Windows Vista - Not So Bad? 378
Shantyman writes "ZDNet has a counterpoint to the negative impressions of Vista's Beta 2 going around. Entitled Vista Beta 2, up close and personal, Ed Bott writes: 'I've spent the last three months running beta versions of Windows Vista on the PCs I use for everyday work. February and March were exasperating. April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"
Article is really a collection of screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no article here. It's a collection of screenshots with a little blurb at the top. He's excited that you can change Vista's theme to one of eight different colors. This is not news for nerds.
Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Running smoothly? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19 [zdnet.com]
At least Microsoft has given us a way to prove how unstable our systems are... whenever Windows Vista is finally released.
Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:5, Insightful)
The proof is in the pudding (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason? (Score:2, Insightful)
I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machines, in contrast with Linux, MacOS etc. Finally Microsoft agree and take them away (not an easy move considering that, since it'll be installed on the computers of people who have no idea how to use a computer, transparent ease of use has to be near the top of their priority list), and all anyone can do is complain about it.
I agree that the early implementationg (UAP) were severely flawed, but apparently that's one of the things that the beta 2 release much improves. Criticise them when they deserrve it (admittedly 95% of the time) but give them credit where it's due too.
Re:Running smoothly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Again, that is me jumping to a conclusion based on a picture so I can be wrong as well but I do know if the memory got logged then the system wasn't that bad off. The scenarios surrounding it are completely unknown. The OS stopped working error could have occurred by running software that writes to protected memory and the resulting denial appears as the error. Lots of possiblities.
Proving XP instability is quite difficult not because the tools aren't there to mine it but because most people don't have stability problems unless they have hardware problems. Same with 2003. Let's move on please and concentrate on security and performance which is where Vista has yet to prove itself. Although in reality Vista performs better on equipped machines than XP does. When you get towards the lower end of the requirements XP becomes a better option. That will always happen though, kinda like running SUSE 10 on a 386. Granted not as dramatic.Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:4, Insightful)
MS employees apparently really do believe in the dogfood thing (from what I hear from an employee) so I find it reasonable to think that at least many of them usually run as LUA.
The news from the other day would remove the option and force them to run as LUA, which very well may make things worse from this point of view because then there won't also be a lot of people running as admin.
Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots (Score:1, Insightful)
So they called it Luna? I thought it was Fisher Price. And 8 colors to choose from? That means it's pre-programmed that way and not dynamic like the current appreance settings you can change.
If I can't restore a backup on a different machine, it has no use.
As intended by whom? Will it protect the user or just confuse/piss off? Is it just some default interface that professional Windows users will understand how to navigate AND is it easy enough to understand for a common person that may only spend 4 hours a week with the OS?
My above comment hold true for this. How is a common person who uses email and stores images going to benefit from this when they won't even understand what they're looking at? This is more of a powertoy for heavy users and shouldn't be a featured bullet point of why someone should purchase this.
About damn time. Seriously Microsoft, always late to the party.
And that should be a bullet point of an application that is included.
Begginers will complain about the added security.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Although win 2k and xp had limited user accounts it did nothing to enforce their usage because it would alienate novice users who wanted to install their shinny new Easy Birthday Card Creator software. Now the process that grants admin rights will be simpler to use but I can bet that many people will complain about the extra "hassle" that they will encounter when installing software.
Of course, you can only do so much to secure an operating system that is geared towards users. It is only a matter of time before Joe User decides that it is a good idea to provide the admin password to install the latest malware ridden "Fun Emoticon" package.
The best strategy that MS could do to improve security would be to bundle an intro into the OS that explained the basics of its new security features.
I think the real news would be.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not trying to troll here, but ferchrissake! If I have to upgrade at a cost of hundreds of dollars just to run it, I don't want to know, I don't care, and I know its not going to run on that $100 laptop. While it might work for some, and perhaps many, it still looks like a very fancy gun for MS to shoot their own feet with. Testing stories so far don't seem to allude to any magical improvements, or reasons that Vista is a "must have" product. Nobody I know is buying up hardware so they can upgrade to Vista when it is released. Except for gamers and those with serious hardware requirements, nobody needs that much hardware performance really. Until streaming media is commonplace, they won't need it. Speaking of which, does anyone know if Vista does streaming media well? While its using all that hardware, does it get anywhere near acting like a multimedia system to replace all others?
