Windows Vista Thoughts @ [H] Consumer

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Windows Vista Thoughts - It seems as though Windows Vista Beta is on a bunch of folks Must Be Bashed Now list, but are we really missing the bigger picture? The biggest features of Vista have fallen off the radar and should not be ignored.

Is it my imagination or are all the pundits missing the boat?

PLEASE DIGG if you would like to share this article.
 
I'm definitely interested in Vista. An alternative to x64 that behaved better with older software would be most welcome.

However, I am definitely taking a "wait and see" approach. I used Win2k up until 2005, so I think I can manage with XP for a while.
 
I have had an interesting time with Vista, I downloaded the 32 bit version figuring i would maybe have better luck finding drivers and wanted to run it on my main work pc after reading that Mr. Chris Morley was having such good luck with it. Now I did not expect all of my "tools" to work properly and I also expected some growing pains. I will share a few of my interesting experiences here:

BTW here is what it is running on - AMD 4400+ oc to 2.442 ghz with 2 gb of Corsair XMS memory with 3-3-3-8 timings. A nice EVGA 7800GT, ASUS A8NSLI Delux, 74 gb raptor as main drive and 2 250 gb drives in raid 1 as my storage. Vista rates my machine at a 4 - not sure what the scale goes up to.

1. Antivirus - we run Symantec Corporate edition here and even after downloading the special Vista Beta version i was getting warnings that it was not running right and causing degraded system performance.

2. DVD Burning Software - IMO i love Nero 7 ultra edition, i have yet to find something that it cant do that i want it to, on XP its rock solid and runs great - You dont like it fine, i do so im writing about my experience - I attempted to install it on Vista and 2 different times it would just lock up at the final stage and not do anything.

3. Remote Desktop - I use remote desktop to connect to servers and manage them and it seems that Vista has added in some extra security features as everytime i try and connect to a machine it says that it is not trusted and asks if i am sure if i would like to connect which i do and it seems fine after that.

4. Microsoft Management Console - Most features here seem to work fine if you are trying to manage the local box, but i was not able to install the 2003 adminpak nor the Group Policy management Console because of lack of OS support and also because of lack of .net framework.

5. Hardware - Most of my hardware was detected but i have 2 unknown devices and ill be damned if i can figure out what they are....my best guess is they are related to the built in sound card on my mother board as i do have sound but i dont have the usual 5 different devices listed in device manager in that sub category.

6. Software - I initially had Office 2003 pro installed and it worked flawlessly but then was able to download the beta of office 2007. Before i installed office 2007 i had installed Acrobat Pro 7 because we make a fair amount of PDF's here and while office 03 was installed it worked fine but when i uninstalled 03 and installed 07 Word and Acrobat were both very unhappy. I still am unable to get word to function at all with acrobat pro installed while excel and power point seem to be working fine.

7. Other - I really enjoy the new user interface and i think it looks great. i do not really see the need to have a clock on the task bar and one on the desktop though i find myself looking at that one on the desktop more than i do on the taskbar. I have not got to explore much more of the video or photo portion of vista yet because about the time i get to play around in it i have to reboot back into xp to use my other tools.

Vista comes with a new OS loader, not real sure about the details of it yet but it is just more than a boot.ini because i was trying to get my OS selection at startup to default to XP (or the earlier version of windows as vista calls it) rather than vista and it doesnt like you messing with the boot.ini anymore.

I am a new anything junkie meaning that usually as soon as somethign new comes out i like to have one, especially when it comes to software. I think vista is a step in the right direction as it seems to have a ton of new security features in it. I remember thinking that 2000 was great before i moved to xp and now i love xp so i am sure that vista is just the next step in my progression.

Cheers! :D
 
Too bad all the under-the-hood changes in Vista are the types that are too subtle to be seen immediately. For all the complaining about how Vista is "just a cosmetic change", the same people don't take the time to delve into the internal changes.

It will be because of this that there will be great complaints like how Vista seemingly uses up great gobs of memory. The proper response would be to say that Vista has finally caught up with modern OS's or copied modern OS's memory allocation style. That is, use as much memory as cache as possible such that the system is fast and responsive most of the time.
 
I just worry about the new features they are adding in terms of web browsing. From movie previews of it, it looks like javascript++ and activeX++...... changes the whole way you browse the internet, and it seems way to active content orientated.
I bet many people won't notice these features yet, because websites have not coded to make use of this. Wait till vista hits the masses, and watch the **** hit the fan? I hope not, but I have a sinking suspicion it will.
 
For me the beta ran pretty well, games like hl2 etc ran fine and with no problems, opengl support seemed to be almost non existanct either in the beta or the ati drivers as doom 3 ran at about 10-15 fps and looked like it was running with all the shadows disabled and everything brighter in apearence.

I had to install my xifi drivers twice t get them to work for some reason, the indexing service got to be annoying, its good for the instant search function but my hard drive seemed to be constantly rumbling away in the background.

Im just hoping microsoft integrate opengl properly, last i heard they were going to "layer" it over d3d which would have meant a substantial performance hit, i don't know if this was ever reversed and resulted in it being integrated properly, that said really only id use opengl these days anyway and thats changed with them using the 360 as their primrary platform for developing games.

