Vista, is it really worth it?

Personally, the only way I'll use Vista is if it's preinstalled and the only reasons I'll buy an off the shelf box is as a gaming machine for my son, (he's a 2 1/2 year old Linux user at present so I've got a few years yet). I'm predominantly a Linux user myself and ceased to be impressed by eye candy a long time ago (particularly where it imposes a performance penalty). I can understand the marketing drive behind Vista but personally I've found W2K and XP to be stable and secure enough for (my) home use. At work however, we're likely to stick with MS on the desktop for the foreseeable future so will inevitably move to Vista as systems get replaced.

So far, the only interesting thing I found is Bitlocker in the Enterprise version. By having the oppurtunity to restore the key through AD it should be a good solution for larger companies who needs to protect their data. I wonder though if the protection is good enough to handle the legislative demands in the U.S and Japan. Anyone knows? Third party solutions like Pointsec(which includes Linux, PDAs etc) costs approx. the same, have a bit better security today, but gives an overhead in the organisation. Anyone having a good insight in this?

If the latest requirements are anything to go by, I don't see too many 399.99 specials on tv from Dell being in the future.
I have multiple operating systems on this machine which would miserably fail running Vista if their specs are to be used.
I run XP Pro with 256 of ram, Vista would choke.
I have a 32 meg Nvidia that Vista would laugh at. I have a 10 gb partition, don't even wanna go there about bloatware.
I'm not about to spend 2 grand buying the latest 3.0 or higher cpu and 4 gb of ddr and all the assorted extras to run a os ,which if I read more about, seems to have some issues that will take years more of writing patches to run half decently without totally screwing up.

I'm going to stick to XP, Maybe I?ll have a vista on a separate partition but that will only be for testing/games that require vista (Damn Microsoft ) I want most of my ram, video memory, and processor power dedicated to whichever game i am playing at the time.

At work, only if I have to. Most users wont want to switch to Vista anyway and I'm sure the cost of additional licenses (we're a MS partner ) if not the cost of new HW to support it will certainly dissuade management.

I don?t really want to see too much new from MS, I would rather see what they've got right get better. XP is a good OS for desktops. Yes I know its far from perfect but it's nearest competitor can only manage 4% of the global desktop market (there a good reasons for this, mainly its lack of operability with other OS's).

Hype will only get you market domination, you need a decent product to keep you there. XP (and 2000) are functional if imperfect and I'm yet to see any business drop it in favour of Mac's .

The deciding factor in Vista's success will be weather the mass average users (which are getting smarter in my experience) find vista easy to use. This being said I think the HW requirements will come back to bite MS as the great unwashed masses are pretty impatient.

I personally am looking forward to vista, i think a more integrated/intuitive environment is what everyone needs, and hopefully this is one step towards that. With every new release it brings windows closer to something that everyone will enjoy.

I dont believe linux is very practical even these days, getting wine to run the latest apps that are just released is always a hassle and sometimes just not worth the trouble. So until the apps i use are linux native i dont think ill be switching any time soon.

Vista is a Microsoft product so there are 3 guarantees. 1- It will not work properly. 2- It will be full of holes that you can drive a truck through. 3- it will require hundreds of patches within the first 12 months. In addition, we are also hearing that to take advanatge of any of these new whiz-bang features, you will need huge RAM, huge Video Ram and very high speed CPU's, factors out of reach of the average computer user.

The hardware independent deployment aspect of the "commercial" versions of Vista will make it the OS of choice for large-scale operations. Being able to create a single image without having to worry about hardware variations will be a huge time saver for me.

However, for the typical home user, I don't see a great advantage of Vista over XP. The increased hardware requirements will make performance unacceptable on most machines in existence today. As others have pointed out, no matter what MS does, security will ALWAYS be an issue.

The home market is tough to crack -- look how many people still run some version of Win9x. IMHO, the only way Vista will dominate the home market will be through the OEM deals MS cuts with the manufacturers.

