Windows Vista RC1 Complete 292
alienfluid writes to mention that RC1 of Windows Vista is now complete. This 'nearly complete' version of the operating system is already available to beta testers, and will be available to everyone else soon. From the article: "You'll notice a lot of improvements since Beta 2. We've made some UI adjustments, added more device drivers, and enhanced performance. We're not done yet, however -- quality will continue to improve. We'll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM. If you are an ISV, RC1 is the build you should use for certifying your application."
Testing phase.... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh Crap, sorry forgot to turn the volume down.
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It is now safe to use your computer.
Touching hundreds of millions of lives... (Score:5, Funny)
"Bad touch! Bad touch!"
Re:Touching hundreds of millions of lives... (Score:5, Funny)
Where Vista Touched Me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Trackhead, point out on the doll where Vista touched you. . .
In the wallet, of course. M$ is going to waste $6.2 billion promoting what's looking more and more like XP SP3, super digital restriction. While I won't directly pay for that, many will. Schools, government and everyone not bright enough to use free software will pay. They will pass that cost along as taxes and higher prices. As Steve Baller likes to say, the upfront cost of software are just the beginning and all of the tremendous inefficiencies of Windoze will also be passed along in higher prices and poorer service. I don't even want to think of the costs to the economy that comes from Microsoft's inability to design a network safe OS are. All of the above easily adds up to multiples of M$'s annual net revenue.
Touching, Touching (Score:2)
We'll keep plugging away on application compatibility
Isn't it touching how loyal the Vista Dev Team is to Duke Nukem Forever? Real Soon Now, Vista will be ready for release! I mean, they even have a Release Candidate out!
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Three things:
1) If Microsoft didn't promote their flagship product, they would be fucking cretins of the first degree. You seem to think that just because you say so, they should just give up, if not actively say "Don't use Windows".
2) MS' operating profit is about 12.6 billion dollars. They're not going to spend almost half of their operating profit on promoting Vista.
3)
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Not my reference, but it is correct. Here [yahoo.com] is there last annual report. Right at the top is thier fiscal year 2006 revenue is 44,282 (in millions) so over 44 billion.
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Re:Where Vista Touched Me. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, technically they would be "new" to Windows Vista, if Vista were new, but since they DID NOT start from scratch, then I sadly have to conclude that the length of that page is nowhere near indicative of the number of features found in Vista. The wiki article is basically fluffed up with explanations, comparisons, explanations of comparisons and old stuff (from WinXP and before). What's more, the article seems to concentrate on Vista from a visual POV, so it lists every little graphical detail of everything ("Other features include check boxes for selecting multiple files. When renaming a file, Explorer only highlights the filename without selecting the extension.", etc.).
All in all, if you take out the fluff, the amount of "new features" shrink drastically. That's for 6 years of work.
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Excuse me? You must be comparing it to Vista, because its painfully obvious that Linux is WAY ahead of XP and everything before it. So for that I guess we will see.
Everyday I use windows and I use Linux. I could make a list several pages long about how linux is ahead of windows. The only thing I can think of thats going for windows is that it has drivers to more hardware, and even that i
Linux's notebook support is way behind Windows XP (Score:2, Insightful)
The last time I installed Ubuntsu on my Vaio Type U, suspend to RAM did not work at all. Furthermore, I found out that in order to use hibernation, I have to download the source code of Software Suspend 2, apply patches to the kernel source and recompile the kernel, which is quite ridiculous to demand from a user of a desktop OS. After the installation of the software, I found out that the performance of it is not as good as the hibernation function of Windows XP. Suspend to ram/disk is such a basic functio
Some companies don't deserve your money. (Score:4, Insightful)
The last time I installed Ubuntsu on my Vaio Type U, suspend to RAM did not work at all. ... Suspend to ram/disk is such a basic functionality, and I just could not believe that nobody figured out how to make it work without problems. Moreover, I had to struggle with configuration files for two days to make my Bluetooth adapter work.
Those are not Linux problems, they are Sony problems. Sony, obviously, knows how to make their hardware work which is why those things sort of work under Windoze. I say sort of because XP is neither stable nor network safe, so nothing Sony does for it will last long. It would be nice of Sony to put their effort where the market is moving or at least to give out the information needed for others to make drivers. What you really should ask is why it's possible to buy that computer with Windoze but not with any of the much less expensive alternatives. That's right, the anti-trust violations M$ was busted for years ago.
