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Agree, symlinks are cool.
But the problem is - i still won't use them because of XP,2K backward compatibility ...

Same here. All the 'new' stuff in Vista is in either Linux (Beryl/Compiz) or MacOS X. I'm not baching Vista, I'm glad that it's finally here, but I personally am not going to get it.

I'm waiting for KDE4. Other than that, XP will do be fine for the next..... 4 years at least.

According to a computer magazine I read: at least up to 2009. Hurray for my wallet.

Why hurray? Vista won't be any cheaper in 2009. There probably won't be the next consumer version of Windows in 2009 - so you won't be able to skip a version.

The best you can hope for is that by 2009 you will want to throw out your computer and get a new one (with Vista preinstalled). It will probably be the same price as today's computer, but better value.

I'm not looking forward to Vista because I'm planning on buying it for personal use. I'm looking forward to it because it will finally offer a number of features that I have come to expect in other operating systems. So, when I have to use Vista at work or to support someone else, it should be a more pleasant experience. I really do think that Vista brings a lot to the table. And, after Microsoft gets SP1 out the door it should be a nice upgrade from XP.

I think the best feature of Vista is that many applications and drivers written for NT/2000/XP/2003 will no longer work. Backwards compatibility stifles innovation and competition while costing users more money in the long run. From a 10,000-foot perspective, it is cheaper to port applications or write cross-platform applications than to hope that your binaries continue to run on new systems. In IT you usually have a choice between paying a lot now or paying way more later.

"It was wise to not put a category for "None" because it would probably get enough votes to distort the results. "

How would that distort the results? To me it seems that lack of such options in fact create a distorted view of it all.....

Are you saying Windows pwns Ubuntu now? Otherwise how else is it a feature in Vista?

Not interesting from a user's perspective, but interesting from a developer's perspective.

This does make programming for Windows much more attractaive.

True, it also should make development alot quicker and better still, the application more 'future proof' in regards to running applications on future Windows operating system.

Its just appauling, however, that Microsoft hasn't pushed the fact to ISV's that if they port their applications to .NET *NOW* it will future proof their applications, possibly, for the next 5-10 years; and that they would no longer have to worry about the win32 ugly bits which cause problems during development.

I did't follow .NET much, I just wonder how good is .NET for Vista, compared to Cocoa for OSX?

Speaking of .NET, can anyone tell me how much of .NET you can use from IronPython? .NET has intrigued me for quite a while, but I'm in love with Python. If I could write full Windows apps with System.Windows.Forms or Avalon in Python, methinks I would be in Windows developer heaven.

Speaking of .NET, can anyone tell me how much of .NET you can use from IronPython?

All of it, I guess, but could be a bit slower than native Python (don't take my word though).

I've heard and seen that IronPython is actually faster than CPython. It doesnt have all the libraries from python though, opting for .net

Correct me if I'm wrong but... .Net was bundled already in XP, wasn't it?

Don't think so. At least, I remember having to download certain .net stuff when installing other applications that made use of it.

Edited 2007-01-30 08:55

I think .NET 1.0 was bundled with SP1 or 2?

Mmm... yeah, maybe that's what I was thinking about.

No. It was not. The .NET Redistributable was first included in Windows 2003 Server versions

1# .NET is not bundled with Vista, it is the primary framework - the old Win32 API's is in legacy mode. You're actually running your old legacy applications in a Connectix Virtul Machine.

Amen to that.

My favorite would have to be the overall experience Vista presents. Compared to the one XP presented, this one is phenomenal.

It allows someone like say my grandmother to find all her data without her having to call me to walk her through it. She just types it in and bam it's there.

It isn't that the search is global, but it's that it's everywhere. In Control Panel, Start Menu, Folders, etc..

It becomes really useful after a while.

Another part that's not directly tied to Vista that I'm interested from a developer's prospective is Power Shell.

PowerShell can and does run in XP. I would know. They do need to give it a GUI more resembling gnome-terminal or konsole though

Eeh... that already happens with Win2K Pro, WinXP and Win2K3 Server if you are running as a Restricted User (in XP: Limited User).

People just run as Administrator as standard in XP, but the functionality in UAC is already existing to some extent.

Eeh... that already happens with Win2K Pro, WinXP and Win2K3 Server if you are running as a Restricted User (in XP: Limited User).

Most of the time it doesn't - if you're logged is a non-admin and you try to access something that requires admin access, you get "Permission Denied" or "You do not have sufficient privileges to view or modify this control." E.g., login as a normal user in XP or 2k and try to make changes to your network settings.

I can only remember two particular times when XP/2k would automagically give you a "Enter your credentials to perform this action"-esque dialogue: when you try to run *some* of the control panel applets as non-Admin (but not most of them IIRC), or if you start a new software installation. Although, the latter seems to be pretty braindead - I believe it just pops up a "Hey, wanna run as another user?" box whenever a setup.exe or install.exe file is launched.

I would add to that Windows update doesn't work at all when non admin. so if you never log as an admin you don't know that you are missing updates.

