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Nothing inspires confidence quite so much like patching it on it's way out the door after five years in the making.

Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?

Come on, if you want to bash MS, please do so where it really matters (DRM or something), not with this where they are actually doing a good thing (updating the OS after bugs which have been found during the business availability).

Edited 2007-01-30 21:58

How you can manage to fool yourself into believing that's the hallmark of quality software is beyond me.

How you can manage to fool yourself into believing that's the hallmark of quality software is beyond me.

Where did he ever say that he believs that "that's the hallmark of quality software"?!? Projection, maybe?

"Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?"

Which other operating system has been worked on continuously for 5 years by a company worth $300B recently? that's right none - that makes your little comparison completely useless.

If I was a Microsoft executive I would be very embarrassed about this.

Seriously, just shut up.

I am so sick and tired of people like you.

OSX was worked on for over 5 years and when it came out it was still complete crap until 10.1, and that was just mostly crap, then right around 10.3 it was decent.

First, people complain that Microsoft takes to long to release patches, now they release them before you can get your hands on the goods, and you are saying shame? Shut up.

Apple have smaller manpower, a smaller budget, and a smaller market. If you are the market leader your are obliged to continuously improve or at least maintain a reputation as to why you are the market leader. If you fail to do so, you lose marketshare, and perhaps the market leader position as well.

True, OSX was crap when it first came out, there's no doubt there.

However when patches are released for Vista the day it is released, it doesn't help Vista's or Microsoft's reputation much (except perhaps the speed of releasing patches).

It only hurt reputation in the eyes of fanboys.

No matter how hard you try you are always going to have bugs in your final code. Adding more people to the mix most certainly won't help it (personally, I believe the Windows dev team is too large).
Same with throwing money at it, money does not automagically make bugs disappear.

thats right, money doesent automagically make bugs go away, but managed correctly, it very much does so.

this only goes to show, that either microsoft does not care about bugs as much as they should or they mismanage their enormous pile of money

It only hurt reputation in the eyes of fanboys.

Actually, no. That's the kind of news that a critical press can latch on to portray MS in a bad light - and in case you haven't wondered, the mainstream press doesn't seem too keen to wax dithyrambic about Vista. In fact, most coverage I have seen focuses on the long time it took to make the new OS, and asks whether or not it was worth it - hardly a positive approach!

So, yeah, this is a little bit of egg on MS' face, no matter how the Vista enthusiasts try to spin it (and spin they do, at a rate that would put modern hard drives to shame...)

Actually, no. That's the kind of news that a critical press can latch on to portray MS in a bad light - and in case you haven't wondered, the mainstream press doesn't seem too keen to wax dithyrambic about Vista. In fact, most coverage I have seen focuses on the long time it took to make the new OS, and asks whether or not it was worth it - hardly a positive approach!

All the while, the idiots seem to forget that MS was simultaneously working on and released XP SP2, which was larger than just a standard service pack. It included a lot of new features, in what could have been considered an OS point release in itself.

So, yeah, this is a little bit of egg on MS' face, no matter how the Vista enthusiasts try to spin it (and spin they do, at a rate that would put modern hard drives to shame...)

Nah, not at all. Linux, OS X, and all other OSes have bugs that need to be addressed constantly. Anybody who thinks otherwise simply doesn't have a clue.

come on, he DOES have a point. it's not like Kubuntu is doing so very well, with breaking a Long Term Support and stuff... but they do have what, 20 paid ppl, and made their LTS in 8 months.

MS really should be able to do better with 5 years and billions of $$$. They should be lightyears ahead of linux in every possible area - guess what, they aren't. They are barely ahead in some, and simply behind in many things. If there was ANY REAL competition (eg if they would't be able to force users to use windows with tricks like .doc files, drm, patents and other stuff), MS would have a really hard time right now...

They spend more money on advertising than the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem has to spend on everything - still they can barely make a competetive OS in 5 years of work, and they have to release some critical updates 1 day before they go public. Yes, that stinks...

There are MANY areas (mostly all relating to usability) where Windows is WAY ahead of Linux.

