Microsoft is begging

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:23 pm

...and I dont like beggars:

http://slashdot.org/articles/07/06/20/0643241.shtml

I already tried using Vista Business, I got it for free from my university. And I think its a sad state of affairs when myself and fellow colleagues refuse to use an MS operating system when its given out for free. Microsoft is doing a HUGE favor for the Linux community and they should thank Vista for it.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:47 pm

Microsoft should have done what apple did with the transfer to OS X... Make sure every piece of new, relevent software comes out on the new system, and make sure new stuff isn't developed for the old system, but instead for the new.

Apple might have had an easier time since it has a smaller developer / customer base.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:06 am

It took six years for Windows XP to become something acceptable and stable. No one wants to go through the same rigmarole with Vista all over again.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:14 am

a friend at work in the tech support related Vista to \"putting new lipstick on an old whore, no one wants to touch it...\"

o_0

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:00 am

They made to many changes to Vista. Direct Sound is no longer used so every older game needs to have the sound redone with Vista's sound engine which causes headaches.

They dropped the bomb with Vista. Also, having to have higher hardware requirements doesn't help either.

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:02 pm

Vista is the most ill-conceived piece of software since...well...Windows ME. There is literally nothing about it that's an upgrade over XP - unless you consider having to confirm EVERYTHING you do an upgrade.

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:26 pm

I think that Vista will become the new ME, meaning that no, it will NOT become the standard just because everybody griped at XP, but not its standard.

Enzo-03 · Post by **Enzo-03** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:58 am

i am going to cry when windows stops supporting xp now, all because of vista.
and how vista doesnt support direct sound is like how xp doesnt support dos, and halo 2 pc is only for vista: microsoft deliberately made their new software incompatible with their own old software, or at least the halo 2 one can be seen that way

.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:48 am

CDN_Merlin wrote:Also, having to have higher hardware requirements doesn't help either.

The best part being, of course, having higher hardware requirement for an operating system that does the EXACT SAME THING as its predecessor.

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:20 am

Kyouryuu wrote:
CDN_Merlin wrote:Also, having to have higher hardware requirements doesn't help either.
The best part being, of course, having higher hardware requirement for an operating system that does the EXACT SAME THING as its predecessor.

Wait... Didn't we think the same thing when going from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 ???

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:24 pm

At work we have a new saying:

\"You've been Vistad!\"

Firewheel · Post by **Firewheel** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:02 pm

Don't you mean \"Vista'd\"?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:54 pm

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:33 pm

the expression i hear is \"Enjoy your Vistaids\"

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 1:01 pm

Between 3.1 and 95, and likewise between 98 and XP, there are legitimate differences. Although the Macintosh OS had folders-in-folders for years before 3.1, 95 popularized the concept on PCs and initiated the archetypal layout Windows (and Gnome and KDE) have used since.

Likewise, XP's biggest asset was moving the vastly more stable NT kernel into the home system. I can run XP for weeks at a time, whereas previous versions were condemned to break at some point or another. Given the prolonged stability of some Linux machines, though, both points are meaningless.

But between XP and Vista? Can't see it. They look the same. They do the same things. They have the exact same functionality. Stability is naturally worse since it is now a first-run product. So what's the point? Because people just have to have Halo 2 on the PC? Please. The fact that Microsoft had to resort to petty things like making Halo 2 a Vista exclusive, and the same for DirectX 10, means they had little else to stand on.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:21 pm

Vista is a bit of a bad solution to a number of problems.

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:20 am

Kyouryuu wrote:Because people just have to have Halo 2 on the PC? Please. The fact that Microsoft had to resort to petty things like making Halo 2 a Vista exclusive, and the same for DirectX 10, means they had little else to stand on.

*notices the straws are gone and M$ has them...*

DarkFlameWolf · Post by **DarkFlameWolf** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 3:42 pm

which is why I am going to currently order my new, better computer off of Alienware.com (or similar sites if they got better prices) which still gives the option to have XP as the OS system.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:05 am

It seems in many ways Vista is a good indication that most of the advances to be made in microcomputer operating systems at this stage have been made; the few changes from Windows XP seem incremental and often relatively minor. While Windows 95 introduced a much more mature kernel for doing \"fancy stuff\" such as multimedia with the operating system, and significantly improved multitasking handling, then XP finally adopted the practice of locking the hardware away from direct access from programs - Vista doesn't seem to do any of this... from what I can tell, it's just an enhanced version of XP.

