snydeq writes "Enterprise licensing for Windows 7 could cause major headaches and add more cost to the Windows 7 migration effort, InfoWorld reports. Under the proposed license, businesses that purchase PCs with Windows 7 pre-installed within six months of the Oct. 23 launch date will be able to downgrade those systems to XP, and later upgrade back to Windows 7 when ready to migrate users. PCs bought after April 22, 2010, however, can only be downgraded to Vista — no help for XP-based organizations, which would be wise to wait 12 to 18 months before adopting Windows 7, so that they can test hardware and software compatibility and ensure their vendors' Windows 7 support meets their needs. XP shops that chose not to install Vista will have to either rush their migration process or spend extra to enroll in Microsoft's Software Assurance program, which allows them to install any OS version — for about $90 per year per PC."
From TFA: "Web apps tuned to Internet Explorer 6, which Microsoft has essentially orphaned. Windows 7 will ship with IE8, which has a compatibility mode for IE7, but not for IE6. And if IT retains IE7 in Windows 7, Silver notes that IE7 lacks an IE6 compatibility mode. So IT must rework its IE6-dependent Web apps or use XP mode to run IE6. Both are hassles."
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' dick. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
Even though you're gay for linux, you seem to be able to see/. for what it is.
How can you be gay for linux? Does that mean you are a linux too? Or is it simply enough to be any sort of OS? Like Vista? If you are Vista and you want to have sex with Linux, does that make you gay?
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' ****. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
However I can see why businesses aren't happy: many rely on old custom legacy systems. They have websites setup for IE 6, rely on legacy era (ie DOS) applications for obscure equipment, some Sales admin/entry software that can only work on certain environments, etc. And hardware, they don't just have to worry about workstations but external devices (like scales, sensors, lab equipment, etc) that might only work with a DOS-based program through an old COM port.
In short, businesses have a LOT of specialized software that they need to keep running and cannot replace and thus want things to stay status-quo, and I can't really blame them. If upgrading their PCs and OS means spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on new software and hardware, you can imagine that they'd like to sit just where they are.
because nobody really cares about you. You don't buy a copy of Windows on Select agreement, or Software Assurance - ie you don't pay Stevie every year to run the same software, or in the case where you get tp upgrade to the latest version, *have* to upgrade whether you want to or not.
See, you don't want to run anything but the latest stuff, but you don't spend like those companies do, and they;re the ones who buy the "enterprise" software that still needs XP, or NT4, or DOS. Selling to you is just a sideline to Microsoft's real business.
And last I looked, you weren't the marketplace for Biztalk, Exchange and all the other Really Expensive server software MS gets to sell to the companies that pay for Windows on their yearly licences.
Yeah, The Internet is a fucking hypocrite. It's almost like it's an amalgamation of a huge number of people with a huge number of differing opinions instead of a single entity. Doesn't it know it must be internally consistent, ideologically!?
While everyone does hate on MS around here there is one major difference. In general when Apple went to OS X (and with most subsequent upgrades) it was generally viewed as a better system but when MS went to Vista it was viewed as worse. I'm not saying you don't have a point about people hating on MS just to hate but the comparison is a bit apples and oranges.
I really don't get it...how will Microsoft even know you downgraded to XP if you just boot the machine up for the first time using a WinXP install CD, and then later reinstall Windows 7 with the OS disk (you do insist on OS install disks being shipped with your new PCs, right?) at a later date? They would only be activating the Windows 7 installation one time, and MS would likely never know or care.
They are closing the only way people currently have to purchase a brand new OEM license of Windows XP. The only way to install XP on any computer you don't currently have licensed is to purchase an incredibly expensive software assurance plan from Microsoft. SA isn't always a bad thing, but considering most people have been using the same OS for 7-8 years and have no intention of changing...It's not a good deal to get SA. If you bought XP in 2002, purchased the open license for $200 (guesstimate), and then paid the $66 a year for SA (assumes SA at 1/3rd price of the product)...You would have paid $662 for what you could have gotten for $200. SA only makes sense if you upgrade every 3 years or less, but the truth is, even if your new OS didn't suck, businesses don't like massive change, and changing OS version is exactly that, massive change.
