Vista Death Watch
Submitted by springnet on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 8:50am.
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Are you, like me, on the Vista Death watch? That's a phrase made popular by John C. Dvorak who has written about the "Vista Death watch" on his PC Magazine column. Will the upcoming Service Pack solve some of the issues with Vista?
What issues do you have with Vista? Have you, like some, drop kicked it and gone back to XP?
I have nothing against Vista, it just takes a lot of my time with rigging drivers, bypassing security nagging, and dealing with incompatibilities. When it comes to an os I'm pretty much agnostic, I'll use anything that works.
And why is Microsoft waiting until **** 2011 **** to release its next generation operating system. It's almost like they want google to lap them with wep apps.
Virtually all of the people I know who have tried Vista have hated it. Ones that could have went back to XP. A couple punted on Windows entirely and went to Ubuntu. Unfortunately it is very difficult on recent laptop hardware to get XP to install and work properly due to driver compatibility and availability issues.
I'm pretty picky about OS platform. Windows has never worked for me, and I've never run it at home and only begrudgingly used it at work when I've had to. I have been using Linux almost exclusively since 1993 when I switched from MacOS. I still dabble occasionally with Macs, but the high hardware cost keeps me away, plus I think the KDE desktop works better than anything else out there right now, with Gnome being 2nd.
As to why Microsoft is stumbling so badly with Vista... in the end it probably won't matter. They still have lock-in with the hardware makers, so eventually most Windows users will be forced to "upgrade" and have to learn to deal with it. I think a few more people will defect to MacOS or Linux, but Microsoft's monopoly power will keep that from being a major factor.
I really hope Google is able to wean a lot of people away from MS-Office and other MS products, because if that happens then the OS platform matters a lot less.
I've already made the "jump" ... warp drive Scotty ... to google apps. Microsoft has fumbled the ball already. I'd flip the linux desktop preference with Gnome in first place and KDE second. I've got three dual xeon servers running linux Ubuntu Gutsy... but gnome was just added as an afterthought. I wish the gnome integration were a little cleaner... gnome and ubuntu have enormous promise for a msft desktop replacement... just not ready for prime time yet.
Actually I think Ubuntu beats XP or especially Vista hands down... but to me, Windows doesn't seem "familiar", it feels "foreign", so I am reverse of most people. If I am forced to use Windows I end up having to spend hours installing a lot of 3rd party software just to get it to the point it is useful, and most of what I end up adding comes by default in Linux or is much easier to install (and keep up to date) through the Ubuntu package management system than having to find, download and install things each with their own installation "Wizard" in Windows. I have been using Kubuntu Gutsy on my laptop lately. Kubuntu's KDE implementation is pretty smooth.
I love Ubuntu. I just wish there were something better than webmin for a control panel and gnome were easier to install and remote access were easier (via x windows) . Using apt-get is a dream for adding apps.
Gnome comes by default in Ubuntu, what is to install? Even adding KDE to a default Ubuntu install is as easy as going to synaptic or adept package managers, checking the boxes for the Kubuntu packages and clicking the install button. If you were using KDE, it has an integrated control panel and other management tools that are not web apps like webmin.
I've never had a problem with remote access using ssh and X, but there are alternatives such as VNC and some others I've never played with.
It does not come by default in the Server edition. I forget what I did to install it, it wasn't really easy to google up a solution. Something like apt-get gnome-something. Shall I say, not exactly a slam dunk. ssh is no sweat, I'm talking about vnc, tightnvc, etc.
Well, to be fair, Windows doesn't come with remote access by default either, and its usually not a cheap option unless you want to use something like VNC, which is as difficult if not worse to get working on Windows as it is on Linux. Generally I just ssh -X and then I can run X apps off the remote box onto my local desktop, it works for what I need. I've never tried the server edition of Ubuntu. Inertia has kept me on Mandrake/Mandriva for the time being although I may end up switching to something else at some point.
Yeah server edition doesn't come with any kind of gui. Guess they figure most folks installing a server would just use ssh. They're right. But since these are dev servers I thought I'd mess around and give it capability as a desktop machine also.
Windows Server comes with Remote Desktop Connection, SJ. It works pretty well in most instances.
Yeah, but Windows Server is very expensive by itself.
Wow, funny stuff. I actually like Vista - but I am a business guy and I like visuals. I have not had any problems with it so far - but I am certainly not pushing any limits nor doing anything like you guys probably are. Office, email, web, music and pictures - the standard user fare....
I would consider something else, but I am NOT interested in being part of the Google server farm - I happen to like my apps and data on my computer.
"Do no evil" LOL....we'll see in a few more years.....
