Windows Vista

**techeros** · 08-03-2005, 11:03 AM

NTurkey,
stupid question? Hope I didn't miss this somewhere. I understand only 10k people got Vista beta. Can we demo Vista too?

**NTurkey** · 08-03-2005, 08:50 PM

I think it depends on the terms of the beta. I don't think you can demo the vista beta 1, but I could be wrong.

When you got your Beta, you should have received or already received info on connecting to the microsoft beta news groups. I'd post that question there to get an "official" answer.

**Enforcer** · 08-04-2005, 05:33 AM

Originally Posted by NTurkey

I think it depends on the terms of the beta. I don't think you can demo the vista beta 1, but I could be wrong.

When you got your Beta, you should have received or already received info on connecting to the microsoft beta news groups. I'd post that question there to get an "official" answer.

I think what he meant was that he didn't have a copy of the beta and was wondering how he could get a copy or was it for select people only.

of course I may be wrong.

**neon_eddy** · 08-04-2005, 07:09 AM

I know the thread has gone off this portion of discussion, but let me say this:

the 3d gui will NOT bog things down .. unless the 3d accelerator you have is out of date, then I would suggest using the old XP.. or even use XP if you have new stuff, BUT the 3d gui is the one feature that vista has that is worth anything. Keep in mind OS X has been doing this for sometime now, I would imagine we could do more things with front ends, having the gui be on the GPU means.. less for the CPU, so it can play those mp3's and calculate GPS routes and speech regognition - faster. (not playing mp3s faster) right now most of our GPU's are idle.. there has been studies done on how to do actual audio processing on the GPU.

So I'm no MS engineer, but I feel it could be the right fit for some, and I just posted this, to remind folks that a 3d GUI is a good thing. of course if they can ever get OS X working on a normal x86 .. I'll be running that on my laptop :-)

**turbochris** · 08-04-2005, 05:08 PM

I've been using XP for a while on all my boxes. I think with the exception of my nLighted XP install in my car, I'm going back to win 2K.

**RoyN** · 08-04-2005, 05:17 PM

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but a few months after Vista is out, if it doesnt turn into a screwup everyone here saying "I'm going back to windows 2000 or windows 98 bah bah bah" will just swallow their pride and go to the more modern, more stable, faster, more supported new OS...

Nobody is going to be running a 5yr old OS afer Vista is released if it works well....(as a daily workstation, not necessarily carpc)

**turbochris** · 08-04-2005, 09:23 PM

more modern? yes. More stable? maybe. better performing? I doubt it. Billybob Gates isn't concerned about what we want, he's more concerned about how he and his business partners can make money off of consumers with a minimal amount of problems. First he'll make it pretty with all kinds of whistes and bells to hook the consumers, then he'll put in digital rights management and tell us he's just interested in our security, but the truth is he'll lock it up so we won't be able to run freeware anymore since no ne is making money off of it. Ultimately some day we'll all be paying a monthly bill to MS just like the phone company and electric company.

I gave XP a long hard look and I gave it more than a fair chance. I asked myself what it really gave me that 2K couldn't give me and it wasn't much. After the release of XP SP2 and after trying 2003 server I realized where MS was going and while the average computer illterate consumer may benefit from this childproof bloatware, I found it pretty much usless.

Nobody is going to be running a 5yr old OS afer Vista is released if it works well

This may be true as we may have no choice.

**RoyN** · 08-04-2005, 09:26 PM

if its problems outweigh its benefits it will flunk.... (like winMe)

**rushnrockt** · 08-04-2005, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by turbochris

This may be true as we may have no choice.

What do you mean no choice? You can still use your win2k.
As far as childproof bloatware, I'll agree only on half of that statement. As far as I noticed, regular users need to install 2-3 different programs or 1-2 pieces of hardware before they mess something up. I wish there was something like windows CE instead of Vista. Might not be totally foolproof, but at least takes less space.

**stevieg** · 08-05-2005, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by turbochris

more modern? yes. More stable? maybe. better performing? I doubt it. Billybob Gates isn't concerned about what we want, he's more concerned about how he and his business partners can make money off of consumers with a minimal amount of problems. First he'll make it pretty with all kinds of whistes and bells to hook the consumers, then he'll put in digital rights management and tell us he's just interested in our security, but the truth is he'll lock it up so we won't be able to run freeware anymore since no ne is making money off of it. Ultimately some day we'll all be paying a monthly bill to MS just like the phone company and electric company.

I gave XP a long hard look and I gave it more than a fair chance. I asked myself what it really gave me that 2K couldn't give me and it wasn't much. After the release of XP SP2 and after trying 2003 server I realized where MS was going and while the average computer illterate consumer may benefit from this childproof bloatware, I found it pretty much usless.

This may be true as we may have no choice.

As someone who runs a lot of expensive server equipment for a living, I can vouch Windows 2003 server is a fair bit faster and much more reliable than 2000 on the same high-end hardware. Yes I am still running some 2000 servers and even still have to do new installs for legacy applications that aren't supported by the manufacturer on 2003 but generally it's a no-brainer. It's a *much* better operating system, especially when running enterprise applications and clusters.

If Server 2003 post SP1 is anything to go by (I believe it's the code base for Vista) then Vista is going to be a worthwhile upgrade for those with high-end hardware and graphics cards.

The other point of leaving 2000 is it's now unsupported by Microsoft - not surprising seeing as it's over 5 years old now. Luckily they are still providing critical security patches - but I certainly wouldn't like to do a fresh install and apply everything post SP4!

If you like it fair enough, but if you hate Microsoft software so much (or their ideology) on your home systems maybe you ought to try Mac OS X, FreeBSD or a Linux distribution.