Looks good, but so did Windows ME. Thoughts? 1

[GlenJohnson]

Here's a link to the promo for Vista. What do you think?

http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista/

Glen A. Johnson
If you like fun and sun, check out Tek-Tips Florida Forum
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English critic & novelist

 

[GlenJohnson]

Sorry Mark, didn't realize it was the same link. My new laptop won't handle it, so I haven't had a chance to check it out. Have you? Just curious.

Glen A. Johnson
If you like fun and sun, check out Tek-Tips Florida Forum
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English critic & novelist

 

[linney]

What do I think? At this Beta stage, it is performing quite well, but is easily breakable with the installation of many new or added software applications you might want to run.

A great amount of effort has gone into the fancy Display side of things, but whether that is of benefit to the business or serious user, I don't know.

What I dislike and find inconvenient is the Access and Permissions clamp down and look forward to the time when Microsoft get the balance right between Security and a Users access correct.

Still it is early days and I am eagerly following Vista's development, and hope we end up with an operating system that is much better than XP, and continues the path of improvement, and such improvement is on the scale of what XP is over older operating systems, and not as was hinted, another Windows ME episode, I am sure it wont be.

 

[smah]

Nice tag line

It will probably be a very good OS eventually. But, I wonder if MS will actually have a problem selling it to the consumers. For most users, XP is a very good and more than adequate OS (especially in comparison to ME). Add to that, the hardware requirements to fully utilize everything, and I think they'll have a tough time getting people to upgrade.

 

[Scott24x7]

Well, my experience so far is that of NT 4.0... it will not recognize my ADAPTEC SCSI controller, or drives attached to it to install without a seperate driver disk either on floppy, CD, or USB stick... since this is a Beta, I guess I'll whittle a driver for it tomorrow in my infinite free time... DOH!


Best Regards,
Scott

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler."

 

[markdmac]

I haven't had a chance to check it out. Have you?

Must confess not yet. Been waiting for some internal tools to be tweaked to work with it within Microsoft before I go and install it on my work laptop. Others on my team are now using it though and report good results so I will be moving to it very soon.

I wonder if MS will actually have a problem selling it to the consumers. For most users, XP is a very good and more than adequate OS (especially in comparison to ME)

There will be no problem there. Every new PC sold will have it. Vista is really designed to provide an optimal experience for digital music and digital photography users so there will be a big draw for that over previous versions. Where you will see resistance is on the part of users running old hardware that don't want to upgrade. But heck, there are still people running 98 when XP is far superior in performance and security.

Vista will beat XP hands down when it is finished but there will always be those out there that don't want to upgrade, moslty out of fear for the unknown.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[wolluf]

If the final release is anything like the current beta in terms of resource requirements, then upgrading will for most people (taking my customers as a sample) involve hardware upgrades too. Presumably because its been 5 years rather than 18 months between XP and Vista, the bloat (disk and RAM use) has had that much longer to grow! (especially the 64 bit version, which presumably will become the norm).

like linney, I would question the priorities on the development, but would hope that by service pack one its an ok operating system.

Most users I do work for are not aware of most of XP's capabilities, so suspect they'll be a similar lack of interest/knowledge in vista's claims to fame. As Mark says, it will be on new PCs, so gradually most people will be using it, but apart from panicking in the first place they don't know how to use it, don't think it will have that big an impact on home PC/laptop users.

I'm pretty sure they'll be no rush in the schools I support - in fact they're likely to stay with XP until they replace a whole suite.

One thing that bugs me about a new MS o/s - they always move stuff (I'm talking about system settings), and I can never see why! (a number of my customers are still complaining they can't find where to adjust that setting, because XP is different to 98!). It also hurts my (ageing) head to have another, slightly different set to maintain.

 

[Scott24x7]

I wonder if MS will actually have a problem selling it to the consumers. For most users, XP is a very good and more than adequate OS (especially in comparison to ME)

There will be no problem there. Every new PC sold will have it.

Wow, really? I'll make sure and alert all those people working at Red Hat, SuSe, Sun, Apple, and Mandrake (heck, I'll leak it to the press so that it can be broadcast to anyone even thinking about creating an OS) that their services are no longer needed, and will be out of a job after January 2007, or somewhere there about. Please make sure the release is not delayed, we don't want to keep those people working any longer then they have to.





Best Regards,
Scott

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler."

 

[markdmac]

we don't want to keep those people working any longer then they have to.

I couldn't agree more Scott.

 

[satrow]

I've been trying the public Beta occasionally since it was issued.

After removing the Fisher-Price look and feel elements, tweaking the pagefile size and disabling unnecessary (for my purposes) services, I've managed to get the Vista Beta reasonably useable on my 5-year-old Dell laptop (1Ghz PIII/768/16Mb MobilityRadeon/60Gb 7,200) and C Dock II (inc. 128Mb nVidia 5200 PCI and USB2/1394). Just one hardware item it didn't install, in the dock - a SCSI controller - whatever it is, I don't use it anyway!

I've installed the Trend beta/freebie package, installed Firefox 2 Beta 1, Agent Ransack and a few preventative anti-malware measures; disabled Windows Defender and firewall. I can't seem to be able to disarm the security alerts though. (I'd like to get rid of the battery/mains indicator in the taskbar when mains-powered, too.)

I have to connect to my wireless network manually - no big deal, really.

It runs fine for basic tasks on the 'net, I've even got it playing FarCry on the lowest setting - it's not bad, but it plays a couple of levels of graphics higher on XP.

Currently starts up (rather slowly) using @35 processes, @400Mb of pagefile and leaving @ 320Mb of RAM free.

I'd like to be able to use Hardware Profiles like XP to create an offline/games/streamlined mode, can't see how to yet - maybe I'll have to create a new User and see if I can do it that way.

I've lost the ability to use both inbuilt and dock graphics cards together - I'd like to get that working.

What happened to the two-paned Explorer? I can't see an option to enable it - any alternatives that work that way?

No surprise that my system had a Performance Rating of 1 - until I disabled processes needed to test it

Just noticed that there's a bug in the formatting in Notepad as I put this together, I hope it's just something I've done ...

 

[theannihilator]

i enjoy it
i feel that it has more to offer in security than xp but they do need to get the balance right
and i like the games they threw in this one. the start menu sucks but i like the graphics of the desktop.