>>>> make M$ customers happy, rather than M$ users...)
>>> Why shouldn't they?  The customers are the ones who pay.
>> We pay too.
> 
> That would make us customers, wouldn't it?  Which means that they're
> making changes to make us happy.

Yeah. I'm sure DRM will make a lot of users very happy. :-}

>>> Over time they added to it, such that SP2 was basically a new OS.
>> I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.
> 
> And what about OpenSuse 11 makes it a new OS, compared to OpenSuse 10? 

Actually, that's a valid question. What *is* the difference between 
those two OSes?? I know that on one the desktop is a different colour... 
did anything else change?

>>> A lot of the stuff is under the hood; that is, it just does things
>>> better, even though users won't necessarily notice the difference.
>> Oh, I think quite a few people have noticed the new lack of speed. ;-)
> 
> As far as I can tell, the *majority* of those are people who have either
> a) sub-par machines, or
> b) faulty third party device drivers.

Depends on whether by "sup-par" you mean a machine that really isn't up 
to much, or whether you actually mean "any PC that's more than 20 
seconds old". The former is acceptable. The latter isn't.

>> No, in seriousness... Adding new features under the hood is very nice
>> and everything. Just don't expect me to rush out and buy something
>> where
>> I "won't really notice the difference", that's all.
> 
> As I understand it, this is a common problem for developers.
> 
> Devs: Really!  We've cleaned up our codebase, making it use 20% less
> RAM, thrash the HDD less, eliminated 70% of the known memory leaks, and
> properly refactored the entire system!
> 
> Users: But it's just the same thing, though, right?  Why should we pay
> for what we already have?

Now if it really *was* faster, people would notice that. And they'd like 
it. Trouble is, they also notice when the reverse happens...

>> So you're saying the multitude of small improvements really does add
>> up to a larger whole then?
> 
> Absolutely.

Fair enough them. I haven't used it personally, only watched other 
people use it. Some of 'em like it, some of 'em hate it.

>> I have found from other M$ products that "improvements" are not always
>> things you want. (E.g., the "improved" Start Menu that I keep having
>> to turn off...)
> 
> That can be the case with anything.  But then, we're not talking about
> other products here, are we?

M$ has a long history of making changes that annoy the hell out of 
users. I don't hear many people complaining that, say, KDE 4 is way more 
annoying than KDE 3.

As to whether Vista specifically suffers from this... I don't know. But 
Micro$oft's reputation preceeds them, shall we say.

>>>> I'd be pretty surprised if it actually works properly.
>>> Define "properly" for that situation.  I've had a few interrupted
>>> installs, and it gracefully rolled back all changes for me so that
>>> nothing was left in a half-baked state.  Is that "proper?"
>> I still have trouble with software that doesn't install properly
>> *without* a power interruption. :-S
> 
> Which software?

How about, say... Micro$oft Office?

>> Who knows? Maybe in another 5 years' time, they will have applied so
>> many bug-fixes to Vista that it will actually become a tempting
>> proposition. (Much like XP before it. When XP first came out, nobody
>> wanted to touch it. Now even I want to get rid of our old NT
>> systems...)
> 
> I'd say they're already there, but then I'm the one using it on my home
> system :)

Well let's just put it this way: I won't be rushing out to buy it until 
it becomes *significantly* cheaper. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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