Is Windows Vista Ready? 'No. God, no.' 578
torrensmith writes "Paul Thurrott answers the question that some IT folks are asking: 'Is Windows Vista Ready?' His answer is not only no, but 'No. God, no. Today's Windows Vista builds are a study in frustration, and trust me, I use the darn thing day in and day out, and I've seen what happens when you subject yourself to it wholeheartedly. I think I've mentioned the phrase "I could hear the screams" on the SuperSite before.' He also addresses the more important question, 'When Will Microsoft figure out what's important?' and to Paul, like most IT pros, its not about when the next OS will be released, it is about having the OS work."
If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Insightful)
How can Vista possibly be ready on time?
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is a reality of life that we all too often overlook. Nothing is certain until it happens, and even then our interpretation of it may be incorrect. Even if they were the most organized company in the world with stellar software engineering skills, Mount Rainier could erupt causing the release to be delayed (to put it mildly). No one can tell you with absolute certainty what will happen this afternoon let alone tomorrow or six months from now (except for God, but most people here don't believe in Him anyway). I dare say that even the best of us could not say with certainty the exact day that a project of this scale would be released.
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Funny)
While not an exact day, I feel comportable saying: before the heat death of the universe... maybe.
-nB
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Funny)
not here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:not here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:4, Funny)
They should just change the name to Microsoft Vista Forever and then they can take as long as they want.
Hasta la Vista baby.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like MS is going to do what Apple did with OS X. They're going to get Vista "good enough" and ship that. By the end of the year massive patches will have finally made it usable.
Apparently none of you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or Windows 95.
or Windows 98.
or Windows NT 3.51
or Windows 2000.
How quickly we forget...
This isn't long at all. Microsoft is re-inventing the wheel here, and it will take a while. and it will suck mightily in many areas for the first release and first service pack.
Gang, I first ran Windows when it was called 'Windows'. And had a CPU board in the box. I thought I would grow senile before they fixed it. I was rewarded with Windows 2.0, which broke my favorite (ok, only) game. 3.0 was a joy, I need only reboot every few hours or so. 3.1 and then 3.11, and I need only reboot twice a night, while using a dialup ISP to run AOL. Admit it, you did too. Or IRC. Or USENET.
I neglected OS/2 at this point. Just as well. Only my bank, my ATM, and my whacked buddy were running it. Who cared? It was almost like Windows. Almost.
With 95, I bought the upgrade, installed it without trouble, and ran it without rebooting for *29* days! Woot! Then the first service pack came out. Never ran that long without rebooting again.
Windows 'ME' we will let rest in peace. I never ran it save for testing and support. Poor blighters that got it pre-installed. We forget...
The NT saga was just as painful. 3.0 stank. 3.1? 3.51 was tolerable compared to nothing. 4.0 finally rewarded us with a server that needed rebooting only once a week. My Novell servers sneered, and rightly so. And they lost. You think Microsoft has security trouble now? NT exposed the kernel like a pervert at the playground. Very bad. We forget...
2000 at least delivered on the promises. After a service pack. We forget...
I am in no hurry to buy Vista. I may even let it cook until SP1 is out. Besides, I got lots of other stuff to look at. Suse, Fedora, Ubuuntu, the list goes on...
But carping about delays with Vista? Yeah, whatever. I hope you get it quickly. those who want it NOW, you deserve it quick. And dirty. Ewwww.
We forget...
rick
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a model that MS could use as well. Open up or borrow the base layers, and build on top of it. With MS being in the virtualization market, backwards compatibility becomes less of a problem, as it can be built into the new OS.
Heck, rumour is that Apple has already implemented this Windows compatiblity this with OS X 10.5. Apple may have a better successor to Windows XP than Microsoft does.
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Insightful)
True, just another 5 years of development. Or microsoft licenses Tiger and builds a wine based compatibility layer...
but honest: Why does Ms develop IE when there is Firefox? IE is a product that is not sold. No one buys Windows because of IE.
MS may outsource a lot to open source... It is an ideology trap created by the media.
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had mod points I'd mod you insightful. Why indeed?
