CNET Editors Review: Windows Vista Ultimate

CNET Reviews ^ | 1/23/2007 | Robert Vamosi

[Swordmaker]

check out previous reply... sorry I didn't ping you directly.

[Doohickey]

Now you descend to the refuge of the person who cannot refute the facts as presented: ad hominem attack.

Not true, amigo. You are the one that posts any half-baked review you can come up with. You and your groupies are uninterested in refutation, which is why I don't provide it. For example, this is demonstrably false:

...there's still no SLI support for any of the Nvidia range.

I've seen SLI configurations on Vista with nVidia cards. I've seen them with ATI cards. I've seen them with one of each.

But really. What difference does it make? You're not interested in the facts. You're interested in casting Vista in a bad light. Mac is an outstanding platform, yet you insist on dwelling on the negative. Odd.

[Doohickey]

I know you're intelligent enough not to miss the point, so you must be ignoring it.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Not sure what your beef is- you tried to flame me for posting that Vista has lack of driver support. I personally found that to be the case, and I've found other reviewers who have said the same thing. (You were rather overboard by calling my observation: "crap"), Instead of being gracious with your reply, I'm somehow a member of a cult? I guess I must have touched a nerve when I suggested that I was insulting your religion. Your reactions seem rather like zealotry to me.

I've been developing on the Mac since 1984, as well as being a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. I let the Gold Certification lapse a couple of months ago only because I was not impressed with Vista. The good stuff had been pruned out of it. As for OS X, when it first came out, I just didn't like it. Too many security holes, too much was incomplete. I found that I needed to boot into Classic more than I used OS X.

I have several intel Macs, several PCs. My favorite flavor of Linux is SuSe, but SuSe is not ready for prime time in my opinion. Only now, when I use the iMac, have XP installed with OS X. I haven't had to touch Classic in a couple of years, I don't need XP any more. Its there, but after working on the Mac, XP and the Microsoft intrusiveness irritates me. I get more work done on the Mac.

Will it always be that way? I have no idea. Will I ever bother to buy a machine with Vista on it? Who knows. After looking at earlier betas, I don't have the need to even try. There is no new technological advancement in Vista that justifies its bloated foot print.

[Doohickey]

I really don't care about your resume, but since you are a developer you should know better base your opinions on a beta product. I have no "religious" preference. As I said before, I do have an iBook and my WordPress blog runs on Slackware. I am sick of uninformed opinion being passed off as fact. I am sick of FUD from people who don't even use Windows. And any time I see it, I'm going to refute it.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

but since you are a developer you should know better base your opinions on a beta product.

Its already been available to businesses. As a general rule, the "home" versions of the OS do not have enough muscle for me. The early-early betas of Vista (betas from the special "Longhorn" beta program by invitation only from Microsoft, were just horrible. The later ones did improve, but not as much as they should have.) The final release to business still had some old bugs that were noticed 6 months ago, disappeared and have since come back.

I personally found that driver support for Vista was appalling. I also discovered that there were many others who came to the same conclusions. This is not uninformed "crap", but my experience as well as the experiences of others.

The simplest explanation for this is the fact that Microsoft is writing an OS for all kinds of hardware: Apple controls the hardware, so their OS can be optimized for the task at hand. I've seen 2 identical Toshibas behave differently with an install of BeOS. One took it just fine, the other never did. Specs on the machines were identical. Yet all hardware components are within a specific tolerance range: resistors +/- 5%, etc. So you can have one machine "within tolerance" (on the high side) not take to an OS like Be, and another "within tolerance" (dead center) take it. I suspect Vista is exactly the same. The would account for so many "I can't get Vista to install" horror stories.

Additionally, depending on the peripheral, many companies are simply not interested in investing time to create a Vista compatible drivers for their older product lines. Why bother with supporting a 5 year old printer? Get the customer to buy a new one.

[N3WBI3]

So he put up a post on a mac thread talking about how MS is trying to copy Tiger (which many people from all over the spectrum have said) and you level in with a Linux attack? this is clearly stalking and trolling!

[SeaBiscuit]

"..and choose don't use digitally signed drivers..."

I think Vista 64bit RTM will not allow unsigned drivers.

But I am running 32 bit Vista Business RTM and I have to say it is certainly NOT a warmed over XP.

[Golden Eagle]

So he put up a post on a mac thread talking about how MS is trying to copy Tiger (which many people from all over the spectrum have said) and you level in with a Linux attack?

