Forbes takes a look at Vista, and writes: “More than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: ‘The Wow Starts Now’, and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple’s Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there’s no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody’s liver out.” They also look at Office 2007.
Since Forbes is highly regarded … ouch!
Sure Forbes is highly regarded, but come on. This is yet another trendy Vista trashsing “review.” I won’t suggest that the author was incorrect in any of his assesments (I have not used Vista) but for once I would like to see an objective review of Vista without the word “Mac” anywhere in it.
I really don’t care if Macs have had this or Linux/Unix/BSD has that. I know what they do. I want to hear about how good or bad Vista is based on its own merits, not others.
Forbes is a magazine targeting a market audience that are business types. Especially those who are in charge of making major financial decisions when it comes to purchasing new systems or upgrading current ones in medium to large networks. I actually prefer to know not only how a software or hardware works but also how it compares to a competitor product or a previous version/model. Obviously the author has more familiarity with OSX than with Linux which is a good reason for not comparing Windows Vista with RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop), both which are used in Enterprise networks.
Since I’ve tested Windows Vista I do agree with Stephen Manes, comments which list several key reasons for consumers to reconsider upgrading or purchasing new systems with Windows Vista installed.
One thought, for the time Stephen Manes from Forbes took to write this rant piece, he could have booted up Red Hat !
You know MS can’t be too happy about this one. I haven’t tried it yet myself, but hopefully Vista isn’t as big of a train wreck as this article lets on. I wasn’t expecting a huge improvement over XP, but this actually sounds like a step backwards.
NOTE: I went into Vista hoping it would finally be a revamped version of XP with a user-centric design like OS X. That was the wrong mindset as I’ve been disappointed from end-to-end. Vista is essentially XP with a nice new UI, don’t expect more and you will be fine.
If you aren’t expecting much you will likely be just fine. If you are expecting Microsoft to “finally get it right, like Apple” then you *will* be disappointed.
It’s not that the tech is bad, it’s just clear (from end to end) that the OS was kicked out the door with no serious time infront of a usability team that took their job seriously. To get a bit more insight into how this happened, you can read a lot of articles about the corporate environment over there (yell loud, pass the buck, do whatever the guy yelling the loudest says). Hardly an ideal work environment to mull over button placement for 3 months.
To save you the time, go into Vista thinking of Windows XP with a nicer interface, but all the same quirky stupid design decisions that bothered you in the last 10 years of windows and a slew of unexplainable new ones (like moving over 1k files will take upwards of 10mins). You will likely also notice the absolute clutter of the entire thing, like the new explorer. It seems like portions of Vista were developed by a usability-reviewed team, and others were developed by programmers and they were all thrown together into this 50-million-line-of-code salad, and then tossed. It’s not a smooth experience, but it’s also not insurmountable.
But then there are some other nice touches to combat the new stupidity like file content previews, the nice interface (yes, it’s mentioned a lot because it’s the only major new thing people can focus on) and searching CAN be handy.
As far as device compatibility and any of that junk, it’s the same it’s always been but likely worse due to insufficient drivers (not really Vista’s fault, but just don’t expect a smooth out-the-door experience).
That being said, if you are NOT a gamer, I would strongly suggest you take a look at Linux (OpenSUSE & Ubuntu) and then Mac (in that order).
If you ARE a gamer, then you have no choice. Just suck it up and like it. Oh, and get ready in a few years to drop another $400 on Vienna (prelim name) or whatever the next version of Windows is called. I would be willing to bet $100 by that release that Microsoft will really have something very cool. They have always been a 2.0 company and continue to do so (Zune v2, Xbox 360, etc.) but luckily their version 2.0s of things tend ot be very slick.
I think Vista + SP1 will be sane, and Vista + SP2 will be like XP “stable enough to carry us until the next release” but still not fantastic (fantastic meaning Microsoft finally being competitive with OS X as far as user-driven design goes).
Edited 2007-02-11 16:36
is there already a zune 2?
Not yet but I read somewhere that a rumor leaked that the next Zune is going to be a 4G, wireless phone a lot like the iPhone and that it’s been in the works for a while now.
*shrug*
Doesn’t seem too far fetched with everyone an their mother *now* announcing iPhone like devices, 2008 is going to be a crazy portable-device year.
MS had to come out with Zune2 annoncement after the Zune leader was sacked, retried, or retired, whatever.
Can you imagine the BS that the Zune Leader had to feed to Ballmer for the guy to keep his job as the leader of the Zune project without having chairs thrown at him for what was obviously a long time, to get out such an inferior iPod copy?
Sheesh, it is was not like Apple didn’t give fair warning to everyone.
If you aren’t expecting much you will likely be just fine. If you are expecting Microsoft to “finally get it right, like Apple” then you *will* be disappointed.
It’s not that the tech is bad, it’s just clear (from end to end) that the OS was kicked out the door with no serious time infront of a usability team that took their job seriously. […]
[…] That being said, if you are NOT a gamer, I would strongly suggest you take a look at Linux (OpenSUSE & Ubuntu) and then Mac (in that order).
If you’re talking about usability teams (i.e., ease of use for everyone) why do you suggest Linux? It’s a system for experts and I haven’t yet succeeded with making any of my (non-technical) friends happy with it. OS X is much better in this regard.
Linux desktop (meaning standard KDE desktop like in Suse or Gnome desktop in Ubuntu) is much more usable than Vista. It’s not that Windows is bad, XP is quite good and very easy to use but Vista is a step back. Explorer and Control Panel, two most essential parts of user interface, are just horrible mess with incredibly cluttered design and lots of bugs. I suppose that most people reading OSnews are technically competent and there’s no reason to be surprised that Linux was recommended before OSX, especially that former one is often considered too restricting.
I would like to know why you think Explorer is cluttered?
And also, how yes, Classic View of the Control Panel is cluttered… that’s why it’s the classic view and they designed a new one.
Then you also can just type in the search bar on the start menu what control panel app you want and it will come up.
Then you also can just type in the search bar on the start menu wha…
I’ve heard this argument a number of times, the problem is that using Search boxes is just not the Standard Operating Procedure for a User. Yes, they’re cool, but they only help people if they’re aware of them, or what they do. People have to know which search boxes will search for: their files, sections of the current application, the contents of the current document, or anything elese.
Search Bars will not become the global solution to finding data untill users learn how to use them, and programmers learn how to disambiguate them.
So you are blaming Microsoft because you can’t figure out how to use a search box?
The boxes are hardly “ambiguous”, the box says quite clearly “search” in it, and also people have been using these for awhile with Firefox and other browsers.
So you are blaming Microsoft because you can’t figure out how to use a search box?
I didn’t say that. I’m not blaming Microsoft, search boxes are ‘a good thing'(TM) but they aren’t the answer to all bad UIs, yet.
I’m accusing people who claim that ‘the user can just use the search box’ (that’s you. not microsoft) as bein naive.
Any change/new feature in UI design takes a long time to reflect in a change ‘the generic user”s usage patterns. In this case, I don’t consider myself to be a ‘generic’ user.
The boxes are hardly “ambiguous”
There are search boxes everywhere. Does the box labeled ‘start’ in the start menu search my documents? Does it just search the Program List?
The Control-Panel search box, just cp items, or all documents. What about administrative-tools and the other administrative applications that MS don’t consider worth of the Control Panel?
and also people have been using these for awhile with Firefox and other browsers
No. These search boxes have been available for a while with Firefox and other browsers. This does not mean that the average user (obviously not the sort of person who visits this site) has been using them.
Maybe because it is?
😉
The new IE is nice UI-wise though.
Bllaaahh…
Linux today is much easier for a newbie than Windows XP or Vista or anything MS has ever shipped.
Linux is very good for experts – but with KDE or Gnome on a distro like uBuntu or Fedora, it’s very easy to install, configure and use.
Linux is only difficult for Windows power-users.
May concur with this assessment. I run a small non-profit that gives computers to those that cannot afford one. Many of whom have no computers usage experience. The systems we give away use Open SuSE.
What I have found is that I can teach people to use SuSE with very little effort. In so many ways KDE is just works and is easy to understand. Look at areas such as drag and drop – making links(shortcuts) – cut and paste – system maintenance (Yast) – the complete lack of a need to have AV and defrag maintenance. To top it all off – we get many computers because they were too slow when the company decided to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP and found that the old computers were just too slow then. I can’t wait for companies to start upgrading to Vista – I bet we stat getting some really great systems that just won’t do Vista right or fast enough. For more information drop by – computers4all.org
May say thank you to MS for making so many really fine computers available to us on a continuing bases. Drop in to our site
Just wanted to thank you for your good work. A few years ago, I founded a LUG and we did very similar work to the work you are doing in Miami, FL.
It’s nice to see other people carrying the torch. Keep it up.
Ubuntu is definitely a nice distro, not without it’s problems though.
One thing that really gets me is, why when I marked something for installation in Synaptic does it sometimes still fail to install something, giving some ambiguous error in the process.
