Vista Beta 2 has Major Problems

WebHostingGuy writes "In a review by Gary Krackow from MSNBC who reviewed Vista Beta 2 over the last week he had very disappointing problems. "for me [it] was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered." Built-in audio and wireless didn't work on his Levono laptop. It took four days to get the first installation."

A number of "familiar" features...

[192939495969798999]

From TFA:
Beta 2 is a good looking operating system with a number of new features, which will be familiar to you if you've played with recent versions of Apple's OS X.

Or, in other words, features that were lifted/copied/etc. from OS X. It looks a lot like certain Linux desktops I've seen with all those sidebar applets... can't imagine what kinda hardware spec you'd really need to keep all that crap running. Can you even imagine what "sidebar" spyware will do to systems? Probably inescapable installs of pole dancers and casino crap... I rue the day!

Re:Maybe Not So Fair?

[thebdj]

Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced.

I have installed Linux on my Dell Latitude 8600 twice once with Mandriva '06 and the other time Fedora Core 3. I never had this mystical hunt for drivers you speak of. My laptop actually worked right out of the install. I had to do more drivers work on it the one time I installed Windows.

While I will admit, using a laptop for a test install of a beta is a bad idea it isn't the worst thing ever. Windows is notoriously bad for driver support and I have had to install drivers for an FA311 after installing Windows (I think it was 2k) and the FA311 by Netgear has to be one of the most common Network cards ever.

Of course, default video card drivers in Windows also suck. So even if there is a driver installed you still need to go get the "real" ones from ATI or nVidia. So, please do not attribute this problem to simply a beta install or a problem common with Linux and laptops.

He might be a bit biased, but the last article you link he does complain about the sound quality, so it is not like he is a mac fan boy who will sing their praises even when something is wrong. Also, he works for MSNBC...you do remember what the MS in that stands for right? I mean if he leaned anyway you'd think it would at least be to the M$ side. By god, can't someone just have opinions anymore without being f#cking biased one way or another?

Article Summary

[GillBates0]

What is it with you Vista Beta 2 fanatics?

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista Beta 2 fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of an Vista Beta 2 (a Lenovo with 2GB of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running XP, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Vista Beta 2, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, wireless networking will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even built-in audio is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Vista Beta 2 installations, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen an Vista Beta 2 that has run faster than its XP counterpart, despite the Vista Beta 2's faster architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 4.1 Ghz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Vista Beta 2 is a superior OS.

Vista Beta 2 addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use an Vista Beta 2 over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

3 Year old Dell laptop

[C_Kode]

Our Windows admin installed it on his 3 year old Dell desktop and we were quite surprised that it had all the drivers considering it's beta. The sound and the modem driver had to be downloaded by using Windows "search the internet for drivers", but it did find them and worked fine. It has to think before it does anything, but that was to be expected considering it's 3 years old. (It was top of the line when released though 1.7Ghz, 64MB video, 1GB ram) He said he was going to strip off the special effects and see how it does. (Haven't seen it since he did it so I can't comment on how it is afterwards) It defaulted to an incrediably small resulotion though. It was almost unreadable even though his laptop has a nice and large wide screen display. I like the taskbar. I prefer small unobtrusive taskbars. Which is a pain for me since I prefer KDE's feel and UI, but prefer Gnome's look. (small taskbar... I can't stand hidden taskbars though so forget it!)

Re:Article Summary

[hereschenes]

What's more, the submitter's quote "for me [it] was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered" is misleading anyway. The sentence straight FTA is "Installing Vista Beta 2, for me was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered."

Re:Awww, look at the youngster

[DaveV1.0]

Or when someone would forget to do planned maitenance or clean the line printer and it would catch fire.

Yes, that lp package error message "printer on fire" esixts because that actually used to happen.

Pretty careless summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one bothered by the summary? Where is the editor?! In the summary:

"In a review by Gary Krackow from MSNBC who reviewed Vista Beta 2 over the last week he had very disappointing problems. "for me [it] was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered."

But he didn't make that comment about Vista and it's actual use, he made the comment about INSTALLING. Here is the ACTUAL quote:
"Installing Vista Beta 2, for me was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered."

And granted, I've had problems installing every version of Vista/Longhorn so far...

