The Hard Upgrade Path From XP To Vista To Win 7 496
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"
Just for the Record (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just for the Record (Score:5, Insightful)
I still say Linux has unknown issues.
But at least I can actually run a computer while trying to figure them out ...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
[citation needed]
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Re:Just for the Record (Score:5, Funny)
Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm as rabidly anti-windows as they come, but isn't this a little unfair? Windows 7 is still beta, it doesn't surprise me that there are still some driver issues.
The idea that we will have to either buy Vista AND Windows 7, or do a clean install, just plain sucks.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
With earlier versions of Windows, a clean install was clearly preferred. So why not do that again?
Besides, I suspect that most corporate users will just update the whole PC and buy new ones with Windows 77 pre-installed. In the 10 years of my IT career I have seen one large company (Novartis) that actually did its own OS installations on a regular basis. The rest just used the computers with whatever OS was delivered at purchase, most of the time the unchanged vendor installation.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well the US Military for one. Every computer is imaged from a tested image for that particular hardware baseline. We do not allow a vendor install, with all the crapware no less, on our networks. And for anyone out there who wants to chime in with an anecdote of when this did happen ... yeah no kidding, it CAN happen. Fortunatly if the network admins did their job right the machine won't be allowed to get an IP address and the person who did it got fired after it was discovered.
Any sufficiently large IT infrastructure such as the military networks would not just buy their boxrn with W7 installed. And I'm not talking about our secure side (SIPR), I'm talking about the unclass side (NIPR).
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Interesting)
I call bullshit on that dude.
I've worked for some large companies that supply services to large corporations, ALL of them had their own specific versions of windows, and yes, they did upgrade with the times if justified (2k to XP). These were corporations like banks, supermarket chains, telcos, universities, the list goes on. They REFUSED to go to Vista, all new machines were shipped with it, but got reimaged to their own corporate versions of XP.
I don't know where you've worked, but it sounds like they are small companies, not corporations. Either that or you're blowing it out of your arse.
Slipstreaming your own version is quite common practice, and to justify ANY change in your image as it will impact the company - whether positive or negative. I have yet to see a corporation move to Vista, the cost is too high and the risks too great to justify it. If they are going to sell 7 to corporations they are going to need to fix this mess they call an OS, and fix the upgrade path. Why buy a new machine and 2 OSs when you can buy 1 machine with 1 OS (Mac), or even just 1 OS (Linux).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, most large hardware vendors will, on request, ship out a sample machine to the IT Dept at the target company. They ask the IT Dept to install the default image they want. The IT Dept would obviously wipe the drive, reinstall with a fresh copy of their own Volume License copy of Windows (XP/Vista/7) with all relevant initial software, testing, etc. I'm sure if you were a large enough company and wanted 20 different initial configurations, the vendor would accommodate you. Another option would be to
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, has Microsoft ever released something with poor driver support before? NVIDIA and Vista come to mind.... But check this out from TFA:
That's a real problem, from that it sounds like Windows 7 is a pig. However, if Microsoft would be honest about the situation they might be able to save themselves. E.g., Apple has no qualms about dropping support of their newest software on older machines. However, what happens if they lie about it and say that older machines are supported and they aren't? (As they are apparently doing.) You can say that's unfair too, but again Microsoft when and lied about what computers Vista would run (well) on, so I'd say that experience teaches us that a little healthy skepticism is warranted.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still in beta, for goodness sakes. I'm sure, at the end of it, Windows 7 will be a massive hog that requires outrageous amounts of RAM and disk space, but I think knocking a beta for kernel panics is a little over the top. That's like taking a bleeding-edge Linux kernel, compiling it and then bitching that it doesn't seem to work reliably in a production environment.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty ticked about having to play tech support on family member and friend's computers to deal with wireless router incompatibilities and trying to get vista to run acceptably on "Vista ready" laptops that I really wish Microsoft would own up and give us realistic guidelines for what hardware their software WILL actually run on.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this may be true, but I still think that writing articles about this in regards to what still is a beta product is sensationalistic and unethical. When the ready-for-prime-time product comes out, and if some or all of the issues raised still exist, I'll be at the front of the line to spew venom on Microsoft. Until then, the basic understanding with beta software is that you'd best expect problems.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Funny)
Fear not! Windows 9 will fix it!!!
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a wild ass guess on my part, but I'm willing to bet that the problem is that they are trying to UPGRADE them. Anyone who has dealt with Microsoft OS's knows that the upgrades suck. To do a proper upgrade in the Microsoft world, you need to do what everyone else calls a "pave and rebuild". I don't know anyone in their right mind who tries to do an in place upgrade on Windows. That is just asking for headaches. They'd be better off doing a fresh install, creating a disk image from that and then pushing out the image. If Microsoft really cared about their userbase, they would just do away with "upgrades" all together and just admit that they don't work right. The same thing goes for their server software, Exchange, SQL, the whole nine yards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Well, has Microsoft ever released something with poor driver support before?"
