Vista...why?

DublinWriter

Colour me cynical but Vista.....one word....why?

Having worked and played in IT since 1989, I've seen MS release dodgy OS after dodgy OS, and I scoffed when they said they were going to unite the Windows 16-bit kernal architecture (Windows 95/98) with the Windows 32-bit kernal architecture (NT4/Windows 2000).

The grin was knocked off my face when they finally released XP.

At last, something rock solid. Something usable.

And now Vista?

I mean, come on. Couldn't they have just 'shelled' XP if they wanted an all-new singing/dancing GUI?

Why replace the Kernal with something requiring a higher spec PC that only 15% of most current home users own (source Gartner Group)?

Even the bleeding-edge gamers aren't happy, with Microsoft threatening to sue nVidia over drivers they assured were Vista-compliant and various other performance issues surrounding DX10.

Is Vista an OS too far for Microsoft? What possible benefits does it offer both home and corporate users over XP?

Is it just a cynical exercise by Microsoft to keep licence revenues rolling in and plug Dell's falling sales in hardware?

Methinks yes.

XJR

DublinWriter wrote:

Colour me cynical but Vista.....one word....why?

I have to agree I've got an Xp installation that's been rock steady for the last few years so I'm definitely going to wait a couple of years at least before I *upgrade*. The idea of buying into a new release of a OS in its infancy is crazy.

I'll wait till my hardware and XP setup need a revamp and hopefully by then SP2 will have been released and it will only take me a year or so to get the installation as stable as it is now.

Mind you the way things are going a linux installation sounds appealing tho perhaps a little bit of work but dual boot for a while might be an option.

mukki

yeah i have to agree, i was really supprised at how many people here wanted it just after it was released

surly it will be at least a year until its any way solid

kaimera

mukki wrote:

yeah i have to agree, i was really supprised at how many people here wanted it just after it was released

Because it's the 'new' thing to have really.

surly it will be at least a year until its any way solid

Whats wrong with Vista atm? Yeah, the gaming thing but honestly, were people expecting to play games on a new OS straight off?

god's toy

Lol well for me as I love the beta I was very much looking forward to the full release, hell I even forked out for the 'limited' Sig Edition just to have it.:eek:

Ruu_Old

I go XP right off the bat and am happy enough. Sticking with it and no need to upgrade. I'll get the Vista skin if I'm bored.

mathias

Whats wrong with Vista atm? Yeah, the gaming thing but honestly, were people expecting to play games on a new OS straight off?

And why shouldnt you expect it to work !

It never ceases to amaze me how the computer industry is the only section of the consumer market that actually gets away with selling an unfinished product that doesnt perform its expected use and people take this as the norm.
You spend hundreds of dollars on a product , and then have to spend god knows how many hours on it to get it to work satisfactorily !! There should be an option to bill Microsoft for those hours , it really is incredible when you think about it.

And blaming issues on 3rd party drivers doesnt wash for me , they knew they were not available when the OS was released.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2007/02/an_open_letter_to_bill_gates.html

Capt'n Midnight

DublinWriter wrote:

I mean, come on. Couldn't they have just 'shelled' XP if they wanted an all-new singing/dancing GUI?

Isn't XP just 2000 shelled.

And look at 2003, while they've done some work under the bonnet , they got rid of the Fisher Price GUI.

ethernet

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

... And look at 2003, while they've done some work under the bonnet , they got rid of the Fisher Price GUI.

I heard that was for security reasons! Follow this guide to get the Luna/Tellytubby theme working.

Saruman

I heard that vista is a long term OS.. in other words they do not expect it to take off right away... rather its going to be mainstream until 2012 or something like that.
In other words the point of Vista is to have a platform for modern computers and it will do into the future with only updates needed to be worked on by Microsoft now.

Vista looks like an excellent OS, way too demanding sure.. but in the future it will be rock solid.. It has excellent server 2003 features like volume shadow copy etc.

