Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Released 334
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has finally released the final build of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. 'There are a few significant additions that are included in SP2: Windows Search 4.0, Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, the ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Vista, Windows Connect Now (WCN) is now in the Wi-Fi Configuration, and exFAT file system supports UTC timestamps. The service pack contains about 800 hotfixes.' A list of other notable changes is available on TechNet. SP2 isn't included in Automatic Update yet, but it will be 'during the coming months.'"
Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:4, Insightful)
I can almost imagine the developer sitting at his desk getting an e-mail from their issue management system that there's a problem with Fc.exe (file compare) ... only to have him realize that his for loop that iterates over the buffer that reads the files should have the while conditions of <= 128 and not simply < 128!
This is forgivable, I code some pretty stupid errors sometimes.
What isn't forgivable is that one of the columns on this bug spreadsheet is "Publicly Available" which implies to me that there is a list I'm not seeing of fixed bugs which would be annoying and probably even non-fixed bugs they purposefully suppress from public knowledge which is alarming!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Been there, done that, also found an off-by-one bug in someone else's code that calculated the number of pages for custom pagination in a webapp.
Granted, this was years ago before the whole "shove all the rows at them then have Javascript turn it into pages" mentality came around...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just FYI, it's not 'shove all the rows at them', it's 'use ajax to request the rows you need and don't waste time re-rendering the other 95% of the page - and no cacheing doesn't always work'... well at least when I do it that's how it works.
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:5, Funny)
Much to my amusement, a colleague of mine once suggested that the conversion from polytheism to monotheism was the result of an off-by-one error :)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:5, Insightful)
So Atheism is the result of a divide by zero error? The result as done by hand makes sense: DNE, "Does Not Exist"
No, athiests are just like monotheists; they just believe in one less god.
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:5, Insightful)
"What isn't forgivable is that one of the columns on this bug spreadsheet is "Publicly Available" which implies to me that there is a list I'm not seeing of fixed bugs which would be annoying and probably even non-fixed bugs they purposefully suppress from public knowledge which is alarming!"
Hello. Closed source software. I damn well *expect* there to be thousands, if not more, bugs that are not and will never be fixed in Windows until someone "finds" them and posts about them publically, security related or not. I doubt even the militarised versions of Windows have *everything* they know about fixed - it's easier to just say "don't do this" or not include a certain tool/utility/feature than it is to fix it and document it.
Why on Earth would you ever find this alarming, or unforgivable? It's the whole point of closed-source software, so that you *never* know what's going on with the code and (hopefully) never see it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Hello. Closed source software. I damn well *expect* there to be thousands, if not more, bugs that are not and will never be fixed in Windows until someone "finds" them and posts about them publically, security related or not. I doubt even the militarised versions of Windows have *everything* they know about fixed - it's easier to just say "don't do this" or not include a certain tool/utility/feature than it is to fix it and document it.
Why on Earth would you ever find this alarming, or unforgivable? It's the whole point of closed-source software, so that you *never* know what's going on with the code and (hopefully) never see it.
I disagree.
You could (should) offer a closed source product and still be honest about all the bugs that exist in it to your paying customers. Granted, I'm not distributing my web applications on a scale that Vista is being distributed on but you know seeing these 700 fixes listed out does alarm me. I mean, that really serious bug? The one that puts your Windows 2008 server at risk? Could still be at large without you ever knowing about it.
From Microsoft's end, how do they handle multiple bug r
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:5, Insightful)
Operating system experience updates
* SP2 improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in the area of content protection for TV.
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:5, Informative)
Look before you FUD. I know WMC-fu, have contributed to DVRMSToolbox, and follow WMC stuff pretty closely.
The content protection thing actually IS an improvement. It's not more DRM, it's less, or rather, it fixes what's there. While it doesn't remove DRM completely, it does fix where WMC would copy protect when CGMS-A flags (Macrovision analog output protection, like for cable PPV) are accidentally encoded into DTV signals. That buggy behavior, on the part of Microsoft and the broadcasters, was why American Gladiators got flagged as protected months ago. There was a big stink about it, although I can't really understand why anyone would care about "pituitary retards banging their F#@$ing skulls together and congratulating YOU on living in the land of freedom!"
I believe legacy code for the broadcast flag was also removed, so ATSC/ClearQAM can't possibly be set as protected now.
