management, almost anybody will get a job.

    33. Re:Yeah, and? by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 1

      get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code

      Rubbish. They have first-world programmers who churn out lacklustre code.

      --
      "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
    34. Re:Yeah, and? by sjames · · Score: 1

      It's not so much where the programmers come from. What causes the problem is the costcutting uber alles mentality that leads to offshoring or massive use of H1B in the first place. That mentality also leads to primarily hiring the lowest (3rd world) bidder rather than the most qualified candidate (wherever he may come from).

      It doesn't matter where the market is, if you make your decisions based solely on being cheap, you'll get more bad than good.

      Of course, even a great programmer will tend to produce crap if the management sees him as just another monkey to throw at the problem. As soon as he realizes that, he'll leave. The monkeys tend to stay.

    35. Re:Yeah, and? by ericrost · · Score: 1

      And that point doesn't refute my assertion. People here are categorically mediocre, some better, some worse. People in India are absolutely the scrapings below the bottom of the barrel. The fact that some of the pathetic ones can escape only strengthens my assertion ad logicam.

    36. Re:Yeah, and? by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      it is fairly well known that the programmers in third world countries can run circles around the spoon feed masses in the States. MS doesnt employ them out of charity, and they dont pay them any less (if fact it costs them more just to get the visas). not to mention the increased cost of business just for cultural / language issues

    37. Re:Yeah, and? by Alomex · · Score: 1

      which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough".

      Most Microsoft programmers are from the first world and/or live in a first world country. They are top notch programmers, though fresh out of the undergrad. The problem is not in the brain capacity of microsoft engineers, but in company's lack of ability to harness that power in a software process that converges to higher quality.

      Essentially their entire software process is modeled after whatever worked in the past when developing Microsoft Word. As such they are sorely lacking in management skills for long-lived extremely complex software projects such as an OS. This is why they had to bring Ray Ozzie from the outside. They had no internal equivalent.

    38. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least the Internet Explorer team has a lot of indian members which does show in the way IE takes so much time to implement new standards compared to the european and american Opera, Webkit and Firefox.

    39. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?

      Stop and think a moment. Microsoft Office can't use Windows code due to anti trust issues, why do you think Windows can use Office code?

      Everyone at Microsoft would prefer to share, but they can't. It's not about the Devs, or even (shudder) management. It's about the lawyers.

    40. Re:Yeah, and? by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      What is this, Wikipedia?

      Go research it for yourself.

    41. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She isn't a bigot, and you can't fucking comprehend. She said the problem was with their culture, not that her problem was with the culture. Are you fucking stupid?

    42. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've worked there and the OP's depiction is not far from reality.

    43. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember one time, he told me how they had problems with promoting people internally. Developers didn't WANT to get a promotion that meant they'd become a "project lead" - and thereby be held accountable for all the problems. (Not to mention, the raises weren't deemed worth the additional hours they'd get stuck putting in.)

      Having worked there for a time, I can say it's true that developers would opt to not be "project lead", but not for accountability reasons. As soon as you get put into a management role, you stop touching code where you can contribute, and are forced into middle management where you make no real decisions and are just doing what upper management tells you to do.

    44. Re:Yeah, and? by elmurado · · Score: 0

      It's common knowledge by now even amongst the general public that Vista exploded on the launch pad. At this point, the only thing this line of inquiry has to offer is to help Microsoft prevent a repeat of the last performance. If you ask me, Windows 7 will suffer many of the same problems -- namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough". Microsoft still hasn't learned that great programmers have a lot of experience outside programming, and to make the best code you need to give them the freedom to try different solutions and then listen to their feedback. From what I've seen, Microsoft is a hugely divided organization where hundreds of small teams compete to produce the most lines of code and nobody knows quite what everybody else is doing. Management constantly changes direction during the development process, to the point that a lot of work is wasted in duplication of effort and things being thrown away due to changing priorities.

      Windows has reached a level of complexity that these kinds of organizational mistakes can no longer be tolerated, but Microsoft is too large and entrenched to be capable of streamlining their development process. Maybe they get rid of UAC, and the DRM, and rewrite the driver infrastructure so it sucks less; And those are all fine goals to have, but it doesn't fix the real problem -- which is that the organization made these decisions in the first place when I know their developers were screaming at them "For the love of all things good and holy in the world don't do it!"

      Microsoft isn't the first to deal with this. One Mr. Richard Feynman noted similar organizational problems that led to the Challenger disaster at NASA. NASA has been trying to squelch this addendum for some time and you won't find a link to it on their main report anymore, but you can find it here http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt

      Best line from your Feynman link to draw a parallel with Vista: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

  12. Widows Vista? by concoursrider · · Score: 1, Funny

    I can see his defense now - "I said it was Mojave compatible, not Vista"

  13. It was the sticker the whole time! by symbolset · · Score: 1

    That's why people don't like Vista. It had a bad sticker. That explains everything.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  14. consumption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another reason I don't want to be a consumer of an OS.

    1. Re:consumption by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      if you use any electronic device known to man you are a consumer of [some form] of an OS.

  15. wait until people find out by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    about how windows certification for hardware doesnt always guarantee it works, and clippy is actually more annoying than helpful.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  16. This 'Capable' reminds me of a Dell web page.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It listed Vista in three catagories: Good / Better / Best.

    Good said "Great for... Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games"

    Apparently good has another meaning for some people/companies.

  17. Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by Odder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stickers that changed from "Vista Capable" to "Designed for XP" on the day Vista shipped are sleazy, but the larger issue is worse: M$ KILLED INTEL'S GRAPHICS MARKET. What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets? E16 has been doing translucency in 2D land for a decade, so Vista should have gracefully dealt with the few missing pieces in Intel's chip sets. I know that 3D gaming works well enough on the previous generation of Intel under GNU/Linux, and suspect that's the rub. M$ killed Intel's ambitious drive to produce graphics chipsets because Intel had released the drivers as free software. HP moved away before Vista shipped, but that was not enough to keep Vista from sucking on HP anyway. For daring once to do for free software what they routinely do for M$, Intel has been driven out of the graphics market. The "favor" of letting Intel sell a bunch of hardware for an OS that would never use it should be judged in this light.

    1. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets?

      A lot of things.

      E16 has been doing translucency in 2D land for a decade

      M$ killed Intel's ambitious drive to produce graphics chipsets because Intel had released the drivers as free software.

      And this is getting to the pure hyperbole.

      PC gaming is not doing well. Mac and Linux are a tiny portion of that, and if anyone's taking a bite out of Windows gaming, it's the Mac -- much as I don't want to admit it, Linux isn't going to make much of a dent.

      The only place where this would actually have a chance of taking a bite out of Microsoft is high-end design work -- the kind of stuff you'd buy a Quadro for, and never even consider Intel -- and the kind of stuff that a non-free driver wouldn't stop. In fact, this is probably the reason nVidia bothers to make Linux drivers in the first place.

      Never ascribe to malice... Think about it. This is the same Microsoft that leaves known vulnerabilities unpatched for the better part of a decade. And this is the same Vista that, at some point, would run out of RAM trying to search-as-you-type (with the index disabled).

      Is it really so implausible that they simply fucked it up? That they required so much hardware, not because they hate Intel, but because they have a bloated OS?

      There are plenty of rational reasons to hate Microsoft. You don't need to dream up irrational ones.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    2. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by Rockoon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets?

      Its not like there are extensive nvidia and ati specific code paths...

      Intel's chips simply dont do DX9/10 well and thats the fault of Intel, not Microsoft. Could Microsoft have decided to use something other than the well established DirectX? Sure.. but why should they have? That would have still required Intel to evolve their own solution, but would also have asked for more from nvidia and ati.