Saruman

I was going to get it on my 2 new PC's i ordered but i decided to hold off due to lack of drivers etc. Maybe in a few months or so.
The home premium upgrade is $155 and im going to the US in April so maybe i will get it then as its not that much more expensive than the OEM one on komplett... about €25 or so more but its the full retail upgrade

Capt'n Midnight

Saruman wrote:

I heard that vista is a long term OS.. in other words they do not expect it to take off right away... rather its going to be mainstream until 2012 or something like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_%22Vienna%22

Windows "Vienna" (formerly known as Blackcomb) is Microsoft's codename for a future version of Microsoft Windows, originally announced in February 2000, but has since been subject to major delays and rescheduling.

They dropped so many features that Vista is not the whole package yet.

The code name "Blackcomb" was originally assigned to a version of Windows that was planned to follow Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler"; both named after the Whistler-Blackcomb resort) in both client and server versions. However, in August 2001, the release of Blackcomb was pushed back several years and Vista (originally codenamed "Longhorn" after a bar in the Whistler Blackcomb Resort) was announced as a release between XP and Blackcomb. Since then, the status of Blackcomb has undergone many alterations and PR manipulations, ranging from Blackcomb being scrapped entirely, to becoming a server-only release. As of 2006, it is still planned as both a client and server release with a current release estimate of anytime between 2009 and 2012, although no firm release date or target has yet been publicized.

In January 2006, "Blackcomb" was renamed to "Vienna". In January 2007, Vienna became "Windows 7".

So if you were cynical you could regard Vista as a just stop gap between XP (2001) and version that was supposed to follow XP (which is now due in 2012 ??)

Saruman

2012 is a long way away... although the wiki mentions it could be between 2009 and 2012, microsoft as they are i would say the latter. With the exception of Millenium i think all their windows OS's were released late... then again that could be me being cynical

stevenmu

I've been running Vista for a few days now and I really like it (note: I haven't tried any games on it yet), and I think it offers a lot. It certainly offers a lot more than the switch from 2000 to XP did. First of all in terms of general performance and requirements, I'm running a fairly ok system but certainly nothing special (A64 3200+ with 2gigs), and in general use I find it very snappy and responsive. In fact thanks to prefetch (which uses idle time to preload commonly used programs into free memory so they open much faster), it often seems a lot more responsive then XP ever did, slow loading programs like Firefox or Visual Studio open nearly instantly. A lot of people complain about the memory usage they see in vista, but a lot of that is often down to free memory being used up by prefecth, which gets released for programs as needed.

It certainly seems stable to me, I haven't had any crashes or glitches, I would really expect many from the type of usage Ive had with it, but there haven't been any anyway. It seems a lot more secure too, the integrated firewall has been improved, IE7 is bundled in (I know you can run that on XP too), windows defender is integrated. UAC is a big annoyance for power users adn wil just be turned off, but for average users who just run word and a web browser it could prove to be a big help

The interface is improved, windows explorer and start menu take a little getting used to but I find they're much more streamlined and work a lot better. There's the lovely glass interface, in one sense that shouldn't really be important, but if you're going to spend hours a day looking at something, it's nice if it looks good. And there's some extra interface goodies too, like sideshow for accessing basic features when a machine is turned, and the sidebar, I know there's all kinds of 3rd party solutions for sidebars, but it's nice to have a standardone integrated in (or at least it will be when better widgets get written).

It's certainly evolutionary not revolutionary, but I think it's a good step in the right direction.

exiztone

One of the reasons I'm going to upgrade to Vista (when SP1 comes out of course) is its improved multi core support. Windows XP wasn't really designed to support multiple processors (even though Pro supports them, it's really only advantageous if you're running multi threaded applications). I've heard Vista was built to take advantage of your multi-core CPUs.

Steffano2002

The answer is in the question!

DublinWriter wrote:

Why replace the Kernal with something requiring a higher spec PC that only 15% of most current home users own (source Gartner Group)?

