Comments on: Vista's last mile

exclusive Behind the scenes at Redmond as Microsoft gets ready to declare the code for the Windows update finished.

[binarypc]

Very Cool

It's awesome that Microsoft is performing this kind of testing internally and not just depending on external beta testers. This is the kind of testing that will put a better product on store shelves. They've really come a long way, and a positive one, with how they release an OS to the customer.

[ddesy]

Not all cool

The "sharks and limpets" concept is not so great. It suggests that they will let known bugs into the final version.

Very not cool.

[rmiecznik]

Yes and No

I like Vista, even tho I am not going to waste my money to buy a new computer to be able to run it, I like it. Office 2007, I don't like at all, 2003 was perfect and not it is ruined.

I started to learn 2003 Server, so far I just intalled it, having a hard time in adjusting to these connection limitation per license and restrictions, none of which are on Solaris or Linux, or OS X.

Windows will need to adjust that.

[ddesy]

Not so cool

The "sharks and limpets" concept is not so great. It suggests that they will let known bugs into the final version.

Very _not_ cool.

[ddesy]

Not so cool

The "sharks and limpets" concept is not so great. It suggests that they will let known bugs into the final version.

Very not cool.

[J_Satch]

Nitpicking, I know, but...

"gave a short, one-sentence report on where things were at."

Where things were AT? Ina, where are you at?

[Zoe Slocum]

Nice nitpick

We've taken out the extraneous "at."

[rcrusoe]

"It's totally ready to go"

I wonder if anyone will agree that statement was correct after Vista goes on sale?

[Far Star]

Hard to say ...

I trust that MS is doing all it can to test (what company wouldn't) but 60k machines does not compare to n millions of machines that are out there in the world.

It's too easy to say "it's totally ready to go" when all you run on your boxes is MS.

Proof one way or the other will be post January.

[J_Satch]

Sure they will...

...now, whether they will agree after installation is anybody's guess. We will see.

[J_Satch]

Sure they will...

...now, whether they will agree after installation is anybody's guess. We will see.

[J_Satch]

Gotta love cnet's site...

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grrrrrrrrrrrr

[jeroneanderson]

Windows is still far from finished...

It is kind of funny to me to see Redmond worrying about small issues last minute when there seem to be much larger fundamental issues still remaining. Based on my testing of Vista Ultimate Edition RC1, this is an OS which is a long way from finished. Many of my XP programs don't even run in Vista and other than special effects which are cool but may detract from the usability of the system I can't see what it really offers over windows XP. The windows program compatibility wizard seems to be almost useless in vista for getting XP or older programs to run. The file search functions are still poor. Video Editing and photo capabilities to compete with iPhoto are still poor. The ultimate special effects make it unclear which window is even ontop of one another. Getting back into Mac OS Tiger is always a relief from any version of windows to me and if this is a shared view microsoft may have even further to come to offer a viable upgrade from XP.

[Akiba]

RC1?

If your testing is based on RC1 its not even relevant.

But your basically saying the same thing that everyone said before XP, 98 and 95 came out. Vista is as ready as any of the past Windows releases.

[danielMann]

Don't talk about something you haven't seen

Your comments are about a beta product (as you admit yourself), not the finished product. You seem really eager to dismiss it before you've even seen it, get the released version then make your comments.
I get the feeling you made your mind up long before you even clapped eyes on a vista at all, and that your opinion is based on something other than an honest assessment of its readiness and capabilities.
Personally I don't have time for this kind of "religious" negativity, let's assess it on merit not on prejudice.

[ralfthedog]

None of the issues you brought up are relevant.

You Mac fan boys make me sick. None of the issues you brought up are relevant.

"Many of my XP programs don't even run in Vista ..."

This is a feature. It keeps you from running all the old unsafe XP programs.

"The file search functions are still poor "

Microsoft has determined that people spend far too much time looking for old files. Just make some new ones.

