Windows Vista - Not So Bad?

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.'"

Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[yagu]

From the very first paragraph of the article:

Up in Redmond, Microsoft developers proudly talk of dogfooding the software they write. Running beta software is the only way to learn what works and what doesn't. A copy of Windows Vista running on a test machine in the corner isn't likely to get a serious workout. To find the pain points -- another popular Microsoft expression -- you have to run that beta code on the machine you use every day.

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees? That doesn't sound like "eating their own dogfood". As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.

Since Lowest User Access (LUA) is a huge issue around tightening Windows security, running Vista within Microsoft means little around testing security. And, unless they're shipping Vista with defaults of non-admin user accounts, the beta testing world isn't likely to bang on that code hard enough.

It's not clear from the article, nor do I know enough about the Vista beta (not about to try it on any of my machines...) whether the LUA concept is in play. Any beta testers out there care to weigh in?

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[feldsteins]

Jesus, do they actually use the acronym LUA? *shudder* It's just a vivid reminder that they make this stuff for corporate IT departments and not for me.

In any case...

[BrokenHalo]

"Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"

Three weeks?

Be still, my heart.

I've got an old Linux box here that has nearly three years

uptime...

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Asphalt]

Vista looks cool. Very, very cool.

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

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Tackhead]

> Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

Just two things to say about dogfood:

1) Food is what goes into a dog, not what comes out of a dog. (Corollary: That which comes out of a dog isn't food.)
2) It's coming out of the end of the dog into which food doesn't go. (Corollary: Unless you're into that sort of thing, in which case, we don't wanna know.)

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[boldtbanan]

Have you ever watched a dog? They eat their own shit/vomit all of the time, just like MS.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[AgentUSA]

I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[mgv]

> Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

Just two things to say about dogfood:

1) Food is what goes into a dog, not what comes out of a dog. (Corollary: That which comes out of a dog isn't food.)
2) It's coming out of the end of the dog into which food doesn't go. (Corollary: Unless you're into that sort of thing, in which case, we don't wanna know.)

If you remain uncertain about point 2, a simple test will suffice.

Put your finger into the dog's mouth. If you cannot feel any teeth, then that isn't the mouth.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[CastrTroy]

Also, having the developers using Vista and having grandma use Vista are 2 entirely different things. I don't have any problems running windows 2k and keeping it free from viruses/spyware/bloat. Yet this seems to be the biggest problem for home users.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[EvanED]

There's one very important thing that you're missing: just because the current employees have admin priviledges doesn't mean that they aren't running with LUA, it just means they have the OPTION of running as admin.

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:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[VertigoAce]

With Vista, even admin users don't run with elevated permissions. I'm logged in as an administrator right now. If I try to create a new text file at C:\ I get an access denied message. If I click the button to continue with the operation, I get a second dialog box warning me that a program is about to do something that requires higher permissions. This then gives me the option to continue or block the operation.

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.

Yep

[bmajik]

I partially agree with you, and because of my unix background, I am running vista as a non-priviledged user.

There are two aspects of this. The first is that, if you truly are running as a low-priv user, you need to get elevation prompts at the correct times to be able to live life. This works pretty well, although I keep a cmd.exe window running as local admin sitting around sometimes.

The other aspect of this, however, is that in the real world, a lot of people just dont run as admin, and a lot of apps just can't. So a bunch of work has gone into making admins "virtual admins", so to speak, where operations that actually require priviledge use still involve user interaction/confirmation.

In that sense, people running "as admin" are getting the customer experience - and internally, the way the "did you really want to do this, Mr. Admin?" stuff works is passionately debated :)

My opinion is that people are complaining about the wrong problem - as we continue to eliminate things that require priviledge use, the amount that we have to care about putting up with a just-in-time priviledge escalation model goes down.

