“Today, Microsoft is excited to announce the availability of Windows Vista RC2 to Technical Beta Testers, TAP Testers, and MSDN/TechNet subscribers. 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.”
I haven’t tried Vista yet, but maybe now is the time? I’m not sure if I’m ready yet.. Don’t want to spoil the exitement of using the “real” thing when it arrives.
I haven’t either. But I figure if they’ve fixed a lot of bugs since RC1, and RC2 isn’t available to the general public, guess I’ll wait I’m sure it’s possible to score a copy of RC2 from the ‘black market’, but I don’t wanna go through the trouble.
Apparently, according to some of the doomsday naysayers, it’s impossible to rip a CD to unprotected mp3 files using WMP11 or anything else in Vista. I’m curious to know if that’s true .. anybody running one of the later builds wanna test this and let us know once and for all?
Edited 2006-10-06 22:43
It is COMPLETELY untrue.
WMA is a bloody awsome CODEC; I’ve given the WMA Pro, it is simply awesome in terms of audio quality vs. file size.
For me, WMA 9 Variable Bitrate is superior to mp3 and AAC in every respects, and WMA Pro takes it to a whole new level; 24bit encoding, superior compression vs. quality.
There are big improvements, and when the information gets out there, the voices of lies and FUD from the anti-Microsoft will become louder and louder as people realise that improvements that Microsoft has made.
It is pathetic when I see this occur; how about instead of the pointless Microsoft bashing, the ‘anti-Microsoft crew’ should get back to work finishing off their half-finished applications, like Banshee, Mono, Java Classpath, Eclipse, Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice.org, GTK and so on and so on.
I’m sorry but Vista isn’t finished yet either and when I compare eg: gnome 2.16 + compiz/aiglx with vista, well let’s just say that vista is just a little toy. (gfx interface wise)
And when you take into consideration that all this was made for free then I guess can say that microsoft simply sucks at making software if they can’t make a better product with their budget…
But Windows Vista is already finished; they’re merely testing it right now; its feature complete, and for all intensive purposes, aet the door waiting to be released.
Oh, and btw, don’t play dumb, the reason why they’re behind schedule was the stopping of development, the move to get SP2 and Windows XP up to an acceptable standard – the standard that it should have been at release, and the move from the Windows XP code base to Windows 2003 SP1 core.
The ‘behind schedule’ is due to stupid decisions made 10-15 years ago, and they’ve corrected these issues, Windows Vista will be released on time, and coupled with the new API’s and possibilities for developers, Linux is moving further behind the 8th ball.
AIXGL isn’t finished yet; it is still immature, it isn’t even close to what actually being done in Windows Vista, Avalon and XPS; The Linux kernel is still a mess of half finished drivers and half finished, poorly maintained projects, a lack of a stable driver API, and lets not forget the GPL question relating to proprietary modules in the kernel.
Lets move further up the chain; the constant differences between the distributions, the lack of fixing problems when they arise – fobbing off the responsibility onto someone else rather than actually fixing the bloody thing; Banshee on Fedora was shipped knowing full well that the version included with it didn’t work (segfaulted on launch) when run in conjunction with the SMP kernel.
So on one side you have Microsoft going hell for leather to correct major deficies with Windows, and on the other hand you have the opensource community making the knee jerk reaction of ‘you don’t understand opensource’ and ‘its YOU with the problem, YOU need to change!’
See the difference? one takes responsibility and listens to their customers, makes the appropriate changes, and learns from mistakes, and the other camp is forever blaming everyone else for ‘not understanding opensource’ which seems to be the same thing unruly teenagers say to their parents – ‘you don’t understand me!’.
Edited 2006-10-07 10:18
“See the difference? one takes responsibility and listens to their customers, makes the appropriate changes, and learns from mistakes, and the other camp is forever blaming everyone else for ‘not understanding opensource’ which seems to be the same thing unruly teenagers say to their parents – ‘you don’t understand me!’. ”
Now I can call you a big fat liar and on top of that either a fanboy or a boughtout…
“Lets move further up the chain; the constant differences between the distributions, the lack of fixing problems when they arise – fobbing off the responsibility onto someone else rather than actually fixing the bloody thing; Banshee on Fedora was shipped knowing full well that the version included with it didn’t work (segfaulted on launch) when run in conjunction with the SMP kernel.”
