Windows Vista RC2 Available 298
GarstMan writes to mention that Microsoft has released what it hopes will be the last version of Windows Vista to go through the testing process. From the article: "This new build of Windows Vista offers users a higher level of performance and stability - improving what was established in Windows Vista RC1. We were able to also fix many of your bugs reported from RC1 and implement them for RC2. Thank you to our beta testers for the bugs and feedback you submitted for RC1. The improvement shows as we raised our quality bar even higher! Platforms and Services Co-President Jim Allchin has just posted a special announcement letter of RC2 to Microsoft Connect for the Windows Vista Technical Beta Testers."
Waste of Time (Score:2, Insightful)
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You'll regret that statement when the revolution comes.
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No one will be able to make their fortune with proprietary information, but on the other hand everyone will be so enriched that we'll all be sufficiently better off to make paying out for valuable info much more likely. Then people can make a sane living off of producing good information.
It's like writing shareware. If you work at it, and ask for a small, reasonable donation, you can make
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Why does DRM exist? Simple. Because people are dishonest bastards and will rob you blind the first chance they get.
Produce a song? Yep, someone will come along download it and give it to all of his (or her) "friends". Meanwhile, did you get paid for all of your blood, sweat, and tears? Did you get paid for producing that song? Nope. That's w
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Re:Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not necessary; it's just evil.
Now, if there was standard DRM then books would be released electroically that you could search through or have search engines search through.
Actually, this is unlikely. And in any event, the benefit of making the book searchable is dubious given that the DRM could be used to limit your ability to search it, that searching isn't really important for some books (e.g. most works of fiction), and that the DRM could be set up so that it cost you money every time you used the book in particular ways, or at all.
I think that a better solution would be to a) prohibit authors et al from having copyrights if they use DRM at all, b) not just legalize circumventing DRM, but have the government help (with funding, coordination, and dissemination of the uncopyrightable plaintext), and c) to make some other alterations to copyright, such as beefing up deposit requirements (so that electronic copies are on file with the Library of Congress) and shortening term lengths (so that the book will enter the public domain quite rapidly, if the author et al even bothers to pursue copyright to begin with).
Don't be such a defeatist. Stand up for a change, and fight for what you want!
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First of all, it's a better option in terms of electronic searching than just having paper editions of a book out. If you find something in a
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Yes, it is necessary, or else everything would be pirated to hell and back. And using goofy, loaded words like "evil" just illustrates how juvenile Slashdot becomes when tackling the issue of creators' rights. Basically, you guys want to stack everything in favor of the pirates and against the creators.
Besides, the GPL is essentially a form of DRM (digital rights management).
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That is just silly. GPL is pure copyright, nothing else. There are no digital restrictions management involved. As with the GPL, copyright should be more than sufficient. The trouble is a matter of enforcement; and in that regard DRM and related laws are just as bad.
If we could make a (e.g. ISO) standard based DRM that everyone could implement then fine, but I fear that is impossible. As it is now, DRM is just vendor lockins
Re:Waste of Time (Score:4, Insightful)
(insert anne rand quotation about the imposibility of governing an honest man)
Re:Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
And piracy is bad, because?
Remember, while I'm a copyright lawyer, I'm also thoroughly a utilitarian when it comes to copyright. This means that I only care about what best serves the public interest (which is divided into three sub-interests: creating and publishing original works, creating and publishing derivative works, and having no or minimal copyright) and not at all about authors or publishers, save for how that might affect the public.
the issue of creators' rights
Their rights are what we choose to give them, and we should only choose to give them rights when, and to the degree that, it serves our purposes to do so. Copyright isn't a civil liberty or an inherent right. It's artificial and granted for the purpose of the public good, like a municipal cable TV monopoly.
Basically, you guys want to stack everything in favor of the pirates and against the creators.
