No, IE took over because it was bundled with every product Microsoft sold and included with the OS.
Your argument might carry some weight if Netscape's marketshare wasn't already crashing long before IE was "bundled", or that one of the most popular versions of IE ever - 4.0 - was only available via download during its period of biggest growth.
It took it several versions for it to be not a total piece of crap and something somewhat tolerable.
Just like Netscape. IE3 was a match for Netscape at 3.x, ca. 1996. IE4 was easily the better browser, ca. 1997, and stayed that way for many years.
IE took over because it was pre-installed on every new machine sold.
IE took over because it was the better browser. One might be able to argue it sustained that position due to inertia, but it certainly got there on its merits.
Microsoft should be in the same competitive position as all of the other suppliers
of bundleware that Dell deals with. As THE CUSTOMER, Dell should be the one that
can dictate to Microsoft rather than the other way around.
The customers are the end users who sit in front of computers running Windows. Dell is just the middle man who gets it for them.
Windows should only be allowed to come with what Dell wants it to come with.
Windows should be allowed to come with whatever end users want it to. People who think it comes with too much are free to either a) not use that functionality they don't like or b) not use Windows at all.
Microsoft bundled DoubleSpace/DriveSpace to put Stac out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] they bundled EMM386 to put Quarterdeck out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] they bundled Internet Explorer to put Netscape out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] and they bundled Media Player to get Apple to stop making QuickTime for Windows (I believe the testimony given in court was they told Apple to "knife the baby" in regards to QuickTime for Windows).
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted. (Not to mention, killing Quicktime for Windows would nearly be a reason for a national holiday, not a lawsuit.)
You might like Microsoft's products, that's fine, but if you agree with their business practices then you're no better than they are.
How about when yo're indifferent ? Microsoft's business practices are no different to other similar businesses. They just happen to have a wider sphere of influence than most.
As far as how I see Microsoft moving on this goes, I see a new OS from them called Microsoft Windows CE-Vista for Eee PC or UMP Edition. I doubt they can get XP down to the size which can compete with Linux so putting a new face on a Windows CE variant and calling it XP or something like that to make people think it's something of value. In other words, they'll spend millions on marketing and throw garbage out as the product. But this time, it'll fail because they can't rely on quad core CPUs to hid their technical failures. IMO.
Sure they can. In a year or so all these "UMPCs" will have dual-core ~1.2Ghz CPUs and 2G - 4G RAM (and actually be useful as more than toys), which is more than sufficient for Vista, let alone XP. In light of that, expending any significant resources trying to do what you suggest would be silly.
I don't know whether or not this is a Microsoft sponsored post, but lets assume it is an honest question.
Indeed. Perish the thought that there were people out there who didn't spit everytime they said Microsoft.
Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop PC Type computers.
No. Microsoft were found to have a monopoly on "Desktop Operating Systems for x86 PCs". Microsoft don't even _sell_ PCs.
Microsoft uses this monopoly to set prices for Windows and Office.
Undoubtedly. How is that relevant to someone building and selling a line of computers that runs neither Windows, nor Office ?
While Linux is technically a viable alternative to Windows, average computer consumers don't know any better and there is "undue" pressure to stay with Windows. (Finding of fact, BTW) Because of this, OEMs MUST sell Windows to be financially viable until the monopoly is broken.
OK. So the problem is customers want to buy computers with Windows, not Linux ?
Microsoft uses illegal methods of coercion on OEMs. If they offer alternatives to Windows, the Windows OEM license becomes more expensive, or the OEMs have signed a "CPU License" which they pay a flat fee based on shipped CPUs, thus making it more expensive to put Linux on a computer.
But the scenario is a manufacturer selling their *own* hardware+OS - presumably derived from some Linux distro - like Apple does. Why would not being able to sell Windows even enter into the picture ? Apple don't seem to be struggling to sell Macs...
I think you need to revisit your original assumption that OEMs want to ditch Windows and develop their own OSes and consider that from a business, rather than idelogical, perspective.
I don't agree with this. OEMs HATE Windows, they would rather have their own system like Apple does. They would love to be able to ship Linux, but Microsoft's monopoly prevents them from doing so.
The logic behind this comment is exceptionally difficult to fathom. Exactly which part of Microsoft's supposed monopoly stops OEMs from banging together their own Linux distro ?
Does this study define "racism" in some sort of objective, measurable fashion, or is it up to the respondent to decide whether or not they have been subjected to it ?
I think that there might have been something wrong with your machine. Even on my old 350MHz G3 with 512 MB, web browsing and email were "tolerable". You don't say what made it intolerable, so I can't address anything concrete.
It was just sluggish. At everything (menu lags, task switching delays, etc). Although OS X doesn't begin to approach "fast" on anything less than a G5 with at least 1G of RAM, in my experience and opinion.
There certainly wasn't anything wrong with it. Especially since numerous other Macs with basically identical specs acted the same way.
