GrofLuigi

Snipped to the extreme, just to show you what you're saying. If it works, then PC isn't idle. My guess (and yeah it's only a guess - opinion) is that people (all people, minus those with debuggers at hand and running) wouldn't know them if they see them. They would attribute it to something else. But MS also listens to their managers and shareholders. Wanna bet who they listen to more? "Complaints" on the Net don't mean anything - you can't measure them. 1. We should throw away all our old peripherals? 2. Combatibility is fine for (all) apps (you say), but not for drivers? 3. Not from first hand, but in this thread some down sides of that/reports it's not working are listed.GL

It was, I tried to tweak the forum. No, it was just left that way from who-knows-when. You can send now if you want to, but I have no special wish to discuss any of the questions in particular. GL

Now would you believe it, I agree in everything with you! Mostly on the technical points (I couldn't say there is any flaw in them), and I accept the other ones but I still reserve the right to believe it doesn't HAVE to be that way/it couldn't have been better. GL

You wouldn't want fuel efficency if it's too much trouble for the maker (he would have too much costs, he would have to skim on other parts? Or you don't even think about that - just walk into a dealership and weigh price/performance YOU get? Where did I say this? I'm too tired to check now, so maybe I did, but in general and everywhere I was writing about the situation in my quote above. It should bring me some so I wish I buy it. See below. Again, love and experience (mostly)... If you say they're useful, OK. But if you admit there are also restrictions and inconveniences (I claim, often unnecessary), and if you weigh both sides (and also take into account $$$ needed), which side would be heavier? That's what I'm talking about all this time.And you did't point any 1 most important feature. OK, maybe you think all of those above are great and essential, but what of those can't be achieved on XP? The owner didn't want to investigate further and decided it's not worth the hassle. (recent=from 1 month ago) Maybe it's another bad example (hurried), but I see you mention above: the extra stability, management improvements. I value them also in an OS, but they didn't show in my first encounter(s).GL

Indeed it was. But, as I said, it was the first thing I looked up (I knew very little about it before) and there was a stain. I disagree, and not because I think I know more, but because of reasons I said before - more overhead, more code, more chance for bugs... In principle. I meant Cluberti. But nevermind, that's not the topic here, I just didn't want to offend him by chance, and I wasn't sure. Seriously, that thing was the worst misinformed, FUD-spouting, technically wrong piece by some id*** who didn't have a clue what he was saying I might have EVER read. It was more hilarious than anything. It all goes like "xyz don't/won't work!!!", except, it actually does work just fine if you try it for yourself -- repeat ad nauseam.If the kill switch isn't flipped yet, (not the WGA kill switch that was dropped with SP1; not the ActiveX "kill bit"; I can't find its proper name any more - so much kill parts with Microsoft ) it doesn't mean it isn't there (all rebuttals of that 'FUD' haven't proved it isn't there). Just as you now, they focus on Microsoft's grace not to activate it. And this is a general gripe I have with DRM/HDCP/Bluray (out of principle) - Microsoft isn't the only culprit here - but they did nothing to prevent it and showed clearly which side they are on.About those 'rebuttals' - all is peachy and they almost convince me that there is nothing wrong with Vista's "media path". And then comes the "network file copy transfer slowdown while media is playing" bug and everybody again denies everything and nobody connects these two?! (not in a direct sense, but as there is really something going on under the curtains there). And why do they put so much effort (they are what I would call "vocal") to rebutt something that's so out of touch with reality? You can call me paranoid, but I call that common sense and thinking for myself. You say that, I ask how many people and what people? Every poll can be rigged, and it's a piece of cake with those without independent control. I know I am a (potential) buyer and I didn't ask for that. There are not many things I would've asked in Vista, so why buy it - talking from user's perspective? (again, remember the thread - Vista vs. XP.) I don't speak (much) in the name of other people, but how can you prove there are more people in the world that requested (or wanted) those features than those that didn't? Your word against mine. How usable is that to tinker on every reboot? I didn't know there were tools, but if you mean about test signing, I heard it was still not permanent solution (I can look up if you want) GL

