Back to XP - thank heavens for backups

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Blessing
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J

John Blessing

Ok, I gave Vista a good try, but it just isn't worth persevering with. The
final straw was this afternoon when I had a spare 10 minutes and pulled out
my relatively new Dual core samsung-q35 with 1.25Gb. About 5 minutes to boot
up, then nearly the same again for Outlook 2007 to do the same. Just had
enough time to shut it down again. I am firmly of the opinion that
Microsoft programmers should all be given 2 year old machines with 512MB to
develop on, that way they'd soon learn how to write a fast o/s

Vista is the operating system that finally drove me to look at Linux (and I
make my living from Windows software). Linux really is a lot faster, (and
Beryl is way flashier than crappy flip3d) but if you have anything slightly
esoteric (like a 3g datacard) then you need a degree in geekness to get it
working (if you are lucky - I never did).

Thankfully I have an image backup of my laptop when it had XP on it, which
is restoring as I type. Can't say I have ever looked forward to seeing XP
so much before.

Vista will stay as a virtual PC for testing purposes, but for me, it is
impossible to live with on a day-to-day basis.


--
John Blessing

http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com - Help Desk software priced to suit all
businesses
http://www.room-booking-software.com - Schedule rooms & equipment bookings
for your meeting/class over the web.
http://www.lbetoolbox.com - Remove Duplicates from MS Outlook, find/replace,
send newsletters
 
Yeah, but if everything were written to run on old hardware, we'd all still
be using DOS.
 
Hello John...
I am firmly of the opinion that Microsoft programmers should all be given 2
year old machines with 512MB to develop on, that way they'd soon learn how
to write a fast o/s
Click to expand...

This is very true! They probably have the most high end computers at the
time...
and that makes them write sloppy code....
Its a waste of CPU power .. but sloppy code is faster for them and they dont
care...

there was a time when programmers could write DIRECTLY into machine language
so that they could get the most out of the little ram they had.
You see some programs that are brilliant, like utorrent that is only 150k
yet it does what other programs 10 or 20 times that size do.... its faster
and better...

The MS programmers need to be retrained from scratch... to THINK before
they make monsters like vista.... 15 gb installations.. lol its crazy!
 
Hello John,

Instead of writing, that VISTA is the reason, you should try to find the
REAL problem why it does not work like you aspect.
It's easy to blame it on someone, in your case Microsoft.

I use it since weeks without any problem with Office 2007.

Best regards

Myweb
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
 
You miss the point...

things should work by default and be streamlined and efficient... not
needing
for the user to FIND THE REAL PROBLEM!

Its the complexity, bloat and bad design that creates all the chaos...

I would like to see MS word as ONE firkin .exe that could be used as a
standalone application and that is less than 10 mb....

It can be done.. they don't do it for other reasons....
and I can assure you.. they are not thinking about YOUR benefit
 
Ok, I gave Vista a good try, but it just isn't worth persevering with. The
final straw was this afternoon when I had a spare 10 minutes and pulled out
my relatively new Dual core samsung-q35 with 1.25Gb. About 5 minutes to boot
up, then nearly the same again for Outlook 2007 to do the same. Just had
enough time to shut it down again. I am firmly of the opinion that
Microsoft programmers should all be given 2 year old machines with 512MB to
develop on, that way they'd soon learn how to write a fast o/s

Vista is the operating system that finally drove me to look at Linux (and I
make my living from Windows software). Linux really is a lot faster, (and
Beryl is way flashier than crappy flip3d) but if you have anything slightly
esoteric (like a 3g datacard) then you need a degree in geekness to get it
working (if you are lucky - I never did).

Thankfully I have an image backup of my laptop when it had XP on it, which
is restoring as I type. Can't say I have ever looked forward to seeing XP
so much before.

Vista will stay as a virtual PC for testing purposes, but for me, it is
impossible to live with on a day-to-day basis.

--
John Blessing

http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com- Help Desk software priced to suit all
businesseshttp://www.room-booking-software.com- Schedule rooms & equipment bookings
for your meeting/class over the web.http://www.lbetoolbox.com- Remove Duplicates from MS Outlook, find/replace,
send newsletters
Click to expand...

Wow, sounds like you got a crap PC.