Dependency hell is bad enough, but when the system designed to take care of that and download all needed dependencies still has unknown errors, there is obviously still something fundamentally wrong.
You must have something seriously wrong somewhere.
Everybody else raves about how flawless the apt system is.
Search arouncd at http://www.deja.com and try to find out what’s wrong with your setup. I’d check /etc/apt/sources.list first.
Then run
# apt-get update
# apt-get check
Most “Vista” heads have absolutely no idea how to work their new piece of “WOW” much less the older pile of XP. Most are still running regular users as administrators.
As a long-time McSoft (TM) systems administrator and now an Linux and OS X systems administrator I can honestly say apt-get on the Linux side is an excellent way of installing, updating and upgrading software. All the dependencies taken care of. I also have no problems with urpmi or rpm either.
“Linux is only difficult for Windows power-users.”
As a former Windows Power user, I can confirm that.
Still, Linux still has some work cut for it when it comes to using sensible defaults, some software isn’t there quite yet (e.g. useful software like KmyMoney still is in beta, Picasa for Linux is great but still has the ugly windows-style menu bar and file dialogs), some distros could use an easier way to add multimedia codecs, …
Still, it’s amazing what has happened in the last couple of years when it comes to Linux for personal use (a.k.a. ‘the desktop’).
As a power user I needed more time to adjust, more specialty programs to find a replacement for (e.g. Quanta instead of Html-Kit, …), more habits I had to un-learn.
But now that all these hurdles are mostly past me, the feeling of absolute control over both my hardware and software just is *such* a nice feeling! The hardware control is why I’m doubting about getting a Mac; their hardware just seems so locked-down.
For example, I liked Konqueror but it was just TOO full-featured for me. So I installed Dolphin and I really like it. If I really wanted, I could’ve installed 10 different file managers instead.
Which is a really long-winded way of saying: I agree with you 100%.
Edited 2007-02-12 09:50
Regarding the codecs, I believe Ubuntu Feisty (coming in April) will automagically install codecs when you try to play DVDs, MPEG-4, MP3, etc.
“Linux today is much easier for a newbie than Windows XP or Vista or anything MS has ever shipped.”
What? That’s crazy, just getting 3D working properly can be a hassle in most distros, as they do not ship with the binary drivers configured, same with wireless, or multimedia. Every windows user knows how to install something off of a CD, but not many users are going to know how to install such things in a Linux distro, regardless how easy (or hard) it is.
While I don’t agree with the initial comment (“Linux is easier for a newbe”),mostly because I don’t consider -Windows- to be newbie friendly – God knows I spend too much time administrating/fixing/reinstalling XP machines (family/friends) to believe that…
In short, neither Windows XP nor Linux is newbie friendly. *
-However-,
A. If you have a in-tree supported card (r300, Intel, etc), you get 3D out of the box.
B. Both ATI and nVidia have released stupid-prof driver-installers – much like their XP counterparts.
C. If you ever tried to install the Radeon/XP driver before you ran windows-update-to-the-latest (I did – by mistake), you’ll know how preposterous your claim is.
Face it, the only reason XP is considered newbie friendly is because Dell/Toshiba/IBM/HP/etc all include a idiot-prof-XP-with-office-and-drivers-auto-installing-cd with their computer. Without it, most computer users won’t know how to install a 3D driver (or any other driver) on their Windows XP even if their life dependent on it.
– Gilboa
* And thanks God for that. The price for making an OS newbie friendly would most
Givas,
That’s a good question. My reason for including Linux as something to evaluate before Mac was because Linux is a free install, Mac you have to buy a new computer. So if you installed Ubuntu and ran Gnome (which IMO is a fairly consistent desktop) and were happy then I think that’s a nice easy solution that was quickly attained. But if you installed it and hated it, then my next suggestion would be to get your hands on a Mac and see what you thought.
A 2.0 company, huh? I guess that means they’re getting better. In the early 1990s, they were considered a 3.0 company, on the account of Windows 3.0 being the first decent version.
If you ARE a gamer, then you have no choice. Just suck it up and like it. Oh, and get ready in a few years to drop another $400 on Vienna (prelim name) or whatever the next version of Windows is called.
Well, you could “have a Wii”. Or allow MS to continue churning crap out like this for another ten years by buying an XBOX360.
I would suggest buying a PS3 before an XB360, if I were sure of the release date. But there’s plenty of time for it to Vista^H^H^H^H^Hslip yet AGAIN.
The Problem is, pretty much all Console games suck if you are used to good pc games and without a Mouse and Keyboard there isn’t even an acceptable input device for most genres.
So this is just an option for people who want simplistic sports games.
I’d rather not play at all than playing crappy console games.
That’s entirely subjective. In my opinion keyboard/mouse are only really good for first person shooters, which seems to be about all you get on the PC any more (Oh Lucasarts adventure games, where did you go?). That’s a far cry from “most genres”. Sounds like you haven’t tried any “crappy console games” in a very long time. In any case though, this is utterly off topic.
> first person shooters, which seems to be about all you get on the PC any more (Oh Lucasarts adventure games, where did you go?)
+1 for nostalgia! I haven’t played a PC game in years…
The Problem is, pretty much all Console games suck if you are used to good pc games and without a Mouse and Keyboard there isn’t even an acceptable input device for most genres.
Not “most genres”, only two: first-person shooters and real-time strategy games.
So this is just an option for people who want simplistic sports games.
What is simplistic is your view of the games industry. Consoles rule the market, that’s where the bulk of development happens.
I’d rather not play at all than playing crappy console games.
Good for you. The game industrty has moved on.
Linux PC + Xbox360|PS3|Wii is all a gamer needs. 🙂
Linux PC + Xbox360|PS3|Wii is all a gamer needs. 🙂
That’s not true. Can I play my large collection of old games on Linux or various consoles? Some old dos games might run in Dosbox but there’s tons of Windows games that don’t work or don’t work right. I’m not going to throw my whole collection away. What about genre’s that consoles have no answer for, like turn-based strategy. Plus, for most games, I hate playing with a gamepad. Give me a keyboard and mouse or joystick (for space sims).
Edited 2007-02-12 05:42
Well, of course if you want to play your old games, and they don’t work in Linux, you’ll need to dual-boot…but you have to realize that *your* needs are not the same as those of most *modern* gamers.
I work in the game industry, so I’m surrounded by gamers, and apart from WoW (which can easily be played on Linux), they all play console games – and some of these guys are pretty hardcore.
For better or worse, Xbox Live has been the final nail in PC gaming’s coffin for most of these people…
For better or worse, Xbox Live has been the final nail in PC gaming’s coffin for most of these people…
Right, so nVidia and ATI are bankrupt because of PC gaming death.
Oh wait…
Right, so nVidia and ATI are bankrupt because of PC gaming death.
Yeah, because Nvidia and ATI don’t produce graphics chips for consoles.
Oh wait…
Yeah, because Nvidia and ATI don’t produce graphics chips for consoles.
They do produce previous generation (G71 and R520) chip modifications for consoles, but strangely, newer chips are being developed for PC gaming market (which, according to some osnews experts, are dead
The PC gaming market isn’t dead, but it’s moribund. It’s basically divided into two categories: a few “top” titles by a handful of companies (mainly Blizzard, iD, Valve, Microsoft and Bioware) and tons of casual/flash games (Bejeweled and the like).
There is very little innovation left in the PC gaming world…innovation is not that common in console gaming as well, but it is there (coming mostly from Japan). Also, the vast majority of game developers produce console games, which have gained in maturity (especially since online gaming has finally come of age with Xbox Live).
Seriously, apart from a few key players, PC gaming is an afterthought, a shadow of what it once was. Of course, Nvidia and ATI are still producing new chips for it, but anyone following the industry can tell you that there are definite signs of that market slowing down as people generally become less interested in forking over 500$ for the latest graphics card.
The PC gaming market isn’t dead, but it’s moribund. It’s basically divided into two categories: a few “top” titles by a handful of companies (mainly Blizzard, iD, Valve, Microsoft and Bioware) and tons of casual/flash games (Bejeweled and the like).
There is very little innovation left in the PC gaming world…innovation is not that common in console gaming as well, but it is there (coming mostly from Japan). Also, the vast majority of game developers produce console games, which have gained in maturity (especially since online gaming has finally come of age with Xbox Live).
That’s all pure subjective. I don’t see many innovative games for consoles, hovewer there are amazing PC games like IL2/MSFX/Perimeter/Maelstrom.
Of course, Nvidia and ATI are still producing new chips for it, but anyone following the industry can tell you that there are definite signs of that market slowing down as people generally become less interested in forking over 500$ for the latest graphics card.
Most sales are from mid- and low-end graphics card which cost $50-150 and usually come with a new PC. But even a mid-end latest generation card are more powerful and flexible than any console hardware. The market indeed are slowing down as it cannot grow forever, hovewer it’s definitely alive and kicking.
