Windows VISTA Reviewed by CNET: "Warmed Over XP"

[Hulk]

And after using Vista for a few days it became totally transparent to me. Much more so than XP ever was...

Personally, the learning curve of going from XP to Vista is a lot smaller than the curve of going between 98/ME and XP. It's far more in line with going from 98 to ME or 2K to XP. Unfortunately, most of the public only knows about the 9x to XP route (which was retardedly painful) and are not looking forward to this.

and as much shit as people give it, it is a far more polished product than XP ever was, and look where it wound up?

Jerrold Jones - Good on you. I can't bring myself to buy into Apples platform concept. I tend to view it in line with Sony's, just covered up by being a bit kinder and a lot trendier. But... thats just me... it's all about what works best for the consumer...

That's great news. I always tend to resist an OS upgrade but after doing it a week later I wonder how I lived with the old version. I guess it's that XP has really been great for the 4 plus years I've been using it. Really no major problems at all for me and very solid.

I'll keep an eye on Vista...

[ND66]

This sound very promising, hope it works as anticipated.

DGhost, any comments on this one?

....
Under the hood, Microsoft has moved device drivers for DVD burners and printers out of the system kernel; Microsoft says that a majority of system crashes can be traced to improperly installed third-party device drivers.
Thus Windows Vista hopes to vanquish the dreaded Blue Screen of Death common to earlier releases of Windows.
Indeed, after testing several early builds, we found Windows Vista to be remarkably stable and robust.
...

[Brian Ellis]

I haven't seen a BSOD, but many times I've had "Report to MS or End-it-now" style crashes with Vista (forget the exact terminology, as I have uninstalled Vista).

[GNEP]

This confirms my experiences - yes I have had driver crashes (notably when running Aero) but the system seems able to remain stable underneath and just restarts the driver concerned. All programs continue running...

[ND66]

I like this, i like it a lot.

Thanks guys,

.

[DGhost]

A testament to their improvements to stability - on my gimptop (1.83 Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram, i945GM chipset/graphics) I ran into issues with the graphics driver crashing with earlier revisions of it. How did the system act? The display froze for about five seconds, blanked and came back, and the application resumed rendering exactly where it left off. I believe there was a systray notification that the driver crashed and needed to be restarted. Nothing else. No blue screen, no application hang, nada. And of course, later revisions of the driver fixed the issue.

For the most part the move for device drivers out of kernel mode has resulted in remarkable stability. It has had it's drawbacks - the audio stack no longer supports Hardware Accelerated 3d audio, for instance. The positive is that it will be much harder for Creative to release drivers that will crash the system.

So far it seems true. I have yet to see a system crash on either of the laptops I run it on.

Oh, and the Forceware 100 series beta drivers do improve DX performance significantly. They have more compatability issues, but they are a hell of a lot faster.

[schmosef]

Windows Vista: 15 Reasons to Switch

[Brian Ellis]

Windows Vista: 15 Reasons to Switch

And most of the 15 reasons are sugar-candy. One of the statements (at least) is incorrect. The firewall (at least in the RCs) is one-way, not two-way. Furthermore, it does not allow the installation of a third party two-way firewall, which is a VERY good reason not to switch.
Here are 5 good reasons from the same source not to switch for the time being and these are logical, not sugar-candy.

[DGhost]

Brian - Most of those are logical fallicies.

Being labeled incomplete because manufacturers have yet to release drivers or because they have a Service Pack planned is simply stupid.

Every time Microsoft ships a new OS they fork the code base and start up two products - first is the service pack, and second is it's successor. They have done this for quite a long time, since at least Win2k to my knowledge, probably NT3 days.

To say that it requires a new computer is also ignorant. I have run it perfectly fine on a variety of systems that are a year to two years old without issue. Granted, I had speced them out to support Vista when I built them, but realistically almost any computer built in the last two to three years will not require much modification to support it. You might not get Aero Glass, but it will run. This is no different than running Windows XP on a 300Mhz Celeron when it came out. It literally isn't any different.

The biggest difference is because vendors have been skimping on the baseline systems for far too long. The fact that companies were still selling systems with 256MB of ram in them last year is horrendous. The fact that vendors settled on the Intel Integrated graphics for most systems is wrong. The fact that Intel decided they would rather sell new product than support the GMA950 products is wrong. Especially when MS has been pushing for the target platform to be computers released in 2005 the whole time.

Almost any NVidia or ATI graphics card (except some of the reeaaallllyyy low end ones) that supports DX9 (PS2.0 and higher) will run Aero. This includes graphics cards released in 2003. I would actually wager to say that with the spread that has developed since XP's release, Vista is far more compatable with a wider spectrum of hardware than XP was when it came out.


Downside is upgrades lead to making it more expensive to purchase.

I really don't see where they pull the "4GB is the sweet spot" number for memory usage. It runs fine on systems with 1GB as long as 1) it doesn't have integrated graphics and 2) you are not trying to run games. Integrated graphics w/ 1GB of ram is fine for office work, but as soon as you try to fire up a game you wind up with an additional 100-200mb of ram allocated just because of textures/geometry/etc. For gaming systems 2GB seems to be the sweet spot for the time being.

