Microsoft Vista

[sarongsong]

Can it actually be here? http://www.bautforum.com/images/icons/icon7.gifNovember 2, 2006
...Windows Vista will be made available to businesses...30 November...Home users will have to wait until January 2007... BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6110958.stm)

[mike alexander]

What's really wierd is that, in the link above,the inset picture of the Windows logo has a passing resemblance to a swastika.

[Larry Jacks]

I'm not in any big hurry to upgrade to Vista. While the increased security sounds good, a lot of the other features sound like little more than processor-sucking eye candy. I'll have to upgrade my existing system (RAM and graphics card) to run Vista and frankly, I don't see much point. I didn't buy my computer to run an OS, I bought it to do the things I need.

Ever heard of a heat sink? Windows is a CPU sink. No matter how much RAM, hard drive, and processor resources you throw at it, the next version will slow the system so that it resembles an 8 MHz 80286 running DOS.

[Trebuchet]

I'm sure the virus/trojan/spyware writers are already hard at work.

[Nicolas]

I for one will wait with upgrading as I like the current performance of my system. Apart from an Office toolbar that just won't start up OK.

Notice how Microsoft Flight Simulator X requires far more system specs (especially RAM) when running Vista compared to XP.

[Larry Jacks]

I know of some businesses that won't upgrade to a new OS until service pack 1 is released. SP1 usually corrects many flaws that got past beta testing.

Personally, I think the computer hardware manufacturers should line up in a public square and take turns kissing Bill Gate's a**. Every new version of Windows requires massive increases in CPU, graphics, and hard drive capability. It seems no one's existing hardware is suitable for running the new OS version, so people feel the need to upgrade. In the end, you have the visible performance that's not much better than an 8 MHz 286.

[Celestial Mechanic]

I feel your pain. (See my sig below.) There are alternatives such as various distributions of Linux, the various BSD's, or even the Macintosh. If you are more adventurous and don't have to have the latest 3-D shoot'em-up, you could also try OS/2 (now marketed as eComStation (eCS)). I run OS/2 and eCS on my machines. Another adventurous choice is BeOS (if you can find release 5 anywhere), or one of the projects attempting to resurrect BeOS, such as Zeta and Haiku.

The only Micro$loth product I "buy" is the OS2Win component of OS/2 / eCS, and that's indirectly since it is a specially modified version licensed by IBM that runs under OS/2. (I still run some Windows 3.1 programs.)

Edited to add: The best way to avoid buying a new computer with Micro$lop on it is to buy from a local dealer that assembles PCs to order, rather than one of the chain electronics stores. The money that you save on Windoze and the other shovelware that gets pre-installed can be put to better use on more RAM, which is always useful no matter what operating system you finally choose.

BTW, CompUSA has a "service" where they will charge about $30 for removing the shovelware they installed that you don't want. What a country!

Edited one more time to add: "Just say 'Hasta la Vista' to Microsoft!" (Mmmm, maybe I should add that to my sig :think: )

[GDwarf]

I'm holding off on Vista, there are some rather juicy things in it's EULA.

You are only allowed two installations per purchase. That doesn't mean two at once, that means two total.

It limits how security companies can test their products on it, which means that their security will be worse, which means that you have to rely on Microsoft to keep it secure.

It has other stuff about what bad things people are allowed to say about it, etc.

Aside from that, the system requirements are obscene, you'll be hard pressed to find even modern games that have minimum specs as high as Vista's.

All in all it seems like a horrible idea for an upgrade, and I'll be staying away from it.

[sarongsong]

Just for the record:...Minimum requirements for basic Vista include an 800 MHz or faster CPU and 512 Mbytes of RAM. Your graphics subsystem only needs to support Direct X9...“If you bought a high-end gaming or multimedia centric desktop or notebook between 2003 and today, chances are you should be ready for Windows Vista Premium,” he [PC Magazine’s lead analyst] said..."but I would suggest setting your sights higher than the minimum configuration by about 20 percent...Tack on 30 percent if you are going to run the Media Center component of Vista Ultimate.”... PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1964528,00.asp)Still limping along with 350 MHz and Win98...
"Dear Santa..."

[Van Rijn]

I'm holding off on Vista, there are some rather juicy things in it's EULA.

You are only allowed two installations per purchase. That doesn't mean two at once, that means two total.


Heh. That's funny. I had only read that recently and was sure they would be forced to change it. And guess what, from:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9004722&intsrc=hm_list

Microsoft has changed the retail license terms for Vista so that customers now may uninstall the OS from one machine and install it on another as many times as they want, the company said Thursday. The new terms do away with limitations on how many new devices to which the license can be transferred.

However, to continue to discourage piracy, Microsoft has worded the license so that it is clear that users cannot "share this license between devices."

There's no way that could have survived. I've had several times where upgrades caused Windows XP to decide I had a new machine, and require reauthorization. Then there were the times I needed to reinstall for other reasons.

[Vermonter]

I won't be switching to Vista anytime soon. I did install the beta when it came out, and wasn't too thrilled with it. I'll still with XP for now, until Apple decides to release OSX onto the generic PC platform. I'm running Core 2 Duo, so...

[danscope]

I know of some businesses that won't upgrade to a new OS until service pack 1 is released. SP1 usually corrects many flaws that got past beta testing.

Personally, I think the computer hardware manufacturers should line up in a public square and take turns kissing Bill Gate's a**. Every new version of Windows requires massive increases in CPU, graphics, and hard drive capability. It seems no one's existing hardware is suitable for running the new OS version, so people feel the need to upgrade. In the end, you have the visible performance that's not much better than an 8 MHz 286.

Well said!!! Once you have a working cup of coffee, why invest in a bigger
cup, bigger foot print etc etc. Frankly, at this point, I'd settle for my old commodore 64 if it ran at 800mz. There was never any threat of a virus with that. All it needed was a simple hard drive and a bigger monitor.
Upgrade to vista? fraid not. They beat you up with hardware demands,
upgrades and memory requirements. Phooey....an archaic word for *^%$&^%!!!!...em .:)

[Nicolas]

I've configured XP to 98 style, unless I wanted a new option. Of course it's still heavier than 98, but also far more stable. Though 98SE was one rather fine OS (98 original was rubbish imo). With these settings, XP doesn't eat away too much of my resources. I haven't got system restore on as I heard it would eat a lot. Is that true?

Now if only I couldsolve my office toolbar issue, things would be really fine on that PC. Except for xp making a pile of random dirt of your hard drive. All users = administrator = Nicolas but still XP sees them as 3 users, with files randomly spread between them. Thanks, XP... I managed to get rid of the login screen because I'm the only user, but that's about it for getting around that multi user architecture.

Also my PC takes minutes to boot, BUT that's not due to slow booting itself, jsut because the building network takes minutes to log on to. Other than that, the PC is quite a fast booter, though it has a bit too much software on it now, and of crouse all these antivir/spyware things cost some boot time. So does loading over 300MB of MIDI soundfontbanks into my RAM :).

[LayMan]

Still limping along with 350 MHz and Win98...
"Dear Santa..."

Got that beat: 333 MHz, Win 98...

:D

And if you're really in for a good laugh: I've been working in IT for 7 years now...

Forget about "Dear Santa...", this year I'll be waiting for him at the chimney with this basket of eggs I got from the Easter Bunny...

[Nicolas]

You can overclock that to over 350 if you've got a nice mobo :)

I've had a 266 running at 333 IIRC. Of course you need to have the luck of having a processor coming from a mighty fine batch if you want to pul that off stable.

[Serenitude]

You can overclock that to over 350 if you've got a nice mobo :)

I've had a 266 running at 333 IIRC. Of course you need to have the luck of having a processor coming from a mighty fine batch if you want to pul that off stable.

Unless it's a celeron. Then you can feel free to OC it to 5 ghz :lol: They were over-clocking beasts.

I'm feeling no need to upgrade to Vista, simply because most of what makes Vista different will be offered to XP users as downloads, including Aero, etc... Plus the fact that, as mentioned above, I've learned to never buy a MS OS until the first Service Pack.

[LayMan]

You can overclock that to over 350 if you've got a nice mobo :)

I've had a 266 running at 333 IIRC. Of course you need to have the luck of having a processor coming from a mighty fine batch if you want to pul that off stable.

Thanks for the tip, but there's enough time dilations on this forum already... ;)

Besides, then I wouldn't be able to beat it at chess...

[Serenitude]

This reminds me of the Steven Wright bit:

"This morning, I put instant cofee into a microwave oven, and almost went back in time..." :lol:

[Nicolas]

Unless it's a celeron. Then you can feel free to OC it to 5 ghz :lol: They were over-clocking beasts.

I'm feeling no need to upgrade to Vista, simply because most of what makes Vista different will be offered to XP users as downloads, including Aero, etc... Plus the fact that, as mentioned above, I've learned to never buy a MS OS until the first Service Pack.

I doubt you can set a mobo setting combi allowing a 333 to go much faster than 450 :). The 233 I had (now I remember the speed :)) could by mobo settings be clocked to something like 333, but anything above 300 made the processor being recognized as a 233 again. It was slightly more instable when overclocked to 300, but also quite a bit faster :).

Were Celerons that good at overclocking? That amazes me, they were the low-end processors. Maybe it was becasue they normally ran far too relaxed compared to what they were capable of?

[Serenitude]

Well, I was exagerating alot for humor, but yeah, the first couple of generations of Celerys were uber-overclockable. I'd have to do some research to get you credible numbers (I will if you want ;-), but I seem to recall some hardcore OCers were able to get nearly 2x the rated speed out of them. IIRC, the first example I ever heard of a proc breaking that "magic 1ghz" barrier that was the holy grail for so many years was an extremely overclocked Celeron. I had a Celeron 600 back in the day, and it was a darn fine proc, but it was a factory Intel board so it was clock-locked, so I could never try OCing them myself. I can probably turn up some old links if you want to reminisce, though.

[Vermonter]

I never liked the Celerons...they were always dumbed-down Pentiums. Intel turns off pipelines and shuts off some features. Same with the AMD Sempron line of procs. I've always gone with the real deal when getting a processor, but perhaps that's just me.

[space cadet]

I'm holding off on Vista, there are some rather juicy things in it's EULA.

You are only allowed two installations per purchase. That doesn't mean two at once, that means two total.

It limits how security companies can test their products on it, which means that their security will be worse, which means that you have to rely on Microsoft to keep it secure.

It has other stuff about what bad things people are allowed to say about it, etc.

Aside from that, the system requirements are obscene, you'll be hard pressed to find even modern games that have minimum specs as high as Vista's.

All in all it seems like a horrible idea for an upgrade, and I'll be staying away from it.

ONLY TWO!!!

That is sick and wrong. What about people like me who make it a habit to do a fresh re-install once every year? Even if it's not entirely necessary, I like doing it. It's always a good feeling to log onto a nice, freshly installed OS knowing that for at least two or three minutes it is completely pristine and unaffected by malware.