If you like the visuals, then a lot of people believe that both MacOS X and the newer Linux desktops with 3D effects actually have Vista beaten pretty badly... and Linux manages to do 3D visual desktop effects without requiring top of the line graphics chips.
I like the visuals in Vista in that they are more in line with other current OS GUI aesthetics. Granted, it goes without saying that MS apparently borrowed some interface ideas from Mac OS.
Linux has great aesthetics these days with Compiz, but a lot of it is just glitz (aka visual bling) that transforms one's desktop into a pimped out Jersey hot rod. I prefer the functional aspects of Compiz that actually enable someone to get things done more easily.
Microsoft borrow from others? Say it isn't so! :-)
Being a nay-sayer... I think the overall look of Windows (not comparing to other OSes) peaked at Windows 2000, and that XP and Vista have actually gotten to the point of being gaudy and cartoonish, especially the default colorschemes.
I'm amazed they seem to miss a lot of really simple things that make a big difference to me... I really hate the way cut-and-paste works in Windows compared to KDE, and I don't see how anyone can live without multiple virtual desktops. I really find navigating through multiple applications on a Windows box painful.
Anyone heard or care to speculate when the big service pack for Vista is coming out. Maybe that will fix a lot of things. What do you use for music, Scott? Itunes or Windows Media Player?
I used to be a Windoz Player guy, but I finally went to iTunes this past X-Mas, cuz I got an iPod (I know, welcome to the 21st century). Music is not that big a deal for me, but I liked the WMP better until the last revision and then it just got too bloated.
Bloated? Microsoft? How could this be?
Nothing beats WinAmp. I have iTunes as well for my iPod, but that said, it takes forever to load up. I prefer WinAmp and just browse through my music by filename.
The most frustrating thing about the ipod for me is the way iTunes can't get the "Recently Added" songs/podcasts in chronological order. I'm hoping they'll fix this in a future release. It seems so basic.
They also can't get around to deal with duplicates. Seems like Apple could schedule one man-month of work to fix all the stupid idiosyncrasies with iTunes...and yet, here we are.
I agree. Like with the "Recently Added" I want to hear them in order, with the most recent ones at the top of the playlist. Instead they are in seemingly random, shuffled order. And this is on every computer with Itunes I've used. Yeah, how many Apple programmers would it take to fix this? And I wonder if they even consider it a flaw.
Back to Scott's comments: I have installed Vista on my Mac (just for spite) in a virtual machine. It runs well, and honestly I like the aesthetics. However, I can't for the life of me figure out why they changed the control panels and essentials of how you configure everything. What a pain. For that reason alone I won't use it.
Besides, I can get my fix for nice (and useful) aesthetics via Beryl/Compiz on Linux.
from a column in InfoWorld dated Feb 20. Hey, that's today.
"a Service Pack is a major convenience. And it's free. It's not like you'd turn it down, but you wouldn't trample your grandmother to be first to get it.
Well, you wouldn't, but some people would.
The moment that Microsoft dropped a hint that a Service Pack for Vista was coming, anticipation created a buzz more deafening than that generated by Vista's release. Erstwhile leaks of Vista SP1 surfaced and were quickly put down but not before they had been dissected, screenshotted, and "reviewed." For reasons that I cannot fathom, Microsoft apparently offered a release candidate of SP1 (a beta of a roll-up of patches?), and it's said that Microsoft seeded discs among favored bloggers and media outlets. The have-nots seethed as the haves boasted, and I imagine that many of my readers, like me, were too distracted by a mix of real work and real news to take notice."
Early reviews are that it has no new major features and that it's mostly just fixes.
I was reluctant to use Vista. I was then forced to use it at work. I must say even being an early adopter on it, I do not have too many issues with it. I do think their marketing techniques were typical MS BS, but overall I do not have major issues.
I generally build my gaming rigs at home and heard the issues people had with driver, but I really did not. I went with Vista Ultimate 64 bit and it runs very good as long as you beef up your hardware enough. Memory is cheap as dirt so I threw 4GB at it.
I still prefer using Linux for my day to day system at home, but Vista really is not that bad to me. I just think the problem no body brings up is you have way more "general" computer users now than you did back when XP came out. With that comes more people who do not like change.
Also XP was not all that great when it came out either, even if not quite as bad perception as Vista. I think now that SP1 is starting to surface some of the bugs other people have had will be less.
Who knows? I do know MS is making a lighter version for older systems. We will see how that goes. Someone needing just an email / internet computer could use their old stuff and be just fine.
I must say even being an early adopter on it, I do not have too many issues with it. I do think their marketing techniques were typical MS BS, but overall I do not have major issues.
