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Microsoft thinks that by added a resource-intensive glass theme, and by trying to overlay more crap on top of Windows, that they're making it better. Actually, they're making it much worse.
For example, I'm contstantly trying to cut down on bloat. I'll take a lightweight app more times over than some powerful, popular app. I use Pine (inside cygwin on my Windows machine) for my email. It's fast as hell, and you wouldn't beliving how this sucker flies, even on my shitty Pentium 3 1GHz (my nice laptop needs a new HD).
Point is, it's time to start actually WORKING on the next version of Windows. I don't want more damn bloat, I want a lightweight, fast, stable OS.
I don't understand why "everyone else" wants shit. Maybe it's because they're to stupid to understand it's shit.
I really think MS should change the approach to Windows - don't install a calculator, and a text editor (two of them, in fact) with every copy of Windows - install an Operating System - then let me pick and choose what utilities (Microsoft or other) that I want to put on top on my OS. From CD burning to music players to text editors - make them optional down-loadable add ons, much like web-widgets.
If Microsoft could exclude the inclusion of everything except the core OS, the required applications to get me on-line, and the security applications we all know are required, then how much less complex would Vista, or any other Windows OS get?
And I am not suggesting that MS abandon all of the misc "stuff" that makes Windows cool, like built in support for almost anything you need a computer to do -- just don't assume I need it, and don't include it in your core OS - that makes managing and shipping a solid OS almost impossible, and with bandwidth as cheap as it is, there isn't a reason to. Sure - some people are still on dial up - but are those people really candidates for an OS like Vista? And assuming they are, put all of the "extra" crap on a seperate CD/DVD that they an order.
IF you can't ship an OS on a CD, it's too damn big, and if you can't install in on a one Gig HD, it's just way too damn big!
First, glass is obviously not faster than XP. Obviously. I have a high-end graphics card in a high-end desktop PC and Aero/Glass is noticeably slower than Windows XP. By a w i d e margin.
Where high-end graphics cards shine is in 3D effects like smoke, transitions, warp effects, wave effects that involve overlaying 2D images for eye candy. Those effects are rendered faster in graphics cards than in CPUs because graphics cards manufacturers design their chips around processing these types of effects.
"Rendering" unique 2D bitmaps to a 3D-accellerated card does not make the UI faster. It does not offload processing power from the CPU - it simply instates an additional middleman (the graphics card engine) for 3D processing whether or not it is necessary (ie, a 3D render will occur). This is bad architecture.
The only reason one would offload a 2D desktop window to a 3D graphics card is for 3D effects but Glass 1) doesn't have that many effects (vs. say Doom III or Quake IV) and 2) people would trade those effects for a faster 2D feel overall anyway and 3)a standard desktop UI outside of games is generally composed of more unique, non-repeating "texture" elements (the web browser canvas displaying the text, individual icons, UI elements like menus and buttons etc) than a video game and fewer 3D effects are generally used on each of those elements for the purpose of keeping things simple and readible for the user.
Now I'm not saying a 3D desktop with awesome effects wouldn't be cool (compiz anyone?). I'm saying that for the number of effects Microsoft offers in glass, the performance hit is not worth it. Hence the Vista UI seems unresponsive.
Wish I could comment on Vista performance but I've only run it in a virtual machine.
I have a different experience of Vista vs XP to you. In comparison to XP it is lightning quick. No comparison, vista blows xp out of the water on my machine.
That says something though, if your getting a different experience they need to work harder at making it more consistent across users.
What is a worry for me is that it crashes, as in blue screen of death crashes far too frequently. Aside from that other things need more work including the media center, speech etc so overall I agree this needs to be pushed back until it is functioning smoothly.
Here's to hoping for Duke Nukem Forever on my Vista PC. :)
Think of Windows Vista as one of the world's largest committees. Committees take a long time to do things.
And Vista is actually pretty good. I miss it, but I just need a more powerful computer to run it (coming soon).
I'm referring to the gentleman from Australia who wrote the story and you questioned his professionalism even.
And about needing a more powerful computer to run Vista...why? Why does an Operating System need to use so many damn resources? Why? Answer that.
Don't be too sure of that. It's all about confidence levels, and more months, after this many delays, cements that, makes it a PERMANENT perception. The Street will remember, the share price will reflect that for years (rather decades). Internally people will recall it forever, and that will reflect of future development, impact on management trust and accelerate the brain drain, already took out grand champ Vic, for goodness sake.
