MS Reportedly Adds 6 Months of Vista Downgrade 244
LiteralKa sends in a poorly sourced Reg story claiming that Microsoft has granted OEMs six more months to sell PCs using Windows Vista with the support to downgrade to Windows XP. OEMs can now offer such arrangements until July 31, 2009 — the previous deadline was January 31, 2009. The article claims as source "a Reg reader" without further details. Neither Microsoft nor any OEM has confirmed the rumor, and only a few scattered bloggers have picked it up.
Gasp! (Score:4, Funny)
Front Page? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why is a poorly sourced, unconfirmed story from the Reg posted on the front page? VERY slow news day?
Because it can still be interesting and open to great discussions. As with everything else, it is up to the user to decide if he/she believes the story is accurate or not. And at least it is clearly stated that this article is poorly sourced.
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The Reg (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't decide whether The Reg is The National Enquirer or the Weekly World News of tech news sites on the Web.
Can someone help me with this? ;)
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Yes.
HTH. HAND.
Well well (Score:5, Insightful)
"Neither Microsoft nor any OEM has confirmed the rumor, and only a few scattered bloggers have picked it up."
Including Slashdot.
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Slashdot is rarely considered a timely news source at the best of times, which makes me wonder why they would approve an openly acknowledged poorly sourced story, rather than waiting?
Fair enough, two answers might be "kdawson" and page impressions from all of us Vista haters, but are not the editors adult employees with some sense of quality and thought?
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You might as well think that 'employee' vs. 'sense' and 'thought' is a contradiction these days if you look at the 'quality' that is delivered (and at the cost to fix the financial implications).
CC.
Thank God (Score:2, Insightful)
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I guess I didn't correctly read what you meant. I'm assuming you mean they're _not_ cutting it off yet. Regardless, IMO they're allowing for additional time because it's an extra revenue source. Why limit the potential option to one OS when you can get people buying one of two? It's also to their benefit to do so rather than to effectively cut off sales to both: "Hey, I hear Vista is terrible. I wanna go to XP. What do you mean XP isn't for sale anymore?
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I can't tell if that's your sig file or a response to my post. If the latter, then
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Vista is a piece of crap and official Microsoft policy is to deny it, of course. Can't speak badly about the company after all, can we?
I use XP. My daughter bought a new laptop and hates Vista. My dad bought a new laptop and after 2 weeks STILL can't install a printer driver - the Microsoft website is a maze of recursive links that never actually provide useful info. Not to mention all the nagging Vista does. So what incentive do *I* have to switch? I'm happy with my dual boot Ubuntu/XP computers, there the
HP problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
So Vista sucks because your father (who must be what? 60? 70?) can't install a printer driver?
Yeah, my father, who worked for IBM, who programmed mainframes to do accounting and payroll for companies with thousands of employees (think GM, etc), who has had every imaginable kind of PC since the 70's. He can't install a printer driver for his HP All-in-one. So your point was? Not every 60 year old is computer illiterate.
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Blame HP, not microsoft. The driver for my all in one Brother laser installed perfectly in Vista x64. If it's possible for one company to do it correctly and make it easy for the user then it's possible for any company to do it. It sounds like HP dropped the ball. What is your logic for blaming it on Vista?
Sounds like all the problems are very hardware dependant. I purchased a new computer because my gaming machine would not run COD4 well and the resulting Vista machine not only out-performs everthing I've had before it also supported my HP printer out of the box. I actually set aside a day to move my printer and scanner over from their previous host and deal with all the driver issues, instead I found myself finished in hardly more time than it took to rearrange the cabling.
NB I'm no microsoft fan... I spen
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Insightful)
B.S. If my HP all-in-one runs fine with OS X and Ubuntu, and ran fine with XP but won't work in Vista, it is Microsoft's fault. You have to remember, one of the main reasons Vista even exists is to sell new hardware . It certainly wasn't necessary to replace XP for any other reason, lots of people like XP just fine and it still does pretty much everything consumers expect a modern OS to do. No, Vista was designed to literally require people to have to buy new stuff, as well as to make the **AA's job a bit easier. Either of which is more than ample reason to reject it.
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B.S. If my HP all-in-one runs fine with OS X and Ubuntu, and ran fine with XP but won't work in Vista, it is Microsoft's fault. You have to remember, one of the main reasons Vista even exists is to sell new hardware . It certainly wasn't necessary to replace XP for any other reason, lots of people like XP just fine and it still does pretty much everything consumers expect a modern OS to do. No, Vista was designed to literally require people to have to buy new stuff, as well as to make the **AA's job a bit easier. Either of which is more than ample reason to reject it.
