I always laugh when Microsoft releases a new version of its OS. Than these sites report on there increase in use. Well, dud. Most new pc's have vista. So of course as people buy new pc's its usage will increase. Most people don't buy a new pc because a new os is out. They buy, because there old pc is pretty much kaput.

I have been using vista for a while now. It is still pretty rough but thanks to numerous driver revisions for video, sound, motherboard and other components its improving. However there is still occasional problems. I very rarely find software that doesn't work. However I do tend to stick with newer software available and don't really play any of the older games.

I am hoping that sp1 brings some improvements. I do wish that Microsoft used their money to really honestly improve windows. I know people can talk about how much money they put in it, but in all honesty their return shouldnt be so rediculous and then invested into losing markets, which is everything else.

But that is the beauty of being a monopoly everyone holds you up no matter how poorly you do, because everyone is relying on you. An entire industry isn't going to abandon windows overnight or even within years, no matter how badly they do. I am willing to bet microsoft could go into hibernation mode for 10 years and they would quite simply have 94 percent windows vista users with millions more copies being sold in 2017.

Microsoft knows this and its exactly why they can take their sweet time doing anything they want. Product activation? Sure! Gaping bugs int he os with no driver support practically upon release, Sure! Break 90 percent of software and hardware it worked with perfectly on previous os, Sure!

Microsoft is quite literally the downfall as well as the godfather of the computer revolution.

Vista for all intends and purposes is a failure. No one lined up at midngiht to buy a copy, majority of licenses being sold right now are through oem's which for the most part is all they sell. Think of mac os x came on pc's from all oem's it would be the same situation? Probably not. Linux works but no one knows about it and the majority of people out there would say linux? I can't use that its a geek os!

directx 10 and security are the only real incentives for vista. Guess what, directx 10 is barely better right now then 9 is, security is still being patched every month. So other then the pretty effects and little tweaks of the user interface, absolutely no incentives or benefits to upgrade from xp. None what so ever. The sad thing is it took 5 years for them to come up with what appears to be windows xp with a new look. A completely broken new way to make drivers and well that is about it.

Oysters have tongues, but they don't wag them.

Little toolie and his gay friends are showing-up on this one. Look at those mouths run...

http://tinyurl.com/32369z

Hope you graduate from grade school soon.

To me he looks like a very attractive man..woman..hmmm what is that thing with moustache and beautiful breasts?

Fail.

There is medication available for your problem, but points for making me laugh although dude, you are seriously disturbed.

Personally, I'm doing just fine with XP, going to hold out for Windows 2012 Mayan Doomsday Edition.

OMFGYLAMF

I pity everyone that is still stuck and brainwashed into MS's propaganda about Vista. Its a shame more people cant think for themselves and realize that MS's catastrophic failure of Vista hurts users in more ways than one.

Cross to the greener side of the fence, and you'll wonder why you didn't cross sooner.

*nix for life...

Been there, done that. Hardly brainwashed, just practical.

Presenting your useless opinion as plain facts again, Program86? And you're the one saying Microsoft is brainwashing us?

You are the one that I put that post down there for...your ignorance is blatently obvious.

MS doesn't brainwash me--I use their products because I choose to. MS didn't buy my Vista, I did. Go in another forum and lie about how GWB stole your health care if you want to talk politics.

Well, I think you make a reasonable point, in that American style of business is in part a method of brainwashing people to turn over their money for something they think they want but do not really need. American TV & radio is a good example of such attempts, catchy tunes, repeated phrases and pictures, etc...

Vista would likely sell more copies if it had a "red tag" on it stating one of these: "SALE!", "Hurry, Supplies are limited!", "Special Edition", "Incrediable Value", "Special Offer for the next 100 people who pick up the phone NOW!", etc...

However, in this respect I would disagree that Vista is a marketing failure. Instead the complex marketing affected those who fail to see behind the marketing, which amounts to millions.

We, the people, may actually do that if one day we'll believe we get better bang-for-the-buck with competing "desktop worlds". Not just OS, the whole package... Hardware.. 3rd party software.. etc.

you assume too much and you are biased based on your own needs. unfortunately there are consiquences for every available option.

Vista is flashy and cool. Which is nice untill you run into the problems with drivers and stuff. There's no reason it should be so messed up. For those who don't like Vista, good for you. It's here and it's not going away. SP1 should help alot.

If Vista SP1 is gonna be like XP's SP2...it's gonna NOTICABLY slow down the PC, even if gives it a few more critically needed features. May speed up file copy, but slow down other things with HEAVIER services and sh_t like that.

That is why the remedy for Vista's slowness is mainly one: time.

In two years those who hate Vista today will suddenly love her so.

They will even deny ever hating such a beauty of an OS. You know how ppl are. ;)

WTF are jabbering about? SP2 STABLIZED XP and even improved performance over SP1a. Granted, XP baseline is still faster, but it's far less stable. Regardless... *nix is faster are more stable that any of the above. I do choose to use XP Pro SP2 x64 and can't say that I have any problems. It's a touch 'snappier' than x86. Since I do video/graphics work, it works well for me. Games play decently on it too. I have a laptop with Vista Home Premium and I just formatted it back to XP Pro...so much for that. I'll wait for Vista SP1 to try it out again.

However, you are correct about the time. It will simply be a matter of time before people just 'accept' Vista because it's the new OS. I do wish more of the market would shift to *nix...any flavor...really.

Basically you say I'm jabbering, but repeat everything I said in your own words... Yes, I know XP without SP2 is less stable and much more insecure (will get a virus within an hour due to msblaster penetrating without any user interaction - simply being on the network).

So I was not saying you should run Vista non-SP1 because it will be faster than Vista SP1, but to EXPECT VISTA SP1 TO BE HEAVIER ON SAME PC THUS ONLY TIME WILL MAKE VISTA A BETTER OS.
MORE TIME = BETTER HARDWARE AT SAME AFFORDABLE PRICES, AND OF COURSE BETTER SOFTWARE/HARDWARE SUPPORT.

Even with all it's LIVE crap MS still has nothing close to the killer-app product Apple has been able to pull out of their A$$ with "iLife".

iLife contains very easy to use and powerful software. Most of which covers everything and anything some one would want to use with their "digital life-style".

Come on MS, get it in your brain grapes!

Are you trying to say that my hrrrmm free copies of Photoshop, Premiere, ACDSee Pro 2.0, Nero, Dreamweaver, Adobe Audition, Snagit and Camtasia Studio are completely totally worthless in comparison to the all-knowing all-seeing all-powerful all-benevolent Apple iLife???

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sobs softly]

hehehehehehehehehehehe

Macs SUCK (for those who get all their software fo' free)

Not everyone is such a ruthless pirate. LOL

well seems an interesting conversation - so ill just add my bit

i have a fully paid for version of vista business, a 3.8ghz cpu , 1.5gig ram , blah blah blah

when vista fails to perform basic operations like copying a file, or loosing disk drives 1/2 way thru copy operations etc, i have worries - not because there are not as many apps / drives etc - its because the basic OS is having problems - i have 3 physical disks using 7 partions - and on a regular basis (on clean installs) all drives "disappear" except c - even half way thru burning a CD/DVD the drive disappears , ive installed "cleanly" vista 7 or 8 times, and without installing other apps - it times out on large file copies etc, - this may be a generic driver/motherboard problem, but as far as im concerned - if you can't copy a file - forget it - i dont care about the lovely desktop if 6months of work disappears from a file - because vista "looses it" - ms should concentrate on ge ttingthe basics fixed before worrying about - oh yes "what a lovely desktop - you can tab thru 3d - but ill loose you work and files in the mean time - but i look good"

I agree, it definately wasn't ready for retail. They have fixed some stuff but even if they get it working perfectly there's not that much there to make switching from XP worth it.

A 3.8Ghz CPU? Like what? That's gotta be a decent overclock. :p

e.g. Intel's Pentium 4 570J was 3.8 GHz stock

Vista is not the problem in your case.... its your pc's crappy drivers, for the most part. Drives dont disappear on systems with good drivers. Unless they die, of course :-p

That is one of the crappiest cpu's intel has ever made IMHO...it never runs past 3.2GHz unless you run it in a freezing server room. Try upgrading to a core 2 duo...even the 1.8GHz version will beat the pants off of that one.

Running my e6420 on air, oc'd to 3.2Ghz on a 1:1 with some nice G.Skill PC2-6400. Gotta love those C2D's...it SMOKES my x2 4400+, especially in graphics/vid editing on XP Pro x64.

As proof: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=226449

"1. Let's see in 4 year time if the richest software company in the world (Microsoft) decided to push MORE DRM or LESS DRM, and what effect it had on sales."

It has already been demonstrated that consumers do not like DRM. Thus Apple and other companies dropping it from their songs. Adding more DRM certainly will not increase sales. The idea that pirates will suddenly be forced to buy Vista is obsurd. There is no way to stop piracy, DRM doesn't work. Vista is already being pirated. Sorry, but adding even more DRM isn't going to help Vista sales.

2. Incorporating more and more software is what got Microsoft in trouble with the Department of Justice and EU in the first place. Also they can't just go and buy any company they want even if it wouldn't get them in trouble. It's not going to happen.

Typing in all caps doesn't make you more right by the way, it's just rude. Talking about prophecies too, sorry but I can't take you seriously anymore so I'm not going to talk to you. No offense, I just prefer debating with adults.

No offense taken. I've already made my points (quoting Ballmer's promises for next 5 years re buying out software houses) and explained why DRM will happen regardless of whether consumers like it TODAY or don't. You want the content? Pay. Too much? Don't pay.

If the price is right, you will pay like a GOOD BOY for DRM'ed materials. I personally, who has not a single DRM'ed file on my PC, would buy DRM'ed songs at very low price with extreme limitations - can only play on one machine, expires within 3 months. Say 5c per song.

Enjoy your many other highly intelligent and knowledgable debating partners ;)

this is a beta "views" site - its not for discussing the morals of piracy , thats up to the individual - we are here to compare how vista works vs xp , and if its worth the cost of upgrading - NOT can i get a pirate copy to work

This site is for discussing whatever WE THE PEOPLE want to discuss, and the only ones to stop us are the site's management. NOT you.

Thank you very much.

(Trust me, my fresh views have probably generated lotsa readership..some would even go as far to theorize that I have a monetary incentive to be here talking to you right now) ;)

But I don't want you to feel all paranoid on me now. ;)

your very large ego that expands the size of your head must store the extra air required to spew your worthless comments

It's the other way around - my head which expands makes my ego quite very large. ;) *kiss* (if you are a beautiful woman only, that is)

you really should work on forming complete thoughts. it would much easier to figure out what it is that you are trying to say. I feel I should ask you if 'Jimmy is in the well'. And no I'm not a woman..

"it would much easier to figure out what it is that you are trying to say."

LOLOLOLOLOL

[changing pants for pissing in them.]

