View Poll Results: Based on the troubles it gives Istarian players, Is Vista worth the trouble?

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  • Yes! Vista is GREAT! I will find a way to make Istaria work.

    6 8.22%
  • Yes, Vista is worth it but I keep XP around for Istaria

    9 12.33%
  • No! Vista is evil and must be avoided.

    40 54.79%
  • Chocolate covered Gnomes, because they are so tasty

    18 24.66%
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Thread: Vista: Good or Evil?

  1. #41

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by pevil2000 View Post
    I stick to XP. XP works great for me, rarely ever had any problems with it whatsoever, and I don't feel the need to shell out £200+ to get what I already have, plus a whole load of extra resource-hogging.

    My flatmate has Vista. 64 bit. And it doesn't seem to work *too* badly. But he gets freeze-ups (despite having quad-core cpu/some 9000 series gfx/4gb RAM) admittedly rarely, but they happen. He gets blue screens. The amount of blue screens he got when he first installed Vista was insane. Not to mention the fact he purchased 64 bit off the shelf... then when he got home found out it was 32 bit in the box and you actually have to send off for the 64 bit version (which won't install now, comes upw ith some error then bluescreens every time he tries) is just a rip off.

    Forgive me, but that RAM Vista wants to use is far better put towards playing my games, not playing my OS
    Free RAM is RAM wasted. Vista manages its memory in the same manner of Unix, Linux, and BSD. It caches as much as it can in order to boost performance. Its why Vista opens applications nearly instantly and multi-tasks much more fluidly between apps than XP ever did or will do.

    Incidentally, here's what your flat mate needs to do. Remove half his RAM and reinstall Vista 64, download the available updates including SP1, then pop back in the second 2GB of RAM. Vista does have its quirks, and this is probably the biggest one.

  2. #42

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Odd... I'll mention that to him! Thanks And meh, free Ram is indeed wasted, I agree with you, but my XP never takes long to open apps or games and the games generally run great using all my RAM on max settings so I don't wanna pay to get rid of something that still works perfectly Now if XP was appalling I'd be upgrading like a shot! hehe
    Shadria: Hatchling 22/24/0 - Intorqueo: Hatchling 5/3/0 - Affina: Saris - Pevil: Ancient Lunus 100/100/57 - Zordraak: Hatchling 5/3/0

  3. #43
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by AmonGwareth View Post
    If this forum had been around since 1992 it would have been interesting to compare threads on each new Windows OS from 3.1 forward. And I imagine there would be the same complaints... Windows 95 is evil, ebil I tell you! DOS will rule forever. Then Windows 98 is evil... Windows 2000 is evil. Windows XP is evil. And now Vista. heheh.
    BS.

    I have been in the IT industry since 82. I have serviced THOUSANDS of customers and their various systems over the years.

    I won't bore anyone with my take on DOS, but here's my experiences with Windows:

    Windows 1.0 was an experiment.
    Windows 2.0/2.1 was a refinement of the experiment to make it useful.
    Windows 3.0 was the first iteration of a usable version of Windows. It was crap.
    Windows 3.1 was decent.
    Windows 95 was awesome.
    Windows 98 was almost crap.
    Windows 98SE was awesome.
    Windows ME should have never been shipped. It wasn't even a complete OS. It was an attempt to hybridize the 95/NT codebases to try and create an upgrade path to 2000.
    Windows NT 3.5 was decent
    Windows NT 4.0 was awesome
    Windows 2000 had a few minor hiccups, but pretty much was the best OS MS ever shipped.
    Windows XP was nothing but a bugfix and shell revamp (read: GUI makeover) for 2000. Since it was still 2000, it is still awesome, except for the bum service packs which kept screwing things up.
    Windows Vista should never have been shipped. It is a completely broken implementation of a totally moronic design. Microsoft needed a new cash cow, and they rushed it out. Basically, Vista is EXACTLY like ME in that it is a hybridized OS which intended to link XP with Longhorn. They couldn't get Longhorn done in time, and the "ship it" management (from Bill on down) weighed in, and now we have an incomplete transitional OS which breaks itself, breaks apps, confuses the user, confuses many IT professionals, ANNOYS the crap out of everyone with that stupid security model, and has more security holes than just about any other MS OS ever shipped.

    So, it isn't about "good" or "evil"; it's a simple question of "quality" or "crap". Vista sets the new "vista" for "crap".

