Why do people hate Vista?

[Arkaign]

Heh, I remember some of that with XP, but it wasn't nearly to the same extent with run-of-the-mill hardware. I mean, take basically any chipset/video card/sound card/modem from the old days, and load XP on the system, and it will work. Anything from ancient S3 PCI video cards to Opti Sound Cards to 14.4 modems, it all just worked 99% of the time. With Vista, we're seeing a lot of unsupported hardware that is common, like the NF2 chipset, common creative soundcards, etc. Peripherals I have a lot more leniency on their lack of support, but common hardware is a different issue. It's a little rough to have hardware that was purchased in the year before that doesn't work right or work at all under Vista. Of course, those people should just stick with XP until they can afford replacement hardware that works under Vista. The stuff doesn't cost that much anyway, though I can understand the frustration.

One nod to Vista here amidst the complaints, had a weird external USB modem that XP didn't have drivers for, Vista picked it right up and went to town. Good stuff.

Anyway, reading back and forth on our posts, we're pretty much on the same page, I think we're both pragmatic about the situation, and neither one of us could be considered a fanboy or a luddite.

Cheers, Ark

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Smilin
hehe opinions are not right or wrong...but only to a certain point.

They wouldn't sell headcheese and pickled pigs feet in the grocery if someone didn't think they were tasty but if you ask me to respect someone's opinion on that tastiness you're not going to get it. That sh1t is nasty! naasss-teee! If you like it you are *wrong*. The best you'll get from me is that I'll withhold my opinion on the matter. If you happen to ask me I'm gonna tell you.


Stuff to ponder:

1. For those on the "XP" side of this argument: What is your internal and unspoken opinion of people who cling to Windows 98 and Windows 2000? Seriously, think about what you think of them. I'm sure if your opinion is negative you are polite enough to withhold it but think about it.

2. For those on the "Vista" side of this argument: Is link19's opinion right or wrong or is there *really* no such thing as a right or wrong opinion?


in conclussion... I have an opinion of your opinion but I'm not going to share it. I'll just say I disagree and leave it at that. If you do the same then I think we'll have agreed to disagree and all will be well



note: If you don't know who link19 is (he's not in this thread) then add one to your total when counting your blessings. Link is the ultimate in old-OS bashers.

Heh, I still have win2k on one of my machine, so I guess you'd see why I cling to the past. But I think win2k/xp (they are essentially the same) were huge step up from win98/ME, and brought MS from a child's OS to a professional OS. So I didn't mind so much the incompatibility and I jump to 2k the first chance I got.

Vista to me only improves on UI and a few peripheral architecture like the Internet Protocol, audio/video stack etc. I don't think there were too much changes to the kernal/OS architecture. Some of the changes were changes for worse, in my opinion, like more restrictive digital right management stuff, and don't get me started on the whole audio stuff that made me go through hell to get my creative x-fi to work. Because there were not much improvement on the fundamental OS/Kernal architecture, and the rest of the update didn't add value to my computing needs, I don't feel the pain to go through upgrade worth the effort.

But you are right, everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you like Vista, it's your money so definitely go for it. But just don't start a topic asking why people "hate" it like people don't have the right to not like Vista.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Smilin1. For those on the "XP" side of this argument: What is your internal and unspoken opinion of people who cling to Windows 98 and Windows 2000? Seriously, think about what you think of them. I'm sure if your opinion is negative you are polite enough to withhold it but think about it.

I guess I fall here

I don't see any problem with Win2K as long as it does what someone needs.
It's still supported, right?(Yeah, honest question, I don't keep track of the support cycles that well).
If so, you're just using an old, but still supported OS, and Win2K really is a fine OS, just outdated with regards to hardware support, features, etc, but as long as it does what someone needs...

Win98 is unsupported as far as I know?
Meaning, no security fixes, etc etc, that's a very good reason not to use it.
It's also a pile of crap in many ways, no file system security(well, no proper file system at all in fact), crash prone, bad memory management, poor "userland"(no task manager, disk management, etc).
But then again, if someone doesn't mind crashes now and then, etc etc, by all means, what really does it in is the lack of support.

Kinda like me and my car come to think of it.
I drive a Saab 900, it's not that old(-95), but it's got quite a few kilometres on it, and it's starting to show.
The A/C can't cool, the gearbox requires some..."special skill", it's starting to rust, the hand brake isn't very good(have to have it tuned up now and then, cheap enough that I don't care that much though), transmission probably won't last much longer, etc.
I've been thinking about buying myself a nice BWM, it's quite tempting, but I just can't motivate myself enough to go forth with it as long as the ole Saab gets me to work every day.

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Heh, I remember some of that with XP, but it wasn't nearly to the same extent with run-of-the-mill hardware. I mean, take basically any chipset/video card/sound card/modem from the old days, and load XP on the system, and it will work. Anything from ancient S3 PCI video cards to Opti Sound Cards to 14.4 modems, it all just worked 99% of the time. With Vista, we're seeing a lot of unsupported hardware that is common, like the NF2 chipset, common creative soundcards, etc. Peripherals I have a lot more leniency on their lack of support, but common hardware is a different issue. It's a little rough to have hardware that was purchased in the year before that doesn't work right or work at all under Vista. Of course, those people should just stick with XP until they can afford replacement hardware that works under Vista. The stuff doesn't cost that much anyway, though I can understand the frustration.

One nod to Vista here amidst the complaints, had a weird external USB modem that XP didn't have drivers for, Vista picked it right up and went to town. Good stuff.

