It seems vista is going to be replaced by Windows 7

[mshcherbatskaya]

That said, I do like Vista aside from its protect-you-from-yourself pop-up paranoia, which I find a bit excessive. I know you can turn that off, but a feature that everyone turns off for sheer usability is a bad feature.

actually that feature does nothing, all it's taught ppl to do is click continue, they SHOULD have spent the time making the os more secure and putting in proper security instead of the fake security blanket they did include

it doesn't make the os more secure as there are ways to bypass it from even popping up when installing stuff

Exactly. It's made them less security-aware, because it makes clicking away security checks reflexive, so if a legit warning were to pop up, the user would probably click it away out of habit.

It also only pops up when you're downloading or installing something, so you know what you're doing. If it randomly popped up people would know something was up. And considering I've never had a single virus with Vista, I think I'm ok anyway.

It's interpretation of "downloading" is irritatingly broad.

--When I log into my work email from home and click open an attached document, it asks me if I want to download the document, then asks me if it is OK to launch the application that actually handles the document, then asks if it's OK to display the document in the browser window.
--When I open certain IM programs, it asks me if I want to allow the program through the firewall, then asks me if it's OK to open the Windows security feature which will allows me to unblock it, then gives me a third pop-up box in which I can finally unblock the program.
--When I get onto the internet via my cell modem, it wants me to determine each time whether the connection is public, private, or workplace, and when I go to select one, it asks me to confirm that I want to open the Networking function in order to select the designation of the connection I just made.

When I have to click through 3 pop-ups per task on anything, including launching Windows own features, I think that is excessive. You may not have that experience, but that is more a comment on your browsing habits than it is on the absurd redundancy of Windows' security checks.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Let's check out how much 64-bit OS's can roughly address:

2^64 = 17.2 billion gigabytes, or 16.8 million terabytes, or ten million times more headroom than a 32-bit operating system. Now realistically, no chipset out there right now (or for quite a while) will ever be able to address that amount of memory, but there are consumer motherboards out there which can easily and cheaply provide you with 8 or even 16 gigabytes of RAM.

Of course, this isn't applicable for most of you since the vast majority here have no interest in digital artistic creation and are only interested in consumption.

But that's to be expected.

Business grade workstations currently support as much as 128GB of RAM. This is in part because they are essentially tower form-factor servers designed to accommodate high-end video cards and their accompaniments, and loaded with end-user rather than server OS. I haven't sold any with quite that much on board, but I've started having customers requesting workstations with 16GB of RAM on a fairly regular basis and expect more, now that CAD and digital content creation software is becoming truly 64-bit compatible.

EDIT: I mention this not because I think anyone would by a workstation for home use (unless they got a company discount and a corporate payment plan and were sorely tested by a sweet box that came with a free 24-inch high-performance monitor) but because the business and consumer market segments have a way of converging, with initially consumer features showing up in the business units, and things like 128 GB RAM support making their way down from the IT department to the living room.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

What bloat in Vista are you talking about exactly, Fineldar?

The bloat....

Vista took up a large amount of RAM and Hard Drive space. This combined with all the unnecessary programs OEM's put on it (demo's and trial software)makes Vista slow to boot up and slow to shut down.

 

[TheBluesader]

The bloat....

Vista took up a large amount of RAM and Hard Drive space. This combined with all the unnecessary programs OEM's put on it (demo's and trial software)makes Vista slow to boot up and slow to shut down.

As far as I'm concerned, Vista should be renamed Windows Bloat. There was all this talk about vastly improved software security, but that was only because it was a brand new Microsoft product the hackers hadn't had time to blow up yet. And IE 7 or whatever is a separate program anyway constantly being re-uped, so what the heck is Vista adding to anything? I mean, besides unnecessary visual ticks and expensive pomposity?

XP works. XP is fine. If they wanted to make a prettier XP for faster computers, they should have made an XP: Enhanced Edition and been done with it. Why the heck are they trying to compete with Apple anyway? No one is going to abandon their Macs because crappy, crashy Windows is suddenly prettier.

Good to see that the market finally hit Microsoft with the two-by-four it's been asking for for 3 years now. In the crotch.

 

[James Raynor]

So which one is it? Unlucky or incompetent?

If you asked me, it sounds like you lucked out.

 

[Shivari]

That said, I do like Vista aside from its protect-you-from-yourself pop-up paranoia, which I find a bit excessive. I know you can turn that off, but a feature that everyone turns off for sheer usability is a bad feature.

actually that feature does nothing, all it's taught ppl to do is click continue, they SHOULD have spent the time making the os more secure and putting in proper security instead of the fake security blanket they did include

it doesn't make the os more secure as there are ways to bypass it from even popping up when installing stuff

Exactly. It's made them less security-aware, because it makes clicking away security checks reflexive, so if a legit warning were to pop up, the user would probably click it away out of habit.

It also only pops up when you're downloading or installing something, so you know what you're doing. If it randomly popped up people would know something was up. And considering I've never had a single virus with Vista, I think I'm ok anyway.

It's interpretation of "downloading" is irritatingly broad.

--When I log into my work email from home and click open an attached document, it asks me if I want to download the document, then asks me if it is OK to launch the application that actually handles the document, then asks if it's OK to display the document in the browser window.
--When I open certain IM programs, it asks me if I want to allow the program through the firewall, then asks me if it's OK to open the Windows security feature which will allows me to unblock it, then gives me a third pop-up box in which I can finally unblock the program.
--When I get onto the internet via my cell modem, it wants me to determine each time whether the connection is public, private, or workplace, and when I go to select one, it asks me to confirm that I want to open the Networking function in order to select the designation of the connection I just made.