      Its a no-brainer here. Intel's graphics chips dont do aero well because Intel's chips don't do DirectX well. Intel has long known that their chips suck for DX and have done nothing about it because they are unwilling to compete in that market.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    3. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 2

      And this has any relevance to Vista's incapability to do translucency on those chips how? The GP's whole point was that E16 has been able to do the exact same thing for about 10 years now, and even on far less capable chips (think Voodoo1) than Intel's.

    4. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Its relevant because it is the API being used to do those effects.

      Those Intel chipset sucks under that API and thats Intel's fault. Period.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    5. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by BlackSnake112 · · Score: 1

      Open-GL graphics work great under linux. Who ever at microsoft decided that Open-GL should not work on vista should have been tarred and feathered. Using the same drivers for the desktop as gaming sounds good on paper but is a bad idea in practice. Why use all that horse power to display a web browser? 3D gaming on intel graphics is not that good. The 915 chip set it is really poor under linux and xp. That intel chip set was the one that a lot of computers came with when vista first shipped. later chip sets are better but the 915 chip set was not a 3D chip set.

      If you need windows, unless the machine is a 64 capable dual core, 2GB RAM, and a 256 MB 3d video card, that machine is an xp machine. Those specs are the bare minimum for vista in my book. Most people get an 80GB+ hard drive nowadays for a home or business PC so disk space is not an issue.

    6. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by WgT2 · · Score: 1

      Intel should get burned for actively deceiving customers.

    7. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by ozphx · · Score: 1

      OpenGL is a fucking terrible API. It used to be good, and then it was just snowballing vendor extensions one after the other.

      DirectX is one of MS's APIs that makes me pleased. They have no qualms about dumping older interfaces (eg: new DX10 model, compute shaders coming in DX11). If only they had less legacy support in other areas.

      Im hoping the next major Windows revision takes a lot from their singularity research OS, and runs any legacy crap in a VM.

      --
      3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
    8. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by setagllib · · Score: 1

      You mean OpenGL? I hear it worked for the rest of the industry.

      --
      Sam ty sig.
    9. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      If they chose to use OpenGL then you might have an arguement, but they didn't. They chose to use DirectX because it is a standardized interface to more features than OpenGL provides. OpenGL is practically in the dark ages these days, with no signs of ever comming out of its quagmire of bickering memberships.

      Microsoft got it right with DirectX. Work with the vendors on a standardized interface for common features, then require those features to be implemented. DirectX is the windows standard for hardware acceleration of graphics. There were no backroom deals here, Intel just has a lot of shitty GPU's on the market that do not implement everything they need to be DX9 compliant.

      Microsoft could have used a different API, but I ask (again) why should they have? (So that Intel can continue selling crap?)

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    10. Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us. by setagllib · · Score: 1

      I think you have it all backwards.

      "Work with the vendors on a standardized interface for common features, then require those features to be implemented."

      That's the spot-on description of what OpenGL has been from day one. There's a whole certification process to ensure compliance. That's why it's available on all platforms, all video cards, and even some software renderers. DirectX is available only on Windows and supported only by select vendors who could pony up for the development cost. You call that standardised?

      The fact is, OpenGL is used on modern X.Org desktops to provide a much richer 3D workspace than Vista or OSX, using open source or even proprietary drivers. That validates the standard and implementations then and there. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in Microsoft propaganda.

      --
      Sam ty sig.
  18. Where is Intel in all of this? by foo+fighter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The motion for summary judgement makes it pretty clear that Microsoft was in the wrong, but so was Intel.

    Microsoft knew by at least August 2005 that the widely-used Intel "915" chipset "definitely won't qualify for the logo." That same month, Intel published an internet link "positioning 915 GM as optimum for Windows Vista on Mobile PCs," which Microsoft internally viewed as "misleading" and "egregious" at the time. ...

    In the aftermath of the publication of the Microsoft and Intel links, Microsfot employees internally viewed Intel as "intentionally" trying to "hide the ball" on the inability of its 915 chipsets to run WDDM.

    It's pretty clear that Intel couldn't get it's shit together and kept foisting its shitty 915 graphics on HP, Dell, etc., for use in high-margin notebooks. The OEMs were screwed because Intel was the source for chipsets that made the value proposition of low-end notebooks work.

    Microsoft is the one getting sued, but Intel is at least as culpable and incompetent, IMHO.

    --
    obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    1. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by foo+fighter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Shit, hit submit instead of preview.

      Also from the memo, from an Email Poole sent around MS:

      Basically from Intel's point of view, the longer they sell non-glass capable integrated graphics, that is an outdated (osborned part that OEMs won't want to handle as it's non glass capable. Frankly Intel should have thought of this 3 years ago.

      Essentially, Intel knew for about three years that their crappy integrated graphics wouldn't be up to snuff, but did nothing because the 915 chipset was raking in billions in profit for themselves.

      Intel fucked Microsoft, fucked the OEMs, and fucked consumers. Intel should be facing a massive lawsuit from all three of those parties.

      If I were Microsoft and the OEMs I'd also be doing everything I could to stop doing business with Intel.

      --
      obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    2. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is the one getting sued, but Intel is at least as culpable and incompetent, IMHO.

      What you said about Intel I agree with, but Microsoft could have looked out for their customers rather than worry about another company's bottom line.

    3. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To be fair, a large part of why Intel graphics suck on Windows has to do with architectural issues on the Microsoft end of things. If Intel chips were lacking the raw power for Glass, I suppose they wouldn't be able to run Compiz either, but here I am, typing this from an Eee with Compiz Fusion enabled on my Intel i915-based chipset.

      At the risk of stating the obvious...

      Not to say that Intel's a victim here, but perhaps the raw numbers for "Vista Capable" are just too high.

      --
      ~ C.
    4. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by CyprusBlue113 · · Score: 1

      Who else are they going to do business with? AMD? NVidia? Neither have the fab capability to do anything on this scale, and the other alternatives have even bigger issues.

      Heck NVidia just *abandonded* the IG market, that should illustrate it right there, people don't care about capability in IGs, they just want it to boot a desktop. In short, Microsoft really designed an OS that was not capable of running on current budget hardware, and then fibbed on the minimum requirements in order to make a sale / hold their dominance. And that is the basis of the suit.

      --
      a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
    5. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by fractalus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the contrary, Microsoft is a business, a publicly-held one, and they're expected to make the most profit possible. Looking out for their bottom line IS their business.

      The problem for any business is really whether they elect to take short-term profits or invest for the long term. Any business can make a fast buck by screwing over their customers; the downside is that over the long haul they tarnish their reputation so much that the customers don't come back, the investors don't want to be associated with them, etc. Building for long-term growth means you weigh the cost of pissing off your most likely source of recurring revenue.

      In the US there seems to have been a mentality of short-term focus. I guess the assumption is once you burn through one quick money-making scheme, you just move on to the next--sell your shares and move on to the next up-and-coming business. You can make money this way, but in the long run it's very inefficient and the market will punish such behavior.

      Oh look. The market did. At least as far as repackaging debt is concerned. Eventually it will catch up with Microsoft, too. (By which time Ballmer and crew will be long gone...)

      --
      People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
    6. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Aqua works great on Intel graphics too. The problem really does seem to be Vista.

    7. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 1

      If I were Microsoft and the OEMs I'd also be doing everything I could to stop doing business with Intel

      Er, like get out of software and get into catering? 'Cos otherwise you're pretty much stuck doing business with Intel.

      --
      "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
    8. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by foo+fighter · · Score: 1

      While it might border on collusion, if HP, Dell, and Microsoft decide they're going with AMD as their preferred chip provider they would have leverage.

