AT&T UVerse boxes run Windows CE. I was surprised to see this when I browsed to the details of the OS on my box.
It runs surprisingly really well. It's an IP Based tuning system (IPTV). Currently it supports 4 concurrent streams i.e. you can record 4 streams at once (mix / match watch vs. record). This is purely limited by bandwidth. With the previous UVerse profile (before they did a firmware update), it supported 3 concurrent streams. Once AT&T bumped their profile, the box automatically supported 4 profiles.
I've had no problems recording multiple HD streams.
The box also supports playing DLNA / UPnP music from a media server. I had hoped that at some point they would also support DLNA video streaming, but I suspect they don't due to it cannibalizing their VOD / pay features.
Combine the features they support on 360 with what they do via the UVerse boxes, they could come out with a kick ass media box.
Well, Windows 8 isn't even out out. It's not surprising that businesses are going to most likely migrate to Windows 7 first. From an administrative perspective, most admins already know how to deal with all the Windows 7 nuances.
Windows 8 is a bit of a black box right now, especially from an admin perspective. I suspect it'll probably be a couple of years before Windows 8 becomes more mainstream in corporate environments.
From a personal perspective... I plan on upgrading to 8 as soon as it's out. For $40 bucks (for a 7 - 8 upgrade), I don't see why not. As a developer, it's compelling to easily transition your desktop app to tablet (and vice versa).
At our offices, you'll see a lot of Macbook Air's, but they're almost all running Windows 7.
There's still a ton of Dell and other laptops, however, it seems that people like the look / coolness of the Apple gear, but need the productivity of Windows (at least that seems to be the case in our offices).
I have an iphone 3g (work phone). When I first got it (which whatever iteration of iOS was out at the time) it was great. However, with subsequent releases of the OS, it's just gotten slower and less usable. Sure, call quality is great, but it takes a couple seconds to make a call (clicking an icon takes about 2-3 seconds before it responds).
I just got my wife a Samsung Fascinate (galaxy S on Verizon). This phone is awesome! It runs circles around the iphone (at least the 3g that I have) in usability and customization. I would love to have this instead of my iphone (unfortunately the company where I work doesn't support Android yet for corporate use).
However, for corporate use, I think my next phone will most likely be the new Windows 7 mobile. It seems really well integrated into outlook, and has some great enterprise features. The ability to view powerpoint presentations from the phone is a great feature which will get used a lot ( believe you might also be able to present them via the hdmi out).
You can use a threadpool (and its the most appropriate way of handling it in many situations), however, you're still bound by the size of the pool. Hence your concurrency and throughput is limited by the size of the pools.
Our goal at the time was to handle as many connections as possible on a single box due to the cost of having to run a massive cluster (we were look at 500k plus PSU).
However, the article and the presentation the article links to point out that IO has better concurrency than NIO. NIO has a Blocking algorithm in it for concurrency and IO has none implemented for Concurrency. The presentation went on to explain what happened because years ago in Java 1.1 and 1.2 it was nasty having to write for concurrency on servers using IO so you'd switch to NIO and be happy. Things have changed because of OS kernel improvements IO is using Non-Blocking algorithms for concurrency without having to be rewritten from scratch. The benchmarks proved it and now NIO has no use if you're using a modern OS with Multicore CPU because IO has better concurrency and throughput then NIO.
IO is still "blocking" i.e. requires you to have a thread per connection to wait for incoming data (for your application). This essentially means that you're still limited by the box and the number of connections you can spawn (as well as the nature of the requests).
A couple years back when we tested this (around 3-4 years back I think), we could at most sustain 6k - 7k connections per box using standard IO (this was not HTTP / web traffic). The issues we ran into were spawing new native threads on the box (ran out of handles on linux) as well as running out of memory.
With NIO, we were able to sustain around 10k connections per box. Granted you could probably do a lot better now with the latest JVM and newer multi-core boxes.
Note, these were not pseudo tests... we tested actually "servicing requests" that the servers were designed for. The outcome of the testing may also vary based on what the servers are actually doing (how much memory each request is consuming etc).
I'm not sure where / when NIO got equated to lower latency. The primary benefits of NIO (from my understanding of having designed and deployed both IO and NIO based servers) is that NIO allows you to have better concurrency on a single box i.e. you can service many more calls / transactions on a single machine since you aren't limited by the number of threads you can spawn on that box (and you aren't limited as much by memory, since each thread consumes a fair number of resources on the box).
