After my previous short first impressions ‘review’ of Windows Vista Build 6000, the final build, I promised you a full review which would look a bit deeper into the system, focussing on less obvious matters than appearance alone. Since there are so many new features in Windows Vista, it is very easy to lose track of them. Hence, this review will follow (where possible) a much linked-to page on Wikipedia: Features new to Windows Vista.
Please note that I will not discuss each of the points presented in that Wikipdia page, therefore my paragraph numbers will be incomplete. Other than
that, some sections overlap one another. I will use the page as a guide to,
well, guide us through Windows Vista. Let’s start.
As you will notice, I did not attach any screenshots to this review. There
are so many good screenshot galleries out there that
I find it rather over done to duplicate all those.
The machine used for this review is a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a Pentium M 1.73Ghz, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and an Ati Radeon x300 with 128MB of dedicated video RAM. For notes on the installation of Vista on this machine, please read the first impressions article.
1. User Interface
1.1 Windows Aero
I have already said quite a bit about the flashy effects that come with
Windows Vista. Microsoft has clearly restrained itself with the effects; they
are not used during every little task, and they are unobtrusive. After only
a few hours of usage, you actually forget they are there; however, as soon
as you switch ‘back’ to XP or something similar, you do miss the
effects. This is because unobtrusive as they may be, the effects do add
visual cues as to what is happening on the screen. For instance, when you
close a window in Vista, it dissolves while falling slightly backwards. This
is an extra visual aid.
Compare all this to all the new technological gadgets on the new Mercedes S
class, more specifically, the night view cameras. The S class has two
night vision cameras on the front of the car, which will, at night
(obviously) display its images on a screen right behind the steering wheel,
greatly enhancing what you can see on the road, making it much easier and
safer to drive at night. Now, this is typically one of those features which
many people will claim are pointless, but at the same time, all the people
who actually used it, will say they never want to go back to a car without
this extra safety precaution. Vista’s Aero effects fall into the same
category.
Microsoft actually put more thought into Aero than many anti-Microsoft
people will want us to believe. For instance, when an application is
incompatible with Aero (all applications using Java, such as Azareus),
Windows will automatically turn Aero off, switching back to Aero Basic. When
you close the application, Windows will turn Aero back on. Nice touch.
The main drawback, of course, of Aero is that it requires a DirectX 9
compatible card. A substantial group of people will need a new graphics card
for this, but I do not see this is a problem, since most people will get
their hands on Vista via OEM channels anyway (meaning, when they buy a new
computer).
1.2 Shell
The new Explorer interface is, as far as I’m concerned, the least successful
change in Windows Vista. Explorer is a very messy application to use now;
buttons and widgets everywhere, and it is kind of hard to find out which
does what. To give you an idea, the sidebar on the left side can show two
things: a directory tree, or a ‘Favourites’ section (links to common folders
such as Pictures and Music). The problem: they can overlap. When you open
the tree view, which is basically a drawer opening upwards, it draws
over the favourites section, which is just, well, weird. Why not do
what everyone else is doing, and simply give a drop-down menu or tabs or
something, so that you can select which of the two you want, instead of
trying to cram both of them into the same tiny space?
Another problem, as noted in the superficial look, is that for one reason or
the other, almost every folder on your computer will default to a detailed
listview, which is just plain overkill; it makes the individual folders too
hard to distinguish, and it shows way too much irrelevant information, which
will distract you from whatever you want to do (manage files, probably).
This also makes dragging a box around multiple items problematic, since
clicking whatever point in the row of an item will make you drag the item,
instead of drawing the selection box.
Basically, I want an option which will allow me to set the icon size/detail
level system-wide, after which I can tune individual folder’s settings. And
lo and behold, it’s there: click the ‘organize’ button on the toolbar, click
‘folder and search options’, go to the ‘view’ tab, and click ‘apply to all
folders’, which will make every folder look like the one currently open.
Good.
The ‘breadcrumbs’ style location bar is a definitive improvement, as it
makes navigating through deep directory structures much easier. The ‘stacks’
feature, which allows you to create stacks of files based on whatever you
want (i.e. stacks of pictures based on date taken), is not what I had
expected of it. When I tested the really early Longhorn builds in 2003, this
feature actually had visual cues in the stacks (the more files in the stack,
the larger it was), but in Vista, this is not the case. The stacks are
basically glorified directories. Not a feature as useful as it could’ve
been.
1.3 Search
Vista’s search does what it is supposed to do. It searches files, finds
them, and lists them. The biggest problem remains the fact that the actual
start menu contents get replaced by your initial search results. If you
press enter after entering your query, an Explorer window shows you all the
results, including tabs to see the results per file type. You can obviously
save the query; however, when you open this query later, Vista will not give
you the search pane (which allows you to view by filetype, as mentioned).
You’ll have to enable it by hand; not a showstopper, but sloppy, still.
1.4 Sidebar
Vista’s new sidebar is not at all much different from other, similar
implementations in other operating systems. The sidebar can house gadgets
(or widgets or applets or replicants or whatever you prefer), but the
gadgets can also be dragged onto the desktop.
What I like about it is that the sidebar and its gadgets are always visible,
so you are not forced to interrupt your workflow if you want to look them.
Apple’s Dashboard widgets are only visible after hitting a shortcut key,
and this interrupts your workflow (only cli magic enables you to permanently display
widgets on the desktop in OS X). In Dashboard’s defense, the Microsoft
implementation does lack a bring to front shortcut key or button.
Of course Vista’s sidebar has one major disadvantages: lack of gadgets. The
gadgets database is still fairly
empty, and the ones that are there, are of debatable quality (especially in
the visual department). I am sure that after the consumer release of Vista,
the amount of gadgets will explode, but for us early adopters the sidebar
remains pretty empty.
I feel compelled to touch on the originality issue often being referred to
on the net. Is Sidebar similar to Dashboard? Yes. Is Dashboard similar to
Konfabulator? Yes. Are all of those similar to Microsoft’s Longhorn sidebar,
which I first used in 2003? Yes. Are all of those similar to BeOS’s
replicants? Yes. You get the idea.
2. New and upgraded applications
Obviously, Vista comes with the latest release of Internet Explorer, version
7. I have already expressed my thoughts on Internet Explorer 7, and those
complaints generally remain for Windows Vista. It is not a bad browser per
se; it just is not my thing, and this is mostly caused by the highly
confusing interface. The browser is my most-used application, and hence I
want an interface that leaves me with little to desire (to give you an idea
of how far this obsession goes, the fact I cannot remove the ‘Go’ arrow in
Firefox 2.0 was almost a breaking point for me).
Windows Mail, however, is a completely different story. This is a really
good email client, and it inherits the best feature Microsoft ever devised
from Outlook 2003: the vertical preview pane; I refuse to use email clients
that do not have this feature (save for BeOS’s BeAM). For the rest, Windows
Mail has a very clean interface, which focuses completely on the task at
hand: reading and sending email. Contacts and emails are now individual
files, meaning you can manage both using Explorer. Annoyingly, emails are
given gibberish numeric names, meaning you can only know what an email is
about by hoovering over the .eml file, showing a tooltip which will give you
the subject field.
Problems remain with Outlook Express, err, Windows Mail; especially creating
rules directly from a message is very cumbersome (it refuses to copy the
information from the selected message, meaning you have to manually enter
all your filtering conditions). Another annoyance is that even though I
tried to set all fonts on incoming messages to a standard font, lots of
messages still display custom fonts. Other than that, the junk mail
filtering is a bit too enthusiastic at times.
Windows Photo Gallery is nothing to write home about; it does what it is
supposed to do, and that’s it, basically. It is surely no match for Apple’s
iPhoto, so let alone it being a match for Google’s Picasa2 (the best in its
class, if you ask me). Picasa2 is faster than Windows Photo Gallery, it has
a cleaner interface, and it supports Picasa Albums; the choice is easy if you
ask me. Photo Gallery badly misses export features; it cannot export photos
to the popular photo sharing sites (Flickr, Picasa Albums, etc.). This is
really a bad thing, and I hope Microsoft improves upon this issue in a
service pack or update.
Windows Media Player 11 shines on Vista. The application is to the point,
and centrered around what really matters: content. Where I could easily get
lost in pre-11 version of the application, Media Player 11 is much more
user-friendly and usable. Nothing revolutionary (it’s just a media player),
but I enjoy using it much more than iTunes 7 (which is, I’m sorry to say, a
really bad application (slow, buggy, and just plain weird), especially
compared to the outstanding version 6).
Since this is Ultimate I am using, I also have the new Media Center
installed. Windows XP Media Center Edition may very well have been
Microsoft’s best product user-interface wise (Office 2007 might be better
though), and this trend continues in this new version. It is very difficult
to explain exactly why MCE is such a good interface; the only way of ever
understanding this is to actually use it for a while. It simply makes so
much sense.
3. Security and safety
3.2 User Account Control
Security-wise, Microsoft touts various improvements in Windows Vista. The
biggest and most visible of those is User Account Control; this means that
whenever anything tries to do something that requires administration
privileges, the user must specifically allow this. Any user, even those
with admin rights, run in standard user mode all the time now, meaning that
a malicious program cannot just install itself anymore to system directories
or similar places.
Is UAC annoying? Yes. Is it any more annoying than entering your password
each time you need to do something admin-related in, say, Ubuntu? No. At
least Windows Vista allows you to edit system files and directories without
launching a file manager window as root; Vista will just prompt you to grant
admin rights when trying to edit system directories. Of course you can turn
UAC off, but that really is a bad thing to do if you ask me.
If you want to know more about security features in Windows Vista, the related Wikipedia article is a good starting point. Many of
the measures are technical changes transparent to the user, which is a good
thing.
5. Audio
The audio department is where Windows Vista really is far ahead of any
other mainstream operating system. The new audio stack allows for a feature
I have only ever previously seen in BeOS: per process control of audio
volume. Gone are the days where you could get a heart attack from MSN
Messenger when someone sent you a message while you were listening to loud
music. In Vista, you just set the volume for Messenger lower than for Media
Player, and gone is that problem. A major advance, and surely something I
would like to see in OS X and Linux.
8. Mobile computing
On my laptop, Vista is a much better fit when it comes to mobile computing
than XP ever was. The biggest improvement is that sleep now actually works;
when using XP, waking from sleep would regularly fail. It was a known issue
on the Dell support forums, but a working fix was never found (although I
must say I stopped monitoring the thread after a few weeks). The problem was not hardware related, as sleep/wake in Linux worked just fine (ironically).
It’s good that this apparent bug in Windows is now fixed.
In the first look article, I mentioned how the various test and beta builds
of Vista had a huge bug in the bcm43xx driver; it would randomly
disconnect, refusing to work for literally hours on end. This problem now
seems fixed, and wireless networking is working perfectly. A bit of a
nuisance, though, is that after waking from sleep reconnecting to a
wireless network takes fairly long. My Macs reconnected in mere seconds,
while in Vista this process can take up to and well over 30 seconds.
One of the really big mysteries in the final Vista build is the apparent
lack of syncing with Windows Mobile devices. I have an iPaq Windows Mobile
2003 device, and upon attaching the device, an autoplay dialog pops up
asking me what I want to do (browse device, sync media files, import
pictures), but there is no option to actually sync the things that matter:
contacts mostly, in my case. I tried to use the Sync Center, but my device
refuses to show up.
After asking Google for advice, I found out you needed to manually download
the third beta of the Windows Mobile Device Center before you can really do
anything with your Windows Mobile PDA and Vista. Installing went fine, and
everything seems to work; however, it became clear quite quickly that the
Mobile Device Center only supports syncing with Outlook, and not Windows
Mail or Windows Contacts. Unacceptable, if you ask me, and something that
needs to be fixed before Vista goes to consumers.
Some words before the conclusion
Many of the features and improvements mentioned in the Wikipedia article are
directed to developers, and probably deserve a review of its own, done by a
developer. Other changes are too abstract to put into a review, and hence
have been left out. All in all this review has only touched on so many
features; there are many more to be found in Windows Vista but somewhere you
have to draw the line, as a reviewer. If your pet feature was excluded, feel
free to explain why it should have been included in the comments section.
Conclusion
After a few weeks of intensive usage (I haven’t even touched my various
other machines and installations), I think I have a pretty clear picture of
what Vista has become. I had my serious doubts about the system, caused not
only by its many delays, but more so by the highly debatable quality of the
many test builds released by Microsoft in the past years.
When I first tested what was then called Longhorn back in 2003, I wrote a review of it
for OSNews. The final line of that review read: “People might say that
this release is just XP with a new coat. They are completely right, in my
opinion. But darn, that new coat looks nice.” That line is completely
misplaced for this final build of Vista, no matter how much anti-Microsoft
folk who never used Vista in the first place want you to believe. Vista is a
huge step forward for the Windows world.
How does Vista stack up compared to its competition, most notably, Mac OS X?
Well, feature-wise, they are pretty much on-par, if you ask me. Stability-
wise, XP was already on par with OS X, and left little to improve upon. In
the looks department, it all depends on your taste, of course. I like the
Glass theme better than I like the Aqua look, but that is so totally
personal it is irrelevant for this discussion. Security-wise; now that is
where only time will tell. On paper, they seem to be on par, but theory is
always different from practice. When it comes to personality, I would still
say the Mac has the advantage – clearly.
In total, Vista is a pretty convincing argument for buyers of computers to
stick to the Windows side of the pond. Assuming the security will turn out
to be as good in the real world as it is on paper, Vista will enable buyers
to stick with what they know, using all the same applications they are used
to, but all in a much better interface and many other features many users
will certainly appreciate.
All in all, I am impressed by Windows Vista, and I will surely move my two
Windows installations to Vista (obviously leaving the XP partitions in
tact). Windows Vista is better than XP, and definitely more than just an
improved look as many say.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Iv used Vista for some weeks now, and i have to say its a very good upgrade from XP.
Also; Very nice review. It’s nice to see someone who actually properly reviews a OS, instead of booting it one time, and make a review in less than a day of testing.
Edited 2006-12-04 00:39
>”upgrade”from XP.
Not shure that word means what you think it means.
Although a tad brief, Thom’s given a nice overview (from a user’s perspective). Good show!
Final conclusion of the review: windows vista final is an improvement over windows vista beta. Real observant
I have vista final, and honestly, its not really all that great. In fact it seems like a step DOWN from xp to me. In the little time ive had it installed its taken to doing a blue screen of death on every boot (and no, its not my hardware). Its certainly not worth the almost $600 they want for ultimate. I’ll stick with xp for now.
Edited 2006-12-04 00:42
I guarentee you it is the hardware (even if it is the drivers that are causing it).
no other os crashes at all but vista. Its not the hardware. (and drivers are software too, so if its the drivers, no.. its not the hardware)
The only way I got Vista to BSoD was to install an older version of Symantec Anti-Virus that MS, Symantec and Vista all said would not be compatible and would not work.
What’s the event log say? Is it a driver?
Why should bad drivers bring down an entire OS? And wasn’t this one of the much-touted improvements of Vista, the fact that the entired driver stack had been re-written from graphic to sound card drivers?
I honestly find it amusing the kinds of excuses some of you can come up for the lack of quality assurance and proper design principles in Microsoft products.
Just give the hardware vendors some time to rewrite their drivers. I’m sure every piece of hardware will get tremendous support (just as they do now with windows xp) when the OS is actually released to consumers in January ’07
Why should bad drivers bring down an entire OS? And wasn’t this one of the much-touted improvements of Vista, the fact that the entired driver stack had been re-written from graphic to sound card drivers?
