Love-him-hate-him Paul Thurrot has released a four part in-depth review of Vista’s December CTP. “I think people are going to be surprised by how good the Windows Vista December 2005 Community Technical Preview (CTP, or build 5270) really is. After years of painful delays and an uncertain couple of months since the last CTP, Microsoft shipped a near-feature-complete Vista build to testers this week, and the prognosis is extremely positive. From what I can see, Vista has turned the corner. The December CTP is an exciting release, stable and full of new features. In this review, I’ll examine those new features, and the features that have changed since the previous CTP, build 5231” Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.
Love or hate windows, at least they’re friggin updating the thing. Please can the bitching stop.
* hardware accelerated
* 2K3 Kernal + more
= Better than before
It’s kernEl not kernAl, and it most certainly is not the 2k3 kernel anymore.
Sorry, a bad habbit I picked up from the Commodore64. I first learnt computers on a C64 at the age of 7 and was programming the C64 Kernal (intentially spelt wrong as an Acronym/Backronym) at 12. I’ve never been able to get that out my system
They started with the 2k3 kernel though and have built on/modified it. You’re right that it’s not the same kernel anymore, but I think Kroc’s point is that it’s using probably the most reliable Windows kernel to date.
Sorry, but that feature looks really stupid…the prefetcher was a Good Thing (one that Linux hasn’t been able to imitate), but using usb keys to improve the performance? Gggghh
Oh man, flash-based devices have a limited number of writes. And sure, usb keys are much faster than disks doing random IO but sequential disk IO is *much* faster. Instead of using usb keys why not just create “cache files” in the disks? (ie: superfetch, but use only your hard disk not usb keys). Create the “cache files” as *sequential* readable files (in other words: duplicate the accessed disk blocks but in a *optimized* way) and you’ll get performance improvements without using usb keys. My 5 ¢.
Edited 2005-12-24 22:40
I’m not sure about it, but I think the feature is probably more related to (or will benefit more from) the new harddrives with flash memory included. Something microsoft and Seagate (IIRC) was working sometime ago and still in prototype phase.
…Maybe it isn’t related at all… but even them, I do prefer wait and see some real-tests about it’s advantage and possible disvantages. =]
Perhaps. But I think you’ve missed the “poor man’s” or “untechnical man’s” RAID aspect.
Accessing two independent devices means you get your data faster and there’s plenty of contention for disk access in modern single user systems – especially during application launch, where SuperFetch is designed to work.
“Superfetch” sounds so much more advanced & sexy than “Pre-loading” .
How about renaming “boot-process” to something like ehhh .. “user-experience initialisation” .. I would not mind having my experience initialised
Happy Christmas & all other festivity greetings out there to anyone & anything
& Good New Year or Good Time 
Damn this Christmas spirit is taking over … Humbug I say
“Oh man, flash-based devices have a limited number of writes.”
For what I understood reading the article it will be seldomly updated because it will contain most accessed data that’s likely to change slowly (or otherwise it will be pointless to cache the most accessed data!), so a 100,000 rewrite memory should last quite enough, say, if the system resfresh the “most frequently accessed” list each hour and you use the PC 10 hours a day almost everyday, it will last 25-30 years (10 refresh/day * 333 days of use/year * 30 years)
“Instead of using usb keys why not just create “cache files” in the disks?”
Typical notebook and budget desktop has usually only one phisical hard disk, that means that caching on the same disk will result in a quite constant conflict with normal hd operations on the same device and channel, making almost useless the caching scheme.
Moving it on a secondary (phisical) HD on an independent channel improve a lot the wole thing but typical budget PC or notebook user usaully doesn’t know it, doesn’t know how to open the PC and plug an HD (not speaking of understanding how channels works), or have no budget or room to put a secondary HD (an used one may be really outdated and slower resulting a bad non-solution!) but that kind of user should easily undestand how to plug in a secondary storage if it’s simply needed to plug in an usb-key.
“Create the “cache files” as *sequential* readable files (in other words: duplicate the accessed disk blocks but in a *optimized* way)”
AFAIK it’s jet the way the Windows’s cache works and the way the MS defrag works, keeping track of most used files and moving it to a sequentially readable sequence on the disk.
IMHO, this feature is mainly aimed to non skilled and mobile users in order to provide an easy way to cache data on a non cuncurrent device.
But moreover, since random reads are faster on flash than on disks, it will also be useful in the cases when, due to the nature of the cached data, it would be difficult to find a sequential way to organize the data.
