While Build 5232 was released today to testers, WinSuperSite continues its review of build 5231. “Windows Vista Build 5231 could have been horrible and I’d still be happy about it, because we’re finally getting regular Windows Vista builds. That build 5231 is not horrible, and includes a number of exciting new features, is just the frosting on the cake. After a rough beginning and a particularly bad 2004-2005, Windows Vista is finally on track.”
Microsoft Windows Vista Build 5231 Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Windows Vista Build 5231 (Community Technical Preview 2) could have been horrible and I’d still be happy about it, because we’re finally getting regular Windows Vista builds.
No, you’d still be happy with it because you’re a biased fanboy.
I am a Windows user myself, but this guy’s reviews are about as unbiased as Ted Nugent being a news correspondent at an NRA convention.
How are we supposed to take Mr. Thurrott’s comments seriously as he have NEVER posted one single negative comment about Microsoft who at this point should be considered he’s empolyeer.
He complained endlessly about the Media Center version, which doesn’t sound much different to me anyway.
Seriously, who cares?
Not many use the media center of xp anyways, he never actually got into anything remotely important.
Apparently you missed last year when he called Longhorn “a train wreck”.
He should’ve called it Armageddon. That’s how bad it was.
I love your exagerations..
And I love your understatements…
Saying it was like armageddon = exageration.
Where did I understate anything?
It wasn’t pointed at your reply to my argameddon-comment.
It was pointed at your normal comments to flaws in windows.
But you’re right. I tend to use big words, I know I know. No matter what flaw in what system, I use, I always tend to use big big words. That’s because they describe my feelings much much better
So basically you’re saying “You are right, and I can’t back up my statement”. Thanks.
Hey hey…
I didn’t say that!
I said I’m using big words – I didn’t say I couldn’t back them up.
When you look at my posts, you will see that I can always back my words up
Find a post of mine, I can’t back up.
*LOL*
Yet another windows zealot coming around. Modding down my answers to you, but not your answers to me.
Definitely not a person who follows the OSN-policy on voting.
Quite funny to see
Once again, linux trolls like dylanmrjones have invaded.
*LOL*
I’m not a linux troll.
Read my other posts, and you’ll see I’ve been ‘flaming’ GNU/linux as much as I’ve been ‘flaming’ Mac OS, Windows, OS/2 and all other systems I’ve ever met in my life.
However, I recognize your ip, and can remember all your trolling posts.
I’m writing this from FireFox 1.07 running on Windows 2003 Server.
Read what I have to say about WinK3 Server, and you’ll see HOW wrong you are, in calling me a linux troll.
Needless to say; he was a johnny come lately; jumping on the bandwagon; after everyone else had their go bashing Vista/Longhorn, the last thing he wanted was to appear like a fan boy; so like all loyal foot soldiers, he did a whine, as if to say, “hey, I’m a fanboy who can whine too! see, me not bias!”
Sorry, Paul is biased; atleast if he were to accept that he is a over caffinated little boy who gets excited about every damn thing, then I might excuse his over enthusiasm for Windows, but the fact is, he tries to paint himself as the ‘unbiased source’ of Windows information, of which he fails missereably at.
Where does he ever claim to be unbiased? He’s not.
But he’s no more bias than writers of say, NewsForge. Everything is bias.
But to say he was jumping on a bandwagon is lame. Maybe, just maybe, he actually writes what he truly thinks. No, couldn’t be…
But he’s no more bias than writers of say, NewsForge. Everything is bias.
Exactly. It’s just like the news, really .. I don’t know of a single unbiased source to get news, either online or offline. (Hint: If your source for news isn’t routinely pissing off BOTH liberals and convervatives, it ain’t unbiased.)
Same with operating systems. Everybody is going to be biased one way or the other. I’d never expect a hardcore Windows user to write and unbiased review of Linux, and vice versa. If nothing else, they’re going to be biased towards what they’re used to, regardless of whether they actually mean to or not.
Well, I disagree and agree.
It’s not possible to be unbiased completelt, but one thing is to turn the brain off like Paul Thurrott does, another thing is to write a review, where you say: “It works, but not the way I expect it to.”
I would expect a hardcore linux user to be fair against windows and mac when writing a review (and vice versa), and I would expect his/her personal preferences to show through.
The words chosen by Paul Thurrott makes it clear that this review is another paid-for commercial.
As a Mac guy, I do take the opportunity to bash Thurrott quite frequently.
But the criticisms here are not valid.
Paul was the guy who called Beta 1 a “train wreck” which put a lot of negative light on Microsoft. His scathing article was picked up everywehere
Is his bread buttered on the Microsoft side of the industry?
Sure.