No, only in favor of the public. If the authors benefit from this, good for them. If not, I don't care. I take into account how the public benefit is affected by the benefit of authors (in much the same way that a farmer who raises eating chickens is concerned for the health of his flock up until he's ready to slaughter them, since this is what is best for him -- that the chickens would prefer a long and natural life is of no concern) but I am never going to support giving authors anything that is purely at the expense of the public with no greater benefit involved. That would be waste.
This means that where pirates interfere with copyright that maximally serves the public interest, I am against those pirates, since they are ruining it for the rest of us. But where copyright is excessive (as it is now, IMO) and does not maximally serve the public interest, then some of the piracy is perfectly okay and in fact should be legalized, to reduce copyright down, closer to where it is ideal again. More copyright is not a good thing; in fact, it's generally worse than less.
But it would be quite unlikely for me to support no copyright at all, which is basically what you're accusing me of. I wouldn't say I never would, but the situation that would give rise to that is pretty improbable.
Besides, the GPL is essentially a form of DRM (digital rights management).
No, the GPL is basically a contract. It doesn't interfere with the underlying law, in the way that DRM invariably does. For example, it is possible to reject the GPL, and then use portions of GPL'ed code pursuant to fair use, and still be acting lawfully. Whereas, if a work is DRM'ed, then it is going to interfere with fair uses just as much as with unlawful ones, because it is a simple, stupid restriction that cannot tell the difference.
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Paper textbooks are much easier to read without excessive eye strain, especially when most of the time you're reading them for an hour or more at a stretch. Also, if the book has a half-decent index, many times it is easier to "search" the paper v
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First, they price the electronic book almost as high as the paper book. Secondly, I'm not saying as a student who has to read one book from the top to begining but as a researcher who has to find a specific piece of information on a certain topic.
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I'm waiting for the day when we have "roll up" and easily transportable e-book readersthat give you the same resolution and readability as paper. Unfortunately, most such attempts so far have not been with pure "e-book readers", but PDA's and UMPC's and the like that are much too heavy, with too small of a reading surface and poorer resolution.
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I can pick up a copy of Britannica from my local Staples for about £10. The paper version costs something like £800.
And at £10, it isn't really worth anyone's while making their own copies of it.
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Not the last Beta (Score:5, Funny)
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As long as this doesn't contain any bugs you can't deal with, can't your everyday non-pirate windows fan just download this version and keep it after vista comes out in stores? What's stopping them? It stops functioning after a certain time? It doesn't allow windows updates? Heck, those have got to be pretty persuasive arguements for saving a hundred bucks or two.
Re:Not the last Beta (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a sub sandwich shop here that gives away free sandwich coupons every couple of months-- use as many as you want as often as you want. If you get addicted, you'll end up being their customer when it's no longer free.
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Re:Not the last Beta (Score:5, Funny)
The heroin they put in their sandwiches helps.
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Not specifi to your question but:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060705-718
It's time limited (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason they release it to the world is to try and catch more bugs. It's not like they don't test their OS internally but there's such a massive number of system setups out there they can't test all permutations. Also it's equally (maybe even more) targeted at allowing people to test their setups with Vista, sta
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Link to ISO (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Link to ISO (Score:5, Funny)
2.5 Terrabytes? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Link to ISO (Score:5, Funny)
Now that's some serious code bloat.
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Torrent? (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Torrent? (Score:4, Informative)
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I can't recommend that Akamai downloader though. When I downloaded RC1, my router died about halfway through and needed a reset. The download manager could not cope with this. It said a serious error had occured and the download could not be continued. Despite the fact that I could restart the download via the manager or http fine. So I had downloaded 1Gb or so of Vista, and had to chuck it and start again.
I used straight http via Firefox the next time. Worked fine.
Re:Torrent? (Score:5, Funny)
Offers users a higher level of performance ... (Score:5, Funny)
ie: We added -DNDEBUG to the compiler command line.