      --
      obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    9. Re:Where is Intel in all of this? by jafac · · Score: 1

      Um - POST antitrust trial COLLUSION? between two monopolists?

      I've got an idea! Let's do nothing, twiddle our thumbs, and pray to the great Free Market God of the Invisible Hand to fix it!

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
  19. went to a small tech show this week by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It was hosted by a local IT shop looking to introduce new technologies to potential clients. There was a Microsoft guy there talking about Server 08. He used one of the talking points that really annoys me: "Yeah, I used to work in open source, played with Linux and stuff. But then I decided I actually wanted to make money." Huh? Ok, that argument might have held water years and years back but it doesn't even make sense these days. Yes, Vista was a failure but Microsoft is still here and even the most pessimistic of realistic assessments doesn't have them going away anytime soon. They may be the 600lb gorilla instead of the 800lb gorilla but that's still a whole lotta gorilla. But to dismiss open source so, well, dismissively?

    If watching the tech industry has taught me anything it's that nobody's indomitable and it pays not to get cocky. And the bigger a company gets, the more entrenched the bureaucracy, the more potent the kool-aid, the less likely it becomes to pull out of a tailspin. A company becomes functionally incapable of not fucking up. There's no way to turn the company around apart from firing every manager and starting over but those managers are exactly the ones who will fire everyone else in the company until they are the last ones left in the bunker. We're seeing this play out with the American automotive manufacturers right now, the Japanese are proving it's possible to make cars and make money at the same time while the Americans are busy proving it can't be done. Hell, our whole country is going through this same kind of dysfunctional malaise right now.

    My prediction is that Microsoft will, over the next fifteen years, shrink in preeminence until it is a 400lb gorilla, dominant in certain niches but more comparable in size and power to the other big name IT companies rather than the world-shaker it was at its prime.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    1. Re:went to a small tech show this week by JCSoRocks · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I wouldn't be so sure. Look at Intel... AMD had it on the ground. The P4 was getting its ass handed to it regularly and everyone knew it. Gaming PCs were almost exclusively AMD. It got to the point where people laughed when you said you wanted to build an Intel based machine.
      ... fast forward a few years and Core 2 has crushed AMD. Intel has not only come back but has completely turned the table. AMD is only just now reaching 3 GHz with their top of the line chips - Intel reached that nearly a year ago. Intel's upcoming i7 chips look to be just as dominant. From what I've seen AMD isn't even going to have a prayer until the end of 2009.

      I wouldn't discount Microsoft just yet. They may be be staggering now but I wouldn't be surprised if they made a come back.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
    2. Re:went to a small tech show this week by IICV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That was pure luck on Intel's part, though. They'd been pushing for higher and higher GHz, while AMD focused on (and was severely beating them on) the work-per-tick front. That's why AMD CPUs all have the 4800+ or whatever label; in theory, they do the equivalent work of a 4.8 GHz (Pentium) CPU, despite being clocked at only half that. The Pentium 4 series was a dead end, and Intel had no way out.

      Then an Intel research group in Israel came up with a heavily modified version of the Pentium 3, the Pentium M. It drew very little power and got a lot of work done. Intel was fortunate enough to see the value of this chip, and threw more of its research budget in along those lines. That's where the Intel Core series came from, and that's what's now whipping AMD's ass.

      But if it wasn't for the research group in Israel that had been exploring how far a P3 could go, Intel would still be lagging behind.

      I kind of doubt Microsoft has that sort of thing going on anywhere, unless Microsoft Research decides to finally release an actual product. They're stuck on their Pentium 4 - they just keep on pushing a technology that's well beyond any reasonable point of marginal returns.

    3. Re:went to a small tech show this week by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      Do people really believe that GHz matters any more?

    4. Re:went to a small tech show this week by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Microsoft Research does not release products - it's an R&D department, as evident from its name. It performs research so that product divisions can later use its results to release their products.

    5. Re:went to a small tech show this week by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "There was a Microsoft guy there talking about Server 08. He used one of the talking points that really annoys me: "Yeah, I used to work in open source, played with Linux and stuff. But then I decided I actually wanted to make money." Huh? Ok, that argument might have held water years and years back but it doesn't even make sense these days." - by jollyreaper (513215) on Friday November 14, @11:09AM (#25761019)

      No, it still makes absolute sense in terms of "dollars & cents"...

      Even nowadays, especially considering the fact that Windows as a whole is used by more computers out there (95% of the worlds' computers on the desktop to the server, ranging @ this from home user environs, straight thru departmental workstations & servers, up thru "enterprise class/mission critical" back office app servers into the smaller Mom & Pop shops, into Fortune 100/500 companies)...

      I.E.-> There's just more Windows-NT based OS machines out there as a whole, & thus, a greater possible 'surface area' of work to be found on them, vs. competing OS', such as those of the *NIX family tree (Linux, Unix variants, BSD's & its variations also, etc. et al).

      APK

    6. Re:went to a small tech show this week by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Do people really believe that GHz matters any more?" - by RocketRabbit (830691) on Friday November 14, @07:51PM (#25767355)

      CPU mhz/ghz ratings still matter and do make a performance difference. Their speed ratings' help out processing instructions, simply by the virtue of a given CPU in a particular generation/production line, being F A S T E R, in how many clock cycles run & how fast during a given timeframe.

      Other things inside a CPU architecture help a great deal as well however, but, it's not like mhz/ghz speed ratings are not an indicator of better/worse performance as well, especially if they're from the same production generation!

      However, do not simply discount mhz/ghz speed and basically state on your part that mhz/ghz do not matter at all for better performance.

      After all, given 2 CPUs from a given family tree from the same generation, do you think that say, the 2.4ghz model is as fast as the 3.2ghz model, even though it is 20-25% slower, mhz-wise?

      In a CPU dependent/constrained application, mhz/ghz matters, for performance.

  20. I don't think the case will work: by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 2, Insightful
    From http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/154340.asp

    It's unclear if the revelations will advance the plaintiffs' central claim in the class-action lawsuit -- that Microsoft artificially increased demand by allowing PCs that could run only the most basic versions of the Windows Vista operating system to be called Vista Capable.

    That is where it will all fall apart for them IMHO. I can't see how you can argue that it increased demand. People that were looking for the Vista Capable logo were at least considering getting Vista if not planning on getting it. If you weren't planning on getting Vista than the Vista Logo wasn't a deciding factor in your purchase decision, so again MS can't be blamed.

    At best people could argue that they thought that they bought a premium version of Vista and didn't find out until they were trying to install it that they wouldn't get the Aero Interface, and other candy. But they still are able to run a version of Vista so it is still Vista Capable IMHO. Also, I'm not sure if it was the same everywhere, but at least were I'm from there was always a footnote saying that it would run Vista Home Basic on any advertisements that used the Vista Capable logo.

    1. Re:I don't think the case will work: by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you've got $500 to spend on a computer and the ones at that price point say they're Vista capable, you're now going to consider getting Vista. On the other hand, if only $1000 computers say they're Vista capable, you're not going to be in the market for Vista. Thus, letting lower end computers be called Vista capable increases the demand for Vista.

      Now, should a computer that can technically run Vista but without all the features be allowed to be called Vista capable? At best it's purposely misleading. MS should have had their stickers say Vista Home Capable or Vista Professional Capable.

  21. Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap.

    If Ballmer *didn't* know that Vista was crap, then he is incompetent. If he *did*, then he's a crook. Pick one.

    On second thought, pick both - incompetent crook is SO reminiscent of the "Old Microsoft".

    Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."