All the NT series had dreadful driver support up to and including XP. People tend to forget how bad XP was at the beginning because it's been around for a long time, but the fact of the matter is that there was lots of hardware for Win9X that's never worked with it; large amounts of 9X and DOS software didn't run on it at all it at all, or was annoyingly problematic (especially games); getting XP Home in particular to integrate wi
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I get the feeling this article was deliberately misleading on several fronts. Here's an example:
They claim that the machine they're running this test on did not boot windows 7 correctly, but did boot Vista correctly. This is only half the truth. They first installed XP, then upgraded to Vista, then Upgraded to 7 - something Microsoft themselves does not recommend. Then, when it all doesn't work, they blame Windows 7. They do NOT test if a clean install of Windows 7 worked without issues and I strongly suspect that it would.
No sysadmin in their right mind would ever perform a task like this, it's far too time consuming and ultimately pointless - why install an XP system, install all the software you need, then two two major OS upgrades just to create an image you can format other machines with? Why not just install a fresh copy of 7, then the appropriate software and image that?
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure no Fortune 500 sysadmin would do it that way, but what about end users? Or even smaller businesses? Those are a large portion of Microsoft's business, and they aren't being provided with an upgrade path?
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had Linux installs fall flat on their face after a few years of not being kept current followed by an attempt to upgrade the system to current-spec code.
Generally, I can revive these systems, given enough time. But lately I find it's easier to start them over with a fresh install.
It's possible, though obviously insane, to do the following:
Install Windows 3.1. Upgrade to Windows 95. Upgrade to Windows 98SE. Upgrade to Windows ME. Upgrade to Windows XP. Upgrade to Windows Vista. Upgrade to Windows 7.
But that's just retarded, as anyone here (with their blinders off) should be able to recognize. Real men don't upgrade operating systems -- they just buy the upgrade kit (because it's cheaper), and Google a good method for doing a clean install with it.
In my own experience: I bought a laptop with XP, almost four years ago. It's a good machine, and was pretty quick at the time. I kept XP around because most of the stuff I need for my daily work needs Windows, though I'd really be a lot more pleased to see Slackware, Gentoo, or FreeBSD on the machine. When Vista was released, I upgraded (er - I did a fresh install). Vista worked fine, though I also doubled the RAM to 2 gigs and gave it a bigger, faster hard drive at the same time. A year or two later, the hard drive crashed -- probably from being used too much outside in sub-zero Ohio winters. I had a choice: Reinstall the backup DVD of a fresh, clean, working Vista install in less than an hour, or download Windows 7.
I decided to see what Windows 7 was all about.
Spent a day or so shoving my usual software back into the machine, and it all works fine. The box suspends, hibernates, and resumes faster than it ever did with XP or Vista, both of which had occasional issues. Performance once it is running is good. I haven't been tempted -- yet -- to disable the Readyboost service, as I often do on Vista machines to improve speed. It bluescreened exactly one time, while copying files from the old (crashed, littered with bad sectors) hard drive over a cheap IDE-USB adapter, and I don't think it's been rebooted since (aside from updates).
It just works. So far. I hate Windows, but 7 seems to be OK.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Have to agree. Every Windows upgrade has been a mess. Attempting a major OS upgrade without a good backup would be retarded, even in the Linux world. And once you have backed up your important data, a fresh install is the same amount of effort for considerably better results. In my mind, MS needs to forget about the idea of selling upgrades to consumers. Consumers don't buy Windows, they use what their pc came with. If they have the technical skill to both desire the upgrade and know how to do it, the
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Informative)
WRONG...
The *MICROSOFT RECOMMENDED* Upgrade path from XP to Win 7 is to do a COMPLETELY FRESH INSTALL[1]
[1] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-xp-7-upgrade-vista,6965.html [tomshardware.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
With hardware the way it is you can easily expect that a computer which purchased a year ago could of come with XP, the company updates sometime this year to Vista and then in late 2010 they upgrade to Windows 7. While some other computer started off fresh with Vista.
If they still don't support an XP to Windows 7 upgrade path that is going to be a problem.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with you to a to a certain point in that Win 7 is still beta, it's LATE beta, and a beta that has already been released for public testing. What we have here is essentially a release candidate version. If not RC 1, maybe RC 0.9 or 0.8 At this point there aren't likely to be many major changes in the OS. Of course, doing an upgrade from one version of Windows to another has always been a dicey affair, so some failure is unsurprising.
However, even taken with those two rather large grains of salt, the fact that Win 7 can't recognize a T43 synaptics trackpad (same one as in all the T4x series) is rather unnerving. And the lack of an upgrade path from XP to Win 7 [crn.com], when Microsoft KNOWS that people have been picking XP over Vista since Vista's launch, just smacks of petty sour grapes.