Some could/would argue that Microsoft develops and releases IE because they have to refine their own networking and shell (explorer) code, and IE is just a UI on top of those that happens to hit http:/// [http] links. They'd say that if they depended on Firefox, and Firefox "understood" that as a developer community, that Firefox could influence the direction of Windows development because it would be a core component - and one that Microsoft doesn't control.
I tend to agree with that. Microsoft doesn't want to spend cycles on a "free" product that's become ubiquitous... but they don't have a choice - they can't give up control to an outside developer pool and cede control over the direction of Windows in re WWW access. So, given that they have to maintain control, and maintaining control requires maintaining, to a degree, market share, they can burn just enough cycles to a) make it work enough for 90% of people out there and b) add enough new things / change enough things to generate PR about "why IE is teh bomb!"
You do remember that IE was, at one point, sold on store shelves and had a SKU, right?
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:4, Interesting)
HP sells hardware and isn't doing badly, but they're not having stellar financial results either.
SGI's filed for bankrupticy.
Bottom line: Services is where the money is, and that's what Microsoft's is trying to do. And failing.
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say they sell more than the occasional bit of hardware to sell over $24 Billion worth in 2005. And that's down from 2004's $31 Billion.
But you are correct saying services is where the money is. IBM made over $47 Billion in revenue from their services division last year.
To put those numbers in perspective, Microsoft's revenue for the entire company was $39 Billion.
Re:Considering their recent acquisitions: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft switching to Linux would totally undermine their method of gaining and maintaining marketshare, which is to make everything interoperate with everything else (as long as it's all their stuff).
Not Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect there is already a skunk works project uniting aspects of Vista with some sort of BSD kernel/userland as we speak. FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD? Who knows. However, the BSD licence would allow them to completely "Borg" their chosen version of BSD and keep everything closed up tight.
BSD is a venerable OS at this point, proven stable and secure. Vista is in very scary shape right now if TFA is to be believed. If Microsoft released a "Windows" with BSD under the hood, they could in one stroke get rid of the earned perception that Windows is an insecure OS with stability issues.
They could do worse. As in maintain the status quo.
Re:Not Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If even Thurrott is saying this... (Score:5, Informative)
You've got to be joking. I've traded emails with this guy, and his lack of technical knowledge is surprising. He actually argued with me at one point that Apple's Spotlight was inferior search technology because it requires plug-ins to tell it how to read third-party file formats. I mentioned that Vista's search technology wasn't powered by a goddamn crystal ball and requires the same thing to read third-party file formats. He didn't reply.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
the force is strong with this one. (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, it's almost as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
There is a vote on this in the beta program (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There is a vote on this in the beta program (Score:3, Informative)
Then wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Then wait (Score:5, Insightful)
>If MS drops the ball hard enough, for long enough, Apple will take these customers.
You don't know how true this is. Way back when, I was a Mac developer and my shop was also involved with the Windows 3.0 beta. The contrast was striking -- Microsoft reps treated us like gold -- they sent us free compilers, books, checked in to see how we were doing, offered assistance, etc. Apple, however, charged a small fortune for their compiler/development tools (MPW), we bought the multi-volume Inside Macintosh documentation out-of-pocket, paid for membership in their developer's groups, etc. The difference was like night and day. Apple acted like it could live without us, MSFT acted as though it COULDN'T live without us. Microsoft made it cheap and easy to port our software to Windows and made us want to develop for Windows.
Flash forward to 2006. I believe the tables have largely turned. OSX is a great environment to be productive, Apple includes their fantastic XCode development environment and developer documentation with every new Mac, etc. Meanwhile, Microsoft now charges a LOT of $$ for Visual Studio Enterprise Extreme Radical 2008
The Alpha geeks I know are now carrying Macbooks and writing code on Macs. Funny what a difference a couple decades makes.
Re:Then wait (Score:3, Funny)
And if I've got an axe, I'll make the drill. Actually, only the axe head is the important bit to start out with, although chopping down that first hickory might go a bit slow.
Ahhhhhhhhh, screw it. I'm just gonna build with stone and mud.
KFG
Re:Then wait (Score:5, Informative)
In my spare time I actually go out and try it. I've posted about some of it over the years.
