“All promised features were cut from Vista.” This is a commonly heard complaint about Windows Vista on the internet. While there certainly is a lot to complain about when it comes to Windows Vista, the mythical ‘cancelled features’ certainly is not one of them. Let me explain why.I often hear this complaint whenever we post a story regarding Vista on OSNews – or any other story for that matter. “All promised features were pulled from Vista and Bill Gates eats babies.” While I can certainly attest that babies do in fact taste great, I often counter this argument by a simple, but effective question: “Which features, exactly, have been cut from Windows Vista?” This is usually about the time when the crickets start chirping, or, when I get accused of being a Microsoft fanboy (they pay for my Aston Martin, you see).
Seriously now, usually the replies to that question do not go beyond the mention of “WinFS“. And WinFS really is about the only significant promised feature that has been cut from Windows Vista. People who have used WinFS, such as myself, in the early Longhorn builds also know why Microsoft more or less abandoned the WinFS project: it was slow. And I am not talking slow-like-honey, but more like slow-not-moving-at-all. It was a pain to use, it did not work, and at that time the first thing you did when you were testing Longhorn builds was turn off WinFS (and the sidebar, which had a huge memory leak). When Microsoft announced, in 2004, that WinFS would not be part of Windows Vista, it only made sense to me.
There are other things that people mention aside from WinFS, but those are debatable, at best. Windows PowerShell, for instance, has never been part of Vista’s or Longhorn’s test builds, and nor have any promises been made that it was going to be. It was concluded that the security risk posed by PowerShell (codenamed “Monad”) was too large, and hence, it was decided that it would not become part of Windows Vista. In other words, this feature was not cut – you cannot cut a feature that was never there or supposed to be there in the first place. Additionally, PowerShell 1.0 was released before Windows Vista itself was even released.
Another thing that never made its way to Vista was the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (Palladium). This is for the better, as NGSCB was heavily criticised, so I think we can all be happy it never made the cut – in its intended form, that is. Parts of the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base did make its way into Vista, like the features found in BitLocker.
Some claim that support for Microsoft’s XML Paper Specification was also cut from Vista. This, however, is not true. XPS support is still very much there in Vista, it has just been turned into an optional component so that OEMs can remove the feature if necessary – all done because of legal threats by Adobe. However, it is there, so much even that Vista’s printing architecture is based on XPS.
For the rest, we have some minor things, like Vista lacking UEFI support, which, as far as I know, will only be encountered by home users in the Macintosh world. UEFI support will still make its way to the server edition of Vista (Server 2008), as well as the 64bit versions of Vista SP1. SecurID is also missing in action on Vista, but for most of us home users, that is a minor feature. Some users also point to this article, but that is kind of laughable; that article lists mostly features that were present in Windows XP, but are not present in Vista, which have little (if anything) to do with “cutting promised features from Vista”.
Now, compare these few things mentioned above to the immense list of new features found in Vista (do not forget the link box on the right). That kind of puts everything into perspective, does it not?
Now, there is enough to not like about Windows Vista, and I can understand feelings of disappointment. Vista is very, very slow on fairly current hardware, it is extremely expensive, the 3095839 different editions are very confusing, the anti-piracy measures are a tad bit draconian, and most importantly (to me), it is still Windows. In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with voicing your disappointment online, but it is not okay to do so based on lies.
And that will be my final word on this “issue”.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Elvis Presley is not dead, he is persuing an active, and multi-billion dollar career in remote Namibia, and has changed his name to Kyle Minogue.
We (the artist formally known as Elvis‘s PR company) can confirm that he is not dead, but has merely evolved into a superhuman, adopting the best skills and facilities of Mozart, Shakespeare, and Einstein simultaneously. For more proofs of Elvis’ vitality, visit http://www.getthefacts.com/elvis now.
Edited 2007-12-16 15:16 UTC
This is pure LIES, if it was true, he would have also evolved with the skills and attibutes of Chuck Norris. As there is no mention of him, I can assume that Elvis is no more.
You didn’t see the Elvis getthefacts website. Elvis beats Chuck Norris in every category.
Chuck Norris may be good in a fight (This has never actually been prooved. 1,000,000,000 dead enemies IS NOT PROOF!!) , he may even have a better singing voice than Elvis, but do you know how much he eats!
The fact about CN that they always try to hide is that he eats 40 times his body-weight every minute. What good is having the worlds’ biggest badass on your side when you have to spend all your money just keeping him going. No, the Total cost of Pwnership with Chuck is 4 cow herds per enemy. Elvis however doesn’t eat anything, he can exist on pure air*.
* and a gram of finest Bolivian coke per hour, but we count this as an investment, not a cost.
ROFL!
Our favourite Antipodean singer/actress is in reality a she-male?
How many of those features though are incredibly important – WinFS, the same thing can be accomplished already. I remember there was an interview a while back with Bill Gates regarding searching, but the idea he floated was more an eventual aim rather than an actual product announcement; if you were wondering, it was the idea of a natural language search – “find me all documents written before 16 December” (for example).
Regarding performance – I installed it on my Toshiba laptop (PSAA9A-0CU004) and its performance was subpar; running on a HP dv6209tx (Windows Vista Business Edition) which had a Core 2 vs. the Core (32bit) which the Toshiba had, provided an improvement – even so, I never felt as comfortable as I do with this Mac.
Back ontopic, like I said, the ‘features’ dropped weren’t exactly all that important in the grand scheme of things when compared to what was included.
What was included? DRM, useless eyecandy, a software “protection” platform, lots of new bugs, hardware incompatibilities and a rewritten network stack with worse performance?
LOL, sad but true.
“In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with voicing your disappointment online, but it is not okay to do so based on lies”.
I don’t remember having read lies in comments. There have been dropped features and you listed them in this article.
True; and lets remember, all the comments are nothing more than opinions – hence I find it funny when people take points off, all they prove is that the original poster made a point which makes them uncomfortable.
PS. your post was at -1, so I added an extra point to bring it up to 0 – I wish people didn’t abuse the moderation system; its getting as bad as Digg and Slashdot.
Edited 2007-12-16 16:13
Hahahaha. I tried to +1 your comment and got:
“Uh-oh! There was an error retrieving this story.”
(btw, the error url was: http://www4.osnews.com/comments/291312 )
Here is an example of the comment rating system being worse than either of those two sites. ;-P
If you really want to see some points come off your comment, just say something negative about Ubuntu. 😉
Ha ha! I found your comment offensive so I took a point off.
That’s the summary i could never put into words myself. Although you missed some of the retarded features that are much like the ones added in XP to fix the previous release. In XP it was System Restore! Wow, let’s ADD more software to recover the system after our faulty software. And in the next version, we’ll ADD SuperSystemReadyBoostedRestoreV2 to try and repair the system, when SystemRestore fails.
Things like ReadyBoost .. to squeeze back 1% of the 50% performance they removed.. by .. eeeh.. hardware accelerating the UI? now, how did we manage to make it slower with hardware acceleration.. who knows.. ..i’m still appalled that Vista is actually slower.. if i had to put my money somewhere i’d rather buy XP Service Pack 3 than Vista!
But i’d have to agree with Thom on one thing.. we should be thankful they did not release more ‘features’ ..but then.. what are customers paying for ?
A 50% drop in performance? despite the $2-800 investment they had to make to make the damn thing run? Don’t say Aero.. it’s not a feature. Don’t say ReadyBoost.. It costs even more, to get back a fraction of the performance you lost..
in fact.. just.. for the love of god.. mention a useful feature in Vista.. (for customers, not hardware manufacturers moving more product).
I’m so annoyed with this disastrous product!!!
I think the sadest part – I don’t even think Microsoft knows what the customer wants in the way of operating system features. When Windows Vista was being developed it appeared they were falling into the trap of rather than leading they thought that they had to have almost every bit of feedback from the ‘geek elite’. They thought that ‘community’ entailed listening to every whim and demand of the noisy wheel.
The net result, as far as I can see, is an operating system where it appears that features are just thrown at a product in a vein hope of actually having boasting points rather than actually adding features which add genuine usefulness to the end consumer.
I look on the *NIX world with the likes of GNOME and KDE, and they continuously not only add features but question features. GNOME questions whether having hundreds of features actually adds to the end user experience or simply makes things more complex than they need to be. Better still, software developers within these communities are willing to look at Mac OS X, look at Windows, heck, even look at Amiga and adopt ideas which are good.
At the end of the day many software companies become fixated on this idea of innovation – consumers don’t care who came up with who first, who invented what first, what they want is a product that works. The product will be judged not whether it is the first to deliver a certain feature but how well it actually works within the operating system.
Edited 2007-12-16 22:48
You shouldn’t hold GNOME up as the paragon of good design. It’s not just trimming features to keep things smooth and clean…they go far beyond that and make it hard to do simple things.
Give specific examples of how they’re making simple things hard to do.
You might like to tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak but for the average user, the most they’ll do is change the background, possibly the theme, but over and above that – it has of little interest to them.
The end users concern isn’t the operating system features but ensuring that they can run the applications they want – which is why I find this fixation by some about operating systems very funny.
Simply adding more features so you can tweak simply adds more complexity, complexity which, 90% of users don’t actually care about.
For the most part, yes. Building a Mythbox required me to convert from KDE to Gnome and Gnome’s way of doing things is good — but damn if there isn’t some orthodoxy at work in their decisions.
An open dialog that could show the same previews as seen in Nautilus? Not yours.
Simple access to a screensaver’s options? Deemed too cluttery (one dialog box).
The printer selection tool? So wonderfully simple that they had to replace it with KDE’s, lock stock and barrel.
There’s a line between consistency and tunnel vision, and Gnome’s mandarins don’t care how often it’s crossed.
//Wow, let’s ADD more software to recover the system after our faulty software.//
Faulty software written by a third-party.
Nice try.
Note: I’m pretty sure Horatio_Hellpop is Rockwell’s sockpuppet. Note the distinctive, non-standard way to quote previous messages (and the same pro-MS politics).
//Note: I’m pretty sure Horatio_Hellpop is Rockwell’s sockpuppet. Note the distinctive, non-standard way to quote previous messages (and the same pro-MS politics).//
Yup, one in the same. The rockwell account somehow got screwed up, so I had to re-create.
You’re such the detective! Should have known better than to try to put one over on the almighty archiesteel.
Edited 2007-12-17 20:31
Okay, well, as long as you use only one profile there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I myself have changed nicknames before (going from “archiesteel” to “a nun, he moos” when a name-stealing troll ran amok in these forums, then back to “archiesteel” when we were able to create user profiles). Sorry to have implied you were trying to use a sockpuppet. Consider this an official apology – we may disagree on many things, but I can admit when I’m wrong.
BTW, I am not almighty…yet. I still can’t bend the spacetime continuum, at least not until I eat Hiro’s brain. As soon as I can, I’m going back in time to buy majority shares in Microsoft and Apple. 🙂
(Yes, this is completely off-topic. Mod down as needed.)
Apology accepted, but not warranted. After all, we’re just spouting off on a forum, I take nothing personally. I can take the thrashing (and, to be frank, you can dish it out pretty well! 🙂 ).
I still want to use the rockwell profile … any idea how to get it back? I tried re-setting the password … maybe it’s a temporary glitch, i”ll try logging in later …
Majority shares in GOOG would be nice as well, on your way back. Pick up a few thousand shares for me.
I have a dv9000, and a friend of mine has a 17″ MacBook pro. They are comparable machines and have comparable prices. When I compare my machine to other pc laptops out there, it usually comes out on top. When I compare it to the MacBook, there are HUGE differences.
1) The MacBook is half as thick, and noticeably lighter.
2) The MacBook makes no noise. Zero. When the fans are at max, you can barely hear the hum. On my machine, when the fans are at max you can DEFINATELY hear them.
3) The mac has a beautiful white finish, a glowing apple, and the lights kind of throb. My machine has a black enamel finish that you can see EVERY fingerprint on, and its lights are static (although blue).
4) The sound off his speakers, while not great, isn’t terrible. The sound off of mine is kind of squelched on both the highs and the lows.
5) My DVDR drive pops out a tray when you press a button, just like every laptop made in the last decade. His acts more like a high end car stereo.
5) His FrontRow remote cannot be blocked. I don’t know if they use RF or something, but if you point it in the general direction of the laptop, it works. My remote is definitely IR, and needs to be pointed at a very specific spot to function properly.
Now, my machine has two 100 gig hard drives vs one 80 gig, a slightly faster CPU, AND costed me 400$ less. Not only that, but every other laptop I compare it to usually gets blown out of the water in those categories I listed. It is comparatively quiet, it is esthetically attractive, it has friggin altec lansing speakers. Not only that, but it runs Vista flawlessly (I notice no difference in performance between Vista and XP on this hardware). But ignoring the hard drive, the macbook is better in every way.