Look, if you found OSX tolerable on a 350Mhz G3 (a class of machine I have also used OS X on), then I don't think you're in any position to be criticising Vista's performance on any remotely equivalent PC. Vista and OSX deliver similar performance with similar levels of hardware power (unless there is some other outside influence).
Because XP would run on a machine $50-$100 less expensive with no significant loss in functionality.
That depends on your perspective. Some people might consider, say, search, UAC, the updated Explorer, IE7's low-privilege mode or Media Centre to be "significant" functionality.
Linux would run on a computer even cheaper, albeit with different functionality. If MS wants to write-off the low-end, that is just fine. Apple did it a long time ago... it's not very profitable. However, they shouldn't be surprised then when others don't want to abandon the market that they have abandoned.
A US$350 machine with a single core CPU and 512M RAM isn't "low end", it's "bottom of the barrel". "Low end" US$500 machines run Vista fine. "Strip everything back to save a few bucks" machines might have some problems - and Vista shouldn't be run on and isn't meant for them.
They appear to be surprised.
I doubt it. The Eee is a cool little toy, but there's always going to be a significant chunk of the market whose hardware requirements are dictated by the tasks they're doing - and those hardware requirements are going to be well in excess of Vista's (which are, as previously mentioned, low-end in today's world).
Or, to put it more bluntly, people doing "real work" on their computers won't be bothered by the small extra cost of a significantly more powerful and productive computer. More importantly, in the coming recession, one of the first kinds of things that people will stop buying, is toys like the Eee. Expect Apple to feel some hurt as well, as iPod sales plummet.
You seem to confuse marketing double-speak with technical refutations.
That's pretty fucking hilarious coming from someone linking to The Inquirer.
If you seriously think that Vistablog post refutes anything posted by Gutman, try reading the comments in that blog. Really, if that is your idea of a refutation, you're well and truly beyond hope.
Sorry, you're going to need to provide some relevant quotes. After reading about a quarter of them and seeing nothing more than the sort of inaccurate, speculative, ignorant rhetoric that's usually on Slashdot, I lost interest.
It's fine to blame "windows programmers" for the pop-ups that plague vista but in my experience (20yrs) most proffesional developers are also "*nix programmers". Conditional compilation and a lot more testing is the price one pays for supporting a diverse range of O/S's.
And still it doesn't help. Doom 3, available for both Windows and Linux, ostensibly needs to run as Administrator in Windows.
Why does it need to run as Administrator ? Simply because it attempts to write to a config file located in the %PROGRAMFILES%\Doom 3 directory. Make that one file (which shouldn't even be there in the first place) r/w and Doom 3 works fine from a regular user account.
I'm typing this on a box with 1G of RAM. I have quite a number of apps open (including Firefox and Thunderbird) and the system monitor in the top bar tells me that less than half of my RAM is in use (and that includes disc cache).
Such bloat. A decade ago I was doing that on a box with 1/10th the RAM.
The quote above is just so enlightening about what it is that's terminally wrong with Vista.
No, it's simply a sign of changing times. It was said because 1G of RAM, today, is mundane. I said much the same thing a decade earlier about 8MB of RAM, and half a decade before that about 1Mb of RAM. I fully expect to say it again in a decade years about some amount of RAM that most computers today would struggle to even recognise.
But what is this extra stuff that Vista is *just doing* all the time that makes it better?
Indexing, pre-caching, looking prettier, etc.
Do we need it? Does it really help anything?
Your call, not mine. However, the fact is that capabilities (and base requirements) have been increasing perpetually and people always make exactly the same arguments.
Then I'm sure you paid quite a bit for it.
Not really. 2000 was one of the years RAM prices crashed. It's a long time ago, but I think the 256M PC133 SDRAM DIMMs were about US$120 each.
I remember the first machine I saw that had 1GB of RAM... I was working in computer support at my university and one of the professors got a machine with a full GB of RAM... He needed it for some intense simulation stuff he was doing. That was probably in 2001 (7 years ago). It was a while after that before 1GB became a common configuration. My 8.5 year old 600 MHz P3 doesn't even support more than 768 MB, and I also have a 1GHz P3 that only supports 512 MB.
I'm not saying 1G was common in 2000. I'm saying it was possible and not especially expensive for someone who was already getting a relatively powerful PC.
At no point hve I *ever* suggested that the typical low-end consumer PC from 2000 could run Vista. Not once. All I have said is that in 2000, you could have had a PC that would run Vista today, with minor upgrades. Further, it wouldn't have even been a top-end PC in 2000.
And in a day where people are realizing they don't need super awesome hardware to do their day-to-day web surfing, IM and e-mail, low cost laptops and desktops are doing great running Linux on hardware that could never support Vista. Sure more RAM could increase performance... but so can a better OS. You actually can save money on hardware and software and still meet all your needs quite well. Enjoy your uber-1337 systems, though.
The US$400ish system that gets you decent Vista performance, is not in any way "uber-1337".
I have to disagree with you. I own a 1.33 MHz iBook with Tiger (10.4), which I ran 2 years before upgrading the memory. It booted up in a few seconds. The stock Vista laptop from Lenovo took a few minutes before the memory upgrade.
