Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

PC Magazine Editor Throws in the Towel on Vista
Slashdot ^ | 8/18/2008

Posted on 08/18/2007 6:28:28 PM PDT by sionnsar

MacNN caught this incredible defection and loss of faith by a former Vista booster, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback, as he steps down from his position.

"I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: linux; microsoft; vista; windows
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140141-143 next last
To: sionnsar
In tech support I have to deal with Vista victims daily. I wish I had a nickel for everyone who wanted to go back to XP.

Vista will get better eventually. So will Muslim culture and alzheimers. I only have around 40 years left to wait.

Count me among the millions who are looking for a new way. I am thinking about a MAC. No Vista for this boy.

101 posted on 08/18/2007 9:11:44 PM PDT by Sender (A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MarkL

Thank you for your informative post. I did not know this. Thanks.


102 posted on 08/18/2007 9:11:44 PM PDT by miele man (Continually voting against iodine deficient libs for 42 years)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 91 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMind

You seem to have forgotten that Vista 64 NEEDS a minimum of 2GB of Ram to make all the pretty stuff stay pretty and work fast. My brother has his with 4GB or Ram and it smokes my XP system for speed and loading of programs.


103 posted on 08/18/2007 9:11:49 PM PDT by Duke Phelan (Save the cheerleader, save the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: ThePythonicCow
I was actually thinking about this the other day. If I created an Operating System (definitely the conditional, that's not possible), I would never name it after myself. It's especially strange to me that he would give an Open Source OS his first name. They should have a Linix- kind of a cut-rate, imitation OS. Then I could start offering server virtualization using its kernel under the name VMwear.
104 posted on 08/18/2007 9:12:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies]

To: Duke Phelan
I lost a scanner, but the upgrade advisor warned me I would. It is absolutely essential that people with peripheral hardware and software they cannot afford to replace run the upgrade advisor even if they plan on buying a new computer.
105 posted on 08/18/2007 9:12:38 PM PDT by ekwd (Murphy's Law Has Not Been Repealed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: papasmurf
I'll second the recommendation of http://www.sagernotebook.com My son just got one, which he bought through http://discountlaptops.com/. Excellent laptop, excellent service, good deal all around.
106 posted on 08/18/2007 9:13:24 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: MarkL

thanks.

i used dos about 5 years ago, but it’s not on xp.

you’re right, i did not format the hard disk. i answered xp’s questions for a reinstall, resulting in these problems.


107 posted on 08/18/2007 9:16:51 PM PDT by ken21 (28 yrs +2 families = banana republic junta. si.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: rovenstinez
Vista was developed by little boys who grew up on Riddlin, [sic] kids who never milked a real cow, or eaten wheat that was rubbed in your hands and chewed. ... I’ve gotten my first MacBook,

Yeah, those Apple guys. Real farmers, they are.

108 posted on 08/18/2007 9:18:34 PM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: narses; Artemis Webb
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
109 posted on 08/18/2007 9:21:26 PM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: papasmurf

I am a hobbyist and linux is great for tinkering but if I needed to do my taxes or any work in the fastest time possible, I would do it in Windows.

Linux is like a bbq. You have more control over the food and the only way to get that nice smoky flavor but it takes a lot more work, time and fidgeting. Most of the time it pays to cook indoors with a gas oven. That’s windows

The other big question: is the mac a microwave oven or a convection gas oven?


110 posted on 08/18/2007 9:27:57 PM PDT by ari-freedom (I am for traditional moral values, a strong national defense, and free markets.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
Linus didn't name Linux. From http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/linux-anecdotes.html:
The name Linux was not coined by Linus himself, strange though that may seem to people familiar with his self-esteem. It was coined by Ari Lemmke, the administrator at ftp.funet.fi who first made Linux available for FTP. Ari had to coin a name since Linus had failed to give a proper one, so Ari invented one and it stuck.

111 posted on 08/18/2007 9:32:14 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 104 | View Replies]

To: Duke Phelan
The problem with XP, which I have, as opposed to Vista is it will only allow 2.75GB of RAM to be recognized. Vista will allow a lot more.

Actually, you're wrong. Windows XP (32 bit) WILL recognize 4GB of RAM, however I suspect that you've got 2 different problems here...

