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Vista SP1 Released to Manufacturing 397

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the help-is-on-the-way dept.
Reverend Ninja writes "According to the Windows Vista team blog, Windows Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing. It appears we'll have to wait until mid-March to play with it though, as the team cites that they want everyone to have a 'great install experience'. 'Service Pack 1 brings new improvements that are based on feedback we heard from our customers. It further improves the reliability and performance of Windows Vista. The information we collect thanks to tools like the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Online Crash Analysis, and Windows Error Reporting help us learn about where and when customers are having issues with Windows Vista and the applications that run on it. Since these issues have a direct impact on our customers' experiences, we've invested time and energy to make this better. While Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is an important milestone, we will continue to invest in the continuous improvement process.'"
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Vista SP1 Released to Manufacturing More

Vista SP1 Released to Manufacturing

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  • I'm tired of the euphemisms (Score:3, Insightful)

    by trolltalk.com ( 1108067 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @05:52PM (#22298366) Homepage Journal

    the team cites that they want everyone to have a 'great install experience'.

    Come off it already. "great install experience" ... hey, its not a f*cking condo timeshare!

    And just to show that I'm not reserving my spleen for venting on Microsoft, This is as stupid as the naming conventions that have taken over in the open-source world, calling different versions by weird names,, like 'Gutsy Gibbon'.

    • Re:I'm tired of the euphemisms (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:01PM (#22298514) Homepage
      This sort of crap has been going on a while now with every company trying to talk up the most trivial action into sounding something earth shattering or life changing. HOw many companies now just have a product? Not many , most have a "mission" or a "vision" in the hope that this juvenile over emphasis of everything will somehow fool people into thinking they're really some sort of spin off of the SAS or some high brow philosphical deep thinkers , rather than some shitty little cleaning services company or whatever. Everyone apart from marketing morons and some middle management still stuck in the early 90s is sick of it.

    • Re:I'm tired of the euphemisms (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:06PM (#22298596)
      I always smear Crisco on my lover's asshole, because I want him to have a 'great install experience'.

    • Re:I'm tired of the euphemisms (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jo42 ( 227475 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:07PM (#22298622) Homepage
      I have come to the conclusion that language such as this, that of advertising, marketing, that of middle- and upper-management and politics is simply the language of the uber incompetent. In other words - make it sound important and significant to make it look like they know what they are talking about even when they don't have a frickin clue.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wizardforce ( 1005805 )

      Come off it already. "great install experience" ... hey, its not a f*cking condo timeshare!

      funny you mention that, it was always my understanding that Microsoft made the point that your OS isn't really yours, ie you're just buying a license to use it- true you're not really sharing the time on your OS with anyone else but you did effectively buy the time you do have from MS.

      This is as stupid as the naming conventions that have taken over in the open-source world, calling different versions by weird names,,

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by kongit ( 758125 )
        They told me the name of the OS I am using is Gutsy Gibbon. I tend to differ. I call my OS GLaDOS. I have had a great install experience and I am still alive. Now excuse me I need a piece of cake.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Adambomb ( 118938 )
      Meh, the ubuntu convention is just the hurricane naming system alliterated.

      Also agreed that theres no particular purpose for such strange naming notions beyond baring ones excessive elitism to the wide world.

    • How can they change the install experience now? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm with you. . . if they've started manufacturing discs of Vista SP1, isn't it a little late to be worried about a "great install experience"? I can only guess that what that means is they are burning what they've got now to discs, but they want to have a mini-service pack ready to roll-out with Windows Update as soon as people install SP1. . . "Thank you for taking an hour to upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1. In order to complete the installation process, Vista needs to connect to Windows Update to downloa
  • Of course this should be just as stable as Vista was originally. Anyone have bets as to how long before a significant program of widespread use is broken, or Vista breaks itself with SP1? I give it about 5 minutes following release.