The ati slides also looked good with the latencies from directx9 beinh substantially reduced in dx10. Should be good for gamers. Only thing i dont like is the constant 3d desktop thing, from what i could tell my x1900 hadn't a clue if i was in a game or not, id go into a game and expect to hear the fan spin up and nothing, other times it would spin up some on the desktop. So either its running @2d clockspeeds all the time in the beta or the drivers dont yet know when to engage full 3d clockspeeds.
 
I did a clean install of Vista on a Dell optiplex 620 2.8ghz, 512 meg ram, radeon x300 64 meg video, soundmax onboard sound, 80 gig sata drive, broadcom netxtreme 57xx Gigabit ethernet and conexant d850 modem. I also installed Office 2007 beta on it and Avast AV since it's one of the few known to work.

I've spent around 6 hours checking things out. I haven't installed any other programs simply because I figured most programs aren't designed to run on Vista, plus I wanted to observe it's stability as it is.

Sorry I don't have time for a full blown review but I'll throw out a few observations and personal opinions.

They've made things prettier. Kind of like the way they made windows 2000 "prettier" with XP. A lot more fluff in that sense. Not neccessarily a bad thing, but most of us won't be happy that the result is an increase in memory requirements and cpu horsepower.

It appears to me they've tried to "dumb down" things to appeal to basic computer users as opposed to more knowledgable people like us enthusiasts. I prefer "detailed view" when browsing in windows explorer and I still prefer classic mode when in control panel. I want the choices directly in front of me and want to reduce the amount of double clicking as much as possible as opposed to 6 or 8 choices choices in control panel and having to drill down numerous areas. I'm sure in time as I become more familiar with the OS I'll figure out all the shortcuts to where I want to get.

A considerable number of new toys and gadgets in control panel and I like the choices offered.

After install completed most of the drivers were working except for the soundmax sound. It wasn't long before windows appeared to have automatically found the driver and installed it without my intervention. Stuff like that is pretty nice...provided it's the right driver. I've seen windows update bork a few sound card drivers in the past. I'm kind of surprised the user access control nag screen didn't ask me if I wanted to update the driver.

Speaking of which I disabled UAC after a couple hours. It just became too annoying. When I disabled that the computer became noticably more responsive (quicker) as well.

Things ran surprisingly well on this system. There was sometimes a slight delay in response time. Obviously related to my "limited" memory on the system. Memory usage was running 65-80% at idle. I ran defrag to help things along and I hope they put in a progress indicator on defrag because I hate not knowing how long defrag is expected to run when done manually. This OS is obviously more dependant on memory than it is cpu. So load up the memory when you run this OS. CPU is not as an important factor.

The system seemed surprisingly stable overall and I appreciate that Microsoft is trying to secure their systems. If it leads to less spambots on the internet then I'm all for it. Let's face it there are a lot of unknowledgable computer users out there and Microsoft has to design an OS with people like that in mind. Folks like us can always tweak things to our liking.

Overall I like Vista, but dissappointed with the high memory requirements. Of course in a couple of years most of us will be running 4 gig of ram and who knows what cpu, so it may not be such a big deal. They've made it a lot prettier and I can see they're trying to automate a number of things. I'm not too sure if I like that with the way things have gone recently with things such as WGA. As usual I'll probably wait for the first service pack before I make it my main computer. So it's going to be a couple years yet and I'm fine with XP for now.

One thing I thought interesting is the default administrator account is disabled by default. Hopefully a good idea provided the main admin account doesn't get trashed.

I think my biggest concern however is this trend with each OS release to simplify things for the basic computer user. I feel like someday down the road that the ability of enthusiasts to do our tweaking will be removed and we'll all be stuck with some sort of "dumb terminal" or sophisticated console.
 
For a while I bought into that whole MS sucks rhetoric. I bought a used PowerMac G4 and installed Tiger. I tried a couple of Linux Distros. But the one constant that I kept coming back to was I liked XP Pro better.

I started with Win95 and Win98 at work, then XP Pro at home, then 2000 at work, and finally XP Pro at work. and I undertand how Windows work. Every iteration of Windows was better than the last. I'm used to it 40+ hours a week at work, and another 20+ at home.

I like the GUI, I don't have to remember Command Lines simply to install a driver or a program. Yes, you have to have antiviral, anitispyware, antitrojan, firewall and so forth. So what? I keep my doors locked, my car locked. I have medical, dental and auto insurance. I see my doctor for a yearly physical even though I'm feeling fine. It's all part of life.

The Linux devotees need to get a grip on reality. There is no way in hell that Corporate America is going to spend the time, thus money to retrain all it's employees to use a "free" OS. The public isn't going to switch unless it's as easy to use as Windows, and it's nowhere near that yet. And the Linux people seem to be in no hurry to make it easier for the non-programmer.

And Apple, don't get me started. The world cultist springs to mind. I thought that before I tried Tiger, and even later, I still think that way.

The point is when Vista comes along, I will upgrade. Not right away but in 6 months or so. And I don't think I'll be sorry I did. Simply because I know it will be better than XP and XP is one damn fine OS.
 