People said the same thing about Windows 2000 when it replaced NT and then XP when it replaced Windows 2000. Your HP all-in-one will run on vista just fine when HP gets off their ass to write a proper driver for it.
Re:Thank God - curse Ballmer (Score:2)
Blame HP, not microsoft. The driver for my all in one Brother laser installed perfectly in Vista x64. If it's possible for one company to do it correctly and make it easy for the user then it's possible for any company to do it. It sounds like HP dropped the ball. What is your logic for blaming it on Vista?
Well my HP All-In-One installed perfectly in Ubuntu. All functions working, available via the network to any PC in the house. HP provides pretty good driver packages which install effortlessly in my experience, whether on Linux or Windows. If blame for a non-functioning printer is to be assigned to either HP or MS, my guess would be that software issues are MS's fault, and hardware issues are HP's (maybe there's a borked connector or something).
BTW I also programmed IBM and DEC mainframes in the late 70's,
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"What is your logic for blaming it on Vista?"
I think the logic is like this: there are *free (in all senses) alternatives aplenty out there, and their main drawback is that they sometimes need a bit of tweaking before they take Windows to school, frequently because the hardware manufacturers "don't support" Linux.
If you're going to charge multiple hundreds of dollars per PC, we kinda expect you to go into the back room with the HP people and get things humming for us.
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Well, I can only speculate as to what Microsoft's reasons for cutting off XP are, but I would imagine they include a desire to eventually stop supporting it - preferably when not too many people are using it anymore. If they continue to sell XP, XP will supposedly continue to gain new users and keep existing users, which means Microsoft will have to support it longer.
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The current mob's opinion of Vista comes from A) People who didn't even try it, B) people who WANTED Microsoft to fail before Vista was even in development, and C) people who did try Vista, either from piss poor OEM installs (fuck you Dell, can you at least CHECK if your bundled drivers are of the correct version when you modify your XP images to run Vista instead of making a Vista one from scratch? dumbass OEM), or from the early driver screw ups (Creative...Nvidia...)
Then when someone brings that up, one
Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
In those 8 years, Windows has hardly evolved. Honestly, Windows Vista doesn't add too much groundbreaking stuff to Windows XP, the only real technological novelty is the graphics.
Eight years is a lot in computer history, and if you look at what it was 8 years before Windows XP, that was 1993. So Windows 3.11 is to Windows XP, what Windows XP is to Windows Vista, but the difference between XP and Vista is much smaller than the difference between 3.11 and XP!
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
"why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?"
In short, because Microsoft succeeded in killing platform independant applications.
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why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
It's not exactly the way you paint it. There is no 'line of succession' between Windows 3.11 and Windows XP.
XP and Vista are derivatives of Windows NT. Version 3.1, the first version of NT, was released in 1992. There's a chasm of difference between Windows 3.11 and NT 3.1.
Between Windows 4.0, which was released in 1994 or 1996 and Windows 2000, there's not that much difference outside of the user interface changes. And between 2000 and Vista there's not that much difference, aside from user interface ch
Linux and Mac Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Well- this is Slashdot, so...
Look at how much Linux desktops have evolved over the last 8 years. Actually- just over the last four. Also- look at how Apple's OS has evolved over the same time period.
The only company that seems to be having a hard time evolving a desktop OS is Microsoft.
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looking at the other side of the coin, the reason microsoft has trouble evolving windows, is that the OS is simply mature. linux with X/kde/gnome is developing features that windows has had for ages, and macosx is only about 8 years old.
i actually like xp, it runs most windows software, fast. try running a 7 year old distro and see if it runs today's software.
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linux with X/kde/gnome is developing features that windows has had for ages
Wait, didn't we just have a story about Microsoft releasing something to finally give Windows multiple desktops?
...and it apparently doesn't work very well, but that's getting off-topic.
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why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
What do you need an OS to do that XP doesn't already do? But the question answers itself. A more evolved OS should run apps faster and more securely and be easier to use.
Since a fully-patched XP is pretty stable and secure, and Vista is allegedly bog slow, I'd call switching from Vista to XP an upgrade, especially considering MS's penchant for changing everything around, giving you a brand new learning curve. An
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Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
I think this is a decent question. You'll note that other OS's actually DO evolve at a decent rate (Linux OSX, etc). So why does Windows such a dog?
