Admin, yes and power user, no. Also it wasn't until XP that the NT default installations took a turn down this road, as 3.1-Win2k of NT always PUSHED IT people to never run as administrator.
It was the 'we need to be compatible to all the crap Win9x software that doesn't understand security that created the 'default' admin mode of XP and the headache.
MS should have done the Vista route in XP instead, even if it did break more crap from that time, although by waiting there are fewer apps that break today, as most software is geared towards XP and has at least a 'hint' of knowledge that security might exist.
MS's view on XP by trusting users was a mistake to say the least, they should just pretend everyone is retarded and will click on anything like Apple did with OSX and lock up everything. (Apple could have even emulated System9 apps, but didn't want to have to unlock anything for them to run correctly knowing how dangerous this would be, so it left System9 apps in a VM Sandbox to avoid the idiot users circumventing the BSD/OSX security model.)
Microsoft also left Windows too open for system level changes and modifications, which is one reason the 'tech' community use to love WIndows, as you could modify the hell out of it. Sure you didn't ahve source, but changing binaries was simple and easy enough for people to read that don't need C level source to understand. This has now become a reason MS is hated, which is ironic to say the least. And now that Vista stops this to a degree, people hate them all over again for having to get permission to install l88t applications filled with Spyware from friends.
As for the whole exploit, this is a very good case in point of seeing the source code isn't always helpful, as all you need is someone smarter than the person that wrote the original source code to read it and find a weakness, and there are lot of people capable of doing this. So instead of doing buffer overflows and tons of tricks to hack open source, just find someone that is smarter than 99% of the people out there and give them some code and have them start writing exploit software that compromises it. And sadly this is much simplier than the way Windows is hacked, and why some 'closed' source does help security.
Neither CSS or OSS is perfect or is there a black in white perspective here.
but to be fair, I'm not running Aero Glass since the integrated graphics don't support it)
Although I doubt you will have a choice(as all probably will), but for your future Tablet purchase, make sure the Video in it supports Glass.
The DWM/Aero interface in Vista is actually 'faster' than running in non-glass mode.
Most people assume the 'pretty' = slower, which is incorrect with the Vista reference to Glass. The only exception is a couple of odd cycle GeforceFX (the oldest to support glass) GPUs, and by correctly setting the GPU clockrate due to a driver issue clocking it down or by turning off the 'blurred' edges that Glass also does increased the performance of even these 2003 level video cards back to faster than XP and Vista Basic with Glass/Aero on.
When the Aero interface in enabled, not only is the WDDM composer handling the redraws, etc, but additional acceleration in areas of the GDI and especially in native WPF and Direct3D applications running.
Sadly, many users think glass always hurts performance and turns it off for speed, when they are often slowing down redrawing of applications by a factor of 2x to 20x depending on the type of application. This is really horrible when you see reviewers of Vista using A) Old pre-June 07 video Drivers B) Doing performance test day one, while Vista is optimizing, C) Turning off glass and SuperFetch and other technologies in Vista that actually make things faster - and then the reviewers complain the system is slower than XP or seems slow to them, and it would from their own idiocy.
I have been a Tablet user (Digitizer from CAD days to Portables) for over 20 years now and even on desktop PCs a pen tablet is my preferred interface. Vista does well as a Tablet OS, not only with handling ink but handrecognition and being able to even search for handwritten text in documents is quite exception and a testament to why Vista does some things rather well.
Here is a Tip from Tablet PC users to non-Tablet users: Go into the Folder options and turn on 'Enable Check Boxes to Select' - this is a Tablet feature anyone can use, and is a great alternative to having to use Ctrl-Click to select specific documents/files when using Explorer, and it something that is there if want to use and doesn't get in your way if you don't.
Re:Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...
on
Time for a Vista Do-Over?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Tell you what, Microsoft: You come up with an OS that outperforms XP Pro SP2, has some useful new features, is efficient, compatible, maybe even costs less, and then blow me, and I'll give your new OS a try. How's that sound?
DirectX10 REALLY does need Vista http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/14/7060 The GPU scheduler and GPU RAM Virtualization are just two major aspects of what DirectX10 expects to be present, and if you run the DX10 libraries on XP, you will never get these features.
Vista is faster than Mac on own Hardware (Didn't have link in my folder, but do a search, especially with Leopard and Boot Camp. From casual user reviews of Vista loading faster and being snappier than Leopard and Tiger to reviews that take native compiled applications or games for both Intel based codesets, Vista easily out performs OS X in raw application performance and ESPECIALLY gaming like Quake or WoW or other native apps that run under both OSes.)
Beware of Idiot Reviews -Most Online and 'tech' reviews are conducted by iditors or people that don't have a clue what they are doing.
The main things you will find is that they use a first day installation of Vista, where Superfetch has had no time nor performed any optimizations on the system to increase applications load times, Vista itself has ran no optimization for prefetch, file placement as there is no data to base it on for the applications or games yet, and especially the intelligent SuperFetch optimiations make a massive difference in gaming where you have a tons of textures and levels being queued into the game.
Another signs of a bad test - They turn of Aero, which on modern Video cards is faster than turned off. They also go out of their way to turn of Search Indexing and other performance assisting tools like Superfetch. (In fact with Aero on and WDDM's scheduling handling the GPU in Vista, even a single game will usually run faster 'inside' a Window instead of Full Screen - something that is the opposite of XP or other OS models.
The majority of the problem with Vista is just like this article mentions 'perceived reality', and also the 'missed advantages' Vista does offer to everyday users as well as gamers.
Gamer example: run several high end games in a Window at the same time, notice you barely lose FPS in any of the Games even though they are running on the screen at the same time, or even in Flip3D (or a 3rd Party Expose' Mimic utility). Not only would this choke XP, since Vista DOES the GPU scheduling and is not application yield based like you find in OpenGL based OS designs, this is something that is nearly impossible to do on anything outside of Vista. And yes there are people that do this, just find almost any MMO player than has more than one account or playes more than one MMO, and they are usually running
The rebooting and drivers I mentioned is the process most average users encounter installing an OS like Vista. Even someone purchasing a new computer monkeys with crap and reboots a few times, especially if they are loading old HP Printer drivers that ask them to reboot because it is horrible software and horrible drivers and the users don't know it truly isn't even required.
In the geek or IT world, people do install much like you did. In fact, for deployment senerios, it is even easier. Create a Vista Image and just plug the computer into the network, turn it on. The NIC boots to the server, installs the OS with drivers, all the applications, sets up the users and policies in one swip and there is no need for a reboot until a scheduled update or patch comes along. Vista and Windows are designed more for business and IT environments, and it would be hard to argue that any other OS even comes close to the ease of deployment XP or Vista offer, especially if you factor Vista with Windows 2008 Server that makes IT environments a few clicks to setup 1000s of systems.
The OEM/IT/Deployment abilities and tools for Vista and Windows are actually freaking awesome, and remember MS makes money from the business world more than it does from home users, so they gear everything to the IT world for centralized management and deployment.
I understand where you are coming from, but if you want to compare the simplicity that is possible with OS installs, Vista can easily beat Ubuntu in terms of automation, system diversity, and especially in centralized management. And this isn't knocking Ubuntu, but saying, MS makes Windows kiddie-IT level usable.
Most geeks that use Windows don't install like a normal user, they do the equivalent of what you did with Ubuntu, except the tools MS provides to create the initial image is sadly as easy as answering a couple of Wizard questions.
As for the boot time of applications and initial performance, I didn't say Vista performed 'horribly' after the initial installation, but I said it gets faster and faster as it is used. After the initial install, application load times are like XP, and in a week they are 2x to 20x faster than XP. This is where Vista makes up for some of its size and extra RAM usage.
Ok, the defrag thing. The reason Vista defrags new applications is to increase performance, as they don't actually defrag the files since 99.9% of the time the files are already in 1 fragment. The process is more about moving the files to the optimal location on the HD in relation to other libraries they use as well as user data or configuration data that is also used by the application. This is based on what is used the most, needs to be closest to other files, etc all based on data compiled by the SuperFetch caching system. Sure it probably only adds 1%-5% at most to the performance of the machine with modern HDs, but it is an extra optimization it knows how to do and takes advantage of downtime to make it happen.
Also regarding Defragging... NTFS doesn't defrag horribly, especially compared to most *nix FSes; however, it is like ZFS so possible framentation is higher on NTFS just like ZFS, but reading fragmented files is usually faster than average *nix FSes because of the cheap cost of the lookup NTFS uses in locating the fragments.
For a consumer based OS, Vista is good, better than SlashDot wants it to be, and better than the press it usually gets. It also is a good general purpose OS, as it can be broken down and mangled almost as much as an open source OS, and yet offers the flip the switch and use functionality like OS X has or even better. (Yes the GUI/Shell/Low Level aspects of Vista are easier to mangle or change or add to than OS X, actually even easier than KDE or GNOME is many regards.)
I wish I could get a spark out to the/. users that left Windows behind in the Win98/WinME days and get into people's heads that the NT based Windows is not so bad. And NT itself is
As for fullscreen vs windowed... the link seems to be showing that having aero enabled/disabled doesn't make a meaningful impact as it's disabled when running full screen (and that variation looks to be simply noise). I still can't believe that running windowed with aero pulling resources would be faster. But I also haven't performed extensive tests either... so I'll refrain from calling you names and merely say I'm unconvinced:P
Yep wrong link, and the one I want to post is NDAed by my own company and a partner.
Do this, give it a try, and hey if the game runs faster, go cool, and if it runs the same speed, go cool cause I can multi-task my MMO while reading slashdot (Just set your game Window or Browser to 60% transparent using any of the Transparency Window tools).
Also test it by running two games at once, and note that you lose maybe 5% performance in both games with them both running at the same time. This doesn't drop much as you open a 3rd or fouth game either, and if you are pushing 60-100fps, 5-10% is nothing.
When you have multiple games open, do Flip3D or even better go grab one of the 3rd party apps that does the expose' trick in Vista -Switcher is the name of one utility-. Then watch all your games run, notice the FPS remaining consistent and high and not only all running and not being starved for the GPU because of the Vista Scheduler or VRAM because of the Vista VRAM Virtualization, then realize that in the Expose or Flip 3D mode, you are viewing your games that are running at native resolutions in shared texture context with Aero and the Window is being resampled and anti-aliased to be displayed in the Expose' or Flip3D mode. So they are not only rendering at 'original resolutions, but are also being displayed in scaled down Windows in flip 3D and Expose' mode at the same time, with no FPS loss.
This is more impressive when you are running several games at 1920x1200, surpassing what a PS3 or XBox360 can do in some contexts and doing all this on a laptop with a 6800 Geforce card or 7950 Go like on my favorite laptop. (We are geting in the new 8800M laptops later this month, so that should be fun for us notebook users here, as DX10 tends to do all the GPU scheduling and multi-tasking a bit better than DX9 generation cards on Vista.)
Take care, and hope you get a chance to test some of this out for yourself. I also hope that some tech journals run some testing about games inside Windows, as this is not the normal mode of testing. I should have one of my techs bug their friends over at Toms or another rag.
It's not just NVidia that supported horizontal span, ATI did as well.
This I realize; however, I remember that ATI was working on enabling this for Vista, but not sure of the status of that project.
