Windows Vista RC1 Impresses Critics 632
bradley fellows writes "Early feedback from testers already using Windows Vista RC1 (Release Candidate 1) report that the OS is more stable than expected, which bodes well for Microsoft's plan to have Vista out according to its current schedule." Mind you, "expected" is relative given how many users regard their frequent crashes as normal operation for a PC.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just as confused with that statement. I don't know the numbers but I'm assuming the people that would be testing RC1 weren't running Win9x and as such wouldn't be thinking that "frequent crashes" were normal.
Hell, I haven't had XP or 2000 crash in years.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here, and I've had my computer on practically 24/7 (some nights turning it off when there's nothing to torrent). Those who claim XP is unstable are nothing more than trolls, or are running it on faulty hardware.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every computer I've ever had, whether running windows, mac os, linux or freebsd has crashed periodically. On the other hand, a crash every couple of weeks isn't the end of the world for most people. I'll gladly take a nice OS that lets me be productive over one that never crashes.
And for what it's worth, what counts as a 'crash' for slashdot folk is not what counts as a 'crash' for most people. My mom probably has to restart her computer all the time to fix problems, whereas you and I might be savvy enough to restart the Finder/Explorer and keep on doing our thing.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
The MS bashers hate to admit it, but MS really got it right with Windows 2000. I was hugely skeptical beforehand, but I changed my mind quickly. I never had a reason to buy XP, except for the family computer where compatibility with old games was very important and Windows 98 was an unending source of pain. However, I've bought laptops with XP installed and I don't have a problem with it either.
Having said that though, I think Explorer is horrible. It's the buggiest piece of software MS has ever released and it never gets better. IE6 used to lock up on me on a daily basis, but I haven't used it regularly in 3 years or more, so I couldn't say if it's improved. Outlook 2000 was awful to use. I always liked Outlook Express, but Outlook 2003 was orders of magnitude slower with a large database (and let's not forget the hidden "feature" that mail stores over about 1.5GB get corrupted).
These days, I still use Windows, but I use very little MS software on top of Windows, and I have a system that is very usable, stable and reliable. However, Vista has yet to offer me one compelling reason to upgrade. The new network stack sounds intriguing, but not for $200 plus the huge performance hit because I don't have 2GB of RAM. If I upgrade anything, I'll move to Linux and run Windows 2000 in a VM for those apps I can't live without.
Or maybe I'll buy a Mac.
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I totally agree. The only time I've ever had a bluescreen was due to faulty drivers, Windows
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
My Athlon 64 running Ubuntu would occassionally lock up, but after switching the power supply with a better one it's completeley solid. Even when maxing out the RAM and processor for a few days. With the old power supply it would occassionally end up locking up before the process was done. If anyone's curious, I used the origial power supply for about 4 months and the current one for about 8.
I've encountered this with many $300 computers as well.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the other evidence:
Constant mentions of "Clippy", which has been turned off by default for ages. (Yes, you can still turn on "Clippy" in Office 2003... you know why? A lot of people LIKE it! God-forbid Microsoft keep a feature people like!)
Mentions of Microsoft Bob. If I posted about how much Red Hat sucked in 1994, you'd get turned into -1 Flamebait instantly here. If you post about how much Microsoft Bob sucked, you'll get a +5 Informative.
Mentions of things that no regular Windows user would deal with, for instance: auto-correct and auto-format in Word. If you used Windows for longer than 20 seconds, you'd realize you can TURN OFF those features if you don't like them. (And again, a lot of people DO like them, that's why Microsoft keeps them on.)
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No matter how inexperienced the user i have never EVER heard of anything but curses when it comes to clippy.
It was an idiotic idea then, it is an idiotic idea now, the developers should be banned from the industry and the managers should be all fired.
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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Why is you OS "fragging" your storage. I always thought "frag" was a bad thing when it happened to you, but for some reason Windows users find it acceptable that there OS is "fragging" them regularly. I just chose to use a OS that either does not "frag" my system, or is stable enough that being "fragged" doesn't have any noticeable effect.
Yes I know what fragmentation is, but haven't had a fragmentation problem since I stopped using Windows (specifically FAT, though NTFS isn't that much better).