For the most part (and from my experimentation), NIO actually has slightly higher latency than standard IO (especially with heavy loaded boxes).
The question you need to ask yourself is... do you require higher concurrency and fewer boxes (cheaper to run / maintain) at the expense of slightly higher latency (which would work well for most web sites), or are your transactions latency sensitive / real-time, in which case using standard IO would work better (at the cost of requiring more hardware and support).
The biggest benefit to tabs (especially if you code in a corporate environment) is that people can view the code based on *their* preferred indentation / spacing e,.g. I may like my tabs to be 2 spaces, another developer may prefer 3 or 4 spaces.
By setting up their IDE / editor to their preferred tab width, the code indents to the way they like it.
By forcing all your tabs to be spaces, anyone else viewing the code will be forced to view / edit it in your indentation.
From you post, I gather that you have not run Vista. I am running it comfortably on my laptop (~1GB ram with AMD cpu) and my desktop (AMD X2 3800) with nary a problem.
The only stuff I turned off is the animated windows and window transparency (which I hate in general). Desktop composition and other "eye-candy" is still on (I actually find desktop composition to be useful, since I can mouse over stuff on my taskbar thats hidden by other windows and view whats going on in a realtime thumbnail window).
This is undoubtedly blasphemy on this Linux-centric site, but I actually like Vista, and find the little nuances a welcome change from XP.
Yes... it could end up being megabytes. There are ways you could reduce the footprint of the DB by storing only the hashes locally (or using compression).
For someone who's anal about their privacy, this may be a worthwhile tradeoff. I didn't say this was ideal... I said it was a potential resolution to the privacy issue.
Some people may be ok with sending their private data to Google. Others may not.
Wow... talk about double standards. Your argument is ludicrous at best. "If Google does it... its ok".
This is a privacy issue, plain and simple. There are other ways to solve this without having to send the URL to Google. Another approach would be to maintain a list of BAD URLS on the client. This is more expensive since it requires a potentially large list of bad URLS to be stored locally.
However, this is a viable option for those who want the URL protection without sacrificing their privacy.
Google isn't as saintly as you would think. I recommend you do some research on their handling of privacy issues with China and India.
This isn't an issue of monoculture or of the ubiquity of Windows. This is an issue of designing and building services to withstand various scenarios.
I design and build services that handle 200k - 300k PSU. One of the scenarios we design, build and test for is what we call the "pile-in" scenario i.e. there was some outage, and all these users pile back into the system.
Anyone designing and building large scale services needs to consider this. Whatever the reason for the outage (MS patch tuesday, ISP outage, server reboot etc), you have to be able to deal with this.
This may involve throttling connections to your system (ramping traffic back up) or other possible solutions.
Whatever your architecture may be (client / server, distributed nodes etc.), these are things you need to factor into your design and solution.
Seems to me they didn't clearly plan for these types of situations.
I've been running Vista x64 on my laptop and main desktop PC. I've had zero problems since installing it (save getting a sound driver for my laptop, which I eventually did. This is due to HP/Compaq not releasing 64 bit drivers).
I have no problems resuming from sleep and connecting back to my wireless network (from my laptop). This has worked every time.
My primary desktop machine has been chugging along without any problems. I play all the games I used to with XP, can still do software development (Eclipse, C++ compilers etc), run Open Office, web browse etc.
File sharing works (I share files between my desktop and 2 laptops). My work laptop which is running XP has no problems connecting to my desktop (which is running Vista x64) for files and for remote desktop.
I find it weird that the guy went from touting Vista and installing it on every machine in his home to loathing it and wanting to switch to Linux. Sounds like there's an ulterior motive for his article (whatever that may be).
If I did have problems with Vista, I would most likely "downgrade" to XP. I personally don't believe Linux is mature and ready for the desktop. I like the ability to play the games I like and do all my development on the same machine without having to reboot into a different OS, or do certain things through a virtual machine (VMWare etc).
I love Linux for server based software, I have it running on my second desktop machine for testing out my server software. I had tried installing Ubuntu on it to run it as a desktop machine, but had numerous problems. I don't have the time and / or energy to muck about trying to get it to work, so I switched it to a server installation.
I couldn't imagine using Windows for running server software (DB, http server etc), and I couldn't imagine running Linux for my desktop machine.
I know that there's a lot of people don't have issues with this, but that is just my personal preference.
I'm not surprised your post is modded up... this is after all slashdot. Maybe you should try reading more carefully... I said it "worked flawlessly", meaning I haven't run into any issues; which is surprising considering that it's the initial release without any service pack yet.