    Assuming Microsoft EVER ships Windows 7, it will probably be what Vista should have been, just like 2000 being what ME should have been.
    Erus Ex Universitas -- Erus Ex Istaria Guild Home

    1. Fix what is broken. -- 2. Finish what is not complete. -- 3. Start something new.

  4. #44

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pharcellus View Post
    BS.

    I have been in the IT industry since 82. I have serviced THOUSANDS of customers and their various systems over the years.

    I won't bore anyone with my take on DOS, but here's my experiences with Windows:

    Windows 1.0 was an experiment.
    Windows 2.0/2.1 was a refinement of the experiment to make it useful.
    Windows 3.0 was the first iteration of a usable version of Windows. It was crap.
    Windows 3.1 was decent.
    Windows 95 was awesome.
    Windows 98 was almost crap.
    Windows 98SE was awesome.
    Windows ME should have never been shipped. It wasn't even a complete OS. It was an attempt to hybridize the 95/NT codebases to try and create an upgrade path to 2000.
    Windows NT 3.5 was decent
    Windows NT 4.0 was awesome
    Windows 2000 had a few minor hiccups, but pretty much was the best OS MS ever shipped.
    Windows XP was nothing but a bugfix and shell revamp (read: GUI makeover) for 2000. Since it was still 2000, it is still awesome, except for the bum service packs which kept screwing things up.
    Windows Vista should never have been shipped. It is a completely broken implementation of a totally moronic design. Microsoft needed a new cash cow, and they rushed it out. Basically, Vista is EXACTLY like ME in that it is a hybridized OS which intended to link XP with Longhorn. They couldn't get Longhorn done in time, and the "ship it" management (from Bill on down) weighed in, and now we have an incomplete transitional OS which breaks itself, breaks apps, confuses the user, confuses many IT professionals, ANNOYS the crap out of everyone with that stupid security model, and has more security holes than just about any other MS OS ever shipped.

    So, it isn't about "good" or "evil"; it's a simple question of "quality" or "crap". Vista sets the new "vista" for "crap".

    Assuming Microsoft EVER ships Windows 7, it will probably be what Vista should have been, just like 2000 being what ME should have been.
    Uh . . .need to clarify some things here. Vista and Longhorn are the same thing, Longhorn was simply Vista's internal code name.

    Now, I got into the IT thing after the release of Windows 3.1, so I can only speak for the OS's released since then. When Windows 95 came out, it was a bug ridden POS, more so than Vista is today. It crashed constantly and refused to run many of the common DOS applications written during that time. Thus, people complained constantly about it. When Windows 98 was released, it was mostly just bug fixes for 95, the equivalent of several service packs. And yet, people complained because they were used to Windows 95 and 95 consumed slightly less resources. 98SE was just a repackaged 98 with all the available updates and patches released up to that point, so only complete fools complained.

    I agree fully with Windows ME, it used the 9x kernel but stripped the 16-bit code from it, leaving an extremely unstable and almost unusable OS with a slew of nasty habits.

    The NT releases of 3.5 and 4.0 were far from perfect and were never geared for the home user. They were targeted for corporate use in both servers and workstations. And since they were true 32 bit OSs, they also had a laundry list of problem because they had difficulty running many common applications used in those businesses written with 16 bit code. NT4 had more service packs than any MS OS to date to resolve many of these issues. And again, people complained about upgrading from NT 3.5 to NT4, and to Windows 2000 below.

    Despite Windows 2000 being superior to NT4 in nearly every way, people complained because its system requires jumped so significantly. NT4 would run fairly well on 16MB RAM for a workstation, but 2000 would struggle with 64, and 128 was usually needed, with more being preferred. People complained.

    When Windows XP was first released, most IT professionals and users didn't want to touch it, calling it fisher price for its default blue color scheme. It took years for XP to reach penetration in the corporate world. And yet again, people complained because its RAM use doubled from that of Windows 2000.
    Its gapping security flaws became apparent with a series of virus and malware attacks throughout its 6 year life. Even with SP3 installed, it is still more vulnerable than a *nix OS or Vista.