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I use Windows 2000, XP and 2003 versions and various Linux systems in about equal measure, but never fail to be impressed by how stable and tolerant of external factors (e.g. power failures) ext3 is in comparison to NTFS. The "drive full / fragmented" slowdown affect with NTFS / FAT32 is also much more obvious than on ext3.
Part of the "general slowness" is no doubt due to using an on-access virus checker on Windows but not Linux, but the "drive full" thing certainly isn't.
That said, I don't think that "regular crashes" under normal use have been a feature of computer systems this century. It's about time that myth was recgnised for what it is.
Why do I need to defrag? (Score:5, Insightful)
But recently we got an industrial control system from an outside supplier that runs in XP. The manufacturer has given very strict instructions on how to operate that system, such as definitely no connections to outside networks, defragment the drive regularly, and reboot at least once every week. I asked them why the reboots and they answered Because. Or Else. The only official answer I got was that XP needs regular defrags and a reboot at least once a week to work reliably.
Why? Why reboot? Why defrag? Why doesn't Linux need defrags? As a matter of fact, I don't even know how to defrag a Linux drive. I don't know how to defrag a VAX/VMS drive. What have I been missing?
Re:Why do I need to defrag? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is Linux software never "Buggy"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I see. Then let me ask another question: why is the software running in any Microsoft OS always so "buggy", if the OS is not to blame? How is it that I can download and install random applications from Sourceforge and run it in Linux without problem, yet XP seems to have so many problems in running applications from one of the leading aerospace companies in the world, which is the case
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I've only experienced odd problems if i don't do a "real" reboot (i use the hibernation function) in over 40 days, at which point things seem to randomly not work properly, such as programs not opening when i click them, though these go away after a reboot.
What is an OS again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about that for a moment. Consider exactly how software should ever be capable of crashing the operating system, the very platform on which it is running. If poorly-written (or malicious) applications can crash the entire operating system, the operating system is quite simply not doing its job.
Re:What is an OS again? (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Try this [wikipedia.org] on a standard Linux install, but not on someone else's box, or where you mind the box being brought to its knees. You don't have to be root.
Re:What is an OS again? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is an OS again? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Things are getting better on the "install == reboot" assumption front.
More and more ISVs are realizing that, unless they're installing drivers for hardware that isn't hot-pluggable, or specifically replacing existing files in %WINDIR%\system32, a reboot isn't necessary. Some of that is Microsoft's fault, because the sick, twisted coupling of Explorer.exe and Internet Explorer forces a reboot to detect plugins that may be installed. Mostly, though, it's been on the ISVs, because the people responsible for
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows crashes. Macs crash. I've seen Windows machines without problems and those with plenty. Macs lock up and crash too. Does mine? It did, till I got the logic board repaired. Did my PC? No. Did my parents' PC? Yes. Every system will have different results depending on it's users and enviornment. That's it.
*is tired of spin-doctoring and blind loyalty*
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting spin (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Interesting spin (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Interesting spin (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprise, surprise. Despite being a big name in the anti-malware business, Symantec seems to put out CPU hogging, slow, virus-insensitive crap. I tend to replace Norton with Avast! on most computers that I work with, since Avast! is faster and actually seems to detect viruses better than Norton.
-b.
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It's ridiculous when I can't write a file from OSX to my friend's NTFS external HDD. The filesystem could be fantastic, a joy to use and full of useful features, but if there's not full interoperability with all platforms, then I don't consider it very good.
Note: I'm not just pointing the finger at NTFS, other filesystems have problems on the i
What exactly makes NTFS not a "real filesystem"? (Score:3, Informative)
Can ntfs both journal metadata and data?
Re:Interesting spin (Score:5, Insightful)
I would tend to agree with you - mostly. On a properly maintained machine I'd agree - except for NTFS file system errors (often caused by the bundled third party drive management utils like the "MS" defrag tool).
Now, on an "improperly" maintained machine, I find an equal amount of bluescreens and crashes to be due to virii and spyware that's corrupted an XP install/taken over critical services/etc.