Still better than shipping a completly insecure os WITHOUT knowing it…
“AIXGL isn’t finished yet; it is still immature, it isn’t even close to what actually being done in Windows Vista, Avalon and XPS; The Linux kernel is still a mess of half finished drivers and half finished, poorly maintained projects, a lack of a stable driver API, and lets not forget the GPL question relating to proprietary modules in the kernel.”
It’s MUCH further than Aero and the likes.. the difference is actualy so big that AIGLX/Compiz is a completly different thing compared to Aero (which is just a fancy Metacity with big lack of features)
“The ‘behind schedule’ is due to stupid decisions made 10-15 years ago, and they’ve corrected these issues, Windows Vista will be released on time, and coupled with the new API’s and possibilities for developers, Linux is moving further behind the 8th ball.”
If you say so.. but seriously, do you think that windows 3.x or older have something to do with vista? Or windows 95? If you’re right then god protect all vista users.
“Oh, and btw, don’t play dumb, the reason why they’re behind schedule was the stopping of development, the move to get SP2 and Windows XP up to an acceptable standard – the standard that it should have been at release, and the move from the Windows XP code base to Windows 2003 SP1 core.”
I’m not, it’s not finished and it won’t be finished when released either. The incosistent interface was just tip of the iceberg.
have to agree there. no way is it finished , an compiz an XGL an AIGLX is aswesome, MS$ should of had Transparency in WinXP, an Vista , but not just that let the MS losers go Pay for there beloved OS while us Open Source users get our software for free,
For Christ’s sake, you peopple are patentably retarted and just down right pathetic.
Why can’t you admit that this is untrue? Why do you have to spread lies about something?
Not only is it a lie, but it is a lie that will come out as such in a couple of months when Vista is released AND it doesn’t even matter!
I am truely disgusted by you people.
If what was said about this being a limited release turns out to be accurate, then you likely won’t have to worry about it.
“Vista RC2 released”
who cares -> NetBSD 3.1 is going to be ready in some months
and I wait eagerly for 4.0 , it may have an efficient gcj and better FireWire/BlueTooth support.
I can’t wait. What is this great deal with Vista? If you want to pay, give a donation to netBSD instead.
So… after 5 years in the making (3 loooooong years overdue), the time for Windows XP SP3 has finally arrived!!!
lol theres 40% more lines of code in Vista than in XP. When you add/change so much to an OS how can you call it a service pack?
I can’t wait especially for the apps that developers will make. Someone made an expose clone really easily and thats definitely the tip of the iceberg. Anyways people like you will realize how foolish a comment like that is in about a year
lol theres 40% more lines of code in Vista than in XP.
mmmmmm… bloat. bugger replacing stuff, lets just add
MORE CRAP
Go suck a penguin.
lol theres 40% more lines of code in Vista than in XP. When you add/change so much to an OS how can you call it a service pack?
Well, I read at some place not too long ago that a guy installed a basic Windows XP, and it took about 2 gigs of downloaded updates to make it current. What’d you call that ? )
According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
I would say it is a little more than just a service pack
Based off server 2003 source, not XP, moron
As usual, takes a while to get to the MSDN subscribers.
Why not make it available for when the announcement is actually made? Would make more sense.
I would most certainly say its is not XP SP3 unless you are really are basing simply on visually changes.
I believe that was intended as sarcasm.
Released to CPP for limited download
http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc2/en/download.htm
Gee, nice to see they are bothering with the 64bit version.
Onya Microsoft, would be nice to have the new networking stack as the current RC1 networking is FUBAR.
Onya Microsoft, would be nice to have the new networking stack as the current RC1 networking is FUBAR.
Most likely it’s just your drivers — RC1 (and every other build) includes the new stack.
I mean really, this is released to the TechNet, TAP, MSDN etc, yet the public, can download it at the same time as everyone else.
Is it just me, or is there not much point in being part of any of those if you can download them before hand off their public site anyway.
TAP, private testers, MSDN and TechNet get more builds than the public. There’s also a lot more to MSDN and TechNet than getting OS betas.
Oh I know, we are part of the MSDN.
