Windows Vista (1 Viewer)

[Rogue]

Does it cost to attend this thing?

Can I get a support slot?

 

[pete]

Does it cost to attend this thing?

Can I get a support slot?

it's all free

 

[Anthony]

Andy, I have Duke Nukem for the mac.

anyway,vista will run on the intell macs.

 

[pete]

just installed Vista Ultimate on me main pc and so far, it's bleedin deadly.

 

[flashback]

Pete, compared to what? Were you an Windows XP Pro user previously yeah? I always thought 2000 was underrated.

Anyway, other than this aqua (?) theme, or say aesthetics in general, what's nice about it? Would you think, if you were a XP user, its worth actually buying or would you wait till you bought a new machine, and got given the OS with it? Have they actually changed where stuff is, like how you get to Network Neighbourhood or whatever, or did they just bolt on the new UI instead of the XP one?


For myself, honestly I dont think anything they have done could get near what I have available to me using Linux, and I dont think I would change over unless there was something fucking phenomenal out there, but I would sort of like to know what they have made better from their previous yoke. Other than "security"


Edit... Actually, if I buy a laptop next week, would it come with Vista, yeah? Or does it depend on the laptop? How does that work, does MS change it or does Sony? I have to get one for someone in Ireland. I could monkey about with it on the plane on the way over. See what the story is with it then.

 

[pete]

Pete, compared to what? Were you an Windows XP Pro user previously yeah? I always thought 2000 was underrated.

Anyway, other than this aqua (?) theme, or say aesthetics in general, what's nice about it? Would you think, if you were a XP user, its worth actually buying or would you wait till you bought a new machine, and got given the OS with it? Have they actually changed where stuff is, like how you get to Network Neighbourhood or whatever, or did they just bolt on the new UI instead of the XP one?


For myself, honestly I dont think anything they have done could get near what I have available to me using Linux, and I dont think I would change over unless there was something fucking phenomenal out there, but I would sort of like to know what they have made better from their previous yoke. Other than "security"


Edit... Actually, if I buy a laptop next week, would it come with Vista, yeah? Or does it depend on the laptop? How does that work, does MS change it or does Sony? I have to get one for someone in Ireland. I could monkey about with it on the plane on the way over. See what the story is with it then.

Before i go any further, I'm running Vista 64bit Ultimate Edition on a 64bit dual core AMD 4200+ machine with 2gb ram & an nVidia 7900GT video card, so i've got all the bells & whistles turned on, which means that some of this won't apply to lower spec machines or other versions of Vista.

I've got XP MCE 2005 on another partition & am using SLED 10 in work, so the first thing that hits you is obviously the aesthetics - it looks way more polished than XP, as you'd expect after 3 or 4 years. But it's even much nicer than the SLED 10 + XGL i'm using in work - sure, it doesn't do the spinny 3d cube stuff, but overall it just looks nicer.

A bit of it does just look like XP with some shiny bits stuck on - System Properties is almost identical, so if you right click on Computer & select properties you might as well still be on XP although come to think of it, I don't think it's changed much since Windows 2000 either.

The sidebar & gadgets are pretty much just lifted straight from OSX, but they're cool all the same. The new version of Media Centre is great - again, it's much more polished than the one in MCE 2005 (which itself is pretty handy), but also has a much improved interface. Vista comes with IE7 & Media Player 11, both of which are vast improvements over their previous incarnations but are available for XP anyway, so not much of a gain there. Networking seems to be way more uhhh visible than before - like, information about exactly what is being shared and with whom is immediately available by clicking links that say exactly what they do. Haven't really had much of a chance to dig around much more than that yet.


Bear in mind that it's not actually out yet for consumers, so if you buy a machine before the end of january (i think) it'll still come with XP Home or whatever, but with an entitlement to an upgrade to whatever version of Vista (there are many). The installation process was painless - it's much improved from previous versions, and it automatically detected & installed my SATA controllers so no fucking around with driver floppies.