This late, and only a shadow of its former self, with the key planks being but vaporware, oh people will remember, every day, every minute, every millisecond, and if they forget, the press will be there to eternally remind them. Can't get away with it this time.
Microsoft will never be the same, as getting beyond Vista will be the REAL hurdle.
But most modern day GPU's contains special support for Windows GDI acceleration anyways ... that was pretty big back then in the olden days when Tseng Labs and Weitek was touting their SVGA cards.
Also is Vista not supposed to make our computing lives easier and simpler or are they trying to shovel everything including the kitchen sink onto our desktop to justify the pricetag ???.
I think there is a rather serious disconnect between what normal PC folk want i.e stabler more secure version of XP which they can painlessly upgrade to than what the hordes of "Program Managers" in Redmond decides what is good for us.
We will get an OS that continues along the same path, but now requires a DVD to install. What will drive us to get the next computer?
Why not do something different, why not build the next OS super light? Let us build up the OS. Let us decide what programs and backward-compatiblity we need.
It's time to change how we compute. Split the OS into Home and Professional. Home being the everything included OS(for the grandma crowd) and Professional being an OS that can scale and gets out of the way. Make it very inexpensive or free.
Give us the option to offer and subscribe to web2.0 services from anywhere. Drive the hardware vendors to rethink how they are doing the same old same old.
Empower me to choose what gets installed!
This idea isn't that radical it is based on what they are doing with the next version of Office, which is pretty radical divergence from what has come in the past.
What drove us to upgrade in the past? No matter what others have said, the OS was better than the previous version. And I/we happily pushed our Co's to move forward but now why should we?
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2006/07/first-...
I was waiting for a reason to unsuscribe, and I guess this is it...
Who are you and what have you done with the real Robert Scoble?!? Or is this real Robert Scoble unmasked?
Booger
Windows XP SP2 is a fantastic OS, and it still has a lot of life left into it.
Scoble: you hit the head on the nail, ME was shit, and it's the butt of every joke when it comes to Microsoft. People will forget about the delays if Vista is absolutly amazing.
If that means we have to wait till xmas 07 then i don't care, windows xp is absolutly fine!
You can check out the spending chart at:
http://www.stonethembas.com
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2006/07/28/mi...
I installed Vista Beta 2 on my Thinkpad T41,(1.6, 768 ram, 40 HD.(I had my restore discs from Lenovo) With a clean install, I have been rather impressed by the overall experience with Vista. Everything works,its as fast a XP Pro, which I didnt expect. I am going to stick with it for a few days, see how it goes. I am not getting the "aero" experience, and don't miss what I've never seen. Even Itunes runs fine! I guess I was just lucky, because most of the stories out there are hair raising. I am really interested in seeing RC 1.
As far as what makes OS X so great - and something Microsoft keeps missing - is how it gets out of your way and just lets you work with your hardware and apps. No pop up reminders to clean your desktop or take a tour, no endless parade of announcements that a new printer was found, and found, and found...
I'm not saying that you're dishonest, far from it. But it's common sense that you give a benfit of the doubt when a company is paying your mortgage.
The other side of that is, OK, we accept the idea of Microsoft taking longer to do a major release of Windows because they are making sure it runs great on all the widely-varied PC's made in the last five years. But as we enter 3Q 2006, and Vista is still not running well on a lot of hardware.. what conclusion should we draw from that ?
Is it just getting too hard to have our cake (millions of permutations of hardware choices, all at rock bottom prices) and eat it too (timely OS upgrades)?
Windows is too damned intrusive. When things are working correctly, STFU already. If I have all the drivers to make my USB device work, I don't need to know that. The proper function of that device is all I need. I don't need to be told I just plugged in a device. I was there, I plugged it in. Even with my ADD Poster Child status, I think I can handle not being nannyed to death.
Windows still acts like a boy scout on speed, and it needs to adopt Mac OS X's quietly efficient British Butler model.
Balmer is a good CEO if you need a cheerleader. Microsoft needs better management
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=...
Does require a registry-edit though.
Personally, I like the USB balloon notification most times. I want to know that the OS has recognized my device I've just connected -- just like if I click a button on a GUI I expect to see it "depress" to acknowledge that it's received my click.
What I do find annoying, though, are too-frequent notifications about loosing wireless connectivity. Would be nice if it could wait a little longer to see if it comes back before interrupting me.