So maybe it’s not a graphic or sound card driver? Honestly, I don’t know of any OS that can stand up to shitty drivers. Sure, the entire OS might not go down in all cases, but generally, it has some sort of unpleasent side effects. For example, if the entire screen goes blank and I have to kill the desktop envrioment, that’s not a whole lot better than an OS crash, especially when it takes longer to boot back into the DE than it does to reboot the Windows OS.
And for those who are complaining about the price, the problem isn’t that it’s too expensive – the problem is you can’t afford it
Technically, a Microkernel-based operating system should not crash if one server goes down.
However, “Technically” and what actually tends to happen aren’t always the same thing.
If you’re going to bash the new Windows, bash it. Don’t gripe about little things that ALWAYS crop up on a new OS.
I don’t think the price issue is an arguable point. It’s definitely expensive. What annoys me is that there are a lot of linux fanboys/windows haters that would still hate windows even if it was $50. It seems like there are quite a few of those types here. Stop getting off on thinking that everyones brainwashed who doesn’t use the uber l337 Linux.
Linux is free! Linux is free!! Yes that’s true.
No one wants to pay hundreds for something if they could get the same or better quality product for free right? You know why people still use Windows over Linux (for desktop use)? Because it’s so terrible that no one cares that it’s free…wow..THAT bad.
These threads usually turn to flaming between windows and linux users so I decided to start it off. my apologies
Edited 2006-12-04 03:56
By equating free and monetary value, you have completely missed the point of Linux’s “freeness.”
In fact, commerical versions of Linux cost money, yet they are still free.
Edited 2006-12-04 04:02
“In fact, commerical versions of Linux cost money, yet they are still free.”
huh?
Although this thread really should be about Windows (or at least Vista’s relationship to Linux), I’ll help you out here.
Linux is licensed under the GPL – GNU Public License.
The GPL is basically the guarantee of the following definition:
“The Free Software Definition
We maintain this free software definition to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software.
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.
Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
”
You can read it indepth at the GNU website, here:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html“>Free
Edited 2006-12-04 04:14
I don’t care about their definition of free. No sane person is going to pay $50 for a commercial Linux distro and rejoice to his friends that he got an OS for free. The “free” that everyone understands (and the one we’ve been talking about as indicated by the price quotes people gave) involves the exchange of currency. Redhat should just start charging $50000 and hope that people like you will pay for their software thinking that it’s actually free.
Again, you are completely wrong.
“Sane people” DO pay much more than $50 for a commercial Linux.
Red Hat Workstation costs between $179 and $300 per year, depending on your support options. In fact, you can purchase these bundled with the hardware directly from Dell, Sun, etc.
Many different types of companies use Red Hat (and other commerical distros). From software design, electrical engineering, CAD, to special effects, to guitar strings, free software is purchased using *gasp* money.
“The “free” that everyone understands”
By this, you mean the free that stupid people understand. By the same token, calling Windows “non free” does not mean it costs money. This means “non free as in slavery.”
What are you talking about?? You initially said commercial Linux distros cost money but they are still free. I was quite confused so I asked what you meant. You ended up giving me some lines from GPL trying to convince me that paying for software is still considered free if you have freeDOM to use it as you wish after you pay for it (as a side note do you know that adding the d-o-m suffix to the word “free” changes it’s meaning?).
I then explained that if you pay $50 for a linux distro you can’t call it free since you exchanged money for the product. The example I gave (if you go back and read it again) was that no sane person would pay $50 for software AND believe that he actually got it for free because the sane person would know that he just exchanged currency for the product.
You clearly lack the brain power to correctly interpret what I’ve been saying.
You can disagree with me, and I’m sure there are people here that do.
But at least they can grasp simple concepts.
I then explained that if you pay $50 for a linux distro you can’t call it free since you exchanged money for the product. The example I gave (if you go back and read it again) was that no sane person would pay $50 for software AND believe that he actually got it for free because the sane person would know that he just exchanged currency for the product.
Exchange “for free” with “as free” and you’ll see where you were wrong.
Let me ask you a question:) Is a slave that was given for free to his new master really “free”? Depends on the viewpoiint I guess, but still it was free of charge which doesn’t mean anything to the slave. He is still a slave.
And same is with free software (as not from the masters view, it is from the view of the slave). If software is free then everybody can contribute, everybody can change it. Which is gods blessing in my line of bussines. With Windows I’m stuck with the problem, with FLOSS I’m at least able to hack needed changes my self.
And another question:) Are you willing to pay for freedom? I am.
Update:)
With windows you MUST pay something which ISN’T even yours even though you payed for it (read EULA).
With linux you CAN pay for something that IS yours (and it doesn’t mean shit if you payed for it or not). It only depends if you want vendors support or you want to rely on community. Yeah, I call this freedom and free.
Edited 2006-12-04 05:29
The “free” that everyone understands (and the one we’ve been talking about as indicated by the price quotes people gave) involves the exchange of currency. Redhat should just start charging $50000 and hope that people like you will pay for their software thinking that it’s actually free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
And yes, it would be free even if they would sell it for 1,000,000,000$
Taken out from the article I linked for you if you’re too lazy to read it all. As you see, RH wouldn’t break any of the four rules for “free software” no matter what price they would charge.
Free software licenses
Main article: free software licenses
According to Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, software licenses must have the following four freedoms to qualify as being “Free”:
* Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
* Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.
* Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
* Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
OK well I give up on this. Hard to explain a concept about money to rocks..and futile to try as I’ve now discovered.
edit:
“You clearly lack the brain power to correctly interpret what I’ve been saying.”
Look buddy. I know the difference between freedom and free. Here’s what you need to understand. In some instances those words can have quite similar meanings. However, in the current context where people are talking about software costing too much, the definition of free is restricted to the one regarding the exchange of money. It has nothing to do with freeDOM. If person A says, “I got this cell phone for free with my phone plan” and person B says, “I’m glad we have freedom of speech” those two things mean completely different things. One’s talking about money and the other is talking about a right you have that’s protected under the law or in some cases, an organization of which you are a part.
Edited 2006-12-04 05:24
You were changing parts of speech. He talks about free software and you talk about software for free. He’s using an adjective and you’re using a noun: Same word, different parts of speech and different definitions.
It’s sad that so many people in the free world think that the important meaning of the word “free” has to do with an exchange of goods and services. It’s even worse that their vision of the word is used to vilify its use in other contexts.
Life isn’t about money.
Open Source != cost no money
Open Source == Free exchange of ideas and implementations.
You cannot do that with closed source (Shared source != Open Source) – since it often is bound by patents.
* Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Thats an obligation, not a freedom.
It ain’t free if there is an obligation involved.
“Here’s a free hundred dollar bill to spend as you like … as long as you promise to spend it all at store XYZ”.
Or
“Heres a free hundred dollar bill, do whatever you want with it.
Which is the free one? The 2nd.
The BSD license is free. The GPL is an obligation.
@NotParker You are out of your depth on that one
Worst analogy ever. For my sanity, please please don’t ever discuss it again.
Off Topic Again
===============
NotParker does say some utter nonsense, but it bothers that he got his points knocked down when he was perfectly civil without any real explanation.
Edited 2006-12-04 08:02
The comment was off-topic, which is reason enough for modding down.
GLP – When you buy your pie, you can get the recipe. If you find it tastes better with nutmeg and give someone your pie and they want to know how it is made you have to tell them.
The person who sold you the pie, makes a good pie…and wants to make the best pie
BSD – You get the pie, and can ask for the recipe, and add some nutmeg, but you can keep your ingredient secret.
The person who sold you the pie, whats to sell apples, and is happy for you to pass it off as grandma’s secret recipe.
Proprietary – you can buy the pie, but don’t know whats in it.
The person who sold it, doesn’t want you to know whats in it!?
//Proprietary – you can buy the pie, but don’t know whats in it.
The person who sold it, doesn’t want you to know whats in it!?//
The person who sold it, doesn’t want anyone else to know whats in it, lest those people go into the pie-making business in competition. That would be terrible because goodness knows it would be easy for almost any half-decent cook to make a better pie.
Other people take advantage of the secret contents of the pie in order to add and hide away other bad stuff without your knowing.
Edited 2006-12-04 09:22
//Thats an obligation, not a freedom.
It ain’t free if there is an obligation involved.
“Here’s a free hundred dollar bill to spend as you like … as long as you promise to spend it all at store XYZ”.
Or
“Heres a free hundred dollar bill, do whatever you want with it.
Which is the free one? The 2nd.
The BSD license is free. The GPL is an obligation.//
Sorry, but that is wrong.
The GPL carries no obligation at all in respect of just using GPL software. Use it however you want.
The GPL carries no obligation at all in respect of modifying/improving GPL software for your own purpose. Modify it (without further distribution) however you want.
The only obligation is that if you take some GPL software, improve on it and THEN re-distribute it down stream, you must publish the source code of the modifications.
That is it. The one and only obligation. In recompense, you get all that GPL code in the first place. The only requirement is that all the derived code is published.
If you write your own code that runs under GPL software, there is no obligation. That can be proprietary if you choose. The one and ONLY obligation of the GPL only comes in to play if you take some GPL code and modify that code (that someone else before you wrote), and then re-distribute the resultant derived software.
If you don’t modify the GPL software at all, then the only obligation is that if you give a copy to someone else you give it to them in the same form and under the same conditions as you yourself received it.
Edited 2006-12-04 09:35
Now now boys and girls, this article is about Vista, not BSD vs. GPL. Please get back on topic or I will mass moderate.
Thank you.
Comment is fair enough, but belongs primarily against the post with the misinformation, IMO.
The post were only vaguely on topic, seeing as they were about end user freedoms, given that near total lack of end-user-freedom is one of the almost-never-mentioned “features” of Vista.
The only obligation is that if you take some GPL software, improve on it and THEN re-distribute it down stream, you must publish the source code of the modifications.
Bingo!
There is an obligation. If there is an obligation, it isn’t free. It has strings attached.
If have no objection to you wanting a “strings attached” license with obligations.
Just don’t be dishonest and claim its free.
Have you ever considered Democracy? Theres an abligation there too. The people are free to vote for a leader, but they’re not free to vote for what form (communism, theocracy etc..) of government they want.
Infact If a country decides not to be a democracy (and they have oil) they stand a good chance of being flattened by the Americans in the name of freedom.
True freedom needs protecting, you can’t keep true freedom withouth having some rules to keep it free.
(and they have oil)
Mind your foul language, it was weapons of mass destruction 🙂
Maybe Iraq were planning to start an intercontinental chip-pan fire?
It bothers me that you get reviews of vista premium, when conventionally people have bought XP home…are still buying XP home, and have no real upgrade route.
Things that strike me in the article.
“Everything worked right out of the box” contradicts “One piece of hardware was not functioning properly: my touchpad”
Its installed on a laptop, battery usage would strike me as the main thing to test.
Considering have the article only has to sections “installs, pretty” I have yet to see how the conclusion drawn is “major leap forward for the Windows platform”
1) Not everybody that do not totally submit without any question to the magic wonders of mount Vista is a Linux user. Stop getting off on thinking that everyones brainwashed who doesn’t use the magic wonders of Vista.
2) Why does most people use Windows ? Because they get it preinstalled. That is also how Vista will enter the marked, preinstalled.
Well it seems like you where born in a Windows bobble, have lived al of your life in a Windows bobble and will end your days in a Windows bobble – with no comprehension of what is going on outside.
“I don’t think the price issue is an arguable point. It’s definitely expensive. What annoys me is that there are a lot of linux fanboys/windows haters that would still hate windows even if it was $50. It seems like there are quite a few of those types here. Stop getting off on thinking that everyones brainwashed who doesn’t use the uber l337 Linux.”
That would be me! 🙂
These threads usually turn to flaming between windows and linux users so I decided to start it off. my apologies
Ohh… that really makes sense! I’m going to start the flamefest before anyone else! Yeah!
Please keep using Windows, you deserve it.
Now, nice review Thom, it’s good to see an objective view from Vista. Last version I tested was Beta 2 and I’m not likely to buy the thing, so it’s nice to see a fanboysm-free review.
No, people use Windows because:
(a) They are gamers, and due to market momentum, most games are written for Windows.
(b) They do not know, or do not want to know, or do not want to take the time to know, or do not have the time to learn, about computers and operating systems. Increasingly, being computer savvy is less and less important to have a decent Linux desktop experience, but I wouldn’t say that Linux is a drop-in replacement for people who are not computer enthusiasts. Not yet, anyway.
(c) They are convinced that there is no other alternative, or just don’t care about their operating system. Or claim not to. Amazing how many people claim to be completely disinterested in their computers but ask me why their system is so slow (spyware and crufted-to-oblivion registry) and ask me to fix it every few months. Or why they’re BSOD’ing suddenly, or why their OS has a tendency to “rot.”
(d) Windows is installed on the computer when they buy it.
(e) They are forced to use Windows because they use Windows-only software, or their office or educational institution uses it.
You may well feel that Linux is “so terrible that no one cares it’s free,” but I think you’re really just talking about yourself. Most people have no opinion on Linux, because most people haven’t ever tried it.
And they haven’t tried it, because of the reasons above.
Sorry you had a bad Linux experience. Many of us have been using it for years and wouldn’t dream of switching to Windows. You are not alone in your opinion that Linux is terrible, but I doubt that represents the prevalent opinion, or reason, why people do not use Linux. As I said, I doubt most people have any opinion on Linux at all, at least here in the USA where a lot of people haven’t even heard of it. If I was going to bash Linux, that’s where I’d start.
The same reasons probably hold true for Macs, except that Apple actually does (fairly clever) advertising so people are at least vaguely familiar with Macs even if they’ve never used one. The success of the iPod and lifestyle branding, as well as the common sentiment about Apples among those who don’t use them (mainly positive as far as I can tell) will hopefully lead to increased market share. Apple should really scale up their campaign to get cheap Apples into schools. They’ve always made inroads into education, and they should ramp this up as an investment.
Because I’m pretty convinced that if junior uses an Apple in school, it will drive computer purchases at home, which will lead to greater corporate presence when junior grows up and can make decisions for his company, IT-wise.
A good percentage of people in my high school had Apple //e’s (I hate nouns that can’t be pluralized in a reasonable manner, so please forgive the apostrophe) at home, because when I was in high school, that’s what most of the school used. Many people’s only exposure to programming was via BASIC or LOGO (eek) on an Apple //e. When I was in college at a fairy sizable American university, the core curriculum required an intro to computers course which covered spreadsheets, word processing, and (inexplicably) BASIC programming.
This course was taught on, and required the use of, Macs. Most non-technical students at the University used Macs for the rest of their college days as a result of this. Most of the labs had about 20 Macs for each ill-maintained, lonely, fairly sad looking DOS-based PC.
I was was one of the few people who used the PC (I had one in my apartment, which I bought because I wanted to run DOS-based BBS software at the time; otherwise, I probably would have bought a Mac.) I have to wonder if the prevalence of Macs at my university was a result of my state’s preference for Apples in middle schools and high schools.
Linux has no significant capitalization behind it for the desktop market (Novell’s promotional efforts thus far do not impress me), and I doubt any company is willing to step forward and provide a lot of discounted hardware running Linux into schools.
