Windows Vista Discussion Thread

[Thad E Ginathom]

It (they, actually) cost tens of thousands of UK pounds!

But we can probably both tell of PC-budget machines (well, PCs of course!) running SCO Unix (Xenix even: hey, MS once had a decent OS!), supporting multiple users and churning away nicely, in the days when one was lucky to keep Windows running for an hour or two.

The cycle is wrong. I'm not up-to-date in PC chip technology, but not a great deal seems to have happened of late. If greater, better, faster chips, able to do stuff not possible a year ago, were being coming on the market, it would then be necessary for OSs to grow and develop to support them.

The current MS-based model is that the OSs are ever more resource-hungry, and people have to upgrade or buy faster machines to do the same stuff. It is a self-supporting circle that only the marketing people see as progress; it is not actually getting us anywhere; just taking money out of our pockets.

I don't think you'd change your car for the latest paint finish, especially if they put all the pedals in different places. I'm not against progress; I find new technology interesting and exciting --- I just don't see this as progress.

In my view, almost every version of Windows should have been a free 'upgrade'. Bug-fix would be a more accurate description, as they replaced each pile of dung with one that worked a little bit better, and got us to pay for the privilege. But at least they were improvements: what's better about Vista? A backward step, maybe a big mistake in the Microsoft domination machine.

In my commercial past, all our major server upgrades, certainly anything chargable, were driven by new hardware or by new requirements in software.

Not including a fancier, prettier desktop, can anyone fill in the following blank:

I need to be able to do _____________. Before Vista I couldn't do that; Vista has made it possible.

???

[merve_extreme]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Not including a fancier, prettier desktop, can anyone fill in the following blank:

I need to be able to do _____________. Before Vista I couldn't do that; Vista has made it possible.

???

1)I need to be able to do _____________. Before XP I couldn't do that; XP has made it possible.

2)I need to be able to do _____________. Before 98 I couldn't do that; 98 has made it possible.

Apply that logic to all the desktop OS out there.You wont find a single one that meets your NEW criteria.
Microsoft is not a community service organization to give free upgrades.According to that line of thought if you buy a car,the company should give you a free upgrade to the next impoved version,i:e endless free upgrades.Companies are out there to earn money while keeping majority of the people satisfied.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by chvvkumar

As such, i need my desktop to have an uptime of >99.99999% whichm barring a few reboots (due to bad drivers) vista has kept up in the past 1 year.

no ms os can have such an uptime . you need to apply patches every week-> reboot

[jat]

I agree with chvvkumar that there should be some kind of standards. Else everybody will come out with their own systems and there will be chaos (It is already there). At least on the user end, they should do that.

I also agree with merve_extreme that regarding upgrades, it can be free if there is a different system. On the same system, bug fixes are to be free (which is provided by most of the software developer, MS included). However, there should be some guarantee against the "manufactering defects" to take care of functionality, "safety" etc, the way they give it in other equipments. That way, those guys developing OS or other applications would have taken care of end users interest more seriously.

The problem with MS (and also others) is that there is no rules and regulations at par with other industries (cars, motorbikes etc). Hence they come out with their own version and cause chaos in the market. If there was some standards, then consumers would have got better deals.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I need to be able to keep a PC running windows without crashing for more than hour or two --- W98.

I need to run a Windows PC all day, seldom experiencing a crash, and I want much-improved network performance: W2000.

I need a Windows platform that the word stable can be applied to without laughing: XP.

Vista?

[Thad E Ginathom]

...Oh, I think Intel did some fairly major development work in that time scale too, didn't they?

I don't expect any company to be a charity: making profit is its purpose. I get pissed off to be sold a crap product, and then be told that buying another one will solve my problem, and then again, and then again --- while some guy gets exceedingly rich on the proceeds.

From DOS beginnings, Gate's products have been pretty awful, and it has always been marketing and destroying the opposition that gave him his success, which began, by the way, with a family contact in IBM.

Hey... Guys, enjoy your vista. Obviously this is not my party... I'll stop ranting.

[chvvkumar]

@greenhorn
I was being tongue-in-cheek there

I need to be able to keep a PC running windows without crashing for more than hour or two --- W98.

I need to run a Windows PC all day, seldom experiencing a crash, and I want much-improved network performance: W2000.

