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It brought you DirectX and lots of other glorious things.

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This is what caused the problem in the first place. DirecX, and gaming in general are the only obstacle to switching to Linux, in the vast majority of cases. Dual boot can be done, but it's just such a pain in the ass, it doesn't pay off... Why can't Micro$uck just release a version of Losedows that has proper and powerful tweaking/admin tools? I mean, we have to resort to third-party apps to get such functionality, and they usually do more harm then good...

*Sigh* Eh, well, I am a windows user by choice. Hence, I am now eating my words, and they are bitter indeed... Even so, I still believe that Linux will develop an API interface designed specifically for gaming, that will most probably be able to accurately emulate DirectX. And then... Goodbye Billy

Don't knock DirectX. It's the reason we have a 'unified' standard of video cards instead of the shambles of different drivers/support and whatnot.

now that the insane rush for Vista has died off, and cooler heads prevail, it's pretty clear that M$ so overhyped the new o/s that they've shot themselves int he foot, esp as regards enterprise customers.

even Dell, who've been hand in glove with M$ for years, have been forced to respond the barrage of complaints about the resource-bloating Vista and have stuck with offering XP as an alternate o/s for as long as M$ continue to make it, and they're also offering Ubuntu to customers as well!

while Vista might delight the magpie-like home user with it's prettiness, the hole it burns in folks' pockets and it's lack of application compatibility combined with it's failure to deliver on the much-hyped security issues mean that it might well be the last desktop o/s from M$. The trend of recent years in the corporate environment has been towards thin(ner) clients connecting to terminal servers, which means cheaper kit with less to go wrong. Speaks for itself really. And you don't need a Windows o/s for that.

tbh if it wasn't for Office my firm would probably dump Windows altogether, as i think many other business users would too. It's too expensive and unreliable for what it is.

Chet - good to see you again! Coincidentally I was trialling NOD on my cr*ptop and was impressed by it's speed and low footprint. Kaspersky's great at what it does but it don't arf slow stuff down esp e-mail, and I've found that there are security issues even with Kaspersky. NOD went so well that I've migrated all my home pcs to it (and run it in silent mode for the kids so they don't fonk it up) As to your other recommendation, I've been doing weekly scans with Ad-Aware for years now, and I stick with ZA Pro because it does what I need it do and understand it. (I appreciate your efforts to save me cash but you're assuming that I shell out for stuff, which I rarely do, much to the Hare's chagrin..)

Was it me, or are Dell now offering Ubuntu as well...

Personally, i've not had much trouble with the OS, apart from some minor application incompatibilities, which are soleley to do with me running the 64-bit verson rather than the 32-bit, and a graphics driver error (Not the OS either, needed new drivers from Intel).

Apart from those minor issues, the system runs smoothly and reliably (Although that MAY have something to do with me going a little overboard on the hardware specs. 2.4 Core 2 Duo and 2Gb Dual-Channel RAM)

@Taw-
My personal dislike of dell aside, i will not argue that Vista DOES use a fair chunk of system memory at idle (Lower bound is about 860Mb for me). However, this trend is the same with almost any proprietary application, beit antiviral suites, office applications, and some database clients.
This does not excuse Microsoft however, from saying that 512Mb of RAM is 'Vista ready'. Like hell it is. 1Gb RAM, MINIMUM.
Although one can still point fingers at the vendors for even offering systems that have such... crappy specifications for Vista. But I never liked Dell in the first place anyway... so...

@chet-
They have them, its just that you have to pay out of the mataphorical a$$ to get ahold of them. The most useful ones usually require somesort of volume licensing agreement to purchase. Have a lok on the m$ website for 'WinFLP' and 'WinPE'. Many windows techs would LOVE to get thier grubby hands on those two, if they even knew that they existed!

@chips- yea, they are. Toshiba are getting in on the act too. Although, personally, i cant honestly see many people going for that option. most of the masses don't even know what gnu/linux is, and the people that actually use gnu/linux typically do their own instillations.

I'm still enjoying Vista. Truth be told, the only other OS I would consider using would be Apple's OS.

Evil Mullah - Eh? We're moving back to "dumb" terminals? 1980's technology infrastructure here we come! What's next? Token ring? Still, it will make the lives of IT support staff easier. After all, it's hard to trash a terminal and, if it happens, a quick image will fix it 90% of the time.

well, i was all inspired by the prettiness of vista. but £300 is an awful lot to pay for an OS thats probably not much better than the "fully-legal" XP pro that i have (Courtesy of our favorite mullah) so i decided to get the Vista-Ultimate-Trial.

anyway, my report: buggier than the Beta, Alpha and pre-alpha versions. (whoa)

uses 800MB of ram JUST TO STARTUP.

offers no known benefits over XP other than "it is shiny" so far.

oh well. at least i didn't pay for it.



Oh yeah, using Vista is one way of raising your blood-pressure. Mullahs with ailing health stay away. when doing ANYTHING that can change ANY system setting, the pc will freeze for 3 seconds, the screens will blackout and then come on again, with a dialog box requiesting Admin authorisation. fgs, i know what i'm doing! let me install the fooking drivers already! AAAARRRRGH!

Edited by - Aod2 on 9/13/2007 5:05:10 PM

I have to agree with Taw on this one. I'm not an MS basher, never have been and I quite like XP, IMO it is a quality product, it does what it's told with a minimal amount of fuss. Vista on the other hand has over-hyped security that hinders the end user while providing little more in the way 'real' security from outside nasties (first home Vista user I know had a trojan within 4 days of use), while trying to hide all this nonsense with a pretty interface. Though actually getting the really good interface ends up costing you mega bucks for the pretty package. So if you buy the budget version, you end up getting an OS that's not only worse than XP but looks, well, hardly any different. Oh and all the things you knew how to do before take you bloody hours because some genious decided that the time tested menus needed to re-organised in order to make things more frustrating for everyone. Personally, when I come to considering getting new kit I think i'll buy myself a PS3 and a Mac, i'd use Linux, but it's feckin ugly and the interface sucks.

meh...

my "genuine" copy of xp o n my pc does nicely, its not hooked up to the interweb, so theres a no virus spyware gaurentee! boots in about 45 seconds, and does what i tell it to, when i tell it. sure i cant MP with games, but for the most part, i dont have time to sit around and play for that long anyways...

007

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i'd use Linux, but it's feckin ugly and the interface sucks.

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no it's not and no it doesn't. My Debian/GNU desktop looks almost exactly the same as my XP desktop, although I'm sure you'd think it was really boring what with only 5 icons and no wallpaper.

Click here



Edited by - Aod2 on 9/14/2007 6:15:06 PM

*** An update for those who don't won't Vista.

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Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and then Vienna) is a future version of Microsoft Windows. It is expected to be the successor to Windows Vista. Microsoft has confirmed that the planned development time frame is at least three years, putting the release date around 2010.[1 According to technology magazine "Smart Computing In Plain English", work on it began immediately following the release of Windows Vista. On July 20, 2007, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 7 is "the internal name for the next version of the Windows Client OS".[2

Microsoft has refrained from discussing the details about Windows 7 publicly as they focus on the release and marketing of Windows Vista,[3 though some early details of various core operating system features have emerged at developer conferences such as Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in 2006.

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"Smart Computing in Plain English"? *Raises furry eyebrow* Ah yes, a well-known and trustworthy source no doubt .