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Mossberg - Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jan 18, 2007 01:23 PM
from the it-cannot-slice-tomatoes dept.
from the it-cannot-slice-tomatoes dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter S. Mossberg says Vista is the best version of Windows yet, but doesn't represent a major step forward: 'Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP.' More from the review: 'Nearly all of the major, visible new features in Vista are already available in Apple's operating system, called Mac OS X, which came out in 2001 and received its last major upgrade in 2005. ... in my tests, some elements of Vista could be maddeningly slow even on new, well-configured computers. Also, despite Vista's claimed security improvements, you will still have to run, and keep updating, security programs, which can be annoying and burdensome. Microsoft has thrown in one such program free, but you will have to buy at least one more. That means that, while Vista has eased some of the burden on users imposed by the Windows security crisis, it will still force you to spend more time managing the computer than I believe people should have to devote.'"
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Downloadable (Score:5, Informative)
I guess many here are not planning to buy it, but anyway, this is something new from Microsoft. I guess they are really happy with their Genuine Advantage to go through with this.
Re:Downloadable (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Downloadable (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Downloadable (Score:5, Funny)
BTW, that is the easiest way to get new cd keys.
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Heh (Score:4, Funny)
Soon after this article came out... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And a voice boomed and echoed throughout Redmond (Score:3, Funny)
You can hear the marketing drones whir up now... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You can hear the marketing drones whir up now.. (Score:5, Funny)
"Yesterday's technology today!"
"Doesn't slow games down more than 10%!"
"Easier than driving through a tornado!"
"Angers your Mac friends!"
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My 2c (Score:5, Interesting)
UAC is one of the biggest improvements in my opinion; not in that it makes Windows nicer to use (far from it in fact), but that finally, Windows has adopted a more *nix based approach to user-security (in at least, you don't have to be a full admin to do anything useful, and full-admin rights are difficult to obtain) and thank god for that!
But like I say, I'm not rushing out to buy it...and not many people will either if you ask me.
Re:My 2c (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
DVD, Mail, Calendar, Addressbook, Fax & Scan.
Windows Imaging Component sounds identical to Core Image
Re:My 2c (Score:4, Funny)
DVD, Mail, Calendar, Addressbook, Fax & Scan.
Windows Imaging Component sounds identical to Core Image
Pfffttt. The new version of minesweeper rocks! Don't have that on you Mac, do you?
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My 2c (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, I have software assurance, and therefore free upgrades to Vista, but I'm not budging from Windows XP. And I'm not just saying that I need time to test it, or I'll wait for SP1. I'm saying I don't fricken want the thing. I've tried it out on a couple systems, in some cases having a harder time getting it to work that I've had with XP. It won't run some old Windows software, or at least not properly, so I'd have to buy a whole bunch of new software. The new interface is annoying. UAC is annoying. The whole thing is just maddening to use.
It doesn't seem to me that I'll be missing out on anything if I choose not to upgrade, either. None of the new features are particularly helpful. Not one. I'm just not going to run Vista until Windows XP won't run on new hardware being manufactured.
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Re:My 2c (Score:4, Insightful)
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He likes it, but doesnt want to say he likes it (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically the article says:
Vista is the best version of Windows ever...But its not.
Vista is very secure...But only if secure it.
You get a free Antivirus program...Buts its not as good as the ones you have to pay for.
Vista is very easy to use...But I still had to click on stuff, so it sucks
Vista has a cool search feature...But Apple had it first.
D
Re:He likes it, but doesnt want to say he likes it (Score:5, Funny)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=491587592
'nuff said.
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Re:He likes it, but doesnt want to say he likes it (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever felt that sometimes people go out of their way to put down Microsoft.
No, I feel that the reviewer was expecting more from 5 years of development, and not to be burdened by hefty hardware requirements to take advantage of the new improvements. He compares it to OS X because it's gotten steadily better over the past 5 years, where the offerings from Microsoft, a much larger and richer company isn't really worthy of 5 years of development efforts.
Really I think the article sounds quite honest. He mentions that there's some improvements, but the majority of people don't have the hardware to take advantage of the improvements. The average guy is wondering "Should I upgrade to Vista?" not "Does this guy like Vista or not?" The article essentially say that unless you have a gig or more of memory, a recent computer, and a fast graphics processor.. Vista doesn't provide any benefits worth upgrading for.