I need a Windows platform that the word stable can be applied to without laughing: XP.

Vista?

I need a Windows platform that the word stable can be applied to without laughing + looks polished + more usefull features + can run w/o crashing for more time than any older windows did : Vista

[merve_extreme]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I need to be able to keep a PC running windows without crashing for more than hour or two --- W98.

I need to run a Windows PC all day, seldom experiencing a crash, and I want much-improved network performance: W2000.

I need a Windows platform that the word stable can be applied to without laughing: XP.

Vista?

Nice,i:e if you are really being sarcastic.

[Thad E Ginathom]

No, that is a very rough illustration of my experience of supporting 20 to 40 PCs a few years back. No sarcasm.

chvvkumar, I think you're being taken in by the marketing: what useful features? And 'pretty' doesn't count!

By the way: a lot of my strength of feeling comes from disappointment. I was all ready to spend my money on Vista. I like 'pretty' for a start! then I got to use it and was horrified. Not only Money back in wallet, but a determination that I'm never going to buy it, it was that bad.

[vikram_d]

Thad what exactly were the problems you had with vista. You have been beating it up without actually saying what actually went wrong? What problems did you face? Maybe we can help you out.

[chvvkumar]

chvvkumar, I think you're being taken in by the marketing: what useful features? And 'pretty' doesn't count!

I might sound clichébut here we go.. improoved Search? Prefetch? Stability? (+got it for free, the *ahem* version). Also, pretty does count to me when it isn't over done.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Thanks for the positive viewpoint, but it was more a case of total disatisfaction.

It might have helped if it had been on a whizzo-spec machine, but then, mine aren't top-spec machines either.

Sure, you could tell me that it now does this in that way, and look for it here, not there, where it used to be, but I'd rather stick with a familiar layout, unless there are really good reasons for changing. The whole purpose of my woeful series of posts is that there is not good reason for changing.

Tell you one thing: I tried to install some software. It told me I couldn't do it without the administrator password. I told it to continue, and it told me it couldn't without the administrator password. Went through this loop a few times, without entering the password, and it then installed the software anyway. How many versions has MS being telling us that they now take security seriously?

An it crashed on me; several times in a couple of weeks. That hasn't happened to me since W98!

Sorry, I'm a lost cause on this one. But thanks anyway

I might take you up on it when I buy a new PC that has some driver that is not supported by XP. Although that is not on the budget, you never know what might fall apart when!

Have a nice vista party, guys. I'll just quietly let myself out of the door, take that lonely walk down the road, listening to your woops and cries of joy behind me, back to my sad XP machine ...

[vikram_d]

Thad dude look up how to enable administrator account on vista on google and all your problems will be solved.

For the record my 4 year old file server is running vista. It has been up for the last 3 months without a restart. And this while it conencted 24x7 to the internet on a live static ip. Some of the windows upgrade patches have asked me to restart to replace some files that are in use but I have not. It just replaces the files when they are not in use.

All it takes is to enable the administrator account.

Note: This tip works best when installing vista fresh and not when upgrading.

Install Vista and during install it will force you to create a usename and password. Create a temp username. Once install completes go to administrative tools in Control panel and open computer management. In computer management go to the local users & groups. In users you will see the default administrator account disabled. Enable this account and login thru it. Once you login delete the temp user account and configure vista to the way you like it.

You can also do this with an existing install of vista but you will have to move all your personal settings from the current account to the newly enabled admin account.

Do this and you will not get a single prompt asking you continue for anything ever again in vista. It will work just like xp but with the so called pretty interface.

Also note once you do this you are wholly and solely responsible for the security of the system. Any program you run will run with admin privileges and intenet explorer (if you use it) will run with protected mode off.

The user account control is the biggest pain that turns most people away from vista but like I have shown it can be very easily bypassed.

PS: On my server vista doesnt look pretty at all as my graphics card is not compatible with it and I am not upgrading cause i dont need it to look pretty. I just need it to run reliably and it does.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Fair enough!

Thanks for taking the time to help on that one. If I don't go with Vista then I'm certain it will be useful to someone else.

Appreciated.

[greenhorn]

I think that comparing vista to XP is like comparing the new mini to the old min i . Sure , The newer mini is bigger , faster , and possibly safer , but I'd still have the old mini