The DLL myths are more 'uncommon' than 'common'...
Also you seem to discount the profile concepts from Windows, which has been a feature since the first WinNT 3.1 days and was a major selling feature of WinNT 4.0 server. As it allowed clients running any version of Windows to roam, so users could sign into computers anywhere within a corporate network and have ALL their settings and Documents follow/appear to them on the system they logged in at, without ever even having a 'dedicated' workstation for the user.
Take a large corporate environment like Geico where 1000s of agents sign into any computer in the building and always have their settings, files, etc instantly available.
The whole concept of non-terminal based multi-user roaming is one of the bread and butter items of Windows and something it does well.
The registry is a 'centralized' data store, and was designed so that user settings could easily move or migrate separate from the OS installation, this is why the user's registry is stored in the User's home folder, and can be copied easily.
Ironically, Windows was handling concepts and issues like this before Macs even offered multi-user login abilities on System OS. And now all the Mac people think they are the 'only' ones with these cool features, that *nix and even Windows users had a decade before Macs and OS X did.
I'll also put repairing or installing Windows up against OS X any day. Just like the last little 'bug' in Leopard, users had to drop to a command line, and type in several cryptic *nix commands to kill the bugged application. This is something that is 'highly' amusing to Windows administrators, because Macs are supposed to be 'the' GUI OS, and yet Windows is the one that would allow users to use the GUI to make these same changes/adjustments in a non-cryptic interface, no command line needed.
I see this was already answered, but the score was dropped down on the response. The first post answering your questions is correct however.
Everything on the drive is either moved to the new installation area for you to find easily or moved to Windows.old, even if you have stray folders like C:\Quickbooks it will be moved to Windows.old.
The problem is for myself and many many others, the downsides of Vista (hardware requirements, bugs in a zero revision OS, etc, etc) outweigh the benefits.
People said the same things about Win2K and XP. If you are a Windows user and like Windows and your system has 1gb of RAM and you can afford Vista, there is NO reason not to be running it.
The 'big' hardware requirements is 1gb for the sweet spot in terms of performance where XP could perform at about the same level in the 512-768mb range.
People install Vista and look at taskmanager and see that 40% of RAM is consumed, but this is what Vista reports if you have 512mb, 1GB, 4GB. And on a 4GB machine, I can guarantee the OS is not using 2GB to run, this is 'free' RAM allocated to the caching system, and Vista always uses 40% of available RAM for the OS and the Smartfetch caching systems.
Ironically, Apple's ads pushed the idea that Vista needed major new hardware upgrades to run more than anyone else has, and their new Leopard demands more in hardware than Vista. And with Leopard it is not even about the OS running slower, if you have an older Mac with a RAGE 128 video for example, several applications just fail to run at all.
I think the funniest part of this easter egg, is that it is a screen shot of the BSoD from Windows 95/98. So for Apple to mock MS they have to go after a 10 year old OS, when Apple was still using horrible System 9. Ouch...
They should have a least used an NT based BSoD, that would have been more funny.
See even after my post, you completely don't understand a single thing.
Time Machine is ok, but it is a backup solution ONLY.
Vista has the SAME backup functions and it ALSO works through 'previous versions' and adds the additional benefit of creating snapshots of the file versions on the drive/volume. So Vista does the external backups and the on disk file versioning - you get Time Machine PLUS file versioning on the Drive when you don't even have an external backup hooked up.
Understand?
People keep coming here with terms like 'Shadow Copy', when it is the 'technical' mechanism that NTFS uses to branch snapshots and do copy-on-write operations. So yes features like System Restore, and Previuos Versions and other technologies do use this at the NTFS level, but when people talk about shadow copies they are NOT always talking about the correct concepts or terminology.
'Shadow Copy' is NOT the features themselves, but only how Vista and NTFS work.
Please, I beg you and everyone else that doesn't get this, to go look up 'previous versions' or 'file/folder/document versioning' and how it works on Vista and how it works with the backup system to show older versions of files and folders from both the external backup and what is also stored on the hard drive using NTFS technologies via snapshot technology.
(Yes the snapshot technology is called shadow copy on NT, but it is only the way NTFS works, and has nothing directly to do with the features of the OS that use it.)
PS Time Machine for what it is, is great, but it isn't as good as what Vista does, as Vista does what Time Machine does, and adds another level of 'true' volume level file versioning.
OS X on PPCs was always able to run OS 9 in a window. If not that, applications could be recompiled using Carbon and become modern applications. Maybe you don't realize just how bad OS 9 was, but it's better that everyone was forced to move forward.
I actually agree, but why is Apple praised for moving technology forward, and when MS does something similar they are roasted by the tech press and especially Mac users?
Vista 64bit dropped the DOS and Win3.1 subsystems, and also dropped older driver support, and the press bashed Vista and MS for doing this, when it was the correct thing to do for a new 64bit OS.
What exactly do you expect from one of the first companies to drop the floppy disk drive?
See I actually agree with Apple on this, but what I don't agree with is the same people praising Apple for doing this, and then turning around and blasting Vista for doing something that is only half bad in impacting users.
If we all need to take the mindset of 'pushing' technology forward, then Apple and MS either BOTH need to get a pass on doing this, or both need to be blasted. Consistency is all I ask if people truly are on either side of this argument.
Vista has been beaten to death for wanting 512mb of RAM and running sweet at 1GB, and to use the new glass features it needs a video card made after 2002. However Leopard ALSO needs 512mb and runs better at the 1GB RAM range.
Leopard also has problems with older video cards and unlike Vista that just turns the glass off, Leopard 'fails' and the features don't even work. (Try using Time Machine on a Mac with an ATI Rage 128 card, it simply doesn't allow users to restore the files because the video card is too old. Time Machine isn't the only app that fails on older video either.)
I would rather OS X do what Vista does, and get less pretty but still provide the features of the OS to the users if the Video is too old to support the OS's pretty features.
And ironically it was mainly the Mac users and the Mac ads on television making fun of 'PC' for needing to get more RAM or a new video card, yet Leopard is worse about requiring new hardware, as it don't even elegantly drop back to mode that at least lets it function on older hardware.
Vista can run on a Pentium III running at 700mhz and run well if you have can get 512mb or 1gb of RAM in the computer, and the video card can be a 1994 based PCI card that has no 3D features at all, and Vista will still work.
So sure technology and OSes need to move the industry forward, but don't slap MS and Vista for doing this and then praise Apple for doing it. Especially when Vista gracefully turns off glitz to ensure all the features of the OS still work even on really old equipment.
So you see why I find all this a big disingenuous?
Microsoft's unrelenting arrogant and hostile attitude toward its customers shines forth in their boogered user interface.
I truly wouldn't call it arrogance, but would agree it is a major communication problem between the developers and the sales/marketing people.
