Windows XP D-Day arrives Monday, June 30

[usually_quiet]

Microsoft doesn't write a more efficient OS because they don't need to. They have controlled so much of the market now for so long that they don't have to produce the best operating system to be successful, just a good one with enough backwards compatibility to make the transition slightly more comfortable and affordable than moving to a different vendor's product. As long as they remain dominant, the bulk of new applications and drivers will continue to be written for use with their operating systems, because that is where the money is, and the cycle will continue. Eventually a viable rival for their business will emerge, but it is unlikely to happen very soon.

[Dv8ted2]

Through all of the complaining of resource hogging, have you seen Microsoft move an inch? No, which is why all of the people moaning and whining are wasting their time.

Just tweak your computer and move on.:P

[Midzuki]

Master Yoda wrote:

It's simple - as soon as the majority of new software is "VISTA ONLY" you will get VISTA.

True

There is nothing else to it.

Maybe --- but the future, distant or not, does not have to be
an extension to the current state-of-things only because the collective laziness
does not like to be disturbed.

Forced obsolecence will mandate a change. That is the nature of the computer world.

Incorrect. That's the nature of the business world ---
--- which, BTW, surely is difficult to be killed, because it does resemble
a set of cancer cells infecting an organism, but is not everlasting.

"Everything that has a beginning has an end."

[PuzZLeR]

"Everything that has a beginning has an end."

What about positive integers?

Gotcha! :P

[Midzuki]

There really is no difference between an infinite positive number
and an infinite negative one. And the process of counting cannot happen
outside of Time. Touché!

[PuzZLeR]

Ahhh... a droolingly delicious debate that could have infinite reasoning... a challenge presented, not for any silly attempt to diminish your incumbent intelligence my friend, but for the sheer love of the exchange with a worthy party...

...but having the unfair advantage in donning a tattoo of infinity and holding academia in Mathematics would would surely make such a discussion unfair to me in the event it becomes a joust with thee my fellow warrior - whether I fall from it OR stand victorious from it... so I withdraw!

We are now returning to your regularly scheduled program...

[Midzuki]

Before allowing us all to return to the "on-topic" status...

Remember always: sophisms and sophists can be found everywhere ---
--- "even" inside a school of mathematics

And... considering that most/all "scientists" have to work for you-know-who...
how "logical", "reasonable", or "scientific" can the real-world scientists really be

You can go sleep now, kiddo. Good-night!

[PuzZLeR]

... huh?...
....OH...
...Ok...
.


:P

[Midzuki]

Dv8ted2 wrote:

Resistance is futile.

We'll see.

[mpack]

Some OS's are too powerful when they come out and require ridiculous power requiremnts.

Yes indeed, new OS's ride the high end of the technology curve regarding resources ...

That keeps getting repeated, so I guess I should ask... can you cite examples for what you are saying?

My work PC is old enough that it originally came with Win98. I eventually installed XP Pro on it, and XP Pro ran (and still does) quite happily on that hardware. True, sometime later I upgrade the RAM from 256MB to 1GB, but that was because my apps were getting more RAM hungry, the OS itself was perfectly ok.

Win98 ran ok on hardware designed for Win95. My memory is foggy regarding the Win3.1 to Win95 transition, but I don't recall the hardware being an issue (within reason, ie. assume something bought in the preceding four years say). I never used ME, NT4 or Win2K, but from my knowledge of these their requirements were not out of line with the common hardware of the time.

In fact Vista is the only example I've encountered where the OS consumed a significant fraction of the resources in a bog standard (not high end) reasonably modern PC.
[/i]

[mpack]

Through all of the complaining of resource hogging, have you seen Microsoft move an inch? No, ...

Actually the answer to that is yes.

Vista-SP1 has addressed some of the performance and usability issues. Not all though.

MS also responded by announcing the extended life of XP Home.


And as for the assumption that where MS leads, the public must eventually follow - I would just point out that history says otherwise. MS history is in fact littered with failed (or only partly successful) OS's. Think Xenix, OS/2 (though perhaps MS saw that as an IBM project), Win4, WinME. Win2 and NT4 were somewhat successful, but by no means big hits in the mass market. Win2K was by all accounts a fine OS, but again never really hit the bigtime.