Re: Mod MS Employee Down (again)

[bmajik]

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)

Microsoft IS Eating Their Own Dogfood

[Quantam]

I disagree with your assessment of the situation. Microsoft employees running as admin means two things. Of course it means that they don't have to worry about programs that require admin (or have bugs if not used in admin mode). But even in this case, your hostility is misdirected. MS produces some of the programs most capable of performing correctly in limited user situations I've ever seen (in fact, I can't think of any notable bugs in MS programs when running as limited user, apart from obviously administrative programs, like chkdsk or defrag). That's why I was completely indifferent to the news that MS employees might have to run as limited users: they already know how to play nicely in the limited user situation. What REALLY needs to happen is that third-party developers who write these steaming pile of shit programs need to be forced to use limited user mode. There's absolutely no reason some of these programs (Intuit's It'sDeductable comes readily to mind) need to be admin.

However, running as admin opens them up to all the nasty exploits and viruses (especially if they're using IE), those being probably the biggest blunder on Microsoft's part. As a limited user, a virus can delete your MP3s and porn. As admin, a virus can reformat your entire hard drive, install a rootkit, etc. If that isn't eating your own dog food, I don't know what is.

Sorry this post is a bit scatterbrained. I'm in a pretty big hurry :P

Re: Gross Distortion of Reality

[Quantam]

This would be Windows XP Pro on a stand-alone computer (my home computer), running Office 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 (I use those for all my university stuff, as well as my own amusement). Seriously, I've NEVER had to use runas to run a non-admin Microsoft program because it won't work properly on a limited user (yes, I'm defining installing new programs as admin stuff); ever. Though I must admit I've only tried running as a limited user on XP within the last couple years, and it could also help that I make sure I install the features of things like Office 2003 I need the first time around. Perhaps you could give some specific examples of major problems you've had.

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: Gross Distortion of Reality

[blincoln]

How about some evidence for your claim that Office doesn't run in a limited user account, buddy? Before you get too far ahead of yourself. I have it on 250 computers, all running as a limited user account (and no, no domain-- we're Netware), and I've never encountered any problems related to permissions.

I'll see your 250 computers with no domain and raise you 10,000+ 2000 SP4 and XP Pro SP2 machines on a domain with non-admin users running Office 2000 and 2003 with no issues related to the lack of admin rights.

GGP is correct - MS is *very* good at making sure their modern apps follow the guidelines for working for non-admins. Almost every other "enterprise" software company is not.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Otter]

As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.

They're not all running with admin access, as I understood the story, just the developers. The whole thing sounds like the usual struggle between programmers and engineers wanting everything exactly the way they want it the moment they want it, and the sysadmins who want to keep them from breaking things. You get that on Macs, Unix, VMS, or anything else.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[jamesl]

MS has over 60,000 employees and not all are programmers, developers, engineers, testers etc. Those that have no need to run as admin shouldn't. Their feedback on how Vista performs in a non-admin environment is valuable also.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[TheNetAvenger]

Wasn't there a slashdot reference to an article in the last week where Microsoft "was considering" removing admin access from their employees? That doesn't sound like "eating their own dogfood". As long as they're all running Windows with the highest access levels (admin), they're potentially missing serious security problems.


I really don't want to debate this, and I think this is kind of trivial.

With that said, what you are referring to about allowing employees to have 'admin' rights on their systems is not a big issue up until this point, as the UAP system in Vista wasn't even close to a final stage until a month or two ago, and is still being tweaked to accomodate applications that were written by 3rd parties with the Win9x mindset.

What MS has been doing currently is NOT running their employees at Admin level in the sense I think you are refering to either. They have been running the computers in the new Vista Admin mode, which is like a 'default' user on OSX. Understand?

It is not the Root Admin level like previous versions of Windows. Even the actual administrator account on Vista doesn't get the conceptual 'root' access level.

What the other article was talking about was forcing MS users to not even get the 'admin' rights to make changes to their systems, which would include installing software, etc. This would be more like a hybrid between a User and Power User in the old Windows Security Groups.

Microsoft is turning down their employee 'admin' rights to ensure older applications that try to run with user credentials that never cared about NT security before still run properly in the restricted level of access.

There is no big story on this, nor a big story on lack of security. Vista is bring the abstraction between administrator and root security, to a point that even exceeds most *nix environments, while still not making it too tough on users. Think of it like a combination of the way *nixes do security with a combination of having NO Root account whatsoever to ensure people will NEVER be running with higher priveledges than they should.

Re:Microsoft eating their own dogfood?