Heres my take... half the boxes in the world are scarcely suitable for 98se let alone Vista... we're talking a jump from 18 million lines of code to over 50... many boxes already groan under XP. Add the upgrades, patches, memory hungry apps, spyware, anti-spyware, Norton/AVG, software based firewalls, throw in a few open port viruses/trojans/worms after some idiot kid hooks the unprotected box directly to the net... the browser gets hijacked...then there's that Sony rootkiit fisaco... need I go on? At the rate were going your gonna need a Cray just to run the basics. Vista will be bloatware, 1/4 the code alone will be devoted to various "security" issues such as the prevention of piracy.... then Microsoft has to make everything backward compatable from drivers to app support.... granny is not gonna give up her Word 97 that easily... and if it works for her why the heck should she?

The average "surfer" can get by quite nicely with Win2k... what do they NEED Vista for anyway?

It's the equipment manufacturers who are driving this... desperate for another "prroduct cycle" with the "bigger better faster" hype ... a bigger faster computer will certainly be needed to run the MS Vista bloatware that's for sure.

How many manufacturers offer a Linux distro on their new computers? Almost none, zero, zilch... Even if Linux were to be light years ahead of MS there's no "big box" retailer anywhere that would offer or activly promote Linux because there's no perception of "value added" in the sale if the software has to be given away. The last thing computer marketers want to see is for John Q consumer to ever get comfortable using Linux and OpenOffice.

I predict Vista will bomb... because it will probably run properly only on the latest and fastest machines... only those with with fast processors, and lots of memory... 1 gig of ram will likely be the absolute minimum.

The security steps they've taken are significant, especially in the realm of browsing--the main attack vector for Windows these days, by far. Low-rights IE7 will go a long ways towards the elimination of these threats. Keep in mind, Microsoft has had some lousy security holes for some products, but not all--take IIS 6, for example. Because of their market share and because they are everyone's favorite punching bag, it will be a race to find the first "Vista Virus." Time will tell, but don't rule out the possibility that they could nail it.

I would really recommend checking out channel9.msdn.com--there is a wealth of in-depth information from all sorts of different teams within Windows--kernel, file system, digital media, WPF, networking, printing, color handling, etc. I especially recommend the "going deep" series. You'll quickly find out that there is a whole lot going on in Vista that rarely makes it into the zdnets and pcmags of the industry. It has been really unfortunate how little Vista coverage has gone beyond the interface, the backporting of certain technologies to XP, and the dropping of WinFS. But how do you explain the details of a TCP/IP networking stack in a 2 page article for a casual tech reader? You don't.

As for the graphics... first off, you don't need a 256 MB video card, but you will want one if you want to run the enhanced graphics (Ctrl + Shift + F9 toggles it on and off). Once your video card's memory is exceeded, the UI will utilize your system RAM, so the more video RAM, the better. The video subsystem runs in user mode rather than kernel mode now, also, so a video driver error isn't a guarantee of a reboot anymore.

Describing the graphics as a ripoff... well, that's just silly, I think. Do you really care who "came up with the idea of transparencies" first? Transparencies were supported back in W2K days, but weren't used in the general UI... does that mean it still beat OS X? Because we didn't see Flip3D until recently, does that mean that the Looking Glass team first had the idea of a 3D UI, and Microsoft simply copied them? Who really cares? Transparency in a UI is hardly a technical achievement, nor is it some novel UI metaphor. In fact, it might be better to stay away from it, for the most part. People get really bent out of shape comparing these things. No one gets upset that another car manufacturer copies the "steering wheel and gas pedal" idea--the steering wheel and gas pedal UI metaphor--from another car manufacturer, do they? Of course there are going to be similarities; in fact, I think we count on the fact that there *will* be similarities.

What I think *is* important, however, is the underlying technology capabilities that produce the graphics on the screen. Vista is very advanced in this regard, and leap frogs OS X. Incidentally, OS X didn't introduce many of its advanced UI effects until it iterated through several versions, so the number of years that they've "led" is misleading... does anyone remember what a mess OS X was when it first came out??? Ultimately, it still doesn't necessarily add up to better UI, of course, but the capabilities that are there in an easy-to-exploit fashion for developers--both 3rd party and for Microsoft--are pretty exciting. It will take some time before we see that catch on fully, I think.