But he generally calls it like he sees it, 90% of the time.
(Of course, calling the crappy Dell MP3 player “beautiful” was pure MS shill. So he does have his moments. But I think this article was pretty balanced.)
Biased… perhaps you should read it again. There exists negative commentary about the build itself. You’re most likely a troll.
A good read…
It’s very interesting to see what improvements were listed.
If the improvements listed make it to market, I think that they will have a winner.
Vista is a win/win situation for everyone regardless of what OS is running on your system.
Everytime Microsoft releases a new OS the hardware moves considerably upward, and the prices eventually tumble on what is considered old technology hardware.
Linux fans somehow fail to understand the release of a new Windows OS being good for them also.
Not to mention. With every release they manage to anger more people heh.
1.) Win95: Late, buggy, unusable.
2.) Win98: Works, but still buggy
3.) WinME: Worse than 95!
4.) WinXP: You want me to what before I can use it?
I’m not sure what the Longhorn (Vista’s a stupid name and I protest its use
) complaint will be. But I’m sure that 1% of Microsoft’s customers (home market) will be very vocal about something that’s not right with it!
I think Media Center is very important actually. It’s something Microsoft is going to be hard pressed to get solidly into until disk prices come down, but in the next 5-10 years I think Media Center PC’s could be common. It’s a cool spot for them, they just need to be marketed with any word except “PC” in it (people think PC’s have a learning curve, they don’t think that of their DVD player).
Erm, you missed Win2k. Damned near everyone I know who uses it have no complaints. Fast, stable, reasonably secure when kept up to date, runs on damned near everything that most people have, and just generally runs quietly in the background.
KoOT: I’ve got a buddy who ran it on an old 486 DX4 100 (IIRC) with what would be considdered today to be rediculously low on RAM, with a crap video card. Played DVDs perfectly. Same with most games from that time (late 2000). It really wasn’t that bad.
I don’t know the history of this guy – but this is a very nicely done review. IE7 new security features also look promising – dropping privileges even below restricted users, forbidding writing outside temp… wow! The more I look at these new vista builds, the more I think that open source developers (desktop, tools like firefox) should take a long hard look at where Vista is going … and begin thinking of ways of improving their software before Vista comes out.
Not that I will ever use it btw – I’m a freebsd/kde fan, but still, except for the media center piece, everything done in this new build suggests that Vista is heading in the right direction. Instead of laughing at it (the way we usually do because of the delay, the HW requirements and whatnot) we should take it very seriously. Even with the nice things QT4/kde4 promises, Vista is going to be a very tough competitor in the desktop space. Right now, I think KDE (and perhaps GNOME, I don’t use it so I don’t know) is ahead of your usual XP desktop usability-wise, but when this stuff comes out a year from now (add to it the marketing machine of MS) everyone will talk about Vista: users will be excited (they are already), the press will be flooded with Vista reviews, etc…
Vista looks good but lets face it – its just a copy of OSX and not much in the way of innovation.
And before Vista ships the linux crowd should all be using a rocktastic XGL complete with tons of eye candy.
So yeah its not a bad effort by MS but its not anything to shout about either and it certainly wont impact :inux on the desktop.
Not a bad read…and I agree with molnarcs 100%.
Hey, Vista will finally have something BeOS had at least 7 years ago!
(I started using BeOS as of version 4.0 for Intel, so can’t speak for it before then from first-hand experience)
I wonder if Mac OS 8.x or earlier had that… I’ve got that installed as part of the bootstrap process on my Hackintosh on the way to BeOS on it…
in regard to security and restricting users some more.
But actually some of this can be found already in existing Windows – that is – when you run as a non-Administrator (unfortunately this is seldom the case).
What Microsoft should do was to have a special “WARNING/DANGER” background when running as Administrator or with “Administrator” rights, so the n00bs could see it very clearly.
Existing Windows are restrictive enough (actually too restrictive), as soon as the user is an ordinary user.
If Microsoft removed the GUI-bloat and fixed the drag’n’drop issues and reduced the size of the system with around 75% …. then I might consider installing it (which I won’t – despite the fact I can get it at that time for free; legally).
> What Microsoft should do was to have a special
> “WARNING/DANGER” background when running as
> Administrator or with “Administrator” rights, so the
> n00bs could see it very clearly.
No, what they *should* do is making the admin account what the name implies – a user account with permissions to configure the system – and NOT a user account in which things like IE exploits can wreck the whole system. The same applies to *nix BTW.
– Morin
I disagree with that.
An admin account is an account which gives you unrestricted access. Which of course means running malware could ruin the system. But then – you don’t run malware if you are running as ‘root’ or ‘Administrator’.
