My Vista Rant

[Glaine]

Does anyone else feel like they don't beta test this stuff because they expect us to perform that function? Think about XP - you know they expect you to do the "testing" for them when your crash screens have a "Gee, would you like to send us a report and help us figure out what we did wrong" button right next to the "End Task" button.

Yeah, I see that going over really well:
"Dear Microsoft, why does XP keep crashing all of my illegal roms? Hugs and Kisses, The Glaine".

Oddly they don't write back. I thought we were a family. The Microsoft Family.

And I agree with the consensus, I'm not upgrading until I have to buy a new machine that comes with it and right now I don't see anything all that great about it - the only change I've noticed in screenshots is the 3d view of all your windows. Woopie.

And all the reviews on Amazon I've seen are people saying that when you upgrade from XP, it deletes your XP install and for many it didn't work right the first time so they had to reinstall XP and the patches, then try the upgrade again. Reminds me of the huge stack of floppies you used to have to insert to install Windows back in the day.

[ChadTower]

Mostly it's because they couldn't possibly QA every possible action in every possible part of the OS in every possible configuration.  We're talking infinite variables here.

[Glaine]

Too bad it crashes in all of them.

[Zero_Hour]

There are certainly issues with Vista, I'm not arguing that there are not. But from my experience (Running public Betas and release candidates daily since August 06), this is the most stable windows client MS has released. It certainly is the easiest installation I've done - though as a rule, I never do upgrade installations. I always backup my data, wipe the drive and do a clean install from the get go. SO I can't speak to users who have had trouble with upgrade installations. I had enough issues with upgrades under 9x that I gave up the practice. I use my Vista system everyday, and honestly have only had a single crash of the OS, under Release candidate 1, which was months ago. There have been hiccups with applications, but part of being active in the beta testing was to send automated reports back to MS. I knew what I was getting myself into, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had originally anticipated.

Early adoption certainly isn't for everyone, but much of the grumbling I've been hearing (and I'm not being specific to these boards) sounds eerily familiar to the early days of XP, and 95. As Chad mentioned, MS has the disadvantage (compared to Apple) of making their OS run under a ridiculous number of hardware configs, with a fairly impressive amount of backwards compatibility. They could hold back the release another year, and still have major technical hurdles upon launch. I'm of the belief that sooner or later, they have to ship it and get ready for the hotfixes and service packs. And nothing will prepare them for this better than getting it out to "real world" users.

I like the interface tweaks, I like the ease of networking config. I'm happy with the state of the OS this early after public release. That said, I would still not recommend it to the average windows user. Driver support and application compatibility being the main reasons. If you are a big time PC gamer and have a lot of titles that depend on openGL, then I would have to say don't even think about it, as the implementation is not particularly good, compared to what is already available under XP.

[Howard_Casto]

My main complaint about vista is all the versions, and the unusually high cost of all the versions. 

Generally, when you order an upgrade cd it is around 100 bucks.  You save 100 by just upgrading.  Vist in the other hand, starts at around 150, which seems a tad high to me.  On top of that there are like 6 versions, and I am pretty sure all the versions are just there to confuse the user into buying the 230 dollar upgrade istead of the 150 one.  I looked on the back and with the exception of home basic edition (which seems to be crap) they all come with the same stuff, save some "plus!" like packages. 

I'm the biggest m$ fanboy you are gonna find.  When I say that I'm waiting something must be wrong. 

p.s.  These suggestions of "just install linux" are kind of like suggesting to "just use an antenna" rather than order cable.  I don't mean to offend our linux users out there but if you want to run the latest software and games you are pretty much limited to windows.  It doesn't mean windows is the best, it's just the only real choice we have.  So unfortunately, we are all vista bound, at least eventually. 

[Buddabing]

Perhaps someday we can use ReactOS.

[Howard_Casto]

Unlikely....

Emulating/simulating an entire operating system is a huge task, especially when the os in question is closed source.  Considering xp is now dead and they are just in the alpha stages of supporting xp apps, I wouldn't hold my breath. 

[ChadTower]

XP is far from dead.  Hell it wasn't that long ago they stopped supporting 98se.  I'll probably still be running XP in 5 years.

[Howard_Casto]

No, don't misunderstand.  It's dead because upcoming directx10 games aren't going to run (or run as well) on xp apparently.  M$ can support a os until the cows come home, but once the first killer app that only runs in vista is released it is essentually dead as the masses will all migrate to vista.  That is apparently sooner than later. 

[Grasshopper]

Unlikely....

Emulating/simulating an entire operating system is a huge task, especially when the os in question is closed source.  Considering xp is now dead and they are just in the alpha stages of supporting xp apps, I wouldn't hold my breath. 

It's certainly a big task but by no means an impossible one. In any case you don't have to emulate the whole OS just the API which is (mostly) open source and well documented.

There's already WINE on Linux which does a pretty good job on most non-games apps so that proves it's doable.

