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Excerpt - VISTA WILL LAUNCH today with fanfare, parties, hypocrisy, hollow promises and tame reviews. For me, it is something different, it makes me sad. MS will tell you that Vista is the next great thing in every way, it took billions of dollars to develop, millions of man-hours, and undoubtedly will be the best selling OS ever launched. The problem is that Vista brings almost nothing to the table that can't be described by as three year old as "shiny". Let's look at it this way, ask yourself what good new features Vista brings to the table. Most will...

Choosing The Right Vista VIA Arena has a very good guide to choosing the right Vista for your needs. There is a handy chart that shows you which features are in the different versions of Vista and what they mean to you. This is good reading for those of you planning to upgrade to Vista.At a glance, here is a list of features that are not in every edition of Windows Vista. If the table cell is highlighted in blue then the corresponding features are in the corresponding edition of Vista. This should be your first place to look. If...

Windows 95 was 32mb. Win98 was about 200mb. This new OS is 2.5gig? Unbelievable. I'm downloading now and will try it out but my comp is a bit underpowered for it

I installed Beryl and the latest Nvidia drivers last night. Edgy has AIGLX built in, so you don't need XGL. I have Vista RC1 on my other computer and it looks like a dolled up XP.

An unpatched vulnerability in all editions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is being exploited, security researchers said Tuesday, with the attack dumping a broad range of adware, spyware, and Trojans onto PCs whose users simply surf to an infected or malicious site. First reported by Sunbelt Software -- although rival Internet Security Systems claimed it was the first to discover the bug -- the vulnerability is in how IE renders VML (Vector Mark-up Language), an extension of XML that defines on-the-Web images in vector graphics format. The previously unknown -- and thus unpatched -- bug inside IE is already being...

LONDON--Bob Gleichauf, the chief technology officer in Cisco Systems' security technology group, has raised concerns that integrating Vista into a complex IT infrastructure could present problems. "Parts of Vista scare me," Gleichauf said at the Gartner Security Summit here on Monday. "Anything with that level of systems complexity will have new threats, as well as bringing new solutions. It's always a struggle in security, trying to build for what you don't know." Gleichauf told CNET News.com's sister site ZDNet UK that Cisco views the Microsoft operating system update, set for broad release in January, as a bearer of possible solutions...

Guy I know picked up a virus that tells him his computer has been infected with a virus. The virus produces a window that says the only solution is to buy their solution for $50. He can't get into his computer. He's trying system restore. Any other suggestions.

It's been a long time coming, but Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 is finally here. As Microsoft starts to collect feedback from a broad spectrum of users in one of its largest test programs ever, the company will soon be in a position to decide whether the product is solid enough to meet announced ship dates of November for enterprise customers and January 2007 for consumers. Earlier this week, I started using Vista build 5568, a version that Microsoft says should be virtually indistinguishable from the actual RC1 code. Since recent Vista revisions have been focusing on improving performance, compatibility,...

Several security experts are warning of increased cyberattacks targeting Windows PCs, but Microsoft says all is calm on the attack front. The SANS Internet Storm Center, Symantec, McAfee and several other security companies are warning of a new worm that wriggles into Windows PCs by way of a security flaw for which Microsoft issued a patch with security bulletin MS06-040 on Aug. 8. On Thursday, Symantec raised its ThreatCon to Level 2, which means an outbreak is expected. In an alert to customers, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said it is seeing "ongoing and frequent attacks" that utilize the MS06-040 flaw....

Microsoft on Monday briefly posted pricing for Windows Vista on its Canadian Web site, giving an eye into what the company will charge for the new operating system. The posting indicates that the Home Basic edition of Windows Vista will be priced the same as Windows XP Home, at $233 ($259 Canadian). The Home Premium version, which includes support for Media Center and tablet PC abilities will sell for 13 percent higher rate, a price that translates to about $269 in American dollars. Microsoft quickly removed the price information, but blogger Ed Bott, who spotted the price list earlier Monday,...

"What drives the purchase of an Apple machine isn't the OS itself -- it's the packaging, the cabinet design, the quality of the graphics. I don't question that Mac OS is an easier operating system, but I don't think that alone drives Apple's sales anymore. A Mac is almost an appliance like a home entertainment center or a big-screen TV," said Charles Tatum II. In a recent column, I asked users of Windows-based PCs if they were tempted at all to switch to a Macintosh , as I am considering doing for my next home computer. As is often the...

I'm at my wit's end -- maybe some FReeper who is smarter than I can tell me what clue I am missing. Here is what happened: My wife's computer's hard drive crashed, so I purchased and installed a new hard drive, formatted it, and Windows XP Pro was and is working fine. The wife's computer is as follows: Dell 4600C Series P4 3.06GHz, slimline case with vertical CD drive, purchased in January 2004. Network Adapter according to original invoice is "Integrated 10/100 Ehternet" Then the problem came when I tried to get on the Internet. We have a cable broadband...

"I have been testing Microsoft operating systems since Windows 95, and this is the buggiest OS I've seen this late in development," says Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "Look at the older operating systems, and by Beta 2 there is a stable foundation on which the [independent software vendors] can build. Right now, Vista is like a ship on stormy seas." What began as a murmur a few months back is turning into an audible grumble, as beta testers and experts question the stability of the latest Windows Vista beta and Microsoft itself hints at yet another release...