Diminishing Returns from More Technology

[wwswimming]

it's been a while since i had a major computer hassle.

from the sound of it, not many people are enjoying their new Vista, and for about 1% of them, it is a nightmare - a time-consuming nightmare.

before anyone gets the idea that i'm a Luddite - i worked as a design engineer in Silicon Valley & San Diego from about 1980 to 2004. if we count Lego Bricks & slot cars ... let's just say i'm not anti-technology.

i've been a major fan of Windows since i was learning to program Visual Basic 5 running with Windows 95 (on an AMD K-166), in about 1997.

XP works great. maybe Microsoft did too good of a job ? i have a flash drive interface that plugs into a USB port. on Windows 2000, i needed to futz with drivers. XP recognizes it; i like that.

as far as i can tell, the only reasons to upgrade to Vista are -
* for fun. i'm sure it's fun for some people.
* for professional reasons. if you work in IT, you need to be Vista-literate, because you will be called on to do tech support for Vista machines (unless you work in an organization that has made a decision to stick with XP).
* you have stock in Microsoft or your company's retirement plan has stock in Microsoft. maybe not the best reason but a real & legitimate reason.

having worked as an engineering manager at times in my career, i can't imagine threatening a tight R&D schedule by upgrading to Vista. working on a complex R&D project with a group of people can be a LOT of fun, an example being a microwave radio, several of which i have had the pleasure to work on. and it can be fun if a tight schedule with seemingly impossible design goals are attached.

but ... normally ... you want to get out the door at 5:30 so you can go to the gym, or go home to the family. having had the experience of having to stay late & work weekends to keep a schedule commitment, i can't imagine adding an additional unknown to the process.

"Mommy, why isn't Daddy watching Meet the Press today?" "he's at the office, dear." "at 8 AM on a Sunday ?" "they upgraded to Vista, dear, and you know Daddy likes tight schedules".

at some point, people do benefit from asking, "is this additional technology really helping us?"

i think XP is great. everything i am hearing about Vista leaves me with the feeling, "God almighty, why "upgrade", unless i want to be taking the Lord's name in vain ?"

circa February 2007, Vista is NOT an upgrade. it is a downgrade. i'm glad to hear MS will be supporting XP till about 2011.

 

[loup garou]

from the sound of it, not many people are enjoying their new Vista

A few people keep saying this (usually with no personal experience with Vista), but I keep reading majority positive posts from people using Vista.

Anyways, you didn't read the sticky, expect the lock.

And just because I'm bored and managed to pick out a crumb of a point to your rambling rant, I'll address it. Vista's search, start menu, speed of oft-used applications, excellent event viewer, improved Task Manager, Shadow Copies, Meeting Space, user folders that make sense (no more Documents and Settings!), excellent Explorer refinements (favorite folders, breadcrumb bar), system-imaging backup utility, builtin on the fly partitioning, simplified setup and excellent recovery/repair options, network profiles and all-around improved network management, improved Media Center, Photo Gallery, improved security, aesthetically pleasing interface (even non-Aero), and the internet-connected and impressively relevant Help tool are good reasons for "downgrading."

 

[srp49ers]

Im completely loving vista right now, the more I use it the more underlying, positive changes I find

 

[Don66]

My question is this??

How long did it take for XP to become the end of all os's for you:laugh:

 

[Piuc2020]

Vista made my computing experience more pleasant and easier during the 2 months I've been using it.

It is a great system.

 

[InlineFive]

Where did you get that information? I already love the major Vista features without starting to delve into the back-end.

 

[sam509]

I enjoy Vista? no problems at all.

You appear to be a luddite, only a luddite could make such sweeping generalizations without having even tried Vista? ? and everyone knows you don?t upgrade mission critical machines the first week a OS is released so what is your point.

You saw the exact same type post when XP was released comparing it to W2K? hell you still see it from some hard core W2K luddites

Only someone who has not used Vista would label it a downgrade

 

[Markbnj]

I don't get the point of this post. You haven't had a major computing hassle for some time, and.... what? This is it? The fact that you think maybe there isn't much worth upgrading for in Vista? Why don't you actually try it and then post on your experience? I think that would be more valuable.

 

[Shawn]

I :heart: Vista.

 

[bsobel]

circa February 2007, Vista is NOT an upgrade. it is a downgrade. i'm glad to hear MS will be supporting XP till about 2011.

Great, here is a guy who hasn't run the OS but suddenly thinks anyone cares about his opinion.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Don66
My question is this??

How long did it take for XP to become the end of all os's for you:laugh:

Exactly. I remember reading these same posts from people saying they're not going to go to XP because all the games are on 98 anyways, and support will be crap in XP. And the others saying XP is bloated compared to W2K.

