MS Vista

I just got done downloading both versions (32 & 64-bit)… not sure if I should install due to driver issues… Has anyone here test driven Windows Vista yet?

I take it those are beta versions? It hasn’t been released officially yet, has it?

Anyway I’m interested to hear anyone’s opinion of the new OS. I’ll have to get a new computer soon and I’m wondering whether to stick with XP, which I like, or upgrade to the new Windows.

rumors say that Vista will be released in Nov 06

Yes beta (build 5036)… the beta is currently available to MSDN subscribers.

Not to the public no.

I’m finally convinced by a forumosa computer expert to finally convert to XP. Now, I hear there is a new system out.

So, if I buy XP professional now, will I be left high and dry 2 years later?

I’m upset that my Windows 2K is no longer supported by the new utilities.

Delayed 'till January 2007

edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/03 … index.html

[quote=“Taiwan_Student”]I’m finally convinced by a forumosa computer expert to finally convert to XP. Now, I hear there is a new system out.

So, if I buy XP professional now, will I be left high and dry 2 years later?

I’m upset that my Windows 2K is no longer supported by the new utilities.[/quote]

It depends largely on what your machine can handle. I don’t know specific details, but with all the added security features, wizzy graphics etc, Vista will be more taxing on your machine. If you do have a fairly decent machine, you might want to hold out for Vista or at least research whether there will be a cheap upgrade option (though the release of Vista is still another 10 months away).

I would go with XP. I’d say it’d be supported for a few more years yet, mainly because I can’t imagine all the many people will be rushing to buy Vista.

Old DRAM shares going to hell in a handbasket… Obviously the purpose of Vista is to generate licensing fees and sell DRAM by the truckload - I suppose it needs a billion gigabytes of RAM just to open an email?

Anyway, does anyone know/want to guess when support for Windows 2000 will be withdrawn?

Just got the message that I could download the public trial for Vista RC1 … is almost done, takes about 2 hours … 2.6 GB

What’s the expected release date: early 2007?

Will the average consumer really see any noticeable improvements – if so what – or is this just another ploy by MS to force a few billion users to abandon a perfectly good product and buy their latest version? The latter seems more likely.

I’ve been using Vista as my main OS at work and at home for a while now and it’s surprising how quickly XP has started to feel old and clunky. If you’re planning to move to Vista early after it is launched then it’s worthwhile getting RC1 now and having a play.

However, there are still some big issues that mean you can’t delete that XP partition just yet:
Third-party driver support is crap - even the latest NVIDIA drivers made my system unstable, this means no gaming.

Sync Center is almost completely non-functional - If you have a Pocket PC/Windows Mobile phone that you need to sync often be prepared to boot into XP to do it.

All (as far as I know) virtual CD applications don’t work/are blocked from even being installed.

Other than that most eveyday things work smoothly and the worst I’ve had to do to get a particular application to work is change it to “run as administrator” in the compatibility settings…

Vista is about the deal that was done many years ago between various hardware manufacturers and MS to keep obsoleting the hardware with newer versions of the OS so that people would keep buying new computers. So Vista “needs” 2GB of memory and a fifty squigahertz CPU? What a surprise. Must dash out and spend £200 on that. What’s wrong with Windows 2000? I’ll bet no-one even knows the difference between it and XP.

That sounds accurate. My employer makes monitors, among other products, and there is no question that upon Vista’s launch, early next year, we – like all monitor makers – will quickly switch over to making only DDC-CI monitors, whose sole reason for coming into existence is to service Vista, which will quickly become the predominant OS.

My company used to be very reluctant upgrading our 15.000 PC’s worldwide with MS software.
Win NT was installed in 2004 and only last year, they upgraded to XP.
Nothing is more stupid to upgrade to a new OS before a first Service Pack is released for sure.

Now, as we are part of special programm with MS, we will upgrade to Vista early 2007 already, even knowing that the OS will have plenty of bugs and result in inevitable crashes.
Guess there will be more IT people hired soon …

I downloaded the Vista RC1 a month ago, but for once I did not feel the irresistible feeling to install it, as my XP never ran as smooooooth as now.

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]What’s wrong with Windows 2000? I’ll bet no-one even knows the difference between it and XP.[/quote]I know w2k is more expensive than XP. :wink: What does that tell you?

When w2k becomes unusable due to there being no hardware or drivers to support it, I’ll migrate to Linux. No more M$ bull$hit for me.

[quote=“redwagon”][quote=“Lord Lucan”]What’s wrong with Windows 2000? I’ll bet no-one even knows the difference between it and XP.[/quote]I know w2k is more expensive than XP. :wink: What does that tell you?