[Kristophe]

ONLY TWO!!!

That is sick and wrong. What about people like me who make it a habit to do a fresh re-install once every year? Even if it's not entirely necessary, I like doing it. It's always a good feeling to log onto a nice, freshly installed OS knowing that for at least two or three minutes it is completely pristine and unaffected by malware.

I usually keep my network connections shut off for a few hours, just to enjoy running my first software install of the new year on a completely virgin system.

I'm going to be holding off on Vista, too. XP is running better for me than ever at the moment, and my laptop really can't handle the extra system specs (despite it being "Vista Ready"). Vista has some neat trinkets I'd like to have, but it's not worth the money right now, and especially not worth being an early buyer. If I wanted to beta test MS's products, I'd sign up for the privilege, not pay for it.

[Van Rijn]

ONLY TWO!!!

That is sick and wrong. What about people like me who make it a habit to do a fresh re-install once every year? Even if it's not entirely necessary, I like doing it. It's always a good feeling to log onto a nice, freshly installed OS knowing that for at least two or three minutes it is completely pristine and unaffected by malware.

This is obviously tongue in cheek, but in case you missed my post:

http://www.bautforum.com/showpost.php?p=858823&postcount=10

they changed the proposed licensing rules.

[collegeguy]

This is obviously tongue in cheek, but in case you missed my post:

http://www.bautforum.com/showpost.php?p=858823&postcount=10

they changed the proposed licensing rules.

I'm afraid they didn't:

Defending licensing

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_licensing.asp

Opposing licensing

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_licensing_reply.asp

[zebo-the-fat]

Bill "Moneybags" Gates can stick Vista where the sun don't shine, next time I have to rebuild my system it will have Linux on it!:razz:

[publius]

Bill "Moneybags" Gates can stick Vista where the sun don't shine, next time I have to rebuild my system it will have Linux on it!:razz:

If I had a dime for every time someone said that, I'd be a rich man, and if I had a dime for the people who actually followed through, I might have 10 cents.

MS pulls this crap because it can get away with it. It owns the PC OS market and is now using that near monopoly to do the nasty stuff monopolies do. "Product Activation", curse its name, was the start, and I knew that was just the start. They would not have been able to do that if there was any viable OS competition. Most people are just relative sheep, they just roll over and let MS do whatever it wants.

People like me and I presume maybe you and others in the thread who "roll our own" systems and are constantly swapping hardware are a tiny, tiny segment of the market. We don't count, and MS could actually care less what we do. Heck the majority of the market doesn't even understand the distinction between the OS and the hardware it's running on -- it's all one thing and they probably don't even understand why we are fussing about this.

As long as most of the market remains sheep who keep buying no matter what, it will get worse and worse. I would love for the sheep to get some backbone and make Vista a flop, but it's not going to happen.

-Richard

[publius]

If you are more adventurous and don't have to have the latest 3-D shoot'em-up, you could also try OS/2 (now marketed as eComStation (eCS)). I run OS/2 and eCS on my machines. Another adventurous choice is BeOS (if you can find release 5 anywhere), or one of the projects attempting to resurrect BeOS, such as Zeta and Haiku.

The only Micro$loth product I "buy" is the OS2Win component of OS/2 / eCS, and that's indirectly since it is a specially modified version licensed by IBM that runs under OS/2. (I still run some Windows 3.1 programs.)



So you actually like eCS? I've read some of the most virtriolic attacks I've ever seen from the OS/2 enthusiasts against eCS and the company that licensed it from IBM. They absolutely hated it.

-Richard

[Jeff Root]

they probably don't even understand why we are fussing about this.
My impression is that most people think it is because the prices
are too high.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[sarongsong]

If I had a dime for every time someone said that [going Linux], I'd be a rich man, and if I had a dime for the people who actually followed through, I might have 10 cents...Not if the Chinese are counted http://bautforum.com/images/icons/icon7.gif :September 6, 2005
...In the past few months, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) decided to roll out Linux in all of its 20,000 retail branches...It's the largest Linux deployment to date in the Chinese financial industry...The Chinese government plays an important role in driving the development and application of Linux... Information Week (http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170700943)

[ASEI]

I've configured XP to 98 style, unless I wanted a new option. Of course it's still heavier than 98, but also far more stable. This was my experience with XP as well. It was the most stable thing around since Win3.11 as far as I know. XP Pro with McAfee's anti-virus and I've had no security problems whatsoever. And that's on a school network with all sorts of interesting things floating around.

What is going to suck, coming down the pike is the transfer to these 64-bit operating systems? Why do we need a 64-bit operating system? So that the floating point operations occur to an extra few decimals of accuracy? In any case, almose every 32 bit driver or piece of software will have serious problems. My brother was experimenting with some 64-bit version of WinXP, and none of his software would work.

About Linux... You know, I would honestly like to experiment with a linux computer. What prevents me from just out and using it is that you need to find common software that will run on it. Maybe when after I graduate and get enough money to play with more than one computer, I'll dabble in it.

[publius]

This was my experience with XP as well. It was the most stable thing around since Win3.11 as far as I know. XP Pro with McAfee's anti-virus and I've had no security problems whatsoever. And that's on a school network with all sorts of interesting things floating around.

What is going to suck, coming down the pike is the transfer to these 64-bit operating systems? Why do we need a 64-bit operating system? So that the floating point operations occur to an extra few decimals of accuracy? In any case, almose every 32 bit driver or piece of software will have serious problems. My brother was experimenting with some 64-bit version of WinXP, and none of his software would work.

About Linux... You know, I would honestly like to experiment with a linux computer. What prevents me from just out and using it is that you need to find common software that will run on it. Maybe when after I graduate and get enough money to play with more than one computer, I'll dabble in it.

XP comes from the NT kernel line, not the 9x, which died with WinME. I've been an NT man since NT 4.0 Workstation. Win2K was actually NT 5.0 -- I got in on the "Corporate preview program" (CPP)for it, and played with the last beta and the release candidate versions before the final release. Marketing changed the name to Win 2000 during that CPP period, as the intent was for the NT kernel to take over the Windows line. Win 2000 was not quite ready to take over the "consumer" market, as NT's security and protection models weren't compatiable with the wide open Win9x. Many of us were afraid MS was going to ruin NT to make it be able to run all the consumer crap out there. But for the most part they didn't, although they did make it less secure by default, and everyone had to run with full adminstrator privileges to be able to do anything. With the "run as {user}" ability, you could run any process with reduced privileges, but there were problems, such as a plain user process account to run, say, IE couldn't access the necessary user files (which were own by an admininstrator account and so the reduced user tokens couldn't access them. *sigh*) I hear they tried to fix with that with Vista, and make a "reduce privilege" that can actually work without having to go through hoops. I played with running IE with reduced priveleges but it was a PITA.

Anyway, XP is technically NT 5.1. If you type "ver" at a (cmd.exe) command prompt, you'll see that, the version number at least. Vista is supposed to be NT 6.0, I think, but I'm not too enthused about trying it [and anyone with binary newsgroup access who knows where to look could download every beta and release candidate they put out in both 32 bit and
x64 versions.

64-bit: I'm a big 64-bit booster. I've got a 64-bit AMD x64 machine, which I built to play with the x64 XP betas, and I'm now running the release version, along with 32-bit installs on it.

Actually, the floating point registers offer no more bits than the 32-bit chips [for the x64 architecture -- Intel calls their version EM64T, which they had to come out with when they realized it was AMD's x64 chip that was going to take the 64-bit market, not their "Itanic" -- but apparently Itanium has some traction in the server market. MS still makes active IA-64 versions in the server OS line]. It's the same basic x86 floating point with MMX and the XMM, although they did extend the XMM register "pack" in some ways, but did not increase the bit precision.

Now, 64-bit integer registers are available, but the way AMD did it, was to make the default operand size still 32-bit even in 64-bit mode. The idea of 64-bits is to increase virtual *address* size. And while addresses are 64-bits wides, only 48 are actually usable at the virtual level. The top 16 bits must be set to all zeros or all ones. And at the actual physical address level, only 40 bits are available (and only 36 for EM64T).

The way the Win32 model worked, the system mapped the top 2GB of the virtual address space for itself, and gave "only" the lower 2GB to user processes. So most Win32 programs were limited to a piddling 2GB of usuable virtual memory. They added some 3GB extensions that gave an extra GB, but that required programs to know how to use it.

Anway, x64 gives programs tons more virtual address space, and that, not increased precision, floating point or integer, is the main reason behind
64-bits.

Drivers have to be 64-bit and that's been a problem for some older hardware, but there are drivers for all my stuff. The system has a rather elaborate 32-bit "WOW" subsystem to run 32-bit processes, and they mine run fine. The only hitch is programs with shell extensions and other plug-ins. The 64-bit version of explorer is the main shell, and it will not run those. But there is a 32-bit version of Explorer on the system, and one of the tricks is to run that one, where all the extensions will work.

In the "32-bit compatibility" submode of 64-bit mode, both 32-bit and 16-bit protected mode code can run. However, V86 mode is gone. And that means DOS boxes and the Win16 subsystem are gone. It doesn't mean the command prompt is gone, mind you, cmd.exe is there as always, and in both 32 and 64-bit versions.

-Richard

[publius]

If anyone is interested, I thought I'd write a simple little C program, compile it for all three architectures, and post the asm output to illustrate the differences. Here is the C program:


// Test compile to compare x86 and x64 output
#include <stdio.h>

char *arch =
#ifdef _M_X64

"AMD 64-bit";
#elif defined(_M_IA64)

"Itanic 64-bit";
#else
"32-bit";
#endif

static double x = 2.0, y = 3.0, z;


int _cdecl main(int argc, char **argv)
{

int a = 2, b = 3, c;
c = a * b;
z = x * y;

printf( "Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f \n", arch, c, z );

return(0);


}


This just deterimines which architecture it is being compiled for and defines an appropriate string, then does a quick and dirty integer and floating point multiplication, then spits it out to standard output.

