Windows Vista RC1 (screenshots!) was released this week with great fanfare. Coming after the highly-successful pre-RC1 build 5536, it had quite a lot of high expectations, and it certainly exceeded quite a few of them. In a word, Windows Vista RC1 is too good to be true. If it wasn’t for the pre-RC1 build, we wouldn’t be able to believe it. The last non-RC1 branches build we receive, build 5472, was a mess. It lacked a sense of completion, it crashed, it was buggy, and it was huge. RC1 couldn’t be further from that harsh reality.
Windows Vista Build 5600 is release candidate, and comes close to the meaning of that word. Generally speaking, an RC build is “ready for release” unless major bugs come up. With Vista or any other OS, there are bound to be quite a few major bugs left by RC1, and it’s the way the company handles them that matters more than anything else. And with Vista, we’re really impressed. We can finally present a honest look at what Vista will be. This isn’t just RC1 being reviewed, this is Vista.
We may have complained quite a lot before and after RC1 was released, but don’t let that mislead you, RC1 is good. Really good for a product that just a month ago was a complete and utter disaster as far as usability and stability were concerned. This review focuses on all aspects of RC1, which after all is the first real look at what we’re going to end up getting. What makes this review a bit different from our previous reviews is a more on-the-spot focus about the good and the bad. It’s a mega-review, it features subjective and objective tests, and every step of the way we’ll be giving our feedback about what works and what doesn’t. You can go ahead and press the next page link and read it from start to finish or you can use the mini-ToC below; each section is more or less independent of the rest.
Just a new skin for XP, a few .NET programs, more games, more eye candy, more complexity, more “security” (and more bugs for new items), more, more, and more. IMHO, UI should be as simple as it can be, and the colors should not make eyes to ake.. I’m still not tested it, and probably will not, even after release (if it will happen). I better stick with my GNOME on Xgl/Compiz. Cheers.
I am sorry, but I have to agree with all of this review. Vista is in limbo and the performance even in RC1 x86 and x64 isn’t gonna cut it. This OS needs work, I want to see better performance, I need AERO to stop hogging my CPU and memory. Great review CG, keep up the great work.
Too many windows for networking too, Windows Classic has been botched.
I will believe Symantec over “neosmart” or should I say “microsoft” with a different face. I have tested the latest release and I have done my own security tests and find that the newly written TCP/IP stack is not any more secure and everyone will find this to be true some day. It is very obvious that microsoft paid neosmart to publish this article. . . so anyone that is so gullible let them believe it. I will stick with XP for a long time to come.
Reads like a fanboy review. Peppered with comparisons with other OSes that aren’t backed up with numbers. Testing network stacks by looking at web page load times in browsers? You gotta be kidding me. The reviewers’ lack of knowledge shows through in many places throughout the review.
I can’t believe I went through a 12-page-ad
I want my time back
hmm the user account stuff and comparison with linux is wrong.
linux has like 20 or 30 user accounts on most systems.
Simply take a look at /etc/passwd.
Any user id below 1000 is commonly used for system programs, daemon etc.
They do not run with the super users priviledge, simply have their own.
The super user is simply the one that can administrate them all if necessary.
Even in the case of programs requiring super user access, e-g, SSH, it drops down to the SSH user after session startup.
But that’s just the basics. There are high security solutions that you can enable afterwards, like http://www.rsbac.org
OK, I usually just bs’ed how Vista will be a total OS X and KDE ripoff, but your dissection just proves me right.
I mean, “Windows Mail” and such? I’m surprised that the other apps aren’t called wCal, wDVD, wMovie…
It might have the “greatest GUI ever”, but what’s good of it when it’s just a copy of other well established GUIs?
And I’ll have to agree with the other commenters – your Linux comparison comments have a very simplified and shallow look to reality due to Windows propaganda, but that’s just the world we live in…
The ball must go. I cannot stand the round ball that protrudes on the start menu.
Who are the interface designers.
Oh MS, is this what we have been waiting for. Truely sad.
Scrap it all together and start over.
Face it, unless ???UX desktop software comes preinstalled on PCs you can buy at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.: unless it can flawlessly run MS Office (including Exchange and Visio); unless it can run every other piece of commercial and obscure software that currently runs on the MS O/S, it’ll never fly in suburbia! Recall the adab=ge used throughout the business world decades ago “Nobody ever got fired buying IBM?” Well, guess what they’ve now replaced the IBM monicker for?