So to sum it up, the MacBook blows a high end pc laptop out of the friggin water.
Its a shame too, because the 80 gig drive was the dealbreaker for me. I work with .net (wouldnt change that for the world either), so I would have needed to dual boot. Two operating systems and my 60 gigs of music would pretty much fill up the drive.
I have the same laptop and your comparison is bs.
The DV9000 and Macbook Pro aren’t even remotely close in price. The HP starts at $849 and the Macbook at $2799. That’s more than 3 times the price of the HP. Even configured as close as possible to the baseline 17 inch MBP it comes out to $1499. Less than half the price.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/load_configuration.do?de…
For less than the baselie price for the MBP you can get 500GB’s of HD space, 4GB’s or ram, a TV Tuner, and a HD-DVD burner:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/load_configuration.do?de…
HP’s notebooks that compare best to the MBP are the ones in the business section of their site.
Actually, I bought this machine about 8 months ago, and my friend bought his MBP a little before that (right before the upgrade from core duo to core 2 duo). Back then, the price was about 2500$ for the HP, and about 3000$ for the MBP.
Your comment brings up another point too, Macs hold their value FOREVER, you will see the PC you bought a month ago available for half the price and feel like crying.
Edited 2007-12-16 21:34 UTC
Conversely you could say that Macs generally stay at the same price FOREVER (figuratively) and rarely go on sale. PC’s are constantly evolving and giving customers more bang for their buck. PC companies are using their economies of scale to give customers a better deal today than they got yesterday while Apple is using it to get higher profits.
//So to sum it up, the MacBook blows a high end pc laptop out of the friggin water. //
Er, what? All of your points about the Macbook are purely asthetic … you think the Macbook is prettier. That’s about it.
Nice technical comparison.
Natural language search is actually included in Vista. It is just disabled by default.
http://mike.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!FBABF8E542F5D5DB!7837.entry
Vista represents how the culture at MS has gone from Windows innovation to stagnation, and now finally to panic and catch-up. Fortunately for MS, they are not subject to the same penalties administered by the market for poor product releases because of the entrenched monopoly. But the back of XP, while strong, will age and break.
I believe Vista reflects the leadership and culture collapse and MS and portends a market shift. They are just now understanding the the use of VM’s to maintain backward compatibility will allow for true Windows innovation. This realization will be akin to ReadyBoost V2, too little, too late.
I’m buying a freakin Mac.
At what period in its history was MS a culture of innovation? MS doesn’t innovate, they slowly build on tried and true ideas that others have innovated for them. Office 2k7 is probably the most innovative project that has come out of the company ever, and its “innovation” can be summed up as A UI that makes sense, and Office collaboration. Its been almost 20 years now that they have been putting out this product, and the only substantive thing they have come up with themselves is fixing a big mistake that was their fault to begin with, and adding collaborative features.
Windows is even worse, when you look at the featureset of XP compared to the competition, it was downright archaic. Vista is a huge step forward, but there is nothing new, everything has been done by other people, or simply fixes bad decisions made in the past. That massive jump still put them a year or so behind Apple when it comes to the home user experience, and several years behind linux when it comes to administrative tools and security.
Lets see, what else is there? The XBOX was basically a playstation with more power. The Wii is innovative, the XBOX is the same old thing. The Zune is so obviously based on the iPod. Even .net, which I love dearly and think is better then any other platform on the market, is obviously based on java, and has very few areas that are true innovation.
What Vista reflects is that at least once a decade, MS needs to do serious housecleaning from the bottom up when it comes to APIs, architecture, and backwards compatibility.
I would also challenge you on saying that it is too late. MS had their most profitable quarter in the history of the company, Vista is installed on more computers then OSX and linux put together, and the people who do not have any issues with it (which nowadays is the majority of people on it) actually like it. The oldschool windows priesthood will object to any major change in the OS, because they are so used to the same old thing year after year, and are incredably resistant to learning anything new. I am not a member of the old priesthood, I used to hate using windows with a passion. Now that it is in the realm of being a modern OS, I enjoy it a lot more.
Installed on … or sold with? Just because a computer is sold with Vista does not mean it is running Vista.
The local school district here will not support any computers with Vista installed. Any computer purchased with Vista pre-installed will have it wiped and XP installed. Same with the local university. I’m sure there are other major corporations around here with the same policy. And probably a lot of home computers and laptops.
Units sold has very little relation to units installed/used.
What’s really interesting, is that all the Toshiba and HP laptops we buy for the school district come with Vista pre-installed, but the restore CD is XP.
Does that count as a sale of Vista or XP? And which counts for the installed numbed? 
MS doesn’t innovate, they slowly build on tried and true ideas that others have innovated for them.
Oh, puh-lease. Everything is derivative of ideas that evolved over the past 50-something years of computer science and, by that silly standard, nothing could be considered innovative. But that’s ridiculous. Innovation isn’t solely about blazing unique paths. Innovation is about putting something useful in peoples’ hands. MS is in a unique position of being able to put useful things in LOT of peoples’ hands; therefore, when it does so, it’s innovating. I don’t care whether it was done elsewhere. Deploying technology on a huge number and diverse set of machines has its own challenges that the homogenous Mac line will probably never have to face.
Windows is even worse, when you look at the featureset of XP compared to the competition, it was downright archaic.
You’ll have to be a bit more specific here. Not clear what you mean by “featureset of XP compared to competition.” You can’t compare a 7 year-old operating system with modern day OSes.
… several years behind linux when it comes to administrative tools and security.
Huh? You actually believe that Linux is AHEAD of Windows when it comes to administrative tools? Fascinating perspective, really.
Lets see, what else is there? The XBOX was basically a playstation with more power. The Wii is innovative, the XBOX is the same old thing. The Zune is so obviously based on the iPod. Even .net, which I love dearly and think is better then any other platform on the market, is obviously based on java, and has very few areas that are true innovation.
Again, you’re trapped in one-dimensional thinking of “who did it first”. What matters from a practical standpoint is usefulness and iteration. MS created Excel at a time when Lotus 123 dominated the market. MS didn’t invent the spreadsheet. But it did manage to keep iterating on the product until it became the pre-eminent spreadsheet.
What Vista reflects is that at least once a decade, MS needs to do serious housecleaning from the bottom up when it comes to APIs, architecture, and backwards compatibility.
Totally agree.
I would also challenge you on saying that it is too late. MS had their most profitable quarter in the history of the company, Vista is installed on more computers then OSX and linux put together, and the people who do not have any issues with it (which nowadays is the majority of people on it) actually like it.
I really get a kick when Linux and Mac fanboys predict “the end of Microsoft”. Clearly, they’re living in a reality distortion field that’s much stronger than anything I’ve ever seen before. The fact of the matter is that MS could send its employees home, shutter its doors, and not do anything for several years, and it would still bring in billions of dollars in profit. It could transform itself into a GE-like holding company for various technology concerns, and it would still be the 800-lb gorilla in the industry. It ain’t going away, people, no matter how much you might prefer that reality.
The oldschool windows priesthood will object to any major change in the OS, because they are so used to the same old thing year after year, and are incredably resistant to learning anything new.
I think that goes for people, in general. Most don’t like change. But, sometimes, change is necessary and organizations like Microsoft and Apple who have large, entrenched customer bases need to lead the way, despite criticism and negative feedback. Because the alternative is stagnation.
Since this is the basic point you disagreed with, ill just cover it
I agree with that to a point. The thing is, MS waits until other put the “innovation” into other peoples hands, and then copy the process. Sure, Apple didn’t invent the desktop metaphor, but it was only after it was being used in a mass marketed product that MS jumped on board, with a copy of the apple implementation. Sure, Sony didn’t invent console gaming, but MS took their idea and ran with it, unlike (for example) Nintendo, who took a completely different direction. Nintendo sure didn’t invent touch interfaces or motion detection interfaces, but they were the first to bring it to the industry in the form of the DS and the Wii. In the context of what I am talking about, THAT is innovation, what MS did is copying the existing paradigm.
I am a smart guy, I do very well on IQ tests. I don’t think I’m better then someone who isn’t as smart as me, but can run 10 yards in the time it takes me to run one. Or someone who can paint something that evokes strong emotion in anyone who sees it. Intelligence is one of many attributes that make up a person.
Same deal with innovation. MS is not an innovative company. Does that make them a useless company? Hardly. But the products they put out are not innovative, and never have been. That is just one aspect of what they do. Apple is a big idea company. Nintendo is a big idea company. MS is not.
what user really got from that slower and disk-gready version (besides several security prompts) over XP.
Besides visible for user Aero (if you switch it off, you get ride, btw, of most slowness and weirdness, file copying including).
Vista-only DX10? Seems like marketing decision, not technical, to make it Vista-only.
XP has no I/O prioritization, its compositing is mostly done by the CPU leaving your GPU mostly unused. Its security archetecture (or lack thereof) blows. It has horrible backup tools, its multimedia and sound frameworks blow, it looks like it was designed for 8 year old girls. Its start menu sucks, its search engine is archaic, and its firewall/malware detection is a joke.
If you are lucky enough to have compatible hardware, Vista is a huge upgrade over XP.
Why did you go and spill the guy’s kool-aid like that?
– Normal users don’t care.
– See above.
– Apart from the addition of the UAC bandaid, Vista’s security architecture is identical to XP’s.
– The backup tools in Vista have actually got *worse*, you can no longer select the files you want to include/exclude from a backup, only the categories of files.
– They work fine. XP actually supports accelerated audio.
– No, the default look was probably designed for boys, it’s blue not pink.
– The Vista start menu is only cosmetically different, plus the addition of the search box and the effort to make it as hard as possible to browse manually (so that you get hooked on search).
– Normal users don’t care how old a technology is, only that it works. XP’s search for the most part does.
– Post SP2 the firewall is fine for most users. Malware detection is not included with XP, but Windows Defender (the same one that is provided in Vista) is available for free.
So apart from some fairly minor UI improvements, how does Vista benefit a normal user?
When I first got my laptop, I would be playing a game, and notice it start to heat up REAL quick. I would shut the game down, and find AV running.
The ONLY thing I noticed was the heat. Not a massive drop in fps.
By contrast, on XP as soon as the AV starts running on the same machine, there is a noticable sluggishness to the whole system. The reason for the massive difference is that on Vista, you are able to give low priority to an I/O operation. In XP you cant. Anyone who uses antivirus on windows should care about this.
The only reason someone would not care about this is if their CPU never comes close to reaching capacity. A more responsive desktop using less resources is something anyone would care about.
The UAC “bandaid” is what I am talking about. If you think UAC is just some prompts, you should do some reading before commenting.
You can now do incremental backups of just your data, or your whole system. (XP didn’t allow for that) You can also automate your backups, and choose whether to backup to a network drive or physical media. In XP, you needed to buy a 3rd party app for that.
Video in XP is downright horrible when you compare it to vista. It uses more resources for worse performance. When I resize a window playing a movie in vista, it is smooth. In XP on the same machine, it “chunks”. Same deal with passing a window over a window playing a movie. As for sound, the new driver architecture allows for less latency off of the same hardware. It provides a cleaner API, and the whole per process mixer thing is just cool.
Got me there
It is easier to browse manually for anyone with a scrollwheel. And I was referring to search, I havn’t manually browsed for anything since about a week after I got it. I would much rather press start, type “calc”, and press enter rather then trawling the start menu. I guess it is a preference thing, but I have always found windows start menu kludgy. The addition of the search field lets you never have to deal with it.
Do normal users care that on vista, search is almost instantaneous?
Even post SP2, the firewall is only one way. And anyone who has fixed a “normal user”s xp machine will know how often they think of installing malware protection, or browse the windows download center.
Forgive me for not expounding those points on the initial post, I have written these same things here so many times that I am getting really tired of it. I am not saying vista is flawless, Im not even saying it is all that good (for every one of those points you can find a better implementation in a competing operating system), but it is a hell of alot better then XP. For those of us who use other operating systems, XP seemed dated when it came out 7 years ago.
When Microsoft announced Vista, they peddled the “three pillars” of the new OS. Those features were: WinFS, a database like file system overlay, Avalon, a new generation graphics base, and Indigo, the communications framekwork.
* They couldn’t figure out how to make WinFS work, after more than a decade of trying.
* Avalon requires some of the most advanced hardware on the market (on the whole) and still sucks compared to the alternatives like Compiz and CoreAnimation.
* Indigo is windows only and invisible to the user.
