Microsoft cuts Vista prices to urge upgrades

Yes, you can do a roll-up of your existing XP installation disk and SP2, so that you have an install disk patched to SP2. It takes a special utility program and a small amount of time, but it's not hard. The information is floating around on the web. If you can't find it, try searching for "ultimate boot disk", which isn't exactly what you want, but should give you a link.

Tom

 

Yes, it is. But it can run 32 bits apps as well.

Given the changes it includes, XP SP2 should actually be considered a new version of the OS, rather than a service pack. I don't know why MS chose to call it a service pack. So, best is to install XP SP2 right away.

That statement is false, and I explained a zillion times already why. It starts to look like deliberate spreading of false information. Windows supports logins with controlled privileges just like any other modern OS. You can perfectly configure an admin and a restricted account. That's how it's done on almost all corporate, managed computers. In fact, with group policies, IT managers can even go much further in their control than you can on any other OS.
The big problem with XP is that it does not enforce such a set up, or actively guides you towards it. Most home users are lazy and never change that, and keep working under the admin account (created during installation) for the entire life time of the computer. You can't blame MS that they did not allow it, but you can blame them that they did not do enough to enforce it.
With Vista, they have changed that. Now you are actively guided to a model where a less privileged account is used for normal routine. The irony is that this exact change is what causes most complaints about Vista, because there is so many old sloppy 3rd party software out there that isn't prepared for it and hence won't run under Vista. For example, software that uses the "Program Files" folder to store data.

No, that's wrong. there is no anti-virus program built in Vista. There is a firewall built in (just like in XP SP2). There is a problem with 3rd party antivirus software providers who that claim that, in Vista, they don't gain the same level of control on the OS is some MS components do. Knowing MS, that doesn't surprise me.

 

Actually, it is and isn't.

Leopard has 64-bit libraries and can support 64-bit applications (on the appropriate platform), but a lot of the system is 32-bit. They had to do it that way to maintain backwards compatibility with the older G4s and even some of the early Intel Apples.

It's very much a cut-rate solution, and not nearly as well done as a 64-bit Linux or even (gasp) Vista64.

 

Yeah, but I didn't have an SP2 install disk. And while I was aware that you can make an install disk to your current level, I had no idea how to go about it.

I wanted to do that. I could not figure out how. I am not an IT professional. Just an ordinary computer user: email, letter-writing, web browsing, etc. Windows never offered me the option to create separate accounts and I didn't know how. It's a moot point now, as I'm not going back to Bill. An OS that requires you to be a computer expert to run it safely is not acceptable to me. And no, I'm not "too lazy" to figure it out. To us ordinary folks, this stuff can be extremely mystifying. The steps may be simple once you know them, but they are not obvious, and they are nearly impossible to find if you are not very educated in them.

I stand corrected that Vista does not include an AV program. I did read that all the AV companies were complaining about Vista. And I thought that MS had an AV program for Vista that you had to pay for. Imagine: writing an OS so flawed that you need an AV program to run it securely, then cutting out the AV companies, and charging people for your own AV program which, given the flaws in the OS, is required to run the OS.

Kind of like selling a car without brakes and then requiring the customer to buy them separately.

I do not like MS, and I stand by my position that MS is and has been criminally negligent in the (lack of) quality of its software.

 

I don't plan to upgrade to Vista until I decide I need a new PC. The last time I bought a PC I intentionally bought one that would likely last me a long time. It has an AMD athlon XP 3200+ and I instantly did a RAM upgrade and removed the 512 MB stick that was preinstalled and maxed it out to 2GB. In another 6 months it will be 5 years old and its held up pretty nicely. I can't see it not lasting another 3 years or more. Unfortunately my DVD burner in it just died, but I found some good deals on NewEgg.com for a new one at about $27.

My Windows 98 box that I bought felt so extremely out dated after just 2 years even with RAM upgrades and when I finally replaced it when it was 4 years old it was more frustrating to use then what it was worth. Hard to believe that machine was considered blazing fast at 380 MHZ when I bought it with its whopping 6.8 GB HDD. LOL


Oh and the real reasons why MS operating systems are less secure.
1) Largest Userbase = more users to exploit
2) Other OS's have a more sophisticated and experienced computer userbase and therefore they are less easy to scam
3) Windows has a large number of Novice computer users who also seem to refuse all windows updates, and refuse to update they actually bought or installed AV software after their free trial they do the same thing and refuse updates.
4) Another reason is alot of grandparents and young children are using hand me down PC's that have no protection on them whatsoever because someone didn't properly set it up for them.