Why does the phrase "Lost Generation" keep coming to mind? Microsoft is setting themselves up to fail (again). Skip over Vista, skip over Win 7.0, eventually the learning curve from jumping from XP to Win 7 SP1 becomes no worse than jumping from XP to Ubuntu. Me, I swore that Win2K would be my last Microsoft OS, and it was. I'll dabble with supporting friends and relatives XP machines, because it's similar enough to 2K. I tried to configure a cow-orkers laptop a few times, now I just routinely refuse.
Yep. I don't want to switch to Windows 7. XP works just fine for Office apps, Firefox, Adobe reader, winzip a couple of proprietary apps and....that's it. The Devil's biggest trick was convincing the world that OS's need to be regularly upgraded to something very very different.
Would be happy to pay a reasonable sum for patches (done properly mind you, no larking about until Tuesday to get critical vulnerabilities out of the way), but having to either accept the costs of a mixed OS environment, or a large migration project for no benefit whatsoever, or pay extra for an old OS which is *still* supported really pisses me the fuck off.
Sigh, I guess this is the price we all pay for being reliant on a company which I suspect is past it's peak.
(On the subject of things that piss me the fuck off, I also hate it when you have to make an effort to decode marketing spiel to work out what a product does - I'm looking at you, VMWare.)
Sigh, I guess this is the price we all pay for being reliant on a company which I suspect is past it's peak.
What?
Microsoft is doing exactly what any other software company in their position has done, and would do. You have GenericSoftware 3.0. Then, GenericSoftware 4.0 is released. You either you have to deal with a mixed software environment, or you have to upgrade everyone to GenericSoftware 4.0. How is what Microsoft's doing different from what every other company is doing?
And don't tell me open-source doesn't have this problem. Windows XP was released in 2001. If you asked for support and patches for, say, Mozilla Phoenix 0.3 (released 2002), you'd get laughed out of pretty much everywhere. And if you actually cared about using open-source, you'd be using Linux and you wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
And it's not compatibility, either: Windows 7 is coming with Windows XP Mode, which will give you all the IE6 you'll need for your buggy ActiveX webapps.
So tell me: What's wrong with what Microsoft is doing with Windows XP?
Windows is far from the only obstacle keeping Linux off the desktop.
Blasphemer! Linux is perfect, it is totally ready for the desktop.
I want to tell you all the reasons why linux is perfect, but I'm going to have to keep this brief, since I'm still recovering from a kernal update that went horribly wrong. but once I get my wifi working again, I can fix my no sound in flash issues. Hopefully, that wont break my DVD playback abilities this time, which i finally got to work, despite the screen saver still popping up after being turned off...
but, once I get all that out of the way, you can expect a long list of reasons why linux is indeed ready for the desktop.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 16, @05:42PM (#28354755)
Blasphemer! Windows is perfect, it is totally ready for the desktop.
I want to tell you all the reasons why windows is perfect, but I'm going to have to keep this brief, since I'm still recovering from a windows update that went horribly wrong. but once I track down the update failed error code I can start re-adding my printer and network definitions, then I can start looking at cleaning out my corrupted registry and removing these visues I keep getting. Hopefully, that wont break my DVD playback abilities this time, which i finally got to work, despite the screen saver still popping up after being turned off...
but, once I get all that out of the way, you can expect a long list of reasons why windows is indeed ready for the desktop, unlike linux, which has no END of problems!
Is this number right? For $90/yr/pc, I can install any MSFT operating system?
Why isn't this program publicized? I am a small business and I have to tell you...the entire Windows licensing system is very very difficult to navigate. And I am 100% certain that is "by design". The more confused they can make me, the more money they can extract out of me and my company (or so they think).
In actual practice, I don't mind spending money where needed and $90/yr/pc seems about fair for a Windows OS.
Bonus points if someone can point me to a vendor who will sell it to me.
M$ has finally came clean and declare that their users don't 'own' a piece of software, or for that matter, a perpetual license on a per system basis. Instead it's a rental license that must be renewed yearly. Failure to do so will result in deactivation and data loss.
Exactly. Consumers need to understand what this licensing means and why Linux, OS X, and older versions of Windows (2000-XP) are a better investment than Vista/Windows 7 licensing.