That’s all pure subjective. I don’t see many innovative games for consoles, hovewer there are amazing PC games like IL2/MSFX/Perimeter/Maelstrom.
Again, flight sims and RTS games…nothing too innovative there!
Were are games like the latest Zelda, Katamari D’amacy, Okami, the Metal Gear Solids, the Rainbow Sixes, the Resident Evils, the Silent Hills? How come Halo comes out on console before it does on PC?
The market indeed are slowing down as it cannot grow forever,
Which was precisely my point…
hovewer it’s definitely alive and kicking.
If by “alive and kicking” you mean “connected to the life support system”, then I agree with you…
This is terribly off-topic. Let’s agree to disagree. My final statement is that for the vast majority of gamer, a Windows PC is no longer a necessity, and I stand by this.
As a footnote to this discussion, http://www.ign.com recently published a list of the 100 best selling games in North America last year:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4…
The article had this to say about PC games:
“The PC market has been included [in the survey] as an illustration of its comparative size to the console market. Apart from PC megahits of WoW or Sims proportions (neither of which were released last year), PC games were not a major factor.”
I can’t play some of my old games on Windows, heh. This is an unfortunate reality of life: Sometimes things get old and don’t work anymore, even when they’re digital and their failure to work is merely a coincidence of software issues combined with a lack of continuing support.
Anyway, if gaming is what you do with your PC you should be using Windows. If gaming is a small part of what you do with your PC than you might consider giving it up, switching to consoles, or dual booting.
“Not “most genres”, only two: first-person shooters and real-time strategy games. ”
Then why isn’t there a single real flightsim for any console?
“What is simplistic is your view of the games industry. Consoles rule the market, that’s where the bulk of development happens.”
Why would i care where “the bulk” is? There are more stupid soap operas than there are decent tv series. That doesn’t mean i get lobotomy and start watching that crap.
“Good for you. The game industrty has moved on.”
No, it has moved back to the 80ties. On Wii you mostly get the kind of simple reaction tests we had on C64.
PS3 and XBOX360 games are prettier versions of the same beat em up, racing, jump and run games and the yearly upgrade to your identical soccer / football / basketball game.
Then why isn’t there a single real flightsim for any console?
All right, FPS, RTS and flight simulators. That’s still just a very small part of what video games are.
Why would i care where “the bulk” is? There are more stupid soap operas than there are decent tv series. That doesn’t mean i get lobotomy and start watching that crap.
There are some amazing games for consoles. Just because they’re not the type of games *you* like to play doesn’t mean it’s crap!
Except for a handful of companies, the PC game industry is an afterthought. You can refuse to acknowledge this fact if you want, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
No, it has moved back to the 80ties. On Wii you mostly get the kind of simple reaction tests we had on C64. PS3 and XBOX360 games are prettier versions of the same beat em up, racing, jump and run games and the yearly upgrade to your identical soccer / football / basketball game.
…and FPS are just glorified versions of Wolfenstein 3D, while most RTS are just variations on Warcraft. What’s your point? They’re all *games*, for crying out loud! I find your attitude towards the *majority* of gaming genres out there quite condescending.
Anyway, that’s one area where the market has clearly spoken. Apart from a few key titles, PC gaming is becoming increasingly marginalized, and that means it is less and less a factor in choosing a computing OS.
“PS3 and XBOX360 games are prettier versions of the same beat em up, racing, jump and run games and the yearly upgrade to your identical soccer / football / basketball game.”
Good thing we have all the awesome and forwarding thinking PC RTS’ and FPS’ games that arent in any way at all tired rehashes of Herzog Zwei and Wolfenstein 3D.
Not to mention how much new ground EA sports is breaking on a yearly basis with “new” NHL and NBA releases.
“Not to mention how much new ground EA sports is breaking on a yearly basis with “new” NHL and NBA releases.”
Well, if you don’t like EA then don’t buy their games… there’s plenty of choice among PC games, I’m sure you can find something you like.
EA isn’t the only company that makes PC games you know. But I do agree: most of these big companies seem specialized in making boring rehashes of former sucess formulas. Luckily, I like adventure games, and those have actually been very nice this year.
Ehm… I guess this is off-topic too… 😐
Edited 2007-02-12 10:58
“Well, if you don’t like EA then don’t buy their games… there’s plenty of choice among PC games,”
That wasn’t my point. My point was that the argument that console games are simplistic and stagnant and pc games are advanced and inventive is stupid and incorrect.
There’s plenty of both for each.
“…you can read a lot of articles about the corporate environment over there (yell loud, pass the buck, do whatever the guy yelling the loudest says)”
That is exactly right! I worked at Microsoft back in the late 90s, but had to leave because I failed to see the intelligence or innovation in making all decisions on a product via shouting match.
With regards to Vista, it probably isn’t so much that Steve Jobs is a benevolent, forward thinker and Bill Gates is pure evil, from the soles of his hooves to the tips of his horns, but simply that Microsoft either can’t or won’t let go of their old technology.
Apple REALLY did it right with OS X. They totally screwed backward compatibility and jumped into a whole new feature with both feet.
Microsoft will never be able to provide an Apple-like experience until they throw absolutely everything away and start fresh; preferably with new people who aren’t familiar with their past technologies.
Clinton,
I think you really hit a big issue on the head here. The way Apple solved this (I think?) was to include optional emulation for OS 9 for folks that had to have the backward compat. I think you are right that this is what MS needs to do, just break the chains, offer emulation for the compatibility and come out with something totally new that can serve as a platform for 10 years moving forward.
First, I agree with you. But to some extent Microsoft has done this.
With NT they were supposed to be throwing everything out and starting fresh, and the same with OS/2. But what happened was they migrated massive amounts of the codeveloping code into NT to make to compatible. And with OS/2 they just dumped it in favor of NT (I don’t care if that was a good or bad decision, but I do think that if they’d stuck with OS/2 there would have been more tendency to keep things clean because of the dual company nature of development).
Of course, they drug NT out for almost decade before they released it onto the desktop, because it was “too slow” for those cheap PC’s. It probably would have run fine if people were willing to spend twice as much on a PC (what they spent 5 years before). And now Microsoft is somewhat enforcing the same constraint (although I don’t think the cost increase will be that dramatic). Vista PC’s are going to be more expensive (if they can run Aero glass), and that’s just a reality of the technology: It requires a bit more graphics hardware (although not too much thanks to Intel and others) and a lot more RAM.
I don’t think it’s the users Microsoft fears though. It’s the developers: If they alienate developers they’ll encourage cross-platform development. And Windows-only programs are probably Windows’ strongest attraction.
He is actually pretty spot on from a users perspective. I just setup my in-laws PC with Vista Home Basic. The thing runs like a tired old dog. With the specs the computer has, I could be running Ubuntu with beryl and no slow downs.
The Comtrol panel took me forever to figure out how to uninstall an application. He’s right, they renamed things for no real reason. The new start menu sucks! honestly, I think that they need to give up on GUI and start talking other people to officially support alternate DE’s or shells.
Being the *nix head in our IT shop I’ve always expressed the opinion that XP is actually the best McSoft release.
That said, McSoft should have improved XP and not come out with a whole new `Vista`.
Oh well.
I hear all this talk of slow down but On my rig I haven’t noticed it.
and its not that great of a rig
amd 3800×2
2 gig of memory
7600GT nvid card
sb audigy card
The only thing I have came across is the frame rate drop in games but I expected that to happen
“not that great of a rig”? Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.
not that great of a rig
My 1.13GHz laptop with 512MB ram and 32MB nVidia is a “not that great of a rig”.
I expect my 2.0GHz laptop with 512MB and 64MB nVidia to be more like an average rig and it runs XP fine, but when I tried FreeBSD with KDE on it it flew.
This is not something I’ll expect Vista to do, and when KDE 4.0 is ready I do expect all the bling bling without any performance loss.
That’s not that great of a rig?
I will admit it’s not the best available, but unless you are doing hard core scientific work, tons of compiling or rendering, or are a hard core gamer, your rig is pretty stout.
Most people, I would say a vast majority of the people in the world, still have single core cpu’s in their home computers.
I installed Vista ultimate on a P4 3.2 prescott with a Nvidia 7800gs graphics card and 2 gigs of pc4000 ram and it ran like garbage.
I would say this is by no means a slow outdated rig, it actually games quite well with XP Pro for all but the most extreme new titles.
just a thought: This is what most people outside the techy world run, computers slower then the above posted specs without nearly the graphics power.
As a side note, it ran very decent on my Macbook Pro, but XP still ran slightly better.
Edited 2007-02-11 21:11
I’ve got an XP 2800+ with 1.5gb of RAM and a GeForce 6800 and it runs extremely well.
Gaming is still lacking of course, much better with the 100 series of graphics drivers, but still lacking.
I installed Vista ultimate on a P4 3.2 prescott with a Nvidia 7800gs graphics card and 2 gigs of pc4000 ram and it ran like garbage.
