ActiveWin reviews the latest Windows Vista build, and concludes: “Microsoft is going in the right direction. They are thinking through the user experience, they understand what users want, they know that deployment is important; security, management, reliability: all those things are important, but they need to be easier to use and manage and that is the aim of Vista, to make it all easier.”
http://www.activewin.com/reviews/previews/vista5308/Welcome%20C…
Intel Pentium 2.4 GHz
1 GB RAM
128 MB ATI RAEDON 8500
120 GB Hard Drive
Review sees no relation to Apple’s OS X…
the only feature shown that has no relation is Windows Defender…
….
I see a relation.
They are both desktop operating systems. Wow, how dare Microsoft.
Yet another uniformed comment of a kool aid drinking fan boy. In the real world, ideas are copied and remarketed, get used to it. All the major OS companies do it, even *gasp* Apple!
Of course, this is probably bouncing right of your Zealot Shield of Ignorance +2.
Either way, common Joe will think this is the best thing since strawberry kitkat bars, it will seem so new and innovative to them, and that’s all Microsoft needs to keep doing to stay on top.
We have 500 corporate workstations that are running Debian and KDE. But because of usability issues and poor backward compatibility of packages we’ll be moving to Vista.
very good… but we dont believe you. you have a trolls rating, and your previous posts are trollish.
get out of your mums basement and get a job
>get out of your mums basement and get a job
I’m not sure about the laws in your country, and I’m not sure what country he is from. It’s just that in the US, we take child labor laws very seriously. Almost as serious as copyright laws. Almost, but not quite.
//very good… but we dont believe you. you have a trolls rating, and your previous posts are trollish.//
Heh .. I’m a Windows fan, and his post sounded like complete lunacy. If he has 500 installs of *any* OS, it would be asinine to chuck them in favor of an as-yet-untested new operating system.
hell, Fortune 500 companies prolly won’t move to Vista for at least 6-12 months after release — if not longer. I wouldn’t.
All you really need is one test system with the same hardware to find out if your apps work on the test server and you have plenty of time for testing.
If your apps work on the same hardware that you use using the same network and hardware, and you have done a six-eight months of testing beta’s of Vista then I really don’t think there is a problem.
I am mainly talking about Desktop apps as this is a destktop system and not server side.
Your QA team can do testing on it and see what they find, if it works then you can go through with it.
GNU/Linux just never cut it for the desktop. It was a nice experiment, but now that is over. Everybody has moved on. Linux is fine for the server.
raver31, please educate yourself.
very good… but we dont believe you. you have a trolls rating, and your previous posts are trollish.
get out of your mums basement and get a job
Very true; I find it funny when people rectum pluck scenario’s and expect us to believe them – like an IT person would just go out and deploy a new operating system to 500 desktops without adequately testing to ensure that it met all the requirements for the organisation <rolls eyes>
I personally don’t mind people giving their personal experiences with a particular product, but I do start to have problems believing those who need to deliberately lie and hyperbole their story to some how add even more weight to their particular argument – sure, one product *COULD* be superior to another for *YOUR* scenario, but at the same time, another person may find it completely inadequate; use the right tool for the job, irrespective of the background of the company who makes it.
After years of where is this going, its now starting to fall nicely in place. As a mac user im very interesting in Vista its shaping up to be a very nice system. As well as Apple’s new offering I will be purchasing a Vista box as well (also I do tech support for a Windows enviorement). Sure Vista may not be the promising complete innovating user experience it was meant to be, but it certainly brings to Windows world up to the level of security and UI that the rest of have been enjoying for many years. Microsoft have done a good job. I can see how they are tying to shake off the “the enemy” mask and trying to help. Sure we all may mock them, but for a company that runs 95% of computers they are doing a good job to fix those vitals issues (so we have to give them some credit). I give microsoft a thumbs up for trying to sort this big mess computers are in. Very good preview of Vista look forward for more coverage. (yes even though Im a heavy Mac user I try to remain open to different systems since this is the world we live in).
