The Windows BSOD is the equivalent of a kernel panic, i.e. it's an unrecoverable error detected by the kernel.... It looks like this (or if you'd prefer, like this). A minor point, but that latter one is a Windows 9x BSOD rather than an NT one; which means it isn't necessarily a kernel problem: in Windows 9x, even things like incompatible DLLs have the potential to cause BSODs. It's only the NT BSOD which is really the equivalent of a kernel panic.
Wrong. Every file is checked for DRM violations. Why do you think copying (and everything else) is so slow? Ummm, no. The slow file copying is a known bug the fix for which will be in SP1. Yes, that is a stupidly long time for a bug that should have been caught before Vista even RTM'd; but attributing everything to DRM without a scrap of evidence and spouting nonsense like "Every file is checked for DRM violations" just makes you look stupid.
Yeah, but Vista got it worse. The most incredibly stupid part of is start menu is the fact that you turn your computer off by pressing a button called ">". A god-damn greater-than sign. Ummm, WTF? You shut down the computer by pressing the worldwide standard 'shut down' icon. Which is exactly the same icon that XP used. (Unless you're on a laptop and your OEM's rebound it to 'sleep' or something, in which case it's easy enough to rebind it back to 'shut down' if you want; personally, I've bound it to 'hibernate').
And after you click on it you have a bunch of options like "Sleep", "Hibernate", "Snooze", "Take a nap", "Go to bed" and other quasi-synonyms. "Shutdown" is somewhere among these options. ...The options are exactly the same options you got on XP! Except that 'standby' has been renamed to 'sleep' for some reason.
No you're missing my point. I should just be able to install a browser and tell the OS to use it as the default browser. Just like you can under XP. Its this new thing in vista that sucks where the app also has to call some new vista API even before the user can tell the OS to use it as a default browser. Not exactly. Windows XP has mechanisms for registering a web browser with the OS just as Vista does (how else do you think it populates the 'Set Program Access and Defaults' tool, or the drop-down list of web-browsers for the 'Internet' position on the Start menu?). Vista just changes the way this happens (from the looks of things in order to generalise it to any class of application and allow the user more control, I don't know for sure); so applications installing themselves on Vista have to switch to using Vista's method rather than XP's. From a glace at the bug, Vista's way is actually considerably easier for an application than XP's; the bug was that Firefox was actually doing too much. So now that it's been fixed, you can do exactly the same thing in Vista that you did in XP.
Does that mean that Vista finally allows one to fix the big key to the left of the "a" key to be control, instead of capslock? That Vista allows one to replace all the weird keybindings with something familiar like the bog-standard emacs key bindings we've used for decades? You've been able to arbitrarily rebind keymappings since Windows 2000, through the registry. Documentation here. Example registry script you can run to rebind caps lock to control here.
That Vista finally supports a reasonable mouse cursor/keyboard focus model like Focus follows Mouse? Again, Windows NT has always had this capability. It's a single registry edit.
That Vista finally has multiple virtual desktops? Not natively, but there are many (open source) programs which add the capability.
So no, for most of those, Vista hasn't 'added' them, because they've been there all along. May I recommend Google?
Bush never claimed there was a direct link between Iraq and 9/11. Apologies: on Googling, it turns out that you're right; it was Cheney, rather than Bush. Anyway, the main point remains unaffected; I only used Iraq as an example because the parent did.
Sure, but does Mac OS X work well on non-Apple hardware? (Hint: the answer is no) Actually, it works well on all hardware that it is known to work well on.
Why should an app have to do that before the user can ask for it to be used as an alternative? What precisely are you suggesting as an alternative?
If browsers are not to register themselves to an OS as browsers, then for the OS to know that they're browsers, and include them in a list of 'possible default browsers' to choose from, it would have to run some sort of real-time monitoring utility that watches all apps that are installed and and tries to use some sort of heuristic to work out whether each one is a browser, and automatically add it to the list if it is. Or else have a list of all possible browsers that might be installed (a list of what -- filenames? MD5 hashes?) which would inevitably never be exhaustive.
Surely it is blatantly obvious that any such approach would be vastly worse than just asking browsers to register themselves with the OS as browsers.
(Unless you're just suggesting that it should be possible for the user to just set all the file and protocol associations, from https to.mht, themselves, manually. In which case, the answer is that it is possible, and has has always been possible. Just not very many people want to do it. There are a surprising number of different associations to make if you're doing it manually).
Why should a program have to do anything 'special' in order to get an OS to allow users to choose it as an alternative? Answer: it shouldn't. Ummm.... You mean apart from registering itself to the OS as an alternative...?
Bill Gates is denying that he said that? Shocking. Just out of curiosity... do you also believe that Iraq was involved in 9/11? The burden of proof is on the person who makes a claim (this follows by necessity from the impossibility of proving a negative).
So in your example, the burden of proving that there is a link between Iraq and 9/11 lies on the person who claimed there was a link (GWB), who failed to do so.
