Download Squad

last time ms screwed up with an operating system, the options out there just weren't good enough to switch to, and this time around would have sort have been the same situation, but the price did them in, i see the shiny Macintosh computer price tag is high, but the vista cost is so high i can buy a pretty decent new computer at the same price, with things being so neck in neck so to say, and the popularity of the ipod, people are going to be buying new macs, and crush ms, what i see in the future, is ms will eventually scrap most of its os and convert to some type of closed linux hybrid os down the line, before they finally kick the bucket, hopefully (for ms) apple doesnt come out with a video game system. ms also seems to have this, "well this is what you wanted" attitude about vista and it doesnt seem like they will even try to fix the horrible design, and will elaborate on it, further dooming themselves in the long run, i wish it was going another way, im debating buying a mac just so im not behind the times in the future, of course i dont know what will happen, i just hope somewhere in this fucksludge the pc market has become apple will let me build my own pc from parts i want to use, and not have to take them prebuilt, as no1 accually seems to upgrade there pcs anymore, its important to have the option to swap out my motherboard for a new one instead of having to pay apple to do something i can do myself. time tells all

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Well according to the mayan calendar the world ends in 2012 so they have 5 years to come up with something better...like...i don't know...linux based win or something and a new shell

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The one thing about Vista that struck me is all the text explaining everything in the OS.

There seems to be a paragraph of text explaining every setting. It really shows poor UI design when you have to have that much instruction for every little thing you do.

Oh, and the constant pop-up warning me that I'm doing something is really annoying too.

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"Microsoft is aiming to launch Windows 7 sometime in 2010 (or 2011 or 2012...this is still Microsoft)."

Wow, what such a dumb comment. Didn't you say Microsoft was learning from its mistakes?

Anyway, I think they learned their mistakes for sure this time, and I doubt they'll lie about the release date this time. I'm quite sure they would know not to brag about something and set a date, without committing to it. Like Leopard being delayed as well.

And yes, Vista made a ton of mistakes, but I think it's a pretty neat OS, if you actually try it on a quality computer.

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@John: Paragraph-length text? Where?
Since they're "explaining every setting", I assume these are tooltips of some sort? I don't recall any egregiously long descriptions, though.

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rasbill, you need to learn to use a couple of keys on the keyboard. One of them is called "shift" and the other is called "enter" or "return".

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Dave A.: "rasbill, you need to learn to use a couple of keys on the keyboard. One of them is called "shift" and the other is called 'enter' or 'return'."

A little more practice with the "period" key (looks like "." without the quotes) wouldn't hurt either.

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Rasbill: You may be making some good points but I gave up reading your offering, once I realised that I was reading the longest sentence in the history of the English language. Just consider before you start typing whether you want anyone to read and understand the point you are making or not. Once you have typed it - read it - see whether it makes sense to you.

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I guess MS can't win. For years people have been saying that making all users admins by default is a big problem. They effectively sort it by making users pseudo admin and requiring confirmation before doing anything adminy. It's akin to requesting the root password for *nix. Yes it's pretty annoying and yes it's probably not quite implemented right but rather than saying it's a step in the right direction people just say it's a reason to switch to Linux.

Then people tell them that Mac OS is prettier and so they pretty up their UI. That's not good enough for people since it requires more hardware and the people who are prepared to pay to upgrade to a prettier interface already run a Mac.

Then MS are told that backwards compatibility is causing stability problems. THey remove some of their backwards compatibility to make a more stable platform and people moan that old apps and hardware don't work anymore.

As far as I can see, this is the Windows release that contains the most requested features of the OS. If MS give the public what they want they moan that it's not perfect or that what they wanted is stupid. If MS gives people what they need then people moan that it didn't include the things they want.

I wish people would stop moaning and pick the OS that suits them best. Incidentally, I'm writing this on my Linux PC using firefox. I also have a machine with XP installed. Since this combination meets my needs I don't run Vista. Pick the right tool for the job and shut up.

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[9], you have a demanding definition of a quality computer. I should not need hardware capable of piloting the space shuttle in order to perform simple computing tasks. As proof, I'm writing this from my 1997 toshiba tecra with less than 100 mb ram, running DSL. I'm not experiencing any significant inconvenience.

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I saw the early "dos" demo of the Windows 7 and i think they are on a good way to do it right this time. Cleaning up the core is the best option.

I always loved the speed of win98. For me it would be enough if they just pick it up again, add better HDD, USB and CPU support and finish that product.. (make it bugfree). And maybe a nice UI like in vista with subpixel rendering and i am happy.

But thats just wishful thinking :-)

If they create a stable core for Windows 7, they already doing what they should have done - so it's all good. Looking forward.

