Mossberg - Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting 398
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.'"
Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it..... (Score:2, Insightful)
OUCH!
Re:Soon after this article came out... (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Someone is alittle too idealistic... (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.
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.
New Games (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Someone is alittle too idealistic... (Score:1, Insightful)
And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10.0 (Score:2, Insightful)
Regarding OSX:
Mossberg praises OSX, yet dismisses Vista with "Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP." Guess what, Mossberg, the same can be said for OSX Tiger. OSX 10.4 "overall works pretty much the same way as" OSX 10.3, 10.2, 10.1, 10.0. Yet Mossberg acted like OSX Tiger was the second coming, that it was a compelling upgrade over Panther. Well, when you compare OSX Tiger with Panther, Tiger adds nothing major except Spotlight and Dashboard. Well Vista gets those same things (and more), so if Tiger is a major improvement over Panther (as Mossberg and other Mac fanboys claim), then Vista must be at least as much a major improvement over XP. That's just logic. Of course, use of logic is foreign to those practiced in fanboyism.
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.
Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (Score:4, Insightful)
The consumers will suffer (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Mossberg praises OSX"
Does he? Other than mentioning some features of Vista which also appear in OS X, all he really says about it is:
"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. And Apple is about to leap ahead again with a new version of OS X, called Leopard, due this spring."
How is that praising OS X? Should he not compare Vista to another OS? Or should he do so only in glowing terms to avoid being labeled a "fanboy"?
Re:Issues of trust... (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:My 2c (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And OSX Tiger isn't much different than OSX 10. (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 say this you mean "Apple has had ZERO severe, self-replicating, self-spreading viruses in the wild in the last 5 years, compared to literally thousands for Windows." There, fixed that for you.
> but they are still there and because of the macboy fanaticism most dont upgrade their machines if there was actually enough macs to make it worth a hackers time they would probably have even more known vulnerabilities and problems.
Ah yes, Apple's low market share is the only reason that Macs suffer less. Didn't you yourself say that Mac flaws are "much harder to execute than windows flaws"? And didn't we settle this whole size-matters thing OVER FIVE YEARS AGO by comparing the number of exploits found in Apache (market leader) with IIS (distant second)?
> I administer macs and windows and most of our problems are with MACS... say it aint so alex...
Maybe it's the quality of your admins?
> they lock up, they beachball,
Yeah, occasionally. I work with over 400 so I see it happen every so often. And the beachball is just a 'wait' cursor, it doesn't necessarily mean you've got a problem that can't be overcome or won't solve itself in a few more seconds. It's actually quite nice--it prevents you from going click-happy and causing MORE delays.
> our xserve every few months just decides it wont boot and has to be restored.
Remember, kids: the plural of "anecdote" is NOT "data." Again--bad admins? Possibly bad hardware? (Possibly a totally untrue statement from an anonymous user on a web forum?) Our four XServes hum along with uptimes only disrupted by the occasional system software update, and we haven't restored one yet. (Most are G4s, if that gives you a hint of their age.)
> I get so sick of the Mac fanatics acting like their machines never have problems
It's not "never", it's just "a thousand times less than the competition." Or, in my mind, "EFFECTIVELY zero."
> the only group i know more full of crap than our politicians is mac fanboys
I'm pressy sure
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.
Re:Works like XP is a recommendation? (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 issuing security updates? You're doing effectively the same thing by continuing to run Windows 9x.
Now if you want to run such a machine without connecting it to the Internet then knock yourself out. But since you posted on Slashdot, the assumption is that you are connected and vulnerable.
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.
All this useless beauty (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it..... (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 marketing six years ago. Sheesh.
Re:My 2c (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:STOP THE FUD (Score:1, Insightful)
Who is going to see that feature ? Most of the companies I've visited switch to Classic mode as soon as they install XP and have said they'll do the same with Vista. Companies do not want 3D stuff that lowers productivity. If Aero had an Expose feature that would of been great, but alt-tab was perfectly fine in Win2000 and XP to begin with. 5 years of work for Aero that most people will just switch off ?
Why 'upgrade' from XP ?
Re:Downloadable (Score:3, Insightful)
"There are 2 Windows Vista users." = +2 Funny
"There are less than 2 Linux users." = -1 Troll
"There are less than 2 Linux + Mac users." = +1 Funny
Go figure.
Re:Congratulations, Microsoft Users! (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, calling those various "other" markets "niche" doesn't make the needs of the millions of people that are in them go away. There are tons of special purpose apps that even tech-novices I know use and would not want to do without. All the things on your list are fairly mainstream.
My point simply was that the features the OS itself provides are not nearly as important as the software it can run. I like alot of the things vista/osx can do in terms of navigation, searching, etc. but they don't come anywhere close to being as important as being able to run the software I want.
I work with unix every day at work for server tasks, I love OSX and Final Cut for video editing, but my main home OS is still windows for everything else. I like all of the alternative OSs for various reasons, but I don't think people have somehow been missing the boat or living in the dark ages because they haven't used them.
Re:Someone is alittle too idealistic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Issues of trust... (Score:3, Insightful)
The DRM embedded in Vista has been well hashed here [...]
No, the DRM embedded in Vista has been covered here with levels of FUD that even IBM, in their heyday, would have blushed about.
If you're here hoping learn objective, factual information about Windows, you're in the wrong place.