Merc,

2 years from now, all of us early adopters (I would be, were it not for hardware) are going to be laughing at you. Why? Because there's a pretty good chance you'll have made the switch to Vista... and you'll like it. Why? Partially because most bugs *cough* will have been worked out, the first Service Pack will have been released, and you'll probably have upgraded your hardware to something more suitable by then.

Just a thought.

In all things business the final decision whether to update comes down to the bottom line. Will the upgrade provide sufficient productivity and monetary gain to justify the investment. A great many companies are still utilizing Win2000 for exactly that reason. Vista, despite all the press provides insufficient gain in the corporate environment to justify it's bloated price. The cost of upgrading hardware and in many places replacing prime software (with the required retraining of personnel resulting in lost productivity) are enough to cause long delays in adoption of a new operating system. I see nothing in Vista that would entice us to make the move.

Bobby-
My rig is absolutely Vista ready. Read my sig mate. I am sure I'll be on Vista and I'll use it despite the flaws. For the last time, I am ambivalent regarding the OS itself. It is what it is, a less than stellar release that doesn't improve things enough to warrant the problems it causes. Of course the bugs will get worked out eventually and I never expect anything like an OS to be released bug free. That is impossible.

What I am disappointed in is what Vista could've been and what it is. What I am angry about, and what Sander originally wrote about, is M$, realizing that Vista is less of a paradigm changing OS release than it is a half-assed upgrade, is tryng to recoup development costs by slamming it down OEM's, and by default the public's, throats.

Well said Relik.

Bot: I am going to pick one very small area of your reply to comment on. Everyone has heard the phrase: "You are comparing apples and oranges", meaning both are fruit but you are stretching a point in comparing them. Referring to this part of your post:

From Bot's post:


Your analogy here is comparing apples with chunks of coal. For one reason only, FORD did not specify a radically new tire each model year, same old tire that had been in use for at least 30 years (steel belted). It would have been different if FORD had said we want a tire of sponge rubber this year, and next year (new model) we want hard wood tires like the old covered wagons. The year after that (the new model, like the new O/S) something else. No comparisons here -- same tire.

But I fault Ford as much as Firestone because Ford kept buying them (even after they knew the problem); and, they kept hiding it. They got it in the neck in court the same as Firestone did. Yes, no one is forced to buy Vista now; but, eventually you will when current components fail; and, Intel figures a way to come out with new chips (on purpose) on the new motherboard you will have to buy that XP won't recognize.

Yes, I do blame Microsoft over the driver issue; but, they are so closely intertwined with the hardware industry I blame the hardware people too.

When you pick an analogy, try for one that is closer. I doubt any boycott would be terribly successful unless it was 100% by everyone; and, of course, that will not happen. I do my own style of 'boycott' by opting out of the horsepower race in cars (i.e.-something new each year or model, even if it is minor or a paint job) of buying everytime something new is announced. I intend to do the same with computers by not buying any more often than total failure requires me to do UNLESS there are radical improvements.

I have no desire to make Gates the first trillionaire on the planet though no doubt at some future point I will send more money his way unless my latest try at Linux actually does what the makers say it will do (run some expensive Windows programs).

I won't be convinced by soft logic; and, I won't buy until I have to. I sure don't have $200 to throw around to help debug MS software for them; and, buy all new hardware on top of it. I'll wait until I have to.

Harry

Harry-
very well said. Would you buy Vista at $90? That is the price for an OEM version of XP Home that can be used through sveral builds. OEM disk for Vista Premium is aroindn $140 and can only be used on one build. Retail is $240.

At $90 I'd have Vista installed already. At $140 I'd probably buy it if i could use it over and over again as my builds evolve. At $240 they can go screw themselves. If everyone here was screaming about how fast and easy this outstanding OS was I'd drop the $240 now and install it. "It ain't that bad." warrants about $90 in my book.

stas,

1) Of course its goig to be a resource hog compared to Linux and XP. Vista has more to offer than its predecessors and competition. On a fresh install, how much RAM did the computer actually use?

2) UAC is annoying I will admit and so will other Vista users here. That can easily be fixed. There is a way to disable it. Check the Windows Vista Tweak Guide I have stickied on the latest topics page.

4) cant comment on this becuase I am not running x64 Vista yet.

5) Same

6)Finally, someone else on this forum that actually agrees that the hardware support is not Microsoft's fault!