On the other side, it may also be seen also a bet on the future: building speedier disks is hitting phisical walls (rotation speed, density, plates overheating etc), while flash memory are still young (compared to disks) and may overcome actual limits in near future.
However, having plenty of RAM still seem the most sane thing to do if you can put it into the system!
Yes i really dont see the point of superfetch. Isnt it exactly like swap? Or atleast almost like swap. And we all know swap is _SLOW_.
Wouldn`t be like if i ran a `cat` on /usr/lib/kde/ and then after some time those disc-caches would be pushed from ram to swap.
Edited 2005-12-24 22:46
A few nitpicks I discovered in this build (only smaller nitpicks, not unusual seeing it’s only beta and all):
– Explorer has problems saving window settings (such as icon views, tree view on or off, icon size, etc.);
– I managed to render Internet Explorer 7 unusable by disabling tabbed browsing (yes, I don’t like tabbed browsing, guess I’m the only one). After turning it off, IE7 fails to start (crashes immediatly);
– The Windows Photo Gallery is a POS. It has screen remnants everywhere, it’s buggy, and very slow.
– Visual remnants are not uncommon in this build in general;
– As Thurrot noted, the fancy power saving stuff doesn’t work– at least not on my computer.
By the way, one cool thing about Aero I do not want you to miss: when you maximize a window, it (and the taskbar) loses its transparency. This of course makes a lot of sense, as maximizing a window means you only want THAT window to be seen so transparncy would be useless. Let’s hope MS will pay attention to these sorts of details *everywhere* in Vista!
Update: I was able to fix the IE7 crashing thing by re-enabling tabbed browsing using Internet Options.
Edited 2005-12-24 22:55
What do you mean by screen/visual remnants? If that’s what I suspect (being a developer with plenty of Windows experience) that may not be a feature/bug of Windows itself, but of your video driver, written by a third party. This is something that has been an issue whenever the video drivers aren’t up to snuff, and doesn’t mean that Windows itself is buggy in that regard.
Hopefully those are driver bugs in beta or alpha drivers using the new driver model, and they will be fixed before final 1.0 release.
Get over the USB key things, it was just a demonstration of what SuperFetch is capable of. It uses RAM to cache programs before you run them based on your usage patterns.
I haven’t a clue how someone could compare it to a swap file … dummies
Well, then why are they going on about the usb thing? Every article i have read about it seems to mention the usb flash memory thing.
I compared it to swap because they are about the same speed.
Now on the other hand what you said about prefeching stuff based on usage pattern seems like a great idea.
Edited 2005-12-24 23:00
Well, then why are they going on about the usb thing? Every article i have read about it seems to mention the usb flash memory thing.
It wasn’t just a demo for demos sake. It’s a real capability, which is why you see it mentioned in many articles.
I compared it to swap because they are about the same speed.
It’s not exactly the same speed. You should get better performance due to lower latencies in accessing flash memory vs. a harddrive (no rotational latency, no head seek).
It’s not exactly the same speed. You should get better performance due to lower latencies in accessing flash memory vs. a harddrive (no rotational latency, no head seek).
Exactly. Using a USB flash device provides much faster random access times than your hard drive, providing an extra level in the filesystem cache hierarchy for data that gets pushed out of main memory.
Does any one else here think that tabbed browsing would be nice in the filemanager? (well, I guess not Thom ;^)
I personally would like that…
Such a feature have been in KDE’s file manager Konqueror for ages. And yes, it is really great, especially when combined with KIO slave technology.
In the article it mentions how revolutionary the default view of WMP11 is by displaying the album art by default. As opposed to a list. And how Apple will probably rip this off in iTunes… I certainly hope they don’t.
Personally, I like to have more than roughly 4 items displayed to me at a time, as shown in this picture. Maybe more if the window is maximized.
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista5270_review_036.jpg
It seems like a huge waste of space to me. This is the DEFAULT view. I could be wrong but it does seem that way.
JRM7
Edited 2005-12-24 23:11
My iTunes DOES display album art– is this supposed to ne revolutionary or something?
Mine and everyone else’s displays album art as well. But the default listing is an album art icon that you click on to begin playing the file or you drag to a playlist. Instead of using a list of names and titles. That’s the point I was making.
Not the actual displaying of album art. Pretty much everything has that capability.
JRM7
I looks really good – sexy – but of course that is just looks – they can easily be changed.