Nice review, but how can you say something like “Each and every line of code seems to have been thoroughly cleaned up and heavily scrubbed.”?
Previously in the same review you said the TCP stack ported code direct from the XP TCP stack, then in your summary you say something like this….
Apart from that, thanks for the overview!
IGB
You are *that* funny! This is a typical review of people comparing Windows with other OSes, but not having any clue of the other ones.
Let’s see: You compare Vista’s user account security model with the one of “Linux” – ie Unix (did you ever hear of that one?). You claim: “Windows is better than Linux”. But most times I hear that, it is basically another wording for “I know Windows better than Linux” or “I don’t know Linux at all”. To quote:
“Linux has two types of accounts: Normal, and Super-User. That?s like having ?Restricted User? and ?Administrator? on Windows, with nothing in between.”
Sure!! This is it! Oh well, it’s not. Under Unix/POSIX (ie, also under a GNU/Linux) system, you have groups. Every file (under Unix this is basically _everything_) has a group it belongs to and permissions for this group. If you are in the group, you can profit from these permissions, if not, not.
So let’s see. “Linux has X types of accounts, whereas X is the sum of possibilitys to combine all groups Y on the system, therefor 2^Y)”. There is no restriction to the group number.
Guess what, on a normal “Linux” system there are various groups, for example a group which has access to your sound devices, or one which has access to usb devices, or groups who are able to use “shutdown” ….
Guess what, this is very powerfull and existed yet even before Windows NT came out.
Guess what, You just don’t have any damn clue, but do claims which are very .. brave…
“WMC blows ? quite literally.” — they’ve literally got no idea what literally means.
Well, sure linux has groups.
They aren’t the same as multiple accout types. For anyone who has had to run *nix servers it’ll quickly be painfully obvious how annoying groups are.
Thankfully there are ACLs for Linux. So no, there aren’t two user types; how this person set up his system there are two. I can have as many as I’d like, even banish root if I feel like it.
Please please, stop this comparison idiocy if you don’t know both operating systems deeply. It’s wrong, it gives the wrong impression (both of you and of the OS).
“On Linux one must install all dependencies first, and with programs like Yum(ex) it isn?t hard, but it certainly is time-consuming.”
Please, on your Linux distribution this works this way. Using some repository online. You see, I have this huge repository running on my LAN that’s mirrored automatically and installs are limited by the speed of my harddrive. This is just an example, remember that when you’re installing these things they come from a CD. This is unlike the Linux example where they come over the internet which is a lot slower.
The deeper point here is, and if you’re going to remember one thing it should be this, please please stop saying “In Linux” There is no such thing. “In Linux” Is a vanilla kernel that comes from kernel.org. That’s it. You can say “In Fedora” but always remember, most of us do have better setups, loads of use do use different distributions.
Also please cease this “runs significantly faster”. You want numbers and how you set up your system. You see, I have this script that sets aside a few megs of RAM and makes my most frequently used programs come up instantaneously. It just so happens that some distrubtions make other versions of the same idea available. If you really wanted to make that an informative review, you should have explained what a relocation is, what goes on when you start a program and why the windows way is faster (if it is).
Comments like all flavours of Linux make you use the shell to do things are misguided. Ineed yesterday I was having a conversation about how a person had been using Ubuntu (long time Linux user) and was surprised that he didn’t need the shell for anything.
“The new networking stack far surpasses Windows XP?s or even Linux?s networking performance, with internet pages loading up to 8% faster than XP and up to 4% faster than Linux on identical web browsers in our tests (Opera 9.0.1 and Firefox 2.0 Beta).” This is a ridiculous comment. You are comparing Firefox on two different OSes (at best). This does in no way benchmark the networking stack, indeed when loading up a page a trivial amount of work is done by it compared to all the work needed to parse and render it. If you’re going to make statements like that use real benchmarking tools and understand what they are doing, which but of the stack is being used and why there is a performance difference. Only then can you make such comments.
I’d write more, but if you didn’t understand my point by now this is useless.
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Get the picture? RIP OFF!
