Shock and awe; Windows Vista has been released to the hounds (that would be us). As just about every publication has reiterated a thousand times over it took 5+ years of design and development and cost USD 5.5 billion both directly and indirectly. We were promised (maybe not even promised, but bullshitted) a revolutionary operating system and what we got is for you to determine for yourselves. I personally think it’s a disappointment to say the least.Microsoft employs some 70000+ people world wide. Among them are probably some of the smartest and most talented minds in the world of software engineering. Most of us who really care, probably realize it’s not necessarily a question of Microsoft’s talents but a question of how Microsoft builds products inside its enormously complex bureaucracy and heavily proprietary development world. Microsoft is clinging to a development model that this author feels is increasing threatened by a changing world. Those of you making those changes know who you are. Let’s not forget the fact that it just doesn’t work that well. As evidence I submit Windows Visa.
I see varying numbers all over the Internet but it appears Vista has 50+ million lines of code. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. I’m a lousy developer so I can’t comment, you know what though, I will since it’s my editorial and in this little B&W world I can do what I want. 50+ million is probably 50+ million too much. What I’m really saying is Microsoft should have STARTED FROM SCRATCH. Bite the damn bullet and be gone with that “START” button already.
Yes I’m going to do it. I’m going to make a comparison to Apple AGAIN! Mac OS X is probably one of the better consumer operating systems on the market today, some would say the best. Maybe it is. Apple bit the bullet and went from OS 9 which was pretty much a piece of garbage from a stability/maintainability standpoint, to a well matured, aesthetically pleasing modern operating platform. Apple did this in less than 6 years. In all fairness Apple does control the hardware platform and therefore has better control over overall design and quality. Microsoft must support hundreds if not thousands of hardware vendors. This is no small feat. But that very fact puts Microsoft in the position to leverage these companies to help build an entirely new “Windows platform”. These companies depend on Microsoft for a large part of their revenue. In a nutshell they listen to Microsoft. Won’t you help lead our crusade?
Microsoft’s biggest competition to Window’s Vista is of course, Windows XP. At least this is what they tell me. For the most part I agree with this. We live in a world that is brainwashed by aesthetics and after cruising the isles of Best Buy, every 30″ LCD sporting Vista’s eye candy sure makes XP look pretty boring and uneventful in comparison, yet it’s not too different to scare us away. Us folk in the technical world know better. A large portion of the computer using public doesn’t and it’s not their job to know.
From a technical standpoint, Windows XP is Microsoft’s biggest competitor to Vista because apparently no one at Microsoft uses Windows XP daily (yes that’s a false statement, I’m sensationalizing to emphasize a point) to see the poor design and functionality quarks. Let me ramble off a few that make me want to physically abuse a computer…
Some of these issues have been addressed. How much so remains to be seen by the masses doing the real beta testing now (no offense to MSDN beta testers, you may have done your best to help). Why does OS X feel so much more fluid and responsive to what I want to do when I want to do it? Vista doesn’t have that feel. Maybe it simply boils down to Vista being overly huge, complex, and lacking any original thought.
Now I am not saying developing software is easy. Developing an operating system is a monumental challenge. Microsoft is the software company with the talent and resources to do almost anything. Dazzle me with a revolutionary operating system that proves Microsoft really can be innovative (because right now, your not). Then give it to me at a fair price with a license agreement I can read without my lawyer.
A long term issue we will now face with Vista is its absurd resource footprint. The vast majority of computer deals today (Dell, HP), are pushing new systems with 2GB of RAM (sometimes more). Besides the fact that this is ludicrous for an operating system to run “optimally” it has a much greater (and negative?) affect on the Windows development community inside and outside of Microsoft. “On that project where I’m building the next ‘Killer app’ for Visa I realize most people will have at least 1GB of RAM and most likely 2GB. I can take advantage of that. So if I keep up with today’s tradition of crappy code, before you know it the next version of ‘time wasting app’ takes 4GB just to install”. I understand newer advances in operating system design and more sophisticated capabilities require power but we’re talking a SIGNIFICANT increase in power for an operating system that is in many instances slower than its 6 year old predecessor (or all predecessors for that matter). This is unacceptable. Get your act together Microsoft. I’m trying to write a paper in bloated Office 2007, not plot the orbital trajectory to the outer rim of Zeta Reticuli.
They tell me smart papers have quotes. Here’s a quote:
“Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!” – Bill Gates, 1981.
Apparently Bill is human after all.
I support Microsoft’s decision to move the desktop compositing to the graphics subsystem. As Apple has shown us, this works well. Mac OS X has a very responsive and fluid GUI. Yes I do like visual effects and you should too. Let’s not forget, relatively speaking (to what people actually do) most modern computer systems have very capable stock graphics cards. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of the time they are spending most of their GPU clock cycles waiting around for something complex to brighten up the screen. So there you go. You have a fairly abundant area of computational power that’s available for the taking. I just hope Aero (WPF) was designed well enough that it’s efficient both now and in the future.
Operating System design is an art. No one said it’s easy, no one has demonstrated it’s easy. Microsoft had an opportunity to make Windows as if they were really trying to innovate and forget about a past known as DOS. Take the fluidity and ease of use (could be better itself) of OS X, build it on top of BeOS’s speedy core and principals, add a dash of UNIX stability and we could have had the Vista we were promised.
Or at the very least, the Vista I kind of had in mind.
Would you please crack the floodgates of criticism open?
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
it would be considered “SHOCK AND AWE”.
In comparision – if Linux comes close to Vista it would be considered “SHOCK AND AWE”.
It would indeed be almost a Greek tragedy if a release of Linux came out anywhere as crappy as most people think Vista is.
Please, enough with the subjective anti-Vista articles. This isn’t slashdot.
Please advertise for slashdot somewhere else, thanks!
–bornagainpenguin
In the marketplace, it is the subjective that ultimately makes the difference. I do agree that it is getting a bit tiresome, but MS carries so much weight in the marketplace, the proliferation of these sort of articles is inevitable.
Vista will be the only choice for the majority of consumers, not because there are no other choices, rather because there is little exposure and limited knowledge of the choices in the consumer market place. Businesses with informed and knowledgable IT departments also have to cater to their users who are pretty much consumer type users. The kind of users who use “fast” and “slow” as technical terms.
Technical discussions are important and valuable, but when it comes to selling computers what matters is:
1) Does it work – to the consumer “good enough” is acceptable
2) Is it pretty – to the consumer this represents progress
3) Is it secure – the consumer wants to see their Internet Security Suite working in the background.
Mess with these and consumers may start to think differently. If and when they do, they will be thinking subjectively.
Please, enough with the subjective anti-Vista articles. This isn’t slashdot.
I disagree for the following reasons:
1. It seems that this article was written especially for OSNews, the kind of stuff they actively solicit. You are perfectly free to “wow” OSNews with your Vista experience.
2. Any survey of several weeks or more of the articles on OSNews might show bias, but at least not against Microsoft in general.
3. A balance of positive and negative is only that, just a balance but not necessarily a fair reflection of reality at all. What good is such a balance with Enron or your favorite charity? Either “balanced” case likely distorts the essential character of the topic in order to achieve some false sense of balance. Thus, if Vista is negative on the whole, more anti-Vista articles are perfectly natural.
4. Slashdot indeed has problems, but it is not at all clear that the editors oppose Vista all that much, at least without good reason. Do note that both sites rely on submissions. Moreover, last time I checked, one of their advertisers was indeed Microsoft.
5. Of course with any article you are perfectly free to tear it apart. Have at it!
6. Wake me up when these skeptical articles taken together have a tiny fraction of the influence of the half BILLION dollar marketing budget to promote Vista.
Edited 2007-02-15 19:26
You are perfectly free to “wow” OSNews with your Vista experience.
I would also add, in the vein of being as open and balanced as possible, that the submission queue is available for viewing (well… titles, at least) on the submission page. You don’t see that on many editor controlled sites.
We shouldn’t be. I was suckered into the upgrade scam that was XP and I learnt my lesson then–why didn’t you? Sure, XP may be a respectable OS NOW (especially as users have discovered how to work around and with the OS) but when it was released as “teh best OS evah!” remember how swiftly we discovered the system was a joke? Melissa, Code Red, ILoveYou, etc?
Fool me once, maybe; fool me twice?
I don’t &%$# think so…
–bornagainpenguin
Melissa, Code Red, ILoveYou, etc?
I’m pretty sure that all 3 pre-date the release of XP.
Edited 2007-02-16 02:37
Oct 25 2001 Official XP release Date?
W97M.Melissa.A
Discovered: March 26, 1999
CodeRed Worm
Discovered: July 16, 2001
That fact that these were dicovered and fixed before the the release of XP only makes the havoc that they were able to wreak even worse.
That fact that these were dicovered and fixed before the the release of XP only makes the havoc that they were able to wreak even worse.
I don’t claim to recall exactly, but didn’t those only affect Win2k systems?
And didn’t all of those viruses depend on exploits for which patches had been released months earlier?
This article is not worth much. I knew I was in trouble when I read this line in the first paragraph:
We were promised (maybe not even promised, but bullshitted) a revolutionary operating system and what we got is for you to determine for yourselves
I hear the domain enquirernews.com is still available.
I understand your sentiment but John Doe makes no pretenses about an objective review. And he’s right on every issue, complete with his raw disgust. OK, maybe we’ve hammered enough proverbial nails into the Vista coffin, but misery loves company does it not?
What concerns me is the next big challenge that lays ahead – that being the efficient use of multi core processors. Think the OS code is already too complex? Things can only get worse.
I don’t have a problem with his conclusions, just the style of the article. It’s not well-written. Period.
I agree. There are some fair points, but the style is a bit childish.
EDIT: Very childish :-D.
Also, I wouldn’t want an operating system like OS X built on top of something like BeOS. afaik (and as far as I’ve seen), BeOS is really slow, but it’s real time, which makes it feel very responsive. It also has a couple of limitations regarding the number of threads, tasks etc. which I can’t remember exactly, but I think running an environment like OS X’s would kind of push its limits.
The other problem I’ve got is that graphics subsystems, desktops and ease of use have nothing to do with OS design.
Edited 2007-02-15 19:49
Call me crazy but I liked the style. Woohah!!
Call me crazy but I liked the style
Hi crazy! ;}
/+1
Being a Linux/Windows/BSD developer I had (and still have, from time to time) the displeasure of using Vista (RTM).
While I agree that Vista is slow and DRM infested, the article is poorly written.
– Gilboa
I am using it right now. It’s faster for me than XP was on the same machine. Much of the additional memory usage of Vista is due to “ReadyBoost” – caching the initial binary image of frequently used programs in memory. Open Office apps open in about a second – without the open office preloader. Other apps just pop to life immediately. If you have 1GB of RAM or more, Vista will definitely feel faster than XP.
What is this DRM infestation that you speak of? I mean seriously. All the old media programs I used in XP work in Vista. Rhapsody, Youtube (flash player), Windows Media, and iTunes. I can also play unencrypted MPEG4 content just the way I used to in XP. Is there something I am missing here?
I hardly can give you any sort of credit for that post you wrote because as soon as you wrote that Vista was running faster than XP I call shenanigans. If you had a malware infested XP install then yes it would be faster. But a clean install? I dont think so and neither do most of the Vista users. I have used Vista for a long time and it is slower than XP. Just enough to annoy me to no end.
Call ‘shenanigans’ all you want. I had a clean install of XP from the factory, only a month old, and I upgraded it to Vista. Boot time is about the same. But most apps launch faster (thanks to SuperFetch), and the GPU accelerated user interface feels smoother, faster, and ‘snappier’ to me. I also experience no user interface ‘hangs’ in the explorer or file dialogs, as I used to quite regularly in XP, especially when dealing with networked resources.
In XP I turned off all the little menu animations and drop shadows, as they were just too slow for my liking. In Vista they are so fluid and fast that I hardly notice them.
They’ve also done an excellent job in Vista of given you a responsive interface, even when all the data isn’t in yet. For example, the add/remove programs dialog used to take forever to load in XP as the applet had a lot of work to do to interrogate all the installed apps. In Vista you get an immediately responsive applet, and the program entries fill in as Vista finishes inspecting each one. This is just one example. There are multiple places in Vista where this principle has been applied. In general you will find it very rare, even with very long running tasks, to be presented with a non-responsive UI. Microsoft listened to their users, and delivered on this one.
Sorry, the Vista user interface is indeed faster than XP was on this machine. If you have some old machine with 512MB and a crappy GPU, that probably won’t be the case, but the vast majority of Vista installs will be on new hardware – MS knew this, and designed for it. If XP is faster than Vista on your old hardware, fine, stick with XP.