This might be an interesting charity project – raise money from Linux users to purchase computer labs running Linux for underfunded school districts here in the USA. In the long run, this can only increase popularity (and hopefully adoption) of Linux on the desktop, while at the same time serving a public good. Win-win scenario, unless you’re Microsoft.
Without television advertising, widespread pre-installation on new systems, or extensive use in schools, at least in the United States where I live, I doubt Linux will ever take a significant chunk of the desktop market. The only place I ever see Linux mentioned on TV is in corporate server commercials, such as ones by IBM.
To this day, the cliche that Linux is great on servers but not ready for the desktop persists. Which makes no sense to me based on my own personal experience, but who am I to challenge this Great Law of OS Physics, where Linux must perpetually be “not ready for the desktop?” I am not an anarchist and I certainly do not want to challenge the authority of our dark masters at the Gartner Group, either. Papal infallibility is not something to be trifled with.
I hope to one day eat these words. I understand that much of the rest of the world is more Linux-positive, and I think there’s something to be said for Americans to be more familiar with Linux as networks, businesses, and educational institutions become increasingly more international.
As for the “OS ecosystem” of the internet and security concerns related to that, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to have more hetereogeneity.
And a question for people who solidly identify as Windows users, and I honestly do not know what the answer to this question is – how many of you use Windows because you actively like it, as opposed to disliking or for other reasons not being able to use something else? Have you used Macs and Linux machines at all? Was it frustration with these that make you use Windows or do you just, like, completely dig Windows?
Now, how about Mac and Linux users?
I imagine that most people use Windows grudgingly, because other OSes lack an important feature or compatibility with something they need to do, rather than out of enthusiasm for Microsoft (or because they just hate other operating systems more.) But I could be wrong.
I actively like Linux, and I know that most Mac users actively like Macs and the OS X series of operating systems. Same is true of xBSD users.
Now the Timex Sinclair. Not ready for the desktop. Boy I’ll tellya….
So maybe it’s not a graphic or sound card driver? Honestly, I don’t know of any OS that can stand up to shitty drivers. Sure, the entire OS might not go down in all cases, but generally, it has some sort of unpleasent side effects. For example, if the entire screen goes blank and I have to kill the desktop envrioment, that’s not a whole lot better than an OS crash, especially when it takes longer to boot back into the DE than it does to reboot the Windows OS.
Most operating systems do not crash because of poor drivers. A bad driver may mean loss of internet connectivity or no sound or no graphical server, but never a complete lock-up. Claiming that a hard crash where you may lose your data to a corrupted file system or due to unsaved work is in the same ballpark is a very large stretch.
Most people that use a Unix or Linux know that they can restart their session quicly by doing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace or that they can type startx at the screen to get back to a graphical environment. Both of these options take seconds.
If your driver is buggy, you can always turn to Vesa, which is good enough for everything except gaming, which means that you can have a stable operating system while you wait for a better driver.
Please stop making excuses for things that are inexcusable. An operating system should not crash in the XXI century.
An operating system should not crash in the XXI century.
Any monolitic-kernel OS can be crashed by bad driver, because drivers run in kernel space.
Most people that use a Unix or Linux know that they can restart their session quicly by doing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace or that they can type startx at the screen to get back to a graphical environment. Both of these options take seconds.
In reality, with buggy driver you’ll receive kernel panic on “Unix or Linux” in same way as on NT4/5 or OSX.
Edited 2006-12-04 20:21
My comment was “Most people that use a Unix or Linux know that they can restart their session quicly by doing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace or that they can type startx at the screen to get back to a graphical environment. Both of these options take seconds.”
You said“In reality, with buggy driver you’ll receive kernel panic on “Unix or Linux” in same way as on NT4/5 or OSX.”
X11/Xorg do not run in kernel space. And while your point is theoretically true, I have never seen a Linux box crash hard on hardware that was functional.
This is helped by the fact that many eyes do indeed make all bugs shallow and the kernel and driver quality is indeed very high.
In windows land, you are at the expense of the driver team do jour working to get a device to market as fast as possible with little concern for the devicer or its drivers six months after it was released. This is one of the reasons why you often have abysmal driver quality or simply forsaken hardware in proprietary operating systems.
One of the main points with a client-server based OS is that no device driver should be able to pull down the OS.
It is a very typical reaction to blame everything on anything but Windows.
If it is an out-of-the-box driver as I suspect, then it also is certified. Should a certified driver behave this way ?
You guarantee it? Only from the rather vague description “BSOD on every boot” you guarantee it’s the hardware?
Let me just say… wao.
It’s a fairly safe bet (given that he’s including drivers in this), but just not a very useful point.
Let’s look at it: 90% Windows Vista Installs don’t BSOD on boot. Lots of virtual-memory/SFC etc. protection is built in to prevent rogue software from screwing up the install. so it’s likely to be one of:
1) faulty ram (hardware)
2) Dodgy driver (driver)
3) File Corruption (hdd = hardware)
4) Dodgy bios (hardware)
5) Hardware with bad Id (hardware)
6) Not enough ram and no pagefile (harware – kinda)
It’s not very likely to be a core vista problem directly. It could be attributed to fault-intolerance though I guess.
It’s funny how people blame it on hardware or drivers, it can never be the OS right?
If for some reason Windows doesn’t shut your computer down properly, most lightly a important system files will corrupt. This happened to me in Vista so you see same old problems. So what’s this, OS or filesystem, no lets blame it on the HD since the OS is never to blame is it?
I concur with CPUGuy… almost certainly driver problems.
Additonally, keep the price of Ultimate in perspective.
Barring discounts, the most expensive version of XP (XP Professional) was only $299.00 (barring discounts). This product is analogous to Windows Vista Business which is also $299.00. Ultimate adds a whole slew of new features.
Seems like a fair price to me.
I believe I’m going to end up with “Windows Vista Home Premium” with my upgrade plan. Whatever that means.
I have an extreme distaste for Windows.
That said, this is a brand new Operating System and it is bound to have flaws that need to be fixed here and there. Given the extremely vast amount of 3rd party hardware out there, it is not unusual to have some flaky hardware cause problems.
Not that I’ll ever know, I’m already free.
Hey, you know what happens when I call the wrong driver on my system? I get a shell. After a quick ‘sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf’ I am back up and running in my sweet Gnome world. Know what happens when you use the wrong driver in Vista? BSOD!
j/k
I do think that Vista is a massive step forward and I hope that it truly is as stable and secure in the real world as it is on paper.
It is kinda strange though, that in this day & age we don’t have more systems that can live through a bad driver and will ultimately result in a BSOD and/or a complete inability to boot the system.
I dont know what he did, but in xp, when you have a bad driver (and maybe an BSOD(not very common) or a reboot loop(this is quite common)) you go into safe mode and just unistalld it.
I dont know what he did, but in xp, when you have a bad driver (and maybe an BSOD(not very common) or a reboot loop(this is quite common)) you go into safe mode and just unistalld it.
Very convenient during online game play 🙂
Yep. Sounds like your hardware, or the installation is duff. Did you clean your machine down before installing Vista, or did you install it over XP?
On the subject of Vista Ultimate, has anyone seen the price they are charging for it in Europe, or at least the Netherlands specifically?
Vista Ultimate will cost 549 EUR; which is 730.80 USD … in comparison the US version is selling for 303.24 USD.
That’s a heck of a lot for even the Ultimate Edition.
I’m not sure many people will buy Ultimate Edition, unless they really need the Tablet and Media Center things.
I still think Vista is a step forward, but will be a slow’ish uptake. At least for normal users.
Price is my problem. I won’t get Vista until I get a new computer and that’s a couple of years down the road at least. I might have upgraded this computer but I can’t justify the money.
Price is my problem. I won’t get Vista until I get a new computer and that’s a couple of years down the road at least. I might have upgraded this computer but I can’t justify the money.
I know what you mean: 699$ for Vista Home Premium / MCE 2005 and the following is WAY too expensive:
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Express Upgrade to Windows Vista
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
19 inch E197FP Analog Flat Panel
256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&…
For a dyed in the wool windows fanboi, you sure don’t know your own products very well.
I don’t think windows Vista Home is quite the same thing as windows Vista Ultimate e7e37 Hax0r Premium or whatever the hell the $600 windows is called..
I’d like to see notparker put his money where his mouth is and buy that computer for bob. Or at the very least, he should be kind and give bob a Windows Vista Home Edition license if it’s sooo cheap.
Edited 2006-12-04 10:46
I’d like to see notparker put his money where his mouth is and buy that computer for bob. Or at the very least, he should be kind and give bob a Windows Vista Home Edition license if it’s sooo cheap.
Actually, the system came with Vista Home Premium which comes with all the Media Center stuff. Add a TV Tuner (for 50$) and you have a a Media Center PC too. Excellent bargain to get all that hardware and Vista too.
Edited 2006-12-04 16:34
That’s not a bad deal. Personally, I’m waiting for dual-slot quad-core to hit the market and come down a little in price. I almost bought a Intel core duo 6800E with 2 gigs of ram. I got looking around and quad core hitting the market is just around the corner as well as there are working examples of dual-slot quad-core already. I figure if I wait just a couple of years and suffer with this P4 I’m running, I’ll get in when the technology is much faster (1 duo core vs 2 quad core) and there will be more software that takes advantage of it.
Also, I build my own, always. I can always beat Dell’s or anyone else’s price when I build my own. And I don’t need their support, I do that myself. The intergration can be nice but that’s never sold me.
And I’ll probably get Ultimate instead of one of the neutered versions. That’s another reason for waiting cause I’ll be able to get prices much lower than retail after things settle down. I’m not paying $300-400 dollars on Vista. I might pay $150, but we’ll see what the market is like then.
Vista Premium 700.00
Office 2007 400.00
Watching some Jack_ss pay that much to MS
Priceless
Snaker is a happy Ubuntu user
Vista Premium 700.00
I notice that the FOSS have some sort of bidding war to see who can raise the price of Vista well past its real price to try and make an irrelevant point.
Actualy pricing:
Full Version
•Vista Ultimate: $399
•Vista Business: $299
•Vista Home Premium: $239
•Vista Home Basic: $199
Upgrade
•Vista Ultimate: $259
•Vista Business: $199
•Vista Home Premium: $159
•Vista Home Basic: $99
Modded down as Spam/Advertisement.
I know what you mean: 699$ for Vista Home Premium / MCE 2005 and the following is WAY too expensive:
Modded down as Spam/Advertisement.
It wouldn’t be because you dislike references that blow away arguments that Vista is too expensive?
Ok … at some nameless computer seller, you can buy for very little money:
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Express Upgrade to Windows Vista
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
19 inch E197FP Analog Flat Panel
256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
It wouldn’t be because you dislike references that blow away arguments that Vista is too expensive?
No, I modded it down because of OSNews’ strict policy against advertisements in comments.
Do I think that Vista is too expensive? Well, comparing to Ubuntu it is, yeah. And I do know for a fact that many people around me are put off by the pricing scheme.
On the other hand, I understand that MS is bleeding money in every division by OS and Office, and that they need to guarantee new revenue streams, so they have to overcharge their products. I also know that as someone who is completely sold to MS (and who may very well be a MS employee), there’s now way you could ever agree that Vista is too expensive.
So, the only think we can say *objectively* is that Vista is several orders of magnitude more expensive than Ubuntu, without offering significant advantages over it. The only reason Vista will make money is that people will be obligated to pay for it when they buy a new system…
No, I modded it down because of OSNews’ strict policy against advertisements in comments.
Now you are being silly. You modded it down because I won’t let you bully me and you intensely dislike it when I reference my articles.
It wasn’t an ad, it was a reference. You can play stupid all you like (you do it well) but it won’t fool too many people.
I also know that as someone who is completely sold to MS (and who may very well be a MS employee), there’s now way you could ever agree that Vista is too expensive.
There is that FOSS paranoia again. Always accusing someone who makes a choice about the OS they run as being a Microsoft employee.
Its kind of like Plasma TV’s or LCD TV’s vs CRT TV’s. Sure, you can be cheap and prefer CRT’s because of the cost … but why would you spend all the time telling people how they should spend their money. If I want to buy Vista why is it such a big thing for you FOSS types?
Do you think bullying us will work?
It just makes you look immature. If I have the money and want spend 150$ (which works out to something like 10-15 cents a day) over the lifetime of the PC, why do you care so passionately?
You people are weird.
Edited 2006-12-04 20:28
Now you are being silly. You modded it down because I won’t let you bully me
No, I did not. I modded it because it was advertizing. If you think it’s unwarranted, ask the OSNews editor to revert it.
I don’t need to bully you to prove you wrong. In fact, you give most of the references I need to show that your arguments don’t hold water.
Always accusing someone who makes a choice about the OS they run as being a Microsoft employee.
It’s not paranoia. I have yet to read a *single* post from you that is heavily pro-MS and anti-Linux.
FYI, I have stated many times that Windows is actually a good OS. I prefer Linux, but I have nothing against those that prefer Windows (which I also use daily). You, on the other hand, have never shown such even-handedness.
You people are weird.
Again with insults and generalizations, and then *you* have the gall to say that I try to bully you (the singular you, by the way: I’m not talking to anyone else here…). Do you really think anyone will be gullible enough to fall for such a blatant trick?
Read Vista features list: one cannot say it doesn’t deliver new features. Just having a couple of the most important ones is worth the upgrade and will require other OSes to catch-up (given that there’s no other OS able to globally catch-up).
Does this mean that every XP users should upgrade? Of course not! But those willing to do so (or people getting Vista by buying a new PC) will not be disappointed.
My opinion is pricing (and a general way of checking that your copy is legitimate, aka WGA) are meant to drive more bucks into MS pocket. In a few years, MS could face the problem of users not needing a base OS on their PCs, expecially if Internet costs will keep to drop. There could be a day (not so far in the future) when Windows on the client might not be so significative and I guess they now want to capitalize their 90%+ market share.
Out of curiousity, what features require the other OS’s to play catch up to Vista?
I was/am under the impression this release is about Microsoft catching up to the rest of the industry.
I’ve been using Vista for quite a few builds now as my main OS. ATi has yet to release an OpenGL driver for it, but that’s the /only/ complaint I have. It’s a really nice OS for me and I really like the look and feel. I like the way some menus have been re-thought.
I’m even running in ‘Standard User’ mode, with constant prompts for the Administrator password… There are a few quirks to it, but it works far better than it did when they first implemented it.
My only ‘complaint’, I guess, is that for as much emphasis as they put on the User Account Control, by default the first user created is an administrator and the ‘Administrator’ account is disabled. Maybe that’s only a feature for ‘Ultimate’, but even then, I like Vista.
I’ve been using RC2 as my main OS for a while now. And I love the new Explorer windows. The File Path text box are very useful. And they finally fixed the Task Panel (more useful now) I also like how they kinda merged the Run option and Search option into 1 text box. Need calc? Calc + ENTER key. Need info? Type it’s name and voilà. More useful than Spotlight on OSX.
Down side is the WMP is still shit. Seriously, it needs to be FIXED like the Finder needs work. It’s got usability issues that it would make Job’s head spin!
And adding a new Tab in IE7 is too painfully slow. Still can’t put drop down links of RSS like in FF. Which was very nice feature. Haven’t found how to deleted the Search Box’s history. Flid3D is completely useless (more like a demo).
PS: Oh and WMP11 is crap. How the hell did this app get thru Q&A.
but there are two reasons I won’t buy it:
1) I just can’t agree to the license (I don’t know how any sane person could), and
2) it’s waaayyy too expensive.