This article is filled with lies and FUD. Its entirely untrue. Linux has offered this “never before seen, innovative and foolproof” security measures “introduced in IE7” for years, its known as Mandatory Access Control or SELinux. And it has been around a while, there are even competing implementations, such as AppArmor. And unlike Microsoft, the Linux community has been working on implementing it EVERYWHERE, not just in the browser. It knows that DHCP clients only need to edit IP addresses/DNS servers and read its config file. It won’t allow it to access anything else. Its not just restricted to the most exploited programs on the system. Fedora Core 5 and RHEL3 enables this by default.
Also, the dependency problem still seems to be there on Windows Vista. For an experiment to test what you stated, I just tried downloading and installing PHP, an extremely common web server scripting language, on a fresh Windows Vista RC1 install. Windows does not offer one click installs for downloading and installing common applicatoins, so I was forced to go to PHP’s website in order to download it. Unfortunately, I did not meet its dependencies, I didn’t have a web server, and Windows Vista did not offer me any way to rectify this dependency issue, so it left PHP unconfigured. I downloaded and installed Apache, the most common web server, and installed it on Windows Vista. I tried to use PHP with it, but unfortunately, it was still unconfigured. I figured I could try to run the PHP installer again, but PHP was installed, just not configured. In order to resolve the dependency issue, I had to uninstall PHP and then reinstall it again. It was quite a pain in the ass and wasted at least an hour of my time just getting one common program installed.
I figured I would try to accomplish the same exact task in Linux. I rebooted into Linux, and opened the package manager and selected to install PHP. The package manager informed me that I didn’t have a web server installed and offered to also install apache for me. I said ok, and then it automatically downloaded Apache, PHP, and installed and configured both of them. It also automatically started the server for me. I was then able to begin programming. It took under 2 minutes to get to the same exact point in Linux, of which it only required user interaction for the first 30 seconds, thanks to the lack of dependency issues and automated download process.
So I figured maybe Windows isn’t good at dealing with web server applications, so I tried some other applications. It seemed that Windows Vista would consistantly fail to resolve dependencies and just fail if you didn’t meet them before you tried to run the installers. Because of the complicatedness, I found that many applications decided to statically link to libraries, leaving me with multiple copies. In the event of a security issue, each application would need to be updated individually, which many times, they just don’t do it. The dependency issue is very real and is a huge problem on Windows Vista. I do hope that they are able to resolve it before release so I can try Windows Vista again and have a better experience, however as Microsoft has yet to dedicate any man hours to the issue, I am not hopeful, and I can’t afford the lost producitivity associated with these problems, in addition to the increased risk and viruses, longer patch times, and so on, so I am forced to keep Linux installed and recommend it to everyone I know.
Ok, although the reviewers tried to do a good job in covering Vista, this review has several serious flaws and omissions.
For example, the memory usage explanations…
1) The writer focuses on baseline memory usage, but this, as in XP depends on system RAM how much Windows will load into active RAM. If you have 2GB of RAM, XP and Vista will both load 400-500mb of RAM on initial load. However if you have 512mb of RAM you will find that both XP and Vista load a more conservative amount.
RAM usage also reflects active pages of RAM and the system Caching, both areas are important and with a review like this should have been addressed. Vista has new caching methods (like File I/O won’t steal memory from applications) like can happen in XP and previous NT OSes. These are technical details that are explained on the MS site and also something any review should mention, test, and or explain to the end users why this in important.
A good Tag line for Vista’s RAM usage is like this. “Vista ‘appears’ to use more RAM, but it is significantly smarter with its memory usage and this improves application performance across the board.”
Another flaw in the Memory portion is the assessment that the ‘visuals’ in Vista are balanced between GPU and CPU. This is NOT true. What the reviewer is seeing is the DWM, a service application that manages what you see on the screen and is a part of the WDDM and Vista Graphics Composer.
The DWM does NOT balance usage to the CPU for graphics functions as the reviewer suggests. In fact more graphics functions are processed on the GPU than ANY other OS, as even bitmap effect and all vector compositions are processed on the GPU even for 2D applications, surpassing the basic texture/bitmap compose of what OSX is doing.
If the reviewer would have looked up what the DWM does and why it exists in relation to system Memory, they would have found that Vista’s WDDM model has several new concepts that is even new to GPUs, and the exact opposite of what the reviewer is implying is what is happening.
