“A while back, when Microsoft announced its decision to no longer release a monthly CTP for Vista, we were a bit worried, since we wanted to follow-up on the latest developments of Microsoft’s next-generation operating system (though Microsoft promised to update current versions via critical updates). To Microsoft’s credit, it has kept its word and has released an update sooner than we had anticipated, and needless to say, the changes in this release are substantial.”
this articles reminds me of “with this new release of [whatever distro] Linux is finally ready for the desktop”. unlike what the summary promises, changes seem to be mostly in appearance (this or that icon has changed) and minor usability improvements.
I guess this can be considered substantial for a Microsoft fan, given the short time period…
Changes seem to be mostly appearance and minor usability improvements, eh?
I’m tired of hearing this argument over and over again. Will you people finally just pull out a few comprehensive Vista articles and read about everything Microsoft has done/is doing with it?
As bloated as it is, it damn well better have a ton of new features!
Bloated?
Did anybody here even listen to that awsome osnews podcast about bloat? I mean jesus.
What exactly is bloated about Vista…I mean hell have you even done some sort of in depth analysis of Vista with a rubric on what is and what isn’t bloat?
If a basic *BSD, Linux, or OS X installation took 8GB of disk space, what would you call it? You really think it’s’ so strange that some consider an OS bloated if it takes up that much disk space?
I mean hell have you even done some sort of in depth analysis of Vista with a rubric on what is and what isn’t bloat?
Excellent way to just dismiss an argument without having to explain your position. Let me use that to counter your “argument” in the same way. See how useful it is:
What exactly isn’t bloated about Vista…I mean hell have you even done some sort of in depth analysis of Vista with a rubric on what is and what isn’t bloat?
good lord what distro are you talking about…
if it takes up more than a single gig with a full desktop of applications including office suit, GOOD image viewers etc its pretty large…
Dude, have you installed ANY major Linux distro lately?
Like say Mandriva or Fedora or God help you — Debian??
On current Vista installations, the installer creates two hidden folders on your hard drive (IIRC) with tens of thousands of files in each. From what I remember, the size of these two folders is significant, but by going through their contents, it appeared to be all pre-release-related stuff.
The Whistler betas were pretty big and slow in their time as well.
If it takes 8 GB to just install an OS, without even providing any real applications, then yes, it’s a bloated install.
Yes, you could call Vista bloated if … today’s Vista was what was being released.
But it’s not. Therefore all claims as to Vista’s bloatedness are irrelevant until it is complete and we can all see for ourselves.
I’m doubt weather yet another Windows vs. Linux argument can possibly be productive.
Fortunately this isn’t an issue here because I was pointing out that changes in this build, compared to previous ones, aren’t worth reviewing; not that Vista will necessarily be worthless.
Edited 2006-01-25 19:27
That’s quite a bit!
Edit: I got modded down for commenting on the large size of the install? WTF?
Edited 2006-01-25 19:09
But I like the way they’ve changed the start button to a little Symbol.
Bit like Mac OS…
What the heck is there that fills up 8 gig? It didn’t find the drivers for his USB modem, so it’s not drivers. Just what?
Hard to say wether all those costly devellopment years will eventually pay-off for the end-user too.Still the best OS is the one you are most productive with.
I could be somewhat cynical by saying:”Why the hell didn’t MS buy a 3rd-party app equivalent or even better than Windows Defender?”.Did it have too take more than 5 years of precious devellopment time?
I’m not impressed with the results sofar compared to the resources being applied until today though.
Why the hell didn’t MS buy a 3rd-party app equivalent or even better than Windows Defender?”
Um…. they did. Windows Defender was purchased from Giant Company.
Right-click on your start menu, then choose task manager. Choose the Processes tab. See the gcasDtServ.exe and gcasServ.exe? Those are Giant Company Anti Spyware processes. The G C is for Giant Company – the company they bought.
You’re seeing the Microsoft reality distortion field in effect there. Next people will be screaming blue murder that IE invented tabs and FOSS copied; and that MS invented the feed icon and Firefox “copied”.