Interesting, my compaq laptop is new. And “Vista ready” but still runs crappy. Granted it’s not a fancy laptop, it’s a low end laptop that most people can afford ($700 USD) and sells like hot cakes from Best Buy here in the states.
Yet without 1GB of ram (Which didn’t come with the laptop) VISTA sucks. That is cool, XP and Linux kill on the laptop. Now with a GIG, Vista runs ok. I don’t mind it. But a lot of people are going to run into this issue when they buy new machines (Unless Windows HOME Basic doesn’t have the bells and whistles anyway)
Like Dell, their biggest sellers are their PC’s under $600 and most of them come with 512 MB of ram, lowend GPUs and Windows home basic. (like my laptop)
“What is this DRM infestation that you speak of? I mean seriously. All the old media programs I used in XP work in Vista. Rhapsody, Youtube (flash player), Windows Media, and iTunes. I can also play unencrypted MPEG4 content just the way I used to in XP. Is there something I am missing here?”
What people mean is that now by default MS has more control over the ability to turn on and off features in your Windows desktop. So if tomorrow the RIAA says “Hey we don’t want Windows machines to run unsigned or un DRMed files, MS has the ability to make that happen.
“If you have 1GB of RAM or more, Vista will definitely feel faster than XP. ”
True, if you put a Lamborghini engine in a VW bug it will run faster then most sports cars (But it’s still a VW bug)
On my Laptop (Which is supposed to be vista ready) XP runs fine with 512 MB of ram. But in Vista I loose most of the bells and whistles. It’s funny because most of those same features in the Mac work fine on my Powerbook with 512 MB of ram.
Vista is a space and memory hog! That is for sure.
“What people mean is that now by default MS has more control over the ability to turn on and off features in your Windows desktop. So if tomorrow the RIAA says “Hey we don’t want Windows machines to run unsigned or un DRMed files, MS has the ability to make that happen. ”
What you are talking about is key revocation for Bluray/HD-DVD content. Yes, Vista has a built in player for this content, and yes, it supports key revocation, as required by all such players. This is not ‘DRM infestation’, it’s a part of the licensing requirements for the next gen HD formats. All players, hardware or software, will have to implement the same key revocation mechanisms – even if written to run under the magically user friendly and always secure OS X.
“True, if you put a Lamborghini engine in a VW bug it will run faster then most sports cars (But it’s still a VW bug) ”
1GB of RAM is hardly extravagant these days. It’s cheap, even in laptops.
“On my Laptop (Which is supposed to be vista ready) XP runs fine with 512 MB of ram. But in Vista I loose most of the bells and whistles. It’s funny because most of those same features in the Mac work fine on my Powerbook with 512 MB of ram. ”
This is a function of your video card, not the available RAM. For the bells and whistles, you will need a relatively modern laptop, with an at least middle of the road 3D accelerated GPU. I’d wager your mac has a better GPU than your XP laptop.
Besides, according to most of the people around here, the bells and whistles are utterly useless, and just pale imitations of features Apple implemented years ago.
“Vista is a space and memory hog! That is for sure.”
Unused memory is a waste. Vista uses as much memory as it can to speed things up. With 1GB or more, this works quite nicely.
“1GB of RAM is hardly extravagant these days. It’s cheap, even in laptops.”
True, but you might want to let people know this. As always MS lowballs what a machine REALLY needs. If you go to Dell etc, entry level machines don’t come with a GB of ram or fancy GPU
“This is a function of your video card, not the available RAM. For the bells and whistles, you will need a relatively modern laptop, with an at least middle of the road 3D accelerated GPU. I’d wager your mac has a better GPU than your XP laptop. ”
It’s interesting that once I added 1GB of ram to my laptop the bells and whistles run just fine. Same laptop.
“Besides, according to most of the people around here, the bells and whistles are utterly useless, and just pale imitations of features Apple implemented years ago. ”
That is true, but since I paid for them (Bells and Whistles) and the sales man tried to sell me on this laptop because it’s “Vista Ready” I figured I might as well get them. LOL!
The one thing I have always liked about Apple is the fact that they tell users on their website in very good and concise detail how the bells and whistles can help productivity, not just look cool.
Microsoft is the KING of marketing and getting people to use their products, but I have never thought they do a good job at letting people know what things do and what they are for. Like on the Mac you have spotlight and it’s broken down on the site, very easy to find what spotlight does. I am hard pressed to tell someone what windows search does. Even more funny if you turn on the classic start menu in Windows Vista you don’t get the search box and so in that case you prob will never use the Windows search. When you go to start, search it looks the same as Windows XP. Not like something new and more productive.
1GB of RAM is hardly extravagant these days. It’s cheap, even in laptops.
This is no excuse for bloat. Other OSes manage to do similare things with less. And ‘cheap’ is a subjective term. I call that arrogant…
Unused memory is a waste. Vista uses as much memory as it can to speed things up. With 1GB or more, this works quite nicely.
*LOL*
All OSes that know virtual memory use as much physical memory as possible. I don’t know any OS that ‘wasts’ memory. What was your point?
“This is no excuse for bloat. Other OSes manage to do similare things with less. And ‘cheap’ is a subjective term. I call that arrogant… ”
This argument was made and lost back when people where shocked that OSes required 16MB of RAM.
What you call “bloat” – I call taking advantage of the resources available to create a better user experience. If you disagree with this approach – where should we have stopped? Are things ok now – or should we have stopped with the ‘bloat’ of 10 years ago? Should hardware manufacturers stop providing more and more resources for the same or lower price? If they don’t, should the software developers of the world ignore the new resources? Ignore the vastly expanded memory resouces? Ignore the terabytes of hard disk space? Ignore ever faster processors, with an ever increasing core count?
There is a reason these resources are being expanding, so that software can use it.
Nobody’s yet to make money betting against Moore’s law.
“*LOL* All OSes that know virtual memory use as much physical memory as possible. I don’t know any OS that ‘wasts’ memory. What was your point?”
Vista uses more memory than XP for the same services and programs. Why? One of the big reasons is more aggressive disk caching, and Superfetch – which caches frequently used programs in memory – similar to application specific ‘quick start’ applications, but done by the OS.
If you have 2GB of ram, and the OS is only using 256MB – yes, that free memory is wasted. It could be put to use to improve performance. XP did this to a limited extent, Vista does an even better job of it. So I don’t see it as ‘bloat’ when after boot my 2GB machine has only 1GB free. I realize that Vista will intelligently relinquish the memory if an application needs it, though this is rare – so it’s better used caching the applications and files that I use frequently.
Here is what I am not understanding??
With superfetch running I need more memory to do the same tasks at the same speed? After using vista for a month with 1GB of ram I don’t notice it being any faster then XP on the same machine with 512 MB of ram. So I am not seeing how superfetch is helping me.
Also I am not understanding how Apple can make release after release and still manage to make their OS faster on older machines with each release.?? And at the same time adding more features.
My opinion has ALWAYS been that Microsoft makes the bloat to drive PC sales, PC sales drive OS sales and their partners Dell and Intel make more money along with MS and they NEVER buck the system.
Another bloat task to make PC sales is the fact that Windows get SLOWER and SLOWER and SLOWER as you add more and use it more. I noticed something that no one else seems to mention, Defrag on Vista is set by default to Autorun in the background. But by default it’s set to run at 3AM??? Also there is now no way to tell how fragmented your drive is and how long it will take to unfrag it.
I know people tell me all the time that you no longer need to defrag! Poppy Cock! If you do DVD ripping or move a lot of files or install a lot of apps, at least in Windows XP you MUST defrag! Or your whole damn drive will be RED.
Anyway my point is that as your PC gets slower, normal people tend to believe that it’s cause your computer is getting older. Not understanding Windows is the issue. This makes people go out and buy new machines also. I have a friend right now that has a P4 1.4 GH machine with 512 MB of ram and 250 GB HD. (A Dell) and because he never put SP2 on it, the machine got tons of spyware. He was actually going to (And might still) buy a new PC. I keep saying let me install XP from scratch for you but he is unsure now.
Typical ways the PC/OS/CPU trifecta work
“With superfetch running I need more memory to do the same tasks at the same speed?”
I see the problem, you have poor reading comprehension, when I said “faster”, you read “same speed”. This is incorrect.
“Also I am not understanding how Apple can make release after release and still manage to make their OS faster on older machines with each release.?? And at the same time adding more features. ”
Simple, set the bar very low. Macs have always felt very sluggish to me, compared to XP. The first releases of OS X had abysmal performance on standard hardware and were very poorly optimized to begin with. Apple released them anyways, and then optimized with subsequent releases.
“Another bloat task to make PC sales is the fact that Windows get SLOWER and SLOWER and SLOWER as you add more and use it more.”
I’ve never experienced this on any of my PCs. Mostly this is because people fail to uninstall old software that is no longer used, and that there are a slew of crappy windows programs that think they need to load resource intensive task bar icons and startup programs. On machines without any spyware, I can get them back to their original speed by uninstalling old programs, and disabling most of the auto-start crap programs have installed if the user still wants to keep the app around. It never fails to pep the computer right up.
It’s poorly written application software that’s at fault, not the OS.
“I noticed something that no one else seems to mention, Defrag on Vista is set by default to Autorun in the background. But by default it’s set to run at 3AM???”
Incorrect. It’s schedule to run weekly at 1am on my install.
“Also there is now no way to tell how fragmented your drive is and how long it will take to unfrag it.”
I don’t recall any defrag tool ever giving me a good estimate. It’s relatively difficult to predict the time it will take, especially with a user tromping across the disk at the same time.
I’ve never much cared how fragmented a disk is. I am a relatively expert user – and all I know is that bigger percentages are worse. 5% or 10%? is knowing that going to make a difference – certainly not the average user. They just want the computer to take care of it for them. Heck, I’d be surprised if 1% of the users out there even know what fragmentation means.
“I know people tell me all the time that you no longer need to defrag! Poppy Cock! If you do DVD ripping or move a lot of files or install a lot of apps, at least in Windows XP you MUST defrag! Or your whole damn drive will be RED. ”
So let the darned background defragger do its job and stop complaining. You know, this is one of the main reasons MS built in a new feature called prioritized I/O, so that I/O intensive background processes could run without disturbing your ability to surf.
“Anyway my point is that as your PC gets slower, normal people tend to believe that it’s cause your computer is getting older. Not understanding Windows is the issue. ”
No, not understanding that they should purge all the crap software they’ve installed is the problem.
“I see the problem, you have poor reading comprehension, when I said “faster”, you read “same speed”. This is incorrect”
Um I think you have the reading issue as you said faster and I said same speed BASED on my laptop when running XP or Vista!
“I’ve never experienced this on any of my PCs. Mostly this is because people fail to uninstall old software that is no longer used, and that there are a slew of crappy windows programs that think they need to load resource intensive task bar icons and startup programs. On machines without any spyware, I can get them back to their original speed by uninstalling old programs, and disabling most of the auto-start crap programs have installed if the user still wants to keep the app around. It never fails to pep the computer right up.
It’s poorly written application software that’s at fault, not the OS.”
Wow, then I wonder why this does not happen on other OS’s MAYBE it has to do with old azz fake journaling NTFS.
“Incorrect. It’s schedule to run weekly at 1am on my install. ”
And running at 1 AM is better then 3 AM? How many people gonna have their PC’s on at 1AM for defrag to run? LOL! Anyway if NTFS wasn’t so crappy you would not need to defrag. Notice us non Windows user don’t need to!
“I’ve never experienced this on any of my PCs.” this is the standard BS excuse I get from Windows users. They never see this. Yet companies like mine and Best Buy Geek Squad make 90% of their money on Windows related trouble calls because of these very issues. Even when I work with companies that have ALL Macs or even Linux machines I NEVER have to deal with any of these issues. 99% of the time I am just showing people how to network or set up printers or something.
“Simple, set the bar very low. Macs have always felt very sluggish to me, compared to XP.” That is true in some cases. XP is fast out the box. (Out the box) 6 months later with crap software installed, files everywhere etc the Mac will still be running at the same speed as when you first got it. The Windows machine will be running just like the Mac or worse!
“So let the darned background defragger do its job and stop complaining.”
But I thought people don’t have to defrag anymore? LOL! Anyway in Windows XP you have to be a DARN admin to defrag. Also you know as well as I do that you will be hard pressed to ever finish a defrag if you are really using the machine while its working on that. (I can’t say in Vista cause you can’t tell when the Defrag is done or even if it ever finishes! How silly is that! LOL!
What you call “bloat” – I call taking advantage of the resources available to create a better user experience
Yeah. Flip3d and ‘gadgets’ are such essential additions..
(And still, there are other OSes that use less RAM to do the same.)
more aggressive disk caching, and Superfetch – which caches frequently used programs in memory – similar to application specific ‘quick start’ applications, but done by the OS.
