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136 Comments
- Carbamide, on 10/12/2007, -79/+191You know, I'm a hardcore mac addict, but I'll defend Vista just this once.
It's a beta. You know what that means? It means it's "plagued by bugs". That's what betas are for. What a great candidate for ***** of the week. - gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -23/+112To be fair, he does say that "the buggiest OS ... this late in development"; so he's acknowledging that it's still in development, but claiming that it's much buggier than the others were at the same stage. He went on to say: "... Look at the older operating systems, and by Beta 2 there is a stable foundation on which the [independent software vendors] can build. Right now, Vista is like a ship on stormy seas."
- dracocat, on 10/12/2007, -20/+84I have to agree with gwjc, compared with other betas Vista is just unworkable. With most other betas I could at least use the system for more than five minutes. With Vista the way it is, even in Beta 2, the thing crashes and requires a reboot every 5 to 15 minutes for me.
My friend took my DVD since I couldn't use it, and was very excited to be using it. After 2 days I got the DVD back from him--he gave up as well. - Popdmb, on 10/12/2007, -10/+59The notion that Windows Vista Beta 2 is BUGGIER than Windows ME Final is laughable. I'm beta testing it right now as well, and I can safely say it idles without a BSOD. Can't say the same about ME.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28Obviously the author has never beta tested Windows Me.
I've been beta testing Vista since the get go, and it's much more stable than 95, 98, Me, or 2000 "This late in development". than any of them were......
IMHO... - NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -11/+35Odd. I have since built a new system, and haven't tossed Beta 2 on it, but my older system ran Vista Beta 2 for days on end with no problem.
- MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24Beta 2 is an _ancient_ build. If you've tested 5472 or higher, hell, even 5465, you'd see that the differences between the two were astronomical. 5472 is usable-as-your-main-OS build.
- cmer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26"I have never had a bsod and it's actually been very stable."
Dude! I guess it's your lucky day... go buy some lottery tickets! ;-) - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -55/+74"It's a beta. You know what that means? It means it's "plagued by bugs". That's what betas are for. What a great candidate for ***** of the week."
No, he's not an *****. The problem is your reading comprehension. He said: "the buggiest OS I've seen ***this late in development.***"
Do you understand what he's trying to say now? - porkstacker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19There were many bugs that still reared their ugly head in 10.2.8!!! Further still, there is still the annoying-ass networking shared volumes spinning beachball of death bug in 10.4.7 which Apple needs to get off their asses and fix already!
- benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22draco you have issues then, Ive been running vista for a month, The only problem I have is coming out of suspend mode on my laptop will occasionally cause the system tray to break, and it cant find drivers for my sd reader. Reboots every 15 minutes though absolutly not, perhaps pebkac is in effect.
- angrycat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I hate how the term Beta has been watered down so much. You can thank google for having pretty much all their live services being in beta for countless years. I'm looking at you gmail. Now you have people expecting beta software to have production stage stability.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"See "news" anywhere in there? Didn't think so. Look for news elsewhere."
you might want to check your address bar, this is clearly in the tech_news section - waytoorandomx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Ouch. But it's not like we weren't expecting it...
- matman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19I'm a mac user through and through but I agree with some posts here. This is a beta. I used OSX when it was first released and OSX 10.0 had more bugs than an old dog! It was almost unusable and Apple actually sold it!!
- DIGGER[NJLP], on 10/12/2007, -0/+10This all about air time or hits. Anyone can spout off about how they have been testing MS OS's since 95, heck I can say I"ve been testing since DOS 3.0 But if your going to post an article like that you better post some data showing why you feel this is the worst beta yet...
They let anyone write an article these days.. - robweber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I agree, beta builds of a product aren't a term for something that works fine but is otherwise "brand new", or extra features are on the way (which is what google seems to use the term for most of the time).
It is term that is supposed to mean that this product is not ready for everyday use, it has bugs, and the development team is still working on it. It is a testing build of what the final product is eventually hoping to achieve. - hagrin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Wake me up when the RTM/RC version is released.
Not to mention, nowadays there are so many different types of peripherals that providing support for all of these, qualifying their drivers, providing support for gaming, providing additional security (although they have a long way to go), etc. that you have to cut them a little slack - especially when other OSes suffer from driver, gaming and other compatability problems. - bontaq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I just remember from testing the goldmaster 10.0 that it was reasonably stable but very, very slow. Very. Good thing they've made OS X alot faster/efficient.
- gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -12/+20When your company has droned on about anti-free software, you push free demos on the street, hype your product, have paid studies complimenting your product, have an industry that depends on your product, and are publically traded. If your product has bug is news worthy, you got to get rid of the bugs before people see it. The word 'public beta' does not removed them from having a product that is weaknesses.
- iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16Odd. I'm not having any problems with Vista...
- trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9He doesn't say in the article but is he running the latest build? The latest CTP build has had a lot of bugs fixed and has been speedier then the rest. I will bet if Microsoft can't fix something they will rip it out of Vista, they will be launching Vista beginning of next year.
- FushigiDenki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Funny, I've had no problems at all with build 5472...
- Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"They let anyone write an article these days.."
Welcome to the internet. - booji, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Anyone who thinks that "beta" == "plagued by bugs" or "far from a finished product" is either confused, misinformed, or both. By the time a beta release is rolled out, most major bugs and stability issues should be fixed. You're generally one step away from a release candidate at that point.
In a world not totally driven by marketing, Vista Beta 2 would more aptly be titled Vista Alpha 3 or the like. I'm not dinging Microsoft - Vista is clearly a very, very complex product (hey, it's Windows!), but they put themseives under this scrutiny by artifically advancing the state of the release to "beta 2" when by their own admission they are close to a year from launch and a number of key features (including various MCE functionality) has yet to be rolled into the "beta". - shakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Windows ME was more stable during many parts of its development process than the final verison was. Builds 2483, 2492, 2509 and 2512 were all very good. Starting with build 2525 the memory leaks and crashes showed up.
I hope Vista doesn't get worse like ME did. - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Exactly where do you get the idea that beta means "plagued by bugs?" That's never been my experience with that term. Generally when a company labels a product beta, it means that it has reached a stage where it's usable despite containing some unfinished or unpolished features. Can you name any examples of a company releasing something as a beta that was riddled with bugs? I can't. Such a move would be a PR and marketing nightmare, killing a product's buzz by distributing buggy and unstable betas.
- xxdesmus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8You know what I find ironic? The slogan of his website is:
"The World of Technology in Real Time"
Do you know how long Beta 2 has been out? Since May 22nd. Yes, roughly 90 something days has passed since then.
Apparently "Real Time" means "in 3 months we'll write a review with an over exaggerated title to draw attention to an otherwise worthless site."
If you're still basing your opinion of Vista on the beta 2 build that is nearly 3 months old then I am sorry, I can clearly state that your opinion is not only incorrect, but it's borderline stupid.
Anyone who has been using build 5472.5 will tell you it's leaps and bounds ahead of the Beta 2 build. RC1 will be out soon and it'll be leaps and bounds ahead of 5472.5 as can be expected and has already been hinted by many Vista gurus.
I love the fact that all you need to do is make ridiculous claims about Windows Vista or Microsoft to make the frontpage of Digg regardless of accuracy or usefulness of the article...it really tells you something about the users here. - fraggle35, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yeah, I got hold off 5465, it was usable as main OS, I just didn't like the fact MS have used every colour, at times it seems all at the same time.
- kupodan, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12So when does "this late in development" include the fact that longhorn is a 7yr. long project full of failure and 1 complete restart? This late in development is being nice. He shoulda said: "Buggiest OS which shows no hope."
- srodolff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You know? This is all Google's fault.
Google has changed the definition of Beta.
Anyone who uses Google knows that Beta means ready for prime time. - Johnnie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5instead of attacking him, just digg him down if you don't like what he said... geez.
- noodleNT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Of all the beta and alpha testing I have done, Vista Beta2 is exactly where I expect it. Basic functionality is stable, bells and whistles are buggy as hell. No digg for this.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6There were "Longhorn" Alphas that were way ahead of the Vista 55XX releases FOUR YEARS AGO! I know, I was there!
The problems with "Longhorn" were mostly to do with backward compatability, so Microsoft compromised their development base. At that point, everyone who was any use and actually wanted to engineer a good product left the company. Microsoft is now completely run by their marketing division, and they have no credible programmers.
"Vista" is now just XP with a prettier interface and more "security" nags. Shame. If they'd had any guts, they might have released their first good product.
Game Over, Microsoft - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Wake me up when the RTM/RC version is released."
