What is Digg?153 Comments
- thallwyn, on 10/12/2007, -9/+41Hi, I wrote the comments that you are referring to. I ran it on an eMachines T6528 with an Athlon 64 3500+ with 512MB of RAM, and the tried it with 1GB. I also ran it with an eMachines T3418, Cyberpower Pentium 4 630, and a Dell XPS 200 with a Pentium D 820, all of which I tried with 1GB of RAM. I am merely communicating my experiences, and I based my comments on what I believed to be fairly comparable performance between Windows XP and Windows Vista in terms of navigation and usability. Of course, it required 1GB to "feel" like Windows XP with 512MB of RAM.
- CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -9/+37Betas are not meant to be perfect, hence the whole beta process..
- numist, on 10/12/2007, -8/+34this might be news to you, but a 3500 is not lower end hardware...
- StatusQuoRules, on 10/12/2007, -20/+40"I have found that Vista works well on lower end hardware"
Well it runs dog slow on my AMD3500 with 1GB DDR400 & X800Pro while XP and linux flies.
Explain that! - Bensch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Don't you remember the same arguments about Windows XP?
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Apple can say they have 150 new features because they count every single minor change they include.
The fact of that matter is that despite the high profile cuts (WinFS, XPS), Vista comes with a huge new feature set. Some of these features are very visible (Aero, WPF, integrated search, UAC), and some of them are under covers (WCF, the + part of IE 7+, kernel scheduler advancements, new TCP stack, etc.) - pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20People's reviews of Vista remind me of people who look at a pretty blond girl and assume she's stupid. Although the most obvious improvement is the UI, there are a lot of serious changes in Vista that are all under the hood. Changes ranging from security (IE running in a sandbox) to gaming performance (DirectX 10). I've been running Vista as my primary OS, and I love it. Some of my favorite games already run better than they did under XP, Aero is easy on the eye, and *gasp* IE 7 has left me with no desire to install Firefox.
- CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14I'd argue that Xp is a great os too, provided its set up right.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10[quote]What could Vista possibly bring to HD editing?[/quote]
If you have a DX10 PCIe GPU, it will be able to use system memory like GPU memory. That is actually very useful for HD.
You know, that's if you have enough RAM left over after the 700MB that Vista uses up for eye candy and spyware. - hchaudh1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17Meanwhile MS Grand ball licking festival has already started.
- thallwyn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11numist - it is lower end hardware when it's in a $400 eMachines. =)
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Just an FYI, Vista Beta 2 Build 5456 is a LOT faster in every respect than the first public Beta 2 release.
But you really shouldn't start judging the OS by its speed until RC1 because it won't be until then that the code has the various debugging hooks removed and optimizations put in. - Bensch, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16You mean, like Windows XP when it came out?
- Zanneth, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15"It's Windows XP with a push-up bra, lip gloss and PMS"
I couldn't have said it better myself! :-P - swax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11There is more to an OS than what it looks like. Do you judge linux by the way Gnome and KDE look? Well some of you do xgl, etc... If you judge Vista by what it looks like you have no idea what an OS is or does, just a bad impression of a superficial UI layer. Its so funny the re-design of every low level system, such as video, network, sound, data, print, etc.. count for nothing.
- omatsei, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17Do any of you actually TRY to get it working well before giving up and saying it's crap? I have a very high-end machine, and when I first installed it, it was sluggish and hung often. The problem turned out to be the newest NVidia driver. I installed the Beta 1 version of the driver, and look, I'm using it right now to type this.
Those of you who are trying to convince everyone that an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ isn't lower-end hardware, perhaps you'd like a slap in the face? That processor is $120.99 from Newegg, and that's NOT the lowest price on the net. And the whole argument about 512mb of ram not being enough... what's the minimum required? Oh yeah, 512mb. You can get 1gb of RAM for $75 these days. Oh, and you're trying to run Vista using a Geforce FX? Go get the box your video card came in. I'll wait. OK, you have it? Take a picture of the part of the box that says "DirectX 9-capable".
All this hardware is new, circa 2002-2003. You're bitching about an OS that's coming out in 2007. For the equivalent, try running XP on a Pentium II 400. Then, when you get over the fact that you have to use "classic" mode, maybe you can understand my complete lack of sympathy. - pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Good point. Microsoft does not start putting out release builds until the release candidate stage. This is also when they do all their performance enhancements. Anyone who knows anything about Microsoft's beta process knows commenting on performance at this point is just plain stupid.
