Submitted by “Before I launch into my tirade, I need to make a confession. I like Vista. I use it daily, but I also use it with the full knowledge that it’s a pre-service pack 1 OS from the boys in Redmond. That necessarily means it will have glitches, bugs, and annoyances. That’s a given. I’m willing to put up with all those headaches. But there were several things I was really looking forward to in Vista that are simply missing in action or broken. These are features I’d really hope would improve my productivity and make life a little easier.”
WinFS?
Why do you keep bringing up a technology which was found to have marginal improvements over existing solutions? That is why it was scrapped.
Applying Database like features to multimedia data will never work, ever. All the abstraction in the world will not change that, since there are too many different methods of tagging the said multimedia.
Microsoft probably saw that indexed searching would yield the same or nearly the same results as adding a relational DB layer to NTFS.
So why do you bring it up? There were plenty of things undelivered in Vista, surely you can find a better example of something which would of actually bettered the desktop.
“Why do you keep bringing up a technology which was found to have marginal improvements over existing solutions? That is why it was scrapped.”
Well, the promise was two things. First part was WinFS, which is just the implementations. The second part was all the wonderful things that would happen when we had WinFS.
It was supposed to “revolutionize the way we worked with computers.”.
People don’t mind not getting a crappy product, but they do mind being promised something wonderful and exciting that never happens.
So you’re probably right about the technical aspects of WinFS, but I don’t think that is what bugs people about it being left out.
zfs plus some userland software would give all the features of winFS but do it with out a relational database.
ariel atom 2 does 0-100km/h in ~2.8 seconds…
Edited 2007-09-19 10:25
I’m really looking forward to ZFS on Mac OS X and FreeBSD. It’s a pity MS has never documented their loadable filesystem interface or we might have a usable port on XP at some point. How long did the extfs for Win32 take to stabalize?
Sounds worse than expected. That issue with the RAID array would be enough to kick it – haven’t got that much time to waste.
Since the driver is now in user mode, so the thinking went, updating your graphics driver meant you wouldn’t have to reboot.
Actually I think it was that if the graphics driver crashed, it wouldn’t take the system down and instead restart.
Fair assessment otherwise. It’s nice to see nice real world gripes.
Edited 2007-09-18 21:07
It’s both. Though there’s still a kernel mode miniport driver. If that fails, it can halt the system in some cases, but the bulk of the code is in user mode.
Not sure why NVIDIA et al., started forcing reboots. Earlier driver sets switched on the fly. Given the state of their drivers early on, maybe it was just easier for them to punt switching support and force the reboot. Or maybe there are issues related to their control panel applets which I don’t believe were included in those drivers that supported switching.
On Windows XP, (at least for me) driver switching on the fly still works. After installing the NVIDIA driver for example, I just opt not to reboot. The driver is then active. Is this different on Vista?
This reboot after installation thing is more like a general measure. Software vendors do this because after something was installed, there may be not yet properly registered DLLs, or old stuff in RAM. Or not. Either way, better safe than sorry – and there you have your “recommended”, sometimes even “necessary” reboot.
“This reboot after installation thing is more like a general measure. Software vendors do this because after something was installed, there may be not yet properly registered DLLs, or old stuff in RAM. Or not. Either way, better safe than sorry – and there you have your “recommended”, sometimes even “necessary” reboot.”
This is exactly the case, and it pertains to registration of the control panel updates, not the driver itself. You can safely ignore the reboot request when install Nvdia’s current drivers (if you check in the device manager after installing the driver, you will see the new driver is in fact loaded). Furthermore, a logout and logon will even resolve the control panel registration issue.
As for the video driver restart and user versus kernel mode components, the user mode driver is essentially a sandwiched library (between the DX libs and the DXGK) of device specific functions which are then batched down (to kernel mode) to the DXGK and subsequently passed, in a controlled manner, to the miniport. The user mode driver is a memory mapped DLL in the user mode address space of the process and if the driver fails, the process dies, not the system.
However, even the kernel mode miniport is now dynamically restartable and there is a watchdog timer that periodically checks to make sure that the driver is still making progress and the GPU hasn’t hung. If that is the case, it attempts what is known as a Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) wherein reinitializes the driver, resetting the GPU (this is the behavior where you get the pop-up in the system tray notifying you about a driver recovery).
One interesting side note is that sometimes a driver data structure used by the kernel mode miniport can become corrupt, forcing the system into a frequently recurring TDR cycle. In this instance, rolling back the driver and then reinstalling the current driver (without rebooting) will save you a forced reboot as that sequence completely unloads and reloads the driver.
-Mak
Its off-topic, but well Vista has major problems, these aren’t even icing on the cake. I really liked the *styling* of Vista, but I’ve learned to hate it. Oddly I used to hate XP’s cartoon style, but its grown on me.
Seriously though the only think that I would find interesting is stability, and I suspect without proper testing on a wide Verity of places nothing will ever be conclusive, figures will be massaged, and people will swear blind one way or the other, or blame the drivers.
…but bless him at least he’s got those DirectX 10 games to look forward to. He can play Halo 1 when everyone with a console is playing 3
Hey, come on, he’ll be able to play Halo 2, and that makes ALL the difference.
Hey, come on, he’ll be able to play Halo 2, and that makes ALL the difference.
So can XP users, thanks to the scene. He’s right that Vista users can look forward to DX10 games, but Halo 2 is not DX10. Its Vista requirement is entirely artificial, and has been worked around. Slightly lame on Microsoft’s part, but it’s their property.
I feel a bit shameful really, I’m glad the author gave me a way in really. Taking a dig a DirectX 10 after Microsoft shafted its own customers; made expensive cards by AMD/NVidia look like expensive paperweights was too easy.
I was really just shocked how *old* Vista looks in those screenshots. It actually looks like last years OS. When it came out I thought it looked really nice, and they had got the look right for their half a billion launch.
I don’t know whether its Apple’s interface that has stood the test of time, albeit with cosmetic improvements or Linux’s face has changes so rapidly, or Microsoft got it wrong…but then I like the new iPod nano, and nobody likes that.
Oddly my chosen desktop is reminiscent of Microsoft95.
Edited 2007-09-18 22:25
How exactly did Microsoft shaft it’s own customers with DirectX10?
Are you referring to it being Vista only? Surely, this tired argument against DirectX10 has been thrown around enough for you to know otherwise.
Or are you referring to the 10.1 standard which does not actually break compat with older cards, it just tightens the standard. I’m pretty sure DirectX10 card released conforms to the 10.1 caps (I think it’s like forced AA and 32bit floating point or something)
“Are you referring to it being Vista only? Surely, this tired argument against DirectX10 has been thrown around enough for you to know otherwise.”
No I’m referring to how Desktop gamers; Graphic card Manufacturers; Game Companies got stuffed. You personally can have a “please sir can I have another one” attitude to the whole thing. I don’t care. I can make fun of *you* all day over this…but
I have chosen a platform, that is only supported by 2 large gaming companies, so would be hollow victory at best. I can take some benefit from the fact that gamers have been pushed into console gaming, and the reduced importance of those cutting edge graphics that traditionally GNU has been poor at supporting…but its not of real benefit to me. Its not like game companies are moving on mass to OpenGL and supporting cross-platform gaming, at sensible *equal* pricing.