Is this a review or a paid advertisement? I don’t believe that MS’s own marketing department could write an ad campain more pro MS than this article.
Please, next time at least try to make it look a bit impartial.
Give me a break, you’re insulting him withought any hard evidence. So he likes the OS, big deal. He made a good clean review, you just can’t seem to handle that. Get a grip.
Looks like Vista is starting to shape up and become a slick OS. Does anyone know how much overhead using the sidebar and widgets will have?
It’s always the small irritating things that finally get to me and force me away from Windows. Why is there no visual indication of what windows are minimized? Why is there no adequate built in hotkey support? Why do I have so many choices forced on me by a company? It all starts to add up…
Every desktop OS has “small irritating things”. It depends on personal preference…
I’m not saying otherwise, but the irritations Slackware imposes on me are much fewer. Different strokes for different folks, I’m just trying to hilight the fact that I doubt many OSNews readers are the intended audience of the Vista improvements.
> the irritations Slackware imposes on me are much fewer
YES! “on you”. It’s personal preference. Anyway.. Slackware is not really a desktop OS. In fact if you run Slackware, you run the same WM or DE (Gnome/KDE) as any other linux versions.
Edited 2006-03-02 11:10
another fan boy article…..
i will continue to use kde… kde go to the right direction
@collinm
another fan boy article…..
another open sauce fanatic spam post…..
i will continue to use kde… kde go to the right direction
KDE’s “right” Direction…
Vista: Translucency throughtout the UI… CHECK
KDE4: Translucency throughtout the UI… CHECK
Vista: Widgets integrated throughtout the Desktop… CHECK
KDE4: Widgets integrated throughtout the Desktop… CHECK
Edited 2006-03-01 21:58
KDE runs on Windows?
“KDE runs on Windows?”
Not yet natively, but perhaps soon:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39187111,00.htm
But even now one can apparently run KDE under Cygwin on Windows.
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/
Edited 2006-03-03 03:59
As in previous releases, this Windows upgrade appears to be more cosmetic than functional. I understand that the graphics subsystems is changed, and there have been a few other “under the hood” adjustments… but when it comes down to interaction, Vista simply is WinXP: Second Edition.—Start button, (almost identical menu), task bar, desktop, quicklaunch, control panel, system tray, etc.
Changing colors and adding transparency to window borders is not enough to differentiate Vista from XP. They certainly don’t make the OS more functional or useful. At the very least, the price you pay in system resource usage hardly seems worth the “gain” in user experience. Almost all of the “new functionality” found in Vista can be achieved in Windows XP via 3rd-party add-ons.—and requiring substantially fewer resources than Vista purportedly gobbles up!
Had MS kept their original promises of what to expect in the next release of windows (e.g., WinFS, etc.), Vista might have been worth upgrading to. Right now, it simply lacks selling points.
If Vista is XP v2, then 98 is 95 v2, 98se is v3, ME is v4, and xp is windows 2000 v2.
I don’t think you understand all the changes that have gone on under the hood. The networking stack was rewritten, as was the audio stack, and the graphics subsystem. That alone is more than just a new iteration. But there are even more changes than that, like a “new generate” API to eventually replace Win32 — WinFX.
What does Microsoft have to do to get idiots like you to stop saying its just a slightly upgraded version of XP?!
Had MS kept their original promises of what to expect in the next release of windows (e.g., WinFS, etc.), Vista might have been worth upgrading to. Right now, it simply lacks selling points.
WinFS is the only thing removed, and maybe Monad. There is no “etc”.
If Vista is XP v2, then 98 is 95 v2, 98se is v3, ME is v4, and xp is windows 2000 v2.
I think you proved the OP’s point right there. No contest.
> then 98 is 95 v2, 98se is v3, ME is v4, and xp is windows 2000 v2.
well, this wasn’t a well chosen example =)
otherwise yes, Vista changes a lot and builds a new landscape for windows development in so many ways.
user interaction is indeed the same, but consider it “just works” pretty well and that millions people are used to it and unwilling to learn again ‘everything’.