Anyway, reading back and forth on our posts, we're pretty much on the same page, I think we're both pragmatic about the situation, and neither one of us could be considered a fanboy or a luddite.

Cheers, Ark

Right, I agree that it sucks if your not to old device doesn't work with your new OS. But that's life with PC's, people also get mad when they buy new hardware and something new comes out the next month that doubles the performance for the same price.

There were defiantly a few issues with hardware that came out in early 2007 that said "Vista Ready" on the box, but for instance wouldn't even have a Vista driver included. But we can't blame Vista for that, MS makes the OS, it's the hardware manufacturers responsibility to write drivers and software that will work with it. It's the hardware manufacturer who deceived you by putting "Vista Ready" on the box even though it didn't work yet.

Once again it really depends on your hardware, and the software that you must use, whether or not to use Vista. MS has a tool called the "Vista Compatibility Wizard", I'm sure everyone's heard of it before, it's been around for a year now. If you are thinking of upgrading to Vista with your older hardware/software run this wizard first.

If you are building a new system today with new parts I no good reason not to use Vista, even 64bit as 4GB RAM will be necessary sooner than you think if you're a gamer. See this brand new article on the main page about Supreme Commander already hitting the 32bit addressing limit.

If you're buying an OEM, not that anybody here would do that, be careful of the system specs, Vista sucks on low-end machines. If I were writing the minimum specs for Vista I would have said minimum Core2Duo or Athlon FX CPU, 1GB RAM, Nvidia 7600 or ATI 1650, 7200rpm SATA HDD. If you try to put it on anything less it may work, but you won't like it.

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Smilin1. For those on the "XP" side of this argument: What is your internal and unspoken opinion of people who cling to Windows 98 and Windows 2000? Seriously, think about what you think of them. I'm sure if your opinion is negative you are polite enough to withhold it but think about it.

I guess I fall here

I don't see any problem with Win2K as long as it does what someone needs.
It's still supported, right?(Yeah, honest question, I don't keep track of the support cycles that well).
If so, you're just using an old, but still supported OS, and Win2K really is a fine OS, just outdated with regards to hardware support, features, etc, but as long as it does what someone needs...

Win98 is unsupported as far as I know?
Meaning, no security fixes, etc etc, that's a very good reason not to use it.
It's also a pile of crap in many ways, no file system security(well, no proper file system at all in fact), crash prone, bad memory management, poor "userland"(no task manager, disk management, etc).
But then again, if someone doesn't mind crashes now and then, etc etc, by all means, what really does it in is the lack of support.

Kinda like me and my car come to think of it.
I drive a Saab 900, it's not that old(-95), but it's got quite a few kilometres on it, and it's starting to show.
The A/C can't cool, the gearbox requires some..."special skill", it's starting to rust, the hand brake isn't very good(have to have it tuned up now and then, cheap enough that I don't care that much though), transmission probably won't last much longer, etc.
I've been thinking about buying myself a nice BWM, it's quite tempting, but I just can't motivate myself enough to go forth with it as long as the ole Saab gets me to work every day.

You are correct, your OS should do what you need it to, If you are running a web server I would not advise running it on Vista for example, but on a UNIX box instead. But I don't suggest you use UNIX for your desktop, or try to run Supreme Commander on it. C'mon, that's a pretty basic argument there.

There are still lots of good reasons to use XP, but I can not come up with a good reason to use anything previous to that on your personal desktop. As per your questions, Windows 2000 active support ended two weeks ago, extended support will last until 2010. This means that many companies will now start to ignore Windows 2000.

Winodws 98 supported ended quite a while ago. I've been told, don't know if it's true or not that if you connect a Windows 98 PC to the internet these days it will be completely screwed up with virues/malware before you know what hit you.

But hanging on to old technology just because you're afraid of change doesn't make sense. What if you were holding on to your 8-Track player in your Saab just because you didn't need the new technology and you liked all your old music and didn't need anything new. But then I showed you a 30GB mp3 player with digital surround sound and all your old hits remastered for a small fee, you don't think it would be worth it? Would it be too flashy, it doesn't need to look nice? Or perhaps it would be too complicated and the learning curve would be too great, are you afraid?

You may think the new features are not necessary, but once you get used to them you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. You sound as though you are just resistant to change Sunner.

 

[StopSign]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Kinda like me and my car come to think of it.
I drive a Saab 900, it's not that old(-95), but it's got quite a few kilometres on it, and it's starting to show.
The A/C can't cool, the gearbox requires some..."special skill", it's starting to rust, the hand brake isn't very good(have to have it tuned up now and then, cheap enough that I don't care that much though), transmission probably won't last much longer, etc.
I've been thinking about buying myself a nice BWM, it's quite tempting, but I just can't motivate myself enough to go forth with it as long as the ole Saab gets me to work every day.

You can't compare an OS to a car. The fundamental function of a car is to get you from point A to point B. No more, no less. Normally, you start at point A, 10 minutes later you arrive at point B, then you're completely done with the car. That's why I drive a 1990 Corolla. It's crap, but it does what needs to be done.