[ChadTower]

No, don't misunderstand.  It's dead because upcoming directx10 games aren't going to run (or run as well) on xp apparently.  M$ can support a os until the cows come home, but once the first killer app that only runs in vista is released it is essentually dead as the masses will all migrate to vista.  That is apparently sooner than later. 

Many, many of those masses of machine are in corporations, and those corporations will never give a crap what version of DirectX goes with what OS.  It takes corporations years to migrate to a new OS.  A lot of them still haven't migrated to XP.

[Howard_Casto]

Yes but the standard os isn't what corportations use, it's what users use.

So the two points you two just made are rather invalid (wine doesn't let you play games and users play games, users don't use the same os as corps so it doesn't matter).

Regardless, that wasn't my point.  Xp is at the end of it's development cycle (does that wording suit your nit-pickers?) And they aren't even close to having wine or reactos support everything xp can do.  Now vista adds a whole new slew of commands and api layers.  By the time wine or Ros are caught up with xp, vista will be at the end of it's life cycle.

And since I stated above that if you want to run the latest games and apps you are going to have to eventually upgrade to vista, it doesn't matter if either of these apps get better over time as then the latest stuff will be old, thus defeating the purpose.

So the only way you could use either as a vista replacement is if xp support is brought up to 100% (or as close to it as possible) and then they move onto vista and get its support up to 100% before vista's lifecycle is over.  Like I said, don't hold your breath.

[Santoro]

I'm with Zero_Hour.  I like Vista.  It has some warts, but all and all it's a good, reliable and modern OS. 

I blogged about it a few weeks ago.  Since I wrote this I have installed it on an old Athlon XP 2200+, and a new Lenovo X60 laptop.  Each install was smoother than any XP setup I had ever done. 

Here's what I wrote:

I have been running Windows Vista for a month or so as my main OS. I have to say that overall I truly like it.

The computer press has been down-talking Vista lately because it doesn’t have dramatically new functionality. I generally agree with that sentiment, but it’s not that black and white for me.

As someone who spends 10+ hours a day at my PC, I find that Vista just ‘feels’ nicer. The Aero interface provides subtle but effective feedback on what is going on. The high-res icons are more scalable and legible for my sad middle-aged eyes. If XP was like wearing sneakers, Vista is like wearing slippers.  (For further comparison, Windows 98 was like wearing lead shoes.)

I am running the “Released To Manufacturing” or RTM version. I subscribed to Microsoft TechNet Direct in order to get it, along with test licenses for most other MS products, including Office, Windows Server, SQL Server, and Exchange Server. You get ten license keys for most products as long as you agree to use them ‘for evaluation purposes.’ This is an incredible value if you tinker with MS products at all. The software is not time-bombed or crippled in any way and is certified as “Windows Genuine” so it can get full security patches.

Certainly compatibility is an issue. MS has a tool to evaluate your machine to see if you can benefit from Vista. Make sure to use it.

If your PC and apps can handle it and you can afford the license, I think you will be happy running Vista.

Of course it's not MacOS or Linux, but it ain't supposed to be those things.  And I probably wouldn't drop 3-400$ on a copy just to have the latest and greatest.  But if you have an opportunity to get it free or cheap, I say do it.  All the small improvements add up to a much better OS. 

[johnm160]

I ran vista for about two weeks before I went back to XP. The security warnings were annoying but in the end I did not have it there long enough to look into turning them off.

Stability was fine untill i loaded the norton 360 beta on it....then all hell broke loose  So off it came untill there are some stable apps for it.


Oh and don't even get me started on the lack of print drivers for vista..... WOW

[Santoro]

Oh and don't even get me started on the lack of print drivers for vista..... WOW

Yeah, I have to agree on this one.  A big F.U. to HP, how hard can it be to get these things out on time?  You only had like five years notice this thing was coming out.

[tommy]

I just installed the Vista transformation pack to my PC with XP, all the look without the problems. Looks and works great btw.

http://www.windowsxlive.net/

The download link is at the very top of the page.

[johnm160]

Oh and don't even get me started on the lack of print drivers for vista..... WOW

Yeah, I have to agree on this one.  A big F.U. to HP, how hard can it be to get these things out on time?  You only had like five years notice this thing was coming out.

Yeah a big one to Canon also for not having drivers for their very expensive digital copiers. 

[ChadTower]

It all depends on when M$ got their SDKs out to them.  M$ has a habit of keeping their SDKs closeted until the very last second so that no one can "out" bugs before the OS ships.  If those companies just got their SDKs recently, as tends to happen with M$, then it's not their fault they are lagging in supporting the new OS.

[Buddabing]

This related article is interesting.

"Virtual Windows to Run Unmodified on Linux
Device drivers from Novell and Intel allow unmodified Windows Server 2000/2003/XP to run in Xen virtual environments on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and Intel® Virtualization Technology"

It doesn't say if applications can install and run under the virtual Windows OS.

[billf]

Just saw this on TV tonight and thought it fit into this thread nicely.  I'm not a mac person at all, but these commercials are funny.

[ChadTower]

It doesn't say if applications can install and run under the virtual Windows OS.

Man, if you think actual Windows takes up too much physical resource, try running it inside something else!