No one has commented on this yet? (Score:5, Funny)
Now this is the kind of honesty you have to appreciate.
here it is (Score:5, Informative)
Can't WAIT!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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I have had lots of problems getting linux 2.6 kernel OS's to run fast enough on Pentium II's, for instance.
If that meant putting SuSE 6.3 on one of those, then that's what I did.
From the get-go Microsoft said that Vista would require a lot more in the way of memory, graphics, processor speed than previous pr
Works great. (Score:5, Interesting)
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(just kidding
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I just snorted milk out of my nose and onto my keyboard.
+1 Virtual Funny
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Perfect Timing (Score:2, Insightful)
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Funny, I feel the same way about my copy of Windows 2000.
(Well, on *that* machine, at least... on the other 6, I run Linux.)
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If you play games, like 99% of Windows XP users do, sooner or later you'll need DirectX 10 to play a game.
'course if you don't play games, you should really buy a Mac.
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Despite claims of developers from video card vendors who have posted on here about Microsoft's DirectX installer for Windows XP?
Do not believe it "can't" be done for a single second. It's (allegedly) already been done, is supposedly stable, and they just won't release it to the public. Of course, these claims have yet to be substantiated, but really, how many here think it is imposs
Bugs (Score:5, Funny)
Good for how long? (Score:2)
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Meh, probably (Score:2)
Perhaps this is asking for too much... (Score:5, Insightful)
For once I'd like to see an opinion from someone who tried Vista without any biases.
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I personally think MS gave up two of their biggest advantages, it won't wrong legacy software easily & it doesn't feel like Windows. I imagine alot will get fixed before release... but as of yet, it's been a pain in my rear.
Even running it as admin I got lots of Access denied in the command prompt. The installer for my software failed, but for some reason Vista hid the failur
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Konqueror does something
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Re:Perhaps this is asking for too much... (Score:5, Informative)
1.) It feels very much like a redressed XP. It behaves the same as previous versions of Windows have. There are even dialogs dating back to Windows 3.1, like the Install Font dialog.
2.) UAC is incredibly annoying. You'll see. You will hate it.
3.) Something feels weird about it. I often find myself wanting to go back to XP. It might be the inconsistent interface that I'm not used to, or the overuse of gaudy visual effects (the animated ribbon swoosh used everywhere looks straight out of a 1980s public access channel logo). Maybe it's the nasty colors used everywhere in the the aquamarine/sea-green theme that is Aero.
It's a weird feeling to use Vista, like it should have been out three years ago. It feels very dated in places.
Give it a try before you trash it (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of you who have tried it (at least since RC1, everything before that was junk), and don't like it, then its not for you. Stick with whatever you have and move along. Your decision to not purchase Microsoft software will send a message.
For those of you haven't, give RC2 a try, its free - at least for about 8-9 months or whatever. You can then judge all its flaws and gasp, maybe even give feedback to Microsoft so that maybe they can do something about it. Just make sure you are constructive rather than "get rid of DRM" which probably won't accomplish much of anything.
agressiv
OK, You've Convinced Me... (Score:3, Funny)
Woo woo! (Score:3, Informative)
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However, I will say that I'm d
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Define 'work'.
And try:
And this is Office. Microsoft Office.
Can someone please explain... (Score:2)
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Because you're lying.
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I have serious issues with Steam games
And I had the same usability issues with RC1 too.
Downloading RC2 and we'll see...
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He probably isn't.
Note that he's talking about "just running the Vista desktop and dragging a window or two around", not playing games.
Any PC that can play HL2 well at a huge resolution like 1920x1200, laughs at the minimum requirements to get decent performance out of Vista and Aero.
So, he's lying about the performance of either HL2 or Vista.
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The game is choppy at times but the OS is fine.
I'm starting to like it... (Score:2, Informative)
I can dual boot between XP and Vista. I was originally planning to just use Vista for testing (the program I work on is not yet 100% Vista compatible, so I need a Vista machine to use for testing my fixes). However, it has worked well enough for me that I haven't booted back to XP all week. That says a lot.