Have been and did.

At my place of employment, we were not upgraded to Win XP Pro until 2 years ago.
That was a major upgrade for the firm, going from Win NT to XP Pro for what seemed like an eternity.

Prior to and up to the time of our upgrade I was employed as a system administrator for the procurement department. I served on the upgrade committee and worked hand in hand with the IT department during the upgrade for our department.

Currently I am an IT administrator/Senior Accountant for the firm and am serving on a Vista committee. This is strictly for evaluation purposes.

Having sat in on the meetings from the start, I can see that the firm has no window to implement a upgrade to Vista anytime in the near future.

The main reason for the committee is to evaluate Vista's supposed much improved security.

We work for a bank now and security is of the highest priority for the bank.

On a personal note, I have been provided with a full multilicense version of Vista Ultimate 64 bit for evaluation purposes. I have installed it on a pc on my network at which the firm approved. They want us to get fully familiarized with Vista and that's not a problem with me.

I agree with DublinGunner that it's not MS fault in regards to driver support.

I have a TV tuner card made by a manufacturer called Kworld. After visiting their website in hope of finding a Vista driver for this piece of hardware, I wound up emailing them.
I questioned when and if a driver would become available for my tuner card. The reply back was that they had no plans to release a vista driver for that particular model and that I should plan to purchase a more current model. I was like, OK.

I must admit that I do like the new OS and for the most part just about all of the hardware on that test pc works just fine. I do feel that at this point Vista does run a bit slower than XP on this pc.

I will not upgrade any of my other pc's on the network to Vista anytime in the near future.

My wife and son would scream bloody murder if I even attempted to upgrade their computers. They are creatures of comfort as they would say and are accustomed to the ease of XP.

Good thread, I like it!

Jay

I also would like to add to my arguement towards the "lack" of support for hardware/software.

According to Sander, hardware and software manufacturers have had the last two years or so to get on top of things. This is simply not true. It was not until after the fact (the release of Vista on Jan. 31, 2007) that the code for Windows Vista was released to hardware and software manufacturers to in fact write the code into their driver/software programs.

The same applies to the RC beta's. Microsoft released the beta code to places such as creative, nVidia, ATi, etc for end users such as us to beta test their (Microsoft's) product. So to say that hardware/software vendors have had ample time to write code for their product is simply not true.

Mark Allen said:

I'm gonna have to call you on that one.

You actually defied your own logic there. The RC's were final copies of Vista to be released. RC stands for Release Candidate, meaning, "This is one of the possible builds we'll be releasing." By the time RC1 and RC2 of Vista were released, everything that we see now in Vista was already in place, and was released to the hardware/software vendors to begin driver development.

They did not have 2 years, though. I'd say they had approximately 5 months from when the final driver model was released, and RC1 became available.

True. It in fact was not though. The final release of RC2 was 5562 or something. This FINAL build of vista that most users are running now is Version 6.0 (Build 6000).


Regardless of the time frame, it was still was not until AFTER January 31, 2007 that Microsoft released the code to hardware and software vendors for them to make their products compatible with the operating system.

Vista went RTM on November 8, 2006. That was when all development was ceased (except for Windows Updates, of course) and the code was sent to hardware manufacturers.

That gives the hardware manufacturers just shy of 3 months to develop drivers.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/nov06/11-08VistaRTM.mspx



I'll bet everyone else is like, "OMG! HWA staff debating each other!!

I have RC1 v.5728 and RC2 v.5744 sitting in front of me so I know that 5562 is way off base.

angryhippy aka Payton said:
Give or take. I dont remember the exact build number. I do however know that it was not build 6000. So my point is still valid.

Mark Allen said:
To a point. Businesses and OEM customers weren't given enough time for Vista and hardware. It went RTM, and they had, what, a few weeks? Then, BAM! Vista's out!

General consumer versions of Vista were given more time. Hardware manufacturers had roughly 3 months to prep their stuff. Some of them simply neglected to do so, and/or dropped support for a lot of their products. *eyes Creative*

Merc said:

That's actually a tough question, Merc. I am fairly well satisfied with XP Pro. I come from computers a long way back, long before monitors were heard of, long before tranistors (not ICs) were used in computers. Yes, I started on tube computers, an IBM 709 was the first big one. So, I've seen and got to play with alot of things over the years at various places of employment.