From the beginning, the people following Vista were promised things that were never delivered. There were all sorts of “implied” features that never showed their face, despite being “demoed” via mockups and promo videos years ago. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/11/07/windows-longhorn-concept-vi…
Now, you tell me: what was removed from Longhorn? Pretty much EVERYTHING that made it exciting: the promise of a next generation OS. Longhorn was an amazing concept, but Vista is a flop, plain and simple.
They couldn’t figure out how to make WinFS work, after more than a decade of trying.
Excuse me? WinFS beta 1 was released last year and it was working quite OK. It is just that they later decided that WinFS is not needed that much: transactions were added to NTFS and indexed search too.
Most of WinFS was moved to SQL Server 2008, hence much improved support for storing files into the database without using BLOBs, etc.
just that they later decided that WinFS is not needed that much
Watch the video. Many of the features shown there would have to rely on extra metadata in the filesystem, aka WinFS. There is no argument that WinFS could be ‘not needed that much’ .
Yes, but all together those features were not needed that much. Besides, of course that features that rely on WinFS need WinFS, what kind of argument is that??
WinFS beta 1 was released last year. For sure, they could have finished it for Service Pack 1 or Windows 2008 Server release if they wanted to, since it wasn’t that far from being done. The whole project was simply stopped otherwise they’d be working on it even now, no?
No, they couldn’t. At and following the PDC, they received feedback from developers wanting to do things that went beyond the scope they originally targeted. This is one of the reasons why WinFS couldn’t use Vista as its ship vehicle. Contrary to popular belief, development has not stopped. Just as they promised on the WinFS team blog, development has continued, and the technologies are being delivered, though their names have changed, it’s not one monolithic unit, and the technologies are generally better than what would’ve shipped as WinFS:
Items Data Model -> Entity Data Model shipping in SQL CE 3.5/SQL Server 2008
Object Spaces -> LINQ
Sync Services -> Sync Framework
That’s not true. The “extra metadata” that WinFS exposed that isn’t already present in Vista was relationships… which NEVER existed in the Explorer of an build (with WinFS in it or not) or any demo. The only place it existed was in separate apps. That’s why WinFS beta 1 shipped with a separate app to manage relationships.
Everything WinFS was going to nearly everything supposedly do for the Windows Explorer was done with out WinFS in Beta 1:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=115267
It was just too confusing for users so they dropped it.
I know I’m late with this reply but I can’t help it.
WinFS (granted, not called WinFS, but with the same functions) was supposed to be present in the first version of Windows NT, along with a couple of other interesting features (that eventually made it into other versions of Windows actually). Well, it was actually a part of project Cairo, and as far as I can remember about Microsoft technology, it’s about the only piece of Cairo that never made it into any version of Windows.
WinFS was among those which was dumped at the time, because it was dead slow and the hardware of those days (roughly 1992 if I recall correctly) couldn’t run it. It seems WinFS has progressed according to Moore’s law. So actually they tried to make it work for more than a decade and the results are not yet magical.
Interestingly enough, several companies have failed at bringing those same features to the desktop. BeOS failed at their relational database FS then started over and built their journaled and indexed file system called BeFS. You can read about it in Dominic Giampalo’s book, which if free on his website.
Apple failed to bring their database FS to Copland and the Mac OS.
Like I said Adam, Windows Vista is a disappointment, definitely so. However, this article is about the specific claim that just about anything interesting that was promised was removed from Vista – which simply isn’t the case, since only WinFS fits that description. I don’t care about pillars or more of that nonsense. I mean, pillars, top secret features (hi Steve! Where are they?), they’re all just marketing speak.
The video you showed, well, I’m sorry, but I’ve seen it before, and I’m still not exactly sure what part of it should blow my mind away.
Except for those idiots rushing to buy Win95, of course.
Like I said Adam, Windows Vista is a disappointment, definitely so.
Because.. you say so?
watch the video and tell me, honestly – if Vista is no disappointment, what is?
watch the video and tell me, honestly – if Vista is no disappointment, what is?
I have Vista, why should I watch some video?
But that is just me..
Well if you watch the video you’ll get the point of what we are talking about, point being the video is something that longhorn was supposed to be and Vista is nothing like.
Gonzo, this comment of yours is exactly the same as plugging your ears and screaming “la, la, la, I can’t hear you…”. Sadly, you probably don’t realize it.
99% of the people who bitch about vista the most are actually linux or mac users.
Does that includes the people that are downgrading to XP, or should I say upgrading?
Why shouldn’t people after all because thats the point of this title, bitching about feature cuts that is warranted. If you had great specs for a car and then cut the specs, it be a ordinary car and not the one you were looking forward to.
Are you a Vista user? Are you complaining about an OS you don’t even use?
Used to use Vista, thats the whole point and if it was as feature packed and good as Microsoft claimed then maybe I’d use it but I only use Windows for a few games anyway, which XP plays better.
Don’t forget XP users.
And to your statement allow me to respond with “WELL DUH!” If Vista didn’t cause so much bitching they’d be Vista users.
I guess I should clarify the point I was trying to make (after I stop chuckling)
If you use a mac, and have only read about Vista, when you bitch about something it really doesn’t carry much weight. When I, as someone who uses Vista every friggin day to make my living praise something about Vista, it carries alot of weight.
So, if you upgraded to vista, was effected by one of the myriad major bugs, and went back to xp, you have every right to be pissed, and to post here and vent your anger. If you were a mac/linux user before, are one now, and will be one for the forseeable future, then first off, you shouldnt be pissed off at something you don’t use, and secondly, when you say “Vista sucks” in a place like this, it carries no weight.
The people who ran into problems with Vista have every right to be pissed, they payed for a product they couldn’t use due to bugs. These people aren’t the ones complaining in places like this though. It is the linux guys, the mac guys, and the xp guys who have no intention of upgrading that end up shouting down people like me and the original poster, who say “We use it every day, and it works great for us”.
I don’t use leopard, so I don’t comment on how great or terrible it is. I do comment on what i think of some of the features sometimes, but more from a technical point of view then anything, and I am more then happy to be shown something that I was unaware of. The equivilent of some of the most vocal people here is if i trolled every OSX thread, talking about how buggy leopard is, how none of the apps or drivers work, and about the various UI issues.
It does if you do so in numbers. Your point is granted. The value of one knowledgeable individual’s opinion is worth more than the superficial opinions of 1000 others. But the 1000 will affect Vista’s marketshare and Microsoft’s income much more. Not to mention drowning out the one in sheer quantity.
And at the day’s end, those 1000 are just as entitled to their opinion as the next fellow. Sure, they arrived to it by superficial means, but who’s to say that it’s “wrong”? After all, we’re talking about what is just a tool for many, not a life changing decision.
…right. I’m running XP and this is what I get when I upgrade to Vista:
– Degraded network performance when playing music.
– UAC (I’m sorry, but this is annoying)
– Degraded performance when playing games.
That’s quite a statement. But it’s not true for me. I’ve been so (un)lucky my work place payed and installed a Vista Ultimate on my (work) pc and i have XP at home, so i get to compare every day!
Guess what platform the 99% used to be on? And i’ll guess the ones complaining have had (although short) a brush with Vista.
I’m not only a windows basher
. I’ll be glad to bash Gnome any day.
I’ll gladly admit that Windows is a more reliable platform than linux, when it comes to desktop use. But that does not excuse the release of something awful as Vista. And the pricetag associated is just horrific!
If there was any useful day to day software (that was microsoft import/export friendly) i would be running BeOS to this very day. I’m still hopeful the haiku project will gain more ground in the future. I’m still hoping for that Java port to complete and having Google’s Summer of Code behind it was definitely refreshing. But this is getting off-topic, so i’ll stop now.
The comment was really not aimed at you then. I said what I said because I am a regular here, and I have gotten to know the views, opinions, and preferences of quite a few of the other regulars. And alot of the anti-vista noise is generated by people who wouldn’t be caught dead using it.
I have only ever fooled around with Be, but I could really say that if Mac OS9 had the tools I need to make a living, it would be my OS of choice. When haiku fully gets off the ground, it will probably replace my ubuntu partition.
Well, a lot of the stuff they are showing off in the video – the cool sidebar, the many animations in the filemanager, the drag’n’drop stuff; and especially the communication and filesharing stuff – none of that is even close in Vista, and all that was promised for 2003. So saying there wasn’t much promised but not delivered – well, these features might not have cool names like ‘Avalon’, but I agree with Adam: Vista sure didn’t deliver on what was shown in that video.
Just because each of these features aren’t clearly named or separately hyped doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter MS didn’t deliver on them. I actually think it would be fair if you would edit your article (which is more of a blog, imho) and mention this video saying MS did indeed not deliver on 80% of what they showed was coming for 2003…
I don’t care about pillars or more of that nonsense…they’re all just marketing speak.
As this is about stuff promised and stuff not delivered, marketing speak is a central issue here.
The video you showed, well, I’m sorry, but I’ve seen it before, and I’m still not exactly sure what part of it should blow my mind away.
Well, it’s actually quite easy Thom. What should have blown your mind away is how one video could show that your whole article, or blog entry, or whatever you want to call it, was pure and utter nonsense. MS promised something completely different from what they delivered in the end.
That’s the point and that’s why people complain about Vista lacking features and no amount of weasling around this issue on your part will change this.
http://www4.osnews.com/permalink?291384
Ah, Thom, if you didn’t think the video was relevant, why didn’t you say so in the first place but simply avoided to address the issue at all?
Oh, wait, that’s because you needed someone else to give you the idea on how to weasel out of this one, didn’t you? Thom the weasling Dutchman.
Anyway, who says the poster is right and other posters claiming promotional videos had an enormous influence on what people expected of Vista aren’t?
Since when do you think claiming promotional videos are about getting “developers … thinking about new interfaces and concepts for their own apps.” is something even resembling a sane argument?
Thom, face it, you wrote yet another poorly researched and poorly argued blog post and once again showed you are unable to engage in a discussion with people who disagree with you.
Adam claimed that there was a discrepancy between this particular video, and the end result (Vista). I replied to this, saying: “The video you showed, well, I’m sorry, but I’ve seen it before, and I’m still not exactly sure what part of it should blow my mind away.” In other words, where exactly is the discrepancy?
The fact that this was a promotional video was of no relevance in this particular case. I indeed did not know that this specific video was promotional, conceptual material – contrary to many here, I don’t claim to know the world. It was a nice new thing to learn, and I’m happy I have learned it. The other video linked to in the thread (where the REAL Longhorn was shown, with Aero and all) was known by me.
And of course a nice ad hominem attack, with a nice reference to my home country. Classy there, Ralphie!
Well, I’m having a nice discussion with some here about the issue, especially with Adam, in this case, but with others too. This thread has remained fairly decent, right up until your little ad hominem attack here.
Thank you Ralphie, for trying to derail yet another thread. I should ban you, but quite honestly, I don’t even know how to ban someone anymore (v4 changed this routine), and I’m too lazy to find out how to do it. Your type of comments is what turns relatively peaceful threads like this into flamefests.
THEY TOLD YOU THAT WHEN THEY RELEASED THE VIDEOS. Secondly, it’s a video for the PDC!. That’s the Professional Developers Conference. Not the hobbiest and geek conference or the CES. IIRC that video was released at WinHec. When MS wants to show something to consumers they bring it to CES or E3 not the PDC.
Heres the post about the WinFS blog introducing the WinFS concept video:
Hello developers! I’m Steve De Mar, the Product Designer for the WinFS team and I’m here to talk about the WinFS video at the PDC (high-res, low-res). It started with the WinFS team’s desire to spread the word about our platform value propositions, ’Unify’, ‘Organize’, ‘Explore’ and ‘Innovate’.
The video started as a joint venture with a video vendor to define an excitement piece. Originally all I was to do was design the application UI’s and direct the story. But in a crunch to meet stylistic demands, we decided to rework the entire video less than 10 days before PDC. That meant I’d have to refine the footage we’d already created to shorten and intensify the experience. This involved new script, sourcing new music, on-screen text instead of voice-over, reanimating sections, pacing and editing. Suffice it to say, many long nights and lots of intense iterations later, and we have the WinFS video you saw at the PDC. Hope you enjoyed the effort!
Beyond entertainment value though, one of the most important aspects of the video is the experiences represented in the application UI’s. Our goal was to peak the curiosity of you, the developers, to get you thinking about what could really be built on WinFS. We wanted you to see how WinFS enables a totally new class of user experiences. The UIs in the video are all based on some of the great prototype applications that have already been developed for the WinFS platform. Although we cast them in a more futuristic visual “theme” to fit the style of the video, the functionality we showed exists in the prototypes that either we’ve developed in house or we’ve seen others develop on WinFS. A number of these were demo’d at the PDC, and we’ve more on the way which you should be hearing about shortly.