I swear, it's as though Microsoft is just DARING people and businesses to find reasons to use other OSes.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:4, Informative)
2 seconds on Google found others installed win7 just fine on Thinkpad T43's (same as TFA), they only had the old vista biometric coprocessors drivers crash, it works fine without them. the fact that most old vista drivers work fine in win7 (with no additional win7 features of course) is a plus point for most, but the fact that this one fails, so what, it's not designed for win7, and as security hardware designed to tightly integrate into the OS, I really wouldn't expect it too.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=73121 [thinkpads.com]
Upek do have win7 beta drivers that work just fine on the thinkpad x61 range, other biometric vendors will catch up eventually if they have not already.
It may make sense just to get new systems.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It may make more sense for many businesses to just forklift-upgrade their desktops.
EG, a Intel Atom dual-core, dual-thread-per-core motherboard should be just fine for most business desktops. Yeah, the graphics aren't great, but at 2GB, an 80 GB disk, and a price of a hair over $300 for a complete system, the hardware costs are so dwarfed by software and support costs that just throwing all the old systems out may be cheaper.
But should it be that way? (Score:5, Insightful)
And all of that just to get the operating system to run! I mean, what are office computers used for? I'd wager that 90% of "office use" consist of text processing, internet browsing, emailing and instant messaging. I used to do word processing on a 386! And it was fast!
I really don't want this to appear like a personal attack, but why the hell are people willing to accept something like this? It bugs the hell out of me that perfectly good computers - computers that have a hundred times more power than actually needed for the tasks they're used to - are thrown away because the underlying operating system is so greedy that it can't run smoothly with fewer resources than those you mentioned.
Re:But should it be that way? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the consequence of hardware costs often being lower than the cost of wages (and licenses) to upgrade the old systems. I suspect the $300 GP cited are not unrealistic, especially for a company that buys dozens of computers at once. Now calculate the cost of having your support guys reinstall the old machines, possibly do a few hardware upgrades along he way, and buying your licenses separately from hardware (hint: there is plenty of evidence OEM licenses are MUCH cheaper).
Of course the license part is Microsoft's fault, but the rest just follows out of an unemotional cost calculation. The best the company can do with the old computers is donate them to nonprofit organizations who can use them and have volunteers who reinstall them as needed for free.
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Seriously. Hell, even 1Ghz, 512MB of RAM and a 40GB HD would be OVERKILL for just about any average office task I could think of.
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I used to do word processing on a 386! And it was fast!
No it wasn't. Nostalgia kills rationality.
Tell you what, get our your 386 and try typing up a few pages-worth of document. Time yourself. Then time yourself doing the same on whatever modern desktop you use. If you seriously find the 386 is faster, I'll eat my hat.
I'm not a huge word processing guy, but I can guarantee that a typical spreadsheet app on a 386 is TONS slower than a modern one. You used to have to wait for values to refresh, it wasn't inst
Re:But should it be that way? (Score:5, Informative)
My father asked me the same question once too.. why are PCs so slow and why is software so bloated?
I used a simple example of a text input field. You know, a text box, like the one you used to enter your Slashdot comment. Back in the 386 days, this was implemented using fixed point ASCII text, usually in text mode, and ran fast with a memory usage of a few kilobytes. These days, the total code & libraries required to implement a 'simple' text box might be over several dozen megabytes and would have taken many man-years of effort to develop. The code won't even LOAD on a 386 because it wouldn't fit into memory, let alone run at an acceptable pace.
But I hear you ask... why so complicated? It's just a text box! It doesn't need to do anything other than poll for keyboard input and display some characters.
Well... not quite. In a modern OS or application, even really trivial things like text input fields are fantastically complicated, and hence big and slow.
For example, a modern application would use a text box widget that can do most, or all, of the following:
- Undo and redo.
- Cut & paste, with automatic conversion of multiple formats.
- Mouse and keyboard based selection, highlighting, with automatic entire word selection.
- Alternate keyboard input (such as multiple keystrokes for a single asian character).
- Right-to-left and left-to-right text, including MIXING of the two, with proper handling of caret movement and selection highlights.
- Scrolling, horizontally, vertically, or both.
- text alignment, updated on the fly while typing
- support for all 40,000+ characters in the unicode character set, including various automatic conversions, font substitutions, and related processing. The lookup tables for Unicode and a basic font is several megabytes by itself.
- Combined characters. You know, like in tamil or arabic, where characters look different depending on adjacent characters or position in a word.
Newer controls ( as in WPF, for example ) can even do things like use your GPU to accelerate sub-pixel precision font rendering, kerning computations, and do full justification in real time as you type.
Take a look at "Typography in WPF" for an idea: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms742190.aspx [microsoft.com]
In the good old 386 days, almost none of that worked. You couldn't mix languages. You couldn't mix left-to-right and right-to-left. You couldn't use a mouse. You couldn't mix fonts on the screen, let alone within a control. Cut and paste was often unavailable, or limited in capability. Editing typographically complex languages was either impossible, or not WYSIWYG.
Examples like that abound. The inter-process memory protection that makes modern PCs relatively stable has a price. Virtual memory comes with its own overhead. Abstract driver models that let you "plug and play" aren't free either (remember IRQs? DIP switches?).
