Why is Vista better than XP?

I had thought about it, but Microsoft decided to blow of EFI until Longhorn Server, and now that there's a procedure for booting XP on a MacBook, meh.

kudos to Microsoft for resisting the evils of EFI

I'm looking forward to the day when Vista is stable enough to use all the time, but that day just hasn't arrived yet, in my opinion. Programs and applets sometimes take inexplicably long times to load, windows stop responding, and so on. It's frustrating. Then there are the smaller things like drivers and the fact that I can't figure out how to run my display above 72Hz (and that hurts the eyes at 1600x1200) when I've always run XP and previous OSes at 85Hz. Vista needs a lot of optimizing and a number of other things to fall in place before I'll feel comfortable making the switch for good. I'm really looking forward to that day, though.

Jon: I hear ya there! It's frustrating to get loaded on many machines.

It seems like a small thing, but I think the wipe-less desktop compositing (where you can no longer paint the desktop & other windows in white with a frozen dialog box) is going to be one of those things that when you see it on an XP machine, you think to yourself, "How on earth did I tolerate this?"

WOW!

If you are blown away by Vista's few crappie imitations of five & ten year old Mac OS features, I suggest you use an Apple for a month. You'll NEVER return to the malware platform. Vista (XP SP3) is just another slather of lipstick on an obsolete pig, that without the moron class user base, would have died years ago.

Always fun to see dip-shits like you getting excited about decades old technology that Microsoft finally tries to get working in it's mountain of steaming shit OS. Hard to believe fan boys like you are still living the myth.

Wow. Apple FanBoy much?

Dean: my son has a Mac. My brother-in-law works on the Mac team at Apple. I'm well versed in what makes Macs cool.

That said, I'm not giving up my Windows Vista machines for one of them. Oh, and I'm glad you're a Mac advocate. You really are doing your cause a lot of good there.

Robert, Microsoft simply isn't communicating Vista well at all to the world.

I have yet to see any real information on Vista working well with non-microsoft platforms. I know that Microsoft renamed Activesync to some lamer "mobile blahdyblah" thing. Which was stupid, ActiveSync was a great name, and had some cachet. Some damned committee consensus'd it to death.

But I have yet to see any kind of real interoperability information. What will Vista do to make it easier and better than XP when you're talking to OS X? Linux? Solaris 10? Mainframes? Those are all questions of real importance to me, and I have *nothing*. No data whatsoever.

The closest I came was that WPF/E snake oil segment during the PDC, and come on, can we all just admit that WPF/E is never going to see the light of day already? I mean, there's NO documentation on it, NO information on it, nothing. Just pointers back to "Look, it runs on Safari". Come on man, that's ridiculous.

But if I don't see a real improvement in Windows working with non-MS platforms, there's little incentive for me to move my Windows boxes, Active Directory setup, etc., to Vista/Longhorn Server, and that's where Microsoft is not in the game at all.

Hmmmm. Unnecessarily offensive post by Dean.

Not clever.

Perfectly valid points though, care to refute them?

As for EFI support though, what's bad about it?
Seems a far more sensible approach allowing, for example, a drive boot mode such as in all macs with Firewire. Has a lot of troubleshooting and external boot possibilities as well.

That's a nice idea, try it for a month, but is it possible?

Are you guys going to have a Knoppix like CD that I can try so I don't have to install a whole OS on top of my existing one?

How about an install with a bootloader that let's me do XP and Vista so I can try it?

Will I be able to return Vista after 30 days if I don't like it or it's too buggy?

Try before you buy is great, but will your company allow it?

ElCapitanAmerica: I'm dual booting XP and Vista as we speak.

Limeybloke: do you have a Tablet Mac yet? How about a real Media Center? That's the refutation. Apple still hasn't copied things Microsoft shipped years ago, so how can Vista be just mere copies of Apple stuff? Why do I need to refute a claim so obviously stupid.

John: let's talk next week more.

> ElCapitanAmerica: I’m dual booting XP and Vista as we speak.

Good to know, but what I was wondering is if the Vista install facilitates this (ex: hey i see a linux and XP partitions, do you want me to replace them all or install alongside them).

Also, to try and buy you have to either have a demo disc or a good return policy, unfortunatly, you can't return software and get your money back at stores.

ElCapitan: Why don't you just download Vista from a torrent site? Without a valid product key, it'll stop working after a period of time, so it is technically a demo. It isn't piracy if you can't keep it.

The reason a lot of people won't use Vista is that you probably have to buy a new computer to run it. At my work they are NOT buying 2,000 new computers to migrate from XP to Vista. I have not yet seen a clear description of the hardware requirements for Vista, and this is a serious impediment if you expect people to use this OS. Second, why, oh why, oh WHY do we need SIX versions of Vista? Is that a joke? Certainly, a desktop version and a server version (like OS X) should be sufficient?

your blog has now officially moved to the new voice of MS marketing. I'm taking you off my RSS feed list. Bah.

Scob... I'm drowning here in Las Vegas by all of the tablet PC's and Media Center PC's that have been sold!!! Ahhh! The flood of them!! Apple hasn't copied these things because they have not actually been roaring successes, if successes at all. There is very little in Vista that was originally announced or... that isn't already in Mac OS 10.4. Before you Windows people reading here attempt to really try to compare Vista to OS 10, remember that Vista is not even shipping yet. Hell, who knows how much stuff Microsoft will screw up and have to cut? Anyway, Scob, you DO have the reputation around the web for being a Microsoft shill and you haven't disappointed here. You have offered nothing to answer Dean's question except blather like a fan-boy.

Melangell: hello Steve Jobs, nice to see you by here again!

Nathan;

I rather not pirate the OS to try it.

Michiel, have a good one. I don't get what about this post threw you over the edge, but oh well, I don't do this blog for traffic anyway.

And when in world is Microsoft gonna release it? I am putting off buying a new laptop till Vista comes out cos I don't want to go through the whole upgrade procedure again when it comes out (and neither spend that extra moolah).

RObert, you said "Let's talk next week" the week before the PDC...

Did I see new support for non-Windows machines in Longhorn Active Directory...noooo, in fact, there was barely any mention of server whatsoever at the PDC.

Did I see interoperability documents coming out of the PDC? Noooooo, none. Not a friggin one.

Did I see good, non-API on all that PNM crap? Nooooo, not a damned thing. Hell the guy from that team on Vista didn't even know what the hell Zeroconf is, in spite of the fact that it has Windows/Linux/OS X implementations. Real impressive, way to know what the hell is going on with the people you have to play with in the real world. Very De-pressive.

Are there any real, useful docs on WPF/E? BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH...silly me, expecting that. How stupid a concept would that be, actually DOCUMENTING what was touted as a major feature of WPF...interoperability.

Robert, when you HAVE something, you let me know. I'll even put it in my Datamation column. But until then, save the "let's talk next week" crap for the n00bs. You have something, i'm REAL easy to find.

>And when in world is Microsoft gonna release it?

It's software. When it's ready.

The date on the schedule says this year. I'd expect it on the shelves by Christmas time.

"Limeybloke: do you have a Tablet Mac yet? How about a real Media Center? That’s the refutation. Apple still hasn’t copied things Microsoft shipped years ago, so how can Vista be just mere copies of Apple stuff? "

Microsoft didn't innovate on these tablet and kludge-riddled 40-button remote media center idea's (which aren't original), they merely came out with their own yawn-worthy crass and inept implementations. As someone else said here they ain't flying off the racks exactly. The only thing that saves MS from an early grave is it's monopoly OS and Office Suite. As far as I'm concerned only the Office Suite is of note and even that is a bit on the bloated side. Not to mention buggy.