We hope the video inspires you to bring to life cool new innovative applications for WinFS!
—-
Here’s the other concept video:
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=8b249685-7bdc-4e67-a85e-e5c95ba…
Note how it says “it’s not about icons but about ideas that inspire”?
one of the most important aspects of the video is the experiences represented in the application UI’s. Our goal was to peak the curiosity of you, the developers, to get you thinking about what could really be built on WinFS. We wanted you to see how WinFS enables a totally new class of user experiences.
And? Did they deliver on this “totally new class of user experiences” build on WinFS? No, they didn’t.
Did you even read and understand what you quoted? It doesn’t say they were going to deliver any thing. It plainly says it was made to get people (developers)thinking about new user experiences.
But all of that is besides the original point about how a concept video isn’t a promise to deliver what’s in the video but to open developers minds as to what is possible.
Incidentally, the Microsftie might be a good manager/developer but he sux at spelling. FYI, one’s interest is “piqued” not “peak”ed. Remember, miscommunication makes a difference – it can result in friendly fire.
Did you even read and understand what you quoted?
Rest assured I did.
We wanted you to see how WinFS enables a totally new class of user experiences. The UIs in the video are all based on some of the great prototype applications that have already been developed for the WinFS platform. Although we cast them in a more futuristic visual “theme” to fit the style of the video, the functionality we showed exists in the prototypes that either we’ve developed in house or we’ve seen others develop on WinFS.
So again, did they deliver?
We know they didn’t deliver WinFS, that’s been established. And isn’t the subject of this thread nor Thom’s article.
Note the part immediately before what you quoted :
then remember the orignal point of all these “concept videos”… not to deliver what’s in the video exactly but to showcase what’s possible.
Then remember that this whole line of “Missing the Point” replies are about the pre-PDC video one guy posted claiming it was a “promise” from Microsoft.
We know they didn’t deliver WinFS, that’s been established. And isn’t the subject of this thread nor Thom’s article.
Of course it is. It’s about features not delivered, isn’t it? And WinFS was one of the core features not delivered and this in turn led to others things not being delivered, as the video shows.
Note the part immediately before what you quoted
Just to set the record straight: I also quoted this part.
And what about “the functionality we showed exists” is hard to understand?
Then remember that this whole line of “Missing the Point” replies are about the pre-PDC video one guy posted claiming it was a “promise” from Microsoft.
That’s just unfair to the guy who originally posted the video. He made it very clear what he meant with being promised. He talked about implied features and about the promise of a next generation OS. He never claimed that MS all out promised every last detail it showed in a demo video.
You however have spend days now misunderstanding what he said on purpose.
You’re taking it out of context. Every time I call you on that you reduce your quote even more. There’s no way any english speaker with at least an 8th grade reading level can see that post on the WinFS blog as a promise to deliver those apps. It was stated over and over that the concept video is simply to get developer excited about new ways to create user experiences with WinFS… not to showcase future applications of Vista. Hell, WinFS had been removed from Vista more than a year before that post. Here’s the topic sentence from each of the 4 paragraphs:
1. Hello developers!
2. The video started as a joint venture with a video vendor to define an excitement piece.
3. Beyond entertainment value though, one of the most important aspects of the video is the experiences represented in the application UI’s.
4. We hope the video inspires you to bring to life cool new innovative applications for WinFS!
Sorry, I was refering to the posts by Statagg (read his follow ups):
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=19055&comment_id=291373
He basically made a list of things from that video that MS didn’t deliver and the only one that had any weight to it was the liberal use of animations in the Explorer. However, the video was a concept video (just like the WinFS video I posted) trying to get people excited for the PDC in 2003. (the fact that the video wasn’t even seen by the public until logn after the fact is another matter entirely). At that PDC they showed a very detailed version of what Vista was going to look like… Aero Glass, animations, Sidebar, color pallette and everything.
No one at the PDC came away from it thinking Longhorn would be like that concept video (99% of the people there had never even seen that video). They thoght it would look like the keynote video I posted (below) and end the end it pretty much did.
Here’s the link to his post:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=19055&comment_id=291392
Here’s the video of what was shown at the PDC in 2003:
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=34f0d8f8-f701-4db3-905c-6559447…
Go to Thurrotts site and you’ll see exactly the same thing. So if Vista is so dissapointing now because it didn’t deliver on the UI stuff from his concept video then why was no one saying that at the PDC when they showed off Aero Glass (in very much the same way it looks today)?
Thom, what you do with your article and your recent comments before, is just showing that you didn’t get the whole picture.
When Vista was anounced as Longhorn, and even years later, MS talked about a completely other operating system.
It just didn’t happen. What happened was some systems rewritten, but only half-assed (for example take the crippled sound system). Other system rewrites like WinFS as foundation for a new access model to data skipped.
Vista was meant as a major change of the philosophy of the OS — and just didn’t happen, and WinFS was only one of several parts of it that failed!
Think about the whole system being based on .NET for instance. That was the #1 promise, and everybody here has forgotten about it.
A new clean system, based a powerfull new Framework, backed by powerfull filesystem and connectivity features. Do you see anything like this in Vista? Do you see the new paradigms in the OS’ behaviour or MS’ applications?
If you are honest, it’s not some features being cut. No, that’s not the point. It’s the whole system that was cut, and there is even a date when this cut happened, you can look it up: when MS officially reformed the Vista team and restarted the development process. Since then, it was not the new OS that was meant to be delivered and that is missed by those “claiming cancelled features”.
Edited 2007-12-16 22:34
They never said it that’s why people “forgot”. It was just something that Mary Jo Foley and the Register trumpted around as a fact so she could claim she had exclusive information. Not even thurrott claimd anything that stupid. At the PDC in 2003 they even expliained why the whole system couldn’t be written in .Net.
Yes. The Ribbon:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101679481033.aspx
Windows Media Player, MCE, and Explorer’s visual browsing style (live icons and album view). That’s something you just forget about because everyone copied it and now it’s everywhere… Apple even put it in iTunes 7 and Leopard.
Removal of menus (file, edit, view etc.) bars and replacement of contextual bars in Windows Photo Gallery, WMM, DVD maker, IE7, Explorer etc.
The focus on metadata, previewing, and searching in Explorer and open save dialogs. You can tag files with XMP data straight from Windows Explorer.
ORLY they changed how the apps look?
Office’s ribbon is … well Office only. Good Vista feature!
But these contextual menu bars … hey, really. That couldn’t be done with XP!
I’m sorry, but I meant something a little bit more fundamental than that.
“Windows Media Player, MCE, and Explorer’s visual browsing style (live icons and album view). That’s something you just forget about because everyone copied it and now it’s everywhere… Apple even put it in iTunes 7 and Leopard.”
The difference between Apples CoreAnimation and Vista is the CA/Leopard actually works! it exists and is used… Vista media works NOTHING like that PDC demo they showed other than a vague resemblance to the colours.
Vista looks nor works NOTHING like what Longhorn was supposed to be… its a tactic MS has used over and over again to try and scupper support for the competition.
Anytime Apple announced something for next year MS brings out some bullshit to try and soften the blow (the wifi monitor? the BIG ASS TABLE? ) things that just never existed or were never planned to exist until years later and hopefully everyone by then will have forgotten about.
Operating system companies have been put of business based purely on the MS hype machine announcements that if you just wait that little longer you’ll be glad you stayed with us.
And are you on planet stupid? WTF does the ribbon have to do with Vista? stop clutching at straws and apologizing for MS, they did the same bait and switch tactic again and got caught red handed not only with lies but also the added negative of a bullshit product.
I’m a big supporter of software in general, I like O/S but I think there is still a place for commercial players in the market, I’m just sad that Apple appears to be one of the few remaining competitors in the playing field.
as a disclaimer, I’m typing this on Ubuntu, while I’m fighting with vmware to get SP1RC installed on Vista.. while my macbook pro (which did have vista till I installed leopard) plays some music from my G4 450mhz cube downstairs running leopard server serves up some tracks.
Microsoft screwed up big time, either way you look at it.
I got modded down for having a bad opinion of vista? did I mention macs too much? want some screenshots of me fighting with this stupid Vista service pack in vmware?
I’ve used all flavours of windows since 1994 and with all of them minus ME there has been significant reasons to upgrade…. looking at the promotional vid I now remember why I’m so pissed off that MS screwed US the customer over again by promising something and giving something completely different LATE.
When WinFS and powershell were taken out I thought, hey I’ll at least have the pretty skirt (I actually liked the asthetic theming in XP and thought it a significant reason to use that over 2000) .. I loved the transparency in Vista and thought it was a good way to catch up with Tiger… If it was atleast as stable as XP after SP1 then all would be good.
So I started using Vista about RC3 thinking it would be stable… but it wasnt and the driver support from the major manufacturers was abysmal right up until about 6 months after the RTM! To prove this I still have better sound support with my audigy 2 ZS platpro in linux than I do in vista… Linux! for gods sake.
So about 6 months ago I thought screw it, I love office, I love adobe but anything I really need I can do on os x and everything else I can use linux for.
Even the pretty skirt wasn’t enough to keep me using Vista, and although I keep going back and poking the steaming pile of shite I certainly don’t recommend it to any friends or family…
Maybe I do sound like a mac fanboy in that last post but I do have a rather large amount of Windows usage and experience over the years and although it has never been my favourite OS, I cant really say I’ve hated it until now! Especially when its about the only OS I can use for gaming.
So hey, I’m a pirate and will burn in hell… I was fortunate to never pay for my usage of Vista and what should make it more significant is that I wont even use it for FREE! Sure, I’m no customer, but I always promoted windows for compatibility etc to relatives. And this is where you will see the surge of people turning against the great monopoly…
I dont really care about apple, as stated in my post I’m just glad that there is still a competitor to Windows, R.I.P BeOS, at least you had a working 64bit FS.
I’ll be the first to admit that Steve Jobs is the master of the apple distortion field, but whatever Jobs puts out in distortion: Microsofts PR dept puts out 100 fold in hype and mis-information!
And if I was buried for my comment about the Ribbon… where is it in Vista? OFFICE, where is it in XP? OFFICE… what the hell does the ribbon have to do with Vista?
The original claim that inspired me to bring the Ribbon into the conversation was:
Posted by Ford Perfect here:
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=19055&comment_id=291438
The Ribbon in Office 2007 is one of those new paradigms from Microsoft. It was released simultaneously with Vista and it can be licensed by third partys who want to use it in their applications.
The development tools for Vista (VS 2008) have built in tools to help you design a ribbon for your own apps.
It’s already in use in several non-MS apps like Mindjet MindManager:
http://blogs.msdn.com/officerocker/archive/2007/05/24/mindjet-mindm…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27442285@N00/512288011/
The Ribbon is one of the new UI paradigms from Microsoft. It uses a lot of the same concepts of Longhorn and Vista such as the Start Menu Orb, lack of traditional menus (file, edit, view etc.), Live Previews, Live Icons, Smooth Animations, Contextual Toolbars, Glass Customization etc.
It’s perfectly relevant to the original quote above.
Hmmm funny how my response to this comment just disappeared…
I can’t find it in my account as having been posted and the post doesn’t show up as having been posted in the page itself. Nice….
–bornagainpenguin
Edited 2007-12-18 05:23
what you mean the one about reason you dont comment here too much anymore is that its too easy for your voice to go unheard because people take advantage of the moderation?
The one telling me not to get too stressed out over the fact and the observation that admins can post quite happily and no matter their content, never be modded down?
Yeah… I saw that, I guess we either must both be dreaming, or someone is censoring? or could this just be a big coincidence and your post got lost in the SQL?
you know its weird… I think your comment is still there… the navigation of the replies here seems to be rather strange.
Yeah…
That’s the one I was referring to. Interesting how the post just disappears and the way it is cut off from navigation, isn’t it?
I’ve been coming to this site for over seven years now, even going so far as to save the articles and pages of comments for offline reading when I had no internet connectivity for a bit a few years back! But unless things get cleared up I’ll take the hint and start paying more attention to some of the other sites that exist. It’s not as if OSNews.com is the only technology news site in existence or anything…
–bornagainpenguin
PS: Please pardon me for being off-topic.
Since day 1 of the Longhorn project it was planned to be a “wave” of software not just a single release.
http://www.google.com/search?q=longhorn+wave
The wave was to include Vista and its relevant APIs, Office and its relevant API’s, Longhorn Server, Office Server (Exchange, Communicator etc.), IE7, WMP11, Visual Studio, Expression, VirtualPC/Hypervisor, and SQL Server among others.