[Oztun]

4. Microsoft admits their products are only suitable for dogs and not for human consumption?

Runs flawlessly

[MarkByers]

Wow it runs on at least one computer. Excellent! Good job Microsoft.

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[daern]

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.

Works fine here.

Well, you did ask...

Re:Runs flawlessly

[Mayhem178]

Turns out the guy didn't really get it working, he just had this [ytmnd.com] taped to his laptop.

A great accomplishment

[Anonymous Coward]

ZDNet confirms it: Windows Vista is "not that bad". By attaining the coveted "not that bad" status, Microsoft has created the greatest operating system of their entire history.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[TheNetAvenger]

Wow it runs on at least one computer. Excellent! Good job Microsoft.

Anyone one else got it working yet? Maybe you can get your story posted to Slashdot too.


Well we have it running of several 'different' computers.

So I guess that proves they are even out doing Apple and OSX which only runs on about 6 different computers, right?

(Smile, it is a joke.)

Re:Runs flawlessly

[MarkByers]

Nah... to be fair they should post at least 30 stories about people getting it working, to be a fair represntativ sample.

Because you know, every time a program works as intended, it deserves a Slashdot story.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[gunnk]

Better yet, he claims it has been running flawlessly for three weeks, but the screenshot he posted:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19

indicates a system crash on 5/21.

Re:Runs flawlessly

[EvanED]

Hmm, so I see. I sort of retract what I said.

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 ru

Or, to put it more accurately

[RLiegh]

MS's checks from april and may cleared.

Article is really a collection of screenshots

[drinkypoo]

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:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

Yes, because Slashdot has never run a story of just screenshots of KDE, Gnome, a Linux Install program, or any other pre-release software.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[FidelCatsro]

That seems to imply that people around here don't find those articles just as annoying , and they do.
The only difference is that it is highly unlikely that there was any payment received for the reviews(to be a touch cynical).

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

The only difference is that it is highly unlikely that there was any payment received for the reviews(to be a touch cynical).

OK, as designated "shillboy", let me offer this advice to all -- If this article is pissing you off, you better just unplug the Internet for the next six months, because you head is going to fucking explode by the time Windows comes out.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[tehshen]

When Slashdot runs a story of screenshots of KDE, Gnome, a Linux Install program, it's usually when there's a new version out and screenshots are actually necessary.
This 'article' doesn't offer anything I haven't seen before. New GUI? Yep. That annoying security account thingy? Nothing new. Someone trying to make Vista seem better? Yes, still there.

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[NutscrapeSucks]

when there's a new version out and screenshots are actually necessary.

Well, this is apparenlty the first real beta version, it came out yesterday, and I hadn't seen any thing more than some trival stuff before this. So it's interesting to me. FWIW, I also like Linux screenshots

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[MarkByers]

To be fair it does try to explain what is new in Vista Forever compared to the earlier incarnations. The blurb is a little brief though and I wasn't exactly getting excited reading it, but then I am not the target market. I am sure some people get excited about the new true transparency effects, which is the only thing I can see that would make me upgrade (the continuous promises of upgrading to get more security sound good - but I no longer believe it).

the new Reliability Monitor, which sifts through event

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[gregbains]

To be fair to Microsoft in the screenshot it has 8 preset colours but also a transparency bar and a colour mixer to select your own settings, so it is dynamic, it just comes with some pre-picked ones to make it easier. See here [zdnet.com]

Re:Article is really a collection of screenshots

[MarkByers]

To be fair to Microsoft in the screenshot it has 8 preset colours but also a transparency bar and a colour mixer to select your own settings, so it is dynamic

So you're saying that I can choose any colour?

Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[pla]

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.

I haven't tried b2 yet, but from my experience with b1, I didn't so much have a problem with "stability" as the fact that it had nothing new that I wanted.

Not to say it doesn't have PLENTY of new ways to waste CPU and memory, as well as DRM-to-the-core, but I can't really say I consider those a reason to upgrade.


Rearranging the clicky-widgets doesn't make it "new", and taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved". Making it harder to pirate doesn't make it "secure". Throwing in an SQL server turned on by default might make it "biger", but not in a good way.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[SEMW]

>...taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved".

