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Microsoft Extends XP To May 2009 For OEMs
beuges writes "Microsoft has announced over the weekend that it would allow computer manufacturers to receive copies of XP until the end of May 2009, shortly before Windows 7 is expected to hit the market. This should allow users to skip Vista entirely and move straight to 7, which has been receiving cautiously favorable reviews of pre-release and leaked alphas."
I installed over 3000 copies of vista at a local OEM over my summer break. You wouldn't believe the shit I've seen. Integrated ethernet cards only being recognized every other boot, 15 minute startups, reboots required for every other damn driver install, random "could not connect to authentication server"s...
Yeah, I'ved used vista...
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Microsoft is the 800# gorilla in the room because it doesn't break backward compatibility. I'm not a mac fanboi but from what I've heard the various changes from one version to the next over the past ten years were not as seamless as you indicated. Most of my friends who use macs (none of whom are technical, they're all in the design space) just gave up on trying to get their old software to work with the new version and bought all new software. Compare that with Microsoft where althought they're not officially supported, almost all DOS applications will still run. So if you bought some piece of software in 1988 for DOS 3.0 chances are pretty good that it will run on Vista.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
Or more likely it was 3000 installs, but about 100 different configurations. We specialized in building and configuring machines for local school districts.
That's irrelevant though, my point is, we were CLONING good installs onto identical hardware and were experiencing all manner of rarely reproducible errors.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
apple isn't very popular with enterprise for several reasons.
- price: no competition means higher price. with the PC, the cutthroat competition between hardware makers is what keeps price down.
- openess: the PC is an open architecture, you can choose your box from any manufacturer. even apple recognized this as an advantage and moved to intel/PC arch.
- relationship with developers: say what you want, but working in a large IT shop i know several programers who all agree that MS treats developers a whole lot better than apple. see the strangle hold they keep over that iPhone store.
- availability of software: the PC was created by IBM with a focus on business. the Mac wasn't. a huge library of corporate software made the diference on DOS days. the previous item does it today.
and you didn't get GP's point. emulation and virtualization, either in hardware or software helps a lot. and MS is not a newbie on this. in the early days of the transition from DOS to windows 3.0, the version for 80286 PC/ATs couldn't multitaks DOS apps. if you opened more than one DOS app, the one in the background would freeze, but in a 80386 you could multitask DOS apps because the 386 introduced hardware based "real mode" VMs. heck, you can run a binary compiled on an S/360 on a current version of Z/OS running in the latest state-of-the-art IBM mainframe.
apple's several transitions, m68k -> PPC -> intel (hardware) and Mac OS classic -> Mac OS X pretty much afected some few specialized (read: badly written) software. nothing that caused widespread problems.
it can be done, and is only the stuborness of the redmond guys that prevents them from doing it.
What ? Me, worry ?
You're a Unix guy, you should get this instantly. The "Administrator" account in Windows Vista is the equivalent of being in the sudoers file on Unix for a normal account. Basically, you don't have any administrative privileges on the system until you need to do something that requires. As in a Unix system (where you would type out sudo or a kdesu window would pop up), Vista prompts you for your password before granting you time limited and application limited elevated privileges. This is the Unix way basically.
Even Mac OS X does this, with the locks on the system preferences and for installing software. Bashing Microsoft on this, but not OpenSolaris, HP-UX, Mac OS X, Ubuntu or any other Unix type system is fanboyish. Some don't even offer a root account by default anymore, you need to explicitly activate it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
You weren't at PDC then. One of the keynote demos of W7 showed off the fact that it is blisteringly fast on a 1ghz, 1gb RAM netbook; UAC is fixed/gone, and hardware compatibility is top priority early-game, instead of after the fact.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
You're going to need contain yourself here :)
[windows key] + R
The "R" is for Run.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Assuming you're not just trolling ("Vista sucks so I installed Linux and it's better"), I'll post a batch file I use at work. It solves most any windows update-related problem. I kept adding to it as I encountered more and more strangely broken computers, and as of now it works fairly well.
/s /q C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution
@echo off
echo Starting Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)...
net start bits
echo Registering DLLs...
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
echo Killing Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net stop wuauserv
echo Destroying Update Cache...
rmdir
echo Re-enabling Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net start wuauserv
echo Magic!
DATABASE WOW WOW