Again, check out channel9.msdn.com. It is full of great information--usually in video form.

Anyone who understands the cost in hardware and application effects would voluntarily move to Vista. Sadly the hardware manufacturers that are tied in with MS will ship with Vista pre installed (expect a 30% to 50% increase in basic price) and many companies and private individuals will just walk into the shop (or listen to the sales rep) and buy without investigating alternatives or finding out that they could get better systems for much less.

The few medium to small businesses that use in-house or external IT techs with enough savvy to do a proper cost analysis will decide to go with cheaper vanilla systems and either oleder MS software or, more probably, other operating systems.

From what I hear, some government authorities in Australia and USA are already looking at alternatives as they are concerned about budgetary restraints re the cost of large rollouts with Vista capable hardware. Just think of the total cost of 500 to 1,500 Vista capable machines with huge graphics cards, sata only hard drives and 512 MB RAM plus the cost of Vista itself -- compared to vanilla hardware that has half the specs and loaded with Mac X or Linux. Through in the cost of MS Offie as against Open Office and the bean counters are getting very interested.

With Vista being promised to be so far different to Win 98 or Win XP the staff will face a reasonable learning curve, so a switch in operating system won't be such a huge training problem - especially if you switch to something like Linspire which has a close traditional Windows appearance.

Then you have to add in the cost of replacement applications as MS have not yet gotten around to making new operating systems readily run applications designed for earlier ones.

Another point is that Vista is designed to be very media and game friendly - how many corporate environments want the staff to utilse a lot of media and gaming capabilities? I would bet that some, but not all, could be turned off and that it will take a lot of effort to turn them off and elave them off. Whilst Linux can be readily set up to not have those capabilities even installed.

the only reason i will upgrade to windows vista is if i will get a new system that is capable of 64bit computing.

i really dont think vista is worth forking out like 200 or what ever bucks.the style side bar and look of vista can be achived by windows blind and system matrix.vista is pointless dont think its guna be as stable as xp.dont waste money on an update with pritty little features you can get for free!

Hey Dave,
windows Vista, although it has fine cool looks, but its not worth the looks! if the looks can gobble up atleast 512mb for vista to run smoothly, i would prefer to stay with xp and install a transformation pack for vista, (which i already have!) and have windows vista on xp! stable, and efficient!
the vista look is nice, and also (the transformation pack!) doesnt need all that memory, you can work smoothly and play games with vista look on xp for as little as 32mb video mem and 256mb ram!!
why not!? wait for bill to notice how vista is a big time flop!
laters

Some of the security enhancements are long overdue and will go a long way towards eliminating some of the basic security issues with Windows as an OS. Internet Explorer will not run with administrative privledges regardless of the rights of the currently logged in user. Users who are members of the administrative group on the PC will not run with administrative privledges until they attempt an operation that requires this level of privledge. These two changes alone will improve the basic security of the OS and reduce the ease of exploiting a security vulnerability in the browser or the OS.

The system requirements mean that I have to replace at least one of my computers with a top of the range model.

I reckon this will cost a couple of grand, and I frankly don't have that spare in finances

Sorry MS, you have it badly wrong in assuming everyone has the latest hi tech equipment, you will lose a lot of business by this approach.

I am a middle-tier specialist and when I saw that MS was once again changing directions, this time from remoting to Indigo, I decided to start looking at Linux. I have a product on the Internet for remoting which appears to be a good addition to the new MONO environment so I am looking at porting it over in the future.

Outside of this, I see no technical reason to leave Windows2000. I have experienced maybe only a single software crash in 4 years. Not bad for an MS operating system.

As far as security goes Vista will not be any better than existing MS systems. When everything MS produces has a pathway into and out of the operating system there is no possible way such an operating system will ever be made secure.

I think that Vista will be Microsoft's swan-song in the industry. It may take a while but I see many MS technicians going over to Linux and bringing .NET with them to enhance the MONO platform.

