Windows Vista has never exactly been a favourite subject among company IT people. Migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista isn't exactly a worry-free process, and machines that run Windows XP comfortably may have trouble powering Windows vista. As such, adoption of Vista has been slow. Two years after Vista's release, the OS is still struggling in the enterprise sector, according to a Forrester report.
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Member since:2005-07-06
...and Microsoft continue to rake in Billions.
The saddest think is all these companies are sticking to XP an 8 year old OS. Microsoft Fanatics are clinking to Windows 7 which I suspect will still be DRMed, has serious activation issues, is anti-capitalist, and overpriced.
1) DRM is only an issue if you as a software developer hook your application into using these facilities - if you as a software programmer choose not to use those hooks that enable DRM then you have nothing to worry about.
From the consumer end, start demanding DRM free software - support companies who provide legitimate ways of backing up DVD movies and ripping them so one can use it on a hand held device such as an iPod. Unless you use your voice and demand a change - things will keep going on as usual.
2) Regarding activation - activation has been around prior to Microsoft Windows; anyone remember then node locking software on the old UNIX workstations? remember purchasing SUN Forté developer and having to send in a massive form for a password to unlock the software? You'd think Microsoft would have learnt something from it (namely, that node locking/activating etc is a stupid idea) - but they haven't.
3) The reason why people stick with Windows is either because they require certain pieces of software (and the alternatives are below quality they expect) or because their hardware isn't fully or properly supported. As for those who defend Windows Vista - its confusing, but there are lots of things that humans do which make little or no-sense what so ever.
Edited 2009-02-03 01:32 UTC
Member since:2005-08-09
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
They still rake in billions because pretty much every computer Dell and HP and all the other big computer companies (besides Apple obvious) ship one version of Windows (XP) or another (Vista) which is why Microsoft keeps raking in billions of dollars. Until companies start buying an OS from another company that isn't going to stop.
Note that it doesn't matter which version of Windows people buy as long as it is Windows things won't change.
The organization I work for is skipping vista. We barely support it with VPN on personally owned machines.
One of the big problems is that internal programs made for XP don't run without lots of modification on Vista. And this is an org that brown necks Microsoft. Despite that they don't feel it was worth it to "upgrade" to Vista despite being on the band wagon from the beginning and moving to XP before most orgs and companies did.
Maybe that is the reason they didn't want to move to Vista in the beginning. The pain that moving to XP caused. But even today they are not at all interested in moving to Vista. "Maybe" Windows 7. "We'll have to wait and see" is the most definitive statement that I've heard.
We have moved to Office 2007 and finally are removing Access97 off all computers.
Personally I think if we are going to spend a bunch of money to move to a different OS we should move to Linux or Mac OS X. Neither are perfect but then neither is Windows. But both of them are a lot more secure.
Soon to follow are posts about how Windows is just as secure. What I say to those people is, install all the latest patches for whichever version of Windows you use but NO anti-virus software. Also do this for Linux and Mac OS X and use all three for a month.
What, Windows won't be up for a whole month because of viruses? That's exactly my point. And yes, Linux and Mac OS X will all still be up and running.
Member since:2008-06-02
You might want to try learning what a word means before you start to use it. Here's a free hint: it's not a synonym for "fanboi" or "troll" or "anyone who isn't a rabid open source fundamentalist," as you seem to think.
It's also given you, and the rest of the mindless "anything but Microsoft" drones two years worth of stuff to whine and moan about. I'd think you'd be grateful for Vista.
Which goes to show that Linux and OS X STILL can't catch up with Windows, even with an 8 year handicap in their favour. Truly pathetic.
LOL! Freetards like you take your anti-Microsoft obsession to the point where it could be diagnosed as a psychological disorder.
Member since:2006-03-12
Putting LOL at the front of something does not make for a compelling argument.
"rabid open source fundamentalist"; "Freetards"
"anything but Microsoft";"anti-Microsoft obsession"
"Linux and OS X STILL can't catch up with Windows"
I picked out all your comments, and thats the problem. Thats why I don't really post. Their is no animated technical discussion; no license discussion; no comparison of development models; not even a discussion on price. The best you can do is try and demonise the individual.
"Linux and OS X STILL can't catch up with Windows"
Make it a mantra. It won't change the facts. OS X has been better for years. Linux needed critical applications/3D Support/Wireless and has those now, but the underlying OS is simply better in every way. Vista 2 may go some way to regress that balance, but Vista had no compelling features and several regressions. I see Smoke and Mirrors performance twinned with limiting the Damage created by Vista, and it still contains all the garbage I hate DRM + Activation + Tilt Bits + Spyware + Microsoft Crapware + Hardware Locked + IE + WMP + Antivirus + Antispyware + All the other irremovable garbage that has better alternatives elseware + Battleling 100 limitations of the OS, and I miss out on Multiple Desktops + 100's of application updating at the touch of a button and at no cost; better alternatives like Banshee and Firefox + Consistent front ends to Hardware from Scanners to Wireless Networking with so much freedom with a few clicks I can copy all my OS+Applications onto a Flash Drive.
And whats the future for Microsoft the second coming Windows 7 a new UI; the much talked about calculator; the cloud[sic] computing; performance regressions limited. With compatibility and Driver Support that having Vista out for two years has brought. Did I miss something in the hype!! Nothing compelling now by the wime the 9.04 and the 9.10 releases come around it will look even less than it is now.
Member since:2005-08-18
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Member since:
2006-03-12
Whats left to say. I used to post more regularly. Vista is Microsoft Current OS and by every metric has been out for over 2 years. It has been defended by the faithful including Moderators here ruthlessly. Astroturfing is rife. Users have been Vilified for not having current hardware, and that depressing voice of the individual on the all over the net that posts "I use 64-bit Vista Ultimate and never had a problem" but he's the only one. Microsoft get in trouble for their Vista incapable machines. Vista is DRMed to the eyeballs.
...and Microsoft continue to rake in Billions.
The saddest think is all these companies are sticking to XP an 8 year old OS. Microsoft Fanatics are clinking to Windows 7 which I suspect will still be DRMed, has serious activation issues, is anti-capitalist, and overpriced.