Now, here follows the regular Win32 32-bit version of this program:

; Listing generated by Microsoft (R) Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.42

TITLE s:\Projects\NET2K5v8\Test3264\test3264.c
.686P
.XMM
include listing.inc
.model flat

INCLUDELIB MSVCRTD
INCLUDELIB OLDNAMES

PUBLIC ??_C@_06BGIBKBII@32?9bit?$AA@ ; `string'
PUBLIC _arch
_DATA SEGMENT
_arch DD FLAT:??_C@_06BGIBKBII@32?9bit?$AA@
ORG $+4
_x DQ 04000000000000000r ; 2
_y DQ 04008000000000000r ; 3
_DATA ENDS
; COMDAT ??_C@_06BGIBKBII@32?9bit?$AA@
CONST SEGMENT
??_C@_06BGIBKBII@32?9bit?$AA@ DB '32-bit', 00H ; `string'
CONST ENDS
PUBLIC ??_C@_0CA@OLNJKCJK@Hello?0?5?$CFs?5World?4?5c?0?5z ?5?$DN?5?$CFi?5?$CFf?5?6?$AA@ ; `string'
PUBLIC _main
EXTRN __imp__printf:PROC
EXTRN __fltused:DWORD
EXTRN __RTC_CheckEsp:PROC
EXTRN __RTC_Shutdown:PROC
EXTRN __RTC_InitBase:PROC
_BSS SEGMENT
_z DQ 01H DUP (?)
_BSS ENDS
; COMDAT ??_C@_0CA@OLNJKCJK@Hello?0?5?$CFs?5World?4?5c?0?5z ?5?$DN?5?$CFi?5?$CFf?5?6?$AA@
; File s:\projects\net2k5v8\test3264\test3264.c
CONST SEGMENT
??_C@_0CA@OLNJKCJK@Hello?0?5?$CFs?5World?4?5c?0?5z ?5?$DN?5?$CFi?5?$CFf?5?6?$AA@ DB 'H'
DB 'ello, %s World. c, z = %i %f ', 0aH, 00H ; `string'
CONST ENDS
; COMDAT rtc$TMZ
rtc$TMZ SEGMENT
__RTC_Shutdown.rtc$TMZ DD FLAT:__RTC_Shutdown
rtc$TMZ ENDS
; COMDAT rtc$IMZ
rtc$IMZ SEGMENT
__RTC_InitBase.rtc$IMZ DD FLAT:__RTC_InitBase
; Function compile flags: /Odtp /RTCsu /ZI
rtc$IMZ ENDS
; COMDAT _main
_TEXT SEGMENT
_c$ = -32 ; size = 4
_b$ = -20 ; size = 4
_a$ = -8 ; size = 4
_argc$ = 8 ; size = 4
_argv$ = 12 ; size = 4
_main PROC ; COMDAT

; 19 : {

push ebp
mov ebp, esp
sub esp, 228 ; 000000e4H
push ebx
push esi
push edi
lea edi, DWORD PTR [ebp-228]
mov ecx, 57 ; 00000039H
mov eax, -858993460 ; ccccccccH
rep stosd

; 20 :
; 21 : int a = 2, b = 3, c;

mov DWORD PTR _a$[ebp], 2
mov DWORD PTR _b$[ebp], 3

; 22 : c = a * b;

mov eax, DWORD PTR _a$[ebp]
imul eax, DWORD PTR _b$[ebp]
mov DWORD PTR _c$[ebp], eax

; 23 : z = x * y;

fld QWORD PTR _x
fmul QWORD PTR _y
fstp QWORD PTR _z

; 24 :
; 25 : printf( "Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f \n", arch, c, z );

mov esi, esp
sub esp, 8
fld QWORD PTR _z
fstp QWORD PTR [esp]
mov eax, DWORD PTR _c$[ebp]
push eax
mov ecx, DWORD PTR _arch
push ecx
push OFFSET ??_C@_0CA@OLNJKCJK@Hello?0?5?$CFs?5World?4?5c?0?5z ?5?$DN?5?$CFi?5?$CFf?5?6?$AA@
call DWORD PTR __imp__printf
add esp, 20 ; 00000014H
cmp esi, esp
call __RTC_CheckEsp

; 26 :
; 27 : return(0);

xor eax, eax

; 28 :
; 29 :
; 30 : }

pop edi
pop esi
pop ebx
add esp, 228 ; 000000e4H
cmp ebp, esp
call __RTC_CheckEsp
mov esp, ebp
pop ebp
ret 0
_main ENDP
_TEXT ENDS
END

[publius]

Now, here is the AMD64 (x64) version of that program:


; Listing generated by Microsoft (R) Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.42

include listing.inc

INCLUDELIB MSVCRTD
INCLUDELIB OLDNAMES

PUBLIC arch
_DATA SEGMENT
$SG2140 DB 'AMD 64-bit', 00H
ORG $+5
arch DQ FLAT:$SG2140
x DQ 04000000000000000r ; 2
y DQ 04008000000000000r ; 3
$SG2153 DB 'Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f ', 0aH, 00H
_DATA ENDS
PUBLIC main
EXTRN __imp_printf:PROC
EXTRN _fltused:DWORD
EXTRN _RTC_Shutdown:PROC
EXTRN _RTC_InitBase:PROC
_BSS SEGMENT
z DQ 01H DUP (?)
_BSS ENDS
pdata SEGMENT
$pdata$main DD imagerel $LN3
DD imagerel $LN3+137
DD imagerel $unwind$main
pdata ENDS
xdata SEGMENT
$unwind$main DD 022601H
DD 0700a520eH
xdata ENDS
; COMDAT rtc$TMZ
; File s:\projects\net2k5v8\test3264\test3264.c
rtc$TMZ SEGMENT
_RTC_Shutdown.rtc$TMZ DQ FLAT:_RTC_Shutdown
rtc$TMZ ENDS
; COMDAT rtc$IMZ
rtc$IMZ SEGMENT
_RTC_InitBase.rtc$IMZ DQ FLAT:_RTC_InitBase
; Function compile flags: /Odtp /RTCsu
rtc$IMZ ENDS
_TEXT SEGMENT
a$ = 32
b$ = 36
c$ = 40
argc$ = 64
argv$ = 72
main PROC

; 19 : {

$LN3:
mov QWORD PTR [rsp+16], rdx
mov DWORD PTR [rsp+8], ecx
push rdi
sub rsp, 48 ; 00000030H
mov rdi, rsp
mov rcx, 12
mov eax, -858993460 ; ccccccccH
rep stosd
mov ecx, DWORD PTR [rsp+64]

; 20 :
; 21 : int a = 2, b = 3, c;

mov DWORD PTR a$[rsp], 2
mov DWORD PTR b$[rsp], 3

; 22 : c = a * b;

mov eax, DWORD PTR a$[rsp]
imul eax, DWORD PTR b$[rsp]
mov DWORD PTR c$[rsp], eax

; 23 : z = x * y;

movsdx xmm0, QWORD PTR x
mulsd xmm0, QWORD PTR y
movsdx QWORD PTR z, xmm0

; 24 :
; 25 : printf( "Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f \n", arch, c, z );

movsdx xmm3, QWORD PTR z
movd r9, xmm3
mov r8d, DWORD PTR c$[rsp]
mov rdx, QWORD PTR arch
lea rcx, OFFSET FLAT:$SG2153
call QWORD PTR __imp_printf

; 26 :
; 27 : return(0);

xor eax, eax

; 28 :
; 29 :
; 30 : }

add rsp, 48 ; 00000030H
pop rdi
ret 0
main ENDP
_TEXT ENDS
END


And finally the IA-64 (Itanium) version of this. Note this is radically different than the x86 architecture (and a heck of a lot more text):


// Listing generated by Microsoft (R) Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.42

.file "s:/Projects/NET2K5v8/Test3264/test3264.c"
.radix D
.section .text, "ax", "progbits"
.align 32
.section .pdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 4
.section .xdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 8
.section .text$zz, "ax", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .pdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 4
.section .text$zy, "ax", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .pdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 4
.section .data, "wa", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .rdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .bss, "wa", "nobits"
.align 16
.section .debug$S, "ax", "progbits"
.align 16
.section $$TYPES, "ax", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .tls$, "was", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .sdata, "was", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .sbss, "was", "nobits"
.align 16
.section .srdata, "as", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .rdata, "a", "progbits"
.align 16
.section .data, "wa", "progbits"
.align 16
.global arch#
.section .data
$SG1892: string "Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f \n\000"
.section .sdata
y: real8 3.000000000000000000e+000
x: real8 2.000000000000000000e+000
arch: data8 $SG1878#
.section .data
$SG1878: string "Itanic 64-bit\000"
.type main# ,@function
.global main#
.type _RTC_Shutdown# ,@function
.global _RTC_Shutdown#
.type _RTC_InitBase# ,@function
.global _RTC_InitBase#
.type __imp_printf# ,@function
.global __imp_printf#
.type _fltused# ,@object
.global _fltused#
.type _RTC_CheckStackVars# ,@function
.global _RTC_CheckStackVars#
.section .sbss
z: .skip 8
.section .pdata
$T1913: data4 @imagerel($LN4@main#)
data4 @imagerel($LN4@main#+464)
data4 @imagerel($T1911#)
.section .xdata
$T1911: data2 03H
data2 00H
data4 03H
string "\x17" //R1:prologue size 23
string "\xe6\x00" //P7:pfs_when time 0
string "\xb1\x23" //P3:pfs_gr 35
string "\xe0\x03\x04" //P7:mem_stack_f time 3 size 4
string "\xe4\x07" //P7:rp_when time 7
string "\xb0\xa2" //P3:rp_gr 34
string "\x61\x40" //R3:body size 64
string "\x81" //B1:label_state 1
string "\xc0\x05" //B2:ecount 0 time 5
string "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00" //padding
.section ??.rtc$TMZ = "aY", "comdat"
.secalias ??.rtc$TMZ, ".rtc$TMZ"
.align 16
// File s:\projects\net2k5v8\test3264\test3264.c

_RTC_Shutdown.rtc$TMZ:
data8 _RTC_Shutdown#
.section ??.rtc$IMZ = "aY", "comdat"
.secalias ??.rtc$IMZ, ".rtc$IMZ"
.align 16

_RTC_InitBase.rtc$IMZ:
data8 _RTC_InitBase#
// Function compile flags: /Odtp /RTCsu
.section .text

// Begin code for function: main:
.proc main#
.align 32
a$ = 20
b$ = 32
c$ = 44
argc$ = 64
argv$ = 72
main:
// argc$ = r32
// argv$ = r33
// Output regs: r37-r40
$LN4@main:

// 19 : {

{ .mli //R-Addr: 0X00
alloc r35=2, 3, 4, 0 //19 cc:0
movl r27=-3689348814741910324 //19 cc:0, ccccccccccccccccH
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X010
adds sp=-64, sp //19 cc:0, ffffffc0H
mov r36=gp //19 cc:0
mov r28=5;; //19 cc:0
}
{ .mii //R-Addr: 0X020
ld8.nta r2=[sp] //19 cc:1
mov r34=b0 //19 cc:1
adds r3=8, sp;; //19 cc:1
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X030
mov r2=sp //19 cc:2
nop.m 0
nop.b 0;;
}
$LN3@main:

// 19 : {

{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X040
st8 [r2]=r27, 16 //19 cc:0
st8 [r3]=r27, 16 //19 cc:0
cmp.ne.unc p14,p15=1, r28 //19 cc:0
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X050
adds r28=-1, r28 //19 cc:0
nop.m 0
(p14) br.cond.dptk.many $LN3@main#;; //19 cc:0
}