Ultimately I think it indicates a larger problem at Microsoft. It's been more than 5 years since XP, the last desktop OS from Microsoft. That's pretty horrible considering that previously Microsoft has released a new desktop OS every about every 2 or 2.5 years (3.1 in 92, 3.11 in 93, 95 in 95, 98 in 98, 98 SE in 99, ME in 2000, WT2K in 2000, XP in 2001).
Look at all the major changes in previous 5 year spans. Compare Windows 3.11 in 93 to Windows 98 in 98, or Windows 95 in 95 to Windows 2000 in 2000 and you'll see what I'm talking about. Hell, compare the initial (really awfull) release of OSX 10.0 to the decent release of 10.4 only 4 years later. Sure there's a lot more to improve in OS X since it was so totally new.. but the fact that Apple can pull off more in less time doesn't speak well for Microsoft.
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Re:He likes it, but doesnt want to say he likes it (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder, maybe XP was just good enough, and didn't really need to many improvements, besides the security patches it has been receiving, not mention two full service packs.
Well, I'd disagree that XP is an OS that doesn't need improving. One thing that I simply HATE is the
constant rebooting you have to do when you either upgrade some critical part of the OS, or re-install a piece of software.
The rebooting problem is a major flaw of the OS. It was designed with the philosophy "rebooting is OK, since updates are infrequent and won't affect the user experience". Linux/Unix was designed with the opposite philosophy, i.e. "this is a multi-user system that needs to be available 24/7. Rebooting is just plain terrible and should be used as a last resort".
This flaw has been improved somewhat in Vista with the new driver model, but it still hasn't really been fixed.
There's also some things I'd love to see Microsoft support in the UI. Why can I get a weather report, stock ticker, dictionary lookup, etc from out of the box on a Linux machine.. but I have to go download spyware laden 3rd party apps (or try to dig through multiple free windows apps) to get the same thing on Windows?
If I can come up with a few things that's improve the Windows experience in 5 minutes, why can't Microsoft develop some actually usefull stuff in 5 years? I'll withhold final judgement until I actually try Vista, but so far the reviews I've read haven't exactly been stunning.
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Best Windows version ever? (Score:5, Funny)
Congratulations, Microsoft Users! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I can only hope that Microsoft got this security "issue" fixed, so that you PC users will stop spamming me with sexually explicit crap and drug sales, and maybe my shared cable modem speeds will go up, with the worms circulating the internet being fixed in Vista.
Hopefully, in time, I can welcome you all to the world of computing with minimal/no time spent on security and maintenance. Either way, I'm glad the world is catching up.
Tomato Slicer (Score:5, Funny)
The BEST reason to switch! (Score:5, Funny)
FTA: even a slicker version of Solitaire
What more could you want?
Works like XP is a recommendation? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's sort of like overall this year's flu virus is a lot like last year's. Or President Bush's new Iraq strategy isn't much different from the old strategy. Hardly a recommendation.
I just spent an hour finding and killing some mysterious Browser Helper Object on my wife's XP-SP2 PC that devoted its life to helping out the browser by popping up ads in IE. At least I think I killed it. Every year, the malware gets more clever. Every release, the software gets more bloated and complex. Every year, the Internet becomes more of a mess and it is harder to find information on exorcising malware, or on persuading Windows to do even the most simple and basic things. And every year I get older, dumber, and less interested in dinking with Windows just in order to do stuff I do find interesting.
Screw it. I never upgraded to XP, and I don't believe that I'll be upgrading to Vista. I have finally moved from Windows 95 to Windows 98 despite the fact that W95 boots faster and runs as well. But only because I think eventually I will need USB that works and I don't think that will ever be available in Windows 95.
I don't really hate Microsoft, but they are going to have to do a lot better than NT based Windows desktops to make me a customer again. Let me know when MS releases an OS worth buying. It hasn't happened for quite a few years, and doesn't look likely to happen again any time soon.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People like you are the reason the rest of the Internet has to put up with assaults from 10,000+ zombie botnets. Would you run a Linux distribution that became dead in the water and stopped iss
Issues of trust... (Score:5, Interesting)
The DRM embedded in Vista has been well hashed here and I believe the implementation will cause many people headaches, especially those wanting to view digital media.
