Is it just me, or is Vista, literally, a waste of space?
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I am running Vista on my laptop as an experiment, and there are one or two nice touches but nothing, IMO, to justify all the hype, sluggish performance, gigantic memory requirements and general air of slight instability. My question is this: WHY DO WE NEED A NEW OS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH WINDOWS XP? I feel sorry for people buying a new computer who have Vista rammed down their throats. In my case, the answer is simple enough: just say no. And I'd like to see M$ be big enough to admit their mistake and to put their efforts into making sure that XP moves with the times. Not much chance of that happening, though. So, get out your flamethrowers one and all and tell me I'm wrong. PS: Anyone got a Vista driver for my EGA card? (remember those?) Just kidding :)
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
I'ven seen people at work buy new laptops and desktops with Vista on them. I have also seen Vista crash seriously enough to require a new install on these machines. I have also seen Vista to work perfectly well on machines. For me that is the issue - you just don't know if it's going to blow up in your face or not and that is too much of a risk. As far as I'm concerned Vista is off the books for me until at least SP1 is released. Mind you I remember when SP1 was released for XP it actually bought more bugs with it than the fresh off the tree XP. Anyone remember the compatibility mode issues with XP? Oh it's all too depressing... I think I still have some cold beer in the fridge though :)
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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Really? I didn't know that. But like was said earlier, there is nothing wrong with XP :). I have just compared my XP memory usage meter to that of mt brothers XP. It turns out, his laptop is using 500MB of RAM with no applications open. While XP was using 100MB of RAM with no applications running. So, Kevin, do u believe Vista has been a success?
Benjamin Dodd
Benjamin Dodd wrote:
But like was said earlier, there is nothing wrong with XP
I agree. I was just pointing out that technically Vista was late. And that is ironic given that most of us, it seems, are happy enough with XP! :)
Benjamin Dodd wrote:
So, Kevin, do u believe Vista has been a success?
No. And I've yet to use it myself. Maybe we'll have to wait for Minwin. http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/12/03/microsoft-partners-minwin-could-soothe-vista-headaches[^]
Kevin
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Benjamin Dodd wrote:
But like was said earlier, there is nothing wrong with XP
I agree. I was just pointing out that technically Vista was late. And that is ironic given that most of us, it seems, are happy enough with XP! :)
Benjamin Dodd wrote:
So, Kevin, do u believe Vista has been a success?
No. And I've yet to use it myself. Maybe we'll have to wait for Minwin. http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/12/03/microsoft-partners-minwin-could-soothe-vista-headaches[^]
Kevin
OK, thanks for the link. Have just read the short paragraph: "In the year that has passed since Microsoft released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist". This is true, i heard from college buddies that it uses a lot of RAM. "But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center". 2010 can't wait. "MinWin's source code base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista". 25 MB :o, what does this mean exactly? "Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market". Didn't the say that about Vista? Information found at http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/12/03/microsoft-partners-minwin-could-soothe-vista-headaches[^] Any views on this? Will Windows 7 be a success or will Microsoft crash and burn? :)
Benjamin Dodd
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Actually, the laptop in question is 6 months old, but that's not really the point. I saw some benchmarks recently that showed that MS Office runs twice as fast on XP as it does on Vista, That, to me, is not progress. And I know that RAM is cheap but many machines have a 2 GB limit (and all 32 bit machines have a 4GB limit) so requiring the best part of 1GB to even boot is just plain greedy. The benchmarks in question are here: http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/windows-xp-sp3-yields-performance-gains.html[^]
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
modified on Saturday, December 08, 2007 3:17:12 PM
I read somewhere that due to their architecture, laptops can only make use of 115MB of their 4th GB. Meaning that the max available memory for any 32bit laptop is 3GB 115MB. I'm tracking this down, I'll edit this with the citation as soon as I find it. --Modified Here are the citations: Clickety 1[^] and the confirmation from MS: MS Confirmation[^]
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook "There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." Ali ibn Abi Talib "Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?"
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OK, thanks for the link. Have just read the short paragraph: "In the year that has passed since Microsoft released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist". This is true, i heard from college buddies that it uses a lot of RAM. "But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center". 2010 can't wait. "MinWin's source code base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista". 25 MB :o, what does this mean exactly? "Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market". Didn't the say that about Vista? Information found at http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/12/03/microsoft-partners-minwin-could-soothe-vista-headaches[^] Any views on this? Will Windows 7 be a success or will Microsoft crash and burn? :)
Benjamin Dodd
I expect when it arrives it won't be as lean and mean as they suggest. But it will probably be acknowledged as an improvement on Vista. I'm interested in seeing how small Silverlight 2.0 will be on its release. Basically, they're trying to cram in a substantial part of .NET 3.5 in 4-5 MB.