Unrelated, but a DRM relaxation is coming for CableCARD, in that non-premium digital cable will no longer be protected. HOWEVER:
- This is a Windows 7 thing, and requires a firmware update to the tuner, an installed copy of Duke Nukem Forever, and who knows what else?
- It's totally up to the cableco to decide what is and isn't "premium", so chances are stuff like Discovery HD/SciFi HD/ESPN HD will stay locked down. Only the stuff that is already on ClearQAM will be opened up.
Not that CableCARD was ever worthwhile. For what you can and can't do with it, you might as well rent a DVR from the cableco if you really need that much TV.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know... use something like.... a TV set?
Re:Like Digging Through People's Trash (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the whole point of closed-source software, so that you *never* know what's going on with the code and (hopefully) never see it.
The industry rule of thumb for a software developer is about 10 lines of code per hour, on average, over the lifetime of the project. According to Microsoft, Windows XP has about 40 million SLOC.
Without business staff, PMs and SDETs, that's 4 million man-hours. That's 1923 full time man-years. Assuming Microsoft pays their SDEs $80,000 on average, those 40 million lines of code cost them $153,840,000.
Why can't the point of closed-source be to put food on the table? If all software is free, what are software developers going to do for a living? Buy an air nailer and become a roofer?
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, you're forgetting about copy/paste - not everyone like using good OO developing practices damnit... we like to inflate our code quantity by duplicating functions everywhere we can.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that most software developers work for companies designing custom solutions right? Most software developers do not work on for profit apps, but rather build apps, or tools, to enhance a companies business processes and generate money or sales. The point here is that the software is not, by itself, earning most
Re: (Score:2)
It's the whole point of closed-source software, so that you *never* know what's going on with the code
Really? That's the whole point of closed-source software? Gee, and here I thought it was to make money based on the idea that software, like books, movies, and so forth, is property that is owned by the creator and can be controlled and sold at their discretion.
Hello. Open source software, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
"I damn well *expect* there to be thousands, if not more, bugs that are not and will never be fixed in Windows until someone "finds" them and posts about them publically, security related or not"
Hell, I expect there to be thousands, if not more, bugs that are not and will never be fixed in open source software, until somebody -other than those actually responsible for the code- submit a patch.
I'm looking at you, silly little Thunderbird bug #92165 from 2001/Jul/24.
is this that different from open source? (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't you see the OpenSSH article go through over a week ago? Disclosing significant security issues that existed in OpenSSH since its existence and weren't even announced until months after they were found and fixed?
Open source also has lots of bugs in it. And many of them aren't fixed until they are posted about in a public forum.
You have an actual point here about open source. It's just Stallman's point restated, but still, it's valid. But you do a really rotten job of stating it and explaining how open
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This "value" is non-existant to 99% of the "users" in the world and I seriously wish it would stop being touted as some advantage to open source.
Fact is, for anything "open source" to escape the dungen of nerddom, it has to be being used by a lot of people that do not read code, are not programmers and have no hope of ever looking at the source. And, more importantly, no desire to ever do so. They want something that "just works". Period.
Paying someone to look at the source for you isn't really a viable
The best service pack for Vista (Score:4, Funny)
is Windows 7 RC1.
Re: (Score:2)
Windows 7 has a MacOS style dock bar, whereas Vista SP2 has the Windows 95 style task bar.
So close to SP3? (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that coming out in October?
Finally, I can torrent from windows (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe MS finally (almost) admitted they made a mistake. It may have taken almost as long, in technological terms, as it took the Catholic Church to admit it's mistakes with Galileo, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Re: (Score:2)
Before this change, I could "torrent from Windows" at over 10 Mbps on my connection. You must have been doing it wrong. :S
This is only *half open* outbound TCP connection. At *worst', it will cause a torrent to pick up speed slightly slower, but it won't cap the maximum speed or anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
home routers crap out if you open too many. Hopefully it's less of a problem today
I tell you sir, it's still a problem. The $30 NAT routers of today are just as big of a hunk of crap as they were 4 years ago, they just increased the profit margins with the lower manufacturing costs that economy of scale has brought to the industry.
Personally, I threw a second NIC in my server, installed VMWare Server, and now run Smoothwall [smoothwall.org] as a guest, routing for my network. I probably would have done this years ago but it took a lot for me to break my love/hate relationship with DD-WRT and it's GPL
Re: (Score:2)
I do something like that, but I don't use smoothwall. FWIW tc's HTB does work quite well in controlling bandwidth.
