Information Technology Pros Debate Windows Vista 377
An anonymous reader writes "As a follow-on to John Welch's widely read review arguing that Mac OS X is superior to Vista, Information Week is running the first in a weeklong series of roundtables where a programmer, networking consultant, and 3 IT managers have a serious technical debate on the pros and cons of Vista. What's been your experience with Vista? More importantly, do you think it will ever gain traction among corporate users, or is its glitzy Aero interface destined to make it mainly a consumer OS?"
Me (Score:4, Insightful)
Staying with XPSP2 strongly advised.
Roll on 2009 and the next version, however in the meantime if you are going to have the hassle of nothing working anyway, you may as well take a look at switching to OSX or Linux.
WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
What the hell does Aero have to do with business use? You can disable it if you don't want to use it in a business environment, which I'm sure that many businesses will do for hardare reasons anyway (Intel's Extreme Graphics / GMA900 can't run it anyway).
Would you claim that Mac OS X's "glitzy" UI makes it inappropriate for business use? Or that Beryl makes Linux inappropriate for business use?
Of course OSX is not superior to Vista (Score:1, Insightful)
Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
replacing it all is not easy, and many shops dont have the stomach for it, or the talent. and in some cases the shops have windows apps that can only run in windows. that all said:
when you really look at Vista objectiveily its a huge improvement over xp and 2k.
but sure it does have some things that are odd and different that annoy you, but in some and most cases that can be changed.
and some of the postive stuff like low rights framework that IE uses is exposed so other apps can use it. and
-Nex6
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a huge number of so-called "IT Professionals" that just don't have a clue. Lots of middle-aged guys who managed to get a job running the FAX machines at some corporation 20 years ago, and eventually ended up being the "IT guy". But they don't know ANYTHING. They buy whatever new hardware they think is neat, and that the salesmen from their vendors tell them they need. And then they pay for all-encompassing support contracts, so that they don't have to configure anything, or troubleshoot anything, because they don't actually know how to do that stuff.
I sometimes wonder if those guys are the majority of the IT employees in the United Stats. Guys that use the company's money to hire other people to do their jobs. The only reason they get away with it is because their boss is even MORE clueless about how IT should work.
Sorry, kind of off-topic, but I just can't stand the attitude of rags like "Information Week".
Re:Of course OSX is not superior to Vista (Score:2, Insightful)
Vista feels very familiar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why?:
1. Too slow
2. Distracting visuals
3. Limited screen limits (2 monitors limits me to 1024x768)
4. Less stable - I've seen creeping little things that just aren't right
Basically I like to poke around with it and eventually a 'plain' version of them may win me over, but as it stands today, I won't use any of them for when I code.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
You could have stopped there. Windows is just a bad implementation of VMS + Unix + DOS that, due to Microsoft's successful violation of anti-trust law, is pretty much the only operating system you can buy pre-installed on commodity hardware. Because of that successful illegal behaviour, all the corporate apps (and games) run on Windows, hence all the corporate users are on Windows, adn all the gamers are on Windows. Vista offers exactly nothing to those users. But if you buy a new computer, Vista is what you are going to get because Microsoft wants it that way. It isn't exactly a surprise that nobody is buying Vista 'upgrades'.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:1, Insightful)
Too buggy, too many security holes, too fat, too slow, no "need to have" new features.
Not even sure I will even use it after a couple rounds of service packs and bug patches. What is there to gain? Nothing.
Re:My Vista pros/cons (Score:2, Insightful)
Stupid questions (Score:4, Insightful)
You're joking, right?
I hope so. Otherwise, you're not real observant. Of *course* it'll gain traction among corporate users. Because they have not fucking choice! What part of "vendor lock-in" is hard to grasp?
See, too many companies have millions of dollars of infrastructure tied up in MS-Windows, and other Microsoftware. They are not going to replace it overnight. And, by the time they really start to feel the burn, the worst will be over (at least as far as up-front cost goes: the pain never truly ends, but that's true no matter what). New PCs will come with MS-Vista (the 'MS' is to distinguish it from the health-care package that's been around for 20 years). Corporations will soon not have a choice. It'll be MS-Vista or nothing.
How many times do we have to go through this? We had this same debate when MS-Windows XP came out. This isn't our year. Maybe next year, but not this year.
