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VISTA BETA TESTERS

Discussion in 'All other topics' started by Robspace1, Aug 30, 2006.

  1. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    10 things to consider before rolling out Vista
    Posted by: soxrocker on September 01, 2006 7:14 PM
    ..Some food for thought..

    Despite the delays and uncertainties about exactly when it's going to happen, there's one thing we know for sure: Vista is coming. Organisations are already making plans, especially those that pride themselves on being early adopters. But there are some things you need to consider before taking the plunge.




    10 things to consider before rolling out Vista

    Despite the delays and uncertainties about exactly when it's going to happen, there's one thing we know for sure: Vista is coming. Organisations are already making plans, especially those that pride themselves on being early adopters. But there are some things you need to consider before taking the plunge.

    If you're starting to plan for a Vista rollout -- or trying to decide whether you actually should start to plan for it -- you'll need to evaluate factors such as hardware needs, licensing options, application compatibility, and user and staff preparation.

    1: Is your hardware up to snuff?
    Vista is famous -- or perhaps, more accurately, infamous -- for its hefty hardware requirements. Certainly, minimum system requirements are more demanding than for any previous Windows operating system.

    In reality, there are two separate sets of hardware requirements, one for machines that are merely "Vista Capable" and one for those that are "Vista Premium Ready." Whereas the latter requires a 1GHz processor, a GB of RAM and a high end video card, requirements for the former are a bit more easily (and inexpensively) attainable. It's important to remember that, although the eye candy afforded by Aero Glass is very cool, it's probably not really necessary for most business applications.

    Before you start making plans to upgrade all of your organisation's workstations to Vista, you should check out the exact system requirements on Microsoft's Windows Vista Enterprise Hardware Planning Guidance Web site.

    2: Which edition(s) of Vista do you need?
    Selecting the right edition of Windows XP was pretty simple. There were four basic varieties: Home Edition, Professional Edition, Tablet PC Edition, and Media Center Edition. If the computer needed to join a Windows domain, the first and last editions were out (MCE 2004 could join a domain, but 2005 could not). Unless you were installing on a Tablet PC, there was no need for TPCE. The logical choice for the vast majority of systems on a business network was XP Pro.

    Things get slightly more complicated with Vista. Now there are five editions: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Although you probably won't want to use the Home editions on a company network, you may be less certain whether to choose Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate. Business Edition is roughly comparable to XP Pro, whereas Enterprise Edition includes extra features, such as BitLocker Drive Encryption (an added layer of security for corporate laptops), application compatibility tools, SUA (Subsystem for UNIX-based applications), and advanced multi-language support. Ultimate is a superset with all the features of all editions (including Media Center), which may be more than you need for your business PCs. You'll find more information on the editions here.

    3: Understand Vista licensing
    Microsoft hasn't officially announced licensing details for Windows Vista, but it announced last spring that Enterprise Edition will be available only to customers with a Software Assurance or Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. For smaller businesses, the Windows Anytime Upgrade license, which allows you to upgrade some editions of Vista to a higher edition, may be of interest (for example, you can upgrade Home Basic to Home Premium, or Business to Ultimate). For more info, see "Vista Anytime Upgrade Goes Beta."

    4: What about application compatibility?
    When it comes down to it, the applications, not the operating system, matter most in terms of getting the job done. One important consideration in rolling out a new OS is to ensure that your essential programs will run on it without problems.

    Vista's built-in compatibility modes will help you install and run apps that were written for previous versions of Windows. Microsoft has created the Application Compatibility Toolkit to help you identify applications that may need enhancements to work with Vista's User Account Control (UAC) feature and to fix those programs. You can also use technologies such as Virtual PC/Virtual Server or Terminal Services as a workaround for incompatible applications.

    Nonetheless, it's important to test your mission-critical applications beforehand and ensure that they will work with Vista -- or develop a plan to replace them or implement a workaround if they don't. For application compatibility resources, see this overview.