If you do, you’re not wise enough. It’s like smoking on a gas station.
probably i will going to use it eventually, but never will pay for it
for personal use.
By Anonymous (IP: 24.1.171.—) on 2005-10-17
Vista is a win/win situation for everyone regardless of what OS is running on your system.
Everytime Microsoft releases a new OS the hardware moves considerably upward, and the prices eventually tumble on what is considered old technology hardware.
win/win? oh yes i forgot that their motivation is greed.
There motivation is greed… hmmm, think about that. What corporation isn’t motivated by greed? What you label as greed is merely self-interest. Self-interest is far better than the _other_ alternative on a large economic scale (i.e. the United States vs. Norway).
Many — in other words, not all — of you seem to forget that self-interest is good, not bad. Can it be exploited, of course it can. However, so can any other economy. Just count your blessings before you start going into “cool rebel mode.”
Linux for the common good… please. It is my personal opinion that a lot of the Linux fanboys are worse than the Microsoft ones. Oh, and before any of you want to say something like, “You probably work for Microsoft,” or “Shut up troll,” at least give me a semi-intelligent rebuttal.
I too use Linux (Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, etc.), FreeBSD, Mac OS X. So please don’t come after me stating that I have no idea what I’m talking about, because this is how “I” see it. The Linux community, in _general_ can be very intimidating and unattractive <sigh>.
“win/win? oh yes i forgot that their motivation is greed.”
You might know something about computers…..
You don’t know dick about business……
Enough of the fancy interface? What about DLL hell? What about registry bloat? What about un-install not removing all the app?
Come on, give us the real information. Tell us about what really counts!
DLL hell, registry bloat & install were all elegantly addressed with .Net.
If you’re programming for Windows, you should be doing .net.
If you’re programming for Windows, you should be doing .net.
Yes sir, Mr Gates!
DLL hell, registry bloat & install were all elegantly addressed with .Net.
That is not 100% true. If these were ‘elegantly’ addressed, still remains a mystery. .NET is not 100% free from the registry at least for now. There are still MANY COM/COM+ objects inside Windows/office/etc. that need interop libraries and things that still depend on the Registry.
Therefore, and unfortunely, windows vista will NOT help at ALL with this. A lot of the CRAP .NET has (Windows Forms any?) will still be there until Aero and these new technologies arise. Even with Aero, XAML or whatever they call it, we will still have Ugly ActiveX stuff hanging around for ages. That “Virus” will case Longhorn/Vista to run slower and slower every day, because of the registry being bloated. That’s what I think.
If you’re programming for Windows, you should be doing .net.
I think that this is true. .NET is “ok” despite its faults.
The GAC is a nice “and elegant” solution to DLL HELL/REgistry Hell.. but it has some drawbacks too. Off topic.
DLL Hell has not been a problem since Windows2000.
Registry bloat? Well, not much one can do about that except to quit using the registry.
Uninstall not removing all of the app is not something Microsoft can fix. There is nothing really to fix. The application maker uses a certain uninstaller and tells it to not remove certain files.
Microsoft has provided MS Installer, which does take care of cleaning up apps very well.
“Registry bloat? Well, not much one can do about that except to quit using the registry.”
so quit using the registry. simple enough solution.
at least i can admit it. i use gnu/linux, i mean for f–k sake i call it “gnu/linux.” which thereby implies i am free software zealot, but who the f–k cares, this is about windows vista….. ok so its got flashy widgets and some guy who works for microsoft thinks its the best. ok, well, like anything, ill give it a spin, though if its not free, i wont use it. free software, and this is for me, is good enough (TM).
The linux fanboys can say whatever they want about Windows but in the end – it just works, unlike any linux distro which come half broken and can’t play any music or video straight after install.
Linux will NEVER be ready for desktop, not if Microsoft continue to release such fine products as this one is expected to be and not if developers for the Linux platform continue to be teenage boys who can’t get laid rather than large corporations with strict development and maintainance processes.
Hey Mr.Noname.
Your statements are false.
I’m using Windows 2003 Server && Linux From Scratch UTF-8 [unofficial book], and before that Windows 2000 and Fedora Core 2 and 3 and have benn using Windows XP Pro (all windows versions were legal – no cracks for me) and Windows 98 as well as gnoppix and ubuntu.
All systems work out of the box, as well as they can.
However, webcam support was missing in all GNU/linux despite whatever I did (except from LFS – this works because I did everything myself… nice, but it’s a big PITA). For Windows the fact was that none of these was capable of recognizing my graphics card, my webcam, my NIC, my monitor, my USB-controller. Nor could any of the Windows versions recognize my soundcard. I had to manually install all the drivers.