These are the same old caching and pre-loading tricks. They might work in some instances but fail in others. And if they fail, things gets slooooow. Obviously, those tricks are implemented in such a stupid way that the OS cannot adopt to systems without that much excessive RAM. Good job Redmond!
if you have 2GB of ram, and the OS is only using 256MB – yes, that free memory is wasted.
No, it isn’t. You obviously don’t have a clue how virtual memory and paging works, do you?
Nobody’s yet to make money betting against Moore’s law.
Moore’s law is about HW. For SW, Wirth’s law applies. And Vista is one of the nicest proofs for it…
“No, it isn’t. You obviously don’t have a clue how virtual memory and paging works, do you? ”
I guess I am clueless. Please explain to me why a system with 1.75GB free would be using virtual memory, and paging out to disk.
Please explain to my why the OS should not use that free memory to cache frequently used disk pages, or in the case of Vista, cached program images. How is it possibly put to good use sitting around unused?
If you have 2GB of ram, and the OS is only using 256MB
Ecxept, with Vista, it’s more like: If you have 2GB fo ram, and the OS is using 1GB of that. Then half of your resource investment is tied up with servicing the OS.
I hear the domain enquirernews.com is still available.
Is there already osopinion.com for that sort of stuff?
People will get over it after a while, and Vista will become the de facto OS that 95% of the world uses. For better or for worse, Vista is here, so you might as well learn to like it.
Hummmmm, I don’t use MS OS’s at all, only thing I like about them is that they break and people pay me $50 an hour to fix them.
So I guess I will learn to like it. Long as it holds the MS tradition of breaking and breaking and me making and making! It’s all good.
Thank you MS. My trip to Brazil was great thanks to you.
Hummmmm, I don’t use MS OS’s at all, only thing I like about them is that they break and people pay me $50 an hour to fix them.
Man, you need to up your fee. I thought I was low balling it at $125/hr
Damn, you are right about that. I am cheating myself. Maybe I can make a trip to Madagasgar this time if I up my fees.
“Man, you need to up your fee. I thought I was low balling it at $125/hr”
I charge $50/hr also, but then again I live in Maine. Where do you live D.C.
But honestly, it is Windows, and regardless of how much we all charge to support it; it does pay our bills. Thanks MS 
but then again I live in Maine. Where do you live D.C.
I reside in NYC. So consider it a cost of living increase.
I am in DC. LOL! I need to move to Maine. The $50 will go a LONG way!
Yes I friend of mine have always wonder what the historical cost of MS windows will be. Can you imagine the dollars that could have been saved all for the lack of reasonable design. Gates should be giving all the money away. The cost to the economy has been so high he owes it too us.
Somehow I’m sure it’ll become the “de facto” OS. But I won’t use it, at least not on my MacBook.
Enjoy Vista!
He never said that. Do your research.
“allegedly”, he did not say that….
but he did say these belters,
I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.
We will never make a 32-bit operating system, but I’ll always love IBM.
It’s possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit. (Time, 13 January 1997)
Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be. * On Blu-ray. The Daily Princetonian interview (14 Oct 2005)
Spam will be a thing of the past in two years’ time. * BBC News (24 January 2004
What’s a network? * Question by Gates in the early 80s, as quoted by Hermann Hauser of Acorn Computers in speech at the University of Southampton (1 May 1996)
The next generation of interesting software will be done on the Macintosh, not the IBM PC. * BusinessWeek, 26 November 1984
There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed. * Focus Magazine No. 43 (23 October 1995)
About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade. * Speech at the University of Washington, as reported in “Gates, Buffett a bit bearish” CNET News (2 July 1998)
from Wikipedia
Oh yeah, I think Windows addiction is a real danger in our society *rolls eyes 360 degrees*
Actually it is. Windows piracy is as bad as Microsoft getting children hooked on Windows and MS Office by giving it away freely or cheaply to educational centres.
This way the children learns nothing but obeying Microsoft. Very smart and very unethical (and there fore very Microsoftish).
Addiction is a sad story, but this type of addiction is disgusting
Actually it is.
Oh please. How is Windows addiction (whatever that is) a “real danger” – especially when compared to additions that are harmful in quantifiable ways?
Windows piracy is as bad as Microsoft getting children hooked on Windows and MS Office by giving it away freely or cheaply to educational centres.
Your contention is that “practice N is bad, because it’s just as bad as practice N”? Isn’t that basically a texbook example of a sophist argument?
No, that is not my contention and no, it is not a sophist argument.
But perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in what my contention was/is.
Windows piracy (and Microsoft accepting Windows piracy when wishing to expand its market) is as bad as Microsoft giving software to children for free or at a very low fee, because: Both kinds of behaviour make people highly dependent on Microsoft and its software “solutions”, taking away the option for children to learn other platforms and other solutions (thereby losing potential knowledge) – effectively leading to a one-system IT-world which is very vulnerable – as is evident from the Windows-oriented malware.
Windows piracy (and Microsoft accepting Windows piracy when wishing to expand its market) is as bad as Microsoft giving software to children for free or at a very low fee, because:
But is your objection to the practice itself? Or the fact that Microsoft is engaging in the practice? If Micrososft is to be condemned for turning a blind eye to piracy that benefits them, then does that make Apple significantly worse because of the way they deliberately target the education market? (BTW, if anyone thinks that strategy is driven by some magnanimous desire to “give our children a better computing experience,” then I have a bridge for sale – no cheques, small bills only, please).
I should also point out that criticizing Microsoft for “allowing” piracy puts you in the position of supporting their product activation schemes (if one is to be intellectually consistent, that is).
Both kinds of behaviour make people highly dependent on Microsoft and its software “solutions”, taking away the option for children to learn other platforms and other solutions (thereby losing potential knowledge) – effectively leading to a one-system IT-world which is very vulnerable – as is evident from the Windows-oriented malware.
Anyone who has studied ecology is aware of the inherent vulnerability-to-disaster of a mono-culture. And if you were criticizing them for an excessive dependence on vertical integration / lock-in through artificial “incompatibilities,” then I would completely agree with you.
But the phenomenon that you’re talking about is much more of a side-effect of other factors (like the ones in the above paragraph) that the result of conscious strategy. I think you would have a very difficult time, for instance, building a legal case – either to argue that the result is some sort of quantifiable harm, or that it was the result of deliberate malice.
I’m all for criticism of Microsoft when they deserve it. Hell, I support Windows systems every day – and as someone who used to work in a stable, the only practical difference is that working with Windows only requires you to shovel horseshit in the figurative sense. But criticizing them, simply because they’re a popular target, just results in a big dogpile of anti-fanboism.
What has always bothered me is that Microsoft allowed it for so long and now has the nerve to act like they didn’t.
…that I spent reading that ‘article’.
Honestly, I’m going to have to reevaluate the time I’m spending at osnews.com.
That ‘article’ was of no value at all.
Why do I keep hearing about 70,000 employees as if all of those employees worked on Vista? BusinessWeek estimates that 10,000 worked on Vista over 5 years (which doesn’t mean those 10,000 worked on Vista for the entire 5 years, but each of that 10,000 spent some time on it during the 5 years). Stop with the 70,000 nonsense; it’s not relevant anyway. It wouldn’t be any more relevant if Microsoft had 2 million employees and 10,000 of them worked on Vista.
BTW, Linux has had 500,000 “employees” over the last 10 years (“one million eyes” divided by two == 500,000 people). :p
It wouldn’t be any more relevant if Microsoft had 2 million employees and 10,000 of them worked on Vista.
But it is relevant. The number of employees is an indication of both the size of the company and the revenue it generates. A big company with a big income and a big market-share has an obligation to maintain its reputation, or they will become smaller.
BTW, Linux has had 500,000 “employees” over the last 10 years (“one million eyes” divided by two == 500,000 people). :p
500000 divided by 250+ distros is a lot less than 10000 🙂
Besides,i think MS lately has problems with getting the kind of wizzards Google attracts..
Besides,i think MS lately has problems with getting the kind of wizzards Google attracts..
Great point. I have 6 friends that I classify as “wizards,” i.e. they are frighteningly smart compared to other really smart people. Four of them work for Google, one is a PhD working on dynamic 3D Bezier meshing for modeling the flow of blood cells through heart valves, and the last is living off the grid in northern CA doing who knows what (nothing good, I promise you that).
These people wouldn’t ever consider working for Microsoft. It’s not a thought that would enter their minds, and if they were given an offer, they’d probably laugh incredulously.
I always wonder: what the hell is google doing with all these “whizzes?” The smartest guy I know worked at Google for a summer as well, and I just couldn’t see why someone of his caliber would want to work on a chat client. Or an algorithm for placing ads on webpages (not saying it’s easy stuff, and I can see why you’d need to be smart to do it, but I don’t see it as the cool side of computing).
Google must have something interesting up its sleeves that it’s being quiet about, or I really think it’s underutilizing all this talent that it’s winning. Of course they’re not very open about things.
>It wouldn’t be any more relevant if Microsoft had 2 million employees and 10,000 of them worked on Vista.
What’s relevant is that BE, Inc. had only a hundred or so employees, and in 5 years or less they put out an OS from scratch that still makes any version of Windows look like the pigs they truely are.
You guys at OSNews should never be so desperate that you’d accept poorly written, content-free crap like this. I mean seriously – can someone point to a single new piece of information, or an original insight contained within this sophomoric screed? And to top it off we get the Bill Gates quote, yet again, an old chestnut that’s debunked every time it’s mentioned on Slashdot (which is at least 2 or 3 times a day).
As for Vista – take it or leave it. I upgraded on the first day, because I am crazy, and I like to try new things. I cannot recommend it to Aunt Milly – yet – but it’s got a lot of great new stuff in there. After the driver and application incompatibilities are ironed out in the next few months, it will be worthy of the title “The best windows ever”.
If you use a mac, this won’t matter to you. Good. Then please go use your mac and be happy. OSX had it first? Bully for OSX. Go use your Mac and be happy.
The rest of us, who need to use Windows programs and games without having to dual boot, without having to pay for two operating systems, without having to pay premium prices for our hardware, without having to plug in an external mouse for left click, and without having to take the hit of virtualization, will appreciate the nice new features and slick visuals Vista has to offer.
No problem! The rest of us who:
Don’t need to be hacked
Don’t need to be cracked
Don’t need viruses
Don’t need spyware
Don’t want to worry about online banking
Don’t want be scared 24/7
Don’t want to pay extra or have to steal Virus scan and Spyware remover software!
Will appreciate our one button mouse and premium hardware.
(Oh yea and you WILL have to pay for premium hardware if you really want the slick visuals)
Edit:
(It will be worthy of the title “The best windows ever”)
Which means it’s still a poor mans Mac. LOL!
Edited 2007-02-15 19:29
I have never been hacked, cracked, had a virus, suffered spyware, am not worried about online banking, am not scared 24/7 nor do I run virus software (finding it generally to be a cure worse than the disease).
I understand there are people who do have issues with these sorts of things on windows. If you think for a second, that if OSX represented 95%+ of the desktop OS market that it wouldn’t suffer from the same problems, you are badly mistaken.
BTW, I don’t want a poor man’s mac. I don’t want a Mac – I’ve tried it, I just don’t like OS X and I honestly don’t care for Job’s design philophy where form trumps function on a regular basis.
I like windows. And I really like Vista. You don’t. Please go use your mac and be happy and smug.
Mac wouldn’t have as much of a problem as windows if it had 95% of the market, as it has it’s unix underpinnings, meaning that it’s secure by design, not as an after though like windows.
deleted. sorry
Edited 2007-02-15 22:36
“Mac wouldn’t have as much of a problem as windows if it had 95% of the market, as it has it’s unix underpinnings, meaning that it’s secure by design, not as an after though like windows.”
Unix is “Secure by design”? You should read up on the history of Unix, particularly the first 20 years.
Oh, and if Mac OSX is “secure by design”, please explain the continual Security Updates that Apple releases:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/security_updates/
As you can see from the above link, there were many Security Updates in 2006, and even more in 2005 (basically as frequent as Windows). Are you really telling me that if Mac OSX had 95% share, none of those many flaws would have been exploited? Come on, now.
Ummmm, every piece of software written has security patches. The question is??
How many of those flaws have been exsploited and how many of those flaws are CRITICAL.
Hummmm the patch that came out yesterday for Vista was critical.
Hummmm the patch that came out yesterday for Vista was critical.
That patch was for Microsoft’s malware detection engine which is shared across a number of their security applications including OneCare, Antigen, Forefront, and Defender. It’s a flaw in an application component, not an OS flaw.
The component is part of Vista just like IE and just like IE you can’t remove it so you might as well say it’s part of the OS.
The component is part of Vista just like IE and just like IE you can’t remove it so you might as well say it’s part of the OS.
