OSNews

Paul Thurrot is a tool. I ignore anything he says.

I tend to agree.

Erm, any less than Steven Vaughan Nichols? I don't see any difference between them in this regard.

SJVN gets his money from a different source: defrauding advertisers. If you publish flamebait articles about Microsoft and about Windows you get slashdotted and OSNewsd and plastered on several pro-linux sites. These articles achieve a certain number of page views which translates to some number of ad-impressions.

The fraud comes when you consider that those ad-impressions are highly likely to be completely worthless. These are people looking for a flamewar, not for buying some service. And they tend to be tech-savvy enough to block the ads or just naturally ignore them.

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"Defraud" is probably too strong a term. "Flaimbait" is probably also a bit strong. SJVN is opinionated. I often agree with him. But sometimes he does go off the deep end. He's usually factually correct, though there's been a time or two that he was really off the mark.

But as a matter of general policy, advertising revenue should not affect the *content* of the site, editorial or otherwise. I feel very strongly about that. If the advertisers have some expectation of special consideration, they should think again... and choose their advertising channels more carefully.

The editor should not cater his content to the desires of the advertiser. Nor should he be concerned about cultivating a readership which is favorable to the ads which various advertisers place with his site.

Edited 2007-10-02 18:39

Someone who has a preference towards Windows is not by definition a tool.

I think you will find they actually are.

Theurott is a raging windows zealot, but as long as you take his mindless devotion to the OS with a grain of salt, the information he has about the platform is usually top drawer.

Theurott is a raging windows zealot, but as long as you take his mindless devotion to the OS with a grain of salt, the information he has about the platform is usually top drawer.

The thing that surprises me is that a lot of people (not you) tend to think that, because an MS-related article comes from what they consider to be a pro-MS site, it can't be trusted. However, any Linux-related article on a pro-Linux site is rarely (if ever) held up to the same scrutiny.

It's like if somebody writes and article about Windows and it's actually favorable, he/she must ge getting paid by MS.

Edited 2007-10-02 00:33

Off-topic
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sorry I could try and talk about the progaganda from Microsoft that openly buy-off bloggers, the paid edits to wikipedia articles...but I'm not...but bias is part and parcel, and its actually quite fun. I only object to it if the bias is not clear; this is not the case with Theurott.

I loved this comment "Linux-related article on a pro-Linux site is rarely (if ever) held up to the same scrutiny" because clearly you have never read phoronix http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=home . Its absolutely appalling on every level. I should delete it from my bookmarks in disgust, but their news on graphics development is often first, and they had a interview quite recently...and I love interviews, and it asked all the questions I was interested in, but seriously worst news site about *any* platform.

Edited 2007-10-02 00:52

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Well... you are saying that a pro-MS article from a pro-MS site gets more scrutiny on a mixed site (OSNews) than a pro-Linux article from a pro-Linux site gets on a pro-Linux site.

I'd say that's true. That's why I, a Linux fan, prefer to spend my time here at OSNews. It gets a bit boring hanging out with the choir all the time.

Pro-Linux articles from pro-Linux sites get plenty of scrutiny here. As do pro-MS articles from pro-MS sites.

And speaking as a member of the choir, I think that's just heavenly. ;-)

Edited 2007-10-02 01:16

I wasn't going to comment in this thread, but I kept seeing posts saying that Thurrott is a "tool" for Microsoft.

I'm just going to present this article where he thoroughly ripped Vista to ribbons:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5308_05.asp

He's also trashed WGA.

This is how Thurrott operates. He was disappointed with a pre-release build of Vista (but somehow still gives it a Five Thurrott Head rating - is this thing on a scale of 10?!?), but then gushes at the retail version and SP1 beta ("the Vista picture just keeps getting better. And that's saying something, given how good this OS was at launch"). This way, he's unbiased and objective!

Anyone could have told you he was going to do this, right from the beginning. He has a complete Jeckyll/Hyde approach, and it's tired. I'm not saying Microsoft didn't make improvements from build 5308/5342 to the retail version, but his sentiments are not well echoed by other Vista users.

