Hasta la Vista

[mike_morley]

I have recently installed a beta version of Vista on my spare machine. Within 15 minutes of install I got the infamous blue screen of death. Not only that but to say that the speed that it ran was slow is an understatement.

I started using Linux some time ago and haven't rebooted my computer in 5 months (that is when I first put the install disk in).

Also reading the various articles on the net once you have installed it and want to make a major upgrade your machine (Motherboard, CPU), you will only be able to do this once. After that you will have to either make a request to Microsoft for leniency or repurchase a new license. The only reason I can think of for this is to make Microsoft more money. There is no security reason for this at all (unless anybody else can think of one).

So the question begs, why should anybody use Windows at all anymore when there are free operating systems available that are more robust, reliable, secure, and that don't restrict the user?

I believe that even though this won't spell the end Microsoft it is definitely the start. This is by and far the worst offering from Microsoft since... well ever!

Even this forum is being run on a Linux server!!!

Edited December 17, 2006 by mike_morley

[jaclaz]

Well, though I personally don't like Vista, I cannot see why you are whining about a Beta that gave problems, Beta's are just Beta's, then you have Release Candidates and later still Final Release....

If you had started with Linux some time earlier you would have probably experienced the same, Linux is really stable since about three/four years, before it was a real problem to install it unless you had the "right" hardware.

And about Microsoft commercial Policy, though again I agree with you, I cannot see why you joined the board and started a new thread just to disagree with it, there are already several threads about the matter....

jaclaz

Edited December 17, 2006 by jaclaz

[mike_morley]

I started with a Minix dual boot way back in 1995-96 which I suppose I did have problems with but that was only due to my lack of experience with computers in general. That said I still have the old 386 it was installed on and it still works (even the networking).

With regards to it being a beta, even a beta shouldn't fall over in such a shameful way after 15mins. Even Windows 98 beta when that came out dispite its problems worked for a full day before it fell over.

You forgot after the final release you have the Service pack 2 which closes all the security holes left in the original release. By the time it is a stable reliable platform Microsoft will have brought out Windows Everest Edition or what ever they are going to call the mountain of bloatware that they are going to force people to have installed on their machines when they want to buy a new one next time round.

I just felt the need to add my two cents and to vent some pent up frustration. I think I need to get laid more

[CoffeeFiend]

before it was a real problem to install it unless you had the "right" hardware.

Before? That's still the case IMO. Wireless cards can be a PITA to get working (often via ndiswrapper). Newer video cards are often problematic. Getting lots of simple things working (like spdif out of a SB Live 5.1) is sometimes a nightmare (at least on the distro I was using). Lots of things like that.

Installing software isn't exactly always easy either - not as much as under windows IMO. Like Mythtv or TrixBox and others. There's distros that help installing some of those, but what if I want a different distro, or use both (can't just install both distros on the same box). Or another little thing: installing apache. Easy enough to start the install process via apt-get or whatever the distro of choice uses, but it doesn't ask nor tell where it puts the htdocs (home for your pages or whatever) - which seemingly varies from one distro to another, it doesn't start the service or anything (just in case you were just installing it for the sake of using disk space and not serving pages?) Too many things are unecessarily complicated to accomplish.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very useful OS, at least for many niche purposes, like dirt cheap LAMP hosting, firewalls, etc.

But the main reason to stick to windows (you're the one asking)? 99% of the apps I need/want require windows (and have no direct/suitable replacement), and it's unlikely to change anytime soon. As for linux automatically and necessarily being more robust/reliable/secure or whatever, I'm calling FUD on this one.

Besides, Vista isn't that bad. I've tried the betas, and never got a BSOD (and likely your problem was with your specific hardware config or drivers, and yes, it's expected and normal that this can happen in a few cases like yours). And w/o Aero and all that, it runs pretty smoothly even on older PCs.

[McTavish]

Windows Everest Edition or what ever they are going to call the mountain of bloatware.......

That's funny!

Thanks Mike, I was in need of a good giggle.

[LLXX]

M$'s software quality has indeed declined... my experience with an early beta of Vista wasn't as bad as yours, but not being able to easily modify the files on your own hard drive and use unsigned drivers was irritating, not to mention it ran slow. M$ just seems to be wanting to lock everything so that users can't do much in the way of customisations.