Making the jump to metal (and I'm talking copper, not iron) is the highest hurdle, even if you already know how it's done. After that it's really all downhill, but not, as most people might expect, because it makes things possible. I can make a drill that will put a hole through a block of granite with nothing but plants and a bit of sand. Metal just makes things so much faster that one man can accomplish more in a given unit of time.
I mean, what if the whole of the world was reduced to the technology of Survivor Island, basically subsistance living?
See that phrase up there; "even if you know how it's done"?
It's the figuring shit out that takes the time. I guesstimate that a group of about 24 people on a reasonably resource rich land and sufficiently motivated to do so could rebuild from standing naked to pre atomics in about a decade, if they already know how shit's done (oh yeah, and if none of them have modern "issues." The big, strong lug is gonna haul stone and five foot two, eyes of blue is gonna spin and weave; and that's the way it is).
To save technology don't save too many things, save knowledge and make the things from it. Turns out that people are really quite capable of making some amazing things from nearly nothing. Who woulda thunk it?
Nor are we always as advanced as we think we are today. See those blue jeans you're wearing? Ancient Egyptian technology, only if he needed to the Egyptian would know how to duplicate them starting with no more tools than his bare hands. If you'll settle for linen instead of cultivated cotton all you need can be found along nearly any riverbed.
That's actually how American pioneers went west. They didn't carry much in the way of clothing because they knew all they needed to acquire more was a riverbed and some time. We're talking fine woven linens here, not crude bearskins or something.
The most prized possession they tossed into the wagon in Conestoga? An axe head. That first bit of worked metal is a godsend.
KFG
Re:Then wait (Score:5, Interesting)
You get to the point where you start needing petroleum products, how easy is it going to be to get access to those oil reserves with your bootstrap technology, now that all the easy pickings are gone? Same thing with a lot of metals... the easily accessed deposits have been mined out, and the hard to get at stuff requires higher technology... which may well require the hard to get at stuff in the first place. Catch 22.
I think what things would look like if we had to restart civilization from scratch would involve entirely different kinds of figuring shit out... it would be about reuse and recycling rather than re-implementing old technologies from whole cloth. Why spend time with wood and stone when you've got a bunch of metal already laying around? I don't think the jump to metal actually would be the hard part; I think the jump to non-petrochemical bases would be the hard part.
Yeah, yeah, it's all off-topic, mod me down, I know.
Re:Then wait (Score:5, Funny)
Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:5, Insightful)
More importantly though, will it be ready in time? From the relevant part of the article, which of course is omitted from the Slashdot summary:
Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:4, Informative)
The article also raises the question as to why enterprise users are getting Vista first since they typically are slow to update. Perhaps because they're already paying for upgrades? TFA doesn't pose an answer -- the author just says he doubts very many will attempt an upgrade until SP1 and so why not give it to the consumers first.
Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, this is entirely hearsay.
Re:Of course it's not ready - it's still beta. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the freakin' point of his article, Sherlock.
All Thurrott says is that it's possible, if Microsoft is able to fix all the current bugs. But it's been stated many times that this product is the buggiest of any Windows beta ever this late into the cycle. He says he could be proven wrong tomorrow.
Ready on time, this time? 2007- the Year of Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Will it be ready in time? Actually, I think it could be.
Flying pigs come to mind.
It does not matter when they get it out, they are hosed. They have been making and breaking promisses for five years now. "Don't buy anything, our latest and greatest is just around the corner," is a song they've always sung but Vista is a new low. It will be a miracle if they get it out the door within six years, and it's going to be so broken no one is going to want it.
Microsoft started work on their plans for " [wikipedia.org]
Re:It is RC1 now... (Score:3, Informative)
FTA (Score:5, Funny)
I believe that is called "pulling a 3d Realms".
Stating the obvious. (Score:4, Informative)
Remember Windows 95? (Score:4, Insightful)
People said the same thing for years before and after its release about it's compatbility with Windows 3.x software, about how un-behaved the beta's were, but that didn't stop it from becoming the most popular OS in the world for quite a few years...