I still use W2K at home. XP is literally a patch-work and I am tired of the reboots, so I have mostly abandoned it. Vista is slow, lacks drivers, and drops support for hardware that is perfectly good in W2K-XP. Windows 7 is an improvement -- although Windows Explorer in RC1 is annoyingly slow and reason enough for me to abandon Windows 7.
Can anyone explain what the FUCK happened to slashdot to make comments unreadable, and how to fix it? There are unremovable grey horizontal and vertical bars and pill icons everywhere. OMGPONIES was supposed to be a joke, and now they've made it reality.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 16, @03:59PM (#28353533)
On the other hand, if you don't have mod points, go up to the top of the comments where there are three drop down menu boxes for threshold and 2 other things and two buttons--reply and change--and without changing anything, click the change button.
Don't know why that works , either, but it seems to.
Thanks for forcing me to find a fix for something that's been driving me nuts for a couple of weeks now.
I'm still unitron (5733), still avoiding undoing mods.
If it is a large company $90/yr/pc is an outrageous price. You would be spending more for the operating system than the PC, considering most companies get a fairly good discount when buying large quantities of PCs.
No, for $90/PC/year, plus the cost of the open license of Windows, you can run any Microsoft OS you want, technically all the way down to MS-DOS & Windows 3.0.
What does the D stand for in MSDN again? That's right, Developer. Which is also the only environment that a MSDN server license is allowed to be used in.
Did you actually read what's written...MSDN is for testing and dev only.
hence the:
"Software testers or IT professionals who need to set up test labs with Microsoft operating systems, but do not need additional products.
Example: Test or IT staff at a video card manufacturer needs to set up a lab for testing drivers on multiple versions of Windows."
If you install MSDN OS in your shop in production and MS knocks on your door...you'll find yourself in court in a snap of a finger....it happened to us last year
Are the penalty fees still the same? last I heard it was the cost of the license with no discounts + (3*the cost of the license with no discounts) per machine. Say the license was $100 (to make the math easy) it would be $400 per machine. That can add up fast if you are a medium or large shop.
I would love to sign up, then flood their call centers with complaints that Win 3.11 won't run on my New i7 build = D
Why do you think it won't? It runs just fine on my Athlon XP 2800. It's simply a matter of installing an underlying DOS that can access modern large drives -- FreeDOS should do the job just fine.
We're on XP... They are thinking of going Vista because of the 1 on 1 MS support we have. Most techs here are well against any move away from XP... Vista II or 7 depending what your take is is not an option. We want out of the M$ revenue tree... Just code something that works and we'll pay for the patches/upgrades. Stop trying to sell us new stuff that just takes up more CPU cycles for no good reason. This industry is going nowhere fast.
We're on XP...
They are thinking of going Vista because of the 1 on 1 MS support we have.
Most techs here are well against any move away from XP...
Vista II or 7 depending what your take is is not an option.
We want out of the M$ revenue tree...
Just code something that works and we'll pay for the patches/upgrades.
Stop trying to sell us new stuff that just takes up more CPU cycles for no good reason.
This industry is going nowhere fast.
Anecdotal observation time. I just built a new desktop and am planning on using it as a testbed. I have a homebrew distro of XP called XP 64-bit Ultimate which is intended to be a current, patched, up-to-date version of XP so you're not stuck downloading several hundred megs of patches and cruft when you do a new install. I also have Ubuntu 9.04 and the beta for Windows 7.
Ubuntu worked right out of the box, decent default viddy drivers, network card detected. Sound isn't working but I hadn't expected any of it to work since this is a newish motherboard with everything integrated so that's much better than I expected. XP had a worse default viddy driver and no networking. Of course, I managed to kill Ubuntu trying to get the full ATI drivers working but that's probably just a silly mistake made overlooking something.
Now I know that people will say "n00b, you can slipstream stuff into your custom build of xp your such a linux fanboy" etc etc but what's nice about Ubuntu is you don't have to dick with any of that stuff. Distros release very frequently and you can burn a new CD whenever you want. You can't even cheat with Windows and borrow someone's more recent CD because your legally-purchased key won't likely be compatible.