[mike_morley]

not being able to easily modify the files on your own hard drive and use unsigned drivers was irritating

The reason for this is that Windows initially wasn't built as a networking operating system. To quote Good 'Ol Bill "The internet is going no where". That is why there are so many security holes in it. It is also the reason for not being able to modify your own files easily. They have built layers and layers of security upon something that should have been re-written from scratch as soon as the internet started to come to the forefront of technology.

They are just being slack as far as I am concerened. Instead of releasing a good product they are releasing software that will force people to upgrade the software into the next decade (Visions of Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies).

Edited December 18, 2006 by mike_morley

[cluberti]

I certainly hope you change your mind in the future, and it's sad that you base your opinion of Vista on a beta.

I have recently installed a beta version of Vista on my spare machine. Within 15 minutes of install I got the infamous blue screen of death. Not only that but to say that the speed that it ran was slow is an understatement.

It's slow because it's running checked versions of most things in the OS - meaning it's about 50% slower than the release (unchecked) versions of 58xx and up. If you're running RC2, it's probably slow due to this.

Also reading the various articles on the net once you have installed it and want to make a major upgrade your machine (Motherboard, CPU), you will only be able to do this once. After that you will have to either make a request to Microsoft for leniency or repurchase a new license. The only reason I can think of for this is to make Microsoft more money. There is no security reason for this at all (unless anybody else can think of one).

This is incorrect - it was this way for some reason during the betas, but cooler heads prevailed and the licensing terms are basically the same as XP's. No "one install/activation limit".

I believe that even though this won't spell the end Microsoft it is definitely the start. This is by and far the worst offering from Microsoft since... well ever!

That is, of course, your opinion. I'm sorry your experience with Vista was not good, but at least give RTM a try - basing your opinion on a product on a beta seems a bit near-sighted, but if Linux works for you, go with it.

and use unsigned drivers was irritating, not to mention it ran slow.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - over 50% of support calls are due to buggy, poorly-written, and (for the most part, anyway) unsigned 3rd party drivers. This is a way to try and stabilize the OS, make driver writers more accountable for their driver code, and reduce support costs for the OS by reducing the most common support call. You can disable this in group policy or via the registry if you want your system more under your control. However, I must mention that if you do call for support, they're going to make you turn that back on and reboot before you do anything else.

[usasma]

I have been using Vista on and off for a year now - and it did crash frequently. But I dutifully submitted my crash reports and they have fixed each issue that I reported.

I've been running the RTM build for several weeks now and don't have any problems with it's stability.

What I do have a problem with is the lack of available apps for Vista. XP apps just don't work all that well in Vista - so I'm eagerly awaiting the flood of apps that should come once Vista is released to the general public.

If you put poor quality gas in your car and it runs lousy - do you blame the car manufacturer - or the gas? The same goes for Microsoft. They spent gazillion's of dollars to ensure backwards compatibility - but they had to draw the line somewhere. And that was the principle of "least privilege".

So, that's where they draw the line. And it's consistent with what they've been saying for years ("Don't use the Administrator account", "Run your system as a limited user", etc). But users don't listen to this advice (myself included) and routinely run as administrators. So software writers realized this and also find that it's easier to write code for administrators than it is for limited users.

In general, those of us posting here (and on other forums) are only a small part of the customer base that Microsoft has. The majority of folks buy a computer, turn it on, and call someone when they have a problem. They don't need or even want to know why - they just want it fixed. Microsoft, being a business, must consider this when developing their products - and must adjust their product development to help assure that people are protected from themselves (this is what I like to call the "McDonald's" theory - where the big corporations are held responsible for the user's ineptitude. In the case of McDonalds, it was because someone sued them for having coffee that burned them when they spilled it in their own lap)

'nuff said.

[Spooky]

Its what she burned that makes one go 'Ouch!'

There is just so much hype about Vista right now, and 99% of it is just that - hype. There are so many mis-conceptions that it boggles the mind. Tried to help someone on another forum with a problem he was having, he tried to load a hacked (supposedly for performance) version of that old XP USB driver thing in Vista because he read somewhere that the drivers in Vista were crap, his machine slowed down to a crawl and for two weeks he was complaining about how Vista was crap until I asked him a question.."Did Vista work fine before you loaded those drivers?" His response was "Yeah it worked great, no problems at all until I put those drivers on." I asked him why he used those drivers and he said that someone on a forum had posted them and said that the Vista USB drivers were crap and didn't do such and such. I asked him if he believed that, his response was "Well, everyone can't be wrong about the drivers in Vista being crap". I asked him if he was going to change the drivers back to the in-box drivers and he said "No i'm not, Vista is crap, its not the drivers!"