When I replaced my motherboard, Fedora Core 3 figured it out, and updated the system properly.
Windows 2000 gave me a BSOD and required reinstallation (with a new key).
So basically: Your are just trolling as can be seen from the rest of your statements.
Like this one: Linux will NEVER be ready for desktop, not if Microsoft continue to release such fine products as this one is expected to be and not if developers for the Linux platform continue to be teenage boys who can’t get laid rather than large corporations with strict development and maintainance processes.
Now, I’m a 27 year old developer, who has been using computers (and developing for them) since before you were born (or close enough).
Besides, in Europe many companies are using GNU/Linux (and other *nixes, FreeBSD is one of them), so your are nothing but a spoiled kid which should’ve been sent to bed by your parents. Without dinner!
“…so your are nothing but a spoiled kid which should’ve been sent to bed by your parents. Without dinner!”
You’re 27 years old? You could have fooled me.
How so?
Point to some sort of trolling in my post. You can’t.
The only thing you can find, is me scolding a troll. That hardly qualifies as trolling
I LOVE it when 27 year olds become all WISE and experienced! Heh heh heh…
omg that’s f’in funny! You made my night! I’m getting my ANCIENT 34 year old ass to bed now…
Oh what’s that? Are those my my knees creaking? Where’s my cane!?
HA HA HA HA HA!
34 years and not to old to troll yet? *sigh*
You wish, the damn shame there is that MS Windows is not ready for the server and NEVER will be.
Maturity of coder does not reflect on immaturity of code but incorporating, yeah, now that really helps.
>The linux fanboys can say whatever they want about >Windows but in the end – it just works, unlike any >linux distro which come half broken and can’t play any >music or video straight after install.
>Linux will NEVER be ready for desktop, not if >Microsoft continue to release such fine products as >this one is expected to be and not if developers for >the Linux platform continue to be teenage boys who >can’t get laid rather than large corporations with >strict development and maintainance processes.
I think that its very unfair to say that windows can play movies “out of the box” I run Windows XP and an Ubuntu server and I had to install several pieces of software to play DVDs and Divx movies. In fact I would say that I had to install MORE software on my windows box in order to get it the way that I want it after a clean install.
Here is some of the software I had to install on Windows XP:
Note * denotes software (or equivalent) installed by default with most linux distributions.
1. Tinn (text editor)* (Notepad does not count)
2. VLC (Movie Player – including DVDs)*
3. OpenOffice*
4. QuickTime
5. FireFox*
6. CCleaner – (Cleaning application for all the crap that builds up in windows) (NA on linux)
7. Anti-Virus Software (BIG ONE) (NA on linux)
8. Ad-Aware (NA on linux)
9. Trillian (IM-Client)*
10. zFTPServer (FTP Server)*
11. TightVNC (VNC Server/client)*
12. TruCrypt (Encryption software)*
13. Netbeans IDE*
14. Thunderbird* (Outlook Express does not count)
15. Nero*
16. BitTorrent Client*
Don’t get me wrong I love the games on Windows (B&W 2 is great) and I use windows alot, but to say that it works “out of the box” is a load of you-know-what. After a fresh install of windows I spend HOURS getting it tweaked the way I want.
AW
Sorry for the poor formatting
I dropped the ball.
AW
I run Windows XP…and I had to install several pieces of software to play DVDs and Divx movies…Here is some of the software I had to install on Windows XP:
Note * denotes software (or equivalent) installed by default with most linux distributions.
1. Tinn (text editor)* (Notepad does not count)
2. VLC (Movie Player – including DVDs)*
3. OpenOffice*
4. QuickTime
5. FireFox*
6. CCleaner – (Cleaning application for all the crap that builds up in windows) (NA on linux)
7. Anti-Virus Software (BIG ONE) (NA on linux)
8. Ad-Aware (NA on linux)
9. Trillian (IM-Client)*
10. zFTPServer (FTP Server)*
11. TightVNC (VNC Server/client)*
12. TruCrypt (Encryption software)*
13. Netbeans IDE*
14. Thunderbird* (Outlook Express does not count)
15. Nero*
16. BitTorrent Client*
I have to install additional software on my new XP systems also, but I think the list above is not very “on point”.
1. There are dozens if not hundreds of editors — I don’t mind what Windows ships with and use several Notepad sessions at a time — but no one wants to see a dozen editor choices. This is not simpler for newbies and would still end up with unhappy power users.
2. Movie player — this is an issue with most Linux OSes also and relates to $ on both platforms.
3. Office — ok, MS charges for their’s so they don’t give it away. From what I’ve read, it is better than OOo. I guess you get what you pay for on this one.
