[binary visions]

So... I snagged a copy of Windows Vista x64, beta 2 via bittorrent. I wiped out my linux install and stuck it in that partition.

All I can say is wow, they sure went out of their way to make it pretty. The Aero theme has some cool effects, and everything does some kind of pop-in or pop-out effect, nothing just "appears". When Windows wants your attention, the whole desktop gets darkened and the attention box pops up. New screensavers, too.

The gadget bar isn't really my thing but at least it's well implemented.

The driver installation is cleaner and easier to use. When you start Windows, the first box that pops up has an option to look for hardware with missing drivers. The only hardware that was missing upon install for me was my Realtek AC97 soundcard, which it prompty found online and installed without any issues.

Unfortunately, they weren't kidding when they said it was going to have some higher system requirements. My computer is no slouch, an Athlon 64 running at about 2.4ghz, 1gb of dual channel memory, and a PCI-E 6600GT. The Aero effects actually do put a slightly noticable hit on system performance. Not enough to make it even remotely unusable, but it's there. Turning off the Aero effects makes everything fly, but the memory usage is still up there.

Haven't discovered anything to get excited about. I'm going to use it for a couple weeks to get a good feel for it before I make any kind of judgement about it - takes a little while to get everything bedded in and configured the way I like it.

Anyone else tried it?

 

[Ciaran]

Not tried it yet but I am super curious. Dang, I'm not sure any of my machines can handle it though! From your limitied test time do you think we're looking at 2 to 3 gigs of RAM or more being needed for a really zippy machine?

 

[Tenchiro]

It looks nice, but it is a shame about all the nag screens they want to add. Also the DRM news I have heard has all been very discouraging.

Although, once it is release I am positive I will steal it.

 

[binary visions]

Not tried it yet but I am super curious. Dang, I'm not sure any of my machines can handle it though! From your limitied test time do you think we're looking at 2 to 3 gigs of RAM or more being needed for a really zippy machine?

I think 2gb would make it pretty fast. I don't have much of a problem with my machine, when I get to cranking and a bunch of windows open, the occasional window will start to lag or get jerky.

I haven't tried running it for any extended time with the nice Aero effects turned off. When I shut them off, things sped up quite a bit.

 

[binary visions]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx

Sign up for the beta. Immediate download of Beta 2 with a product key. Also qualifies you for a copy of RC1.

Enjoy!

 

[Ciaran]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx

Sign up for the beta. Immediate download of Beta 2 with a product key. Also qualifies you for a copy of RC1.

Enjoy!

3.2 gig download.

Can't wait till it's done. I'm going to put it on the laptop... maybe.

 

[Pau11y]

D/l when I get home. Back at my old job for some consultant work. Are betas normally time-bomb'd?

 

[Ciaran]

installing now...

 

[SkaredShtles]

<snip>
All I can say is wow, they sure went out of their way to make it pretty. <snip>
Unfortunately, they weren't kidding when they said it was going to have some higher system requirements.

So I guess I'll keep W2K.

 

[binary visions]

[ QUOTE=binary visions]<snip>
All I can say is wow, they sure went out of their way to make it pretty. <snip>
Unfortunately, they weren't kidding when they said it was going to have some higher system requirements.

So I guess I'll keep W2K.

Nice quoting skills

Win2k was a very nice OS. It was when Microsoft finally pulled their heads out of their butts and realized that Win98 was horrendous and bloated and NT handled a lot of things better.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people missed out when they didn't upgrade to WinXP Pro. People got turned off by the initial new skin and funky start menu, when all of that was super easy to turn off. My XP Pro box is much more stable than my Win2k box was.

 

[Pau11y]

Nice quoting skills

Win2k was a very nice OS. It was when Microsoft finally pulled their heads out of their butts and realized that Win98 was horrendous and bloated and NT handled a lot of things better.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people missed out when they didn't upgrade to WinXP Pro. People got turned off by the initial new skin and funky start menu, when all of that was super easy to turn off. My XP Pro box is much more stable than my Win2k box was.

Yeah, I'm wondering how much tweaking to the startup/services/registry/UI needs to be done to get Vista to run efficiently. Once you got the routine for XP down, it was about 10 mins...

 

[binary visions]

Yeah, I'm wondering how much tweaking to the startup/services/registry/UI needs to be done to get Vista to run efficiently. Once you got the routine for XP down, it was about 10 mins...

