So, I bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate 64.  And I've been
working with it a few weeks now.  And what do I think?

 

I think people just like to complain about Microsoft for no good reason
at all.

 

Caveat: I have a Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a decent video
card (7600GT).  Obviously, if you try to run it on a ten-year-old
laptop, you're going to have more problems than I do.

 

Anyway, Vista actually runs faster than my XP Pro installation did, but
only just.  The real kicker for me is the disk usage. one thing that's
happened to me several times now, is coming into the room, and thinking
the computer was turned off.  I moved the mouse just to make sure, and
the think woke up - completely silent.  Even leaving it running a video
encode (I'm still in the process of moving my DVD library to my hdd.
I've had several false starts, and changed my mind on format / quality
settings a couple of times*), the thing will be darn near noiseless.

 

UAC doesn't bother me at all.  But then, I understand what it's there
for, and I'd much rather have it ask me than not.  Besides, it's no
worse than the equivalents in Linux and Mac OS.

 

And the GUI?  I waited almost two years after Windows XP was introduced
before I switched from 2K - the XP GUI drove me nuts, and as soon as I
found out about FlyAKiteOSX, I switched my GUI to be a Mac clone.  With
Vista, I liked the GUI straight away.

 

Given how impressed I also am with Office 2007 (separate topic), I think
I'm actually turning into an MS fan.

 

...Ben Chambers

www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

> Caveat: I have a Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a decent video
> card (7600GT).  Obviously, if you try to run it on a ten-year-old
> laptop, you're going to have more problems than I do.

Even just upgrading from 1GB to 2GB makes quite a large difference, and at 
today's RAM prices you'd be really silly to buy Vista without the extra RAM.

> Anyway, Vista actually runs faster than my XP Pro installation did, but
> only just.  The real kicker for me is the disk usage.

The real kicker for me is how fast large programs start up compared to XP. 
My hefty CAD program is ready to use within a few seconds of clicking, even 
the first time after boot.  On XP I was waiting for almost a minute 
sometimes, I think Vista makes much better use of the RAM, or more 
intelligent use of the RAM.

> UAC doesn't bother me at all.

Didn't bother me either, until I had to turn it off for something or other 
(POV I think haha), and I haven't got around to turning it back on yet. 
That's the point though, you can just turn it off if you want to.

> And the GUI?  I waited almost two years after Windows XP was introduced
> before I switched from 2K - the XP GUI drove me nuts, and as soon as I
> found out about FlyAKiteOSX, I switched my GUI to be a Mac clone.  With
> Vista, I liked the GUI straight away.

OOC what things about the XP GUI didn't you like that have been 
fixed/changed in Vista?

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message news:491be3a5@news.povray.org...
>
>> UAC doesn't bother me at all.
>
> Didn't bother me either, until I had to turn it off for something or other 
> (POV I think haha), and I haven't got around to turning it back on yet. 
> That's the point though, you can just turn it off if you want to.

I put up with it for about 3 months until I had a game that for some reason 
started triggering UAC alerts while I was playing it. It went off after that 
and I never bothered switching it on again.

The one thing I like about Vista is that I've never managed to have a 
misbehaving app crashe the entire OS. It happened from time to time on Win 
2000. On vista I can kill the app and the OS carries on going

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gail [mailto:gail (at) sql in the wild (dot) co [dot] za]
> The one thing I like about Vista is that I've never managed to have a
> misbehaving app crashe the entire OS. It happened from time to time on
> Win
> 2000. On vista I can kill the app and the OS carries on going

Speaking of which, I don't think I've turned off the computer in about a
week.  Quite impressive for Windows!  My XP machine got turned off
daily!

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: scott [mailto:sco### [at] scottcom]
> OOC what things about the XP GUI didn't you like that have been
> fixed/changed in Vista?

The widgets.  Large, rounded boxes never did it for me.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

Gail <gail (at) sql in the wild (dot) co [dot] za> wrote:
> The one thing I like about Vista is that I've never managed to have a 
> misbehaving app crashe the entire OS. It happened from time to time on Win 
> 2000. On vista I can kill the app and the OS carries on going 

  The first time I used Vista was on a friend's laptop. I got a BSOD in about
5 minutes. The application I was running? Windows' own freecell.

  That wasn't very convincing for me.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> Caveat: I have a Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a decent video
> card (7600GT).  Obviously, if you try to run it on a ten-year-old
> laptop, you're going to have more problems than I do.