This isn't the same as a flawless operating system. I don't believe there is one, and I'm skeptical that there will be one anytime in the near future.
Vista (or any other MS OS) is no more flawless than Linux or OSX. Each have their share of problems and each have their benefits.
I'm guessing you're either a linux or mac fan. I have 2 copies of Vista running, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. Both work flawlessly. I have not experienced any problems with IE. I've used both the 64 bit and 32 bit versions of IE without any problem. The only issue I've run into is that there isn't a 64 bit version of Flash, so I'm forced to use the 32 bit version of IE until Adobe release an update. This isn't really a Vista issue.
Can you back up your claim with specific numbers and details of problems, or are you just spouting FUD?
Depending on how you're written your IDE code, it should work on most SATA controllers + drive, since most SATA controllers also operate in compatability mode.
I recently tested my IDE driver on a SATA controller + drive and it worked without a problem.
There are numerous benefits to this... sure you could take the money and buy food and / or build a better school, however I don't believe this is the same thing.
You don't need access to the internet to be able to stimulate interest and growth. Having grown up in South Africa where internet was (and still is) very limited, my first computer had NO internet access (thereafter BBS's came along).
I had learned to program my first machine (a ZX Spectrum 48k) using Basic, and then machine code.
I'm sure there are numerous kids with the interest and aptitude to become successful if given the opportunity and the tools. Even if just 2% of these kids end up becoming interested in engineering and / or other disciplines, its a stepping stone for the country as a whole, as their kids will follow in their footsteps.
Just because *you* could not learn anything from your computer without it being connected to the internet, doesn't mean others can't.
FYI... these PCS come preloaded with software that allow programming out the box
When did porn become a bad word? Society's today seem to be fixated on how sex is bad for you.
I don't see how having access to porn should deter these users from eventually using it for learning. Its pretty much the same as when we first got access to computers and the internet (or in my day, bulletin boards). The first thing you do is look for porn, and once you've exhausted yourself, start learning to use the computer for other stuff.
As for illegal activity... the users who would normally gravitate towards this will do so whether they have access to these PCs or not.
If the driver in question is one that is critical to the running of the system (video, HD, KB etc), then its possible the user will not be able to interact with the system, thus requiring a reboot.
There is an inherent difference between a driver and an application. For the most part, most applications are not required for the running of the system.
I wonder if this compromise is worth it. I'd much rather have stable kernel drivers than unstable userspace drivers.
If a driver is buggy and in userspace, its possible that the system could recover from the error, however you could still end up in some unstable state that would potentially end up requiring a reboot (depending on the driver in question).
Also, there is a higher cost of running a driver in userspace (ring 3) than kernel space (ring 0). As mentioned by the article, high traffic drivers (requiring DMA) are not supported.
The reasoning for this seems to be due to unstable proprietary kernel drivers. IMO, the solution to solving this problem is driver signing and certification. Don't use a driver unless its been signed and certified.
I am surprised at the constant Vista bashing. I've been running Vista since its release, and have yet to experience the issues others mention here. I have a copy running on my desktop (AMD x2, Nvidia 8600, 4gb ram) and on my laptop (Compaq v2000).
The only problem I encountered was with the first video card I used(an Nvidia Quadro NVS with shared memory), and this was due to poor drivers (Nvidia did not release 64 bit drivers for this, so had to run the default MS ones).
Since upgrading my video card (the Quadro was a temp while I waited for DX10 cards to be released), I have had *zero* problems. I find Vista to be stable in many respects better than XP.
Some of the things I prefer with Vista over XP:
1. Better battery management on my laptop.
2. Better standby / resume.
3. The "live preview" window (when you mouse over minimized / hidden windows on the taskbar).
4. Better memory management (4gb memory with a 64 bit OS).
5. Playing a video over RDC with Vista actually plays it at regular viewable framerates vs the stuttery framerate on XP.
6. Improved UI (this is of course subjective).
I have 3 copies of XP and 2 copies if Vista (all legal). I wouldn't consider going back to XP. I'd say Vista is definately a step up from XP.
Is my experience an exception to the norm? Perhaps; but I'm more inclined to think that a lot of the Vista "issues / bashing" is due to MS hating and / or from Linux fanboys.
Theres already a site with a number of abandoned games.... http://www.abandonia.com/
They've already been trying to get more games onto their list... its a pity their April fools day game wasn't really abandoned (Curse of Monkey Island).