[i]I can only remember two particular times when XP/2k would automagically give you a "Enter your credentials to perform this action"-esque dialogue</ i>

So that proves that it can be done on XP, they just won't do it. Just like DirectX 10.

Agreed!

> The Shut Down button.
I'd like to have the Shut Up button

Does this new version of Windows still feature "deltree c:/windows" functionality? That was always a killer feature for me in the past.

Especially when Radio Shack used to sell PCs. You'd walk in there and do something like format c: or fdisk and walk away knowing that the morons in there would be stumped as to why they couldn't get it to boot.

The good old days.

You know that for about $500,- you can have a new Mac running OS X, don't you?

Eh? Tell me where that shop is, the cheapest Mac I could find would be the Mac mini, *starting* at $599. I'd get 1GB of Ram with that too, so that makes $674.00. And if you want the 1,83Ghz Core due with superdrive (DVD writer instead of DVDRom/RW) with 1GB of ram, it's $874.00.

Which isn't bad, but not quite $500.

If I was Apple, I'd drop the price of a Mac Mini to the exact price of Windows Vista Ultimate, if only to taunt Steve Ballmer. Oops, that's my evil side coming out again

Edited 2007-01-30 08:27

Really! Now that's an idea....a $399 mini just to spit in the face of MS. Not sure Apple would profit from that, but, hey....they can consider it their money-losing console equivalent.

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money....

I would say, however, that at this precent time, $399 can net you a decent PPC mac, or maybe a used, and stripped, core-solo macintel from ebay.

More realistically, they would have to price it at the upgrade version to sound credible - that's $259. Heading into very serious and (to Apple) damaging "low build quality" territory there.

At $399 it could still be a nice gimmick (although still at a rather low build quality, probably)

yes, isn't it amazing? it looks like half the new features from vista are mostly about limiting the users...

'you can't run unsigned drivers'
'yeah, we can degrade the quality of videoplayback!'
'drm throughout the system, isn't it great?'
'better ways to check if you have legitimate software'

damn, Microsoft is making it easier and easier to get ppl to use FOSS, which DOES respect it's users... so yes, it's my favorite too...

Absolutely. I generalized this into a vote for DirectX 10.

XP was good, but Vista will blow that out of the water for HTPC use. Linux is a very distant fourth (dunno what is third, but Linux really sucks for home theater use). Sorry Linux fanboys, but other than DRM, Microsoft is giving us HTPC users something no one else has.

What exactly are you talking about? DRC? Linux has that and has had it longer than MS. If you could be more specific as to what MS has that Linux doesn't maybe we could agree but I doubt it. Linux is excellent for HTPC. There are some issues (mostly driver related) but overall Linux makes a great HTPC platform and even has features that MS doesn't have.

Read the link I posted.

Read the link I posted.

I did. What specifically does Linux not have? I ask this because the article is about signal processing which Linux is perfectly capable of and there are actually a lot of tools and plugins out there for Linux.

http://www.ladspa.org/
http://linux-sound.org/dsp.html

Vista blows Linux out of the water for HTPC use? You've got to be kidding.... did you know that most versions of Windows Vista won't even support DVD playback? I tried to play a DVD on my Vista Enterprise box and it took me to a web page to either purchase Vista Ultimate or pay $50 for third party DVD playback software.

Yes, Windows XP/Vista doesn't have an MPEG2 codec installed, but neither do most Linux's.

If you truly understood the benefits of Windows and HTPC use (VMR9, Zoomplayer or Theatertek, AC3 filter, etc) you would know what I mean.

I think it's the de-scrambling code, not the MPEG2 codec. I'm not sure, though.

Vista Home Basic, Business and Enterprise lack DVD playback.

Home Premium and Ultimate have it.

I suspect most OEMs selling Home Basic, and some selling Business, will bundle in DVD playback.

Here is what i want in my OS, obviously it is a mix of what i like in each OS:

I was with you up to #3... then things started to fall apart a bit.

Some of the items on your list seem to conflict with #1... unless you just count them as "modules" and at that point, they're not part of the OS per-se.

I read what i wrote again and to me it seems consistent.

Also with smaller footprint, i was thinking of RAM not hard disk space. I hope you were also thinking of RAM and not hard disk space because really hard disks are way cheaper.

On your Not OS per-se comment, OS to me is a complete set of services to use a computer including applications like Word, IE etc and not just the kernel. Is it different for you?

Edited 2007-01-30 02:57

#1 - try any Open Source system out there. They are all modular.
#2 - go there http://tldp.org/ - better than msdn.
#3 - install AIGLX/XGL with KDE (you should be able to do that with Gnome and XFCE as well) and tune it to look like OSX or Aero and you have what you want.
#4 - Try ls /proc under linux.
#5 - Try GoboLinux

#6 - Try GConf.
#7 - Just use apps that have command line access.

Sounds like with the exception of the footprint OSX pretty much fits your description.

As far as the applications being fully contained in 1 folder, well, that is the case with most programs in osx but not all, but it's easy to find the other components if necessary. They are not scattered all over the system.

Humm... Could that be a good topic for a new poll?