In conferences, dealing with high level Microsoft people that are not engineers/developers, I have been shocked when they don't know basic things about the OS or software they are working with/selling.
The information just doesn't seem to filter out or up very well. Even with the new blogging of the MS developers, very little information gets out past the geeks and other developers.
It is just like the docu-centric concepts that MS added to Win95, and are still a major part of Vista today. 90% of Windows users have no idea they are there, how to use them or what they are for.
But with large paradigm shifts that these technologies present, there is a problem in marketing these concepts, as Apple hasn't even been able teach their long time users how to switch to new usage paradigms.
It pains me to watch both Windows and Mac users shift through folder lists and work with their documents and applications like they are still using System 7 or Windows 3.1 with filemanager. I have worked with some brilliant technical people, and then watch them use the OS UI like they are still back in 1991, and it is odd they have never been exposed to or taught to rethink what they are doing.
So both technical concepts that never make it to the public, that can 'easily' be explained, and larger paradigm shifts in what an OS allows that is hard to teach to people, so it never makes the impact in making things easier that it should have originally.
Anyway, this is why I wouldn't call it arrogance on MS's part, as there are lots of things even Apple has never been able to fully put their hands on in terms of UI concepts and when they do often fail in getting these concepts into the minds of their users. Apple does have brilliant marketing, and if the marketing department 'gets it', then they do a good job about making it important, and important to users.
So they both have some of the same issues, but Microsoft's marketing really sucks even if they are exposed to the new concepts, they never make a big deal about them.
However, this is going deeper into this than necessary at this time, so lets just leave the conversation here: Microsoft sucks at communicating, and even when they have good stuff, they don't make flashing signs to show it to users, and they don't provide the training or marketing for people to even realize it is available.
right-click and a dialogue box is? Over the phone?
Sure it is the mouse button on the 'right', and much easier to explain than holding the Apple key and clicking.
Dialog box is easy, when the applications opens a new window to save or open a document, that is the dialog box.
On Windows the Save and Open dialogs are not needed if you are using Windows as a docu-centric OS, it is much easier to teach people to get out a new blank document, name it and not ever deal with dialog boxes. Sadly though, most Windows users have never been taught that Windows is a docu-centric OS interface, and they use it like a Mac or Win 3.1.
Time Machine doesn't require any special changes to applications
To take full advantage of the Time Machine UI and to work with applications that use data stores, it does. Go to www.apple.com and dig a little bit, but you can find this information.
Vista's Shadow Copy doesn't backup to a second hard drive. Shadow Copy also doesn't restore files that have been deleted. Those are the two main purposes of Time Machine. From what I can tell Vista's Shadow Copy appears to be no lower to the file system than Time Machine and FSEvents.
This is not true. You are mixing terms. The Shadow Copy is the 'technical' term for how snapshots are performed on NTFS, it is not the same thing as 'Previous Versions' but it is a mechanism that previous versions uses.
Previous Versions (now we are using the correct term) does in FACT work with the backup system, so it works with external hard drives, networks, etc, and presents the files located on the external medium as a part of the Previous Versions interface, just as OS X's time machine does.
So with Vista you do get on disk snapshots AND also the external backup copies like Time Machine does, and they are BOTH presented in the 'Previous Versions' timeline interface. Make sense?
If you keep looking up 'shadow copy' you will get lost in the terminology, as this is a low level mechanism of NTFS even though many parts of Windows/Vista use it to perform snapshot or branched operations. But it is far more technical than average users should be looking, and to keep it simple, stick with the higher level OS concepts that users see that use it like 'previous versions', 'system restore', etc.
I know HFS+ has come a long long way, but I didn't realize it had any way to implement internal branching (snapshots) because it doesn't have any mechanisms for copy-on-write.
ZFS is a copy-on-write based FS, and NTFS added copy-on-write around Win2k era (MS Calls it Volume Shadow Copies, and is a bit more advanced than basic queued copy-on-write).
Do you have a link where I can find out more about how HFS+ does or could easily implement snapshots and copy-on-write that is needed to snapshot in this way?
I like having at least one backup no co-located with the original. Can Vista back up securely over TCP/IP to a remote store? Can Time Machine?
I know for a fact Vista can, and if the remote store is online/available, the backups will appear as a part of the previous versions dialog even, in addition to be accessible via regular restore mechanisms.
I haven't tried with Leopard myself, but have no reason to assume it shouldn't be able to. My only question is whether backup/restore via Time Machine works via a secure network store or not. Our OS X people have several days off due to fires, but it is something I will try to find out about, as they have been involved in the Leopard beta and should know.
OK, maybe it wasn't a failure of marketing after all, since "Previous Versions/Volume Shadow Copy" pales in comparison to the usability of Apple's Time Machine.
Actually I agree with you on the marketing department failures of Microsoft. Microsoft's marketing has always sucked, and especially in comparison to Apple. Microsoft can market a nugget of gold and people will see it as a rock, Apple can market a rock and people will see it as gold.
As for the usability, I did say time machine was prettier, but I wouldn't say easier or more usable. Like I mentioned before, MS's version of the technology works seamlessly as it is available from a right click from any folder or dialog box, even in applications that are as old as Win3.1 days. And even though it isn't as pretty, right clicking on a folder or file is pretty easy to do.
Apple's Time Machine is pretty but it 'needs' the applications to be time machine aware to take full advantage of the features.
MS technology just happens transparently at the FS level which OS X can't do and it also extends to backups like OS X's Time Machine. If Apple could have gotten ZFS working as the default FS, they could have used the feature that ZFS and NTFS share to make the on volume realtime backups like Vista does.
But I completely agree on the marketing issue, it is something Microsoft just doesn't get, and even when they have something of value, it never seems to either make news or even gets to the people reviewing Micrsoft products that 'should' know about it as they are technology journalists.
Going back to the Win98 days, it was the first time I can remember thinking, why doesn't anyone talk about the important features that make such a difference between Win98 and Win95. Things like realtime sound mixing at the OS level, GUI scripting & automation, etc.
And to this day, most people can't even list a lot of these distinctions between Win98 and Win98 or other OSes of the time, that were very much revolutionary or worth noticing.
Strangly, it is kind of sad, as some 'bright' developers at Microsoft put good work into something and even Microsoft doesn't publically show off the features, and the rest of the world never seems to see them either.
Heck I wouldn't even know many things about MS products if it weren't for the strange areas of work I'm involved with that bridge UI and OS studies and also being exposed to things at a development level.
One really strange thing is during the Alpha and Beta phases of products like Vista, or Win98, you learn more about the architecture and features of the OS than is ever revealed to the majority of the public and tech community. Maybe MS needs to have their developers step in and write part of their marketing, because a lot is lost between them and what the sales and marketing put out.