Slashdot Mirror
AT&T UVerse boxes run Windows CE. I was surprised to see this when I browsed to the details of the OS on my box.
It runs surprisingly really well. It's an IP Based tuning system (IPTV). Currently it supports 4 concurrent streams i.e. you can record 4 streams at once (mix / match watch vs. record). This is purely limited by bandwidth. With the previous UVerse profile (before they did a firmware update), it supported 3 concurrent streams. Once AT&T bumped their profile, the box automatically supported 4 profiles.
I've had no problems recording multiple HD streams.
The box also supports playing DLNA / UPnP music from a media server. I had hoped that at some point they would also support DLNA video streaming, but I suspect they don't due to it cannibalizing their VOD / pay features.
Combine the features they support on 360 with what they do via the UVerse boxes, they could come out with a kick ass media box.
Well, Windows 8 isn't even out out. It's not surprising that businesses are going to most likely migrate to Windows 7 first. From an administrative perspective, most admins already know how to deal with all the Windows 7 nuances.
Windows 8 is a bit of a black box right now, especially from an admin perspective. I suspect it'll probably be a couple of years before Windows 8 becomes more mainstream in corporate environments.
From a personal perspective... I plan on upgrading to 8 as soon as it's out. For $40 bucks (for a 7 - 8 upgrade), I don't see why not. As a developer, it's compelling to easily transition your desktop app to tablet (and vice versa).
At our offices, you'll see a lot of Macbook Air's, but they're almost all running Windows 7.
There's still a ton of Dell and other laptops, however, it seems that people like the look / coolness of the Apple gear, but need the productivity of Windows (at least that seems to be the case in our offices).
You can install apps on the playbook without requiring signing if you install a debug token on the device.
I have an iphone 3g (work phone). When I first got it (which whatever iteration of iOS was out at the time) it was great. However, with subsequent releases of the OS, it's just gotten slower and less usable. Sure, call quality is great, but it takes a couple seconds to make a call (clicking an icon takes about 2-3 seconds before it responds).
I just got my wife a Samsung Fascinate (galaxy S on Verizon). This phone is awesome! It runs circles around the iphone (at least the 3g that I have) in usability and customization. I would love to have this instead of my iphone (unfortunately the company where I work doesn't support Android yet for corporate use).
However, for corporate use, I think my next phone will most likely be the new Windows 7 mobile. It seems really well integrated into outlook, and has some great enterprise features. The ability to view powerpoint presentations from the phone is a great feature which will get used a lot ( believe you might also be able to present them via the hdmi out).
You can use a threadpool (and its the most appropriate way of handling it in many situations), however, you're still bound by the size of the pool. Hence your concurrency and throughput is limited by the size of the pools.
Our goal at the time was to handle as many connections as possible on a single box due to the cost of having to run a massive cluster (we were look at 500k plus PSU).
However, the article and the presentation the article links to point out that IO has better concurrency than NIO. NIO has a Blocking algorithm in it for concurrency and IO has none implemented for Concurrency. The presentation went on to explain what happened because years ago in Java 1.1 and 1.2 it was nasty having to write for concurrency on servers using IO so you'd switch to NIO and be happy. Things have changed because of OS kernel improvements IO is using Non-Blocking algorithms for concurrency without having to be rewritten from scratch. The benchmarks proved it and now NIO has no use if you're using a modern OS with Multicore CPU because IO has better concurrency and throughput then NIO.
IO is still "blocking" i.e. requires you to have a thread per connection to wait for incoming data (for your application). This essentially means that you're still limited by the box and the number of connections you can spawn (as well as the nature of the requests).
A couple years back when we tested this (around 3-4 years back I think), we could at most sustain 6k - 7k connections per box using standard IO (this was not HTTP / web traffic). The issues we ran into were spawing new native threads on the box (ran out of handles on linux) as well as running out of memory.
With NIO, we were able to sustain around 10k connections per box. Granted you could probably do a lot better now with the latest JVM and newer multi-core boxes.
Note, these were not pseudo tests... we tested actually "servicing requests" that the servers were designed for. The outcome of the testing may also vary based on what the servers are actually doing (how much memory each request is consuming etc).
I'm not sure where / when NIO got equated to lower latency. The primary benefits of NIO (from my understanding of having designed and deployed both IO and NIO based servers) is that NIO allows you to have better concurrency on a single box i.e. you can service many more calls / transactions on a single machine since you aren't limited by the number of threads you can spawn on that box (and you aren't limited as much by memory, since each thread consumes a fair number of resources on the box).
