Mmm ... Vista

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-23 11:16am

So I've been using Vista (legally, thanks to MSDN goodness) and so far the experience has actually been pretty good. Here are some random thoughts:

File and network I/O can be weirdly slow at times. I'm not sure why
It's quite usable and in some ways its interface is better than XP's.
Aero Glass looks good. I don't care if you think it's an Aqua rip-off, it looks good. I might have to shut it off on my laptop, though (for power saving)
Vista doesn't support my print server's drivers (and probably never will). Fortunately for me, Vista supports LPR printing and my NetGear PS110 print server also acts like an LPR print server.
Driver support is reasonably good so far; not everything is supported (especially various pieces of ThinkPad hardware like the fingerprint reader) but that's expected as the official release is over a month away.
Visual Studio 2002/2003.NET don't work and might never work. This is bad for web developers who have legacy applications they need to support. ASP.NET 2.0's model is rather different and not exactly compatbile.
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is not wholly supported yet; hopefully it'll be out soon
Subsystem for Unix Applications is only enabled in Vista Enterprise and Ultimate. While that's not a problem for me, it is rather annoying, especially since its predecessor SFU is a free download.
User Account Control (UAC) is less annoying than in the betas and release candidates but still is annoying.
No Cisco VPN client or non-consumer antivirus solutions are out yet. Hopefully this will be resolved soon (not Microsoft's fault)

EDIT: Oh yes, and most importantly, the suite of games that comes with Windows have been graphically upgraded.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-12-23 12:01pm

so what does minesweeper look like?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-12-23 12:09pm

That's good to hear.

About the VS2002/2003 support, that really shouldn't be an issue. Worse case would be you dual boot to XP. But honestly, devs shouldn't be upgrading to the latest-greatest just because they can. Configuration management should be in full effect, and everyone upgrades all at once or not all. But that's a perfect world and reality is different (especially after my team was bitten in the ass when we switched to VS2005 and another team we work with was still using '03). Furthermore, legacy support should include you maintaining the development environment you used to create that software; that's something else that's come back to haunt us. Thank management we're finally going for ISO and CMMI certs, because some of this shit is getting old. [/RANT].

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-23 12:27pm

I probably will end up running VS 2003 in a virtual machine for legacy purposes if I really need it. At work we won't be touching Vista for some time, of course.

Minesweeper has a bit of a glossy look to it now and when you hit a mine all the other ones have a little animation of them exploding + a sound effect.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-23 01:32pm

I got to play with Vista on a tablet for a little bit and I really liked the tablet interface. I didn't see the old Pinball game in there, though. Was that removed or did I just miss it?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-23 02:22pm

Uraniun235 wrote:I got to play with Vista on a tablet for a little bit and I really liked the tablet interface. I didn't see the old Pinball game in there, though. Was that removed or did I just miss it?

Pinball is gone, though there are several other new games in the mix.

EDIT: Blegh. SUA doesn't seem to be fully supported by Interop Systems yet - some of their packages seem to be broken on Interix 6 (Vista SUA).

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-23 02:27pm

That's probably just as well. Pinball could be aggravating sometimes because it seems like every computer has it's own quirks to the way the pinball board works.

I got to play with that one game where you draw lines for the balls to bounce off of... that was really fun.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-12-23 02:51pm

I've played with Vista myself, and frankly, I wasn't too impressed. They say they used a Mac as a paragon of clean UI, but they didn't really rip it off that well.

phongn wrote:Aero Glass looks good. I don't care if you think it's an Aqua rip-off, it looks good. I might have to shut it off on my laptop, though (for power saving)

Firstly, it is an obvious Aqua rip-off. Secondly, it's gaudy as hell. Just look at the titlebar. Here's how the design process went for it.

"Let's make it translucent. That's a cool effect."
"Okay, we did that, but now, depending on the background color, the titlebar text can be hard to read. So let's add this foggy glass effect to enhance contrast."
"Okay, we did that, but the text is still hard to read under certain cases. So let's add a glowy effect around the text."
"Okay, we did that, but depending on the glow color, the text can still be hard to read ... ah screw it, let's just stick with that."

Or they could've just left it opaque. And people accuse Apple of superfluous visuals. Hell, some windows don't even have titles. They just have giant swaths of unused, translucent, glassy space in the titlebar and toolbar space. Or they'll have a back button and forward button, and that's it. Sometimes. Other times, back and forward are in the lower-right instead of the upper-left.

Visual Studio 2002/2003.NET don't work and might never work. This is bad for web developers who have legacy applications they need to support. ASP.NET 2.0's model is rather different and not exactly compatbile.

Bah, web developers are pussies.

User Account Control (UAC) is less annoying than in the betas and release candidates but still is annoying.

When I first heard these complaints, I thought it was just the shock of Windows users actually being challenged for authentication at all instead of the usual "Do as you please" attitude with which virtually all Windows systems are run. But when I actually saw Vista in action, I saw that UAC was indeed applied to a ridiculous extreme. Still, it's an improvement over the previous security model.

