I’ve just had a 12 hour Vista Brainwashing Session with MS at one of their [b]Certified[/b] Partners Roadshows and I’m impressed.
7 versions of Vista coming out as soon as MS can get the code to work and then another 7 versions coming out in 64 Bit so over all that will eventually be 14 versions of Vista for us to play with. B-)
But the really great news is this if you buy a 64 Bit version and load even 1 32 Bit piece of Software the OS will default back to a 32 BIT OS and not work as a 64 Bit OS. ?:|
For home there are 3 versions
[b]1[/b] Home Basic
[b]2[/b] Home Premium
[b]3[/b]Home Ultimate
Small Business
[b]4[/b]Business
[b]5[/b] Ultimate
Medium to Large Business
[b]6[/b] Business
[b]7[/b] Ultimate
Although I can only see 4 different versions the Sales Guy insisted that they actually have 7 and it will be the [b]Big Business Ultimate Version[/b] shipping starting in November [b]Well Maybe[/b] but it could be pushed back to December or even February.
Now for the Good News Volume License will only be available on two Versions the Business and Ultimate and Software Assurance will only be available on Ultimate so that sort of limits the opportunities for us all doesn’t it?
However as the Sales Guy says Dell, HP and all those guys [b]Will Not Have[/b] the Ultimate version so we’ll all either be loading White Boxes with Vista Ultimate or buying more Volume Licenses and loading the off the Shelf Stuff if we want to have Software Assurance. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling in the stomach that one. Knowing that MS will be being paid twice for OS’s on the one machine. 🙂
Then there is Office 12 we where given a 60 minute presentation on all it’s new features and they have Tags so it’s easier to find the tools that you want in the application and they change as you change the work so you always have the necessary tools available.
We where shown Word, Excel & Power Point all with the new interface and Frontpage has gone the way of the Dodo to be replaced with Sharepoint. Then they spent the last 40 minutes showing off Exchange which has the ability to hold more Mail Boxes and more mail but the down side is it only comes in the 64 Bit version so there will be a need for those 64 Bit Versions of Vista which we where told is built on the reliable [b]2003 & XP Kernels[/b] though that bit did lose me slightly, but it was such a fun time that no one bothered asking the obvious question of [b]What The Hell Are You Talking About?[/b] Mainly because the Genuine Ferrari NB looked [b]So Nice![/b]
Anyway I’m getting all washed away in the MS BS and I did approach this very nice gentleman and ask him which Processors would be [b]Fully Supported[/b] with which version of Vista, That raised a funny look with the expected response [b]All will be supported by our Products.[/b] So I pushed a bit harder and asked did that mean that a Pentium Extreme would be fully supported by Vista Home Basic he just gave me a funny look and said [b]Of Course Why did you bother Asking[/b] I then explained that a Pentium Extreme was a Dual Core CPU with HTT so it effectively looked like 4 CPU’s to the OS not just a single core without HTT and I got a [b]OH Hum![/b] And a really dumb look and he pushed his Ferrari NB at me and said that it works on this as if I was to be impressed by that and ASUS single Core AMD running a 2 GHZ with 1 GIG of RAM. But it was a Nice Red Colour.
So that question remains unanswered I don’t know which if any version of Vista will support the Dual Core with HTT or whatever AMD calls their process that effectively does the same thing.
The 2 base models Vista Basic & Premium are [b]Workgroup Only[/b] and the rest are [b]Domain Capable[/b] though for the life of me I can not see the difference between the Ultimate Small Business and Ultimate Big Business versions but we where told that they where different so it must be so.
I can just see all the Exchange Managers rushing out for Exchange 12 or what ever it ends up being called as being a 64 Bit application it will require an all 64 Bit system to run on and [b]NO[/b] 32 Bit programs installed or Vista will default back to a 32 Bit OS. The [b]Do More With Less[/b] Marketing push seems to be rubbing more than a bit thin as it now looks as if you’ll be pushing [b]Do Less with More[/b] as there are no where enough 64 Bit drivers available so MS isn’t going to be pushing the 64 Bit OS’s until the customers have the available drivers and software then they mentioned [b]Exchange[/b] seems that the Right Hand of the Marketing Department doesn’t know what the Left Hand is doing but I’m sure that as everyone with current SA will be rushing out to install the new Software when it hits the streets we’ll see a [b]Merry Time.[/b] 😉
The next Beta Version of Vista should be available in 3 weeks for download along with Office 12 and Exchange 12 all from the same MS Site in the US but that’s also flexible as the code is still being written and they where very careful not to use any functions that didn’t work. Actually come to think of it we saw very little of anything that had not been prebuilt and it was more of a [b]Show & Tell[/b] rather than a genuine show of the new product.
But a few little [b]Gems[/b] where dropped things like [b]We are finding 5000 problems per day[/b] with the version of Vista that they where using. That alone really instilled confidence in the [b]True Believers[/b] while the real people looked [b]Horrified[/b] at that little gem.
Parent Controls look great if they actually work as they will not only show where the [b]Children/End Users[/b] have attempted to go but everything that they have done on the computer and I do mean [b]Everything[/b] I can see a lot of SYS Admins turning this option off for their own stations. 😀 After all not many would want it known what e-mails they had received & Sent this includes the complete contents what was in any Instant Messaging that they had received & sent as well as any actual Web Sites that they had attempted to visit and what they had visited and attempted or actually downloaded, then there are the internal Office Documents all are available through the [b]Parental Control[/b] option doesn’t matter if they where deleted or not by whoever they all remain available to the System Admin or anyone with the Admin Password.
The new Graphics look nice though for the life of me I can not see it being used much and that nasty [b]Start[/b] button has been replaced with the [b]MS Pearl[/b] so I’ll no longer have to have arguments with my Mother as to why I click on [b]Start[/b] to shut the thing down. :^0
As MS sees most of the market growth next year being on NB’s they are pushing the idea heavily that the Graphics cards will need at least 32 MEG and better if they have 64 MEG even if it’s [b]Shared Memory[/b] available to run these graphics on your new NB or you just will not see them.
Well [b]Boys & Girls[/b] I’ve seen the [b]Official Presentation[/b] and am now making arraignments for a nice long hospital visit to start the Day that Vista gets released so I can have a nice quite time while you lot are tearing your hair out insisting that as 90% of the people use [b]Windows it’s Best[/b] and finding all the little problems that where patched in XP and have been left open in Vista. 😀
The other big announcement was that every 24 months MS is going to be rolling out a Major Release from now on and Vista is the Basis of the next 10 years of Windows so about 24 months after Vista Hits the streets you’ll all see a Major Service Pack and the another 24 months latter there will be a replacement Version of Windows to replace Vista that’s of course if MS can get their act together and do it properly even if the new release is only a re-badged copy of the previous version so they can keep the income stream coming in. With the 4 yearly replacement to their Flagship OS Windows.
Now remember that Vista as it stands now represents [b]1,000,000 Man Years of Work[/b] so hopefully it might part way work even in the stripped down versions that well be seeing sometime starting from November on wards to the unknown release date. :^0
Col
[i]Edit[/i] All the above quoted figures are supplied directly from MS and while I don’t necessarily believe everything the numbers are interesting and frighting. So don’t pick on me if you consider the figures wrong that are directly from the MS Presenters.
