Windows XP vs Vista

[Shadylookin]

Why would MS put time and money into R&Ding ways to make it easier for you to use a different OS? That's not something MS should be doing, nor is it something I thought anyone would use. What's wrong with GRUB? Why re-invent the wheel?

grub is fine it's the fact that windows overwrites the MBR and erases grub while not installing a useful bootloader that annoys me. If hobbyists in their spare time can do it I'm sure MS can pull it off.

Again, you simply do not understand. This is not about meeting standards or hardware being old or hardware being start of the art. It's about a from-the-ground-up new audio engine with new driver models that requires every single hardware vendor to create, from scratch, new drivers. This takes time for the vendors to do.

I don't see it as any less valid than when people complain about unix/linux because it's not compatible with their hardware. Of course their was a device driver for it, I'm just surprised Vista failed to recognize it out of the box like every other operating system did.

First -- no, it's not hard to believe that your laptop ran out of RAM. That was not what I was saying you were lying about. I told you that the more RAM your programs use, Vista throttles down its memory usage since it uses much of it to cache programs used frequently. You essentially said this was not the case because you ran out all the time. I wanted a screenshot of your processes tab so I can show you exactly what was going on.

for all i know it was throttling to the max, but it wasn't enough when it devoted obscene amounts of system ram to my video card and left me with practically nothing to run my processes. and even with such a large amount of video ram I still experienced glitches in it.

Because it has nothing at all to do with the job done, and everything to do with you jumping into something you didn't even give 10 seconds of research to. Upgrading the central pillar to your whole computer is a big deal -- period. The whole point of new operating systems is change, and if you're not equipped to deal with change, don't use it. Go back to typewriters, Apple IIes, or Windows 95 for all I care...just don't whine when you jump to something new and different as soon as it comes out and then whine that its driver support isn't mature as a 10 year old platform's.

vista's update advisor said there were no issues and that I was "vista ready." My laptop comes with a sticker that said vista ready as well. I'm not exactly dragging the old pentium 2 out of the closet here, these are both respectable machines. The desktop is only 2 years old, and the laptop is only 8 months old.

It's not a terribly huge deal for me since I go through operating systems like women go through shoes. However, since this is the XP vs Vista thread I figured this would be the perfect place to post the problems i've had.

 

[Asher]

grub is fine it's the fact that windows overwrites the MBR and erases grub while not installing a useful bootloader that annoys me. If hobbyists in their spare time can do it I'm sure MS can pull it off.

I'm sure MS can pull it off also. You clearly don't understand the ramifications, though -- MS can't alter GRUB or other open source bootloaders without opening themselves up to legal attack due to the licenses those bootloaders use. MS also can't boot with OS without either altering GRUB or writing its own bootloader. Since legally altering GRUB installs is a bad thing for MS to do, it loads its own bootloader instead. You can use GRUB to boot Windows, it doesn't take long to reinstall it from Linux at all (seconds?).

I don't see it as any less valid than when people complain about unix/linux because it's not compatible with their hardware. Of course their was a device driver for it,

Who said that's any less valid?

It's the same situation, exactly. Which is precisely why it's ridiculous to blame Linus Torvalds or GNU or anyone/anything else other than the vendors of your product. The ball is in THEIR court.

I'm just surprised Vista failed to recognize it out of the box like every other operating system did.

I'm baffled how this can surprise anyone. Did you just ignore everything that I just went over?

I'll break it down for easier comprehension:
1) Vista's audio engine is 100% new.
2) Vista's audio drivers need to be 100% new.
3) Vendors write audio drivers, when and if they do it is completely up to them and their competence.
4) If there are no audio drivers available when Vista was released to production mid last year, they are not included in the box. Duh -- right?

Where is the room for surprise here? It seems pretty predictable and expected to me.

for all i know it was throttling to the max, but it wasn't enough when it devoted obscene amounts of system ram to my video card and left me with practically nothing to run my processes. and even with such a large amount of video ram I still experienced glitches in it.

I have already discussed this with you several times now. Video card system allocation is 100% up to your video card drivers and/or options, not Windows. Glitches you have with your video card are 100% up to your video card/drivers, not Windows.

It's not a terribly huge deal for me since I go through operating systems like women go through shoes. However, since this is the XP vs Vista thread I figured this would be the perfect place to post the problems i've had.

It's one thing to post problems you've had, it's quite another to suggest they're inherent to Vista when virtually 100% of the problems you've listed are due to immature driver support, which is a problem with every new operating system. That is all I'm getting at. It is unreasonable to expect that months before an OS is actually released, 100% perfect drivers are available for it from every vendor of every piece of hardware, wouldn't you say?