For example, the WDDM model of Vista allows 3D applications and even the Vista UI itself to ‘share’ the GPU in the computer, no longer do applications ‘lock’ the GPU for a single application to use.
How this relates to memory is that Vista also has the ability to not only multitask 3D applications to the GPU that all want exclusive access, but it can also ‘virtualize’ GPU memory and share system memory for GPU functions. So if your Video Card only has 128mb of RAM and you running several 3D applications that are consuming 256mb of Video RAM, Vista virtualizes this RAM into system RAM transparently; however, this would ‘raise’ the system memory usage and the DWM would increase in size to reflect this virtualization.
People should truly be reading the articles being posted by Microsoft, as they are finally giving explanations of what Vista is all about and how it truly has innovations and technologies that no other OS has ever attempted to harness in an easy to use platform.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/
(And I no affiliation with MS, I am part of a technical development team and also a founding member of a research group on computer technologies, including OSes and user interaction and usability concepts.)
How about Start, Connect To? That’s just two clicks to view available networks.
Why do the Linux/Unix/OS X hardcore users come out and bash Microsoft? This goes way back, and quite frankly, there will never be one OS!! I have been an admin for very large government agencies and we run Linux/Unix/OS X and Windows throughout our shops. Essentially, each OS does something better than the next (e.g. users love working with the Windows UI — don’t know why, but when given a choice between Unix/Linux/OS X, they typically enjoy working with the Windows UI). That does not necessarily mean Windows is better than the others; it just means **some** users prefer the featureset presented by the Windows UI. Additionally, you have to remember the Microsoft owns 95% of the userbase and application base. Whether this is good or bad is not in question…it just is something we live with. Where am i going??? Well, the point i am making is that bashing Microsoft does nothing to help the overall effort to get another product noticed (Unix/Linux/OS X). Vista is a decent product; better than any past Microsoft OS endeavors. Yes it has issues, yes the UI is heavy, but remember Microsoft is paying millions for UI development and trending. Microsoft built the UI with colors, transparencies, etc. because that is what Microsofts consumer base wants (according to studies). If Linux/Unix/OS X are so much better (overall) according to recent posts, do something and go out and publicly advocate and demonstrate the greatness (don’t just anonomously post-bash). I use Unix everyday, however; my desktop runs a beta versio of Windows Vista and i get by just fine. Maybe one day, the millions of open source programmers can get together, stop coding, and figure out how to market their product. Same with OS X. Unix/Linux/OSX will always be the underdog if they don’t figure out how to take some of the Windows 95% userbase.
I don’t know. But on my Asus A6Vm notebook (1.73GHz P-M, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB Seagate Momentus 5400) Photoshop CS2 starts in under 15 sec, and shutdown is never more than 1 min, but mostly shorter. All this under Windows Server 2003, but XP shows similar numbers, so I can’t imagine how the hell can you have such slow numbers? My Desktop Workstation (Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM…) blow my notebook’s numbers away. So your PC is either badly configured or has a crappy motherboard… and I don’t pay much attention to Vista until RTM, because all this beta and RC stuff is probably badly optimized. Anyway I hope the UI will be much improved, because right now is a clown UI, Microsoft needs to do much on clearing that UI because right now it is crappy graphic design, bad colors and overcomplicated, it’s need to be simply and clear and configurable. OK, it’s great for my grandmom and for a 12 years old kids, but be serious, can you imagine a professional system with that clown graphics?
Ummm, wouldn’t it be stupid for a company to not have what the competition offers? everyon is talking about vista being a rip off, but if it did not offer all the advantages of other OS’s, then why would ppl use it? But why listen to me, i know everyone hates microsoft and whatever they do. Linux and Apple do everything right… right? Maybe ppl should start comparing linux over apple and leave microsoft out of it if its such a bad OS. I think your starting to see what im saying. You all like to bad mouth microsoft.
You all must be interested in vista if ur reading this review. So linux and macos must not be all that great, otherwise you wouldn’t need to read up on it.
How much did Microsoft pay you for this?
