How workable is Vista?

OK, many myths in this thread. Vista is fine so long as you dont have software that directly addresses hardware. It will run fine on 1gb of memory. There is no performance loss, in fact there are increases in certain areas. It does index everything which can slow down file operations occasionaly, but this can be disabled. I have been using Vista since it was released and I am yet to have any problems. I did upgrade my memory at one stage, but this was only so I could run several instances of virtual pc, as you would also have to do with xp

If you are an engineer and you want to fiddle with everything and run outdated software, then Vista is a no go. If you want something that works out of the box on a new pc then vista is fantastic. IF you want to install vista on old hardware, then I would probably give it a miss.

Reply to
The Real Andy
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Op Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:40:42 +0200 schreef The Real Andy :

Like device drivers, that have to be signed by MS?

If you need more expensive and power-hungry hardware to be able to perform mostly the same tasks, then I cannot possibly consider it an "upgrade". And if you really need eye-candy to prevent you from becoming depressed, then there are IMHO better ways to spend your money.

So how can you say that Vista is fine?

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Reply to
Boudewijn Dijkstra

o

And what exactly have movies and MP3s got to do with a workday [for most people with a day job]? If they put it all in Media Center Edition, no problem! They're making a set-top box and that's fine. Putting it in all OS variants - instant unviability.

Reply to
larwe

Ok, that's a no go for almost everyone in this group then. ;-)

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Reply to
Stef

And if you need Vista to work with old hardware, also give it a miss ?

Many embedded designs have long version control time-lines, and need to work with fixed software versions. Of course, this market is so small, Microsoft do not care.

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Yes - With the 'want to run outdated software', changed to 'need to run outdated software' - version control often removes option/luxury of 'want' ;)

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Exactly. But it's not just engineers. Many businesses run legacy MRP systems and a change can be extremely expensive. MS used to have an ok attitude towards backward compatibility. That seems to have noticeably changed with Vista, to the point where they might discover that they just shot themselves in the foot.

Yesterday during the dog walk we met a friend who owns a business and just bought a round of new PCs. His comments about this new stuff consisted mostly of words like "stinks, pain in the neck, sluggish, resource hog" and so on.

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Reply to
Joerg

//chop

//chop

I believe Visual C++ 6 WILL work on Vista. Microsoft does not support it perhaps, but it works as far as I can tell.

Cheers, Jody

Reply to
JB

Debian maybe, but come on... Ubuntu is to Debian what Vista is to Win2K (or so).

ygtroll

Reply to
whygee

I know, this is why the linux engineers cant make me a build environment for the 5 year old hardware I have, but the CE stuff will still compile using a vista box. I guess ms does not care.

Reply to
The Real Andy

Why do I not have any problems?

Sigh..... The hardware is cheaper, your microwave draws more power...

Reply to
The Real Andy

If you think this is restricted to MS then you are all fools. If I try and run mac software from 10 years ago I am going to have greif. If I try and run linux software from 10 years ago I am going to have greif. Why is MS so different? I deal with all this shit everyday, not just MS. Why cant the software designed to run on redhat 6 that I currently have not run on the current version of redhat? IT will if its upgraded, just like the NT4 software I have.

Reply to
The Real Andy

What is the latest news on WinFS? Assuming it will only be available fo Vista, that would the major enhancement that would make Vista a worthwhil upgrade.

Reply to
Joel

Possibly, but it's been done before with limited success. The classic example is Pick but NewtonOS is a much more recent example. Not overly familiar with the former but the concept was one of the key causes of the Newton's 'data island' tendencies. Highly ironic given that the communications capabilities were one of things Apple made a marketing effort about.

With Microsoft behind it it is probably inevitable that the idea will finally gain some traction. It has many good points both from a user and programmer perspective but you can bet that MS will tie the whole thing very firmly to Windows and interoperability with other platforms will suffer greatly as a result. Flat files are flat files everywhere but a database view of a 'file' is inevitably going to differ across platforms.

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Reply to
Andrew Smallshaw

Actually, a couple of months ago I happened to 'file' a compiled C program I wrote many years ago and I was shocked to notice that it was a SCO OpenServer executable. Since using OpenServer I've switched to Unixware and then completely left the SCO family with NetBSD. My executable had carried on running flawlessly on each new system and I was completely unaware that it had not been recompiled to a native form for each new OS.