    Beyond that, has there been any actual basis showing that SP1 (of the testers) adds any form of significant performance enhancements? Last I read about improving Vista performance people basically said "turn off everything that differentiates vista from XP"

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I performed the SP1 RC Refresh 2 installation on Saturday it went smoothly and without any hitches. Vista performance seems a little perkier (although TBH, I never had significant performance issues before hand either).

      In any case, I dunno how much more work this SP will need since I haven't experienced a single problem with it during or after installation.

      Next weekend I'm going to try the XP Service Pack 3 installation and see how that goes :)

      -AC

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      To speak to the question about performance: Vista SP1 is still certainly slower than Windows XP. Our group did purchase some high-end testing software and that does show that SP1 performs a little bit better than RTM (and not that magical 10% that people notice; much lower than that). However, it does noticeably improve battery life (on the order of 30 minutes for many users).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kawahee ( 901497 )

      Anyone have bets as to how long before a significant program of widespread use is broken

      That's quite tongue-in-cheek since an xorg-server-core update broke half a dozen applications of widespread use in about 5 seconds [launchpad.net]. Microsoft has a much more thorough testing process, and a much larger testing base. The public beta method Microsoft uses means that nobody should have trouble with the service pack once it's installed correctly. Also, one of the ideas behind Vista SP1 is increased compatibility:

      Application

  • IIRC, torrents of Windows Vista appeared within about fifteen minutes of the RTM. Anyone have a link to SP1?
    • you didn't search thepiratebay.org before posting right? The supposed RTM of SP1 has been up for a few days, at least that's what I've heard... The question is whether it is legit, and more importantly, whether if its not the RTM version, will it successfully uninstall so the real RTM can be installed without reinstalling Vista. That's the real question.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by PhxBlue ( 562201 )

      Anyone have a link to SP1?

      Yes.

  • Hard Evidence Of Vista Poor Sales and Performance? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04, 2008 @05:58PM (#22298454)
    I've used a Vista machine at work for a little while now and don't really see it for being anything other than just another Windows version with cosmetic changes for the types of functions I use it for. I am mystified at the claims made about the operating system. Does anyone have any actual evidence that:

    Sales are actually worse than previous Windows versions?

    Actual poor performance on systems that actually meet the minimum requirements?

    Problems with apps or games that weren't fixed with updates?

    Security or virus problems?

    Or any of the seemingly million other problems the operating system is claimed to have?

    • I personally have experienced none of the problems you mention.
      In fact, I haven't had any problems with XP, 2000, NT, CE, 98, 95, 3.11, 3.1, 3.0, DOS 3.3 either.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bryansix ( 761547 )
      Actual evidence, no. Anecdotal evidence, yes. The Graphic designer here installed Vista (that was a mistake) and it brought his computer to it's knees. The problem was in the indexing service. I doubt they have fixed this but I don't know because he reverted back to XP. Also note that the actual minimum requirements are for the Home Basic version which doesn't actually have any of the "features and improvements" so touted by Microsoft. Therefore if you have the minimum requirements but not the requirements

  • Real info instead of speculation (Score:5, Informative)

    by dfn_deux ( 535506 ) <datsun510@gma i l .com> on Monday February 04, 2008 @05:58PM (#22298456) Homepage
    Notable changes in SP1 [microsoft.com] Hot fixes and patches rolled up in SP1 [microsoft.com] Release Notes document [microsoft.com]
    Unlike most of the chatter I've read on /. I've been mostly satisifed with my Vista install so far. The only real problems I've experienced is the repackaging of some of the SDK tools such as graphedit which used to be available as standalone, but the 64 bit vista specific version is only available as part of a multi-gig sdk download... Also some vendors have been slow to ship good drivers although I suspect that MS requiring a 64 bit for the "vista compatible" label and not requiring a 32 bit version will in time result in a better driver base.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I liked this part best:

      SP1 also includes updates that deal with two exploits we have seen, which can affect system stability for our customers.

