Slashdot Mirror
How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development
snydeq writes "For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company's Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to 'define a feature set early on' and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature-complete, although its final release to business customers isn't expected until November." As a data point for how well this has all worked out in practice, reader The other A.N.Other recommends a ZDNet article describing rough benchmarks for three versions of Windows 7 against Vista and XP. In particular, Win-7 build 7048 (64-bit) vs. Win-7 build 7000 (32-bit and 64-bit) vs. Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 were tested on both high-end and low-end hardware. The conclusions: Windows 7 is, overall, faster than both Vista and XP. As Windows 7 progresses, it's getting faster (or at least the 64-bit editions are). On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best. On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best.
We have talked about W7 performance on netbooks which will only allow to run 3 apps. Perfect for an antivirus, a firewall, an antispyware, the WGA... oh crap!
Between now and then, Apple will likely have released OS X 10.6, and there will have been two new release of Ubuntu.
I wonder what's moving faster: Microsoft, or the goal posts?
Surely Vista R2 is more accurate.
How the hell can it be 2009 and Microsoft still has:
* DOS era drive letters for volumes?
* The perfectly wrong choice of \ vs / for path names?
* The Win 3 era maximize button on windows?
* Files that can't be move when they are open by another application?
We are all going to be drinking Tang while going to work in our flying cars and this legacy garbage will still be in Windows.
"How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development"
You got it wrong: Vista was the mistake that caused Windows 7 development.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Well, instead of throwing a chair at you, I've decided to take your challenge! I had Netcraft test our Microsoft Office benchmark suite with Office 2007 running under Wine on Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit and under the latest 64-bit build of Windows 7.
Unsurprisingly, Windows 7 wins by a longshot! Ha! *throws chair* I'm gonna fscking KILL Mark Shuttleworth! Muahahahaha!
-- Steve Ballmer
My blog
FTFA:
So, now that they admit that it's a steaming pile of crud, where's my refund for this defective product that I don't use that came bundled with my laptop?
Love em or hate em, at least this time they're trying to get a sense for catering to their market instead of just trying to shove crap down at people and expect them to buy it because its new and its Microsoft.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Duh... kdawson is a well known MS shill.
Can't wait for those results!
Let's pitch those against my Gentoo. Next month, when I'm done with the compiling.
Microsoft is basically doing a Vista service pack with Windows 7, but they have put out a TON on press on sites like Digg and Slashdot to change the mental landscape around Windows 7 with consumers and the core technical crowd. At this point I'm pretty skeptical of every pro Windows 7 article and poster, though of course by now you'd expect Vista to have been improved.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the summary: "...Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks..."
This is a fairly meaningless statement, as it winds up being self-defining.
"all versions of Windows 7", but no mention of which parts of Win7 will function and/or be disabled
"run" is inherently subjective
"low-cost netbooks" certainly doesn't refer to the netbooks you can go out and buy today. It's the ones 9-12 months from now, with faster CPUs and GPUs, more RAM, larger HDs. Effectively, it's referring to today's notebooks, which are next years netbooks
Assuming 'netbook' is still allowed to be used generically, and no longer trademarked by whatsitsname...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Talk about a gullible public.
Vista bombing? Don't fix it, have "another" OS release and try to recover the lost money.
All it is is the first non-alpha non-beta release of Vista. You used to get a few years out of the real release (i.e. XP SP2), but I guess we have to pay for the "real" releases now.
MS deigns to send the message that they care about the customer and the community. It would have been nice if they did that the last time. Sorry, I'm already on OSX.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
SE
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
There are at least two reasons I didn't move to Vista:
I'm willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and assume that Win7 solves problem #1. Anyone know whether Win7 will support all those perfectly good devices I have that work just fine on Windows/XP, and that I was supposed to throw out when I installed Vista? If the answer is "no", I'm sticking to XP for a long time (or moving to Mac, for which drivers are indeed available).
I don't expect 7 to be a good operating system, but the time between releases is a very poor indicator of OS quality and performance. Some distributions, like Ubuntu, release small increments often, while Debian release less often but each update usually marks a bigger change. In addition they both cower the other release cycles separately. Ubuntu has LTS releases for those that need stability. Debian has the testing and unstable versions for those that want more up to date stuff. Apple seems to have found a decent compromise where they release semi-often and have a reasonably stable system, giving their users a reasonably up to date system with acceptable stability.
Windows, on the other hand, tends to release rarely, and still have moderate improvements, and then change the system with service packs. You basically get the worst of both worlds. You don't get the latest and greatest features that you may have got with something like Ubuntu, when released Windows tends to be even more outdated than Debian stable , but it has nowhere near the stability since each service packs tends to fundamentally alter many critical aspects of the system ( WGA, UAC, new IE version etc... ).
I think a lot of Microsoft's problems is that they try to target both the curious power users, office users and business with the same releases. You can't realistically have a OS release that is going to be cutting edge over its life cycle, while simultaneously being stable and well tested. You will either have to compromise or do separate releases. Ubuntu, Debian and RedHat seem to be doing well having separate releases for different users, Apple seems to be managing the compromise rather well, Microsoft just fails horribly at doing either.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 7 or 8 times, shame on me ;-)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
No. Epson choose to not support your scanner any more. It's not Microsoft's fault that a 3rd party decided not to fully support your hardware with drivers for the latest OS. Vista would support it perfectly fine if Epson would write drivers for it, but they are banking on you choosing to buy a newer model scanner.