    1. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by erroneus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Somehow it seems to escape Microsoft that the public resistance to to Office 2007 and rejection of Vista are more than negative reactions to those products. It is a shift in general public view of Microsoft in general. In the tech/geek sector, we have been aware of Microsoft's problems and shortcomings for a long time -- even if you are a fan-boy in denial. But the public historically been oblivious to the whole mess... Windows and the blue "e" just means computer and internet. Not so any more... Now the public is awakening. Apple is picking up a lot more interest and Microsoft has an entire IMAGE to rebuild, not just a couple of products.

    2. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The real problem with Office 2007 (other than it's an utterly confusing bit of software) is that Microsoft made writing in the XML formats available to earlier versions of Office via the compatibility pack. I have absolute no reason to recommend Office 2007 to my manager. Everyone can read any docx files coming in and even save in them if they want to. Maybe when support for Office 2003 is cut, there may be some justification, though I'll be hazarding a guess we'll be going with OpenOffice except maybe for Outlook, unless I can convince everyone to abandon even that for one of the open source web-based groupware products out there. Of course, once I do that, then there's probably nothing particularly stopping me from tossing Ubuntu on the machines and being done with it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      I'm going to go with crook.
      My evidence is this windows 1.0 sales video:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk

      -nB

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    4. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      offtopic, but what the heck.

      This is just like the American car companies. They built crap and spent too much on union employees' benefits and now they're hurting.

    5. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."

      That only really demonstrates incompetence.

      Except that Windows 7 *is* Vista....

      and there's your crookery.

    6. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by DinDaddy · · Score: 1

      You owe me my breakfast back. Eyew.

    7. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by Locke2005 · · Score: 1
      Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."

      Microsoft has being using the sales argument that "It doesn't suck as badly as our previous Operating System release!" for every new release of Windows since Windows 95. You'd think eventually consumers would catch on. Their current mantra of Windows 7 will be less annoying than Vista comes as no surprise after claims that "Vista will be much more secure than XP", etc. Microsoft is in the unenviable position of trying to convince customers they should shell out big money and completely retrain users for every new release, despite the obvious fact that either the software they have already paid for is sufficient for their needs, or if it isn't, then why should the customer expect the latest release to do any better job of meeting their needs. Always seemed like a pretty dubious sales tactic to me -- kind of like Ford saying "Trade in your old Pinto on a NEW Ford Pinto -- it doesn't explode on impact like the old one did!" Of course, it's a tactic you can only use when your customer doesn't have any choice. Personally, I feel that if you are going to spend $2000 per seat (mostly in training costs and lost productivity) to switch from XP to Vista, you should consider focusing those scarce resources instead on getting off the treadmill that forces you to throw out all your old software and hardware and retrain all your users every couple years, just because the vendor no longer supports the old system.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    8. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Somehow it seems to escape Microsoft that the public resistance to to Office 2007

      There is public resistance to Office 2007?

      Have you seen its sales figures?

      Note that, unlike the case with Vista, there's no downgrade license for Office 2007, so that explanation doesn't fly. And neither it is bundled with sold PCs.

    9. Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."

      You may have stumbled on their new ad campaign.

      Now we gotta get ol' Billy Gates to wiggle his ass to it.

  22. Advertisers. by inTheLoo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Actually, Sweaty B was telling people, "Advertisers, advertisers, advertisers, baby!", but it's not fair to shift blame outside of the company. They alone made the decisions, which drove Intel out of the graphics market, removed XP driver compatibilty at the last moment and loaded Vista with enough anti-features to insure it's complete failure.

    --
    No calls now, I'm ...
    1. Re:Advertisers. by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      i agree - why did that get modded down?
      and i just spent all my mod points yesterday *shakes head*

    2. Re:Advertisers. by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      Twitter, is that you?

    3. Re:Advertisers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You must be new here.

      inTheLoo is one of about a dozen accounts with terrible karma belonging to William Hill, a.k.a. twitter. He's often modded down because most of what he says is rabid M$ bashing combined with maniacal paranoia and people are annoyed over the fact that he tries to game the system using a bunch of accounts and dominates threads by talking to himself. His other posts are karma-whore attempts to try to keep his accounts from posting at -1 (the above is a fine example - It had not been modded down, the account just posts at -1).

      For more info, if you're for some reason curious, see here: http://slashdot.org/~willyhill/journal/204399

    4. Re:Advertisers. by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      wow, i had no idea that /. karma was so valuable. or that such shenanigans were taking place.
      cheers for the heads up

    5. Re:Advertisers. by turgid · · Score: 1

      inTheLoo is one of about a dozen accounts with terrible karma belonging to William Hill, a.k.a. twitter

      In that case, I'd like to place £20 on a Yankee in the 3:15 at Wincanton.

    6. Re:Advertisers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this is the most up-to date link. the owner of that journal is apparently no longer posting.

  23. Is anyone really surprised by this???? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    I mean, come on, just because someone slaps a sticker on a machine and says it's "Vista Ready", do you expect that to work?

    For a very long time when Microsoft lists the "minimum system requirements" for a machine to run their stuff, if you only ever had the minimum you're going to have a slow, unusable piece of junk. Windows has simply never really been usable on a "minimum" platform.

    I remember back in the day of the 486 people buying machines with 4 MB of RAM, because they were told you could run Windows with that. Technically, you could, but an application like Word would drag the whole machine to a crawl and it would page itself to death.

    And, for those of us who remember the whole 'Winmodem' things from the early 90's know that Microsoft has always tried to get us to buy crippled hardware on the basis that if Windows says it supports it, then it must be good. Or at least, have vendors sell something specific to Windows and let the consumer deal with the fallout.

    Microsoft is the one getting sued, but Intel is at least as culpable and incompetent, IMHO.

    I think this isn't even about incompetence -- it's about collusion and deceiving customers. This isn't a case where they thought it would work, this is a case where they outright asked that the program be changed to allow stuff they already knew wouldn't work well enough to be sold as if it did.

    I think you can only argue incompetence if you didn't do something which you damned well knew to be false. The fact that Microsoft may have had some internal misgivings doesn't change the fact that they still allowed it to happen.

    I'll be curious to see how this plays out.

    Cheers

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

      And, for those of us who remember the whole 'Winmodem' things from the early 90's know that Microsoft has always tried to get us to buy crippled hardware on the basis that if Windows says it supports it, then it must be good. Or at least, have vendors sell something specific to Windows and let the consumer deal with the fallout.

      Actually, Winmodems and other controller-less hardware represented something much more sinister than that. They largely tied you to one platform; Windows. It took a significant amount of work and sometimes bending the "rules" to get a lot of this hardware to work under open source operating systems.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      It took a significant amount of work and sometimes bending the "rules" to get a lot of this hardware to work

      "Rules"?

      There is only one rule about Winmodems. You just broke it.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    3. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by Toll_Free · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, no shit.

      Maybe the term WIN in the title of the product means it's meant to run on a WINdows platform.

      Kind of like purchasing a Ford transmission and wondering why it doesn't just slide into your GM.

      Bitching that a product DESIGNED for Windows didn't work on a non Windows system. Man, are you for real?

      --Toll_Free

    4. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by smoker2 · · Score: 1

      Crap.
      It's more like buying a stereo and finding that your ford won't work with it, or your GM, unless you are using Shell gas. It's a fucking modem. If it comes on a card, that fits a standard slot, then it should function as a modem under any OS. What it's called is not relevant. I could call my new drink a pan-galactic gargleblaster, but if you buy it thinking you get to see the galaxy, then you have the problem not me. How many devices work under linux but don't have any accreditation to that fact written on the box ? Lots. But they all have Windows $version as the required OS, even if it's not required in real life.
      How many anti-ageing products do you see advertised on tv ? here's a little secret - not ONE of them do what they claim. Not one. They hide the signs of ageing, they do not stop it or even slow it down. But still they are known as anti-ageing, so maybe there is some new definition of the term anti that I'm unaware of.
      So winmodems were a con, they are a con, and it should be made much clearer on the packaging that they are not modems in any true sense of the term. All they are is an expensive add on to plug the phone cable into. If a device is specified to work with USB for example, then it should work with USB, no matter what the OS. Drivers are a separate issue, but hardware should be capable of what it claims.