On Linux we can look this good as well – if we configure it to.
As the guy (Paul T….) said – it seems more like an upgrade than a brand new version of Windows – still itll be really good & really bloated
What Microsoft & ESPECIALLY Apple do is they promote how great & advanced their OS are – when I see Linux adds its usually stability & security – things that are important for servers – the fact that Linux can be as sexy as Vista & Apple is not really known outside of the community Id guess .
Apple use OSS bits & say that it is great & advanced & … true .. but I dont seem to get the same imprewssion of Linux ads.
I wonder if what comes to people’s minds when they hear “Linux” .
I wonder if any of the things that come to mind is “modern sexy stable OS” .. maybe stable .. but thats it IMO
Something doesnt need to he completly true to be able to claim it in some addvertisment – Apple went so far as to claim that they had the fastest processor out there – they didnt bother to compare it to AMD’s – U can claim anything – U can always have lots of small print:) – on Linux we can claim IMO :
x stability
x great looks
x easy to use
x easy to install
x secure
x modern
x reliable
x easy to keep up-to-date
x unbloated
x sexy
x demotratic
………………
We can claim all the stuff Apple & Windows do … we have all the apps to make a desktop & we are cute & friendly with a penguin.
Wel I got very much off-topic … but we can claim to be able to run Windows apps .. it is ture .. just not all of them … Windows isnt able to run all of its apps Id imagine.
With WINE we can run Windows 2.0 apps – XP cant – if we want to.
I think we should not be so shy & modest about what the OSS has.
Hey 70/80% of the Internet runs off Apache.
Linux CANNOT do full, stable, hardware-accelerated alpha-blending and window effects like Vista can. Xcompmgr is, quite possibly, the BIGGEST piece of crap software ever made. It’s incredibly buggy, doesn’t work well with most window managers, crashes whenever it’s bored and is complicated to use. Being “pretty” is more than just a skin, you know.
This is coming from someone who used Linux as a primary OS for about six months–I’m a skinning WHORE and I still found that, while the various WMs skinning abilities are possibly more advanced than XP’s/Vista’s, they all still have a long way to go before they even begin to incorporate the technologies that Vista has.
Also, has Linux fixed the RenderAccel bug yet? Because, if not, it’s impossible to do any hardware acceleration while using xcompmgr. (IF you didn’t know, the “RenderAccel” bug is compositing bug that caused Nvidia and ATI cards to randomly, violently hang the entire OS to the point where, short of SSHing into the computer and killing X, the computer had to be restarted manually. This was only when RenderAccel was on. RenderAccel allows X to use the GPU to render the WM and not the CPU.)
Personally, I’m running Vista 5270 on a modest system: AXP 1800+, 512mb ram and a Geforce 2 32mb, and I’m able to get decent speed out of Vista, with DWM. The same specs would choke when xcompmgr was on in any wm I tried, including GNOME, KDE (kcompmgr,) XFCE and Fluxbox.
Personally, I’m running Vista 5270 on a modest system: AXP 1800+, 512mb ram and a Geforce 2 32mb, and I’m able to get decent speed out of Vista, with DWM.
Same experience here. I only have an AMD Athlon XP1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, and an Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM, and all the effects barely slow down the computer (when compared to Vista without those effects, ‘Aero Basic’).
Microsoft recently said all the effects should be possible to run on *any* card with advanced 3D capabilities (DirectX8/9) wth at least 64MB of video memory. And seeing my experiences, I’m thinking they’re gonna reach that goal.
sorry, but the problem you guys have is in the drivers. the latest nvidia drivers finally support the RENDER feature needed for proper xcompmgr – try KDE 3.5 with the latest drivers, enable RENDER, Composite and glx-with-composite and see how fast and stable it is.
You have no clue whatsover.
Im using Composite on a 2048×1280 hardware-accelerated and rotated (pivot) Virtual Desktop with a 40$ Geforce card on a Duron-Box since months and it works perfectly well.
Could you please keep calm & not see it as a personal attack.
Yes the whatever extension is buggy blah blah blah … but what Im saying is that Linux seems to be undersold.
& to the normal unexperienced user – the non-skinning-whore
– pretty is pretty.
At the end of the day – just a guess – most computers in use will propably be in offices or used by people who do not care THAT much about the UI .
Also does magic pretty effects add functionality & ease of use – Im kind of a bit now disagreeing with my previous post (I started this sub-topic) .. but all fancy effects can improve usability but they are not a magic solution to bad UI design.