It’s not part of the OS. It’s part of the distribution.
LOL! Splitting hairs. Like saying you have 20 dollars but it’s in the bank. You don’t have 20 dollars right now but you know you have it cause it’s in the bank.
How ever you want to put it (Sounding like MS at their trial) the fact is it can NOT be removed. Its part and parcel of Windows VISTA.
It has a critical flaw and you cant remove the flaw from Vista so the flaw is in Vista.
It has a critical flaw and you cant remove the flaw from Vista so the flaw is in Vista.
The flaw is removed by updating the component, which was done by Windows Defender itself, and can also be done by default for new installations by adding the updated file to the installation image.
The flaw is not REMOVED, it is patched. (And we hope the patch works)
And most machines you buy today will not have the patch so lets just hope that no one figures out how to take advantage of it.
Anyway my inital point was not about the flaw it’s self but the fact that MS has had less flaws as of late (It seems cause they drag out patching) but yet more of them are critical then in other OS’s
And most machines you buy today will not have the patch so lets just hope that no one figures out how to take advantage of it.
Nothing is stopping OEMs from updating their images. Granted, this only applies to build-to-order vendors like Dell or local system builders. However, if a machine with an RTM image is purchased today, it will have its firewall enabled by default and Windows Defender will automatically download the update when they connect to the Internet.
Anyway my inital point was not about the flaw it’s self but the fact that MS has had less flaws as of late (It seems cause they drag out patching) but yet more of them are critical then in other OS’s
MS has less flaws because of the move to updated products that have gone through improved development methodologies. The monthly patch cycle was customer-requested, and critical updates are released as they are ready, even breaking the monthly cycle if necessary. Vista has had one critical issue with one of its applications. Windows Server, the most recent previous OS, has had less vulnerabilities than other OSes in its class released around the same time. I’m sure issues will be found in Vista, but fewer than XP and few that have a significant impact on the default configuration.
Interesting, that is what EVERY Windows fan says “I have never been cracked or hacked or gotten spyware” Yet we know that %60 or more of Windows machines have some form of Spyware. On top of that 90% of the people out there don’t even know they have spyware!
And that lame argument that “If Mac’s had 95% of the OS market then they would suffer from the same problems!” I am sorry but having more machines out there does not make for more holes!
Right now VISTA doesn’t have 1% of the PC market but yet has already shown a couple of CRITICAL holes!
Please break that down to me?
So yes I will go back to my Mac and be smug and keep collecting money off those real world people who DO get spyware and viruses! And I will keep making fun of the 50 billion dollar company that sucks.
Oh and it’s interesting that almost everything that is in Windows has been done in the Mac and then some. From the stupid chess game to the desktop search to the transparent windows and Widgets, Gadgets or what ever you want to call them. MS is a follower not a leader. Sorry.
Vista is the poor mans Mac. Most people when you ask them why they don’t have a Mac they say they can’t afford it. But then after they pay me, buy MS office, Antivirus etc they are spending the same and scratching their heads. LOL! (I thought I was saving money getting the Windows machine!)
“Interesting, that is what EVERY Windows fan says “I have never been cracked or hacked or gotten spyware” Yet we know that %60 or more of Windows machines have some form of Spyware. On top of that 90% of the people out there don’t even know they have spyware! ”
I’ve seen more than my share of spyware on friend’s and family’s PCs – just not on my own. I don’t use file-sharing software, download cracked software, or dubious ‘free’ game software. I stick to installing software from known sources, and have thus far never been infected by a virus or spyware.
“And that lame argument that “If Mac’s had 95% of the OS market then they would suffer from the same problems!” I am sorry but having more machines out there does not make for more holes! ”
No, it makes for more targets. I don’t know if OSX has more or fewer holes than does Vista/XP, but I guarantee you it has holes. But who cares. You can waste all the time required to exploit them and build a botnet on a platform that has a minute fraction of the market – or you can spend your time writing exploits for a platform that has over 95% of the market. If I were in the business of writing such software, I know the platform I’d target.
“Right now VISTA doesn’t have 1% of the PC market but yet has already shown a couple of CRITICAL holes!
Please break that down to me? ”
Software will always have holes – I don’t know what I need to ‘break down’ for you. I do know that Vista is much more impervious to exploits that would take an XP installation down. Address Space Layout Randomization for example makes it extremely difficult for malware to exploit buffer overruns and the like, as each system, and indeed, each reboot, results in a different address space layout. At worst, the buffer overrun will result in a crashed machine, not an ‘owned’ machine. OSX however can still be entirely compromised by a single buffer overflow.
“So yes I will go back to my Mac and be smug and keep collecting money off those real world people who DO get spyware and viruses! And I will keep making fun of the 50 billion dollar company that sucks.”
Smug indeed.
“Oh and it’s interesting that almost everything that is in Windows has been done in the Mac and then some. From the stupid chess game to the desktop search to the transparent windows and Widgets, Gadgets or what ever you want to call them. MS is a follower not a leader. Sorry. ”
Again, Bully for Mac and OS X. I really don’t care about the Mac, as I don’t use it. I care about having a excellent Windows experience, which Vista provides. I don’t care where its features come from, or who they may have been copied from, all I care about is that they improve my productivity and overall user experience.
“Vista is the poor mans Mac. Most people when you ask them why they don’t have a Mac they say they can’t afford it. But then after they pay me, buy MS office, Antivirus etc they are spending the same and scratching their heads. LOL! (I thought I was saving money getting the Windows machine!)”
Office on the Mac is free? Do tell. I can afford a Mac – instead I spent about the same amount of money on a Lenovo Thinkpad. Why? Because I *like* windows and almost all the software I own is Windows only. I like the task bar. I like the start menu. I like application menus inside the application window. I like the left mouse button. I like windows explorer, and absolutely love the swiss-army explorer found in Vista. Get this through your head. I have tried a mac, and don’t like it. Couldn’t stand the Finder, couldn’t stand the Dock. You disagree – great – go use your mac and be happy. Stop trying to convince me that my windows experience sucks, when I know for a fact that *I* am more productive on XP than on OSX, and even more productive on Vista.
If Windows is so great to you then why waste your time on here defending it when you don’t have a point to prove. To you Windows is the best thing since slced bread and that is that.
Great.
All I am here doing is pointing out the obvious. Even if you like the look and feel and usability! Windows security record SUCKS. That is the facts.
If your point is that no matter how sucky and insecure it is you are still going to use it then you could of said that in one sentence.
But to say “I do know that Vista is much more impervious to exploits that would take an XP installation down.” When we have not had time to find that out is a little silly. And to say “OSX however can still be entirely compromised by a single buffer overflow.” When you have YET seen that happen in the wild is a little silly also.
It’s cool. I have no problem with you liking Windows. Great. The funny thing is if MS was REALLY serious about things like security I might like them also. But they are not as evidenced by the problems with UAC.
Anyway, good luck. Hope your identity doesn’t get stolen or something like that.
It’s not so much of a fact as you would think. Sure, Windows 9X had a terrible security record (it has no real security boundaries), but that doesn’t really reflect much about current Microsoft OSes. Before SP2, there was a pretty serious problem with email viruses (mostly application-level flaws in the bundled mail client) and with a few system services (RPC buffer overflows). These were often implementation issues, not real design flaws.
The rest of the stuff you see, like spyware, malware, and shovelware are just a result of the toxic Windows development environment. There are lots of computers out there running Windows owned by cheapskates (like me, for instance). Since it’s such a common platform, there’s always someone who’s going to write a piece of software for cheaper than you are. So what do you do? Give your program away for free, but include a piece of adware to make some revenue. Users are happy because they get free software and don’t really know about your spyware. The Windows PC market just reflects the result of a long and drawn out race to the bottom. As long as you can tell who the scum-suckers are, you can stay safe.
Perhaps your clients just aren’t savvy enough to pick up on this. It doesn’t help that some of the scumsuckers are actually companies that aren’t obviously shady. People like Real, McAfee, Norton, and Dell (who’ll include anything just to make a buck).
Security isn’t magical, and there isn’t really anything Microsoft can do to defend their OS against people who make crapware for it, aside from suing these people (and I’m sure that’d go over quite well). So, why is it that Windows is less secure than a Mac?? What mechanisms is it missing? Can you even explain to me in your own words what the problem with UAC is?
The UAC problem is in detail here:
(Its also on OSNEWS)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=29
Edit from blog: http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2007/02/vista-security-model…
Vista Security Model – A Big Joke?
Today I saw a new post at Mark Russinovich’s blog which I take as a response to my recent musings about Vista security features, where I pointed out several problems with UAC, like e.g. the attack that allows for a low integrity process to hijack the high integrity level command prompt. Those who read the whole article undoubtedly noticed that my overall opinion of vista security changes was still very positive – after all everybody can do mistakes and the fact UAC is not perfect, doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s a step into the right direction, i.e. implementing least-privilege policy in Windows OS.
However, I now read this post by Mark Russinovich (a Microsoft employee), which says:
“It should be clear then, that neither UAC elevations nor Protected Mode IE define new Windows security boundaries. Microsoft has been communicating this but I want to make sure that the point is clearly heard. Further, as Jim Allchin pointed out in his blog post Security Features vs Convenience, Vista makes tradeoffs between security and convenience, and both UAC and Protected Mode IE have design choices that required paths to be opened in the IL wall for application compatibility and ease of use.”
And then we read:
“Because elevations and ILs don’t define a security boundary, potential avenues of attack, regardless of ease or scope, are not security bugs. So if you aren’t guaranteed that your elevated processes aren’t susceptible to compromise by those running at a lower IL, why did Windows Vista go to the trouble of introducing elevations and ILs? To get us to a world where everyone runs as standard user by default and all software is written with that assumption.”
Oh, excuse me, is this supposed be a joke? We all remember all those Microsoft’s statements about how serious Microsoft is about security in Vista and how all those new cool security features like UAC or Protected Mode IE will improve the world’s security. And now we hear what? That this flagship security technology (UAC) is in fact… not a security technology!
I understand that implementing UAC, UIPI and Integrity Levels mechanisms on top of the existing Windows OS infrastructure is a hard task and it would be much easier to design the whole new OS from scratch and that Microsoft can’t do this for various of reasons. I understand that all, but that doesn’t mean that once more people at Microsoft realized that too, they should turn everything into a big joke? Or maybe I’m too much of an idealist…
So, I will say this: If Microsoft won’t change their attitude soon, then in a couple of months the security of Vista (from the typical malware’s point of view) will be equal to the security of current XP systems (which means, not too impressive).
Edited 2007-02-16 01:45
Security in Vista is layered and goes further than UAC. The entire premise for Joana’s argument, that all apps regardless of function require admin rights to install, was debunked a guy commenting on her blog and by myself yesterday (hint: use ClickOnce or the mechanisms provided in MSI).
The IL issue is not a big deal as the app first has to get on your system, and it has to have knowledge of another app on your system. In the case of the example she gave, (the command prompt), it requires user interaction to exploit, either via the user elevating a malicious app that may then launch the command prompt (why bother when you have admin rights at this point?), or the app waits for the user to launch an elevated command prompt for it to do any damage and hope the user who launched the prompt doesn’t notice what the app is trying to do. In the IE example she gave, she completely ignored IE’s zone isolation.
Strange that if you read Mark Russinovich’s blog he more so agrees with her assessment then your debunking. And he works for MS so I am sure he knows more about how the functions work then all of us put together.
The thing is that using clickonce or MSI mechanisms put the work of making the installable app secure back on the developer and not in the OS it’s self. Well if the developer wants to do something bad and you run the file it will run as admin by default. Most users are not going to know to right click on the file and do run as! In all of MS’s marketing they don’t tell you that you need to do that. SOOOOO as normal the regular user will just double click and the app will run as admin.
Typical.
Strange that if you read Mark Russinovich’s blog he more so agrees with her assessment then your debunking. And he works for MS so I am sure he knows more about how the functions work then all of us put together.
Mark joined MS near the end of Vista’s development, and he is not an expert on Windows Installer technologies, nor is he a member of that group. So he may not be familliar with everything that is possible. I’m not an expert either, but am familliar with the technology.
The thing is that using clickonce or MSI mechanisms put the work of making the installable app secure back on the developer and not in the OS it’s self.
It’s the developer’s responsibility to use the tools correctly in the first place no matter what the system. The point is that standard user application installs are possible, as are standard user driver installs in some cases, and standard user application patching. If Joanna wants to use a Tetris game that installs as standard user, no one is stopping her.
Well if the developer wants to do something bad and you run the file it will run as admin by default. Most users are not going to know to right click on the file and do run as! In all of MS’s marketing they don’t tell you that you need to do that. SOOOOO as normal the regular user will just double click and the app will run as admin.