The answer, I think is really all the accumulated weight that Windows has to carry. That's not just "code bloat" as some would have you believe, though that's part of it. It's all the OTHER pieces of software that simply HAVE to work on windows for them to continue to exist. Microsoft has resisted pruning much out since the Win32 architecture first came out, for fear of losing market share to the competition. This has been a mistake, and is costing them now.
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I think this is a decent question. You'll note that other OS's actually DO evolve at a decent rate (Linux OSX, etc). So why does Windows such a dog?
Supposedly they do, but why isn't OS X and Linux substantially better than Windows if that is the case? I mean, OS X hasn't even begun implementing Windows' enterprise features and game features, nor has Apple shown any inclination towards either.
It's all the OTHER pieces of software that simply HAVE to work on windows for them to continue to exist. Microsoft ha
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org]
Kernel and core OS changes
* The new Kernel Transaction Manager enables atomic transaction operations across different types of objects, most significantly file system and registry operations.[18]
* The memory manager and processes scheduler have been improved. The new CPU cycle-based thread scheduling gives a greater fairness and more deterministic app behavior.[19] Many kernel data s
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There are many widely used OSes that are more than 8 years old. In fact, XP is NT by another name, and NT is more than 15 years old in any case.
Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
By july 2009 Windows XP will be 8 years old! Because they extend it till then, both Microsoft and the market agree that this 8 year old operating system is still relevant and not hopelessly outdated despite its age.
In those 8 years, Windows has hardly evolved. Honestly, Windows Vista doesn't add too much groundbreaking stuff to Windows XP, the only real technological novelty is the graphics.
Eight years is a lot in computer history, and if you look at what it was 8 years before Windows XP, that was 1993. So Windows 3.11 is to Windows XP, what Windows XP is to Windows Vista, but the difference between XP and Vista is much smaller than the difference between 3.11 and XP!
Very true. Vista has a few changes under the hood that are nice... But the major difference is in the UI. There are some GUI modification tools out there that let you customize your Windows desktop with different themes and visual styles... I've worked on XP machines that were skinned to look like Vista machines, and it is very hard to tell the difference.
Look at KDE, Gnome, or the Linux kernel over the last 8 years... Amazing changes, all sorts of added functionality.
Take a look at the MacOS over the last 8 years - again, huge changes. Not just from a UI standpoint but real changes in how the OS operates.
Vista is a little bit more secure... A little bit less stable... And a lot more shiny... But that's about it.
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the UI is the most insignificant change that was made to Vista. The graphic sub system (not the part you see, but the "engine"), the security architecture, the network stack, all of the management tools (even the task manager!), all of the enterprise services (mostly useful for developers, but IIS jumped up 2 full numbered versions between XP and Vista, but its not the only one that was upgraded... a large part of the COM+ stack did, and its not only useful for servers), new multi-threading primitive, enhan
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I've worked on XP machines that were skinned to look like Vista machines, and it is very hard to tell the difference.
Do any of those skinning packages do real compositing of windows, or do they just fake it with clever bitmap-moving? Have a link?
Look at KDE, Gnome, or the Linux kernel over the last 8 years... Amazing changes, all sorts of added functionality.
Yeah, but 8 years ago they hardly did shit. It's not so much "added functionality" as "catching up to Windows and Mac OS."
To go back to my compositing
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So when you say operating system goes slower, please clarify under what conditions. I've run linux with compviz on the same hardware and although it runs faster th
I'm going to email sean@windows.com and... (Score:2, Redundant)
I wonder if any of these people knew their whole world would become a confusing choice of operating systems when they decided to become 'Windows'
Microsoft Admits Vista is a Downgrade! (Score:2)
Well at least they admit it finally. It is NOT at upgrade. It is an attempt to make people hate Windows so much that they are starving for an alternative.
Never mind that, Windows $NEXT_VERSION! (Score:4, Funny)
I have seen the future: Windows $NEXT_VERSION Milestone $MOCKUP. [today.com]
I tried it on a low-end laptop with four Core 2 Duo chips and only 8 gig of memory, and trust me: $NEXT_VERSION is shaping up to be one heck of a product.