/pity John Blessing

me? I got a 5 year old 1 gig ram XP 2000+ with a geforce 6600 vid
card, with all the photoshop , ms office who-dads and what-nots and
vista runs fine for me. FLAWLESS.

i'm happy as a pig in shit : )
 
Hello Nick,

Their was no statement about the real configuration or to find out what happens
before the slow login start. If the software or hardware reseller are NOT
ready for VISTA it's not a Microsoft problem. And for sure, YOU know that
in the beginning of new OS a lot of RESELLERS are not compatible. It's not
always Microsoft. And by the way:


WHY DID YOU BUY IT????????????????????????


Best regards

Myweb
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
 
The thing about making developers write on old equipment would be a very bad
idea. Software evolves because hardware evolves, and prices go down.

Software needs to be written to leverage current and future technologies and
hardware costs. Every 10 years or so we need a major shift away from the
old. In the 80's and 90's it was the shift from DOS to Windows. Now it's the
shift to Vista. And it will be just as painful as the shift from DOS to
Windows.

Plus, there's no rule that says you must upgrade. You could use current
hardware, XP, or your current version of Linux or Mac OS for the rest of
your life. No rule against that.
 
I would love to love Vista, really, I would, I just think that from a
business perspective it is going to cause way more problems than e.g. when
XP was introduced.

Business users don't care about transparent window borders.

Of course I understand that this newsgroup is divided into 2 camps - the
"I hate vista" and the "i love vista", and neither seems able to see that
there is some merit in both groups' arguments.

I would be most interested in hearing from business users and whether they
feel that Vista will cause more problems than it solves. Anyone looked at
this **objectively** from a business point of view?
 
You miss the point...

things should work by default and be streamlined and efficient... not
needing for the user to FIND THE REAL PROBLEM!

Its the complexity, bloat and bad design that creates all the chaos...
Click to expand...

Its the Microsoft way. Their programmers, oops software engineers, as
they loved to be called now, must get paid by the byte.
 
There is a catch...

evolution should be due to increased capability functionality and features.

Vista has VERY little to offer more than XP...
On the other hand it has huge bloat for no REAL reason....

the real reason is to ARTIFICIALLY create new sales, for hardware and
software..
COME ON BE HONEST.... vista is not eventhe shadow of what we could have 5
years after XP.

You are wrong mister... Give me longhorn as it should have been
then I will say ok. You give me vista that is a pile of crap and you
dumb that as future technology....
 
Based on my experiences with working with a variety of computer users
throughout the USA and Canada, Windows users generally upgrade to the
latest software and operating system releases than Linux and Mac OS X
users. Some Windows users just want to use the latest version to break
the monotony of using an operating system for too long or to hopefully
find a better running and stable operating system for their needs and uses.

If I didn't need to learn Vista to support it, I wouldn't have installed
it on my non production system (or any other system that I own).
 
I see both sides... yet I am very p** o** when I see people
worshoping vista and saying that its fantastic...

thats why I tend to post the bad aspects of vista...

There is the law of polarity (known to the masses as ying yang)
and from acient greeks as "ouden kakon amiges kalou", meaning that no evil
is without good

For every bad thing there is a good aspect to it, and the opposite....

even Vista that is a pile of crap has a good side.. perhaps its the fact
that other OS's
will start getting a bigger share of the market...
 
Why don't you quit complaining about what you dont like about vista and try
installin Gentoo Linux. Then you may start to understand why there are bugs
in an operating system like Windows Vista. The guys at microsoft are doing a
great job to create an operating system that you can install on nearly any
platform and that is very difficult to do when you consider the possible
number of combinations of hardware. Vista may run slower than other
operating systems but it sure runs faster than XP and if you really want a
faster system you have to install a hardware optimised version of linux
which, once you have all the graphical bling running will run at a similar
speed to xp and will have taken you considerable longer to set up and get
working to the same level as vista does out of the box.
 
How right you are!
I've been convinced since Windows 3.1 that Microsoft hires these kids fresh
out of public high schools, give them a quick one-week training on
programming (probably with Visual Basic), then throw them to the
workstations with the instructions: "Make us an operating system!"
The result: Windows Vista!

I am one of the few programmers still around who use assembly code (x86) for
my own programs.
In fact, I don't even use Visual Studio - don't need the excess baggage.
I use an ultra-lean programming environment that fits on a single CD.
It really does make a difference!