The main disadvantage I find is, my PC server+modem+etc uses about 100 watts. Whereas an el-cheapo NAT router will use a lot less.
Oh well...
Re: (Score:2)
PC server+modem+etc uses about 100 watts.
That was a barrier for me too, but having discovered I really do want to leave the server on 100% of the time, after discovering that running a VM didn't tank the box down (1.75G Ram 2.8GHz P4 Box with Server 2008) and got good performance, which I didn't think would happen (heh), it made sense.
Until I can run everything I need 100% of the time on something like a Sheeva plug, or get a really cheap but capable laptop that'll make a good server (and won't tempt me to use as a laptop), reasonably low-power S
Re:Finally, I can torrent from windows (Score:4, Interesting)
After running a fire-breathing Celeron 2.5GHz as router/fileserver/torrentbox/freepbx for a few months, I finally bit the bullet and picked up a soekris net5501 [soekris.com] and installed pfsense and freeswitch on it. My firewalling and phones run right at well under 20 watts.
Of course that leaves me without fileserver or torrentbox, but an inexpensive alix [pcengines.ch] or fit pc [fit-pc.com] running freenas will fill that role nicely.
Re:Finally, I can torrent from windows (Score:4, Funny)
as it took the Catholic Church to admit it's mistakes with Galileo
Obviously someone watched Angels and Demons last night...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I can't believe you would compare MS to the Catholic Church! :-(
One is a marketing company, and the other is a religion...oh wait...nevermind.
Re:Finally, I can torrent from windows (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason why it was implemented according to various sources was to limit the damage of all those infected Windows machines spamming networks looking for new vulnerable hosts to infect, and also, slow down the rate at which they would cause bedlam. By enforcing such a limit, the aim was to impede an infected machines ability to propogate the infection; of course, we're primarily talking the nasty to catastrophic Windows worms we've seen in the past from gaping truck-sized security holes in critical system components.
However, if you look at Vista, you'll note that contrary to what some people would like you to believe, the exploitability of the OS has gone down drastically versus XP, in particular, with regards to worms. This is of course due to several reasons: better OS security architecture, defence-in-depth (DEP/ASLR/etc...), properly enforced user permissions, the list goes on. Take the most recent Conficker worm as an example. Vista infections will almost certainly be a lot lower, for one, the exploit path that uses the MS08-067 [microsoft.com] vulnerability that forms its primary exploit vector can not be exploited anonymously on Vista and newer machines. The vulnerable code is still present unless patched, but it requires valid user credentials.
At a guess, I'd say Microsoft came to the conclusion that the TCP limit was no longer necessary on Vista, as the improved security of the OS made the need for such connection limitations redundant. On the other hand, I'll be surprised if they ever remove it on XP, because no matter how much you patch it, it is fundamentally more insecure by its architecture than Vista. And if they don't remove the limitation on XP, I'd argue that's quite telling as to the motivation and reasoning behind removing it on Vista only.
Windows Search 4.0?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Windows Search 4.0?! (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, you don't actually notice any real difference in how the indexing works with WS4, it's all back-end. It's suppose to be more efficient that the search/indexing code that came with Vista. I know it can be annoying when installed in XP, but since its predecessor was already integrated into Vista it should be an improvement.
If you still hate it, disable the Indexing service.
Re:Windows Search 4.0?! (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is, you don't actually notice any real difference in how the indexing works with WS4, it's all back-end.
I can't speak to what it's like on Vista, but on XP two things are true:
Re: (Score:2)
I have Vista SP1 installed for playing games the hard drive was thrashing so much it was actually causing stutter in my fps games sometimes until I turned the indexer and the superfetch services off (I actually had to turn off superfetch twice as it ignored me the first time). I don't seem to remember ever having to deal with that sort of issu
Re: (Score:2)
Vista Home Basic 64 is a pre-configured Vista with all the crap turned off.
