Chambers wrote:

>> Yeah, I guess that's it. And also whether the minor changes really are
>> "improvements" or just changes for the sake of changes. (Or changes to
>> make M$ customers happy, rather than M$ users...)
> 
> Why shouldn't they?  The customers are the ones who pay.

We pay too.

>> Well, for example, when Windows NT came out, they added *file
>> security*.
>> That's a pretty major addition. When Windows 2000 came out, they added
>> USB support. Not quite so major, but still pretty significant. When XP
> 
> USB support was in 98, and I think you could even get an update for 95
> to do it.

Probably. But they deliberately refused to do it for NT.

>> came out, they added... well it's pretty? And Vista seems to have
> added
> 
> XP was originally 2K made pretty for the masses; a 2K "Home" version, if
> you will.

I was convinced that there actually *was* a 2K Home edition... 
apparently not. Oh well!

> Over time they added to it, such that SP2 was basically a new OS.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.

> 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. ;-)

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.

>> Added in NT over ten years ago.
> 
> Did you actually *use* NT ten years ago?

Let me see now... It's 2008 today, so 10 years ago would have been 1998, 
the year I started my degree. And although most of the machines are 
Windows 95, some of them were indeed Windows NT 4.0. (And, in fairness, 
those ones did seem to work a lot better than the 9x ones!)

> I guarantee Vista stands head
> and shoulders above any version of NT ever published.  NT was great for
> it's time, but people keep asking for more features, and MS delivered
> them in the form of Vista.

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

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...)

>> 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

> Your attitude is exactly what I meant in my first post when I said that
> some people just like to complain.
> 
> On the one hand, you claim that Vista makes hundreds of improvements.
> On the other hand, you say that it's a "few minor tweaks."

It seems to be that Vista is just like XP, with only minor adjustments. 
But *lots* of them. The question is whether these adjustments are 
desirable, and whether taken together they add up to something 
significant or not.

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...)

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Invisible wrote:
>> Yes, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on that you, as a home user, 
>> probably won't see. Shadow copies
> 
> Added in NT over ten years ago.

I don't think so. WinXP sp1. And they weren't persistent.

>> transactional file systems
> Added in NT over ten years ago.

Uh, no. Transactional, not journaled.

>> stuff like that that lets things like your database engine running in 
>> the virtual machine know that it needs to complete all its 
>> transactions and hold off starting new ones and flush its buffers *in 
>> the virtual machine* because you're about to take a snapshot of the 
>> host's disk for backup purposes.
> 
> ....and I care because?

Well, that's what I said. As a home user, you don't care. If you're 
writing a database engine, yeah, you probably care.

A home user wouldn't also be saying "You're an idiot! You're making the 
wrong kind of Oracle backups!"

>> Or that lets you lose power halfway through upgrading a program and 
>> not have half the changes on the disk and the other half blown away. 
>> (I'm not sure how Linux handles such a thing, actually. I always 
>> assumed I had to do that sort of reliability work manually and without 
>> any support from the OS. :-)
> 
> I'd be pretty surprised if it actually works properly.

Why?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>>> Yes, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on that you, as a home 
>>> user, probably won't see. Shadow copies
>>
>> Added in NT over ten years ago.
> 
> I don't think so. WinXP sp1. And they weren't persistent.

Ah, OK. My database server must by lying when it does a shadow copy 
backup. Explains a few things...

>> I'd be pretty surprised if it actually works properly.
> 
> Why?

Because regular installs don't work properly yet?

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Ah, OK. My database server must by lying when it does a shadow copy 
> backup. Explains a few things...

What makes you think it wasn't backported to a NT service pack?

I don't know, I just looked on wikipedia. MS doesn't really advertise 
the features of older stuff.

Plus, shadow copies weren't persistent on clients until Vista. It's a 
lot easier to make transient shadow copies than persistent ones.

>>> I'd be pretty surprised if it actually works properly.
>> Why?
> Because regular installs don't work properly yet?

All the more reason to be able to back them out cleaning without 
committing any changes, yes?

It seems folks just like bashing Microsoft. "Third party software 
doesn't install right, so it's Microsoft's problem."

Plus, of course, the "MS doesn't make any changes" goes along real well 
with "UAC is so common I turn it off" and "I hate all the changes they 
made."

I mean, really, how many home users actually use the file security? 
Obviously not many, or people wouldn't complain when programs don't run 
under Vista because they write to protected locations.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
>...
> I think people just like to complain about Microsoft for no good
> reason at all.
> ...

Words fail me. A screen image disappoints somewhat less.

Cheers,
Mike C.

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Mike the Elder wrote:
> "Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
>> ...
>> I think people just like to complain about Microsoft for no good
>> reason at all.
>> ...
> 
> Words fail me. A screen image disappoints somewhat less.

First, clearly I wasn't talking about their business practices, but 
about their software.

Second, the number of people who publish news about something where MS 
got in trouble isn't indicative of the number of times they actually got 
in trouble.  Altho I'll admit they do tend to have some shoddy business 
practices, you'll note that (for example) the first 10 hits cover only 
two lawsuits.  Shoddy reporting on your part, that.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> So, I bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate 64.

  Btw, Microsoft is publishing the next version of Windows in mid-2009.
So in a way you will be able to use Vista for less than a year before it
becomes more or less obsoleted by Windows 7. Then you'll have to pay even
more money to keep up-to-date.

  (I'm really surprised by Microsoft's timing in this. Windows users as
a whole are not even close to migrating to Vista, and they already are
publishing a new version of Windows. If anything, that will give people
even less motivation to buy Vista. Why buy Vista now, when you can just
perfectly use XP, and if you want to upgrade, just wait for a year and
you'll get something even newer than Vista?)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   (I'm really surprised by Microsoft's timing in this. Windows users as
> a whole are not even close to migrating to Vista, and they already are
> publishing a new version of Windows.

Yah. On the other hand, if people aren't buying Vista now, maybe they 
*will* upgrade to Windows 7?  Hard to know before W7 comes out.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Chambers wrote:
>> even less. It's like Windows NT already did most of what you want an
> OS
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista
> 
> 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.

That's why they added the eye candy. If they had only changed that whole
stuff under the hood, home users wouldn't see any reason to upgrade.

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scott wrote:
>> The only thing I like better about Vista is
>> it's wireless networking.  Vista is much better at detecting and
>> maintaining
>> connections.
> 
> IIRC this is one of the things they totally rewrote for Vista.  In XP the
> wireless functionality is kind of hacked on over the top of wired
> networking.  They fixed this in Vista.

Vista rewrote the whole TCP/IP stack AFAIK...

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