Sorry for the long post, ended up venting about MS instead of just responding. Take Care
All versions of Vista, just right click on any file or folder and click previous versions.
When you hookup an external hard drive, Vista should ask to turn on backups, tell it yes, and it will also keep long term versions on the external drive.
Short term versions are kept on the computer's main drive, and long term are part of the backup system, and they both will list in the previous versions window.
Even if you don't have a backup on another drive, you still can use the previous versions features in Vista because of how NTFS lets Vista duplicate a file when changes are made to it.
When you see Time Machine think Vista 'Previous Versions' with a prettier UI, and no ability to track or keep file changes on the volume.
Vista does both on volume backup copies of changes and external backups automatically, and presents them in the same 'previuos versions' UI timeline list.
Just like Time Machine, in Vista you can view folders or documents at any previous time whether they are a recent change that is still stored on the volume or a backup from six months ago on an external hard drive.
Vista also does this more transparently, without the need for application integration because of its simplicity in accessing the previous version via a simple open/save dialog box.
Time Machine's UI is much prettier, but since it has less functionality than Vista, and adds overhead by backuping up files every hour, the pretty UI doesn't make up for the lack of features.
Does anyone else find it strange that Vista's backup and previous version system is more advanced than OS X's Time Machine, and yet you hardly ever see it mentioned on a review or when people are talking about Vista. Apple adds a generic version of the same thing, and the press and fans go wild...
And I'm not even saying this to discount OS X's Time Machine, as it is a good feature and a great feature for OS X and Mac users, but strange how something gets accolades when Apple does it, and is dismissed when Microsoft does it and even technically does it better.
Actually it would be more like Vista dropping support for Windows 3.1 (Win16 API) or DOS.
(See DOS apps and Win3.1 often need direct hardware access as well, in comparison to your analogy, Vista virtualizes these features like NT has virtualized since 1993.)
You are trying to give Apple a pass on an issue they really don't deserve one. They could have used even a nominal virtualization system if they were not going to create a subsystem capable OS structure like MS did with NT to ensure support for non main OS level APIs. (Win16,DOS,POSIX,BSD UNIX,Win32,Win64)
I would like to note a couple of things I would disagree with you on though...
- Better Drag and Drop - embedded content I actually give the thumbs up to Windows here, because of not only intrinsic content type understanding, but generic packaging, and ActiveX/OLE based inclusion. I'm not saying OS X sucks, but Windows has more options and mechanisms for dealing with cross application drag and drop or data embedding.
For example a CorelDraw image can be placed in Winword as an Image/Text/WMF/Native Corel format. Word has no idea what a native CorelDraw Image is, but it handles it as if it was designed to be a part of Winword, even doing things like inplace editing that launches the hosting application if it can.
As for your powerpoint example, just to be sure I wasn't missing something, I just dropped a FLV, FLA, DIVX, MPEG4, WMV, and MPEG2 video into a presentation. Powerpoint didn't flinch, even though it has no idea what anything but WMV is inherently. The reason this works is that on OSX everything is filtered though Quicktime wrappers and codecs, on Windows a similar type of mechanism is in play, and either via AVI or via OS level codecs, all applications can access audio and video formats they were never designed to do.
This is why open source level codecs are very popular on Windows, as you can install a xvid codec, etc and all application that know whow to handle video automatically get the ability to both play and if the 'encoder' codec is suppled even create the format it knows nothing about.
The other area you are arguing is the desktop metaphor and application construct differences between Mac and Windows.
Macs originally had only a single application interface with the exception of applets. Macs also focused on mutli-function applications because of this, as in early days you had to close the current application to launch another application. So even with the Mac GUI, it was still a single application OS interface, kind of like DOS was.
Other Window interfaces, especially in the *nix world didn't limit themselves to this type of interface, and multi concurrent applications were seen as the most productive. Windows adopted the multi application UI concepts basically from the begining.
The multi 'window'/application interface is what gave Windows 3.x a lot of the success it had, especially when being compared to Mac System OS at the time.
The *nix world and Microsoft knew that 'component' conceptual applications were more efficient than a large monolithic application that tried to do everything, but simply could never be achieved.
This did lead to MS adopting the MDI interface concepts, and like Mac applications, MS Word on Windows left all documents as 'child' windows of the main application. At the time it was one of the better ideas, but as technology progressed and Microsoft's work on UI design, they realized how poorly this worked when users were running several applications at a time and combining information between them.
Win95 doesn't get a lot of credit, but the UI was very simple and brought forth a new paradigm that many Windows geeks today don't even fully understand, as they are stuck in older UI mindsets. Win95 was the fist real docu-centric OS interface, as the concept of applications became abstracted, and even the use of Open/Save dialog boxes were no longer necessary if people new how to use the Docu-centric paradigm.
When Mac came to OS X, it was the first time they were able to truly use an OS that offered real multi-tasking, so in this respect Apple was catching up, and their UI Application concepts suffered from this transition, and still do to some extent sadly.
Other OSes, especially Windows, moved away from single application running a long time ago, yet OS X still has ties that go back to this era. The dynamic menu bar being the prime link to the past. As this is still a staple of the OS X UI, at a time when Microsoft is in the process o
over the last year or two (give or take) I lost this trust. it also seems to be about the time that vista came into the scene. I don't run vista and I don't think I ever will, but if I was losing trust in MS's ability to force ONLY essential updates on me. it seems that if I can't even trust xp's update, why would I want to take things to the next level of non-control and give the full 'admin' switch to MS and just be at their update-stream mercy? its my understanding that vista boxes HAVE to be continually (not continuously, but mostly online) in order for them to stay (cough) 'current'. in all that that implies..
Not sure why you think the Update process in Vista is any different than the update process in XP SP2. It isn't...
It has a dedicated UI instead of a web page, but works from the same servers, and does the update process the same way as XP SP2 with WU installed.
Also not sure why you think you have lost control. In a business or IT environment, Administrators handle what and when ALL updates are applied if they know anything about what they are doing. Nothing is or can be forced to clients.
With updates it usually works like this. Admins notice what is newly available, installs and tests what they want, and then allows the updates to propagate to the computers they are responsible for. It really isn't a complicated process, nor something MS can circumvent.
Here is what is really wrong with the articles, even here on slashdot about the Windows Desktop Search update:
1) MS has the Desktop Search to be available as a 'non-critical' update, so it doesn't install automatically.
2) If you notice the news article, it says it has brought computers and 'networks' to a crawl. Windows Desktop Search doesn't touch remote or external drives, in fact by default on XP it only indexes 'Documents and Settings', and local mail stores.