My first home computer was a used IBM Aptiva (of 1997 vintage) in 1998 with Win95. I could look at the keyboard, breathe hard and crash that to the point of a complete reload. I skipped Win98 but opted for Win98SE when I built my first home computer from off the shelf stuff. Win98SE was pretty good compared to Win95; and, I acutally had to use the keyboard to crash it. I skipped WinMe, and NT 3, 4 & 2000; but, continually building newer and better PCs with faster CPUs, bigger and better hard drives. And, pretty well all the hardware would have worked on any of the computers.

The biggest and the best was built 3 years back and I switched to WinXP Pro, mostly because the new motherboard had chips Win98SE would not recognize. I will admit I like Win XP Pro; it is much more stable and survives software crashes that would have paralyzed Win98SE totally. It is slower on the boot and shutdown; but, not to the point of distraction. A few blinks and back up comes the desktop after a software crash.

Through all of this I got heavily into video, transferring old home movies and video tapes to DVD. I bought a dedicated capture card to improve quality and a controller card and some whopper big hard drives to add to it. I run the machine hard, often all night to process video and do downloads on my slow ISP (can't get DSL yet in my area or BB). To shorten this long tale I am always replacing failed equipment (particularly hard drives); and, continually out of cash. Also you could consider me software poor.

$90 for Vista that was a good step up (like run faster), or other features such as WinFS (which I have heard good of) would be considered. Any amount just to fatten up Bill Gates pockets and make up for Microsofts failures to develop anything in the years and years that they have put in on a new O/S, will just not happen until I am absolutely forced to do so. In fact as my own sort of boycott I am going to stockpile a new mother board that XP Pro will recognize and keep it in reserve for the short term future.

And I am readying a 4th venture into Linux; it gets better each time I try it. But, until Linux O/S (someone's variant) will run some very, very expensive Windows programs I have, or until I find equivalent Linux programs, a complete shiftover will not take place. I am not much of a gamer (though I do play some) that aspect of it doesn't bother me a bit.

Of course, $90 is much more interesting than $250 (the system their little Vista ready program recommended). Well, I am not even on the fence yet; I am still on the XP Pro side. Sorry to take so long about a simple answer; but, where I am going from is maybe as important as what I will be doing.

Harry

There is no reason for myself to switch to Vista at present. XP does it all for me. DirectX10 reason ? - there is still only Nvidia that offers a directX10 card and the mid range DirectX10 cards are poor performers. We are still waiting for ATI. Performance issues and compatability issues still cloud Vista. I'll take another look at Vista next year in 2008 and I'll see if it is worthwhile moving to Vista then.

My dad is switching to Vista now. He is always an early uptaker. I'll be monitoring what he reports about the operating system.

Harry,
You'd have loved Windows 2000. It blew 98SE and ME out of the water for stability and performance. In its day, it was as secure as anything around and fairly light by today's standards. XP Pro is based upon the same technology and was considered a bloated version of W2K when it first came out. Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked by 2000 Server and never went back, but I still miss W2K. If I knew where to get ahold of SP6, I might even slipstream a CD and run it on one of my systems today.

There's an idea. For those of us who couldn't care less about directx 10 and want a stripped down OS that flies, someone should buy the code for W2K and provide security updates for it.

It looks likeDell, due to overwhelming presure from consumers, will go back to offereing XP on their rigs. M$ probably isn't to happy about that but neither are the folks running a Dell box with 512MB of RAM and a Sempron CPU with Vista on-board.

[509] Fri 20.Apr.2007 10:17:03
[root@jellomould][/var/log]
cd && grep vista * | grep "rat's ass" *

<Karnak mode>People will continue to throw away computers because they are "old" and they "don't work", and they'll buy a new one with Vista because that what there is. Or, they'll buy a new one anyway because they have too much $$ in their pockets and they think Aero is sexy. We'll pull the b0rken boxes from the dumpster and put a real OS on 'em, and we'll keep answering service calls to fix Vista, using whatever's out there to get the cruft out of the 10,000 security holes in MS's latest offering as long as we can invoice the customer.</Karnak mode>

Microsoft's genius isn't in their operating system, but in the creation of a culture that allows thousands upon thousands of "geeks for hire" (me included) to continue living, earning wages (some very well) from doing nothing particularly productive at all.

As a matter of fact, we all gamers will be using Vista before 2008 comes.......