When they read this, the question PC manufacturers now ask themselves is: "How do we get the other 85% to buy new PCs?". And the guys at Microsoft ask themselves: "How do we generate revenue now that everybody has bought XP?".

If "normal" PCs (i.e. P4, 1GHz of RAM, 256MB Graphics Card, etc) are working fine with Windows XP, how will MS generate revenue? How will PC manufacturers generate revenue? Simply by making a new OS which requires high-spec PCs! That's how!

So basically, MS develops a new OS which requires huge performance PCs. As a result, companies such as Dell or HP build new high-spec PCs and make these their new entry-level products! And XP becomes slowly but surely obsolete. Which in turn makes today's normal PCs obsolete too!

It all makes (business) sense! And all these companies are now happy selling these new "entry-level PCs" which were their "high-spec PCs" before the release of the new OS a few months ago!

And after all of this, what happens? Software manufacturers start developing new applications which will eventually run exclusively on these new PCs/OS!

It's genius! How else would these companies make trillions of dollar if they didn't come up with such wonderful ideas?

SeanW

I'll be upgrading my PC later this year and if Vista is in a decent state, and has SP1 out by then, I'm going to throw that in (Home Premium), primarily out of curiousity about the Aero glass interface and whatever else.

However, it isn't something I'm overly enthusiastic about. TBH if there weren't OEM versions selling for 1/3 the price, I simply wouldn't bother. Win XP is fine.

8T8

If your happy with XP stick with it, doesn't mean just because you don't find value in Vista others share the same view.

DublinWriter wrote:

I mean, come on. Couldn't they have just 'shelled' XP if they wanted an all-new singing/dancing GUI?

No they couldn't have, not without major performance implications & rendering errors. The 3D accelerated UI is only the tip if the iceberg applications will be able to use the same renderer to create new apps. The display path was entirely re-written and has many benefits over XP not least it finally fixes lots of the display and drawing errors that plagued XP. This is one my biggest annoyances with XP and what I like about Vista.

DublinWriter wrote:

Why replace the Kernal with something requiring a higher spec PC that only 15% of most current home users own (source Gartner Group)?

Misinformation the gartner group are a bunch of well... Vista runs fine on most old PC's from the past 2-3 years the clincher is in the RAM as yes it does use more about 1GB but it also uses the RAM more effectively than XP did. However RAM is cheap and that is really all you need to bring most systems up to spec for Vista, the GPU accelerated UI will work on even the lowest end €40 DX9 GPU's from ATI & NVIDIA. Even in scenarios where you don't have a compatible GPU it simply turns off the effects, also during the install Vista will benchmark the PC and optimizes the UI accordingly so it will not enable visual effects your PC cannot handle in the first place.

DublinWriter wrote:

Even the bleeding-edge gamers aren't happy, with Microsoft threatening to sue nVidia over drivers they assured were Vista-compliant and various other performance issues surrounding DX10.

Further misinformation, MS is not suing NVIDIA, a bunch of whiners not happy with the performance from NVIDIA's first Vista driver release are threatening to sue NVIDIA not MS. Given time NVIDIA's drivers will improve it is very early days with a brand new driver architectures also FYI ATI's drivers are much better than NVIDIA and match XP if not faster in a few areas as well. Vista in the long run will end up faster than XP largely in part to it's new driver architecture.

There are no performance issues with DX10 as there are no DX10 games so unless your making it up please provide proof.

DublinWriter wrote:

Is Vista an OS too far for Microsoft? What possible benefits does it offer both home and corporate users over XP?

It's no secret MS bit off more than they could chew with the original concept for Vista, the project was reset 2 years in and the Vista that stands before us evolved from Windows Server 2003 SP1 code base so it is in effect a two year project not a 4 year one so some of the big features like WinFS* where cut but MS made a decision to get the OS out the door instead of sitting on it for another god knows how many years. {*WinFS mattered more to devs than end users anyway and the improved search in Vista works great negating the end user need for WinFS}

That does not mean the are elements in Vista that are not worth having there are but just because they do not appeal to you doesn't mean they will appeal to others case in point OSX.

