Walt reviews Vista: Eh.
By Ryan Block 
posted Jan 18th 2007 2:03AM
posted Jan 18th 2007 2:03AM
We're willing to bet those among you that don't make gagging sounds whenever you're in eyeshot of a PC have probably already played with Vista a bit. Maybe you don't have the last beta installed on your machine, but you've sat down to a Vista box and at least logged a few minutes with oohs and ahhs at Aero and Flip 3D. So by this point you probably well understand that Vista, while being a major step forward for Microsoft, will for most users represent something more of a long overdue feature pack, finally bringing Windows up to date with OS X. Granted, Vista does diverge a bit with such features as tablet input and its best of breed Media Center interface (which we're absolutely stoked to start using), but we found ourselves largely agreeing with Unkie Walt's assessment that while this may be the strongest version of Windows yet, it's still got a ways to go to pull ahead of its competitors from a technological standpoint.
Oh and I forgot, to clear it up. Vista is based on Windows Server 2003, instead of XP which it was originally being built on top of. And the Vista kernel is going to be updated in SP1 to match the longhorn server kernel.
As far as I can tell, there are only three good reasons to upgrade to Vista: directx10, cablecards, and improved security. Directx10 won't be important until late-2007 or 2008 and with cablecard totally locked down to approved oems only, that feature becomes useless for now too. It remains to be seen how effective the new security features are. I suspect many inexperienced computer users will just click OK through every security prompt in Vista without reading or understanding it, rendering much of the new security ineffective for most people. I'm currently recommending to all my friends that they not buy Vista yet. Perhaps it will become more compelling by the end of the year.
i hear ya mike, still its too expensive, chronic registration for whatever reason is totally frustrating and pathethically penny pinching, and MS has always said it would make internet explorer secure and it NEVER EVER did, MS says that at every release of its new OS as a sales pitch. Rest assured it will be a virus magnet like all the other versions of windows.
it keeps the antivirus industry afloat at the expense of consumer happiness wich is unnaceptable pressure in my opinion. Microsoft makes people pay for support most computer users dont even need. 400 dollars for an OS is almost extorsion! 250$ of that amount all goes towards microsoft staff customer support fees. That customer support is a huge staff examining registrations, answering phone calls and emails & info on the site ect. i NEVER NEED TO USE THAT. why should i pay 400$ for the windows challenged , non sense. I keep reading Vista requires a huge hardware upgrade that will cost you 300$ of ram, An OS that needs 5 times the ressources to do the same job dosnt feel like an upgrade much. 400$ is wack! plus having to report yourself to MS at every install is really deplorable.
Kurtis,
I can get into more and more details, but I think you've been misinformed.
You really do not need hardware that powerful to run vista. If you want to use Aero glass, you don't even need anything more than GMA950. 512MB ram is the minimum requirement or recommended i don't remember. 1GB(about $100) should be more than enough for it to run smoothly XP only needed 128MB. I even got XP pro to run on a 166MHz Pentium that had 128MB.
You may not even need more than home premium yourself, if you want media center and glass. I mean, I know that I don't need more than home premium myself. Which is $240 full, or $160 upgrade. If you think about it, if you had a mac, you'd pay $130 for upgrading to the next .x version of OS X. Yes upgrading because OSX would only install on a Mac, and that Mac came with a version of OS X, so you already have paid for a license of OS X. So all releases are upgrade versions, and there are no full versions. Even Home Premium has all the features in ultimate that OS X has, i think (unless you can come up with an example). So you'd only be paying $30 more for Vista than OS X. And the support that you're paying for isn't only customer service over the phone. They are also supporting you by releasing patches for you.
But for real. Everyone on here should check out Paul T's Review at www.winsupersite.com. I'm not affiliated with him or the site. But he is very well connected within MS and tells all.
Oh Malarky, Windows has plenty of more friendliness and usability over Linux, if not stability, and by God, it has everything over OS X except various editing applications and a few specific other ones, "catch up", why doesn't OS X "catch up" to Windows and stop treating it's users like blind paraplegic babies? I don't need every single fathomable function to be so obtuse and dumbed down, I'm not a buffoon. Linux, well it doesn't need the average consumer, it has plenty of corporate and small business support to grow on.
I reiterate, Malarky.
*sigh*. To all the Mac fanboys, yes, there is Mac hardware. Logic boards die, pram batteries die, power failures result in the motherboard power manager to be reset, and the list goes on.
To the ones who think we should all buy macs and dual-boot or parallel Windows, I would advise you buy a much cheaper but equivalent pc and put osx on it.
To anyone who accuses the I.T. world of disliking macs because they fear the 'stability' will ruin their jobs, I say this: at least in my experience, I've had to spend more time fixing macs than fixing pc's -- and our pc's outnumber our macs.
To anyone who says anything about Vista: Have you personally tried it out? Do you know how it works? Or are you basing your opinion on reviews written by some mac-toting blogger, linux-loving hacker, or hard-core windows fan? Because each of those might be a little biased. You'll know if you like it only after you've tried it.
Jesus...That had to of been the most Biases article I've ever read reguarding Vista.
Nearly every other line is like "Like OS X". *rolls eyes*
THIS ARTICLE IS SIMPLY A APPLE FANBOY REVIEWING VISTA......NOTHING MORE.
I'm buying Vista Home Premium the day it comes out....So F*ck you Apple.
@BeaverlyLove
"Oh Malarky, Windows has plenty of more friendliness and usability over Linux, if not stability,[...]"
err... WRONG
You've never come to really use anything else but Windows. And with "really use" I don't mean to just install a Linux, play for it a few days and then go back to windows.
Every OS has its own learning curve, you'll have to get through it to really use it.
It takes time and a strong will to go from Windows to any other OS.
"[...]and stop treating it's users like blind paraplegic babies? "
Funny, that's what every Linux user says about Windows users.
The only reason everybody uses Windows is, because you're used to it. And you're used to it, because it comes preinstalled on almost every computer. That's good marketing, and marketing is everything that M$ is good at.
In other words, Windows users are fashion victims.
And for a Windows user, Vista really is a step forward. For a computer user, Vista is just another annoying thing on the list.
vistas DRM is a media files nightmare!
and it eats up 800 mb of ram doing nothing!
Its a privacy invasion to have to report to
microsoft's police officers every time you need to
do an install if your drive fails or if you want to swap it.
Linux is the freedom choice more than ever.
Why do so many of feel you have the right to comment on vista when you have not used it or even bothered to do any research on it(other than from Apple/Linux fanboy sites). When you talk about it needing really powerfull hardware or that it's a clone of crappy OS-X (screenshots disprove that) or when you say the security improvments are limited to UAC, it's very clear that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I wonder if you realise that both OSX and Linux have just as many security vulnerbilities that windows does (in fact they both have a lot more). The only reason virus's and malware are created for windows is because that's the number one platform, 96% of the planet runs windows, what's the point in creating a virus for the remaining 4% of alternative platforms?
I for one thing Vista is one of the best things to happen to windows in a long time. The only downside I've found so far is that OpenGL support is a bit buggy and the whole signed driver issue is a problem with no adequate solution at present. Vista also has terrible native bluetooth support currently.
Having said that, Vista is a very nice OS. Aero looks great, the OS seems very stable, and the interface is intuitive. Vista is a genuine pleasure to use.
When will people actually learn that there arent viruses for unix based OS's like OS X and Linux?
I ran windows for a long time, then I was given a new intel mac book with os x, and i love it. Not saying there are no problems, but its easier to fix the problems then on windows.
Ive ran different linux distros as well, the thing that gets me is that sometimes, I just want my computer to work and not have to mess with anything.