I understand the /. crowd is pretty anti-MS, but purposly substituting "installing Vista beta 2" with "it" to make the OS look worse is simply unacceptable. it's reasons like this that I've stopped reading /. and gone to digg and blogs.

Re:Article Summary

[AKAImBatman]

If Vista doesn't run on laptops, then Microsoft will be cut out more than 50% of all new computer sales.

Vista will run on laptops. But like with most XP machines today, custom drivers will be built to handle all the embedded hardware. The problem here is that Vista is in beta, ergo it has very little driver support. Thus if you want to review a beta (as opposed to doing bug reporting for Microsoft) then you should use a more standardized system. i.e. A Desktop.

Make no mistake. I am making no assertions about Vista's capabilities. I'm sure that it will follow the tradition of Windows just fine (i.e. Some stuff is good, some stuff is bad.) The only assertion I'm making is that the reviewer's strategy is flawed.

Re:Article Summary

[ceejayoz]

There's a vid on YouTube with Microsoft's Vista presentation, but with the visuals replaced with a screencast of OSX. Here it is, in three parts:

http://www.maclive.net/sid/134 [maclive.net]
http://www.maclive.net/sid/135 [maclive.net]
http://www.maclive.net/sid/136 [maclive.net]

Re:Article Summary

[happyemoticon]

"there's too much custom hardware" is no excuse for a miserable OS installation experience

I totally agree with you. However, it is probable that Windows XP doesn't ship with the drivers for all but the most common hardware for a reason. I think that since the drivers are proprietary, they would certainly have to get specific permission to distribute them with Windows. Linux enjoys the advantage of having GPL drivers that it can distribute anywhere.

Re:Article Summary

[slaker]

I've found that the Omega Drivers [omegadrivers.net] will install fine on such systems. I've had to reinstall XP on several laptops with weirdo custom ATI chipsets before. I'm somewhat bothered by using a non-official driver, but enough gamers use Omega drivers that I'm sure there would be an uproar if they were seriously flawed somehow.

The bigger issue with Vista is that the beta versions I've tried (my Vista Beta 2 file transfer manager has been stuck at 0% for two days now) is that it doesn't allow the installation of unsigned drivers. I haven't found a signed driver for any sound device I have on any PC I own. Of the laptops I've tried Vista on, 802.11 was only supported on two out of four, and only one modem was supported. I'm not sure how "custom" wireless NICs or modems are; there aren't many vendors for those chips. Regardless, Vista doesn't wanna work with them.

For gods sake.....

[madnuke]

Its only beta 2, I installed it fine yesterday, I'm using it as my main OS now. Its perfectly fine and I'm running on a laptop. Hes not even using the real beta 2 that was sent out yesterday. Downloading drivers from IBM is easy, its one of the best sites for download drivers for laptops from. He just sounds like someone who expects everything now, and doesn't seem capable of having a computer.

This summary and selective quoting

[mattsucks]

The summary takes the quote "for me [it] was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered." directly from the article, making it sound like the author was describing the entire Vista Beta experience.

He wasn't.

The FULL sentence from whence this quote was lifted reads (with my added emphasis):

"Installing Vista Beta 2, for me was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered."

Awkward grammar aside, the author is talking about the installation and configuration experience, NOT Windows Vista as an overall OS experience.

I like to bash M$ as much as the next guy, have a mixed network of Windows and non-Windows systems at home, yadda yadda yadda, .. but come on! Save the bias for vacuum tubes.

Re:Article Summary

[Vancorps]

That's because people blasted them for doing that with Windows 9x. They generic drivers screwed up the computers causing BSODs. Now people are bitching because they only include certified drivers with the OS. Am I the only one that thinks this is insane? Is it really that hard to keep custom install CDs with all your in-house drivers on the same media? I use nLite with every new hardware purchase. That is when its a new model with different hardware. My install cd puts all the certified and more importantly latest drivers on the cd so when the install is finished there are no system instabilities from outdated drivers. SATA RAID controllers are the worst for this. I've had firmware upgraded on them and then old drivers don't work and if they work they really don't work well.

My SUSE installs really aren't all that different, I load up the install CD, since the installer has to be able to connect to the Internet to update itself they've included every network card driver they could find. The update then ensures that all the latest drivers and system packages are installed and the end experience is a stable and fast OS experience.