      The OEM Bios exploit, which involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on copies of Windows that are pre-installed by OEMs in the factory.

      The Grace Timer exploit, which attempts to reset the "grace time" limit between installation and activation to something like the year 2099 in some cases.
      Thank go
    • I have the 32bit-x86 version, and my only issue was with UAC and the virtualization. After turning it off and on a couple of times(so apps could install etc), my registry permissions were a total mess, nothing made sense anymore, applications couldn't write or save things, its was horrible(and many others have had this same problem). Then i found a way to turn off UAC AND the virtualization and now it acts just like WinXP.. Much more happy now and the only other issue i have is with my Logitech USB headset

  • 50% Faster? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:02PM (#22298530)
    Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] claims that file copies are now 50% faster in SP1.

    It should only take 65 and a half years, instead of 131 [theregister.co.uk], to copy 168 Mb of pictures now. What a great feature! :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RonnyJ ( 651856 )
      That article's a good example of people bashing Vista just because they can, and probably because it gets page hits.

      Look at the bottom screenshot in the article - '36843 days remaining'. The article presents that as being an incredibly slow transfer on Vista SP1 (i.e. implying that the problem hasn't been fixed in SP1). However, the progress bar in the screenshot, at about ~70% complete, clearly shows that it's a cosmetic issue with the remaining time reported.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dave562 ( 969951 )
        I'm reminded of installing the OSX 10.5 upgrade on my MacBook. The first time estimate told me that there were over four hours remaining on the install. At about twenty-five percent complete that estimate was down to two hours. I'd think that given that we are now in 2008, the fact that time estimates on CPU intensive tasks are always wrong should be codified into the geek knowledgebase at this point.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ashridah ( 72567 )
      Yeah, that particularly overly inflated number will be adjusted to have a sane estimate and performance [technet.com] in SP1.

      It's true that pre-SP1 had issues with copying lots of small files in some situations, but most of the other performance problems were often perceived, not actual, problems, since XP did things like closing the copy dialog before it had actually written the last byte to disk, for instance.

    • Re:50% Faster? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SilentOneNCW ( 943611 ) <silentdragon.gmail@com> on Monday February 04, 2008 @08:05PM (#22300322) Homepage
      Actually, that would be if it's 100% faster. 50% faster means it'll only take 98.25 years.

  • So how many 5 year old bugs fixed in SP1? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:03PM (#22298546) Homepage Journal
    Inquiring minds want to know ...

  • A sprig of parsely on a steaming turd (Score:3, Insightful)

    by david_craig ( 892495 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:04PM (#22298574) Homepage
    Am I becoming excessively cynical for thinking that SP1 for Vista was rushed out the door for marketing reasons?

    It's common for people to wait for the first service pack before moving to a new software platform (not just Microsoft's), and I've seen in their marketing they've been attempting to address the "myth" (http://www.microsoft.com/australia/vistafacts/fact.aspx [microsoft.com]) that Vista won't be ready until SP1.

    I'm predicting that SP1 will just be a bunch of already released hotfixes bundled together and won't do much to cover up the stench of excrement the product exudes.



    I'm sorry that this is slightly flamebait, but I don't like Microsoft's products that much and I'm still bitter that my employer forced me to install Vista on my work laptop.

  • Question for dev team (Score:5, Informative)

    by Enlarged to Show Tex ( 911413 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:05PM (#22298584)
    Why do you need a 'great install experience' when you can just force the update on your userbase?

    • Re:Question for dev team (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:18PM (#22298814) Journal
      Excellent question. And the answer is: because otherwise your users won't know what a great thing they got - they wouldn't notice a damn thing at all. But if it's all nicely wrapped in bells, whistles and shiny ribbons with bright letters reading "Vista SP1", then they will have that warm and fuzzy feeling of having something new, valuable, BETTER.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Your.Master ( 1088569 )
      RTFA

      He's referring to the fact that some drivers still have issues, and systems with those drivers will not have a push install even if they opted into it. Until those issues are fixed. Hence, great install experience.

