Today, Microsoft released the first beta of Windows Vista. PC Mag reviews it. “After several years of waiting to see the successor to Windows XP, code-named Longhorn, we’ve finally gotten our hands on Beta 1 of what now will be called Windows Vista.” They also have 40 screenshots. Elsewhere, MS has announced the official names for Avalon and Indigo.
I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder… but I’m still trying to figure out why making window controls translucent is of any benefit. You can’t get at what’s behind them w/o moving the window anyway.
If anything, I think the window decor translucency is not worth the price you pay in weakened aesthetics…
If anything, I think the window decor translucency is not worth the price you pay in weakened aesthetics…
Other than aesthetics, I can’t see why they put it in there (though I agree that it sucks). My guess is that someone high up in the chain of command has become attached to that particular blur effect. I’m pretty sure someone’ll eventually notice that it interferes with the titlebar text and I expect that it’ll be taken out before the final release.
So tell me again how learning and alternative OS is going to be harder than learning all the new wizards and ‘hold my hand’ stuff in Vista?
And “the official names” link doesnt work.
I’m wondering the same thing as you. As I saw File Layout and thought about average IQ based on users I support? I started working on my wish to either completely abandon windows or swap my job for anything else
…and please no OSX suggestions, there’s no apps for OSX (yeah, adobe is not the world), or, at least mine (with this I mean native) won’t be there for a very loooong time if ever.
No apps?
Graphism/3D : most are on mac, and mac only
Sound : the same
Wordprocessor? : Word, page, Open Office…
Mail : no problem
Math? : Mathematica
Other : ton of software on the mac platform. With *nix port (fink), there’s more
So please stop your bullshit! If you don’t like the state of the gui, give us something new
Nope, I was talking about custom built apps (like custom accounting software (some of it even mine), etc). Maybe I was just not expressive enough. My bad if that is the case
So,…
no, I wasn’t bullshiting,
yes, I don’t like state of GUI,
no, I haven’t mentioned state of GUI in previous post
no, it is not something new, but it is a very valid reason
btw. *X port is worth nothing. But that is *MY OWN* opinion when I tried it.
All that developer can expect if his app comes to the *X port and someone tries it? well, it gets a bad reputation (like Gimp for example, where more evaluation went how not native and how different, instead actual Gimp capabilities). So, I don’t wanna see *X port of my apps. It will be either “NATIVE” or “NOTHING”. But in my case “NOTHING” is more or less 100%. And no, Apple moving to Intel doesn’t make a difference for me as developer.
and then I wondered if you actually read the article, or were just to stupid to understand the part where it said “there will be a classic mode which will look exactly like previous versions of windows so corporate IT doesn’t have to retrain staff”. It was on the first 2 pages (about as much as I actually read) so there’s really no excuse for your ignorance.
Another ignorant MS user who has NEVER even seen a Macintosh. Unless you need some antiquated custom software that was programmed directly for DOS/PC, and probably will require millions of dollars of upgrades just to make it run on XP or the new MS offering, there is NOTHING on PC that ain’t on Mac. “The Mac has no software” is a 20 year old stupid falacy that PC users used to use when some of them wanted to run some lame bitmap games that no one else cares about. I don’t care if 2D Monkey Kong doesn’t run on OS X.
As for custom software, all the big houses, Oracle included, are designing in web interface so that their software runs on any machine. They are also making big efforts on Linux.
Apple is gaining in market share, even in the enterprise/server market.
So, give up your stupid ignorance about who has what software, do some research and get off your lame horse.
” I don’t care if 2D Monkey Kong doesn’t run on OS X.”
I do care if Half life 2, CS: source, BF2, Far Cry and Doom III doesnt run on OS X though =)
However with macs running on x86, games may come to the mac, since it will be easier to port onto that compared to ppc.
It may not be that easy, since most games are likely to still use Direct X, which of course is MS Proprietary, and they won’t let anybody else use it. Maybe we’ll see most game development houses switch to SDL since that will let it run on anything, but somehow I doubt it.
well most of the big games today. Half life 2, Unreal Tourney, Doom 3, Far Cry, etc. do run on OpenGL, since it is in fact better =)
(puts on flame-proof coat)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1841073,00.asp“ should be http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1841073,00.asp
um you posted the same link twice.
Note the lack of a trailing ” in the second link
It looks like when you try to do something that require Admin privileges, it prompts for an admin password much like Linux. Glad to see that feature. Makes me more hopeful MS is for once taking some useful features of other OS’s and not just copying eye candy.
that feature is in XP, has been for years!!
Ehh. Never touched XP. Ok then.
Not always – most of the time XP just informs you that you do not have rights to access it. This is a step in the correct direction. I will hold off on judgement until further info comes out.
Only in a few places (E.g., Users and Passwords control panel in Win2k). But not in most of the cases where it would be useful – try going into Network Connections as a Limited User.
Actually, you’re wrong. sadly.
the dialog has two buttons “log out” and “cancel”. theres no “type your password for M$ sudo”
so, it’s basically the SAME crap as windows NT 4.
For Gods sake. Log on as a standard user. If you want to run something as an admin hold the left shift and right click it. It gives you the option of running as a different user.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about then don’t post.
This new proprietary Microseft product is such a joke. Who in his right mind would actually pay for this, let alone use, when you can download FreeBSD for free?
This is not the final Windows Vista interface!
For those of you who have not tried the bets yet, here’s a simple breakdown of the real changes.
1. “Virtual Folders” are nothing more than symolic links to actual objects. The difference here is that MS never added support for symbolic linking in their OS,opting instead to use “Shortcuts”.
2. The “User Account Protection” is only a feature that puts users into something like a superuser mode kinda like a chroot.
3. The device driver changes are nothing that shouldn’t have been in Windows 98. When loading new device drivers, the OS doesn’t use DMA or shared memory when loading, so if there is a problem, it won’t BSOD your machine.
4. Priveledge settings are the same thing as they are in Novell’s 10 year old NDS.
5. Their “implicit search” is nothing more than a wannabe of Beagle, but not quite the same as Spotlight.
So you see, there is nothing innovative in this at all. I was irate to see how many simple things they have done to this OS that make a big difference, but are totally stolen ideas. There is nothing here that you won’t find properly implemented in any other OS. Even their “revolutionary” new UI is only a simple OpenGL accelerated GUI with new language to use it underneath. This was done by Apple nearly 5 years ago, although X.org hasn’t quite caught up to this yet. Here are the actual issues with this beta:
1. You can’t actually install this on hardware older than 5 years, have fun trying.
2. The service management is actually WORSE than in Windows XP, as they have (yet again) tried to simplify management, but in the course, making it more harder to use intuitively.
3. You can’t disable a lot of the hold your hand BS that they’ve added, although I assume they’ll be fixing this by the time the final product some out.
4. The new shell is terrible and even more verbose in usage than ksh.
5. They STILL have not properly implemented IP6
6. Their search utility does not seem to work with the kernel and is pretty slow. Also, they are very few configuration options for this new tool.
The only good thing I can actually say about an OS that has a devlopment period of nearly 6 years is, it is more stable. Wohopdeedoo.
I had a working virtual desktop on windows with directx acceleration in 97. Does this mean Apple stole my idea? Please, stop spreading ignorance.
Unix + X11 had this done in the ’80s.
1. You can’t actually install this on hardware older than 5 years, have fun trying.
Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.
Thom_Holwerda said: “Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.”
The difference is that trying to install linux on old/obscure hardware is fun if you’re enjoy programming or whatever; trying to install windows on old hardware is fun if you paying tech support fees. I think I know which of these is more likely to be the case!
(Actually, I’m not convinced either is really fun, but I think my point still stands.)
* “if you enjoy paying tech support fees.”
I should proof read…
“Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.”
Um, KDE runs just fine on my 6 year old Pentium 3..
>>”Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME >>distributions on five year old hardware.”
>Um, KDE runs just fine on my 6 year old Pentium 3..