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

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[Golias]

Windows users are spoiled by the preceived "convenience" of always-on admin rights. Taking that away will create bitching from some of them, and I would agree with you that it's unfair, had Microsoft not lovingly made the bed in which they must now lie.

Re:Does "not too bad" count as a good reason?

[pla]

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 machine

You could quote my own posts on that topic back to me as well. :)

But I didn't mean that to refer to Vista (possibly) making users run as non-admin by default - I meant to refer to the entire Secure-Foo-Path nonsense (aka DRM) that Microsoft has seemingly chosen to embrace, thoroughly against the wishes of just about everyone exc

I agree

[theheff]

I have to agree with this post. I ran the April and May release quite a bit, and was extremely impressed. Simply put, Vista is eye candy. In the early betas Vista was almost identical to XP, it just looked a new skin and the same old OS, but the latest releases have really turned my head. It's easy to bash something new from MS and write bad reviews about how it won't install right on your Lenovo and such, but after I actually gave it a chance, I was thoroughly impressed by the performance and usability. I can't wait to see the final product.

Re:I agree

[eln]

Okay, so it's pretty, but what does it actually DO? I don't care what new skins they've come up with, I want to know what features work, what features don't work, which new features are useful, and which aren't. This thing has been out for almost a month, can't somebody write an actual in-depth review beyond "I could/couldn't get it to work on my laptop?"

Re:I agree

[MarkByers]

You don't get it. A skin doesn't look cool until Microsoft copies it.

Running smoothly?

[Devil's BSD]

He says it's running smoothly, but the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...
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:Running smoothly?

[bishiraver]

I love it. "Failure Type: OS Stopped Working." Real informative there!

Re:Running smoothly?

[jandrese]

That really gets to the crux of the matter. Window's current logging is utterly pointless. I have never _ever_ been able to track down a problem by looking at the system event log, which is extremely frustrating because it's the first place I look when Unix based systems have problems. For some reason no windows application (or driver) ever logs anything more informative than "permission denied--but I'm not going to tell you where" or "crashed". They will happily log umpteen zillion useless "everything'

Re:Running smoothly?

[NutscrapeSucks]

I have to say that MS must have enormous balls to add a "stability monitor" to Windows.

"Stability Index" is going to become the new "Uptime".

Re:Running smoothly?

[Vancorps]

Actually you're jumping to conclusions based on a picture. The mere fact that such items were logged tells you the system was functioning. If parts of it don't work well, its a beta, regardless the core stayed up and running along with the monitoring tools so it sounds like the user probably didn't even notice.

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 com

Re:Running smoothly?

[rjstanford]

He says it's running smoothly, but the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19 [zdnet.com]

From the link: "Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.)" Since the article and uptime comments were about Beta 2... I don't think you have a valid point. Good (almost) catch, though.

Re:Running smoothly?

[truthsearch]

According to that chart, his system is becoming less stable almost every day. Starting from a "10" on May 6 he's down to about a "6" on May 22. It looks like Vista Beta is all downhill.

Re:Running smoothly?

[darkmeridian]

From the article you linked:
"(Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.) "

Re:Running smoothly?

[SilicaiMan]

the screenshot of the stability monitor says otherwise...

From the comment above the image:

(Note: This screen is from build 5381, although the application looks identical in Beta 2.)

Java is broke

[acidrain69]

Java doesn't work. We run it on a machine with a projector in our conference room. It was looking good till we tried to join an online conference :)

Can't necessarily blame MS for Java though. Although I can blame them for trying to change the spec and the whole Sun-MS lawsuit fiasco.

Re:Java is broke

[pimpimpim]

Your company runs a Beta OS on the PC in your conference room? Maybe you misunderstood the word "Beta" for "eternal version" (Can happen if you've used google too much lately).

The proof is in the pudding

[Anonymous Coward]

Many reviewers wrote fawningly over Windows 95 back in the day. Their usage didn't happen to strike its biggest problems very hard. The test for Vista is when hundreds of millions of people are using it, not a few reviewers on their desktop and an odd laptop

The pudding and the vermin...

