Keeping it real

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re: Keeping it real

cquirke — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:46:27 GMT

Hi Nick - I'm doing Vista feedback at the moment, blogging as I go (thus 10+ blog posts for July, heh).

I've written up the possible activation issues as per the "Your URL (optional)" attached to this comment :-)

re: Keeping it real

newscientist2000 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:12:48 GMT

For red light errors only I think!

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/petermooreletter.htm

Still great news :-)

re: Keeping it real

newscientist2000 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:17:54 GMT

Congrats to Microsoft for Extending the warranty on the Xbox 360 to 3 years. Well done :-) .

re: Keeping it real

Nick White — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:00:54 GMT

Hey Chris (cquirke): thanks for the info and suggestion -- I'm passing it along to Alex for his review and consideration. If I learn anything I'll post it to the blog here, or you may want to check his blog periodically / post a question to it as well.

re: Keeping it real

Nick White — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:44:33 GMT

Hey jp2.0: glad to hear it! And no, you're not in the minority -- negative feedback tends to have a higher profile simply because people are more vocal about what doesn't work and more prone to talk about bad experiences over good ones. Negative or otherwise, it's feedback we need and appreciate nevertheless, and all comments to this blog are reviewed.

Glad you're enjoying Windows Vista!

re: Keeping it real

cquirke — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:39:34 GMT

I'm seeing a lot of posts that suggest Vista's Product Activation (monitored component model) DoS payload is a bit trigger-happy.

Changes to monitored components, and the weighting thereof, now mean that changing HD (one item) will cause immediate DoS, for example.

These changes are under-documented (pages either gloss over details or claim it's "the same as in XP") and we no longer have Licenturion's XP Info tool to watch our component "lives" being silently lost along the way to the payload being triggered.

MS needs to show good faith by documenting these things, as well as providing tools to show the status of our "lives", much as hard drive vendors provide S.M.A.R.T. as a window into their firmware's hidden activity.

re: Keeping it real

jp2.0 — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:38:41 GMT

I must be in the minority here but Windows Vista is what switched me back to Windows after being a Mac boy for four years. I love the new operating system. The only thing I don't enjoy is the UAC.

re: Keeping it real

mollyfud — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:35:17 GMT

Hey Guys,

Why is it going to take till December or Janurary to release this? It looks like it should be ready in the next month or so?

Molly

Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

re: Keeping it real

Up1 — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:00:18 GMT

I see what you mean, Good_Bytes. And I know how to turn of and turn on functions.

But I don't want to use a operating system which bombs me with stupid questions I have to click OK. "Do I have your access to install Firefox?"

"Do I have your access to open the page where you can adjust the visual effects?"

YES! Why would I NOT click if I want to adjust the f*cking visual effects?!

That's terrible!

If I get Vista, which I probably won't, this is first things I will do when I start the computer:

- Turn off UAC

- Turn off Windows Firewall and replace it with Sygate Firewall, ZoneAlarm Firewall or another firewall

- Download avast! antivirus

- Disable automatic defrag

- Disable Indexer service

- Disable Windows Defender and replace it with S&D, Ad-Aware

- Replace WMP with VLC media player

- Replace IE with Firefox

Then do the rest...

-----

From a Swedish article:

"... It is big differences between Windows XP and Windows Vista:

Windows XP strives to have so mych free memory as it's possible.

Windows Vista, on the other hand, strives to fill the RAM as much as it can!..."

re: Keeping it real

newscientist2000 — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 19:37:04 GMT

Oh if anyone knows where to get a $200 Dell Laptop running Windows let me know that would be a good price :-)

re: Keeping it real

gentrie — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:15:25 GMT

I've been running Vista on my three year old Dell laptop since RC1 and it runs as fast as XP ever did. This is with only 1GB of memory. I think the reason is that when I ordered the laptop I wanted a gaming laptop (at the time) and got it with the ATI Mobulity 9700. I Think with Vista all you need to get good performance if a good graphics card along with a gig of memory. (My processor is only 1.6 Ghz)

As far as not running old games and software from the XP days... if I would have said that I wanted to reinstall XP because my games from 2004 wouldnt work... it's like saying I want to take off XP so I can reinstall windows 95 since my Moto Racer from 1996 and my office 97 dosent work well under XP and XP sucks.... um yeah...right

re: Keeping it real

newscientist2000 — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:11:46 GMT

Great hopefully the site will have more info and more examples of counterfiet software so people can be protected from buying bad software. The pictures in the Gallery tend to focus on the full ot top of the line products e.g. Office Ultimate or Windows Ultimate, neglecting to some extent lesser versions.

Im guessing thats because Pirates target the best version, and because Microsoft loses the most money when these versions are sold?

Anyway theres nothing worse than buying expensive software only to find out you've been robbed and your OS or Office Software is going to pack in because of it.

The Rouge Gallery is pretty shocking, however you can see how someone could be easily fooled with some of those examples of high quality counterfeit software.

Hope everyone has a great 4th July, dont work to hard!

re: Keeping it real

Good_Bytes — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:40:50 GMT

[quote]

Vista on a laptop... Oh I feel sick when I just think about it; dedicated graphics memory. Even 1 GB of RAM or 2 GB isn't enough! XP works great with 256 MB.