Also, it's not like the Kubuntu guys are doing anything other than packaging this stuff.

name me a few areas where windows is WAY ahead of Linux... the only thing I can think of is the graphics stack. But the basic desktop in Vista is still lightyears behind the usability of Gnome and KDE (I expected vista to fix the mousewheel, but it still doesn't do much, drag'n'drop is still broken etc). And the Vista kernel isn't much ahead in most areas. Search integration isn't what it could be (tough it's slightly ahead of Linux). etc.

Vista is ahead in some areas, but nothing which won't be fixed in less than a year...

Actually, according to Activewin.com - it has only been worked on for 28 months, which is around 2 and a bit years.

Remember folks, development on Windows Vista stopped for almost a year to get Windows XP in order, add to the fact that the changes were transplanted from Windows XP base to Windows 2003 SP1 core, I'm surprised it didn't take longer.

Please, stop lying and start using facts; if find the need to bash Microsoft, lets start using some legitimate issues rather than coming up with old wives tales that have very little resembelence of fact.

Yeah, according to activewin.com - a really good, objective source.

Point is, they wanted to release the next Windows version, after XP, in 2003. And they planned many features even left out in Vista. We all know they didn't succeed, but telling us they didn't succeed because they where busy on XP is pretty lame...

No, they didn't succeed for WinFS because their vision was far too grand; if you look at what the original WinFS was claiming to deliver, it was largely reliant on a large amount of new technologies coming on stream - there is file searching in Windows Vista, and it is equal to that of MacOS X and Linux.

WinFS promised to bring natural language searching, being able to plug in things like, "find all documents made on tuesday last week" both written as well as being done as speech recognition - personally, they should never have promised so much, it would be better off giving a very general outline, and announce 'features' as they're completed and stablised rather than annoucing before delivered.

Oh, and how is "busy on XP" being pretty lame; if all your programmers stop programming on your product for over a bloody year, what the hell do you think is going to happen? your post is as stupid as saying, "how come Ford doesn't make any more cars" after all the workers of the assembly factories walk off the job.

Ford doesn't earn 98 cents on every dollar when they sell cars.

anway, all those things WinFS promised where already promised for what would become windows 2000, and then XP, so with Vista, they're not *just* 5 years behind.

and it's not that unique - WinFS is mostly about NTFS being a database, the natural language searching isn't part of the WinFS anyway, just the interface. 'find all documents made on tuesday last week' was already possible in BeOS, 10 years ago. WinFS isn't half as special as you might think. It would have been nice 10 years ago, now it's hardly anything new... so it's a shame they where 'unable to add it'.

The whole point here is: they have billions, for which they made us pay. When I pay my taxes here in the netherlands, a big part of that goes to Microsoft for their software which is used by my government. Same for you. Now IF microsoft would use that to creat a good OS, well, I might accept it. But now they are having a hard time competing with a FREE operating system, build by volunteers. They invest less than 2 billion each year in the development of Windows, and that's approximately their earnings in The Netherlands alone - the rest of the money goes to future monopolies like the phone and gameconsole market.

So yeah, the whole world is paying Microsoft billions, and they get a medicore OS at best. I'm having a problem with that, and you should, too.

The same money could be used to save millions of kids, instead of being spend mostly on lawers, advertisements and MS trying to get a hold on new markets.

But at the same time, ask yourself why Linux/*NIX hasn't made inroads given the deficient nature of Windows? I mean, I'm not saying that Windows is perfect, but there is a reason beyond the 'monopoly boogy man' argument which people use here, to explain Microsofts market position.

When you look at the software out there for Linux, apart from a few titles like Firefox, GAIM and respective desktops with their various components, it is lacking in commercial ISV support big time and there are still major deficiencies in the Linux operating system itself.

I've chanted this problem over multiple posts an not a single person has actually answered it - why when ripping a cd does my wireless internet connection either slows down to a crawl or simply stops working altogether? On Windows XP when ripping a cd, I haven't experienced that problem, so why does Linux have such a problem providing adequate multi-tasking? this has occured on Ubuntu, OpenSuSE and Fedora Core 6.