This is a roundabout way of saying that for all the unfamiliar quirks and different ways of doing things, open source is so much nicer to work with simply due to the lack of the licensing model.
Okay, so to get this straight:
linux installed fine, but without working sound. You killed your linux installation through attempting to update video drivers.
windows installed fine, but without working LAN drivers. I am assuming you corrected this and installed proper ATI drivers without crashing your system.
Objectively, how is your Linux experience any better than Windows? It sounds like overall, it was worse (assuming you had a need to upgrade to ATI drivers. ). I'm not saying that linux can't be easily installed and working, obviously that is not true. However, your anecdotal experience -- if anything --- seems to say you should stay with Windows.
The problem is that his only alternative is to install an old version of XP and wait an eternity while it updates, then spend an age hunting around for all the drivers and then spend lots more time installing those. Imagine the pain of having to reinstall XP from an original pre-SP1 copy.
"A method of automatically loading a weapon for repeatedly and regularly firing at one's foot without breaking the rythm".
Microsoft has in the last couple of years:
- Released THE most hated OS since WinMe
- Released a confusing myriad of versions of their latest OS' which seek to differentiate by feature set, ultimately pissing off any customer who buys or is forced by a hardware manufacturer to buy an inferior version of the OS only to find that they must upgrade to get important functionality enabled
- Replaced their Office interface with that goddawful ever changing ribbon which certain geeks continue to defend despite it completely ruining productivity, and now they're incorporating it into every damn program they can
- Fired their Aces game development team ending a long running franchise in flight simulation
- Put just about everyone off side with their nutty Windows Genuine campaign
- Fucked up their Zune software with date based bugs
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
I'll bet 100 mod points that Windows XP will be available at least a year after Windows 7 release. Microsoft barks a loud bark, but in the end, they tend to buckle under pressure from their biggest supporters.
"...which allows them to install any OS version..."
This "Assurance" is bullshit. XP WILL die eventually, and it will be due to the hardware vendors not writing drivers anymore, not because Microsoft has "assured" you by taking your money. It's already getting difficult to find XP driver support for new hardware out there TODAY, much less 12 - 24 months from now when businesses will still be looking to run XP.
They're just testing how much more abuse they can heap on their customers before those customers start leaving in droves. It really is quite consistent with their business strategies. They'll keep pushing until a lot of customers start looking elsewhere then they'll backpedal to just before that point and dial it in there. They're experts of having things just good enough and just usable enough that people don't go looking elsewhere.
If you've been following their behavior for a while, it's pretty clear what they're up to. Watch for an increasingly bizarre set of announcements in the coming months, and at least one major backpedal.
You mean if i'm using an 8 year old operating system and a 7 year old browser I may have some issues upgrading to the latest and greatest If i feel like formatting several times and have no idea what XP mode is?
Seriously- the amount of backwards compatibility microsoft gives is ridiculous. Microsoft bends over backwards to provide backwards compatibility- including installing a full copy of an older operating system in their new one. If you cant find some solution that works for you- are aren't actually looking.
Also, using boxen in a sentence is cause for automatic suspension of your nerd license. On the other hand, it also qualifies you to receive a script kiddie license at no charge.
Or you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you know... vista7 is made out of chilli (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' dick. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:4, Funny)
Even though you're gay for linux, you seem to be able to see /. for what it is.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Funny)
Even though you're gay for linux, you seem to be able to see /. for what it is.
How can you be gay for linux? Does that mean you are a linux too? Or is it simply enough to be any sort of OS? Like Vista?
If you are Vista and you want to have sex with Linux, does that make you gay?
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:4, Funny)
No. But having sex with Vista makes you a pervert. She is obviously a large fat two-year-old girl in colorful plastic semi-transparent fetish clothes.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' ****. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
However I can see why businesses aren't happy: many rely on old custom legacy systems. They have websites setup for IE 6, rely on legacy era (ie DOS) applications for obscure equipment, some Sales admin/entry software that can only work on certain environments, etc. And hardware, they don't just have to worry about workstations but external devices (like scales, sensors, lab equipment, etc) that might only work with a DOS-based program through an old COM port.
