Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown - Page 6

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From your link:

As I said, Lotus moved on to mail and didn't focus on their 1-2-3 which is why it failed. Microsoft developed something better, Lotus didn't respond, thus they lost their market share.

Your other links proved worthless in reading. The one guy sounds like a fricking conspiracy theorist.

AOL used Microsoft's browser AFTER the DOJ breakup which Microsoft released their code to everyone. So, fault AOL for that one, not MS, they did as told.

I'm really not impressed.. it does look like you scrambled to find anything that remotely held a candle to your ramblings.

Whatever.. We should give you the nickname Spider Monkey, courtesy of the "noob" who showed how poor your research truly is.

As I said, Lotus moved on to mail and didn't focus on their 1-2-3 which is why it failed. Microsoft developed something better, Lotus didn't respond, thus they lost their market share.

Your other links proved worthless in reading. The one guy sounds like a fricking conspiracy theorist.

AOL used Microsoft's browser AFTER the DOJ breakup which Microsoft released their code to everyone. So, fault AOL for that one, not MS, they did as told.

I'm really not impressed.. it does look like you scrambled to find anything that remotely held a candle to your ramblings.

Whatever.. We should give you the nickname Spider Monkey, courtesy of the "noob" who showed how poor your research truly is.You should take a long walk off of a short pier too.

1) BeOS: You said, "BeOS? MS put them out? I think not." You linked to Wikipedia and that didn't seem to mention much except the final Palm Pilot thing. That article didn't even mention Jean-Louis one single time. HERE is an alternate article that follows the issues. BeOS could never get a foot hold since MS was and still is a MONOPOLY. They attempted to move to imbeded devices but by then it was to late. BeOS was murdered.

2) AOL: You said Netscape was the heart of AOL! It is not and has not been since version 3. AOL aquired Netscape and used it for AOL for the MAC. So here you were wrong Riser and you brought both Netscape and AOL up. You said that, "AOL.. hey, they were good but they kept adding too much to their interface.. " I don't even know what AOL used before version 3 but the following ones were all IE. So your wrong about AOL and BeOS.

3) Netscape: MS based IE on Netscape Navigator way back when. So Netscape was sunk. Netscape is purchased by AOL but at the same time AOL agrees to use IE for 7 years. MS became partners with AOL and now is even deeper since Warner Brothers is a partner in AACS LA

4) DX is a big issue and you do know why. Since MS owns it no company can compete with MS for PC games. At best Linux can use Wine Emulation but the games are not the same. You are all looking to a bright future filled with DX10 video cards yet this pushes Linux further to the rear.

5) Lotus 123:

6) Good Business: Good business can be two things. Good as in good for all parties or good as in it's good to be MS. MS is a monopoly so until they are taken down they will enjoy basking in the riches of the beast they created. Sure they pay OK and they also higher H1-B VISA programers by the truck load. (Don't worry I will double check all quotes from now on) Gates claimed the limit of 65K workers a year was too small... ARTICLE I don't see how that helps America but I'm sure that you can twist that around Riser. Regardless if being a monopoly and having the BILLIONS is good business then so be it. Is it good business?

Ah never mind. You and I will never see eye to eye anyways. All I get from these discussions is a good laugh, and more material for geek jokes.

Also, since IE is such a monopoly, explain how FireFox is closing the gap between it and IE. MS doesn't in any way stop you from using another web browser if that is your choice. Now, you'd have a point if MS actively prevented you from running other browsers...

So if a company does something right, No other company should be allowed to use that for inspiration? Imagine a car company is the first to implement airbags in cars, saving lots of lives. Now by your logic, no other car company (especially the large corporations like GM, FORD and Daimler Chrysler who have a firm grip on the market) should be allowed to implement that feature?

Or, saying it differently, you place the interest of the small underdog company over the interest of the paying consumer!? And to support that thought you use the big corporations' alleged monopoly position.

