Paul Thurrott takes a long look at Vista. "It's hard to put Windows Vista in perspective. On the one hand, the product has been in development for over five years, which means that Vista had one of the longest development cycles in the 20+ year history of Windows. Paradoxically, Windows Vista is both revolutionary and evolutionary. While it includes modern OS features, such as a new hardware-based graphical user interface, Vista will also feel like familiar territory, for the most part, to anyone that's already familiar with Windows XP. And Mac advocates can claim, truthfully, that many of Vista's best features appeared first on Mac OS X, sometimes years ago."
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2005-07-06
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Just a minor correction. Every Windows since NT4 SP X have had "Instant Desktop Search". It's just turned off by default and is everything but user friendly.
But you _can_ use the Indexing Service to get instant results. You just have to enter parameterized queries in the free search textbox in Windows standard Search. And off we go, though it's somewhat rough.
I don't know why they aren't utilizing it much more, bur perhaps bad management is the key?
About Windows N versions, Paul Thurrott doesn't know what he's talking about. Calling them unpopular is wrong, since nobody except a few geeks know about the existence. And ordinary users don't care about the mostly ideological issues for geeks wanting the possibility to uninstall WMP and related services. Nor do they care about companies wanting to get rid of WMP on their servers.
Apart from that Thurrott should stay away from politics in a review of Vista. Offensive terms like "Created to satisfy power-hungry antitrust regulators in the EU" just makes him look like a cheap street whore. If I should ever decide to buy Vista, it would be Vista Business N.
He is right about a few things like the "watering down the uniqueness of the Vista platform" due to the backports to XP and Win2K3 (and hooray for those backports). And of course the fact that "many of Windows Vista's best features have been jettisoned". I actually liked the old Side Bar with integrated task bar and systray over the newer heavily crippled Side Bar.
A replacement of the aged start bar|quick panel|taskbar|systray thingy would have been great.
EDITED: Fixed a typo in Thurrott's surname, and a few other typos.
Edited 2006-11-09 21:36
Member since:2006-06-01
Offensive terms like "Created to satisfy power-hungry antitrust regulators in the EU" just makes him look like a cheap street whore.
I think he was accurate. Fining Microsoft because they bundled a media player with Windows for 10 years or more is evidence of bias in the EU anti-competitiion commision.
Calling someone "cheap street whore" means you are doing the usual venom spewing thing typical of cultists who disagree with anyone who doesn't hate Microsoft.
Member since:2006-04-04
accusing someone of 'venom spewing' and being a 'cultist' is typical of anyone who blindly loves microsoft and hates freedom and little puppies. Wow, isn't accusing a person of a shortcoming whilst exhibiting that same shortcoming fun?
Anyway, I've read your posts here and there, so I won't bother arguing with you over how the EU (and the US for that matter) had every right to label MS' business practices as monopolistic.
Edited 2006-11-09 22:11
Member since:2005-10-02
*LOL*
I just like the way NotParker always pick the parts where I critisize something or someone more or less related to Microsoft, while he leaves out the praise I give Microsoft in areas where they deserve it.
It appears to be more important for NotParker to harass me than it is for him to remind people that Microsoft was years ahead of FLOSS and Apple in regard to Desktop Search technologies.
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Now please tell me how could you be so offensive to street whores:
"Just makes him look like a cheap street whore."
Please for the sake of god do not equate street whores with mr.Parrot. They (whores) do, after all, have some integrity. And we all know who has none. It is them ... Europians. They constantly whine about WMP, network protocols used by windows, other software vendors etc. How dare they make MS play in a leveled field???
Sorry guys couldn't resist ;-)
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Though I use and respect Mac OS X, virtually every version Apple has shipped since 2001 has been a minor update, akin to a Windows 98 SE or Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Meanwhile, Microsoft has pushed an amazing variety of Windows versions out the door since 2001. Some highlights include Windows XP Embedded, Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), Windows XP MCE 2004, Windows XP MCE 2005, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (TPC), Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
I'm curious, how much different are all the different versions of XP he's listing? I mean, I'm fairly sure Embedded and 64bit are rather different from regular XP, but does anyone know how much changed between XP MCE, XP MCE 2004 and XP MCE 2005, for example? I guess I always assumed not that much.
