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which operating system you like most....
app103:
It depends what computer I am using as to which OS I prefer.
On my P1, I have only 3 choices to pick from: Win95, Win98, WinME.
I prefer ME because it's stable (at least on this machine it is). I would rather have the stability that ME offers than the faster speed of Win98. At the end of the day, Win98 isn't faster because of all the rebooting I'd have to do when something goes wrong, and that is a lot of rebooting.
On my other pc, I prefer XP. There is a lot more software I can run on it that I couldn't with ME. I miss some of the features that are in ME that are not included with XP though, and I have a feeling that if I get that machine running again, that I will have to go through an adjustment period all over again, learning to live without certain perks I have become acustomed to again by using ME for the last 6 months. (Why doesn't xp jump to a file you have selected, when you change folder view, like ME does? Why does it jump back to the top and make you scroll to the file again? That's annoying!)
My brief exposure to 2003 Server was about 1 day of wasting my time searching google for how to turn off desktop icons so none will show. I never did find out how. Unless I can turn them off, there isn't much hope of me liking that OS.
2008 Server, on the other hand, I turned off the desktop icons easily. But the Explorer windows have that ugly IE7 look and all the handy buttons that I like on the toolbar and can customize on older versions of Windows, are all gone. I don't like that.
I haven't tried Vista yet, but if I am forced to have desktop icons (like in 2003 Server), or the Explorer windows look like IE7 (like in 2008 Server), or they have taken away my ability to use old fashioned 9x style classic themes, I will probably hate looking at it enough to hate using it. And if my favorite software won't run on it, I don't see any point in trying it, nevermind buying it.
Just for an illustration--I was always terribly bugged with WinXP Explorer putting the newly created file at the end of the list and requiring refresh to position it properly. No more in Vista. The new file appears immediately just where it should be. A triviality, but it delights. And so on...
-yksyks (August 10, 2008, 05:53 AM)
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I actually like that feature in Windows...makes it much easier to find the file I just created instead of having to hunt for it in the list. The bottom of the list is easier to find a file, for me. I will actually keep an Explorer window open while downloading files, just to have it easier to find the new files when the download completes...they will all be at the bottom. Changing that wouldn't delight me.
Maybe I am starting to suffer from "old fart syndrome", getting too used to things and set in my ways and not liking all the "new fangled kid stuff". :-\
f0dder:
For instance, in Vista's Disk Management console snap-in, you can now shrink and expand partitions (whereas in XP, you had to use Parted Magic or a similar tool, or reformat altogether). The Disk Cleanup tool is improved very much.
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How often do you need to resize partitions? Sure, it's an advantage that you can do it, but just how much "value" does this add? For me, it would be none... I don't trust partition resizes... there's potential for losing a lot of data if something goes wrong :)
The new start menu in Vista is nice enough, but since I use FARR, I hardly ever use the menu.
Visual tweaks? Ugh. I hate the Aero look of Vista. Unfortunately, it's all-or-nothing - you can't get Aero acceleration with the classic theme, how mindbogglingly silly design is that? And Microsoft obviously doesn't support custom themes unless they're signed by MS, so you have to resort to hacks to get a different look.
The sleep mode in vista totally obliterates XP's wannabe Stand By mode (major plus for mobile users).
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How so?
The wifi, you can not beat the wifi manager on Vista. It just works.
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Heh. The amount of problems I've had with Vista wi-fi, ugh. And the diagnostics were useless - basically "uh oh, didn't work" shit. Was reaaaally obvious that I had to drop to an administrative-rights cmd.exe shell and use a cryptic netsh commandline to disable "auto-tuning", oh yes. With XP, my experience has been that things just worked, no need for broken diagnostics in the first place.
Too bad DX10 isn't going to be ported to XP (and don't give me crap about "it's new architecture and can't be done" yadda yadda, it's perfectly doable), so eventually I'll probably have to go Vista (or the next version, anyway) if I want to play games. But as it is now, not many games support/require DX10, and the ones that have it optional don't get that much advantage from it anyway.
Note that this wasn't meant as a diss, if you're happy with Vista, that's fine and good. Just wanted to say that I don't particularly like it, and don't see much advantage in it over XP... it does have some base features that are better, but who runs a base OS with no extras? And, for me, it has so many little annoyances that the overall experience is worse than XP. I'd sure love having the enhanced prefetch, prioritized I/O and transactional NTFS, but meh.