It just amazes me that the amount of times that MS say that they aren’t going to release this to the public, and they are going to keep it to certain testers etc.
Yet it comes out again for the public, not that I mind, they just seem to be having trouble making up their mind who they want to release it too =)
nice for Apple to be copied; now they’ll have to come up with something better with Leopard which is a good thing.
This is fun to watch.
Go Microsoft!!!
The OpenSuse team has released openSUSE Alpha 5. All the packages are bleeding edge including kernel 2.6.18, KDE 5.5 SVN, Gnome 2.16.1, Udev 101 and Glib 2.5. The cool new start menu is also included as well.
There is no PowerPC version for this release but is planned to re-appear in Beta 1 (due October 26th).
Go start your own thread mister.
No need to worry, there are forums already setup for people to jerk off about the ‘future of Linx’ and the ‘ground breaking changes’ responses that are made when someone makes a 2 line submission patch to a cvs tree somewhere.
When Microsoft creates technologies like XPS, .NET, C#, VB.NET, JS.NET, WMA Pro, Avalon, XAML etc. all the detractors can do is push it off as a ‘minor upgrade’ – when there is yet ANOTHER PDF reader, yet ANOTHER IRC chat programme, yet ANOTHER mediaplayer in Linux, there is 160 replies claiming that “Linux is taking over the desktop, whilst ignoring the record number of PC’s loaded with Windows.
Sir,
The Linux Desktops were gained through hard work and a honest community. While 99% of the Microsoft Desktops are gained through Monopolistic behavior. Linux is Free and Open While Microsoft and there Windows franchise has been convicted by the courts as being a illegal Monopoly. Linux today is as good if not better than XP and yes I know XP is a five year old technology. With a current modern Linux install SuSE 10 or a tweaked out Gentoo (I’m a Gentoo fan myself) with XGL enabled and Gnome 2.16.1 or KDE 3.5.4 we are close if not as good as Vista! We have caught up as far as the kernel and Desktop goes, all that’s really left is the OEM’s and Microsoft will be seen in a new light.
Which is completely irrelevant; until the consumer can run the same applications they can on Windows, on Linux, Linux will always play second fiddle to Windows on the desktop.
It isn’t MY responsibility to move to Linux then PLEAD to developers to port their applications to Linux, and wait ‘n hope that *maybe* they’ll actually do something about it.
Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box, along with all my hardware – full acceleration out of the box for my graphics card, and support for WMA out of the box as well, then I might change.
Ofiice suite = OpenOffice…. or Abiword + Gnumeric + Scribus …
Chat = GAIM
Creative Suite/Studio 8… dunno, never heard of it.
Office 2003 and Messenger Live thru Wine…. WHY ?
Nero can easily be replace by the vastly superior K3B
Ofiice suite = OpenOffice…. or Abiword + Gnumeric + Scribus => Bloated, unfinished, buggy and non-compatible with Microsoft Office.
Chat = GAIM => Missing audio/video, custom emoticons and incredibly buggy with constant dropping of conntection to MSN and AOL, sometimes failing to even log in on occasions.
Creative Suite/Studio 8… dunno, never heard of it. => What rock have you been hiding under – http://www.adobe.com
Nero can easily be replace by the vastly superior K3B => Buggy, bloated, and prone to cashing over stupid little things, a tonne of stuff still in a state of flux, any bugs reported are ignored by the maintainers.
clearly from your posts you have not even tried the software I listed.
abiword is bloated and not compatible with msword ? come on… who are you trying to convince ?
k3b is bloated and buggy and crashes ? what planet are you actually on man ?
Which is completely irrelevant; until the consumer can run the same applications they can on Windows, on Linux, Linux will always play second fiddle to Windows on the desktop.
You use it as an argument point and still fail to see that it is exactly this that could easily lead to the death of OS technology innovation. Wishing that there should be only one app [i.e. for a task] and only one os is just insane. Windows being present in such numbers doesn’t mean it’s 42 [i.e. the answer to everything…]. And, for that matter, I think just the opposite in the desktop subject: it’s especially the home desktops where Linux also is an alternative, since home users need much less interoperability and can adapt and change more rapidly and easily than e.g. a large company which based its entire fortune on a Windows and MSOffice platform for thousands of computers and recruited Windows-only workers who know only one app suite.