Don't blame Microsoft for Epson's greed.
I agree. I dropped half a grand for a few copies of Vista Ultimate upgrade. I didn't even hesititate. I wouldn't call myself a Windows fanboy but I was definitely on the MS 'team'. I bought the upgrade version, only to find my 'upgrade' copy actually requires me to install XP so that I can then find out that I CAN'T actually upgrade the XP partition. I then have to install a fresh copy of Vista on an empty partition while keeping the XP partition around to prove I'm upgrading.
Every version of windows before that was just fine with verifying your old media and then installing. What moron thought this was an improvement? Did these guys even TRY the upgrade path? This was my introduction to Vista. It just went downhill from there.
I was then introduced to the joys of Vista. It's flaws have been discussed to death. I can at least say it did two good things for me. It introduced me to Linux again which was a refreshing change from the early 90's, and it prompted me to switch to Mac.
At this point I could care less about Windows 7. Too little, too expensive, too late.
Don't worry, I'm not new. Actually, I didn't "read" the article, I looked at the ratings in the second link and that was it.
I would like see even "rough benches" of each OS, but, alas, all I see are playskool dumbed-down 1,2,3,4,5 ratings. Nothing to indicate actual facts. Who know how they were rating the damn tests. Cookies eaten per operation? Fingers counted? Beatings about the head?
Next up, on the Intel with 4GB they claim that overall XP SP3 was worse than Vista SP1? I call BS. And on the AMD with 1GB it said they were the same? As if (I won't comment on Win7's performance, because I haven't run it yet). XP SP3 rated 4th or 5th in almost everything! On the Intel it rated a 1 for "moving 100mb files", and 5 on the AMD...WTF! This guy has 0 credibility as far as I'm concerned.
By the way, who the hell put the ratings in an image? 100k each, for 1k of data. They don't want people to c/p the results or something? How does anything get done anymore, I want my money back, I'm going home.
After getting sued over the whole "Vista-Ready" program, I expect Microsoft will be at least a little bit more careful with their subjective definition of "run".
The issue, if there will be one, will probably be with licensing. A previous article had suggested that MS will release a lower-cost version of Win7 that's geared towards netbook users that will impose an artificial limitation of 3 apps running at once. Which is unusually stupid for Microsoft, as that kind of thing could push more people towards browser-based web apps, rather than their desktop counterparts (Google Docs vs Office, for example) - as if the crazy cost of MS Office wasn't enough of a deterrent, now its competition doesn't eat up one of your three allowed apps because you already had a browser open? Idiots.
I mean, I guess MS is at least trying to "get" why people like netbooks (cheap), but that kind of stupid artificial limitation won't win them many brownie points. I think two versions of Windows (like XP, holy crap!) is plenty - home and pro/office. And the only difference should be that the home version can't join a domain. Charge $99 for Win7 Home like Apple does for OS X and call it a day. Simple, reasonably-priced, and it won't piss people off.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Not only that, it completely ignores the probable rise of inexpensive and energy-efficient ARM-based netbooks. Windows 7 won't be running on those *at all*.
I have a Dell Mini 9, and it does just fine with Dellbuntu 8.04. Even the 512MB RAM is fine - the screen size and form factor does not lend to massive multi-app multi-desktop kind of work. It's an über PDA, that I can put Postgres on if I need it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Don't you mean Windows Vista SE?
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Microsoft is still pursuing a marketing strategy to try and squeeze money out of the OS at the expense of their true Customers, the people who actually use the OS. Until they return to serving only the end Customer and not music industry and other competing interests people will continue to move away from them.
Yeah I can make Windows faster than its previous version - but it will take a huge memory footprint hit in the process.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
the best most favorite thing I could ever have as a fix from vista to windows 7 is the removal of the penalty to stay with XP.
If I can't have that - well , then. No more microsoft in this house.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
So sue me.
First things first:
He said Microsoft's move in March 2006 to put former head of Office development Steven Sinofsky in charge of Windows development was a key driver of changes in the process. Sinofsky is now senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, and Nash credits him for bringing order to the group.
They need to fire that guy, and hire me. I'll do it for half the money, and pump out an OS that people actually want. It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Gavriella Schuster, a senior director of Windows product management, cited the "stop-and-start nature" of Vista's development process as contributing to partners' lack of preparedness for the final release. Microsoft stopped Vista's development in the middle of the process to overhaul the security of the OS, a move that delayed its final release.
Wrong, they didn't overhaul security, they overhauled the whole damn thing because an OS made out of .NET wouldn't actually run any applications. What's it called when someone re-writes history?
I still didn't see anything specific to "How Vista mistakes guided blah blah". Guided? Guided? Not even close. "Vista mistakes" didn't exist until Win7 was announced. All I saw in this article was this: "Hey, look, we have a new and BETTAR one, LOOKIES! It's safer, more secure, faster, more reliable than any other" what? propogadvertisement we've ever seen before while installing it, that's what.