    Vista is one of the better OSs MS has actually released and 99% of the flak its getting is completely unjustified. People on these forums seem to be judging it on the sole fact that they cannot play Horizons on it. And while that may be a good enough reason to stay with XP for now, that is not the fault of MS, that is the fault of Hz developers. It is not MS's job to create drivers and code to get every possible app/device on the market to run. The Vista code base and driver model have been available to developers and hardware vendors since early 2005. The only excuse for not having Vista compatibility is laziness. No company exhibits this more than Creative Labs. Vista reworked the way sound works to disallow sound cards access to the kernel, this improves both stability and security. Unfortunately, Creative's Audigy product line depended on using this feature. Creative did nothing to create any Vista compatibility from 2005 to mid 2007, well after the release of Vista. Even now, their Vista drivers are pretty pathetic. Nvidia did similar, except they advertised their Geforce 8 series as having unparalleled DX10 performance . . .when they didn't have Vista drivers at all until November 2007. And it later turned out that 1/3 of all Vista crashes reported to MS were caused by Nvidia drivers and hardware.

    Vista 'annoys the crap' out of 'everyone' because they are used to XP's open door policy. Vista incorporates a great many design features from the Linux world, such as UAC and RAM usable(Superfetch). Its just that more people use Vista than use Linux, so they complain more. If MS had left Vista with the same open door they used in XP, they'd be getting blasted right now for releasing an insecure OS. MS just can't win with an OS release, people will complain no matter way. People have complained about changing OS for every single OS that MS has ever released, more so when the UI changes. We see the same thing in the linux work when new distros are released that use a different or updated GUI. People refuse to upgrade to the latest version, or they upgrade to the latest version, but downgrade from the included GUI to an earlier release they are more comfortable with. Thats probably the biggest reason people ***** about Vista, they are more comfortable with XP. They know where things are in XP. Ironically, Vista isn't that much different to use than XP, with only slight changes to the start menu. Its control panel applets and under the hood operation require a little training, but its easy after a few days. No biggie.

    The fact of the matter is that Vista 64 is the most stable OS that MS has ever released. Given a decent CPU, which run less than 50 USD these days, and a decent amount of RAM (2GB=20 USD), Vista will run circles around XP.

    Since Windows 7 is shaping up to be a glorified service pack for Vista, that might be the OS to skip, if you already run Vista. If your applications don't run on Vista, they sure are not going to run on 7. And if a developer hasn't adjusted/updated/patched their software to work on the Vista kernel by the release of Windows 7(2010?), they deserve to go under. Nearly 6 years is plenty of time for this.

  5. #45
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bateluer View Post
    The only excuse for not having Vista compatibility is laziness.
    Hummm What about multiple owner changes and lack of developpers ? >.> Not mentionning the EIEIO episode...

  6. #46

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pharcellus View Post
    Assuming Microsoft EVER ships Windows 7, it will probably be what Vista should have been, just like 2000 being what ME should have been.
    A pretty good summary of events. Pretty much Every other release of Windows was a turd. It's Exactly the same with MS Flight Sim...

    Fs 95 was a turd, Fs98 was great, Fs2000 was attrocious, Fs2002 was fantasic, Fs2004 was an exception seeming to be a Fs2002 service pack, while FS X looks great but runs Terrible. The next one should be an FS X that works well.

    My experience only goes back to Windows 3.0 (with a bit of 2.0) ... Windows 3.1 was clever, Windows 95 was a great step forward, Win98 first release was Nasty, 98SE was awesome, ME was attrocious, 2000 was Great, XP (2000 v2) was Awesome, Vista I'm starting to put with ME but not quite that bad. By that order of things, Windows 7 (Vienna not Longhorn) looks set to be what Vista should have been.

    Will MS never learn not to rush things?

    I said ME was attrocious ... as a commercial product. It had some things that made me think "yeah that's pretty good", then some horrible glitch would occur. Vista keeps doing this to me. Things make me go "yeah I like that" then I witness an 'unknown' disk thrashing session or a random ".exe has stopped working" and I *sigh*. It's frustrating ... I want to like Vista but it won't let me.

    I brought this laptop out of standby, and while I was able to run IE pretty quickly the hd thrashed for 2 minutes and things were pretty slow. It was updating virus definitions, among other unknown tasks. I've done the same thing with Xp, and while it takes longer to come out of standby, the same tasks are done within a half minute or so. I appreciate that Vista caches things and uses all your ram, but so does Linux and that works very well.

    Recently my legal copy of MS Word 2007 presents me with "word.exe has stopped working" whenever I quit. I can only assume that a recent patch has done this, since I don't install much on Vista since I use XP for anything non-work. I may put Vista to sleep and do all my work on XP.