Ah, yes, the "boot up test". One of the few metrics that's even more meaningless than the "how much memory is it using just after boot" measurement.
I have to disagree with you. I own a 1.33 MHz iBook with Tiger (10.4), which I ran 2 years before upgrading the memory. It booted up in a few seconds. The stock Vista laptop from Lenovo took a few minutes before the memory upgrade.
I have a 1Ghz iBook with 768Mb of RAM (not that it sees much use anymore). OS X (10.3, 10.4 and 10.5) was barely tolerable on it for basic tasks (web browsing, email, etc).
I agree that it is silly to not buy tons of RAM, but it is also silly for MS to sell Vista as a general purpose OS, when it really is not suitable for the cheapest hardware. That is why you are starting to see these manufacturers putting Linux on the really low-end stuff. Well, that and cost:)
You can buy a machine for less than US$500 that will run Vista well. In that light, I fail to see how it doesn't qualify as a "general purpose OS".
Good attempt at obfuscation, but still failed. Turning a statement into a slightly different one and then arguing against the changed statement doesn't prove anything - you need to address the actual statement made.
And I did. A machine with dual cores and 2G of RAM is not even close to the top end of anyone's range, unless you are artificially and ridiculously limiting what the "top-end" is.
That you can go slightly lower than this, does not change that fact.
Go and look at any vendors array of available machines. The bottom end currently is 512M of RAM and either a single core processor or an obsolete dual-core. Then you move on to 1G of RAM, then 2G and even in some cases 3G.
Dell's US$350 Dimension 530s comes with a single-core Celeron 420 and 1G of RAM. Upgrading that to 2G of RAM is US$50. Upgrading to a dual-core E2160 is $30. So $430 and two steps from the absolute bottom of the barrel buys you a good Vista box (and even the base machine will run Vista usably for basic tasks).
2G of RAM is therefore *towards the top end of the range*.
No, it's not. "Towards the top end of the range" are dual CPU, 4-8-core, 16G RAM, twin video card, etc boxes.
It's utterly irrelevant that this kind of top-end spec can now be had for unbelievably little money - it's still not a bottom end spec.
It's completely relevant, because it sets the scale. You seem to be having a lot of difficulty with this, so I'll put it into simpler numbers. Assume our hardware "endedness" scale runs from 1-10. At 1, we have the $350, single-core, 1G RAM machine. Up at 10, we have the dual-CPU, 8-core, 32G RAM, 2-4-video-card, 4-SAS-drive monster. At around 5 we have a solid gaming box with 4G RAM, 3Ghz dual-core CPU, high-end video card, etc.
The machine you need to get decent Vista performance sits at about 2. Well and truly at the low end of the range. It is simply flat-out lying to suggest Vista needs anything approaching high-end hardware or much more than bottom-end hardware.
Thanks for quoting the sources of these supposed multiple refutations, pointing out specifically why any of the things I quoted are not true. Oh, I guess I'll just have to take your word for it. Of course.
No, you don't. But if you're interested in the topic you would have already read the refutations. Indeed, you even linked to one yourself.
If they have not convinced you, then there is nothing I will be able to add that will. However, they most certainly *do* refute pretty much everything of note that Gutman claimed.
Nice, that's 2 out of the 4 things I listed - so much for "none of this actually happens".
* Code present in DLLs is only taking up memory if it is executed. No DRM-encumbered media, no code execution.
* To avoid the higher hardware and driver costs involved, don't buy DRM-capable hardware.
* Your laptop battery doesn't drain any faster because if you're not playing DRM-encumbered content, none of the "checking" is happening.
In short, if you avoid DRM-encumbered media and DRM-capable hardware, then DRM will have zero impact on you. If you *do* have DRM-encumbered content, then Vista won't limit you with it any more than any other player would.
The DRM argument fails because DRM is either irrelevant (you don't have any DRM-encumbered content, or don't have capable hardware) or useful (because you do have DRM-encumbeed content and want to use it).
It was proven (mathematically and practically) that UNIX model with ugo+rwx and directories allow one to emulate effect of ACLs. It's not straightforward - but it is possible.
I'd like to see that proof, because I can't imagine how it would be possible. Traditional UNIX security doesn't give you granularity any better than per-group, whereas ACLs give you per-user.
(To say nothing of concepts that simply don't exist in the UNIX security model, like separate permissions for "write" and "delete", or the lack of a superuser.)
Not [auckland.ac.nz] at [windowsvistablog.com] all [theinquirer.net]. You are assuming that the design of Windows makes sense, or that it is designed with the end user in mind. Stop making that mistake.
Gutmann's suppositions have already been refuted multiple times.
For one thing, the DRM code is still there in many (loaded) DLL's, thus using memory (even if it may not be actively in use in the absence of DRM-encumbered media). The increased costs for hardware and driver development to make all this stuff even work, are paid for by you, the end user. Decreased driver stability due to the entirely new driver model (necessary to support DRM)? Guess who can deal with the problems it causes...yup...that would be you. Laptop battery draining faster because drivers are checking all the time whether protected media is present and whether the system is uncompromised [auckland.ac.nz] (also happening while no DRM'ed media is actually present)?