    5: Assess the network infrastructure
    Although there's no requirement that you do so, upgrading to Vista may provide you with motivation to move to IPv6. Vista includes much better support for the new Internet Protocol. With XP/Server 2003, IPv6 support requires installing a separate protocol, whereas the TCP/IP stack in Vista/Longhorn Server supports dual IP architecture and both IPv4 and IPv6 are enabled by default.

    There are many reasons to move to IPv6. A transition to IPv6 not only enhances IP security, it also allows doing away with NAT and makes it easier to incorporate video and audio into applications. For a list of advantages of IPv6, see IPv6 -- The evolution of the Internet.

    6: Who needs Vista (and who doesn't)?
    You may not want or need to upgrade all desktop systems in your organisation to Vista at once. In fact, there's a lot to be said for implementing an OS upgrade in a large company one step at a time. Upgrades shouldn't be done randomly, though. Part of your rollout plan should include assessing which users can benefit most from Vista's new features, are most in need of Vista's security enhancements, or otherwise should take priority in the rollout process.

    Clerical personnel who spend most of their computer time in a word processing or spreadsheet program may be perfectly content -- and just as productive -- continuing to use their current OS for awhile.

    7: Are your users prepared?
    Such considerations as cost, hardware, and infrastructure are important when you're making the decision to roll out a new OS, but don't forget the people factor. A minority of computer users embrace new technology eagerly and can't wait to be the first on the block to try and master the latest and greatest. But most users, like human beings in general, are resistant to change, even if the change is for the better.

    Upgrading to a new operating system always requires a learning period, regardless of how intuitive the software is, and Vista introduces some major interface changes and new ways of doing things that may frustrate your less tech-savvy users. For example, those new to Vista are likely to be confused or annoyed by the dialog boxes that AUC pops up whenever they try to perform a task that requires administrative rights, even if they're logged on as administrators.

    It's important to prepare users for the transition through education, training, and policies that don't make it harder on them than necessary. For instance, you can allow those who prefer it to switch back to the classic Windows theme to make the desktop look more familiar.

    8: Are support personnel ready?
    It's not just end users who must be prepared before the rollout. Your help desk and other tech support personnel are going to be hit with a plethora of questions and requests for assistance. Even if they're well trained and completely versed in the new OS, they need to be prepared for a much large volume of work than usual.

    You might consider adding more support personnel temporarily during and immediately after the upgrade.

    9: Is your data safe?
    Sure, if all goes well, the OS upgrade will leave all your precious data intact. But what if all doesn't go well? The most elementary, but surprisingly oft-overlooked, consideration is whether all of your data is properly backed up "just in case." That doesn't just mean having a backup program and a bunch of tapes that you shuffle every week or so. It means actually doing test restorations to ensure that those backups will work if and when you need them.

    10: What will it really cost?
    When all the other considerations are in, you can start to calculate how much it will cost to do the upgrade. Don't forget that the bottom line cost includes a lot more than the licensing fees. It also includes the cost of any necessary hardware upgrades, application modifications (or moving to new applications or new versions of the old ones), changes to the network infrastructure (if applicable), consultants you hire to help with the rollout, user training (including cost productivity while those users are away from their usual tasks), training of support personnel and IT administrators, and administrative overhead of handling all these preparations, including application compatibility testing, backup testing, and so forth.

    Once you have a realistic cost estimate, you can intelligently decide whether the benefits of upgrading are worth it or whether your company is better off using XP (or even Windows 2000) for awhile longer and waiting for the first service pack or beyond before you take the Vista plunge.

    TechRepublic is the online community and information resource for all IT professionals, from support staff to executives. We offer in-depth technical articles written for IT professionals by IT professionals. In addition to articles on everything from Windows to e-mail to firewalls, we offer IT industry analysis, downloads, management tips, discussion forums, and e-newsletters.
    http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/sof...out_Vista/0,39023769,39268273,00.htm?feed=rss

     
  2. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    ireland
    I would think something like this

    Non Gaming Basic System
    1.8Ghz CPU,256Ramm higher the spec better the performance.
    I believe Vista can run DX9 cards am I wrong?
    if I am a basic DX10 card will be needed.