Same here. KDE runs fine on my P3 450Mhz box.
Though I switched to Fluxbox to get more performance
out of my old box.
And oh yeah. This box also act as my:
1] Firewall (using iptables)
2] DHCP server
3] SMB server
4] Web proxy server (squid)
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : Pentium III (Katmai)
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 451.031
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips : 897.84
Running kde3.4.1 on a pentium3 600Mhz with 256MB of ram very nicely thanks. KDE in recent times has been getting faster with each release.
Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.
Puh-leaase! Linux is FAR better at supporting old hardware than Windows. The only thing you have to worry about is the memory. Most new distros want at least 96M of memory, but you can get them running on less. If you have at least 128M, you can install the very latest and greatest without any problems or concerns. I run Fedora Core 4 on my 6 six year-old ABit BP6 just fine. I have a 400MHz PII system that also runs FC4 just fine, and it’s pushing ten years now.
1. You can’t actually install this on hardware older than 5 years, have fun trying.
Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.
Does a Intel Celeron 800 Mhz with counts as an five years old machine? If yes, then please count me in (And yes, I did have a lot of fun doing it…). Running KDE 3.4.1 almost as smooth as Windows XP on the same hardware.
But I wouldn´t try the same using GNOME, though. I have it installed and yes, it is usable, but I hardly call that a pleasing experience. All the other lightweight windowmanagers AND XFCE fly on this machine.
But I wouldn´t try the same using GNOME, though. I have it installed and yes, it is usable, but I hardly call that a pleasing experience. All the other lightweight windowmanagers AND XFCE fly on this machine.
Never say never, Gnomw 2.10.1 from FC4 is quite usable on my old Thinkpad having an old 500MHz PIII,
500MB RAM, but I agree with you KDE feels a bit snappier and seam to run faster for every new release.
Have fun trying to run the latest Linux/KDE-GNOME distributions on five year old hardware.
*yawn* done and done.
and no, i don’t have to disable every little process or anything like that. it all runs smooth and efficient. i built my box to last and it’s doing just that.
my mother works on ibm’s 433 mhz machine with 256 mb of memory. and there is ubuntu hoary running quite smoothly
IPv6 is available in Windows XP (a dev version shipped with 2000). Vista’s IP stack was rewritten and provides both v4 and v6 in one stack — v6 is default.
Apple did not do this 5 years ago. Apple only shipped the framework for accelerated drawing and resolution independent UI with Tiger. These frameworks are only test versions and only developer accessible, however, so end-users still have no resolution independence, nor do they have accelerated drawing.
Windows has had the capability of allowing devs to create resolution-independent UI for years now. XP improved on this by allowing users more configuration options for it. Vista extends upon this further by providing APIs and tools that make this capability first-class and easy to adhere to.
The other points are just as unsubstantiated and incorrect, or subjective arguments.
For facts, check out:
The Windows Vista Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/
and
Windows Vista Advances for Developers
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/about/
Ok this is a brutal response. I stopped reading because of credibility went out the window once OpenGL was mentioned. OpenGL? WTF?!@# obviously you don’t know windows architecture.
DirectX is far superior to OpenGL when it comes to filters and effects and shaders. This is going to add a huge advantage to gui effects etc. Sure its just eyecandy but, it opens a whole new door for rendering that opengl on X just doesn’t do. If they open the API to 3rd party render handling functions, that will be awesome!
DirectX may be superior to OpenGL for certain tasks. It is not however enough for even the desktop that seems to be Microsoft’s main intention for it currently, hence the extensions that have been added (WPF 1 is it?)
More significantly, it is not standardised in the same way, hence there are still no hardware devices to do the job that Microsoft wants done. If the architecture had been thought out in the way that OpenGL was, it’s just possible that a current graphics card would be able to run the software that will be released in 6 months time. To me, that sounds more important than which has more features, as I don’t actually have the money to buy a new card with every new game (or desktop) I purchase.
Current GPUs handle the task just fine. There are, however, features no GPU offers at present that are needed for best quality and efficiency. These features will be in WGF 1.0/2.0-compliant GPUs due to collaboration between MS and GPU vendors.
WGF, like past versions of D3D, is an enabler for allowing a common method of accessing functionality on GPUs that is consistent across vendor hardware implementations. In OpenGL, especially because it’s taken the ARB so long to evolve the standard, you’d have to result to vendor-specific render paths and extensions to implement many of the features in current GPUs and the features mentioned above that MS/vendors have worked on for future GPUs. And you still don’t get a unified shader programming model or GPGPU enhancements that WGF will provide. In fact, in Windows Vista, OpenGL is accelerated through a common rendering pipeline that is provided by WGF.
And you still don’t get a unified shader programming model or GPGPU enhancements that WGF will provide.
But, but, but… what are you talking about? WTF is GLSL then? I mean, it’s not like it’s something new!
GPU enhancements…? You got me lost. You mean WGF is actually enhancing the GPU hardware adding more features to it? Sounds real nice.
In fact, in Windows Vista, OpenGL is accelerated through a common rendering pipeline that is provided by WGF.
So you mean they could eventually slowly (but surely) degrade OpenGL performances and stability over the next 20 service packs so that there’s finally a reason to use DirectX over OpenGL? Mmmh… nice move MS.
GLSL still handles vertex and pixel shaders as seperate entities.
New functionality added to GPUs not only for enhancements driven by games, etc, but also for quality/efficiency improvements for features supported by Windows Vista would require seperate render paths and vendor specific extensions in OpenGL (as do many current features). In D3D/WGF this can be supported via one path.
Windows XP currently supports OpenGL acceleration through D3D and is a benefit for providing accelerated OpenGL even when a specific graphics card may only have D3D drivers or you’re using OOTB drivers. WGF has a superset of OpenGL functionality as is exhibited by the common pipeline. Why add complexity by duplicating code when both APIs can be supported via a common path? (Same reason for not using OpenGL and having to rely on vendor extensions and multiple paths).
RE: GPGPU
WGF will also be a platform setup to make using GPUs for general-purpose (non-graphical) calculations easier.
Please stop saying absolute non-sense. DirectX and OpenGL ARE EXACTLY THE SAME THING when it comes to functionalities and, more often than not, speed.
IF DirectX is NOW superior in terms of performances to OpenGL then it’s because Longhorn will have some built-in OpenGL breakage code (that could very well be true).
What exactly are you talking about with filters, effects and shaders? Far superior? DirectX has HLSL, OpenGL has GLSL and both API can use CG as well.
Also, what could possibly be worse than an extension system similar to the OpenGL one in DirectX? What kind of mess would come out of that? I hardly see the ARB and Microsoft ever agree on how an extension should be implemented…
Apparently you have never heard or read the OpenGL 1.5/2.0 spec.
Aparently you have not heard the specs of DirectX 10 (a.k.a. Avalon a.k.a. WPF).
That file manager shot in particular, with options like “stack by type” looks like it’s been engineer-designed, with an attempt to cram in every option the backend software can handle. Even for a beta, this doesn’t look ready; it looks more as though they’re still trying out features to decide what works, which should really be over this far into development…
“After several years of waiting to see the successor to Windows XP”
Where was this person? KDE/Gnome have WinXP beat hands down and have for years.
Apple is definately beating WIndows in terms of asthetics. I don’t own a Mac but I must admit there’s something pleasing about the interface. It’s almost relaxing it’s hard to explain. Microsoft has been good at seeing where it’s competitors are going and seeing how it works out so it can be integrated. I know it’s not the final product but it seems like Windows is just slowly progressing. No real inovation. Oh well…maybe next revision….
it’s relaxing in that sense that pre-school was relaxing. It’s so dumbed down you don’t have to be confused by all those crazy settings.
I’m not really sure what is so “advanced” about OS X. It’s got a launch bar across the bottom… outside of that it’s basically an identical file setup. Either you haven’t spent much time with OS X, or you’re just another M$ hater. Linux, OS X, Windows… they all have the same general “feel”. If they didn’t users would be lost. Lists and folders are lists and folders, whether you put pretty colors on them or not.