Except none of this actually happens. DLLs aren't running inactive code (by definition). Drivers aren't checking for DRM unless DRM-encumbered media is playing, etc.
As noted previously, the "DRM" argument fails. Miserably.
I may be cynical, but Vista was supposed to be a clean slate at the beginning as well.
No, it wasn't. Ever.
Years ago, around 99 or 00 I had been saying MS should adopt BSD, and put their GUI and branding on that. Man, I don't think anyone was more surprised then I was when Apple did it.
Apple had their "BSD-based" OS already released in '99, and it shouldn't have surprised anyone paying attention.
Microsoft would have been foolish to copy it, given their existing OS was already superior to contemporary BSD.
As a further point about this whole issue, I have installed Leopard on a six year old G4 with stock parts and it not only runs well, all the test indicate that it runs applications at approximately the same speed, and it (subjectively) feels faster than Tiger did on the very same hardware.
There is no G4 based machine on Earth, that can run OS X "well".
There are a handful that can run it acceptably (all with multiple CPUs, gigs of RAM, and high price tags), and a few more that can run it usably.
Windows XP can't do that, let alone Vista..
Windows XP runs well on machines that were available before OS X was even released.
Hardly. You may live in a different world from the rest of us, but dual core and 2G of RAM is still towards the top end of the catalogue of most suppliers. The low end is now 512M (or if you're lucky, 1G) and one of the last of the single-core processors.
US$500 buys you two cores and 2G of RAM. In no way, shape, or form, is a US$500 machine "towards the top end of the catalogue of most suppliers".
The lowest end machines told today with Vista only have 512M RAM on them.
Hey, I'm sure I could build a machine today with a quad-core 3Ghz processor, 4x15k RAID10 and only 128M RAM, if I really wanted to.
You really need to get out more.
No, I"m pretty sure I don't.
Even the "high end" lowend machines with the dual core processors will still have only a Gig of RAM in them.
US$500 can buy you a machine wit 2 CPU cores and 2G RAM. It's neither my fault, nor Microsoft's fault, if people choose to spend their money otherwise.
Ah, after some Googling I see that they yanked it out in Vista. Thanks.
No, the GUI has never been part of the Windows NT kernel.
But that's besides the point. Whatever makes Vista eat so much resources has nothing to do with the eye-candy, which you can turn off and still get a dog-slow machine. The same amount of memory would run MacOS or Ubuntu with aplomb.
OS X in 512MB RAM is _at least_ as painful as Vista (more, IMHO - OS X on my 1Ghz iBook was noticably slower than Vista on my 933Mhz PC). Ubuntu is marginally less so, but still slow, especially once you start to load it up with equivalent functionality (to the degree that you can).
4G of RAM today costs less than a hundred bucks. Given the significant and noticable performance benefits, having less than 2G is just silly, regardless of what your OS is.
Especially, compared to OS X, Vista's hardware requirements are not at all "high". You need similar amounts of hardware to get similar amounts of performance out of both of them.
It's really the manufacturer's fault. They should sell a no-RAM option for people like me, or enough RAM to run the OS it is loaded with. None of this "Vista with half a gig" crap. Though to be fair, Dell now seems to include 1GB standard, which may very well be enough to run Vista for most Web/Email folks.
The biggest problem is that manufacturers prefer to spec higher speed CPUs and beefier video cards, when by far the biggest improvement for most people will come from increasing RAM.
Vista was desing for machine that came out 4 years ago. Good luck with that.
Actually, machines that were just being released 2 years ago and weren't completely bottom of the barrel. Which it does fine.
No, not really. Bare in mind we are talking about machines the Dell shipped out to the average consumer here.
Yes, really and no, we're not. "The oldest hardware you can expect to run Vista on" and "the oldest low-end machine you can expect to run Vista on" are two _completely_ different things. I'm talking about the former. You seem to think I'm talking about the latter.
nope, the Kernel is bloat, as well as all the crap on top of it. AS well as their brain dead API implementation and thing mysteriously taking more memory then a low level developer would expect.'
A "low level developers" would be in the wrong place. Vista is not a platform meant for embedded usage (much like, say, OS X or Ubuntu).
To make Vista an OS that people want to use it will take some serious changes. Expensive changes.
Like what ? You do realise that outside the Slashdot anti-Microsoft zone, Vista's growth is pretty much as it was expected to be, right ?
Microsoft seeks to know this and has starting pointing to the next OS. This is happening a lot sooner in there current product cycle then they normally do. Another indicator of a failing OS.
Huh ? Vista has been out for ~18 months. Are you seriously trying to argue Microsoft weren't talking up Longhorn in mid-2003 ?
Slashdot Mirror
No, IE took over because it was bundled with every product Microsoft sold and included with the OS.