The question is, should we not count those in the total because the end-users should be "properly" maintaining their machines (ie: patches, AV and AS software, a real firewall, etc) - or do we count those towards the total # of crashes/BSODs and hold MS responsible because they released an OS that had so many unresolved issues (after all, many of the buffer overflow/underrun issues have existed in the code since the NT4/2000 days)?
The unfortunate thing about this debate is that depending on what you believe the end-user/MS is responsible for, no matter what you assert, you are correct (based off your assertations).
I'm not arguing either side, btw. I'm just pointing out that either answer is "right" depending on the base premise behind it - which many here and elsewhere differ on (and is yet another debate in it's own right).
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I'll grant you that well enough - the problem is, with the average user, that would happen on just about any system that became sufficiently popular.
Release Candidate should be stable! (Score:3, Interesting)
Alpha means: "We're still working on it, but it kind of works, so go play with it."
Beta means: "Nothing major's going to change, but we want you to test it and help us shake out the bugs."
Release candidate means: "None of our Beta testers or developers can break it anymore."
If bugs are found in rc1, you fix them and put out rc2. You keep doing this until an rc -- no matter how late, could be rc15 -- survives for a fixed amount of time (usually measured in months) without any bug
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I see. So lets just shut down and erase the memtest86 project, shall we? After all, the BIOS should be able to detect faulty hardware.
From the documentation [memtest86.com]
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Wait till the quirks (in this case - huge gaping holes) are
worked out before investing in that new $3000 computer to
run Vista.
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Being that new stuff gets bought all the time, I guess there are many kids/adults who had parents that did not teach them this vital lesson in life.
Re:Interesting spin (Score:4, Interesting)
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Nothing to see here. Move along.
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This is, of course, the default result of how Microsoft has designed their software over the past ten or twenty years. You could argue that this is 20/20 hindsight (which is probably somewhat true), or the fault of those thousands of hardware and software vendors who wrote for Microsoft.
Of course, Microsoft could have gone the closed route that Apple used, but it seems that would have cost
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Since I have been using XP I do not regard frequent crashes as a normal operation and everytime it has occured it was due to hardware such as bad RAM. XP has been rock solid in my experience, I actually have only had to reinstall the whole OS once since I first installed it when it was released 5 years ago, and the reason I had to reinstall was because the hard disk I had it on went bad. As long as you have half a brain and take rea
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Slashdot Beta Testing? (Score:4, Funny)
Taco, please tell us you are not testing Vista RC1 for Microsoft!
pithy comment necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to bash Vista, bash it on something more interesting and true like for instance DRM issues. Windows bashing might be a past time on slashdot, but you would think by now people would have refined their techniques beyond "Windoze is teh crashering thing, shnarf!".
Re:pithy comment necessary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:pithy comment necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, of course, God knows 3rd party apps cannot run in kernel mode.
I've seen a lot of machines run XP, and all the bluescreens I've encountered have been due to a bad wifi card driver written by a company that had gone bust, and an IT department sniffer app (Centennial's Discovery) that would run once a day and invariably blue-screen if a virtual PC was running at the same time.
(And these things are pretty easy to troubleshoot if you bother to look at the crash log files, heck there's even a tool for it [microsoft.com] these days.)
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Also I very rarely have to reboot because of 3rd party app problems, I generally just ctrl+alt+del to sysinternals excellent free process explorer and kill the offendin
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Shitty 3D drivers and hardware is not MS's fault. I dont call Linus a bastard because tux racer doesnt work on my old HP box. In fact, MS has done a surprisingly decent job of helping push out stable drivers with their signed drivers program. Their NT based products are actually pretty nice. The Dos/Win95 stuff, not so much. Most crashes nowadays can be traced to poor drivers or failing hardware.
Of course this ignores drm, wga, licensing, costs, bundled app
Mod parent down... (Score:2)
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Have you ever seen an article about MS getting sued because they included something that was previously a "third-party software accessory"? (WMP over realplayer, etc)
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For anybody to be arguing that the number of updates you get to an operating system is how you should be judging it, is completely stupid, really, really dumb. The linux 2.6 kernel has had 94 released patches against it since December 03 (goto kernel.org if you don't believe me), or getting close to an average of 3x per
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What would impress me (Score:2)
I won't hold my breath.