Remember, most Americans vote on image, not on actual agenda or the like.
Win Vista will be as succesful as all Windows versions have been.
It’s like flies…
Is that XP11.org? or OSXP? maybe its Winux?
he he. Im just kidding windows could never be that good.
-nX
Your’s sir (and/or maam) is by far the best comment in this thread!
I love the firefox usage in this shot, must be a screenshot taken by a Microsoft devloper using his “real” browser..hehe.
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=156757&po…
This is nice that they made this pretty since I am sure we will all be seeing LOTS of it in the future:
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=156757&po…
Or perhaps it’s the PCMag’s Vista reviewer’s browser?
I do actually run the latest KDE on 5 year old hardware. 550MHz PentiumIII with 384MiB of memory. Works fine. I won’t touch the proprietary Microseft shit with a 100 foot pole, though.
In run KDE 3.4 on a laptop P3-600 with 192MB of RAM.
I’m not huge lunix fan but thoms statement is just plain wrong
Ubuntu runs quite happily on my p2 366/294mb system with latest gnome.
Not much has changed under the hood I’m afraid
i like the image installation, single HAL, and multiple user logon in domains features – sure they will help admins a lot.
resolution independant programs is exactly what we need right now, because screen resolutions will increase and differ more and more.
the other improvements are mostly copied from os/x and *nix, that is for sure, but vista will deliver an integrated, tested, and nice package als will just work. many people are more than willing to pay for that. (but why not pay for os/x today?)
it will be nice to compare it to KDE 4 – i have high expectations of KDE 4.
so, vista is great, but so are linux and os/x. linux just needs better migration tools to get a bigger share.
One of the themes I’m seeing in this thread is that WinV doesn’t innovate, but it doesn’t have to – it only needs to get to the point where Linux/OSX are now. Since it already has better apps than the other two, that’s really all that matters, IMHO.
I’ve been testing “Vista Beta 1” for a couple hours by now. It is totally unstable and buggy as hell and can hardly be called a beta version. Where are all the cool features? This looks like a souped up Windows XP to me and nothing like what they’ve been hyping like mad.
I know that this only a “beta” version but I am so disappointed and my hopes are shattered. This really makes me want to abandon Windows alltogether and finally go Linux. Microsoft should have put more money into solid development rather than hyping hot air in the hope of cashing in. I am afraid “Vista” was too little too late.
Somehow I really question whether you have Vista.
For one, it has been stated OVER AND OVER AND OVER that beta 1 will only have back-end stuff, beta 2 will have the things that people can actually play with.
If you were a developer (the only people who get to play with it, MSDN Universal subcribers, basically) you would know this, plus you would think that all the cool stuff is there.
I’ve come to the conclusion that many here must fear Vista, thus the need to repeatedly spread FUD in every related thread.
MS hasn’t even had the download available long enough for you to have tested it for a couple of hours.
I’ve come to the conclusion that many here must fear Vista,
Being one of the scared ones, I can’t help my self but to respond
thus the need to repeatedly spread FUD in every related thread.
Nope some of us are scared of this.
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=156757&po…
Now imagine explaining some not geek person what to do over the phone.
Nope some of us are scared of this.
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=1…
Now imagine explaining some not geek person what to do over the phone.
1. As stated numerous times, this isn’t the final user experience.
2. You don’t have to explain it over the phone, you can use Remote Assistance as you can currently with XP.
3. If you have to explain it over the phone, it should be no more difficult than current versions of Windows (or any other OS) and since that’s a file explorer view, you could opt to use the command line. Really, there’s not much shown there that’s different from the current explorer. If you have problems explaining that, you’ll have similar problems explaining any file browser.
Well, i’m kind of a geek person (I use Linux/Gnome and like all this stuff) and I can’t understand that (file manager???) mess. It’s more clever to the old win2000 file manager, or konqueror or nautilus. But that frankenstain!!!
Heck yeah man we are scared. Microsoft might do something right for once (which is a good thing BTW). But then I look at the sheer momentum of the open source desktop. By the time Vista (contrary to my first impressions, that has a nice ring to it… Vista…) releases open source desktops will have all the features Vista has and more.
The reason linux is not more popular now is application support. Try going to launch.com and playing some videos for example. And I don’t want to hear about the mplayer plug-in for mozilla. Until gstreamer is stable and I can use dmix by default to play as many damn sounds as I feel the need to through alsa (see version 1.0.9rc2+) then linux just can’t make it.
It’s all about the applications, and linux/OSS is making huge steps in that arena, but we are not completely there. It’s comming and nothing can stop it.
I’m not impressed, I haven’t been with MS since Win95. Almost like they are doing thier best to copy Mac. Like they had Dashboard in mind creating the transparent menus.
Still looks like fricken windows XP with a glass effect.
Nothing special about Longhorn/Vista.
“New” features are already featured in OSX and Linux, right now.
Can you say “bloat”? minimum 512megs memory, 3Ghz cpu to run.
Translucent window bars? big whoop
No WinFS? that was canned last year. Linux has ultra fast, journalized file system Reiser4.
New high speed desktop search? You can already do that with Google.
Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols has a funny (and accurate) take on Longhorn/Vista:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1841067,00.asp
Yeah, call that innovative … I’m not sure how it is in other parts of the world, but here in Holland we have had those in our houses for ages….
I must say that those Windows have a pretty decent uptime btw. Last time they crashed was in 1940 when a SS regiment stormed the bridge in front of my house.
Haha… best post in this whole thread.
Let the people with weak systems run that lunix crap. The rest of us will have a great experience. Microsoft continues to innovate while Lunix continues to copy. Lunix has lost on the desktop, but is good stuffed in some closet for a server.
[i]I’ve been testing “Linux” for a couple hours by now. It is totally unstable and buggy as hell and can hardly be called a beta version. Where are all the cool features? This looks like a souped up TRS-80 to me and nothing like what they’ve been hyping like mad.
I know that this only a “beta” version but I am so disappointed and my hopes are shattered. This really makes me want to abandon Lunix alltogether and finally go Microsoft. Lunix should have put more money into solid development rather than hyping hot air in the hope of cashing in. I am afraid “Lunix” was too little too late.
x86-64 : 1.73Gig
32bit : 2.42Gig
Heavy download… Going at only 120k/sec.
Doesn’t anyone else find the faceless (featureless) people in some of the icons (such as the “games” protection) scary?
I like the new look a lot. Translucency(sp?) on window bars is very cool.
But here is something I don’t like: the new List View UI. It looks very confusing.
I can’t wait to have a desktop running at 1600×1200 but with the readability of the 1152×864 resolution. Those fonts will be crispy looking.
Yeah, Gnome on FreeBSD runs perfectly fine on a 5-year old machine! I wish I could mod Thom the Parasite down, but he’s marked with ‘OSNews staff’ making him invulnerable to things we mere mortals are.
i’m running a linux box with transparent and shadowed windows, beagle for easy search and tabbed browsing, RSS,…
and that’s really not new
if more drivers were available for linux or other free OSes likes freeBSD,etc., all free desktops should look as “hype” as mine since a long time
If you like precisely at the work done for longhorn, i am sorry but you will see that Vista is built in the same model. Microsoft follows the same path that apple did, they follow the same technological path.
Look:
-Avalon is what Quartz does. OsX had the fundation for hardware accelerated compositing and interface since 10.0, Apple has introduced more and more technologies based on that fundation gradually. Microsoft even follows the same path for the printing architecture in longhorn which follows very closely the thing done by apple for osx with pdf. The difference? Microsoft likes to make mess by introducing useless proprietary technologies like Metro.
– In terms of security Longhorn borrows a lot of the Unix world and osx.