Re:Windows Search 4.0?! (Score:5, Informative)
I have Vista SP1 installed for playing games the hard drive was thrashing so much it was actually causing stutter in my fps games sometimes until I turned the indexer and the superfetch services off (I actually had to turn off superfetch twice as it ignored me the first time). I don't seem to remember ever having to deal with that sort of issue on XP, so my guess is vista is probably worse for this sort of thing. It would be nice if SP2 alleviated this, but I'm not holding my breath. Incidentally, I find it sort of funny and sort of annoying that there are so many Vista defenders out there, when my own experience is that, yeah it runs well enough, but only after turn off all the crap like this and the graphical effects, and even then it's a little slow for a brand new OS on a brand new computer. On the other hand, with any fresh linux install I also go around removing a lot of the default desktop packages that I don't want, only it seems a lot easier and more transparent in linux, but maybe I'm just used to the linux way and not the windows way.
The funny thing is that Vista is slow on a fresh install, but the hard drive thrashing stops after you've used it for a day and it's populated superfetch and the index. It's fine to turn it off if you don't want to do indexed searches and don't want instant load on a few programs at the expense of a day of slowness, but it's also fine to leave them on, because they absolutely stop slowing anything down after that time.
Re: (Score:2)
Indexing Service (Score:3, Informative)
You have to do heavy configuration in Vista with Windows Search to have it search outside your profile, but once yo
Re: (Score:2)
The Indexing Service and Windows Search are not the same thing.
That's true, but that truth does nothing to contradict anything I said.
Windows Search 4.0 is an indexed search. It must index your system to provide search results. And one thing it does not let you do is search for anything non-indexed. The process to perform a non-indexed search from the GUI in XP after Windows Search 4.0 is installed includes clicking a link in the Windows Search sidebar, which brings up the classic Search Companion (or the classic/advanced search, if you have so configured Windows) in a
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Windows Search 4.0?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I run Vista. index is enabled by default, but one of the first tweaks i did was switch it off, and Windows Search can be uninstalled/hidden.
The indexer runs as a "background" serivce, which is a new type and is supposed only get CPU cycles when the machine is idle. unfortunately, this only works for the FIRST instance of a background process, and there are many cases where more than one can conflict under Vista, and then indexing begins chewing up resources. I had it kick off in the middle of playing games when the CPU was over 80%.
WS4 will NOT be enabled on my machine. I keep the index service, pre-fetch, and several other services forcibally disabled on my machine. When I'm looking for something, it;s either an e-mail, which google or xobni instantly find for me without M$'s help, or it's a file I've properly store and can find myself in 3-4 clicks, or it;s a media item already indexed by iTunes... I don't search my personal machine for random crap, and anything I've ever needed to find on my own machine was ALREADY indexed by somethiung else.... It's a complete waste of resources, a waste of disk space for the index database, and every time you run a major patch, it fucking re-indexes, which for my 400+GB of stuff, takes as long as defragging.
This is not to mention that is also searches inside files, and stores that data in a database in a predetermined location. I have data in docs on my system I'd just as much prefer NOT be in a non--encrypted central repository... contacts, SSNs, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, all go in that database that is VERY easy for a hacker to lift...
If there's a way to uninstall WS4 after SP2, not just disabling it, I will.
Re: (Score:2)
If there's a way to uninstall WS4 after SP2, not just disabling it, I will.
FWIW, there's no real advantage to going Rambo on system services that you feel have wronged you in the past.... Disabling them really is enough ;)
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno, in any previous version of Windows search it seems I cannot find anything. For example by the default settings it won't see files in directories that aren't indexed. And even when Advanced search is told to search all files on disk and subfolders despite index, it still can't seem to match a simple filename half of the time.
Having said that I haven't tried Search 4.0 yet, am hoping it's better but maybe it's worse.
So I thought they were assholes before Search 4.0 to be specific.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually love it for work. The amount I search email and documents, it does a great job. You have to remember that it isn't just a plain txt file search, but it indexes doc and your outlook information. Being able to type in my last name and get a list of 68000 items in 1-2 seconds is pretty sweet.
I've tried Google Desktop as well, but just wasn't as much of a fan. I had a harder time getting it to index properly and do what I wanted. WS4 gives you some pretty fine grain control over what and where i
Re: (Score:2)
Total Commander and Alt+F7. It even works on Linux (wine), sadly except Samba shares browsing ;(
It's a best file management tool I've ever used.
Wireless streaming (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if they have fixed the throttling bug where if you're streaming media over a wireless link, Vista throttles the connection down so much that it causes buffer underruns and severe clipping. I can't listen to FLACs in VLC unless I set buffering to at least 20 seconds.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think that's a bug in the OS, and not just typical wifi packet loss issues? Streaming multimedia is *not* one of the things that wifi is good for-- if you're really having troubles with this, I'd recommend running cable.