More generally, a lot of this thread seems to implicitly centre around the fact that Linux is not Windows. Does it surprise you that Windows applications don't run on Linux? This is hardly a valid criticism of Linux. I have some apps that run on Solaris/Sparc. I don't hold it against either Windows or Linux that these programs don't run on them. I take it as read. If there is some support for applications from other platforms then that is to the host OS's credit rather than something than must be demanded from an OS. I keep a Windows 2000 machine on the network and when I need to run a Windows app I open up a terminal services session with rdesktop.

Similarly, people seem to think that Linux apps should be a drop-in replacement for Windows from a user perspective. This appears to be the entire premise of Gnome and KDE among others. Personally I don't want this kind of desktop eye candy - they're slow, memory hogs, and generally make Unix a Windows-like environment from a perfomance perspective. Give me Motif and an xterm any day of the week. I'll use my Unix systems just like they were used before people started to attempt to Windowise it.

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Andrew Smallshaw
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Reply to
Andrew Smallshaw

That's why I love DOS. Pretty much all of the DOS routines from the late

80's I still need run flawlessly on NT4, Win2k and XP. I've heard they won't on Vista but that wouldn't matter because that's off limits in this office anyhow. Ok, there is the occasional Borland compiler bug (runtime error) but that is quite easily fixed.

Some of this software does not exist in any flavor other than DOS so it's got to run. I am not a SW guy so I wouldn't be able to write myself a Windows version. Now 20 years ain't bad for software, I think.

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Reply to
Joerg

Some of the products I maintain were written using compilers developed for straight DOS environments and in a few cases, they will simply not run in WinXP DOS boxes, for example. The latest version for which I'm fairly sure they will run is Win98SE (though I haven't ever tried WinME, so cannot comment on it.) Microsoft, on July 11, 2006, has placed them on a non-supported status. But the installation of Win98SE can be performed without any involvement of Microsoft and I've kept around some older machines as well. I also keep a rather complete set of compilers from various sources (Lattice C, Borland c versions, early Microsoft c versions up through 8.00c, and BASIC and Pascal and so on, etc.) so I remain able to handle older products. I also purchased a bunch of retail distributions (sealed, with manuals and so on) of DOS 5.0 from Microsoft for $4/each a while back to make certain I'd have versions I could distribute to others, when needed. Some of the equipment I support isn't DOS-compatible (lacking a lot of the normal hardware in it, such as an 8254 timer for example) but uses an 80x86 processor in a custom configuration. But even then these compilers work perfectly well -- I use an older Intel linker/locator or else Paradigm's or one from two other suppliers at the time to place things as needed. The worst I've had to do is write short bits of code to modify an OBJ before linking.

My business model has me using a separate hard disk for each client and just racking it in when I work. This absolutely guarantees that a system crash or hard disk failure will not impact any other client's work. Microsoft's operating systems, up through perhaps Win2000, supported this -- I don't need to call Microsoft to get a new ID every time I set up a new hard disk for a new client -- but the rest do not, so I use them... sparingly. But I do have a few purchased machines where I do keep WinXP loaded, where I'm forced to use tools that will no longer run on the older OS. (Though I also keep a large number of older tools from Microchip and so on, as well.)

But Microsoft Vista policies now will probably finally force me into much greater use of Linux and FreeBSD. As much as I'm able, I will not use Vista, and I will spend all necessary learning time to move further away from anything to do with Microsoft operating system environments. It's one thing to move forward... but it is another entirely to force an entire population to purchase hardware and software that operates together to fully protect the DRM rights of a few large corporate interests and, in the process, move even further away from my business needs than they already had.

At some point the final straw is added.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

Microsoft takes for doing things right.

wannabees, along with "Thou shalt rant against top-posting."

Worse, some Usenet news servers truncate overly-long lines.

Reply to
Guy Macon

So far I have never had a DOS app that would refuse to run on the XP machine. Some won't do a DOS windows and the whole PC switches to low-res DOS fulls screen. You can hear the relay clicks in the monitor.

[...]

I feel the same way and I'd love to ditch MS. However, there is so much stuff that won't run on anything but Windows. Hardware as well as software. Even if only few clients would need it I'd be stuck.

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Reply to
Joerg

Well, as I said, I'd do "as much as possible." I agree with you about some of the difficulties. But so far as I'm aware, I can use Win2000 right now for everything. Or, if forced, WinXP. Gradually, that may very well change with Microsoft pushing this hard. However, that time is a ways out -- particularly with Microsoft's willingness to sell a WinXP downgrade for some Vista purchasers. Even a few doing that, if enough are out there, will mean support continues elsewhere. So I think I'm probably going to be fine for another decade -- which is enough to see where the market has moved by then. A lot can happen in that time.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

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