I’ve seen Vista running on Willamette class P4s with just 512mb and crappy video cards. And they all ran Vista smoothly.
My PC is a P4 2GHz Northwood with 1Gig of RAM and it runs Vista RC2 just fine. Even the Win+Tab is smooth.
Yeah that is pretty sub-standard, I’d say 4 top-end processors with 8gb RAM and a GeForce 8800 is pretty normal. You should see this PC one of my friends has though, it only has 1 processor, 1gb of RAM and a video card more than 6 months old!!!
You should see this PC one of my friends has though, it only has 1 processor, 1gb of RAM and a video card more than 6 months old!!!
…you’re being sarcastic, right? Right?
I’m sick of people saying Beryl is great.
Yeah, it’s nice, configurable, and extensible….. but it crashes VERY easily and most of the time(at least in my experience) it won’t even let you restart the X server.
How can you compare that to a stable system?
I did not say it was stable, I was only saying that I could get comparable eye candy for far less resources. Beryl is fun, but it is just that…fun eye candy.
Vista is tooting it’s own horn about how great the “experience” is, but frankly it feels like a visual style and explorer modifications rather than a new OS.
but it crashes VERY easily and most of the time(at least in my experience) it won’t even let you restart the X server.
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time believing you.
There is an option set on by default in Beryl to revert to the “normal” window manager (metacity/kwin) if Beryl crashes.
I’m sorry, but I’m calling FUD on this.
Well, it is close to my experience. I realy like Beryl, but it is imho completly unusable right now.
Even if it lets get you back to a fallback windowmanager (which didn’t always worked for me and even worse, sometimes after that not even gdm was working) crashing every 5 minutes will prevent you from doing anything with it.
What was more annoying to me was the fact, that OpenGL Programms didn’t work properly when i was running Beryl.
Beryl is very promising, but i would be realy surprised if it would turn to something useable in less than two years.
Well, it is close to my experience. I realy like Beryl, but it is imho completly unusable right now.
I disagree – it is very usable on my hardware, apparently it’s not on yours. To say that it is completely unusable is exaggerated, to say the least.
Even if it lets get you back to a fallback windowmanager (which didn’t always worked for me and even worse, sometimes after that not even gdm was working) crashing every 5 minutes will prevent you from doing anything with it.
At the risk of repeating myself (see post above), what version, on what hardware? Remember that Beryl 2 is not released yet. These guys are in bug-fixing mode, and development is very dynamic.
I have a couple of Beryl crashes over the past few days (mostly when activating/deactivating certain options), but it has never taken down any applications with it, and it has always fell back to kwin.
Running on XGL, current Kubuntu Edgy with ATI chipset (fglrx driver) on a 640MB, 1.6GHz laptop.
What was more annoying to me was the fact, that OpenGL Programms didn’t work properly when i was running Beryl.
This isn’t because of Beryl, but of XGL. XGL isn’t the preferred way to run Beryl (AIGLX is currently much more stable), but if you have an ATI card you’re pretty much stuck with it.
Beryl is very promising, but i would be realy surprised if it would turn to something useable in less than two years.
I disagree completely. Beryl/Compiz has known one of the quickest rate of development of *any* recent open-source projects, and it’s already usable now on well-configure, compatible hardware.
I use Beryl on my workstation in the office and I can’t remember the last time it crashed on me.
I did however get repeatedly bitten by a really stupid misfeature whereby if I accidentally held down shift while correcting a typo with the delete key Xgl would bomb out.
I found a way to remove the key mapping, and have never had Beryl or Xgl unexpectedly go south since.
Mind you, I’ve turned off a lot of the sillier effects like wobbly windows and focus “shivering”.
Just because there is an option doesn’t mean it works (never has for me).
Sometimes I can get it to restart the X server, but most of the time all I have is mouse movement and get nothing else, have to reset the computer.
Basically, sure it is supposed to fallback, but is also supposed to not crash, but it does.
Just because there is an option doesn’t mean it works (never has for me).
Sometimes I can get it to restart the X server, but most of the time all I have is mouse movement and get nothing else, have to reset the computer.
Basically, sure it is supposed to fallback, but is also supposed to not crash, but it does.
There is something seriously wrong with your setup. What version are you running, on which hardware? What distro?
Some versions of Beryl have been remarkably stable. I’m running SVN right now and Beryl did crash earlier today (these are development versions after all), but it fell back to kwin. Even if it doesn’t, the beryl-manager applet in the panel allows you to select the default window manager.
I’ve never had Beryl crash X, and I’ve got a less-than-ideal setup (ATI chipset on a laptop). You say you have, so your problem probably isn’t with Beryl, but with your X server.
Using .2 RC1 on Ubuntu 6.10 on AthlonXP 2800+ on nForce2 with Geforce6800.
When I say the X server crashes, what I mean is that the screen locks up (Save for the mouse, and a ctrl+alt+backspace doesn’t restart X), the graphics are all there just completely unusable, and it never comes back (let it sit for awhile to see).
So the X server itself may not actually be crashing, who knows, but I don’t have any problems without Beryl running.
AIGLX or XGL?
You can’t click on the Beryl-Manager icon at all?
Also, .2RC1 is vague. What version number exactly? (What packages are installed?)
Edited 2007-02-12 01:34
XGL with 0.1.9999.1
Not just Beryl-Manager icon, nothing at all works.
If you’re using a Nvidia card with the proprietary driver, you should use AIGLX instead of XGL.
http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install_Beryl_on_Ubuntu_Edgy_wit…
If you’re not using the proprietary driver, well then, good luck! 🙂
You might want to wait until 2.0 comes out, too, or use SVN in the meantime. For the second option, add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list :
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy beryl-svn
Still, it’s quite bizarre that Beryl would make X freeze entirely. It’s certainly never happened to me, nor do I remember having heard that on the Beryl forums. I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with your system setup.
Edited 2007-02-12 02:53
I’ve had this problem a lot with the nvidia drivers. I believe the radeon drivers just caused crashes (although a lot more often), but I was never using Beryl or Compiz or anything schnazzy like that.
I eventually gave up and swore off proprietary video drivers and X11. But that’s just me!
Tried Vista for a week, went back to XP on a heart beat.
Vista lacks seriously new benefit and Aero is really only skin deep.
Too bad. MS needed 3 more years to develop Vista before releasing.
Even though I don’t use vista for more than 10% of my computing needs; I can report safely that it is more immune to multimedia plugins crashability which could destroy the explorer.exe and thus trash your browser. The later happed frequently with me when running windows XP+SP2. So probably the advances in vista is unvisible but still exist underneath in the kernel/device drivers model. But I can report too that there are too many bugs and performance issues that are so visible and need to be ruled out before considering windows xp replacement or upgrade and propably a year will be enough to correct these problems.
For the author of forbes: I would say what would you expect for an OS that was not designed for a limited hardware choices. Windows is designed to accept thousands of hardware and thus all kind of wonders might come out of this untested combinations. So, if you want to enjoy windows stability on a system then just buy an OEM system rather than build or upgrade one by yourself, and try to look for a sticker with “vista ready”. If you don’t want to buy a new system then hire a technician for 100$ and let him install/upgrade vista on the old system for you.
Happy computing after all.
The article is ok and I agree Vista is (to put it like Apple) imitates OS X. I tell you, now I’m on OS X Tiger I don’t even want to touch Vista since IMHO OS X is far better in features, lower specs and much better apps(yes I’m running hacknitosh all working just fine, without no tweaks).
In the end no matter what you say about Vista it’s going to sell, I just hope more people opt for OS X and Linux.
One of our new Dell PC’s at work came with Vista. I tried it out, surfed the web, opened Office to write a document, and FTP’d some files to a friend. It was interesting since it appeared slower than the XP Dell PC sitting next to it, network speed was slower too. It looked good though I do have to say — sleek and smooth. It is amazing that 5 years of work gets you something that is supposedly more secure than XP, looks slightly better, but runs slower. Ouch.
I mentioned this to the IT guy at work and he agreed with my assessment. He suggested I just use Linux at home. I told him I already use Linux at home but that I keep XP around to run Turbo Tax. He mentioned to me they had an online version now which would work with Linux using Firefox. That is great that is really one of the last reasons I keep XP around. Unless my company buys me Vista, I will not be purchasing it.
at 3 PCs this weekend. Everything worked right away. Well except Creative Labs driver (works but no analog 5.1). People were impressed with Aero and the UI. One of the PC was running much faster. I told the people to have at least 1gig. Once people are explained how UAC works and get used to it, it become transparent and a non-issue.
Vista even won some accolades from a Linux user (orig. a mac user). He said he was very impressed with Vista even with all the fearmongering on the ‘Net.
While the prophets of doom preach their diatribe (MS treats me like a criminal! lol), like this Manes’ person, reality shows otherwise. Most people that were fed the hate, were pretty much surprised how well the upgrade went.