The best way to move the market and please yourself is to buy stuff that works. It takes research effort up front but you will recoup that many times over the life of the machine. More importantly, you send the only message markets understand: money. I'll research the specific model before I buy. The easiest research is to take a live CD to the store. If it runs and things work, I might buy the machine. Anything else is a gamble.
I've been happy with used thinkpads. I've gotten them from Certified Used and Local Stores. Power management works well with all of them with nothing more than Debian right out of the box. The machine I'm writing this on has a good 66 days of uptime under Etch and I booted it last only because I wanted to use it's optical drive to install to another hard drive. Sarge just never goes down. Anything from a PII with 256 MB and better is usable for normal everyday use, though I've migrated to 1 GHz class processors. All I miss are software related to video editing and accelerated graphics which are all patented and NDA'd to hell.
Re:Linux's notebook support is way behind Windows (Score:2)
Ubuntu's, maybe (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe I've had unusually bad experiences with it, and maybe my dislike of Gnome makes me biased, but I don't understand the popularity of Ubuntu. I certainly wouldn't introduce anyone to Linux using it. Besides SUSE, I've also used MEPI
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My Windows install "just works". Adding new hardware? It detects it and I insert the driver CD.
Fedora's a good distro, but I've always had to fight with it (or any Linux) to get, say, a DWL-520E to work.
Please see above.
Trackhead? (Score:2)
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> what
> what
> what
> what's my mission now?
Now what?
"One controversial operating system is Windows Vista. Critics charge that it's a perfect example of goldplating, in which the manufacturer tries to load every conceivable feature into the operating system, ignoring actual IT staff needs..."
I wonder what Steve Ballmer's rants would sound like if into Mind at the End of the Tether?
Release Candidate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Release Candidate? (Score:5, Funny)
Could be worst... (Score:5, Interesting)
Golden Master 2 (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Release Candidate? (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Montoya, you're on in 5... (Score:5, Funny)
"You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."
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MICROSOFT: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of time to finish it.
JERRY: But release candidate means you're nearly ready to ship. That's why you have a release candidate.
MICROSOFT: I know why we have release candidates.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, you'd done barring critical bug fixes. See, you know how to call something a release candidate, you just don't know how to *release* the candidate and that's real
Re:Release Candidate? (Score:5, Informative)
No, that is called a beta version. RC = Release Candidate means what it means. If no new problems are found by the testers, it will be the final release, or so it should be. RC version doesn't need to be bug free, but it shouldn't have any bugs that are marked as stoppers of the final release.
Re:Release Candidate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you could have lots of changes and fixes after RC1, but if you shouldn't have any changes and bug fixes *planned* for after RC1. When you label a build as a "release candidate", you're saying it's a candidate for release. If there's no possibility that you'll release that version as "final", then it's not a release candidate.
You might expect that you'll find some bugs in the release candidate, and that, if none of them are show-stoppers, you'll patch them after release. However, if there are known bug fixes or changes that must be completed before release, then there is no chance you'll actually release that build. therefore, it isn't a candidate for release, and hence it isn't a "release candidate".
I don't know why people don't understand what the term means. It seems self-explanatory to me. I guess Microsoft just doesn't want to admit that they're still in the beta stage.
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Well, it doesn't matter much, because we can all say that such-and-such released RC1 of their software, but it's really a beta. However, the words do have accepted technical meaning, and they shouldn't be used for marketing IMHO.
Google using the term "beta" however, I see that as a different issue. They are betas. Opening your beta testing doesn't keep it from being beta. Google's betas sometimes lack features found in the final and they are buggy sometimes, and the term "beta" serves to indicate that
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What you've said is basically in line with what I was saying. However, it's not an issue of ideals vs. reality. It's an issue of using a term for what it means vs. using it improperly. Here's a simple test: ask a developer of a particular build of his software, "If no huge, previously unknown bugs are found in this software, does this build go gold?" If the answer is no, then it's not a release candidate. It's just not.
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They are horrible drunks and do mean things like making windows ME.
Freeware? (Score:3, Insightful)
This 'nearly complete' version of the operating system is already available to beta testers, and will be available to everyone else soon.
They're making a release candidate available to everyone, or was this just the submitter being imprecise?
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Beta 2 is available to everyone...
Re:Freeware? (Score:5, Informative)
Beta 2 is available to everyone...
From microsoft.com: "Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista. The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience."
It looks like a limited number of beta testers for the beta and for the RC, not "everyone."
Re:Freeware? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think you're looking at the correct web site [thepiratebay.org].