On the contrary, I'd say that MS's failures probably outnumber their successes. What would I consider their successes? I'd say DOS, Win3, Win95/Win98 (I see this as one product with a major bugfix) and finally XP.

[PuzZLeR]

Some OS's are too powerful when they come out and require ridiculous power requiremnts.

Yes indeed, new OS's ride the high end of the technology curve regarding resources ...

That keeps getting repeated, so I guess I should ask... can you cite examples for what you are saying?

My work PC is old enough that it originally came with Win98. I eventually installed XP Pro on it, and XP Pro ran (and still does) quite happily on that hardware. True, sometime later I upgrade the RAM from 256MB to 1GB, but that was because my apps were getting more RAM hungry, the OS itself was perfectly ok.

It seems we all forget. XP too demanded more memory at its outset. The 256MB alone, before your upgrade, was already high end for its time assuming your machine was from the 98 era. In fact, I'm still finding it hard to believe (although I could be wrong ) that a Win98 machine had anything more than a "mammoth" 128MB from those days. I remember even 32MB was high end sometime in the late 90s. So 256MB although tiny today, was actually "big" then, and quite demanding of XP to ask for such, but it was sufficient to run the then new OS.

My point (and Yoda's) is that new OS systems, particularly from MS, need more RAM due to their extra multi tasking abilities alone (as well as graphics, etc.) and always push the limits of the current technology. Now I don't know if it's because of inefficiency in its design, or maybe a future proofing, but I believe the hardware needs to be at least 2-3 years ahead of a new MS OS to fully run it without slowdown.

My other point is that I believe XP addressed some key issues to justify the extra memory needs. Vista doesn't because many of its new features that hog resources are mostly cosmetic - not needs. Not worth it to me, which is why MS ticks me off forcing such "needs" on me.

[ron spencer]

Is there any software that is Vista only? I agree at that point then yes Vista will be prevalent, but that time is NOT now...XP is just too good.

When XP came out everyone liked it....I have 8 colleagues who got Vista, went back to XP. This just did not happen when XP came out....so I will purr happily on with XP until I NEED to change. Simple as that. Vista offers nothing I NEED now.

[TBoneit]

As was said if someone hacked into our register system what would they get? Our inventory level. Oh wait they can come into the store and see it with their eyes.

As a small store (Franchisee) we process the credit cards seperately and the numbers never get into the register. That is the most secure way I know to ensure that that sort of information is secured for a really minmal budget.

Since there is no desire to spend then money for a upgraded version of the software that can run on any NT based OS.

I could secure the register by running the DOS version of the software and using a boot floppy that loads DOS with the network drivers. It just depends on which directory on the server the software is loaded from. Did I mention really old legacy software? That originated before Windows was more than Bill Gates dream. Did I also mention fast?

I worry more about stores such as Best Buy that store my purchase history and tie my credit card to the receipt. I discovered that when I went back to get a credit for something I had bought at full price that was on sale. I presented the receipt and was told they didn't need the card. Sure enough it appeared as a credit on the proper card. Huh!

[mpack]

Is there any software that is Vista only?

There can't be much...

ISTM making software Vista only doesn't make commercial sense in the current market (except for MS, if they wanted to force me to switch). Even MS would be taking a risk... business user might refuse to upgrade to Office apps (say) that insisted on Vista, and that might provide an opening for competitors, as well as hitting profits for the affected years.

Now in the past software has naturally become platform dependant when that platform (and only that platform) provides features that developers want to use, and can't get through addons to the current platform. Is there anything like that in Vista?

[Midzuki]

@ PuzZLeR:

One more useful warning. Arrogant and bureaucrat-minded smartalecks
can be found anywhere --- even in the Kangaroo Land

[Dv8ted2]

I worry more about stores such as Best Buy that store my purchase history and tie my credit card to the receipt. I discovered that when I went back to get a credit for something I had bought at full price that was on sale. I presented the receipt and was told they didn't need the card. Sure enough it appeared as a credit on the proper card. Huh!

Usually, everything but the last four numbers are encrypted. That would not do anybody much good without the other numbers.

[mpack]

It seems we all forget. XP too demanded more memory at its outset. The 256MB alone, before your upgrade, was already high end for its time assuming your machine was from the 98 era.

I suppose it would have been towards the tail end of the 98 era. Win2K was possibly already in existence but not XP.

