...and so it was in the beginning!

I just do not understand the mass ingratitude directed towards Microsoft. If it was not for messrs Gates and Ballmer you lot would be using Apple (imitators par excellence) or even Linux ('a cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity'-thanks Red Dwarf).

Bill Gates single-handedly invented this Internet thingie (or was it Al Gore?) that you lot seem to like, passing fad as it is. Microsoft is the embodiment of innovation and 'cloud computing' is just one of the latest heaven sent ideas to spring from the Redmond campus. Microsoft leads, others follow.

And when they, in all their majesty, give unto a grateful world the saviour that is 'Windows 7' shall all know the enlightened truth. Just as Moses was the prophet (or is that profit?) for the Lord thy God, Vista should be considered in kind towards 'Windows 7'. In fact if you are the most righteous and holy of people, you should go out an buy as many copies of Vista as possible. May Satan suckle on you testicles if you refuse in this God given task.

We all recognise that it is only a matter of time before Bill Gates is canonized by the Pope for his charity to mankind. And also that Ballmer's most holy words 'Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!' shall become the new trinity, +1. Just as Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca, in the years to come the devout shall journey to Redmond. Praise be.

And to my brothers 'Anonymous Coward', hallelujah!

Doesnt matter what new features they do or dont put in....

...as we will be rolling it out to a corporate environment we will be disabling/hiding/removing 75% of the features anyway.

All we need for business use is a lean, stable and secure platform that enables us (the company) to allow users to run JUST the applications they need to do the job. Nothing more.

MS moved away from this scenario from 2000 onwards.

Don't forget Orifice...

What's the betting Orifice 2009 won't be able to run on XP?

Or, knowing M$, they'll try and merge Windoze and Orifice (whilst producing a cut down version without Orifice - or virtually anything else - to please the lawyers)

Let's face it - they've (just about) got away with bundling (mainly very basic, cut down versions of) an Internet browser, an email program, an IM application, a media player, a video editor, a DVD creator, and a firewall.

What's left apart from a useless AV / security suite, some form of photo editor, and Orifice?

Then by Windows 8 or 9, it will probably be virtually impossible to run the OS on a standalone box, as they'll try to wean us onto subscribing to online versions of many applications, especially Orifice...

Bill because everyone at M$ will still treat him like a prophet and lap up every crazy new idea he comes up with...

@ all the fanboys

There seems to be a lot of people vying to be the biggest M$ hater here.

I understand many of the criticisms, but it makes me wonder what you're doing if you have such vast problems with your Windows installs etc. As a sysadmin for 16 years I've used and deployed lots of operating systems, including VMS, Solaris, linux and of course Windows. I can honestly say that since NT4 SP2 I've not had any real trouble. Sure, Vista has a few things I'm not so keen on - but it has always worked just fine for me on average hardware.

I believe in a 'horses for courses' approach. Linux is great for lots of things, rightfully deserves it's place in the market and will hopefully keep on getting better, but if you're deploying basic directory/file/print/email etc then 2003/8 server with XP clients is way more convenient and supportable IMHO. They don't break if you know what you're doing with them and are a doddle to look after. My company isn't deploying Vista because it doesn't offer enough extra for us - but that doesn't mean it's rubbish at all. I've had far more trouble with 3rd party apps.

I'm no MS fanboy and I don't work in Redmond - I just think that some of you need to grow up a bit, especially if you consider yourselves IT professionals.

(if anything I'm a VMS fanboy, but unfortunately it's had it's day now)

oh yeah.....

"Microsoft remains tight-lipped and focused on re-marketing its unloved Vista OS"

That explains CPC offering vista home premium for £35.00 plus vat then , funny , i thought Mongsoft were software marketeers , not experts in waste management .

"oh keep that money rolling in ,

'cos Steve and lonely Billbo ,

can't get enough of it ,

Lets dance."

7 still an illegal product

The court decision in the DOJ v Microsoft antitrust case determined that it is illegal to continue to commingle IE with the OS. So Vista along with 7 are illegally sold and distributed in violation of US Federal law.