Perhaps these are stupid questions, or just plain cynical thinking, but I just don't get it... to me, its sort of like building a bigger hummer with lower mpg while gas prices are climbing with nothing to stop them from continuing to climb. Not many of the bigger gas guzzlers are going to get sold....
A great accomplishment (Score:3, Insightful)
Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about generating buzz around a product to make people want it, and to cover up the yet more slipped release dates and the reduced functionality over what was promised. And it all comes down to a new look and feel and a bit of threading and the su command.
WOW FIVE YEARS DEVELOPMENT to get this into production.
I live in awe at Microsoft's ability to generate positive news.
Re:It doesn't matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Some people need proprietary OSes and software in order to do their jobs. Some people need it because the best tools are available only in Windows or OS X. Some people use proprietary software simply because they like it better than the FOSS alternatives (provided that they know about the alternatives).
I'm a user of proprietary software every day (although I'm also a FreeBSD user). People aren't going to switch to FOSS software for everything until it does everything that the best closed source software does (plus more)., and very easily too.
My problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume with a limited account, you would have a similar experience, but would need to type in an admin password to continue.
The point is that programs do NOT automatically have permission to do admin operations. Admin or not, the user experience will be quite similar, forcing programs to work without elevated permissions.
Re:It doesn't matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, there's a significant difference here. Modifications I make to *my* car cannot be instantly and trivially copied to yours. Modifications I make to my copy of a piece of software *can* be instantly and trivially copied to yours.
The overriding benefit of free software is not that you *personally* can modify your copy if you wish, but that you can benefit from the aggregation of the modifications of others.
Re:It doesn't matter. (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot might not as well cover how good or bad Vista is because in Vista and OSX are closed source OSes. Users have no say in how good or bad a proprietary OS is. So we might as well not deal with it.
Umm, I have no say in how well made most of my car is, does that mean I should spend half of every day walking to and from work, and take several month long sabbaticals when I want to visit my family?
People are going to use both Windows and OS X because they are the tools most suited to them, or because they are required to by their employer. Given that fact, it is very useful to have more information on what to expect. Further, it is a good idea to see what each OS on the market is doing for reasons of compatibility and because they might have good ideas that can be adopted.
I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes, and no, OSX is not an Open OS. I don't care how like BSD it is.
It all depends upon why you use a computer. If your purpose is to promote an open source model, then you've chosen wisely. For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create. To me, being open source is a feature. It is nice, and useful, and provides security going forward, but it is by no means the only feature or the most important one.
If you don't want Slashdot to cover other OS's, you can just flip a few toggles and you won't see them anymore. Problem solved. For the rest of us, this is certainly useful and welcome news and discussion.
Re:I see Aqua! (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, even though Apple came out with a better looking 3D looking OS, you can't patent/trademark the idea of making something look like glass in an interface. If you started that, then Linux, Apple, and Microsoft would simply get into a circular cycle of suing the hell out of each other because each has HEAVILY borrowed UI concepts from each other quite liberally. And honestly, Vista does a better job because they are actually making a glass like transparency which slightly diffuses the underling graphics whereas Apple just uses an alpha blend. Also, Aqua has been reduced to glass buttons and scroll bars in Apple, Microsoft doesn't use glass buttons, just a glass frame which surrounds a window, Apple doesn't even do this. So technically, there is no copyright/trademark/patent conflicts. Only people completely ignorant of Vista assumes it looks like OSX.
But honestly, when do you fully need to utilize 100% CPU cycles with a 4ghz CPU? For the most part, even compiling software all day, I rarely hit 100% CPU utilization for more then a few moments. If my windows borders take a few percentage of my CPU cycles, you won't notice it. By the time you enter a game, your running it full screen so the Vista UI isn't around to consume any clock cycles.
Re:.. says the Microsoft employee (Score:2, Insightful)
DISCLAIMER: I work for Microsoft too (not in the USA, fortunately), but I'm trying to be fair here.
Sigh, windows fanboys are getting silly (Score:2, Insightful)
A news site owned by Microsoft claims that Vista beta wasn't too good and everyone is falling all over it even claiming it is fud. Right.
You can't have fud on your own fucking product. Geez.
And can we get a slighly better rebutal of how good it is then the ancient "well it didn't crash for me so your insane" line?
Then again this one ain't as hilarious as all the MS shills suddenly saying it ain't MS fault if hardware makers don't have drivers ready while the constant line against linux is that it doesn't have drivers for every piece of shit hardware.
Make up your mind already okay?
