Foo - New Windows

Hi. I'd like to buy new windows- vista. But it's quite an expensive
software. So, maybe someone know, is it really good for these money, or it's too
expensive? I just don't want to pay two thouthand dollars for product with lots of bugs. I don't
know, how many bugs in vista, therefore I ask about it on this
forum.
Thanks for help.

In my option, best to wait until the OEM's start selling 'vanilla' copies. Yoy have probably seen the spam of cheap application software without the documentation. I have an MSDN suscription and can say honestly, just another Redland RIPOFF! I still run 98 on my game box ( online racer F1, GT ) and my large format print company units run NT and 2000. I have to tweak the registry on some of the newer games but I really do not mind, not a real problem. For those not literate in the behind the scenes antics of Microsoft, Xp will be around for a while and is pretty straight forward with current application software.
ARE YOU LISTENING BILL?

I just hope they've separated windows explorer and IE. Knowing Microsoft on efficiency, Vista probably has a 2GB RAM requirement.

I just hope they've separated windows explorer and IE. Knowing Microsoft on efficiency, Vista probably has a 2GB RAM requirement.

Not in your or my lifetime friend.

IE7 now available at your local thrift shop.
Actually, not too bad for a browser but as
usual boatloads of holes in it.


No, however given how cheap memory is now
not a bad idea as ALL gui's ( graphic user interfaces)
gobble memory like a crackhead in a coke refinery.

I just hope they've separated windows explorer and IE. Knowing Microsoft on efficiency, Vista probably has a 2GB RAM requirement.
No no, to be fair they only suggest 1GB as a minimum. :p

512MB is the minimum, but considering this OS will be supported for the next 10 years, 2GB is more realistic for the stuff people will do with their 'puters in the next 10 years. I've been using 2GB on WinXP for a couple years now, and I've still run out of RAM sometimes when doing heavy multitasking.

2GB of RAM is $230 or so. I paid almost $400 for 256MB of RAM back in the day, so when you look at the actual cost, this isn't too bad. Don't get greedy :D

TRACKMAN, if you know of boatloads of holes in IE7, you can report them here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/alertus.aspx :)

What I find particularly attractive about Vista is that finally they're going to drop the Admin-by-default behavior. If they'd done that back when WinXP came out, (edit: and had the Windows Firewall enabled by default), the security landscape over the last 7 years would've been very different. People can run as non-admins now, Windows has had that capability since WinNT (how to do it on WinXP (http://www.mechbgon.com/build/Limited.html)). But you had to do that yourself.

Well, they wanted to make it easy for people to use, so full admin-rights to everything! ;) A lot of issues can be avoided if they'd make a proper microkernel that's protected. Oh well, you get what you pay for and hopefully this new pricing reflects the kinds of work and effort that went into it. The previous Windows incarnations had an 80% profit-margin or something obscene like that...

Don't bother buying it unless it comes with a new system. I'm not aware of any way it will benefit the average user except for having flashy translucent windows that manage to double or triple your memory usage. In fact, nobody's really explained to me how it benefits anybody at the moment. I'm sure the fruits will show up eventually, but probably not until Samsung has absolutely gorged itself on cash from selling RAM chips.

By the way, several computer OEM's are offering coupons for "free" ($10 S&H) upgrade to the equivalent version of Vista (depending whether your computer comes with XP Home, Pro, or Media Center) when it comes out. I also saw that Newegg has the OEM disk with the coupon, too, but you have to buy it with hardware to meet the OEM qualification.

I find 80% profit margin hard to believe. I'd bet that depends on how you account for costs. Sure pressing disks and putting them in glossy green boxes is cheap, but what about development time? N-thousand developers at ~$100-200K per year ain't cheap.