WordPad and Paint have seen major overhauls to their user interfaces. Forget the freetards and their "distros" full of all sorts of useless shovelware like "FireFox" and "OpenOffice" and, haha, "GIMP"! - the bundled software with Windows $NEXT_VERSION is clear, simple, sparse and to-the-point. The much-loved $HATED_VERSION user interface from Office $HATED_VERSION is now part of WordPad and Paint!
I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, those are all fixed in $NEXT_VERSION. And they're finally ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF.
Also, there'll be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome!
I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION.
LOL! (Score:2)
ROFLMAO! I wish I had mod points!
Yeh, but does it have a cool name? (Score:2)
You know Microsoft, they call it $RANDOM_CITY but when it goes into the boxes it'll be renamed "Windows $NONSEQUITER". If it was called $ATTITUDE $ANIMAL it'd really rock.
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I'm still waiting for Mac OS X Kitten.
Downgrade? What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because Y is newer than X doesn't mean Y is an upgrade to X.
Whether something is an upgrade or a downgrade depends on the relative functionality, not the time difference.
Installing XP over Vista is definately an upgrade.
http://www.tothepc.com/archives/windows-xp-features-missing-in-vista/ [tothepc.com]
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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This reminds me... (Score:3, Funny)
One of my many bosses at work was really, totally into Vista, defended it tooth and nail and swore up and down it was the best thing he ever had done did see. I kept telling him he'd end up hating it, and just didn't believe me. Asked me if I ever used, and I explained the only time I ever did was for five minutes playing with a Touchsmart at Best Buy. He said if I hadn't used it then I really have no right to talk bad about it, so I just let it go.
Then he started having problems, blue screens, he shelled out a couple hundred on a new motherboard trying to bulldoze the problem, and it did fix it.
Then he got SP1, and he got blue screens again, then he reinstalled and he still got them.
Then he bought new memory...
New hard drive...
New processor...
New video card...
Then, and I swear this is a pretty bright guy, he found out it was shoddy web cam drivers, the one he insisted to always have plugged in.
Then he switched back to XP just so he could keep using that web cam. I said, "It's not Microsoft's fault that this company made bad drivers" and he said "Yeah, I decided Vista wasn't so amazing after all"
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Thats a funny story :) Shitty web cams do that crap quite often in general... A long time before Vista came out, a friend of mine had gotten a 30$ microsoft web cam... the drivers for it sucked so hard, it would blue screen -XP- constantly...
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I hate to be a Grammar Nazi, but, in this context, the preferred spelling is "UPGRAYEDD".
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Downgrade? Upgrade is more like it.
You poor, poor dead horse. You've been beaten so badly. Rest now.
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I have Vista Home and I like it.
I can do better than that. I pushed out 37 vista business installs about 4 months ago to all of our workstations here, and I've not had a single problem with it. The bees seems to love it and, for me, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage. I watch all this bashing going on and quite frankly, I don't get it. I understand that YMMV, but it seems like Vista is getting hammered but nobody's really tried it. I've heard a lot of "It won't run on my hardware" and "It won't run our winfax95" but c'mon...It's 2
The Buzz (Score:5, Funny)
The bees seems to love it...
Any operating system that our crop-pollinating overlords prefer is all right by me!
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Interesting)
I can do better than that. I pushed out 37 vista business installs about 4 months ago to all of our workstations here, and I've not had a single problem with it. The bees seems to love it and, for me, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage. I watch all this bashing going on and quite frankly, I don't get it. I understand that YMMV, but it seems like Vista is getting hammered but nobody's really tried it. I've heard a lot of "It won't run on my hardware" and "It won't run our winfax95" but c'mon...It's 2008.
I've had a very mixed experience with it myself...
I've got a tablet running Vista that probably shouldn't be. It was never designed with Vista in mind and the hardware is just barely supported. It runs, but not well. I'll likely go back to XP again with it fairly soon.
At home, I've got several machines running Vista Premium and I've had absolutely no issues with them at all. They're used extensively for gaming and the performance is just fine. No complaints.
I've also got several workstations at work that we're testing out with Vista Business and have had no trouble with so far. A few people are having issues with the GUI changes, but that's about it. They're generally as stable as XP was.
Then we've had a number of clients buying new computers and getting stuck with Vista. Their experiences generally range from bad to just plain horrible. Lots of incompatible hardware and software. Unexpected learning curves. Lots of complaining about strange issues. Repeated service calls.