Of course Microsoft could care less. It is more important to screw stupid and ignorant Microsoft customers by removing their ability to pick and choose key applications.

Even those Microsoft customers who think they are intelligent simply are not. And they have been rendered unimportant.

Too bad some idiots think they are competent by buying or using Microsoft software when Microsoft proves the opposite is true by their continue use of illegal practices.

@Giles Jones

Money aside:

Use a Mac, the OS is cheap, but the hardware is grossly overpriced that no wonder they can sell an upgrade every year for 79.99$... hum? ho wait... 79.99x5 =....

Linux is Free Hurray.... it can run on 386 with 640k of ram.. no more need for upgrade i can now keep my computer for 10+ years! but what use can i have for a oversize clock? or decent computer wotj an OS that is FREE but the support cost more then MS taxe on new computer.....

Mac is (and always will be) a piece of crap and yes you can polish a turd, apple proves it year after year... they also prove that a polished turd can be sell for far more money then a un polish one. (Take generic, badly design X86 hardware, put a Apple sticker on it, put a basterd BIOS, sell for 1000$'s more)

Funny how Vista on a 2007-2008 hardware with RECENT programs work fine... but when you install it on a 2003 computer (or a 499$ 2008 computer) the problems shows up. the solution is not hard... you got a old computer stick with XP... plaing on a new one.. get vista.

Paris? because she probably own every single Mac model ever made. (her IQ is perfecly representing the avarage Mac use IQ)

@Lewis Mettler

If all companies where to be punish for illegal behavior, Apple whould be down under for a long time now (illegal DRM, FORCE application and NOW CHOICE of software, LOCKED DOWN HARDWARE) apple is the whorst monopoly to ever exist in the computer era, this is a FACT now deal with it. (make a effort i know it is hard without a proper IQ but there is pills for that)

You people're funny.

I've never paid for Windows.

In fact, I've never paid for any software I've used on a Windows system save for games and the occasional bit of open source programming I've supported with a donation.

When Microsoft can manage to stay out of court for two years in a row behind theft of intellectual property or unsavory business practices I'll listen to them knock on about 'piracy'.

In the meantime, I find that whatever software it is I manage to come across, it's never worth the money. And that, quite frankly, is annoying.

Particularly given the prices.

@marc

Thats an intersting postion, so all your MS application work nicely together. How nice for you.

I do however take issue with your statement, about OSX, in that we have an eMac (yes thats an e) running OSX 10.3 or 4 it might even be 10.5.

My point, is that you can run 10.5 on 2 year old hardware at least. So long as you have 512meg and at least 900Mhz it will run, and run just fine thank you.

Now try that with Vista, go on I dare you, run vista on a machine from two years ago.

Oh lets be fair, run it on 900Mhz with 512Meg.

Now compare the cost, which you have to compare with the one with all the features.

Or of course you could just accept that no one company is more pure then the next, that they all screw thier users over in some respect. Accept that MS has issues, it clearly does, Vista is late with half its functionality descoped, and they cant count, surely (ignoring the consumer side (3, 3fwg, 95, 98 and ME)) Vista is windows 7.....(NT3, NT4, Win2K[5], XP[6], Vista[7].....). Unless of course Vista is just a face lift to XP or was XP just a face lift to Win2K.

They do need to take a leaf out of Apples book, and its not copying their UI or functionality. It is to ditch the backwards compatiability for older systems, yes some wont like it, but some times to encourage growth you have to trim the deadwood (oooh that makes a good codename ;)).

Windows vs Linux

AC said

"I'm a windows user through and through, I've used linux a lot but it's not what I want from an OS. Learning to get linux work how you want it to takes just as much effort as learning how to customise windows properly and I just can't understand what makes people think otherwise."

I would certainly never suggest that Linux is better than Windows because it is easier. I don't know where you got that idea.

Windows - Need to learn a lot to use it properly

Linux - Need to learn a lot to use it properly

Windows - Insecure bloated mess that constantly gets infected with viruses without gobs of anti-malware apps to protect it and crashes constantly (I write this while I wait for my Vista PC to reboot after a BSOD caused by VS2008 hanging while "converting a project from a previous version". Pah.