You left microsoft barely a month ago and you already are recommending people to wait for SP1. What a cheap man you are. I am a microsoft employee and I disagree with you. The recent builds are very stable and responsive. I am glad you quit Microsoft coz you dont know what the hell you are talking about and you call yourself a geek. All you ever did was over hype everything. Good luck with your new job and hopefully you wouldnt be doing such backstabbing at the new company.
That's a load crap. OS X is ONE VERSION no matter how many times Apple "patches" it. If you look at it the way Cody does, then you'd have to say SP1 and SP2 are different versions of XP. RIGHT?? OS X 10.5 is still ver 10! NOT 11!
Sorry for being somewhat off topic, but yeah... wait longer till Vista is ready, a few more months.. hell, we've waited how long already? I just want it to work. I sure as hell don't want to see another Windows ME.
Very stable, huh? Hope that line works for you. The market will decide something much different if the sound drivers don't even work.
Oy, again mit der Pine pimping. So you use the Unix version under Windows. I suppose next you'll brag about your "fast as hell" 28.8 modem on your 386SX.
Cody, you don't understand why everyone else wants something else? It's because everyone else isn't stuck in the year 1992. Hope that clears it up for you.
I tried Vista Beta 2 on my Tablet and likewise it was unusably slow.
But Vista Beta 2 just flies on an Apple MacBook pimped out with 2 GB of RAM.
Strangely enough Unreal Tournment under OS X (OpenGL) is a dog, while on the same machine running Vista (DX 10), it's super fast.
The observation about WWDC plus this thread makes me wish I had picked up some AAPL at $50 a couple of weeks ago :-)
I got a bunch at 18 about 6 years ago.
"The needs of the Enterprise (rock solid stability, security and backwards compatibility) are not the same as the home use"
Gee. I have rock-solid stability, security. and decent compatibility at home but NOT at work. Guess what? I use OS X at home; XP at work.
I'm also upset that MS didn't address performance issues (though I'm not enough of a zealot to read email in pine...). Specifically, there's no reason why text can't render instantly, no matter how much other crap I'm doing - or why I can't alt-tab or ctl-alt-del no matter how much crap I'm doing. It's 2006, let's get the basics nailed down for once before we tack on yet ANOTHER graphics system onto Windows.
Yes, the performance in the final version of Windows should be better...
But I'm going to say this over and over again: I don't understand why Vista needs top of the line equipment in 2006 to run graphics effects that Mac OSX could do years ago.
And Jason, Vista is basically the same OS as XP, just like leopard/puma/cheetah/whatevercatitis is the same as OSX from 5 years ago. Once you disable the graphics system (which 90% of programmers and corporations will do) all we're getting is a new security model, which is there to make up for the XP SP2 security that wasn't quite as good as Unix/OSX/Linux, which is probably only necessary because they integrated IE 8 years ago. Yes, the search system is new, but I can get that from Google for free (or MSN if I liked their toolbar, but I don't).
Have I missed anything? I've looked at screenshots, read articles, visited forums and I'm underwhelmed and I'm pretty sure the community is, too. This is no Windows 2000. MS can take its time because it's too late to use Vista hype to sell Back to School computers and no one but hardware makers care.
Heh, well, I can send and recieve email just like anyone else. At least I'm not a sucker and paying hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Outlook to be able to send and recieve email.
Which makes me pretty damn smart for saving money like that. ;)
I burst out laughing at that. Vista is about saving Microsoft's ass, yours doesn't count.
-- That’s a load crap. OS X is ONE VERSION no matter how many times Apple “patches” it. If you look at it the way Cody does, then you’d have to say SP1 and SP2 are different versions of XP. RIGHT?? OS X 10.5 is still ver 10! NOT 11! --
I don't want to start an OS war; I happily use almost every OS around and try to learn the best from each one's story. Anyway, I have to say that you're totally wrong about MacOS X versioning and distance from 10.x to 10.y releases. Apple is following a particular versioning convention in the form of 10.x.y where 10 corresponds to the name of the operating system (X), x to the major release and y to the patch level.
i don't know how much you know MacOS X internals but the distance from 10.2 and 10.4 is at least as much as the distance from Windows NT and Windows 2003 Server. The great difference between the Apple model and the Microsoft model is mainly in the fact that revolutions in the internals have usually marginal impacts on the frontend. People see continuous improvements in performances, stability and functionalities in the form of evolution while developers see continuous harmonization of the frameworks and some revolution in previously uncovered areas (e.g.: 10.4 revolutionized the IOKit and kernel extention model, introduced a Cocoa framework for Quicktime and integrated it into the brand new Core Graphics layer).