No Cisco VPN client or non-consumer antivirus solutions are out yet. Hopefully this will be resolved soon (not Microsoft's fault)

Glad to see Mac OS X isn't the only platform Cisco VPN sucks on.

Have you played at all with Monad, the new shell? From the Ars review I saw, it seemed pretty damn cool. XML queries, an object-oriented shell language and full command-line access to the guts of the system are all very cool.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-12-23 03:01pm

Got a link to the Monad review? Couldn't find anything good from Ars.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-12-23 03:17pm

Ace Pace wrote:Got a link to the Monad review? Couldn't find anything good from Ars.

http://arstechnica.com/guides/other/msh.ars

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-23 04:39pm

Durandal wrote:I've played with Vista myself, and frankly, I wasn't too impressed. They say they used a Mac as a paragon of clean UI, but they didn't really rip it off that well.

I never said it was a clean UI, just that I liked it

Or they could've just left it opaque. And people accuse Apple of superfluous visuals. Hell, some windows don't even have titles. They just have giant swaths of unused, translucent, glassy space in the titlebar and toolbar space. Or they'll have a back button and forward button, and that's it. Sometimes. Other times, back and forward are in the lower-right instead of the upper-left.

Ah, the joy of inconsistancy

Though I think for the title-less windows I see it makes sense as the location bar tells you where you're at, anyways.

Bah, web developers are pussies.

Yes, yes, you local developers with your inherent state information. Pansies

When I first heard these complaints, I thought it was just the shock of Windows users actually being challenged for authentication at all instead of the usual "Do as you please" attitude with which virtually all Windows systems are run. But when I actually saw Vista in action, I saw that UAC was indeed applied to a ridiculous extreme. Still, it's an improvement over the previous security model.

Certainly, and the release version generally only pops up when needed - it is just a minor annoyance, really, and it affects you most during the initial setup phase when you're setting up applications and preferences.

Glad to see Mac OS X isn't the only platform Cisco VPN sucks on.

I think there's a beta of the Cisco VPN client and various corporate A/V scanners but that's about it. I didn't really have high expectations for those seeing as Vista won't officially be out for another month.

Have you played at all with Monad, the new shell? From the Ars review I saw, it seemed pretty damn cool. XML queries, an object-oriented shell language and full command-line access to the guts of the system are all very cool.

I've played with it on XP SP2. It's nifty but rather verbose and it isn't out for Vista yet.

Destructionator XIII wrote:But of course, as a Linux user, it doesn't seem possible at this time, but I'll be expecting a poor clone of it to be made before too long; the thought crossed my mind of doing it myself, so surely one of the hackers out there will also get the idea, and hopefully do it. (Though, I probably won't abandon bash for a long time anyway; I love its tab competion a lot).

You know, you can run bash on Windows (via Cygwin or SFU/SUA)

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-23 07:34pm

WRT Vista, I'm more interested in how it makes my life miserable than features. I don't give a shit about Aero etc - I'm just going to turn it off. I'm interested in the stuff like the DRM-media playing, the HDMI thing, etc. It seems everything I read about Vista (in passing) is 'DX10 woo' and 'DRM everywhere'. I guess I should use MSDN and just use the damn thing myself.

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-12-23 09:24pm

Stark wrote:WRT Vista, I'm more interested in how it makes my life miserable than features. I don't give a shit about Aero etc - I'm just going to turn it off. I'm interested in the stuff like the DRM-media playing, the HDMI thing, etc. It seems everything I read about Vista (in passing) is 'DX10 woo' and 'DRM everywhere'. I guess I should use MSDN and just use the damn thing myself.

The HDCP thing isn't an issue. It needs that if it wants to play HD-Disks. I'm sure Mac will have it in it's next release, and Linux will almost certainly have it in an upcoming release.

This is true for almost all the other DRM Vista includes. Any song or movie that XP or Mac plays, Vista will play, and it may play a few more.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » 2006-12-23 09:32pm

Here's your answer, Stark:

It looks like the DRM is going to suck, probably like Sony's does, only less obvious.

Slashdot

Text file on "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection"

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-12-23 09:46pm

You're an idiot. Media with HDCP and other modern content protections won't play without the protection scheme installed. That new HDCP protected Blu-ray movie you just bought? It will not play under XP, OSX, current *nix distros, or any OS that doesn't have this support for HDCP, asshat.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-23 10:27pm

Dominus Atheos wrote:You're an idiot. Media with HDCP and other modern content protections won't play without the protection scheme installed. That new HDCP protected Blu-ray movie you just bought? It will not play under XP, OSX, current *nix distros, or any OS that doesn't have this support for HDCP, asshat.

No, it'll play (assuming you have the software and hardware capable of playing BD-ROM) but the content authors have the option of limiting what resolution it'll output. For example, a movie might only be shown in 480p instead of its native 1080p.