In short, businesses have a LOT of specialized software that they need to keep running and cannot replace and thus want things to stay status-quo, and I can't really blame them. If upgrading their PCs and OS means spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on new software and hardware, you can imagine that they'd like to sit just where they are.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
because nobody really cares about you. You don't buy a copy of Windows on Select agreement, or Software Assurance - ie you don't pay Stevie every year to run the same software, or in the case where you get tp upgrade to the latest version, *have* to upgrade whether you want to or not.
See, you don't want to run anything but the latest stuff, but you don't spend like those companies do, and they;re the ones who buy the "enterprise" software that still needs XP, or NT4, or DOS. Selling to you is just a sideline to Microsoft's real business.
And last I looked, you weren't the marketplace for Biztalk, Exchange and all the other Really Expensive server software MS gets to sell to the companies that pay for Windows on their yearly licences.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, The Internet is a fucking hypocrite. It's almost like it's an amalgamation of a huge number of people with a huge number of differing opinions instead of a single entity. Doesn't it know it must be internally consistent, ideologically!?
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Funny)
99% PORN
1% Mindless rambling about other crap while waiting for porn to download.
The internet is a steadfast brick wall of consistency. Or perhaps a hard, throbbing rod of consistency.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:4, Informative)
They're still trying to milk XP demand for all it's worth and more.
If MS hadn't made crap when it released vista, there wouldn't be such a fuss to upgrade to XP in the first place.
Parent
Re:The whole thing is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Funny)
a cow-orkers laptop
This post brought to you by explicit.slashdot.org. Let's keep it SFW, guys. None of this backwoods paraphilia.
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like I crossed the memes.
You fool! You'll kill us all!
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. I don't want to switch to Windows 7. XP works just fine for Office apps, Firefox, Adobe reader, winzip a couple of proprietary apps and....that's it. The Devil's biggest trick was convincing the world that OS's need to be regularly upgraded to something very very different.
Would be happy to pay a reasonable sum for patches (done properly mind you, no larking about until Tuesday to get critical vulnerabilities out of the way), but having to either accept the costs of a mixed OS environment, or a large migration project for no benefit whatsoever, or pay extra for an old OS which is *still* supported really pisses me the fuck off.
Sigh, I guess this is the price we all pay for being reliant on a company which I suspect is past it's peak.
(On the subject of things that piss me the fuck off, I also hate it when you have to make an effort to decode marketing spiel to work out what a product does - I'm looking at you, VMWare.)
Parent
Re:Or you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh, I guess this is the price we all pay for being reliant on a company which I suspect is past it's peak.
What?
Microsoft is doing exactly what any other software company in their position has done, and would do. You have GenericSoftware 3.0. Then, GenericSoftware 4.0 is released. You either you have to deal with a mixed software environment, or you have to upgrade everyone to GenericSoftware 4.0. How is what Microsoft's doing different from what every other company is doing?
And don't tell me open-source doesn't have this problem. Windows XP was released in 2001. If you asked for support and patches for, say, Mozilla Phoenix 0.3 (released 2002), you'd get laughed out of pretty much everywhere. And if you actually cared about using open-source, you'd be using Linux and you wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
And it's not compatibility, either: Windows 7 is coming with Windows XP Mode, which will give you all the IE6 you'll need for your buggy ActiveX webapps.
So tell me: What's wrong with what Microsoft is doing with Windows XP?
Parent
The power of lock-in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The power of lock-in (Score:5, Funny)
Windows is far from the only obstacle keeping Linux off the desktop.
Blasphemer!
Linux is perfect, it is totally ready for the desktop.
I want to tell you all the reasons why linux is perfect, but I'm going to have to keep this brief, since I'm still recovering from a kernal update that went horribly wrong. but once I get my wifi working again, I can fix my no sound in flash issues. Hopefully, that wont break my DVD playback abilities this time, which i finally got to work, despite the screen saver still popping up after being turned off...
but, once I get all that out of the way, you can expect a long list of reasons why linux is indeed ready for the desktop.
Parent
Re:The power of lock-in (Score:4, Funny)
Blasphemer!
Windows is perfect, it is totally ready for the desktop.
