I have only two complaints about Vista, having used it for over a year before downgrading both my notebook and desktop PCs to XP after the release of XP SP3:

1) Poor performance. Likely, the “Mojave” participants were using highly tweaked, hardware heavy-weight machines that could provide an acceptable user experience for the bloated OS code. Using the latest multi-core processors and 3 or more gigabytes of RAM, Vista performs about as well as XP does on a single-core 1gb RAM system, and has lots of glitz that appeals to novice and neophyte computer users. Of course, Vista would look good in this environment. In fairness, there should have been similar machines set up with XP SP3 running some commonly available third-party UI tweaking software, and watch the reaction of the participants when the XP-equipped PCs run twice as fast looking just as good as the “Mojave” machines.

2) “Home”, “Business”, “Basic”, “Premium”, “Ultimate”. It’s a shell game, all puns intended. What is it that Microsoft thinks about home users that makes them believe that home users are unworthy of experiencing all of the capabilities of business users, and visa versa, and make MS think they are rolling in cash? Why are not ALL installations of Vista not “Ultimate”, with the user being fully able to pick and chose the components THEY don’t need or use? As a 20+ year user of PCs, I pretty much know what I want my PC to do, and know what it isn’t ever going to be asked to do, and I’d like to be able to have that choice out of the box. Does Microsoft realize that there is only one version of OSx published? That might tell them something rather important. Dealing with marketing only one version of a fully configurable OS at a reasonable price would make a whole lot more sense than the waste of time, effort and good-will that MS has caused with their 5-version scheme.

Hi Rick,
Good points.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

San Francisco?

What would make MS assume that a handful of folks from the Bay area would constitute a worthy demographic of PC users anyway?

I’m using TinyMe OS on the laptop I’m using to write this. It does everything N need and more and only uses about 200Mb!

I’ll return to MS when they develop an OS that doesn’t require me to waste 20+ gigs of hard disk space just to boot up the darned PC!!!!

I agree with Rick as well, Simply make it easy for people to only install the parts of the OS they need. Half of their security updates would not concern the typical user if the default installation of windows didn’t enable unnecessary services.

When XP first came out, I was one of the nay-sayers that didn’t like it’s bloat at the time. But after needing to use XP at work, I learned what services to disable and what parts of the registry to lobotomize to get it to perform like Win2k with the better stability of XP (I used to tease my fellow software developers, that I had stripped out so much of XP, that most programs thought I was running win2K).

But without taking Vista to the bare metal, and only adding the features I need, I doubt that I could ever tune it enough for my liking.

At least a stripped down XP runs smooth on a 200 MHz Pentium w/ 128MB ram (could use more ram, but the MB only supports 128), I doubt Vista will even allow installation on such hardware, much less let me in to rip out everything.

It does not take a 3 GHz 500 watt space heater under a desk to do simple office tasks like word processing for most businesses, as a programmer, I could use the extra horse power to speed compile times, but see benefits for doing my software development on slower hardware, just to ensure my code remains usable on older platforms.

Exo

I don’t blame them for trying to make vista look better when apple is spouting one-sided propaganda 24/7 on TV. Apple has created a serious image problem for vista and people who don’t even use it think it is bad just because they heard from a guy for example. Vista needs hardware, but then again. A dual core 2.4ghz with 4gb of ram and 500 gb hard drive is only 500 dollars, 300 dollars less than a mini with 1/2 the power. Apple has a great marketing department which managed to convince many people that never used vista that it was bad. Here is the thing though. OS X gets kernel panics too! In fact I get those more than BSOD ( never got one on vista ). I get itunes errors that crash itunes. I get quick time suddenly spouting out that operation could not be completed, OSSATUS ERR -1409. How is that informative? Apple ripped on vista for having vague errors when they do too. Bottom line? You need to run windows, why else would bootcamp exist? Bottom line 2; vista is better than XP. Networking, GUI, DX 10, aero, windows explorer are all better with vista. I use vista and OS X and both have problems.

M$ did their own damage long before Apple jumped on, simply by putting an operating system out there that needed the hardware equivalent of a serious gaming box to make it run smooth and even be able to enable the fancy new features.

To make matters worse, early rumors were that you needed DRM capable monitor hardware to get the higher desktop resolutions, and the way that the DRM was implemented seemed to indicate that you had to buy the computer as a system with the DRM on the motherboard and video card properly married. Perhaps these were unfounded rumors, or are they just in a state of hibernation awaiting M$ to throw some software switch?

I’ll stick with OSS from now on.

Exo

For me, Vista is not an operating system, its just a game, or a joke if you like!

Well, it seems I do not have interest in it, and his main feature - to act like an operating system - is not quite functional. Here my thoughts:

First, anybody can have a $7.000 laptop running Vista and full enabled will act better than an $300 laptop running XP. For me this price difference count very much… I’m not able to buy something more than $500 without using a credit card, and then I must pull the belt to pay my debs…

Second, in this “Mojave presentation”, I am certain Microsoft did not present any hardware and software specifications, like computer power and compatibility to run software.