Oh and apparently if you've got a 64bit CPU but are currently running a 32bit version of Windows (which would be most people I think), you can't upgrade to 64bit Vista. You need to do a clean install.

 

[flashback]

...it automatically detected & installed my SATA controllers so no fucking around with driver floppies.

That's sound. That shit with Windows freaking out about SATA drives pissed me off.

Oh and apparently if you've got a 64bit CPU but are currently running a 32bit version of Windows (which would be most people I think), you can't upgrade to 64bit Vista. You need to do a clean install.

Makes sense. Its totally different at a low level. I would be impressed if it was an upgrade.

I dont totally get what you are saying about the Networking being more visible, but eh, sounds nice. Windows always seemed a bit shit say compared to Linux / OSX when it was chatting to other boxes not via WWW.

Here, your machine is fairly brutish. Even still do you notice any slow down with Vista? Or much the same? XP was a fair bit slower than 2000 I thought. (For what you were getting with XP... ie it seemed pretty much the same content wise.)

What about the Win registry. That was always shite, they still have that thing do they? That thing was always a nightmare.

Cheers Pete.

 

[Goff]

Well, after that, Vista looks like it's going to be shite shite shite for any sort of personal media use due to the DRM that "Microsoft aren't involved it but someone probably will in the future." Not good. A very worrying development indeed.

And, although it looks great and can do such wonderful things, all the stuff they showed today will not be used by the average bizniz user. End of story.

They seem hell-bent on destroying the humble USB key as well. Worried about your intellectual property? Hire people you can trust.

As for the examples they had: very uninspiring, globalised and showing a complete lack of user understanding. Except, perhaps, for your man from Cork. And Trinners' John Murphy.

Neil Armstrong is King.

Were all the Microsofters presenting er, Microsoftees? Or just ultra camp?

 

[Wilbert]

They seem hell-bent on destroying the humble USB key as well. Worried about your intellectual property? Hire people you can trust.

What do you mean?

 

[das funkinstein]

What do you mean?

Its flavour of the month to block USB keys in the work place.

I am using vista 64 ultimate at the moment.
loads of stuff doesnt install at the moment as there are not vista 64 bit drivers. so some apps / hardware wont install.

should be more secure than xp, by its design you dont run as admin anymore.
you are prompted for permission to run anything that needs admin rights. also it will refuse to use drivers that are not digitally signed by default. meaning apps for wireless cards etc wont work, until new apps for vista are made.

So this means it should be harder to get malware , viruses etc as anything trying to run will ask for permission.

a couple of things i have noticed:
1. documents and settings has become users
2. you now have 2 program files folders one called program file (x86)
3. the My prefix has been dropped from my documents and other folders.
4. windows calander is a rip off of mozilia sunbird
5. windows media player wont play some mp3s, also it wont quit, if you use the X it disapears and keeps playing, you need to kill it in task manager.
6. the resource manger in the taskmanger tells you everything thats going on, from memeory to what files are being usedon the harddisk to what you are connecting to via the network.

The name changes drive programe installers nuts as there is no my documents etc. also they dont have rights to install in some places.

One thing i have noticed so far is no crashes, apps will crash but they dont take windows with it. but then again a new copy of windows flys along until you install stuff. over all it is a major upgrade to windows. new pc's will probbly get it in the new year, while i would imagine buisness wont touch it for at least 6 months or more.

 

[Goff]

What do you mean?

As Funk said. The big thing (probably ever since Colin Farrell did it in The Recruit) is the theft of intellectual copyright, etc. I say, hire people you trust/treat them well/Get them to sign the Official Secrets Act (as in Govt./My Case). So the USB key is the enemy. Also things like not allowing copy and paste (all shite. People can still type).

I attended a seminar in DCU on disabilities yesterday. One of the things displayed was a portable version of software for people with reading difficulties. Brilliant because they can bring it with them anywhere and use it anywhere. And, although, Vista will enable it to be used, if it's included by policy, you know the difficulties in getting some things approved in most IT Departments. We're a bit more enlightened here in my job, but I know a lot of other people who just wouldn't allow such a thing.