Personally, my beta experience with Vista has been far far better than my beta with XP. It's been much more stable, and there is a significant difference from XP, moreso than XP was from W2K.

There are many things i like about each OS i use, and i've stated them many times before, so i won't do so again. But Vista is a very much needed upgrade from XP, even if all you do is browse the internet and do emails (ie the security is much better in Vista than any previous version of Windows).

But some hidden gems i like right now that a lot of people seem to have missed, is things like how well it integrates with the 360. Or the voice recognition in Vista. My god, this is literally sci-fi level voice recognition here. I am 100% serious when i say i can not only dictate faster than i type, but MORE ACCURATELY THAN I TYPE!!! And i'm a pretty damn good typer (100+ wpm).

If this is what we're seeing today, i can't wait to see what the world and Windows (and all the other OSes like OSX and Ubuntu/Beryl) will look like 5 years from now.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Don66
My question is this??

How long did it take for XP to become the end of all os's for you:laugh:

Exactly. I remember reading these same posts from people saying they're not going to go to XP because all the games are on 98 anyways, and support will be crap in XP. And the others saying XP is bloated compared to W2K.

Personally, my beta experience with Vista has been far far better than my beta with XP. It's been much more stable, and there is a significant difference from XP, moreso than XP was from W2K.

There are many things i like about each OS i use, and i've stated them many times before, so i won't do so again. But Vista is a very much needed upgrade from XP, even if all you do is browse the internet and do emails (ie the security is much better in Vista than any previous version of Windows).

But some hidden gems i like right now that a lot of people seem to have missed, is things like how well it integrates with the 360. Or the voice recognition in Vista. My god, this is literally sci-fi level voice recognition here. I am 100% serious when i say i can not only dictate faster than i type, but MORE ACCURATELY THAN I TYPE!!! And i'm a pretty damn good typer (100+ wpm).

If this is what we're seeing today, i can't wait to see what the world and Windows (and all the other OSes like OSX and Ubuntu/Beryl) will look like 5 years from now.

I would love to try the voice recognition if Vista would recognize my damn BT headset...one of my few gripes with Vista. :|

 

[Looney]

Well, you really need a good headset (mic really) for voice recognition. I don't think the average BT headset mic reaches the corner of the mouth well enough for good voice recognition. I suggest picking up a good USB headset and giving it a go. My plan is to actually go completely keyboard free for my HTPC, and get a good quality mic (like the ones used for karaoke or singing, etc) and go 100% voice recognition. I'm already wowing people with what i'm doing on my laptop, if i set that up on my HTPC for my HDTV or front projector. i think it's going to blow the socks of people's feet. I'm just contemplating right now on whether to go Home or Ultimate (or waiting for a steal on Ultimate).

 

[TJones2]

I'm not moving to Vista because I'm tired of having to do it on Microsoft's increasingly restrictive terms.

 

[MrUniq]

This is accurate. I remember when XP came out. It was a bear finding the right drivers, my Compaq barely ran it, my GPU (3dfx) was bunk, and everyone was clinging to 2000 or 98. I installed Vista..it downloaded and installed drivers for all of my hardware..I never seen that happen before. It runs just as good as XP for me. So I think it's more comparable to windows 98 vs 95. In one week I'm already beginning to use XP less, in a few months I'm sure will have migrated fully.

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Don66
My question is this??

How long did it take for XP to become the end of all os's for you:laugh:

Exactly. I remember reading these same posts from people saying they're not going to go to XP because all the games are on 98 anyways, and support will be crap in XP. And the others saying XP is bloated compared to W2K.

Personally, my beta experience with Vista has been far far better than my beta with XP. It's been much more stable, and there is a significant difference from XP, moreso than XP was from W2K.

There are many things i like about each OS i use, and i've stated them many times before, so i won't do so again. But Vista is a very much needed upgrade from XP, even if all you do is browse the internet and do emails (ie the security is much better in Vista than any previous version of Windows).

But some hidden gems i like right now that a lot of people seem to have missed, is things like how well it integrates with the 360. Or the voice recognition in Vista. My god, this is literally sci-fi level voice recognition here. I am 100% serious when i say i can not only dictate faster than i type, but MORE ACCURATELY THAN I TYPE!!! And i'm a pretty damn good typer (100+ wpm).

If this is what we're seeing today, i can't wait to see what the world and Windows (and all the other OSes like OSX and Ubuntu/Beryl) will look like 5 years from now.

 

[wwswimming]

for reference, Wolfgang Gruener's description of his upgrade experience, entitled, "A Vista upgrade nightmare".