I know I sound like I have a chip on my shoulder. I do. It's because my clients, friends, family, and I have been forced into this crap if we plan to run the applications we are familiar with, or buy a computer from a big box store. I tried, oh how I tried, to get family on Linux...endless support calls later, they're all back on XP. Yes, XP. I like Linux dearly, it's close to market, but just not yet...I can operate a computer in the dark, under water, wearing blindfold with one hand behind my back. >95% of all other people can't, which precludes them from that platform.
As an aside, and completely off-topic, who the hell started the standard of making the non-functional progress bar? The first time I recall seeing it was during the XP installation. Now, it's everywhere. Is nothing sacred? Obfuscate! They must not know!
***
4. Move 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another
5. Move 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another
6. Network transfer 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device
7. Network transfer 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device
8. Move 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
9. Move 2.5GB files under load - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
10. Network transfer 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device while ripping DVD to .ISO file
***
I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!
No need to exaggerate. It only takes half a week.
Vista twice trashed an XP system that was dual booting on the same system.
Let that be a lesson to you. Never, ever, under any circumstances should you use a dual boot system, no matter what two Operating Systems are at play. It's the one surefire way to guarantee you will have problems down the road. You went asking for trouble, and it found you.
If for some lame ass reason you need to go back and use XP, use VirtualBox or get a cheap spare hard drive.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
It's not Microsoft's fault that a 3rd party decided not to fully support your hardware with drivers for the latest OS.
It's not Microsoft's fault.
It is Microsoft's problem, if they want people with hardware older than a couple of years to upgrade to that latest OS.
The obvious way to solve this problem would be to implement standard interfaces for device drivers that were supported across all OS versions, at least for major categories of hardware that many people have, but for some strange reason Microsoft seem to be incapable of doing this even though just about every other OS in history has managed it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No. Epson choose to not support your scanner any more. It's not Microsoft's fault that a 3rd party decided not to fully support your hardware with drivers for the latest OS. Vista would support it perfectly fine if Epson would write drivers for it, but they are banking on you choosing to buy a newer model scanner.
Don't blame Microsoft for Epson's greed.
But you might reasonably blame Microsoft for developing an ecosystem in which each vendor keeps the source to his own drivers, but with no obligation to update those drivers to be compatible with future OS releases.
This is an area where Linux generally does much much much much better. For example, ATI is soon to stop supporting some of their old cards. For Windows users, this means that in not many years, new versions of Windows won't work with those cards. In contrast, and Linux user that uses those cards has an open source driver for them, and it's very probably that the driver maintainer will choose to keep the driver up to date, even as Linux's driver interface evolves. This feature of the Linux ecosystem really is just much better than what the Windows ecosystem offers.
Is anyone else reminded of the 'new coke' saga when they hear about Windows 7?
I hadn't thought of it before you raised the point but that is the perfect analogy. Vista is Microsoft's "New Coke" - in fact think of the name, without "Windows" really in it like Windows98 or WindowsXP (Sure the name is official "Windows Vista" but everyone just uses Vista).
So Microsoft has to give us a new Windows to take away the taste of the ill-received one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great Post but you missed the mark on thumbdrives slightly. The DoD didn't ban them from all computers, the banned them from all Windows computers. They're perfectly ok (by the DoD order) to use on Linux, Unix, and Mac boxes.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
I have both an Asus eee 900a upgraded to a 32Gb SSD drive and a Samsung NC10 netbook; both systems upgraded to 2Gb RAM. I have to have an MS environment for some systems at work, and have had both systems set up dual boot. Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.10 run fine on either system, after tweaking for the Atheros WiFi hardware. Windows 7 Beta runs BETTER than XP Home on the Samsung NC10 with a 160Gb HD, and is a better choice if you HAVE to run an MS environment. I have to run multiple versions of all Windows versions on work systems to test device drivers and system side software for products my company manufactures, and hands down even being a "Beta" Windows 7 outshines the other Windows commercial OS products. On the other hand, it is more sluggish running off the Asus eee system with the 32Gb SSD drive.
It looks like the updated the order to anything that connects to the networks. Originally it was just Windows machines. Gotta love complex bureaucratic shit like this... It's my job to enforce these orders and even I can't keep up with them all...
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
I bet if you do a uname -a at the C> prompt, it will say something along the lines of:
Windows 7 Desktop 2.6.27.19-3.2-default #1 SMP 2009-02-25 15:40:44
I hate vista, other than the newer font rendering, its bugs drive me crazy. The links in desktop that tell you "Permission Denied"... The hidden directories. UAC smacking you in the face. The whole OS basically does 2 things. 1. Stops you from doing a task. 2. Annoys you with bugs.
Now Windows 7, hard link bugs are gone, faster, that great font rendering is there. Super fast tcp, firefox is faster (or at least to the eye..) M$ hid directories even with show directories is on in explorer, thats not really cool, but I understand it.
Biggest problems? Applications pause if its waiting on a resource, very noticeable and annoying. The window changes color and pauses. Some of my favorite apps dont work yet on x64 version. (aka demon tools) Had to hack my registry to get sound in flash for firefox (fix it adobe, its been broken since vista, should not have to use a registry hack)
My work laptop uses XP, and when I switch to Vista/Win7 the font rendering is like night and day. Vista/Win7 is crisp and clear. Ubuntu 9.04 is getting closer, 8.10 not so good... No idea what font rendering techniques are different from 9.04 vs 8.10 but its noticeable...