I thought I read somewhere that Paul Thurrott used Macintoshs fairly extensively. (See http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/macosx_tiger.asp for his thorough review of OS-X Tiger.) While it's true he's the first one to tout this or that Windows feature or update, he's no more a tool then any other equally zealous luminaries from Linux, Mac and even SUN camps.

Thats pretty much what i was saying, editorials aside, he tends to have good information about windows.

"How about thinking of performance as the 'elapsed time in milliseconds it takes to complete each task or function' instead."

Because that's not how humans operate?

Because that's not how humans operate?

Human perception of sound and voice quality being a notable exception.

Microsoft need to be accountable for the objectively measured performance of the operating system.

What's your problem with the graphics engine? It takes a good bit of RAM, but almost all of that is used for the window contents (only about 4-8 MB is other overhead).

Video plays smoothly in thumbnails and everything seems to work reasonably on my Intel 945GM and on my ATI x1300. Do you have some example of a problem?

Game performance. A couple of times while playing online games, players have been complaining about how their top-end system + graphcs card can't cope with the games, when asked what OS they use, it's Vista every time, that's the only commonly different factor shared between them.

Some games do perform worse on Vista, but a few games actually run better on Vista. In any case, it's hard to understand why the problem is automatically blamed on Microsoft.

ATI and nVidia's drivers were awful (both in terms of features and performance) during the Vista public previews and have only gotten better due to a long, slow development process. nVidia themselves has said that they needed to basically rewrite their drivers for Vista's new driver model.

The performance gap in many games between Vista and XP has narrowed because of third-party driver releases.

In any case, it's hard to understand why the problem is automatically blamed on Microsoft.

Simple. You have the same hardware, the same game and the same user. The only [user visible] difference is the Operating System. Yet with Microsoft Vista performance fails, but on XP performance is good. Therefore it is Vista's (read Microsoft) problem.

during the Vista public previews and have only gotten better due to a long, slow development process.

Wow. Given that the last person I heard complaining about this was doing so LAST WEEK, I dread to think what performance for his would have been like last November (Vista release date) (OK, January for the MS Luvvies).

"Simple. You have the same hardware, the same game and the same user. The only [user visible] difference is the Operating System. Yet with Microsoft Vista performance fails, but on XP performance is good. Therefore it is Vista's (read Microsoft) problem. "

Unless the problem is with subpar drivers for your hardware, and then it would be your hardware manufacturer's fault. Vista is still suffering from a dearth of drivers, even though the RC's were over a year ago, and RTM was 10 months ago.

I don't think you can blame all of this mess on MS. The blame must be spread around.

No. You guys don't get it. If Microsoft changes the driver model, then it is Microsoft's mess when hardware vendors don't want to shell out extra money writing new drivers, just because of Microsoft's business decisions.

If, as an OS developer, you're going to break Hardware compatibility, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to sit down and work out how to do that without harming the end-user experience.

Of course, MS don't need to do that, they have a virtual monopoly on the OS market, so they can do whatever they want and it is always someone else who looses the revenue, that's one reason why the anti-competition laws are needed.

"No. You guys don't get it. If Microsoft changes the driver model, then it is Microsoft's mess when hardware vendors don't want to shell out extra money writing new drivers, just because of Microsoft's business decisions."

The hardware guys have had almost 2 years, longer if you count the betas. It's you who don't get it, it's all got to work together, and if the hardware manufacturers can't write drivers for Vista after 2 frigging years, you really can't blame MS. End of story.

In any case, it's hard to understand why the problem is automatically blamed on Microsoft.

Simple. You have the same hardware, the same game and the same user. The only [user visible] difference is the Operating System. Yet with Microsoft Vista performance fails, but on XP performance is good. Therefore it is Vista's (read Microsoft) problem.

Well, duh.

The fallacy comes with the "[user visible] difference" part. Not knowing what goes on under the hood does not entitle a person to pass judgment. That would be what is called an argument from ignorance. To avoid it, one must either (a) admit that he or she cannot be sure whose fault it is, or (b) gather information from people who can give some insight into the problem.

during the Vista public previews and have only gotten better due to a long, slow development process.