I want to tell you all the reasons why windows is perfect, but I'm going to have to keep this brief, since I'm still recovering from a windows update that went horribly wrong. but once I track down the update failed error code I can start re-adding my printer and network definitions, then I can start looking at cleaning out my corrupted registry and removing these visues I keep getting. Hopefully, that wont break my DVD playback abilities this time, which i finally got to work, despite the screen saver still popping up after being turned off...
but, once I get all that out of the way, you can expect a long list of reasons why windows is indeed ready for the desktop, unlike linux, which has no END of problems!
Parent
Downgrade then Upgrade... sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about just "Sell XP Licenses" or is that too easy?
$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why isn't this program publicized? I am a small business and I have to tell you...the entire Windows licensing system is very very difficult to navigate. And I am 100% certain that is "by design". The more confused they can make me, the more money they can extract out of me and my company (or so they think).
In actual practice, I don't mind spending money where needed and $90/yr/pc seems about fair for a Windows OS.
Bonus points if someone can point me to a vendor who will sell it to me.
Software Rental (Score:4, Interesting)
M$ has finally came clean and declare that their users don't 'own' a piece of software, or for that matter, a perpetual license on a per system basis. Instead it's a rental license that must be renewed yearly. Failure to do so will result in deactivation and data loss.
Parent
Re:Software Rental (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Consumers need to understand what this licensing means and why Linux, OS X, and older versions of Windows (2000-XP) are a better investment than Vista/Windows 7 licensing.
I still use W2K at home. XP is literally a patch-work and I am tired of the reboots, so I have mostly abandoned it. Vista is slow, lacks drivers, and drops support for hardware that is perfectly good in W2K-XP. Windows 7 is an improvement -- although Windows Explorer in RC1 is annoyingly slow and reason enough for me to abandon Windows 7.
Parent
Re:Software Rental (Score:5, Interesting)
Viz: http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9974/wtfiswrongwithslashdot.png [imageshack.us]
Parent
Re:Software Rental (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have mod points right now?
If so, before actually changing any of the drop down mod boxes under the comments, go to the bottom of the page and click the "Moderate" button.
I don't know why it works, but it does.
I'm unitron (5733). Had to log out to make this comment without undoing some mods I made.
Parent
Re:Software Rental (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand, if you don't have mod points, go up to the top of the comments where there are three drop down menu boxes for threshold and 2 other things and two buttons--reply and change--and without changing anything, click the change button.
Don't know why that works , either, but it seems to.
Thanks for forcing me to find a fix for something that's been driving me nuts for a couple of weeks now.
I'm still unitron (5733), still avoiding undoing mods.
Parent
Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
What does the D stand for in MSDN again? That's right, Developer. Which is also the only environment that a MSDN server license is allowed to be used in.
Parent
Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are the penalty fees still the same? last I heard it was the cost of the license with no discounts + (3*the cost of the license with no discounts) per machine. Say the license was $100 (to make the math easy) it would be $400 per machine. That can add up fast if you are a medium or large shop.
Parent
Re:ANY operating system? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do you think it won't? It runs just fine on my Athlon XP 2800. It's simply a matter of installing an underlying DOS that can access modern large drives -- FreeDOS should do the job just fine.
Parent
same old (Score:4, Insightful)
They are thinking of going Vista because of the 1 on 1 MS support we have.
Most techs here are well against any move away from XP...
Vista II or 7 depending what your take is is not an option.
We want out of the M$ revenue tree...
Just code something that works and we'll pay for the patches/upgrades.
Stop trying to sell us new stuff that just takes up more CPU cycles for no good reason.
This industry is going nowhere fast.
Re:same old (Score:5, Funny)
We're on XP...
They are thinking of going Vista because of the 1 on 1 MS support we have.
Most techs here are well against any move away from XP...
Vista II or 7 depending what your take is is not an option.
We want out of the M$ revenue tree...
Just code something that works and we'll pay for the patches/upgrades.
Stop trying to sell us new stuff that just takes up more CPU cycles for no good reason.
This industry is going nowhere fast.
Burma-shave!
Parent
Put on the fire-retardant suit, it's flame-time (Score:5, Insightful)
Anecdotal observation time. I just built a new desktop and am planning on using it as a testbed. I have a homebrew distro of XP called XP 64-bit Ultimate which is intended to be a current, patched, up-to-date version of XP so you're not stuck downloading several hundred megs of patches and cruft when you do a new install. I also have Ubuntu 9.04 and the beta for Windows 7.
