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Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA
Darwin:
Frightening. I'm staying away for a host of reasons - mouser's post just hardens my resolve to do this. I think, to address scancode's "what can we do" comment, that all we can do is to get the word out, quickly. If consumers refuse to buy computers (particularly notebooks) with Vista preinstalled and either insist on free downgrades to XP or to buying with XP preinstalled or make it clear to salespeople that they will not buy a computer with Vista on it and walk, the retailers and the computer manufacturers will act pretty quickly to "encourage" MS to fix things...
Sadly, I don't think that the majority of people will care enough to make this happen. So I've come full-circle and ask "What can we do?". This is urgent for people like myself on a notebook as sooner or later it will need to be replaced because of hardware failure... I *could* buy a copy of XP but sort of resent having to pay to downgrade - if Mac hardware wasn't so RIDICULOUSLY overpriced (middle of the line Dual Core 7200 Centrino notebook here is about $1500 - that's with a 15.4" screen, 256MB discrete NVidia graphics, 5400 RPM 250GB SATA drive, 2GB RAM and Vista Premium - whereas the equivalent Mac notebook is in excess of $2500 with a slower processor) I'd seriously consider buying one along with a copy of XP, just to send a message! As it stands, I am increaslingly swayed by the option of buying a copy of XP along with a new Windows based notebook and simply downgrading/dualbooting it...
Darwin:
Josh - you posted while I was hacking away at my keyboard, writing the above. Just to clarify, my main issue with Vista centres around third-party software compatibility. I have a number of apps that are not yet supported under Vista and which will not be supported without a paid upgrade (ie when the supported version is released I'll be required to pay to update/upgrade to that version). As one of these applications will cost me in excess of $1000 to upgrade I am in no hurry to do this!
To anticipate other counter-arguments, I must confess that my real-world usage experience of Vista is NIL, so haven't been stung by UAC issues and the like... but I've been reading about them, a lot. In fairness, I've read a lot of positive reviews from knowledgeable people, too. Anyway, my hope is that MS will roll out Sp-1 and all will be well. In a perfect world, this will coincide with renewed wars between Intel and AMD and between AMD/ATi and NVidia along with seriously cheap RAM prices. That way, I can waltz into my local pusher computer shop and buy the latest, greatest notebook for a song, enjoying the kind of CPU and GPU power that I deserve, along with the most up to date OS available. I figure that any XP only apps that remain in my library can run on one of my other notebooks, which will still be running either XP or Win2k.
app103:
Vista scares me for a lot of reasons, but this is the primary one:
I have always been about a step or 2 behind in either OS, hardware, or both. This is because of economic reasons. I just can't afford to buy computers or OS's. Every computer I have owned has been a gift and the OS's I have run came along with them.
My father purchased a P1 in 1997 that ran Win95. Back then, hardware capabilities were changing so rapidly that within 2 years it was, for all sakes & purposes, obsolete. Somewhere during those 2 years he upgraded it to Win98SE. He gave me that PC in 1999. Had he not done that I wouldn't have had a computer. It was my first PC.
Less than 1 year later (2000) he bought me a P3 with WinME. That was the OS that was obsolete before it was released. But had he not given me that as a gift, I would still have been using the P1 with 98SE. He took back the P1 at that time, so I still only had 1 PC. (later he decided to toss it in the trash and I rescued it before it hit the curb)
That P3 was dead by 2002 and I was back to using the P1, only I decided to install the WinME from the dead P3 on that, replacing the Win98SE. (best move I ever made).
So at a time that most people were running 2k or XP on a P4, I was running WinME on a P1. Not long after was when I began programming.
It wasn't that hard to develop applications that would run the same on 2k or XP as they would on my old piece of junk with crappy 9x. I didn't need to have a better system or OS to do it. I didn't need much extra knowledge of an OS that I had never used, either. Chances are if it worked on my pc, it would work on 2k or XP and additionally, the GUI wouldn't look funny or out of place.
By the time I got a P4 running XP, people were/are getting ready to move on to Vista. This PC was also a gift. Had I not received it, I would still be on the P1 running WinME right now.
I am afraid and Vista scares me because I know my situation isn't likely to improve at any point within the near future and I will have this pc till it dies (hopefully not any time soon) and it will not run a newer OS than the XP it came with.
My skills as a developer aren't that great. I am lucky if the things I make work on my own PC with XP, nevermind on Vista. They look funny and out of place on Vista, too. Fixing just the GUI problems is beyond my skills & understanding, nevermind all the really crazy crap that is driving experienced Windows programmers nuts (like the things mouser is complaining about now).
I do not and can not officially support Vista in any of my applications.
What kind of future can I possibly have as a Windows developer? A few more years and I will be about the same as a Win3.1 or Cobol developer...just about completely useless.
Yeah, sure, I could go with .NET and use the free VS2005 I have, but I can't stand VS and it doesn't support the only language I feel comfortable with (Delphi). I feel like I am lost in a foreign country...no, make that lost on another planet, with both the IDE and any of the languages it supports. I was lucky I was even able to install it properly.
And any Delphi developer will tell you that Delphi.net is a joke...don't go there and don't do that unless you really want to create crapware not worthy of anyone using, even if you paid them to use it.
There is a good reason why I program in Delphi: It's the only language I have come across that makes enough sense to me that I could get beyond 'Hello World' without problems and actually make something useful.
So where does that leave me?
I feel like when Microsoft released Vista, they crushed all my plans, hopes, and dreams.
Maybe this is why I haven't done much programming lately and haven't felt like making any improvements in any of my existing projects. There just doesn't seem to be a point in doing it any more.
Carol Haynes:
Pretty much how I have felt since the old days of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++.
Whenever I look at manuals there are so many acronyms that mean little or nothing to me I just give up.
And I used to teach programming for a living!
Cpilot:
Hehe.... :Thmbsup:
It's worth blogging about.
Has Microsoft finally gone to far with Vista?
I haven't taken the plunge into trying out Microsoft's Vista OS yet. Mostly because I'm too cheap to switch right now plus I just really like WinXP pro.
But you can google "pros and cons" and find all kinds of opinions about this operating system and what people hate and like about it.
I've been reading more about personal experiences as opposed to what the major software writers have been putting out there.
The Elder Geek has a nice article on the practicalities of installing Vista but mouser at Donationcoder has some practical advice based on direct experience:
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