Office 2007, originally, was supposed to only run on Vista. The current version was released on the same day as Vista. It uses various Vista technologies to a large extent… the RSS Store, Windows Search, WPF (Microsoft Dynamics), Rich Preview Handlers, People Near Me, Windows Workflow, Sidebar, Tablet PC/Ink (OneNote), Vista Speech Recognition etc.
In fact, Windows Search in Vista and the Search Folders idea came from MS Office… as Bill Gates said at WinHec in 2003.
Here’s Microsoft Dynamics using WPF:
http://sessions.visitmix.com/view_07.asp?pid=XBD05
Microsoft Frontpage was even redesigned using WPF and rebranded Expression Web Designer.
The Office Ribbon can also be licensed for use in Windows applications:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa973809.aspx
The same team that designed the Office Ribbon are now designing the new interface for Windows 7.
—
You can’t say Vista apps don’t have new interface paradigms and then ignore Microsoft Office 2007… one of the most popular apps in the world.
>Think about the whole system being based on .NET for instance. That was the #1 promise, and everybody here has forgotten about it.
Its amazing how quickly people forgot this one. I do remember that as well. I remember how the future was .NET and everything .NET. Sure .NET is still important, but in terms of OS it flopped.
From what was said to me, one of the top dogs (the DEC guy I think) said “over my dead body will .NET be in the core of the OS.”
Didn’t they also said for a while that the kernel would be completely rewritten in .NET and backed that right after probably when someone with good sense told them that these low-level routines could never perform as fast as code running on the bare metal? While I can’t find any reference for that, I recall some such not that long ago…
I think you are confusing Vista with Singularity. Quite the feat, you know
.
Since C++ is a superset of C, there’s no reason it has to perform worse, however, in my operating system, the exception handling mechanism (try{} catch{}) are perhaps poorly done and if you don’t know that they force all local variables in into nonregister variables, you wouldn’t know why performance degraded. A better implementation might not have this problem, but maybe some C++ features do impact performance. The key would be knowing enough about how the compiler implements the features to know when not to use them in critical parts. Most code is probably not that critical and would benefit. Inevitably only a small percent of code is performance critical.
“All promised features were cut from Vista.”
“However, this article is about the specific claim that just about anything interesting that was promised was removed from Vista”
No, ALL PROMISED FEATURES. Not “just about”. All.
So they delivered two out of the ‘three pillars’?
Fail.
WinFS didn’t show up as originally described.
Avalon is far from amazing, and four years after promised it lags behind all alternatives.
Indigo was delivered, but is mostly useless, since so few people can take advantage of it.
They “delivered” on on all three, but all three are disappointments.
Given. No complaints here.
That’s a debatable statement. While its requirements are not to be sneezed at, it actually isn’t all that bad as you make it out to be. It surely can’t compete with Apple’s offerings on that one. Compiz, however, in itself requires fairly hefty hardware too – and trust me, I’ve tested on quite a few different chipsets, and it never ran as fast as Vista’s Aero did on the same machines.
The one point you are forgetting here is stability. For a completely new technology (for the Windows world, that is) it is *rock solid*. I have *never* had it crash on me *in any way*. It gracefully degrades when an incompatible application is encountered (Java ones early on, mostly), and gracefully restored itself once the application was shut down. Compiz on the other hand, dies on me *regularly*, say, a couple of times a week. While I love Compiz for its extreme flexibility, it is by far not as stable as its Windows or Apple rivals – not even in the same league.
So to say it lags behind alternatives is a tad bit overdone.
It is delivered, it’s there, and it works. And everyone who buys Vista can take advantage of it. What’s the problem? Linux and Apple machines cannot? Heck, by that standard, most of the exciting stuff in OS X is useless too, since only Apple users can make use of it.
Kind of a weird argument from an avid Apple user.
Well, think of OS X 10.0. It was a slow piece of crap (let’s face it), and seeing how much of Vista is actually new, I won’t be surprised to see its speed improve significantly. Just like Apple with 10.0, there’s no other way to go but up.
Edited 2007-12-16 17:02 UTC
Well then you have a compromise, Aero just sits there being pretty and does nothing, compiz is young, lacks stability in some areas but has features to make your desktop more usable fancy,feature packed and fun.
Whats fun about Aero and Vista, pretty much nothing, they dropped that feature as well.
The difference between Aero and no Aero is about 15 megs of ram. The difference between compiz and no compiz is a noticable decrease in performance and stability.
Aero effects are subtle and well done, and geared towards providing a consistant experience. Same with Quartz Extreme. The only nice effects for compiz are clones of one or the other, and one compiz machine will look/act completely different from another one.
Aero will gracefully turn off features that are incompatible with old applications. It will even reduce GPU load automatically if you are on battery power. It will also take all the load off the GPU as soon as you launch a fullscreen game. Compiz will do none of that, in fact it does pretty much the exact opposit. It adds more instability into things like sleep/resume, it causes incompatible apps to crash, and will kill 3d game performance.
Compiz is still obviously in its beta stages. Aero is production ready.
I’d love to know where you get your facts from, compiz uses just about 18mb ram and window movement is much more fluid. It’s dictated by your GPU reducing the load on your CPU.
I dont know what you mean by it’s not stable, I use it all the time even when playing games and it runs just great(Thanks to “Unredirect Fullscreen Windows” in Ubuntu by default for that type of thing). I’m playing UT2004 with compiz on and it never drops below 100fps(ETQW is not affects either) so I dont know what your on about.
BTW, the beta nvidia driver does alot of good for compiz, you never thought it could be the driver right?
Edited 2007-12-16 23:36
With Compiz I have problems on my ATI box (even with the latest direct-from-ATI drivers). This should disappear with time since the drivers and specs are getting open sourced.
The Nvidia boxes (which I’ve just bought recently) seem to run Compiz much better.
To me Compiz seems lighter/faster than Aero to me, but I haven’t been able to compare them on the exact same hardware. And as much as I prefer Linux to Windows (for the ethics and user control), I have to confess that Compiz is still behind Aero (even if it is just due to the GPU manufacturers making it easier to configure and install on Windows). Both of them are defintely behind the Mac’s Darwin.
So, Aero currently beats Compiz, in my opinion, but I think that could well change in a year or two.
Driver problems I assume. Comiz runs ok on the EeePC, which is an intel 915 chipset, so I wouldn’t call the requirements too hefty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzzhEs9XGuE
That’s true. While I haven’t had it crash, it is quite buggy, especially the wobbly windows effect.
Not really. .NET v3 developers can take advantage of it. For users it means basically nothing.
I sure hope so. Unfortunately it looks like they haven’t made much progress in SP1, which is worrying.
PS. Thom, you said in the article that it would be your last word on the issue. Why then are you still posting?
Edited 2007-12-16 18:01
“Compiz, however, in itself requires fairly hefty hardware too – and trust me, I’ve tested on quite a few different chipsets, and it never ran as fast as Vista’s Aero did on the same machines. ”
Huh? My mothers Athlon XP 2200 1gb mem w/ a NV 5200 card runs compiz and linux pretty well… I haven’t actually DARED to install vista on that…. do you honestly think I should? and actually expect to be able to use aero?
“Well, think of OS X 10.0. It was a slow piece of crap (let’s face it), and seeing how much of Vista is actually new, I won’t be surprised to see its speed improve significantly. Just like Apple with 10.0, there’s no other way to go but up. ”
That’s half the point, I agree with you here that 10.0 was a big steaming shite … but it wasn’t even the same OS compared to OS9..
If longhorn actually came out and worked / looked like the promotional vids MS spurted then I could easy forgive them and wait for the bugs to be ironed out.
Lets look at this fact, when was the last time an SP1 was rolled out so fast? IT HAS NOT. And this one isn’t even to fix bugs, its to appease corporate management that refuse to install anything that hasn’t been ‘SP1’ approved.
I don’t care how much of vista is actually new… it still operates like a gimped XP with a pretty skirt and a DX10 spin to force gamers over whether they like it or not!
It would be fairer in the terms of gaming, to say that the 98 transition to XP was a far far more dramatic experience for users… Vista, in its present form is just XPSP4 having just bought out stardock. (and in all honesty thats an insult to XP!)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m SURE Vista runs just fine on a brand new ^expensive machine… but it probably runs no faster than linux + compiz on your OLD machine, so just imagine how fast your brand new shiny computer would be if you put Un*x on that!
Fact? Not really.
Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows XP was released on September 9, 2002. According to Wikipedia that’s about 10.5 months after RTM and about 9 months after launch.
Windows 2000 was released in Feb 2000 and had it’s first sevice pack released on Aug 15, 2000. That’s 7 months.
Windows 98 shipped at the end of June 1998 and Windows 98SE shipped at the beginning of May 1999. That’s less than 11 months.
Vista shipped in Nov/Dec of 2006 and the first service pack will ship in Feb of 2008. That’s 13-14+ months.
Ahhhh I ok I hold my hands up to that one 😐 I always thought the SP were about 13-14 months after release..
Although, with that in mind I always remember the first SPs finally making the respectful OS faster, more stable and more secure… Vista SP1 appears to fix one of those issues.
I did always use the new os’s from beta 3 /RC1 onwards so that might have clouded my memory but it doesn’t take away the fact I’m still apparently talking bullshit
thanks for clearing that up…
Huh? My mothers Athlon XP 2200 1gb mem w/ a NV 5200 card runs compiz and linux pretty well… I haven’t actually DARED to install vista on that…. do you honestly think I should? and actually expect to be able to use aero?
Aero will run just fine. The only thing that will drag a bit is flip3D
… and the rest of the OS?
I ran Vista Ultimate on a Pentium M 1.73Ghz, 768Mb of RAM (later 1GB), and an Ati Radeon x300 with 128Mb of dedicated RAM. Vista ran just fine. It was no speed demon, and certainly not as fast as XP on that laptop, but it was more than doable.
my own experience with Vista on an AMD FX53 w/ 1mb cache, 1GB of memory and nv6800 w/256 dedicated memory was enough to make me never use it seriously again (and I stuck through the Millennium Edition period) admittedly turning aero off made no performance gain.
I think I’ve experienced every bug on the list here http://dotnet.org.za/codingsanity/archive/2007/12/14/review-windows…
And the most annoying hair pulling experience are the filecopy bugs when it A: cant decide how long something is going to take and B: takes ages to copy the tinyist of files…
I currently fail to understand how reasonably modern machines (obviously better than the one I have at the top here) fail to run Vista to an acceptable standard, where as you are getting along just fine with what sounds essentially like a ramped up P3.
I admit the file copy bug was a real pain. Fortunately the performance and compatibility patches were released around the time I installed Vista.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070807-vista-performance-and…
After I installed those two patches I had no complaints about Vista.
That should be the new Vista slogan: “There’s no way to go but up!”
yes, but both far from as cool and powerful as promised…
I don’t get it… people claim that Avalon (WPF) is not impressive because it doesn’t compare with compiz. That point doesn’t make sense, though, because WPF is solving a different problem. Yes, there’s the composition engine which compiz competes with, but WPF is also about vector graphics within the Window. These GPU-rendered graphics match up with Apple’s Quartz 2D extreme technology (and were produced at roughly the same time as apple). WPF is also an API system for producing applications with databinding, animations, automatic layout, themable controls, and all kinds of other developer features. It hasn’t quite caught on yet among widely-deployed end-user software (perhaps because the API is .NET only), but WPF was delivered with Vista and does actually work.
You’re right, WPF might very well be the best part of Vista, it’s an exception between all the disappointments…
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! I was wading through these comments to see if somebody identified the #1 problem with Vista: Microsoft shipped new APIs, and not only were they not used in any significant capacity by Microsoft in the development of Vista, but the reception from the ISV community has been one of great reluctance to either invest in their existing codebases or limit the cross-platform compatibility of their new projects.
This failure goes beyond Vista and speaks to Microsoft’s waning ability to steer the fleet of third-parties that comprises the Windows ecosystem. They’ve become a victim of their own massive inertia. Sure, Vista has WPF and whatever they currently call the communications API formerly known as Indigo, but they’re not doing anybody any good. Users aren’t having a better core experience because of them, and developers don’t seem to want to go near them with a ten-foot pole.
Right on the money – and the shocking part, I would have thought that the built in applications on Windows Vista would be the perfect show case of showing off all these new API’s. Open up Notepad, Wordpad and Font add/remove – all using different widget sets. People complained about Linux with GTK/Qt differences – Microsoft takes inconsistency to a whole new level.
Then there is Office 2007 – again, another show case product one would expect would be using at length all the great new API’s included with Windows.
I question, there fore, what the purpose of the new API’s are given that even Microsoft can’t be bothered getting their show piece products actually using them – as a third party developer (assuming I was one) I would be asking myself why I should spend thousands/millions on moving products to a new API when the company who developed them isn’t making the transition.