And yes, at the time it was bought it was a high end PC. Not any more! Motherboard only supports USB 1.1, and no support for HDDs using UDMA-64 (I've since added PCI cards to correct both shortcomings). No LAN support. I've had to replace a failed HDD, meaning the capacity of the current HDD is better than you would expect from a PC that old, plus I upgraded the RAM as I mentioned. Motherboard and CPU still original tho (from memory its a 1.6GHz single core P4, no HT or any of that newfangled stuff...). Noisy too.

So you see, it was already a middle aged PC when I put XP on it (the specs were by then far from being high end!), but XP still ran well: XP didn't ask me to go out and buy new hardware.

I appreciate what you are saying, however I just find it hard to square with my own memories.

[JohnnyMalaria]

On the contrary, I'd say that MS's failures probably outnumber their successes. What would I consider their successes? I'd say DOS, Win3, Win95/Win98 (I see this as one product with a major bugfix) and finally XP.

That's just daft.

Microsoft develop and sell much more than just the client version of Windows. It isn't a cash cow for them. Just read their annual reports. They make more profit on Office and Server.

To call NT4 a failure is equally stupid. Did you ever use it? UI may be the same as Win9x but other than that... Clearly your experience with Windows is for consumers and not multinational companies. Supported by your list of "successes" - all of them the inferior consumer versions that crashed with a wink of an eye. Killing that line and concentrating only on NT was an excellent move.

If you seriously believe MS' success revolves around Windows client, you are highly deluded.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Vista offers nothing I NEED now.

Then don't get it.

Others do. e.g., me.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Is there anything like that in Vista?

Yes. Plenty. Just go to MS' website and do the research so you won't get caught spewing nonsense. There's loads of information on what's new under the hood.

[ron spencer]

@Johnny....what do you need in Vista that is not in XP?

[Dv8ted2]

@Johnny....what do you need in Vista that is not in XP?

I need the better security that Vista provides. - enough said

[ron spencer]

what is better? I keep seeing that....what do you get specifcally that is better...just trying to find out

[yoda313]

Win2K was by all accounts a fine OS, but again never really hit the bigtime

That is not a major point for home users since in all reality WIN 2000 was actually a BUSINESS platform. It was NT technology when Win 98 and Win ME were the main players for home markets on the 9x kernel at the time of the 2000 rollout.

[Dv8ted2]

what is better? I keep seeing that....what do you get specifcally that is better...just trying to find out

You could visit Microsoft and do some research and find out.

You are the one that needs info.

here is some explanation, and another

[JohnnyMalaria]

@Johnny....what do you need in Vista that is not in XP?

I need to develop applications for sale that I can be sure will work correctly on Vista machines. Hence, I need to develop them on Vista. At first, I continued to use XP as my primary OS, then I switched to Vista 32 and, recently, I have switched to Vista 64 (which I'm using right now). This permits me to develop new apps that will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and I can be certain the latter will work on Vista and XP. When I use XP (such as on a laptop), there are things about Vista that I most definitely miss and slow me down. I can't say the same about missing things in XP when using Vista.

[ron spencer]

thanks Johnny....

BTW Dv8ted2, I don't beleive the MS glossies.......I will take practical examples from users instead....but since I am not a developer.....

[mpack]

To call NT4 a failure is equally stupid. Did you ever use it? UI may be the same as Win9x but other than that... Clearly your experience with Windows is for consumers and not multinational companies.

Yes, I have used NT4. However the primary focus of my attentions has always been where the mass market is, not where geeks would like it to be.

Killing that line and concentrating only on NT was an excellent move.

I quite agree, which is why I cited XP as a success.

If you seriously believe MS' success revolves around Windows client, you are highly deluded.

Hmm. I have no idea what that sentence means, or how it relates to anything I said. I listed a series of Microsoft operating systems and pointed out that not all were successful. Of the entire list you only seemed to quibble with my classification of NT4, so apparantly you mostly agree. At no time did I suggest that Microsofts overall financial success depended on their OS products. So what exactly is the point you are making?

[Dv8ted2]

thanks Johnny....

BTW Dv8ted2, I don't beleive the MS glossies.......I will take practical examples from users instead....but since I am not a developer.....

I gave you practical examples. I am a security specialist. Vista is more secure than XP. It is less likely to get rootkits than XP.

Oh, well....

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot get him to drink."