Your argument might carry some weight if Netscape's marketshare wasn't already crashing long before IE was "bundled", or that one of the most popular versions of IE ever - 4.0 - was only available via download during its period of biggest growth.
It took it several versions for it to be not a total piece of crap and something somewhat tolerable.
Just like Netscape. IE3 was a match for Netscape at 3.x, ca. 1996. IE4 was easily the better browser, ca. 1997, and stayed that way for many years.
IE took over because it was pre-installed on every new machine sold.
IE took over because it was the better browser. One might be able to argue it sustained that position due to inertia, but it certainly got there on its merits.
Microsoft should be in the same competitive position as all of the other suppliers of bundleware that Dell deals with. As THE CUSTOMER, Dell should be the one that can dictate to Microsoft rather than the other way around.
The customers are the end users who sit in front of computers running Windows. Dell is just the middle man who gets it for them.
Windows should only be allowed to come with what Dell wants it to come with.
Windows should be allowed to come with whatever end users want it to. People who think it comes with too much are free to either a) not use that functionality they don't like or b) not use Windows at all.
Microsoft bundled DoubleSpace/DriveSpace to put Stac out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] they bundled EMM386 to put Quarterdeck out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] they bundled Internet Explorer to put Netscape out of business, [...]
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted.
[...] and they bundled Media Player to get Apple to stop making QuickTime for Windows (I believe the testimony given in court was they told Apple to "knife the baby" in regards to QuickTime for Windows).
No, they bundled it because the popularity of similar products (both standalone and bundled in other OSes) made it clear that was something customers wanted. (Not to mention, killing Quicktime for Windows would nearly be a reason for a national holiday, not a lawsuit.)
You might like Microsoft's products, that's fine, but if you agree with their business practices then you're no better than they are.
How about when yo're indifferent ? Microsoft's business practices are no different to other similar businesses. They just happen to have a wider sphere of influence than most.
As far as how I see Microsoft moving on this goes, I see a new OS from them called Microsoft Windows CE-Vista for Eee PC or UMP Edition. I doubt they can get XP down to the size which can compete with Linux so putting a new face on a Windows CE variant and calling it XP or something like that to make people think it's something of value. In other words, they'll spend millions on marketing and throw garbage out as the product. But this time, it'll fail because they can't rely on quad core CPUs to hid their technical failures. IMO.
Sure they can. In a year or so all these "UMPCs" will have dual-core ~1.2Ghz CPUs and 2G - 4G RAM (and actually be useful as more than toys), which is more than sufficient for Vista, let alone XP. In light of that, expending any significant resources trying to do what you suggest would be silly.
Not to mention, what "technical failures" ?
I don't know whether or not this is a Microsoft sponsored post, but lets assume it is an honest question.
Indeed. Perish the thought that there were people out there who didn't spit everytime they said Microsoft.
Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop PC Type computers.
No. Microsoft were found to have a monopoly on "Desktop Operating Systems for x86 PCs". Microsoft don't even _sell_ PCs.
Microsoft uses this monopoly to set prices for Windows and Office.
Undoubtedly. How is that relevant to someone building and selling a line of computers that runs neither Windows, nor Office ?
While Linux is technically a viable alternative to Windows, average computer consumers don't know any better and there is "undue" pressure to stay with Windows. (Finding of fact, BTW) Because of this, OEMs MUST sell Windows to be financially viable until the monopoly is broken.
OK. So the problem is customers want to buy computers with Windows, not Linux ?
Microsoft uses illegal methods of coercion on OEMs. If they offer alternatives to Windows, the Windows OEM license becomes more expensive, or the OEMs have signed a "CPU License" which they pay a flat fee based on shipped CPUs, thus making it more expensive to put Linux on a computer.
But the scenario is a manufacturer selling their *own* hardware+OS - presumably derived from some Linux distro - like Apple does. Why would not being able to sell Windows even enter into the picture ? Apple don't seem to be struggling to sell Macs...
I think you need to revisit your original assumption that OEMs want to ditch Windows and develop their own OSes and consider that from a business, rather than idelogical, perspective.
I don't agree with this. OEMs HATE Windows, they would rather have their own system like Apple does. They would love to be able to ship Linux, but Microsoft's monopoly prevents them from doing so.
The logic behind this comment is exceptionally difficult to fathom. Exactly which part of Microsoft's supposed monopoly stops OEMs from banging together their own Linux distro ?
MS isn't very good at building operating systems, Vista being the first in house from scratch attempt.
What ?
From the abstract of this study:
Does this study define "racism" in some sort of objective, measurable fashion, or is it up to the respondent to decide whether or not they have been subjected to it ?
I think that there might have been something wrong with your machine. Even on my old 350MHz G3 with 512 MB, web browsing and email were "tolerable". You don't say what made it intolerable, so I can't address anything concrete.
It was just sluggish. At everything (menu lags, task switching delays, etc). Although OS X doesn't begin to approach "fast" on anything less than a G5 with at least 1G of RAM, in my experience and opinion.
There certainly wasn't anything wrong with it. Especially since numerous other Macs with basically identical specs acted the same way.