  • We use SP1RC1 in a lab of Vista machines (Score:5, Informative)

    by fishthegeek ( 943099 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:08PM (#22298642) Journal
    and it doesn't appear to have helped reliability or performance as far as we can see. We still have TrendNet wireless nics that will not work using Vista drivers on a factory install of the OS. We still have file copy operations that should be timed with a calendar. We have Vistafied versions of applications that generate interestingly cryptic "unable to assign resource" errors.

    I hope that any changes between RC1 and RTM are actually going to deliver on those promises they keep making.

  • Default settings (Score:3, Funny)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:09PM (#22298668)
    1 Uninstall Firefox

    2 Uninstall iTunes and any non Windows players

    3 Uninstall Open Office

    4 Update Vista

    5 Max Firewall settings
  • I'm no Microsoft apologist, but I do think the unbridled hate that pervades /.'s reaction to every single Vista article is a bit out of hand. Maybe this will help stem the tide of Vista-bashing. Sure, Vista kinda sucks, but all Windows versions kinda suck. I think most people who are ripping on Vista for being the operating system anti-christ are forgetting how badly XP sucked pre-SP1, and even pre-SP2. 7 years ago, the chorus of "OH MY GOD XP IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN 2000! THERE'S NO NEED TO UPGRADE!" in every XP article's comments were eerily similar to the ones you hear now every time Vista gets a mention.

    Vista's maturing, and as it does it'll become a better operating system, and everyone will benefit, even if they don't use Vista. Microsoft still competes largely on the basis of being a de facto standard. Vista's release has caused them to lose this edge somewhat, and the window has opened for their competition, who compete mostly on features, to get a little lazy (Leopard, anyone?). Microsoft competing more vigorously on their stale plank, assuming they don't magically find traction they've been unable to find for years, can't do anything but help the products on the market.

    Okay, now it's time to cue the million responses calling me a Microsoft shill. Suggested topics: "There really was no reason to upgrade from 2k to XP, I still use 2k just fine," "Vista is beyond repair because of DRM," and "Vista is way more broken than Leopard, how dare you rip on OS X."

    • Re:Now can we all please just shut up about it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:27PM (#22298948) Homepage Journal
      As I've stated many times in many places, I'm largely OS agnostic. I have Solaris, Linux, Mac OSX, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista at my disposal. I'm fairly happy with Vista so far. Despite the hate and FUD you see here it works fairly well, and the initial problems with drivers have been largely sorted out. It really is in many ways a replay of when XP shipped. The difference is that now there are real alternatives and the competition is a bit more.
      • I'm OS agnostic as well, but Vista seems to be as rough around the edges as any other OS.

        My Vista install occasionally picks a default route of the router and 0.0.0.0 (yes, two default routes), especially after hibernation.

        Running "route delete 0.0.0.0 & route delete 0.0.0.0 & ipconfig /renew" seems to do the trick, but really, you'd think a decent DHCP client would be essential when *everywhere* uses it... Two "Reliability and Performance" patches have made squat of a difference.
        • I didn't say it wasn't as rough around the edges as any other OS. I just said I was fairly happy with my Vista Machine.

          I'm fairly happy with my Mac too. I'm also fairly happy with my *nix boxen. They all have faults but they also all have uses.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jase001 ( 1171037 )
      This IS why people did not get XP before sp1. The product wasn't good enough at the time. MS is kind of admitting that Vista isn't what they hope, because MS where discussing Windows 7 (or what every they will call it) so early after the Vista release. Vista still seems like a Windows ME to a lot of people. May be future service packs will reverse the view? However all this back tracking on MS's part leaves them open to the competition.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jollyreaper ( 513215 )

      Vista's maturing, and as it does it'll become a better operating system, and everyone will benefit, even if they don't use Vista. Microsoft still competes largely on the basis of being a de facto standard. Vista's release has caused them to lose this edge somewhat, and the window has opened for their competition, who compete mostly on features, to get a little lazy (Leopard, anyone?). Microsoft competing more vigorously on their stale plank, assuming they don't magically find traction they've been unable to find for years, can't do anything but help the products on the market.

