Vista rant ---- MS must dump it...

[aaaaa00]

hybrid sleep sounds very nice, but how exactly is the regular sleep different from XP S3?

Well besides hybrid sleep, here's another diff:

In XP apps were allowed to veto sleep. People would close the lids on their laptops and put them in their briefcase/backpack/laptop cases, and the occasionally the machine would not go to sleep. This would mean later the laptop would be boiling hot and the battery would be drained.

In Vista, apps are no longer allowed to veto sleep.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms700612.aspx

 

[Blazkowicz]

lol that sleep veto feature looks useful :smile:
on laptops you end up disabling the sleep-on-closed-lid if you want to keep the music playing, why not a script that vetoes sleep when winamp plays.

 

[Npl]

In Vista, apps are no longer allowed to veto sleep.

And thats a good thing to force upon all Apps? I dont like interrupting CD-Burning

 

[nutball]

I dont like interrupting CD-Burning

... so don't hit the sleep button while you're burning a CD...

 

[dZeus]

... so don't hit the sleep button while you're burning a CD...

so CD-burning (for example) will still prevent the 'idle timer' from kicking in, in Vista? (for example, when you've set windows to go into S3 after 15 minutes, and burning a blu-ray disk takes, say, 30 minutes)

 

[Kaotik]

so CD-burning (for example) will still prevent the 'idle timer' from kicking in, in Vista? (for example, when you've set windows to go into S3 after 15 minutes, and burning a blu-ray disk takes, say, 30 minutes)

If it doesn't, you should go hang whoever made the burning application

 

[Frank]

If it doesn't, you should go hang whoever made the burning application

If we did things like that regulary, most Microsoft employees would be dead by now.



Face it: functionality has never been a strong point of Microsoft. Marketing, on the other hand...

 

[Geo]

Oh, please. They didn't get that big without making good products over a long period of time. If they were still trying to sell everyone DOS they'd been dead a long time ago.

 

[Frank]

Well, name one Vista improvement that Linux didn't do for quite some time. Or one thing that MS-DOS did better than CP/M, or *nix.

Then again, Windows is pretty sleek. It looks nice. That's about the only thing everyone agrees upon.

 

[swaaye]

I think that MS put forth a lot more effort to make Windows work nice for everyone than the companies behind the alternatives. Except perhaps Mac. Linux is not even remotely ready for my parents/siblings/workplace, for example, and that's as much due to industry support as it is Linux's fundamental design being based around a text-based terminal.

Windows is a jack of all trades, master of none. Well, it may be the master of ease-of-use.

Vista is arguably not all that exciting, but it definitely has some advantages/improvements over XP. Some of those may be artificial, however, like DX10 IMO.

 

[Frank]

That brings up the old argument, that people don't like change. Windows is what they grow into, and are used to. Anything that is different is worse, for that majority. It doesn't matter if it's so very much better if you take the time to learn. Because few people are interested in doing that, and companies choke on the prospect of all those courses and lost productivity. No matter that Microsoft Office 2007 is far more different to Microsoft Office 2000/2003 than OpenOffice 2.

And that's not counting that anyone simply uses what everyone else uses, because they can ask for support and exchange stuff easily.


If you were to introduce something new that is so very great, ergonomic and productive that anyone who would take the time to learn and use it would start crying if they had to go back to Microsoft, it would still flop.

 

[Geo]

Well, name one Vista improvement that Linux didn't do for quite some time. Or one thing that MS-DOS did better than CP/M, or *nix.

Then again, Windows is pretty sleek. It looks nice. That's about the only thing everyone agrees upon.

So it's seriously your position that if Microsoft killed their marketing department budget that Linux would rule the world? Really?

 

[Quitch]

It's sad really, Linux isn't even beating OSX in desktop market share, yet still people look for it to topple Microsoft "real soon now". Linux isn't going to rule the desktop any time soon, and it's not because Windows is in its way.

 

[aaaaa00]

so CD-burning (for example) will still prevent the 'idle timer' from kicking in, in Vista? (for example, when you've set windows to go into S3 after 15 minutes, and burning a blu-ray disk takes, say, 30 minutes)

Idle timer and sleep veto are two different issues.

If the *user* initiates a sleep (by closing the lid or pressing the sleep button if they're configured to work that way), Vista doesn't let apps veto it any more.

However, the *idle* timer still works the way it worked before, and apps can prevent the idle timer from triggering sleep (which solves your CD burning issue).

Besides if you really really want the old behavior back, there is a group policy you can set to enable it.

 

[swaaye]

That brings up the old argument, that people don't like change. Windows is what they grow into, and are used to. Anything that is different is worse, for that majority. It doesn't matter if it's so very much better if you take the time to learn. Because few people are interested in doing that, and companies choke on the prospect of all those courses and lost productivity. No matter that Microsoft Office 2007 is far more different to Microsoft Office 2000/2003 than OpenOffice 2.