-- Andy
 
I'm a software architect for a financial services firm. I neither love nor
hate Vista. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that I don't often feel
emotional about any software. None of this matters though because in the
end, Vista is what it is. Don't kid yourself into thinking this is like the
whole New Coke/Classic Coke thing where if we just whine loud enough and
threaten to use competitor products that MS will change everything and go
back to XP. In the end, if you want to use mainstream computers to do work
and/or play, you'll be buying Vista. Some will get fed up and switch to
Linux or Mac or BSD or some other nonsense but far more people will start
using a computer for the first time today with Vista installed on it than
will switch to other OSes in probably a year. There are already millions of
Vista users out there with brand new PC's, watching their Media Center
content, surfing the web, reading e-mail, etc. and never thinking twice
about it.

I use Vista both at work and at home, on old hardware, new hardware,
virtualized hardware, etc. When I have problems, I do what I've always done
since DOS 1.1, I work around it, wait for a fix, or reboot. It's been this
way for every PC OS and probably always will be. Could it be better? Sure.
Will it be or would you want to wait or pay for it? Probably not.

The bottom line is, it just doesn't matter. Vista is a new technology that I
need to be familiar with. Like IE7, Office '07, SharePoint '07, etc., these
technologies aren't for me to decide to use or not use because in the end,
they are out there being used. Unless you want to be like the guy still
running Win2000 (or ME, 98, or 95), you'll keep up for better or for worse.
 
Dave said:
Why don't you quit complaining about what you dont like about vista and try
installin Gentoo Linux.
Click to expand...

Not quite a fair comparison. Try Knoppix - stick the CD in the drive,
and you're up and running.

Gentoo is a build-from-source distro. It is not intended to be easy to
install. The only way to compare it to Windows would be for MS to
release all of its source code and have a user try to build it from
scratch, using whatever tools are available in the MS world.
Then you may start to understand why there are bugs
in an operating system like Windows Vista. The guys at microsoft are doing a
great job to create an operating system that you can install on nearly any
platform and that is very difficult to do when you consider the possible
number of combinations of hardware. Vista may run slower than other
operating systems but it sure runs faster than XP and if you really want a
faster system you have to install a hardware optimised version of linux
which, once you have all the graphical bling running will run at a similar
speed to xp and will have taken you considerable longer to set up and get
working to the same level as vista does out of the box.
Click to expand...

???

I have a three-headed linux system (three users at once) all sharing the
same Athlon 2000+ CPU and 768 MB RAM, and it runs about as fast for most
normal tasks as my work PC with XP and a Intel P4 running at 3GHz. (I
said "most tasks" - sure, for games and such it is slower, but for
email, web surfing, writing papers and such, there is no significant
difference.)

XP is OK; it is stable and runs OK. But a decently configured linux box
will be faster, just because you can pick a lightweight WM and desktop,
which simply do not exist in Windows. IceWM, XFCE4, etc. are all faster
than KDE/Gnome.

I don't see Vista getting any lighter-weight than XP.... And XFCE4
running on one of those souped up graphics cards needed for Vista will
be blindingly fast....
 
Dave said:
Why don't you quit complaining about what you dont like about vista and
try
installin Gentoo Linux.
Click to expand...

I am tired of these comments on Linux. Linux is very species specific. I
have seen programs written with different compiles for 12 different
distributions of this monster.

I just bought the one disc Knoppix....guess what? It will crash on being
invoked under
Windows XP ... no hope at all.

Linux is a system that is a hydra. It is so decentralized as to be a
laughing stock of an OS....no consistency at all.
 
The MS programmers need to be retrained from scratch... to THINK before
they make monsters like vista.... 15 gb installations.. lol its crazy!
Click to expand...
A lot of the problem is the sheer number of whining tossers who demand
that the spreadsheet application they bought for $5 back in 1997 still
works.

I wonder how much code could be stripped out by removing legacy
support.
 
I am one of the few programmers still around who use assembly code (x86) for
my own programs.
In fact, I don't even use Visual Studio - don't need the excess baggage.
Click to expand...
The problem with Microsoft is that they don't have this luxury. For
example, XP had to be able to run 16 bit code. XP had to have "software
shims" so that badly written software which relied on Win9x bugs to
work would still work. How much of XP's code was actually there just to
allow older software to still work?

If you had to code an application and guarantee it'd work on a system
over a decade old, how much extra code do you think it'd add?

Think people aren't interested in backwards compatibility? Look at the
Playstation 3 forums and the furor there is about the lack of backwards
compatibility.
 
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