FYI, the RC is due in possibly just a week or so from now. It seems the RC1 build to look for will end up being build 5536. Vista is expected to RTM sometime during November - December for businesses, and January for consumers. - Linkage155, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"FYI, a VERY large percentage of Mac users spend equal if not more time on Windows."
Hum.. No..? - amvakar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5To objectively measure the level of bugginess, you must run a program that takes advantage of all of the new features of the OS, perform the same functions on different builds, and see if and why it crashes. I highly doubt that the guy in the article did that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4isnt that the point of a beta
- Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@linkage:
Then try this on: Mac users as a whole have more time per capita using windows than windows users have using macs. You only need to pull out the famous market share numbers to see the logic in that.
Mac users frequently are REQUIRED to use windows. How many windows users can say that? - shosterman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It couldn't be as bad as Digg's commenting system.
(See I can't even edit my own message) - Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@linkage:
Then try this on: Mac users as a whole have more time per capita using windows than windows users have using macs. You only need to pull out the famous market share numbers to see the logic in that.
Mac users frequently are REQUIRED to use windows. How many windows users can say that? - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I think that Microsoft made a mistake releasing that build as Beta 2. It definitly wasn't a beta 2 quality build by almost anybody's standards.
That said, subsequent builds, especially those post 5472, really are great. - mcvetyty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, this article is rediculous. The two things he is comparing in this article are impractical. Microsoft has approximately 534,023 more employees than they did when they release Windows ME. Any bugs in the betas will be fixed. Dont get your panties in a bunch, if you can't deal with rebooting then don't install beta software.
How about next time we compare googles search engine when they had 2 employees to now, and see if that makes any sense. - edzieba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I installed beta 2 to try it out, and it hasn't crashed on me yet. the biggest bug I've had is with the nvidia drivers screwing up dual-screen support (and those are some old drivers). Nothing related to the OS itself has really caused a problem (VLC caused some GUI flickering issues when first started but changing the display output to GDI or openGL fixed that perfectly). Plus the install of steam on my XP partition actually ran under Vista, albeit with a slightly reduced performance (Had to run Episode One at 1600x1200 rather than 1920x1200 with loading jitters every now and then).
Overall, a positive experiance. Whether they can deliver that in the finished product along with DX 10, and not manage to screw it up with a rediculous price (XP pro is still £100, Vista Ultimate looks geared to launch at about £400), remains to be seen. - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Just to confirm this, here's Microsoft running a recent 5700 build at the currently ongoing TechEd 2006: http://static.flickr.com/64/221704813_f8614da2df.jpg?v=0
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"However we'll have to wait RC0 to see how much bugs they will have been "squashed"."
You mean RC1. RC0 is internally at Microsoft Vista Beta 2. They're currently preparing the RC1 release. (see above for a screenshot of a build from that branch) - ipodman715, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Very true.
- NismoDrift, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@pdesigns
-You just gave a comment on how people over-exaggerate on the internet. If your not going to give comments then just dont type em in. Whether it was for Vista or not you still gave a comment.
my opinion, Vista is the first time I'm actually shocked of how good a windows os actually LOOKS. I have yet to try it and Im awaiting on a cd to try it. I personally dont like it because of the specs. It says 15 gb of hd space for os. 15 GB!? WTF. My god even my PC games that look so realistic and are so jam packed with levels dont even come close to that much space needed. Plus supposedly people said it uses 700 mb of ram, I tend to go cheaply and only use 1 gb of ram and thats all I need for XP and gaming but damn I would have to buy so much ram jus to even keep the pc running. Too bad Macs arent ultimate gaming machines and every developer made games for it. If every developer made same games for pc also for Mac I would never touch another PC in my lifetime. Plus I know its a beta and Im not talkign about the beta Im talking about the specs. So far the specs mean for final release, but are subject to change but damn those are high demanding specs. - rax262, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Aahh... the power of the Internet. The one thing that's not clear is if this accusation is based on the number of bugs or the severity of the bugs. I'd take a dozen window freezes, systray disappears, my pr0n doesn't do right, etc. in exchange for one BSOD. Without some kind of weight system, # of bugs is nearly irrelevant.
As for the idiot factor on the Internet, I'd say there IS a workaround for that... the digg "bury" button. - Soulhuntre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Verty true. I am running 5472 as a main OS (with a seperate machien runninx WinXP to take over the roaming profile if it barfs) and it is very solid for day-to-day use. Hell, even Camtasia Studio runs liek a champ on it and that app (screencast maker) is usually pretty rough on things.
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