NVidia has said several things 'couldn't' be done in Vista, and then ATI provides the feature and NVidia runs back to the drawing board with a me too version in their driver. This has been a large part of the driver fight NVidia and Microsoft have had, as NVidia keep not wanting to implement features, claiming technical reasons, when it is either them being stubborn or their hardware not performing well with the features enabled properly.
ATI having worked with the XBox 360 team have a bit more experience when it comes to unified shaders and how Vista handles video, since it is a lot like the 360. Sadly ATI's hardware hasn't been up to the level they wanted yet, and also since they have adhered to the DX10 and 10.1 specifications, their cards take a bit more of a performance hit than NVidia cards do since they are skipping some of the features and not using the mandated FSAA modes for DX10 - also another reason MS added this specifically for certification for DX10.1.
I'm not sure I can credit that it'll be faster running windowed than full screen. Everything I've ever dealt with runs slower windowed... and when I'm looking at running a racing sim at 3200x1200 performance is important. Do you have a source on this?
I also have our internal tech lab results, and basically on older systems with 1gb or less than 2gb of RAM and 2003-2004 Video cards the FPS gain is about 3-7FPS, on newer systems with 2005/newer video the advantage can be more dramatic with a 4-28FPS gain.
This is running a mix of games from DOOM and Oblivion to MMOs like WoW and CoX, with only a couple of artificial benchmarks that can be forced to run Windowed. Also the systems range from a 2003 Laptop with NVidia 5600 Go to the latest Intel Quad Core with the top NVidia 8800.
I won't claim that 100% of the time running inside a Window is going to be faster for everyone or every system or every game. However, it is most of the time suprisingly, and I don't think even Microsoft anticipated this since Aero is turned off when running a game in full screen mode. Something they will need to readdress in Windows7.
Indeed. And there's a whole set of tools used by the enthusiast community that require such
This is true, but RivaTuner could rewrite their driver to snake through user mode to do the same thing. It truly isn't designed well for Vista, as its tools and optimzations are still XP sighted. (For example the 2D/3D overclocking settings that are moot on Vista)
There are also usually alternatives available to every utility, I can think of several Overclocking applicstions, including NVidia's own nTune that works fine with Vista 64.
Most of the utilities 'needlessly' use lower level drivers, and by them being re-written for user mode, Vista 64bit becomes more stable by forcing the developers to do the right thing.
Even during the Vista beta most utilties repackaged the drivers to work flawlessly on Vista 64bit. I ran into this with several CD/DVD Virtualization and Ripping tools and by the end of beta, DVD43 is the only one I can think of that doesn't work on Vista 64, and there are several alternatives to it.
So MS is simply lying about the host OS requirements for Virtual PC to avoid supporting the home versions?
Nope. MS never has said anything about the Home versions.
Here is where people get confused. Virtual PC 2005 Server requires and uses pieces of IIS. Since Home versions don't have IIS, it can't run Virtual PC 2005. (Virtual PC 2005 is technically the server version anyway.)
So instead there is Vitural PC 2007, that was designed
Are you sure this [freebsd.org] isn't the Vista you've been running all along? That would explain a lot.
This might be true, since I did write a lot of code for Berkley back in the 80s, maybe I'm just having a flashback. Now lets see, was the code I wrote for paging for Vista or BSD... Wow, I am confused today, just don't remember.
Seriously, the problem might be you assuming I'm a 10yr old MS Faniboi when I'm actually an OS engineer/theorist and the chances are good that you are using an OS running code or modified code I wrote up to 25 years ago.
Sure some here have installed Vista, but this is SlashDot, and most of us here don't use Windows as our primary OS, have taken the time to understand Vista, or have a clue what it is doing and why.
Also a large portion of SlashDot users haven't seriously worked with or touched Windows since Win98 or WinME. SlashDot is more of the generation that grew up with a version of Win3.x or Win9x on their parents computer and got rid of that crap and moved to *nix being happy they left horrible Windows behind them. Windows XP and all NT versions of Windows are vastly different than what a lot of people know to be Windows, and when they have dabbled with Win2k, XP, or Vista it really is a primary *nix user dabbling in a foreign OS.
This makes it very difficult to discuss Windows as credible, when most people here think of a different architecture design (Win9x) when they think Windows, let alone people that have virtually no understanding of OS architectures or why things are done specific ways.
From a technical standpoint, Vista's kernel is the best in terms of general consumer based OSes. Vista also employs technologies that other designers are not even considering or realize are there yet, and this will give MS a serious advantage in a couple of years.
Even Jobs and OSX are lightyears behind Vista when it comes to architectual performance or capabilities of the video subsystem. OSX developers at Apple don't truly 'get' some of things Vista is doing and why it will be smacking around OSX by taking advantage of new technologies and hardware in a couple of years or less.
There are some legitimate concerns about Vista and problems, but they are never discussed. Vista is never looked at seriously so that 'real' issues can be discussed; instead we get the one (1) day install impression reviews from people that have less technical understanding than the average 18yr old working at BestBuy.
Well maybe, but you have to realize that most people do reboot a few times when they first install an OS and add new drivers (especially legacy drivers that want reboots).
You also have to factor in SuperFetch. It is not just a prefetch, look ahead, or basic caching system. It truly is an intelligent caching system that not only monitors how applications load, but what user data they usually use, but also how the user works so it anticipates that at 8am you normally open your email and then load your browser, etc.
So there are several layers to SuperFetch, that as time goes by the OS does get faster and application load times become virtually instant. So not only is SuperFetch continually getting smarter, but SuperFetch also dictates defrag and file placement optimizations that only are scheduled once a week in Vista.
The instant loading of applications and large user documents/data is extemely noticeable in gaming where you have load times between zones or levels. Playing an MMO on Vista, you always load into the zone or instance faster than your party members that are using XP, even if their system is twice the speed/performance of yours. As Smartfetch is doing its job and already has the graphical aspect of the level/zone data available in the cache before you go there.
Superfetch also works with the WDDM in Vista, so that as Vista does VRAM Virtualization, Superfetch is also helping the Video out by anticipating textures, etc needed by the game and preloading them into address space that can be passed to the GPU driver if the application allows it. (Optimizations like this and the GPU scheduler are reasons why DirectX10 can be faster than DirectX9 and requires Vista because the applications expect the OS to be doing this stuff for them. However with all current DX10 games, they are hybrid DX10/DX9 games, and you won't see the performance benefits of DX10 until they are DX10 only games. Right now DX10 is just giving a few more features and eye candy and very little performance improvements in the current DX9/DX10 games.)
Meanwhile, Microsoft officials have themselves conceded that Vista is "bloated" and are developing the next version of Windows on a core called MinWin, which is smaller than Vista by an order of magnitude."
No, no, no, and no...
1) MinWin IS the Vista Kernel, just compiled without the kernel subsystem APIs and instead a simple HTTP server API for interaction.
2) Windows 7 will NOT be any different than Vista in terms of the kernel design, the kernel in Vista, just like in Windows 7 is already a very tight and well designed architecture. Go look up any writings on the NT hybrid kernel.
FYI - The HAL in Vista is still under 256K, and the main NT subsystem in a shipping copy of Vista is under 40mb. Vista doesn't get 'large' until you add in the subsystems (win32) and the 'dual' kernel compatibility architectures that allow Vista to run legacy XP drivers in an entirely different driver model/subsystem. This is why Vista can load XP drivers and work like XP or load Vista drivers and use the new features of Vista. This goes for everything from Video and Audio to the Printing subsystems. (ie Look up XPDM vs WDDM)
It is sad enough when crappy journalists don't get that the MinWin demonstration is just a compiled version of the KERNEL only of NT. I know kernels, hybrid, client/server kernel, and architecture stuff is way beyond Mary Jo at ZDNet, but for the love of truth or God, can not the freaking editors at SlashDot be smart enough to understand something as simple as a kernel or a layered OS design?
1) Vista removed support for horizontal or vertical span modes with a multi-monitor setup
This is wrong. The Video driver subsystem in Vista is entirely different; however what you area referring to is a specific feature removed from the NVidia drivers.
So you have a couple of choices, use the Vista Dual View mode (if you only have one card) and run your game inside a Window instead of full screen (tell the game to remove the Window Border so it looks full screen). The game will play inside the WDDM Aero interface and actually be faster than running full screen and will also allow you to stretch it across all your displays without incident, even if they are varied resolutions, which XP couldn't do.
This is what people don't get or get stuck on, as XP didn't allow (easily) the ability to run 3D applications across multiple displays or video cards unless the application was running full screen and the applicaiton was designed to do so. The NVidia Span mode, was a semi-hack that allowed the display to act as one screen, but even it didn't have 100% support with games or a seamless desktop.
You can also just install the XP drivers, and Vista will turn off the WDDM subsystem and use the legacy video subsystem and the features provided by the MFR in the XP drivers work again. In other words, it runs JUST LIKE XP if you use the XP driver.
It kills me that people don't realize they can just install the XP driver in Vista, and the legacy subsystem is used, the same video subsystem that exists in XP, giving you the same EXACT performance as XP. Having the dual video subsystems and the transparent compatibility of being able to run both is a marvelous feature of Vista, as it works so well people don't realize it can do two entirely different Video subsystem and driver models. Having these legacy abilities is the reason Vista is a large install in terms of HD usage compared to XP.
It also kills me that people will turn off Aero with Vista WDDM drivers and complain about performance (since turning off Aero loses performance in Vista with WDDM). Leave the pretty glass on, things run faster!
PS The newest Vista WDDM drivers run about 10% faster than any XP driver in 99% of all games now, just in case anyone thinks that WDDM is a 'bad' thing. Also with WDDM, you can run multiple games in Windows with virtually no FPS loss in each game, due to the GPU scheduler and VRAM virtualization of WDDM. So if you run two copies of WoW or some other MMO at the same time, throw them in Windows inside Vista with Aero ON, and they will both running seamlessly, in fact even do the Expose' trick (3rd party utility) or Flip 3D, and watch both games play at the same time with virtually no FPS loss in either game compared to running just one copy of the game. (This is where Vista blows past the OpenGL Composer projects. Sure vista don't have a cute floating cube or wiggle windows, but when it comes to performance of 3D applications (not just video running) in the 3D composer, Vista is miles ahead, and miles ahead of OSX as well, since it doesn't do the OSX Composer's double buffering either.
2) The 64-bit version of Vista removes backwards compatability for 16-bit applications. Technically the AMD64/EMT64 CPU design removes 16bit abilities when running in native 64bit mode. So from a 64bit OS, the CPU can switch to 32bit mode/hybrid, but can't drop to an emulated 16bit mode. Microsoft could have virtualized the 16bit subsystem, but why when you can run Virtual PC 2007 for free (ON ANY VERSION OF VISTA) and run even Native Win3.1 or DOS for 16bit legacy applications.
So you can't really put the blame on Vista 64bit here.
3) The 64-bit version of Vista requires you to specify EVERY TIME YOU BOOT that you want to use unsigned drivers
This is only for kernel level drivers. For example, the HD Controller or other non user mode driver. User mode drivers do NOT have to be signed, and 99% of devices use user mode drivers (ie Scanners, cameras, printers, etc.)
don't use vista yet, but am a PC gamer so sooner or later I might have to take the plunge, news on Vista therefor intrests me, if this SP1 is really good, it might hasten the move to Vista and make game companies more inclined to make directx10 only games. Or not, but I want to know when I should start to look into pirating Vista (Pay for MS software? What an odd concept.)