Oh God, that was a good one.

Sorry but all of your points are ridiculous. I don't think you have a clue to be honest about it. Adding more DRM and buying out competing companies does not make Vista more compelling at all, it makes it more repulsive. I guess if they were trying to drive away customers that would be great, but I don't think that is the idea here.

(1) Get rid of the stupid Ultimate sku, it's a clear ripoff. Language packs are not "ultimate extras" worth paying a high price for. There are also too many skus, confusing customers is not the way to go.

(2) Work on getting third party driver support up to par, along with software support. By the time Vista hit the shelves those things should have been ready.

(3) Performance is terrible. This was clearly a case of Vista being rushed out before it was ready. They have remedied the performance issues somewhat with patches but it still has quite a way to go.

(4) LOWER THE PRICE. Vista is simply too expensive for many people, especially with the economy the way it is today. Microsoft can still make a profit without charging the high prices they are, in fact they'd probably make more since more people would buy.

How about this, my non-ridiculous-point arguing friend:

1. Let's see in 4 year time if the richest software company in the world (Microsoft) decided to push MORE DRM or LESS DRM, and what effect it had on sales.

2. Let's see in 4 year time if MS has incorporated MORE purchased-third-party software in their OS and Office packages, OR LESS, and what effect it had on sales.

You do understand decisions made by such a big company can be expected to go through dozens of very high IQ individuals, weighing pro's and con's extremely heavily, before acting on it. Not something you or me have enough data to make the right decision. AND STILL I WILL BE PROVEN RIGHT AND DRM+ANTIPIRACY SHALL BE RAISED A FEW BARS AND MAXTHON WILL BE BOUGHT AND OTHER THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE PACKAGES WILL BE INCORPORATED INTO MS PRODUCTS.

Let us wait and witness my prophecy coming to reality.

Microsoft has no control over (2), and (4) is ridiculous.

Home Premium is not much more expensive than Windows XP Home. Considering that is the version that most folks will buy, the price difference is negligible.

Hate to break it to ya, but most folks can easily afford $90 for the upgrade or OEM versions. Of course, the $200 on hardware upgrades might be a bit harder to pass off.

Moot, really. Most folks will get it with a new PC anyway.

do you even own a computer? look at http://www.microsoft.com...ta/editions/choose.mspx
and tell me where it mentions or stats that the biggest reason to get ultimate is lang packs? if I ever purchase vista ultimate is the way to go. if they were to get rid of any of the 'flavors' of vista they should get rid of home basic, which really doesn't offer anything over vista and runs terrible.

I agree with #2 and #4. Ultimate is more of a 'gadget' than a real benefit. BitLocker is semi-useful....and the DreamScape fmv backgrounds are nice...but you can 'trick' other versions of Vista to do this as well. Again, just a gimmick. Performance is fine for me. Aero Glass does cause a hit, but the kernel has less leak than XP Pro x86 (SP2)...but not quite as good as XP Pro x64 (SP2).

hey look - it cant even correct my typing !

Vista just doesn't offer anything over XP to justify upgrading. They tried to hard to make it "pretty" and edgy and just made a big mess. That the problem when marketing departments try to make an OS.

HOLY SH_T THIS IS THE FUNNIEST THING EVER.
To dear Mr. Extremely Weii (aka EXTREMELY WEII aka Extremely WeII)

Immitation = the highest form of flattery.

Now to all the curious people out there who are having a hard time distinguishing between me, the REAL Extremely Well, and my brother, Extremely WeII (with two capital i's in the end): go ahead and hit ctrl+f right now and look for "extremely weii" and you will realize how my truth resonates through a thousand voices ;)

'tis some good stuff you wrote there, bro! Funny as hell!

ROTFL, wow even too stupid to know when you are being made fun of. Thinks it's flattering and still agrees with all the idiotic things his shadow posts. Now that is funny.

My apostle, extremely weii (with two capital i):
"ROTFL, wow even too stupid to know when you are being made fun of. Thinks it's flattering and still agrees with all the idiotic things his shadow posts. Now that is funny."

Brother,
Deep down inside, my beloved brother, you envy my superior intellect and abilities to accurately predict future occurances. But you must love me DESPITE I am better. You must love me because you have someone to admire, which I unfortunately don't (being who I am and at my level).

And I remind you that immitation, still, is the highest form of flattery. And I am indeed flattered, perhaps even humbled by your tremendous efforts to learn me and emulate me the best you can.

And so I remain your loving brother,
extremely well
*kiss*

and all this worthless banter between two people who are more then likely the same person about their supposed intellects has what to do with Vista or MS? If anything the you have only shown how childish you are, go post on barbie.com or something

It doesn't tickle my fancy, but I understand my perverted (so to speak) immitation "extremely weii" is a well known figure (so to speak) on their forums. ;)

Superior you may be, but you can't spell. "Imitation" has one M

It is the Darn activation that really bugs me... I just changed my memory out and it made me activate. since my satalite was down it kept bugging me to activate. This is what I hate about Windows. I have since taken vista off my system and put win2k back.
I hope that MS gets hurt really bad from this dumb micro-managing. It is My OS Not MS... I know that MS says that you don't own it but just lease it... I still disagree.

http://www.electronista....ista.sales.rate.slowing

Alright, I read two random comments down there and I'm already astonished at how quickley ignorant people open their mouths the loudest.

1. Vista works better now than it did in January. By far. It is like 2,000 miles ahead of what it was due to third-party manufacturers finally updating their software/drivers. Anyone who has been using Vista since at least March of this year and is still using it daily--I'm begging you, challenging you, and daring you to correct me if I'm wrong. If I am truley wrong, give me your address and I'll mail you a free cookie :D

2. Open-source supported companies will always hate Microsoft, good or bad. Duh, Mozilla will only point out the bad in Vista. If they didn't, they'd be stupid. They compete with Microsoft, of course they will focus on the negative.

3. Anyone here who has used Vista for a month or less has too little knowledge of it for me to give a rat's a$$ of what you think of it.

4. Vista is a 2007 OS, replacing a 2001 OS. It had major obstacles to overcome in it's first few months. Windows XP had a year and a half difference over Windows 2000, and it had as many obstacles as Vista did. This screams of how well the Vista OS really worked compared to previous launches.

5. If you use XP and like it, that's great. Keep your misinformed opinions and blog opinions to yourself about Vista though, cause you don't use it. Me and other daily Vista users have the right to complain about it, not you.

Sorry I presented this in such a manner that I did, but I tire of hearing 100s of lies about Vista in forums just so ignorant jacka$$es can gripe about Microsoft again. Vista is nowhere near perfect, and there are plenty of legitimate complaints I am open to hear, but only legitimate ones, not those from people who read things on the DailyHateMicrosoft blog and choose to repeat it.

Vista is still much slower than XP, and there are very few reasons to switch but plenty more reasons not to. Nobody is saying it's the worst OS in the world, at least I'm not, but given the choice between Vista and XP I'm afraid I'm sticking with XP with no hesitation.

Agreed. I use Vista daily on a laptop and two desktops, and I downgraded two Vista machines to XP to save cash (some bizz app wouldn't work on Vista Home Premium and I refused to upgrade to Vista Business - I just stole XP Pro). I can fully appreciate the technical superiority of Vista as far as SO MUCH MORE security and revamped network stack etc, a very good vision for the future. But again, AFFORDABLE PCs today are too slow for Vista. The best bang for the buck is an affordable PC (1GB RAM) running XP..not Vista. It will be VERY NOTICABLY FASTER ON XP.

Gotta know how to run programs and know which programs to run. Obviously Vista is not a good solution for many businesses right now because so many software authors refuse to update for vista efficient apps, but for home use, my Vista is faster than XP was.

Oh...and 1GB of RAM is plenty if you use the Vista Basic color scheme...

Nobody is saying it's the worst OS in the world, at least I'm not...

Yeah, sorry for the way my post sounded. I was talking to Program86 and the likes, not you :D

What I've learned from reading these posts:

(1) Not everyone likes Vista. Actually I knew that.
(2) Extremely Well is a rambling software pirate.

Fixed my post.

I'm curious to know how you reached that correct observation (2)? Is that by me stating numerous times how Vista is too demanding of an OS for today's PCs (making XP a more cost-effective choice), or by me stating I'd rather steal XP than pay for Vista? ;)

If it comes pre-installed - fine. But to pay for Vista? No way... It's too difficult to pirate Vista hence my recommendation and actions for the forseeable future are TO CONTINUE TO STEAL XP.

"It's too difficult to pirate Vista hence my recommendation and actions for the forseeable future are TO CONTINUE TO STEAL XP."

Oh I see, your not a paid shill. You're just an idiot looking for attention.

Sorry I gave you any.

Nothing of real substance to respond to here. However, when you come up with an argument that may, possibly, unlikely but remotely possibly, teach me some new fact or show me some new point of view, please do not hesitate to drop a line. ;)

Until then, indeed keep your mouth shut.

"Nothing of real substance to respond to here."

Like all of your stupid posts really.

"Until then, indeed keep your mouth shut."

Go f*** yourself.

hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

ahh the predictable "weapons" of the feeble...

You're both kinda wrong imho: substituting another OS, if one bundled with system is not up to par(for the individual user's needs, that is), is NOT stealing. I recommend to folks all the time to 'steal install' a fully patched 2k, which will actually run even better and/or faster than XP.

I mean, being force-fed beta Vista is no fun-- & one should actually get some money back for downgrading OS!!

Windows Vista = Windows Me.

Windows Me doesn't have any DRM and that's why it failed. Consumers want crippling copy protection in their OS, otherwise there's nothing to keep them from stealing it. They don't really want to steal though, that's why they all buy Vista since it is 100% pirate resistant. Trust me, I have vast knowledge.

Windows ME crashed more often than an ADD 3 year old playing with his Hot Wheels after pounding half a gallon of red Kool-Aid. That's why it failed miserably. All the OEM's had one hell of a time getting returns for it and they eventually told us where to go and how to get there.

VISTA is/was not ready for retail but it is needed for the leased software model to be implemented and the longer they waited for it to be released the further back that initiative gets pushed. The reduction of all associated business expenses to such a degree as to make MS stock the sweetest investment in the known universe is what they are after. Nothing more, nothing less and from a business standpoint its exactly what they should be doing. Just don't try to paint it as anything other than pure commerce.

Oh and as for 100% pirate resistant... and the Lord of The Rings was a documentary.

Neg. ME is by FAR much worse than Vista...regardless of the flavor. I'm not that big into Vista, but it does have some nice features for 'novice' users, from an admin's standpoint (UAC sucks for regular users, but is great for those who are just picking things up). The only major problem is Roaming Profiles when you have a user that swaps back and forth between XP and Vista machines...

Either way, your post was unnecessary. Vista is certainly more stable and smoother running than ME...but they are both cumbersome and not the greatest performers.