Get used to it, or go buy a 386 and try browsing the web with it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Holy crap! My Emacs uses less memory than your textbox!
(I browse the web with w3m, which delegates the task of filling text boxes to an editor of my choice)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Editing typographically complex languages was either impossible, or not WYSIWYG.
You make excellent points, but the above makes me thing back to how wonderfully simple and intuitive entering foreign characters was in Wordperfect for DOS.
"e" with a grave accent (and it may not have been the alt key) alt-e-/
An "a" with two dots over it: alt-a-:
A "c" with cedilla: alt-c-,
etc
I really wish openoffice could do that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But should it be that way? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But should it be that way? (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect. The Asus EEE 701 (with the infamous vid chip that caused the Vista Ready / Capable debacle) with 512MB RAM can run compiz with all glitz turned on (tested with Ubuntu Hardy) It has a downclocked Celery-M for a CPU.
$2100 email machine? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:$2100 email machine? (Score:5, Informative)
"I know that I chose my laptop (a SONY TX770P) because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed that it not only wouldn't run Glass, but more importantly wouldn't run Movie Maker," Nash wrote. "I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."
Linux updates were at least upgrades (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux was a steady progression of stability and driver support (with the exception of a few evil kernel updates). MS upgrades are just ... reinventing the wheel. New GUI widgets, maybe some new hw support that wasn't there, but generally increased bloat, or swapping 1 user level idiosycracy for another. With Linux kernel updates you were generally sure of getting a better experience.
Re:Linux updates were at least upgrades (Score:4, Informative)
...and don't forget making absolutely, positively sure that the user does NOT have ultimate control of his/her system. MS definitely keeps trying true upgrades on that front.
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article tried installing Windows 7 on a single hardware setup (a thinkpad) that failed, and that's where the "oh my goodness, how can Microsoft expect all these businesses to upgrade from XP to Windows 7, it's not going to work on pretty much ANY hardware" came from. (Yes, exaggerated).
If they tried, oh, I don't know, 10 other computers, I would be interested. But writing an article after trying a single computer? Especially annoying is the fact that they said they came to this conclusion after an "attempt at a sim " ... nevermind, just read it for yourself.
The Test Center came to this conclusion after an attempt at a simulated enterprise upgrade and other evaluations of the process on different pieces of PC hardware.
The initial plan: Create a master image on a PC running Windows XP, then upgrade that PC from XP to Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 beta. Then use an imaging utility like Acronis' Snap Deploy to push the image out to other XP clients (all on the same hardware as the imaged machine) and overwrite the XP operating system on them with the Windows 7 image.
Their plan: Let's do a mult-hardware test by deploying an imaged upgrade on same-hardware machines?
And, of course, after it failed, they tried another hardware configuration.
A testing of XP to Vista to Windows 7 on a custom-built desktop, with newer components including an AMD (NYSE:AMD) quad-core Athlon and motherboard, went smoothly.
Yipee. So we have a total of two hardware configurations tested...
Re: (Score:2)
What I want to know is this: WTF is a quad-core Athlon and where can I get one?
Here I've been stupid enough to over pay for these Phenom processors when an Athlon alternative existed.
I've got it installed on 3 configurations. (Score:3, Interesting)
#1: Acer Aspire 6930 bought on post-xmas sale from Staples. Core 2 Duo T5800, 4GB DDR2 667, 250GB SATA HD, Integrated Intel 4500MHD, Intel 5100 wireless.
Problems: Sometimes audio driver doesn't automatically detect headphones plugged in and switch speaker output to headphone jack. Oh and HDMI audio may have the same issue if turned on while hooked to a TV that's off.
#2: Piece of Junk (literally) desktop. Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 3.63GHz on Asus P5B, 2GB DDR2 1066, ATI HD4850, 400GB SATA HD.
Problems: None.
#3: Tosh
Oh jeez, here we go again (Score:2)
Enterprise upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
The enterprises will do clean installs rather than in place upgrades. The entire system will be deployed through system center or suchlike. Silly article.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bloatware (Score:2)
Stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
I know Linux is pro and can support like every part made but is there a requirement to do this? No, its the same as putting linux on a toaster. Windows should be keeping minimal winXP support for a few more years and have win7 be for only new machines, fuck supporting outdated hardware. This is one of the reasons ps3 games suck, because they are supporting xbox, pandering to the lowest common denominator.
I salute both the pro and anti MS crowds who shall soon mod me troll.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
The initial plan: Create a master image on a PC running Windows XP, then upgrade that PC from XP to Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 beta
Headline and most of the article say it's Windows 7, with a lame disclaimer at the very end that it's a beta.
Yet, it boggles the mind that the laptop upgraded fairly easy to Vista Service Pack 1 and then flat-lined with Windows 7. So much for the Microsoft mantra "If it works in Vista, it will work in Windows 7."
MS didn't say Windows 7 Beta, you numbnut. And then this:
A testing of XP to Vista to Windows 7 on a custom-built desktop, with newer components including an AMD (NYSE:AMD) quad-core Athlon and motherboard, went smoothly.