      I can accept birthing pains when bringing a revolutionary new product to the world. Unfortunately, I think the midwife confused the baby with the afterbirth.

      I'm no software multi-billionaire but I don't really see an excuse for Vista having so many warts and rough edges, especially considering that it brings little new to the table. Microsoft has billions of dollars, they're not really beholden to anyone. If Vista really needed another year or two of polishing, why did they release early? Why couldn't they

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Allador ( 537449 )

        I'm no software multi-billionaire but I don't really see an excuse for Vista having so many warts and rough edges, especially considering that it brings little new to the table.

        Vista is massively re-engineered under the hood, compared to XPSP2.

        Anytime you make significant changes like this, alot of things break. This was one of the rare times (especially on the x64 versions) where microsoft has done 'the right thing' and broken tons of back compat in the name of a better product.

        Just the fact that the bulk of drivers are now out in userspace is huge, and is causing lots of pain from IHVs who arent very good at writing drivers.

        This whole Vista thing was an investment in the futur

    • Re:Now can we all please just shut up about it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jcnnghm ( 538570 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @07:16PM (#22299670)
      The reason vista gets harped on so much is because it's a dog. I reinstalled XP a couple of days ago, because I had finally had enough of Vista after almost three months of usage. Before I reinstalled, I had disabled UAC and Aero to increase the responsiveness. The only feature I really liked was the searchable start menu, so I installed Launchy on XP and I couldn't be happier. When I type a command in launchy, the results are instantaneous, no Vista lag. Running XP with the same applications, at idle I am using under 2% CPU and about 700MB of memory. With Vista, my CPU usage was pretty steady at 20-30% with memory usage of about 1.4GB for the same load and software.

      Before I reinstalled XP, I installed Ubuntu to try to run Linux on the desktop again. After I got my video cards and monitors working, and finally got Compiz to function properly, I was quite impressed by the performance. Even with the effects enabled, the system was functional and responsive under load. I suspect this can be attributed to a properly designed kernel. Additionally, the Ubuntu people get a lot right, like the installation procedure (done from the Live CD, I browsed the internet while it installed), non-free driver installation and package management. Multiple monitor support was a total PITA to set up, but worked as I would have expected once configured. Unfortunately, Compiz doesn't work properly with xinerama so I reluctantly switched back to XP.

      Vista isn't like the early days of XP at all. I switched to XP before SP1 from 2k, and while the performance was slightly lower, I thought that the additional application compatibility was worth it. In other words, where XP ran the software I was used to using on 95 and 98 better than 2k, Vista doesn't seem to run anything better than XP. Indeed, at this point I think it would be considerably easier to transition to Ubuntu than to Vista, so long as the majority of the desktop applications you use regularly are free software, and you don't have a nonstandard (more than 1 graphics card) monitor configuration.

    • Re:Now can we all please just shut up about it? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brre ( 596949 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @07:36PM (#22299966)
      Those of us who have used dozens of operating systems over the course of decades are underwhelmed when a commercial shipping OS in 2008 is given the supposed praise of "it's maturing!"

      That's appropriate praise for an experimental operating system that a few grad students have been hacking on for the last year or so.

      What would it say about Toyota if its fans were reduced to saying things like "that new Camry runs pretty good now!"

    • Re:Now can we all please just shut up about it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by oogoliegoogolie ( 635356 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @07:57PM (#22300220)
      Did you ever consider the reason so many people have such negative opinions about Vista is because they have a valid reason? These "Vista sucks" statements are hardly unique to the Slashdot crowd, and websites and publications from all areas of technology have told users to stay away from Vista-that didn't happen to XP. It's not so much that Vista sucks, but rather people don't like vista because it is difficult to find something of value in Vista that you don't already find in XP. Vista adds little, but takes a lot away.