All in all, this article seems to be a well-written exhaustive rundown of Windows Vista's history and comparison of differences between the versions (or seems like it will be once he publishes the rest of it).
EDIT: Punctuation
Edited 2006-11-09 21:38
Member since:2006-10-28
Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), Windows XP MCE 2004, Windows XP MCE 2005, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (TPC) and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 are almost identical. The only difference in Media Center is the skin and Media Cneter (duh) and all the tablet PC versions have a tablet handwriting feature and a useless utility called "Journal". Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is identical to XP Pro except for being 64 bit and embedded is just a heavily stripped down version.
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Maybe because of :
"Linux has been running on 64 bits since the summer of 1994, when Linus Torvalds ported Linux to the Alpha chip."
nix users are not impressed with ms catching up. As per Paul's own admition of the fact that "Vista's best features appeared first on Mac OS X, sometime years ago" may I recommend a new marketing catch phrase:
"the most caught up OS ... puff puff ... will you other guys please slow down .... "
Member since:2005-06-29
You do know that NT also has been running on ALPHA for a long time, right? In fact, even earlier than Linux-- NT 3.1 was released in 1993. NT also runs on SPARC, MIPS, Clipper, and probably some more I'm forgetting at the moment.
Forget the myth. NT is just as portable as Linux. It's just that there is no financial interest into running NT on uncommon platforms. However, I am sure that if a big customer wants a SPARC build of Windows Server 2003, they'd get it.
Member since:2006-06-22
Out of all people that post on this forum I would expect that OSN staff is a bit more informed on the subject. As it is obvious from your reply, CLEARLY I am wrong.
Please provide detailed information (a link will do) on: when (if ever) has NT 3.1 operate in 64 bit (not to be confused with operated ON a 64 bit processor)!!! I'll gladly provide you with detailed info that Linux has worked as a 64 bit operating system if you need them.
Here is an article from our friend le Parrot:
"Microsoft pledged today to deliver a 64-bit version of Windows NT on the Digital Alpha CPU. The product is due in beta by the end of the year. The Alpha version of NT 5.0 will support 64-bit Very Large Memory (VLM), which allows more information to be processed simultaneously, speeds access to information in the system's RAM, and is especially useful for any database and high transaction volume work."
Date :
March 14, 1997
NOTE: NT 5.0
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"Windows NT 3.1 was released for Intel x86 PC compatible, DEC Alpha, and ARC-compliant MIPS platforms. Windows NT 3.51 added support for the PowerPC processor in 1995, specifically PReP-compliant systems such as the IBM Power Series desktops/laptops and Motorola PowerStack series."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
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WTF are you people talking about there was no 64 bit Windows NT (server or workstation). Quit smoking whatever you are smoking.
People get a grip we are talking about 64 bit OS not about 32 bit OS that can run on a 64 bit CPU. Please tell me that you can tell the difference. First crack at a 64 bit OS for MS was with w2k. Windows WAS and still IS an OS for low end computers (PC-s).
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//NT is just as portable as Linux.//
Not correct.
Linux has been ported to more architectures than any other OS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
"Linux has been more widely ported to different computing platforms than any other operating system. It is used in devices ranging from supercomputers to mobile phones, and is gaining popularity in the personal computer market."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_%28kernel%29#Portability
"Linux supports the following machine architectures:
* Argonaut RISC Core (ARC) from ARC International
* ARM architecture:
o Acorn Archimedes and Risc PC series
o DEC StrongARM
o Marvel (formerly Intel) XScale
o Sharp Zaurus
o iPAQ
o Palm, Inc.'s Tungsten Handheld[14]
o Gamepark Holdings' GP2X
o Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
o gumstix
* Atmel AVR32
* Axis Communications' ETRAX CRIS
* Fujitsu FR-V
* Alpha architecture:
o DEC Alpha
o Samsung Alpha CPU.
* Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC family
* H8 architecture from Renesas Technology, formerly Hitachi.
o H8/300
o H8/500
* Intel IA-64 Itanium, Itanium II.