Honestly, though, once you knock off the special start menu and the cartoon-style graphics, XP is as fast and stable an operating system as Microsoft has ever released. Without tweaking the registry or services.

It does appear that Vista gives you more direct control over things like the services, startup programs, etc. It doesn't hide as much - the control panel is much bigger.

 

[Ciaran]

Well, it's installed.

Looks very pretty, VERY pretty.

It's only been running for a few hours so I don't know how stable it is but install was a breeze. It found all but 3 of the device drivers and when I told it to update them from the web it found all three and installed without any hassle.

And did it really format my hard drive that fast!?!

The sidebar panel thingie is cool but I'm not sure how long it will last as part of my laptops desktop. I can see me using it on the dual monitor setup since there's more real estate.

Like any major revision to an OS they have moved some things around and renamed others. The nice thing is that you can always swith to a "classic" windows interface which makes it look pretty much like 2K. I'm going to try out the Aero dealie for a while and see if I can figure everything out and get used to it. (I'm sure I can, it's just a computer)

New desktop pics, including some for wide and dual screen setups.

So far so good. Overall I think the visual changes are good. Windows needed a face lift and this one looks good. (Reminds me a little of a Linux GUI).

Thanks for the link, B.V.

Honestly, though, once you knock off the special start menu and the cartoon-style graphics, XP is as fast and stable an operating system as Microsoft has ever released. Without tweaking the registry or services.

I've always said that if set up correctly Windows can be a very stable and fast O.S. You just have to know how to set it up.

 

[BigMike]

So all this talk about "pretty"....... I've heard it looks a lot like OSX, is that true?

I may just have to DL it and stick it on a box somewhere

 

[binary visions]

So all this talk about "pretty"....... I've heard it looks a lot like OSX, is that true?

I may just have to DL it and stick it on a box somewhere

It definitely has some features that are reminiscent of OS-X. Some parts of it (especially the Aero transparancy "glass" effects) are just really nice, but things like the Gadget Bar are absolutely OS-X inspired.

 

[syadasti]

It definitely has some features that are reminiscent of OS-X. Some parts of it (especially the Aero transparancy "glass" effects) are just really nice, but things like the Gadget Bar are absolutely OS-X inspired.

The OSX dashboard-type program wasn't invented by Apple though, the idea was taken from a third party company's OSX product called Konfabulator who now makes a windows/Mac version that Yahoo now calls Widgets (yahoo bought them).

The only difference between Konfabulator and Dashboard is that Konfabulator uses XML and JavaScript to generate Widgets, Dashboard uses HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

In any case, just like the GUI and mp3 player, Apple didn't invent it, they took the technology from the true innovators.

 

[syadasti]

Ah and Vista. I don't like it so far.

Slow/resource intensive, too many options/features - seems like for the average user they'd get overwhelmed compared to Win2K or XP. Security seems better but there are a million are you sure pop-up windows whenever you want to do anything :mumble:

It was quicker to DL than it was to install (though I have a 20 Mb/s connection). Almost 15 GB installed with Office 2007, thats crazy. I took the X64 version.

First the damn thing wouldn't boot after the installation cause I was in the native RAID controller mode in the BIOS (often an issue in Linux installs/liveCD too, but I figured it wasn't an issue cause the installation process had no problems with the HDDs). Everything worked except for my soundcard (XFi music, newest creative soundblaster card on the market), wifi card (WPN311, Atheros chipset), scanner (Canon Lide 80), webcam (just the video portion, the USB microphone installed itself), and printer (newer Canon iP4200), and ULI raid controller (newer product M1575). All power management features seem to be working just fine.

I managed to find working x64 drivers for the printer and wireless card (haha, all the sites said it wouldn't work), but I had to extract the WinXP x64 drivers and bypass the executables to get them to work in Vista. The older build Vista beta drivers for the XFi and RAID controller would not work in Vista, even if I bypassed the installers.

I'll stick with WinXP 32-bit and OSX for now.

Don't forget you can get Office 2007 beta, its a lot different looking than the older versions, I haven't used it enough to pass judgement.

 

[Pau11y]

Don't forget you can get Office 2007 beta, its a lot different looking than the older versions, I haven't used it enough to pass judgement.