This will never end... but yet, before I wasn't so persistent in replying and recently I realised it could be seen as a sign of weakness/not having arguments/surrender, so.... any time you want, I'll stop. To try not to repeat myself, and make this thread more efficient I'll not write the replies that would be the same over and over again. (My posts were also snipped.) This doesn't mean I answer only to things I chose to. 1. All of them? And if it's OK for some, and I start, where do I stop? Can't I decide for myself? 2. Everything can be achieved if enough effort/beforethought/will is put into it, but you always take Microsoft's resource (money) managing efficiency into account and say it wouldn't be practical/too costly. Again, my stomach tumbles when I think of this: I should give Microsoft the right to weigh cost/benefit, but not do that for myself?. Why don't you stay to technical points (which you have plenty of good ones an beat me right down with them) and let MS managers do their job? I, on the other hand, for all my points before and after, speak in general/principle terms, and while having some small knowledge, am probably no match to you in the technical field (and there is the language barrier - English is not my native language and I sometimes can't find the right word I wanted to). Yet you find justifications for Microsoft's (non)efforts/wrong decisions all the time. Do you care for car manufacturers' troubles just as much? 3. Even with Microsoft's 'where to put the money to' weighing taken into account, there are some (many?) unnecesary dependencies/restrictions (no, not DRM, but I suspect that might be the goal - obfuscation of the code so no one can analyze it (I don't care about their protection of their rights - there are patents (and they use them) there is the copyright law (and they use it) and what not else - I give them money so they work for me, not the other way around. They think it's too much bother to sue every pirate out there so they impose WGA/mandatory activation and they expect us to love it?) (Yeah again the line of thought has brought me to different direction than I intended to). 4. What are these restrictions (a.k.a. vlite usage)? nLite/vLite has shown that (nearly) everything is possible and that not everything is set in stone. With every new version, there are more and unnecessary dependencies/bindings defeated. As I said, there is always a way and that those restrictions, once thought justified, were only forced for Microsoft-only-knows-why. Either that or Nuhi is God (and I believe in both ). 5. This leads me to all the nice technical talk you and others spoke: it's just fairy tales, sorry. If able programmer doesn't see Windows code, we'll never know if the talk is true or if it could have been done better. No I don't want to see it (and if I saw it, I wouldn't know what to make of it). No I don't want anyone else from the outside to see it. But I also don't want it to be presented as a proof if it can't be seen. 6. To try to provide technical answers, let's reduce the technical items to few most important point you raise (choose some questions) and I'll try to research them in a few days time. But ahead of time I see it will be difficult, because there's FUD from both sides. Yeah, I've just reversed the quotes. Again, strive for the better (here it's the harware that brings the goodness, and what does Vista bring?) This thread is about Vista vs XP on same hardware (or so I understood). So what good would Vista bring on same hardware? Fill up/drain memory all the time? And as for new hardware, if XP could be made to run on it (and it still can) what's the need for Vista? I still stand behind my "5X/2X evaluation". Let's put it another way: please name 1 groundbreaking feature why should I buy Vista if I already have XP. The one I couldn't live without and would be impossible to implement on XP. That you're sure afterwards I would say: "You were right, it made my money's worth". Just 1. Or 3 if you like, but please be sure that it's worth it and that it can't be done on XP. And I don't talk about 'experience'. I don't want to have 'experience' with ANY OS. I want it to do some work for me or let me/help me do my work and not get in the way. If you just happen to say "oh, but it was the experience" I will just mention that (in this forum) it was said that Mac or Linux have better 'experience'. I personally if I had any of them would try to turn all that 'experience' off. (I've worked on Mac and I don't like it and had Slackware 10 with minimal GUI). ESET Smart Security, Licenced, recent, killed an internet connection. Tried everything from the GUI, nada. Only uninstall helped. OK, it was not Vista itself, but compatibility is often mentioned. And if it was my computer and my installation, I would dig deeper and eventually find the reason (and report it to you in more detail). Just to mention a name. Believe me, in those few times * few hours I needed to work on Vista, I tried to approach it as open minded as I could, but only one feeling prevailed... WHY? (and this was said by EVERYBODY that has worked on Vista, and I spoke face-to-face to). I managed well and did everything I wanted to, but it took me at least 2X () as much time as before. The new interface might be more usable and work well for 10 year olds from now on, but WHY teach old dogs to new tricks if you don't have to? Are we circus animals? Again, what's the benefit for the dog? Will it get a new bone? It paid for it already! Hasn't Microsoft given enough reasons in the past?GL