4. QuickTime blows, frankly. Where did anyone get the idea this is good software? Almost as bad as Real player, and just as infrequently needed. I install neither and will rip out Real if it somehow gets in there.
5. Firefox, Maxthon, Opera, etc. — again, does the average user want or need half a dozen browsers? I think not. I sure don’t. I’ve tried the others and prefer IE. Weird, huh?
6. Not sure what this does, seems related to 8.
7. Free AV’s are available, as are commercial ones. Again, choice rules. Personally I hate Symantec/Norton (bloatware & crap interface), tried McAfee for many years but after it got too bloated I moved to AVG. Small download, easy install, freely updates itself forever. No big deal here.
8. Ad-Aware or equiv. — this is one of 3 or 4 programs I need to install on new machines. Free, small install, no big deal. When we get a new car we buy custom floor mats, maybe upgrade the stereo, stick a Jack-in-the-Box ball on the antenna — is this worth commenting on?
9. Personal choice ware again — I use YIM only so don’t need or want Trillian.
10. thru 13. Have no place being listed here. Techieware (but I use CuteFTP and WS_FTP so don’t want your choices littering my hardware, TYVM).
14. I like Eudora, having used it since version 1.something. I sure don’t want Thunderbird, and the average user probably wants Outlook. So this is not worth a complaint.
15. I’ve never liked Nero and prefer Roxio. Besides, Nero is a huge install — I wouldn’t want it to be there and not be used.
16. Miniscule install. Install if needed. Not worth commenting on.
I could now list the dozen or more utilities that I prefer to have on my new systems, but I think you get the idea. A new OS is not supposed to be a new everything. In most cases mentioned above cost is not even an issue — well, if you want it, download it — no need to whine about it.
You make some very good points – and I am not claiming that windows should have all of this software pre-installed. I also understand that most of this software is installed because of my own personal preferences.
I was, however, responding to the earlier post about Windows working perfectly out of the box (I believe the user mentioned being able to watch movies and listen to music) and how linux is not ready out of the box.
My post was meant to demonstrate that in many cases Windows is not ready “out-of-the-box” and that in some cases linux can actually be “more ready” for certain individuals.
A stock windows install CANNOT play DVDs, while certain linux distributions CAN directly after the install.
Obviously it goes without saying that getting linux to work with certain hardware can be very time consuming – I remember patching my kernel to get SATA sleep to work correctly – Locating the patch on the kernel mailing lists and emailing the original patch author took a while (and yes I do know how to use the patch utility, but the patch in its raw form in the mailing list wasn’t formated correctly).
I personally like both OS’s but to say that windows is ALWAYS more complete out of the box and will ALWAYS be is just naive. Windows XP is an old OS, when I install it on my think pad T43 it recognizes less hardware that Ubuntu!!
AW
I agree with your main/original point.
I guess we all hope there are no show stoppers when we try to install a new OS. A download is no big deal but having to root endlessly through forum chatter to find an obscure switch is no fun.
I think for many of us Windows XP is a nicely stable baseline OS, for now. If we want to extend it with more apps, or heavy usage, we do. If not, then we are probably newbies and are happy in our ignorance.
XP is not the be all and end all — I’ve heard that OSX is, but I remain skeptical of it as it comes from Steve Jobs, a megalomaniac — but it is more than good enough for most of us, and as techies we can solidly predict and handle its behaviors (good and bad) when we find it on 90% of our friend’s or co-workers computers.
I’ve not wanted to leave Windows…yet. OSNews articles and discussions are a great daily read that helps me stay prepared in case Microsoft turns into Big Brother and I have to quickly choose one of the hundreds of FOS OS options.
—
Just-Think-It.com
Be a man and sign your comments
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Windows does _NOT_ just work. Today I installed I Bluetooth USB dongle. 30 minutes in Linux, 20 of it searching and reading a how-to. No reboot required. 120 minutes in WinXP/SP2. Fiddling with correct versions of MS drivers, vendor drivers, etc. Numerous reboots. This is _NOT_ what I expect from a system that is claimed to be usable by “normal” people, nor from a plug-and-play system.
I won’t even go into stuff like having the options to set system-wide keyboard shortcuts, changing window manager (supported by OS vendor), virtual desktops, a unified way to install applications, etc.
For _ME_, Linux is a much more usable desktop OS than Windows XP.
Paul Thurrot’s a weird guy. Sometimes you think he’s balanced and fair and he’ll even praise Apple for something. The next day he acts like Microsoft is God’s gift to the world for inventing absolutely everything first and giving us the glory of Windows.
I still remember when he called Windows 98 the best release yet. God, that piece of crap sucked.
Uh… Windows 98 WAS the best release yet when it was released.
