Ah, the vistas I see!!
Feb. 2nd, 2007 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lordshipmayhemYes, everyone's been having a great deal of fun at the expense of Microsoft's new Windows Fistula Vista.
But there have only been a handful of problems:
Workaround Discovered For "Clean Install" With Vista Upgrade DVDs
Vista 'Family Discount' Bites Back
UK Green Party Claims Vista is Environmentally Unfriendly
Vista sends PC prices sky high
Alex Ionescu Cracks Windows DRM
Vista Breaks 90% of Games
Vista pranks possible via voice command Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you can verbally order someone else's computer to shut down. Or, if they're running in Administrator mode, to reformat the hard drive. That last option may not be a bad thing...
Rush to Fix Flaws and for First Service Pack
Playing iTunes On Windows Vista Requires Tricky Workaround
Gartner Dings Vista On BitLocker
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols : "While Vista had no trouble finding and activating the Intel High Definition audio chip (aka Azalia), what it couldn't work with at all was the common-as-dirt RealTek ALC 882 audio chipset." (In plain English, it can run the fancy-dancy speakers, but the plain-jane one bult into the motherboard is too sophisticated for it... SAY WHAT?)
See? Not much at all, at all. ^_^
But there have only been a handful of problems:
See? Not much at all, at all. ^_^
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 04:16 am (UTC)- It doesn't have Windows level of driver support (read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' comparison of Vista and Linux)
- It doesn't play many games. Oops. Now it plays more than Vista.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 04:33 am (UTC)I'm not trying to make excuses for Mikeysoft - Lord knows I love seeing them fall flat on their faces - but it's hardly fair to draw similarities between that support for an OS that just launched to the situation facing Linux.
Hell, Blizzard still bans Warcraft players who are using Wine or Lindows because it shows up as a third-party program and Watcher (Bliz's security program) decides it's a hack.
Ah, fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 05:35 am (UTC)Actually, the problem with the audio and video issues lies with the DRM that they've added in. They've actually deliberately crippled a lot of driver support in order to force you down the DRM path so that THEY control what YOU do with YOUR content. That's why the plain-vanilla built-in speakers don't work under Vista. There's no DRM on that hardware, while there is on the fancy-shmancy sound cards Fistula users will be forced to use. Basically with Vista, Hollywood ownz your puter.
Unless you hack the system to the point of breaking the EULA, legal music CD's will not play.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 05:29 am (UTC)Windows Vista breaks the high percentage of web games from that particular company. Vista does not break anywhere near the majority of new or recent games. The article is a red herring.
The "Vista send PC prices sky high" is just false, misleading and dreck. If you look at PC prices from a variety of vendors you'll see that they don't cost any more than they usually do.
Using some of the other articles to promote a Vista fiasco is kinda misleading: For example, the voice command, MS working on a Vista service pack, the audio driver problem, and the workaround for the clean install. The voice command requires speech recognition to be enabled -- how many users do you think will do that? What is wrong with putting out an update to an OS to correct problems and/or offer new functionality -- every OS receives updated versions. Are you saying Linux doesn't have driver issues? The workaround for the Vista upgrade is actually a boon not a detriment.
Most of the articles discuss minor issues with a new OS. If you want to look at real, actual problems focus on the DRM issues. If one has a low income and can't afford a new computer focus on Vista having high system requirements (and being bloated). If one is easily annoyed by confirmation dialogues then focus on Vista's UAC feature which serves to strengthen the security of the OS by making users non-admin's by default (finally!) but at the cost of ease of use.
Vista remains Microsoft's best new client OS to date. It was rewritten from scratch and is definitely more secure than previous versions of Windows. Yet, it still retains the giant hole that is Internet Explorer (even though IE 7 is far better than previous versions), and has some other problems (some significant, some not). Does this make Vista a terrible OS, not hardly. Does it make it better or worse than Mac OS X? Depends on who you ask (many will say OS X is better but it, unfortunately, still suffers from a relative lack of software). Is it better than one's favorite Linux distro? Again depends on for what a person uses the OS.