* IBM's S/390 (31-bit)
* IBM's zSeries and System z9 mainframes (64-bit)
* x86 architecture:
o 8086, 8088, 80186, 80188 and 80286 CPUs is under development[15]
o Intel 80386, 80486, and their AMD, Cyrix, Texas Instruments and IBM variants
o The entire Pentium series
o AMD 5x86, K5, K6, Athlon (all 32-bit versions), Duron, Sempron
o x86-64: AMD's 64-bit processor architecture now known as AMD64 or EM64T (Intel); supported by the Athlon 64, Opteron and Intel Core 2 processors, among others
o Cyrix 5x86, 6x86 (M1), 6x86MX and MediaGX (National/AMD Geode) series
o VIA Technologies Eden (Samuel II), VIA C3, and VIA C7 processors
o Microsoft's Xbox (Pentium III processor), through the Xbox Linux project
o SGI Visual Workstation (Pentium II/III processor(s) with SGI chipset)
o Sun Microsystem x86 Workstation (80386 and 80486).
* M32R from Mitsubishi.
* MIPS architecture:
o Jazz
o Cobalt Qube, Cobalt RaQ
o DECstation
o Godson (MIPS-like), Godson II, and Godson IIE from BLX IC Design Ltd (China).
o Some PlayStation 2 models, through the PS2 Linux project
* Freescale (formerly Motorola) 68K architecture (68020, 68030, 68040, 68060):
o Some Amigas: A1200, A2500, A3000, A4000
o Apple Macintosh II, LC, Quadra, Centris and early Performa series
o Sun Microsystems 3-series workstations (experimental, uses Sun-3 MMU) [citation needed]
* NEC v850e[citation needed]
* Power Architecture:
o IBM Servers.
* PowerPC architecture:
o IBM's CELL
o Most newer Apple Computers (all PCI-based Power Macintoshes, limited support for the older NuBus Power Macs)
o Clones of the PCI Power Mac marketed by Power Computing, UMAX and Motorola
o Amigas upgraded with a "Power-UP" card (such as the Blizzard or CyberStorm)
o AmigaOne motherboard from Eyetech Group Ltd (UK)
o Samantha from Soft3 (Italy).
o Amy'05 PowerPC motherboard from Troika.
o IBM RS/6000, iSeries and pSeries systems
o Pegasos I and II boards from Genesi.
o Nintendo GameCube, through Gamecube Linux
o Project BlackDog from Realm Systems, Inc.
o Sony Playstation 3 (PS3).
o V-Dragon CPU from Culturecom.
o Virtex II Pro Field Programmable Array (FPGA) from Xilinx with PowerPC cores.
* SPARC:
o Sun-4 series[citation needed]
o SPARCstation/SPARCserver[citation needed]
o Sun Ultra series
o Sun Blade
o Sun Fire
o Clones made by the Tatung Company and others[citation needed]
* SuperH"
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Not correct.
Linux has been ported to more architectures than any other OS.
Whether something is portable or not has nothing to do with to how many platforms it is actually ported; Linux is ported to more paltforms not because it is nescesrally more portable, but just because you don't have to have a company's approval to do so.
NT is a hybrid kernel, and therefore it is probably even *more* portable than the monolithic architecture of Linux.
Member since:2006-08-09
NT is a hybrid kernel, and therefore it is probably even *more* portable than the monolithic architecture of Linux.
Too bad that "hybrid kernel" is a rather meaningless term, coined by marketeers who think "monolithic" sounds less cool. Please let's refrain from kernel talk if we don't know what a kernel really is.
Member since:2005-11-14
Whether something is portable or not has nothing to do with to how many platforms it is actually ported
But when it's actively ported to lots of platform and works on them in the latest version available, we know it's portable.
When it's not actively ported like that, we sure enough can't assert it's portable, and can't disprove people that say it isn't portable.
It's even worse when the company puts out another product for other platforms.
Linux is ported to more paltforms not because it is nescesrally more portable, but just because you don't have to have a company's approval to do so
But Linux works on more platforms because it is more portable.
Saying MS has no incentive to make NT for more platforms is wrong as they made WinCE for some architectures, not WinNT : why ?
NT is a hybrid kernel, and therefore it is probably even *more* portable than the monolithic architecture of Linux
Which is BS as Linux has loadable modules and limited message passing capabilities heavily used, so is hybrid too.
