Is Vista for real?

[xmtrland]

With Microsoft wanting to pull the plug on Windows XP distribution. Is any one embracing Vista? From what I see Vista has not made any inroads in the Commercial Market Place.

I know there are hundreds of computers running RDS interface software that is Windows 2000 (stuck in a rack at maybe your station). I would almost dare to say there are thousands of computers tucked in racks across the USA running windows 2000 or XP in radio and TV.

Is Microsoft going to cave and continue to distribute XP?

Are there any automation manufactures that are supporting Vista or are working in a totally vista environment? Or audio work station/editing software? Will manufactures continue to ship XP through their OEM bulk license agreement (after the public Microsoft cut off date)?

How about Music, Traffic, and Sales Software. Is any one running or supporting Vista?

How are the station IT department dealing with this. Are they hording or buying extra XP licenses.

May be I should be asking what does Run on Vista. Is Vista for real or is it another product like Windows ME

 

[RadioMan203]

Well, if the organization is large enough (perhaps a major radio group) they probably had an XP corporate license which will allow them to install XP on almost any number of machines ("technically", they can't exceed the number on the license, but the version on volume license (VLA) media doesn't chat with M$ servers). Then if you have a standardized platform like Dells and you use their Dell-enabled media you can downgrade a Vista box to XP as long as you can get the proper drivers for the system.

I've been collecting XP licenses so I'm not stuck with Vista. I hear more horror stories about that piece of crapola! I work for an organization where we don't plan on deploying XP for at least another 18 months. Hell, I'd go back to 2000 before going to Vista!

Food for thought - if M$ really wanted to push Vista they would have never had come out with Service Pack 3 for XP.

Just my 2/100 of a dollar

 

[speakerman]

Macbook Pro, Parallels Desktop http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ and XP here. Runs all I need. The internet comes through the Mac side and XP stays off the internet and runs the few Windows programs I have to use.

I ran most of my Windows stuff with 2000 on a white-box until just recently with no problems. There are a few newer Windows programs that are not 2000 compatible so I did the upgrade.

The low cost operation might use Parallels with a Mac Mini if they don't need extra cards. Any Intel Mac will run Windows either dual boot or simultaneously with Parallels.

Vista is a very poor copy of OSX. I like a few of the new features however I get tired of all of the "Are you sure" messages. The buddy I work with got a new HP laptop that has Vista and he complains allot. I don't want to have to use a "paranoid" operating system missing drivers to old hardware I paid good money for. I just want to get my stuff done with the least annoyance.

I would be gathering licenses for XP if you plan on continuing with it into the future. It is unknown how well if will work on new future machines, however. Since Microsoft has so much old garbage code they have to keep pushing forward (critical legacy compatibility) the hardware will likely be XP compatible for a while.

 

[whit979]

Just read in the June issue of PC World magazine that Microsoft may push ahead the release date of their next version of Windows to next year. This may turn out to be a flop like Windows Millennium Edition was.

 

[Sgeirk]

I did hear that a major automation software producer is working on a future version that will run on Java.

Pick whatever OS you want, it'll work. How's THAT for confidence in future MS OS's?

 

[SirRoxalot]

XP SP3 Crashing Systems!

Be VERY CAREFUL installing Windows XP SP 3. It has been crashing machines with defective images provided by HP, Dell, and possibly other OEMs.

Check out more info here.

As far as Vista is concerned, all the complaints I'm hearing now are virtually identical to the complaints uttered when XP came out. Remember all the hand-wringing about drivers, software incompatibility, "bloated" code, and "unreasonable" hardware demands?

There are significant changes in Vista, especially in the multi-media sections that interface with a lot of audio software. Many applications will require upgrades, or additional software to function correctly. Some old programs probably won't work. Some hardware created by manufacturers that are either gone, or interested in selling you new hardware, also won't work.

Built-in security will annoy you for a while, until you either get things working correctly, or figure out how to turn some protections off.

It could be worse. Microsoft could have followed the Apple model, stopped making any older Operating System, and stopped trying to be backwardly-compatible with older hardware and software.

A newer, more modular version of Windows may come out in 2009 or 2010. Whether a fully-installed version will be significantly different than Vista remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, any XP license that's more than 6 months old can be activated on a new platform. I doubt that there will be a dearth of XP licenses available.

 

[pbf1]

SP3

Had no trouble until my 5th computer to update, and that turned out to be a simple regedit change to one entry.

All five actually run a little faster now (surprise, surprise).

That said, my next, if it needs to happen in the near future, will be a MacBook Pro.

 

[OttoM]

I've used nLite for XP (http://nliteos.com/) and vLite for Vista (http://www.vlite.net/) to de-bloat and tweak the OS installs with great success. It is truly amazing how much faster the computer boots and runs. And yes, it's stable - probably a LOT more stable than the full-install version of the OS.

 

[nmoore6676]

Re: XP SP3 Crashing Systems!

Be VERY CAREFUL installing Windows XP SP 3. It has been crashing machines with defective images provided by HP, Dell, and possibly other OEMs.

Check out more info here.