On the software front, again, where are the Adobe, Corel and Quicken like companies? if they don't come, where are the opensource projects delivering equal features because so far all I see are programmes that have been abandoned after a few releases and a large portion of ones being run by arrogant pricks unwilling to allow individuals to make contributions - GIMP being a prime example of this and my experience of a hostile reception in the GIMP irc chat room; I wanted to contribute to translation and improving the user interface, but due to the way I was treated by the programmers there, they made it abundently clear what they think of people outside their little world.

"...ignorant people like you..."
"...or you are a 14 yr old working pissed that McDonald's doesn't rake you in enough to buy vista..."
"The only thing more asinine than your comment is the morons that modded it up."
"By the way jackass..."

pr0c, you should know that personal attacks will be modded down. If you can't take criticism of your favorite abusive near-monopoly without resorting to insults, then perhaps it would be better for you to stay away from internet forums...Your reliance on ad hominem attacks only serves to undermine your own credibility.

"you should know that personal attacks will be modded down."

That is plenty ok; This comment was directed at a specific user and if I could mod it -5 myself I would (as this post, please mod it down folks!). My post was of no interest to anyone else, except you for some reason, I agree.

"If you can't take criticism of your favorite abusive near-monopoly without resorting to insults,"

I can take it all day, my (privately held) company is partially OWNED by Microsoft. I see tons of mistakes made, things that bother me, etc. I can probably rattle off more things I feel are wrong with Microsoft than any of you lusers. I wonder why it is that whenever someone addresses another persons complaints and ranting they suddenly cannot handle criticism?

By the way I find it interesting that you feel it was all personal attacks. Ignorance is not an insult, we are all ignorant about more things than knowledgeable.

Many people work at "McDonald's" (low wage) type places and cannot afford any software, sans games of course, subsequently many people in this position hate MS because of 1.) their value and 2.) their software cost.

It was an asinine comment, let us call a spade a spade. And let's be real here, based on this one comment the person is a jackass. This is your typical anti-microsoft, pro linux HYPOCRITE poster (not that I believe he uses anything other than Windows 75% of the time).

Yes I am blunt, yes I do not spend time clarifying, yes people think I am a dick.

Good day sir.

I can take it all day, my (privately held) company is partially OWNED by Microsoft.

Yeah, yeah, and my grandmother is the queen of England...such claims are irrelevant.

I see tons of mistakes made, things that bother me, etc. I can probably rattle off more things I feel are wrong with Microsoft than any of you lusers.

Sigh. Case in point.

By the way I find it interesting that you feel it was all personal attacks. Ignorance is not an insult, we are all ignorant about more things than knowledgeable.

Are you sure you're a businessman? With that kind of spin, you sound more like a politician. Calling someone ignorant because he disagrees with you is certainly not a compliment.

Whatever. Just try to stay civil, m'kay?

Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?

Well, the thing about a distribution is that you're usually either getting security updates or updated functionality for something that actually worked before - not because the damn thing didn't work right in the first place, and the patch that you made previously has to be patched because that fouled up. There's been a few of them in Windows' history.

Yer - I really believe all that hype that Microsoft comes out with about every other version of Windows as to how it's so much better structured, organised and reliable and how they've learned from the past. Vista is simply NT4 + 10 years.

I gotta disagree with that, when a distro updates after install, it's downloading all sorts of fixes, not just new functionality or security updates, they are for all sorts of issues, and if you think otherwise, you are living in a dream.

No software is perfect, especially Vista, but to look at Linux with rose coloured glasses is just not healthy.

"I gotta disagree with that, when a distro updates after install, it's downloading all sorts of fixes, not just new functionality or security updates, they are for all sorts of issues, and if you think otherwise, you are living in a dream.

No software is perfect, especially Vista, but to look at Linux with rose coloured glasses is just not healthy."

Eh?

The issue with Vista is that you are either of the opinion that Vista...is ready...or its not.

Its quite clearly that the launch was rushed. The only think you can say is should Microsoft had waited *longer* to launch, or is Vista *good enough* now.

This is very different from Linux where a release happens every 3 Months and *only* critical patches done as an incremental release.

If you are talking about a distribution you are *not* talking about the *OS* you are talking thousands of programs. A distribution evolves. It is not released periodically say every *5 Years*.

Edited 2007-01-31 16:56

Especially since Kubuntu 6.10 has trouble with common NVIDIA video cards. One has to install the OS using VESA and with NO mouse cursor (it's there but the user can't see it).