If you have the chance now to start playing with Vista, now would be the time to do so. Even without SP1, with the latest drivers from ATI and NVidia June/Sept07 & Newer, Vista is clocking framerates above XP on 99% of the systems out there.
The margin of FPS increase with Vista also grows if you LEAVE AERO/GLASS on and are running games inside a Window, or you run more than one game at a time (i.e. two MMO accounts/games).
Remember the brutal reviews of gaming on Vista was in the Jan07/Feb07 timeline when ATI and NVidia admits their drivers still sucked being complete rewrites, and even then on average Vista was only clocking 10-20% behind XP, which was like 5-10FPS in high FPS games. (The poor quality of Video drivers from ATI and NVidia also is the area that POed MS the most, as NVidia and ATI had plenty of time and access to MS resources to ensure the drivers would be top notch, and instead NVidia and ATI went alone in the final development.)
The video subsystem in Vista (despite all the DX10 info) has the potential to run circles around XP and other OSes, as it can not only meet XP draw to screen and render performance, it can suck RAM from the system and virtualize it for GPU operations, and Vista also does pre-emptive scheduling of the GPU, so when multiple games/applications are asking for use of the GPU, the OS manages this without application level yeilding/cooperation. So not only can you run Games in the Aero 3D view (dual 3D apps), but you can also run multiple 3D applications at the same time with minimal frame loss in each application as Vista is multi-tasking them to the GPU smoothly and keeping them from being VRAM starved. Even in a single 3D application/game, the Vista model of multi-scheduling the GPU can improve performance if the game isn't well optimized and shoves the GPU too hard to render crap and starves other parts of the game. Vista tries to step in to ensure that all calls are being processed more equally if it will improve game performance.
As for DirectX10, you will NOT see any great Frame Rates in DX10 games until a game is truly DX10 only. As the DX10 games now that are on the market are DX9 games with DX10 textures and some shadow and lighting added to them, and also try to push up the density of graphics, destroying the FPS gains of DX10.
A solid DX10 dedicated engine with NO DX9 underpinnings has a significant margin of performance gain as well as onscreen quality and consistency between GPU models/vendors. Look at XBox 360 dedicated games that are using the XNA and jumping off from a solid DX10 level engine, they blow cross platform games away in terms of FPS and quality.
The same is true of DX10 in Vista, and having a hybrind DX9/DX10 engine/game makes for a great DX9 game, and can give you some DX10 tastes and visuals, but is nothing like a sole DX10 game. DX10 unlike DX9 doesn't build off the previous versions of DirectX, so where you see 8.1/9.0 DX games that run well in both contexts, this is counterintuitive to building a real DX10 game. Sadly the game companies are looking at the market and the FUD about Vista, and are scared that games will be afraid of a DX10 only game project that requires Vista.
(PS And DX10 does truly require Vista, as the games expect the OS to manage VRAM virtualization, pre-empting the GPU - especially when using the GPU for both physics and visuals, and with the DX10 libraries on XP, these things don't exist, and the game will starve itself expecting the OS/Vista to handle these DX10 aspects. (There are many other aspects like this, but the VRAM virtualization and the pre-emptive GPU scheduler in Vista are the
Security problems are not bugs that an automatic bug reporter reports. Neither, for that matter, can automatic bug reporters report usability problems. You're also making the false assumption that Microsoft honestly reports all the bugs they discover.
Ok, this is also false.
1) Some of the error reports, bugs, and problems are very much security related incidents, as crashing or exploitable code gets sent back to Microsoft. Defender also reports back spyware or attempts to hijack the OS via exploits and even social engineering.
2) There is also a certain level of usability reports that go back to Microsoft. The reporting system in Vista is also more robust than I think you assume, when a user encounters a problem or something doesn't work the way they think it should, help pops up, goes online to find more information, and reports back to Microsoft if the information helped, and if the user was able to do what they wanted. Help is also dynamic and changes to be more and more usable to users based on this feedback, unitl changes are made to the OS.
If you ever used Vista for more than 10 minutes, this is stuff you would know.
As for Microsoft being honest about problems, it would be insane for Micorosft to know that users are having trouble with XYZ and not address XYZ, this is why UAC and other changes have been made via Vista updates over the past year and many other 'USABILITY' items are included in SP1. Even small things like 'wording' on the start menu is changed because of reported user confusion that was reported via the Vista automated Help system.
But Vista usability and security are a nightmare
Vista is more secure than XP at this point, browsing via IE7 is more secure than any other browser on any other platform via the sandboxing protected mode, etc. Vista has had NO specific exploits or in the wild viruses, and it already is bypassed the userbase of all Macs ever shipped, so the 'off the radar' argument can't be used.
The security argument just doesn't work anymore with Vista. It hasn't worked well against Windows since SP2 of XP or Windows 2003, and Vista is a notch above them in terms of security and yes even outdoing OS X and OpenBSD.
As for usability, you are either dated in how you use computers, or unable to grasp new concepts that unforged users adapt to better than the old concepts geeks get use to. If you are using Vista like FileManager of Win3.1 days, then ya, usability in Vista sucks, if you use Vista like Vista then usability is 10x XP and previous versions.
This is just like the Office 2007 arguments, everyone thought it would tank, yet BUSINESS is very happy with it, and users adapt to it easily, even though it, 'LIKE VISTA,' has moved more to a docucentric approach that eliminates old GUI constructs like Menus. And Menus are basically bolted on concepts from textual days to get more commands onscreen in a GUI that Xerox and Apple could not over come in moving to a Graphic interface.
Think about it, how come the most known OS for its GUI and GUI origins (OS X) still uses 'lists of words(menus)' as it primary interface to features and functions? Yet the OS you are making fun of, has gotten past this dated usability concept where Apple has failed.
This is not something you should honestly be slamming Vista over, as MS is pushing new GUI and UI constructs forward beyond what OSX and the industry has seen. A Vista user, especially a newb or professional that isn't stuck in thinking in terms of FileManager concepts, can run circles around XP and OS X users. XP and even Win95 had docucentric underpinnings that have never been fully taken advantage of, and Vista up the ante a bit by pushing them forward.
Here is a quick test if you are old school or slow on usability - Do you mainly use Save and Open Dialog boxes in your daily work? If you 'get it' you would hardly ever even see or use an Open or Save dialog box unless you were renaming something from inside the application or exporting. PERIOD. (Here is a hint, Right Click - Select NEW - Select the Document/Graphic you are creating - Name the freaking Document where it is created. Never use old dialogs again to open documents again.)
and no one is using Vista, it's natural that it'd have the fewest reported flaws.:)
That sounds great until you realize that even by the most conservative estimates, more people are ALREADY using Vista than are using all versions of OS X and System 9 combined. Even if you throw in all the *nixes combined, there are still more Vista users.
Vista also automatically drops reports of problems directly to Microsoft, and isn't dependant on users to supply bug reports or problems like OS X, so when problems occur, MS usually knows before the users or the makers of the software that is causing problmes.
So ya, nobody is using Vista, in comparison to XP that is. However compared to the SlashDot and Mac industry, Vista is a massive OS deployment, lets hope OS X can catch up to Vista someday... (Geesh)
Oh, and I love the argument, that Vista was preinstalled and 'forced' on users. Strangly, the people that purchased these systems and rolled back to XP are 90% documented, and aren't counted as Vista installs.
And this is not any different than the people that purchased new Macs and had to have 10.4 installed because of the application compatibility problems with Leopard. (Which ironically has more compatibilty and application problems than Vista, and yet only supports 1/1000th the software or hardware.) (Geesh Again)
I just drag the Application to the trash and I never see it again. I still have the underlying OS Components of WebKit (I think that it's an OS Level Framework now) and Quicktime, but I don't have the applications. Microsoft REFUSED to allow the deletion of IE/WMP, and when forced by the courts to provide a version without them, removed the underlying OS components to break Windows.
This is where your post leaves reality... You could drag the IE Applicaiton and the WMP application to the freaking trashcan just as easily in Windows, and just like OS X, the core libraries for HTML rendering and WMP decoding are STILL there, just as the Safari HTML rendering and OS X Quicktime decoding are STILL there. Where you are trying to prove a difference, there is NONE.
This is also where Windows and MS's design has an advantage as Windows Audio is codec agnostic, and you can use Windows for years and never need to invoke the WMA/V codecs, and use your favorite third party codec technology all the way.
which is based on the open-source operating system Linux--can start surfing the Web or watching a DVD in less than 20 seconds, and, in some cases, in less than five.
Here is where I find this both a really good and really stupid idea. Linux world - great... Windows World - worthless...
1ghz CPU 1gb RAM Vista Day one Install Boot Time: 60-90secs
1ghz CPU 1gb RAM Vista 3-7 Days Later after Boot Optimization Runs internally on Vista Boot Time: 10-20secs (BIOS time being the biggest chunk of time)
1ghz CPU 1gb RAM Vista Resume from Full Off Hibernate: 3-10 secs (Depending on BIOS time)
So this sounds great, but it also demonstrates that these people either: A) aren't using Vista, or B) Are taking advantage of the Vista FUD.
I can put this in real numbers and video on freaking YouTube if people think this is abnormal, our lab has over 30 PCs running Vista, almost without exception these numbers are accurate.
Here are two machines that are at the 'fast' end of these numbers:
HP ZD7030 Laptop (Circa 2003) 3.06ghz HT CPU 5600 GeforeGo 1ghz RAM Boot Time: 15secs Resume Hibernate: 4 secs
Custom Built (Circa 2003) Athlon 2800+ (32bit) ATI X700 AGP 1ghz RAM Boot Time: 12secs Resume Hibernate: 5 secs
You seem to be skipping user areas, user applications, and even general applications that are accessible via a default user/program.
Here contrast this, in Vista, IE can't even write to user areas, let alone program/application areas. Additionally, even normal users or applications CANNOT write to applicatin/program areas in Vista, so even if the user is using Firefox, the applications are still protected.
This is a great straw-man argument, as 99% of the people on SlashDot cannot fully provide a verifiable background.
For me this rings even truer, as there are reasons I can't fully outline the projects or all companies of involvement, especially my work with the Pentagon and NASA. I can't even detail specifics of my work with X11 here as it would give a trail that would create problems time-lining my name to projects that do require non-normal levels of technical security from my past.
I can say, I helped designed technologies with security systems and devices in the 80s for the US Government. In the 90s I and my team contributed high and low level software systems to NASA, specifically working with ISS, and have software running on the ISS.
However, unless your name is Bush or Cheney, this is going to be a bitch for you to verify.
So let's pretend that 1/2 of what I say is bullshit about my career, read my posts and rethink the level of understanding I have on the subjects I comment on in my spare time.
I have an engineering background and not only understand technologies at very low levels, but have theoretical understanding of the subjects as well, triangulating knowledge from several fields within the industry. We could talk about theoretical OS technologies of today, or go through older OS technologies piece by piece at levels that you can't find in technical journals or run to Wiki to sound credible.