    Windows 7 on Wikipedia

    Rakku


  7. #47
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bateluer View Post
    Uh . . .need to clarify some things here. Vista and Longhorn are the same thing, Longhorn was simply Vista's internal code name.
    No, Longhorn was the code name of the OS that was SUPPOSED to become Vista, before it was completely gutted to become the piece of crap that is Vista today. All the things that were supposed to be Longhorn are now supposed to be in Windows 7, including most parts of WinFS, Avalon, and Indigo.

    Now, I got into the IT thing after the release of Windows 3.1, so I can only speak for the OS's released since then. When Windows 95 came out, it was a bug ridden POS, more so than Vista is today. It crashed constantly and refused to run many of the common DOS applications written during that time.
    Compared to Windows 3.1, which was also buggy and crashy, it wasn't nearly as big a deal as you make it out to be. There were also two service releases for Win 95 (OSR1 and OSR2) that fixed a lot of issues, long before 98 was released. Windows 98 suffered from some major problems, including crashiness and incompatibility issues. SE fixed the majority of those issues, and made it the best Windows OS up until 2000 came out.

    The NT releases of 3.5 and 4.0 were far from perfect and were never geared for the home user.
    I never claimed they were. I said they were "decent" to "awesome". They had issues because of adoption and lack of application support for a long time, but they were the beginning of what was to become the best Windows OS ever: 2000.

    They were targeted for corporate use in both servers and workstations. And since they were true 32 bit OSs, they also had a laundry list of problem because they had difficulty running many common applications used in those businesses written with 16 bit code.
    With the exception that 16-bit apps were sandboxed and badly-behaved ones wouldn't take down the OS.

    NT4 had more service packs than any MS OS to date to resolve many of these issues. And again, people complained about upgrading from NT 3.5 to NT4, and to Windows 2000 below.
    "Complaining about upgrading" is not a relevant argument without citing the reasons as to why. I never encountered any significant resistance getting customers to upgrade from NT 3.51 to NT 4.0, especially after SP3 came out. It was a vast improvement, and was more familiar to more folks because it used the then "new" Win95 GUI.

    Vista is one of the better OSs MS has actually released and 99% of the flak its getting is completely unjustified. People on these forums seem to be judging it on the sole fact that they cannot play Horizons on it.
    I have to vehemently disagree with you there, and my reasons have NOTHING to do with Horizons (but Horizons is Yet Another Example of why it has issues).

    When customers cannot get their work done from interminable security pop-up dialogs (probably the most idiotic security design policy, EVER "WOLF! *allow* WOLF! *allow* WOLF! *allow* WOLF! *allow* WOLF! *allow* REAL WOLF! *allow* ..."), incompatibility with hardware (and don't lay this all in the lap of the hardware manufacturers; MS radically changed the certification process for Vista drivers, significantly increasing the lead time for driver release, and was late in getting much-needed info out to hardware manufacturers, pushing back their development timelines even farther), and horrible networking compatibility issues with XP and 2000 systems, it is probably the worst rollout of any Windows OS since ME.

    Vista 'annoys the crap' out of 'everyone' because they are used to XP's open door policy. Vista incorporates a great many design features from the Linux world, such as UAC and RAM usable(Superfetch). Its just that more people use Vista than use Linux, so they complain more. If MS had left Vista with the same open door they used in XP, they'd be getting blasted right now for releasing an insecure OS.
    I use Linux as much as I use Windows. I don't get annoying OS popups every time I start an application on Linux. I don't have security issues on Linux that I have on Windows (yes, including Windows Vista).

    MS just can't win with an OS release, people will complain no matter way. People have complained about changing OS for every single OS that MS has ever released, more so when the UI changes. We see the same thing in the linux work when new distros are released that use a different or updated GUI. People refuse to upgrade to the latest version, or they upgrade to the latest version, but downgrade from the included GUI to an earlier release they are more comfortable with. Thats probably the biggest reason people ***** about Vista, they are more comfortable with XP. They know where things are in XP. Ironically, Vista isn't that much different to use than XP, with only slight changes to the start menu. Its control panel applets and under the hood operation require a little training, but its easy after a few days. No biggie.
    That's a bit disingenuous when it comes to Linux. The nice thing about Linux is that you *CAN* go back to whatever you want, because the GUI is not *TIED* to the OS. As a result, I think it is a valid complaint. The whole "change your GUI" thing is about market hype and to try and make something "look new", regardless of whether it is or not. There's no reason to force people to go to a totally new GUI, and it should be optional, not mandatory. With Linux, it is optional. With Windows, well... get used to whatever Microsoft sends your way; you WILL be assimilated.