    Normal Desktop
    2.2Ghz+ CPU,1024 Ram
    DX10 vid card

    Basic Gaming System
    2.0Ghz+ DUAL core 2GB Ram
    100$+ DX10 Vid Card

    Medium Gaming System
    2.2Ghz+ DUAL core 4GB Ram
    200$+ DX10 Vid Card

    ---------------------------
    I am in disbelief about the prices tho MS promised a basic vista for under 100.....tsk tsk....


    Much like XP I will wait a year or 2 before playing with it...

     
  3. geestar20

    geestar20 Active member

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    As soon as I can get my hands on Vista I'll give it a go.
     
  4. The_Fiend

    The_Fiend Guest

    Geestar, do yourself a favor, read through this thread, and THEN tell us if you still want to get that hunk of junk... *if you do still want it after reading it all, i'll call the clinic and order you a size XL straightjacket, ok ?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 1, 2006
  5. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    also talk to arnie as i believe he tried vista & doesn't like it.
     
  6. geestar20

    geestar20 Active member

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    Thanks guys but I forgot yo mention I will run this on a virtual PC so Vista's tenticles will not get ahold of everything. I don't follow everyones sayings until I have had my own say so.

    I have read through theses posts and I know my own dealing so as stated above, I will have my own say so.
     
  7. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    Vista Transition: Microsoft Should Take a Lesson from Apple
    By David Morgenstern
    August 31, 2006

    Opinion: The looming choice for Windows users is either to stick with Windows XP (and older hardware) or take Windows Vista cold turkey. But Microsoft doesn't have to be so tough—Apple did it differently with the Mac OS X rollout.

    A major product transition is an opportunity for technology suppliers to send a message to partners and the installed base of users. It can be something on the order of "we care" to something less than warm and cuddly. And then there's Vista.
    ADVERTISEMENT

    While Microsoft's approach to the 2007 launch of Windows Vista is only now coming into focus, it looks as if the Vista experience will stand in sharp contrast to the way Apple pitched the Mac community on its OS X transition.

    On August 29, Amazon.com began taking preorders for Vista, with a similar pricing structure to that of Windows XP.

    The prices range from the $199 Home Basic version to the $399 Vista Ultimate. Of course, there's quite a list of SKUs and different prices for upgrades.

    Based on the response to a recent column on Vista's hardware requirements and performance, it looks as if many readers will be taking a wait-and-see attitude to the upgrade. Most didn't see much value in moving from Windows XP.

    Even resellers expressed concerns over the upgrade situation for hardware. And this was before the Windows SKUs and prices were revealed.

    "The cost of these systems that will run this Vista is going to be out of reach for most consumers," wrote Greg Hartman, a Wisconsin-based VAR.

    "My primary business comes from the average home user and I know the price tag will be out of reach for them. Besides, why does the average user need such a machine?"

    "Honestly, I can't believe corporate America will be able to afford all the upgrades that will make this operating system run. Why can't [Microsoft] just finish making XP a better system?" he concluded.

    Click here to read more.

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2010942,00.asp
     
  8. dolphin2

    dolphin2 Guest

    I did a little speed test of my own design using Vista Beta2, XP Pro and Linux.

    I used the same DVD, computer, writers, programs (AnyDVD and DVD Shrink), etc. (Everything was the same except the OS).

    Vista Beta 2 ripping time to create an ISO was 3 hours and 20 minutes.
    XP Pro ripping time to create an ISO was 42 minutes.
    Linux ripping time to create an ISO was 33 minutes.
    Times are approximate as I didn't use a stop watch.

    I had my fill of Vista just from this little test!