Linky sir

I'm with you tho, I had it installed and was messing around w/ it for about 4 hours. Bloated/slow, naggy, things are hidden all over the place, and this is on a machine w/ 2 gb of ram (Athlon64 3700+ w/ 1mb of L2). I crippled everything and went back to the "classic" theme and it did help a bit, but not w/ the nagging...
I'm still on the XP 32bit as well, tho I'm about to play w/ some linux flavors on that rig.

 

[binary visions]

Linky sir

I'm with you tho, I had it installed and was messing around w/ it for about 4 hours. Bloated/slow, naggy, things are hidden all over the place, and this is on a machine w/ 2 gb of ram (Athlon64 3700+ w/ 1mb of L2). I crippled everything and went back to the "classic" theme and it did help a bit, but not w/ the nagging...
I'm still on the XP 32bit as well, tho I'm about to play w/ some linux flavors on that rig.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/overview.mspx

The "nagging" is something that any power user would turn off but I think it's funny you guys are complaining about it. Microsoft can't win - they get hammered when they give their system default admin privileges, they get hammered when they take them away and put in warning messages. Any good Linux installation does the same thing (sudo), and AFAIK OS-X also asks you when it needs to use admin privileges.

They're pretty easy to turn off, but I think I'll laugh and let you guys suffer until you figure it out - considering the obvious location of the setting, it shouldn't take long

The "things hidden all over the place" is just a result of the reorganization of any new operating system. I spent several hours tinkering and don't find anything to be any more hidden than in any previous generation - some things have been moved, but they aren't hidden.

Bloated? Most def. But keep in mind you've got the Ultimate version which includes Microsoft Media Center and a bunch of other bloated Microsoft tools. The normal person version won't be quite that big.

 

[syadasti]

Linky sir

Link

Only 440 MB this time...

 

[syadasti]

By default, you get less of those nagging windows in linux or Mac OSX and plus it doesn't do the annoying screen dimming either. A pop-up box is all you need. Plus the other OS ask the for the password if you are doing something that requires admin. permissions, in Vista, once you've logged in, it doesn't seem to care other than clicking ok - seems less secure to me.

I am rating the product as compared to the others out of the box, not how power users would configure them. I think the average computer user doesn't change too many of the default settings.

 

[binary visions]

annoying screen dimming

The annoying screen dimming that simply happens in the background and doesn't affect anything? And I didn't find it to happen a significant amount more than I needed to sudo in Linux.

Plus the other OS ask the for the password if you are doing something that requires admin. permissions, in Vista, once you've logged in, it doesn't seem to care other than clicking ok - seems less secure to me.

Ah. So you don't like when the boxes pop up, but you'd like it more if you had to enter your password every time. Gotcha.

I am rating the product as compared to the others out of the box, not how power users would configure them. I think the average computer user doesn't change too many of the default settings.

The power users, who are the ones who do not need to have those boxes, WILL change the default settings. The average computer user, who can't change those default settings, will have an added level of protection.

 

[syadasti]

The power users, who are the ones who do not need to have those boxes, WILL change the default settings. The average computer user, who can't change those default settings, will have an added level of protection.

Its protection isn't as good if it doesn't require knowing the password. Malware scripts can just cycle through the dialog boxes. Security is the reason the other OS have you enter the password manually...

 

[binary visions]

Its protection isn't as good if it doesn't require knowing the password. Malware scripts can just cycle through the dialog boxes. Security is the reason the other OS have you enter the password manually...

It's possible, but if Windows actually takes control of the system when it pops up the box (e.g. as it does when you ctrl-alt-delete), it interrupts the script and isn't processing script commands while the user hits "Next".

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that's what it does.

 

[syadasti]

Yeah I'm not sure either.

Vista is still excessive with the nagging. OSX and the like don't require passwords to do safe tasks like merely open the system manager or view settings (not change them).

Vista ask permission for tasks that shouldn't require them and offers no real benefit other than wasting your time.

 

[binary visions]

Vista ask permission for tasks that shouldn't require them and offers no real benefit other than wasting your time.

Meh. Considering the typical user's amount of time spent in their system settings (I agree that viewing doesn't need a confirmation and they should only ask when appling changes), I look at this as a pretty small complaint. Not to mention the actual measurement of time wasted is in the tenths of a second.

The people who spend a lot of time in their settings will shut it off quickly, because they will know how and they will be comfortable doing it. The people who don't, won't see the message much. Mostly for installation of new programs.

I got a lot of messages at first since I was poking around in the system settings quite a lot, but the average user who, as you pointed out, won't know how to turn them off, also won't be looking at what you and I are looking at.

