Submitted by Microsoft released several updates to Windows Vista Monday, the day before the new operating system debuted for consumers and landed on retail shelves. None of the updates were security fixes. The five updates for the 32-bit version of Vista – one was immediately replaced Tuesday with an update to the update – fix difficulties installing the OS on PCs with more than 3GB of memory, troubles connecting with a VPN server, and performance problems with Internet Explorer 7 and its anti-phishing feature. The largest of the five updates, however, is one that addresses incompatibility issues for a host of applications and games.
Nothing inspires confidence quite so much like patching it on it’s way out the door after five years in the making.
Nothing inspires confidence quite so much like patching it on it’s way out the door after five years in the making.
Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?
Come on, if you want to bash MS, please do so where it really matters (DRM or something), not with this where they are actually doing a good thing (updating the OS after bugs which have been found during the business availability).
Edited 2007-01-30 21:58
How you can manage to fool yourself into believing that’s the hallmark of quality software is beyond me.
How you can manage to fool yourself into believing that’s the hallmark of quality software is beyond me.
Where did he ever say that he believs that “that’s the hallmark of quality software”?!? Projection, maybe?
“Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?”
Which other operating system has been worked on continuously for 5 years by a company worth $300B recently? that’s right none – that makes your little comparison completely useless.
If I was a Microsoft executive I would be very embarrassed about this.
Seriously, just shut up.
I am so sick and tired of people like you.
OSX was worked on for over 5 years and when it came out it was still complete crap until 10.1, and that was just mostly crap, then right around 10.3 it was decent.
First, people complain that Microsoft takes to long to release patches, now they release them before you can get your hands on the goods, and you are saying shame? Shut up.
Apple have smaller manpower, a smaller budget, and a smaller market. If you are the market leader your are obliged to continuously improve or at least maintain a reputation as to why you are the market leader. If you fail to do so, you lose marketshare, and perhaps the market leader position as well.
True, OSX was crap when it first came out, there’s no doubt there.
However when patches are released for Vista the day it is released, it doesn’t help Vista’s or Microsoft’s reputation much (except perhaps the speed of releasing patches).
It only hurt reputation in the eyes of fanboys.
No matter how hard you try you are always going to have bugs in your final code. Adding more people to the mix most certainly won’t help it (personally, I believe the Windows dev team is too large).
Same with throwing money at it, money does not automagically make bugs disappear.
thats right, money doesent automagically make bugs go away, but managed correctly, it very much does so.
this only goes to show, that either microsoft does not care about bugs as much as they should or they mismanage their enormous pile of money
It only hurt reputation in the eyes of fanboys.
Actually, no. That’s the kind of news that a critical press can latch on to portray MS in a bad light – and in case you haven’t wondered, the mainstream press doesn’t seem too keen to wax dithyrambic about Vista. In fact, most coverage I have seen focuses on the long time it took to make the new OS, and asks whether or not it was worth it – hardly a positive approach!
So, yeah, this is a little bit of egg on MS’ face, no matter how the Vista enthusiasts try to spin it (and spin they do, at a rate that would put modern hard drives to shame…)
Actually, no. That’s the kind of news that a critical press can latch on to portray MS in a bad light – and in case you haven’t wondered, the mainstream press doesn’t seem too keen to wax dithyrambic about Vista. In fact, most coverage I have seen focuses on the long time it took to make the new OS, and asks whether or not it was worth it – hardly a positive approach!
All the while, the idiots seem to forget that MS was simultaneously working on and released XP SP2, which was larger than just a standard service pack. It included a lot of new features, in what could have been considered an OS point release in itself.
So, yeah, this is a little bit of egg on MS’ face, no matter how the Vista enthusiasts try to spin it (and spin they do, at a rate that would put modern hard drives to shame…)
Nah, not at all. Linux, OS X, and all other OSes have bugs that need to be addressed constantly. Anybody who thinks otherwise simply doesn’t have a clue.
Nah, not at all. Linux, OS X, and all other OSes have bugs that need to be addressed constantly.
As others have pointed out, you really can’t compare things like that without sounding like a MS apologist. For starters, you don’t get tons of updates for a Linux distribution *on the day it comes out*…they start trickling in over the next couple of days. Also, since Linux distros are released once every six months, that’s not really noteworthy. In this case, however, the OS has been *five years* in the making, with a budget of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars.
So yeah, it’s a bit of egg on the face. Nothing serious, mind you, but an embarassment nonetheless.
Anybody who thinks otherwise simply doesn’t have a clue.
Good thing MS has you in their cornder to defend them against the big meanies!!
As others have pointed out, you really can’t compare things like that without sounding like a MS apologist. For starters, you don’t get tons of updates for a Linux distribution *on the day it comes out*…they start trickling in over the next couple of days.
Whether or not they come out on the same day or trickle in a couple days later is irrelevant. In most cases, the bugs are known in advance. The timing is irrelevant. Bug fix cycles are continuous.
Also, since Linux distros are released once every six months, that’s not really noteworthy. In this case, however, the OS has been *five years* in the making, with a budget of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars.
Who cares about the distro release schedules. Individual packages are being updated CONSTANTLY.
Not that I don’t enjoy watching you trying to spin this MS embarassment in a somewhat positive way, but you shouldn’t even compare distros to a products such as Vista anyway. Vista is just the OS, plus a few accessories. Distros contain *huge* amounts of non-OS software.