Following all these threads I have done a little soul searching and have tried various 'alternatives' to MS recently. Linux especially is often touted as the 'good guy' alternative, with the Open Source philosophy behind it. Now with the best will in the world I cannot see how that would a serious alternative any time soon. First of, there are so many versions (or 'distros') that the very thing it stands for (Open Source) is also it's biggest enemy towards market share gain. I have tried several 'distros' in the last couple of week, but not one, I repeat NOT ONE!, would install on my PC without hassle; Ubuntu (touted as the user friendly distro) gave an error code followed by a reboot, without any hint of what to do to solve it. So I tried Sabayon (touted as the performance distro with a native aero-like interface). Again, it would not install. After nearly a week of searching on various forums I finally managed to get it installed (using a Vesa VGA driver), but with the best will in the world I could not get my Geforce 8800 installed, despite drivers being available from nVidia (who said again that vista's DRM would kill support for Linux drivers? they're there, go look 'em up...). Sabayon uses the phrase 'it just works', but after a week of frustration and however much I wanted to give it a fair shot 'it just didn't work'. If Linux wants to be a Windows alternative, it has to let go of the whole elitist console commands, and offer mouse driven installers with a GUI and a trouble shooter.

MS isn't killing-off Linux, Linux is killing-off Linux. I am an experienced computer user, and have used several different OS' in the past 20 years. Is MS a monopoly because they have 'killed-off' competitors, used hostile take-overs and stole competitors ideas to obtain that position? Or is MS in their dominant position because no one has put up a viable alternative (and I mean an alternative with support for a distant future over several years, companies/individuals don't change their entire software environment based on one hit program or fancy distro)?

And as long as Apple maintains their stance that 'Apple only runs on Apple' (IE last generation PC components, DRMed to a point that only those will run OSX), only for the sake of maintaing the 'stability crown' (if it only runs on four different configurations, there is only so much that can go wrong), they are basically their own obstacle towards a bigger market share, MS has nothing to do with that.

Why aren't any games developped for Linux or OSX? Because MS owns DX? Or because Apple hasn't put in any effort to offer any good development tools that would make it interesting to develop for their platform (surely with the user install base Apple has at the moment, still millions, and the severe lack of game competition on that platform, this creates a huge incentive for a game developer to develop for that platform, instead of for an overcrowded market like windows?). And Linux is still such an archaic bunch of non supported and non unified distros (as it has been for years), that developing a commercial product is a severe risk for any developer. Open Source sounds noble, but for a developer that wants to make money on their products I don't see how this is a benefit...?

I would like nothing more than to have a choice of alternatives to the windows OS, alternatives that still allow me to freely choose my hardware, and alternatives to would show a commitment to offer support and compatibility on a long term basis. No such alternative exists today, nor has any company aspired to offer such an alternative...Is MS to blame for that? If Windows is really such a horrible OS, surely there is a HUGE market opportunity for anything that can compete? All companies have to do is stop creating 'niche markets' for their software/OS and focus on the big prize; average Joe...

Sorry for the long post (again), but I think a lot people are bashing MS because it seems like the thing to do, forgetting that the PC market is what it is today, largely thanks to MS and its long term investments...

Hehe, thanks... You guys at THG aren't by any chance hiring aren't you?

You haven't been censured, that much I am sure of. You've been strongly advised to lay off having every post of yours be a Vista bashing post. You can speak your mind, but within reason.

You are confused... Censored would look like this....

If you like to eat candy well $$$$$$$$ is great.

Censured
adj 1: officially rebuked or found blameworthy; "the censured
senator did not run for another term"
2: officially and strongly disapproved; "the censured conflict
of interest"; "her condemned behavior" [syn: condemned]

I said essentially the same thing, just not in so many words... where's my sticky?



I use Linux from time to time. I know what a pain in the ass it is to install / configure. Yes, it gives you some powerful customization options, but unfortunately for someone that is new to Linux, it doesn't give you user-friendly means to access them. The community is great and extremely helpful (Linux_0 from the Linux forum here is an excellent example); but the last thing users want is to rely on someone else constantly for advice.

Once you get past the installation / configuration, then Linux is pretty much like Windows. Programs open and run the same way... so ease of use isn't the big problem with Linux. Getting to that point is the problem. When Linux breaks, I hear it's incredibly easy to fix and it can be fixed without reloading the entire system. It's great for those that know what they're doing; not so great for Grandpa at midnight when he decides to mess with something he shouldn't.