For those wondering about features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx
Which even leaves out significant additions such as IE running in a sandbox, DirectX 10 (a huge advancement over 9), and the .NET Framework 3.0. Not to mention countless "under the hood" changes that you'll hear about if you read the developer blogs. - jgreene777, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17i have on overclocked 3200 with a gig of ram and a 128mb nvidia card and vista is so slow. i have all the "eye candy" turned off, and with nothing running, the mouse cursor skipshangs when simply moving from one corner of the screen to another. that's not what i consider "working well". i'm sticking with ubuntu and xp.
- thegreatsam, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13That's why it's called an "Editorial". Editorial's are supposed to be more opinionated than normal articles.
- raid517, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11This is what I said a few days ago when this topic last cropped up. I think it's worth repeating:
I presently have the latest beta of Vista installed now and have had it installed for a couple of days - and in that time I have found at least 7 new potentially serious bugs. To be expected perhaps, since it is a beta - but given that I reported 47 unique bugs from the previous build (beta 2) and I am only one of many thousands of testers, it is difficult to see how they are ever going to get them all fixed in time for their stated release date. More than likely my guess is that they won't - and they will simply do as they have done several times in the past and ship it before they know it is finally really ready - and then hope to fix it with a service pack at some point further down the line.
The problem with Vista is not that it is currently riddled with bugs - it's possible I guess that MS will get on top of them all in time for their official release target - although it really is pretty hard to see. The real problem is in usability - as everywhere you look in Vista (once you look past the pretty spinning windows - or better still turn them off) everything that you see appears to have been heavily obfuscated.
It's almost like the whole task was turned over to a bunch of engineers, without doing any real usability studies - and that the engineers got together and looked at a standard Windows XP install and asked 'OK how can we make this better?'
The odd thing is that someone in that group appears to have said. 'I know let's add 10 times more options, then let's insist a 5 fold increase in the requirement for user interaction and then lets swap everything around from all of the common sense places people have been used to for years - and then, for good measure, lets make everything a good 50% harder to use. And then maybe if we do all that, if we make it harder to recognize and maybe even Wow a few novice users with some pretty spinning Windows, maybe people won't notice so much that it really is just Windows XP in drag.' Even odder still, is that everyone working on the project appears to have agreed with him.
I'm sure there are/were ways to improve on XP - but like Mac's, XP had simplicity and ease of use pretty much nailed.
Currently however Vista rivals even KDE for the sheer complexity and the range of available configuration options - although as things stand right now, KDE noses ahead by quite a way (even in a default unconfigured format) in terms of general overall usability. (And that is saying a lot).
I think someone at MS must have heard Linux fans boasting about the infinite configurability of their systems and must have decided that the way to attract these people back to Windows was to add a similarly vast number of options - or to do in other words as MS often does (and traditionally does quite badly) which is to copy as opposed to innovating. But the overall result is not at all the pleasing combination of both worlds that you might imagine it to be, rather it gives the impression of being a grossly abortive chimera, a product of a mind not dissimilar to that of the depraved 'genius' in the all time cult movie classic, "The Island of Doctor Moreau".
In case you think the title of chimera is a little harsh, a good way to decide on this for yourself is found in the available on-line dictionary definitions of this term, the first three of which are as follows:
1. A fire-breathing she-monster represented as having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
2. Any imaginary monster made up of grotesquely incongruous parts.
3. An illusion or mental fabrication; a grotesque product of the imagination.
Currently after using Vista for some time - and after having used a number of previous builds too, it is difficult to see which of these categories do not do justice to describing the Vista experience very well indeed.
I think that really Vista is an administrators and engineers wet dream. I can even see it in a corporate environment, perhaps doing intensive engineering or design type work (particularly on very beefy systems with lots of horsepower to spare) but unless the vast majority of the computing public has suddenly got a lot more tech savvy (which to say the least seems doubtful) I can only imagine that it will prove to be an ordinary user's nightmare - because from what I can see it doesn't seem to have been made with them in mind at all.