Edited 2007-02-11 17:39
I’m sorry, but I’ve been using Vista for a little over a week and UAC is annoying as all hell. If there weren’t so many things in Windows that REQUIRED administrative rights, then it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. What irritates me the most is the fact that it takes 2 to 3 seconds to switch from normal desktop through blank screen to the UAC prompt and then another 2 or 3 seconds of blank screen to switch back to the normal desktop.
Then there’s something wrong at your end because the prompt was instant. And it’s also instant on RC2 which I am running. And I never get prompted anymore. Only when installing new software.
Then there’s something wrong at your end because the prompt was instant. And it’s also instant on RC2 which I am running. And I never get prompted anymore. Only when installing new software.
I share your experiences. I only get prompted when:
I) installing new software;
II) fiddling with system settings;
III) copying/erasing/moving stuff in system directories.
When I’m on Ubuntu, I get prompted for the following things:
I) installing new software;
II) fiddling with system settings;
III) copying/erasing/moving stuff in system directories.
When I’m on Mac OS X, I get prompted for the following things:
I) installing new software;
II) fiddling with system settings;
III) copying/erasing/moving stuff in system directories.
When I’m on BeOS, I get prompted for nothing.
Anyway, you get the idea. What makes UAC seem more annoying is the way it’s implemented; it is implemented in a much more foolproof way than i.e. OS X has. UAC dialogs run on a secure desktop nothing (no applications and such) has access to. As a downside, UAC dialogs do not pop up instantly but instead appear with a slight delay.
A price I’m willing to pay for security.
The video on Channel 9 about the UAC team details all this. It’s very good.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=255622
What bothers me is that all this should have been integrated into NT since Windows NT 3.1. THe infrastructure was there already. All this hoopla would have been avoided. But it’s better late than never. They wouldn’t have to “shim” apps.
I watched most of the video, one phrase really stuck out.
Talking about being a kid whose dad turns on Parental controls:
…You become a much more isolated kid, with much less potiential….
Says a lot, No?
On two systems? One an Athlon64 3200+ w/ 2GB of memory and a Geforce 7800GS w/ 256MB, the other a dual 2.8 Ghz Xeon system with SCSI RAID, 2GB mem and ATI 9600 video. I never upped any visual settings from what the system gave me on install. If I need beefier systems than that to handle a transition from a normal desktop to a greyed desktop, I think there is something fundamentally wrong.
“While the prophets of doom preach their diatribe (MS treats me like a criminal! lol)”
I know a few people who are beta testers for MS, and not the public beta, and they have been mixed in their assessments of Vista.
And I am one of those people you referred to when you mentioned MS treats me like a criminal. And they did. I called up to reactivate only to have the person I was talking to pretty much outright accuse me of being a pirate. Needless to say I have not purchased any MS software since the incident. Nor will I be in the future.
Stupid MS just doesn’t get that power apps are everything.
Stupid MS just doesn’t get that power apps are everything.
What? Are you sure? Their Office suite dominates the market, and they practically give their OS away for free on new computers to pull you in. On top of that, all the main business apps run in Windows, so they don’t need to develop a top photo manipulation suite or CAD program for Windows because someone else did. Theres also the pc gaming industry, which they have an almost exclusive hold over, and a key fact you may have missed as well: a huge amount of the free software for linux and the BSDs run in Windows. All the killer linux apps I can think of that aren’t server related (OpenOffice.Org, Firefox, MySQL, Gimp, etc etc) all run in Windows natively. They also dominate the software development market on the Windows side, giving away only to java. I could call MS a lot of things, but stupid wouldn’t be one of them.
By apps, I obviously mean the built-in apps. After a certain point, what else can one add in a new OS if not killer apps for users or at least the underlying technologies? Apps to convince them to upgrade? Apps that Mac OS X ships with. MS’s techs may be good but their focus is entirely either on businesses or on mom & grandma type users. If Vista were today to SHIP WITH killer apps, people will buy it. That was my point. MS are being stupid if they’re not getting this. If they cannot include power apps in the OS for fear of getting sued, they can simply include links for DL.
Edited 2007-02-11 18:24
Uhh, no, they aren’t being stupid, they are being quite smart, actually.
Microsoft is not allowed to ship a “killer” app with Windows as anytime they even ship a half-way decent app with the OS they get their competitors screaming to the DOJ and to the EU (ever hear of Windows XP N?).
Uh no. MS gets sued because they use their position to make sure that the competitors software runs poorly or not at all guaranteeing a truly “killer” app.
No they didn’t. Are you serious? Do you actually believe this?
They got in trouble for having too powerful an app (Windows Media Player, specifically) in their system, and they all go together again for Vista for WMP again as well as Windows Defender.
This had absolutely NOTHING to do with making competing software run like crap.
Also, to what “killer” MacOSX apps are you referring to?
iLife?
Only thing that Vista doesn’t have is iWeb.
Garage Band?
I don’t think that monaco is out yet, or bundled with Vista.
Also, tell me how vista can compare with:
http://images.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/images/overview20060120.jpg
iLife is bunlded with Mac hardware, not OSX. (And when I got my PowerBook years ago, iLife was only bundled with iMacs, so I had to buy it separately; I don’t know if it’s bundled with *all* Mac hardware today or not).
The distinction is important. For instance, if you already have a Mac, when OSX Leopard and iLife ’07 come out, if you want to upgrade, you’ll have to buy iLife ’07 separately; it won’t come with OSX Leopard.
So, since iLife is bundled with Mac computers rather than the OS itself, a fair comparison wouldn’t be Macs with iLife vs Vista, but Macs with iLife vs PCs with whatever softwar the OEM bundles.
You’re probably right. I’m just commenting on the phrase:
iLife?
Only thing that Vista doesn’t have is iWeb.
Vista is everything I said it would be “nothing new” it is really just a skin with minor changes that could and should have been rolled in to XP. The WoW may start now unfortunately the “wow” is for “Wow” I can’t believe we can sell this as a major upgrade. or “Wow” people don’t even know it is XP SP3.
I was not really disappointed because I figured from jump sometimes I hate being right!
“Wow” people don’t even know it is XP SP3.
Unfortunately a lot of people will know when they try to upgrade an, a year or so, old computer. According to an article in todays issue of Computer Sweden, the temperature when running Vista raise to a point where they turn themselves off.
The affected computers was fairly new laptops. As the laptop sale over the last two years have raised to the same level as desktop systems this could turn out to be a serious problem to Microsoft.
So if you are going to switch to “XP SP3”, make sure that a new computer comes with it.
If you honestly think it’s just XP SP3, you’re very clearly delusional, ignorant or just a troll.
I appreciate the politeness. In any case you can look at my many posts to figure out my background I won’t waste time tooting my own horn. There is nothing new in vista it is by ALL account a minor upgrade. In fact the only real change is the DRM system. UAC is comprised of hooks that just say prompt when an installation of any sorts is attempted. Aero which may or may not be available depending on the computer is really a minor interface change. Windows mail is a minor change compared to outlook express please show me features in vista that could not have been rolled into XP SP3 in fact may of the features are offered as separate downloads medial player,IE 7, Desktop search.
Now maybe when sp1 for vista is released it will be something new but as it stands powershell is not even included. Maybe you should evaluate your posts before you post them! Perhaps you were trolling!
Ok, delusional.
WPF is “minor”?
New driver framework is “minor”?
Completely new network and audio architectures are “minor”?
That’s just a few things.
Please.
I will give you a point for humor however I would hardly call the features you listed major but in the spirit of a good debate I will shoot down 1 as minor.
WPF is also available for installation on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation
Again XP SP3
Ok smart ass, what do you consider “major” then?
not a big deal I will again refrain from the name calling and stay on a respectable debate. What I consider a major upgrade would have been the addition powershell or the addition Winfs.
You know the highly touted features that are missing or that are planned for a later date. Powershell is a major feature when it’s added, WinfS will be a major feature when and if it’s added.
Why is powershell a major feature but WPF not? Both available for versions of windows besides Vista. Powershell is basically just a quick and dirty language like bash. I would hardly call it a major feature compared to something like WPF.
How about WinFX? That includes WPF, WCF and other things are a whole new API with many subsystems.
If you can’t admit Vista has major features, I am just at a loss for words then.
Vista has major features. Happy?
Yes, exactly!
Like nice, juicy, built-in DRM. The wet dream of every computer owner! I mean, big media executive. :o]
And built-in Vista Spotlight… I mean Vista Beagle, erm… Vista search. Anyhow, that should be useful for people who have been running XP without Google Desktop Search or something similar.
And it reportedly boots up a little faster than XP. Which is a good thing. And the new Windows Viewer for Images & Faxes got better too, this time it’s even a decent program.