In any case it’s irrelevant. When software launches are concerned, appearances are what counts (why do you think Bill Gates keeps appearing everywhere on TV these days…). The fact that there were *major* updates (such as the 3GB RAM install bug) on the very day it comes out looks bad, no matter how much spin you try to put on it. If Vista was an exciting launch, such a minor embarassment would be nothing, but since the arrival of the new OS has been greeted with a lukewarm reception at best, this only adds to the general underwhelming feeling.
Don’t let me get in the way of your spinning, however…
Vista is just the OS, plus a few accessories. Distros contain *huge* amounts of non-OS software.
I’ll try to remember that the next time a patch is available for IE, Windows Mail (Outlook Express), IIS, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger, Windows Movie Maker, etc. As if Windows doesn’t, itself, contain a large number of apps…
When software launches are concerned, appearances are what counts (why do you think Bill Gates keeps appearing everywhere on TV these days…). The fact that there were *major* updates (such as the 3GB RAM install bug) on the very day it comes out looks bad, no matter how much spin you try to put on it.
Just for kicks, try asking your Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, etc about their thoughts on these latest fixes. Face it: Nobody but a handful of geeks really cares or thinks that bug fixes on the day of launch are significant enough to care about.
I’ll try to remember that the next time a patch is available for IE, Windows Mail (Outlook Express), IIS, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger, Windows Movie Maker, etc. As if Windows doesn’t, itself, contain a large number of apps…
Apps in a Linux distro outnumber apps on a Windows install CD by at least an order of magnitude.
Nobody but a handful of geeks really cares or thinks that bug fixes on the day of launch are significant enough to care about.
Well, obviously *you* do…
Apps in a Linux distro outnumber apps on a Windows install CD by at least an order of magnitude.
Otherwise known as “shovelware” or “crapware”, to some.
Well, obviously *you* do…
I’m not concerned in the least but, then again, I’ve been around long enough to know that bugs in operating systems aren’t anything new. Or extraordinary.
Otherwise known as “shovelware” or “crapware”, to some
I disagree, I don’t think Windows is *that* bad.
I’m not concerned in the least
And yet you make a point of commenting on it, repeatedly. Right.
I’ve been around long enough to know that bugs in operating systems aren’t anything new. Or extraordinary.
Apparently, you haven’t been around long enough to get the point of my argument. That’s okay, I wasn’t expecting you to.
I disagree, I don’t think Windows is *that* bad.
It isn’t. I was referring to Linux distros.
And yet you make a point of commenting on it, repeatedly. Right.
You’re confusing my replies as emotional involvement. I could really care less.
Apparently, you haven’t been around long enough to get the point of my argument. That’s okay, I wasn’t expecting you to.
That’s because your “argument” (if you can call it that) is unsubstantiated bunk. As I’ve said numerous times, a few geeks may care about this but the overwhelming majority of customers have no idea about this issue. And could care less.
It isn’t. I was referring to Linux distros.
I know, but since it was gratuitious BS I simply responded with a bit of whimsy.
You’re confusing my replies as emotional involvement. I could really care less.
If you did, then you wouldn’t take the time to post multiple comments about it…or perhaps your time has no value?
That’s because your “argument” (if you can call it that) is unsubstantiated bunk.
That’s great, I think the same about yours.
Why do you guys keep spouting the “5 years in the making!!” rhetoric? It’s not relevant to whether bugs are found after the bits are sent to manufacturing.
(The “5 years” thing is also misleading. Microsoft said that their initial Vista development process was screwed up, in that too many dependent parts were being developed simultaneously, with the hope of making them fit together at the end. It made it impossible to address bugs in particular modules because the modules on which they depended weren’t done yet. So all bugs would have to be fixed at the last minute too. So, Microsoft threw out that code (which used XP as the starting point), and did what they called a “reset”, which began a much more orderly process, starting with Windows Server 2k3 as the starting code base. Since that “reset”, Vista has been in development for only 2 to 3 years. Microsoft should rightly be criticized for having to do the reset in the first place, and indeed, they publicly criticized themselves (which is why this is public knowledge; MS disclosed this stuff in a big NY Times article (in 2005, I believe)). So we *know* why development took as long as it did. The first 2-3 years were lost, and a new effort begun. It’s not like there was continuous development during that time, like the “5 years in development!!” rhetoric is meant to convey.
Plus, you guys act like Microsoft OS/Platforms people were doing nothing but Vista during all this time. First, during XP SP2 development, nearly all OS development was directed to XP SP2, which was a major undertaking. And besides XP SP2, other OS/Platforms were being developed such as Tablet PS OSes, Windows Mobile OSes, Media Center updates, Windows Server releases, Exchange releases, IIS, XP64, .NET 1.1, then .NET 2.0, then .NET 3.0 (though would could consider .NET 3.0 as part of the Vista effort, even though it was backported to XP.))
Now, back to my main point:
Regardless of how long the software was developed, Microsoft felt that outstanding bugs/issues were below the threshold that would prevent RTM. So, they sent the bits to manufacturing. After that, issues arose, so they fix them and make them available for download.
Now, please explain how that is relevant to how long the development process was? No matter how long it was, bugs would be found after the bits are sent to manufacturing. So by constantly spouting the “5 years” stuff, you’re simply engaging in grandstanding.
One could bash Linux, with “This is an OS that has one million eyes reviewing the code – there is NO excuse for it to have any bugs!!!” That would be a silly as your sophistry.