     
  9. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    Microsoft announces Vista pricing

    9/5/2006 11:23:03 AM, by Ken Fisher

    After a series of leaks, Microsoft has finally announced the pricing for Windows Vista. Here it is, for the US market:
    Full versions

    * Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
    * Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
    * Windows Vista Business: $299
    * Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

    Upgrade versions

    * Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade: $99
    * Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade: $159
    * Windows Vista Business Upgrade: $199
    * Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade: $259

    For those keeping score, these are the exact prices leaked by Amazon last week.

    As we mentioned before, Microsoft is planning a $900 million marketing campaign to spur sales. At last spring's Intel Developer Forum, Microsoft made it clear that they expect to have 400 million computers running Vista within two years of its release. Most of those sales will stem from new computer purchases, but the company is also hoping to catch the fancy of enthusiasts. Can these prices do it?

    First, let's just forget about Home Basic. In our view, it's a crippled OS because Home Basic lacks support for Aero. For those interested in Vista, it's hard to see why Home Basic would be a target purchase. This brings us to Home Premium, which is the Vista enthusiast's entry-point. At $159 for an upgrade, Microsoft is staying close to the Windows XP Pro upgrade price, which means that they can expect decent sales. There's more at stake higher up the line, and that's where things get interesting.

    The pricing differential between Home Premium to Ultimate spans $160 for the full version and $100 for the upgrade. Because Ultimate is a kind of combination of the Home and Business editions, it's priced higher than the two. This makes sense, but I think it complicates the pricing tier because Microsoft is already selling Business for $70 more than Premium ($40 for the upgrade). Business Edition loses Premium's Media Center functionality in favor of its management functions, which seems like more of a trade-off than a feature boost... so why charge so much more for it? (More on the different versions, here.)

    Whatever the case, the point of Anytime Upgrade is make the initial buying decision less important. This may be a good thing, because Ultimate is priced at a premium that many users may balk at. And when it comes to OEM sales from the big boys like Dell, the challenge will be massaging a $400 OS into their line-up. Vista will sell well, but Microsoft has a marketing challenge on their hands when it comes to Ultimate.
    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060905-7663.html
     
  10. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    Vista RC1 Reviews Roll In
    By Mary Jo Foley

    Windows Client Windows Vista beta testers didn't let Labor Day weekend in the U.S. stop them from laboring over their reviews of Windows Vista Release Candidate (RC) 1, which Microsoft dropped on September 1. Installation time for the latest Vista build is much better, according to tester Brandon LeBlanc. eWEEK's Jason Brooks had some XP migration problems and is recommending, at least for now, that users consider a clean install with Windows Vista. Windows watcher Paul Thurrott, for his part, still has some pretty scathing criticism for Microsoft at the RC1 milestone marker.

    start here for both articles,there good reads
    http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,2011867,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535





    The Dark Side of Windows Vista RC1



    In a recent showcase, I highlighted five things I really like about Windows Vista. That's a cute list, and certainly, I could easily come up with another 5, or 10, or 20. And you know, maybe I'll do just that. But first, I'd like to discuss a number of problems I have with Windows Vista. This, to be honest, is a long list. That doesn't mean that Windows Vista is a waste of time, or a product to be reviled. As a friend once noted, "it's good enough to criticize." Well, maybe. It certainly deserves to be criticized.

    You see, Windows Vista isn't perfect. It's not even close to perfect. It's better than Windows XP is, of course, but it damn well should be: It benefits from five more years of experience and work. Being better is the minimum requirement. Whether Vista is enough of an improvement over XP to warrant your hard earned money is a subject I'm saving for my eventual review of the final shipping version of the product, but I'll give you a bit of preview now and say the answer may surprise you. In the meantime, let's harp a bit on the things I don't like about Vista as it now stands in RC1 form.
    It's the UI, stupid. Actually, it's a stupid UI

    Last year, I infamously called for the firing of the person responsible for what was then a miserable Media Center user interface. That was a bit harsh, perhaps, but you have to remember that the Media Center UI that debuted in the October 2006 CTP (see my review) was also absolutely horrible. Since then, Vista's Media Center has improved a lot. At least Microsoft listens.