Anyway, that Windows NT is probably more portable doesn't change the fact that it is not ported on as many architectures, not as efficient as Linux on any of the architecture it runs, supported 64 bits after Linux, does not scale as well on SMP/SMT.
Given only that, I understand all you can do is brag on the probability of WinNT being more portable than Linux : there are not so many unprovable things left to brag about.
Member since:2005-11-11
//NT is a hybrid kernel, and therefore it is probably even *more* portable than the monolithic architecture of Linux.//
Whether something is portable or not has almost nothing to do with being a hybrid or monolithic kernel, and more to do with (1) there being a cross-compiler, and (2) how much of the code you have to change to suit the new target architecture.
Those two things are immeasurably more important criteria in code portability.
//Whether something is portable or not has nothing to do with to how many platforms it is actually ported//
Are you sure about that?
Why isn't the code that is seldom ported ported as often as the other?
I know what you are driving at, but "nothing to do with it" is far too strong a claim here.
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//Actually, NetBSd runs on mor Architectures then Linux, but it is close//
I don't know about architectures, but Linux runs on way more different machines ... including something like 75% of the top 500 supercomputers (this is relevant because most supercomputers are "one-of" designs, or exist in only very low numbers of machines).
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You do know that NT also has been running on ALPHA for a long time, right? In fact, even earlier than Linux-- NT 3.1 was released in 1993. NT also runs on SPARC, MIPS, Clipper, and probably some more I'm forgetting at the moment
The difference being, as always, that when done in Linux, it's done right, not on Windows. Which is showed by the fact that the NT you talk about on Sparc, was 32 bit only, while it was 64 bit with Linux.
Forget the myth. NT is just as portable as Linux
Surely not. Thinking that an OS that have pain coming to a stable result on 32 bit Sparc is as portable as another that come as featureful on 64 bit Sparc is strange at best. Claiming that NT is as portable as Linux is even more bizarre, especially when it was never 64 bits, and doesn't work on embedded (like Linux) systems.
It's just that there is no financial interest into running NT on uncommon platforms. However, I am sure that if a big customer wants a SPARC build of Windows Server 2003, they'd get it
And if we want Windows NT on a phone ? You know Linux does this, do you ?
AFAIK you have to change to WinCE for embedded. So much for the so portable Windows NT ...
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It is true, you can get 64 bit linux. When installing Etch on my new machine, amd64, I did. But I regret it. You have all kinds of problems with libraries, and the other day I really wanted to see the flash tutorials on the dabodev site: well, no flash. I also had problems with Mandriva 2006 64bit on another machine, and ended up putting in 32bit regardless. Problem is not all the apps you want are fully compatible. Its ok if all you want to do is Office and stuff (though Office behaves a bit strangely too - Base and Forms are either unstable or one or two features simply don't work).
Just one person's experience, but I feel its not quite ready for prime time. Been a while, too.
Member since:2006-03-12
Flash is a known problem with 64bit linux. And flash is a known problem in linux generally. Its source is not really available, I know there is lots of information around from the person responsible for porting it.
Personally I would check out the archives at Gnash.http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ lots of work going on.
Your post indicates you have overexagerated your problems.
The reality is regardless of platform, the 64-bit transition will be tricky as they still sell 32bit CPU's today.
Member since:2006-02-15
I just thought to mention, althout this is off-topic, that as far as I know, you can use Crossover Office under 64-bit Linux, install Windows version of Flash player in it, and then enjoy flash content in your browser of choice. Also, the 64-bit version of Flash 9 for Linux is supposed to arrive some time next year. Gnash is a good try, but I haven't gotten it working at all yet. We'll see how long it takes for it to actually start working.
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> "[...] many of Vista's best features appeared first on Mac OS X, sometimes years ago."
You mean those features that appeared 10 years ago in BeOS, AmigaOS, and others ?
I despise software patents, still I wish Be, Inc. would have patented those things long ago, they would still be in business and would get millions of royalties from MS and Apple.
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This is only the first (and second) part of an eight part review. The first part is only intended as an introduction the the following seven parts. So, it isn't much of a review. There is a link to the second part at the bottom of the page. I guess that the other six parts haven't been completed yet. For those expecting a complete review (like me), we'll have to practice some patience.