Windows addresses the 99% of slightly computer literates.
I’m sorry but you appear to contradict yourself in your own post. I am a gnome user but I have been following the development of vista as a whole. We need to know our enemy!
upgrade appears to be more cosmetic than functional. I understand that the graphics subsystems is changed, and there have been a few other “under the hood” adjustments…
Under the hood there are at least the following-
* Completely rewritten audio subsystem
* Graphics drivers out of the kernal
* Completely new networking stack
* Collaboration/p2p networking functionality
* All the new developers frameworks
* UAP and restriced user stuff
* etc
Some of these Linux has, some they do not. The reality is that what vista offers will be the rule with which (common) people compare linux to. We need to at least acknowledge that there are some new under the hood features, and that MS will eventually build on these so that we (as a linux comminuty) and out innovate them and beat them to it!
adding transparency to window borders is not enough to differentiate Vista from XP. They certainly don’t make the OS more functional or useful
Considering most non-tech poeple would associate the entire functionality of a operating system to be the file browser and the desktop, do _not_ underestimate the impact user interface changes to those elements will have on the general population. For example, people will be like “wow whats this cool button bar thing” which we all know that linux product x has had for y years.
While I appreciate Microsoft’s efforts with the latest version of Windows, I can’t help but think they should have been tempted to do more. The “improvements” in security, UI etc are an added bonus, but the sidebar concept could have been so much better.
I wonder if MS hold off on good clean changes in fear of being accused of copying Apple?
Take the sidebar for example. While this may be useful to some, I don’t see it being a killer feature they might have hoped for. If, however, the sidebar had truly become a taskbar replacement, I think it would have been. Image a semi-transparent bar across the bottom of the screen you could add/remove widgets to as required, minimise windows to thumbnails / grouped or stacked thumbnails, put application launchers, system notifications etc.
I realise this is effectively an enhanced, full-screen-width dock … but it would have added that WOW factor. MS could have improved and added to the concept to make it less-dock-like. As it is, Vista’s UI doesn’t offer anything new enough to me. I feel slightly disappointed that Windows will continue to be taskbar-buttons and start menu orientated.
I hope Windows Vista will be very good, Linux needs more competition. There obviously has gone much work into Windows Vista, I am sure there are lots of ideas and concepts that Linux can benefit from if it assimilates them; e.g. the integrated workflow stuff.
that I am somewhat disappointed with what I see in Vista so far. I was hoping that it would be more revolutionary, but this is looking more evolutionary.
And I must comment on the above comment, which says:
Review sees no relation to Apple’s OS X…
the only feature shown that has no relation is Windows Defender…
Are you kidding me? I despise MS, but comments like this put me in the position of sticking up for Windows (and I really hate that). When XP came out, OSX 10.0 was out. Oh yeah, MS was really copying there. I am guessing that Vista will be as far ahead of Tiger as XP is/was ahead of 10.0. Sure, that is subjective, so feel free to disagree.
Ding… And at the Bell the Anti-MS Fanboys have taken more swings at the MS-Fanboys. Folks, this battle will never end. O_o
1. If you hate MS…. DON’T USE IT…
2. If you like MS…. Then Use IT….
But this constant bickering and mudslinging is OLD
Another GOOD article about Vista and the author is labeled as being paid off by MS and a fanboy…
Then flaming a guy who just said, “We have 500 Workstations on Linux and we are moving them all Vista”
That’s his right to say that. But if he was say the opposite and say he was moving 500 machines to Linux…
HE WOULD BE A GOLDEN GOD! Double standards sucks huh?
Exactly, people take thier computing to dynasty levels sometimes, this is an Operating system, not a terrorist.