SP2 is not a new release of XP. It does contain a few new drivers but the base is still the same. That is the big difference between how Microsoft releases software and how most Linux distros do. Microsoft keeps it consistent only adding necessities like drive support beyond 160gigs. They have to for their business customers who really don't handle change very well.

So yes, XP was released 5 years ago, it has great hardware support. Dell seems to always put in strange network cards that require additional drivers but they give you a cd with them on it so no big deal. Most everytime I install it the NIC at least is least given a driver that will work. Nforce boards are an exception as they are completely new since the release of XP. Vista hardware support is interest since it appears that the drivers for XP check for XP as the version of the OS rather than specifying it as a minimum. XP drivers should work just fine. Older drivers will not as they need to be signed for the OS to let them in unless you open up the default hardware policy which is fairly easy to do if you know where to look for Windows policy settings.

I think I've said enough, there is a lot of crap floating around, last I checked XP even in safe mode had 256colors and 800x600 res with practically any video card. I'd call that some pretty amazing generic driver support. Now that people can see what they are doing they may shift their focus to making sure people can connect. I don't know but I do know if enough people complain to Microsoft about it then it will happen. That is exactly what happened with the group policy changes to Vista. A lot of changes to SMS and MOM are driven the same way.

Re:~Six Months until go time...

[SpryGuy]

A partial list cribbed from another site (an admittedly Windows fan-boyish site) of the major changes, updates, new features, and enchancements of Windows Vista:

* 64-bit support
* Aero Taskbar and live taskbar thumbnails
* Automatic Backup and hard-disk defrag
* Backup and Recovery Center and image-based backup and recovery
* BitLocker Drive Encryption and Encrypting File System (EFS)
* ClearType
* Games Explorer and new Windows games
* Internet Explorer 7.0 Anti-Phishing, tabs, quick tabs, integrated search, "fix my settings", RSS, protected mode
* Internet Information Server
* Network Center
* Network Projection
* Networking capabilities - new TCP/IP stack, diagnostics & troubleshooting, VPN, peer networking
* Power management
* Remote Desktop
* Service hardening
* Setup and installation improvements
* Subsystem for Unix-based Applications
* Sync Center and PC-to-PC sync
* System Search and file tagging
* Themed slide shows
* User Account Control
* Virtual PC Express
* Windows Anytime Upgrade
* Windows Calendar, Collaboration, DVD Maker, Collaboration, Fax and Scan
* Windows Defender
* Windows Easy Transfer
* Windows Explorer shell
* Windows Firewall
* Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D
* Windows HotStart
* Windows Mail, and Anti-Phishing support
* Windows Media Center, CableCard support, HD support, XBox360 support
* Windows Media Player 11
* Windows Mobility Center
* Windows Movie Maker, and Movie Maker HD
* Windows Photo Gallery
* Windows ReadyBoost
* Windows Rights Management Services (Windows RMS) client
* Windows Security Center
* Windows ShadowCopy
* Windows Sidebar and Gadgets
* Windows SideShow
* Windows SuperFetch
* Windows Tablet PC functionality and touch screens upport
* Windows Ultimate Extras
* Windows Vista Aero, Basic, and Classic user interfaces
* Windows Vista Fonts, Screensavesrs, Sound Schemes
* WinFX
* Wireless networking capabilities
* XPS document support

And this list doesn't touch on things that are 'internal', like more efficient memory allocation, rewritten kernel, moving of drivers to user level, removal of several required-reboot scenereos, more efficient multi-tasking, etc. You may not care about all of these things, but the sum-total does seem to be a realtively compelling package, providing they don't totally screw it up (and it looks so far like they've totally screwed up the "User Account Control" aspect, but it's possible they'll fix that before release). It's also true that some of these features will be made available to run on existing XP (like IE7, WMP11, and even the Side-bar). But all of those items will have enhanced functionality on Vista. With any luck, the security of the 'default installation' will be significantly better as well, which will also be a good thing. ANY improvement on that will be a good thing.

Let me get this straight

[kylef]

Microsoft really makes no effort at all in providing even generic drivers for hardware.

This is a joke, right? So your NIC (the make/model of which you conveniently neglected to mention) doesn't have an inbox driver in XPSp2, and the conclusion is that Microsoft makes no effort to supply inbox drivers?

