Vista. Again
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Just installed the Windows 7 beta on my desktop over the weekend. An... interesting experience. At least half of that weekend was spent getting the two laptops to where they could print to the attached HP printer (problem: i did the 64 bit install, while both laptops are running 32bit OSes. Bigger problem: HP doesn't bother to sent out proper inf files for their drivers, making it prohibitively difficult to serve the 32bit drivers from the 64bit OS. Solution: LPR daemon... Un*x FTW!) That said, it's already treating me better than Vista ever has. All my hardware works, settings are reasonably easy to find, nag-boxes are easily disabled, and UAC pops up once per major change to the system. It's not perfect - there are still dark corners of the filesystem that it won't let me view, something that infuriates me every time i encounter it - but compared to the irritations involved in simply installing a printer on the Vista laptop, i've gotta concede - it's gotten better.
I installed it under VMWare Fusion on my MacBook Pro, mainly as a host for Visual Studio and MSDN. Aside from not getting Aero graphics, I have to say I'm liking it, much more than Vista, almost to (and possibly beyond) XP levels of satisfaction. But running it in 'Unity mode' (there's no Windows shell, Windows apps appear as Windows windows in the OS X shell) is just weird. Cool - but very definitely weird.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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I installed it under VMWare Fusion on my MacBook Pro, mainly as a host for Visual Studio and MSDN. Aside from not getting Aero graphics, I have to say I'm liking it, much more than Vista, almost to (and possibly beyond) XP levels of satisfaction. But running it in 'Unity mode' (there's no Windows shell, Windows apps appear as Windows windows in the OS X shell) is just weird. Cool - but very definitely weird.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
Stuart Dootson wrote:
Windows apps appear as Windows windows in the OS X shell)
How do you right-click using a MacBook? Don't the MacBooks only have one mouse button?
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So I'm back to Vista after my dev machine chucked a HDD. I have SP1 and was thinking "yes, but Vista is better now. I'll love it. UAC won't be as annoying. The fact that all the settings are now wrapped in an extra layer of obfuscation won't be so bad. Even Aero won't seem as pointless and distracting this time." Wrong. I reckon I've had about 2 dozen UAC prompts today and I keep thinking "yes, but it learns and will stop prompting me". No. It just keeps prompting me for everything. Everything is just that little bit harder that I feel like I'm wading through treacle to get stuff done. Nothing flows. Everything's stop/start. I simply cannot zone out and I find I'm so distracted by what should be an invisible OS that I'm just losing interest in what I'm trying to achieve. Unless Windows 7 is dramatically different I reckon there will be a lot of disappointed punters this time next year.
Chris Maunder wrote:
I reckon I've had about 2 dozen UAC prompts today and I keep thinking "yes, but it learns and will stop prompting me". No. It just keeps prompting me for everything.
Why not turn UAC off just while setting up the machine. You don't get many prompts at all during normal development, writing, etc. work.
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Just installed the Windows 7 beta on my desktop over the weekend. An... interesting experience. At least half of that weekend was spent getting the two laptops to where they could print to the attached HP printer (problem: i did the 64 bit install, while both laptops are running 32bit OSes. Bigger problem: HP doesn't bother to sent out proper inf files for their drivers, making it prohibitively difficult to serve the 32bit drivers from the 64bit OS. Solution: LPR daemon... Un*x FTW!) That said, it's already treating me better than Vista ever has. All my hardware works, settings are reasonably easy to find, nag-boxes are easily disabled, and UAC pops up once per major change to the system. It's not perfect - there are still dark corners of the filesystem that it won't let me view, something that infuriates me every time i encounter it - but compared to the irritations involved in simply installing a printer on the Vista laptop, i've gotta concede - it's gotten better.
Shog9 wrote:
the irritations involved in simply installing a printer on the Vista laptop
Took me less than a minute each to install an HP printer on both my Vista laptops.
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So I'm guessing you don't want to hear about the 4th of July gig I played in Alabama a few years back where the mayor of the town did a skit in a black leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings. These small town folks really have far too much time on their hands. And he thought I was weird because I played Hendrix's version of the Star Spangled Banner before fireworks...
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Chris Maunder wrote:
I'm ready to go Postal.
After that you might want to try Making Money...
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Stuart Dootson wrote:
Windows apps appear as Windows windows in the OS X shell)
How do you right-click using a MacBook? Don't the MacBooks only have one mouse button?
Graham Bradshaw wrote:
How do you right-click using a MacBook?
With either of the 'secondary click' mechanisms OS X exposes - that's either 'double tap' (tap on the trackpad with two fingers) or Ctrl-button click/trackpad tap. Of course, if I plugged a multi-button mouse in, the secondary button on the mouse would be a right mouse-button in Windows. The other nice thing about VMWare is the level of control of keyboard shortcuts they give you. Normally on OS X, the Command (Cmd) key is the primary modifier key, so copy is Cmd-C, Paste is Cmd-V (like Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V in Windows), the 'Close Window' shortcut is Cmd-W (kind of like Alt-F4 in Windows). By default, VMWare Fusion maps the Cmd key to the Windows key, but translates Cmd-C to Ctrl-C, Cmd-V to Ctrl-C, Cmd-W to Alt-F4, so you have a very usable amalgam of Windows and OS X keyboard shortcuts. And these are all customisable so, for example, I've mapped Cmd-Up onto Ctrl-Home and Cmd-Down onto Ctrl-End, Cmd-O onto Ctrl-O (File Open) and Cmd-S onto Ctrl-S (File Save). To be honest, the only application I've had interface issues with on OS X is Blender - that makes extensive use of the middle mouse button (don't have one of those!) and the numeric keypad (nope, don't have one of those either!) - and that was the native, OS X install of Blender.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
windows renders the GUI which is painfully annoying.
What about if you run in Classic mode?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
But then what would be the point of having Ultimate? :)
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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Pratchett is the best isn't he? :)
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Chris Maunder wrote:
I reckon I've had about 2 dozen UAC prompts today and I keep thinking "yes, but it learns and will stop prompting me". No. It just keeps prompting me for everything.
Why not turn UAC off just while setting up the machine. You don't get many prompts at all during normal development, writing, etc. work.
The problem is that some programs then fail silently.
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Shog9 wrote:
the irritations involved in simply installing a printer on the Vista laptop
Took me less than a minute each to install an HP printer on both my Vista laptops.