Yeah, too bad it's not true. I just installed 6.10 on my PC two weeks ago and the mouse cursor was very much visible. That's because Kubuntu will install the nv driver by default, which works quite well with 2D.

While a handful of people may have encountered problems (and when I say a handful, I mean one or two messages about it on Ubuntu Forums), for the vast majority of NVIDIA users - like me - things went very smoothly with Edgy, and NVIDIA performance seems a lot better than what people seem to be getting with Vista...

But please, don't let facts get in the way of your FUD.

@archiesteel

Yeah, too bad it's not true. I just installed 6.10 on my PC two weeks ago and the mouse cursor was very much visible. That's because Kubuntu will install the nv driver by default, which works quite well with 2D.

Hehehe. Now you're denying reality. By looking at the ubuntu forums, I am not the only who's got the same problem with garbled graphics. I find it amazing that such a bug passed through testing.

And by looking at the Ubuntu forums, there are lotsa people who need help working around bugs. Did you read that Archie? People are having trouble installing an open source OS software. It seems that things aren't that all rosy on the Linux side either.

But please, don't let facts get in the way of your FUD.

Don't let reality get in the way of your crusade. Might damage your tinfoil hat with all that reality coming at you.

Normally I would agree, patches aren't necessarily bad. But :

difficulties installing the OS on PCs with more than 3GB of memory

Suggest bad coding practices (assumption that there is <3Gb RAM present) and lack of thorough testing.

performance problems with Internet Explorer 7 and its anti-phishing feature

This suggest a REAL lack of testing as IE7 is one of the most visible new features. You'd think they would want to get that right.

Seriously, compatibility problems with Microsoft Money and Outlook 2003 ? Did they install any software at all during testing ?

Suggest bad coding practices (assumption that there is <3Gb RAM present) and lack of thorough testing.

They should have caught this in testing, but it's actually a pretty interesting and fundamental problem. A 32-bit OS, even running on 64-bit hardware, provides each process with a 4GB effective address space that must be split into kernel and user space. The traditional split is 1GB for the kernel and 3GB for the user.

But these days most operating systems allow a few different segment layouts. Ideally you want at least as much kernel space as you have physical memory, because many parts of the kernel operate in real mode, where the code references physical memory instead of effective memory. If you have less kernel space than physical memory, there are physical memory pages that are off-limits for the kernel (called highmem). So we have 2/2 and 3/1 splits available for 32-bit operating systems.

If you have a 3/1 split to allow kernel-mode access to 3GB of physical memory, then each process only gets 1GB of user space. Paging (swapping) doesn't alleviate this restriction. If a process consumes its effective address space, then subsequent allocation requests will fail. Either the process will terminate itself or the kernel will force it to terminate by issuing a segmentation fault.

My guess is that the user process running the Vista installer can't run within 1GB of address space. This is only a problem if the installation kernel decides to use a 3/1 split, and this will only happen on systems with at least 3GB of memory.

This is what happens when you push up against the addressing limitations of the software or hardware architecture. If you want to run with 3GB or more of physical memory, and don't want lots of highmem, then you can't run large 32-bit processes. And this means 64-bit applications on a 64-bit operating system on 64-bit hardware is necessary.

It's taken us about 50 years to consume 32-bits of address space, so it should take another 50 years to consume the next 32 bits. This is the last transition we'll see in a long, long time. It's gone pretty smoothly so far, but a few hiccups are to be expected.

"It's taken us about 50 years to consume 32-bits of address space, so it should take another 50 years to consume the next 32 bits. This is the last transition we'll see in a long, long time. It's gone pretty smoothly so far, but a few hiccups are to be expected."

Hell yeah. In 2057 I expect computers will need to address more than 16 exabytes. That's 16,384 petabytes. That's 16,777,216 terabytes.

You can put me down as saying that we will not need any more than 16 exabytes for, maybe, 50^2 years. That's 2,500 years. (I'll revise that downwards to 500 years.) *

Of course, there may be other factors prompting an adoption of 128-bit processors and instruction sets. For example, IPv6 addresses are conveniently 128 bits.

* If quantum computers become viable, your license to discuss my prediction is revoked.