Ubuntu worked right out of the box, decent default viddy drivers, network card detected. Sound isn't working but I hadn't expected any of it to work since this is a newish motherboard with everything integrated so that's much better than I expected. XP had a worse default viddy driver and no networking. Of course, I managed to kill Ubuntu trying to get the full ATI drivers working but that's probably just a silly mistake made overlooking something.
Now I know that people will say "n00b, you can slipstream stuff into your custom build of xp your such a linux fanboy" etc etc but what's nice about Ubuntu is you don't have to dick with any of that stuff. Distros release very frequently and you can burn a new CD whenever you want. You can't even cheat with Windows and borrow someone's more recent CD because your legally-purchased key won't likely be compatible.
This is a roundabout way of saying that for all the unfamiliar quirks and different ways of doing things, open source is so much nicer to work with simply due to the lack of the licensing model.
Re:Put on the fire-retardant suit, it's flame-time (Score:5, Insightful)
linux installed fine, but without working sound. You killed your linux installation through attempting to update video drivers.
windows installed fine, but without working LAN drivers. I am assuming you corrected this and installed proper ATI drivers without crashing your system.
Objectively, how is your Linux experience any better than Windows? It sounds like overall, it was worse (assuming you had a need to upgrade to ATI drivers. ). I'm not saying that linux can't be easily installed and working, obviously that is not true. However, your anecdotal experience -- if anything --- seems to say you should stay with Windows.
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Re:Put on the fire-retardant suit, it's flame-time (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that his only alternative is to install an old version of XP and wait an eternity while it updates, then spend an age hunting around for all the drivers and then spend lots more time installing those. Imagine the pain of having to reinstall XP from an original pre-SP1 copy.
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Microsoft seeking a patent... (Score:5, Insightful)
"A method of automatically loading a weapon for repeatedly and regularly firing at one's foot without breaking the rythm".
Microsoft has in the last couple of years:
- Released THE most hated OS since WinMe
- Released a confusing myriad of versions of their latest OS' which seek to differentiate by feature set, ultimately pissing off any customer who buys or is forced by a hardware manufacturer to buy an inferior version of the OS only to find that they must upgrade to get important functionality enabled
- Replaced their Office interface with that goddawful ever changing ribbon which certain geeks continue to defend despite it completely ruining productivity, and now they're incorporating it into every damn program they can
- Fired their Aces game development team ending a long running franchise in flight simulation
- Put just about everyone off side with their nutty Windows Genuine campaign
- Fucked up their Zune software with date based bugs
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
Re:Microsoft seeking a patent... (Score:5, Funny)
Hate that goddamn ribbon, if it wasnt for keyboard shortcuts I still couldnt print or save.
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Microsoft Will Cave (Score:4, Interesting)
Software vs. Hardware support - A Realistic View. (Score:5, Insightful)
"...which allows them to install any OS version..."
This "Assurance" is bullshit. XP WILL die eventually, and it will be due to the hardware vendors not writing drivers anymore, not because Microsoft has "assured" you by taking your money. It's already getting difficult to find XP driver support for new hardware out there TODAY, much less 12 - 24 months from now when businesses will still be looking to run XP.
Bah! They're Just Testing the Water (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've been following their behavior for a while, it's pretty clear what they're up to. Watch for an increasingly bizarre set of announcements in the coming months, and at least one major backpedal.
HOLY FUCK (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously- the amount of backwards compatibility microsoft gives is ridiculous. Microsoft bends over backwards to provide backwards compatibility- including installing a full copy of an older operating system in their new one. If you cant find some solution that works for you- are aren't actually looking.
Re:My entire shop is SuSE Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Also, using boxen in a sentence is cause for automatic suspension of your nerd license. On the other hand, it also qualifies you to receive a script kiddie license at no charge.
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Re:My entire shop is SuSE Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Also, using boxen in a sentence is cause for automatic suspension of your nerd license.
Your nerd license is hereby suspended.
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Re:My entire shop is SuSE Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Mac shops have admins?
I thought they just had baristas.
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