Kevin
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I expect when it arrives it won't be as lean and mean as they suggest. But it will probably be acknowledged as an improvement on Vista. I'm interested in seeing how small Silverlight 2.0 will be on its release. Basically, they're trying to cram in a substantial part of .NET 3.5 in 4-5 MB.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
they're trying to cram in a substantial part of .NET 3.5 in 4-5 MB.
OK, hmmm MS on a mission. Will they succeed? Maybe craming this will only making the situation worse :) Well we will have to wait till 2010. Come on Microsoft surprise us :)
Benjamin Dodd
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Well, for me Vista has a killer feature: UAC Previously, I used a limited user account under XP, and compared to that, UAC is a huge improvement. Instead of getting a cryptic error message that forces me to abort an installation and retry with "Run as">"Administrator">Enter password>OK, I simply get asked to enter the administrator password. But it's definitely bloated (as all MS software is) - don't install Vista if you have less than 2 GB RAM. But this isn't something new - all Windows versions are extremely bloated. XP needs 200 MB RAM, and the low-end PCs it was initially sold on had only 256 MB RAM. You'll see that Vista will run quite nicely on the low-end machines that will be sold in 2013.
Daniel Grunwald wrote:
a killer feature: UAC
Killer...indeed.
:badger:
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Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft) wrote:
I am running Vista on my laptop as an experiment,
That's your problem right there. Everyone who posts here how much they hate Vista inevitably seems to be running it as a "test" on some old hardware it was never designed for in the first place. Most of the supporters of it seem to have bought it with a brand new system that is powerful enough to run it. No offence but making a comparison that way is as looney as anything I've ever seen posted in this message board. We're supposed to be software professionals, people who actually *know* a thing or two. What you're doing is the equivalent of hitching a brand new motor home to a model T ford and bitching that the motorhome is crap.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
I agree completely, in fact I've installed Vista onto my primary desktop machine and it runs like a dream. In fact almost everything seems faster on Vista than XP. Testament to this fact is that I've got XP installed on another hard-drive which is in the computer and all it requires is a reboot and since I've had Vista I've run XP once to find out if a sound problem I was having was drivers or hardware. Turned out it was hardware. I'm don't know whether this plays any factor but it is Vista x64 which I'm running, I had a few issues to begin with but those were down to driver issues with Vista x64, since those have been sorted it's been wonderful. I still use XP for somethings but run it inside a VM because some programs required for my course flatly refuse to install on Vista x64 and by the sounds of it these VMs are running on higher specced machines than his "host". Specs of machine in question: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz) overclocked at 5% 2GB DDR2-6400 RAM nVidia 8800GTS 320MB Graphics Card (SLI-capable but couldn't afford two) 2*120GB 7,200RPM IDE drives (spares from old machines), one with XP one with Vista. Will probably get rid of the XP one over Christmas 500GB 7200 RPM SATA II drive for data 500GB 7200 RPM External IDE (USB 2.0) for backups & CD images, on most of the time. Machine seems quite happy running Half-Life 2 etc under Vista 64 at high resolutions.
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OK, thanks for the link. Have just read the short paragraph: "In the year that has passed since Microsoft released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist". This is true, i heard from college buddies that it uses a lot of RAM. "But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center". 2010 can't wait. "MinWin's source code base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista". 25 MB :o, what does this mean exactly? "Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market". Didn't the say that about Vista? Information found at http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/12/03/microsoft-partners-minwin-could-soothe-vista-headaches[^] Any views on this? Will Windows 7 be a success or will Microsoft crash and burn? :)
Benjamin Dodd
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I recently bought the wife a laptop that came pre-installed with Vista Home Premium. On boot it was using 650MB of RAM - and with only 768MB total that's a whopping 85% of memory gone just to get started. Even after disabling as much fluff/craplets as possible, I still couldn't get memory usage below 500MB - and it ran like a dog. So I upgraded it to XP SP2 and it feels like a totally different PC (and even with the neat Google Desktop sidebar installed it's only using 200MB on boot - a third of the memory required by Vista.) I was both annoyed at the manufacturer for supplying a machine that clearly isn't up to running Vista and MS for an O/S that eats through memory like there's no tomorrow. Sure, XP uses more memory than 2000, but only tens of MB, not hundreds! The experience has put me off Vista - however, that's a moot point as the company I work for has banned it's use and has no plans to switch - the only machines with Vista installed are a couple of QA PC's.
Well put. You have my support! :)
ROFLOLMFAO
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I expect when it arrives it won't be as lean and mean as they suggest. But it will probably be acknowledged as an improvement on Vista. I'm interested in seeing how small Silverlight 2.0 will be on its release. Basically, they're trying to cram in a substantial part of .NET 3.5 in 4-5 MB.