When I have to click through 3 pop-ups per task on anything, including launching Windows own features, I think that is excessive. You may not have that experience, but that is more a comment on your browsing habits than it is on the absurd redundancy of Windows' security checks.

You can also turn it off.=o

 

[Anarchemitis]

Meanwhile I look at my computer complacently, and it responds "I just work here."

 

[Lt. Sera]

So which one is it? Unlucky or incompetent?

If you asked me, it sounds like you lucked out.

A lot of people who didn't have 10 year old printers and had decent machines 'lucked out'. I think a lot of people just gave up on Vista after the first error or so, while they accept every error XP gives them now, since they've learned to deal with it.

 

[mooncalf]

I said to myself "I'll just ignore Vista and maybe it'll go away..." and OMG, IT DID!

I suppose they didn't have much choice with so many people wallet-voting, but good on Microsoft for taking a do-over.

A reworked Vista with a mind to performance and regular ol' usability could be a truly wondrous thing?

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

You can also turn it off.=o

Gee, thanks for clearing that up for me. As mentioned above, after working for Microsoft on the Windows test team, though, I generally know what I'm doing and what I am talking about. That's why I wrote this, which was actually included in the post you quoted if you had bothered to read it:

I know you can turn that off, but a feature that everyone turns off for sheer usability is a bad feature.

And yes, I am bitchy and sick and disinclined to put up with being talked down to by someone half my age and one-tenth of my job experience. Also, I can't turn it off because it is a work-issued computer and I don't have admin rights.

 

[Unholykrumpet]

I originally didn't mind vista. I was like "ooh, shiny toolbars" and really liked the look of it. I got used to everything being in different places to the point where I forgot my way around my old high school friend windows XP. Me and vista were friends in the sense that we'd hang out together when we both happened to be in the same place at the time, but not in the sense of like we planned to do stuff together. It worked, and we both were happy.

Then apparently Vista decided I was getting too chummy with my audio card. It got jealous of Itunes and the fact that I was playing more advanced sounds than the log-in sound that it comes with. In a fit of vengeful rage, it decided to give me a new Vista Update! Apparently Vista's version of improving itself involved, somehow, uninstalling my audio card drivers. I had to search around on the tubes for 7 hours looking for a fix. I did absolutely nothing that day except try to find a fix and to understand why Vista ***** slapped me like that. It turns out that it's not at all uncommon for Vista to get jealous of a random part of your computer and "update" itself to make that part not work.

Well, it's done it to me twice now. Vista went from that person I'd loosely call friend to a really bad roommate that tries to steal every woman you bring home just so you won't be happy. Bastard.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

See, either some of you are all hideously unlucky or substantially mentally deficient, because I've never run into any of the problems you have all accused Vista of having in the last seven months I've run it (and run it hard into the ground with dozens of sample libraries, effects plugins, and synthesizers simultaneously straining six hard drives, 8 gigabytes of RAM, and four 3.0 GHz processing cores) and I don't consider myself to be very lucky or proficient with computers/OS's.

So which one is it? Unlucky or incompetent?

Same thing here. I've been running Vista and have never had a problem with it. One thing I like is that in XP, if a program crashed at best it would freeze your computer for a minute or two and at worst, went to blue screen. If a program crashes in Vista, it shuts down the program and you get on with your life. I also like ready boost because I had the thumb drive laying around and I don't have the money for more RAM right now .

 

[TheIceface]

I wouldn't get all excited about it yet, if I were you. One of the things they talked about was that the reason so many people hated Vista was the compatibility problems. How it wouldn't work with most programs older than a year or two.

They claimed this problem would be fixed in this new version of Windows. (I actually got my hopes up a little when I heard that part, stupid me.) They then continued to say, "...Yeah, this new version of windows will be 100% compatible with all your Vista programs"

...

What... the hell... Wasn't the whole problem was that Vista wasn't compatible with anything before its time? What problems are going to be fixed if you make this new OS compatible with something that already wasn't compatible with anything?!?

Seriously, if they want to make a good version of Windows, try making it have 100% backwards compatibility. Make it so you can use WinXP programs, and have a compatibility mode built in so you could run old Win 98 games. Come on now! Are these guys seriously this ignorant of the wants of their consumers?!

[/rant]

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I wouldn't get all excited about it yet, if I were you. One of the things they talked about was that the reason so many people hated Vista was the compatibility problems. How it wouldn't work with most programs older than a year or two.

They claimed this problem would be fixed in this new version of Windows. (I actually got my hopes up a little when I heard that part, stupid me.) They then continued to say, "...Yeah, this new version of windows will be 100% compatible with all your Vista programs"

...

What... the hell... Wasn't the whole problem was that Vista wasn't compatible with anything before its time? What problems are going to be fixed if you make this new OS compatible with something that already wasn't compatible with anything?!?

Seriously, if they want to make a good version of Windows, try making it have 100% backwards compatibility. Make it so you can use WinXP programs, and have a compatibility mode built in so you could run old Win 98 games. Come on now! Are these guys seriously this ignorant of the wants of their consumers?!

[/rant]

Vista has a compatibility mode. If you right click a program and click properties, you'll find a compatibility tab where you can run a program in a compatibility mode back to Windows 95.

 

[TheIceface]

Vista has a compatibility mode. If you right click a program and click properties, you'll find a compatibility tab where you can run a program in a compatibility mode back to Windows 95.

Yeah, but it doesn't work well. Have you tried setting up an IPX network on Vista so you and your buddies can play Diablo when the Battle.net servers aren't working?

Also, the compatibility I was talking about with Vista is mainly things that came out after windows 98. Tons of games and programs are "Windows Vista Ready" so they won't work, or won't work well on Vista.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Damn... I just got a laptop with Vista today.

I'm a very sad panda.