Meanwhile, passing from 10.0 to 10.4, Apple managed three different CPU platforms almost transparently to end users (I can move applications from my Powebook G4 to my new MacBook Intel based as if they were the same identical platform).
It was not a simple task to achieve such relevant results. MacOS X is the sum of three generations of operating systems and several, very different technologies coming from different worlds. It was not perfect from the beginning, it's not perfect now but it doesn't discharge all the troubles on the shoulders of its users.
I perfectly understand the difficulties that developing Vista posed on Microsoft and I'm not so scandalized about another delay. But I can't stand with the fact that Vista could be a revolution for Windows users but not for desktop computing at all. It's made up of things already around for three to five years. Microsoft lost a great occasion to break with the past and embrace a more clean, performant and future proof design.
Marco
Oh, and I definitely agree that Vista needs exactly two versions - home and pro. The overwhelming majority of the population do not want to spend an entire day setting up a system. I want things to work straight out of the box, and not hunt for hours finding the exact widgets that I need. Of course, for the people running servers, obviously stuff like calendar and email don't belong on a fresh install.
Cody, Apple is at the other extreme, which is nearly as bad as far as I'm concerned. Do we really need 4 updates in 5 years, at $130 per update? I think not.
And there's no way in the world Microsoft could get away with that, as the userbase is too big and the corporate base wouldn't stand for it.
I'm still on OSX 10.3, because I didn't care about Spotlight and dashboard enough to shell out the annual $130 tax yet again. And if 10.5 is just as uncompelling (relative to $130), I'll skip that too.
Unfortunately, Apple adds artificial requirements to their software to require the latest OS (iWork 07 and iLive 07 will require OSX 10.5, eventhough there's no good reason for it (Apple could easily gracefully disable any functionality that required the latest OS (if there is any) so that it would run on 10.3, but they don't so as to force upgrades).
That's a load of crap. Windows NT is ONE VERSION no matter how many times MS "patches" it. If you look at it the way Jason does, the you'd have to say OS 9 is the same as OS X. Right?? XP is still version 5 of NT not 6!
XP is version 5.1 of Win NT where as 2000 was version 5 originally... so Version 5 of Windows has been out since February 17, 2000.
Version 10 of Mac OS has been out since March 24, 2001...
But you could also make the argument that it is version 1 since it isnt based on the same code, right?
According to wikipedia, the "[d]evelopment of Windows NT started in November 1988". But the first release was in 1993. It had a horrible UI... the same as Windows 3.1
Also according to wikipedia, "Mac OS X is based on the Mach kernel and the BSD implementation of Unix, which were incorporated into NEXTSTEP, the object-oriented operating system developed by Steve Jobs's NeXT company after he left Apple in 1985."
NEXTSTEP had a very concise simple UI. Win NT 4 Megapixel 16-bit color graphics long after NExt step.
BSD was a direct descendant of Bell Labs/MIT UNIX code that dates back to the 1960s.
TomB, how old are you, twelve?
Where'd you get the idea that *nix is the be-all and end-all, and can't be surpassed?
I thought it was sad that Apple abandoned its attempt at its own modern OS design in favor of yet another *nix, since it meant that every desktop OS is either NT-derived or has a *nix core. I liked that Apple had a unique design with Classic Mac OS, and it's too bad they failed when trying modernize it.
Anyway, I don't think *every* OS should to be *nix. Unless you want OS design to stagnate.
I read Chris Pirillo's "UI issues", almost all of which are so minor and I don't even agree with many of his complaints to begin with. I wouldn't hold up a release for those things.
Performance - yes, if perfomance is lacking in October, then Microsoft should delay and do another beta. But the latest build is much faster than beta2 was. I say wait until October to make the call, not make the call right now, particularly those that have no inside info (anymore).
Drivers: Of course, if the drivers aren't ready, then delay. But that's not a six month issue; please...
My feeling is that the latest build is miles better than beta2 was, and if improvements continue at that rate, then Vista may very well be ready in October. It's too soon to make a definitive declaration at this point.
I also say that you have to ship sometime. One can always make an argument to wait six more months. Microsoft can keep delaying six months for the next five years, and there'd still be calls to wait six more months. You have to ship sooner or later; there's always SP1 to address nagging issues.
Let's see where things stand in October. I don't think most here (including Scoble) are in any position to make a solid prediction on that.
My main on the go 3g card (a vodaphone data card) does not work with Vista. It was simply closed today with no work around!