Or take the Mac. OSX wasn’t that good until 10.3. One could claim that OSX 10.3 was in development for 5 years (beginning with the start of 10.0’s development and ending when 10.3 was released), and then bash it because it was released with bugs. But a bash like that would also be sophistry akin to your own.
Edited 2007-02-01 01:12
In your predictable defense of Microsoft, you failed to realize that I wasn’t the one to mention Linux or OSX in the first place. That was done in a blatant attempt to deflect the criticism, aka the “changing the subject” fallacy.
Let’s forget about Linux or OSX. We’re talking about Vista, and the untimely update. The issue is not that updates are unexpected, or unnecessary. Of course they are. To argue that this was the point I was making is nothing but a strawman argument (another fallacy).
The point is that, for a company like MS who puts millions of dollar in marketing, a product launch is a media event, and in this world perception is more important than substance – so to announce a major update on the very day of the launch is certainly a marketing faux pas. It gives the *impression* of something that is not quite ready (whether it is or not is debatable, but that’s not the point here). Hence the spin effort to downplay the significance of this in light of an otherwise unremarkable launch.
Oh, and by the way, the “5 years in the making” expression is not an invention of MS critics. It’s been used by MS proponents as well to indicate the amount of work that has gone into the OS. It’s also been constantly repeated by the media over the past couple of days.
In any case, before even thinking of accusing me of sophistry, you should begin by a) understanding my point, and b) adressing criticism about comparisons to Linux/OSX (as well as mentioning the amount of time Vista has been in development) to the right targets, i.e. Microsoft and its apologists.
come on, he DOES have a point. it’s not like Kubuntu is doing so very well, with breaking a Long Term Support and stuff… but they do have what, 20 paid ppl, and made their LTS in 8 months.
MS really should be able to do better with 5 years and billions of $$$. They should be lightyears ahead of linux in every possible area – guess what, they aren’t. They are barely ahead in some, and simply behind in many things. If there was ANY REAL competition (eg if they would’t be able to force users to use windows with tricks like .doc files, drm, patents and other stuff), MS would have a really hard time right now…
They spend more money on advertising than the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem has to spend on everything – still they can barely make a competetive OS in 5 years of work, and they have to release some critical updates 1 day before they go public. Yes, that stinks…
There are MANY areas (mostly all relating to usability) where Windows is WAY ahead of Linux.
Also, it’s not like the Kubuntu guys are doing anything other than packaging this stuff.
name me a few areas where windows is WAY ahead of Linux… the only thing I can think of is the graphics stack. But the basic desktop in Vista is still lightyears behind the usability of Gnome and KDE (I expected vista to fix the mousewheel, but it still doesn’t do much, drag’n’drop is still broken etc). And the Vista kernel isn’t much ahead in most areas. Search integration isn’t what it could be (tough it’s slightly ahead of Linux). etc.
Vista is ahead in some areas, but nothing which won’t be fixed in less than a year…
Actually, according to Activewin.com – it has only been worked on for 28 months, which is around 2 and a bit years.
Remember folks, development on Windows Vista stopped for almost a year to get Windows XP in order, add to the fact that the changes were transplanted from Windows XP base to Windows 2003 SP1 core, I’m surprised it didn’t take longer.
Please, stop lying and start using facts; if find the need to bash Microsoft, lets start using some legitimate issues rather than coming up with old wives tales that have very little resembelence of fact.
Yeah, according to activewin.com – a really good, objective source.
Point is, they wanted to release the next Windows version, after XP, in 2003. And they planned many features even left out in Vista. We all know they didn’t succeed, but telling us they didn’t succeed because they where busy on XP is pretty lame…
No, they didn’t succeed for WinFS because their vision was far too grand; if you look at what the original WinFS was claiming to deliver, it was largely reliant on a large amount of new technologies coming on stream – there is file searching in Windows Vista, and it is equal to that of MacOS X and Linux.
WinFS promised to bring natural language searching, being able to plug in things like, “find all documents made on tuesday last week” both written as well as being done as speech recognition – personally, they should never have promised so much, it would be better off giving a very general outline, and announce ‘features’ as they’re completed and stablised rather than annoucing before delivered.
Oh, and how is “busy on XP” being pretty lame; if all your programmers stop programming on your product for over a bloody year, what the hell do you think is going to happen? your post is as stupid as saying, “how come Ford doesn’t make any more cars” after all the workers of the assembly factories walk off the job.
Ford doesn’t earn 98 cents on every dollar when they sell cars.
anway, all those things WinFS promised where already promised for what would become windows 2000, and then XP, so with Vista, they’re not *just* 5 years behind.
and it’s not that unique – WinFS is mostly about NTFS being a database, the natural language searching isn’t part of the WinFS anyway, just the interface. ‘find all documents made on tuesday last week’ was already possible in BeOS, 10 years ago. WinFS isn’t half as special as you might think. It would have been nice 10 years ago, now it’s hardly anything new… so it’s a shame they where ‘unable to add it’.
The whole point here is: they have billions, for which they made us pay. When I pay my taxes here in the netherlands, a big part of that goes to Microsoft for their software which is used by my government. Same for you. Now IF microsoft would use that to creat a good OS, well, I might accept it. But now they are having a hard time competing with a FREE operating system, build by volunteers. They invest less than 2 billion each year in the development of Windows, and that’s approximately their earnings in The Netherlands alone – the rest of the money goes to future monopolies like the phone and gameconsole market.
So yeah, the whole world is paying Microsoft billions, and they get a medicore OS at best. I’m having a problem with that, and you should, too.
