DonationCoder.com Forum
Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: zridling on July 23, 2007, 01:36 PM
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If you're willing to hold out till 2010, Windows 7 will be here, but according to Microsoft's Pay-As-You-Go FlexGo plan (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-21EmergingMarketConsumersPR.mspx), future versions will include Symantec-like subscription models, i.e., buy as much of the OS as you use or can afford, and expand the OS as needed.
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On the other hand, shouldn't Windows 7 be Windows 11? I presume Microsoft is not counting 1, 2, 3, and ME.
01. Windows 1.0
02. Windows 2.0/2.1
03. Windows 3.0/3.1
04. Windows 95
05. Windows 98
06. Windows ME
07. Windows NT
08. Windows 2000
09. Windows XP
10. Windows Vista
11. Windows 7
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Not too familiar with the 3.x versions (I was only a user back then, and never used win3.x too much, since most of what I used was DOS based back then).
Win9x = 95, 98, Me - no big architectural changes.
WinNT = 3.x, 4.x, 5.0 (2000), 5.1 (XP), Vista - some arch changes for major versions.
And well, I'm happily sticking with XP for as long as possible, Vista doesn't really bring anything great and wonderful for me. There's a couple of kernel changes that are nice, but with the rest of the system being so bloated, no thanks ma'am. Hopefully Microsoft won't be successful in forcing too many companies to make interesting stuff Vista-only, although they are trying (like DirectX and hybrid harddrive support being Vista-only, even though there's no good reason for this.)
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The way Microsoft is going, I will only use Windows if I get it for free. I find their licenses far too restrictive for the price I pay given what I use it for. I am finding Linux will do what I want for a fraction of the price, with a better quality of user base (in general), and with little or no impact on other aspects of my computing. The only real hit will be in gaming, but with my daughters, I rarely get time to do that anymore anyway. As things move more to a SaaS architecture, the OS will become less relevant anyway. I generally like windows, but the brutality Microsoft shows towards its customers is VERY grating on me. With the very real alternatives to Windows now available, I may find it worth voting with my money for another OS. Hmm...I still really like what I am seeing from Linux Mint distributions...
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xp here, until i have to use vista - which i don't think will happen. 2010 sounds like a better time to change from xp. maybe linux will run what i want by then - or something just as good. whatever, i would assume there'll be some funky ways of using virtual operating systems by then so things might be a bit blurry.
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Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 2.1 (aka Windows/286 and Windows/386)
Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows 3.11 for Workgroups (WfW)
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Windows 95 (Windows 4.0)
Windows 98 (Windows 4.1), Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows Millennium Edition (Windows 4.9)
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Windows NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0)
Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1)
Windows Server 2003, Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003 (Windows NT 5.2)
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (Windows NT 5.2)
Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (Windows NT 5.1+)
Windows Vista (Windows NT 6.0)
(from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows))
so...next one being 7 sounds about right.
Now about that Pay-as-you-go plan...
People thought I was crazy when I suggested this was going to be the future of Windows when I mentioned it back in 2002.
At that time I had thought it would be that maybe you'd get a basic OS for free (like you can get Linux for free), with them passing out disks in much the same way AOL did (flooding the market with their 'free' product). They would probably only release a new version of the CD about once every 10 years, but continue to have newer versions of Windows as a series of 'patches' to be applied to the one that is available on disk, and them keeping the disk always behind the current version when they release a new CD.
And that to access Windows Update to get these 'patches' would be on a yearly or monthly subscription, which all patches and upgrades to bring you up to the current Windows version would be offered, once you paid. Without the fee being paid, it is possible that they would cause your OS to 'expire' and they would have some way of shutting it down till you called and gave credit card info over the phone. (much in the same way you pay for internet access and it gets shut off if you don't pay your bill)
If they offered it this way, they would have much less problems with piracy on their hands, and less of a problem with people running older more insecure versions, because they could force newer versions on people... but at the same time, there would be no way people of lower incomes would be able to afford to run it.
It is also possible that on an older machine that couldn't handle an upgrade, that the OS would shut down permanently, forcing you to buy a new computer if you wanted to continue using Windows.
As I can see now, they aren't going this far...yet. (at least not with their next version of Windows)
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Thanks app, that's a better explanation of the versions, since for some companies, version names overshadow numbers, particularly with OSes. Apple and Ubuntu go with animal names, for instance, while Windows often uses place names during development.
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I had to choose Win 98 from the poll, although this only sits alongside Win 2k and Xubuntu on my only working Windows-compatible machine (Thinkpad 600E).
My other computers run OS X 10.2-10.4.
As for Non-Macs, I'll probably use Win 2k (last non-"product activation" NT-based Windows, and, yes, I bought it) until it finally really breaks.
Then I'll have another look into Linux and hopefully it'll have some mainstream credibility and better apps then.
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I'll be sticking with xp (I have one pro, which i dont have the disk for, i bought home and the shop installed pro and one home which is on my laptop, but since they didnt provide a windows disk i have used the one i got with the other computer) Sooo, if i need to reinstall windows on my desk (running pro now) then i will probably get vista, but i really dont want to spend the money and usually only update when i get a new compuuter.
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If you have a valid (and legit) XP Pro license, you might be able to get just the install disc pretty cheaply (and we're talking legit!)...
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whatever, i would assume there'll be some funky ways of using virtual operating systems by then so things might be a bit blurry.
-nudone
I have the same opinion.
I think that if more virtualization apps and cross-platform stuff come up, i'll be keeping XP for a long time, running linux on a VM... Or the other way around. Or something in between :P
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I'm still mainly using xp, though i have vista installed on a backup pc.
I'll stick with xp for a while but i expect i'll be moving to vista in a year or so.
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Ssshhh! App, don't give Microsoft ideas! ;)
XP here as well. I just moved from 98 SE a month ago or so, and I'm still exploring XP. I don't have any desire to put Vista yet, and I don't know if I hold on 'til Windows 7, that depends on RAM cost in the future.
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I've been using Vista for a while. Oddly enough, I like it. :o
From the Windows versions I've used (3.1 through the 9x core to XP to Vista) I think Vista is the most well executed.
If I used my computer for work or production I don't think I would switch.
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whatever, i would assume there'll be some funky ways of using virtual operating systems by then so things might be a bit blurry.
Lots of dual booting XP/Vista going on, and since Microsoft released Virtual PC for free a lot of people are running XP inside Vista using Virtual PC.
You need a legit copy of XP to install it.
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I am running vista, and I love it. I hear people bad mouthing it left and right, but the only problems I SEE are from application developers not updating their programs to store settings the proper way. With vista, permissions and settings are stored in the users appdata folder (%APPDATA%) as opposed to program files. Microsoft finally realized that programs, after install, should not require any further access to that folder besides to launch the program. If a program requires global settings, that is what the DEFAULT user folder is for.
Vista is fast, smooth and I havent had many problems.
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David Berlind (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=658) has an interesting take on whether Windows 7 will even be relevant by 2010.
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Snip:
One reason that my productivity [in Vista] hasn’t improved much is that I find myself spending more and more time in my browser (accessing Web applications). Wordpress (as one example) is our platform of choice for publishing blogs and it’s all done in a browser. I hardly ever do any word processing any more and when I do, I do it with Google Docs because of how (1) I can access that document from anywhere, even without my computer and (2) how easy it is to share those documents with others. Banking? Done in my browser. Attendee tracking for Mashup Camp? Done in my browser. E-Mail? Not inlcuding corporate e-mail (for which a browser-based client — Outlook Web Access — exists), so much of what I do, I do it in a browser.... Unfortunately for Microsoft, it’s getting much tougher to win on the basis of browser differentiation. Especially when your browser only runs on one operating system.
My own take (http://www.thegsblog.com/?p=186) is if you believe Berlind that the OS will be web-centric, then this cedes an enormous advantage to GNU/Linux.
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The whole idea of web-centric applications can give new life to older Windows PC's providing they get a newer browser and not run old, insecure, outdated, incapable versions of IE.
This is great news for snail owners, providing their older systems can handle the resource demands of the web apps.
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And ComputerWorld has a great article on How to make Windows XP last for the next seven years (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9026940&intsrc=hm_list):
Windows Vista may be shiny and brand new, but as plenty of PC users will tell you, sometimes newer isn't better.... We'll give you tips, tweaks and tricks so that you'll be able to keep XP running smoothly, at top performance, for smooth operation and long life.... we'll also show you how to get many of Vista's goodies, such as greatly improved security, transparent windows, Windows Flip 3D and the Network Map, all without having to spend the money to upgrade or get new hardware.
- How long will Microsoft support XP?
- Get Vista's security improvements in XP
- Get Vista's eye candy in XP
- Get other Vista goodies
- Tweak XP settings for faster performance
- Perform weekly maintenance for smooth operation
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Vista is fast, smooth and I havent had many problems.
-Josh
That just isn't my experience - having tested it (on real hardware, not virtualized) on both my pretty beefy main machine (AMD64x2 4400+, 2 gigs of ram, Raptor main drive, 320gig raid stripe for the Vista install) as well as some Lenovo laptops (core2duo T5600, 1gig ram, Intel 945 graphics). Vista boots slower, and it feels no faster or smoother, applications start a bit slower, framerates in games are a bit slower (perhaps because of immature drivers, perhaps other reasons), things like the control panel are extremely laggy (generic problem with the new Windows Presentation Foundation, or just bad code in those particular things?), etc.
And frankly I don't see anything valuable added in Vista at the user level, and the "we want to be like Mac OS X" thing doesn't really do it for me (and in fact I think the new explorer sucks), I think ~8gigs for just the Windows folder is way over the top (it's quite a sizable chunk of a 74-gig raptor drive), etc etc etc.
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Good points, and as Berlind noted, your productivity doesn't increase under Vista, nor does your "computing experience" get measurably better. Although I've come to like Vista more than XP, it's my last Microsoft OS whether I use it for three years or ten years.