It depends on what the file is as to whether it runs as admin. Installers that touch per-machine resources will elevate and alert the user with a UAC prompt. This is no different than password prompts on non-MS OSes except OS X which allows silent installs if an app uses a specific token. Users don’t need to right-click on a file and do “run as …”. The elevation is automatic, and they get a UAC prompt unless the admin configured the system to either not prompt or not allow elevation. In the default configuration, the user is challenged with a UAC prompt for all attempted elevations.
She didn’t say that standard installs were not possible. Her point and mine is BY DEFAULT applications she has tried so far install with admin privileges, and once they have that privilege it is possible to do other destructive things to your PC.
And that has always been MS issue. Anyone can make an application for Windows! You want to trust the developers to protect the users???? LOL! Like she said, that is a joke.
Remember that even though you can give an application elevated privlages in Mac OS X, root is disabled by default, so unless you have someway to elevate and activate root it’s gonna be mighty hard to destroy system level files.
Not the case for UAC, if it requests full privileges on the default user you make when you install Vista you have FULL control of the system during that task. Tisk, tisk, tisk.
She didn’t say that standard installs were not possible. Her point and mine is BY DEFAULT applications she has tried so far install with admin privileges, and once they have that privilege it is possible to do other destructive things to your PC.
Name a common desktop OS where this is not the case. Certain things require elevation. It is up to the user to allow this elevation. The app doesn’t just install elevated without the user knowing.
And that has always been MS issue. Anyone can make an application for Windows! You want to trust the developers to protect the users???? LOL! Like she said, that is a joke.
And how is this different on Linux or OS X?
Just because anyone can create an app doesn’t mean you trust that source. UAC was built to allow user to run as standard users and elevate only when necessary. That’s all. Again, it’s no different than similar mechanisms on other OSes, except it is more resilliant to spoofing and automation.
Remember that even though you can give an application elevated privlages in Mac OS X, root is disabled by default, so unless you have someway to elevate and activate root it’s gonna be mighty hard to destroy system level files.
Not when Apple allows installers to use a token that gives them root privileges and allows them to silently install applications. And Windows has additional protection mechanisms for system files.
Not the case for UAC, if it requests full privileges on the default user you make when you install Vista you have FULL control of the system during that task. Tisk, tisk, tisk.
Again, this is no different than other OSes. When you confirm a UAC prompt, you are obviously giving the application the ability to perform privieged actions. You are giving the app the permission to do so by confirming the elevation request. This is not a design flaw. It is by design.
“Name a common desktop OS where this is not the case. Certain things require elevation. It is up to the user to allow this elevation. The app doesn’t just install elevated without the user knowing.”
Hello, we know that this happens in Windows. Like she said a COMMON app like tetris should not require admin privlages. At most power user maybe to write to a couple of reg keys and then the ability to write to program files and make icons! Not full admin! That is silly!
“And how is this different on Linux or OS X?
Just because anyone can create an app doesn’t mean you trust that source. UAC was built to allow user to run as standard users and elevate only when necessary. That’s all. Again, it’s no different than similar mechanisms on other OSes, except it is more resilliant to spoofing and automation.”
Because in Linux and on the Mac I can install applications WITHOUT being ROOT or Admin. Yes in Windows you can do this to but that is not the default setting! AND like you said before that also DEPENDS on the developer to implement using features in OneClick or in MSI’s???? On the Mac it CAN’T be done at all without ROOT being on! So a regular user would NEVER be able to install anything runnin as root. In Linux unless logged in as root you would have to put in the root user info yourself! So if I installed the same tetris game on my Mac I would only have the privileges of the user installing. Do you use Macs or Linux machines??? LOL! (Or Unix?) At worse I would ONLY be able to delete files or control things that the user doing the install has access to. If you can’t see the difference with that and the problem on Windows compared to other OS’s then I am wasting my breath!
“Not when Apple allows installers to use a token that gives them root privileges and allows them to silently install applications. And Windows has additional protection mechanisms for system files.”
Please tell me how an installer can have root access when root is not enabled? Show me where you saw this written? I would like to see how this works??
“Again, this is no different than other OSes. When you confirm a UAC prompt, you are obviously giving the application the ability to perform privieged actions. You are giving the app the permission to do so by confirming the elevation request. This is not a design flaw. It is by design.”
Have you used VISTA yet? Sounds like you have not. I have been testing it out on my laptop for the last month (OEM version) and the default user (And users that have that user level) when you get a UAC prompt you have no clue what privlage level you are giving the installer or whatever that prompts UAC. It doesn’t say! So I assume that the first user as always is full admin. This is NOT the same as a Mac or Linux or Unix machine unless you are logged in as ROOT! The first user on the Mac has the ability to configure the machine but it does not have full admin privileges! And you can NOT create a user that does unless you turn on root. In Linux and Unix you can grant a regular user that privileges on most versions of Linux and Unix by putting them in the root user group. But you would have to do that. Its not something that happens in the normal creation of user accounts and would not even work on Ubuntu and versions of Linux that use SUDO to act more Mac like. (Not that the Mac had anything to do with the design and/or use of SUDO)
I am confused as to how you can say that UAC is anything like user security in Unix type OS’s. On Unix style OS’s that security is part of the OS design, as always UAC is just a feature and can be turned on and off like any other feature. Like someone else on here tried to tell me about the security hole in Windows defender on Vista. It’s not a PART of Vista, it’s just an application on top of Vista. UAC is just the same.
Edited 2007-02-16 14:14
Hello, we know that this happens in Windows. Like she said a COMMON app like tetris should not require admin privlages. At most power user maybe to write to a couple of reg keys and then the ability to write to program files and make icons! Not full admin! That is silly!
It does not happen in Windows. When there is an elevation, the user is notified what app is asking for elevation. Admin privileges are Not Required to install an app. Installers can work without elevation if they only touch per-user locations. Program Files and HKLM are protected, system-level resources, not user-level resources. Installers that want to avoid elevation should install their data to directories under the user profile tree and write registry settings (if needed) to per-user locations under HKCU. This is an example of the type of application Joanna wants.
http://www.sellsbrothers.com/wahoo2/publish.htm
It installs without elevation, creates Start Menu icons, etc. Standard user installation on Windows is a non-issue.
Because in Linux and on the Mac I can install applications WITHOUT being ROOT or Admin. Yes in Windows you can do this to but that is not the default setting! AND like you said before that also DEPENDS on the developer to implement using features in OneClick or in MSI’s????
If an application touches system-level resources, you have to use elevated privileges to install. If you don’t have to, then your configuration is messed up no matter what system you are on. Per-user install is possible on Windows without elevation (see above). You even have the option of distributing the app without an installer, copying the files to a directory, and running it as standard user.
On the Mac it CAN’T be done at all without ROOT being on! So a regular user would NEVER be able to install anything runnin as root.
Wrong. Apple provides a special token that installers may use for silent installation. It gives them root privileges. They can do anything to your system without your confirmation.
http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/security/how_a_malformed_installer_p…
On Windows Vista, only the trusted installer may modify system resources.
Have you used VISTA yet? Sounds like you have not. I have been testing it out on my laptop for the last month (OEM version) and the default user (And users that have that user level) when you get a UAC prompt you have no clue what privlage level you are giving the installer or whatever that prompts UAC. It doesn’t say! So I assume that the first user as always is full admin. This is NOT the same as a Mac or Linux or Unix machine unless you are logged in as ROOT! The first user on the Mac has the ability to configure the machine but it does not have full admin privileges! And you can NOT create a user that does unless you turn on root. In Linux and Unix you can grant a regular user that privileges on most versions of Linux and Unix by putting them in the root user group. But you would have to do that. Its not something that happens in the normal creation of user accounts and would not even work on Ubuntu and versions of Linux that use SUDO to act more Mac like. (Not that the Mac had anything to do with the design and/or use of SUDO)
I’ve been using Vista since the first Beta shipped. The default user is a member of the Administrators group, but it and any other account added to that group does not run with full privileges by default. Admins run with a standard user token, and applications executed by that account inherit that token unless elevated by the user.
It should be obvious that you are giving the application admistrative privileges as this is mentioned during the OOBE during setup. The default user in Windows Vista is a member of the Administrators group, though it lacks admin rights with the execptions for elevation mentioned above. All subsequent users are members of the Users group by default, and thus cannot elevate. UAC (and runas from cmd) are like sudo on *n*x. All accounts, even admin group members, execute processes as standard users unless they can gain additional privileges via the above elevation mechanisms.
I am confused as to how you can say that UAC is anything like user security in Unix type OS’s. On Unix style OS’s that security is part of the OS design, as always UAC is just a feature and can be turned on and off like any other feature. Like someone else on here tried to tell me about the security hole in Windows defender on Vista. It’s not a PART of Vista, it’s just an application on top of Vista. UAC is just the same.
Nice BS. The Microsoft Malware Engine that ships with Windows Defender is also shared among a number of other applications not included in Windows Vista, and Windows Defender itself ships seperately for downlevel OSes. Defender can be disabled on Vista, mitigating the issue, which involved parsing PDF files, and is also automatically updated by the Defender application itself when connected to the Internet. There are also other mitigations in Vista that add to the difficullty of exploiting that application component.
UAC is a core part of Windows Vista’s access control. It’s one layer of many that enables users to run with least privilege the majority of the time even if they are admins. It builds on top of other mechanisms such as dicretionary access control which has been in NT from the start. If you want to talk about bolt-on security, you’d be naive to use *n*x as a counter example.
Either you are working for Microsoft (and thus preaching your pie) or you are to lost in the windows-addiction s**t that has 95% of the consumer market.
As a developer, I don’t see Vista’s UAC either ergonomic or efficient, not to say that the resources consumption is ridiculous vs performance and new features.
Yes. Everyone that chooses Windows over your platform of choice is an MS employee or “lost”. Sorry, I’m neither. Can no one produce an original ABM troll?
As I said before I am not sure you know what you are talking about. You hit me with:
“Wrong. Apple provides a special token that installers may use for silent installation. It gives them root privileges. They can do anything to your system without your confirmation.
http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/security/how_a_malformed_installer_p….. ”
And I hit you back with:
“Installer
CVE-ID: CVE-2006-4404
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X Server v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.8, Mac OS X Server v10.4.8
Impact: When installing software as an Admin user, system privileges may be used without explicit authorization
Description: Admin users are normally required to authenticate before executing commands with system privileges. However, the Installer allows system privileges to be used by Admin users when installing certain packages without requiring authentication. This update addresses the issue by requiring authentication before installing software with system privileges.”
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304829
This issue was KNOWN by apple before the article you attached was written! A fix for it was not rushed because these tasks can NOT run as root
That was a good try though.
“The Microsoft Malware Engine that ships with Windows Defender is also shared among a number of other applications not included in Windows Vista, and Windows Defender itself ships seperately for downlevel OSes”
Yes it does just like IE ships seperately for downlevel OS’s (I don’t know what OS’s you are talking about since Defender only works on Vista and XP.)
Yes you can turn of Defender, but then it’s kind of useless isn’t it. And you STILL can not remove it!
“All accounts, even admin group members, execute processes as standard users unless they can gain additional privileges via the above elevation mechanisms.”
LOL! You still talking in circles! So are you saying that when the default user gets elevated privlages from a user clicking allow in UAC that that application does not then have FULL admin rights to the machine? On the Mac it doesn’t! But you know as well as I do that the running application has FULL admin privleges.
“his is an example of the type of application Joanna wants.
http://www.sellsbrothers.com/wahoo2/publish.htm
It installs without elevation, creates Start Menu icons, etc. Standard user installation on Windows is a non-issue. ”
Yes, this is the application that we all want, but not the one the crackers will give us. It’s that simple. They need to fix it like Apple did. It’s a flaw plain and simple. And it wont be long before people figure out how to exspose it.
“If you want to talk about bolt-on security, you’d be naive to use *n*x as a counter example.”
Please, you show me a Nix machine where you can just click a button and turn off the main security features. LOL! Show me one where the people working for the company tell you that a design flaw was made by design! LOL! Come on with all that money they can do better.
One last thing I want to say. Please show me where on the Mac OS something as simple as say tetris can write to the Kernel because the user gave the application permission to install.
That is CRAZY!
It gets even worse.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/gaging_vistas_integrit…
““However, it should be noted that this functionality is primarily a convenience feature for administrators and not an explicit security boundary between processes that can be absolutely isolated. If an administrator performs multiple tasks on the same desktop, then malware may potentially be able to inject or interfere with an elevated process from a non-elevated process. Thus, the most secure configuration for Windows Vista is to run processes in two separate accounts, with only administrator tasks performed using an administrator account and all other tasks performed under the standard user account,” said Jim Allchin ex-Co-President, Platform and Services Division.”