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They are learning the wrong lesson. A problem with Vista is that it is a half measure. An example is UAC - more annoying than need be because it is a retrofit. Building it into a system from the beginning like it was in unix makes far more sense. In general they tried to put a new new face on old bones. Even the rewritten stuff has to deal with legacies of windows, like the registry, that is a decade old.

The need a complete break. Old apps can easily be run virtually for the transition but the need to clear out all the cobwebs once and for all.

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Vista is proving to be as much of a disaster as WinME as far as I'm concerned. My XP boxes only crash when I do something stupid, like hacking the registry without having any knowlage on what I'm doing. Otherwise, it's been perfectly stable for me. Vista crashes on a daily basis. Every time I try to move a file, I get a "COM Surrogate" crash.

For me, XP was/is stable. It's as reliable as my old truck. It does exactly what I want it to do. Can't say the same for Vista. Vista runs like the last Honda I drove, just hoping it wouldn't blow up on the way home.

Vista has too many stupid features, too. Copying every file you click and drag. I want to move it, not copy it. Removing the traditional menu bar from the browser menus. I found how to restore them in IE7, but, not in Vista. Asking if I'm sure I want to do something. Why did features like the control panel need to get reorganized again? How many menus were the display properties broken into again?

I'm oh-so-close to blowing out Vista and installing XP on my desktop again. The only thing stopping me is having XP on my laptop.

I really need to get back to exploring Linux.

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>Copying every file you click and drag. I want to move it, not copy it.

Strange. For me just dragging moves it. I have to press ctrl to copy it.

>Removing the traditional menu bar from the browser menus.

Press Alt.

Vista doesn't crash on me but there are weird niggles and the UI is tired. Personally I can't wait for traditional menus to go away for good. In general there is almost no innovation whatsoever in ANY of the desktop interfaces which is one reason they need blow away what they have now and start over. They did that with Office after research showed that the old interface was, quite literally, failing users. I love that change and would like to see it on the desktop.

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The problem is not with Windows Vista, nor with Microsoft. The problem lies with end-users. End-users just flat out expect too much. Heck, I'm just happy the "blue screen of death" doesn't show up as much as it used to in older versions of the OS. ;-)

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Jomunculus,

You think end-users expect too much when all they ask for is a robust, non-resource hogging, mostly bug-free system?

I guess Jomunculus is telling us to set our bars low, you know, give Microsoft a break. They definitely need it. I mean, who can make a decent operating system when all you make is 13 billion dollars per quarter?

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vista runs fine for me. I play crisis, call of duty 4, jericho, unreal tournament 3, and many other new games. vista rarely crashes on me and I leave it running for multiple days. vista isn't perfect, but if you know what your doing you can make it work...turn off uac!

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I, for one, have not had ANY real issues with Vista. Apart from a few non compatibility issues, (Using Vista Ultimate 64 no Iphone) that I had to install a copy of VMWare to alleviate, Vista rocks.
Granted, I used to work for a company that had the network contracts for the USAF, and currently build computers for a living.
A little research online, and a fairly robust machine was all it took.
AMD X2 6000 + 4 Gb ddr2 ram, 512 Mb video card.
Works like a champ.

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The biggest problem they had with the rollout of Vista was with drivers. And they haven't solved the problem yet. They still don't have reliable efficient drivers for some heavily-used computer parts. For example, Nvidia and games doesn't cut it yet.

Next time around either write all your own drivers or don't release the operating system to any testers until you have worked with all the manufacturers to make drivers for all graphics cards, sound cards, printers, scanners, mouse, etc., sold with the past 15 years minimum. And and a minimum, test every multi-player computer game and the frame rate and compare it to Windows XP.

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What is MS doing? It has been a year, and they still don't have Vista SP1 out. I'd personally be really excited to see XP SP3, I'm tired of installing nearly 100 updates after the "latest" SP. While they are at it, how about DirectX10?

All the computers that I have set up Vista on that have gone out "into the wild" have crashed on their users after less than a week. This is with absolutely no hardware problems, as determined through burn-in processes.

Fortunately, MS included a repair option, so the users who are really dedicated to keeping that trash on their machines have been able to get it "working" again in some cases.

Basically, Vista works great as long as your computer isn't turned on.

Some friends of mine came by with a PC that had gotten applesauce in it just before finals week. It had been running XP, and their kids (7 - 17 yr old, they have 5 kids) were really used to it. I had an extra Ubuntu machine sitting around, and loaned it to them so that they could "get er done." After they had been using Linux for a week, I was surprised and gratified when they told me that when I fixed their computer, they also wanted Linux installed to replace the old XP machine. According to their comments, it seems that they really enjoyed being able to browse the Internet without (much) fear of malware, and they thought the interface was way easier.

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