// 20 :
// 21 : int a = 2, b = 3, c;
// 22 : c = a * b;
// 23 : z = x * y;
// 24 :
// 25 : printf( "Hello, %s World. c, z = %i %f \n", arch, c, z );
// 26 :
// 27 : return(0);
// 28 :
// 29 :
// 30 : }

{ .mib //R-Addr: 0X060
adds r31=argc$, sp
adds r30=argv$, sp
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X070
st4 [r31]=r32
st8 [r30]=r33
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X080
mov r29=2 //21 cc:0
adds r28=a$, sp //21 cc:0
mov r27=3 //21 cc:0
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X090
adds r26=b$, sp;; //21 cc:0
st4 [r28]=r29 //21 cc:1
nop.i 0
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0a0
st4 [r26]=r27;; //21 cc:1
adds r25=a$, sp //22 cc:0
adds r21=b$, sp //22 cc:0
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0b0
adds r18=c$, sp;; //22 cc:0
ld4 r22=[r25] //22 cc:1
nop.i 0
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0c0
ld4 r20=[r21];; //22 cc:1
setf.sig f6=r22 //22 cc:2
nop.i 0
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0d0
setf.sig f7=r20 //22 cc:2
nop.m 0
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mfb //R-Addr: 0X0e0
nop.m 0
xma.l f8=f6, f7, f0 //22 cc:8
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0f0
getf.sig r19=f8;; //22 cc:12
st4 [r18]=r19 //22 cc:17
nop.i 0;;
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0100
addl r17=@gprel(x#),gp //23 cc:0
addl r16=@gprel(y#),gp //23 cc:0
addl r15=@gprel(z#),gp;; //23 cc:0
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0110
ldfd f9=[r17] //23 cc:1
ldfd f10=[r16] //23 cc:1
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mfb //R-Addr: 0X0120
nop.m 0
fmpy.d.s0 f11=f9, f10 //23 cc:7
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0130
stfd [r15]=f11;; //23 cc:11
addl r11=@gprel(z#),gp //25 cc:0
addl r31=@gprel(__imp_printf#),gp //25 cc:0
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X0140
addl r9=@gprel(arch#),gp //25 cc:0
addl r8=@ltoff($SG1892#),gp //25 cc:0
adds r10=c$, sp;; //25 cc:0
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0150
ld8 r30=[r31] //25 cc:1
ldfd f8=[r11] //25 cc:1
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0160
ld4 r39=[r10] //25 cc:2
ld8 r38=[r9] //25 cc:2
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0170
ld8 r29=[r30], 8 //25 cc:3
ld8 r37=[r8] //25 cc:3
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mib //R-Addr: 0X0180
ld8 gp=[r30] //25 cc:4
mov b6=r29 //25 cc:4
nop.b 0;;
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X0190
getf.d r40=f8 //25 cc:7
nop.m 0
br.call.dptk.many b0=b6;; //25 cc:7
}
{ .mmi //R-Addr: 0X01a0
mov gp=r36;; //25 cc:18
mov gp=r36 //27 cc:0
mov r8=r0;; //27 cc:0
}
{ .mii //R-Addr: 0X01b0
adds sp=64, sp //30 cc:0, 00000040H
mov.ret b0=r34;; //30 cc:0
mov.i ar.pfs=r35 //30 cc:1
}
{ .mmb //R-Addr: 0X01c0
nop.m 0
nop.m 0
br.ret.sptk.many b0;; //30 cc:1
}
// End code for function:
.endp main#

// Total code size for all functions: 0X01d0 bytes (29 bundles)

// END

[Nicolas]

Whatever they do with a new Windows, they must do something about the all users/admin/this user random file jungle on PC's used by a single user. Many PC's still are being used by a single user, support it!

[sarongsong]

"Oh, no, Mr. Bill!"December 24, 2006
MSFT facing early crisis of confidence in quality of VISTA; security researchers, hackers find potentially serious flaws in system... New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/technology/25vista.html?ei=5090&en=49a6ffcc2da87302&ex=1324702800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print)

[sidmel]

That was my problem with XP when it first came. MS toted its improved security and network sharing capabilities (possible oxymoron). Unfortunately the improved sharing capabilities opened up a number of new potential security hacks. It also created easier access (and no or little explanation) to a number of security and network settings that most home users don’t have a clue how to properly use, once again leading to potential hacks.

I recently had an IT person once tell me XP should under no circumstance never, ever need to be reinstalled, that’s why MS figured they could limit the installs. All I said was …. right….

I’ve too many nasty viruses where even professionals couldn’t totally remove and could only partially isolate, a re-install was the only 100% solution.

[Celestial Mechanic]

So you actually like eCS? I've read some of the most virtriolic attacks I've ever seen from the OS/2 enthusiasts against eCS and the company that licensed it from IBM. They absolutely hated it.

-Richard
There is a particularly obnoxious troll who calls himself "The OS/2 Guy" who trashes eCS every chance he gets in every OS/2 / eCS forum he can find. Probably 80 percent of the vitriol drips from his keyboard. :D

There are a few things I don't like: eCS insists on installing logical volume management (LVM) whether you want it or not. This means that if your system has multiple operating systems on it (such as my secondary desktop computer and my laptop) those other operating systems have to be installed first. Other partitioning utilities haven't got a clue what IBM's LVM is doing, nor do many live CD-ROMs.

My laptop has eCS 1.0 on it in addition to OS/2 Warp 4 (fixpack 11), Red Hat 7.0, and BeOS 4.5. My secondary desktop does not have eCS on it. My main computer has eCS 1.2 on it exclusively and it has been nice.

I'm sorry that I didn't see this and respond earlier.

[Bearded One]

Some interesting comments in this (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt) article. If half of what is claimed in the article is true I think I will be holding off on Vista for as long as possible. Sounds like a resource hog, spends most of it's resources making sure you can't use it for what you want to use it for.

I can see some very good reasons for businesses to not use it, they have less interest in the so called "premium content" and they will just be limiting themselves and increasing their hardware costs to use it. Windows Vista seems to be geared towards focusing on being a consumer "media PC" and not a serious business/commercial.scientific platform.

[publius]

Some interesting comments in this (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt) article. If half of what is claimed in the article is true I think I will be holding off on Vista for as long as possible. Sounds like a resource hog, spends most of it's resources making sure you can't use it for what you want to use it for.

I can see some very good reasons for businesses to not use it, they have less interest in the so called "premium content" and they will just be limiting themselves and increasing their hardware costs to use it. Windows Vista seems to be geared towards focusing on being a consumer "media PC" and not a serious business/commercial.scientific platform.

This DRM and content protection crap makes me sick. I've had enough of it. That Digital Millenium Copyright Act was the last straw for me; it's an outright violation of the First Amendment. I mean, according to the wording, it's a crime to actually discuss anything that could be used to circumvent copyright protection.

The "content industry" has the clout to get this crap passed because they have tons of money. And where do they get that money? From the millions of people who buy their crap. If people would just stop buying their crap, they'd go belly up and that would be the end of their crap.

I haven't bought any music or videos in several years. The recording industry and "content providers" aren't getting one more red cent out of me. I only wish all the rest of the millions of people would do that. Just for one month. One little month of not buying would send a shock wave through that would blow them away.

-Richard

[Dragon Star]

I haven't bought any music or videos in several years.

Me either. And now that I've found YouTube...

[Delvo]

Just exactly what is supposed to be GOOD about this thing that isn't good about XP? Why WOULD anybody want it?

Making windows appear to fade into and out of the distance when the user switches to and from them (or whatever it is that makes them do that) just doesn't matter... and if it did we could make or find a program that would do it for us in 2D processing by just altering with the window's size and shading anyway.

[cjl]

Well, so far, I have to say I really like Vista. It seems to run faster than XP, boot faster (on the same computer), and be just as stable.

I like it. Yeah, there are a couple of bugs, but that's to be expected.

[publius]

There is a particularly obnoxious troll who calls himself "The OS/2 Guy" who trashes eCS every chance he gets in every OS/2 / eCS forum he can find. Probably 80 percent of the vitriol drips from his keyboard. :D

There are a few things I don't like: eCS insists on installing logical volume management (LVM) whether you want it or not. This means that if your system has multiple operating systems on it (such as my secondary desktop computer and my laptop) those other operating systems have to be installed first. Other partitioning utilities haven't got a clue what IBM's LVM is doing, nor do many live CD-ROMs.

My laptop has eCS 1.0 on it in addition to OS/2 Warp 4 (fixpack 11), Red Hat 7.0, and BeOS 4.5. My secondary desktop does not have eCS on it. My main computer has eCS 1.2 on it exclusively and it has been nice.

I'm sorry that I didn't see this and respond earlier.


Hmmm. "The OS/2 Guy" sounds vaguely familiar.

Playing around, I've got OS/2 Warp 4 (what fixpack level, I don't recall -- I had to install several) set up in a virtual machine under Virtual PC here just to play. I haven't (virtually) booted it in a while, but I did enjoy playing around. The way Virtual PC works, you can network with the host machine -- the guest OS thinks its on a network with the host machine, and I was able to access files. XP still has NT's roots in it's, which includes extended attribute support for FAT16 and NTFS volumes (but it didn't bother for FAT32), and I noticed that OS/2 over the network, created various EAs on the drives it accessed over the network.


Can you recommend a good web browser for OS/2? Well, wait a minute, did Firefox make one? Anyway, next time I play with OS/2 I'd like a decent browser to see how that feels.

-Richard

[publius]

CM,

Nevermind, I'm posting this via Warp4 in the VM using a version of Firefox I installed. Heck, I set this up quitenicely here, but forgot all about it. Only problem is the onscreen fonts stink, and typing here is slow as heck. Don't know if that's the VM's fault or what.

-Richard

[Kennewick_man]

I know of some businesses that won't upgrade to a new OS until service pack 1 is released. SP1 usually corrects many flaws that got past beta testing.

I'm on this team ... I am a sysadmin at a health center, and have ~300 users. I wouldn't touch Vista with a barge pole until at *least* sp1. I'll let others be the guinea pigs. XP is running fine ... and we still have a few Win2K systems kicking around. You know, it's working ... I see no reason to purposely give myself headaches.

That being said, I am going to get a few of the free Vista upgrades sent to us to see how many things break in our little "test lab."

[Occam]

I work in IT and we decided to give it a whirl on a test machine.
We installed it on a dual core 2.8 GHz machine with 1 Gig of RAM.
With NOTHING else running or even installed, the OS was using 678 Meg of RAM.

We will be sticking with XP for a while

[Bearded One]

I work in IT and we decided to give it a whirl on a test machine.
We installed it on a dual core 2.8 GHz machine with 1 Gig of RAM.
With NOTHING else running or even installed, the OS was using 678 Meg of RAM.

We will be sticking with XP for a while

I don't want to sound like I'm supporting Vista, 'cause I'm not but...

I got bored last night and had one of my "I wonder..." moods.