Re:Remember Windows 95? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember Windows 95? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does he use it then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why does he use it then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Won't get fooled again (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times is Slashdot going to be suckered by Paul Thurott? He has one basic strategy: first, review it poorly. This gets him all kinds of attention and credibility as people rush to hold him up as such a wise person, who is willing to tell the truth! Then, later, surprise! Everything he wrote before is better now, and $PRODUCT is the best thing ever to exist, and if you believed him then but don't believe him now, you're obviously a lying hypocrite!
Seriously, people, get a grip. This is a set-up for when Vista is available to consumers, at which time - mark my words - he will write about Microsoft's amazing efforts to pull off the seemingly impossible and deliver a polished product that, despite not completely living up to Paul's high standards, is still the best ever made! Highly recommended!
Hm sounds like deja vu (Score:5, Interesting)
With 6ish months to go until drop dead date we can only fix major or critical issues which will seriously impact functionality of the entire system.
I have total sympathy with the MS developers and designers as I suspect they've got the same bone headed project managers as my firm
Re:Hm sounds like deja vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. My two cents... (Score:5, Interesting)
What's worse on this test machine (ASUS K8V SE Deluxe, Athlon 64 3200+ 754 CPU, 512 MB of RAM, etc.), my screen tend to black out before and after the pop-ups occur. I don't see this problem on a co-workers' computers. Maybe it is because of the old ATI Radeon 9600 All-In-Wonder video card. I am using the Aero effects (very pretty). Or worse, the pop-up is in the taskbar minimized without focus. So I can be using a program that calls another EXE, then nothing happens because I haven't granted permission because it is minimized!
Other things that bugged me:
1. How do I access c:\ProgramData\Application Data\? I keep getting permission denied even though my account is already set with an administrator access.
2. How come tab, arrow keys, and F3 keys don't work in command.com/CLI? I miss being able to recall history and hit tab for autocomplete.
3. In command.com, I cannot seem to change long paths with cd command like: cd "Program Files". It says: Parameter not correct - "program.
I was a bit surprised when MS decided to declare RC1 a few builds ago (5472?). I really hope Microsoft decides to delay again and take their time! So what if it loses money! They're rich and can get more after Vista is released with few problems. Make it good and maybe I will use it at home (using XP, Linux, and Mac OS X).
Re:Agreed. My two cents... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Agreed. My two cents... (Score:3, Informative)
-Eric
Re:Agreed. My two cents... (Score:3, Funny)
Will we hear the same bullsh*t when moving to 64 bits?
Anyway, the CD command always had very dumb parameter conventions. Maybe they have now fixed that.
For example:
- you can type the pathname after CD without space, like CD\Windows
- it accepts pathnames with spaces without quoting them, like CD \Program Files\Internet Explorer
Users switching from commandline-Windows to a Linux commandline interpreter often do not understand why they should type cd
wow (Score:5, Funny)
Right.
Microsoft can box up a petrified turd and people will still buy it.
Of course it's not ready yet (Score:5, Funny)
Don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
and quick XP was. Vista honestly has nothing I want. The longer they take
the better since I heard that the next DirectX will be Vista only, probably
just to piss me off when I can't play new games.
Re:Don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that got me the most is that he was adament that windows NT, 98, 95, and ME were all more stable than 2000 which came on the new machines. I even set up tests where I left an NT, ME, and 2000 machine running with Office 97 running on each for three days. The NT machine was running like a slug, the ME machine BSODed after about 6 hours and two more times. In the end, he allowed 2000 on my machine, but the reality of it was that he was afraid to learn a new OS.
Re:Don't care (Score:3, Insightful)
I'ts like we're living in Soviet Russia. "What can we do? Microsoft is on every computer... just eat your gruel and be happy that it wasn't posioned like the last batch..."
To some, this is a lot of headache (Score:3, Interesting)
casual gaming (Score:4, Funny)
I think we recently read [gamespot.com] about MS' new and improved casual games on Vista
That's all I gots to say about that.... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, you first have to release the patch to patch the patch that patched the patch before the patch. Once the patches are in place, you gotta patch those. Then the OS might work. If not, patch it again.
Getting biz to upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
The average user is able to use exchange, word, excel and surf the web without constant crashes (unlike with win98). As far as many managers are concerned, if their PC's can do that then their employees OS's are just fine. Microsoft is going to have to have something REVOLUTIONARY to get them to upgrade, OR simply they'll have to end support for XP to force many buisnessess to upgrade.