The simple fact is that this was trying a beta. Now a beta is not the finished product BUT it is supposed to be as good as finished. Beta is when you say, okay I am done with the design and building and now lets test it to see if it works. Since this is Beta 2 they should be getting very close.
Build (no chance of working on any machine) Alpha (it sometimes works on the coders machine) Beta (Well it works in the development lab, lets see about the outside) Gold (We are fed up and don't give a shit anymore if it works or not just get it out the door already)
Vista Beta 2 should be near gold and then for it not to work easily on a big name laptop is not to good. If a linux distro failed to run properly all the MS shills would be all over it. When Vista fails, oh the user is an idiot.
Reminds me of the old rule of web design. If the site fails under mozilla it is mozilla's fault. If the site fails under IE it is the sites fault.
MS apologists taking the stupid to new heights. There is one clear sample of proof the Vista Beta 2 ain't nowwhere ready. The fact that it currently may and MS itself claims that it won't launch to at least january and possibly later. That could easily mean a full year till launch. If Vista Beta 2 was ready, they wouldn't need so much time to work on it. Not when they got so much riding on it (not just the holidays and saving face but that whole software assurance plan they sold to companies)
Re:Not to be mean, but it sounds like bullshit (Score:0, Insightful)
Hunh? MacOS X maybe, but Linux (in terms of GUIs) has nothing worth copying.
Security is a lot harder to use and may or may not improve what has been MS's Achilles heel for decades.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. I applaud their efforts, and welcome their changes. They seem reasonable, without being overly cryptic or dismissive.
Call me a cynic but NEW VERSIONS of something are supposed to be worthwhile, they are supposed to be dramatic. Everything else is just a dot release, a bug fix or a minor tweak. I just don't see the upside to transitioning thousands of machines to this. I don't see the PURE advantages of it.
You're not a cynic, but rather, an idiot. You're explicitly choosing to ignore/bash what you see instead of considering what its giving you, and how it can improve your situation. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it definately shows that Microsoft is listening to its customers, and its addressing complaints. Folks gave similar pissing and moaning at my company when Linux started to become a player, but after reviewing a couple assorted enterprise/professional products, SuSE and RedHat now have a place where I work. Are they cup of tea? Not really for my position, but I see and understand what it's good for even though I recieve no "PURE advantages."
So far, the quality of the beta has given my company's IT department no reason for hesitation to allow the release into our network. Of course, once it is GA, it will be reviewed again before incorportation (they're an awesome staff) -- but I'm liking what I've seen and done so far in our test lab.
Re: Gross Distortion of Reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Though I'll definitely admit that file permissions can be a bitch to deal with if you want to share stuff between different users/computers, or (heaven forbid) try to recover files from a physically damaged drive (I had the joyous experience of doing that; that's why I've only had this current installation of XP for six months or so). Or if you like to use naughty little programs like World of Warcraft, Neverwinter Nights, or WinAmp (had to deal with this problem a while back; dunno if they fixed it by now) which assume they can write to their directory in Program Files whenever they want.
Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason? (Score:2, Insightful)
What DRM does Vista have that XP doesn't, besides the ability to run protected HD-DVD and BR discs? (And why would you want Microsoft to eliminate the ability to play such discs?)
Re:Vista works (Score:3, Insightful)
They (Microsoft) ought to implement a DE-activate feature to facilitate migration, upgrades, and license transfers, like Adobe did in their creative suite. Adobe is the ONLY major software company I've seen get an activation scheme right.
Windows also needs to drop the DRM and stop sucking the MPAA's privates. If a user has a high-resolution VGA or DVI display, the machine should output ALL content at the correct resolution, NOT downsample paid-for content. Implementing that idiotic DRM is a surefire way to guarantee that professional "pirates" will be taking a much larger slice of the content market in the very near future.
Re:Runs flawlessly (Score:3, Insightful)
Upon further investigation, it appears that Beta 2 is based on 5381, but not 5381 itself; 5381 is a pre-beta 2 release.
So my original point stands that the screenshot is of an old version. However, there is a new problem that destroys the overall point that I was trying to make. The problem is that Beta 2 itself has only been out for two days.
So what we can conclude from this is:
1) He hasn't been running beta 2 for three weeks flawlessly
2) He has probably been running build 5381 for three weeks
3) 5381 crashed
4) Thus what he says he's been running for three weeks flawlessly hasn't been so flawless
Moderators are free to mod down my post; I deserve it.