I'm concerned about the new security levels of the OS and that there are two levels higher than Administrator, namely System and Trusted. The sticking point for me is that (as far as I know) no user on the system, not even the admin, can access these higher levels. In other words, we are not and cannot be "trusted".
I don't like the idea that there may be things on *my* computer that I cannot access, but Microsoft, or other entities they trust, can. I'm not sure I trust them that much...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
blah, blah, blah. The DRM in Vista will simply obey the restrictions placed on the media by the supplier of that media, it won't magically add new DRM restrictions. It happily plays non-DRM content and also allows you do all the same things you did on XP like ripping CD to MP3, ripping DVD, etc. So just what is the monstrous DRM that is be
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The DRM in Vista will simply obey the restrictions placed on the media by the supplier of that media, it won't magically add new DRM restrictions.
Instead of obeying the instructions of the OWNER of the media.
Re:Issues of trust... (Score:5, Informative)
It looks to me that when creating Vista, Microsoft must have spent most of their time and energy on the new Windows Vista Content Protection. It is such an amazingly complicated system, that I can easily see why see why it would have taken Microsoft 5 years to create Vista. Most other new features that Microsoft had originally announced would be part of Vista were dropped, along the way, most likely because creating the protected environment for DRM was a difficult enough task by itself.
In Vista, many of the core operating system elements have been extensively reworked in order to provide DRM content protection. Vista goes to great extremes to block the owner of the computer from gaining access to unprotected content in any possible way either in the software or the hardware itself. One example is the extreme measures taken to make sure that computer owners can not access unencrypted content on a user accessible bus. To prevent that, they plan to use 128-bit encryption on the fly at high bandwidth. I don't understand most of the details, but apparently it partly involves keeping the content encrypted as it goes from one hardware component to another. Vista is so insanely paranoid that that it also goes out about 30 times per second polling hardware to try and catch anyone playing games with any component. The system is so incredibly complicated that I don't plan to ever try to understand how it all works.
I also wonder what effect all the extra overhead required for various components will have on hardware requirements. It sounds to me like Windows Vista itself largely was designed to be a secure DRM delivery system that Hollywood and the music industry can trust. Apparently for some reason, Microsoft did not show the same level of effort and paranoia in making Vista computers secure? Apparently protecting user's privacy is not as important. Below are three articles that are critical of the effect that the various new Windows Vista DRM features might have on hardware requirements. At the top of the first two articles there are also links to mp3 versions that are also available. The last article has already been discussed on Slashdot recently.
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Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked... (Score:5, Funny)
The consumers will suffer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps you misestimate the sub-$500 computer. Today's $500 box has GeForce 6150 integrated graphics (fine for Vista and even Aero Glass), 1GB of DDR, and an Athlon 64 or Sempron processor.
I run Vista, including Aero Glass, on a P4 2.66GHz box with 768M of memory and a GeForce 6200. It's really not that much of a problem.
If it wasn't for the games... (Score:5, Interesting)
However, I'm starting to challenge my gaming habit, as it is getting tiresome to keep that PC going. It's not a technical challenge - I'm a typical slashdotter with experience in PCs, Macs, Unices of various sorts and so on. Nor is it a financial challenge; I have a decent job and could replace my PC now.
The issue is the work involved just to maintain a security hole for gaming, especially when there are a few decent games available on the Mac. They may not all be exactly the games I want, but they're decent and it's only gaming.
Now add a substantial OS upgrade to the mix, and I really am having a hard time justifying upgrading my PC more. Maybe I'll just get a console for choice in my games.
-Jeff
Resource requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time, I want an OS to boot up and get out of my way so I can open up my applications where I do my real work. I'm not sure I'm too excited about an OS that wants most of my RAM just to wake up, leaving me with little room to do real work.
All this useless beauty (Score:4, Insightful)
STOP THE FUD (Score:5, Informative)
Aero Glass requires DirectX 9 hardware. Any low or midrange standalone card released in the last couple of years will work. Hell, even GeForce FX 5200 cards work. Even most integrated video works, including Intel's GMA950, ATI's Radeon Xpress, and NVIDIA's GeForce 6100. My $50 Athlon 64 motherboard has integrated video that works. HP's $269 desktop has video that works.