So there is no network traffic that it generates. (This is actually part of the features of Windows Desktop Search, is that it doesn't need to ever touch network shares, as they are 'indexed' by the computer hosting the documents, and even when the user searches for documents across the network, it asks the host computer to perform the search and return the results. i.e. only the request and results are sent across the network, there is no bandwidth used to index remote documents, nor search through remote documents. Which actually speeds up searches in a network environment.)
And although installing it may slow down the computer while it is indexing, this only happens when the computer is inactive, or at a low priority in the background. So for it to slow down your computer, it isn't something a normal user would notice, as when they are using their computer, their applications and what they are doing gets priority.
The initial indexing process would last maybe an hour at most even if you have 500,000 documents - which most people don't.
Also, once the intial indexing is done there is no noticeable performance usage by the service, again as it only runs at a background priority and also schedules large indexing updates (user added tons of documents) when the computer is idle.
So sure MS has Desktop Search as an 'official' update to XP, but the articles surrounding it are pure FUD.
PS For people that think Google's desktop search is better, they should take a look at the query syntax differences, MS's is far more elaborate and nests. There are also other little things like how MS Desktop search can index text inside images or words in audio files...
The single-window paradigm is a limitation of Windows
That is not correct...
Windows has handled multi-monitor going back as far as proprietary displays on Win3.1 days.
XP added the ability to split output from one video card to multiple monitors easily, for example a laptop with TV, external VGA and an internal display using two or more of the displays at the same time as one single display context. (Applications can appear on both monitors at the same time as if they were a single display.)
Vista added several new multi-monitor features so that you can even use external devices like a network projector as an extention of the desktop seamlessly.
Vista also added native multi-monitor abilities so that you can run OpenGL or DirectX applications or games that span several monitors without any distinction, and this can also span several video cards as well if they have the same WDDM driver family, so you could have an onboard Geforce 6150, and two Geforce 7900 video cards, all with dual outputs, and create a single display desktop that spans six or more monitors as if it was a single display context.
So there is NO limitation with Windows, and with Vista you can do things with multi-monitor/multi-displays that no other OS can currently do natively because of the shared 3D context specifications of the WDDM in Vista.
I'm also not sure where the Photoshop not being able to span several displays myth comes from. I have for years put my tools or that portion of the Application window on one monitor and used my second or third display for my editing space, and yes on Windows.
And to demonstrate what I'm talking about, right now I have City of Heroes (An OpenGl/hybrid game) running in a window on Vista, with Aero enabled. Part of the City of Heroes window is sitting on my right monitor and the rest of the game is displayed on my old 32' analog television that I normally use for watching media center content in my office. I often slide my games to other monitors when I am waiting on friends or taking a break, so that I can see when my friends show up in game.
It is also fun to run games like Flight Sim or a racing game on three monitors, which makes it a wrap around visual experience.
So I can assure you Windows has no problems with multi-monitor support or spanning applications across multi-monitor and/or multiple video cards.
BTW I agree with you on other observations mentioned in your post.
It is silverlight being used to introduce a programming collaboration medium that creates silverlight applications and information widgets with virtually no programming.
Silverlight does have some rather good technological aspects that Flash just doesn't have. Besides the 'visual' stuff, I would argue in favor of silverlight since you can use it with javascript and other basic web technologies, including asp, php, etc without having to learn a new scripting metaphor as you have to do with Flash that is also closed when it comes with other object interaction on pages.
Multiple silverlight objects on a page talking to each other and talking to the client and the server via ajax, etc is rather interesting in the scheme of things.
Most developers would have at least heard of sudo/kdesu/gtksudo previously. Why not implement it verbatim?
Well, sadly in the Windows' world, most developers probably haven't. A testiment to this fact is a lot of developers had no idea the NT security model existed or coded for it in the first place, and when they do have to code for it now, they think Vista is evil for making them adhere to security or doing things the right way for once.
As to why UAC isn't a carbon copy of sudo, there are several actual real reasons, some of which I came across when I was in the Vista beta. Ironically the UAC in Vista is designed to be smarter than sudo. Vista moves one step beyond 'root' elevation, as even when a user even tries to run as administrator, they don't get the equivalent of root. So the UAC has to manage two security levels, Administrator, and the new 'root' equivalent since administrator has been reduced from root level. The UAC also tries to watch for applications that 'try' to do admin level tasks, and instead of forcing the application to fail, steps in and keeps the process/application on hold while prompting the user.
However I think most agree it would have been better if MS would have just forced the NT security model down developers throats when XP was set to replace the consumer line OSes, and all of this would have been a thing of the past and worked out years ago.
The comment before mine already pointed out the differences between Microsoft's and Apple's systems.
Actually it didn't, it references a technology that has nothing to do with Microsoft's 'Previous Versions' which is the equivalent to OS X's Time Machine. Read the responses to the post before yours to clarify this for you.
The problem is that Previous Versions is only a partial solution to Availability. If your hard drive dies, you're hosed. Meanwhile, if a Time Machine drive dies, all you lose are backups and if the internal drive dies, all you lose is the last hour of work. It would take two simultaneous failures to lose your data.
No... Ok, I know not everyone uses Vista and it isn't something people on SlashDot probably seek out to understand, so let me be a little more clear on the previous versions in contrast to OS X time machine.
The backup system in Vista works much like Time Machine, in that Vista continually backs up your data, and will even display backed up content in the previous versions in addition to the on volume 'secondary' copies that previous versions adds to the volume.
So you get all the features of Time Machine Plus multiple version copies on the volume itself even if your backup drive is unhooked.
So in the Previous Versions list it looks something like this if I was viewing my Resume to go back to a previous 'change/version':
My Resume 1:00pm 10/24/07 Shadow My Resume 11:00am 10/24/07 Shadow My Resume 10:00am 10/24/07 Shadow My Resume 12:00am 10/20/07 Backup My Resume 4:00pm 9/02/07 Backup My Resume 2:15pm 4/02/07 Backup
The Shadows are kept on the Volume, as I described in the previous post, no overhead to create of maintain. The Backup versions are copied to an external hard drive during the backup processes. Both are presented in the Vista Previous Versions interface timeline.
Now this may seem strange to do both, but imagine you are editing a 4GB Video, and OS X is having to write changes out to the external backup for all your files and the 4GB Video every hour. Not only does this reduce your backup 'Time Machine' in how far back it goes really fast but it is also one heck of a resource hog just to process your files everytime to a separate backup.
Vista doesn't have to do this, as it makes shadow backups on the volume and then uses the regular backup system for long term backup timelines.
Slashdot Mirror
The DLL myths are more 'uncommon' than 'common'...
Also you seem to discount the profile concepts from Windows, which has been a feature since the first WinNT 3.1 days and was a major selling feature of WinNT 4.0 server. As it allowed clients running any version of Windows to roam, so users could sign into computers anywhere within a corporate network and have ALL their settings and Documents follow/appear to them on the system they logged in at, without ever even having a 'dedicated' workstation for the user.
