I don't know about "bad", but for content creators, XP is currently a better choice. Stable. I'm holding out for Vista 64. Why upgrade twice? (going Vista 32 then upgrading to Vista 64). I'm gonna be patient, let MS get the kinks worked out then make the move. Hopefully before 2009.

MS have always offered that option as far as I know. The Vista licence includes a XP licence.
If MS didn't have to waste so many resources implementing all the DRM code they might have had more time to work on the actual OS.

Bob.

No - it's not THAT bad. But for corporate users, who want Acitive-Directory integration and so forth, without the overhead of graphics, the XP is a better solution for them. Whilst you can turn down many of the visual features it still requires more resources than XP - in particular due to the Windows Desktop Manager.

It's a slower transition than expected not because Vista is so bad, but because XP ultimately became so good.

Vista is getting better all the time - and some of us have made the transition quite happily - it's just about timing - you move when you are ready to. I was ready - and I moved. I have not had a problem doing so - and very much prefer the system. It's going to be the same with Server 2008 vs 2003. The business clients are a huge business to MS, and so that need to ensure that keep that client base happy.

I'm just waiting for more 64 native software. I'm ready for it, and it is slowly appearing, but only very slowly....

It will be interesting to see what developments Vista SP1 really bring to the table. I'm looking forward to it all.

Ken

"It's really that bad?"
==================================
I've been doing the vista 64 thing for about 3 months now, and I wouldn't exactly call it bad, but there is clearly NO advantage to going vista 32 (which I have on my other machine). There are some advantages to vista 64 and it has to do with the way that it handles memory.
I think for the most part though, the added security is a pain in the a** and THIS is what turns most people off. I now have most of it turned off and things tend to work much better as a result. It does boot up MUCH faster than my xp and the error logging is extremely detailed compared to xp.

I bought vista 64 mainly to prepare for Vegas 64, which has yet to come out :( but if it wasn't for that, I would probably still be using xp.... and not missing a whole lot.

For me it's a question of value. What's Vista worth to me now? Well, right now ... absolutely zilch. Even if i got a Vista license for free it wouldn't do a single positive thing for me. I'm certainly NOT going to pay for it. I'll get a barebones system without OS and move my current XP license over it for free rather than buy a system with Vista installed.

Now, at some point in the future when a few of my critical applications are issued in Vista-or-newer only versions, and i also must have those upgrades ... and i can find a Vista license on ebay for $80, i'l consider moving. I suspect that won't be for at least another 3 years. It was the same thing for me with 98SE to XP. I didn't upgrade until i had to about 2 years ago, and could get XP for about $80. Basically there's no way i'll ever pay over $100 for an MS OS. They're just not worth the money by any stretch of the imagination.

Heck, i say the same thing about the iPhone. I'll pay maybe up to $100 for one, but if they cost more than that, then it's a waste of money for me.

Kelly, or anyone else for that matter, how, if at all, will running V8 on XP Pro differ from running it on Vista (since the two former are 32bit programs)?

Dunno yet. My car took my Vegas money. (How's that for an indie film title?) So i won't know until October 6th. My suspicion though is that the differences will be very minor, with it being just a tad faster under XP than under Vista.

That's a bit ironic. It's usually Vegas that gets my car money, rent money, grocery money. Las Vegas that is...

i know of many computer games that get very degraded performance in Vista. Even non-OGL ones. Very strange & noone has a reason for it yet (game X would run as fast as XP & game Y would run at 1/3rd the speed, for example). The school I work for has been getting XP on all their dells (they just moved the last machine to XP last year).

I'm not impressed by XP or Vista right now. I find XP annoying sluggish & slow to respond (as opposed to 98 & 2K). But times change. I'm sure in 10 years we'll all have Vista (or Vista 2, whatever) & be saying it was a step up from XP. We are forced to deal with new & old quirks every OS upgrade.

IF it helps to understand what's happening at all...

My understanding is that MS tightened things up in Vista regarding the coding practices that are used to write all these apps and drivers. Coders were doing some bad things according to MS, so they disallowed a lot of practices, like kernal mode drivers for audio to access DSPs. Allegedly the reason (or one of the main reasons) for UAC was to sort of force coders to write software that didn't need admin access to everything -- on XP it' can be impossible to use limited accts.

At the same time from a coder's perspective, MS apparently did a lot of stupid things with their new rules and tools, making it harder and much more frustrating to get something working properly.

Since 3.1 in my experience, the new version of windows was always slower until the coders figured out how to write for and take advantage of the new OS. That said, there seems to be quite a lot of folks posting to say whatever app or game runs faster for them on Vista. It's hard today to be objective though...

For quite a while any thread with Vista in it seemed a magnet for those craving a showplace for their over developed whining skills. Too much of a good thing is still too much, and the tide turned against the complainers -- I've read of tech folks with a legitimate bi*** getting blasted out of forums because folks just didn't want to hear it anymore.

"The school I work for has been getting XP on all their dells (they just moved the last machine to XP last year)."

Personally I'd like to see the schools move to Vista for one reason -- greater access for the disabled. Bunch of stuff in there (depending on version) that I'd think would come much closer to universal access. Then again if I had anything to do with maintaining the systems, purely selfish instincts of self-preservation would have desktop Linux on most machines. ;-)

Yup. They now do not allow any unsigned drivers.... which is a real double edge sword. It makes the machine safer but at the same time, a lot of the third party software developers have been cut out. I USED to use Core Temp to keep track of my cpu temps, but because it contains an unsigned driver, vista won't let it load. :(

Personally I'd like to see the schools move to Vista for one reason -- greater access for the disabled. Bunch of stuff in there (depending on version) that I'd think would come much closer to universal access.

The school's adapted: 24" monitors where needed, special keyboards, interfaces, etc. As of right now that's cheaper then re-buying all new hardware (because, obviously, you can't put vista on those machines! They're designed for XP (sarcasm alert!!!) You may be interested in this: http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/276. A video about gamers who started making their own adoptions for the disables to play games. Not just pong but Counter Strike, Quake, etc. Very impressive!

The whole "unsigned driver" thing sucks. IMHO, MS got windows big by letting it be relatively open. Now that they are pretty much in control of all PC's in all aspects (games, content creation, etc) they've decided to do the "right" thing apple did from the start. If I had to always used signed drivers I would be hard pressed to get updates to most of them! Look at OEM PC companies (dell, hp, etc). They normally release a machine & then abandon the drivers when the next revision comes out. :(

Thanks for the link!

Know the wish for Vista in schools is only a pipe dream... The tablet software for one thing is just so neat, it would be great if it was more than a gee whiz, show it off & forget about it thing. And it can be easier for some folks to move a stylus than type. OTOH the speech recognition is probably still way too sensitive for a lot of folks -- watching an old Star Trek flick last night, and still a loooong ways from Scotty's comments on the keyboard: "How quaint."

On drivers.... I buy drivers -- not hardware! Seriously, and for the last 8 years or so. The reason I don't boot into Vista more often is my MS mouse, which I dearly love, doesn't have decent scroll wheel support! Especially in Vegas & DVDA! Everyday printers w/scanners are a commodity -- I have a decent printer & scanner tied to an older machine for when I have to. Otherwise I use a Canon MFP I got for $20 a year ago, with a second one in the closet -- I got a deal on a set of cartridges that came packaged with a printer. I even keep a copy of win98 just in case I need to run old hardware. Yup... if *I* had to support a network of PCs, it'd be Linux boxes locked down so bad I'd be universally hated. ;-)

Lenovo has just announced that they will be offering, for presumably a nominal cost, a CD preloaded with XP and all necessary drivers so that laptop purchasers will be able to run XP. Curious thing is that the XP version will not require activation from Microsoft.

Because it is locked to this Lenovo laptop (functionality-wise).

That's good for Lenovo, should help their sales quite a bit.


...kernel mode drivers for audio to access DSPs.

Apple provides very nice OS services like Core Audio and ditto for visuals. These are so good (and GPU-accelerated!) that they're often the best way to develop apps, not to mention that those apps can be developed much faster and with much less worry about future version incompatibilities.

Btw, with the upcoming release of OS X Leopard on Friday at 6pm, I saw something that made my jaw drop. Apple sells not only single user licenses in a box (one version, same $109 at Amazon whether new or upgrade), but also Family (3 users) for a few bucks more, and 10-user, even Unlimited users for $949.00!

Ask Microsoft for an unlimited user Vista Ultimate license...they'd get a coronary.

Where I used to work we had a licence for every M$ product for upto 5,000 users in every language. The regular update / new release packs were quite a heavy box. If it took your fancy you can run M$ applications in lanuages you've probably never heard of.

How much cheaper is OS X without a media player?
I assume Apple is now conforming to EU mandates.

Bob.

"Is it really that bad"?
=============
Bad enough that the video card manufacturers are gearing their latest videocards to Direct-X 9 instead of Direct-X 10 because of (as they put it) a "less than warm embrace by the public of Vista".

John

The days of "I want my Vista" may never come, as Microsoft's successor to Vista will likely be released before Vista could get a foothold even with the most extreme arm twisting of both manufacturers and consumers (perhaps they could hire Dick Cheney as their Customer Relations and Vista Compliance Officer? :O).

I forgot the date, but I think the successor is currently on the 2009 calendar.

perhaps they could hire Dick Cheney as their Customer Relations and Vista Compliance Officer?
=================
He could say:

"Windows XP is in it's last throes"

like he said about the Iraqi insurgency two and a half years ago.

John

He should have read the now bestselling "Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II" (sold by the cash register in many bookstores, and available online).

It has pearls such as:

The nomads are divided into tribes headed by sheiks. These leaders are very powerful and should be shown great consideration.

American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not.

Oh well.


(Another WWII book offered the U.S. Army's advice for troops going to Australia: Aussie football creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart, usually the referee.). Bob & DJ, is that still the case? :O) :O)

Okay, enough with Cheney. Getting back on the topic:

What is the likelihood that something like Ubuntu's GutsyGibbon release will start making huge inroads into MS turf? Or, turning the question around, why is that that people responsible for running large collections of computers don't stampede over to Ubuntu? From what I've read, this particular release is stable, flexible, powerful--and totally free (for installation, anyway). If you were the person responsible for a school district's 1,000 PCs, why wouldn't you jump on this and save the district the MS licensing fees? How much are those fees for large distributions, anyway?

I've also assumed that a great many bureaucracies, especially those outside the USA, would be very eager to not be so beholden to a single entity, in this case Microsoft. Is there a worldwide migration away from Windows?

The thing is though, inertia is worth far mor ethan money in most organizations. Despite the cash outlay of staying with the current OS, there is a huge expense in time, training, installation, tweaking, hand-holding, etc. that goes with switching to even a free OS.

On top of that, if your current business critical applications run under Windows and you don't know that they will in real conditions (eg. on the sales support desktops, not in the IT manager's lab) then there is zero incentive to switch because the possibilty of a huge money-losing nightmare outweighs the possibility of saving a few pennies.

(oops, hit the button too soon ...)

That being said, i know of a fortune 100 company in my area (sorry, inside info, can't reveal details) that weighed the move to Vista vs Linux and is opting for Linux. It may take a couple of years, but they will not be upgrading Windows. They will stick with XP for now and then gradually and carefully migrate to Linux instead. If i recall correctly this involves something like 45,000 PCs.