I'm getting a laptop soon, so there's probably no way around Vista I guess - it's such a nightmare hunting for XP laptop drivers now :(. So I guess it might be time to see how many annoyances can be fixed with vlite, and then give it a chance. But I have a suspicion that I'll end up hunting for XP drivers after all :)
Shades:
My personal experience with Vista is/was creating and setting up a wireless network in the house of a girlfriend of mine so she could use her brand new Acer laptop everywhere.
The only wifi router brands they sell over here are D-link, Encore and Linksys...so I went the Linksys way. Quite frankly, following the Linksys instructions exactly to the letter to get it installed on Vista was extremely disappointing.
My impression was that getting, pulling and obfuscating the necessary electricity lines to the most efficient location for the wireless router would be the most time-consuming and labor intensive part of this job.
However it was appalling how bad the Linksys software in combination with UAC. When it was finally installed it could not find the router automatically, whatever I did. Fortunately I never leave home without my trusty 7-year old win2000 HP laptop. Both laptops have Broadcom hardware to make the Wifi connection, it took my old laptop 3 minutes (including unpacking and booting!) to surf the internet through her connection.
Trying to manually configure network settings in Vista is a B*ll-breaking experience...hiding behind way too many mouse-clicks, each guarded by UAC. Normally, you have to do a lot to get me cursing at a computer (letting me play a racing game get's me going rather quickly ;)), but UAC really brings out the worst. Don't get me going about Vista's ability to keep the connection alive!
Furthermore the graphical wizardry doesn't do it for me at all. Come on, the only useful widget being more or less force-fed into the desktop is the clock. The default other stuff is useless at best and distracting at worst.
40hz:
i just think all the major Operating Systems are horribly flawed and i just can't wait till we get a nice clean elegant modern object oriented Operating System built from the ground up without all the need to support legacy crap.
-mouser (August 08, 2008, 02:08 PM)
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Old saying: Speed, price, quality - Pick any two. ;)
wreckedcarzz:
I have run Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) at school, and it isn't bad (ignoring the insane amount of cash they put out for ~20 new 23" iMacs, and about the same amount of aging PowerPC models). Safari is lacking, iMovie (normal and HD) falls on its knees to Windows Movie Maker (Vista's version, NOT XP's - forgot to mention that in my list above). It all looks pretty, but it lacks any kind of customization at all. Yea, you have your Dock (that can not be put @ the top with your... Apple Menu) and your Dashboard (that can be confusing for new users: I had to explain it to a few classmates personally). And the "Mac's are oh so perfectly secure" is all talk. I (inadvertently) scared the teacher into thinking that my iMac had a virus on it, because my portable hard drive malfunctioned! Talk about confidence in your products!
Mac is good, if you have the cash and don't want options.
</opinion>
I have to agree with Mouser on the "fresh OS" thing; Vista still holds backwards compatibility for some DOS filenames and whatnot. WHY?!?! Sure it is just an option, but millions of others are sitting there, to be used once or twice by all of the users. Pointless bloat.
And UAC: I disabled it on all 3 Vista PC's in the house. If your into Linux and don't mind the administration popups for your password once in a while, for Vista do this:
Disable UAC -> Install everything and configure it -> Let Windows Update do its thing -> Clean up your PC and defragment it -> Reboot -> Enable UAC
It doesn't nag you THAT much, in comparison, and it can save you- personally, if I am on Windows, it is either web, IM, coding, or games. Not the time to ask if that new Xfire update installer can be Allowed or not. (And this PC has never seen a malicious program)
Old saying: Speed, price, quality - Pick any two. ;)
-40hz (August 10, 2008, 01:18 PM)
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Speaking for most of the internet: I'll take my 3: Speed, Quality, Torrent (I mean, wha...) ;D
(I'm on legit Vista, don't send the feds after me!) ;D ;D ;D
-Brandon
EDIT: I own 2 Linksys routers (one in use) with 2/3 of the wireless PCs using Linksys cards (everything is Draft-N :D). I followed the instructions the first time I setup the old WRT54G... I never did that again. You gotta just plug everything in, head over to http://192.168.1.1/, setup your options, and setup the computer's wifi. The instructions are pointless IMO.
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