You were telling me that Mark Russinovich doesn’t know all the details on UAC. BUT I AM SURE JIM ALLCHIN is! (The same man that at one point said if he didn’t work for Microsoft he would own a Mac! LOL)
Anyway, as shown UAC is more of a headache for users then security for your machine!
This issue was KNOWN by apple before the article you attached was written! A fix for it was not rushed because these tasks can NOT run as root
Did you not read the article?
“By creating a malicious package and setting the authorization level to AdminAuthorization in the package, an attacker can modify root-owned files, execute commands as root, or install setuid-root programs without alerting the user that such actions are taking place. The problem is compounded when you consider that over 90% of Mac OS X users run as the administrator user because it’s what the default user created by the system is.”
Yes you can turn of Defender, but then it’s kind of useless isn’t it. And you STILL can not remove it!
It’s just as useless if you remove it, so what’s your point?
LOL! You still talking in circles! So are you saying that when the default user gets elevated privlages from a user clicking allow in UAC that that application does not then have FULL admin rights to the machine? On the Mac it doesn’t! But you know as well as I do that the running application has FULL admin privleges.
Maybe you should research this on your own since it’s so difficult to comprehend. There are two tokens. One of the tokens is standard user and the other is an admin token. All admin accounts function as standard user accounts (i.e., use the standard user token). When a process requests to run with elevated permissions, the extra privileges from the admin token are used to execute that process. Only that process and children of that process run elevated. Elevation does not add extra privileges to other processes or the environment. Any other existing processes, and new processes you execute still run as standard user unless you specifically choose to elevate them as well.
The Admin account is also restricted from modifying protected system files/locations such as system32 or HKLM. Only Windows Trusted Installer may modify these locations, which generally means only Microsoft OS update packages (service packs, hotfixes, etc.) may modify these resources. By default, admin accounts only have read/execute rights for these resources. If an installer other than Windows Trusted Installer tries to write to such locations, it will be denied and a log of the attempted access will be created.
Yes, this is the application that we all want, but not the one the crackers will give us. It’s that simple. They need to fix it like Apple did. It’s a flaw plain and simple. And it wont be long before people figure out how to exspose it.
A fix is not necessary per above. Plus, the user still has to allow the app to run in the first place, and the app needs knowledge of another application on the computer, and execute without the user noticing. I’d love to see the same standard of security applied universally.
Please, you show me a Nix machine where you can just click a button and turn off the main security features. LOL! Show me one where the people working for the company tell you that a design flaw was made by design! LOL! Come on with all that money they can do better.
Show me a Windows machine where you can do the same. You can’t disable UAC with the click of a button, even if you’re running as Admin.
“Show me a Windows machine where you can do the same. You can’t disable UAC with the click of a button, even if you’re running as Admin”
Sorry, my fault. So you go to control panel, user accounts, Turn UAC on or off, uncheck the “Use UAC to protect your computer” check box and click ok, then reboot. Oops so it takes 5 clicks, sorry about my poor math.
“Maybe you should research this on your own since it’s so difficult to comprehend. There are two tokens. One of the tokens is standard user and the other is an admin token. All admin accounts function as standard user accounts (i.e., use the standard user token). When a process requests to run with elevated permissions, the extra privileges from the admin token are used to execute that process. Only that process and children of that process run elevated. Elevation does not add extra privileges to other processes or the environment. Any other existing processes, and new processes you execute still run as standard user unless you specifically choose to elevate them as well”
My fault I guess people like Allchin are not as smart as you. They have no clue what they are talking about. You are right, they are wrong.
“Did you not read the article?
“By creating a malicious package and setting the authorization level to AdminAuthorization in the package, an attacker can modify root-owned files, execute commands as root, or install setuid-root programs without alerting the user that such actions are taking place. The problem is compounded when you consider that over 90% of Mac OS X users run as the administrator user because it’s what the default user created by the system is.”
No, I am dumb I didn’t read it. You got me! NOT. Dude, I read the article but unlike you I am not latched on to a single blog entry from someone who is not an Apple expert! After I read the article, like anyone with half a brain I went and looked to see if what he said could be verified by others! Low and behold not a SINGLE other person verified it. On top of that if you go through and read ALL of the security advisories from the 10 different companies and agencies that wrote on this, not ONE (Including apple) says what this one blog entry says.
http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2006-4404
Unlike what I am saying about UAC. Even people in MS verify it. LOL!
Sorry but Windows is just not more secure then Macs and Linux. All people can keep trying to say is that Windows is more popular and that is why it has more problems. Sorry jack but being popular doesn’t make the holes in the code. Poor planning and programing does.
Sorry, my fault. So you go to control panel, user accounts, Turn UAC on or off, uncheck the “Use UAC to protect your computer” check box and click ok, then reboot. Oops so it takes 5 clicks, sorry about my poor math.
You also conveniently leave out the need to elevate to do this.
My fault I guess people like Allchin are not as smart as you. They have no clue what they are talking about. You are right, they are wrong.
Show me where Allchin denied the split token architecture. If you can, he’s mistaken. If you can’t, you’re mistaken.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/00d04415-2b2f…
“When an administrator logs on, the user is granted two access tokens: a full administrator access token and a “filtered” standard user access token. By default, when a member of the local Administrators group logs on, the administrative Windows privileges are disabled and elevated user rights are removed, resulting in the standard user access token. The standard user access token is then used to launch the desktop (Explorer.exe). Explorer.exe is the parent process from which all other user-initiated processes inherit their access token. As a result, all applications run as a standard user by default unless a user provides consent or credentials to approve an application to use a full administrative access token. Contrasting with this process, when a standard user logs on, only a standard user access token is created. This standard user access token is then used to launch the desktop.
A user that is a member of the Administrators group can now log in, browse the Web, and read e-mail while using a standard user access token. When the administrator needs to perform a task that requires the administrator access token, Windows Vista automatically prompts the user for approval. This prompt is called an elevation prompt, and its behavior can be configured in the Security Policy Editor (secpol.msc) snap-in and with Group Policy. For information about how to adjust UAC Group Policy settings, see the “Configuring UAC Settings” section within this document.”
Sorry but Windows is just not more secure then Macs and Linux. All people can keep trying to say is that Windows is more popular and that is why it has more problems. Sorry jack but being popular doesn’t make the holes in the code. Poor planning and programing does.
I’ve not brought up popularity once while refuting your claims, so I don’t see why you’re trying to. The Mac has zero protections against exploitation of coding errors besides privilege (no image protections, no stack protections, no heap protections), and Linux has fewer protections implemented in common distributions than Vista. Both also have more than their share of security issues in OS and application code, and Apple isn’t doing anything to be proactive unlike Windows and *n*x.
Just because Windows uses tokens like a slot machine doesnt mean it works. No matter how many times you say it doesn’t mean it’s secure or security.
When the person who ran the unit that made the product says its not supposed to provide security then I am sure it doesn’t! And you can read me the Windows help file 50 times. Sorry but I don’t fall for the glossy marketing.
“I’ve not brought up popularity once while refuting your claims, so I don’t see why you’re trying to. The Mac has zero protections against exploitation of coding errors besides privilege (no image protections, no stack protections, no heap protections), and Linux has fewer protections implemented in common distributions than Vista. Both also have more than their share of security issues in OS and application code, and Apple isn’t doing anything to be proactive unlike Windows and *n*x.”
So then why does Windows have sooo many holes that are taken advantage of, most of them critical and Linux and macs dont. Please give me a honest answer. (Since you have not brought up popularity) I would love to see how you gonna give me an answer to this if you don’t use the popularity argument!
“You also conveniently leave out the need to elevate to do this.”
LOL! I left that out on purpose. My point had nothing to do with rights. My point was the fact that you can turn it off. That is silly. Why would you give users the ability to turn off the most touted feature in your OS. My five year old can turn off the full UAC security in 5 minutes! That is outragous. But it makes sence cause MS does not look at it as a security feature anyway. LOL!
Just face it. Unix type OS’s were here WAY before Windows and will be here way after Windows. Unix type machines run the world, most devices use some form or Linux or Unix, most routers, switches, wireless devices! Most firmware. Most webservers, many major companies (Like Amazon and Google) n*x powers the internet. That is just life. n*x OS’s have proven their robustness. We are still waiting for Windows to show it’s! And if it (Windows) does work now it’s about time!
You just admited it is a design flaw.
Vista and games ?
Clearly you have not tried any.
Vista sucks at games.
34% frame rate loss ?
No thanks, I will stick with XP on my games machine.
Vista and games ?
Clearly you have not tried any.
Vista sucks at games.
34% frame rate loss ?
No thanks, I will stick with XP on my games machine.
Clearly you haven’t tried any or you’d realize that that figure does not apply in all cases and is dependent on the hardware and drivers used. Look around the net and you’ll find reviews showing some games running faster under Vista.
ATI’s Vista drivers suck at the moment, as do NVidia’s I hear. Like I said, that should be fixed in a few months. In the meantime, the reports of diminished performance are game/GPU specific. Not all games or all GPUs are affected. The games I play work fine on Vista.
The XP machine I use for games has an Nvidia card in it. I tested a few games, COD, COD2, Battlefield2, Enemy Territory. I quoted the 34% as that is what is globally accepted is the slow down, but to be honest, Vista destroys all games that uses OpenGL.
Enemy Territory is unplayable, it is down to 1 or 2 fps !
This will NOT be fixed in a few months, as it was a concious decision by Microsoft to cripple OpenGL under Vista.
The XP machine I use for games has an Nvidia card in it. I tested a few games, COD, COD2, Battlefield2, Enemy Territory. I quoted the 34% as that is what is globally accepted is the slow down, but to be honest, Vista destroys all games that uses OpenGL.
This isn’t universally accepted. It’s popular among Vista detractors. Reality shows that the results are dependent on the game/game engine, the hardware, and the drivers.
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=18
Enemy Territory is unplayable, it is down to 1 or 2 fps !
This will NOT be fixed in a few months, as it was a concious decision by Microsoft to cripple OpenGL under Vista.
It is not Vista that is destroying performance, but the immaturity of the available drivers compared to their counterparts on XP which have had 5+ years of optimizations.
Microsoft did not cripple OpenGL, nor was this their intent. Vista, like XP before it, accelerates OpenGL via Direct3D rather than having a totally unaccelerated software renderer as in previous versions of Windows. Also like previous versions of Windows, Vista supports ICDs so IHVs can provide an accelerated OpenGL implementation that takes advantage of their hardware’s native features. Vista continues support for the XP driver model, so an XP ICD may be used without the DWM. A Vista ICD model has also been provided to enable native OpenGL acceleration with the DWM enabled.
Vista’s driver model is brand new, and brings features such as GPU virtualization, resource sharing, scheduling and virtual memory. This requires the creation of new drivers by IHVs. Gaming performance is a recent goal for IHVs. They have previously, and still are in many cases, focused on stability and correctness so their hardware can be used by OEMs. OpenGL was only added to their driver distributions during the RC stage of Vista, and is thus one of the newer components, and likely less optimized than D3D 9 components which have existed in some state since the beginning.
NVIDIA and ATI publish release notes, and maintain archives of their drivers. You can examine those to see what their primary goals were and when components like Vista OpenGL ICDs were added. NVIDIA has also commented in several articles online about their slowness in getting performance drivers available, and have gone to an at least monthly release schedule.
NVIDIA on driver progress
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=357
ATI on driver progress
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=367
Edited 2007-02-15 21:41
but sure in the link you provided, there are no plans between now and May to release OpenGL drivers from Nvidia….
However, the offical Microsoft line is this….
OpenGL can go through one of three paths in Windows Vista depending on how your computer is configured.
1. MSOGL – this is an implementation of OpenGL 1.4 that uses Direct3D under the covers to hardware accellerate the application.
2. Legacy ICD’s – These are the ICD’s that are available today for use on Windows XP. These will continue to work on Windows Vista, but will disable the DWM when they are loaded in to the process of the application that’s using OpenGL. The reason for this is that Legacy ICD’s operate directly on the GPU without going through Windows at all, and we have no way of redirecting application’s output in a stable, predictable manner.
3. Windows Vista ICD’s – this is a new path for 3rd party ICD’s introduced for Windows Vista that will work in a way that is compatible with desktop composition. Essentially allowing direct access to the GPU for hardware accellaration, but then having the final surface that appears to be the front buffer to the application actually be a shared surface that gets composed by the DWM
None of the three is any good to OpenGL games
but sure in the link you provided, there are no plans between now and May to release OpenGL drivers from Nvidia….
NVIDIA has had a Vista OpenGL ICD for months now.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_100.64.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_100.64.html
None of the three is any good to OpenGL games
#3 is the best path for OpenGL games. The list is the same as what I said in my previous post. #3 offers the same access to natively accelerated OpenGL that you have in XP, and works with the DWM.