I just can't see this hitting the ordinary Joe Bloggs computer user on the street, or Mom and Pop's 'run from home' hardware store and for them not to be significantly more confused and annoyed by it than they ever could be by XP. I have used Windows for over 10 years (and Linux and Mac) and I am a very proficient computer user, but even I find myself frequently annoyed and confused by it. So how I wonder will they fair?
If nothing else I'm quite sure the level of support calls from the general public that will be generated when this is released is probably going to break all previous records.
In any case please don't mod me up just because you are a Mac head, or a Linux zealot with a predisposition towards hating Windows anyway. I am that odd breed who isn't a zealot and who likes all software and all operating systems and who is keen to see them all be the best they can be, regardless of who makes them. What I would be interested in is the opinion of others who like me have used Vista, and whether like me in terms of simple *user* experience (not as an administrator) they feel MS may have taken a very wrong turn this time around?
Of course the set up and increased complexity of the interface may be irrelevant perhaps to an experienced user - but having watched an 'average user' try to use my Vista test system a number of times now, they do seem to get very quickly lost and confused when trying to do some very basic things. A user it seems does not have to scratch very deep at all to get confused by this OS.
More than that again, it is all about 'user experience' and I always find it hard after coming away from using Vista myself to feel all that positive about it. It just feels over meaty, over weight and over bloated - like Elvis in his final years at Vegas, where despite all the glitter and glamor the over all crushing weight of his fame (and of all the hamburgers he ate) were an indication of something fundamentally more serious. It's almost as if the only possible option that the developers thought they had to make Windows better was to add several additional layers of complexity. That just seems like an utterly wrong headed approach, you can write good code and write it cleanly and efficiently - while still keeping it lightweight and capable of consuming only very minimal resources - and this to me it seems should be the ideal for all developers. Again it is like a small Italian sports car V's a big meaty American muscle car. Often the smaller car will run faster, for longer, with more reliability and will be significantly better engineered than it's overweight American counterpart. It's about a fundamental difference in philosophy and approach to coding - and it is something that it seems has fundamentally escaped MS' attention this time around.
Microsoft it seems may have become very lazy and complacent - and because of the position they enjoy in the market they have decided to negate any real need to innovate at all. Instead they just keep rehashing the same old ideas over and over again, while 'borrowing' ideas from other environments and then trying to persuade us that this really is genuine innovation after all.
How about they just fixed stability, fixed security and worked hard to keep Windows an unobtrusive and user friendly experience as possible? Better still how about they just ditched Windows as an outmoded and out of date idea and started again from scratch?
My increasing impression of Vista is that Windows may be Microsoft's only game plan - that they can't get rid of it because MS are not traditional innovators and they may really not know what to do next - and if that is true then it is pretty worrying. Will we still be running with the same old ideas in 2018 - only with desktop cons 3 times bigger than they are now? (Since the default Windows desktop icons always inexplicably seem to get larger with each new release).
As I said, I am one of that rare breed who likes all operating systems - but I like them for different reasons. I love the complexity of Linux, almost equally as much as I love the simplicity of Windows. It's a bit like sometimes I feel like I might want to go on a date with an intellectually challenging and fiercely independent brunet (i.e. Linux) and sometimes I might just want to go out on a date with a dumb blond. (Or Windows). There is no point in either of these trying to behave like each other - because if they did they would just end up looking embarrassingly stupid.
I don''t think I am being unreasonable or unfair about Vista. I think if this really is where MS are going, then they may well have a much harder sell on their hands than they have had before with any previous version of Windows. Why would ordinary users want to upgrade to use Vista to do things that Windows XP does very well already? Beyond the increased eye candy, what is the unique selling point that (after 6 years of waiting) Vista has beyond Microsoft's previous Windows releases since Win2K - because I'm afraid if there is one, I'm finding it very hard to see it.
Anyway I'm sorry my post was so long. But I think the enthusiasm of the original article deserved answering - and that perhaps the full scope of the Vista experience as it currently stands had not been addressed. It is fine to be positive about what *might* be coming - but one should not forget that they have a right to be critical too. Unfortunately right now, much of the criticism I have read about and offered on Vista appears to be very valid indeed.
After so long I think we all expected - and that we all deserved more. It is very hard not to be disappointed. - Scruffydan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9"hey at least it runs for you.."
This is a beta, so I can forgive MS for this. If this happens on the final version of vista then that is a different story - plarp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7We're all missing the point? We're the consumers! We make the point! It's plain and simple! Welcome to the free market!
- Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"Hi, I wrote the comments that you are referring to"
Just cause one person decides Vista is great and runs on hardware that is not up to par, doesn't make it so. Most people expirence, 99% of those that have tested it would disagree with you including me. I'm sticking with XP at least for another 2 years anyway. - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13The other problem is, it doesn't exist as a consumer product and keeps getting delayed. And when it is not getting delayed, they are slashing features. OS X sports 150+ new features when it ships each new revolution. Well, Microsoft can release Vista and say 100- new features!
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I just wonder how tight the cover is on that IE sandbox. Sure wouldn't bet my system on it!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8"Remember when life was blazing with x486, 4 megs of ran, 16megs of HD, and a awe 16? "
Sure, I remember that. It's when http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ Damn Small Linux released 9 days ago. Only it's an x386 (NOTE: NOT my only machine!) - Smokezz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12The problem is, this isn't an OS that you need a little bit of an upgrade for. Most people will need a very large upgrade or an entire new computer to use the features of the new OS.
- feanor512, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7> Don't you remember the same arguments about Windows XP?
It's not the same thing. If a computer could run Windows 2000, then it could run XP without a huge drop in performance. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6AmigaOS died because C= couldn't upgrade the hardware and because it never got the mainstream app support needed. Eventually, addon cards beat the idea of proprietary chips. Hardware for XP could continue to be upgraded for years to come, and it makes up 90% of the desktop market. Eventually, users could switch to the 64bit version.
- Goliathan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9@Jimmy, you are a buffoon. If you had ever ran Win 3.1 you would have welcomed the GUI for 95... even tho it blew up every now and then.
- darkyoshi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10IE always crashed whenever I opened it, so I had no choice but to use Firefox. WMP11 is horribly bloated, but even iTunes lagged. Some of my start menu icons were nonexistant, and when I tried to change them, I wasn't allowed to, even though I was administrator.
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Actually, monad is quite a bit more advanced than any other shell scripting option out there.
The ability to treat results from one command as objects (as apposed to plain text) opens up a lot of opportunity that was either very difficult or sometimes impossible before.
As far as Vista not having any "true talents" (in other words, no features other than eye candy), I will again remind people that stating things like this only shows your ignorance.
It's kind of like stating that a certain food doesn't taste good because you've never eaten it. - cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9I installed it on a Northwood P4 @ 2.8 Ghz with a gig of ram and a 256MB GeForce FX5500 (my old desktop) and it felt pretty slow. I think it's safe to say that 'real lower end hardware' isn't a good idea with Vista. It's too bad, but that's just life sometimes. I think I'll stick with Ubuntu/XP on that machine for now...
- pegisys, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8probably some hardware conflict or crappy drivers, it runs pretty good on my system, besides using 700MB of ram while doing nothing
I have 2 gigs of ram, maybe 1gig isn't enough ram, since that or less is what most of the people that say it's slow has
EDIT: I have a A64 3500 and geforce 6600gt aswell - frgmstr, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I think Vista is very much a "high end" hardware operating system. It's first true talents will be found in gaming and video editing (HD) capabilities. Looking at the overall market, that is not the masses. The masses and most businesses will have no needs at all for the goodies Vista is packing or at least not for a good while. I thought Chris had some really good experiences on the "cheap" machines that we used for his upcoming article. But the question is still, are most people in need of Vista? I think not, probably not for a couple of years.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6For those of you that are having lots of Vista problems:
Are you running a version earlier than Build 5456? If so, that's your problem. Build 5456 is MUCH better than any previous build.
If you're running a version prior to 5365 then I pitty you because everything before that was horrible, performance wise and stability wise.
I would be running Vista as my primary OS right now if it weren't for the lack of OpenVPN compatibility. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I have no need for vista. When it comes out I'm switching to linux. I mean come on, vista will need double what it takes to run vista to run games. That is *UNLESS* they come up with some sort of a way to shut everything except the bare minimum off when playing a game. That would free up resources.
On the other hand Cedega is very close to what I get in XP on the same machine. I have no problems running Archlinux and my favorite games..