Mister Natural said:
I did a clean install of Vista on a Dell optiplex 620 2.8ghz, 512 meg ram, radeon x300 64 meg video, soundmax onboard sound, 80 gig sata drive, broadcom netxtreme 57xx Gigabit ethernet and conexant d850 modem. I also installed Office 2007 beta on it and Avast AV since it's one of the few known to work.

I've spent around 6 hours checking things out. I haven't installed any other programs simply because I figured most programs aren't designed to run on Vista, plus I wanted to observe it's stability as it is.

Sorry I don't have time for a full blown review but I'll throw out a few observations and personal opinions.

They've made things prettier. Kind of like the way they made windows 2000 "prettier" with XP. A lot more fluff in that sense. Not neccessarily a bad thing, but most of us won't be happy that the result is an increase in memory requirements and cpu horsepower.

It appears to me they've tried to "dumb down" things to appeal to basic computer users as opposed to more knowledgable people like us enthusiasts. I prefer "detailed view" when browsing in windows explorer and I still prefer classic mode when in control panel. I want the choices directly in front of me and want to reduce the amount of double clicking as much as possible as opposed to 6 or 8 choices choices in control panel and having to drill down numerous areas. I'm sure in time as I become more familiar with the OS I'll figure out all the shortcuts to where I want to get.

A considerable number of new toys and gadgets in control panel and I like the choices offered.

After install completed most of the drivers were working except for the soundmax sound. It wasn't long before windows appeared to have automatically found the driver and installed it without my intervention. Stuff like that is pretty nice...provided it's the right driver. I've seen windows update bork a few sound card drivers in the past. I'm kind of surprised the user access control nag screen didn't ask me if I wanted to update the driver.

Speaking of which I disabled UAC after a couple hours. It just became too annoying. When I disabled that the computer became noticably more responsive (quicker) as well.

Things ran surprisingly well on this system. There was sometimes a slight delay in response time. Obviously related to my "limited" memory on the system. Memory usage was running 65-80% at idle. I ran defrag to help things along and I hope they put in a progress indicator on defrag because I hate not knowing how long defrag is expected to run when done manually. This OS is obviously more dependant on memory than it is cpu. So load up the memory when you run this OS. CPU is not as an important factor.

The system seemed surprisingly stable overall and I appreciate that Microsoft is trying to secure their systems. If it leads to less spambots on the internet then I'm all for it. Let's face it there are a lot of unknowledgable computer users out there and Microsoft has to design an OS with people like that in mind. Folks like us can always tweak things to our liking.

Overall I like Vista, but dissappointed with the high memory requirements. Of course in a couple of years most of us will be running 4 gig of ram and who knows what cpu, so it may not be such a big deal. They've made it a lot prettier and I can see they're trying to automate a number of things. I'm not too sure if I like that with the way things have gone recently with things such as WGA. As usual I'll probably wait for the first service pack before I make it my main computer. So it's going to be a couple years yet and I'm fine with XP for now.
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Great Points, I feel its going to force many people to build or buy new PC's. These people that buy the 300-400 dollar dells are not going to have a snow ball chance in hell running vista. It is also going to force the pc makers to build better pc's that will run vista. Each brand has a few models that can do so, but i think they will have to do more to fit vista into things in the next year or two.
 
Personally, right now I could care less about Vista. Maybe I'm weird but I like Windows XP Pro fine just the way it is. It has been very faithfull and stable and I know the system very well. Call me weird again but I like Internet Explorer 6 (and also Windows Media Player 10) just fine also. I have it set up the way I want it (nice and lean) and it does everything I want it to. I have a very robust system and it fits my needs. I won't say "never" as far as Vista goes, but I'm going to have to have a very serious reason to convert to it. I'm not happy Microsoft has chosen DX 10 to only work in Vista. I think that's BS! I'm a gamer so one day I may have to change to Vista just for that reason. I thought XP was light years ahead of 98 but so far don't see this for Vista vs XP Pro. I was resistant at first to change from 98 to XP but once I finally did, before too long I realized it was a dam good decision. Now I look back at 98 and wonder how I ever endured using it, XP is that much better. Will the same end up being true of Vista vs XP? Dunno, but I'm going to wait it out until I'm convinced either way. I'm not the type that just jumps on a boat because it looks cool or because it's the FAD these days. I'm going to make sure it's a better boat!
 
Mike89 said:
Personally, right now I could care less about Vista. Maybe I'm weird but I like Windows XP Pro fine just the way it is. It has been very faithfull and stable and I know the system very well. Call me weird again but I like Internet Explorer 6 (and also Windows Media Player 10) just fine also. I have it set up the way I want it (nice and lean) and it does everything I want it to. I have a very robust system and it fits my needs. I won't say "never" as far as Vista goes, but I'm going to have to have a very serious reason to convert to it. I'm not happy Microsoft has chosen DX 10 to only work in Vista. I think that's BS! I'm a gamer so one day I may have to change to Vista just for that reason. I thought XP was light years ahead of 98 but so far don't see this for Vista vs XP Pro. I was resistant at first to change from 98 to XP but once I finally did, before too long I realized it was a dam good decision. Now I look back at 98 and wonder how I ever endured using it, XP is that much better. Will the same end up being true of Vista/XP? Dunno, but I'm going to wait it out until I'm convinced either way. I'm not the type that just jumps on a boat because it looks cool or because it's the FAD these days. I'm going to make sure it's a better boat!
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That's what they said about XP...
 
personaly I really want to know more about how well DX9 vid cards will work with DX10 and DX10 games. I can't really upgrade my laptop since its not an MXM vid card in it.
 