"Video Editing and photo capabilities to compete with iPhoto are still poor. "

Why would you want to edit photos or video? That is for pannzy Mac owners.

"The ultimate special effects make it unclear which window is even ontop of one another "

This is one of the best Vista features. Use it to teach your kids about quantum indeterminacy!

If you don't want to get Vista on the first day, move to Communist China.

[ralfthedog]

None of the issues you brought up are relevant.

You Mac fan boys make me sick. None of the issues you brought up are relevant.

"Many of my XP programs don't even run in Vista ..."

This is a feature. It keeps you from running all the old unsafe XP programs.

"The file search functions are still poor "

Microsoft has determined that people spend far too much time looking for old files. Just make some new ones.

"Video Editing and photo capabilities to compete with iPhoto are still poor. "

Why would you want to edit photos or video? That is for pannzy Mac owners.

"The ultimate special effects make it unclear which window is even ontop of one another "

This is one of the best Vista features. Use it to teach your kids about quantum indeterminacy!

If you don't want to get Vista on the first day, move to Communist China.



Please forgive this if it is a double post. I posted, but my comment did not show up. After a few minutes I am trying again.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Commenting on out of date products

RC1 is very very old and while your comments may apply to that build, they don't to the many subsequent builds since then.

It's like saying that the 1977 Mustang you're test driving doesn't meet up with the standards of the 2007 model. I'd wait until the final code goes out the door before making such comments.

[mabradford]

Test Running Beta

Server edition now for almost 6 months now with Exchange23 and msSQL25 and without a glitch in mail or database or as a file server. The program is rock solid as a server. Hasn't crashed or had to be rebooted - not once. Active Directoy slows things down a bit - not sure why yet - but, it works well.

[fred dunn]

Vista Should Be Microsoft's Last Mile....

Before redesigning all of their new product design and implimentation processes.
Vista was and still is a nightmare for Microsoft in that it was supposed to be "revolutionary" with WinFS and other such features but slowly and I mean slowly they found that this was not going to be revolutionary but more evolutionary.
Evolutionary in the sense that it is just Windows XP with Bling and more negative aspects than positive.
If MS doesn't crank out a new Desktop OS better than this in the next three (3) years then their days as master of the desktop are over.
I am a windows user and systems admin for hundreds of Windows servers and assist the desktop admin with about 5500 windows desktops so I will still be in the game but I will be recommending we move to another platform.
What platform? There are a few good alternatives to Windows on the desktop now and requiring less resources and costing less.

I never thought I'd see something this bad come from Redmond but then I guess "Microsoft BOB" and "Windows ME" should have been clues.

[thenet411]

Windows programmers lazy?

I am stunned to read that they actually considered leaving in a bug which caused a dialog box to pop up twice.

Like it or not, the public is going to scrutinze every little thing about this operating system. It is well known that it is not ready. But there are shareholders and PC manufacturers to keep happy so the release is going on even though everyone knows it shouldn't. The trick is to minimize the problems. Like that Slovian release. Leaving that bug in makes sense to me given how long it will be until that localized version hits manufacturing. But a setup bug? Come on! Those things are the stuff of Microsoft legends. I would think Microsoft has been raked over the coals enough from incidents like DOS 5.0 and Windows ME to make such a mistake. Fortunately, an executive stepped in but it makes me wonder: Just how lazy are Microsoft programmers?

[Vegaman_Dan]

And that setup bug was fixed.

That setup bug has since been fixed. There was never any intent to leave it in there for the final release, nor will it be there.

Reality says you can't stop the presses every time someone sees a typo in the newspaper. You eventually have to run with what you have or you miss the deadline entirely.

Is the bug a show stopper? No. Can it be addressed at a later date without affecting anyone? Yes. Then fix it when it is convenient. There are such things as priorities at work here.

[qwerty75]

Let the chaos begin!

I for one am excited about this impending disaster.

Not only will it be fun to watch the chaos, but will be even more fun when it does blow up and the MS fans attempt to justify it.