Take a large corporate environment like Geico where 1000s of agents sign into any computer in the building and always have their settings, files, etc instantly available.
The whole concept of non-terminal based multi-user roaming is one of the bread and butter items of Windows and something it does well.
The registry is a 'centralized' data store, and was designed so that user settings could easily move or migrate separate from the OS installation, this is why the user's registry is stored in the User's home folder, and can be copied easily.
Ironically, Windows was handling concepts and issues like this before Macs even offered multi-user login abilities on System OS. And now all the Mac people think they are the 'only' ones with these cool features, that *nix and even Windows users had a decade before Macs and OS X did.
I'll also put repairing or installing Windows up against OS X any day. Just like the last little 'bug' in Leopard, users had to drop to a command line, and type in several cryptic *nix commands to kill the bugged application. This is something that is 'highly' amusing to Windows administrators, because Macs are supposed to be 'the' GUI OS, and yet Windows is the one that would allow users to use the GUI to make these same changes/adjustments in a non-cryptic interface, no command line needed.
I see this was already answered, but the score was dropped down on the response. The first post answering your questions is correct however.
Everything on the drive is either moved to the new installation area for you to find easily or moved to Windows.old, even if you have stray folders like C:\Quickbooks it will be moved to Windows.old.
Good luck.
The problem is for myself and many many others, the downsides of Vista (hardware requirements, bugs in a zero revision OS, etc, etc) outweigh the benefits.
People said the same things about Win2K and XP. If you are a Windows user and like Windows and your system has 1gb of RAM and you can afford Vista, there is NO reason not to be running it.
The 'big' hardware requirements is 1gb for the sweet spot in terms of performance where XP could perform at about the same level in the 512-768mb range.
People install Vista and look at taskmanager and see that 40% of RAM is consumed, but this is what Vista reports if you have 512mb, 1GB, 4GB. And on a 4GB machine, I can guarantee the OS is not using 2GB to run, this is 'free' RAM allocated to the caching system, and Vista always uses 40% of available RAM for the OS and the Smartfetch caching systems.
Ironically, Apple's ads pushed the idea that Vista needed major new hardware upgrades to run more than anyone else has, and their new Leopard demands more in hardware than Vista. And with Leopard it is not even about the OS running slower, if you have an older Mac with a RAGE 128 video for example, several applications just fail to run at all.
I'm not aware of any option to do a clean install moving stuff out of the way first in the windows XP or vista installers
Tell it Clean Install, select the existing OS partition, and tell it to leave the FS intact. The contents are moved to folder called 'Windows.old'
There are three options on any Mac OS install
Just to clarify a bit, Most OSes have the same options.
Windows has the same three options: 'Upgrade' 'Clean Install with Everything Backed up in Old Folder' 'Clean Install Wiping Drive'.
I think the funniest part of this easter egg, is that it is a screen shot of the BSoD from Windows 95/98. So for Apple to mock MS they have to go after a 10 year old OS, when Apple was still using horrible System 9. Ouch...
They should have a least used an NT based BSoD, that would have been more funny.
See even after my post, you completely don't understand a single thing.
Time Machine is ok, but it is a backup solution ONLY.
Vista has the SAME backup functions and it ALSO works through 'previous versions' and adds the additional benefit of creating snapshots of the file versions on the drive/volume. So Vista does the external backups and the on disk file versioning - you get Time Machine PLUS file versioning on the Drive when you don't even have an external backup hooked up.
Understand?
People keep coming here with terms like 'Shadow Copy', when it is the 'technical' mechanism that NTFS uses to branch snapshots and do copy-on-write operations. So yes features like System Restore, and Previuos Versions and other technologies do use this at the NTFS level, but when people talk about shadow copies they are NOT always talking about the correct concepts or terminology.
'Shadow Copy' is NOT the features themselves, but only how Vista and NTFS work.
Please, I beg you and everyone else that doesn't get this, to go look up 'previous versions' or 'file/folder/document versioning' and how it works on Vista and how it works with the backup system to show older versions of files and folders from both the external backup and what is also stored on the hard drive using NTFS technologies via snapshot technology.
(Yes the snapshot technology is called shadow copy on NT, but it is only the way NTFS works, and has nothing directly to do with the features of the OS that use it.)
PS Time Machine for what it is, is great, but it isn't as good as what Vista does, as Vista does what Time Machine does, and adds another level of 'true' volume level file versioning.
OS X on PPCs was always able to run OS 9 in a window. If not that, applications could be recompiled using Carbon and become modern applications. Maybe you don't realize just how bad OS 9 was, but it's better that everyone was forced to move forward.
I actually agree, but why is Apple praised for moving technology forward, and when MS does something similar they are roasted by the tech press and especially Mac users?
Vista 64bit dropped the DOS and Win3.1 subsystems, and also dropped older driver support, and the press bashed Vista and MS for doing this, when it was the correct thing to do for a new 64bit OS.
What exactly do you expect from one of the first companies to drop the floppy disk drive?
See I actually agree with Apple on this, but what I don't agree with is the same people praising Apple for doing this, and then turning around and blasting Vista for doing something that is only half bad in impacting users.
If we all need to take the mindset of 'pushing' technology forward, then Apple and MS either BOTH need to get a pass on doing this, or both need to be blasted. Consistency is all I ask if people truly are on either side of this argument.
Vista has been beaten to death for wanting 512mb of RAM and running sweet at 1GB, and to use the new glass features it needs a video card made after 2002. However Leopard ALSO needs 512mb and runs better at the 1GB RAM range.
Leopard also has problems with older video cards and unlike Vista that just turns the glass off, Leopard 'fails' and the features don't even work. (Try using Time Machine on a Mac with an ATI Rage 128 card, it simply doesn't allow users to restore the files because the video card is too old. Time Machine isn't the only app that fails on older video either.)
I would rather OS X do what Vista does, and get less pretty but still provide the features of the OS to the users if the Video is too old to support the OS's pretty features.
And ironically it was mainly the Mac users and the Mac ads on television making fun of 'PC' for needing to get more RAM or a new video card, yet Leopard is worse about requiring new hardware, as it don't even elegantly drop back to mode that at least lets it function on older hardware.
Vista can run on a Pentium III running at 700mhz and run well if you have can get 512mb or 1gb of RAM in the computer, and the video card can be a 1994 based PCI card that has no 3D features at all, and Vista will still work.
So sure technology and OSes need to move the industry forward, but don't slap MS and Vista for doing this and then praise Apple for doing it. Especially when Vista gracefully turns off glitz to ensure all the features of the OS still work even on really old equipment.
So you see why I find all this a big disingenuous?
Microsoft's unrelenting arrogant and hostile attitude toward its customers shines forth in their boogered user interface.