20inch or larger LCD screen is also BS. It looks outstanding on the 14.1" LCD in my gimptop. It looks outstanding on the 15" and 17" LCD's my friend has. it looks outstanding on the 17" display my other laptop has. And it always looked awesome on my multimon 17" LCD rig. Which, btw, was being driven by an ATI 9550 256MB card running both displays at 1280x1024 without problem.

Vista being time consuming to install... I did an install of XP again last week and was astounded by how horrendous the install process is in comparisong to Vista's. The same system that took me an hour to set up in Vista took 4 hours in XP.

As far as XP being obsolete... eh. It all depends on what you use it for. Pretty soon here it will be obsolete as vendors start shipping hardware that requires Vista support.

As far as it being the best reason to switch to a Mac yet... most of the logic in there is pretty screwed up too. The learning curve to go to MacOS X from XP is still higher than going from XP to Vista (which really isn't that bad - almost everyone who has used my computer has gotten over the initial confusion pretty quickly without even understanding they were using Vista), you are still stuck with Apple's platform concept, and it still requires a larger investment of money to buy into.

The only point they really bring up is the price. It will not be cheap, unfortunately. Microsoft shouldn't have put Aero Glass as a premium feature since that is the one thing that really makes it look and feel different. It's probably the biggest single ooh-ahh feature that is actually tangible to the average user. Without that it is easily confused (by novice users) as a reskinned version of XP, regardless of all the technical changes.

Anyways, in the same tolken most of the reasons in the article to upgrade are pretty craptacular. Yes, the security tools are enhanced. Yes, it has a better frontend for performance measurments, yes it does have much better searching tools, yes the network front end is a lot nicer for people who travel a lot, yes it has better in-box support for laptops, etc. No, they are not deal breakers. Yes, quite a few are gimmicky. Hell, I actually like Flip3D (mostly because you can click on any window and it will take you straight to it, plus it's easier to cycle through them) and I still think it's a gimmick.

*shrug*

most of the sales will, as always, come from OEM purchases. It will, in time, replace XP. Just like XP replaced 2000/ME. I honestly think that most people have a bad taste in their mouth over XP (why?! it wasn't that bad, even when it was first released. It's like making people give up an old pair of their favorite underwear... sheesh...).

Oh, and btw... the Vista Firewall does actually support two way blocking. It is not enabled by default, but it can be configured for it. I expect that someone will probably release a tool that exposes this funcitonality easily. I honestly don't know if there is anything in place that actually prevents a third party vendor from releasing their own. People say that every time a new release is enabled (WAAH WAAHH WAAAHHH, MICROSOFT CHANGED WINDOWS SO THAT OUR APP CAN'T RUN) when in reality it usually is not the case. I know that in XP and SP2 a lot of changes were targetted towards ensuring developers did not use undocumented and unofficial API calls to implement their products through unsupported paths. Lots of boneheaded mistakes. Good reads on it here and here. Vista continues this trend of closing off unofficial software paths so that it actually helps increase the security of the OS. If it's something a security vendor can use, it's something that can also be exploited.

Funniest debate I remember was back during XP's development. Security vendors were spewing FUD around about how XP allowed a developer to actually use Raw Sockets. Biggest concern was that it would allow people to forge TCP/IP headers of outgoing packets and make it easier to spoof network traffic.

Here's the thing though - there was absolutely nothing preventing malware vendors from implementing their own (limited) TCP/IP stack and binding it to the network card. BOOM. suddenly every layer of security that you had enabled is entirely bypassed. Two way firewalls? Nope. Network activity monitor? nope. Yet this was not the issue. The issue was they enabled a feature for developers and several "security consultants" seized the opportunity to make a name for themselves (Gibson Research Company being the biggest). Even Symantec and the rest got on board with it. Yet none of their products even attempted to cover an alternate attack vector which, considering the complexity of botnets and recent malware attacks, really could be a reality these days.

So Vista looks to stop a lot of that sort of thing. Yes, the security vendors are pissed. So what. they'll get over it and come up with another way to make their money.

Annnyyywayysss... way too rambling...

[Dr Mordrid]

Most any of the eye candy can be had from the usual download sites, so why pay $200 for them?

Same goes for docking tools, sidebars etc etc. etc.

And of course there's the intrusive DRM.

We also use an SPI firewall, and Vista's auto-tuning of incoming TCP windows makes it unable to operate properly with most SPI routers (it sure didn't like ours) including D-Link, Linksys (ours) & Netgear.

Auto-tuning isn't enabled in most routers because M$ hasn't used it before and it's rumored M$ didn't tell the vendors 'til too late. Vista's only been in the works for 5-6 years

IMO the SPI issue is a deal-breaker. Yes, you can set firewall config state=disabled but why should you have to?

Our network is quite secure behind SPI + ZAP and I see no reason to change that by puting all of our security in one basket (Vista). Especially when M$ has coded so many security bugs in the past.

[Brian Ellis]

The fact that vendors settled on the Intel Integrated graphics for most systems is wrong.