And, if Linux remains the second, that’s no big deal, we’re happy to use our so-called second-class OS, since it fits our needs (and sometimes philosophy and view of the software arena) very well, and, in the end, this is the __only__ thing that matters.
It isn’t MY responsibility to move to Linux then PLEAD to developers to port their applications to Linux
Why on earth would someone mentally sane want to move to a platform that doesn’t have the application you seek ? It would be just stupid. Use the platform that can run that application, and only consider switching iff apps you need [note, I didn’t write “the app you need”, I wrote “apps you need”] to achieve your goals are available. But, it’s also somewhat ignorant to not want to learn using other apps than the one you got used to.
Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box
What the friggin hell would we want that ??? Linux is not a damn Windows clone, for chirsts sake. If you want Windows, use Windows, why on earth do you raise demands for a totally different OS to fully support applications _not_ written for that OS ? Man, I gotta get a beer.
support for WMA out of the box as well
I just think your wish and love for closed source, closed formats, Windows applications and Windows itself is too strong for you to consider switching. It’s no use to install a Linux distro for the sole purpose of complaining about it not being Windows.
Well, it’s not, because it’s Linux.
And, if Linux remains the second, that’s no big deal, we’re happy to use our so-called second-class OS, since it fits our needs (and sometimes philosophy and view of the software arena) very well, and, in the end, this is the __only__ thing that matters.
So how about you guys stop ramming your lifestyle down my my throat; I’m sick and tired that everytime I say, “I’m happy with Windows, and Linux would have to get [list of requests] for me to move”, I’m apparently the one with the ‘problem’ and should change to suite your political leanings.
WMA can be made available for Linux, its just that distributors are cheapskates and are unwilling to licence the format off Microsoft, just as these same cheapskates would rather not pay royalties to fraunhofer so instead making mp3 support difficult for the end user.
So take your pick, you either are making a product for end users, which in that case you have to listen to end users, like myself, and what I want to see in the OS, OR you simply continue using Linux, and happy that those who want to use Linux, use it because of a choice they made, rather than it being evangelised at every moment.
Reminds me of the evangelicals, only 4% of hardcore evangelicals actually continue on later in life; it seems to be the case for Linux users, they get into the Linux buzz, and when they hit their 20s, they realise that the world doesn’t revolve around computers, it revolves around solutions, and that half their life so far has been based around trying to get a damn thing working rather than simply admiting it wasn’t up to the task.
I used FreeBSD for many years before moving back to Windows, and if Wine support was 100% feature complete, and all my applications worked out of the box, I”d be running it now – so if you want a conclusion, once Wine is up to scratch, I’ll move, until then, Linux is completely unworkable for me.
I’m sick and tired that everytime I say, “I’m happy with Windows, and Linux would have to get [list of requests] for me to move”,
Than don’t equally ram your wishlist down our throat.
If you're happy,fine.But don’t say indirect others lack what you want and are thus bad.
You get what you seed.
“Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box, along with all my hardware – full acceleration out of the box for my graphics card, and support for WMA out of the box as well, then I might change.”
* Decent office suite: OpenOffice 2.0.4
* Chat application: kopete (does all relevant protocols)
* Creative Suite: ???
* Windows Live Messenger: ? Why would you need that? See “chat application”
* Nero: K3b. And don’t start with that it’s not Nero. there were times where all people used EasyCD creator, and now people use Nero. Adapt! It’s just a program.
* WMA: it’s Windows! Media somthing. See where it says Windows? Stop using WMA if you plan to use Linux someday. There are MP3 and OGG. Better use OGG if you want to be free. It works on any platform.
Sure you only use one brand of clothes, and only like one brand of cars, and watch only Paramount movies, and… you see the point.
WMA can be supported out of the box; it is the fact that Linux distributors are a butch of cheapskates unwilling to fork over cash to Microsoft to pay for the format – TurboLinux does, too bad they make purchasing their operating system next to impossible.
99% of computer users couldn’t care whether their software is opensource. They just want something that works… they don’t want to wait for some teenage geeks to finish buggy beta software while doing their A-levels just so they can look at the source code and if they really want, build their own from source.
over 50% of people in the US don’t vote, with similar percentages in the rest of the Western world. That doesn’t mean democracy is worthless; what it means is that people don’t realise how worthwhile it is until they get kicked in the nethers by the threat of it going away.