  You don't need a ten-year-old laptop. You may have trouble running it
in a modern laptop.

  I wish you good luck when MS activates Vista's DRM features in a couple
of years.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Chambers escreveu:
> I think people just like to complain about Microsoft for no good reason
> at all.

Well, in my case there's a pretty good reason:  I don't like monopolies. 
  Specially marketing ones in the IT field.

> UAC doesn't bother me at all.  But then, I understand what it's there
> for, and I'd much rather have it ask me than not.  Besides, it's no
> worse than the equivalents in Linux and Mac OS.

It's in no way the same as sudo, which only asks once in a while.

But perhaps you're lucky to just get the pos-SP1 Vista?  Before that, 
Vista would ask you to allow wether or not notepad could should you an 
html page source, no kidding.

> And the GUI?  I waited almost two years after Windows XP was introduced
> before I switched from 2K - the XP GUI drove me nuts, and as soon as I
> found out about FlyAKiteOSX, I switched my GUI to be a Mac clone.  With
> Vista, I liked the GUI straight away.

I liked it too, specially with a black glossy glass theme.  It's years 
ahead of XP's default teletubbies look.  But Blender doesn't play nice 
with Aero (and perhaps other OpenGL apps as well) so I just turned it off.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:


>   The first time I used Vista was on a friend's laptop. I got a BSOD in about
> 5 minutes. The application I was running? Windows' own freecell.
> 
>   That wasn't very convincing for me.

You, of all people should know a stop error (BSOD) is caused by 
something failing in the kernel, *not* a user app. Probably either bad 
hardware or a wonky driver. I've never had Vista bluescreen.

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> So, I bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate 64.  And I've been
> working with it a few weeks now.  And what do I think?
>
>
>
> I think people just like to complain about Microsoft for no good reason
> at all.
>
>
>
> Caveat: I have a Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a decent video
> card (7600GT).  Obviously, if you try to run it on a ten-year-old
> laptop, you're going to have more problems than I do.
>

My first experience with Vista was on a low end laptop I purchased early this
year, a 1.8Ghz Celeron with 1GB memory.  Performance is not very good, it is
slower than my much older laptop, a 1Ghz AMD with 256M running XP home.  I
definitly need to add more memory.  The only thing I like better about Vista is
it's wireless networking.  Vista is much better at detecting and maintaining
connections.  Last month I purchased a new desktop, Intel quad-core with 5GB
memory, running Vista 64-bit.  For cpu intensive work, the quad-core runs much
faster than my older dual-core pc.  But for other workloads, such as e-mail,
web surfing, word processing etc., it sometimes seems a little sluggish.

>
>
> Anyway, Vista actually runs faster than my XP Pro installation did, but
> only just.  The real kicker for me is the disk usage. one thing that's
> happened to me several times now, is coming into the room, and thinking
> the computer was turned off.  I moved the mouse just to make sure, and
> the think woke up - completely silent.  Even leaving it running a video
> encode (I'm still in the process of moving my DVD library to my hdd.
> I've had several false starts, and changed my mind on format / quality
> settings a couple of times*), the thing will be darn near noiseless.
>

I haven't noticed any change in noise, but thats probably do to the other three
desktops running.

>
>
> UAC doesn't bother me at all.  But then, I understand what it's there
> for, and I'd much rather have it ask me than not.  Besides, it's no
> worse than the equivalents in Linux and Mac OS.
>

Though I understand what UAC is for, it can still be a PITA.  When I install new
software, I usually turn it off until I get the new software working, then turn
it back on.  For other users who don't have a clue, I'm not sure how effective
it will be.  I have a son-in-law who is completely clueless when it comes to
computers.  He currently runs XP, but I don't think Vista would make any
difference. If a message box popped up asking for permission to install a
virus, he would probably click OK.  About twice a year I have to go over and
clean out his pc.

>
>
> And the GUI?  I waited almost two years after Windows XP was introduced
> before I switched from 2K - the XP GUI drove me nuts, and as soon as I
> found out about FlyAKiteOSX, I switched my GUI to be a Mac clone.  With
> Vista, I liked the GUI straight away.
>

The GUI is ok, it looks nice.  It's just taking me awhile to find where MS has
moved everything.

>
>
> Given how impressed I also am with Office 2007 (separate topic), I think
> I'm actually turning into an MS fan.
>
>

Though not an MS fan, they do write reasonably good software.  A bit bloated at
times, but no worse than most other developers.

