[rodneydeeeee]

XP or Vista?

[rustamd]

no "I dont like Vista" option?

[dertsap]

i was reading an artcle that said xp will out live vista

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

This computer is on XP. My real computer is on 95.

[dave@eew]

Vista not yet up to speed with all of the drivers. Lot's of software will not run on the new platform... Be-ware

[ImanCarrot]

Vista sucks tramps toes in hell.

My original post had paraphrased the CEO of General Motors comments about Microsoft (inretaliation against Microsoft slating GM)- Being an engineer, I determined to discover the original quote. Here you go... If you don't nod at at least one of these then you have never used Microsoft product


"In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.

12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine."

Enjoy
Iain.

[johntom]

Waiting is a good idea - remember the start of XP?

[Kipper]

XP until I'm "forced" to upgrade

[NC_jimbo]

GM management vx MS management

A pox on both their houses.

[cnczoner]

So what about us 2000 users? I stick with Win2k SP2 because it's the most stable so far, and that's all I want. Don't want dancing paperclips, nor the ability to access my PC from the moon -- just plain reliability/stability.

[tobyaxis]

XP is my first O/S so it will be difficult to switch. Not only will the switch be difficult but the Vista O/S has too many problems as far as Graphics Interface and being the Biggest Resource Hog On The Planet besides Humans. AKA PROCESSOR and RAM EATER!!!!!!!

I'm sure that Vista will get better over time but I'll wait until more people are using it.

[Geof]

You don't have a category for me. When the person who controls our network tells me we are going to change to whatever I meekly so okay and sign the check.

[rschap1]

My new laptop came with Vista. NOT IMPRESSED. LOTS more gripes than praise from me. I suppose I'll be able to live with it, but....

[brendan2609]

I used to use Windows XP, but then I started using Ubuntu (I used to use Fedora Core years ago) and decided to stay, dual-booting for whenever I need XP, which is about once a month, depending what kind of project i'm currently working on.

[JamesJames]

[begin rant 14 days ago]
Last weekend I blew the circuit board, in separate incidents spouse’s hard disk and my motherboard also blew. Time for a double dose of Vista I thought.

But on a standard new PC with a standard OEM Vista: Bitdefender crashes several times a day, bring down my mouse clicking program (RSIGuard); RSIGuard doesn’t work in many dialog boxes; Nero won’t finish installation; Quicktime won’t install; Photoshop Elements 5 won’t export, and do some other things because it claims I have no disk space left; Vista burn to DVD won’t allow the legacy (just files) DVD format that lets me quickly give the kids and other friends copies of the latest photos, and the new DVD file format won’t read in their DVD players; the beaut Vista search I promised spouse won’t see the files she cut and pasted from her backup disk, and has a crap interface (installed Copernic to have something working, but this interferes with Outlook backup using Synctoy). Considered throwing away my 3 year Bitdefender license, and paying for OneCare, but the thought of some slipup at Microsoft eating my Outlook.pst put me off (as well as the extra money – every cent counts these days).

I still have tickets open at Nero, Bitdefender ... , and open postings on several other forums. Of course, some of my legacy software won’t ever work, and I can’t afford upgrades. So basically I have this grand Vista email PC, and everything that works is in XP on my CNC controller PC on the table behind me. Sorry now I didn’t buy a couple of Macs to complement the XP machine!
[end rant 14 days ago]

Today: Photoshop Elements 5, Nero, Bitdefender working, now have nice working Vista PC.

Most things resolved themselves with updates supplied by vendors. Some like Nero took a lot of mucking around - finally worked by downloading trial, installed on Vista, installed purchased CD on XP to view serial number, entered serial number in Vista Nero. No Quicktime Vista

New PC is much faster than old PC, so now things have settled down it is a pleasure to work on. Even runs my ancient AutoCAD 2000 (installed in Windows 2000 mode).

[NinerSevenTango]

I don't like snitchware in my computer. I've been trying Linux versions for the last two or three weeks, for the first time ever. Anyone who hasn't tried it is missing out on some fun! Ubuntu "just works". And for a very fast, light alternative, I've become addicted to Puppy Linux. You can run it all in ram, saving settings to a file on disk. Boot either from CD until you decide to take the plunge and dual boot.

I'll keep dual boot for XP, I've got apps that only run on it. At the office, where I'm the admin, if we HAVE to get Vista for some software package, we will, but it will be quarantined to a single machine, probably. We are going to migrate all apps to Linux where possible. Where not possible, we'll stick with XP, and make it so only Linux can browse the internet.

For the most part, it won't be a problem. We're already on Firefox and Open Office, and freeware file, PDF and multimedia viewers. Most of our button-pushers won't even see a difference.

Genuine Advantage, my A$$ !

--97T--

[daedalus]

Actually im none of the above, have been running vista since the beta started, so am over a year into using it. The only thing that is really annoying is companies like solidworks who fail to release vista compatible versions in time for the release. If they wrote their software well it wouldnt NEED a new release.

As for vista 'bugs', i would say it is more reliable then XP when it first came out, driver support and software support is miles ahead of the XP release. The only bugs i have experienced are with badly written software from third parties, and apart from solidworks all of my software runs fine on it.