– In terms of interface, thats the same thing. Look at the search field in the top right of the every window like the finder. The search field in the start menu as the Spotlight menu. The same implementation of the Smart Folders. The preference pane. They took the “pile” idea from apple and named it stack. Yes i know, apple is still not using the piles, but the fact is here, thats not their idea.
– The features like the sync engine and interface found in osx, again the printing service very similar to osx, they also introduced a fax feature as osx, speech recognition feature which sounds like the one of osx, the security feature like the encryption of the personnal data like FileVault in osx.
– Be ready to see something similar to Expose, isn’t it?
-etc, etc, etc…;
I mean i am not saying that its bad, its just that they follow so closely the way Apple developed osx, its so evident. Nothing really that they introduce in Vista is radically different or new compared to what its already available somewhere else. Sure its good for windows user, but to make us believe that Vista is innovative, no, please, thats too much.
Microsoft follows the same path that apple did, they follow the same technological path.
Wrong, Quartz does what GDI/GDI Plus does.
Apple did beat MS to a retail OS w/ hardware composiiting for all windows.
Apple does not have resolution-independent UI nor hardware accelerated drawing. Only w/ Tiger did they start to add that. Currently, it’s inaccessible to end-users and likely will be until Leopard.
MS printing architecture is similar to their current one, just using an XML format for everything and supporting the higher channel color formats of the new Color Management system. Metro is as proprietary as PDF.
Longhorn is not borrowing from unix for security. The security architecture is the same ACL-based model that’s been in NT since the beginning. The difference is now they are enforcing it by default on all setups, not just corporate managed setups.
Search: 1. How many ways can you make a search box?
2. Search was a part of Longhorn 2 years before Apple released Spotlight.
Piles/Stacks: How many ways can you represent relations/stored queries?
Syncing -> ActiveSync integrated by default.
Printing -> Have you seen Windows’ current printing system?
Faxing has been in Windows for years. It was funny when Steve Jobs made a big deal out of that feature. What took so long?
A Speech engine has been integrated into Windows since Windows 2000. Likewise, Windows 2000 introduced the Encrypting File System.
Try actually looking at several Windows setups before believing everything Steve Jobs says. He also said the G5 was faster than x86 CPUs. We know how that worked out.
What are you talking about?
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/GraphicsImaging/ResolutionI…
Quartz has had this same feature, “Since it’s inception.”
Important Note: Resolution Independent UI will not be a user level feature in Tiger and won’t be exposed anywhere in the user interface.
I downloaded the beta on Wednesday when I got my invitation, basically for sh*ts and giggles. It also doesn’t have a user level, user interface either. Maybe it will when it comes out, but probably not. This will be a feature left to developers more than likely.
Also, Quartz is indeed accelerated using the video card. Try using a Rage Pro in a PowerMac, and then upgrade to even a Geforce 2 MX and you WILL see an improvement in the interface. XP gui really doesn’t change that much with a graphincs card upgrade, because it is NOT accelerated.
omg – you have to read nearly a whole page to answer the simplest questions!
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=156757&po…
So… what does the new BSOD (or RSOD) look like?
The first screen showed you have to logout to get admin access? Hasn’t MS learned ANYTHING? seems its another OS where you have to logout to do some admin stuff …
I’ve been testing “Linux” for a couple hours by now. It is totally unstable and buggy as hell and can hardly be called a beta version. Where are all the cool features? This looks like a souped up TRS-80 to me and nothing like what they’ve been hyping like mad.
I know that this only a “beta” version but I am so disappointed and my hopes are shattered. This really makes me want to abandon Lunix alltogether and finally go Microsoft. Lunix should have put more money into solid development rather than hyping hot air in the hope of cashing in. I am afraid “Lunix” was too little too late.
i’ve been playing around with Vista Beta 1 all day. i’ve done alot of testing in my life and i am used to buggy software but this disasterous piece of code should not have been released yet at all, not even as beta. i am more busy looking at BSODs and RSODs as well as rebooting(!) my machine than anything else. what are they thinking? this needs at least another year or two of development before they can even think about releasing it as Beta 1.
I totally agree. I’ve been wasting my time on this piece of sh.. for the past several hours. All I can say: good bye Microsoft, welcome Linux. I’ve had it with Windows and I am just burning my first Linux install CD(Ubuntu).
It’s Beta1, but really, it’s XP.5…….it’s not like when I looked at the Beta1 of Windows 2000 and went….’what the hell???’
but being a Windows shop we’ll end up running it…..some developer will release some app that only runs on it and soon we’ll have it start springing up here and there just because it’s new…….and of course none of MS’s current products will run on it………and we’ll have to suffer through a year of hotfixes until compatible versions of Office, SMS, .Net Studio etc. are released………which means even more dollars spent.
But hey, it has translucent windows!!!
same here. i am already extremely frustrated and disappointed with Vista. do they honestly plan to sell this XP with minor eye candy and millions of bugs to anyone at one point? maybe in ten years? this is my last day that i believe Microsoft a word and that i use a Windows system. period.
I wouldn’t even call this a beta version. If you value your time and don’t want to screw up your system don’t touch this. This is clearly just a modified version of XP but thousand times less stable and without all those promised features. Is it only me who thinks that Vista is just all hype? As as developer I bet anything that Vista or however they want to call it will not make it onto the desktop within the next five years. By then everyone will have jumped on the Linux bandwagon. And for good reason.
As as developer I bet anything that Vista or however they want to call it will not make it onto the desktop within the next five years. By then everyone will have jumped on the Linux bandwagon. And for good reason.
Why do people assume that if Vista isn’t some badass upgrade, people are going to migrate to Linux or OSX in flocks? If all the features making it into Vista are already in Linux/OSX, if people wanted to use either of those two, they already would be using it. Even if Vista is nothing more than XP 1.5, it really won’t matter much. The desktop will stay stagnent, but the apps will not. And the apps are what counts. People using alternative OS’s thing that if their OS of choice just adds this one bell or whistle, it would be the nail in Microsoft’s coffin. It doens’t work like that – never has, never will.
I don’t like the rotated pics stack. Makes my eyes go crazy. They should have instead offset the bottom pics to the right and up and stack it that way.
Also, the windows controls look too square and sharp edge wise. Today’s style I think is more rounded appearance to help separate one screen element from the next one. Think of rounded OK buttons one after another instead of a square ones.
I like the hand holding and better explanations for some messages. That way I don’t have to remember what the feature does.
The transparent menubar should have been blue gradient or user defined color. Could also be transparent but not clear transparent because the views under leak thru the top window and making it confusing visually.
The vast majority of you claiming to be testing Vista right now are FOS. You’re nothing more than M$ Haters with an axe to grind.
Ya know… I used to be an MS hater, but then I grew up and realized that they are a company developing solutions and trying to make money. They have deadlines to meet, which means cutting conners and dropping features. In the open source world you can take as much time to design and implement something correctly as you need. This is not true with closed software.
Now don’t get me wrong, I dispize windows as an operating system, simply because it does not work. And don’t come to me with stories about how good your windows pc works. You don’t know how many times each week talk to some one who’s computer just stoped working right one day. Some one who thinks they need a new computer cause this one has started running slow…
I do respece Microsoft as a company and I respect their (seeming) effort to do Vista right. Now if they screw this one up… I do not respect everything Microsoft does (all the damn standards “tweaking” and stuff) but I understand a lot more of what they do now then I have in the past.
Is this a new operating system or a new desktop? To me it sounds more like the latter.
An analogy would be a Linux distro using a new and improved version of KDE and calling it a “new operating system”.
Did you read the article?
same here. i am already extremely frustrated and disappointed with Lunix. do they honestly plan to even give away this crap away for free. this DOS with minor eye candy and millions of bugs to anyone at one point? maybe in ten years? this is my last day that i believe Lunix Torballs a word and that i use a Lunix system. period.