Operating systems are a lot more complicated. Sure, you can argue that XP does what you need it to do, and it "just works." I can't argue with that, but Vista does everything XP can do, and it does it more efficiently. Why do people who like Vista, like Vista? What is their reason? From a logical perspective, if it offers no improvements over XP, then why do they prefer Vista? If it's just XP with Vista Transform Pack slapped on, then why even bother going for the real thing? It doesn't make sense. There has to be some improvements that put it ahead of XP. Whether you want to discover these improvements for yourself or not is another issue altogether. You can choose to avoid Vista simply for the sake of avoiding it, or you can invest some time in adapting to a more modern OS.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Smilin1. For those on the "XP" side of this argument: What is your internal and unspoken opinion of people who cling to Windows 98 and Windows 2000? Seriously, think about what you think of them. I'm sure if your opinion is negative you are polite enough to withhold it but think about it.

I guess I fall here

I don't see any problem with Win2K as long as it does what someone needs.
It's still supported, right?(Yeah, honest question, I don't keep track of the support cycles that well).
If so, you're just using an old, but still supported OS, and Win2K really is a fine OS, just outdated with regards to hardware support, features, etc, but as long as it does what someone needs...

Win98 is unsupported as far as I know?
Meaning, no security fixes, etc etc, that's a very good reason not to use it.
It's also a pile of crap in many ways, no file system security(well, no proper file system at all in fact), crash prone, bad memory management, poor "userland"(no task manager, disk management, etc).
But then again, if someone doesn't mind crashes now and then, etc etc, by all means, what really does it in is the lack of support.

Kinda like me and my car come to think of it.
I drive a Saab 900, it's not that old(-95), but it's got quite a few kilometres on it, and it's starting to show.
The A/C can't cool, the gearbox requires some..."special skill", it's starting to rust, the hand brake isn't very good(have to have it tuned up now and then, cheap enough that I don't care that much though), transmission probably won't last much longer, etc.
I've been thinking about buying myself a nice BWM, it's quite tempting, but I just can't motivate myself enough to go forth with it as long as the ole Saab gets me to work every day.

You are correct, your OS should do what you need it to, If you are running a web server I would not advise running it on Vista for example, but on a UNIX box instead. But I don't suggest you use UNIX for your desktop, or try to run Supreme Commander on it. C'mon, that's a pretty basic argument there.

There are still lots of good reasons to use XP, but I can not come up with a good reason to use anything previous to that on your personal desktop. As per your questions, Windows 2000 active support ended two weeks ago, extended support will last until 2010. This means that many companies will now start to ignore Windows 2000.

Winodws 98 supported ended quite a while ago. I've been told, don't know if it's true or not that if you connect a Windows 98 PC to the internet these days it will be completely screwed up with virues/malware before you know what hit you.

But hanging on to old technology just because you're afraid of change doesn't make sense. What if you were holding on to your 8-Track player in your Saab just because you didn't need the new technology and you liked all your old music and didn't need anything new. But then I showed you a 30GB mp3 player with digital surround sound and all your old hits remastered for a small fee, you don't think it would be worth it? Would it be too flashy, it doesn't need to look nice? Or perhaps it would be too complicated and the learning curve would be too great, are you afraid?

You may think the new features are not necessary, but once you get used to them you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. You sound as though you are just resistant to change Sunner.

Dude, there you go again. Features that maybe useful to you maybe not be useful to everyone else, and it's not because others are resistant to change, it's just because we all do things differently. Take your mp3 player and digital surround sound for example. Why do I care about your mp3 player with digital surround sound remastered when I invested in thousands (maybe tens of thousands) in tube amp/receiver/cd player with high end speakers? I don't care about your system not because it's too flashy (tube is much flashier ), not because it's too complicated, my system, while old tech, will kick any new technology on the market. There are many ways to use an OS, and if I want to do specific task, like remastering music, or security, or firewall, or web browsing, or file indexing, copying dvd anything you name it, there will be many 3rd party stuff out there that I can pick and choose, that will do what I want better than what MS can offer in their OS any day of the week. I don't need an OS to give me a generic solution that is designed to meet 80% of user need out there. It's not because I don't wanna learn or resistant to change, it's because I like the freedom and I like to do stuff my way.

 

[Cutthroat]

I didn't say for instance that you had a $10,000 Analog sound system, I was comparing to an 8-Track Player, perhaps they are from before your time, anyway they sucked.

And once again if you don't like the new features, turn them off. What do you want MS to do, shall they release a version of Windows where in the install you need to choose between hundreds of options to configure it the way you like? I don't think that would work very well with 90% of users out there. Even the popular Linux distros come with tons of preinstalled software these days. If you tried some of the stuff that comes with Vista and give it a chance you might just find that it works even better than your 3rd party app did, and costs less too. I'm glad MS includes this stuff, it's not at all like the stuff for instance that comes on a Dell PC. I use a lot of the new stuff with Vista, what I don't use just sits there doing nothing but take a few GB of HDD space, it doesn't use any resources.

I'm gonna guess that rchiu is using Windows XP, and Firefox as your browser. You know you don't need IE anymore, did you try to uninstall it? What you can't, it's integrated into the operating system? It's just sitting there doing nothing taking up HDD space. But I doubt that would bother you because although you know it's there you don't use it and it doesn't really affect your PC one way or the other if it's there or not. Vista may install lots of stuff you don't need, try some of it out, you might like it, if not just ignore it, it won't hurt you just sitting there doing nothing (unless you have a tiny HDD). And if you insist, you could create a vLite Vista image which would fit on a CD and likely only take a couple of GB on the disk, but unless your PC is a POS, and it has to run Vista, I cannot see the logic in doing that.

If you like Freedom, you should love Vista, it's the most customizable OS that MS ever released. You can make it into whatever you like. If you want a mean lean OS that will just get you from A to B fast try UNIX.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Smilin
hehe opinions are not right or wrong...but only to a certain point.