I'm getting tired of this anti-MS drivel on here. And technology sites are noticing. Read the first line of this article http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/oh-the-humanity-windows-7s-draconian-drm.ars [arstechnica.com]
The popular technology website Slashdot plumbed new depths on Tuesday with a post about the terrible DRM situation in Windows 7. Proving that some sites will publish just about anything as long as it's anti-Microsoft, the post enumerated the DRM restrictions that Windows 7 apparently inflicts on the honest and upstanding computer user.
Before long, Slashdot will lose whatever reputation it has if drivel like this is posted. There's lots of stuff to bash MS on, please don't post nonsense.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Headline and most of the article say it's Windows 7, with a lame disclaimer at the very end that it's a beta.
Agreed. It seems as though everyone has forgotten that we're running Windows 7 BETA 1. One of the Windows 7's design goals is complete driver compatibility with Vista- I imagine they will have that by the RTM. They damn near have it now. Add that to the fact that Windows 7 uses generally less resources and this article is basically total BS.
Who told them they could run that beta in a production environment anyway?
You're not really allowed to use the beta for benchmarking or publishing articles like this cla
TPM/DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Gotta get rid of all that old 'un-trusted' hardware somehow.
Why Upgrade Windows XP at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot imagine a situation where I would recommend to a company that they use money and resources to upgrade a Windows XP box to a newer OS. What a waste of time.
When the XP box reaches end of life you replace it with new hardware and put your ready to go Windows 7 image on it. Duh.
The Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 path seems even more unlikely. Chalk this article up as an academic exercise, not a real world scenario.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You must not have spent much time with it, because it definitely does indicate whether an app is running or if it's just sitting in the taskbar. Running apps have an embossed "buttonish" look to them. The app with the focus has whitish tint to it. But if you were going out of your way to find a reason to dislike it rather than
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who finds it humorous how some people bitch about Windows not being backward compatible and others bitch about all the problems due its backward compatible heritage?
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Then there's the third class: those that bitch about Windows not being backwards compatible while simultaneously saying how much backwards compatibility hobbles the OS. Those are the really fun people to talk to.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
And the backwards compatibility may be in different areas of an OS, and be a good thing in some areas and bad in others.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then he'll tell you that, actually, you should roll out Linux to all 120,000 desktops.
Best read up on SAMBA, bub.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, I'll just tell my current CIO that he should roll out Linux to all 120,000 desktops shall I ?
-Jar
Well, that's better than taking responsibility for a roll out of Vista/Win7 to all 120,000 desktops.
sometimes you just have to recognize the difference between pointing a pea-shooter at your foot, and a shotgun.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility. It should be based on un*x (not DOS), should have a well-planned, polished GUI for regular people with command-line and options for power users.
Then there's the fifth group: those who realize that describes OSX and have already switched.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility.
There's no need for an emulator...you can use an actual VM. Having just installed VMware Workstation 6.5, I think that its "Unity mode" (also available in VMware Fusion) that is the way to do it.
Since you can even run Linux as a guest on Windows and use Unity to show the Linux desktop windows seamlessly as part of your Windows desktop, I think that pretty much anything would be possible if you built this sort of functionality into the base OS.
Re: (Score:3)
But it is true though. Wine on Linux is probably far more backwards compatible for older Windows applications, than new versions of the Windows OS are.
In MS's battles to keep backwards compatibility, something went horribly wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps a port of WINE to Windows 7 is in order...
AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahahhahhah ahahhahahahaha.... i hurt myself...
Barking mad (Score:3, Funny)
Then there are those that complain about Windows being a bitch.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
I find the worst are the people who bitch about the other people who bitch about stuff.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
No the worst are the people who passive aggressively bitch at other people's opinions on bitching about bitching.
upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:5, Interesting)
My take on that is a properly designed and planned out OS shouldn't have to break half the planet on each upgrade cycle to make progress.
Considering how hard it is to predict the future, I expect OSs to occasionally have to make a major change. DOS to windows 3, 3 to 95, somewhat 95 to xp, but I don't see a distinct major change since then, so why do things have to break in vista and then again in 7? At least give us some sincere major improvements for the headache, and space them out a bit will ya?
Ideally, OS upgrades should be a major pain once a deckade, and smooth in between, without sacrificing added functionality and progress.
Linux and Mac OS both seem to have a much better track record here. Heck, Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X happened in what, 2001? OK that was a major breaker for software and hardware alike, but we haven't had to suffer it in 8 years and there's no threat looming in the future. Why can't MS work this way?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Apple isn't able to arrange kick-backs from beige box companies (Dell, HP, etc.).
Hefty Minimum Requirements == New Hardware == More Hardware Sales.
Business 101
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:5, Insightful)
My take on that is a properly designed and planned out OS shouldn't have to break half the planet on each upgrade cycle to make progress.... Why can't MS work this way?
Short answer: it would break their business model.