MP3 players were out too before the iPod but the iPod and iTunes Store waited and did it right. When Apple does come out with their Tablet and Media Center equivalent you can be sure that Microsoft will take note and scramble to copy them in the "So that's the right way to do it!" vein.

>As someone else said here they ain’t flying off the racks exactly.

Media Centers ARE flying off the shelves, actually.

Media Centers ARE flying off the shelves, actually.

Yes, but all 'sleight-of-hand', low volume pony tricks, NEC Tablet PC style. Plus it's DEAD ALREADY, you heard about the Vista integration, yes? And Xbox 360 would fly off the shelves too if they ever made it TO the shelves. The PS3 stumble is a perfect opening, but Microsoft screwed that one up royally, and I mean royally.

But the best Media Center is actually XBMC for a modded (old) Xbox. Irony being, 360 sales will upkick serious if anyone ever gets XBMC on it. That said, Belfiore is sure the atypical Softie, being actually likeable, if Redmond reality-distortion zone hazed. Wish the worlds biggest software company could kick up something like XBMC tho.

>> I’d expect it on the shelves by Christmas time.

Geez Thanks! I don't think imma wait that much. ;) Chances are that I might buy me another lappy by then. :p

Could find quite a few reasons off the top of my head - http://farhanahmed.net/blog/?p=229

I always said I was going to wait til Vista comes out to buy a new laptop. But than again, I would probably have to upgrade the OS because I really want that Ultimate edition :) So atm I'm checking out this new Toshiba Protege M400 (tablet!) I've seen those Tablet's and I absolutely believe that they have that really extra pitch to give to your laptop.

Anyway, like Robert said: It's done, when it's done. I mean everybody is pushing for the release. They don't even give Microsoft the chance for proving that they can do it right, that they really are concerned about _our_ privacy and security.

Hello again, what a lot of comment that provoked!

I wasn't trying to Troll so here I am again;

I was really refering to the fact that Vista hasn't really been re-written from the ground up like it needed to be. They've had to chop a lot of things out to ship even this late!

e.g the integral metdata support they've replaced with a background bit of code to actually move files about to organise them thus stymying a lot of code that should be able to find things in certain places.

With this cludge of old massively patched source and new code designed to run with a more modern modular framework, stability and security are major concerns. (and please don't even bother to mention the 'viruses' for OSX that barely even constitute malware)

Tablet Mac: Hmmm, heard some very interesting rumours about ways to "do it right" ( not like origami ) you never know what Apple will do but wait and see.

Media Centre; Front Row is already far more elegant but lacks a PVR due to certain questions of legality and the Networks current cosyness with iTunes.
Elgato's EyeTV mac software is again best in class though and they're integrating it with Front Row as we speak.

Also have you noticed that Apple only ships one (1) consumer version of OSX that will no doubt include Front Row on all Macs once they EOL and get revamped, that also has pretty much a full suite of server level support if you use the terminal to configure and already has voice, gesture and handwriting support built in at a fundamental level whilst costing less that XP Home?

I want two things in Vista :

- an alternative for Vista Windows Explorer. The new explorer won't fit my needs, I alreany know that. I want Microsoft to bring alternatives, that's the only way to show that they really care. Forcing users onto new user interfaces is not a good thing. The easiest, install the XP explorer as well. The better, improve XP explorer and ship it as well, then make it easy for users to switch.

- a way to know when an application or service contacts TPM/Viiv/DRM. I want to be able to allow it or not. I want to be in control, not have some whatever software tell me what I am supposed to do.

Here are some Facts, not published facts, but facts about my life since switching to Windows, from Mac.

Fact: My wife doesn't call me everyday complaining how the "Mac" just died, froze up, or couldn't shut off.

Fact: I was making less than 1k year using my "Mac" for computer related jobs, now I am happily in Six-figures, in a job related to the use of Microsoft Software.

Fact: Windows XP has never crashed my machine(s).

Fact: I have never had a virus.

Fact: Form over function eventually loses.

Robert: "do you have a Tablet Mac yet? "

Again, you apparently fail to see that Microsoft does not produce that hardware as well, so what kind of comparision is that? Moreover, Apple has probably learned where there's money to be made -> iPod: successful, TabletPC: not successful, simple as that.

"How about a real Media Center? "
I have an 11-year-old Performa 630 CD with TV tuner and remote control lying around. Where was your media center software when that Mac shipped?

"That’s the refutation. Apple still hasn’t copied things Microsoft shipped years ago"

That's absolutely ridiculous. Your so-called media center software can't even play DVDs out of the box and, as I said before, Microsoft does not make any hardware. Regarding the operating system, any modern Mac with Front Row software is a better media center than anything Microsoft offers.

"so how can Vista be just mere copies of Apple stuff?"

It isn't. It's the continuation of an OS that's full of legacy support. I'm pretty sure Word 5.0 for DOS is going to run great on it. It's a pretty service pack for XP and some new IE features that have been part of Mozilla releases for the past 5 years. There's no innovation. Heck, you didn't even manage to support EFI with it.

Every feature that sounded remotely interesting to me has been removed.

Media Center can't play DVD's?

I didn't know that. That's Pathetic!

At least OSX has built in format encoding/decoding that they're not using as a PVR for the various reasons including a lack of a standardised digital TV format and the upcoming HDTV/HDV/BLURay formats (all of which are already supported software formats so it's the hardware we're waiting on).

And thank you Ralph I forgot to re-ask; EFI: more stable, more advanced, less driver-boot problems, added network support, added hardware options.
Where's the problem?

Were they simply not able to get the code to work in time or were they desperate to avoid having Vista boot on the same machine as Leopard?

Guzzard, if you can't make money in the Mac market, you weren't trying hard. That's one of the easiest markets to make money in, especially if you can do the consulting thing.

As Wil Shipley about his Lotus Elise, bought and Paid for by writing only Mac software. (PDF is here, post talking about it is here

And if your mac was freezing that much you were either still using OS 9, or just not terribly good at the Mac OS.

Limey, yeah, it's the friggin' "What idiot thought this up" feature...Microsoft "allows" you to "choose" your own DVD decoder. Well, they "force" you to because if you don't, DVDs WON'T PLAY.

Ah Microsoft, we all know what the real answer to "Where do you want to go today?" is...



insane

Limey: Media Center does play DVDs. And burns recorded shows to DVDs right from the Interface, while you're watching other programs. But in that vein (Microsoft, listen! This is important!), my Tivo-owning friends who see my Media Center and my Media Center Extender absolutely love my set up "Oh Wow! Thats so cool! You can do all that!" but then also say, "There's no way I could do all of that." Microsoft needs to convey to people that Media Center and their extenders are easy to set up and affordable and available. 200 bucks for a wireless extender with no DVD slot in it? It's a hard sell.

I do agree with the whole multiple SKU issue, though. It's just plain confusing to the end user. Want to improve adoption? Have 1 minimal SKU (for developing countries), 1 SKU for end consumers (think "Ultimate Edition"), and 1 SKU for Business. If you must have additional SKUs for regulatory reasons (think Windows N), so be it, but don't confuse the customer with it.