...ahhh the things that make you go DuH!.

My own theory is: If one doesn't like something then don't use it, but just because one doesn't like it or doesn't want to use it doesn't necessarly mean thats true for others.

A law of physics and nature: Water tends to seek its own level. As such in reference to OS's, people who want to use a ceratin operating system tend to seek others with similar interest instead of hanging out in places where others don't share their interest.

Another law of physics and nature: Nature abhors a vacuum. As such in reference to OS's a windows forum might be a vacuum for one who uses a Linux system.

.....(this is what I like to call the "McDonald's" theory - where the big corporations are held responsible for the user's ineptitude. In the case of McDonalds, it was because someone sued them for having coffee that burned them when they spilled it in their own lap)

'nuff said.

Edited December 18, 2006 by Spooky

[CoffeeFiend]

.....(this is what I like to call the "McDonald's" theory - where the big corporations are held responsible for the user's ineptitude. In the case of McDonalds, it was because someone sued them for having coffee that burned them when they spilled it in their own lap)

'nuff said.

The theory is somewhat valid, but the name you chose is rather inappropriate, and the example sure is a bad one. That person didn't sue just because she accidentally poured some coffee on herself (happens, and it's not usually a problem).

The problem here is actually the company you're seemingly sympatizing with. After several hundreds of ppl getting serious burns - sometimes caused by their employees. and even though they've known their coffee to be dangerously hot (180 to 190 degrees F! - and not being any reasons to do so), they still continue to prepare/serve it that way (talk about being careless - there's publications about this very problem at the said company). And in this specific case, it was 3rd deree burns to the groin - those are deep burns, requiring skin grafts (to a place where I'd rather that never happen) and costs a lot of money (over 10k$ in this case). And it's not like people should expect coffee to be this ridiculously hot and dangerous (no warnings of any kind anywhere either). The couple times where I've had coffee there (not a pleasant experience for one's taste buds at all), I've discovered how hot it really is by burning my tongue with the first sip, after having waited for it to cool down quite a bit (nevermind it almost tasted better that way). Besides, spilling coffee isn't exactly ineptitude. Who hasn't ever spilled coffee before? Or any kind of drink, really. Common everyday accidents aren't ineptitude, and it certainly was the company at fault here (court ruled so too).

I wish people would stop siding with a company that willingly does bad things like this - not to comment on the nutritive value (or lack of) their "food". It would be difficult to come up with a worse example. That's just like siding with Ford about the exploding Pintos, because the drivers must have been inept or something (unfounded too), and calling it the Ford theory.

[Spooky]

I think by 'user's ineptitude' he means that even though the person knew that coffee is served hot she still put the cup between her own legs and when it spilled out she got burned. The point being, if you know its hot and likely to burn you then common sense would tell you not to expose sensitive parts of your body to it. I don't think he's sympatizing with the company, he's making the point that MS took steps to account for people who are having difficulty with an OS, as in "Wer'e going to tell you how to do what you want and then show you how to do it, and help you along the way" - A valid instruction method called a 'Guided Approach' (or at least it used to be called that, don't know what they call it now a days)

Edited December 18, 2006 by Spooky

[kartel]

you dont get bluescreens in vista..........

[Spooky]

Its been at least three years or more since I saw a blue screen with XP, and I haven't seen a one with Vista RTM yet and i've really abused it too. The last blue screen I saw with Vista was with one of the earlier beta 1 builds.

you dont get bluescreens in vista..........

Edited December 18, 2006 by Spooky

[glocK_94]

Vista is very demanding for purposes that nobody really needs (3D windows? really?) but fine. I understand that for the average user, it's nice to have an eye-candy OS.

The real problem is that using security as an excuse, they prevent users from controlling their PC to make (they think) more money. Soon, you won't be allowed to play music or watch a video that's on your hard disk (DRM are already there but it will get much worse with Vista). That's something dangerous and that's something even the basic user doesn't like. Besides, if M$ really cared about security they would have got rid of services and all the bloat they include in the package. For exemple, the OS would have no open port out of the box until you decide to connect...

Why should we ask M$ or any major to do anything on our PCs? What about people without an internet connection (or who pay every time they connect)? What about states and administrations dealing with citizens personal informations? The whole concept of property is being jeopardized.

Sure, you'll be able to overpass all that with tweaks and hacks and they've changed the EULA a bit. But is this really the best kind of OS we could have? They're will just be more Linux fan out there.