OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19140/Gates_Wishes_More_Polish_Had_Gone_Into_Vista_Sort_of Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:18:31 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Bad question http://osnews.com/thread?295256 http://osnews.com/thread?295256 He knew that the interviewer wanted to ask a question about Windows (Vista) because most medias rant about the quality of Vista.

They could also ask: What Apple product could have used a little more polish before release? What would be the answer? Leopard? The biggest portals wrote articles about Leopard bugs. They wrote it's not ready for release... These complicated products like an operating system .0 version can't be polished enough. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mono) Comments Rush http://osnews.com/thread?295260 http://osnews.com/thread?295260 I like Bill's franchise. He's a nice person, even if Microsoft itself is evil.

Regarding Vista, it had been delayed so much that if they had delayed it a little more, like 6-12 more months, they could have polished it, added the extra features, optimized it for lower-end hardware, etc... The extra delay wouldn't have been a problem for the end-users, but the improvements would have been worth it. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Joe User) Comments Assumptions re MS http://osnews.com/thread?295262 http://osnews.com/thread?295262 I don't think anyone will disagree that Vista was released before it was fully ready. Unfortunately, Microsoft tried the "it's done when it's done" mentality -- and it backfired miserably for them, so they rushed Vista to market.

Isn't assuming he's talking about Vista a little bit reaching, though? You could easily make arguments for a few other Microsoft products that haven't reached their full potential thanks to premature releases... Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows Automobile. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments Even though... http://osnews.com/thread?295263 http://osnews.com/thread?295263 you guys seem to focus only on the cheap thrill byline I think the other videos were interesting. Bill Gates didn't pull any punches and was pretty honest with the performance of his company. Its also interesting that unlike Ballmer(and on the other end of the spectrum, Jobs), Gates doesn't feel the need to bash Apple and in-fact gives them kind of compliment.

I'm no MS fan at all (I haven't used windows at home for 3 years) but I did find the videos interesting and Bill Gates was actually likeable. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (apoclypse) Comments From Poland? http://osnews.com/thread?295266 http://osnews.com/thread?295266 Funny -- I read "Polish" in the article title as "individuals from Poland" ... gave it a whole new meaning. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dotMatt) Comments polishing Vista http://osnews.com/thread?295271 http://osnews.com/thread?295271 I helped my father setup his new HP Vista PC. On a fast system with lots of memory it runs quite nicely. The annoying snags we ran into were device support. Our older HP scanner wouldn't work with Vista and after contacting HP tech support they apologized since there was no Vista driver available for our model. Based on the amount of time Vista took to come to market I would have expected some sort of earth shattering compatibility mode/virtualization feature for older XP drivers. I thought about downgrading it to XP but we ended up just buying a cheap USB scanner. All the visual eye candy is fun to play with but doesn't really add too much to the ease of use.Edited 2008-01-11 00:01 UTC Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (buff) Comments RE: From Poland? http://osnews.com/thread?295273 http://osnews.com/thread?295273 As did I! Unfortunately you've already left a comment about it, ruing my hope of doing so with a spec of originality. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (HelbaDot) Comments RE: polishing Vista http://osnews.com/thread?295275 http://osnews.com/thread?295275
Based on the amount of time Vista took to come to market I would have expected some sort of earth shattering compatibility mode/virtualization feature for older XP drivers. All the visual eye candy is fun to play with but doesn't really add to much to the ease of use.

I think you are absolutely 110% correct in that some form of computability should have been implemented. The heart of the issue of course is that it is not Microsoft's job to write drivers for other manufacturer's. In this case it was HP's responsibility, to which they have no excuse given the time they had. But with said I think they should have anticipated to certain degree.

The reality is that companies such as HP do not write new drivers for older hardware simply because they see this as a wonderful method to push people to upgrade their hardware. There is a remarkable difference between consumer and enterprise driver availability when it comes to Windows. Right now if you have a brand new HP server, you can still get Win2k drivers. If you have an old DL380 you can get everything from MS-DOS to Windows 2003, Netware, Solaris, Redhat, and Suse. But then again businesses have never put up with this kind of tactic, while consumers do. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ssa2204) Comments RE: From Poland? http://osnews.com/thread?295284 http://osnews.com/thread?295284 Funny -- I read "Polish" in the article title as "individuals from Poland" ... gave it a whole new meaning.