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Of course, and next year I'll be playing Crysis in Opera :D
I don't know where all this fuss and desire to push web apps comes from. How do you run a browser without an OS? Are they going to transform the OS into a full-blown browser? I've been months trying to imagine a world with only web apps, and I really can't make up one. The future, I say, will be composed of desktop and web apps. Of course, big companies want to go web all the way, for they can charge you dearly for using their apps, and you can't escape its influence. But, what about all the small developers? How do they fund their developments? What about DonationCoder, for example? How do you run mouser's apps on a browser? AutoHotkey? Where do you store your information, in your hard disk, or in the megacorporation servers? I can also sense the FSF feelings conflicting over this, you can't make a web app OSS (unless you get all the code and you modify it yourself in your IDE, I mean, an IDE over a browser)
I'm not even taking into account the massive amount of memory needed to run some of the apps you usually run on your desktop, not all the security considerations. I think that all those articles are written by narrow-minded people (it's my harsh side again!) that really thinks everyone is using his/her computer to write some documents here and blog there, so they don't take in consideration other people needs. The worse part is that the software world wants to move in that direction, and so do some users.
I said it before, I really appreciate web apps. But a synergy between the two models will be better for everyone. After all, considering the amount of work done in different locations by a single person, it's better for this one person to do all this work in a web-running app, instead of carrying that work between different machines. Not to mention the amount of work needed for a web-based world to become true doesn't compensate for a minimum increase in productivity. A paradigm shift won't bring anything really valuable. After all, computers didn't make the world better, instead they made us their slaves! ;)
Bah, I'm sounding like and old jerk instead of a young guy! ;D
PD: I know! All of this is a Apple conspiracy to push the iPhone!
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I been working with vista since march. I loved it, hated it, tuned it, loved it, hated it, and now i'm ready to go back to XP again as soon as my project at work is finished. Gradually I've turned off a lot of improvements in Vista to make it run faster: first defender, then search indexing, then UAC,then aero, then themes etc but really I might just as well go back to XP then. I loved the explorer improvements, breadcrumbs, version restore (why they don't put it in every vista version god knows it would be fantastic for home users), backup center, better file renaming, networking settings, individual volume per application, improved security etc, but the software support to take advantage of it all is not there yet.
Vista is not a bad OS, but the rest of the world needs more time to adjust.
Application authors will probably need another year to optimize applications for vista, and until Windows XP support becomes a problem, just stick with what you have, it works reliably even though XP has its problems, but when things stop working you know what you're missing.
It's always been stable though, even though the programs that run on top of it have had issues.
Reading the msdn interviews about the under the hood improvements (superfetch, less hd activity) I was very hopeful hope it just doesn't deliver performance wise.
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Webapps seem to be the way things are going ... it's not too strange when you think of it. MS can't convince people (other than large companies) to move to a subscription based license of software and neither can other companies. It isn't strange then when webapps start to appear which use a subscription model (or will in the future). Webapps are the future cash cow.
What no one seems to have thought about is that when webapps become the de-facto office standard who will need fast hardware? Software sppeds will depend on the server rather than the client computer so only a basic system will be required - and will effectively run forever on the cheapest OS available. MS will still tie people into buying new versions of windows (the only way to install .Net v510 and WebApps 379.2) but anyone with a brain will long since have shifted to a new OS that just runs a browser and will have left MS's inferior webapp system.
I seriously think this may be the demise of MS if they are not careful - their web presence has never been a happy experience for users whereas other web providers (even small ones) produce rather better web based apps and websites.
Trouble is by the time this all shakes out Linux will have been fragmented so far and be so tied up with proprietary stuff as companies try to customise it in non-standard ways (within the GPL system) that Linux will probably die before it ever gets into wide circulation - or remain a geek-haven.
As to this topic - I can't see me moving on from Windows XP until I absolutely have to. Vista adds nothing that will benefit me (and great deal that will do the opposite) and the way things are going Windows 7 will be even worse in the pros/cons balance. Anyway 2010 will probably be too soon.
I am going to have to start thinking about Linux as an alternative in the medium term.
Who knows maybe Jobs & Co. will see the light and make MacOS available to PC users - then I might be tempted, but I don't want to get locking into Apple hardware (or prices).
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So wise words you all have written! :up:
Of course Vista will grow BIG as time goes bye, and I am looking forward to install it in 1, 2 or 3 years from now, but not at the moment. I imagine justice may be right when he said that the world needs more time to adjust to Vista (and vice versa!). The programs Vista users have for now may merely be programs developed for XP and modified for Vista; not taking advantage of what Vista can do.
Meanwhile 'someone' out there expects XP to somehow stay for long periode of time:
React Operating System (http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html)
ReactOS® is an advanced free open source operating system providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface.
ReactOS is the most complete working model of a Windows® like operating system available. Consequently, working programmers will learn a great deal by studying ReactOS source code and even participating in ReactOS development.
ReactOS has and will continue to incorporating features from newer versions and sometimes even define the state of the art in operating system technology.
In short, ReactOS is aiming to run your applications and use your hardware, a free operating system for everyone!
Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.3-RC is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature complete and is not recommended for everyday use.
Release time:
The long awaited 0.3.3 release is branched; the usual preparations for releases are under way. You should already know we skipped a version number and that this release is primarily bug fixes from the massive kernel rewrites that have been taking place. Stability being the primary motivation of this release, I can safely say this is a big improvement from the 0.3.1 release.
The outlook looks bright on future releases, ever closer to the 0.4 goal of beta status. The stated goal of 2 month releases is upheld (.3.2 was skipped ~2 months after 0.3.1 was released). It should be repeated that 2 month releases are not set in stone; releases are done at the convenience of the developers and at such a time when the code base is deemed worthy of a version bump.
The actual full release will occur soon, currently waiting on further testing, change logs, minor bug fixes, and other stuff. The Release candidate can be downloaded here. Changelog is still a work in progress, but can be viewed here.
Alpha, not Beta, but RC, though: http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
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I agree whole-heartedly that web applications are the wave of the future, and I rue that day every moment I see it come closer. While it does provide convenient access to all data, it has a couple serious drawbacks for the end user. These drawbacks are the same advantages companies see, so consider these carefully.
1) Web apps immediately lend themselves to a subscription based model. They provide a steady income stream to providers and provide up to date applications to the user without intervention - but what happens when you are short of cash that month? Do you forgo eating, or your data that you make your living off of (see next)?
2) Since the company controls the application, they control who uses it, when, and to some extent how.
3) Data security - Do you trust all those companies with your data? Do they make it available to you when you want it / need it regardless of your current user status? Do they turn over private data to unauthorized persons or authorities? I certainly don't advocate ANY criminal activity, but in the United States where you (supposedly) have the right to privacy unless a full court order and proper warrant is attained, will you still have that privacy when a third company has access to that same privacy? What recourse do you have? What responsibilities would the company holding the information have? Would corporate moral obligations change this? It didn't for Google in China...
Dang, I had more, but I forgot them now. It doesn't really matter however, because these are enough to consider. I do have to disagree about this being the end of Microsoft though. I foresee Microsoft creating a "bare metal" OS that basically is a web browser and/or a VM. You then load your choices into that browser/VM as appropriate. Think this might be far off? VMWare already has this technology and has been promoting it for at least a year. They created a VM-OS that runs off the hardware (no host needed). Then you load your VM machines into it. It is currently only in their Enterprise level offerings (ESM and GSM), but the technology is there. If Microsoft created an OS that connected automatically and ran the browser as the desktop, that is all they would need. Since they can do that already (just need to take out all the excess fluff), they could repackage it that way and give it to hardware manufacturers for a song. Microsoft would be happy to maintain dominance, Hardware manufacturers would maintain margins, and consumers would be happy with lower costs. The only piece of the puzzle left is GOOD web applications that make people willing to give up their OS to load applications locally.
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IMHO Vista is a step backwards, not forward, which is why I shun it.
ReactOS is a cute enough project, but it's nowhere near *usable* yet... which is probably the reason it hasn't been nuked to death by Microsoft.
steeladept: isn't the "bare-bones" VMWare ESX/GSX server (I forget which) linux-based, though?
Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.
But sure, trivial things like the office suite and other productivity items can easily be moved.
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What a depressing sort of future, if you folk are right. A lot of the fun of the computer for many is hunting up that little program that does just what you want, or tweaking something, if the above scenarios are anywhere near what we can expect then I won't be surprised to be asked if I want fries with that computer the next time i need one.
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steeladept: isn't the "bare-bones" VMWare ESX/GSX server (I forget which) linux-based, though?
Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.
But sure, trivial things like the office suite and other productivity items can easily be moved.
-f0dder
That I can't be sure of, since I haven't installed it and they don't say so on their site, they only state that it requires no OS and runs all the VM's. However, that is sort of my point. Regardless of what the underlying technology is as an OS, it boots the system and the browser/VM software and that becomes your OS - so to speak. No fiddling with setup and no installation to install useable software. It is just install and run. (Well in this case you still need to load your VM's, but you don't need to load the software to run the VM's.)
As for the games and multimedia, I disagree. My argument is things like World of Warcraft and Everquest. These games proved online only games are viable, and to many preferable, to local games. Granted these games came with many files preloaded before you connect to limit the lag, but there is no reason you can't do a server pre-fetch to get that into the system on log-in. Once that is done, there is really very little, if any, difference between a web app and these games - technically speaking.
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As for the games and multimedia, I disagree. My argument is things like World of Warcraft and Everquest. These games proved online only games are viable, and to many preferable, to local games. Granted these games came with many files preloaded before you connect to limit the lag, but there is no reason you can't do a server pre-fetch to get that into the system on log-in. Once that is done, there is really very little, if any, difference between a web app and these games - technically speaking.
-steeladept
WOW and Everquest *could* work this way, since they aren't extremely latency sensitive, but it just won't work for first-person shooters and the like.
And even when it becomes possible to have <1ms internet latency and send 1280x1024@85fps full uncompressed video, it's simply an insane waste of bandwidth. Some things work fine as a web app or terminal services, while others simply run better on local hardware.
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Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.
-f0dder
Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer. There are lots of advantages for that approach from games manufacturers ... no external OS dependence and so a consistent environment to work in, can use 'effective' (in their terms) DRM/copy protection to protect the discs they distribute from copying and require the disc present to run the app - they could even lock them to one core processor plus they have a universal system which means Mac/Linux/Doze host OS becomes irrelevant and Doze users can't mock Mac users for not being able to play games.
An alternative approach (with similar vendor advantages) is to simply shift their emphasis to the game platform market rather than a general purpose PC - if users are prepared to pay for Vista Ultimate just to get DX10 they will certainly cough up for a new PlayStation or whatever is coming.