It's all nice to go compare Windows 7 to XP SP3; and although xp64 is pretty much unsupported officially speaking (although most software is compatible, or has compatible versions), I think it'd only be statistically fair to compare 64-bit W7 to 64-bit XP. It is, by far, the fastest, most efficient, and most stable operating system I have ever used without major compatibility issues.
How about the hardware issue? It still means most of your hardware won't work unless you buy "Vista" compatible hardware. And even then I have been hearing reports from BTs that not everything that runs on Vista will run on W7. Like my one month old printer that wouldn't run under Vista isn't likely to run under W7. So your still talking about throwing out good hardware just to get a "better" OS? It doesn't make sense to me, I don't have the kind of cash laying around to chunk what I have and buy new stuff. And if I were a business I would have to take into consideration how much it would cost to replace all of my computers and most of my other hardware. The company I used to work for wouldn't upgrade for that very reason. Anything change?
This got modded informative. On slashdot.
Shame on you, mods!
For the record: I run Xubuntu 8.10 on my EEE900A, and use it as a Desktop replacement & deelopment machine (It's my year abroad). An it works freaking fine, even if I have to make extensive use of a Ramdisk sometimes (upgraded to 2 GB Ram).
I learned most of the skills necessary to do that here. And that's why I am reading this site and why I like it. Not because of people like you who say "oh, don't bother, that's just a toy"...
I propose calling it ReVista
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
Oh come on..
Do you honestly believe that the Linux driver ecosystem is better?
"His name was James Damore."
No, Vista ME seems more proper
Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
I'd say go with any manufacturer as long as they support standards - then you don't NEED specific "drivers".
For printers, that's anything that prints LPR or Raw (AKA "Port 9100 printing", AKA "Socket", AKA "Jet Direct") over network or offers a standard USB interface identifying itself as a printer; and interprets PCL5, PCLXL or PostScript.
For scanners, anything that implements TWAIN over USB correctly (which is a much smaller subset than "has TWAIN drivers") or has network scanning support (FTP, SMB, Email, etc, take your pick)
And yes, I do work in the printer/scanner industry, but I won't hype my company's products.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
What defines a service pack these days? I keep seeing the term thrown around every time someone thinks an OS has similarities to a previous version? Is that really what a service pack is because I have installed them before and have never experienced the amount of changes I have seen in 7. Is there really a Windows service pack that has that many UI changes? I'm not saying they reinvented the wheel, but I'm definitely seeing changes beyond what I have seen in any service pack.
Oh come on..
Do you honestly believe that the Linux driver ecosystem is better?
I'd say they have different strengths and weaknesses.
Windows has the advantage that every consumer device that plugs into a computer is going to get a Windows driver from the manufacturer, and the driver will be pretty full-featured typically. Not so with Linux, where the typical lack of hardware documentation leads to drivers that take longer to develop, and sometimes lack the bells and whistles of the manufacturer-developed Windows drivers.
However, the Linux drivers generally have these things going for them:
The Betas of Vista became slower and slower towards RTM, which was a dog. On my old AMD Athlon test box RTM was sluggish and unusable where the early builds I tried were plenty zippy on a XP-spec box even with 512mb. However as RTM approached, Vista performance improved on up to date 32-bit and 64-bit hardware, and on lower spec turned to crap.
So clearly Microsoft is not abandoning users of low-spec gear like they did with Vista. Without the features and total ram of more current hardware, Windows 7 seems to be properly optimised to compensate for lacking multiple cores, extra instruction sets, and manages memory better. It will run on machines that don't really run Vista now.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Windows will never in nearest future run on ARM devices that are quite better then atom-based ones especially in energy consumption. I have ARM based Nokia N810 that works DAYS in online mode. It can run almost any linux application compiled for it and fits my shirt pocket.
I think that M$ will lose more and more in this market and Win7 can't help here whatever they change in it's development model. Dinosaurs were once big and scarry. Where they are now? :)
Netbooks still run 32-bit processors.
Or Hasta La Vista? :D
"yes, we know the newest windows version is crap - but we listened to our customers and now we know what we did wrong and the next version will be great!"
how often have we heard this? are people really THAT stupid to believe the same shit over and over again?
"well I assume I can wait 2 years and pay 270$ for the next windows version to end my agony - at least thats better than getting used to a different OS..."
sometimes I just want to slap people in the face for their stupidity!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
-Microsoft: We'll force-feed you a ton of crap!
-Windows users: WTF, you *&*(&*s!
-Microsoft: In our infinite goodness, we decided to only force-feed you half a ton of crap!
-Windows users: Not a full ton of crap! Yaaay, go Microsoft!
Windows 7: Sucks Less Than Vista (TM)
No, Vista ME seems more proper
And when is that released? The year 3000?
Which 1 month old printer is it? A make and model would be appreciated, it's the kind of information that is useful to know. I don't run vista, i'm not a fan , but really the lack of a printer driver isn't a vista issue but an issue with your printer manufacturer.