I would think DX 10 games should play fine on DX 9 cards for awhile to come. If I'm wrong about that, it's going to suck bad. What I see happening is the same thing that happened with PCI express. Being Nvidia and ATI switching over to DX 10 cards and stop making top of the line DX 9 cards, ending up forcing the user to switch to Vista (if you want to keep up with the fastest vid cards).

I have kind of a radical view about something. I think Vista should just be made 64 bit only. Here we have 64 bit cpu's and a half hearted attempt to have a 64 bit OS. This half hearted atttempt has caused hardware and software manufacturers to be really slow with 64 bit. It's like no one is sure enough what direction to go. Meantime we got these 64 bit cpu's that are not being used to full potential. If we're going to make this OS switch, lets go all the way with it and go 64 bit with everything (which will force the manufacturers to get on the stick) and not do it half assed. The way it's headed right now, it will be 5 years plus before there will be 64 bit systems (everything on it running in 64 bit). It could be done quicker than that with the right plan. Microsoft doesn't seem to have it.
 
I am a musician and if there is a musical reason to run Vista then I'll probably upgrade to it. I am testing it out on another hard drive in my main machine as a dual boot configuration, but I still spend the vast majority of time in XP because all my audio programs run in XP. I'm not slamming Vista, but I'm not neccassirly praising it either. I really like XP and find it to be very stable for my music. I have never had a lockup or crash in XP with Krystal or Audacity or any other audio program I've tried.

I've heard that Vista is changing how the audio works, so if it will allow more tracks of audio or more simultaneous effects or something like that then I may upgrade. I just recently bought a new recording soundcard and if it doesn't get Vista drivers then I definitely won't upgrade for awhile. TO be totally honest with you, I could probably get along just fine with Windows 2000 in terms of my music. Krystal is just 16 tracks and I really can't see needing much more than that for what I do.

Lyquist
 
In regards to audio, a small but very welcome feature is the ability to change the volume of individual programs instead of a system wide change. It's little things like that that have made Vista sometime to be excited about for me. The one buzzkill is that i'm dreading the price announcement.
 
beanman101283 said:
In regards to audio, a small but very welcome feature is the ability to change the volume of individual programs instead of a system wide change. It's little things like that that have made Vista sometime to be excited about for me. The one buzzkill is that i'm dreading the price announcement.
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That will be very nice, i know i will take full advangate of that
 
My one issue with the article was this

once we have an OS to run them on.
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Okay Kyle, since you are listed as the author, exactly what do you refer to 64bit Linux as? Swiss Cheese?

We've HAD a 64-bit OS capable of running Shader Model 3 and Shader Model 4 titles for literal years now. To just gloss over it as though Microsoft is the only gaming system available is a flat out insult. To indicate that Developers need to wait on Microsoft is also an outright insult.

Unfortunantly... that happens to be the view that most publishers take. The chicken and the egg argument. Never mind the literal millions of Linux game servers that drastically outnumber Windows servers per platform. Never mind that most of those servers probably have enough power to run the graphics client for the game, it makes no difference to publishers.

Now, I'm not going to claim I know what it will take to get publishers to wake up, but waiting on Vista for what is here today just seems... stupid actually.
 
Saist said:
My one issue with the article was this



Okay Kyle, since you are listed as the author, exactly what do you refer to 64bit Linux as? Swiss Cheese?

We've HAD a 64-bit OS capable of running Shader Model 3 and Shader Model 4 titles for literal years now. To just gloss over it as though Microsoft is the only gaming system available is a flat out insult. To indicate that Developers need to wait on Microsoft is also an outright insult.

Unfortunantly... that happens to be the view that most publishers take. The chicken and the egg argument. Never mind the literal millions of Linux game servers that drastically outnumber Windows servers per platform. Never mind that most of those servers probably have enough power to run the graphics client for the game, it makes no difference to publishers.

Now, I'm not going to claim I know what it will take to get publishers to wake up, but waiting on Vista for what is here today just seems... stupid actually.
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I did not gloss over it at all.

On the gaming side of things, the simple fact is that once DX10 based games start hitting the market, you are going to have to have Windows Vista to run them all easily.
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The issue with 64-bit gaming is not that simple, the fact is that drivers and ease of use are the two major hurdles that stand in the way of Linux gaming. You can be insulted if you like, but the fact of the matter is that Linux and gaming are just not exactly the two easiest things to get together now days.
 
I honestly love XP. Have not had a crash in a long ass time even though Im overclocked.'

I decided to install Vista on a new 7200rpm lappy drive that I bought just for Vista.

Lappy specs:

Pentium M 2.0 533FSB
1GB 533 DDR2
ATI X300 128MB

XP is flying on this setup. Cant be happier, but Vista.....well its slow.( I know its Beta so I knew to expect problems) I admit I have not tweaked it yet, but there is a couple things that really annoy me. For one it hammers my HD like crazy. I have never heard my lappy drive before, but now its making sounds that make me cringe. Thought my drive was going bad, but I scanned it for errors and ran diagnostic tools on it and everything looks good.