There isnt much of a difference in terms of ms spyware between XP SP2 and vista, they both have genuine advantage, which is only really a problem if you want to run pirate copies of their software, which isnt a very honest way of going about things (if you dont want to pay for windows, linux is free). There is a whole load of new features for DRM, such as requiring encrypted playback devices for the new hd-dvd formats, but its exactly the same as you will have to get with TVs and dvd players if the industry has its way, so not really a MS feature.

I write software for a living, so linux just isnt an option on my desktop, if i need to develop for linux i tend to write code under windows, as windows development tools are lightyears ahead of anything availabe under linux.

[NinerSevenTango]

DRM checking routines built into device drivers, looping endlessly, slowing things down so that a hardware upgrade is necessary to do the same functions as before. Charging extra for an 'Ultimate' edition that doesn't really have anything extra. They can keep it. Those who write software for the biggest market share must of course be locked in. And of course, many will believe that if you don't have anything to hide, then checkpoints where you must show your papers are a small inconvenience for law and order, and anyone who objects must have criminal intent.

Each and every piece of software we use in our business gets switched over to open source as soon as there is a stable version. And Linux is becoming more and more user-friendly. If I could buy software with a guarantee of usability, I would. But renting it, where it wants to own my machine, with no guarantee of usability -- not unless we absolutely must run a piece of windows software for a business purpose, and then only on the machines where it is absolutely necessary. And they will be firewalled away from the internet. So that their hidden Genuine Advantage updates that they lie about, calling them critical updates to fix a flaw it doesn't fix will be unnecessary. (As shown in this week's Windows Secrets newsletter, paid edition.) I might be among a small minority right now, but most users of Vista are people who don't know much about computers, and get it with new store-bought units (then start having trouble that they have to pay the Geek Squad to fix). But most knowlegable people, especially sysadmins, are avoiding it. And a good number of us have finally been prompted to start looking for long-term alternatives.

There are people working on CAD, accounting, and PLC programming software for Linux. Soon, Windows will be irrelevant for our manufacturing business, except as an irritant that we will work to avoid. We'll need a few copies, but that's it. And, we won't be going to web-distributed applications, either.

It's MY computer, dammit! No executables run without my permission, and they don't get my permission until I know what they are going to try to do.

--97T--

Edit: And I don't want to watch HDTV or whatever on my computer anyway!

[dertsap]

it s an arrogant move for microsoft to create an operating system at which the software companies have to upgrade their software to keep up , its too much of a monopoly ,
once someone in the linux community can make more powerfull programs such as cross over so windows based software is more compatable to linux ,then microsoft will start to take a large hit ,
linux cross over will already run microsoft office , media player etc , ive had various windows programs working on ubuntu using cross over,the graphics on some programs don t have much to be desired but it will improve with time

[daedalus]

DRM checking routines built into device drivers, looping endlessly, slowing things down so that a hardware upgrade is necessary to do the same functions as before.

Actually the need for new hardware is due to an industry standard produced for the next generation DVD formats that will be available within vistas lifespan. Microsofts decision was to include the drm, or shaft its user base with being unable to play next-gen dvds!

And of course, many will believe that if you don't have anything to hide, then checkpoints where you must show your papers are a small inconvenience for law and order, and anyone who objects must have criminal intent.

you mean just like the login checkpoint i get when accessing premium tech support with novell? i cant get paid linux support for free, why do you expect to get updates for windows without prooving you legitimately own it?

So that their hidden Genuine Advantage updates that they lie about, calling them critical updates to fix a flaw it doesn't fix will be unnecessary. (As shown in this week's Windows Secrets newsletter, paid edition.) I might be among a small minority right now, but most users of Vista are people who don't know much about computers, and get it with new store-bought units (then start having trouble that they have to pay the Geek Squad to fix).
But most knowlegable people, especially sysadmins, are avoiding it. And a good number of us have finally been prompted to start looking for long-term alternatives.

if you have an axe to grind with windows update you could just turn it off. I hope your not trying to imply i know nothing about computers just because i adopt the new os early? as for the idiot users, they will have to pay the geek squad to fix their computers whatever they run, half of them cant manage to put in a cd and follow instructions, linux isnt going to help them.

My sysadmin at work isnt avoiding it, mainly because he is there to provide us with the software we require to do our jobs effectively, so the decision really rests with us. That said i can understand the reasoning with non computer literate staff.

There are people working on CAD, accounting, and PLC programming software for Linux.

can you let me know the name of the solidworks equivelent under linux? seriously i have been waiting for someone to put out a good cad package for years now.

It's MY computer, dammit! No executables run without my permission, and they don't get my permission until I know what they are going to try to do.

So you have read every line of sourcecode in every app you run? in the real world noone knows exactly what all their software is doing behind the scenes, so have to trust the developer is honest (and competent).

I work with quite a few people who have similar sentiments to you, they invest thousands of pounds in man hours testing out linux setups in order to save a £300 licence, simply because they are philosophically opposed to handing microsoft money.