It's all good Microsoft

Microsoft at times is truly sad as it seems they just cannot do anything right. But what would we do without them for they were the first along with Mac to get into this business. I have used their live mail etc and I dislike it so much I removed it, for all it did was keep getting corrupted, so I am not impressed with this live thing at all.

Man, this whole "LIVE" thing has been a complete debacle.

I can hardly believe how many times they have screwed the pooch with these wacky "Branding" and "Services" implementations.

Microsoft Bob anyone? Passport? MSN?

Doesn't anyone end up being accountable for these disasters?

I guess the insanely deep pockets that they have allows them to experiment with these things, but for the consumer, I honestly think it's just a confusing mess.

I just wish they would stop worrying about all this "Cloud Computing Services" stuff and focus on making an operating system that is at least as good as Windows 2000 Professional was.

Focus, people. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Stick to what you do best and make your Operating System so good that even the harshest critics will have to give it props.

Hmmm... Microsoft Bob being a mistake, I can agree with you on that. But Passport and MSN?

I still use my Hotmail account from 2001, which evolved into a Passport account, which has since evolved into a Windows Live ID. So Passport as a name may be dead, but all Passport accounts are now Windows Live ID's... And are far from dead.

And MSN? Well... Like I said, I still use my Hotmail account from 2001, which just happens to be an @msn.com account. So it's been going strong for 7 years for me without any hiccups (not sure exactly when MSN started without looking it up).

And like you said - one of the benefits of having "insanely deep pockets" is that you can try these things out, and if they work... great! If not, move on to the next thing.

Side note: you don't actually believe that Windows 2000 is as good as (let alone better) than Windows Vista, do you? Are you one of these people who's never actually used it, but just like to talk s*** about it because it's trendy?

I have personally seen Vista running flawlessly on at least 10 computers (desktop and laptop), both old and new. The only issue I've ever come across is a few programs that wouldn't run. And - get this - they were DOS programs, and it was the x64 version of Vista. Big deal.

Ok - first, the fact that you have to enter *.MSN.com, *.Passport.com and now *.Live.com to your Trusted Zone in order to get OE 6 to be able to check your Hotmail - that's kind of lame.

Passport as originally proposed is dead and buried. Once users found out how easy it was to crack that container of information, it was simply deemed too risky to be effective. A single file that would contain your entire online portfolio, credit card numbers, address, etc. was just a bad idea.

The thought that all you had to do was maintain a passport file so that you never had to re-enter data at any site who participated in the Passport program sounded pretty decent. But once put in practice, the negatives were obvious.

Now - on the Windows 2000 Pro / Vista thing.

I truly do believe that Windows 2000 Professional was the single best business client operating system that Microsoft ever released. It was lean, clean and perfect as a business client. It was put out to pasture far sooner than it should have been, imo. They should have maintained Windows 2000 as their primary business platform and focused XP on the consumer market only, again, imo. Windows 2000 Professional was a really great foundation to build upon, and I feel that Microsoft really did drop the ball by pushing it aside in favor of Windows XP.

You didn't have all the "movie maker" type of fluff that came in later versions, the interface was fast and efficient, there was no Direct X stuff to worry about, no frilly stuff for handling picture collections, email stationary, gaming features, etc. If I ran a large business, I wouldn't want all that fluff on employee machines, and since Windows 2000 Professional did not have all that junk, it was a good option as a business client.

Now, while I applaud the decision by Microsoft to move the graphics farther out from the core kernel to an outer ring in Vista, I see no reason why they would not have been able to do that with a Windows 2000 Professional client and server as well.

Regarding experience, I currently own two legal copies of Vista. The laptop we recently bought came with Vista pre-installed. We could not get Windows XP to work properly on that laptop, so it stayed a Vista rig.

A Gateway I bought to replace a fried "super peer" system that we use to host files and printers in the home office - that system also came with Vista. However, that box was able to work with Windows XP no problem, so I left the Vista setup on the main drive intact and installed two new hard drives and put Windows XP on the first of those. So, while Windows XP is the default environment, if I want to fire up Vista, I just go into the BIOS and change the boot device from the Maxtor IDE drive to the Seagate SATA drive, and bam, I'm in Vista full-on. It's not even dual boot - it's 100% raw Vista.

I tested Vista long before it came out as a retail product. I have moderately extensive hands-on experience with Vista, including the Ultimate version.

I have seen Vista on DOZENS and DOZENS of computers, cause consulting is what I do.

If you buy a brand-new rig with Vista pre-installed, things tend to work pretty well.

If you have a legacy rig and try installing Vista on that, you can run into major, major problems, in part because so many pieces of hardware were dropped from the list of supported devices.

So all that said, I, like much of the industry, think Vista is an inferior product when compared to Windows XP.

Even Microsoft has relented and admitted it is a deeply flawed product and they hope to get back on track with Windows 7.

So it's not just about being "trendy" - it's about recognizing that Vista just ain't cuttin' it.

If it works for you - hey - more power to ya. But there are huge numbers of folks and businesses that think it flat out blows, and their opinions are just as valid as yours.

I agree that one person's opinion is as valid as the next, I was just asking whether or not you'd actually used it. Many, many people say rediculous things about it without ever having used it, just because that seems to be the cool thing to do at the moment (my own boss comes to mind here - he hated Vista... until he actually used it - it's now his primary OS and he loves it).

I suppose in a strictly business sense, Windows 2000 does provide a semi-modern operating system that does run lightning fast... now. But I would expect nothing less of an 8 year old operating system running on current hardware. You may remember when it was released that it had awful performance, and was highly criticised for it - as was XP, and now Vista. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed finding a Windows release that didn't come under fire during its release, but which is now considered to be "light-weight" and "bloat-free" compared to newer offerings.

I remember reading an interesting quote recently (paraphrased, not sure of the source) - even MS-DOS 6 was considered slow bloatware when it came out, but now it would be considered the exact opposite.

I think for Vista on current hardware, the x64 versions are a good choice, particularly considering driver compatibility has increased dramatically, and there are a few kernel changes that make it much more stable (having it pre-loaded on a brand name machine usually guarantees a problem-free installation). For older machines, I'd stick with x86 purely for the wider driver support (and you really only need the x64 versions if you have 3GB of RAM or more).

My old Vista machine only had 512MB RAM and a very old GeFore 5200 - but it did actually run well enough for everyday use - even with DWM enabled. And I never had any compatibility issues with it.

Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones ;-)

Good old Microsoft...Cant they test anything thoroughly before making it available?