When w2k becomes unusable due to there being no hardware or drivers to support it, I’ll migrate to Linux. No more M$ bull$hit for me.[/quote]

OEM XP Home came out at about £35 for the OEM version and they jacked the price of Windows 2000 up to £125 because everyone wanted that instead of XP.

XP is 2000 is NT4 is NT3.51 is… and so on.

MT, there really was a conference in Las Vegas to discuss (mainly) how they were going to stop the Taiwanese building huge inventories of new computers minutes after the Americans had invented them. HP, IBM, Intel, MS were there, as were Sun (believe it or not) and all the global wholesalers were invited. Basically it was just to announce their policy of updating the hardware every six months and pushing out OS’s that locked the OS and the new technology together. It was also in response to the problem that the hardware was too advanced for anyone to use properly. Of course the APIs would all be the same and it would all be based on the same basic platform, NT for business, and 95 for home, so that programmers didn’t do their collective nut, but to the consumer it looked like the OS and hardware really was evolving. It was about the same time that MS told everyone that the “best” way to produce application would be to, say, use Microsoft Visual Studio and write in C++ or VB if you must. No machine code direct memory or CPU control for you chaps. No need. Our mates in the graphics card business will do that for you. The conference really did happen. A relative of mine who was the IBM and HP wholesaler for Ireland was there. Although it sounds obvious now, it was revolutionary at the time and they tried to keep it secret. Yeah right. Can’t for the life of me remember when it was. Early 90s I think.

Remember all that “buy more memory! faster processors!” crap? Utter balls. Your disk drive is now and always has been the bottleneck in your system. Which is why no-one can understand why old Sun Workstations and Apples used to fly with tiny processors made by VIA and stuff and a Sinclair Spectrum 16k memory pack on the back. Ha! Our Sun Workstation was running the entire accounts for the Irish wholesalers of HP, IBM, Star Micronics, OTC, Samsung, and God knows what else with a program written in machine code running on a UNIX OS on a 286 processor that would embarrass your mobile phone and a 300MB hard drive array. Yes “array”. They were that small but they were… SCSI! There is your answer. But hey, SCSI’s been around since the Ark, we’re not going to get any “traction” on selling that mature technology! Let’s sell them processors and memory! Cool. :notworthy:

On another note … SATA connectors suck big time, wonder who invented these …

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]
XP is 2000 is NT4 is NT3.51 is… and so on.[/quote]As I recall, the NT platform was developed at a hardware manufacturer after they decided to create an OS with the stability of Unix and the user-friendliness of Apple. Sadly, a change in senior management caused the program to be canned, and Bill Gates hired the team away to create a server OS for MS. Basically they just took the code with them, forced it to interact with DOS, gave the GUI the traditional Windows look, and NT was born. M$'s best-ever product wasn’t even a result of their own work.

Bonus prize to anyone who can name the hardware vendor that developed the NT kernel.

This is simply not true. The system I’m writing on has 448MB RAM and 2.8GHz CPU. That’s actually below the minimum spec quoted by Microsoft but the new features like UAC, Volume Shadow Copy, in/out bound firewall and fast search all work fine.

Direct X 9.0, built in firewall, Security Center, 64-bit support, Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance, consumer friendly interface are just things I can think of off the top of my head. Some of those features you can add into Win2k with 3rd party software, others you might not want on a 6 year old system, but there are differences. Claiming that Win2k has all the functionality of WinXP is like saying DSLinux has all the functionality of a full Mandrake distribution. The kernel is the same and they both come with a web browser and text editor, so for you if all you need is to edit text and surf, then maybe they are, but other folks need different things.

DDC-CI is a way to allow monitors and graphics cards to adjust certain settings such as contrast and brightness automatically. It does little more than save users the inconvenience of having to press a few buttons on their display or helps users configure their setup so that they get a decent quality image with the least amount of hassle. The standard is controlled by VESA and is supported by Linux and Mac OS. Unless all previous versions of Windows have been pre-programmed to somehow turn up the display brightness to full or something once Vista is released I don’t see how it serves Vista at all. I think you are confused.

That the market forces of supply and demand work, and that supporting a minority of users using 6 year old software costs more than it does supporting the majority.

Also upgrade incenses work on all previous versions of Windows, so if Win2k was significantly lower than that of XP then Microsoft would make lower profits.

Lots of people with opinions here but very few who have actually tried the software.

If all you have to add to the discussion is “I hate Vista because I hate Microsoft” that’s fine, but don’t try to obscure what your saying by mixing it up in hearsay, mis-information or a whacked out conspiracy theory.

[quote]Basically they just took the code with them, forced it to interact with DOS, gave the GUI the traditional Windows look, and NT was born. M$'s best-ever product wasn’t even a result of their own work.
[/quote]

Has MS ever done anything original?
Can’t think of anything they haven’t stolen out right or bought from someone else.