The benefits are really negligible if real-world examples are to be believed. I can't even repeat the shite they showed as examples but needless to say it was in the effort of flying windows rather than helpful. One thing about fancier graphics etc., is the need to upgrade machines. More so than when XP was released.

And for bitlocker to work to "protect" your data is your laptop is stolen, you'll need a motherboard with a chip on it that is way open to the whole lack of civil liberties abuse that Intel tried a few years back. All of a sudden it's acceptable? They admit that third party developers will be able to lock their DRM into it, as well as the ability to track your use. Thereby flying in the face of all advice re rights to privacy, etc.

It's a nightmare.

But it looks nice. Not as nice as OSX.

And it's so obviously not ready and therefore ready to be ripped to pieces by the hacker community.

One thing i have noticed so far is no crashes, apps will crash but they dont take windows with it.

They said that about XP as well. And that was a myth. As you say, give it a few months.

 

[Wilbert]

As Funk said. The big thing (probably ever since Colin Farrell did it in The Recruit) is the theft of intellectual copyright, etc. I say, hire people you trust/treat them well/Get them to sign the Official Secrets Act (as in Govt./My Case). So the USB key is the enemy. Also things like not allowing copy and paste (all shite. People can still type).

I attended a seminar in DCU on disabilities yesterday. One of the things displayed was a portable version of software for people with reading difficulties. Brilliant because they can bring it with them anywhere and use it anywhere. And, although, Vista will enable it to be used, if it's included by policy, you know the difficulties in getting some things approved in most IT Departments. We're a bit more enlightened here in my job, but I know a lot of other people who just wouldn't allow such a thing.

The benefits are really negligible if real-world examples are to be believed. I can't even repeat the shite they showed as examples but needless to say it was in the effort of flying windows rather than helpful. One thing about fancier graphics etc., is the need to upgrade machines. More so than when XP was released.

And for bitlocker to work to "protect" your data is your laptop is stolen, you'll need a motherboard with a chip on it that is way open to the whole lack of civil liberties abuse that Intel tried a few years back. All of a sudden it's acceptable? They admit that third party developers will be able to lock their DRM into it, as well as the ability to track your use. Thereby flying in the face of all advice re rights to privacy, etc.

It's a nightmare.

But it looks nice. Not as nice as OSX.

And it's so obviously not ready and therefore ready to be ripped to pieces by the hacker community.



They said that about XP as well. And that was a myth. As you say, give it a few months.

Wow, it sounds like a piece of crap! Anything good about it?

 

[magicbastarder]

Neil Armstrong is King.

seconded - i had a VIP badge, so i got to meet the chap, really just to shake hands with him.

my main impression i took away from the event was "so, you'll need a new OS, new hardware, new mail client, new mail backend, new office suite, and new collaboration backend to use all that?"
i.e. it'll cost you probably two grand minimum per machine...

 

[Goff]

seconded - i had a VIP badge, so i got to meet the chap, really just to shake hands with him.

my main impression i took away from the event was "so, you'll need a new OS, new hardware, new mail client, new mail backend, new office suite, and new collaboration backend to use all that?"
i.e. it'll cost you probably two grand minimum per machine...

When are we getting our copy of office, that's what I want to know.

And our free cut down version of it.

As for anything good about it? Well, it looks pretty. Though again, there's many a linux and OS X that looks nicer.

The thing that annoyed me about it:The Life-Saving software for use in ambulances, et al. Improved by swirling graphics. The thing you really need whan you want information fast.

Give me a break.

 

[flashback]

EXTRA EXTRA, Read all about it, Windows in OS vulnerability exploit shocker!!!
"...Hackers are hawking zero-day exploits for Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system at $50,000 a pop".

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2073611,00.asp

Imagine!