Sure, Apple isn’t perfect but at least when they add new API’s, they actually try to use them extensively through their operating system – actually integrate them where they can – for obvious reasons they can do it all the time if the product needs to be multi platform, but even so one only needs to look through. Quicktime is now taking advantage of OpenGL, all new applications as far as I know (iPages and iLife) now use Cocoa.
Yes, Apple is much better at “dogfooding” their platform technology. Also KDE is great in this respect. When these organizations put all that effort into creating new “pillars” for their development environment, they make significant use of it them their user environment, even in the concurrent release.
Apple and KDE think of their development environment as the engine of their platform innovation, whereas Microsoft appears to view it as a set of features provided by their platform product. It’s a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
Exactly. The problem isn’t that third partys aren’t using Vista’s features but the Microsoft didn’t use them within Vista.
They didn’t do it because all of the frameworks we pretty much in alpha status at the time when apps were being built. If anyone here remembers using Microsoft Max they’ll probably remember that it broke every month when the new Avalon CTP came out. You can’t design an application under those conditions.
Even WinFS got hit with massive delays because of the delays with SQL Server 2005. IIRC it wsas supposed to come out in 2003 or ealy 2004 and yet it barely made a late 2005 release.
This time around, with Windows 7, they don’t have that problem as WPF, WCF, Silverlight, SQL Server 2008, and most of the other technologies are already finished and relatively stable.
Netflix, Blockbuster, and Warner Bros:
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9714005-2.html
http://sp.warnermycal.com/vista/contents/preview.xbap
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/12/13/watch-jackass-2-5-fre…
Amazon.com:
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalI…
Roxio:
http://www.gofish.com/player.gfp?gfid=30-1106202
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/suite/overview.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/03/05/great-wpf-application…
Daily Mail, Seattle P-I, forbes.com, New York Times:
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/02/22/great-wpf-application…
Ice Cube (rapper, actor, director):
http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/293/
HP:
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/447010-0-0-225-121.html
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c0107068…
Yahoo:
http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php
Weathernews, Wikipedia, Cnet, :
http://weathernews.com/press/070205.html
http://www.dotnetsolutions.ltd.uk/casestudies/wikipediaexplorer/
http://japan.cnet.com/wpf/photo/
Borderbond (makers of Oregon Trail and Mavis Beacon Typing):
http://www.broderbund.com/jump.jsp?itemID=1855&mainPID=1855&itemTyp…
http://www.broderbund.com/jump.jsp?itemID=1909&mainPID=1909&itemTyp…
Otto (owners of Crate and Barrell):
http://mattbalara.com/design/the-future-of-shopping.html
http://www.identitymine.com/Portfolio/?projectID=4
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/tags/portfolio/default.aspx
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/WPF.ApplicationPortfolio
You’re wrong.
I have used WPF a little bit. That said I do not have extensive experience with the .NET 3.0/WPF features. I used it on XP. The performance seemed less than stelar, but I was hoping that was just an XP compatibility issue. Other than that, it showed a lot of promise to me. It did seem to have a few rough edges and that lack of developer tools was a problem. Visual Studio 2008 was released recently so I would imagine there might be more WPF apps in the future.
That’s like promising to build a skyscraper called the ‘Avalon Tower’, then building a bungalow and calling it the ‘Avalon Building’, charging that same money for it, and claiming that you delivered on your promise.
You’re missing the forest for the trees. 90% of that video was WPF and DWM, which they shipped.
So I see your video and raise you several more:
http://uxevangelist.blogspot.com/2007/11/amongst-all-of-excitement-…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-j8OF1s0E
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/videodemo.html
90% of that video was WPF and DWM, which they shipped.
No. 90% of that video was functionality that RELIED on WPF, WinFS, and DWM. The fact that some core libraries were released does not mean that the promises made in that promotional video were kept.
Indeed. If you look at the stuff in that video, and then at Vista – it looks like Vista is some kind of early alpha which they stabilized, added some visual changes to and released as final…
There weren’t any “promises” made in that video. It was a promotional video meant to get developers (the people the PDC is aimed at) thinking about new interfaces and concepts for their own apps. It’s no different from all those mockups and videos of future computer hardware they make:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071128/microsoft-ammunition-long…
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070917/revisiting-microsofts-vis…
They made dozens of these concept videos and mockups. Obviously there weren’t a “promise”. Did you think they were going to ship 50 different Ui’s in the box (note the Star Trek UI concept):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJioBzQk84&feature=related
It wasn’t anything like the what they actually “promised” at the PDC:
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=34f0d8f8-f701-4db3-905c-6559447…
Do you go to an Auto Show and think the final products are all going to look like the concepts and have 500+ HP like the models there?
I’m not saying I expect 100% faithful reproduction. But when they show a video that says, this is what WE produced in the past.. this is what WE will produce in the future, and then show videos of file-operations and fundamental things like windows-mail with a funky GUI, then yes, I do expect these things to show up in a final product. It’s not like it was all pictures of Silverlight-enabled Websites, or funky 3rd party apps.
What was shown was:
Windows Logon,
simple file operations using explorer
File Searching (based on metadata)
Viewing folders, in explorer, in exciting new ways, with animations etc.
A decent sidebar with animations
and other things CLEARLY designed as part of the core OS, not as 3rd party addons
They are all presented with a consistent, unified interface. NOT ’50 different Ui’s in the box’, there was only one type of UI shown in the video WE are talking about.
It’s like going to an Auto show and seeing a Porche racing round a track, then when you go to buy your $50,000 car, you end up with a VW Beetle, not a bad car in itself, but not what you were shown as an actually running product.
The concept PCs that MS talks about are clearly labelled as CONCEPT ideas, to stimulate the PC design market. This video was billed as a preview of things to come from Microsoft.
It was a concept video peeriod. Just an advertisment for the PDC in 2003. At that PDC they showed you, with amazing accuracy (considering it was 3 years out) what the interface would look like and how it would work. They showed you where the animations were going to be, where they weren’t, and they showed you the final interface was going to be Aero Glass. That’s they were trying to stress a cleaner more professional look.
They talked about the new interface guidelines (you can see them on Archive.org or pictures on Thurrotts site).
All the metadata based file searching and organization is still there. They even integrated natural language search so you can type “powerpoint presentations by donald from 2002 or 2003” and it’ll find them.
All those folder views in Explorer canme to fruition either in Vista or Windows Search.
that’s just it… they weren’t showing you an “actual running product” they were showing you a concept video whipped up in Macromedia Director by a third-party design firm. AND THEY TOLD YOU SO. The PDC 2003 showed you the actual running product.
INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, THAT WAS THE FIRST PUBLIC SHOWING OF LONGHORN.
I’m sure many developers rushed out to develop with WFP after seeing MS rewrite the sidebar leaving WPF support completely out. You can’t even write native WPF widgets for the current sidebar today. Good way to endorse your technologies.
Holy crap, the interface in that video was actually beautiful, something i never thought id say about any windows interface. And if that is what they had in 2003, id say that somehow they managed to regress it in the 3 years that followed.
From the video its hard to say much about the features, but i can say that from my experience in vista it was nothing like what was shown in that video. You can spin vista anyway you want, but the truth is that its a failure, i cant recally one person ive talked to has been happy with vista, and quite a few of those had to downgrade to XP just to be able to work on theire computer.
I have linux, osx, and vista on this laptop. Out of the three compiz crashes the most, takes the most memory, and has the least polish. It does have the most flashy effects though. OSX and vista are pretty much equal, neither crashes or bugs out, or uses noticable amounts of memory. I find Vista more flexible though, it will turn of graphics features when you are using your card (like playing a game), or on battery.
I think you’re mistaking Avalon for Aero and Indigo for the network stack. “Avalon” aka Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and “Indigo” aka Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) are both features of .NET. So in a sense Microsoft did deliver them, not only for Vista but for XP as well.
Granted, there’s a difference between a feature in Vista that the end-user can directly benefit from and a core library offered to NET developers to use or not.
Edited 2007-12-16 21:18
Your comment is why I love the Internet. I love how corporations, or people try to do “revisionist” history. This could Jim Cramer, the current administration or Microsoft.
I like Microsoft, and use their products. BUT I have yet to use Vista. I just don’t see the need… And from the comments I hear, more and more I just look and move on.
Reminds me of the “Advanced Access” release of another operating system.
AA was a big leap from DR8.x, so I’m not clear what you’re getting at?
Everything *after* AA was less of a leap. On the PowerPC platform, pretty much 80 – 90% of software still ran under R5 post AA.
How about the cinematic user experience. The fun WPF based sidebar with animated media player controls(we get an crappy dhtml based sidebar thrown together, and no one uses or develops for it). People expected Longhorn to be released resembling at least a little of the concepts that they showed publicly from 2003 on, and Vista does not. Global contacts integration…Vista’s little contacts folder is a complete joke and completely useless. WinFS promised a lot in terms of file management and meta data.
Vista has all the promised technologies (minis WinFS) but they are dormant and hardly used.
Windows Search supports meta data for all files and documents.
Edited 2007-12-16 16:20
It’s true but WinFS had promised more power then Windows Search but the early alphas of WinFS were extremely slow and buggy so I never really got to see this power.
Seems to be in direct reply to a comment made in the comments section of an article only a few days ago.
No shit, Sherlock
.
Yeah, I do that sometimes. You see the same comment for the millionth time, and so I write a (short) article as a reply. Everyone here is free to do the same, and we’ll run it.
When you challenged readers to name features that had been cut from Vista and people named some and you ignored all of them except WinFS one knew this article was coming. It was the same with Eugenia when someone disagreed with her over Theora vs. whatever e-peen format she was pimping. Suddenly we get an article.
One of these days I’ll have to see if you can be goaded into writing something specific. I’d need to find something you hold to be true and say the opposite and get some other readers (or sockpuppets) to say the same.
It’s cool, it’s your site
I’m just easily amused.
Ok, which did they name? I’m still counting, and I’m still stuck at ‘1’; namely, WinFS.
All other comments here deal with how Vista does not resemble concept videos, how MS does not us its own APIs, or other issues. But nobody has been able, AGAIN, to show me more of these mythical cut features.
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=19055&comment_id=291438
Just one example…
The only think mythical about Windows is that it is good.
The only reason Windows dominates is easy. Go to a store and try to buy a computer with something other than Windows.
You mean from that little display in the corner where you don’t get any help and they don’t even have all the models that Apple sales, which isn’t very many? And by all models I mean, go to the Apple Store and click on each model of Mac. They do not sell each of the models listed (two for Mac mini, four for iMac … or MacBooks or MacBook Pros). I’m assuming that people will only buy Mac Pros (tower) from Apple due to them wanting to customize a lot more than any store would have the capability to do.
As for Linux? There isn’t a computer to be bought (CDs or DVDs of Linux don’t count as average Joe and Jane computer buyers do not install OSs). And no, they aren’t going to buy a computer with an OS they’ve never used over the internet.
Microsoft controls the distribution channels. Until they don’t (someone please start a Linux Store which is very much like an Apple store and not a Linux Geek store), Windows will dominate. It’s is as simple as that.
The missing feature of Windows is security. This should not be a paid add-on. It should be built in from the start where you do not need to buy any AV and anti-malware products to protect your computer. Updates for this should be free. Furthermore, Microsoft should pay people for every virus or malware that they get on their computer for their ineptness (I mean Microsoft’s) or their of caring about customers.
As far as all the things Thom puts in about Mythical Missing Features, nobody should care until REAL bundled security ships inside of Windows.
Vista has been out for a year now, and still no serious security issues. So, what are you on about?
Vista got 0wned through a bug in it’s mouse cursor that affects all version of the OS. Some redsinged security there.
The key word is Serious. And do you still have to buy AV or anti-malware software after the fact that doesn’t come free and installed with Vista?
Yes you do. That noted, security IS still an issue.
Some of the things I remember being said about Longhorn, was a new shell (which eventually appeared in Windows Server), and the elimination of the registry.
Microsoft now admits the registry is a huge mistake, and I believe that they still plan to eliminate it, but it was talked about originally for Longhorn.
Of course both of those would require REAL CHANGES to the OS not just flashy new coats of paint which is all Vista turned out to be.
Did you read the article AT ALL? I mentioned PowerShell/Monad QUITE clearly.
They fixed it by making the registry virtual. Each user has its own registry tree so if it dies, it can easily be fixed. Great for backwards compatibility. I’m not particularly fond of the registry, but a major improvement over what it used to be like
But in Windows XP, each user had their own registry tree already.
The HKEY_CURRENT_USER maps to a HKEY_USERS key which is loaded from the ntuser.dat in the user’s profile path.
