Don´t you just love cutting edge technology?

[Boyo]

All I know is that it will be a good year before I will make the swtich to Vista. The people who run out and get it on its first release will be the guinnea pigs for MS.

 

[Tsuwamono]

Originally posted by: cRazYdood
Face it, vista isn't ready. Would you rather have Microsoft release an unfinished product?

And enough with the crap about windows being unstable and virus friendly. If you have an unstable infested Windows machine, YOU are doing something wrong.

Vista will be garbage if its finished or not lol. They took out all the good features and now its basicly a system hog version of Windows XP.

 

[letdown427]

Unfortunately, we who can use PCs are not the majority. We are a small little minority, and so MS has to make their OS as friendly as possible, so Joe "Thick As Sh!t" Public can work it. They just have to.

Let's say MS released a clone of Linux, they bought the legal system and so avoided copyright nonsense, and just branded it Windows 2006. It would be the most dismal failure. Probably about 95% of customers simply would not be able to use it at all, and another 4% would have to spend months getting it to work, whilst about 1% would be happy.

Then, suddenly, let's assume that everyone magically learnt how to use it, and it was the standard OS around the world. Oh, now every hacker on Earth will focus their attention on hacking it to pieces, and suddenly it wouldn't be secure anymore.

Yes Microsoft are damn annoying, their software can be staggeringly infuriating, and yes, I too felt XP was just 2k+bloat and more colours on buttons, but Microsoft have to do that to stay in business. It's the fault of the 'average user' that MS operating systems are so damn annoying.

Also, if you sort out a PC running 2k or XP, with decent AntiVirus software, a software/hardware firewall, the usual smattering of anti-spyware etc programs, and use an ounce of vigilance when clicking stuff on the internet, I really don't think you'll run into all of these problems. I for one don't. Setting those things up is a one-time thing, they update themselves, you schedule them to run every so often, you're sorted.

That's my .02 anyway.

 

[xtknight]

The problem is they are always catering to new users and every time old-timers have to reinstall the OS we're bombarded by 'wanna take a tour?' No, I don't want to take a tour. I use Ubuntu now and I'm not a gamer anymore so it's great for me. The only reason I'd consider ever booting Windows again is for gaming. I use Windows under VMware for my work. WINE just isn't good enough for most things. Once they get good 3D acceleration working under VMware I'd have absolutely no reason to boot Windows on my physical hardware. I've gotten my friend to switch to Ubuntu as well. A little rough at first, but wow did he pick it up fast and realize the freedom.

 

[Jeff7]

I'd sooner have an OS that works for a long time, rather than have to buy a new $100+ OS every 2 years. Or $200 would probably be more accurate. WinXP is cheaper now because in part of OEM versions on the market, or perhaps because of some people moving to the 64-bit version. Retail price for WinXP Pro is still over $200. I'm just glad that they are still supporting it and patching it. Some things about Microsoft's monopoly powers do suck, but things could be worse - imagine a $50 per Service Pack charge.

 

[Boyo]

Originally posted by: letdown427
Unfortunately, we who can use PCs are not the majority. We are a small little minority, and so MS has to make their OS as friendly as possible, so Joe "Thick As Sh!t" Public can work it. They just have to.

Let's say MS released a clone of Linux, they bought the legal system and so avoided copyright nonsense, and just branded it Windows 2006. It would be the most dismal failure. Probably about 95% of customers simply would not be able to use it at all, and another 4% would have to spend months getting it to work, whilst about 1% would be happy.

Then, suddenly, let's assume that everyone magically learnt how to use it, and it was the standard OS around the world. Oh, now every hacker on Earth will focus their attention on hacking it to pieces, and suddenly it wouldn't be secure anymore.

Yes Microsoft are damn annoying, their software can be staggeringly infuriating, and yes, I too felt XP was just 2k+bloat and more colours on buttons, but Microsoft have to do that to stay in business. It's the fault of the 'average user' that MS operating systems are so damn annoying.

Also, if you sort out a PC running 2k or XP, with decent AntiVirus software, a software/hardware firewall, the usual smattering of anti-spyware etc programs, and use an ounce of vigilance when clicking stuff on the internet, I really don't think you'll run into all of these problems. I for one don't. Setting those things up is a one-time thing, they update themselves, you schedule them to run every so often, you're sorted.

That's my .02 anyway.

That's pretty much the truth. It has to appeal to the mass market and unfortunately most of those people are not very PC knowledgable. I have a friend who has had his Dell for 3 years now and I just found out he has never once run the disk defragmenter. He didn't know what it was or what it did. I had to go over there and download a trial version of Perfect disk to get it straight. That HD has seen better days, but that's an example of the mass market.