>
> ...Ben Chambers
>
> www.pacificwebguy.com

Isaac

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   The first time I used Vista was on a friend's laptop. I got a BSOD in about
> 5 minutes. The application I was running? Windows' own freecell.

I think you and Windows is like me and Linux. :-) For some reason, we 
just have bad luck running into corner cases or something.

That said, I imagine SP1 fixed a whole boatload of bugs like this. MS 
does tend to release things before they're quite solid.

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

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Even just upgrading from 1GB to 2GB makes quite a large difference, and 
> at today's RAM prices you'd be really silly to buy Vista without the 
> extra RAM.

Yeah, especially on a x64 chip.

> The real kicker for me is how fast large programs start up compared to 
> XP. 

Google up on "readyboost".  The system tracks what page faulted early on 
in the last five times you started that program, then in the background, 
it loads of the pages into RAM (if you have enough). For things it knows 
you're going to run (like services) it has readyboot, where it loads up 
pages even before the program starts. And then there's something called 
"superboost" or some such, where if a big program comes in and knocks 
the pages of an idle process out of memory, when the big program exits, 
it idly reloads the pages that got knocked out of memory.

XP had a similar thing with the "prefetch" stuff, but I think Vista took 
it several steps farther. That's what the bit where plugging in a USB 
drive gets you faster access does - an extra level of paging cache 
between memory speeds and disk speeds, and without the seek delays as well.

> I think Vista makes much better use of the 
> RAM, or more intelligent use of the RAM.

That's one of the big things it does.

>> UAC doesn't bother me at all.
> 
> Didn't bother me either, until I had to turn it off for something or 
> other (POV I think haha),

Actually, you don't have to turn of UAC to make the previous POVs that 
write to "Program Files" work. That's a separate setting. The UAC 
checkbox changes about five independent things, only one of which is 
"try to make programs that write to protected directories work right 
anyway."  Check out the stuff in Group Policy.

Also, the bit where setup files automatically ask for admin permissions? 
That's a separate flag too. If the POV team wants to test it not 
offering admin install when it doesn't have admin rights, the flag is 
under Group Policy too.

But yeah, the UAC comes up too often until someone mails you a Word 
document and when you open it the UAC comes up saying "someone's trying 
to partition your disk! Is it you?"

The nice thing is that it doesn't even have to be confusing for 
non-technical users. Every button that's going to cause a UAC prompt is 
marked with a shield icon. So you can just tell your grandmother "If it 
asks you like this, and you hadn't just clicked on this icon, say no."

There's even a "sudo" out there that will take the command line and run 
it elevated, so if (like me) you keep forgetting you want an admin 
command-line, you don't have to go back to the menus to get it. 
(Informationally included for people actually using Vista. :-)

I have to look over the firewall still and see if it's actually useful 
for blocking spyware and such, but I've read something that implies it 
is, assuming it can't be automatically turned off.

> OOC what things about the XP GUI didn't you like that have been 
> fixed/changed in Vista?

I liked the Vista look immediately too. Lots of small improvements, and 
just a nicer look to it. 3D without being too "cartoony". Colors easier 
on the eyes. Start menu is easier to navigate (eliminating the complaint 
that you have to carefully move the mouse to the right to keep the 
submenu from vanishing), sound effects somewhat more muted, the explorer 
address bar is nice, the new thumbnails are nice, the task bar with 
previews is nicer.  They once again moved the right-click menu for the 
directory you're currently looking at, but it only took me five minutes 
instead of a week to find where it went this time. Not sure I like the 
"organize/view/..." menu as much as the old one, or the lack of a 
left-title-bar button (altho a right-click in the title bar serves). 
Everything has gotten a touch more simplified, which is somewhat 
annoying to a nerd like me. Some stuff that you're supposed to run in 
the background (like disk defrags) has gotten much slower to invoke 
explicitly. The search stuff looking for files is rather confusing. (I 
liked one reviewer's comment: "The search window has no place to type in 
the search string! And why is there a 'search' field on the search 
window, for searching in the results?"  Uh, dude? Give it a try.) Even 
the new task manager and the "performance monitor" is very nice. Solved 
a couple of problems with the included device drivers already. (No, I 
really don't want a steady 10% CPU usage for your wonky audio card even 
when you're not playing audio, when it works just *fine* with the 
drivers you actually had Microsoft test. Tell me why your audio card 
actually has to be doing 4,700 page faults a second again?)

The new hybrid suspend is nice. I/O can actually get interrupted now, so 
opening a broken network share doesn't hang. It might just be my machine 
and not Vista as such, but it'll actually come out of sleep mode when I 
try to remote into it, even fast enough that the connection attempt 
doesn't time out - nice when your XBox is trying to dial into the 
machine upstairs, too. Sleep and wake are both much faster, usually 
within a handful of seconds each (well, if you're not dumping out 6G of 
RAM to the hiberfile, that is).

Shutting down or rebooting while something is busy is much more nicely 
handled, too. It no longer looks like a nerd alert, but instead gives a 
screen saying "here's the list of things running, here's the one that's 
stopping you from shutting down, here's the message saying why it 
doesn't want you to shut down, do you want to shut down anyway?"  If you 
want to see what I mean, boot up Vista, then quick as you can tell it to 
shut down before all the system services have finished starting up.

It does, occasionally, and for reasons I haven't quite figured out, just 
take surprisingly long to do something. I'll log out, and it'll take 30 
seconds to log out instead of 2. Or I'll tell it to reboot, and I'll 
hear it thrashing the disk for a minute before it turns off. Weird stuff 
like that. But if I let it go, it seems to finish reliably.

Oddly enough, if you run a chkdsk /f on the boot volume at boot time, it 
takes not only the time to check the disk, but it takes an extra whole 
bunch of time to boot up, like 90 seconds after it finishes the chkdsk 
instead of 10 seconds. I can't imagine what it's doing, unless the fact 
that you did that caused it to purge out prefetch files or the USN log 
or something like that. I expect with enough effort in boot logging and 
event manager stuff, I could figure out what's taking the time.

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

Post a reply to this message

Clarence1898 wrote:
> Though I understand what UAC is for, it can still be a PITA.  When I install new
> software, I usually turn it off until I get the new software working, then turn
> it back on.

If you log in as administrator, it doesn't ask. (There's a flag you can 
set on a per-account basis as to whether to ask, allow it, or to require 
a password.)

> For other users who don't have a clue, I'm not sure how effective
> it will be.  I have a son-in-law who is completely clueless when it comes to
> computers.  He currently runs XP, but I don't think Vista would make any
> difference. If a message box popped up asking for permission to install a
> virus, he would probably click OK.  About twice a year I have to go over and
> clean out his pc.

So don't give him an admin account. :-)  Nothing is going to protect a 
clueless user from himself, including sudo.

> The GUI is ok, it looks nice.  It's just taking me awhile to find where MS has
> moved everything.

That's always the problem. :-) This is the first MS upgrade that hasn't 
left me cursing up and down looking for the stuff, tho. Probably in part 
due to the ubiquitous search bar stuff.

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

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> XP had a similar thing with the "prefetch" stuff, but I think Vista took 
> it several steps farther. That's what the bit where plugging in a USB 
> drive gets you faster access does - an extra level of paging cache 
> between memory speeds and disk speeds, and without the seek delays as well.

IME, USB tends to be far slower than IDE (and presumably SATA).

OTOH, USB flash drives don't have a seek delay, which may or may not 
counter the slowness of the bus.

> There's even a "sudo" out there that will take the command line and run 
> it elevated, so if (like me) you keep forgetting you want an admin 
> command-line, you don't have to go back to the menus to get it. 
> (Informationally included for people actually using Vista. :-)

Doesn't XP have this also?

> I liked the Vista look immediately too. Lots of small improvements, and 
> just a nicer look to it. 3D without being too "cartoony". Colors easier 
> on the eyes. Start menu is easier to navigate (eliminating the complaint 
> that you have to carefully move the mouse to the right to keep the 
> submenu from vanishing), sound effects somewhat more muted, the explorer 
> address bar is nice, the new thumbnails are nice, the task bar with 
> previews is nicer.  They once again moved the right-click menu for the 
> directory you're currently looking at, but it only took me five minutes 
> instead of a week to find where it went this time. Not sure I like the 
> "organize/view/..." menu as much as the old one, or the lack of a 
> left-title-bar button (altho a right-click in the title bar serves). 
> Everything has gotten a touch more simplified, which is somewhat 
> annoying to a nerd like me. Some stuff that you're supposed to run in 
> the background (like disk defrags) has gotten much slower to invoke 
> explicitly.

