Oh well. So I had used Vista since the RTM. It's not bad, just a little sluggish at times (especially when copying stuff around). But there are very practical details like the good search and the new Explorer that make it worthwhile. And it looks good, yes it does. Better than OS X IMHO. What isn't good is the driver support. A few months ago I threw out my nVidia graphics card for an ATI which, in retrospect, wasn't a good idea. ATI is extremely slow with the drivers. Yes, they churn out a new version every month, give it the same number as the XP drivers but in reality it's not more than just betas. Given my usage pattern, that's bad. Those 3D apps I'm playing around with won't use OpenGL because the support sucks. Tried DOOM 3 just for funsies and it looks more like 10 years old. iTunes has heavy problems, shame on you, Apple. You can't run any firewall but a very few select ones, and those come in memory guzzling 'suites' nobody needs. The internal one is as selective as ever, not reporting every program's access attempts. That's what I have one for, tho - to prevent all the phoning home. Now, I don't blame MS other than for the copying bug. It's not their job to make the OS compatible to the myriad applications out there. But companies like ATI and Apple? Dear god people, it's not like the release was such a huge surprise I'm back on XP now. Looks very outdated after a few months on Vista but seems to work so far. It did crash some 3D apps tho when Vista caught them in the same situation.
Just get a really good video card and download a decent XP theme, and you'll be able to make XP look as pretty and useless as Vista.
I love my win2k machine hidden away in my attic. It is, for the most part, all the computer I need, just as the 286, DOS 5.0 I cut my teeth on was all the computer I needed. That is until Bill Gates and everybody else force them into obsolescence. MY IT Manager at work recommends downgrading to XP if you accidentally buy a machine with VISTA. For one thing, a lot of MS products don't even work correctly in Vista.
Question - are there still XP disks for sale out there in case a computer dies and we have to buy a new one?
yup, XP not being retired for another couple of years yet. i'm weighing wether to get an action sub or just XP pro, thankfully OEM ones aren't too expensive.
Indeed. Searching fast for an Excel spreadsheet I've misplaced somewhere and a neat interface ain't going to do it for me. While the gamers will have to upgrade eventaully for DirectX 10 graphics, I'll probably hold onto XP until I upgrade in hardware as well.
I had the opposite reaction going back to XP from Vista. I actually appreciate XP SO MUCH MORE now. Vista was running sluggishly and several of my programs didn't work on it (and they won't be for a long time, if at all, since they are made by very small companies). Now with a fresh copy of XP on my machine, it is running super fast, the interface is very clean, and everything works! If I want fast searching of documents, I'll just download Google Desktop. Vista offers me nothing worthwhile for my laptop. Supposed better battery management is the only benefit I have heard of. But that's not enough to trade off for sluggish, crappy performance.
I believe that full OpenGL support is due to come within a month or so from ATI. Oddly, the iTunes on my family's computer that I just put Vista on has no problems whatsoever? Ah, the phone-home paranoia. I'm really wondering what programs you have that "phone home" without the ability to disable it. Anyway, this is probably not MS' fault here, but rather the fault of the firewall producers - I have maintained for years that consumer-grade software firewalls are not only mostly unnecessary, but are extremely good at fucking shit up. They aren't terribly well-written. Hell, just before I left on break I had to go in and neuter copies of NIS and McAfee Firewall on two separate computers because, for whatever reason, they got the idea in their heads that the user blocked Internet Explorer and/or Firefox. And don't even get me fucking started on ZoneAlarm. And this is the core problem. Companies everywhere had gotten used to the same-old, same-old from Microsoft, so they didn't put the resources they needed to towards Vista support. Hell, Microsoft did everything they should have here - they pushed out betas early and often on a widescale release. They were more than helpful with any company that asked for help to update their products - hell, remember the Microsoft/Firefox thing a while back? Instead, ATi was busy trying to get itself sold off, and Apple was just sitting around waiting around to release "CANCEL OR ALLOW" Mac vs. PC ads. My favorite offender in this category is Creative, who have basically done absolutely nothing for anything except their top-of-the-line cards. I think the Vista release and the PPC-to-Intel Mac switch have highlighted something seriously wrong with the industry. It depends on a simple sameness from OS providers, and that stifles progress.
Is it true that Vista actually removes some support for firewire? The guy at the computer store noted in passing that since Vista wasn't supporting it anymore, it was "going to fall by the wayside." This just made me laugh since every recent mac has firewire built in...