Look, if you found OSX tolerable on a 350Mhz G3 (a class of machine I have also used OS X on), then I don't think you're in any position to be criticising Vista's performance on any remotely equivalent PC. Vista and OSX deliver similar performance with similar levels of hardware power (unless there is some other outside influence).
Because XP would run on a machine $50-$100 less expensive with no significant loss in functionality.
That depends on your perspective. Some people might consider, say, search, UAC, the updated Explorer, IE7's low-privilege mode or Media Centre to be "significant" functionality.
Linux would run on a computer even cheaper, albeit with different functionality. If MS wants to write-off the low-end, that is just fine. Apple did it a long time ago... it's not very profitable. However, they shouldn't be surprised then when others don't want to abandon the market that they have abandoned.
A US$350 machine with a single core CPU and 512M RAM isn't "low end", it's "bottom of the barrel". "Low end" US$500 machines run Vista fine. "Strip everything back to save a few bucks" machines might have some problems - and Vista shouldn't be run on and isn't meant for them.
They appear to be surprised.
I doubt it. The Eee is a cool little toy, but there's always going to be a significant chunk of the market whose hardware requirements are dictated by the tasks they're doing - and those hardware requirements are going to be well in excess of Vista's (which are, as previously mentioned, low-end in today's world).
Or, to put it more bluntly, people doing "real work" on their computers won't be bothered by the small extra cost of a significantly more powerful and productive computer. More importantly, in the coming recession, one of the first kinds of things that people will stop buying, is toys like the Eee. Expect Apple to feel some hurt as well, as iPod sales plummet.
You seem to confuse marketing double-speak with technical refutations.
That's pretty fucking hilarious coming from someone linking to The Inquirer.
If you seriously think that Vistablog post refutes anything posted by Gutman, try reading the comments in that blog. Really, if that is your idea of a refutation, you're well and truly beyond hope.
Sorry, you're going to need to provide some relevant quotes. After reading about a quarter of them and seeing nothing more than the sort of inaccurate, speculative, ignorant rhetoric that's usually on Slashdot, I lost interest.
It's fine to blame "windows programmers" for the pop-ups that plague vista but in my experience (20yrs) most proffesional developers are also "*nix programmers". Conditional compilation and a lot more testing is the price one pays for supporting a diverse range of O/S's.
And still it doesn't help. Doom 3, available for both Windows and Linux, ostensibly needs to run as Administrator in Windows.
Why does it need to run as Administrator ? Simply because it attempts to write to a config file located in the %PROGRAMFILES%\Doom 3 directory. Make that one file (which shouldn't even be there in the first place) r/w and Doom 3 works fine from a regular user account.
I'm typing this on a box with 1G of RAM. I have quite a number of apps open (including Firefox and Thunderbird) and the system monitor in the top bar tells me that less than half of my RAM is in use (and that includes disc cache).
Such bloat. A decade ago I was doing that on a box with 1/10th the RAM.
The quote above is just so enlightening about what it is that's terminally wrong with Vista.
No, it's simply a sign of changing times. It was said because 1G of RAM, today, is mundane. I said much the same thing a decade earlier about 8MB of RAM, and half a decade before that about 1Mb of RAM. I fully expect to say it again in a decade years about some amount of RAM that most computers today would struggle to even recognise.
But what is this extra stuff that Vista is *just doing* all the time that makes it better?
Indexing, pre-caching, looking prettier, etc.
Do we need it? Does it really help anything?
Your call, not mine. However, the fact is that capabilities (and base requirements) have been increasing perpetually and people always make exactly the same arguments.
Then I'm sure you paid quite a bit for it.
Not really. 2000 was one of the years RAM prices crashed. It's a long time ago, but I think the 256M PC133 SDRAM DIMMs were about US$120 each.
I remember the first machine I saw that had 1GB of RAM... I was working in computer support at my university and one of the professors got a machine with a full GB of RAM... He needed it for some intense simulation stuff he was doing. That was probably in 2001 (7 years ago). It was a while after that before 1GB became a common configuration. My 8.5 year old 600 MHz P3 doesn't even support more than 768 MB, and I also have a 1GHz P3 that only supports 512 MB.
I'm not saying 1G was common in 2000. I'm saying it was possible and not especially expensive for someone who was already getting a relatively powerful PC.
At no point hve I *ever* suggested that the typical low-end consumer PC from 2000 could run Vista. Not once. All I have said is that in 2000, you could have had a PC that would run Vista today, with minor upgrades. Further, it wouldn't have even been a top-end PC in 2000.
And in a day where people are realizing they don't need super awesome hardware to do their day-to-day web surfing, IM and e-mail, low cost laptops and desktops are doing great running Linux on hardware that could never support Vista. Sure more RAM could increase performance... but so can a better OS. You actually can save money on hardware and software and still meet all your needs quite well. Enjoy your uber-1337 systems, though.
The US$400ish system that gets you decent Vista performance, is not in any way "uber-1337".