I was just thinking about the same thing xD Gee, I didn't know they use polacks as the ingredients for Vista :3 Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) Comments RE: Rush http://osnews.com/thread?295290 http://osnews.com/thread?295290
I like Bill's franchise. He's a nice person, even if Microsoft itself is evil.


You mean frankness, right? Franchise means something else. ^_-


Regarding Vista, it had been delayed so much that if they had delayed it a little more, like 6-12 more months, they could have polished it, added the extra features, optimized it for lower-end hardware, etc... The extra delay wouldn't have been a problem for the end-users, but the improvements would have been worth it.


Yeah. Vista is much better on my laptop after optimized drivers were available. Video playback is nice and smooth now. Should see about turning off the pre-load cache so I don't run out of memory (so quickly) when I'm running Firefox (less than a day; takes almost a week in Ubuntu). Need to get more RAM, in any case. Will see if 2GB really does make a difference. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Johann Chua) Comments RE[2]: From Poland? http://osnews.com/thread?295291 http://osnews.com/thread?295291 Microsoft does use Reverse Polish Notation... Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Johann Chua) Comments RE: polishing Vista http://osnews.com/thread?295300 http://osnews.com/thread?295300
Our older HP scanner wouldn't work with Vista and after contacting HP tech support they apologized since there was no Vista driver available for our model.


At least that's understandable to a certain extent. I have a brand new Dell Vostro with Vista Business that refuses to connect properly to my AP at home. Also refused to connect to the rogue AP I have set up at work, but since it's the same make and model, that's understandable.

To clarify, it is able to authenticate and connect, it simply craps out on DHCP and leaves me with the 169.x curse. Although my XP laptop, XP desktop, linux desktop, this same laptop running openSUSE, my vonage router, HP officejet, Nokia 9500 and a buddy's iPod can all obtain a DHCP address, apparently Microsoft assumed that Vista users would be connecting to a Windows-based DHCP server so they decided to implement a protocol setting that many non-MS DHCP servers do not.

Net result is a knowledge base article with a registry hack, including all the doom and gloom warnings about editing the registry, simply to return Vista to the same level of DHCP client functionality that XP had. As well as every other freaking DHCP client on the planet.

But I'm not bitter... ;) Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elsewhere) Comments RE[2]: Rush http://osnews.com/thread?295311 http://osnews.com/thread?295311 What do you mean by "running out of memory?" Does your machine actually start getting slower, or are you only basing this on counters? Some of the counters in taskmgr are a bit misleading... Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) Comments RE[2]: polishing Vista http://osnews.com/thread?295319 http://osnews.com/thread?295319 Why not just give it a static IP address if there is indeed something wrong with your system grabbing a DHCP address? Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (CPUGuy) Comments RE: Assumptions re MS http://osnews.com/thread?295320 http://osnews.com/thread?295320 if it wasn't Vista then I'm thinking he would have been more willing to be 'Frank' about it rather than Bill Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nossie) Comments Windows ME 2.0... http://osnews.com/thread?295328 http://osnews.com/thread?295328 ...would have been a better name for this product. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dwave) Comments RE[3]: polishing Vista http://osnews.com/thread?295372 http://osnews.com/thread?295372 Because DHCP exists for a reason and is a very easy standard to implement right? Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[3]: From Poland? http://osnews.com/thread?295417 http://osnews.com/thread?295417 You're thinking of Hungarian notation. RPN is the calculator notation where you express calculations as * + 3 5 2 instead of (3 + 5) * 2.Edited 2008-01-11 21:07 UTC Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anevilyak) Comments RE: Even though... http://osnews.com/thread?295420 http://osnews.com/thread?295420
you guys seem to focus only on the cheap thrill byline I think the other videos were interesting. Bill Gates didn't pull any punches and was pretty honest with the performance of his company. Its also interesting that unlike Ballmer(and on the other end of the spectrum, Jobs), Gates doesn't feel the need to bash Apple and in-fact gives them kind of compliment.

I'm no MS fan at all (I haven't used windows at home for 3 years) but I did find the videos interesting and Bill Gates was actually likeable.


It's funny to think of Bill Gates as likable but it would seem to be that way. He's tried to change his appearance over the past 30+ years.

Gates rarely resisted bashing competitors in the past but now that he's mostly retired, he seems to have taken a more laid back view. I'd never think honesty possible but his willingness to talk about the issues is an incredible change. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bousozoku) Comments