First, I'm a user. I was a user long before I became a moderator.

I'm here to keep things on track, keep language under control. Just because I'm a mod doesn't mean I can't post stuff. You're new here.

Do a search on my name for the Software and Network threads. You'll see I'm everywhere. It just happens that the last few months I've been taking a break from openly posting. This allows others to answer questions and build a bigger community. Though, I stop by to take a look at what's going on and try to help out where I can.

I've just been too busy to really sit down and post questions, answers, etc. Others are doing a great job at assisting. I have no need to hog all the attention.

Hold on...Does that mean that everyone with some sort of authority cannot be allowed to have an opinion? That sounds alright, but can you explain to me then why Bush has been very carefull to appoint Supreme Court Justices that were 'Pro Life' and fiercely against 'Pro Choice' on the whole religious/abortion issue?

Don't get me wrong, your authority should not be abused by your personal opinion (something that is clearly not happening in this thread IMO), but everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion nevertheless, even the Mods...

Since this topic seems to have enough voices on both sides of the fence, making it a Sticky does not favor one opinion over the other. The only reason I see for making this a sticky is to keep this debate open and to prevent multiple threads spawning about the same thing. The Mod may have thought that the quality of posts in this thread in particular, and the way people are reasoning their opinion (something always try to do as good as I can), were more interesting reading material that the average, run of the mill 'I hate MS/I Love MS' threads.

*EDIT* I would like to add to that, that a lot of peoples' negativity towards MS seems to come from reading this one article about its DRM (which has been debunked on most points, and subsequently rewritten without notice). Not a lot of people have come up with first hand experience examples to support their claims, or if they do they are unwilling to look at alternative explainations for their problems. For me it seems these people are more interested in voicing their (ill formed) opinion on MS and its OS than they are in solving the apparent problems they are experiencing with said OS.

Oh, so you're a DOS fanboy! My fingers would get too tired to rant about how Windows is a conspiracy against all DOS users by setting unreasonable graphic standards, but maybe I'll save it for another day...

For what it did at the time, it was great. The nice thing is to be able to look back and see how great any OS was. It's when we try to predict where an OS MIGHT go in the future that we get into trouble. That's why every OS has its strengths/weaknesses in certain areas, because ultimately they each are moving in different directions for different reasons.

Well, if you read back a few pages you in this thread, you will see that some people that have issues with Vista are unwilling to even look at alternative options to try and solve their issues, that they are unwilling to accept it MIGHT be a hardware or driver problem. If you want to discuss the woes and benefits of DRM, then that is fine, but don't make the same mistake as George W. Bush and his WMD. Don't go to war before you have a smoking gun.
As I have stated I am not a fan of the concept of DRM either, but I don't think apathy is the solution. Technology evolution has put us in a position now that we are beyond the point that content providers can supply content based on trust alone (as can be witnessed by having a quick look on the various torrent sites around). As with every other thing in life, honest consumers carry the burden of the actions of the dishonest consumers. I wish it was the other around. I really do. But unfortunatelly that is not how this world works. I would like to see people protesting the protection of content offer a genuine alternative to DRM. Not a rant to say that it doesn't work, not a preach about freedom and Open Source, but a genuine alternative.
Vista could have been released long ago if not for the new interface. Vista could have been released long ago if not for the new DX10 API. Vista could have been released long ago if not for the new indexing/caching routines. Fact is the market demands HD playback in their new PC. Not everyone, but the demand is there (as can be witnessed by the explosive growth of HDTV sales). If MS had ignored this new market until its next OS, then that would have been a bad bussiness decision.
Is DRM necessery? Probably not, but I think the content provider has the right to try out ways to protect its content from piracy (at its own risks of alienating its consumers). And if DRM is your weapon of choice, the only way it is ever going to work is if you implement it well. MS was given the choice; be a part of it and offer compatibility, or ignore it at loose out on a potentially booming market. MS did it MS style, that is 'if we are going to be part of it, we might as well be a real part of it', as did Apple with its iTunes DRM (putting them in a virtual monopoly position for digital music distribution...MS isn't the only one, you know...). Apple will follow suit with their DRMed HD OS, there is no way around it.