The same money could be used to save millions of kids, instead of being spend mostly on lawers, advertisements and MS trying to get a hold on new markets.
But at the same time, ask yourself why Linux/*NIX hasn’t made inroads given the deficient nature of Windows? I mean, I’m not saying that Windows is perfect, but there is a reason beyond the ‘monopoly boogy man’ argument which people use here, to explain Microsofts market position.
When you look at the software out there for Linux, apart from a few titles like Firefox, GAIM and respective desktops with their various components, it is lacking in commercial ISV support big time and there are still major deficiencies in the Linux operating system itself.
I’ve chanted this problem over multiple posts an not a single person has actually answered it – why when ripping a cd does my wireless internet connection either slows down to a crawl or simply stops working altogether? On Windows XP when ripping a cd, I haven’t experienced that problem, so why does Linux have such a problem providing adequate multi-tasking? this has occured on Ubuntu, OpenSuSE and Fedora Core 6.
On the software front, again, where are the Adobe, Corel and Quicken like companies? if they don’t come, where are the opensource projects delivering equal features because so far all I see are programmes that have been abandoned after a few releases and a large portion of ones being run by arrogant pricks unwilling to allow individuals to make contributions – GIMP being a prime example of this and my experience of a hostile reception in the GIMP irc chat room; I wanted to contribute to translation and improving the user interface, but due to the way I was treated by the programmers there, they made it abundently clear what they think of people outside their little world.
now i wouldn’t say linux is perfect either, but you say your wireless goes slow when ripping a cd – well, last time an app crashed in windows, i had to wait for quite some time to get *any* response from the OS. this NEVER happens on linux, as NO app can ‘take’ the resources like windows allows them to. Multitasking in windows is far from optimal as well.
Anyway, I could respond to the ‘why doesn’t everybody use linux’ but that question has been answered before (hint: it has nothing to do with quality of either OS) and it wasn’t the point of the earlier posts.
The point I’m trying to make is that MS has simply WASTED all the money thrown at it. I think the proprietary development model has clearly failed – it doesn’t scale well. Look at Apple. They have way less money, but a better (or equal) operating system. That’s just not right. I think it’s time we (the consumers, and the government) should try the FOSS model and see if works better.
Incorrect, the proprietary model hasn’t failed; what has failed is for them to make the tough decisions when required – the fact that backwards compatibility was going to cause problems, they should have heaved it, thrown in a free copy of VirtualPC, and voia, there would never have been the delays.
Personally, I blame the management, not the programmers there; if management put backwards compatibility ahead of product quality, stability and security, they only have themselves to blame for making it more complex than it needed to be.
Just a side note, well thought out ideas don’t need to cost a fortune; GTK is a prime example of a well thought out toolkit that is able to have features added, maintain compatibility whilst not adding a tonne of complexity in the process.
Incorrect, the proprietary model hasn’t failed; what has failed is for them to make the tough decisions when required – the fact that backwards compatibility was going to cause problems, they should have heaved it, thrown in a free copy of VirtualPC, and voia, there would never have been the delays.
I often disagree with you, but here you’re totally right.
I often disagree with you, but here you’re totally right.
Geeze, thats scary – disagree with something before the world ends
It’s definately not just the backwards compatibility thing. That’s not the only reason it took MS 5 years to release a new (and barely better) OS. The FOSS model is simply much more efficient in terms of usefull code per dollar. Instead of trying to create good products, the proprietary venders have focussed their efforts on acquiring patents, consolidating their power by artificially creating incompatibilities between competing products and limiting the users’ freedom and choice to make more money.
If the proprietary software vendors actually cared about users, they would never have created things like the proprietary textformats, nobody would have to sue Apple because they tied their music format to their own hardware etc.
“Which other operating system has been worked on continuously for 5 years by a company worth $300B recently? that’s right none – that makes your little comparison completely useless.
If I was a Microsoft executive I would be very embarrassed about this.”
I read comments just for a chuckle out of ignorant people like you.
Why would anyone be embarrassed about a small number of NON SECURITY fixes being put out months after the initial release (yes sir ignorance it was)? In any software release, if there isn’t any fixes like this a few months after release some people would be pissed.
Now I realize that you are probably a 6-figure software developer and know everything about everything for software development (or you are a 14 yr old working pissed that McDonald’s doesn’t rake you in enough to buy vista..) but your thought process is totally f–ked up. The only thing more asinine than your comment is the morons that modded it up.
By the way jackass, company VALUE has nothing to do with PROJECT BUDGET. Do you really think every company spends every penny they have on a flagship product? Lol…
I realize you are just one of those Slashdot users that bash MS mindlessly to get modded up. Nothing Microsoft does will silence you and that is fine, just stay at Slashdot. You should be applauding Microsoft for fixing bugs found within the first few months in time for their home and small business users.
If I was a user named TBone0 I would be very embarrassed about this.
“…ignorant people like you…”
“…or you are a 14 yr old working pissed that McDonald’s doesn’t rake you in enough to buy vista…”
“The only thing more asinine than your comment is the morons that modded it up.”
“By the way jackass…”
pr0c, you should know that personal attacks will be modded down. If you can’t take criticism of your favorite abusive near-monopoly without resorting to insults, then perhaps it would be better for you to stay away from internet forums…Your reliance on ad hominem attacks only serves to undermine your own credibility.
“you should know that personal attacks will be modded down.”
That is plenty ok; This comment was directed at a specific user and if I could mod it -5 myself I would (as this post, please mod it down folks!). My post was of no interest to anyone else, except you for some reason, I agree.