The HKLM and HKCR contains machine-specific settings, so you cannot give each user their own (‘specially not on a domain).
So how is this different from Vista. I know that access to the Registry, and Filesystem is virtualised in Vista, as can be seen by the ridiculously long installation times for most software (Visual Studio 2005 takes about 1 hour longer to install on Vista than XP), but this does not help to prevent corruption as far as I can tell.
If you wreck the registry in XP, large chance you wreck it for everybody. If you wreck it on Vista, you wreck your own virtualised copy, which can easily be restored from a backup, or even replaced by a fresh one. Those are some pretty obvious advantages to me.
I’m not sure what you’re saying is true. I do know that in vista your HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive is stored in a data file in your own directory, but I’m fairly confident that this has been true since the beginning of NT.
I don’t see why people make so much bellyaching about the registry. Okay.. it’s not a text file… but that’s why we have the REG tool in the Windows Recovery Environment. You can also get into the registry from BartPE, if I remember correctly.
Applications shove stuff in there? Okay, as long as they confine their changes to their own configuration area and the few other areas that they are allowed to touch, it’s fine. How is this different from some program messing around with areas in /etc that don’t belong to them and messing those up? The registry can do even better than /etc because keys and values can be ACLed separately.
I don’t think the registry is a problem per se. There is a problem in the way some programs use the registry for extensiblity points, in my opinion. It was a design mistake to ask people to write into other program’s regkeys directly to extend them. It would have been smarter to have registration APIs for every desired extensibility point and keep each program’s subkeys opaque to everyone else. But this isn’t a flaw with the registry… it’s a mistake in the way some pieces of Windows uses the registry.
“Look, instead of shooting you, I will only cut of your arm… Aren’t you happy now?”
They worked on Vista for over 5 years, rewriting it half the way. The existence of that way-too-fragile-yet-incredibly-vital registry can only be described as enormously stupid.
I know they have to care about backwards compatibility, something Linux does way less – a big advantage for FOSS, of course. But seeing all the problems ppl are having with XP software on Vista – it doesn’t work very good anyway. They should give up and start with a clean slate.
Just like they promise for Windows 7 (but you can imagine I don’t really put much trust in their promises, keeping a certain Longhorn-video posted before in this thread in mind).
I know they have to care about backwards compatibility, something every other OS does way less – a big advantage for every other OS, of course.
fixed for clarity. Apple tells developers to get on the freaking bus or else, and developers get on the freaking bus. They bitch, they whine, they do it.
…was promised. That was one of the few really good things that Microsoft actually delivered for Vista – and they did it tenfold!
Edited 2007-12-16 17:06
How many times has virtual folders been renamed and stuffed away?
Virtual folders is there in the OS as Saved Searches/Search Folders. The only thing that’s changed is the name.
I’m not sure you read the comment you replied to, since you basically restated the same thing…
I read it. I may have misinterpreted what he meant by “stuffed away”, but it seemed he meant it wasn’t included or wasn’t used, neither of which are true. If he meant hidden, that also doesn’t apply.
Edited 2007-12-17 21:12
Well, he did ask how many times they were renamed and stuffed away, that doesn’t necessarily imply that this time they were both renamed and stuffed away – though, to avoid confusion, he should have used “and/or”.
Personally, I didn’t interpret “stuffed away” as “hidden”, but rather as “moved to a different, less accessible place”, but even then that is matter to debate.
Sheesh Thom, you really can’t let it go can you? Why are you so crazy worked up about this issue?
The fact that they had a good reason to drop WinFS is completely irrelevant. They couldn’t make it work like they promised. That’s all that matters.
Then there are the smaller features you mentioned that are genuinely missing, but mostly I guess where people get the impression that Vista cut features is that all the new features are so underwhelming compared to the hype that it seems like a promised feature was not delivered.
By the way those “new feature” lists are silly. Just like Leopard’s 300 new features, most of them are stupid small and won’t be relevant to most people. Quoting some huge number as new features means precisely nothing because there is no metric for what constitutes a feature.
The truth is that what most people are missing is the Eye-Candy animated desktop presented in the 2003 longhorn builds.
WinFS was a nice idea that no one would have used anyway given that it would have been incompatible with every application in existance.
WPF applications(http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/02/01/great-wpf-application…) are supposed to give us eyecandy but few have actually materialised, and microsoft hasn’t lead by example.
And the ones that have are pretty much trash
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071206/yahoo-messenger-vista-lau…
It doesn’t support ogg still.
Edited 2007-12-16 18:00
Nor does it support SVG.
There are actually quite a number of things it doesn’t support in the way of cross-platform interoperability and standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:W3C_standards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%2…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javafx
Pretty disappointing, really.
Maybe not a lot of features were removed, but the remaining features aren’t really impressive either. Yes, it may be more secure, have a new TCP/IP stack, a crippled bitlocker, address space layout randomization, etc. But from a user point of view they are either not interesting, or are hard (or not intuitive; it needs to be natural) to use (previous versions, user account control).
Technically it may be outstanding, but I don’t see it
‘using my potential’.
edit:
I don’t really care what the promised features were; I care about what I can do with it TODAY. And that’s not a lot more than with XP.
Edited 2007-12-16 18:10 UTC
Thom, I can understand why you’re fed-up with people saying Vista doesn’t deliver ‘any’ new features. Of course that is incorrect.
However, it is important that you acknowledge that the delivered version of Vista falls quite far short of the vision demonstrated at the start of the project. This is what gets everybody worked up.
In my case I can see the theoretical technical merits of Vista, but this is overshadowed in practice by other things. For example, although Vista’s performance will improve in time, mostly due to hardware advances, it runs relatively poorly compared to XP or other OSes.
Another thing also sticks in my mind. While working on a green-fields (clean slate) software project in 2005 had to deal with developers that listened to all the Microsoft hype about Vista. According to those videos there didn’t seem to be much point for developing for any platform other than Vista (or cross-platform) since nothing would have near the features that Vista would have. Armed with the Vista promotional videos, and all the RAD hype of .NET (which has also turned out to be another product that kinda works, but not like the brochures), it was very difficult to argue against for the additional effort cross-platform (to managers who didn’t know better). To resist Vista was being ‘old school’ and ‘out of date’. Well the Vista/.Net reality turns out to be different. In fact the project I mentioned was completed two years late and the company building it was eventually closed (not that I cared, I’m moved on and tripled my income doing Java consulting since the bullsh!t factor in Java is much lower). While you could argue that the company shouldn’t have relied on features only promised and not yet delivered, in the real world of software development you have long lead times and these decision get made. The Vista marketing material was in fact ‘lying’ (although you seem to claim this is incorrect).
So here’s my point. The Microsoft (and partners) videos did real damage to decision making for us (and I’m sure others) when Vista failed to deliver the features they *demonstrated* as working in their prototypes. Dropping features that made Vista adoption worthwhile cannot be denied as a failure by Microsoft (and consequently, of Vista).
I would be curious to know what your problems are with .net. I worked on a Oracle/J2EE/JSP project for four years, so I know J2EE pretty well. Over the last year I have been doing freelance work with ASP.net, and I have been absolutely loving it. The one and only thing I miss about java development is working with IntelliJ IDEa. Not only do I find it far superior in design (especially asp vs jsp), but it seems like there are really interesting (asp mvc) or innovative (LINQ) features being added to it every few months.
Just out of curiosity, what are the issues that brought you to go the other way? (Keep in mind, I came on board with .net 2.0, so I probably won’t be familiar with 1.1 issues)
Edited 2007-12-16 21:54 UTC
The project I mentioned was a controller for a scientific device (ellipsometer) that a rich client interface. .Net would seem to be a good solution except that the ultimate goal was to move the equipment from a desktop/lab environment to being embedded in a chip-fabrication controller. In this case the strategic goal would have been to have Java compiled down to the embedded platform (using gcj and static linking). However, it is very difficult to argue against the promises made by marketing brochures (unfortunately without experience with a system you don’t get to learn the limitations).
I found .Net to be very helpful getting the first 60% of a (rich) application done. The next 30% was quite a bit harder, and the last 10% or so was very difficult (to get the exact fit&finish you want). In contrast, I found Swing gets you only about 30% done easily and there is a lot of hard graft making the fit-and-feel right, but at least that last 10% of the fit&finish features is possible. That’s just my experience with rich clients.
For the J2EE arena I couldn’t compare with ASP.NET as I haven’t done the later, so I’ll trust your judgement there. Recently, I’ve had a couple of projects with Google’s GWT and really like that model for development (when the back-end is Spring/Hibernate). You can switch databases by changing one line in the Hibernate configuration file (and yes, it is a real requirement, we have to do that from time to time). I hope you get to give that a go sometime. But the big kicker for me with .Net isn’t technical, it’s strategic. Unfortunately .Net will always have tools and an architecture skewed towards Windows (and Mono will never have a high enough critical mass to make Microsoft do otherwise, which is a shame), which means it’s not ideal you need to develop for several platforms – or if you really need full long-term control over your project platform.
I do have to say that while I have .Net experience (but not ASP.Net) I do have a friend who worked for 4 years (as a dev team leader) on a NZ $20 million ($US 15 million) .Net project that flunked. They really struggled to get the thing to build reliably when the project (and team) was very large. I haven’t noticed quite the same difficulty in the Java(+native) projects I’ve personally been on (once you’ve got the initial build set up you rarely have scaling problems after that). I hope if I get around to using ASP.Net I have as pleasant an experience as you have had, rather than the experience my friend had.
Yeah, I’ve never really done anything remotely like that before.
Honestly, I don’t think I have built a gui app with Swing since school. Im pretty much a webapp guy at this point, so the only client apps I do either plug into my web services (which I have found REALLY easy to do with .net), and for banging out a quick tool here and there.
In my limited experience with client apps though, I find it is very easy to do a responsive, fully featured
GUI with .net, while you need to really know your stuff with Swing to use it properly. I guess it really boils down to what exactly your needs are.
Both spring and hibernate have been ported to .net. Honestly, if you don’t use an OR/M in this day and age, you are causing problems for yourself for no reason. The one I use is an ActiveRecord (One class per table, one object per record) implementation called SubSonic.
What you are saying about being tied to windows is painfully true, even though I think you are under estimating mono a bit. Mono is mostly .net 2.0 compliant now, which is what the vast majority of projects are on atm (although LINQ will get 3.5 adoption going pretty quick). I find though that with the provider model they use through pretty much the whole framework, it isn’t hard to integrate it with 3rd party solutions. If anything, I find ADO.net to be more loosly coupled to its data drivers then JDBC.
What I really like about ASP is that it really brings OO concepts to the front end. I switched back when JSF was first being talked about, so java may have implemented something similar already. Basically, when I would create a page on JSP or PHP, there are certain things you need to do all the time, like keep track of page and page element states (is it first load? if it isnt first load, did the user change his selection in a <select>? If he did, what value do I need to set it to to maintain its state?) ASP handles all that stuff very elegantly, and exposes an event driven model that you associate more often with user interfaces then web development. What you end up with is much cleaner code, with a very clear separation between view and controller.
I have no idea how well ASP scales up. I chose asp because I do custom webapps for small to medium sized businesses, and while J2EE is many things, RAD is not one of them. What I find is that ASP is about as complected as you need it to be. A beginner can go with a VB6 kludgy yet very RAD approach, and actually accomplish quite a bit, while someone with more experience can implement a clean N-tier model quite seamlessly. I was expecting something VB6ish in design (the whole idea of Web Controls turns real programmers off quite quickly. Until you find out how easy it is to encapsulate your own functionality into them), but what I found was a well thought out, easily extensible framework. Thats not to say it is without flaws, but I would recommend it in a heartbeat if you are doing a < 100 concurrent users project.
I know the technical advantages of java (having worked with it for four years), but I find it is really over-engineered. Things like Spring help immensely, but I still find it is a platform that is really not that much fun to work with. I know that “fun” shouldn’t really be a determining factor when it comes to choice of platform for a project, but I think it really should be when it comes to choice of career path. Even though it doesn’t really scale up like java, It is a good platform (the interpreter runs about 10x faster then php, which is an alternative for the same problem space), and the RAD aspects of it means I can buy something like http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPxperienceDemos/, and deliver really nice solutions in a third of the time then it would have taken me using something else.
Thanks for taking the time to point out the options with ASP.Net. I’ll definitely take a look.
Don’t forget to have a nosy at Google GWT yourself.
This is the first public showing of Longhorn. It took place at the PDC in 2003:
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=34f0d8f8-f701-4db3-905c-6559447…
And if you have any doubts:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/pdc2003.asp
… listen to yourself: you’re advocating a 50 billion dollar company that had 7 years to create a new version of its operating system and 4 years to deliver on the promises made at 2003 PDC, and in the end gave us the underwhelming pile of suckitude that is Vista.