For the most part (and from my experimentation), NIO actually has slightly higher latency than standard IO (especially with heavy loaded boxes).
The question you need to ask yourself is... do you require higher concurrency and fewer boxes (cheaper to run / maintain) at the expense of slightly higher latency (which would work well for most web sites), or are your transactions latency sensitive / real-time, in which case using standard IO would work better (at the cost of requiring more hardware and support).
The biggest benefit to tabs (especially if you code in a corporate environment) is that people can view the code based on *their* preferred indentation / spacing e,.g. I may like my tabs to be 2 spaces, another developer may prefer 3 or 4 spaces.
By setting up their IDE / editor to their preferred tab width, the code indents to the way they like it.
By forcing all your tabs to be spaces, anyone else viewing the code will be forced to view / edit it in your indentation.
From you post, I gather that you have not run Vista. I am running it comfortably on my laptop (~1GB ram with AMD cpu) and my desktop (AMD X2 3800) with nary a problem.
The only stuff I turned off is the animated windows and window transparency (which I hate in general). Desktop composition and other "eye-candy" is still on (I actually find desktop composition to be useful, since I can mouse over stuff on my taskbar thats hidden by other windows and view whats going on in a realtime thumbnail window).
This is undoubtedly blasphemy on this Linux-centric site, but I actually like Vista, and find the little nuances a welcome change from XP.
Yes... it could end up being megabytes. There are ways you could reduce the footprint of the DB by storing only the hashes locally (or using compression).
For someone who's anal about their privacy, this may be a worthwhile tradeoff. I didn't say this was ideal... I said it was a potential resolution to the privacy issue.
Some people may be ok with sending their private data to Google. Others may not.
Wow... talk about double standards. Your argument is ludicrous at best. "If Google does it... its ok".
This is a privacy issue, plain and simple. There are other ways to solve this without having to send the URL to Google. Another approach would be to maintain a list of BAD URLS on the client. This is more expensive since it requires a potentially large list of bad URLS to be stored locally.
However, this is a viable option for those who want the URL protection without sacrificing their privacy.
Google isn't as saintly as you would think. I recommend you do some research on their handling of privacy issues with China and India.
This isn't an issue of monoculture or of the ubiquity of Windows. This is an issue of designing and building services to withstand various scenarios.
I design and build services that handle 200k - 300k PSU. One of the scenarios we design, build and test for is what we call the "pile-in" scenario i.e. there was some outage, and all these users pile back into the system.
Anyone designing and building large scale services needs to consider this. Whatever the reason for the outage (MS patch tuesday, ISP outage, server reboot etc), you have to be able to deal with this.
This may involve throttling connections to your system (ramping traffic back up) or other possible solutions.
Whatever your architecture may be (client / server, distributed nodes etc.), these are things you need to factor into your design and solution.
Seems to me they didn't clearly plan for these types of situations.
I've been running Vista x64 on my laptop and main desktop PC. I've had zero problems since installing it (save getting a sound driver for my laptop, which I eventually did. This is due to HP/Compaq not releasing 64 bit drivers).
I have no problems resuming from sleep and connecting back to my wireless network (from my laptop). This has worked every time.
My primary desktop machine has been chugging along without any problems. I play all the games I used to with XP, can still do software development (Eclipse, C++ compilers etc), run Open Office, web browse etc.
File sharing works (I share files between my desktop and 2 laptops). My work laptop which is running XP has no problems connecting to my desktop (which is running Vista x64) for files and for remote desktop.
I find it weird that the guy went from touting Vista and installing it on every machine in his home to loathing it and wanting to switch to Linux. Sounds like there's an ulterior motive for his article (whatever that may be).
If I did have problems with Vista, I would most likely "downgrade" to XP. I personally don't believe Linux is mature and ready for the desktop. I like the ability to play the games I like and do all my development on the same machine without having to reboot into a different OS, or do certain things through a virtual machine (VMWare etc).
I love Linux for server based software, I have it running on my second desktop machine for testing out my server software. I had tried installing Ubuntu on it to run it as a desktop machine, but had numerous problems. I don't have the time and / or energy to muck about trying to get it to work, so I switched it to a server installation.
I couldn't imagine using Windows for running server software (DB, http server etc), and I couldn't imagine running Linux for my desktop machine.
I know that there's a lot of people don't have issues with this, but that is just my personal preference.
I'm not surprised your post is modded up... this is after all slashdot. Maybe you should try reading more carefully... I said it "worked flawlessly", meaning I haven't run into any issues; which is surprising considering that it's the initial release without any service pack yet.