 

[herm0016]

i have yet to have a virus or a major lock up on my xp machine.... a little adware once in a while.. and it runs 24/7 gets rebooted less than once a week. still dont have problems. how are all of you that think you know so much haveing so many problems? anyone with a brain will see that its the bigest so it will get attacked more. so plan acordingly. i only use the firewall built into my mb and symantec enterprise. nothing fancy.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Zinthar
The fact is that Microsoft has fallen behind...WAY behind in the innovation game. Now when Vista is released early next year, it will ALMOST be able match the feature set (albeit with about 4 million more little warning windows popping up to make sure you dont destroy your PC every 2 mins) of Tiger. Microsoft is living off the fact that Windows is the defacto OS for the average Joe and corporation. Everything that was supposed to set Windows Vista apart from the competition was cut over the years.

I think the problem is that Microsoft is afraid of confusing the average PC user by changing too much of their OS, and so its left in the dust by Linux and Mac OSX, OS's who benefit from the fact that their average user is far more technologically competent.

That said, I'm building a gaming PC that will inevitably have to run...Windows. I plan on finding a good alt.shell to fix the XP experience though.

Microsoft has *always* been behind. Macs, Atari's, and Amiga's had awesome Windows-like OS's way back near 10 years before Win95 came out. The only thing Microsoft has ever had(and still does) is Market Dominance.

 

[soydios]

I've been running Windows XP on this machine for four years now with absolutely no spyware, adware, viruses, buges, worms, trojans, or other malware. And all I had to do was think for 3 seconds before clicking suspicious links or the Accept button. I've never even had to do a reinstall of the OS.

And, AFAIK, Vista has less overhead, at least for games. Looking at the OP's rant, I'm guessing you run a Mac. If so, I got news for you: OS X has far more overhead than Windows XP.

 

[Tweak155]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I'd sooner have an OS that works for a long time, rather than have to buy a new $100+ OS every 2 years. Or $200 would probably be more accurate. WinXP is cheaper now because in part of OEM versions on the market, or perhaps because of some people moving to the 64-bit version. Retail price for WinXP Pro is still over $200. I'm just glad that they are still supporting it and patching it. Some things about Microsoft's monopoly powers do suck, but things could be worse - imagine a $50 per Service Pack charge.

Shhh! Don't give them ideas!

I second this post, though. We already pay enough to keep our hardware up-to-date...why are you so pressed to spend more money in shorter time frames?

Hail to XP from here.

 

[El Greco]

I´m glad most of you are happy with XP.

I´m not so sure that XP has less overhead than OSX, especially when you have added all these necessary security things like firewall, virus protection and spyware protection.

I´ve always noticed that a fresh XP install performs much better than the older onces, even though you haven´t installed alot of junkware. I haven´t experienced the same thing in Linux or MacOSX.

Yes, I´ve been using OSX lately but I´m switching back since Apple hardware is the most junk hardware you can buy. It was the best some years ago, but today it´s just terrible and nothing but trouble....and not upgradeble like a PC.

My solution is just to have the XP offline so it can be as light as possible and use Linux for what it can be used for.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I love XP. I have no issues, and with a decent firewall (ZoneAlarm) and anti-virus (AVG free) I'm protected against the nasties

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: El Greco
I´m glad most of you are happy with XP.

I´m not so sure that XP has less overhead than OSX, especially when you have added all these necessary security things like firewall, virus protection and spyware protection.

I´ve always noticed that a fresh XP install performs much better than the older onces, even though you haven´t installed alot of junkware. I haven´t experienced the same thing in Linux or MacOSX.

Yes, I´ve been using OSX lately but I´m switching back since Apple hardware is the most junk hardware you can buy. It was the best some years ago, but today it´s just terrible and nothing but trouble....and not upgradeble like a PC.

My solution is just to have the XP offline so it can be as light as possible and use Linux for what it can be used for.

ABM?

You are confusing a Shell with an OS.

 

[jose]

Too bad you don't like XP, because even when Vista comes out you'd be foolish to use it till it has a couple of service packs.

 

[grant2]

To paraphrase churchhill: "Windows XP is worse than every OS which is not yet written"

If XP is ruining your life so much then go ahead and run something else!

 

[George Powell]

I would rather MS spent longer gettin Vista right than releasing it early and it being wrong.

Win XP is not a bad operating system for most of its users, not like Win Me was a bad operating system.

I agree that MacOSX is good. In fact if I could run all my games and the rest of my software on it I would use it on my main system, but I can't so I don't.