No, I’m not joking either…
I don’t follow. What does that have to do with what he siad?
Uh… what? What are you talking about?
Microsoft DID buy Giant. MS Anti-spyware IS the Giant product slightly redesigned. I haven’t used the final version of “Windows Defender,” but then, neither have you.
So how is that reality distortion?
Gah, I wasn’t replying to you! I was appending a comment concerning your reply to the root comment. The root comment believed MS wrote Windows Defender when it is common knowledge that they bought up Giant – this is the reality distortion field I speak of – people believing MS invented everything themselves.
WTF? Isn’t this old news? I think build 5270 was released back on December…
…that for all the talk the article gave about this looking slick and that looking slick, it offered no screenshots at all.
Nice article, though a bit short and mainly concetrated on usability but with serious deficiencies in the actual *presentation* of those usability improvements (screenies).
This build has been out for an age. Check http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_5270_gallery_01.asp for full screenies.
Ow, my eyes!!!
joking.
Those screenies don’t live up to the hype in the article though.
Thanks.
I run WinXP pro on a 700Mhz laptop with 18GB HD and 128MB RAM, and it runs faster than any Linux distro I’ve tried. I tried: Gentoo, Ubuntu, Fedora, ArchLinux and Slackware. None of those distros could touch the performance of WinXP.
Now granted, I did turn off unnecessary services and I ran the old Win2000 UI style, but I was stunned at how fast it was. Word 2003 loads in less than 3 secs. I can’t say the same for OpenOffice.
Um try turning win2003 completely off. 2/3 of it is already loaded into memory when you start up. Open Office usually does the same thing and when it does it starts in seconds as well.
As for bloat. At 8 gigs a linux distro provides you with three copies of every concievable software you could need including two differet web servers, DNS servers, irc servers, ssh, gnome, KDE, xfce, (6 more random window managers)a full set of apps two office suites, etc.
Now I have hopes that Vista will trim down for final releases, but also Vista isn’t going to do anything that OS X is now on lesser hardware.
Now if Vista and MSFT force developers to actually think about security then it’s a good thing.
You’re really selective about your choice of distros, aren’t you? Have you tried STX Linux? PCLinuxOS? Vector Linux? ZenWalk?
Seriously, you claim all this, and yet, once you load all that third-party crap up to keep the Windows box in running condition for the Internet, you see it become a gravel truck compared to everyone else.
In the real world, people do install “personal firewalls”, AV solutions, etc, etc. And it does slow the system down considerably. Its not just noticeable, its painfully noticeable! This is why some folks turn these apps off or don’t bother installing them!
BTW, OpenOffice loads up slow on any OS! Both in Windows AND Linux I get the same loading times.
And what about using both Windows and Linux for a few years without re-install? Both sides build up alot of gunk over time, and yet, the performance hit for Windows is alot higher. Why is that? Do you care to explain?
Almost everytime I see someone reply to a “I tried linux distros A, B, Y and Z”, someone responds “Those suck, you should try C, D and X instead.”
How many distros does one have to try and how often before it being ok to give up? Is it fair that someone tries to many distros, doesn’t like them, then is told they didn’t pick the right ones to try?
How many distros does one have to try and how often before it being ok to give up? Is it fair that someone tries to many distros, doesn’t like them, then is told they didn’t pick the right ones to try?
I agree with you : this is nonsense.
The right thing to do is to ask the person having problems what he wants to do, and what hardware did not work, and then guide him/her to the correct distro for him and where to find what he needs.
That’s what I do every time. It is very efficient, as all the trolls are quickly brushed off : they just shut off after that, or say stupid things right away, like “I want to play all Windows games, that’s why I want to put Linux”. Normal users just tell you what hardware they had problem with, or that they used a downloaded distro instead of a commercial version.