My mail/news client, Turnpike, does not work under vista. The app-compat bug was closed today (no work around)
Oh - and in Xp and earlier, you could drag an object from explorer into a cmd prompt and get the full path dropped into cmd.exe. This too is broken and has been closed as "will not fix".
Vista needs a Beta 3.
Per la cronaca io la beta di Vista l'ho provata e non vedo così tanti problemi come dicono.. anzi è più veloce di XP e parecchio stabile su un PC di 5 anni fa!
Per la cronaca io la beta di Vista l'ho provata e non vedo così tanti problemi come dicono.. anzi è più veloce di XP e parecchio stabile su un PC di 5 anni fa!
I'm just going through reviews and reviews, loking for the monitor to buy. Just when I decided on a compromise, you say this about number of Apple products to be annouced, then MacRumors adds that it might be new displays (I hope with HDCP) and I'm faced with terrible dilema: buy now or wait next week - and I have just 2 days shopping window next week (2 days left in UK and then go back to home country where monitors are very pricey).
Arrgh!
I tried windows vista on my laptop (infact very slow HDD and ATI 64MB graphics card) and everything worked very fine.
OS X is a major rewrite of OS 9. Sorry you missed one of the most successful and technologically impressive transitions ever accomplished.
Well, there's a good reason for this: Apple has to do much much much much less QC work on OS X releases than MS does. Apple knows what hardware will be running it's OS, it built the hardware. MS has to account for about 1,000,000x10^10 (slightly exaggerated) different setups. This is a major reason Apple has continued to pair its OS with its machines exclusively. I've even heard that once upon a time MS didn't want to bother developing a GUI for PCs so asked Apple to develop the Mac OS for PCs (pre-Windows) but Apple also didn't want to bother with it =) If you know what's running your software it's easier to make leaner software.
In response to someone elses comment about using a GPU to render the UI, it's not that costly. And I do believe OS X uses OpenGL to render pretty much everything on screen: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextr...
That’s a load crap. OS X is ONE VERSION no matter how many times Apple “patches” it. If you look at it the way Cody does, then you’d have to say SP1 and SP2 are different versions of XP. RIGHT?? OS X 10.5 is still ver 10! NOT 11!"
SP1 and SP2 are different versions of XP... congratulations on stating the obvious. While I am somewhat upset at having to pay 70 some dollars every year to year and a half to upgrade my OS X, I am not upset at the continued development and the near constant improvements functionality and speedwise to the OS.
I'd rather that than wait a number of years for an update that (so far) sounds like it will force anyone running a computer more than a year or two old to upgrade and then may even slow your workrate down. The reason you're thinking Vista is such a big jump forward (and it is in most regards) is because it's the first one in a while.... by the way, is MS going to get rid of that idiotic Home/Professional distinction in Vista? =/
Each version of OX X are very different OSes. Even security issues are different. Features continue to improve with each version. There was no feature change from SP1 to Sp2
OS X is a major rewrite of OS 9. Sorry you missed one of the most successful and technologically impressive transitions ever accomplished.
Comment by JHG — August 3, 2006 @ 9:12 am
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Actually - it is a major rewrite of the os9 api's ( carbon ) and a major revision to the OpenStep operating system.
It is NOT os9. But it is a set of cleaned up os9
I'm afraid not, there will be five versions of Vista: Business, Enterprise, Home Premium, Home Basic and Ultimate.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/...
Unreal Tournament under OSX was never finished. It was a preview release or beta. On my G3 UT ran pretty good under OS9 but OSX was painful.
That being said I agree with one of the first comments - why doesn't MS do another 'research OS' like singularity for desktops? Put some of their ace programmers on the job of coding up a new OS from scratch. Nix all the legacy crap that bloats the NT kernel, write it for new systems and release it as such.
>a rip off of the current mac os
NO FARKING WAY!!!!!
It'll be a rip off full-stop. XP with bigger hardware requirements.
http://www.twit.tv/sn51
I was one of the earlier adopters and after forking over much tango denero to buy this sorry excuse for an operating system, I soon came to realize it would be littered with more bugs than a 400 year-old wooden porch.
Crashes occured daily, blue screens a plenty. You name it. And that is not even considering the lack of driver support. This GIGO operating system found ways to surprise me, and in a bad way.
So I waited patiently, thinking SP1 would save the day. Last week, I installed SP1, only to have this operating system show me new blue screens of frozen tundra. Crashing daily, sometimes twice a day! This for me is quite common. And this is a clean install computer!
Gates, give me back my damn money! You should be paying me to use this junk!