I also disagree with the whole Windows copying Mac (and vice versa, take Multi-users, multi-tasking, etc.). If Apple does intensive surveys to determine what the best color is for a work environment, and the answer is, "Blue", and then Microsoft later does a similar survey and the answer remains, "blue", did Microsoft "rip-off" Apple? No. Vector-based graphics are great and add potential to us developers. Softer looks and appearances help us focus on the more important aspects of a computer. Readable, and understandable, dialog messages help us respond better to problems.

It's Microsoft becoming more adaptive, albeit late in the game, which is driving Vista, IMHO. Problem is, I don't think people buy it off the bat, unless there's something simply, "OMG!!!", or just plain "Wow, that's Amazing!" in it. And I don't see it. Prove me wrong, Microsoft. Prove me wrong, Robert.. :)

The original question is a good one, and I haven't seen it answered. As someone who uses XP daily at work, I haven't seen anything that looks like a reason to upgrade yet. I've got Google desktop search and it works well so I'm not itching for another solution there. Little about my configuration changes so I'm not sure the driver revamp helps me. It will be years before any sites work with IE7 or Media Player 11 exclusively if they don't get XP backports. So, what's the killer feature?

I'm not trying to downplay Vista here. I love computers, and I *want* to be sold on something new. Perhaps there's something about the environment that fits/works so well that current Vista users have taken it for granted, and it needs to be articulated?

I can support Robert's comment that Media Center PCs are flying off the shelves (http://microsoft.thepodcastnetwork.com/2005/09/...). 43% of all PCs sold as of last August were MC PCs. Unfortunately 71% shipped without a tuner meaning that people are likely just buying powerful hardware for the future.

Guzzard, I've used XP for a few years, and switched to a Mac last November. I have had no problem of any kind even though I develop on it. Yes I bought a new Sony VAIO two weeks ago. All it has on it is the XP it came with and Visual Studio 2005 right out of the box, and VS has caused it to reboot itself twice in that time.

Robert, I think people are looking for a 30 second pitch on why Vista is better than XP. Nothing more nothing less.

Limey: I have to agree with your thoughts on EFI.

That was exactly what I was thinking... if EFI was supported, I know of plenty of people that would think:

"You know what? Instead of buying a new PC and waiting for Vista, I could go and buy a Mac right now and install Vista later!"

That would give these users a few months with Mac, if not a few more depending on the final Vista ship date. No way are MS going to encourage checking out the alternative!

In the end, though, they just look stupid, in my opinion... "Nope, Vista can't boot on Mac because it doesn't support EFI!". Well, sorry MS, but you can now. You have guys out there that are creating virtual BIOS' that run over the top of EFI and are now installing Windows XP on the new Intel Macs.

With all of your knowledge (and source code!) how does that make me feel knowing that you are saying it's not possible and yet these guys in their spare time make it so? It just makes MS look incompetent, I think.


Finally, regarding DVD playback. Admittedly, I haven't used Media Centre, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't support it "out of the box". Even XP says that it can play DVDs: imagine my surprise when I had to install some stupid piece of player software that came with my DVD drive so that I could watch a DVD. To those that are saying that it does, I'd make sure that you never installed any software that came with your drive first...

Wow! I can't believe all the vitriol displayed here.

Don't you people have better things to do than argue about whether Vista is more copying of Apple? Or whether MCE and TabletPC machines are selling? Or MS not including Zeroconf (an Apple creation) in their product to help out the luddites?

Go outside once in a while...

Bonjour/Rendezvous is the Apple implementation of the Zeroconf standard.

Zeroconf is the name for the IETF standards they use, http://www.zeroconf.org/, and is not a single standard but based around 3 or so for LL addressing, naming, and mDNS discovery.

The v4LL aspects of Zeroconf were actually created by *Microsoft* for Windows 98, and Microsoft was quite active on the Zeroconf WG, (I was a part of that), and had really solid input.

I'll guess that you didn't know that. And, by the way, "luddites" FAR outnumber the geeks when it comes to buying these things, so they SHOULD be the primary focus.

Well that's my point really, forget the vitriol, forget the FUD, try not not to sound like an MS Shill (i.e Enderle, Dvorak et al) or a Cult of Mac Devotee.

I use a mac by choice and XP and 2000 machines at work because IT make me but all I'm looking for here is a few simple answers / logical reasoning for certain points of view and technical specifications

Vista won't work with my display adapter for whatever reason (supposedly the WDDM drivers for it are built into Vista, but they don't work), so Vista is actually a step back for me. I'll stick with XP whenever I have to use a PC.

But I think the greater question is a valid one to ask. Why IS Vista so much better? The Aero Glass stuff is cool, but that's not really an answer because it feels bolted on, and because it doesn't actually help anyone do anything better. Security is a possible answer, but so far has manifested itself as Windows asking you "Are you sure?" every single freaking time you want to do something. Stability, no, XP is already plenty stable. IE7 is shaping up to be cool, but I think that's going to be available for XP as well. There are other things that were probably envisioned as improvements like the Network Center or whatever it's called, but aren't truly compelling.

So, even as someone who keeps up with tech stuff a little bit and has even used Vista, I'm hard pressed for a sound byte or elevator pitch as to why Vista is that much better. I guess if someone asked, I would say "Security. Maybe."

30 second pitch?

Better UI.
Better audio.
Better video.
Better search.
Better security.
Better Windows Movie Maker.
Better networking.
Better media playback and handling.
Better workflow features.
Better manageability.
Better deployment.
Better fonts/readability.
Better accessibility.
New RSS platform.
Better speech recoginition.
Better drivers.
Better printing.
Better parental controls.
Better color management.
Better game experiences.
Better startup/shutdown and other fundamental improvements.
Better power management.
Better faxing.
Less reboots on updates.
Better memory management.
Support for new kinds of hardware like Hybrid Disk Drives.
Better encryption and cryptography.
Better logging.
Better task scheduler.
Better event viewer.
Better handwriting recognition.
Better internationalization/localization support.
Better diagnostics.
Better error reports.
Better instrumentation.

And I'm still only a small percentage of the way through the list.

Better photo apps.
Better games.
Better utilities.
Better control panels.
And on and on.

I'll just stop at "it's better."

Scoble, there's nothing really all that innoavtively new in the OS running on a tablet PC. A tablet PC is a hardware innovation more than anything else. So, I really don't see the Mac comparison there.

I bought a Mac for my wife a couple of weeks ago. Got it home, took it out of the box, plugged it in. In about 10 minutes she was up an running and being productive.

Now, compare that with my recent purchase of a PC running XP. Got it out of the box. Hooked up the power cable, the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, speakeres (I counted at least 8 cables) installed the wireless NIC. That's all before booting up. Booted up, waited, waited, waited. Okay, yea!!! 45 seconds later I have at least something showing on the screen. Now I've got to spend the next few hours configuring the thing, setting up accounts, configuring devices, not to mention the plethora of annoying ms pop ups I get asking me if I'm smart enough to know what I'm doing. About an hour plus later my PC is running.. sort of. And curiously I don't know anyone with a Mac that asks for help getting it set up. Not a week goes by where someone in my neighborhood is not asking me for help either setting up or reconfiguring their PC.



Will Vista make that experience better? Doubtful.

I'm not sure you should be bragging about better diagnostics and better error reporting. The majority PC user doesn't want to know that. I don't see that being touted in the Mac world. It's just not even a topic that comes up with the typical end user.

Ok, all those things will be better than in XP.

