<shakes head> if ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Fd's so happy with M$ demands on his wallet I 'm struggling to bring myself to burst his bucolic bubble happiness; well, not really struggling, more like.. not struggling. Having test run Schmista this week on a new laptop, I have to say that..

yes it does look very nice and shiny, if you have the hardware
yes the inbuilt AV does work quite well, although I'd like to see more reporting.
yes the inbuilt firewall is actually ok, again more reporting and management would be good, though.
yes the user rights security does work quite well, although it can be a little irksome when you're putting software on even when logged in with an admin account.

All in all, it seems quite solid so far and pretty safe. But.. it's still open to exploits, I can still get in through certain default ports that are left open, and it can still be right royally screwed up by incompetent bungling users. Took only four days before one of the sales reps brought it back in a heap. So it isn't foolproof by any means. And I hear that there's a whole new batch of worms and trojans being cooked up to target Vista specifically.

IMHO it still needs a decent third party firewall and, of course, some care on the part users. Don't assume that just because it's "safer" you can do what you like and it'll take care of it for you.

The new layout is a little more functional, and I like a lot of the features. And with a chess game included, I can finally get back to playing it again. Hard to find a human player to go up against. As to the money, eh, truth be told, programs only last so nlong before thier obsolite.

hehe, well it's my turn to throw in some 2cents now

MAME32 Emulation for Arcade games
Kaillera Multiplayer Arcade client
Project 64 emulator for nintendo 64
Retrogaming
VICE VIC commodore emulator
Zdoom
Duke Nukem 3d



and that's just gaming - there are lots of companies using obsolete software, for example to program radio eeproms, that will never use anything newer because there isn't anything newer that's compatible

Edited by - Cold_Void on 2/4/2007 12:33:15 PM

Indeed, 'tis very true. Many control boards for alarms, cad/cam/cnc equiment and other industrial process machinery is quite often 386/486 generation based and uses old-fashioned full parity 72-pin SIMMS, sometimes even 30-pin stuff. I was looking at one the other day, fixing it up to a laptop so the EEPROMs could be reflashed over an RS-232 connection. I also happen to know that several of Britain's nuclear reactors are dependent on 20 or even 30-year old computers for automated control and reporting, and of the newer ones, the server o/s are at the very latest, Windows NT4. Wouldn't credit it, would ya? but it's true, I was told and shown that by one of the heads of British Energy's IT dept.

Just upgraded to ultimate. I also found out, EVERY disk has ALL versions on it. If you buy the upgrade from one to another, you use the same disk. Not bad ehh?

And over the 7000 mark too. Catching up with you , ehh Taw?

Edited by - Finalday on 2/10/2007 8:13:33 AM

in your dreams, you old buzzard; I give you 3 months tops before you're reformatting agin. Besides, I take care of my own anti-virus and security needs, I don't shell out yet more to M$ to look after the things that they themselves caused.

The best I can say is that you're catching up with the Hare; at least your hardware and o/s are up to date (and so are your viruses and trojans) rather than the Eskwilurks' 386 with 1mb RAM and his CGA monitor for WWG3.11.....

I've used and tested vista ever since the alpha stages. I must say I liked the first alpha most of all

Old ehh? well maybe. I thought he had dos 5.0?

And for your info, I haven't reformated in over a year I'll have you know.

I thought it was the hare-horse thingamobob that used Dos 5.0.

I was just about to post something about Dos 5.0 until i realised that i has install disks for Dos 4.0 in the shed out the back (Not kidding. I got a whole bunch of Legacy components off an old freind for $100. the Dos 4.0 set was the only one that had all the disks there).

Anyway, Does anyone know much about the hardware compatability with Vista, Specifically, if there are drivers for Graphics cards and semi-recently-released components (Specifically, the GeForce 7300GS and 8800GTX, the Agiea PhysX Card, and RAID support). I'd like to know before I fork out $300 or so for the OS

Download and run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to check your hardware and some programs. When you get the results,, if any are not compatabile, you can go to those sites and see/get updated drivers/versions of them. I had to do the same on a couple items and I have a new laptop. Also, go with a upgrade version as its cheaper. You can either upgrade with it or do a clean install. Also, once you get one version say Home Premium, and want to upgrade to Ultimate, it only cost me $159 to do it, and you use the same disk you bought. All versions are on the disks.

in the name of the Valar, FD, are you Consumer of the Year or do you have shares in M$? what's the big rush? Will you give me $159 if I wrap something up in shiny paper, put an M$ logo on it and tell you it's the best thing since sliced bread? Stop spending money! Why don't you save it up for a rainy day or another nice holiday in Jellystone Park?

Your Mullah on the other hand sensibly spends very little on computer equipment or software (and I'm currently getting my 16Mbit adsl gratis too) Clearly the Kingdom of Birdmen has surplus GDP which it's spending unnecesssarily on luxury goods, whereas the New Islamic People's Republic of Tawakalnistan carries a significant burden of investment in rebullding it's infrastructure after the destructive plague of Rabbitry (I need some new lintels and guttering) and in the educational sector. I think you should stop giving Bill Gates money and give it to me instead, i need it more.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 2/11/2007 8:34:21 AM

Taw, its just your too far away for customer service, andd, you have yet to put your OS you made on the market. Hey I'm up to switching, if it comes with some nice bells and whistles.

it's not on the market due to a conspiracy by the capitalist cartels to prevent the ultra-reliable Tawakalnux operating system being released to the general public. Besides, it's so advanced and superior to Western software that we wouldn't want potential enemies (such as rabbits) getting their paws on it. It's currently used in tecnological marvels such as Borromir, the world's most reliable personal computer, Tawsat-1 the sneakiest and most stealthy spy satellite ever built, and in the guidance computers of Tawakalnistan's advanced surface-to-air missiles. It also allows you to shop online at Al-Tawskoh and E-Bahai.