Wow. Given that the last person I heard complaining about this was doing so LAST WEEK, I dread to think what performance for his would have been like last November (Vista release date) (OK, January for the MS Luvvies).

Ignoring the other obvious flames like the "MS luvvies" and the "LAST WEEK" in all caps, there are some games that simply do not perform well in Vista. Need For Speed: Most Wanted and Carbon have night and day performance differences in Vista even though Carbon is apparently just using an updated version of the Most Wanted engine. Carbon has only performed acceptably for me in Vista with ATI's non-WHQL original release drivers (for the HD2900XT). Most Wanted just runs like a champ. I've had Carbon down to low details while Most Wanted is at max details, and Carbon still stutters for me while Most Wanted is completely smooth. Neither game has this problem in XP on my hardware.

So you do jump to two conclusions by declaring that this problem was created by Microsoft's poor coding?

I'm not saying that it has anything to do the quality of Microsoft's code, just that the mess is Microsoft's fault.

If, as an OS developer, you're going to break Hardware compatibility, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to sit down and work out how to do that without harming the end-user experience.

If a hardware manufacturer spends $000s writing a decent driver for Windows, and start selling it, it is not their fault if Microsoft then turns around and forces them to have to spend thousands more re-writing their driver, just becase of a Microsoft Business decision.

Expecting the driver model not to change with each new Windows desktop release is silly, and blaming Microsoft for the changes is just ignorant. Such changes are a natural part of improving an operating system. As far as keeping the driver model stable, Microsoft already does far more than Linux, which changes its own "driver model" so often that ATI and nVidia have to create and repeatedly update their own abstraction layers over the Linux kernel.

Each new release of desktop Windows has required new drivers because Microsoft has to make new driver models that cannot change over the life of that OS release and yet which allow for improvements and advancements in devices over that same time period. For video drivers, that means each new video driver model has to be flexible enough handle at least 3-5 years of GPU improvements. Microsoft is trying to suppress the changes to their driver model, but this cannot be done indefinitely.

Edited 2007-10-04 13:31 UTC

Relatively speaking (having run a Slackware distro with Compiz) I can say that Vista is dog slow. I wouldn't know whether that's down specifically to the graphics engine or not though, but I do wonder were all those clock cycles disappear to.

There's a chance it could be the graphics... who knows. But CPUs have been so fast for so long that chances are good it's not lost cycles. Whenever I'm waiting for something on Windows, it's almost always something pegging the Hard Drive. That's the bottleneck on most systems and that is what Vista's memory management changes try to target.

Have you tried looking at the reliability and performance monitor during a slow operation to see which resource is the bottleneck?

You wasted serverspace and bandwidth for that pile of poo ?


It reads like you have not tried SP1. I have, and it actually makes Vista worse.

I did not need the service pack to slow down my machines, from between 15 and 45%. It was not localised to one machine that might have had a faulty install, but I tried it on four different PCs. Not good. Another nail in the coffin.

Edited 2007-10-02 07:59

wierd, it improved performance quite a bit here,,
but then again.. thats why it isnt released yet. Isn't it?

raver31 ;
what kind of machine have you tried vista and SP1 on? how many? what kinds of hardware? how did you setup vista?

you see, I have been testing vista since beta, and have it a many different types of machines and on VMs.

many issues *are* getting fixed, and bicthing that *your* config is not wont help. have you contacted microsoft? eg; posted anykind of preformance data to them via the newsgroups?


you know, aero, defender and sidebar can *all* be turned off? you know that right?

I have notice alot of improvements to vista since it was released.


-Nex6

Edited 2007-10-02 15:34

I was beta-testing Vista since it was called Longhorn, in 2003. I have it installed on 4 of my computers, one is self-built, the others are from IBM, HP and Fuji.

Vista has been getting worse and slower since around 2005. There were a lot of things planned that never came to fruition.

I have notified Microsoft on numerous occasions about the various problems I encounter, and when they get verified by Microsoft, I get a nice cheque in the post.