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You can't tell me that your registry bloat, poor paging, and slow boots aren't slowing you down, you're just putting up with it.
That's because it is such a pain in the ass to reinstall Windows and your application base now that we'll put up with the crappy performance Windwos gives us after a couple of years.
98 was a breeze, specify the ini file with the Product Key and 30 minutes later, you're in.
Load video card drivers, sound card, reboot.
Now, you're
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Its nice knowing your system will do what you want it to, when you want it to; and more importantly not do what you don't want it to, when it wants to! I can say that in my experience my system does very little that I don't specify and don't want. Do I have a unique experience in this? No. However the most vocal of users are generally th
Ye, ready... (Score:2, Insightful)
Followed swiftly by:
By the same writer. Methinks he doesn't really understand the term "Release Candidate".
Taco, what are you smoking? ;) (Score:3, Insightful)
Overall I think a well-kept XP box is very stable indeed, and I'm not expecting a bit less than that from Vista.
just my 0.03(*)
(*) adjusted for inflation
Will existing hardware support break? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is the driver format the same as before or has it changed again? I wonder how many hardware manufacturers are going to need to port their drivers and how much hardware will break again this new release. Also, while these hardware manufacterers are at it, they might give a thought to setting up a cross-platform codebase for their drivers, which will benefit everyone in the long run.
What crashes? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, up until SuSE 10.1, Linux and its various programs have been far more unstable than Windows XP. Again, that's not counting viruses and security problems. Almost every Linux distribution I've ever installed ended up going down in flames because of silly bugs, unexplained SIGSEV 11 windows and hardware compatibility issues. Try relying on many of the communities built up around Linux and you're often met with the elitist attitude that quickly turns most people off.
I'm not trying to troll here (although I'm sure I'll be modded that way because I realize many of you just don't want to hear all of this), but the last line in this story provoked me. I'm trying to help the Linux community with this commentary, not flame it. I want to believe in Linux, but the issues on most distros boggles my mind... how can something so buggy earn a reputation of reliability?
Extra points for people who point out that the editor said "PC" and not "Windows" when talking about crashes. We all know what they really meant.
Re:What crashes? (Score:5, Insightful)
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My biggest beef with X Linux distro is that it's a painful job to get it to interoperate with other computers in many ways. Setting up Samba isn't one-touch like it is in Windows, and don't even get me started on WPA. I run Linux-only on my main machine and FreeBSD-only on my work machine. I might get an unexplained error once every couple of months, but it definitely feels longer. Meanwhile, my wife's Windows box crashe
If you're getting a lot of sigsegv 11s (Score:2)
Come on, editors (Score:5, Interesting)
Submit to: Digg Slashdot Del.icio.us
I clicked on the link to Slashdot, and it creates a template for the exact submission that we are reading. Why not to cut some corners and, instead of requiring an user to click on the link, to subscribe slashdot to the rss feed of that site and automatically post the news here. Mod me down all you want, but accepting a story created by the very own site that posted the article and not even adding anything meaningful to it is way too much laziness, even for slashdot
The Emperor's Clothes (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, rather, it is more of a, "Microsoft will get it right in the end." No matter how many times a network goes down due to a minor piece of malware, no matter how many support calls are generated by spyware/adware -- so bad that it has reached the point that techs would rather re-image than try to repair, no matter how many crashes and instability issues, people blindly defend, support and believe in Microsoft. And I'm talking about veteran, senior, experiences IT folks.
Even though they know to keep the big money on a mainframe Unix box, even though they know that it makes more sense to run a hardened Cisco device instead of a Windows-based network node, they are devoted to the Windows workstation and the Windows mid-server solution.
And, if you dare promote open source -- firefox, linux, apache, sendmail -- solutions you are darn near ostracized. It has reached the point now that I follow, in-line, rather than risk the flames.
I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but people tolerate Microsoft like no other company. If any other vendor's products barely hiccups, there is talk, quickly, of replacing it -- and they do, but Windows is as fixed within the corporate world as Everest. Thoughts of removing it being akin to getting rid of desk chairs. It simply will not happen.