As far as Vista is concerned, all the complaints I'm hearing now are virtually identical to the complaints uttered when XP came out. Remember all the hand-wringing about drivers, software incompatibility, "bloated" code, and "unreasonable" hardware demands?

There are significant changes in Vista, especially in the multi-media sections that interface with a lot of audio software. Many applications will require upgrades, or additional software to function correctly. Some old programs probably won't work. Some hardware created by manufacturers that are either gone, or interested in selling you new hardware, also won't work.

Built-in security will annoy you for a while, until you either get things working correctly, or figure out how to turn some protections off.

It could be worse. Microsoft could have followed the Apple model, stopped making any older Operating System, and stopped trying to be backwardly-compatible with older hardware and software.

A newer, more modular version of Windows may come out in 2009 or 2010. Whether a fully-installed version will be significantly different than Vista remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, any XP license that's more than 6 months old can be activated on a new platform. I doubt that there will be a dearth of XP licenses available.

Vista is in fact more memory and processor hungry than XP, but you can effect some improvement by turning off the enhancements like "transparency". If you have an older machine on XP be very careful. If you are thinking about upgrading from 2000, don't even bother. The biggest issue other than drivers is that many software companies have been slow to support Vista. UPS does not support Vista for their "Worldship" software so that is a real problem. I do not know about radio automation but DNC programs for industrial machine control is not Vista friendly.

I purchased a new laptop with Vista and have had no major problem, other than printer drivers so I had to get a new printer. The other issue was some software i wanted to transfer from an older desktop which began with 98 and was upgraded to 2000. I had to purchase new versions of some Adobe stuff, which negated some of the savings which I had hoped would offset the cost of buying a more expensive computer than originally planned. Other than the security nagging I've had no other issues. I do think though that Microsoft should maintain one core version of Windows, like XP and continue to support it for a longer time, like until the computers it is on cease being functional. Leave the fancy new stuff for the guys who want sports cars rather than a family car.

 

[CW]

Just read in the June issue of PC World magazine that Microsoft may push ahead the release date of their next version of Windows to next year. This may turn out to be a flop like Windows Millennium Edition was.

Several IT trade rags have alluded to that....Vista is loosing its "shine" with the business world (My own company is holding off on Vista as we have found at least 15 corporate apps that dont run under Vista; MAYBE 2nd qtr 2009 we MAY see Vista...but by then Win7 may be out...SAP also has issues with Vista from what I recall)...Windows 7 will be the next big push for enterprise use; speculation from what I read is dont hold your breath on Vista.....

Windows ME??? EEEEEWWWHHHHHH gawd, that was crap!!!and to think they called it an "upgrade" from Windows2000!!

 

[barman]

Bill Gates himself alludes to the fact that a new OS is coming in 2009 that will be much better than Vista. Other than the support issues discussed, it seems reasonable to stick with XP. It's compact, slick, and robust. It least it's been that way for me.

 

[Studio1]

A friend sent me a link to a Cnet article a few weeks ago that suggested MS is extending their support period for XP by another 6 - 12 months (as of that point). Not only that, PC providers such as Dell, HP et al are now once again offering XP as a platform on their new machines due to HUGE customer demand.

Vista seems to be the lame duck. It waddles, it quacks, but it doesn't fly.

What I don't understand however is WHY anyone actually needs it? XP has had enough time and resources thrown at it now to be stable, and it is user-friendly (as much as Windows can be).
It's fairly easy on system resources and memory requirements and almost everything has had drivers written for it or is already compatible - so what need is there to upgrade to something that doesn't do all of this?

So far no one has been able to convince me with a good enough reason.

 

[RadioMan203]

Keep in mind the latest Windows development to come out of Redmond real soon. A new version of Windows that takes the "best" features from Window CE, Windows ME and Windows NT. The new product will be called:

Windows Cement

Turns your computer into a doorstop immediately after loading!

Brought to you by Mircrosoft - what are we gonna do to you today?



Seriously, Vista just seems to be a bloated piece of garbage! I loaded it on a system with four hard drives and it took another drive out (aside from the one I was loading the OS on) tanked everything on it and loaded "memtest" on it. I lost over 100 gig of data because the Vista installer is stupid? I know I will personally never upgrade to Vista. I tell my freelance clients to stick with XP and I myself run XP on several Intel-based Macs without issue.

 

[RealityCheckr]

My question exactly.

About the only reason I can see has nothing to do with the user. It has to do with the fact MS does not trust users to be honest (it never has, but then again the are not completely wrong on this) and has therefore bought into the music industries assertion that users are not honest. Therefore the code has been all bloated up to PREVENT users from doing what they want with their machine and fully licensed OS.

By this logic cars should not be able to go faster than 70 MPH so that user's don't break the law.

Actually, MY preference (at least for Windows) is 2000 since it does not have the MS snoopware.

<SNIP>

Vista seems to be the lame duck. It waddles, it quacks, but it doesn't fly.

What I don't understand however is WHY anyone actually needs it? XP has had enough time and resources thrown at it now to be stable, and it is user-friendly (as much as Windows can be).
It's fairly easy on system resources and memory requirements and almost everything has had drivers written for it or is already compatible - so what need is there to upgrade to something that doesn't do all of this?