Now I can take some, benefit from the rise of large *collaborative* gaming projects of which is of a relative small number…but is growing, and the quality is improving constantly, although I would love to see a way that these people can make *money* out of their efforts.
I think one of the problems is that the FSF has been focused on software rather than content, and software taken in a bubble is a mistake, although they are stronger focusing on one goal.
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Just a correction. GNU supports 3D not at all. You’re thinking of XFree86 and Xorg, with support from the kernel, be it Linux or a *BSD, or other. There are no GNU components involved in the support of 3D hardware features. So referring to GNU in this context is nonsensical. Please refer to Xorg instead. Give them credit for their work.
Edited 2007-09-19 17:18
“Just a correction. GNU supports 3D not at all. You’re thinking of XFree86 and Xorg, with support from the kernel, be it Linux or a *BSD, or other. There are no GNU components involved in the support of 3D hardware features. So referring to GNU in this context is nonsensical. Please refer to Xorg instead. Give them credit for their work. ”
Just for clarification, please do not expose your extreme lack of knowledge on how 3D works on GNU. Although I am pleased that you are now pointing out that, GNU works through collaboration between modular parts. Each part reliant on another, and all are replaceable. I would suggest you look at something like directfb, mesa, or even the proprietary drivers. The unfortunately thing is GNU is part of a greater whole. Its nice that you are beginning to acknowledge that Desktop is made up of many parts.
Remember that I can have GNU without Linux or X, and still have my games with 3D acceleration. The reality is though I am perfectly willing to give a better name for my mythical-meta distribution which may not include X or Linux. Although I will point out now if you use the term Linux you are only crediting *one man*.
Although to be fair, your off-topic.
Edited 2007-09-19 17:49
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Remember that I can have GNU without Linux or X, and still have my games with 3D acceleration.
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Describe to me how you would play OpenArena with only GNU sponsored software. Without X. Without Linux or BSD or some other non-HURD kernel. The only GNU sponsored component which comes into play when I play it is glibc. And the glibc project, while technically a FSF project, is a perfect example of one which would like nothing better than to get away from the FSF if the current, long-time maintainer, Ulrich Drepper, had his way. Richard had to forcefully limit Ulrich’s authority to keep them from separating. It was a fairly heavy-handed move by the GNU’s “BDFL” that prevented the schism. A move which Richard could not have made had he not controlled all those copyrights on software that the FSF did not write.
Anyway, I would like to see the recipe for playing OpenArena with only FSF sponsored software. Also, as an aside, I would like to see you start using “you’re” or “you are” instead of the grammatically incorrect “your”. I only mention it because you keep saying it that way, over and over. Please take that last as a constructive criticism. Pet peeve of mine…
Edited 2007-09-19 19:35
“Describe to me how you would play OpenArena with only GNU sponsored software. Without X. Without Linux or BSD or some other non-HURD kernel. The only GNU sponsored component which comes into play when I play it is glibc. And the glibc project, while technically a FSF project, is a perfect example of one which would like nothing better than to get away from the FSF if the current, long-time maintainer, Ulrich Drepper, had his way. Richard had to forcefully limit Ulrich’s authority to keep them from separating. It was a fairly heavy-handed move by the GNU’s “BDFL” that prevented the schism. A move which Richard could not have made had he not controlled all those copyrights on software that the FSF did not write.
Anyway, I would like to see the recipe for playing OpenArena with only FSF sponsored software. Also, as an aside, I would like to see you start using “you’re” or “you are” instead of the grammatically incorrect “your”. I only mention it because you keep saying it that way, over and over. Please take that last as a constructive criticism. Pet peeve of mine…”
Just for clarification, please do not expose your extreme lack of knowledge on how 3D works on GNU. Although I am pleased that you are now pointing out that, GNU works through collaboration between modular parts. Each part reliant on another, and all are replaceable. I would suggest you look at something like directfb, mesa, or even the proprietary drivers. The unfortunately thing is GNU is part of a greater whole. Its nice that you are beginning to acknowledge that Desktop is made up of many parts.
Remember that I can have GNU without Linux or X, and still have my games with 3D acceleration. The reality is though I am perfectly willing to give a better name for my mythical-meta distribution which may not include X or Linux. Although I will point out now if you use the term Linux you are only crediting *one man*.
Is there an echo in here?
Anyway. I’m still interested in how you are going to play open-source 3D games like OpenArena on a GNU platform. I’ve already shown that when I play it, the GNU dependency is minimal to insignificant. I use Xorg and Linux. You have yet to show how GNU can even play a significant part in this particular task. Sometimes the FSF just doesn’t matter.
Edited 2007-09-19 20:29
OpenArena, You followed me into this thread. I quite shocked that your stalking me, although its in character with your behavior.
You don’t get the basic thing. Linux, GNU, Open-source whatever you want to call this mythical unstoppable force then blends idealists; politics; money etc into a big melting pot that is further reaching than any individual or company. There is no such thing as a community, and nobody within it is being driven by any one individual its not a community its a community its not ties to one platform. If you don’t get that I’m sorry.
So we come to OpenArena you could have picked *any* game…but you chose that one. You know I will play OpenArena it is everything I want from a game, small community, friendly individuals. I look every day for development updates, I check the whats happening in the rep[ositories for code changes of ioquake. There are a few games that really peak my interest. So why OpenArena…because it gets so much right. The mod scene which has little to nothing with the the FSF freedom has thousands of assets all the internet, some even have vague licenses to text files with as little as “do what you want with this!”, but overall its a mess, thousand of quake assets litter the internet and most are forgotten, from models to levels, all done by individuals, all as permenant as dub records. leilol the lead of a *collaborative* project which people contribute for various reasons all under licenses under GPL or compatible licenses and it very careful about it. So it receives all the benefits that license can bring…I would be guessing why, but some do it for what the FSF talk about, although people have their own reasons. I spent a long making the point the FSF freedom extends beyond its own borders. In fact due to the nature of the license there are other benefits.
You talk about the FSF and their ideal of freedom, and why it makes them Scumm. I disagree but your like a dog without a bone. I think the FSF is not far reaching enough, and the OpenArea is a rare gen that exemplifies a problem, its the “Software” in the FSF, its not their fault there aims were quite specific, the problem is they are not far reaching enough it should include all content…and if anything thats just as important to be free, OpenAreana actually extends on FSF ideals, and even if you don’t believe that , you cannot argue its benefited from Linus tit-for-tat license. Its a double-barreled win.
GNU is bigger than the FSF, and its growing.
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Actually, cyclops, I’m happy to say that I *do* get that. It’s a driving force in my life. It is *wonderful*. And I do not use that term lightly.
On to the next issue… I picked OpenArena for this thread because it is completely open source. It’s basically the OS’ed Quake 3 engine with open source artwork. If I had picked Doom3 or some other, closed source set of game engine and artwork, we would have had to deal with the whole issue of “proprietary” this or that. Doom3 and Quake4 data even uses a texture compression format which is patented. That’s why I carefully chose a very high quality game with a completely open source implementation that we can enjoy. I am sincerely pleased that you enjoy Open Arena as I do.