Again, not very technical, but 'just my opinion' (and I know either 'side' won't 'give in'), but yet... I'm sure it'll be dubbed as offtopic, but every Windows version so far has promised to take out drivers out of kernel mode, (for the purpose of stability) but the end result was just restrictions. Not disagreeing here, just about the semantics: by 'code' I meant 'lines of code' or quantity of code (and I didn't even talk about the amount of memory reserved/taken). Again, cost vs. benefit: does this all this new and improved code work for me all the time? DRM/UAC aside, it just sees too bureaucratic to me: inventing solutions for problems that did not exist in the first place. Or creating problems where there weren't any. What if I don't want that "efficient" code (let's say I use one computer for video/audio recording only, or any 1 program at a time): I should be able to turn prefetching/some of the services off. But many are not switchable/uninstallable any more in Vista. I want to take a chance with that old tuner card I have on x64 (and some good fella has recompiled the driver): "Sorry, no can do. It will crash and give the OSs a bad rep." And don't get me started on System Account(s)... On my XP systems, I've eliminated all but Local System and The Administrator accounts. They work fine for 3+ years without any problems or need of reinstallation. (OK, a mindless thing to do if you don't know what you're doing and I don't recommend it to anyone). But it is possible after all and the world won't crumble down if you do something against Microsoft's way of doing it. Not so in Vista, from what I see. From the many recommendations for solving problems with Vista, most often I see: "Don't touch that", (or in case of this thread: "It's better that way"). I know many people that get confused if the wallpaper is changed. I don't want to be one of them (or forced to be). I read that as "for more PERCEIVED efficency at runtime", or "cheating" (you knew I would say this, right? ). All I know is people complained about Win2000's slow startup time (which is not a valid point at all in my book - let the initialization be done properly) and than all this prefetching thing started. I see this just as an aftermath justification. I agree with you here, but I prefer efficiency and there is no way to make that the primary goal of Vista. It all comes down to (freedom of) choice. For every limitation there should be justification. GL

As a general reply, and to those who replied: The reason for my posts was because for a long time I see some things taken for granted and just repeated over and over. IMO they are not true and will not become true if they are repeated more times. I hope I'm entitled to my opinion. If it is seen as "I hate Microsoft at any cost", so be it, but I hope 'the other side' admits there are flaws/bias in their arguments too. There are already many Microsoft-bashing sites out there that have much stronger (technical, specific) arguments than I have (not to mention the law suits), but as I repeated over, my goal was not to blindly attack Microsoft (or Vista), but to give a pull back to the rope 'the other side' has pulled too far over to their side. To restore some common sense (IMO), if you want. GL

I'll try to shorten it... Drivers running as services; I meant 5x more code; 5x more code running all the time is always a bad thing. Efficiency, efficency, efficiency! (And you can quote me on that. Why couldn't ALL services (and yes in XP too) be startable on demand? Oh wait, it means more work and less pay for Microsoft programmers.... Just ask any vLite user... Is it the same price? Is it twice as cheap? (all right, I don't know how can this be measured exactly, but my point was - let's say it's the same price and XP is available now - why should I chose it over XP? There are SOME goodies it brings, but there is also a huge penalty - and IMO it FAR outweighs the goodness). Incompatibilty - you are right, I never bought/installed/used Vista on my computers - it's just not worth it. But I used it a lot at friends' (when they have a problem and call me over to solve it). I did that, thank you. There were plenty of problems with programs older than Vista, but, again, I haven't installed anything - just fooled around trying to get out of there as soon as possible, so my mind would not suffer too much harm. Again, what was the *technical* reason for reshuffling? Add the new feature, don't take out the old one. And don't move it unless it's absolutely necessary. Or it was the result of usability testing (I would say phoning home, but that's just me) conducted on secretaries about to be retired (since they are: 1. only ones that don't know how to turn that feature off or even that it exists; 2. having problems hitting the right place with mouse). I meant to say: find a particular control panel applet in one try. Add new, don't take out old. Life sucks for the vendors. Just see how many different vendors of the same product are there (any product). And some go down... But we love this one... So life sucks for us now. No, I want to have a choice so MS would fight for me, instead treat me like their b*tch. And I won't (besides XP that I already have). I hope I'm allowed to stay here to discuss it. Always there are exceptions. I can't say what were your reasons, but most people I know don't have much choice (Microsoft-hardware vendors deals). No, the article I quoted talks about that. I tried to save time/space not to quote the text. Just search it in the article. My example was (might even be a bad one, but I got the impression, like most things Microsoft, that there are ulterior motives). (About multicore improvements) I didn't dismiss them, I just wanted to see any semi-technical explanation. I'm talking not about TechARP stuff (random choice, no offence) but Mark Russinovich style (if possible). So it's psyshic? It knows all ahead of time? Why do we even bother with faster cpus? /sarcasm Sorry, that's how it looks like. Again, out of principle, it can't possibly know the future. Let's say I take my laptop on a business trip. For a week I watch movies, fool around on the net, play games, and when I'm about to make that career-breaking presentation, it will know what I'm about to do and be ready for that?! (Yeah, overly simplified and brought to the extreme fairy tale, but that's true of every explanation of prefetching I've heard... "When the time comes, it'll know", "Just give it some time"... Yeah right). GL