My apologies to all the fanboys who can overlook that stuff.
Wow.
Suddently if something is deemed “too expensive” then the people who buy that something are labeled fanboys. lol
I was sooo wondering when the Waaahhhgon was gonna arrive.
I wasn’t calling everybody that will buy it a fanboy, just the ones that will pay anything to get it.
Hilarious. You do realize that, in reality, nobody pays the so-called “high” retail prices that you and your ilk are touting, right?
Truth hurts, huh?
1) Microsoft are entitled to use whatever license they want. After all its their software.
My problem is how they enforce their licensing in Vista and XP. Activation and WGA makes you dependent on Microsoft even after money have changed hands. This means that the customer ends up in a hostage situation.
What if Microsoft are no longer there for you to get a new activation key when you have replaced a faulty mother board not that I find it very likely that MS should go out of business, but it could happen.
After all who expected the fall of Soviet Union even in the late 1980s, who expected Great Britain to be at war with Argentina over the Falklands. Speaking international conflicts, there may be situations where you may be prohibited from getting a new keys due to such conflicts. At least non US governments should consider these kind of things. The world is not as safe as it used to be.
It may also be a problem for future digital archeology, i.e. how to restore and use data from since long abandoned platforms. If you talk to a Microsoft salesperson he will probably assure you that Microsoft will provide keys forever, but can we be sure that really happens. As far as I know there is nothing EUALA that grants the user the right to that kind of service. Even if they will provide such services, it be free or will you have to sign up for some extended software support agreement (assuming you originally payed for the OS). Paying a little extra money for some to get some old file you really need may be acceptable for a company, but what about a public library or sombody having genealogy as a hobby. This may lead to losses of cultural values in the long run.
Even if you can live with the minimal risk of being cut of from Microsoft, the new volume activation schemes in Vista will increase the software management costs in business.
2) Yes, I agree, it sounds a bit expensive. This will put very high pressure on hardware prices. People will expect to pay the same amount of money or less for a computer that they do today.
This may force small and medium sized hardware vendors out of business. Fewer hardware companies will mean less competition and higher prices.
There is of course the chance that hardware vendors that find Vista too expensive will ship their boxes with some alternative OS such as Linux, but the problem is that Linux will not run the programs people are used to and this will limit their market.
“What if Microsoft are no longer there for you to get a new activation key when you have replaced a faulty mother board not that I find it very likely that MS should go out of business, but it could happen. ”
Or worse yet, what if Windows decides that it doesn’t like the look of your mp3 collection… and locks up your data until your pay restitution to the RIAA.
what if Windows decides that it doesn’t like the look of your mp3 collection… and locks up your data until your pay restitution to the RIAA.
What if space aliens come down and eat our brains? Our precious brains!
We can all make up entirely inane “what if?” scenarios with no basis in reality; it’s sad that this is all the closed-source/Vista/Microsoft-bashers have to offer. It’s sadder that such scenarios are being modded up while the voices of reason are being modded down.
But that’s what OSNews is all about these days.
Both cases are possible.
You shouldn’t simply discount them as inane just because you feel safe right now.
Like the other poster said, nobody ever imagined the fall of the Soviet Union or Britain going to war with Argentina.
But the fact is that anything can happen at some point in time.
So hold your fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen at the point in YOUR LIFETIME.
But don’t warry, your “precious brain” will be one of the last ones being munched on
I agree, it is highly unlikely that RIAA and Microsoft will turn against their customers, that would not be good for business in the long run.
However, situations where you got locked out from your data due to DRM is not that unlikely. E.g. the DRM security system would be a fun target for black hats.
DRM systems are constructed to make unauthorized use impossible. It will probably be quite hard to break them in a way that allows you to get to the data, without paying for it. However, they are most likely not designed to be safe against tampering, if all you want to achieve is denial of service, leaving the field open for malware writers distributing their software as viruses or trojans.
My apologies to all the fanboys who can overlook that stuff.
Yeah, it’s the fanboys who don’t have problems with a license or with getting Vista pre-installed. Jeez.
Most people don’t have problems with the eula because they don’t read it and have no idea whats in it. Imagine their surprise when they find out they can no longer play their music or watch a movie because someone else decided they wanted to be paid again for it.
The fanboys know what’s in it yet are willing to use it anyway, despite the limitations it places on the ability to use their own computers.
Not even half a page before we get a car based example…
Browser: SonyEricssonZ710i/R1EF Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1
I tried the RTM vista, it looks nicer but on day two I turned off all the animations. They are more annoying than the macosx ones.
It just doesn’t feel snappy, I’ll stay with XP for the time being…
All I want is a faster Windows, where search works
(can find a file on the internet quicker with google than on my harddisk) and that doesn’t slow down over time…
What animiations? There aren’t any animations that are actually new to Vista.
Just the new flip 3D task switcher and moving light flare in the Control Panel backdrop.
Nothing spectacular.
Actually WinXP has fast desktop search too. Turn on the Indexing Service in Windows.
And in the search box: Use the freetext search field, and when searching for general terms put an ! in front of the term, like !hotbaby or if you search for files @filename mkv to search for all matroska videofiles. It’s not as fancy or as easy as the Vista experience, but at least it’s fast. You can create more complex queries of course, but these will do in most cases.
Basically, I want an option which will allow me to set the icon size/detail level system-wide, after which I can tune individual folder’s settings. And lo and behold, it’s there: click the ‘organize’ button on the toolbar, click ‘folder and search options’, go to the ‘view’ tab, and click ‘apply to all folders’, which will make every folder look like the one currently open. Good.
Excuse me if I’m wrong, I thought this feature was already under windows xp, Tools->Folder Options->view (tab)->Apply to all folders????
Is Vista very different from this behaviour? (I haven’t actually used Vista as of yet)
You can do this in Vista, but you must do it for each folder type (Documents, Pictures and Video, etc.). This is because you may want different views depending on the type of data (e.g., details for files, large thumbnails for pictures, etc.).
IIRC, you can apply the same settings accross all folder types at the same time by going to your %userprofile% folder (the folder with your name), modify this folder to your preference, right-click in an empty space in the folder, choose “Customise this folder”, choose the “All Items” template and click the checkbox to apply the template to all subfolders.
It can’t keep Aero running when one application running is incompatible? X11 apps are slow on OS X, but you don’t get kicked back to OS 9 because of them…
Maybe the author meant that those apps run in Aero basic, I hope. Because I’d be surprised if there were many users in the next 5 years who don’t end up with one non-aero compliant program….
Yes, it’s switching back to Aero basic. I wonder why more work didn’t go into resolving this problem at Microsoft, now it’s the problem of other software companies and they will have to do the work.
I’ve tried Vista Beta 2 and thought it was OK. The GUI is cleaner than XP’s and Aero has compositing effects that are interesting.
However, I frankly do not see much of a need for Vista when I can visit KDE-look.org and download a nice Vista theme pack and virtually have the same experience.
Besides, 2007 is really going to be a huge year for GNU/Linux. Its when KDE 4, Gnome 2.20, Linux 2.6.20, (L)GPL v3, etc. will be released.
Every 6 months is a huge year for Linux.
2007 is especially big. We will get to see how Microsoft’s newest OS shapes thier competitors offerings.
Edited 2006-12-04 04:15
> the Microsoft implementation does lack a bring to front shortcut key or button.
No it is there: Windows Key + Spacebar.
What’s really maddening is that pressing it again doesn’t send them to the back! wtf?
>I feel compelled to touch on the originality issue often being referred to on the net.
I’m glad someone brought this up. A bunch of the stuff the MS is accused of stealing was in builds back in 2003 before I ever saw it anywhere else. However, even then it wasn’t like no one had ever thought of these things before. Very little that exists in OSs today wasn’t in a GUI theory books 15 years ago. Frankly I think some of the people writing those books would be disappointed in how little progress we have rally made.
I use every OS I can get my hands on and have seen a lot of cross pollination over the years. All the major OSs use the same, fairly limiting IMHO, metaphor so I don’t understand why this surprises anyone. To me it just sucks that no one has really blown the box open. At this point innovation seems more or less limited to implementation more than anything else.
Also just because FUD of any sort is bothersome – Vista Ultimate is $399 (still pricey!) but not $600. Such typical FUD. The upgrade price is $2 hundie something.
The upgrade price for the home premium version which most people will use is $159. Not much more than what I paid to upgrade to Tiger (no family pack though – that’s an awesome deal) and it is much bigger leap from XP than Panther to Tiger was.
As tmack points out though, nobody beats Linux freeness.
Edited 2006-12-04 04:10
See my other posts if you don’t believe how much…you will have to browse at -5 mind. I’ll try to explain why.
The reasons why I don’t like it.
1) Its not clearly divided up from Home to Premium.
2) It includes applications available for XP, yet labels them Vista rather than just stating differences between them.
3) It obscures important features with trivial changes.
Stability wise XP is as good as OS X? You have got to be kidding me.
This was a very superficial review with no new information. How about telling us if Vista has better multi-tasking than XP, especially with dual core procs? XP has nothing like the Unix based OS’ ability to mutlitask no matter how much hardware you throw at it.
For me it is.
For me XP is a lot more stable than MacOSX. I’ve yet to have a single crash with my XP installation, whilst OSX occasionally hangs or refuses to wake up from sleep.
You’re quite right about the schedular – many operating systems features a better schedular.
But most of the problems that you mentions, I suspect is based on single threaded applications. Multithreading is not widely used in Windows applications.
I believe it is, I use both, and I have not had any problems with either, but I know how to build a good Windows box, it’s the same with anything, quality components
This site is reminding more and more of the conservative liberal bantering bullshit (it’s the correct word). Statements like “the anti-microsoft folks” are really obnoxious and pathetic. Sure, there are people like that, unfortunately, calling them so only stirs them up and gets them to post vicious things about the “microsoft fanboys.”
This then gets a response about the “linux zealouts” which brings about comments about “loser gamers” (ok, I made that one up cause I can’t remember anymore of these).
Seriously, maybe you could show some tact and not start fights in your articles Thom?
Otherwise, it’s a great article. You got over a lot of stuff, and the wikipedia link you provided was great as well (today anyway, who knows how it may be defaced tomorrow
).
So next time you wish to address people who don’t like Vista, try addressing them as “people who don’t like Vista” or something like that which is accurate. Don’t address them as Microsoft haters, because there are a lot of Microsofties who really don’t like Vista…
Well if that’s not the most sensationalist title ever…
Just a note re the stream specific volume control. The author mentions that this is a feature he wishes was available in other OS’s including Linux. This is actually already available:
http://pulseaudio.org/
This is already included in a number of distros as well (though not included in Ubuntu). It is also very portable and available on a number of other OS’s as well.
Audio system in Windows sucks because of one thing, high latency when processing sound. Without special drivers and software it’s somewhere around 60-80ms which is totally unacceptable to most musicians. Windows still has a long way to go while solutions like CoreAudio in OSX and Jack/PulseAudio in Linux are already here and ready to work. It’s amazing that alternatives to Windows have much better technical background yet all the high-end audio software is released for Windows and sometimes OSX if Mac users are lucky 😐
I think you suck more than audio on windows, because you are trying to misinform others around here without doing any research. Here you go (taken from Wikipedia):
Windows Audio Session API – Very low level API for rendering audio, render/capture audio streams, adjust volume etc. This API also provides extremely low latency for audio professionals.
Explanation: it was introduced in Vista. You can find more info in MSDN and MS blogs. You can easily get audio latencies below 10ms FYI.
My bad, it wasn’t mentioned in any review I’ve read (/me gives a long stare at reviewers, maybe it’s time to describe something more than look, Control Panel maybe?) and I was too lazy to read Wikipedia entry. It’s good that Windows did catch up but it’s a bit late though, I’ve already managed to run my Windows-only audio apps as VST plugins on Linux
//Windows still has a long way to go while solutions like CoreAudio in OSX and Jack/PulseAudio in Linux are already here and ready to work. //
Actually, I believe that Vista does catch up in this area.
Indeed there’s more than being able to set a separate volume level for different apps.As a musician i would probably be more concerned about realtime performance than a msn messenger kicking in with high volume.
>It’s sad that so many people in the free world think
>that the important meaning of the word “free” has to
>do with an exchange of goods and services. It’s even
>worse that their vision of the word is used to vilify
>its use in other contexts.
Of course he understood what you meant. He is right to assert the use of the word ‘free’ in the context of money since that’s what the thread was about!
Why don’t you FOSS boys get off your high horses and come down to earth sometimes. I knew what he meant when he talked about free as in money and I know what you meant when you talked about freedom in a society. I don’t find it difficult to partition the two as you seem to.
But I know what you guys are tying to do, you’re trying to muddy an interesting thread about the virtues or non-virtues of Vista with the usual mud slinging we get from some members of the open source community.
“I knew what he meant when he talked about free as in money and I know what you meant when you talked about freedom in a society. I don’t find it difficult to partition the two as you seem to.”
It doesn’t sound like it.
>I honestly find it amusing the kinds of excuses some >of you can come up for the lack of quality assurance
>and proper design principles in Microsoft products.
Well please explain that to the different Linux distros that freeze (even upon bootup) on my laptop but Windows works fine.
yeah, I have tried Linux and that is why I say it is way overrated.
There is not any real competition to Mac and Windows and that is why everyone over hypes linux so much (because there are no good choices on the market period).
This is why so many people on here will die to defend linux (even though it crashes or things don’t work and you have to hack things to get them to work).
>By equating free and monetary value, you have
>completely missed the point of Linux’s “freeness.”
>In fact, commerical versions of Linux cost money,
>yet they are still free.
Well you pay one way or the other. The thing is that I don’t want to waste my time struggling to get something to work that should have worked right to begin with.
Wasting time = Money.
Getting something to work on Windows or Mac is a lot easier than having to struggle, hack something together, making excuses and just plain wasting time.
That is why I say that Linux is not superior to closed sources OSes. That is plain horseshit and politics and not reality.
Again, you also COMPLETELY miss the point.
Wasting time = Money.
It’s all relative.
If a secretary has to do some work the developer hasn’t done she could be wasting her time.
The developer who designs the spreadsheet the same secretary is using in the personnel department isn’t wasting time,crawling true config files and code is part of his job.
Well you pay one way or the other. The thing is that I don’t want to waste my time struggling to get something to work that should have worked right to begin with.
Yes somebody else has gone through it for you,nothing wrong with that.MS makes money with perceived convenience.In FOSS most of the times someone has find a solution to a problem you have and shares it most of the times via irc,mailing lists for free.
//MS makes money with perceived convenience.//
It does. The problem is, the convenience is only perceived.
//In FOSS most of the times someone has find a solution to a problem you have and shares it most of the times via irc,mailing lists for free.//
This is a correct statement, but it does not apply only to FOSS as you imply. More things “just work out of the box” for Linux than they do for Windows. If you ever tried to install both (especially on older hardware), you would know this. Many times it takes many, many days and dozens of reboots to get something working on Windows. If the box was made circa 1999 or before, it may well be that a Windows NT/2K/XP class driver simply does not exist, and you will never get it working.
“This is a correct statement, but it does not apply only to FOSS as you imply. More things “just work out of the box” for Linux than they do for Windows. “
In some cases true, others not. For example I have a computer that uses software raid. That support was removed from the Linux kernel for this particular vendor. Where an older distribution does work, a new distribution does not. So does that mean I am stuck in the dark ages with a kernel because the kernel devs saw fit to discontinue a critical piece for me anyway? Yes, I can use it without using raid, but then I don’t get my redundancy. As for configuration time, with all my software loaded, takes me about 2 hours for either OS. The time difference used to be much greater before Windows XP however, that I will grant.