Unless of course what you meant to say was, Vista doesn't come with a printer driver built in, for your 1 month old printer. Thats just unfortunate the hardware was released after Vista got its release and the driver has to be installed from the manufacturers driver disk or downloaded from some website.
Now you could argue in the interests of windows security and ease of use, that Microsoft should maintain a site with installers for latest drivers for all hardware that works with it's operating system. heck it could even have a system where it checked driver versions and informed you an update was available.
but what kind of an organisation would do something like that ;)
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I have found that most hardware problems stem not from Vista but from Vista 64bit. reinstalling with 32bit solves a LOT of issues. My company's IT wing does that for customers on a regular basis, and the number of calls from those people drop drastically after the reinstall to 32bit from 64bit.
the problem is that most hardware makers bork their 64bit drivers, and it's not easy to force the 32bit to install instead. I have seen it personally in the office with the Epson Workforce 600. Borked under vista 64bit, works under Vista 32bit and Windows 7 32bit.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
3001
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Well, it worked for my mom. She's been running Ubuntu for over a year. Set up her (new, built by me) machine, set up her email in Thunderbird (Which she knew form XP), set up her Thunderbird (Also known form XP, transferred bookmarks) showed her F-Spot and that's about it.
Sure, she actually doesn't do much more than email, surf and manage her digital photos, but that is exactly the point: it's up to you to assess the needs of your user and give her the tools required before they even think of it. I do this on XP too, and there my users run Limited User because I made sure everything works out of the box. (Do also note that I make sure standard applications from Linux are present on XP, it easer later migrations)
My mother in law also ran Ubuntu. Her son decided that it was no good (he's was 16 at the time, my wife is 11 years older) and reformatted it with XP. My mother in law actually wanted her "Ubuntu" back, but I told her to deal with the spoiled brat instead of me having to argue with him. No idea how her desktop is now, and I couldn't care. She has problems, she asks him.
Or you could just grab the stage3 install and be on your merry way in 20 minutes.
I prefer stage3 -> copy over my custom make.conf -> rebuild toolchain -> rebuild system -> build world. It actually works as intended that way.
The long part is browsing the portage tree and finding interesting stuff you never heard about before.
A change in how it's marketed is their response to a failing product?
We don't have to worry about Microsoft taking over the world. They're on the way out already
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Microsoft execs should be forced to go door to door for everyone who got vista forced on them, hand them a copy of windows 7 and an Ubuntu disc and then allow themselves to be beaten with a pool cue.
I didn't say I did no research. I specifically bought vista for the remote capabilities.
As to hardware, it was a Core 2 Duo 2.5 Ghz with 4 GB of Ram and a 7200 RPM Sata 2 drive.
Spare me your attempts to make Vista the victim.
Tell that to the owners of various HP LaserJet printers, some as old as the hills and for which all the major OS's around have drivers for by now. Well, not W7!
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
I do find this mentality rather sad...
Product X is rumored to suck. Product Y's manufacturer does or does not claim specific function of Product Y in conjunction with Product X. Product Y doesn't deliver expected results when used with Product X.
Conclusion: Product X is responsible for Product Y's failure. Further, Product X sucks.
I'd love to hear someone get ripped to shreds for claiming OS X sucks because their new Konica Minolta printer doesn't work for them. I have had problems with mine, but I know full well it isn't Apple's fault.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
That's a fair comment and similar in approach to what Apple did to support PPC code on Intel hardware or even old OS9 on OSX.
"For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista..."
An extended public mea culpa would look like this:
"We realise Vista didn't live up to expectations, and as a result we're offering all Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7, where we plan to deliver on the promises we tied to Vista."
Instead, what we got was basically the exact same acknowledgement that the current version had some ugly flaws, followed by a shameless self plug for the next iteration of software. Windows ME/XP anyone? You don't have to follow MS very long to find the pattern.
The biggest problem I have with Vista though is scalability. It runs FANTASTIC on my laptop with 4 gigs of ram. It blew chunks on my wife's laptop with 1 gig of ram. And there's no option to just say "Give me what I had with XP, that's what I have hardware enough to run". At least not one that works.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
I read somewhere that one of the things MS was doing was removing all those drivers from the default installation in order to cut down on disk footprint. Can't make everyone happy I guess.
It's actually Vista XP, because they learned from experience.
Only if you buy the Ultimate Edition. The lesser versions don't include SMP support.
A make and model would be appreciated, it's the kind of information that is useful to know.
Agreed. It's up to users to complain if they have a problem with support. Slashdot is a huge resource, read by millions of people. If some hardware vendor refuses to release a 64-bit driver, hold their feet to the fire.
For example, NIKON -- Nikon has had more than five years to come out with a 64-bit driver for their dedicated film scanners like the LS-9000 or LS-5000.
Those are Nikon's top-of-the-line film scanners. They're being manufactured and sold around the world as you read this. Yet Nikon's "solution" to being too goddamned lazy to write 64-bit drivers? Just use this third-party's driver.
Awesome job, guys, thanks. Because after shelling out $1,000 for a film scanner, the one thing I really appreciate is having to spend another $400 just to be able to use your fucking product.