Microsoft might be dying (I believe it is), but it takes a long, long time for a giant to decompose.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
If that is true, and it is as easy as you make it seem, then why DON'T THEY JUST DO IT?
"Gee, we can easily replace the part of our OS that makes everybody hate us... but nah."
Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because in 6 months, you won't be able to buy a new computer without Vista on it. And in two years, you won't be able to get support for XP. And then in about 4 years, you won't be able to get software compatible with XP for love or money.
Corporate users never really saw a lot of value in XP either. Moreover, it took about that long for it to "gain traction", in both the consumer and corporate markets. I've been working in the ISP industry since 1994, and tech support has watched as every new OS Microsoft has produced in that time get snapped up by a small percentage of early adopters, followed by the rest of the computing population as they upgrade their computers over time.
Most people find installing an operating system too much work, too time consuming, too difficult, or they just don't think about it at all. It *came* with the computer after all. Isn't it just a part of the computer? IT departments in companies see it much the same way. You have to upgrade the computer to get the next version of windows, so why not just let Dell or IBM do the install when you do your next upgrade? To install a new OS across an existing network of any size is too disruptive to the users, and too time consuming. A user would have to do without a computer for the better part of a day at the very least if you upgrade an existing system.
Re:Fixed (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it more responsive to this than XP? It always really shits me that you have to wait for Windows to realise an app "isn't responding" before you can actually kill it. Although, if you keep clicking the End Process button when Windows finally responds you get a crapload of "Would you like to kill this process?" dialogs. And closing dozens of dialogs is fun fun fun.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
Adobe barely goes balls to the cubicle divider to bring flash for Linux and even then you only get a 32-bit version, tough shit if you run in a 64bit desktop environment.
They know us Linux users are cheap goofs who most are probably just going to pirate Photoshop anyway...
Re:Apparently (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course OSX is not superior to Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
95% of people buy computers, not operating systems.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:1, Insightful)
I suppose Flash and Adobe Reader are only available to push those "open formats" further. It would be ridiculous if only Windows and Mac OS could run those.
Re:sounds like a good discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My Vista pros/cons (Score:2, Insightful)
> Cons:
> -It's DRM crippled to the extreme
>
This is the "showstopper" for me, and I'm really puzzled by the lack of mention of the DRM and "Trusted Computing" related disadvantages of Vista. That is the single reason why I've decided not to ever upgrade to Vista. I've played around with it a little, and I'll admit some of the changes (search on the start menu, nice graphics updates) bring it closer to good. But it still has an unfinished feel, like they're right in the middle of some migration to a different UI philosophy. After having used OSX for a while, I've come to appreciate how consistent and thought-out it is. It's not a panacea, but it's definitely more intentionally good than a lot of comparable windows examples.
But the bottom line for me is DRM. Completely integrated DRM down to the driver and HAL level, intentional breaking of functionality (hook a HD tv up to your HD-DVD drive using DVI, etc), and the requirements that hardware vendors conform to Microsoft's idea of secure hardware design... I cannot see how this will do anything but hurt everyone except Microsoft and the owners of protected content. And by owners, I don't mean the creators of content... I mean the publishers.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_
Vista-compatibility depends on hardware vendors redesigning their hardware to Microsoft's requirements, at greater cost and complexity. What happens to fair-use rights when we can't technologically step around it? The legal battle is still being played out, but what does it matter if Microsoft and the content owners decide what the technical limitations are and enforce it down to the hardware level?
I know most techies will ignore it, figuring that eventually everything is broken so it wont be a big deal. But the harm will have already been done in the manner of annoyances, instability, higher costs for hardware and software owners/developers, and incredible limitations and loss of rights for the end users. How does this outweigh essentially some UI changes and half-baked security updates?
Re:As an IT manager (Score:3, Insightful)
Also in some time you will see software or hardware(64 bit?) that is vista only or better supported on vista. (NOT YET), so a s a it manager you will have to migrate to it to be better supported.
Of course windows nt4 is fine too to do some spreadsheet software and word processing. maybe it is time to investigate if a linux desktop with that functionality is an option for you if 90% of the users only do that. At least MS will give you some discount if you mention it to them.
Also not that new hardware will standard be delivered(and supported?) with vista instead of XP in the very near future. license and support troubles: here they come!