Windows hate is just as dumb as Mac or Linux hate. All are good in varying ways; each have their merits just as each have their detriments.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 06:12 am (UTC)Actually, I agree with you there, sort of. There's some wonderful deals on right now with formerly high-end home computers that can't handle the requirements of high-end Vista. They're great for XP and Linux, though, and probably even OS X.
- The voice command issue: This is a repeat of the Mac voice command issue from the late 1980's. Clowns would go into their dorm buddies' rooms and shout, "Shut down!" and watch as the machine would obediently do so. That's why Apple removed it from their OS. Microsoft just didn't learn from history. You're right - most people, most SMART people, won't bother engaging voice command in the first place. Kind of defeats the purpose of having it available, doesn't it? It was a dumb idea when Apple did it, it is still a dumb idea. Maybe with some tweaking (biometric voice recognition, for example), but nowhere near ready for prime time. Hopefully Microsoft with get smart on this feature and remove it completely.
- The OS update: The OS was released, after 5 years of testing, on Tuesday. First start talking about the urgent requirement for the gaming update on Thursday, two days later. That has GOT to be some kind of freakin' record.
- The Vista driver issues are largely tied to the DRM issues. The Linux driver issues are largely tied to certain manufacturers who either don't see a need for Linux drivers, or don't care to support older machines, or don't want their competitors getting their mitts on the manufacturer details (and rumour: that some of them have, er, acquired code in the driver from their competitors and would rather avoid embarrassing questions. The new offer to create open-source drivers for free should help alleviate that problem.
And yes, DRM is a problem, big-time. Security is still a big questionmark: they're starting to meander down the path already tread by the *nixes, but they've got a way to go. They are still tying too much crap to the OS like Explorer, they're still pushing proprietary standards to replace open standards like JPEG and HTML, they're still creating office applications whose standard file format is unreadable by earlier versions of the same office suite, etc. etc.
Yes, Vista should be the most secure Windows operating system in history. Would you run it without 3rd party antivirus, anti-spyware and firewall? (Actually, that may be unfair. We've gotten so used to needing 3rd party security apps like that from other Windows OS's that maybe we're prejudiced to expect the requirement to exist in every system. Some people are astonished to discover there are no anti-Linux-virus Linux antivirus programs.)
What really gets me angry isn't the operating system (though I am vexed with poor quality control of the code), it's the abusive monopolistic behavour of this company.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 08:49 pm (UTC)What gets me are those who translate company X (Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Oracle, etc) is bad therefore all their products (or all their main products) are also bad. That's just silly.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-04 05:02 am (UTC)On your second point, though, I am inclined to avoid any product from a company that is so determinedly and consistently evil. If you buy anything from that company, you're directly subsidizing an illegal monopoly. Even if you pirate their product you're still doing your bit to shore up the monopoly in terms of "Everybody uses Windows, so there's no reason to offer content that non-Windows users can access"... And then there's the question of formats... by using Office and saving to .doc, you grant ownership of your documents to MS... they don't guarantee you'll be able to open it in next year's Office, and they're actively working to make sure you can't open it in a competitor's word processor. Any step you take that allows a company to lock you tighter into their network of DRM / proprietary formats / abusive licensing terms, making it that much harder to migrate to a different product if you want to... is a step into slavery; and in a monopoly situation you're dragging others down with you when you take that step.
If your actions support a totalitarian regime which is claiming the right to arbitrarily take control of people's computers, the content they've bought, and their own documents, then you face a moral question about whether that's an acceptable thing to support, not just a technical question about whether the individual product fulfills its function.
As you can probably see, I've been reading some Richard Stallman, and I've come to the conclusiong that yes, freedom really does matter.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-03 05:28 am (UTC)One too many 9's? :P
> UK Green Party Claims Vista is Environmentally Unfriendly
Now THAT's actually serious. Lockdown requirements to play legit content? FUM$
Count my machine outta that landfill-in-the-making. Pirated XP + slipstreamed patches FTW. :D