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I’ve been playing some of the open-source ScummVM games recently. (“The Flight of the Amazon Queen”, currently.) I feel that I share the goals of the FSF. I do have some concerns about their strategies. *But* (there’s always a big *butt*, isn’t there? -Peewee Herman) I do feel that there is a benefit that we derive from the Yin/Yang nature of the whole general mishmash that is the Free Software, Open Source Software movement… whatever you want to call it. And the overall “community” is greater than any one “faction”. (I’m careful to put those words in quotes.) We, you and I, are posting on OSAlert. Not Linuxtoday. Not Linux Weekly News. Not LXer. But OSAlert. That means that we want to interact, for whatever reasons, with people who run not just Linux, or BSD, or Windows, or Haiku, or Syllable, or whatever. We want to interact with people with diverse views on what an operating system should be. I respect you, and the other posters here, for that. I only wish that we, you and I, could get the “agreeing to disagree” part over with and start being friends.
Edited 2007-09-20 02:53
“I’ve been playing some of the open-source ScummVM games recently.”
I’m glad and if I was interested in discussing the moral issues of binary software. I’m sure it would be an example. Although it has little to do with tOpenAreana that takes the FSF freedom to a greater level by applying it to works of art.
The problem the upsets you is my OS is nothing if anything to do with Linux. In fact when Linus restricted my freedom which I value, I stopped caring. It has nothing to do with me. Thats ignoring the bad practical benefits, I believe his personal choice is. I believe strongly that the FSF freedom extends beyond its own copyrighted code…you simply cannot see that.
I think it upsets you more that I don’t differentiate between the kernels so much, but thats simply becuase I think that “OpenAreana” is more important. Because it aspires to a freedom greater than that of the kernel.
You are trying to separate all the OS’s by kernel. I’m not interested in that part of the OS. The bottom line is regardless of OS. I want my programs free, and with all the technical benefits that brings. The OS is simply part and parcel of that package.
…but the bottom line is comparing OS’s is in itself a nonsense, highlighted by your own posts. From a users perspective, the difference between using Gnome or KDE is greater than which kernel you are using.
How do you compare this.
windowsOS+aero+cd writer+msn messenger+media center+WMP+Internet explorer
I use this
Linux+X+compiz+xfce+k3b+gaim+mythtv+MPlayer+audacious+firefox
…and thats a basic example…every part of that chain can be replaced. In reality my GNU also contains Openoffice+Openareana+Eclipe+Meld+Nvu etc etc.
My point is if I had this.
FreeBSD+X+compiz+xfce+k3b+gaim+mythtv+MPlayer+audacious+firefox+Openof fice+Openareana+Eclipe+Meld+Nvu etc etc
It that a different OS
In reality I any think that that all comparisons should be based on *your* modular OS of choice against Microsofts Vista…anything else is just stupid.
please stop stalking me.
Edited 2007-09-20 09:08
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I’m glad and if I was interested in discussing the moral issues of binary software. I’m sure it would be an example.
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I’m unclear what you mean by this. But just to be clear, the ScummVM engine and the artwork for the games are all open, so far as I know. They are in Fedora 7.
I call the operating system on my desktop “Fedora 7”. I call the operating system on my laptop “Ubuntu Feisty”. And I call the OS that I use on my clients’ servers “CentOS”. That naming scheme makes the most sense to me.
“I’m unclear what you mean by this. But just to be clear, the ScummVM engine and the artwork for the games are all open, so far as I know. They are in Fedora 7. ”
No.
“I call the operating system on my desktop “Fedora 7”. I call the operating system on my laptop “Ubuntu Feisty”. And I call the OS that I use on my clients’ servers “CentOS”. That naming scheme makes the most sense to me.”
Linux Distributions.
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The ScummVM engine is under GPL. The data for the Flight of the Amazon Queen went public domain in March of 2004, IIRC. Which makes you… wrong.
“The ScummVM engine is under GPL. The data for the Flight of the Amazon Queen went public domain in March of 2004, IIRC. Which makes you… wrong. ;-)”
I’m sorry I didn’t realize these games were not public domain.
* Backyard Baseball
* Backyard Baseball 2001
* Backyard Baseball 2003
* Backyard Basketball
* Backyard Football
* Backyard Football 2002
* Backyard Soccer
* Backyard Soccer 2004
* Backyard Soccer MLS Edition
* Big Thinkers First Grade
* Big Thinkers Kindergarten
* Blue’s 123 Time Activities
* Blue’s ABC Time Activities
* Blue’s Art Time Activities
* Blue’s Birthday Adventure
* Blue’s Reading Time Activities
* Blue’s Treasure Hunt
C
* The Curse of Monkey Island
D
* Day of the Tentacle
D cont.
* The Dig
F
* Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise
* Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds
* Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse
* Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
* Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch
* Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cave
* Freddi Fish and Luther’s Maze Madness
* Freddi Fish and Luther’s Water Worries
* Freddi Fish’s One-Stop Fun Shop
* Full Throttle
I
* Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
* Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
L
* Loom
M
* Maniac Mansion
* Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
* Moonbase Commander
P
* Pajama Sam 1: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside
* Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren’t so Frightening
* Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat From Your Head to Your Feet
P cont.
* Pajama Sam’s Lost & Found
* Pajama Sam’s One-Stop Fun Shop
* Pajama Sam’s Sock Works
* Pajama Sam: Games to Play On Any Day
* Passport to Adventure
* Putt-Putt Enters the Race
* Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon
* Putt-Putt Joins the Parade
* Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo
* Putt-Putt Travels Through Time
* Putt-Putt’s Fun Pack
* Putt-Putt’s One-Stop Fun Shop
S
* SPY Fox 1: Dry Cereal
* SPY Fox 2: Some Assembly Required
* SPY Fox 3: Operation Ozone
* SPY Fox in Cheese Chase
* SPY Fox in Hold the Mustard
* Sam & Max Hit the Road
* The Secret of Monkey Island
Z
* Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
I’m so sorry, please leave me alone, you know nothing.
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I’m so sorry, please leave me alone, you know nothing.
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The ones that I am aware of which are open are “Flight of the Amazon Queen” and “Beneath a Steel Sky”. There’s are plenty more, I think. But those are the ones I happen to know about. (I’m on my Fedora box right now. Apt on my laptop would no doubt give me a list of all of the available open titles.)
It would be nice if more of those old adventure games were released under a permissive, or copyleft license.
Though I actually tend to prefer the *really* old text adventure games:
“You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.”
Edited 2007-09-20 20:07
As usual you have no real reply to my posts I will say again that this low level intimidation is unacceptable. I understand why you do such behavior. I will not tolerate it anymore.
Mesa 3D is MIT licensed and not a GNU project.
Since when are the proprietary drivers related to GNU in any way? Other than RMS very much disliking them, that is.
“Since when are the proprietary drivers related to GNU in any way? Other than RMS very much disliking them, that is.”