    5. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by ratboy666 · · Score: 1

      Wow

      Let's look at a (past) representative "bitch session":

      Random Windows Luser: "Well, I heard about your OS, and it's a piece of SHIT! It won't work with my modem! Windows (95, 98) works with my modem! Any OS that won't work with my modem is SHIT!"

      Reply: "But, you have a WinModem... it only works with Windows"

      Luser: " is horrible! It just doesn't work"

      You can replace WinModem with , or , etc.

      I have had these exchanges for years; they just don't get any more pleasant. So, I have a new mantra. It's not "Microsoft is a convicted monopolist", "Windows XP is the Swiss Cheese of operating systems", (even though these are true statements).

      It is simply this:

      Linux (Solaris, whatever platform)... when you know WHY you want it, it will be there for you. Until then, you paid for Windows -- use it, and leave me alone. If you want a computer for games, use Windows; leave me alone. If you need Photoshop, use Windows; leave me alone.

      Please don't try to engage me in OS design discussions, or implementation quality discussions. I can't help you with your Windows(tm) problems, and I am unwilling to help you with issues relating to closed source software. Take them up with your vendor.

      So, yes, I now most people "Windows(tm) may be for you. Please look at Apple offerings as well".

      Back to Intel: the 945 appears to be a reasonable display controller; it works fine on my Acer Aspire One. Which runs Linux -- it appears to have enough OpenGL guts to do the (admittedly limited) 3D I need for data analysis (I don't know if does Z cued lines, or Phong shading, even - but for my uses it is just fine). I don't know Vista and have no intention of ever using it, but I agree that if a computer had a "Vista Ready" sticker on, and Vista does not work properly, the customer should have recourse. If *I* purchased a system that advertised "modem" and it was (only) a WinModem, I would be upset -- but I would know within hours. It's just that I have been dragged into such discussions (hey! you're a Unix/Linux guy. Make this work! No? Well, ___ is worthless, then).

      Makes me sensitive.

      --
      Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
    6. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? by woolio · · Score: 1

      sometimes bending the "rules" to get a lot of this hardware to work under open source operating systems.

      I think you mean (cough) "laws" (/cough)

  24. the M$ Astroturfs are out in force. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like they are afraid of the issue. Standing up for Intel and free software is not flamebait.

    1. Re:the M$ Astroturfs are out in force. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      No actually, Twitter, it looks like you're talking to yourself again.

    2. Re:the M$ Astroturfs are out in force. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is all off-topic. OP said:

      I got to take a shit. lie on the floor.

      Unless you're weighing in on defecatory habits or floor-lying techniques, please post elsewhere.

      And for the love of God, Will, either post simply as twitter (or pick a favorite puppet) or make some kind of effort to be less obvious when going schizo and talking to yourself. It's creepy.

    3. Re:the M$ Astroturfs are out in force. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop talking about yourself in the third person.

  25. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why is this insightful comment modded -1?

    1. Re:WTF? by The+Yuckinator · · Score: 1, Insightful

      likely because of who posted it.

    2. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Likely who posted it is also the one asking why it's at -1. It's at -1 because most, if not all, of Twitter's sockpuppets have terrible Karma and post at -1. It hasn't even been modded.

    3. Re:WTF? by Tikkun · · Score: 1

      All of Slashdot is now a twitter sockpuppet. Including you and me.

      <neo>Woah.</neo>

    4. Re:WTF? by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      So I'm curious... which came first? The mod-bombing or the sock-puppets? Did the mod campaign begin after folks got tired of twitters sock-puppet shennanigans? Or did twitter begin said shennanigans to counter being a target of negative mods?

    5. Re:WTF? by BlackSnake112 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since when does class action == anti-trust?

      There is no anti-trust (not yet anyway and I have no crystal ball for the future and my magic 8 ball keeps on giving me a blank side) Open-GL != direct 3d or direct X. For some reason microsoft went with direct X (they made it that maybe why) instead of open-gl for the 3d parts of the desktop. If open-gl would work under vista which it doesn't that I have seen. I tried it with a open-gl screen saver. The fireworks one looks like stop animation on vista with a 256MB gaming (gforce 7800GTX) video card. With xp or linux it flies. Simple test but it shows how screwed up vista is with open-gl. from what I have seen, the 3d stuff on linux is open-gl. Which is fine, it works and looks good. The newer gaming titles do not use open-gl which is why a lot of gamers bitch that linux is not good for gaming. Can open-gl do all of the shading and 3d stuff that direct X can? I would hope so, I have not seen it to know.

      The intel graphics in question (915 chip set) are not a high quality 3d gaming chip set. Intel wanted vista certification. I never saw that chip set being certificated for running 3d games. Running a web browser, spreadsheet app? sure. Running the latest 3d shooter? no.

    6. Re:WTF? by Warll · · Score: 1

      No, what happened was Twitter would post his ramblings some of which was moded up but most was moded down. Once his main account was trashed he started opening new accounts in the hopes that A. One of them might get mod points so that he could in turn mod up his main account and or B. To post his "insightful" comments without them having the -1 stigma attached. Anyway somewhere along the line people clued in and he starting opening trolling accounts with names similar to the clued in people.

    7. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the AC post you posted was you. Little hint: try not to change the subject in every reply you make.

    8. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are Twitter.
      We are legion.
      We do not forgive.
      We do not forget.

  26. Ridiculous hardware requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Were these ridiculous hardware requirements not brought on by Vista being a bloated slow piece of shit OS?

    I mean, it's not as if the hardware manufacturers and OEM's make hardware slower just because Vista was made available, was it.

    Vista was ALWAYS that slow. IT required those hardware requirements. And they WERE ridiculous.

  27. The irony of this situation by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is that Microsoft has, in the past, successfully navigated this kind of situation before. In fact, they were the beneficiary.

    Remember OS/2? Highly regarded for its technical quality, however it required a princely amount of RAM. Ideally you needed something like 8MB of RAM, back in the day when this added over $500 in current era dollars to the price of the system. Add this to the cost of the OS itself, and you didn't have high adoption.

    Microsoft did a classic market segmentation move: they had Windows 3.1, which ran in 2MB of RAM, and NT 3.x, which ran in 8MB, and provided easy upgrade paths between the two products.

    What seems really ... odd to me today is the way Microsoft is trying to segment and position its markets. All this Vista Home/Professional/Ultimate business. You may think Windows 3 was a POS, but it addressed a legitimate market segment: people who didn't wanted to do basic computing tasks without dropping the better part of a thousand dollars more for a more powerful system. There may have been all kinds of good reasons for them to go with a better system, but they had other uses for the money.

    I look at a box of Windows Vista Super-Duper Ultimate, festooned with bullets, sitting next to Vista Business, Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Basic, and I'm supposed to sort myself into the appropriate market segment by studying the bullets festooning each package. What in the world were they thinking? Don't they study their own history?

    Going by their own history, they should release Windows Basic and Windows Advanced. Windows Basic would be XP stripped down to nothing and capable of running in 512MB of RAM on any chipset manufactured in the last five years. Windows Advanced would be Vista with all the bells and whistles and need the latest and greatest chipsets.