You never notify Microsoft through newsgroups, they have different channels for beta-testers.

raver31;

true, Microsft does have other channels for beta testers. infact they have all kinds of channels for notifcations, including the in the OS when an error does come up it gives you the option of sending it to MS.


altho, I kinda like vista. I do, think it was released premature. and over time it has been getting better. my guess is; vista wont mature, until drivers mature. and way after sp1 probley into sp2.

Guess you don't use BitLocker... or Media Center... or the networking features that are unavailable in Home?

I personally wouldn't pay for Vista Ultimate, and if I were Microsoft, I'd have put more value into it, but there are features there that aren't in the lower editions. If you don't need those features, then why did you buy it? It's not like there was a ton of TV advertising encouraging you to buy that one.

Not to mention shadow copy, which imo is the coolest thing that nobody mentions about ultimate.

Probably because people find it more straightforward to just burn files to a DVD. Try to convince someone to pay extra for this new shadow copy thingy and see how it works out. In all likeliness you'll be told "thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to DVD burning".

You can still do both. Implicit versioning is not the same thing as backups. People are excited about Time Machine, which is the big thing in the upcomming tiger. Shadow Copy is the same thing, only it has been around since server 2k3, it doesnt require an external HD, and it is a tab in the properties instead of plunging you into a temporal vortex.

Yup. On Linux I use LVM snapshots *and* backups. It is very convenient to have a /snapshot directory to quickly pull out older copies of files.

Shadow Copy on Vista has been similarly helpful.

Fine. Try explaining "implicit versioning" to the average Joe, while you're at it. Trust me, I've tried. Even if they understand the explanations, they won't use the thing. The average user prefers making a DVD backup when they remember. It's a more natural way of thinking. "I need to put this aside to save it, so I'm doing it."

I'm not trying to put down versioning. It's just that the vast majority of users won't need it. I'm a geek and I don't need it. Turn it on and waste space and resources for the eventuality once a year I may overwrite or delete one file? The hell with that. I'd rather make backups when I remember, and besides, backups also protect you from a disk crash, versioning doesn't.

The idea of shadow copy is great. But it would be even better if it actually worked. I have Vista installed for half a year now. I just checked a couple of old files in Documents directory and they are still not shadow copied. I didn't change default shadow copy settings or anything like that. Relying on the shadow copy instead of the backup is a bad idea.

I've been trying to understand for years now what all this media centre talk is about. As far as I'm concerned I always had media centre, with Winamp and Sonique and what they were all called.
Nowadays in linux we got the same (Xmms and forks), and full jukeboxes like amarok (with a full screen plugin for kiosk like playback), rhythmbox, banshee, exaile, and probably 20 more. I've been streaming stuff on my home network in Win98 and 2K seven years ago. What does a MC (XP/Vista or FreeVo or KnoppMyth, don't care really) give me other than a unified interface for audio AND video, and some pictures and digital photo albums I don't have?
Thanks for the enlightenment - just thought I should finally ask.
[EDIT: Trying to make more sense.]

Edited 2007-10-01 23:05

"What does a MC (XP/Vista or FreeVo or KnoppMyth, don't care really) give me other than a unified interface for audio AND video"

You kind of answered the question right there, it is a unified interface that is simplistic and easy to use. For example, I have a MC connected to my TV (LCD) that I use a remote to navigate through audio and video easily just as if it is any other AV component. On the other hand using just a simple playback like any media player can require use of a mouse AND sometimes keyboard which is bothersome at best. While I do not see the point at all in using any MC on a desktop computer, it is enormously enjoyable and simple to use with large screen flat panels. If you do not have a remote to use, then still I have found MCs easier to work with in selecting media than simply using a file manager or media player to find a file.

In the end it is just a more efficiant means of using media as the UI has just this one purpose, whereas the general GUI serves multiple purposes that are not tailored to a specific task. When the PC and screen are across the room, it is much easier to navigate through the MC UI than trying to read the smaller sized font which is intended for a desktop.

This is my favorite SP1 feature of Windows Vista. The silent acknowledgement that the 150 EUR of "Ultimate-Tax" are for a very expensive Screensaver and an annoying animated desktop that uses so many resource that my musicplayer (Winamp) begins to stutter (which happened the last time on my very old Cyrix 5x86-100Mhz) .... Sorry for the flame. *cough*

Windows Vista Ultimate has MANY other things not found in other Vista editions. To say that Ultimate Extras is the only reason for buying it over some other version is simply ignorant.

Yes, MS hasn't really delivered on Ultimate Extras promise, but that doesn't mean that Vista Ultimate doesn't offer more than other Vista versions. It does, since day 1.

"Since Windows is licenced, and therefore the DVD itself is pretty much irrelevant; is it possible (in the UK) to obtain a Vista DVD, sans-key? The EULA would mean that disc is only consequential, and thus Microsoft should send me a new one upon request for a nominal fee."

Yes, using your own key you can take any disc. In fact I believe you can even download the OS. I do know that if you contact their customer service they will send you out a replacement disc sans key (you do have to pay shipping). We have done that numerous times when we could not go through the MFR directly for customers who had lost a disc. In fact I remember having to replace like 20 Windows XP CDs years back after they were stolen. Thankfully the idiot EX-employee walked out the door with only the discs, the CD sleeve with key was stored securely

" Thankfully the idiot EX-employee walked out the door with only the discs, the CD sleeve with key was stored securely"

MS will even give your product keys so long as you supply them with the correct Product ID. Just call and ask.

I've never heard of this feature... do you have any more info about what it is and why it's broken?

You can already access your machine from anywhere without paying for a domain: just use DynDNS and a DNS client to automatically update your IP everytime it changes.

What I could find on APIPA does not indicate anything about its use on the Internet. As far as I can tell, APIPA is for serverless LANs where each client just picks a random private address in 164.254.x.x. The IPv6 version of this doesn't really seem necessary at this point (all I've got is a Link-local IP address). Is there anything else to it?

IT would be cooler to actually show how much of the disk is fragmented and where it's up to, apart from just saying "Defragmenting"
(unless there's some really obvious option I haven't seen)

Try 'defrag.exe -?' from a command prompt.

OMG. A command prompt? How will my Grandma be able to do that? Windows will never make it to the desktop unless it gets rid of this command prompt thing.

(End of sarcasm.)

That's the Windows 9x defragmenter. It doesn't exist in NT. You have to use "dfrg.msc"

I second that - I finished the article knowing less than I did when I first started. I'd like to know what issues are being addressed - a list of 'bugs', their bug number etc. etc.

Will service pack 1 'save' Windows Vista? no. Unless they give Windows and overhaul, the only people who will experience positives are Microsoft's competitors.

The art of writing shill articles 101. (Ok, so this review was quite short but the principles still apply):

1) Open with a generic, boring-to-the-non-technical, overview that is designed to make the 'executive' types jump straight to the end.

2) After that, put in some light criticism of the company/past performance/marketing snafus designed to convince the more technically aware diehards who made it thru the first bit that you are actually impartial, and know what you're talking about. (Good critics are always critical right?)

3) Outline the good bits of the product that you're reviewing. This can usually be copy-pasted from the press packs, with random added praise inserted.

4) Write an ending summary sentence full of marketese and praise for whoever's paying you. The managers, and execs who got bored and skipped to the end will be able to say 'oooh shiny' and get excited, while the people who slogged thru the whole thing will just read it as a slightly exaggerated summary.

Well, I did say it over a year ago - when Paul was bashing Windows, that he is going to bash, bash, bash then there will be a 180 and he'll turn into a cheerleader declaring that "Microsoft has pulled the impossible off" - announce that Vista is a triumphant success.

I'm not surprised; for many, its unfortunate that they seem to think that that Microsoft need their 'protection' and 'free PR' - any attack on Microsoft is seen as an attack on them personally. It doesn't make sense, but its not uncommon. Look at what happened when one blogger wrote a bad report on an Apple product - he was sent death threats!