While 99% of the Microsoft Desktops are gained through Monopolistic behavior.
Windows was the best deal the computing industry ever had. Cheap. Worked on millions of combinations of computers. It was far and away a better OS than its competitors. All it is is sour grapes to whine about “monoplistic behavior” when for the most part it was the stupidity of Microsoft competitors that lost market share.
And now we see it again with Linux. Security holes out the wazoo for Firefox and Apache. 200,000 distro choices. Lying about Apaches “superiority” when in fact the best thing its for is to host unused parked domains. The most interesting OSS project is mono – the cloning of VB.NET.
And then there is the vitriol and hate spewing out of OSS fanatics mouths and keyboards.
Go ahead. Keep screwing it up. Microsoft is laughing all the way to the bank.
Edited 2006-10-07 16:42
what a retard
Windows was the best deal the computing industry ever had. Cheap. Worked on millions of combinations of computers. It was far and away a better OS than its competitors.
Rubbish. The only thing Windows had over competitors like Amiga was that you could run it on loads of manufacturer’s computers. As an OS, by comparison with AmigaOS and MacOS it totally sucked.
All it is is sour grapes to whine about “monoplistic behavior” when for the most part it was the stupidity of Microsoft competitors that lost market share.
Could it also be the fact that Microsoft wrote the OS that its own apps run on, and that they got their software preinstalled on everyone’s PC?
And now we see it again with Linux. Security holes out the wazoo for Firefox and Apache. 200,000 distro choices. Lying about Apaches “superiority” when in fact the best thing its for is to host unused parked domains. The most interesting OSS project is mono – the cloning of VB.NET.
All these “security holes” you keep blathering about come out of only one wazoo – your own. And who is interested in Mono? Miguel de Icaza and a couple of people so lazy that they run Beagle instead of organizing their files into directories, unlike normal people.
this is great!
i’ve wanted a basic windows server os with a very minimal install
for people that have to support servers running windows software that doesn’t require .net this is a good thing
i’m looking forward to trying this one out
hmm..i wonder if it’d be possible to get video and sound drivers working, get directx working, and install/run a game
a “windows game os” that’s minimal somewhat like this would be very nice as well
darnit, somehow i posted that in the wrong article’s comments…duh@me…
>who cares -> NetBSD 3.1 is going to be ready in some months
Some millions of people who probably never (and will never) heard of BSD ?
Vista gaming will be 10 to 15 per cent slower than XP!
MICROSOFT is telling its selected gaming industry chaps that gaming under Vista will be ten to fifteen per cent slower than XP. It is because you have to load the 3D desktop all the time.
<snip>
3D desktop looks sexy but that is probably its key feature.
And it’s key feature look’s weak compaired to compiz/aiglx!
More here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34915
LOL….
It is because you have to load the 3D desktop all the time.
No, you don’t have to. Just disable Aero and use the classic theme.
So when you have XGL/Beryl/Emerald loaded on Linux, games go faster?
I load my games in a new plain X server, my XGL accelerated desktop is backgrounded and there is no performance hit. Best of both worlds, and I can only assume it will get better
Just what I wanted to say Also, I’d like to make another point here: how many people bash x for being slow, old, feature-less, etc. Still, while keeping the current x confugration, you want to start a new X e.g. with one app that runs on a different video card head e.g. playing a video ? Want to run another X with other settings to run a game ? Want to forward your x app windows to another pc ? So on, so forth. Answer: ok, do it. It may be old (not talking xorg here) compared to itself, but compared to certain other OS… I’m done here.
This is not true. The DWM turns off when a full-screen game or similar application is in use. The only time the DWM would stay on is if you play the game in a window.
“when I compare eg: gnome 2.16 + compiz/aiglx with vista, well let’s just say that vista is just a little toy. (gfx interface wise)”
Yes I really wish I had windows that swayed when I moved them and wobble. MS demoed those things a long time ago when Longhorn was young and scratched the ideas because they’re pointless. Who cares about plain old transparency? Try loading just 3 text document windows on top of each other and watch what happens. Unreadable garbage. Don’t have that problem in Vista’s implementation
As for gnome I don’t even know where to start. They finally realized how terrible it is so Novell creates something called SLAB. About time they make an improvement. I could go on for hours talking about all the other reasons it still sucks. Btw no user will notice the difference between 2.16, 2.14, 2.12… They change some version numbers for things like firefox and gaim every 6 months.