I use Linux, but am not blind to what strong points windows has, and what applications it can be used for, its called the best tool for the job, and people seem to forget that.
let people like what they will, calling them childish for thier beliefs is unnessessary, asd only proves the same about yourself. I come here because of the perspectives from the wide range of visitors here is really quite insightful, and yess, entertaining. when I get so pissed off that someone hates my beloved gnome that I lose it in some fruitless “screaming match” then I plan to hit the power supply and go looking for a psychologist.
with all aside vista does look interesting, and it seems like microsoft is finally listening to its users, if only for a moment…
I too use Linux. I run a small web host company and my servers run CentOS. At home, our file server is Fedora Core 4. BUT…. Our workstations are WinXP.. Wife and I ENJOY and PREFER Dreamweaver for Web Design. Even though NVU is looking mighty nice. Why still use Windows?
BECAUSE I WANT TO AND I WANT TO BE COMPATIBLE WITH ANYTHING I PURCHASE IN THE STORES.
Plus…. Wife and I are World of Warcraft Junkies… lol I don’t have issues with Windows. Follow a few common sense guildlines and you’ll be fine. No Viri or Spyware.
But I agree… It childish and stupid that people can’t just read an article and if they disagree with it fine state why.. but don’t call names in the process.
PS.. i agree.. I like Gnome better too…
But there are even more changes than that, like a “new generate” API to eventually replace Win32 — WinFX.
Where is it?
What does Microsoft have to do to get idiots like you to stop saying its just a slightly upgraded version of XP?!
For starters keeping their mouth shut and just deliver.But i guess it’s all focussed on keeping the stock market happy now is it?
“For starters keeping their mouth shut and just deliver.But i guess it’s all focussed on keeping the stock market happy now is it?”
Microsoft are “delivering” its called Vista. Its not an easy thing to make an OS let alone one of this high market adopting status. Microsoft are not called Apple, they don’t keep tight lip and then one day say “oh blah blah is shipping now”. Its the way they do it. For a company that size and a market that big they are doing a pretty good job of delivery this major release, they are not catering for a few hundred thousand, it runs into the several hundred million, so much time, effort, money, quality check must go in, let alone all the translations, manuals, help the lot this is no small product!
Where is it?
Are you serious? The beta bits are in Vista, and theyve also shipped WinFX bits seperately. I believe WinFX is actually done already.
Are you serious? The beta bits are in Vista, and theyve also shipped WinFX bits seperately. I believe WinFX is actually done already.
Its at Release Candidate stage; IIRC, the Windows Communication Foundation is also at that state as well; its a good thing they’re releasing it for both platforms; it’ll provide a good incentive to developers to move to WinFX and still maintain backwards compatibility with Windows XP whilst having forwards compatibility to the new features that’ll be made available in the future as win32 is retired in favour of WinFX.
That’s right. The features are final, but it’s not gold yet.
Definitely nice they are backporting some of it.
I wish they’d remove the “Gadgets” from Vista. It’s the worst idea since Apple’s “Sherlock” app and MS’ “ActiveDesktop”.
Focus on speed and security instead. CIFS is slow on XP. And Explorer.exe is a bloated.
First let me say, the fanatics will never be happy (on both sides)
but as an IT professional, i always use whatever is the best tool for the job, i also make an efforet to learn the new stuff as it comes out. and see : how i can apply new latest etc at my place of work. to do less is not professional. i work at a shop thats 80% windows 20% Nix
and i can tell you nix will never take over the desktop, at my company. it is just not practical.
we use nix on the backend where it makes sense.
but the desktop will be windows, there is just no way arround it for use. we have to much invested to try and change not to mention changing a very large support structure.
so in this: Vista is a good thing, there is alot of totally rewritten code in vista including low rights IE, and the ability for any software to use the ‘low rights” framework.
lot of very solid design stuff going into it. is it perfect no, no OS is perfect. its just a next step.