They wouldn't sell headcheese and pickled pigs feet in the grocery if someone didn't think they were tasty but if you ask me to respect someone's opinion on that tastiness you're not going to get it. That sh1t is nasty! naasss-teee! If you like it you are *wrong*. The best you'll get from me is that I'll withhold my opinion on the matter. If you happen to ask me I'm gonna tell you.


Stuff to ponder:

1. For those on the "XP" side of this argument: What is your internal and unspoken opinion of people who cling to Windows 98 and Windows 2000? Seriously, think about what you think of them. I'm sure if your opinion is negative you are polite enough to withhold it but think about it.

2. For those on the "Vista" side of this argument: Is link19's opinion right or wrong or is there *really* no such thing as a right or wrong opinion?


in conclussion... I have an opinion of your opinion but I'm not going to share it. I'll just say I disagree and leave it at that. If you do the same then I think we'll have agreed to disagree and all will be well



note: If you don't know who link19 is (he's not in this thread) then add one to your total when counting your blessings. Link is the ultimate in old-OS bashers.

Heh, I still have win2k on one of my machine, so I guess you'd see why I cling to the past. But I think win2k/xp (they are essentially the same) were huge step up from win98/ME, and brought MS from a child's OS to a professional OS. So I didn't mind so much the incompatibility and I jump to 2k the first chance I got.

Vista to me only improves on UI and a few peripheral architecture like the Internet Protocol, audio/video stack etc. I don't think there were too much changes to the kernal/OS architecture. Some of the changes were changes for worse, in my opinion, like more restrictive digital right management stuff, and don't get me started on the whole audio stuff that made me go through hell to get my creative x-fi to work. Because there were not much improvement on the fundamental OS/Kernal architecture, and the rest of the update didn't add value to my computing needs, I don't feel the pain to go through upgrade worth the effort.

But you are right, everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you like Vista, it's your money so definitely go for it. But just don't start a topic asking why people "hate" it like people don't have the right to not like Vista.

I said I would withhold my opinions on opinions. Factual innacuracies I'll take issue with. There were DRASTIC changes to the Kernel/OS architecture. Huge. Full traversals of heap pointer linked lists during allocations, randomized loading of components at boot to thwart overflow attempts, new fuctions to allow simultaneous access of critical sections. This list is enormous.

There are also huge differences between XP and 2000 too. NTLDR went from 16mb to 64mb or memory for loading drivers & the registry hives in XP for instance.

The statement that there weren't too many changes to the Kernel/OS is grossly innacurate.

Although the interface may appear vastly different between XP and Vista (and to a lesser degree between XP and 2000) the visible changes in the interface are nothing compared to the changes below the hood. Vista (NT 6.0) is vastly different from XP & 2000 (NT 5.1 and 5.0).

Some of the changes are pretty interesting. You might want to research. If you still have the same opinion afterwards thats fine. No worries at all. I'm not out to change your mind here but I would want to know about it if I was misinformed.

 

[OoteR02]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
If you like Freedom, you should love Vista, it's the most customizable OS that MS ever released.

That line works for your argument, but not many others as far as Windows is concerned in general, take of the "customizable" end of the sentence and you'd look crazy!

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Smilin

I said I would withhold my opinions on opinions. Factual innacuracies I'll take issue with. There were DRASTIC changes to the Kernel/OS architecture. Huge. Full traversals of heap pointer linked lists during allocations, randomized loading of components at boot to thwart overflow attempts, new fuctions to allow simultaneous access of critical sections. This list is enormous.

There are also huge differences between XP and 2000 too. NTLDR went from 16mb to 64mb or memory for loading drivers & the registry hives in XP for instance.

The statement that there weren't too many changes to the Kernel/OS is grossly innacurate.

Although the interface may appear vastly different between XP and Vista (and to a lesser degree between XP and 2000) the visible changes in the interface are nothing compared to the changes below the hood. Vista (NT 6.0) is vastly different from XP & 2000 (NT 5.1 and 5.0).

Some of the changes are pretty interesting. You might want to research. If you still have the same opinion afterwards thats fine. No worries at all. I'm not out to change your mind here but I would want to know about it if I was misinformed.

Well, maybe it is not accurate to state that there isn't too much change in OS/Kernel architecture, MS did have 7 years to work on Longhorn and there are significant changes to the OS/Kernel to make all other changes possible. But "Drastic Changes" is definitely over the top. Here is a quote from Extreme Tech on Windows Vista Kernel change: "While the kernel in Vista is still primarily the same one as in Windows 2000 and XP, there have been some significant changes to tighten up security."

The kernel change you mentioned sounded to me have more to do with .NET/Windows programming and how developers call Windows API and interact with Windows events. I also know that there are some improvement in Vista on thread handling and priorities. But I just don't see MS making enough effort in the area like improving SMP/Multi-core processing, IO handling, ground breaking security (UAC has been done in Linux years ago). Instead of helping us to run stuff more efficiently, requiring LESS resource for our computing needs, MS actually require us to add MORE resource so we can do some stuff we do everyday.