“Btw no user will notice the difference between 2.16, 2.14, 2.12…”
=) that’s funny, you obviosly never used it.
I like these comments, thought they weren’t any around here at OSAlert but yes the MS lovers finally come out of the closet.
Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box, along with all my hardware – full acceleration out of the box for my graphics card, and support for WMA out of the box as well, then I might change.
The problem is not that there are not the same applications on Linux as on Windows, the problem is that there are only few professional applications.
I think for the average user the applications you can find on linux are not worse than the expensive counterparts on Windows, Openoffice is a great suite for most uses, Amarok is far a better app for music than Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger is a bloated piece of crap, Gaim for chatting may not have a lot of features but has the great advantage of being multi-protocol, and K3B does more or less what Nero does. If it were for those bloated and overpriced applications you named I would not stay with windows.
The problem is when it comes to professional apps… those you need to work. Design and Image manipulation, 3D CAD for engeneering, Video editing and compositing and the list could go on for years.
As I see it Linux will remain an OS for geeks and people with little demands (like my father who happily uses Ubuntu).
But now the question is… why should I invest in Windows for the future? To me Vista has certainly implemented a lot of improvements, but still… looks like it’s only getting more and more bloated and sluggish… more useless crap, sure… a lot of fx and eyecandy, but it still looks ugly… it’s just a bad copy of osx that brings no innovation.
Now is the point where I begin to think about getting a mac… despite their snobbish style I don’t really like.
Well, my perspective about Vista is too simple: Vista is a bloated boat, with a lot of code complexity wich no one understands written 10 years ago. For 5/6 years of hard work there’s nothing _really_ new here, except if you are a Windows fanboy that thinks, for example, that IPv6 is a great improvement or “new” network stack will speed up all interweb. If you dont believe me be check out what a 5 years MS worker says about this
http://blogs.msdn.com/philipsu/archive/2006/06/14/631438.aspx
Edited 2006-10-07 12:59
I have been using RC2 for a few hours now. This is a big improvement over RC1. It is obvious that MS has folks working long hours.
So far I see lots of arguments about the wonders of Vista. Other than a pretty interface and a reworked and worded methods to get around the administrator / user account issues that plague Windows, I see little real improvement under the hood. Security is going to be intrusive to most users unless they replace their software with new Vista versions.
This is still the same old Windows underneath, no matter what a link to a Wikipedia page posted by MS marketing says.
Gamers and online chat users seem to have a lot of interest posting here. They will be happy with Vista.
Professionals who work in print and digital media don’t really have anything to get all excited about. Mac OS X and the Nix’s do it all much better without the bloat and elevated system requirements of Vista. Lack of professional apps for Linux? Gamers and home users have no idea about, and that is just fine, but WMA and WMV as professional necessities(?), oh please….
Windows will dominate for a long time to come, after all it is preloaded on the majority of machines, but there are reasons that Mac OS X and Linux desktops are increasing in market share and installed base contrary to the fanboys and paid MS marketing posters (yes, MS pays people to monitor and post in popular forums, blogs and wiki). Vista really is XP SP3, and it is greatly improved in many ways, but it is still the same old Windows underneath. Vista is not an advancement, rather MS catching up in some technologies while trying to be “hip” like Apple.
Vista > Linux… Simple.
you ‘nix fanboys can bitch and moan, but the winner is who gets the people that just want things to work, and thats microsoft, and its going to be microsoft for a long long long long long time.
microsoft paying people to post on osnews, or the land of flame… uhuh. Guess you’ve wearing a tinfoil hat as the moment mate?
I don’t see issues concerning whether MS wins or not. Its the Windows users who are losing, and continuing to pay to do so.