Turn off (the totally unnecessary) Aero, and what you get is an extremely annoying redesign of Windows XP. Sure, there probably are improvements under the hood, but can I please have _all_ of my folders behave uniformly — that is, display the contents in “Details” view, sorted according to the file type? Why does this OS always insist on controlling how I use my computer?
I don’t care if I was “defending” the devil himself: if something is untrue, like the these so called numerous cut features clearly are since nobody has ben able to come up with anything but WinFS, I’ll point that out.
It has nothing to do with MS or Vista itself. Heck, since my laptop died months ago [1] I don’t even run Visa myself.
[1] http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com/2007/10/17/total/
Your pre-supposing that his article was written from the position of advocacy. Do you have anything to back that up, or are you simply assuming that people must automatically be “pro-Microsoft” if they disagree with any argument against Microsoft?
Some people do evaluate arguments based on their merits – rather than based on whether or not the argument reinforces their existing “pro” or “anti” position. Just because this is a site focusing on computer technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to simplify all issues to the point where they can be expressed in binary – a lack of anti-Microsoft bias does not automatically indicate the presence of a pro-Microsoft bias.
ehhmm, no not was WINFS dropped like a bag of stones it was, plenty more got dropped :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista
Also, Vista promised to use dot net through and through, everything as supposed to be NEW and DOT NET, what happened ? Not so much DOT NET.
I must admit one thing though, VISTA as awful as it is, grows on you. I am almost liking this bastard 3 legged dog. I have a few windows computers at home, all of them run VISTA, only one of them has Windows XP in vmware.
hmmmmm
READ the article BEFORE commenting. As mentioned SPECIFICALLY in the article, THAT page lists features that were IN XP, but LEFT OUT of Vista. That has NOTHING to do with promised features not being in Vista.
Edited 2007-12-17 12:42 UTC
It’s just that Vista isn’t all that good. Many of the innovations the operating system was supposed to bring–like more efficient file and communications systems–got tossed overboard as Microsoft struggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it was first promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista is slower than XP.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrend…
Indeed.
Up to now, I have managed not to even look at a PC screen booting Vista !
And it feel sooooooooooooooo gooood when I read complains and flamewars concerning this “latest and greatest incarnation of Windows family operating system”.
Too funny people have paid for that crap !!!
The selective inclusion/exclusion of facts, recreation of history, and reporting opinion as fact is just the sort of FUD that piques people’s ire and will hurt Microsoft more then help; I say: “Let them!”…
That there are articles like this one, even if it were a complete recitation of fact devoid of opinion (which is far from the case) is more telling about the sad state of Vista; an OS that had more design input from a committee of Attorneys then Software Engineers — then the ridiculous markeing hype and fictional ‘featurse and benefits’.
Anyone that thinks Microsoft is too lucrative and has achieved a hegemonistic monopoly that’s too big to challenge or fail, regardless of what it does or creates need look no further then other large corporations from the Detroit car industry to Pan Am to see companies that ‘had it all’ and ‘lost it all’…
^^
Edited 2007-12-17 14:09
The main thing missing – not actually promised, but implied – was a good reason to upgrade from XP (or even W2K). Vista offers so little extra to the average user.
I think we’re missing a MS document stating a list of “promised features”… otherwise this is all a big strawman arguemnt. If we base the discussion from MS promises on October 2006, then they probably didn’t promise a bunch of stuff that isn’t there. If we base the discussion from 2003, then it may be a different story. Do implied features count?
Also, saying a feature sux, doesn’t count, that just means they couldn’t make it work right. “I promise to put a 65mph speed limiter on all cars to improve saftey” as a feature sux, but if I promise it, and don’t do it….. then I didn’t deliver on a promise.
(posted from a Vista box, listening to MP3’s while slowly calculating how long it’s gonna take to copy files in the background…. and I can screw the registry in Vista or XP just fine, as to USE either box I have to do things as administrator….)
Jeez Thom, if only you spent this much time busting all the Java, Linux and OSX FUD in the comments! I mean, I read the comments that you wrote this story about, and I’m thinking to myself, he wrote a whole article about this? Good show man, good show…
Perhaps some people are disappointed of the missing features, because those would have been even better arguments to avoid Vista?
But what do I know, haven’t booted windows on my own computer the last 5 years, I care too little to criticise, because all I can tell of are first unimpressions.
This came out yesterday. Coming from PC World (hardly a bastion of OS X and Linux lovers), that is decidedly not very good publicity…
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrend…
Ok, for an overview of promised Longhorn features (2005) stated by Jim Allchin as reported by (the notorious shill) Paul Thurrott
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/46080/46080.html
At least one missing feature that was promised in the article:
“Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Longhorn will include an IE version that’s much more advanced than the IE 7.0 product the company will ship for XP users later this year. The new version of IE will integrate with Longhorn’s parental controls and security and isolation features.”
Ok, now lets move on to another shill’s site, Mary Jo Foley:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/developer/the_dirty_little_s…
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/winfs_axed…
And Daryl Taft
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/microsoft_…
Regarding Vista DotNet
http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm
“Am I happy with the situation? Well, if I apply the hopes that I had after the 2003 PDC then I would say that I am not. At the 2003 PDC we were promised an operating system and an API that was substantially based on .NET, yet what Microsoft has delivered with Vista RC2 Ultimate is an operating system where just four percent of the executable files are managed. On the positive side, Vista has WPF and WCF installed by the setup program, so these technologies will be on every Vista machine. This will encourage developers to use these technologies. Do I think that Vista uses .NET as much as it should? Well, using it for a few snapins in MMC is fairly minor compared to what it could be used for. However, I recognise that this is all that we will get.”.
It is also worth checking out his “Additional Comments” on how he was treated by MS
So it appears Longhorn was to have 4 pillars:
1) WinFS
2) Indigo
3) Avalon
and the oft-missed
4) Foundation (.Net interfaces for everything)
Doop! looks like 50% of the major features got shelved. If you were relying on them for your future development you were shafted.
Ok, there’s a wikipedia page for Vista critism, especially the removal of announced features (with references)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista#Removal_of_…
I personally believe Vista may be a step forward technically (especially its internal functionality), but for those who have been following it’s development since the “Blackcomb” days it certainly has had a few planned features chopped.
Edited: Added reference to DotNet being a core part of Vista (apologies that I didn’t provide proof earlier).
Edited 2007-12-17 22:26
IE does integrate with Vista’s Parental Controls and security features. Protected mode is one of those features not available in XP. That’s not an example of a shelved feature.
What was promised at PDC was delivered, with the exception of WinFS. Indigo is WCF, Avalon is WPF. These shipped and are managed code, and Workflow Foundation (WF) and Information Cards were added.
Foundation is only the last word in all of the names of the WinFX (.NET 3.0) technologies. Maybe you (or the person you quoted) are thinking of the Fundamentals. These were never to be all managed code. It is the new core OS services they delivered, as well as the existing subsystems they would ensure remained backward compatible. The Pillars of Longhorn (Avalon/WPF, Indigo/WCF, WinFS which didn’t ship) are all managed code.
Longhorn was never meant to be an all managed code OS if that’s what you are thinking. Brian Valentine is quoted as saying Longhorn was not such an OS. Below are diagrams for Longhorn’s architecture and the namespaces for the WinFX technologies. With the exception of WinFS, you’ll find they delivered what’s listed (and more).
Windows Vista Architecture Block Diagram (PDC 2003)
http://www.activewin.com/winvista/images/LonghornArch.PDC2003.png
WinFX Developer Preview Diagram (PDC 2003)
http://www.activewin.com/winvista/images/WinFX%20Diagram%20…
n4cer wrote:
IE does integrate with Vista’s Parental Controls and security features. Protected mode is one of those features not available in XP. That’s not an example of a shelved feature.
Let me quote Jim Allchin again (Head of Windows develpoment):
“Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Longhorn will include an IE version that’s much more advanced than the IE 7.0 product the company will ship for XP users later this year. The new version of IE will integrate with Longhorn’s parental controls and security and isolation features.”
When I read “IE version much more advanced than the IE 7.0” in XP I thought it implies a new version. Now Parental Control and other minor functionality is slightly more advanced, hardly much more advanced. So no, they didn’t deliver what their head of development promised, and yes, the actual words used do matter since that is all anyone had to go on in 2003.
Most rational people here acknowledge the Vista is more advanced (internally) than XP, so why is it so hard for some of you to admit (even to yourself) that Microsoft ‘overpromised and underdelivered’ on this product, and perhaps this unfairly influenced people’s decision making based on these promises?
[q]Let me quote Jim Allchin again (Head of Windows develpoment):
“Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Longhorn will include an IE version that’s much more advanced than the IE 7.0 product the company will ship for XP users later this year. The new version of IE will integrate with Longhorn’s parental controls and security and isolation features.”
When I read “IE version much more advanced than the IE 7.0” in XP I thought it implies a new version. Now Parental Control and other minor functionality is slightly more advanced, hardly much more advanced. So no, they didn’t deliver what their head of development promised, and yes, the actual words used do matter since that is all anyone had to go on in 2003. [q/]
That’s not an Allchin quote but a Thurrott quote. Paul paraphasing what Allchin said and you’re arguing over about the semantics of his language.
If you read Thurrott’s other information about IE in Vista you’ll see he makes it clear that it’s still IE7 just with more features (it does have built in XPS, XAML/BAML support, better print preview, WPF/E-Silverlight built in, Protected mode, searchable RSS feeds and more).
Written about the same time as the other thurrot link:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie7_preview_1.asp
I don’t think one can reduce several years of “Vista will have everything and the kitchen sink” marketing to a list of features* that were cut or not. Just have a look at a recent example:
“Microsoft’s Hilton Locke, who used to work on the Tablet PC team and now works on the Windows Shell team, let us know today that if we are impressed with touch on the iPhone, then we’ll be blown away by the touch features of the upcoming Windows 7.”
If we do a similar list of “features cut from Windows 7”, you wouldn’t put “touch features” on the list, if they implement some touch feature and give the technology a fancy marketing name, wouldn’t you? But of course, people expect by “blown away” more than a lousy copy of iPhone features and hence will be disappointed.
This is common MS marketing to hold people back from switching to (mostly better) alternatives. The real problem IMHO are sites like OS News that print all those cloudy promises.
——
*)
Reducing an OS (or any other piece of software) to a list of features is silly anyway: Features tend to be:
irrelevant to most users (e.g. special hardware features)
irrelevant to common users (e.g. admin only features)
irrelevant to all users (e. g. dev only features)
irrelevant to everybody except the vendor (e. g. internal features)
The remaining relevant features for a certain user, can be further reduced depending on how good (visible, user friendly, robust, etc.) or bad it is implemented.
From TFA:
“”All promised features were cut from Vista.” This is a commonly heard complaint about Windows Vista on the internet.”
I have NEVER seen ANYONE on the internet or elsewhere claim that ALL promised features were cut. Please back that up or I’ll just assume this article is trolll bait of the worst kind.
This just came from a PC World article in which Vista was named the most disappointing product of 2007:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrend…
It’s just that Vista isn’t all that good. Many of the innovations the operating system was supposed to bring–like more efficient file and communications systems–got tossed overboard as Microsoft struggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it was first promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista is slower than XP.
Edited to add italics around the quote…
Edited 2007-12-18 14:26
That article only mentions “more efficient file system” and “more efficient communications systems”. I assume the former refers to WinFS, the latter I guess refers to WCF, which shipped. So, yet again, an article claiming that a bunch of innovations were stripped can only come up with WinFS as an example.
BTW, that article is a joke. Read the other items on the list ( http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,1-c,techindustrytrend… ) and you’ll see products that most wouldn’t consider disappointing, let alone among the 15 most disappointing products of the year, yet they are there just because. I mean, what are things like iPhone, Leopard, Office 2k7, and Yahoo doing on the list? Other than to generate hits, that is (and of course making Vista #1 on the list guarantees maximum hits).
Thanks Molly. You can relax though. I know it’s a fluff piece. I was just posting that as another jab at Thom for writing the article.
…there was a perception of all these features that were expected to be included in Vista because of all the articles, gossip and every other sort of inflated story telling and screenshots during experimental phases/early development cycle that got people worked up. MS should have performed some sort of fire control, but instead they let the rumors and supposition fly, perhaps hoping it would somehow sell more copies when Vista was finally released. Instead it backfired and people are not pleased. Well, didn’t REALLY backfire since MS has cornered the OS market for the most part… but you know what I mean.