Microsoft operating system (Vista)
- Thread starter uknorthboy
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Duke said:
To Microsoft's credit XP with SP2 and patches is a failry good O/S for Windows' standards, and does everything I need, and I don't mind geting 3rd party addons to beef it up.
I don't see any reason as to why I need Vista, and they're already working on the O/S after Vista, which will be released I guess within three years because I think MS have stated they want quicker releases, so that's another reason as to why I shouldn't get Vista, and Vista did sound appealing once, that's before it got stripped down of all it's interesting features.
I also use Windowbllinds, Icon packager and object dock to change *** XP desktop to a more appealing look. Not perfect Vista, but something that's very acceptable and skinners are getting better which means better skins for XP.
Also I'm sure it will be quite costly, so I have no intention of buying it unless it's a real revoloution. That's what I want a revoloution not a simple update because Vista sounds to me like Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Even with Vista I think after the way XP was first handled I think people will be wary of Vista at first and if they get it will wait a while for patches to be released.
I actually don't like all these fancy graphical looks in windows, I still use the windows classic interface on XP Pro as I simply prefer it, I don't like the nasty fisher-pricesque look that is default in XP and Vista just looks over done almost like a game menu, I hope you can turn all this unnecessary junk off and just make it look like 95/NT4 again. I still miss NT4 in many respects, I still think it was the fastest of all MS operating systems to navigate around; it just had a snap and immediacy that all subsequent releases have lacked (2000 came close though). Despite having a powerful computer one of the reasons why I prefer my OS to be slimmed down and look nice and simple is because I only use an OS because I have to, it is not a user experience in it's self for me, that comes from the applications I run on the OS, so anything the OS does to slow me down or detract from accomplishing a task just annoys me. Windows 2000 Pro is the best OS MS have made in my humble opinion.
Soldato
Moeks said:
im sure they will have a mode for people like yourself who just want an interface without all the fancy stuff.
I like my interfaces simple, but i also liek them to look fancy, from what i have seen of vista it looks nice
nick_cfc said:im sure they will have a mode for people like yourself who just want an interface without all the fancy stuff.
I like my interfaces simple, but i also liek them to look fancy, from what i have seen of vista it looks nice
Fair enough, a lot of people do like a fancy windows interface, I've tried quite a few out over the years, Windows Blinds and object dock etc, used them for a while but I always find myself just turning it all off and going back to classic windows
...last time I tried it all was a good while ago now, I just decided that it wasn't for me in the end as it only seems to slow me down one way or another.
Soldato
You can turn off all the fancy stuff so don't worry
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yeah, it's the look of vista without the functionality - for those who don't need/want the functionality, freshens xp up a bit.
just like a car manufacturer sticking a new front and back on a 5yr old model - looks newer, just isn't.
just like a car manufacturer sticking a new front and back on a 5yr old model - looks newer, just isn't.
Moeks said:Fair enough, a lot of people do like a fancy windows interface, I've tried quite a few out over the years, Windows Blinds and object dock etc, used them for a while but I always find myself just turning it all off and going back to classic windows
You can turn off everything if you don't like it. But remember that with all the "fancy" stuff enabled the GUI will be rendered by the GPU rather than the CPU. This will actually speed up performance since the CPU will be free to perform other tasks. As long as you have a capable video card of course.
How much CPU usage is actually taken up rendering Windows currently, on modern CPUs? 1%? It seems to be a totally moot issue to me. Personally I've experienced the 'smearing windows' syndrome only a handful of times, ever.. so the fact that it will be eliminated in Vista isn't something that gets me overly excited.
dirtydog said:
Thats not the point though mate. I wasn't trying to give you a reason to upgrade to Vista.
I was referring to the implication that was made that the new "fancy" visual effects will slow down the system. They won't since the GPU will be rendering these effects.
NathanE said:Yeah but Windows 2000 came out in the same month (or close enough) so it's your own fault for choosing ME
Actually Win2000pro came out around 6 months ahead of winME iirc - the reason he chose ME was probably down to either lack of knowledge (being his first PC) or cost (windows 2000 wasn't cheap in 2000 due to not having the equivalent of a 'home' edition).
Suspended
Im still waiting for MS to realise that they'd make a fortune if they developed and released a Gaming OS.
An OS specifically for gamers that can run along side XP etc as a dual boot. It'll have a the basics such as a firewall but none of the rubbish that they seem to have running with XP. Yes, i know that i could switch it off but i shouldnt have too, plus it can cause problems!
An OS specifically for gamers that can run along side XP etc as a dual boot. It'll have a the basics such as a firewall but none of the rubbish that they seem to have running with XP. Yes, i know that i could switch it off but i shouldnt have too, plus it can cause problems!