 

[Ciaran]

I am rating the product as compared to the others out of the box, not how power users would configure them. I think the average computer user doesn't change too many of the default settings.

And THAT Ladies and Gentelmen is the main problem with Windows. No one takes the time to configure it. Windows should never be run as it is out of the box. EVER.

As a geek you should EXPECT and look forward to configuring your OS for maximum performance. And like BV said it's the Ultimate Version. MS didn't tell you what you need, they gave you everything and let you decide. If someone gave you a bike and a box of every accessory imaginable would you put every one on your bike and wear everything and go ride? Would you wear a full face and body armor on a light XC ride? No, you would use only what you need.

I am running it on a 2.0 ghz laptop with 1.5 gigs of RAM, after config and time to settle in, it's running fine. Not as fast as my XP box, but for a BETA VERSION it's doing pretty well.

 

[D_D]

Its protection isn't as good if it doesn't require knowing the password. Malware scripts can just cycle through the dialog boxes. Security is the reason the other OS have you enter the password manually...

IIRC windows is much more vunerable to this sort of stuff because there is no way to find the source of a message. If a program gets a message that the Ok button was clicked it can't determine if it was clicked by the user or a bad program.
A program running under your username can do anything you can do sitting at the computer.
IMO this is largly an unexplored avenue for malware writers because it hasn't yet been required.

I got a lot of messages at first since I was poking around in the system settings quite a lot, but the average user who, as you pointed out, won't know how to turn them off, also won't be looking at what you and I are looking at.

Why should you have to turn them off? They should be a usefull security feature not an annoyance. If you want to see how it can be done in a much less annoying manor try os x or some of the recent user friendly linux distros.

 

[binary visions]

IIRC windows is much more vunerable to this sort of stuff because there is no way to find the source of a message.

Windows can easily suspend all processes currently running in order to ask the user a question, though. Any OS has the ability to suspend any and all processes - this is why Ctrl-Alt-Delete functions the way it does, because Windows recognizes the key combination and ignores whatever else the system is doing at the moment to present you with your Ctrl-Alt-Delete dialogues.

So, if implemented properly, I do not see this as a security problem. And despite the little faith people have in Microsoft, the fact is that their programmers are very, very good. Windows has a lot of problems, but a lot of them are due to the enormous amount of back-compatibility that it needs to maintain. That and the enormous market share, which prompts people to write vulnerabilities in the first place.

I'll bet you a case of your favorite beer that they're not just presenting you with a stock dialogue box and a choice to continue or not.

Why should you have to turn them off? They should be a usefull security feature not an annoyance. If you want to see how it can be done in a much less annoying manor try os x or some of the recent user friendly linux distros.

I know how they are implemented in linux distros and have less experience with, but have seen them in OS-X as well. They are not a security feature for me. I know what is going to happen when I perform an action on my computer. I understand the implications of running an executable. I recognize that changing system settings can screw things up. I understand what file types are what and which ones are able to execute code.

I keep virus protection & spyware software on my computer, but it's just a fail-safe. I have triggered my most recent installation of AVG exactly once, and I was 98% sure it was going to trip when I ran the file. It's just not that hard to keep your computer safe and secure if you know what you're doing - and only those who know what they're doing should go looking for how to disable that feature.

 

[Pau11y]

I was only going at it for 4 hours after install so what I said isn't exactly from a very indepth experience. The machine I slapped it on is now tasked for my HTPC (finally got my screen - Westy 42" 1080P). I may go back to it (Vista) once its out in retail and tweak w/ it more for my workstation. But I don't think I want something that resource intensive for a HTPC...will prob stick w/ a tweaked XP Pro install for that purpose.
Oh BTW BV, I'll have all my music ripped by this weekend (been away for work). I'll PM you for arrangements later.

 

[binary visions]

Hahaha... I completely forgot about that music deal.

I betcha didn't get the 42" Westy on the $1500 special they had for about 24 hours, did you? I was tempted to buy one myself at that ridiculous price!

 

[habitatxskate]

dling now..do you have to wipe all your info once you install it?

 

[binary visions]

dling now..do you have to wipe all your info once you install it?

Not if you don't want to. Just depends on how you install it.

 

[habitatxskate]

well i backed everything up, and it did delete everything, which is kind of good..i'm running it now, i like it so far, still windows, but not half bad, almost has something similar to mac, i guess Bill Gates is onto something.