Or at the very least trying it with a different OS to determine whether it's Vista or your wifi link at fault. Of course that would involve critical thinking instead of just knee-jerking every single computer problem to be Microsoft's fault...
Enterprise Vista Deployments (Score:2)
I just wonder if the changes in Vista SP2 will sideline similarly glacial Vista deployments or be a blessing, allowing people to skip Vista for Windows 7.
Re: (Score:2)
Many companies do this on purpose. Comcast did not go to XP until 2005/2006 simply because of problems with the custom and vertical apps. And Many of the important servers that generate $10,000 an hour by inserting Advertisements into channels eve still run NT4.
Honestly, when your gear makes you a lot of money, it's ragingly stupid to upgrade the OS until you know it's not going to cost you money with downtime or errors. Like a client of mine that HAD TO HAVE Vista on everything when it came out. We up
Re: (Score:2)
The government agency I am contracted to is just now in the final testing phases for rolling out Windows XP to the desktop.
Yes, XP. They had a Vista pilot last year but due to legacy app issues decided to scrap it and start the process over again with XP.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You just tipped your hand. "Government agency".
SP2 in A.U. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, maybe it isn't, but my Vista Home Premium at work "complained" this morning it had a new update, which was SP2, I let it download and play with it, now it's installed and it seems to work ok up to now.
Re:SP2 in A.U. (Score:4, Informative)
It's being "phased" out. Your machine was one of the lucky 1% that got the update now. My home machine did not have it automatically, but doing a "check for updates now" populated it. I'm waiting a few days to install it however until 1)I get around to making another image backup and 2) other people try it and fail first...
Not in automatic updates, really? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Renumber Windows 7 then (Score:2)
This will make 7 Vista SP3, then.
What? Windows 7 is already out? (Score:2)
I thought it would still take another RC...
Vista SP2 (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm hoping that SP2 doesn't break the functionality of my HTPC like Windows 7 did. I tried Windows 7 x64 RC on my HTPC for about a week or so, but my sound card (X-Fi Extreme Audio PCI-Express x1 slot) developed some major problems that caused MCE to crash and WMP to crash.
I went back to Vista on it. I'm happy enough with the Media Center in Vista that I doubt I'll use Windows 7 on this box in the future, even though the UI of Windows 7 Media Center seems to be a little less "cluttered". My biggest complaint about Vista is the format of the recordings you make. I cannot seem to easily manipulate the resulting recordings very well at all, and I have to rely on MCEBuddy to convert the recorded shows to a format (H264) I can then use on other systems and OSes. ( I know, I know...DRM can suck my salty balls)
From a usability standpoint though, Windows 7 seems superior to Vista in the installation process, as well as the Desktop UI. I am surprised that they don't just convert the installed Vista base to Windows 7 for the simplicity of support. (well maybe not "surprised". it "is" MS, afterall)
sp2 on auto updates (Score:2, Informative)
i just booted vista on my dual boot laptop, and instantly i got prompted to install sp2 from auto-update...
dont care about vista, or any windows, i just never bothered to remove it completley... sigh... damn vendors with preinstalled win$shit
Earlier Version Not So Good (Score:2)
FYI, Windows Server 2008 SP2 too (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft decided to have unified service packs for OSes using the same core.
That is to say, for Vista and Server 2008. This also means that, yes, Windows Server 2008 was SP1 at launch [msdn.com].
It Just Works (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a longtime XP user. I use Ubuntu and RHEL at work. I use linux and unix. I hated Vista with a passion, thought it was a PIA and had so much config problems. I then bought a new PC (quad core 6GB ram, blah blah) so I figured I'd put Vista on it. First time worked ok. I updated my bios, it blew away my Raid 1. Got irritated and stopped screwing with it. Then SP2 came along in the last few weeks and I reinstalled my OS and installed SP2 over it.
It just works. Works perfectly. So simple to install Vista and simple to install the SP2. 2 reboots and I had everything working. Fixed the RAID issue, fixed the bluetooth issue, fixed some other quirks that drove me batshiz crazy.
I gotta say that I used to hate vista with the passion of a 1000 firey suns. Now I'm like "Well it's not too bad, what's the problem with it again?"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats the exact same shit people said about XP. Its unbelievable how much people forget. Win2k was the best OS ever when XP dropped. Everyone _EVERYONE_ swore up and down that they would never install XP and its "cartoon" interface. 7 years later and I'm the only one still running win2k. I just upgraded my home PC to XP last year.