Linux - Virtually never gets infested with malware, rarely crashes.

Windows - Costs lots of dollars, support apps cost lots more, have to agree to restrictive EULAs

Linux - Free as in beer, free as in Freedom

So, when you say "Linux is not what I want from an OS" you are actually saying "I'm an idiot and would prefer to put my efforts into learning a bloated, insecure and expensive OS because, well, just because."

Good luck on that one AC.

@ac @Marc

"Accept that MS has issues, it clearly does, Vista is late with half its functionality descoped, and they cant count, surely (ignoring the consumer side (3, 3fwg, 95, 98 and ME)) Vista is windows 7.....(NT3, NT4, Win2K[5], XP[6], Vista[7].....). Unless of course Vista is just a face lift to XP or was XP just a face lift to Win2K"

Gaah, MS might not be able to count, but you can't read. Two or three posts in this thread have already explained that, so I'll do it again.

NT4

Win2000 = NT5.0

XP = NT 5.1

Vista = NT6

Windows 7 = NT7

*bangs head against wall*

Also, just for snarks:

"OK you could get Ubuntu for a reasonable price, but in teh long run you will end up with a product having a larger cost. Not in hard cash, maybe, but certainly in time and effort. Me, I want a PC I can switch on, use, plug any shit I buy into and just be done with it."

A: Ubuntu is free

B: The support isn't that pricey, if you decide that forums and copying and pasting solutions is too hard. I can't recall exactly what it is, something like £30 a month. If you are having a specific problem/s then get a months support and get them all sorted. Quite sure you can do that, but I'm happy to be corrected [it's too late at night to be googling that shit for me]. Once *nix systems are up, they tend to stay up, certainly more than any Win32 system I have used. Haven't had to wipe this lappy once, even over three OS upgrades. just tell it to update to the latest release, leave it for an hour and it's done. Lovely. And no £180 price tag with it, ta.

C: I changed to Ubuntu so I *could* just turn my PC on and have it just work. I use this lappy for wanking/banking and for that it does a wonderful job. I have an XP machine for if I need to do something Windows Hardware Compatability List specific, like flipping the bird at mates over 't webcam. Although I now look for hardware that is Linux/Ubunto known good, to work around that. The same way that you would look for a Vista Compatible sticker on any hardware you buy to make sure it's certified to work on Vista.

I'll admit with most hardware, it just works with Windows [and the drivers, natch] but there's a good reason for that - it's called Windows having 90%+ of the market, which is a pretty fucking big incentive for hardware vendors making their stuff work on the 32bit NT5/6 code base. However, if you are selective about your hardware, Linux will 'just work' to a frankly gobsmacking degree.

I'm a hardware/desktop support/network tech - it's in my interest to know this sort of shite inside out, and I'm quite happy to admit that there are people out there like yourselves who simply aren't as IT savvy as some of us and don't get the concept of, say, educating yourself before making a purchase. And that's fine. Stick with your Windows, BSODs and systems that slowly start grinding to a halt and DRM - they keep me in pocket money, that's for sure.

No comment on Mac OS - too knackered.

I'll get my coat - it's the dressing gown with the frayed sleeves.

Steven "Insomnia sucks and makes me ratty" Raith.

Sigh...

I love it when people sign in here and tell me that Vista is great because they don't have a problem with it and that the problem must be with me. I guess I'm just dreaming when the Vista lapper we have in the house just goes BSOD on me for no reason whatever. Before I hear some flack, the lapper was bought WITH Vista, was Vista certified, made by a name brand manufacturer and has almost no additional software added to it outside of a couple of games and VLC.

@ the "trying to be the biggest MS hater" comment - I don't hate MS because of problems I've had with them. I've supported them and used XP for ages with very few problems that, admittedly, were mostly caused by 3rd party drivers. I hate MS because I don't like their business practices, I don't like the DRM, I don't like having a monopolistic, giant corporation telling me what I can and cannot do with my equipment and I mostly don't like being stuck with a cookie cutter desktop unless I go through third party software and more hoops than a circus acrobat to make it something decent looking.