-Nex6
-Nex6.blogspot.com
Online upgrade purchase, as expected:
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/images/anytime_upgrade_1.jpg
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/images/anytime_upgrade_2.jpg
It’s a good thing if you can upgrade our OEM package (well, better tham buying the whole package again)… also, I would like to know if the upgrade fee is “per download” (like mobile phone companies do) or per product (like per Windows Key)… If I can do the upgrade again after reinstalling without purchase the upgrade one more time.
It’s per product. You purchase and you are given a key to unlock the new features. As long as you have the key, you can use THAT key instead of the original during install. If you lose it, I’m sure you could call Microsoft support and get it again.
While some seem to feel that anything from Microsoft will, by default, take unfair advantage of the end-users, I saw it in a different light.
I found the review to be on par with a user review vs. a technical review. The writer was clearly expressing his impressions & thoughts on how Vista-5308 installed, felt & operated when compared to earlier builds.
From his comments, it’s fairly obvious he’s as much a Windows Enthusiast as many of us are enthusiatic about our own various tasts regarding Linux & OSS.
All in all, I felt that his review & comments were informative and well written.
Good article.
My problem with a lot (notice, I didn’t say all) of the linux community is that they really don’t understand Microsoft at all.
They have this mentality that Windows is still like Windows 98 or that Microsoft has not changed.
The Microsoft of today is sooooo much different than they think. There are security audits and code reviews and tools that have been put in place to prevent bugs when possible, code is now more flexible in modulated form and they have. They have standards they have to pass just to get features in the product.
They have people on every one of the main teams just to do UI work and the quality is getting better.
Yes, in the past, Microsoft wasn’t great, but Linux and Mac have pushed Windows and Microsoft to be better and because of that Windows is more stable, secure and easy to use.
However, I get tired of the FUD and misinformation in the Linux community and from the trolls that talk about Microsoft always in negative ways even if the product has some good qualities. It’s rather cool to be anti-Microsoft and act like they are controlling the entire world and put out misinformation about Microsoft.
Microsoft is creating better products now and they will come faster now that a lot changes have been made and a lot of the features that were hard are mostly in (well minus WinFS).
I don’t mind Linux, I have used Knoppix on my laptop that has a broken hard drive and booted from DVD.
However, I am turned off by their trolls and double standards.
I come here to learn about the latest technologies and how it will affect any OS. I don’t come here to see how “MS sucks” or “winblows is crappy” and then get to see how it turns even worse when they are not modded down or when this behavior is encouraged.
Winblowz sucks = Score +1
Linux is overrated = Score -1
See what I mean?
“I don’t come here to see how “MS sucks” or “winblows is crappy” and then get to see how it turns even worse when they are not modded down or when this behavior is encouraged. ”
Why would they be modded down if what they speak of is just, right, or true in one or all sense?
And yes, “windows does suck”. Not everyone here trolls or speaks BS. I’m atm studying MSc in Information Security, and i had 2 modules about security in Windows 98, 2k, 2k3, and XP. Granted i can’t cover everything over the short period, but the crap i’ve seen, the security holes, the extreme ease where any user can bring down a remote system just with 1 line of code is unbelievable. That of which also includes Windows XP, with all its service packs.
And I speak because I had first hand experience in all this both here, and back in the days where I used to do it for fun. So i believe i have every right to say that “windows DOES suck”, and i wouldn’t use it on any business i’ll have, let alone any machine in my house.
“I come here to learn about the latest technologies and how it will affect any OS.”
I come here to read other people’s oppinions on technological matters and issues that occur and are mentioned here, give mine, and see the relations or clashes that are within. Strike me down if i’m wrong but such websites are not meant for people to “learn about technologies” IMO.
Edit: As for Vista? Well.. they can talk all they want. They can change all they want, and they can rewrite all they want. But i can’t comment on it until
*) it’s out
*) i get my dirty hands and examine it over a couple of months
*) i see others examining it too and notice if they find anything bad.