In some cases true, others not. For example..
True,take for example XP.My motherboard drivers came on CD which i think is very common.However during the install of XP you can only load additional drivers from a floppy if you press F6.But you need to install XP first to make the flop and so forth.Yes i could use just the SATA HD’s as regular HD´s instead of RAID0 but then i get a performance penalty.And don’t forget the time to reboot and change CD’s download manually all patches,updates with different interfaces.Internet explorer for windows update,asusup2date for the chipsetdrivers,another gui for the graphics card..
Calling the activation helpdesk because the hardware had changed.Well i ran the same XP as vmware client and not as host.
Edited 2006-12-04 19:00
//Wasting time = Money.
Getting something to work on Windows or Mac is a lot easier than having to struggle, hack something together, making excuses and just plain wasting time. //
The problem is, you have got this the wrong way around.
For example, start with one Windows system with a working OS but no Office suite installed, and another system which is a Linux system also with no Office suite installed.
If you were to install OpenOffice on both systems, the Linux system would take less time (using a package manager as opposed to downloading an installation package).
If you were to install MS Office on the Windows system and OpenOffice on the Linux system, it would take a lot less time on the Linux system. On the Windows system, first you have to obtain a physical copy from somehwere (you cannot download MS Office), then you have to install it then you have to enter CD keys and whatnot then you have to activate it and register it and so on.
//Wasting time = Money. Getting something to work on Windows or Mac is a lot easier//
On a Mac, maybe. On Linux, dead easy, probably the easiest of the three. On Windows … it could take days.
“If you were to install OpenOffice on both systems, the Linux system would take less time (using a package manager as opposed to downloading an installation package). “
Except in the case of some Linux distributions, such as Gentoo. Then you need to downlaod the source, and compile it. Either way, you have to download both times so whether using a package manager or not, it still takes the download time.
“If you were to install MS Office on the Windows system and OpenOffice on the Linux system, it would take a lot less time on the Linux system. On the Windows system, first you have to obtain a physical copy from somehwere (you cannot download MS Office), then you have to install it then you have to enter CD keys and whatnot then you have to activate it and register it and so on.”
The physical copy would already be on hand in 99% of the cases, as the business would have made the decision to use MS Office, so would have it through Volume Licensing. The entering of a CD Key and Activation is trivial taking only seconds. The install of Office in this manner with activation would most likely be quicker then the install of OpenOffice. You are supposed to register OpenOffice as well, so they can count you as a user. I take it you skip that part and don’t want to be counted as supporting Open Source.
You are supposed to register OpenOffice as well, so they can count you as a user. I take it you skip that part and don’t want to be counted as supporting Open Source.
Only once you register OpenOffice.
“Only once you register OpenOffice.”
As it is once you register MS Office as well, with any support that might bring by registering. Either way registration is not required for either, that mainly being my point.
It sounds like you’re talking about getting Windows applications to work on other systems.
How easy is it to get their applications to run on Windows ?
I hoped this argument would die. Very few people are capable of discussing this seriously, and here is too short a space to do it justice.
Playing with an OS is fun for most here. So time spent is always worthwhile.
The reality is Time != Money if you are comparing Linux vs Windows in a production environment you have a whole series of arguments from support costs, downtime, training…and a hundred other things. The users in that environment in reality should be able to continue their *own* jobs and thats it.
When you are assessing any platform its difficult to obtain any real figures and almost all results can be massaged to any outcome you want.
What does this mean for the home user. It means you can buy two *pre-configured* linux computers for less than the cost of Vista Premium. Its a massive saving which is why I’d like more reviews of the home edition.
The real issue though is nothing to do with money. Does linux support X application? How much more are you prepared to pay for something *familier*? Have you heard of alternatives? Which alternative do I choose? What if things go wrong? etc etc.
Professional tools and gaming aside, Linux is *always* cheaper, and less time consuming, but Microsoft wins out in so many other areas…people are aware of it for one, its advertised on TV, you can go into a shop and just buy one. Do people spend hours trying to find a fix for their Virus; updating there software; searching for cracks; Defraging/Scandisk; rather that download an iso!? of course they do.
Off topic
=========
The bit that always amuses me constantly on Linux forums. The time some people will spend trying to get some incompatible piece of junk to run, this quote from the article “Everything worked right out of the box, including my bcm43xx-based wireless network chip.” For the price of Vista you could have bought 54 wireless cards that did work
Edited 2006-12-04 07:59
The total cost of ownership is mostly not calculated correctly. You have to include consequential upgrades that one upgrade requires. Then you have to include additional hardware. Then you have to include the cost of locked in proprietary formats which keep you in this treadmill.
If you add it all up, and if you are say a charity where all expenses come off the amount you can use for your purpose, there is no doubt which way you should go. Free as in FOSS turns out to mean freedom from extortion…
“Is UAC annoying? Yes. Is it any more annoying than entering your password each time you need to do something admin-related in, say, Ubuntu? No.”
I so disagree here, for I have used Vista Ultimate too:
UAC is annoying. It popup not only for basic tasks (installation, which is fine!) but every next feature.
On top of that, the UAC dialog often hides itself behind others (and isn’t displayed in the taskbar), so you wonder for a few seconds why the interface isn’t responding.
Also, ever tried to access directories like “application data” ? Good luck.
You have to change ownership to you, then change the rights of the owner (you) just to be able to read it.
Every atomic change (ownership, rights) require one separate UAC popup.
So yes, UAC is annoying when you are used to Ubuntu or OSX. I guess it will be refined in SP1 (as usual)
So yes, UAC is annoying when you are used to Ubuntu or OSX.
I am used to Ubuntu and OSX, and I do not find it annoying.
In Ubuntu, when I want to edit a system directory, I am forced to ‘sudo nautilus [location]’ in a terminal. When I want to edit a system file (which includes anything residing outside of your home dir, incl. menu files), I need to ‘sudo gedit [file]’. When I want to install a package, I need to enter the root password. Etc.
Same for Vista, with the difference that Vista does not require a terminal for any of those actions, as Vista will present you with a nice dialog. Ubuntu (and GNOME) requires 3rd party scripts in order to allow you to edit system files/directories straigt from a user-initiated Nautilus instance. Extremely annoying and primitive.
Edited 2006-12-04 09:48
//Same for Vista, with the difference that Vista does not require a terminal for any of those actions, as Vista will present you with a nice dialog. Ubuntu (and gNOME) requires 3rd party scripts in order to allow you to edit system files/directories straigth from a user-initiated Nautilus instance. Extremely annoying and primitive.//
Any KDE installation, including Kubuntu, will give you a menu entry something like this: “Menu -> Applications -> File tools -> File manager – Super user mode”.
From that isntance of the GUI file manager, you can navigate anywhere and launch an editor on any file. As the root user.
No need for the command line whatsoever.
Also, if you use Krusader, then even from the normal user there is a menu entry: “Commands -> Start root mode Krusader”, and this menu entry has a keyboard shortcut “Alt-K”.
Again, no need for the command line. In both cases, KDE “will present you with a nice dialog”. You need enter the root password only once, and you can then do multiple actions from your instance of the file manager running as root.
“KDE does not require a terminal for any of those actions” … GUI all the way if you like. Extremely convenient and user-friendly.
If you are going to review something, please be even-handed.
Edited 2006-12-04 10:05
I don’t recall me saying anything about Kubuntu or KDE… The parent post was specifically referring to Ubuntu, which uses GNOME, and also happens to be the most popular version of the distro.
//I don’t recall me saying anything about Kubuntu or KDE… The parent post was specifically referring to Ubuntu, which uses GNOME, and also happens to be the most popular version of the distro.//
I am sure I recall something similar (run file manager as root) on Ubuntu GNOME menus. I would be extremely surprised if this were not already provided on the default menus.
If it is not, it is a trivial task to use the menu editor and add a “gksu nautilis” entry to do the exact equivalent. There is simply no way that you are “forced to ‘sudo nautilus [location]’ in a terminal”.
Edited 2006-12-04 10:12
I am sure I recall something similar (run file manager as root) on Ubuntu GNOME menus. I would be extremely surprised if this were not already provided on the default menus.
It is not, and it is besides the point as well. When I navigate to a certain dir as a standard user, I want to be able to open any file in there, prompting me for a password. I do NOT want to open special instances and navigate all over again. It is primitive, should not be necessary, and interrupts the workflow.
If it is not, it is not at all difficult to use the menu editor and add a “gksu nautilis” entry to do the exact equivalent.
Of course, I am not stupid. However, stuff like this should be taken care of by default. Defaults matter.
Edited 2006-12-04 10:12
How do you reconcile:
“forced to ‘sudo nautilus [location]’ in a terminal”
… with
“Of course, I am not stupid. … (When I navigate to a certain dir as a standard user, I want to be able to open any file in there, prompting me for a password. I do NOT want to open special instances and navigate all over again. It is primitive, should not be necessary, and interrupts the workflow.) ”
If you were not stupid, you could just add an alias to your bashrc so that “rfh” == “gksu nautilis .” where rfh then becomes a shorthand for “root filemanager here”.
I take it then you are just biased, but not stupid?
Edited 2006-12-04 10:29
If you were not stupid, you could just add an alias to your bashrc so that “rfh” == “gksu nautilis .” where rfh then becomes a shorthand for “root filemanager here”.
*sigh*
I look at things like from the perspective of *shock gasp horror* the ordinary user. You know, the one that knows and wants to know fcuk all about computers. System A has everything taken care of by default, system B requires manually editing files to do so. Which of the two is easier?
Can you *please* get it in your head that we technical crowd are utterly irrelevant? 95% of the world knows nothing about computers, and hence mainstream systems (or systems that aspire to be mainstream) need to cater to *those* people.
Is it really that hard to understand?
//I look at things like from the perspective of *shock gasp horror* the ordinary user. You know, the one that knows and wants to know fcuk all about computers. System A has everything taken care of by default, system B requires manually editing files to do so. Which of the two is easier? //
Then use this as an ordinary Joe user, with no manual editing of config files required:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PclosControlCenter
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCCHardware
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCCSystem
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCCNetworking
… or this:
http://www.mepis.org/files/MEPIS%20User%20Guide.pdf
… or this:
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/reviews/linux/suse-9.3-ftp/yast-configurat…
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/gallery/hardware-1139.php
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/gallery/network-services-1144.php
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/gallery/software138.php
Just use one of the many “newbie friendly, easy GUI setup dialogs included” distributions.
Or, why not use this:
http://www.webmin.com/screens.html
(provides a config GUI even for difficult distributions)
If you don’t want to manually edit config files, then don’t. Don’t pretend to me that you cannot use Linux without manual editing of config files, though. If you tried to pretend that, I would just think of you as biased and trying to spread disinformation.
Edited 2006-12-04 10:56
If you don’t want to manually edit config files, then don’t. Don’t pretend to me that you cannot use Linux without manual editing of config files, though.
AAAARGH.
Where did I say that? Where did I say that you cannot use Linux without manually editing config files? Point me to it!
We were talking about UAC compared to Ubuntu (yes, the GNOME version!), not about the whole Linux world. I did not say that ANYWHERE. There is no need to get your panties in a twist. You are overreacting.
Where did I say that you cannot use Linux without manually editing config files? Point me to it!
And I quote: “System A has everything taken care of by default, system B requires manually editing files to do so”.
You simply do not have to manually edit any config files on some distributions that are set up as easy-to-use-desktops. Most of those use KDE. PCLinuxOS, Linspire and Xandros are perhaps the best examples. These can all be handled by an “average Joe” (ex-Windows) user without much trouble after just an hour or two gaining familiarity, with no “manually edit any config files” required.
This does not include Kubuntu, I’m afraid. It would if Kubuntu included “multimedia stuff”, but to get it going you do have to get Automatix and go to a little bit more effort.
And I quote: “System A has everything taken care of by default, system B requires manually editing files to do so”.
I am getting to boiling point here, sonny. Again, we were discussing UBUNTU. U B U N T U.
Do I really need to spell it out for you? We were comparing Vista to UBUNTU. UBUNTU.
Got it?
//Do I really need to spell it out for you? We were comparing Vista to UBUNTU. UBUNTU. //
Ubuntu is a bit kludgy ou of the box, I grant you.
I wouldn’t recommend it to a lone average Joe newbie just starting with Linux, there are indeed far better options for that situation.
However, in one use case (medium or large business, school … that type of scenario), one can prepare a pre-configured UBUNTU “image” and install that on multiple desktops throught the business, and avoid the “manual edit” kludginess even for UBUNTU.
Good. Will you then please apologise for putting words in my mouth?
Thank you.
//Will you then please apologise for putting words in my mouth? //
I don’t feel inclined to.
I quoted you exactly, so I can’t see any putting of words in anyone’s mouth.
I personally have installed dozens of different Linux distributions on multiple machines, and very rarely have I used typing on the command line … even for a bit of a steam-driven distro like UBUNTU, I normally just wipe the mouse over to select the instructive text I’m reading in the web browser, and then I middle-click in a terminal window.
I can’t see a need to apologise for quoting you and then refuting what you typed.
I can’t see a need to apologise for quoting you and then refuting what you typed.
You are putting words in my mouth by saying: “Don’t pretend to me that you cannot use Linux without manual editing of config files, though.” I NEVER said that, and you know it. We were CLEARLY discussing Ubuntu.
But I guess apologising for lying about what I said is too much to ask. Oh well. Good to know for how serious to take any future discussions with you.
We were talking about UAC compared to Ubuntu (yes, the GNOME version!),
You apparantly don’t value UAC that much otherwise you would have compared it with SELinux,Grsecurity or even RSBAC.
You apparantly don’t value UAC that much otherwise you would have compared it with SELinux,Grsecurity or even RSBAC.
*sigh* I was talking about ordinary users. How many distributions ship either of those pre-configured and working out of the box? Then, from those, take the ones that are aimed squarely at home desktop users, like Vista is.
I’d say zero.
But you can continue to distract from the issue at hand. When it comes to admin rights, Vista is no more annoying than is the most popular desktop oriented distribution of this moment, Ubuntu. I refuse to take ever every of the 238957238957 distros into account when writing my reviews.
As you should know SELinux is not like UAC, for one start the UAC is weak when it comes to local security as anyone can bypass it by clicking ok.
I sort of understand them disabling aero for the UAC prompt but it’s ugly, seeing your screen go blank makes you think WTF. Microsoft simply have not come to the table with anything like SELinux or AppArmour, just giving the illustion your alot safer, but really just more safer.
Is there any reason you wrote 238957 twice?
It doesn’t seem to be random.
Besides geek curiosity, I want to say I agree with you.
It’s really annoying when people put words in your mouth.
So maybe we all can agree that Ubuntu is at least as over hyped as Vista
Haven’t tried Vista (won’t run on my hardware) but I’ve tried Ubuntu and it wasn’t all that great compared to other desktop oriented distros…
It’s also obvious that you would give Linux an unfair advantage if you compared Vista to all the distros out there like
speed: Vista vs Gentoo
stability: Vista vs Debian/Slackware
ease of use: Vista vs Xandros/Mandriva/PclinuxOS
On the other hand this is exactly what makes Linux great:
You can start easy and from time to time switch to a more advanced distro. You still have the same programs available.