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:5, Interesting)
So long as people behave in the way they expect, yes. The problem now is that their business model is essentially boiling down to ``give us a lot of money, or give us nothing''. Five years ago they could rely on ``a lot''. Now they're getting nothing. By ``us'' I don't mean Microsoft alone, by the way, I mean them and their partners: the Wintel ecosystem assumes that each upgrade is so compelling that it drives not just OS but also application, hardware and infrastructure change. It's not just about a recession: I think Wintel has the same problem in any economy, because XP+Office2003+2GHz+2GB+200GB (ie the computer you bought two or three years ago) is ``good enough'' for most purposes, and today's equivalent isn't compelling in any substantial way.
Apple's in a slightly better place for a recession because it's shipping incremental change, so all an upgrade costs you is the price of the upgrade. But even for them, iWork '09 and iLife '09 look like marginal changes of limited value, and Tiger to Leopard is hardly an introduction to a new world. But at least in Apple Land you can run all the new stuff on all the hardware of the past five years, which is more than can be said for Wintel.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Heck, Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X happened in what, 2001? OK that was a major breaker for software and hardware alike, but we haven't had to suffer it in 8 years and there's no threat looming in the future.
And on that note, although the MacOS to OS X transition completely wrecked ABI compatibility, the engineers still saw fit to provide a MacOS compat layer [wikipedia.org] to support legacy applications on PowerPC Macs all the way up until 10.5 was released in 2007 - 6 years after the initial release of OS X.
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:4, Informative)
"UAC basically changed Windows so that you weren't expected to run as an administrator by default"
Not really. Users still effectively run as Administrator, it's just that now UAC pops up with (on average) 17 "are you sure you want to do that?" messages every time the user clicks on something.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It may be worth using Vista for a while rather than blindly accepting the Slashdot hyperbole. UAC is not as annoying as you're implying, especially now that Vista's been out long enough for most of the troublesome apps to work out their issues. I don't see UAC prompts on my Vista machine much more frequently than administrator password prompts on my MacBook.
Regardless, the point is that even though the user might still have administrative privileges, they don't run with them. I think you'll find most people
Re:crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
If it isn't 99.99% compatible, it isn't getting on my machine.
Your statement assumes that you require an OS to be compatible with at least 9,999 out of every 10,000 components in your system. Between my keyboard, mouse, harddrive, monitor, usb slots, firewire, ethernet card, wireless card, motherboard, and power adapter (ten components)... I'd say the OS should be 100% compatible. Beyond that, I'd blame device manufactures and software development companies for not provided me with the right code to use their products. But 99.99% is simply a fun number you pulled from your ass, because even if you did have 9,999 completely functional components in your computer, if there was no compatibility for a mouse, you'd be pissed off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be 100% compatible, I'm just saying that there's a lot more in a computer t
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Well that depends...
I mean if my sexbot is one of those 9,999 and my mouse is the 1 that isn't working, I don't think I'd give a damn about anything as long as my sexbot is working; I can buy another computer with a working mouse.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of numbers pulled out of one's ass:
People complain about this sort of stuff whenever a new OS or new big SP comes out but the reality is this: if you have relatively recent components made by prominent manufacturers, your stuff is going to work 90% of the time.
And if that isn't good enough for you a year after that, 99.9% of recent name-brand components will work flawlessly. I waited a year before installing Vista and the only thing that I didn't get to work was my ancient PC game controller since vista dropped gameport support, and its awfully hard to be mad at them for that since the gameport was essentially obsolete 10 years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
99.9% of recent name-brand components will work flawlessly.
Counter example: HP Multifunction devices.. XP software and drivers for these devices provide functionality that does NOT work in vista and is NOT duplicated in the Vista drivers/software. Even if you bought a top-o-the-line HP Multifunction within ±1 year of Vista coming out, you are _STILL_ S.O.L. if you want your "scan" button to work properly to scan documents. You also cannot scan documents directly to PDF (without multiple conversion steps) like you could in XP and you are stuck using the crap
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is not responsible for writing drivers to run HP hardware. They ARE responsible for producing a working API and documentation for writing drivers to suit their OS, and given the amount of hardware out there that *does* simply work, I'd say they held up their end of the deal.
If your HP hardware does not work in Vista, go talk to HP about it, if they do nto fix it, return your defective device and get one that works. It should not be Microsoft's problem.
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
People complain about this sort of stuff whenever a new OS or new big SP comes out but the reality is this: if you have relatively recent components made by prominent manufacturers, your stuff is going to work 90% of the time.
90% really isn't very good (especially when you're in the 10%) and isn't this the same sort of criticism aimed at Linux?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How much different models of mice, motherboards, processors, network devices, graphics cards,... exist? Surely more than 10. It's not about percentage of your components, it's about all recent, different type of components.
If you had only 10 components/devices in your computer and for each of those there would be a 1000 different models then you'd have 10000 variati
Re:crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait... you think that, and you use a MAC?!
Here's a challenge: try to run a MacOS 9 application on your beautiful, shiny Macintosh. Can't do it? Hm. Weird, I can run like 95% of apps that old on Windows. Heck, try to run a MacOS 6 application on MacOS 7 and odds are good it wouldn't even come close to running right. (Yes, I'm still bitter about System 7.)