Re: the first part. I was quite surprised by his implications/claims that Microsoft was the only OS supplier that did anything truly significant over the past few years. I was more surprised by some of the things he claimed to be significant. It was even more difficult to believe after seeing the comparisons he was making whether directly or indirectly.
Re: the second part. I have not seen any decent table of features comparing the different versions prior to this. Granted, I haven't really looked, but it is much easier to see what differences exist between versions with this kind of format as opposed to a rant about how terribly inadequate Vista Basic will be.
In short, much of the "introduction" was quite unrealistic about Windows in comparison to alternative systems, and the second part was nicely informative about Vista's different offerings. If I didn't know any better I'd say that Thurrott lived in a Microsoft box seeing the world through Microsoft-colored glasses.
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2006-06-03
I love the spin they've put on what is essentially a 3 year development overrun. Trying to make it sound like a vintage 
.
But really, Microsoft have been playing catchup. A MS Exec admitted that they only announced Longhorn becuase Apple had released Tiger. No-one in Microsoft really expected Longhorn/Vista to come out before now, they just had to string the Businesses along for long enough for them to build something that could rival the main features of Tiger.
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Ok so they release Vista, big deal. We all have to upgrade to it at some point as MS is the defacto standard. Everyone uses it because everyone uses it.
Is MS changing their development cycles to stop this from happening again? Or are they going to just repeat this and make a Vista Longhorn 2 that will also never fully be released.
No matter how you slice it, Vista had some very major cutbacks from what they were promising. Maybe they should to have done what Apple has done and just slowly release features in a new version every year. Mr Thurott has put Apple in a bad light for only releasing minor upgrades to their OS instead of delivering a revolution like Vista was SUPPOSED to be. Instead we get an upgrade equal to 2-3 years of updates instead of a revolution.
Personally I think that MS was overreaching with their aspirations. They need to release minor updates all the time rather then one huge updates, like the frog in water, it's better to slowly heat the frog rather then throw it in boiling water.
For many people, vista may just be too much of a change I mean why not jump to another (linux/mac) platform if moving to vista will be such a large change?
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//Personally I think that MS was overreaching with their aspirations. They need to release minor updates all the time rather then one huge updates, like the frog in water, it's better to slowly heat the frog rather then throw it in boiling water. //
MS does release minor updates. They are called service packs. MS does not charge for service packs.
MS cannot "release minor updates all the time" because then MS cannot charge you for buying Windows again. If MS holds off for a period, then releases "one huge update" amidst a lot of hype and gives it a new name ... then MS can charge everybody all over again for the software.
Member since:2006-11-07
your service pack analogy is old, tired and fallacious. until xp sp2 microsoft hasn't ever released a service pack that added any new, exciting or must have features to windows, under the hood or otherwise.
oh unless you can call windows 3.1 a service pack to windows 3.0. of course you had to buy that one too...
Edited 2006-11-13 07:05
Member since:2006-01-12
Mr Thurott has put Apple in a bad light for only releasing minor upgrades to their OS instead of delivering a revolution like Vista was SUPPOSED to be. Instead we get an upgrade equal to 2-3 years of updates instead of a revolution.
I wouldn't characterize Apple's OS X upgrades as minor upgrades. They usually include major underlying changes, such as new API, changes to the kernel, new window system, new currency model, new objective-c language features etc. Many earlier versions will also break application compatibility.
See this article to get an idea about the kind of changes you would see in Thurott's "minor upgrade": http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/
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I remember reading here that NT ran on PowerPC, MIPS, Alpha, and x86 in released versions.
Apparently the i860 and SPARC versions never were released.
I saw a 64-bit version of Windows 2000 advanced server running 64-bit sql server at pc expo at the javits center in 1999. It never got released either.
I think Win2K was the first 64 bit windows based on what I saw.
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here is a bit of history on the subject
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/23/compaq_alpha_cuts_pull_rug/
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Check yourself if you don't believe me. Literally, and seriously, the summary:
"Ummm.", "Yer olde pops here!", "Here is a picture of my childern", followed by a soup of about a thousand permutations of words "Vista, Windows, XP, Longhorn, long wait, totally worth it"
Was the author drunk while writing the article?