We can have (& do with KDE 3.5) silly little apps (widgets or what are they called on OSX?) & we can have an OSX-like bar (same prog) & have transperancy (Enlightenment) & for menus of course in KDE – GNOME as well ?
From your post Im hearing the attitude “it doesnt work – never will – & its sheit” IMO
I still think we can have on Linux a sexy desktop .. & even if it is just a quite pretty desktop with no transperant window borders then we still have lots of reasons to be able to promote Linux as a desktop OS.
Well it has to start somewhere & sometime.
Ohoe … Linux desktop flamewar alarm
A bigger company with a lust for risk
could e.g. do an “Apple” with Linux … sell Linux with predefined peripherals (SPLN?) … fully configured etc.
Linux can work flawlessy but the OSS community has a bigger support task than Microsoft or Apple as the OSCommunity & a few companies write support for every piece of hardware out there.
Windows doesnt bother trying to run on Apple hardware or the other way round or any of the other X number of platforms Linux supports but Windows does not.
Windows Server is not promoted as a gaming OS.
If the scope of possible hardware & therefore possible problems & tasks is narrowed down then it is more likley to get an OS as satisfying or even more satisfying than OSX XP/Vista IMO
Just IMO
Lock Case with Lock. Enter BIOS. Set to boot from HD only. Enable BIOS password. Have boot loader that does whatever checking is required and then boots or does not boot the main OS. Every described feature met, no TPM involved.
Except for them removing the hard disk *yoink*. Why fart with security when you can just steal the machine and bypass freely at your leisure.
Lock Case with Lock. Enter BIOS. Set to boot from HD only. Enable BIOS password. Have boot loader that does whatever checking is required and then boots or does not boot the main OS. Every described feature met, no TPM involved.
BIOS locks can be bypassed by removing the battery from the motherboard. Case locks can be bypassed using a number of methods (also think about laptop access/theft scenarios). The harddrive could also be removed from the computer and booted elsewhere. With the TPM, everything is locked to the key in the TPM. If you don’t have that, you can’t get the data.
> … removing the battery … Case locks can be bypassed ….
Well. I assume people with enough paranoia would use solid cases. On a G5 Mac, for example, that would require a disc grinder.
> …also think about laptop access/theft scenarios
> If you don’t have [the TPM] you can’t get the data.
Umm. When the Laptop is stolen, the thief has the TPM and therefore the key (if it resides in there). And whether then to attack with the grinder or a more advanced techniques is merely a matter of different skills.
So fundamentally, the data is not secured but merely obscured. The precise details of the process are also very vague, a bit of googling turned up the usual marketing blurb and an article at: http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Motherboards/Secure-Startup-Microsof…
where they make a few educated guesses on what really happens. The availability of CPRM-like features from the hard drive comes into play, too.
Anyone who is really interested in keeping his/her data secure from other’s eyes should rather turn towards a solution that separates the key from the machine, i.e. have a USB stick with the key that genuinely makes the data useless to any attacker if it is not present.
Well. I assume people with enough paranoia would use solid cases. On a G5 Mac, for example, that would require a disc grinder.
The point is that with physical access, the BIOS/Case lock can be defeated (and easily).
Umm. When the Laptop is stolen, the thief has the TPM and therefore the key (if it resides in there). And whether then to attack with the grinder or a more advanced techniques is merely a matter of different skills.
Having the TPM doesn’t automatically give you the key. You still have to find a way to attack the TPM without damaging it or altering anything that would change the boot process such that the stored system measurements taken at the last secure boot become invalid, and thus you can’t start the Windows boot process to decrypt the OS and user data on the harddrive.
Generally, I can’t stand Thurott because the articles he writes are so fanboyish. The thing that gets me is that he’s respected as a professional journalist. BAH! Anyway, I have been surprised by him a couple of times; he has settled down and shown rational thinking on several occasions. Unfortunately, his jaunts at Apple and iTunes just make me tune him out…
I can’t wait to test that.
Right now my computer does everything I want it to do. Plays the latest and greatest games, plays videos and music, burns cd’s, scan images, stores my data, prints, etc. What does Vista bring to the table that I can’t do right now? For what it will do, I have to say it won’t run in full mode on my hardware meaning either I have to run in classic mode or upgrade my hardware as well. Where is the compelling reason? Spend $2-3k on a new computer to do what I can do now, or spend nothing and get the samething, just not as flashy or as much eyecandy, or spend some cash and get something I can’t run in a way I can enjoy why I got it in the first place? Hard choices ahead for me…
Here’s a clue: No one cares about you, your computer, or what you do on the computer.