At that, it's largely a UI upgrade; MS seems to have concentrated more on making things more intuitive and prettier (with of course hardware acceleration to hold all that up) than actually breaking new technological ground... that said, I do suspect WPF will change the face of software development for at least several years. But it's not something you need Vista for, and it's also still quite immature.

All in all, Vista is to XP what XP was to Windows 2000 (for business users at least); marginally better, but the only reason to migrate in the end is because people will stop supporting its predecessor.

The two main things that actually interest me are, first, what people will do with the mushrooming collection of development systems Microsoft is putting out - .NET 3, XNA, Silverlight, Acropolis and so on - and second, whether the rumours of a future Windows release aiming to rethink the way people interact with computers are actually in touch with reality. I would like to see what they would come up with, if so; that's if they could overcome the obstacles that supporting legacy WIMP-metaphor apps would pose.

Gekko71 · Post by **Gekko71** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:19 am

Sirius wrote:a future Windows release aiming to rethink the way people interact with computers

Isn't that what Vista was supposed to be? My reading about Vista before it came out was that it was attempting to bring Net access and computing "out of the office and into the loungeroom" with the whole computer-as-entertainment-centre thing... an ironic aim, given the DRM problems plaguing it make it damn frustrating if not impossible to use in that capacity

Next time I upgrade, I think I'll go for a Mac - at least it's OS is based on a stable respected kernel.

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:26 am

Heh, it was suposed to be more user freiendly or some BS like that, so what'd they do? They stole things from OSX...

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:24 am

Sirius wrote:It seems in many ways Vista is a good indication that most of the advances to be made in microcomputer operating systems at this stage have been made;

Oh how I disagree. There is so much more computers can do for us but can't. Both Microsoft and non-Microsoft alike have demonstrated the world of PCs and computing is far from over.

I think RSS is a good example of this. Previous versions of Windows and Mac and Linux had no capabilities with RSS. But would you consider an operating system today to be "modern day" without some kind of RSS integration?

Using a GPU is another thing. Before 3D accelerators were rare and a game-only thing. Now a days it's impossible to find a computer without them. Features like Aero or Ubuntu's window management utilize this now common hardware feature.

As for the future, why do I have to reboot my computer? It's silly, I want to add a new sound card or upgrade to a new OS. There should be no need to reboot as it eats up time.

Why do I have to use a stupid keyboard and mouse? It would be much faster if I could just speak and it would do it. "Run PowerPoint". There is software out there that tries to do this, but it doesn't do it consistently well.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:09 pm

Vista's marketing doesn't give people a good reason to spend money for it. Its probably better to say no one cares about windows any more, except to ★■◆● about it.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:37 pm

DRM has to be worked on and Fast. There should be no reason legally purchased software, hardware, and other Media should be crippled or deleted or even inspected by another Entity. Thats too creepy for me.

I see so many people complaining that their new HDTV, video card/projector/monitor not looking any different than what they had before... thats because DRM has probably kicked in and reduced display quality; http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=25124

I cant believe how complacent people have become by letting Companies rule their lives. In Europe Companies have to listen to Consumers.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:40 pm

Topher wrote: As for the future, why do I have to reboot my computer? It's silly, I want to add a new sound card or upgrade to a new OS. There should be no need to reboot as it eats up time.

HotPlug a sound card?? uh, yeah,. Unless they come up with some kinda cabling system, I doubt this will happen.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:09 pm

Duper wrote:
Topher wrote: As for the future, why do I have to reboot my computer? It's silly, I want to add a new sound card or upgrade to a new OS. There should be no need to reboot as it eats up time.
HotPlug a sound card?? uh, yeah,. Unless they come up with some kinda cabling system, I doubt this will happen.

I can hot plug a mouse.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:23 pm

There are a lot of things where it could make sense to have them hot plug, but sound/video/raid/etc cards (or for that matter pretty much ANY PCI/PCIe/AGP/etc expansion card) are not in that list. Generally if you have to open the case to install it, hot plugging doesn't make much sense.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:06 pm

So there's room for improvement.

I think WiFi software install would be awesome too. Media sucks, I hate having scratched DVDs or dealing with opening and closing drives.

My awesome vision of the future is that you buy a new computer, you sit it on your desk and it automagically hooks up with your input and output devices and gets all of your documents and software from a wireless local store or internet store.

It just works, it's just easy.

I guess that's why I like the idea of Surface. No cables, no \"mouse\", you just sit something ontop of it and it hooks up, to interface with it you touch the screen.

I think people get stuck in the \"Computers have applications that run on a monitor and interface with a keyboard which is wired to the case\". PCs will evolve and there will be paradigm shifts in how you interact with technology and the software that runs it.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:55 pm

The advantage of input devices vs touch screens is painfully obvious though. Unless you like cleaning your screen several times a day...