If even ONE app on the enterprise has to be retrofitted to work with Vista you can bet Vista will be the one put on the back burner, not the apps they have to fix.
Hey - he mentions Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
According to the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
And his company's website is run by evil trolls.
And some unspecified prerelease of Office 2007 doesn't work exactly right.
Therefore, Vista must suck.
(OK, there were some valid complaints in there about Vista. But mostly not.)
I've been using beta and haven't had any problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Just my personal experience.
-Eric
The more Vista gets delayed... (Score:4, Interesting)
...the more time Apple has to add features and functionality to OS X (according to the WWDC 2005, Leopard should be released in December or January), and the more time the FOSS community has to improve its offerings (KDE and GNOME get better with each release, Linux distributions get easier to use, and FOSS software offerings get a bit more compelling).
MS will still have a head start even if Vista is delayed another year, since Vista will be sold on all new machines, and not everybody is going to run out and buy a Mac or install Linux. However, more people are starting to learn about OS X and Apple's offerings (especially the fact that Apple switched to Intel, and the fact that they can still use Windows on those machines if they choose to, although OS X is really good; I showed my parents and siblings my MacBook and they got to use it for two days. They fell in love with it), and more people are starting to learn about FOSS. If Vista isn't all what it is cracked up to be, then Mac sales and Linux downloads would go up.
As for me? I hope that Vista improves. Us Mac and *nix users have to use Windows boxes for work and for school, so it would be nice if we got to use a much improved version of Windows. But, after they have gutted out all of the features that I have desired (such as WinFS and the Monad shell), I'm not so enthusiastic about Vista. And, yes, I've got a chance from a friend to use the beta for a few hours. Vista's interface is pretty nice, IE 7 is a browser worth using, and I am fond of some of the new features. However, everything I can get in Vista in January I already have on my MacBook, and the gap may be larger, depending on what Steve Jobs reveals next week during the WWDC 2006.
Re:The more Vista gets delayed... (Score:4, Funny)
You mean, a girl like this [photobucket.com]?
Re:The more Vista gets delayed... (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding. I switched last year and I expect OS X to be a little better. I was amazed what the difference was, and using XP often drives me nuts because of how much it misbehaves.
Now I read about Vista being worse than XP, popping up "Enter administrator password" boxes all the time, etc. They already took out all the interesting Vista features (WinFS, for one).
The fact is, when Tiger was previewed Apple had all those banners that said "Redmond, start your photocopiers". They obviously need new ones, because in that time they have not only not managed to copy most of the features, but Apple is about to release the NEXT set of great stuff at about the same time as MS's copy of Apple's last 3-5 years.
If there is something everyone in the computer industry should pay attention to, it's the WWDC keynote on Monday. Vista has become a joke, and I don't expect much to change. Even if they can release it on time working perfectly with all the features they currently say it will have... it will be outdated and uninteresting.
Re:The more Vista gets delayed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh. Windows. I admit that OS X isn't a gamer's platform. But guess what? Intel Macs can run Windows, too. You have the best of both worlds.
I don't know; what apps do you use. I had no trouble switching over from Windows and FreeBSD to OS X. However, all of the apps that I use are either open source and/or have OS X equivalent
linux or windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:linux or windows? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:linux or windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even so, it's looking like a good time to get a Mac. I can have OSX, and continue to use XP.
Things that isn't working anymore on my Vista (Score:3, Informative)
* Sound, since i've installed AC3 codec
* Internet Explorer, god knows when it stopped working, the first thing i've done is install firefox, I think IE detected it and stopped working, it has some personality
* Libjpeg in use with Gaim (nothing appers, ok I like gaim in windows, and it worked fine on XP)
* Network access to other windows machines
* The Bug reporter, that uses some IE functionality
* The video's thumbnails freezes Explorer.exe (i've to set it to details on every folder before it loads thumbs)
* Microsoft Visio with spell checking (type Andre freezes every time you try)
* Emule is writing to a folder that doesn't exists (C:\program files\emule\incoming) but, when i try to open what i've downloaded from emule, it works misterously from the neverland! I still can't find the files.