For me, an operating system main duties are:
1) to load and run software;
2) manage / configure installed applications;
3) manage files (and I have thousands of Internet pages saved, king of knowledge database for IT, photos, hardware…);
4) organize the working desk - aka the desktop.
5) allow inter-reactions between running software no mater in what “virtual machine” is running…

Do not forget, to have a good and easy memory management, this os should work for now on 64bits or more, since at least with MS Windows we have already applications, which will enjoy for more than 3GB ram…

Regarding the request to run a software, the os can load a “virtual machine” for each software request, like 8bits for a DOS, 16bits for a Windows 3.x requirements, 32 bits for a Windows 9.x, NTx, xKx requirements, and so on.

And why not to load other “virtual machine plug-ins” to run any x86 compatible processor Unix / Linux / Apple / BEOS / Mojave etc applications…

I do not want to speak more of other aspects of Vista os, like:
- refusing to work on an OEM machine after some 100% compatible software install - which install software drivers - like Nero, DivX… Your only chance is to connect to Internet and do an update from MS site prior of having this problem… Else Vista think (by itself, YES! YES!) that you pirated the os… - what a waste of resources…
- the downgrade to NTSC and then software enhancement to HDTV for any Blue Ray or HD-DVD content to avoid “copy” the original high-def source = which result in a 100% compatibility with classical DVD enhanced on pc experience… Seems that MS’ guys did not know that first command for an operating system is to COPY something before opening in edit the original… and this cannot be avoided too much…
- running in background services necessary for DRM = this is where the computing power must be increased several times to have some responsible os…

And I must mention an weird personal experience, many software running perfect on Windows 9x machines but fails on XP Home, then again run fine on XP Pro machines; this means that XP Home is just a very bad ripped version of XP Pro…

Also creating many flavors of the same version of the operating system, very-very weird…

I can accept a “basic” version, and for some reasons to have some extras, like:
- multimedia enhancements (players, codecs) - not every one is interested in this, many users just need web-browsing and e-mail;
- network enhancements for a big business network: mapping and running applications from network, web-servers on workstation to enable a specific kind of sharing documents and knowledge…;

After all you can have some os enhancement like these ones from third party, so at these “enhancements” we can have concurence and be able to chose from the price/performance spectrum where our interes reside…

I guess I can continue for more, but does this help us to have from MS corporation some good OSs?

Never mind!

mojave is a cool name for an OS

doesn’t beat “Plan 9″ though, that’s gotta be the best yet.

The rejected footage of Vista’s “Mojave Experiment”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtXRnel2GT8

[sorry for the double post -- i neglected the weblink in the first one]

Wow.. with the advancements in technology, the PAR is moving up but the cost is remaining the same… every time new computers come out, the specs are that much higher, but the prices are right around the same, so yes, vista is a resource hog, but if you’re not a penny pinching, I want to spend more money on a flipping purse that just holds crap rather than spend a decent amount on a nice computer, you shouldn’t have a slightest problem. Right now, just going to the major retailer, I have found SEVERAL really built laptops that are inexpensive. But when you have retarded people i guess you just can help it. Me personally, i do not mind dropping a little extra to get more because i would like my computer to last longer than a year, so no im not gonna buy dell.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8898357&type=product&id=1212192622683
3gig, 200gb hdd ITS ONLY 499!
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Compaq-Presario-CQ50-110US-15-4-Widescreen-Laptop-FE869UA-ABA/sem/rpsm/oid/215364/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
SAME

So to sum this up. PEOPLE stop whining and learn how to shop for computers before you go buy one.

Nice for you, How To Buy!

I always build my computers, starting from what I need. If I choose a certain motherboard, and this one does not have drivers for a certain operating system, that operating system is out of consideration…

If you want to be universal, at least as spreading in the world like MS Vista, MS should take care of this aspect, or should collaborate with manufacturer for have this solved.

Then I want to know that what I build will work for me, not for others: this new Vista running to protect herself from being pirated, why should allow to lose money and time for MS, when I can have this run just for my interest. Same thing for Hollywood, why should I opt for a solution which run like crazy to protect DRM, when I do not have any connection with.

It is true have hundreds of movies on HDD, but they are TV shows-movies captured by a TV tuner. And you know, I worked last year from 4PM to 2AM, so it was normal to record and then view this in the morning, when most TV do not have top shows, just average to fill the hours…

Philosophical, next operating system I will buy should have only one “flavor”. If it has many, looks like XP Home which was a barbarous cut down of XP Pro, to discover that software running OK on Pro cannot run on Home - and I speak of workstation software, not network one!

Basta with this “flavors”, I must take care of myself…

Thanks for the comments everyone. Sharing your thoughts is appreciated.
Regards, Ron

Richard - take a look here. A fairly loaded Compaq at $399
http://www.officedepot.com/textSearch.do;jsessionid=0000i85RV-D1hJlxiG5T0icQ0Hw:10irf0ha1?Ntt=430180

Yes. It has a few rebates that you have to hassle with. Just a thought.