The biggest problem witht he coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet. It's OK if you live in inner-city Japan or France where high speed access (30-100Gbs broadband) is common enough to be endemic - but in other countries (including the US and UK) high speed connections are not nearly so common or even available. In the UK 8Gbs is just about top speed if you are dependent on the phone system and I can't see BT digging up the entire country to replace copper wires to every premises and lots of rural areas struggle to get above 512Mbs. The US is apparently even worse in rural areas where there are still large communities depending on dial-up (I read a recent article on this but can't remember where I found it).
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f0dder seems to agree with me in the convergence of desktop and web apps. But I fear that they turn games and multimedia tasks into niche market with dedicated (and expensive) machines (wait, game machines are expensive right now!), just for the sake of the big slice in the market (casual users).
steeladept, last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house". Not even SecondLife (if you consider that a game) can work like that, and it has awful graphics for this time. And if MMOs are the gaming future, I'll stick with Diablo II then ;)
Ah, Carol. Yes, that's what I fear, as I said, that they turn all the gaming into console gaming, which will practically shun certain types of games (think independent games, emulators...). 8 Gb?? How many is that in megabytes? 1 Gigabyte? That's impossible!
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Hm, Carol aren't you mixing up line speeds a bit? I certainly wouldn't mind having 512Mbit ADSL :p (current speed limits for ADSL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards) would be 8mbit, 24mbit for adsl2+).
Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer.
-Carol Haynes
Then it's not a "web app" anymore, but runs on the local machine...
last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house".
-Lashiec
I'd say there's some very real number crunching going on on the WOW servers, they house a darn lot of people, and there's a lot of stuff going on. The clients "only" shuffle the vertex, texture, sound (etc) data around and give you the visual glimpse of the data the servers are sending you. Okay, so there's a little client-side scripting going on (LUA), but that's it.
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Yes, but I was talking about all the graphics acceleration. WoW doesn't run exactly on yesterday hardware, and is not one of the most demanding. That kind of things can't be done on a server, not only for performance but also because I think is technically impossible.
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Hm, Carol aren't you mixing up line speeds a bit? I certainly wouldn't mind having 512Mbit ADSL :p (current speed limits for ADSL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards) would be 8mbit, 24mbit for adsl2+).
-f0dder
Yep I am getting mixed up ... UK is up to 8Mbs (and unlikely to get higher in the near future outside cabled areas or areas where BT are willing to upgrade everything to fibre optic!) whereas I gather Japan has up to 100Mbs as standard. Certainly France is at least 3 times the speed of the UK's fastest (and a hell of a lot cheaper). As usual in a recent survey the UK's offering came out as one of the most expensive broadband countries.
Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer.
-Carol Haynes
Then it's not a "web app" anymore, but runs on the local machine...
That was my point - if you want fast graphics intensive games and computers move ever more to web apps the only solution is to have standalone games that don't require an installed OS. Personally I am amazed that games companies still rely on Windows at all!
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Thank you Carol, you hit on one of the things I forgot about: Access speeds creating the divide between those who can afford it and those who can not.
steeladept, last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house". Not even SecondLife (if you consider that a game) can work like that, and it has awful graphics for this time. And if MMOs are the gaming future, I'll stick with Diablo II then ;)
-Lashiec
They need to be installed on both as it stands now. The client side loads the files into memory while the server provides the interactions that makeup the game. If you just load those files into memory during a download, then it would be pretty much the same. Another route would be to essentially turn them into game consoles where you have to load the CD/DVD to have access to the files. They don't "load" the program into memory until you want to play. However, I agree with you on the Diablo II :Thmbsup:
fodder - as for first person shooters, if that were the case then HALO would not be a hit like it is. The latency in HALO and is low enough many people play them now across the internet on severs dedicated to this, just like WoW. Sure it bothers some, but they just don't play. Further, most FPS gamers I know hate the AI, and so won't play unless it is multiplayer, which pretty much means across the internet for many or most of them. I don't see that being any different in an Internet Only computer system.
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LONG POST AHEAD. MY APOLOGIES, but you three got me thinking. If this goes where I think it will, I'll eventually be replacing my Microsoft rants with Google monopoly rants. But consider how boring your PC would be if it were not connected to the web. It suddenly reverts to being a lot less "fun," for lack of a better word.
Lashiec — I don't know where all this fuss and desire to push web apps comes from. How do you run a browser without an OS? Are they going to transform the OS into a full-blown browser?... The future, I say, will be composed of desktop and web apps.... a synergy between the two models will be better for everyone... Bah, I'm sounding like and old jerk instead of a young guy!
steeladept — Web apps immediately lend themselves to a subscription based model.
Carol — Trouble is, by the time this all shakes out Linux will have been fragmented so far and be so tied up with proprietary stuff as companies try to customise it in non-standard ways (within the GPL system) that Linux will probably die before it ever gets into wide circulation - or remain a geek-haven.... I am going to have to start thinking about Linux as an alternative in the medium term.... Who knows maybe Jobs & Co. will see the light and make MacOS available to PC users - then I might be tempted, but I don't want to get locking into Apple hardware (or prices).... The biggest problem witht he coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet.
No Lashiec, you're sounding just like a thoughtful guy. Money will play the primary role, and that's a big beef with me, too. I want to choose to buy something, but I don't want it automatically extracted from my microscopic checking account every month before I get a chance to buy macaroni and soup (yes, yes, everything I eat comes from a box or a can). But today, there's not too many of programs left that absolutely need to be standalone desktop applications. Both steeladept and Carol see the writing on the wall: the money is not in the apps, it's in access.
Because they run in the browser, the biggest advantage of web apps is that they're cross-platform. Again, this cedes a natural advantage to GNU/Linux, for why pay Microsoft for their restrictive license, the cost of beefed up hardware, endemic DRM, WGA, etc., if I don't have to? I can use a small Linux distro that runs on any old machine and uses as little as 512K memory if needed. The Microsoft Tax is suddenly gone, and Windows is just another option. Just like office file formats, without locking you into both the OS and the application via the proprietary file format, Microsoft becomes just another choice among many, rather than enjoying an inherently dominant advantage. Seeing users walk to GNU/Linux is the last thing Microsoft wants to happen, so they're going full speed ahead with various Windows Live strategies. With none of Microsoft's apps written for GNU/Linux, they're at a grave disadvantage — unless you buy their OS. Microsoft is going to build a WebOS right into their next operating system, perhaps even within the second Service Pack of Vista. You won't be able to tell when you're using desktop applications or when you're at msn.com. This is already largely true for Office 2007 research services. They'll never develop anything for OS X or for Linux (or for browsers other than IE), so Microsoft's influence will be limited to what people will buy from them via their FlexGo (pay-as-you-go) initiative.
A "WebOS" isn't that complex. Essentially, there are three main parts to the system:
- The browser (along with other browser-ish applications like Konfabulator) becomes the primary application interface through which the user views content, performs services, and manages data on their local machine and on the Web, often without even knowing the difference. Something like Opera, Firefox, Safari, or IE... ideally browser agnostic.
- Web apps of the sort we're all familiar with: Zoho Office, Gmail/Google Apps, Flickr, and MySpace, as well as other applications that are making the Web an ever richer environment for getting stuff done. (And ideally all Ajaxed-to-the-max to provide an experience closer to that of traditional desktop apps.)
- A local web server to handle the data delivery and content display from the local machine to the browser. This local server will likely be highly optimized for its task, but would be capable of running locally installed web apps (e.g. a local copy of Gmail and all its associated data).
That's it. Aside from the browser and the web server, apps would be written for the WebOS and won't be specific to Windows, OS X, or GNU/Linux. This is completely achievable for organizations like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, or the Mozilla Foundation to make happen.
In turn, for application developers, the great advantage is that instead of writing two or more programs for multiple platforms (one for the Web, one for Windows, etc.), they can write one app that will run on any machine (or phone!) with the WebOS using the same code base. We all know the advantages of locally run applications: you can use them when you're not connected; as Carol notes, they're not dependent on connection speed; you can use an icon in the tray to open Gmail in your favorite browser (I use AutoHotkey to trigger that behavior). For applications using larger files like images, video, and audio, those files could be stored and manipulated locally instead of waiting for transfer (as Thinkfree Office does). For users, upgrades and updates will be as easy as hitting the refresh key — say goodbye to 46-digit activation and license codes, and overnight, piracy evaporates. Your desktop system is suddenly cleaner.
There are also disadvantages to WebOS applications, not the least of which (1) is that HTML+JavaScript+XHTML+CSS+Flash does not provide the same functionality and user interaction as true desktop applications written in Cocoa or Visual Basic. You'll sacrifice processing power to bandwidth availability. But web apps may be good enough for most people. As a UI, a web page is lame. (2) Someway, somehow, they're going to cost you, and it's going to keep costing you to use them. Sure email along with a few other apps will remain ad supported, but anything substantial will want your credit card. Finally, as Lashiec suggests, a WebOS is an "all ur data belong to us" situation that is not welcome. Governments already have access to phone and medical records, and with one stroke of the pen, they can gain access to any data I have locally or somewhere on one of Google's data farms.
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A "WebOS" isn't that complex. Essentially, there are three main parts to the system:
-zridling
Not too complex compared to XP or Vista, but you still need (at least) {storage,video,network,sound,input-device} drivers, a TCP/IP stack, and enough of a standard code library to facilitate writing at least a GUI and a browser. This is a lot of work, and writing a standards-compliant browser that can handle enough javascript, CSS, XHTML etc to run web applications is probably as complex a task as the rest of the system.
* A local web server to handle the data delivery and content display from the local machine to the browser. This local server will likely be highly optimized for its task, but would be capable of running locally installed web apps (e.g. a local copy of Gmail and all its associated data).
-zridling
Ummm, isn't the point of web apps that they generally run server-side, with very little client code? (except of course for some AJAX to not generate TOO much traffic and be too unresponsive)? Running the apps "locally" this way sounds pretty zany to me, and would suddenly require even more code in the "web os", to get perl/python/ruby/whatever running... not to mention that the web server can't be *too* simple (though lighthttpd will probably suffice).
In turn, for application developers, the great advantage is that instead of writing two or more programs for multiple platforms (one for the Web, one for Windows, etc.), they can write one app that will run on any machine (or phone!) with the WebOS using the same code base.
-zridling
We heard this for JAVA, we're hearing it for dotNET... I wouldn't be surprised if somebody even touted this for C/C++ back in the days.
fodder - as for first person shooters, if that were the case then HALO would not be a hit like it is. The latency in HALO and is low enough many people play them now across the internet on severs dedicated to this, just like WoW. Sure it bothers some, but they just don't play. Further, most FPS gamers I know hate the AI, and so won't play unless it is multiplayer, which pretty much means across the internet for many or most of them. I don't see that being any different in an Internet Only computer system.
-steeladept
Well, imagine the latency if all the rendering has to be done server-side, and sent back to the client... even with ubiqutous bandwidth, it just doesn't make sense moving everything serverside.
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guess i'm the first to vote "i don't use windows"
thanks for including this option :D
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The biggest problem with the coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet. It's OK if you live in inner-city Japan or France where high speed access (30-100Gbs broadband) is common enough to be endemic - but in other countries (including the US and UK) high speed connections are not nearly so common or even available. The US is apparently even worse in rural areas where there are still large communities depending on dial-up (I read a recent article on this but can't remember where I found it).
I don't know the numbers either Carol, but I'm one of those people who live in a rural area. Most of the state I live in is rural.
Outside of the larger cities, dial-up is the norm, and 56k is norm for many other areas.
Get a little (and I mean a little) farther out and your access speed drops to around 19kbps.
Up until quite recently (in the last year) there were no alternatives. No cable, no wireless, and the phone company basically said "not in your lifetime" when asked about 56k dial up.
Satellite internet became available about a year ago for most areas of the state I live in. Most people don't have it because the initial set-up is pretty high and the monthly fee is around $50.00US for the cheapest plan. People are poor and scattered - the population density in the county I live in is 1.3 people per square mile. The county is huge in square miles, and the majority of people live in a few areas, but you can find people living in just about every nook and cranny around.
Its about the same on most of this corner of the continent. There tend to be metropolitan centers surrounded by mostly rural land.
My two issues with web apps are one, you have to be connected to use them, and two, having casual acquaintance with people from all over the planet via a group I belong to, I know that some of these people pay for the connections by the minute. Not the norm, but some do.
Internet access can be very expensive in other parts of the world.
And, call me an old curmudgeon (can women be curmudgeons?) but I don't like my data to live anywhere but on my hard drive.
The more social sites like myspace that pop-up, the more I want anonymity. Internet+anonymity = oxymoron, but I give it my best shot. You won't find me on Facebook.
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Sadly, since the Bush administration allowed the digital robber barons to do whatever they liked in the past seven years, there's little competition in US broadband. If you’re lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there’s nowhere else to go, and compared to bandwidth in France, even cable modem speeds are painfully slow here.
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f0dder — Not too complex compared to XP or Vista, but you still need (at least) {storage,video,network,sound,input-device} drivers, a TCP/IP stack, and enough of a standard code library to facilitate writing at least a GUI and a browser. This is a lot of work, and writing a standards-compliant browser that can handle enough javascript, CSS, XHTML etc to run web applications is probably as complex a task as the rest of the system.
Exactly. That's why I said, "Aside from the browser and the web server, apps would be written for the WebOS and won't be specific to Windows, OS X, or GNU/Linux."
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Wow, you guys have lots to say on the subject! :)
I'm sticking to XP. I've thought about going Vista for a while (mainly because of some of it's tagging and new explorer features,etc.), but, like justice, F0dder and others, I find it much slower with the same hardware... for nothing much better. With XP, I can basically do everything Vista does -- and more -- but faster. XP IS faster with "normal" hardware (1.5gb ram, 1.8ghz core duo CPU) for someone who's multitasking a lot. And I don't care too much about eyecandy.
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After several different people in my department evaluated Vista[1] (all PC users since DOS days), they went and bought Macs ;) On educational discount you can get a faster workstation-class machine than through Dell (again discounted for University) for the same money. And so we are all slowly moving over to OS X running XP virtualised (Vista is horrible for virtualisation, huge performance issues). XP runs like a frenetic speeddemon virtualised on 4-core Mac Pro's, even faster when booted natively through bootcamp. Geekbench benchmarking shows even virtualised, XP runs faster on Mac Pros than on dual-core Dell Precisions from last year. Vista is about 20% slower on that platform. OS XXP all the way! 8)
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[1] Reading Peter Gutmann's article was hardly inspiring either: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
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Holy crap, thanks for the incredible Peter Gutmann article link, nontroppo!
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nontroppo — After several different people in my department evaluated Vista,... they went and bought Macs.
Now there's an ad you won't see Microsoft airing anytime soon.
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Yes, holy crap. But let's keep in mind that Apple is not that inoffensive either.
It's a tough world. :)
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If the world is headed web-centric, dust off the old pc, grab some cheap RAM to boost your old 9x machine to the max ...and install K-Meleon (http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/).
All you will need is a box that can run a browser.
You won't need whatever M$ releases in 2010.
And how much cheaper can you get than grabbing what your neighbor tossed in the trash last night? Even though Linux is free, free hardware is nicer. :-D
The whole concept of this is bad news for OEMs like HP & Dell. And why are you going to need faster CPU's? Bad news for Intel & AMD.
Great news for companies like Adobe...just wait till you can develop web apps in flash...in your browser.
And instead of paying a flat price for a desktop IDE and keeping it till it is obsolete and getting the most for your money, developers will be paying a monthly, or maybe even an hourly fee, to use the tools they need.
Gone will be the days when you could 'buy' software. You will be renting it.
You might as well save as much money as you can by keeping the old hardware and OS...you'll need it.
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MS/Apple/Linux aren't daft - even if webapps become prevalent for most peoples' use they still want to ship operating systems (no matter how much they may try to slim them down).
I suspect a browser will not be the whole story - just as .NET has become endemic - I'll bet in 5 years time you won't be able to install the necessary versions on Win 9x, 2000, XP, 2003 (or even probably Vista) - and there will be a whole new standards war trying to establish whose is the 'web technology' adpoted.
There are already loads of sites that practically insist on Internet Explorer and either don't render properly or lack functionality in other browsers - and you can bet your life MS will do everything in its power to get as much of the internet community hooked into their technology as possible - including takeovers and bribery if necessary.
Windows (as an OS) will change a lot but MS's need for money will not - and even if Windows becomes a 'front end' for webapps you can bet your life the price will continue to grow (as will the size of the package being shipped!).
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This is how i feel about it:
It's the whole reason microsoft is pushing .net 3 is their web applications: Silverlight, the expression series of products and WPF. They make good development tools and now try to link that in to web applications. And with the interpretation by the Mono project always being one step behind, they will have the best implementation as well as being able to say it's cross platform, even though it's not supported.
And with the large userbase already on windows, the majority is not bothered. However it does tie them in to the windows platform.
It's clever business strategy, but not for consumer choice.
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zridling: yes, that article is a mandatory must-read before migration to Vista IMHO. The problems being that MS is forcing all hardware vendors down that road, and so no matter what your OS at some point you are screwed. I've seen defensive return articles from MS and further rebuttals by Gutmann, and he has so far wiped the floor with them. Impressive stuff from Peter but nevertheless a a chilling note for the future...
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I already use Vista on my laptop (it came preinstalled). Though I'm not upgrading my Windows XP on my desktop anytime soon (hell I'll probably just leave it alone since I don't boot into it at all unless I really have time to play some PC games).
In both my laptop and desktop I spend most of my time in Ubuntu now.
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Yet another article to throw on the heap, this one from ComputerWorld:
Businesses having second thoughts about Vista — Fewer now believe it's more secure than XP, says new survey (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028478&intsrc=hm_ts_head).
Carol, if you're right, then you can only imagine the future where governments control their citizenry via access.... Oh wait, some Arab nations and the Chinese government already do this, with help from corporations like Google, et al. What grinds my gears is that MS Office and Windows is sold at premium prices in Europe and the US/Canada, but sold in China bundled together for $3. Why can't I have that price!
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I would hazard a guess that apart from Microsoft's desire to lock in a market the price partially reflects the income of the average Chinese, around US$1500, a year not a month, so its either sell it cheap or not sell it at all. (of course PhD and Masters degree holders make about double that.)
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Fewer now believe it's more secure than XP, says new survey.-zridling
What a surprise ... has no one in the real world realised that the only truly secure version of any operating system is one that doesn't connect to the outside world (even via removable discs). Of course you can't install anything but what the heck it makes a nice paperweight.
The main thrust of MS these days seems to be to make money and to placate the music and video industries (ie. make it harder to actually use products you have purchased). The rest of Windows development seems more aimed at eyecandy and anti piracy - non of which really helps or encourage the legitimate user.
Actually that isn't really true - a pretty secure operating system is possible if it boots from ROM rather than the disc and doesn't all items to automatically startup with the OS. If you do get attacked all you need to do is reboot and the problem is pretty much dealt with. Trouble is most end users can't easily upgrade ROM sets. Acorn Computers took this route with the RiscOS system but they went the way of most non-MS vendors - had their ideas nicked and went out of business (except for their ARM subsidiary which has done remarkably well in the consumer device chip business).
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Trouble is most end users can't easily upgrade ROM sets.
-Carol Haynes
Flash ROM, baby :)
And no, wouldn't be too hard securing it against malicious "updates".
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[previous post edited]
Flash ROM, baby
True - but it isn't really as secure as true ROM based systems. Actually it could be a very simple user upgrade - all you need is the new OS supplied on a set of ROMs mounted on an insertable card - a bit like a PCMIA socket on laptops. Then to upgrade all you do is pop out the old card and pop in a new one and reboot. No hours of reinstalling everything, no need for activation, piracy becomes a lot more difficult because you would need large fabrication plants .... what are the disadvantages?
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True - but it isn't really as secure as true ROM based systems.
-Carol Haynes
You can use public-key cryptographic verification for the ROM images - should be doable in hardware, and would make it next to impossible to flash tampered images.
what are the disadvantages?
-Carol Haynes
More expensive to come out with "software updates", ROM is probably still more expensive than optical media, etc...
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Yes but if we are talking about Windows list price is $500 - so ROM costs are pretty insignificant.
Regarding updates - ROM based would mean that there would be more incentive to get it right in the first place! Also there would be less need for security updates (which are the majority).
The other big advantage is an almost instantaneous boot process!
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Yes but if we are talking about Windows list price is $500 - so ROM costs are pretty insignificant.
-Carol Haynes
Will probably be factored into the end cost with an outrageous multiplier, though...
Regarding updates - ROM based would mean that there would be more incentive to get it right in the first place! Also there would be less need for security updates (which are the majority).
-Carol Haynes
I wonder if we'll ever see that, really - almost seems unthinkable to get it right in the first place with modern software, especially something as complex as an operating system :( ...and a (non-flash) ROM-based approach means that if something needs to be fixed, the fix release cycle will be much longer than it is today.
The other big advantage is an almost instantaneous boot process!
-Carol Haynes
Dunno about that, really - a very big time of booting systems are spent on BIOS initialization and device init... but other than that, sure, ROM ought to have faster read and lower seek-time than a harddrive :)
There's also the issue of ROM size, by the way... Vista-on-chip, anyone? :p
But it's an interesting idea, and afaik Microsoft has gone to some lengths to make the windows kernel ROMable (ie, running directly from ROM instead of having to be copied to RAM first). Having the very core part of the kernel and a few boot-time drivers in ROM doesn't seem like a particularly bad idea to me, except that it means even more os-vendor lockin than we have to day.
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Let's go back to the 80s with Microsoft's BASIC ;D. Now that was a lock-in
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You want lock-in? Go with Apple. From the OS to the monitor to system hardware to the keyboard and mouse, they're picking your pocket. Okay, you can choose alternative keyboards and mice, but they want you to buy everything from the Apple store, period.
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if they let you choose competing products then it's not a lockin, surely? You can buy competing products for dell computers but not from the dell store. Same thing?
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Happy Vista user here :)
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I voted a couple days ago and forgot to comment - :o
I am happily running Vista on 3/4 of my computers, and I really don't see why (except for hardware issues) not to upgrade. You can upgrade from XP Home to Vista Home Basic for practically nothing, and if your a student (anywhere) you can get Home Premium (upgrade) for $90. And its not really bloated, either (a lot easier to use, too) :)
Unless of course an app you use hasn't converted yet...there really isn't any reason not to.
I am still unsure about the debate on 95 vs Vista - what one is better though. :-* Windows 95 :-*
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The main thrust of MS these days seems to be to make money and to placate the music and video industries (ie. make it harder to actually use products you have purchased). The rest of Windows development seems more aimed at eyecandy and anti piracy - non of which really helps or encourage the legitimate user.
-Carol Haynes
Which is why I'm sticking with XP until I am in a position to move to Linux. It's not perfect either, I'm sure, but from a sort of "consumer politics" point of view I'd like to encourage the open source underdogs. I don't appreciate being treated like a criminal when I am a legitimate paying customer, and as far as I can tell Windows "eye candy" is often annoying and just makes everything run slowly on run-of-the-mill PCs.
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Unless of course an app you use hasn't converted yet...there really isn't any reason not to.
-wreckedcarzz
Give me a reason in favor of upgrading? I don't see any reason to. Vista or Linux or Mac OS X? dunno if one disease is better than the others.
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Unless of course an app you use hasn't converted yet...there really isn't any reason not to.
-wreckedcarzz
Give me a reason in favor of upgrading? I don't see any reason to. Vista or Linux or Mac OS X? dunno if one disease is better than the others.
-f0dder
If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security. Vista is MS' most secure OS ever. I don't use AV or a software firewall on my Vista box so far. I know I'm asking for trouble, but I know what I'm doing, for one, and secondly I trust Vista to protect me sufficiently. I don't see where I could get a virus from. All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC. The only thing is that I don't have any real software firewall protection, but I'm also behind a router... dunno. I feel safe :)
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Unlike many noobs out there, btw, I also leave UAC on. Everybody comlains about how annoying it is, but frankly, you get used to it. It's not like you have to deal with it often.. and it makes sense to have it. It's a smart security measure, and something both OS X and Linux have had in place for years, albeit in different ways. When you make changes that affect the system, both Linux and Mac OS will ask for your password. Vista takes that concept further and asks you to confirm certain sensitive actions on the system by giving your ok. Nothing wrong with that and it provides added security.
It's a feature everybody loves to complain about. What everybody fails to see is that security isn't all fun and rainbows. If you want solid security, you might have to pay for it a bit in the currency of convenience. I'm up for the deal and can't say I'm bothered.
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If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security. Vista is MS' most secure OS ever. I don't use AV or a software firewall on my Vista box so far. I know I'm asking for trouble, but I know what I'm doing, for one, and secondly I trust Vista to protect me sufficiently. I don't see where I could get a virus from. All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC. The only thing is that I don't have any real software firewall protection, but I'm also behind a router... dunno. I feel safe :)
-moerl
Presumably you are using the Vista Firewall which is reasonable ?
No AV seems a bit dangerous to me - you may know what you are doing but mistakes happen! What if you download sofware that has been accidentally infected at the developers end (it has happened before even in big companies who have sent out infected CDROMs). If you do get infected how will you know?
As for Vista is the most secure version of Windows yet ... may be true but it sounds like MS hype to me ... after all that is precisely the reason they gave for upgrading to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both of which were found (after they had been running for a while) to leak like sieves. Sorry but the initial evidence with Vista is that it doesn't look like it will be much better than previous versions. The "most secure" tag merely acts as a challenge to malicious code writers.
By the way I am not saying other systems (Linux and Mac) don't leak but they are less of a problem simply because of the tiny user base. Vista is the current big target. Short of not connecting to the internet and not installing software there is no such thing as a truly secure system.
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If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security.
-moerl
That's what the kool-aid drinkers say, anyway.
All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC.
-moerl
All it takes is one unpatched IE/FF exploit, one compromised banner server... *boom*. That's not vista-specific though, same problem with 2k/xp.
Unlike many noobs out there, btw, I also leave UAC on. Everybody comlains about how annoying it is, but frankly, you get used to it.
-moerl
I absolutely hate it. It pops up way too often, and frankly I'd rather use a 2k/XP system with a non-administrative account, and either switch to an administrative account or use RunAs. That's more secure anyway, I feel very certain that UAC is going to get exploited.
I mean, come on, it just wants you to press "okay", doesn't even prompt for a password. And most sheep/people will click yes without knowing anyway. Besides, if the point is reached where UAC has to "defend" against something, it's already too late.
Sorry, I'm not buying the "better security" argument, and it wouldn't be reason enough to downgrade to that resource hog of an operating system.
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UAC Actually does prompt you for a password when running as a standard user. Its just that Vista still defaults to an admin account running in "Admin approval mode" as opposed to a user account running in approval mode.
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Thanks for clearing that up, Josh. Doesn't change my mind about it one bit, though :)
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moerl, which version of Vista are you using, if I may ask?
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I dont know about him, but I am using vista ultimate. Apart from application developers not updating code to fix setting storage, I have no real issues.
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I'm using Vista Business, which I've come to like, except that I'm far more afraid to load just anything on this computer. Imaging the c-drive reliably has been sketchy at best on the 64-bit level, and the one time I did reinstall, I had to call and beg an Indian lady for almost an hour to allow me to reinstall it on my machine! So I don't do as much experimenting as I did on my XP system, where I could virtualize and/or rebuild within an hour or two if needed.
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I'm using Vista Business, which I've come to like, except that I'm far more afraid to load just anything on this computer. Imaging the c-drive reliably has been sketchy at best on the 64-bit level, and the one time I did reinstall, I had to call and beg an Indian lady for almost an hour to allow me to reinstall it on my machine! So I don't do as much experimenting as I did on my XP system, where I could virtualize and/or rebuild within an hour or two if needed.
-zridling
Yet another reason to stay away from Vista :)
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64-bit it's still shaky at best. Better to stay with 32-bit for now. Of course, I don't know what you should do with that extra gig, Zaine :P
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Not really a good reason if you ask me, but if you have to grasp at straws, I guess it could be.
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The poll doesn't have any "Other" or multiple choice :'( Any ol' way, & FWIW of course, I've got 98SE, XP Pro, & Vista H/Prem on hdd, Linux on removable disc.
Personally I'm pretty much OS agnostic, using whatever seems to be the best choice *for me* to reach whatever goals I'm trying to achieve at the time; while a MAC has better software for media work, the $1200 hardware difference (based on ads today) is more than I'm willing to pay. I should (& would) say: "Who cares?"... Well, I tend to be pretty average & so I think that’s the way many (most?) average consumers feel.
I think that whatever seems the easiest to the average user -- figuring in cost, popularity (Vista’s eye candy for example), time, effort, and amount of thought required -- will prevail. If subscription biz models are preferred by the average consumer, things will swing that way. If not, they won't. Biz apps are another story, and I can certainly see the appeal of dynamically scaling your costs as the number of employees changes, up or down. At the end of the day what tech oriented folk have to say on the matter doesn’t always mean that much – just look at the auto industry, where mechanics have always and overwhelmingly felt certain cars/trucks utter dogs, but that never caused the company not to continue making them, nor influenced popularity.
Regardless preferences, if the past repeats itself (as with 95, 98, xp...), software will start to work less well in XP; XP hardware driver compatibility will become an issue; XP will become less stable due to new drivers, updates, & software versions; tech docs (How-To’s) will no longer reference XP; as we get used to the Vista interface, XP might seem primitive, maybe even quaint. If it works the same as it always has so far, eventually it’ll become tough to use XP, the majority of people will use Vista, & the audience for Vista complaints will dwindle.
What is sort of new is the explosion of on-line apps. Can’t do everything or as well as with the regular software on your hdd, but how often do folks use everything that software has to offer? It could work to have your OS (say a small Linux build) on a flash drive, along with file storage. If the hardware was set-up to allow it, you could use anything anywhere in the world as long as it had an internet connection – beats carrying the lightest, smallest laptop.
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Ahhh mikiem, i think thats where the web based apps will come crashing down, not everyone has access to the internet, those that do an awful lot still have only access to a really slow connection and then of course there is the security of your data, do you want the governement of (insert country) trolling through whatever you write or do? Im put off internet based apps just by the length of time it takes to logon to google mail or hotmail, a lot of time im on dialup and it can take what seems an age, but is only a minute or so to load. When i do have access to broadband, its via satellite and its not cheap, and the download amount is restricted.
Thems my thoughts, today
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I use both XP and Vista on my laptop though I use XP most of the time.
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XP here, and I don't plan to go to Vista, my daughter has Vista on her Dell, Vista is cute to look at for 5 minutes, that's about it, I'd rather go with Linux in a few years, I already am using openoffice, gimp and other open source apps, so eventually in a few years a transition to Linux should be painless.
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Thanks, zridling for the reference to the ComputerWorld article.
I have a P4 2.4GHz machine and would have to upgrade memory to spruce up for these enhancements.
I surely will stick to XP for the until ...........!
My experience with a friend's new laptop with Vista installed did not impress me. It was S----L---Ooooooooooooo ----W.