“If you can’t take criticism of your favorite abusive near-monopoly without resorting to insults,”
I can take it all day, my (privately held) company is partially OWNED by Microsoft. I see tons of mistakes made, things that bother me, etc. I can probably rattle off more things I feel are wrong with Microsoft than any of you lusers. I wonder why it is that whenever someone addresses another persons complaints and ranting they suddenly cannot handle criticism?
By the way I find it interesting that you feel it was all personal attacks. Ignorance is not an insult, we are all ignorant about more things than knowledgeable.
Many people work at “McDonald’s” (low wage) type places and cannot afford any software, sans games of course, subsequently many people in this position hate MS because of 1.) their value and 2.) their software cost.
It was an asinine comment, let us call a spade a spade. And let’s be real here, based on this one comment the person is a jackass. This is your typical anti-microsoft, pro linux HYPOCRITE poster (not that I believe he uses anything other than Windows 75% of the time).
Yes I am blunt, yes I do not spend time clarifying, yes people think I am a dick.
Good day sir.
I can take it all day, my (privately held) company is partially OWNED by Microsoft.
Yeah, yeah, and my grandmother is the queen of England…such claims are irrelevant.
I see tons of mistakes made, things that bother me, etc. I can probably rattle off more things I feel are wrong with Microsoft than any of you lusers.
Sigh. Case in point.
By the way I find it interesting that you feel it was all personal attacks. Ignorance is not an insult, we are all ignorant about more things than knowledgeable.
Are you sure you’re a businessman? With that kind of spin, you sound more like a politician. Calling someone ignorant because he disagrees with you is certainly not a compliment.
Whatever. Just try to stay civil, m’kay?
Oh you mean like basically any modern distro these days installs patches right after (or even during) installation?
Well, the thing about a distribution is that you’re usually either getting security updates or updated functionality for something that actually worked before – not because the damn thing didn’t work right in the first place, and the patch that you made previously has to be patched because that fouled up. There’s been a few of them in Windows’ history.
Yer – I really believe all that hype that Microsoft comes out with about every other version of Windows as to how it’s so much better structured, organised and reliable and how they’ve learned from the past. Vista is simply NT4 + 10 years.
I gotta disagree with that, when a distro updates after install, it’s downloading all sorts of fixes, not just new functionality or security updates, they are for all sorts of issues, and if you think otherwise, you are living in a dream.
No software is perfect, especially Vista, but to look at Linux with rose coloured glasses is just not healthy.
“I gotta disagree with that, when a distro updates after install, it’s downloading all sorts of fixes, not just new functionality or security updates, they are for all sorts of issues, and if you think otherwise, you are living in a dream.
No software is perfect, especially Vista, but to look at Linux with rose coloured glasses is just not healthy.”
Eh?
The issue with Vista is that you are either of the opinion that Vista…is ready…or its not.
Its quite clearly that the launch was rushed. The only think you can say is should Microsoft had waited *longer* to launch, or is Vista *good enough* now.
This is very different from Linux where a release happens every 3 Months and *only* critical patches done as an incremental release.
If you are talking about a distribution you are *not* talking about the *OS* you are talking thousands of programs. A distribution evolves. It is not released periodically say every *5 Years*.
Edited 2007-01-31 16:56
No software is perfect, especially Vista, but to look at Linux with rose coloured glasses is just not healthy.
Especially since Kubuntu 6.10 has trouble with common NVIDIA video cards. One has to install the OS using VESA and with NO mouse cursor (it’s there but the user can’t see it). Which is something that should have been caught between RCs. Didn’t get any troubles from XP nor Vista BETAs.
Especially since Kubuntu 6.10 has trouble with common NVIDIA video cards. One has to install the OS using VESA and with NO mouse cursor (it’s there but the user can’t see it).
Yeah, too bad it’s not true. I just installed 6.10 on my PC two weeks ago and the mouse cursor was very much visible. That’s because Kubuntu will install the nv driver by default, which works quite well with 2D.
While a handful of people may have encountered problems (and when I say a handful, I mean one or two messages about it on Ubuntu Forums), for the vast majority of NVIDIA users – like me – things went very smoothly with Edgy, and NVIDIA performance seems a lot better than what people seem to be getting with Vista…
But please, don’t let facts get in the way of your FUD.
@archiesteel
Yeah, too bad it’s not true. I just installed 6.10 on my PC two weeks ago and the mouse cursor was very much visible. That’s because Kubuntu will install the nv driver by default, which works quite well with 2D.
Hehehe. Now you’re denying reality. By looking at the ubuntu forums, I am not the only who’s got the same problem with garbled graphics. I find it amazing that such a bug passed through testing.
And by looking at the Ubuntu forums, there are lotsa people who need help working around bugs. Did you read that Archie? People are having trouble installing an open source OS software. It seems that things aren’t that all rosy on the Linux side either.
But please, don’t let facts get in the way of your FUD.
Don’t let reality get in the way of your crusade. Might damage your tinfoil hat with all that reality coming at you.
Normally I would agree, patches aren’t necessarily bad. But :
difficulties installing the OS on PCs with more than 3GB of memory
Suggest bad coding practices (assumption that there is <3Gb RAM present) and lack of thorough testing.
performance problems with Internet Explorer 7 and its anti-phishing feature
This suggest a REAL lack of testing as IE7 is one of the most visible new features. You’d think they would want to get that right.