You guys seem to assume I never used Vista. I used Vista when the Beta came out, and one of my laptop has Vista on it and I use it daily. My point on Vista changes is that all the improvement MS boast about and people seems to know, like those superfetch, file indexing, pretty Aero, DX10....etc, does nothing for me and don't help my computing needs. I tried to put Vista on my main PC, and the incompatibility with the device and program I use, very much outweighed any benefit it can provide. Do I hate Vista, no, I understand the lack of support comes with every new OS. Will I drop my XP and upgrade in a year? Sure, when all other thing catch up and SP1 comes out and more stuff is written/made specifically for Vista that I want to use. But I just fail to see why some people seem to think Vista is so great that everyone must use it now. If I really want to use a great piece of OS, I would use Linux/Mac. MS only exists in my world because my applications force me to use it. I just don't love Vista as some people here to the point that I have to sell it to everyone and not feel happy about it unless everyone uses it.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Smilin

I said I would withhold my opinions on opinions. Factual innacuracies I'll take issue with. There were DRASTIC changes to the Kernel/OS architecture. Huge. Full traversals of heap pointer linked lists during allocations, randomized loading of components at boot to thwart overflow attempts, new fuctions to allow simultaneous access of critical sections. This list is enormous.

There are also huge differences between XP and 2000 too. NTLDR went from 16mb to 64mb or memory for loading drivers & the registry hives in XP for instance.

The statement that there weren't too many changes to the Kernel/OS is grossly innacurate.

Although the interface may appear vastly different between XP and Vista (and to a lesser degree between XP and 2000) the visible changes in the interface are nothing compared to the changes below the hood. Vista (NT 6.0) is vastly different from XP & 2000 (NT 5.1 and 5.0).

Some of the changes are pretty interesting. You might want to research. If you still have the same opinion afterwards thats fine. No worries at all. I'm not out to change your mind here but I would want to know about it if I was misinformed.

Well, maybe it is not accurate to state that there isn't too much change in OS/Kernel architecture, MS did have 7 years to work on Longhorn and there are significant changes to the OS/Kernel to make all other changes possible. But "Drastic Changes" is definitely over the top. Here is a quote from Extreme Tech on Windows Vista Kernel change: "While the kernel in Vista is still primarily the same one as in Windows 2000 and XP, there have been some significant changes to tighten up security."

Did you really just pick and choose that boldfaced quote from a page titled "Major Kernel Overhaul" that then goes on to outline tons of changes?? That's pretty audacious.

The kernel change you mentioned sounded to me have more to do with .NET/Windows programming and how developers call Windows API and interact with Windows events.

critical sections are accessed with a new API but the ability to do the task is a function of the new Kernel. The remaining things I mentioned are all kernel changes that are happening with all code and do not require programs to tap any new function call.

I also know that there are some improvement in Vista on thread handling and priorities. But I just don't see MS making enough effort in the area like improving SMP/Multi-core processing, IO handling, ground breaking security (UAC has been done in Linux years ago).

Then you have not taken the time to learn what you are arguing.

Vista is actually encrypting pointers so malicious code can't shim into them. That is nutty. SMP/Multi-core processing includes simultaneous critical section access that I already mentioned. I/O handling..would that include a compelely rewrittion TCP/IP stack and wireless architecture? There is most certainly *ground breaking* (as in came first) security in Vista. Address space layout randomization in Vista was available months before linux 2.6.20 and the next OSX in development still doesn't have it.

Instead of helping us to run stuff more efficiently, requiring LESS resource for our computing needs, MS actually require us to add MORE resource so we can do some stuff we do everyday.

More resources are being required but hardware is far outpacing the needs of software. Take drive space for instance. Vista is using what 2-3 times the space of XP including cache shadow copies and whatnot? Well drives are 10 times the size they were when XP released. Vista also makes better use of new hardware. My CPU has less load at idle under Vista than it did in XP because all video is being offloaded to my GPU. Think of Vista as a big fat set of tires on your car. If you are driving a yugo it's going to just slow it down. If you are driving a ferrari it's going to allow more performance.

You guys seem to assume I never used Vista. I used Vista when the Beta came out, and one of my laptop has Vista on it and I use it daily. My point on Vista changes is that all the improvement MS boast about and people seems to know, like those superfetch, file indexing, pretty Aero, DX10....etc, does nothing for me and don't help my computing needs. I tried to put Vista on my main PC, and the incompatibility with the device and program I use, very much outweighed any benefit it can provide. Do I hate Vista, no, I understand the lack of support comes with every new OS. Will I drop my XP and upgrade in a year? Sure, when all other thing catch up and SP1 comes out and more stuff is written/made specifically for Vista that I want to use. But I just fail to see why some people seem to think Vista is so great that everyone must use it now. If I really want to use a great piece of OS, I would use Linux/Mac. MS only exists in my world because my applications force me to use it. I just don't love Vista as some people here to the point that I have to sell it to everyone and not feel happy about it unless everyone uses it.

I'm not assuming at all that you've never used Vista. By your arguments though I'm beginning to believe you don't know a lot about it though. It is not my intent to tell you what you should or shouldn't like. My argument is soley with your innaccurate statement that there wasn't much change in the kernel/os architecture. That statement is wrong.

Some reading if you would like:
This is a 3 part on the Vista Kernel by Mark Russinovich (not some dude at extremetech)
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/02/VistaKernel/
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/03/VistaKernel/
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/04/VistaKernel/

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Smilin

I said I would withhold my opinions on opinions. Factual innacuracies I'll take issue with. There were DRASTIC changes to the Kernel/OS architecture. Huge. Full traversals of heap pointer linked lists during allocations, randomized loading of components at boot to thwart overflow attempts, new fuctions to allow simultaneous access of critical sections. This list is enormous.

There are also huge differences between XP and 2000 too. NTLDR went from 16mb to 64mb or memory for loading drivers & the registry hives in XP for instance.