This isn't the same as a flawless operating system. I don't believe there is one, and I'm skeptical that there will be one anytime in the near future.
Vista (or any other MS OS) is no more flawless than Linux or OSX. Each have their share of problems and each have their benefits.
I'm guessing you're either a linux or mac fan. I have 2 copies of Vista running, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. Both work flawlessly. I have not experienced any problems with IE. I've used both the 64 bit and 32 bit versions of IE without any problem. The only issue I've run into is that there isn't a 64 bit version of Flash, so I'm forced to use the 32 bit version of IE until Adobe release an update. This isn't really a Vista issue.
Can you back up your claim with specific numbers and details of problems, or are you just spouting FUD?
Depending on how you're written your IDE code, it should work on most SATA controllers + drive, since most SATA controllers also operate in compatability mode.
I recently tested my IDE driver on a SATA controller + drive and it worked without a problem.
There are numerous benefits to this... sure you could take the money and buy food and / or build a better school, however I don't believe this is the same thing.
You don't need access to the internet to be able to stimulate interest and growth. Having grown up in South Africa where internet was (and still is) very limited, my first computer had NO internet access (thereafter BBS's came along).
I had learned to program my first machine (a ZX Spectrum 48k) using Basic, and then machine code.
I'm sure there are numerous kids with the interest and aptitude to become successful if given the opportunity and the tools. Even if just 2% of these kids end up becoming interested in engineering and / or other disciplines, its a stepping stone for the country as a whole, as their kids will follow in their footsteps.
Just because *you* could not learn anything from your computer without it being connected to the internet, doesn't mean others can't.
FYI... these PCS come preloaded with software that allow programming out the box
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_components
When did porn become a bad word? Society's today seem to be fixated on how sex is bad for you.
I don't see how having access to porn should deter these users from eventually using it for learning. Its pretty much the same as when we first got access to computers and the internet (or in my day, bulletin boards). The first thing you do is look for porn, and once you've exhausted yourself, start learning to use the computer for other stuff.
As for illegal activity... the users who would normally gravitate towards this will do so whether they have access to these PCs or not.
If the driver in question is one that is critical to the running of the system (video, HD, KB etc), then its possible the user will not be able to interact with the system, thus requiring a reboot.
There is an inherent difference between a driver and an application. For the most part, most applications are not required for the running of the system.
I wonder if this compromise is worth it. I'd much rather have stable kernel drivers than unstable userspace drivers.
If a driver is buggy and in userspace, its possible that the system could recover from the error, however you could still end up in some unstable state that would potentially end up requiring a reboot (depending on the driver in question).
Also, there is a higher cost of running a driver in userspace (ring 3) than kernel space (ring 0). As mentioned by the article, high traffic drivers (requiring DMA) are not supported.
The reasoning for this seems to be due to unstable proprietary kernel drivers. IMO, the solution to solving this problem is driver signing and certification. Don't use a driver unless its been signed and certified.
I am surprised at the constant Vista bashing. I've been running Vista since its release, and have yet to experience the issues others mention here. I have a copy running on my desktop (AMD x2, Nvidia 8600, 4gb ram) and on my laptop (Compaq v2000). The only problem I encountered was with the first video card I used(an Nvidia Quadro NVS with shared memory), and this was due to poor drivers (Nvidia did not release 64 bit drivers for this, so had to run the default MS ones). Since upgrading my video card (the Quadro was a temp while I waited for DX10 cards to be released), I have had *zero* problems. I find Vista to be stable in many respects better than XP. Some of the things I prefer with Vista over XP: 1. Better battery management on my laptop. 2. Better standby / resume. 3. The "live preview" window (when you mouse over minimized / hidden windows on the taskbar). 4. Better memory management (4gb memory with a 64 bit OS). 5. Playing a video over RDC with Vista actually plays it at regular viewable framerates vs the stuttery framerate on XP. 6. Improved UI (this is of course subjective). I have 3 copies of XP and 2 copies if Vista (all legal). I wouldn't consider going back to XP. I'd say Vista is definately a step up from XP. Is my experience an exception to the norm? Perhaps; but I'm more inclined to think that a lot of the Vista "issues / bashing" is due to MS hating and / or from Linux fanboys.
Theres already a site with a number of abandoned games.... http://www.abandonia.com/ They've already been trying to get more games onto their list... its a pity their April fools day game wasn't really abandoned (Curse of Monkey Island).