    I'd make Windows Basic really cheap, but make network login and sharing an add-on, so that corporations who wanted to use it would pay something between the cost of Windows Basic and Windows Advanced, and feel like they're getting a deal. Even the UAC business would have been less of fiasco here. People who wanted to take their chances could go with Windows Basic. IT Departments choosing Windows Advanced could piously tell their users that they were being protected from harm.

    Microsoft failed with Vista because they wanted to drag the world onto a product it wasn't ready for, and tried to segment the market in totally meaningless ways.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:The irony of this situation by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      I'd make Windows Basic really cheap, but make network login and sharing an add-on, so that corporations who wanted to use it would pay something between the cost of Windows Basic and Windows Advanced, and feel like they're getting a deal.

      Dude, you don't know what you're saying. Vista is the "Home" version, and XP is the corporate version. Most Corporates are STILL requesting XP, while the HOME user cannot even get it at Circuit Buy Depot Martco.

      Home users care about all the glitz and gloss, where Corporate is just wanting it to run Office and Business Apps. They don't want DRM, UAC or any of the crap MS has bundled with vista. And don't even get me started on Vista Enterprise, and the requirement to have you're own DRM server(s) and have roaming laptops log into the server ever 30 days or stop working (and the extra tech support getting those systems functional).

      There is a reason why corporate doesn't want Vista. It costs more!

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:The irony of this situation by Antony+T+Curtis · · Score: 1

      Windows NT 3.51 would not even install unless you had 12Mb of RAM. I have no idea where you got your 8MB figure from.

      OS/2 1.x was a beast but there again much of the work was done by Microsoft. The IBM versions consistently had lower system requirements and a easier to navigate UI. OS/2 2.0 could run in 4Mb of RAM (which was already a lot by 1992 standards) but ideally needed at least 6Mb. OS/2 3.0 actually had lower memory requirements than the previous version - so for almost all users who upgraded from 2.x to 3.0, experienced a very noticeable performance improvement while running on the same hardware.

      --
      No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
    3. Re:The irony of this situation by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 1

      UAC is a necessary evil. No matter how much people rail against it, I would support it being permanently enabled on all Vista machines. The world would be a better place, when Vista joins every other OS I can think of in being able to have functional non-admin user accounts.

    4. Re:The irony of this situation by hey! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In fact I do know what I'm saying. Microsoft failed to segment the market properly. The built the technology and assumed people would do as they're told and buy it at different prices in different colored boxes. Instead, the people with the most clout balked, and demanded XP.

      If you remember, a lot of companies used Windows 9x for a long time after they were "supposed" to go to NT. That was fine. Microsoft still had the bases covered. The Vista roll-out was more like they had tried to discontinue non-NT windows, rather than introducing Windows 95. The result would have been the same: people would have demanded Windows 3 be continued.

      I don't see any evidence that home users care about the glitz, or that anybody really cares (in economic terms) about the gloss. There are some worthwhile architectural changes to Vista, it's just too much of an all things for all people project. A narrower focus would result in a more satisfactory niche product (as NT) that could colonize various niches (as NT 4 did), and morph into a widely acceptable corporate OS (as Windows 2000 and XP did) when hardware caught up and the kinks were ironed out.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:The irony of this situation by zindorsky · · Score: 1

      What in the world were they thinking? Don't they study their own history?

      If history teaches us anything, it's that almost no one studies their own history.

      --
      If the geiger counter does not click, the coffee, she is not thick.
    6. Re:The irony of this situation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The world would be a better place, when Vista joins every other OS I can think of in being able to have functional non-admin user accounts.

      Well, that's what UAC is supposed to do, isn't it?

      It's not really that different in principle that Ubuntu asking for your password. The problem is exactly the opposite of what you suggest. Windows XP had too functional non-admin accounts. When people wrote software as if it had root level access to anything any time it wants it, then when tighten things up, mayhem ensues because sensitive operations are scattered hither and yon through the software.

      I've noted that Microsoft's own recent software is less problematic when it comes to UAC, because it was written around the assumption of UAC being there. Other vendors dumped the impact of the tighter security on the user. Granted, UAC probably could have been done in a way that handled the transition better. On the other hand, the way Linux used to do this was not ideal either; it's just more effective than XP but less cumbersome than Vista. I've been reasonably intrigued by AppArmor; we'll see in the long term whether this really makes a big difference. I think it might.

    7. Re:The irony of this situation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should know that Microsoft's customers are not you or I, they are the OEMs, the Dells, the Gateways, and the WalMarts. The OEMs want a reason to 'sell up' their customers, to get them to buy more, bigger, flasher, because that is where the profit is.

      If MS had released a new version of XP that ran on the same hardware then why would anyone buy it, or new hardware just to run it ?

      Vista had to keep the OEMs happy by _requiring_ new hardware and by offering a low end 'Basic' that could be 'sold up' to 'Ultimate' that needed to be on a top-end machine.

      I don't know what you mean by 'failure of Vista'. It may be that no one likes it, that many don't use it, but they still sent their money to MS when they bought a machine. They may also have sent even more money to get an XP install or a retail boxed XP to overwrite Vista.

      It would only have been an actual failure if Vista machines were still sitting around in showrooms (as Edsels did) while one could buy Dells and Gateways without it, or with Ubuntu instead.

    8. Re:The irony of this situation by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Microsoft indeed hasn't segmented the market properly. There is NO NEED for more than one OS, if properly designed. Having 5-7 Versions all called the same thing is STUPID. It is just marketing drivel, designed to extract the most cash from the market.

      To segment "Home" into "basic" and "premium" versions was idiotic. Same with the other segmentations.

      I have no idea what architecture changes you find agreeable, but there is none that doesn't bring a whole slew of problems we don't have with XP.

      And as I have learned, the market routes around problems, often building small ecosystems based upon those limitations. The reason why people LIKE xp is that those ecosystems are well defined and well known.

      Vista, however, is going to require a whole new set of ecosystems designed to route around the huge problems. But right now, many people would rather just use XP, and not have to deal with Vista.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    9. Re:The irony of this situation by ivesceneenough · · Score: 1

      What you are missing is THERE IS such a product. http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/benefits/fundamentals.mspx But it was never rolled out for the end consumer. I revived a few old machines with it and it was actually fairly nice.

    10. Re:The irony of this situation by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      Just to add to your post, rumour has it (I believe) that Windows 7 segments the market even more..... with more versions of Windows.

      They had it right with XP, basic and pro - it worked.
      500$ AUD or whatever it is for Vista Ultimate is nothing short of an outrage, they are going to shoot themselves in the foot as people slowly move over to linux based systems.

  28. Aero capable by hey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They should have had an Aero capable sticker.

    1. Re:Aero capable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what "Aero" implies.
      I know what "Aero" implies.

      Do you think that Joe Sixpack will know what "Aero" implies?

      I doubt it.

  29. You Lose. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This tread is back to considering the downsides of the M$ monopoly and is as out of your control as the dump of M$FT's at less than $20. Care to comment on any of that?

    It does not really matter what you say because the market has made up it's mind. OEMs, retailers and customers are leaving M$. There's more money and less trouble with the competition. You can't hide the truth for more than a few minutes at a time these days.

    1. Re:You Lose. by ozphx · · Score: 1

      Seems to be trending down along with the NASDAQ in pretty much lockstep. Twitter, you remind me of the local doomsday cult. Theyve been predicting the end of times unsuccessfully now for almost ten years.

      And I'm not sure where this "No transparancy on intel chips comes from". My girls shitty old Lenovo 3000 series runs aero glass and a generous helping of spyware without an issue.