Those who want to upgrade to Vista because it has something they like will do so. Eventually all new computers will come with Vista. Eventually a good portion of the world will be on Vista.
You can stay behind if you like, because again — no one cares.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“You are right in your statements”, guy, but ONLY because the human being is so shallow, and plenty of people so half brained that they swallow anything, or almost anything…
Marketing specialist, smart guys, tyrans, mafiosi etc. take advantage of that, of course…. And the IT world is not different.
Most of the people could have a better , more solid & quicker OS than windows(any version). The alternatives are there (Linux, BSD, MacOS, UNIX….). And with many optional desktops, and candy eye if they want. Still they keep on using Windows, just because everybody use it, or lack of curiosity, laziness, stulticy or whatever…
And they could have a better OS even for free (as beer) if they want, still they prefer to pay for a worst product or steal it…. Sad.
It is their right… If they want to do so, or do not have more inteligence or willness… to avoid or try to avoid being spyed, controlled, and politically and economically exploited.
I use several OS, and take advantages of all of then. I do not expect everybody to do so. I’ll keep on defending FREE computing even if Linux or other alternatives become a mass product and start to get spoiled and rotten (that would happen for sure), at least partially.
I don’t remember what Philosopher (right spell??) in the Roman empire wrote something wondering how people could lost time and money going, on and on, to the Roman Circus to wath other people being massacred and/or devored by lions and other animals, instead of doing something usefull or interesting….
Well, the answer is that those people found going to the roman circus interesting…
We have not changed a lot… Stulticy reigns and smartasses take advantage of this. So let them being used and exploited if they want. And help those who want to get out from mediocrity…
Vista will be released and will ve a succes, probably, but Linux, BSD and FREE computing will keep on growing…
The tools to try to scape from domination and mediocrity are being created…
Society and economics are changing, and the monopoly of goods, and the monopoly of ‘means of production’ is becoming demodé, little by little. That is to say: is becoming more and more outside of of the “straight and ‘right’ way of thinking”
This is a step to DEMOCRACY….
Those want to use the tools that allow others to dominate them, have the right to do so, even if its stupid, but as i said before: ” we have not changed that much”.
Those “domination” tools will “tax” them; while me and many others, each time more and more, we will “Tux” them… 😉
You have the right to use Vista, but the “vista” that you wil have, will be rather black…
Me and many others will be using and promoting free IT, where the “vista” is much brighter….!!!
Angel–Fr@gzill@
P.S. “Windows Is Pee”
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah … I’ve heard what you have to say before many times.
I disagree about “better, more solid, quicker” though. Windows is both solid and quick — better is a point of view though. OS X, while very solid, is not all that quick. Linux, while quick (at least the kernel, GNOME/KDE are excluded from this statement), is not very solid. FreeBSD, while extremely solid, can be beaten by Linux sometimes in terms of quickness.
The comparisons go on …
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah yeah yeah wow wow wow… you’ve heard what before and still you resist to accept it ???
Even when you recognise that with your own words…
You disagree about “better, more solid, quicker”, but in fact you AGREE with your own reasoning though!!!
“Windows is both solid and quick” — NO, is not , I have several machines, Windows included so i can test it everyday and is less stable and reliable and quick than any of the other OS mentioned… Even when it has improved in many aspects in the last 3 years. But, on the other hand you have also all the problesm of viruses, attacks etc ..
“better is a point of view”. Could be, but if experience tells you that something is more reliable and quick .. How to deny it is better ???
You say “OS X, while very solid, is not all that quick. Linux, while quick (at least the kernel, GNOME/KDE are excluded from this statement), is not very solid. FreeBSD, while extremely solid, can be beaten by Linux sometimes in terms of quickness.”
Well I agree with you more or less. Except that Linux is SOLID. How could Mission critic systems exit in Linux if not???; or how could 75 per cent of the superComputers on earth run Linux if it was not solid and reliable???
It is more solid and reliable than Windows, unles you use unfinished Distros, or very recent packets not tested in deep…
KDE and Gnome are not specially quick. True. Change to another Destop environmnet, then. Linux is in that so much versatil than Windows…
Not to mention the personal, financial, moral, political, economic etc. advantages of Linux or other Free Systems in relation to Windows… You said nothing about that. so, since your reasons seem clever enough I asume that you agree openly with me in that…
The comparisons go on … Yes .. but the FACTS are there… and
“Windows is Pee”… Still a bit better for fragging, that’s all …!!!