That's just one of many reason to avoid host based printers like the plague, a real postscript printer will run on every OS out there even if you might lose a small bit of functionality using a slightly different driver.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What defines a service pack these days? I keep seeing the term thrown around every time someone thinks an OS has similarities to a previous version?
You know what, that is a fair statement. I don't think it really applies to many OS updates as well.
But turn that around. What defines a new OS? That's what Windows7 is being pushed as, when we know it's the same Vista core with a lot of fixes applied, and some new GUI elements. Not a service pack, I'd grant you... but it's also not really "Not Vista" which is the major angle being put on this thing.
And that to me fundamentally is why this is a whitewash, because it's scrubbing something that is basically Vista2009 to just get rid of the name. Lets keep it real and know that it's still Vista in there, with many of the same choices Vista made (UAC) substantially intact.
Whitewashing does not HAVE to be all negative you know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of all the MS-hostile sites on the net Slashdot absolutely takes the cake -- nothing you see on this site was place by MS
You honestly don't think that there's something funny about the "MS Hostile Site Slashdot" putting up a number of positive Widnows7 stories?
You yourself just defined why it's odd. No I don;t think Microsoft "placed" them directly, but the Astroturfing flag is not misused here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The beta sure as hell wont.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd rather have 10,000 locked, binary drivers to which I have no access to source code over 1,000 fully-open drivers. Most people don't choose their OS for ideological reasons.
It is timing operations where Vista is as fast as or faster than XP. I'd like to see comparisons only on operations where Vista is *slower* than XP. Any performance improvement Windows 7 makes has to be on this front to be of any significance.
It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Elaborate, please. I have Vista on my home system and XP on my work system, and for me going from Vista to XP (let alone 2000) is like going back to the bronze age. Also I develop on Linux at work, and I'm not sure what features it has that I should be wanting on my Windows machine.
I'd rather have 10,000 locked, binary drivers to which I have no access to source code over 1,000 fully-open drivers. Most people don't choose their OS for ideological reasons.
It's not really an idealogical thing, at least for me. Generally speaking, when I reinstall XP I have to do a web search for every major driver my system needs: sound, video card, printer, and on a really Catch-22 day, Ethernet.
In my experience, when I install Linux all of the drivers tends to be already installed. And at least with Ubuntu, if I have a video card sporting a closed-source driver, Ubuntu lets me know right after installation that the driver is available. Installing it just takes a few clicks and entering my password.
So for me it really is about convenience and lack of headaches.
Pretty sure that only applies to Netbook processors that are not x86 to start with anyway(ARM). Not really hugely compatible with a normal 32 bit version of windows.
Atom sure seems to support 64 bit. AMD's netbook offering "Turion 64" also sounds like it may support 64 bit as well.
It probably has a lot to do with many of the third party Windows developers being retards who are incapable of creating 64 bit compatibly software and drivers.
While it's great that their development process has changed, it's going to be all for not until marketing learns from its mistakes.
Let's see...
People hated too many Vista versions... Screw 'em, we'll give 'em even more this time!
Let's disable our most compelling business features in anything below the Enterprise edition --including the Business edition!
Want BitLocker at home? Screw you! It's not like it costs us anything to give you, but that'd generate positive feelings, which we cannot allow.
Let's keep the Ultimate Gouge edition!
Researchers find security holes in UAC? Let's reply in a haughty tone that everything's working as intended, so it's not a problem. So there.
etc.
MS had so much goodwill built up from the 7 beta until their marketing department got involved.
Maybe they should be called counter-marketing, since their goal seems to be to discourage purchases.
That is also why some of us buy Coke products by the caseload from Mexico.
Hint: Mexican Coca-Cola uses real sugar too, not High Fructose Corn Syrup.
You can probably find a little store near you that will sell you the same, if you live in a moderate to large sized city.
And if you want another comparison, see Coca-Cola Light vs Diet Coke. CCL is MUCH better, in my opinion. By a lot. To date, I have no idea why CCL isn't sold in the USA and I have even written Coke to find out which ingredient(s) is the problem. No answer.
Well...they seem to be moving towards a cycle of Release, Service Pack, new release.
For example, their compilers have (since VS2003) only received one service pack before the compiler is deprecated and they move to a new compiler version/name.
It looks like they are doing the same thing with Office now; and likely Windows too. From the way Vista->Win7 looks. I'll be very surprised if they issue an SP2 for Vista or Office 2007.
Not necessarily a bad thing; but it does make it a bit more costly in the long run to stay with the platform.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Since when is being able to use your hardware in the future an ideological reason?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
So the reason my daughters new laptop with Vista P 32 bit couldn't use the modem was that the hardware was at fault, not the fact that she would have needed to upgrade to Business or higher to get the software that used to be in the XP OS? At the time there was no third party software available to allow the modem to run Fax/Phone applications.And that the printer I bought new a month before that still worked fine with XP was a problem with the hardware as well? We never tried the 64 bit version, so I really don't think that was the issue.
"low-cost netbooks" certainly doesn't refer to the netbooks you can go out and buy today. It's the ones 9-12 months from now, with faster CPUs and GPUs, more RAM, larger HDs. Effectively, it's referring to today's notebooks, which are next years netbooks
In case you haven't noticed, there had been plenty reports on the Net of people installing Win7 beta on existing netbooks (with 512Mb RAM etc), and running it just fine.