      --
      3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
  30. Also by RulerOf · · Score: 1

    When I say "market forces," I am implying, among other things, corporate greed.

    --
    Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
  31. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  32. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

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  33. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

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  34. Not capable by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 1

    But it is all moot. Vista is just not capable; so a lump of dirt is just as capable as the most well suited desktop imaginable. If I worked for Microsoft I would have been willing to issue employees' dead pets Vista capable certifications.

  35. The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit by Julie188 · · Score: 0
    Microsoft will likely lose this lawsuit (and it should) but really, it's time for the tech industry to stop suing over software. Compare someone who bought a new PC with a promise it would work with Vista (which everyone hated anyway) with someone who went to a doctor and was irreparably harmed. The latter is worth suing for, the former, was the PC harmed? The PC owner? At the time s/he bought her/his PC everything ran better on XP anyway.

    Julie
    --
    Microsoft Subnet the independent voice of Microsoft customers

    1. Re:The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit by online-shopper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I purchase a product because it will work with X. And it does not work with X, then I have been harmed. I am out the money paid for the product. If the vendor promised me the product would work with X, and knew the product would, in fact, fail horribly with X. That's usually called fraud. In any event, I am due a full refund of the purchase price, and potentially some recompense for the time lost and aggravation caused by the vendor being a dipshit. Generally speaking, if a product fails to perform as a vendor advertises, they will refund your money *and* offer you some form of apology, be it verbal, or in the form of monetary gain.(gift cards, 10% off next purchase and the like)

    2. Re:The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit by MooUK · · Score: 1

      "We shouldn't bother prosecuting the guy who stole your car and burned down your house, because nobody died."

    3. Re:The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit by Mistshadow2k4 · · Score: 1

      Have you never heard of "theft by deception"? If you claim your OS is going to work on this hardware and it doesn't, then that is theft by deception, i.e., you deceived me into buying your OS. Sure, folks who bought a computer pre-loaded with Vista and it really wasn't Vista-capable paid a lot less for Vista, but they still paid for it.

      --
      I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
  36. The links in the original post are dead. by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1

    I'll save time and post this now, rather than waiting half a month:

    The links in the original post are dead. They were around for a few weeks, but since they pointed to wire feeds and, worse, a Google search, they're gone. If they had been linked to directly, we'd have a chance, we'd at least know the date they were available and the site hosting. In which case we could have tracked down archived copies, in worst case, offline.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  37. Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The entire Anti-Vista movement was spurned by he-said-she-said drivel.

    Indeed. Most of the parrots roost here on Slashdot.

  38. Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals by boredhacker · · Score: 1

    In the corporate world, Microsoft is god. Windows 2000/2003 servers run businesses. Nix machines and the like are novelties for un-evolved engineers.

    WOW!!! I'm guessing you've never really worked on many corporate back end systems... there are literally hundreds of examples that can be given showing that JUST THE OPPOSITE is true.

    the corporate world

  39. Monkey Horde Moderation Technique Still Strong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    How do we get +5 informative on a guy rambling about the org and dev process for a company he's never worked for? Seriously. Does anyone here have a job?

    "omg, Dude on slashdot knows a guy who knows a guy who worked for MS and has bad things to say! And he referenced the Challenger?! Where's my mod points!?"

    I work for MS.

    which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough".

    This is wrong. There are many foreigners here but they are all smart. I started fresh out of college, and had my own office on day one.

    From what I've seen, Microsoft is a hugely divided organization where hundreds of small teams compete to produce the most lines of code and nobody knows quite what everybody else is doing.

    This is wrong. No one competes to produce the most lines of code. We are not monkeys - we know this is stupid. Yes there are a lot of teams and yes, sometimes it's hard to know what the other guy is doing, but among the entire company these issues are few and far between, and find me a large org that doesn't run into this issue from time to time.

    but Microsoft is too large and entrenched to be capable of streamlining their development process.

    You make the assertion that the company is too broken up into small, independent teams and then that the company is too large and entrenched in it's old ways. This criticism isn't even internally consistent, not too mention that neither of the points stand independently. This is not true and I've seen the fruit of it.

    the organization made these decisions in the first place when I know their developers were screaming at them "For the love of all things good and holy in the world don't do it!"

    This happens from time to time in any large shop. It is the exception, not the rule.

    In conclusion, I eagerly await more of the subtly racist and completely ignorant commentary that apparently passes as informative here.

  40. More is on the way. by westbake · · Score: 0

    This is not a tech industry lawsuit, it's a customer lawsuit. It's true that Intel, HP and Dell were pissed off, but they did not launch this thing. See the fine PDF for more. Industry lawsuits will come later as shareholders for CompUSA, Circuit City, Best Buy and many others sue M$ for the Vista Failure channel stuffing that put them out of business.

    --
    I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
  41. How Is A Slow Vista System Good For MS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't even understand why MS would want to label these systems as being "Vista-ready" if it runs like garbage on them. Wouldn't that cause the consumers to be extremely disappointed with Vista when they see how slow and unresponsive it is?

    1. Re:How Is A Slow Vista System Good For MS? by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because the poor SOB is going to go out and buy a new computer, and that new computer will come with a Vista license as well. So MS gets 2 sales.

      Then Windows 7 is released ahead of schedule, and people buy an upgrade, or a new computer ahead of schedule. Its Win-Win for M$.

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
  42. The market worked, so stop complaining already by howardd21 · · Score: 1
    From the article:

    And Microsoft's Rajesh Srinivasan calculated how much money Intel was set to lose, noting that "potential costs could get into billions."
    Eventually, Microsoft dropped the requirements.

    And now they have a significant perception (or real) problem about Vista. It is a hog and slow, etc. People are gravitating to Macs or staying with older versions of Windows. Geeks are staying with Linux.
    So who cares about this now? It is not an answer to a pressing problem, it is an interesting explanation of what happened to Microsoft and Windows. The decided to risk future market and reputation for current opportunity and a strategic relationship. Hopefully they (and we) learned from it. It's a little like the goose and golden egg: now vs. later.

    --
    no comment
  43. Wait a minute... by howardd21 · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but that is at least 1/2 wrong. The term WinModem did to an extent lock you into Windows because instead of adding certain functional points to the hardware, they wrote it into the software driver, and the driver they wrote was for Windows. This lowered the cost of a modem. You could get a 14400 WinModem for $80-$120, and a comparable hardware modem (aka Hayes) for quite a bit more. But since the majority of users were on Windows, and the cost was significant, it made sense to buy a WinModem.

    The Manufacturers were not going after the Linux crowd, most people had never heard of it when WinModems were sold.

    If somebody else wanted to write a driver for a WinModem I suspect it would have worked fine. No different than today's Linux support for software modems in most laptops.

    So you are 1/2 right, it did lock people in, but nobody much cared and they were happy to save $, a trend that continues today.

    --
    no comment
  44. WinModems? Pfeh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those weren't modems, they didn't do squat except give you a place to plug in your phone cords, all the 'work' of a modem was done by their drivers that you loaded up, making your CPU the modem.

  45. Well, you convinced me ... by Julie188 · · Score: 1
    ... because stealing a car and burning down a house are equivalent to buying a PC months before new software was available for it and then discovering that the sucky much-promised software doesn't work well on your PC (well, it didn't work well on pretty much anyone's PC). As I said, Microsoft will lose this as they seemed to have lied, and they should, but the courts suck as a mechanism for software competition.

    Julie
    --
    Microsoft Subnet the independent voice of Microsoft customers

  46. You'd think ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ...that what with all this DRM and security stuff Microsoft is supposed to be so good at, all these incriminating emails leaking left and right would be a thing of the past.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  47. He stands. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What do you mean he doesn't have standing in the case? He DOES have standing. After all, a man who throws and breaks his chair has nothing to sit on anymore, so he stands.