Got English? It might help.
“Anonymous (IP: 68.115.57.—) on 2005-12-25 16:09:
Got English? It might help ”
Who are you talking to???
WTF is that ???
I did not sart the thread, so i’m not sure who do you talk to and what do you mean ???
If you mean anything , of course…
Angel–Fr@gzill@
I’ve been actively using the previous build of vista (not 5231, but 5259) for a while now, and it’s neither as solid or as quick as my linux partition.
Their composition manager does some impressive things, but right now it is considerably less solid feeling (explorer really does crash fairly often, and 1-2 minute hangs are quite common), and it takes much longer to start up than either my ubuntu or gentoo boxes. Many of these problems persist even if if you disable Aero’s fancier effects.
This is beta software, and it should get better, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest than, at least on a Radeon 9600XT with 256mb or video ram, Vista will really be useable. I hope it will be – but the performance right now is iffy.
And if you think the cheap Dells and Gateways Vista will be primarily shipped on with have better graphics than that, you’re quite likely mistaken – integrated graphics and all.
This is beta software, and it should get better, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest than, at least on a Radeon 9600XT with 256mb or video ram, Vista will really be useable. I hope it will be – but the performance right now is iffy.
I guess that explain why Vista runs fine with all the effects turned on on my poor Radeon 9000 with 128MB.
“Anonymous (IP: 68.115.57.—) on 2005-12-25 16:09:
Got English? It might help ”
Who are you talking to???
WTF is that ???
I did not sart the thread, so i’m not sure who do you talk to and what do you mean ???
If you mean anything , of course…
Angel–Fr@gzill@
What you said maybe true. Who cares really.
The uptake of XP wasn’t what MS wanted and Vista will be even less. For reasons such as mine, they have an uphill battle with most of their customer base.
There’s not many reasons to get the upgrade. Ok, buying a computer from a teir1 usually means you’re getting Windows, so there’s the most likely path for Vista uptake. People who want to follow MS’s upgrade path because it’s the latest and greatest, but many of Vista’s goodness is being backported to XP so again it’s a knock at Vista’s uptake. People who think they’re going to get better security with Vista and are afraid to stay with XP and other versions of Windows. Or people who want to get hooked into MS’s content trap and need Vista to watch the latest and greatest crap that’s coming out of Hollywood.
Maybe you don’t give a damn about my computer, and good for you. But I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to the MS followers who patrol this board to get the public’s opinion. Not that it matters to you, I also fill out their surveys and sent them emails on my thoughts because I do use Windows and I want MS to listen my needs so they can either fulfill them or I can look elsewhere.
” Eventually a good portion of the world will be on Vista. ”
This little gem in your reply hints at Vista’s fate. You already know what I know. A _portion_ of the world will be on Vista. And after that, if MS’s track record on releasing OS’s is six years, then what will the other OS’s be like during the next release of Vista if Vista is catching up in many areas and not all that far ahead otherwise in this release?
You many not care, but you read it, and now you can’t unread it.
Windows XP owns 70% market share since it was released in 2001. See http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Say what you want about Windows, etc. It doesn’t matter. The anti-MS geek zeitgeist doesn’t amount to squat, when it comes to market trends. Vista is going to be in 70% or more homes in the next 4 years. Just try not to be too disappointed.
Yes, because it’s bundled with every new computer.
The previous poster is actually right – XPs uptake was slower than Microsoft expected, and many businesses to this day haven’t been convinced to move off of Windows 2000 – I really doubt Vista will change that.
Vista will be bundled with new computers and it’ll do fine there – but for businesses and existing computer users, you really can expect it to be a much slower uptake.
Who gives a crap about uptake. It’s market share that counts. And, with XP having 70% of the desktop market, Vista will enjoy the same market share over time.
This version still slow and buggy. Windows explorer crashed upon me 5 times in 10 minutes. and GUI is quite confusing when you want to customize your system (too much separation of common tasks); menus are too deep which means bad design (3 Levels deep should be the maximum). Shutdown will confuse people because it it actually standby; unless you choose shutdown from drop down menu. Screen dpi didn’t work for me, choosed 107% with no result. GUI in alot of windows showed horrible waste of spaces; which shows how designers are in MS; of course nothing to compare with OSX and Redhat.
