Zaine, you make some valid points and I'm not going to try and defend Vista. My comments were more about the general philosophy behind Windows as a whole and different expectations when your customer base is very different from other OS vendors (OSX - consumers, Linux - power users).

I've posted many times on my personal thoughts about Vista - it was a clusterf**ck, to put it mildly, in the way the whole project was managed and how the feature set alienated both consumers and developers.

— This doesn't account for MS-OOXML in Office 2007, and its lack of support for the other ISO standard format, ODF.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

This is a purely political decision, not technical. If Microsoft supported ODF, it would be tantamount to them saying there was no need to invent OOXML. But thats a separate discussion :)

— Vista also broke lots of hardware with missing drivers. And please don't tell me that "XP did the same thing when it came out." After five years of development, I somehow thought things were supposed to be more compatible, faster, and better. For example, I lost both an old and a new HP laser printer for over a year. Talk about being bummed. Yet those open sourcers were able to hack up a Linux driver in about three weeks.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Sorry, I'll have to say its the hw manufacturers fault. Precisely because it took so long, they had plenty to time to write good drivers (hell any driver). Microsoft is not responsible for making sure your hardware works, although as a customer it'd be nice! They try very hard to test and certify all kinds of hardware, beyond that what can they do?

— Microsoft itself was never clear on whether we should get new hardware for Vista. They slapped 'Vista-capable' stickers on systems that were not. That did wonders for goodwill, and brought the inevitable lawsuit from consumers. They could have easily sold a demo/test CD for €1 to see if Vista worked on your old system like Linux does with its Live CDs.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Linux is free and the $1 livecd is not demo or test, it IS Linux. Obviously MS cannot do that (or for that matter any commercial OS vendor). 'Vista-capable' is very different from 'Vista-certified'. Ever since the DOJ slapped them, Microsoft has been even more hesitant to tell OEM's what they can and can't do to their systems - hence the bloatware you see on Windows pc's.

— So far, I don't see the "outshining" MrCrispy, as Windows is actually losing desktop market share to OS X and Linux. Microsoft never loses desktop market share. But with Vista Microsoft is finally losing customers. And according to that same Forrester Research Report, Windows enterprise adoption declined 3.7% and Vista only accounted for just over 6% of business/enterprise clients to date.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

The lack of adoption in the enterprise is I'm sure a big concern to the executives. Rather it would be if they were not trying to waste $50B (!!!!!) trying to buy a company with no benefits to them  :wallbash: The 3rd quarter results for MSFT were not good.

— Okay, you're talking about Compiz here, but something most of those YouTube 'Compiz' videos don't show is how it works among desktops you establish as you work. For example, you can create a set of programs that work within one 'desktop' — say, graphics, or database/spreadsheet/data analysis, or coding, whatever — keeping that workspace clean and segregated from things like surfing, burning, gaming, etc. The flash and zazz on the videos are just effects, and hide its utility.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Isn't that just virtual desktops though? Spaces in Leopard. And its still not included in Windows (except for the useless little power toy)!

— Despite years of development, unprecedented and broad alpha and beta testing by many, many Windows power users, Vista wasn't ready for release at the end of Jan. 2007. SP1 is acceptable. Even Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout, and you'd hardly know they just released Windows Server 2008.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout ??!! That's news to me! Server 2008 is not a consumer product so probably not much in the mainstream media, but there wa splenty of coverage in mags like 'IT Week', 'Network World' etc.

— Windows Explorer could not have been designed by committee. Nor could Vista's Control Panel labyrinth. Nor could UAC. Nor could the way that Vista drains laptop batteries. The list is long.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

I'm not sure if I made myself clear. Design-by-committee is a BAD thing. Very bad. All the things you list are perfect examples. I'm sure you've read the horror story of the Vista start menu power options.

— And then there's that nasty Windows Home Server data corruption problem (marketed on Microsoft.com for Small Business Server Networks). Corrupting data is an absolute compromise (KnowledgeBase listing). When run on servers with more than one hard drive running Windows Home Server can destroy your data if you use any of nine programs: Windows Vista Photo Gallery; Windows Live Photo Gallery; Microsoft Office OneNote 2007; Microsoft Office OneNote 2003; Microsoft Office Outlook 2007; Microsoft Money 2007; SyncToy 2.0 Beta; Intuit QuickBooks; and uTorrent. To be fair, Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V virtualization is freaky good. But the whole point of a server OS is to serve files, not corrupt them. Who tested that at Redmond? Seriously. Not even ed bott can spin that. Just install Linux and Samba on the PC of your choice that you want to be your server and save yourself the cash and heartache.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Simple answer - it was not tested. Inexcusable. Microsoft is too big and there is a lack of communication between teams. This was why we had the horrendous Vista file copy bug which would throttle file transfers when you play audio.

But, WHS is not a server product by any means so don't hold it to the same standards. And it does far  more than Linux+Samba.

— Would you be willing to run Windows without a GUI? (I think you would because at your level, you'd be an expert on any OS, not just Windows.) But for my level, I couldn't.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

I wouldn't :) But the non-GUI install (Server Core) is meant for servers, not desktops, and server admins who live and breathe cmd line magic. It would be right at home with the Linux crowd!

— Reducing resource demand would be a new, welcome direction.

— Win7 is rumored to be subscription and possibly modular. But once software goes subscription, I'm outta there. I saw they floated a price of $33/month for Office 2007! Much like gasoline, I can't afford to drive with Microsoft anymore. Therefore, GNU/Linux best serves my economic and data interests.

-zridling (April 25, 2008, 01:09 AM)

I hear you. I don't like the trend that all software is moving towards a license+activation model rather than me owning it. Its one of the things Apple gets right - one version, you install it, you use it. Done. I don't lease my cars :)

But again, its meant mostly for enterprises. And in THAT market, hosted services are HUGE. For businesses, the attraction of never having to purchase/install/upgrade/maintain something is the deciding factor. Why do you think Microsoft is doing this? Because they are threatened by Google Apps/Zimbra etc! And its a way to ensure a steady revenue stream.

As a consumer, there are many things about Vista I don't like. Apple has a much better user experience but I refuse to pay the AppleTax. I seriously doubt that Linux is ready for the desktop and would not want to inflict it on my parents, for example. Modern computing is complex, but at least with Windows its the devil I know  :)

^ Thats a very good point. Lets also talk about a huge revenue source and target market for Windows - businesses. In a corporate environment, what are the values that absolutely cannot be compromised - being conservative and not flashy, backwards compatibility, features based on actual user feedback and customer demand. 

Guess what, these are the exact areas Windows outshines OSX and Linux. It may not be sexy, and it has a bit of design-by-committee, but the features are put in after extensive user testing, not because some dev coded an overnight effect that looks good on youtube. 3d rippling windows is good - is it usable? The PDC builds of Longhorn (in 2003, before Compiz, beryl etc) had all kinds of 3d effects that were dropped.

Microsoft is also moving towards a componentized, modular Windows. CE has it, and Windows 2008 lets you mix and match what you want to run, so e.g. you can run it without a GUI. So I have hopes for reduced resource usage as well.

The GMA X3100 is more than enough for Aero as well as any DX9 game - its actually a pretty capable graphics chip so I'm surprised it gave your problems.