 

[GVBN]

..............

 

[Quintillus]

I take back my recomendation to get Vista on a new machine, at least for Civ Fanatics. It seems to have problems with Civilization III, to the degree that it won't load saved games. See the CivIII vs. Vista in Civ3 Technical Support for details - if you can figure out why it's not working and tell me how to fix it that'd be great and I'll stick with Vista.

Otherwise, I'm recommending staying with Windows XP.

edit: Just looked over the last two posts and saw:

1) Vista's audio engine is 100% new.

Since my problem has something to do with Mp3dec.asi (according to the crash report, anyways), that might be part of my problem.

 

[Shadylookin]

I'm sure MS can pull it off also. You clearly don't understand the ramifications, though -- MS can't alter GRUB or other open source bootloaders without opening themselves up to legal attack due to the licenses those bootloaders use. MS also can't boot with OS without either altering GRUB or writing its own bootloader. Since legally altering GRUB installs is a bad thing for MS to do, it loads its own bootloader instead. You can use GRUB to boot Windows, it doesn't take long to reinstall it from Linux at all (seconds?).

obviously they can't just steal grub, but nothing stops them from making one from scratch that's useful or giving the option to not override the MBR. it does take an awfully long time to reinstall the bootloader from linux if you can't get into linux. and WinGrub doesn't work with vista to install a new one(throws permision errors even when I"m admin )

I have already discussed this with you several times now. Video card system allocation is 100% up to your video card drivers and/or options, not Windows. Glitches you have with your video card are 100% up to your video card/drivers, not Windows.

and I've already discussed several times that it doesn't matter how awesome MS's stuff is if it doesn't work. Lack of good driver support is reason enough for anybody to not use an operating system.

It's one thing to post problems you've had, it's quite another to suggest they're inherent to Vista when virtually 100% of the problems you've listed are due to immature driver support, which is a problem with every new operating system. That is all I'm getting at. It is unreasonable to expect that months before an OS is actually released, 100% perfect drivers are available for it from every vendor of every piece of hardware, wouldn't you say?

not when MS says my computer is "Vista Ready."

 

[LordRahl]

One of my hobbies is composing music on the side, and so I frequent audio hardware/software forums a lot. You'd be surprised how many people go there asking for help because they have problems with their sound cards recording, or virtual instruments pops/noises. They claim they have just purchased their systems, and indeed they have pretty impressive specs (including Vista). Besides the obvious advice to upgrade to the latest drivers (which most of them already did), everybody suggests that they upgrade to XP as well...
I love Windows, and granted - driver issue is not their fault, but it is their problem (at least from the end user perspective). I'd rather have all compatible XP, than selective Vista - which will be the case for some time yet, though I do plan on getting it eventually.

 

[Asher]

obviously they can't just steal grub, but nothing stops them from making one from scratch that's useful or giving the option to not override the MBR. it does take an awfully long time to reinstall the bootloader from linux if you can't get into linux. and WinGrub doesn't work with vista to install a new one(throws permision errors even when I"m admin )

If it didn't override your MBR, would you know the settings required to boot Vista? I sincerely doubt it.

I'll admit it's not nice to overwrite the MBR when you install Windows, but since it's done that for decades I find it hard to believed you're somehow surprised by it. It is not in MS' interest to waste resources developing a bootloader so you can use another product. Such bootloaders already exist in any case, and if someone is using Linux, they really SHOULD know how to use a bootloader.

and I've already discussed several times that it doesn't matter how awesome MS's stuff is if it doesn't work.

And as I've discussed several times with you, it's not MS stuff that doesn't work. It's your crappy soundcard and crappy vendor with crappy drivers, not MS' stuff.

Myself, my soundcard worked out of the box.

not when MS says my computer is "Vista Ready."

It means your computer is capable of running Vista. Which it is...otherwise you could not have installed it.

 

[Kranden]

This turned out to be a pretty good thread.

My overall view from research and post here seems to be this atm.

Vista Is good but its too new and some things are not currently compatible. This may be solved almost 100% in a year or so but for now its better to stick with windows XP. Especially if you run old games and software.

 

[GVBN]

Windows is required to write to MBR. GRUB itself can't boot Windows, it just chainloads the Windows bootloader

 

[sliph]

Raymond Chen has some insight into why Windows overwrites the MBR. If you've been through the Vista setup process, you'll realize that an additional question to ask whether they want to overwrite the MBR will be completely out of place and bewildering to the majority of users.