I don’t think I have ever laughed out loud, when I have wrote lol, but I did laugh out loud. I hope you wrote that with a puzzled face and a timed pause
“Mesa 3D is MIT licensed and not a GNU project.”
I’m done I suspect you you should have a look at all the post on “linus” “hypocrite” “binary blobs” I make the same point point of synergy, as Linus does, regardless.
Why I say “mesa” or proprietary drivers” is you can’t thank anyone or any community or company for GNU you can only thank them all.
So you’ve really said nothing at all.
Let’s stop with the broad insults and get to specifics.
It’d be easier to answer your points if you actually said something other than filler.
This is not about your personal choices, this is about what you find wrong with DirectX10.
“This is not about your personal choices, this is about what you find wrong with DirectX10.”
I’m sorry I’ll play Smackdown, how do you annoy a very tiny but faithful following on the Microsoft platform. You make the the hardware only work on your new platform before its ready for mainstream use, and not all of your current games will work on the new platform. You $2000 ninja set up looks looks like it works on an old intel chip, and the games that do come out are rare and have little perceivable difference, you blame the hardware manufactures who are upset by this and just want to sell there product to *anyone*, everyone else is taking so long to support the game developers can’t take advantage of the new hardware, because most people have the old OS, which won’t take advantage of their new features so their games look like all the others, but the faithful crossed fingers take the plunge lets face it they have no trouble running Vista, they buy the latest hardware…they spent an awful lot of money to buy Vista though….and how do the company that they support repay these people perhaps a version of one of the the most talked about games this yet…the most pre-ordered game ever…allegedly a console killer…no your gonna fob them off with a 5 year old game at a price as higher than getting a second hand Xbox with halo off ebay.
I’ve wrote it I’ve not even spell checked it I don’t think its worth it. Bottom line is DirectX is an Api, its the hardware that does the magic come back and argue with me when OpenGL3.0 is about.
You’re pretty cocky, and pretty wrong. Quit mixing emotion with your arguments, it makes them weak.
What other choices where there as opposed to making DX10 a Vista exclusive? Windows Vista heralded the new driver model which allowed for the functional improvements, and a clean slate for the API to work with.
DirectX10 is a departure from DX9 and the legacy baggage that comes with it. The new driver model brought much needed improvements to how the API interacts with the Hardware (Which as you state, is a crucial part of the equation)
If you didn’t know, DirectX10 was a JOINT development project. All the big players worked in conjunction to develop the new API, and the results were unprecedented amounts of realism and involvement in games.
You’re basing your opinion on DirectX10, and it’s power on games which were written a few months after DX10 was finalized.
Halo 2 Vista Edition has a DX10 render path, but it’s pretty much the same in terms of visual quality. This is the same for Lost Planet: EC.
Now, if you look at a Game like Crysis (or any game which will eventually use CryEngine2) you can see DirectX10 as it should be. Even this though, as stated by Crytek is not utilizing the API to it’s full potential.
I’m not saying DirectX10 has features that are impossible for OpenGL3.0 to have, since frankly this is false.
The difference is how easy it is for companies to pick up DirectX10 (when migrating from DX9) and the fact that it’s availible. Right now.
I could go on, but it’s painfully obvious you have not done your homework on this topic.
I’m sorry I sort of read your post. I couldn’t really find the part that said Halo3 was being released on both console and Vista…did I stutter.
You claim that 2 different api’s cannot exist on the same system is comical, or even writing a wrapper layer was not possible they seem to have done it for DirectX 10 cards.I’m sorry I don’t find it credible.
I’m glad that Halo 2 is only Vista only, and has *not originally there* features clearly its getting top reviews everywhere, and is not a 5 year old game. I mean I’d want Halo3 myself but if your happy I’m happy
I’m glad that you have proved me wrong about lack of games for a game that set to demo in about a week…and will be available on DirectX9 clearly I was just wrong. I’m so ashamed
Sorry I thought you said API to its full potential…don’t you mean hardware to its full potential. Do you even know what an API is, please for the love of god don’t post to me again until the company that wrote it is prepared to support it with its own games.
perhaps its my hormones.
Edited 2007-09-19 22:19
Halo has always been a console game. It’s been ported to the PC, but thats the flagship game of the XBox.
It’s hard to figure out what you’re talking about since you offer little or no elaboration on any of your points.
Where do I claim two APIs cannot exist on the same system? I run OpenGL (API One) and DirectX9 (API Two) on Windows XP, and run three separate graphics platforms on Vista (OGL, DX9, DX10). What are you talking about?
Writing a DX10 wrapper for DX9 would defeat the entire purpose of DX10. Things like geometry shaders would be PAINFULLY slow if wrapped since it would have to be done in software.
You seem to be under this false pretense that Halo (1/2/3) make up the Video Game industry. You’re in for a rude awakening.
Crysis, which is arguably a better game (Gameplay/Graphics/Multiplayer) than Halo is set to be released in November, and guess what it’s in DirectX10.
Do you not get that DirectX10 is in it’s infancy? Did you automatically see the mountains of DX9 games you see today a few months after DX9 was released? No.
And, no you use the API to it’s full potential. The Hardware is inherently utilized by the API, so it’s the API that’s behind the wheel. You never talk directly to the hardware.
DirectX10 is powered by the hardware. The Hardware (or access to it) it’s enabled THROUGH the API. Therefore, if you don’t utilize the API to it’s full potential you’re inherently not using the Hardware to it’s full potential.
Do you even know how Hardware abstraction (the entire purpose of an API) works? By your previous post, I’d be willing to get you don’t have a clue.
I’m sorry again is Halo3 available for Vista, you can defend it *anyway* you want. I don’t care. If its not like a big sign saying *buy a console* a don’t know what is.
I didn’t say write a wrapper, your actually arguing that an api that well needs as little OS between it and the hardware for maximum performance couldn’t be written for XP, their OS must be really badly designed, if such changes are that difficult, but OpenGL 3.0 will appear on XP.
I’ll give on the Crysis thing if I were you, arguing the benefits of a game thats currently not available, on a platform thats been out for a year is poor.
The funny thing is, I don’t think you understand…software is not magic. The API should be their to allow you to use your *hardware* to its full potential. You argue the “API not being used to its full potential”. I can’t argue with you.
Ignoring the fact that you haven’t one credential reason for Directx 10…not one. You actually argue against it. You must think software is like magic, please turn my CPU into a quad core, perhaps you can make my monitor larger, how about boosting my onboard graphics while your at it.
Lol, you think reiterating your tired argument will make it right or something. I’ll just quit responding to it, you can read back for the justification.
Don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of Graphics development, or downplay the role that drivers take in performance.
You’re insinuating that drivers take no roll in performance, you need to TALK to the hardware. The old Graphics Driver Format was deemed inefficient for the needs of DirectX10 by every party involved in it’s development.
They decided to leave the backwards computability baggage at the door with the old Graphics Driver Model, and go with WDDM for Windows Vista.
This new Graphics Driver Architecture, designed from the ground up with efficiency and performance in mind was a refreshing take to providing a Graphics Platform.