I was wondering how Vista would run on a 450 mhz with 256 meg of memory. So I dug around for an extra HD and tried it. First I had to add a DVD drive, took me a minute before I figured out why I couldn't boot from the DVD, Duh - it's a CD drive not a DVD drive. Then Vista complained the HD wasn't big enough, it was 6 gig, wanted at least 6.8. So.. dug through the piles and found a 12 gig drive. It's nice having lots of junk lying around. Then Vista claimed I needed at least 512 meg of RAM. Ok, for installation purposes I moved some more memory over to it. Then it installed without complaints, afterwards I removed the extra memory and put it back to 256 megs. I half expected Vista to swear at me when I booted it with less memory, but it booted fine.

I'm not impressed with the hardware detection support. It didn't recognize the network card, sound card or add-on IDE controller. I was able to get the network card working by selecting a "close enough" card and then windows update was able to find the right one through Windows Update. The sound card, a Creative Sound Blaster Live, never did work and according to their site there are no plans to support it. I never tried to get the Ultra66 add on card to work.

Overall though, I was impressed with how it ran otherwise. I was able to navigate and explore the new system layout without problems, cruised the Internet a bit and even watched some videos, without sound. By the time I was done configuring it "my way" it looked a lot like Windows 98 :p

I run all my XP boxes with a black background and Windows Classic desktop theme. I hate eye-candy!

It gave the system a 1.0 experience rating, mainly due to the memory (1.0) and CPU (1.2). It liked the graphics card though, gave it a 3.7.

One thing that annoyed me, MS still defaults the setup to hide extensions of known file types! I've always considered that a huge security risk and they still do it :mad: Another quirk: I usually tell windows to display all files, including sytem and protected files. Well, if you do that in Vista it shows the desktop.ini file on the desktop. XP was smart enough to not do that. Overall the new "my Computer" explorer window reminds me a lot of Konquerer in Linux.

File security seems a bit better, I need to play with that a bit more. I was starting to get rather annoyed with all the security pop ups I was getting though.

[Swift]

I work in IT and we decided to give it a whirl on a test machine.
We installed it on a dual core 2.8 GHz machine with 1 Gig of RAM.
With NOTHING else running or even installed, the OS was using 678 Meg of RAM.

We will be sticking with XP for a while
I suspect this will be true for many businesses. The word I hear around our corporation is that they are not even going to think about migrating to Vista for at least 6 months. It is pretty much a "it ain't broke, don't fix it" issue.

Personally, I'm in no rush either. I have heard nothing about Vista that I need and I never buy the x.0 version of any software. I'll wait will Service Pack 9 rolls out for Vista.

[SeanF]

Another quirk: I usually tell windows to display all files, including sytem and protected files. Well, if you do that in Vista it shows the desktop.ini file on the desktop. XP was smart enough to not do that.
I've got XP, and when I select "Show hidden files and folders" and deselect "Hide protected operating system files", I get desktop.ini showing up on my desktop (two of 'em, in fact - I'm assuming one is my user's desktop and one is the "All Users" desktop).

What am I doing wrong?

[Occam]

I've got XP, and when I select "Show hidden files and folders" and deselect "Hide protected operating system files", I get desktop.ini showing up on my desktop (two of 'em, in fact - I'm assuming one is my user's desktop and one is the "All Users" desktop).

What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong. That's the result of showing protected OS files - you get to see 'em

The desktop is essentially just another folder with some shortcuts in it. You may also see a file called thumbs.db. Hide protected operating system files is kind of like the insulation on wires - there to stop you from touching the hot bits :D

[Celestial Mechanic]

I suspect this will be true for many businesses. The word I hear around our corporation is that they are not even going to think about migrating to Vista for at least 6 months. It is pretty much a "it ain't broke, don't fix it" issue. [Snip!]
I hear this sentiment quite frequently, it's almost a "Reverse Osborne Effect", that is, the new and supposedly better product is so unattractive that no one will buy it.

The "Osborne Effect" refers to the long-gone Osborne Computer company that made the mistake of announcing an upcoming product that was so attractive that sales of their current product practically stopped--thereby cutting off the flow of cash needed to complete the more attractive product. Of course Micro$oft doesn't have to worry about cash flow--as one article put it their cash reserves are sufficient to buy every major league football, baseball, basketball, and hockey franchise in the United States--23 times over!

[Swift]

I hear this sentiment quite frequently, it's almost a "Reverse Osborne Effect", that is, the new and supposedly better product is so unattractive that no one will buy it.

The "Osborne Effect" refers to the long-gone Osborne Computer company that made the mistake of announcing an upcoming product that was so attractive that sales of their current product practically stopped--thereby cutting off the flow of cash needed to complete the more attractive product. Of course Micro$oft doesn't have to worry about cash flow--as one article put it their cash reserves are sufficient to buy every major league football, baseball, basketball, and hockey franchise in the United States--23 times over!
I had not heard of the Osborne Effect, but a good point. But in spite of MS's cash flow, they seem compelled to crank out new products or rather, new versions of old products. I wish they would stop, they almost never add useful features. I try to ignore them as long as possible, but one is usually forced to convert. Once enough people switch to the newest version of Word, for example, which of course has files that are incompatible with the old version, you have to convert just to open some e-mail attachment. And of course the new version of Word will only operate on the newest operating system. And that will only run on the newest computers.

I usually am not forced to upgrade till I'm two versions back, but at that point there is usually not a choice. :(

[SeanF]

You're not doing anything wrong. That's the result of showing protected OS files - you get to see 'em

The desktop is essentially just another folder with some shortcuts in it. You may also see a file called thumbs.db. Hide protected operating system files is kind of like the insulation on wires - there to stop you from touching the hot bits :D
Yeah, but Bearded One said, "XP was smart enough not to do that." I was asking him. :)

And, quite frankly, I understand why those settings would cause the desktop.ini file to show up in a DOS-prompt "dir", or in an explorer folder. But there's no need for it show up on the desktop, regardless of the settings.

[Bearded One]

I've got XP, and when I select "Show hidden files and folders" and deselect "Hide protected operating system files", I get desktop.ini showing up on my desktop (two of 'em, in fact - I'm assuming one is my user's desktop and one is the "All Users" desktop).

What am I doing wrong?

I just checked and apparently I don't have those files in my desktop directory on any of my XP boxes. I probably deleted them, I'm always deleting them. I just always assumed Windows would re-create them and the OS was smart enough not to show them on the desktop. I double checked and I definitely have it set to display all files, even OS files.

OK, guess I'm wrong on that bit.

[Celestial Mechanic]

I had not heard of the Osborne Effect, but a good point. But in spite of MS's cash flow, they seem compelled to crank out new products or rather, new versions of old products. I wish they would stop, they almost never add useful features.
So do I! :clap:
I try to ignore them as long as possible, but one is usually forced to convert. Once enough people switch to the newest version of Word, for example, which of course has files that are incompatible with the old version, you have to convert just to open some e-mail attachment.
And how else can you be sure of getting the latest and greatest viruses? ;)

Speaking of which, how many of you remember the panicky e-mails that went around telling people not to open any e-mails with the subject line "Good Times" because it contained a virus? And the numerous articles debunking this myth? Micro$oft, thanks to Outbreak, er, Outlook has turned myth into reality! Way to go! Thank you Micro$oft, can I have another?
And of course the new version of Word will only operate on the newest operating system. And that will only run on the newest computers.
To describe Micro$oft and the PC manufacturers as being in bed with each other is an understatement.
I usually am not forced to upgrade till I'm two versions back, but at that point there is usually not a choice. :(
Of course I'm off the MicroKarmic wheel, I use OS/2 and eComStation. You could try these, or Linux (which keeps getting better), or even one of the BSDs. Switch to one of these and you, too, can "Heil! Heil! Right in Bill Gates's face!" :dance:

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Swift
And of course the new version of Word will only operate on the newest operating system. And that will only run on the newest computers.
To describe Micro$oft and the PC manufacturers as being in bed with each other is an understatement.

I'm not sure how much of that is a sin of omission as much as a sin of commission. I don't actual think MS and the PC makers have meetings on how they can hurt consumers.

I suspect the hardware guys are always trying to make their devices that much better (if we can do x, we should be able to do 2x). And since they actually can measure something (RAM, HD space, instructions per second), they can actually say their thing is that much better. We all eat it up, because our software runs that much better.

The software guys have a harder problem, how do you measure what they produce? My typing speed doesn't increase with each new version of Word. So they have to look for features to add. I know bosses and CEOs, and they are not ok with "but it is fine, why should we change the product".

The other problem is, as the hardware gets better, they can write bigger and sloppier code. It is sort of like George Carlin's rules of stuff - stuff expands to fill all available space. And this pushes the hardware guys to make their stuff more powerful and around we go.


Of course I'm off the MicroKarmic wheel, I use OS/2 and eComStation. You could try these, or Linux (which keeps getting better), or even one of the BSDs. Switch to one of these and you, too, can "Heil! Heil! Right in Bill Gates's face!" :dance:
I'm sure you are right, but I'm just not enough of a geek to go there. I actually want my PC to be an appliance, and I don't feel comfortable enough to go that way.

And that's one way PCs are still very different than other types of consumer products. I can buy a car, either a high end power unit, or some cheap little thing that will get me around the block, and in both cases I don't have to know how to change my oil, let alone rebuild the engine, and I have a wide range of companies to purchase my product from. There is even a choice of after-market companies to go to if I want repairs or a new stereo. And if I take moderate care of my car, it should be good for 150 to 200,000 miles.

I don't feel that way about PCs.

Sure, I can go to Big Box Store and get a box. But I'm married to MS or Apple for the OS, unless I want to "experiment". And the whole thing will be out of date in 2 years and by 5 years (my current at home PC) I'll feel I'm driving a horse and buggy.

Sure, I pay a lot more for my car than a new PC. But other appliances are much closer in price to a PC and I don't replace them every 3 or 4 years (most are in the 8 to 10 year range). Heck, other than a new CD player (the original lasted about 10 years), I still have the same stereo I purchased in 1990 and the latest CDs still sound great on it.

[snarkophilus]

Some interesting comments in this (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt) article. If half of what is claimed in the article is true I think I will be holding off on Vista for as long as possible. Sounds like a resource hog, spends most of it's resources making sure you can't use it for what you want to use it for.

I can see some very good reasons for businesses to not use it, they have less interest in the so called "premium content" and they will just be limiting themselves and increasing their hardware costs to use it. Windows Vista seems to be geared towards focusing on being a consumer "media PC" and not a serious business/commercial.scientific platform.

That DRM stuff was interesting. I'm getting a new machine in the next couple of weeks, and that article has swayed me to stick with XP for it, at least until the appropriate hacks come out.