 

Let's have a look. In XP, you go to the "Start" menu, click "Control Panel", and then open "User accounts". You click on "Create new account", enter a name for the account, and then chose between "Computer administrator" or "Limited" (it also displays a 10 lines explanation of the difference between both). Do you really need to be an IT professional to figure that out???
The "hardest" part is to realise that you should go to the Control Panel. But you have to do this for almost everything that deals with managing your configuration (installing printers, managing networks...), so if you don't know that, you really missed the most elementary part of the UI.

The reason why most people don't do is is not because it's too hard to figure it out, but simply because they never think about it. And for this reason, a consumer OS should more or less force people to that configuration these days.

Look, it's not that I'm trying to defend MS at all cost. They have created a lot of bullshit, and I can tell more stories about that than most other people on this forum. But let's keep it reasonable and stay with the facts.

AV companies are indeed complaining about Vista. And here comes the irony again: the reason for most of these problems is that Vista is inherently more secure than XP, so that a design made for XP often won't work properly under Vista. Everybody will have to bite the bullet and do some work to adapt to the new model.
There are also some complaints that MS isn't disclosing the full set of API calls to 3rd party developers, and that's a much more nasty thing. MS has done this in the past (amongst others, for Office), and have been convicted for that.

 

Another reason, that you hinted at, are poorly written applications that won't work correctly when run as a limited user. This isn't Microsoft's error, just sloppy programming from some of the vendors. As a user, after you run into a few of these, you finally say "Ah, screw it, I'll just run as Admin and take my chances."

Some of the current Linux distros don't even set up a superuser account by default, but instead use the sudo command to run an application at the superuser level. That way you can never accidentally run as a superuser or admin. I find that works well for most situations, although I still set up an admin account for some special cases.

Tom

 

That's a very helpful attitude, vtie. As a user of both Apple and MS, my experience is that neither is perfect. I've had frustrations and successes with both.

 

You can toss Linux into the mix too. It's not perfect either. Now that you mention it, I found that to be true with RT-11, RSX-11M, VMS, MVS, and any other OS you can think of.

Tom

 

Here we are agreed, and while I gather that Vista has rectified this, their failure to do it in the past shows an attitude that annoys me about them.

Again, an attitude on the part of MS that I find offensive. Contrast this with the philosophy of open source, which not merely makes calls and file formats public, but which makes the entire source code public.

 

I think that fear was one of the reasons why they waited for such a long time. Fear that doing this would break a lot of existing sloppy but important 3rd party software, and that MS would be critisized. In Vista, they have actually gone very far to try to avoid this, using an extensive mechanism called virtualisation. They have put a lot of effort in this, and the only purpose is to allow legacy programs to run on Vista. And it's still far from perfect because there are some situations that they didn't foresee, and a lot of people are complaining. Silly enough, there are even several incompatibilities with Microsoft's own products. I wonder how that was possible, having such a huge number of well-paid developers.

Very offensive indeed, and they seem unable to resists against it every now and then. But remember that Apple is more closed than MS has ever been. What's going on with the iPhone is just the latest example. In fact, MS always advocated the model where an open OS was used to actively encourage 3rd party developers to participate. It's one of the major reasons of their success.

And I like the open source model as much as anybody else. I used to brag about the fact that my PhD (both the research and the writing) was done entirely with non-commercial software: Linux, GCC, LaTeX, Emacs and Ghostscript.
But the open source model alone could not have driven the IT revolution of the past 30 years. Companies, developing software for commercial purposes and innovating to gain a competitive edge will always remain crucial.

 

Incompatibilities among MS's own products is one of the reasons I accuse them of incompetence. My first Windows box ran ME. MS programs would crash ME. The joke was that ME had a function key to crash the system so that you didn't need to run a program to get the "blue screen of death."

I do not defend Apple as a company. I merely say that my antacid consumption dropped precipitously when I switched from Windows to OS X. And just as I like Toyota for building the Prius, even though they also build a lot of vehicles that sicken me, and I really want a proper EV, I like Apple for bringing out OS X. I would no more buy an iPhone than a Tundra. But MS, like GM, makes nothing I would want to own.