Yes, because he's constantly defending "free software" including the post I linked where he previously attempted to claim Apple was mostly "free software", so how could he be surprised much less disapointed if others were now copying it? He's even been defending the criminal Russian hackers that cracked the proprietary portions of OSX, laughably trotting out the "180 day rule for criminal prosecution" on their behalf, and spouting lies for months he later outright admitted to making up that falsely claimed the US DoD used software written by Russian Hackers. You can read more about that here. Add to that this joker has been attacking US law since his very first post to this site, and almost daily slamming either Republicans, Christians, President Bush and several members of his family, it appears I'm completely justified in giving him a well deserved hard time.

[Echo Talon]

I think Vista 64bit RTM will not allow unsigned drivers.

But I am running 32 bit Vista Business RTM and I have to say it is certainly NOT a warmed over XP.

vistabootpro.org

Mess with the bull get the horns... ;)

// Disable enforcement – no signing checks
Bcdedit.exe –set nointegritychecks ON

[Echo Talon]

I think TweakVI or Vista Manager may do the same thing... it has to do with BCD

[SeaBiscuit]

Right, that works on a beta, but from what I've read the final release (RTM) won't load unsigned drivers.. period.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_x64.asp

"Additionally, Windows Vista x64 versions require that all drivers be digitally signed by the developer. If you've ever installed a driver in Windows XP, you'll likely be familiar with the unsigned driver dialog, which offers a "Continue Anyway" option when a setup application attempts to load an unsigned driver . In the x64 versions of Windows Vista, this will not be possible. Microsoft says that it is requiring signed drivers so that it can ensure that drivers are of the highest possible quality; poorly-written drivers are, today, still the leading causes of blue screens and other system instability issues."

bcdedit works around that limitation, but will it work on the RTM version as well.. are you using a beta or have you got your hands on the final release (RTM) somehow?

[stainlessbanner]

bttt

[ken21]

any ideas how to get microsoft i.e. out of my browser?

i just got verizon dsl. verizon installed i.e.

but i like firefox.

ie allows me to use the firefox homepage, but controls the top, including my bookmarks = not available.

i hate microsoft i.e.



thanks

[ken21]

i'm using windows xp.

[Echo Talon]

Just installed Tweak VI and BCDedit comes with it... just applied it... I need to reboot and see if it works... lets cross our fingers...

[Swordmaker]

Not true, amigo. You are the one that posts any half-baked review you can come up with. You and your groupies are uninterested in refutation, which is why I don't provide it.

Find a fully "baked" review of Vista and post it... almost every one I've found make similar comments. These are published by major news media and PC journals as well as PC bloggers This particular one comes from CNET... which is often cited as an authoritative source. Your refutation source seems to be "Doohickey says so", ex cathedra and uncheckable. At least you have not posted any links to source material. MrsEmmaPeal provided you with authoritative links from people who put their names and their organizations' reputations on the line with their opinions. Your refutation is to slam the authors of those articles as "lobotomized." By any debate judge's call, that would by argumentum ad hominem.

I've seen SLI configurations on Vista with nVidia cards. I've seen them with ATI cards. I've seen them with one of each.

Well, well. More anecdotal evidence from Doohickey. Were those nVidia and ATI cards working SLI with Vista drivers provided and certified by their manufacturers... or were they hacked drivers downloaded off the net?

[Swordmaker]

I know you're intelligent enough not to miss the point, so you must be ignoring it.

Your point was vague and more of a strawman argument that a valid point when we cannot know the contents of your closet. I addressed the issue in the next post.

Mrs. Peel, sorry about not pinging you in the last response mentioning you. Also, my apologies about misspelling your name. ;^)>

[antiRepublicrat]

Of course it does, since you specifically brought it up before, but now are attempting to argue it was in fact best for Apple to keep their O/S proprietary.

In what alternate reality? OSS vs. proprietary hasn't even come into this thread until you tried to hijack it. You really are stalking me, and creating reasons out of thin air to troll with.

You're the one with the contradictory views

I'm quite consistent. You're the one who rails against the evil Linux open source giving our technology away to the foreigners, yet gives BSD, OpenSolaris and many others a pass.

[antiRepublicrat]

Do you actually re-type that meandering rant every time or do you do a copy/paste?

BTW, ever figure out my defense against your attack in #39? This doesn't even require the expertise that the nmap test did. It only requires basic computer industry knowledge over the last couple of years. Don't tell me you can't even get that.