Are you arguing with me or not? You seem to make points, then contradict yourself. First you say that me saying the “API is not being used to its full potential” is wrong, and then you agree with me.
Are you coming to the realization that you were wrong, or do you have no clue what you’re talking about?
The aims of my posts were never to outline DirectX10’s strengths, they were merely to counter your assumptions about it’s role in the Game industry.
If you’re too dense to see this, it’s your problem not mine.
Judging from your less-than-objective view of previous posts on this website, it wouldn’t be too far off to label you as a fanboy with a low knowledge:emotion ratio.
This will be my last response to your FUD unless you provide something worthwhile.
I’m glad you ignored my points and stuck with a single misconception. Of what an Api is or the role of Vista. in this instance.
Any abstraction between the program with the hardware, has the potential to slow it down. The whole point of DirectX is to get much “close to metal” as is possible, while providing an interface of common functionality, between different hardware. Vista just gets in the way.
In reality to get the best benefit from the hardware you would not even use an API.
The real broken promise was price IMO.Technical hitches are just that , which in time can be fixed.I thought Billy said the “wow starts now” , but how much can afford to wow their pockets deep out of cash plus for hardware.
Regarding my own experiences with Vista:
Networking: Networking is still dead simple on my end. (In fact, I wish it was less integrated into Vista, but that’s another story.) That said, I don’t use NASs.
Rebooting: The only time I’ve had to restart Vista is with a RIAA CD from the 90s that was using some sort of crazy copy protection. When I tried to rip it, my computer shut down. That’ll teach me to buy RIAA…
Startup: Much better under Vista, and almost worth the cost itself. With XP, startup on my machine was 90 seconds; under Vista, it’s 30 seconds. (The BIOS warmup time, from power-on to handing control over to the OS, is 20 seconds in both cases; alas, the BIOS is a dinosaur.) After getting to the signon screen, the time from entering my password to having full control (all services completely loaded, startup processes finished and cleared out of memory) is 10 seconds, as opposed to 60 seconds with Windows XP. (I know those are horrible times, but you have to understand, my computer is crud.)
(Ironically, despite Microsoft’s emphasis on putting computers into standby instead of shutting it down, it takes me less than half as much time to get my Vista box completely shut down and completely restarted than it does to put it into and restore it from standby. You’d think for all their describing it as a better way, it’d be actually better…)
Stability: I’ve seen none of the issues he has mentioned, and I’m still running a mostly-stock install (the few changes: removal of the Sidebar, three program installations, change of screen saver to funny pictures and kittens, and change of UI theme to blue).
“The only time I’ve had to restart Vista is with a RIAA CD”
Reasons for not buying Vista 114….they are *all* RIAA CD’s RIAA is a cartel of well every CD your likely to buy.
Although I suspect its not true…but I would love it to be.
You don’t know my esoteric musical tastes, then.
It’s easy to buy RIAA-free music*, but that particular CD was from a time when the copy-protection schemes were at their most damning (doing things like damaging drives if they were read by a computer instead of a CD player).
* http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=riaa-free+music
Buddy, you really need to run windows update right now if you don’t want your box hijacked!
Vista has a lot of maturing to do.
Nothing more fun than having issues with devices intermittantly like DVDRom’s, Networking, TV-out.
The only real things I like on Vista over WinXP is the new Sound Stack and Windows Mail which replaced Outlook Express (spam filter is the only improvement here).
DirectX 10 is a joke especially as MS is forcing sound to use OpenAL. The User Interface, although nicer than XP’s default is nothing special compared to OS-X or Compiz/Gnome and I get pretty pissed off with the Folder creation/renaming issues that plague Explorer.
Games run fine though but I think it helps that I’m using the x64 version of Vista and not the x86 which seems to have more issues with it.
At this point in time, I’m sort of 50/50 as too retrograde my system to XP x64 or stay with Vista and that is a sad thing as Vista was supposedly meant to be such a great product according to MS but the OS doesn’t live upto MS Marketing hype. It falls flat on its face.
Windows Vista was released in January, and it shipped with more Drivers than Windows XP did when shipped. It’s just having growing pains in the compatability with some of the older drivers.
Talk to the software vendors, or start reporting the issue. After a threshold of reports has been reached, Microsoft is said to delegate resources to write the said driver.
DirectX10 definitely does not force you to use OpenAL, you’re free to use whatever sound library you want.
If this is all you have to justify it falling “flat on its face”, then I definitely feel for those alternative systems who can’t run games, don’t support the said hardware, and lack DirectX10.
People need to learn to stop buying NVIDIA hardware. At least not on boxes they plan to run Vista on. His system is far less responsive or speedy than it should be, which leads me to assume there’s something wrong with either his drivers or his antivirus.
The complaints about networking is well-founded and his stability issues are unfortunate. As everyone’s saying: bring on SP1!
People need to learn to stop buying NVIDIA hardware. At least not on boxes they plan to run Vista on. His system is far less responsive or speedy than it should be, which leads me to assume there’s something wrong with either his drivers or his antivirus.
My system is *all* NVidia hardware, just about, and is rock solid under Vista (GeForce 7600gt, NForce MCP 55, etc.).
The curious thing is, he *SHOWS* the display that tells him where most of his system crashes are coming from, yet didn’t take the 15 seconds to find out what dthtml.exe is, and get rid of it (appears to be MagicTune, a Samsung application).
If nothing else, Vista makes finding that oddball dll/exe file much, much simpler.
The curious thing is, he *SHOWS* the display that tells him where most of his system crashes are coming from, yet didn’t take the 15 seconds to find out what dthtml.exe is, and get rid of it (appears to be MagicTune, a Samsung application)
Unfortunately, he can't get rid of explorer.exe that easily…
It's actually funny that Reliability Monitor lists explorer.exe and svchost.exe as APPLICATION FAILURES. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I know that the OS is not to be mixed up with the file manager, but the ONE thing that average users identify with the OS immediately (like, on first contact) is the file-manager, innit?
With respect to font sizes, if you have your DPI set correctly, a 12pt font is the same physical size anywhere, no matter what the resolution is. I think monitors just need a reliable way to query their physical dimensions in software. Then this wouldn’t be a problem.
Without that information, there is no way that any OS can fix the problem of the same point font appearing as a different physical size on different displays. In Windows and Linux you can easily set up the DPI correctly, most people just don’t do it. Remember 1pt = 1/72″. It’s a physical size, and 12pt font should be the same size everywhere.
“Remember 1pt = 1/72″. It’s a physical size, and 12pt font should be the same size everywhere.”
The problem is the amount of pixels for that size of text will differ, and Windows tries to line up the subpixels in a nice way to give you clear text, but they also cut and force the text into whatever amount of pixels you have available, which will make them look wrong.
Most modern monitors can be queried for their physical dimensions.. I believe the DVI spec supports it, as does whatever protocol was used to auto detect supported resolutions under VGA…
The problem is that windows ignores this information, you have to set it by hand. Linux on the other hand will read it from the monitor if available. The supposed feature of vista, was that it would read this information and set the DPI automatically.