[Savage-Rabbit]

The test for Vista is when hundreds of millions of people are using it, not a few reviewers on their desktop...

That and how Vista measures up when the malware designers go to work on it.

...and an odd laptop.

The way the market is evolving Vista will probably end up being installed on more laptops than desktops.

Vista works

[Anonymous Coward]

Me and some of my coworkers have been running vista build 5308 and I just installed build 5381 on those machines and they have been running very well. The install was improved and the interface is running a lot smoother and the new ati beta drivers are working good too. It's also running directx 10 now compared to 9L in the last build. We also have Office 2007 Beta 2 running on it and that too is working very well, We have both machines on a 2003 active directory network with exchange. The UAC does get annoying when it keeps asking you if your sure you want to do things, but a quick skim through the local security policy solved that :-) All in all I'd say Beta 2 has improved greatly over the past few releases. The memory usage at least is way down. It was using about 750mbs on our machines. I am upset that an Athlon X2 4200, with 4 gigs of ddr-400, a sata2 80 gig drive, and an atix1300 with 265mb on the card only gets a 3 out of 5 on the stupid rating system. Especially when everything works smooth, including the 3d page flip. I do feel that the "minimum requirements" that microsoft posted are of course a joke but that's nothing new.

DX10, Uh no

[djohnsto]

You might have the DX10 runtime and software reference rasterizer on the system, but you are NOT running DX10 with an ATI X1300. DX10 is NOT backwards compatible with DX9 hardware. In order to run DX10, you WILL need to upgrade to a graphics card that isn't publicly available yet.

Re:Vista works

[Locutus]

I can see why it's going around that there's a GOOD chance that MS Windows 2007 will come later than Jan 2007. If they are still adding software to this 'kit' and they expect to have it pre-installed on millions of victims PC's( via OEM pre-install contracts ) then they've run out of time. If this was a feature freeze beta release they'd be pushing it.

And that rating thing, don't they show you where your system is getting 'dinged'? If not, it sounds like it'll take some huge machine to get a 4 or 5 rating.

Re:Vista works

[TheNetAvenger]

I am upset that an Athlon X2 4200, with 4 gigs of ddr-400, a sata2 80 gig drive, and an atix1300 with 265mb on the card only gets a 3 out of 5 on the stupid rating system. Especially when everything works smooth, including the 3d page flip. I do feel that the "minimum requirements" that microsoft posted are of course a joke but that's nothing new.


Don't worry about the rating you have, it will change.

The performance rating system is something that is still a work in progress. It is also something many have

Re:Vista works

[kimvette]

I like Windows 2000 a lot. I USED to like Windows XP, until I got fed up with the activation process. It sucks having to continually reactivate when making multiple hardware changes (if you work in a test environment it's very easy to trigger the need to reactivate). Aside from the constant phoning home XP requires, I like it. I just happen to like the freedom that Linux brings more, and I MUCH prefer Konqueror's fike management over Windows Explorer. Explorer sucks. Period.

They (Microsoft) ought to implem

I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

I was just thinking "i know i like it better, but really, what do i like better about it?"

Then something occured to me.

Right now, i am copying 4GB of files off a usb disk to a network share. The shell file copy stuff has been completely re-worked (shell file operations has always been something that i have hated)

In vista, you get an expand/collapse pane to get details of what it is doing, and it seems to happen in its own thread. The copy dialog window shows up as its own window that you can minimize/rest

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[Malc]

What no more staring at "2 minutes remaining" for four hours? A feature of Explorer I first came to love in NT4.

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[SensitiveMale]

Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to the control panel i want to go to.

Another feature stolen from OS X; specifically 10.4 Tiger.

.. says the Microsoft employee

[5i]

I couldn't help noticing the slip up with "We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases"

We?

following the link to your webpage, and sure enough - MattEvans, MS employee.

hmm. Is that a sales pitch I hear?