I mean do they really expect the average user to have that kind computer. To use vista you have to upgrade I don’t think many average people would be getting this
Looks like Windows has finally caught up with Os X and Tiger in many ways. But I wish MS would just adopt Linux or Os X instead of just reinventing the wheel- what a waste of resources.
I would suggest that they give away their APIs to open source or Apple. All their efforts to make Windows as secure as Linux or Os X may still leave it vulnerable in the end since Windows was not designed from the ground up for security like the other OSes.
Also most Windows users are becoming aware that the features in Vista are just re-implementation of the ideas already present in Mac Os X for many years now. Many features are straight rip off: e.g., the search icon is the same magnifying glass as in Tiger (blue) but tilted the other way! The progress bar is similar to that of Os X but colored green! I could go on but that would only rankle Widows users.
Cheers
“Many features are straight rip off: e.g., the search icon is the same magnifying glass as in Tiger (blue) but tilted the other way! The progress bar is similar to that of Os X but colored green! I could go on but that would only rankle Widows users.”
???
The look of a search icon and the appearance of the progressbar are considered as features nowadays?
I don’t know what most people are demanding, but the priorities should be the changes under the hood, not some appearances, that will be anyway skinnable and thus changeable within seconds.
By the way, has anyone bothered to read the article? It doesn’t sound negative, and they are nice features described. As example the deployment management.
People bother too much with eye candy and desktop appearance, (Ironically mostly those people do it, who pretend that they hate any eye candy, and will immediately turn it off) and that is the reason, why some almost comical comments in the style of:
“The one icon under internet settings->options->advanced->user settings looks like one gif file I have seen five years ago on a website!!! Where’s the innovation? M$ is dead for me”
are all over the forums.
I tried the Lunix beta but once again its just a bunch of crap code cobbled together by smelly hippies. If the hippies think they can even get people to use this stink even by giving it away then they need to go smoke some more crack. Lunix smelly hippies need to get their act together by taking a shower and getting an education in computer science.
Let’s see what Gnome us like when they have released a stable version with all the Cairo glitze and also then see what the computer specs are for it.
Also, when I can get all my VST instruments working on Linux with a Decent Audio application either something like tracktion or Cubase SX without pulling my hair out for want for a decent audio subsystem at the OS level, then I’ll reconsider going back to Linux.
I was very pissed with Arch and Ubuntu when changing my audio card I got sweet F-all in support or success in getting it to work. The Echo Gina3G is supposedly supported but it wouldn’t work. Then there is ALSA, OSS, ESD, ARTS, and Jack to deal with. From an audio point of view Windows and Mac shit all over Linux in its current state. Oh and pls don’t mention RoseGarden, been there not bothering with that.
Cairo is claimed to improve gtk’s already fairly slow speed. And unless you actually try and take advantage of it with your theme I doubt you’ll notice a speed difference. In fact, the favourite gtk theme today is probably clearlooks, which shines in speed more than it does looks: I found it to be noticeably more responsive than default (I had to use a 350 PII on Debian to figure this out). Anyway, eye candy has usually been KDE’s thing.
I’ve never seen an app I couldn’t get installed on a recent (less than 2 years out of date) system. Commercial apps doubly so; they’re usually statically linked and you just run an install.sh and give it a directory. Then read the explicit instructions on updating LD_LIBRARY_PATH and PATH.
I doubt there’s good professional audio card support for very many audio cards. If you’re a professional audio guy you should probably go with the OS that the few professional audio hardware and software makers recommend: OS X or XP. Linux is for everyone; Linux driver and software support isn’t. We don’t call Windows crap because it’s hard to get our make, gcc, latex, sh environment going do we? Well, I probably have, but that’s usually just a shout of anger at cygwin
.
Alsa is the standard linux sound driver system. OSS is the old standard linux sound driver system; very very few distributions default on it. ESD is a sound server because OSS was lacking audio mixing. ARTS is a sound server because OSS was lacking audio mixing. Jack is a software library for most audio applications.
Sorry to get off track, but there’s an awful lot of anti-linux posting in this totally unrelated thread.
Also, if you got Archlinux going and you can’t install rosegarden… Well, something doesn’t match up. Arch makes Slackware’s hardware detection look good. The first time I installed it, I had to turn sound on (it was somehow off in devfs as I remember)!
What happened to the sidebar idea anyway? I rather liked the idea over the typical desktop applets (like karamba, gdesklets, Apple’s thing I forget the name, and the commercial one that yahoo bought). I wish they’d bring that back; it could make a really useful extension of the systray idea (and I don’t like systray’s). Sure, it eats screen space, but it’s minimizable and most Windows users just waste screenspace by maximizing everything anyway!
Anybody know? I haven’t seen it in longhorn screenshots in like a year.
I’ve downloaded the x86-64 edition (1.73GB ISO!) and installing it… It’s realy slow to install, the «Completing installation…» with the green line at the bottom never seem to end. I’m not on a slow PC here, Athlon64 3500+ with 1Gb RAM and 160Gb SATA drive.
I realy don’t know what it’s doing….
This looks like it has a huge amount of end-user improvements, and I’m actually looking forward to it now. Should be very interesting indeed.
Yes, I do however wish they hadn’t hyped some of the missing features though.
Damien
Seems like my nVidia 6600GT PCI-E is not enough for Vista because I don’t see any of the cute glass effect or transparent things… Just WinXP with a diffrent skin. Browsing a directory full of pictures takes a long time, scrooling around all the preview icons is slow…
I wonder what will be the final hardware requirement to run Vista at full speed…. ?
Windows Vista (as I can see it from available screenshots) is UI disaster.
What a mess!
Agreed. This GUI is very bad. It’s even worse than OSX. What a space waste! Will need 32 inch monitors.
Vista BETA1 folks! Yep, you heard correct, the software is BETA. Lots of show stopper bugs, unfinished product!
e17 on linux is the only viable linux UI that rivals MAC OSX / Vista… and is still a work in progress despite years of development.
In case everyone forgot, Operating System / GUI development isn’t exactly a walk in the park coding wise and requires enormous man hours regardless of monetary resources.
Lets keep everything in perspective here!
Vista looks like XP repackaged but slow as a snail and full of bugs. It brought my Pentium D 830 to its knees without leaving much for applications. I can’t help but have the feeling that Microsoft was just hyping everything all the way along and Vista smells too much like another couple years of development and another couple hundreds of millions. All I said to my broker just before the markets were closing: “Sell my 7500 shares of MSFT ASAP”.
i agree. it is slow as hell, the UI sucks, and it has so many bugs i gave up counting them. my confidence, patience, and trust in microsoft has reached zero. no windows for me anymore.
If Microsoft had spent as much money as they did on misleading and annoying advertising on development they might have had a chance to get Vista off the ground by next year. The “Beta 1” doesn’t even qualify as a pre-alpha in my eyes.
Anger and frustration are the two major emotions that overcame me when trying out Vista Beta 1 today. I wasn’t expecting anything polished or stable by any means but it was a complete disaster in terms of speed(my 386 runs XP faster), stability(I got enraged within the first minutes after the ways too looong installation procedure), UI organization(it made me throw up), look and feel(yuck!), service management, etc. etc. I would not wish it on my worst enemy to be forced testing Vista. Seriously.
Well. I must salute those hardcore innovative coders in Redmond. They have actually made their “new” “flagship” product actually look like my KDE using a Crystal theme.
It’s a step up from the toy like default setting in XP. I wonder if this one can be deactivated in services just like the current one? Then delete the service to reduce the memory footprint on older machines?
Linux will always run fine in the server room, but adolescent developers are no match for paid professionals that are employed at Microsoft and Apple.
Lunix should’ve started on the desktop much earlier. It’s fine though. Lunix works good as a small email server, and when we need enterprise servers we can use Solaris.
Lunix is a great hobbyist OS like AtheOS and Haiku. And I guess 3rd worlders that live in mud huts can use it too.
Nice try…
There is no more My’s (My Documents are Documents etc.) – cool, I hated those moronic folder names! One more thing less to customize after clean install
As for the rest… nothing revolutionary. In a normal world this would be a point release.