If you want to believe I am a newbie 'me too *nix rocks person' or a 'me too OS X rocks' or a 'me too MS rocks person', then maybe you haven't evolved past that point yourself.
Black and white does not exist when it comes to technology, and you have to work and accredit all things you encounter to various levels of gray or esoteric relationships that can take a poor idea and bring it forward to work with other ideas to make it brilliant.
This includes companies or people, as many of the SlashDot 'darlings' have done some really stupid stuff, produced bad ideas, and pushed the OSS industry in the worng direction.
Then there are the Microsoft's of SlashDot and they have actually done more good than bad, but that doesn't give people here a warm glowing feeling about them. Even if it was through market dominance, they created standards in a highly fragmented PC market and seem to be willing to work with current standards bodies again.
This concept affects ALL browsers, don't let the Firefox,Safari,Opera groupies leave you with a false set of security. It is also OS agnostic using the methods listed in the article or other undocumented browser callback script techniques.
The example given is using Flash, this is a problem with Flash operating at a level it should not allow plugins to do so.
Additionally, there are methods outside of Flash that can utilize this as an exploit, and the other methods work in EVERY browser except IE7 running on Vista, as Vista's protected mode blocks the exploit ironically making it the most secure browsing option.
There are valid and secure ways of using UPnP. UPnP is more than just opening ports on a router and serves greater functionality on networks.
UPnP and router security should probably be revisited, but throwing away the functionality because of this risk would be disasterous.
ALL browers need to re-look at exploitable script callbacks that could be used to touch UPnP. There are exploits in all browsers, that are NOT documented in this article. Additionally, Adobe needs to get a freaking handle on the crap involved with Flash and security.
Flash has always had lots of vulnerbilities and risks. To the point that Microsoft diabled user created Flash use of Winks in Messenger because of Flash vulnerbilities. Flash's inherent insecurity is also another reason Micorosft has moved forward with Silverlight.
Funny thing is, didn't people want much the same thing in 1992 when a complete unknown named Bill Clinton was elected?
Complete unknown would be a bit on the shady side, being he became quite famous from the 1988 Democratic Convention and his speech, that also got him invited on Johnny Carson.
As for the 'youth' movement, part of the draw of Hillary was the energy from the Clinton era. Whether people liked them or not, Bill was a Rhodes Economist and did bring this country back from years of poor management, being the biggest economic expansion in US history, let alone all time highs and lows in the right areas. For example unempoyment was so low that Greenspan wanted the uemployment rate to stop going down because of a theory that correlates inflation to this number when it is at extremely low levels.
The smart people get that Hillary isn't Bill, but they also understand that if she screws up horribly, she has a great advisor banging an intern in the other room, that also has good ideas and knows what to do regarding both economy and foreign policy, things this country are once again in great of after another Bush/Republican failed free market at all costs attempt to manage the country.
Hillary also is smart, maybe smarter than the rest and even Bill. She also has been around the block enough that she can easily punch the bullies back hard, and the Republicans will tear Barack apart in a general election.
There isn't any more dirt that could even be disclosed or made up that hasn't already been done to Hillary (Citing Clintion Chronicles - which over 80% of the documentary has not only proven false, but the rappist in Arkansas wasn't as innocent as they made him sound in the movie either, just ask Huckabee when the radical right pushed to get the guy released to become a repeat offender.)
I think at the end of the day, Hillary has both the compassion and strength to lead the US back to a 'semi' good and strong nation, at least reversing the Bush II damage. She also can fair out the election, and is strong enough to face the dirty tricks, like she has done for years and years, with nothing more to 'ruin' her image any worse, especially after a 40million Star investigation couldn't even dig up any dirt on her via Travelgate, FBI RecordGate, etc... If she survived all of that and was elected to the senate, they can't damage her very much at this point.
I like Barack, he is brilliant, but not as progressive as Hillary, take Gay Rights issues, she is more to the left, which is disappointing, as I originally assumed he would be being 'younger'.
I would be happy with Barack as president, or Edwards, but I like Hillary, not only for what she brings to the office, but the tools she has to get there. Barack would be eaten alive by the Republican smear machine, he is too nice and doesn't have a vetted past like Hillary.
Youth movement youngest canidate, even at 60 Hillary has young ideas and a youth supported platform, moving down the road further than Bill was able to take the country back in 1992.
This is why you are semi-retarded. Even the beginning of your response you start arguing something I never claimed, nor purported to claim - especially since I was developer at Xerox and worked with multi-tasking platforms when you were still shitting yourself.
I didn't even read the rest of your post, the ignorance of the NT 'creating' multi-tasking was enough to see you are not worth the time.
I suggest you go find articles on the crap you are trying to argue and actually learn something, instead of trying to find support for your idiotic points. Pick stuff from the great minds on all sides of the aisles and quit freaking drinking a religion or kool-aid.
You probably think I'm a MS hack and ironically, if you are using ANY *nix, a lot of the stuff you are using comes from projects I was either involved with in ways that would make you go holy crap.
Like I warned you before, you have no idea who you are trying to talk down to, and the condescension is not going to get you very far, as I can easily bury you without the need for cute 'wiki' reference links. The stuff you are still finding wonderful, is crap I was designing or coding over 20 years ago.
hadn't even stolen the idea for graphical windows yet. I believe at that time they were still trying to figure out that whole "subdirectory" concept.
This is where we find out you are semi-retarded... Microsoft may be the evil monster in your closet, but they do employ the TOP programmers, theorists, engineers, and spend more on research than most other tech companies combined. If you really want to pick at Microsoft, find a credible topic like WinME, but I would stay clear of the minds they employ and little things like the NT architecture, which is to date still 'more' advanced than any other consumer OS kernel/architecture. I think you should go find a history book and leave your pet peeves for Microsoft under your tinfoil hat.
As for poorly trying to attack the NT platform for multi-tasking, you REALLY need to look up the process and thread manager in NT and the non-binding client/server kernel that doesn't have problems like monolithic kernels do, like the kernel in OS X that Apple has had to add a few tricks to so that the monolithic nature doesn't choke when multi-tasking kernel level API calls.
As for Quicktime and Apple's ability to create a 'credible' application on an alternative platform, they truly suck. From the horror Safari release, to the history of products they have tried to release and ended up running with their tail between their legs. Quicktime is horribly coded, uses horrible methods for how it handles its codecs, and virtually uses 1980s timing concepts when trying to stream, buffer, or play any audio or video content. A good IT person can take Quicktime and make it hiccup and skip on ANY Windows installation, and yet it is virtually impossible to do the same with WMP, WinAmp, etc. In fact, a good Mac IT person can show users how Quicktime can too easily choke on OS X as well, which is not only scary, but extremely sad, as Apple 'use' to be a multimedia leader.
If you want to further try to argue the multi-tasking issue as a Windows Vista issue, go look up BeOS, and arguments for real-time scheduling for multi-media. Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS that uses realtime scheduling for multi-media, something OS X just can't do.
You are biting off more than you can chew, you have no idea who this hornet nest you are smacking belongs to.
Going to stop your idiocy at the 'Microsoft Software' examples... As I stated, the list is inaccurate, even others reponding to this specific thread have pointed this out to you and others, and all of these applications run fine on Vista, and even ran fine on Vista at release with or without the specific patches that were also available then. There are some 'specific' code examples that carry over from the early Win32 days when it was also a Win9X environment, so some of the scripts and code fail because it was created in the non-NT consumer days and simply fails with Vista's enforced NT security. PERIOD.
Now go back to iTunes, and one year later explain to your friends while Apple can't write or update an application to use common coding techniques from the last 10 years so that it isn't using an 'aged' method to predict local or remote buffering and failing miserably, so that if you have a fast HD control or fast connection that will have occasional latency, the freaking songs skip. This is what you call 'crap' software, and should be freaking embarassing to Apple at the very least.
I have two developers that in a matter of 8 or less hours could get iTunes working properly on both XP and Vista where there are still issues because Apple is a horrible software company when it comes to producing code on anything but their toy box and expect all users and platforms to 'adhere' to their 'godly' ways because they are Apple. You know, even little crap, like how Quicktime use to maximize the installation application over the entire desktop and taskbar on Windows during installation, assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...
Yeah, I would say "it does not work" is a fairly significant issue for most people. They don't care why all this software [iexbeta.com] won't work
Maybe because this list is pretty much complete crap, outdate, rumor, or platform specific issues that have nothing to do with Vista.
Also don't forget that it is not MS's responsibility to fix 'badly' coded software by every donkey and their brother. If they wrote software that is crap and works like crap or does crap it shouldn't, MS can only do so much, and even in this regard the Application Compatibility system in Vista 'corrects' 1000s of software titles in realtime that are 3rd party problems, not Vista nor MS's.
It won't work with iTunes? You don't think people are going to consider that a deliberate failure? Or a fatal flaw?
Well iTunes does work, although iTunes is pretty close to crap. However considering the initial problems with iTunes were 'specifically' bad coding practices used by Apple, maybe you have an argument and should take it up with Apple that they were purposely trying to lock their customers out of using Vista...
iTunes STILL uses old rendering methods both audio and video, uses old or ancient timing practices for buffering audio/video and RAM usage (ie iTunes loves to mis-estimate local buffering and latency in a device like a HD controller can cause iTunes to hiccup.) And when I say old or outdated, they are not only outdated for Vista, or XP, but outdated for both the NT platform entirely and outdated for even standard methods, by using timing and allocation methods that would have been considered outdated in the 90s.
I think when OSX or any *nix can run 1/1000th of the software Vista does perfectly, you can start to even chime in on Vista's ability to run software. People like you also seem to have misssed all the software that died or is incompatible with Leopard, and Apple has full control of the hardware, OS, and such a small software base, if they implemented an Application compatibility system like Vista employs they would NEVER have an application fail. Instead Leopard has more software incompatibilities than Vista in terms of % of software the platform runs. -And that is REALLY sad...
The majority of us work in engineering, scientific, or back office (i.e. crud database) type development where Silverlight will be of limited utility, at least in an immediate sense. Now, if I have a good non-gee whiz reason to consider Silverlight in a user interface project
This is valid conceptually, but the same argument could have been made of HTML forms as a UI years ago.
Here is the part you are skipping over. Silverlight is a lightweight version of WPF, and even though the 'majority' of WPF was finalized when Vista shipped it is still evolving and 90% of the WPF and Vista based applications or conversion to WPF are still in development and won't been seen for another year.
However, when the WPF apps do start dropping on the market and design and development teams get behind the idea developing with a design/code construct, then things will change.
At this point the WPF model will work for a lot of developers and be an extension of their main development and applications, and this is were Silverlight will be a modify and recompile for web interaction or extensibility to these development main projects.
WPF concepts right now are very raw. The whole illustration with UI constructs and events is new to people and plugging code into a painted UI is also new. (At least in terms of a major API and massive development)
Slashdot Mirror
"Administrator" and/or "Power User"
Admin, yes and power user, no. Also it wasn't until XP that the NT default installations took a turn down this road, as 3.1-Win2k of NT always PUSHED IT people to never run as administrator.
It was the 'we need to be compatible to all the crap Win9x software that doesn't understand security that created the 'default' admin mode of XP and the headache.