Also, I'm sure MS can write a GRUB-friendly installer as well, but testing it becomes a problem. What Linux distros or other OSs do they test with? What if there's a distro-specific patch to GRUB; does Microsoft test against that as well? What about older versions of GRUB? I'm sure ancient distros with ancient versions of GRUB are still in use.

They can test a partial set of the above, but if some obscure bug shows up and destroys data, Microsoft will endure a crapload of negative publicity. It's just easier to overwrite the MBR and have computer-savvy users restore GRUB or whatever other boot loader they have.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

My wife got stuck with Vista when she bought a new desktop a couple months ago. She's basically pulling her hair out. None of her old software works. Usually not even in "compatibility mode". If I hadn't been able to get her Office Enterprise Edition for $20 through my job, I think she would have had me load Win2K on the thing. (I'd rather put Linux on it, but she is averse to change. And what is Vista but change anyway?)

Should just downgrade her computer to XP Pro. XP doesn't have all the pretty little features Vista has, but it is a helluva lot better.

Vista is crap. Your OS should use most of it's resources to keep itself running. That's just stupid.

XP Pro. That's what I'm trained in, that's what I'm sticking with.

 

[Zelig]

Should just downgrade her computer to XP Pro. XP doesn't have all the pretty little features Vista has, but it is a helluva lot better.

Vista is crap. Your OS should use most of it's resources to keep itself running. That's just stupid.

XP Pro. That's what I'm trained in, that's what I'm sticking with.

Should just downgrade her computer to Windows 98. Windows 98 doesn't have all the pretty little features XP has, but it is a helluva lot better.

XP is crap. Your OS should use most of it's resources to keep itself running. That's just stupid.

Windows 98. That's what I'm trained in, that's what I'm sticking with.



Resource consumption in XP and Vista can't be directly compared, they aren't managed the same way in both operating systems.

Vista has very few issues or limitations over XP. If you have any specific ones, post them here, and someone will likely be able to post a way to solve the problem.

 

[Padma]

Should just downgrade her computer to XP Pro. XP doesn't have all the pretty little features Vista has, but it is a helluva lot better.

Vista is crap. Your OS should use most of it's resources to keep itself running. That's just stupid.

XP Pro. That's what I'm trained in, that's what I'm sticking with.

Should just downgrade her computer to Windows 98. Windows 98 doesn't have all the pretty little features XP has, but it is a helluva lot better.

XP is crap. Your OS should use most of it's resources to keep itself running. That's just stupid.

Windows 98. That's what I'm trained in, that's what I'm sticking with.



Resource consumption in XP and Vista can't be directly compared, they aren't managed the same way in both operating systems.

Vista has very few issues or limitations over XP. If you have any specific ones, post them here, and someone will likely be able to post a way to solve the problem.

Win2000Pro is what I have currently on CD. I don't have any valid 9x versions, and I'm not willing to spend $100 for XP, since it's really just Win2K-SP5 (and SP6 and SP7).

Like I said, I'd prefer to put Linux on it, but ....

__________________
This post written with 100% PCLinuxOS.

 

[Mise]

What ever happened to that new FS they were harping on about when it was called "Longhorn"?

 

[Asher]

It's to be released as a free addon sometime in 2008.

 

[Mise]

Hmm, I think that's about the only thing worth upgrading for. I don't see how a whole new FS can be an "addon" though . Pretty big addon...

 

[Asher]

It's not a whole new FS. That's a common misconception. It is a database abstraction layer on top of NTFS.

 

[IamJohn]

My room mate has Vista on his laptop (1 gig ram if I remeber right), and aside from some compatibility problems on some really old games he seems to really like it. If/when I get a new computer I'll probably get vista, by that time most of the bugs should be worked out and everything settled, as it will be probably a year by that time.

 

[Mise]

It's not a whole new FS. That's a common misconception. It is a database abstraction layer on top of NTFS.

Oh, I was under the impression that it was supposed to replace NTFS, and rival ext3. From what I've read, you can do some really powerful stuff with it, but I'd imagine most of it will go unused by the average user anyway. I've personally always found the convergence of database management systems and file systems to be inevitable.

 

[webguy321]

It's funny hearing about Vista choking on 512mb of RAM. I remember upgrading my computer in the early 90's. I upgraded it to 4mb of RAM (That's not a typo). I also upgraded to Window 3.11, so that might tell you something. I also upgraded the modem to a 14.4kbps fax/modem the fastest at the time, and man it was so fast. Now I have 8mbps Broadband for my home, and a FTTH line for my web design business. So it's come a long way in 15-20 years.