It seems to me that the only "new" thing about Vista is

1. It's more pretty to look at.

2. They added several hundred minor improvements to various things.

There doesn't seem to be anything radically new about it. They just took 
XP and tweaked it slightly.

It's nice that they're trying to make improvements to the thing, but... 
uh, you want *how much* for a few minor tweaks? No thanks.

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

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> IME, USB tends to be far slower than IDE (and presumably SATA).

SATA is about 2x the speed of IDE, on just raw thruput. At least that 
I've seen.

> OTOH, USB flash drives don't have a seek delay, which may or may not 
> counter the slowness of the bus.

Yes. Large reads come from the disk, while small reads come from the 
USB. Plus, by reading from the USB, you don't have to move the head of 
the disk that someone else might be trying to use also.

> Doesn't XP have this also?

I never needed it under XP - I always ran as administrator, because I'm 
cluefull enough to not load up trojans and cluefull enough to make an 
image of the HD before trying out dodgy software from unreputable 
places.  But yes, you could do a "runas" in XP, which is sort of the 
equivalent of sudo.

> It seems to me that the only "new" thing about Vista is
> 1. It's more pretty to look at.
> 2. They added several hundred minor improvements to various things.

Except that all the minor improvements really do add up, yes. Whether 
you think they're overcharging is rather a different question.

> There doesn't seem to be anything radically new about it. They just took 
> XP and tweaked it slightly.

If it were *radically* new, old software wouldn't run. You can say the 
same thing about every UNIX variant since 1970, and every VMS variant 
from before that. :-)  If you want "radically new", go grab a copy of 
Singularity.

Yes, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on that you, as a home user, 
probably won't see. Shadow copies, transactional file systems, OS 
virtualization, 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. 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. :-)

Not the sort of thing you'll run into when surfing the web.

> It's nice that they're trying to make improvements to the thing, but... 
> uh, you want *how much* for a few minor tweaks? No thanks.

You need to run *something* on your new machine. :-)  You might be able 
to use Linux, depending on what you're doing.  But a lot of the 
"obvious" improvements in Vista are targeted at the server end, not the 
home user, possibly because MS figures they already have a lock on the 
home user OS market.  As they say, "We're number one! Why try harder?"

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

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> Speaking of which, I don't think I've turned off the computer in about a
> week.  Quite impressive for Windows!  My XP machine got turned off
> daily!

My uptime record on Windows XP is 27 days.

Unfortunately I've yet to beat that since I got Linux (due to electricity
problems, not software).

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Warp [mailto:war### [at] tagpovrayorg]
>   You don't need a ten-year-old laptop. You may have trouble running
it
> in a modern laptop.

And tell me, what were the specs of this modern laptop?  I've seen it
running quite well on several other laptops, none of them considered
"gaming" or "performance" laptops, but typical light-use ones (email,
browsing, office, et cetera).

>   I wish you good luck when MS activates Vista's DRM features in a
> couple
> of years.

Thanks :)

All kidding aside, it's not like MS is the only one playing the DRM
game.  In fact, the worst offenders seem to be involved with the MPAA,
the RIAA or EA.  MS doesn't come anywhere near the top of the list of
draconian DRM companies.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clarence1898 [mailto:cla### [at] comcastnet]
> The GUI is ok, it looks nice.  It's just taking me awhile to find
where
> MS has
> moved everything.

People keep saying this, but I really have to ask... what exactly can't
you find?  Everything I've needed is either right where I'd expect it to
be, or I found it in less than five minutes (and most things in less
than a minute).

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

I've recently bought a new laptop with Vista Ultimate installed, and I 
have actually been semi-consistently annoyed at it.  It looks very nice, 
and has been stable, and I actually rather like the UAC so far.  My main 
complaint is just that it seems to have bizarre glitches rather 
frequently, such as:

* Sometimes ignoring all mouse clicks until I log off and log back on

* At home it will stop making new connections though my wireless

* In a directory with many files, the page will flip between where I was 
at and the next page if I minimize the window then bing it back to the 
foreground.

* Turns off my wireless unless I hibernate it if I move it from one 
building to another.

etc..

Nothing major has really gone wrong, but it does seem to get minor 
things wrong more frequently than XP did for me.  On the whole I think 
prefer it to XP, but I haven't been all that that wowed by it.