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From the Vista Team Blog:
# re: It's Official: Windows Vista RC1 Is Complete
Friday, September 01, 2006 2:59 PM by nwhite
Hey everybody: just wanted to clarify that the TechBeta/TAP site is not open to the public, so RC1 is not currently available to you if you're not part of one of those programs.
**However,** we're planning to make RC1 available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers next week, and to
the general publ
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RC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:RC? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Complete? (Score:2)
Too late (Score:5, Funny)
Every one of us was a former Windows user, and had a copy of Windows 2000 or XP which they planned to run under Parallels for connectivity to our company system, but not one of them cared a fig for Vista, and nobody intended to run any kind of Windows natively with BootCamp.
I predict this will be Microsoft's biggest flop ever. You heard it here first.
-ccm
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Mods: WTF? (Score:2)
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So what do you think of the subscription model now?
Announcing... (Score:2)
GIF Product Brochure [geocities.com]
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Will Vista run on existing computers? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you recall, it was around this time a couple of years ago that we started hearing about the subscription model and Software Assurance. This was supposed to make life easier for everyone by giving Microsoft a continuous stream of money and receiving from them a continuous stream of the latest and greatest. But Vista, which was promised within the contract period of software assurance, is still months away, and corporations have basically thrown away money for no upgr
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I don't think the average person on the street understands DRM, and iTunes DRM is light enough so that it's never prevented me from doing something I wanted
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Right?
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that it's mandatory to have Vista to take advantage of DX10, and considering that DX has become a de facto standard in the gaming industry, lots of people are going to eventually be forced to port over to Vista.
I suspect there will be a lot of developers targeting DirectX 9 for many years to come, since the number of Vista machines will be so much lower than the number of Vista+XP+Me+2K machines. In any case, hopefully some of the developers wise up and move to OpenGL where they don't have to worry about MS refusing to support their graphics API improvements. OpenGL 2.0 will work on all of the above plus the PS2 and PS3 and OS X and Linux.
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But my college uses Microsoft. XP / Offce are the basics of what I support / install / repair.
When Vista arrives, it is inevitable that I'll be rolling it out college wide.
And big business? Well, they'll be doi
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After seeing what a major corporation went through to move from Win2K to XP (which was by far a less sweeping upgrade than what Vista seems to be), I can't imagine that big business will be migrating to Vista all so quickly. I can only imagine how many VB6 apps will have problems in Vista. From everythin
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Vista will not flop. It'll be pre-installed of every new machine come February 2007; the Microsoft Tax ensures a healthy install base. As for business, I think they'll transition mid-2007, at the latest, when we see the first service pack.
Many businesses will not be moving to Vista for a while still. Pre-installation means nothing for businesses. Businesses will keep requestiong XP (or in many cases, Win2000) from their vendor. It's not a big deal to do that, because most hardware vendors expect that
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Mom and Pop User will continue to buy generic PCs because of the cost, and because that's what they know. Come November or December, you won't be able to find a PC that doesn't have Vista on it. It will be a smashing success, just because it will be on 90% of the computers sold. It's called a monopoly. Even if techies and columnists say it's not worth the upgrade, people won't care. They got used to an underperforming
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Windows ME is Microsoft's biggest flop so far IMHO, and from my experiences from using the Pre-RC1 build, there's no way that Vista will come close to rivaling that. Beta 2 may have been disappointing, but Pre-RC1 has had a lot of positive feedback.
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Ok well as a counter point (Score:4, Insightful)
I realise that you may think you and 6 friends are a statistically significant sample, but you actually aren't.
My prediction on Vista is let's wait and see. Seems ot me most of those predicting it'll flop are doing so because they WANT it to flop, not because they've any real valid reason to believe it will.
Despite your perception, it does have many things going for it. One is simply that OEMs are going to switch and start shipping it. However these is legit reasons for people to be excited. Game devs are just going bonkers over DX10. Epic has already declared that while UT2007 will run just fine on DX9, you'll need 10 for all the features to work.
So ask yourself: Are your predicting failure because you have a real reason, or because you hate MS?
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That's not a prediction, that's called sitting on the fence, or not having the balls to make a call :D
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This one's a keeper. (Score:5, Funny)
And when I say "our" computers I trust you know exactly what I mean.
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*Than a shot-up brothel.
Oops (Score:5, Informative)
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If you can't fix the OS, then charge for certs for it.
It is the next part of MS EEE, MS EEEE. Embrace, extend, exterminate and then extort. Wait until they apply this stuff to music and video encrypting users files...