If you’re playing a game, you’re full-screen. Why do you care if DWM is disabled???
I don’t know what actually happens with an XP ICD, since I’m not doing any gaming on my Vista computer with a i945GM. But you’re right… stick with XP for now until DX10 games and cards start showing up. Why do you care so much about upgrading for gaming anyway, when you’re so negative on everything else about vista? I think you have some psychological need for Vista to fail to see a glorious Linux uprising. What does it mean when you need to constantly harp on your competitor’s often minor flaws in order to even have a chance of success? That you don’t yet have a satisfactory product, perhaps?
Nope, you read me all wrong.
I do not Vista to fail, I have been running it in various betas and release candidates for the last 3 years, and now I am running Ultimate on one of my test machines.
I “need” to run Vista, I will need to support it because of my work, so I have to have a machine with it installed.
However, I am an avid gamer, and I also need to have a games machine around. So, at the minute, it is a machine with XP on it. It will have to remain XP until Vista gets sorted out and runs my games at the correct frame rate.
Now, like I said, I have 2 machines with Microsoft products on them, I also have 4 other computers, one is a Mac with OS X on it, one has Solaris and DesktopBSD, dual booting, and the last 2 use Linux, Ubuntu 6.10 and Suse 10.2.
I do not like dual boots, and do not like virtualisation, and out of all the systems I have, I prefer them to be Linux based.
BUT…
To sum up, I would not like to see Vista fail, because if it was to fail, there would be less money going into my pockets. I want it to work, so I can replace XP on the machine that is installed on with PCLinuxOS maybe.
“Vista and games ?
Clearly you have not tried any.
Vista sucks at games.
34% frame rate loss ?
No thanks, I will stick with XP on my games machine.”
Hmmm…
According to ExtremeTech.com’s Will Vista Run Your Games: The Final Word article, Vista runs games just fine. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2090572,00.asp
“So let’s break it down: Has Vista got game?
The basic answer is that yes, Vista is a pretty great OS for gamers. “
Edited 2007-02-16 00:31
If you use a mac, this won’t matter to you. Good. Then please go use your mac and be happy. OSX had it first? Bully for OSX. Go use your Mac and be happy.
Thank you for your permission! I’m so gratified that I have your permission to upgrade to a Mac instead of the latest crapware from Microsoft. I’ll have to upgrade my hardware eventually regardless, right? So why not upgrade to the latests offering from Apple, who have shown themselves able to combine the best hardware and software package?
–bornagainpenguin
I find it amazing that this post was rated down. Could you please READ the warning that pops up when you try to rate down a post!?! It says that “This feature is to report comments that are offensive, inflammatory, off topic, or otherwise in violation of the OSNews forum rules[…]”.
I fail to see where joshv wrote anything that can be interpreted as anything along such lines!
I disagree with the author on the subject of Windows Vista (but NOT on the inappropriateness of the contribution by John Doe), but I will not accuse him of abusing the forum. That’s ridiculous.
Cheers
A/V
-calling OSNews editors desperate
-calling the article “poorly written, content-free crap” and “sophomoric”
I happened to like the article–it may not all have been “new” or “original”, but I found the presentation entertaining and insightful. But even if I had hated the article, I wouldn’t have resorted to name-calling. (At least not without somehow backing it up with concrete examples.)
Edited 2007-02-15 22:02
As for the editors, I said they should never be so desperate for content that they’d promote this sort of content. If that’s calling the editors names, I apologize.
As for the article, I stand by my words.
Can you provide me with some ‘concrete examples’ of the insight you gained from this article?
calling the osnews editors “desparate” and the article “content-free crap” is NOT offensive. it’s no *personal* attack. “poorly written” etc. is about the work delivered in the form of this article. and, c’mon, “desparate” is not insulting. at least it’s not listed as pejorative in my webster.
i was called an “asshole” and other names by a poster called grumpy, and he was voted up to a “3” within minutes while i was voted down to 0/-1 .
and now YOU give ME a break! this really smells like anti-windows militia to me. you can be as rude as you want, as long as you vote for osx or linux. and i even do vote for linux, i just thought osnews did a really bad work on this article. as noam chomsky says, granting freedom of speech to your friends is nothing, democracy starts when you grant it to your worst enemy!
Well someone had to say it …
I generally liked the article and I have no problem with rants on operating systems. What exactly do you people want? Your reading osnews, and your complaining about how many articles there are ranting about Vista.
I agree with the majority of the article. I have high hopes that MS will continue to improve Vista. I like the eye candy and understand it comes with a performance cost, but I am hoping to see most of that work done on the gpu.
Does anyone know how good the API’s for connecting into aero are? Are we going to see some neat 3rd party software?
Does anyone know how good the API’s for connecting into aero are? Are we going to see some neat 3rd party software?
Yes, they are very good. You will see some cool stuff come out. Google “Yahoo Messenger for Vista.”
The new Graphics APIs are all tied to .NET right now. I sincerely hope that they come out with unmanaged versions soon, so that the third parties who write the real workhorse applications (i.e. Adobe and MSOffice) can build on top of it, since none of these people are going to actually go over to .NET.
“What exactly do you people want?”
Originality?
Insight?
Good writing?
News?
>> Applications taking too long to quit (KILL -9 damn it!) <<
Obviously I agree with your general drift – here are two of my “workaround reflexes”:
* Always press control-S, save your data every few seconds, although indeed apps crash rarely anymore.
* Taking too long to quit – “End Process”, of course by right-clicking in the Processes tab of the “Windows Task Manager”. This does not ask the app’s permission, so presumably your have already control-S’ed your data – the process goes away instantly. And of course you want to be sure to select the correct process in that long list. UI-wise, it would have saved me a couple of times, if the context menu was filled in with the name – << End Process “slowClosing.exe” >> would be a worthwhile confirmation.
>”Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!” – Bill Gates, 1981.
It’s an urban legend, floating through the net since years. But nice to see it again and again, now at OSNews too
It’s allegedly an urban legend.
However, I must admit it’ll be different to unprove the statement, so one could correctly claim that the lack of solid evidence suggests it is a legend.
OTOH – it took approx. 15 years for Bill Gates to deny having said it, and that suggests he did say it. Though the explanation could be he didn’t know of it until later, and only denied it when the story grew really big. In that case it’s a classic case of poor strategy.
This (again!) sends OSNews down to the realm of journalistic limbaugh!
A while ago (when Mr Holwerda published his last “editorial” about the “Linux Desktop Bubble”) I pointed out that the editors here at OSNews don’t have the required breadth in expertise to cover all the topics they want to cover – and that they simply are bad journalists.
Well, Thom Holwerda has since then refrained from posting editorials (not because of MY post, of course, but because of the several hundred posts complaining about his article). How nice – OSNews was back to a quite useful link site again!
But now this… Allowing someone with an obviously FAKE NAME (my apologies if you really ARE named John Doe) to publish as “special contributor” is not very professional for starters.
But then, any serious journalism site would edit words such as “bullshitting” right out. Not because they are dirty words or coudl offend a conservative reader, but because they are emotionally over-charged! Journalism is either about neutrality or, in the case of commentaries or editorials, about careful argumentation for a personal view. The whole article should have been rejected as just a mindless outburst of biased propaganda for the author’s personal taste. As a reader I can either agree or not agree, but nothing in this article is put in a way so as to make me consider a revision of my opinion, or to make me see my own opinion in a new light.
thanks, but this is not acceptable, no matter what I think about Vista, OSX, Linux, whatever!
best
A/V
And too all those who think they have to engage in “OS wars”: As far as usability and ergonomics are concerned, I’ve taken closer looks at Windows XP, MacOS X and Linux with both KDE, Xfce and Gnome (various distros) and ALL these systems basically suck big time! I use Linux because it is the one that sucks the least (for me personally). But it still stinks in many respects. Don’t worry: I’m allowed use such harsh words since I’m not trying to be a journalist.
Edited 2007-02-15 19:56
Oh f’in seriously, get off your damned high horse.
OSNews links to TONS of articles. The links are based on USER SUBMISSIONS. Once in a while, a shitty article makes it through. You could choose NOT to read it or comment about the article itself. Instead, you come to the site and attack the editors. Real smooth.
When a crappp article makes it through, I can always count on one thing: that some asshole like you will be waiting to criticize. Thanks for adding your condescening crap to this thread.
Your post is inadequate in two ways: (1) you use foul language and insult me personally. (2) the article might have been a user submission, but osnews is an EDITED site (hense the word “editor”), and a “special contributor” presented as such is not just a user.
osnews is an EDITED site (hense the word “editor”), and a “special contributor” presented as such is not just a user.
1. Thanks for modding me down for opposing your nonsense.
2. You and I and everyone else knows that OSNews is a volunteer site, and the “editors” are not “editors” as much as gracious people who donate their time to keep the site rolling. Too much editing makes this more a magazine and less a community.
Go ahead and insist I’m wrong, but I assert that it only highlights the fact that you misunderstand OSNews for what it is. I know that if I choose to write an article, they would publish it.
I wasn’t particularly happy with the article either, but that’s no reason for me to turn it down. I did try to edit out many of the, um, unfriendly words, but I guess one slipped my mind. Oh well.
OSNews is open for submissions from readers, and this poses a problem: barely anyone can actually write. I am a style junkie, and about 99.9% of the user submitted content would not pass my own standards; however, my standards are way too high (not even my own drivel gets passed my standards). This makes it very hard for me to judge articles , actually.
So yes, I make mistakes. As I always say: if the article is crap, just discuss its subject, but ignore the actual article. Difficult for many, I know.
Come on, Thom. In many other forums, articles like this are posted by readers intent on trolling for the exact sort of replies this one has generated. I am sure that “John Doe” is gleefully gloating over the haul his troll has brought in.
To allow an anonymous reader to post a comment to an article is one thing, especially when those comments can be modded up or down by other readers as they see fit. To post an article from an anonymous “John Doe” that is such a thinly-disguised troll is quite another.
Edit: spelling
Edited 2007-02-16 00:24
i voted you down because you called me an asshole. that constitutes a reason for voting someone down by the osnews rules. i don’t know where you are from, but in most european countries, this constitutes a criminal case.
as for how osnews define themselves, i have nothing to add. the whole appearance of the site never hinted at a (self-organizing) community site (like digg) to me. calling oneself “editor in chief” and stuff… c’mon. i might have been in error. i really don’t care anymore.
Hold on, hold on–what exactly defines “being a journalist” here? No seriously. Just because you have an article posted on a website, it makes you a journalist? What distinguishes being a journalist from being a blogger, from commenting on a forum, for that matter? Many of the most insightful things I have ever read have been buried in the nooks and crannies of responses to articles, whereas many of the articles written by “journalists” that I have read in my life have been huge rants full of logic holes.
The internet has and will continue to blur the line between what we have come to know as “journalists” and “normal people”. This is a good thing, imho, even though it sometimes requires you to sift through crap. But complaining just because someone used the word “bullshit” and wrote in an off-the-cuff style…give me a break!
Edited 2007-02-15 22:10
Whats wrong about the author being emotional? This editorial is clearly meant to reflect his personal experience and opinion. Did you really expect a professionally written and researched article?
heavily proprietary development world. Microsoft is clinging to a development model that this author feels is increasing threatened by a changing world. Those of you making those changes know who you are. Let’s not forget the fact that it just doesn’t work that well. As evidence I submit Windows Visa.
As a counter, I submit Mac OS X. The development model seems to be working well for them. Yes, some things like darwin and webkit are open source, but a lot of it isn’t as well.
I counter that it is exactly Apple’s use of open-source technologies as foundations that allows them to spend more time polishing those other parts of the system that need polishing.
http://www.apple.com/opensource/
Apple doesn’t really use a closed proprietary model. They only use it to some extent. Microsoft is also changing it’s development model – I believe they are somewhere in the middle of the transition (it’s a slow process no matter the size of a company, and they started to switch in the late 90’es – according to internal mails).
I came here expecting to read a good write up and review of Vista and all I got was one man’s rant and personal grudge against Vista. He probably wouldn’t have liked Vista no matter what Microsoft did with it.
or he’s using a pre-RC1 build. Vista runs fine on 512 megs of RAM.
All the issues the author wrote are nowhere to be found? Wouldn’t he be an editor for Forbes by any chance?
If you wanna flame Vista, at least have a subject worthwhile. Like why aren’t there more included apps build on DotNet? Why did MS copy stupid RAM gobbling UI gimmicks like the Dashboard/Karamba/Konfabulator? Why to the new darkness look? Why did they take so long to enforce the UAC during the NT days? Why aren’t more of the included apps feature the new MenuMixButtonBars like in Windows Photo Gallery? Why isn’t Visual Studio Express included? Why so many versions? Etc…
“Vista runs fine on 512 megs of RAM.”