    The fact of the matter is that Vista 64 is the most stable OS that MS has ever released. Given a decent CPU, which run less than 50 USD these days, and a decent amount of RAM (2GB=20 USD), Vista will run circles around XP.
    Well, you'll have to forgive me if I don't share that fanboi view of it, especially since I have yet to encounter a SINGLE application which runs faster or more stably on Vista over XP or 2000, even with gobs of CPU/memory thrown at it. I even have a customer with a utility (of the electric/water/sewer type) database that runs FASTER on an older 2000 machine than their squeaky new Vista system, even AFTER being "optimized" for Vista. Amazing.

    Since Windows 7 is shaping up to be a glorified service pack for Vista, that might be the OS to skip, if you already run Vista. If your applications don't run on Vista, they sure are not going to run on 7. And if a developer hasn't adjusted/updated/patched their software to work on the Vista kernel by the release of Windows 7(2010?), they deserve to go under. Nearly 6 years is plenty of time for this.
    I think it is particularly amazing that I have applications written all the way back before 2000 which run PERFECTLY FINE on the latest Linux distros, but if I don't update applications every couple of years to "keep up" with Microsoft's latest cruft, I "deserve to go under".

    I mean, really, does MS pay you for those sound bites?

    No, I think that, this time around, Microsoft deserves to "go under", and I think the rest of the world tends to agree, considering that Vista has had the absolute worst reception by both users and experts of any OS they have put out yet.
    Erus Ex Universitas -- Erus Ex Istaria Guild Home

    1. Fix what is broken. -- 2. Finish what is not complete. -- 3. Start something new.

  8. #48

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pharcellus View Post
    No, Longhorn was the code name of the OS that was SUPPOSED to become Vista, before it was completely gutted to become the piece of crap that is Vista today. All the things that were supposed to be Longhorn are now supposed to be in Windows 7, including most parts of WinFS, Avalon, and Indigo.

    .
    Your also forgetting that Project Long horn was almost scraped because of its extraordinary resource requirements. That often times wound up Frying boards and other hard where.

    Burnt silicon really smells bad . Trust me i speak from experience. I was around 16 when the nasty vir of hell fire came out , and did not take care of hell fire in a timely manner. Ultimately fusing my mother board to the case it was a learning experience.
    Last edited by lightning claw; September 24th, 2008 at 07:30 PM. Reason: Added some stuf and corrected grammer .
    Face forward and you should be able to hear it now the only thing plugging your ears is your own fear. There is only one enemy and one of you so what is there to be afraid of ? Abandon your fear turn and face him, Don't give an inch. Now advance Never stop If you retreat you will age Be afraid and you'll die NOW SHOUT OUT YOUR NAME !!!

  9. #49

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Pharcellus, I'm not going to quote your rebuttal to my post, but there are a few things I wish to comment on .

    1) Longhorn WAS the internal codename for Vista. Going through changes, cuts, additions, more cuts, etc does not make that any less true. Longhorn was used until the name Windows Vista was officially announced in July 2005.

    2) UAC prompts disappear nearly entirely after a short time. During your initial setup, configuration, and installation of your apps, you'll get a lot of UAC prompts. After that, unless you are endlessly tweaking and toying with settings, you'll be lucky to get one a week. In a corporate setting, regular users shouldn't be doing anything that generates a UAC prompt. The users I support have zero reason to be in the Device Manager, Control Panel, MMC, Regedit, etc. I find UAC to be a very useful tool to alert me when an application is attempting to do something it shouldn't, for example, UAC can stop certain games/CDs from installing Rootkits, if you've configured the UAC controls to a higher level than the default.

    You'll be sudoing during a custom setup of a Linux distro as well, shoot Ubuntu and Fedora bug you for sudo or root credentials any time you access anything under the Administration menu.

    3) NT 4 was to NT 3.5 was Windows 7 will be to Vista, a glorified service pack with an expensive price tag. Windows 2000 was a fantastic OS though, and I ran it solely from the time I scrapped Windows 98 in 2001 until early 2004 when I finally bought XP Pro.