The statement that there weren't too many changes to the Kernel/OS is grossly innacurate.

Although the interface may appear vastly different between XP and Vista (and to a lesser degree between XP and 2000) the visible changes in the interface are nothing compared to the changes below the hood. Vista (NT 6.0) is vastly different from XP & 2000 (NT 5.1 and 5.0).

Some of the changes are pretty interesting. You might want to research. If you still have the same opinion afterwards thats fine. No worries at all. I'm not out to change your mind here but I would want to know about it if I was misinformed.

Well, maybe it is not accurate to state that there isn't too much change in OS/Kernel architecture, MS did have 7 years to work on Longhorn and there are significant changes to the OS/Kernel to make all other changes possible. But "Drastic Changes" is definitely over the top. Here is a quote from Extreme Tech on Windows Vista Kernel change: "While the kernel in Vista is still primarily the same one as in Windows 2000 and XP, there have been some significant changes to tighten up security."

Did you really just pick and choose that boldfaced quote from a page titled "Major Kernel Overhaul" that then goes on to outline tons of changes?? That's pretty audacious.

The kernel change you mentioned sounded to me have more to do with .NET/Windows programming and how developers call Windows API and interact with Windows events.

critical sections are accessed with a new API but the ability to do the task is a function of the new Kernel. The remaining things I mentioned are all kernel changes that are happening with all code and do not require programs to tap any new function call.

I also know that there are some improvement in Vista on thread handling and priorities. But I just don't see MS making enough effort in the area like improving SMP/Multi-core processing, IO handling, ground breaking security (UAC has been done in Linux years ago).

Then you have not taken the time to learn what you are arguing.

Vista is actually encrypting pointers so malicious code can't shim into them. That is nutty. SMP/Multi-core processing includes simultaneous critical section access that I already mentioned. I/O handling..would that include a compelely rewrittion TCP/IP stack and wireless architecture? There is most certainly *ground breaking* (as in came first) security in Vista. Address space layout randomization in Vista was available months before linux 2.6.20 and the next OSX in development still doesn't have it.

Instead of helping us to run stuff more efficiently, requiring LESS resource for our computing needs, MS actually require us to add MORE resource so we can do some stuff we do everyday.

More resources are being required but hardware is far outpacing the needs of software. Take drive space for instance. Vista is using what 2-3 times the space of XP including cache shadow copies and whatnot? Well drives are 10 times the size they were when XP released. Vista also makes better use of new hardware. My CPU has less load at idle under Vista than it did in XP because all video is being offloaded to my GPU. Think of Vista as a big fat set of tires on your car. If you are driving a yugo it's going to just slow it down. If you are driving a ferrari it's going to allow more performance.

You guys seem to assume I never used Vista. I used Vista when the Beta came out, and one of my laptop has Vista on it and I use it daily. My point on Vista changes is that all the improvement MS boast about and people seems to know, like those superfetch, file indexing, pretty Aero, DX10....etc, does nothing for me and don't help my computing needs. I tried to put Vista on my main PC, and the incompatibility with the device and program I use, very much outweighed any benefit it can provide. Do I hate Vista, no, I understand the lack of support comes with every new OS. Will I drop my XP and upgrade in a year? Sure, when all other thing catch up and SP1 comes out and more stuff is written/made specifically for Vista that I want to use. But I just fail to see why some people seem to think Vista is so great that everyone must use it now. If I really want to use a great piece of OS, I would use Linux/Mac. MS only exists in my world because my applications force me to use it. I just don't love Vista as some people here to the point that I have to sell it to everyone and not feel happy about it unless everyone uses it.

I'm not assuming at all that you've never used Vista. By your arguments though I'm beginning to believe you don't know a lot about it though. It is not my intent to tell you what you should or shouldn't like. My argument is soley with your innaccurate statement that there wasn't much change in the kernel/os architecture. That statement is wrong.

Some reading if you would like:
This is a 3 part on the Vista Kernel by Mark Russinovich (not some dude at extremetech)
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/02/VistaKernel/
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/03/VistaKernel/
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...s/2007/04/VistaKernel/

Great articles. But let me ask you and the Vista Kernel experts. If Vista is so much more efficient in handling threads and memory, where are the benchmarks that conclude Vista perform better than XP in multi-tasking, memory performance and/or application performance? You (and Mark Russinovich) did a good job describing the "improvement" at the kernel level, maybe you guys can help point me to the results of those improvement.

I admit I don't know Vista at the code level, I am only an IT profession with more than 10 years of software development experiences in various platform, Unix, mostly and I use computer application extensively. What interest me the most is the tangible benefit of technical changes, and not just what those technical changes are. If Vista is that much better than XP in running application faster and more efficient, I'd switch to it in a heartbeat. To me, that's what OS should do, handle application faster and more efficient. But so far, all indication says otherwise.

 

[Smilin]

I'm not sure what benchmarks are out there that do a great job of testing real world multitasking.

I know I run dual monitors with WoW on one screen and IE, Ventrillo, Winamp, Widgets and a full motion video wallpaper (dreamscene) on the other screen. Sometimes when I'm done playing I'll realize that a full backup ran and I hadn't even noticed. Seriously.

How would this run in XP? It wouldn't. The backup alone would cause game to become unplayable even if I could manage to get fullmotion video playing on one screen while running a video game on the other.