Define better. As in "far easier to use whilst being more efficient" or "they now sorta work!" or "now it's got a pretty yet pointless animation" or "as soon as everyone else stops using open standards and bends to our will it will all just work. Sorta. And incidentally force everyone to pay licensing charges to M$"

Will they be better than in OSX 10.4?

What things will be worse than in OSX?
Whether opinion or not.

Seeing as you're 'Well versed in Macs" you should know, but obviously someone reading will call BS on you if you're playing us.

I'm not trying to get a rise out of you but this is hardly heavyweight well -thought out, in depth corroborated reasoning.

Oh, and I still want to know about EFI support.

> The majority PC user doesn’t want to know that. I don’t see that being touted in the Mac world.

Which is exactly why most corporations don't buy Macs and why Apple has 4% market share. For our customers manageability and deployability is HUGELY important.

> Define better. I would, but you only gave me 30 seconds. :-) Come over to Channel 9 and watch the Windows Vista videos.

Limey: I have to agree with your thoughts on EFI.

That was exactly what I was thinking... if EFI was supported, I know of plenty of people that would think:

"You know what? Instead of buying a new PC and waiting for Vista, I could go and buy a Mac right now and install Vista later!"

That would give these users a few months with Mac, if not a few more depending on the final Vista ship date. No way are MS going to encourage checking out the alternative!

In the end, though, they just look stupid, in my opinion... "Nope, Vista can't boot on Mac because it doesn't support EFI!". Well, sorry MS, but you can now. You have guys out there that are creating virtual BIOS' that run over the top of EFI and are now installing Windows XP on the new Intel Macs.

With all of your knowledge (and source code!) how does that make me feel knowing that you are saying it's not possible and yet these guys in their spare time make it so? It just makes MS look incompetent, I think.


Finally, regarding DVD playback. Admittedly, I haven't used Media Centre, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't support it "out of the box". Even XP says that it can play DVDs: imagine my surprise when I had to install some stupid piece of player software that came with my DVD drive so that I could watch a DVD. To those that are saying that it does, I'd make sure that you never installed any software that came with your drive first...



Hmmm... pardon the repost if one exists. Apparently I've said all that before, but I can't see it!

>A tablet PC is a hardware innovation more than anything else.

You keep believing that. It's not true, but that's OK. It's only 1/10th hardware. You need drivers. You need handwriting recognition. You need a way to input handwriting. And other things built into the OS to handle things like gestures. I have a series of videos coming out on all that.

But, you point out something important. Because you can only get OSX on a few pieces of hardware it limits what you can do with it.

> Will they be better than in OSX 10.4?

That'll be for you to decide when you go to a store and compare them, won't it?

For me XP is better than OSX already. I can use my computer while standing up and writing on it. You can't do that with OSX. So, Windows is already better FOR ME than OSX.

Will it be better for you in the future? That's something that you and your wallet will decide.

>Will Vista make that experience better? Doubtful.

Actually, yes. In my experience setting up a Vista machine is a lot nicer than setting up an XP machine.

I've got a better test: use a Mac for a month and try going back to a Microsoft OS.

Robert: If someone from Microsoft actually let me try out Vista, I'd gladly use it. How can I use Vista if it's in private beta? Pull some strings for me!

Alex: that'll change soon.

Haarball: I used a Mac for more than four years and went back to a Microsoft OS. So there. And I liked it so much that I went to work for the company.

> The majority PC user doesn’t want to know that. I don’t see that being touted in the Mac world.

Which is exactly why most corporations don’t buy Macs and why Apple has 4% market share. For our customers manageability and deployability is HUGELY important.

You mean like the ability to easily and quickly image machines?

Mac OS X got dat.

The ability to easily set up different images for different machines so you get the correct image on the correct machine?

Mac OS X got dat.

The ability to add updates to an image without having to recreate the whole image via easy - to - use tools?

Mac OS X got dat.

the ability to easily set up images so they take care of joining the machine to the DS domain?

Mac OS X got dat.

The ability to boot large groups of machines off of centralized images so that you have a consistent user setup?

Mac OS X got dat.

The ability to set up default preferences at the user, group, or machine level, with a clear hierarchy of priority?

Mac OS X got dat.

The ability to easily plug into the major directory services and a clear architecture to allow third parties to do so?

Mac OS X got dat.

A top of the line CLI?

Mac OS X got dat.

You really need to, what's the word...know what you're talking about so you don't look the fool

Again robert, your refusal to verify your statements makes you look dumb.

Oh, and you care to point out when those four years you used a Mac exclusively, or even a majority were?

Because I got a twenty that says it wasn't 2002-2006

I got a fiver that says it was prior to 2000

"four years of using Macs" has no bearing if it was ten years ago.

On behalf of mac lovers everywhere I apologize. Most of us have manners.

I'd hope that after four years you could come up with a compelling reason why your new OS is better than it's predecessor. Apple can seem to do it every sixteen months. It takes you four years +. The sad part is you get excited about that.

Again, Scoble, you are being myopic. John Welch is right, there are more luddites that need to be convinced than geeks on the value of Vista.

As for Vista supposedly being easier to set up than XP, that's not the point. The point is, will it be easier to set up than my iMac was?

There's not enough time or room here to discuss the real reasons why PC's are more predominant in corps than Mac's I can assure you, however, that it's not because of Windows, as John Welch so eloquently pointed out.

As for the Tablet's innovations in the OS. Of course you need drivers...for the the hardware!!! Duh! Sort of like a chicken/egg question. Did the OS drive the hardware innovation, or vice versa?

As for handwriting recognition, not quite sure but I seem to think there was handwriting recognition software well before the Tablet PC OS came along. Didn't the...um...er.. Apple Newton have handwriting recognition software along about or 1993 or so? Then, of course, we should also mention Go's Penpoint OS and Go's Tablet PC (cir. 1987-1991)and the resultant IBM's Thinkpad tablet. Now, you may say none of these had any commerical succes, but we aren't talking about that. We are talking about whether the Tablet PC OS is all that innovative. Clearly it is not. I mean, long before you were around, Windows 3.1 had something called PenWindows (which was driven by Jeff Raikes, who is who was the first to evangelize the current TabletPC. What a coweekydink!

You seem to be losing sight of the fact that all the end user cares about is if his computer is a useful tool to get the job done. More than half the things you list of marginal interest to the end user. And it's the end user that ultimately needs to be satisfied. For example, the glass stuff is cool and makes for a great demo, but all it really seems to be is someone's cool computer science project. It's an answer to a question no one is asking, except a geek. As someone once said.."the customer doesn't want a quarter inch drill bit. The customer wants a quarter inch hole"

Scoble,

How long are you going to keep pretending that Apple's somehow lagging the Evil Empire, just because they haven't shipped a Mac in the failed "tablet" form factor? Is this going to be a permanent theme of yours, or will you give it a rest once you hit the ten-year mark?

Say, how are the pre-orders for those Origami doorstops coming along?

As for Vista being better than XP, well I should bloody well hope so! Six years late, and it had better be an improvment. Of course, just topping XP is setting bar awfully low. Maybe in another decade, it can be better than BeOS, and a decade after that, it might even be half as good as Linux! (Forget matching the Macintosh. It will never happen.)

Microsoft needs to be innovative, "BETTER blah" is not what WE want.. And pls learn to value TIME!!