It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Elaborate, please. I have Vista on my home system and XP on my work system, and for me going from Vista to XP (let alone 2000) is like going back to the bronze age. Also I develop on Linux at work, and I'm not sure what features it has that I should be wanting on my Windows machine.
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely. Media Player? Nope. Some people (businesses I would say drive most PC sales, but I could be wrong) don't need many of the programs that get installed with XP and Vista. It's an administrative nightmare to slim down XP or Vista without going to 3rd party utils like vLite (which may or may not be allowed depending on company "risk" assessments).
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
Windows installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Windows. I've already decided everything for you. Oh, after installation you decided you want to remove your browser? Sorry. Win7 -- You want your classic desktop back? Sorry. We don't provide any facility for that.
But it is Linux's fault if a piece of hardware isn't supported in Linux.
Welcome to slashdot, Your Holiness! :-)
Typing from a Win7 box on a 1.2GHz tablet. It's no netbook, but with 1GB of RAM, an ultra-slow hard drive, a slow processor, and Intel Integrated graphics, it's not much better.
Win7 runs GREAT! It takes a while to boot up, but that's mostly HDD I/O bound (1.8" drives are incredibly slow). Once booted, it's fast to start programs, responsive while doing things, and goes into and out of sleep instantly. More RAM would let me run more programs at once, but 1GB is enough for Outlook, a not-too-heavy Firefox session, and OneNote (I use the tablet capability to take notes in class) without swapping for more than a moment on switch.
I'm running Win7 Ultimate, with all the graphical effects and such enabled. Even on Intel Integrated graphics, Aero is responsive and smooth. All features appear to be present - media center, tablet (obviously), IIS (not that I'm using it), POSIX subsystem, etc.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Umm... WTF?
Within OS X, legacy drivers might be compatible, but I really doubt MacOS 9 drivers run on even PPC OS X.
Linux has *never* had a stable kernel binary interface, and unless Linus has a revelation and decides on the One Perfect Driver ABI, it probably never will.
NT drivers are actually forward compatible, most of the time. During the Vista betas, I used XP drivers for almost everything - companies hadn't released Vista drivers yet, but the XP drivers worked fine (if they used a .EXE installer, just set Compatibility Mode and they installed without a hitch. If they used a .INF/.SYS, slight modification of the .INF might be needed.
The only XP drivers I had trouble with on Vista were for network, particularly WiFi. I haven't tried legacy printer drivers, but I hear complaints about them too. Everything else has Just Worked; even if you forget the Compatibility mode, Vista will detect the error and prompt you to ask if you want to try again using Compatibility Mode.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Not really, here's what my Win7 says:
I don't want Windows. FULL STOP. I was a Vindows Vista early adopter. I plan doing away with both Microsoft AND x86 Intel in my forthcoming netbooks. Arm Cortex A8 and home cross-compiled embedded Linux is fine for me. I don't plan buying Windows 7, _AT ALL_.
I don't agree with that statement at all. I've always blamed the hardware vendor. In fact, if you dig around in my posting history you will find a post where I take this exact stance against someone who suggested that it was RedHat's responsibility to provide drivers for his printer.
The operating system doesn't know anything about how hardware is implemented, that's why we have drivers in the first place. It's only the hardware manufacturer who has access to that information. The very fact that ANY hardware comes with drivers built in to ANY operating system is a little amazing to me.
> The conclusions: Windows 7 is, overall, faster than both Vista and XP
.zip files. I don't know how the Windows Explorer team managed to make that particular task so ridiculously slow in XP. Info-zip can actually do -9 compression in less time than it'll take Windows just to extract it. So I suppose Seven could actually beat XP at that particular task, and they'll probably find a couple of other corner cases to bookmark, probably involving new kinds of hardware acceleration that normal applications don't use.
Thanks, I'm going to have to spend the next hour and a half winding the needle on my bogometer back around to zero.
Every version of Windows is always said to be overall faster than the previous. One of the selling points for Windows 95 was that it would make your computer faster (as compared, presumably, to DOS 6 and Windows 3.11). Windows 98 was faster than 95. Windows 2000 was faster again, and XP was faster than that.
Except, if you do a side-by-side comparison on identical hardware, it's extremely obvious that in fact exactly the opposite is true. If you run Windows 95 on a 233 MHz system with 64MB of RAM, it performs well. Try that with Seven!
Vista was *theoretically* supposed to be faster than XP, except nobody believes that because it's system requirements are SO much higher, mostly because of the large number of years that passed while it was being developed. Seven will be more similar to Vista than Vista was to XP, because not as many years have passed and not as many changes were made. Nonetheless, it's officially going to be faster than Vista and faster than XP, but I'm pretty confident that if you run it side-by-side with XP on identical hardware, XP will come out faster for most tasks.
Although, it wouldn't be at all hard to beat XP at extracting large
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Sorry, I wasn't thinking of you personally, but of posts in general. Also, it would be difficult to release closed-source binary drivers for each kernel version, but on the other hand, kernel developers can write drivers if given the specs.
http://www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1981 this might be of interest to you seems Vista has a driver for it and upgrading to windows 7 not only retains a working driver but finds a better one according to one post on this thread, however why windows 7 wouldn't offer a driver on his first go at installing it, well thats just one of those features...