That said, there are a few broken monitors out there (the built in LCD on a Thinkpad T42 for one) that either dont report their size, or report it incorrectly. This behaviour isnt noticed under windows, which ignores it anyway. But under linux, you’l either get windows-style behaviour of using a default dpi (which makes the fonts unreadably small on a high resolution screen) if there’s no information received, or you’l get text at completely random sizes of the monitor reports wrongly.
The monitor returning the wrong size often gets blamed on linux, because windows doesn’t do it by virtue of not supporting the feature at all.
“I like Vista.”
If I am going to read a bashing article of vista, I want to know that the author truly hates it. Else I cant read it.
Of course I would like to see some of those features that were missing in a desktop(not vista/windows/redmond) near me.
Yeah, WinFS was my first thought aswell.
Anyway, OS X already have good font rendering where text looks at it will on paper, and fonts got the looks they should have instead of what will look good at the users screen.
I have no idea about network on macs, but atleast I guess sharing music with iTunes or sharing priners over rendezvous or whatever they call it works decent.
Regarding reboots they aren’t that many in OS X, but they are still to many, and I hate how I can never say “I’ll reboot later.”, ohwell, atleast the dialogs doesn’t nag me every 5 minutes and the machine reboots just because it wants to if I ignore them for a while or leave it. Even worse Windows does that without saving any documents and such.
My macbook pro boots real fast, sleep works flawless and is very fast, and I doubt the whole OS will crash on me, applications can, of course.
Anyway, I’m new to the OS X business and would very much appreciate a similair article with some Apple bashing, what is wrong with OS X? Where do they fail?
I know about OpenGL, what more?
I have found it to be light years more responsive than vista; but this version of windows server is build around windows vista, which leads me to conclude that windows vista SP1 will bring a lot of fixes and stability to the sick vista.
When you install the graphics component on the server 2008 (Beta 3) it would start to remind me of vista sluggishness. The drivers I tested were final nvidia for GF6600GT though.
Patience is the key to success; meanwhile ignore vista and continue using XP
Vista is just too big and has too much baggage to be a good seller.
I’ll point out a few issues.
1. UAC is annoying. It pops up in the strangest places and sometimes pops up twice. One example: In XP, you can see all processes running by other users just with a checkmark in Task Manager. Now UAC pops up if you want to do the same thing. This is while I’m logged in as administrator. I don’t understand how this would help with security. I’m already an administrator, so how’s UAC suppose to protect me here???
Looks like Microsoft put in UAC everywhere they could just so they could blame security problems on the user.
2. Cleartype is mandatory- this issue really irks me the most. If you turn off cleartype, you get a mixture of anti-aliased text and aliased text. This mixture is ugly. Those of you who hate cleartype will need to accept fuzzy fonts as a fact of life with Vista. According to Microsoft this is by design since aliased text is not compatible with resolution independence. I don’t buy that. More likely that some developers forgot that not everybody loves Cleartype and when they did remember, it was too late to make major changes to WPF/Avalon.
Even then, aliased text is still essential to getting an accurate representation of text on print-outs.
3. CPU usage is too high. TrustedInstaller.exe keeps on running in the background as soon as I boot up. That and downloading and installing any hotfixes takes too long. I believe it’s related to the Windows Update issue that caused a stir last week. Iirc, the update happend around the end of August. My XP install has been taking too much CPU for the same reason. It’s been like that since mid-August.
4. It takes more clicks to change settings. You’ll need more mouse clicks to change the same settings you made in XP. Example: Each of the tabs that used to be under Display Properties is now a hyperlink.
One more nitpick. I still see that ugly, gray, zigzag, stichlike selection box. That’s from Windows 95…
That’s about it.
I’m already an administrator, so how’s UAC suppose to protect me here???
Well, you’re not actually an administrator. You’re “User” class, with the ability to request Administrator privilege. Hence the “Alt-C” prompt. It also keeps applications from requesting that privilege without you knowing about it.
Any button with the little shield icon on it will cause a UAC prompt.
CPU usage is too high. TrustedInstaller.exe keeps on running in the background as soon as I boot up.
Hrm. Haven’t seen that one, but you might want to see if you have a Windows Update issue. A few people have reported similar problems, usually tracked back to Windows Update problems or Windows Media Player trying to update.
My system idles around 2-5% CPU usage.
It also keeps applications from requesting that privilege without you knowing about it.
It still doesn’t explain how it’s going to protect me. What kind of malware is going to be stopped with a UAC prompt placed at that point? Even if such a UAC prompt would stop an attack, is there enough justification for doing so? I.E., would annoying the user with a prompt justify the small chance of being attacked? I don’t think so, considering the task manager is opened quiet often.
Example?
1. Where’s the Directory “Up” button in explorer? I know I’m supposed to love the breadcrumb thing in the address bar … but I don’t.
2. Why does right-clicking the network connection icon insist on sending me to the “Network Center” (which takes ages to load)? It was way more intuitive to just <right-click> > “Open Network Connections”.
3. Why does explorer just sit there doing God-knows-what when you open a folder with a lot of photos. It’s loaded the thumbnails, what is it doing?
4. Why does copying a large file over a network take half as much time from within an XP virtual machine than on the Vista host?
5. Was there a directive to rename everything in the control panel?
6. Oh yeah, and why does Windows Update install drivers that kill my media center PC? I know this is probably a question for Dvico, but MS has decided to distribute the files, they could at least verify that they work!
I could go on …
Edited 2007-09-19 01:26
I was about to join you in complaining about something… but I just found out something neat. As in, JUST now.
Apparently, the keyboard command that should have worked in XP, Alt+Up, now works in Vista: it takes you up one directory. So they took it off the GUI, but put it back where I always wanted it…
The thing that annoys me the most about the new Explorer is the *nixification of the system. Instead of seeing the actual directory system, you are nown shown a directory based on your username: mine, for example, is “/Shanya”. If you want to see the actual root of your system, you have to go to the Computer directory: e.g., “/Computer/Local Disc C/” instead of the actual directory (“C://”) to get into your C drive. That change, for lack of a better term, is user-hating design…
(This and other little quirks guide me to the belief that Vista is the first version of Windows based on a BSD kernel… but I digress.)
You do know that NT-based Windows doesn’t need drive letters, right? It’s just that not using drive letters would break compatibility with DOS-based Windows apps.
nixification makes it more usable
I went the other way, I’ve been wishing a long while that I could get rid of the stupid letter named mount points and use a proper (by my preferences) folder tree starting from root / and branching out from there.
Being able to natively mount everything to a folder off the system root makes all sorts of things happy for me. An example from the *nix side is my video player app. It doesn’t like to use KDE’s samba client to pull files off my NAS. Instead, I mounted my NAS (also through a samba client) to /media/NAS so any application can make use of it regardless of supporing windows shares or not.
I can also set /media/NAS as a read only mount so my media player doesn’t eat my music archive by accident; that’s really a tangent benifit though.
Being a life long Windows user, I was put off initially by the /root/subfolders way of managing directories but once you get used it it you find all kinds of benefits.