Ok, but I don't want that. Can I turn it off please? Oh well... I must resort to tweaks and there are still some things that can't be turned off. As much as I'm not a programmer, I'm with computers 20+ years and I know that more code executed is always worse then less (for the same assumed task). More chances for bugs, more attack vectors for malware, more electricity spent. Why should it use 100% CPU/RAM if (let's say during one power on/off cycle) all I do is write a text in notepad? Again, all this care about Microsoft... OK, you are an exception since I think I read you work there, but in general - why should the client care about the efficiency of the vendor (and in what part of the production process should he spend his money)? That's their problem, not mine. And if the most efficient design doesn't win, something is wrong with the market. Actually, this is the first time I fully agree. Netbios was worse (and I didn't bring up SMB2 first), but it's sad really - to replace something worst with something non-standard (as far as I can see). Any links, please? I didn't ask for links because I thought there weren't any, but because I searched and couldn't find any (at least slightly) technical; only advertising. I really want to see them and try to decide for myself. I don't expect anything from any company. I expect to get useful features for my money. If anything, I have the impression that in this forum far more vocal are those on 'your' side of the bridge. You read right. There are features and there are useful features. There is bloat and there's useless bloat. I thought I didn't have to explain myself from start every time. I value efficency and choice. I think that if they decrease, we will end up in stone age (or somewhere worse). Just my opinion, doesn't have to be true. May I admit I hate monopolies? Users have control issues and Microsoft doesn't? In which direction does the control shift every time? I don't understand what you mean by undertones, but, as *everything* in my posts in this tread, I try to abstract and speak out of principle. I didn't mean DRM as in Windows Media (although it is 'suggested' onto the user in oh so many places) but about that Newzealander's paper (and yes I have read all the rebuttals and they didn't convince me - 1. Microsoft has chosen not to push the kill switch yet; 2. They had the power to stand up to Hollywood studios that forced it to make HDCP mandatory (or so the fairy tale goes), but did nada; 3. Maybe I'm stupid, but for the life of me can't see what benefit does the PVP/PUMA bring to the USER.) I tried to summarize my view as short as possible. NOW can I be accused of spreading FUD, but let's just ask Google about it. You are completely right, but again, seen from Microsoft's perspective. Correct, but shouldn't they give discount for the inconvenience? Instead, they are trying to make people love it. Kidding, but I hope you see my point. GL