It also takes too long to boot for my taste. After it boots its runs fine though.

Dont get me wrong. I like the new features and the look a lot, but will I buy it once it comes out?.......prolly not. And I always buy the new hot stuff that comes out.

I also think that we might actually see DX10 on XP since people will be really slow on upgrading to Vista. Look how long it took XP to be welcomed in every household.
Given that, Microsoft might be pressured into making DX10 available to XP owners.

There is a lot of money to be made on DX10 and if the cost of Vista holds some people back from upgrading. ATI, nVidia and a lot of game developers might get just a bit pissed.

I do ok for myself, but if I have to buy 2 new video cards and then spend min. of $300 to upgrade to a new OS that is still not as polished as XP is, Ill pass.

It will take a good part of 6 months to get all the bugs out of Vista once its released just like with XP IMO So a lot of people will be waiting until all the bugs are squashed before they dive into Vista, which translates into lost revenue for companies which are counting on DX10.
 
Deviationer said:
personaly I really want to know more about how well DX9 vid cards will work with DX10 and DX10 games. I can't really upgrade my laptop since its not an MXM vid card in it.
Click to expand...

From what I understand you have to buy a new DX10 video card to run DX10.

So, it is gonna suck.

Someone please tell me I am wrong :confused:
 
Some people say that there is nothing that they can see that will make them, or make them want to upgrade to Vista. That may change, if and when these "Vista Only" games come out. If they do not run on XP, a lot of people will upgrade anyway. Or at least dual boot.

Ive been running VB2 for a bit, I like it pretty well. It doesnt blow me away, but Im not repulsed by it either.
 
To be perfectly honest, I don't know why you published this. This is just more opinions, except now with your endorsement.

I do not see any reason to upgrade at this point in time, as they have removed any and all features I consider worth having due to time constraints or somesuch. Windows XP was released when, 2001? You'd think they would have had the time to get WinFS working by now. This has been in development at least as long as Half-Life 2. You'd think a filesystem they had been touting as a major reason to upgrade would work.

I do not consider Aero a feature. It is an annoyance - note that this comes from someone who hasn't used Vista because it requires ACPI support and my dual P3 doesn't have ACPI. I use the 'Windows Classic' theme in XP, I can't stand the XP start menu so I use the classical one, and I don't even know where to find things to actually control the function of my computer in the XP simplified control panel. Switch to standard, and hey, no problem. I personally stuck with Windows 2000 for a long time, as I saw no reason to switch to XP. 2000 still does some things better - i.e. video/audio preview - and I'm not really sure why I switched anyways, other than maybe an XP-only program or something.

One thing I haven't seen addressed in any article of this type - what is the current state of OpenGL support in Vista? Do you still have to use a hacked driver which disables Aero to get real hardware support, as opposed to fairly poorly implemented software acceleration? I haven't heard of anyone trying Doom 3 on a Vista box and comparing it to Windows XP on the same hardware.

the black knight always triumphs!
 
In my opinion, its not going to be the enthusiasts that put vista into the mainstream market, its the average John Doe computer user who buys a new cheap $400 pc from Dell. M$ has got its customers by the balls. Regardless if we want to do it or not, we're going to have to upgrade to Vista in the near future. I think we're all pretty aware DX10 COULD run on XP if Microsoft wanted it to, but they don't. They want us to buy their new OS. Who wants to bet that Windows Media 12 or 13 wont run on XP? They have the market, they can do whatever the hell they want. Average Joe consumer isn't going to use Linux and more than likely hasn't heard of it. And unless Mac becomes suddenly popular they will buy another Windows PC or upgrade their OS.

As for business markets, I'm not so sure about. I will say that my IT department currently has no plans on moving from XP anytime soon.
 
I understand the need to press forward with new technologies and keep evolving. Really, I do.

However, I'm getting fucking sick of spending $250 for incremental improvements.

Let's face it, Microsoft releases one revolutionary operating system every decade, the rest of the time they just, as someone in the article says 'slap some makeup and a push-up bra on it'. Now I can understand charging for these improvements, and lord knows they do a lot of improving for free with service packs and updates, but not $250. Not $250 so I can be forced to upgrade to new hardware just so I can use up more memory to have a pretty desktop -- especially not when I can use 3rd party programs to get 70% of the effect on Windows XP. Windowblinds 5 does a damn fine Vista impression, and if they worked on WindowFX a bit, it could do a nearly flawless impression.

I'm not against making a prettier OS, and I know that there are other improvements in the operating system that are not immediately evident just by using it for a few days and reading about it on the web.. but these improvements are not a 'new' operating system. This is, for all intents and purposes, Windows XP with a few under the hood tweaks, some usability tweaks, and a more integrated version of Windowblinds 5. Same thing with Windows XP -- Windows 2000 with an integrated version of Windowblinds, a few under the hood tweaks and a few usability tweaks.