    This time, I'd like approach a bit of UI that will almost certainly not change by the time Vista ships. And that's too bad, because it's one of the single stupidest UI decisions I've ever seen. (As a side note, Mac guys like to point to the Start button as a stupid UI decision, because you have to go to "Start" to shutdown the PC. Whatever. This one makes the Start button look like divine inspiration by comparison.)

    Here it is. In previous versions of Windows, wizards and wizard-based applications provided logical Next and Back buttons so you could easily navigate forward and backwards through the various steps presented. Here's a typical example.

    go here and read one of the article's
    http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_rc1_worst.asp
     
  11. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    ireland
    I never let money determine my OS ..hehehehehe
    just how annoying it is.
     
  12. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    Microsoft Vista is still a mess

    More RC1 ramblings

    By Dean Pullen: Monday 11 September 2006, 07:00
    WE'VE HAD THE pleasure of using Vista since its very early builds. The first release candidate is now upon us, and was made available to download by TechBeta and Technology Adoption Program program subscribers last week.

    MSDN and TechNet subscribers should now also be able to grab the near-complete RC1 release, build number 5600. One INQUIRER columnist has already given us his positive and then negative spin on RC1, and further testing from this hack has uncovered further problems.

    Throughout the testing of the past releases, it was strikingly evident how incomplete Vista's code was. Various incomplete features, missing graphics, place-holder text messages, and a plethora of bugs, left many feeling very underwhelmed, and increasingly worried by the next operating system from Microsoft.

    A release candidate should consist of all features that will appear in the finished product, in an almost final state, with simple bug fixing and last-minute problem finding being the main concerns of the testers and developers. A beta 2 'pre-RC1' build, numbered 5536, of Vista was only recently made available for download just before RC1, and was considered surprisingly stable and bug-free compared to previous betas. RC1, then, should easily cope under scrutiny from the INQUIRER.

    Installation
    The install didn't go well. The test system had a Nvidia based RAID setup over two SATA disks which had been running XP perfectly for some time. Vista refused to see the RAID, even with beta Vista-specific drivers from Nvidia. Booting Vista from within XP allowed setup to see the hard-disks, but after the preliminary setup routines, and a reboot, Vista failed to again see the drives. Searching Nvidia forums gave an answer - load the Vista specific drivers in an XP-based Vista setup even when it recognizes the RAID. The install then worked. Its surprising one of the most utilised RAID supporting motherboardchipsets from one of the biggest suppliers of chipsets are still having problems with their Vista drivers at this very late stage.

    Previous critical examination of Microsoft's new beloved font types in our Office 2007 articles seems to have fallen on deaf ears - the installation font looked awful, with random spacing occurring between letters much like that in the Office beta's. It looks amateurish at best.

    Further hardware problems came from the very popular Creative Audigy card that was utilised in the test system. Vista failed to recognize the card, so a quick look on Creative's site uncovered Vista specific drivers. A quick install and reboot, ensured a consistent BSOD on boot. Resorting back to the last known good configuration sorted this, and an install of the older XP drivers seemed to work without any further problems. Again it's surprising and very disturbing that a driver for such a popular sound device is still at a very poor stage in development.

    Rebooting
    Some drivers were previously copied onto a USB memory stick for quick installation once Vista was up and running. Vista automatically recognized the USB memory stick, as you'd expect, but copying a file to the desktop failed (the copy dialog wouldn't complete) and a 0 byte file then remained on the desktop which wasn't removable until a reboot.

    Installing Windows Live Messenger worked fine. For some reason the build on Microsoft's website was old and the program instantly asked if the newer version should be installed. A quick download later, and the installation hung and couldn't be closed without a reboot.

    During setup you're asked to name your PC. On examining the test PC's name in the networking properties, it was obvious this had at some point been discarded - a further renaming was required, which then required a full reboot. Installing Nvidia Nforce drivers for the system's motherboard required a reboot - and on restarting Vista, another reboot was required to finish the installation. So much for rebooting Windows less.