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> People keep saying this, but I really have to ask... what exactly can't
> you find?  

I don't think *I* have actually hunted for anything. Use the search, Luke.

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

Post a reply to this message

>  I wish you good luck when MS activates Vista's DRM features in a couple
> of years.

A cunning plan to make us buy Windows 7 perhaps ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> I liked it too, specially with a black glossy glass theme.  It's years 
> ahead of XP's default teletubbies look.  But Blender doesn't play nice 
> with Aero (and perhaps other OpenGL apps as well) so I just turned it off.

Blender seems to work completely fine here with Aero...

Post a reply to this message

> 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.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>>  I wish you good luck when MS activates Vista's DRM features in a couple
>> of years.
> 
> A cunning plan to make us buy Windows 7 perhaps ;-)

OK, *that* made me smile...

Post a reply to this message

>> OTOH, USB flash drives don't have a seek delay, which may or may not 
>> counter the slowness of the bus.
> 
> Yes. Large reads come from the disk, while small reads come from the 
> USB. Plus, by reading from the USB, you don't have to move the head of 
> the disk that someone else might be trying to use also.

Isn't flash quite slow to write though?

>> It seems to me that the only "new" thing about Vista is
>> 1. It's more pretty to look at.
>> 2. They added several hundred minor improvements to various things.
> 
> Except that all the minor improvements really do add up, yes. Whether 
> you think they're overcharging is rather a different question.

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...)

>> There doesn't seem to be anything radically new about it. They just 
>> took XP and tweaked it slightly.
> 
> If it were *radically* new, old software wouldn't run. You can say the 
> same thing about every UNIX variant since 1970, and every VMS variant 
> from before that. :-)  If you want "radically new", go grab a copy of 
> Singularity.

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 
came out, they added... well it's pretty? And Vista seems to have added 
even less. It's like Windows NT already did most of what you want an OS 
to do, so what else is there to add? Let's put in some eye candy!

> 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.

> transactional file systems

Added in NT over ten years ago.

> 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?

> 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.

>> It's nice that they're trying to make improvements to the thing, 
>> but... uh, you want *how much* for a few minor tweaks? No thanks.
> 
> You need to run *something* on your new machine. :-)

Fortunately, XP is still on sale. ;-)

> As they say, "We're number one! Why try harder?"

Heh. Yeah, that seems to be about the sum of it.

Post a reply to this message

> Blender seems to work completely fine here with Aero...


Same here.  No problems.

Post a reply to this message

Kyle escreveu:
>> Blender seems to work completely fine here with Aero...
> 
> 
> Same here.  No problems.

Press B in mesh edit mode.  Do you see any cursor for selection?

Post a reply to this message

> Press B in mesh edit mode.  Do you see any cursor for selection?

I get a small solid cross-hair as the cursor, and also dotted lines that go 
horizontal and vertical across the whole page.

Post a reply to this message

scott escreveu:
>> Press B in mesh edit mode.  Do you see any cursor for selection?
> 
> I get a small solid cross-hair as the cursor, and also dotted lines that 
> go horizontal and vertical across the whole page.

Yes, that's it!  Hmm, weird.  Here, it doesn't show at all.

I heard in some blender forums it could be a problem with graphics 
drivers so I didn't think turning off Aero would work, but alas it did.

So, no Aero for me, whatever the reason it was...

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> > Yes. Large reads come from the disk, while small reads come from the
> > USB. Plus, by reading from the USB, you don't have to move the head
> of
> > the disk that someone else might be trying to use also.
> 
> Isn't flash quite slow to write though?

Absolutely, and for sustained reads as well.  That's why it's used for
small files only, where the seek time on a typical HDD would kill
performance.  Large, sustained reads or writes go straight to the HDD,
small / fragmented ones go through the cache on the flash drive.

> 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.

> 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.

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

> 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.

> Added in NT over ten years ago.

Did you actually *use* NT ten years ago?  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.

> > 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?

Because you claimed that Vista didn't do anything new.

> > 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.

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?"

> >> It's nice that they're trying to make improvements to the thing,
> >> but... uh, you want *how much* for a few minor tweaks? No thanks.
> >
> > You need to run *something* on your new machine. :-)
> 
> Fortunately, XP is still on sale. ;-)

So is GeOS.

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."