Don't bother buying it unless it comes with a new system. I'm not aware of any way it will benefit the average user except for having flashy translucent windows that manage to double or triple your memory usage. In fact, nobody's really explained to me how it benefits anybody at the moment. I'm sure the fruits will show up eventually, but probably not until Samsung has absolutely gorged itself on cash from selling RAM chips.Having the user's apps "sandboxed," so an exploit doesn't result in absolute power over the computer, is a benefit to average users :) Another obvious one: support for WinXP Home/Pro (such as security patches) expires in 2009/2014, just like Win98 support just expired this summer after a stay of execution. Support for Vista home/pro editions expire in 2013/2018.


By the way, several computer OEM's are offering coupons for "free" ($10 S&H) upgrade to the equivalent version of Vista (depending whether your computer comes with XP Home, Pro, or Media Center) when it comes out. I also saw that Newegg has the OEM disk with the coupon, too, but you have to buy it with hardware to meet the OEM qualification.I believe the "must-buy-hardware-with-it" restriction has been lifted on the OEM ones that come packaged like this (below). They probably figured out that everyone is just buying a 99-cent power splitter to get the "hardware" and just said the heck with it. The license is still valid only for the first computer it's installed on, since it's the OEM flavor.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/32-116-169-03.JPG

Vista Ultimate sounds like the one I want, with almost all the goodies except some extra-special ones found only on the $1000 Vista Enterprise (which you can only get on pre-built systems anyway IIRC). Being a pro-level OS, it gets the 10-year support life, among other things.

As a home user, I don't care. Its just another version. I understand the security risks but it isn't worth the coin if you are a smart webuser. I rarely have issues as I can repair debug every problem my computer can encounter, and I rarely have problems, knock on wood.

As an admin, vista offers an expansive collection of powerful tools over my network, under my open license I plan to upgrade everything before that license expires. It is a tool that stretchs 2003, which was already head and shoulders better than NT and 2000, and makes it that much better.

Have they seperated the GUI from the Kernel yet? That is the thing that annoys me most about Windows. If I want to run a GUI then fine I'll run one as a program but not inherent to the OS. How annoying is it to freekin have to restart your damn computer when you make a simple update!

I wouldn't get for home use for at least another year and even then I won't get it.

So are there any advantages to getting Vista?

I'm happy with XP since I upgraded from Windows "ME", which gave me a lot of problems. I've been running smoothly, or as smoothly as I can on my outdated machine.

I'm running XP on my PC. I recently got an Apple iBook for varous tasks and that's quickly become my primary computer. I really like it.

I don't know, I guess I just like the Apple OS more than Windoze.

I guess it's like comparing Snap-on tools vs. Craftsman. The biggest selling point people bring up about Craftsman is its lifetime warrantee and support... You don't even need to worry about that with Snap-on...

I think the biggest change is the look and feel. I already hate winxp, so I flipped the "look and feel" back to 2000 style. If Vista doesn't have the option I likely would never like it.

For those of you who want some info on it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx

BTW 2000$ is a little bit of an overexageration. These are the full price versions, upgrades are 100$ cheaper.

Business - 299.99
Enterprise - N/A only available through open license (wohoooo)
Home premium - 239.99
Home Basic - 199.99
Vista Ultimate - 399.99

Not to shabby.

Don't bother with it yet. The RC1 was slow on my Athlon X2 with a gigabyte of ram. Moreover, it was so paranoidally secure that it got nearly unusable for normal desktop management. "Windows needs your permission to continue" and an OS blackout for nearly everything. I found the UI extremely awkward and fuzzy as well. I want a sleek and easily workable computer, not a "digital ABC-book". Windows 2000 rules!

It's not worth it imho.
It is super fast, actually faster then xp on alot of things on the same machine.
They really improved browsing network shares alot. What used to take 30 seconds to 5 mintues to hanging up Explorer when browsing network folders with maybe 1000 folders now is almost instantaneously.

The graphics are also cool but there's not alot of stuff in Vista that would convince me to convince somebody else to spend their hard earned money for the upgrade.,
I would DEFINITELY recommend getting it with a new PC because in that case the manufactuer swallows up the cost of the OS and gets it for a much greater discount then you can ever imagine. But spending that money for an upgrade imho is not really worth it.