MS should have done the Vista route in XP instead, even if it did break more crap from that time, although by waiting there are fewer apps that break today, as most software is geared towards XP and has at least a 'hint' of knowledge that security might exist.
MS's view on XP by trusting users was a mistake to say the least, they should just pretend everyone is retarded and will click on anything like Apple did with OSX and lock up everything. (Apple could have even emulated System9 apps, but didn't want to have to unlock anything for them to run correctly knowing how dangerous this would be, so it left System9 apps in a VM Sandbox to avoid the idiot users circumventing the BSD/OSX security model.)
Microsoft also left Windows too open for system level changes and modifications, which is one reason the 'tech' community use to love WIndows, as you could modify the hell out of it. Sure you didn't ahve source, but changing binaries was simple and easy enough for people to read that don't need C level source to understand. This has now become a reason MS is hated, which is ironic to say the least. And now that Vista stops this to a degree, people hate them all over again for having to get permission to install l88t applications filled with Spyware from friends.
As for the whole exploit, this is a very good case in point of seeing the source code isn't always helpful, as all you need is someone smarter than the person that wrote the original source code to read it and find a weakness, and there are lot of people capable of doing this. So instead of doing buffer overflows and tons of tricks to hack open source, just find someone that is smarter than 99% of the people out there and give them some code and have them start writing exploit software that compromises it. And sadly this is much simplier than the way Windows is hacked, and why some 'closed' source does help security.
Neither CSS or OSS is perfect or is there a black in white perspective here.
but to be fair, I'm not running Aero Glass since the integrated graphics don't support it)
Although I doubt you will have a choice(as all probably will), but for your future Tablet purchase, make sure the Video in it supports Glass.
The DWM/Aero interface in Vista is actually 'faster' than running in non-glass mode.
Most people assume the 'pretty' = slower, which is incorrect with the Vista reference to Glass. The only exception is a couple of odd cycle GeforceFX (the oldest to support glass) GPUs, and by correctly setting the GPU clockrate due to a driver issue clocking it down or by turning off the 'blurred' edges that Glass also does increased the performance of even these 2003 level video cards back to faster than XP and Vista Basic with Glass/Aero on.
When the Aero interface in enabled, not only is the WDDM composer handling the redraws, etc, but additional acceleration in areas of the GDI and especially in native WPF and Direct3D applications running.
Sadly, many users think glass always hurts performance and turns it off for speed, when they are often slowing down redrawing of applications by a factor of 2x to 20x depending on the type of application. This is really horrible when you see reviewers of Vista using A) Old pre-June 07 video Drivers B) Doing performance test day one, while Vista is optimizing, C) Turning off glass and SuperFetch and other technologies in Vista that actually make things faster - and then the reviewers complain the system is slower than XP or seems slow to them, and it would from their own idiocy.
I have been a Tablet user (Digitizer from CAD days to Portables) for over 20 years now and even on desktop PCs a pen tablet is my preferred interface. Vista does well as a Tablet OS, not only with handling ink but handrecognition and being able to even search for handwritten text in documents is quite exception and a testament to why Vista does some things rather well.
Here is a Tip from Tablet PC users to non-Tablet users:
Go into the Folder options and turn on 'Enable Check Boxes to Select' - this is a Tablet feature anyone can use, and is a great alternative to having to use Ctrl-Click to select specific documents/files when using Explorer, and it something that is there if want to use and doesn't get in your way if you don't.
Tell you what, Microsoft: You come up with an OS that outperforms XP Pro SP2, has some useful new features, is efficient, compatible, maybe even costs less, and then blow me, and I'll give your new OS a try. How's that sound?
Networking (Pre SP1)
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/2070
Raw CPU Use
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/xp-vs-vista-uk,review-2067-5.html
Gaming Performance (Especially after the Beta Driver Releases in Jan - Check out reviews from June to now - Drivers are faster than XP 99.9% of the time)
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page9.asp
Even Early Drivers (Beta Even) put Vista at only a few FPS behind XP, and this is pure RTM code, no optimizations:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page11.html
DirectX10 REALLY does need Vista
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/14/7060
The GPU scheduler and GPU RAM Virtualization are just two major aspects of what DirectX10 expects to be present, and if you run the DX10 libraries on XP, you will never get these features.
Vista is faster than Mac on own Hardware
(Didn't have link in my folder, but do a search, especially with Leopard and Boot Camp. From casual user reviews of Vista loading faster and being snappier than Leopard and Tiger to reviews that take native compiled applications or games for both Intel based codesets, Vista easily out performs OS X in raw application performance and ESPECIALLY gaming like Quake or WoW or other native apps that run under both OSes.)
Beware of Idiot Reviews
-Most Online and 'tech' reviews are conducted by iditors or people that don't have a clue what they are doing.
The main things you will find is that they use a first day installation of Vista, where Superfetch has had no time nor performed any optimizations on the system to increase applications load times, Vista itself has ran no optimization for prefetch, file placement as there is no data to base it on for the applications or games yet, and especially the intelligent SuperFetch optimiations make a massive difference in gaming where you have a tons of textures and levels being queued into the game.
Another signs of a bad test - They turn of Aero, which on modern Video cards is faster than turned off. They also go out of their way to turn of Search Indexing and other performance assisting tools like Superfetch. (In fact with Aero on and WDDM's scheduling handling the GPU in Vista, even a single game will usually run faster 'inside' a Window instead of Full Screen - something that is the opposite of XP or other OS models.
You can find a ton of reviews that fall into these categories.
Here is a recent one for Example:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=797
The majority of the problem with Vista is just like this article mentions 'perceived reality', and also the 'missed advantages' Vista does offer to everyday users as well as gamers.
Gamer example: run several high end games in a Window at the same time, notice you barely lose FPS in any of the Games even though they are running on the screen at the same time, or even in Flip3D (or a 3rd Party Expose' Mimic utility). Not only would this choke XP, since Vista DOES the GPU scheduling and is not application yield based like you find in OpenGL based OS designs, this is something that is nearly impossible to do on anything outside of Vista. And yes there are people that do this, just find almost any MMO player than has more than one account or playes more than one MMO, and they are usually running
Ok, I was talking about average users.
/. users that left Windows behind in the Win98/WinME days and get into people's heads that the NT based Windows is not so bad. And NT itself is
The rebooting and drivers I mentioned is the process most average users encounter installing an OS like Vista. Even someone purchasing a new computer monkeys with crap and reboots a few times, especially if they are loading old HP Printer drivers that ask them to reboot because it is horrible software and horrible drivers and the users don't know it truly isn't even required.
In the geek or IT world, people do install much like you did. In fact, for deployment senerios, it is even easier. Create a Vista Image and just plug the computer into the network, turn it on. The NIC boots to the server, installs the OS with drivers, all the applications, sets up the users and policies in one swip and there is no need for a reboot until a scheduled update or patch comes along. Vista and Windows are designed more for business and IT environments, and it would be hard to argue that any other OS even comes close to the ease of deployment XP or Vista offer, especially if you factor Vista with Windows 2008 Server that makes IT environments a few clicks to setup 1000s of systems.
The OEM/IT/Deployment abilities and tools for Vista and Windows are actually freaking awesome, and remember MS makes money from the business world more than it does from home users, so they gear everything to the IT world for centralized management and deployment.
I understand where you are coming from, but if you want to compare the simplicity that is possible with OS installs, Vista can easily beat Ubuntu in terms of automation, system diversity, and especially in centralized management. And this isn't knocking Ubuntu, but saying, MS makes Windows kiddie-IT level usable.
Most geeks that use Windows don't install like a normal user, they do the equivalent of what you did with Ubuntu, except the tools MS provides to create the initial image is sadly as easy as answering a couple of Wizard questions.
As for the boot time of applications and initial performance, I didn't say Vista performed 'horribly' after the initial installation, but I said it gets faster and faster as it is used. After the initial install, application load times are like XP, and in a week they are 2x to 20x faster than XP. This is where Vista makes up for some of its size and extra RAM usage.
Ok, the defrag thing. The reason Vista defrags new applications is to increase performance, as they don't actually defrag the files since 99.9% of the time the files are already in 1 fragment. The process is more about moving the files to the optimal location on the HD in relation to other libraries they use as well as user data or configuration data that is also used by the application. This is based on what is used the most, needs to be closest to other files, etc all based on data compiled by the SuperFetch caching system. Sure it probably only adds 1%-5% at most to the performance of the machine with modern HDs, but it is an extra optimization it knows how to do and takes advantage of downtime to make it happen.
Also regarding Defragging... NTFS doesn't defrag horribly, especially compared to most *nix FSes; however, it is like ZFS so possible framentation is higher on NTFS just like ZFS, but reading fragmented files is usually faster than average *nix FSes because of the cheap cost of the lookup NTFS uses in locating the fragments.
For a consumer based OS, Vista is good, better than SlashDot wants it to be, and better than the press it usually gets. It also is a good general purpose OS, as it can be broken down and mangled almost as much as an open source OS, and yet offers the flip the switch and use functionality like OS X has or even better. (Yes the GUI/Shell/Low Level aspects of Vista are easier to mangle or change or add to than OS X, actually even easier than KDE or GNOME is many regards.)
I wish I could get a spark out to the
As for fullscreen vs windowed... the link seems to be showing that having aero enabled/disabled doesn't make a meaningful impact as it's disabled when running full screen (and that variation looks to be simply noise). I still can't believe that running windowed with aero pulling resources would be faster. But I also haven't performed extensive tests either... so I'll refrain from calling you names and merely say I'm unconvinced :P
Yep wrong link, and the one I want to post is NDAed by my own company and a partner.
Do this, give it a try, and hey if the game runs faster, go cool, and if it runs the same speed, go cool cause I can multi-task my MMO while reading slashdot (Just set your game Window or Browser to 60% transparent using any of the Transparency Window tools).
Also test it by running two games at once, and note that you lose maybe 5% performance in both games with them both running at the same time. This doesn't drop much as you open a 3rd or fouth game either, and if you are pushing 60-100fps, 5-10% is nothing.
When you have multiple games open, do Flip3D or even better go grab one of the 3rd party apps that does the expose' trick in Vista -Switcher is the name of one utility-. Then watch all your games run, notice the FPS remaining consistent and high and not only all running and not being starved for the GPU because of the Vista Scheduler or VRAM because of the Vista VRAM Virtualization, then realize that in the Expose or Flip 3D mode, you are viewing your games that are running at native resolutions in shared texture context with Aero and the Window is being resampled and anti-aliased to be displayed in the Expose' or Flip3D mode. So they are not only rendering at 'original resolutions, but are also being displayed in scaled down Windows in flip 3D and Expose' mode at the same time, with no FPS loss.
This is more impressive when you are running several games at 1920x1200, surpassing what a PS3 or XBox360 can do in some contexts and doing all this on a laptop with a 6800 Geforce card or 7950 Go like on my favorite laptop. (We are geting in the new 8800M laptops later this month, so that should be fun for us notebook users here, as DX10 tends to do all the GPU scheduling and multi-tasking a bit better than DX9 generation cards on Vista.)
Take care, and hope you get a chance to test some of this out for yourself. I also hope that some tech journals run some testing about games inside Windows, as this is not the normal mode of testing. I should have one of my techs bug their friends over at Toms or another rag.