[quote comment=”6087″]Why do the Linux/Unix/OS X hardcore users come out and bash Microsoft?[/quote]
Well, every OS has it’s features and it’s shortcomings. Problem is, when someone wants his/her favourite OS to look better than it really is. This is exactly what this “review” is all about. So nobody would came and tell “linux had this before” “linux does that better” if the writer of the “review” wouldn’t have made statements like “Vista’s user model is better than the one of linux” or “Vista has a better networking stack than linux, because my google loads faster”…
As some posters pointed out, Windows really has big shortcomings when it comes to package management etc. (which is also due to the proprietary nature of Windows and its applications)… There are other things one would/could miss under Linux for sure. Let’s see, sometimes there are still problems playing more than 1 PCM source on a soundcard under Linux! So I never saw anyone writing “Linux audio support is better than under Windows” – but the reviewers on this website – if they would like & review a Linux based OS – sure would!
not impressed!
The mindset of Linux/Mac fanboys:
“Damn, I was soooo hoping that Vista would suck. 🙁
Well, I’ll still bash it, hoping to convince others that it does!! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
you Linux fanboys are absolutely pathetic and scared to death of Vista. The Mac fanboys aren’t quite as bad.
I’ve come across lots users complaining about Windows. No matter which version it might be. They kick up a massive stink, MS this, MS that! I’ve also seen the same folks using and loving Windows…despite what MS stand for.
Windows has a lot of strong points and linux has its own. Let’s face it, user accounts and management is not a Windows strong point. The only reason you need a “limited” Administrator account in Windows is because a limited user can only run a handful of applications. Very few applications for windows are aware of user privileges, most expect administrator rights because they need to write to the registry, temp folders and the like, and a limited user cannot do that. Quite honestly, I find only Office is really aware when it is running as a limited user. On the other hand the linux user is able to run any user app, and in fact some apps complain when run as root! It is just the user cannot make any changes to system files but can only mess with his home folder. You do not need a “limited” administrator in linux. You only become root to administer. Period. You do everything else with your normal user account.
I love all you OS idiots. Linux raises the dead, everyone and their mother steals from OSX, windows rapes babies and stole the election for Bush.. get over it all OS’s suck in their own unique ways.. Face it Vista is the OS to pay attention to because 90% of the world (fine lets say microsoft looses some ground 80%) will use this OS so like it or now you WILL have to deal with it.. Learn to make your peace.. Yes I know there will always be some dumbass who says BUT I switched to Linux X many years ago and never had to use anything else.. Well your a dumbass and you live in a bubble.. Us working professionals do work on it not matter if your IT or if your in accounting..
So get over it, its just a OS.. If you can do your work on it great, if you can’t work on another OS.. If your like me use 3 different OS’s for thousands of different tasks.. Grow up stop being children, if you want something to fight about do what everyone else does force your religion on the powerless and poor.. ‘
In closing, Grow up, stop bickering like children, embrace new technology and ideas (even if they conflict with your preconceived notions) and most importantly KISS MY SHINY METAL ASS!!
The problem with all reviews and other peoples take on something new like a new o/s is, you can’t compare windows to unix and osx because they are different and allways will be, so don’t compare one o/s to a different o/s and another thing is when time changes and a new o/s comes out look at what you use if for and most people dont benchmark there system they look at can this work for me and is it easy to use, when xp came out the reviews were bad and told everybody to stay with windows 98 and windows 2000 but now everybody that is an every day user uses xp home or pro why is that because it works and its easy to use and so is windows vista you might have to upgrade to get better performance but for the everyday user this new windows will work just fine and inhance there everyday computer use.
“its easy to use and so is windows vista you might have to upgrade to get better performance but for the everyday user this new windows will work just fine and inhance there everyday computer use.”
i am the everyday user, and i dont think Vista is as easy to use as XP. having to pay $300 for a system that works “just fine” is not what i want. it is true that most people use XP, because of …. who knows what. the fact is that now days there ARE alternatives to windows that are better, graphicaly and physicly. yes maybe Vista will turn out like XP however with new systems getting more and more exposure, like OSX and Ubuntu and SLED10 i dont think it will turn out the same. the graphic interfaces in those systems are far above Vista PERIOD. have you used Windows attempt of “multiple desktops”? and have you seen what Novel has began and projects like Compiz (now Beryl) have enhanced. talking about an eXPerience. Please dont give that BS that everything is OK because Joe Blow doesnt know the difference.