DOS beget Windows 286 ->386 ->3.1 and it was good.

3.1 beget '95' and it was better and 98 better still. Meanwhile business got NT a "SERIOUS" OS.

BUT Microsoft is a business and it is about money.

Windows 2000 is a great operating system, had holes from keeping compatability, but very solid.
Business loved it home users yawned and stayed with 98. ME (strictly a revenue ploy) regretably came and went.

XP, the next great thing, but the users are happy with 98 & 2000. So unless you buy a new machine no upgrades. First the cut off support to 98 and then publicized serious security flaws and then stopped patches. Move to XP or ELSE!
Businesses got a little longer but 2000 is now unsupported and on a 'Do NOT Resuscitate' list.

Do you think for one minute that Microsoft will leave a penny on the table. Within 6 months of Vista's release the 'unpatchable' virus or worm will make 2000 unusable. And I fully expect XP to stabbed in the back shorly thereafter.

And all of these opinions miss the most terrifying part of all - trusted computing. A system where you buy a computer and let them own it. Forget teaching your kids to program, edit audio or video files, or do anything original; ONLY those programs allowed by Microsoft will run.

I use Mac OS 10.4 at home and I love it. I don't care what Microshaft does for a new OS, it will be full of bugs and a target for hackers. I deal with XP at work, and despite the fact it is bloatware and takes forever to start up, it works OK; so no reason to even consider Vista. I'll just ignore all the Microshaft hype.

It's time to get beyond this whole 'well, if it's a windows platform you've got to expect or be assured of a security risk.'
What I mean is now that there are more people using Firefox we're hearing more about Firefox bugs and Firefox security holes.
What I mean is now that there are more people using O/S X we're hearing more about O/S X bugs and O/S X security holes.
Making broad statements that imply Windows and Windows alone has security issues is just plain inaccurate. I have always been of the opinion that when you are #1 you are the #1 target - no one likes to pick on the little guys; but the majority of people love to talk about the successful ones as if they are the only ones making mistakes; especially the press that writes about each Microsoft trip & fall.
I do believe we owe a debt of thanks to Microsoft for having a lot to do with the technology world being where it is today (note I said 'a lot' - I didn't say 'only').
Yet, because Bill Gate's worth is posted he gets targeted. Because Windows is on a majority of desktops around the world it's targeted.
Windows has security issues, sure. So does Apple, Firefox and even cell phones.
Let's stop with the bashing and get on with making a better mouse trap - if it's possible.
OK... that was my two cents :-)

Some of the other replies are either FUD'ing or have read the press reports of Vista too quickly I think.

"Requires a 256 meg video card" and the thought that the eye-candy isn't really necessary--you gotta pick one or the other opinion friends, becuase if you don't care about the later you don't need the former. My test machine is running an Intel 845 integrated graphics motheboard. Pretty low end for 2006, and it runs Vista fine. No I don't get the "glass"/transparency UI thing, but then if you're like me and you don't run all of XP's eye candy either, why should one care?

Press reviews often make too much of the way the UI looks. I (and many others in IT) are more concerned about how it works. In that area I see Vista as a modest improvement over XP. The "ask for the Admin password" feature is good and overdue, and that will help those that otherwise must run in Admin privledge levels. Better built-in search is welcome. I've yet to test the differnece for mass-roll outs, but in a corporate environment that will be very important. Even the ability to log in without logging out the current user (present in XP, but not when the XP box is a member of a domain) will be welcome in my work. Though there are features I haven't really lab-ed out yet in the betas, my judgement is that this is more of a XP from 2000 or Win98 from Win95 (or Panther to Tiger, or maybe even XP SP2 from XP SP1) upgrade than the revolutionary change promised at Longhorn's start. That's good and bad--less to prepare for in a shop dependent on Windows applications software anyway.

Hi Dave,

I wouldn't say you're a radical, no - a little bit of healthy skepticism can be a good thing.