[/quote]

No that's because Laptop manufactures doesn't put good hardware in it. Instead of putting a good graphic card like a Geforce8400M, no they put this ""video card"" call the Intel intergreated graphics, or some SiS S3 Pro video card. Which some of those models has difficulty drawing XP interface. But what do you expect for a 200$ Dell laptop. Next time, spend 2k for one, and Vista will run perfectly smoothly without draining more battery life (ok, maybe you'll have 10-20 min less). I lost 15min when I installed Vista RC2 on my laptop, compared to XP. And that is with Aero and everything turned on.

For UAC, your supposed to DISABLE it, while you install everything. There is a check box (if I recall correctly) in the User control panel. Simply un-check it, and have fun. Just recheck it when you are done. (or leave it uncheck, but it's not recommended, as you reduce your computer from security risk done by human (sorry, like everyone, your not perfect, and accidents can occur)).

If you think UAC is bad, look at Linux. You need to love the Terminal, as you will use it for about running/install/mounting/unmounting, well about anything you do under it, even under a xWindows interface like KDE or Gnome. Under Linux the highest account you can be on it is well in reality: "very limited". Ubuntu, did some hack on Linux to run you as "Limited but bellow XP or Vista limited account". That is one of the reason why Linux is so safe. Do you want Windows to be like that? I think not.

Under Vista, "Administrator" is actually "Power User", and "Limited" is well still "Limited". No one can be Administrator. But to prevent people complaining about it, and say that Microsoft controls everything or wtv bashing comment someone can trough at it, they called it Administrator even thus it's not in reality.

As for the OS animation and/or transparency, you can disable that. And you can have Windows Classic skin if you really wanted. No registry hack required. :)

Also, under MacOS, you see a freaking movie when you do something, under Vista, you have to admit that it's a perfect balance. Maybe an option to be able to set the speed of the animations might be interesting, but it's still pretty good. For you, it good without animation, but for my parents, everytime they minimize a window they go "What?! What?! What just happened? Did I delete the folder?". As it's instant, they don't know what happened as:

1- They are afraid of computers. Not in the sense that they are afraid to touch it, it's just that they never get how it works. Then don't get how millions of transistors makes a CPU that can calculate about everything that happens on the screen. Is it their fault? No! Of course I'm not saying ALL Adults, are target, but I mean people that comes from other places other then Canada, US or even UK, like my parents where technology moves very slowly. Right now it's like taken a today computer, go back in time where typewriters where used, and computer never exited, and give this new computer to a secretary. Just imagine her reaction. The jump is too big to be adapted. Maybe that is why concept cars never get released. Will we even replace the searing wheel with a joystick like on some concept cars or futuristic Sci-fi movies?!? I think not.

2- They have a mentality that anything sophisticated must be fragile. Therefor, when something happens in a chock (like minimizing a window) they think they did something bad, like delete the folder, or closed it. It takes about 5-10sec for them to realize that the window just minimize and can be found on the task bar. Animations like these, confirms the user that he minimize the window, and where it can found later one to access it. (as the animation goes the to the task bar)

Fact: Before when my parents where surfing the internet, they used to close the HOLE web browser to then re-open it, to change web site. Yea that's pretty bad. And with tabs... oh god! What a mess! Well with a Firefox extension that makes makes an animation when you open/close/switch between web browser tabs, it well help A LOT, and now they use the tabs more. It still doesn't fix the problem of closing the hole web browser and re-open it to change web site, but it sure helps when they use tabs.

As for XP RAM usage. XP NEED 2GB of RAM to run perfectly smoothly. I am a software develloper, and I have 2 machines, one with 2GB of RAM and the other 256MB. Both running XP SP2. Windows has serious difficulty running with 256MB. 512MB is good ONLY if you use IE and MSN. But then Windows 3.1 is good for you. If you want to use any office suite, disable windows to use your hdd as RAM, and run programs like Firefox, Visual C++, descent image editor, video DVD's and HD videos perfectly smoothly (meaning going at 30 frame per second without dropping 1 single frames during the hole movie), then a 2.0 Ghz CPU with 1GB of RAM is what you need. And if you play games, 2-3 GB is a MUST for XP.

I, as a gamer, my system can run Vista (Beta 2, RC1 and RC2) perfectly smoothly, with hacked XP drivers to magically fit Vista and work. Is my system brand new? no. Did I pay 6k.. no...

I only paid 2k without keyboard/mouse and monitor in Jan 2006. What's my system... Custom build computer: AMD Athlon X2 4400+ Socket 939, 2GB of RAM @ 400Mhz with a latency of 3-3-3-8 2T, motherboard: ASUS A8N32-SLI Nforce 4 32xSLI, Geforce 6600GT 128MB of RAM (going for a 8800 GTS soon :)), Western Digital 250GB SATA-II HDD, and Creative X-Fi Xtream Music. It's not a monster anymore. Yet Vista runs perfectly smoothly even under games with XP drivers fitted somehow fro Vista without one single BSOD. THAT'S STABLE!