Hmm, dunno where your source is for pirating vista is impossible. Try doing a 30 second google search on cracking vista. I bet you have it unlocked in 5 minutes. That is if you can read instructions.

I installed Vista. Then I uninstalled and went back to XP. Then I bought a new computer with amazing specs with Vista. I will not roll back to XP on this computer. Why? Because I like the FEW advantages that Vista has an have a computer that makes me not notice the sacrifice in resources that Vista requires to allow me a few new features. I also like the FEW visual bonuses.

Vista is not exceptional in my opinion. It's a neat upgrade at a cost -- whether it be performance or having to buy a computer with higher specs. OSX is on my laptop and I'll soon be installing it on this computer also. I'm thrilled with OSX as I feel that Apple really take the time to not just add a few applications here and there that users should discover on their own - but they create a unique, enjoyable user experience in a well planned manner.

Regardless - Microsoft will 'force' users to use Vista as developers start to harness the advantages that Vista does have - and XP will start to be taken out of the equation. There's no reason that we can't say 'I'd rather use 2000 than Vista' as the basic functionality is the same and software compatibility is the same. It's all a matter of a user's threshold for updates vs. performance and resources.

I still find Microsoft's pricing structure to Vista to be the most disgusting thing and also think that the 'Ultimate' edition is a complete joke. It comes with too many unneeded 'features' and the bonus features that make it 'more' than Home Premium are scant.

I agree with you. It will take, however, at least 3 years before developers harness the full power of Vista's new graphics engine/API (WDDM) to produce very sexy apps (transition effects, live icons/buttons, smooth zooming/turning/flipping, animations instead of boring "hourglass"-style/please-wait-while-processing stuff, etc).

I installed Vista, went back to XP and will never go to Vista again.

Wow! you really are cool. (:ROLLEYES)

Guess you won't be playing any of the "new" games, since XP will not be supported by most.

Guess you won't be playing any of the "new" games, since XP will not be supported by most.

Got any other BS you'd like to spout? Even if that were true, which it won't be for a very long long time (if ever), not everyone plays games anyway.

very long long time?

There is at least one Vista-Only game already that I saw at Wal-Mart. I would assume that more are coming.

Halo 2, guess who publishes it? Microsoft. Is there any surprise they tried to use it to sell Vista? Oh and there's a patch to run it on XP by the way, so make that zero.

You're a game developer. Now look at the market share of Vista vs XP. Are you going to dump support for XP? I didn't think so.

Yes you will.

extremely weii (with 2 capital i in the end):
"Yes you will."

You're absolutely right!! He will!

Naw... he'll likely actually get to skip Vista & go to the next Release.... a la WinME.

??? You have no clue what you're talking about. Stop spouting drivel. You are only referencing DX10, which, so far, even the NEWEST games out right now are still driven by DX9. The gaming market drives the video card market, and there is no way that a game manufacturer is going to release a title that is only going to be able to be purchased by 15% of the market (that owns DX10-compliant graphics cards). Heck, there are still games coming out that compatible with DX8!

Vista Sucks,the only thing which makes vista is direct x but the rest is same and ****, Infact they made vista to suck money from people not to show the new invention. Shame on you Microsoft

For a while, i used vista. But it's got lots of unnecessary changes in it. The icons for things like the usb-manager (which allows you to stop devices from the shell), and the control panel, have all been changed.

I used vista, i used xp, but i am back full time on a 2k machine. In the next scrape-down, i plan to put OS/2 back in the mix. Oh well. c'est la vie.

You won't install OS/2 on your quad core. I have vast knowledge about Microsoft and I know you will be using Vista within four years.

extremely weii (with 2 capital i in the end):
"You won't install OS/2 on your quad core. I have vast knowledge about Microsoft and I know you will be using Vista within four years."

You're absolutely right, again!! He will!

No he won't, I lied.

More than likely 'by then' will be 8 or even 16 core system-- and on Linux... 'may'(slight chance, not troll statement btw) beat the pants off Windows, even in virtual mode.

It would not be unreasonable to believe that Vista is a product of over programming.

Its like those parents of growing children. They buy the kids clothes a size bigger to accomadate for growth.

So my guess would be that though Vista cannot accomadate PC's purchased up to last year, Vista will accomadate new pc's of this year and Vista will likely fly at sonic speeds on the PC's of tomorrow.

Vista wasn't over-programmed, it was over managed. Microsoft really does have an unbelievable amount of technical skill, but the insane, evil management totally ruins everything they create.

In order to make Vista "more compelling", they first need to make it "compelling" and since it offers literally nothing new and useful, at least to a reasonably computer-literate user, and totally ravages the performance of the machines it runs on, they are fighting an uphill battle.

Just as he stated - the performance issue is a non-issue on quad-core PCs that will be the hottest items on the store shelves Christmas 2008... Vista, indeed, is the best OS for next year, not this year...

And I'm not sure about Vista not giving any benefits to the users. I seem to recall about 50% of XP users having to reformat their PCs because they contracted some spyware accidentally. Vista will be much more resistant in that regard.

it think it was a combination of the chicken-little affect and wall street.

it seems that "lessons have not been learned" and people could simply not wait to buy Vista SP2.

by that time, both computer market place as well as Vista would be more stable.

DECREASE ANTI-PIRACY MEASURES as they are unforgivingly USELESS and about .06% more difficult to bypass then XP's measures. STOP..... fooling yourselves microsoft. These so called "tough" anti-piracy measures DO NOT EVEN stop CASUAL copying as you keep saying.

To re-iterate, completely and fully useless, and it ONLY punishes "legit" users. I mean it, this AP/DRM CRAP ONLY tortures PAYING customers. Pirates are not only *not* inconvenienced, but are able to run Vista BETTER with their "cracks" and BIOS emulation systems. In fact, users of (properly) pirated versions of Vista are ONLY inconvenienced in a minor way when Microsoft secretly forces stupid AP patches during their homo-Tuesday windows updates; at which point another AP circumvention method is always discovered and made available within a week usually.

STOP..... wasting time on AP/DRM and USE it to improve your f*cking BLOATED Vista. Trim all that FAT out and leave the REAL improvements like the NGTCP/IP Stack, DirectX 10, Kernel/Memory Management improvements.

The whole DRM/Anti Piracy argument is fallacious. Not in the sense that you might think I mean however. It's an overblown and oversold issue by people who seem to think Vista will do evil things to limit fair use.

As a journalist (with another web publication), I've written several articles about this.

The truth of the matter is that Vista is probably easier on-balance than XP to "pirate" and get away with it. Inasfar as DRM, it's no better or really worse than XP. The content path restrictions in place for high definition content formats are more tightly integrated, but as easy to circumnavigate as they are in XP. Much of the "press" (and I use the term loosely) about Vista is largely fear mongering and Microsoft bashing, often by delusional luminaries with hidden agenda's. Dr. Peter Gutmann comes to mind...his article on the costs of Vista's content protection is so full of misinformation, embarrassingly bad research, and outright lies, that I still find it shocking people in the press listen to him.

As an OS, it's really not enough of an improvement over XP for most people to give a flip about at this stage of things. In my estimation it was released too early. It's two main core improvements (better thread handling and memory management than XP 32bit, and DirectX 10.x) weren't relevent enough when it launched.

The time for Microsoft to begin pushing Vista from a marketing standpoint, makes sense now. I think much of the press is making too big of a deal of this.

Move along...nothing to see here....

To me your words sound like a baby crying for taking away his candy. Yes, you are eventually going to give up on trying to re-crack Vista on a monthly basis. You will either buy it, or will steal XP (like me), or go steal something else like MacOS or possibly become "all moral" and sh_t and become an open source advocate.

You, my friend, are gonna buy a copy of Vista within 4 years. Either directly, or indirectly (OEM)...

Vista is near impossible to pirate successfully for the long run. You can crack it right now, but it won't last more than a few little weeks/months.

For a second there you frightened me with that last prediction! You almost had me going there for a second when you sad I'd be forced into buying a copy of Vista.... But then I suddenly realized that I only buy my laptops hot! Whew that was close! Stop scaring me like that into believing that my track-record for never purchasing (ever) an MS Operating system in literally 15+ years would be ruined! hehe. As for desktop machines: I always build from scratch, so no I won't be getting raped by MS. :)

you mean, you would rather rape microsoft... if you use microsoft, and dont pay for it, you are infact raping them..

i own 10 copies of vista, and they are all legal. i use them from time to time, and they run great for what they say they do..
also, look at the features they added into xp... im sure they will do the same with vista..

i for one, also belive that microsoft is great, and hope that they allow more creativity from their development departments.

just a side note:
i love to hear agruements about MS and MAc... the best one i herd to date, true story, a MAC with MAC os, will run longer then a PC with mac os, the pc hardware is not as good as a MACs hardware... :)

with hidden agenda's

Careful with that possessive apostrophe, mate, you're a journalist!

I'm still waiting to hear what this has to do with making people want to buy Vista. I mean sure, I hear people saying all the time "I wish my OS had even stricter copy protection. I do love DRM so much!" Oh and if you think Vista won't be pirated you're an idiot. It's ALREADY being pirated. Just go write some more love letters Ballmer and shut up already.

OEM activation method. -Cracked for the 'long run'

"You, my friend, are gonna buy a copy of Vista within 4 years. Either directly, or indirectly (OEM)..."

Arrogance is such an ugly thing. I will never buy Vista directly, and I build my own computers since OEMs are crap so I won't be getting it that way either.

You will not be able to sanely pirate Vista. Period.

Hehehehehe I feel you. ;) I never bought an MS OS directly myself, either. I did, of course, buy the OS pre-installed on many, many, many PCs.

No, it is NOT. A future Windows patch or "trojan'ed" MS Product (say Office coupled with WinVista pirate-catching code) will easily be able to know (by communicating with MS servers) that your serial # is invalid... OEM'ed Windows installation don't all use the same serial...

I have no moral problem stealing MS products, for as long as they let me (by not strictly enforcing their rights). My vast knowledge on MS products translates directly to MS dominance in the marketplace. I wouldn't have spent so many hours learning the "Windows world" if MS wouldn't let me pirate their products easily enough in the past 20 years or so. Microsoft would NEVER have taken the brightspot from IBM in the IBM-Clone era if they wouldn't turn a blind eye on piracy...

At the same time, I hope MS starts enforcing DRM strongly, so I personally WILL BE FORCED to buy their products, or START *SERIOUSLY* LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES. If the "Windows world" is worth what I'll be forced to pay, I'll gladly pay it. If it's not, I'll stick to older versions of Win-world products or change desktop worlds (to Mac/Linux).

My point is this: people only care for their individual pocket RIGHT NOW, not their long-term benefits. If Vista is harder to steal, a big percentage of would-be thieves will PAY FOR IT (especially in third world countries where you buy most PCs naked of OS). MS will need to adjust prices for such countries to make the choice of becoming LEGIT more appealing than the choice of going to the competition.