Peace out. Enjoy the ride.. - justinjacobs, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9@romulusnr
Yes, I agree that Cygwin is probably a better option, but Monad installed by default would be better than the cmd.exe from NT5. - raid517, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Erm... because I work in an environment where I encounter a great many 'average' type users on a daily basis and they give me a big enough pain in the neck already, even with things being as simple as they are in XP. I don't see this level of competence increasing at all - and if you think you can see it and if MS think that they can see it, I can only inform you that my own experiences would suggest that you are both very mistaken.
The number of computer stupid people out there still vastly outweighs the number of genuinely competent ones.
Geeks are still a minority. - Butros, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Wrong, eye candy and dropping support for legacy software is what's been selling Windows since Win NT 4.
- justinjacobs, on 10/12/2007, -12/+16"You can't even use the OS today and expose its true talents outside of the eye candy."
That's because it has no true talents. All the good stuff like the Monad shell and WinFS won't be included in the final version. It just doesn't make Vista worth the money. Windows 2000 was the last good thing to come out of Microsoft's OS division. - omatsei, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The problem is that you don't need to know exactly why version 10 > 9. The only thing you need to know is the new version of Application / Game X won't work with version 9.
The one that comes to mind is DirectX 10 (which is the only version 10 item in Vista, as far as I know). What you need to understand is that DirectX 10 makes it MUCH easier for developers to write games without having 2 code bases for NVidia-based graphics cards and ATI-based graphics cards. Now, they only write 1 version of the code, and as long as it's DirectX 10-compatible, it'll work with any DirectX10-compatible card (which is NOT how it is with DX9). Since Vista has a completely 3d interface now, and since writing 3d code is easier, that means more programs will be 3d-ified. It also means that the programs that were already 3d will be easier to write new versions for, which means less development time, and ultimately, lower costs for software. Yeah, I agree... nobody would ever want that, would they?
If you're THAT curious about other things, why don't you specify what you want to know, and I'll explain the difference. - Continuum, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10@omatsei
I think most people are complaining because why should we ever NEED a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ to run an operating system?
Besides the geeked out people of Digg, I don't think Vista offers any reason to upgrade. The hardware requirements are steep for many people, especially those who use their computers for nothing more than checking email, searching for stuff, chatting and listening to the occasional MP3.
And from the people that surround me day to day, that is what 90%+ of people use their home PCs for.
Maybe Vista is made to tailor to the 10% of geeks that like to have decent to high end hardware but they are not providing much of a hook to get that other 90%. - omatsei, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Even if you're administrator, whenever you do anything that would require an administrator, you still have to hit "Yes" on the security box that pops up. I've noticed that on some video cards, that popup causes it to temporarily disable transparency, which can cause the screen to hang. My advice: try different drivers, or disable transparency to see if it helps. If so, it's the driver's fault.
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, it is rather sick to see vendors preparing 4GB "Vista Gaming Kits" already.
- thallwyn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Well, feel free to disagree with my experience. I'm just telling you my opinion based on running it on 5 different systems, from $400 eMachines to $1100 dual core Pentium Ds...
And the reason I installed it on the eMachines in the first place was because they had "Windows Vista Capable" badges on the front, and I wanted to see just exactly what that meant. - wistar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+590% of Vista will be sold upon new machines just like 90% of XP. MS is aiming where the vast bulk of the market exists and, really, who can blame them for that solid business approach?
- saska, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5My test system is an Intel P4 3GHz EM64T with 1GB of RAM and a 128MB RADEON X600, running the 64-bit 5456 build. I run with Aero enabled and full transparency on. There has definitely been a marked increase in both performance and fit and finish since Vista Beta 2, but most days it hardly seems worth the effort of saying anything of the sort around here.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7[quote]You mean, like Windows XP when it came out?[/quote]
That's a filthy lie and you should be ashamed of yourself.
All I upgraded to run XP was add an extra 256MB of RAM. It didn't require anything special over win9x. - bennybtl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'll agree with the article mostly, I ran Vista for a couple weeks and found that everything I was used to doing in XP was similar to Vista - "It's Windows XP with a push-up bra, lip gloss and PMS." I have no real reason to switch. I use OSX at work and find both OSes have there pluses and minuses. I think it's only fair to wait a few more years and see what Vista offers when it graduates from Beta.
And for the always interesting computer specs debate, Vista ran like butter on my 3 year old Toshiba Satellite: p4 3ghz, 1GB Ram, GeforceFX5200 64MB (yes 64MB and Aero looked great, I was suprised) -
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