Which is it?  Whether or not you feel it's worth the price they charge
is a completely different question, by the way.  Personally, I don't
think an Apple computer is worth the premium they charge, but I'd never
say it's a Dell PC with a few minor tweaks.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

> Yes, that's it!  Hmm, weird.  Here, it doesn't show at all.
>
> I heard in some blender forums it could be a problem with graphics drivers 
> so I didn't think turning off Aero would work, but alas it did.

Yeh possibly something to do with the graphics chip and driver combination, 
if turning off Aero fixes it then that seems the simplest solution - 
especially if everything else works ok.

Post a reply to this message

scott escreveu:
>> Yes, that's it!  Hmm, weird.  Here, it doesn't show at all.
>>
>> I heard in some blender forums it could be a problem with graphics 
>> drivers so I didn't think turning off Aero would work, but alas it did.
> 
> Yeh possibly something to do with the graphics chip and driver 
> combination, if turning off Aero fixes it then that seems the simplest 
> solution - especially if everything else works ok.

I also can't do anything by myself, it's the computer at work.  I 
shouldn't even be using Blender or povray or posting here. ;)

Post a reply to this message

nemesis wrote:

> It's the computer at work.  I 
> shouldn't even be using Blender or povray or posting here. ;)

Welcome to the family! :-D

Post a reply to this message

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...)

Post a reply to this message

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)

Post a reply to this message

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*

Post a reply to this message

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)

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'no_reason.jpg' (148 KB)

Preview of image 'no_reason.jpg'

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)

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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)

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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...

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Chambers wrote:
> >> "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.

That would make us customers, wouldn't it?  Which means that they're
making changes to make us 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? 

> > 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.

I'm not saying none of it's MS's fault; I'm saying most of it isn't.  My
own machine runs great, and I've seen Vista running great on several
other computers as well.  I have yet to witness the fabled slowness that
people complain about.

> 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?

> > 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?

Absolutely.

> 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?

> >> 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?  With the multitude of 3rd party software I use (some
commercial, some open source) I don't think I've had problems with *any*
of it not installing well.

A bad installer would be a death-knell for most packages, as no one
would be able to use it.  As such, I've got a hunch that most developers
work hard to ensure their software installs nicely.

> 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 :)

Anyway, from what I understand a lot of the problems people were having
were due to faulty 3rd party device drivers (video drivers especially),
a lot of which have been cleaned up in the past year and a half.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Warp [mailto:war### [at] tagpovrayorg]
> 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.

Academic discounts save you money!  Besides, I'll probably wait until
2010 to buy Windows 7.

>   (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?)

AFAIK, they accelerated development on Windows 7 *because* people aren't
buying Vista.

Faced with complaints about Vista, they had two options to respond with:
1) Fine, we'll continue to sell you XP for *less* than Vista.
2) Wait another year, and we'll sell you W7 for *more* than Vista.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

Something's not right here.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike the Elder [mailto:nomail@nomail]
> Posted At: Friday, November 14, 2008 12:18 PM
> Posted To: povray.off-topic
> Conversation: My own Vista impressions
> Subject: Re: My own Vista impressions
> 
> "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.

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'no_results.jpg' (137 KB)

Preview of image 'no_results.jpg'

Chambers wrote:
> Something's not right here.

Threw me the first time too.

"or" is not the same as "OR" to google.

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

Post a reply to this message

>>>> 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*

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

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

Yes - I do recall somebody complaining that all the bugfix work put into 
the old stack has now effectively been lost, with the new stack having a 
new and unknown set of bugs.

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

Post a reply to this message

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Orchid XP v8 [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> >>>> 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. :-}

OK, in that specific case they were pretty much forced to by the MAFIAA.
I read a convincing argument that MS purposely sabotaged their own DRM
efforts in Vista so they could tell off the content companies and say,
"See?  It doesn't work.  Now stop being such dumba**es."

Unfortunately, I doubt that's what really happened - but it would have
been nice :)

> 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.

Well, *my* machine is certainly more than "20 seconds old."  I bought
mid-range parts for it more than a year ago, and today you can put
together a machine roughly twice as powerful for $500.

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

It also depends what they target.  AFAIK, the Windows developers
actually target a 30 second boot time.  If it boots much faster, then
they look for more things they can do during bootup.

> 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.

No, but I've heard a *lot* of people say that Linux (of any variety!) is
significantly more annoying that Windows!

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

Can't comment, mine is running perfectly here.

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

That will be after the next version is released...


...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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