      XP was originally bashed for it's horrible color schemes. Vista is bashed because it has across the board decrease in performance. Game framerates are ~10-20% slower, file operations can be ridiculously slower, the system takes longer to boot compared to XP, vista can take as long to come out of sleep as it takes to boot up, and the worthless and annoying UAC, which is a poor copy of what is done so much better and with more logic on Kubuntu or OSX.

      I tried Vista for 6 weeks, found that it didn't offer anything much better than what was in XP, was frustrated with it's performance hit, so I got rid of it. I don't think it is terribly horrible OS, but really, what does it offer?

      Ok, so here is a question for Vista fans: What do you find good in Vista, and what do you like about Vista? I'm not trolling, but I never found anything of value in it, so I am just curious what is in Vista that you like better than in XP?

  • 2 SPs in, 1 SP out, WINDOWS CAGE MATCH '08 (Score:3, Funny)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:21PM (#22298854) Homepage Journal
    This week on WWE RAW we have the fight-to-the-death match of the century - brother against brother - OS against OS.

    Will the newly-upgraded Microsoft XP Service Pack 3 be able to take on its younger brother Vista with Service Pack 1 or will it be too old in the tooth to stand up to its sibling?

    In a fight scheduled to go several years and refereed by IT managers worldwide with the bragging rights of the very name "Windows" on the line, the world will find out which is the better OS.

    Stay tuned for

    Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3
    vs.
    Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1

    this week on WWE Raw.

  • 3 different programs for analyzing crashes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by InadequateCamel ( 515839 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:27PM (#22298946)
    "The information we collect thanks to tools like the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Online Crash Analysis, and Windows Error Reporting..."

    For a company so adept at spinning information into pro-MS propaganda (much like any big company, mind you), you would think that they would do a better job of obfuscating the fact that they have at least 3 different channels for collecting program crash information!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by westlake ( 615356 )
      you would think that they would do a better job of obfuscating the fact that they have at least 3 different channels for collecting program crash information!

      Online Crash Analysis takes you to the crash analysis site on reboot - and a plain English explanation of the problem and any known fixes. It is one reason why the BSOD jokes on Slashdot have gone stale.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )
      They're three distinct things, and Vista dropped OCA.

      WER handles the reporting of the errors (formerly called Dr. Watson)
      OCA handles the analysis of the reports, and informs the user of the results (Vista integrated this into the WER interface)
      CEIP reports usability data from certain applications, such as Windows Live Messenger, and doesn't collect program crash info.

      You talk about "pro-MS" propaganda, but you're the one desperately searching for things to shit on.

  • Reading the infospeak (Score:5, Funny)

    by SlowMovingTarget ( 550823 ) on Monday February 04, 2008 @06:28PM (#22298958) Homepage

    OK, so I'm trying to read the press announcement and my eyes keep glazing over. What I get is this:

    Service Pack 1 wank wank wank wank, wank-wank, wank-wank-wank. Wank wank new OnLine Blame Casting System wank wank, synergy wank-wank going forward.

    I really just want to know if they include the flying chairs screen saver. Although granted, Vista's DRM will kick in and turn the screen blank...

  • Anyone know the intentions on Microsoft when it comes to exFAT?

    Will it hold tight, like it has on NTFS, or allow cheap access to the net version of FAT?

    I want exFAT on OS X ...
  • I need a 64 Bit OS. XP64 is too unsupported, and Vista won't even install on my hardware (don't know why, tried everything, there's nothing odd about my setup though). Someone turned me towards Server2008, which I downloaded from Microsofts site right away. I haven't installed it yet, but wanted to ask the community what its pros and cons were compared to both XP and Vista.
    How would it fare as a workstation OS? Is it at all hampered by the memory hogging components that Vista uses? How about privacy?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )
      Its not getting much press as Vista or XP alternative because its freagin 5000$ or something (I'm making up the number, but thats about it), and is far too complex to be used by noobs. Windows Server 2003 and 2008 are locked down by default to the point of rediculous, so many non-sysadmin would get pissed off at the configuration needed to make it usuable as a desktop.