John,

The Evil Empire's contributions to Zeroconf are neglidbile. It's an Apple creation, led by Stuart Chesire, who set out to bring the convenience of AppleTalk to TCP/IP.

Hmm.. I have no idea how I managed to mangle "negligible" so badly in the post above. I must have been awake longer than I realized.

"My test? Use Vista for a month then see if you can move back to XP. I am finding it frequently frustrating to move back as I get used to new things in Vista."

Yes, I noticed the same thing when I left Windows for Linux and OS X. Resistance to change is pretty much what keeps you guys in business these days.

Well, since minimicrosoft didn't allow comments for his blog entry, here are mine:

Well, is there any reason to leave out the simplest, and I think, most honest answer: Windows Vista is not significantly better than XP, and the new Office isn't significantly better than the old one.

In both the operating system and office automation areas, Microsoft products have achieved commodity status along with most of the hardware they run on.

If you got an announcement every few years from General Electric that you simply MUST buy their new toaster, you'd think someone at the corporate headquarters had a screw loose. Still a lot of toasters are sold every year for one reason or another, my most recent was white instead of chrome, matched my other appliances, and was only $15.

I'm sick and tired of being expected to go out and pay over $1000 every few years for a new PC, even when my plan might be to format the hard drive and install Linux. Months ago Balmer said the world needs a $100 PC, yet today Gates is being quoted as saying the MIT effort to produce such a device for developing countries is stupid. So which is it? The head office there needs to get its story straight for a change. The fact is that the world is heading for cheaper and cheaper PCs whether Microsoft approves of the idea or not. Current prices are being propped up by bundling more and more extras, monitors, printers, cameras, TWO DVD drives, DVD and CD burners that will print labels on the disks, and so on, but the base machine is floating around a couple hundred already for the average user (excluding gamers) and the price of Microsoft software is beginning to stick out like a sore thumb by comparison.

Microsoft isn't alone in this of course. I can hardly tell the difference in the last three versions of OS X I've used, and in fact I'd like nothing better than to be able to turn off some of the new "features" and just settle for the pretense that the new version are maybe a bit more secure, or 3% faster. But I know the truth is that every few years, Apple has budgeted to receive an infusion of cash from simply announcing the availability of the new toaster, er, OS.

Users are hopping off this treadmill at an alarming (to you vendors) rate. The stock analysts know the score, and I even suspect Bill and Steve know the score. Who can still be in the dark about it except someone squeezing their eyes closed?

In the "ideal" world (for Microsoft and Apple stockholders) we would be on the verge of some revolutionary technology, such as voice recognition, or a system that could easily pass the touring test, etc. Gates has been predicting this for so long it's tiresome, and of course we all know these things will happen eventually. But for now, the networking technology we have is "good enough", the interfaces like USB are "good enough", and how many people really need more than 1600x1200 resolution on a 17 inch screen? Hard drives keep getting bigger, but so does the nagging feeling that you should have an external 250Gig to back that internal one up. More and more people (like me) are using multiple computers with multiple operating systems and wondering why we can't just keep everything online, backed up by someone else, and we don't necessarily want to pay $20 a month for the privilege (even though it may well be worth that).

Microsoft's two cash cows are rapidly staring to look like dinosaurs, and the company's sudden increased focus on things like MS Live, new portable devices, and the XBox is beginning to look a bit like desperation. The sad news for Microsoft is that the replacements for the cash cows all look like a lot of work for a lot smaller payback. You're like the rich kid who has spent through his inheritance and now has to look for a job. The world looks on as you mutter to yourself "what's a resume?"

Microsoft is big enough, bright enough, and still rich enough, I think, to work (oh there is that word again) its way out of this inevitable end-game that monopolies go through. A large measure of re-invention is necessary, and not just around the edges. I read your blog because you seem to be one of the few MSers who, at least publicly "gets it". So I don't know whether your question on Vista and Office is serious or not. It will be interesting to see what people come up with though. As for the reinvention that I think the company needs, I've posted about that before, and my convictions get stronger with every "new" product announcement, and every new quarterly report. The window (pardon the pun) of opportunity is closing though and like so many companies, I wonder if you won't start changing after it is too late.

For the record, I dropped out of the computer industry, partially over frustration at having to support Windows users. OS X and Linux are more than meeting my personal needs, and ultimately I'll probably stop using OS X too, because I don't like the Apple treadmill any more than I liked Microsoft's. I moved far from the big city so that my friends who call me for free support will have to at least pay for long distance charges, and more and more I feign ignorance when asked about registry keys (the worst design decision in computer history). So there is little chance that I'll feel compelled to buy any new MS OSs or applications. Not , at least, until we have that talking computer that notices when I'm waking up and starts the percolator and lays my clothes out for me. But I think that will be a while yet, and sadly, I fear the vendor will have a foreign sounding name. Will Microsoft still be around?

J. Random, I'm well aware of the history of Zeroconf.

I was in the Networking Feedback Forum at the WWDC when Stuart first proposed it. It was like hearing angels sing, because it was so obvious.

I was on one of the Zeroconf WGs. There were quite a few Microsoft folks on it, all being just as useful as anyone else, and more helpful than a few. (My opinion of those with .edu jobs dropped CONSIDERABLY after my time on a WG. Never Again.) Microsoft did in fact come out with v4LL addressing in Windows 98, it's one of the three legs of Zeroconf.

If I'm going to criticize Microsoft, and I am, with great enjoyment, then it falls upon me to also give them credit when they have earned it.

I just wish the Vista networking folks weren't working in such a cone of silence.

I don't know what happened to my last two posts (they got eaten somewhere along the way), so this time I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet.

Firstly, re. EFI. Am I the only one that thinks that the decision to *not* support EFI was simply a way to stop people trying out these new Intel Macs? I know of quite a few people that, if told "yeah, Vista will boot on one of those", would have run out the day after and bought one. There's no way that MS would risk encouraging someone to buy one of those then wait however many months to buy Vista. That's just too risky.

Now the funniest thing I see about this whole EFI issue is how incompetent MS are making themselves look. On the one hand, we have you guys telling us that something can't happen. On the other, we have a group of guys that write code in their spare time that make this happen. What am I meant to make of this? Is this group of part-time hackers smarter than MS? When MS said it couldn't be done, they were really saying "well, we can't see how it's possible to do that".

Secondly, just a quick comment on the media centre playing DVDs. To be honest, I haven't used Media Centre, but when XP came out one of the things that it said was possible was the watching of DVDs. This was *only* possible after installing the codecs (note: I'm not talking drivers) that came with the DVD-ROM drive's bundled software. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case here, either.

"why is Vista better than XP?”

The simple answer: it's XP with more eyecandy and, um, actually that's about it.

I don't see why Microsoft would have a problem with Vista on MacTels, either way, they make money.

Them killing EFI support just to screw over MacTel owners doesn't pass the Wookie Defense.

But, it's not like Microsoft has done a good job of really explaining why they killed it. The "Oh, only 64 bit machines have it" doesn't make sense either. Support both. They have 8000+ coders, it can't be THAT hard.

re: Apple and Tablet PCs not being a success. Tablet PCs sell at about the same volume as Apple's.

Firstly, apologies for the triple post... I swear they weren't there at the time!

Anyway, John: I'm not saying that they killed it, exactly, I'm just saying that it's an incentive to *not* bring it to life.

I hate to be one of those MS trolls, but I do believe that it's true that a lot of users are inert: they will just continue to go with the flow.