Don't pick on Microsoft about "originality", though ... it's pretty awful hard to be "original" on that scale when you're dealing with something as involved as an O/S is these days. Don't let anyone fool you - ALL the developers are gleaning ideas from each other on their presentation. Since Microsoft is in the #1 spot they are naturally going to get all the tomatoes thrown at them. They have thousands of developers - believe me, they are not just taking someone else's code and repackaging it. To think that is a very predjudiced (bigoted?) and uneducated viewpoint. I haven't met too many really competent developers who take that kind of view on anyone else's work. Don't get caught in that trap.

As for Vista - I think they'll do a good job on it, just give them time. They've invested hundreds of millions of bucks in development on it. Even so, I don't know if I'll upgrade immediately either. I've been very pleased with the performance of XP myself - it has been very stable and reliable.

Just let Vista stand on its own merits. When it comes out just evaluate it in light of your own needs. If it fills those needs better than what you're currently using then by all means upgrade to it. If not, then stay with what you're using.

Cheers,

-CB ;-)

I personally think it is a bit early to tell. I mean, Vista has been delayed so many times, and it is not even going to show up until 2007 now! A lot of things can happen over the course of 6 months, so I am going to hold my breath until then.

Also, take a look at these 2 links for more info on system requirements:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistahardware.mspx#EKB
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/entpguid.mspx#ECAA

In actuality, those are not bad requirements for an OS that will probably be around fr a good 4-5 years. Many of the complaints now are quite similar to the one people had about XP; for instance, a lot of people complained that 256 mb of memory was an outrageous requirement back when XP launched... and look at it now! 256mb is a commodity, and some baseline systems even have 512mb to start off to boot!

As for the UI issues, I believe nearly all newer macs have some sort of seperate graphics processor (a Radeon 9200/equiv. or better, IIRC) for their visual effects. You can correct me if I am wrong... but I am quite sure they all do. Vista's engine will be doing crazier effects than what OSX's engine has been doing - therefore, it will require more power than OSX.

Vista has come a long way from its early Longhorn Alpha releases... and it looks like it has a bit to go yet. Until Microsoft releases their software to the public (or gives us a public demo beta), I'll sit on the sidelines and watch the bits and bytes fly.

I think the reason Microsoft pushed back the Vista release has nothing to do with quality enhancement and everything to do with a lawsuit recently lost by MS that related to ActiveX. Check the news.

For ten years and more now, Microsoft has offered new or improved operating systems that more or less delivered on their promises, but only after the OS was put on a faster, more capable PC. The Win95 box that got upped to Win98 or 2000 could barely run it with 5 Gb of hard disk space and a 1-GHz processor. Those who upgraded to XP found that less than 10 Gb on the hard disk and a processor slower than 2 GHz meant their displays and other operations were considerably slower.

This has been the pattern since we discovered Windows 3.1 didn't really like living on a 286.

All the problems you mention -- security, interoperability with new media and, over all of this, performance -- would be solved in time with newer PCs capable of handling 64-bit data streams at least 150% faster than they do at present.

No such hardware is presently in development anywhere in the world.

I have no doubt Vista would be very happy on a 5 GHz box with a Gigabus and a 1 Tb drive. You could probably do some powerful work on it. But no such specification is being developed. PC hardware development has stalled, Moore's Law has been revoked, and the 3.4 GHz speeds of today will be the speeds of tomorrow.

Which makes Vista as practical as dropping a Corvette engine into a Yugo. The power it promises can't be delivered on the hardware it is likely to be installed on.

Until such time as 5 GHz PCs are available at Best Buy, you can be sure that upgrading to Vista will only max out your hardware and deliver no significant performance or capability benefit equal to its cost.

This is a dead end.

Why pay good money for less functionality and the privilege of being treated like a thief until you prove otherwise by "activating" your copy of Windoesn't. Linux has reached a point where it's not just as good as Windows, it's better. It's gotten so far ahead that Vista won't even begin to close the gap. When I switched to SuSE a couple of years ago, I couldn't believe I stuck with Microsoft so long. Installing Vista would be a DOWNGRADE for my computer.