Part 2/2 By that same logic, Linux and BSD are worth nothing. Price alone means nothing. Everybody with more than 2 brain cells knows software isn't priced like that. Every edition has a specific pricing, and it's all calculated by bean counters to maximize profit (low profit * high volume + medium profit * medium volume + high profit * low volume, to give the maximum total $$$). Yeah, but YOU (not you personally) always say that Microsoft operates on free market principles and has to make up for their costs... what about OUR (user's) costs? Or are we just a milking cow? It's forgiven to Microsoft, but not allowed to the users? If I can't implement my personal WGA to allow/disallow Microsoft access to my computer, If I can't write my EULA as the second side in the contract (to choose my terms), If Microsoft can disable my Windows if it feels like (not saying that they have done that, but they CAN)... Can't I ask something tangible for my money? So anyone who actually sees and understands the benefits of [insert random software] is automatically a fanboy eh? News for you: there's always been a lot of people welcoming the changes, new features and all that instead of living in the past and resisting change, be it an OS or anything else. Calling people "Vista fanboys" makes as much sense as calling people who upgraded to utorrent 1.8 (for they wanted Teredo or IPv6 support or any other feature) "utorrent 1.8 fanboys" (oh-my-god, you're using the latest version! you fanboys!) uTorrent doesn't need persuading, people choose it themselves (among hundreds other similar programs). Vista is as good as shoved into our throats, coming with most of new PCs. And funny you should mention Teredo of all things. (I didn't mention Microsoft breaking standards before because I assumed it's common knowledge). It has more features for sure, that's a fact. Different features are of varying usefulness to different people, like it's been the case for any new version of any new software ever. For all I know, maybe no new feature is useful to you in any software past what a 1977 vintage Apple II provides (a basic GUI an a way to start apps). And yes, people are requesting those things. If I give you that, but again, cost vs. benefit. Horrendeous restrictions like what exactly? It's a vast improvement. Even the wikipedia page you linked to talks about some of them. "SMB2 brings two substantial benefits to"... who? There's a lot of whitepapers and such about this stuff. Go read them, then you'll understand how it works, why certain design decisions were made, etc. And in practice, apps are very responsive too. Plus, some of the stuff is just plain obvious (like not paging half of everything to disk for no reason -- free RAM is wasted RAM). Please show me one, if possible from independent source; but any will do. Full RAM is wasted RAM: 1. You have to fill it with something; 1a. When the situation changes (and it changes A LOT in one second if there is ANY work done) you have to empty it, calculate what you'll do next and refill it; 1b. Repeat forever. vs: 1. Wait for some program/subsystem to ask for it. Which of these two is wasteful? And it clearly shows from your lack of fundamental understanding of the software development business. Go ahead, write yourself a trivial app in some low-level language, you'll start to see the light. It's 100% NOT about lazyness (that bit about .NET is not only troll-ish but 100% wrong). You want someone to make you an app in C++ instead of C#? No problem, but it'll take like 4x the lines of code, 10x as long to develop, twice as long to squash the bugs (both in developer time and time you're using the app), hence the price will be about 10x higher (and new versions with the new features you want will be out every 4 years instead of every 6 months). Oh yeah, who was saying a few lines above that they wanted cheap software again? (like, "thanks god it's not 5x the price!") You'd rather pay thousands more for software, or finally having to upgrade past 256MB of RAM? Yeah, I thought so too! 2GB of RAM is $30, whereas you can pay like $150/hour for a consultant writing code (add LOTS of such hours, plus a LOT of QA/testing time and all that). In the end, the software does its job great (you can actually spend time adding new & useful features to solve the problem at hand instead of working on low-level stuff), and runs on commodity hardware, and is inexpensive (a big concern for anyone who'd buy your apps). Besides, you bash .NET and call people who use it "wannabe programmers imposing bloat on us", yet you praise nlite and vlite (oh, sweet irony!) Saying .NET developers are wannabe programmers that need to work hard for their job, is EXACTLY like calling a carpenter who uses power tools lazy, wannabe carpenters who need to earn their wages by cutting every piece of wood with a plain old manual saw, not using nail guns, etc. Both are just tools that let you get the job done quicker, without wasting time on stuff that doesn't really matter, and in the end, costing less for the same end result. Yes, people even have to complete projects on time and budget nowadays! Complex concept, I know. As I said, I ain't one, so can't comment on the techy stuff. I was just wondering how people got by before .net... There still were beautiful aplications. Is there any (worthy) game written in .net? It's OK for programmers to install 500 G of stuff if they want/need to, just don't shove it into every installation. From what I heard, .net was born because Microsoft wanted to kill Java. Just a rumour, don't mind me. I know nothing. Yes, because it's hard to right click, picking the theme tab, picking one and hitting apply. God forbid they enable pretty eye candy features out of the box and that the 1% that don't want it have to click like 5 times to disable it. Besides, I'd say probably less than 1% of tech calls are related to "skins". Seriously, I've never seen a trouble call or such placed for that, ever. As much as (you state that) I have opposing claims, so have you. Should the new OS work or should it have all the new stuff turned on by default? To return to your first quote again (and I can't have any more quote boxes in this post so I'm pasting it plainly: - where did all that resources go to - What? If you're sitting there doing nothing? The box is idle regardless. How much more idle should it be? You should have plenty of them left for use by your apps. vs. filling your ram etc. etc. GL