In the last few years Apple have started to make products that make being *feel*, whatever that is and so if people *knew* that they could have that Apple feeling now, with the Windows inertia 'soon', I believe that people would take that chance... and that MS doesn't want to give them that chance to jump ship.

Not just for Windows, sake, either. Once people realise that alternatives exist, they start asking about replacing other products (Office, I'm looking at you!).

Again, I'm not saying whether it's the right thing for anyone or not (although I do know what I believe) but that's just the way it goes.

Also, regarding your comment about 32 bit versus 64 bit support and having 8000+ coders to do it. Well, that definitely lines up with what I was saying: here is MS, the largest software company in the world, saying that it can't be done and then we have a group of part time coders giving us the solution. It just makes MS look stupid, I believe.

Lincoln, yep, especially since Apple's supported multiple boot architectures already. So has Sun, HP, IBM, etc.

This is nothing new for anyone but Microsoft.

I can't install it my computer won't even accept it

What the Hell is Improving in WIndows?

Does Vista speed things up? I see references to better startup/shutdown so I'll take it that those processes are quicker. Is anything else sped up?

in vista i was able to get my dsl running only after turning off the firewall
once connected i turned the firewall back on. my dsl requires user name and password
xp never had that problem.anyone else have this problem?

I Think XP Is Better Than Vista, Because Vista Recommendation Is Very High-Fy, But In That Configuration XP Work Faster Than Vista, If Microsoft Make Some Updates And Theme Like Vista, Then XP Work As Vista Work.

Vista is MUCH better than XP. It runs faster, uses my jump drive as RAM, is prettier, does more, is much more secure, is finally off of DOS, and has alot of sheer power under the hood that you don't get to see. Kind of the difference between a mustang and a ferrari. The mustang is nice, and doesn't look much worse than the ferrari, but the feeling you get from the ferrari is infinitely better.

Vista is a memory hog...42% of DDR2 2GB ram! "doing nothing" What a joke. I would rather use my power for games. Not the vista eye candy windows.

What I would really like to know about Vista is what changed under the hood? The fancy interface is nice but is it just a new "skin" on top of XP or has the underlying program actually been changed?

Vista is full of bugs and not worth your time until there is a stable build. Some people run 98 for performance over xp so why would you want an os that freezes, isn't compatible with some software and is all together unreasonable? Screw that. Microsoft is just trying to be the capitalist pigs they are.

Im sorry but after looking at the running specs for a mac and that for a vista pc....Id rather go vista. Simply put, gaming. Sure configuring games on a vista might be a ...bit..of a pain, but on macs...you cant even get them to run! Sure I could bootcamp an intel mac with winxp but why? Why not just use one OS that does both graphics/biz apps AND does games in one shot?

Ideally a computer should be able to handle everything.

And dont tell me that gaming is only a small percentage of the user base...go to any best buy, Frys, or other software store...games are usually 2/3 of their stock.

JJ, Vista does use a lot of ram all the time, but it does it on purpose. I'm not an expert, but I read it was done because linux showed that ram is faster/more effective being used then released for the next command. I'm not completely sold on this, but at least we know its done on purpose.

Everyone knows, I you're going to do video editing you need to do it on a mac.

I trialled Vista for a month when a trial version came installed on my PC. Vista 'looks' better than Vista but apart from that I couldn't really understand how Microsoft could justify the price tag attached to it. It basically looks like an upgraded version of XP. The sidebar got turned off straight away. And after a week the lack of an 'Up' button when navigating was driving me insane (the bread crumb just wasn't sinking in). Also nagging the user every time they start a program and sending the screen black. What were they smoking when they thought that was a good idea?!

I liked Media Player 11, the Aero effects, and even the way the program list stays compact inside the start menu (as opposed to spreading out across the screen) but these minor upgrades just werent enough to convince me I should be forking out hundreds of dollars for the privilege.

So back to XP for me.

I too went and tried Vista out for a month, and after using it for a month I decided not to buy it and go back to good old Windows XP. It might not be as fancy, but I use my computer for a lot of gaming and when it comes down to it, EVERY game I own runs slower on Vista. It's few upgrades were not nearly enough for me to upgrade my PC to it, maybe in a few years when they get all of the bugs worked out...

yea well i had to for 2 weeks on my computer and said ill wait till i buy a new one...
i dont understand microsoft says my pc can handle it,i paid enough yet it froze in every thing i clicked and oh i love that the cpu was totally being used at 100% in anything i did..
so now i am back on xp pro until i buy a new pc

o another thing the start/shutdown
WHY MUST THE PC TAKE 3 MIN TO OFFICIALLY SHUTDOWN?
DONT ASK ME IM STILL TRYING TO FIGURE THAT OUT

Dear Mr. scobleizer,

I did just as you said, in fact more. I used vista for the last 6 months, and just now "upgraded" myself to Windows XP. WOW, what a relief, I am really glad I am finally using a fast and responsive OS. Don't get me wrong, I have the top end machine with 4GB of ram and all, but Vista is just tooooo sloooow in everything it does.

Vista is terrible, seriously... how can you fall in love with a skin so badly? It's XP with a slick GUI that robs you 10% of your gaming performance, makes things more difficult than it should and has a slew of incompatibility issues.

Seriously, you're a sucker for media and looks. I'm surprised you aren't an Apple fanatic. Yet at least Apple has a stable system. You must be using nothing but Office if you think Vista is a smart upgrade from the now very much solid XP Pro.

Mac-heads need to stop spewing hate speech just because the majority of the population doesn't solely use computers for pictures and movies. If this were the case, everyone would use Macs. Since it isn't, PCs serve their purpose.

I'm a network administrator & server administrator at a university. My guiding philosphy is choose the best tool for the job. I have 5000 Windows system. Macs, might be 5% of our machines. I saw that because it's hard to know exactly, as we can't centrally 'see' them or manage them. That may be great from a user perspective, it's not from a security one. And, now that Macs are essentially Unix systems, they have all the potential security issues that unix does. From my perspective, Apple has sold it's user base a bill of goods - that they know something that Windows users don't. My experience has been that Mac users are far less techically savy than your average Windows user. I've found what most Mac users have bought into is the marketing - that they are smarter & cooler. The Apple bretheren always knock Microsoft for it's monopolistic tendancies. However, I found this ironic considering Apple makes both the hardware and the OS for there platform. And, who's a more paternalistic, Big Brother-like figure than Steve Jobs. Those Mad TV skits are so right on the money.

Ok Johnny, you are a network administrator. Not a programmer, or rocket scientist. If you knew anything about Mac users, you wouldn't even have posted on here. I am in the music recording and post-production of sound business, EVERY machine in our company is a MAC. Pro Tools, Final Cut, Logic Pro, DVD Studio Pro, ETC. are all best suited for a MAC. Most music, movie, architects, and creative minded people to use Apple. It is true. I used to hate Mac until about 3 years ago. I was just like you and all Windows people. But it is true, you plug in and turn on a Mac and have WAY less problems than you would with a Windows machine. I have a friend who builds computers and loves Microsoft, but when I got a brand new Compaq desktop a couple years ago, he had to come over, take off most of the anti-virus and other stock software that came on my windowns computer and put his own stuff. It works great now, but right out of the box, Windows computers suck. Apple doesnt have pop ups or viruses or problems like Windows. Oh and explain how Microsoft is better when my Compaq is a 3.0 GHZ with 2 GB ram and 500 GB hard drive and runs the same if not worse than my Apple with only 1.5 GHz with 512MB ram and an 80 GB hard drive? The OS is way better on Apple and faster. Vista is only going to run slower and never be able to keep up with Apple. Sorry! My solution: OWN A MAC AND A PC

Microsoft Vista has lots of errors. So did Xp when it fitst came out. So if your thinking about Vista, I recomend you buy a Vista when its up to date

I have been using Vista since Jan 07 (even before if you count the beta versions) and I am finally switching back to XP. I tried to run two newer games last night and both had "issues" with Vista. Not only that, I am just tired of the constant nagging by Vista every time I try to run a program. If there is a problem with the program, my virus program will let me know, thank you very much.