In contrast good parenternal control, IE tabs, Network mapping, collaborative tool,…maybe others too.
Need more time to evaluate
Once again I sharted in my pants when I read this crud from Paul Thurrott. Now I stink and I have to go clean up because the brown stuff is everywhere!
Mr Thurrot writes:
“When you close the lid of a Vista-based laptop, or leave any Vista-based machine idle for a set length of time, it will move into sleep mode nearly instantaneously. But if the machine isn’t reactivated within another set amount of time, hibernation will be triggered, pushing the contents of RAM onto the disk so it can be resuscitated at a later date.”
However, IIRC the new Powerbooks already support a similar function (Safe Sleep).
“IIRC the new Powerbooks already support a similar function (Safe Sleep).”
It’s not a feature unique to PowerBooks. I have run a small app and now my 2004 iBook has Safe Sleep, too:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/28440
And XP has standby and hibernation since 2001. You can modify the settings to behave Vista-Safe Sleep-like…
Reading the article I almost skipped the part with an “ok, as expected”, why going on with matrix feature comparison? It’s so 2002 =)
Ive tried to install a game on Vista 5270 => Bluescreen, i think it was caused by StarForce, but anyway, Vista is U S E L E S S if games won’t run!!!!
jahaaha, stay with linux fresk!
A quote within the article says:
Allchin wrote. “This product is going to blow people away … I am sitting here listening to Clapton, managing 4,000 photos, browsing the Internet, doing email, using search, playing with sync between PCs, etc. — all at the same time.”
This sounds a bit strange. I certainly can not do all these tasks at once.
And if I was able to do them at once, I could do them in older versions of Windows too I think.
Yeah, you could do the same with an older version of Windoza, and even beter with a Posix OS (Linux, Unix,BSD…, but “”he is listening to Clapton”” !!!
Is there where all the merit resides …
He’s got guts .. LOL
windows is one of the worst OSses i know (well, i only know beos, mac os X and linux) for multitasking – it gets horribly slow and non-responsive when doing more than 3 or 4 tasks. try to install an application while doing windows-update – now browse the web and play music.
of course, i’m always installing programs and using widows update in the background.
You are not using Windows 95 by any chance do you? 😉
I don’t post here often, but this post is not portraying the truth – far from it. What you are describing here is Win9x, not Win2k/xp.
It’s pretty amusing reading comments from some you. Don’t you realize that nearly every OEM is going to adopt Vista when it’s released? Its desktop market share is going to exceed Linux (all distros) within the first week. Arguing about which OS is better is a waste of time. Vista will do a lot of things that X can’t do. But by all means keep deluding yourselves…
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240×320; HP iPAQ h6300)
linux is rock solid… until you try upgrading and installing multimedia apps… maybe its just me. maybe im just not good at configuring linux. If it was not for this problem i would move to linux permanently. Installing the OS is a breeze nowadays. (1.25 hours to install and update ubuntu… 4.5 hours to install windows/office and run windows update multiple times wich require multiple reboots.) If i get an error while trying to use a repository in synaptic im not sure what to do next. When it works it works flawlessly. But when it doesnt im kind of stuck. I guess i will have to try again in April. Multimedia apps are the only thing linux is lagging behind in in my opinion. If they can nail this one issue i will switch. Until then… Vista looks great. Cant wait for 3daccelerated xserver also.
Many thanks and a happy new year to both the linux and MS devs. Your work is much appreciated.
vista has gone gold you can get it here
http://www.apple.com/osx
thanks
point is, windows doesn’t let you really multitask. its my job to keep a bunch of laptops up-to-date, and thats not nice if you have to wait for each thing you have to do instead of doing them at the same time you are browsing the web.
and isn’t it stupid you almost can’t use your pc while it is doing something seriously?
i might exagerate a bit, but try it, it is not a pleasant experience… not that linux is MUCH better, (for example, the mouse will skip, it won’t in XP), and maybe i value a quick response a bit more than others, but i hate to wait… while COMPILING 2 or 3 things AT THE SAME TIME, linux is still quite responsive. just INSTALLING stuff under windows brings it to its knees.
Why wait for Vista when you can get Mac OSX.
“Why wait for Vista when you can get Mac OSX.”
Did you know that Apple wants only OS X in Mac computers? So I would need to replace all of my HP PC’s in my office, only for Mac OS X. I think I wait for Vista…