Well… I can’t possibly say that Vista isn’t innovative, I don’t get why so many people are waving the ‘innovative’ flag, but I fear all the people defending Windows avidly will come after me If I diss their fav. OS…
So let’s call it mildly innovative…
Edited 2007-02-13 07:58
I wouldn’t call it innovative at all, nor revolutionary. It’s evolutionary.
However, it does have major updates, most of which are architectural. While those updates aren’t visible up front, they do have an impact in the long run.
It depends on how you look at it. True, all these enhancements could be quite a lot of code. That is important to the developer and Microsoft who paid that developer to write them.
What’s important to the end user is how to make money from it. E.g. how is a new audio framework make my business more profitable, as far as I know there was more than enough audio in the previous version, and as far as I can remember XP could connect to the net.
Where is the money to be made from an upgrade? How many people will I be able to let go as a result of the improvements in Vista? How much will it enable us to increase our production. This is the kind of questions you ask yourself when you buy any other type of equipment to a company.
I have yet to see any answers to these questions that motivates a Vista upgrade.
You raise some good points.
I was only trying to argue with the guy that thinks it’s nothing more than SP3, which it clearly is not. Service packs are traditionally bug fixes or in certain cases, a feature or two. Not major architecture changes.
has almost no idea what he’s talking about.
Mod me down if you want but I had to say it.
“You’ll still have to add your own antivirus software, a new Vista-ready version at that.”
Well considering that Microsoft stopped the AV companies from running in kernel space, I’d call this a good thing. Why the hell should they need to be in the kernel when Microsoft (will release/released?) the security APIs that they used in Vista.
“Many touted improvements, like the Web browser and media player, have been available for XP for months. One minor winner is Vista-only: file lists that update their contents automatically. You no longer have to hit View and Refresh to see files added since you last opened the list window. Macs, of course, have done this for years.”
So if they don’t add backwards compatibility it’s a crime. If they do it’s a crime?
Microsoft doesn’t follow the same release cycle as Mac. Get over it.
“Should you upgrade your current machine? Are you nuts? Upgrading is almost always a royal pain.”
You know, considering that Upgrading and a Clean install are almost one in the same in Vista now.
“I suggested to one Windows product manager that if the company were truly serious about security, Vista might offer a simple way to delete files securely and eliminate all traces of identity and passwords so you could safely pass the machine on or sell it years from now. His reply: “Does any other operating system do that?” That tells you all you need to know about Microsoft. The real slogan: “No innovation here.”
First off, how the hell would that help security? If anything data loss would go up dramatically.
There are plenty of programs that do this for you if you’re that worried about it.
In the end, this guy did have some slight truths and points in his article but overall it wasn’t a very informed one.
You have to remember that online articles are written mainly to attract readers. If they said anything positive, who would read it?
Slam articles are great; they attract fanfolk from all sides.
If you are a reputable magazine Forbes, you need to be credible, or you will lose readers. On the other hand I’m not surprised of his view of Vista. Forbes is about business and the “Wow” in Vista is mostly for home users. E.g. better graphics and such while business users just as well can continue using XP.
Sure, there are things like alleged improved security, that would be useful to business, but that is not something you can form an informed opinion on just yet.
Ever since the first NT Microsoft has claimed that their latest OS is their most secure OS ever. Perhaps that is true, but in spite of that, the security of all Microsoft OS up until XP have fallen short of the expectations from their users when exposed to real world computing.
With Vista we still have to wait and see if Microsoft actually have succeeded this time.
> First off, how the hell would that help security? If anything data loss would go up dramatically.
> There are plenty of programs that do this for you if you’re that worried about it.
I think his point was that MS didn’t have the forethought to include such a feature, even though OSX and Linux (Gnome/KDE) all have a “secure delete”. Instead they said essentially “nobody else does that so why should we”. The irony of course, is that everyone else DOES do that.
“You’ll still have to add your own antivirus software, a new Vista-ready version at that.”
Well considering that Microsoft stopped the AV companies from running in kernel space, I’d call this a good thing. Why the hell should they need to be in the kernel when Microsoft (will release/released?) the security APIs that they used in Vista.
This is short-sightedness. It is due to these AV companies innovative real-time kernel mode protection on Windows, that eventually led to Microsoft designing these security APIs.
All these Microsoft restrictions are good for hindering further innovation in the realm of the kernel.
What could they possibly need in kernel mode now that they can’t have in User mode? They are just too lazy to upgrade their application with the provided APIs.
Boohoo if their application which relied on hacks doesn’t work anymore.
Clearly the anti-virus makers should refine their software to make use of new kernel enhancements. I was complaining about a larger issue.
I see. I was in a hurry and misread your comment. My bad, carry on
.
“You know, considering that Upgrading and a Clean install are almost one in the same in Vista now.”
Vista has been installed (as an upgrade) on 3 test machines here at work and not a single one has been painless. In addition, one of my co-workers upgraded over a (more or less) clean install of XP and met with complete failure; the system would not boot to Vista at all until he did a clean install.
On the other hand, the couple clean installs of Vista I’ve seen have worked just fine with the exception of hardware that lacks Vista drivers, but I don’t blame MS for that.
All that being said, I will probably keep dual booting PCLOS/XP for the foreseeable future.
Wow! I spent $300 for this?
Haha good one! I use Windows XP meself and I am in no rush to get Vista…
I dont remember XP being this slow when it first came out. Anyway looks like when I get a new PC it is going to have XP in stalled on it but maybe I will take that off and switch to XP 64 bit. Seems like it is faster, more stable and does a pretty good job of running most software. Or maybe I will just stick with XP….god if I could just get rid of this dependence I have on Windows I would be a much happier camper. Only way I am ever going to upgrade to Vista is after SP1 is out, vLite gets more mature and DX 10 games start coming out in droves, provided that I have the time to play games!
If you read the main article, MS is bad because they did not change Windows enough. The sidebar (by the same author) decries Office for changing too much.
This was his last article before a 6 month vacation. My work quality always goes down right before vacation too.
Although NTFS CHKDSK only shares it’s name with DOS era program, writer correctly points out that Vista is bad piece of software when viewed as a whole.
While there are components of it that are (no doubt about it) good example of software R&D (mostly low level stuff), whole thing seems somehow flawed. Vista was rushed, and so were decisions about what it will be. No wonder that now it collapses under it’s own weight: it’s a bugfest, with some very serious flaws which will take time to fix.
Still, Microsoft did anything possible to make it “better” than XP. Prime example is DX10 which is Vista only. Some decisions, though, realy queastion sanity of their leadership: e.g. removal of 3D accelerated audio support (DirectSound).
…I think the article is close to worthless.
Yeah yeah, he rants a lot – but where is the data? Everybody can rant, but few can do it constructively.
I think little of Vista due to it’s embarrasing system requirements, but at least a decent review would be nice.
“…I think the article is close to worthless.
Yeah yeah, he rants a lot – but where is the data? Everybody can rant, but few can do it constructively.
I think little of Vista due to it’s embarrasing system requirements, but at least a decent review would be nice.”
The irony.
BTW what data are you actually interested in.
The time it takes to open menu items, the time it takes to perform searches, the time it takes to copy small files from one partition on one harddisk to a partition on another harddisk (and the same for big files, and with partitions on the same harddisk), the CPU usage with Aero, the CPU usage with ‘normal’ use. The time it takes to unpack a 1.0 GB zip-file and so on.
And of course compared with other systems.
The thing Microsoft did best with vista is their marketing effort and the hype they’ve managed to create. After reading all the previews and looking at all the screenshots I actually thought vista would be really good. But now after using it I can say that it’s not that special.
I guess it’s better than XP at least but it’s slower and much larger and a lot of applications have problems running. Also when I changed my SATA disks from AHCI to IDE mode vista crashed when booting. XP didn’t have any problems handling this and just installed the new drivers as usual.
Actually… no, I can’t agree with that. The marketing effort for XP was way better done.
But….. the marketing for the launch of Windows 95 was the pinnacle of Microsoft marketing. They have not approached that level since.
People queued at computer shops up to midnight to buy Windows 95.
In those days, no-one bought software off the internet.
There was no queuing for Vista because you can buy it from your couch.
The thing Microsoft did best with vista is their marketing effort and the hype they’ve managed to create. After reading all the previews and looking at all the screenshots I actually thought vista would be really good. But now after using it I can say that it’s not that special.
And this is different from every other MS marketing push and Windows release how?
And this is different from every other MS marketing push and Windows release how?
Read my post again. I didn´t say it was different. I said it was the thing they did best with Vista. Vista was a bit disappointing but they did a good job making it look great for sure.
But I don’t think any other Windows release has been this hyped.
Edited 2007-02-11 22:49
“But I don’t think any other Windows release has been this hyped. “
The so-called “hype” for Vista is nothing compared to Win95. Vista has had a relatively low-key launch wrt hype (compare it to Win95, or any OSX 0.1 release, for example).
But at the time of the windows 95 release far less people had computers and very few had access to the then very primitive internet. So no, it coulnd’t possibly have been the same thing.