Mines the one with the OpenGEU disk in the pocket and a thumb drive chock full o' nifty little apps for maintainint MS crap.

Only one problem with Vista / Server 2008

I use and recommend vista at work. I have found Intel machines with XP to be unstable, the AMD processor driver seems to fix most of these issue's in XP but to be consistent I recommend Vista.

I find Vista to be relatively quick on a modern machine, and it hums along nicely as long as you have got a very fast hard disk or a RAID config and lots of RAM (4GB +). I don't understand why they bothered with a 32 bit version though its useless with its 3 1/2 Gb memory limit?

I do however have one HUGE annoyance with Vista, and it has spread to windows server 2008.

The networking stack has been written by a bunch of drunken monkeys on acid.

I regularly find that the a network connection will refuse to pick up an address from a DHCP server, and when you nail an address in place it still refuses to work, The only solution I have found is to run a virtual machine with XP or Ubuntu and bridge the network card... Yes the VM then can use the network while the host still tells you that the network is screwed..

I find I have this problem on Dell hardware, Gigabyte motherboards, Asus motherboards and one HP laptop that I have recently used. It does not always happen but when it does you bet I need it to work urgently.

I Don't hate M$ as they pay my bills but I do wish they could get the basics of an OS right before they ship it, at least the Linux guys can do it and most of them are not paid to work on it.

ubuntu support costs

You see how much I love you all? Two hours sleep and I find this for you [admittedly not exactly a challenge]

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid

US$250 for a years desktop support from Canonical themselves.

I realise that's more of a business thing, but there was a 'retail' Ubuntu distro that was about £30 which as I recall included a couple of months support bundled with it, which is the one I was thinking about.

There, not *that* bad at all is it?

Steven "Grouchy" R

Vista Kernel

NT4

Win2000 = NT5.0

XP = NT 5.1 << as its based on the NT5 Kernel

Vista = NT6

Windows 7 = NT6.1 << as its based on the Vista Kernel

yes? no?

I still say they cant count.

@ Goat Jam

"after a BSOD caused by VS2008 hanging"

Hang on, Windows Vista didn't cause this error, VS2008 did. Your blaming the wrong product there!

Why not run VS2008 on Linux?....oh wait you can't, because Linux doesn't support it. Maybe because Linux doesn't support as many products, it doesn't crash as much. Hmm.

@Zappa

Nobody would say that MS aren't a pretty damn ruthless company, but then so are many others. They have had, and continue to get a roasting in the courts. Good.

But leave the DRM rubbish out of it:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299&tag=rbxccnbzd1

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=304&tag=rbxccnbzd1

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=309&tag=rbxccnbzd1

But then you probably think it's all a conspiracy. Sigh.

IT angle because the discussion seems to border on fundamentalism most of the time..

@M

>>"after a BSOD caused by VS2008 hanging"

> Hang on, Windows Vista didn't cause this error, VS2008 did. Your blaming the wrong product there!

No, he's not... what sort of crappy operating system (I'm not expecting answers, by the way...) falls over and dies because it doesn't properly manage the applications running under it?

> Why not run VS2008 on Linux?....oh wait you can't, because Linux doesn't support it. Maybe because Linux doesn't support as many products, it doesn't crash as much. Hmm.

No, it doesn't crash as much because it has a well-designed, modular structure, is truly multi-tasking (not a beefed-up toy consumer OS), and uses a dependency database for code libraries to maintain compatibility of installed applications, or "avoids DLL Hell" for short. Some of my servers have been running happily for over a year without re-booting, so add decent memory management to that list. Oh, and add the "No Linux viruses, ever" to the analysis (NetProject still offers a huge sum of money to anyone who can actually infect one of their properly-configured Linux boxes with a "Linux virus").

Another braincell-challenged numpty who probably has no idea of how long computer science existed without Ctrl-Alt-Del and blue screens of death...