That being said I’m actually quite happy with PcLOS and won’t switch anytime soon.
Regarding stability:
I bet you can crash every OS if you try hard enough.
Well, with Windows <=98 you didn’t really need to try
WinXP was actually pretty stable when I had it on my machine.
Of course it would crash from time to time under heavy load if I used it for >12 hours without reboot.
On the other hand I got Mandriva/PcLOS/SUSE/Ubuntu to crash, as well.
I reported the bug and they said it was a weird hardware related problem.
Anyway, what I’m saying is:
Given the current stability of operating systems, a marginal increase in stability is not what matters to me as a desktop user. A system that does not react properly for several seconds is nearly as bad as a crash and that happens far more often.
It’s a shame that starting some programs at the same time while updating your system can slow the GUI to a crawl.
Is Vista a big improvement over XP in this regard?
Everybody who has ever used Win<2000 has the “every 30s save”-reflex hardwired into his brain, anyway
For instance, when you close a window in Vista, it dissolves while falling slightly backwards. This is an extra visual aid.
That’s relativ i personally think it’s unnecessary bling.
You perhaps should have said it can be a visual addition instead of it is
Compare all this to all the new technological gadgets on the new Mercedes S class
Mercedes was the first car manufacturer who took in 1979 in their W126 series the airbag into production.Perhaps the night vision device has a similar faith as eminent security feature and not spinning chroom bling rims.
Vista’s Aero effects fall into the same category.
It’s it’s bling bling.Though you can allways argue about wether it fits into your taste category.Nevertheless it isn’t an security feature.Such as ASLR,UAC,/GS compiler switch,BitDefender,etc..
Joe Average will probably not know what it means and perhaps in your analogy of non techies never will.
The main drawback, of course, of Aero is that it requires a DirectX 9 compatible card. A substantial group of people will need a new graphics card for this, but I do not see this is a problem, since most people will get their hands on Vista via OEM channels anyway (meaning, when they buy a new computer).
I think they would like to have a directx 10,directx backwards compatible card.Very expensive at the moment.And more important there are not many games that make exclusively use of directx 10.
At the moment if you don’t take the hard core gamers with deep pockets into account (which we do it’s Mr and Mrs Joe Average right?) the directx10 feature is somewhat a dead bird.
At least Windows Vista allows you to edit system files and directories without launching a file manager window as root; Vista will just prompt you to grant admin rights when trying to edit system directories. Of course you can turn UAC off, but that really is a bad thing to do if you ask me.
Ubuntu does let you edit everything with the right password.You can pretty much sudo everything.And it too works out of the box.I agree though not suitable for beginners at first sight but then again you will only want to launch things that require admin rights if you know what you are doing.This is true for both.So as an other poster allready felt a little bias from your side.
The audio department is where Windows Vista really is far ahead of any other mainstream operating system. The new audio stack allows for a feature I have only ever previously seen in BeOS: per process control of audio volume. Gone are the days where you could get a heart attack from MSN Messenger when someone sent you a message while you were listening to loud music. In Vista, you just set the volume for Messenger lower than for Media Player, and gone is that problem. A major advance, and surely something I would like to see in OS X and Linux.
What does this say about the quality of sound?
Or responsiveness.
After asking Google for advice, I found out you needed to manually download the third beta of the Windows Mobile Device Center before you can really do anything with your Windows Mobile PDA and Vista.
*sigh* I was talking about ordinary users. How many distributions ship either of those pre-configured and working out of the box? Then, from those, take the ones that are aimed squarely at home desktop users, like Vista is.
Users who have made a welthought decision (know what they need and not what’s hot to have),are ready for any OS,linux included.In fact Ubuntu might be to soft for them.
In total, Vista is a pretty convincing argument for buyers of computers to stick to the Windows side of the pond. Assuming the security will turn out to be as good in the real world as it is on paper, Vista will enable buyers to stick with what they know, using all the same applications they are used to, but all in a much better interface and many other features many users will certainly appreciate.
Indeed if the security featured who are undoubtedly present live up to the expectations or better yet do what they are supposed to do.Making the system indeed more secure.
Sure Vista will have it’s marketshare one way or another.But it remains to be seen if Vista can get respect and acknoledgement from those people who really know what they are doing.
I can’t really comment on Vista, because I don’t have and am not going to try Vista. However, when you sudo on *NIX, both in Gnome and in the terminal, there is a timeout, so if you are doing a lot of maintenance/installing you only have to enter your password once. After that it will not ask you again until you logout or the timeout expires. I feel this is a good compromise between security and usability. Does Vista do this or does it ask you every time?
>>You apparantly don’t value UAC that much otherwise you would have compared it with SELinux,Grsecurity or even RSBAC.
>*sigh* I was talking about ordinary users. How many distributions ship either of those pre-configured and working out of the box? Then, from those, take the ones that are aimed squarely at home desktop users, like Vista is.
I’d say zero.
Fedora Core comes to mind.
I look at things like from the perspective of *shock gasp horror* the ordinary user. You know, the one that knows and wants to know fcuk all about computers. System A has everything taken care of by default, system B requires manually editing files to do so. Which of the two is easier?
Can you *please* get it in your head that we technical crowd are utterly irrelevant? 95% of the world knows nothing about computers, and hence mainstream systems (or systems that aspire to be mainstream) need to cater to *those* people.
Is it really that hard to understand?
I know what you’re saying Thom.
But ordinary user has no business editing system files.
That’s why *nix’s have root acount and home directories where ordinary users live and go about their ordinary daily computing lives. And that’s why *nix’s are known for their reliability.
Because ordinary users are just that, ordinary users, and are not alowed to mess with the multiuser system that *nix is.
Thankfully, this by-design, behavior in *nix can’t be easily turned off.
Vista is just trying to copy this design, albeit rather badly, as is the tradition of Microsoft’s sloppy software design.
Once people turn off UAC, all that’s left is just XP with a pretty face.
“In Ubuntu, when I want to edit a system directory, I am forced to ‘sudo nautilus [location]’ in a terminal. When I want to edit a system file (which includes anything residing outside of your home dir, incl. menu files), I need to ‘sudo gedit [file]’. When I want to install a package, I need to enter the root password. Etc. ”
I’m a little surprised by this, I haven’t used Ubuntu, and probably never will, but I suspect very strongly that you could simply assign yourself to a group that allows you to install packages…and to other actions that that user is capable of doing responsibly. If thats the case I suspect that you should stick to talking about how pretty windows looks in everything but the home version.
I’m a little surprised by this, I haven’t used Ubuntu, and probably never will, but I suspect very strongly that you could simply assign yourself to a group that allows you to install packages…and to other actions that that user is capable of doing responsibly.
Yeah now that is very user friendly. And of course it is VERY unsafe to do so.
If thats the case I suspect that you should stick to talking about how pretty windows looks in everything but the home version.
Ah you just needed an excuse to troll. My bad, I fell for it.
Why are you editing system directories? I think that’s supposed to be difficult…
If we look to the engineering structure of the windows vista final we could find that It is really and noticeably slow. This will change IMO in the upcoming months as the patches arrive and fix the bugs and performance issues it has right now.
On the same hardware I use for testing OSX 10.4.8 beated vista in some areas with 4x speed. This is not the case when OSX was at 10.4.2.
But on the other hand even if Vista is to solve a lot of the security holes that plagued the previous versions, there are other problems that It introduced; like performance (linux now can laugh at Vista), the bother of their licensing, and the price that is a rip off, like there is no tomorrow.
Beside all of that in the Computing world, the OS is not the only story to concentrate on when you wish a cool computing environment but other devices are as much important as the OS (HDD redundancy, laser color printing, Fiber channel 4GBps connection to your HDD arrays, and the Robotic Tape system, redundancy of RAM and PSUs and other components); so I cannot change the OS just for a promised security advancements, I need alot of other reasons to upgrade, especially taking into the account the irritability of the OS to simple administrative changes like installing a new HDD or a new motherboard.
While i really applaud Microsoft to set the hardware standard yet a higher for an “operating system” I was asked to make an analysis for my boss about how vista would be working for us. Well suffice to say it wont be in the near future that we will be deploying it. I re-wrote the analysis for public view http://blog.2blocksaway.com/2006/12/04/windows-vista-in-the-enterpr…
and to be honest I don’t see any major corporations adopting this power hungry horse any time soon. Home users yes because it will come with their new bad ass (you need one) PCs but corporations would need to upgrade too much , and not just hardware.
So great its Vista… personally I still think that for the price of Vista plus a new pc capable of running it you cold get a really nice mac too
my 2 cents
//vic
http://blog.2blocksaway.com
and to be honest I don’t see any major corporations adopting this power hungry horse any time soon. Home users yes because it will come with their new bad ass (you need one) PCs
Corporations usual have a pretty standard replacement cycle. They’ll get Vista on that cycle. The PC will be cheaper than the one they bought 3 yearsago and it will be much more powerful. Go look at Dells’ site. For less than half of what corporations paid 3 years ago, they’ll get Vista with a dual-core PC and a 19″ LCD etc etc.
They won’t (in any significant numbers) replace their current PC’s with Linux. They’ll replace them with Vista.
They won’t (in any significant numbers) replace their current PC’s with Linux. They’ll replace them with Vista.
A lot of companies “still” run on w2k/xp why would they upgrade other than the update entitlement comes to an end.Perhaps their current software doesn’t run on Vista and they think aero is butt ugly anyway.
Windows Vista is the first time I’ve really disliked Windows. I was pleased with 95, 98, 2000 and XP even though I adopted them early but Windows Vista really irks me. I don’t see myself upgrading at all. Sticking with XP is the most likely option, switching to alternatives is the other one. Although I’d rip my eyes out rather than use Vista, it’s still preferable to Linux.
ReactOS might be the perfect solution for you in 1-2 years.
http://www.reactos.org
Personally I plan on buying Vista Ultimate Edition probably around march of next year. Mainly for the security aspect, I know that MS will be focusing more resources on the security of Vista than on XP, mainly because come January they will want XP to look worse than Vista in order to drive up upgrade sales. Is this a cheesy way to drive up sales? I suppose so, but in my profession I need to leave town ALOT and the more secure I feel about my wife’s home use notebook the better. I don’t want to have to try and fix the computer through the phone.
I imagine if Vista ends up being as secure as OSX 10.4 is I can actually give my aging iMac to my daughter. Right now I use it for doing my more sensitive work, ie taxes and the like due to security.
Thom, did you try the latest version of Java 5 (update 8 or above) and Java 6 RC on Vista? Supposedly the Aero-disabling bug (yes, it’s a bug) had been fixed long ago. Also, it’s possible that the problem you are describing is related to SWT rather than Java SE.
See: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/chet/archive/2006/10/java_on_vista_y.h…
Edited 2006-12-04 12:27
I understand Java 6 also brings a whole slew of improvements. I REALLY hope that Java apps (which severa lcommercial apps are) run well on Vista, since it’s a virtual guarantee that *eventually* most offices will end up running Vista.
Stability- wise, XP was already on par with OS X, and left little to improve upon.
Not so with my friends new laptop. Not at all so with my neighbour’s new laptop.
On my stationary PC Win XP locked up on boot (fresh install) because of an SBLive (Linux worked fine), until i finally discovered you had to remove some “devl.dll”, or something like that wich sounded like “devil”.
On another friend’s XP machine there’s some serious trouble with MIDI, and his CD-burner ain’t working from Wavelab.
People tell me that they don’t use Linux cause it’s too difficult, then they tell me about all the problems they have with Windows wich I have not
Up to par with OS X? C’mon, man! You don’t have to be that diplomatic in front of us
Sounds like problems with his drivers, no XPs fault, but Creative’s
Nice review thom, I have to agree on the WMC and WMP 11 parts, I just cant stop using them, specially media player, is like itunes but without all the sucking!
Just one thing, I like the new windows explorer
PS: I don’t use IE7, but that feature of looking at the tabs “expose like” is damn sweet, hope firefox guys do something similar.
>hope firefox guys do something similar.
Extensions to do this type stuff have been available for years now….gezz.
Well, if you reply me,don’t give half the information, give some names so we can try these magic extensions.
Here you go:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1457/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1937/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1810/
Similar but different:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2134/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2174/
“Stability- wise, XP was already on par with OS X, and left little to improve upon”
“Security-wise; now that is where only time will tell. On paper, they seem to be on par”
I lost all respect for this review after reading these two quotes… on paper & practice Vista is light years beyond XP and OS X in BOTH stability and security…
anyone who knows anything about Vista, knows that the improvements made to the kernel are way beyond anything OS X or XP has done… to say it’s on-par is pure B.S.
it’s already estimated that by removing the graphics from the kernel, Vista improves stability by 20-30% (over XP) and decreases the risk of driver related BSOD’s.
including the advancements to user rights means no more buffer overflow security vunerabilities from Internet Explorer…
^”Know what happens when you use the wrong driver in Vista? BSOD!”
I know you were kidding, but this is near impossible in Vista, if there is a driver error, Vista prompts the user to reload/rollback to the last known good driver and/or default to generic driver so it doesn’t crash the system. Vista is no where near XP.
Edited 2006-12-04 15:56
“I lost all respect for this review after reading these two quotes… on paper & practice Vista is light years beyond XP and OS X in BOTH stability and security…
anyone who knows anything about Vista, knows that the improvements made to the kernel are way beyond anything OS X or XP has done… to say it’s on-par is pure B.S.
it’s already estimated that by removing the graphics from the kernel, Vista improves stability by 20-30% (over XP) and decreases the risk of driver related BSOD’s.
including the advancements to user rights means no more buffer overflow security vunerabilities from Internet Explorer…”
Dude, its just a review. No reason to get hostile
So you like Windows…I like Macs and Linux. We’ve all got our OS’s of choice.
I lost all respect for this review after reading these two quotes… on paper & practice Vista is light years beyond XP and OS X in BOTH stability and security…
Really?!
What’s the uptime of your Vista production system?
Has it been up for weeks, months, years?
Please, recall this post when you see your first BSOD, if you haven’t already.
And I guarantee you will because the only way Microsoft can produce a stable OS is if they take one of the *nix’s, slap a Windows logo on it and release it as Windows.
Caveat: I’m living in Europe, obviously i don’t have access to the final version of Vista. I base my observations on the RTM 6000, which was installed on a 1st tier brand workstation my employer received 14 days ago. As far as i understand the RTM 6000 and the final are identical.
Onwards…
UAC is a good idea on paper, in real life it is just a PITA. I wonder why it pops up so frequently, i’m not doing anything system relevant, still it pops up. Heck, it even pops up when i’m logged in as administrator! Puzzled.
I think this is the place to voice an opinion in the UAC/sudo controversy: i know that Thom Holwerda maintains it is an Ubuntu issue and all other comparisons are irrelevant, i think that’s a red herring. Regardless of the distribution or GUI: If opening a terminal and becoming root* to manipulate a file the user has no rights to is too hard for the user in question, i wonder what’s the user’s business to manipulate this file in the first place?
I don’t know about you, but all GNU/Linux distributions i used so far had reasonably default rights to files and usually only require higher priviledges if system files or files of other users are concerned. Given this experience, the UAC is all that more puzzeling. I would like to think that MS has sorted out the system files rights… but still the UAC daemon asks me to authenticate even if i have the rights to manipulate the file. Why?