Kevin
I expect that the essential code needed to bootstrap the OS will be the miniscule size they mentioned. Other additions (such as the .NET framework) would add to that. Essentially, you would be adding the libraries as you need them, so while you have a "functioning" OS at the most basic level (the miniscule code base only) you are very limited with what you can do (probably you won't even have a UI) but with more additions you would increase both the available functionality and the footprint.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook "There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." Ali ibn Abi Talib "Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?"
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Well, for me Vista has a killer feature: UAC Previously, I used a limited user account under XP, and compared to that, UAC is a huge improvement. Instead of getting a cryptic error message that forces me to abort an installation and retry with "Run as">"Administrator">Enter password>OK, I simply get asked to enter the administrator password. But it's definitely bloated (as all MS software is) - don't install Vista if you have less than 2 GB RAM. But this isn't something new - all Windows versions are extremely bloated. XP needs 200 MB RAM, and the low-end PCs it was initially sold on had only 256 MB RAM. You'll see that Vista will run quite nicely on the low-end machines that will be sold in 2013.
I agree, actually. UAC (or something like it) is long overdue - after all, Unix users have had it for years (in the form of su, = super user). But do we need really a new OS just to get such a simple feature? In many ways, your posting gets right to the heart of my arguement. I would like to see some of these useful gadgets added to XP, and in 50MB of RAM rather than 500. But that, I'm sure, does not fit in with Microsoft's 'corporate vision'. Ugh. ... Oh yes; I just remembered. You *can* run a program on XP as administrator without logging out of your limited user account. It's just not very prominent on the user interface. You can also use 'fast user switching' of course .. if you have enough RAM!
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
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I expect that the essential code needed to bootstrap the OS will be the miniscule size they mentioned. Other additions (such as the .NET framework) would add to that. Essentially, you would be adding the libraries as you need them, so while you have a "functioning" OS at the most basic level (the miniscule code base only) you are very limited with what you can do (probably you won't even have a UI) but with more additions you would increase both the available functionality and the footprint.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook "There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." Ali ibn Abi Talib "Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?"
I'm having a hard time believing that anything useful can be done in 25MB these days. The smallest version of Windows I know of is something called WinPE (or BartPE, see google), which boots directly from CD (no hard disk needed) and takes up about 150MB of space on the CD. It excludes both Explorer and IE, but it is still a handy thing to have around if your main system refuses to boot. Incidentally, has anyone seen (as I have) Windows XP running on a cash till at a checkout? Now that's what I call overkill!
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
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I expect when it arrives it won't be as lean and mean as they suggest. But it will probably be acknowledged as an improvement on Vista. I'm interested in seeing how small Silverlight 2.0 will be on its release. Basically, they're trying to cram in a substantial part of .NET 3.5 in 4-5 MB.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
I expect when it arrives it won't be as lean and mean as they suggest.
It certainly won't be - if users want fancy graphics, media playback, compatibility with older versions of windows, the latest and greatest games etc. etc. etc. then this will require a huge amount of code, unless Microsoft have invented a magic wand?
"On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't. "I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it." -Tina Farrell, a 23 year old thicky from Levenshulme, Manchester.
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I agree, actually. UAC (or something like it) is long overdue - after all, Unix users have had it for years (in the form of su, = super user). But do we need really a new OS just to get such a simple feature? In many ways, your posting gets right to the heart of my arguement. I would like to see some of these useful gadgets added to XP, and in 50MB of RAM rather than 500. But that, I'm sure, does not fit in with Microsoft's 'corporate vision'. Ugh. ... Oh yes; I just remembered. You *can* run a program on XP as administrator without logging out of your limited user account. It's just not very prominent on the user interface. You can also use 'fast user switching' of course .. if you have enough RAM!
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
If Microsoft made any OS perfect, they wouldn't be able to sell its successor. XP is already very good, so they have a hard time selling Vista.
Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft) wrote:
Oh yes; I just remembered. You *can* run a program on XP as administrator without logging out of your limited user account. It's just not very prominent on the user interface. You can also use 'fast user switching' of course .. if you have enough RAM!
Yes, it's possible. But if you do something like editing some setting in the control panel, or deleting files in a folder where you don't have write access to (e.g. a folder where some script automatically puts backups into), in XP you get to a point where you remember "oh yes, I need admin rights", have to start another explorer instance using "Run As" (in a default XP installation, explorer uses only one instance, so "runas" on explorer still opens without admin rights unless you pass some command line argument to it), then open the directory/control panel applet again, and retry the action. That's significantly more work than just entering the admin password in Vista UAC.