Netcraft says: 63.87.252.186 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0
I wonder if Vista server will handle load any better? 😉
“Vista is also going to be the fastest Windows ever. Of course, you’ll need a really fast—say 3GHz or better—processor, 512MBs of RAM, and a high-end graphics processor, but hey, you’ll only need to upgrade, say, 90 percent of your company’s computers. You can afford that?
I mean you wouldn’t want to upgrade to say SUSE Linux Professional 9.3, Red Hat’s Fedora Core 4 or Debian 3.1, which can already do everything Vista will do tomorrow on less expensive hardware for less money today would you?
Of course not!”
Haha, the author clearly has a good sense of humor. Hits the nail on the head, nothing new with Longhorn to use *nix users. Just another overpriced OS to sell more 3Ghz Intel boxes.
I think this discussion is unnecessary because windows its mostly about end users.
Do you think that “simple users” are interested in WINFS, avalon, indigo, opengl… ? do you see my point?
They only want to use word, power point, ie, play mp3, dvd, etc. they don’t know what is a file system or what is .net framework 2.0…
Vista will be pre-installed in all new pcs: dell, hp, ibm, etc. and Microsoft will keep a big % of OS market.
Vista will be pre-installed in all new pcs: dell, hp, ibm, etc. and Microsoft will keep a big % of OS market.
Yes, that’s true for home users, but on the corporate desktop windows 2k and XP will rule for a very long time. In such environments they usually downgrade to, or order computers to fit the existing IT infrastructure.
As an example, today, about 50% of all Swedish businesses still run win2k. The typical time for upgrades is when support is pulled. That would mean that Vista will not be seen much in business use until say 2010. By then there will be lots of alternatives to chose from.
do not be too critical about he speed of vista, i remember i ve done the same mistake with the beta of Tiger 294, i said it was slow and buggy at hell but Tiger final 10.4.2 is the faster OSX ever !!!
things can change, perhaps there are some debug code still in it, that slow down everything.
Once again Microsoft leads the way in innovation for others to copy. Lunix and Apple can fight each other for that 2% hobbyist market.
Neo-communist hatred of Microsoft is ineffectual. The communists are always crushed.
Clippy is Watching You.
Re: “The dialog has two buttons “log out” and “cancel”. theres no “type your password for M$ sudo”.”
So the question is will MS change this to be more secure like Linux distributions or leave it to customers to set Limited User accounts? If MS history has shown us anything it’s that they work more towards offering ease of use for their customers than actually providing security which is unfortunate.
1. “Virtual Folders” are nothing more than symolic links to actual objects. The difference here is that MS never added support for symbolic linking in their OS,opting instead to use “Shortcuts”.
true – however windows nt/2k/xp supports hard links by default. checkout fsutil.exe
flo
How come they want to make OS’es with a lot of colors, flashy stuff, and all that barbie look ?
A OS shall be simple and fast to work with, i REALLY hope you can turn of all the gfx crap.
Else it is just as ugly and annoying as OSX, with al it’s round corners, zoom effects and other useless nonsense.
p.s. No i don’t need the search funtionality i know where my files are stored. The user should be in control not the OS.
I especially like the browser in this screenshot:
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26945&a=156757&po…
It’s a BETA release people. And that being the case, it doesn’t look too bad from the pictures I’ve seen.
Now, I’m a Mac OS X user, but also a network manager for a large shool that uses both OSX and Windows XP/ Server 2003. I’m more interested in the server edition and waiting to find out whether MS are going to make RIS better. But this Vista desktop edition looks pretty good.
I’ve tried and tested Linux and it isn’t ready for us (that may not be your experience and might be partly due to my inexperience with the OS). Even at home getting something as simple as sound working on my system with Fedora Core 4 took hours and then it still didn’t work properly (on a Dell Inspiron 510m). But Windows works. And Mac OS X works. Not only that- they get ME working.
And that’s what it is all about.
Have you tried the “MediaPlayer Connectivity” extension for Firefox? I removed the mplayerplug-in and now use this one exclusively. I’ve now got all video formats streaming with KPLayer which, for me, has been rock solid. I also changed the default for rtsp streams to KPlayer and it’s not jerky like RealPlayer was. Great extension.
that start menu looks hideous.
Also, it looks like they’re trying to cram too much information into the same space. It’s worse than KDE!
(this is not a bashing, I prefer KDE personally)
It shows that competition or a hint of it does great things on the focus of a company.
Since I expect to be forced to use Windows for the foreseeable future, I hope it’s going to be great for a change.
LUsers err i mean Linux Users doing….burning? LOL
Yeah I agree with an earlier poster. The faceless people in the parental controls dialog are really creepy.
Hope they take that out… (not that I expect to use Vista for 6 or so years, I’m still on win2k – though Linux/Mac OS X are my primary platforms).
The only thing I haven’t seen in other OS’s are the stacks interface element. Not that they really come up to what the original Apple idea of piles was talking about, however that was not implemented. Everything else is already out there, and will run on less powerful machines. And it’s still a year and a haft away!
Virtual folders and saved searches? BeOS, and it’s decendents
Good security? Any flavour of UNIX or Linux
Hardware accelerated drawing? Mac OS X, vector based display since 10.0, hardware accelerated compositing since 10.2, Fully hardware accelerated drawing since 10.4, even resolution independent drawing if you turn it on (but the widgets need to be recreated as vectors rather than the current bitmaps, hence why it isn’t).
Simple interprocess and interapplication communication? NeXT, message passing NSProxy allows wonderfully transparent communications.
first:obviously this windows release has nothing to do with innovation, it´s only for force user to upgrade to faster pc only for do the same things that you are doing right now on your old computer.period
second: faster windows? on 3 ghz computer with tons of ram and the lastest gfx card sure windows is faster but no because windows itself is fast but because the hardware is more fast.And sure that with this configuration win98 and winxp are million years faster than windows vista
and last but not least, linux lived cd (knoppix) runs faaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssteeeeeeeeerrrrrr than windowsxp, despite linux is running from cd and winxp is running from HD, on my 500 mhz celeron, and that hardware is more than 5 years old.And knoppix do all that windows do.So yes linux on old hardware is funny
*yawn*
just a point release.. nothing to see here. Move along.
This Vista Beta 1 is so buggy and slow its a pain. The UI is nasty and still has some of the same old bugs of XP. This is clearly just a recycled XP or at least shares alot of the same old buggy code base. Yuck! Disgusting!
I am also running Ubuntu but on an old Pentium II and, yes, it runs many times faster than Vista on my shiny new Pentium D 830 and totally stable. I guess I’ll just hose Vista on that machine and make space for another ultramegahyperfast Ubuntu installation…
That’s nice, except for the fact that it is based off of 2003 SP1.
Not to mention several reviews put it as running better than expected.
You sure you are running beta 1 and not the WinHEC build?
So tell me again how learning and alternative OS is going to be harder than learning all the new wizards and ‘hold my hand’ stuff in Vista?
Microsoft has forever wanted to take a “let me hold your hand and do things for you” approach to their OSes. The Windows trolls call MacOS simplistic and whatnot but in a way, Windows is that and then some. Since Win95, the OS has tried to install drivers for devices I do not want a driver installed for. It has tried to force me to use the built-in crappy MS driver instead of the manufacturer’s. It has had multiple ways to perform one task. This simply confuses people. Where is the value in all of this?
…and please no OSX suggestions, there’s no apps for OSX (yeah, adobe is not the world), or, at least mine (with this I mean native) won’t be there for a very loooong time if ever.
This tired argument has gone on for 20 years now. Yeah Windows probably has 500 available word processors. So what, who’s going to use or need 500? If I have a choice of 10, I am sure I can find one that suits me.
So yeah you have a lot more apps in Windows but I assure you there is no sort of productivity work in Windows I cannot do on a Mac or Linux.