I guess part of the reason this OS isn't appealing to me all that much is because I'm not Joe, the Dell using idiot. I know how to set up my own firewall, I know how to use a virus scanner, I know how to keep my PC free from spyware. I don't have the security issues that Vista is working so hard to fix. I also long ago got 3rd party programs to get usability improvements that work for me. I've already got a copy of Yahoo Widget Engine, and it does a damn fine job for free. I use Opera, which I would still be running on Vista in place of IE7, so my browser isn't broken either. I also have Windowblinds 5 for pretty windows, and the Vista look lost its luster for me in a matter of weeks, as it will when it's finally released.

It's just really hard for me to justify upgrading to this operating system. Even DX10, with all its flashy bells and whistles, seems like a case of forced obsolesence to me. Microsoft says it won't work with XP? Microsoft also said that IE is so integral to Windows that it can't be separated, yet somehow they managed to do it. It's understood as part of their strategy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to be pissed off about it. Hell, charge me money to get DX10 on XP, just don't make me spend $250 to upgrade to an operating system I neither want nor need. I'd happily spend $50 for DX10 on Windows XP, because as far as I'm concerned Windows XP does everything I've ever wanted or needed it to do. MacOS X doesn't hold some awesome allure to me -- it's nice, it's pretty, whatever, but when it comes down to it, it doesn't do anything that I can't do on Windows XP.

The biggest thing for me is that the promise of Vista was lost, and now they're just waving shiny objects in front of our face to try and convince us it's worth upgrading to. I really wanted a new filesystem, you know, the one they promised at the start of all the hype. Not the layer on top of NTFS that they said we would see after they broke the first promise. Now we're told that its okay, because we've got this newfangled search thing. Well, thanks but no thanks - I've already got that, for free, on Windows XP and I never use it. I'm not Joe, the Dell using idiot, I know how to organize my stuff so I can find it easily kthxbye. Integrating a program that your own company offers for free for WinXP is not adding new features, it's just putting them conveniently on one CD. Definately not worth $250. Its nice that they implemented real user level security, even if it is years too late, but even this doesn't mean all that much to me since, again, I'm not Joe the Dell using idiot, and I don't just open random shit that could possibly bork my computer.

Nevermind all the stuff that they SHOULD be implementing that I haven't heard one iota about. The new way of navigating the start menu is an improvement, but where are the standards to keep the start menu from becoming such a disorganized mess? How about a more intelligent approach to the disaster area that is the system tray? How about an easier, more intelligent task manager that gives me more information about what programs are running, instead of forcing me to google or trusting that the 33rd instance of svchost.exe is doing something worthwhile and safe? How about giving me the option to force a verbose install of a program so if I don't quite trust a program I can okay every last step of the install?

Finally, I'm reaching my breaking point with the ever so invasive copy protection measures being forced upon me. Couple this with the forced upgrade to Vista in order to get DX10 and it's really sour grapes. I don't want my computer checking in with Microsoft even if it is sending nothing more than an 'okay' to let them know that my copy isn't pirated. It's about the principle, it's MY computer, and it's a network connection that I pay for, and it's incredibly invasive and anti-consumer to force me to 'show my papers' if you will. What really gets me is that, if anything has been proven by now, when there is a will there is a way and pirates and crackers will always find some way to get around these protections if only for the challenge of it all. After 25 years of home computing, you would think Microsoft of all people would have figured this much out.

$250 for a new dress, some privacy violations, and forced computer obsolesence. Yeah, sounds fucking wonderful. The sick thing is, I know I'll eventually buy it, and only because DX10 will eventually force me to.
 
What people seem to keep forgetting is two key points.
Firstly, all the features that made Vista worth having (WinFS, etcetera) are all gone. Pushed back to oblivion. I see absolutely no compelling reason to have Vista. Unless you have some obsession with losing all rights to every file on your computer based on Microsoft-dictated DRM solutions. Oh, that includes your own artwork and videos, just FYI. (DRM on your monitor will be required in the final version for any HD content.)
Secondly, anyone who thinks Microsoft won't force you to upgrade is only fooling themselves. Thanks to 'Windows Genuine Advantage' (an integral part of XP and Vista, of course!) your license for XP gets turned off when Microsoft decides it's time for you to buy Vista. And then Vista gets shut off when it's time to buy Vista SP2, and so on.

Sorry Kyle, but there is absolutely no way I can agree in the least with your article. You did more than gloss over outstanding issues; you just outright omitted them. All it seems you did was look at the eyecandy, some Microsoft marketing literature, and ignored the rest. A bit of second-hand 'performance' information, but no actual testing or real evaluation that I saw. You wouldn't recommend someone buy a video card on looks alone, so why are you doing this with Vista?
 
AreEss said:
Sorry Kyle, but there is absolutely no way I can agree in the least with your article. You did more than gloss over outstanding issues; you just outright omitted them. All it seems you did was look at the eyecandy, some Microsoft marketing literature, and ignored the rest. A bit of second-hand 'performance' information, but no actual testing or real evaluation that I saw. You wouldn't recommend someone buy a video card on looks alone, so why are you doing this with Vista?
Click to expand...

QFT. I agree with the preface to the article, about Microsoft not being all bad, but the last thing MS needs is another website singing the praises of an over-hyped under-delivering and DRM laden OS.
 
ChronoReverse said:
Too bad all the under-the-hood changes in Vista are the types that are too subtle to be seen immediately. For all the complaining about how Vista is "just a cosmetic change", the same people don't take the time to delve into the internal changes.