Aero is also a funny dog. I admit, i never looked deep into the underlying structure — on second thought, even if i wanted to, i probably couldn’t or is the source code available? — but it strikes me as odd that the whole GUI turns basic on me when i start my Netbean. I understand that Vista has a hard time doing Java apps, but why turn to basic for the whole GUI?**
* BTW, in every Gnome i know there is a context menu option in Nautilus saying “Open as administrator” which, surprisingly, asks for a password and tries to open the selected file as root.
** SUN fixed this with Java 1.5 Update 8, but animations are still broken. Supposedly Java 6 will fix this.
If opening a terminal and becoming root* to manipulate a file the user has no rights to is too hard for the user in question, i wonder what’s the user’s business to manipulate this file in the first place?
Thats what many of say … the person has no business using Linux. Its not friendly for the average home or corporate user. And we can’t let them all run as Admin all the time.
Thats what UAC is for … and Active Directory and Group Policy and a lot more.
Thats what UAC is for … and Active Directory and Group Policy and a lot more.
Active Directory has nothing todo with local admin access.I can pull out the utp cable and still login and gain admin access locally.
Thats what many of say … the person has no business using Linux.
No you’re twisting what has been said earlier.Often admin access shouldn’t be necessary which is something completely different.
And we can’t let them all run as Admin all the time.
Untill recently that is the case i’m glad you mentioned it.Otherwise XP home,windows200,w95/86,3.11.. all ran with admin or system rights.
Active Directory has nothing todo with local admin access.I can pull out the utp cable and still login and gain admin access locally.
My organization, and most others, do not give out the local admin account to normal users. That would defeat the purpose of having them log in with reduced privledges.
Untill recently that is the case i’m glad you mentioned it.Otherwise XP home,windows200,w95/86,3.11.. all ran with admin or system rights.
Not in my organization. When we rolled out XP, they were all made “Power Users” and none were given local admin access.
Not in my organization. When we rolled out XP, they were all made “Power Users” and none were given local admin access.
Many it-shops did and do hand out to local admin access developers.Not everybody can justify the double amount of money which the professional version costs.
NotParker:
Thats what many of say … the person has no business using Linux. Its not friendly for the average home or corporate user. And we can’t let them all run as Admin all the time.
Thats what UAC is for … and Active Directory and Group Policy and a lot more.
That’s not what i said. I said that a user who doesn’t know how to access off-limits files has probably no business to manipulate them. This holds for any operating system, regardless if it’s MS Windows or GNU/Linux.
With that being clarified, i understand the convenience argument for home users, who by default are their own administrators. Since convenient access is often a trade-off for security, witness MS Windows XP, the actual goal shouldn’t be to make escalating rights easier but less frequent. All operating systems i know that are targeted at home users have much to do on this front, including MS Vista. But i digress.
NotParker,
Don’t worry about GNU/Linux. It will rival all of Vista’s features within six months and surpass it soon after.
It’s only fair.
Microsoft copied the Unix privileging model in UAC and the Mac OS X widget system and shiny composite desktop.
It wont matter if Linux has 1% market share; we’ll still have a superior offering long before Windows Fiji.
The only problem with Linux is that some bleeding-edge hardware: chipsets, WiFi cards, sound cards, etc. take a short while before gaining support.
That isn’t Linux’s fault though. If all companies assisted us by providing proper specifications for their hardware, Linux wouldn’t have any hardware issues at all.
Edited 2006-12-04 17:42
NotParker,
Don’t worry about GNU/Linux. It will rival all of Vista’s features within six months and surpass it soon after.
They’ve said that for years. It still won’t be true.
Active Directory? Group Policy?
Microsoft copied the Unix privileging model in UAC and the Mac OS X widget system and shiny composite desktop.
You mean you never noticed RunAs in Windows? Its been there forever.
As for widgets, didn’t Apple steal that from Konfabulator?
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1007900.html
Your ignorance of history is breathtaking!
It wont matter if Linux has 1% market share.
.36%. Among 400 distros. Each one has no more than .05% of the market.
And it will matter.
They’ve said that for years. It still won’t be true.
Active Directory? Group Policy?
I don’t know much about managing servers and user groups yet (will learn in college soon enough), so found these on Google.
Active Directory:
Linbox directory server, eDirectory, open source directory server, Sun Java System Directory server, Fedora/RedHat Directory Server, so on.
Group Policy:
DirectControl for Linux/Unix. Others?
You mean you never noticed RunAs in Windows? Its been there forever.
Since Windows 2000 right? Unix had a more intuitive implementation for decades. GUI versions have been around nearly as long.
As for widgets, didn’t Apple steal that from Konfabulator?
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
And it will matter.
Wrong! It has never stopped GNU/Linux from being a good operating system and never will.
I don’t know much about managing servers and user groups yet (will learn in college soon enough), so found these on Google.
Active Directory:
Linbox directory server, eDirectory, open source directory server, Sun Java System Directory server, Fedora/RedHat Directory Server, so on.
RedHat is too expensive. As for the others, Microsoft AD and GP work real well for us. We have no reason to change.
[/i]Group Policy:
DirectControl for Linux/Unix[/i]
You need AD for that product.
“The Centrify DirectControl suite enables a secure, connected computing environment by seamlessly integrating your non-Microsoft systems, web applications, databases and ERP apps, and storage systems with Microsoft Active Directory.”
I think, just from the discussion, I realize that GNU/Linux distros are as different from each other as Microsoft is different from them.
Such fragmentation … and millions of ways of ding things. No. I’ll stick with Microsoft. Cheaper TCO.
RedHat is too expensive. As for the others, Microsoft AD and GP work real well for us. We have no reason to change.
RedHat/Fedora Directory Server is free and works on non-RedHat distributions as well.
You need AD for that product.
Another idea using KDE, Kiosktool and eDirectory:
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/1640.html
Such fragmentation … and millions of ways of ding things. No. I’ll stick with Microsoft. Cheaper TCO.
There is no fragmentation because companies choose one Linux distribution to deploy throughout.
Different studies have shown that TCO and ROI go both ways in different scenerios. All you examine are the studies sponsored by Microsoft.
How Typical.
http://www.levanta.com/linuxstudy/EMA_Levanta-Linux_RR.pdf
Edited 2006-12-04 19:24
RedHat/Fedora Directory Server is free and works on non-RedHat distributions as well.
You need AD for that product.
Another idea using KDE, Kiosktool and eDirectory:
I don’t think any of that is a replacement for AD and Group Policy.
I think Windows does it best.
There is no fragmentation because companies choose one Linux distribution to deploy throughout.
COmpanies merge. Get bought up. etc.
And then they have to rip out Novell because it offended a bunch of people. No thanks.
Someone wrote: “Another idea using KDE, Kiosktool and eDirectory:”
NotParkerI don’t think any of that is a replacement for AD and Group Policy.
Sorry to be so blunt, but then you have no idea what eDirectory is.
Sorry to be so blunt, but then you have no idea what eDirectory is.
Tell me about how eDirectory can replace Active Directory and Group Policy on Linux machines.
I do understand that I could use eDirectory to manage Windows machines, but does Linux have Group Policy equivalents?
I’ve used Novell products before. But I didn’t like them.
Active Directory
can be replcaed by OpenLDAP
Group Policy
There isn’t much requirement for group policy in Linux AFAICS, Webmin/Usermin pretty much covers most requirements. If there ever was one, a functional equivalent would be written pretty fast, it’s hardy a complex problem.
There isn’t much requirement for group policy in Linux AFAICS, Webmin/Usermin pretty much covers most requirements. If there ever was one, a functional equivalent would be written pretty fast, it’s hardy a complex problem.
I think businesses prefer a product now, instead of when some guy in his garage cobbles one together over a weekend.
Edited 2006-12-04 20:31
I think businesses prefer a product now, instead of when some guy in his garage cobbles one together over a weekend.
Have you ever *used* Webmin? It’s a robust, high-quality (and easily extensible) product.
Oh, I forgot, if it’s not MS then it has to be bad, right?
Again, NotParker, you show that you are incapable of providing counter-arguments, but will rather denigrate anything that might challenge your official propaganda…
Have you ever *used* Webmin? It’s a robust, high-quality (and easily extensible) product.
What features map to equivalent features in Group Policy? It seems to me to be a tool for managing shares and accounts. Thats not group policy.
Oh, I forgot, if it’s not MS then it has to be bad, right?
You are a great salesman for FOSS. Nothing but insults. No references or concrete information.
Edited 2006-12-04 22:07
What features map to equivalent features in Group Policy?
The previous owner said it best.
“There isn’t much requirement for group policy in Linux AFAICS, Webmin/Usermin pretty much covers most requirements. If there ever was one, a functional equivalent would be written pretty fast, it’s hardy a complex problem.”
In other words, what he’s saying is that, in his opinion, Group Policy isn’t a requirement for Linux (but that a module could easily be added to Webmin if there was a need for it). You could have agreed or disagreed with this, but instead chose to denigrate Webmin and insult its authors by painting them as amateurs. That is what I objected to.
You are a great salesman for FOSS. Nothing but insults.
Point out exactly where I used an insult in my post. Please do. I’m curious to see what convolutions you’ll use to get out of that one.
Meanwhile, I object to the term “salesman”. I see that as an actual insult, as I am not trying to “sell FOSS” to anyone. Please try to remain civil in your comments.
In other words, what he’s saying is that, in his opinion, Group Policy isn’t a requirement for Linux
I suspect neither understand what group policy offers an organization administering hundreds of PC’s.
I suspec that you don’t understand that there are other ways to administer hundreds of PCs on Unix/Linux that aren’t expressly called “group policies”.
A lot of the things that group policies were designed to solve in Windows just aren’t a problem under Unix systems. For example, normal users aren’t allowed to modify files outside of their home directories by default. Also, group permissions have been a long-standing feature of Unix systems.
It’s not that you can’t do it under Unix/Linux, it’s just that it’s often done differently. So what you’re painting as lacking in Unix/Linux is just handled/named differently.
Remember, Unix was multi-user waaaay before Windows was.
I suspec that you don’t understand that there are other ways to administer hundreds of PCs on Unix/Linux that aren’t expressly called “group policies”.
A lot of the things that group policies were designed to solve in Windows just aren’t a problem under Unix systems. For example, normal users aren’t allowed to modify files outside of their home directories by default. Also, group permissions have been a long-standing feature of Unix systems.
You definitely don’t understand group policy.
You definitely don’t understand group policy.
I do. I was simply giving one example of how something that is handled by group policy in Windows is irrelevant in Linux.
Edited 2006-12-04 22:58
NotParker:Tell me about how eDirectory can replace Active Directory and Group Policy on Linux machines.
I do understand that I could use eDirectory to manage Windows machines, but does Linux have Group Policy equivalents?
First i want to admit i didn’t know that Active Directory and Group Policy were supported for GNU/Linux clients. Novell/SUSE and the Samba-Team seem to be very active in this region.
Back to your question: Active Directory is a given, considering that eDirectory was the major inspiration for AD. About group policies i have to say, i don’t know. But i know that eDirectory for GNU/Linux is reported to be on par with the eDirectory for MS Windows solution. This supposedly works over LDAP and Novell’s NDS tools. Therefore it stands to reason that eDirectory for GNU/Linux can do everything eDirectory for MS Windows can do, including group policies.
No. I’ll stick with Microsoft. Cheaper TCO.
Independent studies disagree with you.
.36%. Among 400 distros. Each one has no more than .05% of the market.
2.5%, mostly around 5 distros.
My stat is as good as yours, and we already know from previous thread that you have a known disposition for dishonesty, claiming that I was “attacking you for preferring Windows” when I was simply pointing where you misinterpreted data, and where you insulted those you disagree with by calling them “cultists.”
2.5%, mostly around 5 distros.
My stat is as good as yours, and we already know from previous thread that you have a known disposition for dishonesty
Which stat? How many users?
I’ve posted mine … millions of hits.
Onestat, HitsLink/Netapplications etc etc. The largest web analytics firms in the world disagree with you.
I believe that when YOU say dishonest you mean that my refernces make your look silly.
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox46-operating-systems-ma…
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
Onestat, HitsLink/Netapplications etc etc. The largest web analytics firms in the world disagree with you.
I’ve stated the multiple reasons before why webstats is *not* an accurate representation of market share, to which you failed to present any counter-arguments. In fact, some webstats firm even *acknowledged* that using their numbers to garner OS market share is a bad idea. Google Zeitgeist even removed this stat for that very reason.
If getting OS market share was that simply, why do you think companies would pay thousands of dollars to independent market research firms?
And when I say dishonest, I mean dishonest, like how you misrepresented the Honeynet results.
I’ve stated the multiple reasons before why webstats is *not* an accurate representation of market share,
No you haven’t. Not one legitimate reason. I have watched you do the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and humming loudly. But thats just immature.
Oh, I believe they were quite legitimate. They must have been, because you didn’t actually provide counter arguments to none of them but one (Default User Agents for Firefox).
In any case, ask any searious market researcher (like the folks at Gartner or IDC) if that’s a good way to find out about an OS’ market share, and you’ll see what they have to say.
Edited 2006-12-04 20:57
Oh, I believe they were quite legitimate. They must have been, because you didn’t actually provide counter arguments to none of them but one (Default User Agents for Firefox).
You didn’t provide any valid arguments.
In any case, ask any searious market researcher (like the folks at Gartner or IDC) if that’s a good way to find out about an OS’ market share, and you’ll see what they have to say.
I was sure you and your FOSS friends hate Gartner and IDC because they show Linux Server growth to be approaching zero after years of double digit growth.
You didn’t provide any valid arguments.
Yes I did. You just dismissed them without trying to counter them, as usual.
I was sure you and your FOSS friends hate Gartner and IDC because they show Linux Server growth to be approaching zero after years of double digit growth.
Ah, changing the subject, another one of your favorite tricks. We weren’t talking about Server growth, but Market Share. Instead of trying to argue that Gartner and IDC are wrong about how *they* calculate market share, you try to change the subject to some alleged bias I would have against Gartner or IDC.
In addition to changing the subject, you’re also trying to insinuate that all FOSS think alike (and therefore, if other FOSS advocates don’t like Gartner/IDC, then I wouldn’t like them either). That’s two logical fallacies in one sentence, bravo!
Let’s get this clear: a) I trust Gartner’s and IDC’s studies on market share numbers, and b) I haven’t seen the numbers for Server Growth, but knowing of your propensity to misrepresent independent studies, I’ll wait until I’ve actually read what they say before commenting.
Let’s get this clear: a) I trust Gartner’s and IDC’s studies on market share numbers, and
Post them. From 2006 preferrably.
b) I haven’t seen the numbers for Server Growth, but knowing of your propensity to misrepresent independent studies, I’ll wait until I’ve actually read what they say before commenting.
http://www.itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=6880&scatid=3&con…
“- Linux server revenue was $1.5 billion for the quarter as growth continues to moderate, with year-over-year revenue growth of 5.4%. Although Linux servers now represent 11.8% of all server revenue, revenue growth for the quarter was approximately one-sixth the growth rate observed in the third quarter of 2005 as volume market growth moderates and year-over-year compares become more difficult.”
Approaching zero.
Approaching zero.
Thanks for the link, it lets me demonstrate once again how you misrepresent data to support your agenda.
From the article:
“Microsoft Windows servers continued to show nice growth as revenues grew 4.6% year over year.[…]
– Linux server revenue was $1.5 billion for the quarter as growth continues to moderate, with year-over-year revenue growth of 5.4%.”
Revenue growth of 4.6% for Microsoft Windows, and 5.4% for Linux, and yet you manage to portray this as a win for MS?