My point is that its always the same. People will eventually have to upgrade to vista for one reason or another. This does not mean that the initial problems are solved necessarily
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
No one's using Vista anyway.
What are you talking about?? Plenty of people are using Vista. My Website's stats show (For the month of May until today): Windows XP 57.5 % Windows Vista 22.5 %
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Interesting)
Numbers of page view per platform on the last 12 month of a little european website:
Page Views
Platform Sum %
(blank) 231,944,487 14
AIX 63,675 0
AmigaOS 1,399 0
BeOS 1,145 0
CP/M 26,258 0
DOS 28,158 0
Dreamcast 319 0
HP-UX 1,405 0
IRIX 2,535 0
Linux 10,782,630 1
Macintosh 22,543,401 1
NetBSD 1,930 0
OS/2 6,449 0
OSF1 1,000 0
OpenVMS 383 0
SCO_SV 38 0
Slurp 61,242,836 4
Solaris 7,625,811 0
SunOS 197,176 0
Unix (unknown) 67,609 0
WebTV 2,111 0
Windows 12,050,352 1
Windows 16-bit 11,607 0
Windows 2000 132,118,040 8
Windows 32-bit 6,226,532 0
Windows 95 723,941 0
Windows 98 32,166,513 2
Windows CE 107,696 0
Windows NT 5,474,837 0
Windows Sever 2003 19,986,701 1
Windows Vista 30,442,927 2
Windows XP 1,012,030,914 62
unknown 39,486,905 2
TOTAL 1,625,367,720 100
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Funny)
SCO_SV 38 0
Sco_SV has 38 users? Why haven't we seen a SCO doubles market share article?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Informative)
Which, of course, are all thanks to Microsoft's monopoly, which you're supporting by still using Windows. Not trying to cause trouble, but there's no point complaining about a problem if you're still part of the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No one's using Vista anyway.
No, but many are forced to tolerate it.
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
I totally agree, I have been using Vista 64bit for over a year now, it has crashed on me twice in that time. My XP machine is far less stable.
Now, I'm not going to argue about Vista's stability, it's the speed and general bloat I have problems with, but seriously, what the fuck are all you people doing to your XP installations?!
I barely maintain my system at all, much to my disdain, but I haven't had it freeze/crash/BSOD/whatever in the past 3 years (well, a few times, but they don't count because it was faulty hardware, not software) and I torture the hell out of this computer!
Vista in the enterprise (Score:4, Informative)
I am sure Vista is fine with the latest software, and for personal use. However, have you tried deploying Vista in an enterprise environment (or use older software for that matter)? Here is a small list of issues that have caused us to stop looking at Vista for a rollout:
1. Group Policy management (the move to admx files has caused numerous backwards compatibility issues)
2. The ever-growing winsxs folder. There is no way to shrink or compress it.
3. Try creating images with default software for imaging workstations due to #2.
4. In-house applications need to be recoded.
5. Minimum requirements for Vista would require a major purchase of machines to be able to run it.
6. Activation process fails ~1/3 of the time, even when trying to use an in-house key server.
7. Random core dumps on Dell Latitude laptop line (have had 8 of them do this), even with the latest drivers and firmware.
Re:Vista in the enterprise (Score:5, Informative)
So your programmers wrote shitty code that failed to follow standards. Other people can write software which runs on Windows 95 through Windows 7 - the fact that your programmers didn't/couldn't is hardly a failing of Vista.
One third of the time? I've watched Vista computers take memory, graphics cards, CPU upgrades and activate and reactivate without issue. If activation was failing 33% of the time on any kind of scale, there would be outrage (of the real kind, not the angry-geek-at-Slashdot kind). "Using your in-house key server" points a bit differently, too. My guess? You're doing something the wrong way. Very much the wrong way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm wondering why you have a problem with the winsxs folder in Vista, but not in XP.
Windows Side by Side support was introduced in Windows XP [wikipedia.org]. It's for loading multiple versions of DLLs. Installing various versions of .NET or Visual Studio tends to bloat this directory up regardless of which OS version you're using.
If you have Visual Studio 2008 installed, you'll even have versions of DLLs for different architectures than you're currently running: x86, x64, and Itanium stuff are all installed as I recall.