    4) In all fairness, my PC is on the upper end of PC hardware. Its an E8500@stock, 4GB of RAM, Radeon 4870, 2x300GB, 2x500GB, 1x160GB, 2x1TB hard drives, 24in WS LCD, etc. Up until a few months ago, I triple booted between Ubuntu 7.10, XP Pro, and Vista Business 64. Since this is my gaming machine, I scrapped the linux install first. But, after being restricted in XP, I scrapped that as well. XP Pro 32's inability to address more than 3.25GB of RAM, its poor multi-core management, its poor memory management, and its generally poor security were all key reasons why I scrapped it as well. In my own comparisons, all my applications ran with no noticeable difference between XP Pro and Vista. Gaming benchmarks typically showed differences of less than 1fps, with the lead flip flopping between XP and Vista. Hardly anything to write home about and well within margin of error for any benchmarking. Although, the gaming performance could be due to ATI's superior Vista drivers. Unlike Nvidia, ATI actually started writing their Vista drivers when MS provided them with the code base in 2005. In contrast, Nvidia didn't start their Vista drivers until after Vista shipped.

    Where Vista definitely outshined XP though was in multitasking. Opening several Office 2007 applications(Word&Excel mainly), FireFox with several tabs, and a few games, Vista could easily alt tab between applications with almost no slowdown and no crashing, and return to any application easily. XP, on the other hand, would often cause the games to crash and the Office apps to perform sluggishly.

    5) I assure you, I am not employed by MS in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I hold 2 Linux certifications where I hold no MS certifications, and my degree is in Linux Administration. I simply feel the need to provide a counter balance to the FUD that Vista haters love to spread. We'll see the game arguments again in 2010 when Win7 ships. Only then, it will be 'Windows Vista 4 Live!!!!1. Windows 7 is for suxors!' It isn't fanboi-ism, I just find Vista to be a very solid OS and completely undeserving of the hatred it gets from people, the majority of which have never used it.

    Zexoin, the code base for Longhorn/Vista was available in 2005, less than a year after Hz's release, when they were still Artifact Entertainment, well before the EI fiasco. I understand that they have limited resources and a very small team, but getting a Vista client working should be near the top of their priority list if they want Horizons to continue. Windows 7 is going to be Windows Vista Service Pack 2 with a price tag. Given that, Horizons' potential client base will continue to shrink.

  10. #50
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bateluer View Post
    1) Longhorn WAS the internal codename for Vista. Going through changes, cuts, additions, more cuts, etc does not make that any less true. Longhorn was used until the name Windows Vista was officially announced in July 2005.
    Sir, I am well aware of what you are saying. You seem to miss the point I am making. That what we were told we were going to get when Longhorn was touted by MS in 2005, and what actually shipped was NOT what they called Longhorn. Despite the fact that the "codenaming" scheme doesn't change if the product becomes something completely different, my POINT was that it was nothing more than their standard bait-n-switch. What WAS supposed to be Longhorn is now going to be (supposedly) Windows 7, despite the fact that it has its own codename.

    2) UAC prompts disappear nearly entirely after a short time. During your initial setup, configuration, and installation of your apps, you'll get a lot of UAC prompts. After that, unless you are endlessly tweaking and toying with settings, you'll be lucky to get one a week. In a corporate setting, regular users shouldn't be doing anything that generates a UAC prompt. The users I support have zero reason to be in the Device Manager, Control Panel, MMC, Regedit, etc. I find UAC to be a very useful tool to alert me when an application is attempting to do something it shouldn't, for example, UAC can stop certain games/CDs from installing Rootkits, if you've configured the UAC controls to a higher level than the default.
    Unfortunately, that is not true. I had several customers who were constantly getting UAC prompts every day when they first tried to run apps like Outlook and Excel. No spyware, no viruses, no weird applications installed on their systems. NOTHING. Just Microsoft apps running on a Microsoft OS constantly driving them nuts with UAC popups to the point where I simply had to turn off UAC.

    You'll be sudoing during a custom setup of a Linux distro as well, shoot Ubuntu and Fedora bug you for sudo or root credentials any time you access anything under the Administration menu.
    The last 5 installs of FC and CentOS I have done have asked for ZERO credentials during install and setup, and only ask me if I configure the system while not on root, which is rare. During normal operation on an unprivileged user account, I *never* get bugged by it, because the applications I use day in and day out don't *need* it, or are otherwise preconfigured with the access levels they need when I set them up.