All this cert stuff when a checksum or PGP signature would have done it. But no money in that.
Linux - Live Free Of DRM
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Besides, how many "freeware/open source" driver developers are out there for Windows?
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Not to mention legitimate freeware projects like kqemu, the ext2fs windows driver, and so on.
The possibilities afforded by being
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Buy quality hardware with decent drivers, don't go for "beta" driver releases, and you're generally fine anyway.
I'd like the option to run *UN* signed drivers thanks - I know better than Microsoft what my needs/priorities are.
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And we all know what that mean... (Score:2, Funny)
At Microsoft, this can only mean one thing:
"Ship it!!!!"
translation (Score:3, Insightful)
Read: We're constructing dirty hacks into our newly written clean code so we don't upset our partners. This of course will cause the same side effects as with our previous versions, but hey... it looks better !!!!
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P.R. Terminology (Score:4, Insightful)
We installed it today (Score:2, Interesting)
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This doesn't sound like an amazing idea to me.
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This right off the bat means that he was probably on ANOTHER computer from which he could administer them, not that the systems themselves were on it.
Not done yet (Score:2)
Beta III (Score:3, Interesting)
The sadness does not hide the truth.
Vista prophesies from the classics (Score:4, Insightful)
In the groves of their academy, at the end of every
vista, you see nothing but the gallows. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
The shattered tower which now forms a vista from his
window. --Sir W. Scott.
[1913 Webster]
Rather fitting images for something screwing its users with WGA, DRM, etc.
Oh, please Apple execs... Please... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pull your heads out of your asses and sell OS-X for generic PCs. You could clean up at $300/copy. Virtually no marginal cost. It'll replace the iPod revenues you're losing because everyone who wants one, has one. But nooOOOooo. You're so hell bent on emulating the losing business model followed by Sun. Oh, please... what do we have to do? Fly out there, slap you in the face and put smelling salts under your noses? The gorilla has eaten a bad bannanna. He's down. He won't stay down forever. You'll look back on this, and you'll never forgive yourselves for not having kicked him while he's down, cuz you know he's gonna get back up.
Re:I just don't care anymore... (Score:4, Funny)
more like.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I just don't care anymore... (Score:5, Funny)
500 useless posts,
Mod one down to the ground
499 useless posts on the wall..
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I moved to Linux a few years ago and ....
I hear ya. There is one great part about Vista for Linux users though. All those old XPs will be on sale on perfectly good hardware as many want Vista "capable". Me, I am eyeing up a new AMD X2 ... juat think of all the patches we don't need to apply!
Virus infested spyware trojans adware != Linux
Gamers will move. (Score:2)
I'll be interested in trying out RC1. The beta2 build had a lot of problems with the install process. (I had to disable parts of my nforce4 mobo to get it to install fex.)
Hopefully they've got it working a lot better because (like it or not) a lot of people are going to be using it.
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But since you brought it up, I'd like to say that YES, it is much better. Why? Because we have a strong community that cares about the direction the product goes, not just PUSH IT ON EVERYONE.
P.S. - I'm not a fanboy. I'm just happy I don't have to go down the MS road anymore. Apple/Mac can kiss my ass, as well.
Re:Which version is this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Which version is this... (Score:5, Funny)
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Pre-RC1 (aka. August CTP) is build 5536. RC1 is build 5600.
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"Thank you for participating in the Windows Vista Beta 2 Customer Preview Program (CPP). Your help is playing a critical role in improving the overall quality of what we believe is one of the most important OS advances in the history of PC computing. As a participant in the Beta 2 CPP, you will be able to download Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) as soon as it becomes available.
In the mean time, we are inviting a limited number of CPP participants to help test a pre-RC1 bu
Save yourself the pain (Score:2)
Re:Windows Vista - So What? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm far from a MS fanboy, as the mini and Slackware boxes on my desk attest to, but if they make a significant improvement to their OS, I think the last thing they deserve is ridicule and derision. I also think statements like "I for one don't plan on giving Microsoft more money for their software until they release an OS that is totally useful and original." are just a reflection of the blind anti-MS zealotry that's too common here. You've just asked for a software panacea, and one that uses none of the metaphors and conventions that make desktop operating systems accessible to average users. Why not just ask them to prove the existence of God while you're at it? Sorry about the rant, but, Jesus, sometimes this place is like Michael Moore making a film about Bill Gates.
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Methinks such comparisons are not so black and white.
How about this one: