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Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

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f0dder:
Imho, a whole bunch of the app compatibility problems with Vista are because the programmer did things he shouldn't be doing. Putting files in your application folder has been a bad idea ever since NT4 (and perhaps NT3 as well, but I never used that) because sensible ACLs forbid non-admins to mess around with stuff in %ProgramFiles%.

The registry isn't really an issue either, you just have to stick to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and if you need HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE you better well be read-only, or do the write stuff in your installer (which must run with admin privs anyway).

The whole emulation deal in Vista is horrible though, and shows what Microsoft has to go through to keep their stupid legacy support. It's one of the biggest problems with windows, IMHO. The kernel source code even (allegedly) has comments to the effect "this hack is to support XYZ", instead of just using their "bully-power" and forcing XYZ to write proper code instead of violating API specs or depending on undocumented features.

It's pretty sad with all the FSCKED UP CRAP they've done to Vista, because there's some nice stuff in there as well (more aggressive caching, I/O prioritization) - but I can live without the stupid new GUI, this magic trixery for app compact, the DRM crap in the kernel, etc.

Oh yeah, and UAC is so ill-designed and intrusive that many people just end turning it off - way to go. I'd certainly end up turning it off myself, from the limited (4-5 hours) Vista hell I've been enduring.

But obviously MS won't port DX10 to XP even though there's no reason it can't be done, and they won't support hybrid harddrives either even though that's perfectly doable as well, so eventually we'll have to move to Vista anyway :/

Oh, and did I forget mentioning that it's a slow resource hog?

TucknDar: if ReactOS/tinykrnl ever were to really take off, they'd be shot down faster than you can yell lawsuit...

nudone:
maybe we can just hold out for the Chinese developers to produce something that will take over China - and then the world. if they are content on keeping windows then that obviously kills that idea but i'd hope that they'd be getting something ready to replace it - i guess that would be linux one way or another.

mind you, when you can get windows for a few dollars in China then there's little point creating something to compete with it.

i really hope xp lives beyond its life expectancy - and the number of people using it means that new software is always designed to be compatible with it. if not, lets just stick with the old software that is perfectly fine anyway.

Lashiec:
A shadow copy? I thought Vista implemented the file redirection via symbolic links, if they have that feature in the SO, why create a new copy for every file a program create in its own directory? For antivirus software, that could be a nightmare, but I suppose Vista editions of those apps will do things right.

EDIT: After reading some things about the capabilities of Windows Vista filesystem, I have found out that there is no way to use folder junctions for files, the only way to implement what I thought I was talking about up here. So forget about the first paragraph, as I believed that symbolic links was a completely different thing that, as I say, does not exist. Basically, Microsoft made a mess IMO with the new possibilities they introduced for Vista filesystem, have a look here for more information. You have everything, including the kitchen sink, but not the essential feature that would made file redirection work as it should, that is, file junctions.

cybernetnews:
I'm not talking from a programmer's perspective, but Vista has been a great operating system for me particularly in the area of performance. Some people say that it is quite sluggish, but I've found almost all of my apps to run much faster than they ever did in XP. I have a feeling that this is because of their new SuperFetch technology, which XP has something kinda like it but not nearly as good.

Josh:
I have to voice my love of Vista as well. I dont blame vista for application programmers not storing settings the proper way (not globally in the program files folder, but in the users folder or the all users folder if the user chooses to make settings global). As I've said in the past, settings dont belong in the programs folder unless the app is designed to be a portable app.

Vista's performance is great, most of my apps perform at or above the level's they did when I used them on XP. The exception is games, but this is being worked on and microsoft's latest performance patches have fixed that a great deal. Vista SP1 will probably fix this even more so. Plus, I do need to upgrade my video card anyways, I want DX10 support ;-).

But yes, overall, I too am impressed by Vista. Now if only application developers would finally start programming properly then I could have all of my apps be vista compatible.

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