Do you expect them to test every application in the world? Do you expect them not to fix problems? Should they have waited till after the release? No.

They got error-reports, they fixed the issues. Whats do you complain about?

I agree with Thom, find something else to bash about. Even better, somewhere else.

What about the hundreds of betas and the release candidates they brought out? Were they not meant for testing? They don't have an excuse. 5 years of development, including testing. If I had the manpower, time and budget that Microsoft had I think I would have made something better than Vista.

the biggest problems of "beta testing" is that thee software is released to people who want to show off, are enthousiastic etc.

This causes quite a lot of problems in the real world. How did they find the 3 GB problem for instance? because most hobbyistic testers don't have that kind of memory figures. When it was released on MSDN, corporate tests started. Some of those people are more serious than the bunch of testers so far that only want to show off to steal the heart of the female next to your own house or so.

Testing is a difficult task; the best way to test is not to have manuals, not to use predefined test-charts and to hate the product a bit.

At least they fixed it 'in time' for the great mass of people.

If I had the manpower, time and budget that Microsoft had I think I would have made something better than Vista.

Damn, I would've colonized the Moon and probably Mars too, if I had the resources Microsoft had.

And for the money people waste on Microsft's spyware, every child in the world could have a free computer and be running a real OS, Linux.

Again, microsoft cant test all applications in the world. If the developers of those applications didnt bother testing them with Vista and report the errors, whose fault is it then?

If the developers of those applications didnt bother testing them with Vista and report the errors, whose fault is it then?

Given, that the following applications are part of the list

- MS Encarta Standard 2007
- Microsoft Money 2005
- Microsoft Money 2006
- Office 2003 Web Folders
- Outlook 2003

I can only conclude, that a part of the blame should indeed be directed towards MS (at least towards the departments that develop this applications. Addressing incompatiblities of their own products that late is, sorry, embarrassing).

They could at least test THEIR OWN software: One of the patches fixes problems with MS Money and MS Outlook (and some other software). Come on ...

They could at least test THEIR OWN software: One of the patches fixes problems with MS Money and MS Outlook (and some other software). Come on ...

They undoubtedly did. But you have to understand that they aren't going to hold up an OS release unless there are real "showstopper" issues found. The issues here with the MS apps aren't that serious.

"Nothing inspires confidence quite so much like patching it on it's way out the door after five years in the making."

Actually that does inspire quite a bit of confidence.

It's unbelievable that a company can be bashed for fixing their own software, and quite quickly at that. If MS had sat on these issues for any amount of time, customers would have been in an uproar.

The problem is not that MS are releasing bugfixes. The problem is the bugs and the nature of these bugs.

If it was a Linux distribution these bugs would have been considered show-stoppers (and are usually found in pre-releases and/or release candidates).

Reminds of the Dapper update that killed X. It happens to everybody

yup, and some make a habit out of it

"Actually that does inspire quite a bit of confidence."

No it doesn't.

"It's unbelievable that a company can be bashed for fixing their own software, and quite quickly at that."

They aren't (or at least shouldn't be) critizized for releasing the patches but for failing to address this issues prior to release.
While clearly they can't test compatibility with all existing software in the world expecting them to test it with their own current products isn't asking too much.

They aren't (or at least shouldn't be) critizized for releasing the patches but for failing to address this issues prior to release. While clearly they can't test compatibility with all existing software in the world expecting them to test it with their own current products isn't asking too much.

Yes, you are asking too much. Because you're not taking into account the severity of the bugs in question. All bugs are not created equal. Some are more severe than others. Some are just annoyances. And making blanket statements that all bugs in MS products should be fixed before Vista can ship is plain ridiculous and smacks of rank inexperience.

"And making blanket statements that all bugs in MS products should be fixed before Vista can ship is plain ridiculous and smacks of rank inexperience."

How is your reading comprehension today? Not good, you say? Yes, I noticed.
I never said *all* bugs should be fixed. I said that one can, and should, expect them to do extensive compatibility testing with *their own* products.

Well, compared to Linux and any other distribution that have patches released; the difference is love; Windows final has been out in the wild for actually almost three months - considering that none of them have been security, I'd say its been fairly good so far.