Vista owns I have yet to encounter problems, all my hardware works, drivers and software I seriously don't understand peoples lame complaints.

I'm even running a 19'in lcd display at 75 hertz!!

Zod, are you out there? For my Intro to DP/MIS class, part of an assignment is to explain how a newly introduced file system (Vista) compares to its predecessors (XP). I have been trying to follow this thread to get some ideas and getting confused because I am so not technical and when Vista Features were first released none of them seemed like that much of an improvement over XP as far as how I was using the computer. It sounds like you are happy enough with Vista, do you have time to say whether you think Vista is better or worse than XP and why...?

Sorry jerkoffs, Macs are NOT superior to PC's ! Macs are solely for educational and desktop publishing environments, not much use in the workplace.

And yes Vista really sucks compared to XP or Linux. Microsoft is listening to the Hollyweird and RIAA fascists instead of the consumer, BIG mistake !!!

What makes XP great in spite of some problems, is the fact that you can tailor it to the end user's requirements fairly simply.

Vista is locked down tighter than Guantanamo Bay, and no one and I mean no one with half a brain wants a computer that takes away freedom of choice. And that's exactly what Vista and the new family of Crapple Macs do to the end user.

There's so much Microsucks spyware running in the background, even with a Cray or Blue Gene super computer Vista will still crawl along slow as a snail.

Unless Microsoft & Mac change their business strategy, I see Linux taking the desktop segment over in the next few years as it becomes more polished and efficient software.

i think vista is the best thing to ever happen to this world should be given a knighthood. XP is slow, rubbish. LONG LIFE XP!

I have vista on my laptop and i dont like it. I'm building a new Pc with XP pro. So yeah Vista sucks!

True, Vista is not that bad. But is not good enough yet to make me wan't to upgrade. Speed is King for me, and my XP is faster, by any benchmark, on my current PC.
Benchmarks speak louder than words.
Check them out here under my "Time for a downgrade ?" article.

I had vista for over a year and finally decided to UPGRADE (lol) back to XP pro. I had many issues that i basically solved myself. I am CE and have the knowledge to work with it but it got to a point that my computer was too slow, even with a core2duo and 2 gs of ram. I'm not a gamer btw. Whenever they finish figuring it out, i'll go back to it.

oh my god, THERE ARE NO ANSWERS! Just questions...........
hi Microsoft, thanks for years and years of free software! I must admit I’ve never paid for anything Microsoft! And why should we? You have forced this upon us by monopolising the market..... Bill gates you can suck my balls if you think I’m ever going to give a single penny for you........ Yours truthfully, Ben....

Hi all,

I read all your posts and I couldn't resist typing something along. I do agree with most pro's about XP, I use to love XP, still love it, but since moving to Vista Ultimate 32 Bit, well...
It has sometimes it's problems, but lets not forget the crap we all had with XP when 1st came out, OMFG!! Now, so far I find Vista Ultimate 32 bit, a more stable OS vs XP Pro that I used for so many years and don't forget that most problems with OS's are caused by the cheap drivers, companies that do not want to spend a penny more and write stable drivers, many programmers know this . And how in earth is can everyone expect Microsoft or other OS vendors to release a OS that works 100% from the 1st day??? People with those expectations are either dumb or do not know how OS's work, everything is so complex and suiting every ones needs takes time, learn from Windows XP's past and GET OVER IT!! Microsoft creates only 50% of a OS and the end user the other 50%. So instead of moaning get testing and lets make a great OS out of Vista!!

Best regards to all of you!!


PS. Don't even start me on antivirus companies...IE Symantec

I have vista home premium and since the sp1 update i find my labtop to be more stable than before and now i consider it much better than xp in a vast number of ways. Also, i think usability was better than xp even before sp1 (service pack one). I wish it came with microsoft office 2008 though. I hate this piece of crap "microsoft works." Thats like saying,"this works but its not good enough." Hence the name Microsoft "WORKS."

i am using vista on my new laptop, i can't say i like it.
it doesn't offer me any thing new or better by far. i don't really care the new look. i turn it off since the first day i got it.

well.. it fast, but that because i invest "my" money on the vdo card and 4gig of ram.

i would love to use a hight performent OS which take less of my hd space and eat less ram than vista. i don't think microsoft can do that!

i am using 4gig of vista and xp, i can say that vista doesn't make me feel any difference. well..may vista search tool is handy and fast!
anyway compare to the money i paid for vista, and what it is offering, i should just stick to xp.

Hey passing the by says you are so hot, i'd just love to fuck your tight little arse hole all night oh my god you are so hot i'd jsut like to ram it in there oh yeah so hard and good you love it don't you!

I'm using Ubuntu and xp only for some programs that i really need and can't find one for Linux, btw Linux and most aplications for Linux are open source, therefore free and soo much better in terms of performance, graphics, has way better effects than Vista when using compiz. Linux has a lot advantages over windows and microsoft only cares to sell their products by creating a pretty good UI, but Vistas UI is very similar to openSUSE UI. If you're interested in this search google and u'll find just how good is Linux and how much Windows sucks

i really suggest reading this article http://www.eskimo.com/~webguy/writings/winsucks...

Adi T u'r right but ubuntu worked so much better than any Windows from 1st day and that problems only happen to windows cause they only care of selling their products by adding lots of useless functions and somewhat better gui and they don't give a f*** on performance or security. Windows also can ruin hardware, which is a very small chance for this to happen by using Linux. Btw Linux does not need antivirus, firewall or defragmenter and the drivers are istalled automatically so if u'r doing a fresh install of OS u don't waste a lot of time by installing all those. Plus XP's average time from the direct connection moment till infesting with viruses without antivirus and firewall is 16 minutes. Linux's average time from the direct connection moment till infesting with viruses without antivirus or firewall is... never

yea vista does have some technicial difficulties and more than often Windows explorer stops responding. But I have vista on my laptop and after using vista for like 1 whole year. and during the summer, when I came back to school I got on an XP computer and found out that windows movie maker is a lot worse in vista it has much more mouse shortcuts than in XP also the more you use vista the more comfortable it gets. I also like the search just type a program and it found it its really comfortable. cant imagine swithcing back to XP

I used Vista on a new PC (quad 2.4, 4gb ram, sli config) for about 3 months and have gone back to XP. Vista has a load of nice features and I wish it was stable, but after several rebuilds, latest drivers, patches etc Vista has proven itself to be horribly unstable; plus I couldn't live with all that disk thrashing (even after disabling prefetch and search indexing etc). XP might lack a few bells and whistles but at least my PC crashes less now.