One thing
I Paid for the 1st beta.... (Score:2)
I got RC1 dvd in the post at work *this morning*
(and yes, perhaps I do have more money than sense - but I blow cash on other crap, so what the hell)
Re:Schedules slip, milestones change meaning (Score:5, Insightful)
But "If they are fixing bugs.... perhaps what they released was a beta" takes it a little too far. If they didn't fix any bugs, it would be simply a Release, not a Candidate.
Re:Schedules slip, milestones change meaning (Score:5, Funny)
We were able to also fix many of your bugs reported from RC1 and implement them for RC2.
Takes time to implement some good bugs, or else the users would not stay hooked to the "Patch Tuesday"/WGA
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But you are correct, had there been no bugs there'd be no RC2, RC1 would be made a release.
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If they didn't fix any bugs, it would be simply a Release, not a Candidate.
So I guess the question is, is it a candidate for not fixing any bugs? If not, it's not a release candidate.
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Can you beat a dead horse anymore??? (Score:5, Informative)
RTM = Release
Release candidate means "You can build your release software against this version as the API is frozen and we are just working out the kinks"
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There isn't a single person on this planet, either inside or outside of Microsoft, who expected that Vista "RC1" had even an inkling of a chance of being the actual RTM image. That makes it just another beta release, nothing more, nothing less.
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RC for MS software has a very specific and exact meaning. If you're an ISV, its what you really start cranking on to make sure your software will work properly, and the APIs and general functionality will stay the same.
You dont have the same guarantee with a Beta
So while the way you personally define the phrase 'Release Candidate' may mean 'ready to ship
Re:Can you beat a dead horse anymore??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how Microsoft defines "beta". The real definition of beta is that the software is feature complete and is in the final stages of testing (but not yet a possible RTM like RC really means). If drastic changes to the underlying mechanism and APIs are still possible, the software is still alpha, or more likely, it's not even out of the design phase yet.
By buying into these bogus definitions, you've been hoodwinked by Microsoft's marketing department into paying good money for unfinished goods.
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Re:Schedules slip, milestones change meaning (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an RC. Release Candidate. By traditional labeling, a release candidate is a possible release. You release the RC, and in a few days/weeks/months, if no "major" bugs are found, you release it without change. Anyone who tried RC1 can tell you that it was most certainly NOT ready to release without change.
Right about now a million MS fanboys are screaming "But people found bugs, so they needed to fix them and make a new RC." But some of the bugs that were "found" and features that were missing were so glaring and obvious, there's no possible way MS expected it to be an actual release. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but they're simply not dumb enough to think RC1 could have been the real release. In the entire rest of the computing world, that's called a "beta." Like it or not, that's just the way it is.
Opera, for example, uses their final release candidate as the final release. Just check out their weekly builds. [opera.com] September 18 was RC1, September 19 was RC2 (with a single bug fix), and on September 21 RC2 was released as 9.02. Same build number and everything. That's how it's supposed to be.
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Really though, it's just semantics and marketing. Does it really matter whether it is called RC2 or Beta4 or Omega Omicron 53alpha? In the end, it's just a product that isn't quite ready for sale.
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Yeah, like I said, not all projects can go from RC to release in a couple days. Software with as many users as Firefox or Vista should probably wait a little longer. I don't use Firefox and don'
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You might call RC1 as the "Beta RC". When the bugs in the "Beta RC" are fixed, then it will be a real RC. No new features (unless it's something showstopping that they have learned t
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Yes, then they'll call it delta when they release it for volume licensing and... semi moronic epsilon when its out in the wild for home consumers.
"O wonder!
How many goodly features are there here!
How beautious vista is!
O brave new windows,
That has such features in't!"
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Well guess what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:bloated software (Score:4, Interesting)
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