And yes, Apple is good at hyping OSX too. But their releases usually lives up to the hype.
They have one thing right , though , and that is Vista fails to wow. There is no need to “diss” MS like that and say that it’s features were shamelessly stolen from Apple, which anyone with half a brain knows to be true.
Apple are not the “innovators” as we like to say they are, Different camps come with different desktop ideas at different times ,and they get implemented at different rates , and show up in products at different times at well. Apple has more frequent release schedules to say that MS stole ideas from Apple is jsut ill-formed nonsense…
<DISCLAIMER> Decade long Linux user , and proud of it</DISCLAIMER>
“I suggested to one Windows product manager that if the company were truly serious about security, Vista might offer a simple way to delete files securely and eliminate all traces of identity and passwords so you could safely pass the machine on or sell it years from now. His reply: “Does any other operating system do that?” That tells you all you need to know about Microsoft. The real slogan: “No innovation here.”
Microsoft is a really amazing company, imo the Server systems Win2k -> Win2k3, Microsoft Office has been going from strength to strenght. The client however just seems to be stuck.
The quote currently seems to sum up windows client development and shows what Vista really is, a foundation. Microsoft have centered on adding future technologies to the core of Vista (WPF, etc) without upsetting too much the stability, which reflects the point above with just making sure Vista has the same features as Mac OSX and Linux.
I’m pleased to hear that the manager of Office has moved to Windows Client, as im sure that the release after Vista R2 will be a real winner.
However all this leaves us with is a mediocre Windows release which tides over consumers until the real stuff hits, although im equally sure that the OS landscape will equally be advanced with the continual success/development of Mac OSX and Linux and for the first time since the mid 90’s (BeOS and OS/2) the OS landscape looks pretty exciting.
A little known feature of Mac OS is that it allows you to securely erase hard disks, 7 or 35-pass. You also have the option to securely erase just the free space on the disk. The trashcan can be securely emptied too.
Mac OS supports encrypting the page file, virtual memory, and your home directory.
Leopard will have a feature that lets you scan a disk and undelete files long lost.
And this is from an operating system that has no viruses or spyware…
“Microsoft is a really amazing company, imo the Server systems Win2k -> Win2k3, Microsoft Office has been going from strength to strenght. The client however just seems to be stuck.”
…
“I’m pleased to hear that the manager of Office has moved to Windows Client, as im sure that the release after Vista R2 will be a real winner.”
You seem to hold praise for Office, but according to the author of the Forbes articles, Offie 2007 is just as much a train wreck as Vista, if not more (check the link to the Office 2007 “review”).
Here’s the problem with this author.
For Vista, he claims that a Windows product manager asked him if any OS implemented his suggestion to provide a way of scrubbing all traces of data off a hard drive (incidentally, there are already software packages that do that, the devs of which would go running to the EU if Microsoft were to include that functionality), and uses that question to say that Microsoft does no innovation (glossing over things that Vista does that other OSes don’t (to my knowledge), like SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, allowing web browsing with fewer privileges than the user, etc). Then in his Office 2007 article, he rips the company for overhauling the interface and doing things that no other office suites are doing. Which is it? Too little innovation in Vista and too much in Office 2007?
And these articles were published on the same day, Jan 26. You’d think he’d be able to stick to a common theme for two articles written on the same day. Well, they do have a common theme: “Microsoft sucks, no matter what”.
You seem to hold praise for Office, but according to the author of the Forbes articles, Offie 2007 is just as much a train wreck as Vista, if not more (check the link to the Office 2007 “review”).
Well I’m not referring to Office 2007 in particular, but to MS Office in general. Whilst Office (in general) certainly has and has had its problems, it’s not like LaTeX is a drop-in replacement.
Nevertheless, if this author’s assessment of MSO2K7 is anything like the general reception it is getting, then MS’s problems run deeper still.
Here’s the problem with this author.
For Vista, he claims that a Windows product manager asked him if any OS implemented his suggestion to provide a way of scrubbing all traces of data off a hard drive (incidentally, there are already software packages that do that, the devs of which would go running to the EU if Microsoft were to include that functionality), and uses that question to say that Microsoft does no innovation (glossing over things that Vista does that other OSes don’t (to my knowledge), like SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, allowing web browsing with fewer privileges than the user, etc). Then in his Office 2007 article, he rips the company for overhauling the interface and doing things that no other office suites are doing. Which is it? Too little innovation in Vista and too much in Office 2007?
And these articles were published on the same day, Jan 26. You’d think he’d be able to stick to a common theme for two articles written on the same day. Well, they do have a common theme: “Microsoft sucks, no matter what”.
The problem with your analysis, on the other hand, is that he’s not the only one going on about the crappiness of Vista – not by a long chalk.
After so long as the darling of the tech industry – scratch that, as the darling of the office application and technology commentary industry – whether these problems actually exist in Vista or are the product of a general I’m-sick-of-their-promise-everything-deliver-nothing-approach attitude now taking over these areas, MS has serious problems.
The pessimist/cynic in me says that this is just a phase, and that “normal service will be resumed” soon enough. But the delays in Vista, and the amount of coverage the BAD things in it are getting, make me question whether this will indeed be the case.
…”decent review would be nice”…
Forbes technology article was clearly marked as “COMMENTARY” which means it’s not intended to be considered in-depth analysis nor review.
As someone who spent 16 years in journalism the only thing I can say commentary as a work of writing that treats a topic from an author’s personal point of view and journalistic analysis where gathering facts and reasoning are a must are two quite opposite journalistic genres/styles.
True, there’s not much of calm cold dissection of new operating system around the block but rather slew of dislikes author has regarding fresh arrival from Redmond.
Strong rhetoric, bold verbiage and emphasis on
(sometimes) unimportant detail(s) are things in commentary form of opinion presentation that you can only love it or hate it. Nothing is in between.
Was this best form of talks about Microsoft I don’t know and only Forbes editorial board knows what’s behind their position regarding “phantoms of prior American bull markets, such as Microsoft”
From other Forbes articles on Microsoft:
“As Bill Gates winds down his roles at Microsoft, Windows Vista may be the chief software architect’s swan song. It’s a shame his legacy is something so utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune.” ( Dim Vista )
“With Vista’s mammoth hardware requirements, will the average PC price go up? And if so, by how much? And on a more philosophical note, as the Internet evolves, what happens to the operating system? Is this the last big Windows launch?” ( Microsoft Takes Manhattan )
“First there was too little security. Now, users will complain of too much. When will Microsoft get it just right?” ( New Windows Old Problems )
Reviews like this one, and if Time magazine or National Geographic do the same, will be enough to put Joe User off Vista.
Except, they will also put Joe User off a new car/TV/Boat, whatever.
Magazines such as this should be banned for using their household recognition to sway people one way or the other from products.
We have a specialist press for that !
It’s called freedom of the press, first amendment
If you’re American that is.
No I am not “American”, I am from the Uk, so your 1st amendment is useless here.
Also, your 1st amendment is also worthless on loads of “Americans”, ie, Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Argentines, Bolivians etc etc
“Americans” none the less….
yes, but those people do not call themselves americans, they call themselves canadians, mexicans, barzilians, etc..
forbes is an american publication, i’m sure your gov’t can prevent it from being sold there, but they have no control over what forbes prints, the same way that america has no control over the media that comes from any other country.
I also might add I disagree with your comment, however won’t mod you down like I assume you did to my post. I don’t agree with modding down for differences in opinion, as it is not on the list of reasons to mod down.
Edited 2007-02-11 21:44
No, I did not mod you down. Like you said, it is a difference of opinion.
We have no 1st amendment over here, but likewise, we have no censorship, so our government would not stop sales of a US publication just because some people disagree with the content.
my appologies, on the modding down accusation
Actually, we Canadians know what the first amendment is, seeing as we are literaly doused with american media everyday.
Having worked in software deployment for years now, it’s amazing to me how negative people are at the start. Does anyone remember almost all of the same comments about XP when it came out. “Oh, it’s just and upgraded UI.” It wasn’t. “It’s so much slower.” That didn’t end up mattering. Over and over. Nothing changes. Vista is a modern, secure, well designed operating system. They are complex, and I’m sorry all the complainers didn’t get their jollies, but they’ll shut up soon enough. AND, YES THIS IS TRUE, I use Linux every day at work and love it, so don’t go down that road. Go out and find out about the architecture of Vista. If you’re not impressed with that, then fine, why not go to OS/2? or perhapts, GEOS, remember that? Why did we switch away from that old friend, Win 3.1 anyway?
Heh, you sound a little like me. I’m a fairly hard core linux guy at work, use and promote it’s use on the servers, and am pretty much the main guy keeping it alive on our desktop deployments. This is at a large research university.
That said, I’m running vista at home right now. Why not linux? Different reasons, but the biggest of which is quite non-technical (keeping work life and home life more separate than I have been doing the last couple of years…). Anyhow, maybe it’s because I didn’t pay for it (we have a site license for enterprise), but actually I’m finding myself liking this iteration of windows. Yes, it’s still windows, so if you hate it in 2K/XP, you won’t likely get won over by vista. That said, for me, as a home box, it’s working fine.
