blog: windows vista

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog entry on vista:
http://www.zabkat.com/blog/18Feb07.htm

[Demetris]

Why don’t you use a more logical naming scheme for your files? E.g., 20070218.htm(l), or 2007-02-18-windows-vista.htm(l). Also, I’m thinking that maybe it would be better for future manageability to use some simple blogging package...

About restricted accounts, there are issues with Run As, and maybe that’s why so few people use this option. From what I’m reading, I’m not sure I will be happy with the Vista improvements in this department. I wish MS had something like this in their operating systems:

sudowin : sudo for Windows

http://www.lostcreations.com/sudowin
http://www.lostcreations.com/sudowin/about

[RickyF]

I have used Windows since version 1.0. I have used Vista in its various betas for over a year and Vista Ultimate RTM for almost 3 months. So, I believe I have a reasonable experience base to form a judgment.

Vista is trying to serve several audiences and so I think must be judged based upon its value to each audience.

Vista in the Enterprise is probably a great leap forward for the IT department. Steve Ballmer brought out the head of Citigroup’s IT to talk to the audience when I was at the NYC Microsoft roll out to the IT community for Vista (and other products). Citigroup is upgrading 350,000 desktops worldwide to Vista over the next several months. They clearly support Vista. They see many advantages and are moving apace to replace earlier Windows versions.

Medium and small businesses, especially those without IT departments, are not so well served. The lack of hardware drivers for video cards, other internal cards, printers, scanners and other devices is a real headache and hardship. Software incompatibility, e.g., all versions of QuickBooks before 2007 will not run properly in multi-user mode, and the hardware requirements – more memory, faster CPUs, new video and audio chipsets – mean that Vista is a very expensive and problematic upgrade.

The home user segment mirrors the issues confronting small businesses. IMHO, the eye candy is the only real advantage and that has a limited value.

Finally, the media center segment is even more poorly served by Vista because of the incredible amount of DRM-related additions to the OS and the hardware. I went back to XP MCE 2005 on my main RHFtech HTPC proto-type after three months because of the hardware and software issues mentioned above. I am thinking of moving to Linux as the OS and running a Linux media center application on future builds just because of the awful nature of the DRM.

After considering Vista for the last year, I conclude that it is not the OS for me or my clients, small businesses, individuals and media centers. I see my clients’ and my futures with a mix of OSes – Mac, Linux, XP and maybe some Vista.

http://rhftech.com

[Demetris]

[RickyF]

Thanks for the reference. I had read it back around Christmas last year. It really opened my eyes to how awful these encryption schemes are for the buyers of computers.

I have to laugh though that the AACS scheme was cracked this past week and that SlySoft released their HD-DVD DRM stripping software yesterday.

If you want to be really depressed (as if the current state of PCs wasn't depressing enough) go to http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/support/bdhd_support/diagnosis.jsp and download the utility that tests for whether your PC is ready for Blu-ray Discs or HD DVDs.

BTW, almost every HDTV sold around the world to-date is not HDCP compliant!

[nikos]

[ZoNi]

I use Vista last 2 or 3 weeks... and I like it very much! Everything seems to be faster than with XP (btw, installation was only about 15 minutes!)...

I don't think I will go back to XP anymore
_________________
ZoNi's hardware, software & desktop

[rnfolsom]

Nikos:

A very "interesting" post on Vista.

There's no point in taking the time to learn a new operating system unless there are major benefits.

I could very easily edit your post to explain why I am sticking with Windows 2000 Sp4 Rollup1(v2) for the next few years at least.

Moving away from Win2k, to either XP or Vista, would be an enormous time sink for me.

Not only would I have to learn --- i.e. self-teach myself --- a new operating system, and acquire new application software (with some new learning necessary), but I would have to update 183mb of accumulated information about Win2k and the applications that I run on it.  (That's a big number, but I just checked and it's accurate.)

And I would have to purchase replacements --- and read much of their content --- for the 18 Win2k books (user level and registry level) I have acquired, and to search them for my "marginal" notes, and search the new books for similar topics, and transfer my notes to the new books.

No way.  I'd much rather continue my main profession, which isn't computing.

Roger Folsom

P.S.:  Thanks for Xplorer2 and Editor2.  But why you call the latter a "Lightweight Notepad Replacement" is a mystery.  I recently discovered that it will open some css files properly (i.e. with the correct linefeeds and returns) that Windows Notepad won't.  Why not just call it Editor2, Notepad Replacement (or, more tactfully, a Notepad Alternative)?