Seriously, compatibility problems with Microsoft Money and Outlook 2003 ? Did they install any software at all during testing ?
Suggest bad coding practices (assumption that there is <3Gb RAM present) and lack of thorough testing.
They should have caught this in testing, but it’s actually a pretty interesting and fundamental problem. A 32-bit OS, even running on 64-bit hardware, provides each process with a 4GB effective address space that must be split into kernel and user space. The traditional split is 1GB for the kernel and 3GB for the user.
But these days most operating systems allow a few different segment layouts. Ideally you want at least as much kernel space as you have physical memory, because many parts of the kernel operate in real mode, where the code references physical memory instead of effective memory. If you have less kernel space than physical memory, there are physical memory pages that are off-limits for the kernel (called highmem). So we have 2/2 and 3/1 splits available for 32-bit operating systems.
If you have a 3/1 split to allow kernel-mode access to 3GB of physical memory, then each process only gets 1GB of user space. Paging (swapping) doesn’t alleviate this restriction. If a process consumes its effective address space, then subsequent allocation requests will fail. Either the process will terminate itself or the kernel will force it to terminate by issuing a segmentation fault.
My guess is that the user process running the Vista installer can’t run within 1GB of address space. This is only a problem if the installation kernel decides to use a 3/1 split, and this will only happen on systems with at least 3GB of memory.
This is what happens when you push up against the addressing limitations of the software or hardware architecture. If you want to run with 3GB or more of physical memory, and don’t want lots of highmem, then you can’t run large 32-bit processes. And this means 64-bit applications on a 64-bit operating system on 64-bit hardware is necessary.
It’s taken us about 50 years to consume 32-bits of address space, so it should take another 50 years to consume the next 32 bits. This is the last transition we’ll see in a long, long time. It’s gone pretty smoothly so far, but a few hiccups are to be expected.
“It’s taken us about 50 years to consume 32-bits of address space, so it should take another 50 years to consume the next 32 bits. This is the last transition we’ll see in a long, long time. It’s gone pretty smoothly so far, but a few hiccups are to be expected.”
Hell yeah. In 2057 I expect computers will need to address more than 16 exabytes. That’s 16,384 petabytes. That’s 16,777,216 terabytes.
You can put me down as saying that we will not need any more than 16 exabytes for, maybe, 50^2 years. That’s 2,500 years. (I’ll revise that downwards to 500 years.) *
Of course, there may be other factors prompting an adoption of 128-bit processors and instruction sets. For example, IPv6 addresses are conveniently 128 bits.
* If quantum computers become viable, your license to discuss my prediction is revoked.
Do you expect them to test every application in the world? Do you expect them not to fix problems? Should they have waited till after the release? No.
They got error-reports, they fixed the issues. Whats do you complain about?
I agree with Thom, find something else to bash about. Even better, somewhere else.
What about the hundreds of betas and the release candidates they brought out? Were they not meant for testing? They don’t have an excuse. 5 years of development, including testing. If I had the manpower, time and budget that Microsoft had I think I would have made something better than Vista.
the biggest problems of “beta testing” is that thee software is released to people who want to show off, are enthousiastic etc.
This causes quite a lot of problems in the real world. How did they find the 3 GB problem for instance? because most hobbyistic testers don’t have that kind of memory figures. When it was released on MSDN, corporate tests started. Some of those people are more serious than the bunch of testers so far that only want to show off to steal the heart of the female next to your own house or so.
Testing is a difficult task; the best way to test is not to have manuals, not to use predefined test-charts and to hate the product a bit.
At least they fixed it ‘in time’ for the great mass of people.
If I had the manpower, time and budget that Microsoft had I think I would have made something better than Vista.
Damn, I would’ve colonized the Moon and probably Mars too, if I had the resources Microsoft had.
And for the money people waste on Microsft’s spyware, every child in the world could have a free computer and be running a real OS, Linux.
Again, microsoft cant test all applications in the world. If the developers of those applications didnt bother testing them with Vista and report the errors, whose fault is it then?
If the developers of those applications didnt bother testing them with Vista and report the errors, whose fault is it then?
Given, that the following applications are part of the list
– MS Encarta Standard 2007
– Microsoft Money 2005
– Microsoft Money 2006
– Office 2003 Web Folders
– Outlook 2003
I can only conclude, that a part of the blame should indeed be directed towards MS (at least towards the departments that develop this applications. Addressing incompatiblities of their own products that late is, sorry, embarrassing).
They could at least test THEIR OWN software: One of the patches fixes problems with MS Money and MS Outlook (and some other software). Come on …
They could at least test THEIR OWN software: One of the patches fixes problems with MS Money and MS Outlook (and some other software). Come on …
They undoubtedly did. But you have to understand that they aren’t going to hold up an OS release unless there are real “showstopper” issues found. The issues here with the MS apps aren’t that serious.
“Nothing inspires confidence quite so much like patching it on it’s way out the door after five years in the making.”
Actually that does inspire quite a bit of confidence.
It’s unbelievable that a company can be bashed for fixing their own software, and quite quickly at that. If MS had sat on these issues for any amount of time, customers would have been in an uproar.
The problem is not that MS are releasing bugfixes. The problem is the bugs and the nature of these bugs.
If it was a Linux distribution these bugs would have been considered show-stoppers (and are usually found in pre-releases and/or release candidates).
Reminds of the Dapper update that killed X. It happens to everybody
yup, and some make a habit out of it
“Actually that does inspire quite a bit of confidence.”
No it doesn’t.