I've got an overclocked XFX nVidia 6800GS PCI-E with 256MB GDDR3. I shouldn't have to wonder if this will be powerful enough to run a GUI. Pixar created Toy Story with less graphics processing power than this, for God's sake. Even by Microsoft's low standards, this is a stupid idea.

I have actually told my boss ( a bit early) that when I am forced to support Vista, I was quitting. After playing with it on each of the releases, I have started learning Linux, although I still need a lot of help on that.
I will stay on XP as long as I can, I have no plans to ever move to Vista, as it seems to me to be an overinflated POS-OS.

Some people are always pushing to have the latest and greatest regardless of the costs and despite the fact that there is no need for the upgrade.

Like the guy above, I run a network that has about 90 workstations with probably a 70 / 30 split betwee Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro.

WinXP offers nothing more to my users than Win2K. Granted, I've come to like XP -- but it took a long time to get used to it. Having some legit training towards certifications in Win2000 Pro and Server I found that adding WinXP machines to the network offered a few challenges that took some time to overcome.

I'm comfortable enough with WinXP now that I've worked the kinks out and got things set up the way I like. As time goes by I plan to replace the Win2K machines with XP pro.

The last time I participated in one of these threads a guy said that "people like me" are just cheap and lazy but he failed to offer any technical justification for the undertaking the project.

It's the same argument I have about upgrading to the latest version of MS Office.

Tell me what people NEED that they don't currently have with Office 2000 and/or office 2002?

Give me some reasonable justification to spend the money and I'll consider it.

I already have some of, if not all of the Vista "video features" working on a nVidia GeForce 5200 FX 128MB/128-bit video card. I use Stardock's Object Desktop, and configure it the way *I* want to work. If I want a sidebar, I can make one, and put whatever I wish in it. If I want a semi-transparent interface, it's there (Though I find that having something underneath a window show through makes things harder to read in the first place). Everything works smoothly and fast, no problems.

I take about an average approach to security. The firewall, virus scanner, spyware scanner. The usual. Checked the firewall at GRC.com's Shields up and got a good bill of health there. I'm not too worried. I don't open email attachments unless I'm VERY sure of the contents. I use Firefox mostly, and have the Script extention in that blocks ALL scripts, and let's you allow or disallow by sites, or temporarily allow for one sessiononly. Handy. :) And all the tabbed browsing stuff, of course.

I see no reason to upgrade to Vista. I probably will, though, when they threaten no more support or updates for XP Pro. But right now, they do keep updating the OS when a new fix comes out so as long as that keeps up, then I'll keep using it.

By the time I really need to upgrade to Vista, I'll more than likely be ready to upgrade hardware anyway. I do every few years it seems.

I have fully 35% of my customers that are still using Win2K and Win2K server and will not allow me to touch anything unless it breaks.
All computers that are bouoght for these clients are either retrofitted with Win2K or made to work with the Win2K server. They do not use Active Directory because they see no benefit, Return on Investment for their offices to migrate further and pay more bucks, for no only the Windows OS but the required specialized software fixes.
For the other 65% of my customers, they are all going Open source anyway, USing Either Open Office, GIMP etc that they plan to move to LINUX all the way as soon as Microsoft cuts off support for Win XP/2K. So my warning to Microsoft if you really want to keep a cash flow make sure not to cut off support for these OS's otherwise all my customers that consist of 3 -5 Metropolitan offices will simply dump Microsoft for the other alternatives. Cost is cost and the heads of these companis are tired of being held hostage to constant Upgrades that they never use.
Beware Microsoft you are at a crossroads.

It's Microsoft. There's always a way to crack an operating system.

I only read the specs on system requirements and Microsoft doesn't need all the fancy graphics.

I just recently started to build my system.

I only put in the base amount of memory and I'm going to put in a 256 MB video card.

My processor will be able to handle that amount of processing if I install RAID onto my system which is supported on the motherboard.

This is a never ending loop and eventually Microsoft better get the message before the consumers eventually rally together and eventually boycott Microsoft.