Mirrors my experience. I switched early just to get the experience and I find it really just more of a modernized XP than anything. The marketing really sucks, at CES 2007 Microsoft was really pushing the fluff stuff like photo management and not the core OS improvements. With MS's very slow release schedule, they shouldn't try to market it like Apple does.
Take something like WiFi support which I find is more modern and works pretty well in Vista.
I think Vista started off really on the wrong foot and Microsoft really screwed up with the graphic card OEM's. Why oh why didn't they work closer with them, as it really created a lot of problems (lack of openGL for the first 9 months really sucked).
For me, Vista's biggest failing is that it offers at best incremental improvements on XP's usability (and backslides in some ways like its start menu logic). That's a deal killer for most corporate shops, who will see little reason to upgrade. The home power user market generally despises Vista for its marriage to DRM. The general home user market has been soured as well, due to the fiasco with Microsoft caving to Intel and certifying hardware as Vista-ready that had no business being distinguished as such.
I run Vista alongside Ubuntu on my home laptop, primarily for win32 software development and the odd game. It works for what I use it for, but I'd never consider it for a primary desktop. Ubuntu with the compiz-fusion window manager absolutely destroys vista in the user interface department, visually and otherwise (compiz is simply stunning with good hardware acceleration). Ubuntu is extremely user-friendly; it's really quite something seeing how Linux has evolved since I started using it, when Slackware was the only distribution).
-- eof
I run Vista alongside Ubuntu on my home laptop, primarily for win32 software development and the odd game. It works for what I use it for, but I'd never consider it for a primary desktop.
For software dev, you sound like a candidate to run Windows under virtualization. give it a try if you haven't already. We do it even for pure windows devs just for the security (keep the dev environment free of games and other non-dev things that might introduce a virus or what not).
Couple of reasons why I don't. The first is, HP doesn't ship a stock Vista installation DVD, instead opting for the preinstalled OS and recovery solution. Annoying, and I don't want to deal with finagling a Vista install DVD from them. Far simpler to just carve out a partition, slap Ubuntu on it, and share the relevant personal directories across filesystems.
Second, I do enjoy the occasional game (when I have time for it, which isn't often :P). Virtualization just hasn't come far enough in my experience to fully and transparently utilize the hardware to the extent that games these days require. Better to run native.
-- eof
My harddrive failed the other day. I had two options: new harddrive or new laptop. I got the harddrive. From my personal polling it seems that Vista has about a 40% acceptance rating. This number is skewed because many of the 60% have never used Vista, myself included.
I'm reluctant to say Vista needs to go but I liked Windows Milleneum. I think I was one of three who did.
Vista is pretty.
Valerie Dennis
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vcd0826
Blog: http://thinking.ivalerie.com
One of three liking Windows Millennium is being generous. ;)
I think the other two had last names of Gates & Ballmer.
I like XP a lot - I would even say I love it but a lot of that comes from the fact that I used to support it so I know it inside and out.
softwarejanitor - I appreciate that Windows seems weird to you, but the way you feel about Windows is how I feel about Linux. Our like or dislike of an OS/GUI is going to be based on how familiar with are with it. The more we use a system, the more it responds to us and we develop a self reinforcing, pavlovian response to our favorite OS.
I have Vista on my work laptop and XP Pro at home. I actually can boot 3 totally different XP installs at home for different people and uses.
My main issue with Vista is the DRM issues that someone else mentioned. Vista also has issues with available memory and I was reading about a game that would crash frequently under Vista because it allocates less RAM for user applications - I think it was about a 400MB difference between XP and Vista.
I will go to Vista Ultimate eventually, but I will probably continue to use XP for at least another 5 years and 10 years would not be surprising.
Recent developments in small, ultra portables from companies like ASUS have created something of a new "race to the bottom". These systems have low power, relatively slow CPUs and very small solid state disks.
XP can be shoe-horned onto most of these devices, but Vista is just too fat. This market segment could really take off and I can see Microsoft preserving XP so as not to cede the ground to Linux. XP is stable, compact and secure enough to do really well in that space.
David Rees
reesonance.typepad.com
The fact that a lot of what keeps people on Windows is familiarity will eventually be gradually lessened as MacOSX and Linux grow in popularity and as people are exposed to more and more smaller handheld devices with varied user interfaces. That variety will hopefully make people a little more adaptable.
I think there is a limited amount of time Microsoft will be willing to keep XP around. I expect at some point they may be forced to put Vista on a "diet" in order to shoehorn it into the smaller portable devices that can run comfortably with Linux or currently can be shoehorned with a cut down XP. The problem for them is that keeping XP around with its lack of DRM and keeping software compatibility plus the extra maintenance work will eventually become untenable.
Still no major upgrade or Service pack to the rescue! How long will it be?