I'm not certain it's fair for everyone to say that Vista doesn't offer anything more than XP. The truth is, we don't know exactly what it offers. Microsoft advertises things like Media Center and fast searching for businesses, but I bet there's a ton of new stuff behind the scenes. Better memory management, garbage collectors, hardware support... all the little things you probably don't notice. Remote desktop alone almost makes the business version worth it for me.

[Doodler]

If you want to read about a company with a virtually captive market that puts out new software versions for the sake of putting out software versions, check out a little company called Autodesk....

They make Microsoft look positively patient in the version category.

[Blob]

Overclockers.co.uk are selling Windows Vista Ultimate 32/64 OEM discs for just £114.99.
The catch is that you need to order a piece of hardware at the same time (ie, think USB or mouse etc).

Read more (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-040-MS)

(a tempting price, but too soon to upgrade to such a new operating system, IMHO)

[Doodler]

One thing that annoyed me, MS still defaults the setup to hide extensions of known file types! I've always considered that a huge security risk and they still do it :mad:

That's usually something Mac boys give Windows users hell about. "Why do you need to know what type of file it is? The computer knows..."

Must be nice being a niche market computer user. I would love to see Macs popular enough that virus writers roto-rootered their back doors through masked files.

[sarongsong]

MS in Space! http://bautforum.com/images/icons/icon6.gifJanuary 9, 2007
A Microsoft online puzzle game launched this week promises to send the winner on a rocket ride into orbit around the Earth ["the ultimate vista"]...to promote the new Vista operating system with Vanishing Point (www.vanishingpointgame.com) , a "large-scale online and offline collaborative puzzle game." Microsoft is to launch the home version of Vista on January 30... Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/09/070109154225.mvw0xcxl.html)

[Blob]

Microsoft has defended the digital rights management systems integrated into its new Vista operating system.
It follows reports that Vista would "downgrade" the quality of all video and audio, if they were not output via approved connections on the PC.

Read more (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6286245.stm)

The 5 sins of Vista

Read more (http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/5-sins-of-vista.html)

10 reasons not to get Vista
It's all too easy to get caught up in the million dollar marketing engine as we approach the consumer release of Windows Vista, so lets not forget that it isn't the second coming, and by all counts is an upgrade you can do without.

Read more (http://apcmag.com/5049/10_reasons_not_to_get_vista)

[Musashi]

10 reasons not to get Vista
It's all too easy to get caught up in the million dollar marketing engine as we approach the consumer release of Windows Vista, so lets not forget that it isn't the second coming, and by all counts is an upgrade you can do without.

By Linux fanboy Ashton mills.

[EricDerKonig]

That's usually something Mac boys give Windows users hell about. "Why do you need to know what type of file it is? The computer knows..."


That's actually one thing I'd like to see in Mac OSX. I like being able to change certain extensions to .txt to quickly and easily have it read in a simple text editor. Doubt I will, though.

[mugaliens]

Until the recent installation of a new video card (and its buggy driver) my XP install completed way back in 2002 has been rock solid and apparently impervious to hacks (combined with three firewalls, antivirus, antispam, and antispyware)

I'll change the video card before I change the operating system.

[sarongsong]

This should be fun:Monday, January 29, 2007
TONIGHT: Bill Gates, Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation...
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml)

[NEOWatcher]

Don't forget Office 2007 which comes out with Vista.

According to this major news source's review (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16786876/), the products are "revolutionary".


Oh; just to point out, that I'm being sarcastic...MS-NBC reviews Office? I wonder how many people think this is un-biased.

[Swift]

Don't forget Office 2007 which comes out with Vista.

According to this major news source's review (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16786876/), the products are "revolutionary".


Oh; just to point out, that I'm being sarcastic...MS-NBC reviews Office? I wonder how many people think this is un-biased.
I saw a pre-view of the new Word a few months ago, and it seemed to have lots of flash and little change in substance.

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!] Oh; just to point out, that I'm being sarcastic...MS-NBC reviews Office? I wonder how many people think this is un-biased.
Probably the same people who think the Fox Network is fair and unbiased? :D

[Maksutov]

I saw a pre-view of the new Word a few months ago, and it seemed to have lots of flash and little change in substance.Sounds like the Windows 98 rollout. Pretty much the same thing as Win95, but with USB support built-in rather than an add-on, and a few extras re Admin/User options.

It was a wonderful moment when Gates was demoing it live, and Windows 98 not only froze but displayed the BSoD!

:lol:

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!] It was a wonderful moment when Gates was demoing it live, and Windows 98 not only froze but displayed the BSoD!
:lol:
Truly one of the great moments of computing. However, to be fair, I think this was only after plugging in 114+ USB devices (out of the theoretical maximum of 127 that the bus can support). Think of it as the computer's way of saying, "not tonight, I've got a headache." ;)

[Doodler]

Truly one of the great moments of computing. However, to be fair, I think this was only after plugging in 114+ USB devices (out of the theoretical maximum of 127 that the bus can support). Think of it as the computer's way of saying, "not tonight, I've got a headache." ;)

Ridden hard and put away dead.

[Musashi]

I've seen the same thing happen to the other guys too.

[Blob]

New Microsoft operating system is a leap forward in security, but few people familiar with it say the advances justify an upgrade.
Now that Vista is finally here, pundits praise the security work Microsoft has done. However, most say that is no reason to dump a functioning PC running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and shell out $200 to upgrade to Vista.

"As long as XP users keep their updates current, there's generally no compelling reason to buy into the hype and purchase Vista right away. We suggest people wait until buying a new machine to get Vista, for economic and practical reasons" - David Milman, chief executive of Rescuecom, a computer repair and support company.

Read more (http://news.com.com/Experts+Dont+buy+Vista+for+the+security/2100-1016-6154448.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703)

[jumbo]

shell out $200 to upgrade to Vista
That is of course if you are buying in the US. In the UK exactly the same software bought from microsoft is about £250. Thats $490!

[mugaliens]

I know of some businesses that won't upgrade to a new OS until service pack 1 is released. SP1 usually corrects many flaws that got past beta testing.

I'm wondering if they'll even go the service pack route this time, and instead resort strictly to the online automatic updates, while always releasing the most currently updated version as time goes by.

Regardless, I'll wait about a year, too, as my XP system hasn't crashed in years, and still plays MS Flight Simulator with stellar aplomb.

[Doodler]

my XP system hasn't crashed in years, and still plays MS Flight Simulator with stellar aplomb.

And here lies the crux. I don't give a rat's butt if the OS is secure, security is a yanked modem cord away. There are enough third party players out there that can offer the necessary levels of security.

Just make it do what I tell it to do, and only what I tell it to do, and when I tell it to do it. Macroshaft needs to stop running installs with the ports open and the features activated and let people pick and choose what to turn on, instead of the marathon nonsense of trying to find all the crap to turn off. With XP, there were features I felt like I needed a damned exorcism to finally shut down, and even then I still wasn't sure.

I'll consider Vista when my hardware makers tell me they're ready for it and at least one major service pack is issued to cover the most critical flaws in the system, maybe even the second.

[Fortis]

IIRC you'll need Vista if you want to play Halo 2...

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!] security is a yanked modem cord away.
Not if "31337 h4X0rz" (elite hackers) get their root kit onto your hard drive first!
There are enough third party players out there that can offer the necessary levels of security.
One of the big complaints about Vista has been that Micro$loth has been something less than forthcoming about security with the third-party vendors that write security software. Why? Because Micro$lop has decided that they wish to have the security market to themselves. When M$ decides they want in on a market, there is no longer room for third-parties. Of course virus and worm authors have had no problem making their malware "Vista compatible". :sad:
Just make it do what I tell it to do, and only what I tell it to do, and when I tell it to do it. Macroshaft needs to stop running installs with the ports open and the features activated and let people pick and choose what to turn on, instead of the marathon nonsense of trying to find all the crap to turn off. With XP, there were features I felt like I needed a damned exorcism to finally shut down, and even then I still wasn't sure. I'll consider Vista when my hardware makers tell me they're ready for it and at least one major service pack is issued to cover the most critical flaws in the system, maybe even the second.
I agree wholeheartedly. And history shows you would be better off with service pack 2 because the third version of most Micro$not products is usually the best.

Of course I have no intention of buying Vista or a machine with Vista on it. I use OS/2 = eComStation. The operating system that time forgot! :)

[Musashi]

I think you missed one $.

[Doodler]

IIRC you'll need Vista if you want to play Halo 2...

Was never much on FPS games, thankfully.

[mike alexander]

I just want to put in a word for those of us who think a root kit sounds like do-it-yourself dentistry and a registry is for brides:

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!


Thank you for your indulgence.


And there are times that I think my original Osborne 1 (Serial # A000000064) was all I really needed.

[NEOWatcher]

According to this major news source's review (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16786876/), the products are "revolutionary".

Oh; just to point out, that I'm being sarcastic...MS-NBC reviews Office? I wonder how many people think this is un-biased.

And yet another story from a Mac user that says how great Vista is.
A Mac user switches to Vista (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16873608/)
Oh; did I meantion it's an MS-NBC reporter. :think:

Now I can't find it... but an article I read says there is a parental feature that will log kids off the computer when its time for homework. Wouldn't that be counter-productive nowadays?

[djellison]

I do like Office '07 - some of the GUI improvements are great...I'm getting more stuff done with it, more quickly.

Vista...tried one of the RC's - and I honestly can't see the point. They're blackmailing people into getting it so they can use DX10. Will it make my computer more productive? No. Will I be able to do more? No. Will it be easier? No. Will it be faster? No. Is all my stuff supported? No. Seriously - why would I bother? Vista is in my top 10 list of reasons why I'm switching to Mac Book Pro later this summer.

Doug

[Nicolas]

(I frequently get a heart attack when looking at the prices of Macintosh computers though I never see somebody writing that as Macinto$h, Macinpo$h,chequeinto$h etcetc...)

I'll stick to Xp for the moment. Not feeling like spending all that money on something I don't miss at the moment. If they would have included better control over the hard drive and good support for SINGLE USER computers, maybe. But the way things are at the moment? No. Besides, I've set Xp to look like 98 so it doesn't eat too much resources and I find my way, so what point is Vista eh :D.

[Celestial Mechanic]

(I frequently get a heart attack when looking at the prices of Macintosh computers though I never see somebody writing that as Macinto$h, Macinpo$h,chequeinto$h etcetc...) [Snip!]
:clap: I like it! I'll add these to my vocabulary. ;)

[Maksutov]

(I frequently get a heart attack when looking at the prices of Macintosh computers though I never see somebody writing that as Macinto$h, Macinpo$h,chequeinto$h etcetc...)....Maybe they all get Macinhu$h money... http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/566/iconwink6tn.gif

BTW, I see Micro$lu$h is teaming with Disney to produce a child-oriented version of this OS. Its development name is rumored to be "Buena Vista".

[sarongsong]

Ah, the Buena Vista (http://www.thebuenavista.com/directions.html)---legendary original home of America's interpretation of Shannon Airport's Irish Coffee---children forbidden at the bar and after 10 PM.