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I read somewhere that due to their architecture, laptops can only make use of 115MB of their 4th GB. Meaning that the max available memory for any 32bit laptop is 3GB 115MB. I'm tracking this down, I'll edit this with the citation as soon as I find it. --Modified Here are the citations: Clickety 1[^] and the confirmation from MS: MS Confirmation[^]
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook "There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." Ali ibn Abi Talib "Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?"
Hardware limitation in the design of PCs: some (indeed most modern) I/O devices, particularly your graphics card, use memory-mapped I/Os, and therefore the memory address ranges mapped to those devices cannot be used to map memory. This problem will happen on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, whatever OS is run on the computer. In theory physical addresses were extended to 36 bits on the Pentium Pro processor in Physical Address Extension mode. To be able to move devices above the 32-bit boundary or to remap the memory above this boundary, the device has to support 64-bit addressing and the driver also has to be able to cope. In developing XP SP2 - which turns on PAE mode if the No Execute bit is supported, because NX requires PAE mode (the NX bit is bit 63 of the Page Table Entry, there was no space to add it in the compatible 32-bit PTE) - Microsoft basically discovered that most 32-bit drivers didn't, so while it actually turns on PAE mode, it will not map anything above 4GB. I believe you could force XP SP2 to do full PAE by booting with the /PAE switch.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991 -
Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft) wrote:
I am running Vista on my laptop as an experiment,
That's your problem right there. Everyone who posts here how much they hate Vista inevitably seems to be running it as a "test" on some old hardware it was never designed for in the first place. Most of the supporters of it seem to have bought it with a brand new system that is powerful enough to run it. No offence but making a comparison that way is as looney as anything I've ever seen posted in this message board. We're supposed to be software professionals, people who actually *know* a thing or two. What you're doing is the equivalent of hitching a brand new motor home to a model T ford and bitching that the motorhome is crap.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
Regardless, Windows XP runs better than Vista on most hardware. By logic, if Vista runs well on new hardware, XP will run even better.
ROFLOLMFAO
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I'm having a hard time believing that anything useful can be done in 25MB these days. The smallest version of Windows I know of is something called WinPE (or BartPE, see google), which boots directly from CD (no hard disk needed) and takes up about 150MB of space on the CD. It excludes both Explorer and IE, but it is still a handy thing to have around if your main system refuses to boot. Incidentally, has anyone seen (as I have) Windows XP running on a cash till at a checkout? Now that's what I call overkill!
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
Hmmm... Not XP per se, but I've actually worked on a limited version of XPe (XP Embedded) Clickety[^] for a till. Back then I was trying to break into the embedded systems development. My have things changed.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook "There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." Ali ibn Abi Talib "Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?"
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Actually, the laptop in question is 6 months old, but that's not really the point. I saw some benchmarks recently that showed that MS Office runs twice as fast on XP as it does on Vista, That, to me, is not progress. And I know that RAM is cheap but many machines have a 2 GB limit (and all 32 bit machines have a 4GB limit) so requiring the best part of 1GB to even boot is just plain greedy. The benchmarks in question are here: http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/windows-xp-sp3-yields-performance-gains.html[^]
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
modified on Saturday, December 08, 2007 3:17:12 PM
I'm happy with Vista, I've been using it as my only os for almost a year now, doing all development on it etc. However I have a quad core with 3gb of ram and a raid 0 SATA array and I knew going into it I would probably want that. My point is that XP wouldn't be any faster, it can't be, nothing takes any time at all on this system. I think the problem is Microsoft set the bar too low for Vista certification, they should have set it higher as it's allowing a lot of unscrupulous hardware vendors to sell underpowered hardware for it. Those "benchmarks" are nothing of the sort, they don't give any facts and their graphs don't even say what the difference was, just some mysterious numbers up the vertical axis. One thing I've learned over the years with benchmarks is they are all but useless unless they are done in hyper controlled conditions and people are very quick to publish them under sloppy conditions if it meets their point of view they are pushing. They may be correct but they are highly suspect. I agree that needing 1gb to boot *is* greedy, but on the other hand my system uses one gb to boot and I have a sql server, web server, all manner of other stuff loading so I'm not certain it would be a huge amount lower with XP. In any case I have 3gb of ram and never run low so it's a moot point. To answer your bottom line yes Vista is wholly unnecessary and XP was sufficient but as a software developer it's encumbent on me to be up on the latest thing and we have a *lot* of customers now using Vista and even had some using the Beta over a year ago with our software so again it's a bit of a moot point whether you like it or not, you can't stick your head in the sand.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
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Regardless, Windows XP runs better than Vista on most hardware. By logic, if Vista runs well on new hardware, XP will run even better.
ROFLOLMFAO