I truly wouldn't call it arrogance, but would agree it is a major communication problem between the developers and the sales/marketing people.
In conferences, dealing with high level Microsoft people that are not engineers/developers, I have been shocked when they don't know basic things about the OS or software they are working with/selling.
The information just doesn't seem to filter out or up very well. Even with the new blogging of the MS developers, very little information gets out past the geeks and other developers.
It is just like the docu-centric concepts that MS added to Win95, and are still a major part of Vista today. 90% of Windows users have no idea they are there, how to use them or what they are for.
But with large paradigm shifts that these technologies present, there is a problem in marketing these concepts, as Apple hasn't even been able teach their long time users how to switch to new usage paradigms.
It pains me to watch both Windows and Mac users shift through folder lists and work with their documents and applications like they are still using System 7 or Windows 3.1 with filemanager. I have worked with some brilliant technical people, and then watch them use the OS UI like they are still back in 1991, and it is odd they have never been exposed to or taught to rethink what they are doing.
So both technical concepts that never make it to the public, that can 'easily' be explained, and larger paradigm shifts in what an OS allows that is hard to teach to people, so it never makes the impact in making things easier that it should have originally.
Anyway, this is why I wouldn't call it arrogance on MS's part, as there are lots of things even Apple has never been able to fully put their hands on in terms of UI concepts and when they do often fail in getting these concepts into the minds of their users. Apple does have brilliant marketing, and if the marketing department 'gets it', then they do a good job about making it important, and important to users.
So they both have some of the same issues, but Microsoft's marketing really sucks even if they are exposed to the new concepts, they never make a big deal about them.
However, this is going deeper into this than necessary at this time, so lets just leave the conversation here: Microsoft sucks at communicating, and even when they have good stuff, they don't make flashing signs to show it to users, and they don't provide the training or marketing for people to even realize it is available.
right-click and a dialogue box is? Over the phone?
Sure it is the mouse button on the 'right', and much easier to explain than holding the Apple key and clicking.
Dialog box is easy, when the applications opens a new window to save or open a document, that is the dialog box.
On Windows the Save and Open dialogs are not needed if you are using Windows as a docu-centric OS, it is much easier to teach people to get out a new blank document, name it and not ever deal with dialog boxes. Sadly though, most Windows users have never been taught that Windows is a docu-centric OS interface, and they use it like a Mac or Win 3.1.
---;)
Time Machine doesn't require any special changes to applications
To take full advantage of the Time Machine UI and to work with applications that use data stores, it does. Go to www.apple.com and dig a little bit, but you can find this information.
Vista's Shadow Copy doesn't backup to a second hard drive. Shadow Copy also doesn't restore files that have been deleted. Those are the two main purposes of Time Machine. From what I can tell Vista's Shadow Copy appears to be no lower to the file system than Time Machine and FSEvents.
This is not true. You are mixing terms. The Shadow Copy is the 'technical' term for how snapshots are performed on NTFS, it is not the same thing as 'Previous Versions' but it is a mechanism that previous versions uses.
Previous Versions (now we are using the correct term) does in FACT work with the backup system, so it works with external hard drives, networks, etc, and presents the files located on the external medium as a part of the Previous Versions interface, just as OS X's time machine does.
So with Vista you do get on disk snapshots AND also the external backup copies like Time Machine does, and they are BOTH presented in the 'Previous Versions' timeline interface. Make sense?
If you keep looking up 'shadow copy' you will get lost in the terminology, as this is a low level mechanism of NTFS even though many parts of Windows/Vista use it to perform snapshot or branched operations. But it is far more technical than average users should be looking, and to keep it simple, stick with the higher level OS concepts that users see that use it like 'previous versions', 'system restore', etc.
I know HFS+ has come a long long way, but I didn't realize it had any way to implement internal branching (snapshots) because it doesn't have any mechanisms for copy-on-write.
ZFS is a copy-on-write based FS, and NTFS added copy-on-write around Win2k era (MS Calls it Volume Shadow Copies, and is a bit more advanced than basic queued copy-on-write).
Do you have a link where I can find out more about how HFS+ does or could easily implement snapshots and copy-on-write that is needed to snapshot in this way?
I like having at least one backup no co-located with the original. Can Vista back up securely over TCP/IP to a remote store? Can Time Machine?
I know for a fact Vista can, and if the remote store is online/available, the backups will appear as a part of the previous versions dialog even, in addition to be accessible via regular restore mechanisms.
I haven't tried with Leopard myself, but have no reason to assume it shouldn't be able to. My only question is whether backup/restore via Time Machine works via a secure network store or not. Our OS X people have several days off due to fires, but it is something I will try to find out about, as they have been involved in the Leopard beta and should know.
OK, maybe it wasn't a failure of marketing after all, since "Previous Versions/Volume Shadow Copy" pales in comparison to the usability of Apple's Time Machine.
Actually I agree with you on the marketing department failures of Microsoft. Microsoft's marketing has always sucked, and especially in comparison to Apple. Microsoft can market a nugget of gold and people will see it as a rock, Apple can market a rock and people will see it as gold.
As for the usability, I did say time machine was prettier, but I wouldn't say easier or more usable. Like I mentioned before, MS's version of the technology works seamlessly as it is available from a right click from any folder or dialog box, even in applications that are as old as Win3.1 days. And even though it isn't as pretty, right clicking on a folder or file is pretty easy to do.
Apple's Time Machine is pretty but it 'needs' the applications to be time machine aware to take full advantage of the features.
MS technology just happens transparently at the FS level which OS X can't do and it also extends to backups like OS X's Time Machine. If Apple could have gotten ZFS working as the default FS, they could have used the feature that ZFS and NTFS share to make the on volume realtime backups like Vista does.
But I completely agree on the marketing issue, it is something Microsoft just doesn't get, and even when they have something of value, it never seems to either make news or even gets to the people reviewing Micrsoft products that 'should' know about it as they are technology journalists.
Going back to the Win98 days, it was the first time I can remember thinking, why doesn't anyone talk about the important features that make such a difference between Win98 and Win95. Things like realtime sound mixing at the OS level, GUI scripting & automation, etc.
And to this day, most people can't even list a lot of these distinctions between Win98 and Win98 or other OSes of the time, that were very much revolutionary or worth noticing.
Strangly, it is kind of sad, as some 'bright' developers at Microsoft put good work into something and even Microsoft doesn't publically show off the features, and the rest of the world never seems to see them either.
Heck I wouldn't even know many things about MS products if it weren't for the strange areas of work I'm involved with that bridge UI and OS studies and also being exposed to things at a development level.
One really strange thing is during the Alpha and Beta phases of products like Vista, or Win98, you learn more about the architecture and features of the OS than is ever revealed to the majority of the public and tech community. Maybe MS needs to have their developers step in and write part of their marketing, because a lot is lost between them and what the sales and marketing put out.
Sorry for the long post, ended up venting about MS instead of just responding. Take Care
All versions of Vista, just right click on any file or folder and click previous versions.
When you hookup an external hard drive, Vista should ask to turn on backups, tell it yes, and it will also keep long term versions on the external drive.
Short term versions are kept on the computer's main drive, and long term are part of the backup system, and they both will list in the previous versions window.
Even if you don't have a backup on another drive, you still can use the previous versions features in Vista because of how NTFS lets Vista duplicate a file when changes are made to it.
Good Luck.
Acronis isn't a good example...
When you see Time Machine think Vista 'Previous Versions' with a prettier UI, and no ability to track or keep file changes on the volume.
Vista does both on volume backup copies of changes and external backups automatically, and presents them in the same 'previuos versions' UI timeline list.
Just like Time Machine, in Vista you can view folders or documents at any previous time whether they are a recent change that is still stored on the volume or a backup from six months ago on an external hard drive.
Vista also does this more transparently, without the need for application integration because of its simplicity in accessing the previous version via a simple open/save dialog box.
Time Machine's UI is much prettier, but since it has less functionality than Vista, and adds overhead by backuping up files every hour, the pretty UI doesn't make up for the lack of features.
Does anyone else find it strange that Vista's backup and previous version system is more advanced than OS X's Time Machine, and yet you hardly ever see it mentioned on a review or when people are talking about Vista. Apple adds a generic version of the same thing, and the press and fans go wild...
And I'm not even saying this to discount OS X's Time Machine, as it is a good feature and a great feature for OS X and Mac users, but strange how something gets accolades when Apple does it, and is dismissed when Microsoft does it and even technically does it better.
Actually it would be more like Vista dropping support for Windows 3.1 (Win16 API) or DOS.
(See DOS apps and Win3.1 often need direct hardware access as well, in comparison to your analogy, Vista virtualizes these features like NT has virtualized since 1993.)
You are trying to give Apple a pass on an issue they really don't deserve one. They could have used even a nominal virtualization system if they were not going to create a subsystem capable OS structure like MS did with NT to ensure support for non main OS level APIs. (Win16,DOS,POSIX,BSD UNIX,Win32,Win64)
Ok good, I undestand where you are coming from.
I would like to note a couple of things I would disagree with you on though...
- Better Drag and Drop - embedded content
I actually give the thumbs up to Windows here, because of not only intrinsic content type understanding, but generic packaging, and ActiveX/OLE based inclusion. I'm not saying OS X sucks, but Windows has more options and mechanisms for dealing with cross application drag and drop or data embedding.
For example a CorelDraw image can be placed in Winword as an Image/Text/WMF/Native Corel format. Word has no idea what a native CorelDraw Image is, but it handles it as if it was designed to be a part of Winword, even doing things like inplace editing that launches the hosting application if it can.
As for your powerpoint example, just to be sure I wasn't missing something, I just dropped a FLV, FLA, DIVX, MPEG4, WMV, and MPEG2 video into a presentation. Powerpoint didn't flinch, even though it has no idea what anything but WMV is inherently. The reason this works is that on OSX everything is filtered though Quicktime wrappers and codecs, on Windows a similar type of mechanism is in play, and either via AVI or via OS level codecs, all applications can access audio and video formats they were never designed to do.
This is why open source level codecs are very popular on Windows, as you can install a xvid codec, etc and all application that know whow to handle video automatically get the ability to both play and if the 'encoder' codec is suppled even create the format it knows nothing about.
The other area you are arguing is the desktop metaphor and application construct differences between Mac and Windows.
Macs originally had only a single application interface with the exception of applets. Macs also focused on mutli-function applications because of this, as in early days you had to close the current application to launch another application. So even with the Mac GUI, it was still a single application OS interface, kind of like DOS was.
Other Window interfaces, especially in the *nix world didn't limit themselves to this type of interface, and multi concurrent applications were seen as the most productive. Windows adopted the multi application UI concepts basically from the begining.
The multi 'window'/application interface is what gave Windows 3.x a lot of the success it had, especially when being compared to Mac System OS at the time.
The *nix world and Microsoft knew that 'component' conceptual applications were more efficient than a large monolithic application that tried to do everything, but simply could never be achieved.
This did lead to MS adopting the MDI interface concepts, and like Mac applications, MS Word on Windows left all documents as 'child' windows of the main application. At the time it was one of the better ideas, but as technology progressed and Microsoft's work on UI design, they realized how poorly this worked when users were running several applications at a time and combining information between them.
Win95 doesn't get a lot of credit, but the UI was very simple and brought forth a new paradigm that many Windows geeks today don't even fully understand, as they are stuck in older UI mindsets. Win95 was the fist real docu-centric OS interface, as the concept of applications became abstracted, and even the use of Open/Save dialog boxes were no longer necessary if people new how to use the Docu-centric paradigm.
When Mac came to OS X, it was the first time they were able to truly use an OS that offered real multi-tasking, so in this respect Apple was catching up, and their UI Application concepts suffered from this transition, and still do to some extent sadly.
Other OSes, especially Windows, moved away from single application running a long time ago, yet OS X still has ties that go back to this era. The dynamic menu bar being the prime link to the past. As this is still a staple of the OS X UI, at a time when Microsoft is in the process o
over the last year or two (give or take) I lost this trust. it also seems to be about the time that vista came into the scene. I don't run vista and I don't think I ever will, but if I was losing trust in MS's ability to force ONLY essential updates on me. it seems that if I can't even trust xp's update, why would I want to take things to the next level of non-control and give the full 'admin' switch to MS and just be at their update-stream mercy? its my understanding that vista boxes HAVE to be continually (not continuously, but mostly online) in order for them to stay (cough) 'current'. in all that that implies..
Not sure why you think the Update process in Vista is any different than the update process in XP SP2. It isn't...
It has a dedicated UI instead of a web page, but works from the same servers, and does the update process the same way as XP SP2 with WU installed.
Also not sure why you think you have lost control. In a business or IT environment, Administrators handle what and when ALL updates are applied if they know anything about what they are doing. Nothing is or can be forced to clients.
With updates it usually works like this. Admins notice what is newly available, installs and tests what they want, and then allows the updates to propagate to the computers they are responsible for. It really isn't a complicated process, nor something MS can circumvent.
Here is what is really wrong with the articles, even here on slashdot about the Windows Desktop Search update:
1) MS has the Desktop Search to be available as a 'non-critical' update, so it doesn't install automatically.
2) If you notice the news article, it says it has brought computers and 'networks' to a crawl. Windows Desktop Search doesn't touch remote or external drives, in fact by default on XP it only indexes 'Documents and Settings', and local mail stores.