Now, DRM is a beautiful thing if it is nearly impossible to crack. It basically gives you WAL-MART for the computing world. You can't steal from WAL-MART, now can ya? (Without a 99% chance of getting arrested)

Why do you think WAL-MART prices are so low? Supply and demand. Same exact thing must happen to the computing world. If a song by Madonna is worth $50 for single time listening, then THAT is what YOU WILL PAY. If, however, the more realistic price would be $0.20 for unlimited usage on 10 different devices - then THAT IS WHAT THE MARKET DICTATED. As long as it's very hard to steal, the prices of intellectual property will go down/up to the REAL VALUE. Right now we all steal music and movies, but if eventually it'll be near-impossible to do without high risk of getting arrested or getting a lousy-quality immitation (think cam/telesync quality), then the price MUST COME DOWN, JUST LIKE AT WAL-MART!

Did I say I wanted to pirate Vista? I don't believe I did. Plenty of people already are pirating it though, sorry to break it to you. I'm just not one of them and never plan to be, not that any of this has anything to do with your original post. So again, to answer said original post no I will never buy Vista, directly or OEM.

I am amazed at how blatently criminals here brag about stealing software.

"My vast knowledge on MS products"

Now, don't be so modest.

"At the same time, I hope MS starts enforcing DRM strongly, so I personally WILL BE FORCED to buy their products, or START *SERIOUSLY* LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES."

Is the lack of effective copy protection the only thing that has prevented you from using something besides Windows? Is that the only reason you've used it all these years, because you could steal it? Yet you seem not to like it and the only way you are able to stop using Windows is if Microsoft forces you to stop stealing it.

Wow...

You think if no one could pirate Windows then Microsoft would lower the price?

AH-HAHAHAHAHA!

You will def buy Vista within the next 4 years on your new quad-core PC. You're not gonna give up on all the eye-candy (and security benefits etc) that will become MORE EVIDENT in the coming years... What you say you will do and what I know you will do -- conflict. ;)

Being a Mac user would have cost me a lot more for just perhaps slightly better experience overall. After all, I can protect my systems pretty well, and am not so impressed by eye-candy IF it's too expensive.

However, when I'll have a quad/oct-core machine, I probably will be willing to spend some dough on eye-candy (Vista/MacOS/Linux?), or I'll have that itchy feeling my hardware is heavily underused.

You are indeed a most talented troll.

/bows

And I'm amazed how people pay for something such a high price, BECAUSE the rest of the people happily steal it.

If you promised me 99% of people who use Windows/Office are PAYING for it, I'll pay for it too because I know the PRICE IS FAIR. If however, the manufacturer keeps flooding the market in order to kill healthy competition - I'll "BUY" at the cheaper cost, in this case, FREE, and take advantage of the manufacturer's flood. MS flooding the market = encouraging piracy UNTIL 2007 or so (when they started to slowly clamping down).

Windows is not a commodity. So yes, if you cannot steal Windows, the price will drop IMMEDIATELY, otherwise ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME WHO STEAL SOFTWARE would EVENTUALLY go to the competition. People run businesses and personal lives on Linux and Mac every day... In other words, MS has competition.

Personally? I'd stick to the latest vers of stealable MS products until they're obsolete or seriously bothering me, at which point I'll consider ALL options. Whenever I shell out cash, I take a CLOSE LOOK at all my options. With MS, until Vista, I didn't have to spend any time or any cash - just happily steal away, like probably 80% of MS products users worldwide (99% of China & India)...

Thanks, but I'm no troll. ;) I just speak some truths that are sometimes not easy to hear (by hard-core pirates such as myself, or DRM-phobics). ;)

Seriously now, you don't honestly expect anyone here to believe that on your future quad/oct-core brand spanking new PC you will install yucky Windows XP, right? WinXP will feel extremely yucky in a few years... ;)

I really don't think your being serious anymore, but I'm still using the Windows 95 style theme on XP and will happily do so for as long as it's possible to use it. I hate stupid flashy eye candy.

Some people have morals, not everyone is a thief like you. Your justification for stealing Windows is nonsense. If you can't afford Windows or think the price is too high that doesn't give you or anyone else the right to steal it.

You'll have numerous other reasons to use Vista (or Windows ver after it), including:
a. better security.
b. better efficiency when doing multi-core stuff.
c. software that'll come out for vista only, or drivers that'll have many additional benefits when running on vista+.
d. some gui elements that aren't "flashy" in nature that you will still want, such as highly integrated content indexing, rapid access to contacts/shortcuts/etc
e. save you cash on buying third party software because the built-in stuff will be good enough/"does the job".
f. in some way or another, it'll save you time and effort (due to the many many small feature improvements over XP).

I still don't believe you'll install XP on a quad-core+ machine. And if you do, then you'll be in the tiny minority -- the exception to the rule. Not something MS will even take into account when doing their accounting...

There's no point arguing with it, just ignore it and maybe it will shut up and go away.

I think you got that one wrong. The vast majority of MS products installed worldwide are PIRATED. My notion of what is moral is when the majority of the human species does it, IT'S MORAL.

You can continue feeling good about yourself and your "higher" morals, and keep paying for MS products. I'll live "among my people" and continue to steal because that's what MS has really expected us, THE PEOPLE, to do.

Don't forget to pay all your taxes too, sweetcheeks! ;)

You're 100% correct. If you ignore my words I will go away. Strangely enough, my words make too much sense for too many people who will encourage me to tell them MORE (normally). Until we all get tired and move on...

"I have no moral problem stealing MS products, for as long as they let me (by not strictly enforcing their rights)."

Thing 1 wrong with the world.

Who wants to be Thing 2?

"I hope MS starts enforcing DRM strongly, so I personally WILL BE FORCED to buy their products, or START *SERIOUSLY* LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES. If the "Windows world" is worth what I'll be forced to pay,"

So in order to act responsibly, a company must force it upon you by literally cutting off all other alternatives?

What an amazing piece of work you must be...

Someone posted something similar a while back (though a bit more elegantly) regarding the inevitability of Vista on the Home-users desktop.

Something to the effect that business market drives adoption and that the consumer market follows the business market. Since businesses will likely eventually migrate off of the 7+ year-old XP around Vista SP1 or so, based on the above, it is then very likely that the majority of consumers will do the same.

That said, there's no guarantee any particular person will do any such thing. (S)He may...or (s)he may not.

1 word: *nix

LOL...how true this is. It is *estimated* that approximately 30% of Windows installations are legal, and about the same % of MS Office installations are legit.

Where’s the "wow"? So far all we’ve gotten is the “yawn.”

Vista users are for the most part dissatisfied, and rightfully so. First, the entire “Vista hardware” capable label is misleading. Too many PC manufacturers under power their products, and unapologetically throw Vista on it, causing sluggish performance, thus customer dissatisfaction. M$ needs to exercise tighter control on that.

Aside from many of the valid points made here, isn’t it remarkable, in fact historical, that so many consumers who bought a new PC with Vista pre-installed are opting to “downgrade” to the an almost 7 year old operating system (XP)? When in the history of Microsoft has that ever happened?

Sad. So sad. After over 2 decades on top, we’re finally witnessing the once mighty Microsoft fade into the background, very much like its one time arch competitor IBM. They’ve gotten old, fat, wealthy, lazy, and arrogant. They’ve completely lost touch with those who will be driving the next generation of consumers, business and personal alike, those under 30.

Between the yawn of Vista, the dud of Office 2007, and the bomb of the “Zune”, I think Microsoft needs to seriously ask itself, “Where do you want to go today?” They seriously need to start replacing some of its top tier people, now all members of AARP, with people who have a foothold in the 21st century.

They seriously need to start replacing some of its top tier people, now all members of AARP, with people who have a foothold in the 21st century.

They need a person in charge who wants to do something other than Google. Steve Ballmer is like some kind of madman, he's got too many Y chromosones, and his obsession with crushing competition leaves him with nothing but contempt for his own customers. The man is just one big, ball of hate, and it shows in Microsoft's products.

Ray Ozzie is gonna take Microsoft to the next level. He's got vision on par with Google's Brin & Schmidt.

First of all, with regards to the article, it's surprising that Microsoft hasn't marketed Vista as much as they have other versions of Windows. They do market it, of course, but they have done very little to counter the critics other than release some half-baked hotfixes (Performance and Reliability Updates). Unfortunately, releasing fixes and without any admission of what was really wrong only justifies the critics. I don't know if the regulation on Microsoft is causing them to be this intimidated in their marketing of Vista, or if they just know they got it wrong and are trying to recover, or if there's some other factor.

Second, with regard to several of the suggestions here, I don't understand why everyone's ideas always involve Microsoft bundling more or bundling different options into Windows.

A) It will never happen. You don't make money by selling other company's products, and more importantly, you don't lower costs of your products by bundling other products. Case in point, look at Linux and Apple. Apple makes huge cash by ONLY selling their own stuff and having a few approved outside vendors (but it always costs more than alternatives). Linux doesn't make much cash at all other than support contracts (and you need those contracts since it still isn't geared for your average consumer).

B) It should never happen. Bundling is exactly why Microsoft is in trouble with anti-trust regulators. It doesn't mean boat-loads of options shouldn't be available for free as downloaded extensions, but these can't be included in a Linux-style or Apple-style fashion, because deep down it makes consumers complacent and it stifles competition and innovation. I'm not saying I dislike bundling by any means-- but then again, I'm competent enough to evaluate what I have and make a choice to find better options if I so desire. Your average consumer doesn't do that.

That said, I'm not opposed to an *OEM* bundling Firefox or Maxthon or whatever else with their system images... ****IF AND ONLY IF**** they offer those with a clear removal option (Uninstall Dell Pre-Installed Applications, for example), or if they (like Dell, for example) offer a "No Junkware" option that gives you a simple OS/Drivers install.

One thing Microsoft has done right with Vista is including a link to the Windows Live services on their "Welcome" page. Free utilities that make Windows better, but they're purely optional, and you have to consciously choose to get them.

You don't make money by selling other companies' products? Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/...y_Microsoft_Corporation

I have purchased 2 Vista Business edition notebooks in the past 3 months, the first an HP Compaq 6715b with AMD Turion 64x2 TL-64 processor ATI GFX 2gb memory, ran this with original OS for about 4 weeks, it was sluggish Vista perfomance rating was 2. Downloaded the XP drivers and did an nlite install with a previous unused XP Pro disk. This machine now rocks.
Other one is a Dell XPS M1330 configured to the max including a 64gb SSD, now this thing runs Vista in the manner for which I'm assuming it was designed. Indeed it boots in about 10 seconds, however, I have disabled many of it's services and startup apps, and further tweaked with both Tweak1V & Vista Manager.
And, I have to say notwithstanding Vista's deficiencies this machine is cooking.
As an aside re the imminent prevalence of Vista, below is a link (perhaps it belongs elsewhere) regarding a state government education contract in OZ.
http://www.computerworld...82266183;fp;;fpid;;pf;1

Yes, we can probably safely assume that MS have designed Vista so it will be most effective on hardware going forward rather than backward. Obviously the OS does feel slower than XP on identical hardware but there is a lot more going on. This will become less and less noticeable with new generation hardware. Once you are within an application application (which is what really matters) there is hardly a difference.