This is a beta build with lot of debug code. Final install is going to be a little thinner. There are several folders in root which can be deleted (IMHO) without any penalty – Packages, InstallRepository and Build Repository. The Windows Switcher works without a hitch in 5270 (in my installation anyway) and is tweaked since older builds – it uses larger screen estate now. I don’t think this is a real in-depth review – it just scratches the surface. For example, indexing doesn’t work outside logged-in user’s default Documents folder. Taskbar loses its transparency and window thumbnails if you activate WMP miniplayer. There are nifty nice new features in Explorer like “Look in folders” which reveals all files in all subfolders of the current folders. IE7 feels like it shatters down any minute, it’s not optimized at all yet. Microsoft has a long way to go, but Vista is shaping up nicely. We all could use a real indepth review if we want to avoid pointless comparisons to Linux and “Vista is XP with nice WindowBlinds skins” comments. This kind of “reviews”, which reveal almost nothing new, just fuel fruitless and plain wrong flamewars.
Edited 2006-01-25 22:31
I’m finally looking at a Vista (the 5270 build) and on mine it takes up 6.9Gb… What do you get for that?
Not sure really, you get something that functions a little differently from XP, looks different, not sure if it’s nicer (although I only have a GeForce2 so I don’t see any transparency stuff around the windows, shadows, that sort of thing). Having said that, I did put OS X on this box a few months back and besides the odd quirk, worked fine, including shadows, transparency and so on…
It feels as fast as XP though in most places…
You get the Windows Defender which does ask you every single time if you want to do something where it doesn’t recognise the publisher. There is a little shield symbol by the item you are about to launch, so you are warned before hand about this… I guess as certificates and what not are worked out, this will be less anoying…
You get a few games, but nothing that couldn’t run on a mobile phone these days…
I installed Vista on drive d:, I am trying to find stuff on my XP partitian (c:), but most of it seems to be hidden, I’m sure I’ll work this out, but haven’t yet. I wanted to view photos I had on drive c:, play my iTunes music and so on, but haven’t found it yet… I’m sure I’ve missed something, but I get the impression it’s a authentication issue… It is very very annoying though. Ah, I just worked it out 🙂 You have to give yourself permission to share some stuff on drive c:, I made myself a co-owner with the folder I wanted to view and away we go again…
I found my photos and decided to try out the slide show thing. Going into the full screen mode caused Vista to have a heart attack. I got into task manager and killed the gallery app, which relaunched the explorer so I’m up and running again… Again, probably due to a non-supported graphics card… Just tried again, and this time it seems to be working. It has the ken burns effect going too (though slightly jerky). I might go out today and get a new graphics card I think…
Overall, even with my lowly hardware, it seems pretty cool. It’s no OS X (aren’t you getting sick of people comparing Vista (esp. as Vista isn’t complete yet) to Tiger), but it’s no XP either, it certainly seems to be an improvement, though you will need to get used to the extra restrictions and so on…
Having said all that, not sure where the 6.9Gb has gone?
It’s a beta, various applications aren’t going to have been optimized, resulting in bloated executable sizes, and slower then normal performance.
Also, unless someone can point out where the space is going, it’s impossible to say if it’s bloated, if they’re just installing a bunch of random junk that you won’t get on the final install, or whatever, so every single post claiming bloat is ignorant at best.
Its clear the author hasn’t followed Vista’s progression. Take for instance the “Windows Slideshow (sic)”. Below is the exerpt – if you aren’t aware of the sideshow functionality, read on.
“Windows Slideshow: This is the single most intriguing application in this entire build” […]
“A windows slideshow based device is a secondary display that accesses information from your computer. You can use it to do things like check your calendar, access read your email or scan top news stories even when your computer is off.”
Now either this is a brilliant technology that lets a compatible device access documents from my PC even though it’s off […] or this is some clever marketing speak about how a device can sync and get the data, which I can then read on my phone while my notebook is switched off. If it’s the latter, it’s nothing special – just the plain old synchronizing and ideally, you would expect this to be in the Sync Center. The fact that it’s not is what’s making me hopeful.
If the author of the article had indeed checked, he might have realised it is called “Sideshow” (no “l”) and refers to those cool laptops with external displays that have been demoed for some time now. See the following url for in depth (well, more accurate) info.
http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=2772