A Test From Microsoft

[Guest Reimar]

One thing is like while using Microsoft software: Downward compatibility! That's something were Apple have to learn something.

My vista experience can be summed up by one sentence: More clicks to do less. I even counted the clicks for some things - it's ridiculous. Oh, and: More verbiage to do less, too. Huge giant dialogs.. argh!

Anyway, I do have to really disagree with the above. As a software engineer it's very clear to me that if you have the best and most well thought out system on the planet, you are going to have to throw it out and start over after 20 years. If you have an ugly hack that turned into the most used OS ever, you should throw it out much, much sooner.

And Vista's absence of new features is testament to that. Sure, Vista has a few improvements, a nicer-looking UI ______ ... nothing else comes to mind, please fill in the blanks - it's not much in any case. It took 6 years to develop using the resources of the richest company in the world. With an army of the best programmers money can buy. Why? Backwards compatibility through several decades of software legacy.

Apple showed how to solve this technically - they just kicked out the old, and provided a compatibility layer that basically emulates an entire old system to run old software. Microsoft never did that, and the reason is clear if you consider the risks of such an endeavor - it's no mean feat, it's hard, and it could fail spectacularly. Microsoft didn't have to do it thanks to its OS monopoly and good-enough stability from the old Windows NT core. Apple was forced to go to OS X by circumstances - they had nothing to lose, the company was in the toilet and most people agreed with Michael Dell when he said he'd sell off the pieces and return the money to the shareholders. (*) But look at the results - OS X is wonderful, innovating every 1 or 2 years - there is more useful new features in OS X 10.5 vs 10.4 than in Vista vs. XP, and it only took just over a year to deliver. Granted they're now fixing bugs so let's say 2. Vista took 6. OS X runs on a phone! Vista could not possibly, it doesn't even run on an Eee PC. And it can't be made to.

Code reaches a certain plateau where the introduction of a new feature causes the introduction of a new bug, and the fix of a bug also causes a new bug unless you are extremely careful. Microsoft can compensate for having been in this state for a while with massive, unparalleled resources - brute force if you will. 30 years of legacy code are killing Windows. Microsoft has all the pieces in place to stage a dramatic escape from that code base (e.g. Virtual PC) - but so far they haven't used that.... perhaps they are not desperate enough. Windows sells no matter what, after all.... and it takes a while to melt a glacier....

(*) I didn't just make that up, Avi Tevanian, then chief software architect at Apple said that recently in an interview

Oh, I step on an nerve?

Fact is that in the same OS; here OS-X 10.5.x Leopard the Safari 3.1 didn't work on the full range of the Leopard OS-X, not on DS-X 10.5.0 or 10.5.1 it need min. 10.5.2! And that's the same OS!

OK fine if you're an Software Engineer, I want argue with you about that. As I wrote in my post before, I want to work and not to play around with software to get to work and so on.

Just one more example: I was try to install Adobe Photoshop 7, follow by Illustrator 10, follow by Pagemaker 7 and follow by Acrobat 5 and neither works! Originals by the way to install to OS-X 10.5.2

In Vista I can even install Photoshop 5 and works!

To make the long story short: I need to work and use which can do the job for me, doesn't matter which name or which brand or whatsoever that things have!

Cheers.

[sjaak327]

"Apple showed how to solve this technically - they just kicked out the old, and provided a compatibility layer that basically emulates an entire old system to run old software. "

LOL ! Classic OS, the perfect example how not to solve software compatiblity.

[Guest Reimar]

Just read in PC-World:

""Give Vista Another Chance

Rarely does a week go by that there isn't at least one story in the media about the supposed shortcomings of Windows Vista or how companies are scorning it because of incompatibilities or a perceived lack of business value.

Reading this coverage, you might get the impression that Windows Vista's predicament is unique among the various versions of Windows. A decade spent helping customers assess the savings and business value of a Windows upgrade tells me otherwise.

When Windows 2000 was released, people complained about compatibility and performance issues and said they preferred Windows 98. When Windows XP came out, people complained about complex hardware requirements. They said they didn't need to upgrade because Windows 2000 was sufficient for their needs. When I spoke at a launch-day session about the benefits of Windows XP SP2, customers complained about high-compatibility restrictions and complicated features. Sound familiar?

And yet, looking back on the reputation of Windows Vista's predecessors, you find that, while there was some challenge accompanying the transition to each one, in time every one of these operating systems proved to be a solid investment. Now, people are griping about the same things in Vista. My experiences as a user of Windows and as an adviser to my customers have taught me not to be surprised about this response, but it has also convinced me that, regardless of what you read or hear, companies need to take a closer look at Windows Vista before writing it off.

...............................""

read the full article HERE

[Thanh-BKK]

Reimar -

There were three hardware items in my computer that were not supported by Vista, and their respective manufacturers didn't have updated drivers AND the XP-drivers wouldn't work (with some hardware that doesn't have Vista drivers, often the XP or even 2k drivers will work!):

1) The very old PCI modem, type "Connexant". Bought under Win2K, under XP running with the W2k driver, under Vista - "unknown PCI device".

2) an even older (1999!) "Mustek" LPT scanner. Bought under Win98, worked fine in W2K and under XP with the W2K driver (an XP driver was released but it was buggy). Vista detected that device correctly as a "Mustek 600 CP" but wouldn't work with it (and, to be fair, warned me of that fact during install of the OS).

3) A USB-WiFi dongle - less than a year old, brand "Micronet". Again Vista warned during install that this is unsupported, and the manufacturer had the nerve to reply to an e-mail asking for a driver "sorry, we do not support such old hardware"!! LESS THAN A YEAR! But a good thing about this: It made me buiy a modem-router with WiFi capability

Now neither of these three is Vist's fault - why does a new OS have to support hardware that's stone age (that scanner!) or so cheap to replace (modem - 150 Baht?) And the Micronet - talk about a stupid manufacturer here.