For the guy with the nikon film scanner thats a real bitch but now google will index your comment and hopefully that will help other people before they buy a nikon scanner
nothing worse than being bit by something which you would expect to be included in the package.
Slingbox plugin your video source and watch anywhere provided you can watch live! no ability to save the video streams firmware updated and old firmware removed and blocked from working again a third party ap can manage to bring you this functionality and one other thing no streaming to more than one destination.
sometimes bitching on a third party website is the best that you can do manufacturers forums tend to be a bit harsh with users criticizing the products or pointing out how to get round the issues.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I feel your pain - my far more expensive Canon EOS 1D Mark IIn has no FireWire drivers for x64...Canon's solution? Sorry, we have no intentions of making drivers for it. Period. The only thing I can do is either:
1) use a card reader (which means more things I have to buy, more chances of screwing up the card and/or breaking pins either in the card reader or the camera itself
2) Go back to XP or downgrade to Vista 32 bit (thus killing the reasoning for upgrading to 64 bit Vista and having 8GB in the first place for increased Photoshop performance)
3) Upgrade to a EOS 1D Mark III at a severe cost to myself
4) change camera marque - not exactly fun, since all up, I have probably AU $20k of gear...I'd lose a great deal in the swap over.
How about governments actually step off their ass and *force* manufacturers to fucking support their products properly, instead of them bending over backwards to care for these greedy bastards? Governments are elected by the people, *for* the people, so why they are so kind to business never fathoms me.
It's one of the reasons why I despise capitalism (and there are more reasons than just this for my logic).
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
That's not Vista 64 bits fault, that's the lazy fucked up driver vendors who refuse to get off their fat and lazy asses to actually write drivers that *work*. Period.
As I said in a previous post, it's about time governments started stepping in and stopping manufactufers from taking the easy way out and *forcing* them to write working and stable 64 bit drivers. Period.
Of course, since governments don't give a fuck about you and me, the little bloke, but ONLY care about these rich cunts and big business, we're screwed.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
Vista is very stable (for me) too, and I don't think it's ever done anything for me that I didn't want it to do (except for changing the folder views -- that drives me nuts sometimes). YMMV.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely.
Sure, and I agree. But the thing is: the average person doesn't care which programs are installed. And memory and hard drive space are so cheap these days that it's would literally cost me more in time and effort to "slim down" the OS than to just install everything and just don't use what I don't want.
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
And how many Linux distros are there?
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
FWIW, Linux installation has never EVER gone this easily for me. Not even close. On the other hand, the only time I have ever had a problem installing Windows was when XP wanted SATA drivers that I had to hunt around for. Vista Untilate installed perfectly. The Windows 7 Beta installed perfectly in a dual-boot configuration with Vista. It may install things that you personally don't want, but Windows has Linux beat for ease of installation hands down.
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
Vista is very stable (for me) too, and I don't think it's ever done anything for me that I didn't want it to do (except for changing the folder views -- that drives me nuts sometimes). YMMV.
Sorry for me brevity, but I'm kinda tired.
You're missing the point. Linux's components are not integrated into the OS. XP, Vista, Win7, all the additional services/apps are integrated such that it's difficult to remove said services/apps.
Win2k, this wasn't a problem. Try easily removing MSN messenger, or Windows Live.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely.
Sure, and I agree. But the thing is: the average person doesn't care which programs are installed. And memory and hard drive space are so cheap these days that it's would literally cost me more in time and effort to "slim down" the OS than to just install everything and just don't use what I don't want.
This is my exact point. Even if most people don't care, I care. I want choice, option, freedom, decision, and will. XP and forwards removes these valuable attributes for no beneficial reason to the end user. Linux will run with only the Kernel. Windows requires everything just to boot properly. In your example, in Linux, all you have to do is go to the package manager (like Add/Remove programs) and click the button that makes the installed OS just the bare minimum. The distros I've used have presests, too (like server, workstation, base, everything!, and a few more), which makes it very very easy to reconfigure the role of a computer. It may take a moment for the computer to complete the install/uninstall, but it takes very very few bum-in-the-chair minutes.
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
And how many Linux distros are there?
Probably 100 that are popular. Again, you miss the point. These are all by different companies. MS is one company. Also, being that most (if not all) Linux distros are FREE in every respect, it's a moot point. I don't have to pay more for any specific distro, so I have an incentive to download and install the one that fits its desired application. Purchasing Windows, there is a real difference between installing Vista Starter Edition, and Vista Ultimate, namely about $300 retail, which is almost the price of a whole computer!
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
FWIW, Linux installation has never EVER gone this easily for me. Not even close. On the other hand, the only time I have ever had a problem installing Windows was when XP wanted SATA drivers that I had to hunt around for. Vista Untilate installed perfectly. The Windows 7 Beta installed perfectly in a dual-boot configuration with Vista. It may install things that you personally don't want, but Windows has Linux beat for ease of installation hands down.
Well, I suppose everyone has different experiences. I've had stellar, and less than stellar installations with Linux. Ultimately, they are worked as intended, even printers. My LaserJet 1000 and 3055 (proprietary internal