The box I’m running on (a hand me down Dell from work) though a decent machine, isn’t anything fancy (a P4, onboard sound/video, but importantly I imagine, 2GB of RAM), and it runs quite fine (I don’t get aero, oh well.) I was skeptical as to how well my machine would handle it (say compared to 2K), but no real problems there. Mind you, on the UI end I ended up changing a number of aspects largely due to personal taste (use classic menu for instance, turned off widgets).
Anyhow, like I’ve said before, what’s important from a user perspective in any OS is availability of applications that you want to run, general stability (i.e. doesn’t crash when you’re half way done typing up some paper), and it doesn’t hurt if it’s not an eyesore to behold. On all those fronts, vista seems to be doing fine, at least for me.
Would I shell out $300-400 for a boxed copy? Heck no. But how many folks ever do that anyhow? Most folks just use the Windows that comes on their system when they buy it, or if their an enterprise shop, have a site license anyhow to do a mass deployment.
Just by looking at my earlier posts in this thread. It seems I have offended the Prophets of Doom!
Just like blind fanatism, abuse is bad for karma.
Just like blind fanatism, abuse is bad for karma.
Then why are you criticising your abusers when you yourself are guilty of blind fanaticism?
Then why are you criticising your abusers when you yourself are guilty of blind fanaticism?
You’re thinking about the wrong person. I am open minded. Or at least I try to be.
You’re thinking about the wrong person. I am open minded. Or at least I try to be.
Then you need to try harder. Or look up the definition of “open-minded”. Because I doubt any dictionary worth the name would define it as:
“Always trying to find some way of salvaging the reputation of product of choice, even when it seems hopeless to all around.”
“Always trying to find some way of salvaging the reputation of product of choice, even when it seems hopeless to all around.”
That would describe more you. In no way does your definition fit me.
We can go on like this as long as you like. The fact you are desperate to put the blame on me just shows you must have some inclination of what a sad, pathetic fanboy you really are.
However, let me propose a remedy: Go down to your local Linux User Group and introduce yourself with the words:
“Hi. I’m ronaldst, and I’m an MS addict.”
If your local lug is anything like mine they’ll have you fixed up in no time.
Edited 2007-02-11 22:14
and I’ll say it again. I couldn’t care less about Vista, not least because DRM makes it enough of a joke not to install in the first place.
What’s tremendously interesting to me is that not only are reviewers far and wide lukewarm about Vista, but some of them (like this guy) actively hate it. What’s more, he says the few improvements Vista brings are par for the course for MS.
He’s right, of course. But what’s interesting is that these days, commentators have the balls to say these things.
One other thing: If it takes MS five years to get Vista out in this shape, what are their future I-promise-it’ll-be-out-in-another-two-years systems going to be like?
I couldn’t care less about Vista, not least because DRM makes it enough of a joke not to install in the first place.
Then why do you take the time to read about Vista ranticles? Ima tell you why. It’s because deep down, you lust for Vista.
Then why do you take the time to read about Vista ranticles?
For the reason I go on to state in the post you quoted. If reality has reached the likes of Forbes but not the dim dark depths you inhabit, that is hardly my fault (especially since I have been pointing out the flaws in MS’s every effort save marketing and Office products for what must now be years on this site, and years elsewhere before that.)
Ima tell you why. It’s because deep down, you lust for Vista.
Please, don’t embarass yourself.
Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody’s liver out. … or squeeze a jelly from their eyes Actually it’s quiet good on toast…
D’you know how may toxic chemicals are in a DVD? Wouldn’t reccommend it on toast
Download Vista from bittorrent and give it a try.
IT’S PATHETIC.
It took 5 years to come up with this new OS, which seems to be nothing more than XP + Google Search + Picassa + A New Theme?
What a joke. The forbes article is RIGHT ON THE MONEY.
+1 just to add infortunatly despite our complains and, or the poverty of the new vista it’s already a hit, and regarding the figures from internet, vista is already ahead from other OS !!(I mean osx or linux).
there is still a long way before MS lies comes to effectively a right ratio.
http://www.generation-nt.com/actualites/24041/statistiques-vista-ma…
sorry it’s in french but the figures talk by themselves
Sadness.
Edited 2007-02-11 23:34
I’ve been running Vista for a week, and I can’t believe it took Microsoft 5 years to come up with this crap. It may be a little more secure, but it’s 90% fluff, and the fluff ain’t even that great. It’s less user-friendly, and they changed the way a lot of things work, and not for the better. For example, Desktop Properties is gone, replaced by Personalize, which doesn’t do what you want it to. The new ‘Search’ function sucks, since the default search only includes a few pre-selected locations. The new solitaire game can no longer be launched by typing ‘sol’ in the run box, and it looks and acts like a linux solitaire game; i.e., homemade. Add/Remove Programs is gone, although the replacement isn’t too bad, once you figure it out. Lots of programs won’t run under Vista, and others disable the Aero Glass look while they’re running. And because Norton slept with Microsoft, they have the only software firewall that works with Vista. There’s lots of other changes, but you won’t like most of them.
Even the new ReadyBoost feature, which appropriates RAM from my USB drive as system RAM, stopped working. Windows says the drive doesn’t have 253 MB of free space, which is the minimum ReadyBoost needs. That’s funny, since when I use it at work, XP thinks the drive has 600 MB free. When I look at the properties of the drive, Vista says the drive is 100% full.
If there aren’t some serious upgrades to Vista, this will be my last Windows computer. I’m getting a Mac next time.
good or bad, innovative or not, Microsoft does not really care because we MUST buy it -I did not say use it-. Every big manufacturer ships with it. Take it now.
If Vista was an option, it would really help to improve it much more than anything else.
How long shall we suffer from this monopol?
why should everything be like mac os x? i think vista’s great. it’s an improvement over windows xp and i think the potential for vista is a lot higher than xp. driver installation seems to be much nicer and overall the ui is very nice.
what do you really want to do with it? i use vista and mac os x on dual boot. vista because i have to use windows for work and mac os x for everything else. vista’s great. mac os x is great. i really hated windows xp, dunno why, maybe the ui. in terms of stability, vista is so far so good.
the guy really slammed Vista! Now I wonder if Steve Ballmer will come flying over to pay him a personal visit, chair in hand? :o)
Or was it that Microsoft forgot to give auther a brand new laptop with Vista, so that he could review it properly.
Or did they actually give him that laptop with Vista, and the author felt bought, and ended up overcompensating in his review.
Or is it just as plain and simple as Vista has not all that much to offer. Not that this will matter. In 3 or 4 years all of us will be running Vista due to hardware upgrades shipped with Vista preinstalled.
This should really worry Microsoft shareholders. If the normal way to get Vista is when you buy a new computer they have lost. If there was no Vista that computer most likely would have been sold with XP. This means that the cost of five year in development, and a lot of extra marketing will have to fit in between the price of the hardware and the price people are willing to pay for a new computer. My guess is that this will be a hard fit.
People are not willing to pay more for Vista+computer than for XP+computer, at least not in the long run when the novelty of Vista has worn off. Just imagine how much more profit they could have made by prolonging the life of XP.
I bought Vista on the release and have installed about 30 programs since. Everything works perfectly except iTunes, which has some minor issues. Vista is not revolutionary, but it’s definitely an upgrade over XP.
I guess the most interesting thing about this article is that it totally bashes Windows Vista, in a publication which usually posts anti-Mac and anti-Linux rants from clueless shills. No matter how accurate you think his criticisms are, it’s kind of refreshing to have the shoe on the other foot for a change!
Light and fast, works with all my apps and all my hardware. No fisher-price interface. Much better control panel. No activation – I can re-install as often as I like. By the time msft forces me to upgrade, I’ll probably be 100% Linux.
But, you kids have fun spending all of your money just to fight with msft’s bullsh!t.
The article recommends that you not buy into Vista until SP1 however if you are seeking to purchase any name brand Equipment you cannot get anything but Vista now. Go into Best Buy or surf on over to dell or gateway or HP and thats all you can buy.
I have been using it professionally now since mid November. To be sure the author appears to have an axe to grind. But some of his issues are real and driver support for anything older or perhaps even brand new is spotty. Software compatability is definitely sub par . It just feels like the industry was caught by surprise with Vista. More likely though they just did not believe it would finally ship and thus did not put the effort into their own offerings for vista compatibility at the start. Its a shame really that the likes of ATI cannot get a non beta Vista driver out for their own cards that works. Or that Vista 3dSound drivers for Creative Labs only works with their Highest end cards not the older cards that were new just last year.
To lay all this on Microsoft however would be wrong, fact is this OS has been in the works for quite some time. Some manufacturers have just been asleep at the wheel.
Oh lol, Vista.