I am not excited enough to waste money and join the "party", after all I need to get work done.

Vista will mark the beginning of the end of MS dominance, at it is well earned.

I don't think any other company in the history of the world has worked so hard and so long on so little. They deserve all the ridicule and lost market share that is incoming.

MS Vista-A uneducated mans version of OSX or Linux.

[ralfthedog]

I will let you decide if I was joking or not.

Here is a story I wrote a few years back.

http://bbspot.com/News/2001/03/apple_interview.html

PS. I like Apple. I own Apple stock.

[ralfthedog]

Please ignore. Stupid mistake on my part

I like C/net. I hate the message system. :)

[btvsrcks]

wow, a lot of ms haters

I find it interesting that so many people hate Microsoft. I mean sure, they may not do things that YOU yourself would do, but before commenting on how much something 'sucks' you can at least give it a chance. I mean visit a friend who has it, try working with it, try simply looking at it. While it is true that features were pulled for time, Vista is hardly worse than the release of previous OS's released by ANYONE. Applications don't work on a new OS? Say it isn't so! The mac just cut and run when it released a new OS. Microsoft wouldn't do that to the users. They try very hard to make it as compatible as possible with as many pieces of hardware as possible and as much software as they can. Nobody can test every single piece of software in the world. NOBODY. Give them a break.

Sheesh.

And, by the way, software doesn't just fail because of Windows. There are standards out there that many software developers DO NOT FOLLOW. And then people complain that Microsoft did them wrong.

That is just lame.

In this day and age, Windows wouldn't still sell millions and millions of copies if it wasn't halfway decent.

[fred dunn]

If I didn't have to agree to that EULA I would..

give it a chance but you're saying go ahead and pay your $300, agree that they can change the original EULA at any future time they wish, Send information from my system to Redmond periodically without my consent, and on top of that either upgrade all of my PCs or buy new ones that have half the power of a supercomputer so "I can Give it a chance".
Dude you are so blinded by redmond I would have to guess that you are one of their MVP's, if not you should be because anybody backing this second version of Windows ME on steroids is either Bill Gates brother in law or just plain ignorant of the issues.

[DarkPhoenixFF4]

Windows Standards?

Standards? What standards? Microsoft changes things every version to give themselves a temporary competitive edge over the competition.

And they sell millions of copies not because the system is halfway decent, but because they charge OEM's based on how many computers they ship (not how many computer with Windows, but how many computers in general), and put out tons of ******** advertising and FUD warning about how hard to use everything else in the industry is.

[mabradford]

Hating Microsoft or Not

...anyone hating M$ software are idiots...what's to hate about technology you yourself can't build but, can use if someone else builds it? That's just plain stupid.

The main beef with M$ is how the corporation has gone about acquiring it's software over the years and pretending it created it - or at least some sort of "I made it" advertising.

A good one - MS DOS. Gates didn't create it. It was bought by Bill from someone who didn't get to reap any of the big bucks of DOS - even if he was an idiot for selling to Gates - Gates should have broke loose with some bucks in the end.

Good business is capitalism - so the winner takes all and capitalises on the weaker and they get kicked to the curb. So what if they die poor. That's the nature of the beast. But, Bill should have given credit where credit was due - and did not and pretended he single handedly programmed MS DOS with his own 2 hands. That was the image of the day back then.

Now - for the next big robbery event #2. Remember that company called Stacker located in San Diego? Well, do you remember that Microsoft just could not get their version of disk compression working and it kept wrecking harddrives...so - Microsoft actually stole the disk compression technology from Stacker and had to be sued a year later to even think about paying Stacker for it. M$ publicly swore it did not steal anything. Suprising though - Stacker had built in code that it opened for the court and out of M$ software came Stacker software. Amazing. Now - Stacker is getting paid big bucks forever for that lying, cheating and theft that M$ committed - and for that payment system M$ gets to use Stacker's disk compression technology - but, without having to tell anyone it really is Stacker technology. You know - everyone is none the smarter for it.