I think a large part of the problem has been that this is the first major OS change that a number of people have had to deal with. Folks have been using XP for a number of years now, and everything has more or less worked the same. Now you've got folks just ordering a random computer from Dell, or picking something up at Best Buy...assuming that everything will work the way it has been...and suddenly stuff doesn't work. Their printer won't work with the new computer, their old software won't work, the buttons are all moved around.
Most of the issues I've seen are with people who didn't really expect Vista on their machine, or didn't actually research what switching to Vista would mean for them. For the folks that have intentionally upgraded to Vista it has, more or less, worked.
Which certainly doesn't make it a good OS... Or even much of an upgrade in a lot of cases... But I don't think it's as horrible as a lot of people are claiming either.
It's a Microsoft OS - anyone who expected rock-solid stability and bullet-proof security needs to have their head examined.
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Insightful)
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No one with any sense (and who doesn't work for Microsoft) claims Vista is a "must-have" upgrade, though. It's basically a replacement for XP with a few extra bells and whistles... not worth upgrading if you have XP, but if you're building a new machine, there's no reason to avoid it.
I like that 64-bit support is more mainstream in Vista. XP Professional 64 always felt like an afterthought.
Beyond that, however, you are exactly right. There is no compelling reason to switch to Vista. And in many cases there are plenty of reasons (older hardware/software) not to.
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No one with any sense (and who doesn't work for Microsoft) claims Vista is a "must-have" upgrade
Hard core gamers "must have" DirectX 10. [wikipedia.org] Although, some may argue, that hard core gamers have no sense.
Please excuse me while I return to playing Crysis. [wikipedia.org]
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but if you're building a new machine, there's no reason to avoid it.
Unless you play games.
Or you don't like the pointless and sometimes downright infuriating UI changes.
Or you prefer not to support compulsory, consumer-hostile technologies like DRM, activation, remote monitoring, forced downloads of patches, and all that jazz, which are generally worse in Vista than in XP (though the licence agreement for some of the XP service packs is doing its best to make them almost as bad).
Which describes almost every home user I know who is still running on Windows.
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Unless you play games.
BS. I'm a big gamer, and game on Vista Home Premium. Since release, I've had only one issue: KOTOR 2 wouldn't work. Other than that, works beautifully. There is no reason, as a gamer, to avoid Vista. In fact, gamers have MORE reason to use Vista, because they can use DX10.
Or you prefer not to support compulsory, consumer-hostile technologies like DRM
Don't use media with DRM, and you'll never have issues with DRM. That's so consumer-hostile!
activation
Which isn't hostile. It Just Works the vast majority of the time. Activation is completely transparent to most users.
remote monitoring
If you want to make ludicrous
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Then we've had a number of clients buying new computers and getting stuck with Vista. Their experiences generally range from bad to just plain horrible.
I agree with this statement, most people I know with vista and like it, only web surf or type up projects. They would be as happy with a Mac as they would be with Vista or XP for that matter. I'm not a big fan of Mac or Vista but that's besides the point. The people I hear have trouble, are trying to get by with a budget computer (min requirements or less) and trying to play games on it (10FPS on low quality any one?), or upgrading a incompatible hardware computer to vista thinking everything would go fine
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>I think a large part of the problem has been that this is the first major OS change that a number of people have had to deal with.
This bears repeating. XP, for many people, was their first computer. This whole process is shocking to them. They have an irrational love of XP. Everything in the computer world is XP to them.
Personally, I think Vista is a step up for residential users soley for the UAC. XP runs default as local admin. This is a security nightmare. No, I dont expect UAC to be the perfect s
Vista is better than Linux! (Score:2)
Ok, the subject is a bit of a troll, because I'm typing this on my Fedora Core 8 laptop. But seriously, have you tried to run Fedora Core 9? It's been the most disappointing O/S release I think I've ever encountered.
For years, I've been pleasantly surprised at all the new cool stuff that I see every time I install a new release. The icons are prettier, the driver support is better, etc. There's usually a little training curve as I get used to new things (EG: NetworkManager as opposed to "ifup ") but it's al
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Vista is not awful, but it's worst than XP in many ways (For instance, where is the button to go to the parent directory in windows explorer? How come I have to click through half a dozen dialogs to change file permissions?). It feels slower, which is annoying, and it simply doesn't have any compelling feature to make me want to switch. As you said, YMMV, but the consensus so far is that it was a long wait for nothing, which, from my personal experience, I tend to agree with.
Is that you, Mr. Ballmer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think it makes sense to upgrade the hardware without getting any additional functionality?