Noooo… Windows NT 4 was better, and don’t forget the other OS’es at that time.
Windows 98 was an embarrasment, like the rest of the DOS+Windows releases.
All the win9x/me releases suffers from the same stupid flaw. 2 MByte of system resources and no more. Which means the system crashes within 30 minutes if you’re opening and closing windows a lot.
The 9x releases were not ready for real use. Anything more complex than one or two apps at a time for Joe Average were impossible to do in a stable and decent manner.
NT4 was much much better in that regard.
NT4 wasn’t ready for use on the desktop at home like 2k was, so it was kind of out of the question. 9x was crap, but 98 was a good release at the time.
I used it on the desktop and it worked as a charm. The only issue was problems with some games using DirectX in a weird way.
Apart from that issue it was perfect for the desktop.
If I could get the size from NT4, the look from Win2000 and the speed from Win2K3 Server… weeh.. that’d be something
Umm…you must’ve had the privilege of being raised in a community of geniuses. Because if you experienced even half of what I have, you’d not dare make statements like those.
I am always amazed that people on these sites try to point something out that we know to be true without ever thinking about the reality and the practical applications of what they say. I was certified in NT4. I used it. It was a nightmare. It was not nearly as stable as 2000. And it was tremendously unusable as a home PC.
Barely any home consumer software worked on it. Drivers were really hard to find. Virtually no hardware came with NT4 drivers for a long time. On top of that, it had no real polish – at least Windows 98 had theming to a point.
While NT4 was a “better” OS, Win98 was SO much better for the home user, as as we all know, most computer users simply don’t care about the things we readers of this site do.
Windows 98 was a great product for home PC users at a time where there was no real alternative. You can hate Microsoft, but you can’t forget that or rewrite history to suit your agenda.
A community of geniuses? I wouldn’t use those words. But perhaps it doesn’t fall that far from the mark. I’m from a family of engineers so perhaps there is some truth it your statement
But I never had issues with NT4 in regard to hardware support. I had all the drivers I needed. NT4 supported as much of my hardware out of the box, as Windows 2003 Server does.
Most home consumer software worked on it. Some required a bit of tweaking, but would run as it was (sometimes with limited functionality – but most ran without any glitches).
At the time windows98 was released drivers for NT4 was a non issue. They were easily found as usually shipped along the hardware. I even got OS/2 drivers with my hardware.
NT4 had the same polish as windows 95 and the same theme support. The same support as you find in 98,ME and windows 2000. And in XP and 2003 Server if you turn off Visual Styles (turned off by default in 2K3 Server – miracles do happen).
I wonder what kind of software you couldn’t run apart from DirectX games?
Movie playback was as ‘easy’ as today.
“The linux fanboys can say whatever they want about Windows but in the end – it just works, unlike any linux distro which come half broken and can’t play any music or video straight after install.
Linux will NEVER be ready for desktop, not if Microsoft continue to release such fine products as this one is expected to be and not if developers for the Linux platform continue to be teenage boys who can’t get laid rather than large corporations with strict development and maintainance processes.”
I agree that Linux isn’t ready on the desktop, but I’d hardly say Windows works all the time…after six months, it begins to slow down and you have to reinstall the whole thing over again. It’s also got severe interface issues, and its broken design leaves a lot to be desired (get rid of the registry, PLEASE!).
Vista isn’t really expected to be that fine a product. All of its end-user features already exist elsewhere; for instance, OS X. Vista is more of just a visual upgrade to XP with some new APIs that XP is also getting.
the whole “after 6 months it gets slow and you have to reinstall!!111” is getting old.. Any competent person can keep windows running fine for ages. I have a linux box that has a 300 and something day uptime.. my windows system running 2k, has a 140 day uptime and is still running smooth.
none of my towers ever get “slow”.
oh, and my old laptop still runs a 5 year old windows 95 install and runs fine. I NEVER had 95 lockup or give a bsod.. I dont know why people claim it ran so poorly. I’ve come to the conclusion 90% of the people using computers shouldnt be
that would take care of most problems.. 
One of the issues about windows 95 was very limited system resources. No matter the amount of ram, one never had more than 2 MB of system resources.
Which meant the system crashed often if you closed and opened many windows. Using Delphi 4 on Windows 95 was a very ‘interesting’ project
– as well as ICQ (the latter one almost brought by system down very quickly when I received and sent many messages – no system resources within 10 minutes – and then… CRASH BOOM BANG! 
But of course… for one or two apps with little closing and opening of windows, windows 95 was okay. Unfortunately I suffered from poor drivers (for S3 VirgeDX.. lame card) so it would crash occasionally – even when it was running idle.