[Fraser]

I'm running Vista now. It looks really nice, but it's not really that different from XP. It's a little slower for sure. I'm not sure how long I'll keep using it.

[Serenitude]

Since I pretty much use hotmail, msn messenger, etc... for my services, it being more or less "built" into the OS doesn't bother me like it would some people, but my rig can't even really run true DX9 games (Intel 865G), let alone DX10, and I can't for the life of me figure out a reason to upgrade at the moment. XP hasn't crashed in years, even running 16-bit scanner drivers for an old Canon, and I can't find anything in Vista that I don't have just fine ATM, without a hardware upgrade. Not an MS hater, but still scores a huge "Meh".

[Captain Kidd]

My university will be adding the business edition to the MNDA ... MMDA ... err some acronym that lets us download it for free. It's going to take them a couple weeks to get the license set up proper. By then I'll see what the reviews are, I might wait for the first of the service packs to come out.

Of course, from the EULA, I have to shoot my wife if she even so much as looks at the monitor since she's not a student. I think the shoot orders includes anybody who even sees my window glowing as they drive by.

I guess that means I also have to buy it at some point prior to graduation too ... But that's not for 2-3 years.

At the same time, the compatibility program is telling me I don't have an expensive ... I mean advanced enough graphics card to run it with all the features.

[sarongsong]

And yet another story from a Mac user that says how great Vista is...Here, Bill 'splains it in 30 seconds:Bill Gates lists Vista 'innovations'... YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQmOmdYPKJQ)

[Nicolas]

XP hasn't crashed in years

You can have a lot of arguments against XP, a lot of them valid, but when people say "and your PC crashes 5 times a day" they're either lying or there is something seriously wrong with their PC. Since having XP I own my most stable computer ever. I had it over a year before it first crashed. It virtually never crashes on me, the only issue I have (and I think that is a software conflict rather than XP) is that sometimes during boot it never gets out of the "welcome" screen. But I know that there is some conflict at startup (I suspect AntiVir), as the office toolbar refuses to automatically load and show up on boot since a while. Even when I command it to. Even when I set it directly in the registry. If I command it to load, it doesn't. At least it isn't visible. If I command it to load twice, one is visible and I get an error saying a toolbar is already there. So now I just manually load it afterwards.

[jumbo]

When they say their pc crashes 5 times a day ireckon they mean their software does. Theres loads of buggy crashing sftware out there and whatever OS it was on would not change that. XP itself though has been rock solid for me. The only crashes ive had are down to NVidias drivers heating my graphics card way too much (Changing back solved that).
I can run xp for days and days on end (probably lots longer but ive not tried) without a hint of a crash due to the OS.

My university will be adding the business edition to the MNDA ... MMDA ... err some acronym
MSDN??

I have heard that all the versions are on the same disc for ease of upgrade so you buy say the basic one but ultimate is on the disc too but you cant access it. Is that true? If so i give it about 5 minutes before people find a way round that one!

The whole DX10 thing and vista bugs me though. There is no real reason for it from what i can tell. Direct X is just and API thats all. As such i dont see why it should require a new OS. I cant think of any effect it would add that would need a different OS to XP.

[djellison]

As such i dont see why it should require a new OS. I cant think of any effect it would add that would need a different OS to XP.

Because Microsoft realised that Vista doesn't offer anything significant over XP. Essentially, they're blackmailing you. Buy Vista, or no DX10 games for you. There is no technical reason behind it at all...it's purely a marketing exercise, forcing people to either upgrade to Vista, or 'give up' on newer DX10 gaming and see their new £350 DX10 graphics card underperform.

Personally - Vista is just about the best piece of marketting I've ever seen....for OSX. I will be moving to Apple this summer.

Doug

[Doodler]

You can have a lot of arguments against XP, a lot of them valid, but when people say "and your PC crashes 5 times a day" they're either lying or there is something seriously wrong with their PC. Since having XP I own my most stable computer ever. I had it over a year before it first crashed. It virtually never crashes on me, the only issue I have (and I think that is a software conflict rather than XP) is that sometimes during boot it never gets out of the "welcome" screen. But I know that there is some conflict at startup (I suspect AntiVir), as the office toolbar refuses to automatically load and show up on boot since a while. Even when I command it to. Even when I set it directly in the registry. If I command it to load, it doesn't. At least it isn't visible. If I command it to load twice, one is visible and I get an error saying a toolbar is already there. So now I just manually load it afterwards.

I average a system crash about once every two weeks, but thus far, none are remotely the fault of XP.

The big three:

1) EVE Online has the sorriest sound support of any game in history. I had to turn sound acceleration all the way down to "Emulation" in order to run it stably, even with my SoundBlaster SB Live! 6.1 Card. I was crashing to restart every ten minutes with the acceleration any higher than that.

2) I tend to be a hardcore taskmaster with my cable modem, so two online game clients, three web brower instances (I'm getting better about using tabs), and an Internet Radio feed cramming themselves in the line is not unusual. The cable modem periodically gives me fits. Crashing to restart from time to time.

3) Winter usually sees one or two graphic card overheat crashes because of the heat running. Its a twin edged sword, its nice in the summer, because the A/C vent keeps it cool, in the winter, I try to keep the vent blocked to prevent overheating. Doesn't always work.

[Blob]

DailyTech reported on Monday that Microsoft no longer performs disc checks during an operating system install. In the past, when performing a clean install, a user could boot from an install CD and insert a disc from a previous version of Windows for upgrade compliance.

Read more (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5932)

BTW, You can extend the 30-day Windows Vista grace period to 120 days.
This is an official, supported operation from Microsoft.
To extend the grace period another 30 days, simply start a command prompt as Administrator, and issue this command:

slmgr -rearm

Reboot for the change to take effect. You can only extend three times, so the total grace period for a Vista evaluation is 120 days.
Once your 3 months is up there is nothing stopping you from reformatting and repeating the operation....But 3 months is all you really need to see the beta nature of the OS.

But things will improve ...

[mugaliens]

Video Cards: I recently upgraded from a near $300 video card purchased in the fall of 2002 to an $80 video card that's more than three times as fast, with NO fans, and more than 100 frames per second for any game I own (which is MS Flight Simulator IV). Even with all the scenary detail set to max and the resolution set to a higher mode than is comfortable looking at.

That's not fast? That's wicked fast, and at $80, pretty darn cheap!

On, XP, of course.

Nope, I'm waiting for a while so my upgrade doesn't cost me $1,200 including the OS, a new case, motherboard, power supply, fans, graphics card, etc., and so on...

As for Gate's 30 second rant, I've already got all that on XP, so what's he blabbering about??? Sure, it's add-on software, but it's good add-on software.

[Nicolas]

Never had this before, and this evening my PC completely froze twice. I feel a CT coming up...

[Glom]

I've enjoyed XP. The silver theme looks cool. It is very functional. It has also never crashed without intensive provocation from an unstable programme and even then only a couple of times. The rest of the time, XP manages to shut down the programme and resume normal operation.

Vista on the other hand has royally screwed up a friends computer. Sure, Windows Aero with its frosty translucent windows looks cool, but it is also perhaps overly ostentatious.

IE7 on the other hand has been great, but I've got that on XP.

[snarkophilus]

IE7 on the other hand has been great, but I've got that on XP.

I despise IE 7. The bars at the top take up too much space, and I have yet to figure out how to put them on one line. In IE6, I had the menus, and one line with the standard buttons and the current address. Now, there's the mandatory search box and address on one line, and another whole row for buttons and tabs (which are too big). What a waste of screen space.

I had to turn off tabs, too, because they irritate me. I'd much rather have a bunch of boxes on the start bar.

WRT Vista, I just installed XP64, and I really like it. Lots of control over the OS, and reasonably fast. I have a free upgrade to Vista, but I'm not entirely sure I'll use it. I mean, I'll get it because a) it's free and b) eventually I'll have to use it, but I probably won't install until I really have to.

[Captain Kidd]

MSDN??That's the puppy. Well, actually it's the MSDN Academic Alliance (which isn't a true part of the MSDN) I just found out.

[Ingo]

Anybody wanna buy a copy of it from me? Just the serial number :shifty:

Guaranteed unused with the full 2 installs left.

:dance:

[Blob]

While on a visit in Romania, where Bill Gates participated in the celebration of 10 years since the Microsoft branch has been running there, and the launch of Vista, Microsoft’s president declared that, with the right amount of administration, the new Vista could run life support systems in hospitals.

Read more (http://www.our-picks.com/archives/2007/02/01/bill-gates-vista-is-so-secure-it-could-run-life-support-systems/)

Er, until someone says “End Hologram (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm)”

[Doodler]

Read more (http://www.our-picks.com/archives/2007/02/01/bill-gates-vista-is-so-secure-it-could-run-life-support-systems/)

Er, until someone says “End Hologram (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm)”

The firm has pointed out that in order for the flaw to be exploited the speech recognition feature would need to be activated and configured and both microphone and speakers would have to be switched on.

Considering that as a gamer, I have both Ventrillo and Teamspeak installed, AND have a headset microphone/headphone combo...

This software's looking more like a dog every time they talk about it.

[Bearded One]

Read more (http://www.our-picks.com/archives/2007/02/01/bill-gates-vista-is-so-secure-it-could-run-life-support-systems/)

Er, until someone says “End Hologram (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm)”
I was making jokes about this type of stuff years ago. Imagine some disgruntled radio announcer telling everybodies computer to delete all their files :lol:

Speech recognition software has to get a lot better before it can be trusted, good enough to tell people apart and be able to discern direction and intent. We are a long ways away from that.

[Nicolas]

I despise IE 7. The bars at the top take up too much space, and I have yet to figure out how to put them on one line. In IE6, I had the menus, and one line with the standard buttons and the current address. Now, there's the mandatory search box and address on one line, and another whole row for buttons and tabs (which are too big). What a waste of screen space.

I had to turn off tabs, too, because they irritate me. I'd much rather have a bunch of boxes on the start bar.

WRT Vista, I just installed XP64, and I really like it. Lots of control over the OS, and reasonably fast. I have a free upgrade to Vista, but I'm not entirely sure I'll use it. I mean, I'll get it because a) it's free and b) eventually I'll have to use it, but I probably won't install until I really have to.

Since IE7, I turned off the google toolbar as I have the search field already, and hid the menus as I have the buttons already. That makes 1 url/search line, and 1 tab/button line. It's smaller than what IE6 had on my PC with the same functionality + tabs.

---------
Luckily, my PC stopped freezing now. I had placed a huge tuner standing close to the pc (in front of the monitor = 1 table top and 30 cm away from the pc itself) when it froze twice. Can it have anything to do with it? The pc stopped freezing since I shut off the tuner and put it aside (haven't plugged it in since).

[mugaliens]

Never had this before, and this evening my PC completely froze twice. I feel a CT coming up...