It's almost reassuring to hear some things never change.

ATI drivers from Microsoft Hmmm I suppose they are bad enough from ATI...

Hence the reason I avoid ATI like the plague; if it isn't their anti-*NIX agenda that makes my stomach churn, its their lack of quality software to support their hardware.

Unfortunately I had not much of a choice in the laptop. Now at home its Nvidia all the way....

> ATI drivers from Microsoft

I noticed that they had ATI Radeon 9600 drivers marked as "Important" for update yesterday. So I updated, rebooted and it all worked. So far so good.

Then I saw that ATI had released official Vista drivers the same day. So I downloaded the 40MB (!) driver and proceeded to install it. Part way through, I get a dialog that some component failed to install, yet the installer continued on. After rebooting, I would only get the Basic Catalyst Control Center. All sorts of mucking around, and nothing fixed it.

This morning I am reinstalling Vista (again). Good thing I'm just doing this to get familiar with the monstrosity. And yes, we are finding all sorts of bugs in it.

Edited 2007-01-31 15:53

<segedunum: Just sit on XP for the next three or four years, and wait for the sixth service pack of Vista - like we all had to do with NT 4.

IIRC, the 4th SP actually made NT4 usable as a general development platform for Oracle 7x. Before that i recall difficulties connecting to our SCO UNIX based infrastructure. Just consider what we put up with then and how good we are off today...

I've had my computer at home Dual booting between Vista and XP since Vista was released to MSDN.

There was an article earlier today claiming that you can't dual boot Vista and XP unless you buy two licenses for the same machine.

Did you buy two licenses? Or are you just ignoring the issue? Or did I misunderstand the issue? Or does MSDN include a new license?

I have 2 licenses.

I was just saying I've had enough time to evaluate Vista, and no matter how much I use Vista, I find myself going back to XP.

I was just saying I've had enough time to evaluate Vista, and no matter how much I use Vista, I find myself going back to XP.

I found myself doing the same thing.
Primarily because of application incompatibilities and memory requirements.

don't worry, my friend, you'll be forced to use Vista soon. Applications and games will start to require Vista, so you'll HAVE to get used to it, and you will. It's not like you have a choice - hey, that's what you get with proprietary software.

The version from MSDN (and MSDNAA) comes with a new license, so you can have XP and Vista.

I think that the XP license invalidation comes with the "upgrade" option. In other words, if you upgrade your XP to Vista, XP's license will be invalidated.

Asides from that, yes if you want two operating systems on your computer, you must have a license for each .

"There was an article earlier today claiming that you can't dual boot Vista and XP unless you buy two licenses for the same machine."

This applies if you purchase an upgrade version of Vista. If you purchase a full version, this does not apply as then you have 2 licenses.

I believe that was for Upgrade Licenses. If you Buy a full version of XP and a full version of Vista then you have two Licenses, and are free to install them side by each on a single machine. Of course it costs more.

"I believe that was for Upgrade Licenses. If you Buy a full version of XP and a full version of Vista then you have two Licenses, and are free to install them side by each on a single machine. Of course it costs more."

Absolutely...

but this stops.

1) Selling your old copy of XP
2) Fresh install of your OS
3) Keeping your copy of XP around for compatibility with your old applications
4) Keeping your copy of XP around for performance issues with Vista. Particularly with 3D and sound
5) Keeping XP around for compatibility with your hardware.

Would you rather patches or Microsoft go clean slate and remove backwards compatibility for apps written in viet nam times so that the os doesn’t require as much patching?

MS Encarta Standard 2007
Microsoft Money 2006
Outlook 2003
Adobe Photoshop CS 8.0
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 9

Not exactly stone-age stuff. ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929427 )

"When you try to install and run certain legacy games or applications in Windows Vista, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:
* The game or application may not be installed correctly.
* The game or application may cause system instability.
* The primary functions of the game or application may not work correctly"

Sounds like caveat emptor to me. Unfortunately I don't think my computerstore will let me test & return.

"Is Microsoft perfect? Hardly but they shouldn’t be blamed for something that is quite common practice in today’s software industry."

Yes!

Try disabling the new UAC permission and see how it goes; it appears that those who haven't had problems have it disabled (going by neowin feedback).