It's not just NVidia that supported horizontal span, ATI did as well.
This I realize; however, I remember that ATI was working on enabling this for Vista, but not sure of the status of that project.
NVidia has said several things 'couldn't' be done in Vista, and then ATI provides the feature and NVidia runs back to the drawing board with a me too version in their driver. This has been a large part of the driver fight NVidia and Microsoft have had, as NVidia keep not wanting to implement features, claiming technical reasons, when it is either them being stubborn or their hardware not performing well with the features enabled properly.
ATI having worked with the XBox 360 team have a bit more experience when it comes to unified shaders and how Vista handles video, since it is a lot like the 360. Sadly ATI's hardware hasn't been up to the level they wanted yet, and also since they have adhered to the DX10 and 10.1 specifications, their cards take a bit more of a performance hit than NVidia cards do since they are skipping some of the features and not using the mandated FSAA modes for DX10 - also another reason MS added this specifically for certification for DX10.1.
I'm not sure I can credit that it'll be faster running windowed than full screen. Everything I've ever dealt with runs slower windowed... and when I'm looking at running a racing sim at 3200x1200 performance is important. Do you have a source on this?
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_aero_glass_performance/page3.asp
I also have our internal tech lab results, and basically on older systems with 1gb or less than 2gb of RAM and 2003-2004 Video cards the FPS gain is about 3-7FPS, on newer systems with 2005/newer video the advantage can be more dramatic with a 4-28FPS gain.
This is running a mix of games from DOOM and Oblivion to MMOs like WoW and CoX, with only a couple of artificial benchmarks that can be forced to run Windowed. Also the systems range from a 2003 Laptop with NVidia 5600 Go to the latest Intel Quad Core with the top NVidia 8800.
I won't claim that 100% of the time running inside a Window is going to be faster for everyone or every system or every game. However, it is most of the time suprisingly, and I don't think even Microsoft anticipated this since Aero is turned off when running a game in full screen mode. Something they will need to readdress in Windows7.
Indeed. And there's a whole set of tools used by the enthusiast community that require such
This is true, but RivaTuner could rewrite their driver to snake through user mode to do the same thing. It truly isn't designed well for Vista, as its tools and optimzations are still XP sighted. (For example the 2D/3D overclocking settings that are moot on Vista)
There are also usually alternatives available to every utility, I can think of several Overclocking applicstions, including NVidia's own nTune that works fine with Vista 64.
Most of the utilities 'needlessly' use lower level drivers, and by them being re-written for user mode, Vista 64bit becomes more stable by forcing the developers to do the right thing.
Even during the Vista beta most utilties repackaged the drivers to work flawlessly on Vista 64bit. I ran into this with several CD/DVD Virtualization and Ripping tools and by the end of beta, DVD43 is the only one I can think of that doesn't work on Vista 64, and there are several alternatives to it.
So MS is simply lying about the host OS requirements for Virtual PC to avoid supporting the home versions?
Nope. MS never has said anything about the Home versions.
Here is where people get confused. Virtual PC 2005 Server requires and uses pieces of IIS. Since Home versions don't have IIS, it can't run Virtual PC 2005. (Virtual PC 2005 is technically the server version anyway.)
So instead there is Vitural PC 2007, that was designed
Are you sure this [freebsd.org] isn't the Vista you've been running all along? That would explain a lot.
This might be true, since I did write a lot of code for Berkley back in the 80s, maybe I'm just having a flashback. Now lets see, was the code I wrote for paging for Vista or BSD... Wow, I am confused today, just don't remember.
Seriously, the problem might be you assuming I'm a 10yr old MS Faniboi when I'm actually an OS engineer/theorist and the chances are good that you are using an OS running code or modified code I wrote up to 25 years ago.
Sure some here have installed Vista, but this is SlashDot, and most of us here don't use Windows as our primary OS, have taken the time to understand Vista, or have a clue what it is doing and why.
Also a large portion of SlashDot users haven't seriously worked with or touched Windows since Win98 or WinME. SlashDot is more of the generation that grew up with a version of Win3.x or Win9x on their parents computer and got rid of that crap and moved to *nix being happy they left horrible Windows behind them. Windows XP and all NT versions of Windows are vastly different than what a lot of people know to be Windows, and when they have dabbled with Win2k, XP, or Vista it really is a primary *nix user dabbling in a foreign OS.
This makes it very difficult to discuss Windows as credible, when most people here think of a different architecture design (Win9x) when they think Windows, let alone people that have virtually no understanding of OS architectures or why things are done specific ways.
From a technical standpoint, Vista's kernel is the best in terms of general consumer based OSes. Vista also employs technologies that other designers are not even considering or realize are there yet, and this will give MS a serious advantage in a couple of years.
Even Jobs and OSX are lightyears behind Vista when it comes to architectual performance or capabilities of the video subsystem. OSX developers at Apple don't truly 'get' some of things Vista is doing and why it will be smacking around OSX by taking advantage of new technologies and hardware in a couple of years or less.
There are some legitimate concerns about Vista and problems, but they are never discussed. Vista is never looked at seriously so that 'real' issues can be discussed; instead we get the one (1) day install impression reviews from people that have less technical understanding than the average 18yr old working at BestBuy.
Surely there must be a better way?
Well maybe, but you have to realize that most people do reboot a few times when they first install an OS and add new drivers (especially legacy drivers that want reboots).
You also have to factor in SuperFetch. It is not just a prefetch, look ahead, or basic caching system. It truly is an intelligent caching system that not only monitors how applications load, but what user data they usually use, but also how the user works so it anticipates that at 8am you normally open your email and then load your browser, etc.
So there are several layers to SuperFetch, that as time goes by the OS does get faster and application load times become virtually instant. So not only is SuperFetch continually getting smarter, but SuperFetch also dictates defrag and file placement optimizations that only are scheduled once a week in Vista.
The instant loading of applications and large user documents/data is extemely noticeable in gaming where you have load times between zones or levels. Playing an MMO on Vista, you always load into the zone or instance faster than your party members that are using XP, even if their system is twice the speed/performance of yours. As Smartfetch is doing its job and already has the graphical aspect of the level/zone data available in the cache before you go there.
Superfetch also works with the WDDM in Vista, so that as Vista does VRAM Virtualization, Superfetch is also helping the Video out by anticipating textures, etc needed by the game and preloading them into address space that can be passed to the GPU driver if the application allows it. (Optimizations like this and the GPU scheduler are reasons why DirectX10 can be faster than DirectX9 and requires Vista because the applications expect the OS to be doing this stuff for them. However with all current DX10 games, they are hybrid DX10/DX9 games, and you won't see the performance benefits of DX10 until they are DX10 only games. Right now DX10 is just giving a few more features and eye candy and very little performance improvements in the current DX9/DX10 games.)
Meanwhile, Microsoft officials have themselves conceded that Vista is "bloated" and are developing the next version of Windows on a core called MinWin, which is smaller than Vista by an order of magnitude."
No, no, no, and no...
1) MinWin IS the Vista Kernel, just compiled without the kernel subsystem APIs and instead a simple HTTP server API for interaction.
2) Windows 7 will NOT be any different than Vista in terms of the kernel design, the kernel in Vista, just like in Windows 7 is already a very tight and well designed architecture. Go look up any writings on the NT hybrid kernel.
FYI - The HAL in Vista is still under 256K, and the main NT subsystem in a shipping copy of Vista is under 40mb. Vista doesn't get 'large' until you add in the subsystems (win32) and the 'dual' kernel compatibility architectures that allow Vista to run legacy XP drivers in an entirely different driver model/subsystem. This is why Vista can load XP drivers and work like XP or load Vista drivers and use the new features of Vista. This goes for everything from Video and Audio to the Printing subsystems. (ie Look up XPDM vs WDDM)
It is sad enough when crappy journalists don't get that the MinWin demonstration is just a compiled version of the KERNEL only of NT. I know kernels, hybrid, client/server kernel, and architecture stuff is way beyond Mary Jo at ZDNet, but for the love of truth or God, can not the freaking editors at SlashDot be smart enough to understand something as simple as a kernel or a layered OS design?
1) Vista removed support for horizontal or vertical span modes with a multi-monitor setup
This is wrong. The Video driver subsystem in Vista is entirely different; however what you area referring to is a specific feature removed from the NVidia drivers.
So you have a couple of choices, use the Vista Dual View mode (if you only have one card) and run your game inside a Window instead of full screen (tell the game to remove the Window Border so it looks full screen). The game will play inside the WDDM Aero interface and actually be faster than running full screen and will also allow you to stretch it across all your displays without incident, even if they are varied resolutions, which XP couldn't do.
This is what people don't get or get stuck on, as XP didn't allow (easily) the ability to run 3D applications across multiple displays or video cards unless the application was running full screen and the applicaiton was designed to do so. The NVidia Span mode, was a semi-hack that allowed the display to act as one screen, but even it didn't have 100% support with games or a seamless desktop.
You can also just install the XP drivers, and Vista will turn off the WDDM subsystem and use the legacy video subsystem and the features provided by the MFR in the XP drivers work again. In other words, it runs JUST LIKE XP if you use the XP driver.
It kills me that people don't realize they can just install the XP driver in Vista, and the legacy subsystem is used, the same video subsystem that exists in XP, giving you the same EXACT performance as XP. Having the dual video subsystems and the transparent compatibility of being able to run both is a marvelous feature of Vista, as it works so well people don't realize it can do two entirely different Video subsystem and driver models. Having these legacy abilities is the reason Vista is a large install in terms of HD usage compared to XP.
It also kills me that people will turn off Aero with Vista WDDM drivers and complain about performance (since turning off Aero loses performance in Vista with WDDM). Leave the pretty glass on, things run faster!
PS The newest Vista WDDM drivers run about 10% faster than any XP driver in 99% of all games now, just in case anyone thinks that WDDM is a 'bad' thing. Also with WDDM, you can run multiple games in Windows with virtually no FPS loss in each game, due to the GPU scheduler and VRAM virtualization of WDDM. So if you run two copies of WoW or some other MMO at the same time, throw them in Windows inside Vista with Aero ON, and they will both running seamlessly, in fact even do the Expose' trick (3rd party utility) or Flip 3D, and watch both games play at the same time with virtually no FPS loss in either game compared to running just one copy of the game. (This is where Vista blows past the OpenGL Composer projects. Sure vista don't have a cute floating cube or wiggle windows, but when it comes to performance of 3D applications (not just video running) in the 3D composer, Vista is miles ahead, and miles ahead of OSX as well, since it doesn't do the OSX Composer's double buffering either.
2) The 64-bit version of Vista removes backwards compatability for 16-bit applications.
Technically the AMD64/EMT64 CPU design removes 16bit abilities when running in native 64bit mode. So from a 64bit OS, the CPU can switch to 32bit mode/hybrid, but can't drop to an emulated 16bit mode. Microsoft could have virtualized the 16bit subsystem, but why when you can run Virtual PC 2007 for free (ON ANY VERSION OF VISTA) and run even Native Win3.1 or DOS for 16bit legacy applications.
So you can't really put the blame on Vista 64bit here.