It has reached, IMO, a place where every big, corporate business wants to be -- embedded to the point of religion....
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I work in a fairly small company, but it didn't take ANY EFFORT AT ALL to convince the management and owners that Windows was bad. Most of the tech department uses linux (1 Mac) and all the servers are linux. All of customer service is Mac. We have 3 machines that we can remote into if we absolutely HAVE to use IE to do our job. Once IE runs on Mac, we'll be investing in that CodeWeavers software heavily and ditching
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From your comment, it is obvious that you do not understand. You have refused to work for them, they still use Windows. They will continue to get decent people.
You're happy, and I'm happy for you. Others work for those corps and are happy too
Re:The Emperor's Clothes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Emperor's Clothes (Score:4, Funny)
Every big corporate business with aspirations to be evil sees Microsoft as a comrade. Of course they want to do business with them.
of course its stable, its brand new (Score:3, Interesting)
If anyone wants to download it... (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Vista RC1 [windowsvista.com] has been made available to the general public, with keys available here [microsoft.com].
There are various [winsupersite.com] websites [theinquirer.net] that report this build is far more stable than previous versions, but as Microsoft themselves have said [technet.com] "quality will continue to improve. We'll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM"
These builds are set to expire on June 1st 2007
Re:Holy Crap! (Score:5, Funny)
It is Stable But... (Score:3, Informative)
The real issue is has M$ the fixed the things that needed fixing. For instance the "annoy-the-user-to-death" security model [digg.com] and the undocumented symlink thing [arstechnica.com] that even as administrator gives you a unfixable security warning when you try to make changes or follow the link.
What's Expected (Score:3, Insightful)
So... all we had to do was ask? (Score:2, Insightful)
LeBlanc said Microsoft has made performance and stabilisation tweaks that testers requested after Beta 2.0, and the latest test version of the OS - which could be the final one before Vista is released to manufacturing - is solid enough for regular use.
I'm baffled. Does this mean that the performance and stability issues in earlier builds (and XP) were only there because we forgot to request them to be removed/fixed?
Looks like it's time to make a Christmas list of other things that MS should have done
yay (Score:5, Funny)
Experience Index (Score:5, Interesting)
Nevermind that it handles XGL/Compiz very, very well in Linux, for some reason it's not up to par for the "optimal experience" in displaying windows and playing very basic games.
Semantics (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't necessarily say a lot.
Now I don't use any MS Software any more but it'd be nice if rather than hype, speculation and derision there was some constructive discussion out there in the main stream media so that people could decide what to do when Vista is released, maybe not yet but just before or even after the release.. Oh except it will arrive on 90% of PC's pre installed so it will gain a dominant market share in 2-5 years regardless of reviews, hype, bugs, features, security or anything else..
What's the point. I use Linux, some use BSD, Windows, Mac OS or whatever (please add your own preference here). Regardless of how easy it is to install an OS, most people never will, so most people will stick to what their PC comes with, so all this talk will have a tiny effect on the general populate.
So at the end of the day its not important how stable, secure, feature packed, or "cool" this piece of kit is, is it?
The question is how do you change that?
Bah
I'm sold! (Score:5, Funny)
That settles it! Come on Vista, my credit-card is ready!
Comparisons to XP... (Score:2, Insightful)
Please Stop These Windows Vistas Posts (Score:2, Insightful)
Issues with Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, there's a difference between the system not crashing and the system working well. If the system gets infested by malware, but keeps doing what the user wants it to be doing, the user may not notice anything wrong, but it's still a bad system. Microsoft seems to be very serious about improving this in Vista, introducing features like address space layout randomization, which helps a lot against certain types of attack, and WHICH MANY LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS STILL DON'T INCLUDE! (I'm a long time OpenBSD user, and I don't sleep soundly at night without the pro-active security measures that make buffer overruns (one of the most common classes of vulnerability) nearly impossible to carry out).
The main problem that people around me have with Windows these days is usability. The knowledgeable folks complain about the constant stream of patches, virus scanner updates, the need to periodically scan the system for malware, etc. and the fact that they have to do this not only on their own systems, but also on those of their non-knowledgeable friends and family. The non-knowledgeable complain about the difficulty of certain tasks: getting the new printer to work, getting pictures off the digital camera and on a CD-R, not being able to figure out how to tell the machine which of the available connections to use, etc.