Just to show a different point of view, I have recently bought a Linux eeePC-900 and am loving it. It has more or less the same capability as a typical notebook of a few years ago: 900 MHz CPU, 20 GB storage, 1 MB RAM, yet it weighs less than one kilogram. That's what I consider TRUE progress. I have the same functionality I had before, but with a big gain in portability.
If you have to upgrade your hardware just to keep the same functionality, without any significant gain, then why do it? Why not keep the same old hardware and software you had before?
hardware upgrades, functionality static (Score:2)
I was recently looking at a cheap computer that had *ONLY* 1 GB (that's GIGAbyte) of RAM, and was told that it only came with Vista, but that Vista doesn't really run in only 1 GB or RAM, so the computer came with some kind of crippled Vista. The salesperson told me that I couldn't get XP for the upgrade price either, because to go from Vista to XP wasn't an upgrade. It was an amusing conversation, which I admit I was only participating in to see just what a fool the salesperson could make of himself.
And
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So... what? My relatively new laptop had no end of problems with it (and when I say relatively new, I mean a gaming model I bought in January of 2007). What exactly are you suggesting here, that we should have to upgrade our hardware and/or software every time we get a new version of an OS?
Protip: Microsoft needs to put a metric shit-ton more man-hours into compatibility with previous hardware and software. They shouldn't be releasing an OS that doesn't run just about everything
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Are you serious? They already do a ton of this. It's the old damned if you do, damned if you don't. The breakages have mainly occurred due to fixing design flaws or bugs in previous releases that some software relied upon. I'm sure that there are some applications that broke for other reasons, but to assume that they're not already putting huge amounts of effort into this area is just ignoran
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I've tried Vista and I hate it. It's ugly, complex, overly fussy and just downright painful to use. It came pre-installed on a laptop I bought my wife and after using it for one hour I wanted to send it back, dig into the savings and buy her a Macbook Pro instead.
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I understand that YMMV
Our "M" has most definitely varied. The only machines we consistently have problems with are the Vista laptops. We're pushing out Ubuntu on our desktops, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage. And the money we save on licenses is a bonus.
Is that what you consider bullshit bashing? We don't like Vista, we like Ubuntu better. Unfortunately the sales staff got laptops that came with Vista and those machines account for the majority of our service calls.
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There were 6 of us here at work on the Windows Vista pilot.
It's been about 6 months since they converted us.
Know how many of us are still on the Vista pilot? Zero!
Soon as they fix the issue with network file copy speeds, I'll think about it again...
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I was going to write a well-written retort full of reason and fact, but I decided that it was a waste of time. Instead: *expletive* *expletive* *expletive*.
Moving on.
The people I've heard not complain about Vista use their computers as document editors and web-browsers. However, I have to remind you: my pocket watch can do this, and it costs less than a single install of Vista. To butcher an old phrase: Vista is about as useful as a tit on a bull, and about twice as ugly.
I declare your post to be silly fiction based on a lack of experience. There's nothing I did I XP that doesn't work in Vista. My Vista machine exists primarily because of gaming. My framerates using the same graphical options as in XP are the same as they were in XP, and that's normal and well documented - Vista stopped being slower for gaming long ago, and long before I was willing to install it. It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS respons
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It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS responsiveness is improved over XP.
How did you manage to accomplish this? Vista only shows 3 and a little bit gigs of RAM, even though my BIOS sees 4. Any help would be appreciated.
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It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS responsiveness is improved over XP.
How did you manage to accomplish this? Vista only shows 3 and a little bit gigs of RAM, even though my BIOS sees 4. Any help would be appreciated.
Do you have Vista32 installed?
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Re:Vista Home (Score:4, Informative)
You need 64-bit Windows for Windows to see more than 4GB of RAM, but that's only because Windows is so poorly written. It's support for PAE in the workstation-class editions is half-assed at best, even though PAE has been near universal since the Pentium Pro. XP SP2 even requires PAE for full use of the Data Execution Prevention, but Microsoft has never enabled a 32-bit non-server operating system to access more that 4GB of RAM.
They clearly could, and it's obvious that over the past several years there's been quite a bit of demand for PAE support on 32-bit systems, but Microsoft has never deigned to supply that. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this wouldn't be the case if the desktop operating system market were even somewhat competitive.