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BTW, there are two new performance patches for vista which greatly improve responsiveness with vista and alot of its functionality. See the following patches on the MS website
KB938194
KB938979
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I'm still kicking myself for returning the Toshiba notebook that I bought right before Christmas 2006 - it had a 1.8 Ghz dual core processor (in the 5000 series), 256MB dedicated Graphics memory, 2GB RAM and a 200GB harddrive wth XP Media Centre installed. It was like greased lightning, even installing and running PaintShop Pro XI and Star Office 8 concurrently - every program in Star Office was running whille PSP was open and actively editing a picture, which were the two packages I shoved onto it to test out the processor. That impressed me. Sweet, sweet, sweet... Now I doubt I'd be able to get XP preinstalled when I buy my next computer.
I returned it because I had buyer's remorse and couldn't justify the expense (my current notebook runs fine, though I love to complain about it! Actually, so does my seven year P-IIIE notebook running Win2k...).
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My employer provides my desktop, home box, and laptop - all with XP SP2. I work in a pretty conservative industry with some big enterprise systems - so our IT folks do a lot of testing before making changes. I don't think I've ever seen anything on our systems that hadn't already seen a couple of service packs before being impemented.
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I voted for Vista since I already purchased. If I can sell that computer I will only use XP Pro, mac and Linux.
I prefer XP and think MS ripped me off on Vista Business.
I keep telling people that I am waiting for the Vista genie to appear on my screen, wave his/her wand so that all of my Vista expectations are met. Don't think it is going to happen. Very very disappointed.
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Having looked at all the info about Vista I am still looking for the must have items that are of actual use to the user. I'm starting to think that apart from the obvious changes to the interface it will make almost no difference in usability from XP and most applications will co what they do on either system. OK the system is fundamentally different from XP but many users will be oblivious to it as all they want to do is run their applications.
A flashy new interface is no reason to upgrade. To satisfy my needs I got Window Blinds 5 ($19) plus the free versions of object dock and Cursor XP and a rather nice coloured glass background. It now looks, with the Vista 2.4 skin, like a cross between XP, Vista and something of my own creation.
I have all the drivers I need for my hardware, I have a stable XP system, I have enough security to ignore almost any security problems and I have escaped from the windows "in any colour you like as long as it's Blue, Green or silver" routine.
As for version numbers, I assume Microsoft consider 95+98+ME as the same system. NT and 2000 are business systems and are numbered differently, hence Windows 7.
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Now I doubt I'd be able to get XP preinstalled when I buy my next computer.
Yup - confirmed at my local Futureshop (http://www.futureshop.ca), where not a single notebook is available with XP as an option, let alone preinstalled. This is out of a range of over 40 choices on display. Desktops were the same story. I don't see buying a notebook and then paying $200 for XP as a reasonable solution and, as I have software that will not run under Vista (ESRI's ArcGIS 9.1 - the latest version, 9.2, is not yet Vista compatible and is a $900 upgrade for me!).
edit by jgpaiva: fixed quote tag
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For what it's worth : Living with XP (http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9759582-12.html?tag=nl.e415)
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Why is the media starting to treat XP as a dead OS? Is some higher-up trying to push Vista or something? XP is now in the best moment of his life, when the hardware available is far more than capable of running it at top speeds and with excellent compatibility as well.
And they continue to advertise those damn RAM optimizers... When are they going to learn that they're useless? And with RAM sticks so cheap, it's even more out of the question. And that Auslogics defragger is not exactly recommendable. So, 2 GB of RAM, JKDefrag and CCleaner. Now this is a real recipe.
(Armando, no offense intended)
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(Armando, no offense intended)
-Lashiec
Thanks Lashiec. No worries. I just put the link as an extra reference... I don't necessarily enjoy CNET/download.com's material, and I agree with what you said **... Also, personnally, I'm pretty happy with XP and I KNOW (it's a certitude) that Vista is not for me. At least, not for the next 2 years. And then it will probably be Linux, not Vista (especially the huge progress made virtualization software, like VMware, etc.). I wonder which distro will be #1 at that point... PCLinuxOS? Suse? Ubuntu? Sabayon? But that's for another highly speculative thread... :)
**edit : and the comments at download.com show a majority of insatisfaction with Vista. These people might not be connaisseurs, but who cares : they're unsatisfied users complaining about the same problems most people complain about : software compatibility, resource hog, etc.
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I would love to see the "previous versions" functionality backported to XP though but I guess I'd have to use something like FileHamster or put mydocuments in Subversion if I'd really want the same functionality.
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There's a few reasons why you might be forced to upgrade to Vista a bit later...
DX10 isn't going to be released for XP, even though it could be done without too much hassle.
Hybrid flash/harddrives aren't going to be supported for XP, although they easily could be.
More and more vendors will start doing Vista-only apps, because Microsoft wants them to... even if it means adding artificial checks and refuse to run on anything but Vista (like with one of the Age Of Empires games, which was "XP-only" but ran fine on 2k after a little cracker magic).
...and that's about it.
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Hi. I'm new. First, I'd like to extend my most sincere compliments to your organization. I can't tell you how impressed I am without getting maudlin, so I'll spare you. Suffice to say you're an island that hearkens back to the original intent of the internet, and PCs. Your forthrightness, clarity and simplicity are much appreciated, and I wish good fortune to all who are involved in this enterprise.
It's odd my first post has to do with this subject. I've used all these operating systems...even Win 16 bit. I'm a veteran of "getting Win95 to work". I was so amazed at XP I couldn't believe Microsoft did it. Now, I have a machine that shipped with Vista, and I have to say I'm ambivalent about it. On the one hand, it's beautiful visually, no denying it. On the other hand, it's like your PC has become your school marm, overseeing in an over officious way every move you make. A lot of its jargon is counterintuitive, and I find myself configuring it to what XP looks like in every way I can. I have an XP Home disk right here in plain sight, and am always fighting the urge to reformat and install it.
If I do that, I'm told by Hewlett Packard, it invalidates my warranty. Also, I don't know specifically what drivers to use, for instance to continue accessing the internet, though I know I can obtain XP drivers for everything else, I'm not sure the DVD/CD combo on this thing will read the CDs if I make the change, so I feel sort of handcuffed.
I'm also quite displeased that the majority of my software that ran on XP won't run under Vista, so I don't get the satisfaction of running programs with my new dual-core processor and 3 gigs of RAM. That is a considerable disappointment. I also have a $150 gaming mouse (USB, Razer Copperhead) that worked just fine at first with Vista, but then I wound up with a mouse pointer freezure and can no longer use it. If I install it, there it is...stuck pointer. I sent the machine to CompuServe's shop, and they used a PS mouse, giving it back saying all was fine...This gets into a layer of complication equivalent to Win95, and I'm no longer willing to run up those "make it work" ratholes. SO, Vista's shine has long since worn off, and the "look and feel" is beginning to look and feel like Catherine the Great's model cities program.
But, you know how you can get trapped in that wormhole: If I can just get the mouse to work, I'll stick with Vista. At this point it's: When my warranty runs out, I'm switching back to XP. However, what the future seems to hold is an eventual abandonment of XP, and an emphasis on Vista. Would doing this mean I'd cut myself off from the programming that will be generated in the future? I'm left with a deep dissatisfaction with what once I met with wide-eyed, boyish delight..."my computer".
I can't help but feel had the "computer industry" viewed this tool in the same way tools were viewed which allowed the western democracies to flourish, all this would have been nonexistent; standardization. You don't have to buy "this guy's screws" to match "this guy's screwdriver." The profits were more important than the functionality, and though they've all become filthy rich, they've done it by selling solid gold leaky buckets; and they've gotten away with it.
Thanks for letting me vent. In future my posts will be more uplifting, promise. I didn't vote in the poll because there was no "ambivalent" response. :-\
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I have an XP Home disk right here in plain sight, and am always fighting the urge to reformat and install it.
If I do that, I'm told by Hewlett Packard, it invalidates my warranty. Also, I don't know specifically what drivers to use, for instance to continue accessing the internet, though I know I can obtain XP drivers for everything else, I'm not sure the DVD/CD combo on this thing will read the CDs if I make the change, so I feel sort of handcuffed.
I can't see why you would have problems with a DVD drive - most of them don't use any drivers other than Microsoft's ATAPI driver. Check in your hardware devices and I'll bet the driver for that drive is a Microsoft driver so it is almost certain it will work fine in WinXP.
Invalidate your warranty? How - if you were taking the hardware apart yes - installing an OS ... no way. What happens when the next version of Windows comes out and you want to upgrade - or if you want to dual boot a completely different OS like Linux.
There is a free helpful utility (SIW) that you can download from here (http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html) which will give you a list of all the hardware installed on your system - you should be able to see from that that manufacturers names of the components and model numbers - you can then visit the manufacturer's websites and get the latest versions of their drivers (you should do this anyway as OEMs are notoriously bad about updating drivers on systems, or even listing updates on their website, once they have sold them). Here is an image from SIW showing my motherboard details:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Finally get some disc imaging software and do a full backup of your system to DVD (ensure you verify the backup too). Then you can format and install XP and if there are insurmountable problems simply use your backup to restore your entire system back tot he way it was before you started. There is another thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=9947.0) where you can get Acronis TrueImage 9 for $8 + postage. If you have a large enough disc drive with plenty of free space you could also add a blank partition and backup everything to that partition (much quicker, verifies quicker, and much easier to restore if you need to).
Any hardware you are not sure about start a new thread and post your hardware details and someone will help find the right drivers.
Good luck.
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Astralman! Fantastic post - thank you for posting your experiences here. :Thmbsup:
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Welcome at DC, Astralman! :up:
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I think its a good idea to create a partition for your XP - if you have the needed free space.
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I've just spent a couple of hours this weekend to get a Vista laptop talking to an access-point that XP had no problems connecting to - and googling shows that multiple other people have the same problem. Finally found some obscure netsh command to turn off some auto-tuning, and then it worked...
On the same laptop, the new IE tends to crash-and-restart pretty often - at least when browsing for various Vista problems :-\. Oh yeah, and defrag has basically no interface anymore, not even a percent-done meter.
Barf.
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During my test, IE7 proved to be fairly reliable under XP, although it crashed quite a bit more than Firefox and Opera (and, unlike those two, it does not have a "Restore session upon crash" feature). And defrag, how does it work without meters? Like Scandisk in XP?