What would make Vista more compelling?

1. Waiting a year or two, until quad-core (even oct-core) become affordable/common, and then the "sluggishness" I and others feel about this OS right now will be a moot point then.

2. Give 100% money back guarantee by Microsoft if you didn't like Vista within 3 months of using it. Some retailers give you money back but this needs to come from manuf via a clear policy.

3. Buy out and integrate a better browser, such as Maxthon, and pre-configure it most logically. The average user really needs some of these features, especially auto-form filling, faster bookmarking system with mutiple location synching, tab closing Undo with history, quick temp disabling of heavy content, URL/search engine aliases, smart browsing history search, etc. I know because I train ppl on these features and they immediately start enjoying MOST of them tremendously!

4. Buy out and integrate Stardock software. Gotta strongly compete with MacOS's creativity/beauty.

5. Buy out and integrate ACDSee Pro. Gotta compete with Google Picasa...

6. Buy out and integrate Nero, Acronis True Image, Cobian Backup/SyncBack to compete with MacOS's "time machine" backup.

7. Buy out and integrate any other software a big percentage of customers love... They can friggin' afford it!

8. Lower the price. #1 law in economics.

9. Increase anti-piracy measures, as apparently they WORK (to increase revenue+profits). Vista is VERY hard to pirate (for the average bear).

10. Promise not to release another OS with so many new technologies (that break hardware+software compatibility) within next 4 years. A little "refresh" release is fine, as long as it's 95%+ compatible with Vista. Vista is not even 70% compatible to XP as far as drivers and software. Businesses may hold on to XP longer if they feel Vista is just a temp OS requiring too much investment (to fix incompatibilities, to train, etc). If those businesses realize Vista's technologies aren't gonna get drastically changed AGAIN for 4 years, they'll make the move sooner, rather than wait 4 years for totally new OS tech/paradigm shift.

11. Increase anti-piracy measures against Windows XP users. This move will require steel ba||s, as it will make users like myself seriously consider deserting the Windows world altogether. I won't leave if the Total Cost of Owership of Windows+Office+all_other_software is cheaper than the alternatives. And this clearly includes the time spent learning new desktop worlds and training people on them... Naturally I'll have to face this dilemma in a few years ANYWAY, when MS no longer makes it easy to steal neither the OS nor Office... The OS is a non-issue as it comes preinstalled, but Office...that's gonna be the biggest deciding factor in 5 year time. I suspect MS will continue to let us steal Office 2003, which we all know is gonna stay better than anything from the competition until 2015 or so anyway. ;)

Yeah, buy out Maxthon and put a prettier interface on Internet Explorer. That will make it better. If you want a better browser, Firefox is the best one available for the PC.

Please tell me you're kidding...

LMAO.

While this may arguably be true, I don't think anyone believes it's in MS's interests to pre-install Firefox on Windows. Maxthon is superb and very feature-packed NOT just a prettier face, in my opinion better than Firefox AND Opera.

State your counter-points if you wish a discussion.

State your counter-points if you wish a discussion.

LOL, it ain't happening...but you can continue making me laugh.

What is there to discuss. Microsoft buying out more companies and increasing their already Draconian copy protection? Yeah, that's what consumers want. This is too stupid to discuss, so I'm just going to laugh at you and be on my way.

Last time I checked, Maxthon was just a more-resource-consuming version of IE, because it was built on top of it.
Good call on the "in my opinion", though. Many people are not likely to share it, so they will just get confused when they encounter a new app they've never heard of before.

But it is built on IE, so it inherents all the security problems of IE. And IE has no where near the standards compliance of Firefox (not that Firefox passes the ACID2 test...yet).

Have you ever heard of the term "monopoly"? Its not just a game. M$ is already in trouble for some monopolistic practices.

haha anti-piracy.. hahahahahaha

ROLF.

Your point is hereby invalidated:

-----------------
We will buy 20 companies a year: Ballmer
Charles Cooper, CNET News.com

19 October 2007 07:42 AM

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Thursday, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer said his company was on the prowl for acquisitions that made strategic sense.

"Microsoft will continue to invest in buying technology, products and market share," Ballmer said. "We'll buy 20 companies a year consistently for the next five years for anywhere between 50 million and 1 billion bucks."

I invalidated your point above re the buying of companies (see Ballmer's quote). I will further invalidate your "copy protection" point by showing MS (who is bigger and smarter than YOU, comprised of hundreds of higher IQ than you individuals) has made the collective decision to increase anti-piracy measures. Google this chunk:
"For the Windows Vista operating system, Volume Licensing customers must use a new type of activation, called Volume Activation 2.0. In the future, Volume Activation 2.0 technology will also be included in Windows Server 2008 and other Microsoft products."

Go find out how nearly impossible to crack VA2 is and come back to argue some more (if you are able to confront me and my superior vision of THE REAL WORLD).

IE on Vista has very minimal security problems. You can actually find a 0-day expoit in IE that would give you full admin rights to the machine on XP, but will get NOWHERE on Vista. Google: IE Protected mode.

Maxthon2 is faster, more efficient than IE. It, first, blocks a lot of ads which speeds up loading. Second, it can STOP flash animation in non-visible tabs (reducing CPU load & memory usage). Third, Maxthon has several OTHER radical features THAT ACTUALLY WORK PRETTY WELL:
(so no, it's not a slower version of IE. It's a superb browser that will bring Firefox usage down in next few years -- GUARANTEED)
--
Anti-Freeze
The emergence of Tabbed Browsing Mode and the increasing usage of Ajax Technology in websites might cause frequent freezing while browsing. [Test]

Maxthon Browser has developed a new technology to solve this problem, makes your surfing more fluently.
--
Maxthon Smart Acceleration
Boost the browsing speed of your frequent visit websites.

And the Super Acceleration Mode can even more improve the browse speed.
--
Super Proxy
Supports connect to internet with HTTP, HTTPS, Socks4, Socks4a, Socks5 proxy servers, also supports proxies that requires authentication.

Maxthon Browser can switch between proxies automatically base on your Advanced Proxy Rule setting.
--
Security Updates
Maxthon Security Updates reduce the risk of certain unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerabilities while browsing.
--
Filter Packs
Remove ads on a specified website or implement a special feature. The whole new Filter Pack system gives you the possibility of modifying web page source code.

RRRRAFF RAFFF

It's ROFL. And thanks for admitting you are incapable of arguing with me...

Ballmer is an idiot, he said they were going to kill Google too. Regardless going around buying up companies is not going to make consumers want Vista more, it's just going to turn more people (and the DOJ/EU) against them.

The only thing you validated is that you're ideas for making consumers want Vista are incredibly stupid. Consumers DO NOT WANT more even copy protection, and Microsoft can not go around buying every company in sight without getting in more legal trouble than they already have been. Did you even read the article, or do you just not understand it?

Sorry, but you obviously don't know what you are talking about so try to stop making a fool of yourself. Thanks for continuing to make me laugh though.

The assertion that increasing copy protection is something that consumers are clamoring for is so funny though.

You sound like a salesman. Maxthon isn't that great, and Microsoft is never going to buy it (that would be a stupid purchase since they can add any of those features they want to IE anyway). Keep dreaming though.

Microsoft is 100% going to outbid Google on Maxthon's purchase, within 4 years. Microsoft will never let Google buy Maxthon and allow the developers' original plan --I follow this product closely-- to have a dual rendering engine browser (switchable). It will just be too much of a risk for MS long-term plans to keep injecting proprietary "standards" to the web.

No they won't, they don't need it.

Increasing copy protections will bring to life many many of the illegitimate children of Microsoft... In other words, the harder it is to steal, more likely a large percentage of old-school pirates will start paying. OR, of course, they'll go to the competition, which will benefit, in a true "free market" style, everyone. That "everyone" includes the future legal purchasers of MS products (even if they were hardcore pirates until 2008...)

IE was crap and still is crap.

why would Google want to buy some crappy extension to the even crappier IE? you lost me there.

I, unlike you, or most other commenters, have actually QUOTED and GIVEN LINKS to demonstrate exactly how much more I know what I'm talking about than MOST BLABBERS.

Why? Because Google is smart in seeing Maxthon gaining dominance due to its #1 in importance feature: 100% compatibility with IE7, bugs, un-standards and all.

Google this chunk:
"Multiple sources are confirming that the Chinese/Israeli startup behind the Maxthon Browser has sold a minority stake to Google. The total investment size is rumored to be around $1 million. We are also hearing that this investment is part of a “much larger strategic deal” between the two companies.
"

It's a known fact that many MS employees actually use Maxthon instead of IE. Even IE development team members said in the past "Maxthon is great - we can't add these features". Why can't they add? Perhaps because they may be confusing to some customers (same ppl full Outlook would confuse compared to OE), or because they honestly admit they're not as creative and talented as the Maxthon developer...

Maxthon will be bought by Microsoft FOR CERTAINTY, for approx 300 million bucks, within 4 years. Mark this page, because my predictions in this field are (almost) ALWAYS right.

I don't think you understood the point of this article. It was about making more people want to switch to Vista, not about how to force them too.

Not to mention the fact that it's impossible. Increasing copy protection just pisses off the legitimate consumers, and does nothing to stop the pirates. Did you learn nothing from Apple and other companies dropping DRM from their music stores? You can't stop piracy, quit living in a dreamland and try to come up with some ways they could actually make more people want Vista. Adding more DRM would be the opposite of that goal.

"Maxthon will be bought by Microsoft FOR CERTAINTY, for approx 300 million bucks, within 4 years."

Ok, congratulations. You got me, I have been most royally trolled. I actually thought you were serious all this time, you shouldn't have given yourself away though. You were on a roll.

DRM is like price fixing. It's gotta be done by everyone at the same time to be effective.

You cannot sell non-commodity items such as songs with DRM protection if the same items can be stolen some other place.

However, if one day DRM will be standardized, say by all parties involved (including Speaker manufacturers - encryption from point A to Z), then you'll simply have no choice but pay what they tell you to pay, or simply GIVE UP on the product and buy music by some other artist.

I could see myself giving up on 50% of my favorite songs if I felt the price for them was too high. This ain't air and water we're talking about here...