We should all be used to this by now. Every time Microsoft releases a major OS update, you are are required to upgrade your hardware as well. Usually it's just RAM, and sometimes the processor, but now we have to upgrade our RAM, our processors and our video cards as well. Should we expect anything less from the WIntel duopoly? Let's face it; they're in cohoots, and they always have been. And apparently, we can all now add Nvidia and ATI to that list.

... I read this: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html

It wasn't the article. It was the discussion by the MS employees that made me think twice. Skip the article (just a gripe about firing the bosses because of the delay) and read the posts below. They are entertaining if nothing else.

Taking that into account and the fact that Novell just released desktop eye candy for the Linux desktop that will do everything that the Vista is supposed to do, but on a Matrox MX400, why would one ever think about Vista?

I am so tired of all the MS haters out there. You people are so biased against MS that you fail to see or even acknowledge the positive things Microsoft has done for the computer industry. You also put all the blame squarely on MS.

Yes, Windows has issues just as every OS that has ever existed. Microsoft is the big target and thus suffers from more attacks than any other OS. They have made mistakes and have learned a lot from them although they need to keep security as the top priority.

As a network administrator, I have not had a single security issue or breach on my network in over 6 years. We are purely Windows based (2000, XP, 2003). That is because I actually do my job properly and do not rely on the OS for security as nobody should regardless of the OS you use. Every OS is hackable and will always be hackable because nothing is perfect.

The most recent breach I have experienced was with our corporate website a year ago which our ISP hosts on Linux. I am not saying Linux is better or worse just that it happens with everything. Hell, even Cisco has issues with their router OS?s frequently. I am more worried about the internet backbones than my LAN security because it is out of my hands.

If you look at the latest vulnerabilities, you will see that MS has few on the list while Linux has multiple vulnerabilities, which I chock up to its modular design, and multiple vendor models.

http://www.securityfocus.com/vulnerabilities

Vista will be a good (not great) improvement. You cannot expect an OS to be infallible. There are far too many variables, components, and millions of lines of code and thousands of programmers that maintain these systems.

My 2 cents.

you make a point, but some of your questions need answering.

MS started off when Bill Gates bought QDos fron a dying computer company, created MSDos from it.

His KEY strategical move was to somehow persuade IBM to bundle the new windows OS with IBMs PCs going out to corporations.

This is easily researched on Google, my point is that most of windows consists of a series of aquisitions, although I concede that a lot of development has been made since.

I read somewhere once that 80% of Windows market is corporate, so aimed accordingly.

Windows was not designed for the internet, but the office environment, hence all its security problems.

As to where Windows came from?
I once owned a copy of windows 1.0 and it was almost identical with a program called GEM fom Alan Sugars range of AMSTRAD machines

Go figure it out

Personally I don't bother with a "new" Windows release until at least the first service pack. I've only installed XP on one of my "work" PCs (which hides behind a very secure hardware firewall) about three weeks ago, although its been on a test bench machine for a year or so now.

It amazes me that they get away with it. Suppoes a massive marketing budget always helps.

When i am ready for a new box and it comes pre-installed, maybe.

I just built a new box that should(?)be good for 3 or more years with xp pro/2 and ms office pro 03.

Ok yeah, the average home user pc is probably going have a lot of problems running Vista, especially the way M$ makes most their products, but is really all that bad???. I can remember going from Win95 & '98 to Win 2K & Xp. I had to upgrade my ram, video card and so on, but weve been doing that all along. Weve gone from 16mb cards to over 256mb, and 133mhz processors to 3ghz, not to mention all the patching and upgrades. So its really not that new. I guess we need to get used to it. Do we really the features all that M$ throws at us??, no, but to tap into the future of operating systems we need to adapt to change. Look on the bright side, its still better than having to use a Mac.

No question about it - M$ is going to have to hit a "grand slam" to get deep penetration with Vista. As I said earlier, I think people should let it stand on its own merits and upgrade if appropriate, but I think "appropriate" may differ widely depending on your situation. XP has been pretty successful out there - you're not going to budge users off it unless you can honestly sell them that there's a compelling reason to do so. I think most folks are going to take the stance "If it ain't broke ... why fix it?"