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Maxthon 1.x or 2.x adds the "restore sessoin upon crash" feature to all IE versions.
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And defrag, how does it work without meters? Like Scandisk in XP?
-Lashiec
There's no "scandisk" in XP, only chkdsk... and chkdsk, while being a console app, does have progress meters... (oh yeah, there's the graphical tool on drive property sheet as well, and even that has a progress bar).
Defrag in Vista simply says "defragmenting your drive, this may take between a couple of minutes and a couple of hours" and lets you cancel... but has no progress indication whatsoever (appearantly there's still a console-mode version with a bit of progress indication though, but I haven't checked that).
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Ahem, well, the thing that we used to call Scandisk :)
A friend told me a few days ago that Vista has this background defragging feature, so that's maybe why they removed all MMC-related code, and left a barebones version. Oh, well, we have JKDefrag anyway :D
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Afaik you can schedule the standard XP defrag as well, so it's no excuse for removing the interface in Crapsta... I wonder if it's the general "users are dumb" attitude, or to let other people at the defrag market more easily...
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IMHO, Vista's defrag is a mixed bag...it uses fewer resources than XP's defragger even though it runs in the background most of the time, so that's a plus; but on the other hand it never seems to finish what it set out to do, unlike third party defraggers. I personally like automatic defragmentation in general because once you set it up it autodefragments intelligently, and you usually don't have to bother with manual defrag jobs, setting schedules, worry about a schedule running during a busy time etc., So, the philosophy behind the Vista defrag is not wrong per se, it's just that it doesn't deliver the results expected. Who knows, maybe MS will fix it down the line via an update or in SP1.
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I personally like automatic defragmentation in general because once you set it up it autodefragments intelligently, and you usually don't have to bother with manual defrag jobs, setting schedules, worry about a schedule running during a busy time etc.,
-bugis
One potential problem with constant automatic defrag is if you use an imaging technology as part of your backup system. Acronis true Image, for instance, won't be able to use the advantages of differential/incremental backups after defragmentation (i.e. Incremental image will be as big as the first one). If you manually defragment, you can decide to only do it once every 2 months or so and still use incremental imaging...
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I personally like automatic defragmentation in general because once you set it up it autodefragments intelligently, and you usually don't have to bother with manual defrag jobs, setting schedules, worry about a schedule running during a busy time etc.,
-bugis
One potential problem with constant automatic defrag is if you use an imaging technology as part of your backup system. Acronis true Image, for instance, won't be able to use the advantages of differential/incremental backups after defragmentation (i.e. Incremental image will be as big as the first one). If you manually defragment, you can decide to only do it once every 2 months or so and still use incremental imaging...
-Armando
It's not quite true - if you defrag at the files level then lots of files don't change from one defrag to the next (and neither does their position on the partition) consequently TrueImage will still produce reasonable incremental or differential backups. It is only when you use defragmenters that reorganise your whole hard disc that you cause imaging software problems because the new backups will be the same size as the base backup.
Once your system has had time to 'bed in' with use you can use something like Perfect Disc to organise you file layout and then there do a baseline backup. Future defrags won't need to touch many files that are remain unfragmented so you can still use incremental/differential backup techniques. The backup sizes will be a little bigger than if you didn't defrag but unless you are short of backup space it doesn't really cause a problem.
The main problem with imaging is when defrag sofware is running continuously in the background. If you try and do any sort of backup while a defrag is in process you are likely to end up with a corrupt image because most backup software can't cope with the bitmap changing enormously. Many use Volume Shadow Copy service to lock files while they are being backed up - but I'm not sure if VSC takes into account an active defrag going on at the same time. Best advice is before a backup disable any automatic defragmenters (including the one built into Windows Vista).
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Interesting. Thanks Carol. I must admit though that I was never able to have defragmentation work well with incremental images. I always en up with huge backups. So I've given up on frequent or automated defragmentation. (I now use JkDefrag, and used to have Diskeeper 1-2 years ago -- maybe Perfect Disk has options that would allow a harmonious coexistence with True Image....???)
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I find Perfect Disk progressively places files that don't change much in fixed places - which means increments don't get too big (OK they are bigger than they should be but not huge).
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If you use incremental backups, you'll usually be backing up at file level rather than doing imaging, and thus defragmenting won't affect things in any way - imho disk images should be for a baseline 100% clean system after you've just set it up with all your stuff, while backups should be done at the file level...
I'm still not keen on background defraggers though. I want control of when there's disk activity.
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TrueImage does incremental and differential backups for images as well as at file level. If you want to be able to restore your system complete with installed apps the imaging is the only way to do it. I agree that you should get a "just installed image" of your system but for daily/weekly/monthly backups (however often you choose to do it ... and that reminds me ...) increments for the image are ideal. You can use it like a System Restore (albeit a bit slower but works properly) and has certainly been a life saver for me at times.
Ideally you need a cycle of something like:
Baseline Backup 1 ... Inc 1 ... Inc 2 ... Inc 3 ... .... ... Inc n (however long you want to keep this up)
Baseline Backup 2 ... Inc 1 ...etc.
Baseline Backup 3 (at which point all the increments for backup 1 become a bit irrelevant).
Generally I try to keep the current and last two baseline backups - but only one set of previous backup increments. That way I can wind back to recent daily backups but also jumpt straight back a few weeks to if a problem arises that seems to have started a while ago but was hidden.
File level backup is really only useful for data files - but I agree incremental backups should be unaffected in that case by defragmentation.
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TrueImage does incremental and differential backups for images as well as at file level. If you want to be able to restore your system complete with installed apps the imaging is the only way to do it. I agree that you should get a "just installed image" of your system but for daily/weekly/monthly backups (however often you choose to do it ... and that reminds me ...) increments for the image are ideal. You can use it like a System Restore (albeit a bit slower but works properly) and has certainly been a life saver for me at times.
Ideally you need a cycle of something like:
Baseline Backup 1 ... Inc 1 ... Inc 2 ... Inc 3 ... .... ... Inc n (however long you want to keep this up)
Baseline Backup 2 ... Inc 1 ...etc.
Baseline Backup 3 (at which point all the increments for backup 1 become a bit irrelevant).
Generally I try to keep the current and last two baseline backups - but only one set of previous backup increments. That way I can wind back to recent daily backups but also jumpt straight back a few weeks to if a problem arises that seems to have started a while ago but was hidden.
File level backup is really only useful for data files - but I agree incremental backups should be unaffected in that case by defragmentation.
-Carol Haynes
[off topic]This pretty much how I do it.
In my backup strategy, Images are not only for "baseline 100% clean system after you've just set it up with all your stuff". I image my C drive once every 2 weeks/month (depending on how much I've change my system), and use increments whenever its more convenient. Like Carol, these Images constitute my “SystemRestore” (a bit more flexible — can store images where ever I want — but slower than something like Firstdefense). I always have at least 6 months worth of images + archives of the first "baseline 100% clean system....". I use SyncbackSE for everyday Data backup. (See https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1999.msg58886#msg58886 for the details of my backup strategy — it changed a bit since then, but not by much.). I also Image my document partition once every 4 months for archiving purposes (on DVDs). [/off-topic]
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It depends on SP1. If SP1 turns out to be the medicine Vista needs, I'll puchase a new PC and switch over. It also depends if I can continue to survive on this 10 year old PC. As long as my fav. software don't become bloatware ;D
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10 year old PC + crapsta? Good luck, it's a slow pig (compared to XP) even on recent machines :)
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It's not quite true - if you defrag at the files level then lots of files don't change from one defrag to the next (and neither does their position on the partition) consequently TrueImage will still produce reasonable incremental or differential backups. It is only when you use defragmenters that reorganise your whole hard disc that you cause imaging software problems because the new backups will be the same size as the base backup.-Carol Haynes
Sorry, I wasn't following this thread and saw this just now. I'm not sure I understand here. What's defrag'ing at the files level?
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Defragmenting individual files or just groups of files rather than whole discs. That is moving a single file or group of files on your hard disc so that the data is stored in a single contiguous block.
There are free tools out there to do that (see SysInternals) but with a defragmenter such as PerfectDisc which organises your files on the basis of how often they change even defragmenting a whole disc effectively becomes only defragmenting a few files over a period of time as the files that don't change are blocked together. This effectively means that incremental backups will be larger than if you didn't defrag but the increase in size won't be huge or counter productive.
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... with a defragmenter such as PerfectDisc which organises your files on the basis of how often they change even defragmenting a whole disc effectively becomes only defragmenting a few files over a period of time as the files that don't change are blocked together. This effectively means that incremental backups will be larger than if you didn't defrag but the increase in size won't be huge or counter productive.-Carol Haynes
now that sound like a reason to have a defragmenter that costs money
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Then all you have to do is to remember to defrag regularly (I don't like using schedules because it always does things when you least want it) and to do backups regularly (for the same reason)! The last thing I want is something trying to kick in when I am burning a CD ROM or I am doing something that involves processing huge files that takes a couple of hours anyway.
I suppose I should use a scheduled notice to remind me!
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Defragmenting individual files or just groups of files rather than whole discs. That is moving a single file or group of files on your hard disc so that the data is stored in a single contiguous block.-Carol Haynes
Got it. Thanks. I knew that, but I misunderstood your statement about "TrueImage will still produce reasonable incremental or differential backups" after file defrag. operation. I thought you suggested there's a kind of file defrag. that wouldn't move sectors (of a file) around, and I wondered how that's possible. Thanks for clearing it up for me.
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I think I will stay on XP (and lower, if wanted/need) for a another year or 2. I've read so much bad stuff about vista...
- requires some pretty high end hardware - some thing i don't have - to get any decent performance
- sp1 is not out yet, and from what i hear, it's not that good and doesnt address most problems people have experienced
- windows xp is actually pretty solid, well tweaked ofcourse
some reads:
- What's wrong with Microsoft Windows Vista? (http://badvista.fsf.org/what-s-wrong-with-microsoft-windows-vista)
- A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html)
Since we are advancing into the future (as usual), computers are getting more advanced (surprise) which probably does mean less choice/privacy/control.. i dont expect "windows 7" to be any less restrictive as vista - i think hope will be left with free os's.
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Restrictive? People keep talking about this. I have not once had a problem playing any content on my computer. No problems with copy protection, no problems with DRM, nothing. So if someone who HAS HAD THESE PROBLEMS, not read about them, could post, I would love to hear what exactly is going on.
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Josh: Me, me, me.