3) The 64-bit version of Vista requires you to specify EVERY TIME YOU BOOT that you want to use unsigned drivers
This is only for kernel level drivers. For example, the HD Controller or other non user mode driver. User mode drivers do NOT have to be signed, and 99% of devices use user mode drivers (ie Scanners, cameras, printers, etc.)
don't use vista yet, but am a PC gamer so sooner or later I might have to take the plunge, news on Vista therefor intrests me, if this SP1 is really good, it might hasten the move to Vista and make game companies more inclined to make directx10 only games. Or not, but I want to know when I should start to look into pirating Vista (Pay for MS software? What an odd concept.)
If you have the chance now to start playing with Vista, now would be the time to do so. Even without SP1, with the latest drivers from ATI and NVidia June/Sept07 & Newer, Vista is clocking framerates above XP on 99% of the systems out there.
The margin of FPS increase with Vista also grows if you LEAVE AERO/GLASS on and are running games inside a Window, or you run more than one game at a time (i.e. two MMO accounts/games).
Remember the brutal reviews of gaming on Vista was in the Jan07/Feb07 timeline when ATI and NVidia admits their drivers still sucked being complete rewrites, and even then on average Vista was only clocking 10-20% behind XP, which was like 5-10FPS in high FPS games. (The poor quality of Video drivers from ATI and NVidia also is the area that POed MS the most, as NVidia and ATI had plenty of time and access to MS resources to ensure the drivers would be top notch, and instead NVidia and ATI went alone in the final development.)
The video subsystem in Vista (despite all the DX10 info) has the potential to run circles around XP and other OSes, as it can not only meet XP draw to screen and render performance, it can suck RAM from the system and virtualize it for GPU operations, and Vista also does pre-emptive scheduling of the GPU, so when multiple games/applications are asking for use of the GPU, the OS manages this without application level yeilding/cooperation. So not only can you run Games in the Aero 3D view (dual 3D apps), but you can also run multiple 3D applications at the same time with minimal frame loss in each application as Vista is multi-tasking them to the GPU smoothly and keeping them from being VRAM starved. Even in a single 3D application/game, the Vista model of multi-scheduling the GPU can improve performance if the game isn't well optimized and shoves the GPU too hard to render crap and starves other parts of the game. Vista tries to step in to ensure that all calls are being processed more equally if it will improve game performance.
As for DirectX10, you will NOT see any great Frame Rates in DX10 games until a game is truly DX10 only. As the DX10 games now that are on the market are DX9 games with DX10 textures and some shadow and lighting added to them, and also try to push up the density of graphics, destroying the FPS gains of DX10.
A solid DX10 dedicated engine with NO DX9 underpinnings has a significant margin of performance gain as well as onscreen quality and consistency between GPU models/vendors. Look at XBox 360 dedicated games that are using the XNA and jumping off from a solid DX10 level engine, they blow cross platform games away in terms of FPS and quality.
The same is true of DX10 in Vista, and having a hybrind DX9/DX10 engine/game makes for a great DX9 game, and can give you some DX10 tastes and visuals, but is nothing like a sole DX10 game. DX10 unlike DX9 doesn't build off the previous versions of DirectX, so where you see 8.1/9.0 DX games that run well in both contexts, this is counterintuitive to building a real DX10 game. Sadly the game companies are looking at the market and the FUD about Vista, and are scared that games will be afraid of a DX10 only game project that requires Vista.
(PS And DX10 does truly require Vista, as the games expect the OS to manage VRAM virtualization, pre-empting the GPU - especially when using the GPU for both physics and visuals, and with the DX10 libraries on XP, these things don't exist, and the game will starve itself expecting the OS/Vista to handle these DX10 aspects. (There are many other aspects like this, but the VRAM virtualization and the pre-emptive GPU scheduler in Vista are the
Security problems are not bugs that an automatic bug reporter reports. Neither, for that matter, can automatic bug reporters report usability problems. You're also making the false assumption that Microsoft honestly reports all the bugs they discover.
Ok, this is also false.
1) Some of the error reports, bugs, and problems are very much security related incidents, as crashing or exploitable code gets sent back to Microsoft. Defender also reports back spyware or attempts to hijack the OS via exploits and even social engineering.
2) There is also a certain level of usability reports that go back to Microsoft. The reporting system in Vista is also more robust than I think you assume, when a user encounters a problem or something doesn't work the way they think it should, help pops up, goes online to find more information, and reports back to Microsoft if the information helped, and if the user was able to do what they wanted. Help is also dynamic and changes to be more and more usable to users based on this feedback, unitl changes are made to the OS.
If you ever used Vista for more than 10 minutes, this is stuff you would know.
As for Microsoft being honest about problems, it would be insane for Micorosft to know that users are having trouble with XYZ and not address XYZ, this is why UAC and other changes have been made via Vista updates over the past year and many other 'USABILITY' items are included in SP1. Even small things like 'wording' on the start menu is changed because of reported user confusion that was reported via the Vista automated Help system.
But Vista usability and security are a nightmare
Vista is more secure than XP at this point, browsing via IE7 is more secure than any other browser on any other platform via the sandboxing protected mode, etc. Vista has had NO specific exploits or in the wild viruses, and it already is bypassed the userbase of all Macs ever shipped, so the 'off the radar' argument can't be used.
The security argument just doesn't work anymore with Vista. It hasn't worked well against Windows since SP2 of XP or Windows 2003, and Vista is a notch above them in terms of security and yes even outdoing OS X and OpenBSD.
As for usability, you are either dated in how you use computers, or unable to grasp new concepts that unforged users adapt to better than the old concepts geeks get use to. If you are using Vista like FileManager of Win3.1 days, then ya, usability in Vista sucks, if you use Vista like Vista then usability is 10x XP and previous versions.
This is just like the Office 2007 arguments, everyone thought it would tank, yet BUSINESS is very happy with it, and users adapt to it easily, even though it, 'LIKE VISTA,' has moved more to a docucentric approach that eliminates old GUI constructs like Menus. And Menus are basically bolted on concepts from textual days to get more commands onscreen in a GUI that Xerox and Apple could not over come in moving to a Graphic interface.
Think about it, how come the most known OS for its GUI and GUI origins (OS X) still uses 'lists of words(menus)' as it primary interface to features and functions? Yet the OS you are making fun of, has gotten past this dated usability concept where Apple has failed.
This is not something you should honestly be slamming Vista over, as MS is pushing new GUI and UI constructs forward beyond what OSX and the industry has seen. A Vista user, especially a newb or professional that isn't stuck in thinking in terms of FileManager concepts, can run circles around XP and OS X users. XP and even Win95 had docucentric underpinnings that have never been fully taken advantage of, and Vista up the ante a bit by pushing them forward.
Here is a quick test if you are old school or slow on usability - Do you mainly use Save and Open Dialog boxes in your daily work? If you 'get it' you would hardly ever even see or use an Open or Save dialog box unless you were renaming something from inside the application or exporting. PERIOD. (Here is a hint, Right Click - Select NEW - Select the Document/Graphic you are creating - Name the freaking Document where it is created. Never use old dialogs again to open documents again.)
and no one is using Vista, it's natural that it'd have the fewest reported flaws. :)
That sounds great until you realize that even by the most conservative estimates, more people are ALREADY using Vista than are using all versions of OS X and System 9 combined. Even if you throw in all the *nixes combined, there are still more Vista users.
Vista also automatically drops reports of problems directly to Microsoft, and isn't dependant on users to supply bug reports or problems like OS X, so when problems occur, MS usually knows before the users or the makers of the software that is causing problmes.
So ya, nobody is using Vista, in comparison to XP that is. However compared to the SlashDot and Mac industry, Vista is a massive OS deployment, lets hope OS X can catch up to Vista someday... (Geesh)
Oh, and I love the argument, that Vista was preinstalled and 'forced' on users. Strangly, the people that purchased these systems and rolled back to XP are 90% documented, and aren't counted as Vista installs.
And this is not any different than the people that purchased new Macs and had to have 10.4 installed because of the application compatibility problems with Leopard. (Which ironically has more compatibilty and application problems than Vista, and yet only supports 1/1000th the software or hardware.) (Geesh Again)
I just drag the Application to the trash and I never see it again. I still have the underlying OS Components of WebKit (I think that it's an OS Level Framework now) and Quicktime, but I don't have the applications. Microsoft REFUSED to allow the deletion of IE/WMP, and when forced by the courts to provide a version without them, removed the underlying OS components to break Windows.
This is where your post leaves reality... You could drag the IE Applicaiton and the WMP application to the freaking trashcan just as easily in Windows, and just like OS X, the core libraries for HTML rendering and WMP decoding are STILL there, just as the Safari HTML rendering and OS X Quicktime decoding are STILL there. Where you are trying to prove a difference, there is NONE.
This is also where Windows and MS's design has an advantage as Windows Audio is codec agnostic, and you can use Windows for years and never need to invoke the WMA/V codecs, and use your favorite third party codec technology all the way.
which is based on the open-source operating system Linux--can start surfing the Web or watching a DVD in less than 20 seconds, and, in some cases, in less than five.
Here is where I find this both a really good and really stupid idea.
Linux world - great...
Windows World - worthless...
1ghz CPU
1gb RAM
Vista
Day one Install
Boot Time: 60-90secs
1ghz CPU
1gb RAM
Vista
3-7 Days Later after Boot Optimization Runs internally on Vista
Boot Time: 10-20secs (BIOS time being the biggest chunk of time)
1ghz CPU
1gb RAM
Vista
Resume from Full Off Hibernate: 3-10 secs (Depending on BIOS time)
So this sounds great, but it also demonstrates that these people either:
A) aren't using Vista, or
B) Are taking advantage of the Vista FUD.
I can put this in real numbers and video on freaking YouTube if people think this is abnormal, our lab has over 30 PCs running Vista, almost without exception these numbers are accurate.
Here are two machines that are at the 'fast' end of these numbers:
HP ZD7030 Laptop (Circa 2003)
3.06ghz HT CPU
5600 GeforeGo
1ghz RAM
Boot Time: 15secs
Resume Hibernate: 4 secs
Custom Built (Circa 2003)
Athlon 2800+ (32bit)
ATI X700 AGP
1ghz RAM
Boot Time: 12secs
Resume Hibernate: 5 secs
You seem to be skipping user areas, user applications, and even general applications that are accessible via a default user/program.
Here contrast this, in Vista, IE can't even write to user areas, let alone program/application areas. Additionally, even normal users or applications CANNOT write to applicatin/program areas in Vista, so even if the user is using Firefox, the applications are still protected.
This is a great straw-man argument, as 99% of the people on SlashDot cannot fully provide a verifiable background.
For me this rings even truer, as there are reasons I can't fully outline the projects or all companies of involvement, especially my work with the Pentagon and NASA. I can't even detail specifics of my work with X11 here as it would give a trail that would create problems time-lining my name to projects that do require non-normal levels of technical security from my past.
I can say, I helped designed technologies with security systems and devices in the 80s for the US Government. In the 90s I and my team contributed high and low level software systems to NASA, specifically working with ISS, and have software running on the ISS.
However, unless your name is Bush or Cheney, this is going to be a bitch for you to verify.
So let's pretend that 1/2 of what I say is bullshit about my career, read my posts and rethink the level of understanding I have on the subjects I comment on in my spare time.
I have an engineering background and not only understand technologies at very low levels, but have theoretical understanding of the subjects as well, triangulating knowledge from several fields within the industry. We could talk about theoretical OS technologies of today, or go through older OS technologies piece by piece at levels that you can't find in technical journals or run to Wiki to sound credible.
If you want to believe I am a newbie 'me too *nix rocks person' or a 'me too OS X rocks' or a 'me too MS rocks person', then maybe you haven't evolved past that point yourself.
Black and white does not exist when it comes to technology, and you have to work and accredit all things you encounter to various levels of gray or esoteric relationships that can take a poor idea and bring it forward to work with other ideas to make it brilliant.
This includes companies or people, as many of the SlashDot 'darlings' have done some really stupid stuff, produced bad ideas, and pushed the OSS industry in the worng direction.
Then there are the Microsoft's of SlashDot and they have actually done more good than bad, but that doesn't give people here a warm glowing feeling about them. Even if it was through market dominance, they created standards in a highly fragmented PC market and seem to be willing to work with current standards bodies again.
This concept affects ALL browsers, don't let the Firefox,Safari,Opera groupies leave you with a false set of security. It is also OS agnostic using the methods listed in the article or other undocumented browser callback script techniques.
The example given is using Flash, this is a problem with Flash operating at a level it should not allow plugins to do so.
Additionally, there are methods outside of Flash that can utilize this as an exploit, and the other methods work in EVERY browser except IE7 running on Vista, as Vista's protected mode blocks the exploit ironically making it the most secure browsing option.
There are valid and secure ways of using UPnP. UPnP is more than just opening ports on a router and serves greater functionality on networks.
UPnP and router security should probably be revisited, but throwing away the functionality because of this risk would be disasterous.
ALL browers need to re-look at exploitable script callbacks that could be used to touch UPnP. There are exploits in all browsers, that are NOT documented in this article. Additionally, Adobe needs to get a freaking handle on the crap involved with Flash and security.
Flash has always had lots of vulnerbilities and risks. To the point that Microsoft diabled user created Flash use of Winks in Messenger because of Flash vulnerbilities. Flash's inherent insecurity is also another reason Micorosft has moved forward with Silverlight.
Funny thing is, didn't people want much the same thing in 1992 when a complete unknown named Bill Clinton was elected?
Complete unknown would be a bit on the shady side, being he became quite famous from the 1988 Democratic Convention and his speech, that also got him invited on Johnny Carson.
As for the 'youth' movement, part of the draw of Hillary was the energy from the Clinton era. Whether people liked them or not, Bill was a Rhodes Economist and did bring this country back from years of poor management, being the biggest economic expansion in US history, let alone all time highs and lows in the right areas. For example unempoyment was so low that Greenspan wanted the uemployment rate to stop going down because of a theory that correlates inflation to this number when it is at extremely low levels.
The smart people get that Hillary isn't Bill, but they also understand that if she screws up horribly, she has a great advisor banging an intern in the other room, that also has good ideas and knows what to do regarding both economy and foreign policy, things this country are once again in great of after another Bush/Republican failed free market at all costs attempt to manage the country.
Hillary also is smart, maybe smarter than the rest and even Bill. She also has been around the block enough that she can easily punch the bullies back hard, and the Republicans will tear Barack apart in a general election.
There isn't any more dirt that could even be disclosed or made up that hasn't already been done to Hillary (Citing Clintion Chronicles - which over 80% of the documentary has not only proven false, but the rappist in Arkansas wasn't as innocent as they made him sound in the movie either, just ask Huckabee when the radical right pushed to get the guy released to become a repeat offender.)
I think at the end of the day, Hillary has both the compassion and strength to lead the US back to a 'semi' good and strong nation, at least reversing the Bush II damage. She also can fair out the election, and is strong enough to face the dirty tricks, like she has done for years and years, with nothing more to 'ruin' her image any worse, especially after a 40million Star investigation couldn't even dig up any dirt on her via Travelgate, FBI RecordGate, etc... If she survived all of that and was elected to the senate, they can't damage her very much at this point.
I like Barack, he is brilliant, but not as progressive as Hillary, take Gay Rights issues, she is more to the left, which is disappointing, as I originally assumed he would be being 'younger'.
I would be happy with Barack as president, or Edwards, but I like Hillary, not only for what she brings to the office, but the tools she has to get there. Barack would be eaten alive by the Republican smear machine, he is too nice and doesn't have a vetted past like Hillary.
Youth movement youngest canidate, even at 60 Hillary has young ideas and a youth supported platform, moving down the road further than Bill was able to take the country back in 1992.
The "NT platform" didn't invent multitasking.
This is why you are semi-retarded. Even the beginning of your response you start arguing something I never claimed, nor purported to claim - especially since I was developer at Xerox and worked with multi-tasking platforms when you were still shitting yourself.
I didn't even read the rest of your post, the ignorance of the NT 'creating' multi-tasking was enough to see you are not worth the time.
I suggest you go find articles on the crap you are trying to argue and actually learn something, instead of trying to find support for your idiotic points. Pick stuff from the great minds on all sides of the aisles and quit freaking drinking a religion or kool-aid.
You probably think I'm a MS hack and ironically, if you are using ANY *nix, a lot of the stuff you are using comes from projects I was either involved with in ways that would make you go holy crap.
Like I warned you before, you have no idea who you are trying to talk down to, and the condescension is not going to get you very far, as I can easily bury you without the need for cute 'wiki' reference links. The stuff you are still finding wonderful, is crap I was designing or coding over 20 years ago.
hadn't even stolen the idea for graphical windows yet. I believe at that time they were still trying to figure out that whole "subdirectory" concept.
This is where we find out you are semi-retarded... Microsoft may be the evil monster in your closet, but they do employ the TOP programmers, theorists, engineers, and spend more on research than most other tech companies combined. If you really want to pick at Microsoft, find a credible topic like WinME, but I would stay clear of the minds they employ and little things like the NT architecture, which is to date still 'more' advanced than any other consumer OS kernel/architecture. I think you should go find a history book and leave your pet peeves for Microsoft under your tinfoil hat.
As for poorly trying to attack the NT platform for multi-tasking, you REALLY need to look up the process and thread manager in NT and the non-binding client/server kernel that doesn't have problems like monolithic kernels do, like the kernel in OS X that Apple has had to add a few tricks to so that the monolithic nature doesn't choke when multi-tasking kernel level API calls.
As for Quicktime and Apple's ability to create a 'credible' application on an alternative platform, they truly suck. From the horror Safari release, to the history of products they have tried to release and ended up running with their tail between their legs. Quicktime is horribly coded, uses horrible methods for how it handles its codecs, and virtually uses 1980s timing concepts when trying to stream, buffer, or play any audio or video content. A good IT person can take Quicktime and make it hiccup and skip on ANY Windows installation, and yet it is virtually impossible to do the same with WMP, WinAmp, etc. In fact, a good Mac IT person can show users how Quicktime can too easily choke on OS X as well, which is not only scary, but extremely sad, as Apple 'use' to be a multimedia leader.
If you want to further try to argue the multi-tasking issue as a Windows Vista issue, go look up BeOS, and arguments for real-time scheduling for multi-media. Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS that uses realtime scheduling for multi-media, something OS X just can't do.
You are biting off more than you can chew, you have no idea who this hornet nest you are smacking belongs to.
Going to stop your idiocy at the 'Microsoft Software' examples... As I stated, the list is inaccurate, even others reponding to this specific thread have pointed this out to you and others, and all of these applications run fine on Vista, and even ran fine on Vista at release with or without the specific patches that were also available then. There are some 'specific' code examples that carry over from the early Win32 days when it was also a Win9X environment, so some of the scripts and code fail because it was created in the non-NT consumer days and simply fails with Vista's enforced NT security. PERIOD.
Now go back to iTunes, and one year later explain to your friends while Apple can't write or update an application to use common coding techniques from the last 10 years so that it isn't using an 'aged' method to predict local or remote buffering and failing miserably, so that if you have a fast HD control or fast connection that will have occasional latency, the freaking songs skip. This is what you call 'crap' software, and should be freaking embarassing to Apple at the very least.
I have two developers that in a matter of 8 or less hours could get iTunes working properly on both XP and Vista where there are still issues because Apple is a horrible software company when it comes to producing code on anything but their toy box and expect all users and platforms to 'adhere' to their 'godly' ways because they are Apple. You know, even little crap, like how Quicktime use to maximize the installation application over the entire desktop and taskbar on Windows during installation, assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...
Yeah, I would say "it does not work" is a fairly significant issue for most people. They don't care why all this software [iexbeta.com] won't work
Maybe because this list is pretty much complete crap, outdate, rumor, or platform specific issues that have nothing to do with Vista.
Also don't forget that it is not MS's responsibility to fix 'badly' coded software by every donkey and their brother. If they wrote software that is crap and works like crap or does crap it shouldn't, MS can only do so much, and even in this regard the Application Compatibility system in Vista 'corrects' 1000s of software titles in realtime that are 3rd party problems, not Vista nor MS's.
It won't work with iTunes? You don't think people are going to consider that a deliberate failure? Or a fatal flaw?
Well iTunes does work, although iTunes is pretty close to crap. However considering the initial problems with iTunes were 'specifically' bad coding practices used by Apple, maybe you have an argument and should take it up with Apple that they were purposely trying to lock their customers out of using Vista...
iTunes STILL uses old rendering methods both audio and video, uses old or ancient timing practices for buffering audio/video and RAM usage (ie iTunes loves to mis-estimate local buffering and latency in a device like a HD controller can cause iTunes to hiccup.) And when I say old or outdated, they are not only outdated for Vista, or XP, but outdated for both the NT platform entirely and outdated for even standard methods, by using timing and allocation methods that would have been considered outdated in the 90s.
I think when OSX or any *nix can run 1/1000th of the software Vista does perfectly, you can start to even chime in on Vista's ability to run software. People like you also seem to have misssed all the software that died or is incompatible with Leopard, and Apple has full control of the hardware, OS, and such a small software base, if they implemented an Application compatibility system like Vista employs they would NEVER have an application fail. Instead Leopard has more software incompatibilities than Vista in terms of % of software the platform runs. -And that is REALLY sad...
WindowsXP, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc...
Oh and don't forget cross browser too; IE, Firefox, Safari, etc...
The majority of us work in engineering, scientific, or back office (i.e. crud database) type development where Silverlight will be of limited utility, at least in an immediate sense. Now, if I have a good non-gee whiz reason to consider Silverlight in a user interface project
This is valid conceptually, but the same argument could have been made of HTML forms as a UI years ago.
Here is the part you are skipping over. Silverlight is a lightweight version of WPF, and even though the 'majority' of WPF was finalized when Vista shipped it is still evolving and 90% of the WPF and Vista based applications or conversion to WPF are still in development and won't been seen for another year.
However, when the WPF apps do start dropping on the market and design and development teams get behind the idea developing with a design/code construct, then things will change.
At this point the WPF model will work for a lot of developers and be an extension of their main development and applications, and this is were Silverlight will be a modify and recompile for web interaction or extensibility to these development main projects.
WPF concepts right now are very raw. The whole illustration with UI constructs and events is new to people and plugging code into a painted UI is also new. (At least in terms of a major API and massive development)