    Unfortunately, I don't get that option with Vista. I have to either turn off UAC, or suffer through the popups whether I want to or not. It adds to the time it takes for me to get anything done, thus increasing the support costs for customers, and makes my job harder than it should have to be.

    3) NT 4 was to NT 3.5 was Windows 7 will be to Vista, a glorified service pack with an expensive price tag. Windows 2000 was a fantastic OS though, and I ran it solely from the time I scrapped Windows 98 in 2001 until early 2004 when I finally bought XP Pro.
    NT4 was a LOT more than a "glorified service pack" for NT 3.51. It had a number of kernel and memory management improvements, as well as an extended API.

    4) In all fairness, my PC is on the upper end of PC hardware. Its an E8500@stock, 4GB of RAM, Radeon 4870, 2x300GB, 2x500GB, 1x160GB, 2x1TB hard drives, 24in WS LCD, etc.
    Most business users don't have $3000 to spend on an uber gamer PC, dude, especially when the OS costs $400 by itself.

    Where Vista definitely outshined XP though was in multitasking. Opening several Office 2007 applications(Word&Excel mainly), FireFox with several tabs, and a few games, Vista could easily alt tab between applications with almost no slowdown and no crashing, and return to any application easily. XP, on the other hand, would often cause the games to crash and the Office apps to perform sluggishly.
    I still run 2000 on my main business system, and I have no issues alt-tabbing between apps. If you have enough memory, there are no real issues related to it that I have ever seen. I also regularly leave it running 24/7 for several weeks to a month at a time without a reboot. Works great. I don't think I would try that with a Vista box.

    I simply feel the need to provide a counter balance to the FUD that Vista haters love to spread. We'll see the game arguments again in 2010 when Win7 ships. Only then, it will be 'Windows Vista 4 Live!!!!1. Windows 7 is for suxors!' It isn't fanboi-ism, I just find Vista to be a very solid OS and completely undeserving of the hatred it gets from people, the majority of which have never used it.
    Well, my "counter" is based on my experience of it for myself and my customers. It isn't FUD, as it is about REAL problems they have using it. I don't find it very solid (or usable, for that matter), and do find it quite deserving of the derision it gets, from both myself, and everyone else who has had ridiculously bad issues with it. I HAVE used it, and have to support it. When my customers ask me what they should do in the future, I tell them the truth: avoid the problems and stick with XP until Microsft gets their collective head out of their collective rectum and releases a real OS instead of this WinME-wannabee.

    Most business users have little need to be bleeding-edge early adopters anyway, and many are quite happy with sticking to Windows 2000 or XP. Hell, I even have one customer who has to maintain an ancient Windows 95 OSR2 system because a business-critical application that they use is an old DOS-based database app. I've warned them time and time again that the machine could die at any time, and they are aware of the risk they are taking, but you know what? That's their business, and as long as they know the risks, manage them well, and are happy with the setup, I'm not going to push the point.
    Erus Ex Universitas -- Erus Ex Istaria Guild Home

    1. Fix what is broken. -- 2. Finish what is not complete. -- 3. Start something new.

  11. #51

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    D'ya know I actually read all that? hehe.

    I just have one thing to add, which has nothing to do with my opinion, or anyone elses, but as far as M$ themselves are concerned, it really doesn't matter what programmer/techy types think concerning their OS's... the majority of home users will go for the ones that are easy to use. If it is confusing, expensive and seems to use up all their resources (even if it's in a good way to cache the RAM!) then at the end of the day, that OS will be hated.

    Even in a business environment, an admin (should, I would hope) choose the OS that will both be compatible with their systems AND easily usable for their staff (coz let's face it, most 'office monkeys' probably just come in, do what they have been shown to, and don't really understand it enough that they could get round any major changes).

    Of course that is a huge generalisation and there are going to be plenty of above average home and office users... but the average (and therefore most profitable) are going to know how to do the basic things and don't want confusing, complicated junk even if it is, technically, for the best.
    Shadria: Hatchling 22/24/0 - Intorqueo: Hatchling 5/3/0 - Affina: Saris - Pevil: Ancient Lunus 100/100/57 - Zordraak: Hatchling 5/3/0

  12. #52
    Member velveeta's Avatar
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    i work in an IT support call center, and i can assure you, thru daily confirmation, that a lot of peeps - not necessarily stoopid, per se - will not be able to handle an o/s that requires them to think or troubleshoot logically.
    as i stated before, vista in the workplace doesn't bother me, because most of my callers can't do anything complicated in xp or nt.

    all o/s have ups and downs, pluses and minuses. vista is no better or worse than xp, and i have used every windows o/s since 3.1.......
    its all in how you use it!
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  13. #53

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Perhaps it's fair to say this about Vista... on a top-line system (compared to Vista min spec) where it's given lots of room to breath, Vista is a very capable and stable OS. Anything less than that, or a less than optimal hardware quality, and you will have problems and experience glitches (some serious).