The same way XP “runs fine” on a 128 MB system??
I was using RTM for a while on my laptop with 1gb, compared to XP it was a painful experience so I can’t imagine how one can say it “runs fine” with only half of that available.
If you want to run Vista comfortably you need 2gb of ram in your PC. Period.
PS. I’m talking about running as in using the system AND working with applications, not staring at the desktop.
You must have driver problems. I know heavy office users and they do fine on 512megs RAM.
I have ran XP on P1 with 128(later 256) and it ran slow but fine doing server duties.
I can’t wait for reviews of Windows Home Server.
While it’s true that many of drivers are/were still in beta I don’t think that was the problem here. My laptop is nowhere near high-end (Turion64 2ghz, 1gb ram, GeForce 7300) but it meets Vista premium requirements and all it’s hardware components were auto detected.
Like it or not – Vista with Aero WILL use more ram (eats up about 0.4-0.5gig after bootup) and if you have only 512 it will use your virtual memory quite often after launching even some medium-sized app and having standard stuff in the backgroung (like a music player, IM, that kind of stuff).
Of course you can turn Aero off, cut back on some services to save memory but… what’s the point then? When XP runs faster, use less memory and can perform same tasks (were talking about office-type work not playing Crysis in DX 10), hell if you install some theme it WILL look better than Vista without Aero.
Methinks the Winfanboy crowd is getting a bit fed up with taking it in the chin regarding Vista, looking at the comments in this thread.
But complaining about negative reviews of Vista is just whining. It’s just the nature of OSNews, and other sites like it. OSNews either links to actual news stories, or puts up opinion pieces.
And unfortunately for WinFanBoys, there are a lot negative opinions on Vista. But they just need to get over it.
BTW – I hold LinuxFanBoys and MacFanBoys in the same regards as WinFanBoys, i.e. being a fan boy is totally stupid.
I prefer Linux for my personal usage most of the time, because it suits my needs extremely well. But Windows is good for other things, and I’ll use it with no qualms whatsoever. In particular, being a programmer that wants to do both Java and .Net, I won’t go without having a handy Windows install to be able to do full .Net programming (along with Mono), and use Visual Studio and SharpDevelop.
But the point is, people shouldn’t get so touchy about negative reviews about Vista. I’ve tried it at work, and while slick with lot’s of cool new eye candy, I wasn’t very impressed. And I was quite annoyed with the amount of resources Vista uses. Talking about bloat. So just deal with it folks, Vista is not making a lot of users very happy.
Much as Microsoft deserve a good kicking over Vista, this thread isn’t it. They Might as well have written “Vista,Mac,Linux” Get it ON!
Windows (ANY version) is CRAP.
Linux is ALSO CRAP.
BUT Linux is FREE CRAP.
That’s because we all want the computer from Minority Report.
Everything until then is crap.
Edited 2007-02-16 01:03
Vista may or may not be good depending on whom you ask, but my line of thinking is that the 3D flippable windows, 3d desktop and translucent window borders adds NOTHING to productivity. Vista is all bloat.
You’re essentially right. However, some studies have shown that an environment that’s pleasing to the eye can make users perceive it as having better usability, and be more tolerant of it on the whole, e.g. willing to wait around a bit more for a task to complete. Also, animations as visual cues can help aid the perceived “friendliness” of an interface, so the end users are likely to feel more at ease. (I’m getting this from the book “Interaction Design” by Jenny Preece et al, pp. 143-4, if you’re wondering.)
I think this may be what the author was getting at when he said that most people just care about the eye candy, it’s not their job to know about anything else.
DRM in Vista is a real problem and is not only useful for media content providers. MS has built in control mechanisms through DRM that can drastically effect the usage of Vista as an OS.
Under Vista, the days of Personal Computing are comming to a close. As for Blueray and HD-DVD, thank god for the Chinese who will offer an alternative that is not encoumbered. It is upto use the consumer to support DRM Free alternatives and dictate to the market what we want, not the other way round.
OS-X, not as productive for me than Windows using the same software. My main issue here is with Finder which is pathetic for file manipulation. You have spotlight but why when one should be able to use the basic file management utility provided?
As for articles and their contributors on OSNews, just another day.
“Why does OS X feel so much more fluid and responsive to what I want to do when I want to do it?”
ROTFLMAO.
“Freezing GUI (because I love waiting for the operating system to do what? Oh wait I can’t tell because the windows are blank and explorer just crashed.”
I really want to comment on this sentence, even though its correct.
Assuming your hardware is fine, I have found that GUI crashes in windows generally tend to be less malignant than with one in Linux RHEL 4.4AS or Sun Solaris 5.11.56B or OSX 10.4.x . At least I was able to recover from it without shutting down the system or forcefully restart. I tend to “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” to get to the “Task Manager” then choose the running application and then right-click it and choose go to process then once there right-click that bad process and choose Kill, and the magic appear, the OS become as responsive as new; then my 2nd step start up the explorer, go to top left menu and choose new task and enter “explorer” and now the explorer will start up again assuming that the browser crashed and that you get blank screen. And if this is not enough and the OS really suffer and I don’t want to turn it off then I will choose “new>task” and enter “cmd” and command line tool will appear and I can now correct OS files by putting the WXP or Vista Disk and type “sfc /scannow” which will scan my windows system files and attempt to recover them if corrupt. and if that is not enough I will start “new>task” then run appwiz.cpl (remember no GUI is running because of the crash of an application), then choose the newly installed application that made all that drama and uninstall it.
In all other Unix based systems the system will freeze so that you cannot use your konsole at all, to troubelshoot a bad application, simply because of a bad kernel hook to GUI.
Of course this is to be considered a + thing for MS in stability arena, but cannot say that their OS is stable though, because overall Unix OSs are more secure and stable if taken care of.
Hmm, what Linux apps have you used that made the whole system freeze? In my experience it is far easier to use xkill to kill any graphical app in Linux than it is to kill apps in Windows–you just run xkill, click on the misbehaving app, and it dies, and does so immediately, instead of having to wait forever as in Windows.
1. open opera with missing plugins
2. open azureus and search for java in a directory with missing executables.
3. changing a tcp/udp port# on amule and then save
4. nautilus Cut/Paste operation over cifs share to windows server 2003
5. other applications
I’m sticking with XP on my pc and I have the real Vista anyways that being OS X Tiger on my Mac. So no thanks to Vista.
MS should of never copied Apple in the first place. They spent all that cash on an Mac influence piece of……and it’s not a masterpiece.
If you are an XP user, just go find a OS X skin and you will have Vista like OS without paying for Vista and it will run faster!
Spending many years and many billions on a project is no guarantee of anything. It would be easy to spend the same on a new space satellite system whose rockets failed a few minutes after launch, incinerating the entire investment. What’s so impressive about that?
Just my 2 cents, of course, but the main problem with Microsoft operating systems is that they are stunningly boring.
Like any large company, Microsoft tout a consistent “user experience” as one of their product’s key achievements and selling points. Thus you can reliably expect a Windows installation to look, feel and behave in exactly the same way whether you are in New York, Beijing or Lima. Personally, I can’t think of anything more guaranteed to depress the spirits and drain the fun out of using a computer. Imagine how awful it would be if this allegedly desirable uniformity applied to food, music, domestic architecture and culture!
As for security, I doubt that Microsoft, again like any large company, would set much store by trying to be bullet-proof. To do so would mean users who were not anxious, users who were not frightened about their PC’s ability to withstand the alleged hordes of crackers and criminals who – if you believe the news – are just waiting to pillage your home. And users who are not anxious – users, in other words, who feel laid back and fairly happy with life – don’t buy new products and can’t be scared into the upgrade crack both from Microsoft and from the security vendors.
Try Linux is my suggestion. You won’t be bored. You aren’t climbing onto a rich man’s treadmill. You can tweak the look of your desktop in 1001 ways so it is yours and no one else’s. You can wave goodbye to upgrade crack and the anxiety-inducing Windows security problems. And you’ll save agreeable sums of money – many hundreds of bucks, quite possibly – that can be spent on beer, holidays and other worthwhile pursuits.
Edited 2007-02-16 01:06
..that sucked back then is still in there and sucks. I reproduced it today. Open a few graphics intense programs, open a lot of IE windows/tabs, let it simmer for a few hours on working temperature and the GDI system breaks. The resources run out and everything (especially (i)explorer windows) get REEEAALLY messed up visually. Couldn’t do any screenshots and more but trust me it is as annoying with Vista (have to say RC1, to be fair) and 3GB RAM as it was on Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 4.0 Beta1 on 96MB. Sh1t still sux, l0l.. they are just so bad at programming. Better said, bad at designing. They should use pen and paper A LOT MORE to avoid those serious, stupid, disgusting, ressource wasting time consuming mind fscking design flaws. To late now yet again.
If not driver related, this is probably related to the handle limit. which I believe was extended on Vista, but one of your apps could be leaking them.
There’s a registry key that controls this limit, but I can’t find instructions on how at the moment.
I get this on XP too, where resources get used up and I find that right-click no longer brings up menus, dialogs no longer come up, apps launch without menus, etc, and this remains until I close down some apps. And yes it sucks. I’ve never seen such on Macs.
Joe Average loves to fellate Microfart and waste his money on Microfart’s crapware.
This comic is pretty much spot on in regards to the general public’s reaction to Vista being released:
http://www.little-gamers.com/index.php?comicID=1530
Incidentally, it also accurately reflects my reaction to this “article”.
I always see people use the 50 million lines of code line as a criticism of Windows and a need for them to start over. What does it say then when Steve Jobs gives the number of lines of code in OS X as 86 million? And Apple did start over (or, well technically they reconfigured NextStep, which had been in development since the 1990s like WinNT has…)
http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/mac/2006/08/15/wwdc.html
I think we need another metric to use if we’re going to criticize Windows. I think this number of lines of code metric reveals nothing.
What can a USD 5.5 billion investment in a new (refurbished) OS buy you; completed over 5 years.
Assuming I have an existing OS source that is enormous and is 40 millions lines of source code and I want to rewrite big portions of this code base and add new gimmicky features and lock-in technologies.
By my very own rough calculations for this kind of money I should be able to employ 7500 programmers to work on this project full time. That is rounded of, 2000 man hours per programmer.
Over a year, with 7500 programmers the total amount of man hours spent on the project would be 15 million. Over 5 years this figure is 75 million.
Assuming further that the SLOC of virgin code produced is 25 million. In this scenario 1 line of source code would be produced every 3 hours per programmer.
If roughly USD 3 billion is spent on programmers salaries over these 5 years, the average cost per line of code is USD 120 and the average cost per hour per programmer USD 40.
I wish I could even get USD 30 per SLOC for then I would be able to earn USD 600 to USD 1200 (per day) without working myself to tears.
This estimate is pure speculation and is based on a OS called Vista that was just released the end of last year and beginning of this year.
Edited 2007-02-16 10:45
ake the fluidity and ease of use (could be better itself) of OS X, build it on top of BeOS’s speedy core and principals, add a dash of UNIX stability and we could have had… MAC OS X!
That’s why MS didn’t do that. How can u imagine the third parties and millions of technicians to survive an efficient VISTA? MS simply cannot make a good OS. MS isn’t a software house anymore. I doubt they have geniuses… they simply have been chewing and chewing over windowsNT for the last 15 years. They simply move things around, change names, change icons… nothing new at all. Nothing interesting… No software design at all. Just business.
Developing an operating system is a monumental challenge.
Making a new O/S is not very difficult if you use the proper programming language and you don’t have tons of legacy bad APIs to support.
As long as Microsoft uses C and provides support for Win32, each new version of Windows will take double the time to test and develop. The next O/S from Microsoft should be built on a totally new language, one that is low level but safe, it can not allow mistakes to easily pass past the compiler, and runs Win32 and all that crap into a virtual environment.
Vista
I have always turned off the eye candy, still use old start menu on my XP installation – and I really never thought I’d try or like Vista.
But I like it – it just grew on me after working with it for the last week. Granted, I’d never buy it (microsoft sent me a copy for doing that video training a couple mths ago)…but it is much better than these drive by reviews are indicating.
The thing is not to compare it to OSX (which I also have and like) or LInux – just take it for what it is, and it’s nice if you look at it that way.
I must say the UAC sucks though! That is the only thing I vehemently dislike – not only is it poorly designed in terms of security, it’s annoying.
While I primarily agree with the content, it’s hard to accept this as a valuable critique with the grammar and spelling errors in it. I think the author could have achieved much more with a little less emotion and a little more time with spell check.
Disappointment? Aren’t we being charitable?
We waited 5 years for this? It’s a waste.
The first thing that entered my mind when reading that was…
“Great, now comp.os.*.advocacy posts from 1998 are being posted as frontpage articles on OSNews.”