DublinWriter wrote:

Is it just a cynical exercise by Microsoft to keep licence revenues rolling in and plug Dell's falling sales in hardware?

Yes & no, no because your point is flawed about the requirements for a new PC running Vista, some companies particular PC companies like to spread the idea that you need a new PC for Vista so it plays into their hands.

Yes because MS makes money either way if the PC vendors sell a new PC with Vista then they make cash and MS does have an unpleasant tendency to try and extract as much cash from it's users as possible especially though it's licensing terms though again compare that Apple who effectively charge for service packs with every new release of their OS against that which Microsoft gives away free in it's OS service packs.

I recall everyone saying the same thing when 2K came out why do we need XP it's crappy UI doesn't do anything new, now everyone thinks XP is perfect and Vista is crap etc it's like deva ju, should all progress stop is XP the pinnacle of operating systems :eek:

Windows Vista is a step up over XP in many areas and in other areas there simply is no improvement but everything considered it still is I think the best version of Windows yet, if it weren't for the over priced nature of it I'd imagine there would be a lot less griping & moaning about Vista as it currently stands it is not worth the asking retail price for the majority of the XP installed user base.

Peteee

DublinWriter wrote:

Colour me cynical but Vista.....one word....why?

Having worked and played in IT since 1989, I've seen MS release dodgy OS after dodgy OS, and I scoffed when they said they were going to unite the Windows 16-bit kernal architecture (Windows 95/98) with the Windows 32-bit kernal architecture (NT4/Windows 2000).

The grin was knocked off my face when they finally released XP.

At last, something rock solid. Something usable.

And now Vista?

I mean, come on. Couldn't they have just 'shelled' XP if they wanted an all-new singing/dancing GUI?

Why replace the Kernal with something requiring a higher spec PC that only 15% of most current home users own (source Gartner Group)?

Even the bleeding-edge gamers aren't happy, with Microsoft threatening to sue nVidia over drivers they assured were Vista-compliant and various other performance issues surrounding DX10.

Is Vista an OS too far for Microsoft? What possible benefits does it offer both home and corporate users over XP?

Is it just a cynical exercise by Microsoft to keep licence revenues rolling in and plug Dell's falling sales in hardware?

Methinks yes.

Colour me cynical but XP.....one word....why?

Having worked and played in IT since 1989, I've seen MS release dodgy OS after dodgy OS.

The grin was knocked off my face when they finally released 2000.

At last, something rock solid. Something usable.

And now XP?

I mean, come on. Couldn't they have just 'shelled' 2000 if they wanted an all-new singing/dancing GUI?

Why replace the Kernal with something requiring a higher spec PC that only 15% of most current home users own (source Gartner Group)?

Even the bleeding-edge gamers aren't happy, with Microsoft threatening to sue nVidia over drivers they assured were XP-compliant and various other performance issues surrounding DX8.

Is XP an OS too far for Microsoft? What possible benefits does it offer both home and corporate users over 2000?

Is it just a cynical exercise by Microsoft to keep licence revenues rolling in and plug Dell's falling sales in hardware?

Methinks yes.

---

Sounds familiar dosen't it

Market Share: XP 2000 98 NT 2003 Linux Mac

November 74.9% 8.0% 1.0% 0.4% 1.8% 3.3% 3.5%

And Vista is 10 times the upgrade to XP, that 2000 was to XP

Saruman

Not just Dell... everyone... You are too cynical. especially if you think Vista is nothing more than XP with a new fancy GUI and a kernel requiring more hardware. It has all kinds of new features.
If you want XP to look like Vista you can get software.. even free software to do it. There is a lot more to it though.

Microsoft is driving the hardware industry along to create newer and faster products to keep up.