“It’s unbelievable that a company can be bashed for fixing their own software, and quite quickly at that.”
They aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) critizized for releasing the patches but for failing to address this issues prior to release.
While clearly they can’t test compatibility with all existing software in the world expecting them to test it with their own current products isn’t asking too much.
They aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) critizized for releasing the patches but for failing to address this issues prior to release. While clearly they can’t test compatibility with all existing software in the world expecting them to test it with their own current products isn’t asking too much.
Yes, you are asking too much. Because you’re not taking into account the severity of the bugs in question. All bugs are not created equal. Some are more severe than others. Some are just annoyances. And making blanket statements that all bugs in MS products should be fixed before Vista can ship is plain ridiculous and smacks of rank inexperience.
“And making blanket statements that all bugs in MS products should be fixed before Vista can ship is plain ridiculous and smacks of rank inexperience.”
How is your reading comprehension today? Not good, you say? Yes, I noticed.
I never said *all* bugs should be fixed. I said that one can, and should, expect them to do extensive compatibility testing with *their own* products.
Well, compared to Linux and any other distribution that have patches released; the difference is love; Windows final has been out in the wild for actually almost three months – considering that none of them have been security, I’d say its been fairly good so far.
Of course I updated this morning and saw a new device driver for my Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop.
Don’t do it I heard from within my pea sized brain and did I listen….
No…
Several trips to safe mode and 1 hour later I finally got back to working as on boot it simply crashed and rebooted.
ATI drivers from Microsoft Hmmm I suppose they are bad enough from ATI…
It’s almost reassuring to hear some things never change.
ATI drivers from Microsoft Hmmm I suppose they are bad enough from ATI…
Hence the reason I avoid ATI like the plague; if it isn’t their anti-*NIX agenda that makes my stomach churn, its their lack of quality software to support their hardware.
Unfortunately I had not much of a choice in the laptop. Now at home its Nvidia all the way….
> ATI drivers from Microsoft
I noticed that they had ATI Radeon 9600 drivers marked as “Important” for update yesterday. So I updated, rebooted and it all worked. So far so good.
Then I saw that ATI had released official Vista drivers the same day. So I downloaded the 40MB (!) driver and proceeded to install it. Part way through, I get a dialog that some component failed to install, yet the installer continued on. After rebooting, I would only get the Basic Catalyst Control Center. All sorts of mucking around, and nothing fixed it.
This morning I am reinstalling Vista (again). Good thing I’m just doing this to get familiar with the monstrosity. And yes, we are finding all sorts of bugs in it.
Edited 2007-01-31 15:53
Updates to correct things that should have been working several years ago. Microsoft do actually use this internally, right?
Just sit on XP for the next three or four years, and wait for the sixth service pack of Vista – like we all had to do with NT 4.
<segedunum: Just sit on XP for the next three or four years, and wait for the sixth service pack of Vista – like we all had to do with NT 4.
IIRC, the 4th SP actually made NT4 usable as a general development platform for Oracle 7x. Before that i recall difficulties connecting to our SCO UNIX based infrastructure. Just consider what we put up with then and how good we are off today…
“fix difficulties installing the OS on PCs with more than 3GB of memory”
That’d be a bit hard to apply the fix if you haven’t even got the thing installed yet don’t you think?
I’ve had my computer at home Dual booting between Vista and XP since Vista was released to MSDN.
I have to say, parts of it are alright, some parts are down right annoying, other parts I have to admit are retarded to say the least.
After another 8+months or so when drivers start to become more stable and with MS patching things to hopefully improve some more speed. It’ll be ok.
Lets just see if all this Security talk they’ve been saying pays off, or if it’s going to leak like a sieve.
I’ve had my computer at home Dual booting between Vista and XP since Vista was released to MSDN.
There was an article earlier today claiming that you can’t dual boot Vista and XP unless you buy two licenses for the same machine.
Did you buy two licenses? Or are you just ignoring the issue? Or did I misunderstand the issue? Or does MSDN include a new license?
I have 2 licenses.
I was just saying I’ve had enough time to evaluate Vista, and no matter how much I use Vista, I find myself going back to XP.
I was just saying I’ve had enough time to evaluate Vista, and no matter how much I use Vista, I find myself going back to XP.
I found myself doing the same thing.
Primarily because of application incompatibilities and memory requirements.
don’t worry, my friend, you’ll be forced to use Vista soon. Applications and games will start to require Vista, so you’ll HAVE to get used to it, and you will. It’s not like you have a choice – hey, that’s what you get with proprietary software.
The version from MSDN (and MSDNAA) comes with a new license, so you can have XP and Vista.
I think that the XP license invalidation comes with the “upgrade” option. In other words, if you upgrade your XP to Vista, XP’s license will be invalidated.
Asides from that, yes if you want two operating systems on your computer, you must have a license for each .
“There was an article earlier today claiming that you can’t dual boot Vista and XP unless you buy two licenses for the same machine.”
This applies if you purchase an upgrade version of Vista. If you purchase a full version, this does not apply as then you have 2 licenses.
I believe that was for Upgrade Licenses. If you Buy a full version of XP and a full version of Vista then you have two Licenses, and are free to install them side by each on a single machine. Of course it costs more.
“I believe that was for Upgrade Licenses. If you Buy a full version of XP and a full version of Vista then you have two Licenses, and are free to install them side by each on a single machine. Of course it costs more.”
Absolutely…
but this stops.