What I see when I look at Windows is lots of ugly grey boxes with christmas tree decorations around them, and about the only thing that is consistant among applications is that questions will have [Ok] and [Cancel] for answers, being less than informative about what's actually going to happen when you click either button (and yes, users do get confused by that). And there's no package manager that provides a single point to get all your software updates from, let alone one that automatically tracks dependencies.
I notice this, because on other systems (OS X, GNOME, KDE), these situations are noteworthy; typically, the system has some good looking theme applied, applications are built on a toolkit that handles sensible layout of widgets, and buttons have text on them that tells you what's going to happen when you click that button (thank you, Apple, for your Human Interface Guidelines). Also, my printer and scanner are immediately recognized and usable when I plug them in, and so is my webcam under Linux. Other people have reported similar experiences (the story is different for wireless network cards, but the situation seems to be improving rapidly). Depending on what system you use, all this may or may not be the case (many, many Linux distros suck at usability), you may or may not have a good package manager (OS X doesn't, for example), and there may or may not be a constant flood of updates (Ubuntu Dapper has one, Debian stable doesn't).
Alright, this is long enough. I'm not going to talk about anything else.
RC1 build 5600 on my hardware.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been running great for me. I installed it onto a separate IDE drive, thinking I would be right back over to XP after a couple days like I was with Beta 2, but thus far I am quite impressed with what I am seeing.
Note: I did disable the user access control. I don't have to see the annoying popups flashing my screen like I did before, also I am running on modern hardware. (Athlon 4400+ X2, 2 gigs ram, ATI 1600XT). I downloaded the ATI Vista RC1 drivers and they seem to work fine.
The performance doesn't feel degraded like Beta 2 felt, from XP. I have all the graphics options cranked up and it feels snappy and responsive.
Programs that I use frequently work great. I spend a lot of time doing Java dev on Linux server, so I have Putty open w/20 browser windows. My email client is GMail and I use IM clients from most of the networks. Office 03 runs fine, haven't had a glitch yet with that. On my free time I do play World of Warcraft, and once I disabled the UAC and installed the ATI drivers, it works great. I can tab out without any problems, and I have fewer problems tabbing in and out of the game than before. I don't know if it's my imagination , but the game actually feels faster and I have less stutters when tabbing in from another program. (I think the process affinity would attach to the second core.. not sure what exactly was causing it in XP, but I haven't yet run into that problem).
I disabled the Sleep functionality over time, the monitor will turn off after an hour.. but when I leave the 'sleep after x-time' , it has a problem waking up. It's likely drivers or something on my hardware that's causing problems.
I know this post will probably get modded down, as it's not a 'I hate Microsoft Ubuntu4tehwin!!11' , but I would go so far to say that I will likely just keep using RC1 until Vista ships, and I don't think I will have a problem going out and buying the OS once it hits the shelves. (OEM of course!)
If I can give one word of advice, is to disable the UAC until programs your running frequently have had time to test their own QC against running in a more protected environment.
BTW, I grabbed a copy of RC1 off a Torrent and installed it with my Beta2 key without any problems.
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Having said that, XP is the most stable OS MS has ever released and it is heads and shoulders above their previous efforts. It's still no where near Linux for server stability, but it is certainly very useable for casual desktop and gamer use.
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If you want to run Windows on a server, choose a version with Server in the name. XP (both flavours) is a desktop OS.
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I bet that Vista would just reboot silently - just like 2k/XP does by default. I managed to "reboot" 2k/XP that way three times in first hour after installation - only later I have found that error screen is simply disabled.
Windows gathered pretty much of bad publicity with its BSODs - so by default they do not show them anymore. And from earlier betas I have seen now it is "RSOD" - "red screen of death" - since error background now is red.
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Agreed: BSoD's are pretty rare now. It's the *other* problems that suck, like Windows allowing 3rd party programs to grab 99% of CPU by default and slow the machine to a crawl, and the fact that Windows installs older than 6 months are often slow as molasses until you remove all of the malware, defrag, and figure