Well I think you just overestimate how much most people give a damn about computing. They just want things to work. How they get there doesn't matter. Most of the non-savvy folk I know don't understand Windows very well anyway and would probably manage to switch to a different OS just fine if it offered something tangibly better for them. But, right now, for most computer users, I don't see a better offering than Windows.

We use OpenOffice at work alongside MS Office XP. I have Ubuntu on a machine there too. Everyone is ok with both and no one is unwilling to try new software as long as it doesn't make their jobs more complicated. I'd say that everyone is actually curious about new ways of using computers. Slick looks and ease of use are what they look for I'd say. Unfortunately both OOO and Ubuntu have major limitations.

OpenOffice, for example, doesn't have perfect support for MS formats, and those are what outside companies that work with us use. Should I be willing to trust OpenOffice to properly work with a huge budget spreadsheet that goes back and forth from the accounting firm in Excel format? I don't know about that. There's a lot of complex function work and macros in use there. OpenOffice is certainly a very acceptable alternative to MS Office in many situations though.

Ubuntu is neat and the most impressive attempt at a desktop-oriented Linux distro IMO, but it totally doesn't have the software support and configuration can be insanely too complex for many things. Wine is simply unrealistic for lots of apps. eBay Turbolister, for example. But, if all you need is a web/email/music/video machine, Ubuntu could work out fine.

My impression of Linux desktop distros is one of a finely polished little plateau. As long as you don't try to do things that the distro people didn't foresee or pre-setup, you will be ok. But, stray outside that and more often than not you are looking at some serious effort and research to get things working. You simply can not ask the typical computer user to use a terminal. They'll think they're back in DOS or something. Nevermind compiling stuff. They will be back on Windows before you blink.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Going in for my 23rd install of Vista I have to agree with Frank, change is just hard at times.

 

[Quitch]

23rd install, WTF are you doing to them digi? Stop playing with your catalysts

 

[Sxotty]

This guys research and basis of argument is solid /sarcasm

Think this article can be summed up as "I think Vista sucks because it does. Dont argue with me because you are wrong, I just proved it".
....

People like this live in a dreamworld.

My question suggestion is.

If MacOS is the savior of the world why doesn't mac release it on the open market. Lets see people loading up MacOS on the dell, and hp boxes they buy and then talk about it. Until then it is relegated to the teeny weeny corner controlled by the pearl white hues of plastic shrouded hardware.

Until then Vista is better IMO b/c it has more compatibility across hardware. Though I admit I haven't bothered to load Vista yet, XP is fine and Vista will sit in my case of DVDs until I actually have time to fiddle, or need of it. (Wait where did the time to waste on the forums come from if I don't have time to fiddle. *runs away*)

 

[Fred]

Just to chime in with my horror stories on Vista.

New rig came in a few weeks ago, out of the box the sound didn't work. Apparently that hits a lot of people with soundblasters, so I had to waste a good 5 hours tweaking registry settings and rolling back BIOS flashes and so forth before I got it to work. The culprit, a little service program in Vista that conflicts.

Hilarity ensues last night when my activated version of Vista decides that its all of a sudden not activated. Reentering the product key I was given, doesn't work 3 times, then all of a sudden it does. Except now theres a little message in the bottom of my screen that says its not activated (even though it says activated in the control panel and in the software M$ uses to diagnose this).

So I roll back to an old restore, clean boot, etc. Problem goes away, everythings fine and dandy. Ooops, next restart, it prompts me to reactivate again. This time, the product key fails completely and im locked out of doing most things other than surfing.

Several angry phone calls later, more registry tweaking and rebooting, +a new key and I think maybe finally we've figured it out (and I have no idea what the problem was to begin with).

Either way, a pleasant way to spend a morning, when I should be getting real work done.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Just to chime in with my horror stories on Vista.

New rig came in a few weeks ago, out of the box the sound didn't work. Apparently that hits a lot of people with soundblasters, so I had to waste a good 5 hours tweaking registry settings and rolling back BIOS flashes and so forth before I got it to work. The culprit, a little service program in Vista that conflicts.

Hilarity ensues last night when my activated version of Vista decides that its all of a sudden not activated. Reentering the product key I was given, doesn't work 3 times, then all of a sudden it does. Except now theres a little message in the bottom of my screen that says its not activated (even though it says activated in the control panel and in the software M$ uses to diagnose this).

So I roll back to an old restore, clean boot, etc. Problem goes away, everythings fine and dandy. Ooops, next restart, it prompts me to reactivate again. This time, the product key fails completely and im locked out of doing most things other than surfing.

Several angry phone calls later, more registry tweaking and rebooting, +a new key and I think maybe finally we've figured it out (and I have no idea what the problem was to begin with).

Either way, a pleasant way to spend a morning, when I should be getting real work done.

Maybe it had something to do with all that messing around in the registry