Regarding "Vista being slow", strangely i never felt that way - sure, my Linux boots in less than a third of the time Vista took, but is "boot time" everything?? Actual operation was just as snappy under Vista as is under Ubuntu (same computer), and that is no high-end computer. Single core, AMD Sempron 2800+, with 2 GB of RAM (and that's the slower, DDR-1, variant). But what DOES slow Vista down (and more so than XP) is huge, bloated anti-virus software such as "Norton 360" - probably the worst ever. I have kicked that off my boss' Vista machine and installed Avast! - the difference is pretty much like day and night. Unfortunately, i have to say, people seem to think "i've got this new, powerful OS so now i'll throw the largest, most power-hungry applications at it and it will be working together just fine".

Is that Vista's fault? Me wouldn't think so.

And downward-compatibility there certainly is - but it has limits. For one, i could still use a small piece of software, my beloved iPhoto Plus image-editing program, that was made for Windows 95 (!!).... and also my little RAM-monitor "RamPage", also made initially for Win95. Both worked perfectly under Vista. But Microsoft (!!) Office XP had it's quirks - specially Outlook, dog-slow and crashy as heck under Vista. And a number of video converters/encoders just didn't want to work the way they did under XP, but THAT was again not Vista's fault but the lack of codecs - which is in the hands of the codec developers!

I can only recommend Vista if you got the money for it, it's well worth it. If you have somewhat recent hardware (not bleeding edge, but no 500 MHz either) it is an excellent OS, many tweaks are available, just stay away from bloated applications like Norton or Nero.

I keep my Vista DVD too, we never know what the future brings - right now i am happy on Linux, but that may change if some update hoses it (won't happen actually as for that precise reason i have disabled all updates, xixixi)

Best regards......

Thanh

[slackula]

Snippet, click for the full article..

Mendel surveyed 50,000 enterprise users and found that fewer than one in 11 of PCs being used in big firms runs Vista. Just over 87 per cent were still running Windows XP at the end of last month. That figure compared to a paltry 8.8 per cent for Vista, which has now been on the market for over 18 months. He described Vista as being the “new Coke”, comparing Microsoft’s current OS to the soft drink that suffered a major marketing failure when it was first introduced in 1985. The fizzy pop multinational subsequently reverted to the original formula to help win back sales. Mendel advised in his report that enterprises still considering their next OS move would be wise to “consider following the lead of Microsoft’s important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista”. Last month the chip giant rejected installing the new operating system on its many thousands of desktop PCs, saying it had "no compelling case" to do so.

[Guest Reimar]

I think it's easy to see that the experiences from "working" people are different from Lab's or institutions like Forrester!

Nothing is perfect, nobody deny that but to read that often, most every time from the same humans, that something is bad or didn't work right or whatsoever but nothing positive, while having opposite experiences, good one by the way, is depressing in some way.

Thanks to all of you who had the courage to tell the truth about your own good experiences. Your facts are much more valuable for me than the one with a lot technical explanation and links to Research Groups pp because yours are the result from real experiences.

Hopefully you're an positive example for those who haven't understand from what others was talking about.

Thanks again and cheers.

[JSixpack]

. . . Vista if you got the money for it, it's well worth it.

On the contrary, your stuff's working fine under XP, and you list not one single advantage of Vista, so one must conclude that Vista is NOT worth it.

Companies, who must make rational business decisions, reach the conclusion that follows logically from your experience--even Intel:

Microsoft’s important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista”. Last month the chip giant rejected installing the new operating system on its many thousands of desktop PCs, saying it had "no compelling case" to do so.

^There you go!

I think it's easy to see that the experiences from "working" people are different from Lab's or institutions like Forrester!

Of course they are, because 'working people' are so easily influenced by their emotions and so readily believe in superstition and magic. The better the marketing, the more will agree with you; since they WANT TO BELIEVE, they'll see what they're told to see. Without them, demagogues and television evangelists would have no audience. Anecdote, not scientfic evidence, is the coin of that realm.

So it's really just the old debate of science vs. religion. See the Health forum for great examples; there's a good snake oil thread running there right now: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Mms-miracle-...nt-t202701.html.

Me, I'll take the science, thank you.

Edited July 29, 2008 by JSixpack

[Guest Reimar]

Of course they are, because 'working people' are so easily influenced by their emotions and so readily believe in superstition and magic. The better the marketing, the more will agree with you; since they WANT TO BELIEVE, they'll see what they're told to see. Without them, demagogues and television evangelists would have no audience. Anecdote, not scientfic evidence, is the coin of that realm.

So it's really just the old debate of science vs. religion. See the Health forum for great examples; there's a good snake oil thread running there right now: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Mms-miracle-...nt-t202701.html.

Me, I'll take the science, thank you.

You're just one of humans who just see what they want to see! Not looking right or left like a horse which has get limited side views.

You even didn't read many times, or better didn't realize the meaning of written words or ignore whats written down.

So in this your answer.

May I need to explain more clearly what I've written, in the post you quoted?! And others as well?!

But it would be a shame if I've to do that!

I for my person just believe what I done/test/checked or whatsoever by myself and do NOT need to use a lot of Links for to cover what I tell because of: what? Lack of personal knowledge? Lack of personal experiences?

I do NOT need to look to others, or take the religion of someone else, take the words (like Links) from others to explain what I'm unable to tell with my own words, and and and!

Finally, a discussion with you on normal base is nothing but loosing time.

Cheers.