It will be because of this that there will be great complaints like how Vista seemingly uses up great gobs of memory. The proper response would be to say that Vista has finally caught up with modern OS's or copied modern OS's memory allocation style. That is, use as much memory as cache as possible such that the system is fast and responsive most of the time.
Click to expand...

Compared to what? Right now i'm running Gentoo Linux with XGL, Firefox, Amarok, Gnome and a vmware image of Windows XP with 512 megs of ram, on an AMD 3500+ with a gig of ram and its plenty fast and responsive in both host and guest. I'm not running the smallest kernel either, I compile 85% of the features straight into the kernel. Let us also not forget that XGL isn't even beta yet either...

Its M$'s wonderful programming schemes and bloatware that hog system memory, not modern caching techniques. It's completely depressing that I can run two operating systems at the same time, faster than one...
 
I was kinda hoping for a more in-depth view of Vista, so I was kinda dissapointed with the 1-pager.

Personally, I just don't feel the need to jump to Vista. I don't hate MS, but I'm just not convinced I need the OS.
 
I'm working on a more indepth article, and Kyle asked for my thoughts. I gave them. If I had to buy a new OS when Vista comes out, I'd buy Vista. If I were looking at replacing XP on my desktop...I'd probably hold off. Frankly, I'm more into the Media Center improvements, so in fact I'll be replacing MCE 2005 immediately on my HTPC box. I'm already tweaking out the beta on it right now.
 
Chris_Morley said:
I'm working on a more indepth article, and Kyle asked for my thoughts. I gave them. If I had to buy a new OS when Vista comes out, I'd buy Vista. If I were looking at replacing XP on my desktop...I'd probably hold off. Frankly, I'm more into the Media Center improvements, so in fact I'll be replacing MCE 2005 immediately on my HTPC box. I'm already tweaking out the beta on it right now.
Click to expand...

Improvements? I guess one man's garbage really is another man's treasure.
 
Chris_Morley said:
Please, elaborate.
Click to expand...

I don't find the new Media Center to be an improvement at all. If anything, it's a step backwards. This is all opinion of course, which is why I said one man's garbage...
 
nigerian_businessman said:
I don't find the new Media Center to be an improvement at all. If anything, it's a step backwards. This is all opinion of course, which is why I said one man's garbage...
Click to expand...
Why don't you elaborate? It's one thing to say it, it's one thing to back it up. I find the interface more appealing, and the support for OCUR is a godsend. Furthermore, little things like Movies on TV are just plain cool.
 
Further thoughts on the three Vista Beta installs we're using for training:

The first machine to get the beta was my older game platform. It's by no means a slouch in the power dept.: A64 3000+ on a Gigabyte Ultra-939, 1 gig PC3200 DDR in dual-channel mode, X800XT video card and 10k Ultra SCSI drives. The 64-bit beta would not load. Could not see the hard drives. C'mon, Redmond, you can't find a dirt-common Adaptec host adapter? Windows 2000 did it unassisted, hell, Windows 98SE could at least get itself up and running without F6 and floppy-based drivers. I'm running out of time and patience, so I strip out the SCSI drives, plop in a spare IDE DVD and hard drive and try again. It managed to load this run, even managed to find the NIC without hand-holding. Boot times have strung out from 75 seconds in XP SP2 to three minutes. Aero is pretty. Whoop-de-damned-doo. I don't stare at my desktop all day, I use the blasted thing, and the sluggishness vs. XP SP2(32) is noticeable. The Trend Micro antivirus beta isn't helping matters either, taking long after the desktop has settled to finally set the 'ready' icon in the tray. Played a couple rounds of mahjong, shut it down. I haven't started it since the weekend, but in its defense, the weather around here has been a distraction. The Delmarva Peninsula has been a touch damp recently. :rolleyes:

Second machine? S754 A64. No load again, this time it didn't like the memory. Restored XP on it and pressed on with...

Dell Precision Workstation. Now this should have been fun. RAMBUS memory, 2.36ghz Xeon processor, big drive, Quadro vid card and the 32-bit beta. Had to scrounge up a DVD drive, the beast only had a CD-ROM. The Quadro wasn't good enough for Aero (32mb memory?), dug a 9700 Pro out of the scrap pile and pressed on. Once the installation settled to the first desktop, I noticed it didn't find the NIC. 3Com 5xx series, the "common as cat crap" NIC on all of Dell's motherboards. Located the XP 32-bit drivers (Dell didn't have a Vista driver), loaded it, Vista accepted it and let me on to the web. Second series of nightly updates came up with a MS 3Com driver.

Demo'ed the machine for our boss, he was visibly unimpressed. The Windows-Tab key "page flip" elicited a "That's what the fuss is all about?!?" reaction, our Mac expert thinks it's a poor rip of the Tiger OS-X interface, and we finished the session with a sense of being let down.


The reason we went through all this crap to bring the Dell up was to see the menu structures, the changes to things like the Control Panel and internet-related tasks; dial-up setup, email setup and broadband troubleshooting. Once again, it seems like Microsoft has changed things around for the sake of change, and nothing more. Taking the Run command off the first Start menu and burying it under Accessories, for instance. Changing the Start button to a unnamed Windows globe. In a throwback, Outlook Express has been renamed Windows Mail, which gave me a McFly "Back to Windows95!" moment.