Microsoft just making things work? Tinfoil hat? Where have you been for the past 20+ years?
who gets the people that just want things to work, and thats microsoft
Jeebus… On the most recent machine I built this spring, and – surprise – I wanted to install Windows on it first (for different reasons), but I couldn’t, there was no way I could install it without a friggin’ FDD, which I don’t have for years. Linux ? No problem. But I was the one with problems, since I also need Windows – work-related stuff – so I had to solve my problems with going places and asking and lending an FDD for a few minutes use. Ridiculous.
Oh yeah, also my 3 year old analog tv tuner… Windows doesn’t know it, it’s drivers written for Windows suck so much I can’t tell you (freezing even during view, let’s not even talk about capture). Linux has no problem with it using standard in-kernel drivers.
I could continue, but I guess it’s no use.
Is very pleasant so far.
Everything except AIM (Classic not the Triton crap) has worked. Still looking into it.
World of Warcraft loads albiet a teenie bit slower but it’s not any slower when playing the actual game. The Aero Glass affects (and possibly DWM) is turned off during the Game and that transition is seamless to the point when Alt+tabbing I barely notice.
Boot up times are a little slower, no surprise there but everything else in the OS is pleasingly fast.
Some parts of Vista feel jerky but some feel really smooth and as a whole the OS is starting to look incredibly polished.
Add/Rem programs doesnt show ANY of my old programs after update so to remove programs I had in XP I now have to manually hunt down their Uninstall file which is a tad bit annoying.
But seriously, Vista is far from a failure but it’s nothing “Revolutionary”.
Good job overall MS.
Everything except AIM (Classic not the Triton crap) has worked. Still looking into it.
Tried Miranda (for aim and others) ?
AIM in the end refused to install (at all). So I just went with Gaim. Looks and works great on Vista.
The problem with the Add/Rem programs listing was that I upgraded from XP
So Vista put all my XP files in Windows.old which not only screws up Indexing but screws up installed programs.
I just moved the relevant ones and deleted ones I didnt care about and Windows.old all together.
I think Vista has the best presentation/graphics layer of any of the mainstream desktop operating systems, OS X and Linux in particular. Aero is breathtaking. It makes GNOME/GTK+, my favorite desktop platform, look dated. And I used to think GNOME had the sleekest and cleanest default interface. For me, the only compelling reason to update to Vista is for the Aero experience. It has clearly changed the way Microsoft/Windows developers think about user and presentation interfaces. It has put Vista in the lead and I’m jealous. I don’t want to contemplate what it’ll take to make GTK+ look or behave like Aero or better.
http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_5744.asp
but the winner is who gets the people that just want things to work
I mean… has windows ever JUST worked…. face it, it always worked somehow… and never really well.
if you want something that really works out of the box get a mac.
you’ll see for the time leopard is out vista will look like it always did: old and clumsy
and btw… do you think 449 bucks for ultimate is a fair price?
I couldn’t resist. It’s funny how *every* article about Windows gets at least one comment about Linux and here we go – a flamewar begins. And people keep repeating themselves forever defending their favourite OS. However, I think this is more good news for Linux than Windows because it’s not forgotten even when the thread should be about Windows (established monopoly). Anyway more to topic, I wouldn’t dare comparing Aero and AIGLX/compiz since I haven’t tested Vista yet. And I doubt that most of other Linux fanboys did. However, I also doubt that most of Windows fanboys have tested AIGLX/compiz either and have a clue what they are talking about, when they keep bashing it.
I guess that Vista will actually appear shortly… I am a Windows refugee. I actually liked XP….hated ’98, ’95, and 3.x. When I was asked to reactivate my copy of XP due to changes made to my tower, that was the last straw. I think Vista will be much the same in that regard. I now run Kanotix (Debian based Linux) on my desktops. Ran it on my Thinkpad until recently….whimper whimper…thinkpad died……wwwwaaaaa. I searched for a comparably built new computer…nothing in the Windows world seemed close to me. I am typing this on my Macbook. I have used all three operating systems each day for the past two weeks. To me Windows sucks…at least the way they set it up at work. Linux is fast, fun, but ultimately annoying in a variety of ways, but preferable to Windows. I like Linux on my desktop. I love OSX on the Macbook. Some irritants, but overall…great. From my prespective I have no problem with the “other” operating system having the largest share…I just want my computer to work my way with the fewest problems. Each is a compromise. Do your research. Choose wisely.