Bad drivers can crash any system – especially the poor ones
the whole “after 6 months it gets slow and you have to reinstall!!111” is getting old.. Any competent person can keep windows running fine for ages. I have a linux box that has a 300 and something day uptime.. my windows system running 2k, has a 140 day uptime and is still running smooth.
Competent person is the key. A competent person will keeyp (almost) anyting up-and-running. The question is, how incompetent people will be able to handle the system is the important question.
After my today’s episode with the USB BT dongle (see above), I cannot consider WindowsXP/SP2 ready for the “normal” user. At least Linux says to you “unless you are willing to read this and this and understand it, you won’t succeed”. Windows says “oh, don’t worry, it will work”, but then it does NOT work and you’re surprised and maybe even stuck.
oh no you had a little problem getting a USB bluetooth dongle to work. That is a very well known bug in XP SP2, just like the thousands of known bugs in whatever linux distro you are using. Windows XP is more ready for the desktop than any linux distro, at least if it doesn’t work out of the box there’s a simple solution to get the hardware to work rather than add a line in some remote config file or use an emulator (Ndiswrapper) for your network card which doesn’t support WPA and has half the performance or mess about with your sound card only then to realise than digital output of your card is not supported in linux or try to install your graphics card only to realise ATI have terrible linux drivers and when you go to a forum you are told “RTFM n00b” or buy an nvidia card.
Well, by definition, if XP is a good desktop OS, it should not have such bugs.
Also, by logical reasoning, if people are using Linux as an desktop OS (and there are such people, I know a lot of them), Linux already _IS_ a desktop OS => ready for desktop. So debating whether it will be ready for the desktop in the future makes no sense.
“Also, by logical reasoning, if people are using Linux as an desktop OS (and there are such people, I know a lot of them), Linux already _IS_ a desktop OS => ready for desktop. So debating whether it will be ready for the desktop in the future makes no sense.
”
well not when most of then are dual booting with windows..
Dualbooting is not becaues Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, but because Windows isn’t ready for the desktop
Most people have Windows/Linux dualboot, because they want to use applications not shipped on one of the platforms, or because they need it to get the maximum performance while gaming.
I ‘could’ live without windows, but Wine isn’t perfect yet, and I really like playing Counter Strike on occasion. It ‘can’ be brought to work under Wine but it’s rather selective.
Then, I need linux to get the apps I need the most running. I could use Virtual PC but the performance is to poor. Cygwin is an option, but it doesn’t always work properly. It’s rather selective, too.
So in the end: To get my tools running I need two Operating Systems at the moment. But I’m looking forward to get rid of one of them (Windows – mostly used for Visio2003 and Counter Strike – everything else is usually done on GNU/Linux – in this case Linux From Scratch with some patches).
just like the thousands of known bugs in whatever linux distro you are using
What thousand bugs? Should we begin to count bugs as a little competition between you (Mr.Noname) and me?
Let’s see how many bugs I can find in Windows, and Gnome, Equinox and outside Gnome and Equinox.
Probably a lot more than you think.
If GNU/Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, nor is Windows. The same goes for Mac OS X.
None of these can handle drag and drop to printer properly – windows is especially bad at this one.
Windows couldn’t recognize my mainstream hardware. I had to manually install everything.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again until the issues are solved: No desktop environments are ready for the desktop yet.
“What thousand bugs?”
just have a look here for a start:
http://bugs.gnome.org
*LOL*
And those bugs means Gnome isn’t ready for the Desktop, while the same bugs in Windows means Windows is ready for the Desktop?
Now now.. that sounds quite illogical
The average (read, non-geek) user would have picked up the phone and called the manufacturer of the product and not spent 2 hours messing with it. Sometimes being too geeky isn’t as effecient as thinking like a non-geek.
The average (the non-geek) takes the cellular and sends a message to his geek friend
The main problem is, that people expect the most versatile tool in the world to be as easy as a knife.
Computers are as difficult to master as the tongue is. Just think about how many years it takes to learn to talk properly (not to mention walking at the same time – or reading and writing).
The idea that a person with completely no knowledge can use a computer right the first time is flawed.
‘ I’ve come to the conclusion 90% of the people using computers shouldnt be
that would take care of most problems.. 
‘
Microsoft sure would not be glad about that!
Microsoft sure would not be glad about that!
You forget the whole hardware/software circus build around them:-)
Yes, him and Molineuff are crazy linux, zealot trolls.
They are incapable of understanding that sane people don’t care about their demented ideology.
Heeeey.. you got my name wrong
And hello again. I recognize the IP once more.
You never get tired of trolling, do you?