The same exact thing will happen with the piracy of any other form of intellectual property - it will be ERADICATED within 20-30 years. You will be charged for EVERYTHING (some nominal fee you will gladly pay). You will NOT be able to crack it, due to constant communication with the "mother ship" (whoever authenticates the piracy). Your iPod/whatever will have a hardware encryption chip that will FORCE you to PROVE the device was unhacked on a monthly/quarterly basis. You don't report to "mother ship" - your 3rd party (DRMed) data on the device is "poof".

This will happen because it HAS to happen. CPU power will be just too strong for IP owners to resist the urge to go that route. All current problems with DRM materials will be debugged slowly until the solution will be a highly stable, robust, cross-platform system for purchasing IP content.

Nobody is gonna bother re-mixing audio by placing a mic in front of encrypting speakers. It won't be cost effective and the immitation quality will majorly suck.

I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not trolling. Here's a little tidbit for ya which I'm sure you didn't know:
--
The Chinese browser market is dominated by IE and Maxthon - Firefox usage is very low in China. I asked Netanel about the 30% market share that Maxthon reportedly has in China. Netanel said it’s actually very hard to give an exact figure to show how popular Maxthon is in China, because sometimes Maxthon is still counted as IE in the figures. Netanel said:

"We have 12 million active users monthly and over 73 million downloads [over] the world. There is no doubt Maxthon is the second after IE in China and I also hope the market share will be more than 30% very soon."
--
This was back in January.

http://www.readwriteweb....ives/maxthon_global.php

Since January, Maxthon's download count has risen from 73 million worldwide to 117 million (their counter is actual server stat synched). They have released Maxthon 2.0 "final" (buggy), with 2 months worth of post-final fixes (still a few bugs, but OVERALL THE MOST AMAZING BROWSER EVER, IMHO of course). This means Maxthon probably has at least 40% browser market in China right now. And if that doesn't deserve a BetaNews story (and verifying my estimate) then I don't know what does. ;)

"Maxthon will be bought by Microsoft FOR CERTAINTY, for approx 300 million bucks, within 4 years."

You're either trolling or an idiot, either way I don't care anymore. You've begun to really bore me so I'm not replying anymore. So long good sir troll.

Im not making anybody laugh, I'm really serious. Microsoft is making more drm in Vista and that makes people buy it better.

I already proved you are wrong because I am an expert about drm and know it brings more value to windows. That is why Vista is impossible for anyone to pirate and always will be. Now everyone is forced to buy it and the price will go down. When they use their profits to buy Google you won't be laughing anymore.

See how smart I am? Well the real extremely well thinks this is funny and flattering so what does that tell you about him? Ha ha!

Only time will prove who was the "idiot" among us both, right? Right. ;)

I unlike you know what I'm talking about and IE is the only browser the world uses. Soon when Microsoft buys Maxthon you will use it too.

extremely weii (with 2 capital i in the end):
"Microsoft is making more drm in Vista and that makes people buy it better."

Amen, brother! Anti-piracy forces the would-be-thief to pay! Good job, my apostle!

extremely weii (with 2 capital i in the end):
"I unlike you know what I'm talking about and IE is the only browser the world uses. Soon when Microsoft buys Maxthon you will use it too."

Hehehehehehehehehehehehe oh God I'm pissing my pants. Hehehehehe

This is some good sh_t, bro.

Signed,
The real extremely well (two lowercase l's) ;)

LMAO

Well at least you see why everyone is laughing at you now, and agree even. I guess when one can laugh at one's own stupidity there is still hope...

Why is Maxthon so under-the-radar in the Americas, then?
I used it once (a long time ago), but gave up because it was performing significantly worse than IE (sounds crazy, doesn't it?). I hope they improved since, if they want a chance of being bought by Microsoft. Its nice that devs with quad-core desktops can use it, but I need something a bit slimmer.

"Microsoft is making more drm in Vista"

No they aren't. Unless by "making", you meant "supporting".

Kind of a big difference there. You wouldn't want to be accused of spreading lies, now would you? ;)

Maxthon2 is crap built on crap. It sucks, period.

Firefox is faster, more secure, and more efficient than Maxthon2.

Google this chunk:

"Maxthon rated worst browser extension ever. Used by fanbois who think they are cool, but get laughed at by Firefox users."

"Microsoft will continue to invest in buying technology, products and market share," Ballmer said. "We'll buy 20 companies a year consistently for the next five years for anywhere between 50 million and 1 billion bucks."

This would be Microsoft's interpretation of the word innovation.

"Compelling" means "by force" (Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press). Maybe they sell more this way, not leaving to you any other real option than obeying their implicit "orders", but IMHO in the long run compulsion never pays and earlier or later will generate reaction.

That's absolutely right, I praise Microsoft for adding DRM that forces us to buy Vista. You're wrong about the long run though, my vast knowledge tells me that we will all buy Vista, and I'm an extremely arrogant prat who likes to sput utter BS so you know I'm right.

Vista SUCKS.

It's your computer that sucks. I have a $1000 HP notebook with 2GB RAM, AMD Turion 64X2 and Vista.

Apps start instantly, Word in less than a second, Paint Shop with all drivers loaded in three seconds. IE takes about a half second to load. Everything starts lightning quick, no malware or viruses, even a free mail client that blows Outlook Express away, no spam .. at all.

I don't know what you people are doing, if you're upgrading from XP, you're screwed. If you used Vista an a pre-configured computer specifically designed to run it, you would be surprised.

I'd never go back to XP, it seems so s***ty now. It turns into molasses after a couple months for no reason. XP sucks a bag of sh!t.

If you used Vista an a pre-configured computer specifically designed to run it, you would be surprised.

My computer, also an HP with the same specs as yours came with Vista pre-installed. It was slower than my older, slower laptop running XP. It was slower than my really old 466Mhz Celeron running Windows 2000. It wasn't compatible with a bunch of my software and was constantly hassling me with stupid permission dialogs ad nauseum. I hated using it. Installing Ubuntu allows my machine to run much more quickly and I don't have to put up with Explorer, which is still the buggiest piece of software MS has ever made, even after 12 years. It copies more slowly than any other version of Windows, and just craps out. It reminds me of Windows 95.

You will be using Vista on your quad core in four years. Yes I can predict the future, my mommy bought me a crystal ball to play with.

Can Microsoft Make Vista More Compelling?
Only if they switched out the OS with Vixta, a Linux distro that mimics Vista almost perfectly. Vista has been an industry-wide embarrassment and the reason Microsoft is working desperately fast to introduce Windows 7 far ahead of schedule.
________________________________________________
Between Vista; its licensing; the MS-OOXML fiasco; Office 2007's ribbon; Balmer's blustering, empty, daily threats against open source; and Microsoft's daily stink of desperation and lies, I took steps to get away from the platform permanently and turn toward GNU/Linux. I've never had more fun on a computer than I am now; it's like I divorced a stupid lying nagging b.i.t.c.h republican wife.

Like millions of others, I've declared my own Freedom from Microsoft Day! and now have the luxury of laughing at every little Microsoft controversy that jackasses like toolie spend 70 hours a week defending.

I must admit I admire your ideals, but us mortals prefer to live by what-is-good-for-me-for-the-next-five-years-on-this-brand-spanking-new-pc, rather than think 20 years down the road what would be better for mankind (breaking down MS monopoly)... Hence, Windows remains champ for foreseeable future.

But regardless, MS monopoly will get naturally broken by the increase in CPU power in the next 10-20 years. For one thing, laptops (and iPods/PDAs) of the future would be wireless (relatively) dumb terminals communicating with servers at home/office/possibly car/train. No reason why you can't have extremely fast wireless connections in each room of a house/office (the more antennas padded in the walls the LESS radiation). And I don't see why the power jack (a single connection) on a laptop can't also provide video/network at super fast rates from a strong server a few dozen feet away.

i am right there with you dude. Posted from Firefox running on Ubuntu 7.10

The M$ OOXML fiasco was the straw that broke the camels back for me. F M$ and their crapware!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like you have NOT tried vixta. I spent an entire day TRYING toinstall and run it as a virtual machine on a VERY nice set of hardware with a full GB of RAM thrown at it. It is the slowest dog I have EVER seen and buggier than a bait shop.

An entire day? Sounds like you just don't know what you are doing, oh and "Virtual Machines" are obviously slower. You didn't know that? There's a new flash.

...it should at least install.

Honestly there is nothing they can do to make Vista remotely appealing to me. Vista was actually the final straw that made me consider GNU/Linux as an alternative. Which this is kind of funny considering that during the Pre XP SP2 days I was there defending Microsoft to the death (figuratively) along with all the other Microsoft fans . Now seeing how different Vista has become from what it was promised to be......I just have nothing left for Microsoft. Ah well the past is the past....times change as do people and their perspectives.

Yes:

1. Drop 32 bit.

2. Embrace enthusiast & modding communities-- here's a past of previous suggestion post:
On a different note, MS should make it easy to uncouple/substitute browser/shell from OS... and further, encourage such & other unrelated(like nlite/autopatcher/etc... for instance, they should be sponsoring & aiding sites like MSFN. MS stock has stagnated for years... what better way to kick-start it than by granting stock options to the entusiast / modding communities thru contests/contributions/project compensation/etc.) third party, windows enthusiast mods/projects... the increased value obtained thru additional sales, & more importantly: public image & perception(from both private user & regulatory standpoints) would be incalculable.

I agree that this would have an amazing effect on the blogosphere press this OS is getting.

That said, most home users would probably still end up getting Vista Home Premium, even if they offered a "TinyXP" version of Vista.

Considering this a little more, I think the enthusiast and modding communities actually are serving themselves quite well. TinyXP (google it, man...seriously) is an amazing piece of work. How well would the modding community take Microsoft "telling" them how it should be done? ;)

It sounds good. I just don't know how workable it would be. Not that we'll ever get to find out. :p

TinyXP is great...can't wait for TinyVis [grin] If I were MS i'd further release ALL Dos, Win9x & NT code to public domain, and just concentrate on pushing 64bit windows + the new file system AND the performance advantages of very advanced hardware(way beyond what's coming out in the next year for our desktops): say, 8+ multi-core /multi-processor systems with 16+gb ram... it would entail a lot of direct work with major software producers in order to sell the public on it.
That needs to be done because what's happening now is we're all still d***ing around with 32bit, with no imminent prospect of 64 bit... There's just not going to be anything earth-shattering performance-wise on tomorrow's imminent system-- some quad-core / 2gb / 32 bit still-getting-ironed-out-Vista... big whoop.
It's this slow progress of Windows(compared to competing OS) which has kept back hardware innovation(for the masses that is): we haven't seen any earth-shattering performance improvements for at least the last ½ decade(nor will we for a while at this rate).
We've just been upgrading hardware like zombies, receiving only incremental performance increases.

From MS standpoint, all that opens the door for some competing OS(already price-point & 64bit-experience advantaged) to get the jump on Windows... it's not that far-fetched.
I'm waiting for someone to work up a demo-- hook up some rig under linux,solaris,etc. & huge amounts of cores & ram... run some pre-optimized programs from say Adobe, etc....