* Unzip anything, it moves the file inside the zip to the outside, and leaves the zip with 0 bytes (nice way to loose your files)
And the list keep growing everyday, total of 2700 bugs send with the automatic bug report, and can't send manual errors because of the great broke bug report.
Latest build is error free... (Score:3, Funny)
Folder Art (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, why?
Re:Folder Art (Score:3, Insightful)
Just Plain Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
As you can see that machine is very capable by today's standards.
I did a clean install without any other partitions. The install went well. After it booted up and I was able to work with it I noticed there was a driver for the video card but there was no AERO interface features. I searched and searched to see if I could find a spot to force it on. After some searching I found nothing.
I also found that the wireless card was essentially non-functional. This was also very disappointing. I connected up a wire and installed the nvidia drivers that were available for Vista. I managed to get to the internet and do all the updates where Microsoft's online update finally found a driver for the wireless NIC. I installed that and rebooted. After booting the OS reports that the connection for this is limited or has no connection.
I worked with it for a while. I looked and looked for video drivers that might provide me with the AERO interface. I also looked and looked for drivers and found none.
Most of the chipset drivers I had to use were older XP drivers. It was a serious hassle trying to get and install vista drivers.
I let that machine sit for some time but went back to it periodically to try to learn more about the interface. Networking sucked pretty bad. I couldn't find drivers for some devices. The lack of the AERO interface indicated that this was just XP with a new face. Sure there was IE 7.0 but I had given up on IE long ago in favor of Firefox. I looked at the configuration screens. Confusing but everything seemed to be there. One thing to note is that there were too many ways to get things done. There was a high percentage of features that didn't work and it was obvious that even the screens that did pop up for configuration often had the old XP graphics--indicating they were just altering existing code to work with Vista.
I then received a copy of Vista in my AP subscription and as coincidence would have it I had just backed up and was whiping my main XP box which has a 64 bit 3200+, 1 gig of ram and gforce 6600GT, and a few hundred gigabytes of storage.
I did the install and found that I had the AERO interface. I liked it. After using it for a while I downloaded the beta vista drivers from nvidia. I installed them and the system seemed fairly stable. I did notice huge clunkiness to accessing files and folders and determined that it was the promise SATA drivers. I moved my connectors to a different set of SATA ports off the mobo and the clunkiness went away.
I used Vista for a few weeks and tried to test every piece of hardware--printers, cameras, networking, external harddrives (usb and eSATA). I tried the microphone. Tried burning CD/DVDs. Tried flashcard readers, etc. Most everything worked. The only issue I had was with the file access. Opening a drive could take 30 seconds. Opening a folder after that another 30 seconds, clicking back another 30 seconds. Closing and reopening. More 30 second intervals if it even opened them at all. It didn't matter if it was my IDE drivers, my SATA or eSATA. It was incredibly slow. Often times it would lock.
No, Vista is FAR FAR from ready.
Re:Just Plain Bad (Score:3, Informative)
You need DirectX9-class video hardware to use the Aero interface.
Your GeForce4 is either DirectX8 (if it's a Ti series card) or DirectX7 (if it's an MX series card).
Re:Just Plain Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I can take the pain of a troll or flamebait mod, but from memory, this search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for the disappointment is what Windows has been like since 95. It kills me when I'm having Linux issues that are oftentimes obscure and rare and I'm talking with people that come from Windows backgrounds, they say, "Did you download the latest drivers?" "Did you reboot?" I bite my tongue and think to myself, "Real operating systems come with drivers and don't need chronic reboots for them to run. Rebooting means, not running".
Maybe I'm just getting old or spoiled by Macs, but is there an end in sight to the mantra of fetch driver and reboot and accept things as they are?
I don't reboot my car, and don't chronically have to update it, and search the web to drive it. I don't have to screw around with my timed thermostat for my house, search the web, reboot, and screw with it. I don't have to do this with my DVR which is a computer and works well. I don't have to do this with my Mac either.
IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes that just work like microwaves, car stereos, cars, and everything else. They are not a religion or a cult, they are appliances that do stuff.