(There IS one more possibility though, which is that Windows caught and logged the error internally, but fixed itself before any effect was visible to the user.)
Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:3, Insightful)
But here's the thing.
I don't really care all the much about the operating system. Probably not a ton of people do. I cdo are about the applications. Firefox on Linux, Firefox on Windows. Cool. Open Office on Windows. Open Office on Windows. Cool.
If I need to put another Gig of RAM into my computer and soup up the CPU to run the exact same applications that I run now, then I feel that the OS has gone from being an OS to being an application.
Right now I can do cool transparent window things with my two Nvidea 6800 Ultra's and Nvidea's window application manager. I can do alot of nifty things tha Vista does already with some add-ons.
I don't know that a few file system and window manager upgrades are worth hardware upgrades. And you can already get the window manager stuff.
I mean, maybe i'm way off base here. I still run WindowMaker when I use Linux instead of KDE or Gnome. If I want a GUI file manager, I use one. But for goodness sake ... if you need to add another GB of RAM to your machine just to optimally run the OPERATING SYTEM, which in theory should be little more than a kernel, device drivers, a file system, and window manager ... then Vista seems more like a MAJOR application more than something that you just use to launch your applications.
I'd rather have my apps, data, files, etc using the memory. Not the OS.
Or maybe I am just getting to be an old set-in-my way geezer now.
I just don't get the hype. And I am a "fanboy" of both Linux and Windows. I use both very extensively. There just isn't anything overtly compelling in Vista to me.
That being said, I'm sure I will be forced to get it at some point.
Re: Mod MS Employee Down (again) (Score:5, Insightful)
Everytime I've got one of the desktops I support running something that requires a dip into admin priveleges for the apps that can't run in the user space, the OS is going to ask for verification.
Given this will be *very* annoying, I'm guessing there's a little checkbox to "remember" this decision. Lo and behold! The system is running in Admin!
So let me see if I understand this: You are discussing a "problem" with an approach that you are speculating might work a certain way, on a feature and operating system you haven't ever used?
There has been a lot of work to improve the admin problem in Vista, and there's probably more that you don't see than what you do. Please don't make up your mind on what the drawbacks of the approaches we've taken until you've at least tried - and maybe understand - them.
turn the PC into a DRM'd set-top box.
No rational person thinks this, but suppose anyway that that is our secret plan, and that we're going to come up with some scheme whereby apps can't run unless they're magically signed or some other scheme.
Guess what - we already have that, in a few forms even (i.e. SAFER, SRP, etc), and the majority of people don't use it, and don't want to, and even if we did have it, there will still need to be a box that says "run anyway". So "turning the PC into a DRM set-top box" doesn't even solve the problem you're suggesting exists (which, in reality, doesn't exist, fyi)
Re:I'm running it to post this! :) (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because your employer has a lousy track record of killing off bugs from release to release doesn't mean everyone else has the same problem.
Of course, that's "irrelevant" to you, since you like the taste of your particular koolaid. Enjoy!
Re:I'm running it to post this! :) (Score:2, Insightful)
As for "broken" - I think that's sort of a loaded term. It's true that in 10.3 and earlier there were issues with Finder windows (and the like) being slow to update. I have no idea what Apple did, but that particular issue has completely changed for the better in 10.4. Give it a try.
My point as to security was to mirror your "method" of ignoring improvements that have come out in recent years. Security in XP (as originally released) was atrocious. It's improved greatly since then. But if I purchased a machine with the original XP, by your logic, I could assume it hadn't improved. Not only that, but I could announce it to the world.
The main gist of my disagreement with you is that you're comparing an OS that won't be released for half a year (or more), with one that's been out of date for over a year. And yet you seem to think it's a valid comparison. Compare with 10.4 if you like (even though 10.5 may well be out by the time Vista is), but to compare with 10.3 is just silly.
Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood? (Score:1, Insightful)
sorry to rant, but i keep seeing posts saying that this is the reason you shouldn't get Vista and it's just not true at all. if you don't want the fancy GUI, don't turn it on. Here is the fix for the complaint "it runs slow when i do ____", don't do that then, it's not rocket science is it and it's definitely not required, in fact it's more than likely even easier to change than changing from KDE to WindowMaker (although i have only read about Vista, not beta'd it, but the above is stated in numerous places and in WinXP, changing from using themes for the GUI to without themes is one click in the services control panel). all that being said, the OS i'm looking forward to is the next Ubuntu until my Windows games require Vista.