No players capable of reproducing DRM-encumbered media, no DRM-encumbered media. That argument goes both ways.
No, it doesn't, because it's the content that consumers are interested in.
The players follow the content, not vice-versa.
I have to disagree with you. I own a 1.33 MHz iBook with Tiger (10.4), which I ran 2 years before upgrading the memory. It booted up in a few seconds. The stock Vista laptop from Lenovo took a few minutes before the memory upgrade.
Ah, yes, the "boot up test". One of the few metrics that's even more meaningless than the "how much memory is it using just after boot" measurement.
I have to disagree with you. I own a 1.33 MHz iBook with Tiger (10.4), which I ran 2 years before upgrading the memory. It booted up in a few seconds. The stock Vista laptop from Lenovo took a few minutes before the memory upgrade.
I have a 1Ghz iBook with 768Mb of RAM (not that it sees much use anymore). OS X (10.3, 10.4 and 10.5) was barely tolerable on it for basic tasks (web browsing, email, etc).
I agree that it is silly to not buy tons of RAM, but it is also silly for MS to sell Vista as a general purpose OS, when it really is not suitable for the cheapest hardware. That is why you are starting to see these manufacturers putting Linux on the really low-end stuff. Well, that and cost :)
You can buy a machine for less than US$500 that will run Vista well. In that light, I fail to see how it doesn't qualify as a "general purpose OS".
Good attempt at obfuscation, but still failed. Turning a statement into a slightly different one and then arguing against the changed statement doesn't prove anything - you need to address the actual statement made.
And I did. A machine with dual cores and 2G of RAM is not even close to the top end of anyone's range, unless you are artificially and ridiculously limiting what the "top-end" is.
That you can go slightly lower than this, does not change that fact.
Go and look at any vendors array of available machines. The bottom end currently is 512M of RAM and either a single core processor or an obsolete dual-core. Then you move on to 1G of RAM, then 2G and even in some cases 3G.
Dell's US$350 Dimension 530s comes with a single-core Celeron 420 and 1G of RAM. Upgrading that to 2G of RAM is US$50. Upgrading to a dual-core E2160 is $30. So $430 and two steps from the absolute bottom of the barrel buys you a good Vista box (and even the base machine will run Vista usably for basic tasks).
2G of RAM is therefore *towards the top end of the range*.
No, it's not. "Towards the top end of the range" are dual CPU, 4-8-core, 16G RAM, twin video card, etc boxes.
It's utterly irrelevant that this kind of top-end spec can now be had for unbelievably little money - it's still not a bottom end spec.
It's completely relevant, because it sets the scale. You seem to be having a lot of difficulty with this, so I'll put it into simpler numbers. Assume our hardware "endedness" scale runs from 1-10. At 1, we have the $350, single-core, 1G RAM machine. Up at 10, we have the dual-CPU, 8-core, 32G RAM, 2-4-video-card, 4-SAS-drive monster. At around 5 we have a solid gaming box with 4G RAM, 3Ghz dual-core CPU, high-end video card, etc.
The machine you need to get decent Vista performance sits at about 2. Well and truly at the low end of the range. It is simply flat-out lying to suggest Vista needs anything approaching high-end hardware or much more than bottom-end hardware.
Thanks for quoting the sources of these supposed multiple refutations, pointing out specifically why any of the things I quoted are not true. Oh, I guess I'll just have to take your word for it. Of course.
No, you don't. But if you're interested in the topic you would have already read the refutations. Indeed, you even linked to one yourself.
If they have not convinced you, then there is nothing I will be able to add that will. However, they most certainly *do* refute pretty much everything of note that Gutman claimed.
Nice, that's 2 out of the 4 things I listed - so much for "none of this actually happens".
* Code present in DLLs is only taking up memory if it is executed. No DRM-encumbered media, no code execution.
* To avoid the higher hardware and driver costs involved, don't buy DRM-capable hardware.
* Your laptop battery doesn't drain any faster because if you're not playing DRM-encumbered content, none of the "checking" is happening.
In short, if you avoid DRM-encumbered media and DRM-capable hardware, then DRM will have zero impact on you. If you *do* have DRM-encumbered content, then Vista won't limit you with it any more than any other player would.
The DRM argument fails because DRM is either irrelevant (you don't have any DRM-encumbered content, or don't have capable hardware) or useful (because you do have DRM-encumbeed content and want to use it).
It was proven (mathematically and practically) that UNIX model with ugo+rwx and directories allow one to emulate effect of ACLs. It's not straightforward - but it is possible.
I'd like to see that proof, because I can't imagine how it would be possible. Traditional UNIX security doesn't give you granularity any better than per-group, whereas ACLs give you per-user.
(To say nothing of concepts that simply don't exist in the UNIX security model, like separate permissions for "write" and "delete", or the lack of a superuser.)
Gutmann's suppositions have already been refuted multiple times.