Re:Why do I need Vista? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad you told me that. Means I can scrap this RAM because it doesn't provide me with any benefit. I'll chuck this ATI card because ATI obviously don't want me to have any benefit from using it so I don't need it, right? Honestly, that whole paragraph was total crap. If it didn't provide me with benefit I wouldn't have bought it. Just because it's only usable in one fashion, doesn't make it worthless. It might be worthless to you, but that's entirely your own prerogative. I wouldn't expect you to buy it, even if you seem to expect me not to.
As it stands, I have fun using my PC, and that's the main thing I care about - I don't give a cack whether it's Linux, Windows, or OSX as long as I enjoy myself, and the terrible time I had trying to run Ubuntu wasn't fun for me.
When it boils down to 'choice' I still have plenty. I can choose to use hardware with standard interfaces and migrate to Linux or I can buy non-standard hardware and stay on Windows, as you so rightly pointed out. However in that same breath, I have the choice between spending nothing and being miserable trying to get Ubuntu or Debian or whatever to actually work, or I could spend something disposable and actually have a good time when I'm home relaxing. Just because I personally limit my options because of what I want to do when I relax and use my PC, doesn't mean I don't have a choice at all.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
This IS NOT the same. MS has also ported Win32 and the NT Kernel many times; however, replacing the fundamental OS API set is something different.
MS is actively moving developers to managed code, and with a long term reason, so they can drop Win32 as secondary subsystem on NT with a new main system API.
Apple did VERY LITTLE when it comes to transitions making life easier on users. Their idea of compatibility was basically using a System9 VM on OSX. This is not creative, nor easy on the end users. MS on the other hand back in 1992 implemented the Win16 subsytem for application compatibility with Win 3.x while developing Windows NT. This was NOT an emulation environment, but a seperate Win16 subsystem that runs on the desktop side by side Win32.
MS is already doing this to a certain extent with
NT's core is a client/server kernel technology and it is in the NT layers where what is kind of cool about Windows exists. NT's subsystem model allows for MS to move in or out any Subsystem that is equal to the main OS subsystem, this is also why a BSD *nix variant runs NATIVELY as another subsystem on NT, without EMULATION or VM.
Microsoft doesn't do any of the above because they don't have to.
Again, this is simply not true. First, XP64 and Vista 64bit do NOT USE the Win32 subsystem as the main OS subsystem. So they have done this, not only 1992 with the Win16 subsystem, but today on the 64bit versions.
I don't really care what you think of MS, as they both suck and do things well depending on what you look at. However to try to use Apple as a 'shining' example when it comes to OS architecture or API implementation it is VERY laughable.
Even Quartz2D continues to fall on its face with no default hardware accleration, pushing developers to use the very old QuickDraw API to maintain performance in applications.
Even 10.5 hasn't delivered an accelerated version of Quartz2D, yet Vista REPLACED their entire video subsystem while adding in WPF and other technologies. And Vista's new video subsystem is SO TRANSPARENT to users and even nerds, that people don't think Vista is any different than XP.
So with regard to the video, MS did too good of a job of creating a new video foundation/system, as most people don't even get all of it is NEW and think Vista is just like XP because all the applications look and run just fine.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand your point here, but on Vista, THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE. The application system UI elements like the minimize/move/close are handled by the Vista UI composer, so even if Outlook or any application locks tight, it is not locked on the screen whatsoever.
In XP, this also was possible, but locking applications would often lock in the repaint process, and since there was no composer to handle the application, all that could be done at that point would be to access the menu from the taskbar and close the application.
Vista is a different story, sorry...
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, oddly you are making my point in your response. The UI of the application doesn't always lock even if the application does. However, it can happen on XP/2k/NT4/etc...
On Vista, it cannot happen, as the screen is owned by the composer, so the application may stop repainting, but you can still move, minimize, and close it from the Windows Frame UI.
The reason the person in the grandparent post sees OSX as superior, is because it also uses a composer, this gives the OS an advantage as it is not relying on applications for redrawing at the frame buffer level. This is only a side effect of a composer between the applications and the frame buffer though, it doesn't mean OSX special, it just means it has a composer.
This is something that people working on various 3D UI composers for XWindows in the OSS world can also testify to, just adding a composer between the applications and the frame buffer gives the same results no matter what the OS.
The only execption would be and OS that has a single input message queue like OS/2 did, which lets any application's non-responsiveness deny even the OS messages from the user.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)