I guess I am getting old, and I'll gladly take my sysadmin paycheck for monkeying with Linux, Solaris, BSD, and any other *NIX variant that gets the job done, but for general stuff, I'll just buy a computer that just works. No spyware, no viruses, no popups, none of that crap.
Why it matters this time around (Score:5, Insightful)
My impressions from beta 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not sure how Microsoft had the balls to call it a beta. I've used lots of MS betas and in the main they're quality products with a few bugs to iron out. Not this time around, this was alpha country. I've never seen such a lamentable effort. I knew within 30 minutes of playing around with it that there would be no release this year.
I don't care what anyone says... (Score:4, Funny)
Performance Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Mark Russinovich's blog http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/ [sysinternals.com] makes interesting reading.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Laughing out Loud at the Apologist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaaa, look at all the excuse making and shine on. While the problems he's having are very funny from a man who so often uses the phrase, "just works" [google.com] to describe things that don't, the double think involved is disturbing. What does it take to cure a fanboy?
Businesses have never lined up to install a new Microsoft operating system. They always install new Windows versions gingerly and years after the fact. We're all familiar with the "wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1)" mantra that many enterprises extol.
XP is on Service pack 2 but Windoze 2000 is still the most used "enterprise" desktop OS. Why? Because M$ has not added anything of value in six years. Conservative practices are not an adequate excuse here.
beta testers never think any Windows version is ready: If we left the ship decision to testers, we'd still be testing Windows XP.
The beta testers are right. With rooted Microsoft machines making up 80% of the world's spam, we can say that no version of their OS is ready, despite the newest being six years old.
I'm not sure what issue he has with this attitude. It takes non free software to create software elitism and it's all based on someone else calling the shots for you.
And then there are the online pundits, many of whom are barely old enough to legally buy alcohol. These guys are classic. Let's just say that a lack of experience and a strongly worded opinion don't result in the most coherent of arguments and leave it at that.
Once again, what a hypocrite.
We might call Windows Vista a "train wreck" for simplicity's sake. But it's getting better. Seriously.
Others have noticed he does this every release, [slashdot.org] shilling to get people ready to buy second rate.
[bad GUI complaints] So you open Network from the Start Menu and wait ... and wait... and wait... while the damn thing finds all your networked PCs and servers. In XP, this process is instantaneous.
Instantaneous? Microsoft's brain, dead Netbios broadcast based networking protocol has never been instantaneous, quick or reliable. They made it complex in a failed attempt to keep others from being able to work with it. It compares very poorly to something like sftp through konqueror, where you can use organized bookmark folders to very quickly, securely and reliably reach any computer on the your LAN or the whole freaking internet. It looks like the networking in Vista still sucks despite the all the .NET hype.
Photoshop Elements 4 has literally gotten worse over time. Now, some key functionality simply doesn't work or, oddly, only partially works.
Is that an apologist reflex reaction, or what? M$ changes, product_x stays the same, but product_x has "gotten worse over time". I know what he means, but the language is amazing. Why can't he just say that vista changes broke Photoshop? He knows that lots of other programs are going to be broken too and that, as usual, everyone will have to replace all of their software when they buy a new computer if they want to maintain their current functionality.
As an aside, I wondered if GIMP would have the same problems. he does not seem to have ever tried or mentioned that program [google.com]. How funny.
In IE 7, the rich edit control that forms the basis of the third party ActiveX control we used to post article bodies not only doesn't work, it is actually deprecated in Vista so that it will never work, even if you manually install it. That means
Re:Is it ready? no. so? (Score:3, Interesting)
F/OSS beta's are basically feature complete and are being error tested.
MSFT beta's don't even have the full feature set yet and are being error tested while new or rewritten componets are being set into place for the first time.
I have been using Firefox since the 0.3 days of Phoneix. Since that time it has maybe crashed 2 dozen times. Can you say the same about ANY MSFT product?
Re:Vista? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anecdotal evidence an argument does not make (Score:4, Informative)
And how many XP boxes have you supported? Just because you have programmed on a box or two doesn't mean there are problems.
Take it from a the peeps who do front tech support on the phones and at the corporate offices who have expirence problems from hundreds and possibly thousands of users on Windows XP... I can't remember these days since I've worked for so many tech houses)
WINDOWS XP HAS ISSUES!