There are tons of generic class drivers inbox in Windows. In fact, I challenge you to name one that is missing that is available in, say, OS X. I'll be waiting.

Microsoft does not redistribute vendor drivers inbox for every piece of hardware out there in the world. You should know better than to expect that. Your computer vendor is responsible for providing the necessary install/setup CD to get your system up and running with the appropriate operating system and drivers. Microsoft cannot possibly be expected to cover each and every possible device that OEMs are including. Try as they might, there will always be gaps.

Still... We installed a very fresh version of WinXP last week at the office, with that SP2 preloaded and all, on a 4 years old computer, and it still couldn't get a network connection without us downloading the drivers from another computer and then burning it to a CD (because network drivers these days don't fit on a floppy).

Have you heard of a USB flash key? Your complaints are starting to sound really hollow.

Re:Article Summary

[Vancorps]

Microsoft has never shipped Windows with all drivers in the world. Just enough to cover the majority of people installing it. The drivers are available for the OS people are just too lazy to go and get them for some reason.

I've had this happen with Linux too involving Osprey 230 cards. 64bit drivers still aren't available. Should I blame Novell for this? I don't think so since that is the vendors fault. Microsoft pretty clearly makes an effort to give you as many drivers needed to get your system up and running at the time of release but there is a limit to the time and money they will spend on it especially when we all know that you don't run Microsoft drivers with Nvidia video cards. Same goes with Qlogic fiber channel HBAs. Yes Microsoft has drivers for both but you wouldn't reasonably expect them to keep up with changing systems.

There is no question Linux has more driver support. Practically every distro includes more drivers than any Windows release. How many times has that driver been buggy? How many times did you have to go an get the binary from ATI or Nvidia? It's not Red Hat's fault that vendors hide things and make it difficult to develop drivers for so why blame them? It doesn't make sense. I remember installing Linux on my quad processor pentium pro server and I tell you it was no picnic. I had to use special boot params to get the kernel to see all the ram because the default drivers didn't see everything properly. I don't blame any distro for that, Compaq chose to do something screwy with their hardware.

Re:Article Summary

[Procyon101]

Actually, IIRC, the definitions of Alpha and Beta (from varions MS Press books) are:

Alpha: Nearly feature complete. Technology preview. Bugs prevelant. Deviations from spec are to be expected.
Beta: Feature complete. All deviations from spec are bugs.
RC: No known bugs. Complete product, may release this build with no changes.

If MS releases a beta, it is to be assumed that this version is *FEATURE COMPLETE*. If it is missing a feature, then that feature will not be in the final product. There may be bugs present, but they are unintended.

This has been the definition of Beta since the day the term was used. Let's not go reinventing termonology just because marketing departments like to call Alpha releases "Beta" just becaue it gets more adoption. If MS released a Beta (or anyone else for that matter), you should hold their feet to the fire and review the inended feature set against the actual feature set and hammer them when they fall short. Otherwise we will have to start releasing "Gamma" versions because people didn't like the term "Alpha"

Re:OS X...?

[LegendLength]

I was interested too, so I went and looked up some of the features.

Windows Presentation Foundation

A high level API for managing documents, UI, databases. Appears to be tied together using any .net language .

Windows Communication Foundation

Also high level, this time for making services that interact with each other.

Windows Workflow Foundation

Messaging and collaboration API.

3D Video engine

(couldn't find this one easily on ms site)

BitLocker

Hard drive encryption.

SuperFetch

Pre-loading / pre-caching of often used products.

ReadyDrive

Support for new 'hybrid' storage devices that are a hard disk with a flash memory area to store and restart hybernated windows quicker.

ReadyBoost

Lets you use a usb key as additional ram.

Compound TCP/IP stack

Optimized tcp window sizes.

I must say I was ready to rip apart the first few, as they are named (and described on the site) very suspiciously like the typical user-lockin rubbish we are handed by MS. But WPF in particular I quite like. ReadyDrive also looks very good (not that they invented it).

SuperFetch is already partially implemented in XP (startup programs are laid out on the drive in perfect byte loading order). ReadyBoost is a plain bad idea, as far as I know at least. Is it not true that each byte in flash memory chip can only be written to around a million times? (Surely that would not get far, even with intelligent spreading of writes?).

Maybe new viruses will appear that contain a couple of for loops writing to memory and finally destroy your hardware.