But in the case of Gates, the burden of proving that he did says such a thing lies at the feet of those who claim that he did, and so far, no-one has provided even a hint of a source for the quote. A quick Google & Wikiquote suggest that no-one has ever managed to trace where the quote came from, not even to something as vague as "anonymous sources in Microsoft". Thus, the assumption must be that it is apocryphal.
The closest traceable comment resembling the 640 remark was in a 1989 interview, where he said "I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn't - it took about only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem." (Source).
With fairness, they have rewritten the equation editor from scratch for Office 2007, and it is a *vast* improvement over the old one. You can enter the equation linearly and it'll format it properly for you (e.g. (a_0 + b^2)/2 ), and special characters are done using the autocorrect engine with a LaTeX-like syntax (e.g. \forall is replaced as you type with the upside-down A).
Of course, you can still point & click you if like, so engineers don't need to worry. (Just kidding...).
So as XP broke it too, by not running DOS programs anymore You can run DOS programs on XP; I've done so many times (mostly Doom...). It does it by running them under a lightweight DOS virtual machine called NTVDM. Ditto for Vista (32-bit only, though; IIRC they removed it in the 64-bit edition due to difficulties running 16-bit code on a processor in 64-bit mode). In fact, apparently even the original, unmodified 1979 Visicalc spreadsheet still runs perfectly well on 32-bit XP and Vista.
If all your hardware is known to work well under Linux, you won't run into these integration issues. As a side issue, that's an entirely circular argument. "If all your hardware is known to work under X, then your hardware will work under X" is a statement that remains true however large or small the pool of hardware that works under X is.
Wow, you got (Score:3, Insightful) for smugly saying "Link please?"? Here's a link for ya Google. Learn to look things up for yourself instead of acting like a smug bastard when someone points out the obvious. "Link, please?" used in that context is a shortened form of "I've looked around, and can't find the slightest reference to what you mentioned; but rather than assume that you made it up, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it merely, for whatever reason, wasn't well publicised. Thus, would care you to supply any proof of your claim?"
I can't vel
(BTW, on an related note, burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim. This follows by necessity from the impossibility of proving a negative.)
Vista won't even allow you to choose alternative browsers as the default. Even with Firefox installed, and you choose IE to not be the default browser, Vista still uses IE for all web access. This was a known bug in *Firefox*. I believe they've since fixed it; update Firefox. See http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234097&cid=19076261.
As a matter of fact, kdawson appears to have made that part of the summary up, since it's flatly contradicted by the actual article (which actually says "all applications that currently run properly on Windows Vista will continue to work on Vista SP1").
AFAIK, Vista ALREADY snoops on the user What specifically are you referring to here?
The only things I can think of that you could be thinking of are WGA (which is a hardware hash, not usage patterns) and error reports (for which it is easy enough to click 'don't send' instead of 'send').
Then I ask if I can use his laptop to burn a iso with Nero. You want to install Nero, just to burn an ISO? Why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Windows ISO recorder powertoy, right-click the ISO, 'Burn to disc'. Done.
At least you didn't tell me to look up the problem in the thick, comprehensive, well-written manual that Microsoft ships with every copy of their operating system. Ironically, if you *had* the spent 5 seconds to look it up in Windows Help, you'd have found the solution to your problem, since it includes an FAQ explaining what codecs are...
If it plays on default Mac, Linux, Windows XP and Windows 2000 installations, I don't need to know what codec it is, do I? Actually, I would bet that it *doesn't* play by default on a fresh installation of Windows 2000 or XP. At several points, you *will* have installed codecs on your OSes; if you've ever installed a media player, ripping software, DVD player, or many others. Only you haven't yet on Vista. Download and install one of the many thousands of codec packs floating around if you really can't be bothered to work out what codec your DVD ripper is encoding into.
The same way that Ubuntu configures sudo. You type in your password and then for around a minute anything that you access via "sudo" doesn't need a password. ...And what if I write a piece of malware that tests what user it's running under every 30 seconds, and does its work when it detects it's running elevated -- which will inevitably happen sooner or later, as the user elevates whilst doing something else entirely, thus giving anything and everything elevated privileges for a minute...?
Should I need to go past a dialog to open up a file that was on a CD? Vista had to do that Yes if the file is a program that requires administrator privileges to run; no otherwise. Which, actually, is exactly what happens in reality.
Also, a lot of Software for Windows 95 (and some for 98) was based on Win16, which has been completely removed from Vista. Not exactly: NTVDM is still present and working perfectly in 32-bit Vista. It's only been removed in 64-bit Vista; presumably because it's assumed that if you're deliberately choosing a 64-bit OS rather than the (more compatible) 32-bit version, you're not likely to want much legacy support.
1. I've had troubles reading DVD's from other regions... in XP. "You can only change your DVD region code only 4 more times". If things go as I've read, Vista won't be any better. This is a DVD drive specific issue, and the same identical issue will be present no matter what operating system you're running.
There are (slightly illegal) ways of getting around this.