    Indeed I remember getting a *very* cheap, but fairly well specced, motherboard for an old P1 233 system I had. The old board died, so I ended up with this new budget thing. It was a different chipset, the system performed slower (with the same Win98 OS), I found myself rebooting more often. It was just a horrible experience. I started over with a blank drive with no improvement ... I sold it as soon as possible as a word processor. I appreciate that shoddy drivers probably had a part in this, but it was either those or generics.

    Now with Vista, the driver issue is certainly a sore point. I wonder how much drivers and available hardware/resources now affect Vista resulting in crap user feedback. It certainly seems that there is a pretty long road to go along.

    What gets me is this... my PS3 has 256mb ram, a 7-core processor and a very strong graphics and sound platform. When a software upgrade is released, it weighs in about 100mb for the whole OS. Yes I know it's designed with a single hardware platform in mind, but there is still a driver architecture in there. In the end it's a cpu, memory, an nvidia graphics board, sound and a means to input data. Behind the relatively basic front end is a full-featured operating system. It runs games better than my pc, that has 8 times more memory. Extending this system, if it were possible, to support more hardware and provide a better gui a la Windows ... would be a crap load of work, but I wonder how large the OS would become. 1gb perhaps?

    I sit here now waiting for my pc to count ... oh here we go... 13gb for just the Windows folder in Vista (even XP is 4gb). I wonder what MS could produce if they stuck to the stuff that counts. Provide enough for a good gui, slick games performance (on appropriate hardware) and solid productivity. I wonder how small that could be.

    Perhaps the PC needs to be reinvented altogether.

    Rakku


  14. #54
    Member velveeta's Avatar
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    ooooo every machine with a horizons o/s!!! that would be heaven indeed!
    you can't cast a play in hell and expect angels as actors
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  15. #55

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    I apologize for having NOT read the whole thread - but I am curious as I've not kept up with the vista issue (not having vista and probalby not having it soon either)...

    Is there aboslutely NO work around with Vista that allows you to play Hz at all??
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  16. #56

    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Toons have more failure then success at this point, not worth the effort at this time. HappensOnlytoMe/Alerus/Nodaken
    Nodaken

  17. #57
    Member Amecha's Avatar
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    Default Re: Vista: Good or Evil?

    Quote Originally Posted by pevil2000 View Post
    D'ya know I actually read all that? hehe.
    ...as far as M$ themselves are concerned, it really doesn't matter what programmer/techy types think concerning their OS's... the majority of home users will go for the ones that are easy to use. If it is confusing, expensive and seems to use up all their resources (even if it's in a good way to cache the RAM!) then at the end of the day, that OS will be hated.

    Exactly, very well put. And the machines also have nothing to do with it. The computer I am building is very high end and could easily handle anything I could throw at it, including Vista, but in the end, I don't want Vista.

    My brother in law has been constantly trying to talk me into installing Vista as my OS instead of XP. His logic is that Vista runs smoothly his many new and extreme games, therefor Vista is superior. The bottom line is that I don't really give a flying dwarfs sugar-cookie how well things work for him, the only thing that matters to me is my games and programs and how well they work for me.

    His advice is to just stop playing my games until the drivers come out. Why? Why install an OS that can't do what you want it to do just to have bigger and better? It may work amazing for you and what you want it to do, but unless your paying for my computer, I'm going with what I know.

    I like knowing for a fact that aside from hardware or power issues, when I hit the power button, my computer will boot up. When I request a program, I get the program. I like knowing that when I want to play a game, I don't have to spend several minutes or hours changing files and settings just to play a Russian Roulette against my computer (will it work or not?). I like knowing that my computer will not treat me like an idiot and request permission for every tiny thing AFTER I request it.

    Like I said earlier, as is true for every single person, Vista isn't bad, it's just not for everyone. Every player has their own opinion, their own preferences, and their own agendas, so what works for one person won't necessarily work for the next person.


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