So far no one has been able to convince me with a good enough reason.

 

[rrsounds]

Re: XP SP3 Crashing Systems!

It could be worse. Microsoft could have followed the Apple model, stopped making any older Operating System, and stopped trying to be backwardly-compatible with older hardware and software.

And that has hurt Apple how?

At some point it makes sense to make a clean break with the past, which is what Apple did with OSX. OTOH, much of the complexity of the modern Windows OS appears to be related to supporting backward compatibility.

In addition to a complete rewrite of the OS to create OSX, you will note that the Mac OS has endured TWO major hardware platform changes (Motorola 68000 -> Power PC -> Intel) and done so all but seamlessly. While it could have turned out to be the death knell for Apple, the opposite has happened: There are more Mac users today than ever, and that number is growing rapidly.

Kind Regards,
David

 

[gunterm]

With Microsoft wanting to pull the plug on Windows XP distribution. Is any one embracing Vista? From what I see Vista has not made any inroads in the Commercial Market Place.

I know there are hundreds of computers running RDS interface software that is Windows 2000 (stuck in a rack at maybe your station). I would almost dare to say there are thousands of computers tucked in racks across the USA running windows 2000 or XP in radio and TV.

Shoot, I've been at stations with their transmitter remote control software that uses DOS!!! Not to mention other older legacy devices that work just fine that have DOS software also.

If you buy a Dell now, you can still get XP, and even after the pull the plug on XP I'll bet the Dell Outlet computers continue to have it for at least several months.

Also there is a problem I saw with XP SP3 release candidate that did mess up a few machines I put it on. Not too bad, to the casual user its a horrifying blue screen but basically the GDI32.DLL isn't copied properly or gets corrupted and so far that's what I've run into. Nothing bad with SP3 final just yet though!

 

[SirRoxalot]

BEWARE XP SP3!

At some point it makes sense to make a clean break with the past, which is what Apple did with OSX. OTOH, much of the complexity of the modern Windows OS appears to be related to supporting backward compatibility.

When you have 6% of the market, I guess you can tell users "my way or the highway" and get away with it. When you have 92% of the market, it's a lot tougher to tell businesses that they need to buy new software, or have their custom programming rewritten. Maybe that how you get 92% of the market...

Also there is a problem I saw with XP SP3 release candidate that did mess up a few machines I put it on. Not too bad, to the casual user its a horrifying blue screen but basically the GDI32.DLL isn't copied properly or gets corrupted and so far that's what I've run into. Nothing bad with SP3 final just yet though!

There is a MAJOR problem with the SP3 upgrade if you have an HP, Dell, and perhaps other systems that use an image that has power management for both Intel and AMD processors enabled simultaneously. If you do the upgrade, your computer goes into a boot loop, and won't even boot into Safe Mode. If you have a SATA hard drive, you can't even boot off the XP CD and go into the Recovery Console to rename one of the offending files.

Microsoft says that the problem is with the images provided by some of the OEMs, and not with SP3. You can modify the registry to resolve the issue, but you need to be aware of the issue, and track down the solution. Whoever's responsible, the end user ends up dealing with the problem.

 

[amfmsw]

I just bought a new DeLuxe MS keyboard and MS wireless mouse for an Acer with pre-loaded Vista. The new toys work fine, but the bells and whistles don't...because the MS CD with it commands will NOT work "with this Operating System"! The Updates downloaded from Windows will still not let the company's own CD run! I laughed like hell.

 

[rrsounds]

Windows Vista

At some point it makes sense to make a clean break with the past, which is what Apple did with OSX. OTOH, much of the complexity of the modern Windows OS appears to be related to supporting backward compatibility.

When you have 6% of the market, I guess you can tell users "my way or the highway" and get away with it. When you have 92% of the market, it's a lot tougher to tell businesses that they need to buy new software, or have their custom programming rewritten. Maybe that how you get 92% of the market...

"... tell businesses they need to buy new software, or have their custom programming rewritten."
Odd. That's what some people are saying about Vista! That, and a hardware upgrade. :-\

If Apple had lost a significant number of users due to their OS change, I would have had to agree with you, BTW. But the point is they not only did not lose customers, they gained them. Maybe when you have only 6% of the market you have to be MORE careful. By using virtualization, Apple engineered their change to elegantly bring along the old users, without crippling the new ones. Microsoft could have taken a similar tack, if that had been a goal. But, apparently, it wasn't.

And while it might have been "a lot tougher" for MS, keep in mind that along with that 92% market share comes a staggering percentage of income from the money people spend on OSes. That's a LOT of cash for R&D.

Microsoft DOES know how to do this. Windows NT was a perfect example of a great "clean break" OS. When it was refined to Windows 2000, it was spectacular.

Windows Vista is not spectacular. Maybe the next one will be.

Kind Regards,
David

 

[SirRoxalot]

Virtualization

Actually, virtualization is an option for those having problems with Vista. Microsoft Virtual PC is free, and allows you to install other OSs and run them without exiting Vista.

You can also dual-boot Vista and XP for those cranky aps or old hardware that doesn't have drivers for Vista.