Does Vista require more memory? Absolutely - you want 512M at a minimum, preferably 1GB. Does it require more CPU? A bit more.
These are not high requirements. The cheapest system sold at Best Buy can run Vista with Aero Glass. Yes, that's right - the eMachines T3516, with its 3.2GHz Celeron D, Radeon Xpress 200 graphics, and 512M of memory will run Vista just fine.
So much for "hefty" hardware.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Does his mother make his bed for him still?
I use a Mac, I have no need for third-party spyware hunters or virus protection. Windows users have accepted this whole battle-against-spyware thing as an integral part of the computing experience. While I believe that this is unavoidable given Windows' market share, a hassle-free virus-free zero-paranoia computing environment is possible.
Re:Someone is alittle too idealistic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unix users don't really worry about these things. As an admin, I occasionally poke around to make sure everything is okay (verify checksums once in a while), but invariably, everything is fine.
I ran a virus scan for fun, once. (ClamAV).
Once you setup a Unix-y network, you just leave it, and things tend to keep working until the machines rust. I'm including Apple in this category, but we've got plenty of Linux machines around, too.
It's not so much a mother still makes the bed for me, as it is a I enjoy city-provided water and natural gas supply. I don't like lugging propane cyclinders, I hate chopping wood, and I wouldn't stand for no-running-water.
Why should you spend ANY of your computing time. If you're going to waste your time, at least waste it on Slashdot, not Norton Anti-virus.
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Re:Someone is alittle too idealistic... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (Score:3)
You are comparing a software companies major NEW OS to a hardware companies revision of their OS.
Are you really that big of a dork, or just too stupid to see the difference?
I don't even own a Mac, and just to be perfectly clear I am picking apart your absurd comparison, not supporting one side ot another.
Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to that the system requirements, the many different versions, and Microsoft's abysmal security record--their response to which is mostly to ask users "Are you sure you want to do this?" before every trivial operation, AND NOT EVEN REQUIRING AN ADMIN PASSWORD TO SAY 'YES'--and you can see why people aren't getting excited about it.
On a related note, I think it would be the funniest thing in the world if Apple announced tomorrow that 10.5 would be released on Monday the 29th.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> and youll rush to buy another point release that is the equivelant of a glorified service pack.
No, SPs are (supposed to be) bug fixes, each version of OS X has many new features.
> Apple posts security updates all the time.
Ah yes, this old gem: "Neither OS is perfect, therefore they're both equally bad." Uh-huh.
> Granted most are much harder to execute than windows flaws
I assume that when you
Re:Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it..... (Score:5, Informative)
Correct. In 2001, there wasn't much there. By 2002 [10.2], it was pretty good. Stuff just worked, so Vista was only bested by 5 years, or almost 2 years if you count the current features in OS X mimicked by Vista in their unique, crudely inferior way.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I still think it's funny that it took over half a decade for Microsoft to implement hardware compositing for the window manager, so they could get in on all those fancy transparencies and real-time video previews on the Dock that Apple was marketi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If this isn't for the users, then who is it for? Do you think that MS is hiring hundreds (thousands?) of people to maintain this for fun? Are they going to make a significant amount of money from this? No, this is most definitely for the users.
I've never seen XP crash, but the last time I've seen Windows 2000 crash was because of drivers. At this point in OS development, there's really no reason for crashing except for bad drivers (And yes, I don't think that OSX should crash ever, s
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"...what is so fantastic in WV?" (Score:4, Informative)
Gates didn't get into what could replace DRM, but he did give some reasonably candid insights suggesting that he thinks DRM is as lame as the rest of us. Gates said that no one is satisfied with the current state of DRM, which "causes too much pain for legitmate buyers" while trying to distinguish between legal and illegal uses. He says no one has done it right, yet. There are "huge problems" with DRM, he says, and "we need more flexible models, such as the ability to "buy an artist out for life" (not sure what he means). He also criticized DRM schemes that try to install intelligence in each copy so that it is device specific.
His short term advice: "People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then."
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/14/bill-gates-o
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