I mean, the funny thing is that I basically agree with you, but you holding that position and then using a Mac as your main computer is pretty mind-bendingly oxymoronic.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also like to point out that the vast majority of hardware incompatibilities are the result of lazy / exploitative vendors. Sure, they could get their driver writing team to write some drivers for their older hardware and keep their customers happy... OR they could just say, "it's microsoft's fault," and then make you buy a new product.
Vista is tougher to peg because you saw all kinds of problems. You saw Microsoft making big changes up until the last second that completely screwed even their own software groups (WHS 64bit Connector anyone?). At the same time you've got nVidia cranking out drivers that are blue-screening machines left and right. Then, just for fun, you've got the aforementioned vendors that are refusing to roll drivers for products they just released a year before Vista came out. What a mess.
Re:Hardware works (Score:5, Insightful)
You could say the same thing about old Windows applications, but imagine the Slashdot outcry you'd get in response: "Microsoft is so bad you need two machines to run old applications! Man Microsoft sucks! I'm going to start spelling it with a dollar sign, I'm so upset about this!"
Face it, it's silly to complain about OSes that don't focus on application compatibility while using the one OS *most* famous for breaking old applications.
Re:Hardware works (Score:4, Informative)
You could say the same thing about old Windows applications
No, you misunderstand. The iMac would be running OSX, not OS9. It's Intel chips that are not compatible, not OSX.
Re:Hardware works (Score:5, Informative)
No, I do understand. I've been using Macs my whole life. Apple moved from 68k to PPC without *nearly* the application breakage they've had moving from PPC to x86. The difference isn't the CPUs involved, the difference is that Apple simply does not care. Not even as much as they did a decade ago when they moved from 68k to PPC.
68k chips are a lot more different from PPC chips than PPC chips are from Intel chips. What technical reason is there that the Classic environment can't run in an PPC emulation layer? None. (Other than the fact that the Classic environment barely ever ran in the first place; it was a terrible hack that any other software vendor would have been too embarrassed to release.)
Of course you got modded up with your "correction" by pro-Apple moderators.
Re:Hardware works (Score:4, Interesting)
People are still bitching about the PPC emulation layer and the Classic environment?
That was 5 years ago. They provided that 'bridge' from the old to the new so people would cross it. The reason for doing this is not "none" it is "because perpetual support of old shit would get us into the same mess MS is in now, and we have to design our OS to plan for the future, not let it grow organically with slipshod additions".
Re:Hardware works (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure he understands just fine. It's the machine that's old. The point was perfectly valid.
BTW, it's not Intel chips that are the problem. Intel runs PPC apps through Rosetta just fine. It was Apple's decision to not support those apps on Intel that's the issue.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a challenge. Coat yourself in motor oil, and while you are shiny, try building a rocket-propelled, monkey-navigated Tandy 286 and see if you can get it to play COD4 against God and Jesus in a LAN party. Wait, you did it? Hm... Weird.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite bug in System 7.0.0 was that they did away with the Font/DA Mover utility application, now all you have to do to install a font is to drag it into the Fonts folder in the System folder. Of course, if you tried to get rid of a font by dragging it out of the Fonts folder into the Trash, the OS would permanently corrupt itself and never boot again. Seriously. And since Font/DA Mover no longer worked, you couldn't delete a font at all without permanently corrupting your OS install. To make things extra-special, since this was pre-Internet, I corrupted 3 copies of System 7 in this way before I figured out what was making it happen. (It didn't happen right away, not until you rebooted.)
System 7 also broke Carrier Command, one of my favorite games.
Anyway, this is totally off-topic, mod accordingly.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Informative)
I really can't imagine what they're thinking. If it isn't 99.99% compatible, it isn't getting on my machine. Whatever machine that might be.
oh? 99.99% or you don't install it?
I keep XP in a sandbox on my Mac and there it will stay
On your mac you say?
I'm curious, what did you do in 2001 when OSX was released? Did Apple give you 99.99% backwards compatibility? Hell no, not even close. Classic was decent, but people had to give up a LOT of stuff.
And what did you do in 2005 when Apple up and switched to intel? Did Apple give you 99.99% backwards compatibility to all your PPC and 68k stuff? Sure there was rosetta, and like classic, it was decent, but its not 99.99%. Not even close.
Criticising Vista and saying you'll only upgrade if the upgrade is 99.99% backwards compatible and then saying you use a Mac undermines everything you've said. Vista is WAY more backwards compatible than Apple even tries for.