Both PowerDVD and WinDVD now have HD-DVD and BD-ROM add-ons available now.

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-12-23 10:39pm

phongn wrote:
Dominus Atheos wrote:You're an idiot. Media with HDCP and other modern content protections won't play without the protection scheme installed. That new HDCP protected Blu-ray movie you just bought? It will not play under XP, OSX, current *nix distros, or any OS that doesn't have this support for HDCP, asshat.
No, it'll play (assuming you have the software and hardware capable of playing BD-ROM) but the content authors have the option of limiting what resolution it'll output. For example, a movie might only be shown in 480p instead of its native 1080p.

Both PowerDVD and WinDVD now have HD-DVD and BD-ROM add-ons available now.

Right, my mistake. The point is that Vista needs that bit of DRM, Microsoft didn't just add it to be dicks.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2006-12-24 12:03am

Why bother when you can run OSX-86 on your PC
http://www.osxx86.info/

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-24 12:08am

Get this - the only windows box in my house IS FOR GAMING. The only reason I'd bother upgrading to Vista is to use DX10... FOR GAMING.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-12-24 12:17am

Resinence wrote:Why bother when you can run OSX-86 on your PC
http://www.osxx86.info/

If I'm going to run OSX on a computer, you'd think I'd get a proper machine for it wouldn't you?

Or maybe, just maybe like Stark, people use Windows for gaming, or development.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-24 12:21am

Resinence wrote:Why bother when you can run OSX-86 on your PC
http://www.osxx86.info/

Because it isn't well-supported and the license forbids it?

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2006-12-26 06:38am

If I'm going to run OSX on a computer, you'd think I'd get a proper machine for it wouldn't you?

It's the same hardware.

Get this - the only windows box in my house IS FOR GAMING. The only reason I'd bother upgrading to Vista is to use DX10... FOR GAMING.

Because Vista runs games GREAT at the moment... oh wait
Most gamers will stick with XP until they absolutely have to upgrade to vista, unless microsoft can solve the massive performance loss in DX applications, which is doubtful. I don't know if you noticed but DX9 games under vista run in an emulated mode. There really is no reason for anyone to upgrade at the moment, normal users only use the internet and email and don't care about flashy interfaces. Gamers, the ones who care about the interface... won't upgrade because of performance loss and incompatibility. Window's is well supported trash, you can make shit transparent but it's still shit, WINE under linux runs DX9 games better than vista.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2006-12-26 10:16am

Gripe about SFU is the OpenBSD-based tools are too damn minimalistic (I need my bloated GNU utils dammit!

) , and the windows console is only 80 characters wide (And I hear that limitation also affects Monad).

For my windows CLI environment needs, I usually cygwin under RXVT.

As for the "Linux" MSH knockoff, I suppose the closest things are bsh for java, and the various shells for python and perl, which have been out for quite awhile but useless as real general purpose shells.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-26 10:34am

Resinence wrote:It's the same hardware.

If you're running an Intel CPU and a supported ATI GPU, you mean? That does nothing for me with an AMD CPU and an nVidia GPU. (Yes, I could try and run OS X in unaccelerated CPU-intensive graphics mode. No thanks).

Oh, there's also the issue of software support. I suppose I should repurchase all my Windows software for OS X (assuming it exists)? Or dual-boot? Or run Parallels or VMWare Fusion?

Because Vista runs games GREAT at the moment... oh wait

Funny, Company of Heroes runs quite well on my Vista 64 machine.

Most gamers will stick with XP until they absolutely have to upgrade to vista, unless microsoft can solve the massive performance loss in DX applications, which is doubtful. I don't know if you noticed but DX9 games under vista run in an emulated mode.

DirectX 9L isn't an emulation layer, it's a reworking of DirectX 9c for WDDM.

There really is no reason for anyone to upgrade at the moment, normal users only use the internet and email and don't care about flashy interfaces.

User-interface-wise I find Vista superior - and I'm not talking about the neat graphics effects of Aero Glass. The various API and kernel-level enhancements are also significant though I don't know if they'll be a compelling upgrade for the average joe. However, most people will migrate to Vista anyways when they get a new computer.

And normal users care more than just using the Internet these days.

Gamers, the ones who care about the interface... won't upgrade because of performance loss and incompatibility.

I think they will, especially as Microsoft will not release DX10 for earlier operating systems.

Window's is well supported trash, you can make shit transparent but it's still shit, WINE under linux runs DX9 games better than vista.

You will, of course, provide data to defend your assertion?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-26 10:38am

Pu-239 wrote:Gripe about SFU is the OpenBSD-based tools are too damn minimalistic (I need my bloated GNU utils dammit! ) , and the windows console is only 80 characters wide (And I hear that limitation also affects Monad).

You can get plenty of GNU utilities for Interix and the console can be resized to greater than 80 characters.

For my windows CLI environment needs, I usually cygwin under RXVT.

Cygwin is slower and most of the free X servers for Windows aren't too fast, either.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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