Rig is in sig.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
600 different versions.
Continued hard drive thrashing after the OS screen is started up with 2gb of ram.
Works like crap on laptops.
Forced updates.
Same old legacy NTFS file system.
Sleep doesn't work on 2 laptops I tried it on.
Cancel or Allow for everything.
It was basically a runaway project, it went over the budget and was delayed many times.

The hard drive thrashing is windows supercache, read up on what it does.

It runs like crap on laptops becuase they are underpowered graphics wise, disable those features.

Forced updates are not bad for the general userbase, and its about 2 clicks to disable automatic updates.

WinFS is coming.

Sleep not working is a driver issue.

UAC can be disabled.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Smilin
I'm not sure what benchmarks are out there that do a great job of testing real world multitasking.

I know I run dual monitors with WoW on one screen and IE, Ventrillo, Winamp, Widgets and a full motion video wallpaper (dreamscene) on the other screen. Sometimes when I'm done playing I'll realize that a full backup ran and I hadn't even noticed. Seriously.

How would this run in XP? It wouldn't. The backup alone would cause game to become unplayable even if I could manage to get fullmotion video playing on one screen while running a video game on the other.

Rig is in sig.

I can also vouch for the multitasking performance enhancements subjectively.

I run dreamscene, AIM, WMP, and multiple IE windows, and AOL Active Scan does a scan late at night sometimes while im playing, i cant tell, but when it finishes the scan it minimises wow and pisses me off

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Smilin
I'm not sure what benchmarks are out there that do a great job of testing real world multitasking.

I know I run dual monitors with WoW on one screen and IE, Ventrillo, Winamp, Widgets and a full motion video wallpaper (dreamscene) on the other screen. Sometimes when I'm done playing I'll realize that a full backup ran and I hadn't even noticed. Seriously.

How would this run in XP? It wouldn't. The backup alone would cause game to become unplayable even if I could manage to get fullmotion video playing on one screen while running a video game on the other.

Rig is in sig.

I can also vouch for the multitasking performance enhancements subjectively.

I run dreamscene, AIM, WMP, and multiple IE windows, and AOL Active Scan does a scan late at night sometimes while im playing, i cant tell, but when it finishes the scan it minimises wow and pisses me off

I dunno, I have been doing the same on my XP/2k, (dual monitors, with tons of stuff running at the same time) except I had dual processors (since dual p3 800, then dual XP) years ago and moved to dual core when it was available. I also had SCSI drives back then, and moved to SATA when command queuing was available. Multi-tasking was not a problem with my setup. I would definitely like to see quantitative benchmark on Vista over XP on multi-tasking, and if they can prove significant improvement on running programs and not just "loading" program faster, I'd eat my words.

But until then, the advertised "features" for Vista just isn't worth the trouble for me to deal with incompatibility and other hassles.

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: zig3695
<blockquote>quote:
Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
600 different versions. - how many exactly?
Continued hard drive thrashing after the OS screen is started up with 2gb of ram. - goes away after a couple good days of use. its learning and organizing for future situations
Works like crap on laptops. - wrong. try turning off transparancy
Forced updates. - i can turn off updates, maybe you should try vista sometime so you know what it does.
Same old legacy NTFS file system. -you would have been more pissed if they forced a buggy WinFS down our throat.
Sleep doesn't work on 2 laptops I tried it on. - sleep works great for me, plus the hybrid sleep feature is a big improvement
Cancel or Allow for everything. - turn uac off.
It was basically a runaway project, it went over the budget and was delayed many times. - yes, that is the sole reason people are upset. microsoft hyped the wrong features. they should have marketed stability, security and ease of use much much more then they did as thats what they concentrated on when making vista

</blockquote>

so basically, turn off every feature that makes vista what it is, so you end up with a bloated XP system. riiiiiight.

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
I just upgraded to Vista Ultimate this weekend and am really liking it so far. No problems with drivers yet and the one issue there was (Creative X-Fi soundcard), was identified by the OS and they even sent me to the Creative download site to get the updated driver! :Q

The only thing I am not liking is the slow startups and shutdowns, which are significantly longer than I had in XP. I am assuming I can tweak something to help this?

Anyway, thumbs up from me. :thumbsup:

KT

you obviously haven't visted the creative vista forum yet. go there, if you dare.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: zig3695
<blockquote>quote:
Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
600 different versions. - how many exactly?
Continued hard drive thrashing after the OS screen is started up with 2gb of ram. - goes away after a couple good days of use. its learning and organizing for future situations
Works like crap on laptops. - wrong. try turning off transparancy
Forced updates. - i can turn off updates, maybe you should try vista sometime so you know what it does.
Same old legacy NTFS file system. -you would have been more pissed if they forced a buggy WinFS down our throat.
Sleep doesn't work on 2 laptops I tried it on. - sleep works great for me, plus the hybrid sleep feature is a big improvement
Cancel or Allow for everything. - turn uac off.
It was basically a runaway project, it went over the budget and was delayed many times. - yes, that is the sole reason people are upset. microsoft hyped the wrong features. they should have marketed stability, security and ease of use much much more then they did as thats what they concentrated on when making vista

</blockquote>

so basically, turn off every feature that makes vista what it is, so you end up with a bloated XP system. riiiiiight.

Are you suggesting that Aero and UAC are the only things vista has over XP?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
I just upgraded to Vista Ultimate this weekend and am really liking it so far. No problems with drivers yet and the one issue there was (Creative X-Fi soundcard), was identified by the OS and they even sent me to the Creative download site to get the updated driver! :Q

The only thing I am not liking is the slow startups and shutdowns, which are significantly longer than I had in XP. I am assuming I can tweak something to help this?