    Media
    Media center is now built in to Windows, as opposed to shipping as a separate OS offering. It's had various GUI changes, but some of the older GUI still exists - surely this should all be complete now, considering this is a release candidate? Media player failed to bring up the 'first time setup' procedure on the first attempt to try to play a video file and only audio could be heard with no video, until media player was restarted and the aforementioned procedure finally kicked into gear.

    Performance
    The test PC contained an Athlon64 3200+ on a Nvidia Nforce 4 chipset based motherboard with 1gb RAM and a Geforce 7600GT - hardly awe inspiring, but a decent entry/mid level PC, which runs XP and most modern games very happily. Vista start up takes around 15-20 seconds longer than the old install of XP on this machine, and takes around 10 seconds more to unload for a reboot. The OS in general appears sluggish compared to XP and resource hungry - the memory footprint on a fresh boot of Vista takes around 500-550mb without any other tasks running, and the CPU never seems to run idle. The old program-loaded XP install took around 300mb.

    Interface
    The partially-transparent windows look nice, but I'd prefer opaque boarders if it meant the performance of XP. The 3D presentation of windows when flipping between programs isn't particularly useful and isn't even the alt-tab default - a thumbnail preview of the window appears, much like the Windows XP powertoy add-on.

    Where's the run command gone in the start menu? This is highly annoying, and you often find yourself trying to quickly run a command window but having to resort to the search function. The start menu no longer expands into an observable tree like it has for the last 11 years, instead each level of the tree appears in the main start menu pop up, which is particularly unnavigable and unintuitive. Each folder within the explorer view seems to have its own choice of folder viewing - one folder will show you thumbnail folder previews, another will show you a simple list, with little consistency throughout the contents of your hard-drive.

    The level-up button that appeared in explorer has also disappeared. It's now much more of a pain to transverse any folder tree. As Paul Thurrott points out too, back buttons now tend (its highly inconsistent) to appear in the top left hand corner of a window, whilst next buttons still appear in the bottom right - a fairly counter-intuitive design decision.

    The icons that appear in the bottom right task tray and the quick launch icons are basic, unintuitive and could've been originally shipped with Windows 3.1.

    User Account Control (UAC) is ridiculously annoying. It pops up far to frequently when trying to configure your system and states administrator access is required, even when you're an administrative user - clicking continue is all that is required to bypass it, but the sluggish performance of Vista means the pop up and dark screen effect makes the process take longer than needed.

    Conclusion
    Vista's still a mess. It's meant to be at release candidate stage, yet vendor's are struggling to provide sufficient driver support, features are still missing or not yet complete, and its performance compared to XP is still poor. Nowadays hardware is cheap, and it would be sufficiently acceptable to upgrade in anticipation of a wonderfully revolutionary OS. Unfortunately Vista provides little to no benefit for end users compared to that of the previous version of Windows, released five years ago in 2001.

    There are no upgrades or features to the OS that are sufficiently compelling to make upgrading a necessity, some which were earlier promised, allowed for sufficient reason for an upgrade to be considered, but these have been removed one by one over the course of Vista's prolonged patchy road of development, and now Vista appears little more than an ill-performing version of XP with a glorified interface. µ

    See also
    How Microsoft Vista will cope with the real world
    Vista is not quite done yet
    Windows RC1 Vista is looking good to go
    http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34268
     
  13. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    ireland

    so its as ready for prime time as the 360 was *L*
     
  14. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    the fiend will love this...

    Top Windows writer abandons Microsoft

    Sees the light and buys an Apple

    By Nick Farrell: Tuesday 12 September 2006, 08:29
    MICROSOFT DEVELOPER and writer Pete Wright has had enough of Vole and has bought an Apple.

    Wright says that after nearly 15 years on Voleware, including working for Redmond, he has got thoroughly bored with the outfit.

    Writing in his bog he said that Microsoft had become the IBM of the software world. Wright revealed that he is on Vole’s ‘influencer' lists, which are email lists where Microsoft people try to get me to tow the company line and say great things about it.