Vista is a good example of what a monopoly puts out, IE7 is another. I mean it was one heck of a brutal assault on developers and partners.

Can anyone name another company that has a product that has 90 percent market share on a very much needed, popular item, takes 5 years to come to market (keep in mind computer product lines refresh every 6 months or so), doesn't lose any market share in this time, breaks 90 percent of all applications and drivers upon release from its predecessor, changes the rules for driver development, completes changes the video system among a list of other things.

This company does this with their monopoly power and no one is suing them? Crying foul, boycotting, oems are not moving toa different company, developers are not in a riot, I mean nothing is different.

It is incredible the absolute POWER microsoft has over the computer industry.

Microsoft's continued dominance in the pc market formula is as follows

Everyone knows the name windows, you know you can buy software wherever, developers make software for the most dominent OS, OEM's go with what customers want. Rinse and repeat.

Microsoft's vista is a good example of a company that has so much power they can do whatever they want and have to answer to no one.

They need some competition, serious competition. The worst mistake in the history of computing, A judge orders a breakup, talks crap about he company, judgment gets overturned. IDIOT!

I also think its kind of funny that Microsoft brags about how many licenses of Vista have been sold. First of all there is nothing to brag about or fuss about regarding marketing it.

Vista will sell itself plain and simple. The oem's will market it for them, FOR FREE. Microsoft could put out a pile of **** and it will still sell like hotcakes, Why? Because there is nothing else that is truly usable like windows is out there, Everyone supports windows and that cycle will continue until another os has full windows compatibility. Once that happens Microsoft will lose their grip and have to actually put out something descent.

Mac os x is the only reasonable alternative and that is ran by a company almost as bad as microsoft in this way. You even have to buy their computers to get it!

Vista still doesn't even work with the vast majority of peripherals on the market, how is it ready for primetime?! Of course Vista's going to be nice in a $50,000 "faux" living area.

I don't know if you guys have heard the news but everything that Vista was suppose to be has finally arrived today...It's called MAC OSX LEOPARD!

yep. And i am buying a Mac Book Pro today! WOOT!

Bravooo... they made you buy their hardware too, not just their software. BRAVO

this is posted from my new Mac Book Pro. I will gladly buy the hardware if it is good. Leopard is definitely the most polished well thought out OS i have ever used. This thing is amazing!

The Apple store was packed...it always is. I must have seen five people walk away with either a Mac Book or a Mac Book Pro when i bought this. And i saw two people walking out with new iMacs!

Spoken like someone who has no flippin' clue about what is really happening. I have zero driver issues.

Wow, brilliant post. So if I go buy a computer I have to buy the hardware? Really?? I figured I could just buy the software and it would run all by itself without a computer.

What happened to Vista R2 (revision 2)?

...Microsoft has yet to seriously market the operating system...

Huh?

Were those years of hype about how it was going to be the best OS ever, with the utmost security, the prettiest interface, and costing more to make than we spent going to the moon, not considered marketing?

And didn't they give or sell beta versions to anyone interested, giving LOTS of exposure to Vista? Heck, didn't they even give away high-end laptops with Vista pre-loaded to a number of tech reporters?

And the announcements, pre-ordering, TV ads, huge store ads, and rollout didn't really happen?

Remember, they ceased selling XP until many large corporations refused to buy a Windows PC if it came with Vista on it.

Much to the company's delight, however, there is a silver lining to their problem. They are selling large numbers of WindowsXP, something they hadn't planned on. And a year or two from now, those XP machines can be upgraded to Vista 1.1 without the problem of needing bigger hardware and with less the driver problems.

Vista Stinks, Thats why nobody is buying it. Stick with XP.

FTFA:

it has sold 88 million copies of Vista

;)

Try to avoid using words like nobody, everyone, or all. instead use words like most, many, or the majority. This makes it harder for people to flat out call you wrong. :)

Microsoft has sold 88 million licenses of Vista. Microsoft has not revealed how many copies are in use. That number doesn't even tell you how many have been bought by customers or by OEMs.

Even more, those who acquired computers with Vista does not have to use the OS. For example I had to buy a laptop with Vista. After two weeks of struggle I decided to format the HDD and install an illegal copy of Windows XP (Vista basic does not qualify for downgrade, at least in my country) as well as openSuse. Most my friends deeply hate Vista. Not because they are Microsoft haters, but because Vista is really bad.

Yeah I'm sure that's accurate too, Microsoft wouldn't stretch things. PCs sitting in warehouses and copies on store shelves should not count as sales. Also how many of these are enterprise contracts? 88 million copies sold, right...

Businesses don't buy 88 million copies of something that isn't going to sell.

Think about it for as little as a second next time.

Thanks.

Nope, no business has EVER tried to sell something that didn't sell (cough betamax divx 3DO CDI Microsoft BOB hack cough). They already know if a product is going to sell before they even stock it because they have magic crystal balls!

88 million copies.

Hardly "(cough betamax divx 3DO CDI Microsoft BOB hack cough)".

I doubt any those even cracked 1 million.

Care to take another swing? Or perhaps just admit that retailers are betting that, as usual, businesses will migrate, followed by the consumer.

I remember all of the people saying they whould never give up Win 98 or 2000 when XP came along, so to everyone saying they'll never give up XP I say its only a matter of time.

Like it or not, three years from now most all of us will be using Vista or be woefully behind on what new games we can run and new hardware we can use.

I never said I wouldn't give up 98 or 2000. I was delighted when XP came along. Just because you heard a few people say that, it doesn't mean they spoke for everyone nor does it have any relevance to what people think of Vista. A new flavor of Chef-Boy-Ardee could come out and you'd find people saying they'll never switch.

Oh and three years? Windows 7 is due out in 2010, don't forget that. Vista is just a stopgap OS, and an unnecessary one at that. Don't forget also that XP extended support doesn't end until 2014. I HIGHLY doubt that hardware manufacturers and game developers are going to dump XP anytime soon. Let's try to be semi-realistic here.

I remember the same thing. Then, after a couple of years, most of them moved on to XP. Though there are still a few Luddites who insist that they have their WinME systems tweaked to perfection.

Browse the Betanews forums from the XP RTM to about 1 year after.

It's not a stretch to say the hate come in waves coinciding with new releases.

The flaw in your argument is you seem to think those people have changed their minds and love XP now.

Didn't look it up, now didja?

There's no surprise Microsoft & Windows haters don't like Vista, but it really serve the point of this article. This article is about Windows users using Vista over XP. Microsoft is faced with a problem that not many people actually comment about. People argue that Windows shouldn't come with anything that doesn't deal with the operating of the system, such as Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Photo Gallery etc as standard, yet they expect its availability for use!

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Vista wasn't going to be the perfect operating system, especially from the start. It should be expected to contain many numerous bugs and oversights. Vista, surprisingly, is actually better as an original release than what the original XP was! XP was already a second generation of that core of Windows too, the first being 2000.

The biggest mistake Microsoft made was to bring out a 32 bit release for Windows Vista. New computers are almost always coming with 32-bit vista not the 64-bit Vista, and this is quite stupid in affect. People say that there aren't 64 bit drivers BUT for Vista drivers to get WHQL they need to have both working 32 & 64 bit drivers. You can install non-WHQL drivers, but its a lot of hassle the typical user wouldn't know how to do, or wouldn't want to do! Not to mention 32 bit Vista is only good for 2GB RAM, I've seen articles or forum talk where people buy 4GB RAM then wonder why in Vista 32-bit Windows tells them they only have 3 (or 2gb)! - The rest goes to waste as it cannon be addressed under 32 bit.

It also makes things more complex for Microsoft, as they havg yet another operating system to support. Instead of spending the effort creating 32 bit Vista, that part of the team should have been added to the team working on XP SP3. Now XP SP3 (with a few additional sub Visa enhancements) should have been released as XP release 2. In fact, they should have updated the core to the Server 2003 core (that Windows XP x64 use), 32 bit version of the core of course, and had it as say a $20 or $30 upgrade to XP. Most people who wouldn't buy Vista x64 would buy it, and it means that there would be essentially 2 different operating systems they wouldn't need to support anymore! Sp3 of XP now uses the server 2003 updates, and there's no Vista 32 bit to worry about. This would have saved them considerable money to start with, and they could spend more time and effort getting Vista x64 up to standard. Microsoft wins because its less outlay cost for them, AND they make profit from all the definitive XP upgrade (as long as its a very cheap process as stated above). Consumers would also have been happier and more impressed with Microsoft.

Vista doesn't really bring anything worthwhile to justify it's cost. What it does bring is an annoying, poorly designed, slow and resource hungry OS. There's really nothing you can do in Vista that can't be done with XP or a newer alternative OS like Linux. I did give Vista a chance, but from the ugly emo goth theme to the slow performance, annoying security, and dumbed down features I just didn't see any reason to keep using it. Sorry Microsoft, Vista is a dud.

I love vista and plan to buy another vista disc when I build another home pc in the near future.
I like their advertising when you are able to see it, pleasant stuff, nothing obnoxious pompous or arrogant. Will be good to let the rest of the world see them, if they are known by so many :D

Last stats I know are here:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?
BTW, you may see there are still almost as many Windows 98 SE users as Linux users. If you only use it to browse Internet or for Microsoft Office, IMO it keeps being worth to preserve your old comp.

I wonder if Google analytics has a global stats page. I would love to see that too. I see these trends on my private page, but never knew there was one that showed global trends. thats very cool...

it keeps being worth to preserve your old comp.

Google TinyXP Beast Edition.

Running it on my ancient laptop. The speed of it on this peice absolutely blew me away.

This is how XP should run.

Thanks for the analytics. Nice to look at, but they cannot be accurate. I can't imagine Linux having only a 1.3% when it had more than that in '03.

The problem with Vista is not its features. They are fine. And even their higher price point is acceptable for most. There is a marginal issue with the spread of skus to choose from. 90% of users will NOT want to deal with anything less then Home Premium (the XP MCE equivalent), why there are 2 skus under that I have no idea... 2 skus over makes sense (Business, and Ultimate), but not under...

The problem with Vista is not the things that people like me have objections too. {The DRM, the lack of certain assumptions of privacy with Calling home "features", the Crippling issues if you do some custom programing MS does not approve of, The updating of things you do not want to update, And the general Resource hogging, and lack of drivers for the majority of existing equipment on the market, and most important for businesses the lack of compatibility of Business software for accounting programs and other mission critical programs that are REQUIRED to be active for most businesses.}

The Problem with Vista is that there is nothing compelling in it for users to have a reason to upgrade to Vista on existing machines with XP pro on it already. Its little more then eye candy from Windows XP Pro SP2 with MCE additions on it. And XP will run faster with greater compatibility then Vista on ANY machine in existence.