I had a working virtual desktop on windows with directx acceleration in 97. Does this mean Apple stole my idea? Please, stop spreading ignorance.
It means some Windows programmer wanted a feature available in XWindows so he/she wrote it.
Who stole from whom?
Same here. KDE runs fine on my P3 450Mhz box.
Though I switched to Fluxbox to get more performance
out of my old box.
And oh yeah. This box also act as my:
1] Firewall (using iptables)
2] DHCP server
3] SMB server
4] Web proxy server (squid)
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : Pentium III (Katmai)
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 451.031
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips : 897.84
Check this out. This box does:
SMTP – Postfix
IMAP – Cyrus
SQL – MySQL
Web – Apache + PHP + mod_perl
SMB – Samba
Firewall – IPFW
And the specs….
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: Power Mac G4 Cube
Machine Model: PowerMac5,1
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.9)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 450 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 3.3.2f1
Serial Number: xxxxxx
Sales Order Number: xxxxxx
Old Unix machines are still useful. Windows is too bloated.
Why not show *useful* statistics during a copy, like:
“845 files copied out of 4479”
or
“457.2MB copied out of 909MB”
???
Or is that covered in “more options”…?
After having used Mac OS X and especially 10.4 on my 6 year old Mac (note the comment that the new MS OS won’t run on PCs older than 5 years) I was not surprised, but disgusted as usual that MS has made a huge effort to copy OS X. Right down to the metallic interface and the translucent windows, they have once again tried to make money off other’s work. Notice even the blue glasslike buttons. Give me a break. The MS product still falls short and is less user/feature friendly than OS X. Since I am looking forward to the point, probably shortly, when Apple makes OS X available for PC machines (see their transition to Intel chips…), I expect this lagg in copying and reverse engineering Apple software by MS will eventually just boost Apple back into double digits in market share. If the two OSs look similar, one is much nicer, more polished and user friendly, has a much better data search engine and both run on the same machine… who would buy MS? Oh and there is NOTHING in software on Windows that is worth using that isn’t on OS X. Previous lame comments not withstanding.
Games?
checkmate =)
I checked out the 40 screen shots and didn’t see anything interesting. As someone pointed out, it has just got more verbose about telling you the same things.
Internet options is now on a page instead of a tab in IE — whoop. Windows security page is about the same, only bigger/more verbose. Sheesh!
As to that clear effect, with blurred text underneath: notice how the screenshots are heavily cropped. PCMag already knows that the blurred garbage underneath is a total distraction. I bet the average user doesn’t want it.
Once again they have messed up the start menu, cluttering it up to no useful purpose.
And all this talk about search is ridiculous, IMHO. Ontrack’s totally free file finder works for me, hooking nicely into the “right-click on Start” area.
Maybe some stability gains are all we get this time.
By the way, can we stop with the “*nix needs less ram than xp” rubbish? It is a dead heat, frankly. Both need about 256MB right now. Non issue. Drop it. Nuff already.
1) MS waits until Tiger and KDE 3.4 are released to see what the TRUE innovators are doing, then rips them off and claims the ideas as their own.
2) codes it all poorly on top of a still existing Win95 understructure.
3) tries to hype each release as the “next big thing” which is still mostly vaporware.
4) doesn’t publicly credit UNIX who has been providing all of the security features in production environments for decades now and cosmetic features for 6-7 years now.
5) doesn’t understand that they have gouged and lied to the people for too long and their time is almost done.
Why give your hard earned $$$ to a convicted criminal monopolist who has shown no signs of change for the better?
Hey fucktard, if “calc.exe” constitutes a “still existing Win95 understructure”, then your beloved UNIX derivatives are still sucking the feces through my bleeding anal cavity back in the 80s, niggabiatch.
[quote]
1) MS waits until Tiger and KDE 3.4 are released to see what the TRUE innovators are doing, then rips them off and claims the ideas as their own.
2) codes it all poorly on top of a still existing Win95 understructure.
3) tries to hype each release as the “next big thing” which is still mostly vaporware.
4) doesn’t publicly credit UNIX who has been providing all of the security features in production environments for decades now and cosmetic features for 6-7 years now.
5) doesn’t understand that they have gouged and lied to the people for too long and their time is almost done.
Why give your hard earned $$$ to a convicted criminal monopolist who has shown no signs of change for the better?
[/quote]
No I won’t have that at all. It’s based on NT, not 95.
Other than that, spot on
in a new transparent bottle.
“well most of the big games today. Half life 2, Unreal Tourney, Doom 3, Far Cry, etc. do run on OpenGL, since it is in fact better =) ”
With the exception of Doom 3, all the other mentioned games are DX based.. (Although UT can use Open GL, but on Windows it uses afaik DX as standard)
Other posting:
“MS waits until Tiger and KDE 3.4 are released to see what the TRUE innovators are doing, then rips them off and claims the ideas as their own. ”
… KDE 3.4 is a nice piece of software, but aren’t we forgetting as what KDE started? It’s clear intention was to be a win95 copy.
Look how win95ish the 1.0 Version was:
http://www.kde.org/screenshots/images/medium/dfaure.jpg
Even the 3.0 Version was very windowish in appearance, notice as example the text, that is placed on the vertical line of the opened start menu, at the left side.
Windows 9x to Windows 2000 had that too (and before KDE), but of course the text was the version number of the Win OS.
Other Points:
—
“doesn’t publicly credit UNIX who has been providing all of the security features in production environments for decades now and cosmetic features for 6-7 years now.
5) doesn’t understand that they have gouged and lied to the people for too long and their time is almost done. ”
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The NT Line had ACLS, low privilege users and so on too. It’s just wasn’t forced to use this mechanisms.
And people, get a grip. MS has over 90% percent of the market, Longhorn will arrive in around one year. Do you expect honestly, that in this one year, people will all convert to Linux and Mac? And do you really think, Longhorn will be really THAAAT bad?
I can still remember the development of win2000. Everyone was complaining.. “What? 10 Million lines of code? This is a unmaintainable monster! It will crash, it will suck!” And indeed, the first beta of nt 5 wasn’t very promising.
And what happened? The final of win 2000 was a very fine OS, I even heard from some people, it was the best OS they have used.
So people, calm down and stop the hatred.
My god, and I thought certain slashdot trolls are bad. They are IT-Kings compared to the osnews folks. Some of you behave like religious nuts, who have seen the devil horns on Bill Gates.
OpenGL is superior to D3D in many respects and there are countless comparisons on that issue e.g. http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/d3d-vs-opengl.html
DirectX was more of a patchwork while OpenGL is an actual standard. After phasing out its DirectX campain nVIDIA as well as ATI are both firmly committed to OpenGL driver support and to OpenGL as the future standard.
NVIDIA and ATIs D3D support has only strengthened over the years. They are the primary vendors working with MS helping to define the next generation GPU features and API support. They already have Vista Driver Model Drivers ready and have had them since Vista was alpha. D3D (DX in general) was created when there were no standard APIs available for PC graphics (just as DX provided the standard APIs for sound, input, etc.). OpenGL (for games) only became viable with 3dfx and the Voodoo Graphics.
“Wrong, Quartz does what GDI/GDI Plus does.”
What are you talking about? GDI sucks crazy, there is nothing to do with quartz. Where are the vector based drawing, real time drawing, real time 2D effetcs like shadows or transparency, where are the high quality drawing, where is the compositing, etc, etc in GDI, you dont know what quartz is, so dont say bullshit as big as you.
“Apple does not have resolution-independent UI nor hardware accelerated drawing. Only w/ Tiger did they start to add that. Currently, it’s inaccessible to end-users and likely will be until Leopard. ”
All the quartz architecture already supports resolution independent GUI, Tiger allows its activation, apple is implementing this feature gradually. osx support hardware accelerated drawing for all the os interface since Jaguar. Quartz 2D now support hardware acceleration for all the 2D drawing inside the windows. Its not accessible yet, but it will be before Leopard, its already working very fine on my machine after activation.