Anyway, thumbs up from me. :thumbsup:

KT

you obviously haven't visted the creative vista forum yet. go there, if you dare.

Creative has never had good drivers, 98, 2000, XP, or otherwise. I dont see how its breaking news that their vista drivers suck too.

Although i know it is substantially weaker, Azalia based sound solutions have had working vista drivers since launch.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
I just upgraded to Vista Ultimate this weekend and am really liking it so far. No problems with drivers yet and the one issue there was (Creative X-Fi soundcard), was identified by the OS and they even sent me to the Creative download site to get the updated driver! :Q

The only thing I am not liking is the slow startups and shutdowns, which are significantly longer than I had in XP. I am assuming I can tweak something to help this?

Anyway, thumbs up from me. :thumbsup:

KT

you obviously haven't visted the creative vista forum yet. go there, if you dare.

Creative has never had good drivers, 98, 2000, XP, or otherwise. I dont see how its breaking news that their vista drivers suck too.

Although i know it is substantially weaker, Azalia based sound solutions have had working vista drivers since launch.

Sound under Vista is not just a matter of driver. The one big problem is Microsoft decided to remove HAL/Directsound/Directsound3d all together and go with OpenGL.

There are a lot of older games that use DirectSound3d/EAX for advance sound feature. DirectSound3D is a set of API that those games call in their program routings to enable advance sound features. Under Vista, those API no longer exist, so those API and programs won't be able to run properly.

What Creative did is to create a Alchemy project that translate those calls to OpenGL calls, so those advance sound feature can be executed. The problem with that is, since Creative didn't write the games, it will be hard for them to cover 100% of the games out there, who knows how game developers use all those API's.

Azalia don't handle stuff like EAX, they do most of their stuff through OpenGL. That's why they have good Vista support. But the problem, again, is not driver, but what game developers decided to implement, openGL or Directsound3d. Well, now of course it's a no brainer, they have to support openGL. But the stuff that was developed a couple of years ago can go either way. So for those people that still play direct3d games, Vista could be a poor choice, they would have to deal with third party stuff like Alchemy to get it to work, or not working at all.

I am not saying OpenGL suck and directsound3d is good. In fact, I think OpenGL is the way to go. But it's Vista's choice to get rid of directsound3D all together and not provide any legacy support, so it's only natural for those who still want to use it to ditch Vista for now until either they don't wanna use those application/games, or there are some acceptable workaround.

 

[StopSign]

It's OpenAL, btw.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
I just upgraded to Vista Ultimate this weekend and am really liking it so far. No problems with drivers yet and the one issue there was (Creative X-Fi soundcard), was identified by the OS and they even sent me to the Creative download site to get the updated driver! :Q

The only thing I am not liking is the slow startups and shutdowns, which are significantly longer than I had in XP. I am assuming I can tweak something to help this?

Anyway, thumbs up from me. :thumbsup:

KT

you obviously haven't visted the creative vista forum yet. go there, if you dare.

Creative has never had good drivers, 98, 2000, XP, or otherwise. I dont see how its breaking news that their vista drivers suck too.

Although i know it is substantially weaker, Azalia based sound solutions have had working vista drivers since launch.

Sound under Vista is not just a matter of driver. The one big problem is Microsoft decided to remove HAL/Directsound/Directsound3d all together and go with OpenAL.

There are a lot of older games that use DirectSound3d/EAX for advance sound feature. DirectSound3D is a set of API that those games call in their program routings to enable advance sound features. Under Vista, those API no longer exist, so those API and programs won't be able to run properly.

What Creative did is to create a Alchemy project that translate those calls to OpenAL calls, so those advance sound feature can be executed. The problem with that is, since Creative didn't write the games, it will be hard for them to cover 100% of the games out there, who knows how game developers use all those API's.

Azalia don't handle stuff like EAX, they do most of their stuff through OpenAL. That's why they have good Vista support. But the problem, again, is not driver, but what game developers decided to implement, openAL or Directsound3d. Well, now of course it's a no brainer, they have to support openAL. But the stuff that was developed a couple of years ago can go either way. So for those people that still play direct3d games, Vista could be a poor choice, they would have to deal with third party stuff like Alchemy to get it to work, or not working at all.

I am not saying OpenAL suck and directsound3d is good. In fact, I think OpenAL is the way to go. But it's Vista's choice to get rid of directsound3D all together and not provide any legacy support, so it's only natural for those who still want to use it to ditch Vista for now until either they don't wanna use those application/games, or there are some acceptable workaround.

It's not just Creative, either... Sigmatel's Vista audio drivers suck as well. I'm getting all kinds of crackling and studdering problems in DirectX games with both the Intel/Sigmatel Integrated audio drivers and the drivers for my Creative Audigy. :|

 

[Matt1970]

I can understad why a lot of laptops with Vista have been returned. TCPIP version 6 has major problems. I ran into one of them on a cruise to Bermuda basicly leaving me without the internet for a whole week till I could get back home and search for an answer. With version 6, if you happen to have a failed log-in attempt to a wireless network, it can render version 6 unable to obtain an IP address from then on and there is no known cure other than to disable it and leave vesion 4 doing the work. I have a feeling they knew that leaving both ver 4 and 6 in Vista.

That being said, the networking in even Vista Basic is so much easier to use for the novice user than ANY version of XP. I have had a few programs that didn't migrate to Vista, but I had the same thing when going from 3.11 to 95, 95 to 98 and 98 to XP.

Matt