Part 1/2 I dunno about you, but I'm sure making use of my new hardware. What? If you're sitting there doing nothing? The box is idle regardless. How much more idle should it be? You should have plenty of them left for use by your apps. To both points: as number 5 seems about right, is it true or not that Vista has 5X more services than XP (including drivers)? Just that alone is 5X code. How can you be sure that that code is working for you (or any individual user; not in the sense it's phoning home - just pure bloat)? You say all users use all features of Vista? I'm not saying XP is a saint either, but it's manageable. With Vista you just can't turn off some stuff. Perhaps you meant the same OS be 5x faster on 5x faster hardware. And for the most part, it is the case. That new 5x faster CPU plays 1080p H.264 video just great and all that. Perhaps what you really were thinking is 5x more responsive. But hardware specs vs responsiveness isn't linear or anything (it's a lot more complicated than that). 5X faster booting (although I don't value this treat at all personally), 5X app launch, 5X file copy (OK, if it's the same hardware, at least just as fast, but not many times slower as seen in the famous bug; or - disregard the bug - they could at least invent some improvements/tricks to make it faster - but not SLOWER - as in calculating the time needed when they could just get do it), and yeah, why not get more fps in media playback/games? New algorithms, GPU offloading... There is something of that in Vista, but, again, it is annihilated with the bloat. Responsiveness - I agree it's not linear, but if something is faster, it's faster - you can feel it. Again, compare it on the same hardware with XP. Calculate the toll of the new features: Is it two times faster? Best I've seen on the net, 'just as' or 20 % faster. Does it get my work done twice as fast? No - about the same. Why should I replace XP again? And when I say resources, I mean combined RAM + HDD + CPU time. So, cost vs. benefit: Cost: Twice as expensive (let's say), 5X more computer resources usage, 5X more restrictions (DRM, phone home, difficult connectivity with other platforms, UAC, incompatibilites with older programs - I know, what were those authors thinking when they wrote programs that write to HKLM or God forbid %programfiles% in the time everyone did - no, that are microsoft's places now)... vs. Benefits: 2X faster (let's say, although it isn't), 2X easier to use (only for new users, those who have used previous versions of Windows have to learn from start - can you find any control panel in one try, "where's my run box, dude?"... those things you call 'complaints it isn't XP'), 5X greater security (I'll give it that, although it's implemented in all the wrong ways - through obscurity and UACnoying the user; and it still isn't proven it's THAT much more secure). It does bring a LOT of new features. Just because you don't see them, or don't know they're there doesn't mean they aren't there. OK if you say so. There you go. You want something cheap like most people. I want my money's worth, like most people do.

I said before I won't bite into these discussions, but I really REALLY couldn't stand it. And seeing that the discussion is already developed... so, in no particular order, some of my general gripes with Vista: 1. "Hardware geting cheaper"... so we should use it to serve Microsoft's purposes? Why shouldn't WE use it? Is it an officially mandated tax? 1a. If the most popular CPU at the time of XP's birth was XXX MHz, and when Vista came out it was XXX times 5 MHz (for the sake of argument, let's approximate it's a linear function and just add up the cores), HDDs are 5 times bigger, RAM is 5 times bigger, GPUs are 5 times stronger... Shouldn't be Vista 5X faster than XP? Since I see most agree that it's "just as good as" in the best case, where did all that resources go to? For that kind of power, it should bring a mind-reading interface to the table, not some stupid skin. Because it costs MONEY, what is the VALUE it brings me for my money? (thanks God it's not 5 times more expensive - and that might just show that even Microsoft knows it's not 5 times better ). What I don't understand is why there are 50X more fanboys that persuade others how great Vista is. 1b. Let's say it has more features than XP. What is the USEFULNESS of these features? Has anybody requested them? Just one example, mentioned before, Microsoft invents SMB2 with horrendeous restrictions and that's a feature?! I for one haven't seen anyone bragging how faster his network is with Vista, just the opposite. Most often seen? "I can't connect to Vista". They broke the old that worked and bring the new with dubious value? 1c. I have asked before, I repeat it again: any technical proof (measurements) of how improved is memory management / threading on Vista? Compared to XP? On same hardware? 2. "Easier development with bloated complers"... I have no pity for developers (and that includes Microsoft). Maybe because I ain't one. They should earn their (big) $$$. Why is efficiency ('green') highly valued in hardware, but not in software? My favorite line is: ".Net is for lazy programmers". Microsoft saw there are millions of wannabe programmers and imposed bloat on all of us. 3. "Apple does it, Linux does it, Microsoft has done it before"... this is no excuse. Like everyting in life, if we don't strive to be better, we will eventually return to the stone age. 3a. "When XP came out, you (meaning me and others like me) used the same arguments. You are a a hipocrit..." No I'm not. I still stand by these words and hate those 'features' of XP just as much... Just I've learned to bypass some of them and live with others. Maybe it will take me time to adopt Vista when I'm sure I can manage it... I guess by that time you'll enter your credit card number as reg info in Windows 8... 4. "Progress"... is it? If we leave third-party applications aside, with every new Windows version you can do less (more restrictions). Especially WITH Windows (self-healing in a bad way; obfuscation/encryption; unnecessary complications). Why are nLite/vLite so popular? 5. Even with new skins, do they need to switch them on (make them almost mandatory) in EVERY new version of Windows? Just make a new skin and make it optional! Sell it separately if you want! The number of tech support calls would drop to near zero... (or that's what they DON'T want? So they can sell more training certificates?) Or the skins ARE the new Windows versions? 6. Phoning home... I'll say no more. I could easily go to no. 99 and back, but I don't have that much time. Bye. GL