I set up a test machine (Dell Dimension 3000, 512M RAM) with Vista so I could evaluate its wonderfulness.
The first thing I had trouble with was networking. After I got the durn thing to recognize my network (the ONLY machine so far to have this problem) it would stay connected for a few hours then drop off mysteriously. Never did resolve that issue.
Next, I set the machine to hibernate after six hours of inactivity. The next day, the machine would not restore from hibernation; I had to do a cold boot to get it back.
Then I tried installing a bunch of apps to get the machine ready for testing. The most notable crash came with VS6; it started to install and then *whiff*. Nothing.
I spoke with a friend who'd played with Vista and he suggested turning DRM off. I did this, and VS6 (SP5) installed. But compiling an app caused the same *whiff* then nothing effect; VS was gone from the task manager like it never existed.
The next thing I tried was FDISK. That seemed to erase Vista completely from the harddrive and my troubles were over.
Granted, I could probably have figured out all the secret magical incantations necessary to make it behave, but why on earth should that be necessary? If I wanted to relearn an operating system I'd be powering through Linux right now.
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Now, you say turn drm off. How exactly do you turn it off? I dont see a "DRM" service or anything similar. DRM is for MEDIA (Music, Video), not applications.
VS6 is also outdated, no longer supported, and this is probably a good reason that it doesnt work in Vista.
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For a specific example of DRM problems, see this post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=7253.0) on our forum, by a known user which couldn't get his genuine movie to play on WMP. (i think it was on XP, tough)
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VS6 is still used by many coders - can they not use Vista at all without spending a fortune?
I agree about some of the issues though - FDISK should not be used with XP or Vista - neither OS (and no OS based on NTFS) is designed to use FDISK. There are other tools that support large hard discs and are properly compatible with current filesystems.
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Carol i think the fdisk part was Ralf Maximus's solution to all the problems ;D
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Well, I didn't really use FDISK. Call it artistic license. But I did reinstall over the partition with a fresh copy of Windows 2000. Why Win2000? Because I often need to perform retrograde testing on the same operating system as my customers use, and about 1/3 are still on Win2000 SP4.
BTW, Win2000 installed perfectly, found the network right away (*sob*) and allowed me to install everything I needed. It's been years since I reinstalled 2000, and I'd forgotten how simple things used to be.
DRM? Eek! I meant UAC. Which is closely related to WTF but I digress.
And anybody who says VS6 should not be supported by the current operating system has cursed themselves. Someday you will try to install an older beloved/necessary application and be foiled by the New Hotness (whatever that may be) and on that day I will magically appear, point my finger at you and say, "HA! Sir, and HA! again."
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I bought a Toshiba notebook with Vista Home Premium on it yesterday morning and am just waiting for the store to open so that I can return it... Actually, Vista itself I quite like and the hardware is magnificent but I just keep wishing I had XP Pro on it. I have a first generation centrino notebook (1.4 Ghz, 1 GB 266Mhz RAM with 279 programmes installed) running XP Pro and the performance differences between it and the Intel Core 2 Duo machine with 2GB 667 Mhz RAM that I bought are not great enough to justify having made the purchase. That coupled with the number of times that I had to reboot the new computer and watch either a Toshiba utility or a Windows utility configure my machine has left me with a permanent tick... Seriously, it took about an hour and a half to get to the point where I was looking at the desktop - what happened to the good old days when you bought a notebook and the only thing you had to wait to "do" was run it off the battery? Note that what concerns me about the boot time with the new machine is that this is after using it with only StarOffice, Webroot Spysweeper with Antivirus, and YourUninstaller 2006 installed and surfing the web and noodling around with the StarOffice suite (wanted to get a sense of how it handled multitasking with something other than notepad and the Office 2007 demo). So, it's got fewer than 50 apps installed and runs 28 processes after booting to the desktop. My older Centrino has 279 apps installed and is running 46 processses after booting to desktop and does so in roughly the same amount of time as does Vista.
The new machine is more comfortable multi-tasking but it doesn't boot any more quickly and I might as well get my money back and wait until I *have* to upgrade my hardware before doing so. I backup my harddrive obsessively, so configuring a new machine in an emergency will be only slightly more aggravating than setting up the current one. The attraction of this is that the longer I wait, the sexier the hardware is going to be (and hopefully Vista will be that much better at utilizing the resources on offer).
Incidentally, I still have a PIIIE notebook running Win2k Sp-4 and it's still more than capable - runs Office 2003 just as quickly as the centrino does on half the RAM (512MB 100Mhz).
Sorry for the rambling and incoherent post...
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Incidentally, I still have a PIIIE notebook running Win2k Sp-4 and it's still more than capable - runs Office 2003 just as quickly as the centrino does on half the RAM (512MB 100Mhz).
-Darwin
Yup. Let's all go back to win2k! ;) (that's 7 years ago... a long time in computer time... Amazing.)
Josh : apart from the 3 aspects F0dder mentioned earlier (DX10, Hybrid flash/harddrives, and Vista only apps) what would be, in your opinion, the benefits of switching to Vista now ?
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Guess what - fired up the Win2k machine after I posted above and the monitor is shot (looks like something dropped on it...). It works but there's a big, inky black spider web in the upper right hand corner extenging into the middle of the screen :( I guess I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a parts machine going cheap. Too bad - I feel like I've lost an old friend.
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Video: Anti Vista PSA... For anyone who ever wanted to hurl their computer out the window (http://www.asktheadmin.com/2007/10/tuesday-laugh-of-day.html).
Direct link (http://blip.tv/file/get/Deanopp-VISTASUCKS682.flv)
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Guess what - fired up the Win2k machine after I posted above and the monitor is shot (looks like something dropped on it...). It works but there's a big, inky black spider web in the upper right hand corner extenging into the middle of the screen
-Darwin
Eek!
On the off chance... this is a tube monitor, right? Does it have a degauss button?
Sometimes a strong magnetic field in close proximity will cause CRTs to display large black purplish bruises on one or another edge. Degaussing it would be a free fix, if it works.
If you live in the Atlanta area, I have two ancient but still working 21" CRT monitors, just taking up space in my server room. Yours for the takin'.
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Thanks for the tip, Ralf, but sadly it's a notebook with an LCD :(
Great Scott! You're in the Atlanta region? My wife is from Savannah but went to school in Atlanta and still has family there. We live on Vancouver Island in Canada now, so several thousand kilometres away. Thank you very much for the offer, though!
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On the off chance... this is a tube monitor, right? Does it have a degauss button?
Sometimes a strong magnetic field in close proximity will cause CRTs to display large black purplish bruises on one or another edge. Degaussing it would be a free fix, if it works.
-Ralf Maximus
Tube monitors (the last few I had before going TFT) tended to de-gauss by themselves on power-on, so a de-gauss button probably wouldn't have helped much... there's some stronger de/re-whatever-magnetizing devices that can be used in the severe cases, my mum got our TV fixed back several years ago with one... that was back when I thought it was fun to play with magnets and went all "ooooh, the news reporter is purple :D".
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Thanks for the tip, Ralf, but sadly it's a notebook with an LCD :(
-Darwin
DANGER! DO NOT, REPEAT DO NOT, DEGAUSS THE LCD PANEL.
Great Scott! You're in the Atlanta region? My wife is from Savannah but went to school in Atlanta and still has family there. We live on Vancouver Island in Canada now, so several thousand kilometres away. Thank you very much for the offer, though!
Next time you come to visit family, let me know. We'll go have a pint, I'll take you to Microcenter, and make you buy really expensive toys your wife will *love*.
:-)
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Tube monitors (the last few I had before going TFT) tended to de-gauss by themselves on power-on...
-f0dder
Ah! Mystery solved, albeit 5+ years late.
I once had this 20" tube monitor, big as a beach-ball. Upon power-on it would make this god-awful mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMM (wait for it) GABUNG!!! noise. That was probably its auto-degausser, but at the time I thought it was about to kill me.
Another clue I should have noticed: All my paperclips would fly up out of the desk drawer and attach themselves to the glass.
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Another clue I should have noticed: All my paperclips would fly up out of the desk drawer and attach themselves to the glass.
-Ralf Maximus
:D :D :D :-* :Thmbsup:
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XP for me!! I bought my first new computer in six years in 2006 just to be sure that I would not have to be saddled with Vista. I had been happily using Win98 but the threat of built-in DRM and the enormous overhead that it requires spurred me into action. The video drivers for video cards have become gigantic - one set of drivers for an nVidia board was as large as the NT 4.0 o/s. It is no wonder that the Vista systems are slow with that kind of overhead. The Vista components are now written in "modules". There are 6 (I think) video modules, of which 4 are concerned with security. The size of the o/s is another problem. There is no way that the o/s code can be grown by a factor of eight without a performance hit. As for the security of the o/s, it is a bit different from XP, so it will take a few months for the hackers to catch up. From my recent reading, all that it means is that rootkits will be written in User mode rather than Kernel mode to circumvent the User Account Management feature. All this wonderfulness is costing us money. When there is a huge coding overhead for Vista drivers, hardware manufacturers will add that to the price of new hardware. In addition, because of the performance hits, we will have to buy better hardware to enjoy the same performance. Add this to the generally user-unfriendly approach of Microsoft - limited installs of the software you have actually paid good money for - activation on only one machine, ever, meaning that if you upgrade your hardware, your o/s may no longer work - and you can count me as a no for Vista, and a vote for XP only because there is not a better choice without having to learn Linux. Every time I think about Vista, I come back to Linux. I may go there yet.
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Ralf - I'm not sure when I'll be in Atlanta next, but we'll definitely have to turn that visit into a mini-DC get together :Thmbsup:
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Number of Voters: 1238
First Vote : Tuesday, 29 January 2008 21:48
Last Vote : Thursday, 05 June 2008 11:37
2k/XP: 62.8 %
Vista: 29.3 %
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take the poll from the link in the upper right corner at http://www.copyhandler.com/en/home/index.php
BTW: Copy Handler is very promising, but maybe not all finished, yet
- read test at FreewareGenius (http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/06/05/copy-handler-speed-up-and-control-file-copying-and-moving-operations/)
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I'd tried Vista for a week. It made no impression at all, I've switched to XP again :)
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I run Vista for the last 18 Month, but I'm going to switch back to XP. Vista is nice, but in my opinion XP "feels" better. I haven't had problems with Vista, but it feels weird - like something is not matching... Cant describe what it is :-\