I hate that. Not talking about update checks even tho I don't like them, talking about simply trying to phone out... somewhere. What comes to mind? WinDVD is the worst mainstream offender IMHO - they make you uncheck 'do you want to send stuff to us ' twice, and lo and behold, the first thing that happens when you start it for the first time, it tries to connect. DIVX is bad too. Tries twice during installation alone I just don't want that. It's worth the 0.05% performance loss. Not running AV tho. Agreed. Same with all the software makers that didn't update their shit in time. I'm just loving the Linux fanboys screaming how it's MS' job to see to the compatibility (my daily newspaper has quite the lively discussion forum. You could think that 90% of the people are command line Linux freaks) I have heard of the X-Fi top of the line having troubles but my Audigy 2 worked perfectly. They said that 2 months ago too. I bought (!) Anapod because it didn't work at all. It was extremely slow right after installation, and then for no reason all I got was a black window I had to close via the task manager. Don't know. The FW on my Audigy worked perfectly
Once again, the fault of software companies, not MS. Wouldn't surprise me if it's trying to connect out for DVD information or something, or, like with PowerDVD, which is what I use, it has some sort of goofy built-in web browsing. Personally, once I install PowerDVD, though, I quite frequently just fire up WMP and use that - a lot less bullshit. This doesn't surprise me in the least. DIVX used to package spyware in with their "player" app. They developed a good codec and have milked it for all its worth. Heh. The Linux community has absolutely no room to talk about compatibility, especially from the viewpoint of it being the OS provider's responsibility to maintain it. I think that might be because the X-Fi relied heavily on the hardware abstraction layer, which MS ripped out entirely. However, I seem to recall that the SoundBlaster Live! family of products also have some Vista difficulties. If you think this is bad, just look at graphics support on Linux. We just now got the non-mirrored dual monitor support running on the lab machines at school, and it took yet another update just to get the cursor to work right on the secondary display. Weird. I mean, I noticed the usual iTunes for Windows lag on my folks' Vista box, but it wasn't nearly this bad. I was actually kind of surprised there weren't more problems. But God, it was a bitch to have to boot up the old computer and deauthorize my brother's music in order to transfer it. At the same time, oddly enough, it was less painful than I was anticipating. FireWire is still the de facto standard for higher end video equipment, and it won't be going by the wayside any time soon. He might have seen that Vista wouldn't be supporting FireWire 800, which is, quite frankly, no surprise, since it's very expensive to license from Apple, so few, if any, PC manufacturers would be using it.
Well with games like Doom 3 you can sort of blame microsoft, because they are purposefully trying to force everyone into using Direct X for graphic, reducing support for things like opengl.
Actually, drivers are all up to the card manufacturers. And, they are focusing on DirectX, because that is where the majority of games are, and that is what is most needed in Vista (needed to run Aero). And, frankly, DX10 is a leap ahead at this point, and many users upgrade to vista for the sole reason of DX10 games. As for any OpenGL issues with the OS (non driver related), I doubt they are purposely trying to hinder OpenGL, more like they don't care whether changes effect it adversely or not. That's free market for ya. Why should they have to make any special accommodations, especially to someone they are competing with? Don't worry, this is the same stuff we have seen each time a new OS comes out. Just wait for manufacturers to get up to speed with their drivers and there really isn't much left to complain about.
Not really. It's a spec that no PC gamer really cares about. It's been out for a while now. I'm sure there's some big evil conspiracy behind it though.
While I'm sure you'll explain why it hurts the industry, just looking at this, I can't really see what the big deal is: EDIT: I just found this article in MSDN, and quite honestly, it's admirable. They're trying to create a standard that will actually help consumers here.
O yes, I didn't believe him for a second, but I was on my way out the door. He probably (like most people, including myslf a lot of the time) had no idea what he was talking about.
Bailey explained to me in chat the other night that he had heard about some requirements to use Games for Windows Live for many features of multiplayer, rather than using their own systems. If this is the case, then it represents a major flaw and a stupid move by MS if they plan on getting companies to adopt the standard. However, I haven't seen anything about it online when I searched around a bit. The requirements for widescreen support and for x64 support are GREAT in my book. I'd love to be able to move to a 64-bit OS pretty soon.
At last report, Vista was implementing OpenGL in DirectX for Vista, cutting its performance in half. Did this change?
Vista implements an old version of OpenGL, which is really what is causing the slowness problems. I believe that most graphics companies are supposed to be creating drivers that feature the latest OpenGL support, but God knows nVidia and ATi like to fuck around.
I'll definately upgrade to Vista when I buy a DX10 video card. I see no reason to do so before. I do want to upgrade, but would rather wait for my machine to be able to take advantage of new tech.
Bolding and italics are mine. In other words, like I said, OpenGL implementation is just not up to speed. MS has provided sort of a thrown-together oldish setup on their own, because if people knew they couldn't use OpenGL at all, they wouldn't be upgrading. That said, personally I don't have any games that use OpenGL, except WC3 which is so old it will fly just fine on any OS/machine. Also:
Ironically, I had XP Media Center Edition preloaded on my crappy notebook and decided to up to Vista, and it runs smoother, faster and generally better, whereas XP was a nightmare. But for a powerful desktop/workstation, I agree, not worth it right now.
Vista only lasted a day here. It makes my system slow as a turd. I'm in two minds about drivers - on the one hand - yes, companies should embrace new technology and develop for it. On the other - iit's not exactly a new problem that it takes time for the industry to catch up to a new windows release. Are they to jump when MS tells them to? Fuck no. MS decides to release a new OS, they'd better make sure it's fucking compatible with hardware. Software compatibility is different of course, programmers have been cutting corners to get more out of windows for years, thus risking upgrade incompatibility. However, I wonder how many of the problems are caused that way, and how many are just because MS decides to change stuff without being concerned about the consequences. Your firewall no longer works? Tough luck, buy a new one. It's MS' investment in or rather present to the software industry. Anyway, none of this excuses the horrible speed and the gigantic system requirements for Vista. Unless that changes, I will not be downgrading to Vista. I'd rather sell my pc and buy a mac.
I'm running a box that only cost me 1200 bucks almost 3 years ago. Only upgrade it has had is a new video card, which was about 2 years ago (250 bucks). System performs fine. I wouldn't consider that "gigantic" requirements.
I really wouldn't make MS responsible for including drivers for the myriad of different hardware products. They provide basic functionality based on standards, the drivers come from the manufacturer.
This is ridiculous.. lol. It is not MS's responsibility to make sure hardware works with their new OS. There is way too much hardware out there for it to be even possible. Buy an Apple if that's how you feel.
Since I resent being forced to upgrade to XP because they stopped supporting 2K, I now have the spare PC in use for learning Linux and testing the distros. XP is the last M$ OS I'm buying.