Does your awesome vision of the future include dialup internet and a price tag?

Media does suck, if you sell someone a DVD movie, they can take that disk and play it on any DVD player in their entire house, or even loan it to a friend/relative/neighbor and they don't have to pay you for it! But if all you give them is a license to watch it off your server, then you can control when where and how they watch it, and their friend/relative/neighbor has to buy their own license.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:17 pm

Topher wrote:
Duper wrote:
Topher wrote: As for the future, why do I have to reboot my computer? It's silly, I want to add a new sound card or upgrade to a new OS. There should be no need to reboot as it eats up time.
HotPlug a sound card?? uh, yeah,. Unless they come up with some kinda cabling system, I doubt this will happen.
I can hot plug a mouse.

heh.. you can hotplug a usb mouse, but not a ps2 mouse. I thought you knew this topher? oh well. no matter.

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:13 pm

you can get USB speakers, they are effectively a hot-plugable soundcard.

i have a hotplugable USB TV tuner which surprised me. The popularity of laptops is pushing a lot of things to become hot-pluggable.

i think the only thing you can't get hot-plugable (that you'd want) are videocard, memory, and a cpu. Which are all ultra high bandwidth devices that can't afford any lag.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:38 am

...WTF is PS2?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:44 am

Topher wrote:
Sirius wrote:It seems in many ways Vista is a good indication that most of the advances to be made in microcomputer operating systems at this stage have been made;
Oh how I disagree. There is so much more computers can do for us but can't. Both Microsoft and non-Microsoft alike have demonstrated the world of PCs and computing is far from over.

You're right; that was a dangerous comment, but given the lack of anything particularly exciting in the last few years, one would think there wasn't.

I suspect it would be realistic, at least, to be able to update any part of the operating system without requiring a reboot; there probably is even a way to patch the kernel itself. Would be interesting to see, but whether the benefits are great enough for anyone to actually do it...

(continued next post ... thing is throwing fits at me)

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:59 am

Actually, the other thing which would help is better support for roaming profiles; say you could, for instance, save all of your documents and settings to a USB drive or some other shareable memory such as a web storage account, and load those up on any computer you logged in to... no need to reconfigure settings if you need to change your computer (or are at an internet cafe, even) - everything looks and works the same regardless. And it leaves no trace on the host machine when you're gone. XP has some ability to do this, but it doesn't work without an extensive infrastructure behind it, and many applications write configuration data to where-ever they feel like anyway.

The whole Web 2.0 thing is a major area for new development, but right now I'm not convinced anyone knows what they're doing with it. It seems to be less of any particular distinct vision than a random mish-mash of ideas. Integration only realises its potential when it is done in a standard manner, rather than the sort of hap-hazard thing we've seen thus far.

I should note that it would be silly to deny that there isn't much room for future development in computers, which is why I didn't say that; I remember all too well the oft-quoted line from Bill Gates about 640 kilobytes of memory... However, I do have a suspicion that significant upcoming advances in operating systems will depend on applications that have not yet been invented, rather than anything we have currently.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:50 am

Sirius wrote:However, I do have a suspicion that significant upcoming advances in operating systems will depend on applications that have not yet been invented, rather than anything we have currently.

I agree. While advances in the past are easy to see after the fact, large upcoming changes come from someone inventing something new. That new something can be impossible to see simply because you aren't thinking like the inventor just yet.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:03 am

The only thing I would care about from VISTA is DX 10. Don't suppose XP could have it ported in?

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:02 am

Duper wrote:
Topher wrote: As for the future, why do I have to reboot my computer? It's silly, I want to add a new sound card or upgrade to a new OS. There should be no need to reboot as it eats up time.
HotPlug a sound card?? uh, yeah,. Unless they come up with some kinda cabling system, I doubt this will happen.

Ya, PERsonally I want my computer shut down when I install new stuff to make sure I dont' do an oh s***, those can be very bad...

Nosferatu · Post by **Nosferatu** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:26 am

woodchip wrote:The only thing I would care about from VISTA is DX 10. Don't suppose XP could have it ported in?

I dont know about DX10 but...

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?optio ... 6&Itemid=2

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:47 pm

Nice. Looks like DX 10 compatability with XP will be hac...er worked out.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:50 pm

Oh believe me, there will be someone out there who will port DX10 to XP. Its not a question of if but when. Dont let MS's PR fool you.

Microsoft is begging

Microsoft is begging

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re: