muddy

Vista won't allow software applications to do some things that they were able to do in Windows XP and earlier. An example is an attempt by a software app to write to a system folder will crash the app.

It will be interesting to see how many apps that ran fine on XP crash on Vista.

kanebear

IMO the major apps will be fine. It's the custom coded/shareware/vertical apps that are going to be a bear. Nexion (online host travel agency) software loads but won't even run. That may have more to do with IE7 than Vista though, it relies pretty heavily on the IE engine. Utilities such as ATITool also don't work but admittedly that's a low level driver hack anyway!

murphy

I think ReadyBoost is a neat idea, and it's nice that the OS finally has a decent search. I don't think Vista's a bad OS at all, as long as you have plenty of RAM and a good video card with plenty of VRAM. That said, what have they been doing for the past five years? If Vista had been released in 2003, I'd be a lot more impressed.

ScottC

^

Apple released an OS with pretty much the same kind of improvements, but in a nicer, faster package with a heck of a lot less fanfare, 2 years sooner and on time.

For an OS that took them this long to make I had expected so much more.

Internaut

I think people get to tied up on the whole OS issue. On my home laptop, I'd probably still be happy with Windows 98SE if still supported (but not ME) given what I do at home. On my work laptop, I often need to do engineering tasks and find it easier to boot up in Ubuntu than I do Windows (lots of analysis of data that ends up in text files because that's what I'm comfortable with, and a little network diagnosis - always easier in a UNIX type environment IMHO).

Vista will just happen to be the operating system that comes with the next laptop I buy. If it's as stable as XP (and I've been very happy with XP for basic office tasks) then I'll not complain (in spite of the fact that I'll not be doing anything I didn't do before, using an OS that requires twice the laptop).

It is IMHO best not got get too tied up on the Windows issue. For most people, Windows whatever does what they think they need it to do here and now.

DavidNZ

I am watching the development/release of Vista with great interest. Specifically, will be watching the 'real world' experiences posted by those who actually use the final version Vista day-to-day with slightly outdated equipment.

The warranty on my Thinkpad X40 is due to expire in July 2006. Right now, am trying to decide whether to move (back) to the Mac environment or stick it out and get a new laptop with Vista. Am concerned about privacy and safe-guarded files, and from what Steve said in the last Security Now, it seems the 64-bit version of Vista will be the way to go. What that means for application compatibility, who knows.

Have been scouring around my local Mac store for the past week or so. Have to say, the Macbook Pros are nice, but I can see why the Apple forums are lit up with complaints regarding the screen, particularly on the matte versions. I noticed the unevenly lit screens in the store, so can't imagine what they would look like at home. I've also read lots of reports (granted, in online forums, so biased sample?) of really poor wifi. The Macbooks are nice, but have heard that doing, say, a powerpoint presentation with embedded video really taxes the shared video memory. Have been looking for other reports online to back this up, but nothing so far. When I was at the store yesterday, I asked them if I could rent one for a few days (my company would be purchasing it, and we're one of the largest employers in town) and they said they didn't do that. Doesn't help a potential 'switcher', I have to say (even though I was a Mac-head for most of the 1990s).

Anyway, I'm still on the fence and can't decide. If I stick it out with Vista, it will definitely be a Thinkpad, but I'm seriously concerned about how secure Vista will be and whether it will be more trouble than it's worth.

Time will tell. Apologies for the length...

skofarrell

Installed it this morning. The RTM build is 6000. 5600 was B2, IIRC.

Newryman

I installed it on a spare disk I have for my ageing Thinkpad T20. It's the release candidate 1.

First thing, it's big, about 8.5GB.

Second thing, it's slow. Very slow.

Third thing, it's unstable. It crashed more times than I counted.

Fourth thing, it's forever asking permission to do the most mundane tasks. Annoying.

Fifth thing, you've got to have a decent graphics card or some things just don't run. My T20 doesn't so they didn't. Apple manages to handle old hardware gracefully, why can't MS?

Sixth thing, lots of features don't work. Changing the colours and deleting files over the network, for example. How they can label it a release candidate is beyond me.

Seventh thing, it's incompatible with lots of programs. It has a "compatibility mode" which comes up and says that it didn't think that something installed right in the first place and would I like to reinstall it in compatibility mode. This generally makes no difference.

Eighth thing, the screen fonts are beautiful.Prettiness. New UI, transparencies and effects. If you have a machine that will do it it's rather stunning.

Ninth thing, I cannot find anything else to get excited about.

Tenth thing, the new GUI looks as if it was designed by a glue-sniffing teenager.

I could go on.

Disk has now been replaced with the original and both myself and the machine are a lot happier.

muddy

Can't wait to see how msft handles the inevitable fallout from crashing apps, if lots of apps are truly crashing. I think the incompatibility problems are probably mostly security related. Hopefully, if they get enough grief from the development community, msft can/will let the user tweek some security settings down for compatibility, or let the user assign permissions to software apps for compatibility in future Vista releases.

bettyflyer

Like others I think its a good idea to wait for the first major release before upgrading so most bugs are worked out.

vt2k

Not fully correct. If the software that's trying to write to the system folder does not handle the return value that the operating system is giving it saying the software needs to request access or have access to that folder, then it's likely the software will encounter problems (crash, stop responding, just not know what to do).

If the software was written correctly, it will be able to continue to function as normal, provided the user running the software has the administrator password and is able to enter it.

This is one of the new security features to prevent viruses or maleware from affecting the operating system.

vt2k

D'oh ... I meant 6000 :-) not sure why the fingers typed 5600. Good catch! ^

vt2k

Not to sound like a jerk, but that's that was the beginning of your entire set of problems. You have an aging Thinkpad.

Laptops are always behind desktops in terms of performance. The graphics cards are rarely as powerful, the disk drive rarely spins at 7200 rpms (instead they spin at 5400 rpms which is notably slower), and the processor is slower due to power consumption issues.

If you want to see this operating system run as it's supposed to, install it on a newer computer.

Think about it this way: You don't put the newest Hemi engine into a Geo Metro when it comes out; you buy a new truck with that engine

muddy

Not arguing with that at all. The point I was attempting to make is that there is a lot of software out there that was written before VISTA and thus before VISTA's security requirements. You could also argue that even in legacy software, writing to system folders was considered "not good practice" by many developers. It doesnt mean that it didnt happen. Also, it was just an example. There are probably a dozen other security related issues that may cause problems.

In any event, the main point is that the XP-VISTA transition won't, IMO, be as smooth as previous transitions (98 to XP for example), because of security related compatibility issues with older applications.

Time will tell ...

vt2k

Yes, I agree with that statement. There's going to be some pain involved, but I think it's a good pain people will tolerate. In the end, they'll be better off.