Back to Vista...The notion seems to be that Vista will NOT work on hardware that does not comply with the PMP specs. This is complete and utter nonsense. I have installed various versions of Vista on a now 3 year old PC (athlon 2800, 1GB RAM, ATI X800). It works perfectly fine. Video plays back fine, so does audio. No playback is restricted/degraded, because I won't even try to run protected HD content on it. DRM protected iTunes songs play back fine, despite the obvious lack of PMP/HDCP circuitry. It runs stable, it runs fast (mind you, this PC is 3 years old) and it does about everything I ask it to do. It plays Divx files, mp3 files, it can mount/rip DVDs (if I were so inclined), and it runs torrent programs. If anything, DRM is preventing me to buy protected HD content. That is not my problem. I'd rather not play protected HD content, than replace components in my PC to allow playback. I am fine with that. Vista is fine with that. Microsoft is fine with that. The content provider may not be fine with that, but that is HIS problem, not mine. At least Microsoft is giving me the choice, and if I wanted to play back that content, I know I can with Vista. But I don't have to. And my PC doesn't have to comply with all the DRM specs if I never intend to play DRM protected stuff. The choice is still yours/mine, not theirs.

About the much quoted article; this man in fiercely putting forward claims about Vista and DRM. He does so in a fashion that resembles propaganda. He has put forward 'truths' and 'facts' that were proven untrue. He has decided to secretly remove or alter his erroneous 'truths' and 'facts' rather than admit he was wrong. That is a severe case of bad and biased reporting, and as such any other claim he puts forward can be questioned for truth. Research is not about cherrypicking from (proven erroneous) articles for claims that have yet to be proven true or false. Research involves experiencing the product yourself in an objective manner, and if there is an issue you are particularly concerned about, the best way to find out the truth is by seeing with your own eyes if claims are founded or unfounded.

The article this thread is based on mentions OpenGL performance in Vista (and mentioned it is bad). For months all sorts of FUD articles/threads have been spreading on the internet, about how MS monopoly is going to kill off OpenGL in favour of its own DirectX and what implications this will have for future open standards. It has now been about 1.5 months, both ATI and nVidia have produced OpenGL ICDs in their drivers, putting performance on par with most XP situations (keeping in mind that Vista drivers are still immature, as were XP drivers 1.5 months after XPs release). Very few writers of these FUD articles/threads now have the decency to come out and say they were wrong, that they were misinformed and biased in their conclusions about Vista/MS. Instead, most of them seem to quietly leave through the back door, only to re-emerge with the next FUD laced article/thread about the next feature of Vista we should all fear. Be smart and ignore these articles/threads, instead find stuff out for yourself. Don't forget that people are willing to do the craziest things or make the craziest claims just to get more attention (or 'hits'), and spreading fear is one of the best ways to get attention.

I DO have some DRM media (iTunes songs as mentioned before), and my Geforce 8800 has yet to show any real problems in Vista. I have had a few BSODs, but these were directly related to my nForce 650 SATA drivers, and removing those drivers solved the problem (Have experienced similar nForce issues in XP before).

Haven't experienced this issue. Running iTunes 7.1 (latest build) on Ultimate 32bit.

Good point. That giant jetliner that traveled from London to Tokyo or something for 25 or 26 hours to make the longest trip and to test the flight.. They gave the tickets away because they weren't too sure about it.

As I said before, the first outing if the Beta release. Those who want it are going to spend the high dollar amount for it. Others are going to wait until they drop the price to $100-$200 in 6-12 months.

It might help to know that all the above posts are nearly a year old. Things have changed a lot and SP 1 for Vista is upon us. The gaming FPS gap is almost gone and the memory leak, or whatever you call it, that was running games out of RAM in Vista is fixed.

I run Vista 64 on a very powerful system with 6 gigs of RAM and iot's silky smooth and runs everything. Some people are still bashing Vista but the OS actually runs well now on modern systems.

Is it worth it to go through the trauma of switching? There is the rub. XP is still a little faster, and has superior compatibility. So standing pat is a good choice. But switching is fine too. Depends on you.

Eggggactly!

All these OS wars are pretty crazy. At this point all the major players work well.

Hey there's a little bug trapped under my screen!