It took me close to a month to get used to that. Now I find it to be FAR more flexible then the pre-vista way, and I get about as frustrated using the old explorer as I used to be using the new one.
If you left click the icon, you get “Connect or Disconnect…”
Have you tried it since the two bigass patches a month or so ago? I have noticed a significant improvement in network file transfers.
Yeah, I’ve got the patches, but it still slower. Not ridiculously slow like it was, but slow.
As for the left-click Connect/Disconnect, that’s not really what I meant. I mean if you want to modify your IP/Gateway settings, you have to go through the Network Center. It’s pointless.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, now I get what you are saying. Isn’t that a once every very long while kind of thing though?
I’m just confused, because I am nothing but pleased with the new network panel. I find that it brings alot of stuff together that were scattered all over the place, and allows for easily changing settings that were really only available through wizards before. I used to point out that connect to a windows network is alot more reliable and easy on linux or osx compared to xp, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. For me at any rate, the new setup fixed that.
I actually like it as well except for some niggling things such as:
1) it commonly takes nearly enough time to make instant coffee to open and load a directory. And don’t even get me started on how long it takes to load up the Add/Remove programs list, I’ve fallen asleep waiting for that to load up.
2) “Aero” is well, – boreing. It does nothing more than some lame translucency that doesn’t even get half as translucent of what the various 3d desktops on Linux can do. And “flip 3d” is a joke of all jokes, I much prefer the mini windows I can get with OpenSuse’s 3d desktop. “Aero” seems to only have 2 features: flip 3d which isn’t that convenient even since you have to mouse click it and a poor translucency.
3) Random program crashes particularly Internet Explorer 32bit (under Vista64) and even Office 2007. IE 64 bit functions a bit better but flash doesn’t work on it so many features I need like web sites for my college don’t work with it.
4) Media Center is sllllooowww. I use it for nothing more than setting a show to record then watch it in Media Player or even VLC instead because Media Center is so slow. And while I’m gripeing about this why the he double hockey sticks can’t I use my monitor and computer while Media Center is outputting to the tv? All I can do is function the media center part while doing it, if I try to use the monitor it makes the TV media center minimize instantly. It does that even if I connect a second monitor instead of TV. This could be user error with how I’ve set up the dual head perhaps but I’d really love to know if it is cuz it drives me nuts.
5) horribly slow boot up of software, particularly media players such as Media Player, Media Center, and iTunes.
6) Networking with Linux or WindowsXP is nonexistent. The vista rig can see them, they can’t access the vista rig no matter what I change in the firewall or even antivirus settings, it’s maddening. So until that ever gets fixed or I figure out why it’s doing that I simply file transfer to my Linux box from the vista rig. This seems to be a common problem as I’ve come across literally hundreds of this one complaint across the net and found no solution yet.
What it DOES do correctly:
Despite being a resource hog it does seem to manage the resources well. I can run Folding@Home and see my CPU listed as 100% in use and still do other things, except once in a while doing media work there may be a stutter, if that happens too much I just pause FAH and it gets cleared up. Under XP MC 2005 my sound driver would inexplicably quit working and require a reboot. Under VISTA the exact same driver from Dell works with no problems, go figure that one out.
When a program crashes just the one program crashes instead of the entire OS and other running apps as happens in xp.
Why despite these problems I still use Vista over my Linux partition: Linux programs are still pains in the rear to use. Take converting my tv show recordings to divx for example: in Vista drag drop the file into Roxio program, select divx and the quality setting, hit convert. In Linux the job is best done in the command line and I always had to refer back to my notes for all the little switches and such to get the string just right. Note VLC can actually do some conversions in both Windows and Linux but it’s equally as tricky to use in both OS’s.
In Linux the job is best done in the command line and I always had to refer back to my notes for all the little switches and such to get the string just right. Note VLC can actually do some conversions in both Windows and Linux but it’s equally as tricky to use in both OS’s.
have you tried Acidrip ?
I am not sure if that is what you are after, but you simply click the file, or disc you want converted, click on the codec, divx or xvid or whatever, select your options and convert.
Like I said though, it might not be what you need.
and found it very responsive, especially in the transfer of files (usually from usb and firewire drives, these were notoriously slow pre beta-sp1).
. usually has random network disconnects(most wifi), a diagnose and fix takes care of that. but the really strange problem, vista has NEVER connected at 108mbps (turbo g mode). irksome!
. faster to shutdown and restart than resume from sleep or hibernate.
. too many mouse click items (guess a carry over from previous versions)
The idea of auto detecting the physical size of your display and displaying fonts correctly (that is, 1pt = 1/72 of an inch) is not new…
Linux can already do this, and has done for years, as will pretty much any unix system.. IRIX for instance, was able to detect the size of a monitor and adjust the DPI automatically.
On Linux, if you have a reasonably modern screen which supports reporting it’s physical size (some simply dont bother, or report incorrect values, because they’re targetted at windows which ignores this data anyway) your fonts will always be the same physical size, regardless of what resolution you set.
I’ve just upgraded to Vista in the last couple of weeks and overall the experience has been pretty pleasant. It’s a totally unimpressive operating system, utterly dull with no ‘wow factor’ whatsoever, but it seems usable enough with a few tweaks.
The novelty of Aero eye-candy wore off within a couple of hours, and within a day I started finding it quite distracting and annoying. I don’t use my computer to watch pretty animations, 99% of the time I’m working in an application and just want the user interface to fade into the background.
Thankfully it’s possible to turn Vista back to the classic Windows 2000 look, making it much more pleasant to use. The classic Windows theme also seems to make better use of space, thinner titlebars that kind of thing, which is nice when running it on a laptop.
UAC is another thing that I quickly turned off, it’s easily one of the most worthless and irritating ‘features’ I’ve ever encountered in an OS. Of course protecting users is important, but constantly nagging them with virtually meaningless messages is an utterly stupid was of doing it. After a while I think most people are just going to stop reading them and click OK no matter what. Still, it’s not really a big deal as it’s easy enough to get rid of this nonsense.
Most of the remaining annoyances on my system are performance related. Intermittently I seem to suffer extremely slow file operations. Copying files between drives often isn’t much slower than XP, but every once in a while I’ll copy a folder and it’ll crawl along at 1-2Mb/s.
This is something I intend to investigate, I assume that it depends on the composition of the files that are being transferred, or maybe Vista is running some file operation in the background…
Another surprising issue is that the user interface feels very sluggish. Admittedly I’m not using a high-end system, an X2 4000+ with 2Gb RAM and onboard x1250 graphics, but as I mentioned above I’m just using the eye-candy free classic UI.
Basic things like moving, resizing and scrolling windows often feel sluggish. Window contents sometimes flicker or judder when the window is resized, windows tear more when moved/resized quickly, and background windows are slow to update (you get a kind of ‘eraser’ effect when a window is moved over them).
Vista’s UI actually feels slower on that system than Windows 2000 running on my old Pentium II. Trying different graphics drivers hasn’t improved this and XP on the same system was smooth and responsive. Having said that, application speed seems perfectly fine and that’s the important thing. The sluggish UI is just a minor irritation that I wasn’t expecting.