1) Selling your old copy of XP
2) Fresh install of your OS
3) Keeping your copy of XP around for compatibility with your old applications
4) Keeping your copy of XP around for performance issues with Vista. Particularly with 3D and sound
5) Keeping XP around for compatibility with your hardware.
I found myself going back Primarily because of Drivers, and I also had a couple problems with programs.
The main program I am waiting for is Ultramon for Dual Monitors, I really can’t live without it, and it kind of works at the moment, but has a few little glitches.
I also tried the latest Nvidia drivers, and they aren’t too bad, but still not up to XP standards.
And the Creative driver was down right horrible on the X-Fi. The sound was nothing but Echo and the positioning with 5.1 was just wrong.
It will improve over time, but large companies have had Vista in Betas and RC’s for a while now, I don’t see the reason for not having at least a reasonable driver out by now.
Like other people have already said, nearly every modern day operating system already has patches or updates available on release day.
I seem to remember just about every .0 release of Mac OS X having issues and some really bad ones. Given that OS X has the luxury of a controlled hardware platform and Apple having no hesitation changing api’s around breaking backwards compatibility to ‘make things better’, some of their releases have been in relative terms quite disgraceful and the .1 update has followed fairly swiftly.
Vista on the other hand has to deal with a multitude of various hardware and software dating back to 10+ years. People (rightly or wrongly) expect their ACME VB 2.0 custom program written in 90’s to still work. Even a company the size of Microsoft there is no way they can conceivable test every possible combination of hardware and software. At least Microsoft are being proactive about it and releasing updates to fix these issues in a timely manner. Would you rather patches or Microsoft go clean slate and remove backwards compatibility for apps written in viet nam times so that the os doesn’t require as much patching?
Also while Vista has been ‘5 years in the making’ in a way I don’t believe this to be true. If you look at how much has been added to xp since it’s initial release it’s quite amazing. SP2, IE7, 3 versions of media player, media center edition etc. Microsoft could have quite easily released intermediate version of XP when SP2 came out and called it XP SE or whatever (with all current updates and patches added). They have back ported a lot of technologies (maybe too many) that really have been developed for Vista.
Is Microsoft perfect? Hardly but they shouldn’t be blamed for something that is quite common practice in today’s software industry.
Would you rather patches or Microsoft go clean slate and remove backwards compatibility for apps written in viet nam times so that the os doesn’t require as much patching?
MS Encarta Standard 2007
Microsoft Money 2006
Outlook 2003
Adobe Photoshop CS 8.0
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 9
Not exactly stone-age stuff. ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929427 )
“When you try to install and run certain legacy games or applications in Windows Vista, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:
* The game or application may not be installed correctly.
* The game or application may cause system instability.
* The primary functions of the game or application may not work correctly”
Sounds like caveat emptor to me. Unfortunately I don’t think my computerstore will let me test & return.
“Is Microsoft perfect? Hardly but they shouldn’t be blamed for something that is quite common practice in today’s software industry.”
Yes!
I’ve noticed a few times people mention backward compatibility.
There was an article, I think it could of been Ars or one of those sites, saying that Bill Gates was saying how important backward compatibility is.
Now, from what I’ve seen, mostly gaming wise.
Is there are going to be a lot of games that aren’t going to work in Vista, the main reasons are because of the security protection these games implement. I think the one I came across was SecureROM? That actually uses a driver to check the CD.
Now this didn’t work, if I was an ordinary person, I would have to take the game back and try to get a refund, which isn’t always possible with games because of the CDKey.
Being Tech Savvy enough I figured out to go to their website and download the later driver and it managed to do the trick.
I do agree backwards compatibility is good, but there are times where I think you need to start fresh like Apple does.
To move forward, you need to make sacrifices, if Microsoft needed to change how their programs, API’s whatever work, then do it.
It’s harsh on developers, but if it causes better programming and making the program up to standards with Security and the multiuser environment, I think it has to be done.
All I’m saying is MS said they really think backward compatibility is important, but they haven’t achieved that as far as I’m concerned, there’s a lot of programs and a lot of games that aren’t. Either make it compatible, or force apps to be re-written and “Vista Ready”
I think every OS should be like that, I’m not picking on MS alone. If people want to continue using their program, they can do it on their current OS that works, and 10 years for Security patches is more than enough time to rework your program.
Edited 2007-01-31 00:46
I think IE7 backwards compatibility is bad! Now we don’t need to fix things for IE6, but for IE7 too. That’s really a f–k.
I hate to go sort of OT, but does anyone know if iTunes is completely compatible with Vista? There were corruption problems during Vista betas. I can’t find anything at either the Apple site or Vista site. Thanks!
Try disabling the new UAC permission and see how it goes; it appears that those who haven’t had problems have it disabled (going by neowin feedback).
“Prices for the OS in the UK range from about lb100 for an upgrade version of the Basic package to lb249 for a copy of the upgrade to the Ultimate version of Vista.
In the US prices start from $100 (lb52) for an upgrade of Vista Home basic to $249 (lb127) for the equivalent Ultimate version. ”
Now thats what I’m talking about! UK for the Win.
I’ll be surprised if anybody is surprised that Microsoft has issued last minute updates on its new OS. Even Windows XP can be considered as a work in progress considering the countless updates or patches that it continuously release. So don’t expect Vista to be trouble-free. Chances are, you’ll eb bugged by some compatibility problems. Be ready to plow through Web sites for driver updates. If you don’t have the time nor the patience to do so, try Web-based services that offer Windows Vista drivers such as http://www.radarsync.com/vista.