    Now he has taken a role as Director with a company at the leading edge of the "Web 2.0" curve. His team will write Ruby on Rails code, use Macintosh computers to do so, shun Microsoft technology completely, go to work in shorts and sandals and blast each other with nerf guns.

    As a parting shot to Microsoft, Wright says that its super soaraway Vista operating system is a pile of crap compared to Mac OS X and Ubuntu with GLX.

    Its software is buggy, overpriced, and stress inducing. "Their development tools are staid, designed and developed by committees to solve every problem you could ever conceive of, while being ideally suited to solving none."

    The bog is here. µ
    http://peterwright.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-bye-microsoft-pete-has-now-left.html
     
  15. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    Wonderful so its not ever worth buying it I was going to buy it...figures oh well maybe in 3 years they will get it fixed...
     
  16. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    i will say a wee bit more on this,vista is crap as it stands now..

    i do not use xp as my main user system.the reason is that xp is made up of parts of win me and 2000,with a little cake added in..
    i use windows 2000,as its a great system..i can do most of what ye can do on xp but i feel i can do them better..i can do movies burn and rip in about 17 min do the work i love editing pixs.

    i do not use or care for microsoft updates..never installed one..
    i know ye can not upgrade to int-net explorer 7,i do not use ie..i used to use netscape now firefox.
    i use a good virus and firewall program..on this computer i never got a virus since i builded it in 1999...

    bullcrap
    xp- calling home and (Windows Genuine Advantage) ..forced to install servive pack 2,if not installed microsoft will end support soon for win xp-sp-1....then ye will have to upgrade to sp-2..

    geting vista or xp do you really own your computer?
    i own mine..


    my two cents..
     
  17. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    ireland
    Funny I dont update my SP1 and it runs fine *rollseyes*
    and they start focusing WGA onto vista and leave SP2 in the dust I will update to it :3

    I ahve tried 2k it hates more apps than XP I cant realy stand it.
    it is a nice stabel OS tho just dosent run games well.
     
  18. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    i don't play games and the games i did install worked well..
    don't ask me the names of the games i do not remember..

    computer has been upgraded to a p4-3.2gh processor and 4 gig ram..
    and a so-so video 128 card,
     
  19. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    Building the Vista Dream Machine
    By Mary Jo Foley

    Windows Client ExtremeTech builds a PC optimized for Windows Vista, component-by-component. Their total price: A steep $2,525 (in hardware only – not including the cost of the operating system and/or apps) for the ultimate Vista rig. And that's without high-definition optical drives and next-gen DirectX 10 video cards, which the editors are expecting to arrive around the same time as Vista. Speaking of Vista, there are screen shots of Vista Build 5721 available on Microsoft's own TechNet blog site. Builds in the 5700 series are those in the "release-to-manufacturing tree"; Vista Release Candidate 1 is only Build 5600.



    Ah, Windows Vista. The much-anticipated new operating system from Microsoft was starting to look a bit like an albatross around Redmond's collective neck. After a long gestation period, including cutting some much ballyhooed features—WinFS comes to mind—Microsoft has finally shipped its first release candidate. Check out our 100-pic slideshow of Vista RC1 .

    Given this auspicious event, we figured it was time to actually build a system that's Vista ready. As we approached this task, we had a few clear goals in mind:

    * We wanted to build a high performance Vista system. We'll think about budget systems later. Our goal was a Windows Experience Score—formerly known as WinSAT—above 5.
    * We wanted to have plenty of room for future growth and expansions.
    * We wanted to test Vista's ability to configure storage options without the use of a ludicrous "F6 floppy."
    * We also wanted to build a system that was relatively forward looking—as much so as possible today.

    With these thoughts in mind, let's take a look at the component choices. Continued...


    "O" HELL GO HERE TO READ IT ALL
    http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2015423,00.asp
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2006
  20. ZippyDSM

    ZippyDSM Active member

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    SO I take it like with SP2 in order to save yourself headaches and crashing and just get new hardware for Vister? *L*
     

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