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A nice use of the pervasive desktop search integrated into the explorer windows is in Control Panel. We're pretty good about changing control panel wildly between releases, and I never remember which menu your system environment variables or enabling remote desktop or changing it so that the "Explorer:Start Navigation" sound is (none). Now i just hit "start->control panel", click in the search box for something like "sound" and i get search-as-i-type results that are pretty accurate and take me right to

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[WinterSolstice]

Ok - that stuck me as odd, so I just checked it by copying an 800MB zip file onto my 1GB SD card (since I don't have one nearly as large a USB device as bmajik). The 800MB zip is coming from a Windows department server share (my "home" drive).

Not especially fast, but no screen paint issues. None of the three windows (source, target, or copy window) are showing any issues with updates. No lurches.

This is on 10.4.6 on an Intel Macbook Pro 15". I'm attached to the network via switched 100bT. I have OO.o with 5 documents (via X11) running, TextMate with two large Perl scripts, Lotus Notes, CotVNC, FireFox, Safari, iTunes, and two screens running. Also listening to music currently.

Now to be fair, I'm on pretty current hardware, but come on. That was a total troll... I want Vista to be awesome as much as the next guy (maybe more - this is slashdot) but still - that was a random unsubstantiated complaint there.

I also tried doing this copying a 4 GB DMG to my local disk - same results.

-WS

Re:I'm running it to post this! :)

[bmajik]

Congratulations Microsoft! You have eventually caught up with OS/2 which had this back in 1992.

Tell me about it. BITD I downloaded the 2.11 CSD on my 14.4k modem to update my 2.1 install on my 8mb 486.

I loved OS/2 until I realized that I was never going to find decent modem / bbs software for it, and thus, all of my modem usage would be running under a virtual dos box. As you surely recall, DOS mode serial port usage _crushed_ OS/2.

Once I realized that there were no apps for OS/2 anyway, but that I didn't

Begginers will complain about the added security..

[adolfojp]

Windows 2K brought stability to the windows platform. Windows Vista should bring enhanced security through its pseudo sudo strategy.

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.

Re:Begginers will complain about the added securit

[Sax Maniac]

2K actually had semi-working limited-user accounts, I ran one for a long time. How did I get around the occasional (read: every) errant application that wanted write access to some random place? ACLs. I figured out where Quicken and every app want to write, and gave them write permissions. It was actually not too hard.

Then I upgraded to XP home, when I bought a new box. XP doesn't have ACLs. Sorry, back to user accounts with Admin privs. I feel so dirty.

Retarded User Accounts

[LunaticTippy]

I've run into problems that can't be fixed with ACLs, but usually some security policy or registry fiddling fixes things. I always get cranky when I have to mess with these, they hide things in so many places it is always a bitch.

I think the real news would be....

[zappepcs]

I think the real news would be "how much does it cost to buy a computer that can actually run Vista?"

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 th

Re:I think the real news would be....

[EvanED]

My computer is 4 years old almost (3 years, 10 months). It wasn't top of the line when I got it, though it was pretty good. It's gotten a RAM upgrade, but as far as internals go that's it.

The Vista hardware evaluation wizard thingy they had posted to /. a little bit ago had only one complaint -- the amount of hard drive space I have. And if I changed around my partitions a bit so that C: wasn't only 12 GB, it wouldn't complain about that.

The hardware requirements to run Vista, even Aero, I think are vastly

Vista *looks* better, but ...

[boxlight]

Judging by the screen shots, Vista certainly looks better -- but I hesitate to give Microsoft any respect for that as they've basically (once again) derived a look and feel from Mac. This time it's specifically derived from the glossy back Mac has been using here-and-there in Tiger and in their marketing material since the release of the black iPod Nano.

Still -- it does look better, I'll begrudgingly admit.

But that being said, Microsoft continues to neglect the more important although subtle useabil

Well, that's their marketing sorted

[adamwright]

"Buy Windows Vista - It's not so bad!"

I wonder when Slashdot get's their creative fee? ;)

that sounds like a selling point

[sentientbrendan]

Windows Vista "Not so bad"

Windows Vista "Almost as good as XP"

Windows Vista "Several new themes"

I think microsoft has a winner here

and in other news

[joeyspqr]

.. Denise running away with Sambora makes Charlie look like an ok guy ...

Amazing...