      Once you do though, its good as a development machine (since you said Workstation, I assume games and the like are not a priority). Scott Gut
    • Server 2008 is just Vista SP1 with different things installed and increased artificial limits. If Vista doesn't work for you, 2008 won't either. For what it's worth, I ran XP x64 since it was in beta and the only incompatible thing was an old printer - it's far from unsupported, though Vista does have a much improved x64 memory manager.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CompMD ( 522020 )
      I'm testing Server 2008 Standard (32-bit) in vmware on my workstation. I'm using it to do compatibility testing for my company's software. Its Vista minus some eye candy and is a little quicker I think. I have a 3.6GHz 64-bit Xeon, and I alotted 1GB RAM to the VM, and Server 2008 ran just fine.

      The bigger question is, what support problems are you having with XP64? Yes, there were major issues with it for a while (I have it on my workstation when I need Windows) but those have been fixed by now. Now I'm

    • Re:Server2008 vs. XP and Vista (Score:5, Informative)

      by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) * <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday February 04, 2008 @07:50PM (#22300130) Homepage Journal
      You might be pleasantly shocked by XP-64. I've got an MSDN subscription, so have pick of the litter when it comes to operating systems for kicking around. When I tried XP-64 June of 2005, it was a bit rough. I had 4G of RAM in my work / gaming box and figured it was worth just running the 32-bit version of XP and letting the OS round down to 3.5G.

      Parts for my new box showed up this week. This time, 8G of RAM, a dual core (E8400) CPU, nVidia 780i SLI mainboard, and nVidia 8800gts (512M). Since I went nVidia for chipset and video card, all of the 'box' hardware had drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, and Server 2003.

      Gave Vista64 (ultimate) a try. Gah...

      First, while I'm sure SP1 will probably fix this, the installer failed with 8G of RAM. Pulled out three 2G modules and all extra HDD's, and was able to continue on. OS installed, drivers picked up all of the mainboard/graphics hardware in a reasonable default mode. Had wired network access at that point, so downloaded the current drivers, which picked up all of the 'core' hardware. Plugged in the other HDD's and changed the SATA cabling. Blue screens again. Pull out the drives, put the SATA cables back in for the main drive, blue screen again. Took several reboots before I realized the Plextor DVDR (PX-712A) would cause a blue screen when the tray closed with a disk. Popped in a standard IDE DVDR, and got the rest of the system up and running.

      All the development tools and apps worked. Games (CS:Source, Supreme Commander, BFME2) worked OK. A few glitches in BFME on a long game.

      The final nail was USB devices. Figured I would blog about he new kit, so I plugged in my USB cord into my camera. Vista recognized it was a camera, but failed to do anything else. No drivers. Same went for *every* USB thumbdrive I owned. (Pics here [multiply.com])

      Gave up, after much messing about.

      XP-64 installed with 8G of RAM installed. Did not get the Ethernet running, but did mount a thumbdrive without issues. Installed the core set of mainboard/graphics drivers, did a windows update, and everything just worked. Not a single blue screen or crash under XP-64 so far.

      Server 2003-64 is also running rock solid. Just work stuff on that drive, however....
  • ... to have the service pack go RTM today and yet delay the release until a month later.

    Unless Microsoft aren't concerned about leaks and torrents.
  • Has anyone actually done an enterprise deployment of Vista? Give me the news that everyone wants. When is XP SP3 coming out? That's what everyone really cares about. That's the news Microsoft is keeping silent. They don't want enterprise customers to know that XP is viable.

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