“S printing architecture is similar to their current one, just using an XML format for everything and supporting the higher channel color formats of the new Color Management system. Metro is as proprietary as PDF.
Longhorn is not borrowing from unix for security. The security architecture is the same ACL-based model that’s been in NT since the beginning. The difference is now they are enforcing it by default on all setups, not just corporate managed setups.
”
Look at the longhorn developper do, their new printing model wants to achieve the same goal as osx. PDF is proprietary but its an industry standart, why a hell to invent something else to do exactly the same thing as pdf with metro, thats stupid and that’s typical microsoft.
“Search: 1. How many ways can you make a search box?
2. Search was a part of Longhorn 2 years before Apple released Spotlight.
Piles/Stacks: How many ways can you represent relations/stored queries? ”
The search field did not appear like this in the previous build of longhorn, it appeared in the build 5048 well after Panther and Tiger. Microsoft saw that it worked well to design the finder with fast access to the search field for apple. The build 4051, 4015 and 4008 did not have the search field in every windows, it had the search feature in the same location as xp.
http://www.winsupersite.com/vista/
And the search field did not appear in the start menu, they did in the same way apple did the spotlight menu, just accept it, thats a matter of fact. They designed the interface very closely to the finder, look at the finder in Tiger and the windows in vista, thats the same layout, and this did not exist in the previous build of longhorn.
“ Syncing -> ActiveSync integrated by default.
Printing -> Have you seen Windows’ current printing system?
Faxing has been in Windows for years. It was funny when Steve Jobs made a big deal out of that feature. What took so long?
A Speech engine has been integrated into Windows since Windows 2000. Likewise, Windows 2000 introduced the Encrypting File System.
Try actually looking at several Windows setups before believing everything Steve Jobs says. He also said the G5 was faster than x86 CPUs. We know how that worked out.
ActiveSync is a joke very far from osx, it sucks.
Faxing in xp sucks.
Speech engin in win2000? Are you joking, it sucks as hell.
Encrypting File System sucks, who knows this feature, all of them are badly implemented, with poor interface, they are useless.
And yes the G5 is a very fast chip, its still blow away any x86 chip in floating point task and many other tasks, apple don’t use the todays x86 chip, they will use the nextt generation intel chip which appear to ber very promising in the roadmap regarding performance and power consumption. Today G5 are still stonger, dont believe Gate, my boy.
You don’t know what Quartz is. If you looked at it and looked at GDi/GDI+ you’d see some striking similarities and GDI/GDI+ were around before Quartz.
The quartz architecture may be ready for it, but Apple hasn’t finished implementing it yet. They also just added 256×256 bitmap support. OSX has not supported hardware drawing since Jaguar, this is false. OSX has supported hardware compositing. Drawing is still, even in Tiger as far as end-users are concerned, done by the CPU.
Metro isn’t doing the same as PDF. There is overlap, but Metro covers more areas.
Search: Not true – Search was available from every window but was provided by a button instead of a textbox. Though in some incarnations it was provided by a textbox in a taskpane on the left of the window.
ActiveSync a joke? Sure, easy to say but I use it.
Faxing in XP doesn’t suck. How much easier can you get than printing to a standard fax driver? That’s basically what Apple did and touted as revolutionary.
Speech in Win2k — again, easy to say, have you actually used it? That same technology powers apps like MS Speech Server.
Encrypting File System does not suck. It’s now obvious you’re just shilling for Apple.
G5 blowing away x86. SPEC says otherwise. Independent benchmarks say otherwise. Only Apple said so and they’ve now made fools of themselves by using the same Intel CPU for their Mac dev systems and Intel Mac demos that marketing material on their site still says is half as fast as a G5.
Also keep in mind that x86 is not only faster than G5, it’s faster than 2 G5s (and significantly cheaper).
“You don’t know what Quartz is. If you looked at it and looked at GDi/GDI+ you’d see some striking similarities and GDI/GDI+ were around before Quartz.
The quartz architecture may be ready for it, but Apple hasn’t finished implementing it yet. They also just added 256×256 bitmap support. OSX has not supported hardware drawing since Jaguar, this is false. OSX has supported hardware compositing. Drawing is still, even in Tiger as far as end-users are concerned, done by the CPU.
Metro isn’t doing the same as PDF. There is overlap, but Metro covers more areas. ”
Dont say me that i dont lnow quartz. I am writing apps with quartz every day, and i compare what other guys do with GDI, so please leave your pc geek magazine, go to check some developer doc and after come to talk with me. If GDI could do what does quartz why the foll pc user has to wait vista to get what quartw does today. Why i can not find real time antiliasing, real time drawing, real time 2D effetcs, device independence, built in real time bezier curve and geometrical shape, vector based drawing, etc… in GDI. Why GDI does not do that today, tell me boy!
And moreover when you dont know dont tell. Osx has supported hardware accelerated interface and drawing since 10.2, every window is an openGL texture mapped to the graphical card, so every quartz effetc is renderd by the supported graphical card (at leats 16 MB of memory): shadows, transparency, visula effect (Dock, Expose,…), etc. Dont say me no its called Quartz Extrem. You dont believe me, so move your ass, go to an osx machine, if the developer tools are installed, lunch Quartz debug, bring the frame meter and you will see that the cpu is not working much when acting in the interface, because everything is rendered by the card.
Tiger introduced acceleration for 2D graphisme inside the windows Quartz 2D Extrem, drawing lines, rectangles or whatever get managed by the card, so application that have to draw 2 dimensional objetcs can get the maximum of performance with quartz. Its still not activated, it should be soon.
Metro aims at the same goal as pdf. Creating an abstraction between the app and the printer, so that every document is independent of the type of printer, and to get high quality and high fidelity printing. Thats what pdf does today. So what…
Previous longhorn build showed a search icon, yes, but that radically different to a search field where user can access more quicly. Thats two different interface approach. Yes there was a search field in the side bar, but the side bar sucked so crazy that they removed it, and take the apple window approach. Thats it, accept it.
Yes Try to beat a duel G5 fool, you dont lnow what you are talking about. The today’s G5 are still mostly faster than pcs, read again the news, apple is gona use intel chips very different to the today pentium that even intel is agree to say that it sucks. But anyway you are a pc geek, so what can you know?
My last post on this thread. This is getting pointles when fcts can’t even be acknowledged.
My info comes from documentation and actually experiencing the technology. If you choose to ignore facts, so be it. You sound like a magazine geek as most computer industry magazines are filled with inaccuracies.
For those wanting the facts on Apple’s support of Resolution-Independent UI and Hardware accelerated Drawing, read the following links:
Search “Resolution Independent UI” or “Quartz 2D Extreme” on this page:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Cocoa/AppKit.html
Resolution-Independent UI (kinda like “Longhorn” if you replace 72DPI with 96 DPI)
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/GraphicsImaging/ResolutionI…
Quartz 2D Extreme (discussed in the above links – there’s also an ars technica article on it) — this brings hardware accelerated drawing to MacOS, but it’s currently a dev preview feature. If Apple supported this for years, why the need for Quartz 2D Extreme? Simple — MacOS only does composition in hardware, even in Tiger as far as end-users are concerned.
So what is the big deal about linux?
Someone please tell me how linux is any better?
I am tired of this bullshit saying that linux somehow has all the fucking features on earth.
Damn, It’s like when Microsoft does anything, some fucking dick has to point out that it’s useless when very few of these features are even included in linux itself.
After you get past the security things which is based off of UNIX and that linux basically ripped off from unix, Linux doesn’t offer shit
I mean WTF. It’s not only sad its fucking pathetic.
I have run Knoppix Linux and honestly I still don’t see what is so nice about it. It basically rips off of windows XP and yet it’s supposed to be innovative compared to windows.
OS news is fucking trolls. Damn, so much misinformation. It’s like slashdot.
Trolls with no lives