In my case I might upgrade out of curiosity only because I like to tinker with the latest technology. However I won't move any of the systems the rest of my family has to it, though ... the hardware won't handle it. In that case I'd wind up buying 3 more new computers where the ones they have now do the job perfectly for them. I suspect many are in that situation.

I sense a leveling off in the industry. I'm no expert on industry trends - but I think M$ is going to find it harder and harder to move the user base forward. It will happen - but I don't think it will move at nearly the rate it has before.

Just my 2-cents on that one.

-CB ;-)

64-bit Windows XP is a broken, partial implementation, made up of half-measures and emulation more than it is of actual 64-bit functionality. In addition to that, support for 64-bit XP sucks, but will perforce be much better for Vista.

On the other hand, there have been complete, fully functional 64-bit distributions of Linux since about a month after the first x86-64 processors hit the market.

Interesting, the source of your information all leads back to the PR firm of Wagoner Edstrom. Sounds a little like asking Nixon if he was a crook. I'll consider the possibility of a disgruntled employee if you consider the possibility of a conflict of interest.

I'll upgrade to Vista eventually. The company I work for is a Windows shop, and we will probably start to convert to Vista as we replace our desktop systems - since we just completed a major upgrade of desktops it will be about two years before we purchase our next large group of PCs, which will probably use Vista.

At home, I'm the same way. I have three computers, two with XP and one with Linux. I'll replace my older PC late next year, and the new system will probably have Vista as its O/S - unless I do something strange and by a MAC (which is not out of the question).

If Microsoft can give me a compelling reson to upgrade sooner, I'll upgrade, but if not I'll wait.

Bill

windows OS without having to use a gui.
Hmmm. Unf***inglikely I believe.
Still if he did we could all say he stole the idea off 'Nix or perhaps VMS.
LOL

> And you Linux guys? You'll likely get yours soon enough
> - and we'll ALL be drowning in Eye Candy!

Take a look at the (cool) videos at:
http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/

From alot of the MCSE self study I have done over the last couple of years (don't hold that against me ;) ), I find that there seems to be alot of stuff that MS does to tweak things or make them more efficient that you don't really know about until you really need it (which may be a couple of years down the track). Then I am reminded there is so much I don't know about this stuff.

When window 2000 was the norm and 2003 was released, I was asking myself at the time why would I want to go to 2003? Until I really did my homework and work on some real decent size networks only in the last couple of years did I have a response to that (i.e. renaming domains, improved replication, migrations, GPOs). Windows 2000 seems quite limited now.

My guess the server version will be the key. There will be alot more refinement tools and abilities that I won't need for a couple of years. It will probably be when the desktop version is used with the server that the real improvements are noticed. By then though, you probably won't be able to buy anything else.

One thing's for sure, when I do need to use it, I know that there will be plenty of documentation on how to use it.

Vista ... a wide-angle view. MS has never had much view and has a rep for wearing blinders in too many areas.

Would I try/buy Vista? Maybe ... if I won the $10,000,000 from PCH and found a rural house site in SW NM or SW TX and if I were feeling particularly sadisticcccckkkkkk ... I'd hire 6 folks and give them each a computer and each a version (aversion??) of Squint(c) and have the paramedics on standby.

Then I'd start taking bets on meltdown times.

Microsoft cannot, after x years, provide a browser that is safe to use. How can they expect us to believe that IE7 *and* Vista are in any way more functional than what they've turned out in the past?

Soon enough Microsoft will start just packaging it in all of the new computers my company buys so my company won't even have a choice.

Basically Microsoft will push the change through as quickly as new businesses buy new computers.

I can tell you one thing though, tech support is going to be a huge pain for a long time. Half the users at my company are not computer proficient and any change confuses them. I'm looking forward to trying Vista, but not supporting it.

I'm happy with XP. I'll probably be ready in a couple of years.