Re:Vista in the enterprise (Score:4, Informative)
I can't believe I'm sticking up for vista, but.....
2. winsxs folder. This is actually a folder full of hard links. Its isn't _really_ 10gb. some info here [winvistaclub.com]
4. I've had maybe half a dozen compatibility issues with vista since I started using it over two years ago. In my current job there is a crapload of dodgy activeX web apps and VB6 apps, none have a problem. The ODBC drivers we use for connections to an informix database works _fine_ in vista, and the dates on those binaries is 1996. Infact, they work better in vista than in XP or anything else. Certain types of connections with these drivers never worked at all in applications deployed with ClickOnce on XP.... but in vista they work fine.
7. I got vista preinstalled 2+ years ago on a Dell Latitude D820. At that stage I had a lot of bluescreens etc caused by the USB stack, video drivers etc etc but since SP1 came out it has been rock solid. I use suspend/resume and I only ever reboot my machine if there is an update I want to install. I guess it probably gets rebooted on average every 6 weeks or so. I don't think I've had a bluescreen in at least 12 months.
You may well be right on your other points, I don't know. Vista still has issues and feels very bloated compared to 7, but IMHO it is a shame it has struggled to throw off the bad reputation it gained when it launched.
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think UAC is great. I get home from work and my daughter says "What's your password because I need to install XYZ" and I smile. I can let her do as she pleases on my laptop and not worry about her install the latest Malware, Crapware (iTunes), etc.
The only time I've grumbled is when Firefox auto-updates while she's using it and it can't finish its upgrade without my password. (great engrish Inda)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for Firefox auto-updates, that is firefox's fault. I've had goofiness when I hit cancel on the privilidge escalation dialog, but IMHO Firefox should be able to just continue working nomrally if it doesn't update.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not UAC. What you are talking about is the (simple) difference between a user and an administrator. Microsoft has never understood that difference. Which leads us to the BS that is UAC... even with admin rights you still have to confirm every damned thing you do. It's a horrible stupid kludge. If you don't what people doing "admin" things, don't make them an admin. (it's a tough concept in the windows world.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's the initial stuff that was crap. But you know what, that makes it an even better reason to stay with what works. Stuff that has more of the bugs fixed.
I was using Win2K after WinXP SP2 came out. And Win2K was quite stable. The few blue screens in years was due to hardware going bad, or a bad NIC driver.
I'm now using WinXP SP3 on the desktop and ubuntu for my server. And both have been stable. I wouldn't use WinXP "the o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make a difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:UTC Timestamp? (Score:5, Informative)
UTC is a time format, and specifies GMT.
With UTC timestamps, two files written simultaneously in Germany and Canada would have the same timestamp. In Windows, without UTC timestamps, they would have two completely different timestamps, because they would (most likely) use local time.
If you want a more informed source, try Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Strictly speaking UTC isn't GMT.
As per your link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time#Rationale [wikipedia.org]
As usual, once you get into the details it gets messier :).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not quite the same as GMT. There can be a few seconds difference between the two. GMT is based on the position of the sun at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. UTC uses an atomic clock to count the seconds and has leap seconds added to the end of the year from time to time to bring it back into alignment with GMT.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Er... except that UTC timestamp only specifies the timezone, not how it's actually stored.
It's up to libc to know how it's stored and convert it to unixtime as appropriate.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"New names"? The entire world has been using UTC as an international standard for timekeeping since before you were born and were calling it UT or GMT for a hundred years before that. Can we please try to learn about something instead of just whinging about it?
Re:Secure... lol (Score:4, Funny)
I disagree.
Just installed Vista SP2. Let me tell you it is the most secure and stab
[NO CARRIER]
Re:Secure... lol (Score:5, Funny)
That tells you how good SP2 is. Even when his computer DOES go down, the PC manages to save his message, append "[NO CARRIER]" to it, and post it as anonymous. Let's see Linux do that!
Re:Secure... lol (Score:5, Funny)
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Released
Will everybody please stop calling it Vista SP2? It's called Windows 7 for fuck's sake!
Re:You Joke, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually there are many good reasons to drive a manual car. Total control on performance, fuel consumption, and generally not being a lazy geezer.
Sad thing is (Score:2)
I think the same about my OS X updates.... though it is getting to more than x.x.2 now.
Vista is native to Blu-Ray, gawd I hope this kicks Apple in the pants.