  48. Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've worked for many companies and most of them use a mix of Windows and *nix. For the most part, Windows servers only exist because the company had Windows desktops and Microsoft software. For things like Outlook and Windows networks, they used a Windows server. For all other functions, webservers, databases, etc, they predominantly used *nix boxes. It's funny how the OP describes *nix admins as "un-evolved engineers". For the most part the *nix admins did 9 to 5 hours and only once in a while had to deal with a crisis. Patching was routine but scheduled and most crises involved hardware failures. The MS admins were always busy, working long hours. If there was a new Worm or Virus or Vulnerability of the month, they were running around crazy trying to test emergency patches before deploying. Patch Tuesdays were rough.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  49. Why do you say that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just because he pasted three links to the twitter journal and linked to a comment posted by a known sockpuppet and this account itself is a known sockpuppet and two replies below this thread are done with two known sockpuppet accounts doesn't mean "inTheLoo" is twitter!

    C'mon now, how paranoid can you be? Jeez!

  50. Users by SST-206 · · Score: 1

    The problem is that for most users is that MS has never really considered them their customers or partners.

    More like victims.

    --
    Co-operation beats competition
  51. Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals by Ant+P. · · Score: 1

    Nix machines and the like are novelties for un-evolved engineers.

    I'd rather be an unevolved engineer with capability for more self-improvement, than a fully evolved marketing mouthbreather such as yourself who has nowhere left to go but extinct.

  52. Moderators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should read this before voting this troll up.

  53. De-indexing by Thinboy00 · · Score: 1

    Linux != user friendly.

    There, fixed that for you.

    OTOH, you may want to consider:

    Linux is user friendly. It's just picky about who its friends are

    I'd like to point out that most of the hardware problems are in fact manufactured by none other than M$ (Mods:read that sentence twice before downmodding. M$ makes the problems, not the hardware.).

    --
    $ make available
  54. AC attempt at a bad car analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem isn't that automotive manufacturers have been unable to keep up with consumer demand for new ideas and more power. Look at the horsepower or torque available in a modern engine and compare it to those from a car a decade ago. They've actually gotten much better output per liter of displacement, and inside there's things like nav systems, if you haven't noticed.

    The problem lies in the safety and comfort features we're adding to the chassis. Safety cage reinforcement, a whole slew of airbags to protect from impacts in any direction, sound deadining material, and power everything, it's so big and bloated it just looks like the powertrains haven't gotten any better. Over 200 horsepower to run a grocery getter with the same performance numbers and fuel economy as a car with about 100 horsepower from 20 years ago? Do we need all these things in a car to get from point A to point B? Actually, it's absolutely unnecessary.

    The reason we bash Detroit is because we're no longer brainwashed into thinking their cars are the only game in town. We've all used buses, trains, motorcycles, scooters, mopeds, and bicycles. We all know they're viable transportation systems that do what cars do. In many cases, they can actually do it better. Are cars a viable choice? Sure. But are cars the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.

    And on a side note, buying a "value" Vista computer is akin to buying the "value" Cadillac of the 1980s. The J-body chassis, although ok if not decent for a Cavalier or Sunbird (think of a good cheap computer running XP), just didn't stand up to the requirements and demands of the Cimarron concept (Vista of course). In other words, it lead to market failure and all around disappointment. Cadillac now actually builds some decent cars based on what its particular market segment demands of it. Maybe Microsoft can learn how that works and not try to put poser "value" computers in a market segment which their OS is not compatable with. In other words don't build a loaded (bloated?) OS and expect it to work or sell effectively on economy hardware.

  55. Damn top posters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A: Because it destroys the flow of conversation
    Q: Why is top posting dumb?

  56. Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nix machines and the like are novelties for un-evolved engineers.

    Is the term 'un-evolved' code for "people who work on systems that generate revenue" or something?

  57. hehe by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1
    I think the lack of a variety of stickers was to avoid confusion. Now admittedly, the fact that they were in such a situation in the first place seems to me that they should have rethought the marketing/product line.

    I'd think if anything MS's Vista Capable program helped low end computer lines/manufactures not MS, even then it might be debatable. After all if your low end box didn't say Vista Capable but your high end did, costumers might go for your higher end model. I still don't get how having a Vista Capable sticker "makes" you want Vista. You can slap a "Photoshop capable" sticker on my computer it won't make me want Photoshop, but if I'm a person that is considering getting Photoshop I might go for your hardware because I know it is supposed to work.

    Anyways, I think that at worst MS confused people into buying underpowered systems. Is it a crime to miss direct someone around another companies product line? Since the logo IMHO wouldn't have enticed people that didn't want Vista already, I don't see how MS benefited. They turned a whole bunch of potential Vista Premium customers into Vista Home Basic customers. Not my idea of a sound marketing strategy.

  58. will work with X? by Nivag064 · · Score: 1

    Just boot the hardware with a Linux live CD, and if the graphical interface comes up, then it can run X.

  59. Re:Linux Gaming. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    You seem blisfully unaware that the number one selling game console of all time

    The Playstation 2? Yeah, if you were willing to pay some $200 for the "Linux Kit", you could run a crippled version of Linux, to which you didn't have all the source, and weren't allowed to redistribute the binary blobs -- and which used a hard drive format incompatible with that used by PS2 games, so you'd have to buy yet another PS2 hard drive if you wanted to play Final Fantasy XI.

    When you actually play a game, it's not running Linux at all.

    Are you honestly suggesting that a significant number of games were sold for the PS2 because people bought it to run Linux on?

    and it's healthy decendent both ran GNU/Linux.

    The Playstation 3? Requires partitioning, in a few limited ways, in order to share the hard disk between Linux and games. Runs in a hypervisor -- basically, a virtual machine -- so that the PS3 can prevent you from accessing the video hardware directly, meaning that 3D performance is severely limited -- you get a 2D framebuffer.

    So, while you can run a completely open source operating system, you're running it in an environment more restrictive than PS2 Linux, which would at least let you develop 3D games. I doubt GNU would be proud.

    And, again, when you are actually running games, Linux is nowhere to be found. What's more, the Xbox 360 has shipped quite a few more units than the Playstation 3, and as far as I know, there isn't even an unauthorized (and likely illegal) way of running Linux on the 360 yet.

    Windows has got .... Zune .... Xbox .... Windows all of it is the same broken suck because Ballmer's got his greedy palms on it.

    Ballmer's greedy palms didn't stop the Halo series from being incredible enough that people buy the console for it. I still frequently push the "eject" button on an Xbox (or a 360) and find some Halo game in there -- people think of it as the Halo Machine.

    Nor did those palms stop Xbox Live from delivering well ahead what the PC experience has been. Ubiquitous voice chat, automatic matchmaking combined with global ranking, achievements... The closest thing to it is Steam (which runs on -- guess what -- Windows), which has been following Xbox Live more and more lately, rather than the other way around.

    I'm certainly not an MS zealot. You read my other post, and I'm typing this from an Ubuntu laptop. I don't have to touch Windows all day -- my co-workers all use Macs, and the software I develop runs on Amazon EC2 Linux instances.

    Can you guess when I have to boot Windows?

    When I want to play a game.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  60. Arbuckle Lewis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This wouldn't be a problem if the typical computer user wasn't a self-absorbed twit who demands fancy graphics and pictures of themselves doing what they deem "cool" on their desktops.

    If Microsoft and Intel are to be held responsible, then equally responsible are these command-line bigots who are too ineducable to learn vim or edlin.

    This is why computers should be subjected to the same controls as handguns.