Hell just from OS X 10.5 from 10.4:
Absoft Pro Fortran compiler - needs up update v10, previous versions - not compatible
Adept Music Notation 5.2.5 - not compatible
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional - 8 - needs compatibility update, previous versions not compatible
Adobe Premier Pro CS3 - needs compatibility update (previous versions not compatible
Adobe After effects CS3, compatible updates required (previous versions not compatible
AdobePhotoshop Elements 4 and under not compatible
Adobe CS2 - not supported, not compatible
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - 1.2 and earlier are not compatible
Adobe Premier Pro - 3.1 and earlier are not compatible
Alien Skin Eye Candy 5, Xenofex 1, not compatible
Alsoft - Disk Warrior 4 - "Alsoft recommends DW4 not be run from OSX10.5"
AOL - Version 10.3.7 and under not compatible
Apple Backup 3.1 and earlier not compatible
Apple Final Cut Pro 4.5 and earlier are not compatible
Apple iDVD 1,2,3,4,5,7.0 not compatible
Apple iPhoto 2 not compatible
AppleJack 1.4.3 not compatible
I could go on...and on...I didn't make it out of the 'A's...
Yeah for a lot of software if you had the latest version, they released a free update to make it leopard compatible. But if you were a version behind... better be prepared to shell out. Leopard wasn't anywhere near 99.99% backwards compatible... even with 10.4, never mind 10.2 era software, and of course OS9 is RIGHT OUT.
Meanwhile Vista/Win7 will still run a lot of DOS6 apps? Not all of them. Probably not anywhere near 99% of them, but an awful LOT of them. I still have a few programs and command line utilities I wrote in C++ for DOS in the early 90s, and they all run on Vista x64, not to mention the ancient Motorola radio programming tool that programs old Motorola 2-way trunk unit; it still works too.
I agree Microsoft screwed up the Vista launch, and backwards compatibility was less than ideal. But it blows away what you get from Apple. The only difference is that with Apple, I think people -expect- no backwards compatibility, so they don't blink when they have to buy the latest version of all their software, buy a new printer, toss their old MP3 player*, etc.
(* My old Samsung Yepp only came with OS9 and Windows software. I can still use it with Vista. I haven't been able to sync it to a Mac in nearly a decade (it didn't work in classic). I handed it down to my kids years ago; and it finlly got retired when I bought my youngest a new Sansa this christmas.)
Re:crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
I just took it to mean he wants it to work will all his hardware or he won't install it.
Hardware, software... Apple leaves both behind at a whim.
Mac did break backward compatibility, but with good reason.
Apple breaks backward compatibility with each iteration. Some iterations much more drastically than others. It wasn't just a one time thing.
And saying 'but with good reason' doesn't make peoples stuff work again.
And if its a good enough excuse for Apple than Vista can use it too. Vista is better than previous versions (assuming suitable hardware). The security improvements are real, not just theatre, and represent a huge 'break' from previous Windows iterations. It is responsible for most of the compatibility issues -- and in my opinion it is just as 'forgivable' as apple's architecture switches. Microsoft HAD to make these changes to make the OS more secure; this pain was a long time coming and I'm glad it finally happened.
They made their OS run better and the upgraded applications allowed the same functions but with new technology.
And they required you to pay for those upgraded applications. iLife to iLife08 isn't a free upgrade. Apple Remote desktop 2 to 3 isn't a free upgrade. Final Cut Pro 5 to 6 isn't a free upgrade... and if you had the old version they didn't work with leopard.
But hey, if I'm ok with paying to run upgraded applications that allow the same functionality but with new technology, then why are people pissing and moaning that Office 2k/XP isn't 100% vista compatible... they can just just upgrade.
At least, from a business point of view.
These are the same businesses running Windows 2000 servers? Who screamed blue murder when XP came out? And managed to scream even louder when Vista came out? The only reason you don't hear businesses screaming when Apple releases an update is that not many businesses rely on them. If Apple gets significant marketshare, the volume of businesses screaming when they release new OS updates will rise accordingly.
Re:crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
If it isn't 99.99% compatible, it isn't getting on my machine.
What the fuck does that mean? If it's compatible with your hardware, then you should run it; if it's not, then you shouldn't. Where did that number come from? It implies that your decision to run software on your own hardware is dependent on its compatibility with the rest of the world's hardware.
You know, Microsoft bashing hysteria used to be funny, and largely warranted, but Windows is so much better now than it used to be. If the trade-off for more stability and a finally shifting security paradigm is some hardware incompatibility, then I'm happy to accept. Maybe a corporate customer running legacy PCs won't, but that's not me so I really don't care. Let Microsoft lose customers - maybe the resulting increase in competition will make their software better.
Re:crazy (Score:4, Informative)
The thing about sandboxes like vmware is the OS running inside doesn't know or care what the real hardware of the machine is. That means as long as vmware supports XP (IIRC vmware still supports dos and 9x so I would expect them to continue supporting XP for a very long time) you can continue to run XP in your VM.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:windoze 7 (Score:4, Informative)
I would still have to boot into windows to update my Iphone, and use Itunes. I have gone completely legit in the music, movie and software areas and I like being able to download DRM free music whenever I feel like it. Bottom line, you can't do that with Linux.
For what it's worth, I've been buying DRM free music from Amazon using Ubuntu for a while now. They even offer a handy downloader for Linux [amazon.com].