Otacon said:
Depends a lot on the corporation involved. My employer for example does not generally perform "batch upgrades" and hence there are still many Windows workstations running NT4 sp6 (and some win95b/win98se for that matter), alongside others with the more modern win2kpro/winxp.
When I speak to other people at other companies and hear about the kind of hardware given to workers doing fairly basic proceedures, my mind boggles at the amount that they must be spending on IT. I'd love a couple of my workstations to be upgraded to something like 500mhz/256meg/win2k, but I know it's not likely to happen any time soon. That would make a genuine improvement to the way I work, unlike those given P4s with a gig of ram just to run word and excel. But I digress.
A lot has been said about Vista having some very demanding hardware requirements, but surely that can't be the case if they are serious about selling to businesses. There must be some sort of contingency for machines with poor graphics hardware for example.
Soldato
It's much much more than 1%. In fact window "repainting" (as the process is called) is one the most CPU intensive tasks the average Windows PC does all day. Just drag a window over another window for a bit and watch the CPU usage of either process sky rocket.dirtydog said:
E.g. take a fairly large Notepad window (say, 800x800) and drag it over your web browser fairly fast.
By doing this you are causing the window underneath to redraw. A very costly process to the CPU.
With Vista this will not happen because each window is stored in its own texture and that texture only needs to be updated when _that_ program needs to update its display (so, in the case of a web browser, when you scroll down, change page or if the page has animated GIFs for example).
Also the Vista desktop is vertical-sync'd so no longer will windows visibly tear when you are dragging them around (like in the above example.)
Yes of course. You simply uncheck the "Use Aero Glass appearance" box in Control Panel. This will revert everything back to the traditional way the desktop has been rendered. E.g. no texture compositor, no vertical sync and higher CPU usage.HangTime said:
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Okay Vista will use little/no CPU time for drawing windows, and XP has large CPU spikes. But does it really matter to most people, seriously? How many average Windows users have demanded this new feature. Gotta say I hope it *will* be as fast as it is now under XP, because Mac OS X is dog slow at redrawing and resizing windows compared to XP, yet it uses OpenGL hardware acceleration for its desktop.
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I'd be willing to bet a lot of 'average' Windows users (assuming you're referring to non-techies) didnt demand Windows Firewall and the security center either. Has it improved their system security and online experience? Of course it has, for the most part.dirtydog said:
Just because 'we' never asked for it, doesn't mean it isnt a good call. Could one of the great 'revolutions' of Windows for all we know.
Soldato
MacOSX has an inferior kernel design though which impedes performance - particularly in graphics rendering which is ring0/3 transition intensive.dirtydog said:
Now although the graphics subsystem in Vista has been moved out of the kernel space (like it was in NT 3.x), Microsoft have done it in such a way that there will be no noticable performance hit... through the use of a shared memory region and a message-passing technique called LPC (local procedure call). This keeps ring0/3 transitions to a bare minimum.
And yes it does matter. As Otacon has explained... people often don't realise how good something is until you give it to them. The Vista desktop is going to feel incredibly smooth, poised and just generally well engineered. The Windows desktop right now, while it is often praised as being the best desktop OS, is nothing like the level quality that will be visible in Vista. All you have to do is some intense dragging of windows and you can start to see the flaws in the current system.
Also remember that a GPU is, effectively, another processor. So it increases concurrency in the system as a whole. Windows is no longer "tied up" with the boring repetitive task of rendering windows. It can just dispatch the job to the GPU and then wait for it to be done before thinking about what to do next. In the meantime while it is waiting for the finished job from the GPU it can use the CPU(s) on other tasks, like dispatching threads.
Once people have played with a Vista desktop they won't want to go back
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Soldato
Personally I wouldn't like that. I would hate to have to reboot to play a game. I like to be able to go straight from doing work (yeah rightMNuTz said:
) to playing a game, rather that wait 30-60 seconds to reboot. I know I'm impatient but dammit so are lots of other people.The thing I want out of vista is good 64bit support. Hopefully some sort of backwards compatibility with 32bit drivers, even if that means they will be incredibly inefficient. For the important stuff there'll (hopefully) be good, optimised 64 bit drivers but for some specialist hardware that is no longer supported I want it to at least be able to work even if it is very slow. At the moment I'm not convinced XP64 has good enough compatibility with 32bit software for me to upgrade.
I'm also guessing vista will be backwards compatible with the vast majority of XP software, with only the occasional bug. After all XP is still compatible with a lot of software made for 95.