That remark is incensing me. The vendors settled on what Intel, as one of the most serious board makers, had on offer. What you say is that Intel should be ruled by MS's board of directors, not their own. In my office computer, which is the one I tested Vista on for many weeks, it has such a graphics system, which works beautifully on XP. It has problems with Vista (and Aero does not work, to boot). And this computer is just 8 months old!!!! Why did Microsoft not write an OS that would work properly with possibly millions of very modern computers? Those boards were there before Vista was even publicly betaed, but MS CHOSE to ignore it. Where I come from, this is called cocking a snook.

[Jessterw]

I've wondered about this for awhile now. How is it possible that MS can create a GUI (Aero) that is incapable of being used on hardware (specifically graphics adapters) that other platforms have no trouble with. To be more clear, how is it that OS X's GUI has been capable of (almost) all that Aero is since its release?

This is not an Apple is better than MS comment either, because I truly believe MS could have easily made Aero run on older hardware. So it either comes down to ineptitude in coding or playing into the wishes of the hardware and system vendors (as in helping generate sales).

[DGhost]

I've wondered about this for awhile now. How is it possible that MS can create a GUI (Aero) that is incapable of being used on hardware (specifically graphics adapters) that other platforms have no trouble with. To be more clear, how is it that OS X's GUI has been capable of (almost) all that Aero is since its release?

This is not an Apple is better than MS comment either, because I truly believe MS could have easily made Aero run on older hardware. So it either comes down to ineptitude in coding or playing into the wishes of the hardware and system vendors (as in helping generate sales).

I honestly think that at some point they faced a choice when it came to programming. Do they flesh out support for the legacy DirectX 8 paths so that it can support older hardware, or do they simplfy the support all around and target it towards DX9Ex and make it far more robust? I'm thinking the answer probably came down to a market penetration question and the answer was based on business not technical reasoning.

That being said... the prevalence of DX9 parts over the last 4 years makes it such that you really would have to be running either a very niche computer to not have one by now, or you would have to be running a really really old one.

Brian - I should mention that I generally also come from the standpoint of video game development/etc. Intel Integrated graphics have completely killed the low end PC's capability to play games. They are still almost directly descended from the i740 graphics core and and still do not play most recent games well. Vertex Shaders are supported only in software, they can barely handle running of legacy applications, and Intel's driver team really doesn't even bother with compatability testing. It's a mess, and it prevents most of the computer market from ever getting involved with mainstream gaming.

I did, in my drunken ramblings, mess at least one thing up with that. The GMA950 is supported under Vista. the GMA900, used in the 910 and 915 family of chipsets, is not. They are functionally almost identical, with the major differences being video processing and not 3D graphics. This is to me perhaps the biggest trouble. They are both DirectX 9/PS2.0 parts. They are very similar in nature. Yet, Intel decided they were not going to support the GMA900 products under Aero Glass and never released drivers. If there was to be any one major graphics card that would bring Aero Glass to the masses, it would be this. Especially the mobile sector. But Intel decided they would rather cash in and sell new chipsets instead of supporting a product that comes installed on like 80-90% of the low end computers that had been sold.

[Brian Ellis]

DG: I haven't the first clue about games, as I never indulge in anything more serious than solitaire. All I know is that my office computer. 8 months old with a fairly upbeat CPU and 1 Gb RAM and an 800 MHz FSB, and occasionally used for video work as an overflow from my video computer works fine on XP Pro, including some very sophisticated ECAD work. I also know it doesn't work fine under Vista, as it stood up to the time I uninstalled it a couple of weeks ago.

I have no figures to substantiate this, but I would guess that more PCs are used by non-gamers than by gamers, including millions of corporate PCs, many of which are probably still using PIII CPUs (or even 486s!) and certainly do not have sophisticated graphics cards. I honestly cannot believe that these are all going to be replaced so that a new OS can be run, which offers no advantage for their users. To illustrate this, just think how many corps are still running NT4 on their networks (often with only 32 or 64 Mb RAM). Office workers cannot type faster with a fancy OS and the VR in Vista Ultimate is primitive to the extent that it is unsuitable for a business environment, compared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which will run happily on W2K and WXP (with a 1.8 GHz CPU and 512 Gb RAM) but not on WVU (I did get it working using XP emulation, but with some features not available).

For the anecdote, a computer in a large commercial enterprise with branches all over the island on a private WAN crashed while I was there the other day. I would guestimate they have between 500 and 1000 workstations, island-wide. All the computers (probably about 30) I could see in the office which I was visiting were desktop types with 14" CRT monitors sitting on top of them. My interlocutor rebooted in my presence and I was quite surprised to see that this company was running W98. I asked whether this was usual and he replied that all the computers in all the branches were the same. Can you imagine them changing to Vista?

[schmosef]

Brian, don't forget that you were using a release candidate of Vista, with incomplete drivers too boot.

I'm sure that Intel will release a full driver for your video chipset eventually. And it may not support Aero. But why would it need to? Aero is intended for enthusiast level high end PCs, to compete with OSX in the "wow" factor, not business class PCs, which don't need the frills, but do need the improved stability, etc.