My name is: dylansmrjones – not DylanMrJones
Just find 1 (one) trolling post from me! But you can’t because I don’t troll
What demented ideology?
did we not vote to ban this idiot ?
more like lipstick on a pig
or trying to polish a turd
Can’t we just admit that Windows is getting better with every new version? Taking the 9x codebase aside, NT is just getting better and better. NT4 worked good back in it’s time, but had it’s share of problems, 2000 worked great and many people still use it just fine and love it. XP, eyecandy aside, works better, at least imo. Some people like themes and I have one runing also, so what if I had to use a 3rd party hack (StyleXP) to get this theme. And now 2003 works better then all of them to date. Vista aka NT 6.0, is starting to look good to. Sure we can’t be for sure until it’s final and we all try it on our PC’s, but I for one see things moving in the right direction, and that’s a good thing.
No, we cannot say windows is getting better, at least not without lying through our teeths.
Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Microsoft operating systems, things started to turn bad with XP as it is extremely vunerable to malware.
I have been beta testing Vista for over 18 months, and it gets slower with every beta release.
Everyone here applaudes Microsoft for the stuff they will be including in Vista, however, all the goodies are available today under Linux. Linux is around 18-24 months ahead of Windows in some things.
Vista is a dog to run on current systems and I have only one system that can run Vista at a comparable pace to XP.
After just listening to all you people just talk about what ISN’T suitable for the desktop…
WHAT IS?
[PowerMac]
right out of the box, why?
They will get SUED! Period.
If they installed with half of the programs in linux distros, everybody here will scream bloody murder. The EU is suing them to get their only media player off their OS. That aside….
This build looks more like a gui build change, will hold off judgement until a build is released with more of the internal core changed from it’s current w2k3 code base.
This build sucks. Again. Sorry but freezing, crashing, and BSODs are not what an OS should be about nowadays. No Vista for me anymore.
I don’t think you could get any more retarded than to judge an OS by an early beta. Congratulations.
Halt. I don’t troll.
If you have *some* knowledge of what Windows is/has been for the last decade (ActiveX, OLE32, COM, COM+, DTS, etc.), you will realize that WinFS, Aero, Etc. are VERY NICE TECHNOLOGIES TO PLAY WITH, at least compared to what we used to have.
I personally don’t like the way Vista looks, but that’s just me. Maybe it looks nice, better than w98 but honestly I am more a CDE man
The (ab)use of transparencies doesn’t look nice IMO. Let’s just wait. Luna Theme is note very ‘nice’ (although it was some kind of innovative, wasn’t it?)
But back to the point, Vista WILL bring innovation to the Windows World. It may not be innovation to a linux user (which in *some* aspects it is), or maybe a Mac user will find XP Media Center ugly compared to the new Front Row stuff… yet for Windows users, admins, etc. Vista WILL be innovative. Will bring -as every new MS Product did- new stuff to play with (and new bugs to deal with).
But that’s the life of the Windows Users, Admins, Certified Engineers, etc.
To put an analogy (not with cars). Windows World is just a “setting” in the game of computers. It has its rules, items, players, etc. So is Unix, Linux, Mac.
These worlds have things in common and learn from each other.
So are Role Play Games
I came across the following :
http://www.babsonfreepress.com/media/paper463/news/2005/09/29/Busin…
and
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5231.asp
Also I read the previous reviews by Mr.Paul Thurrot @ winsupersite. I do follow up the IE7 /Vista development from other websites too. All these point to one thing, that Vista is ‘improving’ itself into a stable, secure, user friendly operating system. At least the MS people are trying to work out something new (but not totally new, u know the comparisons with Mac OSX Tiger and the like). Similarly, I have been using IE, Firefox and Opera for considerably long time.
What I find is that none of them are the best (each misses out some features when compared to others, perhaps some useful UI elements, etc.) But after reading the IE7 review and looking at its features/deployment, I find things are on the path to ‘better’. In the mean time we would have Firefox 1.5 and a 2.0 later. So features would be added and browsing would become more secure and easy. It is the amount of persuasion or acceptance by organisations and individuals that make the OS successful (at least in the business sense). Remember, Windows XP was not a success back in 2001-2 ? Slowly the fears were overcome and good (?) marketing is slowly making it acceptable. MS would be concerned with shipping the OS and also perusaing people to convert to this one. If I could get one, then I would also like to.
At this moment, I would say that Vista wil not be readily accepted by users. Just rec. the hardware requirements; are people going to buy the latest super-efficient processors and have 2GB RAM just to have a bunch of new features? No. Looks do matter, but they aren’t the sole point to have. And common users get easily annoyed when systems respond slowly. Windows Vista would have to address these points also to be a better OS.
Till then, let’s continue the debate.