Let's get on to the third (3rd) but, way off from being anywhere close to it's last endeavor - gaining 32bit technology for Windows. Oh - you didn't know that M$ couldn't get their version of 32bit technology to work correctly with Windows 95 Version A? What happened then you ask? Well, since it's experience with Stacker - M$ got smart and bought Digital Research DOS (DRDOS) instead of stealing it (hostile takeover) and implemented it's Digital Researches 32bit technology into M$ Windows 95B (version B). Wow - you Win95B is really DRDOS driven - hmph. You didn't know that either? That worked so well, that M$ was able to finally put together Windows 98, a much superior version of Windows 95B now that 32bit technology gave M$ the wherewithall to fully implement MX technology which was/is based on 32bit technology -- that the Intel and AMD chipsets were being built for.

Point being - when you hear people talking crap about M$ software - that's just what it is...crap. M$ has brought together some of the most usable software systems known to mankind. Think about it - you're hearing people mouth off that can barely scribble a bit of code or barely make sound business decisions or even balance a check book. You don't hear Sun, Oracle or even IBM slamming M$ do you? No - you don't.

Not even Novell slams Microsoft for taking (stealing) Netware NDS technology and actually making it work as good if not better than Novell's own stuff. Put NDS with LDAP and you have voila - Active Directory...which any idiot that can read - can learn.

Novell's idiot staff almost put Novell out of business by being arrogant and like the people who talk crap about M$...but, they don't talk crap about M$ nevertheless...do they. Nope! Sure -M$ AD might not be as secure - but, any idiot that can load a CD can setup a network with it. Something that can't be said for Netware still yet to this day.

You've just read 4 reason's why I could hate Microsoft - but, I don't and they did what I damn well wanted to do but couldn't and still can't....create it myself or bring the best of other peoples software technology together and make it work the best for mankind at the cheapest prices.

Can you imagine what a computer and the software that runs it would cost today had it been left up to IBM, Novell, Sun, AT&T or Apple or one of the other computer companies back then that were trying to squeeze every penny they could from every person that even had a thought about computers.

Seriously - there were times when even if you were to just read a paper about a computer you almost felt compelled to pay one of these old computer companies because you might have felt like it was a privilege to even read about some sort of alien technology being brought to mankind.

So - in the end - Linux may be great - but, I've been using and loving it for 10 years and M$ is still doing more jobs than Unix or Linux and full blown multimedia to boot - which no one seems to be able to perfect any new stuff for Unix/Linux that competes with and runs M$ stuff. You cannot find any Linux Distro that loads as easy as M$ and immediately (in most cases) fires up, plays cool games with adjustable graphics and sound. And when it comes to .Net - M$ rocks.

Thanks and have a great day.
Enjoy.

[ralfthedog]

Microsoft needs to rip out 90 percent of its code.

When Microsoft lets us compile a version of Vista with all that multimedia garbage ripped out I will think about using it for something other than web surfing or playing games.

Most of the software we use was created in house, we do run some Windows computers (Even one application server running an Apple Database that we have not converted to PHP/SQL)We also run a few Macs including one in a mission critical position (Accounting data).

Windows is for games. Linux/BSD is for business.

[fred dunn]

Yes, I was working With DEC PDP8's & 11's

Then but I did not delve too deeply in the Z80 but did in the Intel 4004 (calculators and process controllers) and 8008. I also had singel board 6800 and 6502 computers for controllers.
My Brother in law had a Model 2, you know the huge one that sold for like 10K and then had it converted to a model 12 and had a whopping 5MB external hard drive in addition to his two 8" floppies.

[chrisranjana.com]

windows vista

It is best to wait till sp2 is released. Normally M$'s software becomes stable only after sp2

[chrisranjana.com]

windows vista

It is best to wait till sp2 is released. Normally M$'s software becomes stable only after sp2