So there is no network traffic that it generates.
(This is actually part of the features of Windows Desktop Search, is that it doesn't need to ever touch network shares, as they are 'indexed' by the computer hosting the documents, and even when the user searches for documents across the network, it asks the host computer to perform the search and return the results. i.e. only the request and results are sent across the network, there is no bandwidth used to index remote documents, nor search through remote documents. Which actually speeds up searches in a network environment.)
And although installing it may slow down the computer while it is indexing, this only happens when the computer is inactive, or at a low priority in the background. So for it to slow down your computer, it isn't something a normal user would notice, as when they are using their computer, their applications and what they are doing gets priority.
The initial indexing process would last maybe an hour at most even if you have 500,000 documents - which most people don't.
Also, once the intial indexing is done there is no noticeable performance usage by the service, again as it only runs at a background priority and also schedules large indexing updates (user added tons of documents) when the computer is idle.
So sure MS has Desktop Search as an 'official' update to XP, but the articles surrounding it are pure FUD.
PS For people that think Google's desktop search is better, they should take a look at the query syntax differences, MS's is far more elaborate and nests. There are also other little things like how MS Desktop search can index text inside images or words in audio files...
The single-window paradigm is a limitation of Windows
That is not correct...
Windows has handled multi-monitor going back as far as proprietary displays on Win3.1 days.
XP added the ability to split output from one video card to multiple monitors easily, for example a laptop with TV, external VGA and an internal display using two or more of the displays at the same time as one single display context. (Applications can appear on both monitors at the same time as if they were a single display.)
Vista added several new multi-monitor features so that you can even use external devices like a network projector as an extention of the desktop seamlessly.
Vista also added native multi-monitor abilities so that you can run OpenGL or DirectX applications or games that span several monitors without any distinction, and this can also span several video cards as well if they have the same WDDM driver family, so you could have an onboard Geforce 6150, and two Geforce 7900 video cards, all with dual outputs, and create a single display desktop that spans six or more monitors as if it was a single display context.
So there is NO limitation with Windows, and with Vista you can do things with multi-monitor/multi-displays that no other OS can currently do natively because of the shared 3D context specifications of the WDDM in Vista.
I'm also not sure where the Photoshop not being able to span several displays myth comes from. I have for years put my tools or that portion of the Application window on one monitor and used my second or third display for my editing space, and yes on Windows.
And to demonstrate what I'm talking about, right now I have City of Heroes (An OpenGl/hybrid game) running in a window on Vista, with Aero enabled. Part of the City of Heroes window is sitting on my right monitor and the rest of the game is displayed on my old 32' analog television that I normally use for watching media center content in my office. I often slide my games to other monitors when I am waiting on friends or taking a break, so that I can see when my friends show up in game.
It is also fun to run games like Flight Sim or a racing game on three monitors, which makes it a wrap around visual experience.
So I can assure you Windows has no problems with multi-monitor support or spanning applications across multi-monitor and/or multiple video cards.
BTW I agree with you on other observations mentioned in your post.
Take Care...
But I would be surprised if we didn't start seeing Silverlight widgets and ads on facebook.
Already been around for a while, and is now in public beta.
http://www.popfly.com/
It is silverlight being used to introduce a programming collaboration medium that creates silverlight applications and information widgets with virtually no programming.
Silverlight does have some rather good technological aspects that Flash just doesn't have. Besides the 'visual' stuff, I would argue in favor of silverlight since you can use it with javascript and other basic web technologies, including asp, php, etc without having to learn a new scripting metaphor as you have to do with Flash that is also closed when it comes with other object interaction on pages.
Multiple silverlight objects on a page talking to each other and talking to the client and the server via ajax, etc is rather interesting in the scheme of things.
Most developers would have at least heard of sudo/kdesu/gtksudo previously. Why not implement it verbatim?
Well, sadly in the Windows' world, most developers probably haven't. A testiment to this fact is a lot of developers had no idea the NT security model existed or coded for it in the first place, and when they do have to code for it now, they think Vista is evil for making them adhere to security or doing things the right way for once.
As to why UAC isn't a carbon copy of sudo, there are several actual real reasons, some of which I came across when I was in the Vista beta. Ironically the UAC in Vista is designed to be smarter than sudo. Vista moves one step beyond 'root' elevation, as even when a user even tries to run as administrator, they don't get the equivalent of root. So the UAC has to manage two security levels, Administrator, and the new 'root' equivalent since administrator has been reduced from root level. The UAC also tries to watch for applications that 'try' to do admin level tasks, and instead of forcing the application to fail, steps in and keeps the process/application on hold while prompting the user.
However I think most agree it would have been better if MS would have just forced the NT security model down developers throats when XP was set to replace the consumer line OSes, and all of this would have been a thing of the past and worked out years ago.
The comment before mine already pointed out the differences between Microsoft's and Apple's systems.
Actually it didn't, it references a technology that has nothing to do with Microsoft's 'Previous Versions' which is the equivalent to OS X's Time Machine. Read the responses to the post before yours to clarify this for you.
The problem is that Previous Versions is only a partial solution to Availability. If your hard drive dies, you're hosed. Meanwhile, if a Time Machine drive dies, all you lose are backups and if the internal drive dies, all you lose is the last hour of work. It would take two simultaneous failures to lose your data.
No... Ok, I know not everyone uses Vista and it isn't something people on SlashDot probably seek out to understand, so let me be a little more clear on the previous versions in contrast to OS X time machine.
The backup system in Vista works much like Time Machine, in that Vista continually backs up your data, and will even display backed up content in the previous versions in addition to the on volume 'secondary' copies that previous versions adds to the volume.
So you get all the features of Time Machine Plus multiple version copies on the volume itself even if your backup drive is unhooked.
So in the Previous Versions list it looks something like this if I was viewing my Resume to go back to a previous 'change/version':
My Resume 1:00pm 10/24/07 Shadow
My Resume 11:00am 10/24/07 Shadow
My Resume 10:00am 10/24/07 Shadow
My Resume 12:00am 10/20/07 Backup
My Resume 4:00pm 9/02/07 Backup
My Resume 2:15pm 4/02/07 Backup
The Shadows are kept on the Volume, as I described in the previous post, no overhead to create of maintain. The Backup versions are copied to an external hard drive during the backup processes. Both are presented in the Vista Previous Versions interface timeline.
Now this may seem strange to do both, but imagine you are editing a 4GB Video, and OS X is having to write changes out to the external backup for all your files and the 4GB Video every hour. Not only does this reduce your backup 'Time Machine' in how far back it goes really fast but it is also one heck of a resource hog just to process your files everytime to a separate backup.
Vista doesn't have to do this, as it makes shadow backups on the volume and then uses the regular backup system for long term backup timelines.
Understand?