i got vista with my new pc, as the old one with xp mysteriously fried all the memory and continued to do so with the new ones - i decided it was time to give that old buddy a rest. as for ms politics, i didnt have other choice but to take vista with new laptop, no xp choice. with my previous experience with vista, i was expecting catastrophe, because i had very well tuned and customized xp before, that worked like charm. vista came with sp1, still, there were quite many things to adjust out of the box, start menu behaving incorrectly, autologon problems, system locking etc., but it all had its solution, i just needed to google it. besides, the efficiency is worse, xp was like a rocket machine on five yrs. old laptop, now vista on this new hurricane cpu seems to be bit slower. those were for negatives ... from now on, i will continue for why i hadnt wiped it out yet. it is eye candy and i like eye candies, 3d flip is at least small replacement for compiz in ubuntu and system is far more polished than xp, icons dpi no more faulty. modem connection is working better now, in xp it was lagging sometimes, now its much better. so far every hardware worked out of the box - for my phone or tablet i had to install not very stable drivers in xp, now it all works like charm in vista. i would say it is most user friendly system that came out of microsoft, it just has some bugs that need to be removed. nice contacts and movie maker applications, as well as media center. vista got more robust, more secured, what makes it more complicated, but after some moments spent removing these obstacles, it shines. i dont want to move back to xp anymore.
but if my old laptop was still working, i couldnt find reason why to move to vista either. xp is very good system and most of the people just dont need to upgrade from something that is working well.
as for the linux systems, i always had one ubuntu partition after windoze partition and i must say that ubuntu has made a great progress, i tried some other distros but i found ubuntu superior. compiz was making miracles with my old intel extreme graphics 2 and the system was very nice. i think after a few years, ubuntu will become very solid and supported platform and will make microsoft worried
as for mac os x ... i had the pleasure and had almost broken mouse after half an hour. it couldnt even maximize window correctly, dock got frozen, window rendering got buggy, i missed many functions i got used to. say - its a matter of habit - i had only a little time to unleash its hidden "faulty" potential. i cant get the apple logics, they hype it sooo much that, create enormous hype cloud over i-everything, but my experience so far - mac os x was disfunctional, confusing and crippled, compared to both xp and ubuntu. iphone is as well disfunctional, heavy, confusing and crippled compared to almost every wm-based smartphone alternative out there. here, i would agree with someone above writing apple users are less tech savvyy, they simply dont need to know many things as apple isnt providing greater functionality, so they dont bother. most of them need to be in, need just to show that they are i-.....
but then once you come with win/lin laptop, take out your smartphone, sync it over bluetooth, connect with it to net, down needed conference docs, navigate your car right to the meeting with ease and they just stand with their eyes wide open - omg! you must be some tech geek or what, how could you do that?? for mac users, when it comes to action, win/lin user is god, but when it comes to big talking, we are just a cheap loosers

Windows 7 is more stable than Vista. No Joke.

i can most definatky and with most will to move back to XP without a second thought or action.

I can see why some of you would want to get vista, but these reasons are those of a childs matter and their point-of-view. I'm sorry but i can't quite understand whats the big deal? XP is better than vista, and Vista is a $300 joke that got everybody excited and happy while microsoft corporation was laughing it's ass of on its way to the bank. Tell me vista users: Are you sure that your not just saying this cus you were a huge fan of microsooft and despised other companies to the point were you would get vista and use it as if it was the greatest new technology of the 21st century? If this is so, then you have no place in the technology world and should stick to sports.



-Sincerely
LinuxMaster

id like to say that i think vista is better then xp in some aspects for one vista works better on my computer then xp for some reason due to the fact my computer started out with a xp os. but in all maybe there needs to be more OS out there then what we have now linux is to complicated same with mac dont really like either nor for that matter do i like microsoft but its the easiest to use

I am so fed up with the Compaq laptop with Vista that I bought two years ago. In frustration, I kept going back to my older Compaq with XP. As it's LCD display continued to fail, I finally migrated all the way over to the new machine. Today, I searched on "what is better in Vista" just to see if there's something positive that I'm missing. I ended up here - where misery loves company. As far as I know Bill Gates has never offered an apology and an even-steven opportunity for me to trade back to XP. Did such an ethical move never occur to him? My first "computer" was a Canon Cat with a single font text only Compuserve connection. I've been using Windows for over twenty years. My next computer will not use a Bill Gates operating system. He and his company are way too big for their britches and not playing square with those who provided the bucks for their growth. (I've also had it with HP/Compaq which can't seem to get little things like the power switch, the power connection, the volume control, the keyboard, or the indicator lights right.)

Hi, i worked seven years with win XP professional to my best satisfaction, because windows XP is a fine operating system.

If currently your computer does not contain 2 gigs of RAM (preferably 3 for a 32 bit version, but XP supports no more then 2 gigs of RAM), and also does not have a newer CPU on board like a Dual Core( a P4 is still a very decent CPU, owever compared to a dual core at an also 3 Ghz clockspeed the P4 sadly stays behind) and also does not have a graphical card with minimally 128MB (256 MB are preferable 512 MB are better), then except if you plan to purchase a new computer stay with XP it will be supported until 2014 by Microsoft.

Vista is just an excellent system its a really very well over thought OS including some eyecandy, but when you do have a decent CPU like my own E8200 Dual Core at 2.66Ghz, 3 gigs of RAM and a Nvidia 8800GT then Vista works a lot faster then XP ever did to me its also very stable, but i got used to stability after my often crashing win 98SE system, because XP never crashed in seven years talking 10-15 hours a day running intensive software and the latest games, no problem at all.

There is no way i would want to go back to XP, but for people whom are thinking to buy a new system (a Vista ready system can be had for 40o euros even less, but spend 200 euros more and you look at a high end system instead of a cheap, eventually disappointing, step in model).

Anyway like i said if you were thinking to get a new computer make sure it has atleast a Dual Core on board preferably a quadcore so my preference is Intel and my favorite quadcore is the i7 that's a jewel of current technology and no i am not that fond of AMD's CPU's, however these CPU are by far not to call bad and they are a lot cheaper offering almost the same prestations compared to an intel on the same clockspeed.

Its not that you can say that a dual core at 3 Ghz is to compare with 2 CPU at 3 Ghz no you look at an about 80% improvement and from a dual core to a wuadcore you look at 100% improvement compared to the dual core.
Dont forget to use the readyboost option in Vista this is not extra RAM this is extra cache for your harddrive to acces a lot faster and it does speed up your computer, especially when you only have 1 gig of RAM.

When you buy a new system these days you get a voucher to upgrade to windows 7 that OS is based on Vista and its said that windows 7 is like Vista when it would be really ready, but that's exaggerated, because service pack 1 and 2 for Vista are present and together with those SP's AND decent hardware you have an excellent system ready for the future.
Win 7 is not a resource eater and can do with a lot less still its the best OS what almost available for the public now.
Its not possible to upgrade from XP to windows 7, but from Vista to win 7 is possible.

Anyway lots of people who complained first about Vista now say they dont want to work without it anymore and i can only say they are right, but to get an idea you really need to spend some time behind a vista computer until you might feel to upgrade to win 7 with your free voucher.

Remember people the only reason why Vista didn't run properly is because its resource hungry so when the resources are simply not present you get a Vista system what gets bothered by hiccups, but get the 2 gigs of RAM minimally get the videocard 256 Mb minimally(to get the aero eyecandy) and a Dual Core minimally and you will love working with Vista.
So far thanks for reading my lengthy reply.

Best regards, Freek. ps dont let yourself influence by bad experienced from others better be your own judge.