[MosesJones]

Ever wonder how MS get their media coverage? Here is a classic example, we are potentially TWELVE MONTHS away from widespread release on a product thats been in development for FOUR YEARS and people are "impressed" that a SECOND beta is relatively stable. And this is considered a news story.

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.

My problem

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

My problem with recent Microsoft operating systems has nothing to do with how well they run. I have to admit that they have been progresively better about that. My problem is how intrusive they are. How much control do I have over what my computer (my property that I paid for with my money) will and won't do.

Re:My problem

[|/|/|||]

Exactly. When I saw the "not so bad" headline, I assumed that the story was that Vista's intrusive DRM/Trusted computing "features" had been dropped. Those are the things that make Vista "bad". I'll take an OS that crashes over an OS that supervises how I use my data.

Sorry Microsoft, but I'll never buy (or even *use*) that kind of crap.

suse + kde

[sum.zero]

looks a lot like kde on suse, even uses lots of green and yast-like interfaces.

sum.zero

This is awesome!

[mmell]

But will it run Duke Nukem Forever?

Three weeks? that's amazing...

[geekoid]

well..... No, it's not.

Let me know when it runs 366 days straight, even through patches.

People need to learn abuot program maturity. The industry is aware of it, but conviently hides it away so they can make more money.

I don't ahve a lot of hope for a product thats 4 years behind schedule. Sure it will be released, but the bloat is going to be tremendous.

For the recrd, I hope I am wrong.

Microsoft pays

[theolein]

Given that we've already had articles on slashdot about how the online tech sites are up for sale when it comes to articles (anadtech, tom's hardware et al, and I'm pretty sure ZDNet as well), I'm pretty sure that Microsoft won't let a major piece of criticism about their family jewels go uncountered online and will get someone or some tech site that is for hire ("want our advertising dollars?") to counter any negative article about whatever Microsoft has once again fudged.

I'm ok with working with Microsoft

Problem Reports and Solutions

[Macka]

I like the look of this [zdnet.com]:

"In XP, when you send a report of a crash or Stop error, you rarely hear back. Vista tries to close the loop, with a Control Panel window that should - someday - offer patches, updated drivers, and other solutions to problems you report."

Mac OSX has a problem reporter too, but it's like the man said WRT XP. You have an application dump core on you; you fill in a description and submit it, and it disappears into a black hole somewhere inside Apple. To be able to get a list of the a

Windows Vista - Not So Good either

[ALpaca2500]

I just installed the latest version of Vista available to TechNet subscribers, build 5308. While it's not as bad as was described here [msn.com], it hasnt been completely smooth running either.

It seems to do some thing well. Dual booting with XP works great. maybe better than with win2k and XP. All the visual effects run fine, even on my integrated graphics (GeForce 6150, admittedly higher end for integraded graphics). Normal operation is a little sluggish, and sometimes it gets really bad. I've had it lock up completely at least 3 times, doing completely different things. One time it was just trying to open Freecell (which, by the way, they have updated).

I saw a post from a guy who works for microsoft, who said he's been running Vista for a few months, and doing all his work on it. From what i've seen of the build i'm running, I don't see myself being as productive on it as I am with my current XP setup, just becuase of some of these problems. on the other hand, it looks like once they get these things straightened out, it should be fine.

Vista not so bad, ah shuddupayourface

[syousef]

Vatsa matta you? Hey!
Gotta no respect. Hey!
Vista not so bad.
Vista nicea face, ah shudduppa your face.

I fear only the Aussies will understand the reference. It won't be as funny if it has to be explained but the following song made it to number one many moons ago here in Aus:

http://www.lyricsondemand.com/j/joedolcelyrics/shu tuppayoufacelyrics.html [lyricsondemand.com]

Re:Vista and MS is for CS noobs

[j_kenpo]

Funny... I always thought Gentoo was for Ricers [funroll-loops.org]

Re:It doesn't matter.

[linguae]

I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes

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 t

Re:It doesn't matter.

[adolfojp]

I use Windows XP, Ubuntu 5.10, and SuSE 10.1. I develop software for a living.

There are many things that I don't like of the three operating systems. In theory, I could modify Ubuntu and SuSE to my liking. The reality is that I couldn't do that if I tried, and if I tried, I wouldn't have the time to achieve anything significant.