What has gotten our attention is the distractions and detractions. The "Welcome Center" popup. The unending stream of User Account Control focus seizures. The layout of the menus. Programs is a definite aggravation, and why the hell did the Shutdown / Restart icons get buried under that tiny arrow that looks like a menu decoration? Mom and Pop users are going to inundate us with Microsoft-related calls, just like the 9x series - to - XP transition, distracting us from our day-to-day support mission. Gods help the poor bastards who missed the XP boat, and go from 98SE to this on a new computer.

Sorry, Chris. We of the ISP Tech Support department, and the head of our IT division, give this so-called "New OS" a barely concealed yawn for innovation, and two dirt-encrusted brickbats upside the head for the changes inflicted on the default user interface. Glitz for it's own sake isn't worth a bucket of spit.
 
It's funny how it's been getting a brush-off by IT people...I guess I'm just looking at it from a consumer's perspective. Sorry you had so many problems getting your computers to run it...our two little 'ole eMachines in the office ran both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions without any problems or searching for drivers...
 
Chris_Morley said:
Why don't you elaborate? It's one thing to say it, it's one thing to back it up. I find the interface more appealing, and the support for OCUR is a godsend.
Click to expand...

I think the interface is worse. They nailed it with 2005, then went back and tried to improve it and just screwed it up. The way of handling sub items on a menu horizontally goes against the normal way of interacting with a TV since the dawn of the cable box. Yet you go into the TV guide and it's vertical? It's bad enough they change the normal way of navigating, but to top it off they don't even apply it consistantly.

I think the push to put more information on the screen is good, but they could have handled it differently. Overall I find the screen overly busy. I liked the cleaner look of MCE 2005. Sometimes simple and straightfoward is the best approach. Changing the fundamental way that you interact with Media Center to a different way from not only past versions but also nearly every other device that you can hook up to a TV was a mistake and hardly counts as an improvement in my book. The least they could have done was included a classic mode.

Is that elaborate enough?
 
nigerian_businessman said:
I think the interface is worse. They nailed it with 2005, then went back and tried to improve it and just screwed it up. The way of handling sub items on a menu horizontally goes against the normal way of interacting with a TV since the dawn of the cable box. Yet you go into the TV guide and it's vertical? It's bad enough they change the normal way of navigating, but to top it off they don't even apply it consistantly.

I think the push to put more information on the screen is good, but they could have handled it differently. Overall I find the screen overly busy. I liked the cleaner look of MCE 2005. Sometimes simple and straightfoward is the best approach. Changing the fundamental way that you interact with Media Center to a different way from not only past versions but also nearly every other device that you can hook up to a TV was a mistake and hardly counts as an improvement in my book. The least they could have done was included a classic mode.

Is that elaborate enough?
Click to expand...
Yes, you don't like the look. Just wanted to know it was a subjective thing.

Question, have you ever scrolled to the right on your cable box? I do.
 
Strikemaster said:
The reason we went through all this crap to bring the Dell up was to see the menu structures, the changes to things like the Control Panel and internet-related tasks; dial-up setup, email setup and broadband troubleshooting. Once again, it seems like Microsoft has changed things around for the sake of change, and nothing more. Taking the Run command off the first Start menu and burying it under Accessories, for instance. Changing the Start button to a unnamed Windows globe. In a throwback, Outlook Express has been renamed Windows Mail, which gave me a McFly "Back to Windows95!" moment.
Click to expand...

This is another big beef of mine. Microsoft calls a lot of this stuff improvement, or new features. It's not new, unless you're talking about the path I have to take to do the same damn thing I was doing in Windows XP, or 95 even. I don't see improvement, just change, and I think that we're on our way past the days of people being unfamiliar with Windows. It's almost required learning at this point if you actually have a job that doesn't involve wearing a paper hat. Same question I have for MCE -- why fix it if it isn't broken?
 
Chris_Morley said:
Yes, you don't like the look. Just wanted to know it was a subjective thing.

Question, have you ever scrolled to the right on your cable box? I do.
Click to expand...

Not very often. Most menus on my cable box, and every other cable box that I've ever used, move in a vertical fashion. TV guide goes up and down for channel, left and right for times, that's pretty standard and at least they left that much alone.

It's not that they made it unusable. I, as well as many other people, can and will adapt. I just wouldn't go so far as to call it an improvement. All the real improvements could have been done without changing the interface around just for the sake of making it different.
 
nigerian_businessman said:
Not very often. Most menus on my cable box, and every other cable box that I've ever used, move in a vertical fashion. TV guide goes up and down for channel, left and right for times, that's pretty standard and at least they left that much alone.

It's not that they made it unusable. I, as well as many other people, can and will adapt. I just wouldn't go so far as to call it an improvement. All the real improvements could have been done without changing the interface around just for the sake of making it different.
Click to expand...
Ok, you don't like it because you have to scroll to the right, and I like it because of OCUR support, accessibility improvements like Movies on TV, and the ability to finally clone your desktop at different resolutions (for use in Origen ae x15e chassis.)
 
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