And that is being kind. To be fair it is quite a great deal more stable than Win95, Win98, WinME, but there was some real growing pains between Win2000 and WinXp (so much so many corp IT houses still keep many boxes as Win2kPro)
But have you ever expirenced a dead WinXp TCP/IP stack? Windows 2000 didn't seem to have much of a problem and if it did it could be repaired... May god help you if your WinXp stack went bad in 2001 because no one knew what the hell to do. These days... As long as you have google you can get a tool on a CD pretty quickly to fix this. Not to mention the blaster virus that hit windows before SP2. That got us pretty good.
And supporting USB drivers and crappy firmware locks... Yes I have seen WinXP bluescreen multiple times on multiple computers in corporate environment.
That said...
Windows XP isn't that bad today (given the massive amounts of patches). It saved us a whole heck load of trouble since it has native CD burning software and PPPoE built in and the restore points often saved our butts all the time.
Heck... A decent Dell with WinXP on it is quite stable and chances are you'll not see a bluescreen anytime soon.
But don't you dare tell me that Windows XP never had problems when it came out... Because it did and caused many corporate IT desk, General helpdesks, and computers shop technicians a ton of grief!
Re:Vista? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Maybe learn how to use windows? If that were truly the case, there would be far, far, far more outcry than there is. It's stable (not secure), that's all there is to it. Instability is more often caused by 3rd party drivers.
"When will people realize that Linux is easier to use... "
- When it becomes true.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is insightful?! (Score:4, Informative)
As for the second, I doubt you will be allowed to get to define what "easy to use" is. It's not Windows.
MacOS, maybe, but not Windows. I won't say that Linux is "easy to use" (It is, but that's a different
discussion altogether...)- but that it's about as easy to use as Windows, it's just different than it in
some ways and many find that "Different" is "Difficult", whether it is or not.
Is any of your post "insightful" like the mods claim it to have been? Nope.
Re:Vista? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista? (Score:3, Funny)
ciao
Re:Vista? (Score:3, Interesting)
To use customer calls as a source of evidence that Windows XP is unstable is rediculous. I would wager that 80% of Windows users are more destructive than productive if left to maintain their own systems. The fact that most people who install and use Linux systems are part of the other 20% (technical users) explains why you might not get calls about broke
Re:Vista? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure how many hotfixes and patches OS X has had but my guess is that's an unfair statement. There have been countless updates that don't constitute a service pack. In fact when I install from my XP cd, I have to first get an update to the updater, then around 15 updates, then SP2, then 15 more updates. Not to mention the bi-weekly security update. On this note XP would closer
Re:Vista? (Score:4, Interesting)
It works fine. I think a lot of the Vista re-designs and such have been to address the problem of "why would any volume license customers upgrade?" They've been having this problem with office since '97 (hence the dinosaur ads)
It's a larger problem in closed source software : eventually if you are successful, you dominate the market with a pretty functional product, and suddenly you're your own biggest competitor. There are a number of techniques to deal with it. Breaking compatibility is a classic (cough - Apple). Arbitrarily rearranging your interface (cough - Adobe) to force training headaches on your customers is another. Microsoft has generally had the benefit of a very fast moving target platform - generic x86 hardware - to make OS upgrades really needed. But computers are more similar to themselves 5 years ago than they ever have been, and XP is a flexible enough system that its unlikely that major changes around the corner will render it suddenly unusable.
Sure Vista will sell - nearly every new PC that is sold sells a copy of Windows, and in the long run, offices will probably have to upgrade - MS can offer cheaper service contracts or whatever. But the real question here isn't if Vista will generate sales, its if it will sell the slow but noticable drift toward Apple (just look at those laptop numbers) in the end-user market and Linux in the corporate market, and if it will have enough hard-to-reproduce features to prevent someone (google, IBM, some "anyone but microsoft" coilition) from releasing an actually functional-for-dummies desktop linux.
One wonders what MS would be looking like if Dell etc. weren't bribed into not offering OS-less PCs. Shouldn't I be able to use the XP license I had on my old machine on the new one I buy?