Hi and welcome to the forum! I've seen different antivirus/antispyware vendors naming same file differently or the opposite - different files as same. So I wouldn't trust their labels too much. And the virus itself may spread itself in different files, generated randomly. If you want to investigate more about the file, you may upload it to Virus Total for analysis. GL

You should navigate to whatever directory you want, then press Ctrl+B. It will list all files inside that directory + all files inside subdirectories all together flat in the lister. Isn't that what you wanted? Afterwards you could do whatever you want with the files, even drop them to another Explorer window(s). GL

1. Total Commander (Ctrl+B). 2. Same (you can configure it). GL *Edit: Smiley code broke my post. That's Ctrl+B.

Wikipedia has something to say about it. GL

If only I knew who's the smarta$$ who made this the default I'd like to have a 'chat' with him for a minute or two... Not on this forum, but in the forum software - it's everywhere on the net... Who in the right mind would thought that someone would want to read something without history and followup?! I guess they are saving bandwidth or something... and the poor users suffer again. GL

That's on Vista and Server2008, and that's different. From what I've read, some say it's mostly (hard/soft) links to other folders, some say there's even movies (dreamscene) inside, but all agree WinSXS is more heavily protected on those OSs and the OSs are liberal at filling it, but very conservative at cleaning it... I'm talking about XP/Server2003, where it supposedly hasn't grown too much roots, and examining it might help Vista/Server2008 users. The direction this is heading, it seems to me it's a battle for control - soon we won't be able to decide what code we want to run on our computers. Imagine future DRM/WGA implementations you won't be able to get rid of if you wanted to (legal issues aside). GL

Or is it? See what one of the "Advanced Usage Help" examples gives: http://www.msfn.org/board/search.html&CODE=show&searchid=1a8740178ffa3636f83a0673ada36ebc&search_in=posts&result_type=topics&highlite=%2B+apple+-juice (I hope word wrap doesn't break it.) Basically, search for +apples -juice doesn't give the expected results. (-juice) is ignored, sometimes treated like (OR juice), sometimes like (+juice). Or maybe my Opera is playing with me? I hope not, everything else works perfectly. GL

It's not only size that bothers me, it's all overhead that's associatied with it. I think it's a complication that doesn't solve the problem it was created for and additionally it creates other problems. Just use Process Monitor to see how much calls and queries it creates when running a simple .exe that's not even using it. It's potential point of entry for malware. It's potential breakdown point if it decides it doesn't like you (can't start cryptographic service, can't revocate certificates...). From glancing over them, it seems they could be removed from the registry (by searching for their unique IDs and removing them and all references that they are associated with), but what about the calls that are hardcoded in (very few) system DLLs and decoding/modifying Policies and Manifests? I'm afraid I don't have enough knowledge for that. GL *Edit: I knew there must be others that came up with the idea, but that's not finished... Besides, it's hard to eliminate all Vista sufferers in the search... Their plight is bigger.

Classic (and if there was something less than classic, I'd use that too. I hate resources to be wasted on kid's drawings). GL

If you're desperate, you could try: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] "Shell Icon Size"="32" "Shell Small Icon Size"="16" I think these are the defaults for XP. Adjust to your needs. Don't forget to reboot. I have not played with the numbers, but I think you need at least multiples of 8. GL

not only the new one but REST of all except the system partition (aka C:) Well, one can argue that all partitions are new to a freshly installed Windows. Anyway, it automounts the partitions that are on the same drive as system partition. That's what I have seen. GL

Windows Product Activation. Some versions of XP can be moved to another computer, some cannot. Since this looks like an OEM version, I think it couldn't. But depends how Alienware has implemented it. GL