Posted on 12/13/2006 8:22:40 PM PST by Zakeet
After five years of starts, stops, executive shuffling, feature rethinks and delays, Windows Vista is finally complete. It’s available to corporations already, and starting Jan. 30, it’s what you’ll get on any new PC. Its programmers, who probably haven’t seen their families in months, will have an especially merry Christmas this year.
So after five years, how is Windows Vista? Microsoft’s description, which you’ll soon be seeing in millions of dollars’ worth of advertising, is “Clear, Confident, Connected.” But a more truthful motto would be “Looks, Locks, Lacks.”
Looks
Windows Vista is beautiful. Microsoft has never taken elegance so seriously before.
Discreet eye candy is partly responsible. Windows and menus cast subtle shadows. A new typeface gives the whole affair a fresh, modern feeling. Subtle animations liven up the proceedings.
If the description so far makes Vista sound a lot like the Macintosh, well, you’re right. You get the feeling that Microsoft’s managers put Mac OS X on an easel and told the programmers, “Copy that.”
Here are some of the grace notes that will remind you of similar ones on the Mac: A list of favorite PC locations appears at the left side of every Explorer window, which you can customize just by dragging folders in or out. You now expand or collapse lists of folders by clicking little flippy triangles. When you’re dragging icons to copy them, a cursor “badge” appears that indicates how many you’re moving. The Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons glow when your cursor passes over them. There’s now a keystroke (Alt+up arrow) to open the current folder’s parent window, the one that contains it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Vista is already out...
why? its not like Apple, you get the updates for FREE!
You get Apple's updates for free, too. You just have to pay for major upgrades, as with Windows. But unlike Microsoft, Apple is capable of producing upgrades to its most recent OS in less than five years.
WinXP out for over 5 years and ALL the updates for it have been free.... How many times have you paid for OSX?
To business users, who apparently are none too eager partially because of the reasons I cited. BTW, about the HP free Vista thing, Apple also gives free upgrades to those who bought systems close to a new OS X release.
And the updates mainly fixed major functional and security problems with XP. Except for upgrades to Windows Media Player and IE (both of which have superior free alternatives), I have no more functionality in XP now than was promised when XP shipped, unless you consider fixing security holes a feature. My system also doesn't seem to run as fast as it used to, while an OS X upgrade generally runs noticeably faster on the same hardware.
.net framework, directX, movie maker WinXP has changed a lot since it was first released, I slipstreamed my cd and have been doing so, works better that way.
plus I have had the SAME WinXP on 3 different computers(I have gone through 3 computer upgrades in WinXP's lifetime) I love the new technology, plus i like to mess around with it. ;)
That should show you how insanely long Microsoft took to get Vista out the door. In contrast, it took Apple about two years to produce Rhapsody (containing much of the technology that is in OS X, released as OS X Server), and two years more to ship OS X as we know it from that. And during this time they still managed to get both OS 8 and OS 9 out the door.
As some recent stories have shown, Microsoft has serious development problems. And you managed to spin a positive out of that?
.NET, update to a component, same as downloading the latest JVM. DirectX, update. Movie Maker, don't make me laugh. Give me new, useful features! Make my computer run faster!
so those Apples rot rather quickly huh?
When has Apple encouraged users to buy updates to the OS? I've been using Macs for 7 years, and I've never once been encouraged to buy an update for my current machine (yes, I've gotten free patches).
I used pc's from the mid-80's until I got rid of the last about 3 years ago, so I know what upgrades are.
Windows shipments to consumers: Windows 1.0 1985, 2.0 1987, 3.0 1990, 3.1 1992, then 95, 98, 98SE (1999), XP in 2001 (I'll be nice and not even count ME). I see an average of two and a quarter years between paid upgrades. On the NT side I see an average of 1.7 years up to 2003 Server (with the wait for 2000 being the longest at about 3 1/2 years). Microsoft's earlier averages seem to be around those of Apple, especially concerning early versions of an OS.
Vista will be over five years at a time when Microsoft didn't even have commit resources towards improving its 9x line anymore. Something is going very wrong in Redmond.
I think I'll only upgrade to Vista if I get a DX-10 video card in the next year or two. Otherwise they'll have to drag me kicking and screaming.
All the graphic doohickeys don't do much for me. But a good shell with a powerful commandline interface and I no longer have a need for UNIX at work.
I am going to buy a new laptop just for the free Vista upgrade, which will go to my home PC, mostly for gaming and utilizing the dual core 64 bit processor.
I'm using the latest and greatest as we speak... lets just say Redmond is fine.
I'm using "real" Windows Vista right now, lets just say it's WAY! better than the beta and release candidate versions... I can't tell you how i acquired it or I'd have to kill ya. ;)
I'm going to Asia in Feb., by then pirated versions will be out. Will be worth the $5 for it.
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