I’ve heard the same thing from MS talking about how WinME is better than 98, how Win2k is better than 9x, how 2k3 is better than 2k, and so on… And how now Vista is or will be better than the other versions. They’re a business that wants to sell their product. Ofcourse they will say that.
Edited 2006-03-02 09:16
They also are using a new TCP/IP stack that uses an improved form of the TCP/IP protocol called “Compound TCP” which you can learn about it if you do a google search. Also now supports multi-core processors to spread out the load of the incoming packets to different processors.
Also NIC drivers redone from the ground up and API’s that deal with the new NIC drivers are also new.
New Sound drivers from the ground up and sound has been pulled from the kernal as well. So you should install a sound driver easier and without crashes and problems in user-mode.
DirectX 10 is also built into vista and this is a brand new API from the ground up that has nothing to do with previous DX versions.
Shadow volume copy allows you to revert an entire directory or just one file back to it’s previous state. Almost like a visual source safe in the OS itself.
A lot of changes are not mentioned including kernal changes for improved multitasking and using things like virtual OS abilities.
Lots of stuff coming, it’s not a simple upgrade, it’s closer to an OS re-write. Just because you don’t see the frontend changes as much (these will come with Vienna the next version).
In Vienna Microsoft is taking the 3D desktop thing to be a huge change. You already have a 3D desktop in Vista but it looks like Windows XP still.
This next interface planned for Vienna will be a new 3D computing interface that some people thought was coming in Vista. This is from the research that Microsoft has in “Microsoft Research” combined with the work of the UI guys this should be interesting.
Also wanted to say one more thing about this feature:
o Collaboration/p2p networking functionality
Lets say that a group of the people you work with want to take a trip to get coffee and you go to Starbucks to get some but you also want to work together on a network.
Well, there is no network around.
What to do?
Well with the above feature, if your notebook has wireless networking an everyone else has wireless too, you can put together an adhoc network with just you guys all wireless without a WAP. Each wireless card would act as a sender and reciever.
Microsoft added functionality of the IPV6 protocol to add in a DNS like system for P2P, it’s documented on channel 9. In which users or Software can create their own P2P DNS like entries using this new system.
All of this is built right in with the OS, so you can use it right away, it’s not some add on.
Nice bit of added functionality there, I wonder if it’ll be enabled by default and/or acts as a huge secruity hole.
Maybe Microsoft have learnt from their mistakes.
>Why would they be modded down if what they speak of
>is just, right, or true in one or all sense?
Maybe in the past okay, but this is not true of what they currently are doing.
Even with SP2 they came pretty far, but with Vista they have hit security pretty hard and all of their products in the oven are designed with security in mind.
This is the point how so many Linux folks are so misinformed and uneducated about Microsoft. Who cares about Old OSes, that is in the past. Windows 98/ME is a different OS than NT OS’s and judging by them is dumb. Windows 2003 Server is doing great and UAP is being added to Vista client and server so it will be just as secure if not more secure in many ways than lots of versions of other OSes out there.
Lets judge desktop linux back in 1998 and see how userfriendly it was back then and lets also judge on how the security and bugs were horrible too.
Linux has progressed and even I know that, but Windows has also.
>They’re a business that wants to sell their product. >Ofcourse they will say that.
Because I can’t edit my post
You don’t think Linux zealots are not trying to get people to switch to linux?
I don’t remember Microsoft talking about security much in the 98/ME days, it was about features and how it was better sure, but not about security.
This exactly proves my point that you are one of the people that I am talking about. You probably haven’t touched windows since windows 98 or ME.
You honestly don’t think that Microsoft hasn’t invested time and money into security and studying Unix and linux for security. What is UAP then?
Microsoft has a lot to lose without doing security because they know people would leave to other OSes like Linux or MacOS and they are not about to allow that with Vista.
You are in for a big shock, you probably will deny it though as that is what Zealots do.
“they need to be easier to use and manage and that is the aim of Vista, to make it all easier.”
Except that it doesn’t look easier AT ALL. I’m talking about the user interface here.