What do I like about Vista? The integrated search is useful and works well, and file management is a bit more polished and efficient. Some of the tweaks to configuration seem quite well thought out and it was an easy OS to install and configure. Apart from that I see very little that’s different from XP. It’s not worth the money as an upgrade, but I’d definitely install it on any new PC I build. Roll on SP1…
“UAC is another thing that I quickly turned off, it’s easily one of the most worthless and irritating ‘features’ I’ve ever encountered in an OS. Of course protecting users is important, but constantly nagging them with virtually meaningless messages is an utterly stupid was of doing it. After a while I think most people are just going to stop reading them and click OK no matter what. Still, it’s not really a big deal as it’s easy enough to get rid of this nonsense. “
UAC is NOT just about the prompting. In fact, the requests to elevate are of only minor benefit. HOWEVER, that applications that do not require elevation are running with least user privileges and lower integrity (in the MIC model) IS THE BIG WIN!!! Let me repeat that: Running IE, FireFox, Word, mIRC, MSN messenger, AIM, GAIM, Outlook, Eudora, Adobe Reader, etc, etc, etc, as a standard user BY DEFAULT is the BIG WIN with UAC.
If you disable UAC, and you keep your account in the local admins group, the security token generated for each of those processes you launch is now running with God privleges and high integrity. This is bad. Period.
Example scenario on XP or Vista with UAC disabled: I run “superduper IRC client”, which it turns out has a buffer overflow problem when parsing certain IRC output and as a result is a target for an automagic remote code exploit (yes, this has happened). Since I, the script kidiot on the other end of the exploit now has control of that process (via the injected payload), and that process is running with NT Administrator (God/root/etc.) privileges, I can embed all kinds of terrible things in the payload code, such as cross-process code injection (via debug facilities), loading a kernel mode driver, disabling malware protection, and patching the kernel (and don’t believe for one second your anti-malware software will mitigate because it most certainly is the first thing to get nuked). With UAC enabled these automatic silent attacks ALL WOULD FAIL and your machine would stand about 99% better chance of not getting owned.
Also, when disabling UAC, you also disable IE protected mode which runs IE with low Integrity, which prevents iexplore.exe from writing to files/registry entries belonging to your profile which even prevents profile hijacking when running with least privilege. A good example of this is how IE 7 with PM and UAC enabled protects against attacks leveraging flaws such as the animated cursor exploit. While the vulnerability existed in Vista, it was mitigated by IE7 Protected Mode because the MIC model wherein IE7 runs with low integrity, and communicates with higher integrity components via a broker process, protected the profile and shell components from this attack preventing profile based malware infection.
Understand that you can do EVERYTHING RIGHT from a user standpoint (e.g. not downloading suspicious apps, running AV, etc.) but you can STILL get owned through no fault of your own. Running your processes with super-user privs is equally dangerous on EVERY platform. So, for your own sake and others, leave UAC on and just live with the freakin prompts.
I get it, I just think it’s amazing that any user would stand for it when this is implemented relatively seamlessly in Linux and OSX without a million-trillion-bagillion freaking UAC prompts. It’s a big win for Windows, yes, but only for Windows. When you put it alongside with how Linux and OSX deal with user priveleges, it’s a GIANT LOSER.
“I get it, I just think it’s amazing that any user would stand for it when this is implemented relatively seamlessly in Linux and OSX without a million-trillion-bagillion freaking UAC prompts. It’s a big win for Windows, yes, but only for Windows. When you put it alongside with how Linux and OSX deal with user priveleges, it’s a GIANT LOSER.”
Exactly how is it more seamlessly implemented in other platforms? On my ‘nix boxes I have to SU or get prompted for credentials for admin apps, utilities or global actions, JUST LIKE on Vista, but I have to carry out at least eight keystrokes for my password. Any other solution, such as a suid bit, trust this app or the “unlock” model that certain other systems use, are potentially dangerous and programmatically exploitable (see MOAB archives for examples).
Vista asks you for permission for a lot more than installing apps. I had to give Vista permission to allow my antivirus software to run, which I wouldn’t have even needed on another OS. I had to give it permission to allow me to burn a CD; I think I even had to give it permission to play a CD. UAC even initially prohibited Diskeeper from running until I gave it permission.
Yeah, fine, suid bits are exploitable, but there has to be a balance somewhere. Vista’s take on the situation seems to be that literally everything the user does is a security risk.
Without UAC the situation’s no worse than in XP. With a router’s hardware firewall, a software firewall, up to date security and AV software, and care taken with the apps I install and use (I don’t use IE), the risk seems pretty small.
I’m pretty careful with personal information, so the worst thing that’s likely to happen is that I have to wipe the system and restore from backups. Even if I had to do that once a year it would be a lot less annoying than the day to day irritation from UAC.
I’d rather take that risk than have to put up with Microsoft’s ridiculous nagware.
This is what I can stand – sure, I don’t mind within the month of the release, people bashing and praising it, but it has been over 6months after the release; this article is too little too late; its flogging the horse that is well and truly dead.
I’m all for in depth articles but after reading it, it told me nothing. It is the same whining points that everyone else has raised; heck, I’m sure if we sat down for a good 1/2 hour we could whine about lacking features in certain operating systems – that is why there are new releases, to add new features that are apparently lacking. This goes for all operating systems, not just Microsoft.
Yes, there are features missing from Windows, but lets remember, there is no operating system that can make everyone happy – there will always be features missing. For me, I love Solaris, but for another user, I am sure there are features missing that they want which I might find surplus to requirements.
From my perspective Windows Vista is deficient in so many areas, I question how Microsoft can charge in New Zealand almost NZ$900 for a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, a shave below the cost of a brand new laptop. How can they justify NZ$900 for a product – are there really NZ$900 of investment into each unit shipped?
“I’m all for in depth articles but after reading it, it told me nothing. It is the same whining points that everyone else has raised; heck, I’m sure if we sat down for a good 1/2 hour we could whine about lacking features in certain operating systems – that is why there are new releases, to add new features that are apparently lacking. This goes for all operating systems, not just Microsoft.”
I hope you are referring to those other binary only; possibly released ofter 5 years; static platform. Because as far as I am aware this points out a fundamental difference between those other OS. Users of 2006 Vista will still have those same problems years from now. The average lifetime of a computer is 5 years. Its likely that those who use alternative OS’s will have evolved beyond all recognition by then, and examples can be found everywhere. From the desktop to hardware support. Gnome was on release 1.4 when XP was launched, and Linux released 2.4 the same year.
Seriously I don’t think they tested half of the basic functionality in Vista or payed much attention to usability in areas like the reworked network stack.
Handling networking in Vista is a maze of dialogs, even basics like changing your IP Address is just too many mouse clicks.
Then we have the fun little annoyances like taking your laptop on travel while off the company domain and watching the OS hang for 40+ seconds when trying to do simple stuff like open a text document in notepad.
This is supposed to be the future of windows on the desktop?
Call me up when MS starts caring about quality because Vista is far off the mark on what I’d consider to be a quality operating system.