I think the biggest change is the look and feel. I already hate winxp, so I flipped the "look and feel" back to 2000 style. If Vista doesn't have the option I likely would never like it.

For those of you who want some info on it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx

BTW 2000$ is a little bit of an overexageration. These are the full price versions, upgrades are 100$ cheaper.

Business - 299.99
Enterprise - N/A only available through open license (wohoooo)
Home premium - 239.99
Home Basic - 199.99
Vista Ultimate - 399.99

Not to shabby.

I think you can still make it look like classic. I haven't dug around but I found the classic menu and since the theming engine should be a service jsut like in xp you can simply disable it , change the colors theme and poof. Personally I like the look of Vista aside from some of the stuff. It is pretty slick although there are alot of thigns that i think they just rushed through or threw in as a last minute thought and didn't boher going to the designers and saying hey how can we make this look nicer, work smoother, etc

I believe the "must-buy-hardware-with-it" restriction has been lifted on the OEM ones that come packaged like this (below). They probably figured out that everyone is just buying a 99-cent power splitter to get the "hardware" and just said the heck with it. The license is still valid only for the first computer it's installed on, since it's the OEM flavor.

I've gotten a stick of sdram with my edition of SQL 2000 Enterprise. :p

Ok, good point on the security. I tend to overlook that just because I play smart and I never have problems. The other points made are advantages for corporate environments, but the average user won't notice...and they're probably only implemented in the higher versions anyways. The long-term support mentioned is an artificial benefit. If they were to continue selling XP, they would have to continue to support it, obviously. BTW, I wasn't arguing against Vista in general, but I don't feel there's any good reason for the average user to upgrade, unless perhaps they're buying a new system and plan on keeping it around for more than 2-3 years.


BTW 2000$ is a little bit of an overexageration. These are the full price versions, upgrades are 100$ cheaper.

Business - 299.99
Enterprise - N/A only available through open license (wohoooo)
Home premium - 239.99
Home Basic - 199.99
Vista Ultimate - 399.99

Nice...so I'm paying $140 for XP Pro OEM, and getting a $200 upgrade (Vista Business) for $10. I assume I can install XP on one partition, then install a second copy on a seperate partition (same machine...MAC addresses don't change) and upgrade it to Vista and dual boot.


They really improved browsing network shares alot. What used to take 30 seconds to 5 mintues to hanging up Explorer when browsing network folders with maybe 1000 folders now is almost instantaneously.

I'm definitely glad to hear that. I'm not on a college campus anymore, but I remember what a pain it was to browse them before...especially using WinME, which I'm told would try to re-index the entire folder structure of the network each time you tried to navigate it.

It is super fast, actually faster then xp on alot of things on the same machine.
They really improved browsing network shares alot. What used to take 30 seconds to 5 mintues to hanging up Explorer when browsing network folders with maybe 1000 folders now is almost instantaneously.You can do the same improvement with Win2k/XP by turning OFF the "scan for scheduled-tasks" feature. It looks in each browsed folder for scheduled-tasks and this takes a tonne of time across the network.

- ah!

Microsoft-free since 1993™!

- seriously though - what will Vista really do for you unless you need a new development environment?

- ah!

Microsoft-free since 1993™!

- seriously though - what will Vista really do for you unless you need a new development environment?

Same thing most upgrades that windows has offered, not much. IMO windows upgrades really only apply to admins, same with office, the upgrades really only apply to enterprise level. Home Office users could easily get away with the functionality of open. Windows 2000, winxp and I imagine vista, offer some increased functionality, but most of the power is going to lay in how it interacts with the servers, group policies and remote control and MOM (as well as other hidden gems).

Windows 2003 and winxp was a MASSIVE (seriously, 100% improvement) over windows 2000 server client relationship. I look forward to vista as an admin, as a home user...I won't buy it until I get something with it oem.