First off, I suspect that your boot.ini file has the /3GB switch in it. You need to delete that, and replace it with the /PAE switch. If the /3GB switch isn't there, just add the /PAE switch.

Secondly, I believe that the reason that you're NOT seeing 3.0GB, but 2.75 GB is that many BIOS and Chipset manufacturers thought nobody would ever need more than 2GB of RAM in a system, so they mapped and reserved the address space below 3GB for their own use. Check to see if the BIOS has a setting that will allow you to move the reserved address space above 4GB. If not, check to see if there's a BIOS update that will allow you to do so. If not, you will lose some RAM, but you should still be able to see at least 3.25GB of usable RAM. The reason for this is that WinXP patched with SP1 or later doesn't seem to "see" about 512MB of RAM that's installed.

But the biggest culprit IS the hardware "reservations." Sometimes even with PAE (which maps around the reserved areas) you still won't be able to use it all, or see it all.

Mark

112 posted on 08/18/2007 9:33:39 PM PDT by MarkL (Listen, Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: ari-freedom
Well, for taxes, yes, Windows (or perhaps MAC OS X). The two leading tax programs, TurboTax and Tax Cut, don't have products for Linux.

For any work, no. Depends on what the work is. I would not recommend Windows desktop operating systems for server work. Even for ordinary web browsing and document preparation, I prefer Linux ... more stable and less vulnerable to the common malware. I just flip to Windows for Quicken and Tax Cut and games.

113 posted on 08/18/2007 9:36:46 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 110 | View Replies]

To: Artemis Webb

heh, yea, I was kinda curious too...


114 posted on 08/18/2007 9:37:21 PM PDT by oakcon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar
I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months,

Computer journalists, in most cases, are little more than whores.

115 posted on 08/18/2007 9:40:29 PM PDT by ikka
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThePythonicCow
just deleting the partitions and recreating them isn’t enough

This sounds to me like a misdiagnosis. I am willing to believe that something went wrong, and that after zapping the partition table and mbr, things went better. But I doubt that that step was the essential step.

As I stated in my response, it sounds like he just tried installing WinXP over the old OS, and that's where the problem started up. However I also stated that without wiping the partition table and mbr, that problems will crop up down the road. I've worked as a field service tech since MS-DOS v2.x though Windows Server 2003, and while I'm not privy to the exact structure of the different versions of partition tables and mbrs, it's been my experience (from supporting the same clients over 10 or more years) that if you just wipe the system disks using the updated partitioning utility (for instance, going from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 Pro, or Win98 to WinXP - not upgrading, but a fresh install), that unexplainable boot problems tend to show up a year or two down the road, and those problems go away with reloading the OS, after recreating the partitions. Those problems haven't shown up on systems that I've wiped the disk. Completely anecdotal evidence, however the debug script takes the time to boot to a floppy plus 5 seconds to run, or KillDisk takes just a short time to run. Put another way, it doesn't hurt.

Mark

116 posted on 08/18/2007 9:43:13 PM PDT by MarkL (Listen, Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: ThePythonicCow

Hmmm, well, Linus didn’t give it a proper name, so there may be more to the story. If I had created it, I would have given it a name, and made sure it wasn’t mine. But, that’s just me. Thus anecdote doesn’t conclusively indicate it wasn’t his idea to me.


117 posted on 08/18/2007 9:49:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: martin_fierro

To be honest I do look a lot like the hairy fella on the right. :o)


118 posted on 08/18/2007 9:53:10 PM PDT by Artemis Webb (Ron Paul: the candidate of cowardice and appeasement.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar

XP Pro works like a charm.


119 posted on 08/18/2007 9:56:40 PM PDT by Tainan (Talk is cheap. Silence is golden. All I got is brass...lotsa brass.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
If I had created it, I would have given it a name, and made sure it wasn’t mine. From http://kerneltrap.org/node/14002:

Linus had originally intended to call the new kernel "Freax". According to Wikipedia, the name Linux was actually invented by Ari Lemmke who maintained the ftp.funet.fi FTP server from which the kernel was originally distributed.

The initial post that Linus made about Linux was to the comp.os.minix Usenet group titled, "What would you like to see most in minix". It began:

"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things)."


120 posted on 08/18/2007 9:57:53 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 117 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140141-143 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson