Maybe Microsoft needs to...
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exactly. Microsoft has thousands of killer Vista-W7-only apps coming out soon. They're call ALL GAMES. DX10 is Vista+ only and I'm sure they COULD have made it available for XP, but they didn't, and since all game makers choose DX over OpenGL, pretty soon all gamers will have to upgrade. This will likely be as significant as the support issue for businesses. They got me anyway.
I think you're overstating the case. Unless you're one of the small minority with a top end GPU, you're not going to have the horse power to take advantage of any of the DX10 features, and legacy support will keep DX9 fallback modes available until XP's market share has withered into nothingness.
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
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Maybe what Microsoft needs to pump of sales of their new W7, is to knock out a couple killer apps that requrie it.. If people can continue on like they have always with XP, what would make someone plunk down the big bucks for an upgrade?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
DX 11 not running on XP and Games using or requiring the new features would get the gamers to upgrade. Once the gamers upgrade to Weven it's all down hill from there. Games have been one of the bigger causes of computer advancements. I can't wait until they become just like movies...some are close, but not quite there yet. As a developer I usually develop on the edge, currently .net 3.5 (not sp1) and Vista. Then usually make sure it works on XP, I don't even bother with anything older than XP SP2. In a couple of years I won't even test on XP. A good portion of pc's that had XP, which are OEM licenses from new PC's replacing 98 and some important software requiring the NT kernel, will have been replaced due to old and dying hardware, which would then have Weven. Not necessarily needing or wanting the new OS, but because it comes on the new PC. And since Vista was around for a short time, like ME, there won't be to much of a point in testing against it. And who knows, maybe Weven will have enough additional features or improvements over XP that people go, ooooh wow, im upgrading cause I want feature "x". But thats just my thoughts.
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I think you're overstating the case. Unless you're one of the small minority with a top end GPU, you're not going to have the horse power to take advantage of any of the DX10 features, and legacy support will keep DX9 fallback modes available until XP's market share has withered into nothingness.
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
i hope DX9 support stays around, but I would question the 'small minority' bit. I just bought a modest graphics card last week and almost every card on the shelf is now a DX10 card. and most everyone I know has a more powerful card than I do. The computer gaming industry is a pretty huge business nowadays.
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i hope DX9 support stays around, but I would question the 'small minority' bit. I just bought a modest graphics card last week and almost every card on the shelf is now a DX10 card. and most everyone I know has a more powerful card than I do. The computer gaming industry is a pretty huge business nowadays.
Supports and can make use of are two different things. While games are *finally* starting to make actual use of DX10 in some areas, it's almost exclusively at near max gfx levels. Low to midrange GPUs can't run the graphics settings high enough to take advantage of them.
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
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Maybe what Microsoft needs to pump of sales of their new W7, is to knock out a couple killer apps that requrie it.. If people can continue on like they have always with XP, what would make someone plunk down the big bucks for an upgrade?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
Well they could have made IE7, VS 2008, Office 2007 Vista-only. In fact, IE 7 was originally intended to be Vista-only. But they must have calculated that the latter two at least would have been financially disastrous. Office 2007 did reasonably well. But customers wouldn't have bothered with it if they'd had to upgrade to Vista. MS must have calculated that customers would spend more to buy applications for XP than they would to upgrade to Vista and buy apps. for Vista only.
Kevin
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Well they could have made IE7, VS 2008, Office 2007 Vista-only. In fact, IE 7 was originally intended to be Vista-only. But they must have calculated that the latter two at least would have been financially disastrous. Office 2007 did reasonably well. But customers wouldn't have bothered with it if they'd had to upgrade to Vista. MS must have calculated that customers would spend more to buy applications for XP than they would to upgrade to Vista and buy apps. for Vista only.
Kevin
Yeah, I think the burden of hardware upgrades were part of those calculations. Lot of companies did not have the hardware to run Vista, but by this fall, most computers sold will more than likely have the resourses to run Vista (um.. W7) and many of the coporate machines are looking like they need to be updated or are coming off leases. But you know, with Office 2007, I still wonder "Why". Their redesign, while not bad once you get use to it, seems like a risky venture. There are a lot of people who became totally lost on the new UI, and even I, who have used Office for a long time, spent a good amount of time trying to figure out where they put things. Hope they never do that with Windows ;)
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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Not the same kind of draw though. I remember the draw to Windows 95, it was huge, people were in lines waiting for it. There has never been a version of Windows that pulled that kind of draw again.
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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Yeah, I think the burden of hardware upgrades were part of those calculations. Lot of companies did not have the hardware to run Vista, but by this fall, most computers sold will more than likely have the resourses to run Vista (um.. W7) and many of the coporate machines are looking like they need to be updated or are coming off leases. But you know, with Office 2007, I still wonder "Why". Their redesign, while not bad once you get use to it, seems like a risky venture. There are a lot of people who became totally lost on the new UI, and even I, who have used Office for a long time, spent a good amount of time trying to figure out where they put things. Hope they never do that with Windows ;)
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
Rocky Moore wrote:
Their redesign, while not bad once you get use to it, seems like a risky venture.
Doesn't seem to have done them any harm though. But I agree. I think MS tend to reinvent for reinvention's sake. Sometimes this is an improvement but more often than not they just introduce usability regressions. There are some usability regressions in VS as you go from VS 2003->5+ for example. Although overall VS 2005+ was better than 2003.
Kevin
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win98SE was stable and was a great product. Far better than the first edition of XP as well. XPsp2 was good. Have you actually USED vista? I mean really used it, not just installed it, didn't like it and went back to XP? Or even worse, not just read about it and hopped on the Vista Suxorz!!11!One bandwagon? I've personally used Vista since launch (and even before launch with Betas) on all flavors of machines (laptops, high end desktops, below vista spec desktops, public workstations, media center machines, development machines, etc) and I've NEVER had problems that can be associated with the OS. It is far superior than XP in my personal experience. In fact, the one XP machine I still have is the least stable machine I own over the last 2 years. My personal experience with other people who actually HAVE used it is that they go in and tinker with it like you did with XP and break stuff. Or they just don't like that the OS takes up more resources (memory they wouldn't be using even when runnign the highest end applications/games). Thats like buying a new car, opening up the hood and taking out a few parts and wondering why it doesn't run as good as it should.
I agree, Yes, what about using Vista and then talk. What about using it every day for a couple of months so you will really be entitled to say if it sucks or not. I'm not an early adopter because I have to concede the very first Vista release was a sloppy job. Use a SP1 Vista. There's really absolutly nothing you can complain about (especially in comparison with XP). My only issue is that IMHO there's not a big enough jump in features to justify entirely the new buy. Not entirely I said. Can someone make a list (with arguments) of what is wrong with Vista? Look, I get it: XP trully deserves a star on the sidewalk but it's getting old. An OS is not like a car which if it works you will keep for 15 years (who keeps it - I do) because otherwise you lost a lot of money. An OS costs between aproximatelly 150 - 350 or it comes with your newly bought computer so it's not that bad and I believe you can afford to change it every 3-4 years. But it's true, nobody can force you. You like your current OS and you don't want to buy a new one, fine. But don't talk shit about an OS you didn't actually use. Cheers =========================================================== I killed your mother for two pessos and I killed your father for only one, but because you are my friend I will kill you for nothing.
mircea
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Maybe what Microsoft needs to pump of sales of their new W7, is to knock out a couple killer apps that requrie it.. If people can continue on like they have always with XP, what would make someone plunk down the big bucks for an upgrade?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
Maybe its not the killer app, but killer accessibility that would end up as required by the government. If W7 was the only avenue to some super-accessible UI that the government required it would be enough to tip the scales, don't you think?
JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"