Joe Blow does know the difference, because everybody learns from their mistakes.
There is a reason why Mac and Unix/Linux only have 5% of the market. I can only hope that with Vista they will go the way of Novell.
You think microsoft is a rip off of existing technology, well what about the Mac ipod? Isn’t that just a sony walkman reviseted?
There may be alot of overhead in the UI but what’s wrong with a good looking product? Could it be that it’s not the overhead of the UI but the cheapness of people still trying to run modern software in thier outdated hardware… You know you can still run DOS if you like that spartan look.
I am reserving final judgement for the final product but from what I can see so far I am pleased.
[quote comment=”6174″]There is a reason why Mac and Unix/Linux only have 5% of the market. I can only hope that with Vista they will go the way of Novell.
You think microsoft is a rip off of existing technology, well what about the Mac ipod? Isn’t that just a sony walkman reviseted?[/quote]
what is that reason? and with Vista “they” (Mac, and Ubuntu, SLED10) which is what you meant by UNIX/Linux will get more exposure because what Vista is doing or trying to do with their GUI it is already finished and performs with far less overhead. you should visit http://youtube.com/watch?v=wYjv0S_k0xo
and as far as UNIX/linux well as long as there is an internet, they will never go away, only get better. and if you really want to compare the two distros i pointed out to Microsoft, well overall Microsfot looses. why? because it costs $330 for XP pro and that is the student liscence and it does not include Office. you should really look into all the different Linux Distros they are not what most people remmember.
[quote comment=”6174″]You think microsoft is a rip off of existing technology, well what about the Mac ipod? Isn’t that just a sony walkman reviseted?
[/quote]
you are right; and i guess the calculator is much the same. nothing new, no new technology or new [i love this part] “FUNCTIONALITY” its just an Abacus revisited.
windows “longhorn” with “older” software suck,that say it all.If windows 6.0 aka “longhorn””vista” whatever they like to call it can’t run basic xp .exe and run them without crushing then what’s the point haveing it???
if microSoft do not make it compatible with earlyer os’es then Linux look’s like the king of the world and there is no saveing Microsoft.
@zois: it’s very compatible… Don’t know what programs you’re talking about, but have you tried it for yourself? Compatibility is good, and is the least of their (very big) worries ATM.
i want windows vista demo file
[quote comment=”6200″]i want windows vista demo file[/quote]
http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/download-5728.htm
guru i try yahoo messenger on it and crush on both 8 and 6 version’s . and voice suport is not working too :)).
I have been testing windows Vista for since Rc1 is out and it is far from friendly user and stabilaty. I’am an iT tech and believe me i know what a “basic” user is. If is icon is not at the very same place he left it last time he is lost.
With vista i see a lot of Code 18 calls coming up. For that side i hope w’ill stay with xp for a long time. And besides the computers here are for a majority single core 3ghz with 1024mb of rams, with is just enough to have vista running with one or two other software and Aero down.
Nowe the other side… witch is compatibility and stability, well, not that much for a version of OS that’s just on it’s final stage. It didn’t even recognise my USB key. And for installing sofware, there is not much of the present soft that work. Winrar worked fine, Nero lasted 7.6.x.x will not work. I herd others that had Nero up and running in a snap while others like me will have a headhake on it. My freakin audio drivers are all but stable and they come from creative. When it ask for a reboot it reboots on a dark screen, i have to shut it down completely to have it reboot. And that is on a Dell corporate system and a Basic amd with Nvidia chipset test system. I had to install the beta Mcafee because the current version caused vista to crash and bleu screened (yes BSOD is still there) and i had to reinstall vista. A few software were installed with the compatility thing and others i had to fool vista with some tweak headbraking tricks to have them running. That’s not friendly user. 90% of the things i plugged in USB were not recognised and XP got them all up and “ready to use”. For a, almost 14 gig used space on hard-drive OS, it dose not include much usable stuf, mostly good looking only. Hope the final version is as good as the eye shocking look. Because i dont like a good looking crashed OS. “sad joke”
Hey Mcfly
You really need to learn about computers or better still actually install and use Vista.
I am from the UK and have Vista installed on seven pcs all using office beta and close call epos systems and I gotta say I?ve had not one problem from any of them,
networking has been totally overhauled with superb security due to re stacking.