The idea that Open Source software is needed because it allows the end user to modify its own system is utopic at best. Most people can't use a command line to change a configura

Re:It doesn't matter.

[croddy]

I drive a car. I do it every day. The fact that I can't or don't wish to tweak it doesn't take away from its utility or value.

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 o

Re:It doesn't matter.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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.

"Not so bad" isn't good enough

[EmbeddedJanitor]

"Not so bad" is OK when you have little control over the product/service/whatever ("army food is not so bad", "the weather is not so bad") or when you have to make some sacrifices to get something you want ("the weather was not so bad, but the view was great").

However, you have to do a lot better than "not so bad" to convince people to buy your product when they have choices. Would you go eat at a place that was described as "not so bad"? Win98 was the last release of windows where most customers could see

Re:Not So Bad

[EvanED]

Did you miss the part about how MS employees are currently running it in Redmond as a matter of course as part of their "eat their own dogfood" thing, or did you just not RTFA?

Or does doing development on it not count as real world use?

Re:I see Aqua!

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

None, Vista uses GPU aceleration and video memory for their UI.

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:This is probably paid advertisement

[Locutus]

isn't the authors name Bot or something like that? Maybe he/she's been BOUGHT or they really aren't a person but instead an automated roBOT for posting such things. ;-)

Sure reads like an MS Lemming wrote it that's for sure.

LoB

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[drsmithy]

This means that (a) they apparently haven't fixed the "normal users have access to the whole system (ie, run as Administrator)" problem, and [...]

Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?

[...] (b) they've given up on keeping IE from being a slutty little spyware freak, and assume that no matter what they do it's gonna get infected.

The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources. They are

Re:They haven't fixed the real security problems.

[argent]

I have been involved in computer security longer than Microsoft has been shipping an OS with any security at all. That includes Xenix. I've been watching this train wreck called the Microsoft HTML control for a decade now, and every time I point out how horrible it is some Microsoft apologist comes up and tells me I'm trolling, and that Micrsoft has got it right this time.

So far they have never been correct.

If you had bothered to read almost anything about Vista from the last year, you'd know that they are much bigger on the non-admin roles.

Windows maze of interlocking privileges means that this doesn't matter. There's so many ways to boost privilieges that almost any combination of non-frustrating privileges is going to end up equivalent to root.

The first time I used WIndows NT, I tried out several obvious attacks on the privilege model, and succeeded more often than I failed. I was even able to boost Power User to Local System, which actually has more privileges than Administrator.

If you had done some more reading (say, some of the comments posted earlier on this story), you'd see that even if you are running as administrator you still don't have full root priviledges, and have to confirm certain changes.

"You have to cofirm certain changes" says absolutely nothing about the privileges you have.

Nothing.

Confirmation and approval dialogs are almost worthless from a security standpoint. They operate at the application level, and the component that generates them has to have the privileges they're allegedly protecting, since Windows doesn't use UNIX's far more flexible and secure "setuid" mechanism. This means that not only do they they provide little protection for accidents by users, they provide NO protection from exploit code.

None.

Zip.

Layered security is wonderful.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has yet to implement it.

One of the principles of layered security s that you design each layer as if it had to perform the whole of the security protection, then you implement the next layer *anyway*, and you design it under the assumption that the first layer will provide no protection.

Microsoft designs each layer so that it's only as secure as they feel convenient, in the naive belief that the other layers will be used and will cover for them.

Other operating systems allow you to bind services to unique ports and interfaces, so that local firewalls are an additional layer of security. Microsoft needs firewalls to prevent people from attacking insecure local services because they have no other way to limit them to listening only at localhost.

Other browsers treat untrusted documents as untrusted, and assume that if their security fails the whole system is broken. Microsoft has the browser trust the HTML control to do the job, and doesn't give the HTML control enough information to do the job, and rather than GET RID OF the whole pile of ActiveX and "Security Zones" and "trusted sites" they're now pushing people to use "we got it right this time in .NET, honest".

If I were to tell you exactly what I thought of this approach to "layered security" I'd be banned from slashdot for abusive language.

Troll, forsooth, for nothing less than the simple truth.