For one thing, the DRM code is still there in many (loaded) DLL's, thus using memory (even if it may not be actively in use in the absence of DRM-encumbered media). The increased costs for hardware and driver development to make all this stuff even work, are paid for by you, the end user. Decreased driver stability due to the entirely new driver model (necessary to support DRM)? Guess who can deal with the problems it causes...yup...that would be you. Laptop battery draining faster because drivers are checking all the time whether protected media is present and whether the system is uncompromised [auckland.ac.nz] (also happening while no DRM'ed media is actually present)?
Except none of this actually happens. DLLs aren't running inactive code (by definition). Drivers aren't checking for DRM unless DRM-encumbered media is playing, etc.
As noted previously, the "DRM" argument fails. Miserably.
I may be cynical, but Vista was supposed to be a clean slate at the beginning as well.
No, it wasn't. Ever.
Years ago, around 99 or 00 I had been saying MS should adopt BSD, and put their GUI and branding on that. Man, I don't think anyone was more surprised then I was when Apple did it.
Apple had their "BSD-based" OS already released in '99, and it shouldn't have surprised anyone paying attention.
Microsoft would have been foolish to copy it, given their existing OS was already superior to contemporary BSD.
As a further point about this whole issue, I have installed Leopard on a six year old G4 with stock parts and it not only runs well, all the test indicate that it runs applications at approximately the same speed, and it (subjectively) feels faster than Tiger did on the very same hardware.
There is no G4 based machine on Earth, that can run OS X "well".
There are a handful that can run it acceptably (all with multiple CPUs, gigs of RAM, and high price tags), and a few more that can run it usably.
Windows XP can't do that, let alone Vista..
Windows XP runs well on machines that were available before OS X was even released.
Hardly. You may live in a different world from the rest of us, but dual core and 2G of RAM is still towards the top end of the catalogue of most suppliers. The low end is now 512M (or if you're lucky, 1G) and one of the last of the single-core processors.
US$500 buys you two cores and 2G of RAM. In no way, shape, or form, is a US$500 machine "towards the top end of the catalogue of most suppliers".
The lowest end machines told today with Vista only have 512M RAM on them.
Hey, I'm sure I could build a machine today with a quad-core 3Ghz processor, 4x15k RAID10 and only 128M RAM, if I really wanted to.
You really need to get out more.
No, I"m pretty sure I don't.
Even the "high end" lowend machines with the dual core processors will still have only a Gig of RAM in them.
US$500 can buy you a machine wit 2 CPU cores and 2G RAM. It's neither my fault, nor Microsoft's fault, if people choose to spend their money otherwise.
Ah, after some Googling I see that they yanked it out in Vista. Thanks.
No, the GUI has never been part of the Windows NT kernel.
But that's besides the point. Whatever makes Vista eat so much resources has nothing to do with the eye-candy, which you can turn off and still get a dog-slow machine. The same amount of memory would run MacOS or Ubuntu with aplomb.
OS X in 512MB RAM is _at least_ as painful as Vista (more, IMHO - OS X on my 1Ghz iBook was noticably slower than Vista on my 933Mhz PC). Ubuntu is marginally less so, but still slow, especially once you start to load it up with equivalent functionality (to the degree that you can).
4G of RAM today costs less than a hundred bucks. Given the significant and noticable performance benefits, having less than 2G is just silly, regardless of what your OS is.
Especially, compared to OS X, Vista's hardware requirements are not at all "high". You need similar amounts of hardware to get similar amounts of performance out of both of them.
It's really the manufacturer's fault. They should sell a no-RAM option for people like me, or enough RAM to run the OS it is loaded with. None of this "Vista with half a gig" crap. Though to be fair, Dell now seems to include 1GB standard, which may very well be enough to run Vista for most Web/Email folks.
The biggest problem is that manufacturers prefer to spec higher speed CPUs and beefier video cards, when by far the biggest improvement for most people will come from increasing RAM.
Vista was desing for machine that came out 4 years ago. Good luck with that.
Actually, machines that were just being released 2 years ago and weren't completely bottom of the barrel. Which it does fine.
No, not really. Bare in mind we are talking about machines the Dell shipped out to the average consumer here.
Yes, really and no, we're not. "The oldest hardware you can expect to run Vista on" and "the oldest low-end machine you can expect to run Vista on" are two _completely_ different things. I'm talking about the former. You seem to think I'm talking about the latter.
nope, the Kernel is bloat, as well as all the crap on top of it. AS well as their brain dead API implementation and thing mysteriously taking more memory then a low level developer would expect.'
A "low level developers" would be in the wrong place. Vista is not a platform meant for embedded usage (much like, say, OS X or Ubuntu).
To make Vista an OS that people want to use it will take some serious changes. Expensive changes.
Like what ? You do realise that outside the Slashdot anti-Microsoft zone, Vista's growth is pretty much as it was expected to be, right ?
Microsoft seeks to know this and has starting pointing to the next OS. This is happening a lot sooner in there current product cycle then they normally do. Another indicator of a failing OS.
Huh ? Vista has been out for ~18 months. Are you seriously trying to argue Microsoft weren't talking up Longhorn in mid-2003 ?