I?d advise anyone to give Vista a try and try to be unbiased.
I believe we may have many redundancies at our company if this is what will be.
P/S
with 42 employees using USB pens I decided to ask if anyone had any problems using them…..surprise, no problems!
I have owned a retail computer store for over 23 years. I have heard all of your comparisons about just about everything over those years including one customer I recall who used 16 different operating systems and liked Windows the least.
I can tell all of you that you sound just all of those I have heard in the past trying to defend your 1, 1.5%, etc. shares of the markets OS’s,…it doesn’t matter, Windows Vista will be the real marketer of the world’s OS/s for a long time in the future…long after Vista, I am sure.
Vista is fine. I have had many customers “play” with Linux, etc., they end up for the most part with Windows when it comes to their real world (their families, friends and work). Most even end up back with Windows after a time and I just smile…as I knew they would. Just happened by this forum and will probably never be back…so say what you wish, I will never know. But, I am already smiling…as I know after all thesse years what really matters and where the money is at. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.
Is it as stable as windows xp pro? I just love my windows XP pro and i still didn’t see any good reason to upgrade.
More or less.
So long as you have digitally signed drivers made for Windows Vista, it’s stable. The problems start when you use unsigned drivers on x64, or when you use XP drivers on Vista x86.
Other than that it’s fairly stable. We just need to get the hardware manufacturers to put their resources to use instead of twiddling their thumbs and get some real drivers written.
The simple fact is that when I get people phoning me for support, I’m going to have to have installed and been using it to fix it! Like it or not, it’s going to keep me in business.
Windows vista is the most beautiful softweare.
Vista is da best softwear i hav seen til 2day
I am using linux and windows from last 8 years , infact my desktop is presently running on linux and my laptop on windows. From my experience linux has came long way but it will take much longer way to reach windows. I see people here bashing vista as it is hogging memory, but it is same with the linux. I am running ubuntu dapper on my friends system on 256 MB memory and it sux. Ubuntu will run fine with 512MB memory, same with the case of vista with AERO off. As a developer i can tell that linux libraries are fragmented and its hard to program, while windows provide huge set of completed libraries which attracts lots of developers. Linux has not come to the stage where an average user can easily adopted to it. If something wrong happens to the linux, it kills lots of time in order to find the fault and to fix it, its not the case with the windows where things just works. The only thing i like in linux is its kernel and every thing is a mess.
I know what you mean.
Despite all these “setbacks,” I’m still using Vista.
Lots of interesting (and un-interesting comments above). Current Window users will eventually be forced along the Vista route, so accept it.
I am more concerned about the minimum system specification required to run Vista. Although claimed to be 800mhz processor, that is pure and utter nonsense. It’s about time Microsoft gave some realistic guidelines without forcing people to upgrade.
I’m a long-time mac user, I have to say that I love OSX, but have been waiting for MSoft to produce something that looks a little more 21st century. I know, I know. you tech-heads don’t really care about ‘funky’. I have no clue what ‘stacking’ might be, and I don’t much care – all I’d want is an OS that works. Out the box. Easy to learn. Simple to maintain (not damn registry editing, I’d want a automtic cleaner built in to Vista).
OSX has had some issues, but I’d guess that ALL OSs do. Although I love Apple, there’s no way that they should kid themselves that they are ever going to be more that a bit player – even if the new macs can run OSX, XP, Linux, and Vista (with some tossing abaht) on one machine. It doesn’t matter. MSoft have 95% of the market, and good luck to them. There was always going to be a sucessor to XP, and it was always going to look a little more special, as that is what the market demands.
I hope MSoft have great success with Vista, and that Apple’s Leopard doews great for them too, and that Unix/Linux continue to be the techies wet dream in every way. The thing is there are as many OSs on the market as we wnat there to be, and progress in any OS benefits users of other OSs.
Anyhoo, I’ve finished a bottle of wine whilst starting this, and have quite forgotten my original point. That’s a good point to sign off.
I received two keys from Microsoft but found when I clicked on the download link that the program was closed. I hope that is not an indication of how Microsoft runs thier business. Or may be it is. I would love to comment about RC 1 but all I have are two useless keys! Any ideas how I could obtain a copy of RC 1 would be great.