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You need 64-bit Windows for Windows to see more than 4GB of RAM, but that's only because Windows is so poorly written. It's support for PAE in the workstation-class editions is half-assed at best, even though PAE has been near universal since the Pentium Pro. XP SP2 even requires PAE for full use of the Data Execution Prevention, but Microsoft has never enabled a 32-bit non-server operating system to access more that 4GB of RAM.
32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
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32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
Yes, they can. The person you were replying to even spelled it out for you.
Three times.
It's called PAE.
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Informative)
Vista 32 can only see 4 gigs MINUS memory address space reserved for hardware (video card(s) and other hardware that require reserved memory). This typically results in 3 to 3.3 gigs being available in Vista 32 with 4+ gigs of RAM installed on the computer (same thing with XP 32). To see more than this with any Windows flavor, you must use the 64 bit version (XP or Vista).
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It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS responsiveness is improved over XP.
How did you manage to accomplish this? Vista only shows 3 and a little bit gigs of RAM, even though my BIOS sees 4. Any help would be appreciated.
You're using Vista 32, I'm using 64. I suggest that you switch, though you might look up any very old piece of hardware you have first to make sure it has drivers. I have yet to find something I can't do or use in 64, but my machine has nothing older than 6 years in it. XP32 also only lets you use 3 gigs of your ram (though older versions at least lied and showed all 4), while XP64 lets you use all 4 gigs. Unfortunately, XP64 is much shakier and less supported than Vista64.
Your same Vista key will work
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My mother has a computer that was "built for Vista" (which, by the way, MS has admitted was a "marketing overstatement", ie. LIE). It's slow. It crashes ALOT.
Just a suggestion: bring it back to the store. I'm just like you and tried to fix everything myself. Now I have my own business don't have the time for that, I either: 1) tell the seller to come pick it up for repairs 2) if they won't, retract payment from credit card company or 3) scrap it.
I'll admit this is all sounding a bit abrupt but I have come to hate the mucking with Windows.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Then I guess all those benchmarks out there must be wrong. It's all a conspiracy to bury Microsoft's newest product. Yeah... that must be it.
And my first hand experience with Vista... also part of this conspiracy. My mother has a computer that was "built for Vista" (which, by the way, MS has admitted was a "marketing overstatement", ie. LIE). It's slow. It crashes ALOT. We've upgraded drivers. We've done a clean install. We took the necessary updates. It still crashes. It's still slow. It's still a load of crap.
My high-end system costs $4k. It has everything that anyone could want in a system. It can do ray tracing lightning fast but apparently can't load Vista in under 15 minutes, even after spending hours removing all the "sparkle" that is the new UI.
Your experience appears to be derived from a single desktop. I have used multiple desktops, laptops, and notebooks. I have also done research and generally kept up on the happenings in Vista in case there was some mystical transformation from trash-heap to XP-upgrade. I have yet to see it.
I'm glad it works for you, but, you are a minority of a minority and are in no way a benchmark for all Vista installs.
1) Look at recent benchmarks, say from 2008, and they're right and they agree with me (don't compare the dx10 version in Vista to dx9 in XP - compare apples to apples. dx10 seems to largely suck).
2) I have main firsthand experience only with my desktop, and more limited (I use them but they're not mine) experience with a couple of other desktops from work. None have crashed on me, none are slow. Definitely I understand that people with other hardware will have different experiences, but based on what I'v
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The people I've heard not complain about Vista use their computers as document editors and web-browsers. However, I have to remind you: my pocket watch can do this, and it costs less than a single install of Vista. To butcher an old phrase: Vista is about as useful as a tit on a bull, and about twice as ugly.
I develop software. I manage a medium size business infrastructure. I debug applications. I use vista. I like it better than XP. So now, you know somebody who uses it in a way that you can't use your phone.
Re:Vista Home (Score:4, Funny)
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And this crap about it being a resource hog is BS. If you're running all the bells and whistles, I got news for you folks, of course it's going to be a comparative pig - geeze. Turn off Aero if you got a low end machine or buy the machine with Home instead of Ultimate - god!
While I disagree with the general Vista bashing, it is not difficult to confirm that Vista is a lot slower than XP. I've got both installed in VirtualBox. XP boots in 10-15 seconds, Vista in 1-1.5 minutes. That's the time to get to the desktop; responsiveness comes 5 seconds later for XP and 1 minute later for Vista. Audio stutters on Vista but not on XP. Same with video. Etc.
I like most of the changes in Vista. From big things like UAC to small ones like the naming of C:\Users. But one can't deny it's a da
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