If growt for Linux is “approaching zero” with 5.4% growth, what should we say of MS with 4.6%?
All the article said (in the snippet you gave) was that this quarter was lower than the same quarter last year. Now, anyone who knows anything about business will tell you that you don’t make a definite judgement on performance by comparing quarters from two consecutive years.
Thanks for helping me defuse another one of your fallacious arguments you’ve been polluting these comment sections with. You really do make it too easy for me.
Revenue growth of 4.6% for Microsoft Windows, and 5.4% for Linux, and yet you manage to portray this as a win for MS?
1) You left out the important bit: Growth for Linux is one sixth what it was a year ago.
2) Do the math. If you are one thrid the size of Microsoft, and you grow at the same %, then Microsft, in dollar terms, is growing at 3 times what you are.
Linux will never, ever catch up.
All the article said (in the snippet you gave) was that this quarter was lower than the same quarter last year. Now, anyone who knows anything about business will tell you that you don’t make a definite judgement on performance by comparing quarters from two consecutive years.
But the quarter before this one, Linux grew at 6.1%. Now its dropped to 5.4%. Thats why I said it is approaching zero.
“After fifteen consecutive quarters of double-digit, YTY revenue growth, worldwide spending on Linux server moderated significantly in Q2 2006, growing 6.1% to $1.5 bln when compared with Q2 2005. Linux servers now represent 12.0% of all server revenue, up slightly from Q2 2005. ”
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=11637
By the way, notice that Linux’s share of the market has already dropped from 12% in Q2 to 11.8% in Q3. When the leader is growing at 3x your growth in $, your share of the total market can drop.
So … now that I’ve humiliated you again, where are those desktop numbers from 2006 you claim to have?
1) You left out the important bit: Growth for Linux is one sixth what it was a year ago.
For this quarter, compared to last year’s quarter. The year-for-year growth is still higher than Microsoft.
2) Do the math. If you are one thrid the size of Microsoft, and you grow at the same %, then Microsft, in dollar terms, is growing at 3 times what you are.
Sure, because they are selling overpriced stuff. But that’s not really important. Everyone knows that growth percentage is what’s important, and it’s still higher than Windows.
You got called on another misrepresentation, and are trying to weasel out of it. Tsk tsk.
Linux will never, ever catch up.
Catch up? It’s growth in *revenue* is ahead, while its products are *cheaper*! That means there are much more new Linux machines than Windows machines being deployed!
You should really stop digging this hole for yourself. You made a mistake (I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt), at least be man enough to admit it!
But the quarter before this one, Linux grew at 6.1%. Now its dropped to 5.4%. Thats why I said it is approaching zero.
ROFLMAO!!!!
A dip of 0.7% in growth between two quarters and suddenly “it’s approaching zero”?? Man, you are starting to look really desperate.
Again, growth is larger than Windows, for machines and licenses that on average cost much less (Remember, RedHat is only one of many vendors).
Please stop mistreating numbers that way. It’s really offensive to sensible people who actually understand a thing or two about economics.
So … now that I’ve humiliated you again, where are those desktop numbers from 2006 you claim to have?
Humiliated me? I have repeatedly shown you for the fraud you are, NotParker. I have shown how you have ceaselessly misrepresented statistics and insulted those you pointed out your lies. No one believes you anymore. No one trusts you. Soon you’ll have a negative rating. Give it up already, before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Really, it’s getting sad.
As for those numbers, check out Gartner’s site.
I gave up on Vista on beta 1, so I might be off mark on this one but never the less here it goes:
UAC is usefull IF I as administrator can choose for which settings it should prompt the end user for a password AND NEVER prompt me when I log in with administrative account. If this is not the case then UAC is useless and anoying!
Thom, I believe you refered in one of your posts to how useful default settings are, and that is a good thing for average Joe. I, and most of IT people STRONGLY disagree with such a statement. Every OEM installed XP had a blank password for administrator account and never prompted the end user to change it. This is one the worst blunders security wise. Furthermore during the initial configuration of an OEM installed XP every new account BY DEFAULT is created as an administrator account. This, too, is big no no.
Shkaba:Thom, I believe you refered in one of your posts to how useful default settings are, and that is a good thing for average Joe. I, and most of IT people STRONGLY disagree with such a statement. Every OEM installed XP had a blank password for administrator account and never prompted the end user to change it. This is one the worst blunders security wise. Furthermore during the initial configuration of an OEM installed XP every new account BY DEFAULT is created as an administrator account. This, too, is big no no.
I’m sorry to say, but despite being an IT guy, i have to disagree with you on this one and i’m pretty sure most developers in my company would too.
Defaults are a good thing, a very good thing. Just because Microsoft was boneheaded enough to choose bad defaults doesn’t mean that defaults per se are bad. Quite to the contrary, they are very important to roll out software that needs to be working out of the box.
Probably my mistake for not narrowing the context in my previous post. As a general concept default values are very valuable, but one has to be very careful as to where to use them. I believe that I’ve presented two gross missuses of default values, and Microsoft had other such cases (IIS prior to version 6 etc). As for things that need to be working out of the box, I would only add the following: things need to be secure out of the box (or at least prompt for user action to make them secure).
Why has microsoft neglected this issue in Windows XP is beyond me. I am sure that it is very easy to modify this behaviour, and I know that it has been requested by many.
We have an article about a small review of Windows Vista yet people end up commenting stuff about GPL, Office, distros, freedom and god knows what else. Ya’ll should open up a special forum where you can all rant and discuss your issues between Windows & *nix.
Please stick with the matter in hand!
You can call MS many things, but stupid is not one of them (at least in like 8 cases out of 10). There are some very smart and bright people working in MS and if they choose to implement something the way they did, then they probably had a very good reason to do so.
Take for instance AERO, sure it’s not the best and most efficent way of creating a 3D and transparent desktop – requires too much hardware. Linux has implemented a similar result in a more “direct” fashion and MS could have done the same, had they chosen to use the XP infrastructure with DirectX calls (the way WindowsBlinds is creating translucency in XP).
But for some reason, AERO was created on a totally different architecure. We can’t yet see the real benefit of that choise, but I belive AERO has much untapped power in it.
One thing that must be considered, is that MS can’t go around changing everything every year, unlike Linux, so MS most likely based their descicion having the far future (4-10 years) in mind…
Someone here complained about UAC under the administrator account?!
I’m guessing that person had mistaken the first account created under vista to be an administrator account. The truth is Vista doesn’t have a true “administrator” account any more per’se (well it’s still there, but can only be accessed in like safe mode or something).
In Vista, the first account created belongs to the administrator group and the rest to the regular users group (by default). Both groups get UAC prompts.
The only reason the first account is still getting UAC prompts is to protect that user. Because most people will end up using that account anyhow. Probably due to the fact that people don’t want to keep inserting a password every 5 minutes if they are installing a new app and stuff…
You’d best read more about UAC do get a better picture of why & how.
And that’s something I’d recommend for all of you. Go read about Vista in MS articles and blogs, and watch interviews with MS employees on Channel9 – you’ll get a much clearer picture of things.
Edited 2006-12-04 19:51
markoweb:Someone here complained about UAC under the administrator account?!
I’m guessing that person had mistaken the first account created under vista to be an administrator account. The truth is Vista doesn’t have a true “administrator” account any more per’se (well it’s still there, but can only be accessed in like safe mode or something).
In Vista, the first account created belongs to the administrator group and the rest to the regular users group (by default). Both groups get UAC prompts.
The only reason the first account is still getting UAC prompts is to protect that user. Because most people will end up using that account anyhow. Probably due to the fact that people don’t want to keep inserting a password every 5 minutes if they are installing a new app and stuff…
You’d best read more about UAC do get a better picture of why & how.
That guy was probably me. I find your input interesting, but it raises a few questions, such as why is the administrator account still called and marked as an administrator account if it is not an administrator account? If the administrator is not the administrator but by name, who is the real administrator on my machine? How do i get into this “safe mode”? Do i have to reboot for that? Or can i open a window, a prompt or whatever with real admin power?
And on a more funny note, who, my eyes, installs new apps all day? Why, if Microsoft assumes that most will use the first account on the computer, is the first account a pseudo-administrator account? Why not repeat the MS Windows XP Pro approach, create an administrator account by default and a first user account that shows up as the first and only account?
About reading up this stuff, you’re probably right.
That guy was probably me. I find your input interesting, but it raises a few questions, such as why is the administrator account still called and marked as an administrator account if it is not an administrator account? If the administrator is not the administrator but by name, who is the real administrator on my machine? How do i get into this “safe mode”? Do i have to reboot for that? Or can i open a window, a prompt or whatever with real admin power?
And on a more funny note, who, my eyes, installs new apps all day? Why, if Microsoft assumes that most will use the first account on the computer, is the first account a pseudo-administrator account? Why not repeat the MS Windows XP Pro approach, create an administrator account by default and a first user account that shows up as the first and only account?
About reading up this stuff, you’re probably right.
I guess the first user is called an administrator account only because that account has the privileges to add users and parental controls and stuff, thus being the adminsitrator of the machine. But administrators them selves need protection too, right? Say you go looking for a crack on the internet, 99% of the crack sites want to install spyware and trojans to your machines so UAC should come in handy…
MS did preserve the XP analogy of user accounts (not introduce the Linux standard) where the first user is also a member of the administrator group, the only difference beeing that now, in Vista, all the users get protected, including admins.
You might have a strimmed down version of Vista which is only for 1 user, I know XP had such versions (for MSDN and MSDNAA) – you can’t create users in such XP versions, you login as THE ADMINISTRATOR (username is Administrator). Maybe it works similarly with Vista, haven’t checked.
To get into safemode, you need to reboot and hit F5 or was it F8 during bootup before the “little green bar” starts moving. Best way to do so is to just hit f5 and f8 repeatedly during reboot until a menu pop’s up from where you can select safe mode.
During safemode you should be able to hit ctrl+alt+del at the login screen from where you can enter the username = Administrator, password = blank. That should give you the true and pure administrator account, which is only ment for Windows repairs (that’s why you’re in safe mode anyhow). Haven’t tried this yet though.
Channel9 did have a video aboud this new user group stuff we are talkting about, you should check it out, it will give a clearer idea of things, although it won’t answer all the questions…
My take of UAC is that it’s quite in place. Doesn’t get in the way at all. When you first install Vista and the necesary apps, you’ll probably need to do like 20 extra clicks to get through all the UAC prompts, but after that it’s pretty much clear sailing. At least it has been for me.
The only thing I hate and think will be the downfall of UAC is that it don’t show why it popped up.
It does say for instance – file operation. But what is that going to tell me, huh?!?
I’d like it to say – process setup.exe (Windows Live Messenger) want’s write access to c:\\program files\\MSNmessenger. Then I could know for sure that I’m giving admin access to process that I can trust 99% of the time. Other wise I might download a MSNmessenger setup.exe which I then want to install, I get a UAC to which I say ok, but the setup.exe ends up beeing malware writing all sorts of weired stuff to my desktop and the sytem32 folder, etc.
Edited 2006-12-04 21:25
Say you go looking for a crack on the internet, 99% of the crack sites want to install spyware and trojans to your machines so UAC should come in handy…
That’s not a very good example…personally, I think that people who go look for cracks on warez site deserve whatever they get.
I get your point, though. I myself prefer the Sudo way on some Linux distribution, but I’ll admit that UAC does make Vista more secure than XP.
You contradict yourself when you first write:”I’m guessing that person had mistaken the first account created under vista to be an administrator account.“.
while later on you write:”In Vista, the first account created belongs to the administrator group and the rest to the regular users group (by default).“.
I assume the first account is the one of the installer.Otherwise when the OS automatically creates an admin account and then the installer account comes 2nd,what’s the password of the first account?
You contradict yourself when you first write:”I’m guessing that person had mistaken the first account created under vista to be an administrator account.”.
while later on you write:”In Vista, the first account created belongs to the administrator group and the rest to the regular users group (by default).”.
I assume the first account is the one of the installer.Otherwise when the OS automatically creates an admin account and then the installer account comes 2nd,what’s the password of the first account?
I think you have absolutely no idea the way accounts and gorups are handled in XP and VISTA.
But let me try to clarify things.
The first account created, in XP and VISTA allways belongs to the administrators GROUP. Thus meaning that account has the right to add users, install software, change settings etc. You can change that accounts username to your likeing, for instance your name.
In XP you also have an administrator ACCOUNT, which password can be set during install. That is the true “administrator”, it’s user name = administrator and that name can’t be changed (I think).
That account doesn’t show up by default in the Welcome screen. In order to login as THE administrator, press ctl+alt+del twice at the login screen. Then you should get the classic login window. Enter the username as Administrator and the password which was set during install (most likely a blank password) and wo’ila.
Inorder to see the Administrator account in the Welcome screen of XP you have to move all users to the Users group. You can do so by right clicking My Computer and selecting Manage. From there you can select “local users and groups” and modify the required settings/parameters. Then the administrator account will appear in the Welcome screen, because there allways has to be at least one account which belongs to the administrators group.
To the best of my knowlodge, in VISTA the true administrator account is pretty much deprecated – only accessible in safe mode.
That account should not be accessible during normal bootup as the password can’t be set during install.
I don’t know how VISTA handles things if you try to move all users to the users group or if it is even possible. I’m guessing that VISTA will just give you a notification that you can’t move the last account which belongs to the admins group to the users gorup, because there has to be at least one admin on the machine.
If VISTA does behave differently than described, please do correct me, because I haven’t yet tried all the mentioned situations under Vista (I have done them in XP though).
I didn’t contradict myself before, even the two sentences you pulled out don’t suggest that.
Janssen didn’t seem to understand why he was getting UAC prompts while beeing logged in as an administrator.
I think, Janssen was logged in with the account he created during install thinking that it was the true administrators account, obviously that would have not been the case.
So I explained that the first account created belongs to the administrators GROUP and is not THE administrator account.
To sum things up:
VISTA has a built in ADMINISTRATOR account which password can’t be set during install. That account should not be accessible during normal bootup, and if you do login with that account in safemode (password should be blank) then that account should not get UAC pop-up’s.
During the VISTA install you create a user account which automatically belongs to the administrators GROUP. That user will get UAC prompts, only that it is not neccessary for that user to (re)enter his password, because he allready has adminstrative credentials, he just has to approve the action.
Edited 2006-12-05 08:00
It’s ridiculous to even consider the boxed, retail version when you can get the OEM for less than half the price. For example, newegg sells XP Home edition for $89 and XP Pro for $139. Vista looks to be the same as well especially considering the Vista upgrade coupons you receive when you purchase OEM versions of XP now.
All shops carry the OEM versions which can be legally purchased when you buy any hardware (just like the OEM version of Nero or any recording software you get with CD/DVD burners).
But for the priviledge of paying less, you aren’t allowed to move that copy to a new machine ever.
In XP you also have an administrator ACCOUNT, which password can be set during install. That is the true “administrator”, it’s user name = administrator and that name can’t be changed (I think).
It can be changed and as security by obscurity measure it’s sometimes encouraged to do so.
Can be set via the system management console or via local security policy.
VISTA has a built in ADMINISTRATOR account which password can’t be set during install. That account should not be accessible during normal bootup, and if you do login with that account in safemode (password should be blank) then that account should not get UAC pop-up’s.
So the password of the build-in aministrator account is blank?Ever tried to “runas” as the build-in admin account with a blank password?