You wouldn't be the first, as the same thing began happening to my NT 4.0 box when they released XP. I reinstalled everything from scratch, but the same problem occurred.

I finally limited the automatic updates to only those I'd updated before the box began having problems, and walla - it was stable again. Turned out a couple of updates that were released after XP was released were causing the instability.

[Celestial Mechanic]

You wouldn't be the first, as the same thing began happening to my NT 4.0 box when they released XP. I reinstalled everything from scratch, but the same problem occurred.

I finally limited the automatic updates to only those I'd updated before the box began having problems, and voila -- it was stable again. Turned out a couple of updates that were released after XP was released were causing the instability.
Another reason why I use OS/2-eComStation: My computer doesn't phone the Mothership periodically for poorly-tested "updates" and install them without my leave. :)

[Nicolas]

you can choose whether you install them or not.

Anyway, since unplugging the tuner, the PC's stable again. I'll place it somewhaere above the PC and plug it in again tomorrow, and then we'll see what's the result. I'm curious! I really want to use that tuner, so it better not interfere with the PC again. It's from 1977, maybe they weren't too heavy on interference laws back then. Though tuners naturally are shielded quite well. Strange.

[SeanF]

you can choose whether you install them or not.
Well, CM is correct that Windows will automatically download and install updates. But you are correct that the user can choose not to let it do that.

OS/2 is better because it doesn't even give you the option. ;)

[Captain Kidd]

I donno, I've got a lot of programs that automatically update and three computers. I'd hate to have to check for a dozen updates per computer, some on a daily basis; like my antivirus.

[Nicolas]

Well, CM is correct that Windows will automatically download and install updates. But you are correct that the user can choose not to let it do that.

OS/2 is better because it doesn't even give you the option. ;)

You're saying that OS/2 was perfect from the day it was released?

[Nicolas]

I donno, I've got a lot of programs that automatically update and three computers. I'd hate to have to check for a dozen updates per computer, some on a daily basis; like my antivirus.

My antivir and antispyware update automatically: lovely. Windows/IE say when there's updates (so I don't have to check, lovely), give a nice list and I can choose which ones I'll download and install. Lovely.

:)

[SeanF]

You're saying that OS/2 was perfect from the day it was released?
Nah, it was messed up by them. It hasn't been perfect since right before they wrote the first line of code. ;)

[Blob]

Security tools that work with Windows Vista have failed tests to see if they can detect viruses circulating online.
Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare security tool was one of four products that failed independent tests carried out by the Virus Bulletin.
The security testing group found that Live OneCare missed far more active viruses than any other program tested.
To pass the tests anti-virus tools must spot and stop 100% of the malicious programs used to attack them.

Read more (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6331959.stm)

[Celestial Mechanic]

If I had a nickel for everytime Windows crashed, I'd, ... oh, wait a minute, I do.
-- William Gates III

;)

BTW, OS/2 could not have started out perfect--it (the 1.x versions) was a joint venture of IBM and Micro$loth. Only after leaving M$ and the crippled 286 microprocessor behind in version 2.0 did OS/2 become sort of usable, and it finally became useful with version 3.0. My initial install was of 2.1, and after the upgrade to 3.0 I never looked back.

[Blob]

How to install Vista in 2 minutes

Read more (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno)

[Doodler]

Well, CM is correct that Windows will automatically download and install updates. But you are correct that the user can choose not to let it do that.

OS/2 is better because it doesn't even give you the option. ;)

I don't have a problem with auto update and auto install, but whomever it is had BETTER leave me the option of manually restarting, which Windows does very obediently, even if it does pester you about it every 15 minutes.

As much as I sing praises to the effectiveness of Norton, I've got a few issues with Symantec's YOU MUST RESTART NOW, PEON! attitude their Live Updates have about shutting me down with absolutely no notice whatsoever with no way of bypassing it.

Even when it bothers to ask, the pop up window has two options. "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL", and no matter which you hit, you WILL be restarting.

[Serenitude]

Man, you're brave going with Norton. Every couple of days, I read about another backdoor, loophole, security breach, or somesuch with Symantec products. What are the praises you sing? (<-not sarcasm, curiosity ;) )

[Doodler]

Man, you're brave going with Norton. Every couple of days, I read about another backdoor, loophole, security breach, or somesuch with Symantec products. What are the praises you sing? (<-not sarcasm, curiosity ;) )

Fill me in. Thus far as I've seen, its been pretty effective.

[Serenitude]

Fill me in. Thus far as I've seen, its been pretty effective.

Will do. But it'll take me a bit to compile a link list ;)

[Doodler]

I did a little research myself, the one thing that reviewers seemed to say about Norton AV 2006, which is what I had, was that Symantec's customer service was horrible. To me that's kinda par for the course, since my ISP is Comcast@Hell. I did use system works for a while but I dumped it when I got sick of fighting it for control of my computer.

As far as the rootkit mess, that looks to have been a 2005 issue that was since resolved.

[sarongsong]

Fight!June 11, 2007
...Google Inc. is trying to convince federal and state authorities that Microsoft...is stifling competition...Besides bogging down competing programs, Google alleged Microsoft had made it too complicated to turn off the desktop search feature built into Vista....Google hopes to show that Microsoft isn't complying with a 2002 settlement of an antitrust case that concluded the world's largest software maker had leveraged the Windows operating system to throttle competition...A court hearing to review Microsoft's adherence with the consent decree is scheduled June 26...
Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PMS7FO0&show_article=1)

[Musashi]

That seems pretty ridiculous. But that has never stopped them before.

[djellison]

Get Avast. Free AV software for non commercial use - it's brilliant.

Doug

[Damien Evans]

I've had vista for four months now, no complaints as yet, any problems i have had have been with my acer software, not the OS

[Dragon Star]

I love it. Only complaint so far is they removed the visual representation of Disk Defrag.

[Celestial Mechanic]

I love it. Only complaint so far is they removed the visual representation of Disk Defrag.
So what do they do to let you know that the program is really working and not just thrashing the hard drive about? Are they actually able to provide a progress meter that really means something?

[torque of the town]

Do you load vista over XP or do you have to format prior to install?

Thanks guys


David

[Captain Kidd]

I'd like to know that too. I've heard that you cannot install Vista without a pre-existing Windows OS on it. One of the big complaints was that, even with the full version, if you're the type that does a 6-month reinstall of your system whether it needs it or not, you'd have to install XP and then Vista (again, even with the full version).

Since then, I've seen other articles saying that that's not the case.

[Musashi]

I think that you cannot install an upgrade on a clean system. AFAIK, with pre-Vista, you could use update discs to install on a clean system and then just insert the appropriate older (XP, NT, etc.) discs when called for.

[Captain Kidd]

Yeah that's what I've heard. So how is this going to affect the build-it-yourself crowd? I've been thinking of doing that for my next PC, but if I can't get Vista w/o having to have XP also ... ?

[Musashi]

No, you can get Vista fine, you just can't use an upgrade version unless you (apparently) install a previous version first. For example, Home premium is $239 for a full version and $159 for the upgrade.

[Captain Kidd]

Oh, well that's always been the case hasn't it? At one point I was hearing even the full version required XP for some sort of strange validation routine.

[Dragon Star]

So what do they do to let you know that the program is really working and not just thrashing the hard drive about? Are they actually able to provide a progress meter that really means something?

No, it just tells you with text it's working. Kinda sucks.

[Musashi]

Oh, well that's always been the case hasn't it? At one point I was hearing even the full version required XP for some sort of strange validation routine.
I got my system with the OS already installed. I am making an educated guess that you can install a full version of Vista onto a system without installing XP first, but until I try it I won't know for certain.

[Dragon Star]

More then likely they will do/have done what they did with XP.

Offer the cheap "Upgrade" version, or the expensive as hell "Full Install" version.

Mine was also pre-installed.

[Musashi]

Yes, they offer Upgrade and Full versions of each type of Vista. I wouldn't call them cheap or expensive as hell, but then, I don't know what your budget restraints are. The pricing is clearly listed at the MS site, but a lot of retailers offer Vista at discounted prices.

[Damien Evans]

I'd like to know that too. I've heard that you cannot install Vista without a pre-existing Windows OS on it. One of the big complaints was that, even with the full version, if you're the type that does a 6-month reinstall of your system whether it needs it or not, you'd have to install XP and then Vista (again, even with the full version).

Since then, I've seen other articles saying that that's not the case.

mine came with Vista, so i wouldn't know

[Musashi]

I talked to someone who should know and he said that you can install a full version of Vista by itself.

[m1omg]

I have a Mac and I am Happy...
(not intended as advertisements)
Really, I don't like MS, their OSs are just too unstable and prone to viruses and spyware.

[Dragon Star]

I wouldn't call them cheap or expensive as hell, but then, I don't know what your budget restraints are.

I was referring to what they did with XP. As for my budget, by that I mean at that point, you may as well just buy a new computer to stay up with current technology and not pay large amounts of money for little upgrades.

[Celestial Mechanic]

No, it just tells you with text it's working. Kinda sucks.
After a little reflection I realized why. With FAT16 there are at most just under 216=65,536 allocation clusters to keep track of. It is not too much trouble to create, update, and window into a graphical representation of the process.

FAT32 can handle up to 228 = 256*1,048,576 allocation clusters. (Maybe more by now.) This is really too much data to try and graph.

[LurchGS]

After a little reflection I realized why. With FAT16 there are at most just under 216=65,536 allocation clusters to keep track of. It is not too much trouble to create, update, and window into a graphical representation of the process.

FAT32 can handle up to 228 = 256*1,048,576 allocation clusters. (Maybe more by now.) This is really too much data to try and graph.

Oh, I disagree, most assuredly I do. There's never so much data that you can't graph it in some manner. In fact, that's why graphs were invented - to display huge amounts of data.

Right off the top of my head, a simple percentage bar would work. Or.. break the disk display into tracks, color each track as it's completed. Along side that, you can easily show changes ON the track..

It doesn't have to be the traditional defrag graphic, though that could still be done.

[Damien Evans]

I have a Mac and I am Happy...
(not intended as advertisements)
Really, I don't like MS, their OSs are just too unstable and prone to viruses and spyware.

:lol:

Thats only cause hackers/virus makers don't target Macs cause they only have 5% of the market

[Delvo]

:lol:

Thats only cause hackers/virus makers don't target Macs cause they only have 5% of the marketRegardless of the cause, the result is still true.

[sarongsong]

Got bugs? http://www.bautforum.com/images/icons/icon10.gifFebruary 4, 2008
... Vista Service Pack 1, or SP1...to be available in March...first to business customers with volume licensing deals...
AP (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZXEB4XAx6F3uTwXUxT1RlFpi9HgD8UJOLG82)

[Neverfly]

Got bugs? http://www.bautforum.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Nothing a lack of Vista won't fix;)

[pzkpfw]

Got bugs?

Oh, please.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/