4. The point with Vista is not whether it ACTUALLY prevents you from watching DVD's. The point is that it can in the future, and that you won't be able to do ANYTHING about it. Assuming you're talking about the possibility of future RIAA discs coming with the ICT flag set come 2011, that's Blu-ray discs, not DVDs. Note that, if this flag is set, the disc won't play properly on anything that's not got a protected path from start to finish; it's not like you'd be able to play them properly on XP but not Vista...
Vista is taking all the decisions for you, and where you'd like to be asked "Cancel, or Allow?" regarding updates-from and reports-to Microsoft, you won't be. Ummm... You're right that you don't need to elevate to install updates, but anutomatic updating is easy enough to turn off if you want.
If Redmond decides to install a rootkit on your vista, you won't even notice! If you actually think about what a rootkit is, you'll realise how little sense that sentence makes. A rootkit is a program that uses malicious techniques to become root (i.e. administrator in Windows); usually one that hides itself from the operating system (and, by extension, the user). Now Microsoft make the operating system. Any Windows update that includes executable files that will run at system level (as a great many obviously do) could be described as a "rootkit".
I'm using Vista, no big deal for me.... I make up my own mind... No operating system is the holy grail... Woah -- Broad neutrality? Cultural liberalism? Acknowledgement of individual preference? You do know none of that's tolerated at Slashdot, right?
Don't worry, we'll have you converted to an irrational, frothing-at-the-mouth, katana-wielding *nix advocating Slashbot given time.
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So no, for most of those, Vista hasn't 'added' them, because they've been there all along. May I recommend Google?
If browsers are not to register themselves to an OS as browsers, then for the OS to know that they're browsers, and include them in a list of 'possible default browsers' to choose from, it would have to run some sort of real-time monitoring utility that watches all apps that are installed and and tries to use some sort of heuristic to work out whether each one is a browser, and automatically add it to the list if it is. Or else have a list of all possible browsers that might be installed (a list of what -- filenames? MD5 hashes?) which would inevitably never be exhaustive.
Surely it is blatantly obvious that any such approach would be vastly worse than just asking browsers to register themselves with the OS as browsers.
(Unless you're just suggesting that it should be possible for the user to just set all the file and protocol associations, from https to
So in your example, the burden of proving that there is a link between Iraq and 9/11 lies on the person who claimed there was a link (GWB), who failed to do so.
But in the case of Gates, the burden of proving that he did says such a thing lies at the feet of those who claim that he did, and so far, no-one has provided even a hint of a source for the quote. A quick Google & Wikiquote suggest that no-one has ever managed to trace where the quote came from, not even to something as vague as "anonymous sources in Microsoft". Thus, the assumption must be that it is apocryphal.
The closest traceable comment resembling the 640 remark was in a 1989 interview, where he said "I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn't - it took about only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem." (Source).
With fairness, they have rewritten the equation editor from scratch for Office 2007, and it is a *vast* improvement over the old one. You can enter the equation linearly and it'll format it properly for you (e.g. (a_0 + b^2)/2 ), and special characters are done using the autocorrect engine with a LaTeX-like syntax (e.g. \forall is replaced as you type with the upside-down A).
Of course, you can still point & click you if like, so engineers don't need to worry. (Just kidding...).
It means I forgot to use 'preview' before submitting ;-)
I can't vel (BTW, on an related note, burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim. This follows by necessity from the impossibility of proving a negative.)
As a matter of fact, kdawson appears to have made that part of the summary up, since it's flatly contradicted by the actual article (which actually says "all applications that currently run properly on Windows Vista will continue to work on Vista SP1").
The only things I can think of that you could be thinking of are WGA (which is a hardware hash, not usage patterns) and error reports (for which it is easy enough to click 'don't send' instead of 'send').
If you don't believe me, here are the equivalent dialogues in Mac OS X and Linux (TurboLinux).
There are (slightly illegal) ways of getting around this.
4. The point with Vista is not whether it ACTUALLY prevents you from watching DVD's. The point is that it can in the future, and that you won't be able to do ANYTHING about it. Assuming you're talking about the possibility of future RIAA discs coming with the ICT flag set come 2011, that's Blu-ray discs, not DVDs. Note that, if this flag is set, the disc won't play properly on anything that's not got a protected path from start to finish; it's not like you'd be able to play them properly on XP but not Vista... Vista is taking all the decisions for you, and where you'd like to be asked "Cancel, or Allow?" regarding updates-from and reports-to Microsoft, you won't be. Ummm... You're right that you don't need to elevate to install updates, but anutomatic updating is easy enough to turn off if you want. If Redmond decides to install a rootkit on your vista, you won't even notice! If you actually think about what a rootkit is, you'll realise how little sense that sentence makes. A rootkit is a program that uses malicious techniques to become root (i.e. administrator in Windows); usually one that hides itself from the operating system (and, by extension, the user). Now Microsoft make the operating system. Any Windows update that includes executable files that will run at system level (as a great many obviously do) could be described as a "rootkit".
Don't worry, we'll have you converted to an irrational, frothing-at-the-mouth, katana-wielding *nix advocating Slashbot given time.