Vista Just is not worth the $400+ to have the headache for most users. Others will just take it and spend an additional $500-800 to upgrade their machine in order to run it as well as XP did prior to upgrading to Vista. That's what these people like to do. Waste money.

The majority will go to Vista with a NEW machine. And I fully accept that. as long as they are also getting all new equipment to work with it too, cause more then likely they will have too anyway.

The only other problem I personally have with Vista is the misconception that MS gives to people that this OS will work on low end equipment. Yea it will WORK, but just barely... Vista is a resource hog. There are many reasons for this but IF you have a Pent 4 HT with only a GB of Ram, Do not go trying to put Vista on it and think its going to run well. MS will tell you it will, but it simply Will not be worth it.

If you have a machine with Windows XP pro, or windows MCE, there is just no reason for you to be bothered with Windows Vista. Don't even waste a brain cell on it. What you have is working well is it not? OK then, Don't fix what is not broken. If you want to waste a few bucks, get more RAM and make your windows XP run like a Ferrari. Then at least when Vista SP1 comes out you will have a CHANCE of Vista running better on your machine at a later date.

I've seen you do this before...

Mind if I ask where you are getting your numbers?

You quote the cost of users upgrading to Vista at $400 plus. I've been seeing it online for anywhere from $208 to $259.

I'm sure you can find it for more, but ... why?

The rest is a dead-on perfect description of the situation. Vista should not be upgraded on systems currently running XP, and Microsoft should definately have upped the stated requirements.

That said, on a new system, which I was fortunate enough to obtain recently, it can run very well. It's a home-built with Vista Home Premium. I disabled UAC and Aero only because they annoyed me (:p), not because they were causing any issues.

Haven't noticed any problems with DRM. I installed my codec pack and all my files play as well as they did in XP.

------- >The only other problem I personally have with Vista is the misconception that MS gives to people that this OS will work on low end equipment. Yea it will WORK, but just barely... Vista is a resource hog. There are many reasons for this but IF you have a Pent 4 HT with only a GB of Ram, Do not go trying to put Vista on it and think its going to run well. MS will tell you it will, but it simply Will not be worth it.

For Home premium NON UPGRADE.

As any moron knows doing an upgrade Sku is worthless. You got to reinstall it from scratch to have its best result...

The other reason that I do not quote Upgrade skus is cause for a good 80% of users out there Upgrades are not applicable. Meaning they are not allowed for OEMs, and not allowed for XP version that have been "upgraded" prior.

The only thing a Upgrade sku with the lower prices you quote are allowed is if you had a Full Retail version of XP. Which as far as I know hardly no one has.

There are 2 illegal ways to make use of the upgrade sku. Install on top of itself to become full version, and use a Pirated retail xp install disc (because if you use a OEM disc it will not let it install from an upgrade DVD) to trick the upgrade into installing as a full version. Both as far as MS is concerned is piracy. And they will likely opt to invalidate your installation at any time if they so choose.

Since the only Use-able Vista version is Home premium and above and to satisfy all the RESTRICTION that MS puts in place I am quoting A retail version BOXED full version that you would get from any retail store in the USA. Not some Pirated illegal version or some illegally sold OEM that many online store sell against the MS licence; Turning all their customers into Pirates in MS eyes.

Home premium Non upgrade?

...and I quote:

"Vista Just is not worth the $400+ to have the headache for most users. Others will just take it and spend an additional $500-800 to upgrade their machine in order to run it as well as XP did prior to upgrading to Vista."

As far as I can tell, you're trying to tell everyone that it will cost $400 to upgrade to Vista OS (No mention of version), and that they'll need to buy an additional $500-800 to upgrade the hardware.

If you are quoting a price for a specific product, maybe, just maybe, you might actually want to mention which product you are quoting.

The problem for us has been DVDs and the fact that they have now become the norm. When XP was being developed this wasn't the case and that's why all previous OSs have been the size of a CD. Now with the storage space that DVDs give and the fact that hardware has moved on so much since 2001, this has given Microsoft carte blanche. And they got carried away pure and simple. Instead of asking what the user wants they asked how for can we go, how far can we push the boundaries. And that isn't what the majority of average users want at all. I think in the long run it'll prove to been one of the most expensive errors a company has made.

Sorry!, not ready to throw away my expensive hardware that accomadates win xp very well but
not good enough for vista.

Vista is a total turd. No thanks. Why would anyone in their right mind want to be more locked into M$?

LOL the vista OS itself has more market share then Apple.

That's because Apple doesn't use DRM to protect their OS. An os is a commodity like cheese, and to make it valuable you have to add anti-piracy so people are forced to buy it instead of stealing it. Now that Vista cannot be pirated the price will go down.

Windows Market Share (Total): 86%
MacOSX Market share (Total): 6.7%
Linux Market share (Desktop total): 3.2%
Vista slice of Windows total Market Share: 10% (according to the article above)

Do the math.

Vista is already beating MacOSX and Linux.

All of the numbers aside from the one quoted above are from 2006. Trolling and lame excuses aside; Even allowing 1-2% growth (which is generous), Vista is still beating them all.

Nate, do you happen to have more recent numbers? I think I heard that Windows hopped over the 90% mark, and don't know how that affected the others. Google has not been helpful.

Been using Vista since March and loved every minute of it so far. Using Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live OneCare!

loving vista and all of windows live! been using it since all of beta :-) alot of haters tend to disagree tho..too bad!

I have xp and vista (ultimate) dual booting and I NEVER use xp anymore since all my software has finally been made compatible with vista ;-)

While I don't use all the Live stuff, I have been using Vista since March with no problems. I absolutely LOVE the feature where I can search on the start menu.

I regret every cent I spent on Vista Home.
It's pretty though.

You silly person. You're not supposed to buy it. You're supposed to have it pre-installed on your new PC.

I will still use windows xp....... thanks

no comment..........

I used Vista for a few weeks and I don't think there is anything they could do to make me want to reinstall that garbage. Going back to XP, now that was compelling. My next OS will probably be FreeBSD or some variant of Linux, but I'll stick with XP for as long as it's a usable OS (which I think will be many years to come).

ur def not of the advanced or intelligent kind.

XP FUCHING sucks!! i'll NEVER go back to that crap

This coming from someone who is apparently retarded. When you learn how to spell/write like a normal person get back to me. Just in case you can't understand this let me translate for you:

ur ritng is teh stoopid an i cant understand u, go lern how 2 rite u moron lmao bbq

I'll say one thing for Vista; it's made Windows XP a compelling OS. I can't seriously believe that they expect a whole lot of excitement over anything with "Live" after it either.

Oh well, maybe I'm just jaded. I'm really enjoying Ubuntu right now.

I know what you mean. Ubuntu forever.....

I agree, I can't understand why people would pay for live versions of programs and services when they could get it for from from other sources such as google for mail, photos and even desktop search (i tried it and it did pretty good in my opinion) and openoffice. Hell, you can even fit most of these freeware/open source programs on your thumb drive and take them with you! Beats saving it online and trying to find a computer with internet connection just to get your files.

The Windows Live programs are free, as are most of the services except OneCare.

The Live services are just one more reason not to use Vista over XP. Remember when the new Windows Mail in Vista was one of it's selling points? Now they are replacing it with Live Mail which is better and is available for XP also.

People hated XP whenever it first came out as well. Vista will come around. Personally I have been using it without any problems. There are a few ruff edges here and there, but nothing major. I have never once had the whole OS crash and give me an error screen. Most of the problems I have had is poorly written programs by people still trying to get the hang of coding for Vista.

I gravely doubt MS can make Vista compelling to me, but seeing Vista in action certainly made Linux compelling as nothing had before. I'm quite happy dual-booting XP and Ubuntu on one of my machines and Ubuntu alone on the other.

Linux has BECOME my Vista.

[JEdwardP]: Linux has BECOME my Vista.

Especially if you use Vixta, a Linux distro that mimics Vista almost perfectly.

zridling, leave it to you to find out about such a distro. I read your series at DonationCoder after I had begun to use Linux on a daily basis, and was both impressed and well informed by it.

OMG, talk about a friggin UGLY OS - I have installed Ubuntu several times and got bored and disgusted with the ass-brown appearance and lack of features.

You must be blowing the developer to be such a fan. vixta seems like nothing more than a dog-slow fedora with a vista-like theme.

The only people who hated XP were the hardcore 2000 users.

Right, god forbid someone likes something that you don't. Of course your opinion is the most important, if you don't like something it's obviously garbage and anyone else who does like it deserves to be insulted.

Ubuntu needs more DRM so people will be forced to buy it. It doesn't matter what an os looks like, you will still use it.

XP had way more than 2000 users. It is popular because people like me can steal it. Vista will make more money though because it cannot be pirated ever.

Only for right now, when they buy maxthon they will start charging and the services will be known as Windows Maxthon Live. I know this for CERTAIN and it will happen within the next 4 years.

well seems an interesting conversation - so ill just add my bit

i have a fully paid for version of vista busineess, a 3.8ghz cpu , 15.gig ram , blah blah blah

when vista fails to perform basic operations like copying a file , or loosing disk drives 1/2 way thru copy operations etc , i have worries - not because there are not as many apps / drives ertc - its because the basic OS is having problems - i have 3 phyiical disks using 7 partions - and on a regular basis (on clean installs) , all drives "disappear" except c - even half way thru burning s a CD/DVD the drive disappears , ive installed "cleanly" vista 7 or 8 times , and without instaled other apps - it times out on large file copies etc , - this may be a generic driver/motherboard problem , but as far as im concernet - if you cant copy a file - forget it - i dont care about the lovely desktop if 6months of work disappears form a file - because vista "looses it" - ms should concentrate on geting the basics fixed before worrying about - oh yes "what a lovely desktop - you can tab thru 3d - but ill loose you work and files in the mean time - but i look good"

You have a hardware issue.

If your drives are all connected to an onboard controller - that is the culprit, if it is a RAID card - look there.It is not your OS.

15GB of RAM? I have never heard of anyone running a desktop OS with that much. You must be running Vista64.

Looks as butt-ugly as any other linux OS I've seen...

I've always been one who preferred as little eye candy as possible, but even in my relatively short time (two months) of using Linux on a daily basis for both personal and home-office use, I've already found that its level of customizability is deep enough to render its default state almost meaningless. In other words, if you think a distro is ugly, chances are its interface can be radically if not almost completely altered toward your taste, and with relatively little difficulty.

My Ubuntu desktop, for instance, is similar enough to my XP desktop that at least four people I regularly work with have yet to realize that I now primarily run Linux.

Never understood that...

You switched from XP to use Ubuntu and have themed it to look "similar enough to my XP desktop that at least four people I regularly work with have yet to realize that I now primarily run Linux"?

What's the point?

Not a big fan of Eye-Candy either, but I just switch to classic mode. Hell of a lot easier than installing Linux and finding the apps I need to do my job (or even to avoid doing my job). ;)

running his mouth most likely...