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/01/opinion_vista_upgrade/

his experience with Vista does not sound like an upgrade.

some of you appear to be taking my comments very personally. if i saw a post saying, "XP not, I'm sticking with Windows 2000 Professional", i could care less. so why do you guys care if someone takes a wait and see approach to Vista, and broaches the subject of diminishing returns from more technology ?

you're behaving as if my post threatens your survival. it's not normal for a person to experience raised epinephrine levels (gets upset) because someone questions a new OS, based on a few articles.

my guess is that some of the people that posted have a financial interest in quashing conversation about Vista upgrade problems.

all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
for reference, Wolfgang Gruener's description of his upgrade experience, entitled, "A Vista upgrade nightmare".

And we can reference just as many articles saying the reverse. You have no first hand knowledge, your not asking a question, it's clear from your post your just here to troll.

 

[stash]

all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

I think what people are saying is that two anecdotes does not make something fact.

 

[Tegeril]

LOL Geek Squad warning.

 

[blackangst1]

Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

 

[sam509]

Originally posted by: wwswimming

for reference, Wolfgang Gruener's description of his upgrade experience, entitled, "A Vista upgrade nightmare".

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/01/opinion_vista_upgrade/

his experience with Vista does not sound like an upgrade.

some of you appear to be taking my comments very personally. if i saw a post saying, "XP not, I'm sticking with Windows 2000 Professional", i could care less. so why do you guys care if someone takes a wait and see approach to Vista, and broaches the subject of diminishing returns from more technology ?

you're behaving as if my post threatens your survival. it's not normal for a person to experience raised epinephrine levels (gets upset) because someone questions a new OS, based on a few articles.

my guess is that some of the people that posted have a financial interest in quashing conversation about Vista upgrade problems.

all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

You don?t know anything as you have not done a actual install or upgrade? you are parroting what you think other people know? I like to actually find things out for myself and I have found Vista solid, easy to install and stable.

If you are not up to handling an OS upgrade fine, nobody is making you do anything but why all the disinformation when you don?t really know anything? sounds like you have an agenda especially when you post silly crap like.

my guess is that some of the people that posted have a financial interest in quashing conversation about Vista upgrade problems.

That kind of obfuscating language is classic trolling fare used when you have no real knowledge to back up the argument one puts forth? and then there is the Geek Squad, boy howdy that gets you a lot of credibility points.

 

[cockeyed]

I've been running Vista dual boot with XP for about a week now. Xp has worked great for me, but Vista is my preference. Sure, I needed a few new drivers and software changes, but I think it is worth the effort. When XP came out, I heard all the bad things being said and I held onto 98SE as long as I could. When I finally reluctantly went to XP, I was amazed by how good it was and was sorry that I didn't use it sooner.

 

[Griffinhart]

XP is great. It's stable, it's the most supported OS out there at the moment, and it get's the job done. That said, so far I'm finding Vista superior.

I've always been an early adopter of Operating systems. I ran Windows 2000 when it was new and had very little gaming support. I ran XP from day one. Win2k had far more compatibility headaches than Vista. Vista and XP seem to be on par in that reguard. At this point, I see no reason to revert to XP on my primary machine.

For me, XP was better than Win2K for a lot of the more subtle features. It was easier to do home networking for example. With Vista, at least the ultimate version, there are tons of things I like about it over XP. Shadow Copy/previous versions, I like the new UI better, search, Media Center etc...

Windows 2K was a huge leap over Win9x. XP was a nice upgrade, but not anywhere near the same. There are definately more changes in Vista over XP than XP over Win2K.

As of right now, I am very happy with my Vista install. I have figured out most of the compatability problems and things are working extremely well. As drivers and software are patched and new software released, it's only going to get better.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: bsobel

circa February 2007, Vista is NOT an upgrade. it is a downgrade. i'm glad to hear MS will be supporting XP till about 2011.

Great, here is a guy who hasn't run the OS but suddenly thinks anyone cares about his opinion.

Put it in the same category as all of the Win2k users when WinXP came out.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: wwswimming

for reference, Wolfgang Gruener's description of his upgrade experience, entitled, "A Vista upgrade nightmare".

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/01/opinion_vista_upgrade/

his experience with Vista does not sound like an upgrade.

some of you appear to be taking my comments very personally. if i saw a post saying, "XP not, I'm sticking with Windows 2000 Professional", i could care less. so why do you guys care if someone takes a wait and see approach to Vista, and broaches the subject of diminishing returns from more technology ?

you're behaving as if my post threatens your survival. it's not normal for a person to experience raised epinephrine levels (gets upset) because someone questions a new OS, based on a few articles.

my guess is that some of the people that posted have a financial interest in quashing conversation about Vista upgrade problems.

all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

And here's an article from Cult of Mac on how much he loves Vista: http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/2007/01/running_vista_o.html