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Possible Last-Minute Problems With Vista SP2
crazyeyes writes "It looks like Microsoft is facing problems with Windows Vista SP2. The final Service Pack for Vista and Server 2008 (before Windows 7 comes out) has been delayed. The folks who broke the launch details and dates of previous Service Packs for XP and Vista have Microsoft's latest internal schedule. Can Microsoft get it out before Windows 7? According to the new schedule, just barely."
Microsoft doesn't want to release it soon, even if they could. The reason: less stable vista = more reason to upgrade to windows 7 (read: more money for Microsoft). That may not be the actuality, but I bet a handful of people think that way there. On a side note, Ive been running Windows 7 beta for a week now (I decided to be ahead of the curve for all future OS releases due to the nature of my job) and am overall very impressed (I know, shoot me and throw overboard into /. shark waters)
Its faster (especially restart times!) and overall more polished. Now, it should of been windows vista in the first place, but its too late to go back in time with my machine (lost a watchyamacallit and a thingymajiger) I really suggest if you havent to at least throw up a VM of it sometime.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
I think you've missed the meaning of the word "evolutionary". It *is* a set of incremental improvements from some baseline.
I would consider XP similar to a "service pack" to 2000. They're almost the same OS, in much the same way that Vista and 7 are almost the same. If 2 operating systems are designed to use the exact same drivers, they may as well be the same OS.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I had 4 problems with Vista.
1. Aero is pretty, but not useful
2. The performance sucks; it uses clock cycles and memory to automate things I don't care about
3. Massive intrusive support for DRM and content protection (HDCP, etc)
4. Windows Genuine Advantage is mandatory.
They cleaned up the UI. It's sleeker, while maintaining some of Aero's glitz. The performance has improved, although not as much as I'd like. The DRM and WGA are still there. Half of the things I disliked about Vista were improved.
I still dislike Vista, and find Windows 7 to be a slight, but nice, improvement. I'm still not leaving XP. Like with Vista, I don't see enough improvement to make it worthwhile.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Because it doesn't give it up when I want to use it for something else? I'd rather that the operating system be leaner, so I can run my heavy duty stuff on top of it. A game can't use the resources that the OS has allowed itself to expand into.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
When college students and faculty come to my desk and ask how do they save or print their document in Word 2007, that's a pretty clear indication that the Word UI is complex and complicated.
Except it doesn't really, just like every MS VM it often decides that keeping system cache is more important than keeping applications in memory and so it decides to swap out "infrequently" used code and data. The problem is when you go to switch from your photo app to your browser after not having used the browser for 30 minutes Windows has to swap it back in, in the meantime it might have just been using that ram to hold autosave files that were never re-read. This leads to your browser taking up to a minute or two to come back to usability.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Or maybe it is an indication that they have little or no problem solving capabilities. How about having them look for the blue circle with a question mark in it when they aren't sure how to do such simple tasks. I installed Office 2007 for the entire company (about 500 employees) and I've only had 2 people ask such simple questions as that - one that has poor eyesight and the other who is very computer-illiterate.
I'm heading out the door, and I will respond with regressions, however for your supposed improvements:
XP allows you to run as a non-admin, and it is easier in XP. You can still elevate permissions, in a far less annoying fashion. Vista's UAC is a failure, and that is why it is greatly improved in Windows 7.
If you are surfing the web in IE, you fail. If you insist on running IE, you can run IE without permissions with IE7 in XP.
2000 supported transparency, but they didn't activate it. I'm running the Vista Transformation Pack. I have a translucent Aero interface on XP that runs faster than Vista. And Vista's driver model was so broken, that the composite effects eat up CPU resources. A proper composite system shouldn't eat up the CPU and memory so much, because it should offload to the GPU. For shits and giggles I installed openSUSE 11.1 on an old retired laptop with a GeForce 440 (32MB RAM) and I can run Compiz Fusion, and KDE 4's composite effects. However, I can't install Vista on the box, even without Aero. Windows 7 didn't rewrite Aero, but it fixed some of the driver issues, so Aero isn't so CPU-hungry. But in Vista, it is an abject failure.
The Start Menu is a huge regression. A scrollbar within the Start Menu? It takes me far more clicks, and far more time to get to what I'm looking for. The Vista menu is a usability nightmare. Adding search does not offset the poor design. It look pretty, but using it is a pain.
I've never had a crashed video driver ever in XP. For over six months after Vista's release, Nvidia couldn't release a decent working Vista driver at all. The video driver situation in Vista has been poor at best. Thankfully, this seems improved in Windows 7. The fact that Microsoft placed so much emphasis on fixing the issues with video drivers in Vista points out that it was problematic.
I've got BluRay working on XP.
I haven't tried Vista's MCE mode. Perhaps you can be more specific on why it is better. Is it is anything like the start menu being better?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
because many users are asking for that Windows XP downgrade and willing to pay more money to get it.
Plus more and more file sharing networks are downloading Windows XP ISO images at new records for downloads to get rid of Vista and replace it with a pirated version of XP because they cannot buy a copy of XP except from certain vendors.
Not only that but a lot of people are waiting for ReactOS to enter Beta testing and get closer to a 1.0 release version. So they can have a free and open source Windows alternative that runs native Windows XP drivers and software.
Heck some people even want to use AROS, HaikuOS, or some other FOSS alternative to Windows just to get away from Vista. Even, gasp, Linux! Plus more and more Macs are being sold and converted from PC users.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Isn't that an inevitable consequence of moving to a compositing window manager, and doesn't enabling composition on X have exactly the same effect?